My kids are doing well in school. Twin A has improved a lot, her lowest grade is 95, which is Math. She’s on top of her class, her advisor told me. Twin I is already near the ceiling with most of her grades already at 98 to 100. She’s reviewing now for the Philippine Biology something, like a Math Olympics, and would be competing at Ateneo in two weeks.

I thank God my kids and thriving. Twin A is doing her volleyball training so I have to fetch her from school every Mondays and Wednesdays as the school bus service is long gone by the time they’re done.

I asked them last night if they want to join the youth camp during the summer break and they said no, they have their own trainings or activities slated for those months.

Oh, am on the way now to Manila and have a packed day ahead.

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I’ve consulted so many people in the past two days regarding what I should do with my boss. All of them told me NOT to talk to directly to my boss and level off with her. This would complicate things. My HR manager cousin told me, as an HR professional she recommends that I should tell our HR through an anonymous feedback mechanism that most global companies have. On a personal level she told me she doesn’t recommend it because there will be retaliation and I have to weigh if I can take that risk.

I told her that given I am a breadwinner, I can’t afford to do that (retaliation and all) but this is taking a toll on my mental health. I was told to either quit or learn to manage how I approach and respond to my manager. My cousin knows me well; she knows that I do not take things sitting down, that I am not a “yes sir, yes ma’am” kind of person. She advised me to take a life coach or counseling to help me manage that side of me if I want to stay in my job because there is no way my boss will change or I will be assigned to a different boss.

It’s a matter of who blinks first. Of course, I know I will be the one who will end up quitting.

So life coach it is. I think it’s high time that I do because just the thought of going back to work after the holidays gave me so much anxiety that I felt physically sick.

It’s not like I wasn’t looking for jobs or alternatives. I did! But nothing panned out. Until an opportunity comes along, I should try to manage myself when it comes to my boss.

So I will call a life coach tomorrow.

Back to work. Of course my boss emailed me about something beyond my control. 😑

I finally bought myself a giant desk calendar where I can see all my to-do stuff and appointments ALL THE TIME. I remember having this on my desk in my last 8-5 desk job 21 years ago. I found it to be effective, especially when I did a lot of follow ups. I also wrote down phone numbers and email addresses on the edges of the calendar while talking on the phone. I do use my Outlook calendar all the time for work-related calls/meetings because of the alert function, but I find it more productive writing it down on a diary or a calendar like this.

Meanwhile, leather cleaning goods arrived.

I tried the foam cleaner on my Fossil handbag/crossbody bag that has been stuck in my closet for xx months. I knew it was dirty, being exposed to the elements and all but I didn’t know it was that dirty.

Look at that dirt!

You can’t just wash your leather with soap and water or else it will darken the leather or worse, the leather will get ruined. I opted for the foam cleaner this time, just to try it out and for convenience but I will also try the saddle soap and see which is more effective.

I’ve been following this IG because she has *damn* leather goods restoring skills. She said she learned it from her parents who ran a shoe repair shop and dry cleaning service.

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I can now bid for old leather bags on Ebay and restore them. 😬

Damn it! Too early to break my no-spend month resolution. If there’s something I missed in Metro Manila, it would be the bookstores like Booksale and Biblio.

I drove my kids to SM North in QC so they can meet up with their elemetary besties and hang out at the mall. I left them to their own devices so I had a lot of time to kill.

First, I bought Twin A a guitar stand similar to her sister’s. There’s a Yupangco store in SM North.

Then of course I had to try the Clavinova. And of course I am lusting after it. The size though is prohibitive—it can’t fit in my house.

After this, I still had a lot of time to kill. The best way to do that is to scour second-hand bookstores.

I spent at least one hour here and my haul was sizeable.

After Booksale, I walked around so that I can achieve at least 10k steps for the day. I wasn’t able to do my brisk walk yesterday so I must compensate today.

Then I got to Biblio. Serendipity or what?

I was there for 45 mins, I think. I bought all the John Green I could find for my girls. Unfortunately, the only copy of Fault in Our Stars got sold earlier.

Eager to read Me Before You, I searched for a Starbucks branch so I could sit and read. It looked promising, the novel I mean. I imagined the protagonist looking like Emilia Clarke since she portrayed Lou in the movie version.

Sad that I couldn’t stay long in the coffee shop because people were so noisy. I normally could drown out people around me when I work, especially on time-sensitive stories, but I couldn’t do that now on leisure activities. I had to get out of Starbucks.

It was surprising that SM North is very crowded even though the Christmas season is already over. It was annoying.

So how can I kill more time? Go to the salon.

After reaching 12k steps, I just stationed myself in one of the benches in SM Annex and chatted through Messenger with my bff, who is also struggling with retail therapy.

