Meet Our Cockateil Bird

Meet out cockateil bird. He been with us for several years already. As im writing this blog post right now, he is standing in my shoulder next to my ear doing his little loud whistles, next to my ear? (yup, common birdie bird...) We are powerwashing his cage and giving it some thorough cleaning today. While the cage is drying outside, I decided to let him hang-out in my hand, but he walked all the way to my shoulder and he been in my shoulder for almost an hour now, staying busy making his loud little noises. We normally dont let him out of his cage because we have dogs and we dont know how the dogs will react to the bird being outside the cage, his comfort zone and his safe haven. All we know is that when our dogs are outside, they chase wild birds all the time and try to catch them. Thats why we dont want to take chances and let the dogs hurt our bird.

Here is a video of our Cockateil bird:

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Mixed Emotion With The Rain

For the first time for a long long time here in northern CA (where I am at), we are finally hearing in the NEWS to expect some rain late this week or this coming weekends! It is a mixed emotion for us though because we love the rain, we need the rain so badly here in CA, but at this point, our family is NOT ready for the rain to fall very very soon yet because we removed the rain gutter of our house last summer and planned to replace it before winter, of course. But time flies so fast, before we know it rainy season is already here and our house is not fully ready for it! We are extremely busy doing some works outside to finish some of the unfinish works that we started outside in the previous months that will be a problem during rainy days, which is coming up fast and furious. We only have few days left, and we need to get things ready and done, and get the house ready for the rainy days. grr

Written by JazeVox of www.HonestlyFresh.com
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Please visit my other blogs: www.GardenersLand.com and www.DogsCircle.com www.FiftyStatesTravel.com www.ExpressInStyle.com Hope to see you there too!

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Wrong Turn

It was very funny because we were on a road trying to get home. In one of our usual routes, we normally use the Lowes store sign in the curb as our landmark to turn towards home. Today, we turned too early, two blocks too early, because a Lowes truck with a huge Lowes logo printed in the side of the vehicle was situated in one corner, two blocks before the landmark . Unknowingly, we ended up turning in the road right where the truck was, thinking it was the store sign in the curb...hehe... But in a matter of minutes, we managed to find our way back to the right road again, whew.

Written by JazeVox of www.HonestlyFresh.com
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Not Ready For Changing Season

Here in California, we still have obvious summer days, with triple digits temperature in the weather forecast three (3) days in a row, today, tommorrow and the day after that! I am definitely not looking forward to it because its gonna be too hot to stay out and with the few number of days left for this summer season, I would like more comfortable sunny days to stay outdoors and not have to worry about the rainy days yet. We just bought a new gas barbeque and some outdoor furniture that we bought at cheaper prices because they had been clearance off as ending season sales. And I wish to enjoy them a little bit more before weather gets cold and wet outside. Not a really a good time to complain by having triple digit temperature days because while watching the The Weather Channel and some other telivision NEWS, other parts of the US are having rain and wind these past couple of days. Hurricane Gustav just passed the mid gulf coast the other day that led to more or less two million people to evacuate out of Louisiana, after experiencing a traggic hurricane Katrina three (3) years ago. And this time, hurricane Ike and Hannah are predicted to be going towards the United States as well, particularly in the east coast somewhere around South and/or North Carolinas. Hopefully, as it travel through the atlantic ocean, the hurricane will weaken.

Written by JazeVox of www.HonestlyFresh.com
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Greetings To All Mothers Out There

Today is Mothers Day here in the USA and probably in other parts of the world as well. Although, it is always great to appreciate our unselfish and caring mothers on a daily basis, it is extremely important as well that we celebrate Mothers Day inorder to give them a special day worth celebrating and let them know that we appreciate their motherhood that much and all the things that they have done for us, all the sacrifices, effort and time that they so willingly share with us.

My mother passed away few years ago, and it is not the same to live in this world without having the chance to see or talk to my mother anymore, there is that part in me that will always be missing because she is no longer alive and it is a terrible feeling. But her presence, love, and kindness will always be remembered and cherished in my heart and in my soul. Same goes with my grandmother who was very close to my heart...

