Livin high and takin it easy

The past two days has been really busy but exceptionally productive days. In fact, it can be easily said as the most productive days I have had in the past two years! Of course, if you consider having a baby as a very productive, or reproductive, activity, then that one tops the list. I have not done anything else. I gave up my studies, my work, my travels and even my friends to have the baby.

Ryan was in Phuket for a conference and I had to go to a little job interview for a part-time writer job, we asked the in-laws to baby-sit for us. Instead of spending an afternoon to look after Lia, the in-laws thought of getting her to stay with them for a few days – leaving me alone at home to do my own things. I wallowed for an entire day before deciding that that was the best time to do all my pending tasks. Some of them pending for the last two years!

So yesterday I went to my job interview. I was early and they were running late so I did a little banking first because there was a BPI two blocks away from the office. I deposited the downpayment for the Travel Factor Calaguas trip slated for April 17 and 18.

I dropped by my friends’ apartment to leave copies of the “Like Water for Chocolate” film and picked up a few things too, like Lia’s Speedo life jacket.

From there on I went to Columbia Photo in Megamall to leave my Nikon D80 for check-up and cleaning, and from Megamall, I went to the Travel Factor Headquarters in Bloomingdale Plaza in Shaw Boulevard to pick up Leia’s Christmas presents for Lia. What a day!

Oh, more importantly, I got me a Macbook Pro. Yes, I am now officially a Mac user. Hoorah! Hoorah!

I posted here a few months ago about my desire to buy a new laptop. Back then, this HP Touchsmart was the choice. I ended up getting a 13″ Macbook Pro instead! I am ecstatic!

I have cleaned up my IBM Lenovo laptop of all files, transferred it to my Western Digital portable hard disk and is so ready to sell my old laptop. I have installed my Bamboo pen tablet and Canon printer on the new Mac. I am all set!

Ryan was supposed to arrive at seven in the evening (although I thought it was five in the afternoon) from Bangkok but his plane had to turn around thirty minutes into the flight because of engine problem and he was back in Bangkok airport at six in the evening waiting for a replacement flight. He arrived at about eleven in the evening in the Ninoy Aquino International Airport and was home after thirty minutes. We had a lot of stories to tell to each other!

Today, I decided that instead of wallowing in my longing for my baby to arrive from her grandparents excursion, I went to my old workplace, St. Paul College Pasig, to work on my clearance. It was due two years ago!

As a side note, I found this while googling for images. An interesting aerial view of the campus, with all of its pre-school, grade school and high school buildings. No, the campus has no college students despite its name.

From St. Paul, I went to the Land Transportation Office (LTO) to inquire about getting a student driver’s license.

Lia arrived with her grandparents at about six in the evening and the first thing I said was, “Lia! You lost weight!” I suppose she didn’t get to eat or sleep much or she did a lot of going out.

The past two days has been quite productive and very rewarding over-all. A sense of accomplishment is always a wonderful feeling. I hope to have more of that this year.

The moon, a big round pale yellow, is rising from behind the coconut trees in the horizon, just above and past the neighbor’s roof as I take a break from the day’s work. In a minute, I will take a shower, second today but this time shorter and quicker as showers are the only simple pleasures I take and can get out of this unrelenting heat. The past days can basically be characterized by flitting thoughts and nagging migraines. I have resorted to permanently wearing my eyeglasses in the credence that it is caused by my 20-100 myopic astigmatic vision and have developed an addiction to paracetamol. Though it may also be due to this blinding heat, the insufficiency of caffeine in my arteries, stress from the accumulated housework load or a combination of any two or what the heck, I will just stop speculating and admit that it is due to ALL of the aforementioned reasons.

As I was washing Lia’s laundry in the garage, I distinctly heard from the neighbor’s television set that all citizens of this country must conserve water and one of the suggested ways is taking less, or shorter, showers due to the El Nino phenomenon affecting the country today. I will pretend that I am not aware of such an advisory. Two pails of bath water everyday is not such a crime after all.

