Demolition of the Old House

The old house now looks like a disaster. It's like a super cyclone suddenly descended upon it. The roof and the ceiling are gone, the marble tiles have been plucked out. Some of them were piled together with the heavy wood beams (for reselling). The roof was leaking in many places and the ceiling deteriorated because of it.

On the left part of the picture used to be the kitchen, and behind it, the bathroom. The one on the right used to be a bedroom which we called the blue room. The room itself wasn't actually colored blue. It's the door and closets that were painted blue. The other 2 bedrooms were likewise named as the green room and the pink room.

Love this Song!

Panalangin Sa Pagiging Bukas Palad
Bukas Palad Music Ministry
Words and Music by SJ Frs. T. Ofrasio, J Arboleda, M. Francisco

Panginoon, turuan Mo akong maging bukas-palad
Turuan Mo akong maglingkod sa Iyo
Na magbigay nang ayon sa nararapat
Na walang hinihintay mula sa 'Yo

Nang makibakang di inaalintana
Mga hirap na dinaranas
Sa tuwina'y magsumikap na hindi humahanap
Ng kapalit na kaginhawaan
Na 'di naghihintay kundi ang aking mabatid
Na ang loob Mo'y siyang sinusundan

Panginoon, turuan Mo akong maging bukas-palad
Turuan Mo akong maglingkod sa Iyo
Na magbigay nang ayon sa nararapat
Na walang hinihintay mula sa 'Yo

Clearing the Renthouse Backyard

After typhoon Frank left, it’s now time clear the backyard of dried felled branches. These are those that were cut by relatives of the owner a few days after we moved here. This stuff is one big fire hazard.


So we cut the branches even more, separating the dried leaves. The leaves were burned. And the storeroom was cleared too. There were plenty of old shoes, paper, an old tv, underwear and termites. We felt like after all the previous occupants didn’t do sh!t and fate just waited for us to clear this storeroom. Here’s how the backyard looked like later in the day. There was even enough heat in the fire pit to warm water!

Right Shoulder Therapy

Yesterday, it’s back at the Rehab Clinic for me. Ugh. Why does it always happen to me? This time it’s my right shoulder, which I think I busted in one swim session last summer. It’s been months that I’ve stopped swimming ever since I’ve started riding the service bus. But even so, I’ve been feeling a dull pain in my right shoulder that’s reminiscent of my left shoulder pain where I also had physical therapy last year.

It’s good that it isn’t as bad as my last shoulder pain though. Dr. Mancao said the left shoulder pain had the symptoms of a “frozen shoulder”. The right shoulder indicates MPS – Myofascial Pain Syndrome where muscle elasticity has been lost in my back. The diagnosis though was Anterior Bicepetal Tendinitis. Luckily, Martin the physical therapist is still around and he guided me through the exercises today after the usual hot compress and ultrasound. After the stretching exercises which I’m describing below, I felt instant relief!

Happy 14th Birthday Karen!

This is the first birthday celebration at the rented house. It’s too bad it was preceded by Snoopy’s death and told Karen to remember (I’m sure she will) the date. But hey, it’s STILL Karen’s day and so we had cake and a special treat from Ho Chail Lai resto!

Goodbye Snoopy

This morning old Snoopy died. She’s 12+ years old and had a lingering illness for quite a while. After a couple of days of a healthy appetite, we thought that she’d rebound but we were wrong. She’s the dog that stayed with us for the longest time and has been so valuable to us as a faithful guard dog as mentioned in this entry.


We were planning to move her in to the rented house tomorrow, Saturday, but that won't happen. She's guarded and stayed at our old house til the end.


Sleep tight, Snooks…

PCSO Lottomania!

I almost couldn’t believe it. I won in the 6/49 (Superlotto) and 6/45 (Megalotto) draws of PCSO in just a week! No not the jackpot, dummy. It’s just one of the minor prizes. I got 3 of the 6 numbers in BOTH draws correct.


So for both draws, I won a whopping grand total of Php140! That’s 100 pesos from 6/49 and 40 pesos from 6/45. Yup, it’s all balik-taya. I've already claimed the Php100. Anyway, who knows, I may hit it big one day.

