It’s been a weird couple of months having fully been submersed in H&S business. I’m still adjusting to running a business and not wanting to let anyone, yet alone myself, down but at the same time- I can’t help but miss the things I often have to sacrifice. It’s embarrassing to admit that I’m talking about creating content but God I love it so much- even writing here is exhilarating!
I think more than anything, I just like having a physical outlet for my thoughts.
More than that, I’ve been extremely passionate about creating content that will help educate the general public. I don’t know if it will ever pick up or if anyone really likes it but if I’ve stuck by doing all the stupid shit I do online, why should something I truly believe in be any different, right?
There’s a lot of superficialities going on in what i used to consider “my space” right now and I hate it. Maybe because I’m getting older and I could care less about disbanding of gangs , what’s inside people’s bags and what they put on their face. I’m not for everybody and it’s tough. Sometimes I wish for a little bit more payoff from the work I’ve put in but I try to remind myself that I don’t really work THAT hard. 😂not for the vlog and blog, at least. Let’s be honest. But I’ll try harder.
Maybe that’s why I’ve been in a “rut” lately because I’m not creating content and I can’t create because I’m in a rut and I refuse to try harder. It’s all so confusing right now.
Side note: we still have a wedding to plan and less than 6 months to plan it.
Holy fucking shit. And I still can’t decide on our invitations.
Thank you to Bree Esplanada for dressing me in his wonderful creation,
Careline & Ever Bilena for the wonderful spa experience,
Movenpick for hosting us,
E! for putting this awesome event together and Pixie Dust Creations for all the amazing work you’ve done!
The future is indeed bright for all of us and we are so thankful for you acknowledgement.
Some months ago, Paolo tagged me along on a family trip to their province in Biasong, Leyte. I didn’t intend on blogging the trip as I wanted to take that time to bond with my new family to be but I’ve got a handful of photos that I wanted to share somewhere & today, that soPostmewhere is here.
The trip was definitely beautiful, insightful and our days were filled with adventures while the evenings were always full of food, drinking, talking and laughing. Naturally, I’ve been nervous about acquiring a new family & a new family acquiring me as I’ve never been exceptionally great with people but I’ve always felt welcomed by new soon to be family and it allowed me to see clearer why I love Paolo as much as I do. It takes a village to raise a child-> person and he was definitely raised by great ones.
While I don’t intend on blogging about what we did, where to go, where to eat (we mostly stayed in their ancestral house & binged on free range chickens which were awesome)- I do recommend that you make a visit to Lake Danao if you’re ever in the area. You can rent a floating hut and eat food & drinks you brought/ bought while enjoy the cold waters. I especially enjoyed the kayak and inner tube but I’ll let the photos do the talking!
At the end of the day, I am just extremely grateful that I can surround myself with genuinely good people. That means a lot.
Abaca Baking Co., also known as ABC, is now on their 9th branch in the city! Since opening their first branch only a couple of years ago, this company, best known for their selection of breakfast & comfort food that can be enjoyed at any time of the day, has slowly but surely been making itself a household name and favorite amongst Cebuanos.
Their latest branch, which is located at the ground floor of The Robinsons Galleria features the baking companies signature homey and posh ambiance with wide, open spaces for diners to enjoy along with the beautiful vertical landscaping that Robinsons Galleria is best known for.
If you are watching/ reading this entry and are asking yourself why I would ever make content like this and wondering who would consume this when it’s common knowledge, consider yourself extremely blessed.
Gift giving—in its many, varied forms—is a huge part of the holidays. It’s not about getting gifts or material possessions; it’s a reflection of the season’s underlying values of generosity, thoughtfulness, and love.
The act of getting the perfect gift for your loved ones has its own rewards. The idea of surprising them on Christmas Eve is even more enjoyable. But “fun” becomes stressful when you find yourself in the middle of an overwhelmingly large crowd inside a mall, clueless about what gift to buy for them.
While almost everyone chooses to give impressive and dazzling presents for their loved ones, here are some ideas on what to give every member of your family:
For your little brother or sister
The 8-megapixel Papershoot Wood – TW Cypress Camera Set can be their buddy in capturing family fun at home. It is thin and lightweight, so your younger sibling can bring it anywhere. Moreover, it has three lens modes they can play with: fisheye is best used for dramatic wide shots; wide angle will be great for that formal family picture during Noche Buena, and macro can give you Instagram-worthy shots of gifts, decors, and sumptuous dishes on the table.
