Early mornings, new beginnings

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I have always been a morning person, my mind retains information better when I get them in the morning, I’m more productive, my energy level is high, I simply love my mornings. Even when I was studying, each time that we have a major exam, I would set the alarm at three in the morning or so to start studying. Waking up at an ungodly hour has been a part of my routine during my preparation for the CPA board exams, I would normally sleep at around 10 pm and wake up at three in the morning. In my memory bank those days were some of the toughest but ironically the most memorable days of my life. Looking back, I still can feel the struggle of trying to open your eyes when the bed seems to have a stronger pull of gravity in your body, forcing you to go back and cuddle the soft sheets and silky pillows. I dread and miss those mornings all at the same time.

For quite sometime now, I’ve been fiddling with the idea of taking another certification exam. I just thought that it would sharpen my skills, refresh me of knowledge long forgotten and help me advance in my career. So finally, a couple of weeks back I’ve finally decided to apply for the Certified Management Accountant exam given by the Institute of Certified Management Accountants (ICMA). While flipping through the review materials, the memories of my CPA board exam review days came rushing back to me and surprisingly, I got this chill of excitement running down my spine, I felt giddy. For the past days, I’ve been trying to wake up earlier to squeeze in an hour of study in the morning and an hour of exercise (oh well, I said I try!), I’ve been doing good in some days while on others I fail to get out of bed miserably. However as the exam (1st) date nears, I have to improve and stick to my schedule more religiously. I’m really looking forward to it.

I really am keeping my fingers crossed on this. Wish me luck and pray that I at least gain knowledge in this challenge that I’m about to embark on.

Weee! We’ve got WII

Last Christmas, I created my very first wish list and although honey wanted to buy the things in the list I didn’t receive from anybody else, I told him not to because I’m really trying to limit myself to the things that we need and not overly indulge in the things that we want.

Over the weekend, one of our friends asked us to go with them while they try to look for the best sofa set to replace the one they currently have. Shopping, (window or otherwise) is a trip I couldn’t bring myself to decline so off we went. Right beside the furniture shop that our friends visited was our favourite electronics shop and saw that they have really great deals on offer. I tagged honey along and entered the shop marvelling at all the wonderful things on sale clenching my fist as I try to use every ounce of self control that I have to keep me from buying those items that I long to have. However, honey got the better of me, pointing out that he received a pleasant surprise from work last week and that there was a storewide offer, which includes one of the items in my wish list, he insisted that he wanted to buy me a present, who am I to argue, so I caved. There inside the Mediamarkt, we finally became owners of this marvellous WII sport pack.



I’m really enthused about this game, I read a lot of wonderful things about it and as I try to explore it, I can say that this will definitely be a part of me and honey’s bonding moment. We already started last Saturday night, we played tennis. Egads, my arms and shoulder were aching after four games with honey and everything was a tie. I also tried the WII fit board and the WII fit program yesterday and I must say that its really good.

If at first I have my doubts about this purchase, now I can truly say that it was a really great buy, this WII. We’re looking forward to fun times ahead.

The big 9-0

Honey and I have been together for exactly 90 months last Saturday and I must say, it keeps on getting better and better. This starts my countdown to our centennial mensiversary. All through these months, honey and I never failed to celebrate this day, I guess we’re just the type of couple who grabs any and every opportunity to celebrate our love for each other. It can be as simple as greeting each other “happy monthsary” or it can be as elaborate as having a dinner date plus gifts, bouquets of flowers and the entire shebang, no matter how simple (or enormous) it is, we just make it a point to celebrate.

One of the things I love about my husband is the fact that he likes to always surprise me. He stops at nothing to get anything that I want and he gives them to me just when I least expect it. This month’s gift is another example of this. I have mentioned time and again how hard it is to get a decent cake plate here and I’m getting more and more frustrated coz I’ve been expanding my kitchen experiments lately. And just when I’m about to get more frustrated after scouring the shopping street adjacent to our home, honey popped this baby out of a bag and told me that this is his gift to me for our 90th mensiversary. It’s perfect! I love the chocolates but more so I love the cake plate. It’s simple yet elegant, just what I was looking for. Honey hit another jackpot!



