A whole new different schedule

The past few days were like completely different from the regular days I used to have. I would consider myself conscientious, but just yesterday, I missed a call that has been sitting on my calendar for the longest time. The Pub meeting. It just totally slipped my mind.

And today, after one of the participants dropped from a conference call, I asked out loud who dropped out, knowing full well that it's highly unlikely that person will be able to answer. I had to laugh at myself. I knew others were laughing at my stupidity too. But I don't mind, I'm not myself.

In the meantime, there's work to be done. More work than I bargained for really but there's no getting out of it. I can only do my best and pray for success. I need to be working with a bunch of people I've never worked with before so I am being very cautious about it. And the right-hand-not-talking-to-the-left-hand is totally not working for my benefit. But it does seem that this is the way they're doing it and I just have to make sure I know both sides of the story. No, I don't want to be caught in the middle, but I do want to keep my eyes open.

I wish we can get away for a few days and get some sun. I feel exhausted. I'm thinking the whole emotional rollercoaster ride is getting to me after 5 days. I'm thinking about my son who must be tired to be going to the hospital all the time.

But here's a diversion. Tomorrow is Elastic Day once again and for the first time, I'm bringing something I'm making. That should give me some sense of relaxation after all that we've been through these past few days.

I know, even my writing is affected. You're bored. You want to see some action and perhaps a little bit of fun.

I want that too.

Change of pace

I must admit, I have been slacking at work a little bit. And I do not mean that intentionally, however, I missed going to the office today and totally forgot about an internal call that I should have been in on at noon. I had early calls this morning which I managed to join, and then prepared to go to work, deciding to drop by the hospital to visit with Jan. I brought my laptop, thinking I can work there, but the news that he has finally left the Intensive Care Unit was just so big. I decided I'm going to stay for awhile and visit, and then get on home to work a little more. So that's what I did.

As soon as I came online, there were hundreds of instant messages at once. Everyone wants to know how Jan is doing, and I am just so happy to bring them all the good news.

It's funny how something like this changes your perspective in life. You see and value your friendship more, and yet realize that these friendships are in fact built from your career or work-network. So I just want to say to all my colleagues out there, I value you!

Monday updates and visits to the hospital

Ever since Saturday, my whole family's lifestyle has changed. From either work or school, we go to visit with Jan and Vangie in the hospital. Today, I visited twice because I accompanied Michael and Diana to the hospital, and then later on during the day with family.

My time at the office was mostly giving updates to everyone who wanted to know how Jan was doing. I managed to squeeze in some work time, and even managed to cancel my flight for Philly (which should have been tomorrow). Good thing too because its value would have been lost had I not done that. Phew.

On another note, I was able to call mom to greet her a Happy Easter. I think she wasn't too pleased with me, as I have not been able to call her for quite sometime. Still, we talked and I hope she has forgiven me for not calling. I told her she, too, can pick up the phone and call me, if she misses me enough. Haha. Excuses, excuses.

I guess without me realizing it, my body was tired. I did not mean to sleep early but I did.

Happy Easter!

God is the greatest!

Yesterday was a tough day for us emotionally. I got a call from my boss' wife letting me know that Jan was in the hospital and is needing surgery. We went to the hospital as soon as we can and was able to see Jan before he was brought to the theater. We'll see you in a bit, Jan, was all we said.

The rest of the day until midnight was spent at the hospital with Jan's family.

Today, I called the hospital and they've said he woke up about 10 minutes before I called and the nurse on duty said he was doing great. Awesome, in fact, was the word she used. So I immediately informed Vangie and we'll be seeing her soon.

It's Rome's birthday today. I didn't even realize it until I opened my Outlook. And I was already on the phone with her this morning talking about Jan. Nonetheless, I know I will be forgiven. Happy birthday, Rome!

Too bad we will miss Chloe's baptism today, but something much more important has come up. We're the only family Vangie has right now.

Visita iglesia

I was going to take Friday off so we can go visita iglesia. But Jojo has convinced me it should be on Holy Thursday so I guess we're going tonight. I'll need to plot the 7 churches within the day, on top of everything else that I need to do for work. Let's see how I manage that.

I went with Diana and Shannon to Target during lunch break. I ended up buying stuff for the house, that I think will sit nicely under the frame we bought at Michaels yesterday. It's a relatively short 3-tier bookcase, but I also bought a wicker basket where I think we can put our weekly ad thingies. I'll see how it looks and decide if we're going to keep it. If not, we can always return.

After-office shopping

I bought a new dress for Easter Sunday. We're also invited to luncheon at the Francois, so it's double the worth. I like it a lot, it's yellow. Gabriel picked it out and said it's sunshine-y.

I saw this hobo bag by Jessica Simpson at the mall. I couldn't make up my mind whether to buy it or not. But here I sit, still thinking about it. You think I should go back and buy it? It's brown. I don't have a brown purse. The last purse I bought was at one of the airport shops in one of the cities I was in last year. It's a red Tommy Hilfiger. I don't know if it's obvious enough but I'm actually helping myself reason out why I need to buy the purse.

(PostScript): I don't know why I bother, it has always been rule of thumb for me that when I'm still thinking about something after one day, it's worth it. So yes, I'm going to buy it later.

Rainy day on Tuesday

The weather is awful. It's been raining all day and a few thunderstorms broke out. We even had a few seconds of power outage, but that has been managed rather quickly. I'm glad. I don't mind the dark at night, but when you expect light during the day and you don't get it, I feel rather ill at ease.

Today, we go to Gabriel's school to talk with the teacher in one of those one-on-one meetings. We just received Gabriel's school card, and I must say the grades are pretty familiar. Hahaha. All rated sections are E [for excellent], and there doesn't seem to be any trouble in school at all. I'm a proud momma.

I realized that we do not have the equal number of magnets (on the fridge) as the shotglass on the shelf. This is due to the fact that I stopped buying fridge magnets when we decided to collect shotglasses. Now, I'm thinking maybe continue on with the magnets as well. We'll see how the budget goes. Perhaps we're at the stage now where we have most shotglasses anyway, so that means I only need to buy magnets.

We played Friends Scene-It dvd game yesterday (yes, the 3 of us including Gabriel). I won, of course.

We've also collected quite a few dvds, and I saw some unopened ones which I will want to take a look at in the next few days. I'll get to that later, and perhaps add a review section here (I've always wanted to be a movie critic).

Almost like rain

The weather forecast is thunderstorms at 3pm today, and the day began very gloomy and dark. But not one drop of rain has fallen yet. Maybe I should be going home. I will soon enough.

I get home and my boys aren't home yet. Turns out they made a quick stop at Wolf Camera and Panda Express.

Hey, I'm looking at this digital frame that's still sitting on my desk (and I think I have decided more than a week ago to send it back to Amazon). I probably should be taking care of that so I can check that on my mental list of things to do.

I also need to run a couple of errands, go grocering and shopping for shoes.

Patrick's last day

And so we got on Diana's car for lunch and headed to Angry Dog. To be expected though, the Dog was full and we decided we couldn't wait and ambled on to St Pete's Dancin' Marlin. I had fish and chips which was forgettable. Diana said the tuna steak sandwich was very good, so I sure know which one to try out next time.

I need a visa for Canada so I will take care of that first thing next week. Looks like the rest of the month (March) and April will be full. Such is life, eh? See, I can do the Canada accent already!

I managed to get a lot of things done today, and I'm glad. I'm still singing the song from watching the Sarah Silverman and Matt Damon video clip, so that certainly puts a smile on your face. It's just so hilarious. I couldn't still make up my mind which one is funnier - that or the response by Jimmy Kimmel and Ben Affleck. Find it in YouTube if you're interested. It will make your day.

Knock, knock. Who's there? I'm Fu. I'm Fu who?

