More and more, I find that the photos I take throughout the week become prompts for my blog posts. I think that’s awesome 🙂
Yesterday found me back at the hospital for the neck xray. While awaiting my turn, the boyfriend was wrapped up on the PSP, while I was so fascinated by the bright red fire alarm box at St. Luke’s X-Ray section.
It was a stark contrast to the recently painted white walls. Certainly, I didn’t notice this fire box when I had a nasal xray back in April. Hmm, so that means I’ve had three different types of xrays done to me in the past six months. Chest, nasal and then the neck yesterday. Interesting. I never saw the plates for the previous ones but yesterday I peeked in at the radiologist’s screen in his private enclave to get a quick glimpse of my neck. Haha 🙂
So I haven’t gone back for the results. No rush since my next appointment with the neuro is on Friday. We did swing by the Pathology Department to get the blood work results.
So what’s the verdict? I’m not sure.
I think my fasting blood sugar is within normal range, but the results for the first and second hours of the OGTT are definitely above that level. What it means exactly, I am yet unsure. I will visit the physician within the week. Another obvious result is that uric acid is high, and maybe cholesterol too.
If all those is not enough to convince me to shape up or die, I don’t know what will. Still, it’s so darn difficult to convince yourself to exercise when it can really be so tiring. Haha! 🙂
Time to jump on the stationary bike, or maybe even the ellipticals. Also time to consider bringing comfortable walking clothes to work with me so it wouldn’t be so uncomfortable walking home. And yes, time to say hello to my old friend Marie France.
Around two years ago (maybe more, but I don’t specifically remember), Alfred and I took to eating regularly at Petruss. In fact I’ve dug up two posts from the past where I mentioned the cafe (haha!), they are here and here. Petruss was a small cafe located right across our office building and we loved having brunch there after work. One of the lighter meals we’d order would be french toast, but then we’d go too for their yummy mango crepes. Hmmm I can almost smell the yummy rice meals we would order too, what were they again babe?
Another food joint we’d frequent at the time would be the Pancake House along E. Rodriguez, right beside St. Luke’s Medical Center. This one’s just walking distance from the house. Of course my favorite to order are their chocolate chip pancakes with peanut butter, but we also love their potato salad and their french toast as well. Ooh their club house sandwich isn’t so bad, and the boyfriend would order all sorts of other heavier meals – most are yummy too.
(Now you get the picture why we don’t have a lot of savings? Haha. We eat too much, and not at (cheap) fast foods all the time!)
Anyway, Petruss has moved out and Ministop (a convenience store) now occupies that space (so sad), and we don’t go to the Pancake House anymore (I can’t even remember when the last time was?)
On Friday night I started fasting so I could finally get the blood work done that the doctor ordered. Last meal was at 930 in the evening. I got a very good night’s sleep (surprisingly because I had fully intended to stay up all night), and got up before 8am. I was in the hospital before 830 on Saturday morning. I thought, like all the blood work I had done in the past, that it would only take a few minutes. Boy was I wrong. I needed to wait a full two hours because of a specific test (the OGTT which I am not in the mood to discuss).
The unfortunate thing about it, is that I could neither eat nor walk around during the intervals of the blood drawing (I had to be pricked thrice). At the end of the first hour, I was already dreaming up french toasts. Since I was already at the St. Luke’s, I decided to go for a quick brunch (with Vanilla Milkshake, another indulgence – at least it wasn’t extra thick chocolate) at Pancake House en route to the nearest drug store where I picked up my prescriptions (from the neurologist whom I visited on Friday morning).
Mind you, I intended to go for a long walk and take some photos at the same time. But the darn blood work took up more than two hours of my time and it was nearly noon when I finished. It was too hot to take a leisurely walk! I did have to do some legwork to the drugstore, and then heading home. I didn’t get to visit the camera shop though, maybe I’d just pick up UV filters after work sometime this week.
I did get to take some photos of the Pancake House window (how pathetic am I?), while I experimented with apertures. Check these out – variations of a theme, hehe:
S 1/2500 | A f/1.8 | ISO 200 | Focal length 50mm
S 1/2500 | A f/2.2 | ISO 400
S 1/1600 | A f/2.2 | ISO 400
S 1/3200 | A f/2.2 | ISO 400
Did you notice the differences between the shots? Too bad if you don’t, but that’s just me playing 🙂
Apart from the food, it is usually the feel of the place or the ambiance that keeps us coming back. I don’t need candlelight, nor candle sconces on the wall (though those would be a really nice touch) but comfortable seating and a bright and open area is something I appreciate in a restaurant. Having big open windows is also a very big plus for me. Of course if the view was something better than E.Rodriguez, that would be wonderful!
Anyway, have you been to your old favorites lately?
I just spent a looooong time going through the entries for this week’s You Capture. Just like last week (or was that two weeks ago?) I am late again in posting for the challenge so there’s 94 others on the list ahead of me. Haha. My macro entry is not really a super close up shot, but I wanted to use it for my entry. It showcases the yummy calamansi muffin that Chini brought back for me from her Boracay trip the previous weekend. It was fun going through the list, there were some gems there and photos that will really make you say WOW and then inspire you to take better photos next time. 🙂
For my Oh Shoot! class, this week’s focus was on Apertures. I almost always shoot on A mode but the lesson and discussion helped me more to understand what the closed versus open apertures were best used for.