This kid-friendly device uses heavy stone paper made from inorganic mineral powder, making it safer for them to use. Despite its light materials, the product is water-resistant and durable.
For Ate and Kuya
Make a joyful Christmas for your siblings by giving them the Acer Predator X27. Equipped with HDR ultra monitor, this high-grade playing rig can provide realistic visuals to make them feel planted on the gaming terrains. This product can help ate and kuya further make their battlestation more immersive.
For Mom
The Tatung 11-Cup Stainless Steel Multi-Functional Cooker is a perfect home partner for your mom to help her prepare warm meals for the family. It has four modes: Braise is ideal for cooking food that only require light frying. If your mom wants to make dumplings or rice cakes for noche buena, she can use put it in Steam. Cooking can handle up to 11 cups of uncooked rice. Lastly, since the weather will be cold, encourage her to make porridge for the family using the Stew mode.
For Dad
And for dad who is always on the go, the latest Asus Zenfone 5 series (5, 5Q, and 5Z) suit him. It can be his companion when working or just unwinding after a tedious day.
These phones have clear cameras that can be used when reporting at work. Equipped with large storage of 64 megabytes, dad can also download games he can play and films he can watch during his breaks.
Getting these for your loved ones can help you score more luck and love this season. If you buy Taiwan Excellence seal items from participating PC Express stores, you stand to win more awesome devices.
From October 22 to December 3, 2018, customers who purchase Taiwan-based products with a minimum value of Php 2,000.00 from PC Express branches will be given a chance to join the Dice game where you must correctly guess the outcome of the dices to be rolled. Lucky participants can take home Christmas giveaways from Taiwan Excellence.
You will also be given a chance to win premium-grade devices when you join the All Taiwant for Christmas Promo. The raffle draw will be on December 14, 2018, at 4 PM at PC Express, Gilmore Plus, New Manila, Quezon City.
Christmas won’t be the same without the family around. Unwrap bliss and surprises at home this Yuletide Season with these gifts from Taiwan. These are specially tested and evaluated by Taiwan Excellence with guidance from the Bureau of Foreign Trade to promote Taiwan’s revolutionary products.
I wonder if people on the online world still consider me as a fashion blogger considering that my content has been so diverse, even I don’t really know what to consider myself these days! But fashion has always been something I’ve loved despite feeling so restricted by it. I live in a tropical country and I live for layers & coats- you do the math. -_- but fashion, food, travel or whatever else in between, it was an honor to be invited to Influencity’s first run!
For this event, I wanted to be somewhat chic but comfortable at the same time but I often find myself looking back at my fashion choices and asking myself why I decided to leave the house looking like that. I’m over critical, it’s in my blood but I often wait til the last minutes to do so.
In retrospect, I would’ve worn a different, form fitting top instead of this lazy white round neck shirt. I feel like I’m not giving my body that much of a silhouette with the baggy blazer & baggy shirt which is probably why these photos never made it on my Instagram. Oiii, Instagram consciousssss. lol.
But my heels are the best. I need more outfits in these heels. I love these heels!
I also invested in their highlighter and I love it but I do think that it lacks in lasting power. I’m still contemplating on whether or not I really like it as much as I say I do.
I didn’t know that I was going to fall in love with Paolo when I was 9 years old at a Star Wars themed birthday party. It was his cousins, who was also my best friends’ cousin’s, birthday and I was her plus 1. I was on my way to the bathroom when I first saw Paolo playing on a console. He was 13.
It was puppy love and although having a crush at 9 years old was absolutely ridiculous, I remember having to go to the bathroom a lot of times that night just so I get a quick look at him.
I didn’t know that I was going to fall in love with Paolo when my grandmother constantly spoke about a young boy who lived a block from us who was one of the few who got into “The Ateneo”. He was the son of her subdivision mah-jong mates and at the time, all I could think as a response to this was, “why am I even listening to this?”
Little did I know, about 5 years later, as I was walking home from school on evening would I specifically wish for him. Paolo was back home college, driving a yellow car with the windows down so the cigarette smoke cold aerate. I didn’t who he was when he passed me but I swore we was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I remember seeing him drive by and wishing that I would run into him again and he would stop in his tracks and ask me to go somewhere, anywhere and I would say yes.
I was infatuated with this boy that I had caught sight of for a millisecond, that for 3 months straight, I consistently walked home in hopes of running into him again. But I never saw him and I only found out last year that the driver of this yellow car was in fact, Paolo.
