Somewhere in this picture is a zucchini --

The infectious disease specialist who came to see Anya really loved our garden.  She told us her father in-law, who studied agriculture, maintains a vegetable garden also.  She sent over these really small zucchini from their garden.

They're so small!!!

Some recipes I want to try --

Bob Blumer's Chocolate Wontons

Lava Cake

Gooey Chocolate Mug Cake

This cheesecake recipe <-- I like the recipe that is listed on the Philly Cream Cheese box because it has sour cream but this one looks interesting.

Schweinhaxe <-- saw this featured on Anthony Bourdain.  I think pork is slowly replacing chicken as my favorite meat.

Wow --

I read in one news article on Yahoo that Chelsea Clinton and her husband were supposed to read this poem as part of their wedding ceremony --


I looked it up on Google and it made me go, "Wow" --


The Life That I Have by Leo Marks
The life that I have
Is all that I have
And the life that I have
Is yours

The love that I have
Of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours.

A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause
For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours and yours. 


Wasn't that a lovely poem?


* * *


Another poem --


About 2 weeks ago, I was feeling really sh*tty about myself -- as usual, I overthought the situation and felt like my brain was going to burst.


Long story short: I felt like my high school self and I felt all the awkwardness and gauche-ness that comes with being that age.  And it annoyed me to feel like that because I'm 32 years old and should have overcome all that.


Anyhoo, a dear friend was kind enough to listen to me through my pity party --


And then an off-tangent idea came to mind and it was this poem:


Bonsai by Edith Tiempo
All that I love
I fold over once
And once again
And keep in a box
Or a slit in a hollow post
Or in my shoe.

All that I love?

Why, yes, but for the moment -
And for all time, both.
Something that folds and keeps easy,
Son's note, or Dad's one gaudy tie,
A roto picture of a young queen,
A blue Indian shawls, even
A money bill.

It's utter sublimation,
A feat, this heart's control
Moment to moment
To scale all love down
To a cupped hand's size,

Till seashells are broken pieces
From God's own bright teeth,
And life and love are real
Things you can run and
Breathless hand over
To the merest child.


I'm fine now, by the way.  ^_^

Funny thing --

Johann and I celebrated our 5th anniversary last July 23 --

I had the idea of asking our friend, C (who was going to Singapore) to buy a copy of SFX for Johann.  (It's one of his favorite magazines.)

I didn't tell him because it was going to be a surprise.

What I didn't know is that Johann had also asked C to buy some M&M Peanut Butter for me.

He didn't tell me because it was going to be a surprise also.

=^_^=

* * *

Postponed anniversary --

We had planned to watch a movie and have dinner at the newly-opened Mandarin Tea Garden inside SM City on our anniversary but we had to postpone our plans indefinitely --

Anya's yaya's mom was sick so the yaya had to go home.  It turned out that the mom had typhoid so the yaya is currently on quarantine for 2 weeks.

Top 10 Uses for Nutella

Article here.

My favorite is to mix Peanut Butter and Nutella on a sandwich -- great energy boost and a really yummy way to greet the morning. ^_^

I love you, Steven Moffat --

When Johann started watching Doctor Who, I resisted.  I don't like very long series that I have to catch up with -- and it takes forever to find the previous series/episodes.

This was the case with Doctor Who.  We came in at Season 5 with the 11th doctor (Matt Smith) and had to scramble and find Seasons 1 to 4.  Thankfully, Amazon UK has this amazing boxed set which was on sale -- and we bought it.

And we've been spending an hour or two every afternoon watching an episode or two of Doctor Who.

But I digress -- Johann's been squealing about Doctor Who for about a month now and I've ignored it -- until one afternoon, when he watched The Vampires of Venice.  We had to stop halfway through because he needed to go back to work.

I was stuck at home -- dying to find out how the episode ended.  So I did.  By myself.

Then I watched The Girl in the Fireplace.  And now I am hooked.

(Here is where Steven Moffat comes in.)

My sister and I have an uncanny ability to love directors/writers without knowing them.  Apparently, even from our younger days, we've unknowingly followed Ridley Scott and James Cameron.

Such was the case with Steven Moffat, who wrote The Girl in the Fireplace and several other episodes of Doctor Who.

