Color Seasons

My favorite color changes every few years. I've gone through mint green, red, yellow, peach, violet, pink and then it went back to red. I haven't had a favorite color for a few years now, but friends noticed I have a lot of blue colored clothes. I think I'm used to wearing blue because I wore a blue uniform throughout elementary and high school. My bags and device covers are mostly red. I have a lot of random pink stuff. 

I've been thinking about what to do with my craft room. Should I make it colorful? Or stick to neutral colors. We just have everything in white right now. I had the kitchen cabinets repainted to dove gray from midnight blue. I wanted it to be brighter and just chill. We haven't considered coloring anything for now and will probably keep things as it is for now. 

I've been struggling with choosing colors right now. I used to be so decisive about these things! I decided to make our curtains, but it's been two weeks and I haven't chosen a color yet. Gaaah! I've been changing my selection for the fabric almost everyday. I'm not sure why I'm dilly-dallying over my choice. I already had a long discussion about colors with a friend and we agreed on warm neutrals. That's how I ended up with dove gray for the kitchen cabinets. 

Maybe I'll stick to neutral colors for now. I can always have add colors through accessories. Did you notice it's easier now to change how things look? One can easily buy sofa covers or chair covers. I can easily make themed quilt throw pillow cases. I plan to also make different covers for my appliances based on the season. That should keep me busy for a long time. 

Now that I've thought this through I think I'll make gray curtains for now. It should help accentuate the Christmas tree more (well... when we get around to setting it up!). 

What do you think? On hindsight, I could have thought about this before, but decorating isn't really my cup of tea, haha. Recos are welcome!

#Home35 #NewG211 #Xmas19 #StayHome #BeKind   

Living Without Deadlines and a Functioning Kitchen

I haven't been using an alarm to wake me up for almost a year now. I have been struggling with falling asleep and staying asleep. There are nights I wake up out of breath. My lungs were damaged by the PE and it's very sensitive to bad air quality. For the first time in a long time, I slept like a baby last  night and woke up well rested! I'm really thankful to Squeaky PH for deep cleaning and disinfecting our bedrooms. I think that helped a lot. 

The angels of Squeaky PH with Gab :)

I'm also waking up earlier now because I'm better rested. This means I can drink my meds at a better time and I can be a better citizen at home haha. It got me thinking about deadlines. I honestly work better under pressure, so I've been slacking off on a lot of things. I was assigned to unpack the kitchen boxes, so when Gab said they'll unbox the stuff I did not resist. Good thing they did it for me because I ended up super exhausted even though I was just giving some directions while seated. Tita Pet kept reminding me not to over-exert. She knows me well. 

My kitchen is now functional thanks to the Squeaky PH team! They organized the groceries in the pantry and unboxed my pots and pans and baking stuff. I could just take my time now to re-organize as I see fit. Gab was right when he said one of his angels is really good at organizing cabinets. I don't need to hunt for things because they were able to categorize the items properly. 

For the next few days, I hope we could clear up more boxes, set up the Christmas tree and celebrate Mom's birthday. Things are slowly taking shape. Hopefully we can make our new home look more decent in time for Christmas!

Christmas! I'm seriously super behind on this. I'm delayed on everything including mailing Christmas cards and organizing gifts. The only thing I have for now is Fiesta ham hahaha. 

#Home34 #NewG212 #Xmas20 #StayHome #BeKind   

Home Clean Up and Planning My Craft Room

We got help from Gab's company, Squeaky PH, to do move-in cleaning. Our new home is still dusty from the construction work and it would be really hard just to clean by ourselves. I'm so glad it's easy to get help now for home cleaning. 

Our home though still looks like a bodega right now. I'm still hopeful we could make it look decent by Christmas. I hope our dining table arrives today. It would be perfect to have it in time for Mommy's birthday. 

One thing I'm really excited about is my craft room. I've been pouring over ideas on Pinterest. I want to have floor to ceiling cabinets to house my fabric and materials. Then put a desk area on one side where I can put my books, printer and small equipment. I'm still deciding what kind of center table I should have made. I'm thinking of a folding table which can be expanded and hold small knick knacks. I saw some being sold at Lazada and Shopee, so I might consider that. They're smaller than what I need, so may still consider just having it customized. Dealing with design is not a strong suit of mine, so suggestions are welcome :)

The nice thing about being home is I could get help from friends who have businesses. I prefer to work with people I know because we're also taking a lot of precaution for now. I contacted my school busmate earlier to see if his company can help with our cabinetry. I've been going through his profile the past few months looking at projects his company has made. Hopefully he'll be able to indulge my whims haha. 

Update: dining table is delayed. Arggghhhh...

Happy new week everyone!

#Home33 #NewG213 #Xmas19 #StayHome #BeKind  

Beautiful Bonding on Our Second Day

Everything is still a mess, but we're settling in nicely in our new home. Sweetie and Miggy got our picnic folding table and that's our makeshift dining table for now. The good news is our beds were delivered and assembled by the very nice crew from Our Home. That was really great because the boys needed to rest well. They went through many boxes and hauled some of our things from our old home. 

With Ate Maya :) 

We had several surprises yesterday! Our contractor and new neighbor sent us freshly cooked pandesal from their bakery. Ate Maya dropped by and brought us some delicious pili. The biggest surprise was seeing my high school seatmate, Ottie. She pinged to ask for my address because she was distributing gifts and surprisingly showed up on our doorstep ten minutes later. It was a happy reunion since I haven't seen her for a few years now. 

Giving food I think is a universal Filipino language of love (if there's such a thing). Instead of asking "how are you" we more commonly ask, "Kumain ka na?" (have you eaten?). I have received a lot of goodies from friends since we arrived. The three of us bonded over the gifts. Reminiscing on our previous homes while planning how to organize the new one. 

