da tomāto

Ooohhhh, it rained. Temperature is down, so comfy cool now. Catnap! ----- So that was a nice nap. Took a bath, had an early dinner and on to biz-nizzzzzz. ----- It is almost 10PM at the moment. It is still cool so that's nice; hope this lasts longer. Someone bought sushi rolls from the supermarket that I will devour tomorrow. Specs are a little foggy though, will wipe them... Done! Happy Monday!

sweet longganisa and left-over chicken aftritada So that was a good breakfast. Had a nice catnap and decided to wash my throw pillow which was filthy {cover is not removable}. Did it on the bathroom sink. Not a full wash though {might destroy it, I don't know}; mixed laundry detergent + water, dipped a sponge, squeezed so it was just damp and scrubbed. It took a few dips and squeezes but it was a quick process. After that, I cleaned the sponge so it's not soapy, squeezed excess water and scrubbed again. The sink was icky so I guess that worked. The pillow's drying outside now and I'll get it back inside tomorrow. I'll see if it looks less filthy then.

Hello. Woke up before noon to a blackout. It was VERY hot. Someone said Meralco cut the power off to make repairs and that they'll turn it back on by 2 PM. True enough, electricity came back at 2 PM. I slept through most of it so I wasn't terribly bothered. I heard kids screaming from across the street; they were not happy. toilet flush fund So the planned "new eyeglasses fund" will now be the "toilet flush repair fund." Might need to replace the flapper or maybe the whole mechanism because water is leaking into the bowl; so wasteful. baking soda+hydrogen peroxide Quick update on cleaning old tiles and grout stains {bathroom sink} with baking soda + hydrogen peroxide paste: it's going well. I don't measure. I just sprinkle baking soda on the area, squirt some hydrogen peroxide on it, attack with an old toothbrush and rinse off with water. I see the difference afterwards because it dries white. If I keep doing this {which so far, has been occasion

today's longsilog Thinking about making my own shirt-dress. I have this t-shirt that fits well and if it was longer, it could be a dress. I figure if I get 2 yards of good fabric {stretch cotton?}, I can lay this shirt down, mark the fabric on each side {a few inches out and longer at the bottom}, cut and sew them together. All by hand because we don't have a sewing machine. It's simple enough in my head and I know it will be easier if I know how to sew. BUT I can drop the new fabric idea {spend zero money - yay} and use this guide with a man's dress shirt . There should be one around here, smelling of kulob but nothing a quick wash can't get off. Of course, what I will make will not come out as close to amazing as the ones on Dana's tutorial. Mine will probably look like a paper dress that you put on a cutout cardboard doll. Oh and the sleeves... how in the world am I going to do that?!? There might be blood, sweat and tears with this still-thinkin

Chikity China the Chinese chicken Have a drumstick and your brain stops tickin' So hot and muggy now. It is worse at noon and sometimes after midnight {yes I said "after midnight"; think dripping sweat at 2AM}. Someone said I should turn the a/c on. Right, not gonna happen {until i can't bear it or the hardware here starts melting}. Why? Because households in the Philippines pay the highest electricity rate per kwh in Asia ! That's why.

it WAS bad yakult! my tummy rumbled last night. thank goodness i didn't barf. we checked the other four bottles from the same lot tonight and they were all spoiled; had a hint of sour, like orange juice. i suspect it was left in the heat before the grocer put them in the chiller because they were marked to expire 28th April pa . sayang. on a happier note, we have been eating ripe, sweet mangoes for the past two days. yum.

hello tuesday! blame i slept 10 hours as expected, made up for what happened yesterday. seriously, one bad zzz followed by one good zzz - again and again - what is happening? because nothing's different... wait! there is that c24/7 supplement and there is that anxiety {not new but only a little worse}. so, i'll pick one and blame that. caution i could have ingested bad yakult tonight. it tasted off. i thought it was my strawberry lip balm until i smelled the bottle - that was off too. too bad i already swallowed most of it. well i'm not yakking yet. still, it can be an interesting evening. better put the garbage can close to the bed tonight. then again it was a teeny 80 ml thing so it can't be that bad, can it? heck i'm probably worrying about nothing. then again... dun... dun... dun.

