#Christmas2016: Tagaytay

Posted on 01/03/2017 by Lenn

It’s been our family’s routine to celebrate Christmas in Tagaytay ever since our house there was built. I used to hate leaving home during that season since I grew up celebrating there, but I eventually got used to it as time passed by.

This year, we stayed home during the 24th and busied ourselves with the preparation. My aunt, godfather (my aunt’s husband), and I drank wine and tequila while waiting for 12mn. I used to drink twice a year and with them and with my friends during college week, but ever since I graduated, it has been reduced to once a year, and because I’m not that of a fan of drinking, really, that’s fine with me.

On the morning of the 25th, of course we heard mass and headed to Starbucks (since it’s the only cafe open at that time) for breakfast.

I was really excited to read the book my mom gave me for Christmas, which was Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur (read my review here). So I basically read a few pages before we head for the grocery to buy stuff we need for dinnertime at home. We also dropped by a few cute shops there!

And then we had lunch at this new steak house at Ayala Malls Serin, T-Bone King Steak & Grill. The place was kind of quiant and there are a lot of bible verses and God related quotes hanging around the place.

The food was amazing! I had their local T-Bone steak and house iced tea and we shared a basket of nachos as well. It’s affordable and the food is delicious! So if you happen to stop by Tagaytay, drop by the place at Ayala Malls Serin!

Here’s our obligatory family photo to end this post.

Book Review: Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur

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Rating: ★★★★★
Read: December 2016

Milk and Honey is a collection of poetry about surviving, love, pain, abuse and feminism. I loved how each poem was moving and powerful and made me relate to things I never knew I could relate to until I read this book.

And though I am not a fan of the author not using proper capitalization (I don’t know if she did it on purpose or if she has an explanation about it, please don’t hesitate to notify me), I loved every bit of her prose and poetry. It showed us, her readers, that her experiences made her stronger in time and I can’t describe this book more, because all I can think about when I try to describe it is POWERFUL.

If you’re a fan of poetry, you should read this.
If you’re not a fan of poetry, you should read this.
Just read it.

This is one of my favorites:

“I thank the universe
for taking
everything it has taken
and giving to me
everything it is giving”

Source: dustypromises

Recent Book Haul

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Titles:

The Best of Me – Nicholas Sparks
Room 13 – Robert Swindells
Dark Lord (The Teenage Years) – Jamie Thomson
Fablehaven: Rise of the Evening Star – Brandon Mull
The Throne of Fire – Rick Riordan
The Serpent’s Shadow – Rick Riordan

Here’s a quick book haul post — It’s been a while since I last posted a haul on my blog. I haven’t been buying books lately because I told myself at the start of the year that I’m going to minimize my book buying since I still got a load of TBR piled up in my room. But my grandfather have a friend who is selling some of her son’s used books and guess where that lead me.

My grandfather got all these for only ₱420! Can you believe that? So anyway, I’m still reading Curiosity House: The Shrunken Head by Lauren Oliver and H.C. Chester. Plus, I read some comic books over the weekend:

Titles:

DC Rebirth: Teen Titans – Benjamin Percy & Jim Charalampidis
DC Rebirth: Nightwing – Tim Seeley, Marcelo Maiolo & Marcio Takara
DC Rebirth: Trinity– Francis Manapul
DC Rebirth: Batgirl – Hope Larson & Rafael Albuquerque
Reborn – Greg Capullo & Mark Millar

Source: dustypromises

Book Review: The Retribution of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

Posted on 11/11/2016 by Lenn

Rating: ★★★★★
Read: November 2016

It’s been a while since I last finished a novel. Being an “adult” feels like life is being sucked out of me these past couple of months. It’s been a struggle to drag my ass out of bed each morning, waking up with no motivation to do anything and the worst part is that I don’t even know why I feel like this. Good thing comic books have been keeping me going. It’s the easiest source of entertainment and the fastest ones to read. But finally, I decided to pick up the last book in the Mara Dyer series and it’s been really…. intense.

So this book… I am lost for words. I can’t explain how creepily fantastic and amazing this book has been. I’ll probably start off with the fact that this book has a ton of twists and turns. There are a lot of moments when I literally gasped in both excitement and frustration. This book has given me a lot of feelings at once and I’m saying that in a good way. Michelle Hodkin wrapped it up surprisingly well.

Honestly, this book made me feel like I was losing my mind, too. There were so many mind-fuck moments that just made me think about how all this will end, and, well, all my predictions and assumptions about the ending didn’t play out and that’s a good thing. I can’t summarize this book for y’all without spoiling you, so I’ll just end this review by saying, if you haven’t read this series, what are you even doing with your life?! Go on, pick it up!

