Our Anniversary! The First!

As of last weekend, we've been married a year! A year, can you believe it? Well I know we have a hard time :D.

And so much has happened in that year. We went to Hong Kong for our honeymoon, I got my fiance visa (technically our wedding in the Philippines was only a religious ceremony), my whole family flew to the US, where Gerard and I got legally married, and we settled into our apartment. And I settled into life in Concord.

We went to L.A. for Thanksgiving and spent Christmas in Virginia. I got my driver's license, a total of two haircuts the whole year (they're expensive) and started taking graphic design classes. Gerard traveled a lot for work, L.A., Chicago, Vegas. And he's going to Germany sometime this year too.

We moved apartments, bought a washer/dryer, and settled into our current home. I work from home, cook dinner, and help Gerard catch up with his laundry. We go for long drives (usually in search of some craving I have, some random thing I want to see), movie dates, and walks in the park. Our place isn't always 100% neat but I've learned to live with that.

We watch TV, run errands, and we're starting to plan our meals too.

Sure, we fought. But I figured that's part of adjusting to living together, learning about each other, and being married!

For anniversary weekend, we did quite a lot.

We cooked a yummy dinner of Seared Scallops, Salmon Sashimi, Mussels and Pasta + BBQ Ribs on Friday night.

Saturday, we drove to Napa and had merienda at the Oxbow Public Market, a "Napa-fied" version of San Francisco's Ferry Building.

I really wanted to try the ice cream from Three Twins but their freezer was buggy so they were only selling by the pints and gallons that day.

So I got me some mini cupcakes instead from Kara's Cupcakes (I love the Fleur de Sal one! My new favorite!)

 

And we had the Cachapa or sweet corn pancake with meat and cheese filling from Pica Pica. 

It was really yummy!

Afterwards, we drove to a few Napa thrift stores where I scored some awesome books, especially a design book recommended by my illustrator teacher. It's price at $15 on Amazon but I got it for $1. Thrift store shopping rocks!

And stopped by the golf course on the way home to take some pictures. Good thing too! Cause when we actually went to play golf the next day (my awesome anniversary gift to Gerard) I had left the memory card at home! Rookie mistake.

But here are some shots of us at the golf course in Napa. (We didn't play here though, we played in Concord. This was just for a photo op.)

Our golf game was pretty awesome even though golf cart rentals were only for seniors and the disabled. So we walked, I dragged my bag along, played 9 holes and tied at that! Was a decent game with both of us scoring two over bogey.

Happy Anniversary to us! Here's to many more years of adventures ahead!

(Sappy sentiments not to be posted online, only written in cards.)

New Favorite Stuff!

I've been really busy here in our new home and in my studio. I have so much more room to do projects... which makes me super busy... which leads to little blogging time. 

But I wanted to write a quick post of some things that I'm totally loving now.

1.) Loreal Everpure Sulfate Free Shampoo and Conditioner.

photo from Frugal-Freebies.com

My mom told me that she had started using sulfate free shampoo and conditioner and it had done wonders for her hair. It also had a wonderful price at maybe P1200.00. a bottle. That's pretty pricy shampoo! 

So she sent me on a mission to find affordable sulfate free shampoo and conditioner here and I found one manufactured by Loreal.

I bought some, tried it out and I am now a sulfate free shampoo convert! My hair has never been this soft and healthy! My hair is naturally on the frizzy side but it now dries silky soft and slightly wavy with no help from a hair dryer! I've gotten quite a few compliments on it too! Plus the bottle lasts really long because you only have to use so little of it at a time.

And the best part? Less than $7 a bottle (tube?) from your local Target. (I love Target!)

2.) So remember a few weeks it was my birthday? Well Gerard took me to Ruth's Chris Steak House where we had a wonderful, intimate meal. The veal was delicious. But my no doubt ultimate favorite part of that meal... was the Sweet Potato Casserole. It was like a mashed sweet potato  dish with a kind of candied pecan topping and it was like having dessert. With your main course. Matter of fact, that was one of the reasons Gerard wanted to take me there. For their Sweet Potato Casserole.

I loved it so much that a friend gave me the recipe she uses to replicate it. And I made some for my belated birthday dinner too!

 I know it may not look like much in the photo. But it's SO GOOD that I made it TWICE in March alone. (And I wonder where these few extra pounds came from!) I'll post the recipe on here soon.

3.) Spicy SPAM

photo from spam.com

 I've never been a huge fan of spam, until my friend Nicole served some for breakfast at her place one day. It was spicy, crispy, and perfect with steaming hot white rice.

