Yes, I have been guilty and I have neglected my own blog for awhile now.  Suffice to say I am busy trying to make ends meet since my tenant in Manila is scheduled to move out soon.  We haven’t have any income aside from my earnings in oDesk for 2 months now.

She's eight years now

I am just amazed how my hardwork and sleepless nights and barrels of coffee continue to pull us through.  I am just happy that we are okay and we continue to thrive.  There is hope… there really might be a God.

My daughter Alis turned 8 weeks ago.  Yes, my oldest is 8 years old.  She has grown alot the past month and has gained some weight not to mention some ass.    Thanks to the Papua New Guinean gene, physique wise she will definitely be a head turner when she grows up.

Work with oDesk is fine except that the sleepless nights took and sapped my energy weeks ago that I had to let go of one of my top paying and demanding client.  Sayang, I know.  I really liked working with him.  But I was not getting enough sleep and I felt like burning both end of the candle and I simpy couldn’t work anymore.

After sending my resignation letter I thought, shit I could have just asked for a short break– I knew he would have given me a break, but I knew he needed so much help with all the things he has to do everyday. Anyway, bye to Vee for now.  I hope to bump into you one of these days.  Skype and Gmail will always be there…

And to Alis, keep your head up. You are going to be one fine woman and like I promised, we are okay and will continue to be fine.  I love you.

It was just so freakin hot where we’re at.  The weather was hot and balmy.  It’s was just like inside a steamy sauna room.  I remembered my first sauna experience at Fitness First years ago and I almost died inside.  It was just so balmy– I mean, that was what the sauna was about.  But I swear, I couldn’t breathe inside the room, and I was getting lightheaded even.

I thought the 10 minute sauna would kill me… it didn’t.  Anyway, the heat here was tolerable and the children were enjoying their day outside with the neighbor’s children.  I heard their merriment as they told me their first attempt to fly a kite.  Boy I have never flown a kite before.

They were just so happy.  One of the older girls made a simple kite for my daughters. It was just one of those ones made of bamboo strips and simple chinese paper and nylon.  It was a joy watching my children play on the vacant lot near our house.  Hearing their peels of laughter was music to my ears.

How about you?  How was your day?  I sure hope it was as good as mine…

Related articles by Zemanta

• Wordy Wednesday: Flying a Kite (blisstree.com)
• Kites (citynoise.org)
• Gear For Kiteboarding – Your Safety Assured (raunchyjohnson.com)

Today my daughters Alis and Freida received their ribbons.  Pascalis is 5th in her class.  I am so happy that she managed to get a ribbon since she really worked hard this year and struggled with Filipino.  Freida made it to 4th in her class as well as Most Behave Award.  Naks…

Anyway, to make it worse, I took the digital camera with me without the batteries… DUH…

I also took the opportunity to drop by digitalhub to seek the help of an Apple Technician.  Well, it was confirmed that my adapter was indeed fried and I needed to replace it.

It cost me

Finally!  I snagged lifediscourse.com and got my friend Emily to install this cool theme for me.  I am so happy with the entire look and look forward to tweaking the theme and installing my own plugins.

I am currently very busy with my freelance work and I am currently adjusting to my work load.  My children are also adjusting with my work as I am up late at night since I work during EST and GMTimes.  It was pretty confusing and my body clock went haywire for awhile.

I have also installed several widgets in my Macbook so I can track time and my to-do list.  At any rate, I am happy that I am earning some cash myself and I did not have to worry about our finances now.  I have been praying hard for this and I am happy that I am able to earn additional income for my children and myself and I didn’t even have to leave the house!

I am just in cloud nine!

Thank you to Emily again and to my friends Karen and Cherryl who are with me all the way.  I love you guys!

My good friend Emma and family invited my children and myself to the beach to celebrate the New Year. It was fun and the children loved the day spent at the beach. I contributed and bought fresh fish for grilling. The day went and by with me hearing my children’s laughter.

Twas a good day to begin the year…

I took the children to the beach last Saturday. The day was special because it was a surprise… I cooked it up the other day after the local electric company announced that there will be a 4 hour brownout on Saturday. So rather than kill myself in a house devoid of the fan and other entertainment, I planned to take the kids out to the local beach.

Nothing fancy really… just plain, gray, sandy beach.

This is probably the simplest year for us ever! Apart from the Santa decoration on our main door, I decided not to buy any plastic tree here. For one, unlike in Manila, the beautiful and durable trees were quite expensive. However, from experience, the best time to bye Christmas trees is weeks AFTER Christmas, but that is for my frugal tips, this is my personal site, and I am here to tell you guys how the absence of decorations did not really affect any one of us.

Perhaps the fact that because of the economic difficulties and not alot of houses here have Christmas lights. I noticed a few houses with plastic trees and decoration, but it is obvious that these decorations were old and were bought years ago. I noticed ragged tassels and tarnished Christmas balls.

Like most people, we have skipped gift giving and decided to prepare another simpler Christmas dinner. The children has helped me with the menu because I thought that it would be best since Christmas is generally very important to children and it fosters the value of sharing, and family-giving. There is so much I was thankful for and I surmised that this is also the best time to celebrate that thankfulness.

My son Ty turned 3 today. Not only that, today marked the 1st year death anniversary of my mother. And hey, today also marked the 1st year since we came home to the Philippines to start life anew.

Today, a day so important to me and my children.

Would you eat ice cream made from breast milk?

The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has requested ice cream maker Ben and Jerry to consider using breastmilk as opposed to cows milk in order to “reduce the suffering of cows and calves and give ice cream lovers a healthier product.”  PETA has written the honchos behind Ben and Jerry stating that ice cream eaters would benefit more with ice cream made from breast milk than from cows since diary products are the main cause of obesity anyway.

PETA‘s proposal has been dismissed by Ben and Jerry and why wouldn’t they?  The idea of using mother’s milk for public consumption is ridiculous.  And besides, how can you process mother’s milk into ice cream?  But first things first…

Would you eat that ice cream?  Personally, I would, only if it came from my own mother’s breast!  (LOL)

To read more about this incredible news item, click here.

My children loves that movie Ratatouille by Disney and Pixar. We watch the movie everyday since my toddler simply love to watch “Rat-polly” as he calls it.

My daughters love the movie also. Every line is memorized by heart. Weeks ago, my eldest daughter asked me to prepare the dish Ratatouille. I was stumped. So there I was, firing up Google and hope I find the recipe for the dish. Good thing, my favorite blogs, Elise and Cooking for Engineers have the recipe. I printed both version and found that the dish has to be baked, which irritated me because I did not have an oven here. But at any rate, I think the dish can be prepared without the baking part and I found a recipe that did not require baking, courtesy of Provence Beyond.

Honestly, I doubt if the children would eat the dish because of the zucchini and eggplants, but I cannot guarantee everything, can I?

To watch a cut from the movie, click here or here.