New Year's Eve 2016

This is our new year's eve spread pamahiin/pampa-swerte spread.

For the first time in many years, we actually had 13 types of fruits as opposed to just 13 pcs. I didn't intentionally set out doing it this way, it just happened.

We have:

1. pineapple
2. apple
3. orange
4. kiwi
5. avocado
6. cantaloupe
7. honeydew
8. asian pear
9. strawberries
10. blueberries
11. mandarin oranges (halos)
12. red seedless grapes
13. bananas

Then, as my friend K has taught me and because I like doing these little pamahiins whenever I can, I prepped 3 containers and filled them to overflowing with 

1. rice (bigas)
2. salt
3. water

I put coins in at the last minute to symbolize financial blessings. As K taught me, the containers have to be filled to the point of overflowing to show abundance, the containers do not have to be very big. I happened to have bread and ham (in the box) so I put them out as well, nothing to do with pamahiin.

These preparations become the subject of a long discussion between my and my Achi every year. She always asks kasi what to prepare and when I give her the list of things, ang dami nyang objections & questions. For example:

Achi: Nako, now I'll have to buy salt pa kasi konti na lang yung nasa bahay. kelangan ba puno? ang hassle. E kung bumili na lang ako ng container and then yung buong container ilalagay ko sa table, pwede na ba yun? Ang hirap kasi ibalik sa container ang salt if na pour out mo na. E kung kanin na lang na cooked gamitin ko? Marami kasi kaming naluto, para di na ako maglalabas ng bigas.

... and ... so ... on.

And this goes on every year. Nakakaloka no ?

And as a response, I go through my own long-winded explanation / sermon with the following bullet points:

• these are pamahiin, you don't have to do them if you don't feel like doing it
• I did not invent them, tinuro lang rin sa akin. Don't ask me to give you different variations. 
• So far as superstition goes, my belief is that you do what makes you feel good. For example, on most years, my 13 fruits are all just a combination of apples, oranges and grapes and I was okay with that because I was too busy to do more shopping.

Now, if you're asking me for things that you can or cannot do or what to substitute, hindi ko masasagot yan. That is all you. As I keep repeating, "Do whatever makes you feel good". If you want to put the whole salt container on the table instead of pouring it out, edi sige. Do that and be okay with it. Do not ask for my approval kasi hindi naman ako ang nag imbento nyan.

On a different note, Swe-cha decided to end the 2015 with a bang. 

I'd already prepared the fruits and these containers and set them out on the kitchen peninsula. 

While I was upstairs prepping the bedrooms, I hear clinking noises. I called out to Swe-cha and he came running, when asked what he was doing, he said "eat strawberries, yum!"

argh.

I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach as I ran downstairs and this was what greeted me. He decided he wanted to eat strawberries and that was what he did. Ewan ko why he had to mess with the platter - the apple, salt, rice and water, naglaro lang siguro.

So I washed some strawberries and gave it to him. Surprisingly, kinain! Hindi marami kasi hindi matamis yung strawberries eh, sayang :( He has not eaten strawberries before today, hanggang drama lang and saying "strawberries, yum!" as if he really tasted them.

After this, he ate some blueberries too. Hindi nya nagustuhan. Pero at least he tried willingly. 

Holiday Cards

So I've been prepping our Christmas gifts to Swe-cha's teachers this year and I hit a snag - I ran out of "Holiday" cards. All I could find are "Christmas" cards and now I'm bummed because I so wanted to get all these done by tonight and send them off to school by tomorrow.

Kainis how everybody is so careful these days because we're all afraid to offend other people but I think if one were to greet me for a holiday that I don't observe, edi dedma! Why would I be offended?
Lalo na kung may gift diba ?

I am so tempted to just send these gift cards out enclosed in CHRISTMAS cards and a note that says to please send the gift cards back if they don't celebrate Christmas.

LED lights

We had around 50 people over at our house last weekend, we hosted this year's Christmas party for our group (this will be a separate post, if I feel the urge to do so). Ang saya rin. This was the first time that most people have been to our home so maraming questions.

