My Sugar Free Sweet Life

The boys and I made a trip to Manila's Chinatown in Binondo yesterday as our way of celebrating Chinese New Year. We initially planned to go today, since the President declared Chinese New Year a non-working holiday, but we wanted to just relax at home today so we won't be stressed at work tomorrow.

Anyway, we walked the whole stretch of Ongpin Street, from Santa Cruz Church in Carriedo to Binondo Church (National Shrine of San Lorenzo Ruiz). There are a lot of wares being sold along the street but this one caught my attention:

Excuse the misspelling, LOL!

We are selling Sitti, our 98 Honda City EXi 1.3 sedan. We can't afford the rising gas and maintenance costs already. Plus, we only have a one car garage and village rules do not allow us from parking outside our property.

Who's fallen? Not an angel, apparently, but me. Lol! I fell while going down a bar stool which I stood on to reach our WiFi router which was set above the doorway. I was about to disconnect the internet cable so I can directly connect it to my laptop. (We've been having internet problems since yesterday, by the way.) I lost my balance and I fell hitting my knee on the floor.

It's Wednesday once again and time for our 1-day event through Hump Day $50 Giveaway! The task for today is Twitter Follow and for all entries to be valid, you need to complete the first 2 mandatory tasks. There are a total of 33 entries for a chance to win $60, yes we have $60 in the pot today instead of the usual $50.

One of the things I love about my work is that I get to frequent health sites such as WebMD. I learn nuggets of health wisdom everyday. My latest reading discovery from the said site include information about superfoods.  Superfoods not only help the body lose weight but also provide the nutrients that are usually missing in our everyday menu.    Best of all, most of these superfoods are easy to find in neighborhood supermarkets and wet markets!

For more than a year now, I've been using stevia as my sweetener. Since then, I have enjoyed my drinks and other food without the fear of spiking up my blood sugar. I remember, I've written about using can view the entry HERE) but I haven't really explained how great this herb is. I finally found the time to do some research and here's the info I got:

It's been two weeks since my last blog update. Well, apart from the fact that I had been busy with holiday preparations, I had also been down with the a nasty case of cough and colds which started Christmas Day. Well, anyways...

I went back to my exercise routine on the first Monday of the year. I was also able to bully Rap into dancing with me for an hour because he didn't have class yet. The next day, I danced and had some strength training exercises done on the Wii. It was only today that I had the courage to weigh in and to my dismay, I'm back to my ugly 180 pound self. Gaaah!

I'm really serious this time. I'd only allow myself to skip my dance and exercise routines on Sundays. I have also decided to avoid soda drinks and drink juice instead. Hopefully, I can buy myself a juicer this weekend so I can start replacing some meals with nutritious and freshly squeezed fruit or vegetable juice as my friend, Lakapati, had done. I really wanna lose all these pounds without the help of diet pills.

Please, please, please pray that I'll be successful this time. I need to be fit so I won't go back to being hypertensive. Hay, so help me God!


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Last Saturday was as busy as I expected it to be. My boys both had classes, Rap with his MTAP and my husband with his IT training class at MFI. I had planned to do my Christmas shopping errands while Rap's in school. During lunch, I checked my Twitter and Facebook accounts where I found out about the tragedy that happened in Cagayan de Oro and Iligan City at the height of Typhoon Washi (Sendong).

Immediately, flashbacks of our town during Ondoy came back. I vividly remember how difficult it was to find sources of food and water. The floods brought by Sendong brought worse damage than Ondoy because it came at almost midnight. Most of the people who died were sleeping when the water rose. The pictures were heartbreaking and I haven't even seen everything yet.

Because of this,I decided to cut my Christmas shopping budget to give me more funds to offer help for the victims of the typhoon. The only gifts I bought according to my pre-assigned budget were the ones for our little nephews and nieces and our godchildren. I know the adults will understand that we cannot splurge on their presents this time. I hope I still can find inexpensive jewelry beads, though, for some of our female relatives.

I've already starting donating via SMS [Text REDAMOUNT to 2899 (Globe) or 4143 (Smart)] to the Red Cross. I'll also be sharing some of our blessings to my fellow bloggers in Cagayan de Oro and Iligan City who will surely have a challenging time this Christmas. I still have to pick out some old clothes from our closets to donate via the LBC Foundation. This is only what we can afford to share but, as long as more people care to share, we can make a huge difference.


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There have been numerous requests for me to share the Tagalog wedding misalette that we used in my sister's wedding back in 2008. I know how difficult it is to find a Tagalog misalette (moreso a Tagalog wedding misalette) in the Internet.

Just today, another reader emailed me asking for a copy but I can't find my file in my laptop! I dunno if I transferred the file to my external hard drive or what. Fortunately, I found an attachment of the Tagalog wedding misalette which I sent another reader back in May. I decided to upload the .pdf file in Scribd before I totally lose a copy. I'm also embedding it here so those who need it can easily download and print from Scribd.

Rap has been having private piano lessons at home since June. I'm so happy to see a huge improvement in his piano playing and I feel that the money we spent in buying him a new electric keyboard and paying his teacher is all worth it. He can now play Bach's "Minuet" perfectly.