bundle of joy

A personalized desktop calendar with photos of your bundle of joy on it? Who can resist that! Here is my little gift for the newest mom in town --- a November 2009 calendar with the latest photos of her baby! Looking at the pictures of Enan here, don't you agree he is such a bundle of joy?
I used a free quickpage I saw online. Ooh, this is embarrasing... I can't remember which digiscrap site I downloaded it from! Oh well. Whoever made this freebie, thanks a bunch!

Grab your November 2009 desktop calendar HERE Mommy Jowee!

the edge of satellite tv

Admit it. Sometimes, we are unable to enjoy TV viewing because our cable connection can't produce high-quality images and sounds. With the expensive cable fee we are paying monthly, the channels made available to us is so limited as well! If you are a couch potato who loves to navigate through various channels, then direct TV packages is what you definitely need.

Missing my favorite TV series because our cable connection is down today, I began surfing the web for direct TV deals, curious if that is even possible. In bold letters, Google introduced me to satellite TV where high-definition programming is attainable. Imagine this -- digital direct TV satellite gives you over 150 channels in HD-quality! Aside from that digital offer, the edge of satellite TV is its easy and affordable set-up. Handling and delivery are free if you order online! Oh, and did I mention satellite radio channels too?

These direct TV offers are really tempting. Wait til I introduce it to my husband. He will love its sports programming made accessible 24/7!

a simple act from forest club

It must be Forest Club's way of thanking me for promoting them on my blog. Giving back, they featured my post in their website too! There's nothing much to it, really, except that they linked back to my blog entry entitled Forest Club: An Earthly Terrain.

However simple this act is, I truly appreciate what the owners of Forest Club did. If you look at it, this small act works both ways. Travelers will get to read about my experience at the place which means more visitors in my blog. And at the same time, Forest Club gets a reliable endorsement. You may want to see this simple act HERE.

If all vacation destinations we visited give back to its guests like this, then we will definitely keep coming back to those places and promote them too, right?

it's all about me

If you have noticed, I rarely scrap a photo of me. As to why, it's a simple fact. I would rather see family and friends in my layouts. Another reason is that I don't have enough photos of me because it is always I behind the camera, capturing the fun memories. But just this weekend, I downloaded this quickpage and I thought of adding my face on the empty frame! I used a photo from our Forest Club weekend in September.

Credits for this free quickpage goes to Carly. She used Expressions kit from Gypsy Couture. Thanks Carly! You really did a nice job on this kit!

Well, with a new camera and tripod as my newest buddies, I just might be able to include myself in merry moments I am going to capture!

my november 2009 desktop calendar

It has been proven time and again how my husband and I love the outdoors. Whenever handed out a rare chance to travel, we grab it right away and flee to a new vacation destination. The fact that we don't have our own private transportation yet does not stop us from moving around. There are disadvantages when traveling without the comfort of your own car, that is for sure. But most of the time, being adventurous commuters definitely add fun to the trip.


Here is my November desktop calendar showing 2 photos from our weekend at the Coffee Farmhouse last August. Credits for this November 2009 quickpage goes to Sandra Milie from her Once Upon A Time kit. Hugs to you Sandra for sharing this work of yours!

So, where are we off to this month? Sshhh. I will let you know soon!

thanksgiving party

It feels good to know you made somebody happy. But if you hear and see this happiness comes not just from 1 but 17 children, the feeling is just overwhelming!

To share the abundant blessings my husband and I have been receiving lately, we thought of visiting the children of Tahanan ng Pagmamahal in Pasig. We bought packed meals from Jollibee and some loot bags for them. Because we didn't prepare any parlor games, we had enough time to catch up with the kids! An exchanging of funny stories were made. There were reflective ones too. We found out some of them have left to join other organizations. There were also some additions to the family too. Ten months of not seeing them made us realize we have missed quite a lot of milestones!

