I can imagine retreating to a small corner of my spa haven and finding my little piece of heaven. I’ll toss the spa covers and let the bubbles rise. Sprinkle a few rose petals and a few drops of scent. Light some candles and turn up a little music.

I will slip under the rosy foam, close my eyes and just relax. That feels good.

These past days, I’ve been keeping  relaxing imagery like these handy whenever I’m feeling a little stressed. I don’t really want to indulge in a spa alone so I just do it in my head.

I say I’m feeling a little stressed because I’ve set a deadline for myself and sometimes I get anxious if I’m gonna make it. Remember the “little projects,” I’ve been mentioning in a few posts?

Well those projects are part of my goal to become a work at home mom. Jamaine is starting school next year and I want to be a WAHM before then.

I want to be able to work on my own time so I can take her to school and be there for her when dismissal time comes. I want to be home to teach her lessons and play games.  I want to be there for her as she crosses this important milestone in her life.

When I become a WAHM, I can spend more time with Kalia. I can go out on dates with Kernan any day of the week. I can be there for my family.

My projects have been starting to take off and I believe I can make it. I just have to deal with this panicky feeling that I get at times so I can just keep focusing and taking action.

It’s going to be a big leap. After all, people would always say that staying in a regular job is the most sensible thing to do. But every day, I feel that there has got to be a better way. And I know working from home is the better way.  I just need to do it and I will get there someday.

In the meantime, I will relax and let the worries float away.

I go home, plug in the wifi and log in to Skype. I am online until the most awaited call of the day.

For the past weeks, this is how we’ve been bridging the gap between home and the land far, far away.

Thank you God for technology.

Just 24 more days to go. In my abridged version of time, that’s just three weeks away.

Thank you God for  supportive friends and a loving family.

Tomorrow will be a happy Monday.

Almost every weeknight is movie night in our home. This is how we pass the time while we wait for Daddy’s Skype call.

Recently, my girls have taken a liking for Barbie the Island Princess. It’s a movie – musical about Ro (Barbie) who gets stranded in an island when she was a kid. Having lost her memory, she spent the next 10 years living in the island with her family: the panda Sagi, the peacock Azul, and the baby elephant Tica.

My girls love the vibrant colors and the talking animals in the movie, they’ve memorized all the names, even some of the dialogues. But what they love the most are the songs. It’s fun to watch them every time they burst into a chorus, their improvised microphones in hand, gesturing just like Barbie.

Of course, the lyrics are often interspersed with their own words but my girls got the melody.

Another mainstay on our DVD is Go Diego Go. Jamaine and Kalia love acting like explorers, pretending to climb mountains and using binoculars to find animals to save.

It’s cool because they get to learn about animals like chinchillas, jaguars, flamingos and macaroni penguins. I didn’t know there were animals like that when I was 3 years old.

I guess I just need to brush up on a little zoology though because sometimes Jamaine would ask what a particular animal is and I want to come up with something more than generic terms like birds. For example, this animal is a bird but it’s family calls it eagle and his name is Bald Eagle. Eagles alone have 60 species (okay, I got that info from Wikipedia).

Anyway, it’s three weeks to Ohana Day. Yay! It’s actually 25 days but each day is passing faster. Yes, I wish I could pull the days even faster. But for now, I remain thankful that we are getting closer and closer to our special family day.

Thank God, it’s Saturday too.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Today is the one month mark before hubby returns home from the land far, far away. Somehow, one month makes it easier to bear than saying 4 weeks or 31 days.

Just one month to go. Just one month more.

In the meantime, I will keep myself busy with our girls and with work. Sometimes, I still feel lonely and there are a lot of moments that I wish Kernan was here.

But I keep reminding myself to be grateful for all the blessings coming our way. To be thankful for everything else that’s going great in our lives.

I am thankful that each day that passes brings us closer to our “Ohana Day.” I imagine that would be one happy day indeed.

The days are actually passing by faster and I’m sure he’d be home before I know it.

It’s a beautiful Monday.

I’m sure it’s going to be a great week.

What are you grateful for today?

Wow, I love how my blog feels fresh again. How do you like the new look?

Today, I finally mustered enough courage to hit the “Update” button on my admin dashboard and level up this blog to WordPress 3.0.

And to commemorate the new version of WordPress, I decided to give my blog a new look too. It’s the new All Jayme on WordPress 3.0.

The back story

For the past weeks, I’ve been waiting for an upgrade option in my Cpanel through Fantastico. But weeks have passed since WordPress 3.0 has been released, still no upgrade link.

