I know that in the US, this weekend was the three-day Labor Day weekend. We definitely felt it here too, miles and miles away, because calls to outsourced customer service accounts dipped. 🙂 Here in the Philippines, next weekend will be a long one, owing to the declaration of a non-working holiday to mark the end of Ramadan. Many, even non-Muslims, are gearing up for a short vacation.
Even my nephew was talking about a trip to Ace Water Spa with my parents, and he didn’t seem to have the intention of asking me to tag along. He told me yesterday that they were going back there, so I asked when. He said, “sa three-day weekend ba yun?” 🙂
It would be nice to take a dip this weekend. Wonder if chlorine in the pools would be okay for my, by then, week-old rebonded hair? 🙂
back view 🙂
Hay. I wish we could somewhere this weekend too. A quick trip to Baguio, or nearer, Tagaytay. Or an overnighter somewhere, even a hotel in the city! I wonder how weekend Branson vacations are like? I’ve read a blogger talk about planning their trip there, or it happening now this Labor Day weekend?
The next and really only trip Alfred and I have planned is the one to Cebu next year, in February. Oh shoot! I wonder if it’s coinciding with a colleague’s wedding?
Okay, I just checked, and it does. Our last day there, is the day of the wedding. Not that I’ve been invited yet, but since we talk about it, is it safe to assume that I am? 🙂 Oh no, that would be sad. I wouldn’t want to miss it, but our tickets are non refundable and not re-bookable. Or maybe it is, I’ll have to see. They hadn’t set their wedding date yet at the time we got the tickets. 🙁
Wow, it’s been a long time since I posted anything related to digital scrapbooking. It’s not for the lack of anything going on in the digi world, but more because I have not scrapped anything in a long time. I do have a few feed subscriptions to designer blogs, as well as newsletter subscriptions for digi shops and one of the updates I received today was from Linda of Bon Scrapatit Designs. Apart from showing a photo and updates on her grandchild, she also has a giveaway that matches the theme of the September Fall Blog Train. That reminded to check out the rest of the designers participating in the blog train, and I found so much freebie goodness!
I’ve decided to continue with what I started from August, the Comment Challenge! Harriet who hosts the monthly challenge has not posted the badge up for September so I haven’t been tallying all the comments I’ve done in the past four days. But today, i realized that I still make a conscious effort to comment and decided to start tracking them again. So whether the challenge will be up at Harriet’s or not, I’m doing it! Let’s see if I top the 390 comments I made in August!
Oh and I want to give some Linky Love to my Top Commenter for August: Sandy from the Traveling Suitcase! Thank you so much for the visits and the comments 🙂
Friday was a loooong day that extended upto Saturday. Actually, I think it all started on Thursday…
Thursday night: attended the funeral of Kourtney. She’s a friend’s very young daughter who died of Dengue. She was at the ICU of the St.Luke’s Medical Center for only two days (if I remember correctly) before God ended her pain and took her to heaven. Before that, she’d been in and out of a hospital in Batangas.
That night at the memorial, it was raining, and the creek overflowed while I was at the church.
After the service offered by YAM and SKEP, I stayed on to sing hymns with friends I haven’t hung out with in a long time. Dex and his wife Joy are so young to be grieving over the loss of their only child. It also means that they still have a lot of life ahead of them, and they can definitely try for more babies. Dex is only 27.
We left the funeral just before 3AM. They were talking about Keema at Kebabers, or Tapsi from the store next to it. There was meryenda available at the wake, but I didn’t want to eat bread, no matter how tempting the ensaymada was. After a lot of prodding, the girls finally convinced me to treat them to breakfast at the Tapsihan where Fren works the night shift. So we invaded the sidewalk along La Ignaciana, and occupied the tables and chairs where the night owls from St. Luke’s would have spent their breaks. There was a lot of laughing going on because Chase was chasing each cutie away; every time a cute guy approached to buy something, he’d drop funny pickup lines! haha. 🙂 All of them just smiled back naman. 🙂
It was already 4am of Friday by the time we called it quits. I was officially awake for24 hours.
A few hours later (this is Friday now), it was time to wake up and start a new day. We had a full day ahead: a visit to Tayhua store in Binondo to pick up photography gear, and a lunch/drinking session with my team at Sangkalan near the office. Finding Tayhua wasn’t too difficult, getting a cab back to QC was more challenging.
For lunch, we met up with my team and had a few hours just chatting, eating and drinking booze. We headed home at around 330pm. I thought I’d get some sleep, and then go online. That was far from what happened, haha.
