TOPAZ HORIZON

I love Entrecard because it helped boost my blog's popularity. I got a lot of great visits from bloggers all over the world and I have discovered the most fantastic blogs in the process. Here are just some of the most interesting bloggers who've been dropping by this long holiday:

1. Alterity is busy making hot cross buns for Easter
2. BeadsMe is very creative with her hands
3. Contemporary Concepts can't believe the weather in Florida
4. Really cute Easter eggs at Creative Cafe
5. Join a movie club and save the planet, encourages The GREEN Power Mall
6. Jean sQuared is listening to healing songs
7. I don't quite understand this site but KipTip's advice can be fascinating
8. Wow! More Than Sew So blogs on a gift from Russia to the US to remember 9/11 victims that is beyond beautiful
9. Ooh, love the new turquoise bracelet in Sand & Sea Designs!
10. Find the most exquisite photo of an iris in SUMMER Headquarters
11. Shop for the most fantastic Steampunk Jewelry
12. Transformations posts on a mind-numbingly stupid note in a newspaper
13. Lovely haikus on spring in Washwords

These bloggers have also placed ads in my Entrecard box (the yellow box to the right). Thanks, guys! I wish I could give away prizes (like a fabulous stay at a Riviera hotel in Las Vegas) for being so helpful to me! But until blogging earns me a ton of money, I'll just have to say thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Okay, I don't want to whine but I just want to express shock over the fact that I am now 111 lbs. Don't roll your eyes just yet. When you're 5 feet 3 inches with small bones, that's 11 lbs too many. When you're in the magazine business, that's 20 lbs too many. I kid!

Anyway, I was reading Glamour and they have this story on women who did something different for one month and afterwards, there was a big difference. Someone wore red lipstick and everyone paid more attention to her, someone ate more veggies and her skin became better, while someone exercised for just one minute every day and she became thinner and lost a few pounds. One minute. Every day.

So I've been doing 3 sets of 10 reps of push ups, sit ups, tricep curls, hip raises, leg raises and squats while I watch The Insider or any show with gossip really (except Gossip Girl. I can not stand that silly show). I find watching entertainment news helps--especially when I watched the coverage of that infuriating Chris Brown pleading "not guilty" of assaulting and making grave threats on Rihanna. Seriously, this guy needs a dictionary. Be a man, Chris, and own up. Geez, he's not only an abusive mess, he's also delusional, a liar, and a coward. The frightening thing is polls done on US high schools say that girls think getting beat up is okay! Girls, abuse is never okay! No one has the right to hit you and abuse you. Damn, this issue gets me so angry that when I'm doing my push ups, I find myself doing them more fiercely!

Anyway, I started my gossip-show regimen last week. I tell you that first time was bad, the second time--with my aching muscles--was worse. But now, well, I still look flabby but I'm stronger. I'll do this for a month and we'll see where this goes!

Dear heaven, I've forgotten about these pics! Was going through my Facebook yesterday and found some photos of myself--some unflattering (which I will not post here!). Oh well, that's what happens when you're not ready for the camera... or even if you are and you just happen to be having a fat day!

Let's do this chronologically, shall we...

Additional pic from the Kerastase event a couple of weeks ago. My pose is rather awkward, isn't it? Must be the camera and the shopping bag I was carrying--they were kinda heavy.

Wine Night! Every month, Kat Dy, Red de Leon, Nicole Delos Angeles and Nichole Reyes and I unwind and catch up over bottles of wine. I can only handle white wine actually as I'm allergic to red. I'm the one with eyeglasses. With each Wine Night, more and more people are added! I've met fascinating and weird people, true, but Wine Night is never boring as a result!

Christmas with my Sales family. Vince and I are on the top row, center. We're a happy lot! Lots of kids! Super noisy, super chaotic, super lots of gifts!

This was taken last September. That's me in the short brown dress. My staff and I went to the province of Quezon and we ate and ate ate. Crabs the size of dinner plates, prawns as big as your hand, fresh fish each more than a foot long. And that's just one meal. That was a food trip that went beyond what we can handle.

Oh boy, I look so Chinese here. This was taken summer of last year. Nichole and some other media friends and I just attended the Marc Jacobs store opening and since there was no food (why do the organizers of fashion and beauty events always think we women don't eat? Or that we're all vegetarians?), we converged at Cibo and ate and ate and ate. Anyway, I love my bangs and my turquoise ring!

This was March 2008, I think. My friend Kate is about to open her store in Greenbelt 5 and this was her party. I'm wearing a Kate Torralba tube dress with the loveliest cherry blossoms embroidered all over the front.

I have no idea when this was taken but based on my hair and the fact I no longer have braces, I'd say late 2007. I had just learned how to mix drinks in a crash course by L'Oreal Paris.

A paparazzi photo of me at my wedding in April 2007. This was just before I stepped out of the Jaguar (loaned so generously by my sister-in-law's mother-in-law) and all my friends and bridesmaids were telling me to relax. Do I look nervous? No, baby. I was in the zone at this point!

Ooh la la. Me and my friends Mariel Chua and Jigs Mayuga at the Preview Ball 2006. My skin was soooo bad but Jigs--L'Oreal Paris Chief Makeup Artist!--fixed me up good. Gosh, I miss those legs!

Oh my, this is Preview Ball 2005! I am wearing a Kate Torralba sheer shirt with colored beading plus matching tube top and super short shorts. In 2005, I had no cellulite and I still had a waist so thank the heavens for this photo! I can show it to my kids one day and say, "See? Mommy used to be hot!"