Today I saw my BFFs, who had been with me since elementary days. We laughed so much over lunch. One of them even took a leave of absence for work so we can hang out.
We needed that face to face connection. Serotonin boost for all of us. We all had been feeling blue about the daily drudgery of life and for a moment, we just relished each other’s company, and giggled like we were back in high school.
My girls, on the other hand, went out by themselves since my hometown is a very safe place to let them be. Especially inside the university campus. They ate at a Korean restaurant and hung out at Starbucks with their kuya and their tita and they were fetched by their tito (my brother) and dropped off here in grandma’s house at 9:30 pm. Tomorrow they will be out again with their kuya, eat at a ramen house and play hooky.
I think my decision to transfer here is a good one. For my kids to be more independent while being safe.
My older sister put up the lights this afternoon. Photo by CallMeCreation.com Even the garage was decorated. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
This Toyota sedan was offered to me by my mom so I can let go of the old Isuzu. But that old car has so much use as I can carry three folding bikes and plants there all at the same time. This Toyota can only carry people and groceries.
I’ll be back here on the 24th. While my girls will be with their dad, paternal grandpa, and other relatives on their dad side, my cats and I will just be lolling about in the apartment. ❤️
Meanwhile, Ate C sent me these pics of my forlorn cats missing me. They kept waiting for me by the door.
I love sleeping on my bed. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I may be cheap in some aspects of my life but I allow myself some kind of luxury in other areas. Not clothes, cars, or bags or similar items.
I indulge in sleep.
I keep buying beddings and new pillows every now and then. I ordered new ones from House of Snores and Neatens Manila for me and my kids a few weeks ago and I was pleasantly surprised that those were 500 thread count fabrics. They are nice. Every week I change sheets and every two weeks I change the duvet covers. If the sheets are older than a week, they feel itchy to me.
I had Tempur orthopedic pillows before but they didn’t work for me because I’m a side sleeper. I left them in the old house.
I also love scents.
My scented humidifier. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
When I started working even before I graduated in 2000, I began buying scented candles and lighted them so that my room would smell good and put them out when before I went to sleep. I stopped using scents in my rooms because I figured my ex-partner wouldn’t be enthralled with it. We did buy some Indian incense from Little India before but when we tried lighting it, it didn’t go well with my airconditioned room…smoke gets trapped inside! I still have a box of those incense here but I couldn’t use them because it reminds me too much of him and his love for India.
Anyway, my kids love hanging out in my room because as Twin A said, “Mommy, your room feels like a hotel room; your bed is nice and it smells good.”
For me to give up my bed for anyone is a sign that person is an esteemed person in my book.
Why did I write about bed now? Because I change my sheets on Sunday nights and while I was doing it earlier tonight, I reflected on why I keep on doing this tedious chore weekly. It’s cumbersome because it involves lifting the heavy orthopedic mattress, but when I have made my bed with fresh sheets, it feels really good so it’s all worth it. It feels luxurious.
Today I pulled out my lazy ass out of bed to cook because Twin I asked for pasta. So I did.
Carbonara, as requested by my daughter. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Tomorrow I need to shop for veggies though. They need to be stuffed with vegetables because come Christmas, they won’t be having any since they would be spending the holidays with their paternal side. They don’t eat enough veggies there. Their aunt and her family would be driving from here in Metro Manila to south to avoid airports = Covid. They will take the girls to see their 89-year-old grandpa before something happens to him. I cannot deny him his granddaughters and I don’t have any beef with him except for raising a spoiled, self-centered and lazy idiot.
I’m not worried that their dad won’t return the girls. Now that he’s so free, he wouldn’t want that freedom be taken away by having the kids with him. Besides, he doesn’t have money to send the girls to a private school. He knows he will destroy his children’s future if his ego gets the better of him.
So for weeks it will just be me and the cats in this apartment. I think it sounds lovely. The introvert side of me says ❤️.
Kimchi in her double decker bed. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Every cell in my body was protesting against returning to work today. I just wanted to sleep and read. But no, I have responsibilities to my team and I was needed today so I got my butt out of bed.
Then I wrote a story in under an hour this afternoon about a topic I wrote about two weeks ago, which was one of the top 5 most read stories in the region for us. I think I’ve got some of my mojo back. Probably I need a longer time to recharge so I can get back to my old productive self. Driving to my hometown, seeing old friends and bantering with them did wonders.
I didn’t realize that shutting the world out drains me more. Shunning the world and shutting myself in my apartment because I’m afraid of catching Covid again sucked the life out of me.
Maybe I need to drive back to see old friends again and/or drive to Makati and have dinner with friends from the industry whom I haven’t seen for 8 mos or more than a year.
Speaking of friend, one friend from the corporate communications industry sent me a a grazing box with cream cheese and caviar and the usual contents of a charcuterie board as a birthday gift. Too bad I can’t drink alcohol these days, as the doctor ordered. I still enjoyed it with my children even without wine.
Mmmm. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I think I will make a huge charcuterie board for Christmas and one leg of Chinese ham. Make my wicked potato salad, which all of my friends said it was the best potato salad they ate.
Last night the traffic was so heavy in our usual route that I had to drive an extra 20 km to take another route. It took me 2 hrs and 45 minutes before we reached our apartment.
So today I did all the DIY stuff that I left hanging. Stupid me, that made me exhausted today.
I refreshed the white paint on the wall where my living room windows are. I also finally changed the curtain rod brackets downstairs and was able to hang the Christmas curtains that I bought from Shopee one night I wasn’t able to sleep. I’m afraid I overdid the Christmas thing.
