Livin' La Vida Donya

Spent the whole day watching Netflix in our comfies. When I'm alone at home I usually just watch Suits. This time, since it was a Sunday and Carl was home, we watched a whole array of films. Inside Out, Midnight in Paris, Clear and Present Danger, and some cartoons and tv shows. Naturally, we'd fall into the pit of watching Friends.  It's funny how watching old films bring back chunky, funky technology. The white and bulky personal computer, the wireless flip phone, the antenna on the cordless phone, and the floppy disk. What 10 years can do.  Maybe in the next so and so years it won't be Netflix and Chill anymore. Netflix and Live?

Yesterday I tried to drive... For the first time in 3 years and for the first time in Canada. (psyching myself before moving to the driver side) We scheduled our car for an oil change and got a loaner car while waiting. In my head, I knew it was an automatic. So on our way home from the dealership, I asked, "This is an automatic right? Can I try to drive it?" He said sure but I asked if we could do it near where we lived (with less traffic). So I was psyching myself the whole car ride home. We finally made it near our house and he directed me to where we can switch places. I got in, adjusted my seat, the steering wheel, and the mirrors. Everything seemed to be in order. Then I asked my second question, "Which is the brake? Left or right?" I obviously didn't remember. Might as well ask and look stupid rather than speed and think I was stopping. So I started the car. And I drove. And I kept driving. I missed the feeling of being behind the wheel. The id...

Every day I workout and this is composed of some elliptical and swimming exercises. Also with my core exercises. And every morning, there are the usual suspects with me. The silent man in a baseball cap on the treadmill, the cleaning lady who's been so warm and nice to me greeting me every morning, the old chinese couple that practice their dance routine without a care, and the old Indian couple that try so hard to push themselves in all the exercising equipment. Then there's this old fella (I'm guessing he's Greek or... Bostonian). He's always there swimming silently and always observing. His routine is always to swim first and then jacuzzi for about 10-15 minutes. The first few times he would just say "Gu'd mawnin'" to me. Until one time he said, "Gu'd mawnin' dahlin'". I thought that was sweet. The past week, when he was finished with the hot tub and ready to leave, he said, "See ya later, babe!" That was a plea...

People often pressure themselves too much with the concept of a new year. Another set of 365 days to better yourself. Making promises of better health, better outlooks, and basically better versions of themselves in any way measurable. This usually fades the following month. Poor February. Always just waiting for the 14th to act as an excuse once again. I'm never one to fulfill resolutions. I'll start them and end up disappointing myself for the following weeks ahead. Start a diet? Start a 1-act-per-day? Start a journal? Start a regime? And everyone else on the same bandwagon immediately lost and pondering again come mid-January. One thing I do wonder about is how other people can bring the same negativity in the New Year. A lot is at stake when you vow to yourself to do something drastic and dramatic. But if you keep it small and work on the little things first then maybe they can be something great in the end. Like removing hatred or anger. Carrying this burden ...

Lately, we've been juggling some serious age-appropriate problems. A mortgage, a car, utilities, health, furnishing our condominium, storage, life insurance, and all that. I can't imagine how one person can do this all by him or herself and also have a child to take care of. Baby steps I guess. We all have to grow up some time. The other day, I miscalculated. I made a boo-boo when I was studying our expenses. We were going to give a gift that required a big enough amount. I thought I had that covered. It was a no-brainer because that was for someone's health. So why think twice right? Money will come and go and I thought I had enough. Well, lo and behold --- negative balance. I totally forgot to about our other scheduled payment because it was so recently added. Blanked out of that one. Good thing there was  a pinch of savings left behind to cover for our monthly expenses. My gosh that stressed me. We were supposed to go and take a trip Halifax. Then that changed...

Okay. I haven't done this for a while and I'm starting to fall in that hole again. Let's do this.  I'm grateful for: 1. Having a points card and reaping 2 free movie tickets.  2. Triple layered butter movie popcorn.  3. Living close to the movie theatre.  That was easy. 

I once glanced at a magazine page for but a second while flipping pages. For some reason, it stuck. "Your sense of entitlement is your greatest downfall." I agree.  Once you feel that sense that you deserve more, that you need to spend your money to feel good, that the world owes you back...  It will impact and destroy you in ways you didn't even think of before. Jealousy. Anger. Hatred. Indifference. All of these surface because you think you deserve better. If not the best.  One child was born with a silver spoon. Thinking that because the parents did so well, he did well as well. That because his parents were successful, he too carried the honour as if it were his and walked the same red carpet as his parents did. He forgot. THEY worked hard. THEY made a name for themselves. THEY set up the family name and business. Not him. Never him. And yet his sense of entitlement grows for respect, for success, for something THEY saw as a goal and not him.  ...