Fast forward several months later and I found spicy spam on sale at our local Seafood City for $2.50 a can. And what does Maita do? Buy 4 cans.

Not only do we love eating it with white rice, it's A-MAZ-ING with the sweet potato casserole above. The contrast of the spicy, crispy, meat with the sweet potato is addictive. Super addictive. So addictive that I cooked up another casserole last week and have been slowly eating it with spicy spam.

Sounds weird, I know. But don't knock it til you try it.


3. Since I've been cooking more now that we have a separate kitchen/dining room, well, I've also got to clean up more to. I'd seen this product around and read a review in my favorite magazine, Real Simple.

It's the SLIPPER GENIE, basically slippers with microfiber fingers underneath that clean as you walk. Plus the soles can be detached and thrown in the washing machine. I wear them so that while I'm cooking, I'm cleaning the kitchen floor too!

Unfortunately, at our local Ross, all they had was the kids version.

photo from amazon.com

And I bought them anyway :). They actually fit me just right! And they were only $5.00 compared to the $13.00 price tag on amazon.

Gerard thinks they're cute. And I've got clean floors so I'm not complaining. Mine are blue hehe. We don't know it its supposed to be a puppy on it or a donkey. Any guesses?

So there, I just had to share these things which I'm totally loving and they bright up my day. Do you have a list of your current favorite things? I'd love to see them!

Enter Project Life

Whee! I'm super excited! I think that's probably why I couldn't sleep last night!

My Project Life Kit arrived yesterday! 

So um, what's Project Life?

It’s called a complete scrapbook system but that’s not how I like to think of it. (I really don’t like scrapbooking!) What it is, is a complete, easy to assemble album complete with journaling cards for you to jot down little notes about the photos. It comes with monthly dividers, title cards, journal cards, stickers, even a date stamp! There’s no need to cute anything, just choose where you want things to go, slip your photos and journal cards and you’re done!

There’s no need to cut anything, punch out anything, go back to the store for matching accents, everything you need is right in the awesome Becky Higgins box. (There are photo albums dedicated to this box alone!) And what kind of timeline you use, is up to you! There are 54 photo pages that come with this kit, including one page for a front, one for a back so it you can use it one page per week. Or day. Or month. Or however you like.

Here’s a better photo from Amazon. com, where Project Life kits are primarily sold.

I was so excited to start using Project Life I begged Gerard to let me open it already even if our anniversary isn’t for another two weeks. (Traditional gifts for anniversaries call for paper. I'm not complaining! )My excuse was that I wanted to document our whole first year of marriage first, starting with a few wedding photos, our honeymoon, our first apartment. I’m not following a specific time format, I just want to chronicle all the adventures we’ve had in the last 12 months. Maybe my next kit I’ll do weekly! Who knows 

What really appealed to me about this kit, were the journaling cards. I love to write, I love to jot down my thoughts and photo books don’t really give you that opportunity. With Project Life, I can take a journaling card and write a few sentences for every photo in the album. It’s like a photo album and journal in one! And if you like, you can insert a few mementos like ticket stubs, receipts, and other things too!

The only slight, slight downside is that the photo pages are only set for horizontal photos. But you can buy additional pages that feature vertical photos. I’m actually just buying more photo pockets, period!

So I’ve spent a good part of the day uploading photos to seehere.com, Fujifilm’s online print service. I’ve always preferred Fuji to Kodak but I’ll save my thoughts on seehere.com for another day.

Have I piqued your interest? For more about Project Life, check out beckhiggins.comwhere they’ve got all sorts of info, inspiration, and additional products for Project Life. There’s even a digital edition! And a whole community of Project Life users who share their ideas.

I’ll give you a peek at my first few pages as soon as I’m done.

The Birthday Wishlist

In the midst of unpacking and arranging our new place, I'm taking a break to celebrate my birthday! Or even better, my birth month! Hey, nothing wrong with milking it for what it's worth. Any excuse for a mini vacation with the husband, a shopping spree, or to indulge in all my favorite food. Plus dinner parties! Looking forward to hosting small dinners with close friends in our new home, just a few at a time to keep it cozy and intimate.

But the day before my birthday, I'm thinking of my gift wish list. These are my big three:

1) Plane Ticket to Visit the Family and attend Rhoda's Wedding (Check! Thank you Mom and Dad!)

2) New, Bigger Place to live in, complete with home office/studio for me (Check! Thank you Husband!)

