The economies of scale are against me again. But time is on my back. These past days are the bravest I had ever been. I quit my job. I needed to. I needed to save my soul and get my life moving towards the direction I squarely missed over the past year.

I am back to freelance work, the only kind of work I ever really felt comfortable with. I am now able to assist better on farmwork and the business. And I have more time to prepare my kids for school season this June. It will be Uri’s first time to go to school. And Ari will be moving up to big school. I even plan to go back to school myself. I am back on track. Really I am.

Today I celebrated this fact with my little boys. My boys whom I pray will be as brave as I am when their time comes. We went out for a game of frisbee. It was a beautiful day to be out, under the cloudy skies, running through the scented grass.

I had promised to take them to the park the day before but I got caught up in a meeting until midnight. Thank God today was a better, beautiful day to be out.

It was my way of telling them that I was back. That while I worry and struggle to save for tuition fees and other expenses, I can be with them the whole time. To teach them and help them get ready for bigger things that will be coming their way.

When they were tired of frisbee I took them on a quick walking tour of UPLB. We started with reading lessons on road signs. My children just have a thing for road signs. I am thinking of going back to my driving school manual so I can better interpret some of the signs we see along the road whenever we go on trips.

Then we stopped by some heritage sites that we passed along the way. They were awed by the huge cotton tree and the baby Kapok trees beside it. We saw a fire truck rushing along. I introduced them to the mystical Mariang Banga and accompanied their eyes along Molawin creek.

Our last stop was the oblation statue. Here I tried to teach them about service amidst difficulties. I’m not sure if they even understood anything I explained to them about Oble’ and his meaning. Maybe in time they will. I pray they will imbibe his significance as I do. I am UP by the way. Now I am back on track and I am certain where it leads.

Our garden is our inspiration. We look out to it the moment we wake up. Our first greeting is to our beloved children, then to our beloved bushes right outside our porch. We take a closer peek at insects and pests that may be on the attack. A quick check on the soil especially if it did not rain the day before. This is our morning habit, which sometimes extends until noontime, or even until the late afternoon.

My husband is an agriculturist by profession. I used to like to think that I was lucky to have been married to a man who will tend my garden for me. Although recently, I gathered enough courage to try to do these gardening tasks on my own. Believe me, but gardening was not as hard as I thought it was.

I was officially bestowed the title, “herb lady.” I am now in charge of caring for our lovely and ever helpful herbs, of propagating them, and making sure they were healthy and pest-free. I have recently learned the skill of crushing caterpillars and grasshoppers with my bare fingers. And I will probably never get another manicure because soil will always be stuck under my fingernails. Pruning shears, rubber boots and a mini-trowel are my new buddies.

Gardening is my newfound love. I am now saving up for solar-powered garden lamps and concrete pots. I have hoarded Turo’s gardening books in search of growing tips and plant traits. And it is eating up a lot of my time, we almost always end up eating lunch late and having repeat food for dinner. Anyhow I enjoy it as much as I enjoy cooking and doing the laundry.

Below are some photos of my lovely herbs. Do be green with envy looking at them.

italian oregano spicin' up my arrabiata

sweet basil for my precious pesto

sage for my pumpkin dip

creeping thyme

planning to make lemon balm cookies using these

mint for my tea

ashitaba a.k.a. tomorrow leaf

mayana is for stomach problems, i think, but i like them better for their colour

I hope you like them as much as I do. Will post updates of my other garden projects soon. Evergreen days to y’all!

I like to describe myself as a conscious parent. I am extremely careful about the things I say in front of my children and wary of the things they hear from other people, taking extra time to explain impolite words such as “bakla” or “pangit” or “yuck” that they probably hear from their peers. I am particular with the manner of teaching them new things, like naming vegetables or pronouncing words correctly, either by coming up with creative ways for introducing new stuff or taking advantage of opportunities when new concepts suddenly crop up.

But now I feel that this “over-consciousness” may have been pushing back my children’s learning abilities, at least to some extent. I have been an academic achiever as a child and I am most careful about raising expectations that they need to be an achiever like I was. In effect, I may have been delaying the progress of our reading, writing and counting sessions at home because I want to avoid putting “too much pressure” on my children.

