Items for sale

I'm doing some cleaning up of the items I can afford to let go off (I'm sorta making this a regular habit, because I dont want to accumulate too much of the stuff at home and realize that I'll need to let of it soon anyway because I need some home and shelf space.

1. Leapfrog Little Touch Leappad system - barely used (only 4-5 times). My baby has many toys and sadly, this is one she is not interested in too much, she looks at it then moves on to the next toy. I'm selling it for Php 2,300, will include already all the books we have of it: Pooh loves you, Mr. Brown can moo, Let's get busy baby and A to Z adventure (still unopened). The other 3 books were also barely used. Price exclusive of shipping. Box is intact. It doesn't come with the backpack since the item was bought in the states for me. Here are some pics:
2. My Child's Health Journal baby book - This is much like a baby book only its a bit more focused to health. Bought it at Rockwell Fully Booked (impulse buy, hehe) but never got to use it na. Selling it for 250 exclusive of shipping.


3. The Milk Memos book - How real moms learned to mix business with babies - and how you can too. It was a book I never really got to read. New pa talaga (with tag price). SRP is 529, selling it for 200 na lang excluding shipping.

All for now. Will post as soon as I get to add more stuff to sell.

Hello!

Don't tell me! I've been a bad, bad girl and my last blog post has been AGES ago! not that i haven't had time to get a good thought going, its just that I have been quite busy doing legwork on the new enterprise I put up. Glad to say that the efforts have not been in vain, slowly things are working out. We were successful in the first ever bazaar I organized and I'm not in the middle of another one. Add to that, I've already made bookings at the same venue as the first for next year (February, November and December). Seriously, its not wasted effort knowing I was able to push through something huge, alone. Of course, I've had supportive friends and family who all came and visited, but I firmly believe I deserved the good results given my efforts and perseverance.

I'm still thinking of other good projects, especially for the theme for February in time for the UP Fair, and hopefully, hopefully I can come up with it soon!

Till next time!

starting anew

Ok, here I am again after a LOOOONG non-posting period. And I really do feel guilty about not posting, but then everytime I attempt to write my mind ends up blank so I simply forget about it.

Its been a while, holidays have passed, non-eventful if I may add because I am kinda financially incapacitated with no job the past few months. I'm actively searching now, and since I already have a new housekeeper after more than 2 months without, then I have a bit more time for myself while waiting for interview invitations and things like that.

So what else is new? Right now I am too busy hoarding scrapbook kits that I am finding for free courtesy of some n@wie/plurk referrals, and I am hoping to start and be active again at digiscrapping. I have a lot of pics I need to digiscrap anyway, its just a matter of putting it altogether. hayz. Maybe I should make a target, like 10 in a week. that'd be neat. :-)

Oh, and if any of you have any job leads in purchasing and supply chain (middle manager posts), please feel free to call buzz me, I'm more than happy to try it out!

MamaLa and PapaLo

First (of many, I hope) of my digiscrap work. I'm targetting to finish quite a number of pre-selected pics so I'm hoping my creative juices will soon be on a roll. Once I've done this maybe I can go back to scrapping just ordinary, day to day pics so I can have lots of memories to share as well. This are Jessica's maternal godparents (my mom and dad), and though we don't often spend a whole lot of time with them, they are really such great parents to me and they love Jess very much. I wish I could tell them everyday how much we love them.

4 years and counting

It has been more than four years of marriage. Its not perfect, definitely, we were like any other couple. We fight, we encounter problems along the way. But in our marriage, there's always love, and laughter.

We have a long way to go, and more upsides and downsides to come, but as long as there is love, I'm sure we can conquer them all.

