Pinay WAHM

There he is...the first named hurricane of the season. We are not on its path but its outer bands will bring lotsa' rain in our area. We're already having a gloomy morning today - literally AND figuratively speaking - and it will only get worse according to the forecast. I'm a wee bit tired again this morning. I turned in late and woke up early. That seems to be the pattern lately and it's been like that for the last week or so. Needless to say, this gloomy bed-weather we're having is not helping with my being sleepy. All I can think of is get back under the sheets and just sleep away...but I can't and I won't. I guess I better go back to the more important things instead of sulking here whining about the bad weather, eh?

These are our guitars....mine & the little one's. Dad got the little one's guitar about a year ago. She was very excited when she first got her little guitar you would think she'd be playing a song or two on it before long. Well, not quite. Her initial excitement was just that...initial. After a few days of trying to learn the guitar chords, she just lost the drive to do it...and all because of the little pain she started feeling on her fingers as a result of pressing the strings. She still picks it up every now and then but she already started 'hinting' that she'd rather learn to play piano than her little guitar. That's fine with us but Dad has to explain to her that a piano costs a bit more, okay, a lot more, than a guitar so she has to be really sure before we actually invest on one only to be left gathering dust just like her guitar. She's adamant that she really wants to learn to play piano but we'll see. We have no plans of buying her a ...

I got this from an email I think. I just laughed real hard when I read everything written on it. I guess it's true, eh? I particularly like PHYSICAL PROPERTIES #2: Boils at absolutely nothing - freezes for no apparent reason. Haha....I wonder how many men get a good laugh out of this. I've been trying to read jokes online since last week to lighten up my mood and it's working so I thought I'd share one of the things that made me laugh the last few days. I have a bunch of work to do but it's been a drag so to speak because of my so-called sleep deprivation. Anyway....back to work...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Monday is almost over…again. I’ve been sleep-deprived so to speak but that’s how it is some days so I’m okay with it. Hopefully this week will be a lot better than last but we’ll see. The weekend went by quicker than I thought it would and it was as bad as I was expecting it to be given the situation. The weather was close to perfect especially to those who couldn’t wait to go to the beach. It rained a little bit but that’s about it. I’m sure those who went to the beach had a blast. O bviously, I wasn’t one of those that went to the beach. We stayed home and I was able to finish some long-overdue ‘tasks’ [aka household chores] that I’ve been meaning to do in the last, ummm…few months. Well, maybe more than a few months…more like a year or so. Tee hee. So what could it be that it took me that long to do it? Moving Boxes ….emptying then anyway. Yep, remnants of the move we had 2 years ago. I just didn’t want to dig through them without knowing where to put...

"Thank God It's FINALLY Friday!" Although the weekend will not be the one I am hoping for, I'm still glad it's within reach already. I've had a tiring week so I just want to rest and relax for a couple of days. Plans changed but such is life, right? It's something out of my hand so there's not much I can do but accept it. On some other news....it's HOT HOT HOT today. My thermometer here on my laptop is showing 96 degrees as the highest. More often than not, it's higher than what's projected so there's a chance it will go up to 97 or 98 at its peak. There's a slight chance of rain later today so that will cool us down a little bit...if it happens anyway. That's about it. Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

