An ode to my hunger

Ok, so this is technically not an ode. Thanks to google, I found wikipedia's definition of an ode:

"An ode is typically a lyrical verse written in praise of, or dedicated to someone or something which captures the poet's interest or serves as an inspiration for the ode."


But I'm sticking to the title, because my hunger deserves praise and dedication right now.


Your probably got lost in my ramblings so I'll give you a little background. Last post, I mentioned that my DD was sick and guess what? Really, try to guess..............................




Come on, it's easy..........














No? You give up?










Fine, I'll spill it.....








I GOT SICK TOO!!! Imagine, the mother of the child who supposedly had 'Strep Throat' is now experiencing the same symptoms as well, who knew?


It was horrible. I can't imagine my DD got through this with all smiles and still being her silly self. It started with a chills on sunday morning. That was a super hot day and I was extremely cold, I was shaking. I thought it was just the AC in church. I kept asking people around if they felt cold as well but they were fine. Then, I told my poor hubby we got to jet. I could not take it, I was delirious and before you know it, I had a really high fever. We left my poor mom and sis at church without warning! (I hope I'm forgiven, Mother dear)


And now, since sunday night, I can't swallow without being in excruciating pain. So, I have been running on sips of herbal teas with honey. I tried having soups but I could barely finish a bowl. It hurts sooooooo much to eat. I love food, and I'm hungry for food, so this is torture for me.


And now, I'm going to indulge myself in looking back to what yummy eats I have been taking pictures of last week. 

This is my ode to my hunger in pictures

Whole wheat spaghetti in homemade tomato sauce with Mild italian sausage and zucchini

Easy peasy falafel patties with Kabsa rice ( Mom did the honors in cooking this middle-eastern rice dish) and a spinach salad with Kraft EVOO vinaigrette. 

Oh this white little dollop you see? It's yogurt tzatziki... yep, I cheated. Once I'm done this no dairy thing, this lovely container will a be regular in my fridge.

I made the felafel patties with this

I'm such a lazy cheater, I know. I bought this mix purely for when I'm too hungry and have no time to cook. So I mixed a batch with water, got a muffin pan (with a little wipe of EVOO) and filled them up with the mix.

Baked for just 15 to 20 minutes... I got dinner in a flash!

Baked salmon with honey dijon crust

with a spinach salad topped with roasted veggies (red peppers, eggplant and zucchini)

Sandwich for dinner! Chicken salad (baked chicken breast with cajun seasoning, chopped and mixed with celery, scallions and light mayo) with tomato slices on whole wheat bread.

Here's an ode to my yummy lunches last week.

Noodles stir fried with seafood mix and carrots and zucchini (it's my favourite veggie, can you tell?)

Beef, green and red pepper and onion stir fry on top of brown rice

California roll with chickpea salad

Cultures lunch: Roasted veggie panini with split pea soup

Chicken, broccoli and red pepper stir fry on top of brown rice

Spinach salad topped with red peppers and cajun seasoned chicken breast dress with balsamic vinegar

 Oh food... yummy, delicious, mouth watering, lip smacking, scrumptious food. It's literally something we can't live without! I'm surprise I was able to work two full days without having a meal. I just pray I get over this sooner than later because I don't know how much more I can take. At least, I have food available to me whenever I want with tons of options to choose from! 


With all complaining aside, I'm very lucky compared to those going hungry around the world. And we can help them get fed! Find a local church and inquire if they send donations to third world countries in need. Our church does and if you are in Toronto area you are welcome to drop by to donate can goods and pasta, or check out our service on sundays. 


Click the link for more info:
Rivers of Life International Ministries


Oh and this great website donates rice the more you play word games! Get smart and help feed the world at the same time, what a great idea.


Here's the link:
Free Rice




I'm hoping that my next post will say that I have made the best meal in the entire world and devoured it. I'm praying that by tomorrow morning, I'm able to have a banana for breakfast. Till next post! :)

Burger lovin'

Yesterday, we made an unplanned visit to the family doctor. My poor DD got a really high fever the other night and I wanted to check if it was something to be concerned about. 

