busy, busy, busy

this week has been a packed, shaken, and stirred mix of work and wedding stuff.

monday -- i handed my resignation to my boss and shocked the daylights out of him. valuable lessons learned on marriage here.

tuesday, i went to the malate church to get aldo's baptismal certificate before work. it's apparently good to go there early on weekdays as traffic is less. since i was in the singalong area already, decided to look for the st. anthony of padua parish to get mine too - only to find out that i need to submit 2 or more documents to prove that my name is Georgina, and not Georginia. grr, more hassle to come my way as my baptismal certificate also says Georginia. funny how st. scho never noticed that... i wonder if mary the queen will. LOL. to be on the safe side, i have to go to the arzobispado de manila in intramuros to correct all these typos.

moral lesson: don't give your son/daughter a complicated name.

wednesday, i dropped by the jan visuals office in shaw to make a deposit on our projector and projector screen rental. jerome, the guy in charge, was chirpy and patiently answered all my questions. finally got that out of my list.

friday, i went to the write impression office and fell in love with 7 of their invitations. ack - too many to choose from! they had a full range of wedding invites - from pop-up cute ones to the traditional types. they're pretty flexible too, and will customize even the color of the ink they'll use on your invites. they're not as catalogued as qp designs though, which is good.

buti na lang i have store visits, and official business outside the office. LOL.

panic-buying

to normal people, it's panic-buying. to me, it was getting things over and done with.

i had always wanted to go to divisoria but never had a strong reason to... so since wedding favors are a strong enough reason, i dragged my mom and aunt there today.

we left the car in the 1st parking lot we found, which was all the way in sto. cristo street, and walked the rest of the way. we found ourselves in the tela district - where rows upon rows of lace ribbons, zippers, fabrics, and threads were everywhere. we finally stopped in one store which had the exact shade of pink that the maid of honor needed. 15 yards of panic-buying later, we were at the next-door store where more ninang fabrics were. this next-door shop carried good finds - what would normally be sold at carolina's or castle for P800 was only sold for P220 here! now who wouldn't go into a state of panic?

since we already had enough fabrics to clothe the whole clan, we went to tabora street - where we were really supposed to go anyway. oddly enough, it was like being back in pratunam and sampaeng lane all over again - only this time, i understood the conversations around me. i thought that stores were there, but to my surprise bangketa tents lined the street. we stopped at one bangketa store that sold glass jars with air-tight lids - exactly what i was looking for. they were initially selling it for P25, but i brought down the price to P19 since i was getting 130 pieces... so the manong went to get the stock in their bodega somewhere. unfortunately, they only had 40 pieces of it left, so i opted for a similar jar to fill in the balance. 30 minutes later, we were still there, waiting for them to pack and complete my order. getting impatient with the people we were talking with, my mom got into mataray-mommy-mode and asked the tindera why she was counting it over and over again. tindera suddenly snaps into snooty-owner mode and says that manong-husband is tanga and that the jars will not be given to us at P19 (while telling her assistants to stop packing the jars kasi malulugi lang sila).

after 30 freaking minutes of packing, deciding, and counting.

my mom and aunt, by this time, were already too annoyed to argue. so we left snooty-tindera and her bewildered tanga husband to their 130 jars.

fortunately, a few meters down the road was an old man selling those dust-gathering wedding souvenirs and paper mache boxes. he was jolly and kind, and the boxes he sold were the perfect size.

see, everything happens for a reason.

only thing is, he only had 88 pieces of the size we wanted. we got them anyway, and bout 50 of a smaller size. will think of a good excuse for that one later on.

by this time, we didn't have enough adrenalin to go to ilaya street. we all decided we had accomplished enough, and went home.

it was a hot day for outdoor shopping, but a happy one to get a few things over and done with. next on the to-do list: box stickers or ribbons.

weddings talaga... they either bring out the crappiest, most creative, most mushy, or most OC behavior in you.

FINALLY!

aldo just got a letter from the canadian embassy, notifying him that his sponsorship has been approved and that my papers have been sent back to manila for processing!

according to the online tracking system, it took them exactly a month to open the whole kit and make a decision - spousal sponsorships get top priority at that rate, so it must really take years for the other categories.

it's comforting to know that all our arguments and bickering while we were putting together the immigration kit have paid off. we're finally getting somewhere, even if the long wait has just begun!

come to think of it... i hope the manila embassy returns all the pictures we had to include in the kit before september. if not, i don't have anything to use for our AVP!

The Husband Store

A Wall-Mart store that sells husbands has just opened in Dallas, TX where a woman may go to choose a husband from among many men. Among the instructions at the entrance, is a description of how the store operates.

There are only 6 floors. It states that the attributes of the men increase as the shopper ascends the flights. There is, however, a catch. As you open the door to any floor you may choose any man from that floor, but if you go up a floor, you cannot go back down except to exit the building.

So, a woman goes to the Wal-Mart Husband Store to find a husband.

