Maybahay ng OFW
Wife of an Overseas Filipino Worker.
Mothers should be Healthy
It was the year 2019 when I became a stay-at-home mom.. If you have been following my blog, I mentioned quite a few times that I was once a working mom. My husband and I worked in Singapore, my children were with us too. We had a nanny to take care of them. I needed to go back to Philippines because of the amount of work that I had that resulted to multiple panic attacks.
Since I am now here in the Philippines, life became a little slow and more manageable. More manageable? Hmmmm..
I am a self confessed workaholic and I carried that attitude here at home. I learned that the amount of work at home is never-ending. Little by little, I was able to manage the household chores.
The one that I was not able to manage is my health. I should admit that my weight now is my heaviest already. Though I am busy with a lot of household chores, the amount of food that I am taking is more than my body can accept (Haha). Filipinos are rice-eaters.. We even have this hashtag, “rice is life”. My excuse was that I should not deprive myself on eating much because I am working hard here at home.
Another reason of my good appetite is the fact that we stayed outside the Philippines for a long time.. Now, every Filipino fast food that we crave or Filipino food that we want is just a phone call away.
I have hypertension already.. It started when I was stressed at work and had attacks. My lab results were okay that time. Everything was normal.
Until last week when I decided to have a check-up, reality bit me. The lab results are not satisfactory.
Cholesterol, Triglycerides and SGPT are above the reference limit. I was a little disappointed even if I should not. I asked the cardiologist if I can just exercise and have diet instead of taking medications. However, the cardiologist refused. She said, I needed to take it for 3 months then have a lab test again.
Before my check up with the cardiologist, I had my blood pressure monitored. I did it for a week so that my cardiologist would not ask me to take medications. However, since my cholesterol level is above the limit, I still need to take medications though my blood pressure is always normal.
I am still thankful that I could still manage the condition. I am now trying to exercise everyday.. aside from the everyday chores that I have. I am into eating more vegetables now and less rice. I need to cook my food separately because for sure my children wouldn’t like to eat those foods everyday.
I need a lot of cardio exercise like biking, skipping rope and running. I tried to do the skipping rope yesterday morning. It was so tiring.. After exercising, I felt I needed to sleep again but I also need to prepare breakfast for the kids.
Mothers should be healthy. I am my children’s strength.. How can I be their strength if I don’t have the strength?
It is not too late.. I should do what I need to do. Start now, no more procrastination.
A Post from my Daughter
Hi everyone! My daughter’s topic in her computer class is about websites (blogs, social medias, etc). She needed to explore the blog providers just like this WordPress. And so, I asked her to write a short blog of how she spent life during this pandemic. Enjoy!
Start
The pandemic has been a bit bad lately and the spread of covid has worsen but the Lord is still promising to keep us safe. In the mean time let me discuss on what I did around covid.
During the pandemic I have been doing a few hobbies to make me more used to the pandemic like drawing, playing music and more , while I was doing a few hobbies 2 or 3 days ago it was my mom’s sisters birthday which means my cousin, aunt, lolo (grandfather) and uncle came to our house, they arrived 2 or 1 days before the birthday that’s when I started to like the pandemic more
the first thing that happened when they were here was swimming but only my sister could swim cause me and my cousin had period and the rest are busy so we just watched her play and my cousin and I also played a few games as well. next was that we ate a lot of food there was fish pork spring rolls and a lot more they were all so good, I have also been doing some stuff with my cousin like playing, drinking ice coffee, making jokes and teasing my sister, it was already getting better and they just came what might happened tomorrow.
The next day was actually kind of normal but the only thing that was not normal was seeing my cat bathed by my lola its because the cats hate baths so it was suprising and I was happy about it.
Now this day was the day my mom’s sisters birthday! there was a lot of food again and they took pictures and stuff and my sister got to use the pool again it was all fun I also got to play a little with my sister, it was all amazing there was also a few drinks so of course I drank some, after hours it was evening, my cousin and the adults were drinking alcohol and ate a few chips and fries I only came there for the fries and a few chips it tasted really good and that’s when my auntie’s birthday about to end. My cousin and I are just making a few jokes and we all went to sleep.
The next day was the goodbye , we went to Tagaytay and stayed there for a few hours and left. That’s when it was all normal again so what I do now is just study, playing, and more so basically the pandemic is going well in my opinion.