In my dilemma, a suggestion was made to count my blessings and see the little good things. Let's give this a shot. Like 3 things at a time.  Thankful....  1. I slept in warm fluffy bed and woke up beside my husband.  2. We weren't late for mass today. 3. Getting pancakes and hot chocolate for breakfast.  Guess this is doable. 

I'm not one to make resolutions and actually stick to them. Every time I "say" I'll change and do something, it often leads to disappointment and basically acceptance of who I am. But surprisingly this year, it's been more than 1 week of January and so far, so good. Last year I noticed I've made social media a way for me to release angst, frustration, and just a vent to rant. I also figured that by doing this, I create issues and friction. No matter what I say or how I say it, it will affect someone. That in turn creates a wall between us or others concerned whether it was intended or not. Well, I just gave up. It's tiring to vent and tiring to have to explain to the whole world who it was, when, why, etc. etc. When in fact, I just had to say something out loud. Brain- and heart-farts. I promised to shut up with social media. If anyone wants to talk to me, they've got me to search for, they've got my email, my mobile, and pretty much no excuse...

I have no idea why when I tell people that I'm not doing anything and that "I'm waiting", they seem to have the idea that its the dream thing to do. Like I'm living the life. I've been waiting for almost a year and a a half now. I had to go back home and continue waiting here. Not earning, just spending. It's such a pain to think of. I don't even want to see anyone anymore now. Why? Well, I'll need to spend again. And I don't want to anymore. In my stay/visit here to Manila, I've had to pay for my own food, my gas, even some repairs, and even had to treat others out. Ummmm... Diba nga I'm the visitor? Diba nga I'm the one not working? Ano ba?! I am reminded of the life I left a year and a half ago. The only difference was I was working. I have only been treated out by my mom, mother-in-law, and manay Kring (who also is a visitor). But I've been out with so many groups of friends. I know I shouldn't assume but if this is th...

It's funny how when we were in high school, we had these notions of what we were going to be and what our classmate would end up as. We'd make all these assumptions that the "not-so-famous" girl would end up in a dead end job and that the "famous barkada " had and will always have it all. We even got into bets  on as to who would get pregnant or get married first. During our graduation send-off, the prediction about me was that I'd be married with 30 children while running a successful catering business. My good friend's prediction was that she would always be a nomad, jumping from one place to the other. Some things did come true, well at least a portion of it. I ended up getting married early. I ended up learning how to cook professionally and even doing some catering events. I also ended up teaching how to cook. But no, I did not (or have not) accumulate(d) 30 children at the moment. And I think that I ended up as the nomad. Now, my feet a...

It's hard enough to decide on your own when you need to move on. But believe me, it's harder to watch someone you love decide to not move on at all. Even if you know it's not doing the person any good, yet that person believes that whatever is happening is because it's fate and that's how life chooses to treat that person. I was once in that intersection. Not such good streets to be in. I was stuck. I was thinking of whether or not I should take the jump. Without thinking, I took it. Then after a few full moons, I was stuck again. It got me thinking whether or not my first decision was right at all. My sister bought a book before, "Who Moved My Cheese?". It was always in the hallway and I never bothered to pick it up. That was around 3 years ago. When I was walking in the library last month, I suddenly remembered the title and looked it up. The whole book didn't take me an hour to read. I just kept flipping through page after page. It was an ea...

It amazes me how vivid my dreams are. Sometimes, I can recall a whole dream from start to finish. Even to this day, I can remember some dreams I had when I was 10 years old. And that's more than 15 years ago. Can you just imagine what joy and fear I have mixed up in me when I experience a deja vu? That feeling of knowing something will happen the moment it happens. For some of the dreams, I don't mind them happening in real life. Why? Because I just simply couldn't remember them. When I wake up, I try to remember my dream. So that way, I don't experience a deja vu. That way, it doesn't come true. However there are some dreams that I just instantly forget the moment I open my eyes. And that's when I start to get scared. From all the dreams I've had, I distinctly remember a few. There's one dream however I constantly fear once I enter it. That instance where your body and mind knows your asleep and you consciously and unconsciously know you've entere...

