My mom’s pre-birthday gift for me: lighter hair. :) (Taken with instagram)
Because the way to my mom’s heart is to make her something sweet. <3

all the ingredients for a sweet life

heating up the love!

chilled cheesecake without the topping

cheesecake oozing with blueberry goodness
my masterpiece

a slice of blueberry heaven
Hurray to my upcoming 32nd!
Listed below are lessons all of us have encountered along the way and probably still are encountering as the days go by. They are all so heartbreakingly real and sometimes we couldn’t help but wish time would stop for a second so that we may hold on a bit longer to those happy memories we wouldn’t want to let go of…yet. But yes, it is impossible so I might as well enjoy everything while still young, at least before I reach my 40’s. My 40’s? I shudder just thinking about it…haha.
Thanks to my good Tumblr friend, joanne, for this. :D
By RYAN O’CONNELL
1. You can’t date a jerk and expect to turn them into a good person. Jerks are fully committed to being unpleasant. Those brief moments of tenderness they give you are designed to trip you up and give you false hope. It’s best to stay away altogether.
2. The rumors are true: your metabolism does slow down as you get older! That means if you’re still eating whatever you want, there’s a good chance you’ll start to gain an awkward amount of weight. It won’t be too drastic but your clothes will start to hang differently on your body and you’ll feel an overall feeling of unattractiveness. Start to be conscious of what you eat and strive to live a healthier lifestyle if you want to get your teen body back. (Let’s be real though, that might not ever come back.)
3. You’re going to lose touch with a lot of your friends. With some people, it will be expected but with others it will feel like a punch to the stomach. No friendship is truly safe in your twenties. You’re undergoing so many personal and professional changes that there’s bound to be some casualties along the way. Don’t worry though. You’ll end up with the ones that matter. If someone’s no longer in your life, it’s for a reason.
4. You’ll be jealous of everyone who’s more successful than you. That’s okay. Just transfer that jealousy into something productive, like working really hard so you can one day eclipse them and make them feel jealous of YOU.
5. You’ll question every decision you make and never feel completely certain that you made the right choice. It’s pointless to wonder though. You’re here now so you might as well make it be the right decision.
6. You’re going to give your heart to those who don’t deserve it. Then, one day you’ll come to your senses and ask them to give it back.
7. You’ll see your parents get older. You’ll come home during Christmas break and see new lines developing on their faces. One day it’ll just hit you that your parents are old and going to die. There’s nothing you can do about it, besides treat them with kindness and visit as much as your budget permits.
8. You’ll have a boss who makes you feel like you’re nothing. It doesn’t have to be in a Devil Wears Prada way. The cruelty can be much more subtle. Don’t let them get to you though. They have no idea who the hell you really are and you’re probably going to have their job someday so…
9. Doing drugs is fun until it’s not, until it starts affecting your life in negative ways and leaves you feeling guilty and wrecked. If that happens, you should stop doing them.
10. You’re going to puke in public. It’s fine. No one cares. Just puke.
11. You’ll know how to make twenty dollars last an entire week because you spent almost all of your paycheck on groceries at Whole Foods and drunk cab rides. This lesson in frugality will serve you well.
12. You’re going to betray your convictions. You’re going to feel shame. You’re going to continue to put yourself in situations that aren’t good for you. And then, slowly but surely, it will become less frequent. It might not ever go away completely but it won’t be as bad. In the meantime, stop shame spiraling about it. It gets you nowhere.
13. Loving yourself is hard. Hating yourself is harder.
14. You’re going to hook up with someone who you would never touch in the daylight sober. Just don’t freak out too much about it. Consider it to be your good deed for the day.
15. You’re going to have people in your life who are toxic. They may say that they love you, they may say that they have your back, but they don’t. Get rid of them.
16. You’ll have moments with someone that are so intense, it’ll feel like you’ve been electrocuted back to life. You’ll hold on to these moments for a long time. They’ll give you hope when you’re going through the motions.
17. You’ll always care about your first love. That doesn’t make you crazy, it just makes you human. When relationships end, it’s not so cut and dry. You carry everyone you’ve ever loved into every relationship thereafter.
18. You’ll enter your twenties as a fashion disaster and (hopefully) leave them looking fantastic. If you don’t know how to put yourself together by then, I really don’t know what to tell you.
19. You’ll realize that the Internet can be a cruel son of a bitch but, you know,www.whatever.com.
20. So much of what you think matters doesn’t actually matter at all. It’s kind of rude. Like, thanks for making me believe in things that are ultimately so inconsequential, you jerk.
21. You’ll treat someone terribly. Whether it to be a lover or your friend, there’ll be someone whose feelings you take for granted. We focus too much on whether or not someone is hurting us. The reality is that we might actually be the one who’s hurting someone.
22. Doing “grown-up things” doesn’t make you a grown up. Shopping for housewares, buying a plant, embracing domesticity — these things don’t create maturity. If you’re still a baby who hasn’t figured things out, you’ll remain a baby, no matter how many times you pay your rent on time.
23. Don’t force yourself into loving anyone. If it’s not working in the beginning, it’s probably not going to work ever.
24. You are so lucky to have everything that you have. Stop crying about an unreturned text message and get some perspective.
25. Don’t go too long without having sex. Ever.

