I don’t know why but I bought a new tea set from the second-hand ceramics pop-up store at the weekend community market last Sunday. Maybe because I drink hot tea more now it’s colder. Right now it’s 24 degrees C and in the coming days we will be registering lower temps, around 21 to 20. When I was in high school it there was a time it reached 18 degrees.

It’s also a form of relaxation for me. The act of bringing a tiny cup to my lips and savoring a hot brew is meditative.

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Last Friday, I counseled a friend who cried to me because she couldn’t see where her relationship with her partner is going. Differing approaches to financial management really does break a relationship and it’s not a petty issue. Financial management is a reflection of your values and how you approach life in general. Financial dishonesty is a serious offense.

I told her, one of the most eye-opening things told to me by a fellow married woman was this: you do not have to mix your finances with your partner. This person was a lawyer-columnist with whom I shared rooms during a junket trip abroad. I was just two months married then and she told me that 1) I should always have my own money because when shit hits the fan, I can always walk out; 2) I can keep our finances separate and just agree on the household expenses that we can split and jointly pay for.

My erstwhile roomie told me that she and her husband, who is also a lawyer, split the grocery bills. Her husband bought the meat because he was very much a carnivore and there were expensive cuts that he favored. She, on the other hand, spends on—I can no longer remember—but the rest on their grocery list is jointly financed between the two of them. That is just one example. She pays for this, he pays for that. She told me it’s totally fine not to follow the traditional way of managing household finances where one controls the money and the other just receives an allowance. Having expenses split according to what you’re willing to spend/splurge on will lessen resentment and animosity between couples.

We did that and before we had children, ex-husband was paying for utilities while I paid for the groceries. Shortly after things flipped over and I had borne all kid-related stuff and groceries. Later on, I was paying for all of our expenses except cable TV because he’s the one addicted to TV while I couldn’t be bothered by it. And yes I was the only one paying for our kids’ private school tuition. I had too much resentment boiling inside me because aside from I was working myself to the bone, I was paying for everything, and yet he couldn’t even help in taking care of our kids.

On hindsight, this was the reason why I was always tired, stressed, and unhappy.

He was so financially dishonest that it was only when my kids and I left him did I learn that he wasn’t even paying rent. His sister let us live in that house we were living for 8 years for free. He led me to believe he was paying rent as part of his contribution to household expenses.

So I told this friend that she and her partner should keep their finances separate since they’re not even married. There’s no way to protect her when shit happens. She’s stressing over her partner being financially irresponsible and the ironic thing is this person is in banking. 😬 I told her that it’s up to her how long she can wait until the partner wisens up. I mean, some people can be taught financial responsibility and they’re not beyond redemption. Until that happens, she should keep her finances separate or else the resentment will boil over.

In my case, I compromised so much. I was like a melting candle and in the end I was so spent that I no longer had anything to give. You cannot pour from an empty vessel.

I am without a fridge for more than a week now. I had to throw out a LOT of food and the frozen goods that thawed had to be transferred to my mom’s house to be cooked.

It took a week before the Panasonic Service Center in my hometown to pull out my fridge. And it will take another week for them to bring it back for PHP 7,300.

I can’t cook because I have no food except for canned stuff and instant noodles. If I cook, there should be no leftovers. I had to throw away leftover rice.

What I have are eggs and Chinese buns. I cooked them on the steamer that my older sister handed down to me. She received this as a gift or won it at a Christmas raffle and had been stuck with her for two years because she doesn’t cook.

So I made steamed eggs. I didn’t have spring onions with me because I had thrown out all my vegetables so I had to do without. Twin I and I liked them that she ate it with rice.

Hmm, I can make steamed fish in ginger and soy sauce.

Twin I said she can’t wait for the fridge to come back because she misses my cooking. ❤️ She is so done with food deliveries.

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This is the first bankers night at the central bank that I didn’t take photos of. The first in the 19 years I’ve been attending this annual event, except of course duringthe pandemic years of 2020 and 2021.

Why is that? I don’t know. The people that I had been fond of are no longer attending because they have moved on from their former roles, or they have moved on from this plane. Maybe I was just too busy chatting with people.

I saw journo friends and many of us stayed behind after the bankers have left. We were the ones left eating the excellent wrapped spicy sisig, lechon, roastbeef in pan de sal… The caterer was CIBO and I say Margarita Fores delivered. 👌

One good TV reporter friend of mine, GDP, and I exchanged gifts at the parking area. I gave him the 1001 song book I found in Booksale and the Gold Roast coffee I brought from Singapore. For some reason friends and family like Gold Roast so the last time I got home from SG, half of my luggage was coffee and milk tea. 🤷🏻‍♀️

GDP in exchange, gave me this from his family’s trip in S. Korea:

I guess I would have to start dabbling in watercolors again. 🙃

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.