Let your mother know that you love and appreciate them. Dont let this opportunity to let them know that you love and appreciate your mother and grandmother pass you by. Happy Mothers Day to all mothers out there!

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Thank Goodness For Washing Machines

I grow up as a kid not using the washing machine for our laundry. We had a washer and dryer but we only occassionally used it for bed sheets and other super heavy fabrics like curtains and sofa covers. But for our everyday clothes, everything was done by hand, that is why it was a heaven sent that every weekend we have a helper for doing the laundry, also known as Labandera, to help us with the loads of clothes to wash. Now that I am married, I have to do the washing for the family. Good thing that washing machines are essential in most household nowadays, that way i dont have to rub every single clothes I wear trying to clean it. I normally dont run the washing machine on a daily basis. In fact, I only do the laundry once a week, usually during the weekends. To save electricity, I always try to accumulate like colors clothings before I run them all at once in the washing machine, that way I dont waste water, electricity, soaps, and time trying to clean few clothes, when I can use almost the same amount for more clothes.

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Melting Milk Chocolate

I am currently blogging, and my hubby just handed me a Hershey Milk Chocolate with Almonds to eat :-P We grabbed a pack of chocolate the other day in the grocery store. When we were eating the chocolate inside the car, we could see how the chocolate was melting so quickly right before our eyes, thats how hot it got here already and its not even summer yet. Its only like yesterday that we had really freezing temperatures, but these days, it gets really hot pretty quickly, specially inside the car, that is why we take every opportunity to take a shaded parking when available, even when its only a speck of shade, every bit of shade helps.

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The Milky Decision

Later today I had a quick run to the supermarket to get a gallon of milk because I just remembered that when I checked the ref last night, we were out of milk. So I had to stop by at the grocery quick to get a gallon of milk. But when I scanned the store refrigerator, i noticed that a gallon of milk is $4.49 while if I buy 2 gallons of milk at the same time, I would get huge discount because it will only cost $5.49 for two, it is like buying the other gallon for only $1.00. But at the same time, I know that I can only fit one gallon of milk in our ref tonight because it is fully loaded with all kind of foods and drinks. I stared at the store ref pondering about which way to go, buy a gallon or two gallons...It sucks when grocery stores make things so difficult huh. Definitely out of proportion to price a gallon for $4.49 and the additional gallon, if you buy two, for only $1.00 for the next gallon. Why not make it simple and spread the savings to everyone, give savings regarless if we buy a gallon, or two or three gallons of milk..

Overall, its not just the price of milk that everyone nowadays are concern of. It is hard to believe that the prices of basic commodoties these days are outrageously high. Here in northern CA, the average price of gas per gallon today is $3.75, shocks, I just hope that we wont be hearing in the news anytime soon about some companies having record breaking profits. I dont exactly know how far you can go with a gallon of gas, if you are using an SUV, probably 7-10 miles per gallon? If only someone can can up with water to power our cars nowadays, wouldnt that be something really cool and neat.

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Multi-tasking

Ladies are best known for their ability to multi-task and they are good at it. I, for one, usually find myself doing so many things all at once. For the past few hours I been extremely busy throwing dirty clothes in the laundry, while cooking dinner for us, at the same time went through the mountful of junk mails coming delivered in our mailbox on a daily basis, and also browse trough some of the magazines that I subscribed. I am quite positive that multi-tasking like this is not a stranger to many ladies out there! We are known to multi-task a lot, and usually we get more things done in record time. The feeling of accomplishing a lot of things on the to-do list is amazing but the process of trying to do everything all at once can sometimes be plain exhausting and stressful, so as a break, I decided to write this post and give myself a break from all the things I been doing and I need done...

Anyone of you done filing your taxes already before the set deadline? If so, i salute you, definitely a wise decision to prepare it early.

