My Sugar Free Sweet Life

I have just finished cleaning up and reorganizing most of the furniture in our house after our major summer renovation project. My desktop computer was finally relocated to my Big Boy's desk while my laptop now sits comfortably on a smaller work desk. Our bedroom looks bigger now with the cluttered computer table gone.

After the task, I just realized how most of our gadgets have become wireless since we moved in our new home. We still do not have a telephone line available so we resorted to subscribing to a wireless land line service. Since there is no telephone line, we had to give up our DSL account and sign up for wireless broadband internet. I hooked this up to a wireless router so our entire home is now a WiFi zone. We do not have cable TV lines available yet so we had to avail of a satellite cable service. So far, everything's working out fine for us.

The availability of wireless gadgets indeed made the lives of people like us more comfortable. Without these wireless gadgets, I would probably blogging in an internet cafe by now. I would also be spending a lot of airtime in placing calls through my cellular phone subscription.

Even business benefit a lot from these wireless gadgets. Fastfood delivery services can now offer credit card transactions with the use of a portable credit card machine. Even hotels in areas not having telephone lines rely on machines like this.

Technology is constantly developing more gadgets that make life easier. However, let us not forget that our personal relationship with others cannot be left to these wireless innovations.

Do you own wireless gadgets, too? How has it improved your life so far?

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As of this writing, there are already 14 confirmed cases of A(H1N1) influenza here in the Philippines. Six of these confirmed cases were attendees of the wedding party in Zambales that the two Taiwanese nationals attended. Despite of this number, the Department of Health advises the public not to panic. The department is assuring the public that the symptoms of the illness are mild and self-limiting. The patients have been given oseltamivir, an anti-viral drug, and are on their way to recovery.

It is for this reason that the resumption of classes will push through in June 1. The department also advises the public to fear dengue more than the A(H1N1) influenza. Here in the Philippines, the dengue virus has already claimed 57 lives as of April 2009.

I am still vigilant in keeping us safe from the A(H1N1) influenza virus through practicing proper hygiene and cleanliness in our home. At the same time, I am also keeping my family safe from the dengue virus. In fact, we have decided to go against school rules and bought khaki pants for Ralph. School rules dictate that boys in the preschool to third grade wear khaki shorts. In Ralph's former school, the parents have a choice on whether to let their sons wear shorts or pants. I have spoken with other parents during enrollment and they will also be making their sons wear pants instead of shorts.

I believe that it is not enough to leave the preventive measures to the government or to other concerned agencies. It is still best to do whatever we can in our own households to prevent the spread of diseases.

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I have been having bad hair days, literally. I need a rebond session as soon as my time and budget permits. The last time I had a hair treatment was in September of last year. For now, I just to D-I-Y hair treatments to make my mane a little more tame.

Here's recent dNeero conversation that focused on hair.

I remember a classmate of mine back in elementary who had really thick and long hair. She told me that her mom uses egg white as a hair conditioner. My grandmother, on the other hand, did not use shampoo but gugo and sabila. I haven't tried these techniques yet as I find them very inconvenient.

How do you care for your crowning glory? Are traditional hair care treatments inconvenient for you, too?

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Finally! In the past, I have blogged about how we will be starting a summer home renovation project. Thanks to the summer vacation that gave me more time to stay at home and to my handyman slash houseboy, the project is a success! We have constructed Ralph's bed loft and painted the rooms of our home in different colors that showed how young and vibrant our family is!

Here's how Ralph's bed loft looks like:

As you can see, his study area is under one end of the loft. Under the other end is a toy shelf that houses the toys that he rarely use. I am sure that he will now be using his toys more often now that it will be convenient for him to get them unlike in the past. We just bought a sofa bed that can accommodate guests sleeping over. We also installed an exhaust fan on the wall dividing our room and his so we will be sharing our air conditioner instead of us buying a new one. As expected, with the help of the exhaust fan, our 1.5 HP airconditioning unit was able to cool both our bedrooms.

Our bedroom was painted in light pink and magenta. I got to have the final say in the choice of colors in our bedroom. My husband doesn't have a choice but to accept that fact, hahaha! The hallway was painted in salmon, the living room in pastel yellow, and the dining area in light orange.

We have used elastomeric paint on the walls, ceilings, and even on Ralph's wooden bed loft. The paint is odorless although we had to put varnish on the wooden fixtures after it was painted with elastomeric paint to give it a glossy finish. I have done some research about elastomeric paint and, thankfully, I haven't read even a single article that tells of its harmful effect to our health. After learning about the dangers of asbestos and how it brings about Mesothelioma cancer, I have been a little paranoid on how common household products and home construction materials affect our health in the long run.

