This is an old post in Coffee, anyone? I just thought I'd bring it to the spotlight today because it has been exactly one year since this happened. And like deja vu, in the same house but in a different graduation party, ...we meet again, last night.

So we finally meet after 5 years. She finally meets the woman who her ex-boyfriend fell head over heels in love with. I finally meet the woman who loved and cared for the man I married for more than a decade before I came (pun unintended) into his life. She finally meets the woman she referred to as the “fat b*tch” and I finally meet the woman I referred to as the “ugly b*tch” (Out of disdain, I always thought, well you can lose “fat” but what do you do with “ugly”? Plus, she wasn’t so skinny to begin with).
It wasn’t so bad. Just a bit of formalities here and there, a shaking of the hands (I offered mine first –brownie points!), uttering the automatic “nice to meet you” that goes with the handshake (did we really mean it?), partying with the rest of the crowd and maybe scrutinizing each other in stolen glances. Simple. So bitterly peaceful. It has been five years anyway. I guess we both anticipated this meeting. It is a small world after all.
At one point, we were all singing and “Dancing Queen” came up. I announced to everyone, in between sips of beer, that it is my song. No one, except for her, volunteered to sing it. And I danced to it. I know, she wasn’t doing it for me…she was just having fun singing. I wasn’t doing it for her either. Dancing Queen is my anthem, I will heed its call anytime. I am a Dancing Queen –which I know she isn’t! I must say though, even if she doesn’t sing as good as Cristina Aguilera I definitely pale in comparison. I should give it to her. (uhrm…)
Two concerned guys asked me if it was okay that she was at the party. And because I wanted to prove unfazed by the situation, I confidently said “No worries, you’re asking me now when I finally proved to myself with my very own eyes that I’m really a lot more beautiful than her?” My husband always said too that I’m 100 times nicer. Better inside and out. But I kept that part to myself. Good thing. I should have kept my mouth shut to begin with. I really wanted to kick myself for not screening my words. I hate it. I just put myself down. I was embarassed with what I said even if it was supposed to be a self-appreciating joke directed to two carefree guys. I stooped too low. It was definitely a self-defense done in poor taste. Look who’s ugly now???
How can I be so proud? How can I make fun of being prettier than someone else, even just as a joke, or to casually prove a petty point…when we all know too well that beauty is only skin deep. What matters is what lies beneath. What is important is who the person is inside. As the days go by since that meeting, there is a ball of guilt that keeps on swelling in my heart about having said it. She didn’t do anything bad to me anyway. And even if my husband and a lot of other people who both know us tell me I’m a lot nicer, observing her…I saw that she couldn’t possibly be too far behind. I know for sure she is a great friend to her friends. She’s probably great with the kids in the facility she works for. Maybe. It takes one to know one.
I don’t want to hurt people. I should take care of this inner beauty. It is what is important. It is what is worth preserving. It is what is worth being proud of.
When the party was over, she said goodbye and if smiles were worth ten seconds to a dollar, she flashed me a 10 cents worth. Good enough. Then I said “Goodbye, drive safe”.
Did I mean it? YES.

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And how did it go last night, you ask? The same. But I didn't get a chance to say "Goodbye, drive safe" though. And I really wanted to. I wanted to run after her to say it.

We were just watching E! and saw photos of celebrities with plastic surgery gone wrong.
How about those with plastic surgery gone right? I was inspired by Bruce Jenner when he went back to correct a previous plastic surgery GONE WRONG to make it plastic surgery GONE RIGHT. I believe he did it in this good Los Angeles plastic surgery facility. Is it obvious that I'm "Keeping up with the Kardashians"? I think this is a bunch of beautiful people, though a little fake in their plots sometimes, they never cease to entertain me. And it takes so much in order to keep me glued on TV!!!
Anyway, I came across a list which included the following: Pamela Anderson's beverly hills breast augmentation, according to beauty authorities, remains to be the "most steady, balanced, and well-known dramatic examples of augmentation in Hollywood"; Cameron Diaz's, Halle Berry's and Tom Cruise's rhinoplasties; and Demi Moore's breast augmentation, liposuction (some Los Angeles tummy tuck perhaps?), multiple collagen injections, cosmetic knee surgery, and a brow lift -- a lot but synergistically successful. Not a lot of people who undergo cosmetic jobs get that!
So there you go. Some plastic surgery gone right. I'll leave the gory details to E!

Check this out!

I have a new siggie for my site, courtesy of Kaye of Random WAHM Thoughts. Someone just wronged her and to make herself feel better, she decided to do people some favors, for free. Thank you, Kaye!

