West River Side

I had one helluva week and one helluva morning. I had cried, laugh, laugh while I cried and simply put. I was at the point of breaking down. So I had to taker a leave. After a presentation in which client basically ruined my day, I decided to have some me time. My back has been bothering me for a couple of days and I needed some rest. Waking up at 5am didn't particularly help. My brother and I had a scheduled appointment for target shooting at Stronghand Shooting Range in E. Rodriguez (nearing Cubao). I forgot to search for directions so halfway down E. Rodriguez, I had to call up the range and ask for directions. We arrived just in time for the session. Stronghand Shooting Range I was giddy with excitement - after all, this is one for the books, my first time to hold a gun, let alone my first time to attend a learning session with my brother. Shooting Range When we arrived, we had to leave our ID with the guard and register at the front desk (filling up an info shee...

They say that you need to save at least 20% of your salary for the future. In order to at least get near the 20%, I try to avoid going to malls, choosing to stay home instead to avoid temptation. But the curious shopper in me, refuses to rest. I find myself going through a lot of websites and drool over the clothes and bags. If you think all I do is save pictures, think again, thanks/no thanks to paypal, my retail therapy goes to online shopping. My three weakness? 1. Ebay with its value for money purchases. Sellers, stop selling lovely things at cheaper than mall prices x_x 2. Apple.  App purchases and in app purchases (Anyone agree with me for Smurf and Snoopy? I have had multiple five dollar purchases.) Itunes recently launch their music store locally. uh-oh. If I want a song badly, I may be tempted to just click the Buy for 99cents button.  3. Discount coupons. The thought of getting things at a fraction of the cost is so tempting. Take that of my article on Pisobi...

It's wonderful if you love something and you discover that an acquaintance love it as well. There is an instant connection. I collect Eiffel Towers and Owls. I use the term collect loosely, while I have stumbled upon a lot of stuff with Eiffel Towers, sometimes, its just too heavy on the pocket to buy them all. Anyway, majority of employees (from the company I work for) were gathered together to do a flash mob. Since it was at the hottest time of the day, I kept my head bowed because I couldn't see anything if I look up. One thing led to another and I saw that one of my new office mate had an Eiffel Tower tattooed on her ankle! I love it! If only I could get one, but I can't but its amazing to find someone who shares the same interest as you do. :) Of Eiffel Towers and Owls. :)

Today was one of the worst day to cap of my short work week. I had a 9AM meeting at work so in order to be there super early, I left my house at 7AM, normally drive time will take an hour to a maximum of an hour 20 minutes. Needless to say, after getting stuck in Aurora Boulevard for 30 minutes and believing a police officer's word that there was a stalled 10 wheeler truck, I was on my way to Makati via Shaw Boulevard/Accacia Road when my friend sent an SMS that there was no stalled truck to begin with. What irritated me further was that it took me two and a half hours to get to work because of this. I was later on a really bad bad day to be late and I couldn't find anyone to blame except for foolishly believing a person of authority. :( I arrived at our office and the meeting had already started. The big boss was looking at me as to communicate who is this and why is she late? May the floor open up to swallow me please. When it was my time to present, the client asked a ...

Whenever people can ask me what my favorite color is, I always have a difficult time deciding which color I want. Sometimes I like green, sometime blue, sometimes yellow or on some occasions, pink. I have always loved color after going through a dark phase. By dark I mean, wearing black, white, gray and navy blue. The more colorful, the better. This applies to all things. Sometimes, I stumble upon items so silly but so colorful, I love it. My mother is 100% for it :) This used to be a white table. We spruced it up with a new coat of paint. I found this jar at a store. While its quite small, but the cover is so dainty, I just had to have it Found this scarf  at a bargain bin This Japanese print was too cute to forego Embrace color!

I really love the Resort collection for 2013. While I never post pictures from runways, I can't help but love these pieces from Gucci and Monique Lhuillier.  Monique Lhuillier Resort 2013 I love how it captures the silhouette of the model The bold pink belt is a bright addition Higs in all the right places Gucci Resort 2013

Couponing websites will be the death of my credit card (not to mention itunes) I have had many charges but have yet to use them but so far, majority of my purchases have been fantastic. I availed of the Yoshinoya 50% off on Metrodeal and purchased 6 coupons. Little did I know that the coupons were about to expire in 5 days. My Yoshinoya love started even before I went to Japan, going to Japan sealed it even further. You see the beef in Yoshinoya is so tender that it can literally melt in your mouth (the way I remembered it since I stopped eating beef a year and a half ago). When I went to japan, contrary to the fast food look locally, the Yoshinoya’s there look like hole in the wall shops with bar stools – it looks like your typical canteen but cleaner. I had Yoshinoya for breakfast almost every single day. It was that good. The rice alone was superb. Anyway, since the GCs were expiring, we had to use them while it was still the weekend. We headed to Robinson’s Galleria wit...

