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Showing posts from July, 2016

How I Celebrated 40

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As my birthday month draws to a close, please allow me to write about my 40th birthday one last time.  My 40th birthday was very special to me because despite not having my family and my closest friends around to celebrate an important milestone with, J and my new found friends in Wellington made sure that I had the best 40th birthday I could ever hope for.  And so the celebrations began a week early. On the 2nd of July, what I thought was a simple get-together to formally introduce me to the rest of the "power puff" girls turned into a surprise birthday party. Sort of. My friend E has previously mentioned about bringing my favourite cake ( ube-macapuno )for dessert, but I didn't know that there was going to be party hats and candle-blowing involved.  I was deeply touched by the girls' thoughtfulness because honestly, I can't remember the last time I had this kind of birthday party- so simple yet so heartfelt. Even my mother was so happy when she

That Weekend in Sydney

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Even those things you never dreamed of happen if you follow your heart. I say so because I never dreamed of visiting this part of the world let alone live here. But because I took the leap of faith and decided on a whim to come and live in New Zealand with the man I love, here I am seeing beautiful places that I never dreamed to see. Just like Sydney. To J it was a mere weekend getaway. To me it was the best birthday gift ever! I only became obsessed with Sydney a few months after we arrived in Wellington. I was finally only about 4 hours plane ride away from the city everyone was talking about back in London. So we planned to travel to Sydney half way through our intended year stay in Wellington. But first, we needed a visa. We did not know this as I came to New Zealand without a visa but was given one upon arrival, so I didn't do my research and just assumed that they do the same in Australia. But apparently not. Prior to any travel to Australia, British cit

40 Before 40: What happened to my list?

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Two years ago on my 38th birthday , I wanted to challenge myself so I wrote 40 things I wanted to do before I turn 40. I was very optimistic at that time that I would be able to do at least half of the things on my list. However, it's only a week before my 40th birthday and I only managed to cross off 12 things. Ha. I must admit that when I was doing my list, I was just beginning to regain my self-confidence. I was knocked down really hard you see, and when I finally picked myself up and knew that I was strong enough, I thought I could do just about anything. Duh. I think my confidence went overboard that I didn't even realise the financial implication of this list. So, it's not really a surprise that I wasn't able to do even half of the things I believed were easy to achieve.  Coming from a heartbreak at that time, I wanted to take revenge and the best revenge I could think of was to do things for myself once and for all, and p artly  to impress other people,