Simply Belle

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Me: Lexi, how do I look in this dress?

Lexi: You look good mommy, you look like a teacher.

Hmmm, whatever she meant by it, I will take it as a compliment. The skirt I am wearing is a wrap-around skirt that I bought 10 years ago in Oahu. I thought I would wear it today for this mother’s day ocassion to look more motherly (not teacherly, Lexi). One time, we went to church, and I was wearing a formal long black skirt, a white blouse, and a black blazer. Stephanie thought I looked like a mormon mother. Ha! ha! Whatever.

Today, we had a mother’s day celebration at my friend’s salon in town. Her salon is closed on a Sunday so we kept the place to ourselves. She brought a long table and placed it in the middle of the room. Everyone brought a dish or two. I brought several dishes plus a box of ziploc bags for leftover to take home. Ha ha, I came prepared, you know. Sure enough, none of them thought of bringing the bags.

After eating, Merlinda, (far left) the owner of the salon, thought about giving each girl a makeover. The girls were so thrilled about the idea and so were the mothers. I actually didn’t mind driving back home to get the make up for their glamour look. I guess I was just as excited as the girls.

Here they are in no particular order who are likewise called Merlinda’s Angels.

I tried applying her make-up but she opted to do it herself because she was afraid that she might end up looking like a clown. She thinks that when it concerns about make up and hair, mommy doesn’t know anything.

GG is showcasing her long layers. Her mother (next to Merlinda in the group photo above) applied her make-up including the girl below.

The youngest one, D, has beautiful thick black straight hair. All she needed was a light make up.

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This concerns to the US residents only:

You might have been already notified in the mail regarding the NALC’s (National Association of Letter Carriers) Stamp Out Hunger annual food drive this Saturday, May 10, 2008. I would like to make an appeal to all of you to please go through your pantry and pick out the ones that you don’t need and donate them to help family in need in your community. We want to collect as much food as possible because this is the year that many families are struggling with the recession that our country is facing.

Please set the goods next to your mailbox and your carrier will pick them up when delivering mail. It has to be non-perishable items like canned goods, noodles, cereals, etc. Money is also appreciated but has to be handed out to the carrier personally or you can deliver it to the post office yourself. Someone will be there to assist you.

Your community needs you….please help this Saturday, May 10, 2008. I will be one of the carriers who will be picking up the food.

Oh, my contribution is already in the paper bag for my husband to set out on Saturday.

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fire pit

Last Sunday, we had a cook out at our friend’s ranch in celebration of her husband’s and a friend, F’s birthday. I always love going to this ranch because it is private, huge, and quite a ways from town. We can laugh, giggle, dance, sing, and drink to our heart’s content and not worry about disturbing anyone. A good respite after a hard day at work. I stayed mostly outside, frolic around the area, and watch birds flew by. We also built a fire in the evening to warm us because it was getting chilly. Boy, it was fun sitting by the fire and reminisced old times. A few friends had a glass or two of margarita and I matched it with a good cup of coffee for myself, which I haven’t had in a while because I am a green tea drinker.

My husband and I came in two cars because he doesn’t like to linger at a party. Whereas, I do, now that I don’t have kids at home to care for anymore. It is not that I like not having my kids at home; of course I miss my girls but it is such a nice feeling that I can hang around much longer now when there is a gathering as opposed to rushing home like the old days.

The horse in the stable at a far corner was such a nice treat. We all went down to spend some time with Chico and gave him something to eat. Very very friendly creature! He seemed thrilled to see us because he seldom gets to see new people and sad to see us go. I wonder if the owner R ever takes him out for a run. Horses are made to run and ride.

I rescued the birthday girl as soon I noticed her red cheeks and half-closed eyes. She had a tad bit too much of margarita already and was dozing on and off on the chair. She was alert and wide awake in the car though and maintained an enjoyable conversation with me on our trip back home. I watched her from my car as she proceeded to her house to make sure she was okay. She looked in control and didn’t stagger at all. Happy birthday dear F! I am so glad you had a blast on your birthday.

The birthday celebrant in charge of the barbecuing while the host was busy taking pictures.

Delicious barbecued shrimp and chicken wings

I wasn’t sure what my friend, M, was doing here with her arms spread out like that. Doing the chanting, maybe…hehe. You see those two old houses in the background? Those are not livable anymore and soon to be demolished. Currently, they serve as shelter for wild animals, like elks, cats (9 to be exact), and probably javalinas, too. R, the owner, spread hays inside for the elks to munch on and water bowls to drink from.

friends sharing stories by the campire. the problem with being the photographer, you are not included in any pictures.

Chico, the horse.

