bluebacon

The last day of 2017. How did we get to this day all of a sudden? I have to say, I really liked this year. There was no major drama. I can honestly claim that I was happy this year. I had a good number of accomplishments, I had fun, the kids had a good number of accomplishments, and they too had fun. Except for the sudden passing of Eduardo's grandmother and the few occasions I spoke with my parents that led to the crushing of my self-worth and self-esteem which eventually led to me doubting my emotional intelligence, there really wasn't anything that made me miserable. I had one thing after another that I looked forward to, which I think was what made this year go by so quickly and painlessly. Well, okay... NOT painlessly. Didn't I just say I spoke to my parents a few times this year? Anyway... some top highlights of 2017: Coaching - I started the year totally motivated and invigorated by the life coaching sessions with my former boss. It gave my new ideas and awaren...

Today was my last day at Transition House. Still the last one to leave the office even on my last day - LOL. At 8pm on the last work day of the year, I was the last person in the entire building. Shocking. Everything I needed to pack fit into one box. I made it to the car with a few comical moments on getting the doors open while carrying my box. I was just thinking to myself, wow how amazing it was that I must've matured so much in just a couple of years, that from the time that I accepted my new job, to every time I said goodbye to someone in the office, to the last time I set the alarm in the office -- I managed to stay extremely calm and unemotional. Then as soon as I sat in the driver's seat, I bursted out crying. What have I done?? I loved this job! I loved the organization, I loved the cause, I loved my colleagues, I loved everything I got to do... why did I have to go off and be ambitious and go be a director somewhere else?? But then there was the part of me that w...

Well, it's not really how it sounds. All it was today was that I realized that three hours of driving all over town and picking up auction item donations and then attending an event equaled 6,000 steps. The health benefits of being a fundraiser -- I realized now that events probably happen to balance the time that fundraisers spend sitting on our asses writing grants, creating direct mail, processing donations and tax receipts, etc.

  One of the easier projects I get to do as PAC Chair is to organize two Parent Education presentations every year. I love it because it's first of all it's educational and we choose topics that have practical relevance to parents' daily lives. Second of all it's free to attend. I enjoy presenting free events as much as I do making money out of event. Lastly, I love finding speakers out in the community. The task takes me to place and organizations that I would never normally contact. Either that or I run into various people during all kinds of networking events and when I see an opportunity to connect with someone who would be a good fit, I just go for it. Tonight's Parent Ed topic was on Childhood Stress -- its effects on children, parents, and everyone around them , and how to avoid or cope with it. Above is a photo I took of one of the slides from the presentation. Apparently in a perfect world, these are the key factors that make a healthy foundation fo...

A couple of years ago I never would have even contemplated being a mentor to anyone or anything. Seven months into my first official mentoring gig, I realized that I really do have expertise and I'm happy and genuinely eager to help and inspire others to do their best. So now, instead of freaking out about being a "fake expert" at something, I actually feel empowered to be helpful and supportive of others who are just starting out in the field of fundraising. I met with my mentee again today and we always end up with really productive conversations that she can apply to her existing projects right away. Fundraising is a weird out-of-the-box profession, in my opinion. There are no 5 year old kids dreaming that they would become fundraisers one day. I don't even think there are high school or university students who think of it as a possible profession either! And yet for the scope of its responsibilities and roles that it plays in building a community, I don't ...

Once again, the things I sign up for that always seem to be a great idea, and still is, but for some reason have ways of freaking me out later. Like today... our Toastmasters President mentioned that he will be away for three months and while he's away, I will be chairing the executive meetings as second in command. Uhh wait, what??!!! Nobody told me I'd be second in command just because my title happened to be Vice President for  Education??!!! There's a Vice President for PR, why can't he be second in command? But you know what the up side is that I reluctantly admit now? As much as I still react and feel freaked out, it's actually not as daunting as it used to. I feel more capable now of being in command. I don't even mind chairing meetings anymore. Crazy turn around, huh? #progress

There was a time that I used to enjoy grocery shopping. I don't anymore. If I can avoid it and Eduardo can just do it on his own, I totally would. Not today though. Ugh. It stopped being exciting the day that I came to terms that I wasn't the traditional archetypal mom/wife/woman of the house. The truth was as much as I loved food, I couldn't care less what I ate at home on a daily basis. All I really honestly cared about was that I didn't starve. With that in mind, giving up being a control freak about grocery shopping was a lot easier than I thought. Eduardo knows me well enough that he picks up food that he knows I will like so I'm good with that. Occasionally, when I am blatantly available and it happens to fall on a grocery shopping day, it is in poor taste to decline my husband's invitation to go grocery shopping with him. That's why today I got to go. Reluctantly.

This was supposed to be a productive day, but no it just ended up being a productive day getting caught up with the entire last season of Grey's Anatomy so that I am totally up to speed with the current season airing on TV right now. Then after I finished that season, I realized I didn't have anything to watch anymore so I started looking for other series to watch. It's always a tough one to look for something that can grab your attention to the point that you'd actually stick to it. I tried watching a few pilot episodes of various series on Netflix but nothing quite worthy of a binge. And that was pretty much it for my day. As you can see, I am quite capable of being completely idle. Rarely. But I do give myself permission to have days such as this from time to time.

