a week in my life

"How are you?" is one question I do not like to answer these days. There's just too much emotions-- I am happy I get to spend everyday with my kids because of the prolonged "summer vacation." I am also happy I get more time for my creative pursuits. On the other hand, I hate that the kids are missing out on their childhood; though I am naturally an introverted person being stuck at home with no change of scenery is already getting to me. My anxiety is now soaring high and I've spent weeks in a rut. I didn't want to draw, play games, socialize....I was basically stuck on Netflix and Animal Crossing.

Luckily, we have a spacious garage where the kids can still play around in. I can also jog here sometimes. But who wants to me negative all the time? Change is up to me and so change it is. I started to take photos again, draw little by little and do crafts with my girls. 

This week started slow, as I was still trying to get myself together. I traded HIIT workouts for gentle yoga because I've been feeling tired physically and emotionally. I wanted to take videos of our daily life but had the worst bout of headaches for days. I started feeling better last Sunday.

A bunch of my online orders came and one of them is a set of clay pots I was going to paint. My littles wanted in on it and I thought it would be a great activity for all of us. I am always thankful for Adam who documents these things. I am happy we share the same passion in taking pictures of our girls, of our life. 

So, nothing much happened last week...it was a Monday then suddenly a Sunday for me. LOL. I will do better documenting this week I hope. If you are reading this know that you are not alone. 

And so, here are some pictures Adam and I took this week.

This pandemic is getting to me and it is a tedious process to get even a little bit of positivity each day but I do it for my kids, for Adam, for my family and for myself. If you find yourself drowning, call a friend...talk to someone. It helps. 

Quarantine

My gosh. How long has it been? I haven't opened up this space for a long time. You see, life's been busy and my laptop is too slow too process everything. We need an upgrade but we're still saving up for that. The coming months are when we pay fees for school--priorities of course.

It has been 2.5 months of staying at home. I feel bad that our government doesn't really care or prioritize the people. It's like "survival of the fittest" here in our country. When our children ask us how long until we can go out we sugar coat the things we say: "a little more time" "when there are no more sick people" "we're sorry but it looks like it will take a little longer."

Ellie was quite heartbroken because school will be online. You see, it will be her first year going and she was so excited so breaking the news to her was painful for me, too. Bean misses her classmates and still doesn't know how she feels about the situation.

I'm the kind of mother who would build a fairy tale world for my kids but we also give them a dose of reality. Things are dire right now and there's nothing we can do about it. So we live daily doing what we can with the time we have. Mostly our day will be filled with preparing meals, cleaning up, art, Netflix, games and some school activities to prepare Eleanor. She can now write her name.

Bean at 8 years old is more into gaming and reading. She can build fantastic worlds in Minecraft; cute farms in Stardew Valley, and breed different creatures in Pokemon. She loves to read still--now adventure books and short novels.

Ellie is so into painting lately that I hoarded paper online. She paints the rainbow and characters from My Little Pony. She loves it when her work is filled with color. One thing I find different about her is that we have to force her to use an ipad when w have to do something. She'd rather be bored and sing songs than force herself to use it--so we don't have much trouble with her screen time.

Adam spent this whole quarantine working, playing the guitar and games on the Play Station. He is also the one running errands to minimize people who go out of the house. And I am so grateful.

As for me, I've been playing the ukele, trying to translate the songs I know to the guitar. I am also painting again and still doing digital art. I've had two ulcer attacks this quarantine which prompted me to change the way I eat. I have also been doing HIIT workouts which made me stronger.

I know this time in our life isn't the greatest. Adam and I usually talk about our worries and decided to live each day to the fullest and do the things we can at the moment. Hopefully this pandemic ends soon (though I really doubt it because of how the government and many citizens are handling it.) We want to travel, or just get out of the house. 

I really don't want a NEW NORMAL....I just want the old normal back.

Hello!

Hi. Here I am again and I decided to continue with this space. For more than a year I felt so hopeless writing anything at all. I think I took most things for granted. I thought that I could do more when we got a nanny for Eleanor but eventually it was destructive for me. Now that there is no more nanny--I am more productive, plus I get to spend quality time with my daughters. I feel more relaxed and free--for so long I haven't been myself but here we are.

