525 votes

Maxine joined a contest in facebook made by Picture Company. Here's the gist of the contest.
It's the time of the year once again, where kids get to dress up and be anyone/anything they want to be!

Since we've been showing albums of our costumes for a while, this time, we want to let you brag about your costumes! Send-in home photos of your costumes (babies, kids, families) with your name and contact numbers to halloween@picturecompany.com.ph We'll keep adding the entries that make it into this album, (one entry per family please!) and we'll let you campaign and make your friends become fans to vote! Put a thumbs up on your favorite photo to vote :) Voting ends October 31, 2009 at exactly 12 midnight. The winner with the most "Likes" will be announced the next day. :) The winner will get: (1) year FREE membership which will be valid in all TPC branches. (4) FREE 8x10 portraits on your first session, to start you off. Happy shooting!

We began by asking our friends to vote and on day 1 it seemed like an easy enough win for us. We were only competing with a mermaid that in my arrogant opinion is no match, NONE at ALL, against my Maxine. We easily got 100 votes in that day. My hubby and I even checked all the other contests for what the most number of votes was. The great big number is 307. On day 2 this little darna girl started to climb up fast our lead was double hers but not after a few hours. She gaines so fast we really thought she would be able to catch up, i think so did she. She never gave up, but neither did we. Ending of my story is, My little ducky won by more than 100 votes. But we wouldn't have been able to do it on our own. My parents of course called up their relatives and friends who had facebook and asked them to vote. Jong whose seen the ducky picture months ago rallied up his troops and gained votes for us. Ken Ang who is going to be the ninong of our next child actually told his employees to stop working for 5 mins just to vote and then that night he was at a party with his cousins and brought his laptop and asked them all to vote. Olie in papa new guinea, my brother and his friends in NY all asked their family and friends to vote. In the end we did win, by over 100 votes. We got 525 votes total :) I am so grateful to the people who took the time to support me and let the truth prevail that Maxine indeed is the cutest baby in the bunch.

Breakdown

My phone and not me. haha

This is what I get for always forgetting my phone. Finally it has given up on me... on my birthday! Apparently my phone has been selectively receiving messages since two weeks ago. Last monday, I had trouble accepting calls but I thought it was just the place where I was. However, no texts were coming in. Today, my cousin was able to temporarily fix my phone. I still cannot accept that my phone has gone kaput. My blackberry and I shared good memories together. I'm giving it one more chance to redeem itself.

A Scoop or Two

A few scoops of what we ate yesterday. Another perfect day :)

Changes

I sit here on my desk and i think to myself... How things have changed. This picture was taken more than 3 years ago. We were in tagaytay in P's house. Notice that the guy behind me is V and how chummy we once were, hahaha. There was once a time when i saw these guys more than 3x a wk, now, maybe 3x a month?Things change but stay the same too, we were playing cards. They still play cards when they go out of town. Most of the men in the picture are drunk, they still get crazy drunk when they go out of town. Gladly, the difference now is that there are more women and the ladies i get to hangout with are easier to talk to. Some friendships just aren't meant to last. Pictures fade and new memories are made with the people you're meant to be with now.

M, the girl in grey is Genie D. haha. Backpack ny ayun nasa table :)

Hospitals

I hate hospitals. They have a distinct smell, a smell that smells too clean. If there is sucha thing. The smell stinks so much that even if there's a Seattle's Best in Cardinal you don't really get to inhale deeply and enjoy the scent of coffee.

My angkong is on the same floor as I was when I gave birth to Bear. And even with those fond and blurry memories I still hated going to the hospital. Cardinal is where my Gwakong died in the emergency room and where my Gwama died on the 6th floor. I hate Cardinal.

Every week we are reminded, or at least I am, of how short life can be. In this case, life has been long but unkind. When we are at death's door, regret always comes to mind. What do we regret doing and not doing. Coulda, woulda, shoulda. So, everyday i hug a little tighter and a bit longer. I use my energy to play more. I eat richer and more spoonfuls of what i love. I do what I want and I try my best to spend my time building bridges and crossing them carefully. Because you never know when death will come knocking at your door.

Lets spend time together while we still can. :)

My Perfect Day

I once saw a Haagen Daz buffet and thought I was dreaming. I wasn't, my ice cream buddy and I were in Singapore and we chanced upon it, we were in heaven. A limited time kind of heaven because we were going to watch a concert so we weren't really able to eat our fill. I have been nagging about finding another Haagen Daz buffet and FINALLY it has come to our country!

