Broccoli recipe and a hammer

In my quest to get pregnant ASAP, I have decided to change my diet.  I'm staying away from chips and too much salt.  I'm eating seeds, nuts, cheese and greens.  Today, I cooked broccoli for dinner.  I sauteed lots of garlic in olive oil and butter, added previously boiled potatoes,  broccoli, chopped parsely and a pinch of salt.  Yummy!

I read somewhere that broccoli and spinach are good for women who want to get pregnant so tomorrow I'm cooking spinach for lunch!  I figured if pills alone can't help me, maybe a change in diet can, along with lots of prayers, of course!

Before I go, I just want to show you my son's latest treasure...

It's a flash disk that looks like Thor's hammer. At least, that's what I call it.  Toots told me that it has a name. It's hard to pronounce and I bet it's even harder to spell so I'll just call it what I want to call it.  Anyway, Ruel bought it for him during our side trip to Jollibee when we went out for grocery shopping this afternoon. Toots  loves it though it doesn't look that way in the pic. My son has issues with having his picture taken. :(

Honestly, I also love the hammer but I'm just too old for it.

Okay, time to stop typing and hit the sack.  I realized I ought to change my bedtime schedule too!

Sunday Photos

Today we heard heard Mass at the Chapel of San Pedro Calungsod located on the rooftop of SM Aura.

We weren't really planning to hear Mass there, having planned to attend the evening Mass at our parish church but when we went to SM Aura in the morning, and we learned that there was a chapel, we decided to look for the chapel and see if there was still enough space for us. Since we were early, there was a lot.

We got there 20 minutes before the start of the celebration and aside from two other people, only the choir members were seated at the time.

Our decision to hear Mass there proved to be right.  The celebration was solemn. The sound system was excellent and the priest's homily was nice and clear.


Here are some photos taken outside the chapel.

My boys enjoying the view...

            

                        Here's what we had for lunch,

dessert 

and for snacks.

You all know how much I love Christmas and everything that goes with it.  I just have to have my picture taken in front of every Christmas tree I see.  

This was my Sunday.  How was yours?

What I Did Today

We started our day early.  First on the itinerary was a trip to the Women's Health and Wellness Center at the Medical City for my ultrasound.  Again, they measured my uterine lining and follicles.  Unfortunately, my follicles were still developing.  This is so disappointing because I was already in the late stage of my cycle.  My doctor said we can't release the egg yet.  I have to continue taking my hormones and I'm due for another ultrasound on the 4th of November.

Good thing we finished our trip to the doctor early.  We had plenty of time left to go to Fully Booked at The Fort. They were having their Free Comic Book Day and Toots wanted to visit that branch because he said they were giving away three comic book per person unlike other branches that give away only one comic book per person.

Aside from the free comic books there were also big discounts on comic books.  My hunny bed, Ruel, and Toots ended up buying some additions to their loot.  I wanted to buy a book but it wasn't in my budget.  Fortunately, Ruel bought me what I'd been eyeing...

I usually go for romance books, chick lit, good old classics, historical fiction or mystery thrillers but when I read the reviews and some parts of the book, I thought it was interesting so I decided to take a risk on it hoping it might turn out to be a nice change.

Oh, and look who we bumped into...

I suggested he raise his cape like that. :)

There was an unusual excitement in the air at The Fort today, probably because they were entertaining trick or treaters.  There were mascots too , I recognized them from TV but didn't know their names since I didn't watch cartoons anymore.

What I do get to watch is The Walking Dead because Ruel loves the show. So, I got all excited when I saw this...

Okay, I was smiling in that photo, I was too excited.  I had to get Ruel to take another shot.  I desperately wanted to act.

I guess I still look like I'm smiling here.  Maybe I'll go back and have Ruel take another shot of me with the zombie.

What did you do today?

Time, don't be too much in a hurry!

This photo does not have anything to do with today's post but I'm posting it for lack of something better.

