I Will Always Love You, Whitney

A number of my favorite celebrities passed away in the past years, but I think I never felt this affected. I never even wrote about them here. I guess it’s because I grew up listening to Whitney Houston. I can say we had more history, y’know.

I remember singing "Greatest Love of All” after being forced by my ninang at a family gathering. Whitney made me dance along “I Wanna Dance with Somebody”. Her music accompanied me during those heartaches. I cried my eyes out listening to “All at Once”, “Where Do Broken Hearts Go”, and “Didn’t We Almost Have It All”. Her songs “Run to You”, “I Have Nothing” were my anthems when I fell in love again.

She’s got this powerful voice that will never be forgotten. I remember watching videos of her performances and being amazed by her commanding stage presence, the astonishing quality of her voice, and how easily and smoothly she can hit those fricking high notes. I LOVE HER.

Sadly, I wasn’t as vocal of my love for her when she disappeared in the music scene. Not really disappeared as I still hear and watch people sing and perform along her songs. But, after all the addiction, her dwindling health, it seems like most people have already forgotten about her.

After the very sad news of Whitney Houston’s death, Twitter’s trending topic is “RIP Whitney Houston”. I saw multiple posts on Facebook and comments on YouTube videos of her singing. I read through the reactions from people, and I thought to myself, what if she knew how greatly she has affected so many people, if we were only this vocal BEFORE all the addiction, will she go there? Will she end up like this? :(

I LOVE PINTEREST!

Sorry, I had to post the title in all capitals. I just LOVE Pinterest! I’ve joined this social photo sharing website over a month ago and I can tell you, I’m HOOKED!

I’m a very visual person. I usually don’t like reading a block of text, even though I get too narrative or talkative when writing or blogging. Images or texts designed on a photo or even a plain background appeal more to me than reading regular text. And from the success of Pinterest, I say there are more visual people out there than we’re aware of.

I love how easy it is for you to connect with others who share the same liking for different things. I’ve got a shameless # of boards – 38! *LOL* Here’s a screenshot of my Pinterest page (click if you want to view it and follow me):

I tried to not follow too many people, but there are just plenty of interesting pinners out there! I follow mostly those who post yummy photos of food, cool designs, hilarious photos, and a li’l of fashion and beauty.

You can check photos I pinned here: http://pinterest.com/blankpixels/pins/

You’d see mostly food on there, but I also pin unique nail arts, my wish lists for our kitchen and home in general, accessories like titanium wedding bands, bags, shoes, and a ton more!

I also use Pinterest to promote my blog posts. It’s a quick way to get some traffic too. Make sure you add the Pin It bookmarklet on your browsers so it’ll be easier for you to pin anything you see online.

Leave your Pinterest links and I’ll check you out. :)

Meet Our New Puppy…

If you’ve been following my posts here on my blog, Facebook or on Twitter, you probably already know how much we love our pets. Here’s a list of how many pets we currently have now:

• 3 adult dogs – Levi, Choco and Marcel (Stacie, our 9-year old dog, sadly passed away weeks ago… )
• 4 puppies – Choco and Levi’s babies. 2 of them will be adopted by my BFF and my nanay’s colleague.
• 4 adult cats – Maui, Orange, Bochok, and Bechay
• 3 kittens – Bechay’s babies

That’s a total of 14 pets! I’ve blogged about them here. They’re everywhere you go. When I open my bedroom door, I would usually see either Marcel sleeping right outside, or Bochok running towards the door to try to get inside.

When you’re in the kitchen, you’d see Maui and Bochok hanging out near the sink / kitchen counter. Bechay is at the living room, tending to her babies. And now, we have a new baby roaming around the house:

We haven’t named her yet because we weren’t convinced we wanted to keep her ‘til she started jumping out of their box / cage made in bamboo sticks. She’s a truly brave soul, and very sweet too, like her dad, Levi.

Here’s a photo of Levi when he was a baby, alongside a photo of… oh darn, we have to name her already! LOL

We All Need a Mute Button

We all change. Our experiences mold us into either someone we’re proud of or a person we hate. It’s inevitable. We have control over it, yes, but most of the time, we realize what’s going on when it’s too late… when we’ve already said hurtful things or we’ve done something really stupid.

For the past week, I’ve been really stressed. No, it’s not about my new job or any of my sideline projects because I love what I’m doing. In fact, I should be singing in glee because of all the opportunities coming my way for the past months. But, for some reason, I found myself almost in the verge of depression. And that’s not the worst part. I’ve acted somewhat hatefully towards people I care about. I may be right. My feelings may be justified. However, I detest seeing myself acting that way towards others. This isn’t me.

Then, I thought… and wished I had a mute button. That way, when I’m feeling any amount of negativity that I wanted to let out, I can just press it and I can continuously rant without people hearing the words coming out of my mouth. OR I can type away all my emotions and honest thoughts, and the person on the other end will only see blank text or messages.

But, then again, I should be working on this from within me. I’m tired of some of the things that has been said and done to me repeatedly and I honestly thought of ways I can escape this. No, I’m not suicidal. I value and respect myself and my life enough to not go there. I believe I just need a complete respite, far away from whatever and whoever’s causing me to feel this way. For now, though, I need to get my emotions in check, just like what I always do before they erupted to almost an emotional breakdown.

I’m Too Old for This Stuff

I am a big fan of How I Met Your Mother ‘cause I love the slapstick humor of Neil Patrick Harris as Barney Stinson. Though it’s a comedy series, there are actually a few lessons they impart. But, most of the time, they just make me laugh out loud, especially when Barney comes up with some lame excuse or invents a new word or tradition. I also find it quite funny that he takes on challenges to prove his friends wrong about something. Like this one episode in Season 4 where Ted Mosby (the supposedly lead character here) said he keeps a list of things he’s too old for. Barney took it as a challenge to do everything on that list.

Ted’s list, by the way, was inspired by Lethal Weapon character Roger Murtaugh. He was known for his catch-phrase, “I’m too old for this sh*t” (Ted replaced the last word to “stuff” since he’s telling the story to his kids ^_^). Here’s the video:

So, right after watching that episode, I came up with my own list of things I’m too old for or what I shouldn’t be doing anymore now that I’m in my very early 30s. Again, this is MY list. I feel I’m too old to be doing those that I listed here, but I’m still all for living your life to the fullest. Still, I find some of the stuff here ridiculous for me to still be doing now.

I’ll keep this updated as I think of more. Share your list too, eh? ;)

I’m too old to wear this bonnet.

As much as I feel like I look cute wearing that bonnet (c’mon! LOL) I’ve had for like forever, I cannot wear it anywhere outside. Not just because it’s too effing hot out here, but because it doesn’t really suit my style now that I’m in my 30s. I usually wear it in my room when I don’t want to tie my hair and I don’t want it distracting me.