Looks kitschy. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
But I think it looks better at night, less overpowering.
I have to make it grow on me because these damned things cost me PHP 500. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
And I did not stop there. I added curtain rod brackets in my room because my annoying cats keep on climbing the curtains and they’re not exactly light.
Since I felt so energetic today, I proceeded to sand my closets because the paint is peeling and Kimichi kept scratching the corner so it was worn.
I turned my impact drill into a sander. I uncovered several layers of paint. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I chose Boysen Skyblue for my closets. There was something off with the Tiffany blue that came with the apartment when we moved in so I decided to go for a lighter shade of blue.
Unfinished. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I didn’t paint the upper cabinets yet because I was so tired and I looked like a Smurf because I was already blue all over. And my paint was the quick-dry type so it was sticky, smelly, and hard to even out. At least I was able to fill out with wood filler the scratches that Kimichi made and I was able to cover it with paint. Now I’m getting high with the smell.
As I was letting the paint dry, I grilled marinated chicken outside while my kids and our househelp, Ate C, lighted candles for our departed loved ones. Today is Dia de Todos los Santos (All Saints’ Day) and tomorrow is Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) but in recent years Filipinos started visiting the grave of loved ones on 1 November instead of 2 November. Traditionally the holidays are 31 Oct-2 Nov but was truncated this year to only the 1 Nov. Dia de los Muertos is more known to be a Mexican holiday but most Spanish and Portugese colonies have their own way of commemorating the dead. In the Philippines, it’s more subdued compared to the Mexican one. When I was a kid, some people spend the night of the 31st in cemeteries to hang out in their family mausoleum or tombs until Nov 1 and have some kind of family reunion there. Filipino Chinese families light joss sticks and offer food and flowers. In our family we just clean the tombs, offer flowers, light candles and say our prayers. We stay until the candles have died out.
Lighting candles in front of the apartment. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
This is the third straight year we just have lighted candles in front of our house. In 2018, the traffic was so bad that I just opted to stay at home. Last year and this year, obviously, we had to stay home because of Covid-19 restrictions. My mom is already contented that I brought her last week a huge pot of mums and the purple hydrangea for my father’s niche at the columbarium near my mom’s house.
Since I’m making the most of my stay here in this apartment, I will be filling up the walls with crafts and art. Next time that will go home to my mom’s house, I’ll be taking my old drawings with me and put them in frames and hang them in my room. I bought some frames from Photoline in SM that were on sale last week.
J left his drawing on my refrigerator door and when we broke up, I shoved it in my closet and let it stay there almost 11 months. I decided to take it out again and put it in one of the frames I bought. He drew this scene from Istanbul when he was demonstrating to the girls how to use their color markers.
Photo by CallMeCreation.comPhoto by CallMeCreation.com
I had hung his drawing in the place where his workstation was. He may not be a nice person, but for old times’ sake this is how I am choosing to remember him: a traveler. I am just one stop.
Soon this room will be filled by my old drawings/paintings and cross-stitch projects. And probably new ones too. His drawing will just be one of the many that I will have on my walls.
I should be saving money for my future tiny house but I really, really want to buy that piano. I have to sell my Roland E-09 first but I don’t know how without too much work on my side. I don’t know how I will be able to sell it before the sale ends.
I can pay cash for it now but that would be reckless with Christmas coming up and stuff. The question is, do I really need it? No. But I really want it. For two years. I just didn’t want to indulge my wants before because there were more important things to spend on the last three years and I needed to be more practical.
Music is one of my passions. I wonder how long can I hold off buying this thing. I need to buy a new microwave oven because my old Whirlpool (which I think is already 10 years old) already conked out.
I’m so tempted to drive over there tomorrow and test the piano.
I received today a Tumindig shirt birthday gift from a friend.
For the uninitiated, the Tumindig shirt/movement/logo started as a protest symbol against Duterte. You know how he and his minions love to do fist bumps as his signature stance (which is really cheesy, by the way, but the masses love it). So the fist bump stood up (tumindig/tindig), an act of defiance or a symbol of people waking up. This character was created by a comic illustrator that goes by the monicker/nom de plume Tarantadong Kalbo (“bald dumbass”) and people had been customizing this tumindig symbol by dressing it up according to the occupation/personality of who wants to adopt it to indicate his/her defiance vs Duterte.
When we still had a printing shop, I had a shirt made with national hero Jose Rizal (who was executed by the Spaniards for his subversive novels) muffled to protest the passage of the Cyber libel law (they wanted us to become the next Singapore with no freedom of speech). I wore it to a business conference at Manila Peninsula, which almost cost me my entrance to the event because I didn’t look like a business reporter. Good thing the person manning the registration knew me that I was a regular at their business conferences.
Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I have a long history of wearing protest clothes and my friends know this.
I’m slowly adding Christmas decor because I want to end my dreary year with some cheer. I took one Christmas lantern from my mom’s house (and she has a lot) and this one is so bright that I no longer need to buy more solar-powered lanterns so we can hang outside.
Photo by CallMeCreation.comPhoto by CallMeCreation.com
I could order patio furniture from Ikea but what will I do with them after we move? We already have patio furniture in our future tiny home. Let me weigh the options…But I’d like to grill and eat outside with the girls and I promised some friends we can grill some steak and fish and have drinks before Christmas break. Since my friend K will likely stay in the city again for Christmas (K’s entire family is in the US), I think we should have another get-together with our friends, if they can brave the traffic going to QC.
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.
