Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Chicken Caldereta for lunch

As i said before this post i'm gonna cook lunch... my hubby requested me to make a chicken caldereta so that's what we had for lunch. pretty easy for me to cook it with the help of "mama sita's" caldereta mix. so i dont need to have tomato sauce, liver spread ( sometime my tita use peanut butter instead of that) anymore. cuz with mama sita's its like magic! LOL! all i did was cut up the veggies that i need like carrots, red and green bell pepper and defrost the frozen peas. i didn't put potato cuz my hubby doesnt like it. and he wants it a little soupy so i added more water and used 2 packs (or sachet) of mama sita's instead. he like caldereta so much especially if its a beef but since we dont have beef stock on the fridge i just used chicken instead. he doesn't eat pork simply because he don't like it. i made a bunch of chicken caldereta so we would just heat it if we want to eat. that's how we do it here! LOL! heres the pic of my caldereta version:




New nail polish while talking on phone

My phone rang at 10:55 this morning while i was watching tv my with cup of coffee. It was my friend in Georgia. she just got here almost a month now, and like me she came her as a fiance visa holder.


hi sis! did i wake you up? she said... no, i got up 30 minutes ago! my reply.


finally her fiance got her a phone. she called me to let me know so we can talk anytime. hers is different from my phone network but she said she can call me for free anytime anyday.


oh that is cool! while my line only have free call starting 9 pm everyday and anytime during the weekend. i told her. so we talk long hours... exhanging the happenings in our life, they've planned the date of their wedding and of course we are invited..

i'm actually her maid of honor so i must be there on her wedding day. she got me a dress from PI so i dont need to worry what to wear. it would be exciting, it's been a long long time since i a bridesmaid.. never experience to be maid of honor yet! LOL!its gonna be my first time and its here in the states on my bestfriend's wedding. sounds like the movie huh!


anyway we talk on the phone for almost 2 hours i guess... and while talking to her i was in the bathroom cleaning my toenails, i don't have any plan of cleaning it but since my hubby says i talk loud on the phone ( oh well! pinoy eh!) hehe! so i went to bathroom. so instead of just sitting there i grab my earphone and connect it to my phone so my hands would be free do anything while im on the phone.

i opened my drawer and get my tools for cleaning my nails. i removed the old polish which is black and clean it. after cleaning the nails i apply a new polish which is the "french tip" as they call it. its cool cuz i did two things at the same time.

just about time when we bid goodbye to each other because we both have somethings to do. she will do some cleaning in their house and i will cook lunch. so gotta go folks!

heres my nail polish for today!

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Modern Toilet

On the title itself i know you are thinking about the "toilet where you do your p**p**" but that is not what i'm talking about here. i am talking about a "toilet-themed restaurant"

yes! thats right!! do you think you will have appetite just by thinking that you're gonna eat inside a toilet?

ugh! maybe some of you would say... eeeeeeewwww!!! no way!

but you know what toilet themed resaturant is popular in the country of taiwan. i've been to taiwan actually but i have never had the chance to see and eat in a restaurant like this. too bad cuz it only started in 2004, i was already in PI back then. and now the toilet themed resto's have 12 chains in different places of taiwan according to my research. and two of those are called the "Modern Toilet" and "Marton" heres the pics:






the seats are made of toilet bowls instead of chairs. sinks, faucets coded with WC ( referred as Cr in their language) appear throughout the facilities. the foods are served on a plate on top of a mini version of toilet bowls.

it seems like a bizaare food icon in taiwan... and speaking of bizaare i guess this toilet themed restaurants was shown on travel channel, on the show bizaare foods.

Watermelons and Egg shells

this is an email from a friend. i wanna share it with you cuz its really amazing how the creativity of people who have done this comes to a beautiful creations out of watermelons and egg shells. these are truly incredible! you'll love the watermelons but you will be blown away by the eggs...









this egg shells were cut with a high intensity precision laser beam. this gives a very good idea of what can be achieved with a laser beam. from this can be surmised what laser surgery performed on one's eye is all about. It is any wonder how one's vision can be improved in just a few moments? science is sometimes wonderful, and it's still on the frontier of gaining new knowledge.






"A true friend is someone who knows you're a good egg even if you're a little cracked."

Ice cream anyone?

It's almost summer and i can't wait to eat ice cream, i love it! especially my ultimate favorite "very rocky road" its my all time favorite! hindi ako nagsasawa haha! but since i got here i never had it anymore instead i tried different american flavors. ummm.... not bad! i like them too! i eat ice cream even winter time! haha! but after eating it i get shaky and cold! but it's okey i can't say no to an ice cream. it is one of my weaknessess... give me ice cream even when im on a diet, i forget about the diet and eat a bunch of ice cream! LOL!

