Week 14

There was a slight delay on our construction due to the wood preparation for the ceiling of our major rooms. But yesterday we were able to pick up a third of it from the outfit that split the wood and tongue and grooved it. We immediately got some sand paper and acquired the necessary tools to try to finish it so our carpenters can nail it to the ceiling. The idea behind this is so we’ll have wood on our ceiling and it’ll be finished as if it’s on the floor. We intend to apply natural varnish on it and I’m hoping the end result will be like white washed oak. This is the kind of wood which does not need stain. It sort of looks like pine but it’s not really pine. Just trust me on this, it’ll be gorgeous. For those of you who don’t believe, come join us on our housewarming and I’ll show you!! By the end of this week, the living room and hopefully, the dining room and kitchen would have had their ceiling installed.

In the meantime our mason was trying to finish the trough around the house where all the rainfall will go since we don’t have any gutters. We’ve also laid out the spot where the Jacuzzi will sit. It’ll be on the back yard and it’ll have a nipa hut gazebo. A nipa hut (this info is for our Caucasian – rednecks included, and Latin persuasion) is a structure made mostly of bamboo with palm leaves for a roof. It’s going to be so cool.

We've finally started pouring concrete for the front gate's posts. One more load of fill dirt and we'll be able to start finishing this part of the fence. Joven has started painting the primer for our window borders as well as the front round columns as you'll notice in the attached pictures.
I drove again today to a nearby supermarket to get some refreshments for my workers. It’s tough getting used to the driving style here in the Philippines, let alone familiarizing myself in using the gear shift of the vehicle’s manual transmission. I noticed I have a hardtime downshifting from 5th gear to 4th or 3rd. I’m sure I’ll get the hang of if after a couple of years!!

I’ve been spending oodles of pesos on cell phone loads and phone cards for the past several days calling and sending text messages to my love in California. After closing out the deal on our (former) home on Littchen, she tied up all loose strings for our final move here, arranging the shipment of our household goods, etc. However, I think her diet went out the door since she’s being taken out to lunch and dinner by everyone who’ve ever known us! Tomorrow she’s flying to San Francisco to say goodbye to her nursing classmates for QCMC. When she comes back to LA, she’ll be flying (whew!) finally, to join me here and help out in building our dream home.

Tomorrow, I’m planning on going to Manila to meet with our movers to make sure everything is up to snuff to prevent any hitches on our household stuff.

Text of Week 13

Note: Keep in mind that I wrote below blog yesterday but was not able to post it. DSL has been acting up within the last few days. It's Monday evening here in the Phil right now.



Jack informed me that there are no available DSL lines in Greenfields. The way DSL has been acting up this week, it’s good in a way, because DSL charges a flat fee whether it’s working or not. This is why I haven’t been able to update my blog and answer eMails for the past few days. I’ll most likely have to settle for dialup prepaid Internet service in the new house.

I got a text message from Ephraim (affectionately sometimes known as Rai-rai by some) saying, “She said YES!”. He’s officially engaged at 29. He concocted this complicated and elaborate scheme to propose to his girlfriend Rachel in Hawaii. For some reason my family likes to spring surprises on their loved ones. So Eph, did Rach get surprised?

It’s slowed down quite a bit on our construction. Much on the finishing aspects has been accomplished. The roof has all been installed except for some last minute things. The walls, both interior and exterior, as well as the floors have all been treated with some kind of acid prior to painting. The ceiling (marine plywood and Hardy Flex) have been installed for the garage, all bathrooms, music room, storage rooms and the utility room. All electrical and phone cables have been installed as well. The ceiling for the rest of the house (bedrooms, living room, kitchen and dining room) should be installed later this week. The wood is being cut and prepared for it. As soon as the household goods come from the States (scheduled for June 19), they would start painting the house. Concrete blocks have been installed all around the house for the trough on the grounds in the absence of roof gutters. The termite exterminators have been coming to the site on a regular basis to treat everything from the soil to the structure of the house.

Saturday, (it’s Sunday evening here) I went to Makati to go to the company which will manufacture our vinyl windows but they dropped a bomb on me when they said the salesman forgot to include P22K worth of screens in the quotation. I was visibly upset by this turn of events and told the salesman so. He was apologetic and said he’ll give me his commission so we can close the deal. I told him I didn’t want to do that, they’ll just have to have some kind of conference to straighten out the mess and told them further to call me when they’re ready. Although the deal on the windows didn’t get closed, the trip was beneficial in terms of me finding out the company and Benjie, the salesman, are all legit. Kong Naring and everyone else for that matter advised me not to give him any down payment until we established that everything is kosher. Benjie was just some guy who walked into our site and offered us his products which by the way we think are superior than most. We didn’t get back to San Fernando till around 3 pm and we were rushing to finish our payroll.

I picked up the Toyota Innova Friday night by the way and we drove and/or broke it in to Manila yesterday. (Check out pictures above, click on the little 'x' to see close up pic - don't know why it doesn't appear!) Pap and I were on our way to church at the San Fernando cathedral late yesterday when we passed by Pilar Village. I told him to turn around so we can inquire about Fr Sito’s schedule for him to bless the Innova. He was the priest who officiated our wedding last April. We got to his church and they were about to start the 5:30 mass so we went in and heard mass over there. I approached Fr Sito after mass and had him bless the vehicle. The Innova is similar to the Sienna. It’s the 2006 model, seats up to 8 or 9 with a 2.0 engine and manual transmission. It has a fairly decent speaker system. At least I’d be able to play my CD collections again. I have to take it back to the Toyota dealership in San Fernando tomorrow so they could tint the windows and perform some rust proofing treatment on its undercoat.

Today Pap and I checked out the site, had lunch at Sylvia’s, then went to watch X Men, The Last Stand at the SM Theaters in San Fernando. Reg – this is the best of the three, I thought. Afterwards, we went and visited Armin in Angeles. He’s been out since Wednesday. He’s had minor surgery and he’ll be back to work tomorrow. I updated him on everything that’s going on.

Note 2: Sorry, Blogger refuses to accept downloading of pictures. I'll do it as soon as it allows me.