Food forest

Posted on August 16, 2022 by admin

I will soon achieve this.

Well not yet. I mean it takes years before you can establish a small holding like this. My plan is to have something more organized than this. Like veggie beds under the existing fruit trees that my father and my nephew planted. This guy also gave me an idea what to do the the laundry runoff—I will create a “wetland” to process the grey water from the washing machine since I plan to make my ground level a contained utility area and next to it is the outdoor patio for barbecues with an optional hot tub.

This video calmed me down after the shit I went through again today as a result of that idiotor that had been encroaching on other people’s turfs. Because he misunderstood the corporate structure (because stupid company named several layers the same thing), he messed up and made it look like I got it wrong. He published his own version of the story while I stood my ground and stuck with how we explain things. My manager kept on harping about it and until I drew a chart of the corporate structure and sent it to her and had the reporter explain it. So she recognized that I was right, the idiotor did a shortcut and edited it according how he understood it.

It was a painful way to end the day and my brain was so exhausted. All this hee-hawing while I was editing another story that competition was also chasing. I told another editor-friend that I was already tuning out (it was before 6 pm) as I was already so pissed and my brain was already hurting.

Then I played the piano and sang for an hour. God bless my piano that was within my reach.

*Fedora for the win! Photo by CallMeCreation.com*

For several days now, I had been installing several Linux operating systems on Twin A’s desktop computer because Minecraft doesn’t seem to agree with Ubuntu 20.04 and crashes. This last OS I installed is the latest Fedora version and so far so good, it is running smoothly. The Bluetooth manager is better compared to the crappy one that Lubuntu 22.04 has.

*Choosing wallpaper background. Photo by CallMeCreation.com*

Twin A: Mommy, how did you know how to install operating systems?

Me: I learned by myself. Trial and error.

A: How did you learn Linux systems?

Me: I learned again by myself. I studied by trial and error.

I wanted to add to her that I am a geek at heart and tinkering with operating systems was a hobby of mine before I had kids. I even wanted to have a Raspberry Pi system (the barebones PC setup) to experiment with. I wanted it to be my multimedia machine back when downloading *stuff* was still a thing (now everything is streamed).

I think I can make a smart home with this Raspberry Pi if I learn how to configure this. Something to occupy me—as if there’s not enough to occupy me these days.

Twin I said she saw my door was open this morning (while the AC is running) as the cats let themselves in while I was sleeping. As I posted here before, Sushi knows how to open my bedroom door if it’s not bolted.

My sister-in-law told me over Viber last night that they adopted a black kitten. She is part of the litter that resides near their apartment and SIL said she fears that mommy cat is pregnant again. I told her when we come home this Friday I will bring my cat carrier so we can bring the mommy cat to the College of VetMed hospital to have her checked. If she’s not pregnant, we can have her spayed the following day.

*Black Kitty.* *I want to name her Kuromi クロミ*. Hehehe.

We will be spending 3 days at my mom’s. I hired my nephew to tutor my girls on Fri and Sat for their upcoming simulation high school entrance exam on Sunday. I’m quite useless when it comes to Math because I already forgot how to solve algebra problems, among other things. My nephew, Kuya H, graduated with honors from my high school–the high school that my girls will be trying to get into. At least his memory is fresher than mine. I took the entrance exam in 1991 and of course I couldn’t remember if I had a hard time when I was taking the exam. All I remember was I had no problem with English and my high score there pulled up my Math score 🤣.

OK, another day has ended and OMG I need to cut off all communication tomorrow so I can finally finish my drafts. Like seven of them.

Concert machine

Posted on August 15, 2022 by admin

I moved around furniture in my room, trying to figure out how I can best accommodate my piano that has been stuck in the huge closet with no purpose. I’m not getting my money’s worth if it’s just hidden there. Well, after some huffing and puffing, I reverted to the previous set-up and adjusted my worktable and the Ikea drawer.

*A little bit tighter now. Photo by CallMeCreation.com*

This set-up works for now; that area was dead space anyway. I tried playing for an hour and I think this will do for now. I mean I will just roll away from my desk to my piano to de-stress.

