New Year's Resolution & Bucket List Accomplished!

Last year one of my New Year's resolution was to get one of my home projects published in a legit magazine. Well, I couldn't make it happen last year, but that's completely irrelevant now because I made it in this month's (July 2012) issue of Real Living magazine (Philippines publication)!!! And a two-page spread at that! Not bad for a first timer :)

There's my darling N sitting in the chair that I added nailhead trim to.

Early this year I finally got around to taking pictures of Noah's room. I've blogged about it here and here so I'm not going to kill this topic by going into it again. Back in May Real Living contacted me about featuring the room, of course I agreed and the rest is history.

I ordered a few copies of the magazine from my mom who will be visiting me from the Philippines very soon so I have yet to hold the magazine in my hands. Naturally I couldn't wait for her arrival so thanks to a copy I found online, I get to read the article for myself and see the picture of Noah my mom spoke of over the phone.

Here is a close-up of the text. I think if you click on the image, a better quality of it will pop up.

LEFT

RIGHT

Another reason why July has been kind to me - a few weeks ago I got to cross off an item on my bucket list! Confession: I've never been to a real live concert. When I say "real concert" I'm not counting the times when up-and-coming bands performed at my college, nor occasions when major DJs like Tiesto and Paul Oakenfold made appearances at Avalon in Boston (yup, I was once a frequent clubber), and certainly not the days when our local church choir had a X-mas concert. No, I'm talking about true stadium style seating concert with mega-crowds by the thousands flocked to witness and be wow-ed by an iconic singer's (only the kind that could fill a stadium) performance.

So when last-minute someone was trying to get rid of tickets to Madonna's concert in Istanbul of course I grabbed them without hesitation. I figured I lost any chance of witnessing in person the genius of Michael Jackson, and gone along with him was the chance to hear the gifted voice of Whitney Houston. I wasn't going to pass up this once in a lifetime opportunity to witness equally influential Madonna perform her latest album and (more importantly) her 80's hits to fans in Turkey. Even if it meant hauling myself (and my family) all the way to Istanbul for her MDNA Tour. She may not always be known for her voice, but in her 30+ year singing career she's managed to maintain her position at the top of the crop, and at 53 yrs old she's still hitting the charts. God bless her!

Here are some shots taken as we were entering the stadium.

 A few feet in front of us Turkish paparazzi was snapping shots of local celebrities. People watching would've been a joyous activity had I known who these celebrities were.

Crowds slowly flocking in. Was surprised that no one dressed up as Madonna. The next thing closest to dressing-up as her was seeing her face on t-shirts.

So that's more thing crossed off my bucket list I wanted to share. Let's hope I can keep this momentum going :)