Weekend Essentials ft. The Versatile Weekender Bag

It's the weekend once again! I wonder, how are you guys gonna spend your weekend? Well, whatever it is, let's get ready with these essentials that we should have to have no matter how we spend these days. 

• Wallet / Money

Let's face it, we can't get anywhere without it especially when you are about to deal with transportation fees, food and water. Include here your ID's or cards that you think you may need.

• Phone

A way to stay in contact with the people you are about to meet or you are leaving behind and for searching information on where you are about to go.

• Extra shirt

You'll never really know how much you'll need one until you actually need it. Just bring a lightweight and neutral colored one in case of emergency or if you just need a change of clothes.

• Book

The weekend is the best time to catch up on some reading, no distractions and you won't have to worry when you get too invested on the story.

• Journal / notebook

It's not everyday you get to spend your time like this so, when you take a break, you can write down your thoughts and your experiences no matter how good or bad because it's a nice remembrance of the moment.

• Sunglasses

This is a must have for me since I live in a place where we have humid weather. The sun is always shining (except for rainy days of course) and a good pair is a way of protecting your ways from too much sun. And it comes in handy when you are having one of those weekends where you don't want to put makeup or anything on since you look like you've tried even if you didn't.

• Necessities (Makeup, Hand sanitizer, alcohol, deodorant)

Basically everything you think you may need when you are out and about, staying somewhere else or your friend's house. Packing up everything saves you the time and the money instead of heading out to buy things that you'll probably only use for a day or two. 

• Weekend Bag

A good spacious bag is the way to go if you plan to bring so much things without the hassle. It's capable of carrying everything you'll need and would still match your outfit. Mine is the Versatile weekender black bag and I got it from oh my bag ph. It's worth PHP 599 and if you guys aren't familiar with oh my bag ph, they sell bag care products like bag and shoe stuffers (depending on which size of bag you have), dust bags, bag shapers, bag raincoats, base shapers and handle wraps. So bag lovers out there, do check them out to prolong the life of your bags in an inexpensive way. Like for real, I am totally eyeing their bag raincoats at the moment. 

A little sample of what they have (screenshot from their website): To see more, click HERE

Hope you guys have a fun weekend! And tell me, what are your weekend essentials?

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Disclosure: The versatile weekender black bag was sent to me by oh my bag ph to review. All opinions / statements made were based off on my experience towards their product. 

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What's In My Bag? Holiday Edition

I don't really know if I ever done a what's in my bag before so I guess today would be that day. I'm warning you now though that I practically pack my whole house in my everyday bag because I'm very paranoid and would most likely need to work on it. This is a Holiday edition because I packed even more just incase I get stuck in traffic or have to wait in a long line for public transportation. 

The bag that I'm currently using since June is my Parisian bag that I got for about P1000 at the SM Department store in SM Megamall. I was so into this style and almost didn't get it because I thought P1000 was a tad pricey but it lasted me this long which is surprising because I usually break bags alot due to my overpacking. It does has some damage now on the lock and stuff so I'm thinking about getting a new one so we would see.

On the back pocket, I got my keys, my phone, my earphones, coin purse and a sharpie. I usually keep things that I would wanna grab in an instant without having to dig through everything that I put inside the bag.

On the front pocket, I keep my meds, my tissues, napkins, hair tie, doctor's prescription, my eye glasses cleaner. Sometimes I keep my grocery list in here too along with some other things that I need to return or just simply things that I should remember.

On the main zipper, you would first see my ipad, my makeup bag (which I will tell you more about what's inside soon), an extra shirt, a scarf that I can wrap myself on when I feel cold, my wallet, more hair ties, cellphone charger and a big eco bag incase I need to do some shopping which I forgot to take a photo of.

Now that I do think about it, it looks like it ain't that much but I can't deny that it feels super heavy but I just can't leave anything else behind because I'm afraid that I might need them for something and I don't have it so yea I bring a lot. 

Anything special in your holiday bag?

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My Paranormal Experiences - Part 2

This is a continuation of my story telling about my paranormal experiences; Although, last time I wrote about stories that happened at my old house so I am now gonna tell you guys about the things I experienced at random places.


Too early for school.