What a beautiful way to end the week! Good Karma is always best. Hope everyone will have a blast this weekend!


Spread the love!!!

When do you say enough is enough?

Where did we see that? The movie "The Mexican"?

And the answer? I forgot. I'm bad with movie endings. But when you're married....isn't the answer supposed to be NEVER? Always never? Because if not, then what are the vows for...The for "better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health" that is present in every ceremony.

I'm writing about this not because my marriage is on the rocks. In fact, it still rocks!!! We just celebrated our 6th year together last weekend and it's amazing how hubby and I are still in the honeymoon phase that hopefully will never end. *knock on wood* I think it's because we are friends first above all things. And buddies in everything. Buddies, and partners in crime, hahaha.

But I don't take it against those whose marriage has fallen apart, or those whose bond is currently collapsing underneath themselves and they are now clawing for help, if not against each other. I am not perfect, and my marriage isn't either so I am far from being the expert. But what I can say are 5 simple things:

1. Put humor into your life together. When a couple laughs together, it is like you are building a sturdy wall that will protect you from the storm.

2. Make good memories together to anchor you through rough seas. Make these memories remind you of why you got together in the first place, and how these reasons will also pull you through any day.

3. If there is a slight UNCERTAINTY before you tie the knot, by all means...DO NOT PURSUE IT (OR AT LEAST NOT YET...UNTIL YOU'VE THRESHED OUT ALL THE KINKS IN YOUR HEART AND EVERYTHING SITS WELL IN YOUR SCHEME OF THIGNS). It's better to back out from a relationship that is not cemented and sealed with a vow, otherwise...the vows will be nothing but mere sugar-coated lies that will blow up on your face one day.

4. Communicate.

5. Get help.

I'm sharing these with you not only for you to learn from but to remind me one day of my own song, if a time will come that I will forget the lyrics.

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And yes! This was supposed to be a paid post, but it said it was Cancelled because it was Past due! I think I was only 5 minutes late. But it's okay. I wanted to share these with you anyway.

Keep luv-luvin'...

"MILO the Singing Pooch"

One million trial shots on the couch amidst stuffed animals, inside a giant antique vase, the piano plus a severely disoriented puppy with almost one broken leg for hopping off the couch in disgust and "antsy-ness" two hours later, I came up with one that I liked and I gave it to my sister to enter the Photography Contest featuring pets called "Furry Tales".

Lo and behold, it won Second Place amongst hundreds of entries! My sister and I agreed to pass it off as her shot since she's the one who bought Milo anyway (for a bargain price, really -- he's the real clearance puppy) and brought a totally different kind of love into our family. I'm cool with that. It didn't matter who got the credits, what mattered was that the photo won and we brought home a lot of prizes.

Milo received gift packages, Dog Grooming gift certificates, Dog Food, and other treats like Dog Toys. The best part was the gift certificates to "people" restaurants that he also received which he'll never use, of course, since he's a dog and which are meant for the family. So we all had several outings as a family, eating to our heart's delight for free, courtesy of our pet. How cool is that!?! How often in life do you get that?

One great thing too that came out of Milo being on the spotlight and the little darling of the crowd when "he" claimed the prizes during the awarding ceremony, was Daddy -- an official and certified cynophobic-- falling in love with him realizing his cuteness, appreciating all his funny antics and overcoming his fear and avoidance of canines altogether. Milo, after all, really possesses heart-warming characteristics that endears him to everyone.

Milo's a little old now. When I came home to visit last year, he seemed to have forgotten who I was -- his adoptive mom, the one who walked and ran with him, played fetch, and the one he guarded during those late nights I stayed up to finish some work at the computer. I think he's mad at me for leaving. Or because he is just different, a mixed breed of sorts: terrier, lhasa apso and a hodge-podge of untraced canine ancestors. Through the years he had turned territorial, selective, possessive of his masters, and sometimes just plain eccentric.

It's okay. My affectionate relationship with him might be over but I'll never forget the lessons that he taught me about unconditional love and loyalty. To cut to the chase, Milo became my dad's bestfriend through the years. I remember that day I was about to leave home, I cried and wept and told Milo to watch over my parents while I'm gone to a far away place. Eversince I left, he never left daddy's side. And for that I am so grateful. He's still there, keeping him company. And Daddy also spoils him to bits (wonderful leashes and collars to make anyone drool!). My mom loves him too but he's more loyal to Daddy if you know what I mean. It's a great relationship. I hope Milo lives long to fulfill his promise to me even longer.

