New home sweet home

New home sweet home. (Pic from wifey’s Instagram)

The day we leave our old house eventually came. Waiting for it to happen made the past seven months after we started the deal feel like a year but the last few weeks were the hardest for me, if not for the three of us. Everything was running thin, patience and finances. Silent prayers became more frequent than before.

Luckily, my in-laws did not hesitate to take charge while the payment for our house is still pending. Some extended financial help, the others manpower, and some provided whatever support to keep the house construction run parallel along our selling process.

The paranoid in me would like to believe that the construction was made covert from our other neighbors, although the sight of me every Saturday coming in and out of the house to load our trusty sedan with boxes would have been pretty obvious that something was going on. Everything was like clockwork every weekend: I take a relatively short sleep coming from graveyard shift; we box; we go transfer stuffs. This activity carried on early December until the second week of March. The only time we stopped was during Christmas vacation. (Thank God, I was never sick but Marcus skipped two weeks of tagging along as he had asthma attack later part of January and needs to stay behind with her mommy to recover.)

Now the fruit of everyone’s labor is finished. What started as a draft on yellow paper is now a house and this new house is now our new home. While it isn’t a lot bigger, it is definitely better than before as we designed it to give access to Marcus as much as possible by having wider doors, bigger toilet, ramp, etc. It is still doesn’t  second floor–we didn’t want can’t afford it. Admittedly, there are flaws, not one house is perfect anyway, and the longer I stare at it, the more I see the would-have-better-ifs–most I could live with but others would need to be corrected soon. That’s probably how it goes when one moves and starts all over again.

For now, the whole process is reversed. There are still boxes to be unpacked, stuffs that need to be found among the pile of packages but these are problems I’d like to have. Yes, we have moved out of our home for almost 16 years in Cavite and now reside in Batangas. New neighbors, new routine, new life.

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After my first five working days coming from this new place, the car remains unharmed. Few more backing in and driving out and I should get used to parking in our tight space.

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Mood: 1/10 Honks! (Finally, a normal Saturday.)

Marcus and Music

“I’m not afraid, to take a stand, everybody, come take my hand, we’ll walk this road together, through the storm, whatever weather, cold or warm, just letting you know that you’re not alone…” Such powerful words from a great hit. While I sing along to this song whenever it’s on the radio, I didn’t learn about its full lyrics until I searched it online for it was yesterday when I heard Sparsh Shah sing it on a video that has gone viral. He is just a 12-year old boy.

Sparsh Shah isn’t a regular lad though. The boy from New Jersey has Osteogenesis Imperfecta which is a genetic disorder that results to extremely fragile bones. Confined in a wheelchair, Sparsh sings his powerful rendition of Not Afraid which is an original piece by Eminem. His parents made sure the bad words aren’t included.

Videos like this inspire but I have yet to show it to Marcus who recently has become more expressive of his music preferences. Besides being unable to be mobile unaided, there’s another similarity between him and Sparsh, their liking of songs from a rap artist. Marcus is a fan of at least two Macklemore hits. I don’t know though if sooner or later he will come with his own video of Can’t Hold Us.

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Among the obvious milestones before Marcus turns eight this year is that he sings more often than before. Although he does not have a full grasp on the lyrics, I would catch him singing a line or two while in the car or while seated in front of the computer. His favorite music genre is broad but the usual influences are our car’s preset FM stations, video games, and YouTube subscriptions. He sings or hums It’s Raining Tacos, Downtown, and Shut Up and Dance to name a few. This week, he has been asking for Eye of the Tiger and Verge. Check out Marcus’ Playlist page to see songs he like/d (he refuses to believe he used to go crazy over Barney and Ben 10 songs).

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Mood: 2/10 Honks! (One more week and I would be closer to Budong’s pan de sal.)

Embracing God’s Plans

God has a plan for everyone. I’d like to believe, I am starting to believe so. Time and again we would become stubborn and insist that we are the master of our own destiny. We will make things happen, we want them done our way. We want to show people that we can, we become too proud of our own capacity. Sometimes, such may be good and rewarding if everything goes well. But what if it doesn’t?

Naturally, frustration sets in when we fail to achieve what we look forward to. When failure happens, we begin to question our existence, our purpose, although each person copes differently. There are people who do well, somehow, despite things not going their way. Others go into depression and sometimes with worse consequences. Some people lose their self-worth and go to the point of no return.

To keep our sanity intact we should recognize that there is someone divine, someone who is more powerful than us and anyone else. Someone who is omnipotent, one who is more powerful than our problems. Yes, there is a supreme being, there is God. God, however, works differently and that his timeline may or may not be aligned with what we expect to happen.

