Five on Fridays: Fried Brains, Lost Photos, and a Peanut in my Tummy

Hello Blog. My name is Anne. I used to like writing on you... remember that? Why is it that I could never keep up with telling you about all the wonderful crazy things that go on in my life? I tend to forget things a lot. So I really should be taking advantage of you to remind me later about all the things I had done. Last week, I forgot my purse in the restaurant after lunch and didn't even realize it was gone until half an hour later. In 20 minutes, I will have already forgotten what I wanted to write about.

My brains are fried.

With that said, it's Friday. It's been a really long work week, with half of it spent nauseated. There's a lot going on, and everyday that passes, I can only hope I had done something worthwhile.


1) Meet our little peanut. I'm only 8 weeks along so we wont' find out for another few months if Mike will get to painstakingly help me pick the right shade of pink for the nursery. Ethan is set on having a little brother. He keeps threatening to "give it away" if it doesn't come equipped with a penis. We're still working on convincing him they don't come undecided... that God has already made that decision for us... and that he will love him (or her) unconditionally, no matter what. I suppose we have a few months to work on it. The little peanut's not due until the spring - May 17th to be exact. Although I love the idea of being pregnant, there are some moments that make me wish I could bake a little faster.

There's a lot of pressure to have a girl (as if I had a hand in the drawing board), and I have to admit, I'm a little tired of being outnumbered. In a way, I'm as freaked out as Mike is about the whole idea (although he would never publicly admit it) of being responsible to raise a girl. Is it really that much harder to raise a girl? They poop and puke the same I suppose, but then they grow up and menstruate and go boy crazy and you have to worry about giving her enough foundation to make sound decisions about not letting boys pressure them into having sex at 14, going to college on their own terms and not because they are forced to, because unfortunately, women are still paid half of what their male counterparts make. And then I think about doing her hair everyday before school, encouraging her it's ok to ride bikes, and short skirts are inappropriate, that she's beautiful and she can do whatever she sets her mind to do.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Boy or girl, we are one happy bunch. Ethan would be a GREAT big brother either way!

2) I had a talk with the Principal of Ethan's school the other day, but it was a great talk, the kind I wouldn't mind getting called into the principal's office for. He said Ethan's done a tremendous job in school. He's very smart and that we have given him a great foundation. He's actually started to read. Every day, he gets one-on-one time with his teacher, reads a few pages, brings home the book and we work with him to read at least 5 pages and sign off each time. He even passed his first reading test this week!!

It's amazing how much he loves books. My mom bought him a story book with a CD and that's all he listens to when we're in Mike's car. On Sundays, I have to referee between one who wants to listen to Sleeping Beauty and one the other who wants to listen to the Browns game. Guess who always wins?

3) Our big anniversary eurotrip is over, and 1 month later, I still haven't gotten to the photos we took throughout our trip which is probably in the upwards of 1500. I blame it partly on laziness, but mostly sad because it's over. We planned it for so long and looked forward to it for months and despite our differing levels of tolerance with hotel standards and walking til our legs fell off, we had a blast.

We found out I was pregnant just 2 days before the trip, so that put on a damper on our great plans to get plastered on the streets of London. There was not a single day where we just relaxed, even when we said we probably needed to physically reserve some energy to survive the rest of the week. See... Mike and I are not the type to go on vacation and lounge around. Ironically, we nearly killed ourselves trying to fit in as much culture and history and sightseeing in 8 days, that we needed another 8 days to recover from it.

But that's ok.

So here's a sneak peak. I hope sometime this year, I'll get to share the rest of the photos we took on our trip........ before they get lost in the sea of other untouched photos in my external hard drive. *sigh*

Stonehenge, London

Piazza della Signoria, Florence



Colloseum, Rome

Canals, Venice

4) Halloween is just around the corner. Gone are the days where I get to pick what Ethan will be for Halloween (which is usually whatever I can get on clearance the year before). After letting Ethan peruse through the Party City catalog, he's decided that he's going to be Robin, that I will be Batgirl and Mike will be Batman. So as Mike graciously agrees to wear tights for one night, I'm on the hunt for costumes that won't cost us a gazillion dollars. I've already bought Ethan's (somehow got lucky and saw it on sale for $5 on Amazon), and I've tracked down someone selling a Batman costume on craigslist, but no such luck on mine.

