In case you, like most of my friends, never use the front door to our house and always come through the kitchen door instead, I invite you to visit me In Our House this month. Through the front door.

This month, I have done something that I will probably regret in a week or so. I am participating in NaBloPoMo or National Blog Posting Month. NaBloPoMo is fashioned after another event called NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, where you are supposed to write a novel in a month. Hah! no, I'm not writing a novel. NaBloPoMo participants are only expected to update their blog every day for a month.

Anyway, visit me there once in a while and see what I'm rambling about.

Every year since we've moved to NC, we always spent the summer vacations with my family in CA. This year though, since we're saving up for a trip in December, we didn't go to CA and have been missing everyone all summer. I guess they must be missing us too and the food tripping we normally do while over there, because so far, we've received three care packages from my sisters, and of course they all contain food! In the first box we have corniks, halo-halo mix, sinigang mix, and ube cake. All this came with their little cousin's art work of course, to add to our refrigerator collection. In the second box, we have goodies from Hawaii, thanks to Aunt Sherry who finally got a chance to take a real vacation because she didn't have nieces to babysit :). The third box, came about because sister O forgot to put other goodies in the first one! This just made us miss them even more though :( Thanks for the love, sisters!

What do you do when you have some free time? That's the topic this month at Blogkadahan.com, and I am the last to post. Here is what I like to do in the little free time that I have:

Moments of leisure are hard to come by as any working mom (whether in-home or out-of-home) can tell you. Before I got married and started having kids, my free time, as much as possible, was filled with travel; of course that all changed when my children turned my lifestyle around. Reading was another past time I enjoyed, but that too went out the window when I couldn't even keep my eyes open long enough to finish a paragraph before dozing off like an old woman.

Read the rest>>>

I have a new frock! Thanks to Charles for running a contest and was nice enough to let me win by default, thanks to Duke having the right answers but has her blog on WP. Serendipity, coincidence? Whatever it is called, I'll take it! Now I have been madeover and have this new retro look. Like it?

Thanks again, to Charles who got right on it and was finished in record time!

I just visited Jade's site this morning after dropping her off to attend her friend's bat mitzvah and found out that she too has joined the spooning brigade. Want to know what a 13 year thinks about the whole thing? Click read her new blog below.

I definitely could use one of these! I saw these on the Cupcake Queen's blog and I think they are terrific! Haven't you been frustrated when that beautiful cupcake you brought for your lunch is just one big messy blob by the time lunch time comes around? I know my girls wish they could show off their cupcake creations rather than making the cursory, "trust me, it tastes better than it looks" comment to their lunch mates. As you can see from the photo "borrowed" from the sellers website, even upside down, the cupcakes retain their shapely frosting. I haven't seen these at the store yet, so if you are interested in getting some, I suggest you visit the cup-a-cake website too.

Click on the photo for the whole story. Also read all the comments at the end of the article. Interesting read.

While visiting the Sassy Lawyer, I read her post regarding the article above. It disturbed me so much I just had to post it here too. But as I am on my way to lunch, I will leave this as it is for now. I'll go and contemplate while I eat my lunch with a spoon and a fork. I gotta keep up my disgusting habits, ya know. Pwe!!

OK, I just went and ate my rice with eggs and aligue, eaten with gusto with a spoon and fork. Here's my two cents on this matter.

CeliaK, the English Patis has tagged me for this meme on foodbloggers. Since I haven’t been bloghopping much due to work and kid duties, here is my lopsided attempt at world-hopping through food blogs.

1. Please list three recipes you have recently bookmarked from foodblogs to try.

For this, all I have to do is pull out the top stack of printed recipes from my bag. Here are my recent print outs of dishes to attempt one of these days: (oh crap, I cleaned out my work bag so I’ll have to review my print outs when I get home tonight…promise I’ll add to this later)
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2. A foodblog in your vicinity

The nearest one to me is the Ilocana Chef who is also a Southern transplant. One of these days maybe we’ll get to meet, right dexie? ;-)

3. A foodblog located far from you

Farthest from me would be all the Filipino food bloggers in the Philippines who I try to visit often to get ideas, especially the first food blog I discovered, The Sassy Pinoy Cook.

4. A foodblog (or several) you have discovered recently (where did you find it?)

It seems that everyday, I discover a new food blog. But since I haven’t been bloghopping as much, it’s been a while since I added a link to my blogroll. The latest additions though are:

● Pabulum who is hosting the latest round of Lasang Pinoy.
● Potlikker who is filling the void in southern food blogging
● Zita who I stumbled to by accident


5. Any people or bloggers you want to tag with this meme?

I will tag my fellow Ilokana blogger in the south, Dexie, Tin who has been suffering from allergies but maybe be well enough to do this meme one of these days, and Iska who blogs from far away Beijing.

Toni at wifely steps asked, what does your refrigerator door look like? This is our two refrigerators, otherwise known as command central. It just so happened that we were going to do some spring cleaning today as things have gotten quite out of hand with our junk all over the place. As you can see, what's on our ref is what is going on in our life. We put up upcoming events so we don't forget, we put up pizza coupons so we don't forget to use them next time we have one delivered, and of course, art work. We thought we would take a photo of this mess for posterity before we clean it up. Don't worry though, it won't stay pristine for long. In a few weeks it will be back to this much utilized look once again. So we ask you, what's on your fridge? Post your photo and make sure you let Toni know about it.

Miss Annalyn S. Jusay, of the Manila Bulletin has graciously included us in her recent roundtable of food bloggers. She sent a few of us Filipino food bloggers questions about our blogs, and our take on food. We got a bit carried away answering her questions that she has to break up her article into two parts :-). Other food bloggers in the roundtable are: Karen of the Pilgrims Pots & Pans, TingAling of the World Class Cuisine, CeliaK of the English Patis, and Stef of Stefoodie.net.
Go check out the roundtable, part I.

Photo compliments of Karen at Pilgrims Pots & Pans.

Posting has been slow around here lately, and I had the best intentions, too! I really thought that after the girls left for summer vacation, I can finally catch up on posting some recipes. The weather has been beautiful, and this, our new baby, has taken up much of our time.

This is one side of our garden, where the herbs are planted. In this bed, we have basil, lemon balm, oregano, chives, lavender, flat leaf parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. You know the song...

I'll try to get more photos of the garden that's been occupying so much of our time, from morning till dusk. We wake up earlier than usual, and we immediately head for the backyard with our cup of coffee, and sit and watch it grow. My husband has been spending endless hours tilling, weeding, and just puttering in the garden. In the evenings, we unwind in the garden too, and now finally, we are reaping its fruits. We've already harvested cucumbers, zucchini, and green tomatoes, and just about everything coming out of our kitchen is peppered with fresh herbs. Oh, I do so love summer time!