Live Well Laugh Often Love Much

Sushi has quite a collection of baseball souvenirs, which I thought would be nice to hang up in his room. I just randomly put them up frame after frame.  But I ended up with big blank spaces. And then I saw these Live well Laugh often Love always decal from - you'll never guess - Dollarama. For only a dollar, you can't go wrong. I have just recently pointed that quote out to Sushi, so he thought I took it from the restaurant we saw it from.  Although this was intended for another room, it found a better home in my boy's room.  Think, space fillers.  It's also something my boys could live by beneath the craziness for baseball and other things.

 

 

Insta-Life

Mr. Hotpot surprised me with a Keurig machine on Valentines. Not that I'm a coffee drinker, but at least now I can make better coffee not from 3-in-1s.

 

This is not the most exciting thing to do, but I wanted to be screened for colon cancer. When I told my family physician, she was like "you're not even 50 yet." But I insist.  I'm not a doctor, but I think this is the first step.

 

Lindor is my favourite chocolate.  And cookies & cream are the best!

 

Do you take photos inside the store?  I wanted to see if this will make the cut in our house. It's from my favourite home store, Home Sense.  It's right beside where Sushi goes for Karate class.   That is so dangerous!

 

Another one from Wicker Emporium, what didn't make the cut.

 

My mom brought this sungka (mancala game) all the way from Manila.  If not being played with, it is my tea light holder. 

 

No place like... IKEA.  My source of design inspiration.  This is Pinteresting for my TV room.

 

Joe's Plantain chips.  I'm going back for more to hoard!

 

Please stop snowing.

 

 

From our Home to Yours

Letting Go

I just took down the decal I have so meticulously put up on Sashimi's room.  Boohoo.  Thought I would be leaving some of my personal touches in the sale of our home. But our agent doesn't agree. Toink!

I'm letting go. It's gone anyway.

Or maybe not...

There it goes until I bury it for good.

Who's in Charge?

I recall how my Dad, at the end of our wedding reception, had told my then new husband, “you are now in charge of her.” Although it’s been 10 years, his words ‘til now so vivid and indelible.

On my very first attempt to cook in our then new home. I plugged my 110V rice cooker to a 220V outlet. My brand new rice cooker got fried in an instant. Mr. Hotpot came home from work with no dinner and a crying new wife.  Since he’s now in charge, we just ate out.

This is one of the first memories we’ve made back then in this new home. Where Dad's no longer in charge. We are. We made no big investment for what will house us for a year (we knew we were migrating), but no details were spared in making this flat our home.

It looked so youthful, it speaks of the age =]

My Hello Kitty collection needed a home.  Kind hub had no objections to it.  Or so I thought.

This is a working kitchen. But it was barely used. We are at either parents’ house most times, or the restaurant we owned, or out.  All the utensils are now here with me. Used and abused.

10 years younger... lol.  Hooray to king-sized bed in a studio type.

I designed the vanity down to the table and plastic baskets.  Carpenters were very accessible back home. And cheap.

The closet divides the sleeping and living area. It was built with IKEA's PAX wardrobe features. We don't have IKEA back there, but its catalogue has been my bible for as long as I can remember.

I have fond memories of this home.  Running the treadmill in the afternoons. Pizza dinner at the rooftop.  Swimming in the cold cold pool.  Basking in the citylights at night.  Watching fireworks.  Big bro sleeping over.  BIL bringing his date to the rooftop.  The simplicity of life we had then. No kids. Just us.

It's our first home away from home.  And we were in charge.

K'nex Christmas Tree

When we came back from our vacation, it’s like Boom! It’s Christmas already?! I normally would have all Christmas presents wrapped and put under tree early in the month. But not this year.

We decided not to put our tree up.   We didn't know then how long it will take us to recover from jetlag and get back to the routine. Hub just didn't feel like it =[ This photo is last year.

So I built this little tree out of the kids’ K'nex. Well, this K'nex was really mine from 19-forgotten. I was only able to bring it here (finally!) on this recent trip. Forgive the tree, I didn’t have any diagram to follow. I built it from scratch. My gifts are piling slowly and they're now dwarfing the tree.

So this is our only indoor holiday decor. We’ll make it up next year.

Happy holidays!