My mom keeps all her house plaques and mug collection in this little shelf near our dining room. Whenever I’m bored and I don’t feel like listening to the dinner conversations I’d look at the shelf and count how many plaques and mugs she has. Right up until now, I still do not have a definite count for all of the mugs and plaques, they change everytime I count them, for some reason.

I guess I just fail at counting. Haha!

I didn’t even realize that she has a lot of awards in the military when she got a present from her office before she retired. They put miniature versions of the awards that she got while she was in service, and it was a lot, I tell you.

I don’t have a lot of awards, but I hope to get some that are worthy of being displayed at home soon enough.

Out of all our basic needs, food and water may be the two most important. With that in mind, people have thought of so many ways to store food and water to lengthen the life of these needs, so as not to waste them. Long ago, people preserve food, for instance, by adding a lot of preservatives or by drying the food under the sun for a couple of days. Nowadays, there are a lot of more ways to store food.

Storage food tip 1:

Kitchenware is the first food storage instrument that we can think, probably because it is the easiest to find and buy in the market. More importantly, it can be the cheapest way to store food. You can find a lot of these in any of your favorite department stores, or for you to have more choices, you can find some more on TV shopping channels.

Storage food tip 2:

With the help of new technology, you have a wide array of electronic appliances and devices to choose from when storing your food. There are lots of kinds and sizes of refrigerators and freezers for you can avail of. For sure there will be one that will perfectly suit your food storing needs.

Storage food tip 3:

Preservatives can still be one of your options in storing food, especially if you know how. Aside from food storage, you’ll have the chance to make new varieties of food since there are lots of ways to preserve food!

Parents usually try to make sure that everything around their kids are safe. They try to keep the environment as “kid-friendly” as possible. From distilled drinking water, to non-toxic toys and PVA free bottles and even up to (the insanely expensive) lead free Crocs slippers, nothing can stop parents in keeping their kids away from hazards.

However, sometimes parents overlook some areas in the house which can be hazardous to kids. One of the areas I am talking about is the restroom. Children can easily drown in the tub or even in a toilet. They could also easily slip on the slippery tiles in the comfort room. Of course this could easily be avoided by keeping the door closed. Or even better, install toilet and hot tub covers to avoid any drowning hazards.

I posted this blog because one of my friends experienced this with her kid. Her three year old daughter almost drowned when she tried to scoop water from the tub. Fortunately she saw her kid immediately. I hope this can serve as a lesson to parents.

My sister and her husband just moved in to a really elegant condominium near our office last Dec. 18. What’s so great about that is the fact that they did not have to pay for the 1 month advance and 2 months deposit. It was all taken care of by our CEO. You see, that was the COO’s old condo. She wanted to be able to bring pets to the condo but it wasn’t allowed so she decided to move to an apartment which allows pets.

Oh, did I mention that the COO left her huge LCD TV, gorgeous bed and sofa, plus the refrigerator and oven toaster for them to use?! Wicked right? It’s like they have a Fairy Godmother or Santa COO! ^_^ I actually envy her a bit. But I’m happy at the same time because my sister finally got her own place and she’ll now learn how to be independent – budget wise especially. Tee hee.

For their housewarming Christmas Party later, since they pretty much have everything they needed, I decided to buy them branded window scrapers. Believe it or not, it’s on my top 10 list of must haves when moving to a new place. You see, I’m very particular with the view and I do NOT like smudges on windows obstructing it. Well, that plus the fact that I love using window scrapers and I actually wanted that one for myself. 0:D I’ll probably volunteer to clean it for them later just to demonstrate my window scraping skills. 0;)

Last night I came home late from work because of some stupid critical error in the network. I was so stressed at work that all I wanted to do after was to get in the house and just sleep. Unfortunately, when I arrived home, I realized that I accidentally left the keys inside the house! You could just imagine the feeling. It was 11:30 and I could not think of anyone to help me.

I was so tired then so I just sat on the porch and slept. After a few minutes I heard someone calling me. It was my neighbors Mat and Ellie. They also came home late and noticed that I was lying wasted on my porch. They help me (literally) break into my apartment. Finally, I got my good night’s sleep.

Of course, I was not able to report to work today because I was too tired to get up. I think I’ll just go to the mall and watch a movie to rid myself of the stress AND to look for good door knobs for my door. For now I’ll just enjoy the cool morning and the warm bed. Ahhh…. this is the life…

As I was eating pancakes this morning, my sister and I discussed random things like how to set your priorities, good music, and cheap insurance quotes. This is one of the things that I enjoy doing the most, I guess you could call it one of my simple pleasures.

We talk about the most amazing things during breakfast, and I sure do learn a lot from her. She gives just the best advice for anything.

In exchange for her sound advice, I usually give her good songs to listen to, as I have a wide collection of those and I know which ones are good for a certain mood and feel.

Like what the old saying goes, it’s better to learn from the experience (or mistakes) of others, rather than to commit them your own.

I’d like to disagree though, some of us wouldn’t ever really learn until we experience it ourselves. Being so thick headed is quite normal, as we are human, after all.

Good news! Well at least for me. I just received a call from a friend of mine, offering his landscaping services for just a minimum cost. I actually did not know that he does work like this on top of his office work. He said that he does this mainly as a hobby and of course to pay for the bills.

I emailed him my plan for the garden, things I wanted him to do. I told him about the Bonsai’s that I have already purchased and my plan to use all of them to create a Japanese inspired garden. Of course I told him about the pond which is the highlight of my garden.

For the pond, he told me that my aquarium pump will not suffice because of some technical stuff he told me about which I was not able to understand. Hehe. He suggested another type of air pump which is available from circuit city which already has a filter to keep the pond clean.

In summary, I got all the stuff He needed (just waiting for the pump to be delivered). By Saturday can start landscaping and finally bring to life my dream garden.