These Days

This book is subtitled "One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting." This is a personal investigative study by Pamela Druckerman who wanted to find out why France seems to have “a fully functioning society of good little sleepers, gourmet eaters and reasonably relaxed parents.” Book #4 for 2014 The American way of parenting that the author described in the book are very similar to the practices I see here in the Philippines, at least for the same demographic, because we absorb a lot of American culture from TV, books, movies, etc. I know I speak for all parents when I say we just want to do right by our kids. It’s a big responsibility teaching them how to navigate life, be independent, compassionate, responsible, God-fearing. And nobody has it all figured out. We have some guiding principles and then see how things fit on a day-to-day basis. I read a lot about child-rearing in the very early years. This book would have been a great resource a...

For the second week of the Fight series ( week 1 here ), we attended the service at VCF Alabang to also meet with some friends. This series is anchored on the verse in Timothy 6:12: “Fight the good fight of faith.” The topic of the preaching is Where the fight happens. While the word easily conjures up military battles or a fistfight, the fight in this context happens in the mind.  Pastor Ariel explained that man is a tripartite being -- body, soul and spirit.  1 Thessalonians 5:23 says,  "I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." The body is easiest to understand because it's tangible, the physical self.  Spirit is the eternal part of man that is reconciled to God once the person accepts Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.  Soul is the mind, will and emotions.  I had a bit of difficulty grasping this at first because I have always associated spirit with soul but I have since loo...

This is the second book in the Mysterious Benedict Society series.  I read the fist one more than a year ago and even though I liked it, I read the second one just now.  This book starts a year after the Mr. Benedict recruited four children to help thwart the evil plans of Mr. Curtain at the institute.  They meet each other again because Mr. Benedict has a big surprise for them. Things do not go as planned and the children are thrown into a long and dangerous chase that involves solving puzzles (main draw of this series for children), taking advantage of their individual talents, and showing courage in the face of danger in order to save Mr. Benedict who was kidnapped by Mr. Curtain.  While the first book confined the children to the institute, this one takes them to a remote island via trains, bikes, ship and plane.  There is that word journey in the title after all. Elements of peril are primarily the Ten Men, Mr. Curtain's henchmen who have no problems ha...

I attended Jen (officemate) and Alfer's wedding in Quezon City last Saturday, January 18.  The ceremony was at the Sacred Heart of Jesus and reception at Light of Love Events Place. IHG contingent.=) I had my own entourage to the wedding.=) Rich and Neil dropped me off at the church and reception then spent time with the lola in QC while waiting for me to be ready to leave. I grabbed the next three pictures from FB shares. Thanks Jano/Philip. Two similarities to my own wedding day many years ago -- blue motif and cupcakes as giveaways.=) Best wishes, Mr. and Mrs. Paor!

All of us are creatures of habit. We might not consciously know how they started but here they are, shaping our everyday and eventually our lives. For example, I make the bed in the morning (good), get coffee before starting work (neutral) and sleep around 2AM everyday (baaaad!). We all want to establish new good habits and get rid of bad ones.  Most of the time we think it's only a matter of willpower, try very hard at the beginning and then give up eventually.  The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg explains the science of habits -- what they are, how they start, what makes them stick and more importantly, how to drop old habits and create new ones.  He has diagrams to help explain the cue, routine and rewards on some of the examples presented in the book. A key takeaway for me is that in order to create or break a habit, one needs to study and isolate the cue, routine and rewards.  That level of understanding then gives us the power to change.  Very useful ...

If there's an award for catchiest book title, this would be the winner for me.  I first saw this in Fully Booked and just had to pick it up. Who is the centenarian, why didn't he use the door and what happened after he disappeared?  I read the first few pages discovered that the story is about Allan Karlsson who was celebrating his 100th birthday at the Old People's Home.  There would be a celebration in the afternoon in his honor with the mayor and reporters in attendance.  And he decided to bail. Then adventure begins. Unlike other books that take some time to introduce the characters and explain the settings, this book just went straight to the action.  Allan gets into precarious situations because he just does things without careful consideration of the consequences, like the decision to escape an hour before his birthday celebration. And much more high risk situations when he was younger including very close encounters with the major political figures of ...

