Everyday Life

Divergent, Magnum Opus and Biogesic #TheWeekThatWas

August 16, 2014 by MrsC | Patricia Cuyugan 7 Comments

There are crazy weeks, and there are crazy weeks. This past one, for me, has been the latter.

It all started when I took on an AVP script project with a 24-hour turnaround time frame for the first draft. Are you shaking your head already? Well I figured I could manage easily since I’ve worked with the agency before, and they’re actually friends, from school. The topic was also something that I was super familiar with, so no problem there. And then I found out that the overall event theme was Divergent, and well, I hadn’t seen the film yet. Toinks.

And so, Monday became an impromptu movie date night for MrC and me, with Divergent as our film of choice. Have you seen it? I actually liked it! I liked the story better than The Hunger Games books, and I really liked those books. I think that the casting here is great, too. A blogger friend told me that the books are better than the film, so yes I’ve already loaded my Kindle up with all the books in the series. And oh my gosh, Theo James. That is all.

I managed to survive that AVP project, so I took a time out on Wednesday to spend time with an old friend. Our coffee date was an on again, off again one, with meetings always coming up on the days when we were scheduled to see each other. Finally though, we pushed through, and ended up spending 4 hours at Magnum Opus Fine Coffees in BF just chatting away about our new lives as moms and wives. I love when old friends grow with you.

This wasn’t my first time at Magnum Opus. MrC and I actually visited the place around this time last year to attend a coffee brewing workshop. I love how their coffee is bold and full-flavored. I ordered a Picolo Late, which you can see in that photo up there. It’s basically a tiny latte, sort of like a macchiato. And by macchiato I mean the real macchiato, and not the watered down type that Starbucks serves, which I also happen to love. Lol. I am easy to please.

Our coffee date ended abruptly when I got a call from the school nurse saying that Little MrC had a fever and had to be picked up. Since then, I’ve been playing nurse mommy to the little guy here at home. It’s a good thing we always have Biogesic at home, so even though his temperature has been quite high, we’ve been able to manage his pretty quite well. I’ve had to cancel all of my appointments this weekend, and he’s missing football, too. But that’s okay. What matters is that he gets better soon.

So there. I’ve been trying to just relax and rest this weekend because next week’s gonna be crazy. It’s exam week, so we have to study. At the same time, that means that the kid will be home most of the day, so I’m gonna have to be creative and keep him entertained so that I can get work done. All in a WAHM’s day.

How has your week been? Hope you guys are enjoying your weekend!

Look Mom, I’m on #theAsianparent Philippines!

August 9, 2014 by MrsC | Patricia Cuyugan 32 Comments

Earlier this year, I was able to make a dream of mine come true. With a little pixie dust from one of my favorite people in the world, Tina, I got this amazing writing gig at theAsianparent Philippines. The PH team is a young one, but theAsianparent has been around for a while and is actually the #1 parenting website in Asia.

*Insert kilig moment here*

Though I have been writing for a few years now, I’ve mostly been doing ghostwriting for other people. The only places that I would ever see an article credited to my name was here and on World Moms Blog. Then all of a sudden amazing things started to happen, and before long I had a dozen articles up on theAsianparent, complete with author byline. It brings such a happy feeling, I tell you. Super fulfilling, and super worth all the late nights and underpaying writing jobs I had to go through to get here.

Indulge me and my excitement over this writing job, if you may. Here’s a roundup of what I’ve written for theAsianparent so far. It would be great if you could click on a link that interests you, read, like, tweet, share, comment or +1. The love would be greatly appreciated!

How to Grow Taller: What Parents Can Do to Help Their Children Reach Their Full Height Potential

Putting a Premium on Health Care: Why You Should Sign Your Family Up for an HMO

Get a financial lift through a short-term SSS loan

Kid Got Punked! What to do when your child shows interest in deviant behavior

Early Dengue Symptoms – Ways to detect the disease before it gets worse

Have Fun with History: Teach Your Child to Read Alibata!

5 Valuable Parenting Lessons Learned From Growing Up In Iglesia Ni Cristo

The Anti Bullying Act: Helping Schools Keep Your Child Safe

Maternity Care: Your PhilHealth Benefits While Pregnant

10 Rainy Day Recipes from Filipino Home Cooks

Breastfeeding moms in the workplace share their horror stories!

Working Moms and Their Breastfeeding-Friendly Workplaces

Yep, I think that I can now truly say that I am a writer. 🙂

Class Suspensions and Lazy, Rainy Days + Baon Plan #4

August 1, 2014 by MrsC | Patricia Cuyugan 18 Comments

Like I said last week, I adjusted my baon plan posting by a week because we had almost a whole week without school thanks to the crazy storm that was #GlendaPH. If you follow me on Instagram, you will have seen that our place was a cross between Jumanji and Jurassic Park, sans the large animals.

