The Groom Is Also On A Diet

Last December we also met up with one of Cebu's revered designer. I told him straightaway that I didn't have a specific design in mind. I just want a dress that fits our theme, best suits my body structure, and is lacy and “flowy”. He stared at me for a few minutes then sketched away. When I saw the sketch I immediately fell in love with it and immediately exclaimed, yan gusto ko! I have found my dress :D

I looked at his sketch again and almost despaired for like all design sketches he drew a sticklike figure wearing it. I don’t have skinny arms or a flat stomach. And the camera adds ten pounds and with high tech DSLRs, it’s more! :-| So I fear that the dream dress will not look so good on me after all :( The only hope is to shed a couple of pounds plus this darn winter weight gain...


The other night, not wanting to be alone having this blues, I challenged Harley that he too should lose weight. He smirked, insisting that he was still on his ideal weight and I was like pfft! You’re in denial. Prove it!

So we googled and found a site (there’s many of them) that calculates your BMI (body mass index) and how underweight/normal/overweight you are. To his horror, he found out he is indeed overweight – more than 15 pounds actually hehe! The following morning I received an email from him at work saying, I really can’t believe I’m overweight na :( (sad smiley included). To which I replied, Oh don’t worry ga, you'll always be beautiful in my eyes...

So the bride AND the groom are on diet ‘til the big day. I don’t believe in extreme dieting like skipping meals and starving myself. I simply don’t have the will to do that because I am a food lover. I love to eat! I am aiming for healthy dieting. You know watching my food intake, make sure I eat healthy and balanced meals always, resist the temptations of calorific desserts and few minutes of brisk walking a day are my plan. I want to look blooming, a blushing bride on my wedding. Not gaunt, sickly or worse, dying.

So now everytime I go to a coffee shop and look at my favourite sinful treats like chocolate cakes, minced pies and muffins, I just close my eyes and imagine that my dream dress (how I fantasize it will look like) is hovering right in front of me. So far, it’s working. But gosh, how long can I hold on? This is one great disadvantage of long engagement. I still have 11 months to endure this torture – this internal tug-of-war between my willpower and food lust. Shocks 11 months pa intawn! Good luck to us!

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London Night Shots

Fern, Darlene and Regi from Logica Philippines are here in UK for a 3 week training. It is Darlene and Reggie's first trip abroad - very bongga UK agad!

Yesterday we went to a Filipino Baptist gathering and after the service I "attacked" the Filipino eat-all-you-can free lunch there (I admit the food was the reason why they succeeded in dragging me there in the first place). It was raining, which put a damper to our original plan of me touring them around London's famous landmarks. So instead after lunch I accompanied them to Primark at Oxford St. as they also had to shop more winter clothes. We had dinner afterwards at LaTasca - a Spanish restaurant, which was very disappointing because their serving of paella was so cute for its price it made me cry with frustration. We didn't have our fill at all! We had to eat again, as in we need too because our tummies were literally grumbling their discontent, in Costa (Fern and I) and Burger King (Darlene and Regi) before going home.

As we walked towards Waterloo station where we were supposed to catch our train back to Staines, I couldn't resist to take pictures of them with the beautiful night lights of Trafalgar, London Eye & Big Ben. Even if I had to get a bit wet (yes it was raining the whole day - it's England after all) because it's tricky to shoot using my DSLR while balancing my leopard-print umbrella with my armpit, it was worth it. I was able to capture good enough photos. Yipee it seems that I am getting better with this manual settings thingy! I showed this shots to Harley a while ago and he exclaimed I have levelled up... (Talaga? hehe di naman masyado *blush*)

So my friends, come, visit London! I am not only a free of charge (willing to accept tips) tourist guide but can be your personal paparazzo as well. Sige na while the British Pound is at its lowest value ever!

Fern, Reggie & Darlene in front of National Gallery, Trafalgar

Darlene, Fern & Reggie at Hungerford Bride (London Eye & Big Ben at the background)

Fern

Reggie

Darlene

Darlene, Fern & Reggie again

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Yet another SNS: Facebook

On Wednesday night as I tried to cleanup my mailbox I noticed many unread notices from Facebook – blah blah added you as a friend on Facebook and including an invitation from Harley ages ago. So I decided to log in to my Facebook account, uploaded a profile photo so people would be affirmed it's really me and finally approved those invites.

I had been hesitant to start prettifying my Facebook because I have too many existing SNS (social networking sites) to handle. My Friendster is so cluttered with too many updates from nearly 500 friends that I don't even want to log in to it anymore… except when may bago akong narinig na chismis and gusto ko check yung Friendster profile nya to see if it's true or not *teehee*. And besides I don't need another distraction at work. God knows I have too many and I suspect my talent in multitasking has abated over the years (a good thing because it means I have succeeded in improving my ability to stay focused doing one stuff at a time... Oh you know, Multiply muna, then chat with kung sino online sa Gtalk, then surf, then work later hahahaha).

