Merry Christmas from my hospital room

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My heart grows tender with treasured childhood memories and love of family when the Christmas season comes. I believe we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmas-time. It is an exciting moment for me.

christmas-in-hospitalEverything was planned at the last minute. My daughter, M based in Australia called me December 10 that she was spending Christmas in Singapore. I entertained the thought of spending it with her too. It was all set. Butch, Lauren and I were booked to leave December 23. I was looking forward for family bonding moments. Things didn’t quite happen the way I envisioned it. On December 22, while on my way to the bank to prepare our dollars for the trip, I felt this excruciating pain in my middle abdomen. To make the long story short, I had an operation on December 23 at 3 PM. I had bilary colic. I knew I had some gallstones in my gallbladder but they were small , and didn’t need immediate surgery. Two small stones lodged in the common bile duct causing my bilirubin, amylase, liver enzymes to skyrocket and the terrible pain. Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy was not possible because the surgeon wanted to run a dye in the biliary tract to trace the stones. The surgery took 3 hours and I was told it was a complicated surgery.

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Meralco lights up Christmas for kids from 1 to 92

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Christmas is most truly Christmas when we celebrate it by giving the light of love to those who need it most.– Ruth Carter Stapleton

Christmas lights always gives me that warm fuzzy feeling that glows inside for the entire season. It brings me so much joy. Childhood memories of twinkling lights and Christmas carols are enough to lift my spirits during the holiday season. Through the years that I lived in Pasig, the lights in the Meralco compound never fails to mesmerize me as the car passes by.

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It never occurred to me that Meralco has been opening its gates to the public for a long time now, giving delight to kids from ages 1 to 92. Yes, not just young kids but kids at heart like me. I didn’t have to think twice being invited together with other bloggers to witness the Christmas lighting tonight.

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CEO Manny Pangilinan together with other very important guests marked the lighting event. For Meralco, lighting up their Ortigas compound symbolizes the light of Jesus Christ whose coming to the world brings joy and hope to the young and old.
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Gratitude is the memory of the heart

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Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow. ~Melody Beattie

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I am right now in Cebu. I am beginning to love this place. There is still something missing about Cebu that makes me sad. Perhaps because I often travel to Cebu just to bury a family member. Just when I made peace with the deaths of family members, another chaos ensued after a class reunion, then a death of a classmate. Making sense out of a chaotic situation is futile especially if the door is shut in front of you.

A conversation from a dear friend tonight jolted me out of chaos when she said that “there are more important relationships that need responding to just like what you have just done; gving comfort to parents who lost a child.”
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Halloween Trick or Treat

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Halloween Trick or Treat is a tradition that my husband started with the kids when they were around four years old. As a kid, I never grew up in the Halloween tradition of the Western world but hubby did. Halloween Celebration through the years is a memory that my kids treasure because of the yummy treats and magical costumes.

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My two girls who were 5 and 4 years old then

Yes, happy childhood memories next to Christmas and birthday celebrations. Now that my kids are over twenty years old, they have their way of celebrating Halloween.

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It’s my first time in the US without my children during Halloween day, a first trick or treat here too. I enjoyed my day. The kids were so cute or scary in their costumes.

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There were not that many kids though. According to my brother-in-law, not a single candy is left after Trick or Treat. We had three huge bags left. I think the Giants game prevented some parents from driving their little kids around the neighborhood.

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The secret language is a secret

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There are times I find my husband too gooey and sweet for words. For many years, I always thought that he just wants to flatter me. I won’t bother placing the cute nicknames and code words we give each other in this blog. Our daughters have been brought into it also especially when we use a phrase that makes sense only to the four of us.

They say these sweet-nothings pave the way to a playful, resilient, and satisfying relationship with each other. I thought it was crazy when he deliberately mispronounced my name that I followed suit a few years after we got married. One study on couples’ “insider language” published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships reported that the more goofy nicknames, made-up terms a couple used, the higher their relationship satisfaction tended to be. So all those lovey-dovey words uttered on my ears are healthy for a relationship, huh?

“Using nicknames and made-up language is an easy way to inject positive communication into everyday life,” Jamie Turndorf, Ph.D., a New York City relationship therapist. says. In fact, it’s probably the single easiest thing you can do to keep your romance going strong.

Our secret language remains a secret.

A weekend trip to Kota Kinabalu just before the hostage crisis was an opportunity to be just by ourselves without our adult children admonishing us for PDA. You can really tell your kids are adults when they start to lecture you on proper behavior.

