Golf Course @ My BackYard

For those who are not aware of this – the golf course – for the country club is just behind our backyard – one of the main reasons why we bought our home there. It is a very beautiful golf course – lots of greens during spring time and also summer and it is my hope that I will one day pick up golf again. I used to play golf when I worked for a Spanish company – I needed to entertain our clients – so I would practice since my handicap is not even worth mentioning. My boss has a gps for golf course – yes! he was a serious player alright. Hopefully, this summer – I can get a chance to play again – coz’ my girlfriends from here – wants to play with me – I’m trying to do different things this year – to make my life a better and healthier one – I’m darn proud of myself alright!

Kids & Vitamins

Like every parent – we want what is best for our kids – from buying them the most expensive books to nourish their mind – to getting them the best multivitamins to nourish their bodies. I’m no different and I strongly believed in multivitamins for kids – as well as ourselves. Of course, the doctor had said that if your kids are given a well – balanced diet – they don’t need any more vitamins. But if you have a kid like mine who don’t like greens – then you’ll have to find a vitamin that can supplement that right? Yes – I’m the official helicopter mom – but nope I don’t overdose her with vitamins – although I’ve heard that if you feel like a cold is coming – you should get an overdose of Vitamin C. Anyhow, I’m sure if you are a mom who cooks home cooked meals a lot for your kids – and is a stay at home mom – it will be easier to monitor their diet – but for moms like me who needs to work, it is harder so don’t feel bad if you are making your kids take vitamin because you feel they are not getting enough from their food.

I Wanna Be A Happy Mom !!

Who doesn’t want to be a happy mom right? but with so many things going on with one’s life – it is more a conscious thing than saying – I will be happy if and when. So now that things had gotten a bit more calm at the store – no more employees to worry about woohoo!! I am able to tell myself or rather force myself to look after myself first too. You see, like all moms – when i go shopping – and with every good intention – I walk into the mall wanting to get something for myself earnestly but ends up with stuff for Chloe or the store – or even the spouse. I sometimes, get Grammie’s pepsi first rather than my own personal items *smack, smack” – yup I’m this way. Many people including myself thinks that when so and so is happy, I will be happy too – but we cannot be more wrong! because how can the other person be happy if you are not? just like chloe or PB – how can they be happy – when I’m always grouchy or screaming or stressing out myself right? So yes! this year I’ve consciously taken care of myself and doing the things that I need to do for myself first – it’s not easy – I still fall back to my old routine and thinking – but I’m doing it – so half the battle won there. So remember girls – if you want to be a happy mom – you have to stop, breathe – and spend time for yourself and treat yourself – in other words – love yourself today!

Explaining Death To Kids

We passed by the cemetery today – and Chloe who had been obsessed with death lately asked PB why is there so many dead people at the cemetery and she also wants to know if we were gonna buried her there – when she dies. We’ve not been very good in explaining to her about death and in fact had been avoiding it – because Chloe had been a little dramatic since her cousin’s sudden death last year. At one point – Chloe had said she felt like “killing” herself – and PB had shouted at her and told her never to say something like that – because her cousin Nick had done just that – and that was unforgivable! Yes! trauma or what!

Anyhow, what made me really sad was that she wanted her to get her pink flowers to be put on her grave when she dies! *sigh* – so I knew that we had to explain death clearer to her – without traumatizing her further. But how the heck do you tell a 7 yrs old about death – and how would she deal with it? So we tried – but then Chloe told her that her Aunt Helena told her that everyone dies at some point *slap forehead* – so she wants to know when she will die – and what if we died ? so what is going to happen to her ? she started wailing and said she didn’t want us to die – so we had to stop. Now we have to go and find out from Grammie what Aunt Helena said to Chloe and then try again another time – in a different setting and in a different way but yes ! we read more about it – talked to our doctor about it and will try again – when the question is being asked again.

