To my mother

Happy birthday to the kindest, strongest, prettiest woman I know, whose sacrifice, wisdom and love are examples to all. 

Maligayang Bati, Mom!

Powder the sky

Dress: vintage, from Minx; Sweater, belt, boots: LOFT;

Tights: Target; Necklace chain: Banana Republic.

This dress was one of the presents I picked out with some birthday money (thanks to Jeremiah's parents). It's a 1950s satin dress with a blue lace overlay, and it looks to be handmade. Though I don't go for pastel colors often, I really like the muted color palette in this dress -- almost as if it had been recently discovered in an attic trunk. Though the color does look a lot like my little teddy bear -- I wonder if Sprinkle is starting to have an influence over my style? I'm hoping to wear this dress to some special occasions later this year.

I wore this to work Friday, and it's probably the most dressed up I've ever been to a job. My job is really laid-back so no one really cares about dress code, so I did feel somewhat silly getting all dolled up to sit at a computer for a few hours. Definitely not a practical frock, but dressing in very feminine pieces makes me feel more confident about myself and walk with some jazzy energy in my step. The frilly skirt inspired me to listen to West Side Story's "Mambo" on my iPod and it took all of my willpower to not happily dance at the bus stop like some weirdo.

I decided to try a new photo spot in the woods on Friday, partly because standing near the water was unbearably cold, though I liked how I matched my surroundings in those shots.

What have been some of your favorite birthday presents over the years?

Worth the extra effort

They say it's your birthday, or Dress #24

Dress: Ariella, NYC;

Sweater: Ann Taylor Loft;

Earrings: Finder's Keepers;

Jade bracelet: Finder's Keepers;

Wedges: Zigi Soho.

How I've worn the dress: here, here.

Today is Jeremiah's birthday, and I'm going to make his cake in a couple of hours so it'll be freshly baked when he gets home from work. We've already had a great day together -- had lunch with his mom at a hibachi-style restaurant. Yum, yum.
This is the sixth birthday Jeremiah has had since we started dating (we've known each other for about nine years now) and his first since we've been married, and it's beginning to seem like we've known each other for a really long time. It's fun that I can remember him way back when ... 

About this outfit. So I wore this dress to death during our honeymoon and last summer, and I think it's definitely one of those dresses that works better in warmer weather. I really love the new length on it -- it used to be closer to my ankles, but thanks to my tailor, I don't look like I'm playing dress-up in mommy's clothes anymore. I added some green accessories and felt pretty cute. It got up to 70 degrees and I didn't really need my sweater, which was amazing.

Something exciting happened today. Well, it depends on your definition of "exciting," in which case mine happens to include a lot of things, except clowns. When we were driving back from lunch, I found a mix cd that I made four years ago for the tailgate our university's SGA threw for the football team and its fans. Jeremiah was very involved in SGA in college and somehow got me to make the playlist. (I was an aspiring DJ back then. And by "aspiring," I mean I banged my hands on my desk to beats and made ipod playlists. So, not really. But anyways.) So we had a few moments driving down the highway where we were singing Outkast songs at the top of our lungs. Oh, the silly little things in life...

  

24 down, 21 to go.

Mastering the dash

 

 

Dress: Macy's;

Sweater: Ann Taylor Loft;

Belt: Camp Rainey Mtn. store, Clayton, Ga.;

Tights, boots: Target.

I  really liked reading your feedback from yesterday's post. It seems like many of you feel more inspired to dress up. I think it's the fashion blogging influence coming into play that also helps how I want to always wear dresses and skirts.

So, anyways, about this outfit. This is actually going to be very personal. While I usually like to keep the blog lighthearted, fun and mostly about style, this is one of those things that is probably worth mentioning because it had such a huge influence on my life.

 Today would have been my father's 52nd birthday, and my family went to visit his grave to commemorate the day. He died of a heart attack a couple of years ago. I knew I wanted to wear a cheerful color and a pretty dress so I could feel better about getting through today. I actually felt a little weird taking outfit photos because it seemed strange to do so on such a poignant day, but I'm so used to taking outfit photos now that I couldn't bring myself to stop the routine.

 I never know just how much to share personally here, but I feel like I've gotten to know you through your comments and your blogs, and that in a way, I want to share more of myself in this wonderful, friendly blogging community. Now that I'm talking about this on the blog, I'll probably talk about him a little more as the months go on. He was a cool guy.

