i do.. i do believe in miracles!

however tragic last week was, this week was equally as miraculous. after having practically my whole life pulled out from underneath me in a day, the universe has somehow made itself right again.

i'm having coffee with my mom last tuesday and the cellphone that i'm temporarily using rings. i answer it and it's my old school's secretary saying that someone recovered my bag and what's left of it. ms. naomi excitedly gives me the number of the person to call and my initial reaction is "this is a joke, right?". anyway, i call and apparently a waitress sees my bag left a table where she works. she picks it up and calls every number on my stuff hoping to find someone that could track me down. it takes about a week from when i lost my bag to do so but i got all my important things like my IDs, my license and a couple of my personal stuff in my bag back.

the next day, someone also gives me a call saying that he picked up mischief and took her in. he saw the poster that i put up all around the neighborhood and on the main street outside out house and decides to give her back to us. he returned her smelling good, with a new collar and a leash and looking like she's been fed quite a lot the past week she was missing.

i just couldn't believe it! one miracle after another. it sounds like a fairytale but it's absolutely true. i think i'm truly blessed. it sounds amazing how my things somehow made it back to me and i can only credit God for being gracious enough to pull me out of sorrow.

when it rains it pours... :( lunchtime. had my entire bag taken from me right under my nose. i had just come from the airport so most everything near and dear to me was in there. i'm wallet-less, cellphone-less, money-less, i've lost a makeup brush i stashed in my bag, my favorite lipgloss, my ipod, my ATM card and the new credit card stan gave me for valentines. i spent the whole afternoon canceling cards and digesting my loss. dinnertime, i come home to find my pet of 10 years missing. mischief didn't come to greet me at the door so i asked the helper to go get her. only then do they discover that she's not in the house anymore. we look outside the village hoping she snuck out while the gate was open but to no avail.

devastated is an understatement. the life has literally been sucked out of me.

stan was never a fan of valentine's day and neither am i so when Vday was caught in between my makeup class schedule in manila, i didn't even think twice about having to spend it apart from stan. he was already making a trip to manila a few days before Vday so i'd see him for a few days there and by the time Vday came, i'd just have a few more days till i'd be done with the course and fly back to cebu.

surprise surprise when stan said to go home for valentine's day weekend. he even made a production out of it by dressing up as touristy as we could and sneaking into shangri la to unwind at the beach, since i was complaining about not having seen the sky or anything remotely resembling nature in manila for the past 2 weeks. after that, we'd indiscreetly check into marco polo and spend the night ordering room service instead of stressing out over traffic and crowds since i was complaining about that too.

i have to say, he's got so many surprises up his sleeve lately, it's so hard to walk around without heart shaped eyes and a silly grin plastered across my face all the time. i'm so happy i'm going to get to spend the rest of my life with such a wonderful person. :)

so this is what it feels like to follow a dream

i just completed my fourth day of my 13 day makeup course and boy! do i have a lot to learn! it's nice to meet other people who share the same passion i do. i have a great teacher who isn't stingy with tips and provides us with a great learning environment. we have a whole arsenal of makeup and brushes to play with and new faces to practice on everyday.

the first day was frustrating, i couldn't believe it took me almost 2 hours to perfect just putting on foundation. the second day almost made me cry because my model looked like she had bruises instead of a contoured face. the third day was a disaster when my model's foundation started to turn dark orange because she had acidic skin. but what can you do right but learn from your mistakes, push on and do better the next day, right? so my inner sacred hearter tells me.

today was better as my teacher nodded in approval as i produced a perfect maquillage du jour, otherwise known as "day makeup" on my model. (yes, my school goes by snooty french terms). tomorrow will be night makeup and i've asked a friend to model thus upping the pressure by a notch. there's so much to learn and i'm trying to drink it all in. i do feel pretty much myself again, working with my hands and with colors and textures. i go home excited to try again even if i failed miserably at the task assigned.


yay! :)