typhoon frank

today we experienced the first flooding in our new home. well, not exactly in our house. it was down the street actually. hmmm... I'd say my weekend at home was eventful, to say the least. First, I short-circuited a switch which ended up burning a fuse, then in the afternoon we had visitors, hubby's parents and his aunt, who also came coz she wanted to see our place as well as to inquire re our loan. apparently when they applied for the loan for the balance of the condo unit they bought they did not get any mortgage quotes, and now, after three months, they are still waiting for loan approval. Ours came after 5 days, and I'm quite happy about that part, otherwise we probably won't be here right now.
Anyhow, the typhoon Frank came over this morning and decided to make a mess of Metro Manila. We all woke up around 5:30 because of the gusty winds, and then there was no electricity. and then around lunchtime, the flooded waters of antipolo came through the subdivision. There was literally water all over the streets. Good thing our house was really elevated so there was no worry on the mess it'd make to the appliances and furniture. The water subsided after a couple of hours, but well, seeing that much water outside was still scary. :-)

rainy sunday and baking

Ok its been a while again. Last time I blogged it was still about the typhoon frank. Now its another rainy sunday and I'm here whiling away the time. Well, I'm hoping I can make some blog entries, and later on I'm hoping I can work a bit. But really part of me wishes that the rains will continue because if it doesn't stop I can file for an emergency leave tomorrow!

Anyhow, I have quite a restful weekend now, at least as far as I think it is. no fuss, no long trips out of the house, had time to rearrange my closet, and I had time to practice driving (well, a bit), had time with jessica, had time to watch TV, and I had time to bake! yey!!!!

Which leads me to make kwento that ever since we got the gas range and the lpg tank, I've been more and more learning other stuff to cook. I'm proud to say I've already mastered pizza preparations, already tried roasting a chicken (rosemary blend+barbeque sauce), buffalo wings, and the latest addition: Revel bars!!!! For a first time baker, my revel bars were a huge success!!! If I can say so myself. Which makes me really want to buy a hand mixer (I don't really think I need an industrial type mixer anyways), for my baking needs. I intend to pursue baking of course, and in the course of time, I'm hoping I can up my skills and be able to work out a truly fulfilling hobby again.

home theaters

part of the big plan now that we have our own place is to personalize the look of the place, and quite frankly, one thing in my wishlist is a home theater seating system to go with a home theater -- take a 40" LCD TV mounted on the wall of our living room. And surround speakers that shake the place up when there's a load bang on the movies. Ahhh... bliss...
Well, of course, we are quite far off from this dream but hey, everything can change in an instant, or when we work for our dreams. Who would have thought we'd be on our way to owning the house of our dreams after being married for two years. So no, nothing is impossible, and sooner or later, we might just get all the things we want. All at the right time of course.

marrying age

More and more, we are approaching the age where most of our peers are getting married. Hubby and i got in the game quite early, at age 26, but that was after being together for 9 years, so its hardly a surprise nor is it unexpected. A lot of our friends are still unmarried at the moment, but in a year we do attend around 3-4 weddings already, so I guess that's a sign. I've also been part of the entourage a couple of times, the bridesmaid gifts also come as nice surprises in the wedding.
Seriously, I'm glad we got married at the time we did. Yeah, we may be the first in our own respective barkadas, but why wait, when we are both in it for the long term anyway. Now we don't have to worry about getting the things we want. Because we can work for it together.

accidents

I hear soooo many accidents happening lately. Around a month ago there was the accident along edsa where an ethanol truck crashed into the middle of the edsa underpass railing, causing a long, long queue of traffic on a monday morning. Boy, is that guy gonna need a good truck accident lawyer, because for sure some concerned individuals would probably want to file a case against the poor guy, though I doubt people would want to feel bad from him because of the huge traffic and delays he caused.

well, the justice system must work with things like this. more and more truck drivers are getting to be a pain in the streets what with their attitudes and their perfect disregard for traffic rules. something's gotta be done. and fast.

looking for furniture

I would so love to do some interior designing in our home. I mean, I know we don't really need it and can't afford it at all right now. But I would love to have something to look at, with sleek, modern furniture that would WOW my guests. Something as cute like these.


