Mga Ka-BLOG-an ni Zimberloy

Friendster has become more stricter now with blogging. There’s only limited things that you can do with your blog and they don’t allow google to crawl your pages for it to be ranked, no adsense, no layouts that’s not pre-made by them, no tweaking of html codes–among other things. Time for bloggers to move to blogger.com!

At age 2 (25 months to be exact), Kyle knows most letters in the alphabet already. I’m very impressed since we only started teaching him like 2 days ago and he’s learning fast. It’s like a game to him. It’s fun listening to him say the letters, especially those he’s having a hard time pronouncing like the letter “H” as “eck” or ”K” as “*ick” LOL. He could never say “W”.

Thanks Beth for giving this Magnetic Alphabet Maze on his birthday! It is now his favorite toy.

I spend a lot of time online. I spend at least 8 hours in social networking sites, like Friendster and Facebook, blogging, chatting, checking emails, reading the news, uploading pictures, watching videos, searching for stuff, etc. It’s part of my daily routine. I don’t think I can live without internet anymore. When I’m not home, I use my iPhone to stay connected to the worlwide web. I get restless when I can’t look at the internet for a while. It’s probably why I’ve become less active these days… was blaming it on my pregnancy LOL. I used to complain alot to my husband about being bored and would ask for us to go out. But nowadays, it’s the other way around. I’m happy and entertained  with just my laptop while sitting on the couch in front of the TV.

I’m a lil bit impatient online and want pages to load fast or I’ll just close them. When searching for things, I like search engines that can give fast and accurate results without much unimportant links. The Find.com Search Engine does just that. I like how the name is so short and so easy to remember. Plus, it’s very easy to use. All you have to do is type in the address bar Find.com/anykeyword. Say, if you wanna find Jobs, all you need to do is type in Find.com/Jobs and you will get the results right away. I like the convenience it offers, so different from all the other search engines.

This is especially true to those who are still starting to get to know each other. It’s a lil bit different with married couples — husbands have no choice but to listen to what everything their wives have to say to avoid conflict :D

Certain topics that are major turn-offs to guys are:

Turnoff #1: The Lowdown on Celeb Dirt. Guys just don’t care about the lives of celebrities. Stop living in the fantasy world.

Turnoff #2: Your Ex Files. Quit talking about your exes, he’s never interested to know anything about your ex-man and it’s just going to make him feel jealous/insecure. I know Brian doesn’t like listening to my previous love stories, neither does he like telling me his. He’s like, past is past, we have a better love story! :D

Turnoff #3: Your Bad Body Image and Food Issues. Quit whining about your less than perfect body. He would not have had dated you in the first place if he didn’t like how you looked. Plus, you’re just drawing attention to your bad side which probably wasn’t as obvious before.

Turnoff # 4: Other People’s Relationships. Focus on your own relationship and mind your own business. Talking about other people’s relationships isn’t necessarily going to make yours better.

For more fun details about each topic, go to: http://dating.personals.yahoo.com/singles/datingtips/87522/dating-101-four-things-never-to-utter-around-him

Yesterday, I was craving for original Filipino food again so I decided to cook something I’ve never ever cooked before, not even in the Philippines (as if I cooked in the Phils :D). It was the monggos with dried fish! weeeee!…. :D

I invented the recipe. I didn’t look it up online or asked my mom or anybody. It was all common sense and memories from our old restaurant back when I was in highschool.  I soaked the monggo (mung) beans overnight to soften it then cooked it in the pressure cooker for a few minutes. This I learned from our restaurant cooks back in hiskul while watching them prepare the ingredients for all the dishes they were going to cook. I then sauteed the spices and squash on a lil bit of pork fat then added some lean meat then the cooked monggo beans and previously fried dried fish (that I cooked outside of our house!) plus sikwa (found it in my garden) then let it simmer for a bit. Didn’t need to add much salt as the dried fish was already salty. That’s it. It turned out to be soooo good and it smelled so good. The dried fish gave the dish the kick.. as in manipa jud! I thought Kyle would like it but he didn’t and of course Brian would not even try. Oh well, more for me! :D Kinsay mangayo?!

Last week, I cooked pinakbet following my mom’s recipe (of course from hiskul) and it tasted good also. Now, I gotta think of another original Filipino dish for this week.

p.s. I don’t like to look at recipes online. Most of them don’t taste right. I prefer trying my own or asking my mom.

