About verabear

http://verabear.net

Posts by verabear:

Make a Choice

, , 3 Comments

Lately, I have been making bad decisions. Decisions that aren’t in line with my two main goals: to lose weight and to save money.

I have not been making very good food choices lately, and I’ve even gone back to drinking soda (ugh). We were at the grand sale at the Mall of Asia on Sunday and I spent quite a sum. Yes sure, the shopping lifted my spirits up, haha. 🙂 I guess those that I got can be considered an investment on myself. 😉

This one probably wasn’t a bad decision: I’m not taking the plan that our family’s insurance consultant sent over. She sent me a packet of insurance quotes. Now that I’ve paid up for the first one I got from her, she suggests taking out another plan. It’s forced savings really. I’m not going for it though. The money will be tied up, for one, and I’m not so sure the returns are worth it. Specially since I’ll have to wait fifteen or so years before I even get any dividends or something from it. I’d rather put the money into business.

I’ve visited Starbucks more times than I care to admit in the last two weeks. The latest was Sunday morning. I had a Danish with a cup of Iced Hazelnut Mocha. I loved it. But it cost me money I could have set aside. I also picked up another tumbler.

Okay, that last one wasn’t such a bad decision. After all, using tumblers is good for Mother Earth, and you get five pesos off your coffee every time you take your tumbler. It’s better to use your own tumbler when you buy coffee, or drink it with their mugs (but you’d have to stay in the coffee til you drink it all up), than using the paper cups that add to the waste.

I can also use my new tumbler with any coffee. I can again buy the 3-in-1 mixes in the grocery, those are way cheaper, and I can have more than 1 cup per shift without thinking about costs.

Truth is, it was the half price off that convinced me to buy this tumbler. Yes. Starbucks Philippines slashed the price off this tumbler (it also comes in green) as a special Earth Day promo. It’s only going to last until end of the month, so if you don’t have a tumbler yet, check out your nearest Starbucks and grab one at 195 pesos (originally priced at 395, if I remember correctly).

Getting the tumbler also started me on another idea. An Earth Day giveaway. Yes, dear readers, I have decided to host another giveaway. I’ll be running back to Starbucks one of these days to pick up a tumbler, and you could be the lucky recipient. I haven’t finalized the details of the giveaway yet, but April 22 being Earth Day and the tumbler being on sale because of it, should already give you an idea that the theme of the giveaway is about making choices that will help take care of Mother Earth. I’ll set up the mechanics soon.

So what do you think? Will you join?

BC Bloggers Party – Get to Know Verabear

42 Comments

I’ve never been good at describing myself, so I’m lifting what I wrote in my About me page two years ago (with some edits of course) 🙂

Photobucket

Thank you for finding your way to verabear.net, my own space where the moon shines.

Verabear is a monicker I’ve used for a long time now. It is derived from the pet name my grandfather (Papa) has for me. I started actively using it back in college while thinking of the best username for my very first Yahoo email – an Inbox that I still maintain til now, more than ten years later. Okay, I don’t really maintain it, but it is still open.

I’ve been blogging here and there for about six or seven years. I write for myself mainly, but I am happy when I get visits from both friends and strangers (*hint* I love getting comments!).

As a young girl, I loved reading story books. Later on, I moved up to novels. I wrote stories too, though none were finished. Just as much as I loved to read, I found that I enjoyed telling them too.

I’m not a party girl, and I never really got to that phase in a young person’s life when she goes out to bars. My idea of a perfect hangout would be just chilling out and having conversations – both the meaningful ones, and ones that don’t make much sense. That’s probably why blogging figures perfectly in my life, because here I’ve found a ready ear for the stories that I’m bursting to share.

I’ve taken up photography in the last year, and I am loving it. I haven’t given it the time needed to really work on my skills though, but I’ll get there. I hope you enjoy the photos I share with you. I find that photos add color to my stories.

I share my life with Alfred, my boyfriend of ten years; our Shih-Tzu Zune; my mom LB and dad Danny; and my brother Bads. Now, I share our stories with you.

Thanks again, and see you soon!

