B.Y.O.B. Tip

BYOB (bring your own baon) --- for those who do this, whether in the office or in school, I've this tip for you.

My tip ~~~ I always have dishwashing liquid in the office.

Here's my bottle of Joy diswashing liquid at the moment (placed in my old Bath & Body Works lotion container).

From experience, the life span of my containers tends to be longer now since I began doing this small thing. God knows how many plastic containers I've bought already. With my many BYOB days, most of them look worn out, unpleasant and old already.

After eating, I immediately drizzle some Joy to my plastic containers to avoid them from becoming yellowish and old. Any liquid hand soap simply don't work for me.

I usually find time to go to the pantry to wash my own plasticwares so that they remain clean and smelling good. However, when I'm just too busy, the dishwashing liquid will give our helper an easier time washing them, plus the 'sebo' is instantly removed.

Do your househelp a favor by cleaning up your BYOB containers. It's nothing much, but it's definitely worthwhile doing. :-)

Wordless Wednesday - High Fashion Ducks

*I found these ducks living just across the Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Charriol and other high-fashion stores in the Greenbelt Mall, Makati City, the business capital of the Philippines.

Some Pics and Some Stories...

Having floods has never been easy. I practically grew up being accustomed to them. You see, our area has become the lowest point of the highway since our village was the last subdivision which opened in the '70's before they decided to continue the road and construct the elevated Imelda Highway and Marcos Highway going all the way to Cubao. Thus, all the water coming from the creek passes through the newer villages and then to ours which thus becomes the ultimate brimming point of all the flood water.

There were times that life became so hard for us due to the floods. I had memories of a flood before where we had to evacuated to a nearby factory. The water reached up to the windows of our houses that we had to leave everything. I remember crying a lot and losing many of our valuables and most of our childhood pictures and books to that flood.

There was also a time when I accidentally kicked my school bag from my bed which was elevated 4 feet high (water was knee-deep all over the house) and messed up my notebooks and textbooks. Funny, when it all dried up (I used a blow-dryer!), I ended up bring my Economics text book by chapters. My teacher scolded me for not bringing the whole book. She thought that I was just being lazy to carry it around. She didn't know that everything got torn apart!

After experiencing so many floods, my parents vowed to save up to reconstruct our house in a structure that it higher and bigger. They didn't want to leave our place since our village had a very good community and we loved it there. Too bad, my mom only got to 'enjoy' the new house for a few months. She died 2 months only after we had our house blessing.

Okay, no crying this time.

Here are just some pics of the flood 06/22/08:

Look at my hubby posing for me in the flood (I was in our veranda while taking the pic). We still decided to wade the flood water just to be able to go to Sunday Mass:

Can you see it? Water is all around the village:

My brother Francis caught a hito in the flood:

Zoe was shouting FISH! FISH! FISH!

Now, do you think we can fry the hito for lunch? Harhar!

All This Rain...

...is making me tired and worried.

I had to wake up earlier than usual this morning just to check if the street is already flooded. Since the hubby is away for an outing (talk about awful timing) in Bataan, I was in charge of making sure that all our cars are safe from the floods.

From past experience, only a few days of heavy rain are enough to cause floods in our area. As expected, with the typhoon Frank pouring rains since early this morning, I had to drive the cars to the nearby gas station to secure them from getting caught in the flood.

By 10 am, flood was already ankle-foot and since there was an announcement by the barangay that the creek is about to overflow, I quickly had to drive our cars one after another to the village entrance, walking back and forth to the house and braving the floods to pick up the next car at home. Hay. I just hope the cars are all safe there. I felt somewhat disoriented with the rush that now I feel worried -- I might have forgotten to lock all the doors or maybe forgot to close all the windows.

Now I feel all the more how important it is for my husband to be here with us all the time and not in some far away place. Maybe this is some kind of sign.

Books are Fun!

Do you know Barney's song about books "Books are Fun"?

Books are fun, books are great
Let's sit down with a book today.

Books are fun, books are great.

Is it book time yet?

Oh I just can't wait to read a book.

Well, books are really fun and great to read. Books are treasures that tickle our imagination.

When I was young, my Dad made sure that he bought me a book every month. It all started when he got me one book ("Heidi") and I told him that I finished reading it in a month and that I enjoyed it a lot. From then on, he got me books on a regular basis. Thus, my love for reading started. I enjoyed William Shakespeare, Robert Louis Stevenson, C.S. Lewis, Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Agatha Christie, and many others. I've also been a addict to book fairs and book sales for the past few years that I think I already have hundreds of books at home.

Most of the time, we say that value our books so much but problem is, we tend to forget that we also need to know to how to properly take care of them for them to last.

I have this friend who really impressed me on the way she took care of her books. All of her books were listed in an excel file. They were all with plastic cover and she is careful so that the scotch tape doesn't ruin the backcover of the book. They are also carefully stored in good sturdy shelves.

Now if only I can learn how to do it the same way. I could be so lazy you know. But I'm hoping that I'll be able to preserve all my books for Zoe (and our future kids) to enjoy and cherish. That idea alone pushes me to take a good look at my book collection and see how I'll be able to preserve and organize it.

Sharing My Weekly Menu

I re-initiated making a weekly menu for the family a couple of weeks ago. I have to admit, I was just too lazy before which eventually made me stop doing it. But knowing that this small detail could result to big savings in our marketing and grocery bill, I printed out several blank menu planners again.