And that’s the end! Sorry that it was very short its because I did not know what to really say so I just thought about my auntie’s birthday and thank again for reading this its been a pleasure I hope that there will be more stories to share with you.
My Dear Sister’s Birthday
I had a blast last week as I had some bonding moments with my siblings. Since I started working, I became so occupied with my work. When I was still single, I became so eager to share my income to my family. I always wanted them to be happy.
Since I am now in the Philippines, it became often that we see each other.. because I was always out of the country before and so my brother. Our schedule rarely meets. For the longest time, it is only nowadays that we are complete.
They were here last Thursday until today (Sunday) because we celebrated my sister’s 40th birthday here at home. We are fond of celebrating occasions here in our place because it’s quite big for us. My sister’s birthday was yesterday (November 20).
Unlike me, she is quite reserve and quiet. However, we knew exactly how to make each other laugh.
Last Thursday was pretty special because we decided to go on road trip. We went to Sta. Rosa Laguna, like 30km away from our place. We decided to go there to shop as there are lots of factory outlets there.. We were there around 10 in the morning and started to walk and look for things that we could buy. Come 12 noon, we haven’t bought anything and so we ate our lunch instead. Lunch time was full of jokes and bullying.. We were so noisy in the restaurant.
We continued to walk and look… tried shoes, clothes. But after almost 2 hours, we did not find anything to buy. Oh my, I found the styles out-to-date, my sister agreed to it. My brother is so annoyed already and so I told them to just go to the grocery store. This was really the reason why we were there, to check the big membership based grocery store in Laguna. It was sister’s first time there and she was so mesmerized. We ended up buying a lot of stuffs for our homes.
Oh, we did some photoshoots also in the place where we did not buy anything.. Haha.. That is my pretty sister in the picture.
Friday was quite a busy schedule for me because I had blood test and ECG as part of my annual check-up. I will tell you about this on my next blog.
Anyway, on the birthday of my sister, we were so thrilled to decorate our patio. We decided to prank our parents because they did not know that we bought foods for her birthday. Usually we cook during occasions, especially when my brother is here as he was once a cook in Singapore.
We don’t have visitors because of the pandemic.. We ate biryani (Indian dish) in the morning.. My brother prepared it so early. Indian dish is quite troublesome to prepare. There’s a lot of spices. But it was so delicious. My father did not like it though.
Since my father did not eat much in the morning, he was expecting us to be preparing our lunch early. He kept on saying that he is already hungry. My mother kept on asking too, what are we going to cook. She even wanted to cook spaghetti. We told them our lunch is also Biryani.. Haha. We pretended that we were not hearing them. Haha.
We sneaked the foods in the patio. They did not have any clue that foods are ready there. When we called them, my father was so happy.. Haha. He was so hungry.
But I insisted to take a lot of photos first as souvenirs. My father was so annoyed. He was becoming angry already.. Haha.
We prayed and sung “Happy Birthday”. Food was delicious.. We bought food for boodle fight. This is where all the dishes are nicely placed on coconut leaves, including the rice. Then we ate it together using our hands. It was a nice meal.
Around 4 in the afternoon, my father asked us if we could drink wine already (so early). My father and brother drunk whiskey and the girls (except my children) had margarita. We ate barbecue and nachos to partner our drinks. It was a fun afternoon.
My family is not perfect. A lot of trials came but we are what we have. We have each other during our struggles. We can cry and lean on to each other. The best memories are the non-stop laughing and teasing.
What’s up with me?
The past week was a little busy for me as the term exam of my eldest daughter is this week and I need to prepare her for that. Though, she in homeschool but the school that is linked to her homeschooling is the one who is giving the term exams.
It’s good that she in homeschooling because our internet service provider is really a pain in my head.. It is online schooling, it will really be troublesome.
Days passed doing the same thing at home and also homeschooling my children. There are some ease on the quarantining here in the Philippines and I am not sure if I will buy the idea of my children going out as if Covid is gone completely. In Manila, government is already allowing children to go to the malls. Parents were so excited too because for the longest time, they are happy to see their children explore outside.
On the contrary, I am still hesitant to let my children come with me in the malls.. not unless they are vaccinated. Today also is the first day of the pilot run of face-to-face classes of the government schools. Again, I am still not in favor of this because children are still not vaccinated.
I became so paranoid because of the many news that I am receiving about people that I know who had Covid.. either they died or experienced a traumatic hardships fighting Covid.