We did not enroll Ari in nursery and waited for kindergarten year because we felt then that he might not have been ready. We did the same thing with Uri this year. But you know what? Ari did great in school, contrary to our worries, and maybe Uri could have done better as well.

Now I begin to realize that this “no pressure” attitude is not only unhelpful, but is in fact a refusal to recognize that my children are capable of learning at the same pace as their peers, if not faster. So now I wonder, just how much pressure is “good pressure” and how much is “too much pressure”?

— xxx —

My two children are only a year apart but have very different personalities, intelligences and learning styles. We live in a small apartment and study sessions will tend to overlap. While one is practicing writing and the other is reciting numbers, the other will butt in and the other will grab his brother’s pencil. Even when they should not be, study sessions are sometimes distracting and divisive. So while I know the importance of tailoring teaching methods to a child’s learning style, it gets a bit crazy when I try to do so in our tiny household.

Just this afternoon, I was practicing number recognition with Uri when Ari came home from school. I devised a game where I ask Uri to count blocks in a bowl and choose the card with the same number as the blocks that he counted. I tried the same game with Ari, they both got their numbers right, but to me it seemed like there were two different counting games that have been played.

These kinds of situations prop me to go back to my parenting books and articles as I try to find a way out of this parenting puzzle. Luckily, I chanced upon reading about sensing and intuiting preferences in learning.

Learners who strongly prefer Sensing are those who feel very much at home in the concrete world, learning primarily through their senses, often in a step-by-step manner. They will generally take in information in single pieces, even if very rapidly, but won’t instantly spot links or patterns. Children who have a preference for Sensing tend to like facts and play based on everyday life, and are interested at an early age in what things are for.

By contrast, those who strongly prefer Intuiting often learn by what is not actually seen: grasping the big picture, seeing patterns, and then getting to grips with concepts before grasping fine detail. Children who prefer Intuition are often drawn to fantasy and imaginary worlds, and love hearing stories over and over again. Their favourite kind of game will tend to involve their imaginations, and they may be highly creative, wanting to write stories at a young age.

Most people and particularly children learn in many ways, although a distinct preference for either Sensing or Intuition is usually clear by the time the child is three or four, if not before. And I thank whoever wrote this article because I was finally able to make sense of my children’s learning differences vis a vis my teaching methods.

Nevertheless, I still affirm that children should be encouraged to learn when they are ready and interested, regardless of their learning style. And while it may be helpful to focus on a child’s learning preferences, it may also be wise to encourage both preferences through imaginative and practical play, when situations allow. Ultimately, the best learning method will be child-led, by respecting and responding to a child’s own need to learn at his own pace.

And I could not be much prouder that my children are itching to learn how to read and tell the time before I could even figure out how to teach them to do so.

My brother and I are not twins, but we were born on the same day. This makes for one unique, ultra-special birthday celebration come September each year. This year, we spent our forever-shared birthday on a short vacation in Palawan.

It’s been a while since we last went on a trip with my family. This was my first time in Palawan and I was eager to see for myself what the new 7 wonders brouhaha was all about. We stayed only for a couple of days, but Puerto Princesa did not disappoint.

We spent our first night in the city center, in a beautiful guest house run by Mr. Manny Lucena. Manny’s guesthouse sits atop his wife’s ancestral house (the ground floor is where they live), rustically renovated, with an unobstructed view of the Puerto Bay. We loved Manny’s guesthouse. There was enough ambience that we could have gone home right then without second thoughts. It was a beautiful, affordable, very well run place to stay for a family or large group. The guesthouse had three rooms, with ample natural ventilation, a TV that we didn’t have any use for, pretty décor, and cooking stuff should you want to prepare your own food. It cost us P1,500 (jawdrop) for one night.

In the morning of our second day in the city, we hopped on our hired van to the port where boats can be rented for the Honda Bay tour. I was never fond of island hopping, I would always prefer swimming at the beach or just laying around to get a tan. But I enjoyed the Honda Bay experience. All of it.

We went to three islands total. The kids and I fed the fishes at Pambato reef, while the rest went snorkelling.

Then we went swimming in Snake Island and the kids ran through the sandbar. I snorkelled and found myself in a life-sized aquarium. I have never seen that many fishes swimming around me all at the same time. And these are truly beautiful, colorful fishes that are really a sight to behold. It was amazing and a bit hard to believe.

