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Alfred’s 29th Birthday – June 8

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This is Alfred’s Photo Mosaic. He gave me his answers to the questions and I ran the search and picked the photos from Flickr.

He turned 29 yesterday – Happy Birthday babe! 🙂

We spent the entire day with his family yesterday, something that we’ve never done before ever. So his birthday was also the day I got to meet his entire family (including cousins and nephews and nieces).

On my way to their home in Pasay, I bought a cake (ube, by their request) and my dad was kind enough to drive me to the store and then to the train station. Alfred was supposed to pick me up at the Taft station and we would walk to their house but he wasn’t there yet when I arrived. I called him and I got the feeling there was going to be an entourage coming to pick me up. I wasn’t wrong.

His two nieces, Ena and Pauline were there, plus his nephew Lance whom I’ve met and spent some time with before. So I met the two giggly girls and they were really nice sweet ones. At their home, I met his two older brothers and the girls’ mom. They were all really warm and welcoming.

So we had lunch (his mom cooked Bulalo, Dinuguan, Hamonado and Pancit – all were very very yummy, no wonder he has a tummy like that). The plan was to have lunch there, and then go our own way after. But since I felt like they went out of their way to spend time with their Uncle Dodong and to meet me, why not spend more time with the kids? I asked if they wanted to come with us and see a movie – they did! We went to SM Mall of Asia and saw Kung Fu Panda. It’s a hilarious movie, comparable to Shrek! Haha 🙂

After the movie, we headed back to their house because a cousin was there waiting. I met him before but that was the first time I met his girlfriend. Later on, this cousin’s older sister, her husband and two teenage kids (boys) came along too. It was a full house, literally.

There were lots of laughter and cases of beer. I drank with them too though I’m not a real beer drinker. There were lots of stories to share and to catch up on. We ended up staying until midnight.

I know he’s very happy, and I’m happy that he is.

Credits for the Mosaic photos:
1. King Alfred’s Tower, 2. Chicken Adobo Bento, 3. My Old School, 4. one headlight, 5. Kianna Dior @ AVN Expo 2006, Las Vegas, 6. beer belly, 7. Paradise, 8. Leche Flan, 9. flambé, 10. “Norouz” is coming!…, 11. These little piggies, 12. Blue Devil

What an awesome kick-off for a long weekend!

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A colleague from work, Kiss, wrote a very flattering review for the choco truffles I’ve been making. I love getting comments about what I make, because it affirms it for me. You know what I mean? I make them not so much because I want to make money out of them, but because I truly enjoy doing so. Knowing that they are appreciated is really the icing on the cake. 🙂

I’m already thinking of variations to the Oreo Truffles. I will be trying some things out during my long weekend, which officially started at 4AM.

Yes, I have a long weekend – 4 days – ahead of me. I usually have Sundays and Mondays off work but I volunteered to go to work this Monday since one of my colleagues was on vacation (and she still isn’t back). To compensate, I’m off for Saturday. Then my regular off is here – Sun-Mon, and then I availed of a one day vacation for Tuesday so we can also attend a book launch.

The downside is that I have all this time, but I’m not going anywhere. I really was looking forward to finally going to Bolinao with friends. We’ve been planning a vacation for the longest time but it hasn’t materialized yet. This time last year, we were in Sagada exploring the cave and going up and down mountains just to see the waterfalls (I wanted to provide a link to my Live Space album but the site is down). Anyway, the vacation may still become a reality, as long as everyone’s still interested. There’s still some sun left.

I have not been blogging much lately, and that includes blog-hopping. Part of it is because my PC is sick. Sick, I tell you. Just today, it took me almost an hour just to wait for it to boot up properly. I had to turn it on and off countless times.

Boyf has a pretty good idea what’s causing it but we’ve been delaying dealing with it because I didn’t want to spend for the computer again when I haven’t even paid for the monitor in full. Since I received my leave conversions though, we’re thinking of using some of that money for this. I was hoping it would be for our vacation though (specially since our birthdays are coming up fast).

Hmm.. Blogger now has a blogroll feature and I am going to give that a try in a bit. My blog list and blogroll are both getting longer and longer I’m not sure I want to keep both on the sidebar looking that way. I do like seeing the blinkies though. Oh well.

My dad just woke up and apparently, we’re going swimming today! My mom’s office has an annual summer outing and they get to take their families. This year it happens today. They didn’t tell me beforehand probably because I’m supposed to be working Saturdays.

This means I won’t be getting any significant sleep this morning, I don’t really mind though! My nephew – if you know me or have been reading up on my blogs, you would be able to guess which one – Esban is of course tagging along.

Okay, I gotta stop and get some blog-hopping done before I take a shower or a quick nap.

Love, Dolly Parton and an Award

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What is Love? What a grade school slum book question. Hehe.

Ganns tagged me with this meme (weeks ago) where one is supposed to define love without using cliches. You should read his definition(s). Sweet. The day I read his post, I remembered feeling so loved just the night before.

Alfred spends a few nights every week here. We’ve found that that’s the best way we could spend quality time with each other without being grouchy with each other. Anyway, as we tucked in to sleep (actually he already was asleep), I complained about having been bitten by a mosquito on my elbow. He reached over and scratched it for me. Aaaww. Haha. Oh yes, he was still sleeping. And I didn’t ask him.

