I’ve been doing yoga three days a week for two weeks now. Yay!

That’s a little bit of self-praise to keep me going. I want to get fit again and I need to motivate myself to do yoga consistently.

See, though I kept telling myself I will start an exercise routine or do Hip Hop Abs in the morning, I wasn’t really able to follow through because… well, I like sleeping. I used to.

Until one of my blouses ripped. It was a small sheer cotton wrap around blouse. I bought it when I was at my thinnest. One day I wore it and it kept hiking up my back. So I pulled it down once.

And it ripped. Not good. So not good at all.

I realized I needed to do something serious about my fitness but I couldn’t just over exert myself either. Good thing, the Hip Hop Abs DVD I bought had a bonus session from Project YOU by Kathy Smith.

So I started gently and I’m just doing 20 – minute yoga workouts for now. I always manage to wake up at 7am which leaves me enough time for everything else. I love how yoga wakes up my sleeping muscles and energizes my body in the morning. The workout comprises mostly stretches and lunges but they’re all doable even if you’re a beginner.

When my body gets used to this, I’ll move on to Power Yoga or Hip Hop Abs depending on what I fancy at the moment. I like doing different workouts so I can keep doing them. Put me in a boring gym and I’m gonna bail after the third day.

I’m not doing any measurements for now, that would be pointless since it’s only been two weeks or six sessions to be exact. But I’m expecting great results soon. (Closing my eyes to visualize.)

A friendly reminder

I’ll try to keep this positive because I always believe it’s the best way to deal with things, but sometimes I still get just a little bit peeved.

Remember how our moms used to say, “Keep quiet if you don’t have anything nice to say”? I try to keep that in mind and always try to give a compliment every time. If I don’t feel like it, I simply smile or nod at you. Or if I’m really out of sorts, I’ll just ignore you.

I think that’s way better than saying something really rude. Like: “Oh you got fat!” or “You got fat, didn’t you?” Saying one immediately after the other just makes it doubly rude.

Here’s the thing:

If you think I’m fat, try to compliment something else about me like my nicely curled hair or my cute little shirt. If you don’t feel like doing that, just ignore me. Don’t worry I can take it.

Bottomline is:

Don’t tell me or (worse) ask me if, I got fat, because I already know the answer to that.

If you don’t have anything nice to say, just keep quiet. ( I told you I’ll try to keep this positive.)

So there. Feeling much better now.

For what it’s worth, I’m even more motivated to get fit. I’m doing this for me.

Back to happy programming.

—

Isn’t it great that Friday’s finally here? Hope you’ll have a fantastic weekend!

I was walking to my cubicle when I felt something slippery in my left shoe. I took off my flat, shook my foot and this little thing landed on the floor…

The green frog was smiling at me.  I sat still for a few moments just looking at it.

I’m not sure how that sticker got into my shoe. I must have stepped on it in the playroom and was too preoccupied to notice it until then.

My mind has been on a rollercoaster for the past days. But it’s the good kind. My brain is brimming with all sorts of ideas, dreams and visions. Sometimes I do tend to space out and get lost in thinking rather than doing. Like right now, I’ve paused so many times while writing this blog post because hundreds of ideas are popping into my head.

But whenever I find myself getting lost, I say one word: FOCUS. And sometimes, I get little reminders to stop the whirlwind in my mind and just be still.

Just like this little stray sticker.

Thank you Little Frog.

—

Find a moment to be still today.

The Oscar’s red carpet fashion scene is always a visual treat. Celebs come dressed to the nines and designer names get dropped a hundred times as people ask who they’re wearing.

There were a lot of classic, romantic styles while there were a couple of outrageous and “blah” designs. There were a lot of golds and florals on the red carpet which is a refreshing break from the standard black gowns often seen in these events.

Here are some of my picks for the best dressed list:

Sarah Jessica Parker’s Chanel dress is simply divine. The simple pastel yellow bodice is nicely complemented by the silver flower appliques.

The back design is even more interesting with the bottom applique giving the gown a sexier silhouette.

Best Actress winner Sandra Bullock looked stunning in her metallic gown. The Marchesa creation had delicate flower embroidery which balanced the futuristic silver color.

Mute this gown’s color into white or off – white and this design could be perfect for a summer wedding dress. Lovely.

Cameron Diaz channeled old-fashioned glamour with her gold strapless gown by Oscar dela Renta. I loved her delicately curled hair and the bold red lips which made sure her face was still the main attraction.

The metallic gold ribbons on her gown’s bodice are such a cute and girly touch.

Yes, I’m a Twilight fan so Kristen Steward will definitely be on this list. Her midnight blue gown is special for me because it was made by Pinay designer par excellence Monique Lhuillier.

