the weight of the world

there are times when i think, i'm in way over my head. i had always lived at home, you see. i never had the responsibility of budgeting for a household, taking care of bills and being responsible for people's lives.

when i think about it, here i am responsible for my in-laws and my stepchildren. however indirectly, i feel the pressure intensely.

i came here with dreams of starting anew, into this world of possibilities with the man i love. i came with the hope of starting my own family, of finally being independent.

and slowly, step-by-step we find solutions to our everyday problems. but now that we can somehow breathe easily, we're faced with another obstacle and i'm sure there will be a lot more where that came from.

and i feel our dream of a home, financial stability and even starting my own family being pushed further and further away. last among the list of priorities that we have to tackle. at times i get tired of the somedays, i get tired of "saka na". what if that day never comes?... what then?

this was the frame of mind i was in when i had to update our company website with Dr. Schuller's message last friday. the update required reading through his message to find characters that needed to be html-friendly. and try as i might i could not ignore the sermon he had written, which centered on Psalm 32:8:

"I will instruct you in the way you will go. I will counsel you
with my eye upon you."

and this particular thought struck me:

"We get set up for this and set up for that. But here's the line.
God sets up the set ups in our life! That is how God guides. God
guides through circumstances."

how odd that on this day of days, when i was feeling so overwhelmed by all that's expected of me and all that needs to be done--overwhelmed by the responsibilities and how faraway our dreams seem-- i should read this message.

God works in mysterious ways, and our meager minds cannot comprehend his master plan. and yet if we have faith that all is happening for our good because it is in God's master plan then we must let go of our anxieties and trust in God.

how easily i type that down, when deep inside the doubts and anxieties churn endlessly. because at times i try to peer thru God's masterplan and doubt that He intends for me to keep what i have now. the life and love i thank him for every single day. wondering if this man i promised to love for the rest of my life will be claimed by his past. wondering if i, like my grandmother, am destined to spend my life loving someone who is not there for me.

i know my husband loves me and i love him very much. we felt God bringing us together... and now, what is God's will? are these twists in the road meant to bring us closer together or draw us apart?... only God knows. and i pray that when our journeys come to an end, we will still be together, we will still have each other and we will still have this love that God gave us to cherish. for there is no one i would rather be with than the man who is now my husband.

the land of milk and honey

i was talking to a friend about a week ago. he was one of my classmates in the MS IT program at DLSU. on the course of the normal hi's and hello's he asked me to give a rough comparison of my salary in the philippines and here. and that was the first time i actually thought of doing that! i told him that it's approximately 1 day in the US = 1 month in the Philippines. and though i did work for a small startup company in the Philippines, i work for a non-profit organization here in the US (known for not giving very high salaries). of course, i'm not complaining about mine, since looking at the standards here for web developers they already had put me in the topmost level.

my bestfriend from highschool, several close friends from graduate school and even former officemates have expressed their desires to work here. the land of milk and honey-- to live the american dream.

but beware, remember that what you will spend here is not the peso equivalent of your salary but the dollar equivalent! so it doesn't really matter how your salary compares-- it's just that with what you earn here you can enjoy the things you don't normally consider enjoying in the philippines.

i would not mind watching a play in the kodak theatre because the cost is not even 10% of my salary-- and that's tickets for both me and my husband. concerts are about the same price for the artists i would enjoy watching. a few months down the line, my credit will probably qualify for financing on a new car. and then in the forseeable future, my husband and i can probaby buy properties, residential and the like. so maybe there is an american dream after all...

you just have to be patient enough-- and wade through the obstacles that may come between you and your dream. one obstacle at a time, praying for guidance and the strength of will. praying that you will measure up to all the challenges that come your way.

so far so good! i still believe that with my husband at my side, nothing is impossible. especially with a family as wonderful and loving as we have here and in the philippines. truly blessed:)

fast forward

it took me quite a while to find a job here in the US, but i count myself more fortunate than most that i found a job in my field and that my boss even raised my asking salary when she offered me the position. and i feel blessed that most of the work i am assigned is not beyond my capabilities.

