rewards for myself

i already rewarded myself a vase of fresh flowers from the market. i am a big fan of wild bouquets and unusual flowers, so that was my arrangement of the day/week.
i was getting a "me-time" at the market yesterday, and i ended up with this bunch. and it just brings a smile to me every single day.



you know how we always make lists and resolutions for the new year (i love lists!), and we always end up making excuses in the end of not doing it, i thought of doing a different strategy to keep my brain less pressured from the "promises" i tell myself every year.

wasnt it just year 2005, i promised ot eat a healthy breakfast everyday? its now 2009, i rarely eat breakfast, (even with diabetes) , unless a banana counts every morning, i still have yet to cross that off my list.

i can't blame myself for writing resolutions. i grew up in a mentality of elementary and high school teachers who,after every christmas break, will make me write an essay (with no less than 500 words) what my new years resolution will be.

but im trying to break away from that. although, you might argue, it might just be a case of semantics.

whatever the case, i know for one, resolutions have a positive outlook on it. the only downward side is keeping it within a realistic and achievable scale.

instead,im calling all the positive things for myself, a REWARD. it sounds less stressful, less demanding, yet im so willing to do so on my part.

let me show you the rewards i have promised myself this year-

I reward myself...

-to laugh everyday. find something funny in everything. i owe this to myself, after years of being a "manang" dont you think? i will choose to laugh instead of being angry. after all, mean people are actually trolls with adult clothes on (im laughing already).


-to learn a new dish. as often as i could. i dont want to put a timescale, because once i say everyday, once a week, or a month, then things go bananas. if i learn a new recipe for this year, that is one big reward already. and you're invited to a dinner here at home.


-to learn a new skill.i might try painting and decorating, baking or knitting (is so in nowadays, knit clubs). timescale:within 2009. hmmnnn, it can be carpentry or upholstery, i will do it. (not to mention, anything DIY skill can be ver useful for the house)


-to fresh flowers every week. i used to do this, but the past few months,i was more busy with christmas, i neglected my house flowers. it was just recently, after seeing beautiful poinsettias in the garden centre, and frequenting the market, i started indulging my flower love again.
the flowers can be from the garden, from the store, from the market or from the countryfields..anything will do, and i will do it. saying that, i have an afinity to wild flowers.


-to dance more. im not talking structured dances, or learnt dances. i just need to reward myself with a good old swaying of the hips. i realised on the recnt new years party i have been to, how much exhiliration i get from dancing especially with people i admire.


-to cook more creative meals. recently, we have been eating out alot. (its not healthy for the body and the pocket), and the food can just be replicated in the confines of our cosy home. (seafood linguini, here i come!). and if i did cook, it was the usual fare we would have. its not exciitng any longer. i need to get in gear again.


-to take more photos. there are days, that my embarassment overcomes me. and the knowledge and too much awareness of the British culture makes me paranoid, that theyd think im a weirdo for photographing mundane things, or photographing my food. (i have to know a way around this, maybe join a club here or something, but thats not a priority). thats the reason why, it pains me when i carry my oh-so-heavy camera and end up with no photograhical documentation of a recent gathering. plus, when some people come over to my house too, id be so self conscious even at photographing my guests, can you believe it? i feel as if they might think, id sell their photos to the internet or something. but saying that, when im at their homes, i am all too obliging for them to take photos of me, so that little by little they learn, that its ok to let other people take photos of you. (this can be a long entry,haha). so yeah, i owe it to myself, to click more.


-to sing more. a friend asked me to sing for her christmas party and she wanted to pay me 150 sterling pounds for it, but i flatly refused. she had this posh do for her city friends, and said she wanted to hire a band, but it will cost her thousand pounds. she said, she can hire an up and coming guitarist for 150 pounds, and she wanted me to sing whie he playes the acoustics, but i said no. she just rang me today to tell me that she hired the band in the end whcih she said was crap, excuse my french.
i feel foolish now. i could have saved my friend money, and i could have earned money too. but why did i refuse? i could have sung for free, but i didnt.
i will sing more, and woe to neighbours to hate videoke machines (haha).


-to make a special "me time" for me everyday. it might be 5 or 10 minutes of walking, or an hour of reading an inspirational book. i will do this.


-i will wear more skirts and dresses. i remember adrian used to say to me that what attracted him most, was because i was the epitome of womanness, he said. what he didnt know,i only wore skirts to be more feminine to my quite mature man. i stopped wearing skirts when i hated drafts of cold breeze on my legs in this country.
i should dig them out now. besides, what stops me wearing it, inside the house?


-to handwrite cards and notes to people that mean to me. they deserve it as much as i do. there are those people who will drop everything in a hat for me, a single phonecall, a frantic text, whether they are in timbuktu or zambales, they would call back on really bad scractchy signal, just to assure me, that everything is fine. they are the same people who will run in the middle of a busy day for me, between conferences and cold calls from doctors to go to taboan and buy me my craving then goes back to work smelling of buwad.*teary eyed* i am definitely writing one long one tonight.


-to always choose peace. a happy medium. if not, staying away from unwanted rumormongering to keep ourselves happier and settled. plucking the unwanted stray hairs from my freshly polished leather suite counts too.


i would have wanted more, and even include to lose weight, but that is a reward im unable to do for the meantime because of resources and manpower deficits, i am unable to.

maybe next year, lol.