baking mood

I was lying in bed a few minutes ago, already prepared to sleep when I suddenly had a light bulb moment. I hate it when that happens when I'm about to doze off! I really do need to get some shut eye but I just have to let this idea out before I lose it then I'll never forgive myself. Okay I'm exaggerating I'd eventually forgive myself, but you get my drift. Anyway, I suddenly thought of selling carrot cakes and cookies again. It's been a while since I've baked anything. The last time was....December last year? Not sure. I miss baking--measuring the ingredients, waiting for the cupcakes/cake to be done, checking the oven from time to time to see if everything's looking pretty, decorating with yummy sweet icing...

I think I should sell baked goods, this time I'm thinking of selling carrot loaves with yummy cream cheese icing. Or I could also sell cinnamon butter cookies and diabetic friendly oatmeal cookies. I have to improve my recipes though. The previous ones were great, but I want to be a bit more experimental this time. Hmmmm....what new cookie recipes should I try?

image from here

click! click! click!

Although I've dreamed of having my own dslr, my first love with regard to photography would be film cameras. Prior to my fascination with lomography I was already interested in film photography in general. Admittedly, however, I never dabbled in photography up until college and I only used our old digicam. But I always was charmed by how pictures would come out using film. I loved that you couldn't manipulate how the pictures would look like once the film was developed. No way to photoshop, unless you scan the printed shot and do your magic with it on the computer. I would flip through photography books and be amazed with how photographers in the old days would capture such great shots without having the convenience of deleting them from their cameras and keep on taking pictures until they were certain they had the right shot. I guess it was more of a gut feel thing for them. My view on photography's like that. Whenever I go out and use any one of my film cameras, I just pray that the shots would turn out nice and I'd click the day away. I'd imagine in my head how the pictures would come out. Some of the shots were successful, some weren't, and a lot of films were just either underexposed or overexposed. Oh well, I'm still learning.

This set of pictures were all taken last year. I just had the films developed last week and you could just imagine how giddy I was when I finally got the package in the mail with all the developed films and the shots transferred to CDs. I just had to check the pictures already :p Hopefully my next set of films will turn out to have more successful shots.

At the National Museum, Manila

One of my grandmother's orchid plants

Red wall, Red door

Would you like some wine?

The things you do with a bit of alcohol...

Kusina Salud, San Pablo, Laguna

Some mistakes turn out right in the end :)

Room 2, Casa San Pablo, San Pablo, Laguna

Sampaloc Lake, San Pablo, Laguna

Delayed Flight=Spare time to wander off in the airport

Manila City Hall Clock Tower

Green and Red don't always look too Christmas-y

Shall we take a dip?

Or enjoy the scenery?

another quick update

Sorry sorry sorry! I promise I'll post something longer and hopefully more substantial tomorrow. Been busy with lots of things lately. Besides work, have been working on a sideline job, organizing get-togethers, fixing my room, and planning my future (haha!).

As a preview of what I'll post tomorrow, and thinking about all my backlog entries, I'll be sharing with you some of the pictures I took with my babies, i.e. my film cameras. I have this weird fascination with using film and not knowing how my shots will look like after. Lomograpy/film photography is an expensive hobby, I know. But I love the thrill and anticipation of finding out if my shots were successful or not. And even if the shots don't turn out as pretty as I wanted them to be, I still like all the pictures that come out. I've had most of my films undeveloped for a year already which is why I was so excited to get the CDs in the mail last week. Thanks to Digiprint for developing and transferring the shots first on CD so I wouldn't waste more money printing shots I don't want to frame. Will be hanging a few of the nicer shots on my wall to add a bit of quirkiness to my room. Just to add, I love it that Digiprint develops different kinds of films for an affordable rate. First film costs Php 150 and the next 4 films cost Php 30 each!

apologies

I'll be back after this weekend. Sorry, have been MIA because work's been keeping me busy. Promise, after this weekend I'll post something :)

Wish me luck, will be joining a Tree Planting Activity this Saturday in Laguna (a province near Manila, about 1 1/2-2 hours from the metro).

should I?

I've been thinking about going on another thrift shopping trip tomorrow morning before I slave away in the kitchen for dinner with my friends. After I emptied about a fourth or a third of my closet, it seems that I only have dresses and no decent blouse for the office. So...should I go to my favorite thrift store tomorrow and shop? Hmmm....yes, I think I will go shopping tomorrow.

we could possibly starve here in Ortigas

Typhoon season has officially begun here in the Philippines. Last night, typhoon 'Basyang' hit Metro Manila. It wasn't raining cats and dogs last night but the wind was howling. Scary. Read online this morning that billboards got toppled over so a lot of power lines were hit. Most of Metro Manila doesn't have electricity because a lot of the electricity company's transformers needed to be repaired and no news yet as to when power will be back. Our office building's running on generators--good enough to keep some lights and the elevator working, but we can't use our computers and the ACs. Good thing we still have wifi! I brought my laptop with me today because I had a feeling our computers would be of no use. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to save the work files I was doing yesterday on my flash disk so I still won't be able to work now. Was able to check my office mail, and good thing there were only 2 new messages and one of which was just from an officemate about something non-work related. I'm assuming local clients don't have electricity also in their offices so they can't send us emails today as well.

