Deeper Meaning

A lot of people were wondering and have been asking us why would we still need to be married in a church ceremony while we’re already married on a civil rite a year ago. My answer was it was really on our priority plans and the civil rite was just a prelude to that big event. Partly true, until we had our pre-cana seminar at the church yesterday where I had some realizations or should I say has been reminded of the real purpose of a church wedding.

I want to bring back again those times when people asked me the reason of our church wedding. I want to tell them that as devout Catholics, we want to acquire God’s blessings in our new state of life by receiving the sacrament of Holy Matrimony. That’s it, the true purpose of the pre-cana seminar, to remind us of the things we know since it was being taught ever since elementary but we seemed to forget it over time. I should’ve said the seminar already had served its purpose at the start since I’ve been knocked on my head about the things I’m supposed to know. I can’t stay long enough the whole day listening to the lecture. But it was a pre-requisite so endurance is a must =).

However, the seminar was not a total bore though. The first speaker was a San Miguel retiree and has been married for almost 40 years to an ADB retiree too. Both retired as executives from the country’s biggest companies so weren’t surprised that they live and now enjoy their lives inside Ayala Alabang. At first we thought he was a priest as we expect to conduct the seminar and a lot of couples greeted him “Good morning Father.” but he wasn’t.. hahaha =D He somehow did well in contributing and giving advice to soon-to-be-married couples based on his 40 years of marriage experience. The last speaker in the afternoon was a nun. Even she, questioned herself why she was giving such seminars where she hasn’t been married at all. But her topic which is catholic catechism find her in authority to discuss it.

Well, let me enumerate the things that we learned and recalled:

• Since Holy Matrimony is one of the 7 sacraments in our catholic faith, those who chose married life as their calling must receive it.
• There are two valid reasons a wife can deny her husband of sex
  - If the wife is praying to her God.
  (** The speaker joked about his wife becoming so prayerful..hehehe **)
  - If the wife is sick.
  The reason the subject here is the wife because husbands will have no reason at all to refuse once their “thing” is up.. hehehe
• We finally got a very valid answer on the infamous anecdote on whose to save in a drowning situation: your wife or your mother? Most answers I’ve heard (as well as mine) is to save our mother, because she’s our mother and we’re bloodline compared to our husband/wife. But marriage cleared out the haze and the answer is we must save our husband/wife because of the vows we exchanged, for better or for worse, ‘til death do us part. =)
• As written also in the bible that a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be united to his wife; and they shall become one flesh (Genesis 2:24). We therefore need to get our own house hopefully within next year. =)

Canonical Interview

Canonical is an adjective derived from canon. It essentially means “standard”, “generally accepted” or “part of the backstory”.

We felt anxious somehow on what are we going to do as our canonical interview day is getting very near. I texted our wedding coordinator the day before (that was Monday) on what to expect on the interview and she told us to relax coz it’s just for formality sake. We’ll just be asked on our family and educational background. Indeed she was correct.

We were given a questionnaire at first and the church coordinator told us to fill it up. We felt dumbfounded when we’re told to fill up everything including the spaces that are suppose to be filled up by our interviewer, the priest.

The priest who interviewed us was stiff. Since Marvin and I were products of catholic schools ever since elementary, he only asked us few questions. I regard those as comments and not questions coz everything was already written in the questionnaire. I didn’t agree on his comment that our church wedding will only be a validation coz we were already married on a civil rite last year. We did that because of the legal documents and we want to be married in the church to receive the Holy Sacrament of Matrimony. This is how we see it.

Anyways, we’re somehow glad that our canonical interview was not a lengthy one as compared to other couples who received an untimely sermon from their priest interviewers. We still had the time to stroll around the malls that we definitely miss when we’re still staying in Alabang.

Chasing time

Time flies so fast to a busy person. And that time really does fly when we’re having fun. Or at least, it flies when our attention is engaged.

