where the moon shines

This is my nephew Adam when he was still a tot. That’s the boyfriend holding him. 

Adam turned 11 years old on Saturday. That’s how long the boyfriend and I have been together, plus a few months. Wow.

My nephew didn’t recognize himself when we showed him the original photo. The boyfriend, on the other hand, didn’t want to acknowledge that this was him.

As a project, we’ll take another photo of them in this same pose. I’ll post it in The Newbie Photographer if and when it happens.

Apparently, the real reason why the boyfriend was late for our Friday itinerary was that he was so drunk. After I left for work at 2am, he hooked up with friends for a round of drinks. When he walked towards me at the mall that afternoon, I could see he was still drunk.

No, it was not a hangover. He was still drunk. How did I know?
> The way he talked. Not slurrred speech, just fast and a bit excited.
> How he moved
> His smell (he didn’t reek of alcohol but there’s that nice hint of it)
> How he was sweating
> His being touchy in public.

The day before, we had a big lunch at Max’s. We talked about the need to regulate our food spending, and the need to eat less and eat wise. If we couldn’t prepare our own lunch, we’d buy from the stalls at the back of St. Luke’s instead of eating out.

Guess what? Because he was drunk, he had wanted another big lunch. And because I wasn’t feeling well, my conviction easily went out the window and I agreed.

That day’s restaurant of choice was one we had never tried before: Uncle Cheffy.

Now, it’s on the list of our favorite places to dine at.

We ordered their Asian fried rice, and their specialty dish Mediterranean barbecued ribs. The ribs were served with greens on the side and baby potatoes. There were two sauces as well – a special barbecue sauce (I didn’t ask what it was called) and the chimichurri that I so loved.

The chimichurri was a sort of pesto sauce in olive oil and a concoction of herbs. I liked it with the veggies, the potatoes, and even on the ribs. If they sold it in bottles I would have bought one. I asked, they don’t.

The whole time we were eating the boyfriend was commenting how he loved the food and that we should come back. We loved it so much we ordered dessert.

The two cakes we had were heavenly! I got the Chocolate Roulade while he ordered Uncle Cheffy’s cheesecake. Yum!

The only thing that wasn’t quite okay was the wait time for the bill, and then again my two debit cards not working with their swipe machines. It took so long it allowed my headache to creep back in. The boyfriend eventually had to go out and withdraw from an ATM because I didn’t want to use credit. But other than that, we love Uncle Cheffy and we will be back.

(Uncle Cheffy is on the first floor of the Ali Mall. There’s an entrance from the outside walkway fronting SM. It’s next to Gerry’s Grill (or The Old Spaghetti House))

It was Friday, around normal people’s lunch time, the boyfriend was off work and I was trying to wrap up the remaining tasks for my own workday. ‘Why hasn’t he asked me yet if I was ready to go?’ I wondered. I called him after several unanswered BBMs and SMS. He was fast asleep.

I couldn’t just go home – had no more cash on me and I had given him my ATM. He was supposed to take Zune to the vet for his annual checkup and booster shots. I only had enough for my fare to work and a midday meal. The itinerary was supposed to be:

> Take dog to the vet
> Pick me up
> Lunch
> Get Zune
> Go home

He found an excuse – the groomer wasn’t there yet, not until 1pm. OK. Work was only until 11am and though I always stayed an hour or two extra, that day I felt I had to leave early – this was day 2 of my headache downtime. When he finally said that he had taken Zune to the clinic (All About Pets) and was on a cab to Cubao, I stepped out, grabbed two Hopias from the cafeteria and went outside to wait for him. After 10 mins of waiting (it was better to wait there because the cold temp in the office was making my headache worse), I decided to go inside the mall.

It could have meant additional spending for me (disaster!). In the past few months, I had noticed how the Plus size section at SM Cubao had grown. There are more brands now, better selection, and they didn’t all look like clothes for matrons. This section was right on the first floor, from my entrance I’d go past the watches, turn right, walk about ten paces and voila!

This was where I got my first ever BBD last year (for obvious reasons, I can’t call it a little black dress could I?). There were a lot of nice tops on display, and there were printed shirts on sale too. If I wasn’t hungry, or didn’t have a headache, I’d have tried a lot of stuff on.

Thankfully, the boyfriend arrived before I could do any swiping with my credit card. I had shown him a shirt I had taken a fancy to – he liked it though I don’t own anything in that color (pale yellow), but the saleslady would have to check for the size I needed. I didn’t have time for that. So bye bye butterflies on a pale yellow shirt!

I love how there are so many choices available now for my size, and they’re age appropriate too. But even so, I must not remain comfortable at this size. I am obese, not just curvy. Although I do not think I will ever shop at a non plus size section, I can be a 12 or a 14 instead of an 18 or 20. I can be just as proud of my curves without the health risks of diabetes and hypertension hanging over my head everyday.

Though plus size clothing has just become more fashionable, not being healthy has not. I must not lose sight of that.

The airline tickets for this trip was purchased about six months ago in August 2010, during a seat sale.

