Two years

Two can be such a beautiful number.

How has the second year been different from the first? In many little insignificant-yet-significant ways.

We have more things, more clothes, a new bookshelf by the entryway and new upholstery in the dining room. We color our hair less. Marlon weighs less (and dresses better, if you ask me). We switched bed sides. We fight much, much less than we did in our first year, despite me being somewhat less eager to please and prove myself as a wife. In fact, I don't remember a single fight we had this year.

We are beginning to see our dreams slowly being fleshed out into reality. We have savings (!) and earn more as a unit. We've rented out our spare room. We don't spend a bomb on groceries anymore. We do Iyengar yoga for beginners on Monday evenings. Actually, we exercise together, period. (Although we swim less often.) We cook together less often, but we still do sometimes, which I find extremely therapeutic and enjoyable. We are supposed to be closer to having a baby, but we keep moving the "deadline."

I would like to be trite and cutesy and say that the only things that haven't changed are the love and happiness of being married to my husband. But that wouldn't be true, because they have -- they've grown greater and deeper, and have simply become, in a word, more.

Happy second anniversary, sweetie. I love you!

C is for Christmas

A few days before Christmas, Marlon gave me a choice. Did I want something:

a) Young, up-and-coming
b) Classic and sophisticated
c) Mature, chic and understated

I am at an age where aging is already beginning to scare me, so I ruled out B automatically. It sounded too old. So I let him vacillate between A and C, although I told him the only reason I would probably lean towards A was because the word "mature" makes me leery. Then he warned me that A was pretty close to something I already had. So I said, ok fine, C then.

On Christmas Eve, I found out that C was actually a B.

Actually, to be precise, C was a B.V.

Say hello to my newest black, buttery soft baby :-) A fantastic choice by Marlon and my favorite Christmas gift of all!

Ho ho ho

Merry Christmas everyone! How was your Christmas weekend?

Mine was full of laughter (thanks to the ACS part and my first Sesqui Tandres gathering ever!), sleep (thanks to the cold, lulling breezes of Sta. Rosa, Laguna!), gifts (thanks to my thoughtful loved ones)... and pork!

Yes, pork. I think I've consumed more porcine delights this weekend than I have in the last six months. But how could I resist the spicy crunch of chicharon on Christmas Eve and the sodium-laden cured goodness of our family fave, Majestic Ham? Forget Purefoods Fiesta Ham -- in the Paul household, Majestic is the real star of the Noche Buena feast!

Speaking of gifts, Marlon opened his last Christmas gift from me when we got home from the airport last night. I was worried that it might turn out to be a cop-out (cue the wek-wek-wek sound effect) but he really loved it! I got him a Zwilling J.A. Henckels set of Four-Star kitchen knives. :) He was so pleased with it that he straightaway tossed his old Ikea knife block and began paring an apple... even if it was past midnight  and neither of us was hungry.

I also got him the "Ondoy" series of paintings by Lotsu Manes from West Gallery, which we had been eyeing a few months ago. I thought it was also a perfect gift for our second anniversary, since the subjects of the series came in twos.

I bought the paintings without having seen the actual canvases, but when Marlon unwrapped them in Manila I was happy to discover that they looked even more wonderful then they did online. Plus, Sol from West Gallery wrapped them really well, and didn't even charge me a delivery fee! :)

Sadly, though, the holidays are over for me (way too soon!) and I'm back in the office. It feels awful to be back here while everyone is on holiday. There are a grand total of three people here and even my boss isn't here though I didn't hear anything about him going on leave today!

Good thing I have some holiday souvenirs with me -- three unwanted pounds, a mild case of gout in my finger joints and a box of coffee butterscotch squares from Conti's in the fridge (which got squashed in the plane so now it's a giant wonky slab of pastry!).

Oh and not to mention my absolute favorite gift this year... from Marlon of course. More later ;)

Trial run

... or more like a trial walk.

This evening Marlon went for an hour-long, 4 to 5km walk around Bishan Park, a very nice open space that's roughly five to ten minutes' drive from our house. We walked with Shivaani, Marlon's closest friend here in Singapore who's returning to India for good tomorrow evening. They used to walk a lot together when Marlon was still living by itself, so it was a last hurrah of sorts, a farewell to a favorite pastime.

Me? I've never liked walking, so whenever Marlon would suggest we go for a walk, I would always combat his enthusiasm with my inertia. Eventually he stopped asking. But tonight's walk was really nice -- so nice, in fact, that I wondered why I don't walk more often.

