Having a dog like Noah is like having a tail that doesn’t like you very much. He won’t like it if you leave him to go to another room, so he’ll follow you. But when your heart has melted from his cute clingy self and you try to hug him he will, quite literally, push you away. With two paws, even.

I mean, that’s how much he doesn’t like you.

Noah turns a year old on March 31st. He was thisclose to becoming an April Fool’s joke.

I’ve been “out of it” for a long time now. I’m sure people have noticed. I haven’t been able to get back into the swing of things. I mean, I can function, sure, but the only regularity in my life (that have nothing to do with personal relationships) has been my beauty blog. It’s strange, but I find it a bit harder to update this guy right here. It probably has to do with the kind of content these two blogs have. I find it a little bit easier to update a niche blog, than a personal one, but that’s just based on my personal experience.

Anyway. Let’s get the ball rolling.

1. Clean and organize room.

   I’ve actually started on this “goal.” Mainly, I cleared out my desk drawers, some book shelves (another book sale soon?) and sorted out some papers. I’ve still got a fairly long way to go. I’m eyeing my closet for a bit of cleaning, but that will probably my April or May goal instead.

2. Clean and organize work space.

   I have (thankfully) a small studio space at home. Let me clarify that—I have an un-utilized studio space at home. I think that because I haven’t incorporated it into my workflow, I don’t use it. So, this month, I will attempt to make it everything I need it to be.

3. Make a budget and stick to it.

   Pretty standard, pretty obvious. I experienced a bit of “financial freedom” and went a bit overboard. If you haven’t read my post on my own personal materialistic realization, you can do so here.

4. Edit Europe Vlogs.

   Ah, surprised you right there, didn’t I? I shot a lot of clips in Europe, particularly in Paris (then I just kinda got lazy), so I’m doing some travel vlogs soon. I’ve been writing “scripts” and fine-tuning everything, but I never thought it would take so much time and effort to sort through random clips and try to make sense of it all. So, by the end of March, I would like to have uploaded at least the Paris video.

5. Update Nothing Spaces more often.

   Again, obvious reasons. I’ve been thinking off collating all the great things I find during the week and posting them here every once in a while. I do find a lot of things I want to share, but I can’t seem to de-laze myself and so here we are. In any case, I feel like the intent and the want matters, so I just need to follow through.

6. Paint.

   

   

   I painted some parts of some pieces for Art Fair Philippines, and people really liked it, so I want to “get better” at it. Sometimes, the only way to get better at something and to actually accomplish things is when you just do it and not make excuses.

   Two things:

   • A pep talk from my dad today: “Sometimes you just have to force yourself to do something you need to do, even when you don’t feel like it.”

    

   

   • Chuck Close favorite: “The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you’re sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that’s almost never the case.”

     Chuck Close said it, so it must be true.”

7. Put portfolio back up.

   Long story short: I got hacked, my back-up files are in an unreadable (useless) external hard drive, and I have been quite the lazy bugger. This month, I will worry about putting the website back up and then we can talk about scoring more clients.

Anyway, that’s all for now. I don’t want to bog myself down with “you have to do this”es and end up curling up and dying not doing anything at all. Wish me luck and share some goals you have, if you’ve committed to any. :)

A brief update on the awesome lunch we had at Spiral, thanks to the Manila Food and Wine Festival. I’m not really big on buffets, unless it’s a breakfast buffet. I don’t really know why. I think it’s because I’ve had so many bad experiences where I tend to overeat “to make the most out of it,” and I just end up feeling bloated and horrible.

This time around, though, I was careful not to stuff my face with food and just eat carefully-selected items that I knew I would enjoy even a little bit. Sarie and I went to Sofitel for lunch on a Monday, which was the last day for their promo in partnership with MFWF. I had some kind of stomach virus the week before (I suspected amoebeasis) and was only able to get well that Monday, which I felt was kind of serendipitous, but anyway. If you’re curious about the Celebrity Chef Food Truck Battle, head on over to Sarie’s post.

