Unbelievable!

Friday, Sep 9, mom and I went to pick up M at school then went to M's gymnastics class. On our way, there was a thunderstorm that seems to come out of nowhere. Thunder and lightning, winds were kicking in, rain started pouring. It lasted about 30 minutes and just as swiftly as it came it was gone.

The streets were flooded and Mom said that back in the days, when it would rain that hard, she and dad would jump in the car and drive around. I remember when we were kids we would be so happy when streets were flooded. Washing! Washing! we'd chant.

We stopped by the kebab place to get dinner and I got a call from G. He said that the landlady called about the powerline in front of our house. He got disconnected so I thought maybe we don't have electricity in the house.

As I entered the driveway, I was surprised that G was parked in the middle of the driveway, I parked at the designated visitor's area and started walking to the house. What I saw was something that I was not expecting. There were debris everywhere. Pieces of what looks like a roof was on the ground. One of our neighbors was talking to our landlady and G was on his cell phone looking all stressed.

The roof of the back part of our house was all gone, blown off. The debris everywhere, that was our roof. M started crying, she was worried about her toys. I didn't know what I was feeling. All I know is I don't want to go inside the house, I didn't want to see the extent of the damage. G said that with the roof being gone, water got in our house and it looks like everything in our bedrooms got wet.

Mom said that she needs to use to bathroom so we went inside. I just started crying when we got inside the house. The beds were wet, the carpets, it looked like everything got damaged. We started talking about what we need to do. We packed for the night and started moving stuff that are important. The landlord offered a part of their house to store some of our things that didn't get wet.

The next day, we came back to get the rest of our stuff. The damage wasn't to bad. The carpets and the beds got wet but we've been meaning to buy a new bed, so no big deal. The carpets, we can just get it cleaned again. The rest of the bedroom furnitures were fine. The living room didn't get wet and that's what I'm most thankful of, if the living room got wet, we would bo looking at a bigger damage.

Right now, we're still staying in a lodging facility on base. The landlord said, hopefully everything will get done by the end of the week.

Finally, I got a mini iPod.

I've wanted an iPod for so long but I kept telling myself that it's too much money. Then, I thought a mini would work but I still thought it's still a lot of money. I guess a shuffle would work. It's compact and affordable but G said it could only hold so much. So, I've been debating between a mini and a shuffle. I guess G got tired of listening to me weigh the pros and cons that he got me one for my birthday. It's very pink!

I'm so in love with it. Now, I don't have to take my bulky cd case whenever we go on a road trip. I still need a car kit so I can recharge it while on the road and also an RF transmitter so I don't have to buy the casette adapter. Hmmm... need more money. I also need the dock with speakers so I can listen to it in my bedroom.

Since I don't want to buy more accessories, I've been browsing around to see if I can transmit using the iMac, seems like I need to buy the airport express to do this. Why can't people just make something that is everything without buying more accessories! I would love to see that. Like a portable gameboy or playstation that is also a phone, at least 4.0 mp camera, holds 6 gb of music, gps, and a pda, the size of a packet of gum. And most importantly, affordable, like 200 bucks!

unbelievable

I weighed myself today and I gained 9 pounds! Now, I need to lose 30 pounds. 30 pounds! How am I ever going to lose that much. I had a hard enough time as it is losing that 4 pounds. Oh well. I just have to work out, eat healthy, and drinks lots of water. As if it was that easy! How do they do it. I'm talking about celebrities, one minute they're pregnant and the next time you see them, they're slim as ever.

I'm just ranting here. I knew I gained weight, I just didn't realize I gained that much. The prize I have to pay.

Happy birthday to me!

I love birthdays. I love the greetings, the presents, & eating out. This year, to celebrate my birthday, we went to South Wales. We walked around Cardiff and the next day went to the beach. I was a little bit disappointed with Cardiff. Dinner was great, we stumbled across Old Brewery Quarter Yard. It's a small open-air food plaza. We decided to eat at the Spanish restaurant, La Tasca.

G bought this book, hidden wales, and I wanted to go to the photo on the cover. We got there but according to the lady manning the car park, it takes about 20 minutes to get from the car park to the beach and that we're better off heading out to Oxwich Bay. So, we drove down the road, missed the turn, turned somewhere else, found ourselves on a really narrow winding road but we got to the beach.

To everybody who remembered, thank you.

leche flan

I love food.

Mom and I are making leche flan. Yummy and soooo easy to make. For my fellow frustrated cooks, the recipe.

Ingredients:
1 dozen large eggs
1 medium can condensed milk
1 medium can evaporated milk
1 tsp vanilla extract.
brown sugar
lime

1. Seperate the yolk from the white. MIx in condensed milk, evaporated milk, and vanilla extract with the yolk.
2. Mix water and brown sugar in the "lanera" (in my case, tin foil pie pan). In medium heat, let sugar mixture boil. In other words, carmelize brown sugar.
3. When sugar mixture is cool, add the egg mixture. (Argh! I forgot the term) Finely grate (I just wrote in grate and G corrected me -- "finely grate") some lemon skin on top.
4. In a double boiler, boil water. (Since I don't have a double boiler, I just use my wok, put a small bowl and voila, I have a double boiler). Steam the mixture for 15 minutes.

