Win! Win! Win!
Thank you for joining The Walking Eater Contest. Winning two (2) Walking Eaters each are … drumroll please … Patrick Carlos, Teeyah and Polinda Usero. Congratulations!
If It Does Not Make You Money, Cut the Time You Spend Doing It In Half
Cut It
Or obliterate it altogether.
But boys will be boys. Will be boys.
And my husband, is a boy. (still a boy)
He always has gadget fads that he swears will not last. But they keep morphing into some other fad, that I want to scream to him: Yes honey, they do not last but they always, always get replaced with something else that take your time away from us!
Like now, it is his PSP and his Tekken game. He plays it every chance he gets – when waiting for an appointment or before the start of a meeting, in the bathroom, in his office (I bet – but he owns it so I think it is okay), in my hospital bed (when I was recently hospitalized), downstairs in our house when my children and I are having playtime and how-are-you-time upstairs, in our bedroom when the lights have been dimmed and my baby boy who is trying to sleep could not sleep because he is distracted by the eerie disco lights and slightly muted sounds from the PSP game.
I could go on.
Please allow me.
(Hopefully) Not Too Late Christmas Tips
You Can Make this a Special Christmas
At Christmas time, the mall is particularly stressful.
I mean the crowds are massive and stifling, the parking is horrible, the merchandise are disgustingly overpriced.
Christmas never used to be this way. It used to be special. The glittery, dreamy, new-clothes-new-shoes-lots-of-gifts-and-sparkles kiddy kind of special.
(Or is it because, then, I was not in charge (and not spending)?)
But I have grown up (as I must) and now it is my turn to make it special for my brood.
(And I wonder, was it stressful too for my mom and dad, or is it more stressful now because the world has become more fast-paced, more guilt-ridden, more material-focused?)
So ever since the countdown for Christmas began, I have been on the lookout for other alternative ways to give or buy gifts without breaking the bank or losing my sanity. Here are some of my picks:
When I Manned the Store
The Art of Selling
The first time I manned a store – I think I was 14 at that time (maybe) – I chased the customer away.
Yes, I had one customer. Because my mom would not let me talk to any other customer after that. I think. (my recollection is a little hazy)
We were selling batik clothes and some imported goods in a dry good stall and I was being very enterprising, butting in the conversation, giving the one customer (a man, I think) this option and that. He almost bought something but I think he got confused because I kept showing him stuff after stuff. (giggles)
He left without buying anything and I was kind-of blamed. I never really tried to sell after that.
But last weekend, I had to.
Greening of the Soul
Green Your Soul
Everyone feels it.
The earth is no longer young. Its resources are no longer inexhaustible. Temperatures are rising. Entire species are disappearing.
Just yesterday, everyone cavorted in clean, sparkling water, drenched themselves in sunshine, fished an abundant ocean, breathed air that is fresh, harvested a generous, bountiful earth.
Something happened between the space of yesterday and today
Mother earth was taken for granted, and overtaken (over taken) by human greed.
How We Did It
A Door, Windows
“Did”. I am not sure about that word. Because it is in the past tense and means the fun and the adventures are over. When they are not. We are just beginning.A reader wanted to know how we “did it”. She said she read my first post but that I just skimmed the surface of how we overcame the bleak prophesies of our first financial planner, that I did not really explain how we got that 24% increase in our annual income, and more importantly, how we overshot it. If you have not read that first post, here is what our first financial planner said:
“While the couple’s Emergency Fund Ratio (EFR) will be over 1x by the end of 2007, the ideal ratio is 3x. The couple would need to add around Php149,000 to their annual income to meet such a ratio. To raise their savings rate to 18.1% from 6.7%, the couple would need additional annual income of Php262,000, or add 24% to their current annual income.”
So, how?
Invitation to An Exhibit
Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?
A shameless plug. Hubby’s painting is part of a traveling exhibit entitled Icons of Rock, the Birth of Legends. His painting of Freddie Mercury will be exhibited at the following locations:
May 14 – 18 Ricco-Renzo Gallery
May 21 – 25 Ricco-Renzo Gallery
May 28 – June 1 SM Southmall
June 4 – 8 SM Marikina
June 11 – 15 SM Batangas
June 18 – 22 SM Manila
June 25 – 29 SM Taytay
July 2 – 6 SM Clark
July 19 – 23 SM Megamall