Nest & Fly

Frolic: Summer 2012

2012-01-19T11:47:00.003+11:00

Our summer is coming to a close. By the end of the month, the boys go back to school, beginning a new schoolyear.

There was loads of rain and not much sun. Nevertheless, Sydneysiders still remain grateful. It makes you think about the advantages of being away from the sun. My eldest boy is due for a specialist check up, following through from four years ago. He has a freckle/mole in the white of his right eye, and since then, it has spread and grown bigger. Even for us, not as fair as the locals and darker-skinned, sun-safe should always be part of the Australian lifestyle.

My youngest, out on a week-long football camp, comes home with bloodshot eyes from the heat and it doesn't disappear easily. Although this week has been the warmest, it's still in the mid 20 temps. And we're already close to February.

One good thing to come out of summer marathon Wii/XBox gaming for my two older sons is that my eldest in particular has become more talkative (when he wants to). This whole summer, we've been nagging, whingeing and yelling at each other because of the boys' gaming obsession. We've inherited equipment and games or received them as presents. And from bitter experience, this activity is also allowed only during school holidays. When we parents all come together, we straggle in like the war wounded and talk about how terrible this all is, how we can stop them from endless playing, etc. We regale each other with our best strategies, activities and camps that can interrupt and jolt them out of gaming.

Yet listening to this otherwise shy, quiet, hesitant boy when he plays, this (almost) 14-year old increasingly offers almost non stop commentary while he plays (Bourne series of Xbox games, Assassins' Creed series, war/strategy/shooting games). It's an upside, and something to be grateful about. I realize there is a time to simply chill and perhaps sharpen reflexes and strategy skills through gaming. Thank God for summer holidays.

We're slowly making our peace with this form of games. We do draw a line at the little one playing MA15+ games. He gets to dabble in M-rated ones like Transformers, racing games and those superhero games. The 'laziness' is just contagious. I am even listless, unproductive, distracted, as I try to write simple copywriting jobs.

Yet, as my second son said a few nights ago at bedtime, 'I'm looking forward to going back to school.'

Ponder: Back at day one

2012-01-12T13:38:00.000+11:00

The other night, I scrubbed away at the dry, hardened skin covering the heels of my feet. My back hurt as I bent over in the bathtub for a long time. Disgusting as this sounds, this was a task long overdue, perhaps from as far back as winter. After washing and drying my feet, I put on some Burts' Bees Cream and the soft, brightly pink skin on my heels were revealed at long last.

This chore seemed like the first determined action I had made for the year. This preceded weeks of sleeping in, making sandwiches and salad for meals, being indecisive and moving like a sloth, yet snarling around the house regarding the boys' marathon gaming on the Wii and XBox.

This also seemed like an act of finally washing off the hardened shell that grew over the year that passed. I've been adjusting to a new way of working and the changes that come along with it. Over the Christmas holidays, it's the same old routine as in the past 4 years, except that I really got lazy. It was good diet-wise. It meant we were eating just as we usually do, but not loading up with ham, nibbles, oily and salty appetizers, alcohol, creams and cheeses, and the usual party fare that leads to bloating and weight gain.

The blessing of the past holidays though has been the gift of friends. Over the past several weeks, I've realized how beloved we are by friends. Lunches, dinners, meeting for coffees. I should be a little bit more enthusiastic and grateful as I ponder this aspect of my life.

I have to admit that over the three month period of being absent on this blog, I've become 'sluggish'. I've acquired bad habits and this has slowed me down--I've been drinking a bit more wine as the year ended; I sleep at almost 2 in the morning. Sleeping earlier than 11 pm is something I need to work at. Another insight: turn off the iPhone by 9 pm.

It also doesn't help that in the last quarter of 2011 I started to wear the splint for my TMJ and now that I'm weaning off it, I've had some hiccups. I can barely eat, since my jaw hurts when I chew, and I've had to eat soup and soft foods.

I've been slow to wake up to 2012. Yesterday, I went to a work meeting and hobbled along. Today, I cooked my sons baked salmon for lunch, a real departure from takeaway sushi, fastfood, or sandwiches of the past weeks and finally prepared some cookie dough ready for baking, a request from Mr. Nest since the Christmas holidays.

I'm coming along, I'm getting on board the 2012 train. Slowly but surely.

Ponder: on writing

2011-10-20T11:34:00.003+11:00

I've become self-employed, writing basically press releases and other short articles for a Communications organization. It's a day's work more than what I've been used to--if it gets really hectic, otherwise it can be as much as only a day's work in a week. I'm savouring the flexibility with my time, already a prize in itself.

It's been painful at the beginning, being rusty. I haven't been writing as a paid job for more than 8 years. I can't regret not taking up this kind of work much earlier because the opportunities just weren't there, and my circumstances were very different. Not much different than today actually, except that my sons are much older: one can be left home alone, but still not old enough to be responsible for a seven year old.

I also have no ambitions about my writing. At this point, I am not driven to be published. I accept this.

Am I just getting older? More world weary?

I am simply too tired. I think this is the most psychologically demanding age of parenting/motherhood--entailing a lot of nervous energy and the stamina to keep up physically with the demands of keeping house and whatnot. This year has been a major adjustment living with a teenage first born. My middle child is lumbering into teendom in the next couple of years, and by the time my youngest hits 16 years (the most difficult age, I hear), I'll be in my 50s.

And to think, Mr. Nest and I are often going with the flow. I wonder how some parents fare--those Type A parents who have not only mapped out everything down to the details of learning and domestic life, but also have the wherewithal to sit down doing the homework, reading, crafting, etc. We're the type who enter the house, drop our heavy bags and just yell out that they should do what schoolwork they need to do. It's great because then you get surprised by life.

One such surprise is good writing in the family. Someone else has been very, very busy, apart from voraciously reading. He's moving on from reading the Harry Potter set for the 4th time, to Machiavelli's writings (?!).

We're quite chuffed that this boy has topped a story writing exam in school. He's entered one writing competition, but he really didn't want to. He said he wants to write on his own terms. With me talking like this (above), who am I to talk to him about writing?

(Scroll down to the bottom for the typed and unedited version--as in the first photo--of the storywriting exam)

Enthuse: the gift of healing

2011-09-22T11:50:00.003+10:00

For a parent, nothing ever compares to the wide-eyed discovery by a child recuperating from a tonsillectomy who exclaims, “Mama! My throat isn’t painful anymore!” It can't even compare to the moment when a toddler unwraps a present and squeals, uncovering a much desired toy.

This moment happened to me just now, prodded by shrill cries for my attention. I rushed down and the little one told me this sudden realization-- hours after another painful attempt at breakfast. We hugged, laughed and did a bit of a whirl. We were both so exhilarated, flush with victory from almost a week of drinking fluids and agonizingly trying a few mouthfuls of food.

I think of the cripple, healed in the Bible story, and the inevitable, grateful shout of joy, “I can walk! I am healed!”

Ponder: venturing beyond

2011-09-20T12:00:00.000+10:00

I was about to write a post about having changed (inside) so much that I can't recognize myself from even 6 months ago. But that's for another time.

The past several months, I've yearned deeply for doing things that I now see are important--not just for me, but for my sons. For one, I regret not saving more money (although we are already very frugal), or at least pursuing paid work much earlier to earn more money to travel more. Not for grand overseas shopping trips, but at the very least to afford visiting family in the Philippines regularly, and doing smaller trips to other undiscovered destinations in the countryside here in Australia or in the Philippines. We've been here in Sydney for more than 6 years now, and we haven't really gone beyond our state. Our life runs with the highs and lows of a particular neighborhood or geographic collective, which to be honest, can be very myopic.

In the blink of an eye, soon my boys will be grown men. That's how fast I felt the past 6 years go by.
As I look on, I see my boys' world getting smaller; our world also getting smaller. It's one thing to be active in the school or community where we belong; to breathe in and live whatever ethos it has. But it also sacrifices vision, imagination, empathic thinking. Even with images of famine-stricken Somalians on tv, of poverty afflicting people, or of environmental degradation elsewhere, it doesn't mean anything to my sons unless they've seen something similar up close, appreciated another culture or way of life, walked across an entirely different landscape, or; pained by seeing the poverty of others.

How could my sons desire to contribute to a better world when their own worldview is limited? How could they want to make use of the opportunities on offer, and choose an occupation, hobby or community that will more enrich their own growth and also strive to serve others? Travel and the chance for new experiences allow us to venture beyond what we know; it can affirm many things we suspect to be true all along or debunk some ideas we hold on to.

At the end, we learn from experience--and it's not Disneyland I'm talking about. We learn from really jumping into the mess, the unfamiliar, the discomfort and even pain. The journey I've been on the last couple of years made me realize that one truly learns by experiencing it for him/herself, and no amount of self help books/seminars, daily nagging, or top notch education will do that for you. One becomes convinced of the truth of something when you feel it and are confronted by it. Living fully and learning much more require experiences that allow one to taste and feel and then ponder.

I realize that a family really needs very little and very simple things. The stuff we outfit our life with can't really be taken with us if the world ends tomorrow. And often, family life requires that things change, that the rhythm of growth makes stuff outlive its usefulness. We need to be less grasping and clingy; we need to grow in openness and surrender. These are travel's gifts.

Map above is taken from what looks to be an amazing tour from Tao Philippines.

Gone spring cleaning

2011-09-19T09:33:00.000+10:00

Now that the little one has to stay in and rest after the weekend tonsillectomy, it's proving a challenge. Before 830 a.m., he had already seen one DVD and begged to play another one. There's got to be some variety as the day unfolds, and as much as he's been itching to play handball or kick a soccer ball out the back, these can't be done.

I'm late enthusing about spring and Father's Day (celebrated on September in Australia). And yesterday's weather was apparently a taste of summer, but we're now back to cooler temps. The two-week school holidays will start next week, and while the older one will rough it at cadet camp, I will need to pack winter clothes and unpack the spring/summer ones. We're also pondering another room swap (upstairs) between the master and boys bedrooms, as the boys need more space.

The past weeks, I've gone on a stuff redux frenzy; I've increasingly been trying to live with much less since I turned 40. I'm more brutal this time: not used for the past 2 years? It's gone, offered on "freecycle" or back to thrift stores/op shops where they came from. But I daren't touch Mr. Nest's stuff, who is the ultimate pack rat.

The light is so lovely nowadays. But the bright, soft, filtered sun spotlights the thick layer of dust and lint everywhere. Today, I'm reorganizing and wiping down my kitchen, including the awkwardly shaped and not-frequently used cabinets. I'm planning to wash the windows tomorrow. After that, I'm going to go crazy with cabin fever.

(The little one's Father's Day present a couple of weeks ago was something he bought from the school stall. It's actually an empty container - that's the present. Perhaps it's symbolic/metaphorical. Grin.)

While you were updating

2011-09-18T13:51:00.000+10:00

Is it better to pretend that I wasn't "missing" these past couple of months?

While I was away, and while you've been blogging/updating your status, I was in the midst of the following: big fencing competitions for my older boys; playdates; the peak 3-week event of my work responsibilities; the end of winter sport season (football galas, athletics carnivals), coordinating and preparing for a new job as I leave this one at this month's end; a three-week winter virus that felled me and my eldest; the departure of our houseguest who, by then, had stayed with us for almost 6 months; the daily grind of more cooking as we curb our dining out and takeway budget after seeing our expenses on this recent taxt time; after many visits to the dentist, the start of wearing dental splints to decompress my jaw from the pain of TMJ, and; this past weekend, a tonsillectomy for my little one.

That last bit will see me housebound this coming week. So I guess I have no reason to fail in updating this blog. I hope you've been well all this time.

It's raining, it's pouring

2011-07-21T22:31:00.004+10:00

While North America heats up and sizzles or gets dusty, it's been a wet, gray, freezing winter here. It's been raining, and raining more than before.

Meanwhile, I've celebrated a birthday, and got the warmest greetings via Skype! This was the first time I was on Skype ever. Isn't today's communication technology amazing?

(That's the clearest size I could do with the snapshot of my mother and youngest sib)

More on the birthday next time and a Frolic post.

(Photo above from the Hunter Boot Ltd. gallery on the RHS Chealsea Flower Show 2011.)

Ponder: Perchance to dream

2011-07-18T10:40:00.010+10:00

It's been the coldest in Sydney ever, these days. Good time to be sleeping and catching up on those Zs, right? Well, not me, as it turns out. Apparently I don't get enough of it, and never will, unless I get some treatment. This problem has probably gone on for too long (longer perhaps than when it actually bothered me) but here's the short version: I've officially got moderate obstructive sleep apnea (OSA).

Currently I'm off to see my GP about this diagnosis from my sleep test, because simply looking up what CPAP is about (my only remedy) kind of annoys me. But better that I've known early, and that this is all I have to deal with healthwise. If you want to know more, then click after the jump. Otherwise, Zzz.

It's somewhat long winded and convoluted how this was diagnosed: I've long been wearing a splint (like a dental mouthguard) for bruxism (teeth grinding) for more than 10 years now, going through a whole range of splints all throughout. However, after a recent change to another splint early this year, I noticed my bite had changed. I then progressively experienced what I thought to be a persistent, stubborn ear infection--pain deep inside my ear and jaw area, a bit of vertigo and loss of balance, etc. After a check with my GP, a hearing/audiometry test, everything was normal. I was then urged to see the dentist because it could be caused by a problem in the jaw, when I mentioned the change in my bite.

So, I went to my dentist, who happened to be a TMJ specialist, and this visit confirmed a nagging suspicion I had for years: I had TMJ (Temporomandibular joint disorder). And since there is a link between teeth grinding and sleep apnea, it was routine to get a sleep test, which is conducted at home. You're simply wired up by the clinician and you look like a suicide bomber with wires in and out of your body plus a suitcase with the electronic equipment in tow--you get the idea. Taking public transportation is obviously not the best way to go home. So anyway, many weeks later, my (nocturnal) life is about to change.

First, I need to explain the link: apparently teeth grinding can be a result of the brain signalling the jaw to keep moving and find a good position to take in more oxygen from the mouth while sleeping, to supplement the lack of it. You don't have to be obese, snore loudly, or gained weight to get sleep apnea. In my case, it's clearly a structural or anatomical cause--possibly a small jaw or small airway.

The sleep test showed that I regularly stopped breathing during sleep--many times in an hour and not breathing for as long as 17 seconds. I was then all set to be fitted with splints to: (1) decompress my jaw for 4 months by wearing a splint 24/7--one would be for the daytime that would prevent my upper and lower teeth to touch, and; (2) a special night time splint that would allow me to increase the air passageway and allow me to get more oxygen.

However, we found out that I'm not a good candidate for this night time splint. The breathing tests show that if I use it to treat sleep apnea, there is less oxygen intake, only imperiling myself further.

The only option then is what they call CPAP. Basically, for the rest of my life, I will be wearing this thing over my nose/face when I sleep, that will force air for me to breathe properly while asleep. I've looked it up and it sounds pretty daunting. People give up. I mean, I don't want Mr. Nest to sleep beside Mrs. Darth Vader.

But untreated sleep apnea is putting oneself at a high risk for cardiovascular disease or a stroke. The funny thing though is, I've long been urging Mr. Nest to get a sleep test, after he was prescribed to have one by our GP, when he was diagnosed with hypertension 2 years ago. The way he snores also makes me believe he has the same problem. It seems there is a strong link between sleep apnea and hypertension, and I had often wondered, with my healthy cooking, why Mr. Nest got hypertension so soon. I myself am at low-normal blood pressure levels.

You know what? Maybe when he finally gets himself a sleep test very soon, the diagnosis will be that he needs to wear one, too. We'll most likely be Mr. and Mrs. Darth Vader.

I'll keep you posted.

Enthuse: Popsi's birthday!

2011-07-14T13:14:00.005+10:00

Tomorrow is my father's birthday. We sent him a package of goodies and a present. He's holding out and opening them all tomorrow!

I'm proudly posting some photos of his current work in progress. Remember the rocking horse he made for my firstborn when he was just a baby? He's thinking of making one but conceptually different, and these photos show the prototype--from sketches, to canvas and to a 3-dimensional model.

I could only dream to be half as creative and prolific as my father is. My brother is perhaps past that halfway mark (Ok, ok, I'll give that to him :)), being a gifted sculptor-all around artist himself.

In advance, just to prove that I'm thinking about him already, this post is the birthday greeting shout from the Nest: Happy Birthday, Popsi! We love you and wish we could be there.

