She's making a list.

And checking it twice, in case she bloody forgets to bring along her passport and e-ticket. Bwahaha.

Ohmygawd, Friday cannot come fast enough. So excited to see the whole family and my prince Maximus!

Will definitely make the most out of this vacation (Read: See dentist and OB Gyn, update contributions for SSS and Pag-Ibig, spend a day at the salon to have my hair rebonded and coloured, participate in a food binge, see friends and set playdates with friends' babies, participate in a food binge again, and so on and so forth... )

Praying for good weather now. Ciao!

Enough said.

I don't think I'll ever be a cougar.

But there will come a time in a thirtysomething woman's life when she will start longing and lusting over a much, much younger man. Or boy. Whatever.

Seems like only yesterday when I watched him in Little Manhattan where he played a 10-year-old in the throes of mad puppy love, and now just LOOK at Josh Hutcherson!

And what about Steven McQueen (yeah, I know, the name), who plays Jeremy Gilbert on The Vampire Diaries? Two seasons ago he was cute. Now he is HOTNESS personified.

Hawtness!

Of What Ifs and Valentine's Days

I'm staring at this single, blood-red, long-stemmed rose resting idly on my workstation. An office colleague was thoughtful and sweet enough to give us ladies at work a rose this Valentine's Day.

And then, just like that, I couldn't get this thought out of my head.

What if you and I had never met?

 

What if I hadn't sat beside Sugar that day?

What if she'd never been friends with you at all?

 

What if I was still with that creep of an ex-boyfriend?

What if you and your ex-girlfriend decided to give your relationship one more shot? Even worse, what if she said yes?

What if you weren't in Singapore?

What if I didn't have a blog? Or if I did, what if I only wrote about the really dark, depressing stuff and scared you off even before we had the chance to meet in person?

What if I ignored my phone the first time you called?

What if I didn't believe in long-distance relationships?

Well, I don't even want to know the answers. Just the thought of our lives taking a different turn and leading us to totally opposite directions paralyzes me.

Now that I met you, now that I know you, now that I have you, I cannot imagine having and loving and being with anybody else.

So this is me being grateful and feeling lucky. Allow me to be sappy on this most romantic day of the calendar year. I'm writing this short thank you note with a clear head and a full heart, and CC-ing all the cupids and lucky stars and gracious saints and serendipity for making you and me happen.

I love you and the love story that we are everyday creating.

Oh, and yes, Happy Valentine's Day! ♥

On Cheating and New Promises

I have been cheating a lot on writing the past year by thumbing status updates and posting random stuff on Facebook, with the occasional random Tweets here and there.

We all know that this is nothing compared to full-fledged writing. But work, both at the office and at home, can totally zap the energy out of you like a heavy duty Hoover. And more often than not, I prefer to just collapse on the bed at the end of the day and bond with my friends from Grey's Anatomy and The Vampire Diaries. 

But yesterday I promised myself I will stop being lazy and exhausted and just write, write, write. I am bursting with inspiration and a renewed sense of wonder that anything is possible for writers with heart. 

After all, wasn't this the case for Samantha Sotto, who got her first novel Before Ever After published last year? 

To make her wonderful and serendipitous story short, she wrote this book after cups and cups of tea and coffee at a coffee shop near her kids' school while waiting for them to finish with school stuff. What inspired her to write it was the sad and heartbreaking ending of The Time Traveler's Wife. If you've seen the movie or read the book, you'd know what we're talking about here.  

Only recently I purchased a copy of her book online (but only after failing to find a free download, teehee!), and after reading just a few pages, Ms Sotto has won herself another fan in me.

She writes with delicious words; romantic and sentimental, eloquent and witty. It also doesn't hurt that her novel is set in historic Europe with a baked eggs-loving immortal man as a hero and an American mosaic-maker/widow as a heroine. Fan girl became an even bigger fan after reading her old blog posts and searching for her on Twitter.

Because of her success story, I will keep this blog busy and humming with activity from this day forward as a regular creative and mental exercise.

I will also write that manuscript I've been meaning to write for the longest time. I need to make time for it. I need to feel inspired for it. I need to filter out these ideas that hit me from everywhere and remain faithful to one or two, long enough for a solid story and a solid character to develop. 

Just reading these words sounds formidable enough, but I know I'll get there one baby step at a time. My mind is stirring now and thinking of who, what, when and where my new story will be about...

Birthday Weekend

I love food. I mean really, really love food, like how a Justin Bieber fan loves Justin Bieber. Before coming here to Singapore, I was content with eating delicious food my Daddy would prepare for us. And then, more out of necessity than calling, I finally decided to brave it out in the kitchen and cook something that my husband and my Daddy would be proud of. The rest, as they say, is history.

So what better way to spend a birthday than with the things (read: food and people) I love? Just like that, I rounded up the usual suspects and headed over to this hole-in-the wall barbeque restaurant somewhere in Jurong for a celebratory gastronomic adventure.

If you live in the west coast, Shiu Yakiniku is quite nearby, but because it's located right in front of Jurong Bird Park at this restaurant strip called The Village, it's still out of the way for the ordinary commuter. From Jurong Point mall, it's one bus stop away, but the bus stop was quite farther than I thought, and there was a point when I thought that we missed the bus stop and got lost somehow.

Luckily we didn't and made it just in time for our reservation at 8pm. I booked us a table for 4 for the dinner buffet from 8pm to 10pm. I thought the place would be packed as was usually the case for restaurants that offer buffet dinners or lunches. But when we got to the restaurant, only a handful of people were dining and speaking in soft voices. Hmmm. Was the food any good? We would find out soon enough.

Doing the honours.

My brother in law Emman and our good friend Len.

My sweetie pie honeybunch.

Love team.

We had no idea what to order first, so my husband ordered one of each that was listed on the menu. Brilliant, eh? For starters, we got the beef, pork, chicken and seafood platters and started barbecuing on the smokeless grill. I have to say that everything was fresh and we especially loved the Japanese-style barbecue sauce. There were other appetizers available as well, I just could not recall their names now. All I know is that they tasted delish and right now as I'm typing this, I'm seriously wishing to go back for another round! Hehe.

Digging in. 

The place did not disappoint. Service was very good, restaurant was very well decorated and spacious and the food tasted delicious. Our clothes or our hair never smelled like smoke the whole time we were there. And we all wished we had bigger appetites so we could sample the rest of the dishes on the menu. When one of the waiters asked if we were ready for desert, we just told him that we were skipping it, or else we would not be able to move from our seats. 

After dinner, we made a quick trip to the nearest Starbucks for a mandatory cup of coffee to help wash down the feast that was dinner. Four happy tummies, signing off.

The next day, we heard mass first thing in the morning and went to Orchard so I can pick out a birthday gift. I really had no idea what to ask from the hubby, so I just picked out a perfume which I loved in my twenties and a pair of headphones so I can enjoy my music and my movies on my tablet better. I picked it out because it was pink. Teehee. 

I love them! 

All in all, it was a great birthday weekend. It's the second birthday I celebrated here in Singapore away from my family. I wish I could have celebrated it with them. But it's okay, we're going home next month for a short vacation, so there's definitely gonna be another celebration at home with the whole fam bam. I could not wait!