A New Home in 49 days
If you remember my New Year Goals, you will note that my first two goals were
1. Start the construction of our new home by February.
2. Move in to our new home before the year 2007 ends.
Unfortunate circumstances can turn into blessings. I posted my New Year Goals entry on January 2, 2007 at 7:00 AM, the first working day of the year 2007. Determined to start on my goals, I hied off to the seller of the lot we wanted to purchase so I could check on the documentation. The journey to the seller’s residence was daunting. Taytay is an alien town to me. Driving in circles, I gave up and parked my car by the tricyles stand. Showing the address of the seller, I hired a tricyle to drive me over there. Riding a tricycle terrified me as I hadn’t ridden one in years. Besides, the barren land opened my mind to all sorts of gruesome imagination. What if the tricycle driver robbed me and dumped me here? What if no one knew where I was? I didn’t tell my husband that I was on my way to Taytay. Anyway, I have a point. I finally reached the seller who was supposed to be the authorized person to sign any legal documents. It took her two freaking months to get the “Special Power of Attorney” (SPA) from her sibling. I eagerly looked for it so I could pay her the full payment within the week. Much to my consternation, the SPA came from the US Military not the Philippine Consulate.
I said “this won’t do.” The seller whined that it will take another two weeks to get the SPA I wanted. I was furious inside. That means a setback of another month in my plans. Then my fury turned to my real estate brokers. I thought “how dare they let me go all the way to Taytay? I could have gotten killed going here! How could they not have checked the papers?” Not about to give up, I told the seller that I would type out the SPA myself and email it to her sibling.
I drove back to my real estate broker but she was in Japan! Her agent (my aunt) excitedly told me about a lovely house and lot that I might want to consider. She said this was the house for me. I didn’t want to see it because my mind was already set into building a house. The property was also 500 thousand over my budget and I became more suspicious of my aunt’s motives “she just wants a higher commission”. My bad mood just clouded my mind for a minute. Since I loved my aunt, I grudgingly said I’d see it out of curiousity.
You know how it is when you fall in “love at first sight”. The minute I laid my eyes on the pretty house, I fell in love.
As a young child, my wonderful dad aka Santa Claus often asked me and my siblings to list down the things we wanted for Christmas. Beside the “must-have” item in my [tag]wish list[/tag] is a star which means, “You have to buy this dad”. My wish list comprised of at least 10 items in it . Dad bought 3 items from that list. There is something about opening many little gifts that brings sparkle to a child’s innocent eyes. It’s magical. Years later as a mom, I did the same thing to my precocious children and asked for their “[tag]Christmas Wish List[/tag]”. I said my budget is nothing more than 5,000 pesos in total. In the course of the year, I dish out presents that surpass 5,000 pesos anyway. Christmas is not the only occasion they receive gifts. If a daughter earns good grades, she gets a special gift. If they have birthdays, I also shower them with their desired gift. Christmas is just another excuse to receive gifts and I am not about to spend a lot. Or so I thought. L and M gave me their wish list. It wasn’t a list. Look at what I got:
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 . 
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. 
“What’s wrong Kylee?”, I knelt down and asked L’s [tag]Siamese cat[/tag]. I was about to step into my car the other day when I caught a furry ball on the rear tire. Kylee’s blue eyes shot me a look of despair. See, Kylee sits beside me in another chair at my office . That morning, my husband raised his voice over a family matter. Terrified of my husband’s raised voice, Kylee scrambled out of my office. 
Nice! It was the late seventies and I had no idea what punk actually meant. I don’t think I looked or acted like a punk. I never bothered to find out about the punk culture or the reason behind my ex-boyfriend’s term of endearment. The word “punk” just meant an affectionate and loving word to me. What I knew back then was that Punk first emerged in the mid 1970s in London as an anarchic and aggressive movement. Closely aligned was a music movement that took the name punk. Punk as a term of endearment from my ex-boyfriend was unique. That’s all.
I grew up in a family surrounded by music. Every morning, mom played her Bach or Chopin concert pieces to our delight. We often danced like awkward ballerinas or sat beside her, mesmerized by the melody of her piano pieces. Naturally, she wanted us to learn the piano. With 7 siblings taking up piano, organ and guitar lessons, our parents imposed nightly concerts after dinner. We actually had fun showing off our pieces. As we entered college, our passion for music diminished. Only a brother and a sister continued to hone their musical talent.
I didn’t expect much of the 
That [tag]stage mother[/tag] in the photo must be so proud of [tag]Erika Jill Bautista[/tag] . As Erika sang, the mom engaged in small talk with Ryan Agoncillo. Sometimes, she listened through the walls. Erica has an hearing impairment (35 decibels) in one ear that she has to wear a hearing aid. Inspite of her hearing impairment, she sings pretty well.