Thankfully, apart from having no water for 2 days and no power for 4 days, we were all okay, safe and dry at home. Our only casualty was the rear windshield of my dad’s trusty old Nissan Vanette, which had an acacia tree fall on top of it, breaking the glass. I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

Mom’s car and my sister’s car under some branches. Thankfully, these weren’t hit hard.

This Week’s Featured Recipes and Baon Plan

After the storm, life got really busy for me with back to back projects and work galore. And of course this is great, but it also means that I’ve had less time to prepare meals. This baon plan is perfect for hectic or busy days, because it requires very little thinking and not a lot of effort either.

I have three featured recipes this week. One is a Honey Balsamic Pork Chop recipe that’s actually my Glazed Tuna Recipe but with pork chops instead of tuna steaks. There’s also a Beef Tapa Recipe that my cousin shared with me, based on my grandmother’s tapa. This is a dry kind of tapa, sort of like a jerky. The last featured recipe is for Longganisa, which I got from Market Manila. I cook this giniling style so that I end up with crispy, garlicky bits.

Here's a quick peek into the lunchboxes for Baon Plan #4 — Here’s a quick peek into the lunchboxes for Baon Plan #4

Click here to download this week’s baon plan. To check out my past lunchbox plans from Grade 2 and Grade 3, click here.

Promise to share another baon plan in a couple of weeks, and hopefully a new recipe before then. Here’s to an awesome August for all of us!

On Peeing and Public Restrooms

July 1, 2014 by MrsC | Patricia Cuyugan 18 Comments

I have a really long blog post queue. I also had a topic listed for today that I was supposed to write about. Today though, I really felt like doing absolutely nothing, so I had previously decided not to write. Then I thought, why not jump start my creative juices by trying out something different, something really random? So I Googled “Random Blog Topic Generator”, clicked this link, and got this topic:

Random Topic — My random blog topic: Using public restrooms

Alrightie then.

I never liked using public restrooms, unless of course I happen to be in some posh establishment where the toilets are clean and nice-smelling, and where there’s toilet paper for us to use. Unfortunately, after giving birth to Little MrC, my ability to hold in my pee for dangerously unhealthy amounts of time just vanished. Actually, my need to run straight to the nearest comfort room at the first sign (or sensation) of pee started when I was preggers. I’m sorry if this topic makes you feel uncomfortable, by the way, or if I’m sharing too much. You can always just stop reading. I won’t take it against you. 🙂

So, after I became a mommy, I’ve had to get myself used to using public restrooms. Thankfully, the malls in Alabang have fairly decent comfort rooms. When in Alabang Town Center, I actually use the one in Rustan’s hehe. It’s really when we’re on the road that it’s extra hard for me. I remember having to stop at several gas stations when we visited Baguio the other year. That. Was. A. Pretty. Gross. Experience.

The craziest place that I’ve ever had to stop and pee was probably on the Skyway. No, I didn’t pee on the actual Skyway. They have a (yucky) restroom in the office at the toll plaza. One rainy morning on our way to Makati, I asked MrC to stop the car because I really needed to pee. I was pushing my luck then because I wasn’t sure if there was a restroom there or not. Thank goodnessthey had one! Those were days of super horrible traffic because the Skyway wasn’t complete yet, several years ago when I still had a day job.

A few weeks after my Skyway toilet experience, while stuck in traffic again, I actually saw a lady get off a jeepney and use an umbrella to shield herself from view as she peed on the side of the road on the actual Skyway. Kawawa naman, right? If I had seen her early enough, I would have told her to hold it in for a few more minutes and pee at the toll plaza. Now that I think about it, they really should put a rest stop up there because traffic does get really bad, and people can get stuck there for a long time.

Okay, I think that’s enough pee talk for one day. Honestly, I’m happy that it’s peeing that I have a problem with and not #2! Right now, I’m setting myself up for the possibility that I may seriously need to diaper it when I’m older. Til then, I just have to endure public toilets and hope that people would actually make an effort to keep them clean.

I wanna ask you guys, where are the cleanest restrooms around your area, just in case I find myself lost in your neck of the woods?

Quiet Time + What’s Blogging This Week

June 23, 2014 by MrsC | Patricia Cuyugan 8 Comments

Yep, quiet time is exactly what I need right now. Last week was intensely busy. We started off with two days of pampering and R&R with a few bloggers from the south at Fringe Salon. Then I spent Wednesday at home so that I could write, but I also made sure to sneak in my last batch of school errands. On Thursday, I had the ever-so-enriching opportunity to sit down with a WAHM friend and start-up blogger for a quick chat. I love that I am now able to give advice and help people who want to start their own blogs or begin a work at home career.I fell that these little meetings allow me to give back for all the help that I received three years ago when I was the newbie.

