Last Working Day of the Year for Me

I know that 31 December 2012 is a working day in Australia.

No more of this Rizal Day (30 Dec) and special banking holiday (31 Dec) stuff for me.

I know it is a month-end, quarter-end, AND year-end,

B U T  I choose to take a leave on that day.

(I have to cook for New Year's Eve dinner since we are celebrating RD's birthday.)

Therefore, today is my last working day for the year 2012.

When I return to the office, it will be 2013.

Closed for Christmas

They should take an extra day off to go back to school.

Complete with Camel

Every Christmastime, this 'Carols by the Manger' poster is displayed across the street. 

I got off the bus from work yesterday and saw what I can only assume to be the cast of the show. 

Check out this unique Christmas scene.

I see the the Holy Family, three wise men, a couple of shepherds, and of course, the camel.

May you have the spirit of Christmas which is Peace, 

the gladness of Christmas which is Hope,

and the Heart of Christmas which is Love.

Merry Christmas, one and all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

M E R R Y     C H R I S T M A S   ! ! !

Shadows, My Foot!

"Aaaahhhh,"  MyGirl screamed as she jumped up and down then ran from the dining to the kitchen.

"Aaaahhhh!!!!  Aaaahhh!!!!,"  she kept screaming.

"What is it?  What's the matter?"  we asked frantically.

"I saw something!  There's something there!"

"Where?  Where did you see it?   What was it?  What did it look like?"

"It looked like a lizard.  A big one!  It was there!,"  MyGirl shrieked and pointed towards RD's chair.

MacGyver looked around the dining table.  He checked under the chairs where MyGirl had pointed.  He moved RD's chair outside to clear the area then he shook the rug a little bit.  Seeing nothing, he gathered up the rug and tossed it outside over RD's chair.

"I don't see anything."  he said.

MyGirl was still kind of hysterical.

"Maybe it was just a shadow,"  I said, trying to calm her down.  "You know how sometimes you see something moving and you imagine it is something, but there really is nothing there.  It was just a shadow of something or another."

I pointed out how there were so many moving shadows on the floor created by the leaves from the trees outside because of the wind.

She calmed down a bit and we asked her if she wanted to eat her piece of toast in the dining room now that the coast was clear.

"No, I think I'll stay here."

We asked her how big was the thing she thought she saw.

"As big as an iguana,"  she replied.  

"About this big?"  MacGyver asked, holding his hands about a foot apart.

MyGirl nodded her head.

I didn't give it a second thought but was greatly relieved that it was a false alarm.  I was thinking butiki (house lizard)  but she just said iguana.

I went upstairs to do some overdue cleaning and clearing.  I had just started when the commotion downstairs resumed.

This time it was MacGyver who was doing the shouting.  

"Open the door, RD, quick!"   "Get out of the way!"

I went downstairs and found everyone on alert mode.

There it was by the glass, an unwanted visitor that had considered the open door as an invitation to enter the house.  (It is a warm day so we had opened the glass door, but someone must have accidentally left the screen door open at some point in time.)

MacGyver opened the screen door to provide a clear path for our far-from-little lizard.

Eventually, our reptilian intruder found its way back to the outside world.   (Thank God!)

I didn't do any screaming at the time so, in the exact words of MyGirl, "Aaaahhhh!  Aaaahhhh!!!!  Aaaahhhh!!!!"    (plus a deep sigh of relief) 

Do you see its tail in the corner, right behind the blinds?

Wrong way, lizard! Turn around!

That's right, the exit is this way.

Just to prove this is no house lizard, here it is close up.

I think it is more than a foot long.

Keep moving.  Keep moving.  Your freedom is near 

(and it coincides with our relief.)

MyGirl took this last one and she immediately posted it on Instagram.

"I walked past this and I screamed. and mum thought I was imagining things..."

Whew!  I'm glad that's over.

I'm sorry I doubted you, MyGirl.

Prayer Oven

Back in the home country, we each have study tables in the Study Room.   The initial eight desks are 2-drawers lengths long.  Beneath one drawer is a slot where the seat goes, beneath the other is a closed cabinet. (Two movable desks were added for J and Z, who were not yet in the headcount when the house was built in the early 1970's.)   