What is a crime is not having your pipes fixed when it is obvious that there is more than just one or two underground leaks as evidenced by monthly water meter readings ranging from 40 to 143 cu. m. for a household of two and a half people. Yes, landlady, you are committing a crime. Will someone tell me why I have to pay no less than P1,000 every month for water I supposedly consume when we do not even use the toilet’s water closet, I reuse the washing machine water for flushing and cleaning the bathroom and I use Lia’s used bath water for cleaning the garage? Must I state month after month that the average water consumption worldwide (whether first world or third world country citizen at that) is 3 cubic meters per month? Even if I bathe all day every day there is no way I will consume 40 cubic meters of water. Why is it that the landlady refuses to have the pipes fixed or exposed? Because exposed pipes look unpretty. (I miss you TLC). Damn, some people are just unbelievably petty.

In a month or two or preferably less, we will be moving out. My only hope is the Manila Water Company will do something about the filed complaint and pressure the landlady into doing something about these leaks. Forty (lowest so far in all of the past 13 months and we were even out of the city for half of that month) cubic meters is just a lot of water to waste. Dare I even make a comment about the 143? Shame on people like this.

The past days have been nothing but housework, housework, housework and keeping up with backlogs. I believe I even have “baby fatigue”, a.k.a. fatigue from taking care of a precocious nearly-eleven month old baby day in and day out. I love my daughter but these days, I am just. simply. overly. tired.

Maybe its really not the amount of housework left undone, maybe its this relentless heat. These days every time I have to go out into the garage, I have to wear my sunglasses. Is the sun really that bright or am I living in a cave? (Flashback to when the baby was a few weeks old and we were told she had jaundice – from not being exposed to enough sunlight.)

I do appreciate the quiet early evenings, when the baby has gone to sleep and the husband has not come home from work. It is my time for myself. It is the time to appreciate the simple pleasures of sitting on a chair, sipping a glass of ice cold dalandan juice and looking up at a humongous ball of yellow that is the sun of the night. Just another day in the life of a plain housewife, each day as boring as the next, each day more exciting as the one before.

I am now thinking, did I just have a “vacation” [question mark] because if I did, why do I feel so effin tired? Yes I feel soooo tired.

Define vacation.

vacation, noun – planned time spent not working

Define work.

work, noun – chore, occupation, business

Define occupation.

Halt right there. Yes I know what an occupation is. What I want is a definition of MY own occupation. Sometimes I like to think of myself as plain housewife, but that is just utterly boring… and inadequate. Besides who wants to have the word “plain” attached to his or her title? Sometimes I like to think of myself as stay-at-home-mom, but seriously?! That is simply unflattering. If I’m going to be stuck with an occupation that is in its truest nature boring, I would rather have a flamboyant title just to compensate.

I’m on a quest for that proper, vivacious title befitting of my work nature; but until then, allow me, the empress to rant.

I have been running up and down, down and up the stairs, all gaga with just about the simplest things. Do this, do that, do this after that, do that after this. I am so overwhelmed I cannot even think!

Going back to the definition of vacation, which is, in its narrowest form, time spent away from work. If my work is taking care of the house and the baby, then yes I did have a vacation. My rant is, I come home to find my work not frozen in time as I had wistfully hoped it would be but multiplied by a factor of three. I come home to more laundry than I care to wash, more dust than I care to wipe, vacuum or mop and more mess than I care to clean up. Add that to the fact that my mind is brimming with little and big ideas begging to be sorted out and hopefully, catalogued for posterity’s sake. I am overwhelmed. Physically, emotionally and intellectually.

If this is what it means to have a vacation, I suppose I’d rather not have one.

The true definition of vacation is, “to delude yourself with activities that are supposed to pamper your mind, your soul and your body… so they can better withstand the increased slash multiplied pressure brought about by piled up work”. Hahaha. The world does not stop for anybody or anything… not for “work” and most certainly not for “vacation”.

