Simply Belle

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 fly 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 in 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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