Goin' Slow

My sons rushed me to the hospital Wednesday night because while I was watching a favorite TV show, I suddenly felt dizzy and everything seemed to spin.

They took my blood pressure in the emergency room and they found out I had hypertension. I just couldn't believe it because I have always been one with a very low BP, 90/60 is normal to me. My BP that moment was 140/85.

So they gave me a tablet which they put under my tongue and made me rest for an hour.
My pressure went down to 120 in ten minutes.

I was allowed to go home after I promised I'll go slow from then on.

Now, I have to take medication daily to control my blood pressure. They tell me I have to take care of my diet as well.

Menopause really sucks, this is all I can say.

Well, I will still continue writing here and reading my favorite blogs but I have to go slow...

The Guadalupe Shrine

I promised on my previous post that I will upload some pictures here of the House of Prayers, where my daughter and her class went for a retreat. We had a change of plan though. We had our Way of the Cross in Guadalupe last Good Friday. Here are the pictures.


This is the opening of the cave. Sorry, tourists pose at the entrance when I took the picture.




This picture is taken inside the cave. The image of the Blessed Virgin is at the center and on the left side, below the image is a spring where one gets water to treat their illness.

Bad Dream

Yesterday, I woke up crying from a very dreadful dream. It seemed true and I was really sobbing. Old people in my country always say that when you have bad dreams, especially about death, you should tell this dream to people so as to thwart away the evil. I've told everyone in the family and now, I'm going to tell you.

The dream was about my only daughter, the youngest among my four children. She was riding on a passenger jeepney (filipino transportation) on her way to the city. The jeepney had an accident along the highway and she died. Not knowing that she met an accident, we were waiting for her until dinner time and when she didn't come home, we started looking for her but we were not able to find her. The next day, a police officer came and told me the news. I went to the morgue and I saw her there and I cried. This was when I woke up crying.

I called my husband overseas and told him my dream and we agreed not to let her go to their graduation bash which will be held in a beach resort in the neighboring island of Mactan. We just thought we ought to be cautious.

Can anyone tell me the meaning of this dream? What is this really? Is it a premonition or just a part of my unconsious mind?

Holy Week

It's the Holy Week, and for us Catholics, it is an important period to renew our faith. I just came back from picking up my daughter from the House of Prayers, a retreat house in Cebu City which is owned and operated by the Augustinian Recollects. The graduating class stayed there for one day and one night. They had seminars, faith renewal sessions, open forums and recollection. I hope she learned a lot from her stay there.

The House of Prayers is on top of a steep hill. Some cars had to turn off their aircon on their way up. Thank God our car sustained the trip with the aircon on. The view was breathtaking. You can see the whole city below and I could just imagine seeing the city lights at night. The breeze was cool although the sun was shining brightly.

I've asked permission from the sister there to go back with the whole family on Good Friday, to have the Way of the Cross there. There's a developed calvary downhill and it would be a good place to make a sacrifice as we pray the station of the cross under the sun. I will try to get pictures of the place and upload them here after our visit.

Incidentally, it's the birthday of my third son, Jonathan. Guess we're going to pack a meatless lunch since it's Good Friday.

Domino Effect Tag

i'm doing my blogging stuff and rounds to my blogger friends when I got this domino tag from a dear friend housewife@work;

vanidosa, Thea is {bloggerhappy.com}, Childstar, Mike, My Scrappy Side, Abie, Aggie, Alpha, Apple, Apols, Jacqui, Jane, Jody, Joy, Kelly, Mich, Peachy, Gatteo, Liza (A Simple Life), Tet, Nyumix, JulianaRW, Liza(MCN), Wifespeak, MAX, Hanna, Michelle, Butchay, allinkorea, korean food, idealpinkrose, housewife @ work, the_sphinx.

AND COPY HERE

Simply add your name to the bottom and pass it forward.

ur resident chef, the life of an oregano addict, space of reality, spice of life, busy mom's journal, my log and my dog, and eurodog training.


(sorry... i am still in the process of learning how to add the links. can anyone help me?)

MERLY, MY HOUSEHELP

I want to reach ten posts but played with different ideas. I'm not really sure what I would talk about tonight so I'm leaving the title blank until I'm done writing.

Let me see, my children? No, these days, we're running normal lives. Pets? No, that's for my other blog. Hmm... yes, I will talk about my househelp instead.

Merly is a forty two year-old woman who works for me for the past two years now. She's married to a man who works as "kargador" (meaning, he helps carry heavy parcels and boxes or sacks of things for people). They have nine children, the two older girls are not married but have 4 children. So, they are fifteen (15) in the family and they live in a makeshift house with no room. The ground is their floor, rusted galvanized iron are used as walls, and for their roof, a waterproof canvas with some torn portions, just to protect them from the heat of the sun and the pouring rain.

She comes in at 8:00 in the morning and goes home after we have our dinner at night. Merly is a good helper, she doesn't have to be told what to do. I often tell her to let her older children work too, to help with the family expenses especially food. She says, they cannot leave their children for who will take care of them? She even sends her third daughter to a private high school (although the tuition is not so high there), while the rest of the younger children go to public elementary school.

She tries so hard to put food on the table with her meager wage from me. Her husband does not earn much, usually fifty pesos a day which is good for 2 kilos of rice only. She puts up with this but the one thing that she hated most about her husband is that he womanizes, even with their state of living. So, she didn't go home for six days, vowing she won't go back to her husband anymore.

Yesterday, her second daughter came to let her know that her eldest once again left home and that her grandchild is vomitting and has diarrhea. So poor Merly advanced some money from me and went home to bring her granddaughter to the doctor. Today, she is absent.

I'm thinking, to what extent can a mother sacrifice for her family? Merly is a very simple woman with a very simple ambition in life. She exerts strength and has a very strong determination to feed her family three square meals a day. She just wants a husband who can help her but even this is deprived from her. She cries and her body aches, but she hides them. She puts on a happy smile and continues to do her chores as if she doesn't have any problem. That's Merly, my househelp!

Family Ties

It's been raining cats and dogs the past few days and I rather feel under the weather. Rainy days make me sleep, dream and eat more. As I was sipping hot coffee and staring at the small pools of water accumulating in the yard outside, I came to think about where and how my half siblings are now. Thoughts of them make me feel so incomplete, knowing that I have sisters and brothers who might still be in China, or in Hongkong, or anywhere else in the world.

You see, my father was an immigrant from China. I don't actually know the exact date but I know he came here before the second world war. He married a Filipina and they had three children, 2 boys and a girl. The wife died and he married my mother. There are two of us, me and a younger brother. All these time, we all knew he left his first wife and children back in China when he migrated here.

I remember he communicated with them when I was still a child. He did not talk to me about them and I did not ask him about them either, maybe because they were strangers to me and they were so far away. It remained this way until my father died when I was sixteen. My mother died too four years later. Perhaps my older brothers knew their address but they're both dead now. My elder sister is still alive but she doesn't know where they are too.

I tried searching for them in the internet but so far, there's nothing. I wish someone from Amoy, China can read this and get back to me. My father's name is LIM CHOCK LAY.

I really have this wish of meeting them soon....