Thank you so much for the nice comments on my “Celebration” theme. I appreciate them so much! I made little structural changes in the domain because I rearranged most of the image files for easier referencing. I also added the Image Browser plug-in which works like a charm! I love how I can see all the pictures I have posted in my journal entries. Oh, I joined a new message board: Connective MB. If you decide to join, please write “cherub143″ as your referrer. *hehe* And happy mensary (5 years and 9 months to be exact) to my knight in shining armor, nata. <3

Last January 7, hunbun and I had dinner at Burgoo in Greenhills. We were actually having a hard time choosing a restaurant because it’s our first time in that food strip. Not to mention all the restaurants had very eye-catching interior designs and motif. We ended up in Burgoo because of their promotional gig - free entree for a particular amount of food. And it’s one of our favorite restaurants anyway. I ordered my favorite French onion soup and chocolate milkshake. My entree was salmon in cream sauce while hunbun’s was baby back ribs. We had a free appetizer too: gambas (sauteed garlic prawn). After a while, I noticed a big fish bone in my supposedly boneless salmon. *eep* I panicked but good thing I saw it first before swallowing it. It’s the first time I’ve ever complained about the food I ordered. The waiter was really apologetic and management gave us a complimentary chocolate dessert - even though we declined the offer since we were too full already. *hehe* Two free dishes in one sitting. At least we got our money’s worth.

Last week had been very trying for me. *sigh* One unfortunate incident after another. It’s so depressing… Thursday (January 20, 2005) was the pivot day and eventually things finally went upswing from there. My aunt and uncle celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary in Fernwood Gardens that night. The reception and the programme was really beautiful. My aunt was a ballerina so she danced so gracefully. I especially loved it when they played “Way You Look Tonight”. It’s one of my favorite songs and it has special sentimental meaning since hunbun and I danced it during my 18th debut.

On Friday, hunbun and I shopped a little at Theater Mall after school. Then we went to Dish for “Misaya-Saya 2” featuring the stand-up comedians: Tim Tayag, Philippine Playhouse, and Jon Santos. It’s our first time watching a comedy show and I loved it! It’s such a great way to wind down after such a stressful week. And your mood will instantly be lifted by laughing so hard. I can’t wait for another event like this.

I made a new theme dedication to my birthday - entitled “Celebration“. It’s quite obvious isn’t it? *lol* I’ll be turning 19 on January 30! I even made a birthday countdown in the menu bar. Credits to Elouia for the php countdown script. Oh, this particular theme especially the header is graphic intensive. Please wait for it to load properly. It’s the very first time I featured myself in a layout. It’s a picture taken on my 18th debut last year. And that little girl is me when I was about 5 years old.

This theme is tested in both Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer. It’s friendly to both like all my other themes. There is a subtle difference however in the two browsers. You may notice that the pink ribbons on each of the navigation menu cannot be found in IE. Well, I tried but I can’t make it work properly so I just tweaked the CSS a little with a hack. Thanks so much to Stock Exchange for some of the pictures I used. Also to Vanilla Dreams Brushes for adding a little spark to my “blend”. *hehe*

I also added several 88 by 31 link buttons in the links section. You can now use those to link to Forever Gretch.

Have a blessed new year everyone! New year, new beginnings. May everything that makes you smile be abundant in your life and may the hurts of yesteryears be forgiven and forgotten. Happy 2005! *throws confetti* This is also the text message hunbun and I send to friends on New Year’s Eve. Oh, much love and thanks to the wonderful people who sent me beautiful holiday gifts. I’ll make a page for them very soon. And “Forever Gretch” won the 2003-2004 Golden Web Awards.

