things loved

there are times when the world comes together to give you a week that will cheer you up, notwithstanding the fact that your hair, after a gruelling six-hour session in the parlor, decides to mimic the arnel pineda look, pre-haircut days.

thanks, universe, for these things:

{organizing a surprise advanced birthday party for gwapo boss,

whose birthday happens to be today}

{baked donut sandwich with bacon and ham from mister donut}

{birthday vouchers for gwapo boss' birthday

p.s. i made these!}

{two-day seminar at EDSA shang with free-flowing food!}

{shallow} dreams DO come true

i first saw it at made by girl.

clicked on the link and got here. since it was kate spade, i thought it was going to be crazy expensive. prohibitive expensive. turns out, it wasn't.

so i made plans on how to get it. good thing tita mayu was going to go to the US so i could have someone order it for me and she could bring it home. since i'm madaldal, i blogged about it first. and then i made arrangements to have tita mayu order it for me and bring it home.

the following day, i read this comment on my blog. papa was going to get it for me ... as a belated birthday gift.

i had to restrain myself from jumping up and down in the office. after all, i'm sorta respected out here.

and now, here it is.

thanks, papa. turns out, no matter how old you are, fathers can still make their darling daughter's dreams come true.

2011 easter shoes

while the things i give up (or take on) for lent vary from year to year, one thing that has been constant was giving up shoe shopping. this is oftentimes difficult for someone like me who (1) is more than just fond of footwear, (2) a compulsive shopper, and (3) has a birthday that oftentimes fall during the lenten season. add to that the fact that a myriad of stores host their mall-wide sales within the 40-day fast and you've got a girl who can't wait till easter.

the wonderful thing, though, is that more often than not, easter turns into such a marvelous celebration for me. and, the patience is generally rewarded. shoes that i want, in my size no less, remain on sale till i can purchase them. sometimes, shoes i've wanted that weren't on sale previously, magically go on sale. and sometimes, when i'm extremely blessed, i get free shoes.

i went home to the province to spend part of the holy week with my family. when she got back from the US, tita celia mentioned that she got me a pair of shoes but that they were in the box that she hoped would arrive before the holy week. i had totally forgotten about them until she mentioned the magic words when i got to cabanatuan: "your shoes are here."

happy easter indeed.

why i don't have internet at home

a long time ago, everyone had to dial-up to connect to the internet. and while it took forever, it was fine cause we didn't know any better. late at night, amazingly, i could actually use the yahoo videochat feature even though i was using a pre-paid dial-up service.

and then dsl came, and it allowed me to download a whole lot of stuff, especially when i was at tita mayu's house. but my brother and i never got around to getting dsl for the house, and then he moved out, and it seemed to expensive to be shelling out that amount of money for internet considering that (1) i was hardly at home and (2) i had internet at work.

then they had these amazing internet usb things, and i got the sun wireless prepaid thing and it's serviceable, sometimes fast, sometimes slow. it could take forever sometimes, at times not even loading, but it was okay for my needs.

i went home to cabanatuan over the holy week where internet was fast and free at my aunt's house. once more, i couldn't help but imagine how life would be if i had dsl at home. downloads! surfing! watching movies! skype-ing and magic jack-ing with family! tweet till i fall asleep! tweet when i wake up! upload pics! download pics! anything! everything!

and then i realized this: if i had internet at home, i probably wouldn't get anything done.

so no more dsl for me at home. case closed.

