Check them out yourself starting from the jump off at The Blog Train Blog!

I’ve decided to continue with what I started from August, the Comment Challenge! Harriet who hosts the monthly challenge has not posted the badge up for September so I haven’t been tallying all the comments I’ve done in the past four days. But today, i realized that I still make a conscious effort to comment and decided to start tracking them again. So whether the challenge will be up at Harriet’s or not, I’m doing it! Let’s see if I top the 390 comments I made in August!

Oh and I want to give some Linky Love to my Top Commenter for August: Sandy from the Traveling Suitcase! Thank you so much for the visits and the comments

Thursday night:  attended the funeral of Kourtney. She’s a friend’s very young daughter who died of Dengue. She was at the ICU of the St.Luke’s Medical Center for only two days (if I remember correctly) before God ended her pain and took her to heaven. Before that, she’d been in and out of a hospital in Batangas.

That night at the memorial, it was raining, and the creek overflowed while I was at the church.

After the service offered by YAM and SKEP, I stayed on to sing hymns with friends I haven’t hung out with in a long time. Dex and his wife Joy are so young to be grieving over the loss of their only child. It also means that they still have a lot of life ahead of them, and they can definitely try for more babies. Dex is only 27.

We left the funeral just before 3AM. They were talking about Keema at Kebabers, or Tapsi from the store next to it. There was meryenda available at the wake, but I didn’t want to eat bread, no matter how tempting the ensaymada was. After a lot of prodding, the girls finally convinced me to treat them to breakfast at the Tapsihan where Fren works the night shift. So we invaded the sidewalk along La Ignaciana, and occupied the tables and chairs where the night owls from St. Luke’s would have spent their breaks. There was a lot of laughing going on because Chase was chasing each cutie away; every time a cute guy approached to buy something, he’d drop funny pickup lines! haha. All of them just smiled back naman.

It was already 4am of Friday by the time we called it quits. I was officially awake for24 hours.

A few hours later (this is Friday now), it was time to wake up and start a new day. We had a full day ahead: a visit to Tayhua store in Binondo to pick up photography gear, and a lunch/drinking session with my team at Sangkalan near the office. Finding Tayhua wasn’t too difficult, getting a cab back to QC was more challenging.

For lunch, we met up with my team and had a few hours just chatting, eating and drinking booze. We headed home at around 330pm. I thought I’d get some sleep, and then go online. That was far from what happened, haha.

My niece Chiki (who turned 16 the day before), was having her hair rebonded. After a few minutes considering it, I decided to get the treatment too. We all finished at 12 midnight! It was thaaaaat long because Chiki has very thick hair, frizzy too! Haha. While we waited, there were lots of kwento, and Freedah (her mom) cooked up some spaghetti for our belated celebration for Chiki’s day.

I tried to go online at midnight, but found myself nodding off to la-la-land while typing. So I slept on the couch until Alfred came home from seeing his friend in Bulacan at around 4am. After awhile, it was Kuya’s turn to come a-knocking. He had spent the evening at the wake of Kourtney, who was transported to Batangas in the wee hours of the morning of Saturday.

So it looks like I did not get much sleep over the weekend right? Well, I went up to my room at around 7am just as dad was preparing breakfast. The next time I was up? 2PM. So there, whatever sleep I lost from the past two days were all recovered. But doing things this way makes me feel that the weekend was too short. Totally opposite of how much time I felt I had the previous week. But that’s okay, I had spent time with family and friends that I haven’t been with in a long time. It’s all good.

Today is #sentisabado on Twitter and it was fun reminiscing about stuff from the past. From Galaga and Super Mario, to my old maroon and blue Swatch watch, 101 Dalmatians with the Happy Meal, and even the cheap laminate flooring (or was it linoleum?) on my grandmother’s house. Many of the people I follow are also twitting about what makes them sentimental this Saturday, and it’s all fun to read. Looking forward to next Saturday already.

Oh and one more thing to close my Saturday: potluck dinner with the whole Somebang family to remember Lola’s 6th death anniversary (September 1).