I'm settling with a bottle of coke today. No coffee, sadly. Starbucks is closed. Coffee Bean is closed. Even Mcdonald's is closed!! 7-11's open, but their coffee machine isn't working. Great. I don't even know why we're still here. I mean, we're not really working. Even our boss isn't here yet!

Even fast food chains are closed! Now I don't know what's going to happen to us. Am sorry, I'm starving already and apparently almost all restaurants are closed. Why am I even still here?? I should be home and sleeping. I might as well ask our office manager if I could go home since we're not of any use today due to the power outage. And I'm still a bit sleepy so I really, really want to go home now.

Sorry, I'm just blabbing on. Okay I won't bore you guys anymore with my rants. Will be back tomorrow with a happier entry :)

Bakumatsu!

Found a cool program online that makes your picture look like this...

...to this!

Check out Bakumatsu here :)

take me out!!

I think if my Holga could talk, that's what it would be telling me. So I've decided to take my dear ol' Holga camera Smiley Cyrus out tomorrow. First I have to buy 120 mm film then I'll go around Ortigas tomorrow and take random shots. Then I'll run to the nearest Fujifilm then have the film developed which would probably take 2 days. One word: Excited!!

room makeover starts....now!

I went to Dapitan Arcade this afternoon to buy a container for a few stuff I had lying around my room. I've been meaning to renovate my room but I haven't found the time to do so. Luckily, my brother's not that busy lately so he suggested that he'd help me so this'll be our project for the year. I already have a few ideas as to how I want my room to look like, but first I have to de-clutter. I spent the rest of the afternoon up until about an hour ago rummaging through piles of books, papers, clothes, and bags and separating the ones I'll keep and the ones that are going to be given away.

sheer blouse: gift from my grandmother

sandals: I bought it online...forgot what site ;p

bag: H&M

I was able to buy this nice box at Dapitan. I initially was planning on buying a wicker box, but I saw this and fell in love with it. On top's a piggy bank I bought, heehee :)

* For those of you here in Manila who want to get good deals on containers, kitchenware, lamps, and decorations for your house you can visit Dapitan Arcade (Kanlaon corner Dapitan Streets, Quezon City. From Quezon Avenue, turn right at Domingo Street then left at Dapitan Street. Go straight and you'll see it on the right side, you won't miss it!).

nomnomnom!

My friend Mish, my brother Coby, and I had lunch at nomnomnom today. It's a small restaurant in the lower ground floor of the corner building along Tomas Morato and E. Rodriguez. I can say it's one of the nicest restaurants I've tried here in Quezon City. To start, it's not crowded. The place is a bit hidden and the signage isn't noticeable so you'd only know about the place if someone told you about it or if you've read about nomnomnom. I found out about nomnomnom after reading about it on Project Manila and Our Awesome Planet. Another thing I like about the place is that there are events on Fridays and Saturdays that you can attend. For example, last night there was a pizza eating contest, tonight's movie night, and there'll be an acoustic night on July 30th with songs by The Carpenters being covered (check out the details about rainy July at nomnomnom here). And of course I like the food there! Their fried raviolis are ♥. I'm not saying that we died and went to culinary heaven. I think the food at nomnomnom's good enough to make me want to go back, but not necessarily be obsessed with. Mishi had the Lemon Butter Fish, Coby had the Lime Chicken, and I had the Tinapasta (flaked tinapa/smoked fish mixed with pesto sauce). If we had to rate the dishes from one to ten, we'd give each dish a score of seven. Not bad :) Mish and I were intrigued with the Beer Bucket Promo where they had food listed under 'Dude Food' and there were cocktails such as Dalandan Tarragon Margarita and Cinnamon Rhum Cola. We're definitely going back for this promo, haha! More details about the Beer Bucket Promo here.

Nomnomnom's the type of restaurant where we'd definitely want to hang out in. I wouldn't be surprised if we'll go back there soon. I would recommend it to my friends because I'm pretty sure they'd like it there as well.

nomnomnom happy food!

twas too sunny so the signage wasn't seen

nom...times 3 :)

lovely framed artwork

I wish they painted some of the stained parts of the pillar...

while waiting for our food...

food's here, time to eat!

yummy fried ravioli with salsa!

Tinapasta

Lemon Butter Fish

Lime Chicken

herb garden outside...

* Nomnomnom is located at Unit 2, Lower Ground Floor, GYY Building, 1 Tomas Morato cor. E. Rodriguez Sts, Quezon City, Philippines (beside Shell Gas Station, parking entrance is along E. Rodriguez). It's open Tuesday-Sunday, 12 nn-12 mn. For reservation or inquiries, call +639178250338. More info about nomnomnom on its multiply and wordpress sites.

for the love of vintage

I don't think I was ever able to post my Bangkal adventure here. It happened about two years ago with my dear friend Mishi. We decided to go check out the Bangkal area in Makati where the streets are lined up with stores selling antiques and a lot of vintage items. I really enjoyed that trip. We commuted to Bangkal--taking the MRT and then a pedicab. Twas quite risky what we did, commuting with a huge dslr displayed for all greedy eyes to lust on. Good thing no one attempted to take it. I think they were warded off by the huge umbrella I had. Not really, haha! That time, having a dslr was the 'in' thing so everyone wanted to have one.

Anyway, let me share with you a few shots of our trip to antique heaven...

Lunch at Fat Michael's (this deserves a separate post...)

Back to walking around Evangelista...

Going home...

Read up about Bangkal on Carlos Celdran's blog.