Yes! finally, we can relax and have fun under the sun tomorrow till Sunday! We are having our company outing at Loreland Farm Resort at Antipolo City. Its compulsory attendance for us, regular employees but i doubt if anyone can make it. We are in 24/7 operations especially in the project sites,but I'm so glad I'm not one of those in the shifting schedules.
Here's whats in store for our 2 day outing. Enjoy!
Nah, its my blogs new template... i been busy checking on the new template best suited for my header and blog name and this is it... i hope you'll like it guys.
And now, since June 9 was declared as legal holiday, meaning 1 more free day for us...I'm thinking of doing three things.. had a facial or a foot massage or a dentist visit. But i hope my hubby won't settle for a mall "tour" again. Oh my, not on Monday please!
We are also planning to go to Our Lady of Manaoag in Pangasinan. And since my sister is going to HK next week, i hope she can lend us again her car =) and she can say "hi" to Disney for me...haha!
To help children get a good night's rest, learn what you can change - and what you can't
Sleep is one of the most talked-about topics among parents. We quickly learn just how important sleep is for everyone's wellbeing. For a start, it means the difference between a cheery or grumpy baby, between a calm or frazzled parent.
The importance of sleep doesn't end when a baby grows out of the cot. It's equally vital for school-aged children. A good night's sleep sets a child up for the day. It helps kids deal with the social stresses and pressures of a busy school environment and also promotes learning. Sleep is essential for growing brains.
Children have long rebelled against set bedtimes, but today there are more and more distractions to keep them awake and alert and out of bed for longer. TV, the internet, talking on the phone and playing video games all compete for their bedtime attention.
And while it may seem that your kids are the only ones still up and about at 10 pm, the reality is that many children struggle to get a good night's rest. Difficulty in falling asleep, unrefreshing sleep, trouble staying asleep, early morning awakening and nightmares are among the most common problems affecting our kids.
1. Establish a regular bedtime. Kids may fight this, but stick to a regular bedtime during the week. They can stay up a little later on the weekend.
2. Have some wind-down time. Up to 45 minutes prior to bed should do the trick. This can involve switching off the TV and other distractions, calming the children down and cutting out snacks and caffeine.
3. Establish a bedtime routine. This might include a bath, brushing their teeth and sharing a bedtime story.
4. Reserve bedrooms for sleep. Remove the TV and computer from the bedroom. Instead, create a calm, cave-like atmosphere, the darker the better.
5. Induce drowsiness with the three sleep cues. This means maintaining a dark room, lowering body temperature and acknowledging the role melatonin plays, so work within the child's sleep cycle. A better knowledge of the biology of sleep and sleep patterns will go a long way to helping your kids get a better night's sleep.
I had a second thought in going to Mickey's Party last Sunday, June 1...The party was held at Jade Valley Cantonese Restaurant in QC and was quite far from my place. But since i really wanted to see him and the last time i saw him was when he held a Christmas party last year and because i also wanted to see his mom, Tita Perla, i gave in.
It was a big party.. far from what i expected that it will be just a group dinner. The whole Ruby function room were full of his visitors, family, friends and supporters. That's when i saw him waiting at the front door with GeeAnn (she's really cute in person).
We are so happy that most of us from different group still recognized each other. I know that most of us are all working and married too but we are there, having our good time with the birthday boy.
So here's some picture i took at the party. 
With the geemickers group and the Mickeeperz
chow time! and with Mickey's mom, Tita Perla (5th from left)
roaming around the area =) pose at Mickey's cake.. Tita Perla gave me a huge portion of it before we went home. Thanks Tita! so yummy!
Thanks again Mickey for inviting us.. Till your next birthday! =)
Advice for the married, planning to get married, single but not
available, single and available, no love life...
Eduardo Calasanz was a student at the Ateneo Manila University,
Philippines, where he had Father Ferriols as professor. Father Ferriols,
at that time, was the Philosophy department head. Currently he still
teaches Philosophy for graduating college students in Ateneo.
Father Ferriols has been very popular for his mind opening and enriching
classes but was also notorious for the grades he gives. Still people
took his classes for the learning and deep insight they take home with
them every day (if only they could do something about the grades...)
Anyway, come grade giving time, (Ateneo has letter grading systems, the
highest being an A, lowest at D, with F for flunk), Fr Ferriols had this
long discussion with the registrar people because he wanted to give
Calasanz an A+. Either that or he doesn't teach at all...Calasanz got
his A+. Read the paper below to find out why.
=====================================================================================
PARTNERS AND MARRIAGE
By Eduardo Jose E. Calasanz
I have never met a man who didn't want to be loved. But I have seldom
met a man who didn't fear marriage. Something about the closure seems
constricting, not enabling. Marriage seems easier to understand for what
it cuts out of our lives than for what it makes possible within our
lives.
