My Totoro collection. Photo by CallMeCreation.com They make me smile. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
And just like that, my Sunday passed by like nothing. I slept the entire day. Literally the entire day. Covid is a traitor. Just when you think you’re already well, it suddenly saps your energy and knocks you out. I also thought my coughing is gone but here it comes again. I woke up this morning coughing like crazy. So all my good intentions for this day flew out the window. I was thinking of going to Quezon City Circle to buy gardening supplies but I could barely keep my eyes open today.
I don’t know how long I will be like this. Whenever I feel annoyed with my condition, I remind myself that I am one of the lucky ones who didn’t have to go to the hospital considering that I have asthma. Many friends’ and acquaintances’ family members, despite being fully vaccinated and young, have succumbed to this disease.
In other news, the live action series of Cowboy Bebop will soon be shown on Netflix. At least they kept the music of the original (how can you replace Yoko Kanno???) and is faithful to the campy intro of the original anime. Years ago I was hyped to learn that they were thinking of having Keanu Reeves as Spike Spiegel but he’s too old now to play Spike and instead they got Korean American actor John Cho, who looks too broody.
I hope this doesn’t disappoint. At least they could try to be the live action of Ruruoni Kenshin, which turned out ok for a super fan of the original anime and manga like me.
Gather the little things that put a smile on your face and your day would be brighter. It’s like gathering flowers from a field to take with you home so you would be reminded that life is indeed worth living.
My cats are destructive but their antics make me laugh.
Look at that guilty face! Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Gotcha! Caught in the act! I banished my cats from my room after the bad deed. Kimchi looked so guilty while Sushi made her escape quickly. They know when they did something they shouldn’t have.
Meanwhile, my solar-powered fairy lights have arrived. But I wasn’t able to charge them enough because they arrived late in the afternoon when the sun was already weak. But at least I know they’re working and automatically turn on when it’s already dark.
The lights are weak and I should fix the hanging tomorrow; they’re not balanced. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I should order more solar-powered garden lights, like the starburst or flower lights so when we sit outside on a clear and cool night like tonight, we are properly illuminated.
I can’t believe it’s already October and I have nothing to show for it. In December-January, I didn’t know how I would survive the coming days when I was dying everyday. I was taking one step at a time: wake up, get out of bed, eat, push myself to work, and then try to sleep again even though sleep evaded me. Then it was one day at a time. Baby steps. Until I got past the first month of being able to survive a broken heart. Then two months…and now it’s October. At that time I couldn’t imagine how life would look like 6 months or 10 months from then.
Then I survived and lived. With the help of friends who pushed me to get well physically, mentally, and emotionally.
It’s still October and yet I’m already feeling festive. I will be buying more Christmas crap from Lazada and Shopee tonight. I’m ordering book shelves from Ikea online to hide the cat litter box (I was able to hide another cat litter box under a chair I added next to the sofa) and probably look for patio furniture.
The first batch of fairy lights I bought from Lazada arrived today and we installed it in our living room. It’s sending good vibes to all of us tonight. The led light bulbs are as small as rice grains and the wires are very delicate. I hope none overheats because my curtains may catch fire. So far my cats have not played with it…yet.
I love my cats to bits but they’re the reason why this is the second year I’m doing away with the Christmas tree. The tree may not survive my cats.
Gotcha, cat! Kimchi killing my toilet paper. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I’m waiting for the solar-powered fairy lights to arrive and will install those immediately in front of the house. Then some patio furniture so we can have barbecue outside. With lots of mosquito coils and anti-mosquito candles.
Thinking of alternative Christmas decor this year because I want the holidays to be as festive as I could make it because 2020 and this year have been challenging for everyone, especially me on a personal level. I’m still learning, I’m still growing. I’m still trying to heal. This is the first time in 21 years that I am making big and small decisions without having to consider the approval of another person. Or the welfare of another person (aside from my kids). It’s just me and it is somewhat liberating.
Other people have not been nice to me so I need to be extra nice to myself. Love myself more. Once the rate of infection is down and some businesses have opened up, I will see my chiropractor in Makati, check in I’M Hotel and book myself an overnight spa package. Onsen all I want, three hours of head to toe massage, buffet dinner and buffet breakfast. I did that before for my mom’s and my birthday a couple of years ago.
I’m nearing the one-year mark. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I’m going to train myself to be physically stronger so I can go hiking and camping again. Then on to Mt. Pulag. In between I will go to Moalboal in Cebu or Coron in Palawan to freedrive there. I don’t think travel abroad will be possible next year. Let’s say the chance is 50%. After experiencing Covid, I don’t want to be that sick again.
Let’s see what will happen…I need to post a job opening for correspondents in Bangkok and Singapore tomorrow. At some point next year I might need to fly to Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh, and Singapore because of the said requirement. I’m not looking forward to it. This is the same feeling I had after coming home from Shanghai-Xi’an-Shanghai with bronchopneumonia in 2014.
Drats, I need to renew my passport now! It’s expiring in March 2022.
Until then, I’ll just savor the time at home. Will soon be planting creeping roses that I will let grow on a trellis that I will construct between me and my neighbor so I don’t have to see their mess and I will just have the beautiful view of my roses, cosmos, petunias, and vegetables.
My cats are fond of laying on things I am working on, like my daily diary because I’m scheduling my life in the next 3 months. Photo by CalleMeCreation.
I sent J yesterday the last batch of his stuff he left behind. I saw on Grab it was delivered but there was no word from him, no thanks, no acknowledgment. Nothing.
I was miffed. Like what did I do wrong to this person to earn this kind of treatment??? I was just being nice!
But then a friend reminded me, this is not about me. “It’s not you. Nothing is wrong with you,” K said.