At first I found it so hard to put variety in our meals. My main aim was to minimize the meat and make fish and vegetables the main ingridients for the meals so that it will come out cheaper. So what are my choices? Well here are some of them:

1. Ginisang bitswelas with pork
2. Nilagang baboy
3. Pinakbet
4. Sinigang
5. Sinugbang talong and okra (with yummy bagoong)
6. Pansit Lucban
7. Cucumber Salad
8. Tilapia with pechay sa gata
9. Nilagang upo with ground pork
10. Ginisang squash with misua and ground pork

My market bill really turned out cheaper last week. The vegetables cost only around 250 pesos. Plus our food was more nutritious too!

I'm so looking forward to incorporating more vegetable-based viands in the future. Any more ideas which I can add to the list?

A Simple Healing Prayer

Dear God, we pray for the quick recovery of all the sick and the dying especially those suffering from LUPUS, CANCER and OTHER ILLNESSES. And may find COURAGE in their PAIN. Amen.

To those who will be tagged, all you have to do is keep this circulating. Even if it’s to only one person. In memory of anyone you know that has been struck down by a serious illness like Lupus or Cancer or is still living with it.

A Candle Loses Nothing by Lighting Another Candle.

Blogs who prayed:
1.) Eida’s Closet 2.) My Precious 3.) Just Me.. Eds 4.) Milet 5.) FunFierceFab 6.) On A Wonderful Day Like Today 7) House Everything

Please Keep This Candle Going!

There will be a cure soon.Continue to have Hope and continue to pray!

Thank you Vannie for sending me this tag. I remembered my Mom who underwent a lot of pain during her illness. :-(

I'm No Homebody (This Weekend)

As I detailed in my past post, one of my strategies to save money is to stay at home for most of the weekend. I know, I know, that is my resolution. But I have to admit that it's 'killing' me! I'm aching so much to go out and roam the malls and shop!!! But hubby is on an out-of-town company outing and will stay overnight there so I have no choice but to stay at home.

Hopefully I'll find a distraction soon (like a sudden longing to clean the bathroom or what-not) that will take my mind off going out to spend and shop. Or probably, I can just go to the kitchen to cook up afternoon snacks for the other peeps at home.

Good luck to me!

Make Money Through Blogging

I love blogging. Not only does it serve as a channel for me to express myself but it's also a way to de-stress in a sort of way. So when I have something tinkering in my head, I don't wait another minute. I just open my computer and begin to tap on the keyboards and instantly I get to compose something which reflects the idea of the moment.

But did you know that blogging is also a way to expand your network and earn money? Bloggerwave gives this type of opportunity for blogging fanatics like me. It makes blogging not only worthwhile but also productive.

Getting Out of the Rabbit Hole

I admit that I've felt pretty pessimistic for the last couple of days. It's bad because even my husband could sense my worried feeling (maybe because of my glum face). May and June had been so financially-toxic since our birthdays (plus my Dad's wedding) fell on these months. Now, I'm feeling broke and in a rabbit hole once again.

Not only that, I've been having a hard time managing our household. F has been so 'tigas-ulo' lately and then our househelp has also been testing my patience (chicken with ginata is DIFFERENT from chicken adobo!!). On top of that, one of our cars broke down without any warning and we had to shell out precious money for the mechanic and car parts. Whew! It's been tough.

Anyway, my husband and I talked about it last night. We decided that we ain't gonna add more burden to our situation by complaining. How positive my husband is! Sometimes, I wonder how come my faith is so weak compared to his. Because come to think of it, we've hurdled bigger problems before (i.e. my mom's huge huge hospital and burial expense, my MIL's hospitalization) and much much more! Somehow, thank God we got through all of it.

As part of my thrift plan, I've done the following:

1. Made a grocery list.
2. Made a weekly menu and brought this to the market.
3. Summarized my outstanding credit card balances
4. Stayed at home the whole weekend (except for a trip to the grocery)!
5. Unplugged all appliances when not in use especially during the night.
6. Took advantage of bonus packs in the grocery.
7. Placed F and R's school allowance in envelopes and in exact amounts.
8. Prepared merienda from what's available in the pantry instead of calling 911-1111.
9. Bought Zoe's supplies in bulk.
10. Withdrew just enough money for the day or for the week.
11. SMILE even when the going gets tough.

Hopefully by next month, all of these efforts will make a difference.

Is This Very Filipino?

This is just a simple observation...

Don't you find it interesting that the typical Filipino home always have to have a picture of "The Last Supper" in their dining area? Well, I think it's interesting.

This one's what we have at home.

But get this one. What I think is more interesting is that Zoe often points to this wood carving and says "Mama Mary!" (or something that sounds like that). I had to stop and think where Mama Mary is in that picture. Obviously she's not there. But I'm guessing and thinking that as Jesus' mother, she's may be actually there in that very scene right? Probably busy taking care of their needs, only staying in the background, silently serving Jesus and his disciples.

How wonderful mothers are really.

:-)

Cleaning Up the Pantry

I promised to post pics of my newly-organized pantry as written here but only got to do so now.

For starters, I'm just so happy our kitchen includes a 10 foot cabinet cum pantry which can fit many of our small appliances, trays, food, alcoholic drinks and other stocks including our rice dispenser and baby diapers.

Here are some bits and pieces of my efforts to put more order in our kitchen and food supplies.

First off, all drink-related stuff in one panel:

Next, canned goods and foodie stuff galore (I replenished our supplies after taking this picture):

Got rid of all the kalat (pictures, bills, reminders) posted in our ref and just left some nice magnets. It's actually very refreshing to be able to see a clean ref door.

Kitchen console consisting of our breakfast stuff and fruits (still a bit magulo don't you think?):

Now, on to my next project! The bathroom! Will keep you posted!