The New Kid on the Block

The little girl is not so little anymore. She knows what she wants and can assert herself to get the things that she so desires. When she's really happy about something, she claps her hands with emphasis, or occasionally jumps up and down as if she were on a trampoline. If she's disappointed, she'll cry and protest with her own jargon. I also see the start of episodes of lying on the floor or bed and kicking her feet so hard. If she hates somethng, she'll show her displeasure by spanking it with both hands, or throwing the unwanted object to a surprisingly far distance. Now, I don't know how this new person came about. It all seemed to happen overnight. Where did our precious, innocent DD go?

Hooked on BG

Ooh, I'm hooked on BG's blog. All these revelations (and comments by readers) have kept me up most nights of the week. And since his blog's stats has skyrocketed ever since he broke the news about the dirty deeds of his ex-BF, he has managed to monetize it as well.

It's just as good. All his life savings has been stolen so it is one way that he can get some money back for all that he has gone through. Of course, his ex-BF still should pay him (if all of that is true), and with interest too!

I am what I am.

I AM… a stay-at-home mom.

I WANT… this coming week to be hassle-free, when we prepare for the little girl's party and when we move to our new home.

I HAVE… a loving and devoted husband and a beautiful daughter. ;)

I WISH… my mom was here to help me cook some of the food for DD's party on Monday. :P

I HATE… it when people give you false hope.

I FEAR… death!

I SEARCH… for ways to make more money online all the time.

I WONDER… how I'll be able to pack all our stuff in just 10 days.

I REGRET… not studying well enough for my driver's license exam.

I LOVE… surfing the net.

I ALWAYS… like to do things in a particular order.

I AM NOT… always a punctual person. :P

I DANCE… better than I sing.

I SING… only to our DD.

I CRY… when I’m so frustrated.

I WRITE… to make money.

I WON... in several spelling bees in grade school.

I AM CONFUSED… sometimes as to why I react vehemently to certain things.

I NEED… a good hair cut.

I SHOULD… get some sleep now.

THE LAST THOUGHT I GO TO SLEEP WITH IS… what I'll be doing tomorrow -- either to do the household chores or pack.

~

That was pretty lengthy. Anyway, it is the long weekend so if you're planning to take a trip, make sure that the place you are heading to has a good cell phone signal, just in case there's an emergency. Have fun and have a happy easter as well! :)

Drawing Blanks

I've been feeling un-creative today, which explains for the dry spell of posts. I am supposed to post 1 paid entry today but, I can't seem to find anything to motivate me.

Instead, I've poured my energy into packing some of our stuff. I have managed to put away all my novels in a large box. Yes, majority of the books are mine and some of them are yet to be read. The rest of the afternoon was spent sorting through the little girl's clothes, putting away those which she have outgrown and leaving the bigger ones in her closet.

Even though I have some of our stuff packed away, the house still looks untouched, still full of our things. It just goes to show the huge amount of personal effects we have, which leads me to the conclusion that I must work on it double time. Ugh! If only we could afford a service like that of a mover NYC, it would make our lives so much easier.

Weight Watching

All this food is making me think twice about whether I should just indulge or not. Oftentimes, I find myself justifying the situation, say something like it is a special occasion so it should be no cause for worry as this does not happen everyday. But what if these special occasions happen on a regular basis. Then the excess weight will surely be coming. I may have to resort to Hydroxycut if I somehow reach the point of no return. God forbid! *sigh* To eat or not to eat, that is definitely THE question!

Internet Addict

You Are 60% Addicted to the Internet

You're somewhat addicted to the internet - but who isn't? You can keep it under check, and you're by no means a hermit.

Are You Addicted to the Internet?

Not bad. I thought was soooo addicted to it that I was expecting a much higher score. :P

Getting Away

Speaking of vacations, don't you just wish sometimes that you can get away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life? Frankly, I occasional wish I could escape my household duties and chores and take a trip to some place far away from it all. Maybe I'd check in at a cheap hotel Las Vegas and watch all those wonderful shows that only Vegas can offer. I haven't been to Vegas yet and it is a place I'd want to visit someday. I reckon it's going to be a surreal experience, as nothing there ever reminds you of the realities of life.

