This blog will be on hiatus for few days since I will be busy with work and travel preparations. My apologies to my blogsy friends for not visiting your sites lately and to my new visitors asking for link exchanges. I will be bloghopping, updating my link list and doing the memes once I get back to the blogosphere.
Ciao! 
I love microwave ovens. Whoever invented this kitchen essential is tops on ideasnpink’s Hall of Fame in the Food category. They make life easier for me, I just put the food in a microwaveable dish, place inside the oven, push some buttons and within seconds it’s ready for my grumbling tummy! Life is surely made easier with the introduction of automation. And as much as automation saves my precious time, it helps me focus on the more important things.
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I’ll be off next week to the Land of Smiles again for about a month. Thank God for this blessing! I can’t wait to play again with my pamangkins, eat my favorite spicy dishes like Tom Yum and Nam Tok Moo, do the wai, say “Sawasdee Kha” and practice my limited Thai vocabulary, get caught in Bangkok traffic, go shopping in a night market, go biking/walking around AIT campus, eat exotic food (nahhhh)…hmmm what else? Obviously I am not that excited huh. 
Positive words go a long way, especially for kids. Have you caught your child, nephew, niece or your student doing something good? Acknowledge it! Kids perform better when somebody older than them, their parents, teachers and mentors, praise them even in the little improvement they show. My Mom would always say encouraging things to me and my siblings when we were still young (even until now). She believes that the growing up stage is important, and encouraging a child early in life gives him something positive to look forward to and emulate when he/she grows up.
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This post is dedicated to a dear friend Fe Valderama who successfully rose above the pains of surgery and chemotherapy sessions, emotional discouragement, and all the aches and discomforts she went through in her bout with breast cancer. Her courage and triumph over the disease is just so inspiring.
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Somebody used to ask me, “Why is happiness so fleeting?” I couldn’t answer him, so I just let him explain further, “because when it comes, we do all we can to savor the moment, to feel it, and time is never enough.” He added, “Suffering on the other hand seem to dwell longer than our patience and strength can take it. Because we don’t want pain, we don’t welcome the thought of it, we do everything we can to avoid it, and when we do suffer, we want it to end soon.” And he concluded, “That is why, when suffering comes to our lives, hold on to it, feel it, and life won’t be as bad as you think it is.”
I didn’t really understand what he meant that time but, as the years passed, now I do. And whenever I feel unavoidable physical pain, what he told me would always echo in my mind, and I try to hold on to the pain, to feel it within. Just like yesterday. I didn’t pray for the pain to leave me, I just prayed that God would give me the strength to be able to bear it. I felt it was something I can offer to Him, so I embraced it, let go of the feeling of being helpless and just gave in to it… and strangely enough, after some time, it lessened and few hours later, I felt better. Sometimes, we just need to face our suffering head on, and understand it, going against it would just result to bitterness. When we welcome it, it becomes our friend, and we become stronger persons because of it.
Choosing the right cell phone, TV, digital camera, camcorder or any new gadget can be confusing. I’m sharing here my list of steps on how to go about it:
1. Do some window shopping first. Scour the malls, or visit your favorite shop, for your preferred products and brands. Don’t forget to bring a handy pad and pen to list the product code, price and other details you’re particular with.
2. Do a web search on the products you listed to get more details and specifications. This is important for weeding out the ones that lack the features you want and for zeroing in on your specific needs.
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Being informed that one of my blog posts will be printed on Cebu’s Sun.Star Weekend magazine got me so giddy and excited, who wouldn’t? Our family used to live in Cebu, and was a loyal suki (frequent buyer) of their daily news and their Sunday mag, so I consider it a big plus to my blog. I checked out my blog post in their online site (since we’re not living in Cebu anymore), and found out that my surname was misspelled not only once but twice and I was referred to as a male. Strike three! I was so utterly disappointed, who wouldn’t? 
Becoming debt-free is a good start to becoming financially-secure, but most people are still catching up on credit card bills and loans. I don’t have a credit card myself, but I have some plans of needing a big capital for a business I have in mind, and the lure of getting a loan is there. Well, I am saving for it these days, so I am working hard to accumulate some cash for that dream. Yes it is still a dream for me, though I hope it will be realized soon.
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Wow, it's already past 4 AM, another new day, time for me to greet a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my cutie sis Daisy! I call her daisy duck, tadpole, yo, yoeee, Dy (as in Dee Wye)… hmmm what else? For being a thoughtful and kulit sister, here's a big hug from me. Missing you so much! I know you will be busy preparing food for your birthday bash later. Me? I will be taking the day off just to celebrate this day. LOL…kidding lang, actually I will be very busy today, but I will take time to cook something special for our birthday celebration here for you.
Well, what’s up with me these days? I’ve just set up a better computer for some serious software studying which I’ll be doing tomorrow, and my desk which used to hold my laptop is now being occupied with a big LCD monitor, the tower casing can’t fit in the space so it’s on the floor. This is just temporary though, I will be taking out all this stuff when I’m through with my study. My desk is not that wide and spacious, it would be better if all my computer stuff would be placed in a larger and functional computer desk, which could hold a printer, scanner, speakers and other accessories. How nice it is to have a workspace which is a lot more organized with all the spaces maximized.