A blog's ebb

2011-07-05T15:32:00.002+10:00

These past months I've been bogged down by work. And by that I mean not only paid work, but also volunteer work. One is something I've been doing for more than three years now--clerical, data entry, payments processing work at a charity. Another is basically a slew of school volunteer jobs. Note that I haven't even mentioned household work--of which I've received much help from Mr. Nest (vacuuming, tidying up) and our houseguest (washing up in the kitchen, sometimes hanging laundry to dry when I need to run off after running the washing machine).

My job has kind of peaked at this same time because of the liasion/coordination entailed among a travel agency, clients and a European counterpart after the deadline ended in mid May and logistic work has then ensued.

Family-wise, we've been running around. A large part of our life has been football (for the littlest one that's twice a week) and fencing competitions (foil) for the older boys. These happen around April to July. So you can just imagine the training sessions (4 times a week. I know, I know, you don't have to say anything!), competitions on a Saturday or Sunday.

I've got too much to say that I don't know where to begin, so just forget it. I've got lots more photos, actually. So I might just give that space instead of the stuff in my head.

Meals and packed lunches for school and work

home made sausage rolls (above)

porcini mushroom risotto (above)

playdates, lunch dates and coffees with friends (mine!), picnics and playing in the park

(and play often means storming out in a huff )

fencing training and all those translated into 3-minute bouts toward a gold (yes, we did!)

another year of cadet training under the belt and a boy inches toward manhood

a trip to town after organizing a send off and farewell to a school choral mistress; another one was organizing another teacher's birthday surprise and presents.

flying off one early winter morning to Melbourne for work and back (taken at the train station on the way to the airport)

walking to work

Plant: Still wriggling

2011-07-02T18:16:00.001+10:00

Yep, we're still at it. No, not planting. Worm farming, for nearly four years out of six years being in Oz. The worms have been good. They're great partners in reducing one's waste footprint. We've also been active in our local "freecycle" group--offering items and taking some on offer, instead of buying new stuff.

This was taken last week on one day when I didn't turn up for a weekly office volunteer job just to get my breath. It's been crazy, and I've felt like a hamster running on a treadmill. Harvested some castings, and it's been three months late. It was good to slow down and be still.

Talking about the weather

2011-06-23T14:34:00.001+10:00

Talking about the weather seems too trivial, too unimaginative and shallow.

Not for Sydneysiders. For weeks, Sydney has been drenched, cold, dark and miserable. There was the odd weekend of sun, then back to more relentless rain, flooding, strong icy gusts of wind. And it's too cold, as in the Blue Mountains where they are currently blanketed in snow! (It's a bit surreal, like watching footage about Canada or some place in the northern hemisphere.)

Anyway, last weekend, the sun finally came out. And today, it's at its most glorious.

It was simply breathtaking that people were out on walks, in office wear. It was simply so cheery that I even stopped and chatted with a young mother and her two toddlers. And it all started with, "Isn't today just lovely weather?!"

(Untouched photo taken on the walk from work)

Ponder: My Mother's Words and Thoughts

2011-05-10T22:51:00.006+10:00

I've been laboring under the difficulty of not being able to tell you about the things that cross my mind which I have no way of saying outright. Now the moment is gone and what remains is wanting only to tell you we miss you and want to see you soon....

The sentiments above are only a few of the words contained in a box of letters from my mother, written throughout a decade, which I've kept. If a fire razes through the house, this box will be the first one I will save from the flames.

I'm not simply writing this, riding on the trail of the recent Mother's Day bandwagon. It was also actually my mother's birthday yesterday and I thought of her last week, more than any other time in my life.

I went to high school in the capital city of Manila, a two-hour bus ride and another two-hour airplane ride away. I left home when I was twelve. I came home on Christmas holidays and the long summer break from school. While at university, I would be home less frequently, mostly only during the two-week Christmas holidays.

Despite many growing pains in the city among my father's kin and living through what may be considered an abusive environment by others, I look back on this period as a great blessing. I would not be where I am now, and my circumstances would have been very different, without my education.

Yet I would have been a far different woman--a very different person,in fact--but for my mother. Her guidance and care never faltered, despite great physical separation, because of her letters to me. She relayed to me her concern, affection and guidance. She gave me the sense of always being present in our family life through letters that told of my father, my siblings, my neighborhood (that consisted of our extended family of her own mother and her siblings), the townspeople, and her thoughts on social issues of the day.

To start from the very beginning: my mother is singularly amazing. I could only hope to be nearly as inspiring and wise as her. My mother is a writer by trade, and far better skilled than I could hope to be. Her thoughts and movement are imbued with grace and elegance. She possesses the gift of teaching, not as a classroom teacher, but of seizing your imagination and mind. To borrow from the movie "Inception," she can plant a seed of an idea. She is of small stature, but larger than life. Her charm, counsel, tact, graciousness and diplomacy is sought and heeded by a great number of people in our town, both by ordinary folk and even those in public office. Together with my father, with the strength of their personality, charisma and great talent, their pairing is a class act, quite tough to follow.

I recently took out the box of her yellowing letters and reread them. These were handwritten or typed out (yes, on a typewriter) on different kinds of paper--used sheets, thin/onion-skin copy paper, office forms, various colored stationery offcuts from our family's printing press jobs. My mother was a prolific letter writer and could do it at the drop of a hat-- writing night and day, at two or four in the morning, by candlelight during those years where our hometown was plagued by power blackouts, during spiritual retreats, while at work in the office, or on a break from household chores.

She wrote at odd hours, also because she relied on other travelers who were leaving the countryside early in the morning to travel to Manila. She would ask them to hand me a package containing some clothes, reading materials, money or old letters unsent by post. She also knew that in interacting with these messengers (her friends, acquaintances or work colleagues), it would give me a sense of home, a kindly familiar chat, a way to get out of my shell and learn to interact confidently with adults.

I was instantly propelled back to those years around 1983, an age so different from today's instant downloads, mobile technologies, and faster-than-the-speed-of-light transmission of communication. To be able to speak to me, my parents would have to go to the downtown postal office (PT&T), where they would give an operator my number and the operator would try to reach me at my aunt's house. This was often met with great disappointment for the expense, since the telephone connection from my hometown to the suburb where I lived, outside of the inner city, was terrible.

What did my mother write about? From the less personal to those that touched on my own concerns, I list them here and will try to be brief.

1. She wrote to me about the people and events in our town, of families’ tragedies and triumphs. She would relate it to me, not in a manner of a gossip but rather something out of Elizabeth Gaskell's “Cranford,” with great tenderness and empathy about the people she would tell me about. Writing at length about a jailbreak and a chase across several towns, she ends the account:

Tragically, one jail guard died when he was fired on in the jail for not relinquishing his firearm to the convicts. You know him by sight—he’s the thin, dark old man who plods up [the road] in his khaki uniform every afternoon, pushing a bike as he goes.

2. She would tell me about the poverty of individual people, especially of working students, who would live with townsfolk (as is common practice) as housemaids in order to educate themselves. Even until now, she tells me of the circumstances of their employees and the poor children in the streets. When I was home on school holidays, I would meet them face to face: indigenous people begging or selling their woven wares, the town lunatic raving about in the highway, a reclusive old woman. All of them she knew by name and where they lived, including the details of their tragic circumstances.

Through her stories, I was taught basic human truths, values, social mores, and some sort of implied and private approval or reproof for behaviour and viewpoints that in public may appear deceptively acceptable (or unacceptable). She told me of many teenage pregnancies, and often these were appalling but hilarious accounts of how these pregnancies were discovered. (With the scores of teenagers getting pregnant in our town, I suspected that this was her secret fear for me.)

Her voice, her beliefs, and the way she described or criticized events, behavior, the politics of the day, formed and influenced me so much that there are times I laugh because I can hear her in myself and see the same thread of her thought. Sometimes, I say it out loud, “Oh my God, I have become my mother!”

3. She also shared her thoughts about social issues of that time. Among one of the countless examples, of a transport strike, she wrote:

I walked to the office and no buses are running...I dropped [my brother] off to school and made a stroll thinking how full of unrest and oppression and disorder and emptiness is the world.

Only weeks before the People Power Revolution of ’86, with the instability of the snap election still in the air, she opened her letter with:

I do hope you are spending the lull from school productively for your body and your mind. These are dangerous times and these are also exciting times. History is being made, whatever color it assumes. The one thing to remember is: this too shall pass...

4. She wrote to me about literature, reading, magazines and books, since all these were her expertise. She counselled me on what to read. In one letter she wrote when I was about 14, she urged me to read “The Merchant of Venice,” because reading Portia’s defense of her client would “make you feel triumphant as a human being.”

5. She told me about my siblings, how they get into trouble, their interests and friends. Above all, she would relay their great affection for me, their conversations and questions about when they could see me again. I knew that she also did the same in reverse, by regaling my siblings about my determination and fearlessness, painting a model and mentor for them to look up to. How hard it must have been to juggle that task--to guide me and hope that I would make the right decisions, and not let her down, and yet upbuild me to my siblings, never knowing what trouble I might throw out to her one day.

In all this, she was tireless and generous in making her persona diminish; she took herself out of the spotlight and beamed it all on me, my father and much later, on my talented and promising siblings.

6. She wrote of my father's work, his business and plans. I watched him change his hats as a businessman and artisan. I learned about farming seasons and cycles. I became familiar with my father's tools and equipment--a tractor, typesetters, or printing press machines. She would even discuss these in her letters at length!

From her I learned tidbits of art history and design styles, as she learned them from her own readings and my father the artist, but she could best explain these concepts. Her knowledge of the arts is quite extensive; her personal style is timeless and tasteful. Even to this day, we consult her on many things and relish conversations about fashion or design styles.

7. She asked constantly about my diet, fearful that I was skipping meals or had no money for food. This was from her own experience about saving money or not having any, while she herself was at university, far away from her own mother.

8. She inquired constantly about receiving the money they sent, knowing that “you find it difficult to summon the nerve to ask anybody when you are in need.” She often wrote anxiously (in every letter!) of my ability to access money sent by telegraphic transfer or bank transfer, which in those days took three days before one could get it from the bank.

9. She admonished me about being safe and prudent always when travelling or going out. She was worried about my use of public transportation. Knowing that the route I had to take featured regularly in front page newspapers as a dumping ground for murders and summary executions must have terrified her no end.

10. She urged me to pray, to have some time of quiet and reflection. Her prayers for me at the end of each letter was beautifully expressed, Above all, she wanted me to be young and full of gaiety (knowing I was too serious for my own good), to truly be alive and not consumed by disappointments and fears.

11. More importantly, she taught me about boys (and men). Perhaps that will be a separate post, because that is funny and endearing, insightful and encouraging, all at the same time.

Reading her letters again put a lot of my parenting concerns in perspective, especially about my own sons' future and my brush with anxiety and depression in the past. I feel a bit sheepish, foolish even, to crumble so easily.

My mother endured all these concerns and so much more. In later years, my own siblings would also leave home for university studies (we were all spaced far apart in birth). What I have experienced so far as a parent could not compare to her fears for my welfare and health. She spoke honestly about her anxieties for my wellbeing, but she never appeared weak or highly strung. To imagine that I was not eating well and often, that I was in some sort of dire need, out taking public transport in the rough streets of Manila in the evenings, must have been terrifying. As I look on my own sons and think of my own fears for them, and the fact that they are in the safety of our house or in my company makes my worries pale in comparison. I shudder to think of her torment and all other doubts and fears she had to bear.

12. Her letters also showed me that despite years of being apart, she knew me very well: I was too shy, tended to please people and not want to cause any fuss; she spoke often with grave concern about my perfectionism, intolerance, idealism and extreme zeal and knew that one day I would these would cause me pain or despair.

13. The most refreshing thing of all is that in pursuit of a good education and a better future, she and my father gave us the freedom to choose the career or discipline that would give us peace and gladness. She articulated many of my burdens and made me know that she understood.

She expressly took away the pressure of good grades when I couldn't have them; assured me that good grades and a career in medicine are not worth the loss of my peace of mind and a life of enslavement to expectations.

I know there have been hours and days and weeks of pure hell just wanting to run home and bury your head in the sand, maybe terrified at everything and having pounding headaches and low grades...If you felt these, I imagined them and knew they were your ghosts. But you just sailed through the storms, you handled it your way, you righted your boat and made do with your own hands...I have always been with you in thoughts and every thought that crossed your mind pealed in my heart.

Woven into all these words was the depth of her experiences, from her own experience of going to university in the city in the 60s, as a young journalist in the country's leading newspaper, or working in television and public relations with high-profile personalities, from years of being involved serving the community, from listening to an endless stream of people to her living room who consulted and discussed their problems with her. This mentoring and counseling she does best, demonstrating an open heart, listening skills, great clarity of mind, the ability to articulate what cannot be expressed easily, and her insight into their concerns.

She would write about these confidences and conflicts to me, explaining to me what was actually the heart of the matter—pointing out the things left unspoken as these the conflicts or problems unfolded. This correspondence sharpened my instinct, sensitivity and perceptiveness about human behaviour and relationships. These qualities also made me earn many good strong, and steady friendships along the way. This life of pondering, of thinking perhaps too much and always reading deeper into things can be my handicap many times. But this practice has kept me in good stead and has seen me through the darkest times.

Many memories flooded back to me. As I open a letter on blue colored sheets, and read it again, I would remember exactly where I was when I read it the first time, how I would weep quietly, with an inexpressible pang of homesickness. And how strange it was for me to see simple stories about other people that would send me crying with loneliness and homesickness. I remember how I would tear open an envelope and scan through it quickly, hungrily, as if I could propel myself back in her arms by taking it all in.

We are all here on the table under candlelight because of [power blackout], writing you letters. How much better it would be if you were here with us even in this darkness....

There are more, much more words and counsel, great humor and affection in these letters. How can you condense a decade’s worth of correspondence, especially during my most crucial years of growth and maturity? This pile I've sifted through does not yet even include letters written when I began working, or in my early years of marriage and motherhood! Until now, she ministers to all from afar, and allows everyone else, but herself, to shine brighter. Her emails are the funniest, most detailed, honest and candid.

(Funnily enough, we both seemed to be obssessed with two things, which I nag my boys constantly with this common plea: eat your food and take care of your teeth!)

I wish to tell her now that although I have yet to have a child who would leave home for studies or a career, I appreciate the depth and intensity of each emotion she felt for me all those years. I wish to tell her, repeatedly, that as a mother I have now understood what she way expressing in this passage:

One day you will understand it, as now I understand my own mother--with all her weaknesses and strength. It's only in the future that you would really, really know what is a mother, from another mother's viewpoint....

...All these are not new to me. I know what’s in your heart. I know when your soul faints from hurts, worries, fears, but a mother’s job is to allow the child to mature and find her way out of the woods. It’s also true to animals, but from instinct rather than reason.

The top three lessons from her that immediately come to mind?

First, character. You may be the most statesque beauty in the word, the most talented, the most articulate, moving writer, an extremely gifted, witty speaker or most profound thinker. But if inside you, there is a lack of humility, courtesy, generosity, respect and mindfulness, a lack of belief in goodness, then it all comes to naught.

Secondly, never be afraid to speak honestly, that is, to speak with love and humility and from the core of your being. This is the hardest, the best--the only--way to go about in this world. This is enough to break down the most sullen teenager, an aggrieved spouse or partner, to get out of the most difficult situation, to mend relationships. I have journeyed back to peace and gladness because of this wisdom.

Thirdly, you can never doubt the power of a well written and honest letter. If there is only one thing you can do in life: learn how to write better, and this you do by reading.

I end this with one of the many wise thoughts from her letters:

One last word. In every circumstance, be thankful and at the same time say, "This too will pass." If you have a defeat, a devastation, a crisis--remember it too will end and time will close over it like sand in the desert closes in over each other. If you have a victory, a joy, a real reward--remember it too will pass away. The next day could bring another defeat. Then you can stop being swell-headed over an exhilarating prize. It too will pass away. His enduring mercy and kindness remains. Only He is eternal.

I realized that I've written so many things and stretched this blog post too long, in the hope that I could express only this simple truth: Mama, I love you, and I am deeply thankful that you are my mother. You have expressed that gratitude so many times, being grateful at the kind of daughter I am. This is because you helped make me become that daughter.

Ponder: Not only of motherly pleasures

2011-05-08T15:13:00.009+10:00

Happy Mother's Day to all mothers, grandmothers, sisters and aunts--with or without children.

The photos show today's presents from my sons: a heart necklace and button earrings. Mr. Nest gave me this chocolate cookbook. Can you see me in the photo?