Each desk has a set of bookshelves overhead, except for.one. Given that Mindy was the baby when the house was built, she was assigned the study table that did not have the overhead bookshelves.  

Instead of bookshelves, this is where our altar is installed. 

Every morning, as soon as Father emerges from their room, he goes there to pray.  When we were younger, someone would ring the bell at night to signal the family to gather at the study room in front of the altar where the rosary would be prayed.  When all other lights are off, the lights on the altar remain.

The other week, I was out of sorts and reached out to one of my sisters.   She gave me advice which put my mind at ease in a way.  She wrote "Now when there is an issue that really worries me but it has to be very specific - I put it in a prayer oven.  I say to God - Lord I am going to park this lorry in your garage because there is no room in mine to take care of it. And you know what  - it works. The matter gets resolved somehow."

  

So I shall write my prayers down and leave it a prayer oven for God to work out the cooking and finishing time.

Routine and Traffic Save the Day

MacGyver had sent me a text message during the day asking if I was interested in checking out a particular store that evening if I arrive home early.

Fortunately, work was not too bad and I was able to step out earlier than my usual (late) departure time.   I think I was at the bus stop by 5:40 pm.  (Official office hours for me would be 8:45 am to 5 pm.)

It is a Thursday and the shops closing hours are later than usual.   It is also the first day of summer vacation for most of the schools so there were a lot of people around and even more cars on the road.  

I got on the bus and managed to find one last vacant seat.  There were people ahead of me who had opted not to take that spot because it was more like three-fourths of a seat rather than a whole one.  Anyway, I thought to myself, "This is great.  So lucky!  I'm out of the office early and I get to sit down on the way home."

I lifted my handbag to pull out my cellphone as this is my routine when going home.  I would give MacGyver a call so that he knows that I am about an hour away.  That way, he could adjust his dinner preparations accordingly, or know whether they would eat ahead.  I unzipped my bag and felt for my cellphone so that I could surprise him with my early ETA.

Apparently, the surprise was on me.  My cellphone was not in my bag!  Seems I had left it at the office.

We were approaching the end of our phone bill cycle and MacGyver had told me last night that I still had some credits for local and international calls.  If I wanted to make any "free" calls, I needed to have my phone with me.

The phone credits I could afford to lose, but I remembered that I had stuck my credit card into the cellphone case that morning.  I had done so before I stepped out to pick something up from the office mail room because there was a sale in the lobby.  Nope, I couldn't afford to lose a credit card, not in this "tap and go" age where the credit card PIN is no longer needed for transactions less than a certain amount.

I have to get my cellphone back pronto!

Fortunately for me, the traffic light was still red and even if it turned green, the traffic was so bad the bus would not have been able to move anyway.   

I got up, got off the bus, speed-walked back to the office and let out a big sigh of relief when I found my phone safely on top of my desk. 

It is a good thing I followed protocol or else I would not have discovered that my phone was missing until it was too late.  And this is one of those rare occasions that I thank my lucky stars for traffic.

One Quart Equals Four Cups

I thought it was easy to change from  English to Metric but apparently even my Engineering degree couldn't help me out if the conversion occurs during transcription.  This is today's story.

I woke up early this morning because my mind was in the "I have to bake cinnamon rolls" mode.  Not having had much time to go around to shop but still wanting to give something to my officemates for Christmas, I had decided last week that I would bake something.   And that something was going to be cinnamon rolls.

I figured if I made a whole recipe of cinnamon rolls (recipe here), there would be enough cinnamon rolls to give away.  A whole recipe would make 4 dozen rolls.

I had gone around last weekend to determine where I could get foil containers to "house" the rolls but had not really thought things through at that time to make the acquisition.  

This morning, however, I decided it's now or never.  I trusted my pantry to have sufficient flour and sugar.  I knew I had not finished the yeast in the freezer.   I checked the ref and found an unopened 3 litre container of milk and several sticks of butter.   I should have no problem, I thought.  I've done this before.

I like to have my recipes on hand so I have a physical spiral notebook (actually I have several) which contains recipes I use.  Some notebooks have recipes I'd like to test but there is one notebook that contains recipes which have been tried and tested.  The cinnamon roll recipe was in this particular notebook.

