Month 1 Going to Month 8 in Year 18

The first week of the year is also the start of the preparations for August’s big event. And after Christmas week vacation, Mhae is back in Makati from Bicol a couple of days after New Year’s Day. She missed he Ang/Chua reunion but at least she got to spend time with her family in their new home. For the wedding preparations, I got requirements list from the parish office. We also started looking again at our guest lists and started listing ninongs and ninangs, and the entourage. Misadventures of the week are some jeepney mishaps like forgetting to pay and alighting 1 block early. I had a stomach ache since Monday, but it eventually went away. At work, Eldrich’s spent his last day as an employee to help in their family business.

Second week got a bit stressful with the scanning of papers for the Balut sale, although I hope it’s be done soon. Another quite stressful, much sadder things that happened was Venjo’s mother’s passing. Thanks to Cez, despite all that’s happened, the barkada got to visit Tita Linda’s wake. On the lighter side, I finally gave in to gathering the rest of Transformers Generations “Team Ultra Magnus”. Started with Arcee and later ordered Springer. And again at work, Chammy had her last day before her study leave. Also, Masinloc project percent progress has been small. It’s a sign that it’s almost done. The boss is getting optimistic (although I think we’re really going to start soon) with the Palanca project.

Third week was Birthday week. Church stuff, mhae and I got to sing in one of the nights during the Novena for the Feast of San Ildefonso. Didn’t get to attend the Feast Day Mass, though, because of abovementioned Palanca project and promotion problem rants by my boss. Back a few days again, I got to go to Confession before my birthday. On the day of my birthday, I heard Mass with mama and papa and mhae, and had my annual medical checkup (on-schedule for once) before going to the office with noone realizing it was my birthday. After work, I met up with mhae at waltermart and she gave me her gift (a good dark green poloshirt) on our way to her apartment before we went back to waltermart for dinner with mama&papa, ate&buds, and adette and judith. Oh, and in this week, I got Blurr (before birthday) and Kup (Saturday after). Harddrive upgrades arrived at work and I started the installation and backup trials. As for wedding preparations, with the help of mama and after some negations, mhae and I got our wedding date set—August 8, 2018. More guest list updating, then we went on with the coverage canvass (Kuya Jo vs Thad). With ate, we checked one reception option, and after that, mhae and I experienced going to a bridal fare. Room fix progress is almost negligible so that’s as much as I can say for now. In the outside world, Mayon volcano activity (and social media prominence) was the thing.

Fourth week got busy (or maybe I’m just remembering more), and was 70^th monthsary week but we didn’t really do monthsary stuff. We did, however, along with mama, the Razons, and the Conti couple, have dinner with Tita Dolly and husband. That weekend, we went to Robinson’s Place Manila to meet with renz for the ring resize. After our transaction at UCC (mhae and I finally had UCC together) and while mhae was in her class, I did some going around—to the office, nostalgia jeepney riding back to Manila, upgraded my Smart sim to LTE. The following Monday was a continuation of fulfilling things to do—finally getting a PTR (and paying a whole lot of interest and surcharge), surrendering old sodexo gift certificates for replacement, and Sun LTE sim upgrade. With my two sims upgraded, I’m finally using the 3310 3G mhae and I got a bit more than a month ago. Back one day, I got to make the best of a Grab promo wih Citibank with a total of 400 “saved” on trips including the previous weekend’s trips to and from H2O hotel to meetup with King. MOA lunch for Bon’s bday that Sunday was fun with Fortich siblings and of course, cute times with Baby Tonet. Formation Team Meeting happened (after my solo Feast Day weeknight service) and was fruitful in my point of view later in the week. And a couple of days ago, apparently, MM Core celebrated out first year anniversary with a followup meeting from previous week’s monthly meeting. Back on the things accomplished, I did deposits of 2016 and 2017 angpao Christmas cash gifts from family. Month closes today with GP asking about ring, McKinley meeting and me going straight home after, hearing Mass on St. John Bosco’s feast day, Gen’s despedida Amber dinner, and mhae and me watching the super blue blood moon. Oh, when I got home, I quite assisted Judith in getting a picture of La Luna Sangre / Ruby Moon (depending on which pop culture reference). Wow, the month turned out busy and quite productive. I do think I did get some things fixed in my life. Life’s changing in a few months. Exciting.