It was during the 5th grade so I was about 11-ish years old. I had a school service back then and I had this friend and classmate that rode with me, let us call her Isla. So Isla and I were always the ones who are very early to arrive in school and the classroom that we had back then was only 1 for the whole day. So me and Isla climbed up to our room and the door was locked which was unusual since it was rarely locked except when somebody else arrived before us (which sometimes does happen) and decided to prank everybody. Me and Isla were knocking at the door for a minute or two and the doors of our school that time had really tiny windows so me and Isla peeked on the window and we saw a girl about maybe our age jump to look at us and crouch back down behind the door that we were peeking in. We didn't see the face, only the eyes and the hair because it happened really fast. She was almost naked from what I saw or maybe wearing something that I couldn't see. Isla looked at me and asked if I saw that and I said yes and I asked her who was it, she says she thinks it was one of our classmates because of the haircut. So we just kept knocking until all of our suspects that we thought were inside and who we saw arrived. We kept telling them what happened and some even thought we were just scaring everybody. We kept an eye on the door incase it does open and somebody was really inside but classes were about to start and our adviser unlocked the door. Me and Isla rushed inside to tell everybody where we saw the girl but really, nobody was there. Totally creeped me out for the rest of the day.

House.

This was at another one of our old houses, not the same as the past one that I've told you guys about. I was either 8-9 years old at that time (we moved out for abit at our old home due to renovation) and everybody, my mom, my brother and my aunt were already at the main room getting ready for bed. I was at the living room watching a favorite show of mine. There was a window behind the TV (We haven't rearranged much of the furniture yet because we just moved there at that time) and I saw someone, no idea if it was a girl or a boy wearing a white shirt and he or she put his hand on the window really slow and left. I ran to the main room and told my mom what happened. She checked the window and she saw that there were finger prints. I honestly don't know if it was a ghost or a real person which brings me to this, at that same house, few nights after, I saw a lady wearing white pass by the window and I yelled "woah" which startled my mom. She asked me what did I see and I said I saw a lady pass by. She stared at me like I gone mad which I didn't know why back then, now I do realize why since that window is in the back part of the house and not much people could really fit there since the windows are too close to the walls. She never really told me anything about it until we thought somebody got inside the house. There were banging noises everywhere that my mother got outside the room with her bat or something to hit someone with and gone to check. She didn't see anything but she did say that the noise just kept transferring from room to room. It was a really crazy house.

Stairs.

We moved houses alot so this one is another house that we just moved in. That night me and my yaya (a Filipino term to use to call our maid) were sleeping in my room. the doors were open and my mom and my brother were sleeping in the main room. Althorughout the night, me and yaya just kept looking at each other because we keep hearing someone coming up and down the stairs. It only stopped when my mom would come out of the room to check up on me which was only 2x after that, it just kept happening again and since we just moved, there wasn't electricity yet in that house and we'd have to wait for I think 3 days for there to be power. After that night, me and yaya had our own pair of earphones and played music to sleep.

Throwing Objects.

Another house that we moved to again. This was a few years ago and nobody else was home but me and my boyfriend at that time. I was peeing but I had a bad feeling or was scared at the moment for whatever reason, so I pee-d while the door was open. All of a sudden something or someone threw a colgate cap at me and I know that it wasn't my boyfriend because he was busy playing HON. I'm sure it wasn't paused because I could hear Nymphora's dialog and I could hear it from the bathroom. Trust me, he loved his HON back then. All I could think about at that moment was, well the worst has happened and ran outside where my boyfriend was playing and ended up trying to learn how to play HON.

Manananggal
From Wikipedia description:
The Manananggal (sometimes confused with the Wak Wak) is a vampire-like mythical creature of the Philippines, a malevolent,man-eating and blood-sucking monster or witch.
More about that HERE

I'm sure this is probably my craziest story but I am somehow happy that I wasn't alone when I experienced this because I wouldn't know how to handle it and explaining to everybody what I saw at that time. This happened years ago and I was with my friends and boyfriend at that time at one of our friend's house's terrace. We were just telling stories, laughing, just really having a chill time until 12-ish a.m. until my boyfriend pointed at something and asked me "what's that?" and not waiting for my response he yelled again, "what is that?". I looked at it and swore and hid my face on my boyfriend's back. Our friends probably saw my reaction because when they looked at what we were talking about, they too swore and screamed and ducked because it flew just right above us, even taking a moment to land on the roof and fly off again. I couldn't really get a good look at it other than it is half a body, huge wings and long black hair. I didn't see the face or the bottom part of the upper body that clearly because of her huge wings, all I could remember is she was scary but not disgusting.  I thought she might have been glowing at some point but that's just maybe my tears from being to scared. I think what scared us the most is how powerful and loud and big her wings are because you could just hear it even when she was still far away. When she was gone we couldn't move from where we were, some of us were even in denial of what we saw. To be honest a few months ago I was looking outside my window when I saw a shadow figure moving around, it was huge and I'm sure there weren't any birds, there weren't any dogs or cats around so I don't know what I saw but what I do know is I did see a manananggal and I do not wanna see it again.

