Ever watched TV or listened to the radio and heard Milo’s tagline that said, “Great things start from small beginnings“? I think that and Globe’s “Greatness starts at home” taglines work well together especially when one speaks of family and parents. Greatness starts at home with loving parents and great things start from children raised in loving homes.

After I finished highschool, I had my life all planned out. I told myself I’ll finish college within 3 or 4 years, get a career, help my parents and siblings, start my own business, buy my own home and then when I’m old enough, I’ll retire. Unfortunately, life seldom goes according to plan and it has a habit of throwing tons of obstacles, crossroads and dead ends in your path. I must’ve won the “throw it all to me” lottery because it did just that and I honestly don’t know if I’d still be here typing this out right now if didn’t have my parents and my faith while I was slowly crawling on that difficult and lonely path.

I mentally, emotionally and physically struggled a lot to finish my bachelor’s degree. In fact it took me 7 years before I finally earned my diploma for a bachelor’s degree that is supposed to only take 3 years and one term (if you’re on a university that runs on a trimester system). I don’t talk about it often because it’s still a sore subject for me but I’ve slowly learned to stop being ashamed of it and to look past the amount of years it took me to finally get there. My parents never doubted me and they kept on supporting and cheering me on until I finally got my hands on my diploma.

Although money was tight and difficult at that time, my parents and my aunt abroad, always found a way to pay for my tuition, books and allowances so money wasn’t really the problem. Out of nowhere, things just snapped and everything became very difficult that I had to take my first leave of absence or LOA as we called it. After my first LOA, I thought everything was back to normal and it was for quite a while but it seems life wasn’t done yet testing me. I was able to finish with thesis work and I was really psyched because I was near my last few terms when things got out of hand again. It was so stressful that my head would hurt so bad and my eyeballs felt like they were going to pop out from the pain. It was very difficult to deal with and at times I couldn’t stop myself from banging my head on the wall because it hurt like hell. I wanted to die.

We visited a neurologist and he determined that it was cluster headaches. I was given prescription drugs to help alleviate the headaches and although it did work to relieve the pain, it never really stopped it from happening again and this headache had a nasty habit of attacking me out of nowhere. Going to school scared me because it attacks without any notice and I can’t just get my parents to pick me up from school since they lived in the province and my school was in Manila. Since things were getting worse, I started going on regular visits to my neurologist and medications and dosages were either increased or changed each time the other stops working. Finally after a few months of doctor’s appointments, I was advised to take a long LOA. He wanted to check if the pollution in Manila and my school requirements were causing me the stress that acts as a catalyst to the headaches. So I took off a long LOA and although my headaches didn’t fully stop, it was significantly lessened.

After almost a year of rest, I decided to come back to school to pick up where I left off and it was really difficult. I only had a few friends left in school since most of them have already graduated, I was mostly alone and I spent a lot of time in the library either sleeping/doing homework. I was still getting headaches and it got bad again to the point that I had to take a LOA after midterms and this happened to around 2 or 3 consecutive terms. This turn of events wasn’t really helping my badly bruised self-confidence and self-worth. My headaches felt like hell and I felt like shit. I couldn’t stop criticizing myself and at one point, I hated myself so much that I thought about killing myself to stop the pain I felt from the headaches and to stop causing shame to my family. I had to take another LOA and after that one, I really thought hard if I should still come back. I felt worthless and I thought I should just stop and keep my parents from further pain and debt. I decided to try and work for a little while, so my best friend and I applied to a nearby call center. I know it wasn’t the best choice since it caused me enough stress from irate customers to get the headaches again after a couple of months but the people I met there helped heal a broken part of me that my parents could not mend.

I went back to school to finish my remaining subjects and during my last term, I had this really strong feeling that this was it, that I am really graduating. I will never forget my professors that last term. I remember one of them telling the whole class,

“To all those graduating or with only a few terms left, be proud of yourselves. I know some of you have experienced delays and failed a lot but don’t be ashamed because of it. Don’t focus on how long it took you to get here. Be proud because you never gave up. Yes, you struggled and failed but still, you never gave up and look where you are now. Stop berating yourselves for things that are already done. Be happy and enjoy the fruit of your hard work.”

