Hold that Thought

First off, thanks for the visit and thanks to those who wished me a happy mother’s day. Belated happy mom’s day to everyone.

I’ve been busy and I’ve been running around so apologies for not visiting my blogger friends. I will be back to doing my rounds one of these days. And the tags I will do as well. I have so much to write about - my new hair (again!), my first movie night with my girlfriends, my take on the latest GA epi, MIL coming over to visit, and so much more.

For now, hold that thought.

The Continuing Saga of the Insensitive Friend

Insensitive friend strikes again!
IF: Hey, whatchadoin?
Me: Oh, you know, puttering around the house.
IF: I am so bored! I don’t know how you do it!
Me: Well…
IF: I mean, how can you stay at home day in and day out, attending to your children’s and husband’s needs? Don’t you get bored? I am so glad my maternity leave ends in a few weeks. But you! You’re stuck there for the long haul.
Me: You see, (formulating a snappy comeback)
IF: Well, gotta go, the baby needs to be fed.
Me: (reluctantly)Bye.

Window View

I have been tagged by Julie last year and I sincerely apologize as I am behind on my tags, awards and memes. I will catch up on everything one day.

I blog in the living room when I am alone. This was the view last week:

These are all views from my window. I sometimes sit on the settee and look out as the world goes by. I sip my coffee and bundle up in a warm throw as I earnestly wish for winter to be over and spring to come. For now the view is clean and pure and serene even though outside it’s cold and harsh and draining. I stay in the warm confines of my house and look out the window, glad that I am not out there.

All I Want for Christmas is - An iPhone

note: this was a post that I thought I published but turns out I didn’t. pls disregard the date.   

Thanksgiving isn’t even here yet which would have signaled the beginning of the Christmas season (read:shopping) here in North America but the stores are displaying Christmas decorations. What the heck! No wonder there are a lot of consumers who are just sick of all the marketing ploy to get people to buy stuff. Well sure the sounds of Jingle Bells wafting through the air and the giant Santa Claus smack dab in the middle of the mall not to mention all the Christmas ads makes you want to puke in your mouth a little bit but it does get you wondering what to buy your aunts, cousins and relatives for the Holidays. And so it is with these impure thoughts have I been drooling over the iPhone. After seeing the commercial and all the hype, I look at the TV screen pretty much like Mowgli in the Jungle book (you know, that scene where his eyes get real big like saucers?). I am transfixed, mesmerized, hooked, stupefied. For the first time in my technophobe life I am craving a techno-gadget! Me! The same person who cannot figure out how to program the VCR or even TiVo (if we had one) would like a 21st century modern day invention. Who am I and where is the real me?

But yes, I am craving the iPhone. I even announced it one day while I was watching TV at the basement. The iPhone commercial came in and I yelled “Daddy, I want an iPhone”. To which FishermanHubs replied “yeah right”. He insists that iPhones are only for those who a)have nothing better to do with their lives  or b) have a lot of time on their hands. This from the same man who needs to have the latest electronic gadget.

Whatever, I still want an iPhone for Christmas.

image credit: www.wireless.att.com

I’m Baaaaack!

It’s been almost a month and so much has happened. Life has taken on crazy twists and turns and I have tried my best to navigate through. I have come out of it still shaken and woozy but alive nonetheless. And maybe in the course of the coming days I will be able to divulge everything, well almost everything, that transpired. Although there are some things I’d rather forget.

Christmas is almost here and I am one of the few (or the many, depends which way you look at it) who gets depressed around the holidays. But no matter how down I feel, I still make the trek to the malls and shopping outlets to snag the best deals for Christmas gifts. This year though, I am a little late. It used to be that before Black Friday even starts or immediately after, I have scratched off my gift list. Not this year. Sure I look forward to my Mom and my sister who will fly over from FL and some relatives and close friends will join us for lunch but somehow, I am not feeling the Christmas spirit. We just bought our tree - fresh because FH insists on getting a live one, ’tis the smell, he says, 2 weeks before the big day. It is standing on the side of the living room, bare except for one ornament G made. He hung it there himself, so it won’t look naked, he says. I shrug it off, feeling sorry for the tree - taken from the lot where all the fresh trees were and now thrust into the warm house where it stays naked and bare for the next 3 days. I have to wait ’til weekend to decorate it. I didn’t find the lights in the 5 red Rubbermaid bins marked “xmas”. And so will wait until the kids have gone off school and FH is off work. The tree will finally get the attention over the weekend.

