Something from the old baul also :)
Have you noticed how the Philippines have the longest Christmas celebration in the whole world? We start celebrating Christmas on September and even extend it until January. You may try dropping by some malls on the first week of September and you’ll probably see some Christmas decors in the market already. Christmas songs will be hitting the radios and the Christmas countdown will start.
Many foreigners find this quirky, but let’s not care much about what they say, what matters is that Christmas is in the heart of every Filipino not only in December.
So let’s welcome the –ber months and have a good start for Christmas 2005. What best way to start the season right but by doing our Christmas list. It’s the best time to start listing and budgeting for the season because with the –ber months here expect packed malls, busy streets and the unstoppable price hikes.
Here are a few tips on how we can plan ahead and avoid having empty pockets come next year…
Make a Christmas list…
Start by listing all the people you want to give presents to this coming Christmas. Make it a long list…it’s easier to cut down on a list than to realize later that you forgot someone.
Look at your budget…
Most people will wait for their thirteen-month pay to start shopping. The problem with this is that you’ll end up buying items that are double their price. Try to consider that this season is the best way to bring prices up because everyone will be shopping at these times. So, it’s better to budget the money that will come in from this month onwards.
Set aside the amount you will need for your bills and everyday needs. From the remaining money every month you may start buying some of the gifts in your list and other Christmas item you may need like trimmings.
You’ll see how lighter you’ll feel when December comes and you’re gifts are complete and the only task left to do is to wrap them. Your thirteen-month pay will serve best for food on Christmas and New Year’s Eve.
Remember that budgeting is very important. Your gifts may really depend on you budget.
Choosing the gifts…
Now that you have a list and have thought of how you would budget your money, write your target gift beside the name of each person in your list. You may want to ask some of them for their wish list…but then again it all depends on your budget…they might put a way expensive item in their list and you’ll just end up saying “o shucks I’m short”.
So after you identified the gifts, go store hopping and try to see if you can get better deals on the items. If you start early, you’ll surely get better deals.
After canvassing, re-assess you list…are you going to overshoot with this list? If not, then you can start buying the items one at a time.
If you think you will overshoot, your option is to cut down the list or change the gifts to cheaper but still good ones (I recommend the second one though).
Gifts need not be expensive they simply need to come from the heart. In fact, you need not actually buy all the gifts. You can probably just make some of them like candles, beaded bracelets, cards and other handicrafts. If you have more time to spare, this is a really good time to spend it. Personalized gifts are always better and more heart warming.
As for the decors…
Come on! Do you really still want to spend on this one? How about digging up on old decorations and cleaning them? That’ll do, besides the holidays is not about decors, it’s about love and unity and the family spending some quality time together.
You can probably stick to that old Christmas tree and trimmings. Just check the old Christmas lights, if they’re still working, then use them, if not well you can buy one…but try not to buy so much… think about the PPA.
You can be earth friendly this season too. Try recycling for a change. I saw one lantern last year in a place in Pasay City, a few years back which was made of plastic coke bottles and another one in a school in the same place, made out of crumpled newspaper and varnished to shine…now that’s recycling!
Now the food…
What you will put on your table on Christmas and New Year’s Eve is important but need not be overwhelming. You don’t want lots of leftovers afterwards.
Just make a list of how many people will be eating at the house on those occasions and start planning the meals. List down how many kind of food and how much of each kind you need to serve. Again, consider the budget.
Put in mind that December is only the last month of the year, but it’s not the end of life. You still have January and the following months to look on to and it’s not very pleasing to start the next year with zero or negative balance, so plan ahead and stick to the budget. You can save on time and money doing this. Besides, you have three –ber months to prepare until December…so happy planning and happy holidays!
Monday, August 29, 2005
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Keep the children moving
My daughter has always been fat, but it didn’t bother me much until I realized that I have been buying her clothes too often because she easily outgrows them. The fact that at the age of 7 she is a size 14 added to my worry. I had to go to the teens department instead of the children’s just to buy her clothes. We sometimes even share shirts.
