Change of Heart

And I'm hoping I made the right decision.

I decided to enroll the little one to virtual school. I've been meaning to do that since last year but because of her age, I decided not to do it yet. What's age gotta do with it? She's recommended last year for Gr. 6. She was only 9 years old then. She's not a genius by any means, although the Dad thinks she is...but she's advanced for her age because I teach her one on one. That's the advantage I guess. Anyway, I said last year that I would enroll her this year. So I did. The enrollment wasn't bad. She was accepted almost immediately. She did her placement tests. As per the name of the tests, the results will determine as to what level she should be. She did the regular Gr. 6 placement. Modesty aside, she breezed through them. She was asked to take a higher level test and she did. She passed them as well so she's supposed to take the advanced classes in some subjects.

She started her first try yesterday. It was fine as far as doing the work is concerned. She said it was easy. Although she had to call me a few times for some clarifications, she did most of the work independently. I on the other hand started getting stressed. I had my share of learning the ropes as a coach and I slowly realized that we're not fully prepared for something like this. Maybe I was just overwhelmed but I was about to cry towards the end of the day. So after mulling over it and talking with the husband about it, I decided to withdraw her enrollment. The flexibility I was hoping we'll get with a virtual school is not as much as we would like. I didn't like that she had to spend almost all of her time in front of the computer yesterday. That would probably change but I'm guessing that computer time will be more than we want her to have. That's probably the biggest reason behind my decision.

Maybe next year when she's more matured we can give it a try again. For now, both hubby and I would rather she learns under our direct supervision.

A Special Anniversary Card

And I'm not talking about the cards that my husband and I gave each other on our 11th wedding annivsary. I'm talking about this one...

Of course the cards we gave each other are special but this one is more special because it's not something you'll get from the store. Our little one made it herself and I'm one touched Mama. She actually had to make this one in a hurry. She said she almost forgot our anniversary and just remembered it on the day itself so she had to come up with something really fast. I particularly like the 'picture' of us looking at each other. I think it's kinda' cute...

One day she'll stop making these personalized cards for us and opt for the commercial ones. This is the reason why I treasure every single card she makes for us...with or without occasion.

Eleven Years....

of being a wife. It's probably the best 11 years of my life as well. Yes, there are definitely ups and downs but cheesy as it may sound, I will not exchange it for anything in this world.

My husband and I didn't know each other that long when we decided to say 'I do'. As a matter of fact,some of my friends as well as his were concerned that we may be moving things a bit too fast. How fast? We met online in April, then met in person in June then got married in August all in the same year...2001. But we knew what we wanted and we went for it amidst all the negativities around. I was dead serious with my decision. How so? I moved 12,000 miles away from home just to be with him. I left a job as well which was hard because I loved what I was doing [and getting good pay for it]...teaching. But I fell in love so none of those mattered. I was willing to leave everything behind and I did. Good thing I did because I wouldhn't have the life I have right now if I didn't follow my heart.

Here we are 11 years after. We're still happy together. Thriving to say the least. The ups are definitely worth the downs. Above all, we have a beautiful daughter together. That alone is worth all that I've given up.

Non-Stop Raining

That's exactly what is happening in the Philippines right now. As a result, there is flooding in most of Metro Manila which has killed several people already. This situation is very much like what happened last year when a typhoon named 'Ondoy' hit the country. The only difference this time is there is NO typhoon. It's just rain...non-stop. This just goes to show that with or without a typhoon, such disaster is very much possible there. Why? It's a combination of a lot of things. We can blame the government but we cannot deny the fact that the people who are affected the most have a big part to it as well. People need to be more responsible and know that their actions ~ day to day actions ~ can and will have an impact in situations such as this one.

Help is needed obviously. I'm sure many people will help just like last time. But afterwards...what? Do we go back to the old ways only for something like this be repeated again? I honestly feel bad that many people are in such dire situations right now. I just hope that they learn their ways. That's all. Everyone has to do his part to prevent something of this magnitude to happen again. We cannot always depend on other people or the government to help us. Or blame others for the situation we're in. We have to help ourselves. That's just how life is. I'm sorry if this sounds cold but it's sad to see the same people be in the same situation over and over again. When are we going to learn?

