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   

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   

The Big Transition Month, It's Not Over Yet

Can you believe that it's December already? The year is ending soon and we just survived the biggest transition in our lives. We began November by getting haircuts! I had my long hair chopped off and it felt so good! 

Here's a one second everyday video of how my November went :D

Moving countries is hard! It's not as easy as moving homes. The week before we flew home was hectic. Movers came to pack and box our things. After they took everything, we started packing our things. We soon realized we had more than what we could bring. We had to send a box through LBC (it hasn't arrived yet). It felt like Lucky Plaza magnetized us to come over for one last time, haha. It will be fun to unbox a balikbayan box when it arrives! 

The travel processes went smoothly. We had to follow closely new announcements since it was changing almost everyday. I have friends who have been asking me how we prepared to go home. Since the policies change often I suggest to read through my post here and visit the links I provided. We did not encounter any problems and we were able to stay together during our quarantine*.

After finishing our six-day quarantine, we finally went home and was reunited with Miggy. We stayed home for another four days before we were able to visit my Mom. The rest of the month was spent mostly re-organizing our messy home and preparing for another transition. Yes! It's not yet over! That's what I meant when I said, "Rad changes coming up!"

November was a good month. I'm so happy to be home with family and be in close proximity to friends. The frenzy of eating everything we missed is done! We have switched back to eating healthy meals. My doctor and my seatmate would be happy to know this, haha. 

Now we prepare for two important birthday! My Mom's and Papa Jesus' birthday. Yay! 

*The BOQ has a single person per room policy. More links on this post.

The Perils of Being Home

I know I've been eating too much the past two weeks, so I tried to cut down beginning yesterday. I haven't even weighed myself since I got home since our weighing scale is in a LBC box on a ship on it's way here. I feel a bit heavier and that's not good for my body. It's really hard to stop eating when all your favorite food is just within reach!

We haven't been able to cook because my stove conked out. It's taking awhile for the repair center to come back and replace the hot plates. I decided to get a single burner stove and it got delivered last night. This will help us prepare healthier dishes. I'm glad Miggy has taken a liking to cooking, so he can assist. 

The cost of living is really much cheaper here, which means it's taken a lot of willpower to resist shopping. I was really happy though that I was able to get good deals for some items we need during 11.11. It's not just Lazada or Shopee doing crazy offers, but also legacy stores like Abenson, Our Home, SM Appliance Center. I was able to buy three shower heaters for the price of two! Wow! It just takes a bit more research and digging through offers to get good deals. 

I'm not sure if it's pollen, dust or pollution, but the air quality the past few days has been very bad. I've been having asthma attacks everyday, ugh. I just had one while writing this post and thought I was going to keel over. Good thing I was able to calm myself and take deep breaths. I'm not really used to having severe attacks. They're generally mild and I can usually stop it in its tracks. I probably need to keep the windows and doors closed for now. 

I love being home and we're still adjusting to our new life. A bit of discipline is needed to make sure we don't run dry too soon, haha. I'm looking forward to spending Christmas with my boys and my Mom. Ahh, it means I have to sacrifice the calories for the next few weeks so I can indulge for Christmas. It's going to be hard though! 

It's a new week! What new experiences would it bring?

#Home19 #NewG225 #Xmas33 #StayHome #BeKind  

Our New Life

I'm trying to push myself to move around more. Our tiny place does not allow me to reach my 2k daily steps. It's also been hard to find a corner where I can do my daily exercises. I've started to feel lethargic and my body has been telling me to move more to burn everything I'm eating. 

Yummy lasagna by Drake's Lasagna! Order from my friend Adrian Cruz :)

So yesterday we went down to check out the bazaar in our community. Only residents were allowed and there has been no active cases the past few weeks. It was fun to see the activity organized by the property management office with residents. Red and blue tents lined up the main road and residents sold a lot of different goods. 

It was a good day to go out. The sun was hiding and it seemed like it was going to rain. It was the perfect day for a walk. I was hoping to buy some coffee, but we ended up with three cups of latte, puto bungbong, and kwekkwek, haha. Not the best combination, but the three of us enjoyed it for merienda. The funny thing is Sweetie ended up buying Transformers toys in mint condition. It was being sold for a really good price, so he snatched it up immediately. 

Loving this new experience since I never really got to live long enough in our tiny home. I rarely go out, but I realized I missed it when neighbors and the property staff would nod and say hello. Every morning, the birds who live in our a/c enclosure would keep chirping until I wake up. When I move to the dining table, I'd hear the chickens clucking. There are days when the neighbors from the next property would party with karaoke singing. And, of course, we could hear the sounds from the Skyway. 