Ugh. I hate that I had to sneak behind my colleagues' backs to go chat with another organization who's trying to woo me to apply for a position they just posted. What I thought was a chat turned into three hours with a tour of their office. I know the rule of thumb is to always entertain job prospects because you just never know, but this time around I genuinely felt bad because I love, love, love where I work. I love my boss, I love my colleagues, I love our supporters and most importantly I love our cause! Ugh. I'm just in pure agony with guilt. So then I didn't get to work until noon, then stayed in the office until 7pm because I really did have that much work to do. Kicked ass on my grant report to make up for my guilt.

And we're back at the theatre for the Opening Night of Janacek's Jenufa . An opera rarely performed that big wigs from opera companies all over the country and the US flew over to Victoria just to see the production. As for me, I realized that without me actually working for POV, I have given up my access to all the behind the scenes scoops, tidbits and spoilers that I now rely on Raine to tell me what the heck is going on! I love Czech composers though, as a result of the Czech festival we had in Philadelphia. I learned and heard a lot of compositions by Czech composers that I have declared them as collectively awesome.

Tonight I pitched the idea to the kids that I wanted them to give it a chance and consider going to a French Immersion school for middle school. I know both their preference is to attend an English program and I am not opposed to that at all. That's my preference too, but I had a string of other reasons why I wanted to throw French Immersion back into the mix. At my last Student Registration Priorities meeting with SD61, I finally asked our committee chair up front about what he would advice me to do come the time when we need to register for middle school. I hadn't realized that most of the committee members did not know that we were an out-of-district family and all had shocked looks when they realized that the priorities we all worked on all year will impact my own family negatively and may force us to leave the school district. But whatever, I didn't agree to be on the committee so I could advocate for my personal circumstances. The objective was to create a fair stud...

Suzanne's back from her trip and I met with her over dinner to catch up. 10 months after our last coaching session, I had plenty to share. A lot of good things, every progress and small victories I've accomplished, and new goals I'm pursuing for myself as a result of her mentorship and guidance. It gave me the chance to look back at the last 10 months and celebrate a little and at the same time overwhelm myself :) In the last 10 months, I have: 1. Learned to track how I spend my time and choose wisely how I spend it. I also learned what activities are the biggest time suckers along with which ones I have control over and which ones I do not, which gave me additional objectives to pursue in the future; 2. Learned the importance of nutrition and fitness and the benefits of prioritizing regular exercise; 3. Learned to gain more confidence with my public speaking. So I won't be having my own talk show anytime soon, but my small victory from this is that I can now go...

A beautiful Thanksgiving autumn day to be outside. The kids wanted to give mountain biking a try. Admittedly I had no idea what mountain biking was and how freakishly dangerous-looking it was, even though this was at a public park within the city and is supposedly kid-friendly. The number of times that Raine tumbled over and fell down... good Lord, an excellent way to torture and torment a mom. A great reminder why sports never became an interest of mine. Why subject yourself to the risk of wounds, scratches and broken bones? Not to mention getting your clothes dirty at the same time. Why, why, why? But I'm supportive and encouraging. Experience is the best education, right? I still stand by that principle no matter how much it makes me cringe sometimes.

I really only wanted to make myself this oh-so-cheesy, Joanna-standard mac 'n cheese from scratch. Exactly the way I like it. But somehow when everyone heard that I was going to bake something, the rest of the family thought why not request other dishes that also need baking? Sure, while the over is hot, right? So four hours later - tada!  mac 'n cheese, apple pie, banana bread, and vanilla cupcakes with homemade frosting. EVERYTHING from scratch. I really do love cooking. Grateful for every opportunity when I can.

It doesn't happen often but today was one of those rare occasions that I completely got my calendar mixed up. I thought Bell had two back-to-back birthday parties and it turned out the other one wasn't for another week. Duh. But all was well, we ended up hanging out just the two of us while we waited for her other birthday party to start. But today wasn't just about me and Bell hanging out. We all actually had a great time hanging out as a family later in the evening. Thanks to Raine who insisted on watching the play where his best friend's brother was one of the main cast. Of course he was quite surprised that everyone else ended up coming along, including grandma. He thought he and I would be the only ones watching. But I thought it was great that Eduardo and grandma got to go, especially since they haven't been to the Belfry Theatre before. Even though the play had children as the majority of the cast, it actually is a play about the holocaust and is a b...

It's Thanksgiving weekend and nope, we did not make any plans. Not really. That's why we were super grateful to be invited to a friend's house to have an early Thanksgiving celebration dinner. It's not that easy to find families with kids where everyone just gets along with each other. This is one of the things that make living in North America challenging. It's not like growing up in the Philippines where the social aspect is just built in every family. Having said that, I didn't really have that even when I was a kid, but in general for most people, there's just so much more opportunity to engage with other families who are like-minded and share the same values and interests. We stayed for 5 hours, just eating, chatting, laughing... it was fun. I had fun. It was a welcome break from the crazy busy life we have all gotten accustomed to. It had me thinking actually. I've slowly worked through the major points identified on my coaching pie chart's...