The most frequently asked question was "anong pinagawa nyo dito sa bahay ?" and our answer was "painted the living area lang, everything else came like that already"

Now that we've gotten a chance to take a breath and think about it, hindi lang pala yun. One of the most significant updates we did was the lighting. Hindi lang obvious because you don't normally look up. The recessed lighting (can lights) were already there, we just replaced the bulbs and the switches since the old dimmers didn't work with LED lights.

Check out the picture on the left, see all those bulbs that aren't in boxes? Lahat yan pinalit namin and all those came from the living areas - imagine how bright it can be when all the lights are turned on! We love it :-)

These BR-40 bulbs which are 100 watts each. Someone remarked "ha ? that's like a whole refrigerator and freezer!". Yep. Those first few weeks at home when we still had these floodlights installed ? I kept following my boys so I could turn off the lights after them, iwan kasi nang iwan ng ilaw, they are so not conscious about the electricity! Actually, even now that we have LED lights and have a solar power source, conscious pa rin ako about turning off lights in rooms which are unused but it's not heart-attack inducing na.

The bulbs in boxes are spare bulbs which the previous owner kindly left for us.

I've been trying to give them away, I posted them on freecycle a few weeks ago and I finally got some takers today. We're giving away all the BR-40 bulbs, yung mga PAR-20 & PAR-30 bulbs and candelabras, we'll keep in the meantime since we may have some use for them.

As I write this post, I see a car stop in front and pick up the bulbs, ayan 15 have been picked up na.

Tambour Door

See that picture ?

That, my friends, is a Tambour Door.

For the longest time, we just called this a plain ol' roll-up door. Sometimes, we call it the appliance garage roll-up thingie.

Anyway, we have two of these corner appliance garages in our kitchen. One of them was broken when we moved in and we never made any effort to fix it. The end that's attached to the dowel has become detached so when the door is open, the rest of the door dangles in the back.

Tonight, I found hubby trying to fix it when I got home.  (Finally!)

Being a typical man, he went about it in brute force fashion. Kung ano ano ginagawa nya trying to attach it back.

In typical me-fashion, I decided to consult my friends Google and YouTube. We learned a couple of new things today.

(1) The proper name for this is a Tambour Door.

(2) We learned how to attach it correctly. If we hadn't found instructions nor watched the installation video we found in YouTube, there was no way that we can ever guess how to install it - we'd give up in frustration first!

(3) Since we're fixing a door that's already attached, we needed 4 hands :)

As we were testing our fix by rolling the tambour door up and down, hubby kept muttering "2 years!" under his breath.

When we were satisfied (and ecstatic) that everything was working great, he gleefully exclaimed one more time, "TWO YEARS!".

Yes, we ignored this for 2 years. Kaya naman namin, we just have to put our minds to it.

Success

Someone posted a Facebook album of a family celebrating their Dad's promotion. The Dad and I went to the same university, he was a few years ahead and by the time I was graduating, he was also a professor, taking up graduate studies at the same time.

Back then, he drove to school, not the latest model but it was a decent model.  Obviously, it was a car provided by his parents, as if naman kaya nya bumili ng car at that age. He also went to an expensive Chinese all-boys school. Fast forward a couple of decades, he's married and has 6 kids - the first 2 aren't his, only the last 4 are, but he's taken responsibility for all and from the posts of the eldest (oo, chismosa ako at ni follow ko yun), he is a great dad.

One thing that stood out to me while browsing through the photos was that they were commuting. The album showed several photos of them riding a jeepney. Nag grocery pa sila and all I kept thinking was "ha ? nag grocery sila and pano nila iuuwi ? Jeep rin ? Ang dami nilang kids, how do you get a jeepney with space enough for 8 ? "

Back when I knew him, he was driving a car. Now, he does not na (unless they have a small car which doesn't fit 8 people ? pero parang impossible ), parang na downgrade* ? I couldn't get past that and started speculating how things might have progressed for him.

I was imagining different scenarios in my head in an effort to understand the situation  when I came across another friend's post on my newsfeed, sabi nya....

     "... for making me realize success is not measured monetarily."

And just like that, it clicked.