Time for Tiff's Treats now. So I'll see you again later.

Hanging at the FSD airport

Today of all days - I decided to go to the airport early to perhaps try my luck in getting an early flight out. Instead I was informed that the flight to Chicago was cancelled and that I have been re-routed through to Denver to my final destination, Dallas. I tried to disagree, but really, there was no other choice and she couldn't route me anywhere else. Like I said before, Sioux Falls is quite rural. If you miss the flight, then you stay the night. I wasn't up to staying another night here. No thank you.

Whoa! What was that? I have to check.

4 fighter planes (don't ask me to describe the body of the plane, but remember Top Gun? The rear of them planes looked exactly like those in the movie. Yeah, flames and all. And that's why I deduced those were fighter planes.) just flew out one after the other right outside terminal 5 of FSD. Definitely not commercial planes... the loud noise reverberated through the small airport.

Cool... I just saw a few birds flying in the direction that the planes took. And immediately the thoughts start whirring and I imagined if they could ever catch up. Nah.

Oh, by the way, I have confirmed trips for Philadelphia on the 25th of this month, and then tentatively flying to Tampa on Apr 3rd.

Sioux Falls, South Dakota

Sioux Falls is rural. Everything is within 10-minute distance from the airport and the people are warm.

The meetings with the client went well and now I can relax a bit and not worry about any report just yet. It was a working lunch and so that meant there is not much good things to be said about it, except that the sandwich wasn't bad at all. And I did have a chocolate-chip cookie, which only made me miss Tiff's snickerdoodles (sugar with cinnamon cookies).

Although I brought the camera with me, I haven't taken any pictures yet. Yes, it is my first time in Sioux Falls, but again there's really nothing extraordinary. And it's not like I have a lot of time outside. I got in pretty late last night (past 10pm) and was out early for 8:15am meetings. Tonight, I may just have dinner down at the lobby. I'm not sure yet whether Sadhik (who I met for the first time today) will be joining me, he said he'll give me a call at around 7pm.

I'll probably head early to the airport to buy the usuals - magnet and shotglass.

I'm just writing as the thoughts come into my head. I know that there were a couple of items that I wanted to write about, but now that I'm online and actually writing, they've escaped me.

Date on Friday and the rest of the weekend

Last Friday, I decided to take some personal time off and went out with my husband. We first went to a couple of Borders Music Store to look (and buy) some board games that were on sale. Then off we went to watch a movie, Vantage Point at Cinemark. The movie was not bad but it wasn't good either.

We had lunch at a chinese buffet restaurant nearby, and although we probably won't be going there again, it wasn't bad. We certainly had worse (read: Loop 12 Buffet in Dallas). But the Best Buffet in Plano have already set the bar for us as far as chinese buffets go. There was a time when we pretty much go there every weekend for the crabs. We don't anymore but this year alone, we've probably gone 4 times already. So it's getting to be a trend again.

We picked up Gabriel in school and headed towards Dick's Sporting Goods to go looking for heelys. Unfortunately, none were available so while I took a quick nap in the car, Jojo drove by Best Buy to buy extra dance mats for DDR.

The weekend was pretty much uneventful for us. We stayed home, bonded, and I made blueberry cheesecake again. We visited with Aileen's family Sunday night (Gabriel practically begged us to go). So even though I've already had a glass of strawberry margarita, we still went. We ended up staying till almost 11pm and because it was the kids' spring break, it wasn't a biggie.

A different side of Texas

It's March in Texas, and it's snowing! I'm not kidding. The snow flakes are too real and temperature too cold to joke about. I'm actually working off of Jan's home office today, and I called Jojo to pick me up instead of me driving home with Michael. And the reason? Because I would love for Gabriel and Jojo to experience snow falling on their heads. The snow in Arizona was already on the ground. It was deep, it was cold, but no actual snow fell on our heads then.

This will be a first for them. I hope they get here in time.

