Helping and Planning

I can't blog that much since I'm busy preparing the donations of my fellow friends to help our former team mate who lives in Pasig and was greatly afflicted by the storm.

So far I've already collected some clothes and later some grocery items.

His actually asking me to help him find an apartment where some members of his family can stay for awhile. It seems that the house is not reliable and sturdy enough for all of them to live there.

I'm trying my best to help him in every possible way I could. Apart from him, I will donate some of other clothing items to other employees in our company who were affected as well. I don't have much but I will be forever grateful that we are alive and we are safe.

Rant

Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them - Dalai Lama

Can't believe that some people can be so insensitive in voicing out their opinions about what happened to our country last weekend. I'm not exactly sure why they are calling names and even preaching like they are the righteous people in the world.

If only I can ask this question right into their stuck-up faces....
Life's most urgent question is: What are you doing for others?

Let KARMA be the judge of their actions.

Another Storm

I was praying for a good weather for the coming days for my fellow Filipinos who were greatly affected by the tropical storm last weekend and yet here I was hearing news that in three days time there will be another storm coming in the Philippines! =(

It seems that Mother Nature is playing tricks on us...

I wasn't

...able to go to the gym last Saturday or Sunday due to the storm. I stayed inside the comfort of our home watching the news and playing games on my laptop. Was able to get naps as well ;)

For the mean time I will start motivating myself to go back to Hip-hop Abs. Then I hope I can hit the gym this coming Saturday.

Procrastinating...

Not so happy weekend

Last weekend could be the worst days in the history of Philippines. Nobody see it coming and it was horrific to see the news on television of what happened.

Majority of Metro Manila is under water. It was a devastating. Properties and lives were lost. Rich and poor are helpless and seeking rescue on top of their roofs.

Hubby and I are lucky that we don't experience flood, brownout and getting stranded. Thank you Lord for the guidance.

I feel bad for those people who have to go the whole ordeal. One of my close friends here in the office is one of them. Was able to talk to him earlier through his mobile. He was on the verge of tears while relaying me the events that happened last Saturday. I was speechless. Didn't know what to say. All I can say are comforting words that material things can be easily replace whereas their lives are far more important and he should be thankful that they are all okay.

My parents who lives in Parañaque got their house flooded up to knee deep (inside) while outside it was up to thigh deep. I was worried on how they will be able to sleep but thankfully the water didn't rise and eventually subside early Sunday. I was asking my husband that we should go and offer them help but how? Some roads are flooded and the street where they lived is also flooded. Neither way can we enter the street nor if it's possible for them to get out. The bad news now is two of my siblings who lived with my parents are sick due to the flood.

Already sent an email to my sister who is in China and informing her about what happened to our family. She will call them later today after office hours.

Hubby's brother and aunt are okay. Their house got flooded as well but not in alarming level. His other relatives are okay too. Everything is slowly getting back to normal except for those who are still in flooded areas.

My prayer is for them to be strong as they are not alone. Furthermore, I hope that there will be no storm coming anytime soon in our country.

Love It!

I just watched this video clip taken from an episode in Glee. I was grinning ear to ear while watching this. Who says football jocks can't dance?

Blog Award

Thanks Thea! What a great way to kick off the weekend!

Blog Awards is a fun way of connecting with other bloggers and building friendships/community.

Here’s the rules: before you put the link, you must remove the participant number 1 from the list. So that all participants up 1 level. Who was number 2 become number 1, number 3 was 2, and so on. Then insert your own links at the bottom (number 10).

1. Cilpilicious

2. Enno

3. boodee

4. Woel

5. Lyla

6. Mr. D

7. Jenny

8. Riza

9. Thea

10. Joanne

Passing this award to - Jhona, Thet, Mandy, Meryl, Carla, Gracie, Jacque, Irmee, Lorna and Dhemz.

TGIF everyone! Ü

First Pyro Musical Competition

I got this info through email and thought of passing it around especially to those who have been an avid fan of Pyrotechnic Olympics :)


This year Philippines will be hosting again the Pyrotechnics that everyone loves to watch but this time it will be the first PyroMusical competition to be held at the Bonifacio Global City in Taguig. I don't have the exact date yet but it is scheduled on November 2009 ;)

Participating countries on this event are: Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, USA, Australia, Canada, China, and Philippines.