Since our doctor's office is pretty much like family, the secretary told us just to come in whenever we can that day. I had to wait for my hubby to give me a ride because the subway was in the fritz because of this G20 chaos going on downtown. Long story short, we ended up getting there when the office closes for lunch. So, we figured to go grab some lunch as well.

We went to Licks!

They serve the juiciest burgers in town and I'm talking about real big patties, no Mickey D's little flat patties here. I could've opted to order the 'Gobbler', which is white turkey meat burger, but I felt like indulging in the real thing.

This was my lunch: Homeburger (no cheese and bacon) topped with everything including hot peppers with no pickles and relish and a side of onion rings with a cup of iced tea.

Man, I was in burger heaven! The staff was friendly and hilarious to boot. All of them were singing all the orders in some kind of Licks burger language I could barely comprehend. It was kind of loud in there but in a good way, perfect place to have lunch on a hot summer day. 

The place looked empty in the pic but we got there just before the lunch rush. They had an assortment of ice creams ass well. Next visit, I would want to try a scoop or two. Ok, well maybe just one ;)

After that huge finger lickin' lunch, we were able to see the doctor. My DD has sore throat but the doc is not sure if it's viral or bacterial. She would need antibiotics if it was bacterial. So we got a prescription for one in case her fever persist. Thank God it didn't and today she is acting like she was never sick at all! She still cant eat much because swallowing hurts her throat but I feel so much better that she's already bouncing back up to her old self so quickly.

Hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend and have a glorious sunday!!!

Counting my blessings

*This post was meant to be posted yesterday, Tuesday June 22, 2010. Due to internet issues, I only manage to successfully post it today.*

This week has been such a hectic and crazy busy week. I'm pretty much worn out already and it's only tuesday. With so much negativity, unfortunate unforeseen circumstances and problems hitting my way, the only thing I should do right now is count my blessings.

[Photo Source]

So here goes... Today I...

1)   Had a wonderful morning with hugs, kisses and cuddles from my hubby and DD. Hearing my DD say "Mo'nin Mommy!" with a big smile on her face makes me melt every time.

2)   Had a great BIG cup of coffee with soy milk and honey.

3)   am glad I have great people I work with.

4)   had a great packed lunch saving me another $10 bucks (amount I spent almost everyday last week for lunch).

5)   actually had lunch to eat or $10 bucks to spend for it! I'm very rich compared to millions of people that are going hungry around the world.

6)   am grateful that I live in a modern city where commuting is pretty reliable and manageable.

7)   had leftovers for dinner! Yay! night off from cooking...

8)   am amazed that my DD cleaned up her spilt water by wiping it with a clean kitchen towel as soon as her cup fell and without me asking. (Although I still have to finish wiping the floor, I'm still amazed).

9)   HAD A 15 min run!!! It might not sound like a lot, but that was all the energy I could muster. Still feels great and stress relieving.

10)   happy to have a comfy bed to snuggle into with my hubby :)

Word Wednesdays

Remember to pray for one another daily, for the Lord said in Mat 6:11“give us this day our daily bread.” Prayer will release the power of God for each and every one of you. 

Psalm 37:3-4
“Trust in the Lord and do Good. Then you will live safely in the land and prosper. 4 Take delight in the Lord and+ He will give you your heart’s desires.”

I was restless this week. I have felt just about as far away from being a “righteous Christian” as I can remember. What happened is I let my feelings/emotions lead my way. The good thing was I knew I was in the wrong place and went to the right place that is the Bible. But how do you decide what to read when you’re angry or upset or exhausted. You have to pray first. I was listening to a pastor on a podcast who said to read one chapter of Psalms and proverbs a day. I found myself at Psalms 37 and I started feeling connected to God through His Holy Spirit in my heart breaking mine, especially when I read 37:8 “stop being angry! Turn from tour rage! Do not lose your temper it only leads to harm. For the wicked will be destroyed but those who trust in the Lord will possess the land.” I was not trusting in the Lord and letting the Truth guide me. I read it again and saw there was a fact “God will give me the desires of my heart.” Now these desires only come when you follow the instructions by faith in this passage.