After a vacation, I’m supposed to feel relaxed, rejuvenated, invigorated but why do I feel so tired? Not only do I have less energy (not to mention money), I also have more work.

This vacation thing needs serious reconsideration, if not total reconceptualization.

Fifteen days after gallivanting in Bicol, with a flight to Legazpi from Manila to catch a glimpse of Mt. Mayon and the resort town of Sto. Domingo, frequent trips to CWC, a three-day escapade to the Caramoan peninsula, a flight from Naga back to Manila to recharge, only to embark on a three-day trip to Cebu and the little island of Malapascua, I am now back to regular programming.

That is, if regular programming means a ton of laundry, a messier than usual bathroom, a floor in dire need of a mopping, sinks and kitchen countertops begging for a good wiping and ahem, overwhelming fatigue with simply thinking about the amount of work I need to do. Hah-hah-hah!

To tell the truth, it is good to be back. As it always is. There is something comforting with being back to regular programming. I have a tendency to miss housework when I’m out for a certain amount of time. In fact, it could actually be conjectured that I resented the maid (when we still had one) for the simple fact that she took the housework away from me.

I did, as always, brought home about a thousand photos and a hundred little stories from my nearly two weeks of travel; but they will have to wait. Like any obsessive-compulsive person, I find it difficult to work when things are not in their proper places; meaning clean clothes folded or hanging in the closets, toys and accessories in their respective baskets, trash in the city dump – yes I’m that forward-looking.

This is my way of saying, there will be no new posts in the travel site, no new photos posted to my Flickr account and you will have to watch little kitty sing Happy Birthday again and again (if only out of sheer boredom) until the house is back to what I have determined as the “proper order”. The definition of what is and what is not considered as proper order of things in this house is solely my privilege, after all, I am empress and this is my empire.

May I just say that I am back, of course with a gazillion photos to go through after a week-long vacation in the province where I saw lots of my friends and family. The holidays aren’t over yet though and I have three more events to go to, as far as plans are concerned.

The Sun broadband was disconnected without our knowledge the entire time I was in the province. We only found out when we got back to Manila; thus, the absence of posts starting from the day we got back, which was about 10:30 in the evening of the 29th. The drive from Pili lasted approximately 12 hours and 30 minutes, that includes a side trip to the Land Transportation Office (LTO) in Naga City to check on the car’s registration papers; a side trip to the little town of Sipocot in the search for the now non-existent Bigg’s Diner (we ended having lunch in some other unknown diner); 45 minutes of MY turn at the wheel in Andaya Highway where I practiced shifting from first all the way to fifth gear (hehehehe); a number of restroom stops and a final stop-over dinner at Shell Station along SLEX. As expected, lots of traffic everywhere – from Gumaca all the way to Skyway Stage 2 roadworks. I was on mobile websites the entire time we were in Bicol, thanks to free wi-fi at all establishments, from CWC to Cereza to Avenue Square and all over SM Naga, as well as establishments like Gelatto’s and Starmark Cafe. Heck, even the place where Ryan had the car washed had free wi-fi. This is worth mentioning because in Manila, wi-fi is NOT free everywhere. Starbucks especially sucks!! All my internet access was done through my mobile phone which, may I say, was chosen carefully and [proven to have been] wisely. My Nokia 5630 Xpress Music has both 3G and wi-fi capabilities, which allowed me to use wi-fi when there was a network available and connect through Globe’s 3G when I was staying at my parent’s home which is in the heart of almost-nowhereness. May I just say that the P5/15 minutes of browsing PER SITE sucks. I would go on my mail and click on a link to Facebook, i.e. so-and-so person made a comment on a photo of you, click here to view whatever, and I would be charged P5. This is not fun when you spend P30 on 5 minutes and you could literally hear the ka-ching-ka-chings in your head.

