-Raspberry Pancakes-

"Simple Pleasures"
dipping my toes in cool water
taking a pretty polaroid
cashmere sweaters
lifting my face to the rain
picking a perfect flower
robin's egg blue
squishing my toes in the sand
soft chiffon
crying from laughter
seeing the sun stream through the curtains

"Tatah"
Where are we going?
Will you take a left at the pond
or a right at the tree
Turn down that lane
or sail off with me?
Any way, we'll be free.


"Let's Go"
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover.
-Mark Twain-


"Snapshots"
Capture them.
They're not coming back.

Velvet Bunny

I miss pixietales. And poetry. January 28th was my last (Kirk a little tampo to everyone for the absence and silence). I miss Facebook. I miss movies while on couch potato. And that relax watching of AI. And GMA News TV. Enjoying my book. And Quiet Time. Afternoon naps. Foot spa and pedicure. I miss shopping. And Papemel with Jen. I miss Nanat. Hanging out with CITEM friends. And chatting with Bok. And those expensive weekend sleepovers with Sophie. I'm slipping away ...

Davao was PATHETIC, spelled backwards and other way, it smells the same. CITETHAP PATHETIC! A week and still on the running, my blood rising like an over boiling tea pot screaming like it wanna pulverize your ear drum :( My plane landed and landed and all I did was work and work and work to a place and time that's 40% hard labor and 60% war. Wheewwww ...

This afternoon, my friend ENY's blew her top. About somebody asking about me, mine, him and his. She was proud and might in her pulpit and I was meek and quiet at the pew. I took all her sermon like spits on my face :(. She's had enough of those people and all those talks. I was staring the air pointblank, that nasty heartbeat inside my throat (a bad sign), and unstoppable hiccups (bad sign gone worse) I wasn't deafmute but I was certainly cold and numb. My words to her, "Please don't ask me to put if off. This is closest to staying real. Let me cherish this. It can't be for long." It feels like my big oxygen tank, bleeding. Hanging on by a thread to dear life. Foolish but alive. And sleep and wake up for something for myself each day. So my dear friend, please try to accept what you don't understand.

The beauty about this telecon, come to think about it, it was supposedly about ENY and ENY's Zham. Happy to be of help as usual. As soon as I got home, I grabbed my Good Housekeeping February issue, thanks to the Bautistas. :) On the other hand, to me, is another reality check and me an usual, pretty when pinched. :)

My APE's out. Well, not that bad. Just bad. Just bad aint that bad, ayt? No bleeding just inflammation. At least I aint losing much of my rare blood type. I'm not in pain. I'm not worried. I'm just wondering what's really wrong. This week I will try to visit Dra. Virata again. It's been a year and ... and my "emotional" cervix just won't give up stealing the scene hayyyy

The beauty about this piece of document ... it sets the alarm. So there me again, another promise to quit the things I've got to quit. :)

The week that was, was a week of homecoming, memorials, birthdays and engagement. :)


My cousin Jerome's home for the week with us. I picked him up from Pacific Grand Villas and brought him to Solar where Caroline had been waiting for us. Some sweet bonding time with my younger cousz. Weekend we paid our respect to our matriachs. I hosted dinner, I served them liempo, Señor Pedro, grilled fish and sinigang na baboy. I got the kiddos Very Rock Road and marshmallows. And there there was the five of us - - - Jerome, Franco, Bujon, Carrots and Ate. i missed my brood so much. I missed those times when we were young children ourselves and complete, busy having fun fun fun with one another, either in our ancestral home in Tanza, Tita Marie's place in Meycauyan, Tita Jing's condo in Makati or in our apartment in Gapo.

Here are some family pix at Sunday memorial (notice the faded lilac):











My friend Bengbeng turned 43 last week. I sent her a brief message in FB, a reassurance of my love and friendship.


Si Bengbeng, hinatid pa ako sa Tanza, when I moved back from Gapo to Cavite. So sweet and thoughtful of her. Here's a picture of us, during her last day in Cavite. Nasa Rosario kami nagpapadevelop ng mga pictures namin :(. Misz ko na BengBeng, nasa NGCP lang naman sya, lapit lang hindi pa matuloy-tuloy coffee-coffee namin :(

BenBen's birthday, too. It's been awhile, sana matuloy na din birthday dinner celeb ni Jen sa Sikatuna Ville for ol' ITSED, we misz na our cuddly big Ben :)

I remember the last surprise birthday party thrown for him some 2 years back. Many things have changed now. But that was one happy memory. This was my birthday gift for him ... a mouth watering :) caramel cake ... original from Estrelle's :) ...
Sempre kami lang ng mga kaibigan ko ang naka relate, halos ayokong buksan ang box at i-serve ang cake kasi may mga kalaban hahah darnnnnn