can’t stop laughing right now! Hahahaha
I will be another year older in a few more days.
I don’t know if you still remember or if you do, does it even matter?
I would like to assure you though, that I am happy now and that you were right when you said I should start loving myself more.
It all seem so long ago. There was a time I thought you and I would never end. But we did.
It was not a secret that I felt lost after that, unable to get past the hurt of recalling memories that stubbornly refused to leave my mind, much to the distress of people around me—family, friends, workmates.
It was a slow road to recovery. Yet eventually, hesitantly, I finally opened my eyes to the reality that you were but another sad chapter in my life.
Time did fly. And it flew by very fast.
Time has made me find myself too: this strong person struggling to get out, someone who thought she has lost her magic only to find out it was within her all this time.
And with the days, weeks, and months that followed, it was not only my eyes that I opened but my heart as well to let a new one in—Myself.
Sometimes it’s funny how our lives turn out to be completely different from the ones which we had carefully planned out. Different places, situations, people. But they would all change our lives, eventually. Not in the way that we had imagined it would be but better, more than we hoped for.
And it is, because, in all of this, it was ourselves that we focused on more. It really is true, no one can love us more than ourselves.
Looking back, my 31st year on this earth has been the best one in my life so far.
The 365 days begun with meeting you for the first time, getting to know you, being with you, until finally losing you and myself in the process. Fortunately, I found myself again later on and became a better, stronger person because of that.
Now that the 365 days is almost over, I rejoice in the thought it may have taken me 31 years to finally realize my worth, but the journey towards that realization was all worth it.
I am, after all this time, finally free.

Ella enjoying her “me” time in the waters of Cebu

My little one, photographed by Edrie Alvarez
(May 2012, Rios Residence Rosario, Cavite)
Happy sofie (Taken with instagram)
All natural, big, brown, beautiful, banlag eyes. haha. :D (Taken with instagram)
(via akosimangpedsss)

My beautiful Sofia gazing out the window (May 14, 2012)
Setting is in my old room at our ancestral home in Rosario, Cavite. Taken by acclaimed photographer Maricris Fabi Carlos.
I.
It’s in the way your eyes light up at the sound of my voice
or how your laughter fills the room whenever I tickle your nose.
I look at you and know that you are everything.
Because I am your mother and I feel that I am loved.
II.
You are my sweet surprise,
and the fluffy clouds in the summer skies
You make my heart skip a beat and my eyes well up with happy tears
I hold you in my arms and know that you are everything.
Because you are my daughter and you are loved.
III.
I am been blessed with a special gift
and everyday is a celebration.
I belong to you like I have never belonged to someone else
This is my song for you, my little one.
IV.
And you smile at me and take my hand and I know…
I know that you are everything
(Mother’s Day 2012)
My mom and me: You will never understand the sacrifice and love of a mother unless you become one yourself. (Taken with instagram)
Becoming a mom: the best gift ever. :) (Taken with instagram)
Storyboard of product flyer made by Abiva kids on apprenticeship. All in a day’s work. :) (Taken with instagram)
Last night:
Sof: Ma, bili tayo C2 sa mercury
Ella: Gabi na, may mumu na sa labas. Bukas n lng bili ka ni mama ha
(Sof throws a tantrum. Ayaw pumayag)
Ella: Sarado na mercury, baby. Bukas bili kita yung malaking malaking C2.
Sof: Hindi yun sasara! Thirtypor hours yun!
Oo nga naman. Haha.