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!

faux-ductive weekend

so last weekend it was all rain and what not and definitely a perfect day to sleep in but for some reason i woke up early.

and even weirder was the fact that i felt compelled to take on a project. like organizing my closet. will wonders never cease.

it wasn't exactly the world's most organized closet. in fact it was far from it. and while i knew where everything was, it was horrible. so i took everything out.

when everything was piled onto my bed, i wiped down that closet, tried to figure out what would go in here, and put everything back.

it took a while - i was busy catching up on my internet reading and doing the laundry and exchanging text messages with my friends - but eventually, it got fixed.

put a rack inside so that i don't hang my cardigans.

and, viola, good job. an organized closet. *pats self on back*

then again, who am i kidding, my room's a horrible mess.

and i've got the other side of my closet to tacklet yet.
maybe tomorrow?

or maybe not.

p.s. here's a little something from my past which i've kept till now -- a calendar inside my closet where i list the day's outfit. something that prevents me from doing something i'm bound to do: wear my favorite outfits over and over and over again!

random friday goodness

{so the picture has nothing to do with the post,

but admit it, it made you look twice, right?

this is an old picture from 2009 i think}

since my days aren't terribly exciting these days (translation: i basically spent the last three days at home), allow me to share with you random stuff which happened wednesday, thursday, and friday.

♥ while the e! channel could be fun if you fit it on random times of your day like when you're getting ready for work, it has very few shows which they rotate over and over again. this means i've basically seen the fashion police emmy edition ten billion times in a span of three days and i can actually speak the lines of all the hosts by thursday lunch.

♥ i had the bright idea of organizing my house -- so that i'd have something to show for the three days off from work -- and i ended up making things worse. i AM proud, however, that (1) i got the car washed; (2) i washed the seat covers; (3) i prepared a present for the HR manager of the new company who i'm wooing to volunteer with us at tuloy; and (4) i was able to convince my brother to come in, and to hopefully clean out his room so that i can (finally!) get some productive use out of it. that last part, we still have to see.

♥ i love atis so much that i will constantly press and press it in the hope that it will ripen with me doing that. so far, it hasn't worked; rather, it's just gotten totally squished and sad. yes, i am an impatient person.

♥ trust that the day your frustration reaches i-am-so-ready-to-give-up is the day that heaven sends you five billion signals, basically saying, "if you're still not listening with all of these messages coming your way, then you must be totally dead." okay, okay, i'm listening!

♥ probably since there's no real food at home (translation: i haven't eaten rice since forever), people said that i lost weight. maybe i should stay at home more often.

happy weekend, universe!

making the most of my sunday

after being on my feet for almost six hours yesterday (the things i do to fund my magasotos self), i crashed the moment i got home. and while i was dying on my bed, i promised myself that i'd spend the entire day recuperating.

of course the day that i promised to be dead to the world is the day i end up waking early ... even without an alarm clock. by 7 i was online. by 8:30, i was bored. i figured, i should try to do something productive this sunday. so i made some plans and tweeted about them.

the idea was to be up and about by 9:00. by 8:59, i was ready to just spend the entire day sleeping.

then my laptop died. it was time to go.

{i've totally stopped working on my desk entirely!}

{9:00 a.m. ... time to transform from this ...}

{... to this. okay, fine, not a major improvement, but clean enough for the public to view}

{autobots, roll out!}

{bright and early to get one of the few remaining free parking places at ATC}

{mass at the st. jerome courtyard}

{last day of the accessorize sale! limited myself to two goodies only}

{burger king for lunch ... with the sundae that accidentally received a sprinkling of salt!}

{temporary chair bought!}

it was productive alright ... and while i didn't get to buy the chair i wanted -- one didn't feel as comfy as i wanted it to be and the other one wasn't in a color that would fit my room -- i was able to buy one that (1) was 1/3 cheaper (2) would fit right in my room and (3) would be functional to be used elsewhere in the house once i find the perfect chair.

happy sunday!

it's been a while

and i'm glad i ended up going rather than spending my entire saturday at home pretending to work on a lecture when i know i would've ended up sleeping all day anyway.

the discovery of dorothy perkins

{well, hello, dorothy perkins. so lovely to have met you!}

i don't know whether to be bothered by it or not but i've never been a mango girl. all my friends have at least one mango piece in their closets, and i can name two or three who have more than a handful of mango stuff but me, i have yet to buy something mango for myself.

