Life Update: Teacher Sophie?!

OH. MY. GOD.

I can't believe a full five months have passed since I was last here! What happened?! *shock emoji*

Well, a couple of things:

• Beardy and I moved out of my family home and into a nice little studio apartment nearby (so I get to go home a lot to see Sansa! haha) and we're loving it here.
• He and I got a job in an awesome school in the area (such a relief not having to commute to Manila for work!) And he still has his position from last year, so he currently teaches in two schools on alternate week days, while I have a full time job as a PRESCHOOL TEACHER!!!

*CUE CONFETTI*

I finally get to check that one off of my list of "dream jobs" :) The kids call me Teacher Sofie (Sofia is one of my birth names, while the nickname I've gone by since I was a baby actually isn't? Just a name my mom really liked), and often it's spelled with a "ph" by my colleagues, which I oddly prefer now. The kids can't really tell because they aren't at the age yet where they're taught to spell. Because it's a progressive school! A wonderful progressive school that prioritises the wellbeing and freedom of the younglings over ticking off checklists and getting ahead in terms of academics. Which sounded great to me.. and it is!!!

Anyway, I have a lot of good things to say about the school and I will in a seperate post, probably. For now, I just want to do a little update about things that happened in the past months while I've been gone:

We settled in! Moved our stuff in, bought a pan and a pot, color coordinated a lot (mostly green and blue for everything with minimal additions of red/purple!) and arranged stuff the best way we can in our tiny home. I love calling it tiny home, especially cos I recently started watching a lot of minimalism/minimal living type of videos around the time we moved. We aren't exactly living in a trailer in a forest with minimal electricity; in fact I think we're living quite comfily since we have a common pool outside and we use a/c, but it helped me a lot in acquiring less stuff, owning more mindfully, and detaching from my possessions.

This isn't our house, just the view out our window. It's a tiny room but with a BIG VIEW and that's a nice metaphor about our life right now I guess haha.

But that doesn't mean though that I live in a space that's dull! I still like creating small spaces of interest in the room. But the things I use are usually cheap, recycled, and/or multipurpose. This noteboard on the fridge came from the bottom of a cake box. Can you see the faces Beardy drew on the dino magnets? Hehehehe

Beardy's 26th Birthday!! We had a simple yet special one since it's our first on our own. Just a nice home-cooked meal (greek chicken and veg, tzatziki, tapenade, pan fried pita bread -all from scratch!-, and fresh Moroccan mint tea!) and his favorite Purple Oven brownies :)

Paradores Del Castillo in Taal has such an adorable turquoise/aqua motif!!!

Ihaw Boodle meal at Don Juan Boodle House

Last month, Beardy's family visited us again!!! But this time, it was for two whole weeks!!! It was super nice, even though Beardy and I still had to go to work. We did get to go away for a whole weekend together, it was to Taal and Anilao, Batangas. The weather did not let up, but neither did our spirits! We made up for the bad weather and power outages with boardgames and whatnot. It was such a nice thing to be with them so often, and they were so game for everything! We often would squish ourselves inside a single tricycle to go out for dinner haha. I miss them already.

Eagle Point. We didn't get to swim in the ocean though, just the pool. But we stared at it a lot. The waves were crazy but beautiful haha.

 We also had a nice lunch at Angelfields with my family one day and that was also nice because we were all complete and it's such a beautiful place!

I sadly only managed to take a picture of the tarragon tea. haha! But isn't it pretty? I had soup and a sandwich.

Edit: I forgot to add three events!!!:

1. Beardy and I also had our 70th monthsary! Isn't it crazy how fast time flies? We had dinner at Ziggurat. Cos it's our fave, and it's just downstairs.

(Fun fact: Ziggurat follows us around. When we stayed in makati for 10 days, we were looking for a good restaurant nearby and found out that the #1 Tripadvisor restaurant was just a short walk away from the AirBnb we booked. Then when we moved in this apartment, we noticed there was one downstairs! Whuuut. Too lucky.)

