The lighted Christmas Village caught the attention of my daughter’s friend as he entered our dining room a few Christmas-es ago I can’t remember now… Read More »Baroque Music is Not Your Ordinary Pling pling
Art is not what you see, but what you make others see. Edgar Degas The Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) at Hobart, Tasmania… Read More »There is no must in art because art is free
““Have a sense of pride in your motherland. Just as your mother has given birth to you, so too the land has given birth to… Read More »Our Motherland depicted in the “Parisian Life” by Juan Luna
If you stumbled upon my blog via Shop Talk, welcome to my blog. I came up with this welcome page to guide all of you along in case you have questions on blogging. First let’s tackle the obvious, what is a blog?
I joined the Photo Hunters as a way to promote my blog to a wider audience. It also forces me to make use of my digital camera. Photo Hunters’ members post every Saturday based on a theme chosen by the founder of the group. You can join here. Today’s theme is Hobby and I want to present one of my hobbies, Cooking.
Baking Christmas sugar cookies and the Gingerbread men cookies during the last week of November has been my Christmas tradition for the past twenty years. I thought baking days were over for me now that the kids are in college but no….There was one Christmas season when I didn’t bake these cookies . Sometimes I wonder if I did that deliberately because there are no small kids at home. I found out that kids will be kids at heart and they look forward to traditions .
With a hectic schedule, I make sure that Christmas decorations are already set by the first five days of December. Before you think I am a super-mom, I am not. I am blessed with an intelligent yaya (Luijoe’s caregiver) who learned the basic rudiments on baking from me all these years. I was also blesssed with a mother who taught me how to bake since I was little girl. In turn, I was able to train my helpers so that they are armed with skills other than cooking or cleaning the house.
I can even open a small bakeshop if I wanted to but I’d rather not stress myself out. I know how it is to live in a bakeshop business. It’s not fun at all. It’s all work , work and no play. Baking should be a fun and enjoyable experience. Since I was nine years old and just before I got married, Christmas meant packing cookies into baskets, counting inventory, tying ribbons, answering calls, watching a stall , counting money and being stressed out. My ex-boyfriend now my husband thought it was a great idea to visit me during the Christmas Holidays. Haha, I told him “You will have to drive our van to stores all over Cebu if you want impress my dad.” And he drove for our business because that was the only way that he and I could be together for the holidays. I vowed that I would never bake in large-scale proportions; that I would bake because I loved to. I vowed that business should be both fun and profit at the same time.
My daughter who is turning nineteen on Tuesday already made plans for a birthday gift. A funky new look from this cool and unique underground basement shop, the “I Love You Store”, new wardrobe, a hair dye and new contact lenses. Friday night is horror night in the streets of Makati Avenue. “I Love You Store” is located in 7849 Underground Pilar Place, Makati Avenue and the hairdresser is only available at night. We travelled all the way from UP Diliman for one hour and a half only to be informed by the charming owner that Maribel, the hair stylist would arrive from a styling gig at 9:30 PM. It was 7:30 PM. Knowing that it would take me another hour to drive to our house in Makati because of the horrendous traffic, I opted to wait . Fortunately, the shop had internet wi-fi and while my daughter shopped for clothes, I worked on my online business.
In the one hour and a half wait, I found out so many interesting facts about this shop :
1. The owners are Fine Arts Graduates. No wonder the place reeks of creativity.
2. Each piece of clothing is one of kind. That’s why each item of clothing is a labor of love. Hence the label “I love you Store”
3. The haircut is not really their main source of business. The professional fee of the hair stylist is by donation-basis. Pay what you can afford.
4. The owners are obviously having fun while doing their business. You can see it in the glow of their faces.
5. Every piece of item, the walls and every nook in that store is an art piece. check out the “I Love You Store photos I took of almost every corner of the shop.
This image of a colorful fruit cart would normally be posted at my Photo Blog. There is one fear I have and that is the… Read More »Fear of Heights
Creatively-challenged me had a great time at our monthly Compassionate Friends meeting. Instead of our usual sharing sessions, we turned it into a family activity involving [tag]art therapy[/tag]. Cathy arranged a special session with Color Me Mine Philippines just for our group.
For this meeting, I also invited my daughter, Lauren. My other daughter had a singing performance so she begged off. Lauren brought her boyfriend along to the meeting with us (We allow a bereaved family member to bring a friend to the first meeting ).
She giggled as she sat down:
“Wouldn’t it be funny if someone will approach us and ask how we lost a loved one?“.
My daughter dragged me to Chocolate Lover , in Quezon City yesterday because she wanted to try her hand in chocolate molding. It’s been years since I’ve molded some [tag]chocolates[/tag] but the process remains fresh in my mind. When the kids were well, little kids, I stayed mostly at home except when I needed to meet clients for real estate transactions. My hobbies varied from cross-stitching, grandmother’s quilting, Chocolate candy making, cake decorating, baking and crafts. I even baked and iced their birthday cakes. How proud my kids were when I churned out Barbie themed or cutesy dolly cakes. The smell of cinnamon and molasses filled the air during the Christmas season. Christmas decors created by the girls and myself adorned our little home. That was until I discovered the internet in 1995 and neglected all those hobbies behind. But hey, those days were not in vain. My kids still do crafts and baking. During special occasions, I still bake but I avoid cake decorating with fancy designs.