My shoulder sores

My hubby bought this wii last december as a gift to me. he said so i have something to play when i get bored. i like it so much! i played almost everyday. there are different games that is so fun! but the badminton is my ultimate favorite game. not only that it is fun but also a good sort of exercise,cuz you play it as if you are really playing in a court. sometimes my hubby and i play together as a competition but he always beat me. i never win over him! we bought a few more wii video games and the last one that we bought is called "The legend of Zelda, Twilight Princess" my hubby loves to play it. i never play it cuz i always do the badminton, the other day i was bored and i said i need to do some exercise cuz i notice im getting fat. not a good sign! but since i dont wanna do crunches cuz it hurts i chose to play the wii. and i did badminton again... ummm.... maybe i played for about 30 minutes then i got tired so i stop. the next morning which is yesterday i felt my shoulder is a lil sore.and until now i can still feel it! maybe because i haven't been playing for a long time that is why my muscle was forced.

Big Brother 9 finale

My hubby and i loves to watch reality shows. and we are both a big fan of big brother 9. we watch it since the show started few months ago, we never missed any episode. just last week it came down to the last two person in the house. we were so anxious to know who's gonna win the 500 grand.

last night while hubby is working something here on the computer and i was watching tv i remember the big brother show. i jumped out of the couch and asked my husband when is big brother's finale? it is suppose to end this week.

he asked me "what's the day today?" .... it's monday! i said in reply

oh my god! we must have missed it! i said.

i grab the remote and search the channel.... i didn't find it!

i gave the remote to my hubby and he search it on the episodes for the next day, cuz big brother is usually during sunday, tuesday and wednesday nights.

he can't find for the next episode anymore so he went to looked it up online and we found out that the shows finale is already over.

he was pissed off. lol! he blame me for not reminding him about it! he said "how could you forget the show?"

well i know the reason why.... hehehe! it is because i've been addicted blogging already but i didn't tell him that. he doesn't even know that i have my own blog now!

so we just watched the big brother's finale episode online. ugh! thank god! atleast we still didn't miss it. we still know who won 500 grand! and it is baller! ( as they call him inside the house by his co-house guest).

Called my family!

Last night i made a call to my family back in the philippines, and i was happy to hear my niece's voice. i've been missing her a lot lately. when i told my mom i wanted to talk to her, she immediately grabbed the phone from mom and blurted out loud to my ear.....

hi tita! how are you? i love you! i miss you!

shes only 2 years and 6 months old but can talk fluent already. she is so talkative now! she has a sharp memory cuz even though she didn't see me for a long time she still remember me.

that is why i am so happy today cuz i got to talk to all of them except my brother who's in Laguna. he works in a factory there.

i was supposed to talk to them for 20 minutes ( i set a timer so i know when its gonna be over) but the alarm went off already and still was talking to them. i just miss them a lot!

we talk about whats going on with them right now. and told them about the recent happenings with my life here too...

tell them about my driving lesson, dad gave me tips and told me to relax, focus my mind and don't be nervous when i am behind the wheels. he is a great driver! it's his job all his life! he can drive anything!

anyway i really enjoyed talking to them cuz i ususally dont call them on phone cuz i worry it's expensive. we usually talk online... see them on webcam.... and talk over the headphone!

while i was enjoying talking to them i heard silence from the other line.....when i look at my phone they're gone.

i realized maybe their phone got lowbattery. haha! so i just texted them and told them that i'll just call them again next time. no definite date! i dont know either when it's gonna be again.

after calling them i also called my sister, shes in bulacan with her friend. they are both applying for a job back in taiwan...

she was glad that i called her and even talked to my hubby. they get along so well!

after about almost 40 minutes of chit-chatting i bid goodbye cuz the call is taking so long and i know it's gonna be expensive.

but so happy.... i slept really good last night after talking to my family. my homesickness was relieved.

Sunday, April 27, 2008

Found my long lost friend

it's been thirteen years and yet the friendship never changes, when i heard her voice on the phone i scream with excitement! i was so excited to hear her once again.

i've always been longing to see her in this wild world again, but i dont know where she is! the last time a talked to her it was six years ago, shes here in the states and i was in taiwan. we had frequent communication back then. but since they moved to other state the communication was cut-off. maybe she got busy, lost my phone number! i was waiting til i went back home to the philippines. and then no more!

eventhough we didn't had communication for a long time, i never forget about her. i knew to my heart that we will find each other again. and i was right, and never in my thought that i will find her because of the high-technology that we have in this modern world. when i got here in the states, i told my self she has to know i'm here! but i dont have any contact with her.

