Lotto... it all goes down to this.

(freestyle writing for the second time today.)

I just had to blog about it, to get it off my chest. One guy already won the 6/55 Lotto Jackpot of more than seven hundred million pesos, leaving the rest of the betting millions to their wishful thinking, dreams shattered. I am one of those who had my dreams lined up and ready just in case luck knocks on my door. For a few weeks, those dreams that I had seemed only one ticket away, now it feels like lightyears.

So just to humor myself, and prove that I would have been a great lotto winner, here are some plans that I have thought of if I won the 700 million peso jackpot:

1. First thing would be to arrange my UAE visa, and buy a ticket to Abu Dhabi to fetch my husband, or pay off the remaining months in his contract and buy him a ticket back to the Philippines. Which ever way is faster for us to be together. Then off to Santorini or Bellarocca in Marinduque while we brainstorm the best way to use the money.
2. Donate a portion to our country's elementary and secondary education funds;
3. Build public libraries in every state in the country, with wifi, desktop computers and online educational materials for students age one to 100;
4. Donate a portion to a feeding program for children;
5. Build luxurious and CLEAN bathrooms for every stop in the country;

Without stating the obvious, some personal actions:
6. Give a portion to our church;
7. Give a portion to our families;
8. Educational plans for my nephews, nieces, little cousins and our helpers' kids;
9. Make a GK Basketball Team for the PBA. The lineup, of course, would include my husband, my baby brother and young men they deem worthy to fulfill their dreams as basketball players; and form a summer basketball camp for underpriviledged youth and kids.

Of course, I will need to invest in several businesses:
10. Jollibee franchise;
11. Stocks and mutual funds;
12. A beach front property - one for a resthouse and another for a boutique hotel;
13. A boutique hotel in Tagaytay, or Antipolo;
14. A grand and posh events place in Las Pinas or Alabang;
What's funny is that for the hotels, and event place, I can already picture it in my mind. What to name it, who will do the interior design, who will manage it, can you believe that? :P

Other things I would do that might have a few merits:
15. Shoulder the wedding expenses of one of our favorite couple friends and buy the necessary equipments and vehicle for their business;
16. Arrange US Visas and take my whole family to the States to visit our relatives there, and watch NBA live with hubby and my boys;

Maybe I could go on and on but the truth is, the prize money isn't mine anyway. So why waste time on thinking what might have been? Someday I'll have the money or the means to fulfill these things, maybe not all in one go, or maybe not all of it, but I will find a way to fulfill some of these. Baby steps. But it requires patience, hardwork and a lot of prayers. It's okay, I'll wait. Right now I'll enjoy the great life that I have, sometimes penniless, but I don't even need a single penny to be happy and I have a million reasons to smile about everyday.

So if I was the winner, I would want the rest of the hopefuls to be happy for me. So I hope and pray that whoever he is, whatever it is that he's thinking right now is that he's happy. And of course, I hope he helps a lot of people and puts the money to good use.

And with that... I guess that's it. Congratulations to that unbelievably lucky guy. To the rest of us, let's move on and continue to pursue our dreams and pray that someday we get the things that we have been wishing for.

Now that that lot is off my chest and I don't have to worry about winning hundreds of millions tomorrow, I can sleep well tonight. :)

Jealousy

(I'm freestyling here, so please tolerate grammatical errors if there would be any.)

Jealousy.

It can take up a lot of time and worrying. To keep up with being jealous you have to constantly monitor your partner's activities and the people he's seeing to the point where you have to do it behind his back. You would spend endless nights over-analyzing things that are usually unimportant. Borrowing words from the movie Moulin Rouge, jealousy can drive you mad. And that is the part about falling in love that's the ugliest.

So you can either let jealousy eat you up and destroy your relationship in the long run, or you can confront it. Six months into my marriage and six years into my relationship, I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that I still have jealousy attacks from time to time. My husband being a baller, he gets admiration from the opposite sex and sometimes from the same sex. Which is why I feel a tinge of jealousy for the girls who can cheer him on or for their team during their games and a bit apprehensive when he's on basketball mode. The thought of an attractive, voluptuous woman throwing herself at my sweaty husband after an intense game drives me crazy. Yes, I have an overactive imagination. While my husband, a self-confessed late bloomer, can be so clueless about women and their subtle flirtation, I know all about it. I've seen it all in my day, having girl friends, gay friends, having three brothers and being one of the boys. I've studied women and sexual innuendo like the back of my hand. So while he can be all-friendly and non-malicious about it when being approached by a woman, there's a war-freak amazon inside me that just wants to hash out.