Two months starting today, we are keeping all our fingers crossed that all our laid out plans will be perfectly executed. The places below will become one of the landmarks in our lives as we transformed them into beautiful and romantic venues to celebrate our love.

The church

The reception

The EXcounter

From the time we decided not to bring the car anymore on ordinary days but commute instead, my husband suspects that sooner or later, he and his ex-girlfriend’s paths would cross again since we’re just some blocks away from their residence and she also happen to work around the area within the vicinity of our office. Indeed it happened very soon.

The first encounter was a Friday night when we ate dinner first before going home since it’s already late. The three of us rode the same shuttle on our way home. =) I didn’t see her (or it’s because I already forgot how she looked like), my hubby did. It was only during halfway our ride when my hubby disclosed her to me and that’s the time I knew the reason why he’s very agitated from the moment we stepped into the shuttle. Immediately after the ride, we can’t help but to ask each other our thoughts and feelings. We had the same thought – “What was she thinking?” =)

The second meeting was prevented beforehand by my husband because he chose not to ride that shuttle. He saw her again at the front seat, I didn’t (as usual). We went home early that time so we opt to wait at the shuttle terminal just a block away in front of our office building. We thought we’ll not meet her there since it’s a bit far from where she work. She might be thinking the same too. All of us were wrong.

And the recent encounter was this morning on our way to the office while we were on queue waiting for a ride. She passed by us after disembarking from a jeepney since we’re in front of the queue. But this time my husband forewarned me about her presence that’s why I become aware. We doubted her lining up on a different queue. Perhaps to avoid the three of us riding the same shuttle again.

I only see scenes of encountering with an Ex on TV commercials. Never thought it can happen to us. It’s indeed such a small world.

Revived Throne

I can barely remember how I grew fond of bowling. All I can recall was I used to cheer Mama whenever she played duckpin bowling during our school's PTA sportsfest when we were still in elementary. I always ask her to play for my Grade level and not with my siblings (parents of grades 1 to 6 students will have a team that will compete for the championship) because she's very good at bowling and I wanted our Grade level to win. I can also remember watching my grandmother's brother joining the city's bowling tournament and the countless recognition he got from it. Perhaps it's with my early exposure on that sport that led me to it.

I started playing with duckpin when I was in highschool. My mother doesn't like me to be involved on that sport because of my very frail physique but I never heeded her advice because I love what I'm doing. The first time I experienced playing with tenpin bowling was when I was already working. It became our Friday or weekend pastime with friends and officemates. My hubby who was my boyfriend then insisted on me to get serious on bowling since he saw in me the potential to excel on that sport but I just simply turn my back on his comments because it never crossed my mind to join bowling clubs and tournaments. I just play for the love of playing bowling. Not soon enough, I bought my first and only second-hand bowling ball. Followed by the accessories (shoes, bags, wrist support, etc.) that my hubby bought for me to show his support. That was when I won in our company bowling tournaments.

From then on I strive hard to always be the best female bowler in our company’s annual bowling tournament. I can only remember three incidents where I was never awarded that title. The first one was due to some loopholes on the rules. But I was still happy because my bestfriend-officemate got the award. The second one was so unlucky for me. I got the highest score during the elimination round but someone beat it during the finals. My team was eliminated so I never had the chance to increase my score. The third time was due to my pregnancy that I wasn’t able to attend the tournament. But in reality, I never expected to grab the award again after two years of not striking the pins. My hubby and I practiced just a day before the tournament. Bowling is a muscle memory sport. We never expect to win or get some awards from the tournament because not being able to play for a couple of years already.

Sweet comeback. I got the best female bowler award and my husband's team were in the third place. =)

My winning pose  =)

The Christian World

After all the planning, preparations and not to mention the delays due to my husband's extension on his biz trip, the baptism of our darling little angel was done yesterday. The occassion went out very well. All our families, relatives, close friends and officemates were present to grace the affair.