The thanksgiving party was another event that humanized me and my husband. Every now and then, we all need to experience such because it teaches us to share what we have and be selfless. Like what my husband always says, "God blesses us so we can be blessings to others".

More photos HERE.

kiss me

A quickpage comes in handy when you want to create a layout in just a snap of a finger. Rummaging through some of the QPs I downloaded a month ago, I was glad to find this freebie from Yari. It's from her At Last kit which is ideal for weddings and engagements. Rightfully so, I used one of our wedding photos to complete the layout.

For the journal, I had to use something that speaks about what the photo shows. I have to thank Faith Hill for her song entitled This Kiss. And so it says:

you can kiss me in the moonlight
on the rooftop under the sky
you can kiss me with the windows open
while the rain comes pouring inside
kiss me in sweet slow motion
let's let everything slide
you got me floating
you got me flying

More layouts to be posted soon!

food for the soul 10.2009

Have you ever thought about happiness as a manner of traveling? Most people try to count or remember the times when they are happy. What if you couldn’t remember the last time you weren’t happy? Can you imagine the difference in your life if you made happiness an essential part of living your daily life? Today is a great day to start making this one of your goals. Try to travel through life exuding happiness and reap the amazing benefits! -SPARKPEOPLE

sunlight

It has been more than a month since I felt excited to work on any digital scrapbook layout. Finally feeling a touch of inspiration, here's what I made out of a free kit I got from Lutine. It's a freebie kit she calls Because of Sea and Lutine generously shares it for us to download.


The journal I wrote for this layout is from a song by Kevyn Lettau which says - Sunlight / Bring Me the Love I Need to Guide Me / Shining Deep Inside of Me. To make it more personal, I added 3 photos from my travel adventures with my husband. So why use a journal about sunlight? Simple. I miss seeing Mr. Sun beaming his smile on us. C'mon! When was the last time you've seen him here in the Philippines? He's always been hiding beneath those scary gray clouds.

A 3-day weekend up ahead of us. Is Mr. Sun going to shine on us as we visit our departed loved ones? I am hopeful of that.

reliving typhoon ondoy's wrath

Exactly a month ago, Filipinos experienced the most destructive typhoon in the country. Typhoon Ondoy's wrath was unbelievable as it damaged hundreds of millions of properties. Families lost their homes, furnitures, letters and photos of valued memories. Some, in a tragic way, even lost their kins and loved ones. Both the rich and the poor were left devasted. My husband and I were not spared from it.


What seemed like a typical rainy Saturday morning of September 26 turned out to be truly disturbing as the water went up on our street. We've seen the muddy water quickly rise up as we monitored on the terrace of our building. About 6 hours of heavy rains, the 1st floor units on our building were already submerged. Seeing just the roofs of one-storey houses on our street, we knew the muddy flood water reached a record of 7-8 feet.


We still consider ourselves lucky since the unit we are renting is at the 3rd floor. Except for some clothes left at the laundromat in the same subdivision, all our valuables were left dry. Our only struggle was being stranded on our building for 3 days without electricity, unable to leave since our subdivision was still submerged. On the 4th day of typhoon Ondoy's wrath, with flood just ankle-deep, my in-laws rescued us in their black Mitsubishi Adventure. For about 10 days, we stayed with them safely in Novaliches.

Our country is no stranger to typhoons. But typhoon Ondoy's wrath is not an act of God. It was a nasty price we had to pay for exploiting and abusing nature. Ondoy slapped us with the bitter truth of how our government has neglected an effective implementation of urban planning. It is disheartening we Filipinos have to learn our lesson the devastating way.

View more photos HERE.

*I sadly lost interest in my internet life for a month. If you witnessed typhoon Ondoy first-hand, you would understand me. After watching houses submerged in water, seeing countless of mud-covered properties being dried up on streets days after is an even more depressing sight. It made me appreciate the basic necessities in life. It made me hold on to memories more. It made me highly value my loved ones. In essence, the heartbreaking experience made me love and embrace the simplicity of life.