ucy Torres-Gomez talks about enjoying everyday pleasures taking her daughter to school and organizing her home-and reveling in a personal thrill.

Lucy is dancing the flamenco! Yes, Lucy Torres-Gomez, the sweet, virginal beauty who is wife to celebrity hunk Richard Gomez and mother to Juliana, is dancing the wild gypsy dance. In her dance classes, Lucy is swaying her hips, stomping her feet, clapping her hands, snapping her fingers, and clicking her tongue to the fast guitar beats.

For her, the dance that invites improvisation is invigorating. "I'm basically a shy person," Lucy says. "I don't like people seeing me in a certain way. So, for me, flamenco is very liberating."

Lucy's fascination with the flamenco started with a recent fashion show in Cebu. During the intermission, a woman with big red rose on her hair danced the flamenco. "I told myself , 'Wow! I want to wear that rose.' So did the next big thing, I learned the dance."

When she started taking flamenco lessons, Lucy just saw it as a form of exercise "to make me sweat." Her classmates, however, showed her that it's more than just a workout: They got into the character of the passionate flamenco dancer, made painstaking effort to be presentable in class, and moved to the music with much feeling.

Now Lucy stomps in her bedroom, claps in the shower, and practices her hand movements at the dinner table. The dance lessons are a form of self-discovery; the flamenco is revealing to her previously unfamiliar parts of herself. "It's the dance of the soul. No inhibitions. We had a recital. Naloka ko! I don't like being pressured to perform. It keeps me fit, but it's not exercise. I enjoy it. Flamenco, it's aliw!"

DAYS WITH HER DAUGHTER
But what fill Lucy's day remain the same: her family and her home.

Lucy describes Juliana as a happy handful. Lucy the little lady who has her father's intense eyes and the shape of her mother's face are almost inseparable. You'd know they enjoy each other's company when you see them sitting on a couch and whispering to each other, like sharing secrets!

This seems to be Lucy's secret at making a three-year old listen: speaking softly but firmly. She says she has always addressed Juliana this way.

When the GH crew came barging into the studio for the pictorial and interview, Juliana immediately gave her mom a tight embrace. Apparently, the girl is terribly shy, a trait she inherited from her mother. "I was just like that when I was little. That's the reason we put her in school, to help her develop her socialization skills," says Lucy.

And the mother is happy to report that Juliana is enjoying preschool, learning about shapes and colors, drawing, reading stories, and telling time. "She can read the clock, but only the hour hand, not the minute hand. Her memory is excellent. She remember things from three to five months back," the proud mother says.

Predictably, school has not completely cured Juliana of her bashfulness; but Lucy says her attitude has greatly improved. "It's different when she' used to people but it takes her a couple of hours to warm up."

But it's not only Juliana who's adjusting to school. Like many full-time mothers of school-aged kids, Lucy had to get used to the idea of spending time away from Juliana. "When she first went to school, I was the one who got separation anxiety," Lucy says. And except for two nights when Lucy had to attend an occasion in Cebu, she says she has not spent a night apart from her daughter. Lucy says, "When I'm out, I miss her talaga."

The three-year-old is growing up and slowly finding her freedom. Now she has been dropping hints about having her own bed, and Lucy is a little terrified. "She sleeps with us, but now she wants her own bed. The other day she slept on the sofa in out room but in the middle of the night, she went back to our bed. I think I would cry the days she moves out of our room," the young mother says.

News affects her differently now that she has a child. She adds, "I know that at some point, I have to let her be her own person. It's going to be hard for me as a parent. I worry about the news. It's scary." Reading The Power of A Praying Parent, Lucy says, has calmed her down a bit.-and entrust her safety to a Higher Being.

What about Baby Number Two? Lucy and Richard have been very vocal about wanting a big family. Lucy thinks it will happen in due time. "Yes, we do want another baby but it's not nothing urgent," she says. What is the couple doing to achieve the goal? Lucy says they do not practice any form of birth control. "I've never been on the Pill," she says. "Go lang ng go."

LOVES TO ORGANIZE, HATES TO COOK
Lucy admits to being obsessive about storage. "I'm anal when it comes to putting things in their proper places. I'm very sentimental, I don't want to throw anything," she says.

Indeed, Lucy's organizing skills can rival those of the legendary Martha Stewart. And she's got about 50 storage boxes in all-covered in fabric and faux leather, each labeled accordingly of course-to prove it. There's a box to hold letters ("Mail I want to keep from fans, the very first note Richard gave me, letters from my high school friends, family Christmas cards"); film ("Each roll of negative is in an envelope and labeled according to date and occasion"); beads ("I used to make jewelry but I haven't had time since Juliana. She's at age when puwede na siya mangialam"); wedding correspondence, loose pictures, gowns, etcetera, etcetera.