We realized though that there's a lot more work to be done to care for our new home. There's a lot more plants to water. Bigger floor space to sweep and mop. We don't have enough curtains to cover all the windows. We also had to battle some ants and mosquitoes. Moving into a new home has it's pains. Tomorrow we're getting some help to do a post construction clean-up with my friend Gab's company, Squeaky PH.

Whew! Today we're just taking things slow. We'll hear mass online later and prepare for the clean-up tomorrow. 

Happy blessed Sunday everyone!

#Home32 #NewG214 #Xmas20 #StayHome #BeKind   

First Night in Our Dream House

We moved to our new home yesterday! This is the final phase of our transition back home. As usual, we're scrambling to find things we need in the boxes that arrived the other day. It's part of the fun of moving to a new home. Sweetie and I learned a few things last year when we moved. We ended up going through a maze of boxes to find beddings and bed clothes. This time around we made a list! 

We always wanted to live in a house. It was our dream from the beginning. Circumstances though had us move from one place to another in the past 12 years. Doing that eventually made us yearn to find a permanent home. The past three years our past time was to look at property listings and watch Presello vids. We would look at the houses and assess whether it would fit our needs. 

Welcome home Stormtrooper!

We knew we had outgrown our first owned home. SLEX was also nearby and the pollution forced us to keep all the windows closed. We were also worried about living in the condo because there were several COVID-19 case surges at our place. We saw a few places that we found interesting, but we really wanted to go back to the place where I grew up. 

I saw a listing last year, but the price was way over budget. Fast forward to May this year, I saw the place listed again. I kept coming back to the listing because it looked like it would be perfect for us. Eventually I found a video of the house on YouTube and was even more fascinated. Sweetie liked it too. We didn't consider it because it was beyond reach. The strange thing is we started to imagine how we'd live in it. I started to pray because I could see us living in the house. 

When things are really meant to be, God will make a way. In late June, I saw the listing again. The price was reduced by 16%. Still too pricey I thought, so I moved on and tried looking for another place. Then I saw the listing again listed by a friend, Ate Maya. I've known her since I was a teenager since she's my choir mate. I pinged her and asked about the house. After some negotiations to further reduce the price, several family meetings and a gazillion prayers, we got the place!

The funny thing is Sweetie and I only saw our new home after we got home and finished our quarantine. How crazy is that noh? Yes, it was really a crazy decision, but we felt it was the right decision for our family. We prayed hard for a permanent home and finally found it. God really leads you to where He wants you to be. :)

P.S. We slept on the floor, haha.

#Home31 #NewG215 #Xmas21 #StayHome #BeKind   

Be the One Who Goes for It

My energy has been going kaput by midday the past few days. We've been very busy and I've been forced to take the stairs and that's partly to blame for my stamina drain. My energy though is hinged on faith, love and willpower. I would not wish what I'm going through on anyone*. 

I'm still very fragile and last week my PTSD was triggered when someone nonchalantly trivialized my pain. This person had not even bothered to review all the doctor reports and test results they had asked me to submit. I immediately felt unwell midway through the meeting and wanted to walk out. I asked Sweetie to be my spokesperson for the rest of the meeting. 

No bed? No problem, can rest on a rug and a bubble-wrapped rug. 

I tried to rationalize that they probably had no idea about my illness. I've been experiencing the same treatment since I got sick last year. The lack of compassion is just really sad. It's also been frustrating because I just want to move on and live my life the way I want. 

"Be the girl who just decided to go for it. Live life with no regrets." Saw this on IG and it made me realize that I shouldn't care so much about what other people think (even though my future depends on it). I already made the decision to follow the advise of my doctors to live a stress-free life and I should just live by my choice. It is at this point that my faith tells me not to worry because God will always take care of us. 

Aja!

"God disturbs our comfortable day-to-day existence. Jesus' kinship goes hand in hand with His Passion." (Pope Benedict XVI)

#Home30 #NewG216 #Xmas22 #StayHome #BeKind   

*Going up on a stairway is probably similar to the last leg of hiking on Mt. Everest or maybe try going up a stairway with a sack of rice on your back.

The Tiger has Arrived!

It has been a waiting game the past few weeks. We've been waiting for our boxes from Singapore to arrive and clear customs. The mover told us the ship arrived on November 11. Not bad since we arrived on November 4. It took long though to clear customs so we had to wait. 

Watching the movers work always fascinates me. They are really experts in what they do. What we packed for many weeks, just took them a few minutes. I first had the opportunity to have a mover when I moved to Singapore. At that time I just had them pack a box, a mattress and a folding table (they were very bored). 

A few months later I got help from them to pack and move our stuff from our rented place to our first owned home. They finished packing and moving everything in less than a day. They had a lot of time to unpack our things, but we chose not to have our stuff unpacked since we were still waiting for our cabinets to be delivered. That's how good they are. 

For our move home we got help from Asian Tigers. They packed our things last October and the ship sailed two days after. Today, the local team came and finished in less than two hours. I watched them from the second floor and they would look up and wave at me. They were a really friendly crew and I appreciate the help they have provided. 

Thank you Kuya Jessie and your amazing crew!

I'm glad we got help to move our things. We just also had them unpack a few things since we don't have our storage cabinets yet. It will probably take us a few months to finish unpacking and fixing everything, so now we have another messy home! Haha. 

Cheers to a very messy last month! I hope we can make things a bit more decent before Christmas! Now we have to rethink how to celebrate Mom's birthday! 

#Home29 #NewG217 #Xmas23 #StayHome #BeKind