Andie Summerkiss

I am going through really tough dry spell for May and June. Maybe it was because of the moving away or something. I couldn’t think of anything interesting or fun to post here. When I received email from Nablopomo about theme for July, I was really excited. It’s about FOOD. Thirty postings on food. That shouldn’t be too hard, huh? 

But I won’t be blogging from here, I will put them in the new Andie’s Blog at Javaa. I have just moved here and there is so much to learn on Filipino cuisine. I now realized that sleeping and lazying around all day long really got boring after a while. LOL. 

So while looking for inspirations, I will be writing more on food. Hope over to Javaa 

There is some kind of weirdness hitting my feed for the past couple of weeks. The usual subscribers are not getting updates in their feed readers. 

I just activated the Feedburner on this site. Please let me know if my updates are not showing in your readers. Or click on the image to start feeding anew. If you have any idea what’s been happening, please share. 

I can not imagine how awful it must have been for people involved in the ferry accident in Manila related to the typhoon last weekend. 

A week before that I was on the same kind of ferry, heading to another direction for a weekend excursion from Tabaco Bay to Catanduanes Island. It is an island province of the Philippines located in the Bicol Region in Luzon. Its capital is Virac and the province lies to the east of Camarines Sur across Maqueda Channel. We got there by ferry ride, about three hours from Tabaco City (45 minutes from Legaspi City). It was a big commercial ferry that carried passengers and cargo. 

On our way back to the main island, the ferry was overloaded. There were many children aboard. Many many people could not find seats so many were sitting on the floor and standing on the railings. I myself did not sit for the whole trip. The weather was too hot to be sitting in the middle part of the ferry so I settled by being on my feet for three hours but could enjoy cool breeze and great views. 

The typhoon hit a week later at the same place. I felt deepest sympathy for the victims and their families. I am sure the fateful ferry was overloaded, more than its capacity since it was weekend and passengers were with babies and children, just like the one I was on. 

Was it just a group of greedy ferry owners-slash-operators who made the decision that the show must go on albeit the bad weather predicted days before? Was it the inexperienced captains who were left in charge? Was it the fateful destiny approved by the almighty? 

Stir Fried Green Beans with Garlic

I am an on-and-off vegetarian. Never cared much about vegetables, really, but because of my certain health condition, it is best for me to consume as much vegetables as possible. 

In the city where I live now, however, it is almost impossible to find leafy vegetables. Now that is weird. Here are the vegetables found in the local market:

Green beans, pek-chay (chinese cabbage), carrot, cucumber, kangkoong (water spinach), taro, bitter guard, egg plant and string beans.

Even tomatoes are a bit weird looking. They are very tiny and yellowish instead of reddish colour. 

Lettuce is almost non existence. Also other green leafy vegetables like bok choy. That is very odd since the soil is very fertile due to minerals from volcanic ash. Maybe the weather is harsh on vegetable plants.

More on vegetables native and grown in the Philippines can be found here. 

I have new respect for women who stay home when men go out to earn living. After staying home for more than two weeks, I am still struggling to adjust to the very much different lifestyle as I had before. 

I am adjusting to the fact that I no longer have to wake up early and get ready to work. My phone doesn’t ring every five minutes anymore. I am no longer earning my own living. That is a strange feeling. Not to be apart of any other activity outside home. 

There are a lot of other things to do for me, as managing business and going to work have now taken form of cleaning the house, grocery shopping, doing laundry, cooking, washing. As always, I take a more ‘manager’ role of the house works. Supervising the cleaning lady in doing the house chores. 

That was fun too.  

We went to the movie last night after work. He picked the movie that he knew would cheer me up. What happens in Vegas was playing in the local cinema. We got to the mall late, so after grabbing popcorn, chip and a couple of drinks, we stumbled our way into the Cineplex.

The movie has just started for five minute or less, so it was cool. As usual, I giggled my way through the whole movie. Got to be honest that some of it was not that funny and over the top but it was refreshing for me after being home all week.

The funniest part that made me laughed out so loud was when the movie ended and the lights were turned on. We were the only people who watched the movie. Nobody else was in there!

Maybe, the movie was so not good or not worth it, that we were the only two people in the city who were willing to pay 130 peso to watch it! The pirated dvd costs 70 peso a piece, with 20 chick flicks in it.

Oh well. We are so there next week. For Sex and The City the Movie! And I would not care if I were the only person in the room either.

A long overdue of meme from Paris Beaverbanks

I am a fan of

I started blogging October 2007, and Paris’ My Women Stuff and Paris Beaverbanks are some of the earliest blogs I read before starting my own. So I am truly a fan of hers. And Albie’s. And KL Surfer’s, and Momisodes’,  some of my earliest readers.

Fans that keep me airy

For the other fans, I have three exotic ones which I use interchangebly, depending on the outfit and the occassion. (*chuckles*)

I have to admit that the purple lacy one is too frilly for me. I never use that one ..

My fans

My blog stats is a bit too sad to be discussed, so I am going to leave that subject alone. But I am sure I have some fans. The fan tag now goes to Sandy and Giddy Tigress. Fan away, please ..

After all the drama, I am now finally settling down in Legaspi City, Philippines. We will be here for a couple of months, less than originally expected. It is exciting, eventhough it will get a bit lonely without friends and family.

Checklist for the week :

Unpack

Kind of important to do this.

Learn to drive

It is right-side driving. Err .. I tried driving home, it was just too freakish. But something that I will need to master, immediately.

Learn to love doing dishes

We have a girl who helps us with domestic chores. On weekends, we have to manage the tasks ourselves. Not particularly my most favourite activity.

Kill ants and mice

The house we live in is infested with ants and mice! Help!

Find new friends

This can be a bit hard. So if you are near by here, please buzz me

Learn Tagalog

The language is suprisingly quite similar to Indonesian language. Similar pronunciation, even some words are the same and pronounce the same way and have the same meaning. Most people speak English, so it is really not necessary for me to do this. But it would be fun to find out whether anybody talks nasty about me on my back, don’t you think?