Monthly Archives: June 2009

Fashion + Style Good Finds Online Shops

Yay Vintage! Sheila’s Finders Keepers Now Open for Business!

June 29, 2009 – 11:30 pm

You know how I’ve been raving about vintage stuff lately? Apparently, my friend Sheila has been collecting vintage clothing herself! And now, her closet is open for business!

inthefishbowl

This is what it says on her Facebook event page.

Does the thought of digging through piles and piles of clothes intimidate you? Do you like ukay clothes but never had the time to hit the stores? Or maybe just being there triggers an allergic reaction and you’ve been prescribed to stay away from your suking ukay-ukay. Well, then we are sooo excited to share this site with you! Because here at Finders Keppers, WE FIND IT – YOU KEEP IT! And here, we do ukay-ukay with a passion. We’re here to share those great finds that makes ukay so special – from basic classics and dainty pastels, to fun, funky, interesting and unique pieces to add a splash of personality to your wardrobe.

And here are some of the stuff in Finders Keepers multiply site that caught my attention:

Caroline

Chloe

maya

madeline

Hope

I placed an order on the last one, I hope I get it. :)

So if you’re like me who often doesn’t have time to go thrift-ing, you just might find a keeper at Finders Keepers. (Trust me, I know a great collection when I see one.)

A little backgrounder on Sheila and her In The Fishbowl biznezz, she used to make awesome handcrafted jewelries, but now, she’s focused mainly on photography and *ehem* motherhood. I’m glad she’s back doing fashion again. And I’ll definitely look forward to seeing more of her pretty accessories soon.

So go ahead, add In The Fishbowl to your multiply accounts! Knowing Sheila, I can already see more surprises looming in the horizon. ;)

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Destinations Faith Talk

I got my Hillsong Conference pass

June 25, 2009 – 12:47 pm

I think I’m going to cry.

Today, my Hillsong Conference 2009 pass and registration receipt finally arrived at my doorstep. But unlike last year, I’m not jumping up and down now. Instead, I think I’m going to start tearing up when the lights are out.

Hillsong Conference 2009

The conference is in less than two weeks. I have all the support documents that I need, but because of the recent events the caught me by surprise, my schedule got totally screwed and working on my visa application had to be delayed. Admittedly, there’s no one to be blamed but myself and my horrid habit of putting things off up to the last minute. I should’ve prepared my documents a month ago.

It’s just like last year. I submitted my visa application one week before the conference started, confident that I would get my passport and visa back in 3 days (like they promised in their immigration website) but, for some reason, I got them back one week later, exactly on the day the conference ended. (Blpht, so much for not making the same mistake twice, ikr.)

But you know how God has a reason for everything, and how He always knows better. While I failed to attend the July conference last year, I was still able to see Hillsong last November.

Now, holding this familiar-looking Hillsong envelop in my hands, I just can’t help but think of the big possibility that this conference pass will (once again) be put to waste. In my head I start re-counting all those plane tickets, concert tickets, and now, Hillsong conference passes that I spent for but never got to use. I could’ve bought a new camera with all that money!

But okay, the unnecessary expenses was not the reason why I was sad to see the package delivered to me this afternoon. It’s just that, I find myself wishing I never laid eyes on it at all, you know, for the sake of not rubbing it where it hurts. I actually almost forgot about it already, and I didn’t want to be reminded!

I have wanted so badly to experience the Hillsong Conference since 2003. I’m not about to linkback to all the blog entries I made all these years (from across 5 blog urls and 4 blogging platforms), but let me just say, I blogged and journaled everything about my quest to fly to Australia and experience Hills with a passion. Frustratingly, year after year, the timing was still not right.

So yeah, let me wallow in depression just for, er, I duno, 11 more minutes I guess. I promise to be back to my sunshiney self as soon as I hit publish.

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Life as I Know It

Good morning, Sunshine

June 23, 2009 – 5:04 pm

So that’s how it feels to actually say good morning. I can’t believe I’m up at 6 AM! Congratulate me, this is is such a great achievement!

goodmorning

Yesterday was a looong, tiring day. I’d like to thank the *cough*awesome*cough* doctors and nurses of Lung Center Philippines and Medical City, for the looong hours of waiting, without whom this day wouldn’t be possible.

Ohh, maybe I’ll make a looong separate post about that.

Meanwhile, now is not the time for regrets, and ugly thoughts. It feels good to be up and about at 6am, cooking breakfast and getting ready to start the day.

