Money

I asked Ruy not to give me flowers for tomorrow. I think there are stages in my life when I need that kind of affirmation but right now I don’t need jewelry or Nixon watches or flowers. Ruy has been making me feel very secure already.

These past few weeks have been extremely difficult. Starting from the death of my cousin to some professional issues…Ruy’s been so supportive through it all.

Two days ago I was stressed about a presentation I had to give on my strategy for my new team. It was extremely hard because I’ve only been in this post for 3 days and coming up with a concrete strategy is difficult. I worked on the presentation at home (imagine I was working instead of spending quality time with Ruy) and spent the night tossing ideas with Ruy.

I woke up the next day to find that Ruy spent the night researching online and found a paper on the strategies for insourcing (my new department is involved in insourcing). Isn’t that awesome? 

So really, who needs flowers when you have a husband like that.  

My cousin was buried last Saturday and I surprised myself with the intensity of the sadness I was feeling. I cried for the loss of chances, of possibilities, of reconciliation. 

I remember a time when Ruy and I were on a date. I saw a man riding the escalator and I said to myself “Wow, that man’s handsome”…only to find out that it was my cousin. When he got sick I remembered this scenario and I cried knowing that the chances of me ever running into him anywhere is slim to none.  We would never be able to have our old trips to Tagaytay, EK, etc.  I cried for this too.His burial last Saturday reminded me once again of my own mortality and the mortality of the people around me.

 I used to not be afraid of dying, but now I’m terrified of it. I don’t want to be just another story that people will be telling Andrea when she grows up. I don’t want Andrea to “think” that her mom might have loved her based on the storied of other people. I want her to experience her parents…My fear of dying has reached such irrational heights that even just looking at  term life insurance quotes makes me nervous.

So, I spent my mom’s birthday with my maiden family and while it was fun something happened in the middle of the day which really freaked me out. At around 5pm I started writhing in pain. It’s really hard to explain what happened all I know is that I experienced severe pain and nothing I did could alleviate it.

I don’t want to get into the boring details but the end result is this. I can’t eat the ff: food for the next 6 weeks:

- Dairy

- Cheese

- Vegetables (uncooked)

- Fruits

- Oily food

- Fried Food

So guess what? I’m on a forced diet. I think this is God’s way of grabbing me by both shoulders and shaking me while shouting “When will you learn to eat the right food you stupid girl”.

While I will miss the things I listed above I am quite excited because I’m sure to lose weight (this happened to me in High School and I lost A LOT of weight). So I guess no need to buy Leptovox just yet.

I was listening to Carrie Underwood as she professed her love for small towns in one of her songs. She sings “I’d rather be tipping cows in Tulsa than hailing cabs in New York” while some of my friends might laugh at this sentiment, I actually understand what she’s saying.  I myself love small towns.

I guess this love afair with small towns stemmed from my childhood. When you grow up in a small town you realize just how different city folks are. Everything is just more laid back, more relaxed and a whole lot friendlier.

My past travels almost always lead me to huge and bustling cities and I thought of looking at small towns as an alternative travel destination. Ruy’s main concern with small towns is usually the lack of activity. “What the hell are we going to do there? ” is his constant contention. I think he’s going to be in for a shock when I tell him about .Branson Missouri

There is an insane number of activities for such a small town. There are over a dozen shows for those who like music, magic and such. I was so surprised to see Andy Williams among the performers in Branson. This is a man I listened to a lot while growing up! There is also this show called Legends wherein impersonators copy old legends and sing the legend’s most popular songs. I’m a sucker for old songs which is why I like this one. 

There is also a theme park for those who want to enjoy the town in the morning. It actually sounds really exciting.

I looked at this site with several packages and I was initially drawn to their Titanium package which costs around 800++ per couple when I saw that they had a Family Package as well!! For less than a hundred dollars more you can include two kids already! I can’t believe how economical these trips are. I’m not sure if taking Andrea would be a great idea at this point (i’m iffy about the long travel) but this definitely is something worth remembering for the future.

Or not to nag. That is the question. *Sigh*

I try hard not to nag, specially cause I know I have a tendency to do so. This morning as I was getting ready to go to work I saw that our tankless water heater was left open while the shower was closed.  I have asked the last person (who shall remain nameless) who used the shower to make sure the heater is always turned off after use.

I wanted to nag and nag but then it was 6:30 in the morning. I don’t want to start the day like that. So I decided to just turn off the heater myself and to keep quiet. Aaaarrrrggghhh…trying to be nice is soooo hard.

I’m dying to get personalized books for Andrea but finding them here in the Philippines is so hard.  Ruy and I ended up getting her some educational stuff, some barney flash cards and some toy pots, pans and plates.  Ruy stopped me from getting her a big toy kitchen. He had to remind me that we’re still getting her something big for January….good thing I listen to reason or at least I try. I’m still so tempted to get her something else. SOMEBODY STOP ME!!

No paternity test needed here. You just need to take one look at Andrea and it’s clear that Ruy’s the dad.  The similarity doesn’t stop there though…do you know that both Ruy and Andrea dance when they’re happy with the food? Isn’t that insane? They can’t help but groove when they taste yummy food. It’s crazy!! Their resting faces resemble a frown…they both don’t like fruits and they both like bread. 

I guess it’s true what they say about the apple not falling far from the tree.

A friend once told me that according to her dad only stupid people get bored. I took this to heart and would do everything within my power to try and avoid admitting that I am indeed bored. Unfortunately nothing works right now, I have tried to do so much and yet I am still bored. I tried watching DVDs, reading books, even tried reading alli reviews but to no avail. I am still booooooooooooored.

…I’m seriously worried. I can’t get over all these things happening all over the world. It’s bad enough that we all hear different news regarding natural calamities like earthquake, hurricanes, tsunamis, storm, etc. Now we have to contend with financial problems as well. Whenever I hear things about inflation,the unemployment rate, stagnation I can’t help but worry about Andrea’s future. 

My mother was able to provide very well for my sister and myself and I want to be able to do the same for Andrea. Will I be able to considering what’s happening to the world’s economy? I have no idea…I guess I just need to have courage (which, according to Paulo Coehlo as quoted by Vicki and Noemi, is fear that prays), work my ass off and hope for the best.

A conversation came up a few weeks ago in the office regarding the best way to store pictures and important files.  Traditionalists would of course be more comfortable printing everything and keeping them in albums or folders.  The more modern people have endless options though, from tape drives, to flash disks, to floppy disks. 

While I am glad that we have so many choices, I am now so confused…so much so that I just opted to print Andrea’s photos.

I read the Christmas list I posted a few days ago and I was surprised at how simple my wishes are.  What has happened to the woman who wanted anything and everything? Why am I not asking for cars or European cruises?

Have I stopped longing for material things? Have I become satisfied with what I have? Naaah…I still long for some things. I guess regardless of things going wrong I’m still simply happy.

My weekend was the most stressful part of the week.

Friday, I offset my extra hours at work to go to the opening of SM Marikina. HUGE mistake. I had to drive from my office to the mall and the drive from the road to the parking took me around 45 minutes. The stress was agravated by the fact that my gas tank started turning red and I was afraid my car was going to stall while going to the parking building.

I got to SM only to find a horde of people there already. WTF! Jollibee literally was a hell hole…and so were the other shops. Ruy and I found each other after an hour of waiting and we went around a bit.When we got home, Andrea had colds and was grumpier than normal. She also didn’t want to sleep in her crib because she couldn’t breathe. I had to wake up every 2 hours just to pacify her. The other hours were Ruy’s….hehehe.

Saturday. I woke up early, played with her a bit then brought her down so she can be with her yaya. Meanwhile, I stayed in the room to work on some details for my meeting with my boss later that day. While working I was bugging Ruy for our sched so I know my time line and then we had a little tiff. Then we went to the grocery, had lunch, then I went to work for around 5 hours. Then they picked me up, we brought Andrea to the toystore, then to the arcade then we had dinner, then we met Ruy’s friends.

We got home at 11pm and Andrea fell asleep till around 2am. She was crying incessantly and wouldn’t sleep. Ruy decided that we were going to take her with us to the car and drive around. This usually works when she’s not feeling well. True enough, she did fall asleep and we were all able to sleep by around 3 am.

So now let’s talk about Sunday. Ruy woke up at 7 to go to Farmer’s market and though I tried I couldn’t wake up long enough to go with him. So I slept some more till it was 7:30 and it was time for Andrea to wake up. Sunday was spent taking care of Andrea and then at 4pm we went to church and then to the mall to have dinner. We got home at 8:30. I worked till 11:30 pm till I fell asleep. Andrea only woke up twice while I was sleeping….that would have been okay except we had to wake up at 6:30 to prepare for work.

So here I am…exhausted, drained, feeling weak and in dire need of energy pills yet I will be at work for 13 hours today.Why do I do this to myself again?

Yes I admit I am a procrastinator. Can you believe that after all this time we still haven’t moved to our house? We’re just missing curtains and some storage stuff but we’re almost set. It’s not like moving with be difficult, we won’t even need to get the moving services of professional movers. We just need our own hands and feet to move, yet we still haven’t.

Why?

I honestly don’t know. I think the entire meaning of the move scares me. Or maybe I’m just lazy.

I was walking from National Bookstore back to work when I saw this guy wearing a shirt which says “Like what you see? Wait till you meet Mini Me” and then there’s an arrow pointing down there.

I was disgusted beyond belief. What was this guy thinking? I am a big fan of funny t shirts but theres a line that should be drawn between funny and disgusting. I guess what made that shirt bad is the wearer…that guy was gross. Hahaha

This is Andrea’s new favorite shoe. Ain’t it cute? It’s a gift from her Ninang Jen and it’s obviously so comfortable. She can run, climb, walk for hours wearing this and you won’t even see any marks on her feet.

I wish I had shoes this comfortable but unfortunately my feet look awful when wearing crocs. I was almost certain that for grown women, the words comfortable and beautiful well never be used together to describe the same shoe. It’s a pleasant surprise for me to see these shoes called Beautifeel shoes which are both comfortable and pretty. Nice huh?

I have often demanded that Andrea and I undergo DNA testing to prove that I’m really t the mom. =) I look at her and I just see Ruy and I ask myself where did I go? Looking at this picture I finally see myself. Those are my ears, my deep set eyes and my cheeks….yey I’m really the mom!

It’s actually with her attitude and demeanor which absolutely confirms that I’m Andrea’s mom. If you can see how she stares down people when she’s annoyed, or how she looks blankly at someone when she’s bored with that person…it’s so me I’m telling you.

Our house has been a series of sudden decisions. It started when I decided that the room was too small for me and that since I had no plans of having a baby any time soon, then we should only have one room.

Then I got pregnant, so in the middle of constructions we turned the living room into Andrea’s room.

Then I bugged Ruy about having a dirty kitchen. I cannot stand the small of frying fish inside the house and I really wanted to keep the interior of the house as clean as possible. A big chunk of money was then spent creating a wall, to cover the back area of our house to create a little area for our laundry and our dirty kitchen. 

This basically removed all ventilation coming from that area. Ruy was cooking 2 nights ago and he was sweating like a pig. We don’t have any space for electric fans there so I guess we’ll have to make do  with portable fans.

My blog is worth $11,855.34.
How much is your blog worth?

I have made decisions extremely important to companies. I have given and taken employment. I have negotiated and saved the company hundreds of thousands in pesos.

You would think this would qualify me as an adult.  I realize that this is not the case.

I saw my mom 3 days in a row last week. This is unnatural…this hasn’t happened in over 2 years.  I saw how I seem to regress back to childhood when I’m with my family. My mom would automatically cover for my responsibilities and try to iron out kinks for me.

I wanted to schedule an ultrasound for myself but the sonologist said there was no more slot. My mom called them and got me a schedule.  I wanted to know about acne treatments, my mom calls her friend who is a derma and hooks me up. My aircon gets busted my mom negotiates.

It’s comforting to have this…although I’m glad it only happens occassionally.

I feel stumped, I’ll be attending my nth bridal shower and I seriously don’t know what to give anymore. I feel like everything I’ve been giving is too cliche. In the past I would either give naughty toys, bridal lingerie, copy of the Kama Sutra, or a book on marriage for those who are a bit conservative. What does one give during these times anyway?