This is one event that we don't want to miss. Hopefully I'll be able to watch this since it's near my office that is if the event dates will be held on weekdays :)

Don't Cha

...wish you were just like Heidi Klum that even in her fullest baby bump she can still pull off a formal gown and looks fab on it. She can still do the catwalk on a runway despite the growing belly Ü

Gosh she can start having her own line of clothing specifically for expectant mothers :)

She's like Angelina Jolie who is at her prettiest when pregnant. Sigh! These girls are just so lucky!

My Ellana Loot

As a promise to myself, I decided to buy the brush set of Ellana for the samples that I requested. Aside from that I even purchased a sample size concealer and mineral powder primer (base makeup). Then I purchased an eye shadow, glossy hair shine and the brush cleaner spray.

Yeah I know I've bought a lot and it costs me Php 1,400 all in all. Hehehehe. But I'm happy to use all of them :)

5-pcs makeup brush set composed of a full powder brush, angled blush brush, concealer brush, eye shadow brush and eyelash com brush. Costs Php 800. I've used them last Sunday and the bristles are so soft that it will not irritate your skin.

Mineral Powder Primer is a finishing powder and powder primer in one. Sample size 1gram is Php 100. It only has one color which is white chocolate.

Mineral Concealer sampler size costs Php 100. The trick in selecting the color of your concealer is that it must be two shades lighter of your skin tone.

Multipurpose Mineral Powder Eye shadow can be used as eye shadows, eye liners, blushes, lip colors, bronzers and body shimmers. 5 grams jar cost Php 130. They have 55 different colors to choose from.

One bottle of the Frizz-Free Hair Gloss Spray costs Php 120. It really works! My hair is shiny and soft.

One bottle of Brush Cleaner also costs Php 150. Made of tea tree that keeps the brush bristles clean and soft.

And here's a photo of me wearing Ellana MMU....

Obviously I'm still an amateur when it comes to make-up department...hehehe.

Looks like I will be coming back for more Ellana MMU!

Hitting the Gym

It's been a year since I last set foot on a gym after that I was contented doing my hip hop abs routine at home. My own exercise routine is effective where I was able to trim my waist, abs and even tone my legs. But laziness hit me big time and now I stop doing it. I can just feel the flab starting to form in my waist. The lines that are visible on my legs during our Boracay trip last June are starting to fade so I decided to get back into shape.

This time I will hit the gym that is near our home. No reasons for me to get lazy since I will have a friend to accompany me. He was telling me earlier that the gym even provide a Muay Thai Class which cost Php 5k including membership. I told him that I will try the gym first then as I progress I will decide if I will enroll myself in Muay Thai.

Getting into shape starts next Saturday!

Employee Monitoring

We are lucky and we don't have this kind of software in every workstations that we have here in the office otherwise whatever that I've been doing for the past months will be checked. Mostly I spend my free time just blogging (or anything related to blogs) and reading local/Hollywood gossips. If in case it comes to a point that there will be an employee monitoring software I can easily find it out since our IT peeps are just near me where I can easily hear if there is an Employee monitoring tutorial rolled out for them...hehehe.

So I'll just have to enjoy the remaining luxury that we have when it comes to our internet access while it last ;)

Flo's Closet

On a different note while I was checking my emails, I found this website emailed to me by Playfirst (yeah, I'm a big fan of PC Games especially Flo of Diner Dash...hehehe). And surprise! Flo has her own clothing line and I instantly like this tee:

Pretty cute huh?! Wonder how much it will cost if it will be ship here....

Blood Type O Diet

As promised yesterday, here is the food chart that I got from Dr. Lam's website. It's the simpler version but you can check out his website for the detailed blood type diet chart.

(click the image to view it larger)

According to hubby, the person who wrote the book where he read this particular healthy diet was from Dr. Peter D'Adamo a naturopathic physician while Dr. Michael Lam is specialist in Nutritional and Anti-Aging Medicine who has the same conclusion as Dr. D'Adamo about foods we eat having a chemical reaction with our blood causing some problems in our internal organs.

Thanks for fellow bloggers leaving messages about my previous post. I guess there's nothing wrong if we follow the diet. Most of them include vegetables and fruits with a few exceptions.

I guess it all boils down to eating foods with moderation.

No Pork

That's what Randiej told me after reading the Blood Type O Diet (is this true?). Turns out that pork, ham and bacon are considered "unhealthy" for our blood type. Sigh! All the good stuff is gone :(

Well not exactly since we can still eat chicken and beef (yipee!). They are the only meats that are considered okay. Eggs are off the list as well and some sea foods too.