oh, wait, i have a pair of black mango pumps and a mango clutch, both of which aren't in rotation anymore for reasons i can't think of right now, so there, it's virtually a mango-free closet.

so, you must understand why i wasn't terribly excited with the opening of forever 21. i thought it was going to be yet another place where stuff won't fit me. but then, lo and behold, stuff did, and, boom, i ended up with two tops and one bag from forever 21.

still, it didn't give me the confidence to shop in all those trendy + cheap foreign brands that have been popping up all over metro manila. so, when gay invited me to check out dorothy perkins yesterday, i wasn't so sure. it was either bound to (1) be too small for me or (2) too expensive for my budget.

lo and behold -- they have big sizes. and things were on 50% off. oh wait, in certain cases, things were 70% off. if that didn't spell L.O.V.E. in giant letters, i don't know what else will.

so i made off with a couple of things. had my budget allowed it, i would've probably shopped more, but there's this reminder on my work pc to save, so i attempted to heed the reminder, if only a bit.

{electric pleats ... do they still call it that?}

{loving the dark wash of this denim skirt}

{the eyelet detail on this skirt sold it for me! okay fine, plus it makes me look thinner}

defective plumbing

since the health card doctor diagnosed me with endometrial cysts way back in 2002 (has it really been that long?), an ultrasound has been pretty much a way of life for me. thank goodness that soon after i got operated on (to remove cysts, which eventually led to a ruptured ovary, leaving me with one fully-functional ovary) tita celia trained to perform ultrasounds - these days, no matter what my health card states (it's almost always a pre-existing condition, boo!), i can get myself checked out for free.

or, well, at least all it would take is a weekend away from manila + the bus fare to get here.

in any case, my period the past couple of months has been the horrible kind, so while i'm not exactly the pill-popping kind of girl (i actually abhor taking meds), i've resorted to regularly to pain medication. thing is, i just don't get PMS when it's close to my period -- once in a while, i get major cramping, the kind that makes me want to double up and ask the doctor to take out every bit of reproductive organ i have, just to make the pain stop. but, since i know what i have, and i know in my mind that this is part of the entire prognosis, i'm pretty much resigned to things being the way the are. it's not like some miracle will restore my ovary to full health, right?

this morning i had another ultrasound and as my aunt probed and poked around (it sure does feel that way!), she made the tsk!tsk! sound several times and proclaimed that while my ovary is healthy (miracle!), my uterus isn't. turns out i have this.

if the wikipedia article could be trusted, then i could very well say i'm an overachiever (or at least my reproductive system is -- while it rarely occurs together with endometriosis (10%) and in women from 35 to 50, i, the girl who had endometrial cysts + is only 34 years old have been diagnosed with it. it isn't cool, but it's good to know that there are parts of me that aim to be "ahead" of the pack.

still:

1. it's not cancer

2. i'm not dying

3. it'll go away once i enter menopause

and for now, those three things are good enough for me.

rejected

first things first: i am not a credit card girl. so, while my debit card gets a regular swiping, i am hardly prone to the devil-may-care shopping spree simply because i don't have a card i can charge it all to.

sadness, i know.

technically, though, i do have one. tita celia gave me an extension card where i can charge the stuff she asks me to get for her. and since the credit limit is infinitely more than what i'd actually spend in a month (wait, the credit limit is infinitely what i can actually afford to spend in a month, or a several months), i've been pretty happy with it. it's my credit card for emergencies, surprise purchases (like the insta-tv), and for when i find myself with no cash and no gas.

like last saturday. confidently, i whipped out the credit card and told the gas attendant, "full tank!" and, while the numbers were turning (at an alarming rate, mind you), i pretended to be relaxed. after all, i knew my card could easily cover it. now, whether i could pay for it was a different matter altogether.*

alas, my confidence was short-lived. as the attendant made his way towards me, i could see that he was about to ask the question that every credit card wielding person wanted to avoid, "do you have another card." and since i didn't have another card, i gave the requisite "try it again!"

they did, and it still refused to allow me to charge. thank goodness that they had express payment which meant that i didn't have to leave my phone or something like that to guarantee payment -- after all, i had on me was P300 and clearly, that wouldn't be enough to pay for the gas they had just put in my car.

the entire drive home i tried calling 89-100 to figure out what went wrong but 30 mins on hold later, i was nowhere near getting an answer (although i was about to exceed my globe limit, boo!). so while i'm technically on pins and needles out of excitement that my application for a BPI credit card seemed to have been approved already (details have appeared on my bpi express online account but card isn't with me yet) and the swiping that will take place soon, i'm beginning to think that me and my debit card won't be divorcing just yet.