Other People's Experiences with my Doppelganger.
I just wanted to add this part eventhough I wasn't there to witness it. It was just pretty creepy that I knew I had to add it in. This one is from my yaya at that time, when we were living at the house where the colgate cap was thrown at me (story above), I wasn't always home during those years since I was always out with my friends and went home really late. Our house that time had a gate and a stone pathway that if you walked on it, it would make some small noises. My yaya said she was watching T.V. at that time when she heard me calling her from the front door. The voice was coming outside and my yaya said that my voice asked her to open the door and to hurry up and the "person" outside wasn't even knocking. Yaya felt a bit weary at this point because when she looked at the window, she saw that the gate was still locked and she didn't hear anyone coming towards the front door so, she didn't answer. After awhile the voice was gone and when I actually got home, I opened the gate and knocked on the front door because I only had the key for the gate at that time. My yaya won't open it for me at first and kept asking me all these questions and I was there just answering them. When I got in, she asked me if I went home earlier that time, I said "no, I just got here" and she told me what happened.

Fred visited us at that same house a few months after. He is usually a morning person so he got up really early and was talking to yaya at the dining room. The dining room at that time was infront of my bedroom door (it was a small house) and Fred and yaya saw "me" coming out of my bedroom. They saw me stretch and walk towards the back door. Fred said he tried asking me what I wanted to bring for lunch, he said that I just peeked at him and went out. Then after a few minutes, they saw me coming out from my brother's room. They looked at me like I was a damn ghost and I asked what's the matter? They told me what happened and I actually didn't go to school that day because I was just too scared to even go to the bathroom.

Those are the stories for my paranormal experiences and if you didn't check or read about the first one that I made then click HERE.

Do comment or link down below your paranormal experiences because what more way to scare yourself even more right? Anyway, Happy Halloween everybody!

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My Paranormal Experiences - Part 1

In the spirit of Halloween, I decided to share about some of my paranormal experiences and yes I said some because I experienced quite a lot of it that I'm surprised I can still go in the bathroom alone which sometimes I really can't because I'm a wimp. I will be breaking down the stories by using a title for each one.

These stories may or may not be in order since I only remember what happened but don't really remember when, but it all happened at the same place which was at our old house that me and my brother grew up in.

Pen

I was about 12 or 13 during these times and my parents were out of the country and me and my brother were left with our cousin who we shall call Fred.So Fred was heading out to get some snacks because we were all out of it, he borrowed my pen and paper because he was gonna get Zagu (a brand of shake that's known in the Philippines) and was taking notes of what everyone wanted. I told him my order and I was at the hallway at that time on my laptop probably playing gaia online. He put the paper down beside me and took my pen with him. I called after him and said "hey I need my pen for something" but he just kept walking towards the bathroom so I raised my voice and said the same thing again but he was still walking and holding my pen. I got up and walked after him as he turns on the lights of the bathroom and I called after him again and said "give me back my pen, I need it!" He then turned around and I saw that he has these glowing red eyes and I stopped in my tracks. He slammed the door really hard that cold wind blew at me. I started knocking on the bathroom door and said "Fred! Fred! Give me back my damn pen!" and while this was happening, Fred came out of my brother's room which is on the far left side of the bathroom (my room was in between the bathroom and my brother's room) and asked who was I talking to. I got startled for a second and immediately said "I'm talking to you in there" and as what I said finally made sense in my head, I backed out from where I was standing while Fred opened the door to the bathroom really fast. Nobody was inside, the lights were still on and my pen is on the sink. Let's just say I didn't need that pen anymore after that.

Beads.

I'm guessing that this is before or after the incident about the pen (story above). My other cousins visited us at our old house (yeap same one) and we hung out for a few days. During the 3rd or 4th night they were there, we decided to go and cook something but it wasn't for dinner I recall since it was pretty late. All 3 of us (me and my 2 girl cousins) were at the kitchen and the window was wide open. We just kept laughing at something but what I do know that we were really not that loud. No one was squealing, or laughing too loud or talking to loud so we know we weren't bothering anybody. As we were still telling stories there was suddenly these small beads that I used to play with back when I was younger flying in from the outside onto the kitchen. At the 1st time we tried to ignore it but then it happened again, and again and it came in faster everytime. We grabbed the stuff that we were cooking and ran out of the kitchen. Honestly don't know who could do that because there weren't any houses at the back of our kitchen. The house that we stayed in that time was pretty high up and just land at the bottom. There were really big trees and just mostly some place people don't go to because the grass is way too high. This however, is pretty mild to what's more to come but it really freaked me out because I usually thought at that time that ghost can't hold or throw things. I didn't know what a poltergeist is so I was shaken up.