Last night when I got home, I turned on my laptop to get some work done, only to end up unconscious in bed a few minutes later. I was dead tired. And if only for the 8 hours of sleep I had during the right hours of the day night (a first in a long while), and the lovely sight of the morning sun rays through my window now as I type this, the looong day (in the 2 hospitals) should be worth it enough. Yesterday was good for my bodyclock. Life is too short to wake up in the morning with regrets, indeed.

So. Yeah. I eat breakfast now. (Woot!)

This is going to be a great day. I know it. c”,)

*Photo credit: Restartmyheart.

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Uncategorized

Inspired by Bella’s Room

June 21, 2009 – 3:50 pm

It’s 5am, the sun is already up, and the week is about to begin, and I still haven’t slept. My body clock is so screwed up.

Anyway. Somewhere in the middle of whiling time away, and surfing, and letting the Twilight movie play in the other computer screen (I sometimes let a random movie play in the background in lieu of playing music), Bella’s room caught my attention and suddenly, a light switched on in my head.

At the risk of sounding like a Twilight fanatic, I started searching for photos and DIY overhauls and replicas inspired by Bella’s room. The best source I could find was this squidoo page. Not that I want to replicate her room, I just think that some of the details in her room are worth the second look.

bellas-room-daytime

Some interesting items inside Bella’s room:

(1) Blue & purple bed sheets. I think I’m going to start seeing purple in a different light. And I say this for the first time in my life — I think purple is beautiful. And it looks pretty with blue, too. Woot, I’m crossing over.

(2) Corkboard with lots and lots of pictures and posters and post-its and junk. Now this one is not so hard for me to replicate. In fact, a messy corkboard has been a standard item in my bed room since college. Here’s one of the few times one can say that messy is a cool decorative element.

(3) Vintage desk with lots of artsy stuff and junk. I don’t think I need more junk in my desk, though.

(4) Vintage dresser and a vintage lamp on top. And wait, are those boxes on top of the dresser jigsaw puzzles?

(5) Light blue sheer curtains that allow day light to come in.

(6) Japanese paper lantern, and a shelf full of CDs and other cutesy stuff. (Oh look, she’s still holding that cactus.)

(7) Purple pillow cases and comforter with intricate velvet floral details, which, apparently, are being sold in ebay.

Apparently, the walls in Bella’s room were green, not blue. It did look blue in the daylight because of the blue curtains and the blue bed sheet that were major elements in the color scheme. The green hues were more obvious in the night shots, though.

bellas-room-nighttime

For the thousandth time since I moved to this condominium, I wish I could paint my walls. Or that I had my own house I could paint colors with. But right, for now, I have to make the most out of the (dirty) white walls that this condo unit came with. (I’m starting to get excited about the possibilities).

Like I said, I’m not about to replicate Bella’s room. Except for maybe three things:

(1) The purple and blue combination.

(2) The japanese paper lantern.

And (3) the dragonfly lights. (Or christmas lights, which I’ve ranting about for a while now.)

Okay, four things.

(4) The photo mural slash cork board. (Time to stock up on polaroid film!)

It’s time to make my bedroom look less dull, and then maybe I’d start spending more time in bed and getting some sleep! I’ll post an update on this one. c”,)

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Life as I Know It

I’m so going to Splurge on Vintage

June 20, 2009 – 11:29 am

You know what I really want to have right now?

A typewriter.

oldschool-typewriter

Yep. A vintage typewriter in all its oldschool glory.

I’m not sure what I’d use it for, really, and where exactly I’m going to put it, considering my place has been filled up with furniture and stuff I don’t need. But hey, maybe when I have it, I’ll start sending people oldschool greeting cards with typewritten messages. That would be soo cool.

Anyone please tell me where I can buy a typewriter?

*Photo credit: Audreyhepburncomplex.

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Work Life Balance

Of Destinations and Dream Jobs

June 20, 2009 – 12:30 am

It’s been a while since I last scrapped something.

Can you blame me if I can’t stop thinking about destinations at a time I’m under strict compliance to be locked up in my batcave?

destinations600x600
Credits: JM Kaleidoscope Elements, LDD Vintage Dreams, HAL Vintage Buttons, NKUBO Cupcake Doodles

Three things that I love doing that I haven’t done in a while: Digital scrapbooking, photography, and traveling. I have been a bit unsure about the three lately, because of the constraints of time and finances, but given all the time and money in the world, I wouldn’t mind doing these the rest of my life. Let me travel the world with my camera as a profession, and I’d die a happy woman.

