Blackeye

Swe-cha is very affectionate. He liked to be hugged and is very touchy-feely and he likes to sit on our laps while watching TV.

Bedtime is a long drawn-out process too because he will want to hug, wrestle and use us like a jungle gym by squeezing through tunnels he fashioned out of our legs and arms, he would roll us back and forth, dive over us, tumble - basically, a lot of gymnastics!

Tonight, he is unusually affectionate in the sense that he's been kissing us too. Kaya lang, he kissed me twice but kissed his Dad a lot more times. I asked and asked, "kiss Mommy, please" but he wouldn't pay me any attention. His dad was more interesting.

So I decided to tickle hubby. I figure, if he got more kisses from Swe-cha, I might as well as bother him :P I told him that I was going to keep tickling him until I get a kiss from Swe-cha.

So now, both of us were begging Swe-cha to please kiss mommy.

Still no kisses, though.

Hubby then hits upon an idea, "cover your face w/ the pillow! Swe-cha will find that interesting and will want to play with you."

So I did and sure enough, Swe-cha comes to me, screeching with excitement all the way. He pulls the pillow off and bam! head-bangs me right on my cheekbone.

[silent screams and curses going on in my head]

I went down to ice my face & left Swe-cha w/ his Dad. Hopefully, he falls asleep soon.

As for me, if you see me in the next few days sporting a black eye, I'll tell you that it's hubby and that will be true... sort of.

Eep

I was able to do a Costco run today - finally! Picked up some eggs and the rib-eye steaks that hubby wanted to have for Thanksgiving. [ We're obviously not turkey people. ] I also scored some boys' pajamas that are so comfortable and fit me just right.

After Costco, I decided to drop by the pharmacy to pick up the refill for my son's prescription, then I dropped by the grocery store for some basics, Dunkin Donuts for a sandwich and then the bank to deposit some checks.

But that's not the point of my post.

You see, after all that, it wasn't until after I got home that I realized that I was running around and doing all those errands in my sleepwear.

Sigh.

Take out fiasco

We had a series of mishaps with our take-out dinner last night but before that, background story muna.

I've been very busy with my project so I haven't had time to do some marketing and I haven't even had the time nor energy to prepare something from what little we have in the pantry & refrigerator. So take out has been the answer to the question "what's for dinner" these past days.

Now, between hubby and me, he is the one w/ more exacting food requirements.

I can eat the same thing (well, my favorites) 3x a day, everyday. I can eat fried rice alone w/o any additional ulam. I can have soup as ulam too. I guess that's because I came from a household where we didn't always have a proper kusinera all the time. Hubby's father was a chef and while they didn't have mala-restaurant-types of spreads at home, hindi naman basta-basta lang like what I was used to.

One of the things I really really love about hubby is that he doesn't complain. Alam naman nya what he was getting when he chose me - while I'm not a disaster in the kitchen, my true talents lie elsewhere (haha, feeling talented!). He will gamely eat whatever I serve in the table, whether it's something I experimented on, or something I asked him to pick up on the way home.

He prefers to still have ulam even though we have fried rice. Soup is drunk (like we do with water or soda during meals) and isn't an ulam, ... But if there are no other alternatives, quiet lang siya. He does have 1 weakness though, he absolutely, positively cannot tolerate spicy foods. Sabi nga nya, gutumi mo na lang siya, wag lang pakainin ng maanghang.

Fast forward to last night's fiasco. So walang ulam, right ? I asked him to drop by his favorite Chinese Takeout place to pick up some food. He ordered fried rice (w/ our usual customizations) and the shredded pork w/ eggplant (matagal tagal pa kami nag deliberate if we wanted the pork w/ eggplant or beef w/ mushrooms).

Unfortunately, he does not check his package when he does take out. He never does. So we never realized, until we were about to dig into dinner, that we were given some other pork dish. We would've been okay w/ the substitution except for the fact that it was also spicy.

So we called to complain. We never do this - complain about food, I mean. We're very tolerant 99% of the time because we don't want the hassle but for some reason, hubby wanted to complain last night, so I did.

Takeout place apologizes and asks if we can come back for a replacement. We said, no. Could they deliver ? Okay raw.

While waiting for the delivery, we were discussing if they will get the wrong dish ? Parang mali naman if they get it pa - pwede ko bang tikman ? kagatan ? Haha. I hope they don't give it to some other customer. If this were McDonald's, they'd throw that away so you can keep it.

Delivery guy comes, hands us the package and asks to see the other one. Hubby shows it to him and he takes it with him. Eh ?

Tinikman ko yun. So if you're my neighbor and you ordered some shredded pork dish with peppers last night at around 8:30, ... uh... let's not get into this.

Anyway, it was almost 9p when we sat down for dinner. I was ravenous. I'm not sure about hubby, because he was the one who wanted to complain & wait for a replacement, remember ?