*okay, lest i alarm my parents and the general public, i can. i am a responsible adult who has an excel file of her budget on her cellphone. it doesn't get any more OC than that. happy?
and, oh, i am sorry for being defensive about things like this. there have been times in the past that some people have not been too happy with the wit/humor/sarcasm/writing style and have actually called my attention to the fact that i may not be a very responsible person. so there -- a disclaimer. and an outright statement that i am responsible: i have savings, i spend well within my budget, i do not have debts, and i drive below the speed limit.

rainy days and dvds always make me sad

at 2:30 p.m., the announcement we've been waiting for finally came: it had rained enough for the president to give the go-signal to go home. so, after sending off one last email, consuming the sopas (i am in love with sopas more than FBv2* ... that's a fact) i had reserved for merienda, and dropping off tita mayu's printer (two weeks after i had promised to return it -- i am a rotten cow, i know!), i was finally on my way home.

well, more like on my way to a most important pit stop should i be spending the entire rainy weekend at home: ruins.

i'm not sure everyone can relate but anyone who (1) lives in the south and (2) is familiar with BF Homes topography would know the importance of ruins. ruins is the home of pirated dvds, faux bags, cheap thrills, and mixed cds. now that there's a robinson's beside it, ruins' importance (for me) increase a hundredfold. because ruins + robinson's means i can stock up on dvds + the all-too-important junkfood stash while watching dvds.

i got there a little before 5 (no, it did not take me 2.5 hours to get home. (1) i don't drive THAT slow and (2) my house isn't THAT far from QC, just really far) and it seemed like the entire south had the exact same idea. each stall i visited had one or two shoppers (i hate shopping in a dvd stall with plenty of customers ... i like looking for the "underdog" and purchasing my dvds from there. what can i say - i like the seller's undivided attention!) and it took a while before i found an empty stall where i can get my fix.

house season 7. grey's anatomy season 7. top chef just desserts. big bang theory season 4. and, since i begged the lady for a discount, i got the move "no strings attached" for free.

the minute i got home, i stuck the movie in the dvd and started watching (it was a great movie, btw. perfect for the-universe-is-so-perfect-that-impossible-things-will-happen dreamy-eyed people such as myself). after that, i got started on grey's anatomy.

and that's when i got in trouble.

let's backtrack a little: when grey's anatomy first came out, my friends from the court of appeals and i were all hooked. and we each appointed characters for ourselves. ironically, we all liked who we "were" in the show and it somehow coincided with our personalities. over the years, they stopped watching, but i continued buying dvds and watching entire seasons in one go. when i watched season 6, i ended up texting my boss (my boss!!! eeeep!) with existentialist questions like why am i not as passionate as these people are about my career. such a doofus moment, but considering that i was crying (and i never cry - just ask my friends) while typing out the text message, it came out more pathetic than anything.

so, imagine that it was cold and it was raining and i was alone and i was watching season 7 grey's anatomy ... bad, bad, bad combination.

i am proud to say though that i had held off texting my boss this time, but i did send a barrage of messages to gay about life, love, and what-nots when i continued my dvd marathon last night. now, i'm afraid to turn on the dvd and continue my marathon ... who knows what kind of thoughts an overcast sunday + episodes 8 onwards might bring.

then again, gay is just a text away. and so is my boss. i think they love me enough to put up with the drama.

*forbidden boy version 2 a.k.a. the new crush
** sorry for the liberal parenthetical remarks. i am just a wee bit chatty this sunday morning

what the???

jackson wagner ... my beloved one-and-a-half year old laptop. my dad got me jackson wagner after i asked him to comment over laptop specs ... i guess he realized that ben (the former laptop) was too old to be truly functional so he got me a new one.

yes, i am loved.

we used jackson wagner last saturday. ironically, i was planning on bringing ben instead to "protect" jackson wagner from other people's hands, since i won't be the one operating the laptop. i am oddly possessive about my things -- i hate lending stuff so when i offer to lend you something, it means that (1) i trust you and (2) i love you (parang I.T.A.L.Y. lang ha!) but, i figured that i'm just being paranoid and selfish so i brought jackson wagner.