*image from ehow.com

food review: selecta's hershey's collection reese's

a long time ago, my friend introduced me to reese's. and while i wasn't a huge fan of peanut butter, i somehow fell in love with it. much later, reese's pieces came, and those i fell in love with ... a lot.

so imagine how i felt when i saw this in the grocery:

i thought, so what if we were having the biggest loser at work. and so what if it wasn't in my grocery budget. if something that cost less than P150 was going to make me extremely happy, then who am i to deprive myself, right?

right. i knew you'd agree.

so a tub came home with me and even before i could eat dinner (yes, that's one of the good things with being 30+ and alone at home -- you may eat dessert before dinner), i got started on this baby.

maybe i was expecting the ice cream to taste like reese's. or maybe i was expecting a bouquet of yumminess to just burst on my mouth. maybe i thought that aside from the reese's, there was going to be some peanut butter chunks, chocolate swirls, nuts, and marshmallows (well, i just love marshmallows so even if it didn't make sense in this case, i thought it would be a good idea to have them. ha. ha.). i can't pinpoint exactly what i was expecting, but whatever it was, this wasn't it.

in fairness, it had a LOT of broken up reese's peanut butter cups. remember how chip's ahoy advertised that you'd get a chip in every bite? well, here, you'd get a chunk of reese's peanut butter cup with each spoonful. they were generous with the chocolate, all right. but the loveliness known as reese's peanut butter cups were nestled in plain chocolate ice cream.

now, don't get me wrong, i love chocolate ice cream. but, somehow, in this case, it just seemed so wrong, so un-special. it felt like the person who came up with it didn't think much about it and just dumped chocolate onto ice cream. and to me, that's sad.

so i still have the tub of ice cream in my freezer. and while i'd grab a spoon or two every now and then, it hasn't sufficiently tickled my fancy to force me to sit down and just gobble everything up. maybe that's a good thing. but knowing me, that really isn't. sooner or later, when i clean up the freezer, i'd see it and knowing it's been there for ages, i'd throw it out. so much for happiness for below P150.

now, if it were puno's cheese casuy macapuno ice cream (imagine, only P205 for half a gallon) we're talking about ....

super blessing

after almost three years, it finally came.

thank you, Lord!

now, if that thing i prayed in 14 churches would come true, i'd be beyond happy. (demanding!)

bedroom love ♥

when my parents left for the US years ago, one of the first things my brother did was to migrate from his old bedroom to my parents' room. after all, it was bigger, it had the cable connection, and it had a private bathroom. and then he moved to the other house so it was sorta expected that i'd migrate to my parents' bedroom.

for a while, my clothes did. and there was a time when i "worked" there, having fixed the desk and all that. but at the end of the day, what can i say, i am still mighty in love with my room. so my clothes moved back (well, at least some did. i've kept the stuff i don't exactly use a lot in their bedroom, as well as my bags) and i've cleared the tiny desk in my room so i can "work" here as well.

and, thanks to all the online inspiration, i think i've converted my room sufficiently from the stuff my teenage dreams were made of to one that is functional, grown up, and cozy.

these boxes now reside on my desk. inspired by young house love i'm keeping the power strip with all the plugs from the lamp, the "moon" on the wall, and my laptop inside the bottom box and all my computer-related stuff -- usb, external hard drive, sun broadband wireless usb (when i'm not using it), usb hubs (i've got two - remember the useless octopus i bought? boo) -- on the top box. my room has a major dearth of outlets, so in order to keep the electronic things on my "work area" functional, i need an extension cord that'll snake itself all the way to the outlet. since i want to be able to turn off the power strip when i'm not on my desk (to minimize fire hazards), but i don't want my desk to be a snake of wires and outlets, they're all inside that box. i've sliced an opening on one side so that's where all the cords go in ... and out as well. when i'm not using anything, it's just all so neat and pretty, and we all know how neat and pretty is such an elusive concept to me.

after theo helped me move the furniture in my room, i ended up having two, albeit mismatched, side tables. one rests on each side of the bed, and even though i just sleep on a twin bed and it's actually weird having two side tables for such a narrow bed, it's uber functional so i'm keeping it that way. since i now have two side tables, i figured, it would be nice to have lamps on each side of the bed as well. i got these lamps on MAJOR discount, thinking i'd paint them except that (1) i haven't gotten around to painting them and (2) i think they're kinda pretty, although they don't exactly match my bedroom's colors. one day i shall get there. btw - on top of the pile is yet another of my cheap books, one that i'm almost done reading and it's such a cool read cause its not only about the It bags, but also about how our bags say stuff about us as well. maybe one day i shall do a post about what's inside my bag.

