Techie Mommy

Today's photo of the day is brought to you by Chippy, Cheese Curls and Boy Bawang. As the girls and I treck up the bedroom to start winding down for the day, I felt an urge for some chichiria. So I raided our cabinet and found that it's been newly stocked. Awesome!

We woke up today excited for X's swimming class. There was no class last week, and we missed the week before that (When I came back from San Francisco). When we got there, we learn that the class was cancelled because a meet was scheduled. Bummer, we were looking forward to some swimming time. At lunch, we packed everyone up to attend a birthday party at the Jump Zone. XYZ enjoyed themselves and had fun! Had a couple of photos but especially loved this one of Z. He's a bit mesmerized by this funny mirror and he kept on looking at himself on it. One time, I caught him doing this! And I don't blame him. I kiss him everytime I see him too. He's just soooo cute :)

Got home late with no photos taken. Which is weird, because I have my camera and I had lots of interesting photos to take at work, but for some reason - I can't find the time to take those photos. So, at home in the bedroom with the girls, I again have to find something. Tonight, it's mangoes. This is not a very good shot, but I want to talk about mangoes :) These are not the popular Philippine mangoes. These are what's closer to what's called indian mangoes in the Philippines, but I think is really closer to Mexican mangoes here. The batch we got from the grocery this week was really good. Sweet and crunchy. And when we get them that way, EVERYONE wants one. These are normally for me, but I can't eat one with X and Y wanting their share. If Z is still awake, he wants some too and when hubby is home, he steals some himself. The funny thing is no one else asks for them! They just want to eat them when they see me eating them. Isn't that weird?

Been trying to get an inspiration for today's photo all night. A colleague gave me a good idea of taking a photo of the Pizza oven after we had after work drinks at the Italian place but I wanted to get moving and be at the train station. So, now I'm in one of those nights where I am stuck trying to find inspiration inside the bedroom. Tonight's subject came from my end table lamp shade. I've actually seen this in the past and remembered tonight that I've been looking for a web to take pictures of. This one under one of the lamp shades looked interesting. What do you think? I liked this one because of the detail on the web. It's not silky and perfect, but feels like one of those halloween fake ones. LOL.

I know Valentines day is over - but everywhere around the house, we continue to have reminders and everyday, X eats something from her Valentines treat bag from school. I was having a conversation in the office, and a colleague mentioned that he found the phrase "Tweet me" in one of these sweetheart candies. So, curious - I grabbed X's box of candies and started going thru each one to find "Tweet me" for the photo of the day. I found "XOXOXO", but unfortunately didn't find "Tweet me". I did find something that said "weet _e" but it wasn't printed clearly and could have been "Sweet Pea" for all I know! If you find "Tweet me" or something equally modern, reply and share! :) Totally out of topic, X tells me: "Mommy, XOXOXO kisses!". Where did she get that?!

Yes, it IS my birthday today, and it is also President's day, which just so happens to be a non-working holiday for my company. Yay! Hubby was off, I was off, and the kids are not scheduled to go to school on Monday so today was one of those rare days where we are all together for the whole day. w00t! It was uneventful day. We brought Y and Z to the dermatologist for checkup and consultation. I tried to not read e-mail :), push off work until tomorrow, and sleep as much as I can in preparation for the busy week. In the evening, hubby had a reservation for us at the Morton Steakhouse in Schaumburg to celebrate both Valentines day and my birthday. This photo was taken on the way home, as I was in the car. Snow was falling and I we were at a stop light when I looked back and saw the Morton sign and liked how it was framed amidst the melting snow flakes.

Happy Valentines Day everyone! This is what I got from hubby... I was just thinking about the flowers (he gives me flowers every year) and was gonna tell him to switch the roses this year with something else and it looks like he read my mind! :) The card was cute and funny. It reads: Sometimes, when I wake up in the morning I feel the warm embrace of your arm around me, and I wish the moment would last forever... And then inside, it continues... "and I didn't have to pee." Bwah!