I am sorry if I can't post pictures of the other parts of the house yet as we are still reinstalling the frames and other furniture that had to be placed in the veranda and the garage while the painting process was going on. I will be posting them soon, I promise.

So, how has your summer been? Has it been as productive as mine?

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"When I'm not in my restaurant, I'm in my farm!" When I plurked that a few days ago, some of my friends who are not in Facebook reacted. They thought I turned into an uber-rich farm heiress overnight! I wish! You know how the virtual world can satisfy most of our actual wishes for the meantime. Farm Town is one Facebook application that does that, at least for me.

This is a recent screen shot of my farm. I have just harvested coffee, sunflowers, and corn and planted strawberry and watermelon seeds that will be ready for harvest in a day. The trees planted on one side of my farm are all gifts from my Facebook friends. Most of the animals I have are gifts as well.

I remember that we had a small rice farm in Siniloan, Laguna when I was still young. We spent our summers there living in a nipa hut and swimming in the small pool that we had since we also supplied irrigated water to the neighboring farms. That piece of land was sold years ago because we cannot maintain it anymore. I still wish we had the farm so I can let Ralph experience how life is in a farm. We had our best summers there, just running around the rice paddies and picking mangoes and coconuts.

My virtual farm may still look bare. I am still saving up for a small farm house. I now have a set of table and benches that I propped beside the trees. I think I am going to set things up like how it was in our farm. I just wish that the game has patio chairs or benches available like this one below:


Don't you think this will look good in my farm once I already have a farm house?

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I admit. I am still in shock that the Tender Puppy actually won this season's American Idol. I mean, judging from last night's perfomances, Simon Cowell did have a point when he said that Adam Lambert won over Kris Allen by a mile!

But this is one of those popularity contests, so... there.

In fairness to Kris Allen, I still think that he deserved to be where he is now. Throughout the competition, he has showed how a well-rounded musician he is. While Adam wowed the audience with his many surprises, Kris was able to gain admirers by not being confined to his guitar but also playing good music with keyboard. I also read that he plays the viola. Probably, that's an edge that he has from Adam aside from having really good looks.

I also think that American Idol voters, once again, got confident that Adam might win the competition after all that they didn't bother to vote at all. Also, Danny Gokey's fans might have rooted for Kris Allen instead of Adam Lambert.

American Idol is just their first step to global stardom. We had American Idols whose stars never shone as bright as those of Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwoood, and David Cook. We also had runner-ups like Chris Daughtry who did not need the grand title to establish a spot in the music industry, right? Last year's American Idol, David Cook, and his runner-up, David Archuleta are both doing great in their own music genres. Let's just see what the future has in store for Kris Allen and Adam Lambert.

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I received an important call from my sister last Thursday informing me that our mother figured in an accident. She told me that our mom had a bad fall and crawled her way to the phone just so she can make a call for help. As I was on my way to bring my son to his music class, we decided that my sister and brother-in-law will go to our mother and bring her to the hospital. By the time they got there, my mother did not want to go the hospital anymore. She took a capsule of over-the-counter Ibuprofen that gave her quick relief. She was still aching though but was a little better than the time when she called for help.

My mother is already a retiree. She is living in our family home with my father and my two single brothers. My father has just recovered from a stroke attack in December of last year. My brother, the older of the two, was still at work and the younger one was in summer class. My mother narrated that she tried to lift the laser printer she had in her home office which is practically a stupid idea. I don't know why she wanted to lift the laser printer which even I cannot lift by myself! Considering her age and the weight of the laser printer, I thought that it was really a perfect recipe for an accident waiting to happen! When she lifted the printer, she felt her muscles contract and lost her balance. She didn't want her beloved printer to fall on the floor so she tried rescuing it by falling on her knees and letting it slide slowly from her thighs. From that point, she couldn't stand up any more so she crawled her way to the phone to send an SOS to my elder sister.

I was anxious and furious all at the same time! I wasn't even able to eat lunch and dinner because all the while I was monitoring her status. Accidents like these make me lose my appetite. If I always receive news bad as this, I wouldn't even need a diet pill like Liporexall to make me lose weight! But kidding aside, it was really a serious matter. I thought that we would be having another patient in the hospital when my siblings and I haven't fully recovered well yet financially after my dad's stroke in December.

When I got home that night, my mom and I had a long talk and I reminded her on how to carefully lift things. Once, I watched a TV show that featured that but all I can remember was to bend the knees and not the back when lifting things. I made a research about this and here are some of the techniques I have found:

1. Lift with your head and not with your back. Before moving a heavy object, stop and think if there are better options available like pushing or dragging.