The first one is an ultramodern bed, the other one is a nice coffee table. Love them both! Can somebody please give me some money to buy these things???? Kidding.

financial freedom

Another dream I am yet to attain. So far I've tried and given as much effort as I can to being debt-free, but I'm far off from being so at this point. I have really set a target to be debt-free, but its been a moving target ever since, and probably till I start being good in my new venture or start on a new, higher paying job, then that would be the only time I can call myself financially-free. I have tried loans, balance transfers, and what have you, but I still have a huge debt and most of my monthly income goes to paying off credit card bills.... hay, ranting. I'll be setting 2010 as a target, hopefully we'll be out of the rat race and enjoying all the money and not giving it to interest. and on that note, jess might be starting school then so we really need to save up!

Investing in homes

A colleague and friend of mine is moving into their new townhouse this weekend. Funny how as we get older, we meet a lot people with quite the same priorities as we do. Liezel, for instance, is older than me and has 3 kids already, but its never too late to invest anyways. To cut the long story short, she must have gotten a moving company, like the New York Moving Company to help her haul her stuff in. Although, come to think of it, I think I remember she said she bought a lot of new stuff for her new home. Well, that's what you get when you have the money. Shopping!!!! I didn't have that luxury then, what with all the stuff we already have, and the stuff we'll be getting that was left by the owners. But hey, not a moment's regret for me, I'm sure if I have the resources, its so much easier to buy the things I want anyway.

Beauty treatment

I love long weekends! It gives me a chance to do the stuff I want, and also do some beauty treatments for myself. For the past few days I've been able to take long, leasurely baths without thinking of time (weekdays I shower for 10 minutes max!). Which means I still get to apply lotion all over, and this afternoon I was able to apply a facial mask to reguvenate the skin. I don't need acne cream at the moment, as I'm not really acne prone, but I enjoy putting some stuff to help my skin look younger on occasions when I have the luxury of time. At least for the next three days for this weekend, I get to pamper myself, even for a while.

Losing Weight

No, not for me. I don't need any weight loss pills at the moment. Far from it, actually, I need to gain weight! But hubby surely needs to lose some weight, but at the rate of very little to no physical activity for him, I'm quite sure its a long way to go till he sheds those pounds a bit! I don't think he'd resort to weight loss pills though, that would be so unlike him. But I might someday convince him to exercise, though that could mean I have to follow suit. Ewww.... We'll see, who knows, I might get into the Wellness craze much sooner than I'd imagine.

fetish for cute stuff

Last saturday was Jessica's checkup. Poor girl had 3 immunizations done to her: Booster for DPT and BCG and her MMR vaccine. She cried loads, poor soul. Afterwards we went to Ayala Center and went malling the whole afternoon. Got Jessica her first pair of Minnie rubber shoes and they fit so well! Could have gotten her a pair of Crocs but I just can't bring myself to imagine that it won't fit her anymore after 6 months, and that costs almost 2k!
Blame it on mommy, whose just so fond of cute things, whether its just office supplies, or small, cuddly stuff. The fact that I have a little girl to buy those stuff to adds all the more fun to it (but dents the pocket, though). But then, having a kid smile at you over the cute thing you bought for her makes it all the more worth it.

On beauty regimens

Funny thing, the other day I bought a facial cream (I won't say the brand) because I am almost running out of it, only to find out when I was already putting it on my face that I bought a facial foam instead. yikes. One thing I'm most thankful for is that my skin never required me to undergo acne treatment. I have fairly normal skin, and even though I have had my share of pimples, white and black heads, there was no real need to undergo serious treatments and facials. In fact, I'm not too fond at all of facials. Spa I like, facial, not too much. I only put some facial cream on my face for maintenance, and lately I'm lazy to put makeup on myself. When I'm 30 I think I need to put more serious thoughts on my beauty regimen, I can't wait till I'm 40 to do that.