However, confessing that I have jealous and violent tendencies does not mean that I am not doing anything about it. In fact, I have learned to keep it at bay and to the point that it is tolerable. Getting into boxing has helped me with my aggression issues, but what has been really helpful is the reality that my husband is not like most guys. In our six years of being together, he has not strayed or ever gave me a reason to doubt him. Everyday, he proves to me that I am his one and only.

My husband knows that I have a jealous streak, but instead of freaking out and going ballistic on how incredibly wild and pointless my imagination can be, he knows how to control my emotions and he knows what exactly to say to encourage the trusting side of me. Whenever he senses that the jealous Cams is slowly sneaking in, he'll say something like, "tell me if you don't want me to leave and I'll stay here." He asks me if I'm worried about something and he'll find the words to reassure me that I have nothing to worry about. That's when I find my core and learn to give in to trust and faith again.

Honestly, I don't know when I'll be completely jealousy-free, but my baby steps are working so far, and when the time finally comes that I'll be with my hubby 24/7, I'm sure I will soon be healed.

Here’s an entry about luuurve (wink,wink)

About heartbreak, the bad boy versus the good boy, the one who got away and the real deal about all this…

I realized I’m not really an expert on the subject, I have quite a limited experience compared to other girls (yes, I got lucky), but I want to write about LOVE.  Indulge me.

Heartbreak and Jumping off a Cliff

Several reasons why I decided to write about the topic. 1) It’s the first time that my only sister got heartbroken.  Yes, she might have been disheartened many times, but it’s her first major heartbreak.  What’s the difference between the two, you ask.  Being disheartened is like looking at a certain cliff but before you jump, you realize that the view or the experience is not worth it, or it’s not for you.  So you change your mind, walk away and keep yourself from getting hurt.  Being heartbroken is jumping off the cliff without a helmet or a harness, head on or butt first thinking that somebody will catch you but instead no one does and you fall on your face.  That’s when it really hurts.  But having come from heartbreaks quite a few times before, I think it’s quite healthy to have your heart broken at least once.  It really does make you stronger; makes you see what you, and love, is capable of doing.  It’s better to be heartbroken so early on in the game when you can still get up, try to laugh at your mistakes and learn from them.  I was never the typical big sister to my siblings, giving advice.  I just let them experience things for themselves.  So I just let her wallow in her miseries, have her own ‘emo’ moments, listening to heartbreak songs and crying herself to sleep as this will lead her to discover herself more.  If you ask me, it looks like she’s moving on pretty well and getting over quite easily.  She always does things in a faster pace than me. 

Good vs. Bad and The One that Got Away

I finished reading a book today, Love the One You’re With by Emily Giffin.  To summarize, the catching phrase was something like this: “If you can’t forget the one who got away, can you… love the one you’re with?” I liked the story, but I especially loved the ending; exactly how I wanted it to end.  I wouldn’t spoil it for you, but you will probably have an idea after reading what I wrote.

Well, I guess we are all fascinated with unrequited love.  The intrigue and excitement of it all; which is basically why we are always drawn to it.

At one point in our lives, we have been in love or attracted to a bad boy (or girl); if for some reason they are in our past, we might have referred to them as ‘the one that got away’.  The one with whom we spent so much time and energy chasing, pleasing and crying over.  They are usually the lead stars in these stories but in my case, unromantic as it may seem, I always root for the good guys.  The ones they describe as ‘predictable’ or ‘boring.’

Notice that when a bad boy does one, even just one nice thing for a girl, one bold move or a public declaration and she falls head over heels for him, never mind the fact that he treats her like crap the rest of the time.  However, women hardly notice when a good guy is trying to be romantic.  They don’t care if the guy is kind, sweet, faithful and honest to them all the time.  They just assume it’s normal.  The thing that irritates me more about this is when a good guy screws up just one time, the girls always say things like “I knew it right from the start, he was too good to be true…” and come running back to their bad boys.

