I learned an unhealthy but delicious food hack from a friend via her Instagram post. I copied this instant noodle hack and wrote my own. It was interesting.
THIS IS A GAME CHANGER. I got this from (name of friend) and this does not taste like Lucky Me Instant Chicken noodles!
First, you grate one clove of garlic in a bowl, then add the seasonings, one raw egg, onion leeks or green onions or whatever you have on hand, pepper, and a dollop of mayonnaise (Kewpie for best results 襤). Mix it all.
Cook the noodles in boiling water until al dente. Pour the boiling water into the bowl of the mixed mush that you have and let it rest until your egg is cooked. Add your noodles and top it with bok choy.
It’s as creamy as Ramen Nagi and the raw garlic was ❤️.
I’ve been watching June Xie of Delish because she has so many food adventures with her budget eats. They’re labor intensive but you gotta do what you gotta do if you have a limited budget
Even here in Manila I can’t do the USD 25 a week challenge. I spend like PHP 725 (USD 14.50) on veggies alone for a week. Adding fruits mean USD 20 a week.
So yeah, planting vegetables is the way to go.
I’m dying to have an hour in an onsen. I’m thinking if I could risk a trip to Lasema in Makati tomorrow as they just opened the hot tubs for public use. I could have the Karada chiro-massage combination then dip in Lasema.
Or book a 3-hr treatment in I’m Onsen Spa for the same price. Their website says their hotel facilities are closed.
Or I visit my chiropractor, Dr. Ken Sison, in Makati then proceed to Lasema. He cured my back pain after 6 sessions 10 years ago after giving birth to my twins.
My spine and lower back have missed him…
It’s about time that I pamper myself to the hilt. With all the bullshit I’ve been through, yeah, a spine adjustment, hot tub and a massage are just right.
I remember spending one night and an entire morning in onsens one spring holiday in Kansai. I’ve never felt so clean in my life after spending the night in Kinosaki.
From the train station, I walked along the main road of this quaint little town that has been a destination for those seeking comfort from hot spring baths for more than 1,000 years. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I booked a ryokan there and arrived at around 5-ish I think. I was shown to my room and how to set up my futon.
Photo by CallMeCreation.com Macha and a rice cake welcomed me. Photo by CallMeCreation.com I changed into a yukata provided by the ryokan and flipped-flopped on my wooden sandals to try one or two of the seven old onsens.Photo by CallMeCreation.com Like this one. It was lovely. Temperature was dropping to 16-15 degrees Celsius while the water was around 40-50 degrees. Photo by CallMeCreation.com The ryokan didn’t serve meals so I went to the nearest kombini to buy a bentodinner. For a kombini dinner, it was good. Photo by CallMeCreation.com I went out again in my yukata and geta to experience the cool and quiet night. During the hanami festival this river would have been lovely, with sakura bursting along the banks. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Before retiring for the night, I had another hour at my ryokan’s own onsen. I felt so clean!
So for tomorrow, I just want to spend an entire day treating myself to a spa or just pamper myself with whatever wellness procedure I can have ❤️
Late afternoon, Twin I and I went to UP to buy vegetables and then went to buy flowering plants and more gardening supplies. Because we like growing stuff. I love flowers but my allergies don’t love them. What the heck, I will have my flowers and there are always antihistamines.
I don’t know what this is called. Photo by CallMeCreation.comWhite rose. Photo by CallMeCreation.comDark red daisies. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
From Wednesday I’ll be having my break and will come back to work on the following Monday (25 October). I have plenty of time to repot my flowers and plant more vegetables.
Soon, I will have a 100 sqm garden, if all goes well.
You see, my mom offered to me a part of her property so I can build my tiny home. It will be 2-bedroom affair (around 60-65 sqm or 646 sq ft, which is around the same size of some condo units in Metro Manila) and it will be a duplex. I will take the upper floor. The construction can begin once the pandemic is over and I told my mom I have a friend (who went to another high school) who is now a contractor who can do this. We also talked about installing solar roof panels that will be hybrid, which means it can be tied to the grid but can run off batteries during power failures. I will also extend the water catchment system to water the garden, which will be at least 100 sqm (1076 ft). I can also have chickens for manure and eggs.
