quiet good friday

I've been having peaceful quiet days since yesterday. I beat my procrastination and made myself pick up the paintbrush and start painting my walls. My home started to feel different as the colors emerged. After the originally planned turquoise walls, I followed my instinct and re-opened the cans of yellow-green and orange and started painting the edges of my kitchen. This morning I painted the wash area which I had converted into a kitchen extension.

In the process I found some clutter hiding in corners and rarely visited shelves. And out they went. It is amazing how we can accumulate clutter without realizing it! As my home starts to breathe and beat with its new summer mood I vowed to get rid of everything I no longer use. No just-in-cases. I will further reduce all my possessions to those that I use on a regular basis. Everything I take out will be sold in a garage sale so I can make a bit of extra money to help pay for a trip I will take next month.

I actually do have some project work to do but I have parked them for a while until I am done with the summer cleaning of my home. By the time Easter comes around I should have caught up with everything. That would be such a relief, to clean my inboxes and to-do lists and keep everything updated and current with no back logs.

Easter -- resurrection --- I could certainly use a good restart on many aspects of my life right now. I do what I can to help the energies along, like painting my walls and always, always clearing the old to make way for the new.

gifts and goodies

A quick break from Christmas cramming to share with you some snapshots of this year's gifts and goodies.

bread pudding with mixed fruits

decorative tape used on kraft paper instead of buying printed giftwrapper

my color theme

hand-designed gift tags

i love skirts

I am one of those girls who have more skirts and dresses than pants. As of this moment I only have one pair of jeans, and three pairs of linen capris that I use for running errands by public commute (not counting jogging pants and pajama bottoms). I have at least ten dresses. I have about twenty skirts, if not more, all A-line and mostly printed. I find skirts to be comfortable and pretty and they are very forgiving. A-line skirts are perfect for my body shape and size. It is also very easy to dress them up or down.

I recently discovered these wonderful pretty skirts from grevilleadesign at Etsy and I thought I found skirt heaven. Here are some of my favorite pieces:

skirts by grevilleadesign

will be office lady today

Drinking a hot cup of coffee while I slowly nudge myself to full wakefulness. I will be out all day today, and I will be working in an office --- a place I have rarely been in the past 1.5 years! It's for a project where all I have to do is interview groups of people for a research study. It will be a bit of a long day -- I leave by 9AM and the interview sessions begin at around 10AM. Estimating by the schedules given to me I will finish at around 8:30PM, or even 9PM if things get delayed along the way.

I have decided to wear a nice pair of jeans (since I will be interviewing mostly college students and I don't want to go all formal on them -- I want them to feel relaxed and comfortable with me) and a plain soft slightly frilly top paired with a chunky necklace for a splash of color. Hopefully this achieves some sort of dressed-up casual that will not intimidate nor alienate the young people I will be talking to. (On the plus side, this top is super comfy, which will matter after I've been sitting for more than six hours in the same room asking the same questions.)

This necklace is a steal -- I bought it during one of my out-of-town projects in Davao City. There is a popular strip of stores selling local goods and I bought a string of these beads and had them made into a necklace. It came out much much cheaper than if I had bought a similar piece back in Manila. I hope to go back there and buy more "raw" beads for my crafts.

Have to get ready now. Hope to have some sanity and strength left to write again tonight!