Mixing Opposites

I thought I won't be able to describe what I've been doing the past days, but i just figured out what exactly I was doing. The activities involved were focused on the house and the garden. How it started has really nothing to do with the house because I just wanted a better internet connection and a new router was waiting to be installed. However, there were also cables and computer hardware that were no longer needed so the connections should be cleared from them also. So it took movement of tables and clearing some spaces before the router was installed.

It took days for the whole activity to be completed because it was not as simple as I thought. It was not easy to satisfy my third eye. Until I noticed it would be satisfied only when there was a mix of opposites, like the router on the antique looking console table, which was moved from the space dividing the living room and the dining room.

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In the living room, the hard wood dominated the area since it had a big wooden center table and there were electronic equipments also so the whole area just looked "hard". It needed to be balanced by objects that would suggest softness, like more throw pillows and a carpet, or stuffed toys. So I moved out the big center table creating more space. I placed a wood slab on the floor to create a natural look balancing the electronic equipments in the area, and introduced a carpet and additional throw pillows. It was hard to get an unbudgeted small sized carpet so I practically had no choice, I just thought that the tan color of the design will neutralize the other colors in the area while the red background symbolizes fire, which will balance the presence of too much wood (based on the Five Elements theory in Feng Shui). It was nice to notice our pet cats in the area once in a while because they balance the presence of the animal stuffed toys and figurines.

The activity forced me to take some time out from my highly technical home based job. Through the activity I was enjoying some of my hobbies.

Mixing the opposites is just about balancing - the hard with soft, modern with antique, natural with electronics or synthetic, or a technical job with an artistic hobby. Life is like that, it has to follow the simple law of Yin and Yang, and all will be well.

Once again, God placed me in this awesome situation. Thank you Lord!

ILLAC DIAZ is my cousin!!

After watching that video, you would understand why I was very proud to shout to the world that "Illac Diaz is my cousin!", although he doesn't even know me. His grandfather and my grandmother are second cousins.

How stupid of me because i was already at the same place where he was last Friday, at the venue of the seminar of Francis Kong where he was one of the guests and I was an attendee. During his portion in the seminar, every time he would present one of his projects, the audience would applaud while I would be very touched and controlling my tears. During the break, there was a long line of people who'd like to talk to him that seem to have more important agenda to tell him, but I still fell in line until there was no more time and the seminar has to resume. Well, maybe there will be a more appropriate time for me to meet him, perhaps when I already have the time for My Shelter Foundation where he is now an AVP.

Illac's purpose in life and his missions are very clear, may God bless him always!

An indispensable object

What object outside a house is indispensable? It cannot be the fence or the gate because we all know that a house can even look better without them. I can only think of one object: a mailbox.

A mailbox should be as durable as the house, since it can contain the most important document in a person’s life. It should be properly labeled either with an address sign or the name of the owner of the house or both.

A mailbox should say something about the house that owns it. Just to exaggerate, a Mickey Mouse design does not fit a house with a classic design like the columns of Parthenon. It’s nice to know that there is a website where we can choose a lot of mailbox designs for our houses. I’m glad that this blog can again be a link for people to be able to choose beautiful mailboxes fit for their homes.

Lighting references

I’m sure glad to have an addition to my lighting references, thanks to Farreys.com. It offers hundreds of thousands of lighting fixtures, lights, lamps and outdoor lighting in a wide range of styles and at the lowest prices from dozens of top manufacturers including: Ambience, Fine Art Lamps, Flos, Fontana Arte, George Kovacs, Hinkley Lighting, Kichler Lighting, Maxim Lighting, Minka Lavery, Murray Feiss, Quoizel, Sea Gull Lighting and many more.

Maybe it is worth mentioning here a Feng Shui problem in lot shapes that have pointed ends. What’s nice about that is it has a solution, which is as simple as installing a light in that pointed end. I have that kind of lot, its shape is trapezoid. Instead of getting worried about its unfavorable Feng Shui, I’m even excited because I will be forced to install a light, and I’d like a decorative landscape light, if I or any of my children will have a house built there. A Kichler lighting is only one of the many outdoor or landscape lighting to choose from for that purpose.

Speaking of indoor lights or lamps, you’ll surely have a hard time choosing from the breathtaking Maxim lighting or Quoizel lighting among others. Enjoy shopping!