I've shared Doctor Who with a few friends and I always recommend a Steven Moffat episode for them to watch --

Russell T. Davies who was responsible for jumpstarting the show in the 21st century has stepped down after Doctor Who Season 4 and Steven Moffat is now "running the show" --

For the curious, here are the episodes of Doctor Who which Steven Moffat has written (so far):
1. The Empty Child
2. The Doctor Dances
3. The Girl in the Fireplace
4. Blink <-- Carey Mulligan guest stars in this one
5. Silence in the Library
6. Forest of the Dead
7. The End of Time Part 2 <-- uncredited
8. The Eleventh Hour
9. The Beast Below
10. Victory of the Daleks
11. The Time of Angels
12. Flesh and Stone
13. The Pandorica Opens
14. The Big Bang


Titles in bold are Season 5 episodes.

He also wrote Time Crash -- a five-minute Doctor Who "episode" which was shown for a charity benefit show.

Information gotten from IMDB.

A reason to be in the UK in February 2011 --

SFX Weekender
Camber Sands, East Sussex
February 4 and 5, 2011

George Takei is going!

Weird Pringles flavor --

Found at the supermarket --


Lemon & Sesame
Blueberry & Hazelnut

I want!!! --

I don't craft or do scrapbooks --

But the acquisitive in me wants to get this.



It's a Cuttlebug Machine.  It's currently less than $60 for the machine.

World, don't get this for me.  I wouldn't know what to do with it when I get it.

Photos! --

Johann got the Hipstamatic App for his phone and he's been taking pretty pictures with it.

I really like this picture he took of me.  (Yes, I'm reading a romance novel.  Ravishing in Red by Madeline Hunter.  Very nice story!)  We were waiting for our haircut appointment at the Korean Hair Salon in Ledesco.



The slippers I am wearing have a very interesting story -- and they only cost 40 pesos.

I had a perm when I went to Tokyo last September and the curls are gone now.  I'm thinking of getting another perm at the Korean Hair Salon and I found this picture in one of the magazines there.  I showed it to the owner and she told me that I could probably get it done next month when my hair is the correct length.



I'm really excited to get it done!  (I wonder how it will look with all my grey/white hair.  Hahaha!)

Photos of the kids using the Hipstamatic in my other blog.

Epic fail morning --

The concept sounded sound -- cream cheese and blueberry in pancake --

The initial plan was just to swirl blueberry topping into the pancake batter but I read a recipe that mixed cream cheese in pancake batter.

I figured I could mix both into the same pancake batter.  (Did I mention it's a whole wheat pancake mix?  Bob's Red Mill Whole Grain Mix Pancake & Waffle, 10 Grain 26 oz)

It looked pretty but the inside was still mushy and wet --




See the lovely fleck of cream cheese?


Mushy inside! T_T



Good thing we had bread.

At the same time, Johann decided to experiment on the proportion of coffee grounds (Yes, C, we "brew" our own coffee now. ^_^)  And the coffee was too weak -- and we had put in the same amount of condensed milk into our cups.  Our coffee tasted like warm sweet milk.

This does not bode well for the rest of the day ...

It works! --

I read that you can "recover" scratched discs using metal polish.  Article here.

I tried it on one of Seth's Little Einstein's discs -- a lot of the shallow scratches disappeared -- the deeper ones are still there -- the most important thing is that the disc doesn't skip or pixelate anymore when we play it.

Caveat:  Don't try this on super expensive/super rare discs.  We only tried the metal polish yesterday and we don't know about long-term effects.

Afraid of yeast --

I stumbled upon this recipe on Allrecipes.com -- the concept sounds simple and I was going to give it a try.

I have all the ingredients ready (went to the supermarket and got them) -- but I can't find the ... courage to make them.

I'm a little intimidated by the whole yeast rising thing.  (What if it doesn't rise?  What if I bake it wrong?)

The ingredients and the recipe have been waiting patiently for over a month now -- initially, I reasoned that I didn't have enough time.

This afternoon, I had already asked my sister to watch Anya while she was sleeping so I could start on the dough.

And then I decided not to.

So I'm sitting here, with the recipe in the window tab beside this blog entry, wondering when I'll have the confidence to make them.

