since i'm pretending i'm on a diet, i'll just get the candle version instead

they're supposed to melt in your mouth, not in your hands.

but what happens when they're all melted up in a bottle? ...

eeep! screeching halt!!! that just sounds like really bad copy for an ad. i am so glad i don't have to do advertising work for a living!

in any case, i want to talk about this yummy find from last friday's cupcake run ...

{yum yum yum!}

m&m scented candle!!! 

in the same breath that KBB told us about vanilla cupcake bakery, she also told us about the pepperidge farm candles that were on 50% off at true value. now, since i'm waging a war against the critters at home, i will admit that i need all the help in the scent department i could get. so after finishing off a whole lotta work (kunyari busy-busy-han, hahaha!), i trooped over to the newly-opened true value at glorietta.

there were a number of pepperidge farm options, but the moment i opened the jar, i knew that i was going to come home with the m&m candle.

i mean, come on! aren't those the cutest things????

{now, aren't these cute?}

however, this is a candle and it is meant to be lighted. sooner or later, these lovely babies would melt.

and melt they did. what i didn't expect was that they'd leave these:

{look! the m's are left when the "candy" is all melted up!}

purrrrrttttyyyyyy!!!!

KBB guaranteed that the pepperidge farm candles would leave your house smelling wonderful, so i was a bit afraid that this may or may not perform the same way. but, after fifteen or so minutes, my home (note na hindi na house, home na bigla. yihee!) started smelling of crisp vanilla. it works!!!

i brought it with me to the bedroom (dangerous to leave a lighted candle when you're not in the area, and what use it is perfuming the living/dining areas when i'm in my room already?) and once more, the sweet aroma - not too strong but not too light either - made the room a bit cozier, a bit happier, a bit better. so can i just say that this works?!?!

and you know what's even better? the candle is on sale! it's 50% off from P495 so i ended up paying only P247.50 for this bottle of goodness.

i used to swear by betty crocker candles (the cherry pie was my favorite!) but this one is waaaay better. and since i know i had grabbed the last stock at true value glorietta, guess who's going to ATC later to stock up on these? 

yep, me. hello world, this is rosa the hoarder signing off ... and driving to ATC to look for more m&m candles!

you can never have too many cupcake options, IMHO!

one of the lawyers from work came back from lunch today with an amazing discovery. the old kamiseta is now this uber-cutie patootie place known as the vanilla cupcake bakery. i wish i had my camera with me cause that place was serious eye candy ... especially for someone like me who's in love with pastels, frou-frou, and all things sweet.

{diet notwithstanding, this came home with me today}

it was a bit difficult to pick - my default is usually a peppermint chocolate cupcake or something with marshmallow icing in it - but in the end i ended up picking two: 

classic mocha and,

and this salted caramel variety. now, they have several salted caramel varieties, and this is but one of them. unfortunately, i couldn't find the receipt, so i don't really know which one this is.

and since i am not a food blogger, i can't really tell you (1) the other cupcake options and (2) how much each cupcake costs. i do remember though that these two set me back P148.00. not bad, but not very cheap either.

i think vanilla cupcake bakery is owned by the same people who run kamiseta because some of the servers are wearing old kamiseta uniforms. uh-oh mr. gunn roque -- the lawyer in me is screaming "be careful with possible labor issues of intermingling businesses and using the same staff!"

my initial thoughts? the place was mighty lovely. hopefully, my friends and i will be trying it out soon, so that means i'll be able to take pictures of vanilla cupcake bakery. but if you can't wait, then imagine this: the uber-soft couches from kamiseta, with a colorful sprinkling of daphne chairs, then imagine cath kidston cuteness and there you have it: vanilla cupcake bakery.

for me, the cupcakes were okay. not bad, but not amazing either. so even if the entire trip home my mind was focused on devouring these as soon as i get home, all i tasted was a small slice of each before i returned them to the box and thrown into the ref to be eaten some other time. maybe it was cause i drove thru mcdonald's on the way home, or maybe it was cause i wasn't feeling well. but if you really knew me, neither of these should've prevented my matakaw self from gobbling these two up like there was no tomorrow.

between the two, i liked the mocha better. i didn't really taste the "salt" part in the salted caramel, and the cake felt a bit dry. still, there's a whole lot more options at the store, and food (i heard there's pasta and coffee as well!) to boot, so maybe the proper review should wait another time.

for now, consider this as an exercise in getting to know the macro setting of my new camera. hahaha!

why i love my job

ive said it often enough in the past. i love my job.