It's as if this "SPECIAL" pooch heard my request that day. Even if, the truth is, Milo had been diagnosed clinically deaf since birth. HE LISTENED WITH HIS HEART.

We, humans, are supposed to teach dogs. But can you imagine how much this dog has taught me instead?

Milo and I in 2006

Coming back from the very restful weekend, I started doing things differently.

I would pretend that I am in a slow motion video -- not rushing things. I would walk slowy, shuffle through papers and documents slowly, talk slowly, drive my car slowly and even those that I do routinely and automatically in precise rhythms even with my eyes closed, I decided to do slowly: chewing my food, drying some plates, sweeping the floor, folding clothes...

I decided to pretend that there really isn't any reason to rush anything, even if we can expertly accomplish some routines through constant repetitive practice. The sun rises, the sun sets. The day changes to another day in precise 24-hr cycles. They are fixed rhythms. It is us that makes these days roll like we only get 15 minutes on good days, 5 minutes on bad days.

And then I realized that there really isn't any reason to rush anything.

It's funny because the clock in our department at work seemed to have malfunctioned today too. The seconds hand (the one that ticks around like a steady heartbeat), simply stopped. The clock still tells the time accurately, but the hand that's supposed to be the fastest teller of elapsing time just stopped as if it wants to go against time itself. How ironic.

So from this day forward, I am going to start slowing things down, pausing, savoring, breaking tasks into little enjoyable pieces. And so I will also start "feeling" the 24 hours that I'm really entitled to each passing day.

And this I must tell you.

I'm liking it so far.

We spent our weekend in semi-coma. Yes, both days! And so I didn't do anything, not even blog, because that will totally go against the semi-coma state that I discovered was very, very, very pleasant after a hard week's toil. If I rose from our leather couch and you suddenly sit on my spot, you'd think we have expensive and high-tech temperature-controlled heated couches. I warmed it up so much I thought I'd be able to invent a new way to start a fire.

Can you imagine, I let a well-priced writing opportunity on this site expire? But I had second thoughts about it anyway since the product I was supposed to endorse didn't quite sit well in my present scheme of personal values. So, I'm skipping to the next one. I'm still far from selling my soul. Thank you very much.

Oh, I have new blogsites but I have no intention of taking paid writing opportunities for them. Perhaps, the most that I will do is post my affiliate badges on them. I hope you can find time to check them out when you're bored. I have so much to say and so much to show that I'm actually so thrilled and excited that I feel like a little kid on a Christmas morning.

DANDELION FIELDS: My Art Gallery

STEEL MAGNOLIA: Memoirs of a 30-something

DELIRIUM DREAMSICLE: My Dream Log

WAITING FOR THE TRAIN: Thoughts of a Wannabe-Mom

Alright, alright! I'm a candidate for BA (Blogaholics Anonymous) hahaha. I'm just really a very expressive soul. There's so much to say and so much to share! I wish I have more time! I wish my fingers can keep up with the speed my mind runs. And I wish my mind can keep up with all that my heart wants to give.

Goodnight, world. I hope you'll have a great week ahead.

PS. This Google Follower thingy, I just had a funny thought when I just signed up to "follow" someone who just "followed" me. If we're following each other (literally), then we are going in circles then?

5 Google Followers and counting! Woohoo!

Pressure, pressure.


Or is it just me? Now that people are following...I am clamming up. Normally I can write mile-long thoughts that are hopefully worth someone's 10 minutes, or 2.103899 seconds if you are a speed reader! Job satisfaction for me in this field = anyone stumbling upon my site and hopping off bearing a nugget of wisdom -- which of course can range from the profound to the most absurd -- that applies exactly to his situation. There are people who learn better vicariously from the absurd, so...who knows?

So, if you're here to follow the developments of this supposed "blog-grooming walk-through" plot that was my brainchild, and supposedly dedicated to my cousin and sister (who both have surpassed my achievements due to my tortoise speed and tight professional-slash-social calendar that is always so way out of whack -- yes, I am THAT active even if I don't look the part), then let me tell you two things that I've done yesterday:

1. First of, I signed up with Link Referral. Oh, so you already know that too. Why am I always the last to know? Just kidding! <--This little baby right here makes networking and blog promotion so much easier for a busy person like me. My other two blogsites have been with Link Referral for a while now and surprisingly, I get spurts of traffic every now and then even if I forget for a moment that I'm part of the network and obviously fail to do anything. How does it work? Basically, you enlist for free and ideally, you must visit other sites that are in the directory. That way, you get a lot of visitor traffic back to your site. It's engineered for multiplicity of reach and the ability to review and rate other sites, as well as get reviews and rated are icing on the cake. I'm really not doing a good job explaining this (read: getting lazy) so why don't you read Kaye's review of the site. She and I bumped into each there at no other than LR itself.