So anyway, this is my LAST post for the year. One hundred fifty five (147 public and 8 private) posts later, it can be said that it has been a productive year in terms of blogging. Angkulet dot com is six months old! Now that I’m fully aware how much time and energy is expended on blogging, I have more respect for bloggers out there. Though this site is not meant to generate any kind of income, $0.0003 made so far from the Google ads you see in the right navigation panel, this site exists primarily to serve as documentation to my otherwise utterly boring housewife and stay-at-home-mother life. So let me say that it makes me happy when you guys leave comments and you tell me that you get new things/ideas/inspirations from the posts that I make. It makes me happy when the people or things I blog about take some time to leave comments, like Harry Best, Sanuk and Jasmin Chan of Momo.

What is in store for 2010? More photos of course! Photos of my little family and the adorable Angkulittle. Hihihihi. More music, more movies, more theatre, more shopping and hopefully more travel. More, more, more! Hahaha.

I have to go through a lot of photos and post them on my Flickr. Due to the huge number of data I have to go through, I will need a lot of time. I have a lot going through my mind too and I need to write them down to get them off my head. Huge number of data in my head too. Peace of mind is priceless. Though I think the first post for 2010 should be a review of 2009 and goals for 2010 for is that not traditional?

We borrowed one of my sister’s three house helpers and that has helped a lot. We are practically almost done with [I believe another traditional] New Year’s cleaning and she has saved me from two days worth of ironing. Hoorah for that! As some form of payment, I made her watch Angelica Panganiban’s I Love You Goodbye yesterday at SM Marikina’s Cinema 2 while Ryan, Lia and I did the groceries at the supermarket. I am supposed to be washing towels and sheets today but I am so hung over from the 2010 kick off party with my Rep family last night. I just want to sit here and type my thoughts away, in between cooking and serving food at Cafe World hahaha.

New Year’s Eve will be spent with my parents and my siblings and their respective little families while New Year’s Day will be spent with Ryan’s parents. Some of my Rep friends will be spending the weekend surfing at L.U. and I would really like to be with them if not for the Travel Factor’s New Year’s Party happening at Circa in Eastwood City Libis on the evening of January 2nd. On second thought, I do not think the newly-claimed-from-the-garage car can stand another long drive to La Union so soon after the Bicol trip. Ryan tells me we have to replace all four tires. (There goes a chunk off the 14th month pay )

My Facebook is being overwhelmed by photos of drinking and partying and I really believe I am almost at my drinking quota. This has been a tremendously fun holiday season for me. I think its safe to say that this has been my best holiday season ever! Even the Bulao family reunion was astoundingly successful! It seemed to me that the food was uberly delicious and the kids had so much fun! No matter that I could not recognize half of them. Being the daughter of the eldest of the Bulao siblings, I had difficulty telling who was cousin and who was niece/nephew. Tsk tsk.

Maybe I am enjoying this holiday season because I had absolutely zero expectations of it. I will remember to have the same zero expectations for next year. It is always nice to be pleasantly suprised. Can I make that my 2010 mantra? Goal, to be always pleasantly suprised.

Today is a slow, quiet and lazy day. I have no real housework to do today because Ryan and I finished them all this weekend. I am thinking I should do some packing. We are driving to Bicol early morning on Wednesday. We will be spending a week there – my entire little family with the little dog.