Did you know that the National Hero Dr. Jose Rizal had “betting on the lottery” as his only vice? The guy even won the 2nd prize jackpot of 20,000 pesos which was divided among 3 gentlemen, him included. For his share, he bought 16 hectares of land in Dapitan. There’s so much reference about this fact in the web. Here’s one. Here’s another. This is really interesting trivia on the National Hero.

First Lunch at the Rent House

Since it’s a Saturday, here’s our first lunch and yes, I’d say we’re pretty much settled in the rent house. I’d rather call it “rent house” coz “rented house” sounds as creepy like “haunted house”. It doesn’t look cramp in the next pics coz we’re still expecting a few stuff - the big stuff, actually. Awaiting are the bookshelf, divider and the narra bed. Some of the other stuff that are not likely to be used in the next six months were already transported to one of the units in the apartment (Unit D).

Renz is all smiles for this first lunch photo inside the rent house.


Here's another shot of the gang with me at the living room. That's supposed to be the dining area with a kitchen. I say kitchen because there used to be a kitchen sink behind DH. See that protruding pipe for a faucet?

Renz has become impatient and Karen is starting to give me “the look” coz they hungry and don’t want any more picture-taking.


Here’s one of the last stuff to go from our old house – the Powerpuff Girls Height Chart tacked on the right side of the bookshelf. Karen has outgrown this height chart already since it is only 5 feet high. I remember the kids getting all excited whenever I took their height measurements. Well, except for Che, that is.


I’m rather melancholic as I write this. It’s been a while since I updated and there were times that I’ve forgotten about this blog. It’s like “does it even matter if I update the blog?” Maybe it’s the moving… or maybe it’s the lack of comments on this blog. I don’t know. I certainly haven’t gotten any comments for a long time. So hey, if you’re a regular reader, just say something, anything, ok?

Swimming at Dona Salud Resort

It’s Pansol swimming again, this time sponsored by the Calamba officemates.


I was there rather early coz I didn’t want to search for the place when it was already dark. These resorts in Laguna are notorious for lacking enough signs or maps even. The resort is just past Cuyab. Slow down once you see the Halfway 2000 signs and the Villa Virneo. Click here for their website and below is the location map.


The get together was supposed to start at 6pm but people started coming in past 6:30pm. Being the early bird, I asked the help to setup the videoke and I started singing away. Here's a shot of the swimming pool at the twin resort. But the pool we used had the same dimensions as this.


When the rest of the gang came at around 7:30pm, I hit the swimming pool. I forgot my goggles at home and was confident with the spare pair of goggles in my swim bag. But even that too proved to be bad news coz the nose piece broke as I tried it on. Arrgh!


And so I had to content myself swimming without goggles. It wasn’t a pleasant experience of course having gotten used to seeing everything underwater while swimming. After a while, even the lamp posts had this halo around the bulbs. It didn’t prevent me from doing all strokes though. Yup, I had no shoulder pain to contend with and I had the entire pool to myself. It’s great that the Calamba folks took one of the bigger resorts.

There was plenty of singing at the videoke. Thank God I had my turn singing earlier on!


There was lots of food: breaded chicken, pork adobo with eggs, menudo, pinaputok na tilapia, inihaw na pork chop, chicharon, barbecue, red wine and more. The food was so much better eaten with our hands. And so I quickly disposed the utensils.


For dessert, we had 2 Red Ribbon Black Forest cakes.


Sans my goggles, it was still enjoyable. I was too full after eating that I didn’t go back to the pool anymore. I showered, waited for a few minutes for Tony and left at around 10pm.

Last Few Days at the Old House

DH and I are still staying at our old house as the countdown begins. The pic below is our last dinner at the house last Monday with everybody raising their barbecue sticks.


I caught the kids still awake as they spent their first night at the renthouse. We moved their TV set there first so they’d be motivated to “camp out”. It’s Che and Karen who were a bit hesitant camping. But when we learned that they could get more TV channels at the renthouse, that made it easier.


It isn’t exactly Ritz Carlton, but it’ll have to do for the next 6 months or so. Outside, some of the big branches were felled by the owner’s stepmom and assistant last Sunday coz he thought it was a big hazard during typhoons. We signed the lease contract last Saturday and gave the Php5k rent (1 month deposit, 1 month advance).