I was reading this article which made me guffaw. There was a guy who sold his forehead to a company and he walked around town all day with an ad on his forehead. Isn’t that insane? I know most companies are willing to spend a lot on promotional products but I think this particular incident is going a bit too far don’t you think?

I sure hope he was paid a lot for this, and I hope he didn’t tattoo that ad on his forehead.

My laptop’s been going crazy for days. I apparently have 13 threats in my pc. My ear phones aren’t working properly, my office chair lost one of it’s wheels and is now lopsided. My office desk has one drawer which won’t open properly. WHAT IS HAPPENING? It’s as if the heaven’s contrived to make sure I barely get any work done. I think I’ll have to start looking at better computer desks, anti virus softwares and computer chairs just to guarantee that I can keep working. Argh!

Our furniture inside the house is already around 90% complete (we just need drawers and shelves here and there) and now we are turning our attention to our garden. I have shown you guys some of the plants Ruy has purchased and it would be a shame if we didn’t have other furniture to complement these cute plants.

I saw one particular style I really loved from this site which sells outdoor furniture, let me know what you think of this one:

(Click on the picture if you want to make it bigger)

I really like the style of this patio furniture and it ties in nicely with our interiors.

Not a lot of people know this but I used to work for a Korean Company. My experience with this company was not so great, so much so that it really tainted my view of Koreans in general.

Who would have thought that my change of heart would be brought about by a blog? I came across a blog called Everything Kimchi which chronicles a students day to day life living and studying in South Korea. It’s so interesting seeing Korea from a point of view of a student who went there not really knowing what the country is all about.

This guy is so courageous, he went to a foreign country by himself to study. How many people would have the guts to do this? Being an exchange student is not easy (based on his posts) yet he perseveres and seems to be doing quite well.

His insights on the cultural and the Korean’s perception on various things are also quite thought provoking. 

If any of my readers is considering becoming an exchange student, this is definitely a must read.

Vicki showed me this really cute mp4 player from cdr-king and now I can’t get it out of my mind.

I should first point out that I don’t have an ipod…I’ve never really seen the need to get one as I have no use for it. I have my laptop at work, my cd player and radio in the car and when I’m at home I just talk to everyone. 

This particular player is sooo affordable though and I am so tempted to get it.  It also has this expandable memory! You can use any common  SD card out there to expand the memory.

I am going to try and control my urge to buy this no matter how affordable cause I know I won’t use it.

My eyesight has gotten soooo bad. I attended a presentation last night and I ended up having to squint through the entire thing. I have eyeglasses but I’ve misplaced them so now I have to suffer through presentations looking like I’m scowling. 

Another problem I have with glasses is that I get bored with them so easily. I would love it for around 20 days then after I hate it already.

Is this normal? 

It seems to be a bug which has bitten everyone in the office. Every single person on my team is planning one trip or another. Crazy isn’t it? I seem to be the only one not afflicted. I don’t know what’s wrong with me but the thought of going on a trip is just too stressful for me.  I know there are a whole lot of travel guides out there but I still feel so stressed at the mere thought of packing, planning, leaving. OMG!

I hope this is just a phase…

A lot of people here have sent me emails asking me what I gave Ruy for Father’s Day. I don’t want to go into the details of this but I gave him a head start to a new image. Some shirts, pants, glasses, etc. It was not a lot but it was enough to make him happy despite the fact that I didn’t give him the pair of golf shoes that he’s been drooling over. (couldn’t afford it)…hehehe

Andrea spent time with my mother today and it’s hilarious how stressed out my mom was. She seriously goes crazy at every little movement of Andrea. She practically has a heart attack every time Andrea starts running. I think I’m going to have to buy wrinkle cream for my mom…hahaha

My goodness, you cannot believe how inlove I am with Mar Roxas after reading this article from the GMA website:

(Update) Arroyo signs into law tax exemption measure

MANILA, Philippines – President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on Tuesday morning signed into law the measure that will exempt minimum wage earners from paying income tax and increase personal exemption for other employees.

A radio report said President Arroyo signed Republic Act 9504 or the act amending several sections of RA 8424 otherwise known as the National Internal Revenue Code of 1997.

Workers who used to earn the minimum wage of P382 a day will begin taking home as much as P35 a day or around P700 a month, according to Sen. Francis Joseph “Chiz” Escudero, who turned up at the signing to represent the higher chamber of Congress.

Also present at the signing were Rep. Exequiel Javier, Escudero’s counterpart at the House of Representatives as well as Senators Juan Ponce Enrile and Manuel “Mar” Roxas III.

Senator Roxas, principal author of the Senate’s version of the measure, earlier said that all holiday, night differentials, hazard and overtime pays will also be tax exempt.

The new law increased to 50,000 all individual exemptions, which previously stood at P20,000 for single workers, P25,000 for a head of the family, and P32,000 for married individuals.

Additional exemptions for up to four qualified dependents were likewise raised from P8,000 to P25,000 each.

This would mean that an employee earning P455 per day or P10,010 per month would have an additional take-home pay of P472.59 per month if unmarried, P678.50 per month if head of the family, and P580.92 per month if married with four children.

Also, an employee earning P683 per day or P15,026 per month would have an additional take-home pay of P545.26 per month if unmarried; P1,307.18 per month as head of the family; and P1,190.52 per month for those married with four children.

However, reports also said that the government is set to lose P14 billion in tax collection with the signing into law of the said tax relief bill.

A television report from GMA’s Flash Report quoted Finance Secretary Margarito Teves as assuring that the government will look for other sources of income to recover this loss.

Teves cited a provision on RA 9504 which imposes an optional standard deduction for professionals, self-employed individuals, and small corporations. These deductions, he added, could generate as much as P15 billion for the government.

For his part, Federation of Philippine Industries president Jess Arranza was quoted by the same radio report as hailing the President for approving the tax exemption measure.

 OMG!! I’m so excited

I am very very weak.

Yes I admit I am. 5 minutes after posting that I will not give in to temptations, I am now on my way to National bookstore to look for more books to add to my collection. Ruy and I are voracious readers and so our room is half filled with books.

I deeply believe in the value of reading and so I try to read to Andrea every single day. This is why I find myself buying stuff for her and for me whenever I go to National Bookstore. This of course adds to the cost of my purchase, after all children’s books are soooo expensive now!

I think the cost is worth the value it brings though.

I must be strong.

I must make sure not to give in to temptation.

Aaargh!

Why is it that when you promise something to yourself, then that’s when you are bombarded by temptation? I promised to lose weight and then we are given free food all over.

I promised to save more. And now there’s a mall wide sale here PLUS this great bargain of a laptop that’s available to me.

Must not give in…must be strong.

2 days ago I found myself reading diet pill reviews. I don’t know if this is an act of desperation or just my subconscious’ way of telling me that I need to take this weight loss dream seriously?

I have to say though that I lost so much flab from my tummy after having my period. That being said, I still have around 40 pounds left…aaaaaaaaaak

I am currently reviewing the contracts for the next job fair we will be joining. After the last one, I now know better what to expect and what is needed from me during these fairs.

I must say I was so shocked at how much the call centers spend on these job fairs. The booth beside us was Convergy’s and they were giving out free stress balls to people who were applying. There were other companies who were giving out cute marketing pens to their applicants.

With the current recession in the US, finding jobs has become extremely difficult. San Francisco jobs are just not as common as they used to be. My cousin (who I talked about in the last post) has been trying to find a permanent job for around a year and this has remained elusive. It seems that it’s only the medical industry which has thrived throughout the financial problems because most of the nurses I know are living comfortably in the US.

They just keep on coming and coming and coming. After all the expenses we incurred from the construction of our house together with the furniture and appliances we are still not done. My car is up for registration next week and my car insurance is once again up for renewal.

I know these two are extremely important and that no one is exempt from this expense (well at least no one who owns a car). I guess I should just be grateful that the cost of car insurance here is nowhere near as expensive as a California auto insurance. I know my cousine was practically broke after paying for his. On the upside, at least you have a sense of security after purchasing this….

Sometimes being an adult isn’t so much fun…=)

This girl cracks me up to no end. The nerve, the audacity…it’s classic. Who else would find humor in her own cankles, who else would go and check in to las vegas hotels with a toddler in tow only to go to a bookstore and read? A woman who signs up for snorkelling sessions with the sharks and then decides to spend the session screaming AT the sharks.

Oh…and her dramatic weight loss is not something to be ignored either…. 

I’ve heard a bunch of people talking about trophy wives. They seem to look down on women who are being paraded around by their husbands like a bunch of baseball trophies. I was slightly amused by this conversation.  I personally have nothing against being treated like a Trophy Wife. Why, I think it’s actually very sweet if your husband holds you in such high esteem that he considers you so such a catch and you end up being a trophy wife. I think the problem is that some people are only that, they are just there for aesthetics and for appearances.

That’s something I don’t agree with. 

Appearances and beauty for me are too temporal, too fleeting to base a relationship on.  There are always going to be people who would be younger, sexier and prettier than your wife and what happens when you find that person?

I went to the Derma last Thursday. I went through an entire litany of just how bad my skin is and how it’s never been this bad, etc., etc., etc. The derma (who is a friend of my mom) just smiled at me indulgently and said in a nice way that I’m basically overacting and that my skin’s not that bad. She said that she wouldn’t even recommend any serious acne treatment now. She did give me some bleaching agent to help even out my skin tone and she gave me a cleaning.

I can’t think straight, my head is still throbbing. I still have around an hour left here in the office and I’m just hoping I can make it through that hour. I am so close to downing any form of medicine using a beer pong…yes that’s how desperate I am.

My friend Vicki said it might be cause I’m dehydrated. She could be on to something cause I’ve only had one glass of water all day. A far cry from the 3 Liters I used to drink when I was pregnant. I really should think about a lifestyle change…pretty much like what Jen has been undergoing.

Imagine this….having migraine and then having to wake up in the middle of the night because a certain baby (who shall remain nameless) was tugging at your big toe because she was somehow able to reach it from her crib. You somehow manage to wake up and pacify her and lull her back to sleep.

Two hours after, she’s screaming Mama, Mama, Mami again. And of course you’re up…migraines and all.

Then you go to work, you are in a room working under 4 industrial lights and having two glaring computer screens open and taunting you with their light.

AAAAARRRRRGGGH. With the number of pills I’m popping now I am going to need to undergo drug rehab very soon.

Ruy and I try, as much as possible, to spend time with Andrea during weekends. We try to find things she would enjoy doing as well as things she would learn from. Last weekend, as I’ve already told most of you, we went to a mall with a huge castle which acts like a trampoline while this weekend she went swimming!!! It’s her first time and she took to it like a fish takes to water. It’s very refreshing to see that she was able to get rid of her fear of water. I’m really looking forward to her swimming lessons which will start next week. I’ll tell you more about that another time!

I am now a massage addict!!! Luckily there are women in our office walking around giving massages (not for free though) to anyone who needs it. The lines are always long but I often manage to secure one when I really need it. I don’t know why but my back has been giving me trouble lately. I think I’ll have to think of purchasing posture correction pillows or back rests to help ease the tension on my back…either that or I need to be less stressed. I think the first option is a lot easier to do though…hahaha

I am losing patience and hope already, not weight!! I am going to go and try Jen’s weight watcher formula as it seems to work wonders for her. Not to belittle Jen as I know she’s working her ass off just to lose weight. I am going to try it the hard way one more time and eventually I’ll try lipovox.

What’s up with all these illnesses and sicknesses I’ve been hearing about? It’s seems everyone’s getting sick somehow. Some of the illnesses are those I haven’t even heard off like mesothelioma or rosascea (I don’t even know if I’m spelling this well). Is it because of our diet? The preservatives we ingest? The pollution in our environment? I swear I’m getting paranoid already!!

A friend of mine is leaving. The one and only friend I have who actually knows what a CAT6 cable is.   I actually talked to him heart-to-heart last Tuesday and I made him promise that we’re going to have a long talk before he leaves.  See this is a guy who would tell me to my face what I need to change and what I need to improve on professionally. This is rare…I truly value feedback like that.