What’s interesting about Kristin’s look is she let her face carry all the drama and she had no other jewelry other than this diamond bracelet.

Hats off to Rachel McAdams for daring to defy the typical mold of solid – colored gowns. Her printed strapless gown by Elie Saab was definitely an eye – catcher.

Would have wanted this gown to be less dusty – colored and more pastel or bright – colored. But Rachel carries the gown perfectly.

Demi Moore is such an inspiration for me. The goal is to look as hot and as young as her even when I hit 40. This ruffled peach gown by Versace made her look even younger and fresh.

I love the simple clutch and the huge sparklers she paired with this gown. Did you notice that 5.5 carat diamond ring? Ashton must love her to bits.

All these ladies definitely looked lovely but the real stand out best dressed actress for me is… Anna Kendrick! The first time I saw this dress from the Academy Awards arrivals gallery, I was like… “WOOOW…”

She’s a vision in peach, she looked like a delicate yet sexy goddess.

This wasn’t her first choice though. She had a wardrobe disaster when the dress she originally wanted to wear for the Academy Awards didn’t turn out the way she expected. So she had to shop for another dress at the last minute and went with this flesh – toned frock designed by Elie Saab. She couldn’t have made a better choice.

I also loved how everything about her outfit blended perfectly. Her intricately designed bracelet and clutch…

Her ring…

And her shoes… I loved her shoes!

I’m saving these photos in my fashion swipe file in case I need a gown made.

Who’s your pick?

If you want to earn money from your blog or you’ve been doing paid blogging for awhile, here’s a community newly opened to international bloggers that lets you earn from recommending cool stuff.

Ebuzzing has been operating in the France since 2007 but it is now open to international bloggers like us. Yay!

If you love blogging and you like to find interesting stuff or products to share to your readers, then ebuzzing is the place for you. They’ve got stellar advertisers on their roster like Coca Cola, L’Oreal, Canon and Ebay to name a few.

And did I mention you get paid for writing about them too?

Registration is FREE and easy. You just need to fill in your personal and blog details on the online application form. Make sure to note your blog’s unique visitors and pageviews plus the categories your blog falls under because these will be the basis for the campaigns you will be eligible for.

After submitting your application, wait for your blog to be validated. The good thing is you don’t need to wait forever for validation. My email notification came within the hour I registered. Plus points to ebuzzing for swift response time.

My ebuzzing experience

The first time I logged into ebuzzing, I liked its clean and user – friendly interface. From a glance, you can already see your blogger stats, the top campaigns, your pending earnings and articles or videos pending publishing.

When you click on campaigns, you’ll see the available ones complete with description and price for the article. The campaigns highlighted in blue are the ones you are eligible for. Sponsored posts are required to be at least 250 words long and links to be included in the article are provided by the advertiser.

Payment usually ranges from 20 to 40 euros per article. When you reach the minimum of 50 euros, you can request for payment via Paypal.

What’s unique about ebuzzing is you have to submit your article for validation before it is published on your blog. Some may find this tedious. But I think this is an important quality control process which is a win – win situation for both the advertiser and the blogger: they get a quality post from you and you get quality payment from them.

Besides, the campaigns I’ve seen so far are all really interesting to write about so coming up with a 250 – word post or more is actually easy.

The validation of posts are also pretty fast. I even got a note from ebuzzing community manager Casey Terp who went the extra mile to compliment my article. More plus points to ebuzzing for establishing a relationship with bloggers in their community.

Video campaigns rock

Another cool way to earn from ebuzzing is through their video campaigns. You can either post a dedicated video player like this:

Or a video banner.

Video campaigns do double duty: the videos add entertainment value for your blog and they encourage your readers to stay longer on your site because your content is much richer.

Disclosure and transparency

All campaigns in ebuzzing require transparency. The link ‘Sponsored post’ is always attached at the end of articles and you’ll always see the sponsor link at the bottom of the videos. That clears you from potential FTC troubles.

I used to fret about having sponsored posts but one thing you can keep in mind when writing them is to make them helpful, interesting or entertaining. Make your posts “blend” with the other posts on your blog so they don’t stick out like a sore thumb with the words “paid ad” painted on it.

As long as your post is a good read, it won’t matter so much even if there’s a “Sponsored post” link at the end of it.

Overall, I’m having a good experience with ebuzzing and see myself being part of this community for a long time.

Ebuzzing makes blog  monetisation look fun and cool while adding value for your readers.

If you want to try it, register on ebuzzing.com. I hope you’ll have a great time as I did. If you have questions before joining, you can contact the ebuzzing team on their site or ask away at the comments section below.

Happy ebuzzing!

Sponsored Post

Isn’t this cute? Once these little balls retire from the ping pong tables, at least they’ve got somewhere else stylish to go.

