Oslob

Reminiscing My First Time at Oslob New Village Lodge – Cebu Accommodation and Things to Do

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It has always been on my mind to blog about Oslob, a quaint and beautiful municipality in southern Cebu. After all, that’s where I met the current love of my life back in March 2012 (check our love story) and which I now consider as one of my second homes because I  can no longer count how many times I’ve been to this charming place known for its whale sharks and beautiful falls. I’ve also mentioned it quite a few times on my blog, particularly when I’d do my yearly How to Travel and Look Back posts, but I’ve never really come up with a detailed blog post about it yet, until now. And this is just the first. More coming as I continue with my daily blogging.

I was also reminded of it once again when I got interviewed recently by BlogMeter Top (the article hasn’t been published yet, I will share once it’s out) and one of their questions was what is my favorite blog post here in MomTraNeur and I mentioned that it was the story of my current love life. I’m a mushy kind of person after all (in case you haven’t noticed yet), hihihi!

You see, I’ve been married for so long before (2002-2012) and it crumbled in 2013. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I will find love again. I never dated. My ex was my first and last. I never had any other sexual encounters aside from my ex. Despite my being “Sexy Nomad” at that time, I really am a naive and conservative girl deep down. Everything that happened after, with my now current life partner, is nothing but miraculous. And the more I look back how it all came to be, the more I cherish our love and the life we have now. And little did I know at that time that it all started in OSLOB.

So back to Oslob…

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The Abba's Orchard

The Abba’s Orchard Cagayan de Oro Free Trial – VLOG

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Yesterday, I shared with you a detailed blog post about my three-year-old son’s experience during his free trial at The Abba’s Orchard Alawana Branch here in Cagayan de Oro City and I said I will post a vlog about it. Here it is — if you can head to my Youtube channel and subscribe as well please, I’d really appreciate it!

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The Abba's Orchard

THE ABBA’S ORCHARD, A MARIA MONTESSORI SCHOOL: A REVIEW

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To homeschool Tuz or to enroll him in a real school?

I already shared with you a homeschooling seminar we attended November of last year. The month after that, December, right after we went on a 9-day tour of Siargao (which I have yet to blog about), we enrolled Tuz in a 3-day free immersion class at The Abba’s Orchard Montessori School. I was thinking if we have the budget for it (we must make a budget for it!), why not just enroll Tuz in a Maria Montessori school? And according to my research, The Abba’s Orchard was considered by parents as one of the best in the Philippines. And after that 3-day free immersion class Tuz went to, I fell in love with the system as well…

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farm

Farm Life Update – Another Peek Into What It’s Like Living in a Farm

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Hello everyone! We arrived safely at the farm around 4:30AM EST (which is 4:30 PM Philippine time.) I was sleeping for most of the 2-hour ride because I haven’t had any decent sleep the previous night. I woke up about 15 minutes away from the farmhouse because Mahal was complaining that he couldn’t see a thing while driving. When I opened my eyes, everything around us was color white! It was so creepy! I was jolted out of slumber and I told mahal to stop the car! We don’t want to hit any cow or anything that might be on the way. The fog was so thick it felt like being in a dream… or a nightmare. Remember that alien movie with the thick fog… THE MIST? It felt like that! Lol!

Mahal kept driving, albeit slowly, so we can get to the part where the fog wasn’t so thick anymore… I took a few pictures around and noticed that my phone had LTE signal so I immediately shared it to my Facebook. A few meters after that, my LTE signal was gone.

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Tuscany

LIVING UNDER THE PROVERBIAL TUSCAN SUN

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I’ve been wanting to watch (for the nth time) one of my most favorite movies of all time — UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN — for several days now as a prelude to a perfect weekend I expect to have with my family at the farm. I’ve been so busy with work (and blogging… ha!) that I haven’t found the time until a few hours ago when Mahal arrived from his DTI class and we decided to watch it together.

When I first watched it almost 16 years ago in 2003, I felt like I have already resonated with this movie on so many different levels even if the particulars were still unbeknownst to me at that time.

Years passed and I’d still watch it when I feel sad; when I feel inspired; when I want to be inspired; when I feel happy… basically no matter what my mood is. I just tear up with this movie no matter how many times I’ve already watched it and it always makes me feel like everything is alright with the world after indulging myself with its heartwarming story.

Fast forward to 10 years after that movie was first shown (2013), my first marriage crumbled to pieces… Continue reading →

Cokaliong Shipping Lines

Cokaliong Shipping Lines – a Review

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I’m on my 11th consecutive day of blogging which started last June 24 when I wrote that post about being a sleep-deprived mom, and the pressure is getting real, lol! I’ve actually started working on a post about Boracay more than two hours ago. I’ve already published 2 Boracay posts before…

BORACAY 2019 – WHAT’S NEW? HERE ARE THE DOS’ AND DON’TS, UPDATED LIST OF AUTHORIZED AND ACCREDITED HOTELS, GOVERNMENT FEES, AND MORE!

EXPERIENCE THE NEW BORACAY – A VLOG – CHECK IT OUT!

…and there are still at least two more about our summer vacation I want to share with you. But until now, I’m not even halfway through my draft yet! There are just so many photos and videos to sift through and I would need 24 hours of focus to do it which I can’t afford right now since Mahal is asleep and Tuz is being his hyperactive self. I still have deadlines I set for myself at work because I’ll be going to the farm this weekend to take care of our vegetable beds and to do another round of cleanup and redecoration for our bedroom and lounge area in the old farmhouse.

So, I went back and forth for a few minutes between finishing my next Boracay blog post to doing a totally different one when I just decided to tell you about this shipping line we rode on our way to Boracay — COKALIONG SHIPPING LINE. The pictures I took here were the first ones that came up as I was reviewing this trip of ours to paradise. So why not just focus on Cokaliong, right? You might be someone in the Philippines or planning to do boat trips in the Philippines, you might be wondering what shipping line is best to take.

