Marriage Makes for Great Sayings

I recently read an email in my uncle's inbox. I wasn't snooping around...he asked me to open his email for him since he hasn't been going to work due to his heart condition. Anyway this funny email caught my eye. Picked out the ones I found to be most amusing but not too offending (haha...kaka offend pag natatamaan!). I wonder what Mark has to say to this....No darling you don't need to reply to that because you might get in trouble...just let me wondering :p

Funny (unfortunately many times true) marriage sayings:

After marriage, husband and wife become two sides of a coin; they just can't face each other, but still they stay together. - Hemant Joshi

By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher. - Socrates

Woman inspires us to great things, and prevents us from achieving them. - Dumas (Hoy ha! Bad to...blaming other people for your own failings.)

The great question... which I have not been able to answer... is, "What does a woman want? - Sigmund Freud (neither have I been able to answer this! Tell me people what do I want?)

I had some words with my wife, and she had some paragraphs with me. - Anonymous (Not so true with us anymore. I tend to shut up and mope when I'm hurt or mad.)

"I don't worry about terrorism. I was married for two years." - Sam Kinison (LOL!!!)

"There's a way of transferring funds that is even faster than electronic banking. It's called marriage." - James Holt McGavran

"I've had bad luck with both my wives. The first one left me, and the second one didn't." - Patrick Murray

Two secrets to keep your marriage brimming
1. Whenever you're wrong, admit it,
2. Whenever you're right, shut up.
- Nash (Hear! Hear!)

The most effective way to remember your wife's birthday is to forget it once... - Anonymous (Ummm....am the one guilty of this.)

You know what I did before I married? Anything I wanted to. - Henny Youngman

A good wife always forgives her husband when she's wrong. - Milton Berle (Oh I AM a good wife after all. ^_^)

Social Spark

My sister told me to try SocialSpark and I finally did this morning, while waiting for Mark to get dressed and ready for their trek/swim at Batangas. I had no idea what it was about but since it said "social" then I though it'd be a good opportunity to widen my social network online without resorting to joining/answering endless memes. So far here's what I've found out about it:

1. People there are really active - Someone already messaged me and added me as friend within a few minutes of signing up.
2. I can actually earn money through it - It looks a bit like PPP but with more emphasis on the social aspect.
3. Editing the profile page is both easy and hard - It's really easy to add and crop my pic (unlike lots of websites I've joined before!) but since I am pretty fickle at times (as Mark can attest to) I had a hard time thinking about my blog description so I'll end up with something more than "My personal blog." The good thing about it is that I ended up with something that I could at last replace the depressing sentence at the top of my blog. I don't even remember the negative words there before....a really good thing!
4. The public profile page is nice - In terms of layout it's pretty intuitive. It highlights the basic info about me yet still manages to pack in all the other features (which I need to explore) without making it look messy.
5. I need to wait for the ITK - I have absolutely no idea what it is but I'm sure I chose the code that says claim+ITK. Since it has something to do with my blog stats I'm guessing I didn't do anything wrong but just like when I signed up for Google Analytics I need to wait a bit.

So far my profile page is looking pretty lonesome. If you have a Social Spark account do add me as friend. I just hope I don't get hooked up with it as I did for a few weeks with Facebook...I need to work!

Learning from Sacha

This is all about a blog I love to read and I think is worth sharing. If you don't know Sacha Chua (and I admit I don't know much about her beyond the fact that she went to the same high school I did, she's a genius, she's cute, and speaks in this cute little voice) I think you really should get to know her through her blog. It's funny how I still think of her as this high school kid in uniform so that I feel like she has wisdom beyond her years. I guess she does have wisdom beyond her years though since people a lot older than her (like moi...) will learn a lot or at least be reminded of what they've learned before by reading her thoughts. The blog is full of the kind of practical idealism that I've been wanting to imbibe. Been wanting to write something really deep but heck I'll just link to the latest fave posts from her.

An all exclusive Sacha Chua painting (got to love her sketches!)