And finally, I can have a small dog again.
My dream of a small homestead is slowly within reach, if all goes well.
With the savings (because I don’t have to buy land anymore), I can finally let go of my old car and buy a new one (not a sedan!) so my daily drive to Makati, once the pandemic is over, will be easier. The hours I spend on the road from Makati to Quezon City pre-pandemic are more than the time I spend driving from Makati to my hometown on a good day. The parking in my future home will also not be a problem–there’s a huge parking lot in front of the property.
I can also rent a small studio in Makati as a crash pad or just rent an airBnB if I need to stay a night or two in Makati when there are late events or during bad weather.
My girls will now also have a chance to grow in a safer and healthier environment. They can take the public transportation without me having to worry about them. They can also ride their bikes to move around. The girls can also play a lot of sports of their choice given that it is within the university campus.
I will be able to join my high school friends in their bike rides around Laguna and Batangas during weekends. I can have a proper mountain bike or road bike since space to store that would no longer be a problem. Driving to Anilao will also be easier because I no longer have to go through South Luzon Expressway.
Because I’m saving all that rent money, I can also save up for a bigger plot of land or farm. Or a piece of land in Anilao.
Why do I blog when this is not even public and not indexed by search engines? Why do I even bother blogging anonymously?
Number one, I need an outlet to express my thoughts that I cannot share on social media. I have limited my FB engagement because it really does something to your brain, especially now that politics is so toxic and divisive. I maintain my Twitter because it is my source of fast news. I use Instagram for shallowness, like following hashtags like #workspaces, #hobonichi #travelersnotebook, #moleskine, etc. LinkedIn is just for work and personal branding.
I have no outlet to express my thoughts and emotions, where I can talk about the mundane and inane things. I sometimes need to practice writing other than business writing. My old school journal is for the things I need to express explicitly, naming names, places, specific things, specific events. Things that aren’t for consumption of people other than me.
I am a very opinionated person and I am expressive but mostly that is about current events and politics. Or about funny things. However, I am never comfortable about airing my personal struggles and dirty linen. I always try to maintain an air of dignity and I also think about the dignity of the other party involved in my dirty laundry.
Second, my blogs are my archive of whatever. My photos, my voice, my record of my daily life. For my kids. When I depart this universe, they will have something to come back to, to hear my voice in my writing and actual audio recording. So that when they miss me, they can still feel that I am with them, just somewhere, taking my grand vacation.
I started keeping journals since I was 10–their age right now. Because I was a diligent journal writer, I became I professional writer. I started publishing in high school–in a nationally circulated magazine in Filipino. I don’t know if Liwayway is still around but I was a published Filipino writer at first but I had always been a bilingual literary writer. I remember writing in one of my journals in high school that I keep journals for my future children. So they will understand how I went through adolescence, that I went through what they are going through. The insecurities, the heartbreaks, the self-doubts…all those raging emotions that a typical teenager go through. At the back of my mind I knew I will have daughters. I don’t know…it was just a gut feel. Even at 15 years old.
Then I started blogging in 2002-2003. I used Geocitiesto create my website and learned HTML codes to build it from scratch. I wrote about my travels. It was hard to keep up with it because building pages with just HTML codes is tedious. Because of the skills I learned from blogging then, I was able to build websites for our online store using Joomla. Then the WYSIWYG blogging tools came into being. I started with Blog-city, then Blogger, Blogspot, Multiply, then settled with WordPress. I remember in 2003-2005, my co-workers and I were reading each other’s blogs because all of us were just ranting about our editor whom we codenamed “Virgin Doll”. We called ourselves by our blog names like Luthien (me), Styar and Crimsonarrows. Then we got into different paths but we still kept in touch via our blogs. Then the rise of social media took over our blogging so that is that.