Andrea’s memory is AMAZING. How do kids remember all these things? My goodness, compared to them I’m like a rock….meaning I don’t absorb anything at all. I forget my keys, my wallet, my laptop, my bills…EVERYTHING. Whereas Andrea can still trace where she saw Barney in the mall weeks ago. Amazing isn’t it?  I wish I can sharpen my memory and bring it back up to that level.

I guess it’s the time of the year when I am once again drooling over jewelry. But not just any kind of jewelry. I want designer jewelry this time. I took screen caps of these really pretty ones from Wendy Culpepper. I’m in love I’m telling you….it’s really love!  You have to admit these are really pretty right? I can justify this purchase too as I can pass them on to Andrea when she’s older. 

A colleague fell ill a few months ago and her hospital bills reached over 200k. Thank goodness she had some medicare advantage which lessened the bill considerably.  It made me realize over again just how difficult life is in this country. When someone gets sick the entire clan is affected.  I really should start saving up.   I don’t want to be put between a rock and a hard place when this happens.

A whole lot of my friends are buying plasma TVs, or at least coveting them. I am a bit more realistic, right now I can only imagine buying a plasma mount. Hahaha. I have this rule of thumb, never ever buy something which would kill you if it gets damaged or if it gets destroyed. Don’t buy things you can’t replace as well.  (or would at least cost you half a kidney to replace). So by the looks of it, the plasma mount is all i’ll be having for a LOOOONG time. =)

I once wrote a blog entry about fibromyalgia and a lot of people asked me what it is all about. I thought it would be great if I showed you guys what I saw in Wikipedia (they explain things better than I do)

(FM) is a disorder classified by the presence of chronic widespread pain and tactile allodynia.^[1] An example of tactile allodynia is when a person perceives light pressure or the movement of clothes over the skin as painful, whereas a healthy individual will not feel pain. Fibromyalgia patients are often affected by a number of symptoms other than pain, including debilitating fatigue, abnormal sleep architecture ^[2] meaning the brain does not reach all the restorative levels of sleep necessary for overall health, functional bowel disturbances^[3] and a variety of neuropsychiatric problems including cognitive dysfunction ^[4] which can mean short and/or long term memory problems, slowed information processing ability, diminished attention span and anxiety and depressive symptoms

Scary isn’t it?

I had grand plans for Andrea’s pictures. I wanted to hang her pictures up in big frames but I am not so knowledgeable when it comes to using air tools. If I were, I would have gotten around to fixing our office as well. I wanted to hang all our pictures and create a big collage.  Unfortunately, our jurassic equipment scares the living day lights out of me.  So here I am, 4 months after my grand plan and still nothing has happened. Ay Caramba

Craig David sung:

“I’m walking away,
from the dramas in my life….
I’m walking away!”

That’s how it feels like right now. Literally and symbolically. I’ve started walking/joggin/running. This plan was almost 3 months in the making and I’m so happy it’s finally happening. After one week I feel so much better already. The initial cash outlay is still driving me nuts. Yes I know running is supposed to be an inexpensive sport but I don’t even have the basics. Can you believe I have no rubber shoes? Ruy gave me one a couple of years ago which I barely wore but I can’t wear that cause my foot grew a size and a half during my pregnancy.

I decided to finally take the plunge and buy running shoes. I figured that the cost of the rubbing shoes is equal to the cost of 2 months worth of weight loss pills so it’s a worthwhile investment.  You will not believe the care I took in buying my shoe…I reasearched and researched and researched.  I barely even considered the aesthetic, the only thing that mattered was that I have a shoe which will keep my feet comfy and me safe. I don’t want to risk having any injury and considering how unathletic I am was, it was better to be extra cautious.

The shoes were well worth it. I don’t feel any strain or pain or discomfort even after walking for miles (fine, it was jsut 2 miles…but hey that’s practically 20 considering my previous level of activity).

I also bought sports bras, a dri fit running cap, and a pedometer. The pedometer acts as a body fat analyzer/BMI calculator etc.

 I sure hope I am able to keep this up.

I’ve been blog hopping and I came across several blogs with guys who are obsessed with everything concerning home theatres. From the equipment to home theater lighting and all the other things I don’t understand completely. Why must men obsess over these expensive things? If it’s not cars, it’s computers, gadgets or home theater systems. Why can’t they be happy with shoes and purses like us women? hehehe

Why are all these young stars going to alcohol rehab? I suppose that’s better than them not exerting any effort in becoming clean, but I am worried at the message this is putting across to kids.It seems to be fashionable for young people now. I’m also so annoyed at all these stars who have DUI charges. Why don’t they just get drivers? Why do they insist on driving for themselves? They can definitely afford hiring drivers right?

I’m really worried about these things that Andrea’s going to be exposed to soon..sigh.

Our bedding sets are so annoying. One barely fits, the other keeps on getting removed while Ruy’s sleeping. I only have 3 sets currently as these are so expensive. Any mom with a toddler would be able to tell you that 3 sets would not be enough. With all the spillage of milk, water, accidental peeing (by Andrea, not by Ruy and me of course). I really should look into getting new sets.

The whole world seems to be addicted to the Cruises…Suri, Katie, Tom. I seriously don’t get it. Why are we going gaga over people who have millions more than we do? We’re just making them richer you know? Meanwhile Jen, a good friend and kumare of mine, is addicted to another kind of cruises. She’s going on another cruise!! I’m not sure if it will be one of those carnival cruises or if it’s going to be something else.

I think cruises are wonderful but I really admire the audacity of Jen. Imagine having a toddler on a boat? I think I’d have a heart attack.

I’ve read the book several months ago but I just saw the movie now. It inspired me to visualize and think of the things I really want. I’m currently creating my dream house in my mind. It has to have a wide enough lawn for Andrea to play with. Ample closet space so I can finally bring all my stuff to our home instead of having my stuff littered in different locations. Having walk in bathtubs would also be wonderful….wooohooo….come to momma dream home!!

Ruy is currently into golf. I’m actually surprised at how into this sport he’s become. He bought his own set of clubs from this place which sells clubs and golf bags . The clubs looked great but I just had to laugh when I saw the bag. Can you imagine a big man like Ruy carrying a gold bag with a huge teddy bear on it? It’s hilarious I’m telling you. Now I can say that Ruy has golf clubs and a golf CUB…hahaha.

I’ve been watching CSI and Criminal Minds for a couple of weeks now and I’m beginning to be paranoid. I can’t believe the number of sickos and psychos out there. My goodness!! I really can’t imagine how one person can knowingly and willingly inflict harm on another. I guess it’s more prevalent than I thought as there are a number of professions growing around this industry like crime scene investigators, defense attorneys, forensic pathologists and lawyers like the Scranton personal injury lawyer.

Here I am blogging when I’m supposed to be thinking about how we can organize our room here in the office. We want to redecorate the whole place but we just need to figure out the configuration of our tables and chairs.  We also need to make sure that each and every fiber cable and phone line is where it should be. We are a bit prone to spillage here specially when we’ve had a few glasses of wine…I love my office..

I’ve been craving for jewelry. I’ve been wearing the same ones over and over. I have my engagement ring, my wedding ring, the necklace Ruy gave me for Valentine’s a couple of years ago and some diamond earrings.  The same thing day after day after day.

I want to get something new, but I know it’s impractical right now. Although, I guess if I choose some medical jewelry, I can rationalize and say that it’s for medicinal purposes.  You can’t put a price on health right?

Teehee

Damn damn damn.  Our total bill has now reached 23k!! Aaaaaargh

Do you ever get the feeling that when you’re already down, people can’t wait to take advantage of you all the more? I know this feeling oh so well and that’s why when I see something that could help people who are in situations which are less than ideal be it financially, emotionally or physically I try to make sure that people know about it.

This company offers Small Business Loans for anyone and everyone.  I was actually very impressed with their 24-48 hours approval window for Small Business Loans. Imagine that? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of any company which can offer Small Business Loans that quickly!

My grandmother’s funky. Yup, that’s 100% true. She has an affinity for things which some might consider too be not for grandmothers.

She’s in love with WWE. Yes she knows of the drama and the players. She watches this each and every day so much so that she cried when the wrestlers died (Eddie Guerrero, Owen Hart, etc.).

She also loves cowboys. I think she likes their aura and look. Some women like men in uniform and my grandmother likes cowboys…go figure. I can just imagine how much she’ll enjoy going to the NFR if only we can get our hands on some National Rodeo Finals tickets . For those of you who are not in the know when it comes to these things I shall educate you. 

The first NFR started in Dallas almost 50 years ago (48 if you’re going to be exact) and it features seven main events: calf roping, steer wrestling, bull riding, saddle bronc riding, bareback bronc riding, and team roping. Needless to say, this is not for the faint of heart.

Wrangler Jeans usually sponsors the event which has been taking place in Las Vegas although we don’t know how much longer it will take place there as Oklahoma has been dying to host this event as well.  I sure hope my grandmother finds a way to see this event, she’ll definitely get an overload of cowboys in this event. Yeehaw (wait is that the sounds cowboys make?)

In the Philippines, we are paid twice a month. Payday falls on the 15th and the 30th for most companies, it is not the case for us. Our payday is on the 5th and on the 20th and this usually works out fine but during this pay period, the wait in between paydays is just too long.
The last payday which was January 20 fell on a Sunday so our salary was given on the 18th. Meaning, we had to stretch the salary to go for 18 days and 3 weekends. This is no easy feat I’m telling you. I can already hear people complaining within the company, it’s gotten so bad that people are refusing to drink this coming weekend.
I am still so grateful that despite my complaining, I don’t have to avail of any of the payday loans just yet. While I know that there’s nothing wrong with taking advantage of payday loans (in fact payday loans are very helpful) I would rather exhaust all means possible before taking out a loan. Thank goodness to the budget Ruy and I started this year. It allowed me to stretch my salary for a longer period of time even with the gifts for my nephews and my sister who are all celebrating their birthdays this week.

It’s also a relief knowing just how accessible these loans are (some are already available online) just in case I would ever need them.

Pregnancy becomes her. Yup, I’ve heard this comment one too many time when I was pregnant. You know what? I actually agree as well! I would have to say that I was one hot pregnant woman.

I felt good physically. I would often skip and hop in the office (much to the detriment of the nerves of the people around me who would practically have a heart attack whenever they’d see pregnant old me jumping around).

One thing I hated about being pregnant was all the unsolicited advice which would sometimes get ridiculous. I’ve learned the art of smiling and pretending to listen while the oldies gave me their words of wisdom. (Okay, I’d be honest…I wasn’t really smiling all the time)

I wish I had paid more attention to some of their advice though. For example, I should have listened when they told me to put on any stretch mark cream in order for me to prevent stretch marks. I didn’t listen to them before as I didn’t see the need to put on a cream when there wasn’t any mark on my tummy. It felt a but paranoid to do so. Had I known then what I knew now (seeing how ugly my stretch marks are), I would have piled on the revitol stretch mark cream when I had the chance.

Oh well, hindsight is always 20/20/

Have you seen the TV show Las Vegas? I watched it for the first time last week and I find the pretentiousness so distracting. Imagine this, every single person casted is extremely good looking…yes from the security guard, janitor down to the person who handles Las Vegas hotel reservations. The thing is, the last time I was in Vegas…there was a whole lot of ugly people…yet somehow they were edited out from the TV show.

This is a useless observation I know. =)

Jen has been extremely generous with her time and effort as she is now buying stuff for three generations of bitches (Andrea, my mother and myself). Now that I think about, I feel too kapal…I had the audacity to ask her to shop for all of us…Oops sorry girl!!

I feel really lucky cause Jen and I have similar tastes and so I actually just tell her the general description of the things I need (office wear–size __) and she uses her magic to find stuff which are as cheap as buying from Divisoria here…I kid you not!

 Thanks girl!

It’s amazing just how many changes have happened to the blogging world. In the past, this was an unknown venue for self-expression. Now, it’s a thriving hub for practically every kind of person. There are now so many advancements like chat boxes, voting polls, embedded videos and files.

It’s funny cause I keep trying to explain what a blog is to my grandmother and the concept is just too far out for her to capture. Oh well.