Now as far as decorating, I've learned from last year that my neighborhood's actually pretty gung-ho about decorating their houses. I felt pretty blah with my fake cobwebs with a few hanging spiders. I promised myself I would do better this year, but ever since my lovely sister took Ethan on a scary ride at Universal Studios, he's now pretty freaked out about everything -- I'm talking aliens, ghosts, "scary noises", even the strawberry smellin' bear from Toy Story 3 -- so I don't know how much I can get away with this year without putting my son in a Halloween coma.


5) Last month, I turned another year older, maybe a little smarter, but definitely more vindictive. And because of the recent no alcohol and no sushi restriction (boooooooooooooo for mercury!), I opted for a more low key dinner at my mom's house with family. Cake and good company, what more does an old lady need? The gifts were of course a hoot. They were actually terrific gifts, things which, now that I have them, I realize I quite like but would probably never have gotten for myself. Which is maybe the essence of a good gift. Although I have to say to this day, no one has ever gotten me the one thing that I have constantly asked for every birthday, Christmas, Anniversary or Mother's Day.... and that's either a house cleaning service or a detail for my car. My sister screamed at me once and told me she refuses to give me a carwash for Christmas.

Five on Fridays: Empty Nest Syndrome, A Shiny, New Toy and Annoying Customer Service Reps

1. Today is Day 5 of Ethan being gone. Sure, he's having a blast, but I think Mike and I are going through Ethan withrawals. Mike actually turned on the tv this morning and left the channel on Dora the Explorer, so I had to listen to it while getting ready, and by the time I walked out the door, I was miserably missing my baby and singing an awfully-written-incredibly-annoying-repetitive song about a map.

Fun day at the water park

Zoo day with Grandma and best bud Travis

Gameboards with Poppi

2. Got a semi-surprise visit from Mike's mom (to pick up Ethan to take to Ohio) over the weekend. And it was nice that she was able to join us for one of Mike's races (with the usual gang, of course), and then we all celebrated Father's day with a family dinner at the Yard House. But the best part of the short stay was meeting Jacob for the first time and I'm sure being able to spend time with both Ethan and Jacob made the long flights worthwhile in itself.

Hanging out after watching Toy Story 3

Dinner with family at the Yard House

3. So Mike turns a year older on Sunday (not a young buck anymore!), but he got his birthday present about a week early since we agreed that it's a Father's day/Birthday combo. Yes, it was that much. It weighs as much as my wrist. It's blue. It's shiny. It's got fancy shifts and gears. It's made by the same people who make cameras so it must be good. And supposedly, the fact that it's made of carbon fiber will help Mike go that much faster.

4. Holy crap! Who knew there is actually such a thing as a McGangbang? All this time, I thought my brother and his friends (who all equally love to raid my kitchen) are just trying to get me to order it and look stupid. But this concoction is apparently not only real, it's reserved for select special people who even know about the damn thing.

Now that's a heart attack in a bun...

I'm on semi-diet kick (I'm not about to gain that pant size back from one sitting) so I'm not at all tempted to get one of these, but I dutifully stand corrected.

5. Did I mention I hate the IRS? I have spent more hours on the phone (holding and arguing with customer representatives) the past week than I ever care to again for the rest of my life.


I call the 888 number.

Stay on hold for 30 minutes.

Get assigned to a Customer Service rep who tells me the reason why our tax returns got shot down is because I'm missing a form and that I can fax it to them. But, they can't receive fax.

So who can?

They tell me to call back that same 888 number and maybe the next randomly selected Customer Service rep can receive a fax.

WTF?

Am I supposed to just keep calling the SAME number, and sacrifice lamb to the gods of IRS customer service roulette, and hope and pray that the next person I get happens to be sitting in walking distance from a fax machine???

Can you transfer me to whatever department that has the capability to receive my fax?

Nope.

Can you forward me to a supervisor?

I don't have a supervisor. They are randomly selected.

Huh??????

I seriously hate the IRS.

Now, I know most of these people probably don't receive the training they ought to have, but COME ON. Customer service without the service is bullshit.

