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Thursday, January 1, 2015

The Year that was 2014

Funabashi, Japan

The work side of my brain has gone on leave and my writing muse has been bugging me to write the last few days. I'm supposed to be crunching some numbers to see how productive I've been, but I just can't seem to get my brain to cooperate.

If I was going to describe 2014 in one word I would say that it was a very PRODUCTIVE year. I took a couple of vacations this year - Boracay for a few days with my boys and my Mom and a longer one in Palawan last August also with my boys, but I must admit that I was not able to fully turn off work from my mind because I just had a lot of things ongoing. The short breaks though helped prevent further burn-out and gave me time to clean our tiny home. The after-effect though is finding myself unable to be productive in my last work week (although I can actually use this week to compensate for all the weekends I worked this year).

I know my body would never be the same as before. Knowing my limits post-surgery I think has made me more aware of what I can and cannot do and I thank God that I am surrounded by people who understand my limitations and who help compensate when I am unable to do some things. I'm also glad I have my Mom's positive outlook since despite my limitations I am still able to do a lot of things I thought I wouldn't be able to do.

Some Highlights

Went to London for the very first time!



Strawberry picking in Benguet (before La Preza became famous!)



Managed to do 2 local vacations with my family (Boracay and Palawan - I will never forget the monkey that attacked me!).






Visited Siem Reap for the first time and of course went to Angkor Wat.



Had more than 100 additional children.



Went to the US again after such a long time.



Survived hiking through the 7 falls of Mambukal (I couldn't walk for over a week!).



In between was a gazillion stuff I did for work. I missed a lot of get togethers and weddings though. 2014 was also full of trials with family getting sick, losing Tito Ben and a couple of friends and other issues. I've learned not to stress out too much since I know you are only given trials that you can handle, but it was still quite a hard year.

I met a lot of really amazing people in the last year from all over Asia (that's aside from the 100++ children I now have) and I'm just really thankful for the opportunity to meet all the wonderful people in the last 12 months. It's really going to be hard to name all of you, but you know who you are. I know I'm sometimes quite limited by what I can physically do, but I hope that all of my new found friends know and feel that I care for them. All I could say is, "Thank you for coming into my life."

[Insert mosaic of "everyone" here - may take time to unearth all the photos I want to put in]

But here's my year in photos according to Google+

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In 2015 I have a very basic plan: improve my work-life balance and get to the right weight as prescribed by my doctor (I need to choose between 2 different recommendations though!), but I would basically like to go down a size so my other clothes can fit again and I would like to be able to spend time to serve as I used to (it's really challenging when you keep traveling).

I know 2015 is going to be a great year since we ended 2014 with a very special family trip to Japan! Got tickets at promo fare, we didn't realize though it would be winter! Haha! All's well though since we're very much cared for by my Uncle Fumio, Tita Pet and cousins. And that's what you're going to read more about in the next few days since I'm once again doing the 30-day blogging challenge!

Woohoo! Happy New Year!

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