Honey, thanks for being the best, no, the perfect husband to me. You’re all I’ve ever longed for, dreamed of, prayed for, and so much more. You are the silver lining in my sky that gives me hope, happiness and courage. I want nothing more but to still be holding hands with you when we’re old and gray and wrinkled. Happy 90th mensiversary honey! I love you!

Beautiful brown longanisa logs

During weekends, I tend to plan our breakfast more carefully resulting to a more elaborate menu. After a week of plain and sometimes hurried breakfast, I want to pace myself in preparing and savouring the first and most important meal of the day during weekends. This is the case last Saturday, I chanced upon this simple recipe for longanisa, something that honey has been telling me he’s been craving for for a while now but we don’t get longanisa in this part of the globe readily available. The moment I saw this recipe, I knew exactly what we’re having for breakfast.



The recipe is really easy and really yummy, it reminds me of the longanisa I used to have when I eat breakfast at Mcdo, really tasty. I paired these beautiful longanisa logs with some fried rice and fried eggs with a bowl full of tomatoes drizzled with some fish sauce. Voila! The perfect breakfast. The best thing of all is that honey absolutely loved it.

Orange goodness

I have never been big on fruits. When it comes to desserts, I would always prefer the creamy goodness of ice cream, the decadence of cakes or the buttery pleasures of pastries over the freshness of fruits. Its not that I don’t like them, I would savour the sweetness of a ripe Philippine mango or the tangy goodness of lanzones, if they’re there but when I’m away from the Philippines, I don’t get cravings for them. I have a very short list of fruits that I really like and although I prefer them over other fruits, I don’t go gaga over them, until last week.

Honey and I were doing some grocery shopping and we chanced upon this unfamiliar fruit. I knew I’ve seen them somewhere before but being the not-too-crazy-about-fruits that I am, I’ve never been curios enough to try. However, honey, who is a fruit buff, insisted that we buy some of it because he remembers having tried them and remembers them to be really good. So we grabbed a couple of them fruits and went on our merry way back home.

That night, while watching our favourite series, honey started peeling off these gorgeous produce and he popped one in my mouth. At first bite, the texture was a bit grainy and mushy while the juice that oozed from the fruit was sweet, but not overly. The next piece that honey gave me was even more wonderful, it was a bit sweeter, the texture was smoother and mushier, it was refreshing. Immediately I know I’m hooked.



In our local grocery, they’re called Kaki fruit, however, some know them better by the name persimmons. Personally, I’ve never really been familiar with them before, I’ve never really seen them in the Philippines before so I wouldn’t think that we grow them locally (of this I’m not sure). I think the ones that we have here come from Italy or Spain.

This fruit definitely climbed up to be my top favourite fruit, and that is saying something.

Creamy Heaven

For as long as I could remember, I have been in constant search for the best cheesecake. From the best recipes to the café that serves the most delectable slice of this creamy, sensual treat. My most favourite cheesecake is the kind topped with one of my most favourite fruits, blueberries. My constant search has always been focused with the New York cheesecake kind, however, last Friday, after dropping by one of my most visited blogs, I chanced upon this interesting recipe of a Japanese cheesecake. Having pledged my loyalty to the cheesecake club for as long as I could remember, I am quite surprised that I’ve never tried this kind before.

Last Friday evening, with my apron wrapped around my waist, I wielded my mixer and started trying my hand on this gorgeous treat. The recipe was quite simple, I don’t have an 8 1/2 “ silicone baking pan so I used the one that I have, I think it’s 10” (I’m not sure) and I baked mine using a baine-marie and it turned out beautifully. Honey was out with some old colleagues that night so I decided to unmold the cake for tomorrow’s breakfast.



The next morning, I’m thrilled to sample the cake that was waiting for me inside my oven. I sliced a huge piece, took a forkful of the smooth cake and the minute it touched my tongue, it melted. It was as light as snow. I savoured every mouthful of this sinful and tempting treat. I couldn’t help but close my eyes as allow my tongue to feast on the sweet, tangy and fluffy heaven. Pure bliss!