I must admit I have been delinquent with my blogging these past few months.  Honestly, it's not only with blogging I've been delinquent at, but also with taking pictures.  I don't know why or how it happened.  It's  just that  suddenly I don't look for "things" to capture anymore.

We are currently planning two trips out of the country.  I have told you how excited I was about the Hongkong trip.  It's our first family trip outside the country.  Everyone is going this time so that makes it exciting.  I was thinking of the trip earlier today, I got all excited about it again and then suddenly, I felt sad.
I wanted the months to hurry but I realized I shouldn't want them to hurry.   The days are passing by so fast as it is.  My parents are getting older and older. My husband and I are ageing so fast, Toots is growing up so fast and too soon.  I am afraid of all these changes and of all the changes that they would eventually bring.

I want to keep my parents with me.  I want Ruel and me to stay young and strong enough to work for our family.  I miss my little boy.  I miss his innocence and his joyful chatter.  I miss his sweetness.  I realize that I spent too much time with other things when I should have spent time savoring each moment I had with him when he was little.  Today I look at him and I try to see the chubby little boy I used to know and I cannot find him.  He has changed so much, not just in terms of his baby fat but also in  other aspects of his personality.   I don't want the months to pass by so quickly. I still want to enjoy Toots while he is still young. Soon, he will be in college, graduate, have a career, fall in love, get married and I won't be able to see him as often as I do today. And that scares me.

When I was younger I never felt like this.  I think this feeling is one proof I am indeed getting older.  It's true what they say, "Time is our greatest enemy."

Fertility Update

As many of you know I have been taking some pills to help me get pregnant.  There's one I take to help my uterine lining get thicker and another one to help with the size of my follicles.

I had an ultrasound yesterday to check my uterine lining and my follicles.  Unfortunately, the lining is still thin and the follicles are not yet mature in size.  My doctor was supposed to release the egg yesterday  but since I did not respond to the medication, he couldn't do as he planned.  Instead, he asked me to double my pill dosage.   I'll have another ultrasound on Saturday to check if everything is right.

Wish me luck!

Some Thoughts Before I Go to Slumberland

There are several thoughts I'd like to share with you before I go to sleep tonight.

The medical procedure I had was a success  and it's now time to have a baby!  I am so excited!  I have been taking some medications to help the lining of my uterus and also to help improve the quality of my eggs.  I also downloaded an app on my phone called My Days.  It's like a tracker of a woman's cycle.  It tells you when your fertility is high and when you will ovulate.  I think it could come in very handy.  Just looking at the color codes of the days excites me.  I think deliberately planning a baby is a fascinating task!  I have to understand all these changes that occur in my body every month....things I have never tried to understand in full since the time I studied them in my science subjects.  

We booked our tickets for Hongkong.  Everyone in our family is going.  My parents, my sister, her husband and their baby Emilio, myself, my son Toots and my Hunny Bed Ruel.   This is our first family trip outside the country and I am brimming with excitement!

I guess you can say that these are happy days.  

However, I just can't bring myself to  just go skipping happily like a six-year-old kid now that something very bad had happened in Bohol and Cebu.   I feel sorry for the people there and I feel terrible and paranoid several times a day because of what happened.  I just tell myself that God will never let that kind of thing happen again.  I pray every day, every night for God to keep us safe and I have to show Him that I have faith in Him.  I have to overcome this negative feelings I have.  They are not from the Holy Spirit.  

"The Lord is my refuge. Whom shall I fear?"

What are your thoughts tonight?

Spiritual Retreat

Just three of the reflection questions we had to answer and talk about in our small groups.

I just came home from our university's annual religious retreat.  It was held in the Carmelites House of Spirituality in Tagaytay City.

Because we were there to pray, reflect and to deepen our relationship with God, we didn't really have enough time take pictures but here are some of those we were able to take.