This is the hanging lamp from Studio Kleefstra. It’s made of 315 celluloid balls held together by a metal frame. The site says the lamp gives off a dotted pattern on its surroundings.

Remember the ping pong dining table? This looks like a good lamp to put over it.

Not to mention, it could be an emergency repository for ping pong balls when the one you’re playing with gets smashed.

I like seeing samples of simple creativity to stimulate my brain. I’m preparing for a bit of a mental challenge this week and I need to get the creative juices flowing.

What do you do to boost your creativity?

But it’s the good kind. I’ve got a lot of blogging gigs lined up, my trusty laptop and my Linksys router have been working overtime every night.

And I can’t be more thankful that the opps are streaming in continuously. Sure, I’ve got to sacrifice a little bit of sleeping time but at least, I’m trading it for money.

Besides, I really enjoy blogging and it’s cool that I get to earn from it. Doing this aligns with one of my core beliefs about money: you can earn it  effortlessly.

The long term goal is to make a living out of this so I can work on my own terms and, the best part of all, get to be at home with my hubby and my kids. Lots of other moms are doing it, I know I can do it too.

I’m following an ebook written by a mom that shows how to earn money online using free platforms —  a great option if you’re a newbie with very little or no starting capital. I’m still trying it out to see if it does work. Then I’ll share it here.

In the meantime, I’ll just keep typing away…

Hope you’re all having a great weekend.

The Portabello estate is one of the most beautiful homes I’ve ever seen. I first saw it featured on Oprah in 2006. Back then it was selling for $75 million!

What’s so fascinating about this estate is that everything is curved and rounded. Realtor John McMonigle told Oprah that there is no straight line in the whole house. From the walls to the furniture, everything was made to suit the house’s inspiration: the ocean. The cool part is, this house is being sold as is and fully furnished so whoever buys it can move just right in.

The whole estate is 30,000 square feet. Imagine having your own movie theater with a popcorn stand, a bowling alley with a bar, a dairy cafe, a small diner and even a jeweler’s boutique where you can display family heirlooms.

Best thing of all, you get a view of the Pacific Ocean from all rooms in the home. Wow! If this was my home, I’d probably stay in the whole day and just invite family and friends over.

But for now, this is still my dream home:

It’s Amanda’s home from “The Holiday” movie. I love this house and I want our home to look like this. We still want to live in a safe and strategic community in Quezon City. So far, QC looks like a flood-resistant city. Otherwise, we’d have to build a waterproof dome around our home or get a hefty home insurance.

I’m looking forward to the day when this will really be our home. Soon!

What does your dream home look like?

It’s always cool to discover more ways to network online, meet new people from across the globe and discover blogs I wouldn’t have known existed.

SmallRivers is a tool for bloggers to network content and audiences. You can connect with other bloggers who have the same interests and to share your own blog content, tweets and FB updates. It’s also called a “portable content network” since you only need to paste a compact “river sticker” on your site and you automatically do two things:

1. Get access to content and updates from other sites connected to your network

2. You share your own content and updates to other sites connected to your network.

I was curious about how all this stuff works so I gave it a spin.

SmallRivers makes it easy for you to register. You can go the traditional route and register your email address or you can sign in using any of your Twitter, FB, Blogger, Yahoo or Google accounts.

After registering, you can do two things: either find a network you want to connect to or clip your own network.

Let’s try connecting to an existing network or “river.”

One network that interested me was the Earth Hour network. I did a couple of stories about climate change before as part of my work and I knew Earth Hour could be a big help in battling that. So I wrote a quick tips post about Earth Hour on my blog and pasted the sticker on my post.

To do this, you just need to click “Embed” button on your selected river, copy the script that appears on the pop-up box and paste it at the end of your post. (Remember to do this on the HTML pane of your post editor.)

This is how it looks like on my blog post.

Now when you click the “See all” button, a sidebar will expand on your blog page showing the posts in your river. My update is at the top of the sidebar followed by recent updates made by other bloggers connected to the Earth Hour river.

The cool thing about this is I get to discover other blogs and my content gets shared to other sites automatically. Just  like this:

My update appeared on the WWF blog river sticker and on the sidebar. A closer look:

That’s pretty cool.

So if I have other posts related to Earth hour, I could just clip the river sticker and my updates will show up in the network.

Another way to do it is to clip the network on your blog’s sidebar so that your updates get automatically shared even if you don’t paste the river sticker on the individual blog posts. This would be good if the network you’re joining in is directly related to your blog.

In my case, I wanted to find a network for mommy bloggers. I couldn’t find one since SmallRivers is still quite new. So I just clipped my own “Mommy blogs” network.