I opened the notebook to the page with the cinnamon roll recipe and brought out our biggest stockpot.  This stockpot would provide sufficient rising room for the cinnamon roll dough if I made the whole recipe.  The last time I made the whole recipe, the mixed up dough filled up only half the pot but by the time the rising time was completed, the pot was filled to the brim.

I went through the recipe in my notebook and started measuring out the ingredients into the pot.  

Eight cups of milk, check!  One cup of oil, check!  One cup of sugar, check!

Heat until almost boiling then add the yeast.

Let sit then add the flour.  

The ingredients list had 8 cups (+1 cup) flour.

Hhmmmm...  one cup of flour to one cup of milk?   I thought it was quite strange for the volume of dry ingredients to be about the same as that of the wet ingredients.  But hey, that's what the recipe says.  

  

One ... two ... three ... four ... five ... six ... seven ... (I was approaching the bottom of my flour container) ... eight!  

Whew!  I estimated there to be more than a cup of flour left inside.  I figured I shouldn't have any problem completing the requirements for the recipe.

Mix well.  Cover and let sit for an hour.

I spent this time wisely.  I checked my mail, logged into FaceBook, started off the laundry, moved the pot aside so I could use the burner to start off breakfast, tidied up a little, etc.  The washing machine beeped so I proceeded to hang the clothes.  MacGyver came down and took over cooking breakfast.  He was scheduled to borrow the van from his brother and pick up some freecycle items we were getting but he said it was still early.  

After preparing breakfast, he coordinated with his brother and decided to leave early so that the car exchange could occur earlier and both of them could do what they needed.

MyGirl came down but said she wasn't hungry yet.  I asked if it was all right for us to just wait for her dad to come back so that we could have breakfast together.  She said she didn't mind, so she sat down and watched her Sunday morning K-Pop MTV while I checked on the cinnamon rolls and found that they had risen to almost 3/4 of the container.  Looking good, I thought.  My yeast is alive!    

Confident that my cinnamon rolls were going well, I returned to my email and FaceBook.  I don't  know what triggered it, but I decided to click on the shortcut to the website from where I got the original cinnamon roll recipe and go to that blogpost.  The website had pictures for each stage of the process.

When I got to the photo corresponding to where I was in my cinnamon roll step, I said to myself, my dough doesn't look the least bit like THAT.  That dough is dry, mine is really quite wet.  

Uh-oh, let me check the recipe again.

Her original recipe calls for 1 quart of milk, 1 cup of oil and 1 cup of sugar.

I go to my 4thinline blogpost where the recipe is halved.  

Yikes!  My blogpost says "2 cups whole milk".   

Even my young nieces and nephews could tell me that two times two equals four.  But I've got 8 cups in there!

Denial sets in and I google "quart to cups".  

Of course the conversion says 1 quart : 4 cups.

Oh dear!  Dear, oh dear!  Oh dear!

What should I do?

Well, there was only one thing I could do... double the recipe!  

Mind you, the whole recipe yields a massive amount of cinnamon rolls. I almost dreaded the thought of so many cinnamon rolls.  When I first made the whole recipe, I placed half of the rolls in the freezer because there was absolutely NO WAY we could consume all those rolls.   Subsequently, I have only made half the recipe for a more manageable yield.

However, given that I had nowhere to go but forward, I had no choice but to double the 'yields 4 dozen cinnamon rolls' recipe.

I was lucky to have found an unopened bag of flour in the pantry, as well as enough of all the other ingredients I had put in so far.  I added them into the pot and mixed.  By this time, the stockpot was practically full.

Practically full!  But the dough is expected to double.

Uh-oh! I was in big trouble.  That was my biggest pot.  There is nothing bigger in the cupboards.  And I knew that given the summer heat and the active yeast, that dough was going to rise whether or not it fit in the pot.

I quickly rang MacGyver and asked if he was still at his brother's place.  When he said he was still there, I quickly asked him to borrow their biggest pot.  

Luckily, my sister-in-law MumofFive is a master at cooking for a crowd.  She lent us this HUGE stockpot which was just perfect for my predicament.

We were able to go out and buy containers for the rolls.  They are all baked and packed now.  I just have to figure out how to bring so many containers to the office tomorrow morning.

