My Sugar Free Sweet Life

I know, I know... I started a personal challenge that I wasn't able to keep up with. But hey, see my right sidebar? The widget is still there which means that I'll still be doing it once my workload becomes lighter.

Since it's been more than a month of me not being on the board, I'd probably need a kymaro body shaper so that I can decently sport a dress on my birthday. But as the Facebook fan page says, fat people can be thin but ugly people can't be pretty, hahaha! I'd go with fat. What about you?


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For the first time, I am pissed of with my credit card company. I have been their financially responsible client since 2005 and I have never been delinquent. In February, we purchased our Bacolod airline tickets online and I used my credit card as I have always done. The amount was around 22 thousand pesos.

The following month, I forgot to pay on time because of my busy schedule. Well, actually, I did pay on time. The only problem was that I payed in a bills payment center. Naturally, the payment was posted a day after.

Lo and behold, I was charged 1,300 pesos as finance charge when the next billing statement came. I furiously called up customer service and they explained that they now charge an interest from the day I made the purchase until I had the full amount settled! It was a new policy according to them. I felt like I was robbed!

So I learned about this the hard way. I now pay my bills a week before due date to avoid the finance charge. I always pay my credit card bills in full, by the way. I make it a point to have a good credit score. That way, I won't need to find an agency that provides free credit score service to know my credit score. I know that my credit rating is good because I pay in full on time.

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I've been often asked by friends and relatives about how we loaned our home through Pag-IBIG Fund's housing loan. As much as I encourage by sharing how easy it is to secure a Pag-IBIG housing loan, I also realize that they are not as fortunate as ours in shelling out the initial downpayment.

We were lucky to have our Tita Ops who gladly loaned us money just so we can sign the Contract to Sell for the contractor to start building the house. We availed of a 2 million pesos housing loan from Pag-IBIG but the actual cash-out was only 1.6 million. If it were not for our generous aunt and wedding godmother, this home could not have been possible. We have already finished paying our tita the amount that she shelled out for our downpayment. We still have 29 years to go till our housing loan is payed, though.

A cheaper way of buying a home is by getting a foreclosed property. Pag-IBIG Fund and GSIS have a long list of foreclosed properties that they are already selling to the public. (US Residents can try looking for a list of Outer banks foreclosures.) My sister-in-law's home was also a GSIS foreclosed property.

Before

2 Years After


The house looked old and ugly before they brought the property but it's now a complete opposite from what it was before. The best thing about it is that they only bought the 150 square meter house and lot in Camarines Sur for 300 thousand pesos plus! Our 2 million Cainta house and lot is just 100 square meters, mind you.

I suggest that you consider looking for a foreclosed property if you want to save up in buying a house.


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I have been so busy bringing my son to and from his voice lessons and working on my writing tasks. Honestly, I dread to open my Outlook every morning expecting to see a lengthy email from my online boss. I've been daydreaming of pool floats and mango shakes these past few days and felt like I want to get away from it all.

Then after some hours of peace and quiet, I realized that being busy is a good thing. Busy equals money. Busy pays my brother's tuition and my father's hospital bills. I believe I just need to manage my time well to finish all these tasks. Plus a smile on my lips for everyone to see that I'm enjoying what I do. No more complaining from my side and that's a promise!

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Imagine writing on a piece of paper and converting what you wrote into text some minutes after. Nope, you can't do this with an image scanner but with Intellipen, you can!


I was privileged to have been invited to the press launch of Intellipen Digital Pen & USB Flash Drive. This ultra-portable, wireless pen instantly records anything you write on a piece of paper. It has a built-in 1 GB flash drive and a receiver that you clip on the piece of paper to digitally store your writings. You can store up to a thousand pages of digital handwritings and doodles!

You can transfer the digital file as soon as you get a hold of your computer. What makes Intellipen different from just using a scanner is that it can recognize handwritings and convert it into text. There's a special software that comes with the package which makes this possible.

This makes Intellipen the perfect gift for busy dads this father's day 2010. Students can also enjoy the benefits of writing with Intellipen especially when writing figures and numerical equations. The possibilities are endless with Intellipen.

Digital Pen
- Comportable Ergonomic Design
- Easily Replaceable Standard Batteries
- Uses Standard Mini Ballpoint Ink Refill

USB Flash Drive
- Stores Thousands of Handwritten Pages
- USB 1.1/2.0 Compatible
- LED indicators
- Rechargeable through USB
- Stores Music, Data and Pictures with 1GB Memory
- View Notes & Drawings on Any Computer
(Windows, MAC, Linux)

System Requirements
- Windows 7/ Vista/ XP (32 Bit Versions) MAC OS X (View only)
- 200MB Available Hard Disk Space
- 512MB RAM
- 1Ghz Processor or Above

Price: Php 5,999.

Check out http://intellipen.multiply.com/ for more details or search and like Intellipen on Facebook.


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As promised, here are photos showing the kitchen and garden renovations that were done in our home this summer. We recently held my son's birthday party in our home and I'm overwhelmed with the compliments we received.

We built an extension to house our kitchen and dining area. We also had the garage covered and tiled. The landscaping was done after the renovations. It turned out to be exactly how we planned it to be. And no, we did not hire an interior designer, hehehe.

With all these renovations, almost half of our savings was touched. Then again, I always tell my husband that it's better to see our savings go to worthwhile spendings such as the renovation that we did. Traveling abroad and getting a Branson vacation package will have to wait for now.

How do you find our newly renovated home?


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This was shot during my son's 10th birthday party last weekend. Since he is a big boy now (at least he thinks so) he did not request for a magician or clown as entertainment for his party. He just wanted the adults to have fun singing videoke outside and the kids having a Wii party inside. I thought it was a great idea.