Stock trading

There has been so much news regarding the US recession, it gets scary at times when you wonder if the same economic crisis will get to our own economy. I'm not an expert on trading, I've only some slight background on stuff like futures trading, hedging, etc. I don't even understand much of it. I tried something like a stock market online game, and I think I did fairly well, but is it something I will look into in the future? Probably. I think the stock market is still a good way to augment income and savings, better than a bank account that is. But the saying still goes, the bigger the risk, the bigger the loss or the gain. I'm hoping when I do try it, its going to be a gain.

back on track - jenn's comeback

just when you would have thought that i have abandoned my blog(s) forever, well' here i am, back to the blogging world. and hopefully for good. Pardon such a long hiatus from all this, there has been so many things that happened in the past few months I have not been able to update for the longest time. For instance, we went to HK, baguio, and last month I went to batangas. And I haven't been able to blog about any of it just yet. so ok, I owe everyone, big time.

but just the same, a quick update, hopefully I can get back on the rhythm in the next couple of days as I slowly unwind. Because, and here comes the news.... I'll be leaving my current company and joining another one.

Why blog about it? Well, it was an extraordinary story. Believe me. It came and went just like that, and just as unexpectedly, I never realized that my life, and my future, could change as fast as it did last week.

What happened? Thursday morning I got a text message from a headhunter, inquiring if I am interested in applying for an opportunity at this large FMCG company. I said yes, of course. He asked me to apply to the job at the company's website. Went there, found out I've already applied for it sometime in December, I think. After a while he says ok, then texts me again asking what time its convenient for a phone interview. So I said 2pm. He calls me up, interviews me. After an hour or so he sets up another interview, this time with the hiring managers, and after a while tells me that they will call up at 4:30. And a few minutes before 4:30 they already called up, apparently they are in a rush, and interviews me for a while also.

A few minutes after, they call up to ask if we can meet up after work to further discuss. So I said ok. Left early from the office. We get to talking in Sta lucia, and they tell me about the job, the details of it, and asks a few more questions. They told me frankly what the offer amount would be, and in a number of words, offers me the job. Well, it was somewhere between an offer and a please consider. They did tell me most of what I needed to know, where they would want to take me, as part of for a future with the company, the benefits of working there. The promise of a challenging future, and possibly as part of succession planning. They gave me a few hours. Well, it was 8pm and I needed to decide before lunch the next day.

When I got out, I immediately called up good friend Jerome, told him what happened. He encouraged me to take the offer. The position was good and promising. One vote for the new company. I asked my ex-boss for advise. Another vote for the new company. Hubby says go for it! so that made three. I thought about it in my sleep even, I had a headache when I got up. Geez. Part of me (the bigger part of me) wanted to take this job. But part of me, while not denying it, must be in shock with the way things went! A day ago, I was worried about all the pending items in my inbox, the unread mails, and the pending projects. The next day I was considering my future in a new company.

At around 9 am my mind was made up. I called my would-be boss and told him I would accept if they would choose me. And asked for a few concessions. He said they will decide by 2pm who would be offered the job. Ok that's good. I decided to inform my boss, as an FYI. I explained of course, about the urgency of everything. She was shocked. Can't blame her, I was in shock myself. After a while, during lunch I learned that she had spoken to the Purchasing Head about it already, even if I had informed her that I was not sure yet since they were due to decide that afternoon. She was leaving after lunch so I figure she just decided to let everyone know anyway.