This is the only cheesecake that I’ve made that honey enjoyed as well (he’s not a cheesecake person). This recipe shoots up to one of my top cheesecake recipe list.

Flowers, fruits and more

One of the highlights from our recent trip to France is the trip to the garden/plant shop. They had various kinds of plants from blooms to fruit bearing to ornamental, they also have indoor, outdoor, hanging and water plants, name it they have it. Honey and I have always wanted to visit gardens here in the Netherlands coz we know they’d be really good, it is the home of the beautiful tulips after all, but we never get to go.

I love all the flowers, in different shapes, sizes, colour and scent, it was simply wonderful. Going to this garden also bolstered my desire to grow my own fruit bearing plants in our back garden. The look of lemon hanging from the branches was priceless, and beneficial too, if I may add.

I had to stop honey from buying all the tall trees, telling him that we’ll just buy them from here. We ended up with a pot of roses, several pots of strawberries, two pots of tiger lilies and a pot of parsley. These plants were immediately replanted on our back garden the moment we arrived home. That’s how excited we were about these beauties.



Good thing we didn’t buy much from France though, after talking to my colleague, who’s half French and half Dutch, he said he wouldn’t be surprised if the plants we bought we’re actually imported from the Netherlands and that his parents (specially his mom who is French) buys loads of plants from here whenever their going back to France coz its much cheaper here. He also recommended a garden where it’s really good to buy plants. We’ll definitely drop by and buy all the plants that I want to grow myself.




I’m really looking forward to this coming Spring, more than ever, coz I’m excited to see all my plants mature to their fullest beauty.

Gems in the cyberworld

One thing that I love about the cyberspace is that you gain friends and feel like you get to know other cool peeps even without actually meeting them. Through Plurk, I’ve met another friend and it what a small world it is, I found out that her sister is from the same university that I graduated from, the same college, same year only different blocks (and during our time there were only two blocks that survived the stringent requirements of our course). Nice eh!

If meeting someone real nice and funny over the net is not enough, she even gave me a very flattering citation, she gave my blog the Uber Amazing Blogs Award. Thanks Ghie, more than the award, I’m really glad that you find inspiration in this humble space I’ve created here.

Personally, I visit different blogs for different purposes, there are those blogs that I go to for a quick laugh, still there are those blogs that I visit to have my eyes feast on the photos of wonderful food, places and anything that are so interesting and finally, there are those that I go to when I need a pick-me-up-from-a-gray-day-inspiring story.

Among those blogs that I go for a quick fix of my mood for the day are:

Batjay – I love his wit and green humour, his candour is admirable. This is definitely my stop to indulge with humorous, gut wrenching, stomach wringing, tear invoking laugh.

Pinoycook - this is my go to blog when I encounter a dry spell when it comes to creative cooking, one look at the recipes and posts in this blogs reignites my passion to spend my time in the kitchen.

Wifely Steps - if there is a word I’d use to describe this blog that would definitely be charming. Informative and entertaining posts, coupled with cute photos of cujo, the incredible dog. I’m hooked.

Pulse - this is one of my daily dose, as I’ve mentioned before, I just like to drop by coz Dr.Em’s post are short, entertaining to read and keeps me in touch with what’s good in the Philippines.

Witsandnuts - - this is a one of my more recent discoveries, I just find her witty stories and colourful photos amazing, plus she gives me my needed peek to a place I once called home.

Bo Sanchez Blog - - I visit this blog to get grounded, to be inspired or to simply laugh at what this pastor is currently up to.

There are so many blogs that I keep on visiting for so many other reasons. I must say, I’ve found so many gems lying around the cyberworld, I just needed to look more closely.