Five on Fridays: Five Lessons About the Way We Treat People

1 - First Important Lesson - Cleaning Lady

During my second month of college, our professor gave us a pop quiz I was a conscientious student And had breezed through the questions until I read

The last one:

"What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?" Surely this was some kind of joke. I had seen the cleaning woman several times. She was tall, dark-haired and in her 50's, but how would I know her name?

I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank. Just before class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward our quiz grade.

"Absolutely, " said the professor. "In your careers,you will meet many people. All are significant.. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say "hello."


I've never forgotten that lesson.. I also learned her name was Dorothy.



2 - Second Important Lesson - Pickup in the Rain

One night, at 11:30 P.M., an older African American woman was standing on the side of an Alabama highway trying to endure a lashing rain storm.. Her car had broken down and she desperately needed a ride. Soaking wet, she decided to flag down the next car. A young white man stopped to help her, generally unheard of in those conflict-filled 1960's. The man took her to safety, helped her get assistance and
put her into a taxicab.

She seemed to be in a big hurry, but wrote down his address and thanked him. Seven days went by and a knock came on the man's door. To his surprise, a giant console color TV was delivered to his home. A special note was attached.

It read:

"Thank you so much for assisting me on the highway the other night. The rain drenched not only my clothes, but also my spirits. Then you came along. Because of you, I was able to make it to my dying husband's' bedside just before he passed away... God Bless you for helping me and unselfishly serving others."

Sincerely,
Mrs. Nat King Cole.



3 - Third Important Lesson - Always remember those who serve

In the days when an ice cream sundae cost much less, a 10-year-old boy entered a hotel coffee shop and sat at a table. A waitress put a glass of water in front of him.

"How much is an ice cream sundae?" he asked.

"Fifty cents," replied the waitress.

The little boy pulled his hand out of his pocket and studied the coins in it.


"Well, how much is a plain dish of ice cream?" he inquired.

By now more people were waiting for a table and the waitress was growing impatient.

"Thirty-five cents," she brusquely replied. The little boy again counted his coins.

"I'll have the plain ice cream," he said.


The waitress brought the ice cream, put the bill on the table and walked away The boy finished the ice cream, paid the cashier and left. When the waitress came back, she began to cry as she wiped down the table. There, placed neatly beside the empty dish, were two nickels and five pennies..

You see, he couldn't have the sundae, because he had to have enough left to leave her a tip.



4 - Fourth Important Lesson. - The Obstacle in Our Path

In ancient times, a King had a boulder placed on a roadway. Then he hid himself and watched to see if anyone would remove the huge rock. Some of the king's' wealthiest merchants and courtiers came by and simply walked around it. Many loudly blamed the King for not keeping the roads clear, but none did anything about getting the stone out of the way.

Then a peasant came along carrying a load of vegetables. Upon approaching the boulder, the peasant laid down his burden and tried to move the stone to the side of the road. After much pushing and straining, he finally succeeded. After the peasant picked up his load of vegetables, he noticed a purse lying in the road where the boulder had been. The purse contained many gold coins and a note from the King indicating that the gold was for the person who removed the boulder from the roadway. The peasant learned what many of us never understand!

Every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve our condition.



5 - Fifth Important Lesson - Giving When it Counts

Many years ago, when I worked as a volunteer at a hospital, I got to know a little girl named Liz who was suffering from a rare & serious disease. Her only chance of recovery appeared to be a blood transfusion from her 5-year old brother, who had miraculously survived the same disease and had developed the antibodies needed to combat the illness. The doctor explained the situation to her little brother, and asked the little boy if he would be willing to give his blood to his sister.


I saw him hesitate for only a moment before taking a deep breath and saying,

"Yes I'll do it if it will save her."

As the transfusion progressed, he lay in bed next to his sister and smiled, as we all did, seeing the color returning to her cheek. Then his face grew pale and his smile faded.


He looked up at the doctor and asked with a trembling voice,

"Will I start to die right away?".

Being young, the little boy had misunderstood the doctor; he thought he was going to have to give his sister all of his blood in order to save her.

Five on Fridays: Eggheads, Beach Plans and Peer Pressure

1. This is why I love my family.

We can all be eggheads together. There's nothing like spending 45 minutes laughing at each other for making stupid faces inspired by drawn on plastic Easter eggs. It was funny when Ethan started doing it, but even better when the adults started trying to outdo one another.