And 24 hours later after the super successful PAC GM, I was back bonding with our new school principal at a VCPAC meeting called PAC 101. I thought it was VCPAC and the school district officials telling us how PAC relationships should be between the staff and administration but in actually ended being an opportunity to workshop each school's different circumstances. I really enjoyed the opportunity to spend some time with our new principal. I know she's a bit different in a way that she establishes clear boundaries between work and her personal life, which believe me is admirable in this day and age, but admittedly it does make her appear less engaged than other principals that I have worked with. Although there will never be another Sean or even another Jeff for that matter, but I respect each individual's leadership style and trust in their ability to lead. I am happy for the opportunity to work with another equally capable leader.

All I can think of right now is a sigh of relief with a matching pat on the back. Tonight was the first PAC General Meeting for the school year, but I also want to look at it as my last hahaha! Okay, I'll give some context. As part of my succession training plan, I had asked my Vice Chair of Coordinators (who will be taking over the role of Chair next year) to plan and chair the next PAC GM in February. The Winter GM is usually a lower key meeting compared to the first and the last one of the year. This way she gets a sense of what it's like to organize a GM from scratch and if she needs any guidance, I am still officially around to provide it. There is still the AGM in May and technically I still get to help plan it, but that would be my last GM as Chair and would preferably motivate others to take on more involvement so that next school year's team can start bonding together. As a side note... Ohmigosh I see the light at the end of the tunnel. The next AGM will be t...

It was just one of those days. Four back-to-back meetings then straight to choir rehearsal. The first one was a department meeting which we haven't had regularly for a long time just because we've been THAT busy. But to suddenly try to attempt one just so we could catch up and stay on top of everything else that's happening, was a bit crazy. Necessary, but crazy. Just because there's no way we could've been done in just half an hour if we haven't chatted as a group in a long time. Then we jumped inside the car and drove to meet with a third-party organizer who's organizing an event for us in November, which I found out I was taking the lead on because my boss won't be able to attend. Not a biggie. It's one of those well oiled events with a very organized organizer behind the reins. I'll have to do the spiel but whatever, this is why I joined Toastmasters, to be able to do public speaking like my insides don't want to die. I can keep praying...

I stayed home from work today. Okay, it wasn't completely out of line. I woke up with my shoulder acting up again. After being pain-free for about seven or eight months, my shoulder issues have returned. It's not exactly hurting in the same spot that I had been suffering from in the past so I don't know if that's good thing or if it's just getting worse. Oh well... I used this "free" time to spend time with Eduardo though, since Mondays are his day off from work. We drove the kids to school, had breakfast together, watched tv all day together, picked up the kids from school, took them to cross country, hanged out some more. So much more that I even decided to skip Toastmasters as well. According to Eduardo, I ruined his routine. He usually dedicates his days off to geeking out through uninterrupted house chores. Likewise though, it's not like I got anything done either! It was great though. I used to play hooky for him all the time. Every once in a...

Today was the Church's General Conference and it's been years since I went to church to watch it with the rest of the congregation, as it is always available to stream online. Last year my family and I happened to be in Utah on the same weekend as the General Conference and it was quite an experience to see it live in person. Today I believe it's the first time that I went with Eduardo to watch the General Conference at church. He was always working on Sundays in the past and when I was still working at the Opera, I too normally ended up having to work on the Sunday when the Conference took place, so we never really had the opportunity to go together, until today apparently. What is the General Conference, you might ask... In simple terms, let's just say that it's like attending a two-day TED Talk Conference but are led by church officials and the topics are different areas of the gospel and teachings of the church. I have heard it many times from different peop...

Bell and I attended our good friends' miracle daughter's first birthday. When I say miracle, it's true. The powers of the universe that brought that child into this world is a testament to having strong faith and letting love take charge. This won't be a long entry, I just wanted to share how happy I was to be able to share this moment with our friends and their family. I am looking forward to seeing this child grow up raised by such wonderful parents. So much love for them :)

I watched the kids take their Brown Belt test in karate tonight. I do have a disconnect when it comes to their martial arts education because I understand nothing of it. Super supportive of it and grateful that my mother-in-law introduced it to my kids, but it's one of the things that I was happy to delegate to others. Today though, I picked up the kids from school, met up with grandma at the food court and I was just going to hand them over and find something else to do with my free time. But I didn't really have anything pressing that I needed to do and I never get an opportunity to be with the kids when they have karate so I thought, what the heck I'd come watch. Of course I didn't realize that belt testing was a rigorous two-hour thing, but regardless I was thankful for the free time that I had to just dedicate to cheering my kids on. They were awesome and Bell was awarded the Elite Warrior Brown Belt, which I of course knew nothing about. It meant that she ...