Buffalo’s Wings N’ Things

, 0 Comments

For dinner on Sunday, after a day of shopping, food, and the movies, I decided to take up a former colleague’s recommendation. We tried Buffalo’s Wings N’ Things. 

logo courtesy of their Facebook Page

 

I’m not really into spicy food, but I wanted to try their Buffalo wings. Besides, we were in the mood for a little adventure. Their Menu board was very simple, it’s obvious that they focused on one thing. Their Buffalo Wings. 

 

The space was quite spartan too. You had tables and chairs, TVs, big mirrors, and photos on the wall. Nothing fancy. You’d know that the people who went there go for the wings. And for drinks. 🙂 I liked the space. I liked the mirrors on one wall with New York City quotes: 

 

And the opposite wall of NY city photo prints: 

  

I found it inspiring. I told the boyfriend that we could select among our favorite photos and have them printed that way. We just don’t have a wall to hang them on yet. 

Of course, the main attraction: the Buffalo wings. 

 

I had half a pound with their New York’s Finest sauce, with fries. I figured I could take a step higher than The Rookie. And you know what? It was just right for me. It was spicy, but I could take it. The boyfriend broke a sweat with half a pound of chicken in their Nuclear sauce and two servings of their Dirty Rice. It was one step down from the spiciest sauce in the house. Mine was spicy enough, I couldn’t even begin to imagine how hot his were.  At first he goes, oh well it’s okay. A few seconds later, it hit him. Our conclusion: they sure know what they’re in business for! 🙂 

It was a perfect way to end the day. What made the meal special wasn’t just the good food we shared. It was all that and hanging out having a good conversation.

Decisions

1 Comment

In a few weeks, the Philippines will be holding its national elections. We have a very important decision to make. We will be choosing the next president of the Republic. It will also be my first time to vote. Last year I wrote about voter’s registration at the Comelec offices at the Quezon City Hall. This year, I will be voting.

And I still haven’t decided who to vote for.

It’s not an easy decision to make. It’s harder than choosing what to wear to work each night, or where to eat, or whether to invest in a term life insurance or not. I only have one vote, and it may not make or break a candidate, but it is still a vote. Sure I think I know who I’m voting for, but I’m not 100% about my choice just yet.

You see, the results of the elections will have a direct impact on everyone’s life in the next six years. It’s not much different from the other decisions we make everyday. Whether to eat healthy or not, to save money or to splurge. They are all seemingly small choices we make today, but we’ll eventually find that our future depends on these choices. Ayoko lang na after a few months, I’ll realize that my vote was wasted on the wrong president. Kasi naman, if I voted in the 2004 elections, I probably would have voted for Gloria. Tsk.

Who are you voting for?

BookSale Finds

, , 2 Comments

I don’t know how many times I’ve mentioned this before: I’m a sucker for second-hand books. Sunday’s Greenhills date would not have been complete without checking out BookSale. We walked out of there with almost a thousand pesos worth of reading material. Haha.  I’ve said it before, with the books we have in this house, we would be wise getting into business to sell used books.

Apart from this pile, we got one for the boyfriend, and a PC Utilities magazine too. That last one turned out to be a good find but I’ll blog about it more some other time. Maeve Binchy is one of my favorite authors, the last one of hers that I read is Quentins.

I was excited with this particular find:

And I almost didn’t get it. After all, I still haven’t really baked anything out of The Pioneer Woman Cooks which I finally got back in February, and it’s been a long time since I took out my Field Guide to Cookies. And then there’s also my Hello, Cupcake! book that’s sitting in a dark cabinet. I just don’t want this one to meet the same fate. Besides, it’d be a waste of money to buy something and not use it.

But I opened it, and well, couldn’t put it back on the shelves:

Could you have resisted these? The Cupcake Deck has 25 cupcake recipes in individual booklets. No need to copy the recipe onto an index card. 🙂 The photos are great too. The deck makes for a nice gift. The box I got isn’t mint condition though (2nd hand remember), it’s breaking apart at the seams, but I don’t mind.

«< 117 118 119 120 121 >»

ARCHIVES

© Stitches & Words 2025
Powered by WordPress • Themify WordPress Themes
%d bloggers like this: