I say "Goodbye!" and I say "Hello!"

It was a difficult decision when a few months back, my husband I decided that we need to prioritize family and health over work. So, I said a (temporary - I don't know how temporary this is) goodbye to teaching, my passion of more than a decade and to the institution I worked for for almost 9 years.

It was 2 weeks ago that hubby and I took my stuff from school. It just so happened that 2-3 days after, we had a serious typhoon here in Baguio wherein we had 2 days and 2 nights of brownout. It was kinda dark so  I did not do any crafting. Rather, I set out in  organizing and arranging work stuff I took from my former office since I resigned.

We got 3 bags and 2 boxes of my stuff. I am very grateful that our student assistants helped us pack these. I never knew I had a lot of stuff under my desk and lockers: 

Opening all my stuff brought out memories and it made me sentimental and a bit sad. :( I honestly feel that teaching is my passion but I have to prioritize my family  and our little one in my tummy whom we've waited for such a long time,

The largest box  brought out my personal stuff such as mugs, headphones, many pens, paper clips and even my sanitary pads and eraser.

Teachers have a lot of notes because we research what we teach- I speak for myself. We also have plenty of folders to hold our certificates from trainings we attended and we conducted (left photo below).

Opening one folder (right photo below) containing my schedule and my gradesheets made me a bit -yeah- sentimental :(

I opened all the Pandora boxes, and these is what were revealed- papers, evaluation reports, CDs, rulers, personal stuff-lotion, alcohol, mugs, baonan, fork and spoon, etc:

It even had the training materials I had in India for 2 weeks last 2009

And my doodles on every page of the materials. I remembered our strict trainer in Python programming. He was peering at my notes and sarcastically told me to doodle more including his face. He thought I was not listening and asked me to recite. Imagine that! I couldn't help doddle because  I was so sleepy and doodling keeps me awake and listen to him. 

 






















That training is one of the things in my life I cannot forget and I thank ASEAN and my institution for supporting me that time. Brings back funny and embarrassing memories. Hah! But I gained a lot of friends. :) I had to dispose the notes :( so I took pictures of my doodles (not that I feel like an artist :p)

Going back to this post, during the 2 day brownout break, I was also able to sort out my certificates from certifications, trainings attended, trainings conducted, working committee membership, outreach and community involvement, etc. I used  3 binders with plastic sheets for these. I might use them in the future when I decide to go back to work.

I love stickers and imagine my shock that I have more in school! I usually place those smilies on my students' papers. The rest, I just buy them and put them on my stationery set. Priscia, my niece gave me scrapbooking materials so I combined them all and placed them in one plastic folder. My smiley stickers are not here anymore since I donated it to a colleague and a friend who's very interactive with her students.

I also have plenty of scrapbooking stuff in school which I gathered in one box with my pamana from my sweet niece. She said I use it for our baby's room, decors and album. I could kiss that girl! :)

I also organized my various pens, highlighters, pens and washi tapes in one metal container. I have plenty of "maarte" pens from colleagues who gave these as souvenirs from national trainings they attended. I couldn't throw them for sentimental reasons and they're still working!

What do you know, the most I have in my collection are sticky pads!!! I had 4 or 5 from my nice but most of these came from me! I love buying them and giving them as gifts to my colleagues. Since we check researches and documents, stickies help us write our comments and tag pages. I organized them in my desk drawer.

After going through my work school stuff and organizing them with the ones I have at home, I also started raiding my closet. Goodbye to  my uniforms! *sniff! These are set aside for donation. 

Goodbye for now to a happy (yet very stressful) work life and hello to a new and exciting chapter in my and hubby's life. :) 

Color My World 2

The past few days saw me reviving my passion again in coloring. I was not feeling it for almost 2 weeks but when color inspiration came, I was able to color 3 pages from my 3 sets of coloring books.

I must admit I tried to find ways in improving my coloring skills and it is only recently that I am applying some things  I have learned.

Anyway, here are 2 of the Art Noveau Fashion pages that I colored:

A. The Lady in the Jungle. I titled it as so because it is full of greens... I debated on coloring leaves as pink and red ones. Heheheh. I started with the image below deciding to have a pink blouse instead of pink leaves.  

And this is  my finished project... I struggled with this because I got tired of the green color.. and I don't know if the cold, wet weather we experienced for days affected the texture of some of  the Faber Castell watercolor pencils I am using, Some of the leaves look rough even the purple skirt! :(

B. Lady in Pink Roses and Green. I got tired of the green colors from the first one I colored so I decided to make the twines brown even if it looks a bit dry. Hah! I enjoyed using light colors on this one. Again, some of the Faber Castell watercolor pencils look rough when I applied them on the flowers. I cannot "remedy" the damage done anymore. Coloring this was a breeze. It took me a few hours only.