One thought that went through my head today had to do with condolence cards. We got so many the week of and after his funeral, but one in particular sticks out and has brought a lot of comfort these last couple years. It was signed by his coworkers and it included a poem about death and how on a grave, there are always two dates -- the birth and death dates. The smallest part of the grave's inscription is the dash between those dates. It's the tiniest part but it's the most significant because it symbolizes the life spent between those years. The rest of the poem was about trying to make your own "dash" as big as possible. 

It may sound a little sappy, but the card had a huge impact on me, and how I felt about my father's death.

Now that a couple of years have passed, I've made my peace with his death. I'm sad every once in a while, but I try to live better than I did before he died. The summer of his death and having to transition back to college that fall was the hardest period of my life, but at some point I stopped letting grief take control of me and I started to tackle what I wanted to do most. Since his death, I've done many things that I'm quite proud of: worked a few internships, got control of my diet, lived in NYC for a summer, graduated college, got married, para-sailed in Hawaii, just to name a few. Many of these events started out as ideas that loftily floated on my "someday" list of dreams, and over the last couple of years I tried to make them tangible and real.

I do have my own special way of honoring my dad: every year on the anniversary of his death (June 6), I cross something off my "bucket list" to honor his memory -- basically, live my life as big as possible because he taught me to do so. Two years ago, I went to the top of the Empire State building. One year ago, I watched the sunrise on Waikiki Beach with Jeremiah. I don't know where I'll be this year on June 6, but I will be doing something I've always said I wanted to do or see.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that grief can be a crippling, horrible thing.

Or it can be an agent of positive change. 

It's all about figuring out how to master the dash.

Still I think I'm doing fine

 

Listening to: "Oh, what a world," Rufus Wainwright.

Dress: Maggy London, Macy's;

Necklace: Caiem, from Liz of Lizzypunch;

Tank: I'm not sure;

Tights: Marshall's;

Boots: Kady Cognac, Target;

Black cougar bracelet: thrifted.

First off, big thank you to Betz of Her Armoire for bestowing the Beautiful Blogger award to our site! Nik and I will do a joint post soon of our own random facts and pick bloggers for the award. Thank you again, Betz!

In other news, I was really productive today. Did my emissions test, sent out a ton of emails, looked up some graduate school information. I think part of it was because I dressed up a little bit more and it put some bounce in my step.

About the outfit. I need to thank Liz of Lizzypunch for this beautiful coconut necklace that I won from her giveaway. She picked it up on her recent holiday trip and the jewelry line is made by the handicapped and elderly of Manuabo, Puerto Rico. It's a great piece and I can't wait to incorporate into more outfits. Thank you, Liz! Check out her lovely blog here.

The weather has been so nice that I didn't need a jacket when we took these photos. I bought the dress a couple days ago on my birthday with a Macy's gift card. I love the print and I feel like this will be a great transitional piece throughout the seasons. Umm, however. I felt a little guilty buying it even with a gift card because I don't really need any more dresses. It's the only clothing item I buy anymore and I try to justify it by the fact that it's a whole outfit. I've been pretty good with shopping recently, but it can get pretty impulsive sometimes and I definitely need to think about the lesser-worn dresses that I already have before I buy more.

I wonder, lovely readers, what clothing item dominates your closet?

Hope you all have a lovely weekend! Nikki will be back to posting after she gets over her cold/takes the SATs this Saturday.

Like candles on your cake

 

 

Shirt: Kohl's, birthday gift.

Jeans: Ann Taylor Loft;

Silver bangle: gift;

Minnetonka moccasins: gift;

Bag: NYC street vendor.

It was a little weird to start out the week at a funeral and oscillate from the extremes of being sad to being excited about my birthday two days later. But as much as it could have been easy to linger on sad thoughts, it was refreshing to change course. I'm alive, you're alive! It seems worthy of an exclamation mark, and worthy of celebrating.

Thank you all for the sweet birthday wishes, they really made my day.

About the outfit. Mother Nature must have read my thoughts because it's been insanely nice weather for January -- the high was 60 degrees. Since I'm not a big fan of snow and don't really like getting it on my birthday, I was so happy to discard my coat for the day. I knew I would spend part of the day with my mom to go shopping so I wanted to be as comfortable as possible. The shirt is a birthday gift from Jeremiah's family and I like the paint-splattered look to it. I don't normally wear empire-waist shirts because I don't think it's the best silhouette on me, but I love this one so much. Actually, most of this outfit is gifted -- moccasins from my grandmother, a bangle from my mother for my birthday two years ago. Please excuse my messy hair -- I didn't feel like styling my hair this morning.