Though her pediatrician assured me that she is not obese, he still stressed on the fact that she is at risk of being one.
I started watching her habits and I noticed that she do love to eat but in minimal amount. She doesn’t eat big meals, she prefer small snacks between small meals. I said to myself, it is not the meal that makes her fat, because I know lots of kids who eat more than her but are not big.
Then I noticed her favorite passtime and thought to myslef that I had hit the target.
My daughter is a TV buff who could stay in front of the boob for hours not minding if the show has been played over and over again. She tries to do other activities while watching, but these would be activities that would enable her to still stay in front of the TV.
I read in a magazine once that children who spend long hours watching TV tend to have little time to do physical activities. This results to slower metabolism and the build up of fats.
Indeed, my daughter doesn’t play much anymore. I remembered when I enrolled her in swimming class, she wasn’t that big then. But after that summer, even with the school starting already, she gained weight at a high rate.
Childhood obesity has become a global problem as said in TIME magazine’s August 2003 issue. The Philippines was mentioned as one of the countries to have an increasing rate of childhood obesity.
While obesity could be hereditary I still agree with the experts in saying that lack of physical activities has a great contribution.
Technology has a great deal to do with this. Now more children prefer to sit in front of the computers to play instead of grabbing a ball and shooting baskets. Many kids prefer riding those big battery operated cars/motorcycles instead of bicycles.
This is not to say that we have to stop our children from using these hi-tech toys, but we should let them sweat sometimes. We have to keep the children moving.
A FEW SUGGESTIONS!
Childrens’ attitude towards physical activities would contribute a great deal to their doing it. They have to enjoy it to appreciate it. They to have to have confidence also to go through with it. Parent’s ought to encourage children to be involved in physical activies and sometimes it is good if we involve ourselves in their activities as well. So here are some tips on how kids would sweat…
· After they arrive from school and have rested, let them play with other children. If there are no other children in the house take some time to play with them.
· Enroll them in a sports class. This way they will be able to meet other kids and share interests with them and eventually enjoy attending the class.
· Let them walk from time to time. Go out on weekends and take a walk. Bring them to the mall or better yet to the park for a fresher air too.
Though her pediatrician assured me that she is not obese, he still stressed on the fact that she is at risk of being one.
I started watching her habits and I noticed that she do love to eat but in minimal amount. She doesn’t eat big meals, she prefer small snacks between small meals. I said to myself, it is not the meal that makes her fat, because I know lots of kids who eat more than her but are not big.
Then I noticed her favorite passtime and thought to myslef that I had hit the target.
My daughter is a TV buff who could stay in front of the boob for hours not minding if the show has been played over and over again. She tries to do other activities while watching, but these would be activities that would enable her to still stay in front of the TV.
I read in a magazine once that children who spend long hours watching TV tend to have little time to do physical activities. This results to slower metabolism and the build up of fats.
Indeed, my daughter doesn’t play much anymore. I remembered when I enrolled her in swimming class, she wasn’t that big then. But after that summer, even with the school starting already, she gained weight at a high rate.
Childhood obesity has become a global problem as said in TIME magazine’s August 2003 issue. The Philippines was mentioned as one of the countries to have an increasing rate of childhood obesity.
While obesity could be hereditary I still agree with the experts in saying that lack of physical activities has a great contribution.
Technology has a great deal to do with this. Now more children prefer to sit in front of the computers to play instead of grabbing a ball and shooting baskets. Many kids prefer riding those big battery operated cars/motorcycles instead of bicycles.
This is not to say that we have to stop our children from using these hi-tech toys, but we should let them sweat sometimes. We have to keep the children moving.
A FEW SUGGESTIONS!
Childrens’ attitude towards physical activities would contribute a great deal to their doing it. They have to enjoy it to appreciate it. They to have to have confidence also to go through with it. Parent’s ought to encourage children to be involved in physical activies and sometimes it is good if we involve ourselves in their activities as well. So here are some tips on how kids would sweat…
· After they arrive from school and have rested, let them play with other children. If there are no other children in the house take some time to play with them.
