September 02, 2026 - At The Table

Day two of the FMS Photo A Day challenge, and today's prompt is "At the Table." My interpretation is pretty simple — just a straight-up shot of what's actually on my table today. Please excuse my messy table. Lol!

I was in the mood to cook adobo, so out came the perfect combo: Datu Puti soy sauce and vinegar. Most of the time, I prefer cooking my own food. I've got my own taste preferences, and honestly, only I really know what will satisfy my own tastebuds.

My adobo recipe 

--is nothing fancy. For one whole chicken, around 1kg, I use a cup of vinegar, a cup of soy sauce, one whole garlic, and one onion. I like my garlic pressed rather than cut or diced, while the onion I just slice into strips. The chicken, of course, gets cut into adobo-sized pieces.

First, I soak the sliced chicken in water and vinegar for 10 to 15 minutes, then rinse it well and let it drain for another 10 minutes. After that, I sear it in a little oil until golden brown, then set it aside while I sauté the onions and garlic. Once that's done, I toss the seared chicken back in, mix everything together, and add the cup of vinegar and soy sauce. A sprinkle of salt and ground black pepper, a little oyster sauce, and then it simmers for about 15 minutes. I check on it now and then, giving it a mix so nothing burns. Toward the end, I add a bit of water to loosen the sauce, then let it simmer again until fully cooked. That's it — no drama, no complicated steps.

So here's my finished adobo. One whole chicken usually lasts me three to four days. And that's how my second day of September went, as a single woman living life on her own. Grin.

September 01, 2026 - In The Mirror

 I see a strong woman IN THE MIRROR

September didn't start easy. I kicked off the month running on just two hours of sleep after the company accommodation I've been staying in for the past three years lost electricity for most of the day. The power got cut right in the middle of the afternoon, with temperatures outside hitting 40°C. You can imagine what the heat was like inside the house.

I sat through three to four hours without air conditioning, just waiting for the electricity to come back. I reached out to my manager, and thankfully she sent a driver right away to pay the bill. It wasn't a great situation, but I tried to take it in stride. I've always believed that you have to go through some discomfort to get to something better on the other side.

Power finally came back around 3 p.m., and I went straight to bed to grab those two hours of sleep I'd been missing. After that, I woke up, had dinner, and got ready for work. The shift itself turned out fine — my patient was in a good mood and stuck to his usual routine, listening to AI-narrated reels and audio dramas on YouTube.

Outside of that rough start, there's been some quieter stuff going on too. Things with my siblings haven't been great lately, and I've been thinking about whether it's time to try a different career path, even though I have no idea yet what that would even look like. Still, I'm doing my best to go into this BER month with a positive mindset.

To help with that, I joined this September's photo challenge hosted by Fat Mum Slim on Instagram. It's actually a challenge I remember from way back in my blogging days in 2008, and it's wild that she's still running it, all these years later, with such a great community of photo lovers built around it. Today's prompt was "In the Mirror," so here's my entry (picture above)— a mirror selfie I took right after my shift, just before heading home. 

If you want to join the photo challenge, head over to fatmumslim on IG and post your photo interpretation of the daily prompt on your IG account. Do not forget to use the daily hashtags (example today is #fms_mirror26) so others can find your post.