What made it so nice: the weather has been rather un-Singaporean as of late -- cool and breezy instead of hot and humid, proper December weather as it should be. The park was quiet and peaceful, with clearly marked, well-paved walking trails. Just talking along the trail was really quite relaxing. And the bulk in my tummy (composed of the risotto I had for dinner) disappeared quickly, leaving me with a surprisingly flat stomach so soon after eating.

This might very well become a regular thing. Lately I've been thinking of giving up muay thai because I've become so disconcerted with how wide my shoulders and back have become. It's all the upper-body training: push-ups and punching. I look like a wrestler :-P which is not good if you're a 5 foot 1 inch female. I've actually even started thinking about taking up running, which seems to be the new yoga, and which I dislike even more than walking.

Hmmm. This means I should probably give my Divisoria-bought, porma-only Nikes a rest and get some real walking shoes. After Christmas perhaps...

Therapy

• Marlon and his gift guessing game (for Christmas, this time). He all but gave it away to make sure he got something that he would not regret giving me. I'm excited!
• Downtime chats with office colleagues (with topics such as the best time to shop at Cash Converters for really cheap designer coffee machines).
• Shopping for gifts (and nicking an item for myself here and there).
• Irish cream hot chocolate and Jackson Five Christmas carols while wrapping gifts in bright snowman-printed red paper, and gold paper with holiday greetings stamped in flowery script.
• Gray, rainy weather that seems perfect for Christmas.
• The prospect of home in a few days.
• Facebook - no Farmville or Mafia wars for me, but just looking up friends to see what they're up to. Looking at babies and weddings is fun.
• Very friendly talents who have been fun to work with during wardrobe fittings.
• Forever 21 opening up a four-story emporium five minutes from the office! I have yet to go shopping for myself, but I've sussed out the goods with some wardrobe shopping for a shoot.
• Twinkling lights reflecting off red and gold ornaments off the tree.
• New prospects.
• Marlon's Christmas bonus!
• Sleeping late on a Saturday morning after a long work week.
• Morning hugs from my husband.
• Rogue's warm bulk curled up in between my feet at night, and her paws on my stomach in the morning
• Crispy adobo flakes for brunch. Mmmm.
• Realizing that work, despite its enormity, is not everything -- and that I'm really still very lucky.
• Realizing that despite the number of people I've heard complaining about how stressful the holidays are -- I'm not one of them, and the holidays are still fun!

Loved

I had to go to the office yesterday. It was a sunny, blue-skied Saturday afternoon, and while I'm not the outdoorsy type, I still would have preferred to spend such an afternoon elsewhere. It was to do something that I thought was wasteful and dumb: print, manually collate back-to-back, and ring-bind five sets of an 80-page, full-color Powerpoint presentation as requested by a client for a meeting on Monday morning. Bleh.

The printer was fucking up big time, and I had to print more than one set several times over. I was feeling short-tempered and stressed and utterly disgruntled at having to spend a perfectly lovely weekend afternoon in the office.

Then I looked over behind my Mac monitor to see my husband sitting in one of the office chairs, engrossed in a game on his phone. He looked up and smiled at me.

Then I remembered that I was blessed with a best friend and wonderful partner who willingly, without complaint, kept me company in the dull, stressful, even pointless moments of my day-to-day life.

Then I felt loved -- and Saturday afternoon at the office was transformed.

Lest I forget

Wait wait wait

Go home? Already?

I know it seems like I'm permanently homesick. But it seems like I just got here.

Criteria

I suppose I'm being rather romantic in my approach to the question of land. Of course there are practical considerations, budget naturally foremost among them. I am horiffically debt-phobic to a fault and want to pay off the whole thing in the shortest amount of time.

I want a place within Metro Manila since I'm not wild about the thought of having to ply South Super Highway daily, and for all its development Sta. Rosa, Laguna still doesn't have the best schools. Since college, Quezon City has been pretty much where my life is -- school, choir, friends, my work at GMA -- and luckily there are still pockets of relatively affordable land in QC that would allow me to keep it that way. I always consider accessibility to public transportation, thinking back to high school when we lost our car and I had to learn how to commute (fortunately Bel-Air was in the middle of it all). And of course after Ondoy, elevation and proximity to creeks and other bodies of water has become a huge factor.

But once I actually come face to face with a lot, I begin looking for an unquantifiable "something". My inner romantic takes over and begins sniffing the air. I look for a feeling of spaciousness -- and yes I know every empty lot has a lot of space, har har har. I don't like feeling hemmed in by other houses that block out the sunshine or the breeze. To me, a lot with a tree or two is always an instant contender. (I was wild about this lot that had four fully-grown pine trees in it until I found out that it was one of the worst hit by Ondoy.) So is a lot with a slope, a view or even an odd shape simply because it's different from everyone else's.

