me at 44... I WILL LIVE MY DESTINY

I celebrate the ENLIGHTENMENT that comes with my being 44 years old today. At 44 years old I am getting older not younger. but the good news -- each passing year brings greater confidence, more joy and a deeper sense of who I am. 

How do i feel when i look in the mirror? At age 44, i feel pretty darn good. What you're feeling inside shows on your face and most of the time I'm  happy.  I have a wonderful husband and kids, parents, siblings and sisters-in law. 

Since i started my ph.D. last year, Appreciative Inquiry led me to the positive thoughts of  LIVING my DESTINY. Whatever my motto has been in the different phases of my life, it has become a reality along my journey.- thereby leading me towards the achievement of my goals. When you are determined to reach your highest potential, you will reach that destination, notwithstanding the obstacles along the way. 


What i want, now that i am 44...

“ I WILL LIVE MY DESTINY"

 Explore. Dream. Discover

  for i love the quote of MARK TWAIN
 "20 years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the things you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."    

I live by these famous QUOTES
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
-- William Henley, in Invictus

"I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it for I shall not pass this way again."-Stephen Grellet 


What i will never do?
- Never say Never

 

me at 44

I WILL LIVE BY THIS CREED.  

This was shared in FB by my high school Teacher Edith Alvarez

A Creed To Live 

By Nancy Sims

 Don't undermine your worth by comparing yourself with others. 

 It is because we are different that each of us is special.

 Don't set your goals by what other people deem important.

 Only do what is best for you. 

Don't take for granted the things closest to your heart. 

Cling to them as you would your life, 

for without them life is meaningless. 

 Don't let life slip through your fingers 

by living in the past or in the future. 

By living one day at a time you live all days of your life. 

Don't give up when you still have something to give. 

Nothing is really over until the moment you stop trying. 

Don't be afraid to admit that you are less than perfect. 

It is the fragile thread that binds us to each other. 

Don't be afraid to encounter risks. 

It is by taking chances that we learn how to be brave. 

Don't shut love out of your life by saying it is impossible. 

 The fastest way to lose love is to hold to it tightly, 

and the best way to keep love is to give it wings. 

Don't dismiss your dreams. 

To be without dreams is to be without hope, 

to be without hope is to be without purpose. 

 Don't run through life so fast that you forget 

not only where you have been, 

but also where you are going. 

Life is not a race, 

but a journey to be savored each step of the way. 

work of heART May 2012

My Mind's Eye "follow your heart" kit and Echo park "note to self" inspired by April Lim

so crazy about you

memories are meant to be made

me at 43

listen to your soul

bike

family

you're the icing

best things in life

it's a good day

note to self

remember this

surf at baler

what completes me....

“When we're incomplete, we're always searching 
for somebody to complete us. 
When, after a few years or a few months of a relationship, 
we find that we're still unfulfilled, 
we blame our partners and 
take up with somebody more promising. 
This can go on and on--series polygamy--
until we admit that while a partner 
can add sweet dimensions to our lives, 
we, each of us, are responsible 
for our own fulfillment. 
Nobody else can provide it for us, 
and to believe otherwise is to delude
 ourselves dangerously and to program
 for eventual failure every 
relationship we enter.” 
― Tom Robbins

Nakabuang Island Batanes - photo taken last January 2012


In a few days I am almost 44...
The best things in life
 for me are not things.
what completes me,
is being happy and 
contented with what i have.
I will Live my life to the fullest.

"Life is not about the destination.
It's the journey of being the best person you can be;
being there to make people the best they can be;
 give a helping
hand when and wherever possible.
Enjoy even the little things 
we meet along the way 
that make our journey and 
of others memorable and treasured."

my IKEA desktop

I am an IKEA LOVER. How i wish there is a big IKEA STORE like the one in i visited at San Jose or Costa Mesa United States here in the Philippines. with this App, at least ikea is in my computer. THIS IS HOW my desktop LOOKS NOw ;-) 

i REALLY LOVE this COOL desktop app, It allows me to store and organize my stuff in my computer.

my desktop folders

my DESKTOP

You can download the IKEA e-Folder set here,  to put order on your Desktop.  just click the highlighted button

Summer Manifesto

SUMMER in the Philippines starts immediately after the end of school year of children which is between the last week of March to 2nd week of June. 