One of my mom's traditions is to celebrate my birthday both on the 18th and 19th. I was born in the Philippines on the 19th at 3:00 am, but because of the 13-hour time difference, it was still the 18th in the U.S., where we now live. So if you want to get technical (and I mean, technical by the hour), my birthday would be sometime in the mid-afternoon on the 18th, because the Philippines is already experiencing the new day. So my mom likes to tell me happy birthday a whole day early. I'm not complaining, because it gives an excuse for two days of celebration!

It was a great couple of days: panang curry at a new Thai restaurant; steak dinner and presents at my in- laws' house; makeup shopping with my mom (I'm so excited to experiment with my new products); treating myself to a new dress (though it was with a gift card); seeing my brother and sister, and getting surprised by a classic movie dvd set and Burt's Bees lip balm; spending time with Jeremiah; getting free drinks at trivia from our awesome waiter; seeing my friends and winning trivia; and my friend Vargas winning me a watch from the prize machine at Taco Mac.

One cheerful thing that happened included Jeremiah rounding up my stuffed animals and having them "sing" Happy Birthday to me. Sprinkle, my blue bear, apparently arranged it and taught all of the others how to sing in tune.

Okay, so it's a little silly, but it was quite funny and a great way to start my birthday.

Hope you have a great week!

They say it's your birthday

 Thanks for the great feedback on my last post -- you guys are so wonderful! We really love reading all of your comments.
Hope you all are having a wonderful weekend -- and for our U.S. readers, hope you're enjoying the long weekend.
Because my birthday is tomorrow, I thought it would be fun to go back and talk about one of my more memorable birthdays -- my 20th.

  

How I spent it: Oh you know, meeting former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. And NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams. And Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

The back story: My college was hosting a symposium to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Carter's inauguration and to examine how American politics has changed in that amount of time. They invited pretty much everybody from that administration, including former White House intern Williams (who was the host of the event).

The first day of the symposium fell on my birthday, and being the political nerd that I am, I begged my parents to buy me a ticket for the entire weekend's events as my gift. They agreed and I had it booked in early November, like the overzealous, over-punctual political nerd I apparently was (and still am).

 By January, you can bet I was excited. My dorm building was right next door to the conference hall for the symposium, so on the day of the event there were Secret Service agents about 20 feet away from my building. Not an everyday sight.

The conference hall before the morning talks.

So the actual content of the symposium covered a wide range of topics: energy, terrorism, diplomatic relations, media coverage, you name it. One of my friends even gave a  researched presentation (in front of President Carter) about some aspects of Carter's presidency and their significance. What a life experience.

There was also great food there. Check out my dessert from lunch.

At this point in the story I met President Carter. During one of the breaks I mulled over whether I wanted to: a) dart over there to meet him, b) walk with purpose but at a slower pace in case the Secret Service thought I was going to pull a fast move or c) even bother at all because it's a former president and that's nerve-wracking. I chose a combo of A&B. It was something like a half-hearted sprint, if you could imagine.

I was third in line. When it was my turn, I told him thanks for coming, this was a cool experience and congrats on thirty years. And then I told him that it was my birthday, and he was like, "Oh, it's your birthday? How about a kiss for the birthday girl!" and proceeded to grab my cheek and kiss it. It was very surreal but actually nice. It just happened and I was left feeling very giggly and unnerved by my 15 seconds of quasi-fame (a few bystanders and advisers cheered and the local paper's photographer snapped a photo during the moment but I haven't found it online).

Anyways, the rest of the symposium went downhill after that ---how do you top being kissed by a president?

I kid, it was still a great time.

Some highlights:

 - Meeting Brian Williams.

It was just briefly because I was that one person in line to meet him right before he had to moderate another talk, so this photo was taken very excitedly by an NBC producer. Still, super awesome to meet a journalist whose career and daily work I admire.

- Meeting Madeleine Albright. That photo came out too blurry, but she was really nice to me.
- Brian Williams announcing to the conference that then-Senator Hillary Clinton had just announced her bid to run in the 2008 presidential election. Regardless of your personal politics, it is really cool to hear history-making news from the man who hears it before anyone else.
- Almost tripping over Walter Mondale during one of the breaks and almost bumping into Rosalyn Carter in the bathroom. Okay, that's not really a highlight, but I just wanted to point out that even though there was Secret Service, many of these leaders were very down to earth and accessible to the symposium-goers.

And it was a great day. What was your most memorable birthday experience?

Well, I'm about to head out and enjoy some time out with Jeremiah's family. Hope you all have a lovely night!