Costs-Cutting Measures

With the increase in the cost of living worldwide and the salary still the same, its just practical to find ways to reduced some of the expenses. To cope up, we recently converted our car into LPG Gas Auto which creates a safe, easy, and best of all much cheaper fuel than petrol or diesel. It is typically at least 50% cheaper than other automotive fuels and is environmentally friendly. With the conversion, we saves at least 60% on gasoline cost.

As the price of heating with oil increased, we now used pellets heating system. One liter of oil is now 97 cents and 2 kilos of wood pellets which is equivalent to 1 liter of oil is 34 cents. In the process we saved at least 3000 euro heating cost every year.

The wood pellets

Other ways to cut our expenses are:
1. We don't make new purchases of non-essential goods and services
2. We reduced overseas calls by installing Skype
3. We also limit the use of our SL car just to save on gasoline

Maureen and me

Shower and Saving Energy

In order to save energy this summer, we already switched off the central heating in our house. That means we don't have anymore hot water in all our faucets and showers. But taking shower using cold water is not good for the body especially in the early morning.

Dirk found a solution by installing an electric water heater which will save us around 1000 euro a year. The cost of living here in Germany is getting more expensive and its just practical to find a solution.

For our future retirement house in the Philippines, we decided that we're going to buy some of the bathroom fixtures here like the shower because of its good quality and its more cheaper.

All Night Birthday Party

The last guests for my birthday party left at 6 in the morning. With my more or less 50 guests, we enjoyed the day and night dancing, karaoke singing, the kids playing and updating each others lives coz we really missed each other. We also enjoyed the foods prepared by yours truly and by my friends especially ate lita who was not able to make it but send 4 bilao of kuchinta, puto, butse and palitaw. I don't feel old at all coz i have a wonderful partner in life dirk, who is very loving & supportive and my friends who are always there through thick and thin.

Dancing with dirk, and hopefully till our hair are all gray

The kitchen department

Annika with Oma Tonette

Maureen's song and dance in the couch

Kids having fun

Karaoke a "must" to all Filipino parties

Dancing Queens
all pictures

Post birthday celebration

Today, i'm going to celebrate my post-birthday party. Its just a small party and i invited only my close friends unlike before that my guests reached 150. Its less stressful, economical, practical, easy to organize and besides its been two weeks since my birthday. I'm going to post more pictures tomorrow coz i will be busy attending to my guests.

The Foods

My Guests and Gifts

Ice Foot and Foot Salad

Because of his aching foot, dirk was advised by his doctor to put ice cubes on his right foot. He used an old salad bowl where he put lots of ice cubes. I joked on him that we have foot salad and not fruit salad and instead of ice candy, its ice foot.

The poor salad bowl

Also today, i have my first experience of helping in the hotel kitchen. There's no dull moment coz everybody is busy with their own task from the hotel chef and waitresses to the dishwashers. I help in the dishwashing and its really fun as if we're just playing. After helping, we ate schnitzel, french fries and spätzle, not bad for half an hour kitchen adventure.

Oooops, photo session time

Corpus Christi

Today is a religious holiday (Fronleichnam or Corpus Christi) here in Baden Württemberg. It is a christian feast day or solemnity commemorating the supreme gift of the institution by Jesus Christ of the Holy Eucharist on the thursday following trinity sunday. The most important part of the Corpus Christi liturgy is the holy mass and procession wherein there is a flower carpet along its routes.

My New Handy

Today, i got my new cellphone, a nokia 5310XpressMusic model. It is an all-in-one music device of impeccable style. Its very slim with great audio quality, easy music in one touch and crystal clear sounds.It also take beautiful, high quality photos with a 2 megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom. Now, i can enjoy my favorite tracks and this new gadget is indeed an addition to my increasing number of cellphones.