--------------

* thought I'd provide a little context about the term "downgrade" - I went to the state university and my classmates were from all walks of life. There were the obviously rich kids who come to school in expensive clothes and drive the newest model car every year and then there were the more deprived ones who one have 1 pair of jeans which they wear the whole week and then wash over the weekend. If it rained on a weekend and his laundry didn't dry, he wears pambahay shorts on Monday.

The happy part is that these days, yung mga deprived dati, they're doing really well with houses of their own. They also have their own cars, yung iba may investments pa na condo on top of their own house. Nakakatuwa, diba ?

Cleaning up

Hubby stayed up late last night, inabot ng 4am, just putting these things away.

Ang galing. *slow clap*

This is our 4th bedroom. Since this has its own full bath and is quite spacious relative to the other bedrooms, I thought this would be a good room for my parents should they choose to stay longer with us some day.

My vision is to ultimately update the bathroom, medyo stuck in the 80s kasi complete with blue tiles and matching toilet. We also want the install overhead lighting - this may happen sooner than the bathroom project but we'll see.

For now, since their visits are so short, we have been using this as our "unpacking space" - meaning, the space I strew things about from the time I unpack a box and until I decide where they should go (this could be an indefinite amount of time). This is also where the stray things and all the kalat go if we have to clean up in an emergency (the kalat gets thrown in a bin and they go here). Because of that, I like to rummage in here when I get the chance, maraming surprises na nahahanap.

I can scrub a toilet and floors. I can even do carpentry, electrical, plumbing and even yard work. I budget, handle our finances and even do our taxes. But if I had to spend more than 2 hours cleaning up (meaning, "magligpit"), I get reduced to tears or hubby would just find me sitting in a corner, surrounded by loads of stuff and staring into space.

Feeling ko, lahat kaya ko except magligpit. If I were Superwoman, this is my Kryptonite.

Okay, I don't do insects either. Hubby is the designated spider-catcher, fly-swatter & silverfish-squisher at home, but I digress so let me get back on point.

Thankfully, this is one of the things where I get a clear view of how nice our partnership is. Kung anong hindi ko kaya, ginagawa ni hubby and vice versa because this was all him. I did try

I find this batch of cleaning up particularly impressive because we only had 1 sungit episode.

We also dropped off 2 big bags of clothes at the neighborhood donation box and the feeling is great. Nakalinis na, nakatulong pa. There are several jackets/coats in those bags. There's more to follow, sana makarami kami ng ma purge na gamit.

Wish us luck!

Kwento

I was on the phone with Daddy this afternoon when Mom kept butting in the background, asking about stuff. Eventually, Dad says, "o, you talk to your mom muna, she really wants to talk to you" and he passes the phone over to her.

So mom says, "I just really want to hear about how you are", in a tone na parang nag e explain pa and I say something like there's really no need for an excuse for us to talk - note that we talk almost every single day, wherever they happen to be, and our phone conversations almost always start with that line.

So she asks what we're having for dinner, and I start answering but she butts in at around the 3rd & 4th word and asks another question. I answer her next question and in the middle of the sentence, she interrupts and asks yet another question so I just kept my answers as short as can be. Para bang she's just asking for the sake of asking, but she's not really interested enough to listen.

For example:
Q: Kumusta na kayo ?
A: ok naman

Q: May bago ?
A: wala naman, ganon pa rin

Then we get to the point where there's a lot of dead air (quiet lang) and she we say our goodbyes and put down the phone and today, I particularly feel bad because I wanted to talk to Dad.

One time, I asked Achi if Mom treats her this way too and she said yes! We laughed so much while exchanging stories because her kwento is exactly the same as mine! Mom calls and starts with a line that makes you feel guilty, samples are:

"Pasensya ka na, alam kong busy ka, pero gusto ko lang kayo makausap"
"Gusto ko lang makabalita sa inyo, miss ko na kayo"
"Tumawag lang ako kasi gusto ko malaman kung may bago na, matagal ko na kayo hindi nakakausap"

... and like I said earlier, every day yan and then when you actually start to answer, hindi naman sya nakikinig so we just listen. Siguro gusto lang nya ng makekwentuhan and asking about how we are is an opener for her to tell her story.