I'm Still Here!

Sorry for the long silence; the main reason for that is....drumroll.....I'm pregnant!

Right now I'm 15 weeks going on 16 this Sunday, and let me agree with most mothers when they say that there should a be a 3-month leave for the 1st trimester. SO TRUE! This pregnancy was actually a surprise, and just when was getting fit, drinking my green smoothies, getting into my nutrition program, I got LASIK, and noticed while I was recovering that I was...more tired than usual and craved more meat. We took one of those home pregnancy tests, and it had a plus, but I was dubious and in denial. J wisely suggested I go to the doctor, and yep, he confirmed that I was banged up, had a bun in the oven, PREGGO.

It honestly took me a while to deal with this, add to that bone-weary fatigue and a real sensitive nose and stomach, plus my family has a different birth vision than ours. Theirs is the hospital model, whereas I want a home birth and a midwife; and J even wants a birthing pool! Both sides think theirs is the safer choice, so what to do? Eventually, we have settled into a truce of sorts. They don't want to hear much about it, but J's parents are pretty receptive, and we will be looking at a back-up hospital, just in case. Also, in doing my research, I realized that there's not really a bunch of nutrition information for moms, and I think this is so crucial! Hmm, my target market after school, perhaps?!

In the midst of all this, I was sleeping, resting....and not doing much else(!), so I got waaaaaay behind in my studies. There was a test looming, and I was so scared I wouldn't do it: I was ready to call the school and ask to be put at a later class, but classmates told me that meant starting over! Starting over?! That put me in high study-gear, with room for not much else, including my favorite mind-clearer and stress-reliever, exercise! The test opened up last week, and we also did last-minute plans (hair and make-up, music, food tasting, etc) for our wedding renewal for J's side of the world, followed by a flurry of emails on our return home. Talk about busy, and may I say accomplished! I crammed the last two modules yesterday as I felt that was the only way to get everything done in time for the test, reassuring my methodical brain that I will go back to them later....and eating horribly in the process :( So I took the test....and passed with a 90/100! Lesson learned: don't fall behind! Limit Internet time! At J's suggestion, I took the rest of the day off, but not really: I did wedding welcome paper bags to be productive and creative, which was nice: stamping and heat-embossing: it's been too long since I last did those! I was too pooped to clean up, though, so I did that this morning. Now, I'm refreshed to do more!

So...studies, and wedding plans, and exercise, which has been in the back burner, yikes! Time to get moving again: my body will thank me! Yes, I have a little belly now, but must tone that with exercise! So much to do and think about, but as we are taught in marketing class at IIN, one step at a time.

Here are some snapshots of what I did last night for the lucky people staying at the Holiday Inn for the wedding weekend! We've got other things up our sleeves, too: stay tuned! 22 days to the wedding #3: the countdown has begun!

A Long Hiatus

...it has been. Sorry about that. The church wedding in Manila took a lot out of J and me, and I believe we've just really caught up now, and also digested everything. It was a beautiful ceremony, and an even more exquisite (don't you love that word?) experience. But we were super tired after. The adrenaline high, and the extreme crash after, I think more me than Jess. So we're back. And we will update soon. At the moment, I am also stamping/personalizing thank you cards, 155 and counting...yay, 52 left, unless we want to make more :/ I even stamped at a Superbowl party!...then again, my social powers fail at such occasions, so it was a win-win situation. I wonder why I'm doing it the hard way, when most people just buy the darn thing, and the recipients usually take one look, coo then dump my worked-on card. But this is what I wanted to do from the start: more personal, more crafty, even if some people might think we're too poor to buy cards when that isn't it. Oh well. Such is a crafter's struggle. In any case, stay tuned!

Projects Day

Today was my day off, so of course, I still worked on stuff, namely preparations for Jess' and my trip to Toronto this weekend! I realized that I hadn't bought anything for my Toronto relatives, and have no idea what to give Jennifer and Terence, so after some consulting with my parents, I decided to get some Texas pecans at Central Market, yee-haw! I had gone to Lululemon the previous day with my poor suffering husband in tow (Lululemon is a yoga clothing store and I love it, while Jess doesn't, heehee), and they had forgotten to remove the security tag, so I had to go to that part of town anyway to have the tag removed (Central Market is a block away). Across the street is this paper store called Paper Source that I had been wanting to go to, next to the newest cupcake place in town called Sprinkles that I heard was good, so two birds with one stone! I bought a gluten-free cupcake for me (just 'coz I try to avoid gluten when I can) and a surprise cupcake for Jess, and then stepped into Paper Source...and fell in love. They had themed displays like cupcakes, and flowers, and home stuff, and luchadores...aw man! I got gifts for Jenn there, I hope she likes it! (see Image 1), as well as a card. I was just thinking about using my stamps so I bought an inkpad, but then the girl asked me if I wanted to learn embossing to make the gold ink "pop." I did, and it turns out to be so easy! All you need is embossing powder, and a heat gun (see 2nd image)--you can't use a hairdryer as it's actually not as hot as the heat gun! And I've always loved embossed stuff. After getting some lunch at home, I did it for Terence and Jennifer's wedding card, and voila, see Image 3, my first attempt at embossing :) I cannot WAIT to go back to Paper Source. Oh dear, another shop where I have to guard my money from, haha. I also decorated paper bags to put the pecans in, as well as another food surprise--see image 4 :) Oh, Image 5 is some of my "materials" used--I even got cute felt animal stickers, one which I used to seal Jenn's and Terence's card. A friend in kickboxing calls me Martha Stewart, haha. Maybe not, but I do like craftsy stuff. I'm still struggling with knitting, and I have yet to take that sewing class, and with Paper Source, I might take a card-making class :) And as my Mom and Mama cez can testify, I've always loved stickers and stationery ;) So excited! So maybe I'm a bit domesticated: I don't think that's really a bad thing ;)