Mixed Bags

If there is one thing I can’t leave the house without, that would be a bag. I must admit though that my fervour in collecting them in all shapes and sizes has dwindled over the past years. Either it’s because I’ve lost a lot of my favourite bags in transit when we were moving here in the Netherlands or because I don’t change bags as often as I used to, I really can’t tell. Honey even noticed that I don’t change bags that often and asked me why. I told him, simply because when we moved here, I always have to wear a trench coat, a jacket or a sweater and most of these items of clothing that I have in my closet are all black or white or brown therefore I don’t have to change the colour of my bag as I normally did, unlike those days when I used to work in Manila or Dubai, people can already see the wardrobe I’m sporting so my bag has to match with it. Although I love bags, I am not a label fanatic, in fact, every time honey tells me, he’ll buy me an LV or Christian Dior bag, I tell him no, its not practical.



This morning, I was in the mood to change trench coats going to work so a change of bag was necessary. I’ve chosen one of my newer bags, an Aldo purse from Dubai, the cost of which I don’t know coz it has been a present from friends who visited us last Christmas and New Year. I really love this bag coz it suits any colour palette being a black and white bag and I just love the prints.

As I was in a hurry to change bags this morning, I just stashed all the things that were in my other bag to this bag. I have my wallet, a hair brush, make up kit, a portable playstation (which I borrowed from honey yesterday), cell phone charger, a copy of itinerary of the trains in Italy (which honey gave me to look at for the trip that we’re planning), a copy of my life plan (a document that I created which lists all my plans and dreams in life, I always have it handy coz I read it when I have time to pass), some receipts (how much of an accountant am I, couldn’t let go of receipts hehe) and finally a letter from the Institute of Certified Management Accountant (which I grabbed before I went out the door this morning, this letter contains a lot of information about the series of exams that I’m planning to take very soon to be a CMA!).




How about you, are you a bag person?

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This bag talk is inspired by Niko’s bag tag.

Our girl is now a Big Girl

Cute!!!! Imagine me shrieking this word with a decibel that hurt my brother in law’s pet cats’ ear. Sorry, I can’t help it. The moment I entered my sister’s kitchen and saw her feeding her little angel, I just yelped out the word.




Now that I’m thinking about it though, cute doesn’t begin to describe our little Alex’ big hazel eyes, her dark brown curly hair and her hypnotic smile. Indeed she does. No wonder all my sisters in the Philippines went gaga over her during her one month visit to Manila. She’s simply captivating. She started to cry the moment honey and I entered because she doesn’t recognize us anymore. It figures, the last time we saw her was six months ago. However, after just half an hour of trying to woo her, she gave in. She’s much bigger now than the last time I saw her and she is starting to become prettier as opposed to just being cute the last time we were together. Her plump pink cheeks are now more defined, our Michelin girl is now gone, in her place is this big pretty girl.






She loves to turn and twirl and tumble in the bed, when I carry her around she turns around as well. She is very curious about anything and everything around her. And when you ask her to give you a kiss, she sticks out her tongue and touches your lips or cheeks with it. Honey quipped by saying “she gives you an authentic French kiss.” Hehe. Indeed she does. She doesn’t like to sit long on her stool and would look at you with pleading eyes to take her from the stool, which of course I can’t ignore. Honey and I enjoyed Alex’ company over the entire weekend, we can’t seem to get enough of her.



As they say, all things must come to an end, with heavy hearts we had to say goodbye to Alex on Sunday morning to embark on another seven-hour drive back home. I sure hope to see her again very soon. I do hope and pray that Alex grows up to be a good, loving, God-fearing kid.

Sunshine and meadows

Apart from seeing my family, especially my angel of a niece, Alex, one of the things that I enjoy immensely each time we go to France is the long drive, that is, when the weather is nice. Such was the case last Friday. When we got in the car to start our long haul journey, it was raining a bit (which is very typical Dutch weather) so my hopes were not that high. What do you know? Less than an hour later, the sun decided to show himself and shone majestically on the fields and meadows that we passed through, the sight was breathtaking.



The change in landscape between Netherlands and France is quite dramatic. I can readily tell that I’ve entered French territory the moment we saw up hills and down hills on the road. We see mountains and cliffs as we drive through the express way of France, whereas, the land is as flat as a ruler in the Netherlands.



