Slice of Life, 15 Years

I was looking through Google Photos and saw it had compiled photos by year. Thought it would be interesting to see what I was up to the past 15 years. 

15 years ago, 2007

Singapore with the other scouts at the first Google office in Singapore. 

14 years ago, 2008

Date day with Sweetie where we went to a wedding expo so I could get inspiration for the Twisted Wedding Planner blog.

13 years ago, 2009

Watched Love to Love to Love with Sweetie. It was a concert with MYMP, Side A and a few other artists held at Araneta Coliseum.

12 years ago, 2010

Attended a sports event and met Rio dela Cruz. Also went to Davao that same week. 

11 years ago, 2011

Got a new car - Minnie my Getz! She's now finally with me in our new home. I haven't had a chance to drive her yet since I need to get a license. 

10 years ago, 2012

Nothing exciting happened during the week. I just cooked beef tapa and we also checked out the location of our future condo. 

9 years ago, 2013

Just had second open heart surgery. They had to drain water in my heart and lungs. Also got a surprise visit from my friend Don who was in Singapore at that time too. 

8 years ago, 2014

Celebrated Valentine's day across the miles. Sweetie surprised me with flowers which was delivered at the office. 

7 years ago, 2015

So many things happened this week 7 years ago. Titay's birthday bash, watched a concert and it was also the Android One launch. 

6 years ago, 2016

This was the year we transitioned the family to Singapore. This was the week Miggy moved to Singapore to finish his studies. 

5 years ago, 2017

By this time we had settled in nicely to our life in Singapore and was getting visited by friends! Anne and Andrew came for a visit that week (I think Anne was working in their SG office at that time). 

4 years ago, 2018

My memory is a bit fuzzy about this week since most of the photos I had were food! Seems I baked some chicken fingers and Sweetie and I went out. 

3 years ago, 2019

This was the time Sweetie had knee surgery because his knee was dislocated. 

2 years ago, 2020

We had a WFH drill this week. Victor, David and I ended up working at Starbucks that day. Few weeks later WFH became mandatory. 

1 year ago, 2021

The last Westies get-together I was able to attend. Restrictions eased up and we were able to have a get together. Promptly got sick after since we didn't know the air quality went bad that day. 

I noticed that time has been passing by so fast. I don't if it's because I move slower now, but I don't get to do a lot of stuff compared to before. I have a list of tasks I've been unable to finish. I guess I need to manage my time better. Looking back at the last 15 years was fun to do. Apparently I was either in Manila or Singapore, working, watching  a concert or at a hospital haha. Let's hope and pray there won't be  hospital staycations anymore! 

#BeKind #StayHome #VoteWisely

It's All Coming Back to Me

Did you notice it's been very windy lately? PAGASA said it's amihan season. Wind from the North is prevalent and will last until March. The air is also much cooler especially in the evenings. We normally stay in the living room to feel the breeze. In the afternoons though it's nicer to stay at the basement since it's cooler. I've started to unbox my fabric stash and have been busy organizing my craft room. I hope to finish soon since summer is just around the corner and I know I have to stay somewhere cooler. 

I'm happy. I feel much more relaxed nowadays. I guess because of this the fog in my brain has been lifting. The past few nights I've been dreaming about forgotten memories from my university days and my 20s. For a few nights I dreamt about being in campus and rushing from one class to another. Remembered those days I had to run from Miguel building to the La Salle building to make it to my next class in time. I can't imagine how I managed going up so many stairs back then! No wonder I was just 85 pounds when I was in college. 

Last night I dreamt about that time I did part time work at Shell. I joined as a writer, but also got to learn how to layout a newspaper manually. At that time we were already using Pagemaker in our student publication, but they were doing some things manually. It was fun to learn so many things there. A few years later my boss at Shell tried to recruit me back. I decided not to pursue it since I was advised about the glass ceiling for women at that time (I heard it's gone now). My life would probably be very different if I chose that path. I still remember my former boss' name and found out she eventually became an editor at a leading newspaper. 

Of course, the fog also revealed some painful memories from the past. Ugh. It's apparently still lurking somewhere in my brain. I wish though the fog just kept it hidden. Not remembering is bliss haha. It's true that forgiving is much easier than forgetting. To keep it from eating me up, I just shifted my position in bed and it soon went back into the abyss. I just prayed and reminded myself that it's all in the past and those are just ugly memories now. 

My doctor told me I had too many major episodes (health). I also had too many major emotional episodes. I take comfort in the fact that those episodes (physical, mental and emotional) never broke me. My Mom would always tell me I'm an Apolo and I was born to be tough. I have many battle scars. I survived it all because of faith and love. And that's all you need :) 

Happy weekend everyone!

#BeKind #StayHome #VoteWisely

The Nostalgia of Old Photos

I was supposed to head out today to get something from the hospital. Heaven opened up and poured out a gazillion drops of rain. It's almost zero visibility outside. It would be nice to just head back to bed and take a nap. I would do that but I woke up at noon! 

I have so many photos. I used to store them on CDs and it took me a few weeks to transfer them to an external hard drive. I've been working on putting them on the cloud the past few months. It's a tedious process and I've just started on 2009. Good luck to me. 

It brings me so much joy to go through old photos. Sometimes I feel I was warped into another world when I moved to Singapore. I ended up focusing on work and fun times were few and fleeting. I'm so glad I

took a lot of photos. It showed I had a full and vibrant life before I had to change. 

And that's the reason why I'm going through the painful process of organizing all my photos. I know there will come a time my memory would start dwindling away. I used photos to keep my Dad connected when he became very sick. I loved to see him smile when he saw old photos. I should probably make a new photobook for my Mom. I'm sure she'll love it. 

Once I'm done with uploading my photos, the second phase would be to scan all old print photos. I'm guessing this is going to be another decade-long project haha. 

CB///*Yr2/41  #StuckAtHomeDay/Yr2/68 #StayHome #BeKind