Anyway, thanks to those seat sales, and for only 1,250 pesos for the plane fare , Butch and I spent 3 days and 3 nights in Kota Kinabalu. The sight of lush green cover on the mountains and exotic flowers seemed a wonderful respite from the city jungle. I keep telling Butch that we needed a vacation, just the two of us. August was the preferred month to travel, fearing another Ondoy would strike our home. It is not easy to leave home after Ondoy flooded my home when I left for Singapore . Butch felt the same fear but I said we have to let go because the weather is never predictable. I left word to my daughters to drive the cars to their dad’s office for safety, which is just nearby in case the flood water rose on one side of the street.

So there we were in Kota Kinabalu, just the two of us, our first vacation in a place with no relatives or friends, without the kids tagging along. Just the two of us uttering our pet names and secrets codes that build a connection between us.

Do you use cute nicknames and code words to your significant other?

Slideshow of Photos

Birthday greetings to the love of my life

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And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years. Abraham Lincoln

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Butch turned 51 years old today. He is two years younger than me. As in all birthdays in my family, I celebrate it with food. The more we praise and celebrate life, the more there is in life to celebrate. This time around, I feel bad for waking up late and not preparing a special menu as I used to do in the past before my life became so busy. I love that he did not complain though. He even bought his own birthday cake for lunch. It makes me think that birthdays are nature’s way of telling us to eat more cake. (kidding!)

We spent the afternoon at the resting place of our beloved son watching the pretty blue dragonflies hovering nearby as well as the white-speckled butterfly that fluttered by the flowers on the basket. Just watching the wonders of nature was enough joy.

Earlier, I bought bright orange and pink flowers to brighten our living and dining room. I added a pale violet orchid plant to add the final touch on my antique writing table. He loved the flower arrangement and I hope that made up for my laziness today.

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Is there life after high school?

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The Groovies, my high school classmates (circa St Theresa’s College Cebu 1974) once again got into the groove of bonding moments. There were reasons to celebrate. Our class salutatorian, Deirdra came home from New Jersey for a visit. Birthday celebrants needed to make a wish and the groovies from Manila missed Cebu. You know, I look forward to these small reunions. Groovies remind me that we are still cool and awesome despite the passage of time. I draw inspiration from classmates that still manage to look good.

Marget Fernan-Villarica not only hosted the party but our stay as well in her lovely, comfy home. Our current president, Nerissa Soon-Ruiz gave this brilliant idea of auctioning off our give-aways to raise funds for our batch project. What fun!

Tess, the preceding batch president told me to write an article for our Coral reunion last year. It is only this year that I got to read the printed version of the STC Annual 2009.

Here it is:

Is there life after high school? To be honest, I was relieved when my high school graduation ceremony ended. In high school, I was a painfully shy, mediocre student with average grades (as in 81 to 85). I often felt intimidated by the smart and outspoken girls. You know how it is in high school – there are the popular girls and the invisible girls. I was one of the invisible girls but I was lucky enough to have a few friends who made me feel like I belonged to a group.

So do people ever recover from that intense high school social experience? Some don’t. They spend the rest of their lives trying to justify what they were, or were not, in high school. This is why high school reunions are so emotional, especially the first one. I declined to attend the 25th High School class of 1974 reunion because I was not ready to face that dreaded high school experience once again. Coupled with five deaths of family members in Cebu, I felt Cebu was just bad news for me and going home was not an option at that point.
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A loving shout out to my husband

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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe says that “When a wife has a good husband it is easily seen in her face.” I believe the glow comes from loving herself first. Her contented and happy looks show because she learned to love herself first . When love overflows, there is much love to give and it will show in her actions.

My husband will never get to read this entry but I already thanked him for the small things in person:

1. for putting up with my erratic schedule.

2. for doing the groceries

3. for bringing me chocolates at my bedside table

4. for rubbing my back and neck during my breaks

5. for calling me “sexy” and meaning it.

6. for being proud of what I do even if it means late nights

7. for being the funniest, smartest person I know.

8. for not complaining that I have not cooked a special dish for quite some time

9. for trying to laugh at my jokes even if he doesn’t find it funny.

10. for not staying too long in his cave

Thank you my dear.

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On second chances

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A long marriage is two people trying to dance a duet and two solos at the same time. ~Anne Taylor Fleming

The news did not surprise me , that James Yap will fight for his marriage and even tells Kris not to give up . He read his statement in Filipino and in a humble demeanor ““I believe in the importance of having an intact family…That’s why I will fight to keep my family with Kris intact whatever happens.

““I know that every family encounters tests like these,” he continued. ““Kris and I have made it through such tests before and I don’t think that this would be the right time for us to surrender [to such tests].”

So why was I not surprised? I have told you before that just like Kris, I too gave up on my marriage. Really, I would not have taken a second chance if my husband didn’t work things out. Uh, he literally wooed me back.

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