We have a new routine these days: Eleanor wakes up early to go with me to bring Bean to school. We go home and I get chores done and spend time playing and teaching her. Then we fetch Bean, go home, do homework, make dinner, Adam comes home--we have dinner--clean up and bed time. After the kids go to bed I get time to read, draw, play or watch.

During weekends Adam and I do the grocery, clean the car/s--basically cleaning day. On Sundays Adam and Bean have football and me and Ellie go along.

I am excited to document our life again and be present in this space.

this space

It's been so long since I have opened my laptop and updated this space. I have also thought about giving this up but somehow I can't. I've been writing down my feelings and thoughts in blogs since I was a teen so....there's that. Another thing that keeps me from giving this space up is because there is too much happy memories recorded in here. So I decided to give it time and keep going.

A lot has happened in a year-- and I must admit that my mental health seems to be unstable. I haven't been vocal about it and I don't plan to be-- but to address this for myself: YES, have been suffering from anxiety for years. Not just the "gets you nervous" kind but the crippling kind. And I have been blessed to have a husband who understands and explains to me what is happening and tells me what I can do to manage it. I think I wouldn't have come this far if  it weren't for him and our little girls.

We have also been so busy ever since Bean started second grade--lots of homework, quizzes, school events. We celebrated her 8th birthday, too! Also, Ellie is at the stage where she's learning--ABC's and counting...ah but what she didn't get from me and Bean is an interest for the arts. She just doesn't like to draw or paint. She's good at molding play doh though. That's her favorite right now.

Aside from mothering--which is mainly my jam....I get by playing games on my Switch; reading books, BTS, Netflix and going to the gym twice or thrice a week. Adam and I decided to focus on our fitness and health since we can already feel signs of being in our 30's lol.

I have thought about it over and over and I don't want to spend my days planning and planning. I want to start DOING. Instead of writing down things on my to-do list I should make a conscious effort to do them so that they don't remain words on a piece of paper. Little by little I am starting to paint again. I make sure to not spend all of my mama breaks on playing games--I make sure to finish a book a week or do something creative.

Just over the weekend I bought bouquets of flowers to dry and craft something; my husband bought me glass frames and candles to my aesthetic liking...I have been feeling inspired after a long time--inspired to create and manifest the life I want to live.

Taiwan

I realized that it is almost a year after our trip to Taiwan. Having your kid enter the first grade, your schedule will change drastically--couple it with the construction of the MRT (along Commonwealth) and the traffic...you'd be left with so little time to do extra things like this: go through our travel pictures and blog about it. Ha! Finally, it's summer --mothers rejoice! Ah, but seriously I am happy to have a break just be with my children and my family.

We've been cleaning our home and and I was also cleaning up files when I saw our photos from this trip. If I blogged about it earlier I might have plenty of things to write about but as my husband always tells me: your brain won't keep memories like videos...they're more like pictures you flip through. That's when I am so glad that I love taking pictures. I love documenting my family.

I don't remember much details about our trips --maybe highlights or unfortunate events we come to laugh about eventually--but the pictures we took are happy memories I know we can look back on.

DAY 1

DAY 2

DAY 3

DAY 4

DAY 5

Some low points in our trip:

- getting lost and arguing about directions
- being so hungry you don't want to talk
- waking up extra early because KIDS
- bringing two backpacks always: Ellie's milk, bottles, wipes, diapers and extra clothes for the kids/      cameras, gimbal, gopro, etc.
- Bean's front tooth almost coming out that's why every meal is crying time
- Ellie always wanting to be with me than anyone else (backpain and shoulder dead)

High and memorable points of our trip:

- family is complete
- celebrated dad's 60th
- weather not as hot as Manila
- kids were easy to manage (except Bean when it came to her moving tooth)
- milk tea
- great views
- subway
- a lot of cute dogs
- plenty of jokes and laughter
- a lot of memories to keep.

That's a whole lot of pictures. I could not blog about other things because as much as I can I want to do things chronologically. That's the OC side of me. It also took me quite some time to post process each photo (and more) to get the same tone--so I hope I was able to accomplish that.