veggie tale update

the flowers are thriving. the veggies may not survive the season. tsk tsk tsk. i knew i should have added compost or added garden soil to the plant boxes. nagtitipid kasi e! haaay! oh well. if they die, i'll know what to do next time.

just plant flowers!!!! =)

great expectations

jane austen's pride and prejudice bored me. i read about 1/5 of the book and today returned it to the library, unfinished. maybe because i've seen the movie that's why i lost interest or it might be something else...i'm not sure. all i know is that i should not renew the book again knowing i will keep putting it off.

i went to the library hoping to come home with dan brown's angels and demons. i want to read the book before the movie comes out. unfortunately for me, someone has already checked the book out but the library will contact me as soon as the book gets returned.

not wanting to come home empty handed, i walked up and down the fiction section of the library and saw great expectations by charles dickens. i've only finished the first chapter but it's already proving to be more interesting than my previous read. don't get me wrong, pride and prejudice is an awesome book but i just couldn't read it so dapat itigil na. wag na pilitin.

have i mentioned i want to read the '100 greatest books of all time'? out of 100, i have read the following:

• Beloved by Toni Morrison (saw the movie, too)
• The Book of Job (yes, the one from the Bible)
• Fairytales and Stories by Hans Christian Andersen (maybe not all of his work, but a good number)
• Hamlet by William Shakespeare (read it in high school...oh wait! i think i read cliff notes, i'm including this to my 'read' [past tense] list anyway!)
• Pride and Prejudice (like Hamlet, i'm putting it on this list even if i haven't finished. saw the movie also)
• Thousand and one nights (read it in college)
• Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (i will finish this book!!!)

7 out of 100...not a bad start!

no job? will travel

i'm praying we can scrape enough money for airfare to go to europe with friends in june.


i'll keep praying and praying and praying and praying.


paul will do some praying but mostly the scraping. =D

allergies

my allergies are keeping me quiet and making me miserable.


very, very, very miserable.

me, i say boycott!

i found out from my best friend who found out from her husband. i'm not the type to post things like these, but i had to make an exception to this egregious act.

Proverbs 16:18-19 (New International Version)
Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.
Better to be lowly in spirit and among the oppressed than to share plunder with the proud.

can you imagine what the employees feel? (i can't stop shaking my head in disgust!)

google the designer and you'll find all sorts of hits. i found this link where you can let the guy know directly what you think of him (like i did, no i didn't cuss. we can express anger and outrage without stooping to this guy's level). http://www.boyetfajardo.com/home.php?index=6

like i said, payback's a b**tch!

None but Jesus - Hillsong

I love this song! Jesus bless us all!

my little garden

affordable entertaining

another fantastically frugal tip:

i stopped by st. vincent de paul yesterday to see if they had any cheap furniture i could use around the house. no success there, but i found wine glasses that they were selling for $10 for a set of 8. i didn't buy it, but now i know where to go if i needed them when i have a large number of guests over. that's so much cheaper than getting new glasses at target where you'll spend about $20 for a set of 4.

veggie-tale

i was in no mood to work out after the short visit to the california academy of sciences with michelle and ate jeen. i still wanted to do something productive so i decided to head to lowe's and get started on our mini-vegetable garden.

we now have a small plot with japanese eggplant, broccoli, roma tomatoes, bell peppers and jalopenos. i also planted daisies, primroses, and marigolds to encourage the butterflies and bees to come for pollination. i was tempted to buy a dwarf lemon tree but i know i wont be able to dig a big enough hole on my own so i resisted.

i'll post pictures when the little plant box is complete. we need a few more veggies and several more flowers.

this planting thing is making me happy. i remember when i was a kid i would throw bell pepper seeds along the side of our house and make it grow. we were able to use the bell peppers for my mom's mechado a couple of times. i bought michelle her own little pink trowel and garden gloves in pink/yellow so she can 'help' me garden. so far she's had great fun flinging dirt all over the backyard and running away from ants and spiders. cutie!

once we get the rest of the backyard cleaned up, paul, my dad, and i agreed that it will largely consist of fruit-bearing trees (apples, oranges, lemons, persimon), more veggies, and some grapes. ambitious!!! =)

btw, nutty chocolate croissant pudding was available at tselogs today. i wonder if they liked it... =)

what is YOUR purpose?