Vaccination for Filipinos ages 12-18 years is now ongoing. Still a long way to go because many are still not vaccinated. I am still waiting for my children’s turn, they are 11 and 5 years old only..
I just wanted to update you of what we are doing nowadays. I am trying my best for children to be occupied and not be bored at home.
My youngest finished her lessons of recognizing letters and writing the capital letters. I saw some techniques online on how I could teach her writing small letters. I cut some cardboard, then put some guides on how to write. I added a plastic cover so that we she write there, it could be erased.
She is enjoying the learning experience of writing small letters. Next lesson would be reading using phonics.
Another thing I need to achieve is losing weight.. I would want to share it with you but I don’t know how to start. Sometimes, I am thinking of not depriving myself.. being on strict diet because I am quite busy at home and I deserve to be eating delicious foods.. Haha.. However, I am 15 kilos heavier than my ideal weight and so I really need to lose some for my future.
If you have some suggestions on how I could start my weight loss journey, please let me know.
Wearing Mask at Home
There was a time last year when our government asked us to also wear mask at home. We were on total lockdown that time that even going out of the house is prohibited. Then, there is this command from them to wear mask. Home is the safest place that we could say is covid-free. Why do we still need to wear mask at home?
Never had I imagined that I will be wearing mask at home.. I just did, for almost 24 hours..
Last Friday, I decided to register for national ID.. It is now mandated here in the Philippines. There were two options to do this, first is through walk-in, second is through online appointment. The Home Owner’s Association of our subdivision asked us to enlist ourselves for this national ID. The government called me for the schedule, but for some reasons I was still treated as a walk-in. I went by myself because I wanted to check how it goes and what are the things needed. I brought two valid identification cards in case they need it. Because I was considered as walk-in, I waited outside of the office for almost two hours together with some people. It was hot and little windy that time.
Come Saturday, I felt like I will be having colds. It was nothing for me and so I took vitamin C. At home, I really wanted to have something to achieve for a day. I decided to cut the grass of our garden. It was quite high already. I did this after cleaning the house, cooking for the kids and washing the clothes.
I was so tired after I cut the grasses. I was not able to sleep well that Saturday night because my body is aching, my back and my arms.. Because of over-fatigue, I know I will be having flu.
Sunday is a rest day for us.. I had flu-vaccine reason why the flu was not that worse but I am having colds and my body is still aching. I searched for home service massage. I booked for an appointment in the afternoon for a Filipino traditional massage called “hilot”. The massage was a little painful but afterwards I felt better. However, I still have colds.. I sneezed a lot.
This is when I decided to wear mask. I took paracetamol and religiously taken it every 4 hours. It can be heard from my voice that I have flu. I wore this mask until the next morning.. Yes! I slept with the mask on because I am sleeping with my children.
There is nothing wrong with being safe. There is this saying, “better safe, than sorry”.
When I was still working, my company sometimes was sending me to Japan for meetings. A lot of people in the train station were wearing masks. There was still no covid that time. They just don’t want to spread virus or sickness to other people.
Nowadays, admit it or not, our top priority is our health. Without this, we cannot continue with our everyday lives.
My Children and this Pandemic
First of all, if you are one of my followers who constantly reads my blog, I would like to say, Thank you so much! As of now, I have 50 followers and around 1259 hits. Maybe some of you are curious on what is it like here in the Philippines, what a usual stay-at-home moms do, my everyday life… or maybe you are one of my close friends or relatives whom I advised about this blog. I hope you are enjoying reading what’s inside my mind and heart.
I did this blog to share my thoughts on everything that interest me.. This pandemic pushed me to write a lot as we are succumbed by this reality of being at home only. I have been waiting in vain for the chance of my husband to go home.. Faith is what makes me move and go on..
That’s the reason why, I would want my children to as much as possible have a balance day-to-day activities. It’s difficult though to find activities that would make them occupied and not feel the isolation caused by this pandemic.
As you may know, I am homeschooling my children and I grab the freedom of teaching them in a cozy place in our house.. it maybe in the patio, dining area, in their room or living room..
This is my eldest daughter reviewing for her Mathematics quiz. I told her if she wants to study in our patio area. It’s a different ambience.. hearing the birds singing while studying is nice. I sometimes asked my youngest to come here too for our alphabet lessons. She loved to study in this area too. Oftentimes, my youngest studies in her room. She likes to study with her toys. I just make sure she will not play while studying.
