7 years!

We recently celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary and it was nothing short of awesome! Well, it was maybe 90% awesome because we left Koomi at daycare for 2 nights so half the time we’re just missing him, wondering how he’s doing, if he can sleep at all (cos boy we can haha). We even visited him at daycare before our dinner date. That’s how much we missed our goodest boi. We thought it would be a sweet escape being away from him a couple of nights but we found ourselves actually worrying and resolving to never leave him overnight at daycare anymore. When we came to visit he was so clingy, wanting to jump out of the crate, he didn’t even finish his dinners. His tear stains are quite excessive that time and although we know it’s not from actual crying, it still pains to see him wanting to be held so much. We trust Hachi Kamp, it’s a really good place for Koomi but it’s our first time leaving him for the night so yeah. Is this something you get used to? I certainly hope not cos we don’t want to leave him out of vacations anymore.

Oh well, back to our anniv celebration. We booked 2 nights at EDSA Shang which is pretty much walking distance from home haha. We’ve been meaning to try it out for the longest time and finally we did! It was a pretty spontaneous decision. I booked the night before our stay. We only had dinner at Ruth’s Chris planned but thought it wouldn’t hurt to add something else to the agenda, since we have the whole weekend.

It was soooo freaking refreshing, a 5-star stay. We definitely missed it! It’s been more than a year since our last hotel stay (Nobu) and if you know us, that’s bleak haha. We kinda had it coming taking a dog in, so it was fun to finally get to experience it again.

My favorite part of the stay was THE SHOWER. Oh my god, I JUST HAD THE BEST SHOWER IN AGES. The water pressure is so strong, it heats up so fast, and it doesn’t flood no matter how long you stayed underneath the rainshower. We didn’t have a bathtub but this is so much better. There’s even a bench where you can just sit down and soak in all the steam. Pressure is strong enough for a hydromassage. And even with all the steam coming out, the bathroom did not fog. They have a really strong exhaust you can feel the hot steam being carried upwards so in a way I’m kindof like in a steam room. What a heavenly feeling!

They prepared a little something on the bed for us because I mentioned we’re celebrating our anniversary. Also gave us banana bread to snack on. Really nice touch.

I requested for bigger slippers but the biggest they gave is probably a size 9 haha still a couple inches short for my husband hehe.

They have a pillow menu so I took the liberty to order everything in it. There’s only 3 anyway: buckwheat, cassia seeds, and contour pillow. I didn’t know the difference so I checked all three haha. The buckwheat is like a heavier down pillow. The one with cassia seeds is like those microwaveable hot compress pillows, really heavy, great for pillow fights. I love the contour pillow. It’s the one with the curves for neck support. Really helped me sleep well. Though I did wake up with back pain. I think there’s something wrong with my back. The bed was perfect, it had memory foam topping, super firm support, lots and lots of pillows, I think we had 7 all in all haha. But still, my back ached in the morning. Maybe I’m not good with memory foam toppers. I don’t know. It’s just so fun and cozy hiding under the warm duvet, while the room freezes at 18degC.

Then we had our annual Ruth’s Chris dinner date, which was perfect. And I think, in the 4 times we’ve dined with them I’ve established my favorites already. Porterhouse, crab cakes, amaretto sour, and tomato soup.

When we got back to the hotel we ordered desserts through room service. I was still so full from dinner but wouldn’t pass up on dessert. We got 3 cakes and a fruit platter lol. Jeckie got hazelnut praline and chocolate mousse, I got fruits and flourless chocolate cake. Each order was around 400 each and our bill amounted to 2k++. Just for desserts lol. I didn’t even get to finish half of my cake because I didn’t like the peanuty taste. I devoured the fruits though. I love eating fruits that are perfectly cut haha.

So 7 years huh? Yeah that’s 7 years married, and 13 years together. I can’t believe it!

Oh hell no

 Daily writing prompt

Do you see yourself as a leader?

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See title above.

At this point in my life I’ve already established that I’m a better follower than a leader. I hate being in a leadership position. It’s too much responsibility for me. I enjoy being a follower though, specially to a good leader haha.

Interestingly though, in college I held three leadership roles, two of which I was appointed to.

I was president of the student council, and president of the computer studies organization. Normally we’d have elections for those roles but I cannot remember if there was any. I think no one was interested in running so the admin just volunteered me for everyone’s sake. I don’t even know what that means but one of the profs said I was forced for good. For good? Ha! I have good grades, sure, so there’s some buffer in there in case I get too busy I forget to study. But seriously, the only reason I agreed to it is because it will look good on my resume. And as a graduating student from an unknown school, it’s not enough to get a latin honor, I need glowing extra-curriculars to actually compete.

