Got a new blog folks! Well, it’s not really new, new.. but just on a new domain.  I really appreciate how you stood by my thoughts. Hope you can all still stood by in my not-so-new home.

www.tannersmusings.com

I have been working 7 days straight and I can’t imagine how I was able to survive.  During those 7 days, only managed to sleep for about 3 hours and ate once a day.  I thought I was going to be hospitalized.  But fortunately (or unfortunately?!) I wasn’t rushed to the hospital.

There are times when I wished that I would just collapse and lose consciousness just to be free from all of this stress. From the bosses, from the mediocre coworkers and from the bills.  But the good thing about the work I gave was that I was able to buy a hard drive for my PC as it crashed at 1 a.m.,Thursday morning. Work, when will you ever be easy?

As the rescue efforts in Southwestern China turn from finding survivors to recovering dead bodies, we still hear stories of merely alive old people who were rescued from the rubbles.  It is relieving and still one can feel gratefulness amidst this tragedy.

To date, there are more than 60,000 that are feared dead and the estimate is dreaded to go higher in the coming days.  Imagine, almost a hundred thousand people dead in just a matter in 3 minutes of 7.9 magnitude of earthquake.

Sichuan province’s governor estimated that it will take 3 full years for them to make a full recovery.  And while this seems long, it is good to see that the communist country has opened up to foreign aid, and even foreign attention.  They kept out foreign media to report on the earthquake that claim 250,000 people 30 years ago and now they have allowed international journalists to the heart of the destruction as to let the world know that the damage is really serious in every sense of the word.

Hopefully, they can still dug out survivors and rebuilt faster.  Thinking of the makeshift tents along the streets full of children makes one feel grateful that we have a concrete roof above our heads.

God gave us a life and we should realize that is a gift not a right. Living your life is one thing; giving birth to a life is another. Pregnancy is a miracle from God. After seeing your ultrasound, you would feel different and we should all be thankful for it. It is the fruit of love. But sometimes, being pregnant and having babies is not the only thing we can get. Sometimes, we even get something extra like a gift of being prettier after giving birth.

Here are some proofs that they are prettier after giving birth. These are celebrity proofs, mind you.

While enjoying the duties of parenting, Jennifer Lopez admitted that she gained around 45 to 50 pounds but, it was a manageable weight gain since she gave out twins. Her face became slimmer and she looked prettier after her pregnancy.

I cannot forget what I read in an interview with her. She said that, even though she accomplished a lot of things already, she had never been more appreciative of what a female’s body is capable of doing. Despite not changing much, her image did change after giving birth to her Max. Her Max must have brought the change since she also said that, her Max made her happy.

In her post pregnancy debut, Nicole Ritchie already flaunted her figure by wearing a tight LBD. She was just confident to show her healthy slim figure! But I guess I have to second her opinion. She does look much better after pregnancy!

So you see, it doesn’t mean that the notion, you get uglier after giving birth is right. These are just some proofs that, not all people are the same. Can you flaunt your body in post pregnancy stage?

It is general notion that men usually kee things to themselves and just let things pass without hinting a word, that they avoid confrontations as much as possible. These things are actually good for us, in a dominating sense, but hey, for my part, I would like a little voicing out. It’s pretty scary to see someone so silent and meek to just burst out in anger and lose control.

Think it will be fair ro air their sides for once. Here are a couple of things men want to say but out of a number of reasons that they themselves only know, can’t let us know.

1. Chivalry’s still alive and kicking. Loads of men still would want to open the doors for us and pay for dinner or even pour wine for us. So, let them do these things if they want to, as long as we can feel that they do it wholeheartedly.

2. Majority of men get annoyed when we answer our phones during a date, except when it’s an emergency and it still bugs them what situations qualifies for us women as emergencies.

3. Men would really appreciate if we would be more open in learning what they like to do. Like watch baseball games or playing poker with them. For my part, I want to learn to play poker,really.

4. Our words are everything to them. So they take whatever we say, if we say we’re ok, they’ll believe that, even though ok is our metaphor for there’s something wrong and we need to talk. Men are pretty straight-forward so a little degree of directness from us women won’t hurt as well.

5. Like us women, they also need to bond with their friends without us barging in and looking devastatingly beautiful. So, let’s give them the time once in a while.

I don’t pretend to be an expert on guys or know how to size them up perfectly. But these are just from what I gathered from a couple of guy friends I have. And we have a lot to be thankful to God when he created men even how independent we are. I think it applies to all. Women also expect the above from men but the difference is that we say it out loud. What’s important is that we compromise and give each other a little bit of freedom.

Smoking has already been talked a lot and the fuzz about it just keep on dying down as if it weren’t an important issue for us to tackle. First, smoking costs us a lot and has been a part of our daily expenses already. If pack costs 2 dollars and you can finish one pack a day, just imagine how much that 2 bucks a day would cost in a year! You could buy nice clothes with that amount!

Of course everyone knows the danger of it. They just seem to not care. For parents, you need to teach your kids early on the dangers of smoking. If you are the one teaching, you must be a non-smoker or else, how would your kid believe in you then?

Here is what you parents or guardians must do.

1. Make sure you make a clear point that smoking doesn’t make you more famous nor beautiful – In fact, smoking degrades you and gives you bad breath with other side effects like, dark gums, yellow teeth and other health hazards. Will you get famous just because you can the best smoke out picture? no!

