The Journey. It’s Mine. [My personal take on love, life, parenting and blogging.]

today!

Happy Birthday ‘daba pututut ko!

Ahhh.. old habits die hard. What can I say, I work better under pressure. Tell that to my Organic Chemistry lab teacher, he will still give me a 3.0!

Anyways…the last week of the year is looming on me, but I am just halfway through my problogs’ monthly requirements.  Yes, network problogging is harder work. Not that I am complaining…

Next year, when required number of posts will be strictly imposed on a weekly basis, I’m in trouble man. If I don’t shift my current pace.

Worse is that I have no valid excuse for lagging behind this month. Just that: It’s the holidays man. The holidays!

Dear All Blog Readers:

Before New Year (December 29), Raine will turn 5. Time flies, especially if you are raising a very energetic, smart little boy like mine. On the other hand, time flew so very fast that the difficult years seem like a long time ago.

Now I have more wrinkles, a few gray hairs and wobbly knees. Soon, there’ll be a young man that will (i truly hope not!) break many hearts…and by then I’ll be sporting a cane — which will make reaching Raine’s bum so very difficult. Ha ha ha!

Anyways, what can I say? As any parent will attest to, parenting is both scary and fun, fulfilling though difficult, but for the most part happy and completing.

I wish for more blessings (health, more $$ and the continuous gift of extended family) in the coming new years and most importantly more patience and courage for the unknown times ahead.

Those are my wishes for you as well, may it be in your parenting stuff or your career or personal life or all of the above.

God bless you all and your families — this Christmas, New Year and for all times.

I won the Beauty Bento Box contest (with two others)…so I am getting this gift set too:

[Sasha, I borrowed the pic from BBB. Hope you got my email. Sorry, kulit ko ano? :-P]

What a beautiful Christmas Gift!

…and I wanna drool at it myself before I pack up again this holiday season. Even if I wrote reasons not to pig out this holiday season, I might not be able to help myself. My brother’s family arrived yesterday to spend Christmas with us, and the eating already started . Sigh. He he. But YUMM!

Those that haven’t seen me in person for awhile, will be surprised, i lost weight. That’s right, pumayat ako!! A lot of weight actually - as I’ve been told when I visited LB recently. So I want to show it to you before you see me again next year after gaining back the weight during the holidays.

[Photo (L to R): me and Raine (Dec. 2, 2007); me and Raine (June 10, 2007) — I am wearing the same blouse making the difference more noticeable!]

I have never been scared of the weighing scale (unlike some that are too conscious of their weight), but never gotten to owning one!

When I went to a friend’s house in LB, i stood on top of her weighing scale and weighed about 130 lbs. I know, that is too far from my ideal weight of 115 lbs! BUT good enough for somebody who weighed a whooping 175 lbs pre-childbirth and remained constant at 165 lbs thereafter until we went home in March 2006.

What did I do? You know me as somebody who has never been conscious my weight, I don’t care if I’m that fat girl in school or in the office, because I am always confident and have always been able to carry my weight around without feeling less of myself. Exercise? What’s that?! Ha ha.

But then as you age, I pretty sure know that your metabolism doesn’t work like it is in your younger years. For health’s sake I know that I have to lose some weight OR run higher risks for cardiovascular conditions, obesity, type 2 diabetes — to name a few.

The turning point came last April when I started working at home. I can eat a lot in one sitting, as what I usually do before hitting long hours of lab work. But now, if I eat a lot in one sitting, I cannot work in front of the PC anymore because I get so sleepy — even gulping more cups of black coffee will not help.

( Sorry Abbs, I’ve never gotten to getting back to you on my diet consultation!)

SO. I turned into the habit of eating small portions every 1-2 hours. I needed the excuse to get up anyway, otherwise, my OA symptoms will attack and I’ll be “lumpo” na.

You know how when Filipinos get together, the first things that will be noticed of you will be your skin color (if lighter or darker this year!) and most importantly your weight (if you got fatter or thinner!). Believe me I have never been bothered by any such comments, but this year the best compliments I got are:

• you’re so tanned, lagi ka sa beach?
• laki nang pinayat mo, mukha kang high school!

It depends on how you’ll accept such comments - I chose them to be compliments.

I didn’t want to hit the crowded shops and malls this year, so I did my little Christmas shopping online.

However, I bumped into too many walls because I wanted to use paypal funds–  most sites I encountered only ship within the U.S. — therefore I stopped looking and shopping for stuff I wanted for myself and decided to just buy stuff for the two kids in my family (Raine  and my nephew Glenn).

Good thing I discovered Barnes & Noble. BUT, it wasn’t easy as well. I almost canceled all the items I ordered (a little over 100$) because shipment was delayed for more than a couple of days. Then customer service contacted me that by the time they received the cancellation, the items already left their warehouse.

It’s already Friday tomorrow and Monday night is already Christmas Eve, no package arrived yet. Gosh, I may have to call Santa’s emergency line to expedite the shipment more. OR I may have to just buy goodies as substitute sock-filler until the ordered items arrive.

I didn’t want to stress myself with Christmas shopping, but got stressed anyway. I guess there’s just no escaping the stress with all the buzz and rush of the holiday season.