If you’re a WordPress user like me, I guess you’d agree that it’s kinda annoying to see that notice on top of the dashboard all the time reminding you to upgrade. I even tried asking support from my webhost but as it turned out they had no control over Fantastico.

Why was this such a big deal for me? Well, more than two years ago, my blog went bonkers when I carelessly hit Upgrade to WordPress 2.3. I was able to sort things out despite my panic though it took some serious brain wracking to restore everything back to normal.

As I mentioned in that post, I changed my layout to celebrate my blog’s second lease on life.

When I upgraded to WP 2.5.,  I let Fantastico do its job and everything went smoothly. I also changed to a new layout again at that time to complement the new WP version.

Upgrading to WP 3.0 within the blog dashboard

Since I couldn’t wait for Fantastico to release an upgrade script, I decided to try the Update button found in the WordPress dashboard just to get it over with. To be extra careful, I tried it first on a test blog to see if everything will work smoothly.

After I hit the Update button, I was taken to the Upgrade page and presented with two buttons: to update automatically or to download the core files to update manually.Of course, I hit the left button because automatic install is easy peasy.

Notice that it says you need to back up your database files to be safe. But I didn’t do that anymore because the test blog had little content. If you’re upgrading your actual blog, do back up your files just to be on the safe side.

After hitting Upgrade Automatically, this is what appeared on the page. It only took a few seconds and the update was successful.

This is the first time I tried the Update button and it’s pretty fast and easy. Now that I know that this works, I won’t have to rely on Fantastico anymore for updates and I can upgrade right away when a new WP version is released.

I haven’t explored 3.0′s full features yet but it looks pretty much the same.

Now all my blogs are running on 3.0. . Some are lined up to undergo a major redesign too.

I just realized, I wasn’t able to take screenshots of my previous designs. It would have been great to see how my blog has evolved through the years.

Redirection

I’ve actually been thinking about what direction to take with my blogs.  Next month, All Jayme will celebrate its third anniversary.

So far, I’ve only been winging it with blogging here but I now feel like I want to take it the next level too and make it better.

Does that make sense? My mind has been swimming in all things geeky in the last few hours.

Anyway, it’s past 2 a.m. and I better get some sleep.

Happy pretty Monday everyone!

P.S.

If you ever need help with getting set up with a self – hosted WordPress blog or with tweaking your blog design, let me know, maybe I could help. I’m no blogging diva but I’ve learned enough to set up 11 blogs.

If there’s one thing I learned about beauty products, if you’re hiyang and it works, stick with it. No need to switch to new products being promoted that claim to be the “latest and greatest” in beauty technology. Unless, maybe if it’s the same brand.

I had to learn this lesson again a few weeks ago when I was buying a new moisturizer at Watson’s. Over the years since I started using anti aging creams, I’ve tried L’Oreal, then switched to The Face Shop’s Arsainte, then finally to Olay Regenerist. I’ve been doing okay with Olay for the past year and my skin felt great.

But as I was browsing through the racks supposedly to replenish my Olay supply, I just decided to switch back to L’Oreal and try their Revitalift line. No special reason, I just wanted to try something new. Not to mention, the ad on the rack said this moisturizer had some special ingredients which will do my skin a lot of good.

When I used Revitalift for the first time, it had a strange smell. I couldn’t figure out what exactly it is for awhile. But I figured later on that the closest comparison would be the smell of rubber. It was a bit unpleasant and certainly something I didn’t expect from a face cream. But I thought I’d try and tolerate it, it would be such a waste to throw it away just because of the smell.

And then it happened, after two days of using it, I had breakouts on my cheeks and my chin. Ack! At the back of my head, someone was shouting “I told you so!” I had no choice but to give it up and buy another moisturizer.

This time, when I returned to Watson’s, I headed straight to the Olay booth. I told the saleslady about my story and she said, “Ma’am, only Olay should touch your skin.” I know that line was part of their TV ad, but I’m taking this one seriously.

I bought Olay Total Effects with salicylic acid to combat my breakouts first before I use Regenerist again. My skin is happy now and the breakouts completely disappeared.

Lesson learned: Stick with your skin staples.

What’s your beauty lesson?

After my two – week bout with flu, I’ve finally learned my lesson and I’ve resolved to take better care of myself. So for the past week, I’ve been diligently popping this tiny orange capsule everyday.

It’s just Vitamin C for now, maybe soon, if my stomach can handle it, I’ll take the ones that come in multis. I’ve mentioned before how I don’t like taking vitamins. Even when I had my girls, I wasn’t taking my prenatal vitamins regularly because they made feel sick in the throat.

