One Big Cookie: Nursing Board Exam Results for 2009!

My sister made it! She passed the Nursing Board Exam and the results are out! yay! She gave me a call this 1am she was screaming her lungs out, relieved and happy. The anxious wait was suddenly over and now Cookie can breathe a relax sigh and proudly tell everyone- she is finally a Nurse.

Her graduation in April 2009 last year 

Our bunso (youngest sibling) Cookie with my mom in Leyte. Even back then she loved playing 'Doctor & Nurse' and torturing stuffed toys with faux surgery.

Here's the complete list of 2009 Nursing board passers released yesterday from the PRC

November 2009 Nursing Board Exam Results

In Nursing School on one of their breaks. Congratulations Cookie!

Dad is so happy that every one in the family is finished with school, he can now as he would keenly say on weekends, 'retire' and do carpentry. Well like the rest of us Cookie - off to work you go! :p

LoloCow Builds A Doll House - Part Deux

Part Deux of our Dollhouse Chronicles where the paint swirls are quite hypnotic!

This is where I left off last week with LoloCow, lotsa hammering and measuring with the wood panels. And now, the much anticipated progress!

Apparently, LoloCow almost finished the thing. I wasn't able to take pictures of how he made the roof though.

My Dad taking a break. Lolo Cow (which means Grandpa Cow) is quite happy with his little woodwork project. The kids can't wait till morning and they have taken over the unfinished thing.

A giant spider invades the doll house. Cow goes nuts! 

Attack of the Fraise: Pink is my niece's fave color.

I think any little girl her age is crazy about pink. Much to my dismay, the whole dollhouse would be strawberry-themed.

My sister Cookie helping out with the paint job all throughout Saturday night. Unfortunately, they forgot to buy the paint putty.

The roof! Something Strawberry Shortcake would delight in.

By morning, my niece woke up screaming, she was ecstatic to find the dollhouse with the paint finally dried up and she wasted no time in putting in all her toys again.

Its a miniature world

The front of the dollhouse.

The pink is overwhelming. I think I would prefer mine in white with a red roof plus some retro wallpapers for each room.

The back of the dollhouse. Wow! Quite cozy!

Cookie and my very happy niece, Sasha. Look at that big smile on her face!

She never forgets to kiss her LoloCow everyday just to thank him for his wonderful handmade gift- the dollhouse of her dreams.

Monsoon Weather: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

I love the whimsical ride that goes with this movie. This universe of food weather exists on their own terms. The movie doesn't tug on the emotional heartstrings as much as Pixar often does with its films.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is all about gluttonous fun, a laugh trip over junk food we loved as children and the guilty pleasures we suffer over food even now as adults. 

If this kind of food weather was to suddenly replace our monsoon weather. I guess Manila would be flooded in: 

• Dinuguan
• Balut
• Fishballs
• Banana-Q
• Crunchy Kropek
• Suman Mais
• Giant atis
• Sago at Gulaman
• Bibingka
• Jollibee Chicken Joy
• Danggit
• Durian

I think I am just as eager to get crushed by a giant lumpia too. 

LoloCow Builds A Doll House - Part I

I had a doll house growing up. It wasn't really much of a dollhouse, but a scale model of a house my dad was building. Most of my dolls couldn't fit in. My dad likes to scale down things and do math which is part of what he does as an engineer.

Now my sister wants a dollhouse for her daughter Sasha. This is her sketch. This doodle is what she wants done. Yeah, my sis draws like a preschooler.

This is how my Dad sees the doodle.

He's always fantastic with numbers.

More time spent measuring and planning

This is the plyboard he's gonna butcher.

Tools are out of the shed now. Dexter be envious!

This could be the sequel to Saw VI.

Now some cutting with the jigsaw. 

Making room for windows

Peekabo!

Uh-Oh! Mommy Lola is home from the market and she's not pleased with the wood chips all over garage.

Almost there, but not quite. Setting up the walls could be a problem.

Let's check in on LoloCow next week and see his progress with the dollhouse.

The Cows and the Happy Cream Puff surprise!

Its nice to wake up on a sunny morning and find a box filled with little pastry surprises right on your bed. Well Happy Cream Puff who can say no? even on mornings.

It makes it more special when DaddyCow decides to come home just to surprise us with these puffs from his morning meetings. His office is a block away from the Happy Cream Puff shop (that's in Rada Street cor. Dela Rosa, Legaspi Village) right beside a hardware store and across a pizza place.

BabyCow's fave is the Strawberry Puff with candy sprinkles

Look at our bed hair and groggy eyes: antukin pa rin!

These were gone in less than an hour. Hah! and there goes my 2010 diet!

Thank God for Disk Digger: Deleted Photos Recovered in a Cinch

I suffered from an almost irreparable blunder, I deleted all our family Christmas photos, another sting from the tail end of the dreadful year that was 2009.

Well 2010 can be at least forgiving. For a start, I found DiskDigger, a file recovery software. Its one of the best ways to recover deleted files from your computer's hard drive, memory card, usb, SD cards, etc. I guess this explains why repairshops for laptops and cellphones can seemingly unearthed those unflattering photos one has deleted so long ago.

Disk Digger is easy to use. In my case, I deleted a whole folder of JPEG files from my Canon camera (thinking my sister had backed-up all the Christmas vacay photos) I was dead wrong and now really, I've learned a very hard lesson.

Losing those pics really brought my day to a standstill. I was very upset since I decided to put off blogging past the holidays and suddenly now all the photos in the camera were gone- Pffft! I was now left with no holidays to blog about.
Lucky for me, DiskDigger recovered 100% of the photos I needed and surprisingly even more like a set of pics I took a month ago at a party were there.

I guess it helped that I haven't used that particular SD card since I deleted the folder of pics. Making the data still available and those sectors still untouched or filled out with new photo data.

For more of the fabulous file and photo recovery skills of DiskDigger and its creator, please visit http://dmitrybrant.com/diskdigger

Here's a Step by Step Guide to Using DiskDigger

Well DiskDigger, you have my love!

New Year's Eve: A Blue Moon over Ayala Avenue Makati

For the New Year, we decided to stay in Makati and forego the clan homes in Pampanga or Sampaloc Manila. The Cows decided to stroll around the neighborhood at 1130pm, there wasn't much fireworks or fanfare in Makati compared to previous years where Makati City always had a street party or some big gathering.

Though it was kinda was boring with the streets empty, devoid of crowds and revelers. I still found walking around Makati on New Year's Eve with my family a very intimate experience.

With my son's voice booming and echoing in the streets, he was creating his own noise and loving every minute of it! We definitely owned the night.

A lone security guard watches the fireworks. It is exactly 12 midnight.

Sudden blackout near Greenbelt 5: Generators started roaring to life within seconds.

My son and the rare blue moon on New Year's Eve.

Fireworks lit up the air.

Neighbors go wild over Roman Candles.

There were some signs of life along Ayala Avenue. Security guards who threw in pla-plas and five stars unto the streets at midnight. Call center agents with torotots and lucis were dancing to that Insomnia dance tune. 

There were festive lights and fireworks for a good 15 minutes then sudenly nothing, but silence and darkness. The revelry had gone lowkey which truly defined the passing spirit of 2009, a year of recession, debt and hardships for most, I guess people decided to keep things simple, short and practical. 

2010 will definitely be better.