here are the pretty 20x20 throw pillows on my bed. the pillows inside i actually got after one particularly harrowing day at the firm. the print caught my eye, and i wanted them sooooo bad that i resorted to retail therapy. and then i got home and realized they don't match anything. nor do they go with anything. they stick out like a sore thumb. boo. so i tried buying covers for them, but the one i got were too big so i had to return those. it's been a quest since then, until i came up with the brilliant (haha!) idea of using 20X30 pillow cases and just shortening them to make them 20X20. but, as with the lamp, i haven't had the energy to do the stuff i set out to do so i just folded the tops like envelopes, secured them with a safety pin from the inside, and convinced myself that the flap is a design that i came up with. isn't it brilliant? yes, i agree too. hahaha.

all the prettiness aside, i'll admit it that if my instincts were to get the best of me, and if i were to allow nature to take over, everything will be one grand mess.

i'll also admit it that (1) i'm the type who not only eats in her room, but also in her bed (perfect for those times when all you want to do is stay in bed and read); (2) that i spent this week's extra money (no work = minimal spending. my pamasahe alone costs soooo much, and it's twice that when i do decide to bring the car) on books last monday; and (3) i drink from the pitcher (what? i live at home ... alone. no one else drinks from the pitchers except me. and i wash it all the time, like i'd wash a glass i drank from. so there).

here's all the proof you'll need:

see: half-filled pitcher of lukewarm water (i hate lukewarm water!), spicy dilis in the ziplock back, dried squid thingees in the yellow packaging, and P50 books from national bookstore.

maybe one day i'll be able to do a "tour" of the room, or of the house - one day when everything's all nice and fixed and pretty and sparkly. but until then, you'll have to be satisfied with random pictures of prettiness.

random thoughts on a warm sunday summer eve ... which happens to be easter!

while the samsung galaxy tab is an amazing "toy", i've been nothing but confounded by the program. the lonny i've tried downloading for my aunt couldn't be found anywhere, and windows kept opening, and so i kept on closing them, and i never end up where i want to go. IMHO, it's just good for angry birds and bejeweled, which is basically all i learned to do with it.

i got my third and final injection of cervarix today. thanks to my lola for her generosity -- she paid for all three injections! of course, the injections would've been better if i were younger, but, as kris said in the commercial (albeit for a another vaccine), if you can prevent cancer with a vaccine, wouldn't you do it? i would.

i googled for a lovely easter message to send to my friends and when i found one, i immediately zoned in to the lines which resonated with me the most and typed it on my phone. most of my friends just replied. my smart boss, on the other hand, asked who bishop currie was (since i cited the source, lest i be accused of plagiarism which is all the rage with lawyers these days). i answered, "the bishop of st. john's", like i actually knew where that was. unfortunately for me, she asked, "where's st. john's?" oops, i didn't have an answer to that anymore. that's what happens when you randomly google for inspiration, haha!

there's so many things i want to do/fix/finish/accomplish/buy/sell/learn/read that most of the time, my head's up in the air. i usually deal with these things by making lists, but sometimes, i distract myself even in the midst of making lists. maybe someone forgot to diagnose me with ADHD when i was younger. i remember when i was in grade 2 and my teacher had to write in my school diary that i was inattentive cause she caught me reading while she was lecturing. what can i say? the reading material was way more interesting than her. ha! ha!

i'm still on the quest to make my house neater & prettier. i know all it takes to keep it neat all the time is discipline, but somehow, i can't force myself to do stuff when the laziness monster takes over. horrible, horrible, horrible. maybe, if i made easter resolutions i'd be much better?

watching dc cupcakes ... and it's almost 10pm ... and i still have to (1) pack my stuff; (2) figure out PDIC forms; (3) wash my hair; and (4) crash so i'd wake up early tomorrow. maybe i'll just (1) gather all my stuff during commercial breaks so they're all ready for packing; (2) grab the PDIC forms and compose the emails for my relatives so that they can send me the stuff that needs to be sent; (3) postpone washing for tomorrow; and (4) rely on the fact that i have slept way beyond the quota so i wouldn't need as much sleep tonight. go figure.

