Father's Day Treat

June is one of my expensive (and splurge) month. Next to December’s holiday shopping, and May's tuition fee enrollment. It will be my birthday this Saturday and Father’s Day on June 15. Supposedly, double celebration this weekend but hubby and I agreed not to do anything grand this year. For one, I’ve decided to donate and extend financial assistance to my officemate who has a baby suffering from biliary artesia or liver disease. Secondly, I may be up for a surgical procedure anytime this month to remove my growing thyro-glossal duct cyst. Hopefully, the cyst found not malignant but just benign that need to be surgically removed immediately.

Anyway, despite of non-splurge gift or treat, I am thinking of giving hubby something special this Father’s Day. Since we recently had our family vacation in Disneyland HK, I plan to surprise him with digital frame to showcase our travel pictures. Or better yet, showcase some of Sam’s growing up pictures to capture best moments of her life. I think this would be a lovely gift idea, don't you think so?

post summer get-away at subic

Last Saturday, the family had a post-summer get away at White Rock, Subic. We were supposed to go first week of May but the weather was not cooperative for a summer outing. Luckily, after weeks of rain showers experienced in Manila, we were fortunate to get a bright, sunny weather for our beach outing last May 31.

It was our nth time visit at White rock and we so love the place due to its proximity to Manila. I was surprised that the place already completed their new attraction: the kiddie pool, little tykes play area and the dino-land, thus making it more enjoyable for kids. Moreover, travel to Subic made it even better with the new SCT Expressway (Subic-Clark-Tarlac). It took us around an hour and fifteen minutes to reach our destination. Really an ideal place for a quick get-away.

Despite the cool and clear water of the beach, the kids opted to devote their time in the kiddie pool. My Sam can't just get enough of their kiddie slides! I believe she was able to go up and down the slides over hundred times that day! Really fearless and unstoppable!

While us, adults aside from pigging out from shrimps and crabs, grilled liempo and chicken, we opted to stay at the beach to enjoy the sun and sand. We watched some of the guests rode kayaks, jet skis, inflatable boats and other water sports available for rent by the resort. Truly a vaction haven.

Sadly, I dont have my digicam with me during this great day. I am not the official photographer of the family, and need to dowload it from hubby's uncle next time! :) Anyway, Subic pictures to follow....

Diet Blues 3: problem on losing weight

With one week to go before my birthday, I don't think I can do the impossible! That is, losing 115lbs from my current weight now. I know I failed with hubby's challenge, and I hate myself for being lazy and stubborn for not completing my diet.

1. I've got no discipline with my excercise routine. I never challenged nor exerted extra effort to complete my twice a week jogging routine. I am happy with my usual jogging pace, never increasing or pushing my body to the limit.

2. No drastic change on my food intake. I still eat one cup of rice for lunch and dinner, and still skipping breakfast meals! Very bad. Late night food delivery decreased, but replaced with chips and cookies instead.

3. Soda intake remains the same. Instead of Coke light or regular, fell in love with Coke Zero!

4. Fruit intake was not religiously practiced.

Hence, I am still at my orginal weight...at ground zero.

Because of this, it made me think of drastic measures to win our bet. I am thinking of taking diet pills or liposuction treatment to shed off the 15lbs excess immediately. Quick remedy, eh? But honestly, I am too chicken to subject myself for any surgical procedures. I am hell-scared to try it!

Besides, I need to stop any diet plans for now. It seems I have a thyro-glossal problem since the doctors found a lump (or cyst) on my throat. This need to be removed immediately. I am still in the process of completing all my lab tests and CT scans so I can have my biopsy late this week. Hopefully no scary or malignant cyst can be found. And I am hoping this is just a normal procedure. Well, this is another story. Will just post about this next time.

Thus for now, the diet can wait... need to ensure I am healthy before I can go back to my diet plans! :)

late spring cleaning

Yes, I am doing some spring cleaning recently. Kinda late and out of season since summer is already here, but my files in my old laptop need to be transferred ASAP. My old IBM laptop holds all my personal and work-related files, documents, network configurations, pictures and video since 2003. Thus, I need to do major clean up of folders for transfer before I turn over my old-jurassic IBM laptop.