I’m finally back from my annual vacation in Tagaytay. I spent four soothing and very cold days there with my family (from December 30, 2004 to January 2, 2005). It was really restful just playing mah jong and eating all the time. A nice change from being stressed and in front of the computer monitor all the time. My neice and nephew did bring excitement though because of their non-stop fighting. Those two are such a handful! My New Year’s Eve was spent with my family. I really missed hunbun a lot though. My sister-in-law’s mom held a mini get together at their vacation house for dinner. I got to catch up on old friend’s lives and new gossip too. On January 1, we all went to Tagaytay Highlands. We ate a very yummy and expensive lunch at China Palace. Then we went bowling; I played both the best and worst games of my life. I scored 53 and 16. *lol* I have no talent whatsoever for that sport. We also visited animal farm because of the persistence of the hyper-active kids. There I saw an actual ugly duckling scenario. This one brown duck was being bitten by several pretty green ducks. *hmph* They were really cruel to him, poor duckie. I hope he’ll stand up for himself and retaliate. It was already dark when we were done so we decided to go home. On the way we encountered extremely heavy traffic, so we were forced to go back to Highlands. It’s quite a good thing for me because we ate dinner at Marbella’s. It’s a formal dining restaurant with delicious food. They serve the most delicious calamares and softest salpicao! I’m getting hungry just thinking about it.

When we got back to our home in Quezon City, my mom and I cleaned my bedroom. I got new pillows because the old ones may be giving me rashes. I also got rid of lots of small pillows even the Hello Kitty ones. Actually, my mom forced me too. *heh* Since then, I’ve been working non-stop on our group project due on January 5 - the first day of classes. *sigh* I hope we can make the dead line and that we accomplish everything well.

Before I went on vacation, I tweaked some of the themes to look good in all browsers. Just can’t figure out why the background in rap div in WordPress won’t show up without the “overflow:hidden” CSS code. Oh well, at least they look much better (with a little exception of some static pages where a part of the menu gets hidden). *lol* I also wrote the following post midnight on December 30 but I didn’t have internet connection. So here goes.

On December 24, I had dental surgery. Well, hunbun keeps calling it “dental reconstruction”. Exactly a day before Christmas I had my upper right wisdom tooth removed. It was somehow painless because I was numbed by the anesthesia. She extracted the tooth intact so I kept it as a souvenir. Actually, I still have all my baby teeth. *hehe* I kept them all when I was younger. The dentist put me on pain medication afterwards and strictly soft diet. It was not too bad. Although I miss eating all the yummy foods especially during noche buena. Good thing I could eat the lasagna which was really yummy.

On Christmas day, my aunts and I played mahjong. It was the first time I played with them and they were surprised that I knew how to play, especially my mom. I actually won Php70.00! That’s a lot considering we only played for fives and tens. That afternoon, I developed a fever and my right cheek was really inflamed. But I was still well enough to go out that night. We went to Greenbelt and ate at Zhong Nan Hai for dinner. It’s a contemporary Chinese restaurant with extremely slow service and extremely expensive food. Afterwards, we watched Mano Po 3: My Love, part of the Metromanila Film Fest at Greenbelt 3. I reserved seats for us online. The movie was okay and I did teared up at some scenes.

Hunbun finally came home from his trip to Baguio on December 26. Yay! He came along with us that night to my uncle’s house for a family reunion. The food was really delicious even though I couldn’t eat most of them. The desserts especially the pink gelatin was uber yummy! It was fun to bond with my mom’s side of the family since we’re all close. We’re not in such good terms with my dad’s side. *heh*

The next day hunbun surprised me with a lovely bouquet of flowers as my “get well soon” gift. How sweet! I was supposed to go to my high school reunion that night but I’m still sick. Oh well, there will be more reunions next time. Hunbun and I stayed home and watched the Return of the King Special Extended Edition. It’s still one of the best movies / trilogies ever. And we hunted for easter eggs in the DVDs. He already collected all three extended versions. On Tuesday (December 28, 2004), I went with my mom and my aunt to Galleria to shop. I bought some stuff and pretty pair of earrings. It’s so cute! It’s bejewelled hearts with LO and VE on each pair. I also took home a Leonidas praline to surprise hunbun.

On a solemn note, one of my batchmates passed away in the recent Asian Tsunami Disaster. We have created a dedication blog for Sharleen May Tan. Sleep well Sharky wherever you are.

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