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Oven Cleaning Before Baking

I was about to bake the thawed chicken halves when I noticed that the lighting in the oven is already dark with greese residue. So I tried to grab some paper towel, dumped it with some water, and tried scrubbing the interior of the oven. But everything was sticking like a glue, nothing will come out. Good thing that the oven comes with auto-cleaning feature, which make it so easy to clean the whole messy gressy oven thingy. The self-cleaning feature is so easy actually, we just removed all the catch-crumb tray and all the racks, and press the button CLEAN. The oven automatically locked the whole unit until it is done, which is great to avoid anyone from opening the unit accidentally while it is on cleaning cycle and it is extremely hot. The cleaning cycle took around three hours total and all we did was wait for it to be done. As soon as the cleaning was done, the oven interior looked so brand new, no signs any ekky grease, whatsover, just few ashed particles that needed to be wipe off.

After the oven finally cooled off from the self-cleaning process, I started cooking the chicken halves. Instead of using a beaten egg to moisten the chicken meats inorder for the bread crumbs to stick into, I brushed some mayonaise into the chicken meats instead and then sprinkle the meats with bread crumbs. Thirty minutes before the baked chicken would be done, I prepared the Chicken Rice-A-Roni to go with the baked chicken. Everything came out perfect, it was a great meal. Cannot wait to have the same meal in a week or so. I try not to cook the same recipe over and over in successive days because it gets really tiring to eat the same flavor or recipe everyday.

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Heart Pumping Ride After A Great Meal

Yesterday was definitely a mixed emotion for us. We went to our favorite Chinese restautant and ordered a Sweet and Sour Pork and steamed rice for our meal. The food came out great and everything was perfect. We been to the same restaurant a lot, so a lot of the people who work there recognize us by our faces. During our visit yesterday, we were served by a new waiter, whom we never seen before in that restaurant. But he was just as friendly and accomodating as the rest of the crew. When he handed us the change for our bill, my hubby noticed that the waiter gave us $4.00 more! We dont want him to be in trouble with the cashier audit at the end of the day, so we left the $4.00 extra plus the tip for him in the table. We also told him about it before we left the restaurant, so he will be aware, and next time we go there, he wont expect that we are over-the-top tippers :-)

Just as was we pulled out off the driveway of the restaurant and drove to the main road, there was a bumper to bumper traffic. Then the signal changed, and the cars started moving slowly. While waiting for the cars to move, we noticed a guy driver in the turn lane, his car facing the driver side of our car. But obviously he was not aware that we were there in front of him, because as soon as the road in our back was cleared, the guy driver started hitting his gas and driving towards us. We were there right in front of him, thank God that were were able to swing to the other lane very very quickly and safely and move forward at once despite the amount of traffic there was, and managed to avoid from getting hit by the guy car and his absent-minded attitude! It was crazy why he was not aware that our car was right in his front, he only checked the clearance on his right side, not his front, before trying to turn! Grrr.

I guess it was good karma that we were spared from being hit brutally that could easily spin our car, get dinged, and get pushed to all other cars in the road, and could possibly roll us upside down :-( The $4.00 extra that we returned to the waiter, must have saved us from an accident? I guess it is good to put things in this perspective, so more and more people will be encouranged to do good or be honest.

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Grilled Onions For Hamburgers Make Sense

Yesterday, we passed by an In And Out Burger, and we just had to stop there. Its been awhile since we were there last because most of their outlets here in northern CA is not always convenient where we live, so when there is a chance that we saw one of their outlet, it is always hard to pass up, we always take advantage of stopping there. They have really great hamburgers! The one thing i like most about their hamburger is that they add grilled diced onions and thousand island dressing. And their milk shake is one of the best ever, very soft and creamy. So if there is an In And Out Burger where you are and you havent tried them yet, I think you should because I personally think that they have great foods. In addition, my hubby mentioned to me yesterday while we were there that their fresh fries are freshly prepared, peeled and sliced by them, meaning its not from a bag of frozen french fries. Bon Appetit everyone.

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Go Go Go Recently

These past few days, I been averaging only around 4-5 hours sleep per night and its giving me a migraine. My offline life seems to be demanding so much of my times recently, and definitely miss writing a post here in my blog! It is definitely a sign of blog addiction when you are out somewhere, and there are segments of things that I want to write about in my blog, hahaha.