It was like God was speaking to me directly. It seared through my heart and I couldn’t help tearing up. I kept the tears as much as I could and after the bell rang, I ran to the bathroom. I sat there for an hour and just cried. All the bitterness and shame in my heart started to wash away and I felt like it was time to forgive myself.

However I still had doubts and I couldn’t stop praying until the night before course cards. I only had 6 subjects that last term and I already knew my grades for all of them except one. The professor was going to upload our grades for that subject that night so I was glued to the computer, refreshing the site every five minutes or so. Once the notice that the grades were in showed up, my hands started shaking and my heart started beating rapidly. I said my last bit of prayer and clicked, then tears started falling down. I passed. Finally, after 7 years, I am graduating. I started to shout and call my Mom’s name, all the while jumping and crying for joy. Since she didn’t answer, I rushed out of my room and ran to their room. Once my Mom came out, she asked what’s wrong, why was I shouting and what’s with all the rush? I started to tell her and I couldn’t stop myself from hugging her and crying as I told her the good news. I was graduating.

I’m not perfect. I have flaws like everyone else and I’m not ashamed to admit it because I was raised from a great home by great loving parents who I wouldn’t exchange for anyone else in the world. Yes, we are not rich in material wealth. The home we live in right now is still rented and we still have a lot of debts and bills that we struggle to meet each month. We have our own family problems, we annoy each other endlessly and we have our little fights but at the end of the day we are one family. We make up, we hug and we continue with life.  Without my parents love and continued support, I would’ve lost my faith, my way and my life.

As William J. Bennet said, ”Home is a shelter from storms – all sorts of storms.“

I know mine is.

Greatness Starts at Home. is an original content from BloggingPinay.com. If this text shows, it was copied without the original author's consent.

If you’re looking for a list of updated The Sims Social free gifts, you’re at the right place.

I loved playing The Sims on my old computer back in high school. My siblings loved it too but I lost my CD and stopped playing it a long time ago. When I saw The Sims Social in Facebook, I started playing right away and I’m hooked. It’s a bit harder to play since you need to get help from your friends for some quests and to get items that will help unlock your skills as well as build stuff.

I love working on my Sim’s house, designing and decorating each room and the outdoors. I try to collect as much The Sims Social free gifts as possible like items, simoleons and social points so I decided to put up a working list of the free gifts I found. I know that other people playing TSS are interested in freebies too.

An Updated The Sims Social Freebie List

(last checked:  9/28/2011)

Free Social Points

• 250 Social Points
• 300 Social Points
• 400 Social Points (added on 9/28)

Free Simoleons

• 300 Simoleons
• 400 Simoleons
• 1000 Simoleons

Free Quest/Building/Skill Items

• Love
• Love (added on 9/28)
• Relaxation (added on 9/28)

Free Home Items

• Dunkin Donuts Lawn Chair
• Pompeii Fireplace
• Pogo Arcade Machine
• Big Sims Poster (Yellow)

This list is a work in progress. I’ll add in other links as soon as I find them and take out expired links. I hope you enjoy decorating and playing with all The Simss Social free stuff!

The Sims Social Free Gifts: Items, Simoleons & Social Points is an original content from BloggingPinay.com. If this text shows, it was copied without the original author's consent.

Posts that Amy Winehouse is dead started popping up in Twitter and Facebook earlier. I thought it was just another hoax but according to The Sun, it’s real. She was found dead at her home in Camden.

I still can’t believe that Amy Winehouse is dead. If it is really true, rest in peace Amy. You will be missed.

Amy Winehouse is dead. is an original content from BloggingPinay.com. If this text shows, it was copied without the original author's consent.

This blog has been quiet for a while because I’ve been a bit busy the past 2 months. I started working as an information researcher for a private media firm in the construction industry so most of my time is spent at work and the 1 – 1 1/2 hour commutes in the morning and the afternoon. I ride LRT/Buendia based buses in the mornings and Batangas based buses in the afternoon. Sometimes I get lucky when I catch buses that allow discounted fares for regular commuters, but there are times when I have no choice but to get on whatever bus passes by to avoid being late for work.