On the first floor the sign on the door reads: Floor 1 - These men have jobs.
The second floor sign reads: Floor 2 - These men have jobs and love kids.
The third floor sign reads: Floor 3 - These men have jobs, love kids, and are extremely good looking.

"Wow," she thinks, but feels compelled to keep going.

She goes to the fourth floor and sign reads: Floor 4 - These men have jobs, love kids, are drop-dead good looking and help with the housework.

"Oh, mercy me!" she exclaims, "I can hardly stand it!"

Still, she goes to the fifth floor and sign reads: Floor 5 - These men have jobs, love kids, are drop-dead gorgeous, help with the housework, and have a strong romantic streak.

She is so tempted to stay, but she goes to the sixth
floor and the sign reads: Floor 6 - You are visitor 3,456,012 to this floor. There are no men on this floor. This floor exists solely as proof that women are impossible to please. Thank you for shopping Wall-Mart's Husband Store. Watch your step as you exit the building and have a nice day.

**************

What floor would you have stopped at?

to Market! to Market!

sunday lunch has never been this productive.

we took lola out for sunday lunch at China Star. food was great (tofu with mushrooms and brocolli, fried noodles, yang chow fried rice) and not laced with enough MSG to put you to sleep. the honey-garlic spareribs were too sweet though - you'd think you were already eating dessert.

to our surprise, Market! Market! was having a 3-day sale (yet another tactic to earn wallet share) - thus the droves of people going into the mall (that, plus free airconditioning).

thankfully, braving the crowd was worth it.

i first found The Wedding Shoes last week at the alabang store, but was disappointed because the last pair they had was stained. i tried to look in their other branches but as it is in retail, that specific style is only carried when the store has a big sale.



with luck on my side, i found them again at Market! Market! - this time, with a new pair in my size. best of all - it was on sale (yes, the ultimate turn-on for women!).

around the corner was Carolina's Lace Shoppe, where rolls of beautiful lace were on sale for a ridiculous price - you'd think it was april fools' day. being the panic-buyers that we are, we got 5 yards of 60" width lace for the mom's dresses, which is more than what they really need.

we had to call it a day pretty much after that since people were literally pouring in. (snooty remark: non-buying patrons should really be charged if they don't have receipts at the end of the day - they just cause elevator traffic even if they are able-bodied enough to take the stairs or the escalator. don't these people understand that elevators are primarily for people in wheelchairs and strollers?!)

capped off the day with halo-halo from Razon's. unfortunately, they ran out of leche flan - but it was still as yummy without it. the best-tasting bananas and macapuno i've ever tasted... to think i don't really appreciate macapuno on normal days. it's not much of a halo-halo if you're the type to look for 5 different beans in it. but since i'm the type to take out the langka, garbanzos, and nata de coco, this one was perfect.

thank God for Market! Market! - no need to go all the way to divisoria.


*not a paid advertisement, although i wish it were

To Pilfermagic

nearly five years ago, in a diagon-alley-lookalike building in pasong tamo, we'd sit between the Escape Hatch and the door frame, and daydream that the next batch of Araw Awards trophies would be ours.

fastforward to 2005.

"Tin Sanchez has had a taste of winning big being part of the agency (BCD Pinpoint) team that won the Philippines its first Cannes Lions Direct Bronze for the "Dos por Dos" direct marketing campaign two years ago. Brandie Tan has also been recognized internationally for his work on "Bantay Usok."

congratulations for realizing that dream while i was gone.

eat your heart out LB!

snap n' bake

look who's been busy in the new kitchen...


aldo's cookie recipe:

1. earn $5.50
2. buy ready made cookie dough with chocolate chip. get the ones with
better packaging this makes a difference in the baking process
3. make sure your oven reaches the designated temprature.
4. slice and dice your ready made cookie dough...
5. measure to cover the whole baking sheet.. pan or whatever you call
that flat thing you put in the oven
6. compute the ratio of its total expansion to maintain a 2mm
thickness of your cookies.
7. bake
8. consume
9. repeat step 1-8

VOILA!

un-kikay

not being a stilleto-and-catwalk-loving fashionista has its disadvantages.

yesterday, i wore jeans, a shirt, and sandals to work thinking that i'd be stuck in the office with tons of paperwork so why bother to put on a pretty outfit.

and on the way to Makati at 7:50AM. i realized that it was April 5 - and i had to attend the Ayala Center Merchant Forum at 8AM.

talk about wearing the wrong thing to work.

buti na lang i work for a fashion company that's non-conformist.

hehehe. palusot.

touch your finger-toes

i pretty much figured that surfing the net or walking in a mall are not considered legitimate exercise... so with a yoga mat in tow (thanks to mai), i was able to join a yoga class in manila. our yogi, sister something (what's with the sister name anyway?!), was ok... despite the somewhat-confusing instructions she would give, i'm not complaining.

******

speaking of confusing instructions, i had teachers in high school that would always give us entertaining instructions:

Instruction #1: class numbers 1-20, up the pool.

Instruction #2: class, touch your finger-toes.

Instruction #3: form a straight circle.