The Road to 40 Day 132/365: Domesticated Duties

I’ve been looking forward to being more active, but I don’t think I’m fully back to normal yet after my episode this past Monday.

I feel better, sure, but these past few days, I still feel a bit bloated. I’m not quite sure what I should do, so I’m just going through the motions now and not trying to build new habits just yet.

After taking Vino to school, I decided I wanted to do some meal preps at home. I planned on making longganisa and tocino, so I checked my recipes and figured out what ingredients I needed.

I set off to Fairprice near Vino’s school, but I lacked an ingredient. I decided to go to Holland Village because I wanted to buy correctly-sized gloves for myself. I know there’s a Fairprice around that area as well, so it’s hitting two birds with one stone.

Turns out, the supermarket was being renovated, but I got what I wanted from the other shop. I thought about waiting for the famous claypot rice at the hawker center, but I thought I’d be wasting so much time already.

Instead, I headed over to Vivo, where I was sure to get what I needed. I checked out the newly re-opened food center at the basement to find something interesting. Ultimately, I ended up in A&W.

The root beer float is certainly nostalgic. Growing up, it was a special time if we ever get one because there are only a few branches of it. I know we went to the Makati Avenue branch at least once.

Apparently, Singaporeans and Malaysians also found this as a trip down memory lane. So much so that when A&W opened a branch in Changi, you couldn’t get a seat unless you waited for at least 45mins.

Now with more branches around Singapore, the only competition I had was the lunch crowd.

I went home and tried to process which one to do first – prep longganisa or tocino, clean the floors, wash the dishes, or fold clothes?

We just had a cleaner, but she used something different with her floor mop that caused it to feel a bit sticky and soapy. Che asked me to try and see if our Dyson Submarine can save it.

I figured it should be the first thing I should do or risk forgetting it later on.

I then went to wash the dishes so that I had a clean workstation when I started my longganisa and tocino.

My dad went to a seminar for longganisa and tocino making sometime when I was in high school. He would ask us to help him do it, so we had our own stations, which rotated depending on the mood. He and my mom would then sell it in their offices.

It was kinda fun doing something with everyone, but it soon became a source of stress because my mom had to bring it and sell it and it didn’t seem worth doing all that much for what we earned from it. But it opened my eyes to the possibility that it can be done at home.

Now that I have time, I decided to make some for my own family. It’s not exactly my dad’s seminar recipe, but as an internet cook, I found stuff that I could source and would use.

I got the tocino done and I left it to marinate in a bowl before portioning it. The longganisa needed a bit more effort.

I could just shape it into logs, but that would make it difficult to pull apart when it’s coming from the freezer. So I had to shape them using wax paper.

Rolling it individually takes a lot of work, and the sizes were a bit inconsistent. Still, I got those done and popped them in the freezer before I picked up Vino.

He had CCA this day, and he asked to ride a car going home. He was tired, so I obliged. Once we got home, I told him he could rest first then take a bath.

Dude went straight to calling his friends, and he just went on talking and playing with them. It gave me a chance to fold clothes and keep them while I ordered ramen for both of us.

Che was going to be a bit late coming home because she was meeting some friends, so Vino and I decided we’d just order in.

We started watching Elio, which was now available on Disney. I asked Vino to stop playing with his friends by 9pm so that we had time to wind down before sleeping.

So quick gist, Elio was adopted by his aunt because his parents died. Aunt always tried to be part of Elio’s life, but Elio was only concerned with getting abducted by aliens. Ultimately, Elio realized he never really gave his life a chance because he was so focused on doing things himself.

I told Vino that he might be doing that now, because he doesn’t talk to me anymore as he spent the whole time talking to his friends since coming back from school. I think he realized it too, and he started talking about what happened in football CCA and a lot more.

I asked him to tell me about it at breakfast, because I wanted him to get some sleep already. Oh, and he requested to be back on the bed today, so the small step yesterday was more of a dip than a step.

Che arrived right as I was about to get water, so I opened the door for her. She told me about her day and her extended night. I also told her how Vino ended up in bed, before she called it a night and got some sleep.

The day turned out really productive and made me feel like a real homemaker.

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