One of my goals for this year is to read at least 2 books per month and include more fiction into the mix.  I looked at my last 10 book posts and only one is fiction!  This imbalance needs to be fixed this year.  I have started keeping a list of books I want to read.  Any recommendations? I have finished my 2 books for January, by the 5th, but before I get to them, let me tell you about The In-Between by Jeff Goins, the last book I finished in 2013.  I was first exposed to his work last year listened to his audiobook Wrecked .  I liked that one and has since followed his blog where I learned of this new book. The In-Between is all about finding purpose and beauty, and growing while in the season of waiting.  Perfect timing because I am in a season of waiting myself.  We have held off making major plans and commitments and it would be great to get confirmation of when this thing lands and where, soon.  But I am also finding comfort in t...

I used to post church notes here but I have not done it for a long time. I'm still attending church and still keep taking down notes from the preaching (like a classroom because that's what church is to me), but I have not transferred them from the notebook, phone or handouts. For my own reference, I will make the effort to blog the notes here because they would be easier to find and review here. I hope it would be useful for others, too. Fight Part 1 VCF Fort, January 12, 2014 The current series is entitled Fight, based on the verse in Timothy 6:12, “Fight the good fight of faith.” Pastor Joey ’s preaching focused on Joshua 1:1-5. 1 After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ aide: 2 “Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them—to the Israelites. 3 I will give you every place where you set your foot , as I promised Moses. 4 Your t...

After the long Christmas vacation, I was really excited for Neil to go back to school and re-establish the routine around the house.  That did not happen last week because he had on-and-off fever for 5 days.  I was disappointed that he had to miss classes, even if he seemed energetic and generally fine, but we had to monitor his temperature and medicate as needed.  He had a blood test on Wednesday, was prescribed medication, and another blood test on Friday night because the fever was still recurring. We went to the Makati Med ER on Friday night for CBC. This has been a week of medical visits for the kid. He did not cry during blood extraction.  The results showed nothing alarming so we were sent home. Neil was feeling a lot better on Saturday and no more fever since then.  Rich also got the car back from Honda which was perfect timing for the kid's dental appointment in Alabang.  We tried 2 dentists in Makati but none we like better than hi...

We had a bridal shower at the office for Jen who is getting married in 2 weeks. Everyone was asked to give a message to the bride-to-be, starting with the married ones because of experience. I shared the message from the priest in one of the weddings I attended. That when you look back at your marriage, the wedding day should be when you love each other the least. That is, you grow more in love with each other as the years go by. Now that I've had more time to mull over it, here are more personal thoughts about marriage... I am not a romantic in the usual girly sense but I do believe in marriage. It’s a blessing to be in one. To have somebody on your team, who loves you and cares for you, supports you, a constant companion who has signed up to stick with you for the long haul. We are all born into families and where we end up is not really our choice. But with marriage, we choose to build a family with someone who used to be a stranger and then commit to do life toget...

I stayed away from social media for 5 days last week. No Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. What I realized from this self-imposed hiatus is that it’s possible =) and how much time I spent wasted on them. This I realized from the many other things I was able to accomplish while I was offline. I don’t really stay on them for long stretches of time, but it’s the unmindful constant checking for new updates that add up. Whenever I have or need a quick break, I would be checking for new updates. I actually had to remove the shortcuts from the homepage of my phone so the fingers don’t accidentally click and check.=) I enjoyed the off-time. Without the constant distraction, I was more mindful and got more things done. I finished blogging about the Christmas vacation in Iligan, read more, and checked off some of the things I have in my January goals list, which I will write about some other time.  I like it!

On the way home from Tangub, we made a quick detour at Mimbalut Falls in Buru-un.  I have not been here since elementary days so we took advantage of the opportunity since it was along the way.  We stayed just for a few minutes to take pictures.

After Sinacaban, we proceeded to Tangub, our main destination.  Tangub city government dubbed the place the Christmas symbols capital of the Philippines and puts together elaborate Christmas displays at the plaza. Our first task was to find a place to stay.  I tried to search on Google before the trip but there wasn't any info so we decided to just find an inn when we get there.  We asked around and were first directed to an eatery that had lodging as well.  The price was P1900, which was too much given the condition of the place.  We drove around some more and found a hostel but it was fully booked.  They pointed us to Cawaesha Inn and thankfully they had rooms! The place was a whole lot better than the place we stopped at and we paid only P1500.  We rested in the afternoon and went to the plaza when it got dark. Then it was time to see the sights. A performance at tha park. I uploaded photos to Picasa so...