Kids Praise and Cookies

After walking to McDonald’s to meet up for brunch with the boyfriend, we walked to Hi-Top a block over to buy dog food and some brown sugar. I felt like making chocolate chip cookies and though I didn’t look at the recipe I wanted to try, I knew I’d be needing brown sugar.

On the way to the grocery, I saw that the House of Praise was already open. Though I was across the street from the open doorway, I saw the rack of Kids Praise and I was drawn to it.

We went in, then out five minutes later with this:

kidspraise

As a kid, I grew up listening to and singing along with Psalty. How many albums were there? I forgot. But we must have had all of them! Everyone at Sunday School knew the songs and we’d often perform them in the annual shows we’d mount.

I must admit, I still could not help but remember my Aunt when I started listening to this album, but that need not mean sad thoughts.

One of the dreams I’ve had, or one of the things I listed as stuff I’d rather do, may soon start to happen.

I intend to start teaching my nieces and nephews the songs in this album, and if they want to, we’ll mount a mini performance for friends and family. What a wonderful way to learn about Jesus, and cultivate their talents right?  Today our kids, tomorrow Sunday School. Haha.

And what a coincidence too. While I was baking cookies today, I heard the kids singing outside. And they weren’t singing their usual picks – Love Story, Jai Ho, etc – they were singing tunes they learned from Vacation Bible School. Yay!

So I can’t wait til we can start doing this, but I’ve got to map it out first, have some sort of schedule. I hope they’d buy into this, the big girls too.

Tributes

The world was shocked with the news of the passing of two pop culture icons: Michael Jackson and Farah Fawcett.  Having been born in the ’80s, we grew up seeing both of them on TV.  We sang and danced along MJ’s hits and enjoyed his MTVs.  We followed their sometimes controversial lives too.

Recently (before their deaths), they were on the public eye once more. Farrah’s Story premiered back in May. It’s a documentary of her battle with anal cancer.  At the time of the premier, there was some buzz about it. I was hoping to watch the whole documentary on YouTube but only found part 5.  Even with just that part though, one can already be moved by her story.  I hope they show the full docu in the Philippines.

Here are two video montage of Farrah’s, both prepared before her death.  There are many tributes posted by fans but I chose to showcase these two because the music wasn’t heavy, and the photos of Farrah show her just the way I see her in my mind.

Oops. The embed feature is not enabled for the other video, so here’s the link to it instead: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJSDU3eyIaA

The Jacko was also in the news recently as there’s a scheduled World Tour signaling his comeback. His life was riddled with controversies and I must admit, it was the issues involving kids that had me turning away from him.  But no matter how he led his personal life, it cannot be denied that he made great music that has influenced many many others.

There are so many video tributes for MJ, but this is probably my favorite acoustic rendition of Thriller:

I didn’t know Emily Elbert, but I like her and will try to find more of her music.

Here in the Philippines, the YouTube famous Dancing Inmates also prepared a tribute for MJ whose Thriller music video was their inspiration for their most popular performance:

Help send me to Photography Class!

I am doing something I don’t think I’ve ever done anything before. I am asking for donations.

But it isn’t for any cause or charity. It is something that will benefit me, and well, you too. Wouldn’t you like to see me post even better photos?

Well the gang at JessicaSprague.Com is celebrating their second anniversary in DigiLand.  And one of the surprises announced today is a special summer offering of one of their online classes that I’d been anticipating:Candice Stringham’s Oh Shoot! Beginning Digital SLR Photography class.  I’ve wanted to sign up for this class since I saw it on their store, but I just couldn’t justify the costs. But now… I really really want this.  There are other classes available here that I can physically attend, and would cost a little less (though with transpo and food expense, maybe it will cost more after all). But if you read her class description, you’d understand why I want to sign up.

The thing is, the registration will open in a few days and I only have about 70 USD in my Paypal account, and the class costs 126 USD. So what I’m asking is — could you help me make up the difference? Please? I don’t know if anyone will actually donate, but it wouldn’t hurt me to try would it? Click on the button to donate! 🙂 And don’t forget to leave a note so I can thank you properly 🙂




*The Paypal website seems to be having problems. If so and the button above doesn’t work, please try to send your donations to verabear (at) msn.com. Thanks again!

Ohhh… I almost forgot about posting pictures! I decided to join in for a picture meme called You Capture:

Photobucket

This week’s theme is SUMMER.

It’s my favorite time of year.

First off – our beach side photo from Baler. My niece Hannah snapped this for us at around 8 in the morning.

balerbeachside

Later that morning, we hopped on a tricycle, just the boyfriend and I and we were taken to this wonderful place. The water was so cold! A welcome respite to the heat of summer.  This is about 45 minutes away from the beach.

balerfalls

This boy was with us in the trip. He’s the son of one of my childhood friends! Isn’t he cute? He loved swimming in the kiddie pool at the resort!

