Vrolijke Paasdagen!

please click on image for better view

A short and what I hope will be a sweet greeting post:

Happy Easter, and greetings from the lovely beach of  Zandvoort, the Netherlands!

Where have you been spending this long Easter weekend? 

Blognote: The final post of the series The ABC of Me will be posted in May, due to the family's busy schedule.

The ABC of Me (& My Family)

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Today's post continues the four Sunday's series of: The ABC of Me (background) (please click on the link for the background of how this idea came to be :) ) And if you would like to read all the blogs in the series, please click on this link - The ABC of Me (blog series).

My family and I attended Palm Sunday mass today. We were also   there for middle daughter, who together with her communion class made Palmpasenstok (cross decorated with candy and bread, made in the form of a rooster - Wiki quote), which they carried in the procession as they entered the church.

It was a lovely start to our family Sunday.

I could also relate this and that mini-meltdowns, and mini-dramas of the day but again, the essense of the day remains lovely!

My family empowers me, and my sole wish is in everything I do, I empower each one of them, too.

So today, I thought of doing the The ABC of me, writing down about our family; what I love doing for them, or what we love doing for each other and simply the random but what we consider  good things in our lives.

In the future, I will be revisiting each one of what I listed below, and write more extensively about it.

A -angels ~ P and I consider our girls our angels.

B - breakfast ~ we love eating this meal together, but what is worth mentioning: we love preparing it for each other the most! Eldest have countless of times served P and I breakfast in bed.

C - chillax ~ chill and relaxing, which is what we enjoy doing most together on our chillax couch!

D - dog ~ the girls would love to have a pet, and we promised them a dog (cat, etc!) when we have a larger home of our own.

E - English ~ we love to speak this with each other the most! For those who does not know us until this post, we speak a total of four languages all together: Filipino (I), English (all of us), German (the older girls, P & I, the little is still passively learning) and Dutch (everyone, with the littlest and I still lagging a bit behind)

F - films ~  there is a huge collection of films in DVD, that the family now owns together, and is still ever increasing! We love sharing this liesure with each other.

G - goosebumps ~ I have this a lot, when I look at my family together, feeling so grateful I have them to love, and be love by them...

H - Hawaii ~ the family dreams of living in Hawaii, a wishful dream.

I - I love you ~ is a phrase most uttered amongst us.

J - January ~ we are hoping to skate on natural ice one beautiful January day!

K - Keukenhof ~ visiting this park is something I would like our family to have as a tradition long after they have all grown up and moved out of home...

L - Loosdrecht lake ~ one more wish that each one in the family shares - to sail on the Loosdrecht lake

M - Mooosings ~ without my family, I would not have started this blog page, be motivated to keep it up or be inspired everday to celebrate the best of the day

N - nostalgia ~ we love reminiscing together about life before we became a family and the years we have thus far shared together

O -out of town, out of the country ~ we hope to do more again, in the future!

P - pirate ~ we enjoy quoting the lines from The Pirates of the Caribbean to each other!

Q - quiet moments are rare when the family are together!

R - restaurant ~ going to one is a luxury we spoil ourselves with to celebrate not only milestones in our lives but when we have overcome a challenge either individually or collectively as a family

S - Sound of Music ~ is the only film that I am a bit sad to say, we all do not unitedly like!

T - together ~ doing things together is what we enjoy the most, whatever it may be.

ALSO the word I used the most while writing the words for each letter of tonight's ABC because I am in a hurry to make the deadline. lol

U - undo ~ although it was a long journey before we became a family and we still have a long journey towards our collective goals and dreams, we would not want to undo anything in our lives because we recognize each detail contributes to the specialness that we are thankful that we have...

V - victorious feeling ~ is what we collectively feel, specially this year that we see the fruits of our labour of love....

W - water ~ swimming, sailing, boating, walking along the water is something we enjoy doing together.

X - eXtreme Home Make-over (sorry a bit of cheating, since I need to go to bed!) we all are teary-eyed when we watch episodes of this series.  Although, we have not watched lately due to busy and what seems to be shorter and shorter Sundays together!

Y -youtubing ~ is something we all like and share from P to the littlest, whose favourite is asking for and watching Pingu episodes.

Z - Zoo ~ we have not been to a zoo together as a family here in the Netherlands!  The girls have visited zoos through the school excursion of course, but we have not managed yet to do it as a family.  We plan to change that this year!  Hopefully Sundays will be long enough, again!


What random thing can you share about you and your family, that you hold dear?

