The Maya

It has been raining cats and dogs almost all week. I mentioned to the ex how boring it was to be drenched everytime I go to his house to fetch Cj during weekends. He offered me his other car. I promptly refused. When it poured again and I got soaked again, I realized that sometimes swallowing your pride is better than pneumonia. Ok, I should be thankful it's just rain and not landslide. I could hear the lapping of water underneath the taxi yesterday, but to think that our neighbors were subjected to the quaking of the earth recently, there are really lots to feel blessed for, like:

1. Being on (yes, paid) leave. They say if you have a roof above your head and a job, you are luckier than millions of people. I am grateful for such a blessing and

2. forgetting the cares of work for five days. What bliss!

3. Time with Cj. It's the best thing about my leave or any free days I have. He gets a break from his usual schooldays companion, his nanny, and I get to do my duties as a mom. I took him shopping for our five-day holiday provision and let him decide what to eat, making sure we were in the healthy food section at the same time. He had no choice actually but to pick veggies and fruits

4. Our rainbow diet. A Reader's Digest health article suggests a way of knowing your diet is nutritionally complete is to check that your food has all the colors in it. During yesterday's shopping we loaded the cart with kidney beans, beef, tomatoes, capsicum (red); papaya, eggs, ginger, squash (yellow); okra, mango, apple, spinach, bokchoy, lettuce (green); rice, shitake (brown); eggplant, onions (purple); carrot (orange) oats, fish (white), pepper (black). It's difficult to keep up with this kind of diet in the midst of work. So I took advantage of the holiday. I didn't see salmon. It would have been nice for pink.

5. The maya. Construction noise from the rising condo opposite our street is gone. Peace and quiet came with a treat: a chirping maya. I was netsurfing when I heard it. It perched on the AC machine for a few seconds and flew away. I placed a plate of jasmine rice and a saucer of mineral water on the porch. While waiting for it to come back I walked down 7 Eleven to buy it a pack of roasted pumpkin seeds. If it does, I'm giving it a name :-)

~ Visit Susanne of Living to Tell the Story for more faves ~