...Al Gore

I had been waiting for this show on HBO. Finally it came on last night at 9pm. Quite late for me already actually but I just had to watch it. The rest of the family were fast asleep already. 1hour into the show I started drifting in and out of sleep. I know it was a good show. Everyone should watch it. I like Al Gore. American Im not, but Ive always liked him. I am so into saving our earth for the future generation. Today, I got stainless steel thermos so I wouldnt have to buy plastic bottled water anymore. Eco bags, they are everywhere in the house and in the car. I got eco bags from all the malls and stores. The one I dont have is that one from Powerbooks, a great big black one. But I think they're not for sale. Too bad. They oughto be though. I didnt finish the show last night. I fell asleep. Let's face it, it's not the most entertaining movie of the decade although it should be. It won awards. It won Al Gore awards. Incovenient his facts, but they're the truth. And we ought to do our part starting now. We should have started decades ago actually. HOpe its not too late for us and our kids.

...shiny butt.

It was a particularly hot day at the beach, Alyssa was just enjoying the sand, water and the breeze. Joel stayed under the tree behind us. I was clicking away with the camera as usual, aimed at my little waterbabe. I was putting my sunglasses back on as I noticed Alyssa stand. She whispered, "Mommy, his butt is shiny." Me: "His what is what?". That instant I noticed the guy sleeping on the bench just a few meters behind Alyssa. Oooooohhhhhhhh, St. Tropez!
Few minutes after I took this paparrazzi shot, he started flexing his toes, then knees. He also did some push ups and stretching, all during spread out like that on the bench. He also did jump in the water and did some butterflies.

ASPARTAME
as if this wasNOT enough...

THANK YOUFOR SERIOUSLY KILLING US.

...a new dress

According to Alyssa, Barbie needs to go to the party with her this Friday. "Does she have nice dress in the closet mommy?"
Like I said yesterday, I was planning to go full skirt, glitz, beads and the glam. So Barbie. As I watched my two girls sleep last night, I was searching each and every nook of my brain for some inspiration. I wanted to go plain. No I wanted to go glam. Aha! Will do a Victoria Beckham. Snob, unsmilling and all. Marc Jacobs? My mind was made up. Sew the dress I did. Watching Ava making a mess of all their toys, I was deep in thought of how the beads were going to look like. I thought, so Versace with the glitters. I dont wanna look 1990ish. I thought Victoria Beckham again. Then I came up with this dress. All hems sewn clean this time. Im got serious. It was too plain for me. I toyed with the beads again and the picture of 1990s fashion aka Gianni Versace flashed before my eyes. Saw the left over ribbon I used for the girls' birthday and had an inspiration. A ribbon on the chest. Still looked like someone's design but what the heck, I could never come up with a fresh new one of my own, Ive had decades of reading fashion magazine, no way my mind is virgin. I came up with this instead. I think it's clean. Still Victoria Beckham.
I made the bag out of a Smart phone flyer. It was the same shade as the ribbon. The bag actually opens but it's fragile, being so small and all. Those are real beads. It's inspired by the Bijou One handbag creations.

As seen here carried by the actress/singer Hilary Duff. There were other celebs on the page but I cropped Hilary coz I like her. When I heard Alyssa say,"You did a great job mommy. Im so proud. " I knew the glue on my shirt and beads cluttered on the floor which I myself will be picking up, were all worth it.

...dressmaking

For my family I could be anything, from Superman, WonderWoman to a doctor. Yesterday, I was a dressmaker. Trying so hard to make Barbie a dress. It was an inspired project when Alyssa saw at someone's Flickr what she did for her kids' Barbie. "MOmmy, mommy, make a dress for Barbie coz she wants to go out and she has nothing to wear."

