Mga Ka-BLOG-an ni Zimberloy

These days, our typical Saturday is attending a party, or two, or three parties on one same day. Yesterday, we went to Charyn’s baby girl’s baptismal then to a new friend’s housewarming party. Of course there was so much yummy food in both places. I liked the lechon at Charyn’s and the dinuguan at Ana’s (though I’m not really a dinuguan eater, hers just looked clean :D). Brian found him new drinking buddies and they were all bisaya. They were having so much fun and were always laughing. They were making fun of one guy who insisted that people in Mindanao don’t speak Bisaya but Cebuano. He got really annoying but good thing the people around him weren’t troublemakers and were just laughing at him. If he was in Philippines, he could easily get punched in the face.. haha..

Going to all these parties isn’t that easy ‘coz we live far away from everybody and have to drive for awhile (30 minutes to 1 hour).. but we’re not really complaining.. that’s what you’re supposed to do for friends! Plus we enjoy seeing them. Thank God for our giving us good friends!

The day after Thanksgiving, known as Black Friday, is the biggest shopping day of the year here in the United States. It marks the start of the Christmas shopping season. On this day, stores offer great deals on almost everything, sometimes as much as 75% off in order to lure shoppers into the stores. Many places even open at midnight to accomodate the most eager shoppers. But if you want to cash in on the best deals you have to be prepared to fight the crowd. Some people actually camp outside of the stores the night before. We don’t often go out to shop on Black Friday but decided to go to the outlet mall and try it this year. It was crazy with very long lines. Brian hated it, just like most guys probably would. He was looking for a gift for his co-worker but was unable to find one. I suggested a website where he could find some personalized holiday gifts like a personalized USB thumb drive, personalized pen, business card flash drive, or a wooden USB flash drive. These are all things that his friend could really put to good use. And to make things even better, they are on sale for 20% off until the  end of the year and all of the custom laser engravings are free. Brian liked what he saw and was planning to buy his co-worker’s gift from the website. He said he wished I had told him about the site before we decided to go to the mall, so his aching feet could have been saved! LOL.

I was watching the news tonight and they were talking about a woman who was awake and felt everything during her abdominal surgery, despite the anesthesia, but couldn’t talk to tell her doctors as she was paralyzed. I’ve read of another story of a woman with an eye problem who decided to have it surgically removed and she felt the doctors cutting and gouging to remove her eye. She tried telling the doctors but couldn’t open her mouth. The anesthesia worked on paralyzing her body but not her mind and feelings. I’ve heard of these type of stories a few times before but I didn’t know how many people actually undergo this kind of suffering. It occurs to about 20,000-40,000 American patients each year. Imagine that.

I was actually one of the unlucky ones to experience anesthesia awareness while I was delivering Kyle. After 18 hours of excruciating labor, my doctor decided that I needed to undergo Caesarean. My water bag broke at 12 midnight but I still wasn’t dilated enough at around 6:00 PM. They were worried about my baby and I getting an infection. When I was at the delivery room, I was already very weak. I was surrounded by a team of doctors and nurses and Brian was by my side. After I was given epidural anesthesia, they started operating me. Then my nightmare started. The anesthesia didn’t work. I felt everything that they were doing and the tremendous pressure exerted to remove the baby was unimaginable. I felt the doctor pumping around or close to my chest area and it was like my heart was going to explode. I couldn’t breathe. I said to Brian who was holding my hand that I felt like I was gonna die (at least I wasn’t paralyzed). I was crying and screaming so hard. I had to endure it all for some time until finally one doctor decided to put some sort of a gas mask on my face and that put me to sleep. I don’t know what that was but I’m glad he ended my suffering, although being unconscious prevented me from interacting with my baby immediately after i delivered him.

I’m not sure how long I was asleep but when I woke up, I asked immediately how my baby was doing. I was suspecting that something was wrong with the baby ‘coz their answers were so short and as if they were trying to hide something. Later on, I found out that Kyle was in critical condition. He came out blue, literally, and his nails were purple. He was lacking oxygen. The very long labor and all the medicines they gave me weakened him. Thank God he was fine after a couple of days.

Of course, after that horrific incident, I said to myself I was never having a baby again.. but it all has changed now, I’m ready for the next one, just not soon.. maybe next year…. or in ten years! :D

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Yesterday, we went to Adam and Cheryl’s birthdays party. Daghan kaayog giluto si Cheryl and lami iya giluto. Couldn’t believe she was able to cook that much without any help. And of course daghan kaau iya bisita, of course daghan gud og food! hahaha..