I’ve been listening to Robert Kiyosaki’s audio book for the last 2 hours and as much as what he’s saying makes sense he’s droning voice is beginning to make me sleepy.

GAD…I hated long lectures in college, now I’m subjecting myself to it– and i’m not even being graded!

Trivia: Do you know that people who earn enough to be on the top tax bracket practically work from Jan- May just for the government. Isn’t this annoying?

A year or so ago, I posted about my dream of being able to give Ruy a Panerai watch and here we are a year after and I’m not one dollar closer to being able to make this dream a reality.  I really ought to take this budgetting and goal setting thing very very seriously otherwise my poor husband will be without gifts for a long time.

How nice!!! What a way to perk up a not so good week.  

Doesn’t it drive you nuts having a million small bills to pay every pay day. The worst part is you have to go to different places just to pay them. It drives me insane as I don’t have that much time to go places and most of my free time is consumed by having to go to different places, different ATMs, different centers for paying. 

In my ideal world, I could cut up most of my credit cards and just pay one bill every month. I know that debt consolidation is the answer to my situation. That’s the only way for me to streamline my monthly budget and also to end my debt woes. I guess we can be considered quite lucky as we now have this option available to us. I know for a fact that our parents or grandparents weren’t as lucky (well, come to think of it, they probably didn’t have as much debt as we do now). I guess it’s just important that we review the contracts of these companies very thoroughly and read the fine print over and over again.  That way we can see if this option is really the most cost effective route to take for us.

I never imagined that grown up life would be full of loans and debts. I wish it wasn’t so but this is the reality of life today. The best we can do is find the company which can offer us easy processing, fast funding and excellent service.  I think we all know there’s only one company which comes to mind which can offer all these things plus Business Financing.

My in-laws just arrived from an almost month-long trip. They started their tour in Japan where they want to Kyoto and Tokyo, then they went to New York, Chicago, New Jersey, Napa Valley and San Francisco.

You can tell they really enjoyed their stay there as they were glowing when they returned. They also had bags full of stuff for Andrea. She has so many dresses that I dress her up as soon as she wakes up in the morning and then remove that dress 2 hours after when she takes a bath. Just so that the dresses will be used.

I was contemplating on the cost of their trip and I realized just how much they were able to save because of the friends and relatives they had in these places. They had a sponsor in Tokyo and when they went to the US my mother in law had some relatives who had prime New York City real estate where they stayed. 

I think they were so impressed with the house they stayed in that they actually had brochures of houses. If they do decide to purchase anything there I think they should consult Prudential Douglas Elliman which is the largest real estate firm in New York. You can’t take chances with big investments such as this.

I was watching some self-help show and it said that in order to be rich, you’ve got to feel rich first.  And is there anything that could make you feel more rich than having your very own gold bullion.  Yes, owning gold bullions, lying in a bed of cash and having a lot of diamonds — these 3 things are the ultimate signs of richness.

I am nowhere near accumulating enough cash to lie in, I only have the diamonds in my jewelry but I can definitely own some gold bullion. A lot of people are now switching from real estate to investing in gold. With the rapid decline of the real estate sector, you can be sure that your money would be safer if it’s invested in gold specially if the gold is procured from a safe seller like Monex Deposit Company.

Gold has been believed to be the best way of investing your money for centuries. Cleopatra and all those people can’t be wrong right (after all, Cleopatra was right about those milk baths too)

Before we got married, Ruy and I already had a division of labor which we thought was fair at that time. He is the big cook and he hates washing the dishes. I on the other hand enjoyed the bubbles and water and liked washing dishes.  It seemed perfectly logical at that time to assign the task of cooking to Ruy and washing to me.

I am re-thinking this set-up now as I have seen just how Ruy cooks. He’s like a madman when he’s cooking.  He obsesses over a dish…then when he’s cooking that he thinks of what other things he can pair up with what he’s cooking. Pots and pans are everywhere when he’s done.

I’m thinking it’s time to get a dishwasher. I looked up the best brands online as I’m not so familiar with this appliance and I saw that the dishwasher with the best reviews is the ge dishwasher .  It seems to be the perfect balance between price and quality. Do any of you have ge dishwashers? Can you give me any feedback on ge dishwashers.

Now, if Ruy’s cooking and the dishwasher’s washing…what do I do?

I EAT!!!

Here’s a public service announcement for those unfortunate people who don’t know what to do with their extra cash.

Why not buy a beach house? I guess the next question would be, where should I buy a beach house?

I have just the answer for you, there are currently folly beach homes for sale. Can you just imagine the restful weekends you can have in these homes?

You guys haven’t seen my car but it’s in a sorry state lately. It has a dent on the hood, a scratch on the right side and a cracked windshield.  It’s hard finding the time and the money to have everything fixed. If I had my way, I’d get my hands on some body shop supplies and learn how to repair it myself.

The image in my head of myself repairing a car is just too funny.

Valentine’s day is coming. Are you one of those people who go all out for this occassion? I have a friend who’s actually going to buy a plasma tv for her boyfriend. BOYFRIEND okay not even husband.

I personally think that’s going too far too soon. I wouldn’t mind getting one for Ruy as I’m sure he’d go crazy over it, unfortunately I only have budget for a plasma lift right now…so sorry Ruy, you might have to wait for 5 years more…hehehe

Remember the glasses I told you about before? Well I’ve lost them. I feel so stupid and wasteful cause we all know that glasses generally don’t come cheap. It’s also extremely hard trying to find something which looks unique. Most glasses I’ve seen look exactly like every one elses and I hate that.

Now presenting my Great Discovry: $ 8 Prescription Glasses From Zenni Optical . The glasses on this site are not only extremely affordable, they’re quite fashionable as well.

I personally like this style, I think it would fit the shape of my face perfectly.

I have thousands upon thousands of  Andrea’s pictures saved on our pc and these are things I love looking at over and over and over again. I sometimes wonder what I’ll do if God forbid I lose all of those files. I think I’ll have that heart attack I was talking about a few posts down.

I found out that there’s such a thing as Computer Forensics. What is that you might ask? It’s the process of retrieving data from computers who  have conked out, died, passed the bucket or whatever you might want to call it. The company which specializes on this is called Flashback data and they’re the best when it comes to file recovery.

I don’t know if you all know this but I have a heart condition called MVP. Mitral Valve Prolapse is basically a condition where one of the muscles which opens and closes the channels between the atrium and the ventricle does not work properly.

The only effect of this on me right now is that I experience arrythmia which is an Irregular Heartbeat. It’s something quite uncomfortable but is not deadly.

Having this condition makes me a bit paranoid though. It makes me feel as if I’m especially susceptible to Cardiac Arrest or other deadly heart conditions. This is why I have been dying to go walking for so long. I really want to have a healthy heart cause I want to see Andrea grow up

It seems that everyone now a days has either a laptop or a pc. We are becoming so dependent on these things. I remember when I was in high school, only a handful of people had computers. Having one wasn’t such a necessity that people would only go to shops which offer computer rentals in case they actually need a pc.  I guess now that the costs of pc’s have gone down people would rather own one themselves.

Ruy and I are couch potatoes. Not that we are proud of it, but we’re just stating it as it is. We’re happy quietly watching episode after episode of our favorite series or reality show. We have several things we’ve been drooling over that would make our couch potato world’s even better. First we want those Omron massage chairs…mmmmm. The ones that massage you from the neck down and up again. Then we went a screen the size of a small movie house….and lastly we want some home theater popcorn machines where you can get popcorn which you can drizzle with freshly melted butter…Dream on Olivia

I was watching this TV show which exposes employers who exploit their employees by exposing them to unsafe and unsanitary conditions. I sometimes wonder how these people can live with themselves. How can you live your life knowing that you are exposing other human beings to risks of mesothelioma, TB or even death. How can you call yourself human when you do this.

The most disturbing thing is that when they are caught, they act as if there’s nothing wrong with what they are doing. I don’t get it.

I am sometimes in awe at how people with so little are able to survive. I can say that Ruy and I are both earning okay and we are still struggling from time to time. As I am a self-confessed self help junkie, I turned to self help books for answers. They are basically telling us to do one of two things, either cut down on expenses or if you can’t do that…earn more.

Ah, how simple that sounds!!  If only it were as simple to do.

I’ve been chatting with several people trying to come up with ideas on what we can do to earn more. We have a lot of ideas but the thing that would require the least amount of effort and the least amount of initial cash outlay would be selling. With the dollar rate now, buying stuff from the US and then selling them here in the Philippines would be extremely profitable. I have been toying with this idea for some time now and it’s seeming more and more like a wonderful plan. 

While buying retail would already be profitable, everyone knows that it would be so much cheaper to buy wholesale. And the lower the cost of the product, the higher the possible earnings. The problem now would be where to get wholesale products? I found this site which sells wholesale shirts. I personally think that wholesale t shirts would be a great investment or product to start with. After all, one hundred percent of the people I know wear t shirts so that already broadens our target market. Aside from this, urban shirts are very much in season right now and would even appeal to the fashionistas out there.

I’m not sure how I would go about the shipping of these things though. I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be so easy because of the bulk but I guess that could be the least of my worries. =) First, I need to get money for the initial purchase.

I know of so many men who wince at the thought of seeing a Marriage Counselor. I heard so many erroneous arguments from men as to why they shouldn’t go:

- “It’s our problem how can an outsider fix it”

-”It’s not like we’re going to divorce, we’re just fighting”

-”Why? Do you want to leave me?”

-”I don’t want to tell other people about our problems”

-”Why should I see a counselor, I’m not crazy?”

- “If you don’t want to be with me then just leave”

- “I can fix this”

Being a psychologist, I strongly believe in the value of Marriage Counseling. When couples are having problems, each person feels victimized and attacked. When you feel like you’re the victim, it’s hard to see the other’s person’s point of view. Getting Marriage Help will guarantee that you can extend empathy to one another and see where the other person’s coming from.

I can’t understand why people won’t do this for the most important relationship in their life. Sometimes, hearing another person’s perspective just does wonders. The counseling sessions also provide you with a venue to voice out all your concerns without attacking the other. You are also forced to face issues you’ve been avoiding which could be eating away into your relationship.

Well actually they’re not really made for walking. These boots that I’m talking about are specially made for hiking and hunting.

You don’t come across good quality Hiking Boots and Hunting Boots these days.  Most of the boots out there are made to look good without much attention to function. These boots are honest to goodness hiking and hunting boots for those people who understand that function is much much more important than aesthetics.  After all, you wouldn’t care about how shiny your boots are when you’re trying to trek across a dangerous mountain right?

The best thing about these boots would have to be the ease in which you can buy them. Just click on the links and their wonderful people would assist you immediately.

Oh and it gets better….shipping is free if you spend more than $100. Awesome!

Anyone who has seen my wedding ring would be able to correctly deduce that I have a love for gemstones. For me they add a touch of fun and whimsy to any ordinary jewelry. 

I don’t know if it’s true but I heard that some gems are supposed to be worn for particular purpose. They attract some sort of energy that could aid in healing different aspects of our lives. Some gems are supposed to attract money, some supposed to be good for love.  (I personally think that a diamond is good for love…if you give me some I will love you immediately)

The other benefits of gems are only secondary to me. It’s their aesthetics which really draws me to them. Look at some of the jewelries from sts jewels. They are beyond lovely don’t you think? They also make for excellent anniversary gifts. I would highly recommend sts jewels for men who are clueless as to what to give to their loved ones.  I recommend this because sts jewels offers a myriad of different products and they are reliable. You can be sure you won’t be getting fake gems from them! Plus the quality of their gems from cut to color are unmatched.

Our company’s thinking of opening up an office in Toronto and this means a whole lot of reservations for Hotels in Toronto. I’m pretty sure we’ll be using up a whole chunk of our budget on accomodations alone and that’s why we’re thinking of looking into Toronto bed and breakfast instead of hotels to cut on costs. I’m curious to see what a Bed and breakfast toronto style would look like.

A year or so ago, I posted a picture of our dream bathroom. We’ve come a few steps closer to this room as we already have the toilet and the sink installed. Now, the hard part. We are now in need of matching bathroom vanities to complete the overall look we are looking for.