You can't imagine how bored I am now. I sort of dread to sleep because I know I'll wake up in about 5-7 hours only to decide whether I'll sleep another 2 hours. Then once I've finally decided to wake up and take a bath, I just cook and clean and well.... wait for my husband to get home so that we can sleep again. (this was how blank I felt) I know, I know. I should find other things to do to occupy my time. But seriously. How much can I do? Of course if I had unlimited resources, it would be easy. (What am I babbling about? I'm a DONYA! OF COURSE there are unlimited resources! Let's just look at it as......) If only I had a bored-mate that we can hang with each other and talk to each other, then maybe I won't be so bored. Now I know how it truly feels like to be a Donya. Everything is done for you and well.... you just have to sit pretty. Other than laying and sitting pretty most of the time, here are some of the things I've already done to take...

So while I'm thinking of things to do while I'm in this state of being a housewife-donya, I depended on watching sitcoms. There's the traditional classics like Friends, Fraser, and Seinfeld. Then there's the more current ones that have seem to been getting a lot of "they'll be the next [insert classic here] show". The current ones are The Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother, King of Queens, etc. But one thing these sitcoms all have in common is that they make such a big fuss about keeping traditions. Whether it's a holiday tradition, a tradition to show their "bond", a tradition of an inside-joke, or well just any kind. These sitcoms have ingrained in society that keeping these ways is important because of how we all grow with it. Then in time, we see ourselves in the shoes of others because somehow, the tradition lived on just how it was back in the day. Only this time, in younger eyes. So this pressured me and my husband. Should we s...

There's a new McDonald's commercial on TV. It's about how the restaurant's been there filling the history of people. It showed how friendships were built, how relationships started, and how life does go by but still, the restaurant remained the same. It's one of the best commercials I've seen. Not a lot of drama, gimmicks, but just a strong message of "being a part of something". Obviously, watching this brought me to tears. And the good kind. The title of the commercial is "Flashback". The best thing about the commercial is the music they used. It seemed nostalgic yet modern. So when the song finally hit that side of my brain labelled L-S-S, I decided to look it up. With only snippets of lyrics, Google did the rest. The song was Older Brother by Pepper Rabbit. As I read the lyrics, the more I cried. It didn't send out a message of joy or bliss. It was actually a song about a suicide. It was a song about a friend talking about his f...

My husband and I were complaining once. It was cold, it was windy, and well.... the bus wasn't coming at all. We were waiting out in the cold for almost 20 minutes and it seemed a hell of a lot longer with mother nature scolding us and slapping our faces with her ice cold wind. So, I ended up getting irritated with us. That all we could muster up in this situation was more negativity. So we decided to think of the worst and this wasn't it. We decided to say, "no problem". Having making ourselves believe that we weren't having any problems, we then decided to come up with diva problems. Since I AM a donya and my husband, obviously either a don or a jardinero-affair, we came up with "beat my problem!". In a very diva way, we'd have to express our problems out of being rich, elite, money magnets, spoon-fed, and well, basically spoiled and well-off. Of course, which of us having the better answer to, "So, what's your problem?" would w...

I hate it when you're right but since your age dictates a certain social standard, a certain way of thinking, despite of your position, despite your maturity regardless of your numerical value, you're wrong in the end. I know it's something we all should learn and that there are still some things that need to be learned through time and experience. However, it doesn't necessarily mean that if you're young or younger, you're instantly wrong. If you're not wrong, you're labelled to be rude. I just don't think it's fair. It doesn't give you an excuse to be right either just because you're old. What if, WHAT IF, you're just wrong? And the only way to solve it is to lower that pride and sincerely apologize. It's hard. But that's what you expect the younger ones to do anyways, right? Apologize when you're at fault. So why not make an example of yourself? It's frustrating.

I've had this blog for a while now. But I always wondered how come I never filled it with content. Even just filling it with my empty thoughts to pass the time. I never really understood why. Although, now I think I have a clue. I think I needed to be in the starting line to actually get something rolling. As simple as this blog may seem, I couldn't really fill it when I was in the middle of unfinished business. We go through this life with lots of bumps, corners, and road blocks. But that's not to say you can't ride over a bump. You can't curve and avoid the corner. Or, you can't just pick an open road instead. Yes, we do have to deal with these. But after that, you can breathe and decide to start again. And after that, there's that feeling of weight literally being lifted from your shoulders. Well, I choose to remove that weight. I choose to move forward, lighter, and happier. I have been told by a few who think knew better than me about my own life. O...