*easter egg from clipartpal.com

happy easter!

♪♫♪what becomes of the broken-hearted ♫♪♪

pat the pilot and i broke up in 2005, a week shy of what would've been our first year anniversary. needless to say, it was a painful break-up, so while i should've been rejoiced over the fact that i was finally done and over with law school, i was too busy getting over the most gwapo, most ma-porma, winning-est (at least in the looks + car department) boy i've ever called mine.

it took almost forever to get over him, and when i finally did, i dated here and there, entered into one faux commitment after another that i didn't really want to count (out of sheer embarrassment, most likely, hahaha!) but i've never had a "real" relationship, at least, not as far as i was concerned. in any case, and for the record, let's say i'm finally over him.

over the years, he'd call sporadically -- call my landline when he'd need a favor, or just needed someone to talk to, or if he wanted to come over for whatever inane reason. and then when i had my landline cut, he'd call my sun phone, the only line i've kept since we've broken up. i'd see him here and there (one time, i even saw him at EDSA and i told my friends who were in the car with me and they were like, "i wanna see! i wanna see!" thank goodness for dark tint! ☺ not that i'd be embarrassed if they did see him. as i've said, he was hott!!! and gwapo. let us never forget the gwapo part.)

the last time he called was to ask for this favor. and if what i did to his friend was any indication of how i actually felt about him, well, it's clear that at least as of 9 September 2010, i was ready to wash my hands free of the cutest boy i've ever dated.

this year, i finally had the sun line cut. and along with that, i'm guessing i've cut off ties with at least three people i know of. or four. let's just say that i don't know their numbers and the only way they could contact me was through my sun phone and now that it's gone, there was no way they'd be able to get in touch with me unless they stood outside my house and waited for me to get home. then again, i've been known to ignore the doorbell, even when people come bearing gifts, so go figure, right? anyway, out of those four people, the pilot was one of them.

and then came today. i saw him smoking at our street corner. and he saw me looking so i waved. thank goodness for just-came-from-parlor hair + the fact that i was wearing a dress. i was READY. hahaha.

what i wasn't ready for was that he'd drive from the street corner to my house to catch me before i entered the house. and what i wasn't ready for was that he'd invite himself in. and since i clearly wasn't ready for anything, i actually pretended to be the gracious hostess and said, okay, come on in.

and i gave him some of my chocolates. and i offered him food. and i chit-chatted with him. ...

.... and i stared at the wonderfulness that used to be mine. my head was screaming "stupid!" but some addled part of my brain was ignoring the level-headed part and was enjoying the view. so tall! the five o'clock shadow! the smile!

he told me about his crazy schedule. and he told me about his "toys" (his worse than my brother when it comes to gameboys and psps and what-nots). and he explained why he now smokes. and while he was explaining to me how he got that long scar on his left arm, my still addled brain was thinking, "awwww, but you used to be so perfect!"

now, before you get any ideas, (1) i know i'm not going to get back together with him and that he's not entertaining any thoughts of the same nature either; (2) i know that he's an @$$hol3 extraordinaire; and (3) i am pining for some other boy.

but, there are exes you forget, there are exes you wish would fall off the ends of the earth and pass away, there are exes you end up friends with, there are exes you wish nothing but good for.

and there are exes like pat the pilot. *sigh* so wrong, so hateful, so clueless about his self-absorption, so not going to happen again, but just so frigging handsome.

as we enter the heart of the lenten season ...