· Enroll them in a sports class. This way they will be able to meet other kids and share interests with them and eventually enjoy attending the class.
· Let them walk from time to time. Go out on weekends and take a walk. Bring them to the mall or better yet to the park for a fresher air too.
Monday, August 15, 2005
A thousand fall...a million moving on
How many failures and disappointments does a person have to endure before he feels fulfilled?
I’ve made a lot of bad choices that later in life I figured out to be intertwined and all involved in my use of too much heart and less mind.
I have been through so many tribulations in my life that I cannot even find one stage in it that has none. From the smallest of mistakes to the greatest of failures…name them…I’ve been through them. But the start of the ‘failure waves’ in my life would be in my freshman year.
I didn’t really want to be in UPLB primarily because it was so far and the year I would enter college is the year after the famous killing of two students there. But, I wanted to be a UP student, who wouldn’t? It’s just that, Los Baños is just too far from home.
But my brother was taking up medicine and my sister, dentistry and the school I wanted had a highfaluting tuition fee and a lifestyle way beyond me. Insisting what I want would make things really difficult for my dad. Besides, he dreams of having a child in UP just like him, so I headed off to UPLB.
The entrance to UPLB had Independence written all over it and it was something I was excited about…yet fearful of.
College won’t be that bad, I thought. Little did I know that the talent I learned in my elementary days, the strength that I earned in high school, the Catholic doctrine and faith pounded into me by my mom, everything that carved my personality in the previous years of life was to be tested from the day I set foot in that campus.
I was to start the recreation of myself.
I was a freshman in a new world with a different culture. I got exposed to so many things and so many kinds of people.
I got into a relationship too early in the year. But this being the first real relationship I was in, the guy being the first guy in my life other than my brothers and my dad just made it too overwhelming. I gave everything to the relationship, my heart, my mind…my body. It became serious, too serious that I ended up in very big trouble.
Before the end of my freshman year, I got pregnant. I formulated lots of plans – from A to D. From the smallest thing that I would do to the biggest decision this situation would take. But nowhere in these plans did I include aborting the child…I was different then.
I didn’t realize that it’s been 4 months and I have been through summer class, and had already enrolled for the first semester of my sophomore year…still no one knew of my condition, not even my boyfriend.
But my body was giving me away. I had series of migraine attacks. Not ordinary headaches but head splitting pains. I was getting thinner, my eyes were surrounded with dark shadows…I was ill.
My father got frightened that they filed for my leave of absence from school thinking that I was so ill to attend classes.
I was at home already, but still I didn’t speak of my condition, no, I wasn’t afraid, I was trying to find the right time and it was taking longer. A month passed and now, it’s my conscience that’s giving me away. I was having nightmares and the last one was my wake up call…
I was in a foggy and cold room. A tall, lean man was up ahead sitting on a big chair. He was cradling a baby in one of his arms He forced a smile at me and motioned for me to come closer, so I did. Up close, I still couldn’t make out his face, there were eyes, nose, mouth, it was complete, but I can’t seem to recognize him. Then he spoke in a sad low voice “bakit hindi mo tanggapin ang regalo ko sayo?”
I was crying and shaking, then I realized my mom was waking me up asking me why I was crying…that was it…I had to spill it out. One deep breath and I told her my dream and then my condition.
She cried so hard…the cry that sounded like she had lost all hope…a desperate plea to God asking what she has done wrong…I sat still all the while.
Too afraid to inflict even more hurt on my parents, I agreed to get married when my boyfriend arrived in our home with his family to settle the matter. A month after, I was a wife to boy who I trust would become a man soon.
My father wanting badly for both my husband and I to earn a degree for our child allowed my husband to go back to school while I stayed at home waiting for my term. Trying to be good and obedient children, we abided by what our parents said.