My favourite site in France is this towering bridge and a viaduct. I don’t know why but this viaduct reminds me so much of the one in Ilocos.



It was a pleasant seven-hour drive. I had picturesque views to entertain me as we go through the long trip.

Tulips and Spring

Like most people, honey and I have a frantic schedule during weekdays, therefore, honey and I like to take things easy on weekdays (if and when circumstances permit it). My typical Saturday morning would begin at around nine to nine thirty. I would take my own sweet time in preparing breakfast. Once honey and I get our fill of our weekend breakfast (which normally is a heartier meal than what we have during weekdays), I would start tending my orchids and the rest of the plants that we have at home. There is serenity and calm each time I look these beauties and a satisfaction fills me, knowing that they are as lovely as they are because I cared for them.

Same is the case last Saturday, after breakfast, I watered my orchids and the rest of the foliage at home. That is when I noticed this just outside my kitchen door.



If my memory serves me right, this pot was planted by honey almost two years ago. He planted these tulips way beyond the prescribed planting season that is why we didn’t get to see them sprout last year. I remember teasing honey and told him that he is not to handle plants coz he never managed to keep any of them alive. When I told him that the tulips he planted are starting to bloom, the smirk on his face was so wide, I just have to laugh.

Beautiful blooms, they signal the beginning of my favourite season… Spring.

Chocolate and Hazelnut heaven

With my favourite apron in place, I braised myself for another whirlwind misadventure in the kitchen last Friday evening. After having learned how to whip up a sinful, melt in your mouth, sugar high inducing treats, I haven’t looked back. I welcome every opportunity, with open arms, to try another gem of a pastry. I had another excuse last Friday, since we’ve been invited to attend a friend’s daughters birthday party, I knew I couldn’t pass on the opportunity to try another recipe in my must try list.



After careful consideration and after rummaging through my pantry to check for supplies, I’ve decided to try and make my own version of chocolate hazelnut nutcracker cake. I was curios how flavourful the cake would be with the hazelnut and graham crackers incorporated in the cake's batter. It was pretty easy to whip up and in no time, I had my cake base cooling in a wire rack.

The following morning, I made the Crème Chantilly and indeed it was heavenly. Icing the cake was a breeze and it turned out to be simple yet elegant. The end product was very flavourful and the rich frosting complimented the cake very well. My only complain is that the cake was not as fluffy as I’d hope it would be.



The cake was very well deserved at the party though. This recipe may not make it to my top five best cakes but it was definitely worth trying.

Weekend Frenzy

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At five in the afternoon last Friday, I was already envisioning myself lounging on the sofa reading a book or watching my favourite TV series while having snacks or staying in bed until late morning. By eight in the evening, I saw my dream of a relaxed weekend slowly fading right before my eyes. I realized that I had to make a birthday cake for a friend’s daughter’s birthday the next day coupled with the fact that honey was not feeling too well that night and so I wanted to make him a comforting dinner. The moment I stepped into the house, I put on my favourite apron and started labouring in the kitchen hoping that I’ll finish everything, latest by midnight. We had dinner by around nine in the evening, I gave honey some paracetamol and tucked him into bed. I continued to work on my cake and managed to clear everything by quarter to twelve, I’m so pleased with myself, right on time.

Saturday and Sunday’s activities all happened at warp speed. I finished icing my cake, honey and I attended a dinner party on Saturday which ended at way past midnight, I cooked jam right after the party (until now that I’m writing this, I still don’t know what came over me to be cooking jam after midnight), I cooked a dinner for a dozen people for Sunday, host a dinner party at home on Sunday night, I’ve managed to try my hand on a Singaporean style tartlets from a recipe a colleague gave me and top it all off, I managed to spend time with my orchids, do some shopping and take some photos (to serve as evidence of how busy I was over the weekend hehe).

Looking back at all the things honey and I did over the weekend, I am not surprised that when my alarm clock buzzed this morning, I almost didn’t want to get out of bed and had to peel myself very slowly off the sheets and get ready for work. Weekends really come and go so quickly, I think I need another two more days to recuperate from all the weekend frenzy. ;-)