The great part is, I had the opportunities to take photos of things that I encountered these past few days, which is cool, including a little bit of a mad dog, which despite its grumpiness, I still managed to take photos of him because he looks so cute and adorable. I hope to add the photo of that dog tommorow in my www.dogscircle.com blog, so hope that you can stop by there too.

And to all my co-bloggers and fellow bloggers who have pending exchange links requests that I havent had the chance to include in my blogroll, I will do my best to do it as soon as I can, so bear with me, i will take care of it, promise. Its almost nine in the evening now, and just want to say Maayong Gabii (good night) everyone!

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I am Lost In Lost

My hubby and I had been following the telivision series Lost since it first played on tv. But somewhere along the way, I got diverted to watching my favorite reality tv show, The Apprentice, a year before last which caused me to miss a lot of the episodes of Lost that were shown on tv at the same time. So I decided to make it a tradition to buy the dvd pack of Lost seasons every year during Christmas time so that my hubby and I can watch the show together at our own pace with no commercials. So far I bought my hubby all three (3) seasons of Lost, and the fourth season is now being played every week on tv this month. Last wednesday, I started watching the show on tv, and I realized how lost I am in the show already because I only got to see the whole Season 1 of Lost, parts of Season 2 and very few of Season 3. Although we have all dvd packs (1-3) right now, i just dont have the time yet to watch all episodes in succession for me to be able to catch up with the whole story and be able to connect with Season 4, which is being played on tv this month. I have no idea how some of the main characters in the show ended up out of the island already and how they were able to get back to their daily lives out of the island. Right now, I am so lost in Lost, and I am hoping to be able to catch up one of these days, before it is time to buy the Season 4 dvd pack again by the end of the year!

What about you, are you a fan of Lost? Do you watch this telivision series all the time when it is played on tv?

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Spaghetti For Dinner

Back then, having a spaghetti as an everyday meal is not be common for us and we never have spaghetti on a regular basis. We usually just have spaghetti during special occassion like birthdays, New Years Day, or Christmas day because for a lot of time we are more on the egg noddles, chow mein, and pancit type eaters. Although, I used to order a lot of spaghetti combo in Wendys, McDonalds, and or Jollibee fast foods for a quick meal. But since I got married, I been cooking a lot of spaghetti, not in the usual way, though. Before, when I cook spaghetti I always do it from scratch like have fresh onions and other spices as well using some fresh tomatoes and canned tomato sauce. This time, I usually cook spaghetti using bottled spaghetti sauce like the ones made by Prego, and the ones you can buy in Walmart, too. And add some canned sliced mushroom in it, if no fresh mushroom is available in the ref. And one of the things I truly like that works really great with spaghetti is garlic bread! I cant believe all those years that we been eating spaghetti without any garlic bread, because spaghetti and garlic bread definitely compliment each other really good. I just done eating a spaghetti few minutes ago for dinner and it came out really yummy, so I have that in my mind right now and cannot help it, but talk about it here.

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Nightmare With My CD Drive

The other day I was trying to burn a cd copy of some photos that I took. While working on it, the cd burner software I had was doing just fine, it was busy writing the files in the blank cd that I inserted in the disk drive. Just when all files were almost 100 percent succesfully written in the cd-rom, the whole program hanged, and I could not open the disk drive to eject the disk. I tried pushing the cd drive eject button several times but the drive would not open.

So, as usual I called my hubby to help me with my problem. Hoping that he can come up with an idea to solve the hanging software and trapped disk I had. At that time, I could not think of any other solution, I almost want to detach the whole cd drive in the computer. Good thing my hubby was there to help, because in a matter of few seconds after of doing what I was doing trying to open the drive, which did not work, he asked me if I have programs in my computer that plays cds. Infact, I have dvd movie software player, so I opened it, and there was an eject button in the program menu, when we clicked it with the mouse, the cd drive opended without any problem whatsoever!

Before I finish off this post, just wanna leave you with these:
Do not hesitate to ask for help. Do not hesitate to ask for second opinion. Two minds are better than one! And sometimes, other people ideas might be better than yours, so learn to listen to others too, your ideas are not the only best ideas.