3) I really really miss having a DSLR. Not that I don't love my Canon G11 but I'm seriously contemplating going into freelance photography. Plus I've got to photograph all these new products for Studio Alcantara right? So third on my birthday wish list and what I'm trying to save up for:

Photo from 60dcanon.net

A Canon 60D.

And there you have it. Would love a few more odds and ends like:

Red Round Placemats like these from Crate & Barrel.
(I see a trip to the Crate & Barrel outlet in my future.)

Becky Higgin's Project Life Scrapbooking Kit.

I'm not really a scrapbooker per say but it's an all included kit wherein all you do is place photos in pockets and write on "journal" cards. I thought it would be a great way to document, well, life!

And later on, when we have time and the weather's better, I'd like a mini vacation like these from Living Social Escapes.

Ok time go get back to unpacking. I'll never be able to have people over to celebrate with me if I don't start cleaning this place up!

Hello, Whimsy! Holiday Rush

I have been so busy preparing packages and cards for the holidays I've barely had any time to blog! So I thought I'd just catch you up with the packages I've been preparing. Some of these are special orders, some are gifts for family friends. These are photos of the stuff I've been doing on my new design blog, hello, whimsy!

Special Delivery: Chocolate Bark Gift Box

A Gift Box Full of Chocolate Pockets!

Chocolate Bark Gift Tin

Full of Pretty Chocolate Pockets

Another Chocolate Gift Tin

Full of Chocolate Bark in Assorted Flavors

So that's what this busy elf has been up to! Working with lots of new chocolate bark flavors too, like White Chocolate & Macadamia, Milk Chocolate & Macadamia, and Dark Chocolate with Walnuts. And lots of candy making and gift-wrapping in the works!

Can you believe it's 14 days to Christmas?!

Dreaming of Dumaguete

Growing up, we would always travel during vacations and special family occasions. When I was a kid, I would wonder how come we had to go away and leave my friends (it seemed to be always when we had something especially fun planned.) But these trips also had awesome perks. I got to spend time with relatives especially cousins, and I got to see the beautiful places where my parents grew up.

Photo from Explore Dumaguete!

One of these places near and dear to my heart, is Dumaguete city. It was only a 45 minute plane ride, five hour boat ride, or six hour drive away and it was always a wonderful adventure. This city, smaller than my hometown of Cebu often offered a welcome respite to the big city. My cousins and I were free to explore by bicycle, buy lip-staining bubble gum from the neighborhood sari-sari store, and play as much as we wanted.

My family would go to the beach, experience dolphin watching on a pumpboat, and eat wonderful seafood.

The Dumaguete I remember from my childhood is of  course, different from the Dumaguete I know now, but not in a bad way. We still go to the beach, go swimming in Forest Camp, and eat. Now Dumaguete has even more wonderful restaurants and eateries, such as Sans Rival (yes, they do serve amazing melt in your mouth sans rival and melt in your mouth goodies, the wonderful Cafe Antonio situated in a Spanish ancestral home, and my favorite, Pastaaang Lami-ah where my aunt serves scrumptious home cooked barbecue with java rice and the most amazing cassava cake to die for. Just thinking about all this food makes my mouth water.

If you asked me what makes Dumaguete special, I would say it was it's the historic, home town, yet near nature feel. Dumaguete is a university town, with lots of schools and Silliman Unviversity being it's main one. There are lots of students, lots of open spaces, and lots of history. But Dumaguete is also near nature, such as the Forest Camp Mountain resort and Apo Island.

Apo Island should deserve an entry in itself. It's a wonderful little island off the coat of Negros. Half of the island has a little cove with a beautiful beach and the other half is wonderful for snorkeling and diving as Apo Island is a marine sanctuary. It's one of the best diving spots in the Philippines, I've heard. My family has had some unforgettable vacations there. 

I could go on and on about Dumaguete but I think I'll leave that to the tourism pros. For more information on Dumaguete, please visit Explore Dumaguete. It's a wonderful website which gives off the awesome Dumaguete vibe. Simple yet still vibrant and rich.

I am however dreaming of going back to Antulang Beach resort and going horseback riding and snorkeling. My husband's all for it as his family is from Dumaguete too! Isn't that sweet?

Shutter Happiness

I've been in and out of photo ruts lately, part of the reason why I decided to sell my dslr and shift to a compact camera, the Canon g11 (which I now absolutely love). And yet again, I find myself lacking inspiration and wanting to do more.

So here's another attempt to keep me snapping away. I've started a photo blog on tumblr, and my goal is to snap at least one photo a day. I do love being shutter happy. Please check out Shutter Happiness at http://shutterhappiness.tumblr.com or click on the link on top.