And a quote:

“It has been said that there must be a villain for every hero, a demon for every angel, a monster for every god. Despite what we are, I do not believe this. I have seen the villainous act heroic, and men called heroes act villainous. It is our choices that define us, not our abilities.”

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Hi, it’s almost 8:00 p.m. and the weather’s matching with my mood and I’m writing just to release everything that’s bottled up inside my head. This is the only thing I can go to and the only thing I know that would help me think properly, somehow… My fingers can’t stop typing and my tears keep rolling down my cheek. I hate it when I’m like this.

I’ve been feeling a little bit lost lately, and life has been quite dragging. I know, I know, I keep on complaining but the level of tiredness I feel right now is just way over the average amount. Don’t get me wrong, 2016 has been one of the greatest years, so far, but sometimes, there are days or moments that the universe just likes to fuck things up. Sometimes, I feel like I’m always being tested and that it’s already way beyond what I can deal with.

I hate that I have so little people in my life whom I can talk with about these things. My best friend’s so far away and I know that she’s dealing with a lot of things right now, too, and I’m the only one who can listen to her and comfort her during these times. I feel so sad and most of the time it frustrates me because I don’t even know why I feel the way I feel. I try to be happy during the day, but when I get home, or when I’m alone, I just can’t get rid of it. Well, I don’t know what to do and this post is just a random rant and I have nothing else to say.

I just wanna feel okay again.

Source: dustypromises

#MIBF2016

Posted on 09/20/2016 by Lenn

Went to the 37th Manila International Book Fair last Sunday with my cousin! After so many years of planning to go, I finally got the chance to! Finally, you guys! It was crazy inside because there are so many people since it’s the last day of the event, but it was an awesome experience nevertheless.

We only spent an hour or so inside. The lines were so long (so so so so long!!! and I’m not even overreacting) that it took us 30 minutes before we were able to pay for our books inside the Fullybooked booth! After paying, we tried roaming around just so we could see other booths and bookish events happening at the time. We also grabbed a copy of the MIBF map since my cousin wanted a remembrance from the event.

I personally loved this booth with all those hugot lines hanging above the place.

There are actually A LOT of people inside and it’s really hard to walk or overtake from anyone. My brother actually came inside with us, but we lost him somewhere, so he decided to go and just wait for us outside.

The only selfie we got from inside and I just realized that there aren’t any sight of books in the background from where we took the picture. *sad*

Here’s my very small MIBF book haul!

I can’t wait to start reading them but at the moment, I’m currently reading The Could Searchers (Amulet, #3) by Kazu Kibuishi! It’s a graphic novel and I’m so happy that I’m finally catching up with all the graphic novel series I’ve started reading last year. Yas. *hearts everywhere*

A Breather From Stress

Posted on 09/02/2016 by Lenn

We all need some time to unwind and a long weekend is the perfect time to do it. My family decided to spend it in Tagaytay wherein it’s quiet and peaceful. Since the internet has been really toxic and the city, work and everything else has been stressing me out lately, I know that I needed this “time out” from the rest of the world.

While the others went to the grocery to buy enough food and stuff we needed for our three-day stay, I, on the other hand, just stayed in and read all my pending comic book reads and I also started reading a new novel during our first day. Life has been really getting in the way recently and I’ve been in the longest reading slump, ever. I hope I get to finish what I’m reading right now.

On the second day, we ate lunch out. We tried this new Japanese resto. The food was actually very delicious. My brother and I have always been a sucker for Jap food. Japanese food is the best food. Always. The two of us also dropped by Serenitea and their place there was just ozumsauce. It’s all too cute for my life.

On Monday morning, my aunt and her husband woke us up to jog with them. My brother mostly just hunted for Pokemons around the place while I tried running a few laps until I eventually gave up and just took photos of random stuff around the area using my phone. I’m still learning my way through ~*photography*~ so bear with me.

Well, there goes my weekend. I’m still not through with The Manifesto On How To Be Interesting by Holly Bourne and I’m barely halfway through the book, but I’ll get the hang of it. I promise.

#notetoself

Posted on 08/08/2016 by Lenn

Sometimes, you lose sight of what was once so clear, not because you don’t want it anymore, but because there are some things about it that have become way out of control.

No matter how beautiful something is, life just keeps hitting you straight in the face just to point out that you just can’t have it smoothly, but that should never hinder you from believing in your capacity to work things out.

I hope I can.

Lenn of Spades ♠

Tag Archives: blogging