Today's photo of the day was a no-brainer. I arrived at the train station this morning to hear that my train is running approximately 15 minutes late due to a mechanical failure. So while waiting, I took a photo of all the people in the station, standing around doing whatever it is people do when they're waiting. When the train finally arrived, I got on my regular coach and noticed that the lights and the heat were off. When we got to the next station, it stopped - and then stalled. Meanwhile, the train voice over lady keeps on insisting that "The Mechanical failure has been fixed. We apologize for the delay". Outside, I was hearing a LOT of banging. So, after about 10 minutes of this, I got curious. The banging was really loud and sounded as if it's right outside my window. I was on the aisle, so I cannot really see from the window, so I stood up and peeked at the door and saw this... It turns out that the handicap lift was used at the Winfield stati...

Chicago is under a snow storm watch from last night to around 4pm today. So when I woke up in the morning, I peeked out to see if it was smart to come to the office. Here was what I saw... This was taken fromy my iPhone so the focus control was really bad and it is showing the mesh, instead of the scene outside. The accumulation wasn't that bad, but the roads (and my driveway) are unplowed so I decided to stay and work from home. You'd think I'd have more time to steal and take photos since I am home, but I was tied up with work all day, and had to pick up the kids from school in the evening. Hubby also called to tell me to get the girls to bed early so I had them all bathed and sleeping around 10:00pm which was a record time for us. Unfortunately, that also meant, I slept early too. When I woke up the next day, I actually thought that I FINALLY slipped and missed a photo! Then, I remembered the photo I took from the phone in the morning. Alas, that becomes th...

Busy day at work today specially since I've been out for three days last week. Had to catch up with team members, and make sure that all projects are running as expected. Reviewed and brain stormed on design with team members until I realized it's way past 6 and I've missed all rush hour trains. So, I actually have time to spare on the way to the train station since the next available train is not until 7:40pm. At the train station is the newly opened Chicago French Market that sells fresh produce and fruits. They also have crafts, and chocolates galore! I was hungry, but I didn't think I'd have time to eat, so I just walked around taking pictures of the colorful fruits and vegetables for today's photo. In the end I chose this photo just because the produce and fruit photos look very generic "fresh market" type photos. This juxtapose the elegance of the French market with the sterility of the train station environment. It's very industri...

Super Bowl Sunday and I have no plans whatsoever to watch the game. We used to watch the game with friends, but it's not happening this year and with all the backlog I have from being away last week, I passed on going to another friends house for the game. Before the game though, I told hubby that he will be my photo of the day. I asked him if he has a Saints jersey I can wear, so we can then have a photo of each of us in a different uniform. Alas, he only has a Colts jersey (which he wore) - although he told me he was rooting for the Saints. So, in deference to the Super Bowl, today's photo is hubby in his Colts jersey. Boring? Too bad :)

I have this picture in my head that I've been trying to take. I've seen other pictures of it but they don't really explain their setup or their equipment, so all I can do is experiment. For all I know, I may not even have the right equipment for it. Anyways, this morning, with the light coating of snow flurries that were on the car, I thought I may have the opportunity. I think it's close to what I want, but it's not quite there. I wanted a photo that would show the individual snowflakes in detail. Not all of it, but at least some of it (at least 1!). However, this is the closest that I got to what I wanted. The others were really just either a chunk of ice, or a blob of white :) Maybe next time, it will be better. Meanwhile, I also got one of those rare moments where my 3 angels posed together for a photo. Y is even smiling! X is not in her best smile, and Z has his deer in a headlights look -- but this photo is preciously rare :)

My MBP has 240 GB of hard drive, and today, at the worst time - I was down to 50MB. I had to backup a lot of files on my external hard drives and delete a lot of my VMWare snapshots to free up some space. Adding to that, Entourage is acting up again! For 2 days, my colleagues can't see my calendar in Outlook so it's been difficult to schedule meetings to the point that I've been sending them screenshots of my calendar. And this afternoon, I noticed that my Entourage database, started rebuilding itself! It's already 12AM now the next day and I'm still about 5 days into 2010. *sigh* So for the photo of the day, sorry for this cliche keyboard shot. Hee.