This day was a failure in terms of my personal finance goals. But I’m happy with my book haul. Sometimes you just have to compromise for your sanity.

This is the last day of my holiday and tomorrow will just be a regular weekend before going back to work on Monday. In the weeks that I was on hiatus from work, I haven’t turned on my desktop, even to just play Spotify. For that, I use the Playstation (with a Spotify app) to play music on our TV hooked up to my JBL soundbar. I just wanted to avoid using things that I associate with work.

So what have I achieved during the holidays? I watched videos on personal finance, cooking, housekeeping, and design vlogs. I haven’t read any book 🤦🏻‍♀️ nor painted anything. 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

But watching such videos helped me immensely, even though at first they seem to be not the best use of my time at all. For example, for years I kept on watching tiny house videos, which inspired me to sketch layouts in my head, gave me ideas about storage, and convinced me that living tiny is doable with kids. If I hadn’t watched those, I wouldn’t be able to convince myself that my forever home could be less than 100 sqm—and build it without debt.

Same thing for watching personal finance videos and reading blogs on the same subject. I’ve always been a saver but reinforcing my beliefs and learning about the different investment instruments through self-education had allowed me to have a home without bank loans. Or car payments. It also helps that I am a business journalist and I have access to finance people giving me tips. One of the most valuable personal finance wisdom was given to me by the CEO of the brokerage firm I’m using now. He used to be with JPM a long time ago. Anyway, he taught me the time horizons of money market, fixed income, and stock market investments and the best use for such investments. He taught me not to be afraid and be aggressive with the proper knowledge of the markets. He taught me about the power of peso/dollar cost averaging and compound interest. Through my two decades in this line of work, I learned how to read the markets. With the money I had in 2008, I bought for stocks dirt cheap right after Lehman Brothers fell. I invested in funds when the global financial crisis was blowing up. I used those investments to build my home. I almost depleted them after my house was finished but I have time on my side. I am slowly building them up again.

As for home-making videos and blogs, I’ve learned how to cook various dishes that my children love. Just yesterday, my Korean braised tofu was praised by Twin I and she even ate the leftover in the fridge today, prefering it over the pressure-cooked nilagang baboy that I made for lunch and dinner today. There are so many dishes I’ve seen on Xiaohongshu that I could make even though I couldn’t read the text (in pinyin).

As for lifestyle vlogs, it taught me about capsule wardrobes and how to elevate fast fashion looks (Uniqlo ftw!) with accessories. I don’t even have to show so much skin to be attractive, unlike other women whose default is to show cleavage. Good shoes, specifically Marikina-made shoes made by artisans, well-made bags, and dainty jewelry make a difference. Foreign shoe brands that are owned by private equity firms that resorted to sourcing from China factories to maximize profit are no longer doing it for me—I’m looking at you, Caleres!

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So all in all, my holiday was not wasted even though I haven’t read a book because I have enriched my brain by other means.

After my morning walk and my trip to the bakery for pan de sal, I encountered again this amiable orange kitty. I estimate he is around the same age as my outdoor cats, Gorilla and Socks. I believed he is my long-lost Oyen.

I gave him one pan de sal, torn into pieces for him to be able to chew on. I really felt like he is Oyen. After he finished the bread, I lifted him up and he didn’t protest. I brought him to my stairs so he can be properly fed.

After eating and drinking filtered water, he looked around and tried to feel if the place was safe. I was thinking if he remembered the place where he grew up. But suddenly, there was this feeling that he didn’t recognize it.

I scrolled through my photos to check whether Oyen was completely orange.

Oyen has more white fur than this cat I brought home. 😭

So after this cat ate and drank water, I carried him back to the church premises. I bid him goodbye and he meowed, acknowledging me, then went on his way after I turned around.

I can’t take this cat because Socks is being antagonized. I don’t want my Socks to be bullied.

The sun did shine this morning that’s why I was motivated to walk over 4 km. But now it has gone back to being dark and cloudy with a threat of rain again. Yesterday I did nothing but doom-scroll on my bed as my kids went with their aunt and my mom to a destination restaurant in Magdalena, Laguna. (Twin I was singing praises of the food in that resto). I didn’t have to cook and just heated leftovers.

I want to savor the last days of my holiday and not be bothered by more driving because next week I will start busting my ass again. I just want to stay in bed and be brainless for a couple of days until Monday.

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The protracted slowdown of China’s economy is one less cannon in Xi Jinping’s armory. The resulting trade deficit, however, will create problems in the West though. This is why the tariffs will definitely go up to prevent imbalances.

So how will the West find customers when China is impaired? Southeast Asia and India. There you go.