so i loved being a court attorney ... until someone told me i needed to get litigation experience. so i did.

and i loved being a "real" lawyer (doing what people generally feel lawyers should be doing - appearing in court, wearing a suit, having clients)  ... until i realized i'm that kind of person who can't really be passionate over something she didn't believe in. and, when you're in litigation, there will always be that one case you don't believe in. 

so, i obeyed tita celia and finally did corp work ... until the salary, the mean girls at work, and certain issues forced me to rethink my options.

thankfully i got this job. i think it's my forever job.

while some of my friends aren't very happy with the compensation, i'm fine with it (although i won't say no to an increase, haha!). i'm happy with the perks. i'm glad they (partially) gave me diego. 

and i'm happy too with the non-compensation aspect of it - my work friends are amazing, my boss is beyond amazing, the job is challenging, and it's so easy to get to the office even on coding days.

then there are the perks. the yahoo omg awards. the nba-pba all star game. then it got better: cirque du soleil's saltimbanco.

last monday was the best: lower box tickets to watch this:

{actually, no caption needed!}

heart was in front of us. directly behind me was cristalle belo. ruffa and her family were two rows behind us.

and J.Lo. ... i could actually see J.Lo (which isn't what i could say for all the other concerts i've watched in the past!)

{believe me when i say my view was much better than this pic}

while sen. miriam santiago claimed otherwise, i'd like to think it was one of the most amazing concerts i've ever watched. she was THAT good.

just check out the last part of her opening number.

i would've uploaded more, except you'd hear me singing and that's one of the most horrible things in the universe. promise.

so thank YOU to the kind people over at HOME who sent my boss tickets. and thank you to my boss for giving me the tickets. i know  you don't read this blog, but YOU are amazing. 

patience is not one of my virtues

while it is by no means a justification, i'd like to believe that the reason why i drive like a possessed woman and why i'm always half-tempted to walk out on my friends when they're late is cause i lack the virtue of patience. and because i am not the most patient of people in the world, i don't really get online shopping -- when i want something, i want it now.

but then i'm also kuripot. so even though buying a camera at the mall would get me my camera ASAP, i can't justify paying retail for something that i know could be had for a much lower price somewhere else.

a camera? yep. let's backtrack a bit, why don't we?

my first digicam was from tita celia and my brother and i were supposed to share it. but since he didn't seem too interested with taking pictures, it was with me most of the time. then for some reason, it died in its sleep and i realized it only when my friends and i were on our way to tagaytay, so my dad (who reads this blog, hi papa!) came to the rescue and sent me the money to get a new camera. that camera, i loved like crazy. until it got stolen on the way to cebu. since i was bound for cebu again a couple of days later, and since i wasn't very happy with the pictures tita celia's camera (which she generously offered to lend me), i threw all caution to the wind a immediately bought a replacement upon returning to manila. i liked the camera - it went with me to cebu, boracay, countless get-togethers, and chronicled stuff for this blog, but i didn't love it. it would always just be the replacement for the camera that someone stole from my check-in luggage (yes, it was stupid to leave my camera in my check-in luggage. i know that now.)

so when my idol, daphne osena paez, posted about the olympus pen about a year ago, it felt like i had found the camera that took my breath away. like her, i'm not a fan of dslr cameras. i know the limitation of my skills and am realistic enough to acknowledge that i do not have what it takes the learn about aperture and white balance and all those things. so i figured, this was what i need to get my grubby little hands on.

except it was too expensive. at least for me. i did pine for it a LOT and i did start saving for it and i must've sent dbgadgets bazillions of text messages asking for it. and when i was almost ready for it, i asked my cousin. and he said, "no, get the fuji x10 instead."

i hemmed and hawed about this. the olympus pen was like the hyundai elantra that i had been dreaming of for months! i had read reviews, i had my heart set onto getting it. i have saved up for it. and it was going to be a big no? it was much like when the boys at the office kept on chiding me for wanting a car, much less a korean car. oh, i do love diego, but i must admit there are times when i can't help but ogle at a white elantra when it crosses my path. was i ready to let a dream go?

apparently, i was, because it wasn't long before i was texting kimstore on a regular basis. and the crazy thing was i was dead set on getting it already long before my cousin decided on getting his camera and in the end, he got his first cause he was more diligent. finally, monday of last week, i inquired with them and they said it was out of stock but i could wait till this week. i said okay. then i was beyond surprised when lo and behold, on tuesday morning, they told me i could get it if i were free to meet up that day.

yes! yes! yes! i had a very, very, very long meeting, but as soon as that was done, i rushed out, ready to run all the way to park square in a suit and heels, only to realize that they had cancelled and had to wait for more than a week before it would be available again.

this week passed by s-l-o-w-l-y.

even if i did get to meet up with tita celia and we both loaded up on back issues of magazines we love.

