A month or two ago, I was ‘web wandering’ searching for air fare promos, hotel promos and cards direct when I stumbled across something mentioning Koolred, an Asia-based travel social networking site. I guess I was caught with the cool name. I love the concept of being able to connect with people with similar interests and browsing Koolred’s shared travel stories, photos is just wonderful. It’s like being able to travel without leaving your desk. They also hold contests regularly and last time they were running the Asian Food Review Contest.

Since I love to write-blog and eat, why not join? I submitted three short food reviews. I was not really expecting to place and have forgotten about the contest until I got an email a few weeks ago. The KoolRed team said I won! Wow! I just couldn’t believe that my Khmer Food @ Trasak Paem actually won, among hundreds of entries! Lolz! I truly love this little Phnom Penh restaurant and Khmer cuisine and I guess it showed in the review. And they said I won a two night stay for two persons at a luxury hotel in Bali – Alila Manggis.

I wasn’t about to believe the prize, that I actually won, till I actually had the proof. Lol. Sorry I’m just OC like that. Anyway, last April 13, something came by mail. People from Air Asia and KoolRed are really fast. I really have the voucher. Which also includes some discounts on the hotel services!

Yay! I guess this is exciting. My first time to actually win something. {Not counting the times I joined binggo games in our town when I was a kid..} I was actually wanting to get the hotel stay in Bangkok prize but hey! I haven’t been to Bali and this would be the best excuse to go..

When will I go? I have yet to decide and plan. I have a lot to do this year, and towards the end of the year, I’ll be going to Manila and Bicol again, so maybe early next year. Before the voucher expires hahaha! To KoolRed and Alila Hotels, a big thanks.

I’m really itching to go on a lovely, relaxing holiday. While I’m usually the type to travel the backpacker way, sometimes I also crave some luxurious, pampered travel. Perhaps this is a pipe dream, but I choose to think otherwise. Who knows? I work hard, hubby works hard so to be truthful we could make it happen…Have a dream vacation, in an awesome, remote, beautiful location and have villa holidays. That would be heavenly.

Where do I want to have this opulent holiday? My easy answer would be Europe, particularly Spain. I am a Filipino and for some reason I feel a unique affinity with all things Spanish and I want to see and travel this place. The Philippines is an old Spanish colony so some of our language, habits, cuisine share a lot of similar characteristics with the Spanish. In our region we even count in Spanish! And if those aren’t enough reasons, well another reason I wanna visit Spain is that I’m a huge Rafael Nadal fan, in fact I am a fan of the who Spanish armada {tennis players}! So who knows next year I might be searching for villas in Spain and taking off?

I’ve been mostly blurbing. Not much informative posts recently, mostly personal stuff but then again this is my blog and the main reason it exists is for me to update friends and relatives on what’s happening to us while were living away from them. I did just blog that we had a long holiday and now were back to the usual grind.

Things have been crazily hectic for me yesterday and today. Chinkee’s birthday was last week and we were supposed to have a little party in school but since it was holiday we decided to have it today, the 19th. So since yesterday I had been busy preparing food. I also had to rush and buy the stuff we needed since most stores were just open yesterday.  It was almost 8 pm last night when we got to buy her birthday cake.

Now I’m just tired and want to lie down. To my horror, actually since that’s what I’ve been doing last week. I also had some news from my sister, she tells me I’m supposed to be her matron of honor on her wedding. Now that is a reason for me to make a mad dash to diet, exercise and whatnot to loose the extra jiggly bits. Thankfully, I still have a grace period of 8 months. But for the life of me, I don’t get it why she’ll have her wedding in January. Everyone is fat after December, especially me.

Hahahaha. And you know what I did last night? Browse online for bodystockings and shapewear, I could use. Yes, I really need some therapy.

Am I vain?  Maybe. I like fashion, clothes, shoes and all. I don’t like looking losyang at all. I mean, just because you’re married or you’re a stay-at home mom or you’ve gained weight, doesn’t mean you have to look bad. I always believe its all about making an effort. I’m not saying you should go ahead and wear stilettos {well, you can if you want to anyway} while scrubbing your bathroom clean, I’m just saying you have to look nice too.

via Photorack.net

Sometimes just letting it go and look drab can get really tempting. I mean why should I primp up when no one sees me at home anyway. But the thing is I feel good too when I look well. And if I’m not in the mood, I just scour the web for be beautiful videos which never fails to inspire me to again make the effort. Also, I think how you look outside reflects how you feel about yourself, which in turn influences how people perceive you.

I certainly don’t want to be perceived as a lousy and dreary person so although I may not be model-like beautiful {or thin, bwahahaha!}, it still helps being presentable. I also think its a girl thing to shop and dress up. This activities never fails to brighten me up. Sure, some might say, ‘what a vain’ person! But who cares, there really should be time to pamper and take care of yourself. Personally, I have to know my limits though, especially when it comes to shopping. Lol. There’s always the danger that I would go overboard, so a budget must be set.

Whilst I’m typing this, it suddenly occurred to me, maybe I should go to some beauty schools! Hahaha. Nah, it was just a fleeing thought.

I’ve been doing some self-auditing and we figured its high time we go into a mega thrift mode. Having savings is a priority. I mean, a definite portion of our income will be set aside from savings, not just the excess. Thankfully, hubby is really good with handling money so he keeps me in line. I think its a wise thing to save and invest while you can still work.

We also have a lot of big purchases in the offing, so I wanna have some cash handy. And in the next two years, were rebuilding our house here in Phnom Penh. Nothing grand, just something ‘liveable’ and sturdy hehe.. We bought the lot a year after we got married and thank God for hubby’s insight in buying this piece of lot. It’s located well within the city, in a safe and accessible neighborhood, very near the market. The only problem is the access road which is small. But its a prime location which we bought for almost a pittance and can you imagine that last year someone wants to buy it from us for more than 10x its original selling price? I think its a great investment and we’ll be building a much better house on it with a couple more rooms to accommodate guests and a home office for me.

After were done with this, we have plans of purchasing another place in the suburbs. Phnom Penh is growing exponentially, it won’t be long when the city would be like bursting in its seams so we really want to have a place to settle in, have a small garden, sunshine, a lot less chaos and noise. Sort of like a retirement home and we want to save for that early and buy it at least while we could still afford it.

Wouldn’t it be just awesome to walk out your back door and see this view…

So with all these big expenses were planning we both have to work more, save more and invest some. I’m thinking on investing I’m not sure yet which kind. Should I go for real estate, penny stock picks, high yield {but high risk} investments? All this would be given ample thought and research of course. For now, I’m quite excited. Lol! That might be hard to believe but the prospect of seeing something solid out of the work you put in is exciting and very gratifying. Wish us luck!

Image via Photorack.Net

Yes, I have another obsession. Home decor. At least for now I limit the fascination/obsession to obsessively browsing sites featuring home decor items I currently dig. lol! So what do I have a thing for now? Decorative wall clocks! Who says, your wall clocks have to be boring? Take for instance, this totally unique wall clock: