Femme Power

Spa Essentials ran a contest via Facebook last month which I luckily won by simply posting what my favorite spa treatment is and why.  Spa Essentials is a brand name trusted for using 100% pure and natural essential oils in their products.   They have a wide array of massage oils and linen sprays that promise to relieve stress, energize, and even promote better sleep (which I desperately need!).   I can’t wait to try their products once they reach my doorstep.  As a huge fan of stress busters (be it about spa products, relaxation techniques, or what-have-yous) I intend to make an honest review on some Spa Essentials massage oils and linen sprays once I’ve tried them myself.  But I can say that after winning the contest, all the stress I felt have magically disappeared, lol!

Spa Essentials is exclusively found in all SM and Watsons stores nationwide.

Backpacks are still one of the most preferred bags in school today due to their affordability, versatility (can be used for school supplies or for extra clothes during games, field trips, etc), durability and style.   I myself had a penchant for backpacks during my school days (Forget the number of years that passed, lol!).

So with my daughter possibly getting infected with my being bag-crazy, she asked me to look for a cute kids backpack that she could use for her dance rehearsals.  One that’s dainty and soft, she’ll want to carry and hug it.  With not much time to scour the mall for such a description for a backpack, I chose to check online if something fits the bill.  Indeed I found a stephen joseph backpack that’s cute and colorful, quilted and soft.  It’s 100% made of cotton, no worries about scratching my daughter’s skin on the bag’s edges unlike her previous bags.

This backpack can be personalized by having your child’s name embroidered on it.

I also found a nap mat that’s perfect for sleepovers and picnics as well as for daycare, preschool and kindergarten.   The good stuff? It’s foldable into a bag for easy storage, and it’s machine-washable.

After the successful releases of the books GoNegosyo 50 Inspiring Entrepreneurial Stories, GoNegosyo 50 Inspiring Stories of Entrepreneurs (Celebrity Edition), and GoNegosyo 55 Inspiring Stories of Women Entrepreneurs, comes another promising book by Joey Concepcion, as written by Dean Pax Lapid and Ping Sotto — 21 Steps on How To Start Your Own Business.

Unlike the first three books that focused mainly on the success stories of Filipinos who battled the odds to become today’s big names in business like Henry Sy (SM), Socorro Ramos (National Bookstore), and Dr. Rolando Hortaleza (Splash Corp.), among others, this latest GoNegosyo book will guide you through in setting up your own business.   Not only will it inspire you and rekindle that fire to pursue your long-forgotten dreams but it will also tell you how.  It has activity worksheets for you to write and draw on so you won’t be limited to just reading, you’ll be asked to work on it!  Plus the book is packed with snippets of success stories of Filipino entrepreneurs to add more to your inspiration.

If you have that fire in you to put up even a small business to start with, I recommend that you read this book. I got mine at National Bookstore.

I woke up this morning feeling energized to write a new entry on my Mom-Says blog.  I checked my email and saw that I had two comments to approve but lo and behold when I tried to log in, I was greeted by a strange advertisement in a totally unfamiliar page that asked me to click on a link to make the page “work.”  Helpless, I clicked on the link and it directed me to a totally different website.

I’m so pissed and frustrated!  All the months that I worked for to achieve PR2 and decent traffic for that blog, now all wasted to hacking.

Has this ever happened to you?   Were you able to restore your blog after getting hacked?  I’ll be more than glad to hear from any well-meaning bloggers around who could share their views on hacking or how to restore a hacked blog.   If you could recommend where to get help on this, I will definitely see it as a huge favor.   A big big thank you in advance!

You must have heard it or seen the show itself but I couldn’t help but echo what millions of people around the world are now talking about — the American Idol Season Finale 2010 which proclaimed Lee Dewyze, a former paint salesman from Illinois, as the winner over early favorite Crystal Bowersox.

