my little sister is coming for the long weekend.. and I am pretty sure she would scream in delight when she sees this:

My sigarilyas bearing fruit! It happened right after the flood.. I think my plants were threatened by the flood and started bearing fruit.. I have noticed that after Ondoy, the fruit bearing trees in the subdivision started to flower and bear fruit earlier.. ang galing di ba, they feel like their existence was threated kaya they bear fruit para di maubos ang lahi nila.. haay nature! 

My sigarilyas has been flowering for what seems like forever..but because of plant worms, the flowers never made it..hahays..pero ngayon.. ay naloka ako ng bongga when I saw the fruit! Another gardening dream fulfilled!

Sadly, my sili did not survived the flood.. good thing, I already harvested some of its fruit a few days before the flood:

Oh well, I just have to pant another sili, this time I will plant it on a pot.. mother said, sili never really liked water, that’s why it died after the flood.

Here’s my version of how I manage to survive my full time career, that is motherhood. Managing a household of 6 is not easy. Brushing alone takes a lot of time, imagine 4 kids.. then I have to bathe them too! But you know, even it is hard, it’s very fulfilling and just by looking at them at night, I feel refreshed already!

Our day would start with the 2 older boys preparing for school. That would include preparing their breakfast, bathing them, checking their bags, preparing their snacks and of course, assisting them as they put on their uniforms. I am also homeschooling my two younger kids, then tutor my school boys.

My secret in being able to manage it all is scheduling and advance cooking. I have a schedule of how my day should go, though most of the times I don’t follow it, it still serves as a guide and as a reminder of what’s needed to be done. Cooking has been a big part of household management, there’s breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner. Just imagine how much time I spend on the kitchen. What I did to solve the dilemma of spending too much time on the kitchen is to cook in advance.

We usually buy food good for two weeks. I devote one whole day for cooking the dishes then freeze it. It saves me a lot of time as on weekdays, I don’t have to prepare meals, I just place the precooked meal in the microwave and voila! If we have a bigger fridge freezer, I can store more food and will be able to save more time.

I am also glad that my hubby’s very supportive with me. There were times that he would wash the dishes for me, specially when he sensed that I am already tired. A dishwasher would e very helpful of course, but as you know, we’re just renting so it would not be possible to install a dishwasher on our kitchen.

Another thing that helped stay sane is my boys, they have been very helpful the past few days, helping me simple household chores. My little girl is very helpful but she’s our little clutter maker.

When my winged bean/ sigarilyas plants started crawling, I put up a small trellis. Later I learned, the trellis I made was too small and that I need to put a bigger one. It was a dilemma to me since I do not have a big land. As you know, our garden is just about 2 feet by 6 feet (or 8, sorry I can’t remember), so it really is very small. This is how my first trellis looked:

The photo was taken last May then in June, the winged bean/ sigarilyas completely covered the trellis. I was thrilled seeing the beans growing and was more thrilled when last week of June, I discovered that it’s starting to grow flowers! I was so overwhelmed with the thought that the beans will soon start to bear fruit. So what I did was to add more trellis to support the growing plant. A brilliant idea came to me and here it is:

If you can notice, the first photo (trellis) was outside while the second trellis I made was inside. In a way, it will also serve as a shade when we have small parties or art and crafts activity on that area.

Aside from being a shade to us, picking the fruit would be easier with this kind of trellis.