You will enjoy the new insights that Rick Warren has, with his wife now having cancer and him having 'wealth' from the book sales. This is an absolutely incredible short interview with Rick Warren, 'Purpose Driven Life ' author and pastor of Saddleback Church in California.

In the interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren, Rick said:

People ask me, What is the purpose of life?

And I respond: In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were not made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven.

One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body-- but not the end of me. I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions of years in eternity. This is the warm-up act - the dress rehearsal. God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity.

We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn't going to make sense. Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you're just coming out of one, or you're getting ready to go into another one.

The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort; God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy. We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ likeness.

This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer.

I used to think that life was hills and valleys - you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don't believe that anymore. Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it's kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life. No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on. And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for.

You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems: If you focus on your problems, you're going into self-centeredness, which is my problem, my issues, my pain.' But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others.

We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay or make it easy for her- It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her character, given her a ministry of helping other people, given her a testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people. You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life.

Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. For instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it made me instantly very wealthy. It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with before. I don't think God gives you money or notoriety for your own ego or for you to live a life of ease.

So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety and influence. He gave me two different passages that helped me decide what to do, II Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72.

First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our lifestyle one bit.. We made no major purchases. Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from the church. Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace Plan to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, and educate the next generation. Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years since I started the church, and I gave it all back. It was liberating to be able to serve God for free.

We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity? Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God's purposes (for my life)?

When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, God, if I don't get anything else done today, I want to know You more and love You better. God didn't put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He's more interested in what I am than what I do. That's why we're called human beings, not human doings.

God's Blessings
Happy moments, PRAISE GOD.
Difficult moments, SEEK GOD.
Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD.
Painful moments, TRUST GOD.
Every moment, THANK GOD.

london symphony orchestra

lai took me out on a date tonight to see/hear the london symphony orchestra at the davies symphony hall in the city.

i should have known that since this is lai taking me out, we were going to be late. so guess what time this girl picked me up for the show that starts at 7 pm? 635!!! it wasn't like they were performing next door! memories of our trip to disneyland ten years ago kept rushing back into my mind. i kept my cool back then (it was chel who got upset with lai), tonight, i told myself it was not the end of the world if we were late so i took it lightly...but i still had to tell her were going to be late. we were zooooooming through the freeway like thelma and louise and reached the venue with about 8 mins to spare. but we still had to find parking...we found a parking lot just a block away but they only take cash, so lai and i got out while the valet parked the car: i wait for the keys while lai runs to the atm machine across the street (in her dress and high heels). we pay the valet and make a mad dash to the hall... we were being applauded as we were being ushered to our seats (sikat!)...oh wait, the applause was for the conductor who was walking his way up to the podium. as soon as our bottoms hit the seat, the orchestra started to play. talk about perfect timing!

the performance was amazing. it was our first symphony and it wont be our last...especially if we get free tickets like we did today! hehe it was a great experience. you can feel the energy of the performers and the conductor. the music will really stir your emotions...there were parts when i was thinking, 'oooh, this would be background music for a really romantic scene in a movie' or 'this is when the lovers fight and break up' (hopeless romantic). the pieces performed were by sergei prokofiev. like you, i've never heard of him but judging by tonight's performance, he is one goooood composer.

after the show, we met up with t and chel at old siam thai for some good food and fried bananas with ice cream.

a perfect ending to a great evening.

a 'sinfully' wonderful afternoon

i had a 'sinful' afternoon with the women of vov today.