it happened one morning when my hubby was in the computer asked me if i knew somebody here that i wanted to find and abruptly i said yes! i looked up to what website is he in and i saw it was http://switchboard.com/ i told him her name but we didn't get any infos, good thing i remember her husband's name. my hubby type in the name and voila! there were about five results with the same name with their contact infos and addressess. so i wrote down the contacts in a piece of paper but i was hesitant to call at first because there were "what if's" in my mind. but then my hubby says i have to try. so i did! first call... wrong person! second call.... yelled at me! third call wrong person again but the lady that i talked to was nice. after those calls i gave up! i said i can't still find her and i dont know any other means to find her. in the afternoon i checked my outgoing calls and saw that one number i dialled was not the same one as what was written in the paper. i tried to dial the right one... the phone rings and a familiar voice answered the phone. oh my goodness! i say her name out loud without even asking if it was really her. and told her my name right away. i was so happy and so was she! at long last after ten years of no communication here we are again. we exchanged email adds and addressess, contact numbers and the next morning i got email right away from her with her picture attached to it. she never changed, she still look like the old days. she never aged. she's still the big sister that i met thirteen years ago. shes like a family to me! we are actually partners in crime! lol! we gp to bars together before, i was always her chaperon on her dates. i was like her shadow cuz everywhere she goes i got tagged along. i was only in my teens that time and she was on her early thirties but we developed a brilliant friendship. i learned a lot in life because of her advices, it may be in love or family! half of my being i owe it to her! and before hanging up the phone she never forget to say "i love you and i miss you!" and we promise to see each other so soon.

Missing my niece

it's past midnigt but i'm still awake. i can't sleep again, i've been like this for the past few weeks. actually when i got colds and cough and im taking some medicines i had good night sleeps because of those medicines. but now that im okey and not taking any medicines anymore my nights goes back to sleepless nights. i dont know why! maybe i'm just missing home, maybe i'm missing my mom, my niece. yes! my niece, i've been thinking about her. i remember when she was just a baby, i took care of her. eventhough a lot of times she doesn't like me haha! cuz she is a lola's girl! but then as she grew up and turned one year our realtionship changes, she liked being with me. she goes with me everytime i go to my friends house. wherever i go actually she was like my shadow. she can't even pronounce "tita" ( aunt)so well cuz she pronounce it like "tuta" (puppy) that is why people who hears what shes saying were curious and laughs when they knew that i who she calls "tuta". she is a smart little one though! she learn things easily. and shes not picky when it comes to food. she loves to imitate kids on a commercial on tv. i really miss her so much! she is our one and only little one in the family that is why she is a lil spoiled with me, my hubby and my sister. now that i'm here i only get to see her on webcam sometime. and she grew up so fast. shes tall for her age of two. my hubby could'nt even believe when he saw her. she does faces and laugh when she sees us on cam too. and now she can speak clearly. sometimes when i think about her i end up crying. and when my hubby asked me why... i'd say i miss my niece! well it's not yet too soon for me to see and kiss her again cuz we don't have plans of going for a vacation in PI soon. so maybe i need to see her on cam more often.

I'm Craving!

It's been quite a time since i was here in the states and been also quite a time that i'm missing our filipino foods. this past few days i've been craving for the street food like "kwek-kwek", its a quail egg that was submerged into a mixture of flour and seasoning before deep-frying it. i love it so much especially with it's lil spicy and sweet gravy. yum yum! im getting hungry thinking about it. and also the fishball and banana-que with matching palamig! lol! our food is really extraordinary to our taste. wherever we go we can't deny the fact that our tastebud is looking for it. there are lots of filipino foods that i really miss.. i wish i could cook it all! i miss my mom's pinakbet and my tita's kare-kare and dinuguan. haaayyy.... life is really different without our own filipino foods that we got used to.

Saturday, April 26, 2008

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Friday, April 25, 2008

3gb community

I've been browsing my friends blog and i came across to this site i got interested and so i open the said site, it's a site not new to me already but then i join 3gb community www.3gb.biz beacuse in here you can also meet new people, download pictures and make albums, join groups, get to see more blogs and even chat to the members online. and more thing you can also listen with the latest hits on mp3 so this is really cool!

lump on my breast?