After a long time of being cooped up inside the house due to the on-going construction of the QC roads that even our gates were blocked, it was high time to go out and de-stress with some retail therapy. We headed to Forever 21 for some affordable finds and my friend ended up bringing 2 bags full of clothes (11 pieces to be be exact) while I stopped myself from overspending and settled with 2 dresses. I would have wanted to purchase the vest and a black pleated skirt but I thought about my closet and dropped them down. My friend and I was each other’s stylist critiquing how an item looks on the other. I had a grand time choosing items for my friend since she was long due for a shopping spree. My friend wants to hide her tummy so my rules for her were: 1.        No details in the tummy area, details can be found near the legs or neck 2.         Create a silhouette – hide tummy with long vest that can elongate you ...

Whenever we go to events and there is a raffle, I always see people praying and crossing their fingers, hoping to win the grand prize. After going to a lot of events and not winning anything, I know for a fact that I'm not lucky when in comes to the game of chance. So imagine my surprise when I was announced winner for a new Canon camera in the event I attend this evening. Proof I need to show the redemption area I have been meaning to buy a camera for the longest time to replace my old one since it is too heavy to carry around. I couldn't figure out what to get nor did I want to part with any cash. I was actually toying between a Canon S91 and through the game of chance, I was given a Canon A2200 for free. It definitely is an improvement in terms of weight versus my old camera. Happy shooting to me! *Click *Click *Click

Just another day and a half left before the Holy Week rolls in. I'm looking forward to spending some quality time with the family and making progress on my reading list. The knowledge that the mini-vacation is just a few days away is taking a toll on my brain. My brain is screaming for SUN, ACTION and FUN. Totally opposite of the things I have to accomplish before the week officially ends. STAYCATION INITIAL AGENDA: Holy Thursday - CLEAN ROOM - Bisita Iglesia Holy Friday - DVD Movie Marathon Black Saturday - Catch up with book list Easter Sunday - Movie time - Outdoor BBQ and Jacuzzi time Araw ng Kagitingan - do something we've never done before?!?

To the shopaholics or those who are loyal to H&M, they will finally be opening new stores this year. ASIA: Thailand and Malaysia Bulgaria, Latvija and Mexico Wohoo! Hopefully, they will open before November :)

I learned something new today. Some of you may know this but for those who don't, this is a treat :) When buying beauty or facial products, make it a point to label the date when you first opened it. Because most beauty products have Period After Opening expiry dates wherein you need to throw out produts after it exceeds the PAO date. Better throw them out that wasting hundreds of pesos/dollars on rectifying the damage brought about by expired products. TIP : Keep a masking tape in handy to label PAO dates so you won't miss it. For facial creams, when I know it is beyond expiry date and I still have a lot to it, I apply it to my heel. The heel is 10x thicker than the skin on your face and more often than not, cracked so apply them there to maximize usage. So the next time you see the symbol below, make sure to grab your masking tape and pen!

Here's a rundown of my favorite apps Although there are quite a few apps in residing in my itouch - i rarely use them all - GAME: DRAW SOMETHING (unleash your inner artist with this interactive app - ask your friends to play and share with you their inner creative skills) - UTILITIES : photo transfer (this saves my touch from more having than 6000 pictures that I have inside - GAME : Small Street - cute - very cute - CAMERA: Kinotpic (let's you take cinemagraphs) - UTILITIES: MMDA app - the most efficient traffic advisory Oldies but goodies Instagram, Stylebook, Alarm Clock (nothing better than waking up to your favorite songs), Project 365 (a daily dose of pictures) D

I stumbled upon this article in Yahoo and I found myself drawn to read up on how to be a millionaire (a million pound millionaire = Php 72M).  http://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/how-to-be-a-millionaire.html  While having a lot of money used to be my goal, Yes, money can buy us a lot of things that we see in TV and movies and read about in books but lately I have come to realize that no amount of money can buy back time. Yes, I realize this quite late but then it is never too late to know your priorities. Loosing my dad coupled and facing the reality of death made me realize that what is important is not the amount of money you have made, but the relationships you've built with the important people in your life. My time with my Dad was so short, there are days when I miss just having someone there who loves me unconditionally and is willing to listen to however small or petty my problem or story might be. So my plan is to create moments that matter. Work is just work - it w...

