Archive for June, 2009

I spent 10 days in Leyte for our vacation. The real plan was to attend the Sta. Cruz Fiesta, attend the 84th birthday of my grandfather and of course have some sea, sand and seafoods galore during the stay but because of some prior commitments, I ended up working while on vacation. Not that I am complaining or anything, my work didn’t affect the vacation at all because it was already well-incorporated in my plans.

I was not at all prepared for the vacation though it was planned 4 months ahead. Maybe because I was not used to travel without my husband. Yona and I travelled together so I only brought the necessary items such as her purple beachwear, some camping equipment for our camp night and of course my essentials. For our camping equipment, I made it sure that I brought the Lichfield DeLuxe Anti Shock Walking Pole, it is essential for an overnight stay in the beach.

My laptop needs to be there of course. It was important that I communicate my client everyday because I promised him that I’ll still be sending daily updates on our project. True enough, without my laptop and an good internet connection, it was impossible to do a lot of tasks. My laptop has served its purpose! By the way, we bought my laptop for 259 pounds from a friend in London. It was such a necessity that we have to rush the order and shipment upon checking the price comparison of netbooks online.

I used SmartBro wireless for my broadband connection. I wasn’t at all pleased because of intermittent connection. Though I should have listened to my aunt when she told me that Globe’s signal is better. On my 4th day of usage they informed me that I consumed this and that amount which was impossible because my laptop was turned off the whole day! Such a rip-off. I’ll use Globe the next time I’ll visit Leyte.

Oooops! Sorry for the super long post!

No I am not pregnant. Not yet. Not now.

But I have this habit of checking items for mothers. May it be in fashion, cosmetics and the what you haves out there. The list is very overwhelming and I know that I can’t possibly buy all those stuff with the little earnings I have. But then, a habit is a habit – I still check out several sites daily and most of the time wishes that I should have done this and that when I was pregnant with Yona, that I should have been more fashionable and well-groomed (I was at my worst when I was pregnant! but hubby says otherwise…), that should have bought this for myself, etcetera.

Well aside from the good things fit for mamas, there are also things that you should avoid during pregnancy like smoking, illegal drugs, processed foods, contact with reptiles because of the salmonella, caffeine, over the counter or prescriptive drugs unless required by your doctor, tick bites, fish as they contain methylmercury – known to have bad effects on the baby’s brain, Vitamin A supplements, Botox injections – such a no no especially if you are pregnant and/or breastfeeding as the baby gets nutrients from you, x-rays, microwaves, stress, electric beds, water beds, etcetera.

Of these things, I am guilty to some but I never went beyond the limit. I drink and ate little amount of the what-nots because of my cravings. It took me a week before I finally gave up caffeine since I am such a coffee addict. It’s also sad that I have to give up junk and processed foods and abhored the fact that I will drink milk for mamas every single day. But hey, it’s all worth it. I gave birth to a healthy and smart baby girl 4 years ago and I saw the benefits of avoiding the whatnots.

Photo credits: www.killeen.com

This is my second week in doing SEO or Search Engine Optimization and for the benefit of the dummies like me out there Search Engine Optimization is the process of improving the volume of traffic (or visits) to a website from search engines like Yahoo, Google via natural search results. On my personal experience my daily unique visits quadrupled when I tried to optimize my personal site and I assure you, you’ll be amaze by the dramatic growth of your hits!

Aside from keeping your site interesting with visitors coming back everyday checking what you have to offer, link building is the most effective trick to improve your site’s popularity. The same thing goes to ‘better rankings’ in search engines like Yahoo, Google, etcetera. One way of doing this is submitting your site to web directories or link directories. These directories lists websites and categorize it according to the content in categories and sub-categories.

The process of submission is quite simple and easy. First find the proper category that your site would fit it, then Suggest URL, Add URL or Submit your site links on these pages, fill out the necessary forms need (it’s tedious but you have to do it!) and patiently wait for inclusion (they usually sends out the mail within a day, week or months – but be patient and don’t resubmit your site at once!) The appearance of your website will depend entirely on the directory. Some may take days, some months like DMOZ and Yahoo!.

There are a lot of web directories out there, some are free while others are paid. I submitted my website to a reliable free web directory like Max directory a month ago and see what it did to my daily traffic. As I have said it has grown dramatically since last month.

With link building, you can easily improve your site’s Google Page Rank Value (mine has grown from PR0 to PR2 in less than two months!), Link Popularity, Positions on SERP and more Traffic.

More tips on my next posts

I want to thank Mommy Joanne of Kidsahoy for sharing this.

She often reminds me to stay positive and send out the right signals to the universe in order to get the right results that I desire.

