"When you feel the need to splurge, buy knowledge and EXPERIENCES instead." - marcandangel.com

Hello, 2014!

I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re doing something.

So that’s my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make new mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

  

Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, do it. Make your mistakes, next year and forever. - Neil Gaiman

Nutella Cuppies

Baked these goodies for my niece's Christmas party in school. It's so easy to make, kids can bake this themselves.

Nutella Cuppies

1 cup (275g) Nutella
2 eggs
12 tbsp all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda

a pinch of salt

toppings (m&m's, nuts)

Dump everything in a bowl, mix until lumpless. (don't overmix)
Pour into a muffin tin

Top with candies or nuts

Bake at 180C for around 30 minutes

Happy baking!

*made 15 Nutella cuppies (mini muffin liners) for this batch

My first bake, cupcakes

When I was younger, I used to help my Tita bake bake yellow (chiffon) cakes on special occasions. I would happily volunteer to help her measure and mix ingredients. Oh, I love the smell of the vanilla when she starts to pour it into the batter. I may be biased but she really bakes the best chiffon cake. :)

I've been itching to bake my own cake ever since the first time I helped my Tita bake her cakes. But I would forget about it because I'm not also sure if our rusty oven is even working. My mom assured me that our oven is working but it's just that she doesn't know how to operate it. But last week, I decided to take the challenge. Blame it on the food and travel channels I've been watching. 

I bought some baking ingredients, prepared the baking tools and started searching online on how to operate the oven since I'm a first time user. My baking adventure began when the oven light would glow but would also flicker. Worst, the oven smelled gas. It was so scary I thought I'll set the house on fire. I waited few more minutes to let the smell subside and tried again. After 3 tries I was able to turn the igniter on and it worked ok. Yey! Major buwis buhay accomplishment. 

And of course, niece was my assistant. Taught her to measure the ingredients accurately and let her mix the batter. The thing is, she was more interested on the batter. Picture below for your reference. :)

Check out niece's beard. Lol! How messy our table is?

Being a first time baker I was so surprised that I hit the spot. Niece and I were so proud of ourselves. Haha! I was so happy the cakes turned out yummy and tasty.

Peekaboo!

Tadaaah! Freshly baked cupcakes!

Buttermilk Choco Cupcakes

1. Preheat oven to 375F.

2. Cream 1\2 cup butter and 1 1/2  cups of sugar until light and fluffy. Add 2 eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add 1 tsp. vanilla extract.

3. Combine 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour, 1/2 cup cocoa, 1 tsp baking soda, 1/4 tsp salt.

4. Combine 1/2 cup buttermilk and 1/2 cup water

5. Alternately add the dry and liquid ingredients to the cream mixture.

6. Fill paper lined muffin cups two thirds full.

7. Bake 12-15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. 

8. Cool 10 minutes before removing from pans to wire rack to cool completely.

* Since this was just a "bake test" I didn't make frosting

Recipe from Taste of Home.

October Davao

I decided to fly to Davao to see my friend Peachy, who will be coming home from Canada for a vacation, and of course to see the rest of my barkada. I keep just a few circle of friends and most of them are in my hometown.

Hours before my early morning flight, I went to MOA to see my mom who's participating in the Rexona Run to your Beat 2013.

fangirls

I saw this book on brainpickings, read the sample on iBooks and found it very interesting. I looked for it in our local bookstores but it wasn't available so I asked Peachy if she can look for it in Canada and buy me a copy. Fortunately, she was able to find one (last copy in an Indigo store) and gave it to me as a pasalubong. Yey! Thanks, Peachypie!

With a cool bookmark. I so love it!!!

Got to visit my college friend Gracious, who I wasn't able to see since 2004. I wasn't able to attend her wedding last year so I was very glad to meet her husband and very cute baby girl. Aaaand... she's also 3 months pregnant. Yey! We got to bond and talk a lot of things like family life and college memories. I so miss this girl and I was so happy to see her again.

Lunch with the Mr. and Mrs.

Find the hidden dimples of baby Macie.

I also got to see another college friend, Chalen. This girl is one of my constant companions in my last few years in college. Whenever we're together there's no dull moment. We laugh a lot even at simple things. We also shared a secret back in college. "Crush" secret that is. Hahaha! 