Prior to this room reconfiguring, I washed the girls’ old running shoes using the mini washing machine. I will give these away when we go home to my mom’s this coming weekend. They turned out clean! Yey! I no longer need to brush shoes manually. I am getting my money’s worth from this tiny machine. I now always have clean rags and foot mats.

*Sushi ruining my bag. Photo by CallMeCreation.com*

My cats are happy that I’m home the entire day. They have this separation anxiety that I find endearing; but I have mixed feelings regarding this when it comes to humans. Good thing my girls outgrew this because it causes me anxiety; there’s always this guilty feeling that I need to come home soon or I always had to bring them with me wherever I go. I couldn’t have my “Me” time.

same thing now with my cats. When my girls tell me that my cats are waiting for me in my room and they don’t leave my room because they miss me, I couldn’t help feel that I needed to come home immediately. Sushi especially has this weird separation anxiety. They told me that while I was away in Singapore, Sushi never left my room and she rarely went down to hang at the living room or elsewhere. She just stayed in my room and slept. I told them not to wash my bedsheets until I arrive so that my cats can still smell me and be comforted.

They always wait outside my bedroom door everyday and wait for me to open it so that they can sleep with me. But of course I don’t want them inside my room when I retire for the night because of their 3 am or 4 am zoomies.

I’d rather have cats sleep with me than have somebody who disdains me and was just forced to share my bed because he had nowhere else to go.

Chaotic

Posted on August 3, 2022 by admin

*Still so much unpacking to do. Photo by CallMeCreation.com*

*My cats don’t want to leave me. Photo by CallMeCreation.com*

Will document my life in the last 48 hrs after I catch my breath.

28 days without a car

Posted on July 16, 2022 by admin

Yup, it’s almost a month since I went out of my 4-km radius. To make matters worse, it has been raining so I couldn’t ride the bike to go anywhere. Physically yes, I can bike under the rain but I don’t want to risk getting sick before I am to leave the country for the first time since July 2019 (Jakarta).

I can last a month without seeing other people. 🤔 The introverted side of me is ok with that.

So today I’m just stuck here as usual and I’m cleaning out my refrigerator so I’m using the last bit of ingredients in my pantry before I do another big shop.

*Tonkatsu rice bowl with egg. Photo by CallMeCreation.com*

I made tonkatsu, which turned out good because I finally figured out how to do double frying as I’ve seen from Imamu’s Room Youtube channel. My kids loved it because it was crunchy and I seasoned the meat last night so the meat was savory. Since I don’t have mentsuyu to cook the pork with the egg, so I just made a runny sunny-side up fried egg to top my rice bowl. I paired this with miso soup with kombu.

For dinner, I made ramen and eggplant tempura and eggplant fritters.

*Garlic pork tonkatsu ramen. Photo by CallMeCreation.com*

*Eggplant tempura and eggplant fritters. Photo by CallMeCreation.com*

I’m down to my last vegetable dish tomorrow (sauteed squash with string beans) and I’m thinking whether I should add coconut milk and a bit of chili flakes since I don’t have sambal. Oh, I should remember to buy sambal and bak kut teh spices when I shop in Singapore. (*Makes a mental note*) I should haul my ass out of this house tomorrow to shop for fresh veggies.

Cooking is some kind of stress-reliever for me—as long as I don’t have to do the wash up after.

Next year when it will just be the three of us, I would be batch cooking and probably supplement it by hiring my mom’s cook on weekends. (Ate C and I agreed that I would be releasing her from my employment and I will just finance her last year in college as my scholar with the usual monthly allowance, her tuition, and other school expenses. She would be staying with her sister until she finishes college. It’s just for a year). Imamu’s Room and Nami on Youtube have tutorials on how to prep bento lunches–packed meals for my girls and prepared lunches for me because I’m too busy with work to bother cooking during weekdays.

I will buy a robo-vacuum for daily cleaning and hire my mom’s bi-weekly cleaning lady for general cleaning during weekends. Besides, it wouldn’t be that hard to clean a 52-sqm apartment. The girls are already folding and putting away clean laundry as part of their daily chores and I would start them now with doing their own laundry with our automatic washing machine. How hard can it be?

