I’m back! Thank you to those who continue to visit this blog despite my absence. You have to know I always have so much to share but somehow, there is always a distraction that deters me from doing so. Well, that or I just get so overwhelmed bec. my mind works faster than my fingers and by the time I want to unleash everything onto the screen, I’m already tired. Big mama just can’t keep up!
We had a trip planned to Seattle sometime last week (or was it the week before that?) but unfortunately, we had to cancel (with no penalties, I might add — love it) bec. Olis didn’t have a strong enough immune system to have visitors (a normal person has over 1000 something blood things to fight off infection – Olis has 8). So while going to Seattle would have been a nice distraction from all the madness here (caused by wedding preps, no less) and I would have had the chance to see Olga for a few hours (only), we opted to postpone Seattle until we could see Olis (and everybody else I left behind in Seattle… LOL, now I sound like I have some kind of fan base over there bwehehe).
Have I told you about Weight Watchers? Duh. Well, 3 Sundays ago I actually gained! Yes! But we’re not talking about an enormous amount of weight — I think it was like .6 of a pound. I think my breakfast that morning was rice and adobo hahahaha. I wasn’t too disappointed as I realized in the grand scheme of things, I could possibly gain here and there but I’m still going to lose my weight.. albeit with baby steps if I have to. Oh, and did I mention that the .6 that I gained was during the time that I had professed I would start grilling my food? Yah, that was the surprising part. I was grilling my food and what I thought was “healthier” eating probably wasn’t. Hm, well that’s a given since I already confessed I had rice and adobo that morning. BWAHAHAHA. But seriously speaking, I really was giving up my oils and utilizing the grill a lot more. So stepping on that scale and seeing the gain really was a surprise to me. But never mind that cuz fast forward to the Sunday after the gain! I had a loss of 2 lbs. at last week’s weigh-in (see, told you I wasn’t kidding about the grilling crap). And yesterday’s weigh-in? Thank you — another 1.7 lbs. Total weight loss since joining on September 17: 7.7 lbs. I won’t complain cuz it’s better than nothing. What I will say is this, however — imagine if I had just kept up my exercising….. I was going 4-5 days a week (pre-WW) down to none once I joined WW. Well, no, I ought to give myself credit for that one week stretch that I was at the gym 6 days in a row when I first started WW. But after that? Carrying Erynne and cleaning up the house is the most exercise I’ve been doing. Really pathetic. I must not really want it that bad. Yep, that’s what it is. Lazy. But for now, let me feel proud about the 7.7 lbs (plus the additional few pounds I lost at the gym pre-WW, which I almost forgot). PS. Don’t think the weight loss is obvious. I’m such a big girl that it would probably take about 30 lbs. to really notice a remarkable difference in my body. And that’s no exaggeration.
As for our wedding preps, it’s been crazy needless to say. We finalized our invites with Unifair on November 9th and bec. we pressured them (nicely 
), they are supposedly printing this week. From there, they will be shipped to us so that I can distribute some of the invites to our US guests (who are heading to Manila after Xmas) before we fly to Manila. The rest of the invitations for our Manila-based guests will be distributed upon arrival so that we could personally arrange and distribute ourselves. I hope we can do that real fast cuz I swear we have a million things to do. Let me list it so I can see for myself how bad our situation is 
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1. Confirmation/Kumpil – Eric was confirmed at Malate Catholic when he was still studying there. When our coord and his mom went to obtain a copy last week, they had absolutely no record of it. Fine. We will have kumpil upon arrival at San Loreto Church (hee, where my parents married 32 years ago!). 650 pesos each. Isn’t that steep???
2. Pre-cana/Canonical interview – our coord has yet to find a precana seminar for us to attend as Christ the King’s pre-cana is scheduled for Dec. 2-3. Clearly, had we known this, we would have adjusted our departure dates. Oh well. Our coord will just have to look for one we can take at a different parish. San Sebastian (our original church) is holding a seminar on Dec. 15. We may just attend San Seb once our coord has ok’d it with CTK. I tried looking into Catholic Engagement Encounters (CEE) here in the state of California. Would you believe they’ve been booked long ago? Totally crazy. So scratch that idea cuz I don’t want to force myself into a weekend retreat anyways. I don’t have time for that sh**. Sorry for the attitude; it’s just complete and utter crap that getting married is such a hassle. I mean, why does the church need MORE paperwork? Doesn’t the Philippines have enough paperwork just sitting on their desks? Blows my mind. Especially since Enrico and I are already civilly married. I could go on and on. Baptismal and birth certificates have already been forwarded to our coord – just waiting on some “freedom to marry” from our parish here, and every other requirement needed by Chancery will be settled upon our arrival into Manila.