Today was the first meeting of the Student Registration Priorities Committee since we proposed the priorities to the School Board and it was approved. Today's complicated topic of discussion was how to create the infrastructure to support the whole school district in fairly implementing the new student enrollment priorities. This included conversations about developing an app that can automate as much of the work as possible, developing a criteria for the documents that will be required for parents to present in order to prove their residence, etc. More logistical stuff. I love being in the company of really smart people but I admit, I'm still not as outspoken as I should be and sometimes I wonder if I should be. On the other hand, I really hate outspoken people who take up time when all they're doing is thinking out loud but isn't necessarily contributing to the discussion. I hate wasting time caused by emotional outbursts. I'm just not like that. I think logical...

I was at a community outreach event today at one of the provincial ministries. It was one of those straight forward events where we set up a table and entertain questions from the public about what the agency does and how they can be a part of it. Then my Toastmasters Division Director showed up because that was office building, and he talked to me for AN HOUR. Luckily, my other colleague was there so she could entertain other conversations other wanted to have. I, on the other hand, carried on with my "private" conversation politely, while maintaining keen interest and engagement. If there's anything I learned over the years, well actually more so the last couple of years, it's not to judge people (unless they're related to me by blood). So although this person could looks and sounds like a nerd, he later did admit that he didn't really have that many friends and that Toastmasters was his social and professional development outlet, he still lived at home ...

SO I finally decided to show up for choir today. I'd be lying if I said I was super keen to be there especially after the first twenty minutes of the rehearsal where I quickly got reacquainted with Beethoven. I just had to show up on the day that we were rehearsing the movement with the million b-flats in it. Why, why... WHY!?!! I'd also be lying if I said I didn't complicate running out the door with the thought, "I can still leave... I haven't invested more than an hour on this music yet. I can still go!" But oh well, the thrill of the challenge got the better of me once again. Oh gawd, it's going to be a miserable five months... On the up side though, I think after learning Missa Solemnis this year, the fear and reluctance of singing b-flats will be a thing of the past.

Speech Contest Day has arrived! I gotta say, I was excited for this day to come. When I accepted the task of putting this contest on, I had no idea how the heck a speech contest looked like. I was given a guide which listed what needed to happen, I used my common sense and I put my event planner hat on and went to work. I whipped out a poster, I promoted and built excitement around the event, I reached out and connected with people. I motivated my club members to join the contest, I showed both professionalism and humility as I went to our Area, Division and District officers and asked them to volunteer their expertise. I developed a new system to sign up for volunteer roles which was immediately embraced and adapted by our Area Director. Already I felt like I made a difference, made an impact, set the bar higher and elevated the organization I represented, which ultimately is all the reward I care for myself. I like doing a good job and I enjoy doing a good job. But this day still...

Raine has been wanting to attend the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria's Annual House Tour since he was six years old. This is a fundraiser where the AGGV organized a self-guided tour of five private homes with some stellar architectural feature.  Of course if you were a homeowner of some fancy house who agreed to show off your home to hundreds of people on this one day, as part of a fundraiser, it's quite understandable why you wouldn't want to have young kids running around your property. So when I checked the policy, it said that kids under 10 are not allowed to attend. Completely understandable.  After four years of patiently waiting to be 10 years old, Raine finally turned 10 this year. I almost forgot that I promised to take him on this tour. Luckily I didn't or else I'll never hear the end of it. I was thrilled that he was still interested though even though it has been four years since we last talked about it! It was really cool and enjoyed the tour w...

So... today I got trained to be an official speech contest judge in the area, division, district and international level. Did I mention that I got trained by accident? It's contest season in the Toastmasters world right now and as VP of Education there has been a ton of emails going my way the last few weeks that admittedly I didn't really track very well. But I did remember seeing something about a judges training which I understood was an info session for new people who has never judged a speech contest before. Fair enough. It's a complicated process, so why not? So naturally I thought I qualified to attend. Yes, I thought it couldn't hurt to learn the ins and outs of judging for educational purposes, but I attended mostly because I had spent the last few weeks recruiting judges for our club's speech contest. As the chair and lead organizer of this contest I thought I should at least understand what it is that I have asked my volunteers to commit to. I a...

Today was an eventful Friday. Literally. I had two third party fundraisers that I had to attend where I supposedly did not know anyone and assumed that I had to turn on my networking button on for. You know, networking events have been getting easier lately. It has been noticeable that I in the recent past, I been able to carry on longer and longer conversations with random people and not feel like I want to die after the first five minutes. One of the events was a lunch hour fashion show, that came with lunch - YAY. But even when I ended up at a table with a couple of people I didn't know, it wasn't that bad. I mean, yes having food to eat was a definite helpful distraction and time killer and I could have easily just ignored the two people at my table, but it seemed more awkward to be shy than it was to be friendly, so I went with friendly. The evening event I went to was held at an art museum that I had never been to, so I was excited to finally get a chance to see what ...