I got tired with the ladies :p so I sorted my Coloring Fan set and decided to do this:

C. Fan with pastel-colored blooms

Since some of my Faber Castell Watercolor pencils got "cold" and rough :p I decided to use the lighter Crayola colored pencils I had. I only have 24 colors compared to the Faber Castell which is 48 +.

Before, I favored using the darker Faber Castell Watercolor pencils because I wanted bolder colors but the Crayola colored pencils allowed me to control the depth of the color better through lighter strokes and just by sharpening them.

I would say this is my best work yet because of the shading.. I hope to improve more as days go by and when coloring inspiration strikes.

Yesterday, i started working with a butterfly design but I stopped it since I need to finish my cross stitch project that my mom has to bring with her next week. 

Wood Nymph 1

My hubby and I love Korean food and the best restaurant for us that serves K-food here in Baguio is Woodnymph.

They have 3 branches here in Baguio but the one I am featuring right now are the foods we ate and we always order at their SM Baguio Branch. 

Introduced by my cousin, Sarah who taught Korean students before, are my favorites since then until today. These are: 

Jeeyukbukom

It's made of thinly sliced pork belly, cabbage and carrots and some other vegetables cooked with Korean spices and sugar (it's kinda sweet). I love eating this.

I captured the elegant carrot flower they made as a decoration to the plate. 

And we usually have jeeyukbukom with: 

Sundobuchigee. It is a seafood soup with shells and clams with soft tofu and soft soft egg with spicy broth,.. as in Whoooooo spicy.. My hubby and I can't get enough of this even if our nose runs because of the heat

Aside from these two of course are the side dishes. We especially love the "honeyed" marble potatoes and kim chi. I love also the sweet and cool sprouts because it balances out the heat and spiciness of the foods.

Best to drink water with these viands and usually get a dessert of cool Melona ice cream bar. :) Yum! 

Grumpy Joe 2

We've been to Grumpy Joe quite a few times and I am happy to see that I have pics on the last time we ate there months ago with my hubby and cousin which I haven't posted.

I love their pasta there and so the three of us decided to get their marinara pasta:

Perper was delighted with the serving and the no. of seafoods in the pasta. It was tasty.

I ordered a cheeseburger to be shared with the three of us. This was our first time to try their burger and we were not disappointed. It isn't really that special but it's good compared to others. There was a side dish of coleslaw and ketchup and mayonnaise as condiments. It was served in a circular wooden board for that rustic appearance.

And, we had their Mexican pizza! There was ranch dressing on top of the nacho chips. It was good. Although I love their signature Grumpy Joe pizza or the pepperoni with jalapenos  better than this. See related post.

And for refreshments, we got: water! Served in mason jar.

We needed water because of this toxic waste! Hot! Toxic indeed ;)

It was a nice experience since we have bonded with a cousin but I loved the first one compared to this in terms of the food we chose to eat.

Color My World 1

I am very lucky that during my birthday last month, my loving and thoughtful friend, Roselle, gifted me three sets of Creative Haven adult coloring books:

I have been looking for adult coloring books in local Baguio bookstores including National Bookstore but I was unsuccessful just like a colleague and a friend so receiving these made me ecstatic!

What I loved about these sets is that the pages have perforation lines which makes it easy to remove a page. I started with the Butterfly Designs and "progressed" with the Vintage Hand Fans and then, the Art Noveau Fashions.

I used the watercolor colored pencil of Faber Castell and Crayola. So far, these are my outputs:

A. Butterfly set
This is the fist set I worked with because I assumed it was the easiest.. I didn't know that sharpening the colored pencils would help me make the colors darker and I have plenty of smudges here

B. Art Noveau Fashion Set

I wasn't too keen with clothes at first, because it looked complicated but I enjoyed coloring this set. So far, I only colored one page as of yet:

C. Fan Set
 I started with this page and  I regret putting the orange background color but what's done is done.

I started with this  2 weeks ago 

and finished it today

I do not color everyday, only when color inspiration hits me...

I tried coloring apps in my mobile such as Colorfy but paper and colored pencils are for me. I was bored with tapping my phone and I do traditional coloring for radiation break from my PC and mobile phone. 

I really hope to improve more in my coloring skills while relaxing... I hope I can learn blending and other more complicated stuff..most of the time, I just grab the pencils and color anyway  I want :)