Six months after I gave birth, I also went back to the university, shifted to a different course and continued my education. My husband and I rented an apartment and we would go back to Manila on weekends…the only time we see our child.
It was hard, living on our own, with too much temptation around and seeing our child only on weekends. We tried to get used to the situation and adjust to it to make the best of it…but the situation got the better of us.
We started to live our lives like we were ordinary teenage pals living under the same roof and him coming home only when he wanted to. The house became the hangout of our friends who would come in and out or even stay overnight, taking away much of our privacy.
We started to enjoy our freedom from the family responsibilities too much that our relationship started to go down the drain!
Allowing too many people in our lives endangered us and brought us to a bumpy road that seemed to have no escape. He got tired of my out of this world hospitality to our friends and I got tired of the numerous infidelity issues about him. After four year of fighting, misunderstandings and selfish intentions, we got separated. I found out more about his infidelities and he got tired of my guts.
In one year I started to work part-time and study to make up for all that pain I’ve caused my family and my child. I wanted to prove to them that I can make it on my own.
Then, the wind took a different direction and blew him back. In as much as I wanted to hold on to my pride, I wanted my child happy and it was his father’s reappearance that brought twinkle to her eyes.
We agreed to get together again and after two years I got pregnant with my second child. Halfway in my pregnancy, another woman came into the picture. Though it pains me to get separated again with my husband, I feared staying with him even more. A month after I gave birth we separated again.
Again I struggled to keep my family happy by doing things the way they wanted things to happen. I worked for my family. My parents expressed their fear of me remarrying if I work for other companies. I was tied down to serving my family.
But my heart and mind was fighting. It was too late in my lifetime to rebel but it was then that I did it. Being tied down to something that’s a dead end built so much anger inside of me. There’s no moving up in this company, I shouldn’t be here, it was bugging me. All the frustrations made me feel worthless for my kids. I felt like my kids would think that I’m a puppet with no identity. I had to make a move, do something for myself to take off all the anger growing in me, lest I will end up losing.
I have to secure my kids and make sure I can care for them even if time would take away the people that are helping me at the moment. I have to prepare myself and be independent whether they like it or not.
My parents being the protective but loving parents that they are allowed me a little freedom. While not being able to leave the family business still pained me so much, I had the consolation of at least doing something that I knew brought a smile on my child’s face. She was proud that I was singing and writing…but it was only for a while.
Just when I thought things are going to be fine for us, I got side tracked from my plans. I had to again inflict myself with pain far greater than the previous ones. I got into a relationship…I fell in love and fell in the abyss!
Most people believe that it was libido that drove us into this relationship. They would not, in any way put themselves to believe that truly I did fell in love. I was too old for it so they claim…but no…I was still young…it just was not right…he was a family man and I, still legally married.
But it happened and resulted to another pregnancy. I was different before, as I’ve said earlier, for this time I did took into consideration aborting the baby. If I was too strong and brave in the earlier part of my life…I was weak and afraid this time.
But God has his ways of saving the innocent, if in my first bearing he used my dreams, now he used our weakness to save the child. He made us even more careless and made sure we slip, for once it happened, the baby was safe…no one touched the child when the issue exploded.
Of course, this is but once again a condition brought about by my use of too much heart and less mind. A situation which brings pain to the small angels that I have in my room, something that made me a failure again, but pushed me to move on, a puzzle that only acceptance can solve - a gift that only God can give.
It didn’t take me long to decide on what I will do. I didn’t have the luxury of sulking for I have to be strong for my children. I had to move on and pray that I be allowed to move on. This is just another hurdle, and like most hurdles in my life, I will overcome this one.
I have made a lot of bad choices. I have disappointed a lot of people and much more myself. I have failed so many times and had been frustrated. But if I were to be given another chance to go back and change my life, I wouldn’t change a thing. For whichever road I take, failure and pain is bound to come my way, it will just be in a different package. I have asked for forgiveness for all that I’ve done, still I do not regret a thing of my past for it was laid to me for a reason - learning. My past made me who I am today, no matter how people perceive my personality I have become a human being who can love and live.