2. My aunt had her 60th bday this month! And our family had a bowling tournament. It was really fun, we don't usually actually do things for parties other than eat, drink and sit around so that was a really nice change. Hope we do more fun stuff from now on! ♥

Some pics from my tita Del's FB:

3. Also, our old neighbors/childhood friends from Alabang came by our house!! It's been YEARS since we were last together! The kuyas of the group live in Vegas now and they visited because their grandma (who we all call Nanay) passed away.

This was us in 1992:

And 24 whole years later!!!!:

Lastly, but very important!!!! Carmen and Aizel FIIIINALLY got to see our new place! Pia still hasn't due to BPO scheduling (huhu) but it was so cool to have them over. We had rumcokes and chats up on the roof while families flew kites, enjoyed the view, and I cooked them dinner! We had a bit of a giggle about how adult it seemed to host a dinner for your friends at your own place. It felt really cool but also made us feel really old haha! We all have new jobs right now and it just felt like a nice stopover before starting a looong road trip in our lives. They're both in Makati but I really hope we get to do it again really soon. With Pia.

So that's more or less my life right now. Just trying to make it work. The first few months have been very draining energy-wise and thus I didn't get to keep up with Youtube and this blog, but as I get more of a hang of my new job I imagine to be able to juggle it with my other interests on the side! Soon I'll be practicing guitar again, I'll certainly be on here more, and who knows, maybe I'll get to upload videos on Youtube again. I DON'T KNOW!! Isn't that great!! The world is so big and full of possibilities.

Things I Learned From Marie Kondo's Book: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up

I finished listening to the audio version of this book while playing Minecraft a few weeks ago, during my slump (I use this word so much in my blog that it probably belongs in the header somewhere). As lazy and messy as I naturally am, I have always been very interested and excited by the prospect of organizing things. In fact, when I'm not ailed by my seemingly chronic low energy, I do a pretty good job at fixing, tidying, and organizing things. At least I think so, and Beardy would agree! Although he might not be the best judge of that because he normally can't tell the difference unless it's drastic. :o)

One thing I've learned, though, is that you don't get from a normal cluttered hum-drum room or house to one worthy of being in a magazine just by shuttling all your belongings from here to there and chucking them into boxes and cabinets - you actually have to get rid of stuff for your space to truly feel tidy.

But these few things usually trouble me when I attempt to tidy up: 

1. I have a lot of anxiety about parting with things as I have the tendency to be very sentimental.
2. I have a lot of guilt about throwing things in the trash because I don't exactly know where everything ends up *insert picture of Smokey Mountain and audio clip of O Fortuna here*
3. As sort of an effect of #2, I always have SO MANY IDEAS about how to recycle everything!!!
4. I like displaying cute things around me and sometimes the things pile up and end up hiding less-desirable things behind/under/inside them (I LIKE DECORATIVE CANS AND BOXES :c) and so my things eat up a lot more space than they should.

But boy oh boy did this book help me deal with these feelings! What I really appreciated about this book, apart from the clever and simplified ideas, was that it not only told you what to do (which everyone has their own way of doing things in the end anyway) but how do deal with the feelings that normally come up when we part with things. In fact, the whole philosophy behind this book is centered on how you feel - specifically, about what sparks joy.

It won't ask you to tick boxes of qualifications for a thing to be deemed worthy of keeping. It simply asks you to hold each thing you have and contemplate on whether it sparks joy or not. And if it's something you truly need, but it doesn't exactly spark any joy (for example, if you're a medical student you probably have a buttload of books.. Hi Jess c;), it asks you to contemplate on the importance it has in your life and to appreciate the role it plays, so that you change your mental relationship with it into a positive one. Then it ends up sparking joy, as well.

What it comes down to, basically, is for us to Mindfully Own Things, so that we don't passively accumulate things over time and rather make it so that our belongings change with us, grow with us, and don't weigh us down. In this way, every single thing becomes useful and important, we know where everything is, and we have space to let our minds breathe in our dwellings. Also, it's much easier to re-decorate with less things in the way.