... may our hearts be ready to recall Christ's passion and death brought about by our own sinfulness.

this year's lent will be a wee bit more "special" since i still can't shake off the beautiful reflections from lingkod alabang's lenten retreat lead by bro. bros flores. jesuits are truly amazing servants, i tell you, and bros is no exception. so, as i hie off to cabanatuan to be with family, i will still make sure that time will be spent with God in reflection and prayer. there's so much to be thankful for, especially since holy tuesday (that's today, albeit on a different date in 2007) is my "lawyer anniversary date".

since (according to ann, at least) tomorrow still isn't technically lent, i plant to get a lot of errands done. thanks to our SVL (special vacation leave) policy, we won't have any work tomorrow, and thanks to MMDA, there's no coding tomorrow as well which means that i can get around easily. there'll be the trip to the casa (for my car aircon) and to the parlor (for my hair) and to the repair shop (for my portable dvd). i'm thinking of fixing the house as well, but since i can't wash my hair for the next three days, i'll be skipping that. i don't want the universe to think that i'm fasting on taking showers, not that anyone will be actually smelling my head. but, you can never tell ☺

have a meaningful lent, everyone. and happy 4th year lawyer anniversary to me. i can't imagine i've had three jobs since i passed the bar, not to mention my sidelines, but who would've thought i'd be where i am today? god is marvelous, especially during lent.

*picture of barasoain church by my lovely boss

why at the end of the day, i still love my job

yesterday, as i was contemplating on the meaning of life (while watching law and order, ha!ha!), i couldn't help but thinking why am i where i am right now. i mean, my first lawyer job paid better. and my second lawyer job paid better as well. this job, it pays peanuts. seriously. don't believe it when they say the pharma industry pays well. last time i checked, we're in the pharma business and my paycheck says otherwise.

so my car's aircon still hasn't been fixed, notwithstanding that summer is officially here and i lost five pounds of water weight in the sauna-like conditions every time i drive from qc to las pinas.

and i haven't really bought anything fabulous since i got here. anything fabulous i have is courtesy of generous family members who feel sorry for the only lawyer in the family who, for some weird twist of fate, happens to be the poorest family member as well.

as a matter of fact, while i was that girl who was driving a cute car at 25 (on a teacher's salary, no less), i am now that 30++ girl who rides a non-aircon bus from ayala to sucat. a bus that screams "fire! fire!" to attract passengers.

but you know what?

this job doesn't stress me at all. i go to work at 8 and i leave by 5 and i can actually go to sleep without thinking of the million and one things that have yet to be done. when i leave at the end of the day, i'm done with (at least) most of the tasks on my checklist. my boss says "okay!" when i tell her i haven't finished something yet and will get it done as soon as i can manage. they ask me if i'm swamped, or if i'm still okay with the load, or i need any help with the stuff i have to do.

this job allows me to grow (well, hopefully not literally). since i arrived here, i've learned stuff about corporate law, IP practice, valuation procedures, and where to find cheap designer shoes (okay, so this may not exactly be work-related, but i did learn that from my boss and having lovely shoes is a must to boost one's morale and confidence, right?) gwapo boss has encouraged me to learn stuff other than labor law (my greatest passion in life) but, at the same time, has supported all my labor law related shenanigans. i've gone to one in-house seminar last year and will be attending one seminar next week ... and although my budget allocation will be used up by next week's seminar, my boss said that in the event i find one that i like, i can tell her so they'd share their budget with me.

and that picture up there? that's from when we did something for the plant. friday afternoon was v. v. lovely indeed.

i can still remember that sinking feeling after i resigned from the law firm and had to deal with the realization that losing my tax shelter meant losing almost a third of my monthly salary. i think i must've blanched at the thought, and freak out feeling was further bolstered when the partners all kept telling me how good i was at litigation, how with a couple more of years i was going to be at the top of my game, and how -- as i mentioned during my interview with them -- being a litigation lawyer was being a "real lawyer." how can i then, by reviewing contracts left and right, sending out prissy opinions, and taking the minutes of board meetings, consider myself a "real lawyer."