Then Brian, Kyle and I went to Janet’s house so Brian could watch football with her hubby John. Brian likes hanging around with John coz they think alike and he feels like he could talk to him about anything. And of course I like Janet ‘coz she’s so down-to-earth and so much fun to talk to (like me! haha!).

At 9 PM, we went to Marie’s place for another birthday party. It was an all-Filipino party, Brian was the only “foreigner”..but he didn’t feel like ”out-of-place”. Thanks to Kuya Marlon (and the rest) for entertaining Brian and always making sure he had a bottle of beer on his hand lol.

Me and Joanne — Iliganons in action!

I was so jealous of Marie coz she had her own disco room in her house (now I’m thinking of converting one of the rooms in our house into a disco room hahah!). It was a very fun night, reminded me of being in the Philippines with my family, cousins and uncles/aunts and close friends when we would go to the disco bars acting all silly. We love the crowd, no killjoy…. nobody beats the fun-ness of Filipinos! Glad we met them!

dancing with Marie

I was just done decorating our 9-ft Christmas tree and i’m not satisfied with it. I’ve already spent a lot of money (and time!) for decorations and I still feel like I need to add some more. We’re hosting a Fil-Am Christmas party here in Houston so we really have to decorate so much. Good thing I love doing it.. so… if you need somebody to decorate/interior design ur house, hire me! :P bitaw, i can only do it in my own home where nobody’s gonna complain hehe..

Having a toddler around, our tv is always set to the kids channel. Kyle loves Spongebob Squarepants so much that he’s glued to the tv when it’s on. He’s so focused when he watches and even memorizes some of the lines from the shows. And when Spongebob isn’t on, we (yup, including me!) get to watch some other kid shows as Kyle won’t let me switch the channel. I prefer to watch the news but I have no choice, this little man is the boss around the house. After a while, I started liking the shows. One show that I find rather amusing is The Naked Brothers Band on Nickelodeon. It’s a musical comedy series that’s part documentary and part rock-mockumentary, starred by two brothers, Nat (13 years old) and Alex (10) Wolff. The series started on February 3, 2007 and is a big succes and now is on its third season. On Saturday, Nov. 22, will be the premiere of their new movie Operation Mojo, and the exciting part is that viewers can do a live chat with the brothers. The movie is about how Nat loses his cool and his mojo when he lost his girlfried after seeing a tabloid photo of her kissing another boy. Desperate to help his brother, Alex took Nat to the wilderness, thinking that being out there will lead Nat to find his inner strength and get his mojo back. I know this is gonna be fun to watch. I will set the reminder on our tv so I won’t miss the show!

Here’s some advice for all the single ladies out there.

Warning: Once you perfect these moves, you might find that you’re such a powerful man-magnet, you attract guys everywhere!!!

Dating tip #1: Go out in groups of no bigger than three. Larger groups of girls are supertough (read: intimidating) to approach. Three is a good number because your two friends can keep each other company when a guy walks up to chat with you.

(Don’t know where tip #2 went.)

Dating tip #3: Smile genuinely. So obvious, right? But I can’t stress it enough — and I can’t believe I ever acted aloof in an attempt to seem more cool. Now I know that women smile all the time naturally (when we’re nervous, when we’re trying to be polite, etc.), so if you don’t do it at all, you look unapproachable.

Dating tip #4: Work the eye contact. To reel him in from across the room, tilt your chin down a bit and flash him a couple of sultry glances. (Guys love it when you look up at them — it makes them feel manly.) If the guy across the room is so gorgeous you have a hard time looking straight at him and are simply too nervous, fake it by focusing on the tiny area right between his eyes. He won’t be able to tell the difference.

Dating tip #5: Don’t immediately ask him what he does. Some men think all women are gold diggers. A lot of my clients hated being asked what their job is. It’s that fear-of-being-used thing again.

Dating tip #6: Make positive small talk. When you’re out on the town, you’re supposed to be having fun, and any complaint (”It’s hot in here!”), pessimism (”There will definitely be another terrorist attack”), or snarky quip (”Look at that chick’s belt — so 2002!”) pretty much pokes a hole in the fun-girl aura you should be projecting. Some better small-talk topics: recent vacations, favorite bands, hilarious movies. You can hit him with your deep, dark world-view some other time.

Source: dating.personals.yahoo.com

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