In my life, aunts have played very important roles in mothering, caring and providing. I've got my Tita Dude (yes, that's her nickname and we call her Tadot) in the States/America who continues to think only of her nieces and nephews; Aunty Freddy, who sent me to a private high school and supported me during my high school and uni years; Tita Vilma, to whom I could always run to for help while I studied in the big bad city; Tita Nenette (Tanenet) who could give you an alternate view on things, a literary wit, and a linguistic expert; Tita Bing who is married to my uncle, knows many baking secrets, and always delightful company. I've got tons of aunts (whom Filipinos call "Tita" more endearingly), whether connected by blood or simply my family's friendship. All these women, near and far, have helped me become the woman, mother and friend I am today.

My own sisters are wonderful aunts to my sons. They don't simply help with the caring (especially when they are here) and teaching/mentoring, but oozing with affectionate fun, talent and coolness/hipness, which my boys see with awe. My friends from childhood and schooldays have become "tita" to my own sons, and are familiar to them, even if they are oceans away. Mr. Nest's own aunts and his cousins in Sydney (mostly female) are wonderful aunts who spoil and adore the boys.

More importantly, I've recently realized that I've crafted good friendships with women in Australia. This realization grew stronger as I came out of a funk last year and as my sense of self grew stronger. (None of them know of this struggle, by the way, so you can't say it's "pity-friendship" besides friendship out of pity doesn't work!)

Since last year, I have enjoyed the company of mums in the little one's school and they are amazing, funny, helpful and down to earth. The mums I've come to befriend since 5 years ago, in my older boys' school, have also become staunch friends. I've had my share of heartaches in female friendships, learned some hard and fast lessons about cultural differences in female kinship, and grew quite jaded last year. However, it's not really as dramatic nor traumatic as that sounds (still painful, though), but I've finally discovered and refined the idea of who my friends are.

I've discovered that I get along really well with older women. Most of them have university age (and older) children. I've been having coffees and pub nights since last year and look forward to these times. Especially in the last several months, I've come to have regular dates, coffee meets, tete-a-tetes with them.

On my last biopsy, one mum in my son's school (not really a close friend) even asked me, "do you want me to drive you to the hospital and back to home?" Thus, where I am now far from my own mother, aunts and their circle of women friends, equally generous women around me have taken their place.

Right this minute, I feel more thankful --even more so perhaps than husbands, children and grandchildren--for these women whom I can name. They number more than my ten fingers. What a great blessing to be loved staunchly by other women--mothers all who are beseiged by their own concerns!

This is what I give thanks most on this Mother's Day: my eyes are opened to the women around me who help raise my children; who love and admire me, as I do them.

Enthuse: Hello, seven!

2011-05-08T14:41:00.002+10:00

No party this year. Instead, we're getting good seats to watch "Walking with Dinosaurs" later this month, with dinosaurs being his favorite (among many other things, the recent one being Lego Ninja). We did throw in something inside the lolly bags for all his classmates--a Kinder Surprise chocolate egg. A confession as well. This is his first birthday where Mama is working, so I'm too tired to hatch anything else. Is that too bad?

Yes, we are growing. Older. Busier. I'm nearly having two boys in puberty, with an eleven year old hurtling towards it, and acting like it, by the minute. And they are getting more and more gorgeous and magnetic as they age.

Smile.

Thrift: make do and mend

2011-05-04T13:00:00.006+10:00

Today, sneezing non stop. Runny nose and eyes. Less pressure in my head but still feel hazy.

Posting photos of a forgotten post. I have been doing a lot of mending and sewing in the past months since end of last year--preloved/second-hand uniforms, beautiful thrifted clothes too good to discard. (The first photo for instance is a gorgeous Country Road blue linen shirt with a small tear, top quality worth salvaging.)

Today, I pause and think --with deep gratitude-- of the people with whom I share the reuse-and-recycle sensibility (and they think of my family when doing so). Since the weekend, I received bags, sacks in fact, of winter clothes for my little one, school uniforms for my older boys, and even winter wear for our houseguest's family who will be settling in, straight into a Sydney winter.

Do people realize how many more they actually help and touch, beyond my circle, with their generosity?

(Photo below, the little one makes do by crafting his own amusement/game simply out of scratch paper, scissors and creativity.)

Ponder: it's never too early, or too late

2011-05-03T19:43:00.004+10:00

Today, I'm in the throes of a bad cold that feels like a flu. Yesterday I was really angry. The little one, who is turning seven in a few days, shouted, kicked, and yelled at me and became downright abusive.

It was a turning point, because I had actually been ignoring his increasing temper and lack of respect, if you will. After months and months like this, I noticed it markedly around the last week of Lent when I had taken a week off from work.

After I spoke to him and corrected him, I thought about it a lot while driving. I realized how differently Mr. Nest and I parent this boy (as we should, because each child is unique) but different from his two older brothers. At the age of 5 even, the older boys had already been sat down many times to correct, discuss or "process" the details of rudeness and good behavior.

It's due to a difference in our circumstances: our move to Australia meant a radical change in our family life. We had no immediate support system to help us run the house and mind the kids to allow us to take a bit of time off and see things in a new perspective after some sort of renewal and refreshment. One also can't discount the different culture of parenting and family, the consumerism and commercialism that is much more felt in family life.

This truth also hit me: because he is so gorgeous and cute (he is a bit small for his age, like a 5 year old Aussie in size), and being the youngest, we've always treated him like a baby. We've relegated many things about his "care" to his older brothers but never really taught him simple duties that teach responsibility at home. He never packs away his toys because we do (even his brothers do this for him), out of exhaustion and not wanting the bother. But what it has done is that we have two older boys who can look after their things, who are markedly different in self-reliance and a sense of courtesy, whereas this little one has this sense of entitlement in almost everything. And to be honest, he can be downright rude. All he needs to do is look at us like Puss in Boots from Shrek to tug at our heartstrings, and we simply wave any offense away.

I don't want to open up a discussion here of what's good parenting or not, or the pros and cons of a working parent, because ultimately we choose how we want to parent. And as I write, my head is aching, my throat and eyes are burning and my nose completely closed off. So I'm not on my most coherent here. But I thought about this, despaired for a bit (only a wee bit, mind).

Last night, Mr. Nest sat him down and had a good talk with him, and it propelled us back to half a decade ago when we would do this with our older ones who were preschoolers at that time. Mr. Nest and I resolved to do better, to bother, to take the time and teach better.

These things take time I know, and I know it's not too late. We've got work to do. He's got older brothers to look up to. Someday, the tantrums, hurled angry and resentful words, yelling, backtalk, hitting and kicking will disappear. One day he will surprise us with his already good heart. But for the meantime, I've got his teen years to worry about! Or then again, maybe, hopefully these are his teen years, and it will be gone by then, who knows.

(Photos are of a Harry Potter gift set he received in the mail the other day--a late addition to the Easter showbag he got several weeks ago when he was treated by relatives to the Sydney Easter show. It's a surprise early birthday present. Then, I also got an early Mother's Day card last night, too, from a contrite, loving little one.)

Frolic: Bridal weekend overdose

2011-05-03T18:01:00.007+10:00

I was on a high from watching the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton last Friday night mainly because I got to finish off the last drop of wine from our Easter celebrations and because I got to hog the tv all to myself that night (which I relished, being a rare event, and to the boys' chagrin who wanted to watch the footy!).

The next day, I was off to my first-ever experience of a Hens Night in Australia (or bachelorette party,for Americans) at the Shelbourne Hotel in the city. I've only experienced "bridal showers" which is what women do back where I come from, and it's often held in one's home or more private venues, with gifts, games, etc.

Shelbourne Hotel has a really good, value-for-money package for Hens Nights (starting at 3 pm, way before the pub patrons hit the venue at about 11 pm) and already includes the dinner and apetizers, plus: a cocktail making class, life drawing and burlesque dancing sessions.

Life drawing means sketching a nude (male) model in varied poses that change every few minutes. This lasted for nearly half an hour, including the model's spiels and photo sessions with him (!). I guess this is the more tasteful way of getting naughty without the standard male stripper experience. Then of course the much younger ones kept on gulping down alcohol the whole night through. Us married cousins (and mothers of the bride and groom in that group) surrendered by 8 pm.

To my great pleasure, I discovered I still possessed the knack for drawing--after not touching paper and pencils since my early university days. Overall, it was fun. I mean,us married people were a rather jaded bunch, and laughed more at our drawings instead of the giggly pretty young things laughing at something else (actually) and still looking forward to being "attached."

If you get invited to one, make sure you go with someone as mature as you, or in rather similar life circumstances, otherwise you'll begin to feel like one grumpy old woman. Yes, I hung out with the mother of the bride-to-be and groom-to-be that night. And that made it a ball!

By the way, I showed my sketches to the boys (there's a lot more I'm not showing you here) and they all laughed out loud. I was very much encouraged by the middle boy who has been a recipient of art prizes in school, who told me poker-faced "they're acually quite good, Mama."

Craft: baby winter layette project

2011-05-01T15:12:00.002+10:00

This year, Aussies had a long stretch of public holidays, which occurred last weekend--from Good Friday, (Easter) Monday until Anzac Day (akin to a Veterans'/Memorial Day) last Tuesday. I took last week off from work, too. So the boys and I were able to spend some time out frolicking away in Manly, parks and shops.

Washed, blocked and sewn the knitted woolens. These months' work were all finished on Anzac Day. They are ready to be boxed, wrapped and tied with a ribbon. I feel very proud of myself. I was so entranced at the idea of making something to wear out of my own hands! Knitting is a godsend for me--not just a skill, but a refuge and creative outlet.

This was not quite the cable jumper project for my boys I declared I would be making a year ago. But I've come a long way from being a learner knitter last August.

More photos after the jump below.

(All patterns from Debbie Bliss' Baby Knits for Beginners)

Plant: moving on

2011-05-01T14:45:00.002+10:00

Remember my dirty little secret last year?

My edible potted garden has long died. First to go were the tomatoes around the time my brother visited us last year. And just before this last Easter, the last of it--my hardy chili plant-- finally kicked the bucket (pardon the pun). I never got to see the strawberries in that crate (pictured above) because once a tiny green fruit came up, the next morning, it would be gone--pecked at by the birds or possums. Oh yes, the possums leave a messy trail.

I wanted to get back to replanting but then I went back to work. It's not like I don't want to salvage the plants--I did. Yet to make all of this work, day in and day out, one has to painstakingly pick at the pine needle leaves that rain on the garden every day. I guess this environment, of accumulated acidity, makes it too toxic. A Jesuit friend who knows forestry work very well told me years ago, I'm surprised you can make things grow here, because nothing will, with the pine trees around. So it was quite a good run of several years.

However, I am still worm farming. And it's going strong. Our veggie/fruit waste (including paper servietters/napkins and little bits of paper rubbish, are thankfully composted into soil.

(above) view from the kitchen window/sink

The ornamentals (ferns, nodding violets) by the way are doing well and are now more lush, making the most use of the worm farm liquid fed into them.

These photos were taken on Good Friday, when we sorted, cleaned and reorganized the garden, or what remains of it. Still not quite there, but good enough.

Ponder: We are children of Easter morning

2011-04-25T15:01:00.008+10:00

I couldn't quite put my finger down on why I had this overwhelming urge to splash out on an Easter celebration. I had planned it a couple of weeks before with my sister; we sent out an invite to Mr. Nest's Sydney clan. I had been feeling jumpy (but good-jumpy), like I was ready to break into song and dance, at Easter dawn.

Sure, I had been on a 40-day fast (from refined/processed sugar, specifically, no desserts, sweets, chocolates, wine and beer) so I may perhaps felt eager to have some cake. I surely felt victorious, marking this period as my first year anniversary of breaking away from a terrifying cycle of anxiety and near despair. I also felt great relief and gratitude with my recent biopsy result. But there was something else I couldn't quite explain.

Then during the Easter vigil mass at our parish, a Jesuit priest (whose homily I always enjoy because of his great sense of drama and theatrics), ended his message with this idea: Easter is not just about "God is great; He has risen!" But it is about "God is great; we are frail."

We come to mass, we seek out others in community, we yearn for a life of the spirit because we are broken, imperfect, need healing. So there it was. If you knew me, and what I went through after my close friend died, you would have understood how my ears and heart pricked up at hearing this, how it all made sense. I celebrate because of my brokenness, which goes with great hope, illumination and transformation at the end of the tunnel.

There is great poignancy, so much empathy and joy at Easter for me, more so than at Christmas time. To have undergone a paradigm shift, to see with new eyes, to view the world and my place in it much differently--this has been my saving grace. How true were the words from hymns and prayers that rang out in that mass --"create a clean heart in you"..."give you a new spirit"!

And so, we lovingly prepared a feast for all who came. My sister singlehandedly prepared everything for our barbie. Mr. Nest, with the help of our friend and houseguest and the boys excitedly used his charcoal kettle grill for the first time with delicious results.

Late at night, after all had been packed away, the heaping table of food all brought home in portions by more than a dozen Easter revellers, I told Mr. Nest that for the very first time in a long time, my heart was 101% joyfully hosting this party. My whole self was into the preparation, cooking and hosting. And I understood that completely loving what I was doing, fully giving myself in generosity, was the secret to great happiness, to being fully alive in whatever you do.

cooking paella in the garden (I made two--one seafood and another pan of meat paella)

a beloved aunt also celebrated her birthday the day before (Black Saturday) so we honored her with a cake. My two boys finished the job for me, frosting and decorating the cake

By the way, after I had my first glass of wine and slice of cake (homemade, my usual recipe), I developed a headache! Is this what too much sugar does to the system?

Godiva chocolate was Mr. Nest's present to me as soon as I woke up, but I dug into it at midnight, after the party was packed and dusted. We also had four different kinds of desserts: two chocolate cakes, cassava cake and leche flan (akin to creme brulee) from an aunt, apart from the chocolate Easter eggs and bunnies!

Frolic: A very Good Friday and an accidental pilgrimage

2011-04-25T13:13:00.005+10:00

The eldest hunkered down to school projects (carpentry, science/plants). We all got ready (cleaning, errands and chores) for hosting a big Easter celebration for Mr. Nest's Sydney clan in a few days. The day was gloriously sunny and warm.

In the afternoon, we planned to walk all the way to a church and do the "Stations of the Cross" prayer and reflection. As we walked, the boys whinged a bit about the distance, so we decided to visit the nearest church instead-- a kilometer away uphill, in Neutral Bay. When we got there, it was closed.

We decided to walk to North Sydney, another 30 minute walk (around 4 km from our house). We got there after the boys frolicked through St. Leonard's Park across the church. We reached the church doors at 5 pm and it was closed as well. We were floored. There were several other groups of people, mostlyof Asian provenance, who milled around the church grounds--probably like us, hoping to get into the church.

It was a bit disconcerting to find the churches closed on Good Friday--how different from the Lenten practice of my childhood and youth! Funnily enough, in this roundabout way of looking for a church to accomodate our plans, we ended up with a "visita iglesia," (of sorts) -- a traditional Filipino activity during Mahal na Araw (the last three days of Lent or cuaresma).

We all had a good walk and talk about this whole adventure as we went along. The boys wildly and noisily had a good run and muck about in the park.

Sometimes, we end up with something very different than what we plan or set out to do. The best thing is to allow yourself to be surprised, and make the most of the present. As Eleanor Roosevelt said, "Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift; that’s why they call it the present."

Created anew

2011-04-16T14:25:00.002+10:00

A couple of days ago was like Easter morning for me, in advance. And I'm not talking about getting to eat sweets/sugar a week early.

The breast biopsy gave favorable results (it's benign--and I dare say, no matter how it applies in any context, that's still the best adjective in the world anyone would want to hear). I waited over what seemed to be the longest weekend to find that out. My body, taut with the waiting, finally rested easy.

My eldest son also returned from cadet camp; he seemed like he grew so much in 6 days--in body and spirit. When he came home, I made lasagna-- his favorite dish. I have flowers around me to celebrate.

There is so much gratitude in me, it is beyond description. Thank God for the knitting as well. It has made me calm and hopeful all throughout.

Frolic: these autumn days

2011-04-16T14:19:00.001+10:00

It's been simply glorious autumn weather in Sydney the past week.

But today, we woke up to gray pregnant clouds that has kept on shedding rain. I hope the sun, dazzling blue skies and nippy air won't leave us yet.

Either way, it's all good for cuddling, games and knitting. All good.