The lamps that I love

My son's work schedule has changed to graveyard shift so we're letting him take a nap inside our bedroom before going to work. In that case I cannot watch TV in our bedroom like tonight, so I had to transfer to our dining area where there's another TV with local channels. My dining area is always lighted by a hanging lamp and even at daytime, I prefer it to be lighted because of the cozy effect it creates.

I prefer using lamps and pin lights instead of just the ordinarily housed lights. If there is one thing I had really appreciated when I was studying Interior Design, it was learning about the different kinds of lamps. Because of my love for lamps, I need not worry about the color of the paints I should use because a lamp can give varied effects even to the palest color.


I'd like to include here photos of beautiful lamps, the kind of lamps that I love, so that when the time comes our family can build a new house or renovate our current house, I can easily refer to this post. I will need to spotlight my paintings with halogen lamps, an arm lamp which can be a task lamp, and wall or night lamps that will give the rooms that needed warmth and feeling of security at night.

Christmas is near!

I'm excited that Christmas is near! Not only because it is the happiest season of the year but because our house looks best during this season. I stick to the red and green motif because this is my only opportunity to use this color combination which I consider the most attractive combination. Among all color combinations, only these two colors can be used with a 50-50 ratio. I learned that in my Interior Design class.

I hope I can have the time to prepare the decors this month so I can install them by the end of this month. That has been my practice even when I was still working at the office. I would use the non-working days before and after All Saints Day to install our Christmas decors. That gives me two months to enjoy the new look of the house as well as that Christmas feeling of happiness and sharing.

A symbol of strength and excellent Feng Shui

Among all the living things mentioned in this blog, the best “character” that can symbolize strength is Wendy, the green turtle or terrapin. In my post Miracles Are For Animals Too, I’ve shared how she was able to survive after being sick and without taking in any solids for five straight months. Most probably, somehow she has sipped the vitamins and nutrients in her rice washing pool, but I’m not sure of that because she rarely moved at that time. Was it possible that the nutrients were just absorbed by her hard body?


I’m again showing you her photo in that March post where she was already well and energetic. That was only four months ago, but look at her now! I’ve chosen her current photo for my new blog title, if you’ve noticed (though not the whole photo), because as a blogger I want to be influenced by her strength and longevity, and because those are also the qualities I wanted my blog to achieve.

In Feng Shui, the terrapin is a very powerful symbol but should be placed at the North part of the house. According to Lilian Too, “since one is the number of the North location, and the terrapin in feng shui is associated with the North, a single terrapin represents excellent feng shui. Do not worry that the terrapin will feel lonely. This is a creature who is a natural loner and is happiest when alone. If the terrapin you keep dies, simply get another one. This simply means your pet has successfully protected you from a minor disaster.”

We need an AccuCharge cordless vacuum cleaner!

“Caring for a special child like Lyca can be enjoyable when you know you’re not alone in that noble mission”. That was from one of my last posts titled "Special Child Caregiver". All of us in the household are faced with that big challenge to take turns taking care of a special child.

Who then does the cleaning? Nobody is tasked to do all the cleaning by himself or herself. Lyca’s caregiver does her share of cleaning the floor every morning while Lyca is still asleep. She still has to wash the clothes or iron laundered ones after that. Most of the time, she has no time to dust the pieces of furniture so that task is left to anybody who volunteers.

We have a variety of dusters, and each one of us has a favorite. My husband’s favorite is the one made in U.S.A. He won’t allow others to use it because it is the most expensive among our dusters. He’d also use different sizes and types of paint brushes sometimes. I enjoy using the set of static feathers. There’s a long rod of feathers with a short handle, a shorter one with a long handle, and one that looks like a big blusher brush. I even bought one that is worn like a glove.

Isn’t that funny? We have all sorts of those dusters but the house is not clean enough simply because we don’t have time to do it. In the past we’ve thought of buying a cordless vacuum cleaner that will make cleaning easier but it is not enough to sacrifice the cost of energy it requires. I’m glad that Dirt Devil has introduced AccuCharge which has two products, the Stick Vac and Hand Vac. The good news about these products is they use 70% less energy! That makes AccuCharge the first cordless cleaning technology to earn Energy Star approval!

I know there are a lot of people out there with the same cleaning problem as mine, and I’m very happy to announce this good news. I myself am excited to own the hand vac so I’d like to remind my Mom who lives in U.S.A. that my birthday is fast approaching (LOL)! I’m sure there will be more volunteers in our house to do the cleaning once we have it!

