My girls were just fetched by their dad and I’m home alone with the cats. It’s not a strange feeling because I was like this exactly a year ago except that then I was locked up in my room crying my eyes out. This time I will be cleaning like crazy and finishing all my DIY projects, like repainting the top closets and the closets in the next room. Maybe tomorrow I’ll start missing the girls.

I’m scared for my girls though because there’s a low pressure area building up near Guam and that may hit the Visayas again. I pray that it won’t be as severe as Typhoon Rai. But that dang thing looks massive.

I started using NOAA when somebody taught me that surfers in the Philippines use this to monitor where and when the big waves will be. I used this when we did a vigil before Super Typhoon Haiyan made its landfall on Guian, Eastern Samar–a popular surf town. When I was on the ground doing my reporting, we were aiming to get to Guian but I was already too tired jumping from Leyte and Samar that week, driving for several hundreds of km each day. The farthest I got to in Samar was the town of Marabut, which was flattened to the ground.

When Super Typhoon Rai made its first landfall a few days ago, it was on Dinagat Islands and Siargao, another popular surfing island-town. The video below shows how strong Typhoon Rai was, destroying the sports complex where evacuees were taking shelter.

Lord, have me mercy on us all.

I was too lazy to cook today so this is what we had for brunch. In the photo is my brunch while the girls had rice instead of yakisoba. And the soy sauce is half chili oil; the girls don’t like that. I was too lazy to cook this evening so I resorted to easy samgyupsal and veggies for me and the girls.

I don’t have the patience now to cook one-pot dishes because I was cleaning non-stop because my landlady’s handyman was fixing the regular problem of leaking roof.

I only have until 2023 to suffer this old apartment…Wheeeee!

Tsundoku strikes again!

My friend, who just came back from Singapore to spend the Christmas here, sent me her old books as she was cleaning their condo while in home quarantine. Of course, I welcomed the books. I would spend my free time this holiday break reading these and those that I had hoarded in the past. Tee hee!

My problem now is I have too many books to move again.

I had been spending my idle time scrolling through Pinterest and Instagram for bookshelf/office ideas to house my books. I still have a lot of them in my mom’s house and I’m afraid they would be dumped on me once I move in my flat.