What is the new normal???

Since we moved into the new house last year, it's been a whirlwind of chores -- all the stuff that we had to fix while moving in. It took us the better part of three months to get all of the stuff into the house and out of boxes. The last bits stayed in the garage for months before I mustered up enough energy to finally tackle what was left in those boxes (bits and pieces of cloth left over from my grad school project, Christmas decor, more clothes). 

I can say with pride that we are now in a place where we have fully moved in. We haven't had any household help for years now and so all the chores are done by us. Kids clean and maintain their own respective rooms plus helping out in mopping the common areas and bussing duty for meals as well as taking out the trash and caring for the puppy. Jun is the master of the robot vacuum, our sanity saver. I do the laundry twice a week and just leave the clean clothes in the laundry cabinet for everyone to pick up and bring to their rooms. There is a certain rhythm already, with a few tweaks every now and then.

The current pandemic makes everyday a bit the same. Work and school on weekdays, with the occasional cooking and cleaning up. Cleaning chores on weekends. Repeat. I'm sure things will get shaken up when the pandemic lets up and things get back to normal. But what is normal? Isn't our life now our new normal? The pre-pandemic life doesn't seem real anymore. When it's safe to go out, I won't be at work everyday. I can't go back to the commute. The kids will certainly go back to school but Josh and Faith will be in college and might move out for that. That leaves me alone in the house during the day. There is no going back to the old normal. We'll have to forge a new one in a couple of months, until we all get vaccinated. But in the meantime, I will relish these days when everyone dear to me is with me everyday. This is the normal I love.

Update 2021

So my kids, who are now 19, 17 and 12 years old, have just discovered my blog.  We were in our bedroom chatting about random things before our nightly prayer time when my husband just mentioned that I had a blog.  

Right there and then, they started checking it out.  I have to admit I felt a little embarrassed that they were reading things I wrote about them a long time ago. But turns out they enjoyed reading about their childhood antics.  

I actually spent the better part of the night reading my blog entries from the very beginning.  Finally stopped at 11:03pm because I have work the next day.  But had a hard time falling asleep in spite of the melatonin pills I took because I was full of thoughts.

It's been so long since my last blog post! 2014! Seven years.  So many years.  The kids have grown quite a lot since then.  We've also been through (and still going through) COVID and lock down. But my gosh, am so grateful to my past self for documenting those early years with blog posts.  

Rediscovering those little stories of what they used to say and do brought me so much joy. It was like reliving their childhood all over again.  Remembering those hard sleep deprived nights but also immensely grateful at getting to remember.  I have been keeping a written journal on and off the past years but it simply does not compare to my old blog posts.  They are more poorly written, for one thing.  LOL.  A lot of stream of consciousness rambling.  I guess writing blog posts that other people might read kept me more accountable to at least try to write coherently.

I have to figure out how to save my posts as well as the photos.  I'm still on the fence about continuing to write in this space. Guess we'll see.

Hello Again

Yes, it's been that long.  This is us now.  A lot older.  A little wiser.  And a lot over Facebook.  

I was in the middle of cleaning up my email when I thought of visiting my blog.  I read my old posts about the kids and was amazed to rediscover details that have slipped my memory.  Funny anecdotes about Josh and Faith growing up.  Everyday details that made up my life.  And I found myself wishing I could do it all over again.  So here I am.  

I'm doing this again mostly for myself and family.  I am reluctant to share a lot of my life over Facebook which is why I don't post often.  It amazes me that a lot of people are so into posting every minute detail of their lives for everyone to see.  And I suppose that's fine if that's the way they want it.  I prefer not to though. So it's nice to visit people on Facebook but I wouldn't worry if it suddenly crashed and nobody would ever be able to post again.  

So anyway, I will try to post here more often.  So I have a place to remember.

Birthday Post

By a funny stroke of fate, all my children's birthdays fall during the month of May.  Their birthdays fall on the 9th (Lucia), 15th (Faith) and 28th (Joshua).  Unfortunately this year, it coincided with an important business trip which meant I had to miss the two girls' birthdays.    What a guilt trip!  It's so hard to be a working mom.  I had to be gone for 10 days so I made sure we had a mini celebration on the weekend before I had to leave.  I bought a small cake  and their presents and we all sang happy birthday.  