Blogger Tutorials

We all know that Blogger is associated with Google and Youtube now so I was very much pleased to find out that they created video tutorials on Youtube to help new bloggers on how to use the different features that Blogger.com has to offer.

There are only a few videos at the moment but they are of the basic topics that all new bloggers must watch. These topics include:

• How To Create A Blog With Blogger
• Purchasing and Setting Up a Custom Domain through Blogger
• Adjusting Your Blogger Privacy Settings

I watched the clips and found them to be very informative. They used simple and clear instructions which every new blogger, I am sure, would understand. Go ahead, view the videos yourself and see what you make of it. :)

Travel Updates

Our tickets for our trip to the Philippines are all now fully paid. We booked the tickets back in February and was able to get good travel deals online. It's a good thing that Qantas has this book-now-pay-later deal, which we, by the way, also took advantage of. At least we were able to postpone paying our bill a month later.

I just printed our e-tickets this morning and realised how all of this is finally falling into place. All we have do now is wait for May to come and be on our way home.

Lovely Day

We went out to celebrate the little girl's special day. For a change, we went to the city and ate dinner at Sammy's. We ordered chow mein, shantung chicken, Sammy's Kitchen special and special fried rice. I loved it especially the chicken. :)

Then we headed to Babar for dessert and coffee. We ordered a piece of their Mars bar cheesecake and tiramisu with yummy iced coffee. Delicious!

We also bought a cake from Michel's for the customary blowing of candle for photographic evidence and for posterity. Since we were soooo full from dinner and dessert, we were not able to taste the cake. We'll reserve it for tomorrow. But here's a picture of it for all of you to drool at. :P

Still a movie fan

I used to be a frequent movie-goer in my younger days. Those were the days when I had less responsibilities and had only myself to look after.

These days though it is a whole lot different. With a family of my own now, there more important things that I must attend to. But of course, the love for watching movies still remain, and once in a while, we rent a DVD or two and watch it at home. The only thing missing is one of those home theater popcorn machines so we can have an endless supply of freshly cooked popcorn while we relax in front of the TV.

Project Wonderful

Ever heard of it? Well, I stumbled on PW at an Aussie forum a few days ago and have been receiving bids from some advertisers but have not earned anything yet. Anyway, here a few facts about it:

As a publisher, you decide how you want ads to appear on your site, and where. You can choose the type of ads you want (graphical, text) and their size (banner ads, skyscraper ads, and so on), and how many of these ads you want. Once the code is added to your site, the auction has begun!

As advertisers bid on your site, you remain in full control. You can decide to approve the ads by hand, or choose to trust ads and advertisers you've approved in the past. You can cancel any bid you don't like at any time, and it's gone within the second.

Every second that someone is a high bidder on your site, you're earning funds that goes directly into your account: funds that you can spend advertising your own site, or that you can take out as soon as you've earned at least $10. And you have access to the same performance data that advertisers can see, so you know how well your site is performing for your advertisers.

Although the payout is not that high as compared to others ($10), it may take a while to get something from them. It's nice that people bid but probably it's just because I made my starting bid $0.00. Go figure! Ha!

Rich and (not) all that

There is a blog right now that I've been frequenting regularly. It's a blog by an Aussie and he talks about an ex-lover of his who ran away with his money. He hasn't paid him back yet so the Aussie is exposing the secret lives of this Filipino and his party-going friends who is allegedly hooked on booze and drugs. These party animals are from wealthy families and are known socialites in the local magazines and newpapers.

They may be rich and all that but on one hand, they also may be leading very empty lives. They probably think that all that alcohol and drug abuse make them look fabulous, when I reckon it's just their escape. They better submit themselves to drug and alcohol rehab soon before it's too late.

Big Day for the Little Girl

It's the little girl's birthday today and she is officially no longer a little baby as she turns a year old of this day. She has grown so much in the past year, it's been such an amazing experience. :)

Anyway, here's a little meme on her birth date.