For her husband, she purchased those big plastic storage bins with wheels to hold all the gear for his old and newfound hobbies: fencing, shooting and hunting. "He's a guy, [kaya] ako pa maghahanap. So I just throw it all in box."

The gift box is an altogether different category that Lucy is devoted to. That's why, she says, "Gift-wrapping is a major production. I like wrapping them all myself. I start in October. It's therapeutic." For this passion, Lucy is just as hyper organized. She has one container for ribbons. ("I always have ribbons in stock. Gifts, I open a little at a time because I like saving the ribbons. I like the character that used ribbons have") and one for accents ("I keep broken clips of Juliana, stray gems. They're for my gifts. I stick them all around the box"). Then there's what she calls her "mini-department store" closet. She buys presents all year round, keeps them in eight boxes, and shops from this closet whenever she needs a gift for some occasion or another.

Yes, Lucy is precisely that type of mommy who loves crafts. She is into decoupage and scrapbooks. She makes all-purpose cards out of Juliana's artworks. And she even taught crafts to kids one summer. Of that experience, she says. "It's not easy ha. That's why I have a lot of respect for teachers, particularly preschool teachers. It's an exercise in patience but nothing compensates for the joy that a child brings."

Lucy's fondness for precision might be the reason why "cooking doesn't like [her]." After all, whipping up dishes does involve a lot of guesswork and approximation. Her unpracticed intuition has thus given her at least one horrible kitchen tale. Lucy goes, "I' very idealistic. For me, a wife is someone who cooks for her husband who cooks very well. I remember one time, I was trying to cook mechado from a recipe I got from his lola. My yaya was there and she was telling me all sorts of things. It was a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth. Five hours na, matigas pa rin. Richard was on his way home, and there was still no lunch. So, I just chopped everything up and made it into salpicao. Then it was eatable."

Baking is more of Lucy's thing. "When I was single, I used to bake a lot. I make a very good banana cake, it's a recipe form the yaya of my dad." How is it different from cooking? "Baking is very precise. I'm happy being housewife just as long as there's no cooking involved."

GIVING ADVICE
When Lucy the commercial model stormed into public consciousness, she was nothing more than a gorgeous face and silky hair. Now, eight years after, she's introducing us to another one of her talents. Who knew Lucy could write?

So impressed was Lucy's editor that right after she read Lucy's first column, she immediately inquired where Lucy attended college. Lucy says she has always been a good student whose favorite subject was English. (She graduate from UP Cebu with a degree in Business Management.)

Currently, Lucy writes two columns for Philippine Star. On Sundays, she comes out in a freewheeling column where she talks about anything that catches her fancy: a new hobby, a restaurant she has visited, a book she just read. "No message, just easy reading," she says. On Wednesdays, she writes a fashion column together with a style icons Tintin Cojuangco and Mary Prieto.

With the job comes plenty of mail seeking her advice. What are her readers most concerned about? Believe it or not, how to whiten armpits. "I think I've gotten 50 letter about armpits," reports Lucy. "What do you do with dark, bumpy armpits? Do you pluck or do you shave?" It's not just women who write to Lucy. "One time, a guy wrote me about how he can tell his girlfriend that he pimples bothered him." Many inquire about her personal taste. "They'll ask, 'I saw you at the mall, you were wearing this, were did you get it?' Or, 'We saw you in Boracay, my girlfriend liked you watch, what is it?'"

How does she feel about being a fashion authority? Lucy gives a quick laugh and says, "I enjoy fashion but I don't consider myself an icon. I like dressing up. Good grooming is something you owe to yourself."

What style advice would she give to fellow wives and homemakers? To always look your best. "For some wives, marriage is a license to become dowdy," Lucy observes. "When their husband strays, doon magpapapayat. My tita once told me, never look dishelved. When your husband sees you, hindi puwedeng gulo-gulo and itsura mo." She's not talking about going to the salon daily or keeping some high-maintenance routine. After all, this is a woman who prefers the casual and basic (she became to the GH cover shoot in a T-shirt and denim jeans from favorite brand Bench). For Lucy, it's about paying attention to details. "It's unrealistic to be always dolled up, but take care of what you wear. Don't wear mismatched clothes. And always smell good. When you says goodbye to your husband and you don't smell good, he'll remember that."

Ultimately though, Lucy says, looking good and feeling good is something one should do for oneself. Now isn't that great advice? - -