God will test our patience, he will test our faith. I know that he has seen us fail his tests, he has seen us looking up with clenched fist, with teary eyes, with a broken heart. He has seen us lose our faith in him and his plans. But like a good teacher, he knows when to take over and make us realize the lessons we failed to see because we do not want to listen and open our mind and heart to his will, because after all we are weak humans.

We are doubting Thomas. We will continually become impatient with God when we do not feel his presence but he will also continue to prove that we shouldn’t, that he is always around. We just need to keep the faith and believe that God has plans for each of us and we should embrace it for whatever that is, whenever it happens. When we open our mind and communicate with him we will see that he places the puzzle pieces perfectly and realize his plan is indeed the best plan there is. 

Today he helped out preparing the house. We will be here soon.

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Woke up very early and these mellow Sunday songs in the background do help me finish this piece and the steaming hot pan de sal is making me more impatient to place the last period.

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Mood: 2/10 Honks! (Helped kill pig. Yup, we are in Batangas.)

We are safe, Thanks Kiddle

Google recently launched a search engine that is kid-friendly. My wife said that she has tested it and had me try it myself this morning. Unlike the regular Chrome, or any other browsers, Kiddle does not auto-fill which means the danger of our kids typing a misspelled word or phrase and with SEO taking over to suggest options is over. Of course, Google also placed filters to allow only sites with age appropriate content to appear. If our tech savvy kid would accept Kiddle as his main and only browser is another story.

Just exaggerating but yes we are safe for now. Thanks Kiddle.

 

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Mood: 3/10 Honks! (Check baby check.)

Simple questions that are hard to answer

“Daddy, do you love me?” While at the Shell SLEX station just last Sunday, Marcus, whom I was carrying as usual held my head with both his hands and asked me the question. That was the first time I heard him ask it. I can see his smile just inches away from my face but I sensed he needs an immediate answer. Of course, I said yes, though I hesitated as I was not expecting it while occupied with the thought of where to give him dinner, either in KFC or Chowking. He shot the question to his mother that same night and has been asking us the question every now and then.

He also has other questions that he has kept asking and that we have tried our best explaining. “Why do I have DMD?” “Does God love me?” “Am I going to get well soon?” “When I am 40 would I be still in a wheelchair?” Kids do say the darndest things but they do ask simple questions that are hard to answer.

The challenge in answering questions of the young minds is in making them understand. Just like in one of the classes I attended, the trainer posed the challenge, “Explain the process like you would to a kid.” Question like “Does God love me?” could be easier to answer to an adult as they would (take not of the conditionals) normally reconcile the answers from things they’ve read and past advices they have heard. Normally, one would only need an affirmation. But kids with such fresh minds plus their innocence would have different ideals. The magic and powers they see in their favorite Superheroes make it more difficult to put things in perspective.

This morning, I read on Facebook that there is a book titled Dear Pope Francis where the Pope answers questions of kids he has received. I would love to get a copy of this book and I hope someone has asked similar questions that Marcus has.

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Mood: 3/10 Honks! (Will start cleaning the house.)

Batman Lamp

Petron makes it feel like it’s Christmas already with its Batman Vs Superman items as today, on its first day of their promo I got Marcus’ favorite hero item, the Batman lamp. I would say that this is probably a worthy item that P200 could buy nowadays.

Beside my Starbucks mug, this item is bigger than expected.

As seen in the picture, the Batman item is more than double than I expect it to be. There are three more items to collect and surprisingly Marcus wants to have all including Superman whom he hated so much. He also said he is going to give the Wonder Woman item to his mom–a fitting symbolism.

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Marcus wishes that he would be allowed to watch this latest Batman and Suoerman movie. He was so disappointed recently for not seeing the Deadpool movie as it is rated R-16.

I promised him that I would get him a copy of the Deadpool movie as soon as it becomes available but it won’t happen anytime soon after I watched it together with wifey. Deadpool will never be for kids. Yes, it is one great movie but trust the R-16 rating if you don’t want to explain things to your kids other than why Deadpool’s suit is red.

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Mood: 2/10 Honks! (Free Starbucks at work.)

Gamer’s Perspective

That’s Marcus and I together online. I intentionally erased my identity.

I have a predictable routine at home. In a time lapse video I would be seen either seated or lying beside Marcus’ white plastic table where he spends almost his whole day playing his favorite online games which are just either Roblox or Minecraft. On some days, we would go shoot the bad guys in Call of Duty. Trust me, he is a sharp shooter, a lot better than me.