As of this writing, we’ve used up 35 boxes in the packing and moving and I’m sure at least half of that is something that we don’t need. Anyway, if there’s one thing that helped us in this moving “over the bakod” is my walkie-talkie radio. Communication and passing stuff between our old house and the renthouse is so much easier. I'm at our old house in this picture. It's almost empty now.


DH and I were both on leave today, Wednesday, to move more stuff like the refrigerator, the divider and the dining table. We needed the divider to place the stereo compo, speakers, tv and dvd player. So with everything in place now, the renthouse looks more homey. We had our first dinner at the renthouse today.

Oatmeal for Health

It’s been a week already since I’ve been eating oatmeal on a daily basis. And I think I don’t eat as much anymore in my regular meals coz of the feeling of fullness. Add to that is the many benefits I’ve read from the net like:

If you are suffering with constipation, irritable bowel syndrome, hemorrhoids or with some life threatening problems like colon cancer and coronary heart disease then chances are that the culprit is low fibre diet. It has been proved scientifically that a fibre rich diet helps in lowering cholesterol. It has been confirmed that high fibre diet also helps in cases of diabetes, obesity and cancer. Oats are highly nutritious and filled with cholesterol fighting soluble fibre. Like other grains oats do not lose their nutrients even after being hulled and processed.

Hmmm. That sounds REALLY good. Here’s another:

Oatmeal, or porridge if you live outside the US or Canada, play a major role in our modern diet yet few seem to know the true health benefits it gives. Oatmeal provides two of the required three daily servings of whole grains required in a healthy and balanced diet and this alone should help convince you to use it. However there is an added bonus because oatmeal (porridge) is the only whole grain recognized by the US FDA to help reduce cholesterol and reduce the risk of heart disease.
There is also a school of thought that claims that by eating filling foods in the morning you actually suppress appetite later in the day and this makes oatmeal an ideal breakfast for weight-watchers. Research clearly indicates:
People who eat breakfast, like a bowl of oatmeal for instance, tend to weigh less than those who skip it.
Adults that eat cereals, cooked or cold, have a lower body mass index than those who eat a combinations of meat and eggs, or those who skip breakfast altogether.

Here are six benefits of oatmeal that you may not be aware of.
Pinoys aren’t regular oatmeal eaters so this definitely has potential in my diet.
And if you think you're limited to the usual flavors commercially available, you could even easily prepare some oatmeal with Asian flavors!

House to Rent

Today we spent the entire day cleaning the house where we’ll stay while our old house of 20 years is demolished and a new house constructed in its place. The house we’ll rent is at the back of our house towards the right. In other words, it’s adjacent to our back neighbor. It's been vacated for almost 3 weeks now. In terms of location, it’s probably the best among the houses we looked. It’s also the cheapest at Php5K. Others ranged from 6K to 10K. But it’s also one of the most rundown as you’ll see later.

First on the list is access to the house. We cleared the backyard corners and put ladders. Here’s the red ladder going out from our house.


And here’s the ladder going into the renthouse backyard. That’s DH is going down from the ladder and Sandra’s on the red ladder in our yard.


It’s been almost a week that the kids have started assembling the boxes I took home from the office. Corz when there are empty big carton boxes, it becomes playtime especially for the young ones. Some of the books have already been removed from the bookshelves and placed inside.


There’s plenty of work to do in the renthouse. There are window panes that need caulking and empty panes that need to be covered.


The place isn’t very spacious inside, but it’ll have to do for the next 6 months or so. We’ll be seven occupying this renthouse. There are 2 bedrooms and some of the windows don’t even open. Ugh.


The backyard is big though and there are a couple of fruit-bearing mango trees. That’s Mang Bert the carpenter fixing-up the window panes. At the back corner is the ladder that leads to our house.


The front yard is full of overgrown weeds that needed clearing.


This is the garage that has plenty of roof leaks. One consideration we had when hunting for a renthouse is a covered garage for the car and for the dog.


Even little Renz helped in the clearing up operations, here raking up the weeds.


It’s gonna be tiring for the next few weeks!