I was thinking the other day whether I could put transoms on top of my kitchen cabinets to let in more light. Then a thought struck me: of course I can! I don’t need anybody’s permission. That thought takes a lot of getting used to after living in houses/apartments that were not mine for 20+ years.

✅ I plan to install another wall fan in the dining area. No one is going to scold me for drilling holes on the wall. My wall.

✅ Put fairy lights on the trees. My trees.

✅ Plant the yellow bell near the base of my staircase because it’s no longer flowering. No one will tell me “no.”

❓ As my high school classmate told me last week, I could put a hot tub downstairs, which I initially thought of when I was sketching the layout of this house. But I said, nah, it’s hard to keep it clean.

✅ Less anxiety when it comes to parking.

Twin A asked me earlier today if I miss our apartment. I said no. Why, she asked. Because that apartment is always dirty, it’s old, and it has a small bathroom. The parking situation is a nightmare to boot.

Bad memories, too, I wanted to add.

I also told my girls I don’t miss the horrible traffic.

Just look at this exodus below. People had been driving for four hours or more just to escape Metro Manila for the long weekend and the upcoming All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day.

Nope, I’m staying put. No one can drag me to drive along SLEX today or any other day this week.

My children are germ vectors. Twin I, who is recovering from amoebiasis, has brought home cough and colds. Again. And all literature on pediatric care says it’s perfectly normal. I keep telling Twin I to stay away from classmates who are sniffling because there is a 98% chance she will bring home the virus. It will eventually hit her immunocompromised twin, who is currently taking five antibiotics.

I haven’t rested from taking care of sick children. 🤦🏻‍♀️

When I go back to work tomorrow and co-workers will ask me, oh what have you done/where did you go during your break? I will have this pathetic response: to the hospital. I took care of the sick; I have a thermometer on my bedside. Since September I have not slept on my bed alone—the twins take turn in sleeping with me because I had to monitor their fevers or they needed to get out of bed quickly to go to the bathroom. Getting off from their loft beds in the middle of the night when they’re sick is just an accident waiting to happen.

I want to rest!!!

Tomorrow, I face another challenge as my boss breathes down my neck since my freelancer has yet to turn in an article since being hired in July.

I have no chill.

I just wanted to start sketching again but the universe didn’t want me to be creative.

The only relief I had this entire break was when I took antihistamine that knocks me out cold.

We are in a health crisis. I have been battling with our water utility for a year now and their service is still shitty as hell. Aside from having my own water filter system at home to use for washing dishes etc, we order our drinking water from purified water vendors.

Twin I was the first one to go down. Twin A now has amoebiasis and we just had been prescribed a couple of medicines for my immunocompromised patient this evening. My brother’s youngest is also sick with similar symptoms. I went a step further by buying only distilled bottled water, the huge jugs, from Alfamart and sterilized our water bottles at home.

I complained about this to the shareholder company, which is one of the conglomerates I have been covering regularly. After the complaint, the water utility staff went to our home to get samples. I haven’t heard from them yet. 😑

What puzzles me is the household next door isn’t affected. We have the same purified water vendor and same pipe from our water utility. Maybe the lunch in their school cafeteria is to blame? 🤔

I would have to make some noise tomorrow or on Tues. This is disgusting. Why is it my burden to find a vendor that will provide me with safe drinking water when we’re already paying for a service that is supposed give us that?! I will report this to the Dept of Health and the National Water Regulatory Board. I will have to make them regret that they haven’t gotten their shit together after a year. While I don’t have confidence in this government under Marcos Jr, at least what I could do is bring this to the mainstream media as public awareness and to shame utilities.

But then, mainstream media—what is mainstream media now? The big voice of the Fourth Estate has been diminished. This article in Nieman Lab is a testament to the state of journalism now. It has been going on for a decade now, but the bitterness has not been felt so much as it is now.

We’re dying.

I’m tired.

We’re cleared by our hemato-oncologist!

Thank you, Lord!

The high uric acid though is still a puzzle so we need to re-test in a different lab. If it’s still the same, then we tackle it slowly. Our doctor’s worry is that Twin A’s kidneys and liver may get affected if it remains elevated. Let’s see if it’s still the same even after her TB treatment ends. It has been documented that one of the components of the anti-TB therapy causes uric acid levels to rise.

But it’s a small worry compared to the alternative, which is chemotherapy. Thank you, thank you, Lord! Even though I knew, from my basic understanding of her MRI result, that it was TB all along, it is still such a relief to be cleared of the possibility of colon cancer or any form of cancer. We just need to meet this doctor every month and have another MRI after three months or in January to check whether the inflammation will be gone by then. Our IDS is currently still incapacitated as her son is still admitted in PGH. I didn’t have the heart to ask what happened to our IDS’ son. Probably the treatment is aggressive because they chose to stay in the hospital while undergoing the chemo rounds. Our hema-onco and our IDS have talked about my daughter’s case and the latter decided to keep the quad treatment i.e. RHZE and not yet adjust the dosage and combination.

We celebrated this win with a book on drawing from Kinokuniya x Fullybooked. Twin A was a contestant in the UN Day poster-making contest yesterday but it’s still unclear if she won because her name was called and was given a medal for being the third placer but the poster presented was not hers. 🤔 Weird.