we had pork bbq, inihaw na tilapia, inihaw na talong with bagoong and mangga, ginataang hipon, grilled veggies and pritong saging with macapuno ice cream...haaay! lahat masarap! the bbq was IT for me. cherie makes the best filipino style bbq i've ever had. it was sooooo good. i had so much fun hanging out with my fellow nanays and sharing motherhood woes and wishes. i am blessed to have these beautiful women in my life. mayaman talaga ako. =)

kaya sinful...kasi these same women are trying to lose weight like me. these women are the women i go with to the gym. sinful kasi today we ate all the calories we burned the last several days of sweating it out at the gym.

so bukas i'm back to square one. OUCH!!!

time's a tickin'!!!!!!

on a semi-related note...i'm getting bloodwork done this friday or saturday to get my thyroid checked again.

ang bisnes, bow!

i had a major boo boo with the bibingka i intended on making for tselogs this morning, (too much flour and not enough eggs...i seriously lost count. ang terrible ko sa math! hanggang sa pagbebake, nadadala!) so no bibingka today. tomorrow, i deliver (marunong na akong magbilang!).

anyway, michelle and i were at the restaurant earlier today to deliver the pies that i baked last night. around lunch time, this guy from the car shop next door stopped by to get his meal. he went to the fridge, got himself a coke, paid for his food and left. all this while chit-chatting with chel and all of us, he's a regular customer. after the guy left, i asked chel, 'you charged him for the soda, right?'. chel replied, 'what soda?' long story short, this guy has a history of getting a soda and never paying for it. i thought to myself, will stealing that one soda add any value to his life? will it make him rich? parang, ano yun? hindi naman sya naghihirap. sya nga may trabaho, ako wala e. although libre naman ang food ko sa tselogs...but that's not the point. the point is, bakeeeeeeet? and to think he goes there all the time? he's always treated well and he seems to be friendly. you really can't tell what makes people tick.

the restaurant has an interesting array of customers. meron naman dating customer, pati toilet paper sa ladies room, kinuha. whenever this family comes into the restaurant, on guard na kaming lahat dahil for sure, may item na magdidisappear. nakakalungkot. buti nalang they moved far away na. they're probably terrorizing another local restaurant and taking their toilet paper! pero mas marami namang customers ang matitino. chel has told me about so many interesting people she's met at the restaurant. minsan tuloy, i wish i was a people person para marami akong nakakausap...pero i don't like asking questions and really not comfortable being asked too many questions by a stranger so parang di ako intresado makipagusap. hindi lang talaga ako matanong. tipong, i'd rather read than ask.

halata bang wala ako maisulat. hindi ako masyado naghahanap ng trabaho. masaya pa ako sa bahay and nakakasideline naman ako sa pagbebake ko. i thinking more and more about opening my own bakery SOMEDAY. basta, the Lord will give me the wisdom and the resources if this is really what he wants me to do. i already have a name for the bakery...

i really need to start going to bed early so i can wake up early. this baking thing does not go well when michelle is up and asking me questions while i bake. yes, nagkamali ako ng bilang sa ingredients ng bibingka kasi i answered my daughter's question. hindi ko na maalala ang tanong pero i can't really just ignore my daughter while i bake. so ayun, palpak. she still thinks i'm the greatest mom in the world kahit na hindi ako perfect...at the end of the day, that's all that matters. =)

he is now a free man

nalungkot ako when i found out that francis magalona passed away. hindi naman ako big fan but i like his music and very much appreciate his talent. magaling talaga si francis m. i don't think anyone who is familiar with his music will second guess that he is indeed gifted. to have passed away at only 44, he could have done so much more. but then again, only God knows how much time we have in this world. he has already accomplished so much in his short life.


i pray for the love and comfort of the Lord to cover his family and friends and fans that mourn his loss. he will surely be missed.

facebook

i didn't think i'd like it, but i actually do! i'm reconnecting with the people i don't find on friendster and i think i even managed to find my college roommate from freshman year at davis. katuwa!!!