NOthing to wear...hmmm...even at 4 years old, Alyssa has it in her already. HAHAHAHAHA and boy will she be repeating those lines a million times during her lifetime. Sew I did. Found some extra fabrics and work I did. Did some simple stuff. I havent even put some hooks at the back yet till now. and lookey lookey!!! Matching!!! The pic above is of Alyssa during a school event. The pic below is of me, last night, holding Barbie with matching dresses!
Alyssa was so ecstatic at our accomplishments she wants me to make more! I only slept last night after I finalized plans and patterms for today's project. I was thinking... something glittery. I was thinking white. And I realized we dont have white fabric. But I have an old pair of denim pants in the closet. Its gonna be denim, beads, full skirt, pizzazz and all that jazz! HHAHAHAHAHAHA! Inspired..!

I havent yet found out the correct term but for now, lets call it "the Pied Piper effect". Remember the story? It's quite grimm. With the man with the flute leading the children from the town and hiding them in a cave. One version even says he led him to drown in the river, just coz the townsfolks didnt pay him what was promised after he got all the rats out, and he wanted revenge, thus the "kidnapping" of the town children.

But what I want to talk about is retail pied piper effect. Has it even happened to you? Joel was the one who talked about it first altho Ive noticed it about me since high school. I just didnt have anyone to talk about it and Ive gotten used to it happening. Happens all the time, but is limited only to retail. Happens in malls, stores, boutiques and such. Several times Joel and I put the whole thing to a test. We went inside a store well-known for it being empty, snob and having not much costumers. Aside from the attendants being snobs, the store carries weird stuff. Not something you'd check out often. We went in. Viola, just as expected, around 9-12 individuals followed into the store and browsed. Test checked. We went out and came back 2 hours later, saw no people in the store. We went in again, just for the heck of it, once again about 7 came in right after. People tend to crowd in on me. If I go to a remotely far corner of a shop to look at something, chances are 5 other people would be looking over my shoulder in 2 minutes flat, looking at the same item that I am. What is it? We find it amusing. We play with the whole thing, just for the fun of it. I go into an empty store, give it 2-5 minutes, there would be a big crowd behind me now in the store. This doesnt happen only once or twice or thrice. It happens all the time. But this only happens in retail. Not in theaters or school or anywhere else. Only at boutiques, shops, malls.

...schedules

This month of April was particularly interesting. Note my notes in black pentel pen above APRIL. We were scheduled to go somewhere with Marie, our neice. We had to postpone the trip for some reason. But we're pretty excited about it. It sorta forced me to renew my passport asap. hehehehe. We were off to somewhere, because at a party, Joel won this:
Hehehehe. Isnt that sweet? he is so lucky when it comes to raffles and contests. Sweet!

...a backhoe

It's 9.30 in the evening. I took this pic of this big noisy construction thingy just outside our bedroom window. The bedroom where 1-year-old Ava is uncomfortably squirming in her crib. Her face grimacing from all that thudding sound from this construction thingy. Am I even spelling the word correctly? I dont know. All I know is that it's making so much noise. Wait, that's an understatement. Banging noise. Namannnn...it's 9.30 in the evening. We dont mind it buzzing and banging and making our ground shake the whole morning and afternoon. But 9.30 in the evening?! who do I tell? Damn politics....Is it election year ba? Alyssa is covering her ears coz it's just too noisy outside! Woe is us. Poor babes.

...love

We were having the laziest of all laziest afternoon in a resort in Dalaguete, Cebu. Joel put Ava on his lap while eating crackers. I sat in front of them with my camera and caught this.
Love.
More love.
And her tiger sound. hahahahaha

