My Valentine's Day Nails

I am not big on nail art as I don't have the talent, but there are events that calls for special nail art - Christmas and Valentine's Day. I was able to create simple nail art last Christmas, but wasn't able to share it here on the blog as I became very busy and my netbook suddenly gave up on me, so I told myself I will not let Valentine's Day pass by without sharing a special manicure. Well, it's been a week since VDay, but it is still the love month, so here was what I wore last hearts day:



I hoped to create hearts and other elaborate yet easy designs, but I just can't get it right, so I ended up with a very simple design. I went back to doing ombre nails, featuring two pink nail polishes. For this I used OMG Nail Polish in First Date and OMG Crystal Sand Nail Polish in Quartz. If you don't know how to make the ombre nail design, all you need are sponge (a lot of nail art enthusiasts use make up sponge, but for this I used the ordinary sponge used in soaping the dishes) and sticky tape (either scotch tape or masking tape) to wrap around your fingertips for easy clean up. Just cut a reasonable sponge size, brush a small amount of nail polish across it (two lines - one for each color) and dab the sponge on your nails, until you get the desired ombre effect.

Some would go for a different route - paint all their nails with the base the color and dab the sponge with the second color halfway through their nails. Either way is okay, just go with what you think works best for you. As for me, I decided to swatch both colors on the sponge and work on my nails one at a time.

As a topcoat, I used Christmas Polka by Caress Nail Polish... and a little bit of an experiment, I applied a coat of matte top coat after a few days and it looked great, too.

Ombre nails doesn't need to be just two colors; you can work with more colors if you want, as long as you go for the lightest shade to the darkest. Next time, I will go for three.

* Jenn *

Valentine's Date with Mom and Sis

Whoops... that was a very long break from blogging, and although I don't really have to explain, I still feel the need to apologize. I wasn't able to continue the story about our Mindanao trip last December, and I fear it still has to wait as I don't have the luxury of time to go online and that my sister Jenn - the one who actually publishes the posts I create (I do send her a draft of my article written on paper, which she copies and publishes) will be traveling out of town this weekend. No word yet when will she come home (could be by the end of February or early March), so I will take a pause from the Mindanao story and share this instead.

February is the "love month" as they call it, but because us three girls don't have dates, we decided to go out and celebrate singlehood by sharing a good, hearty meal. As always, when it comes to family celebrations, Max's Restaurant is the place to go, and for this food trip, we decided to go a little easy on food and went for their 4Sharing Meal.


Though it is good enough for four people to share, we believe that this set meal is the perfect choice as it is only priced at 799 pesos, giving us about 221 pesos worth of savings. Even if mom holds a senior citizen ID, the savings we will get for ordering this will still be more than the would be savings we will get should we order the dishes separately and use mom's card. Of course, this kind of promo already included huge discount, so mommy's card is no longer valid.

Anyway, there have been different food pairings for the 4Sharing Meal, and at the moment, Max's Restaurant offers Whole Fried Chicken and Fish Fillet in Black Bean Sauce paired with steamed rice and drinks. All of us loved the fish dish as it was seasoned well and had a good balance of flavors. Of course, we weren't able to eat all of the chicken, so we had it wrapped, took it home and ate it for dinner that day.

This 4Sharing Meal is available until February 26, 2014... but don't be sad, for sure our beloved Max's Restaurant will come up with another 4Sharing Meal soon after. To be up to date with promotions and new dishes, do visit their website (www.maxschicken.com) and like their Facebook page (www.facebook.com/maxsrestaurant).

* Jesz *