It’s hard enough trying to find nice ones here in the Philippines, try looking for one while you’re on a budget. Ayayay

Unlike other people, spring cleaning doesn’t come to mind when I think of spring. Instead, I have visions of men in tights using their stick to hit a ball….hahaha.

When I was a kid, my friend Brian would always excitedly tell me about how he and his dad would try to catch as many of the Yankees game as possible. What’s possible would depend on how many New York Yankees Spring Training tickets as these things get sold out so quickly, Brian usually ends up just being able to watch 2 at most.  The best seat they ever got were Tier Boxes which aren’t really that great but for him they were AWESOME.

His enthuiasm was so infectious I ended up wanting to go and watch myself…despite not knowing anything about baseball.

I realized I want to have something like this with Andrea. Something she’ll get insanely excited about every year and something she’ll be able to tell her children about when she grows up. Any ideas?

The arm of the law excuses no one. That may be true but it’s quite hard to pursue a case when you have no money to pay for it. Lawsuits costs money, it’s a sad fact. It’s a good thing that there are some companies who came up with this brilliant idea of giving out Commercial Lawsuit Financing, meaning they give out cash advances to fund your case. Brilliant huh?

I know so many men who are so confused as to what best to give the women in their lives. And we women are confused as to why men seem to have such difficulty in figuring us out.  With all the difficulty my guy friends have been having, I realized it’s time for me to offer a tip or two.

One question men have is this. Do women want sweet and thoughtful homemade gifts or do they want expensive junk?  The answer is not so simple. It depends on how rich you are. If you are quite a rich guy and you can afford to buy a girl a car and you do buy her a car… it’s not going to be as romantic as a guy who saves up all his money just to buy a girl a pair of silver earrings. 

So how should you romance your woman if you are a bit well off? Preparation and creativity is key.  Buying someone a dozen red roses will not be as sweet as creating a surprise before delivering those dozen roses. How about writing a long letter delivered to her by the MMDA officer who happens to stop your car along EDSA? Making her feel like you exerted extra effort is key.

There are so many tips on how to romance your wife or any other women in your life on this website and I sure hope you men out there are exploiting all of these resources. That way you wouldn’t need these tips on surviving a breakup

This afternoon, while walking back to my car from the grocery store, I heard a loud crash. When I turned around I saw a car with it’s fender falling off and it’s hood all skewed.  A car just slammed into a delivery truck.

I shook my head in empathy. I know the hassle these people will be going through. Not too long ago a man slammed his car against mine and I ended up being sued and having to appear in front of an arbiter.

Over 3 years since that accident, the case still had no resolution.  Lawyers here generally see these cases as a waste of the clients time and they only take on the cases cause it leads to easy money.

I wish we had people who are specialized in these kinds of cases and who are knowledgable in handling these situations like austin car accident attorney or rather the Austin Car Accident attorneys. This is their specialty and you can be sure they have handled these kinds of cases in the past.

These lawyers also come from a company with a good reputation which is rare in that field.

Sigh…why don’t we have these things in the Philippines?

Andrea has these marks on her face and I’m not sure if it’s from bedbugs or allergies or just from the heat. I don’t know what bedbugs are or what they look like but I know they cause rashes. I have no way of knowing if Andrea’s crib really has bed bugs or not so I just want to clean it thoroughly. I know there’s some sort of steam cleaning bed bugs or rather steam cleaning for bed bugs.

I hope we have time to do it before I go back to work.

From the time I was a kid, I’ve been hearing the brand name Ingersollrand. My mother is a dentist and Ingersoll Rand air tools are commonly used in her field. These equipment don’t come cheap in the Philippines, in fact they are considerably pricey but my mom would insist on getting them. I guess the brand speaks for itself that’s why people see the value in investing in such equipment.

First Ruy caught colds. Then Andrea had her vaccination which caused her immune system to go down which means she got Ruy’s colds. Now my throat is starting to itch and I’m feeling a bit weak…I’m pretty sure I’m coming down with something as well.

I feel bad cause I feel like my family’s unhealthy. Ruy and I have already agreed to stop eating junk food starting January 1 but I’m beginning to wonder if we might possibly need some nutritional supplements as well.

I don’t know why but I feel like it’s a failure on my part when my family’s sick. =(

Does anyone here know a lot about insurances? I’m looking into different companies but I am not quite sure what I should be looking at when researching. I also want to know what is a reasonable mortgage life insurance. I really don’t understand most of these things and I feel practically retarded when I read the different brochures…ayayay!

My grandmother had her haircut and the hair dresser accidentally nipped her ear. Her ear bled and the hair dresser just tried to stop the bleeding. That’s it, a few apologies and nothing else happened.

People in the Philippines don’t really take these injuries seriously enough as we don’t have well known lawyers who can assist us in these lawsuits. The people in Nebraska have Nebraska Personal Injury Attorney/Attornies who can help them out.  This is a law office which has successfully represented people who have suffered personal injuries. 

Maybe if we had such lawyers here, people like those who take advantage of the unprivileged like those from my previous post would think twice before doing so.

A lot of you may not be aware of this, but I was supposed to take up my masteral 7 months after I found out I was pregnant. When I found out I was pregnant, this plan flew out of the window. I still regret not being able to go through with this.

I am very happy with Andrea and would not trade her for anything in the world. I cannot deny that I still have that nagging thought at the back of my mind yearning to continue my studies. The only thing that’s stopping me is logistics. I cannot handle having to drive to school, to work and then taking care of my blog, my daughter and my husband.

I’ve been researching for online universities as these seem to be the perfect solution for me. Online Learning is now universally recognized and is a wonderful solution for working moms like myself. The difficulty is in finding a reputable online university. Fake sites are a dime a dozen so one cannot be too careful. 

Capella University seems to be one of the best, if not the best, out there. It has garnered recognition and awards and offers undergraduate, graduate and ceritificate courses. I really hope I find the time to do this. Education is very important in this day and age and I know this will benefit me in the future.

*Information from this post is brought to you by Blogitive

A lot of my guy friends complain that it’s so hard to find gifts for girls. I do not understand this sentiment.  It is infinitely harder for me to find gifts for boys. I have to really research and look around just to find something for Ruy and more often that not I end up resorting to just asking him what he wants.  And when I do, you know what he says? “ANYTHING!” …aaaaaaarrrggghh

A few days before Christmas and I’m still completely at a loss as to what I should give Ruy.  This is so unlike me. I think motherhood has somehow made me self-centered. I’ve already bought 2 gifts for Andrea….that’s all! Nothing for my nephews and my godchildren. I’m awful I’m telling you…just awful!

Ruy is extremely easy to please yet I’m having a hard time thinking of a gift for him.  I think he would like these memorabilia from movies. Ruy’s a sucker for these things and the site I saw offers really wonderful ones. Not only are they autographed by the actors they are also rare. These are not the kinds you find everywhere, these are serious collector items.  I can just imagine Ruy giddily looking at these things. 

I’m sure Ruy would adore the the Star Wars 30th Anniversary memorabilia which is autographed by the actors. It even has Carrie Fisher’s signature. Ruy is one of those men who are mesmerixed by Princess Lea. Don’t ask me why please, I don’t understand it as well. This is definitely perfect for Ruy. The only drawback is one piece costs as much as my car…waaah. It’s definitely worth it but unfortunately I don’t have the budget for it.

I realized how stupid I am for not scheduling a vacation during this season. Our company has a mandatory leave starting Dec. 22 -Jan. 2 and that’s a whole lot of time for me not to be working. I’m hyperventellating now just thinking about it. What do I do during this period?

I decided to research online and try to find possible vacation places and rates. Everything’s so expensive now!! The only site I saw which offers reasonable rates for Hotel Reservations is interestingly enough called Hotel Reservations. This site has everything from motel, hotel, resort rates. I sure hope I find something soon.

Where are you guys going this season?  

There are thousands upon thousands of weight loss programs out there and some of them seem to be just repetitions or copies of existing programs. While others are just so unique that you have no choice but to take a second look and let your curiousity take over. This is precisely what happened to me when I saw this new Magnetic Diet. I  looked at it and said “What!!?”. I think this new diet deserves more than a second look and you can be certain that I’ll be researching more on this. Maybe this is my solution to a sexier body.

I’ve been trying to come up with ways of saving more and I decided that the best way to keep track of my spending is by posting it here. That way if I fail in my attempt to save the whole world will know I failed…how embarrassing is that right? So here’s my spending for the day:

100 - Massage in the office

195 - dinner (Spicy Tuna Salad)

 21 - Sago’t Gulaman

 50 - Headband

100 - Parking

——————————— 

466 — WAAAH no wonder I’m poor. I spend so much. I’ll do better tomorrow. PROMISE!

I feel so sleepy right now. My mind is slowly drifting away into my little fantasies. Let me share my fantasy with you.

I am in a spacious room, a lot of closet space, HUGE bed with a memory foam mattress and fresh sheets with 500 thread count or more. Small box of Truffettes de France on the Side Table.  There’s a vase with beautiful flowers which I can look at any time I want to. I would have magazines and fresh orange juice.  There would be NO clutter anywhere.

I would have candles lit all over.

I can wake up anytime I want.  

I am wearing a robe.

I have a set of Amazing Grace Products to use.

Wow.  What about you guys? What are your fantasies?

Desperate times usually calls for desperate measures and that’s why people end up clutching at straws and doing things out of desperation which usually makes their situation worse. One such situation which people might consider dire and desperate is being swallowed up by debt.  Luckily there are some companies which offer bad credit loans for people who are not doing so well financially but still need the best option out there. This company will allow you to screen all the lenders to find one which suits you best.

Desperate Times need not be so desperate after all.

If you would look at my bookshelf (that’s if I had a bookshelf) you would see rows and rows of self-help books. I am obsessed with making myself better in terms of achievement, behavior, thinking etc.

It’s so easy to fall into self-deprecating thoughts and damaging behavior and to be honest I’ve done this one time too many.  One thing which really helped me is my weekly session with a shrink who employed hypnosis. I don’t know how or why but it helped me a lot.

I’m dying to go back for these sessions but unfortunately time and money are not abundant right now. Luckily I chanced upon a wbesite which offers hypnosis downloads. When I first saw it I didn’t understand what it meant, upon further inspection I saw that they have canned hypnosis for a variety of problems and situations. This is wonderful as it will allow you to do it at your own time and at your own pace. The fact that one download costs so much less than my sessions with my shrink makes it SO MUCH BETTER! I am currently overwhelmed with the variety of sessions they offer that I can’t choose one right away but I’m leaning towards something already.

They also offer a No Questions Asked Money Back Guarantee which is something very brave for them to do. I can only assume that they are that confident with their product.

http://www.instant-hypnosis.com/

Jen, what do you think? Is this our solution to a va-va-voom body?

When I was in the US, my friend directed me to this particular which sells Phone Cards specifically for the Philippines. It allowed me to spend hours on the phone without breaking the bank. I was looking for something similar when I went to Paris. I had a disaster with my Mobile phone’s global roaming and it ended up extremely hard for me to get in touch with my family.

It was a giant pain I’m telling you and I looked around and around Paris but I couldn’t find a store selling these kinds of phone cards. I am now beating myself on the head and wondering why I didn’t look for stuff online.  If I did I would have seen this site which offers international phone cards. Look at how affordable all these rates are!

I think I’m going to show this to my cousins in the US. This would save them a few hundred dollars in a month.  I mean look at this, for 20 dollars they would be able to talk to their loved ones for 412 minutes!! That’s almost 7 hours.  I think this is the best deal out there and I hope people get to take advantage of this during the Christmas season.

Learning something from school is sooo different from actually doing something. I have taken up several units in Management and Business and although it’s very helpful, it cannot compare to actually experiencing it first hand.   Now that I have to actually do the things I’ve learned about I often find myself looking for guides to help my. I bought several books on business performance management and they are luckily helping me very much.  I seriously can’t wait for the formal training this January…

I realized that money talk has become a permanent fixture in my blog.  I wish I didn’t have to think about money much I think it is very unbecoming. I also believe that not talking about money is also tantamount to being dishonest. Everything is moving so fast in and around the Philippines that people are feeling more and more insecure about their financial welfare.