3. Prenups – this is scheduled for Dec. 12. Honestly, do we need this? I can’t fathom the idea of superficially smiling for the cameras for absolutely no reason. Let me eat or something, and then you can click away. Wally Gonzales (our photog) has a Fernwoods wedding on that same day. We’re meeting at UP and doing the prenups there before he heads to his wedding. Hmm, maybe it can be a picnic theme and Enrico and I can actually do something and lay out on the blankets while Wally does his thing. I originally wanted our prenups somewhere in Dampa so we could be around food. My coord didn’t appreciate the idea — well, of course not. She’s not obsessed with food like Eric and I are. Hahaha, maybe therein lies my problem .
4. Gown – we arrive Dec 7, I will be meeting with Cecil on Dec 8 to discuss what I will be wearing. Note that I already have a gown but I’m not feeling too confident about it so I relayed all this to Cecil and showed him a dress that I much prefer over what I have. She calls it a “duster” bec. it’s so simple – I absolutely love it bec. it doesn’t really make me look like a bride, not that I want to anyways. I just want a simple ivory dress, no beads, something flowy, carefree, super plunging so that people don’t focus on the size of my hips but rather, on my boobs. The gown that I have now is a traditional tube gown in ivory, minimal beading — gorgeous really.. but really am not feeling it now. Another fact that led me to all this — I’m already married, we have a child AND I’m 30 years old. This is only my opinion so no offense if someone takes this the wrong way — I don’t need all that frilly-ness when it comes to the gown (wish I had felt this when I bought it!). The inspiration (for the new gown) was taken from a Saeyoung Vu bridal gown. Cecil’s comment was that it would be her first time to post pics on her blog of a bride wearing a duster. So be it. And her other comment was that people might make pintas bec. I’m a fat girl and all — my response was my lips, skin and bulbols are already thick, nothing could ever strike me. She agreed. So the idea now is not to disguise the fact that I’m fat when I march down the aisle – rather, we’re going to embrace (and celebrate!) my fatness and add some glamour. NAKS! I’m so excited! I wish I could go global and make fat the new skinny. Bwahahahaa.
5. Eric’s barong – none yet. So when we get to Manila, we’re going to go around for the cheapest barong we can find. Eric refuses to spend over 5K. Hell, my husband would be happy with something for less than 1K if we could only find a nice barong for that price. We’ll be checking out Lumban as well.. not that we know where to go but we’ll figure it out. Side story: Eric was trying to get prices from Cecil on his barong charges. Eric requested a dragon design, chinese collar and get this, RED BUTTONS. Why oh why would anyone want red buttons on their barong?! Cecil asked the same thing. Eric’s response was that it was his favorite color. Bwahahahhaa. We had such a good laugh. I still laugh to this day. This is why God sent Eric to me — he has absolutely no fashion sense and I’m here to enlighten him. Bwehehehe.
6. Shoes – for the both of us, zero. I hate to scout around in Manila as I think we could score on some deals here especially with all the holiday sales coming up. But time is cramped for us as we will be entertaining relatives from Alaska from the 16th of this month all the way to the day we leave. So shoes may be another thing we may have to deal with — and both of our feet are not narrows, mind you. Eric’s is especially bad bec. his feet are long and wide. Mine’s just wide period. LOL. I saw a gorgeous colored Nina shoe at Nordie’s last night – it was, I think, a Lilac shade but gearing more towards a greyish tone. I just loved it. Maybe I could ask Cecil to work around that shoe…………
7. We have no place to stay in Manila after Dec. 21st. We’ll be scouting when we arrive. Liv has referred us to her boss and we’re highly leaning towards his mom’s unit as my sister will be arriving from Vegas on the 22nd and we will definitely be needing a bigger space, what with the holidays and everything. I know I definitely want to be comfortable and the idea of sharing 1 bathroom with more than 1 person is a bit troubling for me. Add to the fact my daughter’s comfort as well. Hubby, well, gosh, he can sleep and live through anything – that’s another reason we’re so perfect for each other. Me the maarts wife and him the wonderful husband hehehehehe. (On the topic of wonderful, Eric gave me a card and Twix as a little anniversary gift yesterday. I had tears of joy and eagerness and I wanted to read the card fast enough so I could devour the Twix hehehehehhehehehe. My husband is so sweet! I’m not a chocolate freak at all.. but ever since I saw those mini-Twixes on Halloween, I’ve been sallivating a lot. So I finally gave in to my craving yesterday — a big huge Twix, too and not those mini teasers hehe. HEAVEN and so worth it!).
I’m coming to a dead end. I know there’s more to unload but I just can’t think anymore..