But then I guess ordering online is much much better than kid’s toys and stuff here that have probably been recalled because of lead content but were sold anyway. Well, what can we expect, this is the Philippines, and we have a back door to Chinese and other smugglers.

BESIDES, I don’t want to complain anymore of increased selling prices of local items and the lower (and still getting lower and lower) peso exchange to the US dollar.

Hey, any Christmas shopping nightmare this year? I hope not.

Believe it or not, I survived high school without pimples. My secret? White Perla soap! He he. So I never really had facial care treatment until I went to college. My pimple problems aren’t really that bad in college, at least compared to others, it’s just that I had (and still have!) oily face.

Throughout college, I survived the facial problems with just Eskinol Facial Cleanser that i still use now but the “naturals” lines, I mostly choose the cucumber or avocado one.

That’s it, nothing else. Until I had a kikay housemate who introduced me to facial masks and mud packs. Later on, post-pregnancy, post-c-section and post breastfeeding, I discovered Mary Kay and loved it for its mild almost-scentless formula which reminded me of the old Perla soap. I’m still using Mary Kay but not much of the moisturizer because - believe it or not! - I still have oily face, even at the age of almost 35. He he.

Enough with the skin care regimen, I just wanted a take on Sasha’s contest at the Beauty Bento Box — because I am a sucker for freebies. Hope I win, because I can never buy such skin care products.

Somebody in my college Soc’s yahoo groups posted the photos below:

See my notes on Flickr. Hmmm…even if I starve myself, I will never be that thin again!

I showed the photos to Raine, wondering if he can pick me put from the group. Guess what? He can! As he always was able to each time I show him old photos of me but with a question of why he wasn’t in those pictures. He he.

Thanks Pearl! For the photos.

My first paypal funds withdrawal to my EON Cyber Account VISA took 4 days only. Like others have reported.

Maybe will get better on next transactions? Anyways, the four-day process is just great.

Normally, Christmas decors like assorted-colored lights adorned around the house or putting up a decorated Christmas tree marks the coming or Christmas in most homes.

Since our house is far from  ready to getting any of the above…I bought Christmas hams ( a couple of ‘em!) and stocked our fridge with goodies that I’m sure will not last ’till Christmas, but I did it anyway in the hopes of re-stocking shortly before Christmas eve.

YUM. And I still have recipes to try floating in my head. He he.

You know how I’ve raved about moving home. How my life is so much easier now that I live home with my mother? How I am less stressed with life and with raising Raine that my mother is here to help?

While that is all true, there is a downside to all those believe me.

For once, I didn’t live with my parents for 18 years (i was barely 15 when I left for college), all of a sudden I am living with my mother whom I respect and so I tend not to do anything that will irk her. Yeah as if I am a teenager once more and cannot just go out without permission. Except that I am a grown woman now and have a son for that matter. Or maybe I just got used too much to being on my own and I’m still adjusting to living with my mother now?

While I truly value the times I spend now with my mother, we just do not look at so many things in the same way. My father and I are the same, my mother was the ‘contrabida’ to everything we say or do, to every dreams we so lovingly discussed. She’s so traditional while I am, say… too liberal for her standards!

(more…)

Next week I should hit the nearest mall and do my Christmas shopping.

To those who are far away, like out of the country or something, you can still send us (me and Raine; me or Raine) in three ways:

• email me at daragangmagayon@gmail.com to ask for Raine’s bank account
• email me at daragangmagayon@gmail.com to ask either for my paypal or moneybookers email
• email me at daragangmagayon@gmail.com to ask for our snail mail address
• peruse this amazon link to check our wish list or send us Amazon gifts (even not on the wish list)
  

See, these days there isn’t an excuse (financial reasons are exempted of course) to send gifts. That is if you really want to send one. Parang there’s a will there’s a way ano at saka there are too many ways to kill a cat yata? He he.

[I hope I don’t get too many spam emails though!]

At last, I was able to withdraw a few minutes ago, my “stale” paypal funds to my EON VISA Electron card.

Total period it took since I claimed that EON VISA from a Unionbank branch: 1 month (give or take a couple of days).

No complains really, because half of it was my fault:

• I didn’t call my branch sooner– I could have claimed the card two weeks earlier.
• i didn’t deposit funds to my card when I claimed it — thereby delaying my adding the card (using for verification of) to my paypal account.
• Since the branch is almost two hours away, I just waited for my moneybookers funds to arrived which I then withdrew to the EON account. I only verified my paypal account on Wednesday last week (Nov 27).

30 minutes ago I called UBP’s Customer Service to retrieve my paypal EXPUSE number. Got it and was able to withdraw my paypal money.

Now I have to wait and see if it is really 5-7 business days before my card is credited. Hopefully shorter!

AND all that trouble because I dumped my credit cards the same time I dumped my day job. Sigh.

High and tired, but we’re back in bicolandia from a long weekend in LB. Raine (as I am) is so happy meeting his old little friends back, having an “advanced birthday party” and bringing home his early Christmas gifts from my friends (his Titos and Titas, his Ninongs and Ninangs).

We hope to be back real soon and have more of J&J’s international cuisine right in their own home’s little but truly active kitchen. YUM!

Now, I should stop thinking of all the food we had over there and get back to my blogging routine. He he.