Well, the transaction took awhile because my payment got delayed, and baby Hannah was in the hospital for two weeks, rendering her mom unable to work on my order. But the long wait was well worth it. Check me out with my bag:

It looks like a very simple bag, but I am sure it was challenging to make. I love it! It’s very comfy to the touch and quite roomy too. I tossed my camera in it (I mean Deena, not Pinky) and, I swear, it didn’t feel so heavy! I’ve always complained about my camera big being a bit on the heavy side when I have all my stuff in it. With this one though, it was just right.

If you’d like to find out what other designs they have for these bags, and how to order, go to Hannah Ysabelle’s Multiply page. Joan, her mom, makes these bags herself.

Like today, it was a welcome surprise to see a friend’s name in my comment box. I miss you girl, and miss just hanging out and laughing so hard with you. When was the last time? Too long ago! Let’s go watch the UST choir’s concert together

Entrecard Top Droppers for August: Thank you so much! Once again, I appreciate the visits, and more the footprints you leave behind.

I only saw one movie in the cinema in August – The Expendables! But I did get to see a couple more movies from home, including Julie Delphy and Ethan Hawke in Before Sunset. Then there were the  movies shown on cable TV that we would watch in the afternoons. Movies like The Rocker, and this other movie where the protagonist was a high schooler who got thrown into prison for a while, and then attended a different school when he came out. In the new school, he established an entirely different reputation: that of a bad boy. He has a band too, with his old geeky friends. I don’t know the title of the movie, but Zooey Deschanel was there too as his friend and band mate (not his love interest though). The new guy lived with his dad in a trailer, and I remember how the boyfriend wondered aloud how in other parts of the world, motorhomes are real homes. It must be exciting to be able to drive your home somewhere and not worry about spending on accommodations, and having the great outdoors as your living room or porch. But it could be a tiresome life too not to have much private space. And if you really traveled a lot on it, you’d probably rack up huge costs on motorhome repairs! Oohh, but I’ve gone too much out of topic here.. what’s the title of the movie again? You gotta help me out babe!

Anyhoo… in September I plan on reorganizing and backing up my pictures stored in my hard drive, and the older photos in the external hard drive. Some of those photos have not been looked at or shared since they were taken and transferred. It’s going to be a huge undertaking because I’m sure I’ll be prompted to post-process and share most of them. Maybe I’ll even be inspired to scrap pages out of some.

I’ll also be launching my health blog this month, and hopefully launch a new design for The Newbie Photographer. The boyfriend would also like to use his blog to showcase his photos so we’ll be checking out a more suitable template for him. That would be nice, seeing that blog has gathered a lot of dust.

I’ll be seeing my girlfriends next week for a fun (wholesome, or not?) bridal shower for one of our friends. I hope this signals another round of meetups with other friends as well.

September is also gearing up to be an exciting month on the work front.

What are your plans for September?

My niece and goddaughter Ycha Shanti celebrated her 16th birthday on National Heroes’ Day, August 30th. It was a simple celebration, but she had a LOT of guests! I’m sure she will remember this for a long time.

She’ll be graduating from high school in a few months, and then she’ll be starting a brand new adventure: college/university life! Earlier this month, she took the UPCAT (University of the Philippines College Admission Test). Soon, she’ll be taking entrance exams to other universities in the metro. I have no doubt that she will find a good school. She has the head and heart for school, but she also doesn’t forget to enjoy and just be a kid.

I heard that she’s also interested in learning photography. Maybe my gift to her would be to help her develop that (since I don’t have the dough to get her her camera, haha).

Mana sa Ninang

Ate, with Da Boys

Me, Papa (our grandfather), and Shanti

with her girlfriends (since they were younger kids)

with her schoolmates, the other boys in her class didn't join the shoot. but there's probably as many boys as there were girls.

All photos were captured by the boyfriend, which explains the abundance of my face in these stills. Haha

Lunch was satisfying. He had lengua, while I had the American grilled spareribs. For starters, we ordered gambas with mushrooms. The meal was completed with a slice of Mango Bravo that we both shared.

From there, we headed inside the mall and walked around a bit. At the Activity Centre, there were cars and scooters on display, among other things. We checked out the Suzuki APV, which would be a nice family car. There was also the Suzuki Swift, a white one, that would be a great first car for just the two of us. But it wasn’t the four-wheeled cars that got my attention. It was the scooters.