then i got home late saturday, pressed the power button, and boom - jackson wagner refused to boot.

it would get me as far as the background that's on the screen when you log-on to the pc and would just stop. no way to log in, no way to figure out what went wrong.

of course, i just had to call my forever guardian and savior mars (funny how when i texted my dad about it, he told me to ask mars to fix it for me!) and he tried his hand at it but jackson wagner refused to budge.

it was in a coma all right. maybe it felt bad cause i was so *inggit* with theo's new baby, monsoon (a lovely macbook pro), or maybe it thought it needed to get my attention. at 1 am sunday morning, it had my full attention, no question about it.

i think i must've texted bazillions of people about my predicament, and while most offered logical solutions, there was one text that threw me in for a loop:

baka naubusan lang ng battery. i-plug mo kaya.

i was so tempted to reply - ano akala mo sa akin, tanga? i mean, wouldn't i - or anyone for that matter - know the difference between a battery-dead laptop and a laptop that wouldn't boot? sigh, thank goodness for restraint.

in any case, jackson wagner's out to be repaired right now. hopefully, it involves some fairly minimal repairs and what-nots. the last time i back-up was march, so i'll truly be losing a lot of files if it were to be something major. i'm still mad, i'm majorly frustrated, and it was crazy heartbreaking not knowing what to do in the wee hours of sunday morning.

i'm hoping that the next time i post here, it'll be good news. keeping my fingers crossed.

my weekend

{this weather}*

plus

{these new pillows}

equals

{christmas snoopy shirt from mama}

girl in an off-season christmas shirt.

i had a list of errands to run saturday, including a trip to SM to buy wooden hangers using the GC i won from the ascof super mom contest (papa - i'm not the super mom, i just wrote this essay for a contest at work) but i ended up staying at home (save to make a trip to baliwag to buy liempo for dinner. i hadn't eaten anything the entire day!) because of the rain. the weather was crazy -- it was super sunshiny in the morning, prompting me to tackle the mountains of laundry that had accumulated over the weeks cause of the weather, but i was only a load and a half into my wash when it started raining.

and raining.

and raining some more.

so i ended up going online, catching up on FB stuff, writing future blog posts, and cleaning the house.

i know it's more than half a year away from christmas, but when the weather's this gorgeous (i love the rain, just like my dad) and new pillows are on the bed, a girl can't help but think happy thoughts. and, if you know me well enough, you'd know that for me, happy thoughts = christmas.

*weather map image from here

sunday, bloody sunday

it's been a while since i blogged from my bed. ever since i got the desk in my room organized, i've been pretty disciplined about sitting on a chair, at my desk, whenever i'd use jackson wagner (uhm, that's the name of my laptop, yes, i'm not embarrassed that it has a name!). but things are, unfortunately, crazy at home last night. after yesterday's "choose your own adventure" activity which ann and i organized, we all hied off to my house for a late dinner + movie. it was soooooo fun cause we turned my living/dining areas into a movie theater with the lcd projector + screen. and we had ice cream and cake and popcorn and everything else in between so it was all decadent and fun.

so, as you can imagine, even with the slight clean-up after the activity (which involved throwing everything inside garbage bags), the house needs a major do-over: mop the floors, polish table tops, return furniture to their proper places. i've gotten started on some of the things, already - the throw pillows on the couch are in their proper places already - but it's just tooooo hot right now to contemplate on doing more.

right outside my window, three men are going at it with my - as one of them aptly described it - masukal garden (if you could still call it that). i gave them free reign to just hack everything off (there's too much going on inside the house as it is ... i can't be bothered with outside stuff anymore) and to take everything they can sell (wait -- don't take my jeans off the clothesline!!!). i'm praying that after cutting off giant mango branches overhanging my property, taking away all the bushes that are -- for lack of a better word -- scary already, and cleaning my roof, that i'll have less problems in the next couple of days.

of course, i'd much rather be at the magarbo sale right now, perusing clothes inside an airconditioned room, but i have to do this. this - house cleaning, ordering men to fix the outside of my house, budgeting the imaginary quarterly bonus i received to pay for everything i need to get done this weekend (and then some. that's how "imaginary" it is -- mauubos siya in one weekend to pay for the workers, the truck that'll haul the branches away, and my lunch) -- is apparently what being an adult means, and while i understand it, i don't exactly cherish it.

sigh, thank goodness for dinner with kit's girlfriend to look forward to. dinner = free, and in my book, that's a great way to cap off sunday, bloody sunday.

