Update: Herb Garden

We went up to Tagaytay around the 3rd weekend of January to finally pick up new plants for our herb garden. I had so much fun picking I almost forgot we will bring them home to Cavite via public transport. We ended up getting about 9 plants for just P560. Quite a steal, considering we went home with a fully mature and already heavily flowering pot of cherry tomatoes.



I just harvested a handful of ripened cherry tomatoes a couple of days ago. I couldn't help. I had to take a photo. And they were good. I immediately whipped out a breakfast of greens and finished them with a very, very slight drizzled of Japanese mayonnaise.

When I visit my thriving garden in the mornings, I can't help but think: Life is good.

Almost Christmas

It has been a long and tiring weekend for me. But I'm happy to report that I was able to cross out one of the things that I listed to do this month. And I got to squeeze in a few hours to do 2 more although the running mileage thing will have to wait till the end of the month for me to really say that I nailed all of my goals down. The photobook is almost done and I'm hoping to finish it by tomorrow night (the deadliest of deadlines). I'm rather proud of myself. And I hope it does turn out way nicer than it looks now. I'm not giving myself any room for disappointments here because as I didn't set any standards for this in the first place. So really, as long as I get to finish it in time is already a huge thing. I learned a painful lesson yet again here caused by putting off organizing our gazillion of photos (accumulated) for years (4 years to be exact). Now everytime I sift through each folder, it either makes me want to delete the entire thing altogether or suddenly overwhelms me with so much memories of kid's early years. 

So anyway, what I (well WE in fact because it was due to the kid's prodding that this happened) managed to accomplish this weekend was getting our old tree out. The hubby wanted to postpone it a day later but the kid wouldn't hear the end of it so it left the hubby no choice but to drag the humongous thing out (it's a 7-foot tree in fairness) and strip it off it's protective covering (that is a garbage bag). The big frown on his face disappeared almost instantly the minute he bared the tree off its plastic wrapping and realizing how storage friendly the thing was. It's in perfectly good shape. No bent stems to twist. The lights were perfectly working. All we needed to do was just hang the handmade ornaments (also from last year's). 

When Ate Inday and the kid finally got all the ornaments hanged, I realized the tree still looked bare. I mentally counted how many days are left till Christmas and thought well I can still make more ornaments. Maybe not as many as last year's but I still have room to make at least a dozen. (if you have pretty patterns to share, please do. I'm desperate here)

So anyways, sharing here photos that I managed to take last night. I like the glaring effects that the lights make on my phone camera. I'm suddenly even more excited for Christmas especially since I managed to convince the hubby to accompany me to Dapitan Arcade again. We're going next weekend. I can't wait for that trip!

Old, but still pretty

kid immediately grabbed the ornaments the minute her dad plugged in the lights.
she was just so happy she had to shout: Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee, Christmas na!

Something For The Homebody: Gardening

Gardening is one of Tibs's favorite hobbies (he's only got 2 anyways - the gadgets and that - lolz). Our neighbors would always compliment our landscaping and would express their awe when told that Tibs did it (with minimal help from the village gardeners) himself. 

Getting Down and Dirty

When we're anticipating our favorite lazy weekends, he would make sure to squeeze in some garden time. Kitchen time (and of late i'm also starting to enjoy Crafts time) is my therapy, his would be this. He would look forward to dropping by the garden shop and would never come home empty handed. Most of the flowers and plants in our garden though were either given to us by friendly neighbors, by the village gardeners or brought home by us from a visit to Angeles or Antique. Come to think of it, most of the garden expenses were for the soil, fertilizer and grass. The garden just came to be this beautiful because of all the effort (read: hardwork) that Tibs's painstakingly put into it. Now, this part of our home has become our favorite corner. Maia and I would usually hold our arts and crafts sessions here. On lazy afternoons, we would just plop on the grass and munch on meryenda. When my parents come over to visit, they would come out and prefer to have their morning coffee here. 

everyone else is down on the ground except me hehe

Watching Tibs work in the garden has somehow inspired me to challenge my planting skills. And when I saw a Maqui's herb garden, that got me inspired even more to pursue Tibs' suggestion of me taking up a corner of the garden and turning it into my own herb garden. We've already have some sweet basil, tarragon, oregano and peppermint growing in there but I'm hoping to add more herbs and prettify this corner. I already have this set this in my summer goals. Hopefully before the rainy season kicks in, my plants will all be thriving already and could already withstand the rains.  

Italian Oregano and flowering Tarragon

I know this is me dreaming big again but I'm hoping that with me doing this, we will be able to encourage Maia to be more conscious of her environment, to learn to care for it and to raise her to be a nature lover. Model what you intend your child to be, right? I could only hope we're doing the right thing here.

this basil plant is now all over our garden. it was surprisingly easy to grow and i didn't even have to intervene with it's propagation (hahaha)

Nanny Heartbreak

Nanny problems are not new to me. I have actually gone through a lot since I got pregnant but I do not know why each time I come across another nanny problem, I always get all emotional and stressed out. 

As full-time working-out-of-the home parents, we are very dependent on the caregiver-nanny-yaya-whatever-you-may-call-it that we get for our daughter. When we screen we try to make sure that their personality suits that of our daughter. We try to make sure as well that regardless of their age they can easily follow our instructions and that they understand that WE are the parents and that we always make the call when it comes to our daughter. But apart from that, what we try to make sure when we interview is that they are the type who could stay long with an employer. And usually, at the onset, they do appear passionate with taking care of the kid. They listen to and follow instructions well. They're easy to deal with. 

Fast forward however to (let's see, I've almost lost count) the 6th nanny and we're still searching for the ONE. The last nanny that left us had an impressive record of a 7-year stay with previous employer with whom she was never granted vacation days. With us she was entitled to a 2-week vacation with pay, bonuses and Philhealth but when she went home to Antique for a supposedly one-week vacation (she was with us for 6 months) she decided not to come back citing domestic problems as a reason. This last one really broke my heart. I always thought that goodness only leads to goodness. Love begets love. And I tried to show her nothing but goodness. Maia loved her dearly despite several quirks that I personally would have had difficulty living with (if not for Maia). I wonder now if I shouldn't have been extra nice with her and instead followed the previous employer's strategy, would she still be with us?

You know how it's like when a boyfriend who you think was already the ONE suddenly breaks up with you? That's how I feel like at this moment. Tibs is having difficulty understanding that but he will have to live with this for a while.

How do I exactly find the perfect nanny? Does she exist? And what should one do to keep them from leaving? Apart from the compensation, the benefits/perks, the household treatment, what else? My daughter is almost the perfect  ward. She's at this age where she loves to point out to people that she's already grown up and that she can take care of herself. She's very independent. She knows how to entertain herself, feed herself, even make her own milk. She's careful with fragile things.  She cleans up her mess (i mean literally, by the way). She's not a handful to take care of because she rarely throws tantrums around people she considers 'friends'. She likes to throw tantrums though when she's sure mom and dad is around. But never with 'other' people. So I ask, why would they ever think of leaving her?

I'm really heartbroken right now. But I know this will come to pass. For the meantime, I will have to fake a smile and try my hardest to be cheery because the little girl is already looking forward to spending a wonderful weekend with her mom and dad. Sigh.