2008 was the most exciting, most accomplished, most memorable year of my life. A lot of FIRST’s for me…

JANUARY: Vacation in Bahamas.
FEBRUARY: Brian received some hefty bonus from his company plus pay raise.
MARCH: Bought our first house. First time to meet lots of new Filipina friends in the US that were around my age, not my mom’s!
APRIL: Moved in to our first house. Bought my first car.
MAY: Passed the citizenship test.
JUNE: Officially became a US Citizen. Had our first party in our house.
JULY: Got my driver’s license.
AUGUST: Went to Niagara Falls, Canada. Went to our friends’ wedding in Pennsylvania and had a reunion with old friends.
SEPTEMBER: Our first hurricane experience!
OCTOBER: First vacation in Europe– celebrated 28th bday in London, 5th wedding anniversary on top of the Eiffel Tower, Paris, vacation in Barcelona.
NOVEMBER: Our second baby was created! :D
DECEMBER: First time to celebrate an actually fun holidays in the U.S. Kyle had his first real bday party.

…not to mention all the parties that we had celebrated and had attended last year..

But the experiences weren’t all good of course. A few bad things had happened last year –had a big fight with Brian (never again), lost some friends (emotionally), fought with Brian’s family. But I believe these things happened for a reason and I’m glad they did happen. It taught me and Brian some few lessons in life, to not trust people so easily and to not let anybody ruin our relationship and how to better handle it. Brian and I have grown more mature and our love for each other is even stronger. I’m so impressed how much my husband has changed over the years. For the first time, he actually wasn’t afraid and stood up for me against his own parents. My own parents trusted me with my new life and stopped interfering after I got married, so having other people to always tell me what to do, criticize, and spy on me everywhere 24/7, especially online, is plain irritating and invasive. Last year, I’ve regained my freedom and am so happy about it. Life without inlaws is way much better and peaceful (although it’s the opposite to Brian with his inlaws). Now, Brian doesn’t act like an obnoxious little brat who complains about everything anymore. He’s not as impatient nor as quick-tempered as he used to. He became more responsible as a father and husband. I’ve changed alot also. I’m not anymore moody, not as bad of a worrier, and not as passive as before. I now fight for what I believe is right, not anymore the girl who’s afraid to speak out and just sits in the corner and cries. I’m also now very optimistic and happy with life.

All the good happenings and the bad turning out to be good made me regard 2008 as THE BEST YEAR OF MY LIFE. I don’t expect 2009 to be the same or be better than ’08 but I do hope and pray that we can get through 2009 with less bumps in the road.

It’s only 6:05 PM and we’re already back to our hotel. Our fun ended early as it’s raining hard outside. We got to see the infamous Bourbon Street of New Orleans, Louisiana, a street made to fulfill the fantasies of single guys (or unhappy married men!) and a place for single girls to pick up guys (or have the chance to flash boobs in public during Mardi Gras). It is the…. READ MORE HERE.

Our New Year’s Eve in Houston wasn’t boring unlike our past New Year’s. Aside from the many parties, daghan sad fireworks dri sa Houston. As we were driving from one party to the next, we saw fireworks in every direction. There were also so many street parties in neighborhoods. It really reminded me so much of New Year’s Eve in Philippines. We never experienced these when we were living in Pennsylvania and Chicago. Brian was very impressed and said he never experienced these in Virginia, Kentucky or other places either. That is why we’re lovin Houston even more. Everybody should move here (except for party poopers)! :D

Most people drink diet drinks nowadays but what many don’t know is that just because diet sodas have fewer calories than the regular ones doesn’t mean that it can’t lead to weight gain. Studies have shown that consuming these types of drinks can lead to high preference for sweetness overall in their food.. craving for sweet desserts, sweet snacks, etc.

Me, personally, I don’t like drinking diet sodas as they don’t taste as good as the regular ones.. but I don’t really drink that much soda anyway. I could only drink about 1/3 of a glass during a meal. I prefer juices or wine (haha back in the days..) or water. I know of some people who drink way too much soda. It’s what they drink as soon as they wake up until bedtime, and they take pills with it (not water!). They drink Coke Zero or the other diet drinks ONLY. But the irony is, they’re so obese and still keeps gaining more and more weight LOL. They still haven’t realized that it’s not what they drink but how much they drink that makes them gain weight. One diet soda a day is fine, but drinking 5 or 6 cans or more isn’t dieting at all!

In addition, high consumption of the artificial sweetener used in diet sodas lead to cancers in the laboratory rodents.

Bottom line: Diet soda does you no good, and it might just be doing you wrong.

So forget diet soda, DRINK BEER! hehe joke!