Today

Here we are, 11am and just getting the day rolling. Adrianne is eating her pancake while Alexa and I wait for her to finish. The pancakes are left over so it's not like I just made them this morning.

This is how our days start... slow. A part of me really dislikes it that we rarely leave the house before noon. But when I try to get up "early" I am always shocked by the fact that it's DARK outside, how can you wake up if it's dark? Then I realize that I stay awake at night while it's dark, so what is the difference?

Anyhow, today we are going to take our acquired kitty to the humane society to see if it has a micro-chip, or if someone has reported it lost. We have been feeding it for about 2 weeks, and it is always there waiting for food. It does have a collar but it doesn't seem to live anywhere. On one side I hope I can keep it, on the other I feel guilty because someone might be searching for their cat. So I guess it's better to get the humane society trip over with so I can feel at ease.

It's amazing to me how our human brain will think of the possible consequences, good or bad, and still put things off. I do it all the time. I put off bookkeeping although I know I will be paid for it. I put off homework although I know it must be done. I will even put off laundry, dishes, and vacuuming - although I may have nothing else to do.

While reading other Facebook peoples '25 things' I realize there is alot of stuff we do not know about eachother. Some people have been married a long time!! I have only just gotten married in '06 (although we had a judge mini-marriage in '05). Still that is not long compared to some others.. but it feels like forever.

Julius made a print out of flights to the PI, he wants to take the cheapest one, $723 per person.. but it has 2 stops. I want to take the $1,143 per person flight, with just one stop. It's quite a difference and I can see there is a savings, but I cannot imagine stopping in San Fran, and Taiwan... taking 22 hours to get to the PI. It just seems like too long for the kids, too long for me.. So I am trying to convince Julius that some times convinience out weighs savings.

Additionally, everyone is telling us to get a nanny for the kids. I am ALL for it, no matter what the cost (and I am a frugal person). Can you imagine carrying the water to fill the toilet tank EVERY time one of us has to use the potty?! Or how about HAND washing ALL your clothes and your kids' clothes? Add on the fact that it's hotter than the hobbes and super humid (like the rainforest section of the Zoo). It's dusty and there's bugs, big bugs.. like sleep under a mosquito net type bugs.. I will do anything, pay anything, to reduce my stress during this trip.

So now I have to convince Julius to pay more and get a one stop flight, pay more and get a nanny for the kids, and pay more to rent a car (with driver). It will be one expensive trip but Julius has not seen his family in 9 years, and I feel at all costs we need to go. On the other hand, I also need some sanity while we're there..

The 'tail' of two hairs..

"I cut my hair."

Well as you can see Alexa has been caught "red handed". She clipped this chunk of hair the other night and as furious as I was I still had a mind to bundle what I could and keep it. So here it is, you can see the patch she cut off hanging on her right cheek.

Looking at it now I am really glad she made such a good cutting choice, it could have been SOOO much worse. I have it all in a barrette now and it looks nice.

Just for kicks we finally put Adrianne in her first 'pony tail'. It took her a long time to grow hair as this is all she has at three years old. But it's still cute.

First Pony Tail

Where are you time?

Have you noticed that my 'currently reading' book has been the same for a while now. Well I certainly have, and although the book is good I find that I can only read 3-5 pages a day. It's really sad to only have a tiny amount of time to read a good book. But I am just reading alot for school, my classes are mostly just reading and I am pretty sure I could pass if I never attended another class period.

This semester I am taking three classes, yes I know I said I was only going to take two.. but I just couldn't do it, it seems so minimal to take only two. So I was 'guilted' by myself into taking three.

Class One: Management Information Systems. Don't know what that is? Think of automation of simple tasks, ATM machines, assembly lines. Not really very hard but interesting to think of the world in a different light. We are always talking about how many jobs are being shipped overseas, but did you know that with automation we have eliminated alot of jobs as well, in fact the teacher says that a worker now can do twice as much as a worker pre-automation. So that is one less worker needed to complete a job.

Today we spent the day talking about products and their life cycles, my team came up with "bottled water", the teacher said, "yes, take a soda, remove everything good about it, sugar, color, carbonation, taste.. and you have a bottle of nothing but water.." Will people choose to buy water over just using a perfectly operational water fountain, will you spend $1.50 at a vending machine to get a plastic bottle of water that you could get for free at the water fountain right next to the vending machine. Seems like a pretty risky investment.

Class Two: Marketing. An interesting course, I mean we all see marketing on TV, internet, food items, ads. But there is alot of thought that goes into marketing, alot of demographics and psycology. And what makes an ad a good ad, who is the target market. Plus an awesome teacher who seems like he really knows his stuff and can keep class entertaining.