So for my four stumbling blocks, here are the lessons that the book has offered me to overcome them:

1. Anxiety about parting with things- KonMari confronts us about the real reason why we keep things, and the true purpose of things and how we can part with things once they serve their purpose. She suggests that when we hold on to these things we are weighing ourselves down by holding on to the past and instead encourages us to cherish the present, and our present relationships. An example that really struck me was about how we hold on to gifts or letters out of guilt even when they no longer suit us even though the people who have given them have probably forgotten about them, or holding on to letters from people we've fallen out with, even though they probably don't remember anything about what they wrote and probably don't feel the same way anymore.
2. Guilt about trash- Well, actually, this book's attitude towards trash probably hinges on a more effective waste disposal system in Japan because the throwing-away part in this book is as simple as just putting them in trash bags and promptly taking them outside before anyone who'd want to dig through it in your family could see. Although, the whole part about the true purpose of things has made me ready to part with much more things than I normally would be, especially when they could do better if given away, or even, yes, ending up where the trash goes - because they're valuable as picking items (This sounds really problematic because it's usually kids who do this here in the Philippines. It's a sad reality that I do not condone at all, but it's really the best option for these unusable items :c Feel free to suggest better options, if any.)
3. Recycling- The book makes a good point that basically goes: "When though? I mean really.." when it uses the example of people keeping reference materials for finished classes under the pretense that they will want to read through it again one day. The reality is that we would likely only want to read through a couple of those things or even forget we even have them, so as for me, I probably would only be able to do some of these recycling projects, and forget about the rest. So I should either get with the crafting soon, or just ditch the project.
4. My Penchant for Cute Clutter and Sneaky Storage- The book turns the old saying "A place for everything, and everything in its place" into "A purpose for everything, and everything in its place." It asks us to avoid "storage solutions" that actually just give us places to hide things we don't know what to do with. Honestly, this is the hardest part. I have numerous small containers for numerous small things. The situation is especially dire on my desk. The technique of dumping everything in a single pile and sorting every single thing makes it so that there's less chances of me keeping duplicates of things, and I will get to see all of the containers and... maybe get rid of the ones that aren't cute anymore due to rusting or wear and tear. Luckily, KonMari doesn't actually have anything against having decorations, as long as they all, individually spark joy. So that actually wouldn't be so hard.

"Do I find this knick-knack or doodad as cute as Marie Kondo?" If the answer is yes, then I can keep it.

I'm excited and to be honest quite nervous about doing it, because I still am not 100% sure about how to move the things I purge along, and I'm going to face a lot of internal struggling when it comes to things that can still be fixed!

I'm planning to buy a huge sturdy box for the stuff I'm going to donate, and plan out my purge on a free weekend. I'm going to be documenting it, of course! I wonder when though, because I kind of need a huge amount of energy to do this!

PS: Go here for an Illustrated Guide to KonMari style folding. It's really simple, but once you read/listen to the book you'll realise how important that is!

Five Friday Favorites

Here are some recently acquired/crafted/appreciated things that puts a smile to my face / have been making my life better. For good vibes, cos it's Friday!

Pretty Journals

I've been on the lookout for a journal for a while now and I recently found this really cute one; a simple watercolor woosh-y washy design with purple detail. I know I wanted it to be in the purple/blue color scheme to be calming because I intended to write on it before bed. Of course, I just write on it whenever in reality :D The floral one is a notebook where Beardy and I just write letters to each other. It's meant to evoke the feelings from when receiving letters from each other was the only way we could communicate. I don't know, it's kinda romantic. :)

Tin Lid Magnet Mount

I really felt bad when I didn't have a use for these lids. There are four tins and I used just one lid and stacked the other three under so these were left without a purpose! Until I got the idea to stick them onto this blank space on my wall because I was desperate for a way to use some cute magnets I got. And now the blank space is used! I like sticking stuff on it like paintings and stuff :)

Water Heater

This plug-and-heat thingy is a lifesaver. We've been having water pressure problems, and water doesn't eat in our room when there's not enough pressure. And if you know Beardy well you'd know that he can't bathe if the water isn't hot. This heats water SUPER FAST. It's so awesome! Just plug and drop it!