Today I was on 'Mommy Duty." As per mine and Eduardo's arrangement from over a year ago, Thursdays and Fridays are the days that I am in charge of the kids from school pick-up until the evening because these are the two days that he is working late. Doesn't always happen that way given my ridiculously crazy schedule and even when I do pick up the kids on Thursdays, I pass them on to grandma so I can go back to work. Today on the other hand is an anomaly, obviously, but nevertheless an anomaly I would like to continue. I had the entire afternoon and evening free enough that I could just go home with the kids after I picked them up from school. Well not exactly, piano lessons got moved to Thursdays now followed by swimming lessons. You know the saying that 'life happens?' Well clearly a lot of life happened because today was the first time in five years that I had taken the kids to their swimming lessons! In those five years, I had been oblivious of their pro...

It's been non-stop for me ever since September hit. One event after another. Today, I had a grants management meeting with the leadership team at work where I led the meeting and talked for two hours. It was our first chance to regroups since the Summer and after everyone's back from holidays so it's quite understandable why it ended up being that long. Afterwards though, I just suddenly realized that I was feeling that I was borderline exhausted. As if the universe heard my issues, one of my co-workers popped by my office and said a few of them were going out to lunch and if I wanted to come. Normally I wouldn't because well first of all, Eduardo makes my lunch every day so I always have something to eat. And secondly, I find that getting up from my desk to take any rest of some sort is really distracting. I didn't say healthy, just distracting. But this time around I really felt like I needed a treat and Thai food sounded like the way to go. So that was my rew...

Call me delinquent but I skipped choir again tonight -- for the second week in a row! It's so unlike me to do this but last week we had that golf tournament fundraiser and then tonight, I could have made it to rehearsal late, but after the first Viva board meeting of the season, I was just wiped out. We're back to drawing board I think. Low membership, how do we get more parents and children engaged, how do we increase attendance, how do we attract interest? All the age-long questions of any arts organization but it keeps coming back time and time again. Although I did bring up a really good suggestion which I am now tasked to initiate, sometimes I feel like maybe I should just shut up. But I can't really shut up. Once and arts administrator always an arts administrator. It's like taking an oath to always advocate for arts education, appreciation, awareness of different genres and supporting new artists. In this case fighting to save choral singing for children and ...

Yes indeed, I was mixing it up by mingling with other local professional fundraisers by attending the annual season kick-off event of the CAGP (Canadian Association of Gift Planners). I went because first of all I'm on the CAGP Board so of course to appear united and welcoming to other members, I gotta show up and network. I'm sure this isn't the first time I've mentioned it, but networking event have always been awkward for me. Although I have admittedly improved over the years. This time I said I was only going to stay for an hour. Mostly because it's the most that I can put on my street parking and I had another meeting in the Westshore right after the Mixer. But what do you know, I ended up staying over my allotted time because believe it or not, I can now successfully carry a conversation with multiple people and last more than hour doing this. Shocker.

Every third Sunday of the month, anyone who has a calling as a teacher at church gets a teacher "workshop" as part of our professional development. So today was a teacher workshop day. I wouldn't say that it's a necessary thing to do but I certainly appreciate it. I appreciate that the church leadership cares enough that everyone does well that they would provide this kind of support to the members whose calling is to teach. It's an opportunity to gather with other teachers, compare notes and best practices, gain and share new ideas, in short it's beneficial to everyone. I don't really have that much to say about it yet as it has only been my second time to attend, but any professional development is welcome in my book.

Today was Bell's birthday celebration. It was our time to make it up to her after two years of neglecting her birthday. Two years ago we just came back from Hawaii and well, kinda broke, so we kinda convinced her not to have a party and to just go over to Vancouver. Then last year, not only did we just come back from the Philippines, we were also busy preparing for my sister-in-law's wedding so again, we talked her into celebrating in December by going to Portland. I know it's not like we neglected her completely but we sure haven't put in so much attention to celebrating on her actual birthday. So here we are, I was so together, I planned everything six weeks in advance :) As a side note, this is also the first birthday where we didn't have to do anything. It was surreal in an anti-climactic way, but hey Bell had a great time, all her guests had a great time, all was well!

As I said on my Facebook post, "And this is how its' done -- stress-free auction setup!" I have whined and groaned about auctions and galas over the years, and I just want to make myself clear that my sarcasm towards events like these have nothing to do with my reluctance to support any cause or charity. In fact, that reason alone is probably the only thing that drives my motivation and every last bit of adrenaline during the most stressful time of special event planning -- the big picture that at the end of the day, the charity and cause that this event supported is the winner of it all. So you might ask, where does my sarcasm and annoyance come from? Well it's mostly the difficult personalities that I've had to manage and work with over the years -- the people who put themselves "in charge" but are not necessarily in the front line of putting the whole event together. Again, at the end of the day, despite clashes in personalities and opinions, th...

The annual South Park family potluck was tonight. It's the first PAC event of the year and for the second year in a row, I was family-less. Raine had piano lessons, then the kids had swimming, Eduardo had to work, and of course since I can't watch the kids, grandma had to watch the kids, so that left me as the only Hermosa family representative present at the Potluck. Of course I came, because, well, I'm the PAC Chair. I organized it and it's the first opportunity to meet the school's new families in a social setting. Plus we initiated a new icebreaker initiative so of course I had to be there to make sure it turns out okay. It was a tougher than normal day because we have a fundraiser tomorrow at work and all the auction prep work had to be done today in order for us to be able to set up first thing in the morning. But I had never been more grateful to have an amazing team of people on the PAC this year that had their own initiative and common sense to set up...

