My Paper Man. ♥

As cheesy as it may be, happy 490th day, Baby! My paper man. ♥

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September Giveaway 1 ~ A Thanksgiving!

[Source]

Last August 23, 2012 I received one of the best news I've gotten in the past few months...

My boyfie, Cj, passed the NLE (Nurse Licensure Examination)!

Being the proud girlfriend that I am, I've decided to throw a giveaway in celebration of his achievement plus the fact that my grand mother is now back at home recuperating from her last hospital confinement. This is more like a thanksgiving giveaway, really. So, what shall one (1) lucky Philippine based winner receive? Check the photos below...

1 St. Ives Naturally Clear Apricot Scrub - Blemish & Blackhead Control

1 Asian Secrets Lulur Indonesian Whitening Body Scrub - With Seaweed Extract & Vit. E

1 Loyrs Deep Moisturizing Hair Cream - Fruit Cocktail

1 Ever Bilena Advance 3D Compact - Dark Baked Fusion

1 Ever Bilena Powder Blush - Raisin

1 Careline Oil Control Liquid Makeup - Oriental

1 Sansan Matte Finish Liquid Foundation - 03

1 Pair Top Lashes + Bottom Lashes Combo - 044

1 Flawless Beauty Oil Of Youth - 30ml

1 Pair GEO Circle Lenses + Lens Case

1 Turquoise & White Pencil Holder

1 Turquoise & White Phone Pouch

1 Hot Pink "Brush" Holder / Organizer

2 Candy Colored Bracelets

1 Braided Hair Headband 

So there you go. Cool prizes, right? Well, want to know how you could grab them all? Check out the mechanics on the rafflecopter app below. Good luck to everybody!

a Rafflecopter giveaway
Winner will be announced shortly after the contest ends. Participants should be responsible enough to keep checking when I announce the winner. Again, good luck to everybody!

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21st Birthday

Yesterday I turned 21. Yeahp, I'm now officially 21 years old. Anyway, yesterday was really just another ordinary (or so I thought) day. I woke up extra early to prepare for "work" and was greeted by an overflowing ward! Ugh! There were a lot of patients that day and just stepping into the ward gave me a headache. The nice thing was that since it was my birthday, they only gave me 5 patients! Yey for me! So anyway, I also had a little salo-salo (boodle fight thing) for lunch with my workmates. I brought fried chicken and palabok along with a few donuts. Basically after lunch it was back to work and by the time I got home, I was exhausted beyond belief. I decided to call it a day and got into bed.

I had been asleep a good one and a half hours when the dogs started barking wildly. I was being a lazy and just told myself not to mind 'em crazy dogs and try to get back to sleep but after a few more minutes someone knocked on my bedroom door. I stood up and it was my lola. She told me I had "visitors"

"Damn. Istorbo naman!" I thought. All I really wanted was to crawl into bed and get back to sleep but seeing that lola wouldn't leave me till I got my butt out the door, I reluctantly trudged towards our front door...

Then *BAM*! Right outside my door, standing with a huge balloon, cake, and flowers were my boyfie Cj, "twin" Shanne & Chynne. As they started belting out the last few lines of the "Happy Birthday" song, all I could think of was "DAMN, I'M IN MY PAJAMAS!"... *LOL*

Lovely roses from my Cj.

Moist chocolate cake with chocolate icing! OMG!

How many balloons do you see? HAHAHA!

My fez. :|

Blowing out my candle.

I have to admit, I was pretty surprised and very happy too. I didn't really expect anything from my boyfie since I knew he was also very busy with the NLE review. We hadn't even made any real plans. So it was really a sweet gesture that he and my two other friends made the effort to surprise me and not tease me too much about being in my Pjs. *LOL*

Cj, I know you're reading this... So I just want to say thank you for the lovely surprise. I know you and Shanne and Chynne worked hard to really surprise me. I love you so much.

By the way, yesterday was also our 7th monthsary. Yes, I've been with my guy for 7 lovely months and I'm looking forward to a lot more coming... :)

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I'm TEA-rrific - A Dream Come True

DISCLAIMER :

LONG "WORD" POST + Photos

First things first. I've been receiving lots of comments (unpublished) that happen to be basically the same thing. Seems to me that lots of my current readers want to know what my boyf's name is... So I'm finally going to answer that before I receive another comment asking his name. He's known as Cris or Cj. I prefer the latter. So We'll be using that from now on, okay? *wink*

The other day, Cj & I were strolling around a local mall when I stopped *dead* on my tracks. Was I hallucinating?! Lo & behold, right in front of me was a soon-to-open milk tea stall. My eyes widened in delight and excitement.