SmallRivers is still a work in progress but the concept is good and holds a lot of promise. It’s just like a compact blog roll and sort of a more targeted RSS feed reader in one since you can see the updates of other bloggers in your network about topics that may be of interest to you. Another advantage of this portable network is you can access the updates right on your blog or home page.

If you want to connect with other people and get more traffic for your blog, SmallRivers is worth a try. Clip a network (like my Mommy blogs river) or start your own.

Sponsored Post

Isn’t this lovely? This is my Earth Hour lantern, I made this just to show a little support for Earth Hour 2010 which will be on Saturday, March 27, 8:30 p.m.

We’ve all witnessed how Ondoy ravaged our country. I experienced it firsthand. And now we’re all going through El Nino. We’ve got environment experts telling us again and again that climate change is already happening. And there’s nothing good about it.

One thing’s for sure though, we can all do something to slow down climate change’s effects. (I say slow down because I am not sure if it is reversible.) We don’t need to be geologists or geniuses to help. You can start with little steps right at your own home:

1. Save electricity. Turn off lights and other appliances when leaving a room. Unplug all unused appliances. Even if your TV is turned off, it will still consume electricity if it remains plugged. Doing this takes just a little bit of conscious effort but it’s actually win – win: you save on electric bills and you help save Mother Earth.

2. Conserve water. I woke up early one morning with no water in the faucet and just a glass-full of water in the pail. I needed to brush my teeth and to take a bath but I couldn’t. Good thing the outage only lasted for a few hours. But it was enough of a wake – up call for me to save water every time. There are 884 billion people in the world who don’t have enough water to take a bath let alone to drink. Everyday. Save your water.

3. Walk more. Less vehicles on the road means less pollution. The air gets just a little bit cleaner for all of us to breathe. Whether it’s walking, skateboarding or biking, any mode of transportation that doesn’t chug out black fumes is fine. Needless to say you can even lose a few pounds while you’re at it.

4. Eat more veggies, less meat. Veggies consume less resources to be produced. Meat especially the processed ones consume more resources and energy. Veggies are way cheaper and healthier to eat than meat anyway.

These are simple steps but if everyone contributes just a little bit of effort, it could make a world of difference.

Remember to turn of your lights on march 27 at 8:30 p.m. Support Earth Hour by blogging about the event and spreading info about it on Twitter and FB. Or make your own lantern.

Do you have other Earth-caring tips?

I’m not a big fan of sisig. I haven’t eaten pork for almost eight years (thanks to my Kernie). So when a colleague suggested we review the House of Sisig, I was a little bit hesitant. The idea of eating pig head parts didn’t sit well with my stomach.

But when I found out that there were other varieties of sisig, I decided to give it a try. I eat healthy most of the time so I guess a little cholesterol indulgence wouldn’t hurt.

We rode the jeep to Philcoa to get to City Mall, the strip of fastfood chains just before UP. At first glance, there’s nothing fancy about the House of Sisig. The logo conveys a pop art vibe and the windows are covered with thick black strips.

But I was pleasantly surprised with the interiors. It was a bit small but the space had a lot of character. There were rows of little piglets on one wall. They’re not smiling or frowning… just looking.

Then there’s a map of Luzon plastered on an entire wall which is pretty cool.

But the one thing that really caught my attention were these chic pillows. I love how all those colors blend and pop out against the brown fabric. Nice!

And there are magazines lined up along the walls too, just in case you need to wait for your order.

But we didn’t need to, because our orders arrived pretty fast. And how thoughtful is this?

Sizzling dishes always cause such a splatter but the servers were thoughtful to place a round paper cover on the crackling hot dishes.

The sizzling plates come in solo (P95 to P110) or sharing sizes (P189 to P199). Aside from the original sisig, there’s chicken, beef, seafood, tuna, spicy squid, bangus, and crab sisig. There’s even a tofu sisig for vegetarians.

I had a solo chicken sisig (P105) and it was actually meaty good. The taste was just right and I didn’t need to put any add – on flavorings or seasonings.

You can also crack an egg on your plate in the traditional sisig style to make it more sinful creamier.  This one’s seafood sisig.

But I chose something more to my taste: red egg with tomatoes. Yum!

And in case you want iced tea, you’ll get it in a beer mug as big as this:

Oh well, you’ll probably need to chug all that up to wash away all the oily aftertaste.

As for me, no meal would be complete without dessert. I was feeling really umay so I had a cup of Death by Chocolate (P58).

You won’t really die from pleasure with this one though. There’s nothing sensational about the taste but it’s sweet enough for a quick chocolate fix.

I think I’ll give this another go sometime in any case that I crave for sisig. But if you love this sizzling dish, I think this place could be perfect for you.

Do you like sisig?