Dad and Jessica

The two most important people in my life. :-D

Last year in July the four of us friends from our previous work in Nestle went to Cebu for an all-girls vacation. It was really a lot of fun and we truly, truly enjoyed the bonding time we had, away from boyfriends and in my case, being the only married one in the troop, away from hubby and daughter.  It was something different from all the vacations I had, I was never the type to go out vacationing with girl friends. For the most part, this is the 2nd time I was away from hubby and baby ever since I got married, the first one being my trip to Boracay which was both work and recreational. :-P

Anyway, back to Cebu.  We left on a saturday and checked in at Marriot hotel. Landed in Cebu around 1pm and we checked in the hotel first, then had lunch at a popular resto in Ayala Mall. We went back to the hotel afterwards to rest and wait for Kate, who would be landing late afternoon. She arrived dinner time already and we went back to Ayala for dinner, then back to the hotel to dress up to go to a newly opened club (sorry forgot the name already). We were at the bar till about 2am, was too sleepy already when we got back. As usual, I am not the clubbing type of gal. never been one, and probably never will. Its also not something hubby and I used to do.

Come morning, we checked out of Marriot and went to Plantation Bay, which was a much, much better resort.  We rested and had to catch up with some sleep, because we were going to Crown regency that evening to test our fear of heights. :-D  And we did, in the evening. We conquered the roller coaster on top of the hotel as well as the skywalk. Well, almost all of us did. Anj backed out last minute on the skywalk, and kate gave up on the idea of scary heights the moment we planned to go there. We ate the very popular pochero of Cebu afterwards, and then back to the hotel, where I slept early while the girls were chatting up with Anj's former schoolmate, Mick.

Monday morning before we checked-out of the hotel, we went for a swim, enjoying the waters of Plantation Bay. Had a blast bonding again with the girls. We had late checkout and went to the airport afterwards.

All in all, it was a very memorable trip with my girl friends. Loved it and hope we get another chance. Oh well, Anj is to be married this month, so she'll be pretty busy adjusting for a while. If not this year, I hope we can get a repeat of our all-girl getaway next year!

Here are a few of my newest LO of the little girl. Happy to be digiscrapping again. Its so fascinating that Jessica has grown up so much since she was a tiny, tiny infant. To see her grow up everyday is a blessing, and me stopping work and seeing her in this period of her life is really something I will never, ever regret.

NBI Clearance Rants

Yesterday I decided to get my NBI Clearance already.  This is in anticipation of the fact that I want to go to work very soon and this is surely going to be part of the pre-employment requirements, hence I decided to get it already since its an inevitable thing to do anyway. So I went to NBI Taytay at 7am hoping they were open at that time already (which they were not). There was a long queue already and I was hearing conversations about how you should be there by 4 or 5 am to be first in line. Like duh! So it was 7:30 already when they started to give out numbers, I was 148 of the 150 numbers they gave out. Huge relief? Another thing is that you should be using Taytay Residence Certificates, not Antipolo, not any other Rizal or Pasig residence certificates. So there were some tricycle drivers even asking people there to just get from barangay offices nearby (and of course you will ride their trikes).  I didn't, I had enough time already waiting for the 147 other people in front of me.
At 11am I was starting to panic. I needed to be back home by 12 to prepare for my 2pm interview. Lo and behold, at 11:15 they declared they will stop at 141. And I was 148!!!! Grrrr... We tried pleading to let it finish till 150 but they were rude. :-( i ended up leaving (and bringing the number 148 with me!) empty handed and frustrated.  I just decided I'll try out Megamall branch after the interview, maybe I will have better luck there.
Which I did. I got to Megamall around 4pm. The line was short, around 8 or 10 people ahead of me, and after payment took me around 5 minutes to get the clearance. Five minutes! As opposed to the 5 hours I wasted in the morning. Call that irony.
I'm just looking at the bottomline now. At least I accomplished my mission for the day. However frustrating it was. That's it. No regrets, but lessons were learned. ;-)

Castillo-Sy Wedding

Yesterday Hubby and I attended the wedding of Anj and Lester, Anj being one of my closest friends in Nestle and Les her boyfriend of two years, whom she also met at Nestle. We were witness to their two years of great love which was full of surprises. Lester actually made great effort in coming up with a proposal for Anj, when he asked for her hand in marriage after finishing the ironman race in Camsur, with the cheesy proposal line of "Andrea, will you be my finish line?".  That took their love story to various media: Balitang K, Sports Unlimited and even Weddings Magazine. Ahahaha....
More than 6 months after, they got married at St. Rita de Cascia and reception followed at the Crowne Plaza in Ortigas. It was a fun reception, with quite a few not so ordinary gimmiks, and truly veering away from the traditionals, while still displaying the love from family and friends and giving that wedding its own original touch. They had at least 5 AVP's shown throughout the program, from the start of their love story to the beginning of their new life together. It was truly one of the most unique weddings I have been to. And I am so happy for them. I wish for them to keep the love overflowing and keep the surprises coming.
Love you Anj and Les! Congrats on your new life together!