At 2:10 I got the call from my would-be-boss, inviting me to go to the office in the afternoon. To sign the offer. Wow. I said: "Does this mean its me?", hehe... I had to clear it up, I wouldn't want to have any misconceptions, you know. And he confirmed it. so that's it. I landed a new job, in a record of 2 days with job offer signing. I thought things like that didn't happen to people like me. I heard it happen to other people, but not to me. But it did. And yes, it makes me happy, and important.

What I like about my new job:
- The position was what I was aiming for for the last few years since I graduated MBA.
- I will be having direct reports, 6 of them, I think.
- The company is respectable, the brand is number one in terms of its market share.
- The exposure was different from my current one, allowing me to expand my knowledge and growth.
- Job offer was above my current, which is great for us financially.

What I will miss:
- My friends! The two closest to me: anj and jerome. They were already like sisters to me and knew everything about me. It will be such a loss for me.
- The office. I love my current office. I love the benefits. I like most of the people in my department, and apart from the ups and downs, I believe I have already made a lot of contributions, and would at least be remembered as a good member of the team. Well... things do happen without us realizing it, and there are leaps of faith that we sometimes have to jump to in order to survive.

PS. A few years back, I put it in my long term goals that at 30, I should already be a manager. Its heartwarming to know that I will reach that goal, almost exactly as I turn 30. :-)

Keeping tab of memories

I've been considering getting a camcorder for us. That way we can take videos of all the important memories of the family. Some we already have on pics, but the future ones, it would be nice to record them and get to watch them a few years from now. Its going to be a while still, I have so many priorities at the moment, but even so, its one of the things on my I-want-to-buy list. Hope in 2 years time, at least before Jessica goes to school, we can have one already. Hmmmm. I still do have a lot to buy in my wishlist though. hahaha.

turnovers

One thing I don't look forward to having to turnover work. And with my upcoming resignation, its needless to say that I would have to plan this part and turnover well to the person who's going to handle my work. seriously. It would be such a hard job because I handle so many things! It may seem trivial, but since I handle the biggest brands its going to be a headache both for me and for the new one to handle it.
There's just too many projects and too many stuff to do.
Plus I would need to inform my suppliers that I will leaving them soon, and for good! Its sad for me too, but its something i need to do too. I've made real good friends with a lot of my suppliers, and its just so sad to have to leave them all so soon and so suddenly. I'll truly miss all of them. :-(

my new toy

I just got my year 2009 present from hubby. year 2009 meaning, it probably represents all the gifts I am supposed to receive from him the entire year. not that it matters, this one is really to die for, and brings out the geek in me. hahaha... kidding.

Anyway, hubby and I just bought a notebook, the ultraportable and cute MSI Wind LX100sp2+. Pardon the numbers, its basically an MSI Wind. The specs are the best, as far as we have looked around, and the laptop itself is pretty handy to take anywhere. Here are its specs:

• Intel® Atom™ N270 Processor, 2 GB RAM
• Genuine Windows® XP Home
• 10” Wide Screen Display
• Convenient Magnifying Capability
• Ergonomic Big-Size Keyboard and Touch Pad
• 160 GB hard disk drive
• Built-in 1.3 Mega Pixels Webcam
• Built-in High-Performance 2 Channel Stereo Speakers, and Microphone
• 802.11b/g/n Wireless Lan


We've looked around for similar models of a mini notebook that can match this size and specs, and we've really not found one that matched, at least in terms of speed and the price. There are a lot of similar priced notebooks, but most of them only at 1 GB speed. The beauty of having 2GB, for me, is that it will allow me to go back to my hobby of creating digital masterpieces (also known as digiscrapping. And since its soooo portable, I won't have a hard time carrying it about. plus, we don't have to worry about sharing it, since we now have 2 laptops at home (well, we did since I have an office laptop, but I barely use that at home, just for work and the usual web browsing --- the photoshop version installed was really ancient).

