The Heart's Lifetime Occupation

When people talk about challenges, nothing beats those that deal with matters of the heart. Suffice it to say, it is almost impossible to take things lightly for no matter how hard one tries to elude the impact it presents, people will always get emotional one way or the other.

Valentine’s Day is a celebration of love. And LOVE is a celebration of one’s deep feeling of compassion for someone who deserves it. Being in love is one of life’s amazing experiences that one can have. And those who have not experienced falling in love definitely missed out on something great.

Being in love should be a lifetime occupation.

It may be an understatement though, but I believe that if people should work hard to stay in love... then, is it not an occupation or what? For, after all, people are continuously finding ways to express what’s in their hearts and to attain it, is one hell of a job!

Confession of an Endangered Spinster - Part 3

Now we come to the conclusion of this 3-Part Confession of an Endangered Spinster.

This is the last part. I promise. Earlier in Part 2, I finally revealed that at last I found HIM. Here, you will realize that love no matter how elusive it can be will surely find a way.

So if you are still single and hanging on to the last rope... have faith because there is hope indeed. Trust me I know.

Confession of an Endangered Spinster

Tell me. If you were given a chance, what would you tell your 15-year younger self about relationship and the fear of being alone? A lot! Maybe not a lot. Or maybe, you don't know. Don't worry, we are on the same boat.

Looking back after being married for 10 years now, I can't help but laugh at my stupidity when I was 15 years younger.

The beauty of blogging is both a legacy and a curse. I remember when I first came here I did a lot of writing to keep me entertained and productive. I was jobless and a stay-at-home-wife with no car and no friends. Well, I have one friend who doesn't have a car either so that didn't help if you live in the boonies. It was the very first time in my entire adult life that I was grounded, quite literally. My situation that time led me to a lot of writing and eventually to blogging and the rest is history. 

Recently, I decided to revamp my blogs and I realized that in one of my dead blogs [I got eight blogs total before I decided to keep only two now] I wrote something about my journey as a career woman cursed by the stigma of the stereotyped social status. Yeah, that's a mouthful. Sorry.

10 Years and We still Do

Is wedding anniversary overrated? I am thinking out loud. A response is optional.

Anyway, it has been quite awhile since I last wrote anything about "anything" here. Being said, the last thing I want to write about is... relationship (and all the crap that goes with it). But it looks like I'm leaning towards that topic now.

@The State Capital

Seven, Seven, Seven, Seven

I don't do Math. I hate that subject when I was a student. But number "7" is very significant to me. My Sweetest and I got married on the 7th of July, 2007. Yesterday was our 7th year anniversary.

@Portland Head Light  - 07-07-07

49 is the NEW 29

Time flies so quickly. I was a little preoccupied for the past couple of days with work and I totally forgot that my special day was coming. Yeah, I was having a little Alzheimer mode lately. 

So, I turned 29th a couple of days ago. There was no big celebration. It just so happened that there was no school that Friday so it felt really special that my birthday seemed like a holiday. But my Sweetest has to work.

Bringing Sunshine on Friday

Friday is my favorite day of the week because every Friday morning at work we have free breakfast.

It's one of the Sunshine Committee's projects to recognize and show appreciation for the staff's hard work.

Ice, Ice, Baby!

I supposed to run today. I signed up for another 5K which is scheduled for today. But alas, it was raining ice pellets here in my neck of the woods. So the organizers postponed it for next month. Grrrr!

I can't blame them, the road is icy. Everything is icy.  And just to let you see what we are dealing with, here are some photos I took this week.

Thank God it's Saturday!

 There are two things I look forward to Saturday.

1. Sleeping in. I wake up 4 in the morning every day to go to work. But on Saturday, I still wake up at 4 AM still but not to go to work but to the bathroom. LOL. Then I would go back to bed and sleep in. And when I wake up, I don't need to change. I can stay in my PJs and browse on Groupons to look for discounts or play candy crush or some other thing that I don't usually do on work days.

Installing Husband 1.0

This is not a new post. I actually posted it already here years ago. I was checking my emails earlier and suddenly bumped into this and I realized hmmmm.... why not post it again.

So here you go, I am posting it again to remind me and housewives out there that we have choices. We can choose to be happy or sad. Whatever choice me make, we are the only one who will be affected. And taking a little joke is not just fun but a therapy that might somehow help us bounce back to our old self.

INSTALLING A HUSBAND

Dear Tech Support,

Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a distinct slow down in overall system performance, particularly in the flower and jewelry applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0.

In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as
·        Romance 9.5 and
·        Personal Attention 6.5, and then installed undesirable programs such as

·        NBA 5.0,
·        NFL 3.0  and
·         Golf Clubs 4.1.

Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and Housecleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system.

·        Please note that I have tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail.

What can I do?

Signed,

Desperate.


DEAR DESPERATE,

First, keep in mind,
·        Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while  
·        Husband 1.0 is an operating system.

Please enter command: ithoughtyoulovedme.html and try to download Tears 6.2 and do not forget to install the  Guilt 3.0 update.
·         If that application works as designed, Husband 1.0 should then automatically run the applications Jewelry 2.0 and Flowers 3.5.

However, remember, overuse of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to  Grumpy Silence 2.5, Happy Hour 7.0 or Beer 6.1.
·        Please note that Beer 6. 1 is a very bad program that will download the Farting and Snoring Loudly Beta.

Whatever you do, DO NOT under any circumstances install Mother-In-Law 1.0 (it runs a virus in the background that will eventually seize control of all your system resources.)

In addition, please do not attempt to reinstall the Boyfriend 5.0-program These are unsupported applications and will crash Husband 1.0.

In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly. You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance. We recommend
·        Cooking 3.0 and
·        Hot Lingerie 7.7.

