According to my dictionary, the word PROUD connotes two things, it can be positive or negative. Proud can be defined as a feeling or showing justifiable self-respect. Likewise, it can also mean being filled with or showing excessive self-esteem. Sadly though, when dealing with self and others, it’s hard to draw a line between the two.

This bothers me because I personally don’t like conceited and arrogant people. More importantly, I don’t want to be branded as one. I know a lot of people who share a lot of things about themselves; their success, purchases, travels etc. but I don’t find them conceited. On the contrary, the more I look up to them. There are people, on the other hand, who would mention something and it sounds to me like they’re blowing their own horn. Maybe because some things are too obvious and better left unsaid, or maybe its the way they say it, the timing or maybe because I don’t know them too well.

All these bring me to one question, am I conceited? I know people close to me won’t think that way because it’s not really my nature. I just wish other people who can read my writings, blogs, tweets or see the pictures I post won’t think of me that way. I just love to share things about me especially those that made me and is making me happy even to the point of influencing them to do the same. But just in case I’m bordering to being conceited, though honestly not my purpose, I hope someone would tell me so.

I’ve always been good at programming, modesty aside. So good that I would almost always top our programming exams in high school and compete with our (then running for) Summa Cum Laude in college. I know it has been more than a decade the last time I did codes and designed algorithms but language, concepts and syntax may have changed, I believe that logic stays the same. I am not saying that IOS application development will be a piece of cake, but I am just confident that I can finish the course obtaining my objective of learning the how-to’s. I even asked the person in charge and made sure that I will be starting from scratch because I have zero knowledge of these things, else I wouldn’t have enrolled myself despite my husband’s protest.

So there, starting Nov 7, I’ll be attending iOS Application Development for iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch – for 2 hours, 3 times a week at MINT College. Hopefully I’ll do less of our company’s Admin and Acctg work (though I still don’t have anybody to delegate it to, not to mention my difficulty in delegating tasks because of control issues) so that I can not only develop mobile applications but also become a Project Lead.

My husband also made sure I won’t have ANY reason to lose my motivation, so he bought me this new toy, I mean tool. Sweet!

Oprah_World tweets “You can have it all. You just can’t have it all at once.”

I agree. I remember Gary telling me in Venice that my dreams have been fulfilled already. Those dreams don’t have to be big dreams, they can be simple and ordinary to some but fulfilling for me. I told him with wide grin that it only means one thing, I have to create another set.

Just recently I was thinking that it would be nice to spend a birthday or holiday in one of Discovery Suites’ big rooms. I did not push the idea. Days after, an agent called me up offering me Discovery Suite membership with numerous perks. I prayed, “Oh God, that was fast!” It was simple yet sweet.

Big or small, I encounter these answered prayers everyday. Of course I won’t see them if I let worries, fear and problems overcome me. I count my blessings. Contrary to what Gary said, I still have a number of dreams waiting to be fulfilled, not to mention those I’ve added on the list. Just a reminder, when an answered prayer comes, it doesn’t usually come in the form you’re expecting. In those times, also pray for wisdom and understanding.

So how do I get what I want, here’s a list.

1. When I ask God, I’m specific.
2. I hold on to my dreams because, unimaginable as it is today, it can really happen in the future. I don’t know how, but God makes it happen.
3. I always remind myself to be generous, kind, considerate, humble and thankful.
4. I pray wherever and whenever I feel the urge… for whatever reason.
5. Despite all the negative things happening around… I keep the faith.

The rest is up to Him. God will either answer it immediately, delay it for the perfect time or give me something better. What more can I ask for?

When kids travel, they:

1. Enjoy the traveling part more than the destination, except of course if you’re going to Disneyland (or the like).
2. Get hungry and thirsty every second.
3. Get bored easily. So they either do or say the silliest things one could imagine and most of the time you just end up laughing.
4. Are super-hyper or maybe not. It’s just that you lack enough rest or sleep and too tired to look after them.
5. Need to go to the bathroom at the most inconvenient time and place. And ‘Wait’ is not an option.

6. Prefer to stay inside the hotel than go out. (Again, except if you’re going to a place that interest them)
7. Think they need to buy something, just anything. Like clothes, food, candy, souvenir, books… but most of the time TOYS. (Well, adults do feel that way too)
8. Will find a way to PLAY.
9. Can be easily pleased… for a short time.
10. Can’t be forced to MOVE when they’re sleepy. You’ll end up carrying them, on top of your hand-carries.

In short, kids will be kids. I am not discouraging anyone though. It’s fulfilling to travel as a family.  You just need to be well informed so that you’ll expect for the worst, come prepared and make the most of it. As they say, ‘Knowing is winning half the battle.’