I might be better off tomorrow. When the stockings are hung and the lonely wreath we have hanging in the foyer will be joined by reds and greens and golds. It has taken me a long time but it’s going to be okay.

Just wanted to say I’m back.

Behind

I am lagging behind in my blog. There are so many things I want to write about - G’s Mexican fiesta themed birthday party, the shuttling to and fro for school Thanksgiving lunches, the colors of fall, the house that turned into a B&B for the nth time, the weight gain, the endless parties, FishermanHub’s flu, C’s thoughts on girls, etc etc. I can go on and on and I cannot seem to be able get my thoughts together and start writing.

I apologize for the tags, memes and awards that I have yet to do/give. Life is crazy right now. Will be back as soon as I feel the need to rise above the surface to get me some air.

For now, happy thanksgiving everyone!

I Wear My Eyeglasses At Night

In the 5 stages of Loss after denial, the last stage of which comes acceptance. In my case, it’s my loss of perfect vision and the need to wear eyeglasses. It all became apparent after I cannot read the street signs from a distance. And at night, I had to squint when I drive. Reading, which I love has become a chore and a headache, literally. And so, after reluctantly accepting the fact that maybe, just maybe, I really need to have my eyes checked, did I go to the Optometrist. As expected, he declared that my right eye is near sighted. Which would have been okay had I not been right eye dominant. My left eye was perfectly 20/20 except for what appeared to be old scars. What? My left eye has scars? Did you have an injury? the doctor asked. I shook my head no. What about in your childhood? I have no idea. Note to self: call my Mom in FL. The doctor then proceeded to tell me how I need to have eyeglasses and that instead of wearing bifocals, I should wear what they call progressive. The top part of the glasses was for distant vision - so I would be able to read street signs, the middle part whenever I’m at the computer and the lower part for reading. The doctor did advise me that it would feel weird the first few weeks after I’ve had the glasses and I might even be dizzy. Great! I am looking forward to it.

Choosing the eyeglasses itself meant I had to take a vote from all 3 boys - FishermanHubs and the 2 kids. After narrowing down the choices to 2 and being deadlocked (gee, you would think we were voting for the next Mayor), we finally decided on my new glasses. We had to take votes from the assistants and the staff too. My oldest son C wears glasses and FishermanHubs wears reading glasses (which he refuses to wear in public) so it is only youngest son G who has 20/20 vision.

It has been 2 weeks now and after a near collision with a car while I was driving under the bridge in the rain, I am still unsure if I will ever get used to this whole eyeglass-wearing thing.

Rainy Days and Thursdays (and Pushing Daisies)

Unlike Garfield and Karen Carpenter’s song - it isn’t Mondays that gets me down, it’s Thursdays. For some unknown reason, or maybe it’s Murphy’s Law that is only applicable to me - it always rains on Thursdays. I know, I know, we need the rain but it isn’t only now that this happened. It always rains on Thursdays. Which I hate because it’s dark and cold and gloomy outside and it affects my mood big time! Add to that the fact that I have to drive the kids to Taekwondo at night and I might as well be as blind as a dingbat. Rain and dark nights are a bad combination for me and my mediocre driving skills are put to the test. I drive slowly in the rain, as the car behind me must have been cursing me to high heavens for doing a 25-30 on a 35 while others are doing a 45. Oh well, at this point, I don’t care. All I want is to be safe and to get to the destination safely.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the rain. In fact my favorite poem is Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Rainy Day. And I know how vital rain is to living things. It is driving in the rain that gets to me. If I can, I’d rather stay home. Cuddled up with a good book, a hot cocoa and a fleece throw, I’m all good. But we gotta go what we gotta do and so I do it no matter how much I hate doing it.

