I've Got Your Number

Priorities.  I totally forgot them the minute I started reading Sophie Kinsella's book, I've Got Your Number.

The book was part of the birthday goodie bag I got from Ruel last Sunday.

I started reading it at 6:30am yesterday, planning to read only a few pages because I had other more pressing matters to attend to.  But once I started reading, I just couldn't stop.  I found myself turning the pages, one after the other until I got to the last page.

I read it in eight hours straight, stopping only for breakfast and lunch and for the occasional chats I had with my son and with my mom.

I found it so easy to relate to the main character, Poppy Wyatt.  I didn't like her at first, thinking she was selfish and dishonest.  But the more I read, the more I began to like and understand her.  Towards the end, I actually thought she and I had a lot of similarities.

In fact, her character was so real  she could be the person sitting next to you in the train or jeepney.  She's sometimes insecure, sometimes nosy, always curious, eager to please and help, with really funny ideas that I think I would also get into if I was compelled to.

Sam Robston was strong and kind and successful. Wow! It was easy to fall in love with him!  No wonder Poppy did!

So, what was the story about?  I promise if you want to read the book, you can still continue reading this.  I'll just give a preview.

Imagine this.
Your boyfriend proposed to you with an engagement ring that has been in his family for three generations.  Of course, you're flattered!  And you've only been dating for a month!

You are with your friends in this hotel and they try on your ring. It goes around the table and suddenly the fire alarm goes off.  Everyone panics and you lose your ring.

You're thinking you can't lose your ring. You have to find it ASAP because you're having dinner with your future in-laws that day.

You look for it and while you're at it, someone steals your phone.  You have to leave a number at the concierge....but what number?

Suddenly, you see a phone in a trash bin.  You get it, and you give that number to the concierge.  But the phone has an owner.  It's a company phone.  The owner now wants it back.  But you can't give it back until you get your ring back because it's the only way the hotel can contact you.

And so, you make a weird deal with the owner, something that he cannot do anything about.

This story had me laughing, smiling and crying....but then again....as I have told you, it's easy to make me cry.

I won't tell you any more. You've really got to read it on your own.  I promise, you won't regret it.  You're going to have a fun time.

It's very light, very funny and so romantic.  It left me with a smile and a sigh.  If you like love stories, I think it will do the same for you.

Wedding Update and Eat and Go Review

I was at the mall the whole day, to check out some invitation samples, and a lovely collection of unique coins for our wedding.

Goodness gracious! I didn't realize invitations could be so expensive!  The cheapest one we found was priced at 125.00 pesos per piece and they told us the minimum number we could order was 100!  We were only having 150 guests and we were only planning to give out around 50 invites!

So, I guess the hunt is still on for invitation suppliers.  We'll just wait for the next bridal fair scheduled on the 25th and 26th of this month.

We were trying to save some money so we were very particular today about lunch. I didn't want to eat in a fast food but I certainly did not want to spend so much again on the usual restaurants we go to.  

We ended up trying out  Eat and Go, located on the 3rd floor of SM Megamall, Bldg. B.  Its name may sound like fast food but it is not.

They had a promotional meal of two entrees and one salad for only Ps. 399.00.  That included bottomless lemonade and 50% off on dessert, which we didn't avail of because we have been eating too much sweets lately.

I ordered Prawn Bucatini.  It came with a soup which I didn't know the name of, and buttered corn and carrots.  The buttered corn and carrots didn't taste as if they were seasoned but it was ok because I like corn.  I really liked the taste of the soup which had just enough sourness, sweetness and spiciness.   Here's the problem though.  It was not served hot.  It wasn't even warm!  

The Prawn Bucatini was the one that saved the meal. It was not extraordinary but I thought it was very good, it was flavorful enough for its cost.  I actually found myself enjoying it.

Prawn Bucatini

Ruel ordered Roast Chicken.  I tried the dish and in my opinion the rice was a little too dry.  The chicken tasted okay but it was too small compared to how it looked in the picture. I'm so used to that but I still complain about it every time. :)

Roast Chicken 

This was the salad that came with the order

I usually enjoy salad but I didn't enjoy this one.  The apple was crisp though.

    To summarize, here's what I think on a scale of 1-5, with 5 being the highest and 1, the lowest.

    Taste:                    4

    Service:                 2

    Value for money:   3

I have read about this place. Some were good, a lot were bad.  But then honestly, what do you expect out of 399.00?  The 399.00 meal even comes with a fifty percent off on dessert.  

So I think this is already a good bargain.  

Now, if we didn't take the promo, maybe I would think differently.  

Still, I really enjoyed the bucatini. :)

So, will I be a repeat customer? It won't be at the top of my mind but if I wanted something better than McDo or Jollibee, I just might come back.

Spider-Man

Ruel and I watched The Amazing Spider-Man last night.  My son will watch it with his dad today so he didn't go with us.

Anyway, we watched it in 3D and popcorn and Coke came with the tickets.  I wasn't very happy with the 3D effects.  I thought it wouldn't have made any difference if we watched it in 2D.  If for anything, the 3D glasses just hurt the sides of my nose.  The popcorn also came in a tiny cup.  They didn't even sprinkle salt!   

Now, about the movie!

I must say I enjoyed it more than I did the last three superhero movies that I watched which were Green Lantern, Captain America and The Avengers.  I wouldn't want to spoil things for you by telling you information about the story.   So, I'll just focus on the things I noticed, instead.