I don’t have any complaints in the increase of bus fares since it’s part of life, what irks me are bus companies that charge fares with an extra P0.50.

For example, commuters from Tanauan to LRT/Buendia (and vice versa) are charged P95.50 on the ticket, but the conductors rarely give out P4.50 as change, most of the time you’ll only get P4.00. For each month I go to work, I get charged an additional P20.00 – P22.00 because I don’t receive an exact change.

I’d rather get a ticket that says P96.00 (which some buses do) so I wouldn’t feel cheated. P0.50 might be small change to some people, but if for example,  there are 1000 commuters daily:

P0.50*1000 = P500.00

That’s P500.00 daily additional profit for bus operators that is not reflected on the tickets. If those 1000 commuters work for 20-22 days a month like me:

P20.00*1000 = P20,000.00

That’s P20,000 monthly untaxed profit. I say untaxed because it’s not reflected in the bus tickets which works as our receipts. However, this problem is not exclusively for buses. There are also stores, groceries and fastfood chains doing this. They should always have a big bag of P0.25 coins each day so they can give exact changes.

To be fair to everyone, if they can’t round down their prices, they shouldn’t it round up.

Exact fares for Southbound buses, please? is an original content from BloggingPinay.com. If this text shows, it was copied without the original author's consent.

Blogging has allowed me to buy a lot of things, pay bills and treat my family every now and then. I wasn’t able to talk about my precious baby (a SL 155 40 model, La Germania oven) that I was able to buy back in May 2008 with money I earned from blogging as well as the Hongkong-Macau trip last March 2010 that was funded by my blogging income, so now I’ve decided to start posting about my new purchases that blogging bought. I’ve been waiting for my Adsense payment for the month of March, and after a month of waiting, I finally received the notification from Google that my payment was ready to be claimed.

I was able to get my Google Adsense payment today from Western Union even though it was Sunday and it’s a holiday. Since we are fixing the apartment we are moving to, I decided to allot P2000 for the purchase of a 6-slot panel board and several circuit breakers. I have an electric oven which needs its own electric line and we’re getting a new refrigerator and air-conditioning unit so we need a separate line for it as well. It’s a good investment for our new home so I had no qualms in getting it.

I also bought a 16-cup 3D rice cooker. We had a 10-cup 3D rice cooker before but were leaving that in the old house we lived in so we needed a new one. The 16-cup 3D rice cooker was P1,300. We also needed a wireless portable doorbell since the apartment we’re moving to doesn’t have doorbells. We bought an Advante H-108U Doorbell (Wireless, Plug-in) which carry 32 sound selections for P600. Mom had so much fun choosing which sound to use, but for the sake of our neighbors, we’ll just use the traditional “ding-dong” doorbell sound.

My old pc is dying on me. Unfortunately, I still don’t have that much extra money this month so I chose to purchase a new A4TECH Natural _A Comfort Desktop Rounded Edge Keycaps Keyboard + Optical Mouse set (Boy, that’s a mouthful!) for P450. I love how comfortable the rounded edge keycaps are. They feel really nice on my fingers and the patented natural A-Shape key structure it uses doesn’t tire my wrist and my neck and shoulders doesn’t hurt as much. The bundled mouse is really nice too. I love its 2X button feature because I don’t have to click so much when I need to open lots of files.

I still have a bit of money left over to spend when my bestfriend and I meet this week. She’s leaving for Saudi this week so I’m going to spend a day with her. <3

P.S. I don’t have the pictures on my pc yet, so I’ll just update this post with the pictures tomorrow.

Home Items That Blogging Bought is an original content from BloggingPinay.com. If this text shows, it was copied without the original author's consent.

Making money online through blogging is possible with SMART objectives. We all know that for every goal, we need to determine good and practical objectives. Blog success, like any other project you embark on in life, will only happen if you set up SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound) objectives.

