It's the feast of the Immaculate Conception today, and it's Mama's birthday (so she's named Concepcion) :) 17 days to go before Christmas!

I really feel the Christmas breeze especially in the morning (kaya mahirap bumangon hehe) and I love the feeling! I also feel the beginnings of the Christmas rush thru the heavy traffic especially during weekends. There are also a lot of people in the malls, shopping for their Christmas gifts...and most probably, Divisoria is jam-packed by now. "Factory outlet" sales are everywhere, one just has to choose which would be the most sulit of all.

We're almost through with our Christmas shopping - just 3 more names that haven't been crossed out from our list (1 for whom we plan to go to U.P. this coming weekend to buy his gift, 1 for whom we just need to order the gift, and for the last 1, we don't know yet what to give him. Yaiks!).

Yesterday was also our chance to work on some details for Ethan's first birthday party on the 29th - we went to Jollibee Shangrila to finalize some details on the menu and other stuff, we've booked our cupcake supplier, booked the photographer (we got a package from Digiprint), ordered the cake (from Red Ribbon) and we just need to pick up the invitations this afternoon from Digiprint. I just need to email PJ for the details on the cupcakes. We've also ordered a pinata through Thea we just need to buy candies and small toys to fill it up. We've also completed the lootbags...excited ako e! :P
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On another note, I've started a new blog which contains the thoughts of Lola Paz. Technically, I maintain the blog but all the entries (save for the introduction) are from her journals.

Lola Paz (Paciencia Cruz) is A's maternal grandma's sister (kapatid ng lola nya) who devoted most of her life to education - she was a teacher, a school principal, and a textbook writer. Now, she's retired and spends most of her time reading voraciously and writing her journals. She started her journals in 2005 and until now, she still writes them.

As a voracious reader myself, I find her journals amusing, thought-provoking, and educating all at the same time. I especially love her stories relating to their family because you get to see her view of things.

Ever since I've laid eyes on the journals, I've always thought of translating those to blogs (and I've told A about it several times) but it's just now that I've decided to do it and already have her go signal to do so :)

Read more about her thoughts here.