Being the cheese fiends that we are, we started with the cheese room. Yep, they had a cheese room!

Oh, bresaola, we meet again.

My cheese plate. I grabbed an assortment of cheeses and meat. They had reblochon (!), but their gouda was my favorite. I also added a cracker, some snails, figs, and almonds for good measure.

Here’s a piece of steak and a piece of lamb. It was a pity that they didn’t save the drippings for some sort of sauce, but the pepper salt and herb salt were a nice addition to the meat.

We were seated by the spiral staircase and honestly had a pretty good view of the entire place. I hadn’t been back here in a long time (maybe three years?) so it was nice to see how they renovated and fixed it up. The layout is better than I remembered!

Beautiful oven where they bake their thin crust pizza. I didn’t get a chance to taste these, as I was very overwhelmed with the food selection, but the pizza looked a lot like the ones we had in Italy. :)

Lamb and ham. Sarie tasted the lamb, but I was too full by the time she got a slice that I didn’t get to taste it.

Sarie’s beautiful Indian plate. This selection was alright. The papadum was my favorite of the bunch.

More flavored salts!

And, I couldn’t not pass by the Japanese station. We both had teppanyaki, though Sarie opted for some yakitori while I got myself some tempura. I love mixing my own tempura sauce because I like putting tons of ginger for that lovely little kick.

Anyway, a big thanks to Maui and the MFWF team for sponsoring our lunch. Again, if you’re interested to read about the Celebrity Chef Food Truck Battle, head on over to Sarie’s post. I hope they do this again some time soon, as I really wanted to see the food truck battle, and they offered some really good deals, especially for people like Sarie and me who love eating out.

Ack, apologies that I didn’t have this up sooner. I was (or, still am) nursing a stomach bug. No cause for alarm—I think I’m on the mend, just in time for the Manila Food & Wine Festival this weekend!

This four-day event (Feb 22 to 25), divided into four parts, is the perfect weekend escape for food lovers. The MFWF starts off with a Food Truck Cook-Off on Friday, February 22, at the SM Mall of Asia grounds. It will feature creative concoctions of some of the country’s biggest celebrity chefs like Robby Goco (who will be serving Porchetta: the Italian Lechon) and Sau del Rosario (Jumbo Dumplings with Fried Rice). The trucks start serving at 5PM and end at midnight.

For the duration of the MFWF, over a hundred participating restaurants are giving amazing deals–up to 50% off—on their meals. Click here for all the participating restaurants, to see if anything tickles your fancy.

There are also Culinary Classes scheduled across the entire festival (which means you can take more than one!). I’m taking a class called “From Flabs to Abs” by Nadine Tengco so I can learn more about 350-calorie meals. Other classes include artisanal ice cream and French macarons. Click here to learn more about the offered classes.

The last part of the MFWF is a Gala Dinner featuring a five-course meal by Chefs Par Excellance Paul Lenz, Area Executive Chef, Makati Shangri-La Manila and Bruce Lim of the Asian Food Channel. This specially created menu will use locally produced ingredients from small organic farms through out the Philippines.

Now, onto the Awesome Part, I’m giving away 2 Manila Food and Wine Festival Shirts and 1 Food Truck Festival Pass.

Post a comment stating your favorite food. Please use a valid email address as it will be used to contact you if you win.

You may enter more than once, but be sure to make each comment different. :) Winners will be announced and contacted tomorrow, Feb 21. Good luck!

If you want to book tickets on your own or for the other events, click here.

Contest is closed.

Full Disclosure: This post was sponsored.

I don’t know why I stopped listening to new music, but I’ve settled into my favorite bands and favorite songs. I’m not that updated on new releases, I just keep using the same old songs in my mixes… which is probably why I don’t even make them anymore.