I'll post tomorrow the chart where my husband read it. His really into "healthy living" these past few days. I on the other hand cheat every once in awhile...hehehe. My reason is that I will just drink a herbal tea to detoxify my body...ahahaha! I'm not sure how long we will be able to keep ourselves of not eating pork especially me but anyway, I'll just give it a try and see where my patience and self-control leads me. I'm not really a vegetarian and I can't be one.

New Layout

That will be for this blog. I decided to change the physical appearance of my blog before this year ends. But I have to save first the HTML codes that are present in my blog. This will be tedious although I know there's another way to do it with ease. I know there's one that I read last year.

Need to research and read whatever that I can find about blogger templates. Don't want my blog to be bare.

If only there is a blogger template that can transfer all the HTML codes and widgets that are present in my blog then I don't have to worry in saving them. Is there such kind?

New Moon Trailer in VMA

Watching this trailer is killing me with anticipation for the movie! I can tell that this is way better than Twilight (no offense to Catherine Hardwicke, I understand that the first one is budget restricted).

Two more months before I can finally see it on the big screen. Of course Hubby will be going with me. Have to arrange our movie date with some of my friends. The more, the merrier!

Movie Trailers - Movies Blog

Photoshop Dummy

That will be ME! I'd say I'm a beginner when it comes to using Photoshop. Not an expert like the others. That's why I'm so amazed on bloggers and digi scrappers who can come up with their finished digiscrap. I was inspired to try it myself

For the past months I’ve been collecting digital scrapbook papers, embellishments and kits so once I have a time I can try all of them!

I'm currently working on one project that I started last Saturday after my laptop is fixed. I'm still learning the ropes on how to arrange the papers and embellishments on top of each other. I'm actually having confusion with the transparency of my layer. I decided to save it by flattening the image (yikes!) and now the transparency is gone and was replaced with a white background instead. That particular layer that I finished needs to be transferred to a paper but I need to get the transparency back

That's why I decided to download an e-book entitled Photoshop CS2 for Dummies so I can learn my way around using the software. Good luck to me

Ellana Sample

I requested for a free sample of Ellana MMU two weeks ago and a package was delivered to me last week. I only paid Php 50 for the shipping fee.

The contents of the package are:

An Ellana Catalogue for June-October 2009
Free Sample Foundation Premium (1 gram)- French Vanilla Latte
Free Sample Foundation Premium (1 gram) - Hazelnut Latte
Free Sample Finishing Powder Translucent (1 gram)- Espresso Con Panna
Free Sample Blush (1 gram) - Lust

Haven't tried the products mentioned above as I have to secure myself some brushes this coming Friday and I'm saving the samples for Sunday where me and my college friends will be having a reunion. Let's see the wonders of MMU on my face =P

Memory

Turns out that's the issue with my laptop. We went yesterday to PC Clinic in Binondo to have it check.

Jun was very accommodating and he knows a lot about hardware :) He told me that the 2GB memory on my laptop is the source of all BSOD and the software installation problem.

For the meantime, my laptop is running on 1GB memory (the original memory that came with the unit) and hopefully I will upgrade it by December to 2GB. They are selling 2GB DDR2 for laptop at Php 2,200.

The diagnostic fee that I paid in PC Clinic is Php450. Pretty cheap huh?! That is the standard for the laptops/notebooks whereas the desktops diagnostic fee cost Php 350.

I find their computer and laptop parts cheaper compared to the malls or even in Gilmore. I'm happy with PC Clinic's service and they gain a new customer in me :)

So far my laptop is sailing smoothly. No errors so far ;) I'm a happy camper now! :)

Laptop ER

I made a decision today that I will bring our laptop to PC Clinic instead of Digital Axis. Earlier I chose Digital Axis since it's much nearer to our place and the fact that it's easy to commute going to their shop but then again I'm more after the credibility of the shop that will repair my laptop plus it won't cost me much money considering that repairing laptops can be expensive (that depends on the repair shops and their locations).

I'll just have to explain to Randiej why we will go to PC Clinic instead. I just have to fix that laptop and make it usable again. I had enough of the BSOD for 2 weeks. Let the judgment be tomorrow on what exactly is the problem with my laptop.

Good luck to us.

Which is which

On October 27 marks the 2nd year of our wedding anniversary. I'm still thinking on how we will celebrate it.

