Sunday 29 June 2014

My Happy Hour



Out of nowhere after I retired, I asked myself:
"When will I ever stop watching my diet? "  
I never knew where it came from when I told myself that 
"I'm old, I deserve to eat what I want."
Maybe I got tired watching my diet, so I ate full meals, snacked on chips, cookies, cake, ice cream, dried fruits and nuts; everything that I've craved to eat but restrained myself.  I ate just anything and everything. The worse thing was that I ate a lot late at night, sometimes way past midnight while I read novels. 

How wrong I was! 

After sometime, I was diagnosed as "pre-diabetic" because my blood sugar was high and I developed a fatty liver.  From then on I avoided sweets as well as fatty foods. And because I needed to exercise, my doctor advised me to just walk, not run nor jog. 

It took time for me though to gather enough courage to start walking. Eventually, I forced myself to walk; and I found out that I kinda liked it; I even enjoyed it especially when I felt better, and I became more energetic and more enthusiastic to do things. Then I also realized that as I walk, ideas hit me; interesting things that I could do or write for my blog come to mind.  



 Soon walking became a routine, a lifestyle even; and that started my "happy hour".  Eventually, my exercise became more interesting because my husband joined me.  Everyday without fail, we walk for an hour. 

Recently, I read an article from HOLA! Magazine, lifestyle section writer Step Juan wrote that:  
"it is good to exercise with someone, after all exercise is considered as a social activity, pretty much like eating out.  Being with someone will prevent boredom and when enthusiasm wanes, your companion will keep you going".

Step Juan continues: 
"if you exercise together with your partner, you get  "double rewards". the reasons being that:

It means you have more time together, you don't have to choose between exercise and time with your partner; you can have both.

It gives you motivation, your chances of sticking to the regimen increase when you have someone to cheer you on..

It develops a stronger bond between the two of you as you work towards a common goal."

Someone asked me:  
"How many steps do you make, would you know?"
Since I don't have a Fitbit, Misfit,  Lark Life,  jawbone Up, Nike+FuelBand, or any kind of pedometer,  I counted the steps I made in five minutes and I arrived at 350; multiply that to a dozen and I'm doing  4200 an hour; and if my husband parks a little further from the entrance, then I'm sure that will round it off to about 4250 to 4300 steps for that hour alone. 

Our "happy hour" extends  to Starbucks where I enjoy my "reward" of green tea cream frap (no whip, sugar free vanilla, nonfat, more milk, less ice), while I read the newspaper or browse through a magazine. I really look forward to this activity everyday and I never want to miss it except on days that our granddaughter visits. 



Thursday 12 June 2014

My Grandson's Christening

The baptismal ceremony

It was a happy occasion; the christening of my grandson. My husband and I had to fly thousands of miles to attend this important milestone in our family. Though we only stayed overnight and flew back home the next day, we didn't regret it a bit; we're so happy to have been there, missing this occasion is unthinkable. 

The christening took place at The Catholic Church of St Ignatius. It was a solemn and orderly affair, very well conducted by the parish priest with two volunteer assistants who queued the participants every step of the way. I learned that they only administer baptisms every first Sunday of the month, I believe it was a lucky day as it fell on the 8th day of the month.  Moreover, there were also 8 infants that were baptized that day.

Dad, Mom and son wore white at the church. As I mentioned in my previous writing, my grandson wore the white baptismal garment that I brought with me which belonged to my younger daughter who used it at her baptism 33 years ago. The other infants' attire were varied; one boy wore a white shirt with a black bow-tie; a girl was wearing a headband but she still had very fine hair. The families attending were in their Sunday's best. But the best dressed were my grandson and his family, if I would say so myself. 

Though it was a mass baptism, the major parts like the anointing; blessing and invocation of God over baptismal water, prayers over ears and mouth were all done individually.  This gave the photographers a chance to take pictures every step of the way. My grandson, whose Mom brilliantly timed his feeding slept through the entire ceremony while some of the infants were impatient. After the rituals were over and done with; the priest announced that he would pose with each infant and his family. The entire ceremony took about an hour. 

The Reception

A reception of about fifty guests was held at The 2nd Floor of The American Club.  Again, my grandson behaved in spite the ohhh's and ahhh's of the guests who came to take a closer look at him, a dear lady even prayed over him.  The closest and dearest from the offices of both my son and daughter-in-law were invited together with friends and relatives who live in town. 

There was a sumptuous spread of roast duck and beef,  pork shar chu; about 7 other assortment of fish and meat dishes; salad greens, fruits and an array of mini-cakes.  But what I enjoyed the most, the one I had to go back to the buffet table for, was the salmon with tomato-capers salsa as well as the sweet prawns in wasabe sauce.  I'm not so fond of prawns but I enjoyed this so much. These two dishes were what I practically ate with fresh fruit. 

After dinner, my son expressed his thanks for the overwhelming support and prayers offered for the health of the newborn; as well as the gifts, the cards and balloons; and the numerous well wishes.  Finally, he passed around cigars and the guests bade their good-byes.  Of course, the family stayed on and had another round of food while we rehash the celebration. Everyone had a good time. 

Now I'm wondering why I enjoyed it so much, compared to the christening of my three children. My memory is still vivid on these three occasions when they were baptized.  Maybe my husband and I were pre-occupied with the conduct of their  christening then that we did not have enough time to really enjoy them. 

Again, I say that the best part of grand-parenting is enjoy the grand children with no responsibilities whatsoever. Grandparenting is the best! 

Wednesday 11 June 2014

First Meeting

I'm very excited to go to my grandson's christening!  I haven't seen him yet but I've got lots of pictures to see how cute he is.  

We had to start early since our flight leaves a few minutes before six in the morning. Since we will only be there overnight, we wont check-in anything, we just have our overnight bags.

I am bringing our antique baptismal top in case my son will want my grandson to wear it for the christening ceremony.  It is made of very light and soft cotton material with delicate embroidery of little flowers. This was given to my younger daughter by her godmother when she was baptized 33 years ago.  My  granddaughter used it too, on her christening day nine years ago. 



We are also bringing with us 35 pieces of Don Juan Orquijo cigars, if you're familiar with that, you'll know that it's not cheap either. I was surprised when my husband told me how much it costs; even though my son doesn't smoke, he has excellent taste in cigars. He would have preferred the Corona packaging, five pieces in a wooden box; but there wasn't enough available, so one was a bigger box of the same brand. 
 


We were met at Changi airport terminal by my son himself. He brought us straight to his home where we met our grandson for the first time. Of course, I had to change my blouse and washed my hands and entire arms with a special kind of liquid soap called dettol, 99% kills germs.  Finally done, I entered his room, oh my; he's so cute. Like all babies, he exudes that sweet and delicious scent you would want to smell forever. 

The parents of my daughter-in-law were there earlier on to assist her for the first few days. Immediately they urged me to carry my grandson, my compadre even told my son: "take their picture". And here we are.



After an hour of feeding and burping the baby, my son brought us to my younger daughter's condo where we were to stay for the night. My daughter was so busy with work so she had food delivered, lunch was so delicious that I was tempted to eat a lot even though I was worried that my dress will be tight. Didn't i  mentioned that my daughter has "gut taste", so her food is always yummy. After lunch, we prepared ourselves for the afternoon christening.