I was not prepared to be a leader. Honestly I thought I sucked. I knew people respected me because I’m smart and I work hard but I didn’t do anything fun during my term. I just followed whatever we have been doing for the past years, following what the admins tell me. I organized seminars, quiz cons, and field trips, set-up the foundation week, helped oversee a pageant, they’re no easy feat but I had fun mostly because my officers are also my friends haha. And I loved designing promotional materials.

What I really enjoyed doing is leading the yearbook committee. I wanted to make it happen because it’s been years since we had a yearbook and everyone was excited about it. Plus, I loved doing the layout for it. Designing it was the thing that kept me going. I was layout editor and editor-in-chief, which are not exactly leadership roles but yeah, I loved it.

So yeah. I guess I’m the kind who will never seek a leadership role but will be okay with it if necessary. 😀

Hey Friday

Oh I have a lot of things to do at work and I’m running on a tight deadline, aka hoping my client doesn’t get mad at me. I can sense they’ve been trying to pressure me into finishing this project quick but they’re just too nice. I’m not one to take advantage of that okay so uhm, let me get back to work.

But first, a writing prompt.

Daily writing prompt

How do you relax?

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How apt! I don’t think I’ve ever relaxed properly. If you could consider procrastinating relaxing then yes, that’s how I relax. By delaying things I’m supposed to be working on. Usually doomscrolling on the bed overdosing on undeserved dopamine. I should really limit my screen time.

But my real definition of relaxation is simply a day off without work and chores, alone or with my husband, with no plans to meet anyone. A day I could fill with a nice dinner, a full body massage, and uninterrupted sleep. Notice how I did not include Koomi? Lol. Days like that we’d probably drop him at Hachi Kamp to play so we could go on gallivanting.

Anyway.

Back to work!

Happy Friday!

What does your ideal home look like?

 Daily writing prompt 

What does your ideal home look like?

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Oh I love this question! I enjoy watching house tours on Youtube, particularly 3D ones developed by architects where they share the floor plan at the end.

I’ve been building my preference when it comes to my dream home haha… so here’s how my checklist would look like:

• I want a small bungalow sitting in a big lot
• Big covered garage that can fit at least 2 cars
• Big yard with a low maintenance turf
• And an outdoor area where we can grill and dine and hang clothes to dry.
• Also an outdoor sink where we can wash our dog
• 2-3 bedrooms; a master, an office, a guest room, a corner for the washing machine.
• 1 bathroom is fine, I don’t want a lot of area to clean
• I’m actually okay with our current setup. We live in a 2BR with balcony which is just the right size for us two and a dog. If we can just pluck this out and plant it in a big lot haha then extend a garage space, that would be perfect.
• My husband is very particular with losing electricity so we also need space for a generator setup. I don’t now how much space it needs though.

Aaah what a dream! 😀

Speed up Your Mobile Phone in 5 Easy Steps

Do you use your phone a lot when you are on the go? Maybe you like to blog or watch videos online but find that at times, your phone just can’t live up to the task. Either way, it is more than possible for you to make a change. All you have to do is follow the below tips and you’ll see an improvement in no time.

Clear your Home Screen

One of the first things you need to do is clear up your home screen. Take a look at your home screen and look at whether or not you’re running a lot of widgets. If you have the news, a calendar, email, and reminders then this could be slowing your phone down more than you realize. Every time you go to the home screen or when you wake up your phone, it has to load all of this information up. If you want to help yourself here then reduce the number of widgets and you’ll soon find that your phone loads up much faster. If you want to remove a widget then the best way for you to do this would be for you to long-press it and then drag it to remove. You may also want to take the time to remove any cookies too. You can remove cookies from iphone in just a few simple steps and when you do, you will soon find that it is easier for you to speed up your device.

Source: Pexels

Uninstall Apps

Another thing you need to do is uninstall apps. Some devices come with huge amounts of software installed by the manufacturer. Often it’s not useful, but it will take up a huge amount of memory. This is the last thing you need. Some manufacturers will stop you from uninstalling any of it, which is the last thing you need. If you want to help yourself here then make sure that you delete any apps that may be resource-greedy. You also need to make sure that you take the time to use lightweight versions of apps if you can. By doing this, you will soon find that it is easier for you to get the result you need.

Background Processes

You have to remember that having no background processes will give you the best experience. This stops apps from running in the background unless you are using them. This means that the phone can concentrate on the apps you happen to be running. The Window Animation Scale should also be limited. Disabling animations in general will help your phone to load up apps faster and it will also mean that it uses less memory too. Go to the Windows Animation Scale and turn off all the settings. If you can do this then you should see an improvement.