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Isn’t it that, at some point in our lives, we’ve reached something we perceived to be unattainable even though we thought we couldn’t make it? Wasn’t there a time when we worked so hard to make it to the top, squeezing every ounce of creativity in us, pushing ourselves to an unreasonable or unrealistic goal and finally making it through and even exceeding our own expectations?
Some people who have experienced this would think it’s a result of hard work and luck. I’d say it’s hard work and faith. A person cannot exert much effort on something if he/she doesn’t have faith. Incredible and seemingly impossible things are initiated by a person who has faith, then everything falls into place in due time. They don’t wait for miracles to happen, they actually make them happen by having faith, and acting on it.
Ultimately, we attract that which we desire and work for. When we believe that we can, we are making ourselves open to the Infinite Source of a higher and greater Power, allowing even bigger wonders to happen. Creating the extraordinary out of whatever resources we have, paves the way to bring about God’s miracles in our lives.
A friend has just started a small home-based business which deals with home products. She gets her stocks from Manila at low wholesale costs, and sells them in retail packages at reasonable prices. Aside from putting time for this business, like getting new prospects, and following up on new orders from existing clients, she also has her hands filled with parish and community activities. Sometimes, she goes out of town for important meetings and when the clients want to order more, or inquire on product availability, she’s not at home to answer their needs.
The concept of an answering service would be ideal for her. The process simply works like this: small time business owners can have a virtual office with staff to take the clients’ calls. They have the option of having a call center, virtual office service, sales help, inbound telemarketing, depending on the business needs.
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I was busy browsing with Google when I noticed something new (at least for me) at the upper left corner of its search page — a link to iGoogle. Curiosity made me click it and I didn’t regret doing so, I got transported to a Google homepage with a lot of jazz! It can be customized to add widgets like time, calendar, Gmail inbox, my favorite wikipedia, the oh-so-useful currency converter, breaking news, and even an art featured for the day. It’s pretty much like My Yahoo! but since I use Google a lot when searching for information, iGoogle just got me.
Here’s a screenshot of my iGoogle page:
I used the Beach theme, since it’s summer, and Google promises that it changes dynamically “to match your time of day, including local sunrise and sunset times.” Cool! My browsing experience just gets a lot better with iGoogle.
Here’s a site offering various PC software packages and bundles — buypcsoft.com. This company has been around since 1999 and has been providing genuine software at lower prices. The software packages are organized into Top Brands (e.g. Adobe, Macromedia, Borland, Microsoft, Autodesk), Top Sellers (e.g. Project 2007, Adobe Acrobat Standard 8, Quickbooks Pro 2007, Autodesk Autosketch 9) and different categories ranging from backup software, business reporting, office suites, multimedia/graphics, utilities to developer tools.
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Living near the sea is like living with art. Everyday I’m in awe, a witness to a stunning masterpiece of the sky at sundown painted in different hues by God. Our house is just few meters from the seashore, and the sea was a fascinating playground for me and my siblings, a memorable part of our childhood days. Daytime would be spent playing in the sea sand, chasing small crabs, collecting pretty shells and trekking to a remote area for more adventure.
My uncle, who used to live with us, would take us to the seashore on late afternoons. While we played around, he would go to an isolated spot, find himself a rock to sit on and draw the scene before him — the sea at low tide with the different sizes and shapes of rocks and the distant waves with the sinking glow of sun amidst the horizon. As a child, it was fascinating to watch him translate to paper the beauty of the sea. He was, and still is, a great artist and I would eagerly browse through his sketches of portraits and nature. My uncle didn’t teach me to draw but his drawings inspired me and made me want to learn how.
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Do you work at home after office hours? Some people do. Not because they’re workaholics but the nature of their job requires them to access their office computers and retrieve important documents while at home. Sometimes, office work can’t be finished sooner than expected and you need to be with your family. Thus, being able to work on your important office data from the office through the Internet is a good idea.
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Which is which?
Quail eggs recently bought as additional toppings for noodles side by side with Cadbury’s caramel egg chocolates handed over by my niece who dropped by for a visit yesterday.
Same size and shape, both are yummy, but I have to be careful though, I might interchange these cuties and use the chocolate eggs when cooking bird's nest soup or accidentally munch on the quail eggs for snacks!
I have a project in mind. I think it’s a good business venture and would make me millions in the future. LOL. It’s still an idea though and I won’t go into the details but it sure would be good to have an expert to teach me how to handle things. Working on your own can have its pros and cons, and of course a good mentor or coach is very essential to somebody who’s still starting.
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Have you eaten exotic food like fried silkworms, crickets, cultured frogs or those that look like cockroaches? I saw these kinds of food always being displayed in Thailand. Last december while we were at the night market in Chiang Mai, my bro gave me one of those tiny worms (of course they're fried, not squirming anymore, hehehe).
I was busy working on my files this morning when suddenly my computer turned off. Uh oh…another power outage and it lasted the whole day. At least I was able to save my files before that, otherwise I would be crying over lost data. It’s been my habit to keep on saving my files after few minutes. Saving and backing up data is a good practice when dealing with important records and files.
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Ideas are powerful. A train of thought can make or break, build or destroy. The choice is ours. Our ideas become our future. I believe that life’s meaningful lessons are best learned when shared with others.
