I made Pancit Canton tonight with some of the goodies I bought from Phil-Am Foods. (Pancit in the Philippines, reminds me of American/Chinese lo mein in the USA.) 

No carrots in our version though, they aren't my husband's favorite, hehe. Instead we had, chicken, shrimp, quail eggs, cabbage, onions & baby corn pieces. We still have leftovers. :-)


Things I purchased from Phil-Am Foods to make the Pansit:

Pancit Canton Seasoning

Pancit Canton Noodles

Quail Eggs

We ordered some more Philippine goodies from Phil-Am Food the other day. They are always super quick with shipping... (but then again New Jersey is pretty close to Philadelphia). ;-) I put in our order on Sunday and our items arrived this morning. I always loved shopping in the supermarkets in the Philippines, and I'm always excited to try foreign foods. Hubby & I ordered lot's of goodies! It was like Christmas today!

All our goodies!

THE BEST coffee EVER!

Salted eggs are soooo good!

Please welcome my Mother in law to the blogging world! Stop by and check out her windmill collection blog; Windmills of Zen! :-)

Honey got bit by Olive a few weeks ago. It turned into an abscess (which I've dealt with many abscesses over the years with my pet rats & never saw one like this). It started off marble sized, but did swell to quarter size. We were treating Honey with antibiotics (Baytril) and the abscess was drying up into a scab.

Monday when I got home from work, either her abscess had burst on it's own, or she chewed at the wound. She had a hole in her leg a little bigger than a quarter. It looked really really bad & it was really deep. She also kept licking and chewing at the wound, which was making it bleed worse.

Tuesday I called the vet at 9am, and we took Honey to the vet in the afternoon for an exam. Her abscess was badly infected and her chewing on it did not help the infection.

We had to leave Honey overnight at the vet for surgery so the vet could remove the infected tissue and stitch her up. He used metal sutures so she won't chew out her stitches. She also got a Baytril injection & will be on Cipro for 2 weeks. She has a check up next Wednesday evening.

She was doing really well when we picked her up, they had done the surgery late last night. She is pretty active, but will be staying in a smaller "hospital" cage while she heals up. She was boggling on the car ride home, I had the carrier on my lap and was petting her, while my husband was driving home.

Honey after surgery: (click to enlarge photo)


Thank God for Mastercard though... ugh... her surgery was a couple hundred dollars and since I just started back at work on the 12th, (after a 6 week furlough) I don't get my first paycheck until October 3rd. I didn't have enough in checking to cover her surgery. Like I've said many times before, people that think rats are just pocket pets or disposable pets... they require the same care as a cat or dog. And the vet prices are about the same.

(Blog Article: Why Rats!?) 

In other rattie news... Iris' tail has healed up from her infection & her back injury seems to be healed. But I don't think she will regain use in the lower part of her tail. She can move the base to about the middle. She's still pretty active though and doesn't seem to realize her tail is paralyzed.

And Violet moved in with my 5 girls downstairs in the Ferret Nation cage this past weekend. There was some wrestling & a bit of fighting. But she is all settled in now. She is about 3x's the size she was when we got her in August. She's not a little baby anymore. :-)


And just a quick update. You might have heard about the recent Typhoon in the Philippines. Manila was hit really hard, and the photos are just crazy to look at. Like the US Embassy! Places I've been... They are saying Manila has not been flooded like this in decades. My husband's family is okay and they did not get flooded, thank God! We were really worried, since there was a devastating typhoon & flood there just 2 years ago that did effect my husband's family.

Squid & Fish Teriyaki Jerky. From our Phil-Am order! They have little eyes! Eek! Crunchy... :-p

Hahaha! My husband was on the news today! Channel 6 Action News at 4 has a segment where they feature Facebook Pages of Action News Fans, called Facebook Flash. I told my husband we should fill out the form for him to be featured since he came to Philadelphia in March of this year. And having the Liberty Bell in your profile picture doesn't hurt, haha! ;-)

We were in the kitchen cooking dinner when my Mom called to us and told us F.B. was on the news. We are lucky they upload all the archives onto their website, because we just caught the end of it. My husband's "13" seconds of fame as he says, hahaha! Video Below! He is number 3 in the video!




P.S. Remember my blog giveaway ends 9/16!

F.B. and I ordered a ton of Filipino food and snacks from Phil-Am Foods. It was my first time ordering from them. They pretty much had all our favorites and really cheap prices too! I've ordered Choc-nut from other Philippine markets online and had it cost $3.00 a pack! Phil-Am is selling Choc-nut for $1.69 a pack! Whoo! The shipping was pretty affordable too! Only $12.00 to ship from New Jersey to Pennsylvania! 


I'm a fan of Phil-Am Foods on Facebook. And they had posted that if any of their customers posted a picture of their order, they would send a free gift!


We were really happy with how fast our order arrived, (within 2 days!) so we posted a picture on their Facebook page and they said they would send us a gift! To our surprise a huge box arrived in the mail today from Phil-Am Foods! We definitely didn't expect all of this! Wow! Thank you so much Phil-Am Foods!!! So exciting! :-D

Our Free Gifts from Phil-Am Foods!

Philippine Snack Foods

Foreign Food Cravings

Taste Testing (Asian Aisle)

I am so exhausted! It has been a busy day! I woke up at 7am this morning and my brother Scotty and I went to Starbucks for breakfast. For some reason they were offering Pumpkin Spice coffee today (Whoo Hoo!) so we got two of those. And we also got the new Bacon, Egg & Gouda Cheese sandwiches they have.

Then we came home and got everything ready to repaint my room. The color I picked up at Lowe's is called 'Minty'. I wanted a similar color to what was already on the walls to make it less complicated. Everything just needed to be refreshed. We were done painting around 11am.