Driving to and from Makati has me experimenting new routes. I am always on the quest to discover new faster and better route than to bear more than an hour traffic in EDSA- with all the red lights looking back at you, it;s hard not to go insane and start ramming cars left and right from frustration. Aside from routes, there are actually days when there's minimal traffic and it's better to bring a car than suffer from unscrupulous cab drivers. I go to work from Monday to Friday hence the rush hour really applies to me especially when my road trip takes me from North to South on a daily basis. Here goes:  FROM QC TO MAKATI:  Route 1: (Araneta Ave - V Mapa - Zamora - Zapote - Ayala Extension) BEST ROUTE 1 HOUR from Banawe to Ayala corner Paseo Take Araneta Avenue (quite a long stretch depending on where you're from) and turn right to Aurora Blvd. Straight and turn left at the first corner (V. Mapa)  Turn right at the dead end this will lead you to a string o...

Life's been so hectic these days that weeks seem to fly by. The next thing I know, it's almost Chinese New Year and a year since my Dad passed away. On a lighter note, I'm so glad that the "extra work" is over - which basically means no more daily clearing, waiting for your turn (which never seems to happen) and weekends spent inside the office. But no matter what the outcome may be, I learned quite a lot from that experience. I can drive normally again (by normal I mean with a calm heart) since I got my driver's license yesterday! Yipee!

Despite working the weekend until the jittery bug presentation yesterday, I woke up early to renew my expired license - I have been driving my car for 2 days with an expired license since I really really had no choice. My aunt told us that if we want to renew our license, we had to line up as early as 7:30. I woke up at 7:30. hahaha... Finally, I decided to leave the house at 8:15 and slowly but surely drove to SM North EDSA. After encountering slight hicks in my trip - Baler was closed so I had to experiment taking another route by following random cars - literally until I found the street I was looking for - I finally made it there at 8:35AM. I also saw that there were NO LINES! and the place wasn't even open. After taking my time inside the car, I went down to the officeand passed by the Drug Exam place beside it - there were people there already so I hurriedly picked up a form and started filling it out. I was done so I just left it at the counter. The staff finally came ou...

I'm so busy these days that that I can hardly catch up with my emails when I saw the email from groupon from a couple of days back, I got excited. They were selling a cute limited edition red dragon usb for only 529 and I wanted one. So cute (hahahaha I get swayed by cuteness) anyway when I reached their website,turns out that it was already sold out! Since I'm quite persistent when I want to be, despite my busy schedule, I searched high and low on what other sellers or websites are offering the USB at the same price. Thankfully a few minutes later, I was able to find one and it was such a coincidence that the seller was my friend! Hahaha. Such a small world. I'm quite happy with my purchase. it's sch a cute addition to my desk - never mind the USB, I wouldn't want to lose one of its parts. Kingston limited edition dragon USB flash drive just in time for the Chinese New Year. *picture taken from another website - Sorry, just got mine today and I'm excite...

This morning, Mo Twister posted a question on-air. He asked everyone if there was something that you would stand in line and wait hours for. Thank God I was not the one driving because once i heard the question, answers kept cropping up. - 30 Seconds to Mars concert- 2 hours with only flimsy umbrellas to protect us from the harsh rain - Another 2 hours in line being moved from different places for the photo opportunity with Jared Leto! hahaha - Forever 21 opening in Megamall! - 3 hours of waiting time in the superbly long cashier queue back in the days of Mango sale 2005 - Oh Lord, I just remembered! Celebrity Louis Vuitoon Sale! I waited 2 hours for that and I wasn't able to get any. What a shame. I think I'm willing to wait in line for bargain deals and have the opportunity to be one of the first ones to choose.

My day started out well, I was still high from yesterday's positive comments and honestly, nothing  will get me down. Bring in all the work and it is okay. However, when I got home from work, one single phrase that I uttered change the ending of my day - unfortunately. I just said, Mom are you angry? The sentence before was I'm going out with Chris tomorrow = doomsday for me Well, I can say its my fault - for uttering the wrong phrase again! Needless to say, I've learned my lesson. Staying positive, D