L, G-G, and F, the birthday girl.

G-G patting the horse.

mother and daughter

pretty 12 year-old G- G

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Is my daughter’s A recent blog article at her myspace site. She is a freshman at college.

It says:

It sucks to work really really hard on a rough draft of a paper, only to get it back and realize that I suck at the English language. I mean, seriously, when it comes to something as vague as prepositions, how am I supposed to know when to insert “regarding” in place of the word “of”? And I’ll never understand when to say “whom” instead of “who.” People who can write eloquently, I swear, they operate on a separate brain wave from me.

and mom answers:

I am not very fluent in English but I will take my shot at it because sometimes it takes a Filipino mother to answer your grammar questions.

When a sentence needs a subject, use WHO.

ex: Who will be coming?
I recognized the girl who was wearing red dress.

Whom, however, is an OBJECT PRONOUN. It is used as a direct object, indirect object, and object of the preposition.

ex: Whom did you give the money?- (direct object)
You wrote whom the letter?- (indirect object)
To whom did you give the flowers- (object of the preposition)

Anyway, if you really get confused about/regarding the two words, try this. Rewrite just the part of the sentence that contains who or whom. Instead of using who, use he. Instead of using whom, use him. See which sounds better. If he sounds better, use who otherwise, use whom.

example: The boy (who, whom) I sent the flowers was quite charming. Here, you would use whom, because it is used as indirect object. Indirect object answers questions “to whom” or “for whom.” To whom did i send the flowers?

ex: I gave you a $100. You is the indirect object because it explains to whom the money was given. $100 is the direct object because it explains what was given.

Regarding and of, however, are two different prepositions and should not be confused one from the other.

ex: I have a question regarding the topic.
Any questions regarding the rice crisis in the Philippines?

You wouldn’t say, “I have a question of the topic,” or “Any questions of the rice crisis in the Philippines?” Sounds awkward, right. Try to experiment with words and see which sounds better.

Daddy said, informally, you can say “Any questions about the rice crisis in the Philippines?” but “of” is incorrect preposition to use in those sentences. I think your professor is teaching you the formal way of writing.

Blogger friends, did i miss out anything?

Green Valley Park Sunset

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We were invited over at our friends’ house for a last get-together for this year before they head back to WA. to spend the summer. These are retired people who own two homes - one in AZ where they spend the winter to get away from the dark-cold-wet days of Seattle, and one in WA, which offers beautiful weather and long nights during summer.

I usually take charge of the kitchen when I come over. I made eggrolls and pansit.

FYI: I was wearing shorts and a long shirt. Even my husband asked, “do you have anything underneath that shirt?”

Boy, I haven’t even finished deep frying the eggrolls, two of my friends couldn’t seem to get their hands off the cooked eggrolls. For the other gentleman, it was his first time to eat eggroll, and he loved it so much!

Don’t you just love watching them attack the food? It made me feel good as a cook.

And let me show you the weirdness out of this gentleman.

He added catsup to his pansit. Yuck!

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Let me count the ways….

Take a look at the picture below. Notice any abnormalities?

We are trying to find ways to cut down on our gas bill. In the month of December alone, my gas bill skyrocketed to almost $500, and half of the time the kids were not even with us and my husband and I hardly ever cooked. It has doubled from last year’s bill. The thing is we were not notified of such increase, which is not right. Since our bills are deducted from our deposit automatically every month, we were not aware of such things until 3 months later when it has already damaged my bank account drastically. That hurt! Maybe, they did notify us, but we didn’t get it for sure or the company didn’t do a good job of spreading the information. Go figure.

How will the ordinary family/young couple living on a tight budget or retired couple living on a fixed income survive? The salary/social security remains the same, but everything else goes up. Is this what people call recession? In my almost 22 years of living in the USA, I have never seen this happen. It is alarming! Houses quit selling, our town’s revenue is down by several millions, dollar versus peso hit the all time low, the price of gas is soaring, and first class letters at work has declined quite substantially but bills/gas/airfare/cost of commodities are rising rapidly. Whatever happened? Who is to blame for such economic turmoil? The way things are going, there is a certainty that recession is about to hit this country unless something is done.

Meanwhile, we are doing our best to cut down on cost. I quit running my gas-generated furnace, and turned off pilot lights. I turned down my water heater to low. I now run economical electric space heater in my bedroom, and lately, as shown in the picture, I started using my camping stove for cooking. It suits us just fine because now that the kids are out of the house, I don’t do much cooking. I find that it is cheaper to buy the little propane cylinder ($2.65) than relying on our gas outifit served by Sem Stream Company. This way, I don’t have to pay huge surcharges, and adjustments, which is what drive the cost up. In my January bill of $400, my surcharge and adjustment alone amounted to $200, excluding state and city taxes. My gosh, with tiny income we are receiving, we get ripped off every direction. My energy usage was actually $165, which is tolerable, taxes excluded. So far, my gas usage this month is 11 cubit feet, down by 3/4 from last month, which will be reflected in next month bill. And I expect to see a bill in double figure in the future especially that the warmer weather is around the corner. We are in season now when we don’t need heating or cooling.