Frankly, counting your disappointments, failures and frustrations is a trap. They never come to an end. You have to be dead to not experience them. Better count how many times you stood up, fought and moved on because it is there that you will find fulfillment.
I’ve made a lot of bad choices that later in life I figured out to be intertwined and all involved in my use of too much heart and less mind.
I have been through so many tribulations in my life that I cannot even find one stage in it that has none. From the smallest of mistakes to the greatest of failures…name them…I’ve been through them. But the start of the ‘failure waves’ in my life would be in my freshman year.
I didn’t really want to be in UPLB primarily because it was so far and the year I would enter college is the year after the famous killing of two students there. But, I wanted to be a UP student, who wouldn’t? It’s just that, Los Baños is just too far from home.
But my brother was taking up medicine and my sister, dentistry and the school I wanted had a highfaluting tuition fee and a lifestyle way beyond me. Insisting what I want would make things really difficult for my dad. Besides, he dreams of having a child in UP just like him, so I headed off to UPLB.
The entrance to UPLB had Independence written all over it and it was something I was excited about…yet fearful of.
College won’t be that bad, I thought. Little did I know that the talent I learned in my elementary days, the strength that I earned in high school, the Catholic doctrine and faith pounded into me by my mom, everything that carved my personality in the previous years of life was to be tested from the day I set foot in that campus.
I was to start the recreation of myself.
I was a freshman in a new world with a different culture. I got exposed to so many things and so many kinds of people.
I got into a relationship too early in the year. But this being the first real relationship I was in, the guy being the first guy in my life other than my brothers and my dad just made it too overwhelming. I gave everything to the relationship, my heart, my mind…my body. It became serious, too serious that I ended up in very big trouble.
Before the end of my freshman year, I got pregnant. I formulated lots of plans – from A to D. From the smallest thing that I would do to the biggest decision this situation would take. But nowhere in these plans did I include aborting the child…I was different then.
I didn’t realize that it’s been 4 months and I have been through summer class, and had already enrolled for the first semester of my sophomore year…still no one knew of my condition, not even my boyfriend.
But my body was giving me away. I had series of migraine attacks. Not ordinary headaches but head splitting pains. I was getting thinner, my eyes were surrounded with dark shadows…I was ill.
My father got frightened that they filed for my leave of absence from school thinking that I was so ill to attend classes.
I was at home already, but still I didn’t speak of my condition, no, I wasn’t afraid, I was trying to find the right time and it was taking longer. A month passed and now, it’s my conscience that’s giving me away. I was having nightmares and the last one was my wake up call…
I was in a foggy and cold room. A tall, lean man was up ahead sitting on a big chair. He was cradling a baby in one of his arms He forced a smile at me and motioned for me to come closer, so I did. Up close, I still couldn’t make out his face, there were eyes, nose, mouth, it was complete, but I can’t seem to recognize him. Then he spoke in a sad low voice “bakit hindi mo tanggapin ang regalo ko sayo?”
I was crying and shaking, then I realized my mom was waking me up asking me why I was crying…that was it…I had to spill it out. One deep breath and I told her my dream and then my condition.
She cried so hard…the cry that sounded like she had lost all hope…a desperate plea to God asking what she has done wrong…I sat still all the while.
Too afraid to inflict even more hurt on my parents, I agreed to get married when my boyfriend arrived in our home with his family to settle the matter. A month after, I was a wife to boy who I trust would become a man soon.
My father wanting badly for both my husband and I to earn a degree for our child allowed my husband to go back to school while I stayed at home waiting for my term. Trying to be good and obedient children, we abided by what our parents said.
Six months after I gave birth, I also went back to the university, shifted to a different course and continued my education. My husband and I rented an apartment and we would go back to Manila on weekends…the only time we see our child.
It was hard, living on our own, with too much temptation around and seeing our child only on weekends. We tried to get used to the situation and adjust to it to make the best of it…but the situation got the better of us.