2. Remind your kids that they cannot quit easily even if they say that they can- They may want to try it out and tell you that there is peer pressure but take note, once they try it, they will be addicted to nicotine and it is a hard thing to get over with, the moment they think they are at its strongest, they are actually weak.

3. Reinforce- There are two ways to enforce rules as we all know in our psych classes. Positive and negative reinforcements. You can apply one after the other or you can apply both at the same time. The classic negative, ground them. I know there are tons of other punishments but, do it as you think your child can understand what they have done, not because you are pissed with what they did.

Raising teens is not an 8-5 job. It is actually worst than having a job at the corporate world. But, if you do this right, you will reap what you saw. Are you ready to apply to be a mom?

They say we are what we eat, and a growing numbers of vegans not only eat meat or animal products, but are shunning sex with meat eaters because they see them as a “graveyard of animals”, a New Zealand researcher said.

Annie Potts of the New Zealand Centre of Human and Animal Studies at Canterbury University,said she discovered these vegans and coined them as “vegansexuals”. One vegan attested that while she found non-vegans to be attractive, she would not be physically close with someone whose body is literally made up of bodies of others who have died from sustenance.

I am not against Vegans and I love eating veggies as well, but this is quite harsh for me. I mean, do we have to be solely judged by what we eat when it comes to relationships?

I am quite saddened that Annika Sorenstam has officially announced that this will be her last LPGA tour and that she will be retiring. Seeing her play made me feel empowered mainly because she is one of the few women who as able to really make it in a world dominated by Tiger Woods.

And she could never ask for a more graceful exit. She has just bagged the Michelob Ultra Open at Kingsmill ,won 72 tournaments and the first woman since Babe Zaharias in almost 60 years to compete against men in the PGA tour.

She has achieved so much and you can’t put a finger on how she has been professional all throughout her career. She has been so good at golf, and most feel she wanted to be good at starting a family too, and I agree. At the end of the day, no matter how much success we have achieved, going home to a noisy house full of giggle and love is more worth it.

We can all agree that at some point or another we don’t like what we see in the mirror. It may not be our body as a whole, but just a part or two; like the thunderous thighs, small chests, triceps that flap when we clap, bellies that become two layers when we seat. This is just but natural thanks to the magazine photos were it seems that God actually made creations with perfect bodies when in reality, it was just old, reliable Photoshop that made it happen.

But even with this fact, our insecurities can hold us back to getting the career we love, going for our impossible dreams, or even having the time of our loves on meaningful love and mind-blowing sex. So, here are a couple of ways on how to show we worship and revere the bodies we were born in.

1. Accentuate the positive. Take time to note your best assets. Your bow-shaped lips? Your naturally curly hair? Your caramel color skin? Don’t hide it, show it off! Highligh your clavicle with a gorgeous pendant. Put on a little dose of body shimmer onto your shoulders and put on a halter top. Be brave to wear a skimpier skirt to flaunt those toned calf muscles.

2. Walk around in your house in nude. Do this in your solitary time. This is the easiest way to feel comfortable in your very own skin. If you have a private backyard, go out nude for a while and feel the sunshine against your skin.

3. Indulge in sensual lingerie. Don’t just put them on on when you know you’re going to sleep with someone. Donning a soft lace bra and a matching pair of knickers from the best lingeries stores around under your t-shirt and jeans. This will make you feel sexy at any time of the day.

4. Hunt for a genie in a bottle. A little beauty product can make its magic to make you feel more confident. A silky body oil applied on skin can make your shoulders and legs look slek and sexy. A DIY tanning lotion can lessen the appearance of cellulite and show an illusion of being slim.

5. Stop the verbal abuse. Don’t be too hard on yourself. We all have our moments when we nag ourselves about our imperfections, literally. Our verbal self-flagellation has the same impact as our partner’s abuse or our parents’ constant nagging. The key to put a stop to this is to say everyday upon waking up that we our happy, we are healthy and we are beautiful just the way we are. Before we expect others to appreciate us for who we are, we should do it first inside.

6. Believe you are entitled to experiencing joy in your body, now. Not after you’ve loss 10 lbs. Just enjoy the smell of freshly-brewed coffee, the sound of birds chirping, or the soft sensation of Egyptian cotton against our skin. Bottomline, make it a habit of stimulating you senses everyday.

7. Act and think like a man. Let’s admit it, men are not as critical when it comes to their bodies compared to women. Men who truly love us, love us for us – flabby arms and all.

At the end of the day, we are all responsible for how we look like. It’s up to us if we want to always feel insecure or contented with what we have.

What do we need to see to act?

We’ve seen two tragedies last week. The cyclone that hit Myanmar and then the cyclones that hit Georgia, and now just a few hours ago, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit the western part of China.  Typhoons hit tropical countries who are supposed to be enjoying their summer and London is now having an earlier summer than usual because of the heat.

What do we need to see?  Do we need to see country being erased out of the map literally?  If we know what’d good in us, we should start making our small yet relevant initiatives of saving the environment. Like conserving water and use energy-saving appliances or avoid using chemicals found in our everyday stuff like hairspray.  The “armaggeddon” movies are great to watch over and over again, but I bet it will not feel the same once we see that the waves our coming,literally.