I guess my excitement for the weekend is now replaced with disappointment. Sigh. It’s not something life-changing or anything of that magnitude but it’s still something that made me [still is actually] unhappy that I shed a tear or two. I’m somehow over it now since there’s really nothing I can do about it. I guess I just have to keep myself busy so as not to dwell on it much. I have a lot of things to do, anyway. Work is still very busy…but I get bored doing the same thing after a couple of hours so I switch from one task to another to keep me awake so to speak. I have a to-do-list…2 lists actually. One is a list that the hubby requested me to do for him and my own list of course. Looking for payment solutions company is on top of the list that hubby gave me. He said he’s fed up with their bank right now so he wants to switch to something new and easy to deal with. I have yet to start on that since I need more information from him on what exactly to look for. While I’m waiting for ...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Finally, it's the midweek. This week has been extra slow for me. I've been trying to pull the days to make them faster but you know what happens when you try to do that....they get even slower so I better stop pulling then huh? Busy days are here so I don't have much time to update my blogs as much as I used to. On top of being busy, I've been really tired the last couple of days as a result of different factors. It's been raining almost daily now [hello SUMMER] which means I don't have to do one of my daily chores for now...watering the plants because Mother Nature is doing that for me. But with the good comes the not-so-good. A-L-L-E-R-G-I-E-S! Yep, it seems I'm 'allergic' to rain. Seriously. Well, maybe it's not the rain 'per se' but the sudden change of weather [temperature, maybe?]. My allergy is almost always at its worst when it's raining. It doesn't matter whether I'm indoor or outdoor. But ...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Here's one of the videos we gave Big Daddy on this special day. Enjoy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ After almost 10 years, I may finally be able to visit loved ones back home in the Philippines, with my own little family of course. We don’t have any concrete plans yet but it may just happen soon. This will all depend on the husband’s work schedule of course. The little one is excited because she wants to meet all her cousins , aunts & uncles in that part of the world. But like I said, nothing is definite yet so we’ll see. Since this will be our first trip out of the country, we have to do a lot of preparations. We’ve done some of it already but we still have a lot of things to do before taking off. Since the husband is way too busy at work, I’m left in-charge to do most of them. Home security is one of them. So far, I’ve been to http://www.homesecurityteam.com/ and http://www.broadviewsecurity.com/ websites to see if we should go ahead and continue with our plan of enrolling to a home security system. We had an ADT security system in the old hous...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ So it's father's day today. For the first time, we're spending the Father's Day itself with Daddy not at home. Yep, work....but we spent the whole day yesterday kind of celebrating. It's not an official father's day outing but it seemed to be like it was. We got Dad a bunch of new clothes. It's something really overdue and I'm glad we were able to do it so close to this day. After the shopping spree, we went to Red Robbin to have some early dinner. Simple and less crowded since it's not father's day yet. I'm pretty sure restaurants are full of customers today because of the occasion. Hopefully in the years to come, we will be able to celebrate Father's Day somewhere else...maybe avail one of those Branson vacations packages I see being advertised. It's very affordable and it would be nice to go out of town every once in a while, right? Anyway, the little one's present for Dad were not the clothes.It...

What Makes A Dad Anonymous God took the strength of a mountain, The majesty of a tree, The warmth of a summer sun, The calm of a quiet sea, The generous soul of nature, The comforting arm of night, The wisdom of the ages, The power of the eagle's flight, The joy of a morning in spring, The faith of a mustard seed, The patience of eternity, The depth of a family need, Then God combined these qualities, When there was nothing more to add, He knew His masterpiece was complete, And so, He called it ... Dad

My age is showing. James Taylor has always been one of my favorite singers and so is Carole King. Lately, they've been doing the rounds promoting their concert together that's ongoing. They are on the Today show this morning and I just watched them a few minutes ago singing "Where You Lead [I Will Follow]". And just like the other times, the cameras were showing the audience singing along with them. Guess what? They're all from the 'older generation"...which is expected of course since they were at the peak of their careers in the 70s. The scary part??? I enjoyed the SONG and I was singing along with everyone!!! Does that mean I am old??? I guess, eh? At least I'm still young at heart...I think anyway.