I couldn’t recover now my old blogs because the hosts became defunct. I tried saving some of the contents of my old blogs via TheWayBackMachine but most were irrecoverable. It’s really unfortunate because I need to use some of the contents for my annulment case.
Tracking my personal growth is easier too as I get to read entries from 10 years ago or older. It was a struggle to blog when I was still with my newspaper then because my life then was super competitive so all my free time was devoted to learning my business–reading books about investing, the stock market, reading all my magazine subscriptions to help me understand global events. When I woke up it’s about news–watching cable news and business channels–and before going to bed it was still news (magazines). When I got into broadcast/online, I found it easier to blog because Internet connection was easier due to the availability of my own mobile internet connection whereas when I was in the newspaper business, the only time I get to go online for personal reasons is when I got home and most of the time my brain was already fried and would rather vege out infront of the screen to watch my anime.
After my breakup with J, I had been blogging religiously for my sanity. I needed to let this all out. I needed to talk to myself by writing about myself for myself. It’s like the exercise that we had during a writing workshop I attended at the Philippine High School for the Arts–the stream of consciousness exercise, which is a literary device employed by writers, like it’s having a monologue to yourself. Aside from developing your own voice, stream of consciousness clears away the cobwebs that clutter a writer’s brain and help it organize the mind for more important writing tasks at hand. As I told my students, a good writer can already organize an outline of her piece in her brain; how to line up the facts, how the story/article will flow and how it will it arrive at the thesis of the piece. A really good writer knows how to edit and re-edit herself, keeping it to the simplest understandable form and being direct to the point. A good writer never stops editing her piece until it goes to the printing press.
Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Outliers, said one becomes an expert after devoting 10,000 hours to that specific task. The successful people have the advantages/resources to have these 10,000 hours. So I am privileged enough to be able to devote time to writing other things so I can practice my craft and not waste my free moments scrolling through social media. I must constantly write, edit, and re-edit my entries so I will not lose my “voice”, how I process my thoughts, how I can write quickly without any outline in my head.
Practice, practice, practice. Read, read, read.
Blogging also helps me write even though my heart is breaking into a million pieces. Writing through tears and pain. It’s very cerebral work and it’s hard to deliver if your mind has already shut down. No one really cares if a writer/journalist is hurting so she still has to write and deliver work. Writing despite all these debilitating circumstances helps a writer conquer emotions and plod along. It also helps in the numbing process.
This is why I still keep on paying for my web hosting year in and year out. It’s all worth the money.
I bought Skillshare and Domestika subscriptions so that my girls would have something else to do. My daughter, Twin A, is showing interest in drawing so I will give her access to Skillshare while her twin prefers Domestika. They’re cheap–each doesn’t cost more than PHP 1,500 a year. Plus I can also have access to both when I want to learn new skills as well.
Twin A’s interpretation of a power pole and lines against the sunset. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
If there are things that my parents didn’t deny us/scrimp on, these are art/music lessons and books. We didn’t have a lot of money growing up because my parents were strictly academic people employed by a state university, with only a few consultancy jobs because my father said their foremost priority should be their research and teaching. Devoting more time to consultancy jobs is a form of cheating/corruption because you’re using the government’s time to enrich yourself. Well, most of the time their consultancy jobs are pro bono because the NGO work they were doing were for the poor.
Anyway, I digress. So my parents made sure we were well-rounded individuals who had access to or some form of training in the arts. My brother and older sister enrolled in drawing classes and piano lessons but they didn’t stick to it. My mom bought electric keyboards because of those piano lessons. When they saw I was displaying much interest in piano, they enrolled me in piano lessons and I stuck with it for a few years. Later, they bought us an upright piano and I was the one who mostly used it. I could spend three hours playing it. We asked for books, they bought us books. When my mom went abroad for work, she would scour the bookstores for copies of books that we didn’t have here in the Philippines.
