Meet Molly

I really thought I was over her. I waited another month just to be sure that she's the one for this year. (She's been in my mind the past 3 years, believe it or not.)

And because I didn't want her to be "the one that got away," I decided not to wait for another year.

After a thousand and one visits to this  site and this site, I took the plunge.

She's mine now. I know it's going to be a long purse love-affair for Molly and me.

A Mum's Love

When the rain is blowin' in your face
And the whole world is on your case
I could offer you a warm embrace
To make you feel my love.

When the evening shadows and the stars appear
And there is no one there to dry your tears
I could hold you for a million years
To make you feel my love.
...
I'd go hungry, I'd go black and blue
I'd go crawlin' down the avenue
No, there's nothin' that I wouldn't do
To make you feel my love.

~  Bob Dylan, 'Make You Feel My Love'

Picture taken inside the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington DC

If I had Bob Dylan's genius, this would have been the same song I will compose for this young man (MDK). Well, I'd probably change a line or two but not the message in each and every line. But a genius I am not so here I am, sharing a playlist (To Make You Feel My Love* ) of the song instead, sung by different singers (Jeremy Irons' cover included). Bob Dylan's rendition of his song is my favourite in the list of course. I am biased, I know.

* A new window will be opened when the link is clicked.


I have slowly become a Bob Dylan fan when MDK started listening to his songs. (MDK is a huge Bob Dylan fan btw.) As I discover his many compositions, I've grown to admire his poetry. I had very limited exposure to his songs until I slowly noticed that MDK started playing songs that have very eloquent messages. They happen to be mostly Bob Dylan's. I still haven't listened to most of his songs so my exposure to his songs is still very limited. However, my Bob Dylan playlist in Grooveshark is growing.

Some nights, MDK and MDH play music together, and among their favourites are Bob Dylan's (Queen Jane, A Hard Rains A Gonna Fall are some of them). It's always a delight, as mom and wife, to listen and watch them play together. A mini-performance of this song by "my boys" (MDK and MDH) would have been my special request for Mother's day but we will be out of town. There will be no breakfast in bed for me as well as we will be away from home so I'll just settle for the all-time best gift: a-hug-and-a-kiss.


This was intended to be an advanced Mother's day greeting to all the Moms who visit this site and not just a rah-rah post for Bob Dylan hahaha. So let me end my post with a prayer on behalf of all the  mothers (and fathers) out there and an ardent wish that you'll have a very meaningful celebration on this special day.

Lord, we submit ourselves to You. Help us to walk in righteousness and integrity before You. Teach us Your ways and enable us do what is pleasing in Your sight. May the beauty of Your Spirit be so evident in us that we will be godly role models. Give us the communication, teaching and nurturing skills that we must have. Make us the parents You want us to be. Amen.

My Time-out Corner

This is another corner in the house I can call my own.

If you've visited this site before, you'd probably noticed that I have quite a few corners in this house and each has a name. I have my FB corner, happy wall, etc etc. This one, I call it my time-out corner. And it's also my last-stop corner before I go to bed.

And because I'm a big fan of whites and greys, it has go to be a white dressing table of course. I've embellished the top by using some left-over drapery fabric from our previous home.

It turned out to be just the right fabric colour as it goes well with the furniture pieces and the wall paint we have in the room.


 It didn't take very long to put them all together. It was the search for the "perfect" mirror that took  forever. I scoured the whole of Ottawa and took a hundred trips to HomeSense before I found the one hahaha.

The room, overall, is still not fully done but it's getting there.

Re-arranging

Little did I know, we'd spend the next years together re-arranging things like priorities, expectations, etc, etc. It's never ending but I'm loving every moment of it. I have the most patient, persistent, kind, hard-working buddy.

*************

Above is our latest project. It's not fully done, but I'm happy the way it's turning out.

Paint is Stonington Grey by Benjamin Moore. Art works on the wall are mine. They're pics of our orchids in the bathroom. I told MDH, I'm getting a lot of mileage from these flowers. The blooms started showing up early October and they're still blooming up to now. They've gone through 3 seasons.

It took us 2 days to prep and paint the room. And some Advil of course.

Thanks, MDH!

Budget 2012

So Minister of Finance Jim Flaherty bought a pair of shoes worth $110 today (eve of the federal budget announcement). What sayeth thou of this? Modest spending? Modest cutbacks? I guess we'll find out tomorrow. Hopefully, there will be no other shoe to drop, no pun intended.

It's a long-time tradition for the Minister of Finance to go to a shoe store on the eve of the announcement. Last year, he didn't buy a new pair, instead he had an old pair resoled. Leaner times.

Well, if I were to start a tradition, I'd pick purse. What's yours?

Childhood, Heartaches, Do-overs

Warning: this is an incoherent post. I don't know how to elaborate on the title 'cause really, I just want to post some pics.

This week, I whipped up my most favourite tortes in the whole wide world. They're called "Torta Cebuano". I had scoured the internet for the recipe and was fortunate enough to have found it from this site. Thank you, Manang. (Manang means older sister in Filipino btw, in case you're wondering.)

Every bite of these tortes evoked some childhood memories, mostly happy ones. So it was such a delight to have finally found the one recipe that produces yummy tortes and taste almost the same as the ones I've grown to like.

And while I baked this week's batch, MDH played Adele's album ("21"). And you know how in almost every album, there's this one song that stands out. For this album, it was "Someone Like You." And if you knew me, you'd have guessed that I had it on repeat that night until I finished baking. Which made MDK wonder if the song means something to me hahaha. I told him, I am one of the lucky ones to have never experienced a major heartache and that's the whole truth and nothing but the truth :). I just like the song, is all.

So, the next day, I scoured the internet for the music sheet. Lo and behold, I found one. Love the world wide web, I tellya. That same night, MDK played it on the piano and we had our mini karaoke session.

