The Journey. It’s Mine. [My personal take on love, life, parenting and blogging.]

Recently I have been talking to an old college friend and we’ve been discussing business opportunities. See he has been laid off from work months back and is now into the franchise business.

The moment he mentioned the words franchise and franchising, I bombarded him with questions such as the what and the how, and most importantly the how much money is needed.

He then directed me to this website and I haven’t browsed it again until this very moment. Anybody here heard of Royale Business Club International, Inc.? I would appreciate some feedback.

I think there is. Blog networks have changed their blogger payment scheme for the nth time. And the trend has been going down. They (blog networks) have been trimming down as well, they’ve been retiring blogs left and right.

At the moment I still have two blogs at Creative Weblogging (for 84$, 12 posts per month each) while I float to 8 other blogs across three channels (for 7$ per post).

This blog at the least earns on slow months a 100$ per month.

So go figure how much I just get a month basically. Pulubi na from the 4-figure earnings of two years ago. Hmmm…kelangan ko na ng sustento!

Today is fiesta here in our barrio. We were waken up by thrombone (?) and saxophone playing at 430 in the morning.  How’s that?! Hahaha.

Fiesta here is in lieu of the feast of St. Raphael the archangel.

Well I can only say one thing today: the way I’ve been piggin’ out? It’s time to take out the best diet pill!

I still feel am on vacation. It’s been almost three years since we came home and i feel like we’re on extended vacation. My mother does most of the cooking and I miss doing it myself. Though all the time it feels great just sitting back, relaxing, doing most of the talking while she cooks. What am I gonna do without her? In 9 days she’s turning 60 but she moves around like she’s 40! She hates parties, definitely hates birthday surprises and gifts. (Well i recently bought her a Nokia 1200 (cheap and nice!) because the old 3310 already went kaput and she really loved it.) Maybe I’ll just give her a big hug to say thank you for everything that she does.

Yesterday I sent some photos of Raine to his other lola ni LB via MMS. I was kicking myself for not doing it a lot sooner. Especially when she said that by doing so I’ve made her very happy because she saw his grandson even just in photos.

For some reason my Motorola RAZR cellphone cannot send and receive MMS. I don’t know why even if the MMS setting is in place. Good thing I have the Nokia cellphone as a spare and I’ve been using it lately to send MMS.

Going back to Raine’s photos, maybe I should check our used cds so I can just send to LB a cd with a bunch of photos.

I keep telling myself that one day I’ll learn how to bake. I have no problem with cooking but I am no baker. Maybe when our kitchen is finally furnished I can get to it. Besides I always thought that cooks can’t be bakers too. I could be wrong, we’ll see.

Besides, sometimes it is just too easy buying or eating somebody else’s cake and cookie recipes. Ain’t that easier?! He he.

My second order of the moor allure naturals soothing herbal toner has arrived today. I’ve been without this wonderful product for some months now. I use moor allure naturals products not as acne cures but because i love their natural cleansing properties.

I especially love the toner because it really helped with my pores. Maybe now i can dump eskinol again and use the toner to rejuvenate my pores.

I never thought I’d be this fixated with cleansing my skin. But with oily skin problem like mine, who needs a moisturizer? I need all the scrubbing and cleansing I can get.

Sa isang mailing list ko, may discussion tungkol sa Reproductive Health Bill or House Bill 5043. My stand? Don’t kill it. As what the catholic church and it’s groups are doing.

Andito sa baba all my comments on this matter:

Comment 1: sasabihin ko sana don’t kill this bill. dahil baka batuhin ako ng kamatis dito. pero i’ll say it anyway, don’t kill this bill. baka eto na ang maging way ng totoong pagunlad sa pilipinas. ano ba ang ang picture ng pamilyang pilipino? di ba yung sampu ang anak at 50 pesos ang kita sa isang araw? think twice before killing this bill.

Comment 2: i think it all boils down to the use of artificial contraceptives. na noon pa kinokontra ng simbahan. pero scientifically speaking, hindi naman talaga effective ang natural method. besides, it doesn’t work for everyone dahil iba iba naman ang katawan ng babae. masyadong backward na ang pilipinas tuloy sa usaping yan. i’m still against abortion. kaya nga merong prevention eh, at dyan pumapasok ang artificial contraceptives. educate the people and make contraceptives available to them. that is what this bill is all about i guess. subukan natin, baka ito’y isang daan na sa pag unlad. at yung mga sampu na ang anak dapat na sigurong i-ligate na sila ano? kung ako ang masusunod dapat maging mandatory yan, somehow!