This is the first spiritual milestone of our daughter. And we believe, it's our responsibility as parents to guide and teach her towards the enhancement on the spiritual aspect of her life. We do not only give her the basic needs for her physical growth but we have to develop her holistically so she can withstand with grace and wisdom all the things life has in store for her. I can't help to mention this - among the babies that were baptized that day, I think she was the only one attentively observing the ceremony. I wonder if she understood what the priest was saying. =)


The invitation I created and revised for the Nth time already. =) Made this while I was still on maternity leave and very addicted with digiscrapping.

Mi kumares -- delighted with their souvenirs and special goodies

There's a place. . .

My husband is supposed to return today from his business trip but very sad to say that their team is again extended for a week or so. We badly miss each other, he missed our daughter a lot. This is the longest separation we had ever since our relationship. Just comforting each other during our lengthly nightly chat. But the distance we have right now provided us a purpose to be intimate again with each other. Rekindle the love we are sharing during the past years. Our nightly chat gave us the freedom to tell and describe to each other our plans, desires on our careers, our family life, our future and even our deepest personal secrets. We also had a good time reminiscing our very beautiful and colorful pasts as well as the hideous ones (**hehehe**). I think we've become much closer now; nothing's hidden between us anymore; set an all-out honesty policy. This made us realized that there are still a lot of things to discover from each other. And this makes life more exciting on the days to come. =)

I remembered the above phrase I send to him everytime we are away. Created this digiscrapped picture to remind us always that no matter how far the distance between us, our love for each other will and still remains strong

DigiScrapping

I bumped into this new stuff which will definitely become my new hobby -- DigiScrapping, short for Digital Scrapbooking. I was searching out suppliers and materials from the net for the invitation of our baby's baptism. Having second thoughts if we'll have the vendors make it or I'll make it to save some bucks.

I got very excited. Downloaded lots of free samples from the net. Creative ideas overflowing from my mind. I've already created two samples which I gave to my bestfriends. Actually I pressured myself to create it because I've got nothing to give them on their birthday. Remember I'm still on maternity leave and cannot go out the house.

They were amazed on my masterpiece (**hehehe**) and want their photos to be digitally scrapbooked, if I have the time.

I'm suppose to mention all the people or sites whom I got these scrapbook materials, but they are too many to mention. Just refer to the links on the right I posted in this blog site. I'm not using this for business anyway. =)

Piercing

Alas! After a month of waiting, our little girl now have earrings. We went to the Health Center, where my mother-in-law (MIL) served as a resident doctor before she retired a couple of years ago, for the ear piercing service. I'm glad I still know how to drive the car =). My MIL see to it that there's nobody in the center so as not to contract virus or disease of some sort from patients.

I was somehow amazed on how the piercing is done nowadays. Very different indeed from the way it was before, during my childhood days where we have this white thread pre-soaked on the reddish merthiolate solution that served as our earrings. We can never have a decent earring at that time because our ears always get infected. This was due to the unsterile equipments used when our ears got pierced. It was only until college that that I wear original gold/silver earrings because they become very itchy everytime I put on a fancy one.



This is how our little 2-month old angel looked like after getting her first earrings =)

Gloomy Valentine

We've been through years of spending our Valentine's day together as boyfriend/girlfriend. Tagaytay is always our favorite getaway because it's not too long drive away from Alabang. Watching concerts and shows too is very memorable coz it never fails to remind us of a very tragic incident..(**hehehe **) And who would've thought we'd visited Baywalk Park just to see the Lovapalooza craze. Now our friends would know. But we weren't one of the kissing couple's, just an expectator. =) And the best part is hotel hopping, watching couples dine and feeling the very romantic ambiance of the place.

Sigh, I missed those crazy and extraordinary things we do during valentine's day. It's so sad to think that we're husband and wife now, our first time to celebrate this day after being married, we're apart from each other. =( Well, I just have to think that we have our whole lifetime to spend our Valentines anyway.