Life and Love

A weekend at Lagen Island, El Nido Resorts

Featured image from www.elnidoresorts.com

Got a few minutes? Good, ’cause this is a really long one. We had a five-day weekend in Manila when the Pope visited the country last month. Carpet Head and I decided to take advantage of this long weekend and go away somewhere nice. We saw a list of top 10 beautiful resorts in the Philippines (for the life of me I can’t remember the link now) and we decided to go to Lagen Island El Nido Resorts in Palawan. Gorgeous place, I tell you. It’s a bit on the pricey side, but it’s a beautiful, BEAUTIFUL place. I cannot say that enough.

There are two ways to get to El Nido from Manila. One is to take a flight via Island Transvoyager Inc. to Lio Airport in El Nido and then take a boat to the island resort you’re booked in. Another way is to take a commercial flight to Puerto Princesa, take a six-hour ride to El Nido and then take the boat to the island. Carpet Head and I decided that we didn’t want the stress of a six-hour land trip so we got the 3 PM chartered flight on Friday afternoon.

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Let’s talk about goals

I was hesitant to do a post like this because it seems I write down the same goals year after year and I never get them all done. However, I was reading an email newsletter from The Creative Penn and she mentioned blogging about her goals for accountability purposes, so I thought maybe I should do that, too. Maybe if I do the same thing I’d feel more motivated to work on my own goals and maybe get at least half of them done. Hah, we shall see. But then the start of a new year always makes me feel positive so here is my list of things for 2015:

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Happy New Year, Friends!

I haven’t blogged for realz in months, but I feel like I should kick off the new year with a new post. The past year was a big one – having kicked it off by getting hitched – and I think this new one is going to be big as well. I was thinking of doing the usual ‘year in review’ and then my list for 2015, but I think I’ll just keep it simple this time.

About 2014

So, I got married one year ago and life has never been the same. I know that’s such a cliche but it is what it is and it seems the past year was spent adjusting to a whole new life!

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31 Days of Books to Movies

I like books and I like movies and I’m not one to make a big fuss when books are made into movies. I like seeing the differences between a book and its film adaptation. Sometimes I like the book more and sometimes I like the movie version more. It’s not that big of a deal for me when a movie (or the book for that matter) fails miserably to meet expectations. Sure, I get disappointed but I try to be cool and be all “my hair don’t care” about it. Honestly, it’s much easier to move on from a bad movie than when a movie turns out to be just as epic (or more) than the book or the other way around! Now, epic things like that stay with me for a long time. You know what I mean. ;)

So, for the next 31 Days, it’s all going to be about books and their movie adaptations. Every. Single. Day. Hopefully. That’s the plan. I hope I don’t miss a day. Yayyyy..

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Rambling about my topic for the 31 Days challenge in October

You can probably guess from the accompanying image what that topic is, but let me just regale you with how I came to that decision.

For the past couple of days I’ve been racking my brain for a topic that I can write about for 31 Days in October.

I went to the 31 Days site, checked out some of the topics that people wrote about last year, and found some really good starting points like lists, letters, favorite things, movies, books, and many other cool topics.

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Saying goodbye to Feedburner + blogging for 31 days in October

Bye bye, Feedburner!

I have stopped using Feedburner for my RSS feed and email subscriptions.

If you’re subscribed to this blog via email, you don’t have to do anything from your end! You will simply notice a change in how new posts are being delivered to your inbox and in the appearance of the emails themselves. I am now using Mailchimp’s RSS-to-email service and it’s configured to look for new posts thrice a week and will send email updates ONLY when there are new posts.

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Coffee Not Coffee for coffee lovers

Coffee Not Coffee

What’s better than a good ol’ cup of coffee? Winning a whole pack of organic coffee, that is!

Yep, the giveaway gods have blessed me again! I won the cool Coffee Not Coffee giveaway over at Greta’s Junkyard! Yayyyyy coffeeee.

I was pretty excited when I found out I was one of the two winners. I entered on the last day of the giveaway so I really felt lucky. It made me feel so giddy that I thought I should do a post when I’ve had a taste of my prize! I haven’t done a product review in a long while so this should be interesting.

Read on to know more about Coffee Not Coffee and my first taste of their organic coffee product.

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This week’s pasta adventures. Or not.

tuna pasta

Can you eat pasta for lunch for four days in a row? Well, apparently I can.

So, we Filipinos love to eat rice in almost every meal, right? I’m home all day, left to my own devices, so sometimes I do cook rice and sometimes I don’t (usually when I’m too lazy to thaw something from the freezer). Anyway, we ran out of rice and didn’t have time to hit the supermarket. I really don’t get out much on weekdays ’cause I’m supposed to be workin’ at home like a good work-at-home person (hah!). Luckily, I bought a bag of penne the last time we were at the grocery store. Hurray.

I decided to make the easiest thing – and the only pasta thing – I know how to make: tuna pasta!

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We’ve moved house!

Casa_FeLei_Anilao-13-large

Since our wedding, Carpet Head and I have been staying at his bachelor’s pad, a 30+ square-meter apartment that was just right for two people. Well, I don’t think there was enough space for all our shiznit combined, but it was nice and cozy and incredibly convenient, and I had grown attached to it. So attached that I was all, “Boohoo, bye condow” in the last couple of days before we were scheduled to move out. Anyway, a couple of months ago we started renovations at our future nest, which is a little bigger and more hey-there’s-an-extra-room-for-a-future-baby-friendly, so to speak. As with the case of most newlyweds, everybody’s expecting us to bring forth babies any day now. Not happening yet, but we might as well move to a bigger place.

Sooo, the new apartment is done and we’ve moved house! YAY. We had the house blessing yesterday to, you know, keep us protected, usher in the good vibes, keep the bad vibes (or ghosts!) away (You have no powah heyuhh!!), and declare the place our new home. After the priest did his part , which was quite quick, mum-in-law gave me a bowl of shiny coins which I – as lady of the house, I suppose – had to toss in every room of the house, starting from the main entrance, and everyone else scrambled to get their hands on as many coins as they could. The “throwing coins” thing was new to me, but it apparently symbolizes a shower of blessings, prosperity and luck, and you’re basically sharing it with those who manage to grab a coin or two (or a fistful even).

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