Comment 3 : [insert name here], i was exagerrating. yan ay kung walang demokrasya sa pilipinas. sa tingin ko kasi the way things are now in the philippines, may mga bagay na kelangang maging mandatory. katulad ng bakit pa kelangan isangguni kay mister ang ligation ni misis kung ito naman ay isang lasenggong bum at wala nang ginawa kundi anakan si misis. dapat siguro sya ang i-vasectomy against his will? mga ganyan. but i guess that’s beside the point of discussion here.

nicely put [insert name here]. magandang family planning method magpalaki ka kaya ng bata. palibhasa wala namang anak ang mga pari. at di nila alam papano ang hirap to rear one’s child. lalo na sa panahong ito na mas magastos pa sa isang adult ang isang bata. kelan ba matatapos ang gastos, pag tapos na sya sa college? iisa lang ang anak ko, hirap pa din. papano ba kung sampu na sila at 50 pesos lang kita ni mister sa isang araw. di ba kahindik hindik?! sa aking opinion di lang kahindikhindik karimarimarim pa. papano mo bubuhayin at pag-aralin lahat ang mga yan, lalo na sa lagay ng gobyerno ngayon na palala naman ng palala.

i believe in the freedom of choice as well. educate the people and let them choose kung ano ang gusto nila. eh di ipasa ang bill na ito at hayaan pumili ang mamamayan what will work for them. besides, natural family planning method doesn’t really work for all. para bang sa analogy na, kung sundalo ka pala at katoliko ka, di ka puedeng gumamit ng baril sa giyera dahil kasalanan ang pumatay? nag sundalo ka pa. hindi baga>

di ko pa rin nababasa ang mga uploaded files ni [insert name here]. pero ngayon pa lang obvious naman na agree ako sa reproductive health bill na ito. it may be flawed like [insert name here] pointed out in the other thread, but i think it is worth giving it a chance.

yun lang po. bow!

Maganda yung nakasulat sa papel [full-text-of-repro-health-bill.doc]. Sana lang yung implementation ay walang halong kurakot.

Today was spent visiting relatives. Part of my taking-it-slow-away-from-the-internet strategy. It was fun talking, eating and just plainly enjoying the time spent with dear cousins. The thing with pinoys is that you can even come unannounced yet still be welcomed with open arms.

Speaking of taking it slow, i haven’t really been taking it slow as I’ve been blogging like crazy recently. It’s just that I get bored doing nothing in the house. I still take it easy when I can like today as it’s Saturday anyway. Like yesterday afternoon when on a whim I went to the city and picked up new flip-flops for myself.

Well I can’t take it real easy on European cruises, can I?

Last week I was finally able to go to the DFA Consulate in Legazpi City to renew our passports. Mine expired in July and Raine’s will be expiring next year. Since the machine-readable ones are going to be issued, personal appearance is required once more and so no agent can do it for me - like I used to do for passport renewals.

Been planning since January this year and at last, 8 months later I finally went. Hurray! He he. The only embarrassing thing is putting in my signature. The DFA officer might have thought I have Parkinson’s. It’s just that my right hand shakes more (maybe from using the mouse too much) and worse when I’m a bit nervous. But then my signatures were accepted.

I can’t find the magnetic bracelet made of iron ore that my bro brought home for me last year. It helped with the shaking. If only I can find it, don’t know where it is now.

…and doing a diet supplement review…before you do? My advice is get a professional to do it for you. One diet published on the web somewhere is not a formula that fits all. Get your own nutritionist to do it for you.

Don’t make the same mistake I did. I never gotten back to my friend nutritionist who’s gonna whip me up a diet for free. Sorry A.

Nothing beats doing it the right way, I’m telling you all.

When I got the flu, I weighed myself in the doctor’s clinic and found out I weighed only a 110 lbs. What did I do? I changed my diet, it’s frequency and the amounts I ate. It was because of my arthritis, I was forced to stay away from meat and legumes.

My weight did drop so fast. 110 lbs. is 5 lbs. short of my ideal weight of 115. I barely stand 5 ft. so go figure. I’ve never been this light my whole adult life. If you know me I’ve always been that chubby girl who isn’t fixated with losing weight and is always been comfortable with her weight.

Until my knees buckled last year!

I was doing fine until I plummeted into not eating at all. Combine that with my insomnia and caffeine intoxication — it was a disaster. Now, a month since I was admitted in the hospital and I have been on a food trip binge. And I’m ballooning like crazy I’m scared to step on a scale! I guess soon enough it will diet supplement review that I’ll be doing to look into diet supplements.

But what the heck? I don’t wanna get sick again!

Today is the third year of my father’s death. Seems like yesterday still. I guess we’ll never stop missing him. I do miss him every single day, especially now that Raine is going to school. He said he’d take Raine to school every day. But then he went away.

My father has a bunch of photos when Raine was a baby. The following are my favorites:

In the left photo he was singing to put Raine to sleep. The lullaby? Don’t know if he made this up or have gotten it somewhere:

katurog na (rainier) katurog na baya

nimbong ning turog mo nanok na dakula

katurog na rainier kay pag nagmata ka na

gahuya si mama kay padodo-on ka.

He sang that to me first of course, and down the line to my brothers and then his two grandsons.

Nothing beats being first born and definitely nothing beats being papa’s only girl.

We used to have an orange cat during my childhood. I think we called her ming-ming. (He he, not much of a creative name, huh?). I particularly liked her because all she did was sleep and eat. And sleep on your chest, she did. She never ate food on the table that wasn’t hers.

Then I left for college and hated the noisy garbage cats in my dorm that the vet students used for their various procedures. There was a ligated cat, a neutered cat and many more.

Now that I’m home, we do not have a cat anymore. The last descendant of ming-ming died before Raine and I came home in 2006. Not that we run out of cats here these days, stray cats make it to our home, particularly our kitchen. I hate them. Some people’s cats unfed. Then they make it here. Not that they need cat supplies, table scraps will do here. Bad trip pa, pinakain mo na maunas pa. Oh well. If only I can kill a cat!