Sept. of my babies

7 - As usual with spaghetti, ice cream and small mango cake, we just simply celebrate the 15th b-day of my youngest.


8 – Again my youngest was recognized as one of the top 10 in Third yr. high school level for the first quarter.


16 – Stephannie’s Educational Field Trip in
- UP Los Banos – to IRRI (International Rice and Research Institute) and in Dairy Training And Research Institute – to view in actual how to pasteurized milk and the production of cheese.


-Letty’s Buko Pie – observed how to make a buko (young coconut) pie.
- Coca Cola Bottlers – where they learned how the coca cola started and where it came from and seen the production of different kinds of cola.
- Enchanted Kingdom– an amusement park where they enjoyed a lot experiencing the adventure inside.



17 - Every year, since my son started going to school, I always joined with their field trips, but it’s been 2 years now that I was always left behind coz their big now and I want them to be confident

Mycah’s field trip:

In - Bantayog ng mga Bayani
- Gardenia - Gardenia – the company that produces the tasty bread that you can see in every breakfast table of Filipinos.
- and she took these photos from Bio Research

an
- Enchanted Kingdom- And lastly in Enchanted Kingdom – same as her Ate Steph she really enjoyed all the adventures inside with no fear she experienced all the rides.


Hmmmnnn My Mycah said , her admirers exchange seats with the others just to be seated besides her.




21 – my Stephannie’s volleyball team competed for the Bulprisa but sad to say they
got only the 4th place.



My Stephannie is always busy, from Monday to Friday school days, Saturday –practicing volley and then even Sundays she‘s practicing drumming (they form a band group now). Her complexion now is so dark but she never reduce weight though she‘s always tired. It’s good that she didn’t join this year in presidential election for the whole college level. She was the president when she was in 1st year and in 2nd year, now she’s in her 3rd yr, she quit the presidential (no more headaches). She said her study now is harder and harder so she wants to concentrate.

23 – Stephannie won the 1st place in poster making. On Oct. 14th she gonna compete again for the Provincial competition.

The three things in life...

Photos from: Rose Experten (thanks a lot)

Don't know who's the original author of the words, anybody knows please tell me.

Eggs in my fridge

Eggs – Stuff my fridge should have. Eggs are one of the few nutritious foods that provide you with a delicious breakfast (even lunch or dinner). And mostly it’s one ingredient we use in some recipes, like as thickener for sauces, base for dressings, coating for breaded fried foods, leavener in baked products and more.

Egg - the easiest digestible, energy boosting protein and help level out blood sugar. Eating two whole eggs per day keeps you within your daily cholesterol range.

I store different kinds of eggs for my daily use.

White eggs and brown eggs(native), there’s no difference in nutritional value and flavor between the two. I often cooked it for breakfast as sunny side up (but the yolk should be broken – that’s the way my children likes their SSU) or scrambled or omelet or poaching or just steamed.

Poached egg....I'm not good in poaching even if I swirl the boiling water still it's in bad form.

Duck Eggs – a bit larger than chicken eggs, good for Leche Plan (popular Filipino Caramel custard - a dessert my children love to eat).



Quail Eggs – So cute and fun to eat. Sometimes I just hard boiled it for the bento of my kids, sometimes I mixed it in veggies, in my chicken pasta soup, or just coat it a flour mixture then deep fry.




Red Salted Eggs - immersed in super-saturated solution of salt for at least 2 weeks and then boiled and colored red. See the link for my old posting about this.

http://lenyschika.blogspot.com/2009/12/salted-duck-eggs.html

And oooops, I almost forgot this one…..

Century Eggs - Duck eggs preserved in lime, ash salt and clay for weeks. – I use this as toppings for my congee or porridge or lugaw)



2 kinds of Filipino lugaw – Arroz Caldo, a chicken porridge and Goto, an ox stripe porridge.



And one kind of an egg that I haven’t bought yet is an Ostrich egg. It weighs between 1 1/2 to 2 kls. Its price is equivalent to 3 kls. of meat or more … hmmmn ,so expensive. It’s available in Manila and other province. But if I have a chance to find it, I may buy just once for curiosity reason. To know how it taste and how hard its shell is. They said it takes an hour to cook it hard boiled.

Hmmmmnn ...wondering if I can use the egg whites of an ostrich egg for my facial care too, he he he ..^_^..

I’m not alone

There were several times that I was suddenly attacked by depression, frustrations, sadness and loneliness, especially when I’m alone though I really tried to be strong.

One time, I can’t hold my emotions anymore and my tears fall while doing something. I thought I was all alone so I continued my drama in one corner of our room but suddenly I stopped when I noticed that someone was watching me. I looked at him and his eyes seems asking me what had happen and what can he do to please me?

I wiped my tears and smiled and hugged him. Told him not to worry, I won’t cry anymore ‘coz there’s him that made me smile.

Can you guess who's he?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?


?

?

?

?

?

?

Yes...it's "Market"

Our one and only very spoiled beloved pussy cat. He’s the one who gives joy to my kids and me.

Grow my own

Here in our new place, I’m so glad that we have a vacant space at the back.

I can grow again and plant what I want. That’s one of my hobbies even before I was a child – gardening.

I planned to plant some vegetables and my children help me and our “market “too (see him?).


We planted upo (bottle gourd), patola (luffa), squash, eggplant, okra, snow peas, tomato, hot chili, red bell pepper, sitaw (string beans), saluyot (jute), talinum or talelong, alugbate, gabi (taro), and sweet potato (kamote), luya (ginger) and even spring onions in the pot.

