Kutitots

Gardening

11 March 2014 • Comments Off

Yey! I’m finally able to blog again. Thanks to my hubby, Marc, for sorting out my uploading problem. I didn’t have the time to fix the server permissions on my blog. Lucky for me, I have a husband who loved me enough to fix my server configurations during his free time! Okay, so maybe “because he loved me” is stretching it a bit. It’s more likely that he’s finding my lack of updates a waste of domain name registration payment. Either way, I’m thankful 😛

So, what have I been up to the past year? Aside from the usual “busy with work” thing, Marc and I found a new hobby together: Gardening!

My Garden

To be honest, I never really considered myself having a green thumb. I tried to grow a rose bush during the first year of my marriage, but it was beyond fail. It didn’t even last a week before it withered and died. My next attempt was a basil plant, but somehow I totally forgot about it and left the poor thing to die. You can understand why I was so hesitant when Marc decided to buy our first plant to grow together. It was another basil plant. I tried to dissuade him from buying — I didn’t want to be a serial basil plant killer! Read more

Awakening of the hibernating book worm

5 September 2012 • Comments Off

Daily Dose Family Stuff

I was around 7 years old when I first learned to read. I wasn’t exactly the quickest learner — my classmates in the first grade were long into reading more complex sentences before I could even string two words together. But my late grandma was patient, she taught me to read diligently. It wasn’t long before I fell in love with reading.

As embarrassing as it is for me to admit, I got addicted to the Francine Pascal’s Sweet Valley series. Love Stories. Nancy Drew. Christopher Pike. A few classics like Tess of the D’Urbervilles, The Little Prince, When Worlds Collide, The Joy Luck Club, Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and my all-time favorite: To Kill a Mockingbird.

I probably amassed quite a collection of books back then, but lost most when we moved. I didn’t read much when I started working (at a call center for 6 months, then eventually to having my own home business), until I got hooked on Harry Potter. I probably bought only a few other books besides that series for the past five years, but the need to keep sane from the all the work deadlines lured me back to reading. I was starting to amass another book collection when my husband Marc finally got fed up seeing my books everywhere, and got me my own book cabinet 🙂 Read more

How’s your spending?

28 April 2012 • Comments Off

Daily Dose

Well, mine sucks.

My husband Marc recently brought me along to a meeting with our accountant who handles the accounting of both our business and personal finances. As it turns out, our business books are ok — although our accountant suggested we should price our services a bit higher. But the personal? Ha. Bottom line, we “seemed” to spend a lot.

The sad thing about it is that we technically don’t. And when I say “technically,” I mean that me and Marc usually just spend on basic needs and utilities with the occasional movie date or two. I don’t spend on clothes (as I’m rarely out of the home office anyway), and Marc, being a typical guy, doesn’t as well. We don’t buy gadgets that we don’t need for work. So why the awful finances?

Two words: CREDIT CARD.

I’m really, really starting to hate those words. Seriously. Read more

Finally, a new blog theme!

26 March 2012 • Comments Off

Tech Things

I was planning to launch this new theme last February 14, but life (and work) happened. In case you’re wondering, I haven’t turned sappy and decided February 14 was such a romantic day it deserved a blog theme launch. Valentine’s Day happened to be the day I bought the Kutitots.Com domain, and saved myself from living with a totally disgusting domain such as pataynadaga.com (can you believe I actually considered that for a blog name? Gah, I surprise myself sometimes).

So what brought about the new theme? Nothing much. The old one was just really — well, old. I grew tired of it. Unfortunately, the web designer side of me trumped the blogger side — I just couldn’t bring myself to blog when I thought my layout was already fugly.

Does that mean I’ll be blogging more? Well, maybe. It took me around two months of almost-regular blogging on the recently-revamped Pinoy Dog-Lover before I got distracted with other things again (ie. work). I guess we’ll just have to wait and see 🙂

Got a few kinks to polish in this new theme. I’ve also kept the design as simple as possible, but hopefully it’ll take a while before I get tired of it again.

Help CDO and Iligan recover: Donate now!

20 December 2011 • Comments Off

Daily Dose

It’s really sad this had to happen just before Christmas. While we all ready ourselves for a festive Noche Buena, our brothers and sisters in Cagayan De Oro and Iligan are left homeless and some are even missing. A lot of families are torn apart. Some are lucky to be rescued, but others have already been lost to sea.

My family had been affected by 2009’s wrathful typhoon Ondoy (Ketsana). We lost a lot of treasured belongings. Our bungalow was a wreck. Worst of all, we lost a lot of canine friends who passed on one by one from drinking flood water. But we’re still very lucky. We survived, and we eventually recovered.

They say Sendong is worse than Ondoy — the death toll just keep on rising. For someone who still freaks out at the sight of rising flood water, I can say without bias that what happened to my family is not even the tip of the iceberg for those who lost their families and homes to Sendong.

Let’s help the survivors of CDO and Iligan recover. Details here.

For Metro Manila residents, you can send donations through LBC Foundation. That’s what we’re doing.

See? Even my dog Shantee is helping pack stuff for the survivors 🙂

For AJ

9 September 2011 • 6 Comments

Daily Dose

I was planning to write a long memorial for my blogger friend, AJ Matela, but I couldn’t. One post just couldn’t do it justice.