My Most Favorite Owl Mug

I have two of these but this one keeps the contents cool faaaar longer than the other one. I think it's that thick double wall. We have been looking for a twin so that we can both have one to keep water in the room, but we haven't found one that's as cute at this one :)

 WiFi Extender!!

Okay, this has been here for a while. We get bad WiFi reception from the router downstairs so Emmy had the brilliant idea to get an extender! Now I can use the internet anywhere in my room! You don't understand! I used to have to stay near the door to use the internet or just keep lugging my laptop up and down the stairs to get stable internet everyday. This just makes life so much better.

Taking time to appreciate the small things has really made me happier overall. Try it! Just focus on the little things that make life better, stare at pretty things more, and don't be ashamed that they are little things. If they make you happy, then that makes them great!

A homebody's home-buddies. (Cute .gifs ahead!)

I discovered that my s4 (mom's hand-me-down, thank you so much Mama, changed my life) has this really cool camera mode called "Animated Photo" which essentially, makes gifs by picking areas in the picture you want to move while leaving the rest stationary. Only catch is, The output files are freakin' huge! So you might have to wait a bit for these to load. Leave them in the background or something!

This was the very first one I made with it and it's made me want to go to the beach or some other body of water so I can make more water .gifs! They are so relaxing. Although maybe not like this, from a tap. Makes me feel a bit anxious actually, especially with the recent water shortages. SOMEONE TURN IT OFF OH MY GOD.

This one I find to be super cute. It captures my little cousin Fheebo in his element. Bubbles make him scream and squeal. He's too excited about them! I love the way he pokes them mid air. bluplupblubup. blup blup.. blup blup!

Shortly after Fheebo's bubbles ran out, my brother Jaro comes home and Sansa excitedly welcomes him. Jaro, being the smart psychologist that he is, decides to wait until she calms down before acknowledging her. Luckily it happens within the 5-second window that the cam mode allows and I get to capture it! I love that she just plops down in front of him even though she's still really excited. 

"OKAY OKAY I'M CALM I'M CALM!!! PET ME NOW PLEEEASE ASDKJASFKAJL"

Anyway I'm officially a homebody now that I've quit my tutoring job, but weirdly enough, I've been going out a lot more ever since! I've been trying to be more outgoing and less... afraid of everything. I'm going to just immerse myself into music, art and introspective writing (and other things those things inspire) during this time while waiting for ~the big move~ which I might talk about later. I might need some spending money though, so I still have motivation to create stuff! Anyone of you who like my stuff at this beginner stage of style-discovery (haha it seriously surprises me that people like them at times, but in a really good way!), you can send me a message or email if you want a handwritten quote, an artwork or anything like that! I'm going to pour myself into just this. Just being this, just doing what I love doing. See where it goes from there. Start where I already am.

I'll try to be here a lot more too, this is where I want everything compiled after all! Because where else would they be if not here? (Tumblr, probably if I'm being honest.)

shampoop

An awkward hello to you, dear blog. Writing here feels like trying to approach an old friend I've ignored for years. I've been trying to be okay with life as a tutor these days, but I think it's time that I tried to not be a lazy blob that just eats and sleeps whenever they are not at work. I think it's a coping mechanism for me somehow, but I know I'll have to eventually learn to balance work and my passions ...somehow.

I remember writing here about once trying to break up with shampoo and switching to baking soda. Obviously that didn't work out.. I ended up buying new shampoo before I even got to finish the ones I had left! (Just too many yummy-smelling shampoos in the stores. Like the green Sunsilk, which I'm using right now.. mmm) BUT I did eventually stop washing my hair every single day. At first it made it oily, as you all know, regular shampoos have sulfates in them, which strip the natural oils on our heads. It makes it feel squeaky clean but makes our scalps over-produce oil, thinking there isn't enough. My head has always been prone to flaking in recent memory, and I think it was being stripped too much by everyday shampoo use. Now that it has become used to only being washed every 2-3 days, it has stopped overproducing oil, so I can go for more than 24 hours without washing my hair without my head smelling horrible and becoming super oily. And somehow the heat-headaches I get when I don't wash my head every 24 hours have stopped happening too.