1. Specific objectives help you focus and remember what you need to do.

Clearly defined objectives steer you towards the right path in achieving your blogging goals. If one of your goals is to successfully monetize your blog, your objectives could be:

• Find a profitable niche.
• Look for profitable affiliate and advertising programs that best suits your niche.
• Determine profitable keywords and topics for your niche.
• Create a variety of informative blog content tailored for your niche.
• Optimize our website and its content for better and higher rankings in search results.

If you do not have a specific blogging objective, you and your blog can easily get lost in the world wide web.

2. Measurable objectives allow you to track your progress.

If one of your blogging goals is to have a successful blog, determine the criteria you use in evaluating blog success. You can use measures such as traffic volume, feed/email subscription, comment rate, affiliate product conversion, page rank etc. to set your standards of success to compare results with. If you can’t measure the results of your objectives, it will be hard to determine if you are actually achieving them.

3. Achievable objectives enable you to use available resources effectively.

Take some time to evaluate your current resources so you can set achievable objectives. This helps you determine the most effective way to use them so you can be a step closer to your blogging goals. If your objectives are not achievable with what you currently have, you are simply wasting your time and resources.

4. Realistic objectives motivate you to work on your goal because you know that they can be achieved.

If you feel that you have unrealistic objectives, you will not work as hard as you can because you think it is futile. Realistic objectives is important in building a blog because it helps you stay focused on the tasks ahead. When you know that this objective is possible to achieve, you invest your time and heart in it.

It isn’t bad to dream big and aim for the skies, however like Thoreau said,

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost. There is where they should be. Now put foundations under them.”

5. Time-bound  objectives prompt you to accomplish the  tasks you need to do because you know it needs to be done in a set period of time.

You need to set realistic deadlines for your blog objectives; extremely short or  long deadlines are not only unrealistic, they can also be detrimental to your productivity. Very short deadlines can cause undue stress which will affect your performance while, very long deadlines can make you lazy in working towards your blogging goals.

Making Money Online with SMART Objectives is an original content from BloggingPinay.com. If this text shows, it was copied without the original author's consent.

If you are still wondering if you can really make money online blogging about anything under the sun, yes you can. Making money online is not very different from earning income from a nine-to-five job. It still requires you to give a significant amount of effort before getting compensated, the difference is the amount of passive income you can earn and the variety of industries you can work on at the same time.

It’s very easy to start your own blog (or blogs) these days because of the availability of free online resources that teach you how to start your own web presence. Domain registration is very easy to do and there are a lot of cheap domain registrars that provide useful features like private whois. Getting your own webhosting plan is easy, however you need to spend some time looking for a reliable and affordable webhosting provider. I personally don’t register my domains on my host or host with my domain registrar so I can easily transfer to another webhost/registrar when I need to.

After getting a domain and hosting plan, you can set up your blog by installing WordPress. Most webhosts have Fantastico or Softaculous installed, which carry the one-click install feature, making installing WordPress a breeze. Once you’ve got your blog up and running, you can start personalizing it by searching for free or premium WordPress themes that tickle your fancy. I personally prefer premium themes like Catalyst and Genesis because of their amazing features and community support.

If you want to focus your efforts in making money online you need to invest a significant amount of time in your blogs before you actually profit from them. Treat your blogs and websites like you would treat a business. You need to spend time cultivating your blogs’ contents and you also have to spend time learning about search engine optimization so people can find your blogs.

Personal blogs, niche blogs and supersites all have the capacity to make money online. You just need to monetize them differently. You can choose from pay-per-click (PPC) programs, sponsored posts and affiliate marketing depending on your blog/website.

Personal blogs usually focus on the blogger’s life and work thoughts which are not targeted for a specific audience. These kinds of blogs usually earn through sponsored posts or paid blog posts from companies like SocialSpark, Blogsvertise, SponsoredReviews, ReviewMe and PayU2Blog. They also do well with regional advertisers like Nuffnang who create campaigns for different local and international brands. It’s also possible to earn from pay-per-click programs like Google Adsense, Bidvertiser and Chitika. You can also join affiliate marketing companies like Amazon, Pepperjam, CommissionJunction, Shareasale and Clickbank with personal blogs by recommending products or services you use to your readers.