When I was younger this fear immobilized me. I did not want to make a
mistake. I saw my friends get married for reasons of social
acceptability, or sexual fever, or just because they thought it was the
logical thing to do. Then I watched, as they and their partners became
embittered and petty in their dealings with each other. I looked at
older couples and saw, at best, mutual toleration of each other. I
imagined a lifetime of loveless nights and bickering and could not
imagine subjecting myself or someone else to such a fate.
And yet, on rare occasions, I would see old couples who somehow seemed
to glow in each other's presence. They seemed really in love, not just
dependent upon each other and tolerant of each other's foibles. It was
an astounding sight, and it seemed impossible. How, I asked myself, can
they have survived so many years of sameness, so much irritation at the
other's habits? What keeps love alive in them, when most of us seem
unable to even stay together, much less love each other?
The central secret seems to be in choosing well. There is something to
the claim of fundamental compatibility. Good people can create a bad
relationship, even though they both dearly want the relationship to
succeed. It is important to find someone with whom you can create a good
relationship from the outset. Unfortunately, it is hard to see clearly
in the early stages.
Sexual hunger draws you to each other and colors the way you see
yourselves together. It blinds you to the thousands of little things by
which relationships eventually survive or fail. You need to find a way
to see beyond this initial overwhelming sexual fascination. Some people
choose to involve themselves sexually and ride out the most heated
period of sexual attraction in order to see what is on the other side.
This can work, but it can also leave a trail of wounded hearts. Others
deny the sexual side altogether in an attempt to get to know each other
apart from their sexuality. But they cannot see clearly, because the
presence of unfulfilled sexual desire looms so large that it keeps them
from having any normal perception of what life would be like together.
The truly lucky people are the ones who manage to become long-time
friends before they realize they are attracted to each other. They get
to know each other's laughs, passions, sadness, and fears. They see each
other at their worst and at their best. They share time together before
they get swept into the entangling intimacy of their sexuality.
This is the ideal, but not often possible. If you fall under the spell
of your sexual attraction immediately, you need to look beyond it for
other keys to compatibility. One of these is laughter. Laughter tells
you how much you will enjoy each other's company over the long term.
If your laughter together is good and healthy, and not at the expense of
others, then you have a healthy relationship to the world. Laughter is
the child of surprise. If you can make each other laugh, you can always
surprise each other. And if you can always surprise each other, you can
always keep the world around you new.
Beware of a relationship in which there is no laughter. Even the most
intimate relationships based only on seriousness have a tendency to turn
sour. Over time, sharing a common serious viewpoint on the world tends
to turn you against those who do not share the same viewpoint, and your
relationship can become based on being critical together.
After laughter, look for a partner who deals with the world in a way you
respect. When two people first get together, they tend to see their
relationship as existing only in the space between the two of them. They
find each other endlessly fascinating, and the overwhelming power of the
emotions they are sharing obscures the outside world. As the
relationship ages and grows, the outside world becomes important again.
If your partner treats people or circumstances in a way you can't
accept, you will inevitably come to grief. Look at the way she cares for
others and deals with the daily affairs of life. If that makes you love
her more, your love will grow. If it does not, be careful. If you do not
respect the way you each deal with the world around you, eventually the
two of you will not respect each other.
Look also at how your partner confronts the mysteries of life. We live
on the cusp of poetry and practicality, and the real life of the heart
resides in the poetic. If one of you is deeply affected by the mystery
of the unseen in life and relationships, while the other is drawn only
to the literal and the practical, you must take care that the distance
doesn't become an unbridgeable gap that leaves you each feeling isolated
and misunderstood.
There are many other keys, but you must find them by yourself. We all
have unchangeable parts of our hearts that we will not betray and
private commitments to a vision of life that we will not deny. If you
fall in love with someone who cannot nourish those inviolable parts of
you, or if you cannot nourish them in her, you will find yourselves
growing further apart until you live in separate worlds where you share
the business of life, but never touch each other where the heart lives
and dreams. From there it is only a small leap to the cataloging of
petty hurts and daily failures that leaves so many couples bitter and
unsatisfied with their mates.
So choose carefully and well. If you do, you will have chosen a partner
with whom you can grow, and then the real miracle of marriage can take
place in your hearts. I pick my words carefully when I speak of a
miracle. But I think it is not too strong a word. There is a miracle in
marriage. It is called transformation. Transformation is one of the most
common events of nature. The seed becomes the flower. The cocoon becomes
the butterfly. Winter becomes spring and love becomes a child. We never
question these, because we see them around us every day. To us they are
not miracles, though if we did not know them they would be impossible to
believe.
Marriage is a transformation we choose to make. Our love is planted like
a seed, and in time it begins to flower. We cannot know the flower that
will blossom, but we can be sure that a bloom will come.
If you have chosen carefully and wisely, the bloom will be good. If you
have chosen poorly or for the wrong reason, the bloom will be flawed. We
are quite willing to accept the reality of negative transformation in a
marriage. It was negative transformation that always had me terrified of
the bitter marriages that I feared when I was younger.
It never occurred to me to question the dark miracle that transformed
love into harshness and bitterness. Yet I was unable to accept the
possibility that the first heat of love could be transformed into
something positive that was actually deeper and more meaningful than the
heat of fresh passion. All I could believe in was the power of this
passion and the fear that when it cooled I would be left with something
lesser and bitter.
But there is positive transformation as well. Like negative
transformation, it results from a slow accretion of little things. But
instead of death by a thousand blows, it is growth by a thousand touches
of love. Two histories intermingle. Two separate beings, two separate
presence, two separate consciousnesses come together and share a view of
life that passes before them. They remain separate, but they also become
one. There is an expansion of awareness, not a closure and a
constriction, as I had once feared. This is not to say that there is not
tension and there are not traps. Tension and traps are part of every
choice of life, from celibate to monogamous to having multiple lovers.
Each choice contains within it the lingering doubt that the road not
taken somehow more fruitful and exciting, and each becomes dulled to the
richness that it alone contains.
But only marriage allows life to deepen and expand and be leavened by
the knowledge that two have chosen, against all odds, to become one.
Those who live together without marriage can know the pleasure of shared
company, but there is a specific gravity in the marriage commitment that
deepens that experience into something richer and more complex.
So do not fear marriage, just as you should not rush into it for the
wrong reasons. It is an act of faith and it contains within it the power
of transformation. If you believe in your heart that you have found
someone with whom you are able to grow, if you have sufficient faith
that you can resist the endless attraction of the road not taken and the
partner not chosen, if you have the strength of heart to embrace the
cycles and seasons that your love will experience, then you may be ready
to seek the miracle that marriage offers. If not, then wait. The easy
grace of a marriage well made is worth your patience. When the time
comes, a thousand flowers will bloom...endlessly.
We meet Mickey Perz i think 3 days after the big night of PBB2 edition of ABS CBN. Being a certified pexer of Pinoy Exchange Forums and in the ABS CBN forums, i posted and met fellow Mickey Perz supporters. It was so nice to meet Mickey's family, Tita Perla (his mom) and Angelo (his kuya) and his other relatives while he was still in the house. We dine in at Gerry's Grill Makati and also at Starbucks G2 and we are able to meet the faces behind different usernames. It was my very first time to go to this kind of meeting. Mostly, i just read and post and that's it. But since Mickey's cousin was one of those forumers, she posted that Tita Perla used to read all the posts and messages for Mickey and she wants to meet us all in one place. And she was so nice and accommodating that she even included us in all the eviction night show and giving us tickets so we could come. That's why Mickey is like that, his family was so cool and fun to be with.
We grew in friendship since then, texting and sharing some messages, even meet at some place to have fun. We even give Tita Perla a girls night out before she left to Switzerland at one bar in Greenbelt 3. We greeted each other online and conference chat in YM. I was able to meet and have friends globally and all over the Phils because of Mickey. They even sent gifts for him though me . We watched Mickey every dance moves, shows and even came at the premiere night of his first movie.
Now, its my great pleasure to thank him that today, his 24th birthday, he allows us to celebrate it with him and with his special someone and his family. I know its his way of thanking us for being there, though we are not that active anymore... but in spirits he know we are just here silently cheering and supporting him...
Happy Birthday Mickey! May you have many more successful years to come.
At last, we were able to see the one of Mall of Asia's great events last night, the World Pyro Olympics held at MOA's baywalk. We're living just near the place so in ordinary days, 10 minutes maximum we are already there but last night, it takes more than 1 hour before we reached MOA because of the heavy traffic.
To our dismay, we found out that we need a reservation tickets for any restaurant along the verandas and along the bay so we can enter the baywalk. It was so frustrating to see that even in a public place like the bay, you need to purchase a ticket worth P150 each just to watch and to get near the event.
It seems people knew only one place that time that it was so hard to get through the line. And to top it all, all restaurant are fully booked! Grrrr... we want to watch the Pyro nearer and good thing i realized that my hubbys cousin is working in one of the restaurant within the bay! So we rushed to called her up and we are so lucky that they have enough tickets for the three of us.. So we wait near Gerry's Grill for her staff to give us the tickets and we are just in time!
As the speakers of the event are about to finish their speech, we picked the right place to watch the show. And so the fireworks begins...they said it was called a fellowship of fire. And it was awesome! Children are so lucky nowadays to witness that great show and i can heard them clapping for every spectacular fireworks.
I laughed at the lady behind us commenting that she wished it was money showering us together with the fireworks. I wished that too... hehehehe....
So here's some of the pictures. We really enjoyed the night and we went home at almost midnight.
The reservation ticket....
One of the awesome fireworks display
Dine in at Icebergs resto before the 2nd show at 9pm.
Me and Mico
With my hubby