Today we watched a video on movie pirating, and is it illegal? Who is responsible? Should the movie industry think of online video exchange as a new way to reach their audience instead of a hit to their profits. Is there a way to market online movies directly from the industry at a profit? Really alot of brainstorming, and after thinking about it, I think that this is a good opportunity for the industry to grow and change for the better.

Class Three: Cost Accounting. What is it? Heck if I know. I honestly don't know. I read the book, then do the assignments and I still have no idea what is going on. It's really my BS class but I sure hope it all comes together soon!

I have this class once a week and we are currently discussing job costing, which is how to allocate the overhead costs such as electricity, secretarial, and office supplies to a job or product. Say it costs me $40 in materials to build a calculator, but $40 does not include the labor, electricity, the person who took the order in the first place.. so all those somewhat random costs need to be included in the price of the calculator - hence JOB costing, what is the cost of the job which is taking place.

Between all that and trying to keep up around the house, I really have not much time. Actually to be totally honest, my whole dining room table is covered with C-R-A-P! I have no idea what all is there or when I will ever get time to clean it off. I just watch it multiply.

Then I have Adrianne who has entered the Dramatic Three's, she gets mad and throws herself to the floor kicking and screaming.. lovely.

Oh and don't forget Miss. Alexa who cannot do ANYTHING unless someone is within her sight. Driving me bananas, and she took the scissors and cut a chunk of her hair off. All that because she was mad I wouldn't let her watch Handy Manny...

Where did these monsters come from? I guess it's just big changes all around, and sometimes we don't all get the attention we want. Well I'm off to bed now, I've finally finished the Coffee Lounge's year end reports, yay! One task to mark off the list *if I could find the list*

A little bit of Homemade..

So while cleaning the kids room I found that they had opened some of their playdough and it had ofcourse dried up (thank god it wasn't stuck in the white carpeting!) so in turn I had to throw some away. -And made them take all the playdough to the kitchen where the rug is not in jeopardy-

But I've been meaning to toss their old playdough anyhow because we cannot make good cut-outs with it anymore. And I had previously bought some special storage containers to hold some homemade playdough (and a bunch of salt, I wondered what that was for?!)

So we took a few minutes and made some beautiful playdough, complete with glitter and all. Alexa had a great time breaking out the camera to take some pics, so I thought I would make a little video just to remind everyone to take a few minutes each day and do something for the little tykers, even a small amount of time means the world to them :)

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Super Sunday

We woke up to snow this morning (actually I saw it last night when Alexa woke me up). It was super pretty and even better because it didn't stick around for very long, yay!

We spent the weekend reorganizing the crafting area and office. It's much nicer now. We threw out quite a bit of junk and I even ended up with some things to give away. It's really been a busy weekend, as if we ever have anything other than that!

Today we are hanging out at home, and I don't mean 'relaxing' at home. I mean, I've finished the bookkeeping and we have to file all the year end stuff. We're washing all the bed sheets and laundry, we've cleaned the kids' room, the kitchen, and spent some time outside in what little snow there is.

What a crazy day, I still have homework to do, and I've lost my original list of things to do..

Fourth day with cold..

This is my 4th day with a stuffy nose, and as you can probably guess I am really tired of it. Not only is it stuffy and running at the same time, but I cannot breathe through it at all!! Which is making it hard to eat.

We will be retreating outside for some sunshine, and hopefully that will clear things up or atleast get them moving in the right direction. We haven't done a whole lot.

The Bad and the Good

Well it's Sunday and a really pretty day outside, although cold. But the bad news is that I have a raging cold (for which I will crawl to the deepest, darkest area of my bathroom cupboard to find some drugs). The goodnews however is that tomorrow is a holiday, so no school! Yay! A whole extra day to recover :)

Everyone else is doing well, Julius is doing laundry and he bought some kind of digital cable so now we have like 500+ channels (way to many for me). The girls are happily playing and in desperate need of a bath. And I have some ever dreaded homework to complete.

So all is well here, pretty quiet and cold day (I think it's colder inside my house than it is outside..)

Send me to the wolves...

Well people, my final freedom day is coming to an end. :( I am gravely disappointed to be heading back to the grindstone.. Some of you may have already heard, but I am already having first day nightmares. Everyone hope for a good first day to me as I breakout the backpack and head to school.

This semester is looking pretty intense from the course schedules, I even have one teacher who seems 'ruthless' (although Julius said he liked him). I am off in the morning to drop off my kiddo's to their first day of "child care" with my Aunt. Alexa broke down today saying she doesn't want to go tomorrow.. :( But she has no choice and neither do I, plus I still have to buy my books.. That is going to put a pincher in my pocket.

