These Days

30 Rock rocks! I did not watch this show when it was airing live, started watching it on Netflix during my ML. It took 4+ months but Rich and I finally completed all 7 seasons today. As far as I can remember, it's the only long-running show I watched from start to finish. I've had other favorites but my interest somehow wears off and I eventually don't even bother knowing how they end. Not 30 Rock though. It's my kind of funny and kept me laughing episode after episode, which is a gift at the end of a long day. The last episode was especially touching. It tied characters/plotlines together in a fitting final episode for TGS. Thank you Liz Lemon, Tracy, Jenna, Jack, Kenneth, etc!  And thank you, Tina Fey, for bringing this show to life.=)

I treasure pictures so creating backup copies is a priority. Redundancy is good in this case and I don't delete pictures from the camera memory card unless they're saved in two locations. I still have CDs of old pictures but we know this format is on the way out. My office laptop does not even have a CD drive so it's time to move to the cloud. I used to have a pro account on Flickr for this purpose but the old process was too cumbersome. You had to manually drag and drop the folders into the site and it took too long to process. Now there's a Flickr Uploadr that can run in the background and more importantly, 1 TB of free storage. I already have 50k+ backed up, 24k+ to go... and counting. With so many pictures, organization is important. There are many ways to go about it but what works for me is organizing by date. I have folders by year, subfolders by month then sub-subfolders by date/event. I used to not have the year on the lowest level but Flickr does not recrea

Because we have a very small Filipino community here, we're always excited to have visitors from Manila and get together over food. There have been quite a few lately and many of them for longer than a week. Here's a roundup from the recent months. Brunch at First Watch brunch with Kring, Kee and Erle. Erle's in Atlanta for summer internship and Kee and Kring are here to attend the RM All-Team Meeting . This was on Fathers' Day and they gave the daddies small packs of ground coffee. Dinner at Shoya Izakaya with the same people plus Mike L. Mike's here for more than 2 months. I've been looking for a good ramen place and thought this would be a good candidate but it's not likely that we'll go back because Rich did not like the ambience. The search continues. Dinner at Shane's Rib Shack  with Mike SB and Joy. Dinner at Mellow Mushroom to celebrate the birthdays of Erle and Joy. Adi and Twinkle are also here. Dinner at La M

Daniela turned 4 months old last week. She had her regular check-up yesterday and the currents stats are: Height: 2 ft (50th percentile) Weight: 13 lbs 11 oz in weight (35th percentile) She was scheduled for 2 shots + 1 oral vaccine today but we decided to space it out. One shot today and the other shot + oral vaccine on Thursday. She was fussy and inconsolable the last time we did multiple shots so we hope she takes it better this time. Daniela is now an expert at rolling from back to front and vv. She enjoys tummy time for extended periods now. She has recently taken to sucking her fingers. I know she should not get used to this but it soothes her especially when she's about to sleep or gets roused. She's very attentive to people and sounds and she likes to be carried upright to see things. She's on my lap or Richard's when we eat and seems to be interested in big people food. So we're watching out for other signs to start solids. We've packed away her

I believe that anyone who can read and follow instructions can cook. I personally do not tackle Master Chef level recipes but I am not afraid of them either. It's a good thing my family is not choosy with food. Simple is ok.=) But we like trying new recipes, too. Rich tasted the Luau Ribs  in Publix, picked up the recipe card and recreated it at home, at least 3 times now. It's really good. We served this during Neil's birthday and everyone liked it. Even his first attempt at this was already perfect because he followed the recipe. Or maybe he's a natural in the kitchen?=) Rich didn't cook much before and I think he's surprising himself that good food is not necessarily difficult to make. He has tried other recipes and those also turned out well. These days he cooks more than I do and it's something we truly appreciate. Keep it up, Dad!

Grok Nation . This website was founded my Mayim Bialik, also known as Amy Farrah Fowler from The Big Bang Theory. In case you don't know, she is Jewish, has a PhD on neuroscience and a mom. She writes about varied topics in an intelligent, engaging and thoughtful way. I find myself relating to and agreeing with her commentaries so far. Grok Nation is a refreshing addition to my feed that is mostly populated by photographers and crafters.=) Mayim's motivation for Grok Nation : I believe that there is a meaningful way to approach every issue – whether it be acting, science, parenting, faith – whatever it is; there is a way to “grok” it, to look at every issue and find the underlying importance and meaning in it. Every story in the news, every TV show that people are blogging about, every time someone is shocked that I like action movies; it all has meaning. In my mind, there is nothing mundane. Everything has deeper significance and can be a place to learn and grow from. I

I've been needing a haircut for some time and I finally got one last Saturday. Just a regular trim with some layers. My last trip to the salon before this was still in Manila so that's more than a year ago. I have resorted to ponytails recently because the baby is starting to grab at them. I also get a lot of hairfall, which is not fun. I hope it's just post-pregnancy effects that will go away soon. We have a suking salon in QC that has exclusively done my haircuts and straightening for years. The staff even comment how Neil has grown, having seen him as a baby. It's kind of intimidating to look for a new salon and that's why I've put it off. But with the help of Yelp I decided to try Hair Dream. They have good reviews and reasonably priced, too. The staff are mostly Vietnamese. I walked in with no appointment and was served in literally less than 30 seconds. They are efficient and I was satisfied by the outcome. I had to take pictures because I wouldn't b

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a second-grader on our hands. Neil's back in school last week. The big change this year is he has agreed to start taking the bus, which will save Rich two back-and-forth trips to his school. It's really convenient because the bus stops right at the gate of the apartment complex and heads straight to school. No other stops. But it also means waking up at 6AM to get ready because he needs to be in the queue by 6:45AM. So we slept Sunday night with the intent to catch the bus in the morning. Monday came and we couldn't rouse Neil from sleep at 6AM so we decided to drive him to school instead. It's the first day anyway. We were very lax with his sleeping schedule during the summer. Rich and I are very late sleepers (usually up past midnight) so Neil would be also be up until 11PM. We also let him sleep in in the morning. After all, what are no-school days for?=) Two weeks before school we started getting him on a more reasonable sleep s

One of my favorite blogs is A Beautiful Mess by sisters Elsie Larson and Emma Chapman. The blog covers a lot of my favorite subjects - travel, food, design, photography, crafts and books. I am constantly inspired by their creativity. They feature a lot of crafts/DIY projects. Then I realized that the very first person who exposed me to crafts is my own Mommy. She made most of our clothes when we were young, and our house showcased her creations - macrame plant hangers and belts, crocheted or smocked throw pillows, table covers, coasters, bags, cross-stitch projects, etc. So that's where my interest started, and is now fueled by the creative people of the Internet. I hope I would be able to transition from simply appreciating the blogs to making things with my own hands soon. I looked through by files and found samples of Mommy's works. Throw pillows The 'Merry Christmas' banner on the top left are cross-stitched letters. Smocked throw pillows and curt

One of my favorite pastimes is looking through old pictures on the computer. I could easily spend hours doing this, if not for adult responsibilities.=) Recently I found a folder with scans of pictures from college. Not the best quality because these were from the days of analog (no automatic red eye fix) but I treasure them because none of the hard copies survived the Sendong flood in 2011 . All the pictures below were taken in Molave where I was the Academics Committee Head for 2 years (nerd!). Molave was my home for 4 years. I had 2 main groups of friends at different times. The first group was 6 girls, 5 from Mindanao and 1 from Quezon. In the latter part of my stay, I hung out with the younger kids. Throwback time!