We met up for lunch and coffee and had non-stop talk about LOVE! Grabe. We have so much things in common when it comes to our lovelife... lovelives? What's funny is that we're both singles now. Hahaha! We also haven't seen each other after graduating college so we filled each other's timeline of what happened between 2004-2013 in more or less 4 hours. Sobrang bitin! Hope to see these 2 girlfriends of mine again soon.

And lastly, my friends since bulingit days.

These are people who I've known more than half my life. We didn't change actually. We're still silly and naughty but with a bit of wisdom now. Sabeeee?

My trip to Davao is always a memorable one because of my friends. They make me happy. I feel so blessed to have known these people. :)

Bohol Earthquake

2 iconic, 18th century churches I've been to, damaged after a 7.2 magnitude earthquake yesterday. Truly praying for the familes affected. 

I feel so lucky that I was able to visit the place. I will surely share this photo to my future grandchildren. 

Photo source: 

(Baclayon) http://i2.wp.com/elysplanet.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Baclayon-Church-Jurisparens.jpg

Dauis (@roxipie - IG)

The Thought Catalog

I love reading posts from Thought Catalog, an online non-fiction publication that I discovered thru some of  the people I follow on Twitter. 

Founded in 2010, Thought Catalog is a digital magazine owned and operated by The Thought & Expression LLC, and experimental media group based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Ideals:

1. Thought Catalog content should be fun, smart, and creative, i.e., entertaining, journalistic, and literary.
2. The site should be beautiful and clutter-free.
3. We believe all thinking is relevant and strive for a value-neutral editorial policy governed by openness. The more worldviews and rhetorical styles on the site, the better. We want to tell all sides of the story.
4. We’re about today. But our mission is also archival. We want to catalog the times for tomorrow.
5. We want to help shape culture by empowering you to share your ideas and stories with the world.

True to their ideals, the articles are indeed smartly written, fun to read and are creative. Even though most of the posts are from a perspective of a Western culture, I can still relate to some of them. 

Below are just some the posts that I like. These are only the ones I remember because it's on my phone . Hehe. I hope you like it too. 

11 Ideas to Make You Rethink "Living in the Moment" by Brianna Wiest

The truth about this whole “living in the moment” business is that it’s been so over-advised that it’s nearing, if not passing, the cliched-ness of “loving yourself first.” But these ideas have to be consistently repeated because while they are principles that will aide us greatly, they are incredibly difficult to achieve.

There is, of course, importance is analyzing the past: it’s how we learn. And looking to the future is our source of solace on tough days: we hold on desperately to the hope that things will get better. It seems impossible to just let all of that go, but I think what we find when we do far surpasses the distant, theoretical peace of mind that we hope will one day come.

1. Tomorrow will never come. Today is yesterday’s tomorrow.Don’t let your life become a series of days that are spent waiting for the next day. You’ll run out. You’ll always be waiting to start living because here’s the thing: everything comes with it’s set of problems.

2. There is no instant cure-all in life. The perfect marriage, job, salary, and everything else you think will right the wrongs of your life will also come with sets of problems that you’ll be worried about like you are worried about the things in your life now. There is no instant cure-all in life, and you have to let go of the idea that there is other than just being right here, right now, and finding a way of loving it.

3. Cultivate your happiness now; change now. The intention to change just isn’t enough and will leave you intending for the rest of your life. Today is someday.

4. Don’t focus on doing well as much as doing good. It sets your foundation in thinking about what you can do for other people today, and of course, many people find it to be the most fulfilling thing they can do.

5. Don’t fear the ugly. Perpetual happiness would nullify it: you need the comparison to unhappiness be able to comprehend it. Simply put, the bad things make the good things good. What’s more, your negative feelings are just as integral a part of your internal navigation. “The beauty of defeat is that when you fall, you fly.”

6. You do not necessarily have a literal tomorrow, nor do your loved ones. Another real way to ground yourself in now is putting more literal, comprehensible meaning to the idea that there may not be tomorrow. You have absolutely no idea what will happen this afternoon, not to mention tomorrow and a year down the line. You will most likely lose people in many different ways, and you’ll probably be surprised by who they are. Love ‘em while you got ‘em.

7. These are the days that must happen to you. There are no unimportant parts of the story, it’s just all part of the plot. These days set the foundation for the climax and resolution.