The meager collection of music I have now still bring me some sort of comfort, which is what I sought after when I was much younger and looking for new music to accompany the weird new feelings that made me sadder than I probably ought to have been. Today, I wrap myself up in the old, familiar songs and try to will myself to feel better.

Opening Acts: Outerhope, Ciudad, and them together!

One of the bands I grew close to by listening to their songs was Stars. I don’t listen to them nearly as much as I used to, so when I learned of their Manila show date, I was pleased and wanted to go. But I wasn’t as excited as I would have been five or six years ago—the peak of my Stars listening. Still, I wasn’t going to miss it for the world.

The show was cathartic and emotional; I was filled with a surge of both joy and release. First of all, it was unreal to see them live. I never, ever thought they would consider going to Manila, because people rarely ever do, and yet there they were. And they were singing songs that were so special to me.

I remembered exactly what the songs meant to me, recalled every single little feeling attached to them, relived how much it hurt or how good it felt, whatever it was. I forgot how much meaning and feelings I tethered to songs, and in a way, it was liberating to discover that it really does get better. Perhaps not in the way that we hope or prefer, but better nonetheless.

I gotta say, I’m enjoying these stripped down, “full band” sets. Completely swept away by this performance and The National’s “Vanderlyle Crybaby” in Singapore.

There are a lot of things I can say about the whole experience, but I don’t think I really have to because I know that whoever watched the same show with me knows exactly what I’m feeling and exactly what I mean. Besides, I don’t think I would ever do it justice. It was a fun, wildly emotional night, punctuated by a ton of funny moments, and I’m so glad I didn’t miss out on it. Although I think I may have, in a way, “outgrown” some of their newer stuff (if that makes sense), it was still a special night. Because Stars taught me to deal with my feelings in a way that was honest. It hurt, sure, but it was the truth.

This afternoon, I decided to clean and organize some of my belongings. I bought some organizational cubbies for my makeup the night before and once I had finished fixing makeup-related items, I moved on to my desk. The top drawer of my desk was filled to the brim and I was excavating everything only to arrive at the horrifying realization that most of it was just accumulated receipts. What’s wrong with that?, you might ask.

Well, it just left a bad taste in my mouth because these receipts signify all of the things I bought and acquired. And I couldn’t believe that I had been spending so much money.

I don’t know. I think I just couldn’t believe that it had come to that terrible point where I feel like I lost sight of the value of money. This past month, I was not very conscious of my spending habits. I can’t bring myself to budget and track my expenses (my receipts are all here anyway) because I know that my heart would just feel crushed by the knowledge that I bought all those things with nary a care in the world.

I mean, I like nice things, but I would like to be a better person as well. I don’t want to be the kind of person who just buys things on a whim. I always reason out that I educate myself when it comes to making purchases. But you know, just because it’s a neat product, it doesn’t mean I have to have it.

So, that’s why I’m imposing a Spending Ban for myself, until my planned Japan trip (still need to get a visa!) in April. I can only spend on a) food, b) transportation, c) storage things (I’m fixing up my room), and d) gifts.

And, you know, I’m not about to give money to charity just to alleviate myself of the “guilt” of spending too much. If I give my money to charity, it’s because I want to and not because I feel like I should, since I spend so much on other things. It’s not like it crosses out what I have already bought. And, the truth is that I don’t feel guilty. Not really. I don’t feel like I need to feel guilty, because it is money I earned, after all. I feel like this drawer digging just pushed me to be more conscious of accumulation, materialism, and consumerism. Dun dun dun!

Do I really need these things? Hell, no. And it’s not bad to want things and to acquire them, but it really just reaches a point where YOU HAVE TOO MUCH STUFF. I don’t think this is an issue of guilt, necessarily. I think it’s really just some sort of inclination to pause and keep one’s self in check. Like, now that I can physically see, through the accumulation of boxes and receipts, just how much I’d been spending, I feel like that’s a signal for me to stop for now. A really, really loud and blaring signal.