(Post Script): They were in time for light snow, and we had fun making a snowman! Will be posting pictures soon.

Travels and Amazon puchases

There seems to be a lot of projects that will start this month, and after the trip to South Dakota next week, I have travels lined up for Philadelphia, Florida, Minneapolis, and Amsterdam. So listed in order of priority and then percentage of chance that I'll be going. Small chance of going to Amsterdam though, too bad.

I was disappointed to receive the digital frame that I ordered in Amazon, which means to say I will be returning the item as I am not particularly happy. As a consumer, I have a right to be satisfied and if not, then I will exercise my consumer right to return the product. I haven't done this yet with an online purchase though, so let's try my luck.

On the other hand, I also got my DDR game today and have actually tried a few songs. Not the best that I imagined I could do (in my sleep!) but with practice and perseverance and a lot of sweat, I will conquer. I just know it. I need to pick up another dance mat though. Whoever is brave enough to go against me can do so at their expense. Of course, at the rate I'm going now, they'll probably have the last laugh!

I also just discussed the renewal of my visa here in the US with my boss, and it does seem like we will be traveling back to Manila to get the visa stamp as soon as the visa is approved. Maybe not as soon as, but it definitely means that when I travel out of the country after the visa expires, I will have to go get the visa stamped before I could come back. This actually is good news because that means I would get to visit Manila soon! The bad news is, I'm not sure we are financially prepared for this. I still haven't talked to Jojo about it (as I've just found out myself) but I'm guessing we're gonna have to cross the bridge when we get there?

It's quiet in here

I'm in the office and it seems pretty quiet. Maybe it's the weather (it's chilly today with a foreboding promise of snow by 6pm). Which means I'll be out of here earlier than usual to avoid the rush hour. 5pm and rain just don't mix well in a city full of highways.

Can't believe the weekend's over, it's just too soon! And what's this I hear that it's March already? That was quick.

My friend and colleague, Patrick, just tendered his resignation effective 2 weeks from today. I wish him good luck and it does seem like he's going to be getting some. He got an awesome deal from a previous employer, so it won't be so much like he's going to be moving on to completely new things.

St Bernard

I keep forgetting to tell y'all about the time when I told Gabriel that I like St Bernards (yes, the dog). We were on our way to the Grand Canyon when we stopped for a quick snack in Mickey D's. I saw a girl with a St Bernard and hastily pointed out to Gabriel that it was the breed that I really liked. He looked at the dog and then at me, and said, "That's a pony, mom."

Well, it was huge. Hahaha.

Hunt for the DDR

Woke up and showered just in time to take Gabriel to CCD. Then our hunt for the Dance Dance Revolution began in Circuit City. No dice. Back to church for Sunday mass and afterwards lunch buffet in Plano. Just us but it was fun times.

Then we probably went to all the closest Circuit Citys and Best Buys in the DFW metroplex, trying to look for the video game. We weren't lucky and finally decided to call it a day and went home (just before 5pm).

But the day did not end there - we cleaned the apartment. I'm glad we did, now everything's clean and organized. Well almost everything anyway. At some point, we just sat down.

And oh, I've ordered DDR in Amazon. They'll deliver it on Wednesday.

Headache

I still couldn't sleep and I still have the headache. We were out last night drinking and didn't go home till the wee hours of the morning. It was a great night though, a lot of fun. Meghna and Jan combined is just a riot, and with Jojo with them... pure entertainment! The highlight of the evening was when everyone started talking about a monkey's digits. You should have been there, it was hysterical.

Then we all had to get out of bed earlier than I would have wanted for Gabriel's first soccer game for the spring season. As Gabriel said, "I can't be late, mom. Wake up!" He's really focused. They won, yahoo!

I had to call Patrick to cancel because I was in no mood to socialize, but couldn't get out of Joel's birthday party so we went. We did make it back home early.

The past couple of days is tiresome. I hope I get to slow down a bit tomorrow.