Our last stop was Pandan Island where we bought crabs and fish from random vendors and had them cooked, while our boatman a.k.a. tour guide were catching pretty little fishes and throwing them inside a fishbowl carved from the shore. The food was great and we ate them on Talisay leaves with our hands.

We would have wanted to stay longer but the wind was getting stronger and we needed to return before the waves and the weather got bad. At the port, our van was waiting to take us to Sabang where we’d stay for the night, as it was our jumpoff point for the Underground River tour early the next day.

Sabang is unelectrified. Resorts ran on generators from 6 to 10 pm. Afterwards the lights go off and everybody’s forced to go to bed. And so it was a quiet and restful night.

The day that we were scheduled for the Underground River tour was also the day of our birthday. And as always, it rained. It had to rain, and it had to rain hard, otherwise our birthday celebration is not complete. It was a rainy boat ride to the Subterranean River Park, followed by a relatively long wait for our turn to ride the fiberglass canoe and take the tour.

The tour didn’t have the new seven wonder of the world effect on me. The wonder, for me, is the fact that the river is subterranean leading out to the ocean. But the caves and the rock formations inside looked pretty ordinary. Definitely less awesome than those I’ve seen in Sagada and in photos from the Callao cave in Cagayan.

The city will not run out of good places to eat. We ended up eating a lot in Palawan. We splurged on seafoods, and our favorite “lamayo” which is fresh danggit in a vinegar marinade. We ate at a quaint pizza place called Neva’s and at the Vietnamese Village on our way back from Sabang. While there are big ticket restaurants in Puerto like Ka Lui’s, the city is filled with restaurants that offer ambience and great food at little cost.

I guess birthdays are best celebrated with good food, wonderful people and breathtaking scenery. Off goes another year.

For reasons I could not explain, Turo and I find ourselves with much more free time now than when we’d lived in the city. We’ve started to enjoy lazy weekends even when we have more housework now than when we lived in my parent’s house. Before we had a laundrywoman and an ironing lady, now I am both. It used to be my parents who took over house repairs and garden work, but in our tiny apartment, this was Turo’s domain. In addition to the usual cooking and cleaning and looking after the kids, now we also take turns fetching Ari to and from school.

Running a household on our own certainly means a lot of work. But it’s the kind of work we lovingly attend to however physically exhausting it gets. Still, at the end of the day we get to sit down with a cup of coffee or a couple bottles of beer before getting some real rest. And in the morning we are woken by our hungry little monsters clamoring for breakfast that we all enjoy without the rush.

I also found myself accessing the internet less, reading more, bonding with my kids more, even cooking more. Proof of this is my recent reunion with la germania. After years of enjoying my lola’s perfect pastries without ever having to learn to make them myself, I realized I still wanted to learn how to bake—bread in particular. I love bread, I love herbs in my bread, but gourmet bread is not as easy to find here. No Rustan’s, no delicatessen anywhere close. If you can’t buy them, why not bake them yourself.

After some serious consideration and more second thoughts, I signed up for Italian Bread, Pizza and Pasta lessons in Sylvia Reynoso-Gala’s Culinary Studio. Up until the first day of my cooking classes I felt reluctant to go. What if I start baking perfect flops again?

But my hands found themselves kneading dough for the first time that day. I felt liberated and satisfied.

My cooking classes went by with strombolli and calzone, foccacia and ciabatta. And I took them home with instant yeast, a rolling pin and several kilos of wholewheat flour. I would be baking again.

So far I’ve made sourdough, herb foccacia, olive fougasse, pizza crust and more pizza crust. I have mastered making pizza from scratch and even tried making fresh pasta by hand. I still wonder where I get all the energy I use up with all this baking, and how I could afford to squeeze in the time I spend waiting for every mound of dough to rise.

With much pride, I am happy to share my perfect pizza dough recipe, for anyone who’s willing to spare some time, work out some muscles and kick ass with la germania.

