Frustration

The definition of FRUSTRATION:

It's what one feels when you wake up in the morning to discover that just after taking out the recycling the night before, someone in the household had consumed a can of soda and finished up the last sheets in a box of Kleenex facial tissues and left said empty box on the dining table and empty can of soda in the sink. 

Yes, hindi nilabas. 

Thankfully, one of the things I've learned in life (and 14 years of marriage) is that this isn't a big deal. I just raise an eyebrow and perhaps, shake my head, but nothing more than that. 

Leaf blower

So we've had our leaf blower for almost as long as we've lived in this home and while we haven't really ever used it for what it was originally meant for - blowing leaves - we've used it for lots of other things.

When we were setting up the master bedroom, the husband used it to blow dust off from the baseboard heaters.

When we were cleaning up the garage last year, we used it to blow (aka "sweep") dust / dirt off of the garage floor.

And yesterday, the husband suggested I use it to clean the Tribeca's interior.

It's interested how much dirt is still left, even after you've already run a vacuum cleaner over everything. At some point, I pointed that leaf blower towards the hinge of the rear seat console table (for drinks) and poof, lots of fries came out. I wouldn't be surprised if there were enough to fill that happy-meal-sized fries container. 

While we were at it, the husband finished his work day and came out to clean out his WRX's interior as well. When he was done, he ran the leaf blower over the exterior of the cars. The cars still need to be washed but at least there were no more petals / leaves sticking to them. 

Grapes & Laundry

Swe-cha has been doing his own laundry for the 2nd week now. Still supervising him with how much soap to put in and the dryer settings, but so far so good.

Meanwhile, he's also been washing his own grapes now before he eats them. Today, he rinsed his grapes and asked for salt (we soak it in salt water), he asked:

Sean: "how long do I soak it for ?"

I told him 10 minutes and he took a timer and set it for 10 minutes.

Was pleasantly surprised that he asked. I expected him to not say anything and just wait for me to give him the signal.

Ant

 Last night, I was laying in bed on my stomach, watching my drama on the tablet.

Swe-cha, meanwhile, was sort of laying on top of me and kept fiddling with my ponytail, moving it back and forth. 

Curious, I asked him what he was doing with my hair.

Swe-cha: "What to do when there is an ant on your mother's shirt ?"

Haha.  So that was it.

I asked him to catch it and squish it but he refused. He eventually got a tissue and swiped at it.

Eating milestones

So tonight, I made fried shrimp and Swe-cha paid me the ultimate compliment.

First, as I was cutting up his shrimp and scooping rice / shrimp onto the spoon for him (note: he only started eating rice recently so he's still not used to eating by himself), he points me to my chair and says, "Mom, sit there, I will eat by myself".  

I watched him finish the food on his plate all by himself. Afterwards, he asked, "can I have more rice and shrimp please ?" Both daddy and I had to eat less shrimp,... but it's okay :) Buti na rin, nagsaing ako. We still had leftover rice from earlier and my initial plan was pagkasyahin na lang, thankfully I had second thoughts.

It took us a little bit longer but we're getting there. 

The Stepdaughters

 

I picked up this pinoy-drama recently and I'm almost at the end (ep 177 out of 178). 

It started out interesting and I wanted to watch it to see how the story would develop. I probably enjoyed till episode 50 and then after that, the next 100+ episodes are just different variations of the bad guys making up scheme after scheme while the good guys fall for it over and over again. 

I watched most of the episodes at 1.5x = 1.75x speed because I just wanted to get it over with. This was just too long. 

If they had kept this at 70 episodes, I would've been happy but as it is, I just feel tired... and thankful that it's all over. 

Ang galing ko rin na tyinaga ko. 

House Plants

Here's an update of how my houseplants are doing...

These are my spider plants - I had purchased 9 baby plants off ebay and received 3 different colors (green, variegated with the white stripe in the middle and variegated with the green stripe in the middle). 2 out of the 9 survived but there are plenty of babies. 

I've actually gifted spider plants to friends and neighbors and most of them are thriving. 

Red Prayer Plant (Maranta) is 1 of 2 that I purchased off of Amazon last October 2020, these have grown bigger from the 3" pots and has had a few new shoots grow since receiving them. 

Top shelf left are Wandering Jews cuttings that I received a few days ago. They're still being rooted in water, I hope they do root and survive.

2nd shelf left is a plant from office friend T, a gift she gave me last year and to the left is a lone Snake Plant  survivor from an eBay purchase last August 2020. Interestingly enough, Snake Plants are described by Google as "hard to kill", I've successfully decimated several without really trying.

3rd shelf (lower) is the 2nd of out the 2 Red Prayer plants from Amazon and in the blue pot are 3 aloe plants from eBay, August 2020. Another aloe plant from the same batch is in a separate pot (bottom shelf).

4th shelf (2nd from the bottom) has a Batik plant and a Hypoestes 3" pots purchased from Home depot March 2020. 

Yellow pot has a Fittonia (nerve plant), also a 3" pot Home Depot purchase from October 2020. This one has grown a bit bigger

Bottom shelf has a succulent from officemate T, this isn't looking too good. The bigger white pot is a 4th aloe from the same batch as the ones in the blue pot. This is bigger. 

This plant in the yellow pot is a Lotus Fortune Plant which seemed to have lost its shape. When I got it some 5+ years ago, all the leaves were at the top and formed the shape of a lotus similar to this photo (black background, this photo is taken from the internet).