Hubby's amazing diet

Sometimes our partners will amaze us in ways we never imagined. Let me tell you something about hubby. He is the type of person who, when he really, really puts his mind into a goal, he will get it.  That being said, he has proven this again when he decided to lose weight and begin to live a healthy life.
Just last February 1 him and his officemates had a mini-contest for losing weight, sort of like the Biggest Loser. It was when he decided to go head on with the weight loss program he set. He didn't have a nutritionist but he read so much about it, I'm quite sure he did a good job with the research! So to give you a rundown, here are the changes he did to achieve his goal:

Diet: Change in diet and eating habits was a huge contributor to his goal.  I won't say he's not healthy before because he's not the type to overeat and is not really eating fatty foods, but he did change a lot of what he does to make sure he gets the right stuff in critical to his weight loss program:

• Meats: From the usual pork, beef and chicken we ate, he said goodbye to pork and all its derivatives too! I would just cook chicken for 6 weeks, never fried usually steamed, broiled, roasted. and it has to be skinless too. Seafood is ok, but its either grilled or steamed to avoid any fats. He stuck to this and it really, really made a huge difference.
• Veggies: He wasn't too fond of veggies before. But mind over matter, he put in a lot of veggies into his diet. The lunch I would pack for him is really much of veggies - brocolli, cauliflower, string beans, carrots, lots of kangkong leaves (like the one with chowking). Its either steamed or sauteed. Sometimes beef with brocolli but he sticks to the brocolli. No potatoes, no corn. He says its non-value adding. :-)
• Fruits: He chooses the fruits he eats. Mangoes have too much sugar. Its mostly bananas, apples, oranges. He's not into pineapples because of hyper acidity, but he hopes that the change in diet can also help.
• Oats and Cereals: For a time he would eat oatmeal - unsalted, no sugar - for breakfast. It worked a good deal but he got tired of the taste (or lack of it). We use rolled oats by the way. It tastes so much better than the quick-cook ones or the cereal milk drinks. He also eats cereals (healthy ones) with low-fat milk. Fruits with the cereals help too.
• Rice: This is the clincher. He stopped eating rice altogether. Its been six weeks now and he's ok. After their mini contest he can start taking in some but he said he will still limit the intake to maintain his diet.
• Supplements: He just had 1 supplement that he took: Its component is L-Carnitine and Green Tea, same as that of Fitrum but higher mg. He says it will help in his exercise. 
• Lots of water but no salt to avoid water retention. I won't elaborate since I'm no nutritionist/dietician. 

Exercise: When we got married we bought a home-gym for hubby, which he barely used the past 4 years. And then when we moved here in Cainta he bought a stationary bike. Also barely used till this year. When hubby started his program both have been used extensively.

• Basketball - He plays basketball twice a week: Wednesdays and Saturdays. He also shoots hoops every once in a while in the court a few houses away from ours.
• Weights, home gym, stationary bikes - he tries to put around 30mins to an hour for this daily, sometimes morning and evening. Now that he achieved his goal he might put in less time but he says he won't stop
• Walking/running - a few times, not regularly because of too many wandering dogs in our neigborhood.

It was quite a drastic change in both our lifestyles the past six weeks. I had to prepare him the right foods and there were really times we would argue over it (overcooked, too much, too little, etc). But I do understand how much effort and sacrifice hubby put into it and I really, really am proud of it.

The result: 31 POUNDS LOST IN 6 WEEKS. Hubby is back to his pre-marriage weight and built. I'm so happy and proud of him.