Two years ago, i was still in the philippines waiting for my visa process. my hubby (was then my fiance) is planning to visit me for the second time. and because we both dont want me to get pregnant yet he told me to buy birth control prescription pills. But i just dont wanna buy anything over the counter so i decided to go to an obgyne clinic, i called my friend and asked wheres her obgyne clinic at so she went with me during my appointment. and at that time i was expecting my monthly period to come in a few days cuz i've been feeling the signs of having it. and the signs that im gonna have my period are my breast is a lil sore and tender especially in the morning when i get up from bed, crumps and a lil headache (sometime). i believe a lot of women out there feel those same signs. so the obgyne asked me to take off my shirt and my bra, and then i lay on the lil bed that was there. she asked me to put my hand up around my head, so i did in order for her to check my breast. and while she was checkin it she told me that she feels some lil lumps in it (small cyst). so i got scared and nervous cuz i wasn't expecting her to find anything in my breast cuz for all i know i am healthy and we dont have any history like that in the family, they say that breast cancers are also heriditary. after the check up she gave me a piece of paper, a referral for ultrasound. she said i have to go for ultrasound first to make sure because i can't take any birth control pills if i have a cyst. i went home upset! but then i went to the hospital for ultrasound, it was a guy who did my ultrasound( pissed me off!) but i just think he had seen a lot of breast already and that he doesnt care seeing mine. LOL! besides it's his job! so the ultrasound goes and its taking him a long time to find those lumps that the obygne had felt in my breast. he even asked me which part did the obgyne found the lump. so i was kinda curious already because if there was really a lump he could have found it so easy DUH! so i pointed out which part it is, then he slide the ultrasound to that part and i guess he just put sizes in it just to prove that there was really a lump. after a while of waiting for the result i went back to the obgyne clinic and showed to the result to her and told me that there was really a lump. it scares the hell out of me to hear that! and i was screaming in my mind it couldn't be! no way! i dont have a lump! i dont feel anything in my breast. i wasn't really convinced with the result so i asked fore a second opinion becuz the obgyne already told me to have it remove before it gets big, and she can't give me a prescription birth control. what? it looks like it has become so complicated. i told my hubby about it and he was also nervous for me and even asked me if i can still have a baby. haha! so heres the second opinion, it was a surgeon who checked my breast (again a guy) but my friend was inside with us. his findings, he said he can't really feel it and can't really tell if it was really a lump. so he told me not to worry and i have to observe it if it gets big and go back to him for a biopsy, to know if the lump is cancerous or not. but after a few months of observing i still didn't feel anythin in my breast. so i didn't go back instead i went to another obgyne clinic. and she didn't find anything in my breast so she gave me a prescription birth control. ahhhh!!!! what a big relief! my hubby was so happy cuz in just a few more weeks he's in PI again and i got my pills.
that was a terrible experience for me and i even consider it a nightmare! imagine what if i had the surgery right away? not only that i spend a lot of money for the check ups but also i was terrified! those docotrs are crazy! sometime you really have to be careful in choosing a doctor! well it was my friend's doctor thats why i trusted her! but then i realized that not all doctor treats you well good a hundred percent. maybe before choosing a doctor to treat you, you have to do a little reading about their reputation and backgrounds. that was a very big lesson learned for me! even now that i'm already here in the states and been to different check ups, there was no lump felt or found in my breast.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Tulips.... it's the flower for me!

when we were in seattle my hubby and i also went to the tulip festival in Skagit Valley, it's a tulip town. honestly it's my favorite flower, i just love it and i find it really simple and beautiful. i thought they were originally from japan til i search for its origin. and here's what i've searched:


Where Tulips Come From


It is a widely-spread misconception that tulips and other bulb flowers are native to Holland, growing wild in remote areas still. Nothing could be further from the truth. Almost no bulbous plants are native to this part of the world. For the origins of the tulip, we look to central Asia. This is site of their prime genetic center in the Tien-Shan and the Pamir Alai Mountain Ranges near modern day Islamabad, close to the border of Russia and China. From these areas, tulips spread to other regions including China and Mongolia to the east and to other regions to the west and northwest. A secondary genetic center developed in Azerbaijan and Armenia (Transcaucasia). From this area, tulips spread to locations which included far-flung parts of Europe. They are still encountered today growing wild in regions of the Balkans, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland and France. In nature there are probably no more than one hundred and fifty tulip species native to Europe. But that number depends largely on how one defines "wild species".

One of these tulips, Tulipa celsiana, is found wild in southern France in the region around Toulon and Cannes. This miniature tulip grows there between the rocks, under extremely dry conditions. It is visible only for a short growth and flowering period in the early spring. Flowering is quickly followed by withering, and the plant then survives as small bulbs that not only serve to help it survive the winter but the summer as well. In any event, the advance of the tulip in nature never got so far that it reached the Netherlands, not even within 500 miles


And here are a few pictures from the hundred variaties of tulip with their names that i took from that garden called Roozengaarde that we went to and the tulips are in different colors too;





oooppsss.... i thought it was only a few.. i took a lot of it pala!