Why don't you grab a wad of it from here? How about from here? This is how I keep my 'fortune', stack up in some rooms so I just grab some whenever I need some moolah. LOL. In my dreams! I actually got these pictures from an email sent to me by a friend. It's a popular email circulating around and according to the email, these stacks of money was only part of a drug lord's wealth. There's a bunch of pictures in the email showing money in other currencies. I didn't see any bullion though in the pictures. I guess the drug lord only wants cold hard cash for his collection. On the other hand, there were also some pictures of firearms in gold as well so there's probably gold bullion there as well. Anyway, don't you wish you have even just a fraction of the money in the picture? I wouldn't want to obtain it the way the alleged drug lord did. Oh well, unless I win the lottery [which I never play anyway] or get a big inheritance from a rich benefactor,...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Question : What would a person do if he lost his job? Answer : Find another job. Good luck on that. If finding a job today is next to impossible, try finding one once you are UNEMPLOYED. Apparently, some companies are not interested in hiring unemployed people...and they're not keeping that a secret. Some job postings explicitly convey this message. Restrictions in job postings such as: "currently unemployed will not be considered" or "must be currently employed" are becoming the norm now. Yep, unemployed people are being excluded right away simply because they are unemployed. Crazy. Are they kidding? It's like a slap in the face of those who are out of work right now. Isn't it enough that they lost a job? And they're being told they can't apply because they don't have a job. Unbelievable. Read: Yahoo News for more on this!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Another 'break' for me today. We are still having some issues with work so we couldn't do anything until everything is fixed. We expected it to be fixed today but the damage was bigger than expected so it's a no-go for us again. So.... I spent the day working on my 'special project' and it's all done. Finally. I thought I'd never finish it but I did so I'm now a happy camper. Aside from working on that special project, I also spent time browsing...facebook! Yep, I've been spending a lot of time there lately. What else is there to do, right? Anyway, one of my friends there, a former co-teacher, has ventured into real estate and she is now a licensed real estate agent. She's been sending me information and has been convincing me to buy one of their houses or condos. I'm not really sure if 'investing' into a house will be a wise move for me right now. Honestly, real estate is so unstable right now that I'd...

Crossing my fingers that everything with work will be back to normal tomorrow when I wake up. If not...then the waiting game continues, I guess.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ That's what I got today. It's unexpected but there's nothing we could do about it but wait. I didn't spend the day doing nothing though. I still have some things on the 'side' that need done and I'm proud to say....I am almost done with them. Yay for me! I've been in front of the computer the whole day still since most of those things are done on the computer so it's like I'm also working but I'm not complaining. It's all for a 'good cause' anyway and I may even decide to share it here... at the right time, of course. One thing that I SHOULD have done today was go back on my treadmill...but I didn't. After that long break from my walking, I'm finding it hard to go back to it. As a result, I feel like I've packed a few ounces...err pounds. I wish I can just go and try one of those quick and easy weight loss programs being advertised but i'm very much doubtful that will work for m...

That's my breakfast this morning. Well, I only had 1 muffin. The little one had the other one. She baked them yesterday while I was making dinner so you can just imagine the chaos in our little kitchen. It was fun though. Monday once again....another week of work, work & work. Is it Friday yet? LOL. Anyway, we had a very busy weekend. The plan of going somewhere to cool off didn't push through because work [hubby's] came calling...on both days of the weekend. Sigh...but, such is life. While he was working on Saturday, the little one and I were also working...in the yard. I did a much needed weeding in the flower beds while the little one swept the pathways. In between yard work [read: temperature in the 90s...hot, hot, hot], I did some work on the computer as well as researching for a merchant account reseller program that the husband can try. Yes, he wants to venture into that amidst the busy time at work. It's for a long range plan so we're taking it slow and...

Fahrenheit . That's our current temperature. Can you say hot hot hot! It was almost in the upper 90s when I was watering the plants at around 5 PM. So yes, S-U-M-M-E-R is here even if it shouldn't be here in another week or so. According to the weather man on TV, tomorrow will be a great day to go 'beachin'. Too bad the man of the house has to work...and so is the woman of the house. We may head somewhere on Sunday though. It's all a big secret right now because when the little one knows about something, she won't settle down until we're heading out the door. So...SHHHH!!!

No matter how busy I am...I will always find the time to say that! Tee hee..... Yep, another day to celebrate. It's been a busy but nevertheless exciting week. Busy. Work has been consistent for weeks now and it's still coming. I am hoping I will be able to come up with a more predictable schedule in the coming weeks. Unpredictability is the name of the game for me when it comes to my work-at-home jobs. It's just the way it is so I'm always excited when work flow somehow becomes steady. It means a few weeks [or even months] of "stability" as far as scheduling is concerned. Exciting. After months, maybe even a year or so, of searching, I was finally able to locate old friends from my college dormitory...Pope Pius XII Catholic Center Ladies' & Men's Dorm. I even wrote about it more than a week ago here . We have an FB group that was started by a former dorm mate. There's more than a hundred members already. I guess I'm not the only who had wo...

