Today I had to go out to run errands for trip items. I had $160 advance cash from my Citibank credit card to get stuff with. (I'm not working right now, sad... I'm on unemployment.) Anyhow, I went to the $1 Tree, Wal-mart & Ross. I got a ton of little items for the trip, batteries, sleeping pills, mini travel toothbrush (with the toothpaste already on it! I got a pack of 4 for $1.49.), tissues, razors, lint roller, face powder, quart size baggies, pepto, vitamin c, a new hair brush, wet wipes, etc. I got more than that because I also picked up some Christmas gifts, Birthday gifts, a card and gift bag for my cousin's wedding on Saturday. And household items, paper towels, etc.

My favorite store of the day was Ross. I always find good deals there. Especially on luggage. A month ago or so I picked up a medium suitcase at Ross from American Flyer for $34.00 (Retailed $70!) It was extremely light weight for a roll away suitcase. After lugging my large purple suitcase out of the closet last week, I decided I was going back to Ross and get one of the newer light weight suitcases. Most of the new luggage is being made lighter now because the airline's luggage rules have changed.

What color luggage do you use when you travel? I always try to get bold patterns or bright colors because it makes finding your luggage easier at the airport. I also always tie a bright colored ribbon onto my suitcases besides luggage tags to help identify mine more quickly! You can't imagine how many people have plain black luggage- my 1st suitcase was black & it makes it really hard to spot in baggage claim!

I found a nice large mauve suitcase at Ross for $54.00 from designer Oleg Cassini that retailed for $140.00 before! Can't beat that! I also got a pair of boot cut Levi's for $14, a cute Bongo tote bag with zipper for $8. And some panties for about $1-2 each. The hoodie, that was a bit of a splurge. It was $19, from BCBG (Retailed $52!) But I like the color of it, with the little rhinestone embellishments on the pockets & the foil logo on the back.

(Shhh... I'll pretend you guys didn't just see my underwear... lol!)
October 30th, was my cousin Chrissy's surprise bachelorette party. Most everyone had a halloween costume on. (Well, I wore my skull hoodie, haha!) There is a slideshow below with pictures from the party.

Happy Halloween! I did a little photo shoot with my girls! (Saffy, Nutmeg, Ginger, Cinnamon & Sugar). Saffy looked like a little "vampire" rat in the picture below!

I thought I would share the music mix I've made for working out. I use it when I'm running on the treadmill or walking at the park. I've linked all the songs to Amazon.com where you can preview them!

1. Move Along- The All American Rejects
2. Unwritten- Natasha Bedingfield
3. Beautiful Day- U2
4. Girlfriend- Avril Lavigne
5. Without A Fight- Hoobastank
6. Break- Three Days Grace
7. Fly Away- Lenny Kravitz
8. Fly On The Wall- Miley Cyrus
9. The Take Over, The Breaks Over- Fall Out Boy
10. Anna Molly- Incubus
11. Boys- Ashlee Simpson
12. Revolution- Jars Of Clay
13. Whyyawannabringmedown- Kelly Clarkson
14. Light Up The Sky- Yellowcard
15. Circus- Brittney Spears
16. I Write Sins Not Tragedies- Panic At The Disco
17. Face Down- The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus
18. Take Me Away- Christina Vidal
19. Don't You Know Who I Think I Am- Fall Out Boy
20. Toxic- Brittney Spears
21. It's My Life- Bon Jovi
22. Why Can't I- Liz Phair
23. Come Clean- Hilary Duff

What are your favorite songs to listen to when working out?

Today my Sugar, turns 2 years old. 2 years ago I went into Petco looking for pet rats. I ended up getting Sugar and her sister Spice. My girl is getting older. Sugar has 2 large mammary tumors and another small one starting. She also suffers from abscesses on her front paw. But, she is still enjoying life for now. This morning I had an early birthday party for her. All the girls got to enjoy some peas and applesauce. And of course, yogurt peanuts!

Happy 2nd Birthday, Sugar!

Giveaway is now over! Congrats to the winner!

We finally have a date for our wedding! F.B.'s parents were able to book the Manila Hotel for our wedding in December! His parents have booked the Champagne Salon, which is part of the Champagne Room for a buffet style dinner in the evening. We still have to set up an appointment with a judge, but we will probably have our civil ceremony at the hotel as well, earlier in the evening. We will also be staying 2 nights at the Manila Hotel, as a wedding gift from F.B.'s parents. So exciting!

And, because I've mentioned it before, I want to do a "wedding date" blog giveaway!

I just ordered a gorgeous necklace from KYM Jewelry on Etsy to wear at my cousins wedding & my own wedding. It's made with two gorgeous Swarovski pearls & a crystal spacer on a delicate chain. I chose white for my own necklace. I think it will go along nicely with my other wedding accessories & dress purse.

In celebration of our wedding; I would like to order & give away one of these lovely elegant necklaces for one of you. You can customize your necklace with the color pearl of your choice. ( Swarovski Pearl Color Chart Here.) The necklace is perfect for any special occasion.

To enter this giveaway you will need to do 2 things, by leaving a comment on this blog entry:

1. Guess the date of our wedding in December.
2. Leave the color pearl of your choice. (Optional)

Remember anyone can comment, you don't have to be registered on blogger!

Whoever guesses the correct date or guesses the closest will win the giveaway! In the event 2 or more people guess the same date. I will use a random number generator to determine the winner!

This giveaway is not restricted to the United States, so my international readers can enter! And, family & friends are not excluded from this giveaway- as they haven't been told the exact date yet either!