Good Luck Babe!
Tech Support

Yeah, being a housewife is hard especially when things are not going our way. But we need to remember we made "the choice" to be with that important person in our life. And with that choice comes "faith" that we did the right thing. So let's just take it easy.

June Birthday Party 1

Yes, this is a very very long overdue post of my Sweetest's birthday party. As I have mentioned in my previous post, I will have two separate posts for that June birthday celebrations so I can share how it turned out.

So here we go. This year we [my stepdaughters and I] decided to make it simple, small and intimate. It was so small that there were only 6 people who attended, including the birthday celebrant. B was not there because he was with his mother.

As usual, the girls made an awesome cake for their father. It was a blue fondant cake with hand-painted flower design.

Aside from the fondant cake, H baked some chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. They were delishhhhh. I had 3 of them in one sitting. shhhh.

Compared to last year's celebration, the desert table is small and simple too. I just made a fruit bouquet as the center piece of the table.

While, I arranged the veggie bar in the center of the dining table that served as center piece too. I put the veggies in individual desert stemmed glasses that served as containers.

Having the salad bar in the center of the dining table was as good way to serve the veggies. It was more convenient for us to fix our salad that way when it is at arm's length.

As for the banner, I didn't make a long one that says "happy birthday". I just make letter cut-outs of my Sweetest's name and laid them down on the desert table for a change.

AND yes, I made his favorite bacon wrapped scallops for appetizers.

I think this is the best party we done so far because we didn't do a lot of preparation compared to last year's.

The Gregoires went picking

Last Wednesday my Sweetest didn't go to work and since it is still vacation for me and B, I decided to plan a blueberry[slash]raspberry picking for the three of us. Good thing my Sweetest didn't really have a plan to go anywhere that day so he said yes.

raspberries

blueberries

We went back to Libby's and Son U-Pick in Limerick because it was shouted out in their facebook page that raspberry picking is open for the day.

back to the orchard

We came a little late because my Sweetest wanted to finish his coffee first. So when we got there the raspberries were all picked out already. But I insisted to see the bushes hoping I would be able to find even just half a pint of raspberries. I just need to have raspberry. It isn't that hard to ask, is it? [wink*]

my Sweetest and B getting ready to be transported to the blueberry/raspberry fields

the view of the raspberry field from top of the hill

So yes, I could see from top of the hill that the raspberry field was already deserted. But when we got there, there was one old lady patiently picking some berries. I decided to go to the farthest end of the field where the bushes are all low and smaller.

the only soul I found in the field combing the bushes for some sweet ripe raspberry

And yes, I found some ripe ones enough to fill a half a pint container. And I was happy.

there you are

and there are more to go back to

At the other side of the field, my boys were busy picking blueberries. My Sweetest and B are not big fans of raspberries but both are fanatics of blueberries so they really went with me on a different mission.

my boys picking some blueberries

Hubby picking the ripe ones

So yeah, we had fun at the orchard and enjoyed our berries.

the pick of the day

A pint of blueberries and half a pint of raspberries... mission accomplished. The Gregoires are happy.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

This is a SPECIAL POST for MAINE Attraction... a regular Blog Series that features everything and anything about my home - Maine.

What Summer?

I'm on a countdown now. This is my last week of summer and work starts next Tuesday. Where does summer go? Didn't even feel it.

Camping it is.

Anyway, last weekend I went camping (yes, finally) with my boys and hubby's friend. It was not like the kind of camping that I was used to. No, we didn't go up Byron like we do for the past 5 years. We just camped out at Hubby's friend's property in Newfield.

Where the bumming-out happened.

It was just like bumming-out-camping where I just watched Monk the whole day. Yup I just did a Monk Marathon and I loved it. I don't really watch TV very often and having nothing to do at the camp just gave me that opportunity to watch the DVD I bought years ago.

Relaxing and bonding with Tony Shalhoub

And yes, I also spent uninterrupted hours on my kindle just stopping to get something to munch or take a quick trip to the bathroom.

My Kindle Fire taking a break and giving Monk the center stage.

Took a little photo walk around and saw some wild berries that are not yet ready for the picking.

 The dirt road

 Bugs are bugging. Poor beans.

Wild flowers

Wild berries along the dirt road.

I'm not the RV-kind-of-camper. I am more of a  "hard-core" camper. And when I say hard-core I mean "100-feet-away-from-bear-trap-kind-of-camping"camping. 

 Keeping my camp chair handy when I get tired of laying down

But last weekend's camping was not hard-core enough in the real sense of the word because if there was a bathroom at my convenience, "that ain't hardcore!" (Hubby's word, not mine.) As for me, it was just your-regular-grandma-camping where the most important part is - not making your bed! Woot! Woot!

My messy room and I love it.

Sweetest's friend's off-the-road property is very convenient because it has a nice veggie garden where I picked out some fresh summer squash and tomatoes for supper.

 Hubby checking the garden.

Ready for the picking.

Fresh summer squash and tomatoes stir-fry, anyone?

Well, even if it was not my-kind-of-camping, I still love it because... I didn't have to do a lot of things except cooked dinner.

Steak and chicken wings

When we are camping, I can make Hubby do things that he doesn't normally do at home. Like making breakfast and washing dishes at the same time. AND more importantly, he won't be bothering me for simple things he needs because he can find what he needs all by himself. Really strange. LOL

 Watching Hubby making breakfast while I was still in bed watching Monk.

Spying on him as he went down to the well to fetch a pail of water. La-la-la-la

As for my Sweetest and his friend... they just hanged out, drank some beer, trying to figure out how their new toy [game cameras] work and yes, did some target shooting.

Yes, that's me shooting some empty beer cans.

And they made me shoot target too.