I know four months from now I will be posting about the semester/quarter/(whatever they have) coming to the end, I just wish I didn't get so worked up about these things..

Here's to day one...

The kiddo's

So we were out shopping today, pulling together some things for Adrianne's b-day party when we decided to stop at Subway. The kids, super excited, decided to continually sing the "$5 Footlong" commercial...

I blame this on their dad, who used to love running to the TV and miming the commercial in all it's glory.

As soon as we got home Alexa went to Julius and said, "Dad we ate $5 footlongs for lunch!!

Did someone say Gift Card?

Okay so this is really awesome, if you read my blog and don't check out my list of "other mommy friends" then first you must read this awe inspiring blog of another mom in my awesome MOMS Club. This is one lady who has always had the most awesome and down to earth blog, and although I don't know her as well as others she always has this 'put together' carefree way of life (even with FOUR boys!!) Sometimes I am just amazed at the things the other MOMS do and accomplish.

But this is not about other moms, this is about me or us or the family and the year of 2008.

Did anyone have a rough '08? I know I sure did, but I lived it and by gosh I am super glad we all survived! The year started off with (what, I cannot even remember?)... oh yes, we started the year sick and poor miss Adrianne had a sneezy, flu filled birthday. But by February we were finally feeling better, we spent alot of time at parks and MC and even did another round for the Filipino community.

In July we had a huge blow out party for Alexa that went rather well (no mental breakdowns on my part this year!) she had a great time and has learned so much during her 6 mo. at 4 years old.

Then ofcourse Julius went to the hospital with his blood clot, and although I was too queezy to ride with him to the hospital I was pretty much by his side the rest of the time (this was the first time I thought we might have to go on without our super dad... super scary). But he pulled through and has been doing just fine.. left us with a hefty medical bill but hey that too is slowly being paid off! YAY us.

Through the summer I also ran for Ms. Philippines and got third place, which has brought on an avalance of people who want to run in coming years. I'm glad I got the ball rolling.

Somewhere in there Julius' boss gave us money for a vacation and we went to The Great Wolf Lodge, which was awesome.

We moved to a new house, a bigger place with room for the kids to play outside. We are so greatful for our house and the owners who are close friends to us. We really got a deal!

Then it was back to school for me, to finish off my Bachelors degree that was put on hold due to two little ladies. We had our first Trick-or-Treating, and although my girls were begging to come home, I think deep down they had a good time :)

Thanksgiving was spent with family, although I dare say some of the people there were strangers. I take this as a good sign since our family rarely invites or welcomes new faces, YAY family!

December ofcourse came in a flourish of colors, we decorated our house and even did the outside. We got a tree and we even did really good at not buying 'too many' gifts. I was so proud that my girls enjoyed their gifts (unlike previous years when gifts were opened and cast off to the side). I do say I was a success in matching each of their different personalities to their gifts.

New years was brought in with a few fireworks from the neighbors and now it is Adrianne's 3rd birthday, thankfully we are all well and I will try to throw her the same type of massive party that Alexa is always blessed with.. and get her the beloved "Ariel" cake that she has been begging for.

Here's to another great year, just like the last - only better! (wow we really did alot this year!)

A New Year...

As I was up watching Ryan Seacrest do his thing in Times Square while Julius was snoring on the couch I realized that I must be getting older.. I no longer recognize some of the "top" artists who preform and worst yet, I have to turn on the captioning just to understand what they are singing.. So who are these Jonas Brothers?? Are they similar to the NKOTB of the '80s?? Is it a teen band? Tween? Or younger?? Yes I know Hannah Montana is hot with the 8 yr. olds... but I've never heard someone say, "oh I just love the Jonas Brothers!!" nor have I seen a clothing line or even Ken as one of the Brothers.. I must be really out of the know!

In other news, Julius has always said that whatever happens on New Years Day is what will happen for the whole year.. for example: Eat expensive food in fancy resturaunt.. then you will eat fancy food all year round. Or Julius' favorite: Start with a clean house, so the house will be clean all year. In celebration of this we usually go out to eat and see a movie (which to me means awesome food and free time for the whole year, yeah!)

But seens how Julius had one of his wisdom teeth removed on Monday, and he says he had a bad headache today... our year isn't shaping up to be a good one.. But I have done my part, I've taken a long bath and read almost a whole book, made all the beds, and I've even made time to blog. It's shaping up to be a good year for me :)

Now I am off to re-organize my disaster of a scrapping area, and hopefully put away the Christmas decorations.. I hope all is well for your New Years Day, and may the rest of your year be just as good, if not better.