Irma S. Vanta
My little neng is getting married ... sending you and rommel and your little one gazzilionth hugs ... love always, from Ate Nena, Nenita Sophia, and Kuya Tintoy ;) (hahaha kasali talaga, laging kasali hahah ... ayaw pa upstage ayaw pa upstage!) ♥Love you Neng

Phia Lorraine Yater likes this.
*
o
Phia Lorraine Yater love you too!
12 hours ago · LikeUnlike

Life's simple joys

This week was just outright work mode. From Monday to Saturday. From 8 o'clock in the morning until God knows when :(

I got tired and pissed. So negative. I decide not to dwell on it.

Having most of my time of the week breakin' my back, it must be wise to recall precious moments no matter how few they were.

Am sure as I go through this exercise this very afternoon, I'd expect seratonin rush :)

1) As simple as finding youtube downloader :), and successfully downloading it in our desktop. Sophie was really happy about that. Especially after lime and frost went haywire.

2) Pizza Hut Thursday with Fayie. Little Neng. and family, and friends so happy with her first media coverage hehe ... here



3) Sophie doing her PE project ... dancing ballroom. She practiced with Tom every Saturday. From morning until the afternoon. Obviously, with her screaming classmate fans, it paid her really well.

It can't be seen but she was actually wearing her Hello Kitty shoes :)



3) Remy's getting married. In Melbourne with her Filipino boyfriend. Me and Rems, we come along way. We have known each other since grade school at KES. We went to the same high school, where we got really close along with DOGNUTS. We used to walk each other home since we lived practically in one stretch of a big neighborhood. Among my friends, siya yung pinaka selosa heheheh. I remember her getting sensitive each time I failed to walk with her for home. Tambayan ng DOGNUTS mga bahay bahay namin. Including their big house in Brgy. Pag-Asa. Tatay Asyong was the first to go among our living/surviving parents then (we never actually met Nanat's mama as she passed in Nat's early childhood days). She and Jomat had a big big crush on RS, Jr. Freshman year, he was senior. I was their mole. She tried to play badminton, joined try-outs because of him. Parang ako, when I didn't know anything about table tennis, I joined a try-out without anything, only because of this really cute guy, Emmanuel Fordan. I was an early starter with boys. She had her time. We both fall in love hard, like hitting faces over cement wall :( Kaya lang, me bihira ako magka-crush, sila ni Jomat masyadong ma-crush. Lahat na lang ng pogi sa Jackson crush nila hahah Rems was a promising cook way back high school. I remember her winning "kare-kareng" something hahahah talk about exotic food just for the grades. She was hardcore INC. So there the famous Felipe story heheh. We went to Manila for a taste of university life, went back to Gapo and got our diplomas. Pinatubo and we went back to our hometown. She in Gen. Trias, me in Tanza. He met his daughter's father in between our hometown escapades. We were both starting a career when she got pregnant. I remember that scene perfectly in my head, she was all so broke when she moved in with Boggs. I brought her to the town's hospital for her frog test. Her hands were sweaty (as they usually are), I was frantic smoking just outside the hospital. I was thinking patay kami kay Nanay. Result was out, that fast, that brief. POSITIVE! Jhana Katrina's sweet sixteen. She's got her dad's charm. Her mom's brains. Hay salamat naman haha Mother and daughter are my FB friends, Jhana a blogger herself.


Summer on our Freshman year in college. Spending my birthday with Remy and our high school friends (from me, L to R ... Jeff, Nikki, Jomat, Arlene, Allan, Nanat, Remy in the middle on stripes :) )


She had several relationships after Boggs (which all failed obviously), true, what they say, you have to kisz several toads, to get your prince!

Best wishes Rems. God bless you in your new endeavor. Give my hugs to Jhana. I love you both!

Here's to us!

My new LSS, after seeing Matthew Goode this weekend :) ... soon in my playlist from freezing wires @ Southern Spot ;)

Smash!

The recently concluded week we celebrated Sophie’s 14th birthday. I was granted 2 days off from work and played mother hen. Her new media player has overtaken her easily :) . She said her thanks and gave a hug and a kiss each for mom and dad.

The break of March. Something about it. Jen suspects my ovulation. I kept mum, and played innocent. I just stopped counting.

Me sharing a friend’s thoughtfulness. Words like these is like waking up with sweet sunshine right above your bed, so who cares about bad dreams and stormy nights.