Psalm 37:3 
“Trust in the Lord and do good – two sides one of faith the other do what is good obey.”

Psalm 37:5 
“Commit everything you do to the Lord – The Lord must be first and everything you do must be for Him. Whether that is making your bed to studying for an exam.”

Psalm 37:7 
“Be still in the presence of the Lord and wait patiently for him – this is a hard one but be still or have peace with what is going on and even if you aren’t getting what you want (like my house in Barrie is not yet sold) wait patiently for God to act.”

Psalm 37:34 
“Put your hope in the Lord. Travel along His path (not your own) He will honour you by giving you the land you will see the wicked destroyed.”

God is truly an amazing God. When I put the truth of God in front followed by stepping out in faith as His word directs I am receiving the desires of my heart and I feel great and in unity with the Holy Spirit.
Always let God drive, walk in faith, and you will receive the desires of your heart.



Love you in Jesus,





Dave

Navigating the "All you can EAT" Buffet

A few Saturdays ago, we got invited to our good friend's christening of her baby girl, Arielle. It was a really great and fun event but there was one HUGE problem. The reception was held at an Asian "All you can eat" Restaurant! And I know myself very well that when I see food, I eat it. When delicious food is free for me to grab, I eat till I have to unbutton my pants. And so in preparation of anticipating that my healthy eating will be ruined, I wore stretchy tights, LOL.

This place called Imperial Buffet never disappoints in how much mouth watering dishes they serve up.

I figured I will start my buffet journey with a BIG plate..........

of salad

Romaine greens with Japanese dressing, beets, green olives, three bean salad and a small portion of seafood salad of shrimp, squid, scallops with variety of peppers. That japanese dressing was delish! I think it has some sesame oil, seaweed and rice vinegar in there.

Next plate.... SUSHI!!!!

Yeah, no brown rice in the sushi section folks. I had salmon and crab, spicy salmon and california rolls along with some seafood dimsum and pork dumplings and some yummy crunchy green seaweed. I really don't know what they are called, all I know is they look like seaweed and they are GOOD!

By this time, I know my next plate would be my last judging by the way my stomach was feeling full. I surprised how full I got really quick.

To avoid the temptation of piling on some more of those delicious shrimp tempura and other fried dishes, I piled up my plate with veggies first. I had green beans, Bok choy and mushrooms. The baked sole was looking scrumptious and pretty healthy to boot but I still gave in to the fried shrimp tempura. 

Thank God for my DD stealing them away from me(evidence is in the pic, see her finger?). She ended up eating my yummy tempura and only saved me one bite. 

Oh and those little balls you see are my favourite! They are called sesame balls; fried dough filled with sweet mongo bean filling covered with sesame seeds. I gave up one of those to my DD as well. 

By this time, my stomach felt like it was going to explode. But I needed something sweet to cap off this lovely lunch. Oh wait, I'm doing this no refined sugars thing right? Yeah I was really bummed. I circled the desserts aisle like a hundred times, trying to justify in my head all kinds of excuses why I need just one plate of some kind of pastry, cake or pie. Thank God for my will power that I only managed to put these two things on my plate.

Honey twist and a 'no sugar' chocolate cake filled with berry and cream filling. I asked the dessert lady if there is really no sugar in it and she just told me a straightforward 'yes'. So I just went and grabbed it. It didn't even realize that there was cream filling until I was ready to put it in my mouth.

But I thought, 'a small square won't hurt, I have been doing so well that I actually deserve this treat!'. But boy, that thought bit me back in the bum because that cake was DISGUSTING!!! It tasted like airy cardboard with aspartame. I was NOT meant to have a real dessert that day.

Good thing I still had my sweet crunchy honey twist that saved my palate from that awful 'no sugar' cake.

