Back at Work.

First day today (after 9 days of Vacation Leave, 60 days Maternity Leave and 5 days Sick Leave) and I’m so lost and undriven.

850 unread email messages.
Voice mailbox is full.
Piles of assorted documents and files adorn my desk.
Forgotten and expired access passwords.
Desk is a total mess.
Boss is inviting the whole team for a lunch out.
I left my breast pump at home.
I AM MISSING MY LITTLE BOY SO MUCH!!!

Arrghh…don’t know where to start. I want to go home na.

Describe Yourself Today.

Yen started a tag about describing one’s self today.

Rules:
1. List 6 things that describe yourself today.
2. Add your blog to the list. Feel free to add all your other blogs.
3. Tag other online friends you know.

Today, this is me.
1. One happy mommy - just seeing my baby drives all my worries away
2. Newbie Mother’s Day celebrant - first time mom here and I had a blast. We attended the Sunday Mass in the morning. The priest’s homily about a mom’s hardships and how she should be acknowledged got me teary-eyed. We went to SM and dine at Cabalen to celebrate this day. It was also Asher’s first malling experience and he’s such a one behaved first-time maller. He didn’t get cranky especially when we are at the kids/infants section and the salesmen were showing and playing with him plushies and toys. We bought him six sandos, three burp clothes, a blue hat, one set of pillowcases, another baby pillow, and two educational/developmental toys for infants. Check out pics below.

3. Hungry - I’m still thinking what to eat for merienda.
4. Sad - Today’s the last day of my maternity-leave-with-one-week-extension-sick-leave. I’ll surely have a hard time bidding goodbye to Asher tomorrow morning when I leave for work.
5. Excited - Because number 4 is short-lived and will last for 30 days lang naman. :big grin:
6. Anxious - My eldest sister will be arriving tomorrow from Qatar. This calls for balikbayan boxes digging.

Links: Creative In Me | Little Peanut |Me and Mine | Pea in a Pod | Sugar Magnolias | The Scrapaholic Me | Love. Happiness. Us. | Swept Away | YOUR BLOGS

I’m tagging Diane, Jayme, Jacq, Mec, Jacque, Con, Karla,

Happy Mother’s Day!

To all my fellow mommy bloggers and to everyone’s Moms:

Free Hosting For A Year, Anyone?

This is a heads up for fellow bloggers out there especially those who blog for business (read as online raket). I know most of you already have your own domains and paid hosting services but read on and follow the steps below if you want to have a chance of winning a year worth of hosting services for free:

1. Hop on over to Andrea’s site.
2. Blog about the topic that is mentioned.
3. Mention her contest on your blog.

Easy, isn’t it? Well, I have just transferred my blog from free wordpress hosting to my current host this week. Actually, I wished I could have done it earlier..now, I’m enjoying blogging through WP with its widgets and plugins more than ever. I am maintaining two other blogs and I’m thinking of transferring them to WP platform also. Hope I get to win in here so I can have one of them get hosted for free.

By the way, Andrea would like to know how blogging has affected my life as a mother. Well, my entries and digiscrap posts would attest that I’m more inspired lately. With the coming of Asher, life has turned three hundred sixty degrees meaning overwhelming with all the adjustments but definitely life is certainly happier. With all the memories budded each day, blogging about them, sharing even just an ordinary photo of my son in the online world makes me a one proud mom. Further, I learn several Mommy lessons by just reading my fellow-Mommy-bloggers’ journals.

In Two Days…

..my eldest sister. ate Dada, is finally arriving from Qatar for a month long vacation. It’s her first ever homecoming since she flew two years ago. She’ll be home for their church wedding preparation which will be a few months from now and of which I’d be her Matron of Honor. The word “matron” doesn’t sound good to me but I don’t have a choice since I’m already married and the term “maid of honor” isn’t appropriate anymore.

We are all excited since it’s been a while since we last saw her and we (especially my elder sister ate Tetet and I) truly miss her that much. My life (in a broken family) was way easier with these two sisters of mine whom I’ve looked up to and leaned upon all throughout our challenging childhood years. Although we argued and fought a lot when we were younger just like siblings typically do, we love each other to bits. They were and still my bestfriends. I wonder how “bulky” she is right now. Looking at her Friendster pictures, she seem to have gained more weight although she’s always been a bit plump way before.

