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. 

Mi Amor - Quesadillas!

Because I was inspired by the cookout I had with my colleagues, I prepared quesadillas during the send off party for a cousin.

I placed  green bell peppers and onions with cheese as the filling for the pita bread heating on top of a non stick pan. For the salsa, I grilled a bellpepper, peeled, sliced and cooked it on a saucepan with diced fresh tomatoes, basil (from the rooftop garden) and some seasonings.

The extra cheese I grated I added to the salsa.

Cutting it up in 4 pieces:

 Finished product:

Cooking Adventures 1 - Pesto Pasta

Lucky us we have a good supply of walnuts. That's why last week, when I spotted fresh basil leaves at the Baguio hangar market, I bought some, boiled some pasta, chopped garlic and walnuts together in our chopper with olive oil, mixed it with the noodles and parmesan cheese and voila! My first pesto pasta!

It looks like pancit canton said my brother but all agreed - hubby, papa and brother that it was panalo!

Served with garlic bread and roasted chicken courtesy of Chic-Boy it was  a yummy Saturday night dinner :)

Fresh Picks

For the past and coming days, hubby and I have the opportunity to shop for our own food and cook them the way we want it. I took advantage of cooking recipes I have been doing during my pre-married life, recipes I learned from my own mother and grandmother and also those that I watch from the Food Network or TLC.

We also went back to juicing. And tonight, we had lettuce, carrots, cucumbers and lemons prepared. I always soak them for at least 30 minutes in water and vinegar to remove impurities and pesticides especially if I cannot avail of organic veggies.

I always make sure that there is lemon in all our juicings because of its great health benefits even if it is a bit expensive. Here they are - all juiced and ready for stirring:

Distributed in our glasses:

Strawberry prices went down from Php 200 to Php 120 pesos a kilogram so we decided to eat them for dessert during lunch and dinner. 

All sliced into manageable bites and drizzled with condensed milk:

Healthy and Yum-o! at the same time :)

Guitar Serenades

Once in  a while at least 2 times a week, my hubby would be playing beautiful background  music for me through his guitar while I browse the Web, read a book or while simply curling in bed near him . A very skilled guitarist, he never ceases to amaze me whit his talent and music.

Tonight he is playing the classical Air on a gstring. On any given night, it can be bluegrass, country, gospel, classical, modern.. but he is the best with classical music.

And with our wedding song, Moon River.

Lucky girl. That's me :)