The deadline to enter this giveaway will be: November 7th, 2009

Our wedding date will be revealed, when the winner is announced!

KYM Jewelry also has another website here!

Edited to add: This post gets a ton of hits since it was written 5 years ago. I know it's not current anymore, and I'm sure there are a bunch of new malls in Philippines since I wrote this. 

F.B. and I hang out at alot of malls when I visit the Philippines, so I thought I would share some of the malls I've visited.

The malls are humongous in the Philippines! They stretch for several miles and are usually more than 4 stories. Supermarkets, Movie Theaters, Ice Skating Rinks, Arcades, Gyms, etc; are usually present in most of the malls. Some like Mall of Asia even have IMAX and musuems.

Shopping can generally be inexpensive (Peso to US Dollar) if you stick to Philippines products and not imported items. (USA, etc.) Electronics tend to be more expensive than the USA even though most are made over in Asia. (Which I don't really understand?)

Buying groceries and eating out are also inexpensive. A nice sit down restaurant like Gerry's Grill might cost less than $20 for two. Fast Food places like Chow King, Tokyo Tokyo can even be about $6 or less for two people to eat.

Clothing prices are not bad. I've seen t-shirts for P150 before ($3) and I bought a 'Pepsi' & 'Coke' t-shirt last year for about P400 ($8). Buying a Philippine magazine will usually cost around $2-3. Imported US magazines are much pricer.

Movie theaters are also less expensive. It's about $2 for an adult ticket. (Compared to $10-13 for a movie ticket in the USA!) F.B. & I see alot of movies when I visit!

Here are the top 10 malls I enjoy in the Philippines (Luzon):

1. Mall of Asia














2. Sta. Lucia East Grandmall














3. SM Marikina Mall














4. Market Market














5. Robinson's Place Metro East














6. Trinoma














7. Mega Mall














8. Glorietta Mall














9. Greenbelt














10. Greenhills














11. Robinson's Galleria















I'm really bad at math and not so good with currency conversion. But I find Peso Bills really easy to use. The exchange rate is usually around 46-50 Pesos to $1 USD. It always helps to check the exchange rate before traveling to know how much you will get for your money. Below are approxmiates of how much the Peso Bill is to the US Dollar.

50 Peso Bill = $1

100 Peso Bill = $2

200 Peso Bill = $4

500 Peso Bill = $10

1000 Peso Bill = $20 (Largest Bill)

Picture of some of the Peso Bills I still have in my wallet:















Yes I did put the word 'void' in transparent letters over the bills, silly me haha! Why? Because I didn't know if I should take a picture of real currency, lol!

There's also a 20 Peso Bill but that is like change. I'm really bad at using the coins actually. F.B. has tried to teach me several times but they work a bit different than US coins so I always get confused. I usually let him pay if we need to use the coins!

F.B. wrote me a list before of the coins though it's still confusing to me!

.05 = 5 cents (Little Coin)

.10 = 10 cents (Little Coin)

.25 = 25 cents (Little Coin)

1 Peso = 1 Peso (Big Coin)

5 Pesos = 5 Pesos (Big Coin)

10 Pesos = 10 Pesos (Big Coin)

NOTE: To see blog posts similar to this one check out:

Foreign Food Cravings
My Favorite Philippine Products

I ordered this gorgeous wood engraved frame from Personalization Mall.com. I also ordered a few more as gifts for family. I think it's absolutely gorgeous! (They shipped out my order fast too.) The frames were only $18 each and you can customize it with whatever text you want. The wood engraving turned out beautiful!

I chose part of the love verse for mine:

I also ordered 3 cute t-shirts for my Philippines trip from Aeropostle. I love the smile face tee!
Smiley Face Graphic Tee
Stacked Logo Graphic Tee
Fleur-De-Lis Graphic Tee
In Philippine updates: F.B. & his family are slowly getting the house cleaned up & back to normal. F.B. says the house is like a puzzle right now, that things aren't in their places. He went to Dad's Ultimate Buffet for his 30th birthday (Which is also part of Saisaki buffet.) I told him to eat alot of sushi & tempura for me, hehe! I love Saisaki Buffet! Their California Roll has mango in it! So good, yum! We got to talk on the phone on his birthday. And Sunday he was at Mall of Asia again at an internet cafe so we got to talk online again too around 1:30am (Philadelphia time).

F.B.'s father is supposed to come home November 15th. His father is a ship captain & is only home a few months out of the year. He brings shipments of fruits, veggies, flowers, cars, etc; to other countries, (USA included.) Earlier this year he was taking shipments of fruit from Coasta Rica to Philadelphia. But because of the strict rules, he wasn't allowed to leave the ship yard so we didn't get to meet up.

I had the craziest dream last night. I dreamed I arrived in the Philippines and pretty much forgot to pack anything & everything! I opened my suitcase and there was a few clothing items scattered around in my suitcase and I turned to F.B. and went, "I don't know how this happened... but I forgot to pack pretty much everything!" In my dream, I ended up calling my Mom with a list of things I needed and told her to use my credit card to ship my clothes & stuff to me. What a weird dream! I don't think I've ever forgotten to pack, and if I did forget something I could always buy it in the Philippines!

Happy 30th Birthday Baby, I love you! I wish I could be with you on your birthday this year, like I was last year. (I'm sure you'll appreciate me sharing all these pictures of you being dorky too, haha!) It was nice talking on the phone with you. *MWAH* I love you.