I was leaning for an out of town trip which will not cost us more than Php 8,000 and I have one place in mind which is Baguio City dubbed as the Summer Capital of the Philippines. However, Hubby is somehow allergic to that place. He told me that the two times he went there he got really sick on his way back to Manila. He always ends up having flu and cough.

So now I have to think of other ways for October 27 . And here are the four ideas that I had in mind:

(1) Book for an overnight stay in Sofitel and try the sumptuous buffet station in Spiral (I have to use my membership card before it expires on 10/31/09). They have discounts for members.

(2) Book an overnight stay in 8 Suites in Tagaytay City.

(3) Dine-in Paseo Uno in Mandarin Oriental. They are offering 50% off on their dinner buffet as long as you will make a reservation ahead of time (5 days). This offer is valid from Sundays-Thursday.

(4) Dine-in Spiral Restaurant for a dinner buffet. Automatically members have a 50% discount so might as well use that privilege.

Sigh! Which of these four should I go for?

Timepieces

My aunt will be arriving soon from Bahrain. She decided to have another vacation here in Manila for two weeks and will try her luck in looking for jobs in Singapore. Her reason is that she wants to be close as possible in the Philippines where she can easily go back and forth without worrying the grueling hours of travel and the expenses she have to shell out.

She was telling me that a lot of electronics and perfumes are on sale due to Ramadan. When she told me the prices it was definitely a great buy compared to the prices here in Manila. I was asking her about watches and jewelry if they have a sale as well but she's not sure if they do. However she told me about the site www.bestoftime.com where it offers genuine and authentic Rolex watches cheaper compared to mall and shop prices! Wish I can buy myself one as an investment...hehehe.

Roger Federer is so lucky to be the endorser of Rolex watch. He doesn't have to spend a dime to get this famous brand of watch. Sigh! The perks of being a famous athlete just like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods to name a few. Too bad I'm not the athletic type. =P

Wordless Wednesday: Alien?

Downpour

Amidst the rain yesterday a lot of people flocked into Greenbelt's chapel to hear mass in celebration of the Blessed Mother's birthday. I was tempted to take a few pictures to show in this blog entry what I'm talking about but I got conscious on what other people will think when I do that. So I immediately forget the whole idea.

Hubby and I were lucky to squeeze ourselves inside the chapel for the 7pm mass. Though there are no seats available we are contented to simply stand during the whole mass. Its' our way of sacrifice and offering ourselves to Virgin Mary on her birthday.

The priest message and request to everyone who attended the mass to pray the rosary as a gift to Jesus' mother and to be humble and simple. Amen to that!

It's Her Birthday

Morning Consecration to Mary

My Queen, My Mother, I offer
myself entirely to thee.
And to show my devotion to thee,
I offer thee this day, my eyes,
my ears, my mouth, my heart,
my whole being without reserve.
Wherefore, good Mother, as I am thine own,
keep me, guard me as thy property and possession.
Amen.

Laptop Consultation

I'm searching the internet a few hours ago for a laptop repair center where I can bring my laptop. I'm convinced that the BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) as we call it in IT has something to do with hardware issue rather than software.

I've got the correct drivers for my laptop but there's still a tiny(?) problem. Some drivers are not installed properly due to .dll and .sys missing files but that can be fix easily. What worries me is the fan located at the bottom of my laptop which is not working! We discovered it yesterday night. As far as I know when the laptop is running, the fan should start to kick in but no! I can hear a humming sound but when you check through the air vents the fan blades are not moving. This got me thinking if this is the cause of the trouble that I've been experiencing or an accessory to the problem.

I’ve short listed two laptop repair centers namely Digital Axis and PC Clinic. Both of them offer free consultation to check the exact issue. I was thinking earlier of bringing my laptop to HP Service Center but upon reading of negative feedbacks from HP users about their technical service I abruptly turn my back. All of them are complaining to the amount you have to spend in order to got your laptop fix (Php 15k-130k) which is ridiculous. I might as well buy a new one with better hardware specs. I'll just have to add a few pesos if that's the case.

I just have to tell Hubby about my plan of seeking the help of a laptop repair center to figure out exactly what's wrong with my laptop.

Circle of Friends Award

Got this award from Lorna and Mandy. Thanks sisses! Mwah!


Giving back this award to: Kero, Jan, Mandy, Faye, Thet and Meryl.

Return back the favor by passing this to 5 of your blogger friends! Have a great week ahead!

