President Corazon C. Aquino

When the country seemed to tumble down because of dictatorship,
you were there to sacrifice your privacy and family,
and return the country back its freedom.

When all Filipinos seemed too angry to think clearly,
you were there to calm a ravaging nation, and lead the country into prayer.

When there seemed no hope in the administration's system,
you are there helping us to salvage a rotting system.

I salute you for being humble, simple and true to yourself.
And yet, a woman so just and giving, such a woman of substance.


Thank you, President Corazon C. Aquino.

Online Entertainment

When I went to Cebu, I saw a college gay friend who invited me to join him for an afternoon snack at Pagcor Cebu. I was told that he was working there and he wanted me to go there during the afternoon because come dinnertime, a lot of customers will be arriving and he does not want me to be around them since I am not accustomed to what they do, especially the smoke part. Of course, we all know Pagcor is a casino, and I never really intended of going there because of the same reasons.

Now, why would I go to that place when I can already enjoy myself with online casinos. Online casinos have been very entertaining for some, poker and other stuffs played only at home. And other games and reviews, these casinos offer even more.

And when you deal with them, and play via the World Wide Web, you also meet foreign nationals who can play along with you, some from Denmark, Italy, France and España.

Now isn't that cool. Haha, if only I have the knowledge to enjoy casino, why not?

State of the Nation - for the middle class

Life is...

Leaving the house in the morning,
dressed in clothes you bought on credit card for work,
driving through the traffic in a car that you are still paying for,
putting in fuel that you cannot afford,
in order to get to the job that you hate
but need so badly so that you can pay for the clothes,
car, fuel, and the house that you leave empty the whole day,
and trying to pay in 25 years,
in order to live in it.

Harsh reality? Yes! And a challenge too!

Please try so much to get yourself out of this situation.

First, Second and Probably More

My more than 15 years of living in Gensan proved that I am enjoying the place, the culture, the people, the events, and everything in it, but due to the lack of the chance, or rather some declined chances, I was not able to go to places some people have considered great places for fun and leisure.

Two past Sundays, we had the chance of visiting Olaer Spring Resort and it was an invitation I could not resist since:

1. I swear I have never been to this place yet, in my 15+ years of stay in the city.
2. A spring resort appeals to me.
3. It is cool to be spending a Sunday with family and blogger friends.


So there, the host, Ate Jinky, who owns the place, blogged about this once, and I can't help but want to visit this and see for myself the wonders of this place.


I heard of this resort a long time ago, but long way back, it hasn't been developed and well promoted.

Now, the place is exactly a beauty.


We went there early in the morning and admired its serenity, fresh springwater, lovely rustic settings, long pool with different height levels perfect for different ages, even less than a year old babies.

I was earlier warned that the water is cool, and I don't want to miss this dip and true enough, brrrrrrrrr, the water was very cool, and even until the noontime when the sun is up in the sky, no amount of sunlight has lessened the coolness of the water. My kids enjoyed the swimming, and Biboy's lips was quivering whenever he goes out of the water. Tabebs managed to play in the waist-level deep, and it's a good thing that Olaer is just 5 minutes near us, I can already bring the kids for a dip whenever they itch for it. It's basically a neighbor!

Biboy enjoying the cool water

Tabebs in a (knee-deep) dip

Sir Orman, Kyaw, Marz, Ate Jinky, Gay, kids, me, Bariles

Of course, I want to thank the lovely host and her family for sharing Olaer with us. My first time came up with a second one when Ms. Janette Toral came to visit us here in Gensan. We made her do a jumpshot in the cold water. I'm sure she enjoyed her short Gensan visit.

with Ms. Janette Toral

Yes, I will bring my guests here too. I already have a place to bring my visitors, a place which is just near me, and one that suits my fun and leisure needs. One thing I most love with Olaer Spring Resorts is the water, very fresh and clean. I can always open my eyes in the water and find myself swimming with the fishes, some freshwater crabs and shells.

Thanks too for the sumptuous breakfast you prepared for us Ate Jinks! Superb day it was!

my favorite! and yes, no more allergies!

grilled bangus, sarap breakfast!