Relentless improvement and a focus on the positive - Will the 3/3/1 help make our marriage work better? Hmmm... Should talk this over with Mark to find out. For bosses (paging Kuya Ariel!) this is something you should check out, might work for your team. ^_^
The only way to fight the darkness is to blaze even brighter with light - This says it all.
It’s not just for you - it helps other people remember the steps, too! - Maybe I wouldn't think I suck so bad at dancing if I had a such a great dance teacher. Oh wait...I never did take dance lessons!

Pics with the Kids

As promised here are some pics of the kids . Not exactly at home in these pics but with my sister and Jerry at Eastwood.

Sam imagining the food he'll be seeing on the plate. Yum!

(L-R) Jerry, me, Sam (playing peek-a-boo behind the menu),
Gemmalyn, Silas, Gio

Resting a bit and having dessert before heading home.

Three stooges.

Silas, Gio, Sam and Nana

Blogger's Ability to Post Date Entries

Testing Blogger's newest feature....

wrote this post May 18 08:04

will publish this May 18 20:04.

Glad Blogger has this feature

Amado = Find of the Century

I now qualify for the award of "Find of the Century". Guess who I've spotted? Obvious naman sa title....Amado. Yes Amado Villavicencio. Nope I didn't see him in person but he viewed my profile on Friendster and am now just waiting for him to approve my invite. Need proof? Here's the link to Amado's profile and his pic.

Hey Mads you trying to win Motormouth? ;-)

Joining the PPP Bandwagon

After years and years of resisting the PPP (payperpost) pull I have finally joined the bandwagon. Andrea dn my sister are the mainly the ones who've convinced me that it's profitable enough to join. I promise my dear subscribers though that I wouldn't be flooding this blog with pitchy posts. Will of course be posting more frequently though I'll refrain from posting more than once a day. For those who have been blogging long enough to have a pretty decent page rank I suggest that you also take this opportunity to earn more money. Don't worry about getting spammy. If you have a deep aversion for it you'll probably be able to strike the proper balance between earning enough money and the number of posts. Besides with a good page rank you'll get offers to post stuff for even up to $80 or more making too frequent posts unnecessary.

And guys if you catch me becoming too commercial for your taste please do tell me. Don't want my friends to stop reading my blog just to earn stuff! If you're my friend though you wouldn't mind me trying to make an extra buck. :p

An Extraordinary Experience at X/O Philippines

I've been trying to put off this post till I get some pics to go with it but since I can't find anything about X/O Philippines on the net except for this one Inquirer article I'm posting anyway. If you want to see the food then just visit the place yourself. Sorry!

The last time my sister and I went out and watched a movie/concert together (U2 3D was great btw) we ate at Banana Leaf. The food at Banana Leaf was NOT spectacular nor the service great. We were doubly disappointed after riding the escalator up The Block at SM and saw the cool ambiance of X/O Philippines and wished we'd dined there instead. Anyway a couple of weeks back Mark, Jamuel, Gemma, I and Sam decided to eat out and it truly was an extraordinary experience for me for several reasons:

• The place was really nice. I looooved the chairs...at least on the outside part. The whole ambiance was pretty nice.
• The service was ok. The people were nice and though they didn't have the best service it was passable for a small and new restaurant.
• The food was truly extraordinary. I absolutely loved their take on the kare-kare. Kare-kare is almost always good but usually all you can say about it is that it is good. Their kare-kare was really innovative. All the ingredients was cooked and served separately with the bowl of sauce on the side. Some of the veggies were fried while some were simply either blanched or steamed (not sure which). The pork was the best part with the ribs roasted and spiced with slat and some other stuff I do not know what. It was delicious. The rest of the food was equally good although the tapa tips was a bit too tasty, I guess it was a bit overpowering though only because we didn't eat it with the bread and the buts, which it was supposed to go with (we ordered the appetizer last...LOL). The Bicol express would also satisfy any true Bicolano although you'd better be careful with the sigarilyas (winged beans) because as Jamu found out too late some of the sigarilyas were actually very hot green peppers.
• And last but not the least, the most extraordinary part of the meal for me was that the leg of the chair I was sitting on broke and I fell in slow motion... It wasn't too embarrassing since there was only one other table with people but it still made me lose my appetite...but only for a few minutes. No, I'm not yet that heavy but the leg was already ready to give. We ended up having one free dessert (yummy buko pandan) but as my sister pointed out I ended up spending more for the BENGAY I needed to ease the muscle pain the next day. Hmmm. Should have asked for BENGAY instead of dessert. If anyone asks me though I'm willing to go back to try their other dishes though I fell flat on my butt and all that, which says a lot about how much I enjoyed the food.
  