The ABC of Me (Holland, mijn Nederland(s) )

please click on collage for better view of different emotional expression :P☺

This collage continues the four Sunday's series of: The ABC of Me (please click on the link for the background of how this idea came to be :) ) They are screen shots from a vlog I initially created for future pep talks to myself, if  I start going through self-defeating litany in my head.

The topic for today's post was inspired by a bike path that I was awfully hanged-up on. But after a year I conquered the paralyzing fear I have of biking along it.

I went to a process that can be compared to adjusting to anything new in life, I suppose. There are always fears and challenges, huge or small, unconscious or subconscious to overcome.

For tonight, I made a list of topics I would like to write about in the future.  They are some of the first Dutch words/phrases I learned, struggled (still struggle) to pronounce.  It's been a fervent wish of mine to record minutely how I learn Dutch, something I missed doing when I learned German.

This future experience will not only be about documenting how I learn Dutch but documenting how I conquer challenges, one word/phrase at a time!

Aardappelen - potatoes
Beschuit
Cadeautje - present
Dank je wel - Thank you (informal)
Elke dag - every day
Fietspad - bike path
Gezellig
Helemaal - all
Ik hou van je - I love you
Jammer - pity
Koninginnedag
Leuk - fun
Mooi
Nieuw - new
Olifant - elephant
Precies - exactly
Quasi - like
Radio - specifically Top 2000 Nederland
Scheveningen
Tot ziens - goodbye (formal)
Uit - exit (multi-meaning)
Veel plezier - have fun!
Welterusten - good night!
Xylofoon - xylophone (I actually still need to look for an X Dutch word, I simply did not want to leave this blank!
Yoghurt - joghurt
Zelfstandig - independent

 What fear or challenges are you currently facing? How are you coping?

I would love to learn from you; I hope to inspire and be inspired! :)

The ABC of Me (Foodie)

Today is a mini-break of the A-Z Blogging Challenge April 2011, as will be the next three Sundays of the coming weeks.  This is done because removing the Sundays from blogging days this month will give the participants exactly 26 days corresponding to the number of letters in the alphabet.

On the way to church this morning with middle daughter, riding our bikes to go to her communion class, I had an idea  of using Sundays of April as a mini-series with the title: "The ABC of Me" to remain in the zone and keep the momentum of  this month's blogging theme.  I love making decisions on the bike. ☺

I thought it will be good opportunity to make up for the blogs I never posted but promised to do- introducing myself (i.e. sharing random tidbits about me)! Yes, a quarter of the year passed since this blog was created, and I have not gotten around to it!

I guess because the readers I initially invited to visit this blog were mostly family, friends,  with whom I lost touch, fellow bloggers from my time in anonymous blogging.  How they read the blogs is exactly like how I started this blog, diving into the current flow of my life.

So here goes, a long delayed introduction to yours truly in the series, "The ABC of Me"!  This probably will go beyond the month of April because I feel it will be a fun thing to do in the future.  Also, it will not put so much pressure on me today!

Since a good long standing friend of mine, whom I met in the blogging world launched her blog today: Phoebe The Foodie, I thought I will start off by doing The ABCs  of Me on everything related to food, as a tribute to a passionate spirit following her dreams one step at a time! All the best to you dear, Soulsistah!

I have not planned ahead of this because as I have mentioned this idea occured to me just this morning; this will be like most of my blogs very spontaneous!  Also, please feel free to make suggestion of random things/subjects you would like to know from me,  for the other three remaining Sundays!


Atsara/achara is the Filipino, and Spanish word respectively for pickles.  
But for me, whenever this word comes to mind, it conjures the memory of my paternal grandmother, who used to make homemade shredded pickled papaya, that she distributed to the entire clan.  I think, as a child I ate it together with everything fried, that my mother served us for lunch.  Recalling the flavour makes my mouth water.

Banana

Another childhood memory - I grew up eating banana to every dish I ate while I was a little girl.  Until now, it gives me great pleasure to eat a savoury dish with this fruit, au naturel or fried, as P likes it!  This is one quirk we both share and I can't tell him enough how I love him even more for it!

Cheese 

 I love all kinds of cheese! Hmmm, I can probably (well, tomorrow the air may carry some other awesome ideas, too!) use this as my word for tomorrow's letter C! ☺

Donuts 

My first donut, or that I could recollect is  from Mister Donut, which my Dad brought home after his work (more on this in the letter T!) .  Later on, when I was a working student, and could afford to eat out my loyalty changed to Dunkin Donuts.  

For a looong period of time, during life in Germany, where there is literally a bakery every 10-20 meters in the neighbourhood, I had to wait for New Year's Eve to get a donut treat since there was no Mister nor Dunkin Donut at all!  And the donut did not have a hole at all!!! 

