The Story of my Life

Hello!!! Yes, I am still alive. Yes, I am still fabulous.

I know...I know... I know... I know I owe you a lot of updating. I've been busy attending to so many things since the start of 2012, I barely have enough time to update my blog.

I've been busy being a mom, a wife, a woman of the house, an employee, and all sorts of different things. As much as I'd like to talk about what I've been up to, I really can't find the time. :(



What I can only give you now are snippets of what kept busy early in the year:

1. My little girl is growing really fast. She has four teeth now. Two on the upper and two lower front teeth. She's also learning to walk. She's a doll and I miss her everytime I'm away from her.

2. My hubby turned 33 last month. And in celebration of that, I threw a surprise birthday party for him. That's probably one of the most generous party I've thrown for him.

3. Hubby and I have been indulging in steaks lately. A little expensive, but when we have the budget and when there's a special occasion, we try to find a good steak house.

4. I never knew managing a household is this difficult, especially when you have two 19-year old yayas. It's like having two teenagers at the same time.

5. Been working on our itinerary for some time now. We were assigned to take on Italy, which is by far the most complicated and most expensive leg of the trip. But just looking at the pictures of the sites we'll see is enough to pump me up for this trip.

6. Work has been extra busy too, but boring. hahahaha

7. In preparation for the trip, I've enrolled in French class. ehehehe

8. And I'm back into photography. Acquired new lenses for the trip, and starting to acquire books to help me improve my current skills.

9. UAAP Women's Volleyball Finals is up this week. I hope my girls win.

Haaaayyy... So many things, so little time. I want to read more about France, Italy and Germany before we leave so I'd appreciate the place more. But I'm also dreading the day we'll leave Kara behind so I try to spend as much time as possible with her.

All these things happening at the same time. I'm not complaining though, but I hope I don't miss out on the important events in my hubby and baby's lives.

I'll be back for more updates. For now, I will leave you with a picture of my little girl when she turned 9 months. Hope this lightens up your day.

A week after Halloween, I rushed to Divisoria to buy decors for our new home. Last year, we had decors on our front door, on the mirror and on the TV console. This year, my goal was to put up a Christmas Tree given the extra space we have between our living and dining room.

Here's our very first tree.

I it cost us P4,000 for everything. Can you believe that? That is such a steal! I budgeted about P10,000 for this tree to happen so when I came home with still a lot of money left, I was soo happy.

Okay, so just to give you a rundown. Here's a break down of the costs:

• 7-ft tree is P1,500 (originally priced at P1,800) - in the malls this tree would cost P5,000. So much more than the actual cost of everything.



• 6 meter LED lights at P400 - mall price: P1000



• Pink trimmings cost P300 per dozen - mall price: P90-100 per piece
  




• Silver balls at P75 per dozen (combination of frozen, glittery, and shiny ones)



• Mini mirror balls at P90 per dozen





White egg-shaped timmings at P150 per half dozen - not available in malls




Silver poinsettia at P200 per dozen - mall price: P40-50 a piece


Two-toned ribbon at P150

...this spanking oversized watch from TW Steel.

I have a long list of wishes but this one tops it all. Will post my other wishlist in a separate entry. hehehehe

6 1/2 to be more precise. Some of her milestones include: her first tooth already came out, another one on its way. She can already sit on her own, and she's already starting to crawl. She's also starting to communicate, she repeats ma-ma-ma, ba-ba-ba when she's upset or frustrated.


Last Saturday, though, we had to bring her to her pedia's clinic as she had cough and colds, again. But before leaving, I had to take photos of her as she was in the mood. Apologies for the blurry photos. I'm still getting used to the new lens.

Having fun with her little friend cum snack (yes, she munches on it when she feels like it.) hahaha

Her pretty bow. I want to have one myself. lol



Talking to Daddy.

Peek-a-boo with Daddy.

Crawling her way to the camera.

I'm just so happy that despite being sick she's still up and about. She plays and moves a lot so we don't get to worry so much.

Just a few weeks ago, a colleague posted photos from her trip to India. They were very interesting and majestic, as I had expected.



Then, earlier, I read from TheBagHag about this website. It's a blog of photos taken all over Paris---of people, places and just about anything seen in Paris. It got me more excited about our trip and I promise to make tons and tons of pictures of this once-in-a-lifetime trip.

The Flashmob. The photographer chanced upon the flashmob one day and they were dancing to BEP's I got a feeling. It must be really amazing watching them. Hope that when we're there, we'd see them perform too.

This is Cafe Bonaparte at Saint Germain. One of the things Husbo and I want to do is hangout in a cafe, al fresco, and watch people walk by. It'll be interesting how french people conduct themselves.

There are so much interesting photos in the website. And starting today, I'll visit the site everyday to get tips and to be inspired more.

1. Choose the items in your shabu-shabu platter - beef, chicken or seafood. Vegetable is a staple for every platter you order. The vegetable platter contains fresh homemade noodles, the fat and thin of noodles, vermicelli and egg noodle, Taiwan and Baguio petchay, beancurd, yam, black mushrooms and carrots.