So what’s love? Love is willingly going out of your way to do something for another. Um-hm. But it’s when you don’t feel that it’s an inconvenience, when it’s not being done out of obligation, when you do it with all of your being and there’s no conflict in or outside of you. Yup, that’s love.

Is that a cliche? Anyhow, I am tagging Kiss, Tracy and Dauphine. I hope you ladies play along!

Anyway, I signed up for the Live Search Club. Okay, it’s not a real club. There are tons of games there that are powered by Windows Live Search. You earn tickets while playing, and those tickets can be redeemed for real prices. I’ve got my sights on a Kitchen Aid mixer or a 30Gb Zune player. I don’t know if I’ll actually get either one though. Haha. While playing the games on there, I thought about how cool it would be if my nieces would just play those games instead of browsing through Friendster. It would be a much better use of their time. I learned a lot playing!

One of the games is Celebrity Reveal. There are five trivia questions that would serve as clue as to who is the featured celebrity. One of those was Dolly Parton. Through the questions, and the search results that came out in Live Search, I learned about her Imagination Library. It’s really a cool project for children’s literacy. They mail free books to kids every month, from birth up to their fifth birthday. What a great way to encourage reading and learning. It started in her hometown but it’s now all over the US, and also in Canada and the UK.

I hope there is something like that here in the Philippines. I wonder how I can start something similar? If I win the lottery, I swear, I will start something like it. Makes me want to sit with like-minded friends and brainstorm about a program we can actually make happen.

Reminded me of the pre-school classes we taught as part of a child rights and abuse prevention program we planned and implemented years back. The concept was about the importance of education in keeping kids away from abuse and exploitation. I miss my past life sometimes. 🙂

Okay, on to another tag. Dette awarded this to me, and Tracy did too months ago!

It’s the Arte Y Pico Award.
Art y Pico Award Rules:

  1. Pick 5 blogs that you feel deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also for contributing to the blogging atmostphere (regardleess of what language).
  2. Each award should have the name of the author with a link to their blog.
  3. Award winners to post the award with the name and link to the blog of the person who gave them the award
  4. Please include a link to the “Arte y Pico” blog so that everyone will know where the award came from.

I hereby bestow this award to Vicki, Susan of Raspberry Road, Jen, Brandy of Mega-Doodle Inspired and KimB. All awesome digital scrapbooking artists 🙂

Cake Mania 2 and Cake Mania Back to the Bakery

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I’ve been quite busy – playing Cake Mania! I finished Cake Mania 1 a long time ago and didn’t get to the sequels until the other day. From the time I downloaded Cake Mania – Back to the Bakery, I played for HOURS stopping only for dinner! I slept very late and then played again in the morning so I finished the game already. I tell you, I enjoyed it. Haha 🙂

If only baking in real life was THAT easy huh? These days making choco truffles is what keeps me happy 🙂 Seriously, there’s no stress when I make those, and they are so yummy.

Team Number One

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Wow, the week just went by in a snap.

I had a really good week at work, seriously. Yesterday, I spent half the day filing my coaching forms on each agent folder. It was tedious because I had allowed a whole month’s worth of documentation to accumulate for all eleven of them. But it was light, easy work.

My team has been having a phenomenal performance in the last 3 weeks. I am very proud of them. To think that 60% of them are newbies to the account and yet we’re number one. That is truly a remarkable achievement. Even if things don’t work out as well for the fourth week (but I’m crossing my fingers that it still does) it would still have been a magnificent run.

This tears my heart really.

You see, I have a chance to go back and do what I’ve always loved doing. This whole year that I’ve been a team manager, I’ve found myself looking at training classes and wish I was the one teaching them. I’ve looked at trainers and have been silently critical of them. Often I catch myself thinking if I was ever like this or that as a trainer. Was I slow to react? Was I full of crap?

Don’t get me wrong, I have adjusted to my TM duties well and I love what I do. But I guess that training has always been my first love and you know what they say about that.

Nothing has been decided anyway. At the very last minute, I turned in my application for the training post that was opened, but I’m still giving myself a lot of room to think things through and weigh my choices. I am just greatful that I work with people and am in an environment that allows me these liberties to do what I really want to do.

On an entirely different matter…

Ka Bel was in the news again today (or was it yesterday’s paper?). He was refused welcome and blessing in Roman Catholic churches in his hometown in Legazpi, Albay. Their reason? He was in the Aglipayan Cathedral in Manila for a few days. They claimed that that was a sign that he was of a different religion and they have nothing to do with funerals for people of a different belief. One – Ka Bel is Catholic. In fact, he and his wife renewed their marriage vows for their 50th wedding anniversary at a Catholic Church. Two – Ka Bel’s funeral was held at the Aglipay church because that church is known to be supportive of the labor leader’s causes. Three – How medieval of that bishop in charge there. Ugh.

On TV right now is Charisse Pempengco’s new song and music video. It isn’t bad. I think it’s an original this time and not a cover of an older woman’s song. Good for her. I didn’t see the title though. I’m guessing it’s “It could only get better.”

On a more personal topic this time…

I calculated my expenses for the week and found out that I have spent WAY TOO MUCH than I should have. Seriously. Even without Zune’s doctor fees, it’s still way over budget. Talk about living beyond one’s means. Major ugh.

Oh, have you seen the latest Indiana Jones flick? I don’t think I’ll be seeing it in the cinema. What with all the cost cutting I need to do. I’d probably wait to see it on DVD. Bummer.

LEGO

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