2. It's another busy weekend for all of us.

No baseball game tomorrow but this weekend is the Dana Point Grand Prix, where Mike will be doing a time trial and another Category 5 race. Here's the preview of the time trial course........ makes me tired just listening to the guy's heavy breathing, lol.

Sunday is a two-fer since Mike is racing in the early morning and Ethan will be "racing" around mid-day. He's in the "4 and under" category so it will be interesting since Ethan's bigger than the average 4 year old. Daddy's gonna be in the start line and of course, mommy will be at the finish line taking pictures! It's only a few feet but I can't wait to see the look on Ethan's face.... he's grown to be very competitive.

3. Talk about peer pressure!

I'm starting to hear it from all angles now... family.... friends..... my dog. I see baby commercials on TV and think they're trying to sell me a baby. When we went to church last Sunday, I asked Ethan what he wanted to pray for after getting the blessing (Communion), and guess what he prayed for. Lately, I've been praying with him before bed and instead of asking for more toys, a pony or a rocket ship..... he asks for a brother.

4. There's light at the end of the tunnel!

We've finally finished building the entertainment center! Gahhh! I thought we would never get that thing finished. Realistically, we probably spent about 8-10 hours on it, but since we could only work on it an hour here and there, it just dragged on forever. It's already been moved to the loft (we kept the pieces separted until it was migrated upstairs), and we still have to put the braces on, do some touch ups and of course.......... O R G A N I Z E. So hopefully, I can post the final photos by the end of this weekend. Hmm....... what to build next! :)


5. He deserves every bit of it.

Enough said.

Five on Fridays: Skanks, Visions of Yellow, and Powers of Pursuasion

1. What ever happened to the sanctity of marriage? I'm getting sick and tired of hearing about these high profile marriages go into shambles because the husbands can't keep it in their pants. Guys who have everything in the world who throw it all away for affairs that satisfy little to absolutely nothing. And those women who knowingly have affairs with married men are, to me, worse than scum of the earth. They deserve nothing but the worst karma and shouldn't be surprised if society sees them as whores because that's what they are. Enough said.

2. I daydream about bathroom renovations. One of the ignored rooms in our house (design-wise) is Ethan's bathroom. The only thing it has is a dying plant inbetween sinks and some Christmas static clings on the mirror -- how sad is that? I thought about carrying over the sports theme to the bathroom, but have since then decided to make it more fun to encourage Ethan to start using his bathroom instead of ours. He goes potty, showers, takes his baths, even brushes his teeth in OUR bathroom. So Mike and I decided it would be fun to design his bathroom with Spongebob... although I don't have the whole thing planned out in my head, I have been getting quite a few inspirations.

Isn't this cute???

3. The windshield gods are conspiring against me. From the day I started driving, I think I have had my windshield replaced (not counting the two times I recked a car since those technically weren't replaced) at least a dozen times. Why do those flying pebbles on the freeway so attracted to my car??? I have, yet again, a cracked windshield and that's going to cost me another $120+ for someone to come to my workplace and fix it during the day. I swear I just had that thing replaced LAST year!

4. I occassionally practice my powers of pursuasion on my husband. Last night, we were at the mall to buy Mike a pair of Oakleys and I convinced him (coyly) to let me swing in the Coach Outlet store....... "just to look around". Well, the reason why I hardly go there is because I always happen to find something I'd like to buy. Last night, for example, was a new wallet that I wanted to replace the 6-year old Coach wallet I already have. "There's nothing wrong with yours", he said, which was partly true, unless being "old" counts as a defect. After 30 minutes of solid arguments like, "I totally deserve a new wallet", he finally caved in and said I could have it. Stood in line for 10 minutes (still arguing even after I got the green light), got to almost the front of the line until I realized I wasn't inlove with it after all. I walked out of the Coach store empty-handed but uberly proud of my powers of pursuasion, that I, in fact, reserve the credit to that $100 I was told I could spend but didn't. Did I mention I love my husband? :)

5. Haven't gotten back on the treadmill since last week so I have some catching up to do this weekend. Why is it so difficult to stick to a work out regiment??? I find solace in that days are a little longer now, so I'm hoping I'll get to squeeze in a few minutes at least twice during the week, but between getting dinner ready and picking up around the house and catching up with Ethan, I almost have to wake up an hour early to get the work out done BEFORE I even go to work. Ugh. Doing it on the weekend is fine with me!

Five on Fridays: Sexy Schoolgirls, Random Music, and The Fuzz

1. My phone is seriously starting to get on my nerves. It started having glitches a month ago... turning off sporadically, it won't ring or let me know I missed a phone call but I'll get an alert of a new voicemail, the buttons on the front never work anymore... and a slew of other annoying little things... like, NOT WORK. I've been eyeing the DROID, which is also what everyone else seems to recommend. Problem is, I'm too cheap to pay the extra $30/month for the data plan... which Mike is already paying for with his phone since he upgraded to the HTC Ozone. Ugh... more bills.


2. We were going through some miscellaneous boxes that were tucked in the obscurely-shaped storage under the stairs and found a whole box of unpacked photo frames and photo albums, and much to my surprise, included an album from my glory days in the Philippines -- WAYYYY before I moved to the US. It has everything in it! My girlscout awards. A ribbon for a spelling be (2nd place only, gah!) Pictures in my freshman year uniform that went down to our ankles! Catholic privates chools in the Philippines are vastly different from what they are around here.

No slutty schoolgirls here! My BFF Claire!

3. So I was surfing the internet the other night and came across this "leaked code" for some free songs on Napster. Remember the good ol' days when Napster was the coolest thing in the world and it was completely legal??? I miss those days. Well, they say there is never such a thing as a free thing..... unless someone messes up and in these days, over the internet, a little boo boo means someone's getting fired because someone is losing money. Apparently, the code for the free songs were only meant to be distributed to supposed group of Dell customers, but hallelujah to rampant deals discussion boards, I was able to score a couple of albums before they were able to yank the promotion.

Can we say random?

4. Can anyone tell me what's bigger than outer space? I really need to know. Even Google can't give me an answer! Every day, Ethan tells me he loves me "big like outer space"...... which gives me the fuzzies every time and he can never say it too many times..... and I always tell him "I love you bigger than outer space", but then he corrects me (every time) that there's nothing bigger than outer space. So you see, I HAVE to figure out what's bigger than outer space.......

On the flipside to that, whenever he's mad at me (or if he just wants to irk me), he'd tell me that he loves me "small like nothing".... (one time he told me he loved me small like a booger, which I guess is better than nothing). And I can't counter that either...... what's smaller than nothing??



5. We got our taxes done this week! Whew! We actually usually get em done a lot sooner than this, but our accountant (ie Mike) was lagging a little bit this year, but that's ok. We still haven't figured out what we'll do with the good chunk of refund we'll be getting - thanks to the first time home owners credit. Mike wants to spend them on solar panels, and I would like to upgrade to stainless steel appliances. Maybe we should just go on a vacation... that way, we'd both be happy! :) Of course, we end up owing the State of California money...... which, by the looks of the whole deficit saga..... they may be collecting from just about everyone anyway.

Five on Fridays: Party-Pooping Rain, Non-Planets and Lumber Addiction

1. Our huge clean house yard sale scheduled for tomorrow is a NO GO because of the rain. I was looking forward to getting rid of a lot of the stuff just sitting around, to make room for more new stuff! I'm just kidding. We really need to purge, especially Ethan. This whole thing, by the way, was his idea to begin with. He knows that he has $150 of birthday money that he could spend on whatever he wants.... but in order to buy MORE toys, we told him he had to get rid of some. So my brilliant offpsring says:

"Let's have a yard sale so I can sell my toys. Because these toys are for babies, and I'm a big boy. And then, I can get toys for a big boy."

He has actually set aside 2 bins of toys already that he is willing to rid of, including his train table (that he never really used anyway since the Geotrax were always set up on the floor) and his toy kitchen.


2. I've been craving fo sushi all day! Mike wanted to go last night, but we decided to hold off until tonight. There's an AMAZING all-you-can-eat sushi place that we frequent...... and all-you-can-eat is NOT an exaggeration!

3. Work is starting to really pick up, so I'm anticipating some late nights within the next few weeks. Last year was pretty bad....... I think our record was working 30 hours straight! God help me......