Friday was the most relaxing day of last week, with only a few grocery errands and some writing on my list. I actually got to grab a yummy lunch at S&R with my mom. Saturday started mighty early with day one of the June-July Futbol Funatics camp at Cuenca. Then I went straight to Fringe afterwards for our last blogger event day. Sunday was an early football day as well, and then afterwards, the boys and I spent time with our relatives on the Cuyugan side. It was certainly a long, but super rewarding week.

Grabbed from my sis-in-law's IG — Grabbed from my sis-in-law’s IG

Today was mostly spent at home. I decided I would take it easy because I feel a cold coming on. True enough, I fell asleep on my mom’s couch, my favorite spot in her room. Guess my body really was asking me to slow down. Taking even one day to slow down for some quiet time can really make a huge difference in the ever so eventful life of a mom or dad. Do you guys agree? Now that I’ve taken my day off, I know that I’m ready to face the week. Of course, there’s gonna be writing involved. Lots of it, if I hope to really make a dent in my crazy backlog. Here’s what you can look forward to reading about on the blog in the next few days.

My new baon plan for the next two weeks
Our lunch experience at Wooden Spoon Restaurant
The amazing sweet treats of Pink Wasabi
My extremely overdue #BetterMe post. For real this time.

What do you guys do to get even a few minutes of quiet time in the middle of a busy day, week or month?

Crochet Projects For My New Giant Hooks

June 22, 2014 by MrsC | Patricia Cuyugan 17 Comments

The boys and I received bags of treats from our family in the US today (yay, thank you, family). One of the things on my wishlist was a set of large crochet hooks. I am so lucky that there’s a Michael’s store near my in-laws’ place, and so my crafty wishes are usually granted. With this batch of pasalubongs came a set of Boye hooks, sized 8.0mm, 9.0mm, 10.0mm and 11.5mm. Happy dance.

Right after our lunch meetup with my sister-in-law at Buffalo’s Wings and Things / Chubby’s Rib Shack in Commercenter (which I will blog about soon, promise), I checked Ravelry for nice projects to make with my new hooks. I already had a certain project in mind, which was actually the reason why I had asked for the big hooks in the first place. I also knew that I wanted to make a rug.

After a couple of hours of browsing, I finally decided on these seven as my priority projects. I just need to figure out the right yarn weight for these, coz honestly I didn’t really read through the details all that thoroughly. Lol, yes, my excitement took over. So, if any of you guys know where I can get chunky chunky yarn in Manila (or cord that’s nice to crochet with, actually, or tshirt yarn), lemme know!

1. Hopeful Honey’s Basic Chunky Cowl

I think that I could probably get away with making this using several strands of worsted weight yarn. I don’t think I have that many skeins of the same color, so i just might multi-color it and see how things turn out. Check out the pattern for this cowl here.

2. Caron One Skein Summer Wrap

This was the pattern that made me want to have large crochet hooks. I actually tried making this with an 8.0mm hook, which I already had on hand. It obviously didn’t turn out as nice as it was supposed to, hence my big hook bilin. So now I’m really excited to get to work on this. I also received a nice light yellow skein of Caron One Pound, and that’s what I plan to use to make this wrap. Pattern here.

3. Lion Brand Simply Shrug

I know that it’s probably too hot to wear crocheted shrugs made out of thick yarn here in the Philippines, but I don’t care, I still want to make this. Good luck to me, though, if I can find yarn this thick. I wonder if there’s anywhere I can have some made? Pattern here.

4. Ireland’s Scarf from Crochet in Color

Honestly, I love the color that the pattern designer used for this scarf. So pink! Thing is, the listing on Ravelry says it needs a 10.0mm hook, but the pattern on the Crochet in Color site says I hook, which is only 5.5mm. Oh well, I will try to make this in worsted weight with one of the bigger hooks and see how it turns out. If I wanna be able to use it here, it has to be on the lace-y side anyway.

5. Ombre Basket from Crochet in Color

Yep, another pattern from the Crochet in Color site. I love the color used to achieve the ombre look here. I now want to lay out all of my yarns and see which would look nice together. I think maybe I’ll do that tomorrow while the boys are out hehe.

6. Round Carpet in 3 Strands by Drops Design

Here come the rugs! I love the idea of a giant coaster-looking rug in my bathroom. I really feel that it will make the space a whole lot prettier, and you know how I like pretty things. It looks like I will need to do some experimenting with this one, though,until I get the gauge right. Get the pattern here.

7. Rust Colored Carpet

This pattern uses the same type of yarn as #6, so at least I only need to do one round of gauge experimentation for both. You can only get this one via Ravelry, so if you don’t have an account there yet, go and get one. And don’t forget to add me as a friend! My username there is mrspcuyugan. Not surprising, no?

So there you go. I can’t wait to get to work on something new. How about you guys? What crafty things have you been working on lately?