Enthuse: textiles and Ballet Russes costumes

2011-04-12T17:37:00.005+10:00

I'm up to my neck knitting and blocking--for a new addition to Mr. Nest's Sydney clan who is to arrive next month. I'm knitting a baby sweater, hat and scarf. I'm also slowly sorting and packing our summer wardrobe to make way for the cold weather clothes and eventually swap storage space by the end of the Easter holidays.

Talking about textiles/clothes, I remembered my photos from a quick visit to the National Gallery of Australia last January, as we took a quick detour to Canberra from Wagga Wagga. I demanded to see the exhibit on the NGA's collection of the Ballet Russes costumes. Mr. Nest took charge of the boys and allowed me to linger and bask in the exhibit before we drove home to Sydney.

I just checked and the exhibit runs until May 1st! Quick and get yourself to Canberra!

My favourite of all were designs by Bakst and Benois. Cameras weren't allowed and security men were really spread out to prevent anyone from going beyond the roped platforms and from taking photos. For a taste, click on this link and feast your eyes on the elaborate, detailed workmanship by many well known artists--contemporaries of the ballet's founder, Sergei Diaghilev.

I'm usually frugal and balk at museum shop prices, but I just had to get a book to revisit again for inspiration. My love for textiles simply took over.

Ponder: Checking the pulse

2011-04-12T09:50:00.005+10:00

Just flicking out a message to the blogosphere and beyond: yes, I'm still here.

Real life is my life: working, keeping house, and leaving time for little else. This photo has been taken ages ago, when Mr. Nest and I had our movie date last month in the Orpheum, a lovely Art Deco "picture palace" in our neighborhood.

My sugar/sweets fast is now on its second-to-the-last week. A waist has emerged, as a benefit!

I miss my first baby, who is now on his second cadet camp of his life and loving it more each time. I miss his low voice, long limbs, the grumpy young man that he is at the moment. He will be away for almost a week, doing military type activities by the time he comes home on Wednesday.

My second boy is challenging us, and it has reached a point where I actually look up and silently say, "Help, please." He is very vulnerable, sensitive, cunning and hurtful at the same time.

My little one began doing club football and in a couple of weeks, strings lessons. Our regimen of the past five years, dealing with only two boys' activities has been thrown out the window. We need to start getting organized again.

I am waiting in silence. In parallel, I am having my 40 days in the desert this Lent. Halfway through Lent and my fasting, I was forced to have a breast biopsy last week.

I am surprisingly, relatively calm, considering the anxiety and despondency that I triumphed over last year. I am deeply grateful for this grace of calmness and confidence.

Maybe also because it's autumn. I realize I love this season. I love it with its clear blue skies, the chill, or the rain it brings. This is how I feel: in between things. Things do grow, even when it's autumn. My plants have lusciously woken up again after the scorching heat of summer.

Ponder: It's not just sweet nothings

2011-03-21T18:39:00.006+11:00

I realize I've been blogging too far and few between when I saw how long ago my last photo folder was created in my computer.

It's been a bit hard, lately. We've hit a wall of clashing schedules for sport, music and what-have-yous, especially with my youngest one now going into football club sport.

I've also been wrestling daily. It's been a real struggle when I gave up sugar/sweets for Lent (anything that has sugar, like wine, except for a couple of fruit portions daily). I'm almost two weeks into this fast and it's been really tough. I found that for the past week I've been eating more to compensate for a gnawing craving for sweets. The last time I kind of gave up something was in high school, I think, and never this hard. But my mother will probably be quick to point out when, on my foray into being vegetarian/vegan in my university years, she forced me to eat meat during Lent.

I never realized how addicted I am to sugar. I knew it was the right thing to give up, when I've noticed I regularly spend on a cake/slice with a coffee after work enroute to school pick-up. And I do have a very sweet tooth so I already stuff my face with sweets before this almost daily ritual.

My youngest asked me a couple of hours ago while I was driving, "Mama, why are you giving up sugar for Lent?" I said, "Well, it's something I really really love the most but it's not important for me to eat. Giving it up makes me feel the suffering of many people such as...(we know someone who has recently encountered great personal/family tragedy) and the Japanese or people in war-torn areas. It makes me grateful for what I have and makes me share a bit in their pain, helping me feel just a bit of the horror and despair and grief they are going through. I lift up this pain in my prayer and makes me pray for them more earnestly."

I tread gently here. When one speaks of faith in Australia, one needs to be quite prudent because many people get offended by religion. Yet no matter what one believes or doesn't believe in, I hope these weeks of Lent will be a time of grace, gratitude, gentleness, peace, empathy and great insight for you.

(Photo of my eldest son making an easy dessert a couple of months ago using this recipe. He's one who needs to go on a sugar fast, this sweet mouthed monster!)

For another take on sugar, you've got to read Dominique Browning's post on sugar here.

Enthuse: Wagga Wagga colour study

2011-03-03T09:36:00.020+11:00

This post is a couple months late. We spent a week in Wagga for my older boys to attend summer strings camp. It was a very musical week--lunch and after-dinner concerts; the boys scootering around the widest expanse of area and running wild; talking to mostly (musician) parents and getting insider info on what it's really like in a career in music or as an intrumentalist.

We had a taste of what it was like in country New South Wales, although Wagga is an inland city centre. I'll post more on Wagga Wagga, in the context of "Frolic" next time--it deserves a post of its own. For now, here are some images--the spaces and colours that drenched this sun kissed place.

(this is called hairy panic grass and it piles up, being blown by the wind, all the way to the roof!)

(we stayed in a university/campus, in a student cottage, and had a dorm room each to ourselves!)

Ponder: Blog keeping

2011-03-02T17:32:00.006+11:00

I've been a bad blog keeper. It's not that I haven't got anything to say. Oh, I do. Thankfully, it's translated into real conversations between Mr. Nest and I and the boys. Ultimately, my rule is, I'll post when I want to. (180|360 wrote a better, wittier account of what happened to her when she stopped blogging for five weeks--then what she'll blog about once revitalized, which was great use of comic irony!)

Yes, I have been busy, not just with work, but settling into the first five weeks of school once more with the boys. We've had a really relaxed summer/Christmas/New Year holidays several months ago, and we really let ourselves unwind and unravel throughout those months. It's been an uphill battle to get back into the swim of things, I suppose.

We are also hosting new settlers to Australia, friends from the Philippines. They're a couple also with three sons, although just now it's the husband who's staying with us; his wife has gone back last weekend to tend to the sons for now, who are still overseas. Once the initial settling in phase is done, and some major decisions made, they will move forward. We know how hard it can be. We hope they will meet with the same blessings and the kindness of strangers, as we have for the past six years.

Offering some hospitality. Working and hammering away at the keyboard. In between, I've prioritized taking things easy--not breaking my back for anything. I've been knitting, dancing jazz (exercise), pondering, having coffees with others and myself. Moving upstream again.

It's not so bad isn't it, in lieu of blogging and virtual living.

an iced coffee from yesterday's semi heatwave in Sydney then down (almost 10 degrees) to a chilly Autumn day today

Enthuse: MUJI please

2011-01-20T14:54:00.011+11:00

My fave shop of all in Hong Kong was MUJI. I went to two Muji shops thrice. We bought their wooden toys for Christmas presents for the kids we knew back in Sydney. I fell in love with the spare details of the shop and swooned over the wooden shelves and panelled beams and walls! That's not yet even talking about the products.

I loved the textiles they use for their range of apparel. Well, I have talked about Japanese textile here and will repeatedly declare they use the best textiles in the world! Since I flew in with very little clothes (hoping to buy lots), I ended up buying only one item of clothing: the softest long sleeved cotton shirt in aubergine. I regretted not buying more; I penny pinched as usual. Mr. Nest bought the softest pair of jeans there, too.

(It was winter season in HK and I was wearing my Sydney summer tops while being met with stares from the locals who were in scarves, boots and wool coats. To be honest, it was akin to spring in Sydney, so it wasn't uncomfortably cold. One shopkeeper actually went up to me and asked with matching actions of shivering, "you not cold?")

I wish I could outfit my house with MUJI stuff, too. MUJI, how come you're in Manila, but not in Sydney? Kinokuniya is looking for a Japanese mate!

They also have an ongoing project with LEGO. Check them out online.

Frolic: Hong Kong

2011-01-20T13:58:00.015+11:00

We've actually just returned to Sydney. We stayed in Wagga Wagga for a week, and spent (almost) a day in Canberra on the way back home. Before I say anything about that, I have to blog about my Hong Kong holiday first.

I've thought a lot more about Hong Kong for years and years, before I actually went on holiday. Certainly I've given a lot of thought to the city and its inhabitants while I was there. I was stupefied about its general splendor (for lack of a better word) when you consider it's progress and history, the sheer might of its industry, the legacy of a colonial power, etc. However, mostly I've thought about it long before I actually traveled to see it.

For a very long time, I felt like I was the last remaining Filipino who hadn't been to HK. To the middle class in the Philippines, HK was a shopping, holiday destination, and I would hear a lot about it growing up as a teenager among wealthy middle class kids in a private school (I received this education through the charity of an aunt). While studying in university, everyone, it seems, had been there or regularly go to HK on weekend holidays.

On the other hand, for the Filipino masses in pursuit of jobs, HK (aside from the Middle East) was the first (and repeat) destination of a diaspora who left their own families, kept homes and raised the children of other people for a living. This movement to HK and other places made the word "remittance" an important addition to contemporary Filipino language, and the word "Filipino" a controversial dictionary entry synonymous to the word "maid."

Well, it turns out actually, as I grew older, I wasn't alone among my peers in not having been to HK. Yet, despite being to the US, Australia and Singapore, it seemed a bit frustrating not to have visited the region, to share in the anecdotes during cocktail parties, to join in affirmation or add my own opinion when talk turned to HK. So I've always felt I should--must--at least see it.

I got this chance when Mr. Nest and I had a mini-honeymoon in Hong Kong in early December 2010, when the stars aligned for me to follow him there on a business trip (the older boys' schoolyear ended just in time for me to join him, and an aunt and uncle took care of them).

Here's the best part: the trip happily coincided with my own parents' holiday (which they booked half a year ahead) to Macau. Thus, we were able to meet, for half a day, in HK. To top it off, Mr. Nest had kept something under wraps, springing a surprise on me, on the second day. He plotted for my best childhood friend (yes, we've known each other since we were 6 years old) who is based in Singapore, to fly in and stay overnight in HK!

Picture this: I was very annoyed to be kept waiting by Mr. Nest at the hotel lobby, who prohibited me from sightseeing until he could say goodbye. The minutes ticked by; I waited for him. He was now 15 minutes late. Then out of a hazy impatient mind, I saw someone familiar waving at me. I blinked. I was disoriented and frantically asked myself, "Wait, where am I?" "Why is (my friend) Corinne here?" And then it all clicked, and we shrieked and hugged and cried.

Corinne and I were able to spend theday together, staying out till very late at the Mongkok markets. The next day, we met with my parents. All four of us, hailing from the same country town, speaking our local dialect and catching up on the years. At dusk, Mr. Nest and I saw them off, as my parents took the ferry back to Macau while Corinne flew back to Singapore. By the weekend, Mr. Nest, was finally free from the shackles of work and totally in honeymoon mode!

HK was impressive especially its rail network, but I was honestly surfeit with the consumerism. I felt sickened to my stomach. You knew that if people stopped buying, everything would come to a grinding halt. And it saddened me deeply. It stopped me from buying too much, but for sensible walking and work shoes that would cost an arm and a leg in Sydney but unbelievably cheap in HK.

On the other hand, Mr. Nest got his custom tailored business suits, just in time to replace his (only!) ten year old one, which I've mended repeatedly through the years. Despite numerous trips and opportunities to do so, he refuses to shop for himself when I am not around. So this time, he went on a shopping spree and we loved Zara Men's for basic business wear. All these years, he's had a very spartan wardrobe and it was good to do this with him.

I was thankful to go around for 3 days by myself (and that other day with Corinne), going to non-touristy places --side streets in Mong Kok, and traversing the streets of Tsim Sha Tsui, aside from crossing over to HK island with Mr. Nest. By the fifth day, I was terribly homesick and wanted to go home to the boys.

In hindsight, it was unwise to wear only Birkenstocks because the pain in my feet and legs became unbearable at the end of the day after walking for 4 hours nonstop (before taking a break). It was sad I was able to buy too late the pair of Merrells and wear them only on my last day. That's what one gets for being too scrupulous for the sake of frugality. So if you are to go there, wear good walking shoes from day one. An iPhone is also a godsend, or any smart phone, because I honestly flew in unprepared, just thinking of going with the flow, so to speak. But having one was very handy for quick searches, especially for finding specific dining places on the spur of the moment.

The HK of my early imaginings (and stories from high school friends) are likely very different from the HK now. Gone are the dirt cheap markets for clothes and accessories (they're now in Shenzen in the mainland). If I go back in a couple of years, it's certainly going to be very different as well--there is never ending construction and the building of rail systems and malls, especially in Kowloon at the moment.

What stays with me are not the city sights, shops, the unbelievably thick crowds. What stays with me are not in these photos--but of finally seeing my parents and Corinne after two years (on our last holiday to the Philippines), being with Mr. Nest without any distractions, his thoughtfulness at organizing this reunion, his urging me to see and do more, yet offering the pace and a long stay that was not rushed (save for the mad crowds that surrounded us). To top it all off, he placed me on a business class for the flight back to Sydney--the icing on top of a truly leisurely holiday.

What's that common saying again (adapted from other quotes)? That at the end, it's not about the destination, but the journey....

(If you need a guide of what to see and how, leave a comment. I will try to make one in this blog.)

eating in one of those hole in the wall eateries at the side streets of Mongkok

Unbelievable crowds at Causeway Bay (well, everywhere!)

a really amazing shop of tailors in Central; the two sets of business suits took a week to make. they were always packed with people

Corinne in Mongkok on our way to the Ladies Night Market

This was home for a week. The Shangri La Hotel in Kowloon is amazing--big rooms, perfect location

A welcome surprise back at the hotel room after a day of walking

Amazing longest escalators in the world are in Langham Place, in Mongkok. The second one of these is in the upper floors and it's so high you can't see the end of it, but a light shining through. It was surreal, like those near-death experience illustrations!

my parents in black and yellow coats, taking in the bird's eye view of HK from the Peak

My parents were famished, coming off the ferry from Macau.We bought food from here and found that Anthony Bourdain, author of Food Confidential and of the travel show, No Reservations, ate here. If you're looking for very good, authentic Chinese noodles, go to the China Ferry Terminal, in Tsim Sha Tsui, and beside the arrivals area is the fastfood section, where you will find this counter.

people lining up for luxury brands along this strip in Harbour City (in Tsim Sha Tsui)

(Top most photo in the blog shows HK island across the harbour, taken from my hotel room in Kowloon.)

Enthuse: This single dad

2011-01-07T16:09:00.001+11:00

Oh my goodness... This simply made me happy today. (He's a single dad of two!)

He reminds me of the way Mr. Nest whistles while playing the guitar!

via Marvelous Kiddo, from Tralalere

Original video from here.

Ponder: you say goodbye, I say hello

2011-01-03T23:27:00.006+11:00

The year 2010 was full of extremes for me that I can easily choose to look at it one way. In brief, at the beginning of the year I experienced a depth of despair I never knew before, and wrestled with self doubts brought on by the prospect of working once again. These were enough for me to say, I hope that year will never happen again. Ever.

But I also experienced such deep grace and healing by the middle of the year; an affirmation of the way I want to be, going back to my core self, and the strength to live these truths. I had to start changing painfully in the way I thought, in the kinds of thoughts I allowed to take space in my head. I emerged out of it with a glorious feeling of liberation and a clear idea of how I should try to live. The journey isn't finished, but everything is infinitely better. To borrow a phrase, everything is (now) illuminated. Simply seeing things much clearly is already the gift.

That, and the journey of finding work, and working again, make me reluctant to write off 2010 and simply say, Good Riddance. If I could learn so much the way I did this year, then bring on more of what 2010 gave me! (Whoa. I feel a bit scared saying that just now, but I think I am up to anything.)

How was your New Year's celebration? We spent New Year's Day with some dear parent friends from our sons' school and it was such an intimate gathering of insightful, very personal stories and lovely conversation that I was truly thankful. One of the men asked this fellowship, "What were the things that happened in 2010 that made you thankful, that made you see God?" and that started the ball rolling for another three-hour conversation. How blessed to have friends like these!

Oh, and the best thing of all was that the boys this year stayed up and managed to catch even the midnight Harbour Bridge fireworks. It was way better than the previous year's fireworks display! We were all able to kiss and hug each other as the year turned over a new leaf. That was simply priceless.