We had a Eucharistic celebration every day and today we were given a special blessing. We were anointed with holy oil.

Here I am with my prayer partner.

inside the bus during departure time

the souvenir given to each of us

also a souvenir...it came with the rosary

This year's retreat was light and simple but it had its beautiful moments.  "In everything, love and serve the Lord" I think that is one thing I will remember from this retreat.

I came home renewed and wanting to become a better person.  However, with all the good thoughts and good intentions I came home with, I also brought home a terrible itch!  I've had it for two days now and I have really been suffering.  I don't know if it's an allergic reaction to something I ate or something in the yard.  I did not eat anything out of the ordinary. I hope it goes away after a couple of Alerta tablets.

my neck and shoulder

I forgot which part of my body this is.

So that's what I've been up since Wednesday. What have you been busy with?

Happy World Teacher's Day!

Happy Teacher's Day to all the teachers out there.

Aside from a stressful incident towards the end of this day, I can safely say that today was generally a good and happy day.

The student council treated us to a free manicure and pedicure which was followed by a free lunch which I heartily enjoyed.  Love the shrimps!!!  I could have eaten more had I not been scared of my allergies acting up.

The biggest surprise came at the end of the day, when Ruel gave me this...

                   It's a strawberry-flavored cake that looks like an apple and it reads "Happy Teacher's Day!"

      It's so yummy, I could have finished it in one sitting  if only I wasn't feeling guilty about all the icing!

                Who needs an advisery class on Teacher's Day if you have a husband as sweet as mine?

What happened in September

Since I didn't get to post much this September, let's all have a look back at some of the things that happened last month.

I finally had my surgical procedure.  I think this pic was taken after the surgery.

This was my breakfast the day after the procedure.  To be honest, I enjoyed it.  I fasted for 15 hours before the procedure and didn't eat till five hours after the procedure.  So, even if I already had dinner the night before I still felt famished the following morning.

Multitasking a week after surgery: breakfast at Starbucks, making my lesson plan and waiting for my doctor's clinic to open.

I couldn't resist taking a pic  of this blackboard.  I got a very warm welcome from my students and when I entered I saw this.  Since I wasn't their adviser, their gesture touched me so.  It seemed they missed me after two weeks of not seeing me in school.

Dinner with a former co-teacher at Ramen Bar.  Had so much fun just chatting and catching up!

One would think that the hardest thing I  did last September was to undergo the surgical procedure.  Surprisingly it wasn't.

Last Friday, my son went on an out-of-town field trip.  At first, I couldn't decide whether to allow him or not.  They were going to Mt. Makiling and go trekking there. I didn't exactly know how far up the mount they would go plus I searched about the place online and I read that there were snakes and a lot of leeches there. The fact that the weather forecast was not a good one made everything worse. I was afraid of landslides and flashfloods which I read often happened where they were going.  My son was also not the athletic type  having been raised mostly by women.  I was afraid he wasn't strong enough, not ready to go out there on his own yet, etc. etc.

In the end I knew I had to let him go so he could experience going out of town with his friends the way I did when I was his age.   I wanted him to enjoy what his other classmates were bound to enjoy and so I let him go.  And that was the hardest thing I did last month and probably the hardest I have ever done since the time he was born.  

I know mothers would agree with me when I say that letting your kids go is never easy.  We are so used to just being there for them, always making sure that they are safe and protected.  But there will always come a time when you know you  have to let them go and let them explore the world on their own, when you know you have to let them make their own mistakes, allow them to stumble a little so that they could be stronger.  And when that time comes it would be so hard you could get a headache from thinking about it but you'd have to do it anyway because you know it would be the right thing to do for your child.  

That's exactly what happened to me.  I just resigned myself to the reality that my boy is now fourteen and that I needed to trust his ability to take care of himself.  I trusted him ( I had to) and I trusted God to take care of him.  

He enjoyed his trip and came back home to me safe and sound.  God is good!