 Maybe I just havent encountered the worst of the summer heat yet since the change, yes, but also, I think overproduction of oil might have made my scalp feel hotter too.

Now that I wash my head about 50% less times than I used to, I can cut down my shampoo usage to half as well. That's kinda neat, especially after seeing this mess:

That's a paperbag that's in my bathroom right now, full of emptied bottles of shampoos, conditioners, soap, and mouthwash. SO MUCH JUNK. So much useless empty space. I hope they crush these before leaving them in dumps, or better yet, I hope they recycle them all..

I'm trying to stop being sentimental over shampoo bottles so that I can throw them out. Yes it happens to me. I feel that way about shampoo bottles that E brought here or the ones we bought from places we went. HAHAHAHA. I know how silly it sounds. Shh.

Eventually I'll want to change to stuff that are less harmful to the environment and my body in general (like sulfate free shampoos? or biodegradable bottles? they will be hard to find), but for now I'm sticking to what I'm used to, just doing it less, since I can't afford greener stuff, which are, let's all admit, more expensive. (and I don't even know where to look for them)

Baby steps.

stars spiders salads

last night i was lying down on our living room floor bonding with sansa. at one point i was completely still, seized by the sight of the starry cloudless sky. i stared and stared, and noticed that what?? Are the stars moving?? I was convinced it was an illusion because as much as I know stars move in the sky throughout the night:

Wojciech Toman

...I didn't think it was observable through naked eyes! But apparently if you're still enough, it is. I made sure I wasn't just imagining it by using one corner of the window as sort of a finish line for one of the stars that was already near it anyway. It took a long time (I was getting so restless, even the slightest movement of my head would have ruined the experiment!), but the little guy made it, closing off the last millimeter and disappearing behind the railing.

In other news, I found a web so tiny and delicate in our living room and decided to remove it so the spider will be encouraged to make one somewhere else that is not in plain sight and dangerous when it comes back.. I checked to see if it hasn't already caught food and didn't see any so I thought it wasn't impolite.

But then when I had carefully done it the spot (that you can see in the photo below) started moving. I thought it was just dust or something. but it was the actual spider! I spooked the poor thing..

Oops.

But that is SUPER TINY I had no idea it was a spider! I thought maybe that's just what webs look like :( Poor guy. That must've been his first web or something! No wonder they've stopped eating mosquitoes, leaving them alive and free to suck on our blood.

Lastly, I've been enjoying having honey at home because HONEY MUSTARD DRESSING!!!

my huge sweet lunch salad. that thing is huge.

I don't regret forgetting I know how to make it sometimes because whenever I remember that I do, the joy I feel is indescribable.

But where are my potatoes???

Life lately in pictures.

Happy X-mas Eve, random strangers and good friends that read my blog!

I'm going to make a Christmas post sooner or later, but first I want to just photoblog about my life lately.

SANSA IS ONE YEAR OLD TODAY!

She was a bit frazzled just now because all of our couches were occupied, but she just found a free pillow to sleep on. But the loud music is visibly startling her. Haha! She ate a lot of goodies today and I let her run around earlier (she usually whimpers during walks cos I'm too slow for her, but since it's birthday I ran a bit just so she can too)

One day we walked to the church so we can walk with mama after her Simbang Gabi. I took the opportunity to practice with my camera again. It's been a WHILE.

girl and dog

night photos are no joke

I had a good concept starring the moon but it hid away immediately after seeing  me try to take a picture of it! Shy moon. (or is it troll moon)

I had to settle with playing with the spherical lamp posts. In the bottom one the yellowbell is blowing light bubbles. Or it is housing tiny fairies that are jumping off for the night's work.

