GreenBucks

These past few days have been scorching and to think that it s still February and summer “officially” starts around March.

I miss the cold weather, never mind if I get allergies and some of the students sneeze on me (ugh).

The “cold” weather we experienced for a few weeks during the past two or three months has been intense at times for us who are used to hot and humid weather.

If only our water pressure is not a problem (illegal connections here and there), we would have considered getting an electric tankless water heater then. How wonderful it must be to use warm water for bathing 😀

But now the warm weather is back and we can only say “Ang init-init!” (Translation: It’s scorching hot!”)

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Our homeschooling children, together with other home schoolers (from the same home school program) went to visit the elderly in a home care facility. The center is called Anawim Lay Mission Center in Rodriguez (Montalban), Rizal.

Prepping the children about what the activity is all about, I was not prepared to see the elderly there, most of them were abandoned. Some of them were found on the streets. Most had stories to tell and these are not happy stories.

They have no medical life insurance, no retirement benefits and some even have no relatives to speak of.

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Valentine’s Day is just a few days away.

Do people still celebrate this day of love? Sure they do.

We always say that love should be showed and celebrated everyday by doing so many things for those close to our hearts.Now this is even better.

I remember when I was younger when we would have mini-Valentine parties at school. No dances nor fancy food, we just play games like match the broken hearts and trivia questions prepared by the teacher. There were even those who give flowers to the ones they fancy or some gave promotional pens, cute note pads, chocolate lollipops and knick-knacks to the rest of us to show that we are appreciated.

Like Christmas, this special day seems to be the target of consumerism what with the influx of red and pink goods in the malls and commercial establishments. Throw in the discounted family and couple packages that hotels, restaurants and resorts offer and one is set to burn money to celebrate this day which happened to be a weekend.

By the way, here is a cute poem entitled “A Valentine for my Teacher“

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Recently, there is a tvc being played that encourages children to play outdoors.

Why? Because children have been too lazy to move and play these kinds of games because they have been too engrossed with electronic games like PS3. Not bad but then again, for me, there is more to playing with real socialization skills, creativity, laughter, accusations of unfair play and good old fun than e-games.

I for one, am a guilty parent for not encouraging my younger children to do this especially when our only son has asthma and would have difficulty breathing if perspiration will dry on his back.

In another post I wrote, I featured my children and their cousins playing a game of hopscotch outdoors, on the street. There were so many positive feedbacks with the post and I am happy that I wrote about it. I just hope schools would initiate these games in their physical education subjects so that the children would enjoy these while they are young.

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What kinds of gifts did you give to your loved ones?

What kinds of gifts did you receive from them?

Gift-giving is a Christmas tradition that will always be there, no matter how people are, in terms of their economic standing because there are a lot of those who have lost their source of income and who are grappling to see the end of these challenges.

One of the most sought-after gifts for the last few years are tech gadgets and gizmos.

There are also those who go the old-fashion way of giving baked goodies like what we did to some of our relatives.

There are those who feel obligated to give expensive gifts especially to their children because these children seem to charm their way into having  their parents part with their hard-earned money.

There are those who got the surprise of their lives as they got engagement rings and would start planning the big day after the holidays.

What about those who got new cars or even new homes? Wow, definitely wow.

But have we thought about those who don’t get any gifts given out of love? They did have some but these were given out of pity. How did they celebrate their Christmas?

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Its that time of the year when famly reunions are scheduled.

There are times though when family members seem to have “drifted apart” not only because of distance but also because interests have been different from each other.

Apart from having meals together during reunions, what else is there to do?

Updating each other would be a bit difficult because there is so much to know and so much to share.

What about if the others are not interested in what others are saying?

Topics like fishing, blogging, work-related issues, conversion rate optimization, children’s developmental milestones and even knowing the latest in fashion are some of the topics where others will probably not be able to relate to.

Tops would be topics about childhood (mis)adventures, family jokes and singing. Of course, singing is one alternative thing to do, instead of just talking.

What do you do during family reunions?

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