August 27, 2010

Aloha Friday #1

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Dear Me,

It's Aloha Friday over at An Island Life. Hosted by Kailani from Hawaii,


Aloha Friday is the day that we take it easy and look forward to the weekend. So I thought that on Fridays I would take it easy on posting, too.

I'll ask a simple question for you to answer. Nothing that requires a lengthy response. If you'd like to participate, just post your own question on your blog and leave your link below. Don't forget to visit the other participants! It's a great way to make new bloggy friends!

During your free time, what do you love to do? Do you read a book, go shopping, hook up with friends, etc?

I will definitely read a book. I accumulate books faster than I can read them. My tbr is forever growing and I am absolutely wishing I have a big library where to store them since all my bookshelves are full already.
August 25, 2010

Wordless Wednesday: Two Adorable Kids

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August 21, 2010

On My Wishlist #1

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Dear Me,

Like every book-loving person out there, I not only have overflowing bookshelves and towering book piles scattered all over the place but also a legion of lists of books I want to read, own and collect. I have them listed in a database then I got bored and moved on. And because the desire and the restlessness of liking a book and yet it is not available makes the urge to have it in my hands all the more exciting and frustrating at the same time. The wishlist started with just five books and I didn't even know how many they were. I even lost a number of them because I had them scribbled in a tissue paper from a coffee shop, noted them in a grocery receipt, typed them in the notes tab from my pda and worst of them all, jotted in the palm of my hand.



On My Wishlist is a fun weekly event hosted by Book Chick City and runs every Saturday. It's where I list all the books I desperately want but haven't actually bought yet. They can be old, new or forthcoming.

My book wishlist does not only comprise my books-to-covet but also includes the books-I-want-to-covet for my two-year old reader. As much as I am a self-confessed book-lover, children's books are not my forte. But when Miguel started holding and flipping the pages of my paperbacks and hardcovers, I realized that I might need to start liking and reading the books meant for his age. After all, I want him to grow up enjoying every book that comes his way.

With that, here's my wishlist:



Although this book is more appropriate for ages 4-6 years old, I think there's no harm in reading this to him and explaining about the ill effects of throwing trash in the ocean. He practically knows what trash is and what this body of water is like. I think he will love pointing the beautiful creatures in the ocean.

I Can Save the Ocean:
The Little Green Monster Cleans Up the Beach


authored by Alison Inches and
illustrated by Viviana Garofoli

published on March 9, 2010 by Simon & Schuster

hardcover, 24 pages

children's book

Book Synopsis:
Max the Little Green Monster is a cute, furry green monster that loves the outdoors, especially the beach! But Max and his friends don't like cleaning up after themselves and after a picnic on the shore, they leave a big mess behind and go scuba diving. While Max is excited to meet lots of new ocean-swimming friends from crabs to colorful fishes to ink-squirting squids, when he learns how his carelessness and littering may have harmed the beautiful ocean, the Little Green Monster goes on a quest to clean and protect the beach and finds out what it means to be environmentally green.

Kids can join Max the Little Green Monster's journey to environmental awareness and learn tips on how they can become little green monsters themselves. The interior pages of this book will be printed on 100% post-consumer waste recycled paper that's FSC-certified.




Knowing Frances Mayes was an accident. Thanks to her book-turned-movie with the same title (Under The Tuscan Sun), I would not have hunted and read the book sooner and discovered that both were equally beautifully written. If not for the movie (which I loved, by the way), I would not have known the joy of reading her other works. For that, I have to thank my hubby most of all, for bringing this movie into my attention.

I cannot get enough of Mayes' chronicles about Tuscany and her enchanting experiences there. I am truly envious.

Every Day In Tuscany: Seasons Of An Italian Life

authored by Frances Mayes

published on March 9, 2010 by Broadway Books

hardcover, 320 pages

travel memoir

Book Synopsis:
In this sequel to her New York Times bestsellers Under the Tuscan Sun and Bella Tuscany, the celebrated "bard of Tuscany" (New York Times) lyrically chronicles her continuing, two decades-long love affair with Tuscany's people, art, cuisine, and lifestyle.

