A Weekend of Surprises :)

Yup, my Saturday and Sunday was full of surprises. First was Saturday...

It started out as an ordinary lazy Saturday. We had time to sleep in and had breakfast at around 10:30 or so. We decided to do some cleaning up (swiffering -- that's when you use a swiffer in lieu of a broom and a mop since a swiffer is basically a broom and mop in one. One of the new inventions that I've discovered here in the US. Our swiffer even has a mini-vacuum built in) and putting the house in order (sort of). I'm really glad we did (although as Junby later on said, I should have been more suspicious when he became quite amendable to cleaning house) since turns out a whole battalion (or so it seemed to me at the time) was about to descend upon our humble abode. We were waiting for Kate, one of our single friends in BCBP to arrive since she had asked to have lunch with us that day. Unbeknowest to me, it was all part of an elaborate plan to surprise me with a baby shower. When I heard a knock on the door, I went to answer it, thinking I'd see Kate standing at the threshold. To my surprise, she was indeed standing there but along with a lot of other people, all of whom had food and boxes all wrapped up. They trooped into the house, laid all the food on the available surfaces and the party began!

I didn't have to prepare a thing except cook up a batch of rice since that was the one thing they all forgot to bring. I had a great time, and we had a lot of food left-over for dinner and even the rest of the week. They even had games prepared complete with prizes! Ang galing talaga! Our big thanks to Kate, Lau, Hannah, Ate Edith and the rest of the gang for all the preparations. I truly felt loved and baby Therese surely thanks you as well for all the love you've showered upon us all. Here are some pictures from that party:

A diaper cake. Yup, made of real diapers. First time I've seen one :) Thanks to Hannah, Lau and their roommate for making this. :)

My husband who is the co-conspirator for the surprise party. See how much I love him? :)

One of the many games Kate had prepared for the party. That's Ate Edith trying her best to transfer cotton balls onto another bowl blindfolded. :)
Gift opening time! Thanks to everyone for all your gifts. Therese will indeed not want for anything. :)

Ito ang mga salarin! Kain uli. Napagod sa games and gift opening. At ang dami pang food natira. From left: me, Lau, Hannah, Ate Edith and Kate (the head conspirator). Thanks to all of you :) Truly Junby and I with Therese am blessed to have you as our friends and community brothers and sisters!

Ok. I thought that was the end of it. I was wrong. Sunday was still around the corner and this time, it was Junby's family's turn -- particularly our Ninang Liklik and the head honcho for this operation is Karen, Junby's cousin on his mother's side. :) Thanks girl for the love and all the effort you put into the party! :)

I'll continue the narrative sometime tomorrow. I need to get to work na. :)

Simple Pleasures....

Yup, since I'm a simple girl, it takes very little to make me happy. Junby still marvels at my apparent delight in opening letters with a letter opener (there's just something about the sound of paper giving way under constant pressure and it opens in a straight line), or even placing stamps on envelopes (I did warn you, mababaw lang talaga ako :P ). Anyway, last Saturday, we finally received the first wave of furniture we had invested in!

Yup, our little home is starting to become more of a home than a large warehouse :P. We finally got the headboard, my dresser and Junby's dresser and our futon. Pictures? Nah, next time na, when everything is in place. The long weekend was actually very productive for Junby and myself. He somehow got inspired by the expected arrival of our furniture, he started to put together the second of two DVD cases we had ordered via Overstock.com. These were largely for his considerable DVD collection. With the arrival of the futon, he also put together the dining room set I had purchased a month ago from Ikea. It was quite a deal -- a table with four chairs for $199.00.

Since we had the futon already, we could now use the throws from Overstock and the three large pillows from Ikea. It was a tight squeeze though since we had already assembled Junby's chair but we managed. It just motivates me to start working on the other stuff to make space for what is truly essential. Now I am looking forward to the prospect of putting more order onto our closet since I have the dressers for some specific stuff. That's basically what made me happy over the weekend: the arrival of some of our furniture, the fact that I can now start putting some order into things and most importantly, my husband did all these things without me having to ask him twice :) Isn't he sweet indeed? I told him before, I hate nagging and I'm just thankful he's helping me not get into that rut. Also there is such a thing as the virtue of patience which I am slowly....oh so slowly growing in (or so I hope :P ).

In the quiet of a library...

Hi folks! I know its been a looooong while since I blogged. I keep promising myself I'd write down this particular incident or that but then something always comes up to keep me from writing it. I do plan to blog in later posts how my birthday went (yup, its been that long) and how Father's Day went (yup, I still remember) and how generally life is shaping up for me here.

Those are for later posts though. Right now, I'm grabbing the opportunity to get a few words in before I continue the grind of working on the pile of stuff I have to do for Misyon that have been stacking up the past days. I am writing this post inside the Cecil H. Green Library in Stanford College. Yup, Stanford. This is not because I am now a student here (wish ko lang) but rather I am once a guest in this prestigious institution. :P At least I can imagine myself as being a scholarly individual again (even for just a few hours). The campus is beautiful and facilities are great and as usual its 5:20 in the afternoon but the light outside is more like 4:30 in the afternoon :)

Why am I in Stanford? Well for the simple reason that its the only place I can hang out in while waiting for my husband to finish up at work so we can go to Ikea together to pick out his chair. Since someone donated a rocking chair for me, he's supposed to have his own chair too (that's according to him of course). Since our good friend Eena studies and works in Stanford (which I learned is its own city, complete with its very own zip code) I got to spend half of my day here again. The atmosphere is so conducing to work though that I was able to work on three stories while I am here in contrast to when I am just at home working. Feeling Stanford student siguro :P Well, that's all for now.

I will post those promised kwentos next time but suffice it to say that in all the things that have been happening, I see God's loving hand in each of them. He always has a surprise for me within each day and though I miss family and friends back in the Philippines, I learn day in and day out that God is indeed sufficient. :) Hope all is well with all of you! 'til next time. . . :P

After three weeks...

Ok, its been three weeks since I arrived in San Jose, California and I have been meaning to write a post about how things have been but the combination of laziness and too many things happening have become a handy excuse to let the opportunities to blog slide :) Besides, what may I blog about? My days have been pretty ordinary but then I have been learning several things as I went about trying to adjust, etc. I've decided to make a list to come across as somehow being more organized (that being how I want my life and our little home to be the past days).

Stuff I learned in the past 3 weeks or so of being in the Land of Milk and Honey (or so most people believe):

1. Shy away from converting dollar prices to its peso equivalent. Yup, friends I've spoken to before I came here were right, so is my husband -- true you earn in dollars here but you also spend in dollars so however much you earn (especially when converted in peso), most of the things you spend for are also paid for in dollars. So thriftiness is still the key. Its a good thing Karen, Junby's cousin has been bringing me along to all the discount stores and shops here. I've been taking her word for it most of the time when she says something is a good deal. I have yet to know when something is truly a steal. :P

2. Coupons are the way to go. Coupons work here! If we ignore coupons in the Philippines, the opposite is true here. Coupons do help in shaving off several dollars in one's meal, grocery and even services (like getting your photo done).

3. They don't use a 'tabo' here :P I only got our tabo from the Asian stores, which are quite numerous in California since a lot of Asians have chosen to make this more temperate state their home. I still cringe at the amount of water wasted whenever we have to take a shower. One has to let the water run for a minute or two before the heater kicks in and I definitely, do not wish to bathe in ice cold water. So water is flowing uninterrupted while we wait for it to heat up. Sayang ang tubig! I recall the water rationing we have to do in the Philippines especially during summer months in Manila. Hayyy...

4. Leftovers are almost always a certainty when eating out. The portions here are so large that we usually end up taking part of the meal home. Only the Filipinos do that I think. I saw most people leave uneaten food on their plate when we went out and ate dinner at Chilis one evening.

5. In the State of California, driving is almost always a necessity. There were only a handful of cabs around and these I saw when we passed by the SFO airport on the way to Daly City. Most people drive their own cars and since they drive in miles per hour unlike in the Philippines where our speed limit is in kilometers per hour, taking a cab is more a rarity than a necessity.

6. I learned from our Ninang Liklik that the State of California, also known as the Golden State is called thus because the grass in California turn yellow from lack of water thus giving the hillsides its 'golden' color. Actually, if not for the irrigation, much of California would be desert.

7. The sun does not set until latest so far 9 in the evening! This is because its the summer months. They assure me that come October, 6 o'clock in the evening then would be pitch black. Its still disconcerting to realize that its already 8 in the evening and dusk is just settling in.

8. Their offices here are surrounded by trees and nature. Also, the cluster of buildings of a company are called campuses. As expected things are more technologically advanced (i.e. a motion detector is found in most offices. It turns off lights in the room if no motion is detected within the room for a certain amount of time. Part of their energy saving measures).

9. The microwave is an essential part of the kitchen and a wife's life. There are meals that you just pop into the microwave a voila! a meal in under a minute. As for me though, nothing still beats food that is cooked from scratch or at the very least requires some other steps before it can be palatable.

10. Lastly for this list -- cellphones here are used more for calls rather than for text messages. Only the Filipinos text. I guess it ties up with the American way of doing things -- instantaneously.

As Junby says, life in the US is not necessarily better than life in the Philippines. Its just different. Both worlds hold their own list of advantages and disadvantages. What is important I guess is to not forget who you are even as you venture out into discovering who else you can be. :) That's all for now folks! Will post pictures of my trip in San Francisco in my multiply blog. More posts to come in the future, I hope :)

Songs from the past...

When I hear the strains of these songs, I am brought back to the times I spent lazy Sundays with Papa. These memories now are a comfort. . .