So now that I think back about my food choices at that "all you can eat" restaurant, I actually did pretty well. I made better choices by getting tons of veggies first before going to the other dishes. At least I got full with good stuff first before having some of little treats that I deserve to enjoy in MODERATION.

So all in all, the whole family loved the food at the buffet including my DD who went crazy over covering her marshmallow stick in the chocolate fountain.

So we left happy, filled up with great food and enjoyed the company of our beloved friends and family.

But wait, we were not done for the day! 

I had to leave my DD with my mom because we had a boat cruise to go to! I love boat cruises! We went almost yearly when I was still working with the same company as my hubby's and it was always a blast. (Yes my hubby and I worked for the same Financial Giant but did not worked together in the same branch). Now, I decided to go with my hubby this year since a few of my old co-workers and friends were attending as well.

Boat cruise food was blah but I had no choice because where else would I go? I was in the middle of Lake Ontario!

I had: Ceasar salad, rice with veggies and chicken filet with mushroom sauce. Sorry there are no pics, I forgot taking one amidst of all the socializing (Plus they might think I'm nuts).

I burned off the calories from that day dancing the night away with my hubby

And even the boat was flowing with booze, I resisted and stayed sober. I just refreshed and hydrated myself with some cold H2O.

Oh and in keeping with the nautical theme, I thought I'd share with you the cutest accessory I fashioned that night.

That was such an awesome night out for me and my hubby. It was great reconnecting with old friends that I miss dearly and making new ones with my hubby's new co-workers.

Although I must say the best part of the day was seeing this great view of the city that I adore so much.

Happy Philippine Independence Day!

Although Canada is my home now, I'm still a Filipina by heart. This post gives respect to my home country of the Philippines. I cherish all the childhood memories and experiences to this country. A lot of my extended family are back home and I miss them dearly. I can't wait to see you again PHILIPPINES.

Photo Source

I pray that God will always be with this nation and it's people.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PILIPINAS!

This week in review...

... and maybe last week as well. 

Last week was a good but busy time of my life. I started a new job that was a closer commute so I get home earlier now! My hubby and I are ran a 5k a few times last week. It was a struggle to keep on running especially on the hills but it's something I need to work on before my next 5k run for charity! (Will post more deets later on).

But this week I felt like crap. I got a really bad cold with all the works: coughing, stuffed up nose, fever midday at work and body aches. There was no way I would have even attempted to workout this week. But the good news is, I was still eating healthy.

Although yesterday, I broke my 'no dairy rule' and gave in to a comforting bowl of cream of mushroom soup. I was really feeling sick at work and at lunch time I needed some comfort food to cheer me up.

I had it with a homemade tuna salad sandwich on a whole grain ciabatta bread. I could only eat half of the sandwich because the soup was really filling.

I really love having lunch at my new work now. I get to enjoy the warm weather (most days) lunching at  a place called College park right across the street from my office building. Here's some of the lunches I had the past two weeks:

Falafel on whole wheat pita with loads of veggies

Turkey breast sandwich with red pepper hummus and spinach. It's on white bread because we ran out of brown bread :( Oh and I made a boo-boo drinking vitamin water. I didn't realize there's sugar in it!

Again, it's on white bread. I still didn't get to grocery shop at this point. Same turkey breast with hummus, spinach and tomato slices this time to change it up a bit.

Here's some of my dinners:

Baby spinach with tomatoes and cucumbers dressed with EVOO and balsamic. 

1 properly portioned steak (size of a deck of cards) with balsamic glaze and spinach and broccoli salad with Olive oil pesto dressing.

Sorry there isn't much pics of my dinners. It's a hectic time of cooking, feeding myself and DD, then clean up and bedtime rituals for my DD. There is literally no time to paparazzi my food!

Here's some of my breakfasts:

This dish is purely Filipino. Taro root, plantain, cassava root, tapioca pearls cooked in coconut milk sweetened with honey. I'm sure there are other ingredients in it but I'm not familiar with it. It sure taste good tho!

