Keeping my sanity

It's not so hard to keep my sanity... all I need to do is visit my niece and hug and kiss her.








It's also nice to have a good camera to capture some of her cute moments. She's cuter in person though! :)

Source: http://flickr.com/gp/claudcabralph/87GxU3

I received a text message from one of my best friends last night saying that she broke up with her boyfriend of 10 years last Saturday.

My first thought: "She finally did it... Oh wow... she actually did what she told me..." A confused mixture of feelings came upon me when I read her message.

Initially, I felt sad. As if she's died or committed suicide.

And then amazement swept over the sadness. She's braved through the shadows of death. She was decisive enough to call it quits in order to face a foggy, uncertain future.

Then finally, I desired to have the strength she had. I wish I could. When I'm ready I will...

I think I'm almost there.

I don't know anymore...

I'm not sure if this is just one of a few bumps on the road that we are going through or the beginning of the end. Seriously though, I think it is more of the latter.

I'm getting too old for this. My heart could NOT handle any more grief.

I don't know anymore...

Kids ask the darndest things...

My 3 year old niece (Niki) and her Nanay Itang (her nanny) having a conversation---

Niki: Nanay, bakit nakakalipad yung mga ibon?

Nanay Itang: Kasi, ginawa sila ni Lord na may pakpak. Kapag ginalaw nila pakpak, nakakalipad sila. *feeling proud of herself with such a wise answer*

(Silence as Niki paused to think)

Niki: Ek bakit si Darna????

Ngek!!!

What $$$ buys you

I received an email from my immigration lawyer in Chicago:

We need to start doing the labor cert.

I need copies of all H1 docs, your resume, educational docs & job description.

I need your company information (size, gross & net sales, FEIN number).

I will need a $4000 retainer. For labor cert our fees are $7000 plus costs.

WHATTTT????????????? *eyes popping out of their sockets* This is only the first step for securing a green card.

No wonder it's called a "green" card... it costing me so much money. A friend from Vegas told me that he paid around $20K before he got his! *Gulp*

In anticipation of this future expense, I need $ 20,000- $4,000= $ 16,000

Goal: Raise 16K (I already have the down payment of 4K)

Plan of Action: (Items are under consideration)

- Shopping abstinence - Macy's and Neiman Marcus are of the devil; shopping online can cause blindness too! :D

- Infrequent trips out of state - I guess the bf would just have to come over all the time instead of alternating. One nice thing about flying though is that my frequent flier miles have exponentially grown over the past year.

- Eat less - Now this I think I'm going to have to reconsider. Maybe the action should be geared towards what I eat and not the quantity. If we talk about purely cost, maybe I should eat less sushi and italian deli food and all sorts of exotic stuff that I buy just because I'm curious.

- Drive less to save on gas - The price of gas has been bouncing like crazy this past year or so, and driving a SUV doesn't help either. I can't afford a new car right now.

Think... think... think!!!!!!

Macarons

Macaron (Source: Wikipedia) - Not to be confused with Macron, Macaroon, or Macaroni.
Dating back to the 18th century, the macaron is a traditional French pastry, made of egg whites, almond powder, icing sugar and sugar. This sweet pastry came out of the French courts' baker's oven as round meringue-like domes with a flat base... The double-decker macaron filled with cream that is popular today was invented by the French pâtisserie Ladurée.

(Picture source: Laduree Paris)

Yumm... I could almost taste the crunchy but chewy meringue texture and the sweet ganache stuck between the cookie-like bases.

So I read this is all the craze in the French capital right now. A was never into sweet things but I gotta have these darn pastries that has caught my eye. Or maybe because they're so picture perfect? Hmmm... How did I learn about them? It's from reading blogs.

One bad thing I learned about reading other people's blogs (especially those food blogs which I read religiously) is that once I read and then see high-res pictures of stuff, the pictures stay in my mind and the taste buds get all worked up and then cause me sleepless nights. That bad!

Just this morning, I called two french bakeries around the Detroit Metro area. The Pinwheel Bakery in Ferndale and Le Petit Prince in Birmingham. I even had my Canadian co-worker call around her neighborhood in Windsor to no avail.

The Pinwheel said they used to make french macarons but no they have not made those in a while because nobody seemed to want it, but if I place a special order blah blah blah. Heck no! I just wanted to try and I don't want to end up with a mountain of macarons!

Next was Le Petit Prince, the lady who answered the phone had a thick french accent. I felt a surge of hope that maybe they're making those "parisienne-style macarons." *with matching slurred RRRs hehehe*. She was very short and a little rude (oh please tell me not all french people are like her!) when she told me they don't make them. Ugh! I ordered a chocolate cake from them many years ago for my ex-bf's birthday, not too remarkable. The cake was as dry as the person manning the bakery. That's strike two! I am not calling them anymore.

I guess I better just buy online. I want freshly made ones but it looks like I have no other option...

No, I'm not naglilihi!

Too late or too early?

A movie I will not soon forget...

Here are some dialogues from it---

Benjamin Button: [Voice over; letter to his daughter] For what it's worth: it's never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There's no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you're proud of. If you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.

Mrs. Maple: Benjamin, we're meant to lose the people we love. How else would we know how important they are to us?

---

Captain Mike: You can be as mad as a mad dog at the way things went. You could swear, curse the fates, but when it comes to the end, you have to let go.

Ngunda Oti: You'll see little man, plenty of times you be alone. You different like us, it's gonna be that way. But I tell you a little secret I find out. We know we alone. Fat people, skinny people, tall people, white people... they just as alone as us... but they scared shitless.

source: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0421715/quotes