2. Boil the soup at 150 degrees. When the soup starts boiling, it's time for the cooking to begin.

3. While waiting for this, you can start preparing your sauce. They will provide you with chopped onions, garlic, chili, spices and egg. What I do, I dump all the spices on the barbeque sauce, half of the chopped onions and garlic. I don't use the chili. The other half of the garlic and onion goes to the soup. To make the sauce thicker, I put the egg yolk in it, and the eggwhite on the soup.

4. Once the soup starts boiling, you may now start putting vegetables that takes a while to cook like corn and yam, and then the noodles. Next put in the meat, seafood. Vermicelli noodles, leafy vegetables, carrots, beancurd, meatballs should not be left boiling for more than 30 seconds.

5. You may put some of your sauce on the soup to add flavor.

6. Remember, eating and cooking may be done simultaneously. If you put the veggies last and the meat is not yet done, you may start with the veggies and so on.

And this is the happy bunch after a hearty meal at Healthy Shabu-Shabu.

Healthy Shabu-Shabu has branches in Podium, Bonifacio High Street, ATC, and SM North Edsa.

I'm not a resourceful person. If I could have it easier then I would. I'm also not a fan of Ebay nor Sulit.com.ph. So when were looking for Kara's costume, I only looked around Toy Kingdom and Facebook. That's it. But as we were nearing Halloween and we haven't found any costume for Kara, I had to drag myself to research for online sellers of anything she can wear.

Luckily, I was able to find one and a cute one at that! That same day, we bought Kara's costume. She was a bumblebee. The photos below were shots taken at her first trick or treat experience in Rustan's.

Me and my cute little bee

We tried to make her sit beside the bear. But since she couldn't do it without support, her dad had to holder her so she won't fall face flat. hehehe

Husbo and her with other halloween characters. I had a laugh when I saw the white man behind Jom. Multong-multo lang. hahaha

Love this song. And I sing it for Jerome. I love you, hon. Thank you for loving me the way you do.

When he looks at me

I know the boy sees things nobody else can see

All of the secret fears inside

And all the craziness I hide

He looks into my soul and reads me like nobody can

And he doesn't judge the girl

He just takes me as I am

Come what may, he believes

And that faith is something I've never known before

Come what may, he loves me

And that love has helped me open a door

Making me love myself a little more

When I turn away

He knows those are the times there's nothing he can say

Nothing that anyone can do

And so he lets me live it through

And when I'm in my darkest hours of uncertainty

He just simply lets me be

And goes right on loving me

Come what may, he believes

And that faith is something I've never known before

Come what may, he loves me

And that love has helped me open a door

Making me love myself a little more

And when it seems my dreams have all slipped through my fingers

When they just can't be found I turn around, and there they are

Shining in his eyes

Come what may, he believes

And that faith is something

I've never known before

Come what may, he loves me

And that love has helped me open a door

Making me love myself a little more

Come what may, he believes

And that faith is something I've never known before

Come what may, he loves me

And that love has helped me open a door

As mentioned in my earlier posts, I received two Muji gifts from Ryah and Gil. Just like Ryah, I have low EQ so when I get hold of a gift, I almost always want to open it right away. This time, I tried my best to controll myself until such time that I have take a photo of the packaging as well as the item itself.



Got a jar tea candles from Ryah, and they're all scented...Minty-scent to be more precise.

Gil, on the other hand, gave me shopping and toiletry bags. She said it's something I can use in our next trip. No Gil, will start using them, ASAP!. hehehe

Thanks Dears. Love you both to pieces!

And then there were fireworks to end my 33rd birthday....


Hubby picked me up after work and we headed to Makati Shang for dinner. At first he didn't want to tell me where we were having dinner but I eventually found out on the way. Funny thing is, our reservation was for Heat in Edsa Shang, not Makati Shang. He had no idea which Shangri-La Heat is. Good thing, there were empty seats at Circles in Makati Shang so we were accommodated. Sorry no prictures to prove this.


After dinner, we had our usual birthday drinks at Texas Roadhouse, Bonifacio Highstreet, with the Bigbarks and Leslie and Dex. Glad that Leslie and Dex joined para maiba naman. Hehehe



And to cap off the night, Leslie ordered her trademark drink for everybody.

I dont know about you but I don't like judging people only on the basis of what I saw from afar.

There, just want to let that out.

Turned 33 today.

I've always wanted to be surprised on my birthday, but there's something different with this year, because I didn't want any. Maybe it's the age.

Nicely wrapped, ain't it?


Pretty fabulous!



Then at work, Gil and Ryah surprised me with loots from Muji (photo to follow).



And the most amazing surprise of all, Hubby and Kara visited me at work with matching flowers and lasagna for sharing.

We had so much fun from the trip that I think it would be nice to let you know who we were at the trip. Here goes:

The Delos Santos Couple with their adorobale son, Amos. It was Jabs' birthday weekend so Roy organized the trip.

The Hotshot Corporate Lawyer, Hannah, who entertained us with her wit.

Our Ate. Ate Ethel who we will treat for a Monster Deal very very soon!


The Manggagamot Inc., Jojo and Myra.

Photographer Arnel. If I had photos during this trip, that's because he took those. :)


Madame Lawyer, Delight. She was every bit of a Princess. hahahaha (private joke).

Party girl and booze supplier, Raiz.

and, of course,

Yours truly, Odsinada Couple.