4. Did I mention Ethan has been moved to the official big kids preschool class? Their preschool class is split in two, and the second level class is where they put the ones who are more advanced, not necessarily the older kids.

This month, they are learning about outer space. One day, I thought I would proudly recite my planets in order starting with the planet closest to the sun. Remember MVEMJSUNP????

Me: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto. See Ethan? I know my planets too!

Mrs Nacion (my kindergarten teacher) would've been so proud..........

Ethan: Ummmmm... mommy? Pluto is not a planet anymore.

Doh.

5. If the rain lets out even just for a little bit this weekend, I would like to start on our next project -- the entertainment center for the upstairs loft. I've got my lumber lists ready and we're itching to get that upstairs finally organized. Mike thinks I'm going crazy.......... I have so much I want to build, but so little time! I actually have a binder (with dividers, haha) of the plans of different things I want to build. At least something's organized..........

My new addiction: Home Depot! :)

Five on Fridays: Chickens, Knock off Furniture and Future Vacation Plans

My thoughts are on shambles. I have so much to think about... talk about... write about, but not enough time to do it. Days later I recall a fond memory I meant to blog about but never did, and I wonder how many times that happens.

So in a desperate attempt to organize my thoughts, I'm going to try another ploy to self-motivate chronicling my life. Here's five things I probably would've told you about if I had all the time in the world to tell you about it (in a shortened version, of course)

1. This weekend will be a rest weekend (sort of) after a few days really long and tiring (but fun) last weekend. Mike has a class all day tomorrow (he's back to school getting his Master in Psychology). Ethan and I will probably spend an hour or two yardsaling because we both enjoy searching for "treasure". But the rest of the weekend will probably be chill. If we feel up to it, and if I ever catch up on laundry, maybe we could squeeze in a few hours at the zoo on Sunday.

2. For the first time in a long time, I chickened out of a risky recreational sport. A bunch of us went to Snow Summit last Saturday, and aside from Ethan, I was the only one who didn't snowboard. Last year, I shattered my thumb from snowboarding and it took me more than 6 months to get my dominant hand back. Up to this date, I feel pain whenever I use it for anything strenuous (like swining a plastic bat), and the doc almost reluctantly promised I would suffer from arthritis because of the injury. So this time around, I opted out of sliding down the hill at 40 mph on a piece of fiber board and instead spent the whole day sledding with Ethan. I had more fun with Ethan than I probably would have worrying about not getting hurt again!

3. Mike and I finished our first project together -- Joana's headboard. Somewhere, somehow, I got tired of stalking the furniture section on Craigslist and decided to find a way to build our own, and I ran into knockoffwood.blogspot.com. This blog is AMAZING. Ana posts plans on how to build furniture from Pottery Barn and the likes, without spending an arm and a leg for it. I'll post more on the headboard we just built, but I'm excited to move on to our next project! Hmm.... entertainment center? Our loft is DYING to be organized!

4. My mom and my dad are coming back home from spending a little over a week in the Philippines (my birth country). I have to admit, I have been longing to go back since the last time I visited close to a decade ago. I want to bring Mike and Ethan there so bad so they could see where I grew up, went to school, meet all my ever growing family (that even I have a hard time keeping up with who's having which kid), everything that is innately me that I probably would never be able to explain. Yes, it's a third world country. Yes, I probably wouldn't choose to raise Ethan there -- only because he'll obviously have more opportunities here in the US. But the Philippines is still my home, my birthplace, my history. Hopefully, sometime this year, we'll be able to finally make that trip. Fingers crossed.

5. Mike finally got his lasik surgery on Monday. By the grace of God, so far, so good. No complications... and Mike seems to be very excited about not having to worry about glasses or wearing contacts ever again. His eyes are still eerily bloodshot.... it's normal, I suppose (it's only been a few days), but he was so worried the other night, that he went out of his way to divert away from a DUI checkpoint because he was worried the cops wouldn't believe him if they told him his eyes weren't red because of alcohol. In a few weeks, his eyes should be back to normal. For now, he has to wear protective goggles when he sleeps and I have to get used to sleeping next to Michael Phelps.

That's it for now!

Hope to post some this weekend!