First, my eyes were glued to the Kymco Like:

It’s cute, not too small, and has a compartment at the back.

A few steps away, my heart was captivated by the Yamaha Mio Fino:

It has that vintage feel to it, even when it’s actually brand new. The one on display was tinted in gold, but not a very bright one. It looked more brown to me than gold, but since the salesman said gold, then that it is.

Both scooters share the same price range but if I were really to consider buying a scooter, I’d probably go for the Fino.

What would I use a scooter for? To get to and from work, of course. I can potentially save some money in the long run, plus I wouldn’t have to wait for a cab anymore. We can also use it to go to the seminary, or to the groceries along E.Rod. But do I really really want to hop on a scooter? I’ve never been on one, so I’m not really sure. Besides, I can’t stand the pollution so I’m sure I won’t be using it much around major thoroughfares.

Still I really think it would be cool to have one. Besides, my brother and dad have been bugging me to get one since I started working at NCO. I just never really liked the idea of being on a scooter. Maybe that will change.

After the boyfriend bought a pair of jeans, we went down to the supermarket for our last errand of the day. We enjoyed grocery shopping for food that follows the SBD guidelines. Alfred will be cooking for me again this week.

We picked up something that’s not exactly SBD though. Two boxes of Guylian chocolates, La Trufflina. They were on the buy-one-take-one rack because they will be expiring in the next two months. So what. Haha.

La Trufflina is an irresistible combination of Belgian chocolate truffles with a smooth milk chocolate truffle filling. Each truffle is enrobed with the finest milk, white or dark Belgian chocolate and delicately sprinkled with fine chocolate flakes. An unparalleled chocolate dream.

It was a fun afternoon, even if we were exhausted a little since we both came from our work shifts. I also missed an NCO party yesterday because I was tired, and was also having stomach cramps due to dysmenorrhea. Ugh. Yes. Primolut N worked for me that I actually started bleeding again before the month ended. And I’ve been wearing maternity pads for a few days now. Ugh. Sorry, too much info!

That's Beth in the middle, with her boyfriend, and one of her sisters.

We met in highschool and continued to be friends even when we were no longer classmates, and didn’t attend the same University. She lived and grew up in and around E. Rodriguez too. So back in the day, I would frequently visit her house, and she was a frequent visitor in ours. When we started working, we’d meet up every once in a while just to catch up.

A few months ago, I was surprised to find out that she was working in another country! What a friend, huh (referring to me)? I didn’t even know that she’d already completed 4 out of the 5 years in her contract. Imagine that? She’s been away so long and I didn’t even know. So when I found out that she’s home for vacation this month, I sorta ‘reserved’ a date with her. She would have been great company to the UPSA anniversary concert, but she had a full day planned for Friday. I remember seeing the Madrigal Singers at the CCP with her. It was a totally impromptu date because I got free tickets from another friend on the same day. I don’t remember what year that was!

So today (Saturday) we had a healthy brunch at the Pancake House along E.Rodriguez, a place that’s accessible to both of us. We didn’t eat much but talked a lot instead. She hasn’t seen Jo Arni yet, which I found really odd since they were already in the same country as of a few months ago. We talked about health issues, gaining and losing weight, our partners, our highschool batchmates who are now married and with kids,  and so many other things. We talked about our jobs, and how we can be passionate about the work, but how sometimes there are people around that just drain your life force! Haha! Like always, it was so easy to just get right into it. I guess when you’re good friends, you just pick up where you left off.

I am so glad we saw each other again after all these years. I look forward to seeing her when she comes home again next year, and hopefully, she’ll be singing at my wedding.

I can see that my friend’s in a good place, and it makes me happy. She’s happy. And I know it’s not just because she’s found someone, but it’s most probably a combination of so many good things happening for her. She wishes to come back home and stay for good when her contract expires. I hope she finds (or creates) an opportunity here that would allow her to continue helping her family without having to leave home. I hope she gets what she wishes for, she has a year to prepare for it.

Have a safe trip back to the Middle East dear friend, and stay safe and happy until we meet again Isip ka na ng kakantahin mo!