I understand that more and more people are understanding the need to save and invest in order to protect their income. I  would be very honest and tell everyone that I am practically a moron when it comes to investing and the like. Thank goodness for the internet and all the helpful sites offering information on these things. 

I have made a lot of money mistakes which I think I could have avoided have I been better informed and advised.  I would like to think I know a bit better now and hopefully in 2 years time, there would be less posts here worrying about money.

Jen has tagged our home as the House of Ruru. She’s referring to the fact that Ruy has turned our home into a sort of restaurant with all his fancy cooking. Yes Ruy is a good cook and he’s also very adventurous and experimental when it comes to cooking. 

Jen was suggesting that we put up a restaurant and as much as I would love to do that, the thought of it scares me. We can’t be as risky as in the past as we have Andrea to think of now.  The fact that there aren’t a lot of companies in the Philippines which offers Small Business Financing doesn’t help our cause much as well. If we had something like EZUnsecured which provides easy processing, fast funding and awesome service maybe we’d have a better chance of setting up a restaurant.

If we’re only oozing with money this would be a fun venture that we could undertake. Meanwhile, we’ll just have to contend ourselves with dining for two in the House of Ruru

I scheduled a meeting with my boss this week. I am aching for feedback. It’s true that I’m lucky enough to have a wonderful working and personal relationship with my boss. I can tell him pretty much everything and we’re pretty much seeing eye to eye in 88% of the things we talk about. I also respect him enough to follow him during the 12% of the times when I don’t agree with him.

I asked for feedback because I’m afraid of being stagnant. I don’t want to be stuck in a rut just because things are working. I want to continually improve and find out how I can improve.  I also want to pick his brain about Business valuation errr evaluation I mean and Business strategies. I’m quite excited for this meeting….wish me luck!!

To say that my car is in tip-top shape would be an understatement. Let me tell you about the situation of my car. First, the windshield was hit by a stray rock while driving down Balara. Next, the front was hit by someone while I was parked. Lastly, I was hit by an ambulance on the side.

My car has indeed been bruised a lot and I would gladly accept car donations from generous sponsors. Hahaha…

If I only had the money, I would give up this car to this company which accepts car donations in order to fund the production of videos for kids and teens. At least my car would be going to a good cause. Unfortunately I don’t have much money so I guess I better stick to my original plan of asking for car donations. =)

Andrea has received several gifts from myself already for Christmas but I can’t seem to think of a gift for Ruy.  For the past couple of years I’ve given him watches several times. I don’t know why this is so but it seems to be the trend with my gifts for Ruy (while he in turn keeps giving me wallets). Following this informal tradition, I’m looking into these Franck Muller watches which look very nice. What do you guys think?

I met several women today and each of them had their own business. From the start I’ve always known that I was not the type to go into business. I just didn’t have the heart and probably the mind for it. I deliberately avoided all business courses when I was looking through colleges.  Meeting these women however made me reconsider my mindset.

I’m know trying to find something I can pour my heart into. If I were to go into business it would have to be something I really believe in and something I’d enjoy. To be honest, I’m not quite sure if I’d have the patience to do  market research and accounting but I’m not going to discount the idea just because of these.

Tis the Season to be Jolly… (falalala lala la la)

Unfortunately for most people, there’s a price tag to being Jolly. Yes, Christmas seems to be that time of the year which people both dread and look forward to at the same time. More and more people are trying to find ways of making ends meet due to their bloated Christmas list.

Some people are even turning to companies who can give them payday loans. I think that might be taking it a bit too far as I always thought payday loans are for emergncies and not for appliance shopping or gift shopping. Oh well, I guess different people have different definition of emergencies. For all I know these people might consider not being able to buy a Justin Timberlake CD for a friend as an emergency.

Nevertheless, emergency or not. It’s nice to know that payday loans are now viable options for people.

We are moving into a tiny house. When I say tiny I’m not exaggerating, it’s really tiny with a capital T. This works well for us as we’re a small family. It’s easier to maintain a small house specially when you’re working with a budget.

The drawback is the lack of storage. I can’t imagine how we’ll be able to fit everything inside our house, we’ll have to be very creative in finding storage space. I have a feeling we’ll have to use tv shelves just to add extra storage area.

When I think of engagement rings or wedding rings I think of diamonds. And when I think of diamonds, I think “I WANT MORE!!”. Yes, some people have an LV obsession I have a diamond obsession. I just can’t get over these beauties. The more I see them the more I want them.

I know the bible said thou shalt not covet, or something like that…but when I see diamonds I just turn into a sinner. =)  They do say that diamonds are a girls bestfriend, and I just happen to be a very friendly person.

I realized that I was doing opps and I don’t know when I should be paid or if I’ve already been paid.  So what I’ve been doing is keeping track of all the posts I’ve done in this database.  =) Obsessive much?

Remember Andrea’s Diamond Stud Earrings? Well I am still drooling over it up until now. I love the brilliance and the simplicity of it so much that Ruy took pity on me. He said he’s willing to give me a Jewelry Gift for Christmas….yey!!! I have been looking at Jewelry Stored here in the Philippines and I must say most of the things I’ve seen are either too common or too boring.

I want something unique and something which clearly shows my personality. I also want something that would match my wedding ring. Given that my wedding ring is quite unique and difficult to match. I have scoured several shops and I have yet to find one thing I like. I decided to check out an Online jewelry store to see if I can find something I’d like.

I would have to say that I was overwhelmed by the number of beautiful pieces I found. I am currently obsessing over colored diamonds. I don’t like pink or yellow diamonds but I want the chocolate, black and blue diamonds. Here are some pieces I adore.

This is a 3-stone Blue Diamond Ring set in 14k Gold. I’ve never seen blue diamonds before and so I’m loving this.  I find it beautiful and understated. It would go so well with my diamond and sapphire half-eternity wedding ring. To make this ring even more tempting for me, it used to sell for $800 but now only sells for $299! Wow. I’m hyperventilating from too much excitement.

I am also drooling over this chocolate diamond cross.   It’s amazing how sleek and sexy the cross looks, I never imagined I could ever describe a cross as sexy but this piece is just that! The fact that it’s selling for 60% less than it’s actualy price makes it even prettier in my eyes.

Hmmm, I guess we can imagine where some of my blog earnings will go this December.  =) I am loving browsing through this online store cause it’s so convenient. You can narrow down their collection by type, function, stone type, metal type, cost etc.  It’s just so much more convenient than having to drive from one store to another.

I have subscribed to Unionbank’s Eon and I was so excited about it. It’s sad because I’ve been met with one frustration after another with this one.  First is the multiple trips to the bank and processes it requires. There are too many repetitive steps.

Now, my money which I transferred from my paypal account last Monday is still not here. It’s been 8 days.  I called them and they said it would sometimes take 11 working days. Oh really? What happened to the 5 working days you promised me before I got an account? Aaaargh.

So this means for example that I earn let’s say 40 dollars from PPP, I have to wait for a month before I get paid. I then transfer the money to my Eon account where I’ll be charged 5 dollars. Leaving me with 35 dollars. Then, I have to wait 11 working days to get my money? That’s almost 6 weeks just for 35 dollars. WOW!

You guys are not going to believe it…but I think my yaya finally saw the light. This morning while driving Andrea to my lola’s house I asked her what else is missing and that she better make sure she won’t forget anything. She then shows me a list she made. She made a list!!! Wooohoo…

Of course the list contained EVERYTHING we buy so my grocery bill reached almost 4k. But that’s better than worrying if your daughter still has something to drink at night. Right?

I feel like Christmas came early today.

Jen and I are trying to motivate each other into losing weight.  I’m not really sure how well we’re doing but at least I’m now able to get my ass off the chair and walk a little bit. I’m not sure it’s helping but I’m sure it’s something.

I swear if I get really desperate I’m going to try one of these houston lapbands. It’s the safest form of bariatric surgery and it’s the least invasive. I’m not sure if I would qualify for one just yet it just feels good knowing there’s something like this available.

I will keep this in mind for future reference, meanwhile I will continue trying to walk. Today I walk, tomorrow I run!! =)

I love Gold in every shape or form. I love Gold the color, I love Gold the metal. Why I even have the Ralph Lauren Gold perfume.

I don’t know exactly what it is about Gold that I like. It’s probably the fact that it’s so unique you can tell Gold apart from Titanium, Silver and Platinum so easily. It could also be the fact that Gold stands for oppulence and indulgence.

People have often told me that gold is a better investment than real estate. I always thought that meant stocking up on jewelry. I didn’t know people can actually buy gold coins and gold bullion. Not only that, you can buy it online!! Hassle free gold shopping is actually possible. Of course you have to make sure that you’re buying from reputable sites as there are a lot of fake sites out there.  So far I’ve only heard of Monex Deposit Company as being an authentic seller…do you guys know of any others?

It seems that my simple joys are not so simple after all. You see, I adore freshly made beds with clean and crisp linen. Nothing feels better than stepping out of the shower…putting on lotion…dressing up then plopping down on fresh linen.

Reality however makes it very expensive to have this scenario every day.  I was surprised at how expensive beddings are. 3,000-5,000 for bed sheets and 2 pillow cases seems pretty steep to me. Specially since most of the beddings in the Philippines are very generic.  I want unique and one-of-a-kind beddings which don’t cost an arm and a leg.

I came across this site which offers Personalized Photo Gifts and guess what? They make Photo Blankets!! Check this out:

I can just imagine Andrea going crazy trying to figure out who the baby in the blanket is.  Hahaha

I have a soft spot for old people. I don’t know why but just seeing the beggars on the street drive me to tears.  It’s probably my close relationship with my grandmother whom I love so much despite the fact that all our bitchiness comes from her. Yup it’s true. =)  

When I was in gradeschool we were brought to this Home for the Aged somewhere in Marikina and it scared me. The condition of the  grandparents there were pathetic to say the least. They were in such miserable conditions that it affected them emotionally. They became grumpy, irritable and sometimes spiteful. I went home and told my grandmother that she should never stay in one of those homes. 

I am lucky enough to be living in the Philippines where the culture of extended families guarantees that my grandmother would never have to look for a nursing home for herself. I do know that a lot of people living in North America and Europe aren’t as lucky. Having information about the homes our relatives are being taken into is really important and thank goodness for the power of the internet, we now have access to these info.

A few posts back I was telling you guys about an idea of mine that could generate extra income. I was thinking of reselling things I will buy in sales which would help me be able to sell the products at a lower price but with income.

One drawback I can see is the fact that I have limited contacts.  I only know a handful of people and I think only 20% would even consider buying from myself. So imagine my delight when Jen posted about this site which basically serves as an online shopping cart.

So here’s how it works. You sign-up, then you setup your online store. Then you choose the products you have to sell. That’s it! You’re an entrepreneur already. Tell me that’s not easy.

It’s practically hassle free for the seller plus you have their technical support to assist you when you have any problems. It’s a complete solution for sellers and you know what this is sounding more and more like an excellent plan for myself. =)

I know Aggie already knows what to give Edil for Christmas, but what about the rest of you? I am utterly clueless right now and I don’t know what I can give Ruy. It’s not like we’re living in the US and I can just get him Superbowl tickets or NBA tickets then he’d be happy. Buying him a superbowl ticket would mean I’d have to buy him plane tickets to go and watch them. Trust me, I do not have the budget for that.

I just realized that the only luggages I have are those underneath my eyes and those freaking fat lard chunks hanging around my body. The last time I left the country I had to borrow luggages from my dad. He lent me his Samsonite luggages which were really awesome…but they still weren’t mine.

I think it’s time to have my own set don’t you think? The only problem is finding the money for it.Hahahha

A lot of people subscribe to credit cards without knowing anything about it.  I was just sent my credit card without even knowing if it wes a Visa or Mastercard. What is the difference between the two anyway?

I think this kind of mentality should stop. I think people should be fully aware of what they’re getting themselves into. Whether you are looking for Credit Cards For College Students, Credit Cards for professionals, or for housewives etc. you need to be aware. Why is this credit card better than the other? WHat makes this one different from the rest? Luckily there are websites which offers online comparisons of the existing credit cards from reputable banks.

Remember that in choosing which credit card to buy for yourself, knowledge is power!