Mostly I just think to myself, Can I live here for the rest of my life? Will I like waking up and seeing this every single day? How quickly or how much the land value will appreciate is the last thing on my mind, so thank goodness Marlon is around to think about things like that. My approach to land at this point is like how I think about paintings -- not for profiting but enjoying, not for re-selling but for living in. Maybe in the future if we become fortunate enough to have a little extra to invest, I'll start thinking that way, but right now all I really care about is building a home for our someday-family.

Besides, there's much more joy and comfort in breezes and trees and sunshine than there is in bank loans and interest rates and capital gains tax. So I'll stick to my romanticism, thanks.

Multiple choice

A) is a property that exists.

Meaning, I've seen it. We can afford it if we struggle a bit, cut out all travel for the next six months, and take out a year-long bank loan on shockingly stiff Singapore interest rates. It has supposedly bad feng shui, not that I really believe in that. It has trees right behind it, a nice open view and a slight slope. It has the all-important flood-proofness, being more than 40m above the nearest river. Living there will put us near friends and the schools we would like our children to go to. It is for living. It's just the right size, just the right price (if we didn't have to pay in cash) lovely. I can picture our house in it, although I can't picture the house.

B) is a property that does not exist.

Yet. Or it exists on paper. Or as raw farmland with no roads, no civilization, and only the glimmer of a potential value. It is a high-end development that has yet to be stamped with the official approval to break ground, by a known developer that has had its own ups and downs. It is a good deal -- or so it will be once it starts selling, because we are in a position to buy before anyone else does. It will be very high above ground, with a view. It will cost more than we intended to spend for a piece of property. Yet it is said to be an "investment." It is promising. (Actually, to me it occurs more as a promise than an actual property.) It is not quite certain to materialize -- yet. If it does, it might just be worth waiting for.

C) is none of the above.

A piece of land perfect for building a home, that might still be out there somewhere. We just haven't found it yet. Or have we?

Pencils up.

Home again

Some of the best things from this weekend's quickie visit to Manila:

• My sister's new house in Sta. Rosa, Laguna! Congratulations Ate! It has a beautiful view of Mount Makiling from the master bedroom, which my mom loves -- she grew up in Laguna where Mariang Makiling was a regular sight. The house is airy and bright, blown through by strong, cool December breezes that just filled me with Christmas kilig. It's quiet and open and seems like it's in the middle of nowhere but is actually in a self-sufficient community! I even saw Angelica Panganiban and Derek Ramsey out for a stroll at the local mall. O ha.
• Spending time with family. Luckily my sister was in town as well for a wedding. Although we just less than one full day together, it was enough for a midnight snack and chat, a long drive to Tagaytay, and lunch at Hawaiian Barbeque at the Boutique Hotel. I also fulfilled my long-stifled cravings for Pancake House's choc-chip pancakes and Razon's "minimalist" halo-halo over lunch with my mom when I arrived. Happiness!
• Wielding the power of the Singapore dollar. How lovely to shop and eat in Makati in PHP when you're earning in SGD! Suddenly my lust for Arnel Papa's jewelry didn't seem like such an extravagant fantasy (not that I bought anything, but it's nice to know it won't give Marlon a heart attack). Shopping at my new favorite store Bleach Catastrophe (na akala ko pang-Chuvaness lang) seemed like a bargain compared to shopping at Topshop. A three-course dinner for three at Greenbelt 5 is cheaper than lunch at the ubiquitous Japanese fast food chain Sakae Sushi, or my favorite comparison for an overpriced meal, NYDC. And the equivalent of my bags of Christmas tree trimmings from Landmark? Two taxi rides from my house to the office. Sigh.
• Checking into the Manila Pen! Christmas at the Pen is filled with so many happy memories with the Glee Club. (Yes, even the disastrous years can now said to be happy.) Actually, the Pen is filled with so many happy memories, period. I especially love what they've done to the restaurant where we have the breakfast buffet, now called Escolta.
• Catching up with friends. I caught up to post-rehearsals coffee with ACS after racing straight to Aui's house from the airport. I just needed that balahuric laughter! I was also grateful to Pia for braving an epic commute from Magallanes to have dinner with me and Marlon in Greenbelt. And I got to have lunch with dear, dear Tria, who blessed me with the gift of her real estate broker -- a soothing balm after meeting the broker from hell. More on which later.
• Tagaytay. Period. I will never be tired of that view, and of the carefree sense of freedom driving up there gives you. And we now live less than 30 minutes away!

Too short as always... can't wait for Christmas!