You see, I'm *secretly* more of a milk tea/tea person that a coffee person. I like how simple it is compared to coffee. That's my opinion. Coffeeholics out there, please do not butcher me for saying so. First time I ever had milk tea was when I turned 18. I was online blog hopping on food blogs when I stumbled upon a tea lover blog explaining how she mixed milk with her tea to create "milk tea". It's ironic how the English have been doing these for years now. *ugh!* So I gave it a shot and *bam!* was hooked.

For those who still don't really know what milk tea is about, here's a short background about this tea-rrific drink. Milk tea refers to several kinds.

1. TEA with an addition of a little milk plus sugar (cubes/powder) - Very "English" in a sense.

2. BUBBLE "Milk" TEA is another famous version which involves the addition of "pearls/tapioca balls/sago balls". - I'm not very fond of "bubbles" in my tea.

3. HONG KONG STYLE milk tea is black tea sweetened with evaporated milk.

4. TEH TARIK is the de facto "national" drink of Malaysia & Singapore. It's tea plus condensed milk. - I've had my share of cups of this kind when I was back in Singapore. *missing it*

Though "bubble milk tea" happens to be the current crowd favorite it's a fairly new rendition of this timeless classic. Honk Kong style milk tea supposedly originates from the time when Hong Kong was under British rule. I won't bore you guys with more details about milk tea. So for now, this is about it.

Moving onto what this post is really about... I'm happy to share with you one of the many new joys I'm currently enjoying in our lil ole Zamboanga. *le sigh* TEA-RRIFIC's milk tea stall opened last Saturday and I finally had the chance to try it today! I had to control myself as Cj & I walked towards the stall. Cj asked me what flavor I wanted or something to that extent... I was a little preoccupied just staring at the stall, making sure it was really there. Call me weird, but well... It's MILK TEA, people!

The Tea-rrific stall is located at Mindpro Citimall's ground floor, towards the side of the grocery's entrance, in front of the baggage counter and beside the Coco Loco stall. (Will talk about Coco Loco in another post...) The stall's pretty small, doesn't take up a lot of space at all. It has this cutesy cup logo that I'm totally diggin'.

They have a variety of drink available and I had enough b*lls to snap photos of each category.

"Traditional" MILK TEA. Tea-rrific describes it as freshly brewed tea made creamy and chewy. They only have 5 flavors available under this category. OOLONG is a natural mild fat burner, JASMINE boosts concentration, CEYLON's an immune system booster, GREEN TEA is a healthy antioxidant variation and WINTERMELON is a "feel-good" relaxing tea. 

Next up are the FRUIT SMOOTH-TEAs which happens to be a combination of brewed tea plus your favorite fruit. The flavors with the green lightning bolt are supposedly the highly recommended choices because they apparently offer the bigger "health boost". Don't quote me on that though. *wink*

The smooth-teas come in 10 flavors. I'm eyeing MELON MANGO and APPLE MANGO. :)

Another category is the TEA FUSION which is a concoction of tea plus fruits. I'm still a little confused with the difference of tea fusion and the smooth-teas though. Anyway, for this variant I'll probably try out MANGO CEYLON or CEYLON LIME first.

Lastly Tea-rrific offers a concoction called YIN&YANG. It's a mix of BOTH coffee & tea. I think this is geared towards those coffeeholics who're willing to try something new or tea drinkers that want an added caffeine boost! This variant's offered in hot & iced. Since I'm a huge JASMINE fan, I think I'd go for that.

Tea-rrific offers three sizes for most of their drinks. They have medium (12oz.), large (16oz.) and grande (22oz.) Each size has a corresponding price. The price range for the different variants are around P39-P69. 

Since it was our first time with Tea-rrific, Cj & I decided to get our drinks in the medium size so in case we end up not liking our drinks, it wouldn't be too much of a dismay on our pockets and stomachs. After debating on what to get, we settled for milk teas. He decided to get OOLONG for P39.00 and of course I went for JASMINE which cost P45.00. We also swapped drinks while walking towards the food court so that we could both taste the two flavors. The verdict?

JASMINE MILK TEA

Hers : I definitely loved my jasmine milk tea. It was mildly sweet with just the right jasmine kick! The only downside was the fact it had pearls. I forgot to tell the lady to hold the pearls on my drink. I dislike tapioca pearls in my drinks. It's just a quirk I have.

