from this family to yours ....

... A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!

the gifts i've bought have been opened and appreciated, and the noche buena feast has been devoured to put it mildly. i've "recouped" my investment by cash gifts from family members who love me enough not to deprive me of the usual cash gift despite me nearing three and a half decades. tita nilda opened her luggage and bequeathed me with new and not-so-new clothes, including this lovely calvin klein dress i'm hoping to wear on the first day of work for 2012. i think i've had a perma smile on my face since i woke up this morning.

but the biggest blessing, more than all the little things and the big things, is the fact that our family is almost complete this christmas, and with tito mau arriving tomorrow, all that's missing is my mom. i miss her dearly, but i am thankful that the universe (aka GOD) made it possible for this wonderful Christmas to happen.

so, from the entire Villanueva clan, wishing you a very Merry Christmas and praying that your Christmas weekend will be every bit as blessed as ours is turning out to be.

i'm alive

well, barely. so much to do, so much to share, so many details nagging my brain right now. let's just say that if i could, i'd tell you how incredibly fantastic life has been to me, every single detail of it, and how each day now - all the stress and bad things aside - makes me want to thank god over and over and over again for paving the path to bring me to where i am today.

okay, i'm not yet rich. and i haven't found the one. and i still need to lose a LOT of weight. but i'm happy. or should i use the word "content" as for once, i don't think i'm craving for something i cannot have (well, except for forever love -- which is what my officemates know him as) and i'm as happy as a clam just basking in whatever the tides bring in. you know what i mean?

in any case, and if you're interested, i'm:

* addicted to Earle's Delicatessen (i had to glance at the paper bag so i can spell it correctly, haha!) so much so that i wanted to bring home an entire slab. yes, i'm that bad.

* i have half a sandwich and a donut waiting to be eaten ... which i'll do as i continue reviewing/rewriting this contract that's making me crazy

* papa's here and i'm looking forward to the weekend at tita mayu's

i promise that i'll be posting more stuff soon.

p.s. sorry for unanswered tweets, unmoderated comments, and general absence. i promise to make it up to you all soon!

four years later ...

it's not like i know anyone from leyte. except imelda marcos, i suppose. but everyone knows imelda, right?

so when i first went there in 2007 for a leaders' training for my catholic community, i never thought i'd utter the words, "i shall return," general douglas macarthur style.

{leyte landing! finally}

but somehow, four years after my first ever domestic flight (i've flown international before but never domestic so it was such a big deal for me then!) to leyte, i came back.

the plane left at 4:20 a.m. which meant that just about the time the sun started to light up the world, the plane was landing on tacloban, leyte.

{tacloban runway}

it was a full day. left tacloban at 6-ish (bag took forever to come out of the plane!), slept the entire two-hour drive to ormoc, ate a quick breakfast and changed from wee-hours-of-the-morning traveler self to i-am-so-competent-i-can-do-this-in-my-sleep labor lawyer self, did an 8-hour lecture to the businessmen of ormoc, so 12 hours later, my feet were killing me, the smile had melted off my face, and all i could do was gaze out into the beautiful hotel-scape that holds so many memories for me from four years ago.

{sunset at ormoc villa hotel}

just like macarthur, i did return. and as all the memories came flooding back, i've realized that it's not only good to be back, it's great to realize how far i've gone since the last time i was here.

harbat time!

allow me to spill a secret.

my bag collection is half-fueled by tita celia. and when i say half-fueled by tita celia, what i mean is that i go home to cabanatuan, try to borrow as many pretty bags as i can, and hope that she forgets all about them.

it's been known to work in the past. don't tell her but i still have her gucci bag with a bamboo handle and a dkny bag from long ago. then again, i don't think she. really forgets. after all, when i was trying to make harbat another wallet last weekend, she did remind me that i got her ferragamo wallet and claimed it as my own. so much for that.

in any case, when i was in cabanatuan for the all saints' day weekend, tita celia probably felt extra generous when i told her about my quest to fabulousity. i guess she didn't want me to look too dukha amidst the fabulousity in makati. or she probably just loves me for being the only grandchild who went home. in any case, she offered me this bag to take home.

a gorgeous black kate spade bag. it was the perfect size (especially if you're just like me who brings a book with her everywhere) and the perfect color (remember - i don't have a decent black bag) and the perfect brand (sigh, kate spade is ♥).


and you know what was more perfect about it? the fact that it had a polka-dotted hot pink lining. not only am i in love with hot pink, polka dots happen to be one of my favorite patterns on earth. put them together and it's awesome sauce. put them together in a kate spade bag, well that's awesome some times 2.

*sigh* if heaven was this place where all your materialistic dreams come true (of course i know it isn't, so i'm saying if it were, you know, for the sake of literary license), there'd be pretty kate spade bags with pretty linings floating about for the taking. yes, that would be niiiiiiice.

what's even more awesome was that she first offered this lovely stabilo yellow kate spade bag to me. it's the bigger, even more gorgeous version of the black bag, except that it came with specific "return on 8 november 2011" instructions. uhm, that would be tough, i thought, so i simply deferred borrowing that for now.

be warned, stabilo yellow kate spade bag, that one day, i'd have you in my grubby hands and i'd get to pretend your mine until tita celia remembers ☺ mwahahaha.

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{miniature chinese terracotta warriors}

If there's one thing that I learned from working with my Justice, it's that travel will never be a waste of one's time and resources. And if there's one place that piqued my interest from her many stories, it'll be Xi'an's terracotta warriors.

My new company's personnel policy won't vest me with any vacation days until 2013 when I'll hopefully be able to finally visit my parents in the US. Then there's still Cambodia on my travel bucket list. I do know that a visit to China, whether sooner or later, is in order, and that one day, I'll be face-to-face with the full sized terracotta warriors.

Until then, these miniature ones will have to do.

*Thanks to Tin for bringing home these miniature versions for me. Your friendship is too precious for words.