{happy reading materials}

even if it meant fresh ponkan every morning.

{healthy breakfast}

my boss must've hated me for being so unreliable this week. friday morning i was crazy excited cause they seller said it would be the day it would arrive, but it was delayed. boo!

i was so tempted to order it from dbgadgets ... but he was selling it for a thousand bucks more, and there were no freebies. my friend pointed out to me that if i were to get it that night, what difference would it make since i had a lecture the following day anyway? was the thousand bucks worth it.

uhm, no. kuripot, remember?

i woke up early saturday as i was teaching a whole day class and sent multiple text messages (both from my smart and sun phones!) until it was finally confirmed: 4-6 pm at starmall. yay!

sorry to my very makulit student when i wasn't very patient with you by the time afternoon rolled around. i wanted my camera real bad!!!

{the non-replacement has landed}

and what the heart wants, it tries to move heaven and earth to get.

i can't promise better pictures (it's the indian, not the arrow, as my boss used to say). and i can't promise more blog posts with more pictures (i find that my phone yields the most "accurate" day in the life pictures). but i can promise this: maybe, just maybe, i'll learn to be a little more patient next time.

happy sunday!

weekend in instagram pics

i had no doubt it was going to be a hectic weekend. friday was practice at tuloy with the kids, saturday was a full day lecture, and sunday was divi with future SIL and practice again + 8pm mass. definitely no DVD marathon this weekend.

well, the dvd (and the tv for that matter) stayed off the entire weekend. but it wasn't cause i was crazy busy. it was cause i got myself a new book.

let's just say that this was my ... erm ... present(?) to myself. yes, i know i'd gotten myself way too many presents already. but this is a present to my brain which has sorely deteriorated over my (unadmitted) addiction to watching keeping up with the kardashians while preparing for work.

{new book}

halfway through already ☺ yay!

yesterday was admittedly bad - i had to resort to coffee to keep myself awake while doing a lecture. yes, i know i was the one doing the lecture but i was crazy sleepy (see first pic for reason why) and there must have been a couple of times where i was blabbering without making much sense. thank goodness it was about the law. keeping my fingers crossed that my students just thought that it wasn't me that wasn't making sense but the fact that the law is complicated! #wishkolang

for some reason, i woke up before six this morning. future SIL and i were planning a trip to divi (i asked her to go with me. uy, progress!) but last night i wasn't feeling so well and with practice scheduled from 2 to 5 in the afternoon, all i wanted to do was to catch up on my laundry while watching dvds. but future SIL pointed out that the more i postpone this, the worse the crowds are going to get. so we went.

and then i saw this. made me laugh. i just had to take a picture. i mean if you were in my place, wouldn't you?

{things that make me smile at divisoria #anodaw}

the original plan really was to get christmas decors. i was green with envy when my friend from work said that she was able to get 2 garlands, 1 5ft tree, and an abundance of decorations for P1,700 from new divisoria mall. I WANT.

but then KEf pointed out that (1) i have way too many stuff already (2) i don't really need new decors and (3) will i be actually putting up decorations anyway. yep, he always has a point.

but i still wanted to check out goodies and do some christmas shopping so off we went.

i said no more kitty stuff, no more, no more. then i ended up getting these ...

{kitty fan! finally!!!}

i had wanted the kitty fan since last year but i couldn't really justify getting it. i mean, where would i use it? i told my friends i wanted it for christmas but since we never went back as a group, they never had the chance to get it for me (and yeah, i change my mind about what i want every so often). but the lady gave me a good deal (at least i didn't mind paying what i paid for it) and i am having the most horrible hot flashes (no, i'm not menopausal yet, it's the medicine!!!), i figured, i NEEDED a kitty fan on my desk to keep me cool. #bolahinmoangsarilimo

{yet another tissue holder, i know}

and this! how can you walk away from this adorable-ness? impossible i tell you.

{first batch of presents!}

in spite having failed at self-restraint, i did manage to tick some items off my christmas list and buy presents for some people. and, true to form, buying was only half the fun -- the other half was finding the perfect packaging and wrapping them up. seeing my friends' reactions when they open the present would the cherry on top of the ice cream.

inspired by my idol, isabel gatuslao, i decided i was going to go a step further this year and try my hand at making my own wrappers. they weren't perfect, but my excuse is that they're meant to be rustic.