It's Bellie's birthday!!! Seriously, how is she 9 YEARS OLD???!!!!! We celebrated by having dinner at Red Robin because of her free birthday meal. Then we gave her present which she was in complete shock of getting. She was so happy she actually cried.

It's the first day of choir rehearsal tonight but it was the first time that I wasn't there because I had to attend a third party golf charity event for the women's shelters in the community. The beauty of third party events is that, in theory, these are fundraisers that are organized to raise money for charities without using any of their administrative resources. This was why I had no qualms about showing up for this event, even if it meant missing choir on our first day back for the season. To be able to say thank you in person to the group of people who who have worked so hard to give back to their community, is such a special thing to do. I got to connect with other staff from other shelters and got to socialize with a lot of the attendees and staff of Royal LePage. I even got to bid on an auction item even though somebody kept outbidding me time and time again. Although admittedly, I'm slowly having relearn attending events where I'm don't have to work...

Competent Communication Manual Speech 3: Get to the Point Speech Objectives: • Select a speech topic and determine its general and specific purposes. • Organize the speech in a manner that best achieves those purposes. • Ensure the beginning, body and conclusion reinforces the purposes. • Strive not to use notes. TIME: 5 to 7 minutes. The objectives in “Get to the Point” teach the speaker how to clearly state your speech goal, and make sure that every element of your speech focuses on that goal. Third time's a charm, but only accidentally. So remember I wasn't feeling well last night? In fact I almost bailed on my speech today because I couldn't figure out what to talk about that would meet the above objectives effectively. No that's not true, I had an idea but it was on the complicated side and required more finessing had I decided to go on with it. But because I wasn't feeling well and I really didn't want to start a precedence of bailing on my spe...

I feel like I had just been run over by a truck. No, no, no... I can't be getting sick. There's still so much I have to do, including writing the damn speech I said I was going to do tomorrow! Breathe... It also doesn't help that Eduardo's upset with me right now. He said he's not but I know he is because he's been ignoring me. Part of me feels terrible because I had been SO crazy busy that I ignored him first. On the other hand, part of me feels like I should take advantage that he's currently ignoring me and blitz through all the things I have to do, AND THEN I can apologize and make it up to him after I'm done with all my projects that happen to be all due one after the other this week. On the flip side, part of the reason that my to do list piled up was because I decided to take it easy over the summer and hang out with Eduardo every single night when I could've easily been diligently going through my to do list leisurely. Oh well, doesn'...

It's Raine's first day in dance class! We signed him up for this amazing program with the  Victoria Academy of Ballet. They have a tuition-free beginners dance program for one year, specifically just for boys. Brilliant! They're facing their recruitment issues head on. Calling it is what it is -- the dance industry needs male dancers and the best way to do it is to get young male children interested at a young age, or at the very least, provide them with the access and opportunity to decide for themselves if it's something they would like to go into in the future. Because let's face it, this stupid world of ours is full of stupid discriminating people with antiquated points of view and we need to do something about it. I'm all riled up in particular because I finally decided to call my mother back earlier this week. She left me a message at 7am on a Sunday on how she doesn't understand why Raine and Bell are in the same class. Yes it's a valid questi...

Yes. Drilling. Not me though. The dentist did. The dentist gave Bell an emergency root canal -- on a baby tooth! I didn't even know that was possible! Wouldn't you just pull it out and get it over with? No, apparently not. I'm guessing dentists must've taken an oath to save every tooth they can to the best of their abilities. Bell was complaining of a toothache for a couple of days but we thought that one of her baby teeth was just coming lose and the reason it was hurting was because it was one of those smaller molars. We do this all the time with her. We think that whatever is bothering her is not a big deal and then it ends becoming a big deal and then we feel bad because we didn't believe her right away. Just like all those times... when her eyes got swollen and we didn't think it had anything to do with peanut allergy. Or that time when her gum swelled up and we didn't think to think much of it until it got to be the size of a golf ball. Or that other...

Second day back to work after Labour Day and I am out late again, this time with the mentorship program folks with AFP. I have to say, for once I can finally say that I can survive networking events and also, I'm also getting to know a lot more people than I thought that attending such events is never awkward anymore because there's always someone to chat with. And by chat, I mean more than just a so-how's-work kind of conversation. It's actually nice. Maybe it's just here in Victoria but in other cities, I feel like every fundraiser is competing against each other as opposed to supporting each other in the same crazy field that we're in! In a nutshell, I had a great time. I thought I would only stay for an hour, instead I ended up staying for 2.5 hours with a lot of new friendly and professional connections. Not bad for another night of staying out late.