Anyway, I’m also excited for Asher since she’s her Tita-slash-Ninang, I wonder what pasalubongs will be showered on him aside from the Avent bottles and other products that I’ve requested. She also mentioned about giving me a digital frame since she know that I’m a digiscrap enthusiast and she’s aware that we have lots of Asher photos to exhibit. I really can’t wait..hope it’s Monday real soon.

Excited Newbie Mom.

The first greeting came through a Friendster testimonial by my sister-in-law, ate BJ.

Then Suzanne left me tagboard greeting and sent me a rose.

Anne left me a short sweet message in my tagboard.

I have watched Boy and Kris yesterday and their topic is about it.

Commercials and talk shows on TV this weekend are likewise themed about it.

I’m just so enamored that I’m finally celebrating and be greeted tomorrow with these three short but meaningful words:

Happy Mother’s Day!

I’m finally a Mom…newbie, inexperienced, might still be ignorant of a lot of maternal things but I’m finding my way each day to perfect motherhood. I may not attain it but I wish and hope I could be near it and really worth “honoring”.

I’ll try to digiscrap my thoughts about this later. I just hope that my external hard disk’s HDMI cable cooperates this time. The cable seems loose that’s why I wasn’t able to finish my layout yesterday.

On Long Distance Calls.

Ever since, our family has been accustomed to making international long distance calls. My Dad left for Saudi when I was four months old and has been an Overseas Filipino Worker for more than two decades already…yeah that long. He’s of retiring age but he’s that workaholic that he doesn’t want to go home for good yet. He sees to it though that he takes a month long vacation here yearly.

My eldest sister, on the other hand, flew to Qatar two years ago to work and follow her then-fiance (and eventually married there). By the way, they’ll be coming home for vacation on Monday.

Even with the advent of e-mails, online messengers and international texting, we still do communicate occasionally through landline and mobile phone calls especially for urgent messages. International calls are costly so it is in this light that we find the cheapest way to call one another. We figured then that it appears cheaper if we (from the Philippines) will be the one to call them (Saudi and Qatar). So whenever they want to contact us, my stepmom would text or call to inform us to dial their number. As I was surfing online this morning, I discovered getmecallingcards.com which is one of the largest retailers of international prepaid calling cards that serve low-priced calls to 153 countries worldwide. These cards are rechargeable and pinless, thus very convenient. I better tell my Dad and sister about this as well as to my friends and relatives in the US so calling Philippines wouldn’t cost them that much.

I’m On A Roll.

Following my NSD shopping mania which literally “holed” my paypal savings, my mojos seem to be “high” and frenzied that I’m on a digiscrapping roll lately. I’m going back to work next week so I’m making use of my remaining “free” and “me” time to scrap pregnancy and asher’s pictures (which are a looot!). Click on the image to be redirected to my flickr page. They are uploaded as well to my DST gallery (pls leave me some love). Please comment here and tell me which one is the most appealing.

On Small Business Loans.

Sadly, the family’s computer business isn’t doing good lately. We rarely have customers coming in to play. Perhaps the kids don’t have allowances to spend since it’s summer vacation. My sister share the sentiments with her computer business. She and hubby would share notes how their rental sales are doing and they both agree that this isn’t a good business time for them.

Hubby and I are talking if only we can avail of Small Business Loans, we can probably start a new line of biz probably a small retail store investment will do. He’s thinking, on the other hand of business expansion. Since we already have a computer rental shop, we can probably sell computer accessories or offer other computer services (tutorials, repair, design and printing of invitations, flyers, brochures, etc). He also thought of getting a CDR-King franchise would be a hit but then he just learned that they’re not up for franchising. So many choices and options but no startup capital to use. If only ezunsecured.com offer their services here in the country, we would have applied already. They are business financing experts who specialize in helping small business owners and entrepreneurs obtain the capital they need without much hassle in a flash: no collateral, no tax returns, no business plans. Great service and easiest way to loan, indeed.

Fridays Feast: 190.

Appetizer
When someone smiles at you, do you smile back?
Yes.

Soup
Describe the flooring in your home. Do you have carpet, hardwood, vinyl, a mix?
Our living room and bedrooms are carpeted while the other parts of the house have a vinyl flooring.

Salad
Write a sentence with only 5 words, but all of the words have to start with the first letter of your first name.
Wow this is difficult.
My Mama makes me milkshake.

Main Course
Do you know anyone whose life has been touched by adoption?
Yup I have acquaintances who are adopted.

Dessert
Name 2 blue things.
1. Sky and 2. the bird on my blog’s header.

Join the other Friday Feasters here.