But honestly it wasn’t the contestants that glued me to the finale but the bevy of music legends that performed especially the BeeGees.  I was lying in bed, ready to sleep because I was dead tired from that night’s shift when I heard  Siobhan Magnus and Aaron Kelly singing “How Deep Is Your Love.”  I didn’t bother to move a muscle but then I started hearing familiar voices — the BeeGees!  Could it really be them?  I turned around to see the TV which was over my head and all I could mutter was “Whoah!”

You might think I’m that old, LOL, but I’m a huge fan of great artists from the past and that includes the BeeGees.  If you happened to miss that part of the show, here’s the video courtesy of YouTube:

I was having my time surfing the Web when I came across John Chow’s blog.  I’ve heard a lot about this popular blogger’s name and reputation many times over in the past but I never got to visit his site until today.  I used to associate the name John Chow to a busy social life that’s mostly partying, spending huge sums of money for anything money can buy.  I had this impression basing on the fact that this guy is said to be making over $40,000 a month through blogging alone.  So I was surprised when I saw John Chow’s video with his little daughter in the park having a quiet bonding time together. He called it the Dot Com LifestyIe. I was even more surprised to learn that he’s just like any of us, wanting to make money and yet have the time to spend with our family.

The only difference is, he has achieved it — by making money online.

John made a good point when he said that some people are earning a lot of money but they don’t have the time to spend it because they’re always caught up with work.  Some people, on the other hand, have a lot of time but they don’t have any money.  Me, I’m one of those people who long to have both time and financial freedom.  But is it really doable?  Many so-called financial gurus claim that it is.  As per John, he was able to achieve it by making a killing through his blogs.   He said the monetary rewards were just secondary but the ultimate price he gets from blogging is having time freedom — more time to spend with his family by not being tied up at work for 40-60 hours a week.

How happier this world would be if a lot of us can spend more time with the family while earning more at the same time.   The thing is, not everyone can duplicate what John Chow and other high-paying bloggers have achieved.  It’s not as easy as 1-2-3 and it surely needs time and effort to jumpstart your blog until you get lots of quality traffic and backlinks.

But to start with, I’ll be reading John Chow’s free E-Book and learn from it.  You may click on the link as well to get a copy of his E-Book for free.

How about opening our minds first that both time and financial freedom can be achieved?  For starters, We can learn from the man who has done it.  Then maybe we could finally get the Dot Com Lifestyle too in the long run — that’s making money and having more time with the family.  Isn’t that what we all want?

Today is a historical day for us, Filipinos. Today, we cast our votes on the first-ever national and local automated elections.   Gone are the days when we had to manually write down our candidates, and wait for several weeks for all the votes to be counted and tallied manually by our modern-day heroes we call teachers.

I don’t wanna delve on the countless lives sacrificed in the name of protecting the sanctity of ballots or those lives wasted to crooks wanting to cling to power during the past elections nor do I wanna delve on the possibility of the automated elections to be rigged (or being rigged) by the powers that be.  I would like to give it the benefit of the doubt.

Just last week, a few days before the elections, Smartmatic and the Comelec recalled thousands of defective compact flash cards after a series of tests in various precincts showed blatant glitches.  The total number of votes counted by the pcos machines did not tally with those of the manual count results.  Candidates with no votes during the test appeared to have votes in the pcos machine, and vise versa.  It was a glaring proof that the compact flash cards, which were blamed by Smartmatic for the glitch, could indeed be programmed and could make a non-winning candidate win and make winning candidates lose.  Though the said compact flash cards have been recalled and reprogrammed, there is already a cloud of doubt hovering the veracity or reliability of the automated elections.

I’ve voted for the candidates that I believe could and would bring positive changes to this country.  Those who have the track records of working for the benefit of many Filipinos sans the press releases.  Those who have the credibility, political will, and morality in governance.   I just pray that my votes and those of my fellow Filipinos will be counted appropriately and don’t go to the wrong names, as what happened during the tests last week.   God save the Philippines.