I posted this quote on the work Facebook site I manage, and it's too good not to post here. (We also watched the DVD of the Jim Carrey animated movie of the same title just a couple of days ago and it makes me teary everytime.) :

"I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach." - Charles Dickens (from "A Christmas Carol")

Christmas greetings

2010-12-27T00:26:00.002+11:00

Here's wishing you holidays full of warmth and affection, instead of the stress, worries and the rushing about that have become the hallmark of this season. Kick back, lounge around, play and talk with your loved ones. May the gifts of peace, hope, encouragement and fellowship with old and new friends fill your days in 2011!

Sneak peek into my getaway!

2010-12-15T12:29:00.001+11:00

(Photos taken with the iPhone 4)

Ponder: 15 Family Years

2010-12-03T16:26:00.008+11:00

So there was a blog post left undone. Mr. Nest and I celebrated 15 years of marriage last week. We've known each other nearly 25 years.

Now that I work, I want to honor him by thanking him for great partnership and teamwork. He does the school runs in tandem with my own needs. He's now watched more school plays and performances than I have this year. He's fed, bathed, read bedtime stories, washed, hung laundry, cleaned, sorted, ironed clothes more than he's ever done in the past 14 years.

I never doubted that he wouldn't leave me all by myself to sort it all out when I went back to work.

Last night, we went to his office Christmas party. I put him up to it, after we weren't supposed to go, for the benefit of our sons participating in school carols on the same evening. Then the carols were cancelled on account of the heavy rains. Because it was a spur of the moment decision with only half a day's notice, we spent an arm and a leg on babysitting. He knows I love the entire rigmarole--dressing up, doing the cocktails bit (Hey! We rarely get to do this!) and I just love talking up people. So off we went, even if he loathes the taste of alcohol and doesn't drink.

On the other hand, I was pathetic. I felt like a teenager--you know that feeling when you're so tired from all the running around with work and home and kids, and you think getting smashed and partying will make you energized and feel better? well, before 9 pm, I was already drunk--with only several drinks under my belt. I hit that twilight spot between sleepy and feeling I could throw up any moment. I now learned that cocktails (mixed drinks) don't sit well with me, especially when I don't have enough food in the tummy.

I am thankful that he can just laugh about it and that I can let him laugh at me. I love that he adores me all the time, and makes sure I know it.

I know he's just hanging on for a mini-moon (mini honeymoon) with me that's happening very, very soon! It's all under wraps and you'll know about it when I blog it!

(Photo from Blu Horizon Bar, Shangri La Hotel, Sydney at The Rocks, a small snapshot of the 360 degree views mainly overlooking Darlingharbour, Barangaroo, and Pyrmont. The framing and breezily taken photo is a portent of a drunken mind, half an hour later!)

Enthuse: School's out!

2010-12-03T15:14:00.002+11:00

Today, there are four Year 5 (aged about 11 years) boys at home. Half a day of playing together and celebrating the end of the schoolyear. They've just walked out the door to go walk to the park.

Yesterday afternoon, it hit me that my older boys would end the schoolyear today. Managed to help make them a personalized Christmas card on the computer and as Mr. Nest and I rushed out last night for a party (see next post!), they printed it out and prepared it themselves with candy canes for each classmate.

I ran around in the morning. I've been really disorganized. What would have taken me weeks to prepare for presents for the teachers, I did it in a couple of hours with a personalized, custom-made card, to boot. I am saving up the presents for my junior (primary) school boy's teachers for next year, when he leaves the campus for middle school another street away.

For teachers' hard work and often thankless job, Mr. Nest and I discussed a bookstore gift voucher this year to show my high school son's appreciation. If the Year and class mums organized a collection, it would have been easier, but I guess, it's harder to do in high school, what with double the number of teachers.

My youngest's case was easy when he was in preschool because there would only be a handful of people to give presents to (and that included admin staff!). As a Kindy class mum, I recently organized a collection to be able to give a bigger, more useful present than just "stuff." Most likely it will be a gift voucher with a huge amount, enough for the teacher's needs who, according to the grapevine, is expecting a child (but we still can't tell and daren't ask!).

If you're a parent, do you whip up a Christmas present for your child's teachers? It is a bit tricky to navigate, with the cost/value vis-a-vis the idea of what they need, what would truly please them, or the idea of simply what you want to give.

(Photo above is our most important purchase in December--a new Kikki K large-sized family calendar, which helps us organize all our activities for the year. We've been using it for four years now, since we discovered it; it's proven itself a basic need in our household! Click on the link I supplied to view more photos and details.)

Frolic: City hops

2010-12-01T16:58:00.004+11:00

So many things going on! They're mainly a lot of musical performances by my son (choral and standardized music examinations), in which he's been doing very well. My older boys end the schoolyear this Friday, and I am bringing home 3 other boys, while my oldest goes to hang and veg out with other teens in somebody else's house. Ah, teen-dom! Meanwhile, this is my second day of a Kindy playdatefest for my youngest; he's been bringing home a friend for several hours of play after school.

It's like gasping for breath after work and then having to dive in and hold it again.

Last Friday, my son sang as part of a choir (yes, a paid gig for him) for a big corporate event at the Town Hall. I had a couple of hours to browse, take in the city's Christmas sights, QVB window displays and Christmas decor. I caught a big market before they all packed up around Town Hall. I bought these lovely Turkish ceramic pot stands. They replace my fiber ones that have been burnt in places from hot pots served straight to table from the oven (which is what I do when there are no guests!).

And remember my osteopath who was the reason for me to frequent Balgowlah and Manly? Well, he moved to the city, so I've been going there more often. His office is a hop away from the Pitt Street shopping strip so I've been checking out the fuss over at the new Westfield City and Mid City malls. And I never miss a visit to York St. knitting supplies stores (Morris and Sons and Lincraft).

(looks a bit like a sinister alleyway, but this is the entry to Morris and Sons from George St.)

Frolic: shops along the way to Manly

2010-11-11T08:45:00.005+11:00

For the past several months, I've often hung out in North Balgowlah because of my regular osteopathic sessions. Previously, I wasn't too familiar with the area/suburbs leading to Manly. Nowadays, however, I can weave through the suburbs' hilly streets and there are two places I never fail to visit for a browse: Pulp Creative Paper and Sydney Road Antiques, just a few doors away from Pulp.

At another time, I dropped in for a look at Honeybee Homewares, which has long attracted my interest after seeing its wares featured frequently in home design magazines. Alas, it has only upped my retail frustration.

I fell in love with its linen range (anything! beddings, tableware, throw pillows) but it's way beyond my budget. They are all luscious linen textiles imported from France, and I especially loved the heather gray ones as pillowcases. The toys, however, are of a bygone age--wooden yoyos, paper dress up kits and very affordable and unique. I've got great ideas for Christmas presents for the kids I know in my extended family who barely lift their eyes from a gaming console or giant plastic playsets.

And of course, Neck of the Woods is at the top of my heap of the shops in Manly, which I've earlier blogged about here. I love their one-of-a-kind handmade offerings, thrifted and upcycled vintage finds, and their range of the cult-hit Saltwater sandals.

There are many cafes along this route worth visiting, especially along Pittwater Road. Do drive by, stop the car and jump out for a browse when something catches your attention from the window display--you won't regret it.

(iPhone photos all from Neck of the Woods)

Thrift: knitting patterns and needles

2010-11-11T08:30:00.004+11:00

I'm very nearly done with the scarf below.

Then, the middle boy scrapped the vest request. Earlier in the week, I signed up at Ravelry and when I browsed at the site, it was simply heavenly. So many lovely knitting projects to do!

I also went thrifting today when I had half an hour to spare between work and Kindy pick-up. I found these pattern booklets. And I am definitely going to knit that cute pink top from Little Money Knits (and some).

There's a funy story actually. When the old lady at the op shop saw these booklets as I paid for them-- almost 3 dollars in total-- she quickly looked at me and whispered, "just give me a dollar for these..." Another old lady, about 70 years old, from the same shop had earlier chatted me up about knitting and gave me some pointers, when I bought some knitting needles a couple of months ago. It turned out she worked for David Jones for 20 years as a knitter! They would get orders for custom made knit jumpers or vests and she would knit them, day in, day out.

Isn't life grand? You get the kindness, respect and wisdom of nannas, with a hobby or craft.

We seemed to have skipped spring

2010-11-11T08:20:00.011+11:00

I haven't talked about it, but it's been strange weather in Sydney. Up until last week, it was basically an Aussie winter, still around 17 degrees with a little bit more humidity. People were freezing as it turned colder especially last week, because, as I did during the last school holidays, most had packed up winter stuff in storage.

Today it was 30 degrees but felt like 35 degrees. But then skies turned really black and it's now pouring like buckets, similar to days of endless rain last week. It finally gave us a hailstorm and thunderstorms on Monday. Yet today's weather reminds me of the tropics where I came from. Whether a bit chilly or humid, there would be rain every other day or so. La Nina, it seems, is coming to Australia.

We're actually having an unbelievably busy November, the busiest month I've ever had in recent memory. Dinners, cocktails, fundraisers. Just last night I went to a pub night I organized for my co-parents from our Kindy class. Last weekend, we had a back-to-back school event. Our next two weekends are really full. Well, it actually kind of began in end of October and hasn't slowed down since.

But while the weather has spoiled outdoor activities, we've enjoyed it and the boys have kept active: Fencing training, long bookstore browsing, and cuddling in bed.

Adorn: what boys are made of

2010-11-04T21:56:00.006+11:00

Recently, my eldest son was invited to a mate's birthday party. The only thing I was told about the present: he only wants an iTunes gift card/voucher. Easily sorted.

Well, I ended up on a trip to see the most adorable shop in Manly, after being encouraged by Anna who set the blogosphere afire with her Saltwater sandals posts. So off I went to visit Neck of the Woods and I couldn't just help it.

This little thing spoke to me: "Take me! A boy needs something carved, or whittled!" (Aside from reading Hemingway). But a large part of me said, "Hell, yeah! This is what a present for a boy should be! (And at the fact that it's handmade, carved by an Aussie craftsman out of local wood, and I melt at anything hand crafted.)

I know I totally ignored the request for his preferred present, but I think anyone would love getting this for a present, no? And at about $15, how could I resist?

(A separate "Frolic" post on my almost weekly jaunts to Balgowlah and Manly these past several months featuring the shops next time!)

Enthuse: The cricket

2010-11-04T21:28:00.007+11:00

A bit of a confession (ah yes, another one of those). And, as the Aussies say, a gobsmacking revelation.

Last night, for the first time since our move to Australia nearly 6 years ago, I actually watched the cricket on tv. It was that exciting (could be a bit of an oxymoron there for a lot of people)--the one between Sri Lanka and Australia.

I mean, I still don't understand cricket. I've seen enough from these four years of my boys' Saturday cricket matches (during the summer sport season or half of the year). Enough for me to figure out a score of four or two, to know a "hat trick," or to cheer on, "Run!" or yell out "Great batting!"

Last night, I just had to watch the last half of it. At the end, I was so overcome by the Sri Lankan victory, I couldn't sleep right away. I could already see what was coming in today's sport editorial. Ouch.

I can't tell Hussey from Clarke. But there are two cricketers I definitely know: Malinga and Andrews of Sri Lanka. And you've got to love the Sri Lankans cheering from the sidelines. It was infectious!

Mr. Nest, half asleep, laughed when I told him about it as I tumbled into bed last night. Nearly Aussie as.

(Photo by Robert Cianflone via from ABC Sport News)

Ponder: finding your truth (part 2)

2010-11-02T18:31:00.017+11:00

Doubt and Panic

Sorry for this very late installment to this post. I’ve been very busy, and prioritized mindfulness, gratefulness and positivity. As a result, I find myself living my fullest life—in the mundane, in the everyday. The blog posts in between these rather melodramatic ones hopefully show you my focus on the present, the growing capacity to enjoy--very slowly, with great relish-- the intricacies of my life with gratefulness and wonder.

This draft (part two) has been sitting in my computer for more than half a year now. This was actually written straight together with that first post, but I kind of lost steam. It was a free, go-with-the-flow kind of piece, but sounded tired at the end.

I wanted to refine this, or add details, which is why I didn’t post it right away.  But I have to be honest: I don’t have much time now; I’m often busy since going back to work. So I’m posting this now or else, I never will. And then that first post will kind of seem incongruously melodramatic. Thus as much as I wanted this to be more succinct (and yet communicate the fullness of thought and feeling of that period), this is the best I can do.

As I read this, I notice that the power of memory over what I went through has significantly weakened. I can read this and edit it with greater detachment and less inclination to add to it. It’s like, “God. I. Am. So. Over. This.” I have moved on (which is good) and the details somewhat escape me. I have yet to write the last/third part (which is chock full of reading and resources) and share how I overcame this struggle: ending up with greater compassion for others and myself and found the resolve to live from my truth.

And let me give you a clue: I did it not by myself alone and, fortunately, did not have to take medication.

Tina’s death and the revelations about her life somehow forced me to question mine: Am I living the kind of life I truly want to lead? If I die, and people ask, “What kind of a person was she? What did she do?” Was there a lot of posturing? Or was there genuineness, unguarded joy and relating with others? What were the answers to these questions? For instance, is the voice I speak with, such as in this blog, is it the real me? Do I let others see me through a facade or myth I create for myself ? Am I true to my dreams, to my provenance? Am I trying too hard living a life daily that actually seems far from the core of my being? Am I cultivating friendships and gaining fruitful relationships simply by being myself?

Another large part to this period was also obsessing about what would happen to my own sons, if I were to die quite suddenly, being that we were by ourselves. Sure, Mr. Nest had relatives whom we would see once a month, at best, and lived about 30 kms away. I worried myself sick about their future, if I were gone suddenly, or Mr. Nest. What would happen to them? Or, how would I cope? How could I provide for them?

You can imagine that anyone would already drive themselves crazy with worry, simply brooding on many other questions of this sort. At this point, I have this to say: the mind chooses to believe what it wants to believe. If you allow it, your mind can be your own worst enemy.

Meanwhile, I had muscular spasms that gave me occasional pain in my left side—pain in my chest, a dull ache and even numbness in my arm and hand. These were a result of all the heavy lifting, from my body’s own wear and tear that had bothered me even before Tina’s death. I had already sought the GP’s help about this earlier, and had gone through several physiotherapy rounds and though it was all sorted out, it wasn’t quite sorted out, in my mind.  (Today, the discomfort has been considerably improved [and even disappearing!] through the help of an impressive osteopath; physiotherapy, it turned out, had worsened it.)

Several months after Tina died, little things began to happen, which I could not understand, or perhaps, I refused to recognize. I would wake up at night to the sound of my loud, palpitating heart and feel my palms dripping wet. I would be out in a train station, among a swarm of a thick crowd of people, and the world would spin a bit. I broke out in sweat and felt faint. I was convinced I had hypertension, or a tumor in the brain. I began obsessing about every little symptom I had, fearful that I could drop dead any moment, and worried about my sons’ welfare.

When my left arm ached (a result of muscular strain and pressure), my thought was that I had some heart problem. I would build up to hyperventilation and become super sensitive to the rest of my body’s sensations—a twinge of head ache, palpitations, etc. These would somehow be amplified—rather, I chose to read it as a series of symptoms that would be fatal.

I don’t need to describe it all, but slowly, these sensations became more intense. And each time it happened, I would mostly be driving (because that’s what I would often do), or doing a specific activity, and the response would be reinforced. Very Pavlovian in the beginning, but a year after, my body would automatically match these daily activities to these "learned" responses: when I had to do these things, it would lead to a full blown panic attack.

I don’t want to go on in detail about how things became worse or how it all went downhill. Rather, I allowed my mind to go to pot about this, I couldn't cope with the fear of mortality, and I was so emotionally fraught, my mind fraying, lost in a cycle of reinforcement. My mind and thinking narrowed. I would cry easily and become frantic inside. I became convinced I would die soon.

Some who are reading this will probably think, "What?!" But if you are familiar with an anxiety attack, you would know what I am talking about. I sunk into a deep, dark despondency. I forced myself to wake up, cook, do chores, yet not letting on, except to Mr. Nest. I would sometimes ring him up and beg him to come home, or let him pick up the boys, because at the thought of doing these activities, the panic would start, and I would feel asphyxiated, and dizzy, and I was absolutely certain I would drop dead any moment.

