When I was growing up, I only saw the beach once a year. In May when my family or some family members would go to the annual pilgrimmage to Our Lady of Manaoag. After hearing mass visiting with the Virgin Mary's image, we would picnic on the beach and spend the rest of the day there. Those were the days of excursions to the beach.
I was raised in a town where the nearest body of water, a river, is a few kilometers away and raised by parents who were afraid of the water. Therefore, no chance to learn to swim or do any activities connected to water.
Now that I live here in the bay area, we are surrounded by water. But unlike the beaches in SoCal, our beaches here have COLD water. Unless the weather heats up to 80F+, it is just way too cold to be on the beach, much less in the water.
So on occasions that the temps around here heats up, then we go and walk on the beach.
But next week, I will be going on vacation to a tropical setting where the water is warm. I hope to enjoy the beach as much as I could without learning how to swim.
I simply can't wait for my excursion to the beach this summer. Happy summer every one.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Beach
Monday, June 21, 2010
Another Weekend Recap
I know. I better start writing up a recap of the first half of the year pretty soon. So later on in the second half of the year I can look back on the recap post and see what's accomplished and what is not.
In the mean time, let me recap my too-brief-a-weekend.
Saturday was a lazy day. My church had the annual yard sale. I was pretty lazy that I did not sign up to help out with the sales or the clean up. Last year I was there with the troops, this time I was curled up in bed until about 1 pm, lounging with hubby and the cat and watching SHUTTER ISLAND, which was our Netflix movie.
Okay let me first tell you how much I loved Shutter Island. How much I loved Leo in this movie. I think I may have fallen a little bit in love with him here. Not as much as I went head over heels ga-ga when he did that movie with Matt Damon and Mark Wahlberg. I can't remember the name of the movie and too lazy to google it. Anyway, I admire the storytelling of Scorcese. Well, that's all I have to say about this movie. I'm sure you all have seen it by now, so I don't need to tell you how I feel anymore than that I love the movie and Leo.
To continue with my recap of Saturday - I skipped breakfast/lunch at home and after taking a quick shower, my mom and I went to have late lunch - twas about 2 pm - at her favorite local Chinese restaurant. You know how big portions they give you at these places. An order of $7.95 string beans with beef is a platter, large enough for four regular mouths. So we ordered the string beans, a platter (order) of fried rice, an order of wonton soup (twas a breezy cool day for late June), and fried chicken wings.
I was very good. I tasted, but did not pig out. Surprisingly I wasn't hungry when we went out to eat, considering it was 2 pm and I did not have anything to eat yet.
After running a couple of errands after lunch, we went home. Husband decided to cook - he does the cooking at home coz he is such a good cook - which means I would be doing all the chopping, dicing, slicing, and all other prep work.
When that was done, surprisingly we had a little bit of time left. We have tickets to the movies and realized that we haven't seen PRINCE OF PERSIA yet. So off to the net I went to check for showtime. Luckily our neighborhood multiplex or metroplex still shows the movie and the next one was 7:25 pm.
The movie exceeded my expectations. Have I mentioned before that my enjoyment of a movie is direct correlation to how much I enjoy the actors? Yes I am unashamedly actor-centric when it comes to movies. So not really a fan of Jake G (cant spell last name, lazy to google), I really had no expectations at all. Husband loved to see it so we went. But goodness, the casting was perfect, the story was fun (it was a video game????), and I simply love all the CGIs. Thank heavens for CGI, right? Anyway, two thumbs up!
On Sunday, we attended the mass and my husband got his pop for Pops at church. The church was giving away suckers for fathers and men in connection with Father's Day.
The best part of Sunday was getting a massage. A massage is an extra expense for both of us, one that we have to save up for because we really can't afford it. But we bit the bullet and after months of going without massage, we went and tried this new place near our house. We did because of the coupon we got. Anyhoo, I truly loved her massage, although I thought she was making up some of the techniques/moves she was employing on me. Still, she set the perfect ambience for a relaxing time while having the massage. I think I'll save up for another visit. My husband wasn't truly impressed and preferred the Chinese masseuse 10 miles away.
We ended Sunday watching Food TV's Next Foodnetwork Star and Dzindra (spelling?) got booted off, thank heavens.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Padma is Back
TOP CHEF started its 2010 season last night. Don't ask me the number of season this one is because I don't know. The reason why I don't know is I've only started watching it last season where the Voltaggio brothers, Bryan and Michael, ended up fighting, er cooking it out in the finals. That finale I saw coming.
This year though, I don't see anyone yet that would be outstanding, well except for Angelo something who won both the first Quickfire Challenge and the Elimination Challenge. Can't wait for this season to play out.
In related news, Food TV's THE NEXT FOODNETWORK STAR is also underway, only a week's episode ahead of Top Chef. This year's group of aspirants doesn't seem to be as brilliant as the past years, but we'll see.
So this summer, I am dieting, dieting, dieting - but watching only cooking shows. Go figure!
Monday, June 14, 2010
Guess Who Took A Shower Yesterday?