R.I.P. Hannah Montana.

I forgot which post I said this but when I was younger, I used to always sing along to Hannah Montana music and dance along with it too. This became a habit for awhile when I was practicing a Hannah Montana dance and I was in my brother's room that night. My brother's room has a window that when you look outside, there's the gate of our house. And it's locked so I pulled down the blinds and started doing my thing as you may say. I heard a car passing by and when it's headlights or the glare of the light hit my window, I saw a silhouette of a really tall but skinny man wearing a cap (Kind of like Michael Jackson's) standing near the window and he raised his arms and I saw that he was holding a knife. I immediately ran outside the room and saw my cousin and our maid at the hallway and told them what I saw. My cousin, Fred went out to see who it was but there was nobody there. Nobody could really get inside or near the window because the gate is locked and there is no way to climb above the gate because it goes up until the roof. I saw Fred on the hallway near my brother's room and our maid was there and my brother was in my room so no one could really do that prank and manage to go back to where they were when I saw them. That incident honestly took me awhile before I could dance along with Hannah again.

Folded Clothes


Me, my brother, Fred and our Maid decided to head to the mall during the afternoon when mine and my brother's classes were done. So I went to the bathroom to pee before heading out of the house, I turned off the lights and closed the doors and I passed by my room and saw that Yaya ("Yaya" is a term we use for maid in the Philippines) was folding some clothes on my bed. I looked at her and said "Yaya we're gonna head out now, let's go" after a second of saying that, I started walking before turning my eyes away from my bedroom that I bumped into yaya at the hallway. She asked me who was I talking to, I told her that I saw her folding clothes. She stayed where she was and just looked at me. I immediately came back to my room and opened the door because it was suddenly closed, opened it and saw the neatly folded clothes on my bed. I was not at all hallucinating because I was feeling totally fine and she was wearing the exact same clothes and I actually looked at her when I said what I said before I bumped into the real yaya. What's funny is, my yaya that time was very easy to startle so the fact that she didn't even looked up when I was talking to her should've been what alerted me. Well, thanks for folding my clothes I guess...

Scratches.

This was during the time that one of our relatives died and the ceremony was at our province which is abit too far away for me and my brother to go since I recall we had exams at that time so Fred, my cousin went as our representative. That night when Fred left, my brother was sleeping in his room and me and yaya were sleeping at my room. It was about 11:30 pm if I'm not wrong when I suddenly heard this scratching by the door of my bedroom. My yaya was sleeping below, beside my bed so I thought she was just hitting something with her foot so I tried to ignore it. It did grew louder and louder but I really tried so hard to sleep. That morning I woke up before yaya did which is pretty damn early and all I could think about was that damn sound. It was gone already so I woke up yaya and asked her if she heard it. She said yes but didn't wanted to scare me so she didn't say anything. We opened the door and there were these claw like scratches outside of my door. I have a cat at that time but she was locked at the garage by her little room and there is no other possible way she got in the house without someone to open up for her. Plus, with the size of the claws, it wouldn't possibly be from my cat.

That is it for now for my paranormal experiences stories and be sure to subscribe to be notified for the part 2 where I tell you about my paranormal experiences outside of this house or in other random places. For more spooky or creepy stories from me, read about my nightmare and that time where I dreamed of watching myself sleep.

Also, just to add, Fred had a friend who is an espiritista (a Spanish-Filipino term for those people who practically practice communicating with spirits etc. ) and she visited our house at that time and told us that she saw a white duende on the front of the house and a black duende at the back. She told us to put food out and we did, after that, we never really did anything else about it anymore since that was also the time that we were about to move out so I also have no idea if it worked or not.  

Happy Halloween everybody!
Note: On that photo, those are actually my brother's hands because he couldn't take a decent pic of me holding the pumpkin, so I took one of him instead. Pretty cool since it reminds me of the Twilight book cover.