The only thing that I dread doing starting next year is the daily litter box cleaning, because my critters are useless 🙄. When you are owned by a cat, you clean up after them for life. That is a fact.

*Yup, I couldn’t lie on my bed because they have already commandeered it*. I adjust 😂. *Photo by CallMeCreation.com*

We are in a scarier environment now with the China credit crunch unraveling further. While US economists/pundits are debating whether they are already in recession, China logs the slowest YoY growth in eons, registering 0.4% growth in 2Q22. Then here comes the threat of end-buyers/homebuyers not paying their loans because housing projects couldn’t proceed as real estate companies suffer from the Evergrande fallout.

China’s real estate sector is grappling with a crisis that has seen developers squeezed by eye-watering levels of debt, sparking a string of bond defaults among major groups including Shimao and China Evergrande — the world’s most indebted developer with about $300 billion in liabilities.

This is like the US subprime crisis of 2007-2008, just a different flavor and shown with subtitles.

When the world’s two largest economies are hobbling, then not far behind is probably the Great Financial Crisis 2.0. We are going to see a domino effect that could further weigh down emerging markets like ours, which are already suffering from sky-high prices of goods and services. I’ve been editing a number of stories that point to tightening of belts and external funding already coming in trickles. Soon the tap will be turned off for the time being as market chaos reigns. Huge valuation differences and forex issues (especially for the Philippines, which saw its currency weakening from 53 to 56 in just 30 days) are holding up deals.

This is a tough year; next year would be horrible.

I should move quickly and have my house up before December so if there is some kind of financial fuck-up that may happen, being homeless will be the least of my problems. I have logged a lot of paper losses from my investments and I’m kicking myself for not shifting my pure equity funds last year into fixed income because I was too lazy. I’ll just treat this market rout into a buying opportunity.

We should treat food insecurity with self-sufficiency and generosity. I will plant an edible garden and alongside that is encouraging people to do the same. A half kilo of minced meat and eggs with lots of vegetables go a long way for food-insecure families.

I’m holding everything with bated breath.

27 days without a car

Posted on July 15, 2022 by admin

*Primer. I need more dry days for the finishing and buffing.*

Keeping my fingers crossed, praying for more dry days so the paint job will be finally done. The broken taillight will be replaced and hopefully I can take this home early next week before I leave for Singapore. ❤

There are still a lot to be done with this car: central locks and alarm, new carpeting, new tint, and sound system (but that is already the least of the things I must do). When my house is completed by December, I’ll start hauling my books and arrange it there. I found that when moving houses, the books are the most difficult to pack and unpack. I will be moving small items little by little so by May of next year, only the big ones will be moved. If the headwinds have died down and the economy recovers from this horrible stagflation, then I will sell this and get myself that new Toyota Avanza for minimal headache.

I’m still thinking if it’s still worth it to reupholster my couch or just buy a new sofa bed from Ikea. From a sustainability perspective, I should have my current sofa reupholstered so that there would be less waste. From a cost standpoint, I don’t know if it would be cheaper. Let’s see after I consult with the reupholsterer.

*I think this would be safe from my cats.* *FYRESDAL Daybed with 2 mattresses, black/Ågotnes firm*

*Besides, Twin I also wanted this particular sofa bed and begged me to buy it for our house. Photo by CallMeCreation.com*

Why would I want a sofa bed? I remember in high school and college, we had a constant stream of friends sleeping over at our house since we had five rooms that can accommodate them. I mean, all of us children had short-term (friends’ homes are far and they want to take naps in between classes and a comfortable place to study) and long-term guests (friends from broken families who needed to get away from the chaos of their homes; friends with no family to stay with during Christmas breaks). My parents made our home open to our friends and I want to keep that tradition. All of our friends had fond memories of spending time in our house. My friends spent their Fridays with me, watching movies in our tiny second floor TV area when we were in high school. In college, our house is where my friends spent and got rid of their hangovers.

I made sure that in the new plan for my tiny house, the kitchen will take the center stage as I will be providing a lot of food for hungry teenagers—and for my sister-in-law and cousin who love my cooking. I’m not an excellent cook but I do some dishes exceptionally well. My friend K and everybody else in my family love my potato salad combined with grilled fish or meat.