and then the decision to that god-awful case came out and i had to rush the appeal in ten days. i was writing things i didn't believe in. it was labor law, all right, but i hated every single bit of it. i hated the "legal engineering", i hated researching for case law that wasn't there, i hated having to milk more money from the client (who we hadn't properly billed yet and had racked up way more hours than his deposit actually covered), and i hated appeasing the client who i just wanted to shake severely so i'd be able to drive some sense into his addled brain. i was so miserable with the entire exercise that i just wanted to eat one subway sandwich after the other, buy an incessant amount of clothing i might never use, and sleep till kingdom come.

so i may not be as rich as i used to be. and i may have been reduced to taking crazy public transportation every single working day of my life. my heart may be yearning for that LV speedy monogram 35 that i promised to get myself for my 35th birthday (sad, but if i'm riding non-aircon bus, what good will it be that i have a speedy 35 right? it will just probably be viewed as fake, as fake as that lady's neverfull this morning.). but i'm happy. and i'm fulfilled.

and who knows, maybe i won't be this poor once we sell more cough syrup in the future. right, boss?

sopas is ♥

nothing spells comfort food for me like good old sopas.

warm, milky, stuffed with anything and everything from the fridge. while i'm rarely the intuitive cook, this is one thing that i don't need a recipe for.

butter + onions:

add the carrots:

add broth. allow to boil. then add protein of your choice. this week, i loaded up on shabu-shabu stuff (so not regular sopas fare) chopped them all up (so that they'd cook all at the same time):

and noodles!!!! oodles of noodles ☺ this week, i used fusilli.

didn't take a picture of the final product, but let's just say that i not only had it for dinner last night, and for breakfast this morning, but i'm also planning to have it for lunch and dinner.

sopas is ♥

100 30 things to be happy about

when i was in college, i borrowed the book 14,000 things to be happy about from a girl named vicky. she was one of those cool girls who resided in ilang-ilang residence hall (i was one of those noisy, crazy girls who almost always got in trouble with the dorm head), cool enough to have a non-fiction book (to my mind then, books were mostly either of the fiction variety, or the textbook variety).

reading the book then inspired me to, every so often, write lists of things to be happy about. you could find them in my notebooks, in my planner (remember those tickles planners that were all the rage in college? gah, i'm dating myself.), in post-its stuck to random pieces of furniture, like my bookcase at home and my desk in the dorm. the included the most inane things, like bachoy from the canteen (something that i still love to this day) and the most important, like bacon (yes, bacon is important).

recently, my favorite girl boss started writing her own list of things to be happy about (brought about by the gift of a lovely (and uber expensive) moleskin notebook. and it reminded me of the joy that writing the list brought me, especially when i was tired, frustrated, and just unable to cope with the rigors that came with college life (thinking back, i can't exactly imagine how i thought college life was rigorous. i mean, what could've stressed me then? that i had to wear my jeans for two days in a row? crazy!)

and so, in no particular order, 100 30 things that currently make me happy.

1. a non-thinking book, a bag of cheetos twisted puffs, and diet sarsi on a cold rainy day with nothing to do.


2. moniegold chewy tamarind candy


3. zippered pillowcases in lovely fabrics and prints from SM


4. the realization that while the blackberry is a dream come true, i am still a nokia girl through and through


5. being able to travel to a whole lot (okay, to me it was a whole lot) of places last year


6. hk disneyland with mama and kit. wish papa could've come with us though.


7. balikbayan boxes


8. using my secret crush's name as my password. ha! ha!


9. almost-over root canal sessions with dr. jennifer, unarguably the best dentist when it comes to injecting my gums. she gets it in one go. how fabulous is that?


10. yakimix or sambokojin ... it doesn't really matter. as long as they use bacon to wrap stuff with, then you've got my attention.


11. the new bedroom arrangement


12. water in bf.


13. no wait, 24 hour water supply in bf


14. automatic washing machine


15. water + washing machine = being able to do laundry whenever i want to, whenever i need to, or whenever i just feel like it


16. bros flores and last weekend's retreat ☺


17. cd-r king -- the stuff they sell, not the service. it doesn't matter which branch you visit. their service is uniformly crappy.


