Back from a hiatus

I'm back.

What took me away from here? A lot of reasons, some excusable, some not. I probably wrote before that I can't log in to this website anymore at work. So that took out a big opportunity to just come here and type in my thoughts. The next best opportunity would be to do this at home. I guess, at home, I don't have my own "personal space and time" anymore. If you ask Clarisse the areas of the house, they would be - Clarisse's ABC room, Daddy's "puter" (computer) room, and our bedroom. No Mommy's own room or even a laptop to myself. Each of my siblings have their own laptops here. So I guess Mommy doesn't really need her own room or computer or laptop since she has to cook, clean, shop. The other reasons would be ... we went back to Manila for a short holiday. I also felt sick and miserable during the first trimester of this pregnancy. So there.

It feels good to be typing here today.

What has changed. My sister moved to another state and we're thinking of visiting her before I get too big to move around. Clarisse can get very chatty. And would you believe, she likes those old donald duck - chip and dale cartoons. I do not find them funny at all when I was young, and I don't think they are now that I'm an adult. But I hear Clarisse giggling at the silly antics chip and dale would do to donald duck. She'd tell me the story that "chip and dale spread the butter over donald's roof, and donald slipped on his roof!" And she finds that very funny.

Things I'm busy with right now:

I've got a Sunday School class to teach this Sunday and the following Sunday. I'm preparing their lessons. I teach the 5-7yo class and in the class I have 2 boisterous boys that I have a hard time managing, a 6 year old with an attitude, while the rest comprises of fast learners and need-some-help learners. So it's a constant challenge to keep them engage in the class. I found that getting them to use the play-doh to model the objects in the story as I read the story is effective. I found that using drama in making them understand the story did not worked (or maybe because I'm not really an effective drama teacher).

Tax lodgement is due in a month's time. Argh! I keep on delaying this. My tax affairs are simple but ...

And of course, things to do at paid work.

Books
Currently reading Daniel Silvia's The Secret Servant in my iPhone. His books are fast paced, which I like.

iPhone
Yes, I just got an iPhone. An advance Chrissie present from Greg maybe? I'm not a gadget person. My mobile phones for the past 5 years have been faulty ones Greg sourced from who-knows-where. Never thought of getting an iPhone in fact. Now I don't regret having one. When Clarisse was a baby and I would find myself confined to one spot (like the bed) during breastfeeding or making her sleep, I used Greg's Pocket PC to play games of solitaire, or surf the net, or (I remember) watched Heroes with it while I "waited on" Clarisse. Over the years, the Pocket PC sometimes keeps my shopping list, or my mobile phone would store some of my appointments, or one of the faulty mobile phones would provide me music while I ride the train to work. But I'm glad how iPhone could do all those for me. And it's new too! (My old mobile phones or its batteries kept dying on me, believe me. One died after I played a solitaire game while listening to the FM radio).


So. Til the next entry.