*Hotpot with mishua tonight. Photo by CallMeCrea*tion.com

I’m excited about the my prospects for the next 12 months. I’m already drawing in my head the plan for the back garden and the front garden. I already have the laborers in mind and the things that should be done (compost pit, growing beds, flower beds, irrigation system, and movable chicken coop).

And this is the goal:

And no one is allowed to rain on my parade.

A colleague asked me today why can’t I just ignore those catfishers? I said, “because I’m bored.” I also want to release this pent-up fury through passive aggressiveness towards unscrupulous strangers. I want to hit and hit ’em hard.

I know this will backfire on me but I just want to get even with the opposite sex, even though it doesn’t really make sense. It’s not even apples to apples but doing this cools my deep-seated anger. I recognize that this anger is unjustified but can you blame me for harboring it?

My journey to healing is still long and hard.

Overstaying

Posted on June 14, 2022 by admin

*Floor managers. Photo by CallMeCreation.com*

We slept in the room that will soon be included in our unit. My bed is small (twin) so the girls had to sleep on the floor. I don’t want to clean the usual room where we sleep in the main house. I wanted to get the feel of the size of this room and the overall atmosphere since this would be my forever room from now on.

Anyway, so I got to talk to this new contractor whom I went to high school with but he is one year ahead of me.

*The portal to the other dimension. Photo by CallMeCreation.com*

The contractor did an ocular and we discussed the layout, the materials, the logistics, etc.

*The east wing. Photo by CallMeCreation.com*

*The western wing. Photo by CallMeCreation.com*

*The northern phase. Photo by CallMeCreation.com*

My contractor said the total size is ~50 sqm, which is the typical size of a two-bedroom condo in Manila. The bedroom we’re sleeping in now will add 10 sqm and will be my future bedroom/office. I reconciled to have it both inside this room and my closet will just be outside. The girls will have the bigger room.

I will no longer have vaulted ceilings as my contractor said dropped ceilings would make the house cooler since vaulted ceilings would just let hot air be confined at the top and have no way to escape if I don’t put exhaust fans there. I don’t want fans up there; they’re hard to clean. So dropped ceiling it is. He’s just going to give me big awning-type windows that is almost floor-to-ceiling that would be ideal for airconditioned rooms. While I intend to have natural air to circulate within the unit, it doesn’t hurt to design it as a fully airconditioned home. It’s better to be flexible. I initially plan to have only the bedrooms airconditioned since I have fresh mountain air outside my home to flow within my TV area and kitchen to keep it cool. But climate change—-you’ll never know.

*I have a forest in my backyard. Photo by CallMeCreation.com*

The forest in my backyard would become my vegetable garden and whatever I want to do with it (a separate office and art studio perhaps in the future?). On the ground level would be a porch and laundry/utility area. I asked my contractor if he can put high quality polycarbonate roofing there. The kitchen will have granite countertops and drawers under it. The upper cabinets will be covered since Filipino/Asian cuisine is high on oil content, thus, could make stuff greasy if I have open shelving. The floors will remain the same except for the bathroom, of course. I told the contractor I want provision for mounting a heavy chandelier, if I fancy it, but likely it will just be big pendant lights.

He told me the fastest construction period will be 3 months. Soooo I have the option to start construction now that I can lock in the prices of materials since the economy will turn for the worse in the coming months. If I start construction next month, by December I will have a rest house and don’t have to bunk with my mom. I can bring stuff bit by bit until we move in totally by May 2023.

Earlier this evening, my girls and I had dinner and milk tea with the daughter of one of my bffs. The girls had a nice time with her.

*Pizza at Auntie Pearl’s. Photo by CallMeCreation.com*

*Choosing milktea flavors. Photo by CallMeCreation.com*

I didn’t want to cramp the kids’ style so I stayed away while they gossiped the night away…until one clumsy kid of mine spilled her milk tea and made everyone sticky.

We’re running out of clothes. We need to go home to QC tomorrow.

Stories from the sidelines

A journalist has a life other than news

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