At its worst point, nearing the end of last year, I was often terrified of driving. I would change the CD in my car, because a particular song, playing during the onset of an attack, would spark one as soon as I heard it. I reached the lowest point when the anxiety symptoms would mutate. Instead of simply being scared when driving, it developed into claustrophobia. And I would be frantic inside while driving in a tunnel. My sisters would probably marvel that I didn’t let on that something was amiss, while I would drive them about town. It was a daily struggle.

At my lowest point, at the end of last year, it was a very dark place. I wished that I would die, just to end the torment. I began writing drafts of letters to my sons, as I lay curled up in the dark, in bed, at dinnertime. These were times when Mr. Nest would order in some food, because, as he told the boys, “Mama’s not feeling well.” When I would go to sleep, in the midst of a panic attack, I felt convinced I wouldn’t wake up in the morning.

You know, it seems somehow funny, if not very sad. When I write this now, almost a year after, I can barely remember it as vividly nor can believe I had sunk that deep into despair and despondency. This is not to trivialize it, nor to deny it, but you may ask, how on earth did I overcome it?

That will be in the last installment.

Postscript: Mind you, I still get the palpitations--less frequently. I get frantic. But I have learned to see them in perspective, that I have valid triggers, and I understand why it happens. That whole episode clearly was when the whole flight-and-fright cycle went awry. My triggers are too much wine and coffee. Getting enough sleep is important to stop it from happening. I limit myself to a few coffees a week. And opt for decaf if I drink it daily. Too much wine also sends me into overdrive, especially white wine, and the palpitations last for days after. With wine wine, which Aussies seem to serve more often, I feel my face heat up and I become short of breath.  I am also convinced my hormones had something to do with it. I am currently wrestling with a changing body; I can feel it in my bones, my body speaks to me as I age. Ultimately, all these are signs that my body responds. Like an engine, it is working as it should, ageing as it should. I am fully, thankfully, alive.

Thrift: orphan wool

2010-10-30T15:47:00.004+11:00

If you're after yarn for knitting (I'm partial to wool), you can find a few balls of yarn at op shops, especially Vinnies. I've only bought them at full retail price twice so far (total of four balls and now used up), since I've taken it up 4 months ago. They can cost only a fourth in op shops than what you normally pay for.

Enjoy rummaging around. Even if they're orphan skeins, you can always make something out of them, or squares, for a blanket.

Craft: knitter nutter

2010-10-29T17:07:00.004+11:00

Seriously, I need to move beyond knitting scarves. I'm on my second one, by request. And I've done a small teddy sweater, so that's not too bad.

Another request that has come through is for a vest, from the middle hatchling. I think he'll wear it as a costume whenever they are wielding swords and sticks while at play, running around the house (or park) channeling Jake Gyllenhall in "Prince of Persia," engaging in a script and storyline I am not privy to.

I don't have much time nowadays--what with running the house, working three days a week and doing volunteer work in school and a charity on my one other "free" day. I wish I had more time for knitting, but I'm happy with my progress. It's been slow and steady, but I'm not running out of steam. I'm loving it more; yearning to do more of it, and may I say, getting better. I think this hobby is for keeps.

Enthuse: My Mister Rocks!

2010-10-27T21:19:00.006+11:00

My parents have been puzzled why I haven't posted anything on my other (private) blog's albums about Mr. Nest's birthday in mid October. It's been hectic.

Well, today, I've just got to do that and sing his praises. He fixed my network problems at work that had been very fiddly since last week, diagnosed the problem and fixed the connection over the past two days (by devoting several hours a day at my office). What's more, he solved a wireless network conundrum that has plagued the office for a long time. He's not into technical support work, but he's still very much the computer geek.

I love how he loves what I love, choosing me and my concerns; loving and serving the people I love. He does the work to make sure my work easy. Above all, he helps. People think he's a businessman, the way he is often around and available in the boys' school to help. Nope, he's employed (not self-employed), but he gives of himself to others generously so that keeps him very busy.

For his birthday, we drove up to Vicary's Winery near Luddenham to the Train Shed. I was secretly thinking it probably wasn't a good idea, with an off and on surly preteen, but this trip was obviously something Mr. Nest had been relishing. The little one at first refused to go on a train, scoffing that it was all "for babies." Well, to my surprise, we enjoyed the day! It was the Train Shed's birthday (or was it Thomas the Tank Engine?) on the day.

It was great to be along rolling acres, in wide open spaces in under two hours from the city. And the drive was in itself already enjoyable; we had perfect road trip music and bought fruits and veg so cheap along the farms that dotted the roads. We bought a box of mangoes for more than half price less than the shops or markets!

This was a sentimental trip (pardon the pun) because this was something we first did a very long time ago, when we visited Sydney with our eldest in tow who was about 18 months old then. And when we moved here five years ago, we came for another visit with all the boys this time, along with Mr. Nest's cousin and her family.

Mr. Nest remembers many things fondly, things I can't even remember, about the story of Us. I love this about him--his vividness of memory, and the way he can cherish someone, something, a thought, a memory.

There are many things I learn from him; above all, it is Patience. Wait. Wait. And wait some more. It pays off Big Time.

Much later, there was ice cream cake at home. Still during that weekend, we sampled pizza from an award- earning pizzeria in Northbridge. And yes, the pizza was really good. It has beaten our old, sturdy favorites!

It's been crazy

2010-10-27T10:21:00.001+11:00

Schedule-wise.

Posting stuff from a lunch for a couple of friends almost two weeks ago. Just because. It suddenly seems calming.

Cook: school (and work) lunches

2010-10-21T23:23:00.004+11:00

It's been a while.

Real life has taken over. More on that later.We've ran out of internet download for a week, and been hit by another early spring virus. Mr. Nest and I were disgustingly, wretchedly sick. I ended up after seeing my GP yesterday with an antibiotic because it turned out to be a sinus infection and a different viral complication for each ear.

But I've been making sure that we get good, healthy, whole-food (or made from fresh) meals. (And being on top of the the ever growing laundry pile, what with regular school uniforms, fencing competition, cadet camo what have yous.)

Lunch has to be thought out and prepared well, most of the time (I cut myself some slack once a couple of weeks by making egg sandwiches, which is the only sandwich they like). Dinner these days have to be lighter for Mr. Nest and I. And the boys should also should get in the habit of not having very rich dinners, which is often the case when you compensate for a schedule where everyone is out on a weekday.

By the way, you can google recipes for these samplings, as with most things these days. Eventually, you'll know them by heart and vary the ingredients as much as you like. These supplement the usual Asian lunch fare I serve (like home made sushi rolls, fried rice, stir fry meat and veg).

pasta leftovers (spinach)

home made "sausage" rolls

baked argentinean empanadas, with filling cooked beforehand and frozen (the males in the house don't like olives, so these don't have them). i used to make these in puff pastry which would be limp by lunchtime; shortcrust pastry seems to retain the crunch, even if baked.

these are the boys' fave veg dish--spinach pastry--here wrapped in puff pastry and baked, not fried. I mix them with ricotta, or egg, or those frozen veg mixes, chorizo or ham, to vary it a bit.

organic chicken wings/drumettes, here in honey soy, with rice and a side of veg for some of us

Frolic: around Argyle Street, The Rocks

2010-10-05T00:23:00.001+11:00

I've Been Spring Clean'd!

2010-10-04T22:01:00.008+11:00

It's our first ever experience of having the Mama work while school holidays are on. Tomorrow, Mr. Nest will be on his second week of spring/school holidays being Mr. Mama. He stays and works at home, taking care of the boys while I work three days a week.

He has almost singlehandedly spearheaded (oh yes, we must use work jargon now!) spring cleaning. Every nook and cranny of the bedrooms (second floor) have been cleaned. Rooms reorganized, junk/clutter now given away or thrown out. He turned up at my office to help me move office furniture (to make my office workstation face the entry/door, instead of my back to it) and rewired everything in the process.

I'm already tired, just thinking of what he's taken on so far, since I began working. Thank you to the most loving, generous husband I know, who makes it his mission to make everything easier for me. It's his birthday when the school holidays end. He should be in for a treat! Any ideas?

(Photo of knitting left forlorn is not relevant to this post, but I just wanted to include it.)

Frolic: Family Funday Sunday

2010-10-04T21:34:00.004+11:00

We're going to make the most of this offer. Every Sunday, a family can go on a "Daytripper" ticket in Sydney(unlimited train, bus and ferry rides all day) for $2.50 per person. Compare that to a regular Sydney Daytripper ticket at about $15 per person! Yes, we'll have more Sundays like this, please!

On this particular outing, to celebrate the start of spring, we did a trip to Manly. Ferry and bus rides, fish and chips, and Ben and Jerry's ice cream--best of all!

Ponder: gifted with kindness

2010-09-24T07:54:00.004+10:00

Last week, my little one had a friend go home with us after school for several hours of play. They live a couple of blocks away from us. When his mum came to pick him up, she brought me herbs from her garden. It was a very loving gesture, I found, and I allowed myself to bask in this gift. Yes, grace--truly unexpected but the generosity of it blew me away. How simple it is to make others feel blissfully appreciated.

They were immediately set to use--the sweet lavender helping me relax at night, a quick dinner of chorizo and parsley (packed to the brim) omelet, and another night's dinner of roasted chicken with rosemary and vine-ripened grape tomatoes.

Ponder: quiet and order

2010-09-13T16:59:00.004+10:00

“We need quiet time to examine our lives openly and honestly. . . spending quiet time alone gives your mind an opportunity to renew itself and create order.” -Susan L. Taylor

Tomorrow is my first day at work. I'm excited, yet not without a little trepidation. Since the year started, I've been quite lucky--learning a new skill (knitting), dancing (jazz/hiphop), saying "no" to things or people. I've given my mind and consent willingly to any request for help from people or avoided merely drifting into situations I've regretted after. To cut to the chase, I'm a very different person inside from the past 4-5 years.

I hope I can find the grace and inner strength to remain organized so I can still have times like these. My bed has been my favorite space--where I knit, nap, read, and shut off the boys' bickering when it wears me down, their boisterous play that can involve shouting at each other and slamming doors; simply taking refuge from whatever each day brings.

(A stolen photo taken by the little one on the Iphone)

Cook: bake a cake!

2010-09-13T16:28:00.011+10:00

Thankfully, for the First Communion mass (see the previous post), I didn't have to bring a plate. But I baked a lot last week for the fundraiser on Saturday. My sons' school has a cake stall and the proceeds of all the sales for the day goes to the work of the Jesuit Mission. They've done great work in the past weeks raising money for helping the millions of people affected by the devastating floods in Pakistan.

We've also been having banana bread (below) to pack for recess the past couple of weeks; it's a break from fresh fruits. The best recipe involves sour cream, of course.

I was too lazy to frost the chocolate cakes below (the baking ended at nearly midnight). This is my go-to cake -- moist, awesome, chocolatey but not too sweet, yet quick and easy. I use Dutch process chocolate, like van Houten instead of Hersheys (click here for the recipe). You can do this as cupcakes as well, perfect for those school bring-a-plate gigs. (This is my boys' birthday cake recipe choice. Nothing like chocolate cake for a boys' party!) This time, I made a mocha glaze instead (recipe here).

Go ahead, zoom in on the photos.

carnival weekend

2010-09-13T10:12:00.005+10:00

I haven't started work yet. That's tomorrow!

I've just been running around, after nearly two weeks of staying at home and taking it easy. I've met friends for coffees and lunch, started a new knitting project, topped up my grocery shop, helped big time in the office of this charity where I do volunteer work, because they had a major fundraiser coming up.

That fundraiser was held last weekend. This time, I was a spectator/participant, instead of working at some stall, like in the past. We watched the magic show, ate ice cream, thrifted at their awesome bric-a-brac stalls for containers for my Christmas baked goodies and home made chicken liver pate.

Then on Sunday, my middle boy was in the school choir, singing in a mass for First Communicants. It was a killer, having to find parking in Kirribilli--what with the Art and Design Markets, the Open Day at Admiralty House and Kirribilli House,and this school event attended by at least 60 families (with their respective grandparents and relatives).

We ended up parking at Luna Park, and since we were going to be axed with an expensive two hour parking rate anyway, we had a fun-house lunch--the junk you typically eat at the circus. While eating, we watched people screaming their heads off at the rides, and talked about our plan of going to the Gold Coast when the boys can ride most of those terrifying rollercoasters. I was quite proud of my little one, who after begging to go on rides, quieted down and didn't bring it up, not a peep nor a tantrum, when we told him, "Not today, another time."

The lunch was as good as spending a day in the amusement park. (Not so good photos taken on the Iphone)

Ponder: square one

2010-09-01T10:37:00.010+10:00

I have to share this, though: I got the job! I felt that I aced the interview last week, despite turning up sick. It's an admin and coordinator job, that will require only two full days' work for now, and increase after several months. This is something I need in my life right now, juggling three boys (er, four with Mr. Nest!) and a household.

I realize that for those who didn't even shortlist me for an interview in previous applications, they were stymied by my CV, which had "over qualified" written all over it. This was one thing that baffled the interviewers and I am glad they gave me a chance and ask me in person why I want a simple or "easy" job.

I've long accepted that I cannot (rather, should not) get into work that will require me to bring it home, analyze a lot of information and then generate extensive written work. I did a similar volunteer job that lasted a little more than a year--editing (make that major rewriting) and layouting a magazine, half of its entire content in full colour. That stressed me out.

My boys remain the priority-- supporting them as they go off, slowly learning to fly short distances away from the Nest, fulfilling their own potential, pursuing what they love and honing their skills. My eldest hatchling for instance, plays for two orchestras and sings for two choirs in school, and has bloomed in the past two years in academics and state-level fencing. Just imagine the school runs Mr. Nest and I do, not to mention having to turn up in weekend sports.

I am excited, to see what life will bring me next after the contract ends in a year. Perhaps this will even jog my brain to work on other things, writing related. I am thinking of working on fiction and poetry on the side, being urged by my mother, because of my writing voice. I've always felt an unease in the kind of writing I was doing in the past--something akin to policy analysis. Well, it will be off to an adventure, then!

For the meantime, while I am recuperating, I'm making use of extra yarn from previous projects. I'm going to knit squares using more complicated stitches to make a patchwork square wool blanket.

Craft: tiny teddy bear jumper

2010-09-01T10:23:00.008+10:00

I've been sick and still recovering from a nasty flu, which has caught everyone by surprise too late in winter. It's been doing the rounds everywhere in Sydney, and elsewhere in Australia. I felt quite lucky. It turns out, this particular one kicks you around for two weeks. And I know two people who have been through it for that length of time. You feel like it's the worst flu you've ever had in your life. I was relieved to hear this echoed by those who fell prey to this particular virus.

However, this tiny teddy here, named Pax, got an aran wool jumper just in time! So he's quite hale and cosy, nothing to worry about. I managed to finish the jumper while being kicked out and about by the virus. What else to do when in bed, with your nose and eyes disgustingly clogged up, and the world spins when you get up?

I actually started with a different pattern, which explains the stripey thing I was knitting in previous posts. (That has now become a small stripey blanket for Pax). It didn't work, because it was adapted from an entire pattern to make a doll (with a sweater). So I had another teddy bear jumper pattern, which was meant for a 12 inch tall teddy bear, and this little guy is 7 inches tall. Although I modified the pattern, Pax still ended up with sleeves that were too long (because he really has tiny arms), and are pushed back here in the photo. But I still wanted to keep the length, for other slightly bigger teddies to be able to wear the same jumper.

I am learning a lot, not just about knitting, but about life and frustration as I knit. It's actually made me less prone to frustration.

Ponder: on a bus

2010-08-24T14:13:00.006+10:00

Last night, Mr. Nest and I were horrified as we watched the bus hostage drama in Manila unravel and end, shown live on the ABC's 24 hour news channel. Today, I think of the hostages, the hijacker, their families and say a prayer.

I have to be honest that we laughed a bit at the fact that bystanders swarmed and descended upon the scene, as soon as the danger was perceived to be over, to the astonishment of the news anchor and reporter/commentator. I'm not being defensive when I say that you kind of have to understand the Filipino psyche to understand our frame of mind. As Mr. Nest would say, "there's no such thing as a crime scene in the Philippines." Or, it's not off-limits to the common man, for investigation's sake. However, this is something to think about especially in how the situation was handled by the police--the length of time it took to end the stand-off, the dynamics of hostage negotiation and sense of control surrounding the situation, and how it all ended so grisly.

It was grim and sobering and truly tragic. This is also the second incident involving a bus hijacking in the Philippines in several years. It is painful to bring this tragedy upon the Hongkong tourists and visitors, and Filipinos are hurting deeply. It is a deep wound, as the country aims to start anew, bouyed by the promise of a new presidency and a new vision.