Busy with work today and had back to back meetings on the calendar. However, all pending work is done so I didn't have to bring any work home with me. Was hoping to catch the 5:40pm train, but got caught up with conversation with my team mates. As such, I find myself actually having time to take photos at the train station instead of running JUST to catch the train in time. I took a couple of pictures of the new Chicago Farmers market, inside and out - but chose these for the photo of the day. The good news is, I finally had time to upload and blog about 6 days worth of photos.

Last night was so much fun and Sunday was spent cleaning up, and resting. Today is also the day we open Y's presents! Y says "Thank you for the presents!" and yes, I have video to prove it... Ha ha!

3rd party in row! This weekend is Y's long awaited birthday party. We normally schedule her birthday party around this time in January because the 2nd is too close to the holidays and who knows who can come ?! Instead, we keep that day to celebrate Y's and my brother's birthday with family instead. While I've been researching and preparing for this party for a while - I wasn't really able to spend time to execute any of the plans until last weekend! With all work slowing down, and the long weekend over MLK, twas the perfect time to finish all the preparations, and invitations. Apparently, Blue is no longer very popular so the party stores don't carry her as a theme anymore. I had to order theme related stuff online, drive over a couple of neighboring cities to find a Target with the cake in stock and had to manually do the rest. There's also the small matter of Y flip flopping between being excited about her party, and NOT wanting a party at all (...

Tonight is my company's holiday party! Went with all my team mates, and since I live far far west in the suburbs, I had to go in my work clothes :( I was told this is the same place we had the holiday party last year, which I missed because I was on maternity leave. The place was huge! It had a lot of different chandeliers, that I actually think are for sale (I took a photo of one of them). The main entertainment of the night is CRUX Capacitor, our very own rock band! They were awesome!

Q4 over... projects all launched... Time to party! Went bowling at 10pin after work with all the team members working on the account. It was a fun night! I think I played 5 games, and should have stopped at 3. I had a great game, and I had the worst.game.ever! I should have stopped while I was ahead! :) Even though we were having fun, I had to find my photo of the day. This drink became a topic of conversation because we didn't know what it was. Since it was laser bowling, the drink "glowed". I just had to take it's picture.

20 days into the year, and three grown ups in the household has already been sick. I was trying to find things to photograph in the house while blogging about myself so I figured this is a good subject. Both nanay and hubby had to go to urgent/convenient care this week - and both got prescription medicines. They say you always need to group things in threes and I had one too from my sore throat/lost voice from the beginning of the year so that completes my subjects. The good news is, nanay is finally better and hubby is on preventative medication. The kids have nothing (cross fingers), and hopefully continue to do so because we have Y's birthday party on Saturday! I've been noticing that on most days (good days), I post 2 photos. Hopefully one that is a commentary on what my day is like, and another that is more artistic or photography related. I think I will continue in that mode. At the end of 365 days, I might have 500 pictures! Today's artistic picture is...

I've been trying to find bugs in the house to photograph lately and I just can't find one. Tonight, while I was in the basement with the girls, they screamed "Spider! Mommy!". So yeah, apparently, there are a couple of house spiders in the basement - but they're really too small, thin, and pale to take pictures of. But, beggars can't be choosers - so, I grabbed my gear, dropped a comforter on the floor and tried to get to it's level. The tripod was too high, so I have to do this hand held. There isn't a lot of light, so, with a macro lens and hand held, I had to up the ISO to make it manageable. This bug photography again is not simple, its not like, you can grab them and pose them your way so you can get a clear view of its eye. For the most part, they crawl away, and show me their ass. I found another one in the ceiling, and that was too high up that again, the tripod is useless. Anyways, after a couple of tries, and a lot of discarded pho...