My Perfect Pizza Dough

1. Dissolve yeast and brown sugar in water. Wait 5-10 minutes until foamy.

2. Stir in salt and olive oil into yeast solution. Using a wooden spoon, mix in half the flour.

3. Turn dough onto lightly floured surface and knead in more flour until dough is no longer sticky.

4. Lightly flour the surface of the dough, this will keep the dough smooth. Tap any excess flour and turn dough into well-oiled bowl. Let rise for 1 hour.

5. Punch down dough and form into a tight ball. Rest dough for 1 minute before rolling out. Dough will be enough for 2 or 3 14” pizza crusts depending on your desired thickness.

6. Let rise for 15-20 minutes in pizza pan.

7. Add toppings of your choice and bake in preheated oven at 220 degrees C for 20 minutes.

UPLB sits at the foothills of the Mt. Makiling Forest Reserves. It is a science community that is up in arms when conservation and preservation is concerned. The environmental consciousness of the UPLB community is one of the many things that has been very exciting for me.

The municipality of Los Banos has local ordinances for waste segregation and segregated collection, and the use of paper-based packaging for all purchases, except those in the wet market. Small stores use brown paper bags, big grocery chains use recycled boxes, commercial outlets like Jollibee and Handyman have developed paper-based packaging that I haven’t seen elsewhere in compliance to this ordinance.

This policy is hardly propaganda, unlike SM’s green bags that you still need to purchase in order to get points from using them. Not a single commercial establishment will hand you a plastic bag. And if I forget to bring my own bags for grocery shopping, I had to go back to get them or I’d end up with a carton full that I would hardly be able to carry. That’s eco-consciousness at work, not a whim or green agenda, but a daily battle  to conserve and reduce consumption.

We are proud to abide by this policy, but it left us scrambling to recycle plastic bags which we use to line our trash bins. We now find ourselves washing plastic wrapping from meat and fish, hanging them to dry, before folding them for future use.

We also recently acquired new pets–a hundred or so african nightcrawlers, and counting. We housed them in a huge rubber bin and feed them with our food waste and leaf litter. This is our mini-vermicomposting facility that will reduce our household waste by half as we transform them into lovely fertilizer for our plants.

Bicycle stores have seen good business here and there are profitable “bikes for daily/weekly rent” operations for students who could afford less. Or you could walk if you can’t afford to rent a bicycle. Everything you need, you can walk to get to it. That’s how compact our community is.

Younger UPLB professors now utilize the power of email for circulating handouts and other class paraphernalia. In my time, we line up at photocopy shops to get a copy of the following day’s lecture notes. While photocopy services still proliferate, it is relieving to know that most of them buy back recyclable bond paper by the kilo–this could spell out a few hundred bucks for students at the end of each semester.

There’s a lot more that our community can do to lessen deep dark environmental footprints from creeping up everywhere. Merely reducing consumption can go a long way. In our household we try to think of more creative ways to reduce, recreate, simplify and beautify all at the same time. A very long way to go but I’d like to think that we’re off to a good start. Hats off to everyone who’s making all of these wonderful changes possible.

We have moved into our new home and realized that the process of  “settling down” is indeed very long and tedious. We spent our first weeks painting floors and shelves, buying furniture, installing appliances and finding a new home for all of our stuff… clothes, books, toys. We had to get used to so many things in such a short time–Ari starting school, Uri having a new yaya, the longer trip to the office.

The kids suffered the bad end of this entire adjustment phase. They started getting sick, losing weight. Ari slept through his classes for an entire week before he kicked out the afternoon nap altogether. Uri had a recurrence of separation anxiety because he was never used to not having Kuya around. He suddenly felt really lonesome especially with a new yaya that he barely knew and he would cry his heart out every time anybody stepped out the front door.

In the middle of all the moving-related stress, we found ourselves waking up at a later time than the previous day. Because every morning felt like we were waking up from a vacation. Maybe we were. We enjoyed every moment of our cool, quiet mornings. The lovely sunshine entering our screened porch. The marvel of seeing bees pollinating flowers from the garden way up close and all the other creepy crawlers we only saw in museums. The boys pleading to take their morning pee outside instead of the toilet. We had dirt and soil around us and they had much liberty to do so.

