Charmed Life of a Mrs Archives | Page 39 of 98

Christmas at Home

29 December 2010 Ibyang Sanchez 3 Comments Category: Charmed Life of a Mrs, Cherished Memories

I’m really not that ready for Christmas this year. I have to admit that for the first time in my life, I’m not feeling the spirit much. If I had to choose, I’d skip it this year. I’d go away and be on vacation and come back after the New Year. The culprit, you might ask? My work. Not that I want to blame my work. I thought the month of December would bring me a bit of peace at the office, a bit of breathing space but nooooo. Work turned out to be more demanding as we closed down for the year. *sigh*.

Anyway, enough of that. The 24th of December marked my last day at work. My Husband and I made a pact that we will meet for lunch no matter what happens. As a young family of two, we make sure that we have our own traditions when it comes to occasions such as these. We believe it is good practice to have these traditions when we have little ones to celebrate occasions with.

It is tradition that we celebrate the start of Christmas on Christmas Eve lunch til after the New Year. We are on vacation leave on the week between Christmas and New Year. We only go back to work on the first working day of January.

We get off work early (half-day off) on the 24th to have lunch. This year, lunch was at the Chefs Gallery. After our sumptuous meal, we hung out in the city and used the time to do some last minute Christmas shopping.

We got home late in the afternoon. I was really exhausted but the spirit of Christmas suddenly crept in on me and thought I should at least prepare a little something for Noche Buena.

Christmas Eve dinner is usually spent with our relatives but they are currently having a white Christmas in America so this year, we had a quiet celebration.

At 10:00pm, the table was set and food was ready. We didn’t wait for midnight as I didn’t want to sleep late.

I just prepared a simple pasta dish and fruit salad for dessert. We had leftovers of roasted chicken from dinner the other night and voila! Instant Noche Buena for two.

There were no surprise gifts from both of us these year because we already gave our Christmas gifts to each other weeks ago. We however opened gifts from thoughtful loved ones after our Noche Buena.

Gift or no gift, we are grateful that we have special people who are great blessings to us. Their love and friendship are more than enough not just this season of love and giving but throughout the year.

On Christmas day, we just attended mass in the morning and spent the whole afternoon sleeping. We finally got our well-deserved rest.

How was your Christmas?

Some Things I Finally Got Around To Doing

29 November 2010 Ibyang Sanchez 6 Comments Category: Charmed Life of a Mrs, Food, Great Finds for the Home, The Married Life

Do you sometimes have things you really need to do or buy but put them off just because you’re busy? Who doesn’t, right? If you are a wife that work and manage a home and at the same time have no household help, your lists of “to-do” get longer if when your schedule gets pretty hectic.

I’m grateful that for the past months, the Husband has been very supportive of my busy workload at the office. Some weekends, he does the groceries alone so I can stay home and have more time to rest. Sometimes he does all my errands just so I can have more time to finish my deadlines.

These past three weekends, I decided to allot time for some some serious shopping. Although, I have started buying Christmas gifts since June, it’s about time to finish up my list and start wrapping up presents as we will be attending parties soon. Plus, there are stuff for the home that needed to be bought or replaced (thank goodness for the Husband that take note of things like these right now!).

Replace bottle stoppers. We realized of late that our bottle stoppers are of unreliable quality so when we found these bottle stoppers on sale, we bought them.

Replace Tefal Non-Stick Pans. We’ve used our Tefal Non-Stick Pans for two years and it’s about time we buy new ones. The non-stick coat of our old ones had already dissociate (not good to use anymore) so we had to replace them.

Buy Pasta Bowls. Finally!!!! I’ve been meaning to buy pasta bowls for like forever, I finally remembered to buy a few pieces. We always have pasta once or twice a week so for three weeks now, we are now eating pasta dishes in proper dining ware.

Cook Fettuccine Carbonara. As a way of saying “thank you!” to my Husband’s for being my angel during my rough and tough days, the first pasta I cooked for when we used our pasta bowls was his favorite. I love pasta in red sauces but I try to have a balance between cooking pasta in red and white sauces.

Sort out our Winter and Summer clothes. At the start of November, we allot an hour or two every weekend just to sort out our wardrobe. This is also the time of the year when we give out clothes to charity so some clothes we choose are to be given away. I’ve taken out some of our summer clothes and put away the winter clothes. This takes time so I do it phase by phase, and we finish this task by the end of December (because some weeks in December we don’t really have time to do it).