As I promised my girls, we went to ArtMart in BGC.

And across the street, Twin A and I went inside Art Caravan to check out art materials.

And going to the Van Gogh exhibition—oops! Sold out. Next visit next month we’ll reserve tickets.

…and I have nothing to show for it. How did I spend my days? I already forgot. No roadtrip. No beach trip. I am taking care of two children under medication, one for TB and the other one for amoebiasis. I cannot just pack my bags and join my bff who is in Japan right now. I wake up at 5 am to make them breakfast before going to school. They just finished their quarterly exams.

Tomorrow is a visit to St Luke’s BGC to see our hema-onco and she ordered us a couple of blood tests. The usual, Twin A’s uric acid is elevated, her RWD-CV is high but MCV is ok = Vit B12 deficiency/iron, which is consistent with someone taking anti-TB meds that’s why we’re given the order to take VitBcomplex supplements. Her eosinophils are elevated = allergy/asthma. Not surprising. Even I am battling with allergens for a couple of days now. I had hives every other day, that’s why I had been knocked out by antihistamines yesterday and slept almost the whole day.

But all combined, I would have to wait for our doctor to say anything. I’m scared if she sees something that would link to any disorder that would keep us under her watch. I’m so paranoid now of anything that would indicate cancer.

I am scared of anything that would put my children in the same situation as what we had gone through in Aug-Sept…you know, praying to God for a lesser evil because the other alternative (cancer) is much more devastating.

There, I have an answer. My holiday has gone by without me realizing it because I am a mother. Moms don’t rest, specially the solo moms. I no longer have a housekeeper to help me out on the domestic front. It is endless cooking and cleaning. It’s constant worrying about what to serve them for dinner, sleeping on time, buying materials for school projects, helping with homework, etc.

After we get clearance from our hema-onco, I will fly to SG because I’ve been neglecting that part of my work and also to take a break from all of these.

In the meantime, some friends are coming over this afternoon. I hope I still have time to do my brisk walking on campus.

The husband of one of my high school friends (who is also a high school classmate) said the view from my front door is beautiful. He also said my pseudo-balcony is nice. They like my tiny house.

These friends have their houses within their family compounds/parents’ properties; we all figured that if we want the university and grade/high schools accessible to us, we have to stay near family because there aren’t enough lots/townhouses, and single-detached homes available for sale. Within the span of 30 years, vacant lots within our vicinity had been taken up.

I have also unlocked a new skill today: fixing wonky power outlets.

It happened when the post of my bed/headboard kept hitting this outlet while the power strip for my desktop setup is still plugged in. A hinge broke. I had to turn off the power in my entire house via fusebox and stripped open the outlet. Figured out a way how to bring it forward and keep it in place even if one of the locks had been broken. Masking tape. Yes, masking tape, because I don’t keep a supply of electrical tape. 🤦🏻‍♀️

When you’re a homeowner, you learn how to repair small things like this. Then do a lot of DIY, like cleaning the water reservoir every 2 months.

Oh, the things I have to learn…

OMG, how toxic is this man/boy? Like it’s women’s fault that men/boys like him are lonely. Get out of your mom’s basement and quit playing video games. Touch grass.

And OMG, sounds like he doesn’t even want a relationship. He just wants to have sex because he’s tired of masturbating. 🤦🏻‍♀️ Hellooooooooo!

A lot of men are toxic and have fragile egos. If a woman happens to be smart and capable, their egos get bruised. They ditch the woman, go look for someone lesser/a bimbo so they would look and feel superior.

And it’s always the woman’s fault, because she’s this and that but the thing is, deep down, insecure men can’t handle smart women. Most especially narcissists.

I’m so done.

I tried the local onsen this afternoon after cleaning the inside of our water reservoir with my new power washer. That left me itchy, cranky, and exhausted 🫠

To save my back, my sister and I booked a 30-min onsen + 2-hr massage. The massage was ok; I fell asleep. But the hot tub was so disappointing. The onsen relied completely on the heat of the natural spring water (which was likely near-surface level, hence, the warm temp and not HOT) and did not complement with artificial heater.

In some parts of our town the water is piping hot, especially near the lake. My mom said these areas have ground water nearer the magma level than in some other parts of town. My other bff told me about one hot spring dipping pool by the lakeshore which her triathlete coach of a husband frequents everyday to relieve his aching muscles after 100-km bike rides in the mornings. We’ll try that one of these days.

For now, my quick fix is invading my mom’s bathtub and cranking her heater to the highest setting, dumping a half bag of Epson salt, and wallowing here for an hour.

My one-week wellness break has been meeeehhh…🥴

Why can’t we have nice things and efficient services?!

Oh yeah, Filipinos keep on voting for crooks, so everyone—from the Office of the President down to the rank and file—is useless.

I had my license renewal yesterday and guess what? We still don’t have license cards.

I use my license as my de facto national ID because our actual national ID is not honored by most institutions because of the fucked up way how they rolled it out. Those who have applied for the national ID three years ago have yet to receive their ID cards. Majority of Filipinos are just issued paper IDs that can easily be forged, mutilated, and lost. 🙄

I certainly don’t want to use my passport as my ID to bring with me everyday in my bag. 😑