So I started digging in to the food.

I tasted the pork w/ eggplant dish and eek! Seems like the takeout place had the last laugh, the dish they sent us was spicy. It was so spicy that *I* thought it was spicy - and I have a great tolerance for spice.

Poor hubby. He quietly ate his fried rice. No more ulam.

The weird thing was, we've been ordering this dish on and off for at least 2 years now and we never got a spicy version until tonight. There must be something off w/ their cook last night.

Happy bad news

Yes, there are times when bad news make me happy.

My partner and I put up an online shop, right ? Business was unsurprisingly slow when we started. We were newbies, virtually unknown and we had a lot of work ahead of us just to get the word out.

We had great faith in our product choices because we use these products with our own babies, but we didn't have enough experience to judge how marketable these products were going to be. The first few months were lean months and there were times when I (my partner was more confident) was beginning to have nightmares of getting stuck with these baby items that we could not possibly use up - not unless we both start popping babies out in multiples :)

Anyway, it seems like word has spread and people are getting to know us and trust us. We've gotten several special orders for products that we do not normally carry and our stock is selling. We've even had to turn down a lot of orders these past few weeks and have been asking people if they are able to wait a few more weeks until our new stocks arrive.

I feel so bad about not being able to fill orders, nakakahiya sa customer. This brings to mind an ex-officemate's hirit at a restaurant one time when the lady taking my order kept telling me that they didn't have what I wanted:

Me: I'll have the rib-eye steak.

Cashier: Ay, wala na pong rib-eye steak.

Me: uh... (scans the menu) Sige, t-bone na lang

Cashier: Ubos na rin po

Me: e yung tenderloin ?

Cashier: (shouts towards the kitchen area) May tenderloin pa ba ? (hears an answer) Ma'am, sorry po, ubos na rin po.

At this point, my then-officemate, who was lined up behind me peered over my shoulder and asked, "E, Miss, kelan kayo magsasara ?"

One of the customers I've had to turn down recently had this to say, "dapat mag stock na kayo nang mas marami, nakikilala na kayo, marami nang bibili".

She's right.

We do listen to our customers so please, please bear with us. Konting tulog na lang. We are shipping out and stocking up as much as we can.

Holiday Fraps

Starbucks is having their Buy 1 Get 1 free promotion on their holiday drinks again (Nov 17 - 20) and the sweet-toothed, cheapskate sensible spender in me just couldn't resist. I did so want to get hubby a treat too (the 2nd frap is his), he has been working so hard.

Anyway, so despite the fact that it's 40 degrees out (around 5 degrees celsius), I just had to step out and get these fraps. I can't feel my fingers and the only validation I have that they're still attached to my hands is that I could still type out this blog entry letter by agonizing letter.

:)

He provides

When I heard the verdict for our bathroom ceiling leak from the superintendent yesterday, all I could think was "Lord, how now, brown cow?". Yes, *blush* I did think the "brown cow" part too, I'm silly that way.

... and yet again, God has come through for us - not that I've ever doubted His plans but katuwa lang to get an answer so quickly. You see, just when I thought we were going to have to dig into our savings, I receive word that we got a week's work approved.

=)

I'm going to have to juggle some things around (I scheduled some important errands for later this week) but, hey, those errands are not going to pay the bills.

I'm sure glad that I didn't have time to curl up in a corner like I wanted to do yesterday (you don't really have time for drama or self-pity when you have a toddler to tend to).

Financially drained

We completed that Central AC replacement last week, the replacement is done but we have to have the work inspected by the city inspector. If work isn't done w/in 30 days, the AC company won't be responsible for any additional work that the city might require. The thing is, the super is going on vacation end of this week so we're kinda limited when it comes to scheduling options. I hope that the city inspector is more flexible.

I finally got the super to check out that leak in our bathroom ceiling. Unfortunately, it is as I feared. The leak is coming from a hole in the vent - super says that that vent is our bathroom vent but I touched it and I know what it is, it's our dryer vent. This brings to mind what that home inspection report told me years ago when I purchased this condo, that the "dryer is improperly vented". I always thought that it didn't have a proper vent in the sense that it went into the wall and then there was no vent, but seeing this now and after doing some bit of research, I see that the problem is that the vent used was the flexible metallic type (the one like an accordion) and new bldg code requires that a semi-rigid aluminum material be used.

Now, the question is, how much are we willing to pay to retain the use of our in-unit dryer ? That will determine our threshold for the repair budget. Worst case, we can always do the long trek to the laundry room on laundry day (at least, we don't have to drive to another location just to do laundry, thank goodness for small blessings!).

When I consider that we've just dropped $6k on central AC and that we're looking to spend another $1500 (per our superintendent), add that to the fact that I still do not have a full-time, permanent job... *sigh*

Times like these make me want to just sit in a corner, curl up and close my eyes.