I still have a few more things to do but I sure feel real good when I have some things ticked off my list.

What are some things you have got around to doing lately?

Spring’s Sunset

24 November 2010 Ibyang Sanchez 6 Comments Category: Charmed Life of a Mrs, Photography

Summer is nearly here and Sydney Weather is becoming warmer by the day. Although one can feel a cool breeze during mornings and night time , it can be pretty hot during midday til late afternoon. Sunny but cool days–how I wish we have days like these all the time. If I can choose one season for a whole year, I’d chose Spring!

What I love about this warm Sydney Weather is that it produces spectacular sunsets in the afternoon. Last week, we were fortunate to come home to a welcoming sunset view. Beautiful hues of pink and yellow as we looked out our balcony.

And as the sunset comes to an end, stronger hues come to life. Pink and yellow turned to different shades of orange.

Some things in life are constant. Although the Sydney Weather Forecast can sometimes be unpredictable, when the sun is out during the day, I know I’ll come home and find a beautiful sunset show outside our balcony.

Some Wednesdays Spent With Coffee

17 November 2010 Ibyang Sanchez 8 Comments Category: Charmed Life of a Mrs, Deep Thoughts, Health and Well-being

Some Wednesdays I give myself a treat. I get out of work “earlier than early” and I go to a cafe and order a cuppa. Sometimes I call a friend of mine to join me. Sometimes one of my friends will find me sipping my cuppa inside the cafe and he or she will join me. Sometimes I am alone reading an e-book or watching people pass by as I savour my coffee.

I stay there for an hour…an hour and a half tops. Then my Husband will drop by to pick me up and we will go home together.

An hour of good coffee in the middle of the week. A rejuvenating moment to give me some respite on a busy week.

I sometimes have my affair with coffee on Wednesdays because I don’t want to wait for my “me” time on Friday. I don’t NEED to wait.

What about you? What reward do you give yourself on a hump day?

Movie Date with My Girls: Eat Pray Love

14 November 2010 Ibyang Sanchez 3 Comments Category: Charmed Life of a Mrs, Entertainment

From organizing get-togethers, dinners and coffee dates, my girlfriends and I watch chick flicks together too. At this point of our lives, it’s a blessing to find time to do this activity. The tricky part is always with the movie schedule wherein we really have to be there on time so we had to work our schedules around it.

We’ve seen Sex & the City 2 a couple of months ago and then last month, EAT PRAY LOVE was finally shown so we trooped to the cinemas and watched it together. Some of us have read the book and for the others who haven’t, they just looked forward to seeing it.

We all enjoyed it. It’s not spectacular or anything but it was a “feel good” movie where possibly a lot of women are able to relate to Elizabeth’s story. We walked out of the cinema feeling happy and relaxed–it’s as if we all had our “me” time only we shared the moment together.

And when we have get-togethers such as these, My Husband and little Jiona (our friends’ daughter) will always have their play time. After hanging out, my Husband will always have some photographs of them like these….

Isn’t it cute???? I just want to share these because I was so amused when I saw them. Jiona is at that stage where she can already mimic what you are doing, she’s so smart and cute in front of the camera.

Seeing this movie come to life on the big screen is a dream come true for me. Although the movie never showed some important bits and more substantial parts of Liz Gilbert’s book I’m glad that somehow the movie showed her journey to finding herself, balance and love. I love her Italy trip the best from all the three countries that she visited.

Some quotes from the movie that I like:

“Balance is not letting anyone love you less than you love yourself.”

“I want to go some place where I can marvel at something.”

Liz Gilbert: I’m sick of people telling me that I need a man.
Felipe: You don’t need a man, Liz. You need a champion.

“We call it “dolce far niente”, the sweetness of doing nothing.”

‎”The resting place of the mind is the heart. The only thing the mind hears all day is clanging bells and noise and argument, and all it wants is quietude. The only place the mind will ever find peace is inside the silence of the heart. That’s where you need to go.”

“Ruin is a gift. Ruin is the road to transformation.”

After the book “Eat Pray Love“, Elizabeth Gilbert wrote another book entitled “Committed” which tells the dramatic journey of Liz and Felipe to saying “I do.”