something new

there's a new addition to our family.

and god i wish i could say it's a baby! baby like human baby, gary-ina spawn, mini me or mini gary. but it's just our new baby dog. anyone close to me knows i don't like man's so-called best friend. i'm not a hater, i really like them in pictures... :P it's just i'm terrified by dogs. big time. but the husband wants a doggie around the house, and i guess this is what you call marital compromise, so i'm still trying to get over my fear of dogs. yes, even a puppy. i still scream when he walks towards me and i hate how my heart races even when i know he's not going to bite or anything.

the husband actually got two terriers but we had to give away our new puppy's sister because we can't handle them together. we've yet to name him. gary's giving me the honor, but i kinda wanna wait to see what kind of personality he has so he can get a name that fits him. right now he's just a sad dog. doesn't bark,doesn't run, doesn't eat. i can tell gary's amused, as i type this, the new partners are out somewhere in the compound walking. i never expected i'd say yes to staying in a house with a dog but i'll live.


he's as suspicious of me as i am of him. lol

my bridal march

i captured my favorite part of our wedding video so i can upload it here. windows moviemaker is acting up on me, so this clip is longer than it should be. i hope the husband doesn't check on this blog anytime soon...i want us to see the whole thing together when i get back to the states this wednesday. too bad the resolution suffered from all the trimming and converting. but here it is, you guys enjoy ;)

iloilo-guimaras-bacolod

fickle, fickle

without even a week with me, my white corolla practice car is history. the husband sneaked out the car yesterday, sold it, and bought me a white honda accord today. can't be happier. the car is pretty sweet for somebody like me who doesn't know sh*t about driving :)

here's a familiar sight: gary cleaning my car. hehe

my new baby after a shower

sorry...had to take the customary owner shot. LOL

catching up

as you may have noticed, no real pictures lately, which is ironic since gary and i each have our own camera. the funny thing is that gary's usb connector for his sony cybershot is missing, while my cannon uses disposable batteries which we never seem to remember to buy. so. i tested our lg chocolate phones and sent these shots to my verizon album online. worked like a charm, but the photos aren't as clear as i'd hope. here, date night at red lobster.


the hubby bought me a practice car, a white corolla. it's still in good shape, and more importantly, it's automatic. his civic is 5-speed, and knowing how bad i did at driver's ed in the philippines, a brake, a clutch and a gas pedal could be too much for me. LOL i can only stare at it, i've yet to get my driver's permit. haha

we got life to do

in between date nights and house chores, gary and i are starting to realize that we're headed for some major changes in a few months.

first of all, gary's getting out of the army. he has until january next year because he's under stop loss, but it could be sooner since the rest of his brigade's coming back from iraq next week. he just needs to take their weapons in (he's the armorer) and clear by then. i see he's really weary of his job too, and as i said before, i'm wanting a normal civilian life for us.

the catch here is, he'll be under transition after he's out of service. he needs to get a new job. and well, it's really important that i get a job too before he finishes his contract, just to keep things running smooth.

right now, i'm torn between two job prospects, the first one in marketing is a sure thing, but is not something i look forward to doing because it's an entirely different field. it's financially helpful for sure, but half of me wants to wait and see what happens with the grant writer position that i tested for. i asked the human resource department about my application and i'm said to be scheduled for interview next week. crossing my fingers.

in a few hours i'm taking my test for a driving permit. i don't wanna take it yet, but the husband's hurrying to get me behind the wheel. he's also scouting for an automatic practice car (we have a 5-speed car right now). i always had a fantasy of driving a beat-up red pick up truck, and when i told gary that, he was pretty amused by the idea too. he's been looking for vintage trucks for days, but today the husband suddenly said he's worried about how i'll control such a big vehicle. so. i think i'll end up with a car after all. of course this whole driving thing is crucial if i'm working soon. i already took driving lessons while in the philippines, but ran out of time to get me an internatioanal driving license. now i have to go through the whole texas dmv process.

how to lose reality and alienate your husband (pasintabi kay Toby Young)

check what time it is in the philippines.

turn on your laptop.

search for live streaming sites.

hook up your headset.

be transported to another time and place (read: philippine time and, well, philippines).

watch news about noynoy waking up. noynoy eating breakfast. noynoy being dressed by liz uy. noynoy getting in the car. noynoy in malacañang. noynoy with gma. noynoy sitting onstage. noynoy watching charice. christian bautista. apo hiking society getting out of retirement for another gig. ogie alcasid. regine velasquez. the madrigal singers. noel cabangon. noynoy taking his oath. noynoy giving his speech. noynoy walking out of the venue.

realize you've been glued to the monitor for five hours non-stop.

look at your starving husband who not only missed dinner but has taken to talking to the walls thanks to your prolonged mental and emotional absence.

stage husband

so proud!

never in my life did i expect to get me a stage husband. but i like it. a lot :) i went to my first job test today, not an interview, just a test, and gary looked like a doting dad ready to drop his baby daughter off to 1st day of kindergarten.

i'm finally starting my job search, and this one was for a grant writer position downtown. as you may know, i battle with insomnia most nights, and the husband was adamant about making me sleep early last night so i could get enough rest for my test. i had to stop myself from laughing because he was serious about it.

in the morning he was a human stopwatch, telling me how much time i got left to eat and shower. i watched him watch me try out my wardrobe and when i was done with my make up, oh my gosh, the proud daddy took pictures. LOL maybe he missed seeing me in my office clothes. it has been a while.

i mean, the last time i went job hunting was five years ago, right after college, when i got my job in the senate. so naturally, i was a bit nervous. i could see gary was amused when i was quiet in the car. he kept on telling me 'you're gonna get this,' and when he saw that wasn't exactly the encouragement i was looking for, he tried 'there are many other jobs out there even if this one turns out to be not for you.'