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mommy jen cooks

Mommy Jen Cooks Pasta: Beef Loaf-Mushroom-Veggie Pasta in Olive Oil

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It feels like ever since Friday, it has just been one looooong day of work with catnaps in between. If you’ve been reading me since I started blogging every day (again) or even if you’ve read me since way back 2016 when I started this MomTraNeur blog, or even way back in my numerous other blogger websites since 2010, being workaholic (and travelholic) is my middle name. Add motherhood to my journey, so I’m now a sleep-deprived workaholic mom! Lol!

Most of my clients are from the United States which means that before they head off to their summer break this month, they are handing me more tasks than usual which also means, work overload for me. And that’s okay. I appreciate all the work and the $$$ income it brings our family. I’m just at home anyway, I still am able to take care of Tuz and our tiny pad and one of my most favorite activity — I still get to cook my own dish inventions, especially when Mahal is not around to cook for us. #WAHM #WotkAtHomeMom #MommyCooksBest 

I’m not the typical mommy cook (if there is such a thing as “typical mommy cook”). I don’t follow any given recipes. I make my own based on the taste that I am looking for in a given day, and I get a little bit more creative than usual especially when our grocery supplies are about to run out.

And yes, our grocery supplies are about to run out as I write this. Because of the emergency farm run Mahal did last Friday, we weren’t able to do our groceries which usually happens every Saturday. But Tuz and I managed. We were able to stretch our food supplies at home and even as I write this, there are still some food in the fridge and the pantry. Mahal would be proud! I could even stretch them for a few days more… maybe even until Saturday. This makes me save a week’s worth of groceries. Yes! More money for our dream farm fund! #FarmGoals

Anyway, having said all that, let me share with you one pasta dish I like to cook every now and then. I’m such a pasta lover even when I know I should cut back on it because I am not getting any younger and losing weight or maintaining a healthy weight is getting harder and harder every day (especially with my kind of work where I just sit mostly all day in front of the computer when I’m at home). I’ve actually cut back on it. It’s been several months since I last cooked pasta. So now I’m really CRAAAAVING!!!

I posted this on my Facebook Page recently and I’d like to share it here with you. I think I’ll be sharing with you more of my dish inventions in the future. They will be the type of dishes I plan to incorporate in our cafe menu should our dream of setting up our own farm cafe becomes a reality in the future. They’re easy to do and usually with healthy ingredients from our farm and very yummy too!

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storm

Finding Calm in the Midst of a Storm – How Do You Calm Your Nerves in the Middle of Chaos?

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I’m in the middle of a tight deadline today so I’m going to make this blog post short. Mahal is at the farm since Friday evening. It was actually an emergency run because… remember the new motorcycle I told you about in yesterday’s blog post? The brand new one we bought in cash for our farm helpers so they can have transportation to use for mushroom delivery instead of renting someone else’s motorcycle (which we have been doing for a long time now)… yes that motorcycle! Did our farm helper steal it???!!!

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sad

Hello July 1! Leaving the Good and Bad This Past 6 Months and Looking Forward to An Exciting Second Half of 2019

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It’s July 1 and I can feel it! I’ve been working my ass off (pardon the term) since I woke up at 1am EST (it’s now 12:32 PM EST) and I still have lots of client tasks to finish. But before I forget, I need to blog. I said I will blog every day and so just like any committed human being, I am showing up here on my blog and writing down my thoughts.

Again, it’s July 1 and I can really, REALLY feel that the first half of the year is over! So many things have happened, both good and bad but I sometimes do feel that the bad outweighed the good ones because of the magnitude of emotions that came with it. I don’t like to dwell on these things much, but it’s also good to not forget them because they did come with lessons learned.

So before I resume with my VERY busy MomTraNeur life, let me just jot down below what those things are so I can finally let them go:

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tiny pad

TINY PAD – LIVING SMALL IN A BIG CITY AND THE REASONS WE DO IT

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I mentioned a few times here on my blog how we are living in a tiny pad down the mountains in Northern Mindanao. I first mentioned it here (THE BIG MOVE PART 1) when we left my big townhouse in Alabang, Muntinlupa to try our agricultural luck in the land of martial law down south of the Philippines. Then I mentioned it again in one of my most recent posts (#MYGREENCDO – IN SUPPORT OF CDO BLOGGERS 2019 SOCIAL MEDIA ADVOCACY).

Living in a tiny pad has its pros and cons. And sometimes, when my hormones are in haywire and pictures of my beautiful home in Alabang show up on Facebook Memories, I develop a negative state of mind which I really do my best to avoid or get over with because for the most part, we are living in abundance even if we are not rich – yet. After all, real wealth is not all about how much money or material things you have or how big your house is… wealth, in its truest sense of the word, is having a happy state of mind. Like what Rhonda Byrnes wrote on the sand at the end of the movie, The Secret, —> FEEL GOOD. Continue reading →

believe

How to Believe What You Want is Possible

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When I started this blog, sharing about what I learned in Jack Canfield‘s book THE SUCCESS PRINCIPLES has been one of those topics I really want to tackle chapter by chapter and dig into.  It still is. And because I want to practice the principles I’ve gone through before putting them here, it usually takes a while before I get to write my thoughts.

So far, I’ve already told you the first three fundamental principles of success according to Jack Canfield:

  1. Take 100% Responsibility for Your Life
  2. Be Clear Why You’re Here
  3. Decide What You Want

Now, let me share with you the next principle I learned in this favorite book of mine.

The Fundamentals of Success #4: Believe It’s Possible Continue reading →