"We all have our darkest moment in our past ... But they all have passed; it's time to move on. Let's treasure that we have today, at this moment -- the place and the company/colleagues who "tolerate" us (he he he), the breath that sustains us, the possessions we have. The "good fortune" that allowed us to reach where we want to go, and most of all, the Divine Providence who lets all these wonderful things happen. Kissssseessssssssss!!!! No good thing ever happens to those who neglect our love: they suffer the same fate, and worse - they take a far longer time to recover. Damaged goods aren't we all? Kaso, we are of a recyclable type: some old parts, remain, yes, but it adequately complements the newness within us. Enjoy the new day today!

You are loved and well-thought of by those who really prize you, your presence, your friendship, your warm company, the wise words you so generously share ... Never make a second look at those who used you. Specks, that's what they are, they may even blind the eye, yes, but they cannot crush the soul that makes you ... ESPESYAL. Mwah!!!"

♥ ♥ ♥

This shaker shakin' her way out of the box (and tat one really feels good ei!)

Writing is therapeutic but kinda laidback. Sometimes it’s purely brain activity. Very limited motor skills is involved. No good for someone with hypothyroidsm and pre-diabetes. I started with simple poems in grade school and graduated slowly to more serious topics as I grow my accomplishments and my frustrations in my adult years.

I think most writers are voracious readers. They come hand in hand. We kinda draw inspiration from the success of other writers. So we read about the stories they have put together, get enthusiastic with the way they develop their characters, get really starry-eyed with their style of writing, and challenged by their type of work.. My own library is growing, from my first Milan Kundera and Anne Rice, to my all time faves by Laura Esquivel, Joanne Harris, Frank McCourt, Robert James Waller, now Elizabeth Gilbert. A good book is my out-of-pocket lemon :). For that reason, I never go out without my current read. I take the bus with it. Go to bed with it. I am steady in queau at my doctor’s clinic with it. I bring it with me in my designated precinct during elections. Anytime I know there’s a time to kill. My book is my weapon.

Music is all the rhythm of beautiful words put together. I have been such a fan even at a young age. From radio to MTV days. Today I have an extensive genre, it comes with age, as we move form one era to another. My books , my paradise, I have a garden of songs, too. :)

My online life. Me a citizen of this worldwide highway. I acquired my first dial-up 11 years ago. Now its wireless broadband. I keep in touch with important people in my life ;), especially those I don’t get to see day to day, here in my online journal and Facebook.

Just when I thought I had enough busy life to keep steady with. ADHD makes me restless. :) I still want to challenge myself on how to keep myself interested with myself ;). I have plans to getting into the academe,travel with my daughter and with myself, separately, take guitar lessons and cooking lessons, get into sports and try fun run with Sophie together with CITEM titos and titas. I don’t wanna die of boredom. I don’t wanna get caught wearing it. I don’t want to kill myself with it.

This weekend was my first day. I survived that hour with little collateral damage haha. I got home, ate a “growing girl” lunch hahah, hit the shower, hit the bed. I woke up at 4 0’clock in the afternoon. After my strenuous morning, I am back to my usual cerebral hobby. Here.

And yes sir, badminton makes you crave for manggang hilaw and bagoong. So weird me ;)

Thanks to Ogie, my trainor. For his patience to this 41 year old lazy bone. In an hour, he was able to correct my wrist and made this old hag run, from left to right side of my half court. It was so inspiring for me that I was able to convince Sophie for a summer clinic that will start April 16. Who knows, one day, mother and daughter, will start taking the circuit ;)

Mirandizing ...

"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to be speak to an attorney, and to have an attorney present during any questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be provided for you at government expense.

Knowing and understanding your rights as I have explained them to you, are you willing to answer my questions without an attorney present?


(after the Redd Quill doctrine ... it's a major major conspiracy bluff for the nth time, the shag pad is real though :) ... aint we jealous of sinful beds huh ;) ... connive lang si pimps ... i mean, aint we all suppose to support our friends causes. like we all do, like we all did in the past. a friend's got to do what it's got to do.)

Sophia Clarisse is 14 today!

I woke up early today. 1st of March 2011. Helped her for school, with her two boxes of choc'late cakes.