I love the idea of Ali Edwards of putting into lists the things we want to do for summer.  Even though summer is almost over here in Manila (it's starting to rain already) i still want to make the lists. 

Our gift to our Children this summer is FUN while traveling. I want them to see for themselves what they study in their Civic Education and History.  Lists includes my goal and for the family.

1. kids to visit Baguio and Stay with grandparents while i go for a retreat at Bukidnon with the Benedictine monks
2. white water rafting at Cagayan de Oro
3. visit Del Monte plantation at Bukidnon
4. go to bangkok
5. go to Japan 
6. visit puerto princesa
7. ziplining
8. rapelling
9. visit Legazpi and see the perfect cone Mayon Volcano
10. enjoy Misibis Resort
11. FireFly Watching
12. SWIM swim SWIM instead of spending more time in front of the computer.
13. visit different islands in Caramoan, Camarines Sur
14. Surfing at Baler
15. ride the waves at Baler
16. watch sunrise at Baler
17. eat ice Candy
18. eat at El Presidente Chinese Restaurant in Binondo Manila
19. to celebrate my birthday and my daughter's birthday we will go to Singapore and stay at Resort World and the popular Marina Bay Sands Hotel
20. go to universal studios
21. explore singapore zoo
22. Eat lunch + dinner outside + Watch movies - as often as possible.
23. drink flavored beer and margarita 

Camarines Sur

Puerto Princesa

Cagayan de Oro White Water Rafting April 1, 2012

with sister in law stacey

with Kuya Rudy Co

Puerto Princesa

31 Things: Day 2 - Morning

31 Things: Day 1 - Jewelry

31 things is a photo & journaling workshop with Ali Edwards. I enrolled in this course because i like writing in a diary since i was a teenager. But as i get busy in life, i have no time to document my everyday life like before.

"In 31 Things you will be encouraged and inspired to capture your life right now. This is an opportunity to get more specific pieces of your story told with the goal of going more in-depth." - Ali Edwards

Gifts from Japan

Thanks so much to my brother Dennis and Sister-in-law Stacey for the gifts from their Japan TRAVEL.  so sweet of them to remember. mwah mwah love you.  They're all my favorites.

Just to let you know, when i was also in Japan, i ate one whole CHEESECAKE that i bought in the bullet train station in one sitting. goodbye diet.  Thanks for buying this one for me I love japanese cheesecake specially with the leche flan on top.



Mochi is also my favorite.  Kat, Our Japanese Host from Rotary Club of Osaka Evening even bought me an ice cream and He also gave me this one.  I really love it.  



I came to know about the different Kit-kat flavors from my scrapbook friend.  


I also love this mwah



Glad you remembered that i love this salad sauce, i forgot to buy one because i was busy buying Kit-kats harharhar.

Project 52 week 19 - Still Life

Manalang-Gloria Ancestral House & Smith, Bell & Co. (Tabaco City)

Thanks to my friend Mike G. Ong for bringing us to his grandmother's house last May 6, 2012 at  Tabaco, Albay. (above photo taken with my iPhone 4s)
 
TABACO CITY – A century-old, Spanish-style house of stone and capiz shell windows in Tabaco City in Albay looks as illustrious as its former occupant, Angela Manalang-Gloria, regarded as the “matriarch” of Filipino women poets in English. 

It was doubly significant, therefore, when the National Historical Institute unveiled last week two markers at the Manalang-Gloria ancestral home near the city’s international port.