They were also not called donuts but Berliner, and as you can read on wikipedia (if you click on the Donut link above) only in other parts of German but not in Berlin,  where it is called Pfannkucken.

Eggs

 I feel I eat a lot of them! Sunny side up, scrambled, boiled,poached.

Not to mention use them for many of the meals and dishes etc, I prepare: sandwiches, salad, soup, stew and the family's all time favourite:pancakes!

Filipino cuisine
Even after many travels in different countries spanning 3 continents, my love remain true for the Filipino cuisine.

German cuisine

My history with learning to cook in Germany, and my food travels through the country is a collection of long stories to tell, so a shorter version for now.  My mom was in her words, spoiled by my grandmother, that she never had to learn how to cook until she married my father.  She learned a whole lot from my paternal grandmother, who she could look over the shoulder.

This tradition, I continued with my German mother-in-law.  She lives in the South of Germany, and when stayed over for long Summer vacation at the early years of my marriage, I would observe as she cooked traditional German dishes.  I was lucky to have met both grandmothers of my German husband, and heard stories of how life in the kitchen was in their time, interpersed with stories about the two wars that both their husband had to fight.

As I learned German, the different cities, I also got to know the culture not only through history, art but most of all through food!

Halo-halo

Wonderful childhood memories resurface with the mere mention of this famous Filipino dessert! Again, the stories and memories behind what once was for us a Summer long treat will have to be elaborated some other time.  It will be worth it!

Indian cuisine

It is my dream to one day have a kitchen that stores extensive array of spices and herbs, that I can prepare Indian dishes, not only for my family (who shares my love for the spicy food!) but also for spontaneous guests.

Japan

There are many cities and countries, I dreamed of residing in for a year.  Yes, exactly 12 months.  Japan being one of them.  I would like to experience the different seasons in the land of the rising sun, particularly Spring!

To see and experience what I have only seen in documentaries, for example how a Fugu is prepared by a highly qualified Japanese chef.

Kroket (Dutch Croquette)

I fell in love with the kroket when P showed me the village of his birth.

Luau

I dream of celebrating a birthday or a wedding anniversary with a luau, inviting my family and friends, with all expenses paid.  Where else but where it originates: Hawaii!!!

Mince pie

One of my most beautiful memories in life was eating mince pie during tea-time in London...another one of those long stories for the future. *melancholic sigh*

Nuts

I ♡ them in my salad.

Olive trees

Hopefully in the future I could photograph a plantage of olive trees.

Pop-corn

I like salty ones when watching in the movie theater but carameled flavoured ones when we are viewing home movies!

Quesadilla

I ♡ it!

Radish

I miss eating them in my mom's sinigang.

Sausage

The family and I can't seem to resist to eat the sausages in IKEA everytime we go there.  We could even say, we only use the excuse of wanting to get something when in fact at the end of the day we never get what we came for but always have time to eat their sausages!

Take-aways

When I was growing up, my Dad † usually brought home some take-aways after he ended his work.  It was something that he and my mom started between them during their years of courtship, and continued on throughout their marriage.  A romantic practice that made us stay up late during weekends in the anticipation  something delicious!  This was before the time of mobile phones, and we did not have any telephone at that time.

Ah, memories of donuts from Mister Donut, pizza from Shakeys, or siopao, luglug etc from Chinatown, or chicken from Max's, just to name a few.

Ulam (Filipino word for viand)

I miss hearing the query in Filipino, "Anong ulam ninyo?" (literally, What is your dish?), / "What's cooking today?"

There is a certain quaint feeling to how Filipino neighbours asked this amongst themselves.

Vanilla-ice cream

I enjoy apple cake most when I eat it with vanilla-ice cream!

Weather

The different kind of weather motivates me to think of different dishes to prepare for my family and myself.  Another topic that can be explored some other time!

Xacuti

Tonight is the first time I heard of this type of Indian curry! (at this point of what I thought would be an easy blog, I am scrambling and googling my pants off! 11:23 pm, time stamp!)

Yoghurt

I have not been eating some lately

Zen of Real Food: Keeping Eating Simple

The article above I would love to read tomorrow, while having second breakfast wtih P!

Goodnight folks in blogland! Hopefully, you enjoyed getting to know the "foodie" side of me.  It was very last minute idea, thanks to the launch of Phoebe The Foodie blog.  It would be lovely if you would check her blog, soonest!  She is going to be posting soon. 

Btw if you ever do or have done, an ABC of Me (Foodie) post, please send me a link! I would love to read it, too.☺