You are not going to believe the number of sales there are in the Philippines today. Let me enumerate:

1. Citibank Eastwood Sale - half price for perfumes and other signature stuff
2. Cornelle, Visio, Corningware Sale - Still in Eastwood with around 70-80% discount. These are great buys I’m telling you.
3. Pigeon, Chicco, Richwell Sale - around 50-70% off
4. Krups, Dowell, Thermos, Omron - they also have a sale in their factory in Manggahan but I failed to catch the amount.

Can you just imagine how tempting all these sales are? These are real sales, not those phony 10% off sales you get at malls just so they can announce that they’re having a sale.  These are hard core sales with good and functional products.  Problem is we still don’t have our 13th month pay. It’s becoming very tempting to get a cash advance, payday loans, or short term loans.

I’m thinking buying from these sales then reselling them would be a great way of generating extra income. What do you guys think?

A guy…who shall remain nameless….once gave me a cowboy doll complete with a toothpick sticking out of it’s mouth for Christmas. When I opened this gift I was dumbfounded. I couldn’t understand the gift at all. What did it mean? What was it? Was it a joke? A few months after, I found out that it was 1. Wrapped by the guys mother, 2. Won in an arcade. This is a true story but I am withholding information in order to protect the dignity of this man. =)

Why are men so clueless when it comes to women? A single rose with a lovely letter would have been worth 10x more than that gift. Yet somehow, men don’t get this.  Most men I know (Ruy of the present excluded) need a lot of help and need tips for attracting women .  They are that clueless!!

Another example I have of how clueless men are? A suitor once gave me a poem entitled “Warfreak”…tell me, is there anything romantic about that?  I am telling you that right there and then I wanted to give him a get girl book and force him to read it from cover to cover.

These were of course in the past when men don’t have a lot of places to look for for help. Luckily right now there are websites which give help to men for everything from body language to tips on how to pick up a beautiful woman.

I’m feeling quite lucky because Ruy doesn’t seem to need these tips (most of the time anyway).  He actually gave me the most memorable Christmas gift ever a year or so ago. He surprised me with a room overlooking the Fire Olympics. So while everyone was stuck in traffic along Roxas Boulevard. We were happily sipping wine on the Balcony of a hotel with our feet up watching the beautiful fireworks.  It was wonderful. Ruy of course didn’t start out that way, he was also hopeless at the start of our relationship and it took around 4 months before he started becoming extremely sweet.

Ruy had the liberty of time as we were already a couple. Some men unfortunately don’t have much time and are therefore turning to websites which offers short courses. I was really shocked when I saw this. Wow…there’s really a whole industry revolving around this problem. I wonder if there are such courses for clueless women? Wait…is there such a thing as a clueless woman? Of course not!!

P.S. Hey guys, I’m really really curious about your stories on Clueless men…I bet they’d be very funny. Please write about it on  your blog then leave a message her so I can jump to your blogs. =)

I am currently searching for appliances and I hate how when I look at stuff online I get extremely excited then when I go to the appliance store I find out that they don’t have the model I’m looking for. Next thing you know, you end up buying a product you don’t know anything about as it’s the only model they have in the store. 

There’s this new site which addresses this issue. They have a search localization system which helps you find the relevant data to your particular site. God knows I don’t need to know what refrigerator models can be found in Kota Kinabalu…I want to know what I can find here in Manila!! Say for example I search for Kenmore Dryers , Krillion will help me find this ASAP. Krillion has access to National and Regional retailers to give the consumers the most accurate information real time.

Now, if only we have something like this here in the Philippines I’d be one happy camper.

I hate hate hate it when sales people are able to coerce you into getting something you don’t really need or sometimes you don’t even like. Sometimes you get things from them just because you want them to stop already. There was this one time I wanted to look at something and this snotty sales lady looked at me as if I couldn’t afford what I was looking at. I ended up buying something there just to prove her wrong…I ended up with my wallet empty but my pride intact.

One thing I like about this website which offers Payday Loans online. There’s no need to deal with annoying sales people. The site offers everything you need online. My favorite part is the option to choose your loan amount, then the number of days you are going to loan it…and voila it computes exactly how much the interest will be. Very simple and straightforward yet very useful.

I feel so tired. I have so much to do and I don’t know when I can get around to doing them. It’s really not easy trying to balance everything I have on my plate and there are some instances when I ask myself if it’s really possible to do so.

I’m fantasizing that today I have nothing to do but relax in hot tubs with a mimosa on my hand and a plate of cheese.

My boss is currently in negotiations with people regarding an office we’re looking into. He asked me in jest if I’d want to oversee the construction. I warned him that if he assigned me to do this the following would happen.

1. An entire wall (at least) would have a mural of myself.

2. We’d have pink walls.

3.  I’d have the most insane conversations with the contractor. I’d probably say something like “Why are you insisting on using that thing you call cement, it’s ugly. Do something about it…what do you mean that’s the normal color of cement? I don’t care! Here’s some water color…color it!”

Nope, it just wouldn’t work. =) God knows I don’t know much about Cat5E patch panels or about the differences between the different cables…the only thing I’d care about is how cute the cables look.

I am so excited! I found another way of earning online through SMORTY. It’s a company which matches potential advertisers to bloggers with blogs that match what they are looking for. Smorty then gives the bloggers a list of possible opportunities for his blog and the blogger can choose which opportunities to take. This is of course brilliant as it allows people like me who are living in Asia, access to opportunities from companies miles away.  It’s also a win-win situation for the bloggers and advertisers. The advertisers get to advertise on blogs while the bloggers do what they do best while earning money. SWEET!

Smorty is practically hassle free, all I did was sign up –2 days later–an email saying I’m approved together with instant opps. Everything is so easy and convenient. I am also thrilled about the fact that I still have a say as to what I will put in my blog. I wouldn’t be forced to write about weird topics I don’t know anything about like the genetic manipulation of Canola Oil for example. I must say I’m quite impressed and I’m looking forward to a loooong partnership between myself and Smorty.

I always get these pop-ups asking me to join an online lottery or an online casino. I’ve always rejected them as I don’t really have money to spare but I’ve always been curious about them. Have any of you tried going into these online casino sites? I can imagine that it would be very addicting but is it as fun? To be honest I’ve never even gambled except for the time when Ruy, Carmi, Cyril and I played poker and the loser had to pay for dessert. I guess you can’t really call me a high roller. Hahaha.

I am not a very lucky person so God help me if I ever do get into these things. I have friend who went to Vegas and actually ended up getting back everything she spent on the trip through gambling. If I were half as lucky as she was, you’d have a hard time getting me to stop going into these sites which offers online casinoes.

The best part about this sites? No one knows your gambling so they wouldn’t ask you for a tip when you win. Hehehe

I am feeling insecure despite not having any self-esteem issues. It’s not about my hair, face, weight, height, or color…it’s about money and the future. I’m always worrying about what kind of future Andrea will have or what kind of future Ruy and I can provide for her.

The most logical thing to do would of course be to get some sort of Coverage For Insurance or do you call that Insurance Coverage? I get confused…

These are really major decisions and for people who are not as adept in insurance terminologies it’s not always easy.  I hope I can get reasonable Insurance Quote for Family Insurance Plans. I know how important this is and I don’t want to make mistakes.

I decided that since my boss reads this blog (Hi Bobby). I’m going to write down reasons why I should be sent to Paris, France again. (Although Marseille, Normandy, Tolousse would also be acceptable)

1. I don’t think I need words to explain this. (flagship store baby)

2. You can’t get foie gras like this in the Philippines. You just can’t.

3. What you see there is actually a shopping center. Can you believe it? It’s called Gallery Lafayette and it’s HUGE! Gallerie Lafayette is right across our office. You literally walk around 5 metres.

4. I have free france accomodations from relatives and friends living there. Although that being said, if the company’s sholdering the accomodations…even better!

5. Because in France their Shrimp Pomelo Salad actually has more Shrimp than Pomelo.

6. Because I can say “Pardon”, “Ca va?” and “Merci” very well!!

7. Because their streetfood looks like this.

8. Because I miss partying so hard even the camera gets drunk.

After going through my reasons. I realized I’m not presenting such a strong argument.  I guess the reason why I’m trying to come up with France travel reasons is simply because I want to go back!!

I’ve been given a whole lot of life insurance quotes and I’m a bit overwhelmed with all the info. It’s also such a grown-up thing to look at. I can’t believe I’m looking at these now. Me! Twenty-five year old me.

If you told me when I was a junior in High School that I’d be looking at these things 10 years after I would have laughed at you. My carefree days of cutting classes and bumming around seem like just a vague memory.

It’s not like I have a choice though, with the erratic state of the Philippine Economy one has to prepare for anything and everything.

Ruy and I have looked and looked and looked yet our house remains bare. It’s tough having to complete our house as we: 1: both work more than 10 hours a day, 2: Have very limited space with out tiny home, 3: Have a very limited budget.

We seem to have hit the difficulty trifecta when it comes to decorating our house. I decided to just take things slow and list down our priority when it comes to buying our appliance. We started looking at our options to see where we should be buying things. I have considered Duty Free, Warehouse Sales, and even Department Store Sales. I have also listed down the things we need to buy. Here’s our list with the first few being our priority:

1. Sofa
2. Cabinet
3. Microwave
4. Washing Machine
5. Refrigerator
6, Electric Fan
7. Dining Set (if we don’t end up having one made instead)
8. Pots and Pans
9. Knives
10. Plates and Glasses
11. Storage stuff
12. Sheets and Towels

Just thinking about the cost is driving me insane already. Oh well, c’est la vie! We also have other things we would like to buy as soon as we’re done with the major purchases.

1. Garden Set
2. address signs or home address sign

3. Vaccuum
4. Water Heater
5. personalized door mat

Oh, we also need to take care of the subscription of the ff:

1. Water
2. Electricity
3. Internet Subscription
4. Cable

Wow, we have quite a lot on our plates right now.

Daddy Ba is my uncle, although he definitely treated me more than a niece. Daddy Ba would pick me up from school (much to the chagrin of my mother who would be left wondering why my school service couldn’t find me) and take me to the grocery, to jollibee, etc. We would spend late afternoons chatting. He’d tell me about algebra, Napoleon, love, family history.

He died when I was 12 and admittedly I was hard hit by this event. Everytime I look at Ruy I imagine how he and Daddy Ba would have gotten along so well. It’s been over a decade since he passed away and I’m still very much affected by his death. I think what made his death so difficult was the manner by which he died. He definitely didn’t want to, he fought to the last breath in order not to die. He was just unfortunate to be a victim of medical malpractice and negligence.

Our family contemplated on suing the hospital where he died. It was (and still is) one of the top if not the top hospital in the country. We weren’t sure how we can stand up against their battalion of lawyers. Another thing against us is the fact that we don’t really have solid medical malpractice laws in the country. It’s not like  in the US where they have strict laws and excellent lawyers in each state such as the Washington DC medical malpractice lawyers .

In the end, we ended up not doing anything. I just hope these hospital officials now that they robbed our family of a wonderful man. =(

Now that the Philippine Economy is growing stronger (and should continue getting stronger with the expected influx of dollar remitances over the holiday period) it seems like the perfect time to think about hoarding dollars and investing it.  There are of course a lot of options when it comes to investment, from low-risk to high-risk, short term to long term.

I’ve always been interested in Real Estate. It seems like such a certain market despite the fluctuations, after all everyone needs some place to stay right?

I just wish the real estate market in the Philippines would be as available online as the ones in the US. It’s just so much more convenient in the US, whereas in the Philippines you only have a handful of options available online. For example, if I look online for Broward county real estate I’ll be sure to find dozens of options. Whereas if I look for Batumbakal St. real estate I’m sure I wouldn’t even find one.

It’s Andrea’s first halloween party!! Now, my mother takes these things quite seriously and so she really took pains just to make sure that Andrea will be a part of it. She’s quite obsessed with it as she’s been visualizing Andrea in a costume since I was pregnant.

My mom actually asked a friend of hers who was in the US at that time to buy a costume for Andrea. Unfortunately, the friend left a day before the costume was delivered. So Andrea was costume-less for a while.

I was telling my mom to just let Andrea wear the chinese traditional costume Papa bought for her but she wouldn’t hear any of it. My mom was a true blue stage grandma and insisted on buying another costume for Andrea.