Now, this is another bus video. I smiled, then I wept. How can we be more pure of heart? How can we make ourselves heard in a bus? How can we truly listen?

(Thank you, ...i love love.)

Ponder: offering a nest

2010-08-24T13:35:00.013+10:00

I promise. I'll get around to the next installment to this post. I've got so much to do! In the background there's knitting, a job interview, and some minor editing tasks for a friend.

My in-laws left on the weekend. My mother-in-law was quick-footed to tidy up after us. Now, crumbs, heaps of clothing abound; a teetering pile on the kitchen sink is presently growing and defying gravity .

It's wonderful to have family over and I felt really affirmed and heard. Both my in-laws took the time to linger after meals, talk and listen over coffee and tea as I rambled on.

It's now just us five once again. And there is a comforting, easy rhythm; the house seems like a crumpled, old, musky smelling shirt that you want to bury your head into.

I give thanks for all the people (whether family or friend) who have welcomed us as houseguests. The effort is pure generosity, tolerance and grace.

Frolic: pub nights

2010-08-20T09:37:00.003+10:00

Since August began, I've had three pub nights: two with Mr. Nest (while my in-laws are here) and one I've organized for the Kindy mums in my class (er...yes, I'm a coordinator for the little one's Kindy class or the one people call the "class mum"). And so with the big wedding of Mr. Nest's cousin last weekend, it's been an intoxicating month.

To my surprise, although Mr. Nest doesn't drink any alcohol (he hates the taste; he's very much a Coca Cola man), he opens up more when we have a date in the pub, which is a fairly recent destination in all these dating years. I told him that perhaps it's being with other people, no kids around. You kind of feel young, hip, happening and single-ish, but much, much wiser.

Being in a pub for a married couple is like one of those noisy cocktail parties, but you only talk with the person you're with (who is really the only person you want to talk to). We've been to countless school/parent cocktails that go on for hours and the drinks keep coming, but sometimes you get accosted by someone you don't really want to talk to, for much longer than you anticipated, or you have to do the obligatory getting-to-know-other-parents shuffle.

A really quiet, relaxing place is Nineteenthirtysix at the Oaks in Neutral Bay on its down days, like early in the week. But I've always liked The Firehouse in North Sydney. The food is tasty and good value for money, unlike The Oaks where it is quite steep. I've noticed though, Mr. Nest and I seem to be the only ones who eat a plate full of food each in a pub.

Now this isn't really a pub, but if you're looking for a truly enjoyable experience, with its own extensive wine selection, do not miss Delicado Foods, a Spanish restaurant, providore and bar, at McMahon's Point. We go there for lunch dates, churros with the boys, and the wine and coffee is incredible. This has become our fave date place, hands down.

(Photos from The Oaks and the Firehouse)

from winter to spring now

2010-08-20T08:31:00.002+10:00

First two photos at Balmoral beach; last photo is my view when I wake up in the morning. Dazzling sunlight is here again! (Photos using the TiltShiftGen app for the Iphone.)

Frolic: scenes from a wedding weekend

2010-08-20T08:25:00.007+10:00

This was last weekend: slow, langorous paella cooking for more than 20 people. I went with buntings instead of the origami cranes/birds. It was light, bright, easy food and dessert. I didn't even serve alcohol, as we held out for the next day's wedding.

Then a really bad headache ensued (hormonal, pre menstrual) in between these festivities that I had to sleep it off for the rest of the afternoon. Then the whirl and haze of a wedding. By the end of it, it was all a blur. But I loved the dancing. And I seemed to be the only one tearing up the dance floor. I am not one to waste a perfectly good party that took months to prepare!

Enthuse: stoked!

2010-08-10T16:05:00.005+10:00

I know I'm way too old for this kind of language, but I'm so stoked!*

I checked out my blog stats recently and found out my blog has been featured at Blogger Showcase (the description says "featuring the best blogger powered blogs"). To see the specific page, click here.

I've only got several followers who are actually not friends nor family but they like the blog enough to follow my posts. So, whoever you are, thank you for reading me and for submitting/recommending this blog to the Showcase.

*to be "stoked" is to be completely and intensely enthusiastic, exhilirated, or excited about something. those who are stoked all of the time know this; being stoked is the epitome of all being. when one is stoked, there is no limit to what one can do. also, "stoke" - verb - one can "stoke" oneself out by facing challenges or by revving up an engine within oneself to accomplish that which one desires. *being too stoked just means that you're still not stoked enough (from the Urban Dictionary)

Craft: still knitting

2010-08-10T15:41:00.001+10:00

Just an intermission (or two). Am busy, with visitors from overseas for these two weeks. I am also hosting a big party on the weekend, a day before a big wedding within Mr. Nest's clan (which is why my inlaws have flown in). It's a combined birthday celebration for my sister in law and a despedida de soltera for the bride (a cousin of Mr. Nest and an occasional (and very willing) babysitter for my boys).

I'm picturing streamers and paper cranes in her wedding colour motif to make it a happy party. We've got to do something to keep the little one occupied and happy. He loves parties!

Finally finished the scarf for the little one (above). Now, I'm knitting a jumper for his teddy bear (below).I've been learning a lot, with the mistakes and countless unravelling. But now, Mr. Nest and others have given me knitting requests, even my brother wants a knitted winter cap--and he's in the tropics!

Ponder: finding your truth (part 1)

2010-08-06T09:38:00.009+10:00

Grief and Loss

I was a bit hesitant to post this. But I wrote this down a long time ago, as a working draft, hoping that like grime on a neglected glass window, the rain softly washes it away to a clean sheen. Then one can see through the glass panes more clearly, as I do now.

I found it difficult to cope the past couple of years after a very close friend died. This event actually sparked a downward spiral. This story was known only to my GP, old college friends who are now physicians, Mr. Nest, and to some of his relations. But most of them didn’t even know how astoundingly frightening the struggle proved to be.

I didn’t want to disclose my struggle on this blog in a piece-meal or confessional fashion, like a daily or occasional post on how I was feeling on that day. In fact, I respected its power, and deep down, I knew this experience could either break or transform me. The silence was part of the struggle, which I honestly thought at my darkest times I would never, ever recover from.

Subconsciously, my refusal to wrestle with it in this blog was also my way of not giving up, or giving in. This blog made me deal with life with little steps, looking positively at what is in front of you, one thing at a time.

No, I was not in denial, or attempting to hide this experience. While I sought help from my GP, I divulged the thoughts, the depression and panic attacks that loomed so large in my life in the past year and a half to new close friends here in Sydney (parents in my sons' school), to some of Mr. Nest’s family, to friends in my youth who are also struggling with anxiety and similar difficulties. I am grateful to college friends, most of whom are doctors, who gave me their medical advice and succor with their phone calls, despite being in different parts of the globe.

In fact, I discovered that if one talks about it, a dam opens and you find that so many people have their own deep sadness, depression, anxiety disorders. I was relieved that many of my own friends have experienced the same difficulties in coping and adjustment. Some testify to the power of medication; some strongly urged me not to choose it. I see that some people, even without a distinct traumatic event or experience, have been gripped by a nameless anxiety that they control their sons so much. Many simply hide it very well, you see.

My grief simply did not stem from the fact that Tina died from a stroke, without warning. All her closest friends were in shock. Most of us, by the way, did not really know each other very well. Tina had several circles of deeply close friends—childhood friends, college friends, and myself, one of the the post-college friends. She was that kind of a singularly affectionate and generous person; someone with whom it was easy to establish an intimate bond that never faltered despite time, circumstance and distance.

Tina and I didn’t really know each other in college, but discovered each other when she pursued pre-medicine electives in a regional university, in the countryside where I found myself after graduation. We bonded so strongly because we delightedly found ourselves kindred; both stereotypically Cancer, ruled by the moon and steadfast to hearth and home.

Most of all, we both deeply loved philosophy. When we talked of our own experiences, the intimate details of daily life, relationships, gossip, the collective (pop) consciousness of the day, we reflected on meaning, on why people act the way they do, on human woundedness and the quest to be decent and rational.

She became like family to us; a daughter to my parents and a sister to my own siblings. After I married and had children, she became a godmother to my son. We saw each other regularly, for lunch dates that stretched to half a day, the conversations finally ending after dinner and dessert plates (and calls from the hubby about my whereabouts).

I flew back the day before her funeral mass. The last time I saw her alive was about six months earlier, when we bid each other goodbye on my way to the airport with family after a long holiday in the Philippines. An aunt who was with us remarked not only about how she saw the very strong bond we had, but also about how Tina wept profusely when we parted.

(There is an anecdote about this particular flight, too long for me to include here, about how she made her loving, tender presence known to me on that airplane ride. I will only say I felt her affection and care, through someone else. I felt her presence in a peaceful trip and a long conversation, from astounding coincidences, that in hindsight could only be beyond serendipity.)

When I arrived on the last night of her wake, friends and acquaintances were asking about her (as expected after everyone had lost touch since school years): what was she doing before her death; was she working? Some of them had completely lost touch, some had only hearsay; they thought she was doing something else, or the other.

After everyone had left on the last night of the wake/vigil, her family asked for my confidence. They were bewildered about a façade, and remained silent in their confusion. In brief, all those years, she told her closest friends (myself included) that she was employed, doing things useful and relevant to a prospective medical career. It turned out she was not. They thought I would be the one who knew her deepest secrets; her grievances and pain. They asked me if I knew anything, why she had told different stories to different people, even to closest friends. I was as stunned as they were.

We all knew, however, that for the past couple of years, she had taken care of her father, who died a year earlier of a lingering illness. She made many friends with people who were stricken with the same illness, or caring for loved ones undergoing dialysis. Even after her father's death, she baked sweet treats to give to medical staff who helped them during those years of her father’s grueling regimen of dialysis, consultations, and hospitalization. After her father’s death, she visited the sick in hospitals, especially those who had no one. She accompanied these friends she made during her father's illness to their dialysis treatments and offered her time to help them. This last bit, her family, friends and I didn’t really know about.

She was terribly brilliant, enthusiastic, and effusive. Above all, she was most affectionate and empathic. Once you were her friend, she would spoil you with mailed letters, baked treats, packages from the mail. She could light up the room and her porcelain skin took your breath away. Yet she was also was terribly shy. She could tell you the most cheeky, naughty stories, comments and jokes, yet speak of prayer and soul life in the most touching way that can transform you. She was the smartest, wittiest, sharpest person I knew; one of the best writers I have ever known. Yet only in her death did I find out that in high school, she was apparently in the running for the top academic honor in her year. It seems somehow that she ran away from that. Perhaps she was burdened by high expectations from peers, teachers, school principals, her family and relatives, her friends’ parents who could all see great promise.

In her last years, she always had a story to tell why, three years after graduating with a medical degree, she couldn’t possibly take the medical board examinations that year. Someone close to her got very sick, or she was stricken by typhoid. There seemed to be a succession of very sick, older relatives who needed her, every time the examinations were due. I sensed some anxiety when this kind of conversation began so I stayed away from it. Little did I know that to other people, there were more elaborate stories about her work, training, and her prospective career.

Perhaps, she was terrified of failing, and terrified of failing other people’s expectations. She did not have the heart to tell them that no, she was not yet a practicing doctor of medicine.

After this astounding truth, I was tormented, not only by her loss. I cried for the pain she must have been going through all those years. I questioned many things—the depth of friendship, the process of how trust can be earned, the role of loving parenting and family support, the fragility of a strong intellect, the tyranny of expectations from oneself and others. Like her family, I believed that this pressure, the burden of her secret, eventually killed her.

I mourned for peace in her heart. I was grief stricken that she must have been constantly run down by the life she wanted us to believe she was having and her own inner struggle. I was filled with regret, that we could have comforted her, or assured her of our deep love no matter what. My brother opined that perhaps I suffered from the thought that I could have “saved” her.

I only simply wanted to tell her that we, her friends, love her, just as she is. In those early months of grief, I didn’t see that she is, in fact, in a better place. Peace and loving acceptance, at last.

The next part of the story to come (soon) are mine. They were borne out of this grief that made me dissect my own life and eventually led to a struggle for authenticity and balance these past 18 months. Those dark months led to so many doubts and an appraisal of my life thus far. Eventually, it made me finally accept my life as it is, not what I wanted it to be. It made me question choices, dreams and goals and how they are shaped, and left unexamined. I asked many questions about what consitutes success and happiness for myself and my family, and why we work for our goals the way we do. Perhaps our lives are driven by people's perceptions and how much we want to change these perceptions, or the frantic need to impart a certain image of ourselves to other people, to the detriment of our inner life, or how we yield so much to society's pressures and other voices. I was eventually confronted by the need to live an authentic life, one that acts out of my core self, values and desires; not a contrived self.

It finally yielded this voice that writes in this blog with greater joy, mindfulness and assurance. The fruit of this struggle is Tina’s loving gift to me, and from all those who are still around and love me.

I am glad that I can now understand this experience with great tenderness and gratitude. I can look back on it, now written here, as a milestone towards self discovery and maturity. I can never forget this time in my life, and what a turning or defining point it proved itself to be.

This blog saved me. It was a tool and at the very least, a diversion, that I used to deal with something else happening inside, like a raging ocean. It taught my brain to focus on the present, planting the early seeds of gratitude and mindfulness. Perhaps this story, now in full (and in installments) can also do some good for those in similarly dark times. Finally on this post, I can honor her as I tried to do years before.

Craft: quilts inspiration

2010-07-27T13:10:00.001+10:00

Busy knitting at the moment (with a furrowed brow). So inspired by Ralli quilts, from a post over at Design Sponge. Check out the Ralli website; it's my kind of textile heaven.

Craft: getting cracking

2010-07-25T09:15:00.002+10:00

Recently became seriously crafty.

Hoping to make an ethnic patchwork quilt bedcover from textile long kept hidden. Laid them out below for a quick look and color study. This will be a challenge because I am pondering the use of a sewing machine which I hate doing; but I am awfully good at sewing by hand. But, oh so exciting!

Also, I'm practicing my knits and purls like crazy because the little one wants a jumper (that's aussie speak for sweater) for his teddy bear. He demands this every single day while I'm still agonizingly working on a scarf.

Enthuse: priceless presents

2010-07-25T08:58:00.001+10:00

I was spoiled, slathered in home made, heartfelt love from the boys.

My little one still keeps on making me birthday cards the whole week. I will miss all this when they discover girls, as I think my eldest has.

They're simply priceless.

(pop up birthday heart!)

Enthuse: birthday present from Mr. Nest

2010-07-25T08:47:00.004+10:00

Mr. Nest's present arrived a week early and came with these adorable labels.

It contained this print (first one, below) that I loved and saw a long time ago made by studio mela at Etsy but it was sold out. This time, it was available just in time for a birthday present! You have to think about framing and hanging it somewhere, so to match its color and spirit, I chose a second print to go with it. My boys love these, too.

Ponder: today is a gift

2010-07-25T08:19:00.004+10:00

I had a birthday during the week. Mr. Nest took the day off and we watched the Tilda Swinton movie I blogged about earlier. So, just before I turned 41...

1. I finally conquered almost debilitating anxiety attacks that hounded me for about a year and a half, coupled with a mild depression. They began after my dearest friend died two years ago. And yes, drug free. Thanks to my GP, my doctor friends whom I've known since university, the Easy Calm guy, and the transforming love and patience of Mr. Nest.

2. I eased postural problems by correcting a bad slouch that had been progressively getting worse since my childbearing years, all in a couple of weeks, with a hell of a lot of pain and with the help of an osteopath. It has eased my upper back problems significantly. My father will be so proud to see me now standing and sitting tall, chest out, shoulders back.

3. In the past several months before this birthday, I went through soul searching, facing-myself-in-the-mirror; reflected on hidden personal issues that came out from battling point number 1 (above) and grew in mindfulness, living in the present, and so many other things I should have learned when I was younger. In sum, a major leap in finding myself.

4. I learned to knit.

5. I think I found my voice (writing, speaking, living from my center or core self)

If you are reading this and have been a part of my life, no matter how briefly, thank you for being you. Your encounter with me helped make me into the person I am today.

Better late than never.

Ponder: honoring my father's hands

2010-07-19T13:04:00.015+10:00

Last weekend, a big surprise party was held to celebrate my father's birthday. We sent a rather hurried video greeting/tribute as requested by my sister, although we wished we were there (instead of being in another continent).

