Life, Day by Day

The weather this past week tells me that summer has arrived albeit a little late.  I was up and about early in spite of the fact that it was Sunday, because of the sweltering heat.  And to add to everyone's discomfort, there were several blackouts ranging from 15 to 30 minutes duration that went on the whole day.  As the day went by, I saw my son getting the inflatable pool out. The fact that he was too big for it did not discourage him from having a cool dip together with my daughter and niece. I was very tempted to join them but as you can see, there isn't much space left...hahahah.  It was a fun thing to do on a really hot summer day.  

The Avengers started showing two days ago in local cinemas but I still have to watch it.  I rarely watch movies (I wait for the DVD to come out) but when it comes to Marvel comics, I make a beeline to the movie house. Except for Thor, I watched all the movies: Fantastic Four, Captain America, Iron Man, Spider Man, Daredevil, Hulk and the X-Men. I think it's because these comic characters whom I grew up with have finally come alive.  I have a collection of comic books but the best of these are those of Marvel. I loved the drama, the stories, the fictional characters that seemed so real and the natural drawings.  Unlike other comic characters that seemed too good to be true, the Marvel characters were more real-life.  I was fascinated with Captain America and his love story. I felt for Spider Man when he lost his Uncle Ben.  Yes, they were superheroes, but they also proved to be very human.   As an afterthought, I wonder if Stan Lee does another cam...

sell your products online Yesterday, my mom's friend called me for help on how to do internet marketing for her small business.  I did not know that she even had one because she is more or less retired, but surprisingly she makes these Filipino-themed T-shirts decorated with hotfix crystals which she markets at a local showroom for the last two years. She told me that most of her buyers were either OFW's, balikbayans and tourists, and not the local residents, which made her realize that if she wants her business to continue, then she has to bring her products to the global marketplace. When she learned that I was a blogger she immediately thought that I might be interested to help her set up a website for her business. I said yes without hesitation, since I believe that in this day and age, putting up a website for a business whether big or small is a not only good practice but a necessity. 2011 statistics on internet usage show that the percentage of internet users is 32...

I have not opened my e-mail for 2 days and when I did yesterday, I found an invitation from Nuffnang to join the "My ZALORA Wishlist" contest.  Hey, Nuffnangers! Wish to expand your wardrobe without depleting your funds? Join "My Zalora Wishlist" Contest! Why, this contest is right up my alley! And so, I excitedly logged on to the ZALORA website to check what yummy items they have that I could put on my wishlist.  You see, I love to buy clothes, bags, shoes and everything else, not just for myself but for my entire family, however because of problems at work, I had to suddenly curb my spending.  For the last 8 months I have not been getting any salary and therefore, not having enough resources for "wants", I don't go shopping anymore unless it is for something really necessary.  Last week I was in the mall to run some errands for my mom while she waited in a coffee shop.  When I got back to her with the things she asked me to buy, she loo...

Every neighborhood has one. Our next door neighbor is the perfect example of the grumpy, cantankerous, ill-tempered, and disagreeable type that one can find even in the nicest villages.  He is peevish, constantly complaining and a fault-finder.  He makes Mr. Wilson of Dennis the Menace and Sarge of Beetle Bailey combined look quite tame in comparison. Everyone in our street and our surroundings find him so annoying that I often wonder how his family can stand him.  I feel quite sorry for his wife and children who are all very pleasant and friendly.  In fact, I was a sponsor at their daughter's wedding several years ago since she is quite close to me.  And so, for the many years that we have been neighbors, my family and I have tried to be as respectful and as tolerant as possible to the man of the house in spite of his crankiness and many idiosyncracies .   Retrieved from http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/s/sam_foss.asp But today, I just...

All my life I have known how it is to have a family member with special needs.  My aunt (my mom's younger sister) was born normal but when she was three years old she had measles together with the rest of her siblings.  She was the first to "recover" only to develop seizures about 3 days later.  This was in 1940 and there was no measles vaccine then, nor was measles a well understood disease.  She was brought to the best doctors but at that time the complications from measles were not yet completely known so they thought she developed poliomyelitis and treated her as such. My grandparents placed her on therapy to treat her flaccid paralysis but, she did not improve.  Her condition was aggravated by the onset of WWII when accessibility to health services was not readily available.  From then on, my aunt needed full-time caregiving in order to feed, bathe and clothed.  Although she can walk wobbly, she cannot use her hands and eventually learned to fe...

To be or not to be...concerned, worried, bothered, involved on one hand, or indifferent, detached, uninterested, uncaring on the other.  That is the dilemma I face now-a-days with regards to my brother's almost 15 year old daughter.  My brother who is a single parent lives next door with his two kids, a son and a daughter.  The son started college last year and comes home only during breaks while the daughter is still in high school. My brother works in another city four days a week. He goes every Friday afternoon and comes home early Tuesday morning, leaving my niece whom I shall call Aloof Girl with their househelp cum nanny during those days. Her mom usually comes to pick her up on Saturdays unless something comes up and brings her back on Sunday afternoon. Her relationship with us has been good until last year when her brother left. Since her dad and brother weren't around, I would watch out for her and she did not like it. She felt it was enough that her father knew...

...at least for today, it looks like summer.  The sun shone brightly with no rain clouds in sight. It was a different story yesterday when it rained so hard in Bacolod...but only in the vicinity of the Lagoon, SM and downtown area because when I got to Robinson's and Lopue's, it was just rain showers and by the time I reached the Ayala area, it was drier than dry.   What Rain? Reaching Silay, I drove into a gas station for a refill and asked, "did it rain here?"  I got a blank stare that said..."what rain?" Oh...okay.  But this is actually a common occurrence in the occidental side of Negros Island since who knows when.  My mom tells me that when she first came here to live in the 50's after she got married, she and my dad would borrow my grandfather's jeep to go to Bacolod.  The sun would be shining in Silay and the weather balmy.  But when they enter the boundary between Talisay and Bacolod, it would be raining...and vice versa.  It ...

If only I could hold it off a little bit longer but Preemie girl is turning 4 in July and yes, I know...she needs to start school now. So it's off to summer classes for our little girl, in preparation for the regular school year this June. I enrolled her in our local parochial pre-school which has been putting out graduates who easily get accepted into the first grade of the big schools. I am hoping that if she does well, she can get accelerated to Prep school by the time she is 5 years old since the government's primary and secondary levels will now be 12 years all in all (K12), as compared to the old curriculum which took only 10 years. That means Preemie girl will graduate from high school at 17 years of age (I was only 15 when I graduated from high school) and if she takes up medicine, that will be another 10 years!. It's been 2 days now and so far, so good. She seems to be enjoying herself in the 2 hours that she is in class and made friends with another ...