becoming soulmates: coincidence or the course of life?

before i left for the US, a friend of mine gave me a going away present. it was a book entitled "becoming soulmates". i did not read religious books, not even inspirational types, but i found myself reading this one.

i didn't read it from cover to cover. but i found myself reading one chapter at a time, every time i was depressed or after i have an argument with my husband. i don't know if it's coincidence or not, but whenever i turn to read a chapter the topic of the chapter always applies to whatever we argued about or to why i am depressed. there are chapters on anger, on saying hurtful things, on praying together and others.

i think the funny thing is, i'm not applying what i read from the book. it's more of my husband and i are already doing what i later on read about in the book. it's like the book is summarizing what i learned from what happened to me and my husband. so maybe all newly wed couples go thru this stage of life, especially couples with strong faiths and beliefs... maybe it is just a coincidence, but i still learn a lot from it. and everyday i find how many more things there are to learn especially about the person i married and life with someone God gave me.

personal note: don't judge a book by its genre!

i dream of babies

i have several friends and both my sister-in-laws have endometriosis, which is a complication that thickens the uterus lining and in its advanced stages prevents a woman from having babies. knowing 5 people with such a disease doesn't seem to be coincidental. and sometimes i fear not being able to conceive as well...

last month i dreamt of a baby. he had thick wavy hair that was jet black. he was very fair-skinned like my husband. he had lea's nose, but my husband's eyes and lips. he was playing with a garden hose, watering a white fence, the sculpted concrete kind we used to have in the philippines. he was wearing a baby blue shirt and diapers. his arms and legs were chubby but not too much so.

i don't know when i'm going to have babies. but i do want to have children. children who look like my husband.

but first, i have to have a job. we have to have a house of our own and a better quality of life than we do now. there are things we have to take care of first... so be patient, my babies, mommy's coming to get you soon!

men & women on the subject of weddings

i went to my friendster account this morning and discovered that one of my close college friends had already gotten married. and i didn't discover this because he told me about it, he had his wedding picture posted on friendster! we've been emailing back and forth since i left the philippines. and we kept in touch after college, in a sense that we would even call each other from time to time. so it came as a shock to me that he didn't once mention that he was getting married. his only saving grace was that he did tell me he was in a relationship and it was getting serious.

i had a lot of friends who got married this year. female friends. and they were all too happy to relate the details, all the preparations they've been doing and where and when it was.

but maybe that's why. maybe female friends are more into the subject of weddings while male friends prefer not to talk about it. but then i met my husband's friends and they all told me that he was so excited about us and told everybody. but then my husband is more sensitive and romantic than most:) i know, i'm lucky!;)

pisay 94: the batch 10 years later...

highschool always seems to be the most remembered days of one's life. and my highschool days were no different. it was in highschool that i learned to express myself in writing, i wrote plays, poetry and fiction. i directed school plays. i wrote for the school paper. i was part of the school yearbook. and i had a great time!

ten years later, an email group began connecting the batch again. it became the instrument with which the batch was able to launch our yearbook (finally!). it was the home of much discussion about politics, making a difference, and where people are at this point in time.

then a cry for help was posted by a batchmate that i wasn't particularly close to back in highschool. but upon reading it, i felt that i had to do something if only to offer prayers for her baby. apparently, i wasn't the only one with these sentiments and a lot of people came out to help the family.

it made me admire the batch all over again. there was a reason why we were so proud to be batch 94 in pisay. there was a reason why our batch was different. and maybe it's this passion for helping others, for our country, our environment and staying together no matter how far we are or how many years have gone by... our reason is this passion that is rekindled everyday and burns stronger when together! this is my salute to pisay batch 94. may our fire burn for many more years to come!

my birthday pic at the paul getty center:) 

the very entertaining congressman DIGS

my husband and i watch the philippine tv show, "saksi" whenever we can here in LA. it's broadcasted on channel 18 at around 4 PM. filipinos here bear witness to delayed telecasts of the canvassing of votes from the congress.

for me, it's always entertaining to hear congressman digs from maguindanao's comments. but his comment yesterday sent me laughing so hard my tummy hurt!

he said, and i quote, "papano magiging zero si fernando poe sa [insert his municipality name here]? anong nangyari sa boto ng nanay ko? ng mga kamag-anak ko? papano magkakaboto eh wala namang eleksyon!" hehehehe, GO CONGRESSMAN DIGS!!!

a phone interview: thanks monster!

yesterday the hrd manager of the houston fearles(?) group, pat, called telling me that she found my resume in monster.com and she's interested in talking to me. she said they need a water remediation engineer and i told her honestly that the last time i dealt with water remediation was in college (discussing my friend adora's thesis on ozonation of sludge). she said they needed someone with experience in water remediation. i said it was ok, she bid me good luck and i thanked her nicely.

that wasn't a successful interview, but hey i found out several things. my resume is getting read and the $70K per year salary i requested didn't seem to be a big deal to them. wow! if only i had plant experience, i know i would've gotten more interviews and job offers by now.

