Yesterday, I had this conversation with my daughter Chinkee..

“Mommy, is Santa coming around this Christmas?”

Which reminded me, we still have this Santa Claus tradition every Christmas. We used to spend every Christmas holiday in the Philippines with my parents in Bicol and my brother was totally into playing Santa for his niece. Having Santa treats is fun and she looks forward to it every year so we kept the tradtion.

So I told her, “Sure, baby. He’ll come around this year..”

“But maybe he doesn’t know how to get here! Mommy, remember were in Cambodia now,maybe he doesn’t know where our house is..” She now saying, looking wide-eyed at me like I was suffering from temporary amnesia.

“Oh, well you can then write a letter to him. Tell him how you’d been good and tell him where your house is now.”

And I just had to laugh when she answered a little impishly, “Mommamm (she sometimes calls me this ), maybe I should not write, why don’t you just text him?”

As if I have Santa’s number.. Does he even have a mobile phone? How come my daughter is like that? When I need to call her school for something, she’s always like, “Mommy, just text Teacher” or when she needs something from her grandmother or her cousins, she’d bug me and ask, “Mommamm, did you text them already, ha?”

Chinks is 6 1/2 years and she’s a total techie. Like she could easily learn how to use a mobile phone, she’s totally at ease using a laptop (though she just plays games), no one taught her how to operate the TV and the DVD player, it’s like she just figured it out on her own.

Shheesh, I’m just amazed! You know youngsters are really fast when it comes to learning new stuff. She easily figured out how to unlock my mobile phone so she could play with it while it took about a month of constant tutoring to get my mom to learn how to send a text using her really simple phone. Talk about generation gaps..

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I feel awful and nauseous as I wait for the news about the flooding in Manila. I searched the net for several hours last night just to see the photos and any news about the flooding.

Image Credit: AP Photo/Mike Alquinto

A night ago I was chatting with a college friend and this topic came up. We both have turned 30 this year. And if you ask me, I love being 30 and don’t feel like I need to hide it like some others who are in denial hehehe.. (I’ve got some friends who loathe mentioning they’re now in their 30′s..). Lol! Age disclosure is a cool thing, don’t you think?

Just a short aside.. A month ago I started revamping this site. I changed the theme to one where I could have rotating headers but I haven’t gotten around achieving the look and functionality I have in mind so I’m thinking of buying a premium theme I could use for this site. I have new pages coming up soon all related to travel, work from home as well as a page with links to my articles (sorta like an archive..)

My ad spot banner page (which has been hibernating for awhile) would also be up soon as well as a new downloadables page where I’ll be adding free ebooks for grabs. Mostly recipes, home tips and blogging tricks that I hope some of you would find useful.

I’m also updating my blog categories as well as tags (:D aiming for good SEO and I feel the need to organize the ‘mess’ my blog is..). I’ve decided not to put the site on maintenance mode so you’d still be able to access it but please cut me some slack if some things might look a bit weird from time to time.

Ever since she turned three, Chinks have been bugging us about having a pet dog. When we were in the Philippines, we decided not to have a pet since we were always out of the house and would also go out of town most weekends. But when we got here in Phnom Penh, we gave in to her request since we thought a dog would be nice companion for her plus she’d be learning about responsibilities once she has a pet to take care of.

Hubby’s bestfriend gave us a puppy, we named her Mai-mai. I’m not sure of her breed, but I’m thinking she’s like a chow-chow. Everything was well and Chinks was really happy with it. She’d wake up early to feed her dog, and what she enjoys the most is giving Mai-mai a bath. I’ve also grown attached to her, I got used to having her snoring beside my feet while I’m working on my computer.

But a few days ago, we lost her. Nope she didn’t die. That’s what really makes me more sad. Someone got it. Early in the morning, she usually goes out of the gate to pee or poop and it would just take a minute or two. But that day she didn’t come back. We looked for her everywhere, but she was gone. We talked to a couple of construction workers and one said they saw a woman and two kids with a cart buying recyclable stuff from our neighbor and got the dog, put it in their cart and off they went.

I feel extremely pissed. Why is that? The dog is obviously well kept, even has her tag, so they must have known it has an owner not a stray dog. I feel all the more bad because Chinks keeps asking for her, sometimes goes out and pretends her dog is there and places food on her bowl. We’ve been trying to comfort her and hopefully she’ll get over it in time. She probably needs to experience something like this one way or another…

We’re thinking of getting another dog, maybe a big one. Hubby says at least that one cannot be easily taken. Why do I feel so emotional about this? I’m sad, really. She has been a part of our home and everyday I keep wondering how she is, if she ate or is the place she’s sleeping clean and safe…

I’m quite lucky. I have a super indulgent husband. Last year, I was so into blue and he surprised me with a blue Motorola K1 phone. But this year, purple took its turn. I’m so into purple stuff – clothes, shoes, bags etc. So a couple of days ago, he surprised me with this..

My daughter is now saying, “WOW! Mommy, It’s all looks like eggplant!”.. Haha.I wonder what color should I go for next year? Yellow, orange? hmmn, maybe I should settle for gray or black (but this is definitely not me!). Any ideas?

Are you a purple buff too? Check out these cool purple stuff.. Lol! I wish I could get my hands on them:D