AN EASTER FESTIVAL

If you're looking for a fun, simple, yet meaningful way to celebrate Easter, please join us.  Just click on the photo to view the details. I shun commercial easter egg hunts because the true meaning of the festival is totally lost and I feel that celebrating the Christian festivals properly is such a gift to the children. There is nothing like celebrating simply but purposefully. I hope to see you there.

GEJO'S BOUNTY

I've been enjoying organic greens from Gejo Jimenez of Kitchen Herbs. What great, living food and from such a nice guy, too. I have not had the pleasure of meeting Gejo but I've already been tormenting him with my orders. He is very accommodating and a total pro. My buying experience with him balances out the negative experiences with others (APO FLOORS!!)because he clearly knows how to deal with customers. Integrity, right? He has it plus, plus. I told him I needed salad for two to last me this week and then said, "Bahala ka na!" and he did just that. Business men ought to learn what service really means from him. So if you love your salad and eat only organic, Gejo is your guy. You can email him at kitchenherbs@gmail.com or text him at 09178108293. 

THE EASTER TREE

Have you started on your Easter tree yet? I've gotten some emails from Waldorf moms asking for ideas on how to celebrate Easter with the kids. The basic theme of Easter is renewal and new life, so I made sure to put greens with the branches I found. This is a shot of my very first Easter tree. I put this up several years ago while on vacation. The children and I had lots of fun decorating the eggs. I used both food coloring and natural (from vegetables like beets, onions)coloring. I experimented with beeswax. I also bought those easter egg decorating kits and just used whatever. Then I crocheted little caps to cover the hole on the eggs, though you can tie the string on a bit of toothpick and insert that through the hole. (For the newbies, the hole is there after you've blown out the egg.) There's still time left to do this. It doesn't have to be so elaborate. You can also do it slowly through the 40 days of Easter so that it can build up through the days and the celebration isn't focused on just the egg hunt and everyone can feel that Easter is really more of a season. I usually start the day by gathering around the table and lighting a candle then telling an Easter story. After the story, the children can go and hunt for eggs--real eggs, of course, also lovingly prepared (though this time, in secret)and hidden in the garden.

WE NEED INTEGRITY EVERYWHERE

Today I was severely tested. I'm on the last stretch of finishing the home I'm building when a supplier, APO Floors, showed me just how bad and unprofessional business practice can be. I contacted APO Floors in September and agreed on the price for my living and dining flooring.  I faxed back the contract with the agreed upon price. A month or so ago, we got in touch again to say we're about to install. Then installation time comes and the APO Floors agent suddenly says I didn't give a downpayment, so they couldn't do it in time for my move. I clearly remember offering the APO Floors agent a downpayment when we set the price and he said COD would do. I checked the contract and, true enough, it said COD. Next the APO Floors agent starts flaking about the agreed upon price, apparently because he lost the second page of the contract (ang tagal na kasi maam e, nawala ko iyong papel), which he kept repeating, as if that justified his utter lack of professionalism.  To make things worse, the wood I ordered was now no longer available so I have to make do with a smaller cut of wood. (I'm moving next Monday, by the way, and I still have no living and dining room floors). Then Agent APO Floors wasn't sure if he could deliver soon or if he could install. I gave him an earful and went hunting for his Boss APO Floors who, at first, sounded quite concerned.  He said he would hurry back to the office and call me back in thirty minutes. I haven't heard from him since and he hasn't replied to my texts or picked up my calls.  The incompetent Agent APO Floors, meanwhile, miraculously found a way to deliver and install tomorrow but whoa...the price has changed yet again. The price of the wood is cheaper, presumably because the cut is smaller, but he wants me to pay the same lot price. HUH? This boring story happens too often in this country. I was so excited to use APO Floors engineered hardwood floors because I felt it was a good product and a local one at that, but the people I've had to deal with there are totally lacking in professionalism and integrity. Because I have to move next week, my architect tried to save the day and spoke to Agent APO Floors, who told her that I was difficult to deal with.  Mind you, I did everything a customer had to do. Why is the burden always on the customer in this country??? APO Floors, what's going on? The most successful companies are those who know that the customer is their biggest asset! That's common sense. But here, it seems to be the opposite. For change to happen in this country, people have to really live and breathe integrity everywhere!! We're not just talking about changes in government and systems. We need to change as individuals for the change to happen in the workplace, in government and in all sectors of society. Inefficiency, sloth, lack of respect, unprofessionalism, going back on one's word and on an agreement, calling a client names, sheer laziness, making excuses, being untruthful--these are the very things we have to eliminate from the horizon.  Everywhere. Serving with integrity, honoring your contracts and agreements, making every effort to meet deadlines and simply doing your best wherever you are--these will bring us forward. Company owners must realize that integrity is at the heart of customer service and anyone who cannot live it cannot serve the company or its customers properly. Integrity everywhere!!  I'm not sure if my flooring will be from APO Floors anymore, though I don't have the luxury of time to change, but I've left it up to my architect to sort out because I cannot personally work with people who don't even know how to listen, much less honor their word. Abangan...

TIRED OF IT ALL?

A friend asked if I had read my mom's column last week.She said she could relate to the sentiments of the people who wrote my mom, basically expressing their exhaustion over the Philippine situation.Pagod na silang lahat.I used to be like that though, thankfully, I don't think I ever reached the point of being apathetic.But I was definitely cynical and tired, too.Then I reached a point in my life, especially after I became a mother, where I made a decision to stop complaining and start becoming an instrument for change, transformation and healing.The journey began during the ERAP drama. I was heavy with my second child and was naturally in an inward mood about my pregnancy, my life, my very being and I realized I was really part of the problem.How could I not be? By not doing anything and letting things be, considering myself separate from government, therefore not responsible,I had become part of the silent problem. I also had the attitude of "eh ganoon talaga", which was fast congealing within me.Well, each child brings with it a gift to travel towards our highest potential and I went for it.That spark was the beginning.Years later, when Nicanor Perlas called on me to join him in PAGASA, I decided the time had come -- thanks to his encouragement.It was then I realized you can either do something about the mess, or forever be tired and hopeless.If you are consciously engaged in the process of change towards something larger than yourself, it is impossible to feel tired because you are in the midst of constant and directed movement.But if you are stuck in thought patterns from the past and are not part of a conscious process for change, naturally your feeling would be one of total exhaustion because the problems are over-over-overwhelming.Be the change and have that impulse radiate out into your community!It starts with the realization that we are always part of the whole and so we CAN move the whole. You can choose to stay tired or choose to start moving. I chose the latter and have never looked back.