I have an aunt (real age: 55, mental age: depending on situation) who loves Madonna. Er, make that, loves the song “Like a virgin” by Madonna. Nothing wrong with that, I like that song too but I don’t sing it when I wake up or when I am cooking meals in the kitchen every morning.

Pristine loves my aunt very much. She took care of her for a couple of years after she was born. Now, we get to meet her during our days off since she is living close. One day, I’ve overheard my daughter singing:

Pristine: Like a virgin, aww!

Then when I gave her a strange look, she asked, “Mama, what’s a virgin? Why do we have to like her?”

One of the days I dread has come - I accessed my site and found out it’s dead. No, not this site, as obviously, this post was posted successfully and readable to everyone. My other site has died this morning and I am mourning like crazy.

Events that lead to its death:

• Since the start of this week, I had been doing backups of the database and home directory.
• I upgraded to Wordpress 2.5.1 using Fantastico in the control panel in my host (I am using Bluehost)

Upgrade was successful (or so it seems) although there’s nothing more suspicious and scary like a very quick process instead of a normal long one. Too much of a good thing is really full of hidden agendas.

While enjoying the new environment of WP 2.5.1, I’ve noticed that the loading time is longer, my PC freezes from time to time while I’m writing my posts and I can’t load an image. That’s when I started to panic. I wish I didn’t upgrade!!

Then this morning, out of the blue, I got an error saying “This account has exceeded CPU quota”. The dreaded gray screen that says bloggy life is suspended.

That’s when I panicked more.

My host has not been helpful enough to solve my  problem. I have two blogs, the dead one (Sandier Pastures) and this one which survived (I don’t know why it’s still alive but really thankful that it is). I’m calling out to any readers out there who can help me with techie stuff! I am desperate, depressed and very very sad!  

If in any case this site will be wiped off from the face of internet land, please drop me a line at mom at theparentingdiaries dot com. Thanks a lot.

This photo was taken one snowy weather last January 2007, right before we got on our flight to Dubai and welcomed the warm winter.

I hope I won’t break the chain of peaceful nights with this post because we are all enjoying uninterrupted sleep at night for almost a week now. Gone are the nights of waking up at 3 am and puffing inhalers. We recently found magic in the form of Bricanyl.

She takes it before sleeping at night and voila! No more wheezing and dilated airways all throughout. It has become a routine that after dinner, she shouts, “Break a nail! Break a nail!”

No chipped or broken nails around here, that’s just how she pronounce the medicine name!

I’ve come out from my dark cave. Finally! It was a tough week last week, God I hate PMS sometimes I’d like to rip out the hormones and feed it to female dogs. At least they won’t be persecuted for having shitty moods because then, they already have a name for that.

In case you’ve been wondering what happened last Thursday, I went out with M and thank God it was a small party. I figured out I did say I’d go then withdrew at the last minute - that’s what really made M a little bit upset. It was a short party too so I didn’t have to stay out later than my bedtime which is good. No one should see me beyond my bedtime, it’s so not cool.

However, I met someone (no not a guy!) and we got along really well. She had been staying here in Dubai for more than 10 years and boy, did she have really lots of interesting stories to tell. I let her see me beyond my bedtime and surprisingly she was ok to see the uncool.

All in all, the party was not so great but I did come home with a new friend. Not bad, hey.

This is the final week for The Summer of Me challenge. How am I compared to 5 weeks ago? After incorporating variety in my fitness program in the form of the hundred pushups challenge, I feel stronger and more confident. Hey, who knew I could pump up 20 consecutive pushups in one go? Certainly not me.

I am in Week 4 of the hundred pushups challenge this week and had been working out on more than 70 pushups each time for three alternating days. After this will be an exhaustion test before proceeding to Week 5 but I want to repeat Week 4 because I feel I don’t have enough strength to step up. So, I’m following this same routine next week:

Week 4, Day 1: 16, 13, 13, 11, 16+ with 60 seconds rest

Week 4, Day 2: 16, 14,14, 12, 15+ with 90 seconds rest

Week 4, Day 3: 20, 15,15,15, 18+ with 120 seconds rest

This week is still bad fitness wise, aside from the pushups which I did religiously. I had been down with a very bad flu since Saturday, even took a day off from work. Been to the gym only 2 days this week.