Overnight Oats topped with natural peanut butter and bananas. I also mixed in some cinnamon because it makes it yummy that way. Recipe adapted from Oh She Glows sans the Chia seeds. 

I hope by next week I will be back with my old self. Today I'm just focusing in recovering from this sickness and having lots of Vitamin C by having strawberries, red pepper sticks, freshly squeezed orange juice and lots of H2O.

I do admit I miss working out. It's a great stress reliever after a mentally stressful day at work. I hope you guys enjoy the rest of your weekend rain or shine!!!

Word Wednesdays

Hi Folks! 

I'm so excited to introduce to you a soon to be regular guest blogger! He is a wonderful, handsome, incredibly intelligent and funny man that is very very close to my heart. 

I introduce to you the one and only hubby of mine, Dave!

He will be here sharing 'Word Wednesdays' with you.

You are probably wondering what "Word Wednesdays" is. My hubby has been sending a weekly devotional on facebook to our Youth in the church and I thought I would share it with you as well here (With Hubby's permission of course!) So every wednesday, be sure to expect my hubby sharing God's word. 

So here it is, today's 

Word Wednesday:

Last Sunday’s message has placed a burden in my heart to want to proclaim God to the world. The only problem is the world is so big I don’t know where to begin. There is debate on how to spread the Gospel and I don’t know the “right answer.” 

I look at the book of acts that takes apostles from the death of Jesus to spread of the Church.
I know that it everything has to start with prayer and the Holy Spirit. Acts 1:4-5 “Once when eating with them, He commanded them, do not leave Jerusalem until the Father sends you the gift He promised, as I told you before John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” Acts 2 they received the Holy Spirit comes. Acts 2:42 they create a community with a common goal to spread the word. They go to Major Cites where the news can travel to remote places.
As soon as the word gets out persecution begins Acts 5:17-41 and even one is stoned to death Acts 8:59. The persecution creates a good result (God can use any situation for good this is where you say Amen) the believers scatter and spread the news all over. 

So where do you stand in sharing the word of God? 

What motivates you to share the word of God?

We should not feel guilty and pressured into sharing the word but it should be something we do out of great joy and love for what God has done to spear us.

Open your heart to God in prayer and ask Him to tell you how he wants to use you for His glory. Be bold enough to speak in situations where you will be made fun of. If you are not bold enough ask for boldness in your prayers. Be ready to share the fact that Jesus Christ is the only way and how He has made you into a new person

I am still at the prayer stage.

Love you in Jesus



Dave

And I will be still...

This post is long overdue... Instead of listing down my excuses, I'm going to go right to the point....

I started a new job in a big medical corporation last week!!! If you read my older posts, this is the blessing I have been so excited about. You know why?

Ever since I switched my career into the medical field, I have been given an entry level positions through my family and friend's contacts. I even gotten my past two jobs without a proper interview. They just called me and said, "wanna work for us today?", or something along those lines. Although I am very grateful for the opportunity and the experience handed to me, I didn't get the sense of accomplishment. See, for more than a year, I was RELENTLESSLY applying constantly to get into the medical field, specifically the hospitals and big medical corporations. And after the hundredth resume submitted and a thousand prayers, I didn't even get one call. I became hopeless and broken hearted. 

And just when I thought I already have the greatest job I was going to get, I got that ONE call. That call was from the HR department of this big med corp. They said they have my resume on file and they have a position open for me and if I was interested to come for an interview. I mean come on! That resume was sent more than 6 months ago!!! I know this because I have that sent email to them saved. 

God knew I could do better and I deserved better. God knew I got desperate. God knew I felt like He does not hear me and I was broken down in spirit. And so I guess in proving that He does hear me, He put MY resume on top of the BIG pile in that BIG HR dept. of that BIG Corporation. I could've easily gotten lost in all the paper work. But he proved that my patience and stillness in Him was all worth it all and it still is....

Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him.

Psalm 62:5