My nephew, C, was one happy boy when his Christmas wish came true.  It was Christmas Eve when he opened all his gifts and found a huge box with a Transformer Devastator in it.  Imagine the delight in his eyes!  Even if it as expensive as a ps3, seeing him so happy made it so worth it.  I’m pretty sure last Christmas is one that he will always remember.

In my husband’s desire to help me with my weight lose issue, he proposed that we invest in a small but effective exercise equipment.  I was intially okay with it but realized that at this point in time, we might end up not using it because of lack of time.  The only down time we have of late is when the kids are sleeping at night and by then we still have some evening chores to complete.  Ah, the luxury of time..

Instead of becoming a slave to dieting, I thought of changing my mindset and start embracing how I look now.  It’s not that bad really.  Although I still feel sad not being able to wear my size zero clothes anymore, I realized that I have to be realistic that I can’t lose 10 pounds in a flick of a finger!  Especially so that I have to keep healthy nowadays to be able to cope with caring for two young kids.  So it’s a big NO to crash dieting and NO even to the best diet pills out there.

I was teasing my husband the other day when I told him that what I’ll miss once we are in our home country during the holidays is my iMac.  I’ll be bringing with me my old laptop and I have to lower my standards when it comes to processor speed and memory space.  But of course, bringing my Dell laptop is better than not having my own computer to use back home.  I just need a flash drive to hold important files that I need to bring with me and a new mouse and mouse pad.

We’re supposed to buy a luggage last month but opted not to when we were surprised to find out how expensive they were, and they’re not even the branded kind.  We’ll make use of what we have and replace the old luggage that we have in Manila.  The price of a branded luggage, like Eagle Creek luggage, costs at least half of the price of what the generic brand they sell here.  Geesh.

If I could find a good franchise opportunity that we can afford to finance, I would rather grab that chance that go back to the workforce.  Unfortunately, putting up a business is not as easy as getting a job and the responsibilities entailed are far greater.  But this will be worth a re-look, once the timing is right for me to work again.

It’s the time of year for us when we receive mailers from our insurance companies to renew or add options to our current policies.  These mails often come with additional insurance quotes for other coverage/discounts that they offer.  Of course, we just keep the documents we need and throw away the marketing stuff.  I wonder though if these companies would consider putting their marketing/PR gimmicks online and not waste precious trees!  Sigh.

I have started preparing my checklist for our trip to our home country next month.  It is a pretty daunting task to prepare for this trip because it will be the first time that I’ll be traveling with my two kids.  So far, I have booked and paid for the tickets, which by the way does not include travel health insurance.  The travel agent I spoke with asked me if I wanted to consider getting one but we never did in the past, so I guess we’ll keep it that way.  The next thing to do is to shop for the gifts and personal stuff we need to bring home and the rest are all the nitty-gritty stuff like sorting and packing.  But despite the busyness this trip brings, I’m uber excited to be home again!

With the love-hate relationship that I have with our current apartment, I started checking out potential rentals over the Internet today.  See, there are a lot of things that I love about the house that we are renting right now and just one thing that I “hate” about it, and that is, the carpet.  With two young kids who have allergies, keeping the whole house clean is a very taxing, round-the-clock duty.  Imagine adding the vacuuming bit several times a week?

Anyway, there is not a lot of apartment options for us right now as I’ve earlier checked.  And thinking about the actual move and all the logistics involved just might be too much for us at this point in time.  Renting a truck (a small one without truck accessories would do) is the easiest task that I could think of!  So for now,  I will brush aside my “concerns” until probably mid-next year!

Our vacation trip back home is just a little over a month away.  Yey!  And apart from taking care of the travel logistics, I am also thinking of ways to get back in shape.  Aside from missing my pre-pregnancy clothes, it has become more physically challenging to cope with the demands of two very young kids.  But hey, I’m not complaining.  There is so much joy in seeing your kids grow.  But in order for me to keep up with their needs, I need to keep fit and healthy without the help of slimming pills.  So, the answer is — exercise!  I hope to get on with this soon as I’m “desperate” to lose weight — fast!