The bad boy image and girls being attracted to dangerous men is so overrated.  What I always find sexy is commitment.  Guys who are afraid to commit to someone are wusses and cowards.  Such invertebrates.  They do not have the backbone to stand up for something they want and clearly benefit from.  Real men are those who are not afraid to lose, get hurt and become vulnerable.  

I know it sounds so practical and less-thrilling, but I still believe it’s romantic to be in love with a good guy.  I’ve crossed the bridge and switched sides a long long time ago.  But I know that other girls find it hard to do so.  Sadly, some women I know are still together with their “bad boy” boyfriends, waiting for them to grow-up, see the light and I dunno, magically change? (of course, I'm being sarcastic)  Or in reality, sometimes the exterior is deceiving.  He seemed like a good boy, you thought he was a good boy, but he treats you real bad.  

The Real Deal

The second reason that pushed me to write about love is because I recently spoke with a guy from my distant past.  And there aren’t a lot of guys in my little black book (I really don’t have a little black book, I just need to say that I have one to prove a point) to make comparison of, but if there was someone with whom I shared an intense kind of relationship with before my husband, this guy would be it.  He was the closest I had to a complicated, tortured, messed-up, you-and-me-against-the-world kind of love.  A bad boy with a rockstar life.  I used to write stories about him.  I almost messed up school and my social life because of him.  It was this ‘he loves me, he loves me not’ thing  that kept me on my toes. Yes, it was fun, but there are times when the complications, the uncertainty of it all would eat me up.  Honestly, it drained the life out of me.  I would feel exhausted just fighting fate and proving to people that we could work it out.  It was such a dark phase, and I was alone in the fight.

Fast forward to now, we are great buddies, both of us happily married.  What can I say?  I stopped fighting fate, started giving in to destiny and life worked out.  I still like talking to him from time to time though.  The casualness and friendliness of our conversations make me realize how far we’ve come.  How far I’ve come; I used to feel so low but chose to get up and now I’m on a permanent high with the love of my life.  The guy from my past is in a good place now too.  Sometimes I’d like to think that when he lost me, he realized that he won’t get someone as great as me again if he doesn’t straighten up his ways.  That was my last wish for him anyway.  That he finds someone who will make his life better.  I guess, he wasn’t really a bad boy.  We were two good people; we were just not right for each other. 

I guess my whole point is, that’s the thing with love.  One second you’re so down and you think you will never get over heartbreak, then somebody comes and shakes up your whole world and suddenly you understand why it didn’t work out with the previous ones.  Look how far I’ve come.  When I got together with my husband, I felt shiny and new.  Like I was unscathed, like the heartbreaks that came before didn’t really matter and the one who got away became a myth.  Before we got married, he didn’t even demand to see my diary, or cared about my past.  All he cares about is me, our present and future.  He is someone who is sure of himself and his intentions.  He excites me and sometimes drives me crazy like a bad boy, but is committed and faithful and loving as no other good guy can be.  Because the real deal is that true love need not be hard.  It’s usually simple and comes in win-win situations.  Life is too short, so stop messing around with those bad boys.  It's either they love you or they don't.  Be with the one who chooses to love you, and fall in love with him over and over again. 

new title, improved look

As much as I want to, I'm not great at writing about the home.  Domestic stuff I mean.  While I try to do them once in a while, it's really not me.  Thus, I decided to change the name and focus of my blog.  On my journey to rediscovering myself as a writer and finding my voice, I want to write about my passion, the things and people that I love.

It's not that I don't plan on being domestic, I do and I want to learn my way around a house (in fact, I have an upcoming project that includes wood and a can of paint, watch out for that, it's gonna be fun!), but my heart compels me to write about other things, and I really really just need a space, an outlet right now.

I will still write about my misadventures in being a domestic goddess, or about my journey to fitness once in a while, but I will also write about other things.  My family, my home, my husband, our adventures together, my take on relationships for instance.  And depending on the topic, I shall also post some of my essays on facebook.

