I remember during the first few days of my Muay Thai training, my trainer made some comments about my natural fighting stance, how it's easy for a beginner like me to learn the roundhouse kick, and how good I was at throwing punches (the uppercut was quite a challenge though). It was my very first martial arts training. But decades ago, I had informal lessons with my uncle Vic.

I think that's one of the many things he did for me that I was so grateful for.

He was the one who taught me how to defend and stand up for myself. Probably the reason why I was never bullied despite having this payatot, bullyable physique. I mean, they tried. But they only ended up with a bloody nose and never messed with me again.

And until this very day, nobody could bully me. Except my kids. 😅

For the first time in my entire life, I got scammed.

I thought I was smart enough not to be fooled, but here I am.

I was on Facebook, mindlessly viewing how my friends spent the last 24 hours. And in the middle of these stories, I came across a video ad. I didn't even bother to watch it but this fat, arthritic thumb accidentally tapped the link when what I was trying to do was swipe forward. Curse this high-speed internet and fast-processing phone, the Shein app opened before I can tap the back button (or maybe my fat, arthritic thumb was just painfully slow).

Much has happened the past weeks. I don't even know where to begin. But I guess, I'll start with the news that we now have two feral toddlers to keep an eye on. 

Our little girl, Isabel, turned one this month. And I know I have already said that we won't be traveling until she turns two. But here I am, creating a toddler-friendly itinerary for our next out-of-the-country trip.

I am sure no one is going to disagree when I say that traveling with a toddler is a pain in the ass. I've seen it, experienced it, and proven it an understatement. Yet, we find ourselves turning a blind eye to the thought that with these feral two in tow, we may never be able to relax—which defeats the purpose of a vacation.

I think I now know what hell is like. It's where you have all the delicious food you can eat right before you but can't because your stomach is on a rather violent protest. 

Food poisoning. That's what you get for committing one of the seven deadly sins. In my defense, I was just making sure that no food will go to waste. So I ate the leftover that has been in the fridge since God knows when even though I already had two full meals five minutes earlier. 

If it wasn't for the blog contest entry that I posted a few days ago, you all would have assumed that I have been zapped into Uranus and never return. Well, to those who love hate-reading me, sucks to be you, I am still here!

I kid about the haters, of course. I don't remember offending anyone or at least, not in their face. But there's probably someone out there who's willing to make a pact with the devil in hopes of seeing me lose the blog contest just so I have something to be miserable about.

Well, there's no need for that, buddy. I have already read almost all the entries and most of them are coming from professional and trained writers who showed me how inferior my writing skills are. I wouldn't even think I'd make it to the top ten. And also, my job application at Automattic was, unsurprisingly, unsuccessful.

December kicked off sweetly and along with it came not just one but several good news!

1.) We finally got our passports with approved visas! We might fly to South Korea this winter so we can experience what's it like being bundled up in layers and still get frostbitten then agree on the idea that hell is literally a better place to live. Haha. I can't wait!