It cost us about this much for two round trip tickets (MNL-CEB-MNL):

• Base Fare: PHP 2,796.00
• VAT: PHP 339.12
• Aviation Security Fee: PHP 30.00
• Web Admin Fee Fee: PHP 224.00
• World Wide Fund: PHP 240.00
• Total: PHP 3,629.12

The World Wide Fund item is to offset the carbon footprints for the plane ride

I know of some people who have gotten their fare for a much lower price – 17 pesos! – but I don’t have their luck and speed when it comes to making online reservations. I also remember regular local airfare costing no lower than 6k roundtrip per person a few years ago, so I know that I’m not getting a bad deal with this price.

A Cord Taxi took us to the airport (this is the name of the new World taxis), and cost only 200 pesos from QC to Pasay. We arrived with a lot of time to spare for our 1515 flight. This despite the fact that I came at noon time from work when I planned to have been home by 10AM. The line at the check-in counters was quite long but we found ways to entertain ourselves . We didn’t have much money on us so we decided not to grab any snacks before the flight. I took a few photos with my BB and tweeted them too!

V for Vera!

And the sign pointing to Gate 133

As well as Alfred while waiting to board

NAIA Terminal 3 is a huge place and the waiting areas are spacious and normally very cold. The Gate for our flight was at the ground floor where people from three or four other flights were waiting to board. The place was packed, most of the seats were taken! I guess that’s a good sign for local tourism. The boyfriend played a game on the iPad while I started reading one of the books I brought with me for the trip – Can You Keep a Secret?. I didn’t get too far with reading though – I ended up taking a nap until boarding time

Since we were at the ground floor, I’d already expected to walk to the plane on the ground rather than through a tube. We actually had to board a shuttle that took us to where our plane was:

While waiting for the rest of the passengers to board the back bus, I snapped a few more photos

And this was the plane that took us to Mactan, safely:

Although boarding was on time, takeoff was delayed a bit. There was a lot of traffic at the runway. I wasn’t surprised, seeing that our flight was rescheduled a week or two earlier. It was supposed to be the noon flight but was pushed back by three hours.

It was a full flight and all seats were taken. There were a few babies too although I didn’t notice them cry so much because of the pressure on my ears. I thought I was going to endure the pain and get a migraine on my first night in Cebu, until I remembered I could always do the diver’s equalizing trick to relieve my ears of that pressure! I had to do it a few times until after arriving in Cebu, but it was well worth it.

It was a smooth flight, except for the boyfriend spilling his orange juice all over both our legs (yes it was Minute Maid, no I did not win the blog contest ). Oh, a tip when you’re taking Cebu Pacific on budget airfare – bring your own drinks. The drinks that normally cost 20 pesos at your corner grocery store is sold at 50 pesos! Since it’s a short flight anyway, just drink lots of water before the flight and you’ll be packed until touchdown.

I’ve always commented how we don’t have a lot of photos together, so while on the plane, we took a few goofy ones! haha

From Mactan International Airport, we took a metered taxi to the hotel. It probably took 15-20 minutes and the fare was about 300 pesos, I felt that that was too high compared to what we had to pay from QC to Pasay, but what the heck.

So that’s part 1 of our Cebu trip. Stay tuned for the next one

I may not have the best job in the world (and I say this only because it’s WORK, and not because I don’t really like it), and I certainly don’t have everything I want. But this one’s for sure: I have much to be thankful for.

I have always said that I had a wonderful childhood. I grew up with a loving family around me – a big one at that. There may only be mom, dad, and my big brother in this small unit, but there was never a lack of aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins as I was growing up. I also had lots of opportunities to be a kid and to discover who I was going to be. For that, I will always be grateful to my parents. And I will always thank God for choosing them for me

I will have to admit, I don’t always look forward to going to work. Everyday I wake up and know I have to go, so I do. But when I get there already and I start working – I do it without grudging. After all, no one is forcing me to be there. And truth be told, I love what I do. I love that the work challenges me until I sometimes become frustrated. The stress that comes with the job? I welcome it too. Yes, I would still choose to stay home and bake and blog all day if it can pay for all my bills, but that doesn’t mean I hate what I do now. I don’t. Whenever I pray, I say thanks for the job that I have, and the opportunity to work with a lot of people on a daily basis.

I am not at my healthiest – I think I was there maybe six or so months ago – but cheers to health and well-being!  Tons of self-discipline and one big lifestyle change is what I need. Thank you in advance for the healthy mind and body that I know I will someday achieve. Someday soon I hope.

Thank you for another year to do all that we didn’t do in years before. Isn’t it great that we are given the chance to live our lives a day at a time, and a new year offers so many possibilities. This year, we hope to do more, and be more. And let me say that I am thankful to have the boyfriend to continue with this journey.

There’s so much more I should be thankful for and it will bore you to pieces to read all about it. So let me just sum up by saying THANK YOU for being in my life. You may be a passing stranger who happened to read my blog or a very dear personal friend who just likes stalking my blogs, all the same, your visits are appreciated and your comments are most welcome .

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