Then I remembered that we only had one television and that meant that the adults will not have a TV to use! So off we rushed to the appliance store the night before the party and bought an LCD TV. Instead of buying my son new wii accessories as a birthday gift, we decided to just buy him the LCD TV monitor for his room. I'm 11,500 peso poorer but I know that my son had a great time during his party. Yes, all the best for him as always.

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Last year, my son was diagnosed with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis. He was not required to wear a back brace yet as the angle of his thoracic and lumbar spine haven't reached the critical degree yet. I am praying that he wouldn't need one ever. It would be too much of a hassle for him and it would surely make him look funny to his classmates. We are blaming genetics for his scoliosis. My husband's sisters and my husband's aunt have it.

Since he wasn't advised to wear a back brace, the orthopedic doctor suggested that he make regular hanging exercises on a monkey bar to stretch his spine. Our playground has a monkey bar installed but my son seldom leaves the house. I'm thinking of having once installed inside his room. Or we can probably get a doorwaypull up bar from a sports equipment house so we won't need to bore holes on his room's walls.

Help me decide. Do you have any suggestions?

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Finally! My house helper is back. This is the first night, after almost a month, that I did not wash the dishes and cleaned the dining area after dinner. This is also the first night that I did not feed the dogs their evening meal. The next time the house boy will be on vacation is in two years, thank goodness!

I cannot afford a day without my trusted house helper considering the amount of workload I have. I have pending wiki articles to finish not to mention the travel posts that I haven't written yet for my other blog. I tell you, I won't need effective weight loss supplements when Junin is on vacation.

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It's a bittersweet day for me today as I watched the finale of American Idol Season 9. Everyone knows for a fact that I was rooting for Mama Sox to win the competition. From the start, I have always been a fan of Crystal Bowersox since Day 1 of her American Idol journey. She is so talented and was definitely in a league of her own. Nevertheless, I wasn't too surprised that the 24-year old paint salesman, Lee DeWyze, won the American Idol title this year.

This is the 3rd straight year that a male AI contestant won. Not to mention that the male winners have the "matinee idol" appeal being good-looking and all that. To me, it appears that American Idol voters in the States may be teenage girls or mostly women who found Lee DeWyze cute enough to vote for. I believe this is the same reason why Casey James made it to the 3rd spot.

But in fairness, Le DeWyze really improved a lot throughout the season. Crystal Bowersox's musical genius sure is higher by a mile compared to that of Lee's but Lee slowly and diligently worked his way to the top. Who doesn't love an underdog, anyway? And besides, I'm sure that Crystal will still make it big in the music industry, just like how Adam Lambert is doing now.

Ok, gotta go back to work on my apidexin reviews. What do you think? Did America make the wise choice this time?

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If multi-tasking is a course is college, I would have gotten myself an A+. I'm such an expert in multi-tasking nowadays. Thanks to the tons of housework and writing tasks that keeps on piling up. How I wish it's the 27th already because that's the time when my househelper will return from his month-long vacation.

I badly need more time for myself. I haven't even visited my doctor in months! I wonder how my vital stats are from all this stress. Sorry if I am ranting at this hour. I guess, I'm just so tired. I bet I'll be dreaming of a hot tub with a gorgeous spa cover tonight.

Hay...


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I am writing a health feature article at the moment and it's about natural diet pills. It's not a secret that I have already tried using diet pills in 2006 and it did help me lose my unwanted pounds. What I took were clinically approved diet pills and were prescribed by my doctor. I needed to lose weight fast since the bad cholesterol levels in my bloodstream were way too high.

In researching for my article, I came upon a site that lists safe diet pills. The top three in the list have the label "ephedra-free" and it got me confused. Ephedra, as I have read from Wikipedia, is a traditional Chinese herbal medicine that is sourced from the Ephedra Sinica plant and has been used for ages in treating asthma and hay fever. If this is the case, then why are Ephedra-free diet pills more preferred by many? I discovered that there have been unregulated ephedra diet pills that brought about unwanted side effects to its users.

I assume that Ephedra may be safe for use when taken in regulated amounts. Nevertheless, I would not take chances. For me, diet pills are safe when they are doctor prescribed. What about you?



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I posted these six words in my Facebook profile yesterday after learning that my father's hospitalization bill is within my budget. I felt stupid that I spent one sleepless night just thinking about our finances. By the way, my dad had a mild seizure last May 19, a day before my boy's 10th birthday. According to weather reports, that day was the hottest day in the Philippines so far for 2010. Probably, that's why my dad's blood pressure went haywire.

God again manifested His love to me this afternoon. Before I went to the hospital to settle my father's bill and bring him home, I first went to BPI and withdrew money from an ATM. Only 2 out of 3 ATMs were operational. The other one had the TRANSACTION CANCELLED sign even when the green light above the card slot was blinking. Two people ahead of me had problems withdrawing money from the 2 functional machines. I went ahead even when I already heard them complain. Lo and behold, I was able to successfully withdraw money from the ATM. And I did it twice since I needed 15 thousand pesos! After I got what I needed, all 3 machines went offline.

I just thought of it as pure luck like one time when a supermarket's POS systems booted out after I paid my purchase. The long queue I left behind me had to transfer to other terminals. When I got home, I read a post from a plurkfriend asking if it is already safe to withdraw from BPI ATMs. I didn't know that a technical problem occurred around 2 pm. It made me realize that it was pure divine intervention. And I thank the Lord for helping me out as always.

Oh yes, God is good, all the time!


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