A rather fiery first PAC meeting of the year if I may say so! Too many details to mention so I won't go into it but let's just say that my original plan for this meeting was to just talk logistics for our two upcoming events and go through the bylaw review. But so many parents showed up for this meeting, which is great, don't get me wrong, and really a lot of great discussion took place as well. I'm not sorry about any of it, but it was a lot heavier in content that I had hoped for and well, it was... heavy! It's my last year as PAC Chair and all I want to accomplish this year is to make sure everyone I leave behind to continue on the work is set up for success. I am confident that I will be leaving behind a competent and passionate team of people and I no longer feel worried or apprehensive. I'm really looking forward to this year.

First day of school! My Grade 5 and 4 babies... how did this all happen?? They were just babies! I thought that first day of school was going to be the highlight of this day but instead, the highlight was me and Eduardo going for a run along Dallas Road while waiting for the kids to get out of school. I ran for a solid one hour! ONE HOUR! I can actually keep up with Eduardo now without stopping, it was a fantastic feeling to be able to do that. It used to be that the longest interval I could run was 5 minutes and that was me already wanting to die. I absolutely LOVE that I have so much more energy and endurance now. It does pay off to exercise regularly! Woohoo! :)

The day started out with me wanting to do something to take advantage of the last holiday before the summer ends. But I often forget that the person I want to hang out with the most is Mr. Practical and Mr. Anti-Adventure when uncoerced. So right away when we woke up this morning, he declared that he would love to hang out and do something together, but he was tired and whatever activity I come up with, it would be preferable if we didn't go very far. Total buzz killer since what I wanted to do was hike. So in my misery, I started cleaning instead. I started organizing my closet, which at first I thought was the dullest way to spend a holiday but, oh well, I needed to clean up my closet anyway. Later I discovered that it was a good thing that I did that because I finally found the formal purses that I had been blaming Eduardo for losing. Yay! Okay, admittedly I was embarrassed to realize that it was me who had kept the purses away. I hardly ever clean around the house that it...

Today was Fast Sunday. Every first Sunday of each month, members of the church fast for two meals. It's amazing to me that on any other day, I would most definitely feel the hunger, but for some reason when it's Fast Sunday, and when it's purposely done right, I feel that I'm rewarded by not feeling any hunger at all. But only when I sincerely and prayerfully do it. It doesn't work when it's just an afterthought and I do it just because. Isn't that interesting? I had never figured out the whole matrix behind this fasting mystery. I didn't have anything deep to pray about today, except for the general well-being of everyone who is dear to me. Wishing the kids all the best in school this year. Being thankful for my family and the amazing people that surround me at home, at work, and everywhere I go, who I credit all the positive influence in my life to. There are some days when I really do mean business and really bring forward something I need help wi...

You know what's too much volunteering? It's when you're forced to spend the Saturday of a beautiful sunny long weekend cooped up inside the house to blitz through a bunch of volunteer work you committed yourself to for various organizations not related to each other! That's what today was. My tasks: CAGP - social media content calendar for the rest of the year and a board report South Park PAC - shopped for supplies for the first week of school's welcome back coffee/tea event every morning; proofed the PAC Events brochure; finalized the PAC's Facebook Group guidelines; created PAC Meeting Agenda Toastmasters Club - Speech contest promotion and volunteer recruitment; member survey (which actually meant I had to do a crash course on every educational program that Toastmasters International has in order to create this survey from scratch!) Church - had to prepare my lesson for primary In addition to that, I went shopping as quickly as I could to buy f...

Visiting was definitely the theme of the day. We visited a a bunch of libraries, community centres and different neighbourhoods, so I could put up posters for a work event we're having next week. We visited South Park so we could check the class list posted. And true enough, what we heard was correct -- Raine and Bell are in the same class this year! Hilarious. I knew they requested each other at the end of last school year but I didn't think the teachers would take it seriously! It was also very flattering but at the same time humbling how a lot of the teachers find both my kids a gem to teach. So much that they find no issue in putting them together in one class! We went home and visited a new provincial park that's about 15 minutes away from the house. We were shocked at how beautiful and peaceful it was there and couldn't believe how remote it felt and yet we're really not. It was so amazingly beautiful. And a really good hike! Distance and challenge-wise, i...

I took the day off so I could stay home with the kids. A little scheduling glitch that led us two days of childcare coverage this week. It should've actually been three days, but with everything going on on at work, yesterday just had to be a work-from-home day. And boy did I ever work from home! I sat on my ass for seven straight hours as if I had been in the office. In fact I think it was much worse than being in the office. I got up once to eat lunch for about ten minutes and then I was back at it again. And in order to guarantee that today was going to be 100% spent with the kids, I promised them I will stay up all night if I had to to finish everything I had to do. I stayed up until 2 am. Just saying. The kids were amazing to me. They let me work and didn't bother me at all. They even fed and entertained themselves on their own! I knew they were bored and were really looking forward to spending time with me, but they also understood that I was on a deadline. SO today w...