Niche blogs and supersites make money through Google Adsense and affiliate products. Niche blogs focus on a specific field or industry that depends on your target audience. If your niche is in wedding dresses or wedding tuxedos, naturally most of the content on your website are about wedding dresses and tuxedos. With this kind of content, you’re target audience would be couples getting married and are looking to buy or wanting to find more information about their available dress and tuxedo choices. Supersites on the other hand are still like niche sites but covers a larger scope than niche sites. A supersite would be a site that covers the general topic of weddings, covering all fields under it like wedding dresses, tuxedos, favors, invitations and flowers.

If you want to make money online, start your own blog NOW. Stop reading about how to make money online, instead start building your own blog that will make you the passive income you desire. How much you earn is directly related to how much work you do, so if you write quality content consistently, you will notice the increase in passive income being generated by your blog. Success doesn’t happen overnight, so expect to see the results of your work in a few months. Don’t let the waiting discourage you, keep writing and you will see a difference in your blog’s earnings after a few months.

Make Money Online Blogging is an original content from BloggingPinay.com. If this text shows, it was copied without the original author's consent.

The regional leg of the Havaianas Always Summer Race to Hawaii happened last April 9 at the Bonifacio Global City, Taguig City. One hundred two-member teams (65 teams from Metro Manila and 35 teams from the provinces) participated in the six challenges scattered around the area for a chance to become one of the twenty finalists who will fly to Boracay for the last leg, where they will battle it out to win a 6 day-5 night, all-expense-paid summer escapade for 2 to Hawaii.

Early to rise for the race: Havaianaticos line up to register during the regional leg of the Havaianas “Always Summer: Race to Hawaii.” Participating teams just can’t wait to start the race and move on to compete in the finals in Boracay with the hopes of winning an all-expense-paid vacation for 2 to Hawaii.

Registration started at 6 am and the program/briefing started around 7:30 am. The race proper began at 8 am. Participants were also given a race kit which contained their water bottles, shirts and Havaianas pairs.

Stop, look, and listen: One hundred teams of Havaianaticos carefully absorb the race brief as they gathered in the NBC Tent last April 9 for the Havaianas “Always Summer: Race to Hawaii” contest.

On your mark, set, race!: Hundreds of energized Havaianaticos dash off, with smiles across their faces, as they scramble to qualify for a spot in the finals of the Havaianas “Always Summer: Race to Hawaii” in Boracay and win an all-expense-paid vacation to Hawaii – the land that inspired Havaianas.

The challenges were varied and tested the participants strength, intelligence and teamwork. The challenges were:

Left, right, make it right: The competitive team in green keeps their calm and focus on their strategy to finish the “Giant Flip-Flops” challenge during the Havaianas “Always Summer: Race to Hawaii” competition.

Race of the Brains: A couple of Havaianaticos exhibit their cleverness as they carefully analyze and answer the questions for the Truthy Fruity game – one of the 6 non-sequential challenges during the regional leg of the Havaianas “Always Summer: Race to Hawaii” competition.

Havaianas Girl Power: A participant gives her best shot at hurling a frisbee across the field to complete one of the fun challenges during the regional leg of the Havaianas “Always Summer: Race to Hawaii” contest.

Flocking for the best pack: Competing teams of the Havaianas “Always Summer: Race to Hawaii” hasten to get the best fashion pieces for the Fashion I-spy challenge.

The perfect fizz: Havaianatico teams try their best not to burst their big bubbles in order to complete one of the six challenges they faced during the Havaianas “Always Summer: Race to Hawaii” regional leg.

The twenty teams with the fastest completed time won the coveted spots to participate in the Boracay leg, courtesy of Seair and the Tides Hotel Boracay. They also received cool gadgets from Sony and hot summer essentials from David & Goliath, Hawaiian Tropic and Havaianas. Team Rosa from Baguio led the pack with an amazing time of only 28 minutes and 59 seconds.

Fastest team arrives: Team Rosa from Baguio joyfully returns to the NBC tent after completing all the challenges of the regional leg of the Havaianas “Always Summer: Race to Hawaii” in an amazing time of only 28 minutes and 59 seconds.