*p.s. of course a mass should be included in the mix, it being a holy day of obligation. yesterday, the last pit stop of the urban adventure was anticipated mass in bf and going to mass with the lingkod brothers and sisters is one of the best ways to spend time with God.

my girls

five years ago, i didn't think i was capable of female friendships. oh i could count the number of female friends i had with the fingers on my hand.

and then i joined lingkod. this pic ... it isn't even complete. some of my closest female friends from lingkod aren't even here.

lingkod has brought me closer to god, has brought me immense grace especially when i had to go through a lot of tough times in my life. i've found prayer partners, shopping partners, movie partners, and, gasp, videoke partners.

and if you've ever heard me sing, you'd know how major that is.

won't be downloading this one ...

it's been a while since i paid for songs. i either download it, or ask for the song from a friend. when it comes to our k pop addiction, anto takes care of buying the cd and i rip it from there and upload it to my trusty ipod.

after all -- i realized yesterday -- i don't have a cd player at home, except for the one that comes with the laptop.

but then, the essentials album launch happened.

and i fell in love with "love story" after watching the mtv at anto's ipad when i rode with her once.

and i'm in love with this boy ...

so now i'm the proud owner of not one, but two bigbang CDs.

guess who'd be eating gulay + half rice the rest of the month ... ☺

if all days were weekends ...

... i'd probably be deathly bored by now. hahaha.

{by the way, here's a pic of me wearing the look-alike blouse}

but since they aren't, i can't wait till this saturday ☺

last weekend was the company outing at las casas filipinas. i'd been there before and while i liked the place, i didn't exactly love it. so i wasn't terribly excited about going to the outing, but my boss said that she'd go if one of us went and i didn't want to be a killjoy. i figured, i'd probably rack up model employee points (my ultimate goal, wait, my penultimate goal. taking over a particular department happens to be the ultimate, haha!) if i did. of course, there was major regret when i realized that it would be the same day as the lingkod alabang outing (at splash island, where i'd never been and always wanted to go!) but i thought, maybe it's time to widen my horizon a bit.

i did enjoy the outing, and las casas too, if only cause it's soooo much bigger now and there's a number of things that weren't there before. i got to sleep after lunch and read a book and eat lotsa food and pose in pictures (clearly i indulged in the most important things in my life, hahahaha!). being the admin-minded person that i was, i wasn't so happy with how things didn't seem so organized and how the outing, despite months of planning, seemed so haphazardly put together. then again, maybe this would further bolster my take-over bid in that department. mwahahaha!

this coming weekend, i've a date with the sabado girls to go to the big bang album launch, and there's a videoke + laser tag activity in the evening. so much for my plan to load up the car with gas and just hie off somewhere. then again, sunday's free. maybe i can still do my one-person-getaway then ☺

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

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!

happy happy fun fun weekend!

i wish i had taken more pictures ...

i really wish i did ... cause i had one of the most fabulous weekends ever ☺

saturday morning saw me sprawled in bed. it was the first saturday in weeks that i didn't have to get up early (saturdays in bed are a major luxury for me!!!) so i woke up, turned on the tv and watched one inane tv show after the other. all too soon, i had to get out of bed and head on out to tuloy where we were having a general assembly. at first it was such a drag (cause none of my friends were there) but eventually they came and my team won in the challenges (yipee!). i allegedly won in the raffle, but since i had to leave early for a surprise honoring, i wasn't eligible to get the nice bag i had won. boo!

in any case, after that, it was one mad dash after the other: getting stuff for the surprise honoring, surprising ann at the music min practice (complete with harana, mind you!), hearing mass at st. jerome, running to festival mall to catch the 9:30 pm screening of "catch me, i'm in love (waaaah!!!! and winner ni gerard anderson ... buhay na naman ang fantasy life ko!), then heading on out to visit pazi's lola's wake. since we still had ann's birthday cake, we cajoled her into treating us to mcdo coffee, which she did, and we stayed there till 3 am just going through the various photo albums on facebook (thank goodness for mcdo wifi!).