8. “You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.” ― Henry David Thoreau

9. Now is all you need. Finding what you’re looking for right now is as possible as it will be tomorrow.

10. The only destination is death. The rest is the journey. The Superman complex can be debilitating when you start believing you’ll have forever. You will not. You may have hours, days, weeks, months: you never know, and nobody is guaranteed a long life and a peaceful death in their sleep at 90.

11. Don’t let your internal compilation of your experiences define you. Thinking if you do a certain thing one day or don’t another will or won’t make you something or other does not make you who you are. Give yourself the chance to choose differently for yourself today by not trapping yourself in what you think you should do based on who you have surmised that you must be based on your past actions.

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16 Reasons You Should Spend Less Time On Facebook by Kovie Biakolo

1. Because you’re procrastinating doing work that is relevant to your life.
2. Because you don’t actually care about 75% of the people on your Facebook.
3. Because rants are annoying and a day can’t go past without someone ranting on there.
4. Because you don’t need to know what is going on in that many people’s lives.
5. Because you don’t need that many people knowing what is going on in your life.
6. Because a lot of people are faking it.
7. Because 85% of it is useless information that you will soon forget.
8. Because you’re comparing your life to what your friends depict their life as.
9. Because photos of sonograms and daily baby bumps do not enrich your life in anyway.
10. Because relationship statuses or a lack thereof do not tell you anything about the relationship status. (Think about it.)
11. Because your ego is way too tied to your Facebook interactions.
12. Because you’ll give less of a shit what people think and there is a lot of freedom in that.
13. Because you’ll spend more time and effort cultivating and maintaining real relationships.
14. Because you want to like people and have faith in humanity.
15. Because wouldn’t you rather be living your life than posting about it?
16. Because Facebook is not real life.

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5 Things "Loving Yourself" Actually Means by Brianna Wiest 

It’s the age-old supposed cure-all for all of life’s woes (especially involving matters of the heart): “loving yourself first.” I don’t know how many times I've had to hear this, but I imagine the number is up there because what I do know is how many times I've thought to myself: what does that even mean. Because it used to sound to me like some weird form of narcissism or delusional way of not acknowledging anything wrong you've done. It used to sound like it meant you shouldn't take responsibility for yourself, or something like that. But low and behold, I've come to the conclusion that it actually means loving yourself because you are a flawed person, and despite the fact that you are imperfect. And while I’m at it, here are some other things that I think loving yourself really means:

1. Having the courage to forgive yourself. It means being able to acknowledge your humanity, your wrongdoing, but to not let it be a source of internal hatred. To understand that not forgiving yourself is the harshest criticism, and that nobody in your life will be able to love you until you forgive yourself for being human. Embrace your perfectly flawed self; it’s what makes the world so beautifully diverse and interesting.

2. Understanding that not your weight, nor your hair color, nor your choice of clothing, nor the funny way your stomach rolls when you slouch down makes you any less attractive than anybody else. There is not only one way to be beautiful, and loving yourself means realizing your own beauty for what it is, not in the context of how you look compared to anyone else (especially the nauseatingly perfect people in magazines).

3. That you have the choice to do what you love or to continue living a life being submissive to the expectations put on you.Loving yourself means understanding what makes your soul happy, and doing that thing as frequently as you’re able. Regardless of how much money you make, regardless of who judges you for it, and regardless of whether or not you’re wildly successful doing it. All you need to be successful is the knowledge that you are doing what you love most.

4. That not everyone will love you, and that not everybody has to.If you are being true to yourself, and somebody has a problem with that, that is their negative energy to deal with, not yours. Loving yourself means knowing that you will never have the love, praise and approval of absolutely everybody you meet, but that doesn’t reflect anything about who you are.

5. Understanding that you have to love yourself before you can love anybody else, or before anyone else can love you. A relationship filled with anxiety, self-doubt, insecurity, etc. is headed for Hell, and I don’t think that’s news to anybody. You have to feel worthy of love, and that comes from loving yourself. How is someone else going to think you’re totally awesome when even you don’t think you are? A: they’re not. The greatest thing loving yourself means is that once you do, you’re better equipped to let the world love you as well.

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PS. Brianna is Wiest is my favorite author on TC. Looking forward to get the hard copy of her Though Catalog produced ebook, The Truth About Everything.