Is there a job that requires you travel the world, take photos, and scrap? I know there must be that dream job somewhere, but that’s just the problem with dream jobs. No matter how desperate you are to be casted for it, the chances for that particular dream job to like you back and to deem you qualified are grim. Hence, they remain just that — the job of your dreams, in your dreams.

So you sit in your misery, and stalk people like Michelle Coleman who’s living the life you’ve wanted. A young mother and wife taking care of her adorable kids, while keeping a photography studio, and a cute little company she can call her own.

Or Liz Tamanaha who spends her days with her Nikon, taking beautiful photos of her kids, and designing cute little scrapbooking stuff that people buy for all their cuteness.

Designer, photographer, mom, and wife. There goes my dream.

But I’m stuck doing SEO (S-E-whut?), and being a slave to internet marketing, because they pay the bills. And there’s nothing else that my curriculum vitae can handle, except jobs that are related to what I’ve been doing for the past 5 years. SEO, copywriting, social media, SEO and more SEO.

I used to think stepping inside Googleplex, or brushing elbows with Matt Cutts and Rand Fishkin, is like, the ultimate dream. But now, I just want to take pictures. And cook dinner. And write. And raise kids. And maybe travel once in a while.

(Do I sound bitter? Tell me, coz I don’t intend to and I’m not even trying).

I’m not at all bitter about Michelle and Liz’s awesome lives, I’m sorry if I sound that way. As a matter of fact, they inspire me. They make me want to make the first steps into shifting careers, and into chasing new dreams.

I’m 26 years old already but maybe, maybe it’s not yet too late.

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Life as I Know It

Time to Chase Dreams

June 19, 2009 – 4:26 am

I don’t know what got to me, I just know that I was restless beyond control last night, and I had to do something I’ve been putting off for so long.

And let me just say, I’m blaming Mae for this, because she had the courage to jump ship and do something I’ve always wanted to do, and ever since, I’ve been anticipating this inevitable day. The day I’d let go of an old domain name, for the sake of starting over (again), and leaving things behind.

I am a Dreamer, Take me Higher

Now there were three major things happening at the time of this impulsiveness:

(1) I missed a trip to Hong Kong with J & M because I was sick, leaving me at home pondering upon the tragedy that my life is, while my healthy friends carried on the dream that we happened to have saved up and planned for for so long (fine, Joni did most of the planning, but still);

(2) I was tested positive for a disease that has made the whole world tremble with fear at the sound of its name (say it with me, H1N1); which resulted to a self-imprisonment, or what they aptly call as “self-quarantine”. It kept me as far away from human beings as possible where no one could get infected — again leaving me with a lot of time to think about everything that I’ve always wanted that is not happening and everything that’s happening that I’ve never hoped for or imagined;

and (3) I quit from project 365, exactly two months after I started it. (I did what?) I know, I know, it’s just some silly flickr project and who cares anyway. The only reason I’m listing this one as an important event is the fact that it says a lot about my inability to stay focused and carry on a goal to completion. I feel like such a failure.

So just imagine all the frustrations that lead me to buy a domain, set up a new wordpress blog, modify a template to my liking, and type a handful about why I’m making such move.

Needless to say, I don’t want to be Guitarchic anymore. Oddly, Guitarchic is someone I never was and will never become anyway. I’ve had that domain since February 2007, not really a long time come to think of it, and now, guitarchic has to go. I’ll have to deal with my twitter and flickr handles another time.

Oh and don’t even make me start explaining why I chose this domain name. Quite frankly, I was choosing from a list of annoying, overly cheesy, teenybopper-sounding domain names, along the lines of pastelsky, chasingrainbows, and heartshaped. Ones that remind you of those days when the internet was young, and innocent, and carefree. Days when bloggers have blurtys and livejournals and guestbooks and pretty pastel-colored layouts along with their cheesy-sounding domain names.

My first ever blog’s URL happened to be riz.daydreemz.com, did I ever mention that? It was the Year 2001, and I tell you, that site was a magical place, at least to my seventeen-year-old self. It was a place where I didn’t care what people thought, and expressing myself was the most important thing.

I’m obviously relieving those years, so please, allow me.

Three months ago when I told my then-boss that I was going to resign, he asked me why, and I told him, “it’s time to chase my dreams“. To which he replied, “Okay, I’m not about to get in the way of chasing dreams, but give me a month.”

So yeah, maybe I blame my former boss for this domain name too.

Hello, world. Yes, it’s Riz. And this is my new blog.

*Photo credit: Icanread

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