we got to the company building 15 minutes early, and he sat there with me while i waited to be called. when i finished in about an hour, he was still there, smiling and asking me how everything went.

i have a stage mom, i have a stage husband, i'm made. LOL

new everything!

as a little girl i always loved june and december. june meant the start of the school year, and december meant christmas. no, i didn't look forward to going back to school. i did get very excited however about getting new stuff for school. and then there's new shoes and clothes and toys for christmas of course.

i think this is something i wasn't able to outgrow. matter of fact, i love shopping. no matter how big or small the purchase, getting something new has a way of uplifting my mood. on this note, in just two weeks, gary and i never had more new things in our lives. it was no joke starting over, but i'm loving the fresh start.

we got to el paso the same day; him from iraq (i didn't make it to his homecoming! sadddd...) and me from santa clara, the day after arriving from the philippines. it was a leap of faith for me to come to el paso because as everyone knows, we gave up everything before gary got deployed to iraq--the car, the apartment, the pans and pots, the tv, what have you--and he wanted me to wait until he gets us an apartment so then i didn't have to have a hard time. i just trusted my instinct and flew in anyway.

so yeah. for a week, we stayed at the hotel and took the cab while we searched for a new apartment and a new car. saying that was hard would be the understatement of the year. we literally spent an arm and a leg going around el paso, aimlessly searching for these essentials. under the el paso heat. we're on three digits this month because it's still summer, and the scorching weather is just unbelievable. i worry about skin cancer, i kid you not!

so after a week of losing sleep, money and more, we finally found a new home. it's pretty close to our previous place but i really like this one for so many reasons. there are more trees in our new compound than in any other spot in the city. it's close to everything, like our place before, only this time it's even closer to gary's work, which is very important.

the one-bedroom apartment is just the perfect size for me and my husband. this means it's cozier and easier to clean up, thank you very much :P the bedroom already has a headboard, which matches the rest of the woodwork in the kitchen and the living room. i'm still in the process of putting everything together, so no pictures yet, but i'm splashing red, orange, and brown--autumn colors--all over the place. like i said, we gave up everything last november, so we bought new plates, a new couch, a new tv set(this 42" plasma is my new best friend), a new dvd player, a new shower curtain, new everything!

the hubby is pretty happy with his new red honda, although he gives me his non-chalant face and says the car is "ok lang" lol our new phones on the other hand are just plain eye-candies. they are soooooo hard to use. touch screen technology needs some serious tweaking. i always end up dialing a number by accident, and even texting becomes such a chore.

but beyond these new things, it's really the new life i'm looking forward to. gary is getting out of the service in a few months, and we're both in search of new careers. uncertainty lies ahead, but as it is always the case with me and gary, we always pull through :)

airports, flights and jetlag

i'm finally back here in the states after seven months of stay in the philippines. i arrived here at gary's parents' home in santa clara late last night. his brother jeng and wife glenda picked me up with their little girl annber at the san francisco airport. it was a long trip with a stop over in hong kong.

the hong kong international airport is insane. i had to ride a train and walk a mile to get to my gate. good thing it's easy to spot the pinoys, and like a herd, we just went wherever the others went. i got through immigration pretty quick and the luggage retrieval went pretty fast too. except for the enormous weight of the two luggages i brought, i was okay.

i am jet lagging sooooooooo bad. this didn't happen to me the first time i came here but now it hit me hard. i didn't sleep at all on the plane and last night i was up the whole time. needless to say, i've been nursing a major headache the whole day. plus my entire body's aching too...try carrying around bags that weigh close to 21 kilos each and you'll know what i mean. there are no friendly kuyas who will lift your stuff for you for a price of a pack of yosi. but i managed.

my mom, ate beng and the kids and my two titas dropped me off at NAIA. my brother met up with us at mall of asia. i have to hand it to him, and if he's reading this then all the better, he left his work for a few hours just to send me off. i miss my baby nephew chok. i took care of him everyday and he is just the most adorable baby everrrrrr. last night while i was in bed, the neighbor's baby cried and my instinct was to call out chok. except it's not chok. :(

on a lighter note, the husband's almost here too. we've been racing our way here. we left the same day, him out of iraq and me out of the philippines. gary called my mom to say he was in kuwait while i was waiting for boarding at NAIA. we haven't heard from each other since then, i assume he's been moving around, but i got a call from the fort bliss people this afternoon asking if i'm going to his homecoming, which is at 1:45pm tomorrow.

gary and i already talked about this extensively. i was insisting on going to el paso ahead so then i can just take a cab, stay in a hotel and meet him when his army plane lands at biggs airfield. the husband was insisting that i wait until he lands before i fly to el paso so then he doesn't have to worry about where i'm staying, how i'm carrying around my luggages and how i'm getting a taxi.

the hardheaded side of me was trying to make a way to get to el paso tonight but as luck would have it, the flight tonight gets there too late and costs too much, twice more than what i paid for flying tomorrow actually. so yeah, gary will have no welcoming party tomorrow, instead he's picking me up at the el paso airport at 4pm. this is pretty much what we agreed on the last time we talked, except that gary has no idea right now about my flight. i really hope he gets a chance to call as soon as he lands so then there's no mix up. i don't wanna stay at the airport, not sure if he knows i'm there or not. i have no cellphone yet because we gave up everything when gary got deployed and i left for the philippines in november so the only chance he'll be there is if he calls home and gets to talk to nanay or debra.

it still disappoints me that i can't be there at gary's homecoming. i always pictured waiting there as he lands, taking pictures, running towards each other. in slowmo. like in the movies. ewwww. LOL no i just wanted to witness how he lands and comes home. oh well. at least we get to see each other right away. i hope :P