For someone who has been through a lot during her childhood until now, being positive can be such a hard task but I am willing to give it a try. If being positive will remove me from these dark times, go girl!. I want to start this change by counting all my blessings instead of looking for answers to my problems. In fact I already did, but I am still missing the little points like appreciating the little things with no monetary value in life. I’ll work on that soon.

In time my family will overcome this problem and aside from my husband, I have nothing but Mommy Joanne to thank for

You’re simply the best.

It took me ages to finally login and start this entry.

So how did you start your Monday? Mine was odd. I slept later than my usual Sunday sleep, in fact it was already Monday morning when I finally called it a night and dozed off. I don’t usually do that but since I have a backlog of 10 articles, all due by Monday morning, I really didn’t have any choice but finish half of it before the crack of dawn.

I slept a little and got up a few hours later to work on my remaining articles. My daughter said I was cranky so hubby suggested that I go back to sleep after breakfast. After I submitted my articles and breakfast I went back to sleep and woke up around 12:15pm, refreshed and in a good mood!

P.S. I received my prize from Iska of New Zealand. Will post about it soon I love it!

I attended the first M.eaningful & V.aluable P.arenting Exchange in KidsAhoy! today. The speaker Ms. Lou Molina of Loot Fairy discussed the topic “Open-ended Plays in Eco-friendly Ways” focusing mainly on the importance of open-ended play to our kids.

So what really is “Open-ended Play“? According to Scholastic.com, Open-ended play is actually free-flow play which helps your child build knowledge, skills, and creativity at his own pace.

I learned a lot during the parenting exchange. It opened my eyes to the reality that not all expensive toys like LeapFrog, Fisher Price are good for my child. It is still important to engage her in free-play using the scraps that we can find at home like toilet paper tubes, cereal boxes, bottle caps, mineral water bottles – things that I normally put away after it has served its purpose.

Open-ended play encourages the child to imagine, to invent and discover. It works because during free play there’s less pressure, no errors and there’s freedom because you are not bounded by rules.

By simply creating something out of the scraps, my child practices a bunch of skills that will help her excel academically and later in life.

To participate in the next MVP-Ex Topic: Redefining Stage Parenting, please click here.

Kids Ahoy! Creative Play Shop
#56 Lantana cor New York Sts.
Cubao, Quezon City
(front of Immaculate Conception Church)

I have just started writing articles. A month of exposure in this field does not make me an expert in freelance writing but it does not make me a NOOB either. I am learning the ropes of this freelance job little by little and so far, so good.

I write several topics everyday for different people and most of them require me to publish these articles to various online submission websites which offer free publication services. At first I did not even know what a submission website is until my discovery of a Free Article Submission Service site online. Unlike other websites, Pub Articles publishes non-duplicate articles easily and most of all, it’s FREE!

The best part about this is I am sure that my articles will be read by thousands of readers worldwide. You can even discuss your articles with readers whom you share the same interest with! Fabulous, isn’t it?

I am a huge Twilight fan, no doubts about it. The series of books brought out the ‘in love teener’ in me and has brought back the ‘kilig’ that has long been missing in my life as well.

As you all know marriage life made me tough but these books made me realize that I can still be soft and sentimental after all. Apart from that, I really find Edward (Rob P.) so hot that I want to melt in his arms LOL

I have watched Twilight thrice in the cinema and gazillion times in my PC.I can’t get enough of it but now I am excited with New Moon. Though I wasn’t that pleased with the plot of the book itself (not seeing much of Edward, puro Jacob) I am still excited to watch the movie because I’m sure that Edward would still have much exposure.

On another note, I want to see the Volturi, an organized coven of vampires who enforces the laws of the vampire world. They seem to be the villains but Bella, Edward and Jacob thinks otherwise. I am really intrigued!

I couldn’t feel anything but despair until I pulled into the familiar parking lot behind Forks High School and spotted Edward leaning motionlessly against his polished silver Volvo, like a marble tribute to some forgotten pagan god of beauty.
Bella Swan, New Moon, Chapter 1, p.7

Michael Jackson is dead.

Nakaka-sad. He lived a colorful life, too colorful that people forgot to see beyond the dark side of it.

Many criminal cases were filed against him but I would like to remember him as the singer who inspired a lot of people through his music.

He is a star, a legend, an icon.

He is a father to three , a husband to many.

A long time supporter of children.

But for me he’s just simply Michael Jackson.

Rest in peace.

This morning I was able to listen to ‘Gone Too Soon‘, a perfect song for Michael’s sudden death:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0mcxmCGetI&hl=en&fs=1&]

Photo Credits: http://www.topnews.in