I should be going to bed soon because it's way past my bedtime. Instead, I'm here trying to research college degrees per my niece's request. It seems I do that a lot...researching for stuff for other people. It's probably because they know that I am always online. Anyway, one of my nieces decided to go back to school and pursue a college degree. Good for her. She decided to work right after school because she wants to be independent. I guess she finally realized that she can only do certain jobs without a degree. Besides, her chance of getting a better paying job will be greater once she has a college degree. I really have no idea what I'm looking for but I'll try to come up with suggestions to help her decide. I'm just glad she's really bent into doing this. Hopefully, she'll be able to finish whatever it is she's going to take.

My tomatoes are already making an appearance. I have about 5 plants and most of them have flowers. The picture up top are the first 2 to show up so I took a picture of them. Tee hee. The bottom picture...it's the first flower of my okra plant. Yay! Up close, I can see more flowers about to bud..which means....more pictures to come... hahaha. I'm still busy working. Although I spent yesterday re-arranging stuff in the master's bathroom. I went through everything...and I can't believe how many expired stuff I have in my bathroom drawers....from beauty products to my allergy medicines. After getting rid of all the expired stuff and some trash, I now have more space to clutter up with, yes, beauty stuff and trash. I better start working now before my boss realizes I'm not doing anything. Yep, they can track it if I'm working or not even if I work remotely. Servers. They know who's in the server and those are not....which I'm not. Whoopppssie!

This guest post supplied by Amanda King-Smith The crime rate in my area of Maryland is low, but there are still steps I take to make myself and my family safer here . We always lock doors and windows in the house and in the car. We never go out alone at night unless absolutely necessary. When going to the car from a building at night, we make sure our keys are in hand rather than having to search for them when arriving at the car. We try to park in well lit areas, and as close to the store as possible especially after dark. I also make sure that both my husband and I carry our cell phones nearly all the time, so that if either is in trouble the other can be reached quickly. We also keep a baseball bat near the bed, in case someone does happen to break in. I believe it is essential to be aware at all times and have taught my son to be like that as well. These are the things my family has adapted into our lives to help us be more safe.

I just started again this morning. I didn't 'go' [no pun intended] far but at least it's a start. It's been almost a month since I last walked on my treadmill as a result of that unexpected ' health scare ' I had. Ironic, eh? I stopped trying to be healthy because of a health scare. Ha! I just lost the appetite to lose weight, I guess. Anyway, it's all water under the bridge for now. I still have to go in for some follow-up but I'll try to be diligent again with my walking. The 2 lbs I lost because of the stress of that situation is all back...and then some. Have a good one....

Thank goodness! I've been waiting to be this busy and now it's here and what am I doing? Blogging! Ha! Not really. I'm just taking a few minutes off to update here. Another weekend went by so now we're waiting for the next one, right? Weather has been, well, unpredictable. It just stopped drizzling here. We had a 70% rain yesterday but guess what...not a drop. Today we have like 40% and it already rained. The weekend flew like always. Hopefully, this week will also fly [in my dreams, maybe?]. But like I said, I'll have some busy days ahead so it's going to be umm...busy? Btw, this weekend we were able to get a taste of our backyard 'harvest'....blackberries! We only have 3 blackberry trees so we won't be getting a bunch of fruits out of them but it sure is exciting to watch the fruits ripen. We are also waiting on the blueberry trees fruits to be ready for pickin'. One of our grape vines also has a few fruits on it so we're keeping an eye on ...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Finally. After weeks of waiting, we are getting some work again. We just started today so we are still trying to feel our way around but it will get better & easier as we go along I'm sure. My weekend will be busy I'm sure. Aside from the work I just mentioned, I have some chores that need done which I can only do during the weekend. Anyway, time to hit the hay. I'm way past my bedtime already. To one and all...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ TGIF and it couldn't have come any sooner. Even if this week seemed a bit shorter than the others, it feels like I've never been so tired. For some reasons, I have been having trouble falling asleep. The hubby wants me to tell the doctor that in my next appointment. The problem is when it's time for my next appointment, I don't seem to have that problem anymore. Instead of tossing and turning in bed, I usually just get up and see if my niece on the other side of the globe is online so we can chat and play catch up with whatever's happening with family. Last time I saw them [via webcam] was in April so it's been a while. A lot has happened since then. My oldest brother is now thinking of possibly taking the early retirement they're offering at work. Originally, he didn't want to take it but the offer got better. He still has a few years to think about it though. If and when he decides to do it, he wants to make sure that he ...

