My Favorite Birthday Greeting

I have a birthday cake from my favorite niece.

And then she thought she'd blow my birthday candle for me.

Except the cake's just too distracting! Makes the candle-blowing and birthday-singing such a hassle (did you not feel the annoyance?).

And then she went on to have a slice.

My fave birthday greeting today! Thanks Nischie. :) See you soon! Candy land, candy land. :)

Dear Twitter

Dear Twitter,

You sneaky, sneaky bird. You with your seemingly harmless, too simplistic, probably boring platform. You that I scoffed at for Facebook, dismissed as an unworthy competitor. You that I have now fallen for.

I was wrong about you. All I had to do was give you a real shot, not the kind where I set you up and do nothing. Sure, it can be lonely at times in the Twitterverse when your friends are at the double digits only, and a mere handful are actively tweeting. But the loneliness is a fair trade off for peace and quiet, and through you I can tweet to my heart's delight without feeling TMI to a universe of 500 people. Yes, I know that my updates are visible to the entire planet. Because really, protecting updates is missing the tweeting point. But it still feels like my own little private space, and I have yet to find the optimal number of followers where loneliness and quietness hit that sweet equilibrium point.

In the meantime, I have my inner circle of lovely tweeters (that I fondly prefer to call tweetiepies) to keep me company in Twitterville: @CoNVERSExADDiCt, @fatziibebeh, @liaalu and the newest addition, @renmaldita. I've been following some brilliant and fabulous people too, most noteworthy of which are: Allison Winn Scotch, Alyssa Milano, Paulo Coelho and Neil Gaiman. Also, Mr. and Mrs. Kutcher, but who doesn't follow them? And while I make it a point not to follow celebrities who don't provide substantial tweets, I've made the exception for Wolverine and Gambit. Obviously, I'm a big fan.

And I have to say that you aren't as simple as I thought. What with all the new things I learned from you such as retweeting, URL shorteners, Seesmic Desktop and a whole lot more. I'd like to think I'm no longer a plain vanilla tweeter, who even made a risky change in username (bye-bye, @ytsirhc).

While I ever get tired of you? I don't want to make promises I cannot keep but for now it seems, I am officially a tweeting kinda girl. :D

XOXO,

Ymae the Trinket

Happy Mother's Day!

Hundreds of dewdrops to greet the dawn,
Hundreds of bees in the purple clover,
Hundreds of butterflies on the lawn,
But only one mother the wide world over.
~ George Cooper

A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie.
~Tenneva Jordan

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there. May this day remind you of all the great things that comes with motherhood and how irreplaceable you are in your children's lives.

My special shout out goes to two mothers in particular...

My own mother who is the best mother in the world. With her unwavering support and unconditional love, I can truly say that I lucked out in the mother category. It was sad to see her off on Mother's Day of all days, which just goes to prove that at five or twenty-five the fact remains: I still want my Mama with me always. All her kids do, apparently.

And my little sister, who is an equally great mother, and for that I will always be proud of her.

You know I so, so love you both. Don't cry when you read this or I'll mock you incessantly. Especially you sistie. :P

Hi Sis! :D

Nineteen years ago today, my mother gave birth to my first ever real live doll. HAPPY BIRTHDAY SISTIE! In honor of her 19th birthday, I give 19 reasons why my sister is the best:

19. She cleans up after the mess I create (in her room). And all I get is a frown and an “argh!” or a "Sis!" Wee!

18. I’m gonna be her sole maid of honor someday (yey!).

17. I can totally impersonate her over the phone. And vice versa.

16. She cries when I return to Manila after a vacation back home (postpartum or otherwise, hehe). Reminds me of the time I deliberately make her cry when she was a baby because it sounds cute (can you say H. B.?). :D

15. She's the greatest Ymae mocker ever. In a cute way. And only she gets to do that.

14. Because really no matter what she says, she can never out-tease me. *haughty laugh* :D

13. She’s my fave textmate/grocery buddy/cooking assistant buddy/drunk bitch buddy/anything buddy. We have games and pranks and stuff ;P

12. She's the one I share the most private jokes with. With favorite lines and all. Because she totally gets my brand of humor.

11. She’s the best and funnest video subject ever. Want proof? :P

10. She can give my crafty/creative prowess a run for it’s money.

9. She gives me her stuff. Even stuff she says she won’t give. Most of the time, she really can't say no to me. Like 99.99% of the time. Hehehe. :D

8. Someday, she’s gonna give me one of her kids if I ask. Sure she’ll say no initially… but eventually she'll give in. Just like when I ask for a top/accessory of hers that I like ;) Hahaha.

7. I nearly killed her twice, and she’s not scared of me still. Not even avoiding me. How cool is that?!

6. She seriously thinks I’m Santa. She still insists I be her Santa until now (but then, it's Nischa's turn now).

5. She's prettier than me but doesn't rub it in. ;)

4. She takes care of the folks for me and TJ now. Since we're far away and all.

3. She’s Nischa’s mom!

2. And she’s infinitely a better mother than I can ever be at my age. She's an absolutely spectacular mom. *beams with pride*

1. Her sweetness is top-notch and one of a kind.

For these and many, many more reasons, she simply is the best. And I couldn't have asked for a better sister. I love her to bits!!! <3