but i have a good feeling i'm going to do just fine as i am. especially with my very supportive husband cheering me on:) rat race, here i come!

driving lesson #1

the last time i had a driving lesson was when my dad decided to teach us way back when we had the lancer gsr. after one lesson, my dad decided i was better off learning from a professional driving instructor! hehehe. i had this tendency to argue with him about his instructions, you see (it wasn't my fault if i was so used to riding in that car that i could approximate when he braked on an intersection, was it? hehehe).

a decade or so later, here i was in the driver's seat again. this time my husband is teaching me. he started out with letting me have a feel for how soft the gas and brake pedals were. then we went to a parking lot and he taught me how to park. i'll give my husband plus points for patience though. he never lost his temper the whole time we were having the lesson. for a while there i thought he was letting me drive the car home, that got me a bit apprehensive (but of course i didn't tell him i was hehehe).

he didn't teach me too much, and he didn't teach me too little. or maybe he was thinking, i better stop the lesson BEFORE i decide to quit teaching her hehehe. ok so i'm not a very good student driver. but i do enjoy driving!:)

weight control

i am cursed with a slow metabolism. my mom said i got it from her. while my mom is contented to diet her whole life so she doesn't grow fat, i would like to find a way of changing the rate of my metabolism.

my husband says it's possible by changing the way one eats and by exercising regularly. we've let ourselves go the past 6 months of our "honeymoon" stage and my husband was the first to complain that he was growing fat. and so we decided to start exercising and start eating right.

my eating right part has been limited to not eating rice as of now and our exercise to walking around the bruggermeyer oval 10 or so times. am still preoccupied with finding a job for most of the day, but our evening routines of brisk walking around the park have been very enjoyable. it gives us a chance to have more talks and some alone time without his parents constantly nagging him to do something or another.

thank god for weight control solutions!

playing with the digital camera:) 

the written driver's exam

i never learned how to drive back in the philippines. with public transportation as abundant as it is, not to mention as convenient (with the advent of urvans and grandias servicing the pilar to makati route), there didn't seem to be much of a need to drive. besides, i kind of enjoyed being driven (what with being chauffered by the boss' driver so much and having my sister or my dad drive me everywhere).

but experiencing commuting here in LA, i felt the need to drive. the buses are not as numerous as those in the philippines, there were cases when i had to wait for more than 40 minutes in a montebello bus stop just to get to the social security office 20 minutes away. if your destination is far from the bus stop, you end up perspiring from the walk-- what if you were going to a job interview or meeting with a client? and a lot of jobs in the classifieds need people who can drive and have a valid driver's license.

so as much as it scares me to tackle the freeway behind the wheel, i guess it would be easier if i did. my husband will be teaching me, he likes teaching me to be independent. and i guess this is but one of the many lessons he will teach me before i am truly independent.

yesterday i took the written driver's exam and passed. i got one more mistake than my husband did on his exam but he has been driving since he was 12-- so there really is no comparison (hehehe). there were a lot of confusing questions, but my husband patiently explained the answers to me. i may get my first driving lesson today:) i can't wait! scary freeway, here i come!

my daddy and my hubby

my husband looks a lot like my dad, they're both very handsome. they even have the same mannerisms! when i do something really funny, they crinkle their eyes and shake their head while smiling and trying to hold back a laugh. they have the exact same expression!

i often tell my husband how he reminds me of my dad. he would usually say, that's why you love me so much because i remind you of him. well, it's not exactly why i love my husband-- it's just one of the many reasons i do.

it's not the physical resemblance that bowled me over, it's the way he loves me. he loves me the same way my dad loves my mom. he indulges my moodiness, he spoils me silly, and with every action he shows me just how much he loves me.

i'm lucky, i know! :)

Happily married and loving it! 

home improvement

the receipt of a warning for a citation from the city forced me and my husband to clear out our yard and organize the garage. from the looks of our curb on the day we scheduled a bulky item collection from our garbage collector, you would've thought we were moving out from the sheer number of items there. how we managed to fit all of that in our small garage, i have no idea! our house looks much better now.

my husband put up the chandelier he's been meaning to put up in the kitchen/dining room. he installed the range hood over our stove. we cleaned all the fans in preparation for the summer heat. and we even started a small flower garden in our small planter outside our living room window.

meanwhile my mother-in-law got into the spirit of home improvement and replaced her old chair in the living room with a small leather one that looks nice. she bought new curtains for the living room and cleaned out her boxes of papers and threw out a lot of papers she didn't need, which cleared the living room (the part she had turned into her office) a lot. she plans to buy a new desk by month's end, and asked my husband to tile our bathroom as well.

we had been shying away from making improvements on the house since we're just renting it. but since it will take some time before we can move out into our own home, we figured why not make the house a home we can receive guests in.

it's not really that bad. it's a small 2-bedroom home, but the living room is spacious. our room is big enough for our queen-sized bed, and our cabinets and drawers plus our computer desk, file cabinet and our small altar. it's cool in the summer and warm enough in the winter. the kitchen is functional, but we intend to make improvements on it too. so the landlord is lucky for now. wait til we start buying our own property.:)