2. I joined "The Secret is in the Sauce"
,
which, in a nutshell, is a blog recognition and comment support group. The concept is the same as Link Referral but so much -- if I want to go with the times, I'ds say -- "funner", but my gradeschool grammar teacher will never forgive me for the use of such unword. But it really is fun, and I liken it to a sisterhood. You wear the badge proudly on your site and when a fellow SITS girl (SITStah!) sees it, she gives you comments on your posts akin to the proverbial sorority handshake, then you do the same. And you go further by reaching out and visiting other sisters, make comments and the whole handshake thingamajig.

Anyway...

I hope that's helpful enough. As helpful and relevant nowadays as if I was talking about the inspiring testimonials of those who had credit scores as depressing as the economic crunch but had been seriously overhauled by the seemingly divine intervention of rcmn at repairmycreditnow.com.

Seriously? If you're in a bind, feeling the pinch of the economy these days, walking away from debts and then struggling to repair your credit in order to start anew -- because that unfortunately is the only way, only to find yourself not getting ahead in the viscious cycle that you are caught in, maybe it's time to seek for the assistance from the likes of rmcn credit services. It just breaks my heart when people go down one after another, like randomly injured casualties of war, body after body, statistic after statistic.

Okay, I'm going to stop before we both start bawling.

I'm closing this today with a prayer hoping that all your needs are met.

See you tomorrow.

Nano-molecular milestones alright. But I'm proud!

This blog is two months old and since I've been busy spreading myself thinly, I'm really proud of the developments, however measly.

Though I guess my cousin and sister, who I was supposed to walk through in this whole blog-grooming process in my posts have long since jumped ship and are now sitting on their own blogsites, with feet up high on their own blogger dashboards (how apt!), sipping cups of warm comments and enjoying skyrocketing PRs amidst a throng of followers.

While I am holding a pandemonium of sorts celebrating a PR of 2 (still cuter than a whopping duck's egg, I suppose) and I'm not even sure if the PR report I generated was legit. But I'll let it be, just like being happy about thinking I shed a few pounds only because my weighing scale is so OFF.

Ignorance is bliss!

And alas! THREE followers. (Lots of visitors, yes, but signed in followers?) So, yes, thank you, guys. I have never been the kind to self-promote and toot my own horn anyway (and I don't have the time to be all that hype-ish and noisy parading everywhere in the blogosphere about my posts), so 3 for now calls for a celebration. "3" has always been a common universal grouping anyway, a triumvirate of sorts: The Blessed Trinity, 3 Blind Mice, 3 Stooges, Earth Wind and Fire, The Ikebana, Me Myself and Irene (movie), Me Myself and I by Beyonce, The Powerpuff Girls, 3 Musketeers, yada yada (&yada). *LOL*

I'm happy.

And since I've had some intentions of fueling my hobby by monetizing this blogsite (the blogger has to eat too!), pretty soon you will be seeing some paid posts and reviews spicing up the lull in between posts when my muse and I are on beauty breaks. Don't worry, I'm not the kind to sell out my soul. Truth and honesty woven in with creativity into a tapestry that makes sense remains to be the challenge that I always take on, and ALWAYS try to achieve. (Whew! Boy that was deep, wasn't it). In other words, these companies I submitted my blog to has decided that it is time, and that my site is qualified enough to feature their stuff. That or I must have earned some pity points. I'll take "qualified".

That's it for today. So far, nothing crazy has been happening in our home lately. No unidentified flying or floating objects, no outlandish apparitions in the dishwasher nor uncanny disappearances in the refrigerator, no creepy-crawlies whatsoever.

Well, that is if you don't consider this bizaare:
Hubby and I were watching HGTV one night and I quickly pointed out that it was one of the master bedroom color schemes that I like. In my head I was thinking "light green and dark brown", and then he -- my hero...the dark and usually unshaven muscle-flexer beloved stallion and Mr. Fix-All rough macho man who usually refers to himself as a grease monkey -- blurted out sincerely with a very engaged look in his eyes and nodding, "Yes, very nice...PEPPERMINT and CHOCOLATE."

Hello!?! Something is seriously wrong here!!!