Best Laid Plans

I took a shower last night and cooked my rice and let it sit enough and put them in the fridge for the next day to fry some pineapple rice for Chloe to eat in school. And also planned to go out and get some stuff done before going to work this morning – but alas the kid got sick in the middle of the night and puked like 8 times and we only got to sleep at 8am. Didn’t get up till almost 11am and late for work and all – and my acne started popping out of course – what else is new. Every time, I don’t get enough sleep – this is what happens – *sigh* – but what can you do right? for folks like me – we just have the best acne treatments on stand by – like tylenol at home. Yes, you can’t have any best laid plans when you have a kid at home. Poor Chloe – was so gung ho about everything and didn’t cry nor anything – she even said she was sorry she had to wake us up. Poor kid!

Getting The Right Healthcare Plan

While I’m not that old yet – one must know that we all get old eventually right. Especially for an expatriate like myself – I have to think of my old age and health plan – while my parents and our forefathers had many kids to look after them during old age, most families has one or two kids these days. Do you really want to burden your kids with taking care of your medicare bills when they are just starting out and making a new family of their own. I read that in the United States where a lot of my friends and family are living in – they have the Medicare plan to help them find the right plan for heath care coverage – now that’s good eh. Like I said I may not be that old now – but time flies and before you know it – I might need some kind of coverage too – now to find a medicare plan for myself is very important too – I tell PB all the time else he would just have to take care of me during old age.

Skin Care Expert

Skin care expert I am not – I don’t know why people/friends/customers always ask me about skin care and wondering why I have perfect skin and they don’t. I guess I am born lucky – I never had to suffer with pimples or acne even when I was a teenager – so never needed special skin care products – nor acne scar treatment when i became and adult. But not many people are that lucky – and like some of my customers here – they could really need some help. But I can’t really tell them what to use – because I never had them – I can only redirect them to what I’ve read and hopefully it will help them. Acne scars are really terrible – it can make a person lose confidence in themselves – I’ve seen it happen to a wonderful childhood friend of mine. But in this day and time – no one should suffer in shame because they have acne – they can get help.

Healthier Muffin For Me

Chloe came back from her grammie’s today and brought back some muffins she made. She said to me – the blueberry muffin is for you mom – they are healthier than the chocolate ones. The chocolate ones are for me and daddy. muahhahahah!! my daughter knows me all too well. so precious – how I wished and hope that she will continue to grow up to be this thoughtful.

Basic Skin Care

Sometimes it is hard to tell someone to go get something done about their acne scars – which was exactly what happened yesterday at our store. We have a long time customer – who always had this acne problem – but after she gave birth to her daughter – it seems to have gotten better. But a year and a half later – we see her at the store – and she was back with new acne and more scar. It was so bad – that Chloe didn’t dare go near her – nor cross her path – to get her movies where that customer was standing. Poor kid and poor customer of ours. I wished I knew where I can get her the best acne scar treatment but even if I did – how do I go about telling her without offending her. I felt so bad that Chloe behaved the way she did – but you can’t really blamed her coz’ it was really bad – the acne I meant – and such a pity – because that customer is really a pretty young woman. Anyhow, I took the opportunity to tell Chloe that personal hygiene was important – if she didn’t want to get acne in the future.

Prioritizing

For the last 2 years – I have been very busy – trying to make as much money as I can – not only in the store but also online but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t take care of Chloe well – I just didn’t get too anal when things weren’t cleaned at home – or even at the store. But towards the end of last year – seeing that the store was doing much better and we got some help from a friend to help organize stuff – I was able to get my act together with prioritizing my personal stuff.

I’m pleased to say that I’ve done some work around the house – that I haven’t attempted to for a long time – both because of my health and time – that I don’t really have. When people say that making money is not all that important – I beg to differ – it is important if you want to be able to pay up your bills and making sure that everything is running smoothly. So yes! i did make some sacrifices to see that everything is in order – and now it’s time to take care of my home front too.