The Christian church in Singapore often invites us for Sunday School especially when Singapore government imposes strict rules for church goers for Covid protection. I always grab the opportunity of letting my children attend the online Sunday school.
Today, we visited their dentist for their annual cleaning/check-up. My eldest, aside from cleaning her teeth, had her baby tooth extracted. While my youngest had her teeth cleaned.
This is my four-year-old kid who’s so fond of cleaning her teeth. She brushes her teeth so often at home.
There has been an announcement here in our town that children from 12 to 17 years old can register for vaccination. I feel relieved that the Philippines is somehow catching up with the fight against this virus. I am praying that this will end soon so that we could let our children enjoy outside and see the beauty of other things.
Mirror Collage in the Living Room
While I was composing my last blog, I was also sending messages to my family (group chat) in facebook. My sister was asking my brother to accompany her on buying a television. I immediately volunteered myself to come with them as it is seldom that we get together. My father was also willing to come and he even told us that we would buy lunch for us. I was really craving for Japanese food that time and that became my request to my father.
My brother did not come with us because he is working for my father on a project in Tagaytay City. He needed to be there to work and look after the other workers.
So it was yesterday when we went together in the mall to buy my sister’s TV. I told them not to eat breakfast as the Japanese restaurant’s serving is quite big.
I got spicy ramen and pork donburi.. My father and I ate the same dishes.. My sister had the same also except for the rice meal. It was superb!! I was so satisfied. Really thankful to my father.
Since it was also seldom that I go to the mall, I also planned to buy the mirrors that I needed for my living room. This was part of the mood board that I made before we moved-in in this this house. I planned to make a mirror collage as the living room in the ground floor is quite small and I believe the mirrors will make it look bigger.
I measured the wall before I went to the mall to meet my father and sister, this is to calculate how many mirrors I needed to buy.
From the calculation, I learned that I needed 18 pcs of the mirrors. Since what I bought was buy 1 take 1, I just paid 9 pcs.
I started my project this morning, while I was washing our clothes..
I finished at 1 in the afternoon as I also prepared food for lunch. It was quite easy to put, I wrote the steps on making a mirror collage in my previous blog. You may want to check it out.
This is what it turned out to be. I am happy with it.. Little by little what I planned for my house decor is materialized.
At 2 in the afternoon today, I continued teaching my eldest daughter. We are finishing last lessons for Term 1. Some of her projects were already completed.
It’s really a nice feeling to fulfill something within a day. I think this is the aim of most of the housewives, to always be productive.
Finally! Outdoors with my Children
It has been more than a year that my children were just inside our house because of this pandemic. They sometimes go out of the house just to ride a bicycle, come with me when I buy groceries but they stayed inside the car with my mother. To fight boredom, I bought a portable pool so that they could imagine being outside swimming. I put a patio outside so that we could eat our snacks there in the afternoon, the ambience of being outside is there.
My children practically grew up spending time outside during weekends. When I was still working, my husband and I wanted to spend weekends with our children in the malls, play area, amusement parks, etc. I felt the longingness of my children to see other people and other environment during this pandemic.
Since I am a bit paranoid about this Delta Variant of Covid, it became so hard for me to even allow my children to go biking outside. However, I noticed that it somehow affects their behavior. The motivation of being enthusiastic about something was not there anymore.
I decided to check for places where my kids could explore freely.. A place (even if far) could assure a Covid free environment. Upon searching, I saw this little zoo near my hometown where less people come because it is not that popular. It is a vast land, full of flowers, butterflies and bees. There are ducks, geese, chicken and other animals too.
When I learned that it is safe for my children, I immediately asked my husband and he was okay with it. The next day, we packed our things and had a ride to the farm.
I packed extra face masks, clothes, drinking water, caps, tissues and alcohol.
My kids run freely in the farm. There was an entrance fee, to help maintain the farm. I can say that they enjoyed those moments. I didn’t mind the time as long as they are enjoying.
Different kinds of flowers and plants were there. My children were fascinated. They were running on the grass, checking on the flowers. We sat down on a bench and they were sitting down mesmerizing the beautiful garden.
There was a butterfly farm too where we saw different kinds of butterflies. Somebody explained to us the life cycle of a butterfly. My children listened attentively. They were amused to see the baby butterflies in person.
It was the first time my children had close encounter with the ducks and chicken. I think it was the first time my youngest saw a chicken reason why she was a little scared.
Ducks were roaming around, seemed to be used on mingling with people. My eldest daughter was astounded by the ducks willingly pose for a picture.. Haha..