Strangely enough, I knew some people before who would take tons of vitamins everyday, some for their body, others for the skin and for a host of other benefits. I wonder how they do it.

My mom would always remind me about taking vitamins, in fact she reminded me again last week. So now, I’m really making it a habit. I take one pop a day and drink lots of water. It’s no fun being sick.

Thankfully, my coughs are gone and I’m confident I can start running again soon. That’s more than enough incentive for me.

What vitamins do you take?

Since I haven’t been running lately, I’ve resorted to tummy fillers to control my portions. They’re foods that I eat before a meal to make me feel full so I will eat less. I’m not really on a diet because I still eat what I want.

My favorite tummy filler of the moment is yogurt. I’ve always liked yogurt but I usually eat it for dessert. I tried eating a cup before a meal last week and I felt about half full in an instant. I actually ate less rice during my main meal.

Another good one is granola. I love how it’s sweet and crunchy sans the extra calories. And it’s quite filling too. I love Nature Valley’s granola bars especially the Honey and Oats and Peanut butter flavors. It’s a bit of an effort to bite though but they’re really tasty.

I’ve heard meal replacement shakes are also a good alternative to dieting but I haven’t really tried it yet. Kernan and I did try drinking protein shake before that had a chocolate flavor. Not really as chocolatey as I’d want it to be but it tasted good. Though it’s just a shake, I actually felt like I ate a whole meal. I remember we bought it at Cash and Carry for about 2k+ and had Whey on its label. (There’s a whole list at www.proteinpowder.net)

Of course, water is always a good tummy filler, though too much can make you feel bloated.

What are your tummy fillers?

If you’re the type of grocery shopper who brings a list and a calculator to stay on budget, price tags are your bestfriend. During those days when I was still trying to get a hang of budgeting, I would actually input the prices one by one on the calculator just to make sure we’re spending within our grocery budget.

I’ve been noticing though that groceries don’t put price stickers on their goods anymore. I thought maybe they’re trying to save on sticker paper and opted to put the price tags on the shelves instead. Thing is the price tags are not always correct and there would be times when the price scanned by the cashier would be different from the one on the shelf. No problem if you’ve got a buffer fund (which I now always have) but if you’re a bit tight, that would really be annoying.

If they can’t put price stickers, they can just install ls2208 barcode scanners at the grocery aisles so you could at least double check if the price is right before you reach the counter. I noticed PureGold has price scanners in their stores.

I’m going to the grocery again in a bit and I’m armed with my list. I don’t use a calculator anymore because I’ve somehow mastered my budget. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it was in the beginning. As long as I stick to this list, I know I’ll be spending within my means.

Oftentimes, the change needs to be done within ourselves. But sometimes, we can change the circumstances around us too.

It just dawned on me yesterday how I’ve been struggling for years to make it on time for work. When I already needed to do was change something about the situation to make it all easier.

I think I’ve mentioned a couple of times that I liked having a job with flexi time and so having a bundy clock in my regular job was a struggle for me. For the past years, I would drag myself out of bed every morning and race with the clock to get to work on time. But more often than not, I would be late and I just accepted it as it is.

This week, my editor asked me if I wanted to adjust my time in to one hour later so my time records would be better. I was slightly hesitant because that would mean my dismissal would be one hour later too. But I agreed anyway thinking my current schedule is not really working for me.

The result: I’m always on time now. Often, I arrive earlier than my time – in.

Strange how it’s strikingly simple but it took me this long to make that change.

The lesson: Be aware of what’s not working for you and make the change.

And so I’m applying the same thing with my get fit plan. I’ve been feeling frustrated for the past weeks because I haven’t been able to run. I’m feeling sluggish and the waist has been expanding a little bit.

Running is not working for me right now because I’ve just recovered. So I’m changing other things instead like my portion control. I’ve been eating alone for breakfast and dinner since Kernan flew to the land far away. So I actually eat less.

It’s a little bit of a good thing but I’d gladly eat more as long as we eat meals together and we’d run together after too.

Instead of taking the quick fix route (I admit, I took a peek at some Clinicallix reviews), I’m going to do weight loss yoga again so I can have some kind of exercise that’s gentler than running.

After this pestering coughs go away for good, I will definitely lace up again.

If something’s not working in your life right now, don’t fight it or struggle with it. Just ask yourself, what else do you need to change?

You might be surprised at how easy it could have been if you just did.