Surprisingly, as I was cleaning and sorting my file folders, I opened the biggest memory space eater...video files I've collected over the years! Some videos taken by my reliable DVD camcorder with family holidays clips, while others, videos downloaded over the internet. It is easy to discard videos dowloaded over the net, but sorting the family holidays and events kinda difficult to do in one day. I am thinking of doing it like a major project, editing the video and provide closed captioning for entertainment and memorablia purposes. One big project that need to be started soon!

But for now, priority sorting and spring cleaning of important file documents must be completed! Good thing tomorrow is another holiday off, got extra time in my hands to finish my spring cleaning.

arte y pico award

Thank you Vina for this lovely award. Truly flattered ...

The rules of this tag are as follows:

1) You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also for contributing to the blogging community, no matter what language.

2) Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.

3) Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.

4) Award-winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of "Arte y Pico" blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.

Make sure you visit the link above.

Passing the arte y pico tag to equally deserving bloggers : Melisse, Peachy, MM, Abie and Em. Thank you for the blog inspiration!

computer savvy or geeks?

Computer geeks? I don’t think so…


This is currently my work/blogging area at home. The area is supposedly our TV/family room but we haven’t prepared yet our home theatre entertainment system. Our entertainment system can still be found in our living room. No time to move the cables yet.

Anyway, the laptop on the left is my old IBM Think Pad. I love this to the max! Got this about 5 years ago and it served its purpose very well. Really, really reliable and durable! As a matter of fact, it withstood several accidents (ie: drastic fall) and it never bogged down. Sadly, I need to replace this unit for it requires higher RAM and memory upgrade.

The laptop in the middle is hubby’s home-use or personal notebook. He loves this Compaq Pressario so much. He initially bought it for work-related activities such as configuring routers or acts as his remote access office tool. But, I usually use his laptop for blogging. Why? Higher memory capacity, darling! Faster download. Can open several applications or websites simultaneously. Hehehe! Btw, I love watching video downloads using this notebook too! Heroes and Prison Break series also stored here. Aside from videos, this baby serves as our mini-server. Most of our pictures stored inside this baby.

The smallest laptop on the right is my newly-company issued IBM Think Pad T-61series. 2GB Hard drive memory. Finally, after five years got the upgraded version of my IBM jurassic laptop. Hehehe! My new baby! Like my old laptop, with CD-RW, DVD ready with PCMIA slot and wifi-access ready. New feature: offers finger-scanning log-in. Cool, huh?! I am still trying to navigate my way using this laptop. Too sensitive for my touch! and I simply don't like it! lol.

Hmmm...too many notebooks eh?! My next project is the wifi router installation here at home. Might get the Linksys installed by next week. This way, hubby and I can browse the web simultaneously even inside the bathroom...hahaha! Well, that is being a computer geek now!! lol.

airline promo and travel deals

Last week, I was surprised when my friend told me that Cebu Pacific offered the zero rate promo. I was told the promo was really tempting since it offered over 100,000 seats both for domestic and international travel. My friend got their tickets at almost P8K per pax for Singapore travel. Truly a good value for a budget-tourist conscious like me. The promo was open for one week booking period, with travel period until October 31, 2008. Upon hearing this, I immediately checked the web for best travel deals for Bangkok. But sadly, I missed getting the good promo seats for travel. That is, the weekend deals! You see, to enjoy Bangkok flea market at Chatuchak you need to be here during weekends. Unfortunately, open promo slots falls on weekdays. And the husband was hesitant to get the weekdays since he was still unsure of his work schedule ... as always! Anyway, I am sure there will be other promo days for Cebu Pacific, and definitely this won't be their last promo for the year. I am hoping by this time...my husband can get definite sked of his vacation leave. Oh well...'till my next travel plans.