GPU Rendering

Force GPU rendering where you can. This uses your phone’s GPU rather than using software rendering when it comes to your apps. This could reduce your battery life but only by around 10%. It will use more power than the alternative. If you want to help yourself then you may also think that updating to the latest version will help but it won’t at all. You may even find that it overloads your system. If you have a very new phone then updating is probably the right thing to do, as you may be able to take advantage of small nuances that will boost your operating system. If you have an older phone however then avoid it, as a general rule.

Remove Malware

At the end of the day, malware is a huge issue and it’s one you should be trying to take note of. A big reason why Android phones run slow is because they have malware on them. You may experience things like YouTube crashing or even your data use increasing. Your battery may also drain too. If you want to stop this from happening then you need to use a good phone protection system. You can find some top brands of anti-malware out there and all of them are available for Android devices too, so you should have no issue protecting your phone or device as time goes on. If you don’t know how to protect your phone from internet attacks then one thing you can do is try and use a VPN. This will stop hackers from being able to access your device which is always a good thing if you tend to travel a lot. You may also find that it protects you when using public WiFi, so try and keep that in consideration.

Not my day

Ugh. Today is definitely not my day.

Kaya and DragonT gone at BGC Stopover

I got cut in traffic by a stupid car.

Grab rider won’t walk to the lobby to deliver my food. I already noted to meet in the lobby but he wouldn’t, even asking me if “hindi po ba kayo makakalabas?”. No kuya I don’t want to, that’s the fucking point. My entitlement gave him 1 star for his attitude. This never happens when it’s my husband who picks up our food. I hate men.

Today

✱ Currently in the office on a Wednesday because Monday was a Holiday. It’s pretty gloomy and we’re on orange alert the past few days. I thought parking would be easy in the office as no one would want to come in but I still ran out of slots. Good thing there’s one pay parking slot available in the building so at least I don’t have to go outside. Now I’m thinking if I’ll just pay the whole 150 and leave by 11pm, or move my car to our free parking zone when slots become available, that way I only need to pay 50. Thing is, I’m already in the building and I’m parked nose out so I kinda don’t want to trouble myself anymore haha. Fine I’ll just withdraw 150 lol.

✱ I don’t know if I want to walk out and explore today because it’s been raining the whole afternoon. I kinda want to get a couple thousand steps to compensate for being too lazy to swim earlier.

✱ We just terminated our Anytime Fitness membership so our last month will be this September. We’ll be saving 4,500 a month which means a lot, but I’m also slightly regretting losing gym access. Well, truth be told we haven’t been to the gym in months so that’s a big waste of money, and we never really go in the off hours so AF being 24hrs open never really benefitted us in the whole 18 months of our membership.

✱ If I really wanted to work out I can just go down to our condo gym. Anyway I only need a bike and a treadmill. Or maybe we’ll look for a personal coach within the condo.

✱ There’s a scheduled power outage tomorrow starting at 8am that would last for 5-6 hours and we’re not sure how to prepare for it. I know this happens yearly but I always forget. I guess we were never really bothered because it’s usually raining when this happens so it’s cold enough to sit through? I also don’t think our fridge would defrost too much. Oh well.

✱ It’s 8:37PM and I just got back from moving my car and having dinner.

✱ I was gonna eat at Kaya Korean Restaurant but saw that it’s already gone at Stopover and is replaced by this new Korean-Chinese restaurant that doesn’t even have Samgyup. I was devastated. It’s bad enough that Dragon T is already gone and Potato Corner doesn’t have wasabi anymore, but damn, BGC Stopover is becoming lame with all my favorite stores closing down! 🙁

✱ Anyway, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise because I finally got to try Soban K-Town grill which I have been curious about for a while now but didn’t have the courage to ask if they allowed only 1 diner per table. Turns out they do! And they have better side dishes than Kaya! I love it. I ordered marinated Woosamgyup and feasted on the sides. Here’s the aftermath of my Korean side dish degustation which left me really bloated. Remind me not to eat rice next time? By the time I got up I knew I ate too much of something because my left foot hurts! Like there’s a painful sting when walking. Not the first time it happened. I blame the kimchi, but also won’t stop eating it.

✱ I walked back and passed by Dot coffee to get hot cafe latte. I also bought this kalamansi protein bar thingy which is really just a lemon bar in my opinion. I don’t know why they had to make it sound healthy lol it’s not like their brand screams healthy. Imo they’re pretty much just like Pickup Coffee, with their burnt beans and good whole milk haha.

Alright, back to work!