TOPAZ HORIZON

It's Saturday morning, Vito's finally asleep beside me on the couch. He finally fell asleep to the soothing sound of Nigella Lawson's voice. Yep, I'm watching Nigella on the TLC channel and I am drooling over her... kitchen!


It's no secret that I love Christmas, I love food and I love Nigella. That video just warms my heart. And I just love how her kitchen looks so magical with all those little points of light. Everything looks like it was sprinkled with fairy dust!

Those lights make me so excited for our first Christmas with Vito. I think I'll buy yards and yards of C7 led christmas lights and string them along all over the house. Vito will be enchanted!

P.S. Mariel, whatever happened to our cooking show???

Saw these photos from 8 months ago. And I just got nostalgic. We were so happy!
This was at Nikki's wedding and these are the glamorous people that make up our Wine Night group. Can I just point out my arm??? I was actually eating a LOT at that time because I was 4 months pregnant.

Yep, I was 4 months pregnant then. A lot has happened since... the pneumonia scare for me, magazine features for some, finding and losing love for one, heartbreak for others, a homecoming, leaving for another land for one, I gave birth to Vito and had postpartum depression, etc. A lot truly has happened in the past 8 months!

But certain things remain...

Here's to us, my darling drunks!

It's resurrected! After 2 months of ignoring my beauty and fashion blog, I've finally written a post--and I announce an exciting sale happening in less than 3 hours! Now I won't be able to go to that sale since my Friday's fully booked but I hope you get to check it out!

As for my beauty-and-fashion lover readers, do expect lots of posts from Beauty For A Living soon. It's my very own special site for all things beautiful... or would make you beautiful. Problems with acne? Expect some benzaclin reviews soon. Want to lighten skin pigmentation? I'm testing Mosbeau's whitening cream. What color's hot this month? I think it's a red October--from dresses and shoes to lipstick!

Hope you visit my revived blog! Click, click, click!

You know how some people book photo shoots for their Christmas cards? I used to giggle at them. Well, guess who just joined that silly crowd? Me!

This photo was taken by my sister, Jacqui, and it's now my Facebook profile pic. It's cute enough, I think, for photo cards but Vince isn't with us so no, can't use this. And the picture's too dark. And our outfits just won't do! Besides, by December, Vito's face is going to be much different. I guess I should just book a photo shoot in November.

Meanwhile, we're taking dozens upon dozens of shots of our little boy. This is him last Tuesday. Now, doesn't that smile just brighten your day?

So I was supposed to buy a few dresses, right? Well, I might as well set aside the money towards travel. Why? My friend Duni of Lovely Purses left a comment on that post:

"The style and fit is great, but the fabric is a bit flimsy - as I'm afraid most dresses from that company are. So choose wisely..."

So I decided to investigate! And the wonders of Internet sleuthing revealed these:






Sadly, the dresses do not look very good on real people. As you can tell from the photos above, the fabric is not nice, resulting to wrinkles, ill fit and a look that's generally, uh, cheap. Sad sad, but, Duni, thanks so much for warning me! I could've ended up with dresses that I'd never wear! And I hope you're recovering well and feeling better!

I'll definitely save the dress budget and use it for something really worth it. Like shoes. Or a bag. Or a trip with my family to somewhere far away. After all, with the new adorable addition, we're going to need extra moolah!

*photos from the fashion company's Facebook page.