Sitting on a 3,700-square-meter property, the house was built in the early 1900s by a wealthy Bicolano, Don Mariano Villanueva. It was considered one of the most beautiful houses of its kind in the country.

Its old Spanish architectural design has been preserved through the years and protected from renovations.

With an 800-sqm floor area, the two-story structure has four big bedrooms, two living rooms, a dining hall, a kitchen, a terrace and a basement.

The stairs, floors, ceiling and windows are wooden. Capiz in the windows filter the glare of tropical sunlight.

Bahay na Bato

Though seemingly bare, the house has some old furniture, photographs and some of Manalang-Gloria’s books.

In the mid-1900s, the house became a trading center of Smith, Bell and Co., an American-owned merchandise firm which had a branch in Tabaco.

Manalang-Gloria, described as a “pragmatic businesswoman” in a literary biography written by Edna Zapanta Manlapaz, bought the house in 1965 for P50,000 from an American agent of Smith, Bell and Co., who was clueless of its real estate value.

Manlapaz said the poet felt no compunction for having “taken advantage,” as it were, of the agent’s ignorance because, she maintained, it was his business to know what he was selling.

Legazpi City museum curator Erlinda Belleza said the bahay na bato, or the stone-and-wood houses of the 19th century, is a product of native and Spanish parentage. In the book “Igkas-Arte: The Philippine Arts During the Spanish Period,” the bahay na bato features a sala (living room) flanked by bedrooms with wide doors and bounded, sometimes on two sides, by the volada or airy gallery.

Space flows from one room to another. When all doors to the rooms are opened, the house becomes one vast space. It has an elaborate system of openings and shutters—the windows wide and high, sometimes extending the whole length or width of a room, the book said.

Elemelita Almosara, NHI deputy executive director, said the agency put up the historical markers in front of the house after a team of heritage architects surveyed and analyzed its features.

Tourist attraction

“Based on an analysis of the NHI, the Bahay-Kalakal (trading house) of Smith, Bell and Co. is really a remarkable and classic bahay na bato, the oldest in the city of Tabaco,” Almosara said.

Tourism regional director Maria Ong-Ravanilla said the place would be included in Bicol’s tourism packages. More than the grandeur of a heritage site, what makes it significant is the story behind it, she said.

The site would be of great help in showcasing the rest of the historic city, Mayor Krisel Lagman-Luistro said. “We want to give our tourists good memories of how we once lived and how simple life was before.”

According to Manlapaz, Manalang-Gloria bought the house only for investment purposes. Although she found it to be very beautiful, she never considered moving into it. “I don’t like living in an expensive house,” she was quoted by the biographer as saying.


Manalang-Gloria’s clan today values the old house in a much different way.

While the matriarch had no room for sentimentality, her only daughter and heiress, Angelina Gloria-Ong, lives a less complicated life as a housewife.

Poet’s clan

“It was only during the last few months of my mother’s life when she lived in the house she had bought. It was where she died in August 1995,” Gloria-Ong, 65, said.

“People would think my mother was romantic because she was a poet. But she was more of a businesswoman—strict and very conservative,” she said.

She said the recognition given by the NHI both to the house and to her mother has made her feel proud and honored.

Gloria-Ong said she started to live in the house only in February 1995. Now, only the sixth of her eight children—Michael, 28—also lives there. The rest, except the youngest, have their own families.

Michael said his nephews and nieces still frequent the place, which is near their school. The clan also holds special family occasions in the house.

“After the markers were placed, passersby would come near and read them. Nobody gave this much attention to our house before. Now the people begin to appreciate it,” Michael said.

Gloria-Ong said the family was willing to open some parts of their house to the public and tourists someday.

article Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer

Hosted by Cecily and Lolli

instaAlbum for my instaGram photos

my iphone is almost full because of my instaGram photos.  so i decided to buy photo sleeves from We R Memory Keepers and album from American Crafts to make an instAlbum for my instaGram photos.  i printed everything with my Epson R2000 printer.

inks that i use