A Lesson in Procrastination

This is a lesson in not putting off for tomorrow the things that you are supposed to do for today. Case in point: ironing Aly's school uniforms.
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Background kwento muna. When I'm preparing for something, I usually make a list to ensure that I won't forget anything. For Aly's school preps, I wrote down all my to-do's complete with a target date of completion. First day of school was on a Monday and according to my schedule, I should have completed all my to-do's on the Friday before that. Everything was right on schedule: skirts were altered by Monday and washed by Tuesday...notebooks and writing materials were labelled by Thursday...all except for one last thing: ironing Aly's school uniforms, which was supposed to be done by Thursday. Ironing is my least favorite among all household chores. So instead of doing it on Thursday, I put it off for Friday. Friday came and I still didn't feel like doing it. Sunday night na lang talaga whether I like it or not.
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On Sunday night, after washing the dishes and cleaning up the kitchen, I was finally ready to iron Aly's uniforms. BUT there was a problem: my steam iron won't turn on. As in ayaw nyang uminit. Ok, this particular iron is more than a year old already. I bought it from Shopwise Alabang before we moved to Bangkok. It's had more than its fair share of wear and tear. I probably dropped it around three times already. The red light that's supposed to indicate if it's turned on does not work anymore, but the iron still heats up. Also, the iron sometimes gets too hot (probably as a result from the three times that I dropped it) that I need to use a mitt to hold it. I have to admit, it's not in top working condition, but it still gets the job done. Unfortunately, just when I need it the most, my dear old steam iron died on me. Great. Of all the days when it can malfunction, it chooses to do so during crunch time. Stress!!
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So off I went to Tesco Lotus for the quickest household-appliance-shopping I've ever had in my existence as a housewife. Normally, I take my sweet time with the decision-making; I don't want to be rushed when it comes to choosing my household appliances, big or small. But there's no time for sweet time this time!
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Meet my new iron. Ayoko na ng steam iron, I opted for the traditional iron instead. Plus, this one is red. I love the color so binili ko na sya.
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What happened to our old steam iron? Richard took care of it. The Mafia way. Hehe!
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a In other words, niligpit nya yung lumang plantsa. Goodbye!
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Sigh...if only I didn't procrastinate, I would have saved myself all that stress. So now, with my new plantsa, I'm more ganado to do the ironing. I don't wait for a big pile of clothes to build up. I allot an hour every night to do them. Now I don't hate ironing so much. Just a little na lang. Heehee!

Krisan's School Year Resolutions

With Aly back in school, I now have more free time in the morning. So aside from my usual morning routine of doing the laundry, ironing clothes, cleaning up after breakfast and watching Ellen on tv, here are three more things that I should do while my daughter is away.

In no particular order...

• Go to the gym and spend at least 20 minutes inside.
• Water the plants regularly (in other words, everyday!).
• Spend more ME time i.e get a manicure/pedicure, have lunch at the mall, read a book at Starbucks, etc.

I'm starting to get tired of my old routine so it's time I spiced it up a bit. I should start trying to do things on my own and stop feeling lonely and helpless when my husband and daughter are not around. If I keep doing this, I might end up being losyang. Yikes!

This afternoon, I went to the mall by myself, had lunch solo and surprisingly, I found it very relaxing! I felt more productive. I just wish the malls here would open earlier than 10.30am so I have more time to go around. I guess I will just have to figure out a better way to spend my me time.

Mag-mommy na Plantsadora

Alyannah likes to help mommy with the household chores. For example, she helps me hang the laundry by giving me the hangers. Also, she puts her own clothes inside her closet after mommy folds them. Yup, my little girl is growing up fast! She's more independent now.

In this case, she cannot help me iron the clothes so she brought out her own ironing set! She was ironing Becky's scarf. Soo cute!

Ang negra na ni Yan from too much swimming.

Laundry Update

I'm proud to say that I'm becoming more confident with doing the laundry. Guess that's what happens when you do it everyday. You might be wondering why I have to do it that often. You'll be surprised at how much laundry we accumulate in a day! Or maybe we just need a bigger hamper?

Ofcourse, I still have some nail biting moments like the time I washed the Lacoste shirts together with our jeans. When I mentioned it to my husband that night, he kinda panicked so I told him right away that ofcourse I didn't put them together! I was just kidding! Hey, all I know is you're supposed to separate the whites from the coloreds. So it's safe to put colored shirts and jeans together, right? Thankfully, nothing bad happened to the shirts. I actually have a back-up plan in case something bad does happen -- I'll just run off to the nearest Lacoste shop and get a replacement! Hehe!

It's not just my laundry skills that improved in the past week -- our sampayan is new and improved as well!

Here's the old sampayan....

...and the new improved more sosyal sampayan!

Hindi na sya masyadong nakakahiya pag nakita ng mga kapitbahay namin. Hehe!

The Laundry Challenge

I have a confession to make...I don't know how to do the laundry. I have excellent cooking skills, mediocre cleaning skills (thanks to the OC in me), but I suck when it comes to doing the laundry. When we were younger and we didn't have a maid, my mom put me in charge of the kitchen and the cleaning while my sister Angel who has zero cooking skills (this doctor-to-be can't fry an egg to save her life!), was in charge of doing the laundry. She's a laundry whiz!

But that doesn't make me a fake domestic goddess! It's not my fault they do not have shows on the Lifestyle Network about doing the laundry. Sure they have all sorts of cooking shows or programs that teach you how to decorate all sorts of stuff, but nothing on laundry.

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I tried to postpone doing the laundry for as long as I could, even making excuses to my husband like I can't do the laundry yet because we don't have sampayan, no hangers, etc. We needed to go to the mall first to buy the kind that you assemble. But our clothes are starting to pile up and the hamper's getting full. So Richard made a make-shift sampayan for me. Now there's no excuse for not doing the laundry.

So the day finally arrived when I came face to face with the washing machine. It would have been a lot easier if our washer was the tub type. But no, as luck would have it, they gave us the front-loading type. It didn't have any words on it like spin, dry or cycle. Instead, it had all these weird symbols. I looked it up on the internet, but I didn't find any match. I also tried to download a user's manual online, but the model number wouldn't register in whirpool! We even tried asking the housekeeping people to teach us how to use it but they don't speak english. Looks like I will just have to try the controls and hope that the machine doesn't explode!

This is the way we wash our clothes...

First, we load the clothes. Since this is a test run, we will use the pambahay so that in case I use the wrong controls, ok lang if the machine tears them into shreds...

Mommy, are you sure with what you're doing?

Next, you turn the controls and cross your fingers...

Yikes! I hope we got that right!

I passed the laundry challenge!! Yey! No tears, no holes, no shrinkage. Whew!

Pinoy talaga ang nakatira dito kasi may sampayan. Haha!