Check out the photos to get a feel of the volume of dough and the number of rolls  involved.

Note to self :  Do not forget ...  one quart = four cups

Which Son?

I received a lot of comments when I had my hair cut.

Of course the ones that matter are the ones from my loved ones.  

When I arrived home. everyone was quite pleased and said the short hair suited me.   Then my boys decided to expound on the issue and mentioned who they thought I looked like.

Now I am thinking, which of my sons should I worry about?

The one who compared my haircut to the one of Victoria Beckham?

Or the one who compared me to Android 18 (of Dragonball Z)?

National Haircut Week

Serendipity.  That's what it was.

I had been mulling over cutting my hair for a while.   It had grown quite long in the past two years.  However, I told myself that I was not going to cut my hair unless I would be able to donate it.

The last time I cut my hair short, a former officemate was connected with an organization that worked with cancer patients and I was able to donate my hair straight away.   

When MyGirl considered shortening her hair last year, I checked the internet for possible places that would accept hair here in Australia but I wasn't able to find any.

Then on the 18th of November, Sunday, in between my google search for oreo cheesecake and Chicken Joy recipes, I thought about "hair cancer donate" which brought me to the Pantene Beautiful Lengths site.  

I saw a link on the upper right corner of the site which said 

National Haircut Week :  12 November - 18 November 2012

Make a Pledge.    Donate your hair.

Then there was a countdown which indicated "0 days to go."

I returned to my recipe searches but could not concentrate.  My  mind was wandering.  I went back to the Beautiful Lengths site.

No issues with the requirements.  However, I didn't want to just cut my hair because it was the last day of National Haircut Week.  If I was going to cut my hair, I wanted it to at least look decent.  I needed a professional to do it.  This was not going to be a do-it-at-home kind of thing.  I still had to go to work on Monday.

So I checked out the FAQ.   It said that I had until March 2013 for the actual haircut.  (I can't seem to find the FAQ in the site anymore.  I am wondering if I was imagining things.)

I was about to go back to the oreo cheesecake but I said to myself, "Do it.  It's the right thing to do."    

If Z were around, she have said, "Chop it off! Chop it all off!"  Then as if to make me feel better (in case the haircut doesn't look nice),  she would add, "Don't worry.  It's just hair.  It'll grow back."

So I did it.  I hit the MAKE A PLEDGE button and signed up to donate my hair for a good cause on the last day of National Haircut week. 

I told MacGyver about it and GI made an appointment for us since he was also due for a hair cut.  And that is where we went last Monday.

(Had I found the site a week or so earlier, I could have had my hair cut at Sydney [I don't remember now if it was for free] and spared me the trouble of mailing the hair. But it's all right.  Watching GI have his haircut was fun.  This is the first time since we arrived here that I can actually TELL that he's had a haircut ... after his hair cut.  And seeing him so happy after his faux hawk was so worth it.)

I arrived in Australia without a single hair clip since I didn't think I would grow my hair long.   Over the past year, I had bought some hair bands, nice hair clips and accessories, this time not thinking that I would cut it short.  

Alas, since I knew the hair was going soon, I tried to get some last few shots with my long hair and the various ways I tied it up.  

So this is BEFORE ...

... and AFTER.

Puto Time

Oreo Cheesecake

OREO and CHEESECAKE.  Two seemingly harmless words.  

Those two words put together managed to  transform MyGirl from a mild mannered sweetie pie to an excited young lady  that would not take 'no' for an answer.  

"Let's go, Mom.  Can we do it?  NOW?"

Below is the recipe MyGirl and I tried today. Instead of using the recommended 8-inch springform pan, we used five small ones which were about 4 1/2 inches in diameter.  

I had intended to serve the mini-cheesecakes one at a time, dividing each into five so that the dessert portions would not be so large but I was severely out-voted.  RD and MyGirl just claimed one springform pan each and declared those ones as theirs.  

I have to admit that using mini-springform pans has back-fired on me.  I THINK I could have convinced the kids to just take a sliver or a small slice had I used the 8-inch pan.  As it turns out, if they finish off their whole mini-cheesecake, they end up taking 1/5 of the cheesecake (in essentially one go).  Luckily, I still see saucers in the refrigerator with the familiar toothpicks with a masking tape flags literally staking their claim on the unconsumed portions of their respective cheesecakes.