Enjoy!

Dollar Store Stuff

I love shopping at dollar stores for various odds and ends and my husband will attest to that. I think it has a lot to do with my Filipina side that still mentally converts everything into pesos.

I'd recently put up a cork board at my desk so I needed some cute magnets to go with it so we made a quick stop at the dollar store and came out with a few odds and ends:

1. Cute Magnets

2. 8 Pack Disposable Shower Caps (which can double as shoe bags a la Real Simple)

Photo from Real Simple Website

3. Scotch Brown Postal Wrapping Paper (which I'm going to use a gift wrap. Will just jazz it up a bit like in the photo below. I love plain brown paper. There's so much you can do with it!)

Photo from http://www.holidash.com

  All for the grand total of... ta da! Three dollars plus tax! Told you I loved the dollar store.

Doesn't my cork board look great? I love how it brightens up and adders personality to my workspace. Now to find more photos for those magnets...

Of Book Love and Libraries

I devour books. Devour them, I tell you. Which also means I end up reading them way too fast because I'm so excited to finish reading them.

Take for instance, Rick Riordan's first book in the Kane Chronicles series, The Red Pyramid. I bought it for almost $20 (man that was expensive!) and was disciplined enough to save it for a 5 hour plane ride. I finished all 516 pages in two hours.

Michael Scott's long awaited fourth book in his Nicholas Flamel series, The Necromancer, also came out. And I bought it. For $15. And I read it in one sitting. All 401 pages of it.

 Notice they're both hardbound too.

Buying books, especially brand new books, adds up. And when I end up reading them way too fast, I end up feeling gypped. Cause I spend so much!!!

But alas, I would be poor if I bought all the new books I wanted from Barnes and Noble. Lucky for me, there are other ways of getting my hands on them.

Booklover's alternative to new books #1:

The Public Library

I know it sounds very retro, I haven't stepped foot in a library since college (where I only went there to study, and not borrow books.) But as a child, I would spend my afternoons there, always borrowing the maximum number of books every day which only amounted to the pitiful number of three.

So one day in the recent past, I decided to look up the nearest library and I headed over there.

Sure, there books aren't super recent, but there's a decent enough selection to keep me occupied. And take note, I can borrow a lot of books at a time, keep them for three weeks, and best of all, it's absolutely FREE. I found the last few books in The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series that I'd been too cheap to buy for myself, as well as few other odds and ends. Sure some of the books I picked up weren't great, but hey, what did I lose? And during my library trips, I even read a few issues of my favorite magazine, Real Simple. 

Public libraries here in the US are such an untapped resource. Aside from borrowing books, you can also read magazines, borrow DVDs and even surf the internet. I've even found that you can log in to your county's website, search for titles you want, and have them placed on hold for you at your local library! And since all the county's libraries are linked, you've got access to all of them!

I wish we had public libraries like this in the Philippines. Yesterday, I brought home seven books from the library and I didn't spend a cent. I already went through two yesterday though. At least this time I didn't feel bad about reading so fast. More alternatives to buying new books in the next post.

Music and the Market

I think we're really lucky that we live within walking distance to the Concord Farmer's Market which is held Tuesdays throughout the year and Thursdays from April to October.

I usually like to go both times during the week. On Tuesdays mornings, it's a great excuse to get out, walk, and enjoy the sunshine. I love any excuse to be outdoors and the Farmer's Market at Todos Santos Square is full of people and awesome goodies. My favorites are the Ranier cherries, which are huge, yellow cherries that are super delicious. Too bad cherry season ended last week. Boo! But they got lots of other yummy fruits, peaches, nectarines, apples, blueberries, you name it. They also got an awesome array of vegetables, artichokes, beans, squash, anything and everything!

My first Tuesday out there, I actually saw a fresh oyster stand which hasn't been back since (to my husband's disappointment.) But I did come home with yummy Afghan squash bolani, garlic, cream cheese and mint dip, comb honey, and of course, cherries.

Gerard and I now have a standing Thursday afternoon/evening date wherein we take a picnic blanket and bottle of water and we walk to the square to have dinner there. There are so many food stands to choose from, we've decided we're going to try them all!

One time we had a an enormous Louisiana links sandwich and mini churros with chocolate sauce. Another time it was grilled rib-eye teriyaki with fried rice, a crabcake, and a grilled artichoke. There's lots more to choose from, like baked potatoes, more barbecue stuff, Indian food, oven baked pizza and there's even a Filipino stall that sells fresh lumpia, barbecue, and sago! (How awesome is that?) 