Before going out that dawn (yes I'm still up at dawn these days T.T) I made myself a nice hot chocolate! With whip and cinnamon! It was nice. I wonder if cinnamon is a common thing to put on hot chocolate?

In any case, it should be.

Tonight I made myself a cold one (+Bailey's :3) because it's super warm -.- Warm christmas.

I'm about 99.6 percent sure that this was triggered by that one time I decided to have a peppermint hot chocolate at Starbucks.. 

I never thought of putting peppermint in there before even though I usually did that at home. I liked it of course, but when I ordered that drink I was like I TOTALLY SHOULD HAVE WHIPPED CREAM AT HOME SO I CAN HAVE THESE MORE OFTEN and that boys and girls is why I can't keep my weight down! Not that anybody should really mind.

My family goes out for coffee often during Decembers because my mom likes collecting stickers for those planners they give people at Starbucks here.. She got carried away this year and is now on her third sticker card XD She already got hers early, the brown one. She then completed another and gave me the yellow one. But for the last card, she let my brother have it. He'll only need 7 stickers to complete it now! Personally I prefer to buy the planners from National Bookstore, but this year the yellow one was cute. So I'm using it as a diary. (I already bought a National Bookstore planner. heuheu) Maybe when I have a lot of disposable income and don't gain weight so easily from downing sugary/creamy coffee I might find things like that fun, but right now it all seems horrifying to do myself because I'm a poor fresh grad who just quit and needs a buttload of money (and space to gain weight from eating a lot) for France. So I feel quite lucky that my mom gave me a free one. haha.

Speaking of coffee, we visited a dear friend of my mom (and a father figure to me tbh) and we were given a gift!!! An awesome gift!!! Because we almost bought one earlier this year and now it turns out we didn't have to cos we got one for free XD

We finally have a Nespresso XD

Apparently someone gave him another one so he gave us his old one.. I'm not quite sure why he gave us the capsule rack too as he could still use it, I think he was just feeling super generous as usual! This particular one is actually a "Dolce Gusto" but I don't really see the point in that and I always forget it. The trigger word for me is "Nestle" the manufacturer, so I always end up just calling it Nespresso anyway. Like a normal person.

Let's just hope the first generous gift givers don't find this post and feel bad it was given away XD Recycling gifts makes Christmas hilariously awkward at times. Note how I sized it smaller than how I usually post pictures. Haha. It's nice to not have to spend anything for the machine cos the capsules aren't cheap XD I'll probably find a workaround with that too because it produces too much trash for everyday use!

I'm starting to make my family look like a bunch of caffeine-addicted nutjobs. Good thing it's coffee and not cocaine nobody reads this blog.

Here is a picture of the shepherd's pie that we made as an awkward transition back to the original topic:

My younger brother and I mashed the taters, my mom cooked the main meat stew inside, I set up the thing in the dish (my brother tried to start it but I'm just a lot better hehe) , and as per my mom's orders, i pierced a design on top and applied eggwash before it was put in the oven. She really liked my forky pokey pattern :3 She stared at it a few times just complimenting it. I think I saw it blush. It blushed BRIGHT YELLOW

So yeah. Pictures. I've also been trying a hand at enhancing pictures again. Here are some pictures of our Christmassed-up house:

I helped a lot with my mom's boxing this year. It's not entirely selfless, by wrapping the gifts I'm given a false sense of "this is from us" hahaha.

bear and lights. yes we have a bear living in this house what of it

These stuffed christmas decorations are so presh.

That welcome reindeer is always rocking side to side thanks to the fan. Jaro is obsessed with Welcome to Nightvale. This is a real actual expression he got while listening:

This time with not real/actual Nightvale-purple smoke because why not:

Althoughh it's a lot more descriptive of how into it he is.

Anyway, tomorrow there will be a Christmas post! Or on the 26th. I'm not actually sure where I'll be tomorrow night.