my monday did not start so well. did not sleep ok; i woke up many times. now, my eyes are puffy and the mind is cloudy; it is affecting me badly. i think i'll be knocked out tonight and that is what i am hoping. that's something to look forward to, i guess. i am trying to think of what i ate earlier. i think i had left-over chicken adobo. there was corn soup and i liked that. i took the last of my yakult tonight; will buy more tomorrow. a five-piece pack costs around 39 pesos here as of now. it's a bank holiday today - araw ng kagitingan .

summer, felt like it started maybe 3 days ago. it is sticky. you go on fewer bathroom breaks 'cause you sweat a lot. drinks are taken out of the fridge and they don't stay cold very long. i think the billions of l.casei strain in yakult die before i can peel the foil cap off. so easter weekend is going to be a long one; most places are on holiday break and won't open until tuesday. i know i should've taken money out of the atm yesterday! happy easter.

Yesterday's brunch - my first plate for the month of April. That is left-over pork hamonado from someone's event the night before, and a side of homemade warm eggplant salad. The first quarter of the year has gone by so fast. So what notes do I have about the past three months?  One thing pops in my head now: Prices. Prices. Prices. They are up, up, up!  We bought an 11-kilo tank of LPG last week and it was 800 pesos. I planned to go to the bank but now I think I don't need to. That expired plastic can stay an ordinary ATM card; I don't really need the "visa" function at this time. Then there is that plan to visit the optometrist for new specs. I'll see when I can do that, hopefully before April ends. I wish that I can just get up and go all by myself... But sadly, no-can-do. I need to ask to use the car, ask for a driver, pay that driver, ask carer to come with and buy snacks for everyone; in addition to the money I will be shelling out at the cl

I was going to upload a picture of tocino but thought that I have a lot of those as of now so my canned meat and scrambled egg from two days ago will do. It rained last night and it was a little warm this afternoon. But it still smells like rain so the cool weather might go on a little longer. Dinner tonight was monggo and fried fish; just because it is Friday. I polished my plate off, drank my Yakult and made myself a cup of decaf. It's time to work now so that's about it.  Ta-ta!

oh it is cold now. windy and cold. i want to go to bed and hide under the covers. i have goosebumps. and there are mosquitoes.

hello. it is tuesday. i have a lot of things i want to share but need to edit myself before hitting "publish." as this is a journal that i keep reading over and over, i want to it to be light and happy {informative even that i made a 'reminder' tag because my memory's not so sharp as i would like to think} to keep me in good spirits. i can add "rant" to the words that i'm sick of reading, to be honest, and if i use that word again, kmn. mice update moving on, i still use my battery hog of a mouse . i haven't put in a new battery yet since 1-27-12. surprised? of course not. the old ps/2 mouse is the workhorse and the wireless batt-hog only gets to see action if i'm designing {which is like some hours, a number of days every 2 or 3 weeks}. so i save battery money and i know now that using 2 mice at the same time is a-ok. while it's not the setup i hoped for, it's not a huge hassle. brimming with what oh my, the head is brimm

yummy find from one of the neighborhood supermarkets {um, robinsons} - frey chocobloc dark mini. the more or less 50-peso pack has 4 individually-wrapped bittersweet dark chocolate pieces so that's more packaging than chocolate, no? i wonder if they sell it in big blocks too.

browser crash my old mozilla firefox browser started crashing last week. i can't pinpoint what's causing it yet but i suspect one of my browser apps. so it was time for {a dreaded} an update; but its newest version did not work with my current ff so i needed to update the browser too... toinks! updated but not fixed after updating everything last night {though fairly quick and easy. nothing appears to be missing. so after a few tweaks, i'm up and running}, i went to bed feeling ok about it. then the browser crashed again tonight, ugh! i'm starting to think it's random but something's unstable and i still suspect the same app/add-on. so until they roll out an update with the fix, i'll have to bear with it as it's not like i can disable it and move on - "it" is the password manager so it is pretty important. 4/29/12 update: problem appears to be fixed on march 25, i followed this fix from mozilla support . i remembered that the crashes star

when will i learn not to zoom for a picture? LOL all the broken sets were picked up Saturday morning; one was fixed and returned that evening. they put that in their room so my tv is back! yay! that was quick so i did not miss it too much.

i had lunch with friends last week and we had a fun time catching up. someone brought this box of purdy's and it was... nom, nom, nom.