Yesterday, while staring at his Roblox game something struck me. That real people are like characters in games such as in this Lego-like environment. Like Marcus’ boxy policeman in patrol, one of the roles he like to play, our perspective in life does control our actions. For example, in the third person perspective, a gamer could see more of everything around him–the whole place, the bad guys, and the good guys alike. With a bigger picture, it makes it easier to decide on the next appropriate actions. Such should be the case when we encounter problems in real life–we should step back, analyze, and form the corresponding solution.

On the other hand, there’s that first person view. This one allows an approach that is focused only on what is directly in front. In games, a lot of movement, from side to side, to turning back, have to be made to ensure that no one sneaks past and take advantage of your current position. This approach is head on and works well if we know what needs to be done. Same goes in real life. We face the issue and deal with it.

There is not one perspective, however, that is perfect. Each requires sound judgment to benefit from it and therefore it is important that one knows when to step back and have a bird’s eye view of the situation; and when to zoom in to be able to engage accordingly. In real life, it takes more than just a mouse control wheel to shift from first person to third person and vice versa. Marcus told me how he does it. It fascinates me that his game would bring me into a short yet deep thought. I can see that when he errs, when he loses, he can respawn, he can restart all over again. Don’t we all wish life is just like this too?

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Mood: 2/10 Honks! (Happy to be home early.)

Goodbye Gym

This week I am due to pay my monthly gym membership fee but I’m passing up on it. I have been thinking about discontinuing my payment since October but the main reason that would make me finally cease from taking that 10-minute walk from home has not happened even until now. This time, however, I have decided to save my P500 whether I like it or not.

It is true that going to the gym is addictive, I can attest to that. Like any other gym rats, I discovered that sense of pride and the accompanying high I get, thanks to endorphins, even just after an hour of intense workout. To conquer that next dumbbell in the row is always rewarding and it progresses to the start of a new goal–heavier weight, you’re next.

Going to the gym was never a thing for me. I hate competing with anyone else, more so tolerate the thought of having to deal with, and the sight of, people who loiter and spend time doing anything but workout–like those excessively staring in the mirror and taking selfies all day. Thankfully, a change in mindset made me overcome this pet peeve. The gym I realized is where my focus is tested, where I compete with myself rather than against the others. But could I still workout if I stop going to the gym?

The only gym pic I ever had.

Questions I have in mind about other options in staying physically fit sans the machines were answered by one of the few books I purchased on Amazon using my almost maxed out credit card.

Strength Rules by Danny Kavadlo provides fresh insights on plain body weight training. It opens new potentials of what anyone could achieve without using any complicated equipment and costly gym membership. Dan’s only requirements are the following: something to step up on, something to hang from, and one that’s readily available, something heavy, which, if you still don’t recognize yet, is our own body.

Danny Kavadlo reminds us that our body is a workout equipment if we know how to use it and how to keep it running. He stresses the importance of natural food over artificial supplements that one I have eliminated sooner (whey protein) and the other I have never bought (creatine). I used to take whey protein regularly but budget and having egg and chicken breast fillet as alternatives—not to mention good sources of natural protein—made me stop buying another 2.2 lbs more of my then favorite workout shake. As Danny says, “Eat muscle to build muscle.” That’s chicken and beef meat. Plain and simple.

There are more things to like about Strength Rules. Danny Kavadlo does not have sets of exercises that he wants to be followed by the number. In fact, he encourages his readers to perform whatever is possible at the moment. He does not believe that a strict routine should be adhered to for one to attain his or her personal fitness goals.

This book is also ideal for those who are tired of fad diets that were neither sustainable nor practical for most.  His take on this? ”Should you have three big meals a day or six small ones? Who cares? Eat when you’re hungry and stop when you’re full. Don’t overthink.” Again, natural foods such as apples and banana only please, so forget about that tempting granola or protein bar as these are not only expensive but full of sugar as well that could negate all the efforts we make to trim down and stay healthy.

Strength Rules is available on Amazon and costs about P400 which I consider a worthy expense. The book has 2100 plus locations with pictures and illustrations that improve comprehension of the variety of exercises that revolve around the basic squat, push, and pull.

Until when I would have my layoff from the gym workout I really can’t tell. Whether it will be temporary or not, remains to be seen as I am looking forward to test myself against plain body weight training. My routine in the next months would change but the main goal why I wake up to go to the gym stays the same: be fit for Marcus, be the muscle for him. Wish me luck.

He wants to see the gym so we dropped by right after his class. Taken a month before he finally said he can’t go to school anymore.

 

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The gym will be one of the very few places I will miss in Dasma.

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Mood: 3/10 Honks! (We’ll have Marcus visit a manghihilot later.)