It’s been 14 years. And I still have sweet imaginings of those small footsteps running around our house like a little pixie. That time when our house looked like a pre-school where every wall was covered with the color chart, the alphabet, the numbers 1 to 10, etc etc. Everything was General Patronage, we only play nursery songs or Mozart, and watch original Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and all of Disney’s Princesses, and Sesame Street, too for everyone’s entertainment including us, adults. We went strictly child friendly. Have one room solely for her toys, all safe, non-toxic, mainly plush, educational, interactives :). I started to grow her little library of kiddie books, art works, supplements. I hope I didn’t bore her with those choices (though I am sure now that I did :( ). I come home from CITEM, and personally hand wash her laundry only with white Perla soap. I don’t mix soiled baby clothes with ours. I have always been a weird peculiar mommy. At 41, I still am, I started young :). She never got any of those rashes on her tush, my mom and I got her 4 sets ( 12 each) of Bird’s Eye cloth diaper, which Lola Miles tidied up all lose ends to make her precious one comfortable and safe. I only used Pampers and Huggies alternately at night or when we shop or when we visit her pedia. She had a complete round of inoculations and boosters. Her pedia gave her first piercing. (Lola) Tita Marie gave her first hair cut. She was surrounded by branded, expensive kiddie furnitures, above all she was in the company of people who loved and cared with all might and sincerity. I had a nanny during her first two years only because I was thinking of a major adjustment at work. Lola Meding gladly lived with us to oversee the nanny. It was such a secured life for me and my little one.

I was kinda literal as a first time mom. As usual, I tried to read about how to raise babies, toddlers, pre-schoolers, graders, and now adolescents. Theories and practical “magics” from olden times can always come handy. My first 9 years, my own mother, and grandmother had been very helpful. Sometimes I dunno how I would have survived my green apple years as a young working mother without the two of them.

And survived we did. Raising her. From nursing to teething, from weaning to potty training, from her pedotontics to her developmental pediatrician, swimming class, piano lessons, ballet, her learning challenges, modifying our home to help her deal with ADHD, from traditional to Montessori schooling, camping, Sunday school, graduation, dances and school presentations.

I have seen it all. And seeing some more. I thank God for giving me the opportunity to play that role as mother to my daughter. I remember getting some accusations in the past, not much about how I was trying to raise her, but more about how my personal relationships intertwined with my parenting. So they say. I think they were wrong about that.

It’s been 14 years. Look at her.

"She scoots, she bikes, she skates, she does pirouette, she rides the roller coaster and all the stuff i already consider as extremely life threatening physical activities arrgghh, she camps, she sleeps over,she commutes and takes the streets on her own, she cooks, shes’s techy, she still tells me her secrets, and above all, she's so so not into boys! (at least not yet).

Mommy already excited about the up and coming years.

Meantime, she's 14 today. I gave her time-off from her tutorial classes. She will be having a little "cake" party in school later. Her father and i got her a new ITouch, fourth gen, 32 gig :) ... she is so adoring it!

Happy birthday Sophie!


♥♥♥ Some baby Sophie stuff ♥♥♥


Two pink lines, they say. I remember coming home at Julian Eymard for a family weekend gathering. I was so lazy, and groggy and sleepy all the time. I usually was playful with the boys. But nah, not that afternoon. Mama was already suspicious. The boys were playing innocently trying to get their Ate's attention. I was living with my boyfriend for almost 6 months, I called for cousz Jerome to goto the nearest pharmacy for something. Everyone went quiet. I went to the toilet silently. I came out to see each and everyone of them by the bathroom door :). And all I said was, "they were supposed to be pink and two. But these were purple (and two). My mother could not contain her joy. She embraced me and called my boyfriend right away. Who was doing some plumbing in the house, which noise and mess, I could not take. That figures. I went to back sleep with that sweet pretty smile smacked on my face.



I was not contented. I went to see my good friend Thelms at Gotamcoville. I prodded her to to accompany me to Madocs. She was hesitant. It was past 6 in the evening, no labs, no doctors, unless for emergency cases :(. I won over her. I told her about yesterday morning at Julian Eymard. I showed her the two lovely purple lines. I questioned the reliability of test packs those days. I am getting a frog test. She gave me that "Oh-my-God,-Irms,-are-you-really-pregnant-look?!" I paid double. Special lab test. I had the paper on my hand in just a few minutes. I told Thelms, it didn't say anything. Thelms disbelief, ayun o Irmz, naghuhumiyaw na POSITIVE!" After x no. of years of starving myself, Maymay and I piggin' out at Mcdo jusz across Madocs. 7th July 1996.


One of the many ultrasounds we took. The first one was for the gender. The next ones were biophysical. Then doppler's. My OB suspected that 80% of my mom's congenital was on me. On my 3rd trimester, Sophie had a heartbeat but no chest movement. I was optimistic. I still am.


3-1-97 12:16 pm Baby Girl of Merza, Irma Dr. Sese (her 1st pedia) Dr. M Lim (my Ob gyne) - - - - Sophie's hospital wrist tag.