while going home at 3am shouldn't be a problem since i had woken up late and stayed in bed virtually the entire morning, it also meant spending the entire sunday with almost zero sleep! tita mayu asked me to join them in tito lito's 50th birthday bash with the kids and we were hoping to catch the 8am mass at our lady of caysasay so it meant having my second cup of coffee in four hours. for a non-coffee drinker like me, that was the crazy boost i needed! so while the magician was getting ready, i played a couple of games with the kids and distributed some of the prizes i had in my giant bag. it was funny cause the kids were pretty much ignoring me at first but after the magician concluded his act, they were all over me asking if i still had some stuff up my sleeve -- they wanted more games!!!! i was crazy sleepy on the way home but woke up long enough to inhale this yummy crepe from breton ... i think it was gwenn da hu (okay, it's not spelled that way, but it sounded like that in my mind) which was a lovely mixture of sweet (from the dark cherry thing) and savory (with the raclette cheese). it was a departure from the stuff i usually order (either the one with mangoes or the neptune) and i was proud to be all different and what not. then again, it could just be cause i was crazy sleepy.

got home by six and had a few (too few actually) zzzzzs before heading on out to KEf's house for adobo dinner. it was a lovely, simple dinner with good friends, half of whom have never been to his house so they were oooohing and aaaahing over just how pretty his place is. i've been there countless of times and i was still ooohing and aaaahing. sigh, one day dear house, you'll be as pretty too! it's the start of a new week and i'm still majorly sleepy. wish i could just crash a bit first but i can't. there's dinner care of a new friend tonight which will include bonding with new people. so i'm probably getting home late again tonight, but it's all good.

ain't no mountain high enough

the dumaguete diaries is interrupted by this special "broadcast": me - the overweight, non-outdoorsy mall rat has conquered mt. pinatubo. see, i have pics to prove it:

here's on the trek on the way up pinatubo:

here's the crater lake:

and here's kuya ef cause i'm on the other boat and just had my picture taken by him. yes, we reciprocate favors of the picture-taking nature. haha:

it was a crazy trip: meeting time was 4:15 a.m. at shell mckinley. since none of us wanted to be late, i started picking people up at 3:00 am: first theo, then che. because i got lost on my way to theo's house (either cause i was still truly sleepy or cause i never really go to his house from the opposite side), it took us almost thirty minutes before we finally got to kuya efren's house. from there, mang pablo the driver took us to shell mckinley and it wasn't long before we were on our way to our weekend adventure.

pinatubo just used to mean a couple of random things for me: a dormant mountain that blew its top, major ashfall in metro manila that lasted for months, displaced aetas, and things that friends climbed. i never thought that one day, i too would be making the trek to pinatubo. but cause i probably now belong to a relatively active action group, it was planned that we'll join dominic's planned trek to mt. pinatubo. okay, i thought, this shouldn't be too hard.

riding the van to tarlac wasn't too hard (i had lucked on sitting on the third row). riding the 4x4 going to pinatubo wasn't too hard either (my group had lucked on the 4x4 with wide benches). going up mt. pinatubo, now THAT was hard. still, i made it. and while going up the last couple of steps were the most difficult (they had made stairs out of cemented stones ... going up the stairs are my major weakness), the view that greeted me as soon as i was the peak was sooooo worth it.

however, as kuya ef pointed it out, experiencing a place always trumps just seeing it, so i'm glad i forked over the additional P350 to go boating around the lake. the boatman we got was nice enough to answer all of our questions, from the typical (is this lake just filled with rainwater? answer - no, there's a spring that fill it up) to the scientific (how deep is the lake? why is it this color?) to the inane (why is that man wearing a bahag?). we got to experience the steaming sand on the other side of the lake, take an inane amount of pictures, and make the most of the trek.

ultimately, the trip there took longer than the time actually spent atop mount pinatubo, and the trip back was even longer. still, it was the absolute best way to spend a weekend. even my achy body will attest to that.

weekend report

i know that the weekend is supposed to be for chilling out, relaxing, and ditching the schedule. but, when it comes to schedules, i am OC by heart (just go ask my boss who caught me "doodling" schedules on the margins of my notebook during one meeting). plus, i am a certified list maker -- my office desk is actually littered with post-its of various lists i've made: list of how much to withdraw from the atm and the breakdown of where the money will go; list of things i want to check at trinoma over lunch; list of stuff i have to do within the day ...

... you get the point.

in any case, i've a list of stuff to do this weekend. officially, it'll be another 363 days until my birthday comes rolling again, but as far as my list is concerned, i'm still celebrating ☺☺☺