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Kefir — Loads of Good Bacteria

It has been a while since I blogged about kefir so I thought it was good to talk about it again. Are you asking: What is kefir? That was my very first question when my friend asked if I wanted some.

In my very first post on kefir, I recounted how Vera gave me my very first culture — rich in good bacteria for the digestive tract. I learned how easy it was to make my own kefir using simple, everyday paraphernalia.

Since February 2007, I have been culturing my own kefir at home and everyone in the family drinks the liquid. When kefir has multiplied in mass to more than what you need for your family, you can either eat some of the solid flora as is, incorporate them into food you can make with kefir as an ingredient, or divide them into more batches to give away to friends. Leftover kefir stuck to the coffee filter can be scraped and used as a great facial mask. Continue reading “Kefir — Loads of Good Bacteria”

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A Rant About Braces

I can’t wait for my adult braces to come off!

Summer last year, I went to an ortho friend just to have her check (for vanity more than anything else) if I could have my teeth aligned. She made me go for a panoramic X-ray which showed that I had no choice but to wear braces because I had TMJ Syndrome (TMJ stands for Temporo-Mandibular Joint). My jaws were not aligned (which was why I often experienced the clicking of my jaws when I open my mouth) and it was just a matter of time before I would start experiencing pain if I did not get the braces. So there…

But after a year of wearing them, it does get tiring and inconvenient. I’ve experienced the following so far:

🙁 smiling and looking like the female version of “Jaws”

🙁 wishing I was good enough with Adobe Photoshop to “photoshop” away the braces from all my photos

🙁 feeling like a barbecue with loose wire piercing my cheeks

🙁 running back to ortho every now and then just to have extra wire cut after teeth moved

🙁 having to check the mirror after every meal to find out if food particles are stuck in between the tooth brackets (yuk…gross!!!) — can you imagine trying to find a decent and clean ladies room whenever you’re out of the house?

🙁 not leaving home without my dental kit (wax, mini interdental brushes, toothbrush, toothpaste) — tell me, how do you stick all these into a teeny-weeny formal bag at a wedding?

🙁 doing without food that stick to teeth, too hard to chew, too crunchy (no more chicharon, nuts, etc.)

🙁 having a crown break on me, causing trauma to gums, going on soft diet while infection is being treated with antibiotics (this is me now!)

Sigh! I know that patience will pay off in the end. And my ortho friend is so very patient with me and is really great at her job. But while I am still in this situation, there are just days when I feel like ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

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Andy Capp – Humorous Reality

One of my favorite comic strips is Andy Capp. Andy and his wife Florrie live in Northeast England. Andy is unemployed and terribly unmotivated to do anything but go to the pub or just lie around the house. This is looked upon with disdain by Flo and this is evident in their repartee.Andy Capp

The wry humor in these strips show a somewhat negative view of their marital state but surprisingly, it is well received by the international comic readership. This series has in fact been translated into 13 or 14 different languages. While the setting is very much England, the character represented by Andy is oftentimes portrayed in Pinoy movies where the supposed man of the house is jobless while his wife has to do everything at home PLUS go to work. Come to think of it, this kind of marital setup can be found in many other countries as well! Continue reading “Andy Capp – Humorous Reality”

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I Just Voted — Part 2

The rains did not come and I got my daughter C2 to tag along for company (with the promise of coffee at the nearby coffee shop afterwards) so off to the school we went to get a feel of the canvassing. She was not yet qualified to vote but I wanted her to experience a part of the entire electoral process.

We got to the school just as the different precincts were setting up for canvassing. By this time, the crowds had thinned out and I think we were one of the few “usiseras” inside (all the others were wearing IDs and tags identifying them as poll watchers of this or that party).

So, we just walked around and observed. I was happy to find some friends at our precinct area (they were PPRCV volunteers). C2 was excited to see how the counting was progressing. A COMELEC person would be holding out a ballot in view of the poll watchers while calling out the names slowly; another person would be putting sticks beside the corresponding names. Continue reading “I Just Voted — Part 2”

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I Just Voted!

I know, I know….I said I normally do not blog about politics. But exercising one’s right to elect the RIGHT people to try and RIGHT what is WRONG in this country was so important to me that I just had to blog about it (with photos to boot!).

It seems so easy to just shrug our shoulders and say “What’s the point?”….

It is even more discouraging to see hardly any new names in the choices — just the same old trapos (traditional politicians) — who make promises written on water…..

It is frustrating to see the blatant corruption that mark all past elections (this one included), where vote-buying in the guise of insurance cards, membership cards and the like are used (and COMELEC actually rules that these are NOT in violation of the Elections Code)

It angers one to see legitimate party-lists being harassed with threats of disqualification while obviously vested NEW party-lists are easily accredited with qualification rules being “bent” to accommodate them.

YES, any of the above were good reasons for me NOT to vote.

BUT I DID.

And you know why? Continue reading “I Just Voted!”

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A Book That Could Save a Relationship

If ever there is a book that will save many a marriage or relationship (and make you laugh while reading it), THIS IS IT — “Why Men Don’t Listen & Women Can’t Read Maps”. My feet were killing me at a mall while I waited for hubby to pick me up, so I dodged into the bookstore and ended up buying this one.

I had read “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus” and it was good, intellectual reading — that is, if you got to finish reading it from cover to cover. This book, authored by Allan & Barbara Pease, may be a very simplified version of the Venus-Mars one but it does play up so many of the irritants that can crop up between a man and a woman and gives a logical explanation to them — that when it comes down to the nitty-gritty of things, men and women are indeed WIRED DIFFERENTLY and, in the authors’ words, “the way our brains are wired and the hormones pulsing through our bodies are the two factors that largely dictate, long before we are born, how we will think and behave. Our instincts are simply our genes determining how our bodies will behave in given sets of circumstances.” Continue reading “A Book That Could Save a Relationship”