As a gift to myself, I signed up for a Photo Editing class at JessicaSprague.Com. Check out the class page to understand why I feel excited about this.
I’ve been trying to edit my photos through my Paint Shop Pro X, but it’s mostly a hit-or-miss thing. Through this class, I’m learning how to take my photos from good to great! It also helps me get more acquainted with Adobe Photoshop CS3.
I have so far only finished Lesson 1 where I learned to adjust Exposure, Brightness and Contrast. Here’s a look at one photo’s before and after:
That’s my niece Butchik/Chiki and this was taken on my birthday. I think I definitely brightened up the photo but I may have overdone the saturation – doesn’t her skin look too yellow? It’s a first attempt after all, cut me some slack! Hehe 🙂
I Â super appreciate that Ruth (my immediate sup) bought another yummy cake for me and my team on Wednesday early morning at work because my fellow TMs already ate the first one she got. Â And I was very humbled at the many well wishes I received at work that day.
I also can’t describe how moved I was that Arianne, Y and Mayeen even thought of celebrating my birthday on Y’s bridal shower last Saturday.
But this heart of beads that the kids made for me is by far the best gift I received this year.
A few days before my birthday, Esban (7) and Adam (9) came to tell me that they already have my present. They argued about giving it to me right away, or waiting until the actual day. Â On Tuesday morning, they both came up to the house again to say the same thing. Â I was sleeping on the couch that afternoon, thanks to the awful awful migraine that lasted for more than 24 hours. Â E crept up to my side to kiss me awake, and say: “Birthday mo na bukas!” (Tomorrow’s your birthday!)
So after spending a few hours at work on Wednesday, and then a yummy early lunch with Alfred at Chocolate Kiss – Roces Cafe, E and A welcomed me with the warmest greetings and their masterpiece – my heart of beads. All their names are on the paper: Esban, Adam, Dalnes (13), Shanti (14), Butchik (14), Hannah (9) and AJ (5).  I’m sure this project was the older girls’ idea and they helped the little ones make it. A real team effort 🙂
You can tell this really was made for me: the bear in the middle, and the purple leaves all around.
I’ve decided not to buy the cookie diet I mentioned in a previous post. Â I figured I should do some fat burner exercises instead, or do something like the fat burning soup diet I used to follow back in high school. It’s a seven-day diet that’s mainly based on this soup that has a lot of cabbage and other herbs and veggies. It’s a full plan of what to have for meals in a seven-day period. It’s probably a good way to cleanse my system before I go on another regimen. Delaney also sent me some muffin recipes from the 8-Week Cholesterol Cure. (thanks again!), those are sure to help me burn fat!
I guess what I’m trying to say is that, if I want long term weight loss, then I have to work for it and not rely solely on diet fads.  I will still probably turn to some diet principles, and maybe still try fat burner pills but they will only be there to support my efforts – not be the only effort. Know what I mean?
Blogger Nortehanon’s Pens of Hope had a lot of support, and it inspired other bloggers to adopt the concept in another locality.
Thus, as Northern Samar’s children will be receiving their pencils (or they may have actually received it already), donations are still being welcomed in Davao. Click on the badge to the left to find out how you can help, where you can send your pencils. Â We’ll ship out some, hopefully by Friday. Â My birthday’s coming up on Wednesday, you can either send me a gift (haha) or you can make me happy by sending pencils to Pens of Hope Davao.
They’re only accepting donations until July 30th so we have to act fast!
A friend is getting married on Thursday, I haven’t even thought about what I’ll be wearing to the event. Hmm…
This afternoon, our small group of friends will meet up, reminisce about the good old times, then look forward to her wedding and the rest of her married life. Â The get-together was supposed to be last night, good thing it was moved because there was no way I could have been there.
Yesterday at work I started feeling woozy. My head was spinning while I was trying hard to coach one of my agents. Â I normally stay at work way beyond my shift on Fridays so I can complete all my deliverables before my rest day. But yesterday? I tried to stay but was not very productive. I just decided to go home, rest and try to go back on Friday night. Besides, I owed some people their orders of truffles anyway. Â Guess what happened when I got home? I went to sleep. I woke up several times just to complain of the wooziness and the headache and the back ache. I skipped lunch, the whole afternoon, and then dinner. No truffles, no Harry Potter, no going back to work.
That’s okay though.
Back to what’s happening this afternoon…
Arianne organized the event, I don’t know if I should call it a bridal shower but that’s what it probably is going to be. 🙂 I’m also not sure who else is coming, but I know it’s going to be a fun time. I haven’t seen the girls since August last year – almost a year since! Grabe. 🙂
Y’s wedding is the second that I’ll be attending just this month. In August, I’m seeing an old highschool friend tie the knot as well – she invited me just now via chat at Facebook. Â Then next year it will be Jo’s wedding. Everyone else is asking when mine’s going to be. That is the million dollar question indeed.
It will yet be unanswered 🙂
I was hoping to help out with Jo as she prepares for her wedding. It’s more than six months away but she’s got reservations going already and I, on the other hand, have done nothing so far. Haha.
Speaking of weddings, I came across this website offering wedding invitation stamps. Â They’re not just toy stamps mind you, these ones actually look like you could use them for postage of your wedding invitations. Â It is US postage though. I guess here in the Philippines, wedding invitations are normally personally delivered to those invited so maybe this won’t be such a hit. But still, it’s tiny detail that would really add to personalizing a couple’s wedding invites. Check out this video I picked up from that site:
A couple could use any one of their beautiful pre-nup shots , diba? I wonder if business like this would fly in the Philippines, specially when snail mail traffic has declined with the advent of more affordable (and efficient) courier services, and email. Â But since it’s a specialty stamp maybe Pinoys would go for it. Â I wonder how this gets approved by PhilPost? Hmm…