Last night, I suggested that they take my small, crt tv to the other room; their flatscreen broke kasi. They said they'll get theirs fixed so I'll get mine back {no mention of when though}. Now we have a sort of tv purgatory outside -- three tv's in line for repair. I'm not kidding. Sure we can argue wear and tear but... {sigh} OK I'll stop there. I'm just going to say that I hope to get my tv back in good working condition. {Sure it's ordinary, small, crt; but it's LG and barely a year old.} Besides, they're paying for digital so they need a better tv than that to get their money's worth.

my brekkie a few days ago. ham and egg yumminess. next time, will try not to break the yolk {or maybe they like it dry}. we have this adorable one-egg pan that makes cooking eggs fun; but we use the wide pan when we need to cook more than that. we don't want to waste gas -- speaking of which, lpg costs so much now. it's like over 700 pesos for a small tank now! {sigh}

i had visitors yesterday and we had a fun afternoon; a very welcome break.
 we ordered in {should start ordering more than we need}, nibbled on purdy's {i took a picture, will upload soon} and fresh bananas. i only managed to sleep an hour the night before but i caught up on missed sleep today so that's great. see, i rarely make plans for lunch but when i do, i try not to sleep before or i won't make the date {i'll just sleep through it! not good!} i just had my afternoon coffee and i'm watching tv. fyi, i slept 12 hours straight {properly caught up, oh yes, and i feel fine}. LOL
 ok off i'll go to freshen up now. will have dinner {is that spaghetti?} and then start the day's work on the computer. 
happy sunday!

hello. hello. the days go by so fast. relieved so the heaviness on the chest and shoulders is gone. a day off {ok i took two} from scrubbing stains sorted that out. so pleased. i can 'attack' them again bwahaha {but will probably pace myself and take 2 days off in between scrubs}! snip snip i am seriously thinking of getting a paper shredder; a cheap, small, economical shredder. snipping old docs and junk mail with scissors is taking a toll on my right thumb {besides eating A LOT of time}. i do believe that's a callus forming there eek .

grout on my mind i think i gained weight {which could be a good thing at the moment - as long as it's not too much} so i'll visit the old scale later to see where i'm at. but what's REALLY bothering me lately is this heaviness on my chest and shoulders since i started scrubbing old grout stains. i hope this is just my chest and shoulder muscles working ok, and not a myositis flare or as someone we know would call it a leak . anyway, for me, that means to stop obsessing about grout for now and see how i am in the next day or two. food supplement to try normally, this costs 1,200 pesos {very steep for a box with 30 caps} but someone gave me a box as a freebie 'cause they wanted me to try it - someone said someone claimed their kid took this quite well; and it's free so thanks. the bfad permit number on the pamphlet tells me it should be harmless; i guess i'll find out soon i hope so.

has it turned summer so soon? i've been sweating at noon every day this week so far. 
i'm going to eat before starting the day, as usual. that's boiled hotdogs, scramble and sad looking instant mac n cheese. so i'll tuck in now. happy friday!

poor sleep only managed to get in 3 hours of shut-eye today as there was a lot of activity outside my door. since i couldn't get back to sleep, i took my brunch. i forgot to put my medicine close to me so i did not take a dose this morning. i am supposed to take it 3x a day but the side effect is too much so what i would do is drink a dose or 2 a day; i do take the recommended 3x when i feel particularly ok to handle it. i hope to nap a bit this afternoon or else i'll be yawning at the computer later and my eyes will be dry and teary too. no nap hi i'm back. it is now almost 10pm. the 'nap plan' was not successful but i do feel ok {no dry and and teary eyes} and i'm only slightly tired. i guess i'll beaver away and catch up on lost sleep later. jerky someone brought a big bag of beef jerky home. here's my already-gnawed-on strip. it was very yummy.

outside please last night they came in holding a figurine. they were putting it down and picking it up - on the tv, on the tv table... so i put my foot down and asked them to keep it outside with the others. like i said, vicious clutter cycle. accessorize speaking of yesterday's events, there was a break in the routine as someone had an event to go to and i was helping accessorize their outfit. i would have liked to do their make-up but there wasn't enough time. i did suggest a necklace i had with a huge shiny stone {that has been gathering dust; i polished it on my shirt first, of course}. i was glad to see that they wore it through the event from souvenir pictures they brought home. chooks dinner chooks - they sell roasted chooks. true. LOL. so someone bought a whole roasted chicken tonight from 'chooks.' it's flavorful on its own but we paired it with 'mang tomas' {ung sarsa, for lechon}. i had my favorite dark meat and some carrots from last night

just moved, not removed 
 i want to get rid of my room's clutter. i am doing it slowly but they keep bringing stuff in - bed frame, luggage, garbage bag with old pillows - it's a vicious cycle. i wanted to throw out a worn-out pair of shoes but someone asked if they could have it; i said yes. now, instead of it cluttering my room, it's part of the clutter on the shoe rack outside. {sigh} 
grout cleaning 
i want to de-stain the bathroom. since i discovered a quart of neo-care cell cleaner {the kind they use in hospitals} and saw it worked so well breaking down decades-old grout stain, i can't stop thinking about it. the bath/sink CAN look better, err, slightly improved. {i think we need to re-tile and re-grout but that's a can't-do as of now}. heck, i'd get down and detail the entire thing with a toothbrush if i could!
 low on neo-care 
the bottle's running low though and i guess i can't get another one {expensive at us$11 on ebay - i have

lunch everyone woke up late Sunday and cooked no brekky. that's grilled marinated pork belly on the left; on the right is kamote tops + sliced tomato in our trusty vinegar-sugar-water combo. i'll ask how they prepared the kamote tops - most probably raw and rinsed - but i'll ask. { Update 3rd March 2012 : So I asked: the kamote tops are boiled, drained and left to cool before the wet ingredients are added} cup love if i find another ceramic cup like this {see upper right} - tall and skinny, not heavy - i'll buy it.

theories i said {a few posts down} that i couldn't send mms {to email} on globe prepaid for some months and that when i tried i would get a time-out error. i had theories why it quit working for me too: one was it has something to do with globe taking away kb browsing for prepaid sims, another was globe silently cut mms from its services {OA but possible - theory nga eh}, another was our network signal went from OK to poor. settings again anyhoo, i figured i might as well get the access settings again; maybe it's a "2-year" thing {theory ulit} since the last time i did that was feb 2010 {yes, i saved the message}. so i sent a request --> texted "Go" to 2951 --> and when I received the config settings, i saved it as "default" and moved the mms to where it should be sa connection>>destinations. i didn't need to delete the old settings naman, just set which is 1st or 2nd priority. and then... test i composed an mms {to email},

there is no chill today. everyone else is napping this afternoon. it is very quiet now. might as well lie down for a little while.

i was misinformed. mixing vinegar+sugar {should taste like sweet, tangy calamansi or other citrus concentrate} and cold water was right but the grated radish needed more work; otherwise it will be bitter. so the grated radish prep goes like this: generously sprinkle w/ rock salt work it in {think 'knead' - mix, fold, massage. you get the point} grab a handful, squeeze out liquid, separate throw away the liquid do it again then the mixed-vinegar-sugar-water is poured {if you want sliced tomatoes too, add them at this point}. mix everything. the ratio of the vinegar/sugar/water mix should cover at least 1/4 of the grated radish {eye-ball it, depends on the bowl/container}. taste it. it should be sweet, sour, tangy {and make you do a sour face}.