I Love Having 3 Kids

They're quite a handful and I have to countdown several times a day to get them to do what I want but I'm loving having 3 boys at home (5 if you count Mark and Jamuel). Sam seems to be having a grand time with all the kuyas (titos in truth) showering him attention as well and has been picking up on Silas' and Gio's fights so that he likes to scream and throw mini-tantrums every now and then. Since he's too well behaved I'm actually happy that he can now communicate his unhappiness. Mark and I are also love seeing Sam's cute face scrunch up when he's about to cry after being scolded a little. Haha. Ang sarap magpaiyak ng bata. It's all we can do to resist toying with his emotions. Truthfully we would if it wouldn't have a long lasting negative effect on Sam. But that is not a good thing so we refrain from doing it. Plus we're pretty sure his lolo and lolas will give us hell if they find out. Bad bad parents! I now understand why Luz and her sibs love to make her niece cry. ^_^

Will be posting pics of the three kids together once my sister uploads yesterdays pics.

We Heart Tito Lito

My Tito Lito just had an angiogram which showed the doctor that he has 5 clogged veins/arteries. He needs to have an angioplasty as soon as possible but they're still going out of the hospital to raise money. They only need a deposit of 100K to be admitted at the Heart Center although they need around 1M to cover the entire operation. BTW they do have a health card but it's already maxed out. If you can help, or know of anyone who can, please do contact me.

Tito Lito is Silas' true dad. All my close friends know about their weird family set up between us and the Carpios. Silas is counted as a real bunso of both families. Tito Lito is one of the kindest and mild tempered person in the whole world. He's so nice that he always gets teased as being "under the saya." I've NEVER heard him raise his voice in his whole life except when he's announcing something on the mike during church services though I have seen him irritated several times. I don't want to spill all their family anecdotes over the internet but suffice to say that when he gets mad he just keeps quiet and after a few minutes comes back with eggplants from the veggies section of the grocery and tells my Tita Ni, "Heto love oh...kumuha na ako ng talong."

Right now the two kids are staying with me. They're having a grand time but Gio, who's going to high school understand what this means more than Silas does. I know his mom doesn't want to burden him but I had to tell him not to ask for his money with his mom because I know how little they have right now. He's lying down on the bed right now pretending to be asleep but I know he's trying to be brave not only because his dad is sick but because he knows this probably means he won't be able to go back to his old school come June. I'm proud that he's starting to understand how it is to be responsible and how he can help his parents by not being a crybaby at the same time it breaks my heart to seem him at this point which will help define him as an emerging adult. It sucks to grow up sometimes.

Please please please God let him be alright.

Cool Beans!!!

Warning: Last paragraph contains a little spoiler so just read the first one if you haven't watched it yet.

I saw Speed Racer last night and I enjoyed it immensely. The plot isn't something that would make you think but the effects and the humor was absolutely great. The characters were pretty well developed too with each having a special endearing quality I couldn't pick a favorite character. I also loved loved loved the weird surreal setting from the too colorful neighborhoods to the awesome costume (or non-costume yet costumey clothes) and make-up. The sudden flashbacks also added to the effective story telling and managed to keep from feeling too complicated. Actually that is one thing I loved about the movie - it's definitely uncomplicated yet rich enough to grip your attention. If you want to take your little brothers/sisters to a movie this year I suggest you take them to this one. No corny singing cartoons here (though I love corny singing cartoons) just plain clean fun with far from plain graphics.

