Outreach, the MMCC way...

(WRITTEN LAST MONDAY, but POSTED only today.)
Hallooo!! Talk about chilly cold-y weather! I had all my windows closed all morning till around noon---even with the sun high up in the sky, as it was a truly windy, COLD Monday----very conducive to just stretching out on the couch under a warm blankie! Which was what i actually did, harhar. Had a whole list of stuff to do on my mind, but my bod just wouldn't budge, sowee. Know why? Coz it got beat up yesterday afternoon---when practically our whole church (the active families) went on an 'outreach' outing to the hills of this place called Kipalbig to dole out groceries and old clothes and rice to about 50 families living there belonging to the Bila-an tribe.
Actually, the whole of yesterday, Sunday was really cool. In the morning, we celebrated Children's Sunday with a special service led by the kids (they were the worship leaders, and they also had special song and dance numbers during the service), plus a party for them, with games, balloons and lootbags, to boot! Why a Children's SunDAY? Because a few years back, some smart kids complained that we always celebrated Mother's Day &Father's Day, so why not a day for them too???is why.
Then most of us formed a convoy towards Kipalbig, but stopped first at Nadie's, that chicken bbq place in Tupi i often mentioned in the past--for a nice lunch of what else? yummy chicken barbecue! Then we went off again. The site we had to get to was actually a semi-island of sorts, as it had a river surrounding 3/4ths of it, and the little circle of land we were on was full of trees, so it was also pretty cool, even if it was just around 1:30pm when we got there.
What was cool, too, was that our hosts (farm owners in the area) must have guessed (or smelled?) that this was a church who loved to eat, and they had pancit bihon prepared for us, boiled bananas plus buco juice and giant guavas to munch on while waiting for the natives to congregate.
And then they came in droves. That, too, was an unforgettable experience. Makes one remember how blessed one is, when others can have very little as well.
We got home around 5pm, soo tired but altogether happy.
I found myself dozing off at 8:30pm, as opposed to my normal 11pm& up beddybyetime!! And actually waking up at 5:30!! Wuhoo! 9 hours of sleep, finally?! in this day and age?(kay diba the tigulanger one gets, the less sleep he gets?)
But maybe such an unusual (but healthy)number of sleeping hours gave way to my groggy feeling all day long. Hence my being a couch patata today. Excused na ba? wahaha.

Wining & Dining galore! s'more!

Oopsie....! Looks like i broke my earlier promise of getting back to this blog like a regular blogger person. Oh but wait--now i remember why i wasn't able to: they took my PC away to the computer hospital!! But anyways, i'm baaack----and I hope this will get to be a regular thing from now on, remind me, ok?

A couple of interesting things happened to me last week. First, was our 'atik-atik lang' ladies' club monthly soiree. The party planners for this month thought we should have an ethnic theme this time around, hence the 'atik-atik' ....a spin-off from ati-atihan bala...but with lots of kalokohan (atik is loko in the vernacular here). So last Wednesday, we all trooped to the 2nd street where the party was being held at this lady Emma's home. She had taken the time to dress up her garage ala-ethnic museum, whereupon each person who brought an ethnic decor item added the items as they came .One of the staple activities we have at these parties is one where we have this 'bring an unusual plant (for green day), or tiniest ornament (for the Christmas bash), or ethnic decor' contest, where the most unusual item would be judged a winner.Another is a 'fashion parade' where everyone dressed according to the theme parades in front (lots of clowning around here), and gets judged as well...then there are the parlor games, usually also theme-related.

This time around, we were all diviied up into different Philippine tribes, and we played some kind of charade-style guessing game, where we'd have to guess the name of the native dance Emma, the hostess was dancing! Can you believe that lady? First she comes up with the garage museum, then she prepares the dances and dances them herself, and in the last game, to boot---"streetdancing", the different 'tribes' had to come up with ethnic dances (kalokohan lang) which had to be done to the accompaniment of the 'band'---made up of Emma on a bamboo drum, Marie with a bila-an guitar, and another lady with the gong! The fun was in trying to dance to a 'tune' by the band which was done impromptu pa gyud, with Emma bouncing about to the crazy beat of her drum! Hayy gid.