Frances Mayes offers her readers a deeply personal memoir of her present-day life in Tuscany, encompassing both the changes she has experienced since Under the Tuscan Sun and Bella Tuscany appeared, and sensuous, evocative reflections on the timeless beauty and vivid pleasures of Italian life. Among the themes Mayes explores are how her experience of Tuscany dramatically expanded when she renovated and became a part-time resident of a 13th century house with a stone roof in the mountains above Cortona, how life in the mountains introduced her to a "wilder" side of Tuscany—and with it a lively engagement with Tuscany's mountain people. Throughout, she reveals the concrete joys of life in her adopted hill town, with particular attention to life in the piazza, the art of Luca Signorelli (Renaissance painter from Cortona), and the pastoral pleasures of feasting from her garden. Moving always toward a deeper engagement, Mayes writes of Tuscan icons that have become for her storehouses of memory, of crucible moments from which bigger ideas emerged, and of the writing life she has enjoyed in the room where Under the Tuscan Sun began.

With more on the pleasures of life at Bramasole, the delights and challenges of living in Italy day-to-day and favorite recipes, Every Day in Tuscany is a passionate andinviting account of the richness and complexity of Italian life.




I always have a thing for crime fiction with suspense and thrill to boot. Because of this, I am always in the look-out for new authors (at least for me) to excite me. The synopsis seemed interesting enough for me to include this in my wishlist.

The Dante Killings: A Thriller

authored by David Hewson

published on April 27, 2010 by Random House

paperback, 544 pages

police procedural thriller

Book Synopsis:
On a warm, golden evening in Rome, celebrities and paparazzi gather at the Villa Borghese as a legendary director premieres his long-anticipated film version of Dante’s Inferno. But minutes later the scene is chaos: A man lies dead, the film’s star is missing, and a priceless relic has vanished.

As the premiere shifts locations—from Rome to San Francisco—detective Nic Costa finds himself on U.S. shores for the first time, charged with protecting a trove of rare Italian artworks and artifacts, as well as an American film actress, Maggie Flavier. When a killer indeed strikes, and with Flavier in danger, Costa races to unravel the chilling clues that connect Dante’s nine circles of Hell to the shattering revelations of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. But he may be too late. For a cunning plot is closing in around Costa, guided by a poet’s ancient vision of sin and punishment and a killer’s genius for terror.
August 21, 2010

La Bella Vita

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Dear Me,

I simply got bored with blogging.

But being bored did not mean forgetting about this hobby altogether. Normally, being bored for me means I need to do something new or create something out of it.

And I came to switching to a new blog.

La Bella Vita, which means in Italian, "the beautiful life."



I chose the title because I believed that no matter how things came to be, I'm still living a life that I want and that I can live it the way I want it in the future. Right now, I am happy and for me, life is beautiful as it can be.

On the course of creating this new blog, I decided to import the contents of my old personal blog and consolidate the entries with my book blog. I have been blogging since 2003 and just simply abandoning everything will be bothersome (literally) in the future.

After migrating the old entries to this blog, I searched for a nice, refreshing template online. It took me hours to find the perfect one.

I did not tweak much with the html (or xml, whichever it was) for incorporating them was much easier these days. Typically, it is the sidebar that needs tweaking. Actually, you just add the so-called "gadgets" or widgets and arrange them in the order that you want them. This time though, I am shooting for less so as not to make the sidebar too crowded.

With the feeling of having a new blog, I also made the decision of creating new accounts in Twitter, Nuffnang, Entrecard and Feedburner.

I still have not updated my entries since last month since I have been busy in the previous months. Since June, we flew to Hongkong and Cebu for a family vacation. In-between, I tend to my duties as a mom to an energetic two-year old boy and with no house help around, chores and running errands never seem to get crossed out in my to-do list. Keeping a tight and orderly ship is an OC habit (Now, I'm admitting that that I belong to the club) of mine. I think most moms are. :)

Next month, we will be flying to Singapore and have the time of our lives again. Although it will be my second time around to visit Singapura, it will be my mom's and toddlers' first time to step foot in that tiny yet prosperous city-state. Also, hubby's coming home in a few days from overseas (he's an OFW) and the possibility of riding in a plane again that will bring us back again in Cebu (he's a true-blue Cebuano) is not so far from happening. He will also hop in the plane to Singapore with us. Woohoo!

There are so many things I want to write about but I'll reserve that in the next few days.

Ciao.

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