2. Test and object first before lifting it. Some objects may actually weigh heavier than how they look like.


3. Move a package piece by piece rather than all at once.


4. Do not extend your arms while lifting a heavy object to avoid pressure on your back


5. Be sure on where you are standing and avoid slipping.


6. The correct lifting procedure is to keep the back straight, kneel and grasp the object and lift with the legs, not the back.


7. Before lifting, plan in advance the route that you will take. Take short steps while lifting a heavy object


8. Carrying an object on the head is more efficient. It is also better to carrry somehting on the shoulders than on the arms.

Carrying heavy objects can damage the spine. It can crush the discs and crush the nerves of the spinal column. It can also tear muscle ligaments in the back so carrying heavy objects should be avoided as much as possible.

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Are you so much into Twitter? Actually, I am not. I prefer plurking over twitting. However, I think buzzTrendz may pull me back to Twitter a little more than usual. buzzTrendz is a new player in the social networking world. It combines the most recent twits with related videos. True enough, when I visited the page that contained American Idol twits, I was able to watch a video of Kris Allen having a homecoming concert in Arkansas!

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In the past week, there were news about 3 people who were quarantined in Cebu City for possible swine flu infection. There are still no updates on whether these people have been considered confirmed cases but I do hope that they're not. The Philippines is still free from the Swine Flu. Come to think of it, we did not even have confirmed cases of SARS when our neighboring countries suffered from the outbreak a few years ago.

Deputy presidential spokesman, Anthony Golez, said in a recent telephone interview that this could be attributed to us being highly hygienic people. We typically bathe more than once a day which helps in the prevention of diseases. Although it is not yet backed up by research, his statement has somehow made sense. Health officials have constantly reminded the public about the importance of washing the hands to prevent the spread of the flu virus. Bathing more frequently adds more to the prevention of this disease.

Prevention is always best when it comes to sicknesses. Not only will proper hygiene help us from getting the Swine Flu, it is also better if we did some research on our own and spread the information we have gathered to others. Who knows? You may even get to discover other rare diseases like mesothelioma.

Be clean. Be well-informed. Be healthy.

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Attending the iBlog5 has been the most rewarding blogging experience for me so far. I have already been blogging for more than four years now but I felt like a newbie blogger once again. After the summit, I have started to treat my blogs not only as venues for my writings but as my children as well. Honestly, this has been my recent realization - that blogging and parenting are almost synonymous to each other. Both are continuous learning experiences. Both require commitment and devotion. Just how parents are praised when other people see how well-mannered and well-taken cared of their children are, bloggers also gain recognition from readers when their blogs not only show well-crafted writing but great content as well.

The 5th Philippine Blogging Summit or iBlog5 was held at the Malcolm Hall of the UP Law Center last May 9, 2009. The whole day event was organized by the UP Internet and Society Program. Since I got in early, I was able to get a kit full of reading materials and this awesome name card!


To give you an idea of the topics that were discussed during the summit, you can refer to the iBlog5 site.

In a nutshell, here are the interesting insights that I have learned from the blogger-speakers that day:

- The measure of success of a blog is dependent on the blogger's goals;
- The "Rule of Thirds" and the "Golden Hour" in taking photos;
- The basics of video blogging and video streaming;
- Sharing the NOW but SAVORING the MOMENT in blogging;
- That bloggers should create value;
- Blogging etiquette;
- That bloggers should not be distracted by the perks of blogging and should always remember their initial purpose in blogging;
- Keeping one's offline reputation clean is as important as being a reputable blogger online;
- That there is no existing Philippine law regarding privacy; and
- That copyright is effective from the moment of creation.

The part of the program that talked about blogging to the next level is the most informative part for me as I am still a newbie in making money online. Fitz Villafuerte shared this:

TOP 5 TIPS THAT PROBLOGGERS WILL NOT TELL YOU ABOUT MAKING MONEY ONLINE

1. Blog about your passion but it should have commercial value.
2. Get a domain name and webhosting if you want more technical control of your blog, but blogs in free sites can earn as much as self-hosted blogs. Technical control gives you the freedom to play with the layout of your blog. Getting a domain name also helps in search engine optimization and in being more business-like.
3. Write quality content about topics that people search for.
4. Learn Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Social Media Optimization (SMO). Promote your blogs in social networking sites. Go to online forums, contribute to discussions, and link to your blog. Although SEO converts more traffic, SMO converts readers into regular readers. SMO is easy to do than SEO which is very technical.
5. Be patient, making good money through blogging takes time because it’s not easy to write for and maintain multiple blogs. Start on one blog, make the most out of it. Then, gradually start on the next blog.