Thank you for all the memories, badet. I will never forget you, and how you always gave me stomach gas from all the laughter and bitch moments we shared. I will miss you, but I’m also glad you’re at peace and free of pain. I’m sure you’re now teaching those angels up there how to party, and chasing unicorns so you can finally have one of your own.

From now on, every time I see a rainbow, I’ll think of it as you checking up on us (pwede ba namang mahuli ang badet sa chismax?!). You are now my Rainbow Brite. Farewell, my friend.

** AJ’s family needs assistance. Please visit 1000 Volunteers for AJ to find out how you can help.

My new Smurf companions

2 September 2011 • Comments Off

Daily Dose Family Stuff

I didn’t have a totally “tomboy” childhood. I loved Voltron, but I liked cute cartoons too. The Smurfs is one of them.

It was quite lame watching The Smurfs for a Friday night date with my husband — far from romantic — but hey, it’s not often those little blue creatures get to be on a live action flick. Besides, it just goes to show how much my husband loves me — he endured an hour and a half of cuteness! 😀

Aside from our yaya who reveled in those quiet moments I’m glued to the TV, my sister also spent a lot of time watching cartoons with me as soon as she was old enough to. The Smurfs was one of our favorites cartoons.

I learned about the Smurf toys being included in McDonald’s Happy Meal from my sister. I made it a point to collect every one of them, with the main obstacle being: I rarely eat fast food nowadays. I haven’t had a burger in almost a year, and the most I’ve bought from McDonald’s are chicken nuggets and fries. But my family likes fast food. And that made collecting all eight toys possible.

The toys are now displayed beside my work computer. They’re quite a relief to see whenever the going gets tough at work (so cute!). But best of all, they’re a welcoming reminder of how my family — my husband, mom, dad, and sister — all made an effort to get Happy Meals instead of their usual orders for the past few weeks just to let me have my Smurfs. 🙂

Blast from the past: Voltron Force

19 August 2011 • 2 Comments

Daily Dose

Work had been so draining lately… It seems like I can’t even find the time to even think of anything not work-related. So while waiting for a client to send me feedback on a project we’re working on, I’m going to spend these precious break hours to write about something totally un-work-related: Lion Voltron! 🙂

I’ve always been a Voltron fan girl. I used to spend afternoons glued to the television hoping for the Voltron Lion Force to air (I hated the Vehicle Voltron, it had too many crew members and the storyline didn’t appeal much to little kid me), while my yaya made use of these moments to breath and relax after a whole day of chasing me around. It was a show I really, really looked forward to — it was such a favorite that I remember putting on the manipulative kiddie charms on my Dad just so he’d buy me my own copy of the show’s video tape.

You can just imagine my elation when I found out that NickToons will be doing a reboot of the show. I’ve been following the plot summaries on the Voltron forums and watching episode teasers in YouTube for weeks now… And so far, I’ve been liking the new series. I’m not that crazy about Voltron to try and reconfigure my iMac so I’d be able to watch it on the Nicktoons website. After all, I did wait for a new Voltron for more than 20 years… I think I can handle waiting for it to come out on DVD 🙂 Read more

Globe Run for Home 2011: Run for YOUR home, the earth, through Haribon Foundation

18 March 2011 • Comments Off

Daily Dose

A year ago, we had Ondoy. 2011 had just began, and we already have two natural disasters that shook the world: the New Zealand earthquake, and the Japan quake and tsunami. Nature is unleashing its fury. The weather is also becoming so unpredictable that you start to wonder that maybe, the Mayans were right.

I guess that’s probably why movements on natural resources conservation have been gaining popularity. People are finally beginning to realize the importance of taking care of the world we live in, and conserving our resources that are slowly drying out. The Haribon Foundation for the Conservation of Natural Resources (or Haribon Foundation for short) have long stood and fought for this. They’re an organization dedicated to the conservation of Philippine biodiversity, aiming to build a constituency for environmental issues that will prioritize conservation actions on habitats and sites, based on solid, scientific and socio-economic research.

This year, Haribon Foundation is one of the four beneficiaries of Globe Run for Home, a yearly running event organized by Globe to raise funds for charity. I’ve always supported this run since its first-ever event, and I’m really glad they included Haribon Foundation — an organization I’ve long considered to be the “nature heroes” of the Philippines. Read more

Little miracles, everyday heroes

1 March 2011 • Comments Off

Daily Dose

Another hiatus… I didn’t even get to wish you all a happy New Year. Sorry about that. Aside from being perpetually busy, I have a lot in my mind.

Times have changed so much that sometimes I can’t help but wonder if any “traditional Filipino value” is still alive. Being born and raised in the city, it’s hard not to wonder. Just tune in to the evening news and you’ll see what I mean. So many have changed that I’ve learned not to expect much from anybody anymore.

I’ve always wanted to believe the best in people, giving them the benefit of the doubt… But unfortunately, there really are those who would take advantage of that. There are also very few people I know who’d do things for others just because they wanted to help, not asking for anything in return.

We’re in trying times, that’s true, and I fully understand that people are just looking out for their selves. But sometimes, we still hear reports of regular people turned heroes — people who placed another person’s welfare above his own. Little miracles like that gives hope — that maybe, it’s not so bad to still believe in the best of people.

I’d like to start off 2011 in this blog with two of my own stories to tell, of the heroes I’ve met in just a span of two months. Read more