days like this are meant to be cherished

Weekends are like an oasis in an immense, scorching desert, offering some respite for the weary.

I particularly love lazy weekends, when my husband and I only wake up to prepare and have lunch, wash the dishes, watch a movie, then sleep again. The rain even makes it a lovely prospect to just stay in and lounge around.

I do not take weekends for granted, especially after a stressful week from work. But to make weekends special, I make sure to leave all the stress behind the moment I step out of the office.

So tonight, with a mug of hot tea, I shall relish this cool, quiet Saturday evening and offer a prayer of gratitude. I do hope everyone's also having a wonderful weekend.

and so it seems i can't stop

If this continues over the weekend, I shall then declare that I'm officially hooked on making these pretties.

as good as new

I have a dandy, new blog look!

At first, I was afraid to upgrade my template; but then I told myself, "What the heck, let's do this!"And then I found myself mixing and matching background and font colors, up until now (it's 1:58 am already). So far, I am liking what I'm seeing. It's like I bought new clothes and wore them right away for everyone to see. Haha!

Maybe tomorrow I'll polish my other blog, too. Yay!

let the DIY project begin

I had to pass up work today (for reasons I shall not divulge as they only give me headache), and found myself inspired by this creative, pretty momma. And so I headed out and bought a fresh supply of glue sticks and some rags. Unfortunately, my old, trusty glue gun is already a goner, so I made do with a candle to melt a glue stick; and with just a few hair pins and wooden beads from an old necklace, voila! DIY mania began...

My first attempt at making a hair pin.
I'm not really happy about it, but hey, I tried!

Now this one's more like it.

And look, I even had the guts to spruce up an old, plain tank top! I can say I made a pretty decent job, don't you think?

Now let's see if I can make something more out of this new "talent".

never trust a man to buy you accessories...

...unless you give him a peg, which I did. That made the job easier for Francis when I asked him to buy me accessories as pasalubong from Davao. But mind you, I have to give it to my husband; he has been patient enough to scour Aldevinco (a souvenir haven in Davao) to find the perfect tribal necklaces for me. While I was on the way back to the office from a shoot in Pampanga, Francis was busy sending me MMS just to get my approval. Honestly, I was impressed by his efforts, and so were my shoot crew.

My pretty ethnic bib necklace

My husband's labor of love paid off, because ever since he handed me his pasalubong, I've been wearing it almost every day this past week. I've been getting a lot of compliments, too (for both my necklace and my sweet hubby)! I say my husband really has good taste. Haha!

This one, I have yet to wear soon.

playing pretend

I've finally discovered a way to somehow teach myself to get used to being home alone whenever Francis is away on a field work (not that he's often away), aside from asking my sis or sis-in-law to sleep over our place--I've learned to play pretend.

The idea came to me this afternoon at work. I thought that maybe, if I pretend that I'm really living alone, like I'm in college and I'm away from home renting a place near my university, maybe I can get by without missing Francis too much.

And so when I got back, I popped in some CD, turned up the volume a bit and proceeded to prepare my late dinner while swaying to the music, all the while imagining that I've been doing this for a year or so now. Well, of course, I still had to go online and Skype with Francis, but that's beside the point.

Anyway, the only problem with this scheme of mine is going to bed. I find it really difficult sleeping alone in our place. It's just different knowing that I'm alone in our bed. Don't get me wrong, I've grown used to sleeping alone in my room in our house in Taytay, especially after my beloved lola passed away (we sleep in the same room but on separate beds; better that way so there's someone with lola in case she needs something at night). This time, it's just...weird, like there's something missing (well, there definitely is someone missing). So that part I don't know how to get around yet.

Maybe I can pretend that I'm an insomniac and not sleep until dawn? Come to think of it, I already did that before.