We have a parade and a costume competition later followed by the kids going around the subdivision. I hope the weather remains sunny otherwise we’ll have to put out the canvas tents so Andrea wouldn’t get wet.

I’ll post pics of Andrea maybe tomorrow. =)

I very rarely have regrets in life. I usually indulge in whatever I want and take a leap of faith every once in a while. One thing that’s been nagging me though is my poor planning of my past trip to France. I should have focus more on getting out of France. Avril had some relatives in Spain and at that time I wasn’t so interested in Spain. I didn’t know much about Spain then and in my mind it can’t be that much different from Mexico.

Looking through some websites now, I can’t believe how wrong I was. If I ever get the chance to go back, these are the places I’d make sure to visit.

picture taken from Wikipedia

1. Muralla de Avila — huge castle. Just looking at the pictures of this place takes me back to the olden days. It just screams History doesn’t it?  I hope this is near the hotels in spain so that going around the area would be easy.

2. Gothic Quarter — I love Gothic Architecture and was even more attracted to it upon seeing the Duomo.  Of course if I’m going here I’ll have to look into hotels in barcelona.

3. Museo del Prado — I am no art fanatic but I’ve learned just recently that one fantastic way of learn about the place you’re visiting as well as to have a full day’s worth of activity without spending too mich is visiting museums.  Do  you know that you can find the Titians and Rubens here (is it obvious what my taste in Art is like? hehehe) So I guess I’ll have to look into hotels in madrid as well.

4. Hot Spanish Men…I heard these are a dime a dozen over there. =)

Planning imaginary trips which might not happen in the near future may be fun but it can be quite frustrating too….sigh.

We are thisclose to moving into our new home. It’s both exciting and scary because we will be faced with expenses galore as soon as we move. Another major consideration is the huge one-time expense of furniture buying.  Do you have any idea how hard that is? It’s also extremely hard finding furniture and appliances which would fit our tiny home.

So far we have a bed which I LOVE to pieces..that’s it. The toughest thing to find is good home theater furniture that’s both affordable and stylish.

I always thought getting life insurance is something only old people needed to do. Now, at 25, I’m realizing that I need to start looking at my options. I get a bit confused and overwhelmed with all the information out there. Every time I talk about life insurance with anybody, I get bombarded with numbers after numbers after numbers.

After the problem with the decision making, there’s still that problem with the medical check-up. Who really has the time or the patience for this? Do any of  you know of any life insurance no medical or rather of any life insurance policies with no medical?

I was looking through my old blog posts and saw just how obsessed I became over my wedding. Women really go all out for this one in a life time event. It’s just sad cause when I was planning for my wedding Ruy couldn’t get into it as much as I did as men didn’t really have a lot of options then.

Men are usually stuck with very boring wedding shirts and I hate that. If you know anything about me it should be that I’m not boring at all and so my groom has no business wearing anything boring.

Couples who are planning their wedding now are soo lucky as they have so many choices. I’m quite partial to Kaftan inspired shirts with linen pants perfect for our tropical climate. Maybe we can have this on our 5th anniversary or something.

I’ve had a few…as Mr. Sinatra would say. One great regret I have is not being able to go to Madrid during my Paris Trip. Avril actually started planning and researching but having to go through so many websites is taxing and frustrating as we didn’t know exactly what we were looking for.

Eventually, the plan was shelved and we ended up just staying in France throughout our entire trip. I wish we had more informed advice on Madrid hotels so that we didn’t have to worry about our Madrid accomodation. We didn’t want to spend too much on the trip and having a website that could show us our options would have been so helpful.  *Sigh*

It’s too late to change anything now. The only thing I can do is keep an eye on hotel news so that IF the time comes and Avril and I get the chance to go again, we’ll be ready. Bobby are you reading this? =)

My boss has been obsessing over our laptop batteries. Everytime he’d come to our office and see that we’ve left our laptop charger connected to the laptop overtime he would unplug it himself and then give us a lecture on why leaving it unplugged is important.

I have been negligent in doing this and would often find myself lying in bed then remembering that OOPS I left my laptop plugged again.

It seems that this practice has now taken it’s toll on my laptop batteries.  It’s battery life is so much shorter than around 5 months ago =( .  I hope I won’t have to subject my laptop to any power supply repair. God knows my boss won’t be too pleased with that.

I haven’t even shed all of my baby fat when suddenly I get pregnant and end up with a baby and more fat. Van has already lost most of her pregnancy weight meanwhile I have graduated from being a cow to being a triceratop (yes complete with horns). I’ve been going over my daily schedule trying to find an extra hour for me to work out but it’s impossible!! Honestly I’d rather spend the time with Andrea than on the treadmill.

I really wish I would wake up one day and I’d be back to my hot hot hot body of 7 years ago…wahahah I don’t care what you say. I think I was hot hot hot then (meanwhile I’m just hot now…Hey Jen! Can you sense that I overdosed on self-esteem this morning?).  I wish there was a Miracle burn that could just quietly melt away all the fat…

See that last sentence just made me think of butter and bulalo soup. Oh no, with this way of thinking I might never lose weight.

I’ve been forcing a friend of mine to go and join one of those cruise ships. Nope, not as a passenger but as a cabin boy. This might seem like crazy advice but when you hear about their compensation package you’d want to be a cabin boy there too. The basic salary’s not that big. You get something ranging from $1,000 to $2,000. That’s just the basic okay? Imagine that every cabin boy is assigned to a minimum of 100 rooms in a ship, and based on a cabin boy they earn around 5-40$ a day per room. So let’s say they earn the minimum…that’s 500$ a day on top of the basic. What’s even more fantastic is the fact that they have no overhead at all…no tax…no housing (they live on the ship) and no lunch costs cause everything will be provided for by the cruise line.

The obvious drawback would be that you’d be thousands of miles away from your loved ones. The particular cruise ship is stationed in Florida and so it’s extremely far from the Philippines. I told my friend he can just avail of short term Orlando Vacation Home Rental every once in a while if he wants to see his family.

If Andrea weren’t in the picture, I’d try to persuade Ruy to do the same.

I should keep on reminding myself this. Times are not easy and despite my more than okay income we can definitely benefit from having more cash in our pockets. Maybe if I grabbed any business opportunity that comes my way, I’ll be one step closer to treating QA to Maldives like I talked about 2 posts down. wahahah

Seriously speaking though, I feel quite frustrated about the fact that I have EXCELLENT ideas. I just don’t have the motivation to execute them now. This is silly I know because of course having Andrea should be motivation enough right?

Yesterday, I had something big happen to me. You will all know about it in a month or two. Now, this exciting thing required me to put on makeup. Some of you might not be aware that I actually love putting on makeup, the problem is I had to put it on inside the cubicle. Needless to say, I was not so happy with the result.

I feel so bad because I should have spent money on a better foundation and good quality makeup mirrors. These would have made such a dramatic difference to how I looked yesterday. 

I am hoping that the photographer has great photoshop skills….*sigh*

Christmas is just right around the corner. I have no idea what to give anyone. Seriously!!  I have been thinking so hard about this and it seems all of my money will go to either buying furniture and appliances for our house or to Andrea. These are of course worthy objects of my money. I just wish sometimes I have billions to spare in order to be able to pamper everyone around me.  Just for fun…if I had all the money in the world what would I buy for people?

1. RUY

I’d buy Ruy a Panerai watch, a PS3 and a kick-ass SUV with an awesome sound system.  I am in love with the Panerai watch on top. It costs $8,000 so right now that watch will have to wait. The PS3 is doable but not a priority right now…plus I honestly don’t want Andrea exposed to video games this early.

2. Andrea

I’d buy Andrea a huge gym where she can tumble and roll to her hearts content without Mommy having a nervous breakdown. I’d also get her several fully paid educational insurances.

3. My Mom

Another house

4. My Sister

A trust fund and jewelry

5. My Aunt

A house

6. My Lola

A knee replacement surgery

7. QA

Each QA member will receive an all expense paid trip to …hmmm… Maldives. Wait, that’s every QA member plus 1.

Wow…imagining things can be fun huh?

I want to win…something…anything! I’ve never been one of those people who are lucky enough to constantly win in contests or raffle draws or even in gambling. This does not mean however that I don’t love having the chance to win. It gives me such an adrenalin rush knowing I have the possibility to get free gifts. I don’t care what the venue is; it may be Sweepstakes, casino, poker, drawing numbers off a hat…you name it I’ll try it.

The biggest prize I’ve ever received is a box of cookies. Imagine that? That already made me so happy. I saw this site and I was awed at the prizes!! I’m so excited. I hope I’d get the chance to play…God knows I could use the amazing cash prizes. I am drooling now just thinking about the things I could buy with all that money.  I am currently eyeing the money but the appliances would also come in handy once we move to our new house.

Why don’t they have more sites like this? I’m sure a lot of people would be addicted.

I asked my boss before “Boss, what will happen to the company if you die?”…I can be an annoying employee and I actually just asked that cause I wanted to annoy my boss at that time. I would have to admit though that this question has crossed my mind sooo many times. This is a very valid question because my boss is actually a key person in our company asay Key Person Life Insurance is a nd truth be told…I can’t imagine anyone taking his place at all.

It got me thinking about our CEO…what happens if he faces an accident (knock on wood everyone!!)? Do you think our company will survive without him? I’m pretty sure he has some sort of Key Person Life Insurance right? What I mean when I say Key Person Life Insurance is  Life Insurance for Key Person or rather for Key People in a company.  These seem commonsensical but not everyone has this sort of insurance cause it can be quite pricey. I personally think it’s worth every penny though. After all you’re not only insuring yourself but the future of your company as well as the jobs of your employees.

Despite such insurance policies I still worry about losing my boss. I sincerely think finding another boss like mine will be hard. Trust me, my boss is such an insane character that replacing him would be close to impossible.

  My windshield broke!! Can you believe it? I was just driving along Balara when a stray stone hit my windshield out of nowhere. Can you believe that?  Now my car has a diagonal crack running up it’s windshield.  The worst part about this is the cause, the windshield of Ruy’s pickup broke before and it cost him close to 10k. I don’t need this extra cost right now. Thank God for companies who offer Insurance Coverage for Cars, I would still have to shell out around 2k but hey that’s better than shelling out the whole amount right?

I’m not even sure how Auto Insurance Plans work, but I have a feeling my current plan is not the best plan out there. I am thinking of finding another company which would give me Better Car Insurance Rates.  I am thinking of going to this site which offers Insurance Quotes Online. I’m not sure if they would accept policies from Philippine drivers though.

Haaay…I hope I get to fix this windshield problem soon. I’m not comfortable driving around a broken car with Andrea in tow. I hope what they say about having 7 years of Bad Luck which comes with breaking glass. Afterall I can’t be taken accountable for something which is not my fault right?

I just signed up with Blogsvertise and I’m soooo excited. I can’t wait to stop posting ads here. I already have a list of things I’m going to buy with my earnings. WAhaha

I know I waited a bit too long to sign up with a blog ad company but I didn’t want to rush it. I wanted to make sure I sign up with a legit company who wouldn’t rip me off my earnings. You can never be to careful with all the fake companies nowadays. I already have several  friends who are tied up with blogsvertise and they are all happy with the company.

I hope my blog gets approved.

Masterseek is this great new search engine for people looking for jobs. It’s seems that the job market is getting more and more congested and it’s getting harder and harder for people to find jobs without having to relocate. Masterseek aims to help people with this problem, with this great new search engine you will be able to search for job opportunities from 45 million companies for 75 countries world wide. So if you’re thinking of relocating to Kota Kinabalu or Zimbabwe, you can look for jobs from Masterseek first and see if there’s anything waiting for you there. Isn’t that great?

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I can’t get over how easy it was for me to be approved by bloggerwave, practically no waiting time!! I learned about bloggerwave, through surfing and decided to try it out. Afterall, any chance to earn money is a good thing right? So I submitted my blog for approval (thanks for the paypal Jen) and VOILA within 24 hours my blog has been approved! Talk about convenient. So after I type this blog I’m already 10 dollars richer. It’s as easy as that…WOW!

I really suggest that you people try it out. After all, what do you have to lose?

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