Not the blog, but the author.

Today is my birthday.

As always, I have 2 options. One, feel depressed because at my age, I’m still going through financial and emotional issues. Two, feel grateful for the things I’ve been blessed with, so far.

I choose the latter.

So at 28, what do I have to be thankful for?

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I was chatting with a friend earlier and we got to talk about some of the foundations of marriage.

See, she’s getting married early next year and she’s encountering some, err, challenges with her fiance.

I strongly believe that one of the most important foundations of marriage is transparency, an open communication with your partner. Of course, love and trust are on the top of the list, but those two things are already a given.

Anyway, before we started planning for our wedding, the husband and I laid down all our cards, everything about ourselves, on the table. Expectations, personal goals, priorities, family values, EVERYTHING. Doing that gave us a deeper insight of who exactly are we marrying. I love him more after that baring of our souls.

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There have been too many things in my mind lately. I wanted to write them all down here, but for some reason, I don’t know where to start.

A member of our support group had miscarriage about a month ago. She’s fine, but she’s wondering why she’s feeling “normal“. “I’m supposed to feel depressed, right?” she asked the group.

Below is part of my private message to her. I’m posting it here because I believe that what I said can be applied to everyone who have suffered loss, to those who are enduring hardships, and to those dealing with dismal episodes in their lives.

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(This doubles as my Father’s Day post, although I said more about Issen than about the husband. WIll do a separate post for the husband.)

I was browsing through my files here at the office and what did I find in my personal folder?

Videos of Issen when he was younger.

Here’s one. Take note of how tiny he looked (compared to his gigantic size now) and how high-pitched his voice was.

More videos here.

Watching these videos, I can’t help it but realize how much he has grown. He looked so tiny in the videos compared to how big he is now.

Then I realize that in a few months’ time, it’s Kobe that I’ll be watching running around the office and reading books with Daddy, with Kuya Issen fooling around them and distracting his little brother, I’m sure.

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Kobe’s fairy godmother, Spamderella, wrote something in her blog about “singleness and coupledom”. I find it very interesting that I can’t resist answering her post.

Yes, I agree that being single is fun. You have all the freedom you could ever wish for. You can do whatever you want with your hard-earned money. Decision-making isn’t that tough, as there are less risks - no one else but you suffers the consequences of you actions, no kids or better half to think about.

On being married and having kids, here are my thoughts:

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“Hindi ko na nga alam kung san ko kukunin ang pambili ng pagkain namin kinabukasan eh.”

In English, “I don’t even know where I’d get the money to buy our food for the next day.”

The Filipino translation has a much deeper impact that its English counterpart.

Anyway, a lot of Filipinos use that sentence when describing hard times, money-wise. I thought they were just exaggerating. I have to learn the hard way that situations like that do happen.

You live by the day, not really knowing if you’ll have money to feed yourself the next day.

I admit, I have finance management problems, but the situation is in a kinda worse case now because of my maternity leave. For two months, we have to live off the husband’s income. Nothing from my side. I wonder when paid maternity leaves will become a law.

In that two months of one-income living that just passed, we have drained what little savings that we have. Of course we don’t have much savings, I suck at budgeting our income.

Hopefully, things get better now that I’m back to work. Seriously, I need to get better at managing our finances, or I might be forced to make the kids help bring in additional moolah by entering show business even before they turn 3 years old.

Heeeey…

Nah, Philippine show business isn’t ready for them yet.

Credit goes to Sodahead and Cashflow for the images.

How is it that whenever I am in the mood to update this blog, I hear my 18-month-old boy laughing and having fun outside the room, playing with his nanny, as if saying, “Mom, you’re missing a lot! Come here and play with me!”

Like now.

Gotta go. My maternity leave technically ends today so I want to make the most of my time with my kids.

I miss them so much already.

I upgraded my blog platform and now I’m having problems with my posts.

For one, I had troubles attaching images in my posts. So I had to upload my pics in another hosting site just so I can insert the URL in my posts.

Second, the advance posting feature doesn’t work. I did the previous posts in advance but they didn’t get published automatically on the days that I’ve set.

Problems like these often come up when I am in the mood to update my blog.

I wonder why.

Drat.

Happy Mother’s Day to the coolest mom in the whole world!

Yep, that’s my mom trying her musical prowess at the Guitar Hero III.

See, my mom majored in Music in college, and she is a damn good pianist. One day she entered the room while I was playing Guitar Hero III. I didn’t realize she was behind me, watching silently, until the song finished and she asked if she can try it.

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How time flies…

Click on the image for more pics.