After painting I transferred some money out of my savings and we headed off to a 2nd hand store, Big Lot's and Walmart. At the 2nd hand store I got 2 nice comforters, 2 big fleece blankets, and a few pillow cases. At Big Lot's I got two full bed sheet sets for $12.00 and 2 nice big towels for $4.50 each. At Walmart, I got new pillows on sale for $2.50, a rice cooker for $13.00. I also got F.B. a lot of toiletries for his arrival. I spent more than I have ever spent at Walmart, but I got everything I needed. Including a Hane's flannel pajama pants & t-shirt set for him.

All of F.B.'s toiletries.

And I may or may not have spent $21 on nail polish... why oh why does Walmart now sell Essie & OPI... I couldn't pass up these colors!

(Turquoise &  Caicos, Merino Cool, The Next CEO)

F.B. finished up his seminar that was required by the Philippines before he leaves for the USA. He still has to go get an international drivers permit before he leaves. So he can drive over here for a year. (He will need to take the test again for a PA drivers license.)

He also booked his plane ticket! He will be in Philadelphia on March 6th at 10:25am!!! Lucky boy doesn't even have to stopover in Hong Kong or Shanghai or even Tokyo, he gets to fly from Manila Philippines straight to Los Angeles, CA. Then to Dallas, TX and finally Philadelphia!

It's going to be a very busy 2 weeks. I spent all evening cleaning and organizing after the paint dried and I still have some more to do tomorrow. The new bed arrives next weekend. I was approved to take March 7th-11th off so I'll have a week off work to spend with F.B. and help him get settled in.

Also, on March 5th, I will be getting my 2 boys and 2 girls from Star's Rat Rescue in SD! They will be traveling 1,500 miles to Philadelphia! There are a few others adopting rats in Philly too we'll be meeting our Rat Train driver at a Petco in the area.

One year ago today F.B. & I were married in the Philippines! We started off as friends who met online which turned into a long distance relationship. We've been through good times & bad times together and last December 19th, 2009 after 6 years of being together we were finally married. Our long distance adventures are not over yet- as we are still currently working with our immigration lawyer on getting F.B. to the USA, hopefully by early 2011! ♥♥♥

Wanted to share some picture & video memories of our wedding day last year:

Wedding Videos: (The 1st video was made by my sister in law. It originally had the song 'Happy Together' but due to copyright laws I had to remove the music to upload it).





♥♥♥ Happy Anniversary F.B. I Love You ♥♥♥
To view more of our wedding & honeymoon photos you can view our Photobucket album here!

or here:

Wedding Photographer Photos

Our Wedding & Honeymoon

I can't believe it's already November. I'm excited for Thanksgiving this year! Why? Well, I've spent the last 2 years in the Philippines during Thanksgiving. While it was wonderful being with my husband, I have also missed being at home for Thanksgiving with my family.

F.B. and I always set that day aside to go out and have dinner, since Thanksgiving is an American holiday and not celebrated in the Philippines. We would pick up Martinelli's Sparkling Apple Cider, which we always have at every holiday meal with my family (Thanksgiving, Christmas & New Years). I was so happy they sell it in the Philippines!

Thanksgiving 2008 in the Philippines


Thanksgiving 2009 in the Philippines

Hopefully next year F.B. will be here in the USA to celebrate his first Thanksgiving. I'm excited to share that with him and have him some taste pumpkin pie, hehehe!

I am so excited! (I know 2 blog posts in one day!) I entered the NYC Girl at Heart & Kodak blog contest 2 weeks ago. You could earn extra entries by doing extra stuff. One was tweeting about the contest every day on Twitter. I never had a Twitter before the contest. But I really wanted to win, lol! So I ended up joining Twitter. (And I'm glad I did, because I really enjoy using it and I like how I can link my tweets to my Facebook).

I've entered many many blog contests and I've won a few small ones but never a major prize giveaway! I was so excited and almost had a heart attack when I read Patty's blog this morning! 


I've won a Kodak Easyshare M580 Digital Camera and a Kodak Pulse Digital Picture Frame!


I'll definitely write a blog when my prizes arrive to thank Patty & Kodak! I'm excited because my Sony digital camera is quite beat up so I really needed a new one! I can't wait to use it! Thank you again Patty and Kodak!

Edited to add: This was picture I picked for my initial entry in the contest. Manila Bay Sunset. I took the picture at Mall of Asia during my late 2008 trip to the Philippines.

My sister in law was married a month ago on 9/25/10. Her wedding was featured online at Bridal Book Philippines:


In immigration news, F.B. mailed off all the documents to our immigration lawyer the other day. He should receive them by this Tuesday.

I've been stressed out over dealing with unemployment. I had to reopen my claim from last year. It expires on October 30th. I'm only going to get 2 payments out of the rest of this claim. I filed for my first checks last Sunday. Friday the money had still not been deposited so I had to call them. (They don't answer calls anymore- you have to schedule a call back.) When they got back to me they said there had been some sort of "stop" on my account. The lady had to update stuff on the computer so my payments would go through. They really make you work for your money.

November 1st, I will have to file a new claim and it's always a hassle as well because they deny me at first. Our payroll department is never timely and usually half my wages are missing so unemployment never has a record that I worked during the year. I always have to mail all my pay stub copies to them, meanwhile 3-4 weeks go by with no money until they straighten it out. They do give you back payments. But it's a hassle every year. (The woes of a seasonal employee, lol.) I should be called back to work the beginning of January if not sooner.

My cousin Jessica has started a blog! Yay! So excited! You can check out her blog at: I Believe in Pink. Stop by and welcome her to the blogging world! She is just getting started. She has a beautiful baby girl named Kayleigh who just turned one month old on October 3rd.

Jessica & Kayleigh (Photo credit: Christina)