It was memorable.. I conquered my fear to explore and give my children a chance to be away from home. I still need to be mindful reason why our next adventure would be more secluded. I need to search on that thoroughly.
Tales of Online Selling in the Philippines
I miss writing here, seeing people reading my blog post really makes me happy. I was quite busy the past few days because I again became active on selling online. I got some children’s clothes that I bought March of this year however, for some reasons sales were not okay. I decided to take a break with selling then come back this October since Christmas is coming.
Sales were good for the past few days. I was so delighted because a lot were interested on the products that I am selling. So far, I have shipments everyday.
However, I must admit that sales entail a lot of work. I need to manage my time well because I am homeschooling and there are lots of queries about the products that I post in facebook. Let me share to you some hilarious questions that some people ask.
“Free Shipping?” I am selling my products at the lowest because I wanted to replace it with other clothes that I know would be more marketable. My margin is less than a dollar and yet some people were asking for free shipping. Some even live hundreds of miles from our place. I would reply to them that I only have a little margin and cannot afford for free shipping. (This is not charity.)
“Can we use Lalamove to deliver to our place?” This is by far the most hilarious question that I had. Lalamove is a courier that uses motorcycle to deliver parcels. Motorcycle! The person who asked me question is from Mindanao.. The only way to get there is through airplane or ship. The person kept on insisting how much would it cost, even if I told her a lot of times that I am from Luzon. She acted like she was the one irritated because I don’t know the cost. Oh my!
“How much?” – Yes this is a usual question.. however this is okay if the person would tell you which item she is referring to. A lot are asking me this and I don’t know which item they are saying. Besides, the price is already in the description of the picture. I am not sure why they still need to ask.
“Can you send me pictures of the items?” – It is in my facebook page.. Why do I need to send all to you? (Of course, I did not say that) I tell you, they are serious about these questions.
“How much is the blue, yellow and green dress?” – My facebook page has more than 50 clothes already. I really need to look for the blue, yellow and green dress? I bet this person doesn’t know screen shot or save photo in her phone.
“Cash on Delivery” – It was crystal clear in my facebook page that the mode of payment is thru Gcash or bank transfer and yet a lot still ask for cash on delivery payment. Oh, and facebook will give you a status of not responding fast.. How can I respond to a lot of COD requests? When it is already mentioned that it is not possible.
Please don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining.. I am just saying the tales of online selling here in the Philippines. I am grateful also to meet young mothers who are so excited to buy for their children. I can feel them.
I will be continuing this online selling because I enjoy it. It is just a matter of time management and prioritizing.
Realization During this Pandemic
This past few days, I was a little bit under the weather maybe because of the hormones.. I am at my 40’s now and I could say that the level of my patience and thinking is a little different now. I was once an easy-go-lucky person but now since I have children, I became more conscious on the future.
Well, there was a typhoon here in the Philippines, I am not sure if it is still here but the northern part was severely flooded. I noticed our papaya trees where becoming weak, the leaves are not bloomed anymore. I had a feeling that those will be dying soon, and it really happened. The bell peppers were not okay also. The vegetables that I planted were infected by pests maybe.. I had to pull those and throw.
Two of the staffs of my daughter’s school died because of Covid.. The other one spent 1.7 million pesos (~35,000 USD) in the hospital. The school asked for donations for the staff.
The brother of my godmother also died because of Covid, he spent 2.5 million pesos (~50,000 USD) in the hospital. They are well-off and so money was not a problem to them.
My highschool classmate’s sister-in-law and niece also died because of Covid. They had Covid and pre-existing medical condition, diabetes.
A lot of news about what is happening here in the Philippines. People who are dying are becoming nearer.
I got frustrated because I haven’t seen my husband for more than a year now.. This Christmas would be the second one that we are not together. Last night, I broke down and cried.
I cried because that is the only thing that I can do.
It’s good that I cried because I released the pain and started to realize a lot of things.. We are blessed.
We are blessed because we are all healthy. We are still complete in the family. We do not need to spend millions of pesos for our health.
Now I am grateful. It’s good that I cried, the heaviness in my heart was lightened.
I sent a message to my husband at 1 in the morning, I told him what I was going through and he made me realized a lot of things.
Little by little it is improving. There is always hope.
From now on, I will see the positive side of things. I was always like that. However, this pandemic hit the other side of me.
Maybahay ng OFW 