I'm just too ecstatic about this one, I really, really, really love it.
Thanks sweetheart! Love you!!!!

moving forward

i did it. happy!!! i'm finally moving forward with my career.
i got the email earlier from my new employer and everything is now as it should be.
funny how things fall into place when we least expect it. this morning I was thinking that I should call the headhunter to follow up drastically, but before that could happen, I got the pre-employment requirements in my email. yey!! and what's more, I got the results of the CBC and Urine test and both results were quite good! double yey! i need that to be ok because I want to ensure I won't have any problems with my medical pre-employment exam. so immediately after I I got back to the office, i tendered my resignation. and I'm feeling happy and light ever since. it really feels good to look forward to something.
will update you once I have more details.

on growing up so soon

sometimes as we see our kids grow up so soon, we realize just how fast they do actually grow up.
just last week i've been constantly groggy from lack of sleep because jessica wakes up several times during the night. we realize later on that she may have "pilay" so maritess had her checked and apparently there was something there. we though we fixed that but on thursday night she was just as frantic and clingy and I can't tell you enough how tiring that is.
on friday night I happened to realize that after all, jessica just wanted to have the bed all to herself, so I had her sleep in the couch in her room, while I slept at the floor. magically she slept so much better. I finally realized this is how she wants it, to be alone in bed, so saturday night I laid out the mattress from the pullout bed underneath her big bed, and had her sleep there instead. it worked well! she slept nicely, though she woke up in between to play. yey! so tonight after a lot of rearranging the whole house to make things fit, jessica now has her own bed, and she seemed happy about the idea. she's sleeping there at the moment, i do hope it works!!!
on the contrary, it makes me sad that jessica is already on her own bed.... makes me think she's all grown up already!

The Crocs Megasale - mega-tiring!!!

Tired is an understatement. I feel sooo exhausted after today. Never realized how tiring it was, really. Here's a short rundown of the day that was.

The announcement for the sale was 10-8pm. Naturally I was not in such a big hurry to get to the sale in meralco avenue, ortigas. It came as a shock that there was a huge traffic jam around the place and everybody seemed to be on their way to the sale. Good thing I saw someone I knew there (Thanks stips!) so I saved some 30minutes of queueng time to get inside. Once inside the area, there was a huge commotion there and there were so many people there already. The stocks were all over the place and the queue to pay at the cashier was also just as long it was shocking. It took me around 2 hours (12-2) to get the stuff I wanted and another 3 hours to just finish lining up to pay. So I ended up using the whole day just to stay at the sale. It was not a loss though, I was able to get really nice crocs and the prices were hugely discounted too. But just to give you an idea, here's a shot of the place inside.

That from the point where I stood in line. and at the end of the tent, that's where the cashiers were.
Stocks were all over the place. People go around to get the stuff they need, it seemed the best and fastest way.

And here are the stuff I got from the sale:

Pelican Winnie - From 1850 down to 740 (6o% off)

Minnie Janes - From 1850 down to 740 (60% off)

Kids Cayman - From 1475 down to 590 (60% off)

Women's Juneau - From 2350 down to 1410 (40% off)

Alice - from 2350 down to 1175 (50% off)

Sobek black - From 2500 to 1000 (60%)

Venture Canvass - From 3700 to 740 (80% off)

Tikali black - from 3500 to 1400 (60% 0ff)

Good buys huh? Of course it was shocking to see the people in front of me spending like 10-12k in their buys. whew. happy.... but tired. If you're eyeing just one or two pairs, I don't think it will be worth it.

welcome me back

hey there!!!!! welcome me back! I'm so sorry for the really long months that I was not able to blog (ok fine, that was more than 3 months!). life has been busy and there have been so many changes all around. moved to a new job, new adjustments, jessica had her birthday, and now new stuff are keeping me quite busy.
so what's new? I have a whole LOT of catching up to do, as I'm sure you would know. pretty much everything in my life is turned upside down at the moment, but there's a lot of things that I am happy and grateful for. and that will never change. Making lots of plans, and hopefully these will materialize soon and reap its benefits for the hard work.
i'll write a more intense blog entry about the things going on in my life, just need to do some cleaning up of thoughts. :-) I do miss blogging. I wish I had more time and energy to do this and release my thoughts.

