The Post About Denim

Last month I attended a holiday party that had denim as a clothing theme. I thought it was an easy enough theme to follow until I realized that didn’t actually own anything denim – not anymore anyway. I own a lot of pants that look like denim but aren’t, and a dress which had a color that was about as close to denim as I could get but that was about it. I opted for the dress but it did make me think about why I don’t own anything denim anymore. 

Recipes Tried: Focaccia Bread with Bacon Chicken Liver Pate

Food is my jam. I love food. I have an appreciation for a variety of food but there are some that I favor more than others. One thing that I am not too big a fan of is bread. My family is a fan of bread but the love of it just hasn’t stuck with me. However, there is one type of bread that I am a fan of, and that is focaccia. I used to buy it from The French Baker when my sister worked there but now that she isn’t, I found myself craving for it so I looked up a recipe online from Sally’s Baking Addiction.

Some Thoughts on My Grandparents

I no longer have my grandparents around. Both sides of grandparents have passed away, with the most recent one being my maternal grandmother who died three years ago. I don’t know if it’s the same for everyone else but I didn’t really know my grandparents. While I consider myself close to my paternal grandmother when I was younger, I never really knew her apart from being a doting grandmother who loved her coffee and soap operas because I was only in high school when she passed away. I never knew my paternal grandfather and did not know my maternal one well either (he was separated from my grandmother by the time I was in the picture). In short, my grandparents were mysteries to me apart from being actual grandparents. 

I never got the chance to know each grandparent as a person: as a human being who was also young once and lived a life full of experiences I would have, in hindsight, been interested to learn about. Now that I am older, I am fascinated by my family history. Looking at old pictures makes me want to know more.  What kind of childhood did they have? What kind of kids were they? What made them into the people that I knew when I was growing up?

The Sunday Update 3 : Taal

The past week has been nothing short of eventful. As most of the world knows, Taal Volcano spewed out ash last Sunday afternoon, blanketing towns as far as Metro Manila with the grey powder. By the end of the day, Alert Level 4 was raised, warning the public that a major eruption was imminent in what can only be predicted as being as close as hours or days.  Several towns in nearby Batangas Province, which is practically next door to the town where I work, have been evacuated as they are in the 14km danger zone in the event of the eruption.  Since then there have been constant earthquakes, fissures have been reported in various places in Batangas and a lava fountain has been spotted in Taal. A deadly eruption, according to experts, is expected. 

Our view from home last weekend.

Book Review: We Met in December

One thing people need to know about me is that I’m a sucker for a feel-good, romantic comedy. Add the element of Christmas and you have me hooked. It’s no surprise that I tend to gravitate towards books and films of the same theme (hence my obsession with Hallmark Christmas/Romance movies). When I read the premise of two people who meet, become flatmates and fall in love in the span between two Christmases, it was a no-brainer for me to want to read it.  

Cover Credit: Harper Collins

The Art of Habi in Maragondon Cavite

One of the things that fascinated me when I moved to the province was the locally-produced products in my grandmother’s hometown. One of those products is a fabric/textile that people call “habi.”  

Photo Credit: Edrock Photography

Going Green in 2020

One of the things that I want to do this year is to be more earth-friendly. I have already been more conscious during the past year about lessening my trash and the use of plastics and such, but I feel that this year I need to make it not just a habit or something that I am trying but an actual lifestyle. Here are some of the things that I am currently doing and some that I aim to do this year to make this an earth-friendly 2020: 

Image by annca from Pixabay

Review: Danarra Aromatherapy Oil

I have been a fan of aromatherapy for more years now. I started with the massages until I started using air revitalizers and dehumidifiers, which led me to my obsession with Mia Maison’s scents. For the past few years, I have been a constant user of pain relief rubs/balms, with some smelling more like mint/menthol and others with more aromatherapy-like scents that smell more like perfume than old-person body pain. I recently discovered a new brand for aromatherapy pain relief called Danarra and I am currently obsessed with it!

Review: Samsung Galaxy Fit

A couple of years back, I bought a fitness watch from Lazada. It cost less than a thousand pesos and it measured my steps, calories burned, heart rate, blood pressure, and oxygen levels. While my main purpose for it was to count my steps, I found myself wanting more from it and its partner app. Luckily for me, when I switched back to a Samsung phone recently, it came with a free Samsung Galaxy Fit. 

January Playlist: Reclaim

As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, 2020 for me is the year that I am to reclaim the person that I have lost while I have been busy with everything else in my life. For this month, I thought I’d create a playlist that would help me and hopefully other people (women in particular), who would like to do the same thing. Here is the playlist I created on Spotify for this:

My Online Banking Experience

I have a confession to make: I had a love-hate relationship with banks. There was a time that I only had an account because that was where my salary was deposited. For most of my adult life, I saved money the old-fashioned way: by keeping it at home (not that there was a lot of cash to begin with since I usually spent it all eventually). Even when I did eventually become a regular depositor of a certain bank, I was still very hesitant to use online banking. I’ve heard so many horror stories and I wasn’t sure if I could handle the stress if it ever happened to me.  

It was only last year that I decided to take the plunge into the online side of banking. I have to admit that it has made the management of money and the payment of bills easier for me. Not that there aren’t any setbacks to it (because there have been) but in general it has been a convenient way for me to get things done financially. 

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

Crisis on Infinite Earths Review (Episodes 1 to 3)

For the first few seasons, I had been a fan of the CW shows that feature DC characters/superheroes: Arrow, The Flash, The Legends of Tomorrow, and Supergirl. At some point, I felt a bit of a TV burnout with all the shows that I had been streaming so I slowly quit watching shows one by one until I quit cold turkey altogether. Still, I made it a point to watch the crossover episodes, and this season, it’s all about the Crisis on Infinite Earths. They’re three of five episodes in and so far, I have to say it’s the best crossover ever!

Word for the Year: Reclaim

Have you ever felt so busy that you just feel lost in the shuffle? When things get too much that you lose the sense of who you are because it gets ignored in favor of everything else? For the past few months, I felt stagnant. I felt like I was not getting anywhere and that I was not feeling fulfilled even with all the things that I do. That’s when I realized that I wasn’t giving enough time for myself, to the point that I feel like I don’t know who I am anymore. I think this new year is as good a time as any to change that.