This Rugged JoyFull Home

Saturday eight o'clock in the morning, clear skies and a bit humid already. But here in the Philippines, this kind of weather had been God's answer to many Filipinos' desperate prayer for sunshine and dry ground as the country experienced almost two-weeks of non-stop rains. And although we are located in a city province which was not hardly hit by the monsoon rains, we felt for those Metro Manila residents whose homes and streets where inundated by tons and tons of garbage at the onslaught of this week's heavy downpour. So, waking up this morning to see my daughter taking photos and videos of her latest Saturday fun-time activity had been a clear indication that we're expecting a fine sunny weekend. My daughter's contagious smile and the smell of freshly cooked rice greeted me as I stepped out of the veranda. So her headline goes that she was able to cook rice in her new set of miniature clay pots successfully and her matching earthen kalan worked just as go...

A Little History Pinoys have always been rice-eaters dating back to centuries ago long before the Spanish colonizers came to our shores. Early settlers from Taiwan migrated here and built the Banaue Rice Terraces in Ifugao Province, Cordillera Region. With impressive engineering plan, it was believed to be built with our ancestors' bare hands. Our Hagdan-hagdang Palayan is proof that rice had since been a major part of our daily commodities. To this day, it continues to supply our country with rice and other agricultural crops. UNESCO has named it the 8th Wonders of the World. Have you heard about the “UNLIMITED RICE” promo being offered at our food chains lately? Our food business sector has been very clever in coming up with creative ideas bringing rice at the center of their neck to neck competition for sales. Now, these business establishments really work hard doing their assignment because they figured out a way to address the constant demand for rice, a demand th...

"He who did not withhold or spare [even] His own Son but gave Him up for us all, will He not also with Him freely and graciously give us all [other] things?"   Romans 8:32 Amplified Bible This early, I have encouraged my children to start writing down their Christmas wish-lists already! Their beaming faces lit up our gloomy kitchen that rainy afternoon. I was quick to reiterate though that it is just a wish-list and a wish-list is just a wish-list. But the thought of this stirs us up because we know that as a family it is something far more than just a list of things. The activity itself is an integral part of our exciting homeschool journey and our commitment as their parents to make God known to them and teach them about trusting Him. Time seems to fly around here, this photo was taken 2 yrs ago. As I've always said, we encourage our kids to be inventive and creative with their toys. We love it when it's low maintenance. This big brown box served as ...

I had to tame myself at the sight of this package of pretzels neatly tucked in my pantry. It is salty, it is screaming with tons of calories! The label says, "CRISPS, thin, and crunchy...parmesan" to add to my agony. And it also tasted oh so good for the begging hormones. Well, a few nibbles won't hurt for a late afternoon snack. "COCO JAM Made in Oriental Mindoro,Philippines," says the label in bold letters. With that on cue, I finally gave in and let inventiveness take its course in my journey to a fusion of afternoon delight. I'm calling it a marriage between the West and the East, my pretzel crisps dipped in silky-caramelized coco jam; something salty and something sweet, something so European and yet so Oriental. And I was all swept away in blissful wonder as the two contrasting flavors blended beautifully in my mouth. Now, for my coco jam rant. How it's made the old-fashioned way. Coconut is t he main ingredient of this kind of jam. For the sw...

About.com defines t actile or kinesthetic learners as those who learn through experiencing or doing things. For this reason, tactile learners may become bored more quickly than other students while listening to a class lecture.   My 6 year-old boy fits right in this learning style and it may sound a bit tangent but he is also a big fan of Angry Birds.  More often, he finds it quite a challenge to sit down for longer periods of  time to accomplish a worksheet. Learning a new concept is another story.  Take our Math lesson for one about ODD and EVEN numbers.  What to do with this poor lil boy whose wired at learning outside the box, that is, outside your conventional tools for learning like textbooks, pencil, paper, chalkboard. One morning, he came up with this brilliant idea of how to easily remember the odd and even numbers. Now, I'm pretty sure that most teaching Moms like me encounter the same predicament with their kids; making them remember their left ...

This was one of those moments when I had to run at the feet of Jesus for words of comfort, soothing words for the tired soul. Homeschooling two young kids could at times take its toll on you. I mean, school is not what we do 8 hours a day, but it could get tough at times.  So, this was just one among those times when a little creativity, my love for photography and print would just jump off out of me, God's way of telling me that He is in control of everything. And my goal was to encourage and remind myself that, "hey, you're doing well, you're doing just fine, stop being anxious, God is in control." "THRIVING NOT JUST SURVIVING," my daughter saw this printed on the cover of my personal ring-binder seating nicely on our family table over lunch time. This was a cover design I have just printed the night before, my girl remarked in a nonchalant manner, "Mommy, we are a shrimp family." I chuckled, I asked her to repeat what she said, althou...

"The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to ignite." Plutarch I was talking to my older brother about how surprised we were that my lil 5 y/o boy learned how to read on his own in three weeks' time with our erratic schedule at school. I remember spending barely 3 weeks with him, 30 minutes a day, just orally reciting the alphabets and their corresponding sounds and in no time he started reading phonetically and with good comprehension.    Happy for what he has heard, my brother said, "that's quantum leap learning..." What's that again? quantum leap learning? I kept repeating those words to myself a few more times. I was reminded of the 80's TV series that my siblings and I used to watch which starred Scott Bacula. But that's a totally different story. I googled a bit about quantum leap learning and here's what the internet says it is: "quantum leap, a noun, an abrupt change, sudden increase, or dramatic advance" Tha...