First, Andrew Garfield played Peter Parker so differently from how Toby Maguire played it.  I don't know who played it better but this Spider-Man, I think, has a different personality.  I cannot say if I liked it or not because I am not a Spider-Man fan.  I'm a Superman fan. :)

Second, there was definitely a story here, not like The Avengers which was more action-packed than story-packed.  I would never recommend The Avengers for children younger than 13 because I got too affected by the violence of it all.  Spider-Man 3 had the same effect on me.  I didn't do much cringing from the violence this time.  Still, parents should be present to guide their kids because violence is still present in this movie.

Third, Ruel and I thought  Emma Stone, the girl who played Gwen Stacy was pretty but we thought she looked older than a high schooler which was the role she was playing.

Fourth, this is a total reboot of Spider-Man franchise and the story is totally different from the ones we have already seen.   I cannot say which story is better because I watched the first Toby Maguire movie a long time ago.  

Fifth, Stan Lee's bit performance in this movie was very amusing.  I think it's something everyone should look forward to.  I really enjoyed that part!  It's actually my favorite.  

So, would I recommend this movie? It's definitely a "yes".  The only thing I didn't like in this movie was why Peter Parker decided to let the bad guy (the one who eventually killed Ben Parker) go in the first place.  I  just thought there wasn't enough reason for him to do it and for me, he was the one at fault there.  Well, sorry, if I am not making sense here, but I cannot say more because I'd spoil everything for you.

Peter and Gwen's love story was pretty cute too.  Ruel thought there was much focus in the love story but I thought  it was just right.  Probably, they could have just lessened the kissing since a lot of children will be watching this.

I still cried when Ben Parker died.  I cried for Aunt May, and I cried for other reasons I cannot remember.  I'm just a cry baby....so, no, I don't think this will make you cry a river of tears.  Ruel said I was probably the only one who cries watching Spider-man movies.   Well, I think I enjoyed it more because I cried.  I like getting caught up in the emotions of the characters.  Getting caught up makes me like the movie more.

I don't really know how to end this post here, and I don't really know if my thoughts made sense to you. It's just a lot of babbling here.  :)  So I guess, I can say, go and get your tickets now and watch the web-slinging, Spider-man!

Shadow Dance

I hope you watch this awesome video. I don't really know what to call this kind of dance presentation so I just called it Shadow Dance.

I enjoyed it the first time I saw it about two months ago, and I enjoyed it just as much when I watched it earlier today.

I'm sharing it with you all, hoping you'd enjoy it as much as I did. And maybe you'd even be interested enough to visit the country.

video borrowed from choosephils (youtube.com)

Anybody Out There

    Anybody Out There....well, what can I say about this book...honestly, I started reading it on Mother's Day. I only finished it yesterday. I usually finish a book in two or three days depending on my chores and workload, and on how much I like it. It's different with this book.

    Anybody Out There, a book written by Marian Keyes, is a book about love that's cut too short, how one woman has come to terms to with loss and grief. The first few chapters were quite interesting, made possible by a narrative that alternately showed the past and the present, leaving important details for later. This left me with a lot of questions and had me reading eagerly until I had all my questions answered. Unfortunately, I didn't like the answers. It turned out that the hero in the story was already dead and that the heroine was just in a state of denial all along. Oh! It really broke my heart! Aidan, that's his name, seemed to be the perfect man and the perfect husband to Anna, the heroine. What's worse was that they were just newly married!

     So that's when I stopped reading. The worst part of it all was that I did not have any idea at all that the story was going to turn out this way. I didn't know that the story was about loss. The short text on the back cover of the book did not prepare me for this. All along, I thought that Aidan had a perfectly good excuse for not trying to contact his wife for weeks, and that in the end, they would still end up together.  I actually felt cheated because had I known that the book was about death and moving on, I would have chosen another book.

     So I didn't continue reading for days until the time I got so bored I just had to read something.  I resumed reading, moving from a state of denial to a state of acceptance...so much like Anna's feelings. I was entering the moving on stage, slowly realizing that there could be someone else for her in the future and then suddenly, the book ends with Aidan telling Anna in a dream that she already met the man she was going to fall in love with. And that was that! Anna was seeing two men in the story and I was unsure who Aidan was talking about! I was left hanging!

     The story ended without leaving a tear or smile on my face.   Instead, it left me with a question I think I will never be able to answer. Anna was seeing two men on a regular basis! So who was Aidan talking about?! The book was ok, I guess. Although it would not in any way make it to my favorites, it was an okay book to pass the time away...just skip all the irrelevant email exchanges between Anna and her family members. They're kind of long and didn't have anything to do with the story.

~pic of book cover done on Remby.com~

17 Again

For lack of a better thing to do last night, I watched a DVD copy of 17 Again.  It was the only movie I had at home which I had not yet watched. I thought it was too much of a  teen stuff for me but I was in for a surprise.

17 Again was about Mike O'Donell (adult: played by Matthew Perry; young: played by Zac Efron), a former high school basketball superstar who missed the opportunity to land a college scholarship when his girlfriend declared that she was pregnant with his child just seconds before the big game.

Mike's life was turning out to be a total disappointment until he was given a chance to be 17 again.  He goes back to high school where he gets to know his kids better.

The movie reminds us how our failures can sometimes make us regret choices we've made or at least, make us appear to feel that way, until we realize that given another chance, we would gladly make the same choice all over again.

I never expected it but I honestly enjoyed the movie.  I had my laugh-out-loud moments and had my sniff-and-cry moments...though it's really very easy to make me cry...but still...

Although the movie stars Zac Efron, I don't think the movie is only for teenagers. It is also for every husband or wife, every dad or mom, who, in one way or another, gave up a dream or sacrificed something, for the sake of that person who mattered most to them.