But then I noticed that most of who invited me on Facebook are professional contacts – people I'm working with now or I had the honour to work with before. So I am deciding to maintain it. Well you never know – with all the world trying to make sense of the current economic crisis and the looming gloom ahead that entails lay-offing by companies left and right *sigh*, it's good to keep in touch with your professional network. Oh this reminds me to visit my LinkedIn too…

If you worked with me before (NEC, Fujitsu, RCG & Rendition - yes my CV's quite long *giggle*), guys I'm in Facebook & LinkedIn. If you're working in Barclays or Google please please pretty please add me m(-.-)m

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The Evolution of Our Invitation (Chapter 1)

Mall is designing our invitation! *big grin* I am truly lucky for having a future cousin-in-law who is not only gifted but also very kind to share her talent and precious time. Of course it helps that Harley is one her favourite cousins ... teehee :)

Harley and I aim of personalizing our wedding as best as possible and Mall's priceless contribution is a step. We want our wedding to be uniquely ours - invitations, giveaways etc. that we're planning to give will represent who we are, what we like and the memorable moments we had as a couple. Our guests should brace themselves for a healthy (or unhealthy) dose of ka-cornihan hehe =p

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Farewell Niña

Wednesday afternoon she was rushed to the hospital because she was coughing up blood. Her parents and brothers were not very bothered because the amount of blood she expelled was not as much as before. They said they had had worse scare. They were confident that she would be discharged in no time. Little did they know that her body could not hold out anymore – at the early morn of Friday, she expired her last breath.

When I received the sad news this morning I called my Mama right away. I was more concerned of consoling her, sure that she must be crying and very affected of the news. Niña is very dear to my Mama’s heart because when Niña had worked in Cebu (before the onslaught of her sickness) she had visited my Mama a couple of times just to say Hi and to keep her company. Mama has nothing but praises for Niña and always says that she’s the nicest of all her nieces and nephews.

 

After talking to Mama I spent the rest of the morning trying to book a flight to Ozamis so she can attend the wake. After that I somehow forgot about the situation because I got tied up in creating a build due for release COP (close of play) today. It was only when I got home, the moment I opened the door to my empty apartment, when the truth sank in. I felt this overwhelming bout of sadness and disbelief that my God, she is gone. I couldn't help but whine to God above why He took her so soon. 

She did not deserve to die! Oh okay no one else does but I daresay she was more deserving to live than most people. She didn’t even reach her 29th birthday (supposedly this 18th). If she did not have that illness she would have been right now worrying about the same mundane stuff any other girls our age are concerning themselves of. She was not given the chance to worry more about her career, when to marry and how many kids to have someday. She was still too young to die. It’s really unfair!

Her illness kept her bedridden for 10 months. On some lucky days she wasn’t in much pain and could go out of her room and watch TV in their sala. What she had was a severe case of Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension. It was already malignant when it had been diagnosed and the doctor said she would be lucky to live up to a year even without missing her medications. A daily dose of Sildenafil (aka Viagra) and some other pills just alleviated the symptoms. Only a lung transplant offers possibility of a cure. 

At least she is not suffering anymore where she is now.  I am sure she’s in heaven because if you think I am good person, well she was 1 million times nicer, a better person than me. Yes, she is now in heaven.

Before you go sleep tonight please utter some words of prayer for the eternal repose of my dear cousin’s soul. Please also pray for her loved ones who are left behind – especially courage for her parents so that they can survive this great loss.  If I am this sad I just can’t imagine the extent of heartbreak my Auntie and Uncle must be feeling right now. Because the most painful grief a parent can feel is when they have to bury their own beloved child. Please pray for them.

Remember your life is a precious gift. Live each day never forgetting that.

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Plum and Pink for Us

Ladies and Gentlemen! Boys and Gels! Allow me to present our wedding motif. Drum roll please. Here it is! Ta da!
Primary color: Plum
Secondary color: Dark Pink(Cielo said we can play around with any shades of pink)
with accents of Silver and White

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Hong Kong Disneyland and more Holiday Pics

Harley and I went to Hong Kong Disneyland last December 15. Although I already have been a Disneyland (Tokyo) 3 times, the experience in HK Disneyland was more dear to me because I was with my Prince Charming (naks!).

HK Disneyland is not as big compared to Tokyo's though. Maybe because it's still new and still on the process of expansion. And it also lacks most of the adult rides - so thrill-seeking visitors might be disappointed there. However it's more tourist friendly because there are English translations everywhere (I mean compared to Tokyo ha). Maybe they anticipated that most visitors will be from other Asian countries like Malaysia, Indonesia etc, not only Chinese. Since there were not much thrill rides (as if pud mosakay ko :P) what Harley and I did there was attend theatre shows. Ganda ng shows nila... worth it sa pila! Made me reminisce my many favourite Disney moments - I was even surprised that I could still sing along with most of the songs.

View our pics.
Also some pics in this album are taken during the holidays - precious moments with my family and friends.

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Hong Kong - Ocean Park

Harley and I went to Hong Kong last December 13 to 17. My mother was supposed to go with us but her passport's release didn't make it in time - that trip was for her (and for my father and sister pero grr mga killjoy) sana, sigh :( But anyway, Harley and I had lots of fun fun fun naman!

The first day we arrived in HongKong we just explored Tsim Sha Tsui (TST). Good thing our hotel, Hotel Benito is very strategically located - the TST MTR station is literally just a stone's throw away. That day we found a nice Japanese restaurant (Sushi One) that has a real sushi bar...drool. We became addicted to it. I guess during our stay in HongKong we had dinner there thrice!

Outlet shops of Benetton, Esprit and Giordano are also littered everywhere in TST. So if you fancy shopping - I truly recommend staying within that area. Aside from that the Avenue of the Stars is located in TST and its waterfront provides an unobstructed view of Victoria Harbour - perfect for pictures!

The next day we went to Ocean Park - a very huge Park that houses the Giant Panda cubs, some seals, large aquariums of jellyfish and many more. What I love the most in Ocean Park is the Cable Car. Ang saya ng feeling to be on top, able to see the sea with HongKong's numerous tall buildings as backdrop. I will never get tire riding it over and over again.

View our pics.

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