Although I am not a huge cheesecake fan myself, I must say this is one good cheesecake recipe. 

No Bake Oreo Cheesecake

For the base:50 g (or up to 1/4 c) melted butter 1 x 150 g pack Oreo classic cookies, crushed For the filling:1 x 250 g pack Philadelphia Cream Cheese1/2 c sugar2 t  unflavoured gelatine  (or 10g sachet), dissolved in 1/4 c boiling water2 T lemon juice1 c thickened cream, lightly whipped1 x 150 g pack Oreo classic cookies, divided

Combine the melted butter and crushed (blitzed) cookies.Press into lined or lightly oiled 8-inch (20 cm) springform pan.Chill. 

Beat cream cheese and sugar with an electric mixer until smooth.Fold in gelatine mixture, lemon juice and the whipped cream.Pour in half of the mixture onto the prepared crust.Roughly chop about 8 Oreo cookies from the 2nd pack and distribute evenly on filling.Pour in the rest of the filling.(Alternatively, add the chopped cookies all in one go after folding in the whipped cream, then simply pour in all the filling.)Refrigerate about 30 minutes.Crush the remaining cookies and sprinkle over cheesecake.Refrigerate for another 2 hours or until set.

Hot Wheels

MyGirl and I saw this car on the road today.

I was still in the process of unlocking my cellphone to take a photo

while MyGirl had already taken these two shots with the iPod.

Peace Man

Yesterday, as RD and I were going through shops at the mall, I asked that we pass by the bags section to see if they had any nice schoolbags for MyGirl.  I had ended up sewing her old schoolbag a couple of weeks ago since we could not find a suitable schoolbag for her when she complained that her things were falling through the holes on the bottom of her bag.  Since it is almost the end of the schoolyear, the stores do not have these types of things in their shelves at this time.  (We ended up going to farther mall to find school shoes for her last month since the nearby K-Mart and Target didn't have a single pair school shoes for sale.)

Anyway, I spotted this nice bag on display.  I thought it was the type of bag MyGirl would like.  

"This is a nice bag,"  I said as I pull out my phone to take a picture.

"Yeah, if you're a hippie,"  RD teased me.

I refused to be dissuaded and took the picture anyway.

True to form, MyGirl loved it ... (even if she's not a hippie).  We walked to K-Mart today to get it before it disappeared from the racks.

Go Fluoro

GI has decided that he is going to go running.  Naturally the most basic equipment needed would be running shoes, which he did not have.  So yesterday, MacGyver brought GI for some shoe shopping.

When I got home, GI happily reported that he had found running shoes.

MacGyver's sideline feedback to me was that GI's complaint was that the shoes in the store were so flashy (too neon).  So I wondered what colour of shoes GI finally decided to buy.  I checked the Nike box and found a pair of black shoes with white sides on the soles.  Definitely not flashy nor neon.

"Ohhh," I said, "but there are so many nice coloured Nikes in the market."

"One day, I'll surprise you and get some bright coloured shoes," I added.

I got a round of objections over the thought of getting neon coloured shoes.  In my defense, I said that it was possible that if I were running, bright coloured shoes would prevent me from getting hit.  

RD quickly replied that he didn't think my shoe colour would save me from getting hit.  (Party pooper!)

Anyway, I am happy that GI finally got himself a pair of running shoes.  The big question is whether he will be able to sleep earlier so that he can wake up early  and go for a morning run.

Click here to see -->   GI's running plan ...  

Well, since it is almost summer, there are really TONS  of various coloured shoes out there.  I took a couple of shots while RD and I were out at the mall.

I found these ones at Target sooo charming!

These ones are nice and bright.

These ones I would NEVER consider buying/wearing

but they certainly are colourful.

Kiwi Visitor

We had our first Kiwi visitor for dinner.

Well, she's not actually Kiwi but she is from New Zealand.

She is the wife of my first cousin.

She sometimes comes to Sydney for work but we've never gotten together.

Last month, her first day here was the last day of my two-week leave.

So we were able to pick her up and invite her for dinner at home.