After a couple of plans that didn't push thru and a friend passing away, I decided to just go and eat by myself. Life is short, we ought to do the things we love while we still can. I would have preferred to have eaten the buffet with my loved ones, but all are busy with work and etc so there I sat, in the corner table and i ate. I ate and ate and ate. I read while eating, I shivered but I kept on eating. I took a crap and then ate some more. I ate like there was no tomorrow. It was my perfect day. Thank you haagen daz for giving me another perfect day :) Til I eat again.Chocolate macadamia brittle, vanilla and strawberry
Tiramisu and Midnight cookies and cream
Cappucino Truffle and Macadamia Brittle
Melon and Melon
cherries and cream and strawberry cheesecake
my last scoop and fave... Melon.
my book, scoop card and ice cream!

Dear Pag-asa

For your easy reference, I am compiling a list of reasons why your weather predictions are always off tangent. You may pick one or combine two or more reasons to make them sound more believable.

1. The typhoon suddenly changed direction.

2. God heard our prayers.

3. Our equipments are so old that they give out inaccurate predictions.

4. The wind hit a low pressure area which combined with the hot atmosphere caused the monsoon blah blah blah. (make it sound as complicated as possible)

5. Global warming 

There.

You have been threatening us with a super typhoon since friday. It has been six days and we have only received a few raindrops. Ano ba. 

Dayoff

Monday:
yaya: ma'am lalabas ako sa thursday, may lakad ba kayo?
ma'am: meron pero sige ok lang agahan mo nlng umuwi.
yaya: ok

Thursday: Its raining hard
ma'am: lalabas ka pa ba?
yaya: di nlng siguro kasi baka baha na eh
ma'am: ok

Friday:
ma'am: kung gsto mo sa sunday ka nlng lumabas para andito si Sir.
yaya: ah ok cge.

Sunday:
ma'am: anung oras ka uuwi?
yaya: 7-7:30
ma'am: ok..

Sunday
7:30pm Yaya is not yet home. We were staying at my mom's house and i put her to bed already because it was so late. My mom and i decided not to scold the maid anymore because she might feel na sobra syang importante.

8:30pm Yaya comes home.
Mom: Yaya, anung oras na?
Yaya: ma'am naglakad pako galing sa simbahan etc etc etc
Mom: sa susunod kung anung oras sinabi mo uuwi ka ganun dapat.

Monday:
yaya: ma'am bkt pako kelangan sermonan eh galing ako sa labas nag enjoy ako tas pag uwi ko ganun na. once a month nlng nga ako nakakalabas tas ganyan pa. ilang minutes lng ako late mapapagalitan pako dahil dun. Nagsimba pako kaya ako nalate. Pinagbigyan ko nlng nga kayo na di ako lumabas nung Thrusday eh at Sunday ako lumabas

ma'am: 1 hour and 30mins is not sandali. Kung sa sine, tapus na yun. Kung sa mtg, wala ka ng kausap. At sana nagsimba ka ng 6pm para 730 andito ka na. At lahat naman ng katulong once a month lang lumalabas pero nakakauwi sila ng maaga

yaya: eh kasi nga gsto ko magsimba sa gabi. tska ang dami kong pang ginawa. at nagcocommute lng ako, sana kung may kotse ako tulad niyo maaasahan ko yun oras ko. Nilakad ko nlng yun simbahan papunta dito.

ma'am: gabi na ang 6pm. wala ng point pag usapan pa ito kasi di mo naman tatanggapin na mali ka sa oras mo. kung 7pm eh di 7pm sobra sobra na ang 1hour late, eh ikaw lampas 1 oras ka pa.

and so the conversation went on and on for 30 mins. Do u know how it feels to talk to a dog? Or any other pet? Well, it's more enjoyable to do that than to talk to a yaya who thinks she's the boss. To look for logic from them is to look for milk in a man's breast. I wasted 30mins of my life talking to a person who does not have ears, she just wanted to say to me that I dont have the right to scold her because she didn't do anything wrong. "sanay kasi ako sa datinig mga amo ko overnight ako, pinagbigyan nlng nga kita na di ako nagoovernight" Ako pa pala yun pinagbibigyan. WOW. So, now im searching for a new yaya. Pls help.