We drove over to Cubao Expo last Saturday because I needed shoes for the office party last Sunday. Yeah, I’m so uninterested in shoes that I have to go out and buy a pair every time I have to go to some party and buy it too just the day before. I got myself the most comfortable suede stilettos I have ever had my feet in. Amazing really. Afterwards, we drove over to North Susanna Village in Commonwealth Avenue to have dinner with Tin and other friends at Lizzie and Onin’s house. I brought the camera, like I always do, but neglected to take photos. Sad. First time over at Lizzie and Onin’s house and we did not have any kind of difficulty finding the place, thanks to Lizzie’s very specific directions. We are really friends aren’t we? I love you Liz! :*

Sunday was housework all day because Ryan’s parents were coming over to babysit for us while we attended the office party. Of course, the house had to be clean! Hahaha! Ryan was required to arrive earlier than all the others because of some briefing or walk-through or whatever, so I decided to have him drop me off at Megamall where I shopped for shoes for May’s wedding. As expected, I found my shoes in the usual store. It’s where I always end up buying my shoes! Amazing. I did not want to head over at Megatent Events Venue early so I decided to watch Avatar. Yeah! First time to watch a movie alone again in years! And yeah! First time to ever pay for my own movie ticket and because of that, I was shocked to find out that movie tickets at Megamall now cost P172. Dang, the last time I went to see a movie alone, it was in Market!Market! and I paid P90 for my ticket. Amazing, really.

Today is a day Lia and I stay home. I am wondering if I should take her out for a walk around the village but the skies are gloomy and it looks like rain would fall any minute. I guess we will do a rain check? We are going out tomorrow after all, have lunch at Eastwood because Ryan’s mom has some sort of Christmas party at Somethin Fishy and she asked if we could bring the baby so she can “show her off.” I have to go pick up my dress too for May’s wedding. I don’t have time to pick it up on Wednesday. I also need to do a teeny weeny bit of Christmas shopping. I haven’t found the perfect present just yet for a couple of people.

I am excited about driving home. I hope we wouldn’t have any problems on the road. My sister’s maid might be coming along with us on the drive since my sister’s family is also going to the province. The entire Sorita family will all be together at my parents’ house this Christmas. Exciting! The last time this happened was probably back in 1999! Wow, that was ten years ago.

We will probably just hang out over there in Bicol. Do the usual CWC thing, maybe go to the beach, see my friends… maybe attend my batch’s 10th year reunion… Maybe, just maybe… because I failed to register, hahaha!

And then, last but not the least, attend one of my best friends’ wedding on the 28th before finally driving back on the 29th. We will spend the New Year here, maybe with Ryan’s family. It would be nice to see some fireworks.

The past days has been what? Either all about going out or staying home lazing all day. I have not been blogging, I have not been doing anything substantial and yet the days and hours seem to pass me by so fast. What is up with that?

Last night, we did a marathon of Glee episodes. At least those we have not been able to watch yet. All the way to Sectionals. Oh how I love Glee….

Guess this means you’re sorry
You’re standing at my door
Guess this means you take back
All you said before…

‘Cause we belong together now
Forever united here somehow
You got a piece of me and honestly…
My life would suck without you!

Glee marathon pretty much used up all our evening and resulted to our getting to bed late, which pretty much resulted to my getting up late. So this morning I was up much later than usual and found myself feeling much lazier than usual. So I thought, I should do something about this laziness. How about some housework therapy to jump start my day?

I was sweeping and scrubbing the floor when I thought about my days in El Nido. We used to tease each other about our loneliness coping mechanisms. We knew Teacher Joy was feeling down if she was scrubbing the floor, mopping it first with soapy water before applying wax and then scrubbing to make the floor brand-spanking shiny. We knew Teacher Grace had the blues when our bathroom was gleaming white even in the darkness of the tiny green light bulb. Everyone knew I was feeling sad when they saw me shoveling the drainage free of trash. Housework therapy. Nothing like a good sweat to make you feel full of energy. Or at least enough energy (or filth) to make you want to take a shower. Sometimes we feel so down and lazy, we don’t even want to take a bath.

Now that the house is clean (and so am I), I found the time and energy (this morning I was feeling too lazy to even sit here in front of this laptop) to sit down and work on some photos I need to post. Maybe I would find it in me too to finally set up my Ovi suite since I haven’t been able to make my Nokia 5360 work for me just yet. Or maybe finally use the Bamboo Fun tablet that is right now still sitting prettily in its box.