Going on vacations

Got the news that my SIL will be going to Turkey this June. They live in London right now, and being newly married and still in their honeymoon stage, its a good thing for them to be travelling all around, while there's no baby yet. They might even go to the US next year. For us, vacations have now become a luxury what with the baby and having to pay for the house and such. Been looking at online reservations in Westgate and it really is enticing. But one has to consider the sheer expense of vacations. So I guess that is something on hold for a while till we're more liquid financially.

got my netbook back

Whew! I'm so happy I finally have my netbook up and running. It has been a frustrating month what with having to recover and recover all over my files because it just keeps crashing. Apparently something was wrong with the harddrive and it was causing all the blue screen terrors. We brought it several times to where the store that sold it (Octagon). First we brought it to Megamall branch. They used the recovery disk and I lost all my files the first time. Then it crashed. I built my own removable cd rom to recover it. same thing. I used someone else's external drive (the offices' equipment). Still crashed. Took it to the Sta. Lucia branch. It still crashed after a week. Upon checking there were a lot of bad sectors in the HD, must be the one causing those crashes. We went back to the Sta Lucia branch and they advised us to go directly to the distibutor for faster service, since if we course it through them it will take around 3 weeks. And so I did. Brought it last Saturday to the distributor, I called up in the morning and they informed me that its ready for pick-up, and they replaced the hard disk. Yey! So happy about that. I went there during lunch and I have it back now. Whew. It was a struggle, but I'm happy its fixed. I hope. I'll be placing it on trial mode for a couple more days but hopefully all will be fine now. In as much as I don't spend too much time on the PC at home anymore, its been a hassle using the bigger laptop. hehe... I still love this one because its just too easy to carry around. And when we go to Singapore next month, I'll definitely be glad I'll be carrying this one around instead of a really bulky thing.

Jessica's 2nd Birthday: Supplier Ratings

Ok, this is more than a month overdue (its 1 month and a day overdue, to be exact), and I know I owe myself to have to make this review for the sake of the readers, friends, and most of all, myself!

So, here it goes.

The idea for a birthday party for Jess' 2nd birthday came to mind because I wanted to celebrate the two years that was virtually hassle free for our family. Jessica never got really sick, never got hospitalized, never gave me reason to feel sorry for myself, and constantly made us proud becuase she is smart, cute and really really sweet. With that, I felt I wanted to reward her for the two years of love she gave to our lives. But of course, I was on a budget and wasn't ready to spend as much as I had the first year. That would be too much. I also decided it was a small celebration only at our house, so it need not be grand. But of course, I wanted to make it special and presentable.

Theme: Winnie the Pooh party.

Food: I didn't get a caterer. I inquired but felt it was too much to spend. So instead I planned to cook it all myself, which I didn't end up doing of course, because I might drop dead tired had I tried. So it was a mixture of bought and cooked stuff.
Spaghetti - I cooked (Rating: 5+++ (highest of course))
Pancit Bihon - Bought at Crisgard (new discovery). It was a really good one. A lot of people tried it and the serving was quite big, I had one whole bilao unserved after the party because there was too much food already (pasta + pancit = lot of food). Rating: 5
Barbeque - Bought from my party balloons supplier. It tasted good, as expected of course. No regrets and no bad experience. Nothing extraordinary about it though. Rating: 4
Chicken Lollipops - Prepared by me, cooked by Mom and Sisters. This one I wasn't able to do anymore. Everything was at a rush already and I am so very glad they took this in for me. WheW! Rating: 5+++
Crispy pata - I cooked. I could not afford lechon, so I figured this would work. I'm always happy about cooking this because I feel its one of my best dishes. hehe. Rating: 5+++
Dessert: Pichy-pichy by Arni-Dadings. Love it and its hassle free: Rating: 4
Dessert: Ice Cream sticks and Pinipig Sticks from Selecta: Love it also, and again, hassle free. Rating: 5.
Dessert: Gulaman Jelly from tabios Side - another addition to the menu I didn't expect, but definitely thankful for. Rating: 5
Drinks: Softdrinks and Nestea Iced Tea. No need to rate. :-)
Overall, I think the food I prepared was sufficient. And I got to use my Chafing dishes as well, so its an added point for presentation.