BALER MAY09 - 24

Summers are the perfect reason for team outings. And what are summers if not for goofing around?

GRID boys 4

The boyfriend and my nephew Esban are perfect companions for outings like this!

alfred&ban

Every summer we realize how fearless E becomes when in the water. Because he knows how to swim now, he wasn’t afraid of tackling the slide! Alfred was waiting to catch him of course. Hehe

ban

And here’s one more photo from Summer of 2009:

happybirthdayma!

Happy birthday Ma! (today’s her birthday!)

Go visit the other participants to You Capture:  Summer 🙂

Wedding Plans

Before leaving for work on Thursday night my mom asked me to take my Maxine with me and go straight to her office after my shift. She apparently needs some photos for a presentation she’s preparing.  So even while I was already hungry, and sleepy, I went straight to the Seminary.  I snapped a few photos of this map they have in their office lobby. It shows where in the Philippines the ECP is.  We also had to take pictures of the Church’s flag.  It only took 10 minutes tops.

My aunt runs a canteen and I decided to have lunch right there.

becky's place

While eating, my aunt joined me and we had a nice chat.  She’s taking care of the catering services for a cousin’s wedding taking place in July.  This cousin has settled in the US already but he’ll be coming home with his bride to get married at our small beautiful homey church. The same church where my wedding will take place – someday. 🙂

So we talked about what’s going to happen and then she also asked me about our own plans for getting married.  My cousins told her about what Alfred and I have been thinking about and she’s always asked about it since then. She took out her magazines and we had a fun time looking at the beautifully crafted wedding cakes.  We marveled at the gowns too, and the different motifs for the wedding reception.

It’s always been the question of funds that kept us from concretely planning our wedding. But I think there’s something else. We should just decide on a budget, set a date, and then make sure the money will be there. Haha.

I think what’s really keeping me from pushing things forward is that I haven’t dropped a single pound. Seriously. I want to get married in a beautiful gown, be beautiful and radiant.  Have you seen my photos lately? No matter what I do, I don’t look the way I feel or look the way I want to. But I want that for my wedding.

And that means I must shed off some of this extra weight.

I am not looking for the impossible. I will not say that I have to reach my ideal weight before I can get married. That may never happen unless I get a bariatric surgery.  But lose weight I must.  I have an idea of how much, and what’s realistic in the timeframe that I’m looking at.

So the first step to finally walking down the aisle – lose weight. If it means going back to Marie France, or starting a 15-minute daily exercise routine, or popping some diet pills, then so be it.  I’ll start tomorrow. And I’ll take Alfred along for the ride.

Does this seem shallow? Maybe I am over simplifying things. It isn’t really our weight issues that keeps us resetting the wedding date for later. But I needed a reason. So there. 🙂

Anyway, back to my aunt.

becky's welcome

This duck welcomes guests to Becky’s place. It’s right at the doorframe of the red entrance. Cute, no? 🙂

I’d love to have a place like hers, only it won’t be a canteen but a bakeshop or a cafe with lots of books. Hay.

License to Wed

I had very little sleep on Friday night, then the boyfriend and I went straight to Trinoma after I rendered about 4 hours overtime at work.  I was hungry. I was sleepy. But I still had a fun time at the mall. I’m weird like that ‘no? Going to the mall gives me cheap thrills. Haha.

I did pick up a pink blouse (completely unplanned) and containers galore for my baking supplies. Seriously. We have so much fun going through that section of the mall. Haha 🙂

When we arrived home, my parents were on their way out. I felt sooo lazy, I plopped onto the couch just in time to see License to Wed.

License-to-Wed-822

It already started by the time I tuned in but I continued watching it anyway. The first scene I caught was Sadie’s parents’ anniversary dinner, just as Ben was about to propose.  I kept watching because I found Fr. Frank’s pre-wedding course interesting.  It did seem quite brutal – as if he was trying to break them up. No one was in on the plan, I mean no one from the couple’s friends or family.  I guess that made it a real test, versus a controlled one?

I think it was great that in the end, Sadie had some realizations too about how both of them had shortcomings.

It wasn’t a very memorable film though. Not very profound. Even a little predictable.

It kept me awake for another hour on Saturday, which meant sleeping at past 6PM then only to wake up the next morning – 14 hours later! Saturday was a blur to me. I watched this movie instead of logging online to post, drop ECs or go through Adgitize.  Which also means I was basically offline for close to three full days, some revenue lost there.  But that’s okay. Sleep is important.

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