Halloween 2009

In last year's Halloween activity at Renz's school, I wasn't around to take pics. But having been out of a job, I now have plenty of time to attend the kids' school activities.

Some of the students were asked to bring foodstuff and Renz brought donuts. There were only a few selected students who were assigned to bring something to eat. I hope he won't have to bring any foodstuff for the coming Christmas Party.

Here's Renz inside their classroom. That's him wearing his mask.

Birthday 2009

It was a quiet day yesterday and I spent most of the afternoon watching the complete downloaded youtube videos to date of Survivor Samoa. Yeah! :) Yup, I downloaded all 5 episodes. Thanx Youtube!

For dinner, we had special Lomi Guisado from Madam Billones. For Php35 for a big order, it's quite cheap! The Rocky Road cake was announced late. Here, Karen took the group picture since Tita Gay wasn't around.

United Nations Day 2009

It's another United Nations Day celebration over at Renz's school and yup, he's sporting an Indonesian "attire" again. Nope, can't vouch for the authenticity, but it's the same outfit he wore last year!

This year's parade was held in the morning though and everyone seemed to have enjoyed it more compared to the blistering heat of the afternoon sun last year. Renz's partner last year, Ira or Eira is still his partner this year although she's now wearing Mexico. She wore China last year.

Slow Day at the Pool - Not!

Just when I thought it would be another slow day of fitness swimming at the pool when a group of college-aged barkadahan met and mingled at the pool's gate. The lifeguard was summoned by one of the resort staff to clean the surroundings and mop wet spots around the pool.

Soon the barkada came in with some photographers and a couple of alalays. I thought it was a pictorial for some magazine.

Well I was wrong. It was a pictorial session for Mr. and Miss Lyceum. There were 10 ladies and a few guys. The guys were totally unremarkable. Each of the ladies had a a photo-op by the pool where I swam and they were in bikinis!

Traffic Monitoring by the Window

When we had our house constructed, I knew the second floor would give us a wider view of our surroundings.

Now I could see the rooftops of nearby bungalows.

Here's a view from a window looking over the rooftop of our front neighbor.

At this distance, I could also see a tiny speck of the expressway (SLEX).

Tennis Elbow or Lateral Epicondylitis

For a whole week I've stopped playing the piano and worked on a home project instead. I've had this nagging pain on my wrist that seemed to radiate from the right elbow and so decided to give the piano playing a rest.

Even the brief finger stretching exercises have not worked. It is a dull pain and feel it on my wrist and forearm when tipping my coffee mug to drink.

Apparently what I do have is a condition called Tennis Elbow. Yeah and I don't even play tennis. :(

Where did I get it then? About a month ago, I worked on a huge garden trellis that required me to repeatedly use pliers and vise grips for an extended amount of time.

Since I'm right-handed, the unbelievable amount of gripping work with the pliers to cut, bend and form steel wire had led to an overuse injury on my right forearm.

Typhoon Pepeng's High Cost of Vegetables

Ugh. Veggies prices soaring 300%! Can you believe this? With the provinces up north like Benguet and Baguio still isolated because of Typhoon Pepeng - you can. Here's the story from ABS-CBN.

I heard a simple homemaker interviewed in the news say "kapag ganyan, hindi na lang ako magluluto ng Chopsuey, ibibili ko na lang ng karne!" (if that's the case, then I'd rather not cook Chopsuey, but instead buy meat)

Floor Mats Washing-ton Day

Since it was a sun-shiny day today, it was high time to finally wash the car's floor mats. After the rains and low floods of Ondoy, the interior of the car has smelled a bit musty. Maybe it was when Che, DH and Tita Gay entered the car all soaking wet from the strong rain and floods outside.

So I took advantage of the nice weather and washed the mats right on the lawn while listening to "oldies" music on a Sunday. Lovely.


Having the basin and pails of water on the lawn meant I didn't just throw water down the drain but got to water the plants. It was so easy. Scoop water with the dipper and water the plants nearby and then tip the basin to water the lawn.

Nowadays it's been my practice to save and make full use of water. Even dishwashing water doesn't go to waste. It's earth-friendly and we benefit from the thriving lawn especially during the rainy days.



Weeklong Kitchen and Laundry Project

When we had our old house, we didn't have much storage space since it was just a small bungalow for a family of six What I did then was to buy these plastic coated steel trays and installed them where there was an available blank wall.

That meant walls in kitchen, laundry, garage and even in the bedrooms.

When our now 2-story house was constructed, I thought we'd have all the storage space we needed. I even considered throwing these trays away since most of them have rusted and had chipped plastic coating. Well, good thing is that I didn't.

During the week, I've thought of ways to revive these trays and locate good spots around the house where to mount them. I only chose two areas.

Here's the "dirty" kitchen area. You can see a part of the overhead skylight at the upper right.

Slow 6-Beat Kicking

For me to perform the drills for bilateral breathing, I have to do 6-beat kicks.

Maybe it's just me.

But because the one armed drills and fist drills are a bit restrictive on body movement, I tend to sink easily. So by keeping the legs kicking constantly via the 6-beat kick, I'm able to keep myself afloat and more stable.

Here's how the 6-beat kick in freestyle looks like:


However, I've become accustomed to a quick rhythm when kicking 6-beats. I'm in no way fast, but it's just something I did. So when I attempted to swim slow using 6-beat kicks, it threw me off. It felt very odd since I only did 2-beats (if at all) when swimming freestyle. I had to do several laps and then finally got the groove of it.

I learned that when swimming slow, a 6-beat kick with a bigger amplitude helps. I just need to be aware of body alignment though so as not to fishtail.



Mistaken Identity

With the rains of Typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng over, DH quickly took the task of washing the big pile of laundry to take advantage of the sunshine today.

No, we don't have househelp or a laundry woman for our clothes. In fact we haven't had any househelp since 2001. Now that she's stopped working, DH has no more plans of getting one.

She can be quite gungho with household chores especially laundry. Here, she wears her favorite work hat.

Tired Soldier

Today's a particularly fun day as Renz was playing a Panday (not Ondoy) character and slashing imaginary enemies with his sword. Then it became quiet. You know Renz is most probably asleep when the house is quiet.

The pic below was taken by Che.

I learned later that Karen actually played a prank on sleeping Renz and positioned the sword there. =)





Glass Blocks for Natural Light

In a previous entry, I wrote about the use of skylights for overhead lighting. The two things I requested from our architect prior house construction were good ventilation and natural lighting.

Not satisfied with the final plans, I suggested the use of glass blocks to further illuminate the interior. The logical place to have these installed was by the stairwell where there are no casement windows.

In this entry, I chose a specific glass block for this purpose.

Well, here are the glass blocks as installed. DH plays "Rose" in the Titanic movie and presses her palm on one of the blocks from the outside. You can see the amount of distortion afforded by the glass block pattern. DH's face on the next glass block is not recognizable.