The Back-to-School PAC Meeting/Social was this evening. Unlike in the past, I think this the meeting that I was least prepared for, least excited about, but at the same time felt like it was more important than the back-to-school meetings we've had in the past. I think it's mostly because we have a new principal, some new PAC Execs and staff... it was interesting to see how we would all work together this year. Overall I thought it went well. Not looking forward to school starting, not because I don't like school, but mostly because driving 15 km every morning in traffic is starting to get really old. I am however excited that this will be my last year as PAC Chair. My goodness, what will I do with all that free time next year??! That's a trick question. I'm sure something will come up to replace the void that PAC chairmanship will leave in my schedule. I am quite delighted with the people I have in place in the PAC Exec this year. In fact I am doing less leg wo...

I had previously talked about Home Teaching, this time I thought I'd share something about Visiting Teaching. That''s what I did tonight with my Visiting Teaching companion, we went to visit the sisters from the church who are assigned to us. What is the purpose of Visiting Teaching? The Purpose of Visiting Teaching Is to Minister. How do we minister? Pray daily for the sister that we visit and her family. Seek inspiration to know her and her family. Visit her regularly to learn how she is doing and to comfort and strengthen her. Stay in frequent contact through visits, phone calls, letters, e-mail, text messages, and simple acts of kindness. Greet her at Church meetings. Help her when she has an emergency, illness, or other urgent need. Teach her the gospel from the scriptures and the visiting teaching messages. Inspire her by setting a good example. Again, as an introvert, I struggled with becoming a Visiting Teacher at the beginning. I could only see it ...

It's a cliche to say that time goes by so quickly, but it's extra annoying when I realized that it's been five months since my first speech! I know I procrastinated a while before I could even give my first speech, but it was never my intention to prolong the whole endeavour. The Competent Communicator  manual has ten speeches and I really wanted to finish all the projects within the year. Okay maybe not ALL of them, but at least most of them. And me realizing that it's been almost half a year since my very first speech is so not acceptable. So I signed to do my second one today. And you know what? I have scheduled myself in advance for all my future speeches as well. Now that I took on the VP of Education for my Toastmasters Club, I have a better understanding of the broad scope of Toastmasters International's education program. I have decided that I will pursue the Leadership Track which means I will need to complete two manuals (Competent Communication and Comp...

Today was Bell's audition. She's trying out for Four Seasons Musical Theatre's production of High School Musical this fall. And although we don't know if there's any room for younger kids in this production, she didn't care and just wanted to go for it anyway. I was in the waiting room and even with the door closed, I heard her belting it out in the audition. I was so proud of her. I AM proud of her. I am amazed at her level of confidence and ability to identify goals and ambitions, to be able to brush off fear and anxiety, which I myself would normally have around performances, or with anything really. I know Bellie tends to resent too much structure at times, so for her to be able to just pick out her own song and perform it the way she wants to, is something I really admire. As a side note, I met the show's producer who happens to be Eduardo's friend from the Y, who organized the SPCA Paws for a Cause back in 2009, whose dog we borrowed so we coul...

It's been a super long day and I need to write this entry quickly before I crash for the day. I carpooled with my visiting teaching companion, her husband and another friend. We caught the 6am ferry which surprisingly, was a super cool time slot to take the ferry. We thought the ferry would be  full, but most people just decided to sleep in their cars instead of  lining up at the cafeteria to have breakfast. For a sailing that supposedly was 75% full, the whole ferry felt like it was empty! I couldn't believe how fast time flew by -- it's been almost a year since I last went to the temple! The last time I went was in Salt Lake City, the morning before my sister-in-law's wedding. We had to cram temple work into our crazy busy schedule that day just because, when else are we going to be in Salt Lake City again?? Plus everyone kept saying that we had to experience the live performance during the endowment sessions. Anyway, I digress... after we got back from our trip t...

Three weeks ago I was contacted by the Development staff from the film festival, who reached out to me if I would have time to chat with her about fundraising in the arts. I was recommended to her by her boss who said that it might be good for her to chat with someone who has had a long time background experience with fundraising in the arts. Of course I said yes, and I really was genuinely happy to help. Today we met up and ended up chatting for almost two hours! The part that really surprised me was -- I knew what I was talking about! I didn't have notes nor did I stumble answering anything. Based on my experience, I actually had enough concrete examples to give to her of projects I worked on, do's and don'ts that worked for me, best practices, tips, strategies and ideas that she could actually apply to her job. It reminded me of my last work interview when I realized, I really don't need to be nervous or panic anymore when talking about work-related matters because...

Photo taken when I dropped them off at the bus pick up spot The kids are back from their first overnight camp ever! They made it, they survived! Better yet, WE survived! Admittedly, for the most part Eduardo and I acted and behaved to be the cool parents we usually are, which is a lot better than what I first anticipated I would react. Raine was the one who really wanted to go but then we made Bell go. We said he can only go if Bell went too, so in the end she felt obligated, which we didn't care too much about because really, she's the one with the survival skills between the two of them. When we first agreed to sign them up for the overnight camp and submitted the paperwork and everything, I did feel that knot in my stomach. The kind that's accompanied with the feelings of, "sure we'll let them go because we're awesome parents who have brought them up well and know that they will be responsible" with a mix of "holy fuck, am I going to be abl...