Your Birthdate: March 18

You are a cohesive force - able to bring many people together for a common cause. You tend to excel in work situations, but you also facilitate a lot of social gatherings too. Beyond being a good leader, you are good at inspiring others. You also keep your powerful emotions in check - you know when to emote and when to repress. Your strength: Emotional maturity beyond your years Your weakness: Wearing yourself down with too many responsibilities Your power color: Crimson red Your power symbol: Snowflake Your power month: September

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

Cool! I hope these are truly things to come for our DD -- so many positive attributes which we can all be proud of! :)

Flower Power

I love flowers. Period. I don't know why but I can clearly recall how in my grade school days, I would buy roses every single day from the vendor selling outside the school to bring home to my mother.

So i guess it was but natural for me to make sure that all the floral arrangements during our wedding were beautiful. But I could have saved heaps of money for our wedding flowers had I bought them myself in bulk and just hired a florist to do the arrangements. I wish I had known of Fiftyflowers.com then because I could have gotten them as one of our suppliers for our wedding. They offer a wide range of flowers and greens and can sell them at a below wholesale price. They also make floral arrangements for other special occasions.

Link Nerve

Link Nerve is a fairly new to paid blogging world and I first learned about it from Blogitive.

Here is the email that Blogitive wrote me:

We are releasing a new product today in closed beta exclusively for Blogitive members that I'm certain everyone will be excited about. It's called Link Nerve and it makes getting paid through your blog even easier.

Link Nerve allows prospective clients to search the pages of your blog that are already indexed in search engines. When the prospect finds a term within your post that interests them, they can make an offer to you through Link Nerve to have that term linked to their website. Unlike Blogitive, you will not be required to write new posts or create new pages, only to link terms within your existing posts/pages and get paid per link.

Offers are sent to you via email or can be viewed on the Link Nerve website. When you receive an offer, you can decide if you want to reject the offer or complete it, every offer has a deadline.

Blogitive will continue to operate the same as always. We hope everyone likes the Link Nerve system. More specific details are provided when you receive an offer.

Thank You,
The Blogitive Team

I received my first offer today and the keyword they wanted was from an old blog entry I made in 2006. They had a few conditions though for the offer, which posed no problem with me:

LINKNERVE TERMS & CONDITIONS
By accepting this opportunity you are agreeing to the following terms and conditions.

You are agreeing to link the stated word/phrase to the stated URL.
You are agreeing to not add a "nofollow" attribute to the link being created.
You agree to maintain the link without modification for a minimum of 1 year.
You agree to not place the link within Javascript or hide using CSS.
You agree to not add a robots.txt file to the URL that contains the link.

After completing the offer and reporting it to Link Nerve, in a few minutes, they paid me for the said assignment via PayPal. It was that fast and easy! If it's going to be as effortless as this, then bring it on, Link Nerve! ;)

My Mom the Health Buff

I was chatting with my mom last weekend and was pleasantly surprised at how much weight she has lost. I say pleasant because she is now reaching her ideal weight. Hormonal imbalance has certainly wreaked havoc in her body weight so now she is taking measures to combat all that weight gain. I asked her if she was using any weight loss pills to help her shed the excess pounds. But she replied that it took her only regular exercise and a healthy low-fat, high fibre diet to do it. Well, she really has been determined in this endeavor because we are definitely seeing results!

On Blog Carnivals

A friend has been asking what a blog carnival is because she's been recently asked to host one. Well, I, too, was in the dark about it either. I hadn't the faintest idea what a blog carnival is all about, although I have heard it mentioned on a few occasions.

So I did the easiest way of researching by looking it up on the web. According to Wikipedia:

A blog carnival is a type of blog event. It is similar to a magazine, in that it is dedicated to a particular topic, and is published on a regular schedule, often weekly or monthly. Each edition of a blog carnival is in the form of a blog article that contains permalinks links to other blog articles on the particular topic. For Example Internet Marketing Blog Carnival

There are many variations, but typically, someone who wants to organize a carnival posts details of the theme or topic to their blog, and asks readers to submit relevant articles for inclusion in an upcoming edition. The host then collects links to these submissions, edits and annotates them (often in very creative ways), and publishes the resulting round-up to his or her blog.