Final weigh in result: -4 lbs since the start of the challenge.

I will go on a vacation soon but will try to incorporate fitness and eat sensibly and pray haaard not to gain weight!!

To see other challengers’ story here.

My husband, who’s working for the travel industry, is invited to parties and get-togethers on a regular basis. When a new hotel is opened (since this is Dubai, a fairly new city with hotels sprouting every day) they are invited for a cocktail party to socialize with people of the same field. He asked me to come with him for a party tonight and I’ve said yes when he asked me earlier this week. However, since I am still having flu, not feeling well and honestly would rather spend time with our daughter at home, he was upset.

I am anti-social. I hate parties, networking and shy.

All his words.

I asked myself, since when did I become this way? Though I was not about all-nighters when I was single, I did enjoy going to parties, meeting people or just hanging out with friends. But now, I would always prefer staying at home after work, watching a movie or reading a book with Pristine and sleeping early. I have isolated myself from the crowd (he says) and this should change. Does it sound sober? because, really, it’s not. I am happy and at peace at home.

I hope there’s nothing wrong with me?

I have thought deep and hard and came up with the probable reasons why I don’t like to go out to party: 

Guilt to leave my own kid at home: I work 6 days a week and my mother takes care of her after school. I want her to take a rest of her duties whenever I am available so I don’t go out on weeknights/weekends and leave the kid to her unless it’s really necessary. So, we rarely go out, heck our anniversary dinner out two weeks ago was the first in 20 months!

I don’t do well late hours at night: Last month we went to a party with our Japanese family friend, some people were there also and honestly I did not enjoy it. The fact that it was held at a Thursday night (end of the work week for us) was mostly the reason I was drained and didn’t have that much energy to socialize or laugh at the corny jokes. I do not like staying late at night - does that make me a bad person?

Trying to be a mom who’s there: Working 6 days a week is what drives me to create the balance that’s needed at home. To make up for all the time, not in an obligatory kind of way. It’s just me now and though I am very much ok with it, my husband thinks otherwise.

What should have I done? Was it a better idea to go to the party he wanted to take me to even if I know I wouldn’t enjoy it?

* Natural hair. I didn’t do anything (didn’t even comb her) to make it look like this! *

Just when I was feeling really down and about to be charged with bad-mom crime, enlightenment came. I found a new mommy blog and read an inspiring post. Vered of Mom Grind has written a great article at Zen Habits - 12 Awesome Tips on how to be a great mom.

I’ve always believed that in order to become better parents, individuals - the mom and the dad has to be better persons first. All unresolved issues within or between them will definitely surface in how they parent their child/children. I was certainly not a good mom since I caught the flu bug a couple of days ago. I was suffering from lack of energy that contributed to lack of patience resulting in unnecessary bickerings at home. I was tired so you’d think I’d just shut up but I didn’t! I’m just disgusted with myself.

I know that asking for a quiet time to rest and recover is so unrealistic if you have a toddler at home who is restless with her summer vacation yet I still asked for it. Of course I didn’t get it, was disappointed and started throwing daggers at everyone. I can’t rest at home so I am in the office - at least I can sit down, look at the blank wall and think about nothing.

Anyway, I loved that article I read today as it made me realize things and put them in better perspective. I’m ready to go home and be a better mom now.

I don’t know how long will the monster in me go. A few days more? End of this week?

I am not feeling well but still working to meet deadlines before I go on leave at the end of the month. I haven’t been going to the gym so the missing happy hormones had something to do with this freaky mood. Top to that PMS. Is there ever such thing? or this is just my normal personality? Scratch that, I refuse to accept.

I am having issues with my mood since Sunday - every little thing makes me explode and coincidentally, things go out of hand when I am feeling like this. Or is it, things go bad because I feel bad? Little things that is magnified whenever I feel like this. Even my voice is one tone higher than usual.

Last night, some appliances suddenly broke, M kept nagging me about bank transactions I forgot, Pristine tugging me asking to play, sing, dance, read, whatever it is in her mind. She doesn’t even want anybody to be with her except for mom. Can’t I even have one minute of peace and quiet even if only when I’m sick!?

Drats, I just wrote a certified rant post.