Meet my darling precious pet, Emma. She is a rescued cat and she arrived in our lives on March 30, 2010. She is the most affectionate, intelligent, and playful cat - not to mention manipulative - I've ever met. Of course, before her, my dealings with cats were short.
My husband grew up with cats. He kept telling me how he used to give his cats bath. I said I'd believe it when I see it. I've been told that cats are averse to water.
On Sunday, while the three of us were taking it easy, hubs was watching recorded World Cup games and I was blogging/Facebooking, Emma joined us in the bedroom and took her rightful place on my computer swivel chair - she loves this chair and would give me grief if I get caught using it.
She was mellow that day. Saturday and Sunday we experienced hot 90-degree weather. I don't know what got into the hubster, but he picked up Emma and took her to the bathroom and gave her a shower. I didn't follow them. I stayed facebooking. I never heard any peep from either one. The water was all I could hear. Then hubster was yelling for me to get her a towel. I got a towel and opened the shower door, and there they were my family and Emma seemed to be enjoying the new experience.
Of course after we dried her off, she scampered away and went under the bed and did not want to have anything to do with either of us. She did join us downstairs by dinner time. All's forgotten it seems. She smells cleaner (altho she always smelled good), and her hair feels softer.
This is her with her favorite sleeping position. She sleeps with us on the bed, but we put a throw on her side so all her hair just stays in this throw.
Isn't she precious?
Monday, June 7, 2010
Busy Monday
The weekend was quiet. The weather did turn up the heat, and hooray, one of my old shorts fit still. You can just imagine my delight. There was one pair of shorts however that wouldn't fit at all, so it went to the bag for donation to my church's yard sale next weekend.
No beach this past weekend. We could have. Didn't have anything planned, but I was lazy to go anywhere. Our little town had its annual Cultural Fair. The park near us was filled with tents of food from different cultural heritage. There were Thai dishes, Filipino lumpia and pancit and adobo, Chinese food, hotdogs, bbqs, and of course a booth/tent offering funnel cake - the one with the longest line. I was in my diet mode, hence, nothing tempted me. I walked away from the festival with empty stomach, can you believe that.
On Sunday, our day started late. I haven't had this type of day where I left the bed at past 12 noon. Had cereals close to 1 pm. Did the laundry and blogged, until it was closer to 5 when hubs wanted to go out and check something in the store. Went to get some nachos and burritos from Taco Bell, just to get their free fruitista freeze and a limeade drink. The freeze was great tasting, but the limeade was like a lemonade syrup + sprite or 7-up, I didn't care for it.
We took a little walk at the wetlands area. Saw someone boating, never seen that before. The roses were all blooming, so nice to see. The sun was blazing, but the breeze was cold, so it was pleasant. It was high tide when we went for a walk, also first time I saw that.
And my facebook account registered 6 new friends. I know, I should stop.
Okay, let me check if the application has completed its loading.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Exhausted
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Bulleted Updates
So I thought updates are necessary to keep you all (all 2 of my readers) posted on what's been happening to the author of this site. Here goes:
@Attended a niece's baby shower. Her sister, my other niece, cooked too much and the spread was wonderful. Was surprised at how good she can cook.
@However, the shower was cut short since the mom-to-be's cousin, another niece of mine - her apartment was burning. She lost everything. I'm not going to dwell on this because they don't want anything about this over the net. I respect their privacy.
@LOST ended it's 6-year run with a 4.5-hour tv event. I loved the first two hours - a retrospection of what had transpired so far and about the characters in the island. Pretty fascinated.
@The main event or the finale episode was 2.5 hours long. Only to be revealed at the very end that they were all dead. DEAD. No.One.Survived. I still am trying to process my feelings about how the writers ended this well-loved and confusing series.
@Grey's Anatomy, another perennial favorite of mine, had its season finale. They killed a couple of characters - the newer ones - which I thought was a good move. The end will keep me waiting for this fall's new season.
@Celebrated my wedding anniversary. Took an overnight trip to Monterey and booked a hotel by the ocean. Walked on the beach - twas cold - , went sightseeing, windowshopping, and ate at a tapas place whose menu reminded us of the Barcelona trip we took last year. Vowed to return to the hotel and the tapas place this year - with God's grace.
@Tagged along hubby as he and a handful of his co-workers went to do the burrito challenge - eat a huge burrito worth $18 dollars, the size of three super burritos. No time limit, but none of them were able to finish the whole thing. One guy, Richard, almost finished his - not quite. All except him took boxes to go. Had burrito for dinner for two nights after that :D The burrito was really good too.
@Went to the CARNAVAL, an annual street fair in SF that celebrates Hispanic culture with parade, dancing, eating, etc. Went to get the El Salvadoran tamales that we once had in this festival but they didn't carry the said treat.
@Instead our friends took us to Vik's Chaat House, a local favorite and one of the best bargain eats around these parts. Good thing that we went with friends because we didn't know that they moved to a few blocks away to a better location and more ecofriendly building.
So that's what's been happening. Still waiting to hear if we could really have some summer fun this year courtesy of Hawaii. Keeping my fingers crossed.