Maybe this is the time to look into solar water heating since we have an abundance of sunshine where we live just like in the Philippines. I know I have friends who live quite a ways from town who rely solely on solar for electricity. Worth checking into, huh? Wouldn’t it be nice if we can avoid paying these huge gas and electricity bills.

It is time I go back to old ways - walking to and from work and eating rice and sugar…hehe

Hey, a penny saved is one and a quarter earned because taxes have to be paid on the earning to get the penny.

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I took a week vacation from work to spend some time with my children. Unfortunately, Lexi’s spring break didn’t coincide with Steffi’s but Lexi still managed to find time to bond with the family. She drove home from Flagstaff at 10 PM Friday night after work and didn’t get home ’til past midnight. As usual, I couldn’t hold still on my bed until she was safe home while my husband slept like a log. Sometimes, I wish I could switch roles with my husband.

Steffi’s friend, Leia, also from Stanford U, flew from Baltimore to Arizona to spend a couple of days with us. She was kind enough to offer to ride with Steffi on the way back to Stanford U. Since this is a year when Steffi starts internship in college, we thought this is the best time for her to have a car. She has been without a car for almost three years and sometimes she would whine at us over the phone that it was too cold to bike to her class. We knew right then that we had to get her a car.

We tried our best to make the most of Leia’s short visit in our place. Initially, she wanted to do some golfing in front of our house but my husband was able to talk her into visiting the Tonto Bridge which is only 20 minutes from our house. By the time we got home after doing few errands here and there, it was 2:30 PM - time for me to get started with my cooking as I invited a couple of Filipina friends over for dinner. Between 2:30 PM and 6 PM, I was able to fix six dishes including making eggrolls from scratch. My kids love eggrolls so much so I don’t mind going through the hassle once in a while. Leia and my husband love Kare-Kare so I cooked that too. I fixed Sinigang na bangus, and daing na bangus for my friends. All went well and everyone was happy.
Here are some pictures taken at Tonto Bridge:

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Sharing with you Stephanie’s live on-air interview with Kit McGuire on Kit’s Korner - KRIM-FM 96.3 in Payson: Interview

She sang a new song titled “When You Sing” toward the middle of the interview which made me cry. I was in the studio when she sang the song and I had to face the wall the whole time while she was singing, with tears flowing down on my face.

I took this picture of Kit and Stephanie during the live interview. I quietly hung out at the far corner taking pictures. This was my first time to be in the studio while an interview was going on. I tell you, it was an awesome experience! Now I am reaping the benefits of hanging around and rubbing elbows with the celebrity…hehe. (Kit, by the way, was an actor during his heyday.) He is single and looking for that special someone. I have known him for some time and I tell you he is such a fun loving person, and an awesome radio announcer. Ohh, I just found out that he blogs here.

Stephanie Mae preparing to sing live on the air.

Stephanie and Suzanne Michaels (station manager of KRIM-FM 96.3)

She was the one who screened Stephanie’s CD when I brought it over to her station. She told me only a few CDs out of the many submissions make the grade, and I honestly thought Stephanie’s would not make it but I was wrong. Suzanne, as you can see in the picture is a happy, outgoing person and has the best smile which depicts, humbleness, decency, love, and friendliness. Visit her site at KRIM-FM 96.3 and if you can, try to leave a message.

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Here are some pictures of the finished product Stephanie made for her ME203 project. It’s called “Lap-a-Desk” and it’s the kind that folds up into a mini-desk. It’s ideal for using when you’re lying in bed and want to keep the laptop in an elevated position. It’s also designed to use as a lap-desk so it blocks the heat that comes from the laptop. The desk revolves 360 so you can use the other side as a flat desk surface.  The blue stuff silicone was supposed to help grip the laptop, but it doesn’t work very well so she inserted those wooden pieces you see that hold up the laptop. She made everything except the hinges.

Her proudest accomplishment of the moment! It took her 6 weeks plus about 4 weeks of lab where they learned how to use the equipment. She also had to make a magnifying glass from scratch. She made the wooden desk by using the sanding machine to make the curves. She said, it was hard to get all the curves symmetrical and even. But, the hard work paid off.

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