Aside from the food stalls, there are farmer's market goodies like plants and flowers, organic eggs, home made goodies, huge bags of kettle corn, and scented handmade soap too! 

Of course on the way home I like to make a quick stop at Half Price Books but I digress.

And on Thursdays, there are free concerts. I think the groups probably change weekly but we haven't stayed that long at the market to actually find out. 

I love that we have a weekly,  local, outdoors thing to do. We can sit on the grass, enjoy the sunshine, eat yummy food, and just relax. There's just something about the simplicity of it that keeps us in the moment that we thoroughly enjoy. Totally another reason why I like living in Concord.

Not Another Moleskine

I'm taking a break from assembling Ikea furniture (yes, we get the standard newlywed Ikea furniture) cause I wanted to write about another awesome wedding gift we got from my good friend, Pia.

When the Moleskine Passions Journals came out, I had my eye on two of them: The Moleskine Passions Book Journal and the Moleskine Passions Recipe Journal. Being the avid reader that I am, I eventually bought the book journal for myself and Pia bought the Recipe Journal for us as a wedding gift! (FYI, Moleskines are a line of "legendary" notebooks and sketchbooks" that have Van Gogh as its most famous user. )

I thought it was perfect because Gerard is a chef and I love to bake. What better way to keep all our favorite recipes all in one place! So a few days ago, I finally got around to opening it and writing down our first recipe!

I got this recipe for yummy sweet chicken bacon wraps from our good friend Abby, when she made them for her daughter's birthday last year. They're so good but so easy to make!

Here's what a blank page looks like. It has all these different sections for difficulty, servings, ingredients, cooking times, cooking process, etc.

And here are the tabbed dividers for different categories of recipes.

I can't wait to fill it with all the special recipes from our life together, like our pumpkin soup, my chocolate chip cookies, and Gerard's mashed sweet potatoes!

Aside from the book and recipes journal, there are also journals for music, films, wellness, and wine. I think they'd make awesome gifts for people who love these things and writing about them, as I do! 

Thanks so much for the Journal, Pi! It was an awesome wedding gift. I look forward to someday cooking for you!

Our First Impression with The Write Impression

Due to the fact that I was so busy wedding planning at that time, I barely blogged about the wedding at all! But now that I've got more time on my hands, I aim to chronicle the wonderful wacky journey that lead up to April 9, 2010, for posterity's sake.

So I'm going to start where a lot of weddings start.

Invitations!

(Over and over I've read that the first impression of your wedding comes from your wedding invitations. I don't know how true that it is but I sure didn't need an excuse! I wanted beautiful, elegant wedding invites.)

Right from the start, I knew I wanted to go with The Write Impression, a Manila based company for our wedding invitations. I had seen so many wonderful invitations they had made for various people that I knew. Thing is, I just hadn't quite decided on the design yet. I had a few in mind, from their look book, but none had really given me that "this is it" bang of emotion.

Then a few months before the wedding, The Write Impression had a booth at a Bridal Fair at the Ayala mall in Cebu. I finally got to meet Jong, this wonderful lady who I'd been e-mailing with for months! And in their current look book, I found the "Elena" design. (Their wedding invitations designs are often named after the bride they make the design for.) One perusal of "Elena" and my heart fell in love.

Just so you know, I LOVE paper. I love paper, pens, and ink. I love fonts. I love stationery.  I was EXTREMELY picky about anything paper-related to our wedding. (FYI, it took over a year and a half to finalize my wedding invitations.)

So I fell in love with "Elena." I loved the horizontal chocolate pocket. The textured inserts made from Italian paper. And the beautiful font, Miss Le Gatees that made took my breath away.

20 working days after finalizing proofs, this is what we got:

A  horizontal, chocolate brown pocket with the main invitation card in the middle panel and two pretty inserts in the right pocket (entourage card and rsvp card) bound by a wine red satin ribbon complete with our monogram.

Too bad I don't have a photo of the complete invitation but I do have these photos from our wedding day itself.

All photos of course, by Joey Reyna and Nelson Petilla

This is what the outside looked like. 
But with a brown background. (And no rings of course!)

The Main Invitation Card

And all three cards

Clockwise from top left, Main Invitation Card, Envelope and Ribbon, RSVP Card, Entourage Card. 

Too bad I really don't have a photo of the chocolate pocket. 

I will get one cause the whole effect of everything together is what made it gorgeous.

So, I guess you could say that I was very, very happy with our wedding invitations. 

Thank you, The Write-Impression for giving me invites so beautiful that I didn't want to give them away! So happy you have offices in the USA!