18. home bloggers who inspire me to just be a better at taking care of my home


19. every day light devotionals. brief, to the point, but very very good.


20. sans rival from dumaguete


21. sparkly toenails


22. hi-top and their 50% off on near-expiry merchandise


23. free stuff from work


24. gummy bears


25. bachoy from the canteen


26. ... as well as their sopas


27. ... and their spaghetti


28. cheap books


29. kids on summer vacation which means i get to work much faster


30. universal channel and law and order every morning (reason why i never make it to work before 8 am anymore :(

i was (as you could see) aiming for a hundred. but i realized that a hundred is a bit hard when you've got stuff to do.

getting crafty + a lovely retreat at oasis of prayer + the runaway mess at home

the old me would've taken a whole lot of pictures. i would've documented even the cloud formations if my pidgy little camera would allow me to. but i'm not the old me. these days, i'd rather pose in front of a friend's hi-tech camera (there's always one who is martyr enough to lug one ... even to a retreat!!!) and just wait to be tagged over at facebook. such is the lazy life.

speaking of the lazy life, friday was a "free friday" since we didn't have a prayer meeting in preparation for the retreat. i "coerced" our branch leader into allowing me to prepare something for our ten (10! yay!) guests by promising to keep expenses down to P50 per head. budget shopping is so me, so i went to the national bookstore over at santana grove and searched for the perfect journal. thank goodness i didn't have to search so hard -- there it was: for P39 only, a small journal with lovely paper. gotta love national bookstore's best buy products. since i have a thing for paper and all things crafty, i bought a whole lot of scrapbook paper (on sale!!!), stickers, and what nots to package the journals with. i wanted to personalize each journal (thank goodness for alphabet stickers on sale) so i made an "obi belt" (more like a wide sheet of paper around the journal's middle) around each journal, secured it with double-sided tape, and spelled out each attendee's name on the front portion. it was a huuuuuge hit. even the members want one.

hmmmm, maybe a christmas gift idea?

the retreat was at oasis of prayer in silang, cavite ☺we had bros, a former lingkod alabang member who's now a jesuit, lead it for us, and let me just say that i take back whatever short-tempered bursts i let out when my uber well-planned schedule + venue had to give way to bros' schedule. it was such a unique, heartfelt, god-centered retreat, none of that crying hogwash, but more of an affirmation of one's faith, beliefs, and passion. i think i've come out of that place more centered than ever. it's funny how it wasn't really that hectic of a weekend, save for the oodles of time i spent making the guests' personalized journals, but saturday evening i was knocked out by half past ten, and sunday night, well, let's just say that i got home at around 5, was in bed by six, and was drifting in and out of sleep until i gave up pretending to be awake by 9 pm and just flat out slept like a baby.

so, goodbye clearning bedroom floors. goodbye taking out the trash. goodbye changing sheets. maybe later (but we're redeeming that meto deal voucher). or tomorrow (but i'm going to the dentist for what would hopefully be my last visit). or wednesday (i'm thinking of getting my roots colored). while i LOVE having a lovely clean sparkling house, nothing beats being tucked in bed way earlier than usual. have a lovely week, everyone!

sweet dreams are made of this ...

if you're more or less my age, then you'd most likely be familiar with the lyrics i used on the title of this post. but this post is not about the song. it's about this lovely dream that i had. i won't go into the details but let's just say that (1) it seemed so real (2) it made my heart so giddy with joy and (3) it was so wonderful that i kept going back to sleep long after the time i was supposed to wake up. i think i must've texted half of the people on my phonebook to share the happy dream. and i think i must've gone to work with a huge smile plastered on my face. i kept thinking that if it were real, then i'd probably be the happiest girl in the universe. or maybe not, but i think i'd still be sufficiently happy that i could cartwheel around metro manila and not really care. then i realized, what the fudge, it's april fool's day. did my subconscious just play a prank on my conscious self?