Robots Are Our Future

I used to dread the yaya's dayoff. Maxine has always been the kind of baby who grows attached easily to people and she, like her mother has a mind of her own and is willfull and loud when she doesn't get her way. She used to let only her yaya feed her. She would refuse her bottle even if she was so hungry. She preffered to cry herself to sleep instead of eat, and all this was when she was only 3months old. Today Maxine is almost 10months old. She is my everything. She doesn't have a facial expression that I dont love. Even when she's red from screaming in anger I still feel the same. Today was yaya's dayoff, I am super glad that i decided to make her take the dayoff on a Sunday bec the hubby is home the whole day. We went to visit her Ninong's house and there we spent a total of 3hours. Where we all sat on the couch and watched tv. Maxine got to touch a dog's face, pull the back of a fax machine and eat an apple. Time flew by so quickly that I am now deluded into thinking that i dont really need a yaya. I can do this on my own. I hope reality sets in quickly as I am annoyed at the yaya for being almost 2hrs late in returning home.

Maxine is the joy of my life and if i could i would want a huge family, at least 3 kids. But the stress involved in taking in more household help stops me from even thinking of having any more children. How i wish for the day when they will come out with a robot nanny who can do all the things a yaya does. Feed, change and clean. The yayas want to think they do more but they dont. At least maxine's yaya doesnt, bec she makes the maid carry maxine around when im not looking and its the maid that plays with maxine while she's doing whatever. She lets Maxine play alone in her crib while she's sleeping the whole afternoon. Maybe we have perfect babies thats why we can never get a perfect yaya. There has to be a balance in the world.

No to Plastic

I always had an aversion to plastic (both bags and people haha). I never saw the use of straws in fastfood joints nor those small bags that hold medicine. I tease my mom that it's my way for compensating for her love for plastics, especially ziplocks. 

Ondoy seemed to have reminded us that all the plasic that we thought we threw away are actually just lying around. Last week, I finally remembered to stuff my ecobag inside my purse. I'm still trying to figure out how to eliminate our grocery bags, since we actually use them to line our trashcans. Any ideas?

At the Racetrack

That's me and my brother after winning two thousand mega bucks in hongkong dollars! heehee. I love it, i love it, even more than disneyland!

Death

2 things are certain in life, death and taxes. A person I know passed away yesterday. He wasn't feeling well the night before and then he just didn't wake up the next day. It made me realize alot of things I already knew but didn't practice.
1. They always tell us not to go to sleep angry, but hubby and i never followed that, we'd usually make up the next day when our heads have cooled. Last night we promised we'd try to fix things before going to sleep.
2. Stop wasting time.

Update About Me

I reintroduced 2 friends to each other a few months ago. They are now chatting with each other everyday. I know it seems lame but I am so kilig I need to blog about it.

I am hoping that my bff can still buy Maxine's finger foods that are only available in the states. There are a few flavors in HK but genius me forgot to ask Mon to buy them when she was there. I only remembered today, she arrives today.

I love having cupcakes in the ref, Mon sent over 3 dozen cupcakes and I am sharing sparingly. :D

I am going to get to eat at the Haagen Daz buffet tom, hopefully it will not disappoint. I have been thinking about it so much that last night i actually dreamt about it and that all the flavors are gone. Even vanilla, i even had my game plan in my dream that i would start with the plain flavors and move on to the more complex ones. However in my dream the only flavors available were pepperoni pizza and adobo and other gross flavors, i woke up angry.

Maxine needs socks with the rubber thingies underneath so she can start walking on the floor, they cost 500php a pair. exag. ang mahal dba??

I haven't watched a movie in wks and there's no nice movie coming out soon. BOO!

Lastly, I finally got my period again. After 18mos of not having that unsightly visitor, its back! And I am happy because this also means I can get preggos again. Dilemma of the week, Euro trip is to be postponed to April, preggo ppl cannot fly long flights during the 1st trimester. DO i try and get pregnant now or after the trip?

The Fear of Rain

Is there a word for fear of rain? I think my mom has it, and to think that our house was spared from the flood. She was so pre-occupied with the suppposed super typhoon that every bit of raindrop last friday alarmed her. She was in the verge of panic buying, sabi ko - ano ba, thats so 90's. di na uso yan. Besides, if Pag-asa gives out a warning, then it probably won't happen. O diba, wasn't I right?