I am doing the same to my kids. When they asked for ukeleles, I didn’t think twice about buying them those. They’re still playing the instruments, but it’s Twin I who wants to take advanced lessons in it. I will enroll her if she’s still up to it after having that access to Domestika.
They’re still doing their Kumon and next year I will enroll them in review classes to prepare them for entrance exams to Quezon City Science High School and UP high schools in Diliman and Los Baños. I am not going to force them to take the Philippine Science High School (a.k.a Pisay) exam because there is a lot of pressure there but if they want, they can take it. My brother and older sister took the exams and passed (can’t remember though if my older sister went through the second screening though because she wasn’t keen on going there anyway). My brother had a slot in Philippine Science High School but he later decided not to enroll there because he had most of his friends enroll in UP. When it was my turn, I didn’t bother taking the Pisay exam because I didn’t want to go there because I knew early on that I will not pursue a science course in college so it was a waste of time. Plus my math grades weren’t stellar so I had a math tutor to help me pull up my grades to keep me in the honors’ list.
What I wish for my kids is to have the chance to have more exposure to sports and the arts because later on in life they may decide to pursue careers that may not be science-based at all. Like me. But that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t learn the hard sciences. In fact in my undergrad years, half of the courses I took were sciences because I was a science communication/journalism major. My grades in my biology courses were mostly 1.0 or 1.25 (1.0 being the highest and 5.0 the failing mark). I quit one course (environmental science) because it was only my mom teaching that subject that semester and I certainly didn’t want her to be my professor! I had to change course (botany) at the last minute. I wanted to enroll in an environmental microbiology course but it may turn out that my mom may be the only one teaching that again. So instead I took some forestry subjects. I initially wanted to pursue environmental journalism but there was no such thing in this country and only developed countries have that (my target was to be a photo journalist for National Geographic). 25 years on, we still don’t have that.
So back to lessons, offline and online. I may be cheap on other things (like cars, housing, and furnishings) but I will not scrimp on education.
DIY
Despite spending the rest of Sunday mostly sleeping, I was able to shoehorn some DIY projects today. I was able to finally change the curtain rod brackets after three years of living here. I used to use the hooks left by the previous tenant. I removed those and patched up the holes those hooks left behind with some white wall putty.
Alloy curtain rod brackets I bought from Lazada. They feel sturdy enough and they have some heft to them. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
And drilling holes into the walls made of solid concrete left me exhausted.
All adults should have power drills. This is the most useful tool I bought for myself for my DIYs. And yep, that white stuff on my fingers was the wall putty. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Finally, I was able to finish installing the brackets and lengthen the area where my curtains can go.
Photo by CallMeCreation.comPhoto by CallMeCreation.com
I should finish the second batch of katcha/muslin curtains I’m sewing by hand so I can change these because these are already full of holes. Courtesy of my cats.
Because I was too exhausted to do any real cooking. I settled for mandu and Kikoman with chili oil,instant yakisoba, spicy fishcakes, and seaweed for dinner.
I cooked brunch today then I slept again after that. It’s unbelievable that I was still exhausted from yesterday’s trip. Then I woke up a little past noon when I was asked by my daughter to sign a proof of delivery as some industry friends sent me baked lasagna and blueberry cheesecake so I didn’t have to cook a midday meal or even dinner. My daughter, Twin I, and I gardened in the afternoon. I transplanted this flowering plant (I wasn’t able to get its name) and herbs I bought yesterday along CP Garcia Ave on the way home from UP where I bought our vegetables.
Basil and dill in our “dirty kitchen”. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Then we planted some vegetable seeds in new plastic pots that I will transfer to our “dirty kitchen”/laundry area because this area receives so much sunlight all day. The vegetables and herbs will be protected from aphids outside plus we can just pluck leaves from our kitchen “garden” when we cook.
After gardening, I slept again and when I woke up, it was already dark.
Gardening is some kind of therapy for me these days as I still couldn’t go out due to fatigue. Watching something you grow and nurture is also fulfilling, like having my girls with me.