The only thing I like about Thursdays is Ugly Betty and Grey’s Anatomy. Like I said, they’re the only shows I look forward to every week. But this season, on Wednesdays add to that Pushing Daisies to the list of our must-see TV.

A new forensic-fantasy-love story. Even my kids watch it. They like how the main character Ned has the power/ability to touch dead people and bring them to life, tell them how they died and solve the murder/mystery. The visuals are stunning too! Think Edward Scissorhands. Anna Friel, Ned’s love interest in the show looks like Audrey Taotou. She’s really pretty and charming. And the storyline about them not being able to touch - oh the angst! the drama! the suspense! I love it. I’m in it for the love angle, the kids are in it for the dead bodies coming to life.

So therefore, I might bitch and moan about hating Thursdays but I do look forward to Thursday nights. And that’s what gets me through the day.

image credits: www.abc.go.com

In Search of a Better Whatever

I am running low on my pressed powder. And even though it works for me - good coverage, SPF and all, I want to switch brands and try a different one. Not that I am being disloyal to the brand but that because I wanted to know if there is something out there that can be better than what I have.  This attitude of mine drives FishermanHubs nuts! I do it to my recipes too. I tweak recipes even though to him it’s perfect. But then to me, it’s not. Because I want to make it better. And to him it’s okay the way it is, don’t mess with a good thing. For me though, I have this itch to make it better. What if I revised a recipe altogether and make a really really good recipe. Good enough to build an empire around? To live off of when I get rich famous for devising a recipe that is so good, people would crave for it and order it by the dozen? Okay, so maybe it won’t happen like that but hey, a girl can dream! I read about those success stories about people who create their own recipes and make a living out of it and live comfortably and still love what they’re doing. Provide jobs to people, be comfortable enough to buy their own dream house, pay off the mortgage and travel once in a while to exotic places. “Have a craving for pho? Let’s go to Vietnam!” That kind of thing. But oh well, back to my face powder.

FishermanHubs wants me to stick to the brand. “It works for you”, he said.

Me: “But the thing is, sometimes my face still looks oily even with the powder.”
FH: “Yeah well it’s better that your face is oily. Then you won’t have as much wrinkles”.

I roll my eyes and don’t say anything. At this point I don’t even know if I want to buy pressed powder. Maybe I’d hold off until the very end. When I can see the bottom of the container. Then I can decide. Should I stick to the old? Or try something new?

Restriction schmestriction!

What do you do when something you want to do is restricted by your husband? Do you give in and just resign yourself to this horrible fate? Or do you fight back and stand your ground? In my case, I did both.

When FishermanHubs restricted my yard sale shopping a couple of months ago, I reluctantly agreed. But deep inside, I know I can never turn back on yard sale, flea market, vintage store, bargain shopping. And so I devised an evil plan - I called on the help of my friends and asked them to clean their closets and declutter our lives. Yup, I told them that we will be hosting a multi-family yard sale. At first we scouted flea market listings so we don’t have to do the advertising ourselves. All we needed to do was pay for a table and we’re in business. Another friend had a better idea: why don’t we do it in someone else’s front yard, have a pot luck/barbecue and the kids can all gather and play in the backyard. It sounded like a plan and that’s what we did. Everybody was happy, we unloaded a lot of stuff (whatever didn’t sell was donated to the Salvation Army), we had fun while doing it and earned money too.

And so after emptying the attic, I turned around and bought more stuff. Silently, slealthily and carefully.

Here then are some of my yard sale finds:

sterling silver earrings still in box, shaped like flowers with punched dot effects - $2.50 (the Lady was asking $5.00 but I got it down to $2.50)

black and white photos of local places in the area. I was kicking myself when I got home for not buying everything. These would look really nice framed in black. The seller said her sister took these shots themselves, mounted them and never got round to framing them. $0.25 each

These were just some of my finds. I am getting really picky now and not buying something just ’cause I like it. I am, after all, restricted.