Decors and Tables and Chairs: I found their number on a tree just around the corner from our house, so I called them up and good thing there were no issues with them. I initially wanted to get it from a N@wie friend but it just didn't fit the budget so I decided on a cheaper alternative for now. I ordered 50 chairs and 4 round tables, and 5 square tables. Hassle free. And I also ordered the balloons from them and as a last minute order, I got their pabitin (nothing hanging yet) and barbeque. I would definitely get them again if there was another affair! Rating: 5++

Emcee/Host/Clown/Magician: The life of the party came at a really reasonable price. Which makes me happy. Got them from the Party favors supplier and I really am happy with the results. They were a typical party host. Nothing to grand or special, but at least they made the audience laugh and the kids happy. And Jess was more than willing to pose with them after the show. Rating: 5

Cake: c/o Goldilocks. Because they had a Winnie the Pooh theme. Need I say more? Rating: 4 (Met expectations)

Costume: c/o Disney costumes. Found a terribly cure Winnie the Pooh costume in SM Marikina and I just couldn't resist not buying it. So there. The happiness of seeing Jessica sooo happy wearing it was priceless though. Rating: 5++++

Giveaways: Divi Mall. DIY. Need I say more. Rating: 5+++

Overall I'd say the party was a huge success. And I thank those who helped me though it. I know Jess might not remember it too well, but seeing how happy she is reward enough for any mom.

Realizations

sometimes it takes not so good experiences for us to realize the things we want in life. In my case the past 4 months have been humbling, and it made me realize, finally, what I actually want to do with my life. Even if its scary and is not a simple feat, I believe that I will actually feel better doing this that trying forever to fit into a corporate setting.

Yesterday I was chatting with a former supplier in my previous work, and entrepreneur who happened to make it big by starting young. I know that he was capable and hardworking and for sure he really made it there by sheer hard work. So we were chatting about what I wanted to do and he related to me his story of how he started out by sending 20 proposals a day coming from the yellow pages, to be able to network his own PR company. Which got me to thinking about what I really want to do, and how lucky I am over others that I also have a network working for me, and I believe that I am wise and smart enough to do this business.

After all, I fell in love with events management the day I started handling it. I always told me friends that this is something I wanted to do, and something I had passion for. The fact that I will be doing this full time just excites me. I'm planning to start small of course, small events first and learn the business. Get contacts. After I've gained enough experience I plan to venture into the more professional side of it, hopefully get into some good companies with upcoming events. Who knows maybe soon I can have clients that are the calibre of Nestle. We can never tell of course, but its where I want to be in the future.

Isn't that fun?

My newfound friends

Last Friday, June 26, was my last day at Selecta. My officemates gave me a goodbye dinner at Eastwood (the first time I went back there since my Baby shower, which, if you can imagine, was in April 2007!). It was a really nice dinner, the first time I really went out since I quit Nestle, and I could really say I had fun chatting with them (despite the fact that most of them were fresh-grad-young, if you know what I mean. After dinner, they gave me a farewell gift, which was a scrapbook signed by them and several of the people I had interacted with over the past 3 months. Awwww....
It was really touching hearing what they had to say, how they had thought I looked tough the first day, but over time they thought I was a cool boss and really nice to be with. ahhheeem. lol. Seriously, it makes me feel good that at least in the short time that I led them (sort of...) they felt I did well. Even my ex-boss felt I was bright... :-p
On one side, I really felt sad for having to leave such nice colleagues behind. The people I've worked with (Production, RND, QA) have all been pleasant and gentle, seeing that I was not entirely from the Operations point of view, but they understood. The PPIC pics have all been supportive and loving, and I will keep a lot of happy memories of my stay there. Its sad I couldn't prolong the stay because I also have my own plans. But they will forever play a big part of my life.
I'm thankful for having been a part of this team.

