TOPAZ HORIZON

My darling friend Nichole Reyes became Mrs. Bernard Mercado last Saturday in a fabulous wedding over at picturesque Tagaytay Highlands. I can't get over how glamorous Nikki and Bernard's wedding was! Here are a few photos from my camera but I'll be stealing from Facebook in a bit so you get to see nicer pics.

The couple arrived at the altar looking like Barbie and Ken. Hmmm, actually, Barbie and Ken never looked this good! 

Congratulations, my dearest friends! May all the love and laughter in the world bless your marriage! Love ya both! And I want to have cheese fondue soonest!

Gown and suit by Kate Torralba
Photos by Pat Dy

OK!'s March issue is out and it's hotter than the weather! Look at that cover—it looks like we slathered testosterone creams on it then set it ablaze! Johnny Depp is my favorite. Yumminess to the extreme. I don't mind David Beckham either as he's just oozing sex.

Now that Robert Pattinson... well, the girls love him so he's there. But I can't stand the guy. He's like John Mayer. I mean, what is up with his interview with Details magazine? He says, "I really hate vaginas. I'm allergic to vagina." Well, thank goodness I don't want him anywhere near mine but I feel really bad for all the girls who love him. Ladies, he hates your vaginas. What are you going to do???

Meanwhile, we do have other testosterone-free stories. We have a big story following Taylor Swift, arguably America's biggest star these days, on her tour bus, backstage, in her dressing room and performing onstage. It's a fab story! We also have a lovely interview with Susan Boyle. She's a charming lady, that Susan. Anyway, lotsa lotsa great stories so I hope you grab a copy!

I'm sure you've already seen it if you've been reading my blog long enough (I wrote about the Real Living feature here). But if you want better photos, head on over to the newly revamped Female Network to see!

The photos are kinda old, though, as the house looks a lot different. We have a whole wall of shoe cabinets now, the Louis Ghosts and a new elegant love seat, a bigger flat screen computer monitor to replace Vince's tired one, a Chinese porcelain stool... The house is now more home and, ya know, though we've visited nice hotels over the years, nothing beats coming home to our lovely apartment. So it's kinda scary with all the devastating earthquakes happening lately. Do you think we should ask around for home insurance quotes? Is your home insured?

Here's a better photo of my gorgeous Prizmic & Brill writing table. Vince gave that to me for Christmas 2008. I told ya he's absolutely genius when it comes to giving gifts. The cream stuffed teddy is very very old. His name is Mozzarella and Vince gave him to me for my 27th birthday--that'll be 6 years ago! I love that bear to bits and I'll tell you why soon--that bear deserves his own blog post!

Been veeeeery busy these past few weeks preparing for two weddings of two very good friends. So I've been neglecting my blogging work from PayU2Blog and that's money down the drain! So I'll be blogging a lot this week to catch up.

Anyway, I want to know what you guys do to earn money through blogging. I know blogging is supposed to be just an online diary, an outlet of thoughts, but I'm a writer and I write for a living. I gotta get paid whenever I write! So even if this is an online diary, if I can earn from it, I will!

When I went to the Nuffnang Awards in Singapore last October, I met many bloggers who are literally earning thousands of dollars through their blogs. They told me about selling ad space on your blog and manipulating the best SEO tools (SEO means search engine optimization) so that you earn a lot from Google Adsense. Like I said, these people earn thousands of dollars from their blogging!

Me? Let's see... I've earned about $750 from the paid blogging network I belong to and P5,000 from Nuffnang. That's from months and months of being a member so divide that up and that's really just pocket money for me (about 3K-5K a month). From Adsense, not much at all, around $60, which I haven't been able to cash out because they'll only send you the money if your earnings have reached $100. Clearly, I have no idea how Adsense and SEO works! If you know of any class or seminar that will educate me on this, drop me a comment below!