Have you seen the Smurfs Movie? If so, it would be difficult to miss Clumsy Smurf. And if you’ve spent time with my son, Zach, it would be equally difficult not to see their similaries. Haha! We’re not making fun of my little boy but it’s just really funny to see how similar they are (whatever!). I used to be bothered about Zach’s clumsiness. He would fall all by himself just walking or running, without anything to cause him to slip or tip over. When he eats, his food is everywhere and he usually spills his drink. Marcus and Lia developed their physical skills and became independent faster than Zach. But then I realized that Zach must be ‘taking his time’ growing up and I don’t want to push things. Besides, intellectual ability wise, he belongs to the cream of the crop. So now what we do is to continually motivate him to keep up the good work and help him overcome his weaknesses with practice. Again, if you have seen the Smurfs movie, Clumsy smurf turned out to be the hero in the end. It may be too big for Zach to digest the overcoming-your-weakness idea, but I know he understood that you don’t need to be perfect to be the best. (Or something to that effect). Btw, Lia claims she’s smurfette. Strong-willed and papa’s girl she is, why not? La la lalalala… sing a happy song.

My son and nephew enjoy our spelling game. They usually spell the words correctly while I correct those they missed. Sometimes my nephew would say, ‘I can’t spell it, it’s a BIG word for me.’ So I’ll just give him another one to spell.

When I started reading the ‘Secrets of the Millionaire Mind’ I realized that I have my own set of big words as well. It’s not about spelling of course (though I’m not really fond of it hehe), but words that seems so hard for me to handle. TRUST for one. It’s the main reason why I want to be in control of things and doesn’t want to entrust my life to anybody 100%. I finished my education, got a job and did good with my profession because I want to have a fall back whatever happens. I don’t think it’s wrong of course, but I realized that I did it for the wrong reason. Fear (of the future) is my strong motivation which should be/have been happiness and fulfillment. Even the time I quit my job, I know the business can sustain us or else I wouldn’t risk it. I can talk endless about my trust issues but I guess I have to deal with it myself.

I just want to share a story from the book I’m reading because it made me smile.

It’s about a man who is walking along a cliff and all of a sudden loses his balance, slips and falls off. Fortunately, he has the presence of mind to grab on to the ledge and he’s hanging there for dear life. He hangs and hangs and finally yells out,”Is there anybody up there who can help me?” There’s no answer. He keeps calling and calling, “Is there anybody up there who can help me?” Finally this big bellowing voice calls back, “This is God. I can help you. Just let go and trust. Next thing you hear: “Is there anybody else up there who can help me?”

Wapak! Hit me big time. With this, I want to remove worry and fear from my vocabulary and replace it with risk, growth and more faith. They’re equally big words but I am willing to learn.

I don’t really do book reviews because I have this fear of giving away the meat of the story thus leaving nothing for the readers to look forward to. ‘The Shack’ though has inspired me so much that I want to share not the story itself but the learning and realizations I had while reading the book. Actually, there’s nothing new about the teachings. It’s just that with our daily struggles in life, we tend to forget how loving our God is and neglect trying to be the same with ourselves and others. It’s not my objective to convince anyone with this blog. I would just like to enumerate the things that struck me while reading the book, so that I have something to go back to when things get a little rough. If I have to influence anyone of anything, it’s to read the book and encounter God in his own time and space.

1. Quoting from the book, ‘I’m (God is) not merely the best version of you that you can think of. I am (God is) far more than that, above and beyond all that you can ask or think.’ So, let us not limit God with what He can do based on our capacity.

2. Don’t define yourself with your pre-conceived limitations but by the intentions God set for you. You are a child of God, nothing less.

3. God is Love. He has opened the doors for us to have a relationship with Him (through Jesus). He is just waiting for us to accept it because Love is not about force.

4. God is a parent. If parents want the best for all their children, even the ones that do bad things, how much more for God. He saved us not for who we are but for who He is and His love for us.

5. Let us not judge too easily, it’s not because a person doesn’t think or act like you means you’re right and he is wrong. Quoting Marilynne Robinson ‘… we are so persuaded of the rightness of our judgement as to invalidate evidence that does not confirm us in it.’ As the book says, ‘Humans have a great capacity for declaring something good or evil, without truly knowing.’

6. It is by our freedom and independence that ‘bad things’ happen. Fortunately, God uses every choice we make for the ultimate good and the most loving outcome. That is why we believe in blessing in disguise. In reality, God makes a blessing out of our mistake.

7. We fill ourselves with so much pain, anger and worries to the point of blinding us and making us fall short of receiving God’s grace.

In summary, God fought the battle for us. Let us experience the joy of surrendering everything to Him. Easier said than done, but at least we can try.

I am slowly getting over the bad feeling I had with Colegio San Agustin and some of its educators. They recommended Marcus to be transferred to another school because of his behavior. It pains me because some students would repeat grade level several times or attend classes every summer while Marcus who doesn’t study much never gets a failing mark. He even gets very good grades in major subjects like math and science and yet he was ‘kicked-out’. I must admit he’s really a handful but we never tolerated all those bad actions that he did. I just thought that my efforts in explaining to concerned personnel that Marcus was diagnosed with ADHD and ODD wouldn’t turn out to be a futile attempt. The teacher was telling me that I could ask the Principal (a foreigner priest) for a reconsideration. What for? For me and my son to make promises to him and make my son feel that he is a terrible child. Never mind.