But I also learned something else – always check on your camera settings before you snap away.
I had taken my camera to the office with me and someone else used it to snap photos. One of them who played around with the settings had the White Balance on Flash mode. I hardly ever use flash! So I was outside taking a photo of my project and got this weird looking color on your photo:
I tweaked the white balance a bit in Photoshop but kept pretty much everything else the way it was:
It still looks too yellowy but believe it or not, with the bright sunshine the day I took the photo, it really was quite a yellowy day. Haha 🙂
So what are these jars anyway? Remember how much I love the bottled Starbucks coffee you could buy at the grocery? Well, I used to buy them regularly last year and together with Ingrid, we accumulated a lot of these bottles. I brought them home from work (because they were such a clutter to have under your desk and we couldn’t bring ourselves to throw them in the bin) but I didn’t get around to using them for anything. Well a few days ago, the boyfriend and I were talking about savings and our lack of it, versus the bazillion things we want to acquire. He knew my view on unnecessary spending, and how much restraint I’ve also been exercising when it comes to shopping and other spending. So I told him that I don’t mind us buying stuff, sometimes we do deserve a splurge, but that we should only buy stuff we have money for. You know what I mean? No more swipe swipe swipe, as much as possible.
So we agreed to start saving up for the stuff we want to buy, hence these jars.
We have the d3000 jar for the Nikon D3000. It’s not an upgrade for Maxine the D60 but a second camera so we could each have one.
Then there’s the TV jar because that’s all that’s missing in the bedroom. I’m not very particular about that one though and it seems we won’t be needing the jar anyway. We’re getting one for free! Haha. Our old 21-inch TV that’s currently in my parents’ room will be moved to my room in October because they’re getting a new TV courtesy of the brother bear’s annual program at work (he’s already got one in his room).
The other jar is for a gaming console – either an Xbox 360 or a PS3. This one’s not high on my priority list but it would be wonderful to be able to play against each other rather than just the boyfriend playing on the PSP.
The jar which I focused on in this photo, is a wedding jar. I know. Even if we fill it up it won’t be enough to pay for a wedding. It’s a good symbolism for us saving up for it though. Plus there’s plenty more bottles to fill when this one can’t take any more of our bills and coins. 🙂
I’m hoping that having this jars around is just the start to really being financially wise, for both our sakes.
I’ve been skipping work (yesterday and today) because I had really bad migraine last night, and I still have some back and neck pain. I’ve had problems with migraine for a very long time now. In highschool, I would be absent because of this. In college, this would plague me too, usually after school. I remember at least two instances when I would go to class on the first day of school (this was in my grade school days), and then come home with a headache.
We thought it was my eyes. So I was frequently at the opthalmologist’s clinic. They would give me eyedrops and at one point prescribed glasses. But my eyes never really got better. I have 20/20 vision, my eyes are just very irritable. How many times have I had sore eyes? Some afternoons I would all of a sudden itch, and my eyes would balloon and go all red. A few hours later, they’d get better. What caused it? I can’t say.
Then my eye doctor said a few years ago that it wasn’t the eyes that were causing the headaches. They were migraines. She prescribed me medicine that I was supposed to take before the onset of the migraine. That proved to be difficult for me at the time, so I never got around to taking it. I learned to just live with it. I learned to will myself to throw up, just to feel better. But that wasn’t always the case. I wouldn’t always feel like throwing up.
I’ve found that the best thing to do is to take Advils while the headaches haven’t peaked. Then to stay somewhere dark, and cool. To find the most comfortable position for my back, neck and head, and to try to sleep. It wasn’t easy to sleep with the pain. I would be restless for the most part, whether asleep or awake.
When I have these episodes, I am prepared to suffer pretty much the entire day. When it seems as though it will go beyond that, or the pain is intolerable – I turn to stronger medication. I used Arcoxia, but then a colleague who is a Pharmacist by training warned me against the side effects. I also didn’t like it because I just feel numb with it. Like the pain will come back after it wears off in 24 hours. Then I used Celecoxib, or something like it. It didn’t prove to be any better.
So I’m back to just plain old Biogesic or Advil. These don’t work when the pain is already intolerable, but they’re good enough when it’s just starting.
I guess this last episode is just another signal that I’m stressed, and I didn’t even see it coming.
I shall visit the doctor tomorrow. I don’t really know what for, but I shall go. Hay.
Speaking of hospitals and getting sick, have you ever wondered about getting travel insurance for when you go on vacation or on business trips? Back in my former life in the NGO world, we would get one for each of us who would travel to the next training venue. We never really had to use it, but it was good to know that we would be covered just in case something happens to us while we were traveling. I guess it isn’t so important now because the company I work for pays for a good medical insurance plan/HMO, so I am assured that I can get treatment as long as I had my card with me.
A colleague is off on a vacation to the US, I think he’s in Seattle right now. And two other friends were just there on business. I wonder if they signed up for any travel insurance? I’m sure they’ll be safe there, but I’d hate to hear that they’ll be in need of Seattle personal injury attorneys, after all they are just there for a very brief visit.
I know it’s been quiet around here. But I have been updating though, just in my other blogs 🙂
I’ve posted a new photo over at my photo blog. And the other day I posted a review of a new product I recently purchased – the Neutrogena Wave (it’s not sponsored, mind you) 🙂