Thanks Guys! I'll cherish the happy times we had, however short it was. :-) Good luck to all of you in your careers! See you soon, I hope!

PS. Pic background shows a replica of Optimus Price. So cool! I hope they can do a cute (and cheap) model toy of the transformers, even the car version of Optimus would be ok for me.

online selling

Now that i am finally a free (ergo: jobless) lancer, I have to find ways to earn online without having to burn my brains out. One way is to do paid posting, another way is to do free online auctions, by selling some unused but good enough stuff. I just need to plot some of the stuff I can still sell, so that means cleaning up the closets again. Sometimes the free online auctions are also a venue to just be able to put up your own online store. of course, that's if it doesn't require huge costs just to be able to post. I'm going to try my hand on this online auction thing really soon, for now I'd have to search my deepest closets for the stuff I can get money out of.

Missing Coffee

One of the things I miss about working for a consumer company that has coffee as its main brand is definitely the free coffee high I can get anytime I want. I hardly ever went to a coffee shop simply because all I had to do was to go to the pantry and push a few buttons to get my favorite cup of coffee. Of course it does not discount the fact that I also want to be pampered sometimes with a really good cup of coffee, one that came out of a Capresso machine. Brewed coffee is much too different from the usual instant coffee, the taste is much more bitter, giving you a much more intense coffee high. Now, when I get my own office this is one thing I am sure to get for myself. Nothing like a good cup of coffee for that extra energy boost.

looking handsome

One of the things I don't find in my husband's wardrobe is a tuxedo shirt, and a coat. I would love to see him in one, unfortunately there are not much opportunities to get to wear them since he is not working for a company that requires it. And besides, working in a tuxedo and shirt in a tropical country like ours would be horrible, I can just imagine that one would be perspiring the whole day wearing that one. Might as well ask the ladies to come in fashionable trench coats. But seriously, had there been an occasion that would call for it, I would surely pursuade hubby to get one for himself, though he won't wear it often, its a good investment to keep for occasions that would require him to be majorly handsome! :-p

fitness first

My husband likes to invest in gym equipment ever since we got married. Just after we got married he bought a home gym that took up a huge amount of space in our living room and later on in the bedroom. When we moved to our own home he then bought a stationary bike, which, unfortunately, is also gathering a lot of dust particles in our room. We don't have a gym room so the stuff is parked in our bedroom, with the bed being in between the bike and the gym. Uncanny. I'm more inclined to think that I want us to have a much, much smaller fitness essentials, such as a Kettlebell, which won't take up so much space in our home. Of course, it not like I want or need it now, but for those thinking about getting them a home gym, consider getting something small and light.

meeting up with friends

I just had a sumptuous lunch with my friends from Nestle today, and I enjoyed it every bit. Now I have to reminisce all the times we actually spent together, and I really, really miss having them around. They were the type of friends you can maturely talk to about all the issues in life. And since they were all were smart guys and gals, its always a good brain exercise to be speaking with them. Like I always said, I never had any regrets for trying the life outside, but, if I were to free-handedly choose which company I would like to go back to, I would choose Nestle without a blink of an eye. Why, because I love the people I worked with there. My officemates were my close friends and I never had to pretend to be anyone else for them. The work environment was hard, yes, but if when I weigh now the friendship + benefits + compensation, its so far the best. :-)
Well, I don't have to be working for Nestle to keep my friends, but just the same, I'd just like to say they were truly best friends and I miss them all!