Good thing that the advent of technology still allowed me to be with them virtually.  I was on skype on the actual days of their birthdays while they blew on the candles of their respective cakes.  Lucky Joshua who was the only birthday I was actually home for.  

So birthday number three is over and I can now focus on the coming school year.  Only a couple of days left of the summer vacation.  It's been rainy and gloomy alternating with intense heat.  Not a very ideal time to be outdoors.  

This year, Lucia will be going to nursery school.  Where did all the time go?  My baby girl is now a preschooler!  Lots of luck to whoever is going to be her teacher.  Heh heh.  I have never met a more strong willed little girl who manipulates adults with her smile and sense of humor.  

Pictures soon!

This year is turning out to be a travel year for the family.  We just came from a trip to Hong Kong with the gremlins and I've booked us a flight to Bohol sometime August.  Thank goodness for Cebu Pacific promos! 

After a tiring trip to HK, I promised myself the next family trip will be all about relaxation.  I didn't realize how tiring it would be to visit amusement parks with three children in tow.  I realized HK is not a very child friendly place to travel to especially with a toddler in a stroller (a 38 pound toddler).  We stayed in Sheung Wan which is just one stop away from Central Station but the darn MTR entrances didn't have any elevators.  Just stairs and scary fast escalators.  Which is a no-no if you're carting along a toddler in a stroller.  So it was an endless process of getting the diaper bag off, getting Lucia off (it was doubly hard if she was sleeping), folding the stroller, and...you get the drift.  The stroller is MUCH lighter than Lucia, by the way.  A fact I realized on our last day when I asked the hubby to carry her when she was sleeping while I lugged the stroller and diaper bag.

So it was the usual hectic and physically tiring (walking all over and dealing with meltdowns) vacation.  The kind where you need a vacation after the vacation.  So yeah, am looking forward to three days of sun (crossing my fingers), sand and surf!

I totally blame Pinterest for the lack of blog posts.  Ever since I got signed up, it's been pinterest every spare minute of time I have.  It's a fantastic cornucopia of a lot of things -- design ideas, food, clothes, etc.  I get especially hooked on decorating and organizing ideas for when I get a chance to build my dream home.  I've repinned some awesome library ideas and kiddie bedrooms.

Apart from that, weekends have been pretty busy of late.  February is when all the Family Day activities in school are held.  Then the Father-Son Camping (which I wanted to crash! boohoo!) and then exam period.  We were homebound this weekend due to the long tests scheduled this week and then the kids get a break with a family trip.  Needless to say, packing for 5 people one of which still needs diapers and formula bottles isn't the easiest thing in the world to do.

Lots of last minute stuff to take care of for work and then packing the rest of the things needed for the trip.  Later!

New Style Peg

Tilda as the White Queen in Narnia

I first saw Tilda Swinton as the White Queen in Chronicles of Narnia and thought she was so cool in costume.  In real life though, she has a very masculine style  and can look androgynous even.  Then I rented the movie I Am Love on iTunes and fell instantly in love with the look.

The film is set in Milan where Tilda plays the Russian immigrant wife of a prominent and wealthy Italian family.  She later falls for and runs away with the chef.  There's a bit more to the movie than that but it's not what I want to focus on on this post.  Unfortunately, the movie was never shown in Manila and I have not seen it in any of the DVD stores hence the rental.

What she wore to lunch with the equally chica  mother in law. 

She wore this with a very light white cardigan. Wish there was a shot of the back of the dress available because it has a  low square back. Very sexy and feminine but not at all slutita levels.

She wore the above ensemble while going around the city doing errands -- picked up the dry cleaning, etc.  Totally un-Manila like.  But super love it!  

Evening gown. Sigh.

Very cool and classy.  Makes me think of Grace Kelly.

 

Casual look

A lot of women can take a lesson in dressing appropriately for your age from this movie.  There's nothing worse than a woman in her fifties trying to look like she's in her 20's.  It IS possible to be that age and still look classically beautiful and well put together.  I think it's great that this classic look epitomized by Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn and Jackie Onassis is making a comeback thanks to series like Mad Men.  At last a respite from the Madonna, Lady Gaga, Nicky Minaj styling.  No offense meant.