Oh, I think I want a dip now. The kids love it, and I will definitely keep coming back.

P-L-U-R-K love!

It's been a good few months that I and some blogger friends are enjoying a nice (chat/updates) network here in the world wide web. Several of my closest friends have signed up and some I have eventually discovered online through PLURK. I have come across this social network when Toni shared this on her blog.


Now, let me share to you what plurk really is.
Plurk is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send updates (otherwise known as plurks) through short messages or links, which can be up to 140 text characters in length.

Updates are then shown on the user's home page using a timeline which lists all the updates received in chronological order, and delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them. Users can respond to other users' updates from their timeline through the Plurk.com website, by instant messaging, or by text messaging.

Plurk was developed by and envisioned as a communication medium meant to form a balance between blogs and social networks, and between e-mail messaging and instant messaging. After months of development, Plurk was launched on May 2008.

The etymology of the name was explained by the developers as such:

* abbreviation of 'people' and 'lurk'
* portmanteau of 'play' and 'work'
* acronym of peace, love, unity, respect, and karma
* verb neologism, similar to how Google was eventually used as a verb

Features and Technology

Plurk's interface shows updates in horizontal form through a scrollable timeline written in JavaScript and updated through AJAX. Users can post new messages with optional 'qualifiers', which are one-word verbs used to represent a thought (e.g. "feels", "thinks", "loves", etc.). There are also advanced features such as sending updates only to a subset of your friends, posting updates on events earlier in the day, and sharing images, videos, and other media.

Plurk also supports group conversations between friends and allows usage of emoticons together with the usual text micro-blogging.

Plurk has often been considered to be a rival to Twitter, an earlier micro-blogging service. Read more from here.

We have been enjoying plurk and it has become an activity that requires updates to gain karma, but no responsibility of replying to the plurks, although it will be more interesting if you do.

Some of us has been addicted, and has been tagged as CPAs, for Certified Plurk Addicts. And I guess, me included.

But what's lovely here is that you get blog updates earlier and some questions may get answers, from family, gossip, news, love, travel, food, technology and plenty other stuffs.

Why not try plurk, and be involved, get to meet other bloggers and enjoy chatting with them. This is the best of plurk.

And if you already had the chance to sign up, please let me know, so I can add you up too, for karma love...Weeheee!

Enjoy!

Poker Face, Haha!

Hubby is into online gaming and much more enjoys the company of internet addicts who play with him his latest addiction: poker.

Much as I am into online gamings too, there's basically nothing of much value that interests me in poker. But I really do not understand how that poker game is being played. And there's so much complexities that I think I need help in reviewing them, so I better get ready and ask for help using PKR Review.

And I guess, after that I have been deeply attached into poker, and checking the loops and hooks of poker life, I will need some Poker Codes and get that with much help using PKR Bonus Codes.

After that I have made myself subdued into poker, wait till I tell you when I'd get that Bonus! Haha!

Online gaming is time-consuming, but it is sure time consuming in a good way, I see hubby enjoying the net, and while I enjoy my FT moments, he's got for himself some poker moments.

Where and When...

Mom's favorite space is my most favorite space too.

Okey, admit it or not, most women really are enticed by flowers, and yes, I am one of them. When we moved into our own house, the most favorite space I have been frequenting is my mini garden. I have bought a lot of pots and planted some flowering plants, and some veggies at the back space.

And hubby couldn't keep me from talking to my plants because I wanted them blooming now. This is the pastime that keeps me sane, especially if I have a lot of time to spare, some grass cutting here and some weeding there, and admiring the beauty of them all.

There is no day that I could not spare some minutes on my garden, and I wish that when my kids grow up, they will soon come to enjoy the beauty of what I do, to stop awhile and smell the flowers, a very relaxing time for me to forget about the deadlines, the debts, the bills, and the harsh realities of life.






Aside from my garden, I have learned to love the sunset, and I guess this will always be my favorite spot too, just watching the sun set is one of the most romantic thing I will ever consider. It's as if the sun is saying goodbye and promises a new tomorrow.