I know that one factor that made matters worse was when a parent wrote a letter to the Principal and PTA Officers to petition Marcus out of the school, treating my son like a monster. The adviser admitted that the parent was a bit over-acting. I humbly asked the adviser that I am open to a discussion so that the parents could hear my and my son’s side of the story. They didn’t ask for one which made me more convinced that those parents didn’t care a bit about my son.

I would have wanted to pull-out Zach as well but Zach was doing good and he likes the school so I cannot really sacrifice that just because I had a bad experience with my other son. But given the chance, I really would.

I just have a few message to those parents and concerned CSA educators;

1. I thank you because you made me realize that I shouldn’t have entrusted my son to CSA in the first place. I just thought that I enrolled my son to the best school within the vicinity. I was so wrong. Australian International School (previously Esteban school) is way way better than your curriculum and more importantly in how they handle children like Marcus. Marcus’ class is composed of less than 15 students. In Grade Six they are taught World History (instead of repeating Philippine history every year), Spanish or Mandarin, computer programming and advanced lessons in major subjects. They offer clubs without additional fee so now Marcus plays soccer and basketball on top of his PE. They believe in Marcus and they never branded him.

2. To the parents. You may have succeeded your way of protecting your child from one bully (which is what they think of Marcus), without thinking about my child’s future. Let me just remind you that there will always be a bully around your child, even after school. Protecting him/her that way will make your child weak and dependent. My child is not a monster. ‘Bullies’ need help not judgement from people like you. Besides, we’re doing something about Marcus’ condition. He doesn’t want to be like that.

3. To CSA, what about your anti-bully campaign? Is it to kick those bullies out instead of helping them? Or are you just scared of letting the ‘more powerful parents’ down. Letting them ‘bully’ you.

I don’t say Marcus has changed a lot already. It will be a process. But I can see that AIS family loves him. I pray that it will finally be Marcus’ second home.

Lately I’ve been thinking about cutting our expenses because our bills never fail to make me cringe. I’ve given up my budget and cashflow worksheets altogether because it’s so difficult to monitor, update and well FOLLOW them. I need to do this because I don’t want to find ourselves badly in debt in a couple of years… or (swallow hard) months from now.

Again, my family is composed of non-shopoholics, it’s just that there’s too much to pay for. To cut the story short, what I did was to enumerate those expenses that I have control of and try to evaluate what I can do with them.

1. Food and grocery items

This takes a big chunk from my budget. I can actually minimize this expense but why would I do that? With 3 growing kids, a hard-working dad and an all-around mom (that’s me), it’s unimaginable to have an empty pantry and ref. So, I’ve crossed this one out.

2. Education

To be honest we can enrol our kids to a less expensive school. BUT my husband and I agreed that we will make sure that we give the best education to our children as long as we can pay for it. Another one crossed-out.

3. Utilities

Since cost of internet, phone, association dues and water is fixed, electricity is the only utility bill I can manipulate. Unfortunately, my project of cutting the electricity cost never succeeded still with factors I have no control of. (You know what I mean, yes Meralco? Napocor?) So I grew tired of turning off unused light, timing the aircon and unplugging appliances and equipment. I am not really crossing this one out but this is not of major consideration.

4. Gym

I am still thinking if we’ll continue our membership after it expires. Although we’ve given up our personal trainors because they cost a lot, still the membership (x2) if given-up can be of big savings. I still have a few months to think about it. It will be hard to give up because going to the gym is our only means of sweating out (be it workout or sauna).

5. Eating out / Take-out / Delivery

Guilty! My family loves to eat just anything. We eat out a lot to our cravings’ content. I order food if I got tired of thinking about what to cook. We take out food as a sort of break from working (at home) all day. Food! Glorious Food! So now I decided to limit this expensive habit. Eating out would cost us at least 2k pesos. If I just prepare food, it will cost at most 500 pesos and it may even last to 2-3 meals depending on the consumption and amount when served. I guess it’s better to start with something and I know this one will be of great savings already.

When we went to Paris I was almost 100% sure that I’ll buy myself a Louis Vuitton bag. Well, why not? It’s really a lot cheaper there plus I believe I deserve one. And mind you, Gary was even PUSHING me to it. But when I was at the shop already, guess what? (don’t hate me for this) I decided not to buy anything at all. I realized that I may have saved a couple of bucks but still I’m going to spend at least 1,500 euros. For that amount I really have to WANT that thing for myself. So I asked myself, why would I want an LV bag? Is it to have my picture taken in front of an LV store holding an LV paper bag? To wear that one-and-only precious bag on special occassions and show other people that I can afford an LV bag? To be able to buy something from the trip. Ahhh too shallow for a reason.

Unlike travelling which may have cost us a fortune (with a not-so-decent savings), but we did it because it gave us fulfillment plus we really want our kids to be exposed to different cultures because it would give them an edge. We don’t travel to give an impression that we can afford a european trip and we’re living an easy life.

So I told myself that I’ll only buy LV if I reached the social status that would allow me to buy 2-3 LV bags at the same time without batting an eyelash. If I wouldn’t reach that lifestyle, I wouldn’t mind not owning one at all.

An LV replica is neither an option. I’d better use something nobody knows yet people would be wondering about.