His : "Dol bien sabor sakate man gayot ste babe?" - Babe, it tastes too grassy. *lol* Apparently he felt that it had too much of an "herbal" kick to it.

OOLONG MILK TEA

Hers : I didn't like this at all. It was too strong for my taste. Well, oolong does really have a robust flavor to it but I thought the added milk would have subdued some of the stronger notes of the flavor. I thought wrong.

His : He loved the oolong kick. Just right for his taste buds. He finished his milk tea a whole lot quicker than I did mine.

OVERALL

I'd shell out my $$$ for more of Tea-rrific's milk tea and other variants though next time I'll definitely tell them to skip the tapioca balls. Can't wait for my next milk tea fix! :)

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Updates + Haul

Hello everybody! I'm finally back. Well actually I've been home since the 24th and was supposed to get back to blogging yesterday but I had errands to do and I decided to hangout with my boyfriend as well. I blogged about how my day went yesterday on my personal blog. Feel free to check it out if you have time.

Anyway, I decided to share with you some of the stuff I got during my trip to Cadiz-Bacolod and some of the things I acquired this afternoon. I didn't do much shopping. I just got some stuff that I wanted/needed and knew wouldn't be really available in Zamboanga.

Most of the stuff I got were actually food items for pasalubong. Most of which are already happily tucked in tummies of several close friends and my boyfriend. Too bad I forgot to take individual photos of mango tartlets, caramel tarts, piyaya and pinasugbo. Maybe next time?

Aside from pasalubong, I got four original CDs/DVDs. I only took a photo of the three CDs since the fourth one's a "surprise" for the boyf. I got ADELE's "Live at The Royal Albert Hall" CD+DVD because I'm a huge fan of Adele. My dad and lil sister are fans too. I'm sure all of us will enjoy it. They better enjoy it! It cost me P550! *lol* I also got the "Woman In Love" CD that's a mix of different "love" songs by different artists which cost only P350. Lastly aside from the secret CD, I also got Rihanna's "Talk That Talk". It got a "stern" look from lola because of the parental advisory sticker but she eventually caved in. It cost P550. I know I spend quite a sum on 4 CDs but luckily they accepted lola's senior citizen ID so I got a nice discount!

Being the bookworm that I am, I took the chance of getting new books from National Bookstore. Unfortunately we don't have any NB stores in Zamboanga, so I told lola I NEEDED to get new books. I'm sort of sick with the old ones I have at home. I got a book by Jodi Picoult called The Tenth Circle and one by Samantha Sottoe, a filipina, titled Before Ever After. The former cost P349 while the latter cost P499.

Of course I also got makeup products! Well... Actually lola got me these. I only got two items with my own $$$. I got the ELF flat top powder brush and the ELF blending brush. To my surprise lola bought me a bunch of other stuff. I'll be taking photos of each item soon and create a different post for it. Probably by tomorrow.

Anyway, aside from a few pieces of clothing (not in photos), that's basically all of the things I got during my mini vacation. Now let's move on to the stuff I got today...

I spent most of the day with my close friend Shanne, who seems to always be mistaken as my sister. She calls me "twin" and calls my boyf "daddy". Sometimes she calls me "mommy" to annoy me. Haha. Anyway, by the afternoon, we separated and I spent some time with my boyf. We stopped by a lil boutique called ForMe. It's located in one of the local malls. I was supposed to get a few accessories but was drawn to the scents on sale instead. I remember Ropa, a friend and fellow Zamboanga Blogger, blogging about getting a new scent from ForMe. I was supposed to get the pink bottle with the scent called cherry blossom (or something like that) but the boyf said he likes the purple bottle more. In the end, I agreed because in my opinion, it smells fresher. The scent is called jasmine and cost only P168.

The last thing I got today comes from an online shop on Facebook called Bezt Zelexion. It's a Zamboanga based shop and the owner agreed to meet up with me so I could claim my pair of replica skechers. I really liked the design and I'm planning to use this particular pair when I'll be starting my volunteer stint at Zamboanga City Medical Center, the local government hospital. I'm really excited!

That's basically my "haul" of some sort. Will probably make a video showing all the makeup stuff I bought and received. What do you guys think? Oh and before I forget, see that bronze bag in the photo? Well, that's my little surprise. I'm getting back to business. Watch out for it because I'm definitely posting about my little surprise soon!

Questions for my lovely readers:

1. Would you like me to make a separate post & video on the makeup products/tools I bought/received?

2. Do you like haul posts/videos? Why?

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