Reusing and Storing Old Paints

After my “House Painting Turned Into A Hobby” post, I thought I won’t be talking about paints for a time, but very recently, I’ve thought of an idea that can be useful. In the Philippines, it is during this time of year when house renovations are done because of the weather. For the benefit of readers who are my countrymen and the rest who have similar weather as the Philippines, I have to post this topic before the painting season is over.

I’ve said in my last post about house painting that I got used to just one brand of paint which is ACE. In my country however, this brand is not so popular because most find it expensive. Not for me because the regular ACE paint can be used for both concrete and wood, is water based and I can use the same stock of paint for five years or more. It is just a matter of reusing even the small amount of old paints and storing the can of paints properly.

How I reuse old ACE paints:

1. To create different colors of paints to cover small areas (1 quart can cover 10 square meters), I buy a gallon of white ACE paint then mix one quart with a leftover paint of one color (around one third to one half quart of leftover). I do the same for the other colors.

2. If two leftover paints can be mixed to create another beautiful color, I do that too, and then mix white paint if I want a lighter color. The light green paint on the photo was a mixture of leftover blue and yellow green paints and then I added a thicker type of white ACE paint, which is cheaper.

3. After a few years, small holes in cans caused by rusting may not be noticed and cause the paint to harden a bit (just pasty). But just now, I’ve thought of another idea that can make it reusable. In the photos shown, I cut the pasty paint in pieces and place the larger portion in a blender and added water about one third of the volume of the paste, then blend till smooth (the quality of ACE paint is retained when not mixed with any solvent so the less water added the better unless still pasty after blending). I can use the other portion not blended as putty to retouch scratches or holes caused by bumps of pieces of furniture and use the artist’s palette knives to apply this “putty” instead of the usual spatula used in building construction. I’ve thought of that earlier and tried it when I did some retouching as mentioned in my last post about house painting. At that time, I said to myself, I have to think of a way to dissolve this “putty” so I can reuse it as a paint again, so this is it.

How to store paints (applicable to all brands):

1. Clean the rim of the can and the crevice surrounding the rim where the cover fits, removing hardened paints.
2. Cover the can and use a hammer to completely seal it.
3. Hold the top and bottom of the can and invert for a second or two. This will seal the cover with paint from the inside.
4. Label the can and store. The paint can be used next painting season.

House Painting Turned Into A Hobby

The past days, I just had little free time to be in front of my laptop so I wasn’t able to catch the PayPerPost opportunities where I was qualified. Earlier today, I was out again but I brought my laptop, though I knew I won’t be able to connect to the internet because we’re going to the townhouse unit for some painting retouches. How I wish I am traveling across wireless cities so I can connect to the internet while inside the car!

If people will look at the things that I brought , an artist will say I’m going out to paint, because I brought some brushes and palette knives I use for canvas painting. But the artist will be wondering why I’m not bringing any tube paints and canvas. The artist will be partly right because I’m really going out to paint, but on the walls and stairs (just small portions to be retouched), and not on canvas.

It will probably be hard to believe that house painting has turned into a hobby for me. It is true, but that is because I got used to just one brand of paint which is odorless, lead free and has exciting computerized colors to choose from. I’m talking about ACE paints. This is not a sponsored post, all I want is to share the comforts I’ve experienced while doing a job some people hate to do. I heard there is a Filipino national artist who uses just one shade of ACE paint for the background of his paintings.

If ACE Hardware will hire me to blog about their paints, probably I can come up with endless number of posts. They gave their paint colors beautiful names such as “Cardiff by The Sea” which I used on the wall of our townhouse unit as shown on the first photo. Whenever I talk with the supervisor of the paint section, the people not used to ACE paints will be wondering what we’re talking about because we use the exact commercial name of the color in our discussions. Like two weeks ago, I told the supervisor, can you mix me a quart of “Brown Sugar”?

Unfortunately, I don’t think ACE Hardware will need a blogger for their products because their website is complete. You may check www.acehardware.com and experience a simulation using palettes of colors on a photo that you will select. Get started with the “Projects and Solutions”, go to “Paint Tips” then click on the “Paint Visualizer” which will bring you to “Discover Your Colors” screen that will give you choices for simulation.

By the way,I think I promised a Feng Shui tip for house renovations but this is applicable only during this Year of the Rat. It’s a no-no to renovate the North and South portions of your houses, but don’t worry because there’s a solution again. Start the renovation on the East side and finish your renovation on that side too.