She was surprised to see how much the children had grown.

(It was a Monday so GI was at Uni.)

I know the first three pictures are practically the same.

But if you hardly see any pictures of us, 

then you won't mind seeing these 'spot the difference' shots.

I think I should have tickled RD to get him to smile.

MyGirl took this one upon my request.

Reduced Calorie Longganisa

We have discovered the secret to diet longganisa!

The secret is in the meat!  

It's true.

No, you don't have to replace the pork with chicken or turkey (or even TVP),  you can still use pork. 

But the secret is ... use ground pork!

Ground pork, you say?  What difference could that make?  One normally uses ground pork to make longganisa.  How would that ever lead to a reduced calorie version of longganisa?

Well, we discovered that if you have to grind the pork yourself using a manual meat grinder, it  uses quite a bit of muscle power and elbow grease.  Getting half a kilo of ground pork is no joking matter.  If your meat grinder doesn't have sufficient suction on the bottom, the grinding process becomes a two-man job, so two people get their workout. 

(But wait, there's more!) 

If the other person keeps on making wise cracks about the activity, you end up laughing and your abs get additional workout.

This is what we discovered over the weekend when we finally brought out the grinder I had purchased ages ago when I had the bright (read 'cockamamie') idea of making pasta from scratch.  I swear, I had never worked so hard to prepare longganisa before.  Thank goodness MacGyver had the good sense of cutting up the other half of the pork to make to tocino before we started, so we were only working on grinding  half a kilo of pork instead of a whole one.

As I saw how slowly our pile of ground pork was coming along, I could not help but think how much easier it was to go to the butcher and point to the container of minced pork and say, "One kilo, please."  

We have been using this skinless longganisa recipe for some time.

Skinless Longganisa

1 k ground pork

1/2 c brown sugar

2 T rock salt

2 T worcestershire sauce

1/4 c crushed garlic

1 T crushed black pepper

1/4 c native vinegar

Combine all ingredients in a bowl

Form into little balls

Lay balls in plastic squares or wax paper

Roll into finger-like shapes

Refrigerate until ready to use or freeze in tightly covered plastic containers

Pan fry over medium heat.

but have recently shifted to this one.

1 k pork

1 c brown sugar

2 T cornstarch

1 T seasoning  

1 T hot sauce

1 T worcestershire sauce

2 T chopped garlic

2 t gr pepper

1 t salt

 (was hoping to reduce the sugar to 3/4 c but somehow people can tell)

Back to storage for the grinder and there is the proof of the reduced calorie longganisa on the side.

How to Tie a Scarf

Paisley, Paisley

When I was young, I got a paisley scarf from Tie Rack as a gift from someone who had come from London.  Several years later, I got another one and this time it came with a small booklet on how to tie scarves.

In case you didn't know, paisley was not a common design in the home country and neither are scarves.  So the paisley scarves were pretty special but they didn't really get much use.

Whenever I see anything paisley, I think of scarves.   

When I think of paisley scarves, I think of Tie Rack.  

When I think of Tie Rack, I think of London.

I honestly thought only Tie Rack could only be found in London.  So I was surprised to find Tie Rack here in Australia.  There certainly weren't any branches of Tie Rack back in the Philippines.  And with the weather there, people hardly wore scarves.  

Yesterday, when I went to the semi-annual Wesley (a uniting church) garage sale, I chanced upon a basket of scarves.  I picked up a violet one thinking that maybe MyGirl would like it.  (I',m not particularly partial to violet, you see.)  However, when I got home and showed it to MyGirl, I got a lukewarm reception.  

MacGyver quickly gave his two cents worth.

He  said, "Do you know who I think would appreciate that?  GI."

What a brilliant idea!  It WAS something that GI would like.

True enough, when I showed it to GI when he woke up, his face lit up like a Christmas tree.   

This scarf now belongs to him.

Here is GI wearing a genuine Tie Rack scarf.

 I got this for him last year (when the scarves went on sale.)

This is his current FB wall photo.

Rocking Horse

Yesterday, I saw two rocking horses.  I liked one more than the other though.

This is a big rocking horse I saw in the bookstore inside the mall.

This is the small rocking horse I saw in the garage sale.

Am sure you can guess which one I like better.