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My Bad Beauty Habits

Even if I love to use / play with makeup and experiment with a whole new beauty routine, I do have my fair share of bad habits that I must stop doing but still do anyway. I'm no professional but alot of people have told me to try and fix this because it bothers them that I keep doing it, but well, I kinda do change at first but after awhile, I do it all over again. I'm kinda neglecting listing them down because I know it's gonna be a ton. So here they are:

• Bleached my hair after a week when I last bleached it. 

• Not using any sort of heat protectant on my hair when I use a flat iron or a curling iron.

• Forgetting to put on primer before doing a full face makeup.

• During those days when I only do my eyebrows and then I forget to take it off before sleeping.

• Waiting for my nail polish to be totally ruined before I remove it or change it.

• Not really actually cleaning my nails but only change the nail polish.

• I'm lazy to get haircuts, well, more like I don't want to. :)

• I tend to sleep really late which is the reason I have such big dark under eye bags.

• Buying new products even if I haven't finished using what I already have. 

Well, based on everything that I listed down, I really should do something about them. But anyway, I hope that I'm not alone in these, so tell me, what are your bad beauty habits?

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What's In My Makeup Bag?

Although I may have a huge wish list on the makeup that I wanna try, I have a set from my collection that I used quite often. It does change from time to time when I wanna change up my look but these have always been a must for my everyday makeup.

So I use Benefit's Stay Flawless 15-hour Primer all over the places that need prepping and then I take my Benefit's Hello Flawless Oxygen Wow Foundation in the color "I'm so money honey" and put it all over my face. Next I use Benefit's Fake Up Concealer in the shade 02 Medium to hide my dark spots, blemishes or under my eyes. I set them using my Benefit's Hello Flawless powder in the shade "I'm cute as a bunny honey".

Before I start doing all of the over makeup, I put on my Classic Cherry Chapstick so that my lips would be moisturized enough when it's time to put lipstick. And then I fill in my eyebrows using my Drawing Eye Brow in the color #2 from Etude House. Doing my eyebrows takes up most of my time and when I'm satisfied, I apply my Color My brows in the color #2 from Etude House to set and also lighten the color of my brows to match my hair color. Next is I will be using my BYS Eyeliner Pencil in the color 31 Sky Blue for my water line just to bring out my natural dark brown eyes color. Lastly for the eyes I use my Roller Lash By: Benefit and yes, I don't need to use an eyelash curler 1 is because my mascara does the job of lifting it up and I don't really like carrying an eyelash curler. So I do love this mascara alot.

Lastly, I have 2 lipsticks in my makeup bag that I carry everyday, and they are the Nyx Soft Matte Lip Cream in the color Abu Dhabi and Stila All Day Liquid Lipstick in 03 Patina. I use them both depending on what color I feel like rocking that day. So I apply which one that I would like and done! Most of these guys are travel size so I don't really have a problem carrying this little kit wherever I go and is pretty much a life saver when I have to go to some event unexpected.

So those are all the products that are on my makeup bag and do tell me, Are any of these products are in your makeup bag too? Or what are some things that are in your makeup bag? I'm really thinking of changing or building a new makeup bag so do leave some suggestions below!

Thanks for reading! Until the next blog.

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A letter to my younger self - Your makeup.

Dear 14 year old Joyce,

Little girl, You are creative and beautiful. Don't let other people tell you otherwise, they don't understand that putting on makeup is your way of expressing yourself. Don't be frustrated that you can't do professional looking makeup, it will get better, you will improve. The people who told you that you must wear less makeup because they want to see you that way... don't listen to them because you can do whatever you wish, whatever makes you happy.. and wearing less isn't going to make you happy but will only restrain you from your creativity. Don't let it be the reason to let go of what you really want.

Those girls who raise their eyebrows at your style, those who teases you and calls you ugly, don't bother with them. Remember that there will be a time where they'll need your help. There are people who still think you're really good at what you do, focus on them and ignore the people who think you should just stop.

You we're always a trendsetter on which makeup product was good and people asked and copied you, but you don't have to return the favor and copy them too. Not everything works best on everybody, so you do you.

You know that you are creative, but there will be times that you get really frustrated that you'll wear really ridiculous amount of products or overpluck your eyebrows that you will regret doing because you weren't ready or wasn't comfortable enough. Baby steps child, like I said, you will improve.

I think that you should believe in yourself. Just practice and don't compare yourself to others. Don't be afraid to make some mistakes here and there, there is nothing you do then that I can't fix right now. And I can assure you, I am fine.So don't worry about me and just have fun.

From the almost 21 year old you,
Joyce ♥

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