Bamboo Fun on Lia's puzzle rubber mat

There is a party tonight. There will be a party on Sunday night. Wow, I’m all about attending parties lately. I am loving this season.

I took Lia out for a walk to Canberra St. last Monday. Actually I went to check on my dress for my friend’s wedding. Seamstress wasn’t there. I was told she went to Bacolod and would not be back until the 21st. I did not get to see my dress. I’m thinking it hasn’t been sewn yet.

I took Lia to the mall with me yesterday. I needed to get a new moisturizer for my face. It’s this blasted cold weather. I also needed to get Ascof tablets for this ridiculous cough that has been giving me the headaches. Too much coughing makes my head and back ache. It’s this blasted cold weather too. We passed by a couple of shoe stores that reminded me I don’t have shoes to go with the dress just yet. Well, actually, I don’t have the dress yet.. so to hell with the shoes. I am almost worried now.

I don’t really have anything to blog about, but at least I’m back. The past week has been an emotional low, more like a real crash, for me and I just did not have the energy to blog about my low rah-rahs.

I am finding this day real slow. I can’t believe it’s just noon. I have done way too much for it to be just noon! With the amount of productivity I have managed to spew up today, it should be five o’clock by now!

I woke up at about six thirty in the morning, cleaned and disinfected the ground floor, washed the garage free of dust and any remaining Ewok fur-abouts, washed and sterilized bottles, made coffee, made hot water bath thrice!, gave myself a well-deserved bath and even managed to do a home hair treatment, folded laundry, ironed Lia’s clothes as well as mine, gave Lia a bath and this morning alone managed to put her down for two naps. I was just blow drying my hair and I thought to myself, “you’d think I would have more time to blow dry my hair when I had the maid,” but I do not remember ever having the time. A wonder indeed. What’s up with that?!

Nothing really is going on. I have birthday and Christmas parties, and even weddings, to attend. I have housework to do. I manage. Today is such a slow day that I decided to blow dry my friggin hair.

I have unpublished blogs. I have five hundred or so photos from the recent trip that I have to process, watermark and upload to Flickr. None of it is post worthy. They’re just documentation… and lots of family photos. More like lots of touristy photos. Dang, I am giving up photography. That makes me wonder, did I ever take up photography? Maybe not.

Now that I officially have the Nikon D80 because Ryan now has a Canon SX120IS that he bought for about P9,000 in the U.S. and sells for P25,000 in this shop in SM Marikina, we found ourselves short of fighting over who can use the p&s. I swear it is so liberating to be shooting with a p&s. No pressure! Just click away! People with dslrs are just so pretentious. You think since they have a dslr in their hands, they know how to shoot. So, it was just liberating to shoot with a p&s. No one cares if you’re holding a tiny camera in your hands so you can shoot away. No one expects your photos to be astounding either. So fun! And of course, you can shoot photos of yourself wherever and however. Ryan found himself saying, “Do you want me to buy you your own p&s camera? Because you know, this is MINE!” Whatever!

I am waiting for my Pa to come over I guess, right about after lunch. We were supposed to visit my parents where they are staying at but all three of my family members have colds and cough. Poor Lia kept waking up and mumbling rah-rahs at about one thirty this morning because she couldn’t breathe. My other family member, Ewok, was availed against her wishes albeit of a summer cut in this friggin December weather. She was also given a mohawk and a feathered tail, not to mention shaved chest, legs and feet. You get the idea? She looks horrendous and she knows it too. So these days she been hiding in dark corners, under sofas, sinks and I suppose wherever it is that is warmer. She was snuggling under the comforter and my blanket the other night. Poor little one. It’s just not right for some”one” who shuddered in Starbucks Tagaytay with her full coat on to have a summer cut in December. *shakes head*

Well, I’m off now. Gotta find more things to do.