{feeling creative}

i mean, they aren't so bad, right?

got a couple more hours left of today. after the gift-wrapping brouhaha, my kitchen's a mess, and i've to fix the powerpoint slides, take a quick shower to wash off the divi smell, and run off to PCJ. till the next instagram update!

my long weekend

oh, how i wish my long weekends were more exciting. (consider this as a warning, haha!)

unfortunately, this long weekend for me meant fulfilling duties to my family and to Tuloy. not that i'm complaining. after all, i did spend a lot of time sleeping, hahaha.

{commute mode!}

i rarely bring the car when i go home to the province. it's not just the gas prices nor is it the toll. rather, i think that old age has made me quite lazy to drive. ironic considering that i drive a 'matic now. so, wednesday evening, i braved the crazy crowds to travel to nueva ecija. i was under the impression that people were smarter than me and would've taken a leave to go home earlier. apparently, everyone was under the same impression.

{undas shades}

so this was me, waiting for tita celia to get ready. i had left my sunglasses at home and since my family usually spends the entire day at the cemetery, shades (IMHO!) were a must. so over at lunch on halloween, i trooped over to my happy place (landmark!) and got myself cheap shades. these were Php125 only. and i love them. i love tita celia's headband too. unfortunately, they cost way more than Php125, and not borrow-able. i don't think they ever will be. but i'm keeping my fingers crossed!!! ☺

{driver mode!}

one of the things i usually do for tita celia when i'm in the province is serve as her driver. i've driven her old cars, but she recently got a new SUV and it was a bit freaky venturing out in the land where the tricycle driver is king. still, when i was stuck in the parking lot doing nothing, i couldn't help but take this pic of myself. yes, i do have the tendency to take self-portraits when i'm bored. just check out my twitter feed and my instagram account.

in any case, tita celia was just supposed to check on a patient who had just checked herself into the hospital cause she was experiencing contractions but was only 1cm. however, after a couple of minutes (and thankfully after i had taken the pic above!), she came back down to tell me that she'd have to perform an emergency c-section. so that meant i also had to go down.

{so this was how i would've looked like had i pursued a career in medicine instead}

when i was young, tita celia brought me with her to the delivery room to witness a childbirth. according to her, it was to prevent me from getting pregnant at a young age. considering how i'm still single and child-less (and considering what happened to my cousin who didn't get to go through a similar experience), i'm beginning to think it worked. this time around, i did ask tita celia if it would be okay for me to be in the operating room as she did her work. what can i say? i was curious of the life i didn't pursue when i switched to education and eventually became a lawyer.

to me, it felt like they were doing miracles. but listening to their conversation, it didn't seem like they knew it. i had to text a doctor-friend and shared how it felt so complicated and big, and how it seemed so simple for the doctors. she pointed out it was similar to how contracts and affidavits are scary and intimidating to non-lawyers but an everyday thing for me. okay, point taken.

{grandparents}

eventually, we made our way to the family mausoleum. for some reason, this year's undas wasn't as festive as before. could be cause of how times are hard, or cause everyone's off vacationing, or cause everyone already went over the weekend. well, you wouldn't have known from the the crazy crowds at the bus station!

{lola, and namesake}

i always claim that i'm my paternal grandmother's favorite. except that my real paternal grandmother passed away when my dad was about to turn twelve. i never met her, but as you would see, i'm named after her. the rosa is from my maternal grandmother. i'm named after dead people.

{brother dearest}

this is my brother. and he hates being on this blog. so you won't tell him i posted a picture of him. he arrived last friday with his fiancee. i'm still not sure how i feel about the events that led to this engagement, but i've grown to accept it. after all, there's nothing really i can do about it. and he's an adult - i AM only ten months older than him. ten months ago, i felt every bit the adult i feel i am now. so he should be fine.

he asked our lola to make sinigang na hipon for him for dinner. and she did not disappoint. see ...

{ginormous!}

i've seen sugpo and they're generally huge, but these babies were mutants. it was even bigger than the cup. and they were YUMMY. sigh. i wish i could've eaten more that night, but i must admit, i was FULL. i even ignored the crispy pata that was also on the table.

i came back saturday (now THAT trip was no way uneventful, but too horrible to recall), did my tuloy duties, and slept early. and today, well today i'm crazy bored but too lazy to go outside cause of the heat. later, i'm getting the car washed, meeting a friend for coffee and doing church duties.

as for tomorrow, it's back to the grind. long weekend over and out.