It's very different from our very quiet life in Singapore. The energy is very different. I could feel a very strong, lively vibe around me. I'm honestly feeling a bit tired from all the activity. I guess I'm still adjusting to the fact that at least two people talk to me now (haha) and there's more activity to traffic at home. I think I'll have to sleep the day away today, haha. 

I'm happy to be home. Happy I have my family and friends within reach. I'm happy I can indulge them also with a little something like cake or lasagna. And I'm super happy that I can get anything I crave for! I think I have to work on increasing my step count, need to burn all these calories! 

Happy Sunday everyone :)

#Home18 #NewG226 #Xmas34 #StayHome #BeKind  

My Kitchen is Almost Open

We've now spent 72 hours at home and we're slowly making progress in re-organizing. We each have our own assignments. I've been working on the kitchen while Sweetie has been clearing out the balikbayan boxes we've sent in the last year. It's part two of the sorting and clearing operations we did in Singapore. Our goal is to reduce our things since we're merging two homes. 

I have been prioritizing our kitchen. It will be very unhealthy to keep ordering food. I haven't used my kitchen for two years so I have been washing everything. It's a good thing to do especially in the afternoons when it gets so hot. Finished everything on the counter yesterday and I'll start working on the cabinets today. It's also a good chance for me to sort and reduce our things. 

I did notice that Corelle plates used to be much thicker! The ones we had in Singapore were much thinner and lighter. I like the sturdiness of the older plates. Most of our kitchen items were wedding gifts. I've only replaced one frying pan so far, everything else still functions well. I need to have our electric range checked though. It takes so long for it to heat up and I'm not sure if the oven still works. Good thing it's quite easy to book service from La Germania. I hope it will still work for a few more years. I need it to work properly so I can finally cook some adobo. 

Last night we ordered Pancake House! Woohoo! My favorite arroz ala cubana wasn't available so I got the house special instead. It was amazing to eat it again. Aside from the good food, we have so many happy memories associated with Pancake House through the years. I'll probably order McDo tomorrow because I've missed their spaghetti haha. I wish though we could order some Makati Supermart spaghetti. That would make me so happy. 

Just another day at home. I love how we all converge to hang out on the dining table all day. Happy :)

#Home9 #NewG235 #Xmas43 #StayHome #BeKind  

Acclimating

Ahhh, life in the Philippines. It's been 48 hours since we got home. I have been sleeping better and breathing better. My lungs are happy. Some would say that there's more air pollution here, but I grew up here so my lungs are used to it. I have been skipping my inhalers since I feel fine. The one thing I'm adjusting to is the heat. I've increased my water intake by 25% to combat it and I've been coping well so far. 

My neighbor told me to take my time acclimating. I've been taking it slow. We're still living out of our suitcases as of the moment. Our house is in a disarray and we're working on organizing it. Yesterday I spent at least an hour just washing dishes. I had the fright of my life when I unearthed a dried up house lizard under the dish rack. Awww, poor Dengge 402. We've been naming the house lizards who have been plying our ceiling since 2009. Haha. 

Did you notice that the evening breeze has started to become cooler? I enjoyed it a lot last night from the balcony. This means Christmas is coming! I have been looking around for decors since I don't know if my existing ones have survived three years of heat. I hope our Belen is okay. We'll look into decorating once we have things more organized. 

One of the things I'm enjoying now is ordering food I've missed a lot. When we got home, Miggy had an array of food from Chowking. In the evening we ordered Shakey's. Yesterday we received care packages from Chelle and Ms. Myna. Chelle sent mind-blowing Lola Nena's triple cheese donuts. It arrived just in time for merienda and we enjoyed it a lot. Ms. Myna's care package included goodies from Dayrit's! We'll probably have that for dinner and we're excited to try the cacao tea. Thanks so much Chelle and Ms. Myna for the care package. <3 <3 <3

So apparently there's a different way of doing groceries here. My Shopeeholic friend Ederic advised that it's better to buy items from brand stores on Shopee. He said that the items come directly from their warehouse and you can get free delivery if you use ShopeePay. I'll probably try it next month, for now I ordered some basic groceries from SM since I'm more familiar with them. I have to plan our weekly menu better so I don't buy too much stuff. I also want to get my fruits and veggies from OnlingPalengke.com since their quality is much better than online groceries. Figuring out this grocery stuff is going to be fun!

I'm so far enjoying this acclimation period. We're just home serving our home quarantine. The best thing about it is Miggy's with us and I can call up Mom anytime using a landline phone (we can hear other better on it than a mobile phone). My doctor will also be happy to know that I'm spending two-thirds of the day without air-conditioning, haha. Maybe that will also help melt my fats, LOL. 

#Home8 #NewG236 #Xmas44 #StayHome #BeKind