1st thought: cozy, rain.
2nd thought: yay, my class may be suspended.
3rd thought: when will this stop? I need to do a lot of things…
4th thought: the flood’s getting higher…people will be stranded
5th thought (and when the water starts coming in): oh my...this is not happening…
Reaching thigh-high: scared for my bags. scared for our things. scared for the house. Finally: scared for our lives.
I was preparing my most precious belongings and thinking how I can haul them along. Then we had to leave everything, just us and our wellbeing intact, the most important thing. It’s a wonder when something this big happens to anyone and for a split second you think you can lose everything, is when your perspective becomes so much clearer.
Please pray for so many families who have lost so much.

Autumn

The crisp in the air, the wafting spice, that certain flavor of fall, *sigh. I miss wearing my coats and boots. I love dressing up for this season.

I miss Downers Grove. I miss Chicago. I miss autumn. I’ve decided last year that my favorite season is fall. There’s something about it, a certain melancholy that I find beautiful and ironically, reassuring. Reassuring of things ending with such grandeur. I love autumn colors, how somehow things are more intense, more vivid.

And how somehow, people reminisce more.

Matthew 7:7

“Ask and you shall receive, Seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks, finds and to him who knocks will be opened.”

Wow...

...now I love Beyonce all the more.

Assad Mounser

I love visual stimulations. I get inspirations from all sorts of design aesthetics. I’ve always been drawn to soft palettes, the sort of non-colors: creamy pinks, grayish greens and lavenders, muted yellows and soft blues. In interior designing I always try emulate the French Country Design Philosophy and shabby chic sentiments. I’m obsessed with Rococo Art. I’ve always been described as a girly-girl by my family and friends and they know when something is frilly and truly “Isabel.”

But when it comes to accessories, I’m loud and proud. I love chunky pieces: Something edgy yet feminine at the same time. In a way, that is what I try to achieve in my own designs. I adore whimsy, femininity and colors. I love the Alice in Wonderland feel.

One of my favorite accessory designers is ASSAD MOUNSER. I love her over-the-top aesthetics that work out as a whole. They are a hodgepodge of different charms and stones that you won’t normally think would look good together, but as a whole they blend beautifully. I just love the contrasts, the layering, the femininity yet edginess at the same time, the bursts of colors and textures. The A/W 09 collection is amazing. Very, very inspiring.

METAPHORS

When you are 25 (and a woman), you are too young to fear ageing yet too old to be too carefree about it…

This thought suddenly struck me while I was looking at my preserved bridal bouquet in a rather fetching wood and glass case. Wood and glass case. I didn’t want to think about it. But thoughts like words, lead to another until you come up with something totally unrelated yet expected. I’m a bit creeped out. My preserved bouquet in all its splendid beauty somehow looks…anomalous. Like an over-botoxed face. Everyone who can see it will know it's not natural. That it's not how it's suppoused to be. I’ve thought about its original snow white appearance and freshness on my wedding day and remarked on the similarity of its form in the glass case today. It’s ironic but the similarities actually enhance the differences. It is my bouquet, yet it isn’t. But somehow, I'm still able to see traces of it's former splendor.

I’ve thought about the extra honeymoon trip we could have spent on rather.

I still love it though. I fancy myself that I made a right decision of preserving the only bouquet that I would remember all my life. After all, I only had a few hours for a decision before it wilted out. Some things are meant to fade away to oblivion. We understand that truly, but somehow we want to hold on so fastidiously to something we know will eventually slip away. We grasp and hold on to it so fiercely as if that would keep things from going away, as they always do.

As they always will.

I'm so excited for today...

...I can't sleep. =D 2.36 a.m. a few more hours of waiting...

What I'm loving now...

My hubby's i-just-love-you-gift. =)I'm in love with the both of you.

ROSES, just because....

Sometimes, the littlest things are the sweetest ones...

laa-dee-dah

I feel like I have been running around in circles the past few days. I start out raging and full of purpose only to find myself back at the starting line. I am a big ball of fire bouncing off from wall to wall, full of vigor but really no direction and exact intention.
I have been feeling this way the past few days. I have so much to do yet I can’t seem to concentrate on my to-do list. I end up doing so many things, none of which is in my long list. I realized when you’re a grown-up (or at least forced to be one) you spend more time worrying than actually doing things. You spend more time planning, managing your life and less time dreaming. Left to my own devices, I’m quite capable to be adult-y until I let go of my thought reins and my mind wanders off somewhere beyond me.
Hello, earth to Isabel: Back to the starting line.

The morning after...

randomness: weekends should always be three days...

Bag crush*

*Sigh...

I am annoyed and disgusted. I never really liked talking about current events outside my life in this blog. But I couldn’t help but feel appalled with the things being said about the Chavit-Tiongson beating case. As if it’s the woman’s fault she was beaten to a bloody pulp. I was reading a popular showbiz site and was so shocked with the readers’ comments. Even if she was at fault: no one, absolutely no one has the right to lift a finger and hurt another person. I first noticed this while watching News last night; the reporters were delivering the news with slight smiles on their faces. I am shocked this is just being treated as a sort of entertainment for some people. This would definitely not be the case in another place. Still goes to show us our country is very patriarchal and sadly, still behind when it comes to women’s rights. You get beaten up and it ends up being your fault. Men get away with the same offense and people just shrug their shoulders as if to say, “lalaki eh.” It shouldn’t be even a case of who’s lying or if they were really together when this happened or not. The focus should be beating another person, all the more a woman, to a bloody pulp which is plain wrong. No excuses, no reasons, no pretexts.

No one is entitled to another person’s life.

Coming soon...

I'm about to finish my new Noshka line. Please visit charmed life by the beadbar soon.