Oh and I have to say Christina Ricci looks absolutely beautiful in this movie. The bangs suit her. Emile Hirsch was also definitely cute though I'd say that I wish the original Rex (Scott Porter) didn't have to transform to Matthew Fox.

Movie trivia: The whole setting is CG. The cool car Speed was racing wasn't there. Everything was shot in front of a green screen.

Sisterly Love

Quick plug everyone.

Please visit my sister's relatively new blog Dreamwalker. She's really excited about building up her blog so go ahead and subscribe and link to her blog. She updates a lot more frequently than I do so you'll find lots of interesting anecdotes. Am pretty sure she'll get around to fixing her layout and stuff faster than I did (haha it took me years and stopped tweaking stuff before I even finished!).

Family pic time so that those who doesn't know her will (ripped pic from her blog)...Oh wait. My sister and I are missing! Oh well. That's Mom, Dad, Silas, Mark (carrying Sam), and Jerry at Trinoma. I guess we've been displaced by our hubbies from the family pic.


Here's the two of us at Manila Ocean Park on Good Friday. Deliberately picked this one kasi lumba lumba kami pareho!!! Haha. Who's who?

The husband (& wife) tag

Saw this on Andrea's blog and though I was in the middle of an article I had to pause and answer the questions. Am not tagging anyone but if you do want to answer go ahead. Just make sure you leave a comment so I can go visit your blog to check on your answers. ^_^

1. How long did you date?
I think we officially started dating when we were already together. It's hard pinpointing when we did start "dating" because we've been good friends for so long so we were always together. Feel free to give me an estimate if you remember it at all Mark.

2. How old is he?
Twenty seven

3. Who eats more?
Mark...I still blame him for influencing my bad eating habits (in terms of portion "non-control").

4. Who said “I love you” first?
I honestly can't remember. I'm so bad at this! But I do remember that I told him that I liked him first. Talk about aggressive. In fairness to me it was meant to make him stop giving me the special treatment and ended up having my feelings reciprocated a few days later. :P

5. Who is taller?
Mark.

6. Who sings better?
Definitely me. Yabang or pagduduhagi sa asawa? Take it as you wish. ^_^

7. Who is smarter?
Andrea spelled it out pretty well when she said that "I guess it’s safe to say that I’m glad I married someone who’s at least as smart as me." Seriously though Mark and I have different smarts. He's the geeky textbook and techie type. I'm the geeky bookworm (fiction only please...) who loves puzzles.

8. Whose temper is worse?
Generally mine but when he blows up I think his is.

9. Who does the laundry?
The washing machine. Maybe I shoul start naming our appliances like my sister does so I can give a name in answer to questions like this...

10. Who does the dishes?
Gemmalyn again. I sometimes do it at lunch or after supper if I feel like it or I think Gemmalyn had a tiring day.

11. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed?
Whoever feels like it.

12. Who pays the bills?
Both.

13. Who cooks dinner?
Me.

14. Who drives when you are together?
Dad, Kuya Dowy, taxi driver, bus driver at tricycle driver. Hehe.

15. Who is more stubborn?
Both.

16. Who kissed who first?
Mark kissed me. I just smiled.

17. Who is the first to admit when they are wrong?
It depends.

18. Whose parents do you see the most?
Used to be mine but this year with Mark's parents going back and forth here and the province it seems that I see his parents more.

19. Who proposed?
Sam? :p

20. Who is more sensitive?
A big ME.

21. Who has more friends?
I think I do even though we have a lot of friends in common.

22. Who has more siblings?
Mark.

23. Who wears the pants in the family?
Check the meaning of the word uxorious. Joke lang. Mark is not "ander da saya" although some people thought he was going to be. I guess the person who wears the pants in our family is whoever is in the right frame of mind for the moment.