My niece Chiki (who turned 16 the day before), was having her hair rebonded. After a few minutes considering it, I decided to get the treatment too. We all finished at 12 midnight! It was thaaaaat long because Chiki has very thick hair, frizzy too! Haha. While we waited, there were lots of kwento, and Freedah (her mom) cooked up some spaghetti for our belated celebration for Chiki’s day.
I tried to go online at midnight, but found myself nodding off to la-la-land while typing. So I slept on the couch until Alfred came home from seeing his friend in Bulacan at around 4am. After awhile, it was Kuya’s turn to come a-knocking. He had spent the evening at the wake of Kourtney, who was transported to Batangas in the wee hours of the morning of Saturday.
So it looks like I did not get much sleep over the weekend right? Well, I went up to my room at around 7am just as dad was preparing breakfast. The next time I was up? 2PM. So there, whatever sleep I lost from the past two days were all recovered. But doing things this way makes me feel that the weekend was too short. Totally opposite of how much time I felt I had the previous week. But that’s okay, I had spent time with family and friends that I haven’t been with in a long time. It’s all good.
Today is #sentisabado on Twitter and it was fun reminiscing about stuff from the past. From Galaga and Super Mario, to my old maroon and blue Swatch watch, 101 Dalmatians with the Happy Meal, and even the cheap laminate flooring (or was it linoleum?) on my grandmother’s house. Many of the people I follow are also twitting about what makes them sentimental this Saturday, and it’s all fun to read. Looking forward to next Saturday already. 🙂
Oh and one more thing to close my Saturday: potluck dinner with the whole Somebang family to remember Lola’s 6th death anniversary (September 1).
Well, the transaction took awhile because my payment got delayed, and baby Hannah was in the hospital for two weeks, rendering her mom unable to work on my order. But the long wait was well worth it. Check me out with my bag:
It looks like a very simple bag, but I am sure it was challenging to make. I love it! It’s very comfy to the touch and quite roomy too. I tossed my camera in it (I mean Deena, not Pinky) and, I swear, it didn’t feel so heavy! I’ve always complained about my camera big being a bit on the heavy side when I have all my stuff in it. With this one though, it was just right. 🙂
If you’d like to find out what other designs they have for these bags, and how to order, go to Hannah Ysabelle’s Multiply page. Joan, her mom, makes these bags herself. 🙂
August Comment Challenge update: I made a grand total of 390 comments! Epic fail! Hahaha 🙂 But I failed only in terms of reaching the 1000 comments goal. I succeeded in finding new blogs to follow, and really engaging myself more when hopping around the blogosphere. I hope that I have also encouraged a reader, or two, to go ahead and leave comments and interact with the blogs you also visit.
Like today, it was a welcome surprise to see a friend’s name in my comment box. I miss you girl, and miss just hanging out and laughing so hard with you. When was the last time? Too long ago! Let’s go watch the UST choir’s concert together 🙂
Entrecard Top Droppers for August: Thank you so much! Once again, I appreciate the visits, and more the footprints you leave behind.
I only saw one movie in the cinema in August – The Expendables! But I did get to see a couple more movies from home, including Julie Delphy and Ethan Hawke in Before Sunset. Then there were the movies shown on cable TV that we would watch in the afternoons. Movies like The Rocker, and this other movie where the protagonist was a high schooler who got thrown into prison for a while, and then attended a different school when he came out. In the new school, he established an entirely different reputation: that of a bad boy. He has a band too, with his old geeky friends. I don’t know the title of the movie, but Zooey Deschanel was there too as his friend and band mate (not his love interest though). The new guy lived with his dad in a trailer, and I remember how the boyfriend wondered aloud how in other parts of the world, motorhomes are real homes. It must be exciting to be able to drive your home somewhere and not worry about spending on accommodations, and having the great outdoors as your living room or porch. But it could be a tiresome life too not to have much private space. And if you really traveled a lot on it, you’d probably rack up huge costs on motorhome repairs! Oohh, but I’ve gone too much out of topic here.. what’s the title of the movie again? You gotta help me out babe!
Anyhoo… in September I plan on reorganizing and backing up my pictures stored in my hard drive, and the older photos in the external hard drive. Some of those photos have not been looked at or shared since they were taken and transferred. It’s going to be a huge undertaking because I’m sure I’ll be prompted to post-process and share most of them. Maybe I’ll even be inspired to scrap pages out of some.
I’ll also be launching my health blog this month, and hopefully launch a new design for The Newbie Photographer. The boyfriend would also like to use his blog to showcase his photos so we’ll be checking out a more suitable template for him. That would be nice, seeing that blog has gathered a lot of dust.
I’ll be seeing my girlfriends next week for a fun (wholesome, or not?) bridal shower for one of our friends. I hope this signals another round of meetups with other friends as well.
September is also gearing up to be an exciting month on the work front. 🙂
