::. YUP, IT'S A YEAR-ENDER POST .::

I had the compulsion to write a year-ender post coz I wanted to do a thank you speech/reminisce-the-year kind of thing. But somewhere in between going mildly crazy over changing into blogger's new xml template and hearing a guy neighbor sing the "woohoo, yeehoo" intro of Gwen Stefani's Sweet Escape, I lost my blogging mojo. I was going to do this survey thing but it started with a #1 question: "Did you fall in love this year?" So scrap that idea. I'll just write whatever pops into my head now...

THANK YOU's
God - For always protecting me & my loved ones from harm, misfortune and other horrible stuff that I feared would happen but did not. For giving us blessings & good health. For taking care of us in ways we do not even know about. For granting our prayers.

Dad & Mom - For being the anchor of my life. For all the love, support, understanding and concern. I know that you are sometimes tired & weary but you keep providing for this family in every way you can. For the roof over our heads, for the yummy food we eat, for the nice ride we travel in...

Sis - For all the love, support, understanding & concern. For being an inspiration of strength and generosity. Oh and for helping me buy my kick-ass laptop ;-)

Dean - For teaching me utter patience and making me practice my maternal skills -- shopping for kid clothes (briefs!) and teaching homework, forcing me to brush up on my math...

Ate Rosie - For washing & ironing my clothes, for helping out mom in the household chores, for updating me whenever I miss PBB...

Chloe - For being a bundle of joy and an instant cheerio toy when I'm feeling sucky

Forces friends Abbie, Charo, Tin, Mitzi, Ivy - For being the Carrie/Samantha/Miranda/Charlotte to me in my ups and downs, drama queen episodes and madamme moments

College friends Rose, She, Aga, Annray, Rick - For being always the same good ol' friends that will always be there for me despite our rare meet-ups. Special mention to Rose & She who made an adventurous traveller out of me in our CDO-Camiguin trip! Aga, the cool proud momma, stay in touch in Multiply always!

NEW THINGS I DID THIS YEAR
I have never been much of an adventure-seeker due to my squeamish, girly nature but I totally loved the white water rafting, zipping & snorkling that I did with my friends in CDO & Camiguin.

With my girly obsession over fashion accessories, I decided to put up my own online store in Multiply. I have always been such a collector of necklaces, earrings, bracelets and as soon as the Multiply shopping bug bit me, I thought why not make my own stuff and sell online as well? If they can do it, so can I :-) I have become bored with my day job and it's this tiny accessories business that keeps my creative juices flowing.

With much prodding from Abbie, I succumbed and registered in Facebook. I'm too lazy to pimp my profile there though and I find all those apps too tedious. Not a big fan but we'll see...

With financial smarts kicking in at the year when I turned 29 and got more than the usual bonus from 2006's work, I decided to invest my money in mutual funds and also got another endowment/life insurance.

OLD THING(S) I KEPT DOING
Still the same ol' drama queen. I wonder if I successfully made the impression that I have moved on... Hah!

PASSIONS IN 2007
Have gone very OC about ID tags and album covers of my mp3s eversince I got an iPod nano

Have scoured a loooot of websites about the world of gadgetry and infinitechnology as I shopped for my laptop

Have loved Multiply a lot and uploaded tons of mp3s & photos

Have tried to be patient & not be miserable with my job. Have been praying for the big shutdown so we can all finally get that big package and move on with our lives (and get a new job while at it)

THING(S) I PLAN TO DO NEXT YEAR
Revisit my "Things to do before I shrivel & die" list. I have some additions in mind. Stay tuned.

AND SO I PRESENT TO YOU MY 2007 -- THE YEAR THAT WAS...