5 Basic Feng Shui Rules

Did you like my last post about the Feng Shui rule on house colors? As I write this, it’s exactly 5:27 in the morning and the real reason why I’m up and opened my laptop is I was inspired to start a post titled “House Painting Turned Into A Hobby”. However, I chanced to check “My Documents” and found this file about Feng Shui. This was one of my first speeches in Toastmasters Club, and though my audience were mostly Filipinos and I used props at that time, I am now thinking and hoping you will like this too because you will learn something.

This is about 5 basic Feng Shui rules that was followed by traditional Chinese for generations. It doesn’t matter if this is the first time you’ve heard about Feng Shui as long as you know what is positive and negative.

The first rule says “Never hang washing outside overnight”. Why? Darkness emits negative energies that will be absorbed by the clothes. Would you like to wear clothes full of negative energies? Of course not!

Second rule: Keep brooms and mops out of sight! Why? Simply because they are ugly sights! That’s what I think. But the reason according to the books is those brooms and mops sweep away the fortunes of the family.

The third rule says something positive about the broom. It says “leave an upturmed broom outside the office door after working hours”! Can you guess why? To drive the burglars away! Because they will think that there’s a janitor inside cleaning the office. Am I right?

Ahh, the fourth rule is interesting: Pointing a finger is bad Feng Shui because it directs bad energy toward a person. Remember that!




You will not like this fifth rule: Mirrors in the bedroom cause problems. Kinda weird, right? Lilian Too’s book further says that:

• Mirrors are often responsible for the entrance of third parties into an otherwise good relationship.
• If you must have a mirror in your bedroom, keep it closed or covered during sleep or place it in an area where it cannot be directly seen at night.
• No mirror on the ceiling please!




That last rule was scary, don’t you think so? But don't worry because there's always a solution to every problem like the mirror shown in the photo which can be rotated and turned into a bookshelf!

It’s nice to know about these Feng Shui rules since I think there are practical reasons behind most of them.

In my next post, I’ll include a Feng Shui tip about house renovation. Have a nice day!

Feng Shui Rule for House Colors

Yesterday and today, I was out of the house the whole day to work at our townhouse unit that was vacated by our last tenant. It is located in Taytay, a town beside Antipolo City, a popular city on the hills in Metro Manila here in the Philippines. Though not as popular as the mountainous Antipolo, Taytay is well known for its wood and clothes industry. At the far background of the second photo are the hills of Antipolo and some parts of Taytay, then the longest road in Taytay better known as "highway", and the Taytay branch of the most popular mall in the Philippines, or SM City Taytay mall, at the right. The mall has two buildings on each side of the highway and an enclosed bridge connects them (where I shot the photo). It is about two kilometers away from our townhouse unit.

We’re selling the townhouse unit now, so my husband and I started to work on some minor repairs that have to be done. I remember when we renovated the house two years ago, to make it easier to decide on the colors of the paints, I followed the rule of Feng Shui. It was not hard since I’ve done that to two other houses, ours and my in-laws’.

At first I just memorized the colors auspicious for every location of the house: green for the eastern part, blue for north, orange for south and yellow for west. Of course that doesn’t have to be strictly followed otherwise it will be hard to imagine how a small house will look like with all those colors.

If there are walls that will divide the locations, a different color after a wall will separate a room from the rest of the house thus making the house look bigger, contrary to what others thought that using just one color for the whole house will make it look bigger.

As an actual example, the photo shown is from our small townhouse unit. I can’t do much with the other structures of the unit, except for the arched doorway and window that I designed. You’ll notice that the walls of the small kitchen which is after the arched doorway is light green because it is at the eastern part of the house. The cupboard at the right before the arched window is light orange because that is where the south is. The color of the larger area now became light blue because it is the color for the north, which has the biggest wall area in the whole unit. I also applied what I learned from my Interior Design classes. Blue is the complimentary color of orange, which is the cupboard’s color, and the blue color also has a tinge of violet that matches with the other secondary colors orange and green. All colors were lightened with white (tints). The design rule for complimentary colors is to use either all tints or all shades (darkened with black), or matching tints with small amounts of bright or dark complimentary colors that serve as accent colors.

Going back to the rule of Feng Shui, I just acquired additional information that can associate the colors to the locations: green for wood, the element for the east; orange for fire, south’s element; blue for water, north’s element; and yellow for metal, the element for the west. How about that?