Please don't think we behave like this in all the parties we go to, ha? hehe.We let our hair down only when it's an exclusive Ladies Club party. But when it involves other people, very behaved gayud kami.
One example was last night at the Clubhouse. We had a bunch of billionaires who came on their own jet as guests (yep, you read right....millionaires & billionnaires, or so, we were told) we had to wine and dine and make chitchat with.They're part of the Wheelchair Foundation from somewhere in the US, and they've formed some kind of partnership with Dole...they're bringing in 250 brand new wheelchairs and Dole finds the beneficiaries for them through our civic/social people, the local government and hospitals. (The wining and dining happened Thursday & Friday night.)

Friday morning was the turnover ceremony which i also attended. It was quite touching to see terribly handicapped kids (and grownups) being brought to the ceremony---mostly quadriplegics with other complications. It was also moving to see their primary caregivers---mostly their mothers or fathers, struggling to carry them around (and some were like, 17 years old na?). The Foundation has been donating wheelchairs to countries like Africa, China, and lately na lang, the Philippines. As expected, all the guests made speeches and comments about how, only in this country have they met such a hospitable people (they were with your Uncle Fidel Ramos yesterday in Manila, by the way). Today at the ceremony, we had some high school kids do the authentic Singkil (the one with the Moslem prince and princess balancing on bamboo poles), plus the Tinikling. I was just so proud and happy we could showcase this part of our culture. The kids were so good at dodging the deadly bamboo poles pakpaking at high speed and force!

That evening was another wine and dine thingie with the guests, but this time, kasama ang mga kids. Unfortunately, i had scheduled Bible Study for the same evening as well, so ulaw kaayo if i forego that for the party. So Rene parties with Momon in tow, while i go down the hill to the BS. Saturday, the guy guests went golfing, while the non-golfing ladies were left to wander around or pack.others wondering what to do...but i left that problem for someone else to solve. I had another date in church---this time, to sort and package groceries and stuff for our church outreach on Sunday...and that's another story!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! It's been ages since i last wrote down anything on this blog, mainly because i still haven't made it a part of my life---when i should, and probably also because i know it isn't a real 'self-respecting' work of blogging ---which is possibly why i haven't made it a part of my life as i should---which brings us back to the beginning of this rambling paragraph.(Hopefully, no English professors get hold of this and start marking red the running sentences and mixed metaphors or whatever coz i'm way past being grammatically correct achuchu.Hopefully the words are still being spelled right? harhar. Besides, i'm doing this even before the birds or anyone else in this house wakes up, so...:}
So why am i back here, even? Mainly because a dear, dear old, old friend of mine has been bugging me to show her my blog ("Ha? Oo nga, ano? I have a blog nga pala! hahaha--teka, let me find it muna!"). Which reminded me I had one pala, and then all of a sudden i got self-conscious coz since i hadn't really taken blogging seriously, much of it was written in an effort to randomly chronicle some events (non-earth-shaking, really)of my day-to-day existence.(Truth is, 'what day-to-day existence?'--more like every-other-month-or-so existence is what i'm talking about here, heheh.)Also, a number of them were merely cut-and-paste efforts from emails to another dear and old friend of mine in Florida who writes me daily (and I her, so in essence, my emails to her are my blog?),which is just more proof that this blog is a 'hindi talaga pinag-iisipan' work of (non)prose!If you want to stop reading at this point, i forgive you and won't blame you either, okay? What i've written so far is just akin to the ramblings of an old lady...but then again, I am getting to be an old lady, aren't I? And this old lady woke up at 4a.m., too. (which is the time old ladies usually get up, harhar!)
Anyways, poor, technologically-challenged me had to IM my daughter Trina in Manila to find me my blog, having tried earlier unsuccessfully to track it! Which answers the question most likely on your mind at the onset of finding this blog: why the blog tag 'Sillymommy'?

Okay, so starting today, i now officially declare myself to be a 'blogger person': i shall make a conscious effort to report to this site more often than every other two months (hyuk,hyuk!), I shall try to be less boring and come up with more interesting, varied input...and i shall try to learn more about how to manage my blogspot better (like, 'pwede pala mag-post ng images???' hahahaha!

Meantime, much as i have so much to make kwento about, it seems just writing these 4 or five paragraphs has exhausted me as much as it has exhausted you reading it==i now
feel compelled to REST.:}}}So, have a great Sunday ahead, i gotta hunt for some breakfast bread!! :}