We started to live our lives like we were ordinary teenage pals living under the same roof and him coming home only when he wanted to. The house became the hangout of our friends who would come in and out or even stay overnight, taking away much of our privacy.
We started to enjoy our freedom from the family responsibilities too much that our relationship started to go down the drain!
Allowing too many people in our lives endangered us and brought us to a bumpy road that seemed to have no escape. He got tired of my out of this world hospitality to our friends and I got tired of the numerous infidelity issues about him. After four year of fighting, misunderstandings and selfish intentions, we got separated. I found out more about his infidelities and he got tired of my guts.
In one year I started to work part-time and study to make up for all that pain I’ve caused my family and my child. I wanted to prove to them that I can make it on my own.
Then, the wind took a different direction and blew him back. In as much as I wanted to hold on to my pride, I wanted my child happy and it was his father’s reappearance that brought twinkle to her eyes.
We agreed to get together again and after two years I got pregnant with my second child. Halfway in my pregnancy, another woman came into the picture. Though it pains me to get separated again with my husband, I feared staying with him even more. A month after I gave birth we separated again.
Again I struggled to keep my family happy by doing things the way they wanted things to happen. I worked for my family. My parents expressed their fear of me remarrying if I work for other companies. I was tied down to serving my family.
But my heart and mind was fighting. It was too late in my lifetime to rebel but it was then that I did it. Being tied down to something that’s a dead end built so much anger inside of me. There’s no moving up in this company, I shouldn’t be here, it was bugging me. All the frustrations made me feel worthless for my kids. I felt like my kids would think that I’m a puppet with no identity. I had to make a move, do something for myself to take off all the anger growing in me, lest I will end up losing.
I have to secure my kids and make sure I can care for them even if time would take away the people that are helping me at the moment. I have to prepare myself and be independent whether they like it or not.
My parents being the protective but loving parents that they are allowed me a little freedom. While not being able to leave the family business still pained me so much, I had the consolation of at least doing something that I knew brought a smile on my child’s face. She was proud that I was singing and writing…but it was only for a while.
Just when I thought things are going to be fine for us, I got side tracked from my plans. I had to again inflict myself with pain far greater than the previous ones. I got into a relationship…I fell in love and fell in the abyss!
Most people believe that it was libido that drove us into this relationship. They would not, in any way put themselves to believe that truly I did fell in love. I was too old for it so they claim…but no…I was still young…it just was not right…he was a family man and I, still legally married.
But it happened and resulted to another pregnancy. I was different before, as I’ve said earlier, for this time I did took into consideration aborting the baby. If I was too strong and brave in the earlier part of my life…I was weak and afraid this time.
But God has his ways of saving the innocent, if in my first bearing he used my dreams, now he used our weakness to save the child. He made us even more careless and made sure we slip, for once it happened, the baby was safe…no one touched the child when the issue exploded.
Of course, this is but once again a condition brought about by my use of too much heart and less mind. A situation which brings pain to the small angels that I have in my room, something that made me a failure again, but pushed me to move on, a puzzle that only acceptance can solve - a gift that only God can give.
It didn’t take me long to decide on what I will do. I didn’t have the luxury of sulking for I have to be strong for my children. I had to move on and pray that I be allowed to move on. This is just another hurdle, and like most hurdles in my life, I will overcome this one.
I have made a lot of bad choices. I have disappointed a lot of people and much more myself. I have failed so many times and had been frustrated. But if I were to be given another chance to go back and change my life, I wouldn’t change a thing. For whichever road I take, failure and pain is bound to come my way, it will just be in a different package. I have asked for forgiveness for all that I’ve done, still I do not regret a thing of my past for it was laid to me for a reason - learning. My past made me who I am today, no matter how people perceive my personality I have become a human being who can love and live.
Frankly, counting your disappointments, failures and frustrations is a trap. They never come to an end. You have to be dead to not experience them. Better count how many times you stood up, fought and moved on because it is there that you will find fulfillment.
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