gratitude

i have a lot of things to be grateful for today...

1. i was able to spend the day at ferrari world in abu dhabi with three dear friends without splashing a lot of moolah.don't hate us, but we were able to get in by paying 25 dirhams each (around 250 pesos). we paid for just 10% of the actual price which is at 250 dirhams (2,500 pesos)! really, really appreciated this promotion.

as a result of this, we were able to ride the world's fastest rollercoaster! more on that later :-)

2.free dinner! i got invited to a dinner which i readily accepted. it was at this asian-themed restaurant in dubai marina called chinese village.it was free because we used a lot of groupon vouchers :-) and oh, the food was great.

3.a pleasant brunch with my husband.there is this restaurant called thyme near to our place.we always passed by it, and we always said we would try it one day.so we had a chance to finally try it, and oh boy, were we pleasantly surprised! the interiors were great, the staff were friendly and the food was just right for a pleasant brunch.

4.hearing my baby's voice on the phone.she is in germany now for a holiday with her oma and opa.i felt a bit guilty when she started crying, but we don't really have a choice :-( it IS scorching hot in dubai now.talk about 40-50 degrees.baby is an outdoorsy girl, and she would just be miserable if she were here, stuck in our flat.at least in munich she can run around farms and parks, and improve on her deutsch :-)

that's why i can totally relate to this.

friday also marked the start of ramadan in the uae.here's a blessed ramadan to my muslim friends.

and to the universe, here's a little note for you :-)

Some of Nora Ephron's Her Best Lines

by The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Nora Ephron's characters were highly verbal and hyper-analytical. They had a head for the absurd and a heart for romance. But above all, they were funny.

The big New Year's Eve speech Crystal delivers to Ryan at the end of "When Harry Met Sally ...." This is vintage Ephron in a nutshell.

"I love that you get cold when it's 71 degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you're looking at me like I'm nuts. I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it's not because I'm lonely, and it's not because it's New Year's Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible."

From 1998's "You've Got Mail," which Ephron wrote and directed, when Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan are walking through a farmer's market ruling out the people they won't date.

Hanks: "I could never be with someone who likes Joni Mitchell. 'It's clouds illusions I recall/I really don't know clouds at all.' What does that mean? Is she a pilot? Is she taking flying lessons? It must be a metaphor for something but I don't know what it is."

The last lines of "You've Got Mail," after all the gesturing and posturing, the sabotage and mistaken identity, they meet in Riverside Park and Ryan finally realizes that Hanks has been her secret email pal all along.

Hanks: "Don't cry, Shopgirl. Don't cry."

Ryan: "I wanted it to be you. I wanted it to be you so badly."

 From 1993's "Sleepless in Seattle," which Ephron also wrote and directed. Tom Hanks' son has called into a late-night talk radio show for him. As he explains what was so special about his late wife, Ryan is listening in her car across the country.

"Well, how long is your program? Well, it was a million tiny little things that, when you added them all up, they just meant we were supposed to be together. And I knew it. And I knew it the very first time I touched her. It was like coming home, only to no home I'd ever known. I was just taking her hand to help her out of a car and I knew. It was like ... magic.

gratitude

things i am grateful for today...

1. bubble baths

2. baby just finished her spring term at her nursery. her teacher sent us all her artworks that she had accumulated for the past three months. it's a delight perusing them!

3. kid-friendly brunches. we celebrated father's day with a family brunch in mazina at the address hotel in dubai marina. there were a lot of activities for the wee ones - face painting, nintendo gaming, bouncy castle jumping. there were also a variety of food choices, from asian to british fares. i am so thankful that we can enjoy this.

4. breakfasts where it is 40 degrees outside, but inside you get this view. whoa, thanks ski dubai!

these might be trivial for most of you, but i am really, really loving the universe now.

gratitude

i've read somewhere that keeping a gratitude journal is one way to enrich one's life by appreciating what you have and by actually getting rid of envy as you are already grateful of what you have.

i am starting a gratitude list of three things i am grateful for. knowing myself i am not sure if i can keep this daily. when there is a boost of overwhelming gratitude, i will surely write my thank-you's to the higher-ups.

from the mundane to the huge ones, expect me to write them down! i actually had posts already tagged as "things i am grateful for," but these mostly focused on our trips together as a family and as a couple.

i'm hoping, though, that this will not just be a simple counting of blessings, but that this will make me appreciate life more, and be aware of the positive aspects in my life. the secret is in motion? :-)

so here goes...

things i am grateful for today...

1. i am grateful that mr t and i wake up to this amazing view everyday!



2. i am grateful that mr t only feeds us healthy stuff :-) he even makes an effort to decorate the food!

3. i am grateful that baby is thriving in our community.

