Last Friday, I inadvertently gave an inaccurate account of the previous year’s Christmas Eve Dinner. My bad. We DID have a family dinner together, but I honestly forgot about it. Was it so insignificant that it slipped my mind?
Or could it be with the last two years being in constant lockdown with the various Movement Control Orders (MCO), I lost track of time. I think the fact that it was just the two of us at the dinner sans both girls stuck in my mind more than anything else.
Or, in all honesty, I have become a tired and forgetful dinosaur more than ever!
This year, we are thankful that we can get together with the family after missing out on the Christmas Eve dinner last year. It was the pandemic that derailed everything-from travels to gatherings-throwing festive occasions into disarray, and both of us had a quiet two-person dinner at home instead without much camaraderie.
This year, the SOP’s have changed with most adults in the country, all of us included, being fully vaccinated. So it is great that we can gather to celebrate Christmas.
I take this opportunity to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas! Be safe, stay safe, and be healthy.
It’s been raining a lot lately, and as such, I hardly venture out to the garden. However, today it’s cloudy, and I just so happen to be out. And boy, things look neglected. Weeds were everywhere!
On a brighter note, the vegetables that we planted have shown results. And no, it’s not the lady’s fingers but the mini brinjal this time.
The two mini brinjals
Two-round mini brinjals after so long. Hahaha! At least when we harvest them to eat, I don’t have to cut them into tiny morsels for the three of us.
It looks like hubby is not the only person who bakes in our home. M1 is quite a baker too. I supposed this came from her lockdown periods when she was still in the US. With nothing much to do, baking was an outlet to keep busy.
But our other baker bakes adorable stuff. She baked these cute little bear cookies not too long ago. Pretty to look at, delicious to eat too. I hope she will continue to indulge in this whenever she has the time.
The vegetable patch in the garden is slowly showing some yield. It is one okra at a time! The last time I checked, there was one almost ready for harvest and another coming soon.
Our second okra and the third coming soon!
Then two days later, we harvested that first okra. At almost five and a half-inch, it is a good size. As the plant is healthy and fruiting often now, we should see a constant yield.
It doesn’t matter whether it is one at a time – as long as we get to enjoy the fruits of our labor, that is, by far, the most important thing.
I decided to work on the micro-miniature-in-a-box for my 21st DIY project. After the experience with project number 17, which resulted in me deviating to several other projects, a small and easy miniature is logical to maintain my interest in crafting these little things.
And so far, it is going well. Although I stopped a couple of days for golf and even went out for meals and shopping, the pace is not lost. I should be able to complete the set before the weekend is here! Yay.
Over the weekend, we had our first dine-in at a restaurant after five months of staying home in a lockdown state. And it was a strange feeling yet, at the same time, liberating.
We chose to have Japanese food because this was one food that we never ordered for delivery nor prepared at home. Sashimi is something one must eat fresh and served on a mountain of ice to stay fresh. To even think of having it delivered is out of the question – what more attempting to prepare sashimi at home. So it was a good choice.
I downed half my beer before remembering to take a picture! Oops.
Getting into the restaurant at the mall was according to the protocol: face mask on, check-in with the locator app for contact tracing, taking our temperature, and being seated one meter away from another table.
It was nice to sit in a restaurant, instead of at home, with a cold beer and enjoy a different menu, but will we do it again, eating out, that is?
I guess we will as cases are on the decline and most of the population are vaccinated already. The government has also declared that the country is now in an endemic stage. With the economy fully opened and interstate travel now being allowed, dining out in fear is a thing of the past. Life must go on with as much normalcy as possible from here on.
The habanero plants are gone, and in its place is a more palatable chili plant. The habaneros were too spicy for us. So no point in planting something that we cannot eat. And lately, there’s been a new visitor to our garden to enjoy the chili as well.
The new chili plant has provided lots of chilis, and now and then, we will give our bumper harvests to our neighbors, friends, and family. Sometimes if hubby does not harvest the chili, the Chili Reaper comes along to eat the chili!
The Chili Reaper is specifically the Yellow-vented Bulbul, and this bird eats only the red chilis! Not the green ones but the red ones. It would perch on the branches and peck away at the ripe chilis.
The Bulbul chili reaper!
I can’t decide whether it is a friend or foe. After all, the chili is in abundance. But it irks us that the bird gets the first choice on the red chilis. Then again, this is one garden visitor who does not wait on us to feed them–like the doves–it just helps itself to what the garden has to offer.
Angieneering 
Remarks