picture show

testing it out.

Positive Vibes!!!

Enough downer posts!!! Hubby says, program your mind and heal yourself. I've had enough of this on/off coughing bouts. That's the last I will mention it.

So, Im sharing a few happy photos from our recent Philippines endeavour.

Photo: Dino Lara

Post Process: by yours truly

First off, here is a tender photo of me and my youngest niece, Yana. She turned four two days ago and I you wouldn't think she's that young when you talk to her. She's the baby that has the whole family at her mercy. She doesn't smile for photos, that's why this shot is particularly dear to me. Also this was such a stressful point that blessed day, but I found a drop of comfort in making my niece smile.

This next one was the gang dancing to the tune of Janet Jackson's 'Together Again' before the reception party ended. We had to extend our party for another hour, LOL. This song is sooo close to me and my High School gang's hearts, we totally bombed our ballroom dance number to this song on our Seniors' night. Yes, them good old days.

 Photo: Patrick Reyes

Post-process: by yours truly

Here I am forcing Paul to sing the videoke with me - because I was forced to start it in the first place!!! :)

Photo: Dino Lara

Post Process: by yours truly

And last for the night, the bridal toast of my bridesmen, Raf and Paul. I love how Raf is holding a Pilsen bottle - I feel like it reflects the atmosphere of the party we aimed for. Just relaxed and total party mode. With this I leave you with a toast to good health, to married life and to my last night as a 27-year old fag hag. xxx

Photo: Dino Lara

Post Process: by yours truly

little celebrations

Lovely flowers from my office in bloom. <3

These coming weeks would be full of little celebrations for me and JB. Tonight, I insisted on a 'trial' celebration - went to my favorite Italian place for dinner where they make fresh pasta from scratch. 

First reason why the trial celebration - I needed some serious stuffing - I've been starving myself without my usual appetite over the last few weeks because of my illness. So I figured it's time for a little carbo-loading. Secondly, JB has been working double with me being sick so I thought he deserved some steak-lovin. And thirdly, hopefully, I am on my way to full recovery and I suppose that's worth celebrating. I also needed to know whether I can go out already; the night before we tried going out for dinner at the local shopping centre but as we were eating I started getting a massive headache so we had to finish up early and head back home. :(

So JB had his Porterhouse and I had my La Festiva Special - fettuccine with mussels and king praws in napoli sauce.

La Festiva Special - I order this every time. 

JB enjoying his steak & veggies

It's the valentine's weekend too. Lots of places will definitely packed, I suppose we'll just be staying at home. I need to get my strength back, and I think JB deserves a lot more lovin this valentine's anyway.

Also in a few days Ill be celebrating my 28th birthday, but I will be at work then (boo-hoo). I was, as every year, planning to take that day off only because I cant stand to be working on my birthday. But with my two week absence from work I am left without a choice.

JB and I were born exactly two weeks apart in the exact same hospital; this story we didn't find out til we were 23 years old and was about to get married and our parents met up for the pamamanhikan in 2006. So JB's birthday will be coming up shortly after mine and three days after that we'll celebrate 12 years of being a couple. Must think of a nice lil gimmick for that.

We're not planning any other grand celebrations this year, we've probably reached our quota of partying for the year when we went to the Philippines a couple of weeks ago for Christmas, New Year, numerous family reunions and of course our Philippine wedding (which reminds me I have to start the frigging wedding log).

So JB keeps on reminding me my birthday's coming up in a few days. This is gonna sound like a 90 year old, but I cannot wish for anything right now other than good health. I've never been this sick before so this is something kind of new to me. A new slr lens to go with good health would be nice too. :)

thoughts, thoughts and more thoughts

I have been down with extreme fevers, 4am violent chills and insatiable cough spells for the last 2 weeks. Pneumonia is a full on bitch. The good news is that today, I have been able to sit up without getting dizzy and this is the third day that my temperature's been normal (37 degrees Celsius and below, no fevers!) so I believe I can safely say (pwera usog) that I am on my way to recovery.

Thank God, the last weeks have been utter hell, with cough that feels and sounds like death JB had to sleep in another room. He's been very very good to me throughout this whole pneumonia drama - he did the groceries, the laundry, cleaning and sanitizing the house, in charge of picking up dinner, taking me to the doctor's clinic and to the emergency room twice - with one instance we both stayed up from 8pm til 4:30am. that's on top of his usual working hours of 9am to 5pm. How he ever became this man, I have no clue. I am thankful and greatly blessed. Anyhow, I'll save some more cheesiness on the wedding entry.

I've stayed at home this entire time I've been sick. The doctor at the hospital said I wont be the type to get admitted - I wasn't decrepit and i can take care of myself. Ugh. The thing about getting high fevers is that you're on a natural high, not the good kind. I was totally doped with the high temperature; dare I say it was an out of body experience? Probably is. In other words, I accomplished nothing these last two weeks other than try to get better. I wasn't here (home) nor there (Philippines) - I was just sick. What a waste of time, i could've edited my photo backlog. I could've started my Project 365 which i am still in discussion with myself about - I'm not convinced I am 365 days a year interesting to top the fact that I cant even keep up to this blog.

So now, I am about to get rid of you Pneumonia. It's not you, it's me. I've been in too much pain and trouble with you. I cannot wait to get that energy to do my photos again. I would also like to say that I've never looked forward to going to work as much as now, when the thought of being healthy again comes with it.

I need to upload photos to facebook, and do my wedding log. I owe it to my future demented and decrepit self. And I definitely owe this blog some more posts. :)

My office friends sent me these beautiful flowers today. They're so sweet and brightened up my rather lonely day. Thanks guys!

Felix Felicis

aaaargh! i really want to say "I'm BACK!!!" but all i can think of is "here-i-am-trying-to- spit-out-something-photoartistic-like-squeezing-out-empty-toothpaste!"

I've been utterly bogged down with work, the slow wedding planning and flickr changing their site and sharing settings (damn you flickr!!!). I've just found the time to figure out how to post photos from the stinking flickr site so here's my newest edit.



Photo taken by ruffagrina using madam's camera, model is Ms. MVR. :)

I'm also currently listening to the audio book of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. When i first started listening to audiobooks, it was quite uncomfortable because I'm used to speeding up through the pages of the physical book. It was a love-hate relationship at the start though, either the reader is not fast enough or if i speed up it's too fast or my mind would fly somewhere else.

There's this one girl upon learning that I listen to rather than actually read the books blatantly branded me 'lazy' - ignorance once again proves to be dangerous. But the good thing, or dare I say the best thing about audiobooks is that it enables me to MULTITASK.  Yes indeed. I usually listen to the audiobooks while I'm at work or I'm doing the dishes or cooking allowing me to do two things at the same frickin time.

I also stick to books I've read before that i liked - Harry Potter Series, the Twilight Saga (hee hee) and Dan Brown books. Although recently I keep with the Harry Potter books. They are familiar enough that I can l ignore it playing in the background while I try to concentrate with my work, also blocking out the loud office noise. At the same time they remain highly interesting to me being an HP fan and I don't seem to be getting tired of them any time soon.

Oh well, 3 more months til the next movie comes out. Here are some photos from the first part of the Deathly Hallows book care of Baltimore Sun website. Enjoy!

Repost: Hott Saturday

Originally posted NOVEMBER 25, 2009

Two saturdays ago, the weather people forecasted a sunny 34-degree weekend in melbourne. i declined my girls' invite to go shopping around CBD. through out the day i kinda regretted not going cause it was rather cloudy and there was a cool breeze.

got bored inside the house and asked the husband to go to the shopping centre. it was a very unproductive day; didn't see anything i liked until this man passed by the car on our way out the mall complex:

sorry, cant help it. :)

well, it was kinda really hot. but still!!!

you made my day, mr. invisible pants! :)

making wishes and dreaming

25th July 2010, in front of the house

I used to talk to the moon when it's full, atop the roof of my grandmother's house back when I was about 15. Loony, i know. But like how people say you can make a wish if you see double rainbows or four-leaf clovers are lucky, I used to believe you can make a wish on a full moon. I actually made that up but it actually gave me comfort doing that. That's probably my share of cray-craziness at that time of the month when La Luna's power is at its peak.


Tonight was a cloudless winter night with the goddess in full force. And I am a slave to her beauty, i was hypnotized. I braved the 6-degree night with my camera, tripod and remote. It would be just nice to stare at her  in all her gloriousness.

My midnight sun.
25th July 2010, in front of the house

even monochrome cant keep her

She's giving me good vibes. Thanks, dear goddess; I was in dire need of inspiration and here you are serenely singing us your cradle song.

I swear, since seeing Your face,

the whole world is fraud and fantasy

The garden is bewildered as to what is leaf

or blossom. The distracted birds

can't distinguish the birdseed from the snare.

A house of love with no limits,

a presence more beautiful than venus or the moon,

a beauty whose image fills the mirror of the heart.

- "I SWEAR", by Rumi

...

To complete tonight's food therapy session...

Filipino fave food first. (Say that five times fast!)

This, i always miss. Puto Bumbong is probably in my top three favorite Filipino food. It's slightly hard to find as they are usually only available around Christmas time. One day I'll try to make it.

They dont make maki here in Melbourne like Tokyo Tokyo's maki where they put sweet-sour mango instead of avocado/cucumber. And bite sized too.

DROOL. The famous Razon's Lumpiang sariwa (Vegatable Roll). I really have no words, just DROOL.

Razon's palabok. Enough said - if you're Filipino you'll understand.

Haaaaay, I'll have this in my dreams please....

Good thing I did this food post after dinner, Otherwise I'll be snacking at 12:29am. :)

F.U.

For a late dinner, I made these...

Clockwise: Vienna sausage omelet, fried mini-cheese kransky, grilled veggies sauteed in butter and garlic and leftover mabo tofu with bok choy.


I HAD A BAD DAY. there, i said it. It's actually more of a really bad ending to my work day so after wasting one hour staring in black space thinking about it, i sought refuge in my kitchen. My cooking spree is totally justified. ;)

I also made myself a nice cup of Gloria Jeans' caramel coffee. I'm not supposed to have my second cup of the day - my skin doctor would not approve. Well, it's her or my sanity.

Very, very, addictive coffee. This is Janine's and Lorna's fault.

Four days ago, I had lunch at a friend's house where they served grilled eggplant and capsicum. I would not touch eggplant if my life depended on it... until four days ago (this is the vegetable eggplant I'm talking about ok?). HOW COME NOBODY TOLD ME EGGPLANTS COULD TASTE LIKE BUTTER??? And that they are sooo far from okras in terms of texture? So Im a recent Eggplant convert and loving it. So this is my second night making these grilled veggies - Eggplant, capsicum and mushroom - this was my addition as I have a demi-obsession with mushrooms.

sauteeing grilled veggies

Im grateful for Donya Nella and Don Gil for introducing me to this grilled veggie dish. It is now part of my our weekly menu. :)

Recently, like the last 3 months, I've been learning a lot of dishes from friends and colleagues. For example, I never knew how to bake. My sister and I used to watch the Henny Sison baking/cooking show every Sunday and the only thing I got from the show is that you should follow exact procedures and measurements with baking otherwise it's not gonna turn out right. Since then I have always been afraid of baking and coming to Australia, I envied people who know how to whip up lovely cupcakes from scratch. Here are a few samples:

Lorna's cupcake

My birthday cupcakes by JDO. They we're perfect.

Lilianne works part time and some days she comes in with a tray full of cupcakes. Just coz.

SEE? How can you not be jealous? Lovely Lilianne graciously shared her basic cake/cupcake/muffin recipe which was fantabulous! It was soo easy I feel like a pro (nyehehehehe). I've only made the banana muffins and it wasn't too shabby; my friends' kids actually like them. Thanks heaps, Lil!

love the smell of freshly baked banana cupcakes

It's a work in progress and when I get better results I'll share photos.

Anyhoo, having breakfast for dinner was all in all a good idea. I feel a bit better, and a bit sleepy too. Tomorrow should be better.

P.S.

I love this egg poacher. That's one thing I am yet to learn, to properly poach eggs manually.

et voila! perfect poached eggs!

P.P.S.

Except for the first photo on this post, all photos are taken with an iPhone 3GS. Not bad no? x

Ghetto Superstar

I really hope I can keep this blog up; this I think is the fourth blog I've created here on blogger and this is the only one that has surpassed the 2nd post mark. So, so far so good. ALthough, I would really, lilly lilly, appreciate your comments.

Anyhoolabaloo, I've attempted to clear my iPhoto and surprise, surprise I got held up editing old photos again. I got a good haul this time, from our holiday photos last year.

Here are a few images from our Motherland.

Fried peanuts and drinks sold on the street

White pet rats for sale

Gossip Girls

Oh, this was during the province's trade fair in September 2009. Aaaww, how nice are the nights you just stay out and stuff yourself with street food and try not to be sick on the ferris wheel.

Living in the Philippines, being an archipelago and the second largest at that, would always put you close to bodies of water. And this is what normally happens in most areas come high tide...

FLOOD.

That was the neighbour fetching the rain boots her daughter used to cross the water so she can safely and dryly wear hear school shoes. Yeah, people in the third world know how to find ways.

And ways we find. Look at this two guys who picked up a washing machine from a nearby store. 

Who needs a ute/pick up when you got a scooter and a very trusting pal?

That's how we roll in the third world. Fish out. =P

Bulacan Week Fireworks Competition 2009