it's like i'm ticking off items in a list my husband and i drew up more than a year ago. first we got our passport stamped with our immigrant visa number and we are just waiting for our greencard to be mailed to us. then i found a great job that can help us attain our goals. i'm even getting several calls now regarding my resume that i've posted in careerbuilder and monster.com, but i feel content in my job at the moment.

and last night we found out that the family of my husband's ex is willing to talk to us to gain custody of my stepchildren. we've always planned to go home next year to contact them if they want us to petition them and live with us or if they want us to at least pay for their college education. now God is giving us that chance.

after several months of waiting, everything seems to be moving in a fast forward direction. we even registered our pageant with the state already, and plans for the start of that business endeavor is on its way.

i feel very blessed and confident that God will provide us with a way to support our growing family. i feel that He is pouring his blessings out to us and we will work very hard to share God's love and blessings with our family. as the saga of our lives continue, i know there will be a lot more challenges to come, but i also know that if we are patient and trust in God-- God will provide what is best for us:)

our first dinner party: the aftermath

we hosted our first dinner party last monday in honor of the Virgin Mary of Fatima, who is brought to a different host family every monday. we had around twenty or so people who came.

my husband and i prepared the egg rolls, leche flan and cake the day before. but he had to bake the gigantic salmon we found, cook the ox tongue (lengua), and make the pancit palabok.

we scrubbed our constantly muddy kitchen floor just before laying out the food in a smaller table than we usually have in the kitchen. and my husband was warming food while the people prayed the rosary.

my in-laws were especially irritating that day. my husband got angry at them almost every ten minutes. they were both trying to help, but ended up being more of a nuisance than anything else! the visitors were very understanding about them.

we ate outside, we brought a picnic table out there so that the guests would be more comfortable. they surely enjoyed the food and complimented my husband constantly. there was teasing and banter everywhere. it seemed that everyone was enjoying themselves. and i enjoyed myself.

especially with my husband's close friends, the couple ed & marisa there with marisa's parents and cousin. they're a great family, and i feel really close to them. marissa invited us over to their home and i said while the men work on cementing something in their backyard, we can do something together. she said we can go to the mall, which is just a walking-distance from their place and we can barbecue in the afternoon. that sounded great to me!:)

all in all, i'd say our first dinner party was a success! looking forward to more entertaining sometime soon:)

our first dinner party: the preparations

we have not done a lot of entertaining at home since i got here. for one, the house was a mess and my husband's parents were not healthy enough to receive visitors before. but last monday, the virgin mary of fatima was brought to our home, part of a rosary crusade my husband and i have been attending here in the east LA area. and it has been a tradition to throw a mini-dinner party when the virgin mary leaves your home. so on monday, we will be throwing our first dinner party as a couple.

usually the group that brings the virgin to the home of the next host is smaller than the group that attends the dinner party, but last week around twenty people came to bring the virgin to us. and so we forsee at least that big a group coming to our dinner party.

it's so great to have a great cook for a husband! all i have to prepare is the leche flan and the lychee and almond jelly dessert:) he will take care of all the cooking hehehe. i'm so lucky!

the people who are coming have been very nice to us and i enjoy their company. they are really close to my husband. i hope they enjoy our little dinner party:)

crab mentality

crab mentality is a terrible trait. and filipinos have mastered it to a tee-especially here in the US. instead of helping each other, they try to put each other down, reveling in the bad circumstances of a person instead of the good. it's a trait that none of our prospering asian neighbors have.

i've seen my husband's friends and my in-laws' friends look down on them because they were not wealthy. they take it in stride or just pretend not to notice. i have experienced this first hand from some of our own family members.

well, i'm not a very humble person. i do not like people stepping all over me. and so i choose not to be with these people who think so little of us!

i'm glad that in our workplace i am the only filipina (at least in our department). at least i won't have to worry about any backstabbers! and i'm very blessed to have found this job, and i intend to do it well. because there are investments i have to make and this may well finance them:)