Speaking of nurturing, the stray cats that reside outside our compound have moved inside the compound as our neighbor had also been feeding them and tamed them. We also have been feeding these cats since we moved in here in October 2018–exactly three years ago! Our neighbor had put pet collars around them so people would know someone had already adopted them and think twice about abusing them.
Brushing him with a toothbrush. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
So this white cat has been trying to make himself cute to us while we were gardening this afternoon. He would lie down and go belly up and curl, something that my inside cats would do when they’re begging for some petting. Of course I didn’t pet it with my bare hands so what we did was we got a toothbrush and brushed it so it can have some grooming and belly rubs. It loved all the attention and loving touch. The girls were begging me if they can give the cat a bath, I said no because it’s not yet tame enough and we don’t know what kind of diseases it has. We have to tame it completely before we can do that. The compromise was we brushed on flea powder on it and the cat loved the brushing so much that it begged for a repeat tonight when I was checking out my partially charged fairy lights.
Kittykat waiting for us to play with him. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
When this cat finally becomes tame, I would bring it to PAWS to be neutered, checked, vaccinated and de-wormed. Then we will give it a bath. However, it will still have to live outside because I don’t want to have chaos in my house. We will just make some kind of cat house outside so they will be protected from the elements. I would have to buy wooden crates and I have some fiberglass roofing here that I used for my “dirty kitchen”.
They say a woman who has sworn off marriage and choose to live single the rest of her life would become a crazy cat lady. I guess I’m turning into that now…which is fine by me. Cats are obnoxious animals but when they do give you love, it’s real. They don’t give you bullshit.
Duterte’s camp is really making a mockery of the electoral process. They fielded a clown to run for president alongside another clown, Bong Go, as vice president. Because you know what they will do? The last minute, they will do a substitution, with Sara Duterte running as president with her demon of a father as VP. They will make so much drama out of it, and the script would be like “people are clamoring for us to run so we will be making the ultimate sacrifice so we will, for the country.” And all of the DDS would be all applause.
OR
At the last moment, they will make a substitution, Sara Duterte will run alongside Bong-bong Marcos as his VP. If her ego can take it.
They have done it in 2016, they will do it again.
God save our country from idiots.
It has been two months since I last been in UP campus to buy vegetables and milktea for my kids.
In front of Bahay ng Alumni, UP Diliman. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Prices have gone up. I could feel the rising inflation month-on-month and the problem is this is a supply-side issue that cannot be addressed by monetary policy alone. It is structural that requires some fixes in the real economy.
Anyway, after the veggies and the milktea, I went to Sarang Mart because I am running out of shampoo. Even before J came, I had been buying shampoos and side dishes in that Korean grocery store. I had been using either Korean on Japanese shampoos (Japanese Lux or Shisheido) for several years now even if they’re more expensive initially but they do last a long time. I remember in my last trip to Japan, I lugged several shampoo bottles of Lux back home because it was way cheaper compared to anything I saw in Singapore and even in HK. Then I found Lux in SM, which was much more expensive than the Korean Kerastase sold in Sarang Mart but a lot cheaper than Lux in Singapore (which I often bring back home whenever I have to report for work there).
So I had to replenish my stock. Bought Korean curry (which my girls liked), dried seaweed, dried kelp (which I use as kombu in some Japanese dishes), beef strips for hotpot, mandu, side dishes, furikake, ramyun, and I no longer remember what else i chucked in my basket.
Photo by CallMeCreation.comPhoto by CallMeCreation.com
When I was going back to my car, I lost my balance, sprained my ankle, grazed my foot on the pavement (was wearing slippers), and fell flat on my back. I didn’t realize that I was that exhausted with my short trip to buy foodstuff.
I am NOT yet ok. I’m still sick with Covid symptoms, mainly fatigue, even though I am no longer infectious and I can function somewhat normally. I still easily get tired and right now my head is aching. I woke up this morning coughing and wondered whether this was still Covid or allergy.