...sleeping awake

Imagine looking at your own headlights and the butt of the car in front of you for more than one hour. On a SUPER STRAIGHT stretch of a road. When I say super straight, I mean as straight as straight could get. I mean it couldnt have gotten straighter than that road we were running on. 9 in the evening, we were a bit tired, the kids have had their shower in Tita Cecile's house already and have even started to relax on the beds with the tv. But we just had to get to Prudencia. It would be more relaxing for everyone to be in Prudencia. By then we'd be travelling for almost 24 hours already. I joked to my sis-in-law that I just might try to stay awake till 3am to make it a 24-hour-day for me, just for the heck of it. Hehehehe. So not! I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow in Prudencia.
Probably due to my subtle insistence, my bro-in-law, Nong Oca, offered to bring us to Prudencia at 8pm. He took his family there earlier that day and wasnt actually planning to go back til the next day because he had been 'assigned' to pick other relatives arriving from Iloilo the next day. But he took us to Prudencia anyway. An hour drive from the city. So off we went, excited and all. the kids have fallen asleep in the car already so it was just Joel and me. It was dark. No lamp posts along the way as we went beyond Bago City. Like, really, no lights. Nada. There werent any stars either. It was dark. All we could see was our own headlights shining on Nong Oca's car in front of us. We counted the minutes. It was an hour drive. I have started to complain that the road was too straight. Are we ever going to make a turn or something? No luck. The road went on and on and on and on. Nong Oca said that he took us to another route coz the road was bad in the usual. i mean, the road was too straight. It was like torture. For one hour, in the dark, no lights on the road side, straight straight straight straight. Joel kept telling me to talk to him. I think I talked to him, in a drunken tortured kind of talk, I guess. At one point I just laughed. I was dreaming gali! Our watches said 10pm, we should have been there. but we were taking the longer way, altho, a better route. I was dreaming already. There was a fax machine by the stick shift. It was ringing so I turned my head. A fax message coming out so I reached out to catch it. The fax machine went POOF! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH I WAS DREAMING!!! Joel was laughing coz he saw me reach out. I told him I did not coz I was just dreaming. But he said my eyes were open. DAAANNNNNNGGGGG!!! hehehehehehe. finally we did a right turn. we were there.

...a blog

L I B E L WE AFRAID

I used to have an entry with a link to someone else's blog but then politics kicked in and talks about libel libel libel here and there. One of the dangerous things was publishing a link to that blog. Oh well, afraid is me. I wouldnt want my IP address to get in trouble or end up in jail. hehehehe.

blah blah blah blah.

So now it has gotten bg. The first week it came out I got to know about it from another blog. This Im not afraid to post:

http://www.bryanboy.com/

It's all over the news. No, actually it's not. But the network I watched most has started to catch on to the fever. Im sure they were pretty reluctant at first. Rules how to avoid being unnecessarily caught in a libel suit: dont mention names of the people involved, dont publish the link to the blog, dont re-publish any entry from the blog, etc etc etc. Coz it's pretty heavy stuff. If you're familiar with the local fashion world, your jaw will drop at the revelations. True or not, blog's pretty damaging. Best way to tell you is google it. Australian gay blogger. I think Im safe. hahahahahaha. It's a good read. This blog of his is just actually a reaffirmation of what this book has already revealed. And the lady author (now in Hong Kong) has spoken again. I have heard of the book but just wasnt in the mood to be reading. Published around 2005? Good golly gosh 2005? What was I doing 2005? Oh! Alyssa turned a year old. hehehehe. So off to Powerbooks to buy the book. I read. heard it only costs P270. Not bad.

...a what?

a numbers game. These are my nephews and neices. They know about this stuff. Numbers. I hate numbers. Except when I get the #3 at least in the priority list in the pediatricians clinic or the number 10, at least, at the pharmacy. hahahahahaha. Although the term sounded so familiar but I never thought of it as something to do. I thought it was a popular anime show on tv or something. Suduko. A what? I thought it was the ghost who came out from the tv set in the movie, The Ring. the Asian actress. It was a game gali. I could never do that. Wont do it, actually. It scares me. It's like a reminder of all my insecurities. At first I got curious. And when the nephew explained it, I got scared. I walked away. Harharharhar, poor me. And worse yet, in the end, he came up with a phrase! How he did it, Ill never know. Ill never want to know. Then I found my sister-in-law doing it the next day. Like, she had one whole book with pages and pages of squares, numbers, grid and stuff. I stopped thinking about math and numbers at the 6th grade. Long story. Short actually. hehehe. Another blog