The sunset will forever be my favorite time of the day too, as this is the time when we all get back a little, relax a bit, and internalize what you did to another day you have just spent.


The sunset is the time when you can be in contact with yourself, and the time to be just free from all the bad memories the day has just given you!

The sunset for me, depicts a looking forward,
a new morning,
one when you can always say,
I have to be me: FREE!

NB: for Caryn's birthday giveaway!
Please hop on over to her blog to know her more.

When it Rains, It Pours

Feeling lucky, yes, that's me. And I thank God that whatever I did to get these things, I think that I made Him happy.

For one, I love love winning raffles, the first time was when I won a Tech Tote bag from J's Curly Blogoversary and I also joined The Jane Austen Book Club hosted by Jo of witsandnuts.com
and won a Mr. darcy Eco bag and pen, and the ever reliable bookmarks!

And now, another one of those love, hehe... I won Odette's first Ireland Anniversary giveaway. Thank you to everyone of you, I may be in luck, really, but I am sure you will get some luck too.

Thanks to everyone!

And on another thought...

When it rains, it pours, as they say. When we got our Side A tickets, we only had a gen. admission so we were supposed to watch Side A at the topmost benches of the gym. Funny that when we went to look for our companions, a friend texted me to look for somebody and when we found him, he said we will be ushered inside the near the front row seats. Boy, the next best thing! Teehee, and yes, we did, we were inside the gym, as if we had the Gold tickets!

Watching the concert was a good move since we were in doubt of coming because hubby is at a brush with flu. But he did anyway, just to satisfy my desire of watching one of my most favorite Pinoy premiere bands.

Joey G, on one of his highest notes.

Some pics of us when we were enjoying the night away.

and while they were performing...

Gensan bloggers

with Ms. Gensan 2008, Romarie

and I was really jealous because I wasn't included in this group because the guard couldn't admit as many of us and I was the only one left outside, hubby took the photo.

but this is what made my night, a solo pic with Side A,
and this is the thing the others didn't get as well. Haha!

Forevermore Rocks!

Be a Good Samaritan, Make Others Happy Too

Back when i was just a fresh graduate, and i had the chance to work as a staff of an Internet Provider, i was assigned at the internet cafe, and was located in a mall here in Gensan. The walls were of course made of glass, and we have all the chance of seeing beggars and vagrants outside the mall. Now, our space is just an attachment to two big eateries, the Chow King and Jollibee, and i can see them beggars asking for alms and some of them being picked on by bystanders. Some of them were just sleeping in the alleys and were just so hopeless they didn't know what to do, and they are carrying newborn babies with them.

I felt so lucky that I got myself a job, and that my parents crawled their way to give us a nice education, and grant us what we must have in life, stability.

There's this woman who always stays there at the alley overlooking the glass window where we are located, and i just can't help but stare at them, and trying to think what I could do to help them. I know they must help themselves too, but i knew too, that because of their state, they know nothing of some sort to uplift their situation. I know I cannot help them much, but I helped anyway.

At times when I eat, I go directly to Jollibee and/or ChowKing, and get myself lunch but I don't consume them all, I apportion a half of what I eat, and even buy extra rice for the old woman.

The thought that they may not have tasted the meals others were ordering from that resto is what made me twitch, most of the time when I get myself lunch, the old woman has a part of it. I don't deliver the extra lunch myself, I ask the guard to give the old woman my food. I don't want to be known, because generosity does not need ringing any bells just to be known and be given gratefulness.

That small deed I know made her happy. My friends say I have a big heart, well, it's just my own way of letting others know that at this time, we still have Good Samaritans.

Oh yes, until now, I do that, whenever I get the chance of helping others, especially those indigents we have, I make it a point to make them happy in my small ways.

I just know that as long as I live, wherever I go, I will continue walking my way, helping others as much as I can.

Dream With ME

"To accomplish great things, we must dream as well as act." -Anatole France

When I was a young girl, I dreamt of becoming a doctor, one who can take care of the sick, cure people's diseases, inject medicines to ailing people, but that never came true when I grew up.

Instead, my dreams became more realistic, like graduating from college, getting a job, and having a family. That dream came true, as I already have those things I have wanted to become, but I still dream, and I dream that someday, my family will become stable, and more content of the things we have, and that we be satisfied inhabitants of the earth.

I still dream that one day, when we retire, my kids will have the gift of LOVE, to take care of us even when we are old, and they will have compassion to others that they may share what we have instilled to them.

I dream that one day, when the time is right for us to close our eyes forever, I will leave the earth with peace and satisfaction, and that I am assured that people think of me as a good person, and when I get there, it will be heaven I will be seeing.

Happy Anniversary Odette,
more than a year, and it seems like yesterday
when we last saw each other at Dunkin' Donuts.

A New Car, Maybe?

The car we bought last March is second hand, and has been helpful to us since we live somewhat a 20-minutes ride from downtown proper, but what's good with having your own vehicle is that you get to go wherever you want to go.

My driver though, would already want me to drive since his morning office is just a block away from the in-law's house. And I need to drive myself to the office and fetch Biboy from school by lunchtime. But i still don't know how to, so I am getting myself professional driving lessons soon.

But how would you like to drive something like a Chevrolet Camaro, or an Audi 6, or probably one that is affordable and within range of the family's budget and requirement, a Kia.

Yes, I would love to drive an automatic, and one that is hard-earned and of course, maybe, next time around, something brand new.

The kids would love to be inside a brand new car, and we are actually aiming for one too, we are fully praying that soon, God will hear our prayers and we will be saving up for ourselves a bigger house, a better car, a farm maybe, and of course something that the whole family will surely enjoy, a resort. Am i being too ambitious?

But surely this desire for a dream car, will surely be a start for the family's progress.

The family is asking for renewed strength daily in order to fulfill this dream.

What about you? What's your dream car? Would you want any of the three of these cars, I'd love the Camaro for the hubby and the Audi 6 for me, or maybe that Kia!

A Day that Ended the Kids' Summer

One with birds and animals are one of my kids' favorite places to go to for their leisurely travels, so with this in mind, hubby and I ended the summer with a blast in going to this place, Dolores Farm Resort, in Polomolok, South Cotabato.


Birds with different colors, some parrots and pigeons are displayed there in their cages. And the kids were so amazed at what they saw.

Deers are there too, and they look so at peace.

I dunno what this bird is called but I was thinking they may be family of the emu. Nicely combed hair eh?

And the playground too, this is where we stayed longer because the kids enjoyed playing in the see-saw, the swing too.




Nice style no? I bet you would want to make use of your wine bottles now, and do them up like the way this is done. Go now, save Mother Earth.


There's this pond where some Pangaseus fishes are cared for. And what nice recipe for Pangaseus, Dolores has them in store in their resto.



This is the resto, and we had lunch here. Lovely place, although that time was a real bonkers for us, lesser luck was with us, but we managed to go home peacefully and safely, haha.


Here we are, waiting for our food, with Gay Carillo of A Scientist in the Kitchen, she's working here in Gensan that's why she is adopted by General Santos for now, sorry LB... teehee.

And what lovely pool, I would have loved to make a dip, but due to foul timing, we did not. Next time I go here, i will surely bring my stuffs.

Dolores Farm Resort is just a good 20 minutes ride from General Santos City, but better watch out for the signage since the first kapalpakan we did was, getting lost on our way there. Ugh.

Will she be the next Vanessa Mae?

I just had a good cleaning spree in our old house, and found out that the violin that was given us was already dust-filled.

And so i had to dust off the casing and bring back the old shine. I just can't resist smiling when I checked on my files this morning and found this too, what coincidence. I guess it means the time is now for my daughter to learn the ropes of music and indulging herself into it while she still has the interest.

That's hubby's hand, he's the one teaching Tabebs some violin lessons. Sssshhhh, don't ask me, I don't know how, even my fingers drumming on the table isn't worth to be called "music".


So tell me, will she be the next Vanessa Mae? I hope so...