My father had just completed the installation of a statuary for our town in southern Philippines which depicted agreements in the 17th century made between indigenous leaders and representatives of the Spanish government in the establishment of the early settlement. This was placed in the main plaza (town square), which was incidentally across where we lived during the years his second child, my sister, was born. Although the statuary was designed and conceptualized by my brother, yet without my father, this work would not have been realized.

My father has his own body of art work, for which my family is proud for: a mural of the feast of the Transfiguration in a what used to be a Benedictine Monastery, now housing a liturgical institute, another mural depicting the town's early, indigenous justice system in the town court, and many other paintings and civic or church initiatives.

When I close my eyes and think of him, what are some of the things I can summon?

Using chunks of discarded pomelo peel (Chinese grapefruit) after a snack, he crafted a "Cinderella" coach for my sister and I (rounded carriage body, wheels, etc.)
He made paper lanterns with a small flame, so that it flew and floated like an air balloon, which we all ran after, shrieking into the night
Using car parts, a '60s (Willys) Jeep body and an engine, he made our first family car, which looked exactly like a hooded Jeep version of the "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" movie motorcar
With his bare hands, he made a wooden cot/crib for me in my infancy
Way before our town had a water system for every home, in the early 70s, we would drive to the local spring and he would fill big containers of water and load them onto our fierra (pick-up or utility truck), not just for own family's consumption, but for the household of my grandmother, and my aunts as well
Cooking lunch nearly every day (it was often his version of chicken afritada) in my late childhood, as my mother went to work for a bank, and he stayed home tending to his shop and business
The endless stream of people to our house on all hours of the day, interrupting his livelihood and coming with no prior appointment, to consult him on family, neighbourhood, local community troubles for him to intercede, help resolve, or simply listen.

Today, I honor him for much more: a father who was truly present for us. There were options, that he could have taken to provide for us in a much better way. I am glad he decided to stay with us, instead of working far away as he had once considered. I am glad he tried on many business hats to provide for us, and whether or not these hats fit him well or poorly, the fact is he remained present 24/7 for his children.

I am thankful that he provided for us, using his skills and the ways he knew best, even if it was merely to keep us afloat. In doing so, he became larger-than-life than anyone would ever be: a father figure and authority to all other cousins and sisters-in-law who needed one; the one who would be woken up in the middle of the night for a neighbor's emergency; a charismatic leader to a big Christian community in our province; a man whom everyone consulted because he was someone who could get things done, a man who enriched the cultural and civic life of his community and beyond.

Perhaps, he could have done more art, he could have been a bigger artist. Perhaps another way of viewing his work was that he compromised, he gave up on some things, in order to raise his family (and be actively present as well for his extended family of in-laws).

Yet I think that he has produced the best work of art --the culmination of his talents, effort and skills-- in me and my own sons. If I may even be permitted to speak for my siblings, his best work also lies in them. How many friends and acquaintances wished they could claim my father as their own, with his loyalty and integrity, with his natural gift of leadership, natural charisma, firm parenting hand and multitude of talents!

The father I love most is one who never hit the "big time" and he didn't have to. The father I love and recognize is one who didn't possess or able to give us the best brands, the latest must-have item. The father I love is the one who makes do and mends, building our things from scratch.

There is a downside to all this of course. Family life is not idyllic, and never perfect. We've had deprivations and had to depend on the charity of others. Who says that is a bad thing? Others only become better people by being charitable.

There is also my father's stubborness, his temper, his scathing words of correction and criticism, his insistence on having the last word; his taking the higher, more difficult road, and never the easier way. He never gained material wealth, and I doubt he ever will, that is, to his own expectations.

Of course, he always counseled us and strived so that we could do far better, to have more than what he attained, and to be able to hand down a legacy for our own future. I don't claim to understand him, but I understand him enough to say that his life is the best illustration of this truth: one loses his soul, that is, his capacity to give more to the world, when money, its trappings, and its excessive show, become the aim.

And now that I am much older and wiser, this is what I want: the same authenticity, to live consistently in line with my beliefs and the truth of my own limited self, towards a purpose-filled life.

To my Papa, our dear Popsi to my own family: You are perfect, as you have been. You have given us more than we could dare to dream. You have given us everything we need for generations to come. You have trained us and shared to us the same spirit that makes us produce something with our talents, skills and intelligence. You have handed down to us an innate grace that we all in the family seem to possess, which draws people in to us effortlessly and makes them feel special. You have molded in us the stature and soul that carries us forward with confidence. You have made us among the most loving and lovable, and truly special. We are wealthy beyond belief because your life enriched us and because we are your children.

With deep gratefulness for all that you are and have been, I strongly wish for you to celebrate beyond your hundredth year. I love you, Pa.

Plant: a dirty little secret

2010-07-13T08:00:00.008+10:00

It's time for a confession.

My potted garden hasn't been doing so well for several months now. When my brother was here, they were in the throes of near rotting and I let them go.

Actually, the ornamental plants are doing well, but not my tomato plants and herbs. The chili plant is hanging on as it's quite hardy. I'm going to replant herbs come spring, but I've been rethinking and evaluating. I think that what kills them is the daily shower of pine needles, from pine trees that border the property and render the soil acidic.

But that's not a good enough excuse; the ornamental plants have thrived under these same conditions. So, I think it's also blight and snails, and other factors, I suppose. So we'll see. I think the end of winter would be perfect to start again, since I am nearly harvesting a motherlode of castings from the worm farm.

We test drove a paella burner and a big paellera just the other day (cooked for 10 servings!), and I missed using my own tomatoes and parsley. Sigh.

(Isn't the photo above a dream? There are loads of more lovely, eye watering photos like this from here, via Gardening in Heels.)

Enthuse: FIFA 2010 Finals

2010-07-12T16:43:00.008+10:00

The world will be quieter now that the blaring vuvuzuelas are fading slowly into the annals of the World Cup's history.

Two of us rolled out of bed after lunch, after going back to sleep at mid morning after the high of the final match between Spain and Netherlands (4 am, Sydney time) began to fade and exhaustion crept in. I immensely enjoyed waking up early with my older boys and watching the finals with them. Watching the matches with my eldest throughout the last month, especially, has been a great bonding moment every time. Thank God, it's the school holidays. I think some of us will have withdrawal symptoms.

I can't get over the fact that the Oracle octopus is right. Viva Espanol!

(Photo from SBS, providing Aussies great coverage of the games; and I loved their Santo, Sam and Ed's Cup Fever (so hilarious and right on the ball!).

Frolic: watching soon

2010-07-09T16:35:00.003+10:00

I am not going to miss these two movies:

1. because I love Tilda Swinton

2. Four words: Catherine Keener. Guilt issues.

Ponder: pastoral leadership and passion

2010-07-07T16:17:00.008+10:00

Last Friday, I found out that a great Filipino Jesuit, Francisco Claver, had died.

My mother and I pondered this loss last weekend after she received my message. He was a great part of my hometown, and my childhood, serving our diocese for many years as an exceptional bishop with great passion for the country and a powerful intellect. I am in no doubt that he influenced many individuals --my family included-- in the practice of religion, art, political views, even local government policy. His legacy to our town (and her people) can be seen in how it remains to this day, among the most passionate, vigilant, and "revolutionary" dioceses; in particular, leading the Philippine church in environmental activism in the last couple of decades. I also think that an awareness of our province's indigenous people and pride in their culture, can partly be credited to his pastoral leadership.

I would have remained quiet here. I try to refrain from giving sociopolitical commentary here in this blog; there are enough in the blogosphere who do that well and often enough. But today, I am delighted that an Australian can honor and remember him to both Filipinos and Australians in far less inchoate words than myself.

Frolic: in the company of little men

2010-07-06T17:09:00.007+10:00

Every winter, my older boys get three weeks of school holidays. The Kindy boy has two weeks of school break, but his playdates with other little men make it seem like a month.

Staying up late since June (or getting up very early) for the World Cup can take its toll, not to mention drive your body clock awry. I've been sleeping-in too much. Or going back to bed after watching football games back to back on SBS. But I enjoy bonding with my eldest during the after midnight (Sydney time) live football matches. On some games, there's nothing like watching (and groaning) with millions of people everywhere. The upside: getting to know what's happening elsewhere, like following the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico or Julia Gillard's ascendancy. (My ten-year old son was the one who broke the news about that day's labour party caucus to his teacher, who, it turned out, doesn't really follow the news.) Well, that story at least killed the bad news about the Socceroos.

We're quite a divided brood these holidays. My older boys feel very grown-up compared to the six-year old. It's hard to get a consensus about activities, playdates, even the choice of movies. There's one thing that makes them see eye to eye, though. They're making their own Lego movies.

(In anticipation, thanks to my brother who will send these budding filmmakers a Sony bloggie soon; part of his loot for winning this competition, being responsible for conceptualizing, directing, editing this video).

With men (little or not), work is play!

A musical interlude without the music

2010-07-06T15:49:00.012+10:00

A couple of very cold weekends ago, I was sewing by hand for several hours in the afternoon--mending, hemming, sewing on a patch/seal for my son's fencing jacket. My sewing machine skills, I must confess, are pathetic.

I had recently converted a space into a sitting nook near a big window, across our dining area. (Ah, yes. I indulged another urge of tweaking the house interiors.) It was at this moment that I hatched plans for patchwork quilting projects (a future post).

While sewing, I listened to half an hour of my older boys practicing their violin. I basked in a rhythm of slow living, slow moving; to the age when people read books and poetry aloud or made something with their hand to while several hours away.

Today I honour these musical weekends, courtesy of the boys--a very rare treat to some. Now on school holidays, I hear them practice about 10 minutes each everyday. The music sounds more complex and rich, with my eldest nearly starting Grade 5 on the violin. Definitely past the "Hot Cross Buns" renditions. This tween has been begging to take on bass (electric) guitar. Or the drums. But of course! You need to play something that will impress the girls, too.

What's been on our playlist for the past month? (early) Coldplay, the Killers, the essential 2 CD Barbara Streisand collection, Kings of Leon. Thanks to a really well-stocked public library.

I was surprised that I really like Kings of Leon. My very musical and literary son, who kept Van Morrison so long on our player this year, has been asking many questions about Barbara Streisand. He talked a long time about her rendition of "Cry Me A River." He stays very quiet when she sings, "Papa, Can You Hear Me?" We hope we can deliver, but we're planning to give him a birthday present next year--tickets to Michael Buble's Sydney concert in February --for the experience of a live big band performance.

Ponder: another detachment exercise

2010-07-02T12:29:00.010+10:00

My actions are my only true belongings.

This pair of trainers are dying on me. Not a big deal?

These are almost as old as my middle boy. This pair must be exactly ten years old, or close to it.
They're so old, Keds doesn't make them anymore. I breastfed my son through this pair, ran off to the emergency room countless times, kicked balls in the park with my sons, hundreds of school runs, crossed the seas from my island country to reach the Tasman Sea for a new life in Australia ....Argh. You get the picture.

I went to the shoe repair shop and the man told me I'll have to spend $30 on glueing all mid and outer soles together (which I was willing to pay) but advised against it because the rubber heels are so thin, all used up like an eraser. He sure knows that you can get a decent pair of runners from Kmart for $20.

I dramatically bemoaned their demise at length to Mr. Nest ("But, it's not just any rubber shoes!"). He smirked, "That's how I feel about those t-shirts!" (He resents that fact that I've long shuddered about his old shirts, from his college/university days --so old and nearly see-through from all the washing, most with holes in them. I threw one out and he hasn't worn any of them since just to keep them. I think they'll turn up one day, framed and encased in glass, hung on our walls.)

This morning, my eldest boy went up to my bedroom and told me that our electric Tefal kettle conked out. He relies on it for his daily cup of hot Milo drink. I groaned and thought: we began our married life with it nearly 15 years ago.

The past is gone, the future is not yet here, and if we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment, we cannot be in touch with life.

(Both quotations/sayings by Thich Nhat Hanh).

Ponder: working woman

2010-07-01T12:54:00.017+10:00

The older boys have been on their school winter holiday since Monday. I am so grateful for bits of sleeping in once more. And when the little one begins his holiday tomorrow, I can sleep in til noon! That is, if the boys don't make a ruckus. It's also been very cold in Sydney the past couple of days; it's so tempting to just stay under the quilt. For some sun, we've been running around--dental cleanings, eye checks, four-hour morning teas with friends.

I've been thinking a lot about work and employment the past couple of weeks. First, it's been disappointing that very few send an acknowledgement of job applications. It seems to be a dying act of courtesy. I've been applying for jobs here and there, from ads I see on the web. I haven't gone full-on job hunting, via the route of employment agencies, which is mainly the best way to get one.

I am also torn and constantly in doubt. When the boys got sick at the start of winter, all three of them at home for a week, I contemplated what I would have done with a job (and could see myself shouting around the house like a crazy woman). I know that things are better in the workplace, more consideration is given, and that eventually Mr. Nest and I would cope. Yet I also thought about my own attitude.

The reason I declined an outright offer of employment a couple of years earlier (involving my main skill set and experience in writing, editing, online publishing, and having to be out there doing interviews, etc.) was that I knew I would constantly have to make excuses for not turning up when the boys would get sick, when my tasks were not running on schedule, etc. I am the sort of person who makes sure the job I deliver is the best effort ever. And that I. Deliver. Like Hell. That's not really good. And then I would be major Mama Grouch. As it is, I can already get pretty grouchy, without a job.

On the second quarter of the year, I was resolute about finding a job. When there were job ads relevant to my experience, I applied on my own, got some responses, but not an offer. And it was ok. (Now if you're not careful with your thoughts, your ego can fray.) I have recently contemplated submitting my CV to a hiring agency after my inlaws holiday to Sydney soon. But I can't help thinking about the scale of the work involved in communications or publishing work. Other mums I talk to, who have more child care mileage, encourage me that in several years when the boys are more independent, I can then be a work horse to reckon with, and I would not regret having let go of a career, and see all those years I've invested in them come to great fulfillment. And I see that those who do work part time with more than one child are constantly stretched to the limit.

I am glad I am in a very good place right now. Being me, I mean.

I've had a tough couple of years on a metaphysical, emotional level. I've only recently come out of it with so much loving self (and Other) awareness that made my cup runneth over. I do recognize this time is pure grace and perhaps this time is meant for me to keep working on myself, after being freed from the demands of the youngest child who is now in school full time. These days, I am always thankfully aware of being present in the now, not worrying, not constantly exhausted striving for a future that may not be to my expectations.

I realize millions of people can do the same things I can do well. But there will only be one "me", who gives to others, especially to my own children and husband. I aim not to sacrifice the present, this very minute, this day, to the worries of the future.

And then I look back to this post. And it makes me smile. Perhaps it's time to think about stocking shelves, and keeping myself sane, remaining joyful at the end of a workday.

For the meantime, I have some quilting and sewing projects soon. And learning to knit, which is really exciting. Hopefully by next winter, I can make my boys their own cable knit jumpers. Hurrah!

Ponder: mindfulness milestone

2010-06-22T08:34:00.008+10:00

Yesterday I made my way to see an osteopath. I was at a free two-hour carpark, having driven around and around the entire street for five minutes, unable to find a park. As I turned a corner, from afar I saw an elderly gentleman shuffling along who glanced towards my direction (we had just missed each other). He caught my attention because he was wearing a newsboy hat. Unsure if he was going to his car and about to drive off, I quickly circled back to make it to that section.

He didn't know that I had already seen him get into his car. So I parked a few metres away, and signalled that I was waiting for someone who was about to leave his parking space. Then, for one last time, he got out, stood up and looked around. And I understood that he wanted me to see him, so I could drive over. Then he saw me, already waiting. Assured that I was waiting for him, he went on to slowly drive off. (Often, most other people won't care, or make the effort, to signal to you that they were leaving. You often have to sidle up in your car and ask nicely if they were about to leave.)

I saw this as a sweet, generous act. I was deeply touched that he tried to catch my attention the first time, and then did so another time, so I could see him about to leave and scoot over to his space. That made me happy and thankful, and I said aloud in my car, "Awww. you're so sweet. Thank you." But more than that, the state of my heart and mind made me more glad. To see this as a kindness, to choose to see this ordinary gesture, to cherish it as a loving act and make it wash over me, is a turning point.

From the past year I have been on a journey towards what I thought of simply as reclaiming my true self; a spirit that has veered so far, after a disconnection and brokenness, burdened by the stresses of making a new life in a new country and culture, without a support network.

I am glad I have reaped more: the gift of being open to the miracles around me (and savouring them), the grace of mindfulness and gratitude.

Trust a man in a newsboy cap. I've got three in my life who wear them.