BEST IN WRITING! Today we attended Kaye’s recognition for the primary level…nope she did not get any honors this year because after her good standing as Top 1 in the first and second quarters of the school year she slid to just being Top 3 in the third and last quarter so all the more that she was unable to make it to the entire batch Top Ten circle…but that’s OK! I guess her teacher felt she needed to give her some kind of award, any award just to keep her encouraged to strive harder and so despite not being named Best in Writing for the past three quarters of the year, she became Best in Writing for their class this year…that is also despite her very-hard-to-decipher handwriting!!! Hehehe…I guess I would have to thank Ma’am Armida for that…I just hope that when she becomes part of the cream section next year, she won’t get bowled over by the competition and instead strive even harder…congratulations baby! Here’s hoping that next year when we do get up on stage, it will be for a real medal this time!!! Keep it up girl!

VISIT / SWIMMING AT AUNTIE JING’S POOL

This year, the family decided to hold the monthly kita-kits/ get-together for birthday participants at Auntie Jing’s new house which she bought just recently. It’s a very big house with (I think) five bedrooms and a driver’s quarters located at the garage. What’s more…the place had a pool! So COOL! The ground floor had a receiving area, a sala where a TV is located, then a dining area and a kitchen with a center island (I like!) From the sala, you can go out thru French doors to the patio and the pool. From the kitchen, you can also go out to the dirty kitchen, pass by the laundry area and to the gazebo that overlooks the pool. This is where we ate lunch since the dining area can only seat up to ten people and so we opted to stay outside where it is a bit cool. Besides, it gave us the opportunity to also look over the kids while they are swimming.

The downstairs bedroom was used as an office/tambakan of some of the stuff they still failed to unpack from their house in Norway…they say the house came with some free furnishings but I found the sofas a bit ostentatious for my taste (it had some carvings kasi e…) I wished they would buy a bit of modern furnishings like leather sofas or soft fluffy ones na lang… Then, going upstairs the first bedroom you will see is the kids bedroom, it’s not yet located on the second floor but more of like a mezzanine. This is because the kids bedroom is actually two floors. It had a big double bed and a double deck where the bed is placed on the top bunk while the lower space is actually a study nook with a small desk/storage area for toys…pretty neat huh? Then beside the wall to wall cabinets is a spiral staircase that leads to a loft…it can be used as another place to store toys or even a place for their yayas or guests to sleep.

Then on the second floor is the master’s bedroom with huge wooden double doors. The floors are wooden parquet and it had a huge bed (well, understandable considering the size of the people who sleep there). There was also a big flat screen TV and a desktop computer inside the room. All the bedrooms had its own toilet but this one is the biggest because it also had a big bathtub! Then outside the master’s bedroom there is a den which can be made into a TV room (but at present contained more unpacked boxes!) then further on is another blue bedroom obviously for a boy and at this time it was occupied by my cousin Mike. At the den, is another spiral staircase leading up to the attic and it is a huge place that the maids use as their bedroom.

Indeed it is such a huge place and quite ideal for gatherings of big families like ours, having the pool is such a bonus because it would surely keep the kids occupied from morning till night! I guess this house would be quite a favorite place for gatherings from now on…I guess our only problem here is accessibility since we have to take another jeep ride from EDSA to go to Pasig and then another trike to go to their subdivision in Greenwoods…truly quite far! Sure hope the hubby always consents to take us here otherwise it would be difficult to commute…But in all, I really like Auntie Jing’s house…with a little redecorating I’m sure it would be even better! Here are a few pics of the kids frolicking in the pool…I guess I was too awed by their house to get any pics e…maybe next time.

NEW FENCE FOR THE HOUSE

Over the weekend, the hubby and a few relatives (Kuya Ric and Rely) came over to start work on the fence…he renewed his loan from Pag-ibig and from it he got around 17K, just enough to start buying materials for the fence like steel rods (for the posts and flooring), cement, hollow blocks, gravel and sand. It was supposed to be just Jun and Kuya Ric but just our luck that Rely (our pamangkin and Ditse’s eldest son) got into a fight with his wife and so he took off bringing a big bag of his clothes with him. And so he provided a much-needed extra pair of hands so that the fence construction will go along smoothly. You see, what I really wanted was to have a small bedroom constructed on top of the garage/extension but our budget was quite limited. In fact, the 17K would not be enough so that the hubby had to take out another loan (from their office COOP fund this time) since we had to pay a teeny bit pa for labor and food of the workers while they are working. But all the expense is just OK…at least we’ll be able to get a bit more privacy and even security with the construction of our new fence…the only bad thing was…all our plants were destroyed!!! See that small shrub on the right side? They tried to move it to a different location but made the mistake of not including a bit of soil when they took out the plant and so some of the roots were cut…and it withered and died after just a few days so I guess we weren’t meant to have a shrub like that – sayang! We just trimmed it and shaped it a few days ago and then it died lang! Even the palmera (the plant given by Mama when we moved in) had to be sacrificed because the tree itself lay on the path of the left wall…oh well, I guess that means we just have to plant new ones na lang… there’s still some space left pa naman on the left side of the house e…

A DIFFERENT BIRTHDAY GIFT

It’s my birthday today but I am not at home cooking up a storm for my family…and neither am I out shopping till my feet hurt…nope in fact I spent the entire day at the hospital – the National Kidney Transplant Institute – to give myself a unique birthday gift… the gift of health! You see a few times last year, I felt some bit of pain in my lower abdomen and also at my lower back and back then (when we didn’t have a medical health card yet) I shouldered the doctor’s fees gamely just to ensure that the pain would go away. And it did but he recommended some tests which I was unable to follow through since I didn’t have the money for it e! This time around, since we already have a card, I decided to take my leave of absence not at home but undergoing a thorough checkup for my kidneys…

In the morning, when I arrived at the office I immediately left for the hospital to see the doctor who then prescribed some tests for me to undergo – I had urine tests, blood tests, a KUB (Kidney, ureter, bladder) x-ray, CBC and some kind of ultrasound wherein I was made to drink lots of water before they checked out my bladder then made to pee and checked once again…truly a one-of-a-kind experience. It took me the entire day to finish all my tests but I am glad that I finally did it because at least now I would truly know what it was that had been troubling me…






P.S. It was about a week after that I learned that there was indeed a stone in my kidney but it was nothing to be truly alarmed about…or so the doc says. He says it did not require any surgery but that I should just drink more water and jog a bit so that I could pass the stone out thru natural means…it’s that small! So I guess it’s good knowing my kidneys are still OK…