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6 Quirky Things About Me

The rules: Link to the person that tagged you. Post the rules on your blog.Share six un-important things/habits/quirks about yourself. Tag 6 random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs. Let these random people know that they are tagged by leaving comments in their blog. Let your tagger know when your entry is up:

6 Unimportant things/habits/quirks about myself:
1. When my alwarm goes off in the morning, re-set it and go back to sleep.
2. Sometimes when our dog is eating a chew bone, i grab it from her then let her do some tricks before she can have the chewbone back.
3. I keep all magazines that I subscribe even after reading them.
4. We recently bought a new lamp for my desk but i regularly use the old lamp still.
5. I like to do newspaper clipping of some stories and articles, but most of them are setting for years and never got the time to read any of my clippings.
6. I love to watch my favorite movies over and over.

Ice tagged me with this and now Im passing this tag to Michelle, Chant, Sheira, Summer, and Bheng.

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Our Valentines Day

For Valentines Day, we went to an Italian restaurant here in our area and of course I ordered my usual favorite, Fettuccine Presto with Shrimps. The italian restaurant that we went to is new, not even a year old yet, and we been there around 4-5 times already since it opened last year 2007. And everytime we go there, I usually order the same menu, because I kinda like how they cook and prepare the whole recipe, and i always think that white sauce are so yummy. Their complimentary bread and soup are also something to look forward to, and they sure seem to have perfected the taste of the best bread ever.

After our nice italian meal, we went to Walmart and grabbed No Reservations dvd movie, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Aaron Eckhart. We then headed home, and watched the movie comfortably in our sofa and paused when we need or have to, which i like best about watching movie at home! No Reservations is a romantic movie about two head chefs in a restaurant, then they fell in love, and i wont tell you the rest of the story just incase you have plan buying the movie, and I dont want to ruin the thrill of what happened next! Personally, i think it is a great romantic heart-warming movie, so romantic and sweet as well.

After we watched the movie at home, we decided to make a pizza, and we just done eating it few minutes ago. Happy Valentines Day everyone, thanks for visiting my blog today :-)

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Camera Girl

I love taking pictures, I always like to bring a camera with me wherever I go, just so I can take pictures of places that we visit and whatever stuff that you just have to capture! I really dont have any formal training when it comes to photography, so I am just taking pictures my own way most of the time.

Since I was a kid up to few years ago, I been using the traditional camera, the one that uses the 35mm film! Although it is a great camera, I didnt like the fact that I have to pay every single photo that I take to have it processed, developed and get printed. There are times i take crappy pictures and its not even worth printing, shaky, blurry, etc.

Thats why when my hubby bought me a new Canon camera last year, I couldnt be happier! It is quite compact, which I really like so I can put it in my purse for easy handling and carry-all-over functionality. And its NOT really the professional camera worth $1000+, its just a powershot thingy, but I am extremely satisfied with the output of the device. The camera takes great picture, and I have great flexibility as what resolution I want each photo set.

What about you, do you always carry a camera with you everytime you go out and go somewhere? What type of camera do you use? Digital or filmed?

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Ready For The Sunshine

Its been days since the sun is nowhere to be found in parts of California, and I am definitely for some sunshine. California has been getting quite a lot of snow this year, even in lower areas as low as 1500 feet elevations. Snow storms might be heaven sent for all skiers and snowboarders out there, but i am neither, so I am definitely ready for some or a little bit of sunshine! Although, i really like the look of snow, it look so clean and pure white. For someone who grow up in a tropical climate, snow to me is so magical, its amazing how a moisture can actually turn into gentle and light flakes. Probably, other places like Washington and Oregon and many areas in the north side, and east coast are actually getting more snow than us here right now, but we definitely have our share of the winter storms and there is no sign of stopping yet. Snow still continues to amaze me everyday, but the continued storms that hit us day after day recently are just about in need of some break, some residents here are so ready to see the sunshine, and some blues and greens for a change.

But I have to say that its beautiful outisde, so picturistique, I could only see this magnificient view in my imagination, images and videos before, and now its in front of me!

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