We are relieved by the convenience offered by the UPLB community. A quick walk takes us to parks and open spaces where the kids can run around safely, play ball or ride their bikes, while us adults stretch out on a picnic mat. At a short distance from where we live is Ari’s school and some of Turo’s relatives. And everywhere else are food stalls, eateries and specialty restaurants where the food is always good, fresh and cheap–my easy way out of cooking dinner but with a lot less impact on my wallet. Since two months ago, the definition of fastfood has changed from french fries to paperbag-wrapped lechon kawali.

We are glad that Turo and I know this community quite well. It has eased a bit the difficult process of moving in. There is adjustment still going on but we face it at the same time that we discover much more about our new home, our new community, our new life.

It’s the last weekend before the big move on Saturday. We’re supposed to be moving some of the big stuff today but the moving party (Father & his truck, Buzz lightyear) called in sick. So it was just Turo and I and our trusty Mojito (we just have this thing about naming our cars) and all the moving boxes that we could fit in.

A beautiful Sunday morning drive led us to Los Banos before 10 am. I had to eat otherwise I’d get all cranky, so some Papu’s siomai and bottomless buko juice from Manong Buko powered us up. His buko juice had the same exact taste from 6 or 7 years ago, so much like everything else. LB we are so home!

We had keys to the gate, and the helper of the house owner was surprised that we let ourselves in. Above is the photo of the path from the front gate. Our little apartment is located way inside the compound obscure from view.

The path will take you to a lush garden and some vegetable beds. And we have permission from the owners to grow some of our own and even harvest some of theirs. Sweet!

Our little apartment can be seen by the bend. It’s a little blue house hiding behind the foliage. See?

A step inside leads to a screened porch that’s a big enough space for some indoor play by the boys.

Another doorway leads to the main house that’s currently empty except for the dining table and chairs. The rest of the stuff are coming in on Saturday.

The kitchen area is the one that’s a bit more organized because all the small kitchen stuff are in. But we still need to do some tile cleaning to get rid of old dirt stains.

I still have a long list of things to pack and purchase which I hope to finish before Saturday. Moving into our first home is going to be a work in progress for a few more months before we can really say we’re perfectly settled in. The prospect of moving into a new home all by ourselves is both daunting and exciting. Cheers to our lovely little home!

We headed to the southernmost south of Luzon on full road trip gear. First to attend Yaya’s wedding, second, to take a mini-vacation in CWC. Yes, we drove some 15 hours from Cainta to Camarines Sur. It was a very long, tiring drive that was way off our predefined itinerary.

We were ready for 12 hours on the road, ready to plunge into hotel beds after a tiring journey, and get up after a few hours rest to wash up, dress up and attend the wedding. But we didn’t expect that we were up for an all-nighter road trip and that we’ll be attending a wedding sleepless, unfed and unbathed.

Attending a wedding in the province is always an experience. The ceremony itself and the reception program is a melting pot of culture, beliefs and traditions as practiced by the families of the bride and groom. The one we attended was held in the town of Baao, Camarines Sur, where the boys’ Yaya hailed.

Baao is a nice, quiet town. There are signs of development as it is right beside Pili, the provincial capital. It was accessible yet remained rural, and income sources were mostly from farming activities. And just like Yaya, the people from Baao were beautiful and quiet and calm.

They boys’ were part of the entourage and Father was principal sponsor. We lost a significant amount of cash in the process, but we enjoyed the humor and simplicity of the occasion. And we didn’t feel shortchanged nor extorted—as we sometimes do in other provincial weddings, where names are called for cash gifts to the couple and the amount you give is counted right in your face as if to show how little you gave, or how much more other people need to give to match yours. We were glad to share some of our blessings with Yaya and his husband, as we owe a lot to her for taking good care of our little boys.

After lunch and the reception program, which Uri slept through, we were all very tired but eager for some airconditioning and bed rest. And so we headed to Camarines Sur Watersports Complex (CWC), where we were booked for the night.

Turo and I were in CWC last Feb as we celebrated his birthday with a tour of the Bicolandia. We so loved it here we knew we had to bring the rest of the family along the next time.

I was worried at first that the kids will get bored because there’s not a lot to do except for wakeboarding, which they can’t, and swimming, which is nothing new to them. I was surprised at how much they enjoyed just watching wakeboarders do their stunts and tricks. We quietly spent a lovely afternoon by the cable park doing just that.