Gotta Learn to drive

I have to learn how to drive. and soon.  I know I'm missing a lot but I've always been pretty capable in commuting, so there is no real drive for me to learn to drive. I like the train better. or jeepneys. For a while when we didn't have someone else to take care of Jess, I've thought that its easier if I drove myself and we just had a car seat for her so she can sit in the back. The thing is, Jess was not a car seat baby. She likes to be with me at the back of the car while hubby drove. But with the inevitable trip of hubby looming ahead of us, I have to pressure myself much more now.  Don't worry, I will drive. I promise myself that.

Mixed Emotions

I don't know if its for the lack of anything else to do, too much FB-ing, or just me questioning my self-worth again that I feel really sad and empty. Not that its anybody else's fault. But a hundred questions are actually running through my mind each and every time I hear of someone else in my circle (be it in my acquaintances side or friends side or simply batchmates in the N@W and W@W e-groups) getting pregnant for the second time. I mean second time because I surely won't be jealous of first timers. I have one pretty and loveable girl of my own and its the best source of happiness I can ever imagine.
So why do I feel sad? Jessica is turning three this coming May. Sometimes I think that I should just let nature take its course and stop taking the pill. God will surely bless us with another one if its the right time, and he will most likely shower us with more blessings, much as he did when jessica was born and hubby got his new job then. I guess I feel scared because right now there is really that uncertainty, what with me in between jobs and there's no defined job waiting for me yet, what if we get pregnant and life becomes too difficult? That's not questioning faith right, merely asking ourselves if its the right path to take.
Perhaps one of these days I will find the courage to stop taking the pill and move head-on, allowing God to shower us with another child at the right time.
A year ago if you ask us if we're ready, I'd say no, reason being I am not emotionally ready to give up some of the time for Jessica. But now that I gave her one year of an otherwise successful career, I feel that she can already adjust pretty much to a little brother or sister, and with lots of love to shower. Now its just a matter of crossing that bridge...
Just pouring my thoughts....

Crafty Sewing

I'm determined to have a productive week ahead. And short of saying I don't have budget to do any more extravagant projects, well, I'm gonna do sewing projects this week. Its kinda sad that I don't have any nice fabrics to work with, but this site I found is simply so nice and helpful for someone like me who wants to start doing crafty things. The steps she gives are simple and easy to follow. I'm just bummed that she uses such great fabrics and I don't have any. I'm going to try to look for retaso sellers soon so I can make some good projects too.

Here's the website I'm referring to: http://makeitandloveit.blogspot.com.  I know those moms and crafty people will like it too.

Here are my first two projects, the directions of which I got from the the site above:

1. Grocery Bag Holder. Here fabrics she used here are so much more beautiful, and I would love to have something similar to work with.  Since I don't, I used some simple katsa and green ribbon that I have here at home.

2. This one is from a similar project I got here which I simply tweaked so I can place as a tools holder in our storage room. Again I used the katsa at home and made a bigger version than the one she used, and made it good for hanging instead of a belt. I do intend to do one for Jessica, granting I can find good fabrics to work with. 

3. My third project is Jessica's doll's dress. Baby Alive has been naked most of the time what with her shirt always coming off, so this dress is really a cute change for the little girl. :-)

My sewing projects

Yey!!! I had a really fun, productive day today. Well, not too fun as I was still constantly reminding myself that I needed to get a job already. But at least the hours thinking about it have been drastically reduced by my sewing projects which I enjoyed doing. And looking back and taking pics, I realize I was able to do a lot! Oh and by the way, I went to Taytay yesterday where they sell fabric leftovers - aka retaso - and I was able to find some. I won't say they are great ones but I then it can get me a long way with the projects I want to do for now. And the retaso is much much cheaper than having to buy per yard which is usually too much for some of the small projects I want to do. So for now, they will do. 

First though, I want to show off my sewing nook at home, actually I have in a room that only I use and it has with it a bigger table and the heat press for our soon to be tshirt biz.  But here is the special nook for my sewing machine. Its a bit hot in this room, but hey, its summer!