***

so universe, here's a massive...

music

i am in senti mode today.

and i also struck gold with finding these music gems.

this video is something that i wished i was part of. it's nostalgic, and it makes me want to go to the vatican again.

http://youtu.be/ghdmveZdhR0

i found this next video through tiborce's blog, and it makes me reminisce about my high school/college days. gawd,  I miss my friends.

http://youtu.be/JocM61FVZy0

and this one makes me really, really wistful.

http://youtu.be/ldXFxtqKGmU

best lyrics ever.

so, so you think you can tell heaven from hell,
blue skies from pain.
can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
a smile from a veil?
do you think you can tell?
and did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
hot ashes for trees?
hot air for a cool breeze?
cold comfort for change?
and did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?
how I wish, how I wish you were here.
we're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year,
running over the same old ground.
what have you found? The same old fears.
wish you were here.

it's june!

i can't believe it.it's already june, and i've just finished posting about our christmas holidays.

time does pass when you are a working mom. no offense to the sahm's, i know you are doing one heck of a job.and i salute you for that.but to each his own naman, di ba?

baby has started with nursery.and it is going ok,so far.at first she did not want to go and actually proclaimed she disliked it.but after two weeks,she suddenly decided she liked it.

her school reports are positively glowing with praises.so she must really love it, and we are not just imagining her love for education.

things i'm grateful for: christmas 2011 and new year's 2012

i'm very, very choosy when it comes to friends.that's why i only have a select few of them.they are the ones who have been with me through thick and thin (and i for them!), who know me inside out, who love me (i hope so!) warts and all.

so i also consider it a blessing that i get to "inherit" mr t's close friends. they are a lovely bunch of people, and although we may not speak the same language, our bond with mr t brings us closer together.

things i'm grateful for: christmas 20121

we have been to garmisch a few times before. i've written about it a lot of times, and i am going to write another post about it as i like that place so much!

baby's godmother, l, lives in garmisch so that's why we always have a reason to visit.

things i'm grateful for: christmas 2011

we are very thankful for the chance to see vienna in its christmas glory and to marvel at bratislava in its quirkiness, but it is always a blessing to come home to somewhere familiar...

things i'm grateful for: christmas 2011

so...bratislava...

i'm still amazed at how much our little family had so much fun in this historical town.

things i'm grateful for: christmas 2011

who would have ever thought i would set foot in eastern europe? it seemed so far-fetched, but we did it. bratislava in slovakia is just an hour away by train from vienna. we took this opportunity as god knows when we would ever have this chance again.

we set off early.early being 930 in the morning.

just a li'l intermission

50 reasons it's great to be a tourist (cnngo.com) by Duncan Forgan

 

If you hate them, you need to join them.

With their worldly sophistication, cheap fisherman pants and penchant for being smiley all the time, tourists are a much-hated group.

But before you laugh too hard at the lost look in their eyes, or mock too much the clattering chaos of their attempts to board the roof of a minibus with five bags and three cameras swinging from their torsos, understand this: they don’t care.

They’re having the time of their life. And we all know why. Being a tourist is awesome.

things i'm grateful for: christmas 2011

after a few hours of basically doing nothing at the cafe we ventured out to one of the most beautiful palaces i've ever seen - the schloss belvedere.

things i'm grateful for: christmas 2011

the next day we went to the kalke village where we saw the radical works of mr t's favorite artist - hundertwasser. there is a colorful block of flats that add so much character in the area.

things i'm grateful for: christmas 2011

the adjoining schonbrunn gardens are arranged in french style. as we visited right smack in the start of winter, the shades were either in brown or grey. however i got enthralled of this seemingly sad combination of colors.

teehee

i know, i just promised that i am going to post more updates.hopefully i can keep that promise!

we just got back from an amazing holiday in the philippines!

truly, it's more fun in the philippines nga!

promise!

sorry for the lack of posts! mommy duties come first before blogging duties - my poor baby was sick for almost a week.she is ok now, thank god.talkative and bibo as ever.
you should be reading more posts in the coming days.promise! haha.

meanwhile, i am leaving you with these feel-good stuff. you know, just to keep us going!

things i'm grateful for: christmas 2011

"yes, it's more than a little twee in places, but how can this festival ever be anything but? a few glasses of orange-peel-scented grog and you start to appreciate the work that goes into those little gingerbread houses with their snowy roofs and tiles made out of sweeties; the heart-shaped cookies and oranges stuffed with cloves; the extraordinary array of glass baubles and musical boxes. this is also where you come for paper plates of sharp shredded cabbage and slender sausages, twists of bread dough and slices of spice cake, paper bags of chestnuts fresh from the roaster, baked potatoes and mugs of steaming wine.

vienna, it would see, is made for christmas.." - observer.co.uk, nigel slater

it was a blessed christmas day!

our christmas day morning was spent playing with baby's gift from oma and opa - a train set!

how could we not take advantage of  a beautiful, sunny day? it was a very ideal day to go walking around...the schonbrunn palace!

things i'm grateful for:

"it is difficult not to warm to a city that smells of baked apples.strands of white fairy lights hang across the narrow streets like falling snow caught in lamplight.the bells of stephansdom chime deeply, and every now and then there is the ghostly clatter of horses' hooves on cobbles.the shop windows, when they are not full of curiously sinister antique dolls, are glistening with caskets of sugar plums and chocolate fir cones.vienna, icily cold and smeling of sweet spice, is like walking into a christmas card" - observer.co.uk, nigel slater

and what a christmas card it was! vienna certainly delivered in its promise of christmas glory.

things i'm grateful for: christmas 2011

"...a twinkling, sugar'n'spice city that seems just made for this season..." - observer.co.uk, nigel slater

'twas the day before christmas.

we thought to take it easy as the shops will close early, but how can you take it easy in one of the most beautiful cities in the world?

when you would just take off from a tram and be greeted by this? (no, not the in-your-face coca-cola banner)