* * *

Jealous of my younger brother  --


My youngest brother came home from Japan (for good) bringing with him all sorts of yummy gadgets -- he has this wonderful breadmaker that can make bread in 4 hours.

When I was in Manila, he baked a loaf for our parents and they raved about how good it was.

I have a friend who works in the same department at their university who mentioned my brother's bread no less than 3 times in the span of a 2-hour conversation.  (A conversation where we were supposed to catch up on our lives and not discuss my brother's bread.  Grumblegrumblegrumble.)

He also has this amazing microwave/"real oven" combo that sits on the counter.  It's that small -- but it can bake things properly.  Like pizza!

And he's making his own yogurt.

~sigh~

Meanwhile, I've subjected the people in our house to a really chewy dinner of beef stir-fry.  The beef was so, so tough that the table was so, so quiet because everybody was just focusing on chewing it.

Movies --

Movies we've missed --

1.  Toy Story 3

2.  The Karate Kid

3.  The A-Team <-- though I am NOT a fan of Bradley Cooper

4.  Shrek Forever After

5.  Prince of Persia <-- I really wanted to watch this one

6.  Robin Hood

Movies I'd like to watch but we'll most likely miss watching on the big screen --

1.  Eclipse

2.  The Last Airbender

3.  The Sorcerer's Apprentice

4.  Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

In the meantime, we are busy watching the first 4 seasons of Doctor Who.  And we are still busy debating about whether we like David Tennant or Matt Smith better.  (No question on the sidekick -- we both like Amy Pond.)

Sort of back --

When your child gets sick and you are stuck in the hospital for days on end, life changes somewhat --

Your entire being is focused on one space -- and on one tiny little being in the process of recovering.

And even when you get out of the hospital, one forgets to breathe during the countless days of watching and waiting for things to either get better or to get worse.

I'd like to think that we're over that obstacle/gigantic mountain/impenetrable fog and now we are moving on --

And I am always and eternally thankful for the people I have around me -- for my husband who knows that I need to go out and have time for myself, for my sister who knows that helping me with my books is helping me with my life, for my children who know that silly dancing can improve everyone's mood, and for friends near and far who touch base now and then.

* * *

Cute site --

Thanks, C, for sharing this --

Hot Guys Reading Books

I discovered a new words, thanks to the site -- adorkable -- =^_^=

Fun discovery! --

Pablo (Backyardigans) and Aang (Avatar: The Last Airbender) are voiced by the same actor!

Book buying --

It amuses my friends that I read romance novels almost full time.

Yesterday, I surprised one of them by actually going to National Bookstore and buying a *gasp!* non-romance novel title --

I've been curious about Stieg Larsson's series and, with my National Bookstore discount card, I was able to purchase the first book in the series cheaply.

It's going to be my airport reading later -- and I'm wondering if I should cover the book up in my lovely Ouran High School Host Club book cover or display it proudly to the world.

In romance novel news, I just finished 2 books from Patricia Rice's Magic series (Malcolm Women + Ives Men):  Merely Magic and The Trouble with Magic.  I have the last book in the series waiting for me in Iloilo.

I'm glad she has a new book slated for release this coming July.

Current guilty pleasure: Magazines --

It started late last year, when I received an email from Amazon.com informing me that the subscription to Real Simple was on sale for $5 -- (that's less than $0.50 per issue) --



Shipping is restricted to the United States but, if you have someone who can receive the issues for you, it's really worth it.

Right now, the sale is for game magazines:
$5 for a one-year subscription to Nintendo Power or to the X-Box or Playstation magazine!

Check this event out:

Manila International Storytelling Festival --

It's going to be in November 2010.

The website still features last year's event -- but, based on the information that's listed there, it looks to be an interesting event. ^_^

Games for the iPod Touch? --

So, I finished playing Crystal Defenders and Plants vs Zombies on the iPod --

One night, I was so bored, I finished the Highlights Hidden Picture app -- (am just waiting for the free picture pack for May ...)

And I'm playing Settlers of Catan right now --

But I'm in the market for new games --

Suggestions please?

(Stuff that's on the iPod now:  Cluedo, Tradewinds, Cooking Mama, Trivial Pursuit, Game of Life, Farm Frenzy, The Settlers, Build-a-lot, plus a shedload of games for Seth.)