The One About the First

It has been a year since Hon-some and I got hitched.  It still feels like playing house.  Hahaha!  Anyway, we talked about just spending the day together and me whipping up something for dinner but I was itching to make something so I came up with this:

 

It's called a "Let's Go on a Date" package.  What I did was to plan one date activity for each month until our next anniversary.  I wrote each date activity on a piece of paper and placed it in a labelled envelope.

Dates vary from eating out (which we loooove to do!) to going to the theater to buying books.

Most of the dates have been prepaid so when the next month rolls by, we just whip out the gift certificates and vouchers!

How nice that we have something to look forward to in the coming months!

Happy crafty anniversary to us! :)

The One About the Adarna ECE Conference

Last May 4th and 5th, I attended the first Klasrum Adarna Early Childhood Education Conference.

I loved this year's theme especially because I've been into Filipino children's literature lately, thanks to my EDR 221 (Literature-Based Reading Programs) class where my readings were all Filipino children's books.

The conference was on the mark given my impending return to teaching.  Here are some of the highlights:

 

Dr. Honey Carandang:  Child Psychology

Dr. Michael Tan: Cultural Literacy and Filipino in the Early Childhood Classroom

 

Dr. Letty Ho:  The Regular Teacher in the Inclusive Classroom

 

 

Ms. Tin Canon, Ms. Maricar de Ocampo, and Ms. Aleta Villanueva:  Best Practices in Progressive Preschools

 

Ms. Sigrid Sabarre-Perez:  Creativity and Play

I also attended a workshop on Music and Movement by Ms. Joonee Garcia.  I wasn't able to take any pictures because I was having too much fun! :)  Best Music and Movement workshop ever!

I had a blast during the conference.  I can't wait for next year!

 

The One Who's in Transition

Please bear with the lack of posts.  My life is in transition right now.  Well, my career to be exact.  You see, when I resigned from teaching last year, it was because I wanted to challenge myself.  So I went corporate-ish.  I would like to believe that doing so was not at all a mistake but I had always known where my heart was in. Even my husband my told me her could tell because my "corporate smile" was different from my "teaching smile."  I bet it was just in my eyes.  I did not want to admit it at first but even this blog had taken a different voice.  Blogging used to be a part of my life; nowadays, posting a blog entry in a week has become some sort of a luxury.

Anyway, while being in the office has made me somewhat happy (and I have made really good friends with some of my colleagues), I shall be entering the portals of the academe once again.  I shall be "Teacher Rae" once again.  I shall be draped in paisleys and florals and pastel colors once again.  I shall be wiping little angels' asses once again (and mopping vomit off the floor).  I can't wait to make handmade toys once again.  Perhaps, I'll get my "teaching smile" back.  And hopefully, this blog will regain its original voice, one that I consider to be happy and contented and not hurried.

So to my lovely readers (not that there are many of you.  Hahaha!), kindly wait patiently until my life has settled into its new routine with blogging certainly a part of it.

Have a lovely week. :)

Picture-Perfect Thursday: Inspiring Creative Spaces

My dream home includes a craft room (and a steam oven but that's another story) and Pinterest (follow me here!) has me poring over beautiful creative spaces!  Here are several craft rooms.  I hope you find them inspiring enough to build your own.  If not, then to simply just create.

Which one's your favorite? :)

The One About Lunch-ing

Lunch is indeed a salvation when swamped with work...

 

The best among the mess

 

 

The stuffed tomatoes were so easy to make.  I scooped out the flesh of two salad tomatoes and sprinkled the insides with salt, pepper, and dried herbs that I had on hand -- oregano and basil.  I popped them in the oven for a minute or two and then stuffed them with crumbled feta cheese and fava beans.  I just placed them on a bed of greens and ate them with my favorite bottle of sesame dressing.

As Rachael Ray would say, "It's good and good for you!"

Happy midweek, lovelies. :)

 

Weekend Tidbits III

Hon-some and I try to stay in during weekends because we just love to laze and lounge around our home.  But when the battery of my beloved man's watch died, we had to rush to the watch service center which happened to be in Cubao.

Good as new!

Since we were there already - and haven't been in quite some time - we decided to make the most of that trip to Cubao and stroll around.  We made a mad dash (haha!) to our favorite S&R pizza.

 

I always order the clam chowder there because it always reminds me of my family's summer vacation in San Francisco. We ordered clam chowder and oyster crackers and had a picnic by the Bay.  Unfortunately, S&R was out that day.  Fortunately, there was an ongoing promo so all the food we had just cost us P198!!!  Even McDonald's can't beat that!

Hon-some suggested we visit the small row of ukay-ukays (thrift stores) in the area.  I haven't been to one in five years!  I was charmed that the thrill of finding something nice there still remained.  I bought two skirts at P150 each.  Pretty expensive for a thrift find, I know.  Or is that how thrift stores price their goods nowadays?  I'm still probably stuck in the five-years-ago price range.

We visited Shopwise which was supposedly renovated and did a little grocery shopping.  There, we chanced upon today's ice cream Holy Grail...

Now I suddenly don't understand all the fuss over it.

To end this weekend post, here's something I whipped up for Sunday lunch...

 

 Chicken parmigiana and potato chowder

The weekend that was.  Hope yours was just as lovely.  Have a great week, lovelies!

 

The One About the Ice Cream Pie

I whipped this up one lazy weekend...

It's an Oreo ice cream pie.

I used a store-bought pie crust (because I was so lazy to crush some Oreo cookies, add melted butter, and press the mixture onto a pie pan).  I filled it with vanilla ice cream and put it in the freezer.

 

Just before serving it, I softened it for 15 minutes then dotted the pie with more Oreo cookies.

It definitely beat the scorching heat that day. :)