I planted lettuce too but its rainy season so it doesn’t work. I’ll plant again later.

My effort of planting and caring everyday my garden was paid in just few months passed. Now I’m harvesting some already like the green leafy…..

It’s a nice feeling to harvest your own veggies and cook it right away because the nutritional peak of veggies is at the moment they are harvested. It’s so fresh, crunchy, and delicious.

Today I harvested my Ampalaya or bitter gourd or bitter melon or Momordica charantia. It’s a veggie or fruit that known for its bitter taste.


Both the Ampalaya leaves and fruits are rich in fiber and nutrients such as iron and potassium; it contains beta carotene, calcium, phosphorous, and vitamin B, too.

Ampalaya is recognized as herbal remedy for a variety of ailments: protects spleen and liver problem, lower blood pressure, for diabetes -regulates or control blood sugar level, relieve skin diseases, sterility in women, kill parasites, relieves fever and cold symptoms, HIV, boosts immunity and used as a disinfectant for cuts and scrapes.

This was my first harvest…and cooked it like this.

Ampalaya con Carne

Ingredients:

Cooking oil
Crushed or minced garlic
1 sliced onion
2 tomatoes cut in cube
¼ kilo ground beef or pork
2 to 3 big Ampalaya (cut length wise and take off the seeds using the spoon, then slice thinly)
1cup of beef broth or water
Salt & pepper
2 to 3 beaten eggs

Procedure:

1.Heat the cooking oil first then sauté the garlic, onion, tomatoes and ground beef, add salt and pepper.
2.Then mix the sliced Ampalaya, stir once, add the broth or water and cover.Take note: never ever stir again until cook to avoid the much bitter taste, believe me.
3.When the Ampalaya is cooked, pour the beaten eggs, cover again and turn off the fire.


This was my second harvest… I added the extra shrimps from my fridge.

Calling Him at the last moment

One time last summer, when we’re newly moved here in our place, I was so busy cleaning and fixing our things down stairs.

My new neighbor (again, she loves to disturb me) came and had chat with me. It’s summer and sooo, so, so, so hot and I’m so tired and all in sweat.

While my neighbor kept on talking, I felt something strange in me. First I felt like vomiting and then dizziness, next my sense of hearing seems like I’m boarding on a plane. Then my eyes were blocking out and headache.

I made an alibi to my neighbor, told her that I have to go up stairs and prepare for our lunch. She said “OK, perhaps you’re hungry that’s why you look so pale”. Therefore she noticed that am not feeling well that moment.

I was really in bad condition, that when I started to climbed up the stairs, I can’t step my foot anymore it’s so heavy and can’t see anything. Seems that I wanted to pass out, but I tried to crawl to the stairs and thought of my 3 children and prayed to the Lord that if I die, please not now.

I’m half way of the stairs when my youngest saw me and asked me what happened. I don’t know why, but in trembling voice, I just asked her to get me very cold water.

Then before she gets the water she called her big bro to help me. My son helped me sat on the sofa and asked him to open the strongest electric fan and I drunk the iced water that my youngest gave me.

And miraculously after drinking the iced cold water I felt that it seems I was showering under the icy falls. All of my senses came back and felt fine and only slight headache remains but later it’s gone too.

They said I suffered heat struck. If I didn’t force myself to go up stairs and w/o the fast help of my children, I might die instantly at that moment.

At my age, I’m still a very healthy person, never suffered any major illness. But with that kind of attack, it’s so frightening because I’m not ready yet to leave my children behind. Still they are enduring when their father abandoned us, specially my son.

I thanked God so much that He hears me again.

Calling God even at the last moment is so powerful. Believe me.

August

Aug 11 – Again my youngest brother brought me a new pet. Now it’s an Askal, a native or local white dog. She’s not so cute, she’s so little and lot of fleas. First, I thought not to accept her but my children wanted to adopt her, so she stays. We gave her a bath and put a dog powder for the fleas. First we can’t decide what name we shall call her. So many choices, everybody was suggesting different names. Every name I gave her my children disagree. Ivory, Snowy, Erika, Konata, Sol, Fishball … but finally mommy’s choice wins…. it’s Barbie...^-^...

She’s in the pocket of my brother when they came to us.
This was the exact picture

“Market”, our spoiled cat was so jealous. Every time my son touches Barbie he murmured. But after several days he had no choice but to accept that he’s not the only baby now in the house.



Aug. 14’10 - The Happy Joggers Club presentation for this month was held inside the campus of the public school of Barangay Camachile.


Mycah‘s with me, she’s the one taking video to us but the video was again started at the last half of the music

(Since January I’m not attending my aerobics due of conflict schedules and I was always been tired. It’s been 8 months already since my last attendance, the outcome….. I’m one of the candidates already who have excess baggage (big tummy), yaaaeks…I gain weight, I’m in 60 kls now. My ideal weight is between 48 to 52 kls. So I have to do exercise again but for now still have no time. And I can’t do dieting too, ‘coz I really love to eat. Oh so bad, bad, bad, what a big problem.)

Before the presentation, I told the club members to get another dance instructor ‘coz I can’t teach them now. But actually I really don’t want to choreograph them anymore because the elders were always complaining about my steps. They don’t want so many steps and turnings. They only want simple and lots of repetitions, so boring I thought.

I didn’t rehears, I just got there during the actual presentation, and the dance instructor they got told me that she had a headache and most of her steps were canceled too, he he he.

I told her that we can do nothing, they are not really a dancer and most of them are elders already that can’t bend their bodies easily and quickly anymore that’s why it’s hard for them to follow, but they love to dance, huh.