Many carnivals have a home page or principal organizer, who lines up guest bloggers to host each edition. This means that the carnival travels, appearing on a different blog each time.

Communities of blog readers, writers, and edition hosts form around specific carnivals. The carnivals provide an aggregation of recent posts by the community on a given topic, and the host provides a level of editing and annotation that helps readers find posts they are interested in. Writers who submit their articles to blog carnivals are rewarded with traffic (if the host decides to give them a link and, perhaps, a positive review).

A recent variant is Synchronised Blogging, or synchroblog, where a group of bloggers agree to post on their own blogs on the same broad topic on the same day. The titles are circulated a day or two beforehand, and each blogger includes links to the other blogs.

Pretty interesting, hey? I reckon I might want to host one myself! :)

Kate and Graeme's Contemporary Dance Routine

I can't believe the amount of talent these two people have. I love dancing myself but I have never been moved a dance performance ever. Until now. These guys better seek a good talent management agency because I am sure they will go places!

I was just blown away by this routine by Kate and Graeme last Monday night on SYTYCD. I very much loved it, so much so that I felt quite emotional the whole time I was watching them (proof: got my eyes all watery). And I do agree with the judges. It's the best contemporary number I've seen so far in this competition.

Feast 183

Appetizer
On a scale of 1-10 (with 10 as highest), how much do you like your own handwriting?
Probably an 8. I like it a lot, especially when I am not lazy writing stuff. I love its neatness. Just goes to show how OC I can be!

Soup
Do you prefer baths or showers?
I prefer showers. I can’t stand the soapy feeling on my skin. I get all itchy so I need to rinse it off quick.

Salad
What was the last bad movie you watched?
Gosh, I really can’t remember! I can only recall the last good movie I watched on DVD — Stardust.

Main Course
Name something you are addicted to and describe how it affects your life.
I am addicted to the internet and blogging, so much so that sometimes that it takes up a most of my day. I can spend hours in front of the PC.

Dessert
Which instrument is your favorite to listen to?
Piano and guitar (classical/acoustic). I am a frustrated pianist, that’s why! Seriously, I love how their sound can be quite soothing.

Counting Down

I can't believe that we are already well into the month of March. It is officially autumn in this part of the world and it has been cooler on some days. This only reminds me of the fact that our much-awaited vacation is also drawing near! Ooh, we are so excited (and I just can't hide it! LOL).

As such, I am also reminded to make a checklist of the stuff that we need to bring. Since the little girl will be with us on this trip, we need to allocate more baggage space for her things alone. I am not sure if our present luggages will be enough for the three of us. Maybe we need another one from Briggs and Riley. Bigger is better though, rather than having numerous bags to lug around. We'll see.

But before I do any estimations, there are more pressing matters that need our attention at the moment as our sweet little girl's first birthday party is going to be held in a couple of weeks from now. Ack! I really do need to do some serious planning ASAP.

Course on Blogging

I am not quite sure what this is all about but, hey, what the heck?

I'm evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they're letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.

It covers:

• The best blogging techniques.
• How to get traffic to your blog.
• How to turn your blog into money.

I'll let you know what I think once I've had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it's still free.

On Signal Boosters

Don't you just hate it when you are in dire need to call someone on your mobile phone and you find out that there is no network signal in your area? That would absolutely be one of the worst things that could happen to you, especially if it was an emergency situation.

Well, if you often find yourself in places with no network signals, then a universal cell phone booster is what you need! Signal boosters from Powerful Signal are a god-send especially if you are on the road a lot. They are easy to set up and is portable so you won't have to worry about lugging around any heavy equipment while trying to place a call.

Another problem that one may encounter in a poor network signal area is the frequent disconnection and drop outs while one makes a call. I know how terribly frustrating it can be because I have been in several similar scenarios myself. The chances of you experiencing any of that are slim especially if you have a universal cell phone booster with you.

I suppose it really is an efficient piece of technology as the manufacturer is offering a money-back guarantee. Plus, if you are also one who's mostly up and about for the entire day, I reckon that it is a good thing to invest your money in. This way, you won't ever have to worry about being cut off or not being able to complete a important call.