Anton Diaz, on the other hand, looked at bloggers as evolving people as most bloggers look at their blog as their virtual soul:

1. Artist – Personal expression and blogging about your life. Critical skill in this level is writing naturally. To go to the next level, you need to find your passion.
2. Advocate – Bloggers who support a particular cause. Critical skill in this level is Blog Marketing and learning SEO. To go to the next level, you need to Learn Business Models (10 business models). Blogging is only the lowest form of earning money online.
3. Entrepreneur – Your blog is your Personal Brand Asset. Critical Skill in this level is Internet Marketing. Content is King but Marketing is the Queen. To go to the next level, you need to care about other people’s growth.
4. MAVEN – Your blog is your life. Critical skill needed is Maven Marketing -- paying it forward and sharing what you know to others. To go to the next level you need to Die having lived the life of a Maven. You should be 100% emotionally free because 50% would hate you, the other 50% will love you.

Anton pointed out that the focus should not be on what type of blogger one is but if he/she is evolving as a blogger. He said that the secret is in continuously improving a blogger's skills and mindset. Blogging can empower a blogger to live a life of meaning and purpose.

Using Anton's stages of evolution, I should say that, as a blogger, I am an Artist and an Entrepreneur. This blog started as my own personal online journal until I developed three more blogs to focus on my other interests. I am also not denying the fact that I make paid posts every now and then so I also treat my blog as my online business. I plan to focus on my initial blogging goals first and hone my craft in my specific niches before I move on to being an Advocate and a Maven (hopefully!)

My iBlog5 experience is really one for the books. I not only learned so much about the blogging world but I also met some of my online friends. Truly, the internet bridges distances that one can imagine. Just this soon, I am already excited in attending iBlog6!



You can read more about the other bloggers' iBlog5 experiences here.

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Ito ang pinagkakaabalahan ko ngayong summer - ang pag-aayos ng kwarto ng aming unico hijo. Nung mabili kasi namin ang bahay ay simpleng simple lang ang mga kwarto. Nagkataong ang kwarto ng anak ko ang pinakamaliit pero may pinakamataas namang kisame. Kaya naisipan namin na gawan siya ng loft para maging tulugan at ang ilalim ay study area naman. Habang ang aking asawa ay nasa opisina, ako naman ang nagsilbing bisor ng aming houseboy cum karpintero. Maya't-maya ay kinukuhanan ko ng litrato para i-email at ma-approve ng aking asawa. Eto ang study desk ng aking anak. Naka-suporta pa ang mga upuan dahil kasalukuyang ipapa-approve pa nga lang at hindi pa nakapako ng permanente. May 3-leveled shelves na ilalagay bandang itaas lang ng power outlet sa pader. Abangan niyo na lang ang kalalabasan!

This is what's keeping me busy this summer - the renovation of my son's bedroom. My son had the smallest room in the house but it's the one with the highest ceiling. We thought of making a loft as his sleeping area and the area below it as his study area. I took pictures every now and then because I needed to email it to my husband who's in the office. He needs to approve the design before my carpenter can permanently hammer the nails in. There will be 3-leveled shelves installed just above the power outlet on the wall. I'll keep you updated on the finished product!

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It's the time of the year when dads and moms in the Philippines get ready for school enrollment. This year, we are lucky that Ralph is on full scholarship. This means that we only need to pay the miscellaneous school expenses and school supplies. That will just be, give or take, 15 thousand pesos. I got it covered, thank goodness!

But aside from that, we also need to buy him a new set of pants, and a pair each of black school shoes and sneakers. He grows up so fast and his shoe size changes quickly, too. To limit my shoe shopping trips for my big boy, here are some rules of thumb that I follow when buying shoes for him:

1. We buy shoes in the afternoon and evening, usually after walking around the mall or after shopping for other things. This makes the feet a little bigger than usual and gives us an idea of the minimum shoe size that he should have;

2. We make him wear his thick school socks;

3. We make sure that he's still able to wiggle his toes inside the shoe; and,

4. We prefer quality over the price. Cheaper brands only last for a month or so.

Since my son rides the bus service everyday, I don't think I do not need to buy him rain boots anymore.

How about you? Do you have any other shoe-buying rules that you follow?

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This Sunday, I am stuck at home withe my boys. I already did my errands yesterday because my husband specifically dedicated this day to just stay at home and watch Manny Pacquiao knockdown Ricky Hatton. And boy, he did that in two rounds! Made me so proud to be Pinoy!

How did you spend your weekend? Know more about how others spent their weekend here.

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