::. CALLING IN SICK FOR THE HOLIDAYS .::

Demmit. I can't believe I have not enjoyed the holiday season just because I've been sick. The weekend before Christmas, I already had colds, fever & cough but we had to go to Toy Kingdom to buy my nephew his Christmas present. Half of the time that my family was shopping at SM, I was sitting down in whatever chair I found. We watched The Golden Compass and I think I spread some germs in the Glorietta theater hehe. Anyway, it was the kind of illness I always had... flu and then a bit of asthma which was always diagnosed in the past by my doctor as upper respiratory tract infection. Popped some antibiotics and cough syrup, drank salabat and drank Pei Pa Kua (did I spell it right?).

Come 24th, we celebrated my late grandma's birthday/Christmas get-together with my relatives. I was there but I just ate, hardly made conversation (coz my voice was squeaky) and slept most of the time while sitting on the sofa. Still managed to take some photos of the big family event and even managed to get tons of photos of Chloe our shih tzu while wearing her Santa frocks.

I stayed in bed most of the time, watched a lot of Ellen, Conan & Jay Leno, watched some movies on dvd Knocked Up, I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry and on cable: Fever Pitch, The Chronicles of Narnia (I could have sworn, I thought Mr. Tumnus the faun was played by Shia LaBeouf... only to find out on imdb that it was James McAvoy).

I'm totally bummed out that I missed my friend Tin's birthday bash which was just here in the village where I lived! :( I was actually feeling quite fine during the day time and already made plans of going together with Charo. I took a nap around 5pm coz I had this little headache. Still had headache when I woke up to take a bath. Thought I'd be fine when I ate dinner but apparently not! Everything I ate, I threw up. Twice. Gaaah. I was feeling whoozy as I managed to text the girls a last-minute bail out. I felt drugged as I slept with an empty stomach. Woke up around midnight. Funny, my first concern was that I had to brush my teeth coz I went to bed without brushing my teeth. And then I realized I was totally hungry. I went down to the dining room to find my cold half-finished plate of dinner still on the table. Our househelp was still up, watching tv and she still hasn't gone around to cleaning up the dinner table. And so I ate my cold lumpia dinner :-) And brushed my teeth :-) I was wondering if the girls were still at Tin's... sigh... I missed another of Tin's birthday parties :-( I remember not being able to attend last year's party... forgot why... was I sick too? Oh well. Oh and I didn't get to say bon voyage to Mitzi who's now probably back in LA :(

I'm now hoping I don't get sick with the usual asthma with all the air pollution expected of New Year's eve...

::. SEASON'S GREETINGS FROM CHLOE .::

What better way to spread the holiday cheer than to have Chloe, our dear shih tzu, do the greetings for me ;-)

::. NIGHT OUT WITH THE GIRLS .::

Last Dec 19, I had dinner with my Forces of Nature gals (friends from high school). It was to welcome our friend Mitzi who has been living in the States and has come back to visit the Philippines for the first time after she left 4 years ago. It was so wonderful to see Mitzi again after all these years that we've been only communicating via email, blog and YM! It's amazing that she can still speak great Tagalog without that American twang ;-) The only giveaway is her "oh yeah"s ;-) She treated us to dinner at Masas where we ate yummy Filipino food which she has been missing. (Oh by the way, while I was waiting to meet up with the girls, I decided to get a long-overdue haircut! Since the bob is back, I decided to give it a go again.... I used to have this same haircut when I was in highschool and college. I only started growing my hair long when I was already working. So basically, I chopped off my mid-back length hair into a shoulder length bob).

dinner @masas

mitzi's pasalubongs!

After dinner, Mitzi gave us her pasalubongs :-) After much picture-taking (yeah, all of us had our own digicams), we proceeded to head south wherein Tin treated us to coffee at Starbucks SLEX. 'Can't believe they weren't open 24hours or even til 2pm! When we got there around 12:oomn, they were about to close up. We managed to squeeze in our orders though after making pakiusap to the staff. We had another round of gift-giving, picture-taking and endless chatting as we drank our coffee.

coffee @ starbucks
more photos on my multiply: http://lilacstardust.multiply.com/photos/album/24/._NIGHT_OUT_WITH_THE_GIRLSWELCOME_HOME_MITZI_.