Health is Wealth....

That's a fact whether you believe it or not.

I am not wealthy but I'm surely glad that I'm generally healthy and so is the husband and the little one. To me, that's the most important thing. I know that we all need money to survive our day to day existence but to me, as long as we have what we need then I'm happy.

Just a few days ago I got a message from a former co-teacher. She was telling me the news that 2 of our former co-teachers retired against their wish because of health reasons. Mind you, these 2 teachers [sisters actually] are both of retiring age already. Still, their retirement was kind of 'forced'. If one of them didn't have a life threatening disease, they wouldn't have given up the jobs they had. Just a background, they are both unmarried and with no kids to support and have been working for more than 30 years earning more than what I would consider sufficient to retire comfortably. Still, they retired with nothing to show of the 30 plus years that they actually had jobs.

I don't know if I should pity them or not on their current predicament but looking back on how they lived their lives during those years when they were earning more than they need, I can't really say that I pity them. First, they should have taken care of their health. Sadly, the one who's sick was never mindful of hers when we were teaching together. Her body and choice of food that time showed that. They overworked their bodies by taking in more work than they could handle at that time and failed to put some aside for their future needs.

Anyway, I'm in no position to preach I know. But I'm thankful that I'm realizing these things while I can still take charge of my life and health...unlike them. All they can do now is find something to support them in the twilight of their lives. It just saddens me that they didn't see this coming. Hopefully they can still enjoy the years left in their lives....with or without money.

Call Me Maybe....Spoofs!

I guess 'Call Me Maybe' is still the favorite song folks like to spoof until now. I can't blame them. The song is very very catchy and makes for a very good song to sing along with. Anyway, the first spoof I saw was that of The Biebs [aha!] and his friends singing along to this summer hit. After that one, they just mushroomed. I stopped watching them because they became like a spoof of a spoof already. Well, until I saw this last one. It's that of the US Marines not just singing but dancing along to the song.

Watch!


Here's my original favorite of all of the spoofs. This one has been spoofed as well.

Internet TV is Awesome!

Gloomy day it is around here. Yesterday it was pouring like crazy while we were at the mall. It felt like the roof would cave in because of the rain.

Last week went by without much ado. Work have been really slow...slower than usual so I did nothing but watch on Netflix for the most part. I must say that ditching our cable is probably one of the best decisions we've made in the past few months. We've been planning in doing that for quite sometime now. We finally did it about  a month ago. The cable company kept calling us offering us the best they have but we stood our ground and said no. It was quite tempting to take them on their offer - free premium channels [plus all the channels we used to get with our old plan] for 1 year for a quarter of what we used to pay for a year! Ain't that tempting???

It's been about 2 months now since we subscribed to Netflix ~ first month is free and so far, we've been loving it. We're not big TV watchers anyway so I don't really know why we kept them for as long as we did. Let me correct that. I am a big TV watcher...before the internet that is. But now that there's internet where you can watch everything, my TV time has been cut to almost....all of it?

Oh...one of the reasons I was hesitant to have the cable discontinued was my habit of watching [listening] TV while working, especially late at night. We knew that Netflix would still allow us to watch TV but I thought it's either the on TV or computer...not both AT the same time. Well, I was wrong. All we had to do was get this gadget that we can hook up on our TV and voila...we can watch on both TV & computer. Oh, the new TV sets now are Netflix, Hulu, etc ready. All you have to do is have internet connection and you're good to go.

We also have an antenna now so we get the local channels as well as the main ones...ABC, NBC, Fox, CBS as well as PBS and a few other channels....for FREE! So if you haven't tried it....you should. The worst that can happen when you tell your cable provider that you're ditching them is for them to offer you a deal too sweet to pass up....tee hee!