This morning during brunch, while Adele's "21" was playing, MDK asked MDH, "so Papa, in a scale of 1 to Adele, how bad was your first heartache?" I love this kid's humour. Like father, like son.

After brunch, MDK asked another question. This time, it was a "what-if-kind" of question. And so I told him, "remember, almost always, there are no do-overs in life so I can't answer your hypothetical question. I guess we'll just have to do our best in a given situation and enjoy the ride." Which also reminds me of a quote that a dear friend posted on her FB wall: "Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things."

Why oh why

... is there always a friggin' bitter pill to swallow? I wanna spit it out.

Why can' t I just pick my favourite happy, jelly beans.

Scheming

... for yet another project.



Now that we have the furniture pieces for the family room in place and the old sofa and loveseat have been moved and set-up in the loft, I am now ready to put some colours in the three rooms - kitchen, family room, and loft. I know, I know I've been playing "safe" with our colours in the home. And I am not to do any different in these 3 rooms as the colours will be mostly on the fabrics for the cushions and drapes and accent wall. The big pieces are still neutral a.k.a. beige-brown-white-grey-blah. But I think once these pops of colours will be used, it will not be as blah anymore. Let's see.

Updates on some of our latest renos:

• Shelves in our walk-in closet have been installed and I am loving it. I told MDH it feels like I'm shopping for clothes whenever I choose what to wear in the morning :). There are still a few items that we need to finish up like putting the baseboards back, putting up the mirror and wall hooks for my blings, and adding 2 shelves and racks. But overall it's close to being a finished labour-of-love reno ;).

• I found the perfect fireplace for our bedroom and will order it soon. In 2 weeks, we'll re-paint our bedroom with BM Stonington Grey (same paint colour that we used in our walk-in). 

• We've managed to amp-up a bit the coziness in the loft.  Just a tad bit. We removed the work table and the desktop computer as they aren't used since MDH, MDK, and I have each our own workspaces. The study for MDH, the guest-room-slash-mini-recording-studio for MDK, and the chef's desk for moi. The sofa and loveseat that used to be in the family room are now in the loft. MDH says it's a perfect spot for napping so we now call it "the napping station." He's even thinking of replacing the sofa with a sofa-bed. I said "NO" so that's the end of that discussion hahaha.

So how about you my darlings? Any new schemes?

Have a wonderful week ahead.

Today's a fab day...

I had a lovely day today. Firstly, I took a day off from work as we were expecting 2 deliveries, one's a furniture set which I ordered online and the other's a bunch of closet stuff for our walk-in. Secondly, MDK was at home and did a kind deed to the delivery guys.

The furniture pieces are now in our family room and everyone loves it. Even MDK, as usual I must say, was pleasantly surprised that they look quite nice and work well with the rest of our decor. I told him he should learn not to doubt my choices ;).

The next project that we have to tackle will be the walk-in closet. The closet shelves are all dark (similar colour to our ensuite cabs) and the paint, we'll paint it with BM's Stonington Grey. Walk-in reno is now first in MDH's honey-do list. Finally! I will post pics once reno is done, I guess.

For now, I'll share a pic of my lunch.

Lunch was celery sticks (with ranch dressing), grapes, crackers, wensleydale cheese with cranberries, and a glass of milk. To 'balance' it out, I had some leftover macs and would have loved to pair them with Moscato wine but there was none left so MDK and I had them with tea instead.


The macs above are from the last batch I did 2 weeks ago. I set aside a few pieces. MDH had requested that I made a batch for the retirement party of his former boss and mentor (and a very good friend I must add). The serving plates came back empty so I guess that was a good thing. Someone in the party had asked for the recipe. And because today is a fab day, I'm sharing the recipe.

French Macaron Recipe:

120g almond meal
200g powdered sugar
100g egg whites
30-35g granulated sugar
food colouring gel

1. Line rectangular baking sheets with silicone liners (silpat) or parchment paper. For this amount of ingredients, I use 3 baking sheets.

2. Prepare a piping bag with a round tip attached to it. I use #12.

3. Weigh the almond meal and powdered sugar and sift together to remove clumps.

4. Weigh the rest of the ingredients.

5. Beat the egg whites until the mixture becomes foamy. Begin adding the sugar and beat the meringue until it turns to stiff, glossy peaks.

6. Add the food colouring.

7. Then gradually add and fold the almond/sugar mixture.

8. Pour the batter into the piping bag and pipe rows of batter onto the baking sheets. Make sure to leave some space in between to allow the macs to spread.

9. Allow the macs to rest for approximately 30 minutes.

10. Preheat your oven between 275 to 310 degrees F. The 295 F setting in a convection oven works for me. You may have to do a bit of experimenting on this.

11. Bake the cookies for 16-20 minutes.

There is a caveat to the recipe above. The settings that work for me may or may not work for you. Just like most recipes, you may have to tweak this. But I've made this several times now and I've considered my first attempt and the next ones relatively successful. If you are used to baking goods that require meringue, you'll be fine. And just like anything you're set to learn, if and when the first attempt fails, try again until you succeed.

Here's to the New Year

May this year bring me more joy and success and less grief and regret. And if I stumble and fail, may I have the grace and courage to get up, pick up the pieces, and move on.

May I never stop believing in my dreams for myself and for my loved ones. May I take the actions that will make them a reality. May I be able to readily give up any dream that I have that is not my loved one's and make his dream mine as well and support him unconditionally, no matter what.

May I learn to encourage more and criticize less, give more and need less.

May I be kinder to people around me and to myself.

May I always be able to let my loved ones and friends know how much of a blessing they are in my life. And may my presence in their lives be a blessing to them too.


Here's to another beginning. A blessed New Year to one and all!