Working Today

Last Friday, Malacañang made an announcement that September 7 will be a special non-working holiday this is due to the burial of Inglesia ni Cristo's Executive Minster Erańo “Ka Erdy” Manalo.

Unfortunately our office decided that we will be reporting for work due to our US visitors who came from our head office. Apart from that we are required to wear formal/business attire from Monday to Wednesday during the guests visit.

The good thing about reporting for work today is that you have additional 30% on your salary ;) Not to mention that the main streets are traffic-free thus I will be able to go home early :)

As much as possible I'm trying to keep the September month free from leaves since I have to maintain the 150 average working hours otherwise I have to render additional hours in the coming days or month. I wonder how much is my working hours from July till this month...

Dinero Discovery

I'm starting again from the beginning when it comes to generating extra income through blogging after acquiring my own domain.

It was hard at first but I know sooner or later my hard work (?) and efforts will be paid off so I'm still optimistic and happy with the way things are at present.

For fellow bloggers like me who enjoyed blogging and earning at the same time you might want to create buzz about the new found source that I posted a few days back. and that is http://www.linkfromblog.com. The process involves bidding just like the other sites you are familiar with but the good thing is that they don't require the blogs to have page rank on them as long as you can produce a quality blog advertising piece.

Check it out and discover it yourself ;)

Busy Me

I'm not that busy when it comes to work load but rather I am busy downloading drivers for my laptop. It's been a week since Vista started giving me blue screen error messages on my laptop. Not just one blue screen error but different blue screen error messages.

Tried to restores the laptop to its factory default settings to no avail so I have to take a drastic step and that is debugging the whole hard drive then creating partition using fdisk and reinstalling an OS but this time it will be XP. I had enough of Vista and I'm sparing myself for future headaches.

Yesterday I already downloaded drivers that I assumed are compatible for my hard drive. To my dismay all of them (or most of them) are not. I even tried reverting back my OS to Vista but the installation didn't push through and I was given a blue screen error! Argh!

Good thing that Windows XP is still intact so I just deleted the folders created by Vista on my laptop.

Hopefully this set of new drivers that I downloaded will do the trick. I'm starting to lose my patience...

Out and About

For four days starting last Friday I was busy out of our home. My sister arrived from China and she lined up a lot of things we have to do this past weekend.

Let me break down each of the days:

Friday - Hubby and I immediately went to my parent's house in Parañaque after my office hours to wait for my sister's bf who will accompany us to NAIA Terminal 2 where my sister will be arriving. At 7:30pm she was there waiting for us in the airport and we arrived at exactly 8pm...hehehe. I was expecting a lot of bags but she only had with her is the luggage and a hand-carry bag. It was good to see her again. After fetching her in the airport, we went back to our parent's house for dinner. My parents cooked the dinner themselves. Welcome home sissy! ;)

Saturday - My sister and I went together with our younger siblings in Glorietta to buy a few clothing to update our wardrobe...hehehe. We were supposed to go to Rockwell after shopping since I wanted badly to check out the Urban Bazaar specifically the Bare Beauty booth (MMU) but there was no time left. My sister end up asking me to escort my two younger siblings back to my parent's house since she and her bf will meet in Glorietta. Sigh!

Sunday - Itinerary was to shop in Duty Free and then eat lunch in MOA. We were early in Duty Free (I think we arrived at 10am and Randiej is with me) and spent most of our time in the chocolates section and claiming our free items. It was 12:30 when were finally done with all the stuff to buy. Since its lunchtime all of us are hungry so we hurriedly went to MOA and ate our lunch in Savory Chicken. I love the Yangchow rice but not so much of their famous fried chicken. I still love Max's or Kenny Rogers. The shrimp was good and the fried spring rolls =) I was hoping to visit Rockwell after our family bonding day unfortunately I spent way too much time in our parent's house installing Sims 3 on my sister's laptop and teaching my younger sister on how to play it.

Oh well maybe this is not yet the right time to buy one (?). I just have to save some more then for the Bare Escentuals starter kit and Mandy said that there's another brand of MMU that is cheaper compared to BE which is Ellana. They have a stall in SM Makati near the supermarket which I saw last weekend when me and my siblings happened to pass by.

Have to be patient for the time being....

New Found

Another blog opportunity....

Got this link from fellow blogger Jhona and I decided to sign up myself. The more "sideline" the merrier especially Christmas season is nearing. Got to start to save up for December!

I still have pending approvals and I'm itching to know if I will be "in" or "out"...hehehe.