I didn’t know that I going to fall in love with Paolo when I formally met him in 2011. It would be fate that I had randomly decided to get into ultimate Frisbee, his Frisbee group, through a common friend, Richard. Paolo identified me as someone who “looked familiar” and we had quickly deduced that we were, at one point neighbors and that I was, in fact, his cousin’s childhood best friend.
At the time, I didn’t even realize that he was the Ateneo boy I had heard about from my grandmother so many times, so many years ago.
That night he taught me how to throw a Frisbee and much to my dismay, I bid him a lingering goodbye and yet he never even bothered to ask for my number. He thought I was Richard’s date and wanted to be respectful.
I knew I was going to fall in love with Paolo months into conversation, we were already Facebook friends and we would spend many days & nights talking to each other. Our conversations were something I had always looked forward to but he always had a way of making me feel like he would never actually fall in love with me.
“What’re you doing tonight?” I would ask him.
“I’m going to drop off some pasta I made at my crush’s house.” He would reply.
“How come I’ve never tasted your pasta?”
“hmm… Maybe next time.”
I thought I had eliminated my chances of ever truly in falling in love with Paolo when I decided to date someone else. I figured, it was better to date someone who actually liked me instead of someone I liked who was dropping off pasta at his crush’s house.
In fact, I wanted so much to rub it his face that I was secretly over him that I casually had both of them meet. That night Paolo and I even sang a duet of “Bakit Ngayon Ka Lang” at an open mic bar. The truth was, I was singing it to him and not really with him. Turns out, he felt the same.
We stopped talking after that.
But all the stars would align on October 28, 2011- it was my birthday, the fiesta of our subdivision and also the day that my neighbor, Paolo’s brother, would celebrate his birthday day as well. It’s fate because it was his brother’s late birthday celebration and had he not celebrated his birthday, Paolo would never invite himself over to my birthday, conveniently already being in the same place and we probably never would have shared our first kiss which we did on the morning on the 29th. Obviously, we also started dating after that.
As I got to know him, I quickly knew I would love Paolo for all the days of my life and by our 2nd year in, I would begin to write my wedding vows for him.
We broke up after 5 years of dating and in fact, we never even talked about marriage aside from the fact that it wasn’t in our future.
For the record, Paolo broke up with me. BIGGEST MISTAKE OF HIS LIFE.
I don’t know why I was so surprised to begin with: I never thought that Paolo would ever like a girl like me, much more love, much much more- marry.
But the most painful part of it all was me not anticipating that just when he was actually starting to love me, he would break my heart by saying that he forgot how to.
All the reasons we had to not be together absolutely broke my heart. I didn’t understand why we shouldn’t be together and the hardest part was, I didn’t know how I could ever make the pain stop.
So to answer the age old question, “where do broken hearts go?” Our hearts found themselves with or trying to be with other people.
To add to the roster of I didn’t thinks: I never would have thought that it was in our being lost that we would find each other again. And never in a million years would I think that we could pick up where we left off and rekindle the love that we had forgotten we had after having gone through so much.
But a few months later, there he was, standing outside my door, with his big goofy smile and I knew, it was and will always be him. Despite the pain, despite the journey, all my roads always lead me home. And it was clear, that he was my home.
I eventually knew that Paolo was going to propose to me because of his impeccable lack of being able to keep a secret and his poor choice of engagement ring hiding spots but what I didn’t know was how unnecessary his proposal would be last December 25, 2017. It was nothing short of romantic but unnecessary because he already had me, he had all of me, every single bit of my being was already his. Ring or no ring, weddingor no wedding, I would get into his yellow car or whatever car it was and go anywhere with him. There didn’t even have to be a car, if we had to, would pack our bags and live at the side of the road with him. But the ring was nice, the gesture was amazing and of course, I said YES! And so, we are to be wed in April next year.
I don’t really know what I think I know but I believe that the universe has given us so many chances to be in each other’s lives that if we never gave it a shot, we’d both be missing out of the greatest adventure of our lives.
I also not only believe but know in my heart that I could never love another person the way I do we have 400+ pages worth of blog entries, letter and poems about and for him, which we keep as a reminder of our love to prove it.
And so if I haven’t said it enough, I love you, Paolo. You are my home. You are my refuge. You are the father of our future children. You are my adventure. You are the answer to all the things I never thought, never knew and all the questions I will ever wonder.
You are who I was always meant to be with.
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Issa Talks... Alot 