Ok, one of the sites I saw (sorry, have to look for that link again) had this cute pattern holder, but I prefer to call it a reminder nook instead. Its made of wood inside, which I lined first with duct take (don't ask me why, its just something I wanted to do to avoid splinters), and then with the black printed cloth which instead of gluing which I saw in the website, I stapled with a staple gun. I then placed the clothespins in cute designs (something I bought in Divi last Christmas) by glue gun. I placed it above the whiteboard because there's no other place for it the room, and it would be hard to put holes in the wood walls.

Here's a closer look with the clothespin designs:

Next I was able to make 2 throw pillow cases of the cloth I bought yesterday. They are matching black and white. I'm thinking of making other throw pillow casings the same way but I'll need to buy more cloth first. This will do for the meantime.:-)

Finally, I was able to make a new stroller cover for Baby Alive. I made some changes because of availability of materials and because I wanted a reinforced one, and i think it was really good.

Here's the original one.

And here's my finished product.

Nice eh? I still have a number of projects I want to do, and hopefully I'll get a good many things done before I get tired and stop. My biggest project and one I hope to actualize is the cover of the sofa, but that's a pretty big challenge so I won't post it till its done! 

New Sewing Projects

I was also able to do several projects the past few days. I haven't finished the projects I intended to do from my current favorite blogsite, until then I'll be doing the stuff there. Luckily when I went to the market I was able to buy some zippers, ribbons and bias tape (which I later on found out was too small and hard to use under several fabric layers. yaiks.  Here are some of the newest projects on the house:

1. My sewing machine's new dress. Yup, surely I got it from the website of Ashley here.  It came out nicely with my revisions, such as the foam inside, and the ribbon went to one side only. I also made a small pincushion earlier on, which matched the fabric of the cover. They do look cute together, don't they? :-p

2. I was also able to make a hot & cold rice bag out of the tutorial here.  I've seen this around bazaars last year though I am not sure what material they put inside. Nonetheless I'm thinking of making it my christmas gifts of love this coming holidays, but will have to research on what best to put inside. Its supposed to be put on microwave for heat (2-3 mins I guess) and then a couple of hours on the freezer for the cold. I tried it on both and it worked, albeit I can still smell the rice grains. Perhaps some organic floral beads can be placed inside. I'll try that soon.

3. And here's another throwpillow case set from the scrap fabrics I had. So cute! Its made of soft stretch cotton so its smooth to use. love it!

My stash and latest projects

Been on and off being busy the past few days with new projects and have more items on my list. Unfortunately my list of things to do have also drastically lengthened! :-p

But to give a rundown of my new projects, here goes:

1. A box out of old corrugated boxes here. Then I wrapped it up in fabric so it looks really cute. I still don't know what to do with it, but I like the look just the same.

2.  Here is baby Alive's diaper. :-) I'm sure she would have loved to thank me, but its ok, I'd rather not hear her speak. ;-p

3. At last, my dream of making sofa covers for our matching L-shaped sofa. They're not together now, but they now have the same fabric. I'm kinda wishing it could just replace our old (i mean old) sofa set we got when we bought the house, but then its too bulky to take out so it stays there.  Its not perfect, but it does its job of hiding the dirty sofa. :-p

4. Kikay Kit!!! - I've always wanted to match up my kikay kit, and here are some samples. There's a tissue holder, a case for the powder + lipstick, and another for my brushes (I use mineral makeup btw). The brush kit is foldable and can be tied with a ribbon, like the pic below.

5. Fetish: Here's a case for my USB Card reader, such a delightful companion with the digicam since I always upload pics. ;-p Coming soon: Similar case for my internet dongle. This one is made from Catcha fabric, and some brown bias tape.

And just this morning I went to Divi for some fabric shopping-slash-much needed retail therapy.  I didn't get to buy the usual stuff I buy like clothes or house stuff, but I had a grand time building up my fabric stash. Now I don't envy the website I've been looking at anymore. :-) What I bought are just simple cotton fabrics in cute designs much like the ones I also like when I digiscrap.

pinks!

green

blue!

orange!

yellow/brown

stripes!

florals!

bought some threads too.

Love love love my collection!!! Can't wait to start with my new projects!