What Simply Works!

We’re glad that we only have a small TV and an inexpensive TV stand to worry about.  Our daughter who prefers to stay up close on the TV screen (just as many kids her age usually does) also uses the stand as a desk.  Yep, she puts her toys there and often slams them on the desk.  Yikes!  Thankfully, she hasn’t learned to hit the screen with her toys.  That’s why even if there are tempting TV deals around, we hold back buying a bigger TV for this reason.  Unless, we can get a decent ‘fence’ that we can put around that huge TV. Ha ha.

My very curious toddler has started the habit of pulling out books from our bookshelves.  Funny that she used to ignore them before but now I think she considers them an extension of her own book collection.  Good thing that we don’t have very expensive books or magazines displayed.  Not that we let her play with them enough to tear them apart.  But we let her browse through them and just as she would when holding her own books, she would guide my (or her dad’s) hand to open the pages to her and point the bigger prints on the book.

With less than a week’s planning for my daughter’s mini-birthday celebration last week, I’d say it was still a success.  All of our invited friends came, food was flowing, the kids got busy playing despite the absence of party games, the adults just ate and chatted the time away.

As soon as the guests were gone, we started packing the left-over food and realized that there’s too much left for three people to finish in a few days! Hee.  So, for three days in a row since Friday, we had heavy breakfast of pasta, rice noodles and pies!  If we continue doing this for a week, we’d be popping Alli pills in no time.

There are so many stores on sale these days.  From gadget to clothes and shoes shops, many shoppers (like me) are ‘tempted’ to go in to have a look-see.  But with barely a week before our scheduled holiday trip, I don’t have the luxury of time to window shop for gifts here.  So, I’ve decided to continue my Christmas shopping when we reach Manila.  I only have 5 left on my list, which is not bad.  If I could only give them funny t shirts each, then that would be really easy! Ha ha.

I foresee a bit of a challenge once I start packing our stuff for our upcoming trip.  See, I will be traveling with my 2 yr-old and my mother-in-law, which means I have to make sure that I have everything that my daughter needs (bottle sterilizer included) but keeping in mind that I can still manage to carry the luggages plus the pram plus the carry-on bags by myself.  Hmmm.

Then, I have to sort the stuff that I can let my father-in-law bring home from Sydney to Manila.  He’ll be here for a few days and he can bring those stuff that we need-but-can-wait.  Next, I will pack the husband’s things.  Yep, as much as he volunteers to pack his clothes and what-not, I prefer to do it for him.  Just to make sure that he brings ample number of clothes and pairing socks and shoes.  He’s such a simple man and he cares less about what he wears.

And oh, I still need to prep the house before we leave so that it will remain livable by the time we come back.  But that’s not something to pack anyway.  Hee.

Ever since I left the workforce last year, I’ve lost interest in knowing about IT industry trends and marketability relative to my specific field. For sure, with the economic downturn, there will be less job vacancies across many industries.

A friend working in Manila shared that his company hired a lot of people to fill in jobs in marketing and sales last year. This year, his company had to let go of almost fifty employees. The scenario is no different here in Australia. Hopefully, the economy picks up really soon.

When we’ve decided to eat ‘healthier’ foods earlier this year, we started to veer away from a lot of processed foods, junk foods and even soft drinks. From time to time, we give in to the ‘temptations’ of an ice-cold Coke or a bag of chips, but we do control our intake of these unhealthy foods.

Also, we don’t encourage our daughter to eat chocolates (or other forms of sweets or junk foods). First, there’s no health value in them. Second, we want to take care of her teeth. And third, we don’t want her to gain unnecessary weight. No parent wishes for their children to someday worry about health and weight and search for diet pill that works.

I wrote on this blog earlier that I pulled out my online order of a Photoshop software package. I thought I had to wait until next year to get one. But a good friend sent an email this week and to my surprise, she found someone who is willing to help me get a cheaper, student license instead! Yipee!

As soon as my other Internet tasks are done, I will finalize my order. I can’t wait to get my hands dirty on Photoshop! Hee hee.

I have shared in my personal blog that we really like the apartment we’re renting now. The neighborhood is pretty quiet. I’m so glad that we made this move. We had so much apprehension in moving into a landed property before because we have stayed in an apartment unit for so long. But so far, things are going smoothly.

In the event that we buy our own property someday, we are convinced that a landed property is a better choice. Our daughter loves the small garden we have at the back. Imagine if it was bigger and she has more areas to explore. There are so many nice suburbs here in Sydney and good thing that not all of them are as expensive as the Outer Banks rentals.  But, it’s too early to decide if we’d like to buy a house or not.  We’ll see in a year or two.

Barely five days after our move, we have unpacked all the boxes and the apartment now is now in a “livable” state. It was a big effort to clear everything that fast but my motivation is to finish unpacking so I can move on to do other things. I have a little over three weeks left to complete my Christmas shopping, packing for the holidays and my mini-personal project. I need more hands!

Thankfully, our friends referred a really good mover (could be somewhat similar to services mover NYC offers in the US) who were so nice and helpful. But I hope we stay in this apartment a wee bit longer for us not to go through this challenging phase again soon!