To serve, put a plate on top of the pan and in a quick motion turn the pan over, catching the flan with the plate. (Hmmm, I hope I explained that right or else you'll be moping the floor.)

Bon Appetit!

I have a theory.

People who sing are happy people. So, let's all sing and be happy. =)

dollhouse

dollhouse
Originally uploaded by xiemen.

And here it is! 3 weeks... That's how long it took me and it's not even done yet. Notice the missing door. I'm still undecided on what to do with the door. Should I just stain it or paint it? And I'm not too sure about the roof, I think it's too reddish. Mom says it looks good with that color. I don't know.

So, still need to work on the door and it actually has a small front yard that I have to work on. I'll work on the inside today. The lights are up. The floor is down. The trims still need staining and attaching. Forgot, still needs to buy the stain for the trim.

What to write when you have nothing to write about?

Random thoughts... A friend from Mapua sent me a song, Circle by Edie Brickell. We love this song. D, J, W, and me. 1988. That seems like a long time ago yet it feels just like yesterday. When, after school, we'll jump into W's ride and go to Makati most likely and just hang out or play billiards. Or just chill at "up-up", what we called the Intramuros Wall. Looking back, life was so easy but during that time, we were so angst-ridden. Feels like the whole world is against us. What with school getting in the way of our chilling out. Or parents, aunt in my case, not understanding how tremendously important it was for us to be together 24/7. And then, we have to worry about things such as reports and exams.

We had this discussion once. About why parents are the way they are. Didn't they went through what we're going through? Why is it so hard to understand? Somebody said that they won't do whatever injustice it was that we felt were being done to us. Somebody else said something like, "It's easy to say that now but who knows what will happen when we get older." We'll probably end up doing exactly what our parents did. So, we vowed to meet again in the future, when we have our own family and our kids are at their teens and see if somebody turned out to be their parent.

We set the date and the place. It will be 5 years from now. I wonder, who will show up?

And being alone
is the best way to be.
When I'm by myself it's
the best way to be.
When I'm all alone it's
the best way to be.
When I'm by myself
nobody else can say goodbye.

BOO!

Been a long time since I posted something long here or here. I guess nothing much to write about. Ooohhhh... So, over the weekend went to London and rode the London Eye. I really was not too keen in doing this since it's really big and soooo high but mom wanted to, so we did it. Absolutely nothing to be scared of. First, it moved ever so slowly you can't even feel how high you are. No stomach doing the tumbles or whatever. The capsules are big and substantial. It's fixed and it doesn't sway. So, there, sis I think that you could absolutely do this one.

The doll house is taking forever. I thought last week that I was almost done but a week later and I'm still not done. So, I've been working on this for 2 weeks now! What else needs to be done? I have to stain the roof. For the past 3 days I've been gluing the shingles. The windows need to be installed. Lots and lots of sanding, since the windows do not fit into the slots! The doors needs to be finished. I still don't know if I should just stain it or paint it. I ordered the lights today so it should be here in a couple of days. Hopefully, Saturday but most likely Monday. Yes, my dollhouse will have working lights. When the lights are up then I can finish the inside. Wallpaper, flooring and finally molding. And after that, I can work on the front yard. I have a small strip in front of the house. It comes with a white picket fence but I'm not putting it up. I have to sand and paint every... single... post/stick. Then, finally, we can decorate. AND, oh my gosh, some of this itty bitty furniture costs like real furnitures. I was looking at the catalogue last night and found a doll house for your doll house. hahahha.

Aside from that, nothing else is going on with me. I'm working on the dollhouse from the minute I wake up and G have to pry me away from it to go to bed. M is complaining that I don't cook dinner anymore. Lola's been cooking.

My arms are all scratched-up!

Thanks to the doll house I've been building for M. And I have a splinter in my right middle finger. It hurts when I bend it so I'm typing with my other 9 fingers. Why is it that really minor injuries hurt as much as a major injury! OK, that's exaggerated but this splinter is making normal chores difficult. And, it's so small, I can't see it and take it out. Argh!

Back in the old days when I was still working, one of the things that ALWAYS happen to me is ... paper cut. I HATE PAPER CUTS! I'd rather get cut by a knife than a paper. I don't see how an almost invisible cut hurts so much. And if it happens to be in my finger, I don't use that finger when I wash my hair. Reason being, a strand of hair always manages to slide into that almost-invisible-cut. Awwww.

I hate being in any kind of pain, no matter how big or small. If I stub my toe I would scream like a whole house fell on my toe. I don't know why. Maybe the screaming helps ease the pain. OR, maybe I'm just a big baby.