Wordless Wednesday: Honey ♥ bananas!

I'm guest blogging @ A Day in my NYC!

I'm guest blogging at A Day in my NYC today! Please check out Patty's blog, she is one of my long time blog readers & one of my good blogging friends! My guest post is about long distance relationships, something I am very familiar with! :-)

Here is the post I wrote:

Hello! I'm Sarah Lynn from the blog 'Tunay Na Mahal' (which translates to "true love" in Tagalog, the Philippines national language). Patty asked me to do a guest post and I wanted to speak from something I have a lot of experience with. Long distance relationships!

If anyone is the queen of long distance relationships... I am probably it. My husband and I dated for 5 years long distance before getting married in December 2009. We even spent the first year of our marriage apart due to immigration.

And when I say long distance... I mean it! My husband is from the Philippines. A whole day ahead from Philadelphia. 12 hours apart- (13 hours during daylight saving time). Somehow during our 6 years apart, we made it work. And now we are finally together in the same time zone! Long distance relationships are not easy but they can work if you put enough time and commitment into them. My husband and I are proof of that. We have been together seven years now and married almost two.

How did we do it? LOT'S of communication and trust. Unfortunately it's pretty expensive to call the Philippines ($1.99 a minute!) My husband and I only talked on the phone for special occasions (birthday's, anniversaries, etc). I kept a phone card handy for those times because the rates were cheaper.

We made time to have a "date" every weekend. This took some commitment from both of us. We would meet online every weekend on Yahoo messenger. We would meet on my lunch break at work; while in the Philippines it was 12am and my husband's day was ending.

We texted. A lot. We emailed each other several times a week. We wrote letters and sent packages for special occasions. My husband didn't have a webcam because he had dial up internet, but I'm sure if we had both had a fast internet connection that would have been another way for us to connect. We were able to chat sometimes through headsets on Yahoo messenger, if the connection behaved.

I traveled to the Philippines almost yearly. And yes; it was very expensive. I worked all year long to save up enough money. I would get 0% APR credit cards and buy my plane ticket and then work hard the rest of the year to pay off that $1,200.

Sometimes it sucked and we really missed each other. Going out with friends and seeing them with their significant others, while yours was hundreds and hundreds of miles away was not easy. Sometimes we just wanted to be a normal couple, to be together in the same place; but it wasn't the right time yet. We persevered. Patience is huge thing in long distance relationships.

When we did get to spend time with each other in person it was exhilarating. They say to live every day of your life like it's your last, and the times we were together, we definitely did that. We would have to cram so much into a small amount of time.

One book that really helped us both during our time apart was The Long-Distance Relationship Survival Guide, by Chris Bell & Kate Brauer-Bell. We each had a copy.

Long distance relationships require 100% commitment & trust from each partner. They require loads of communication. Sometimes, years of patience and perseverance. But they do work. And if anything sometimes they are even richer when you finally are together, because you've put so much work & communication into your relationship.

*~Sarah Lynn~*

Tunay Na Mahal

http://www.tunaynamahal.com

Yes Please!

I didn't even know these existed! After reading the review on the Foodette Reviews, I had to find these Pumpkin Spice Hershey Kisses!

Last's year big search for Pumpkin Pie Pop-Tarts exhausted me, so I decided to check Ebay for the Hershey Kisses instead of running around to different stores! Luckily I found a seller who's price wasn't too inflated. :-p I paid about $4 a bag, (about $2 more per bag from reading about them online). They arrived today and as one of my Facebook friends said; "They are sinfully delicious!". They have a very strong spice taste, I think nutmeg & allspice stood out the most, but they are sooo good! But then again... I love Pumpkin anything! :-)

Barley: April 2010-October 2011.

When I got home from work today Barley was not doing so well. He was cold to the touch and struggling to breathe. He passed away in my arms a little after I got home. Barley was well over a year old and he had a lot of health issues in his old age.

He was always such a friendly rat. He only liked to be scratched on his head because he was hairless. But he always "talked" when you scratched his head, (moved his mouth). And he always came running to the cage bars when you would call his name. He used to have a furry face when he was younger, but as he got older he lost it. He was my first hairless rattie and probably my last...

Whoo! Got my own domain finally!

I've finally done it! After nearly 4 years of blogging, I have finally taken the plunge and bought my own domain! Whoo hoo! :-)

Please update your blog readers and bookmarks. The new address for this blog will be: www.tunaynamahal.com 

✯ Happy Birthday F.B. ✯

Today was F.B.'s 32nd birthday and his first birthday celebration in the USA!

We went to Hibachi Grill & Supreme Buffet near Franklin Mills Mall in Philadelphia. It was the first time we went there. It used to be a computer store years ago. hehehe. But they have renovated everything and it's really pretty inside with chandeliers and stained glass and a fountain up front.

In the car:

F.B. getting ready to chow down, lol.

F.B. with his gifts from me: Star Wars Trilogy,Asher's Chocolates, Herr's Chips.

The Herr's Chips came in a Herr's Snack Truck box and there were 42 mini bags of chips. You could pick your flavors when you ordered. I ordered it from the Herr's website. :-)

For dessert we had cheesecake from Giant, that we shared with the family. Mmmm.

F.B. with his McDonald's gift cards from my family.

Wow! Yum!

I made Swedish Meatballs last night with this recipe I found on Yahoo Shine.

They were AMAZING! I did alter the recipe a bit, we only had beef in the house. I added noodles. I added chopped onions & mushrooms to the sauce. And I added a splash of Worcestershire sauce, a tablespoon of brown sugar & a dash of rosemary to the meatballs and sauce. I also made the meatballs a bit larger so I cooked them for 30 minutes. But otherwise, I followed the recipe! The meatballs tasted like they had slow cooked for hours. Sooo good!

1st day of October!

Since it's October 1st today I decided to put on the Sally Hansen Salon Effects in Spun For You. They are hard to find in stores so you might have better luck getting the Halloween designs on Ulta! (I just ordered 1 more of the spiderwebs & also the red/black design).

♥ ♥ ♥ Love them!!! ♥ ♥ ♥ 

(And thanks Shannon for letting me know they had Halloween Designs out!)

I found the Coffee-Mate Pumpkin Spice creamers on Friday, so I broke one of those out today! (and froze the other.) Yum! It's definitely fall now! :-)