Chocolates

When everything goes wrong, keep calm and eat chocolates.

Cagbalete Island

This small island near the Pacific Ocean is truly a haven for those who want to escape the craziness of the city life.

Happiness

For the world is your playground, when you are a kid

Flowers

When the world turns its back on you, turn your back to the world.

CASARORO FALLS

This crowning jewel of Valencia City is the most photographed body of water in the quaint province of Negros Oriental.

Wednesday, May 4


Here are 100 ways to uncomplicate it… {perfect inspiration for a Sunday!}

1. Don’t try to read other people’s minds
2. Get up 30 minutes earlier so that you don’t rush/get a ticket while driving too fast/have to explain why you’re late/get fired
3. Get 8 hours of sleep per night so that you think more clearly
4. Stick to your budget
5. Start saving and investing every week, no matter how little you can spare
6. Balance your checkbook
7. Don’t try to be friends with everyone. Cultivate closer relationships with fewer people.
8. Don’t try to do business with everyone. Identify your target client and take very good care of them.
9. Before getting angry, ask yourself if it will really matter in 20 years
10. Focus on being a good person, not on pleasing others
11. Stay home this Saturday, and finish off that nagging chore that you need to finish
12. Kiss and make up
13. Make a weekly menu, and shop for only those items at the market
14. Ask your grandparents the best way to uncomplicate life, and try it for a month
15. Fill up your gas tank when it’s half full
16. Don’t drink alcohol when you’re tired, sad or mad
17. Pay your bills on time
18. Get an annual physical examination
19. Say “I love you” to your significant other and to your children. Studies show that more marriages last, and fewer kids use drugs, when these words are spoken every day. (If I find my significant other.. hihi.. for now, I'll just say "I love you, self")
20. For just one day, imagine everyone’s intentions are good because most people’s are (ROBAY!! THIS IS THE EARTH SENDING US A MESSAGE)
21. Give away clothes that haven’t worn in two years
22. Throw out clothes that are in disrepair, and can’t be mended
23. When you have a conflict with someone, talk it out. Don’t let it turn into more than it is.
24. Know what your priorities are in life, and act as if they are your priorities
25. Tell the truth
26. Don’t cheat
27. Don’t steal
28. If you’re holding on to a ridiculous grudge, let it go
29. Clean your house weekly, so that it doesn’t become too large a chore
30. Do your best at work, or at school
31. Don’t eat when you aren’t hungry
32. Eat when you are hungry
33. Be yourself
34. Say no unapologetically
35. Cook simple meals
36. Don’t try to keep up with the Joneses
37. Pay off your car before buying a new one (I'll buy a new one muna.)
38. Organise your desk at the office
39. Change your smoke alarm batteries when the clocks spring forward, and again when they fall back
40. Organise your important paperwork
41. Take only half the clothes that you planned to take with you on holiday
42. Help your children with their homework every night, and have an open dialogue with their teachers
43. Have white sheets and white towels in children’s rooms/bathrooms, because they’re easily bleached
44. Spend your time with nice people 
45. Avoid drama
46. Don’t text or talk on the phone while driving
47. Turn off the television/video games/computer; they’re time consumers
48. Don’t engage in office politics
49. Refuse to gossip, or talk behind other people’s backs
50. Do the dishes right after dinner
51. Never go to sleep angry
52. Ask nicely for what you need and want
53. Walk 10,000 steps per day to help your heart
54. Do 20 push-ups before speaking in anger
55. Leave work at work
56. Don’t befriend anyone that isn’t trustworthy
57. Don’t envy others
58. Have your oil changed
59. Take vitamin C BEFORE you catch a cold
60. Don’t work more than 8 hours per day (AMEN!)
61. Weed your garden weekly
62. Wash your car weekly (wala akong car, sorreh)
63. Have a spring cleaning month every year, and do one room at a time
64. You don’t need to be best friends with work colleagues, but build respectful partnerships
65. Don’t drink and drive
66. Don’t look for reasons to be angry or sad, look for reasons to be happy. You’ll always be able to find plenty of each.
67. Be friendly with your neighbours
68. Return emails and phone messages promptly
69. Schedule in free time
70. Don’t procrastinate
71. Do what you say you’ll do, when you say you’ll do it
72. Be more flexible when you’re able to be
73. Forgive and forget. End of story. (Sorry, I can't)
74. Break the consumerism habit…put a three month moratorium in place on buying anything not deemed a necessity
75. Start your diet on September 1, rather than January 1, so that you won’t also have holiday pounds to lose
76. Take care of any health issues or concerns
77. Have your tires rotated
78. Have your brakes checked
79. Have your eyes checked
80. Don’t let your imagination run away with you
81. Let go of perfection in others
82. Let go of perfection in yourself
83. Don’t try to help those that refuse to help themselves
84. Find a way to reduce your commute to work
85. Have an alloted amount of worry time per day/week, that you strictly abide by
86. Drink more water
87. Eat more salmon
88. Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill
89. Wear your hair in a classic, easy to care for style
90. Finish what you start
91. Wear classic clothes and shoes that never go out of style
92. Create a daily routine
93. Have a 1, 5, 10 and 20 year plan for your financial and life goals
94. Slow down
95. Eat out less often
96. When you ask your husband which outfit looks best, thank him for his answer and wear the one he liked rather than focusing on why he didn’t like the other one
97. Allow your children to grow up
98. Clean out your garage, and donate anything that hasn’t been used in the past year
99. Stretch every day
100. If a relationship is over, let it go


Thoughts, anyone? 

(I highlighted the things I should do....)

A Letter for a Secret Love


Dear E,
I have never told you that I like you…perhaps you have no idea about the countless hours I have spent thinking about you, imagining what it could have been if I had known you earlier or if we had spent more time together. 
You are my secret crush in UP. 
You’ll never know how much my heart screamed when you asked for my number…how ecstatic I am every time we ride the Ikot together on our way to class…and how disappointed I am that we can never be together because we are universes apart…
I am a coward because I was never able to tell you this. You were the last person I saw before I left UP…the only person I wanted to be with; I have learned to stop yearning for the chance for us to be together because I know that will never happen. 
As such, you’ll remain forever as my deepest regret and my greatest what-if in my entire UP life. You have made me happy and I will forever cherish the memories of your wonderful smile that had once, in my life, made me thankful that I am alive. :)
— H.P. 

Sunday, May 1

Funeral Blues



"Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone.

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum,

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.



Let the aeroplanes circle, moaning overhead,

Scribbling on the sky the message ‘He is Dead’.

Put crepe bows ‘round the white necks of the public doves,

Let traffic policemen wear black, cotton gloves.



He was my North, my South, my East, and West.

My working week and my Sunday rest,

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.


The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;

For nothing now can ever come to any good.”




- W. H. Auden



*also known as "Stop the Clocks"