I was never a fan of man-made attractions, I always looked for something nature-y in every place I visit. But CWC changed this perspective altogether. CWC is a government-run facility, mind you. It sits within the vast provincial capitol grounds of Camarines Sur. You get official government receipts when your pay for your hotel accommodation. And, together with Caramoan Island, it has pulled in tourists from all walks of life, making the province the top tourist destination in the country at present.

I especially love the accommodation at CWC. It’s cheap, heck, it’s government rate. And the facilities demonstrate a hint of green and modern architecture. There are container vans converted into double rooms and family rooms. There are solar-powered log cabins and wooden cabanas, affordable tiki huts that have common toilets to cut back on costs. Even the cable park and the winch park has its own water treatment facility so water gets recycled every so often.

Wakeboarding is fast becoming Turo’s favorite sport. Brother tried his hand at it while we were there but the skimboarder had to curse wakeboarding before we even left Bicol. And while sports and me will never go well together, I can definitely say that once in my life I was able to successfully wakeboard, even for a few metres.

And so we left CamSur happy and rejuvenated and ready for another 12-hour driving stretch. I am proud at how much my kids enjoy traveling, even on long road trips such as this one, which is a first for them. We are definitely coming back, and we are tinkering with the possibility of an even longer trip on the road—maybe Davao? Who knows.

Computers have become such a necessity nowadays even I find it hard to get by without accessing the internet at least once in a day. Working as an independent consultant, my netbook is practically my office–data storage, processing and presentation all happen here. I normally work from home and it should not come as a surprise that my kids are as interested in tinkering with the computer as they often see me do.

The computer is a fantastic learning tool. My kids plays number and alphabet games, puzzle and matching games using the computer. Imagine the cost of having to buy a new puzzle each week as Ari gets tired of the puzzles he’s already mastered putting together, or a new set of flash cards every so often because Uri’s already memorized all the pictures on them.

Playing games on the computer used to be one exciting reward for my kids. We play games together so I can teach them as they get entertained by colorful visuals. More recently however, Ari’s computer skills has increased such that he has learned to turn on and shutdown the compute by himself. He now knows how to navigate youtube while watching car racing videos. And instead of working as an incentive, it now works for me as a babysitting activity so I could finish all my morning chores while Ari is occupied in the PC. Yes, I give Ari one solid hour to play computer games as I busy up prepping breakfast and do some house cleaning. I am one guilty mother indeed.

I think I now have a computer addict for a son. Ari now literally begs to play games on the computer more times in a day than I hear him ask for milk or juice. Now he likes playing outside less, rides his bike less frequently. He’s always on the lookout for whoever will turn on the computer and immediately sits on that person’s lap.

Of course I recognize the benefits—hours of quiet fun as I finish my deadlines, inexpensive childhood learning resources, improved hand-eye coordination—part of the reason why I allow my children to be in the computer at a limited amount of time per day. But I still am getting very much worried at how habit forming computer usage can be, particularly for Ari, who’s the older one and more adept at computer use.

There is now a conscious effort on my part to always try to divert Ari’s attention from the computer. We have cooking sessions more often—Ari loves helping out in the kitchen and now I give him more kitchen tasks than before. He now has a hand in wrapping siomai and lumpia, even helps out in washing his own dishes, spoons and cups.

Aside from spending weekends on the beach, I was on the lookout for a regular summer activity for the kids. Only I found them a bit too expensive. More than three thousand pesos for a 10-session swimming class, and I have two boys to enroll! So instead I set up a 2-feet inflatable pool in the garage and invited my cousins and nieces to come over for a swimming party. We’ve had the pool for about a week now and the kids have swimming fun at least 3x in a day.

Turo also gets the kids to help out in washing the car with some regularity, and also watering the garden plants.

When it started raining in the afternoons, my boys had more indoor time than during the peak of the summer season. And Ari will strike again with his constant pleading to play with the computer. I’m still quite lost on how to handle this situation. I’m hoping things would change when Ari starts school in June. And as I finish my work contracts one by one so I could have more time supervising their development. I’m still worried that this may just be the start of things getting out of hand, but I’ll try my best to not let this happen. I just need a few more creative ideas and I’m sure I’ll be able to tackle this situation head on. I hope. I hope.