So... I guess that's it, we shall see where this road will lead us.  Cheers!

on a writing hiatus

Lately I have been putting off writing again and it sucks. Because I feel like I have all the time in the world, but I would rather go to the gym, read a book, watch TV and recently, sleep than write.  Meanwhile, everyone in my household seems to be writing.  Our father makes a living and tries changing the world by his legendary writing, my elder brother juggles between acting and writing comedy for TV, my sister, the film student, is working on a script for her thesis, and surprisingly, our baby brother, the hardcore athlete and dancer, is also a budding poet. Our mother and other brother are off the hook from writing because they have more skills than we can ever have, and it will just be so unfair if they can write too.

So that leaves me feeling guilty, because I was, am supposed to be the writer in the family.  The one following my father's footsteps (However, I am leaning on following my mother's footsteps as the revolting feminist inside me says that there is nothing degrading in being a housewife).  Colleagues, bosses used to refer to me as a gifted writer and sometimes there are situations where I don't even put an effort and I can't help but feel that it comes naturally, but lately, I haven't been doing it - at all.

It sickens me, because writing is my core, my first love, and my life.  I pride myself on being a writer.  I used to say, "give me and pen and a paper and I'm good." With a matching smug face. Now it's more like "Give me a pen and paper and I freak-out."or I run. As fast as I can.  I don't know why.  Maybe it's the pressure I give myself that because I have so much time in my hands, I have to write breakthrough pieces.  Or since I am so "good", then the next piece that I should write should be dynamic or heart-stopping.  But it really doesn't work that way, does it? I am no wonder-kid. I was just a girl who loves to write.  Or maybe I still am.

Maybe it's because I'm also struggling and kind of doubting my voice.  Every writer has a point of view and I don't know what mine is at the moment.  I admire some of my friends' writing style that I can only describe as deep and very literary, where words have hidden meaning and messages that cut through your soul.  But I am not a tortured soul so while I admire them, it was never my dream to express myself like that.  My father, when he writes, is always inspiring.  He writes a song and a whole nation is inspired.  My brother writes scripts for comedy and it's usually his take on guy-humor.  My sister is slowly becoming one of those writers who make indie films, and our youngest brother might just be the tortured soul in the family, writing about his angst and unrequited love. I realize that I should write a separate story about my father and our family one of these days.  So where does that leave me?  Former professors describe my writing as very tongue-in-cheek, and I somehow agree with them.  I write things and situations as they are, sometimes with sarcasm, but always finding a way to make the truth seem funny and amusing.  It's the kind that you find in blogs and chick lit.  So... with that said, I don't know if I can ever have a niche here.  There are so many writers in the Philippines, so many magazines who talk about girl stuff, I don't know if I can ever be one of them.  Maybe I am doomed to just write within the walls of my room.

Or not.  Maybe it's time I stop over-analyzing my writing and just do it.  That's what I do best anyway - write. What's in my heart, what I feel, what I think is funny.  What I love about life.  That despite setbacks and challenges in life, there are still some things to smile about.  Tongue-in-cheek and romantic bordering on cheesy.  And maybe someday, somehow, a girl will take comfort in my writings.

So now, I am immersing myself to as much works of the successful chick lit writers of my generation.  I just want to see what made them successful, what made them stand out from the rest.  And hopefully someday, I can see my work in line with theirs in Fully Booked.  Dream on.  So I am currently reading the works of Sophie Kinsella, Candace Bushnell, Meg Cabot, Emily Giffin, but I also will include some Paulo Coelhos and Nicholas Sparks in the mix.  I have also thought of taking an indefinite hiatus from this blog, because none of the things that I want to write about would seem to do justice to this blog's title.  But then I realized, this is my blog.  I can write whatever I want.  My space, my rules.  This blog entry contradicted what I set off to do anyway.

So, here's to writing.  I am inspired, and might spend the whole night writing if I'm lucky.

But now I have to go, I need to hit the gym in a while.  And oh, for the benefit of the purpose of this blog, I made a sandwich a while ago.  My invention, though it was a no-brainer really. Chicken barbecue sandwich.  It was yummy.  Chicken breast and barbecue sauce is love ;)