Hello, Boracay! Aloha, Hawaii!: The twenty teams with the fastest completed times pose eagerly in front of the camera after successfully finishing the six exciting challenges during the regional leg of the Havaianas “Always Summer: Race to Hawaii” competition. The winning teams will be heading to Boracay for the final leg to determine which summer-loving Havaianaticos will win a 6 day – 5 night, all-expense-paid vacation to the happy islands of Hawaii – the inspiration for Havaianas.

Havaianas is available in All Flip-Flops, Celio, Duty Free Philippines Fiesta Mall, Gas, J&S Surf Shop, KidSports, Manila Polo Club, Manila Yacht Club, Moana, Nail Spa, ROX, Rustan’s, Stoked, Souk, Tick Tock Flip Flop NAIA Terminal 3, and Urban Athletics. For provincial outlets, visit www.havaianas.com

Havaianas Always Summer: Race to Hawaii Regional Leg is an original content from BloggingPinay.com. If this text shows, it was copied without the original author's consent.

Update: I checked if the same error will occur with Catalyst and it didn’t. So it seems the error was caused by the Atlas Framework. I love Atlas but I need my blog to show up properly, so I’m now using Catalyst in Passive Income Blogging.

Writing this as a quick note to anyone who might be visiting the blog and seeing a messy blog. I’m not sure what went wrong, if it’s the wordpress theme I’m using (beta version of the Atlas Framework) or if it is Cloudflare doing this. I’ll work on it tonight after I get home, if its still messed up, I’ll try and see if it will work better with the Catalyst Theme.

I’ve been getting a surge in traffic so it might be my host limiting this site, making Cloudflare show a static page of my posts. If that’s the case, I might need to move this blog to a different hosting plan to accommodate the increase in traffic.

Atlas Framework Theme Error. is an original content from BloggingPinay.com. If this text shows, it was copied without the original author's consent.

“Fashion meets function” is the tagline of Flirty Aprons, a very chic and unique apron you won’t be embarrassed to gift people with. I’ve always liked kawaii aprons especially when I watch anime series that have cafes as one of the main hangout areas of the main characters. Most of the aprons I see locally are plain and boring so when I saw those uber cute and sexy aprons in television shows, I decided to look for the company that sells them. I only found them recently while I was looking for a great gift for family and friends since Mother’s Day is coming up soon and June weddings are just around the corner.

I checked out their site and found several chic designs that I’d love to order when my aunt leaves back for the US. These are the styles I loved:

Pearl Style - Flirty Aprons for Women

The Pearl style is perfect for formal dinners. You don’t have to worry about your dress getting ruined if something spills while you’re carrying something from the kitchen to the dining table, plus it looks fabulous.

Pink Chocolate Style - Flirty Aprons for Women

Pink Chocolate is just too cute. Perfect for baking kawaii cupcakes and whimsical cakes. The colors make me want to bake some cupcakes right now.

Mint-a-liscious Style - Flirty Aprons for Women

The Mint-a-liscious style looks great for summer parties and picnics. Makes me think of cool and refreshing lemonade in th afternoon.

Sugar and Spice Style - Flirty Aprons for Women

Zebra Style - Flirty Aprons for Women

Queen of Everything Style - Flirty Aprons for Women

The Sugar and Spice, Zebra and Queen of Everything styles can also work for formal dinners. I think they look really posh and would work for chic cafes and bakeries where the servers wear aprons and white just wouldn’t cut it.

They also have men’s aprons. They come in black or red and have some very interesting word plays:

BBQ King Style - Aprons For Men

Extremely Hot Style - Flirty Aprons For Men

Grill Sergeant Style - FlirtyAprons For Men

I also found several cute styles for children’s aprons, which is great for mother and daughter baking time or slumber+baking party. Some styles match the ones for the adult females while there are also other designs that are different.

I’m definitely getting myself at least two designs. Baking and cooking is fun, but plain aprons are boring. Having these kawaii aprons would definitely make baking parties and bake sales fun. These pretty and flirty aprons catch people’s attention and is a good topic for conversation.

Flirty Aprons: Fashionable Kawaii Aprons is an original content from BloggingPinay.com. If this text shows, it was copied without the original author's consent.