*UPDATE* Bought a song on mymusicstore on 1st Feb 2012. It was easy peasy and a-OK. mymusicstore.com.ph went live a couple of days ago. it's still in "beta." i have not tried it yet. their database of local and international artists looks good, lots of choices. again - i have not tried it yet - just want to make that clear. i think i'll wait for a FAQ page, more info; a lot of questions need clearing up {i don't see these mentioned in their "terms" as of today}: are these mp3 files? {nakasulat sa terms kanina, "most" are drm-free, sana specify nila} how big is a file; bitrate? how many times can i download my purchase? {what if the connection drops while downloading, diba? it will be disappointing to have to buy again if something goes wrong.} payment methods? {press releases mention paypal, CC and smart money - they should make this clear on their official page, no? kasi when i checked kanina, di agad kita. actually, parang wala ata ak

yesterday's ham and egg. ahh, i missed posting food pictures and yes, i still go over old entries to look at... old pictures.

when it comes to sugar-free, 3-in-1 coffee mixes, we prefer kdo. but when robinson's supermarket {the only store that carries it in our community, as far as i know} ran out of it this week, we tried the sugar-free san mig mild. smells san mig's tasted ok {kdo is so much better} and it smelled... not very good, unfortunately. i can't describe it really; "metallic" comes to mind. prices a box san mig's costs 10 pesos more than a box of kdo's. san mig is pricier, it doesn't taste so good and the smell is off; ripoff. globe prepaid mms i can't send mms {to email} on globe prepaid anymore. i actually noticed this months ago. i've been getting the time-out error. does this have something to do with kb browsing being unavailable to globe prepaid subscribers? globe did not make any announcements about that {not that i know of} and they should fix the error on their text message "kb browsing is not unavailable to globe prepaid..." LOL.

hungarian ang schublig if you look closely, you might be able to tell that a couple of the slices are darker {hungarian} and the rest are lighter {schublig}. yeah, i couldn't tell at first but they did taste very different. the hungarian was peppery and spicy while the schublig was very mild. boiled then fried i was told they boiled the sausages {whole, probably} before they fried them. they may have been so big that frying alone wouldn't cook it all the way through without burning; i assume, but what do i know?

fish and beans fry a fish then open a can of pork and beans. eat them together with rice. yummy. foodx3 i ate three times tonight: early dinner {see fish and beans above}, dessert {two handfuls of chocolate-covered almonds}, and late dinner {pancit malabon}. pics it would have been nice if i added pictures.

I made an entry last week {Jan 5th}. I didn't post it then because the next day {Jan 6th}, the mouse came back to life. I took the battery out that night and when I put it back in the next day, it worked again. 5th Jan 2012 - technological problem! thumbs down, new mouse ; it was great when it worked. i was prepared to take on this battery hog but then it quits on me 1 month and 3 batteries later; so much for trying to get rid of cables. this ms mouse 3500 just turned me off all wireless stuff for the desktop. who knows how long i'll feel this way about it {drama}. I used a newly-bought "energizer advanced" alkaline then {over 100 pesos for a two-battery pack}. When I turned the mouse on on Jan 6th, the yellow power-indicator lit up a little longer before it faded and the mouse worked fine. I am taking notes because earlier today, January 11th, the mouse's power-indicator lit red before it faded {meaning the battery's running low}. January 6th-11th, that

happy 2012! hope your NYE/NYD was great! though my 1st day of the new year was baaaddddd... i was sick!!! stop reading now if you couldn't care less because i will start talking about it... now: i suspect it was bad hot cocoa or bad pork on NYE but none of us are sure. it was either GER or indigestion - the nausea, bloating, reflux - it was all yuck. i puked before bed. i vomited in bed {on the bed, to be clear, blech} at 4am, yuck. for the most of january 1st, i was in bed, in the corner with vomit bags, tissues and a trash can beside me. i could not sleep, threw up once before noon and about 3 times {i lost count} within 6 hours in the afternoon. i was sleepy, nauseated and hungry. i thought, "this is it, i'm not going to get any better, we're going to have to go to the ER." early in the evening, i took one capsule of "losec 20mg" for the GER. my feet and hands were clammy too so i drank water with a dissolved tablet of oral rehydration salts - &