Then I reminded myself, yeah, he has a problem. He could not be nice to me, until the end. He’s not really a nice person 😔
I just had to vent out to my friend and then move on. I slept on it. I’m ok now. As I told K, I am loved by my family and friends and a lot of people appreciate me. They sent their help and love to me when I was really sick with Covid. Then that means nothing is wrong with me as a person.
My girls kept on making me cards, sending their love. Reminding me of the most important thing in this world: my children.
Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Choose people who choose you.
That’s the lesson I learned from this experience with J. I should love myself as much as I loved him. If I had more self-confidence and self-love, and didn’t think that I had to do more and become a doormat to earn his love, I wouldn’t have gone through the ugly last six months of our relationship that crushed my self-esteem.
I think I have finally let him go, in the truest sense. Like whatever he does that is not connected to me will no longer affect me. He no longer has the power to hurt me. I have taken that power back.
Happiness is a choice. I choose to be happy. I will love myself more and enjoy my life as I ought to.
This is what you call dynasty graft and corruption.
I don’t want to dwell on this today because it’s my day-off and I’m not supposed to stress myself.
Oh Lord, let me have the strength to last the 2022 elections. Or survive the Philippines. 🤦🏻♀️
Last night, it’s my other daughter’s turn to cook. Taught her how to make meatballs
She mixed ground pork, salt, pepper, egg, soy sauce, and bread crumbs. Photo by CallMeCreation.com Formed them into balls and rolled onto a floured board. Photo by CallMeCreation.com And then fried. Photo by CallMeCreation.com Made gravy from an instant mix. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
It’s their dinner. Since I no longer eat heavy dinners, I just had a small sandwich.
Then I continued with sewing masks to give to friends who sent their love when I was sick.
Look at how fine my hand stitches had become. A lot of practice, I can soon emulate the Victorian seamstresses who are rather particular about their hand stitches.
I feel stronger today, like my old energy is back so I tackled home cooking today. Or rather I taught my daughter, Twin I, how to make omurice and miso soup.
First she cooked leftover rice that was in the fridge overnight with some leftover tocino and leeks. Normally you put dollops of ketchup in the rice but my kids don’t like ketchup. Photo by CallMeCreation.com.Then I taught her how to make a plain and thin omelette. Photo by CallMeCreation.comWe assembled the rice first then covered it with the omelette and shaped it like this. Topped with slivers of leeks. Photo by CallMeCreation.com.
I also taught her how to make miso soup using soybean paste and kombu or dried kelp. Omurice and and miso soup for brunch today.
Then I felt more energetic than I expected so I tackled my container garden that was already so neglected that it looked like a forest full of detritus and detritus feeders.
First, I tried to save my birds of paradise plant from falling over because it was being pushed down by the neighbor’s trash. Then I’m teaching it to lean the other way. This is already the daughter plant (that grew from a sucker). The mother plant that I bought from my hometown in December died as it was not able to acclimatize in the city. Good thing the daughter survived and is growing another leaf. Tonight I transferred it to a more shady part of the courtyard so the leaves won’t be burned by the noon sun. Photo by CallMeCreation.com Then I tackled the dried leaves that kept falling from the old mango tree and the soil that was dug up by neighborhood stray cats. I took out the neighbor’s trash that they stuffed between their motorbike and my pots. Annoying really, because there was a lot. I pulled out the dead plants that I neglected and some weeds. The big one at the back is a taro plant. I tried pulling it out to check if there’s already taro but that damned thing was stubborn. The bigger plants at the back are fruit trees that I learned to be lanzones, kaimito and rambutan. And they will all go to my cousin who has a garden. I don’t have a place to transfer my fruit trees from my pot. The wire shelving was pulled out from my laundry area and it was just languishing there. It used to hold my pots and pans in the cooking area. Some survivors are my birdseye chilis. I will be sowing some vegetable seeds in the empty pots tomorrow. Photo by CallMeCreation.comHere are some of the surviving birdseye chilis that I quarantined as some of the other surviving siblings are being attacked by some kind of pest, maybe aphids. At the back planted in some old upside down plastic Coke bottles are some Sansivieria bacularis that I started to propagate. The ones in the water are the other bacularis that I separated from the mother plant that will be transferred to other pots when I have the chance to buy potting soil.These are the mother Sansivieria bacularis. They started as small plants in small Japanese cups that we bought from Quezon City Circle gardens for PHP 35 each in 2018. They were dying indoors probably because of lack of light so I took them out and transferred them to bigger pots. Look at how they have thrived outdoors. I think this unruly mother plant would have to be thinned out and I propagate the daughters. I planted seeds of ornamental flowers in these recycled mineral water bottles. These are next to my front windows so when they start to flower, I will be looking at my flowers through my window every morning when I have my breakfast.Since everyone is stuck at home, my neighbors in the apartment compound also started growing plants in pots and plant boxes. Yup, that’s my bike that I haven’t folded yet. I’ll probably clean and oil that tomorrow. My neighbors also are growing papaya trees, some Malabar spinach (that vine) and moringa tree. They said I can freely gather the leaves if I want to use them for cooking.
Tomorrow I will be composting some rotten guyabano fruits and cantaloupe that I wasn’t able to eat. I will gather the seeds first and let’s see if I can grow them. My squash died during the non-stop monsoon rains in July and August. Also some neighborhood stray cats started digging into my pots. Next time I will make some trellises so my squash would have somewhere to crawl or attach to.
Later tonight I will be ordering 20 meters of solar-powered fairy lights from Lazada that I will twirl around the mango tree then hang across the container garden towards my apartment’s overhang and hang it loosely there. It would be very pretty every night so my girls and I can sit outside while we grill or just hang out since the heavy rains have already stopped. Plus Christmas is coming soon. I will be ordering more curtain fairy lights to hang against my curtains in my living room window.