That seems to be the question now. It's sunny right now but dark clouds are starting to set in and I can hear some faint thunders so it "seems" that it's going to rain a little later today. I'm sure I will be asking this same question over and over again in the coming days since summer is just around the corner and hurricane season has officially started. I'm still in a waiting mode at the moment. We finally got that email [from our boss] letting us know that some work will be coming our way sometime soon. That was sent late yesterday so I'm crossing my fingers we will have something today already. I can't believe it's almost the weekend again. It seems it's coming a bit faster this time...and that's probably because of the 3-day weekend we just had. I'm not complaining though. Better sign off here now. The thunders are getting louder and closer....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Before I became a work-at-home Mom, I worked as a classroom teacher for more than 10 years. I thought I’d grow old doing that but fate has a different path for me to follow. Majority of the 10 years I spent teaching was spent dealing with middle school students. But my most memorable, and maybe most fun year as a teacher happened when I spent a school year teaching grade 1 pupils. Yes, 6 – 7 years old students. At first, I didn’t think I would last a week with them but I did…for a year, well, school year. I had to totally revamp my teaching strategies because there is a big difference in approach when teaching grade 6 and grade 1. What may be fun for kids in grade 6 may not be as fun to the grade 1 kids. To say that my one year experience with these little kids was exciting would be an understatement. It was beyond exciting because kids at that age are unpredictable. They also have a very short attention span as short as the attention span of, well...

The picture speaks for itself. The oil spill that has been going on for 44 days now is not going away anytime soon. Everyday it seems to be getting worse instead of getting any better. British Petroleum or BP tried different ways to stop the leak but nothing has worked so far. We can't help but wonder if they will ever be able to stop this humongous oil spill. In the news today, it's being reported that the oil is nearing the waters of Florida. The forecast is it will hit the white sand beaches in the panhandle as early as this Friday. Manpower has already been deployed to try and stop [minimize] the damage the thousands of tar balls will potentially create in the beaches. People have been flocking to those beaches in the last couple of days in fear of not ever seeing the beaches the same way ever again.

One of the more popular TV shows had its finale last week, American Idol Season 9. A new American Idol was crowned and it’s Lee Dewyze … much to the surprise of a lot of people…who probably didn’t even vote. Ha! But like I mentioned in my previous post, both him and the runner-up have a career anyway so in the long run, it really doesn’t matter who brings home the crown, right? Anyway, the husband watched the show from day 1 until its finale last Wednesday. It seems he couldn’t get enough of it that he tuned in last night forgetting that…ummm…it’s over already. I’m sure he’s not the only one who still wants to see these virtually unknown singer a few months ago. Good thing they have a nationwide tour coming up very soon. Tickets are on sale in places such as American Airlines Center – TX if you’re in Texas or in Air Canada Centre if you are in Canada. I checked the Ticket America for the AI tour tickets which will be held near here but I didn’t find any. I’m not sure. Sold out, pr...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ It's officially June everywhere and it's the last month of the first half of 2010. So many things had happened already and yet it seems that not much has been accomplished. Sigh....but, we need to move on and we need to keep chugging along. We cannot bring back lost time. All we can do is take advantage of the time we still have. If plans go accordingly, the second half of this jear may be more exciting [for us anyway] than the last few years. Why? Nothing concrete yet but will post about it when things are in place already. The first half of this year proved to be really busy for the man of the house. For that, we're thankful. I, on the other hand, can't say the same for my WAHJs. As to be expected with most work at home jobs, mine have been 'challenging' to say the least. I have not been making as much as I used to but I can't complain. I'm still blessed because I have my part-time jobs no matter how little work there's...