Creative Thoughts

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It has been more than a month, almost 2 months so to say, since we had a new house member. Her name is Sheilah. She’s my husband’s cousin. And she is here in our house, to give us some help in the house chores and of taking care of my baby. Of course, we hired her, and we are paying her monthly in exchange for it. She is a shy girl, quiet yet I would say she is dependable when it comes to house chores. She is not the “pakialamera” or whatever, and I would say I can trust her with money matters.

Before she came, I already informed hubby that I don’t want someone so loud and talkative in the house. I want a quiet and humble person, and I got her, just right. She is always smiling, and seems to be a down to earth person to me. Just exactly what I am looking for. Now, I have more time for my endeavors in finding ways to earn more income. I have more time to take rest also. Plus, my mom is relaxed now, and has plenty of time to relax unlike before, she was always on the go. She is getting old, so I really had to do something. She is indeed a great help to our family.

I pray she will stay here longer. I want to let her finish her college, if we are financially stable already. Perhaps a couple of years from now, when I’m gonna be starting my own business, she will be my “trusted assistant”.

It’s a restful sunday at work. Yes, it is sunday, but here I am at work as usual. This is my first day of work for the week. Odd? Right. For call center agents like me, we cannot choose on our day offs. Sad to say, that sunday has been assigned as my working day. But anyway, today seems to be a little quiet at work. Far from the very busy days like tuesdays through thursday, when we have all the agents at the floor, yet it is still very busy. We have non stop calls, and everyone is so loud cause we are busy with our respective clients.
Today, there are only about 10 of us, yet it is a little quiet, cause we have few calls. I wish its like this, all the time, so this job won’t stress me out. But, it isnt. There are really good days and bad days, and its part of this job. During  bad days, I always needed few minutes of fresh break. Just a short walk about of the office, looking into the busy streets with moving trucks gets me back on track. If it doesn’t, a short prayer always helps.

The hubby has been hunting for a job, for more than a month of being jobless. It wasn’t easy for him, and for us. We really had to work on it. I felt he was so uneasy and bored at home. I even had to think of ways to get him preoccupied and engaged, instead of thinking all the time.

Today, is the first day that he will start his work. We are both glad about it. I  pray that he will be happy in his job, and just enjoy it. I pray that he will be safe all the time. I’m gonna be missing his presence, here at home. I just realized I missed him when I came home today, without seeing him. Imagine, for the past 5 months, I always come home seeing him at home. And now, I get to be here first way earlier than him.

Another answered prayer from God. And we know, that God is always there for us, and he never leaves us.

We finally found the perfect ice shredder. It’s not an electric ice crusher. But, its a knife. Yes, its a knife with little sharp edges, and it can turn an ice into very tiny ice that can be used for halo-halo. Amazing right? I wished I have a video of the demonstration of the man who demonstrated who to use it. For only 250 pesos, we got to have the knife along with other freebies. We have a manual beater which can be used to manually make a shake, even without a blender. There’s almost a plastic that can create different shapes for vegetables like potatoes, it can almost cut vegetables. There’s another free knife, which has a guide on it, it will determine, how wide will the cut be. It was affordable, and I hope it will be useful to us, specially in our halo-halo business.

I’m pretty tired from work right now. It’s Tuesday, the busiest day of the week. Non-stop calls, plus 9 hours of computer exposure. It drains me off. I hope i gain  my energy back, when I’m at home doing things I love to do.

Yesterday, was a very busy day for us. Our little store, plus some business like selling binignit, softdrinks and ice candies, really do keep us preoccupied. I like that, cause I don’t want hubby to keep worrying about not having a job yet. Hopefully, he will get one soon.
We are still praying for it. I am doing my best to encourage him, and also to get him doing some busy but productive things so he won’t keep on thinking about it.

After my work, we headed to Colon and Carbon market. If you are not familiar of that, that’s a market place in cebu where all the cheap and affordable goods can be found. You want to find ukay-ukay, cheap but classy bags, clothings, rtw products, products for your homes, different kinds of foods and fruits, name it. Almost, everything is found here. There are products which are sold half as cheap but the same with quality, as those sold in SM or any other malls. If you are practical and wise, you should come here, if you are in Cebu.

I wish I could have brought our cellphone with camera, so I can take photos of the places.
You can see different faces of livelihood here. A very wide and big place to sell things, and to buy things for your business and homes. You can also see different faces of the economic crisis here. People trying to make a living our of their hands.

Yesterday, we bought halo-halo materials. We bough the cannisters where we will put the ingredients. We also bought ready made ingredits. There is a store in Carbon, where all the ingredients of halo-halo are there. It can be bought per kilos. We bought 1/4 each of cooked and sweetened jackfruit, cooked ube, red and green kaong, cooked and sweetened corn, plus red mungo. Everything is there. There are mangoes, and even pineapples, and gulaman. Everything is really there. I was really amazed, and glad we found it. I had been thinking of selling halo-halo, and we just found out about these sidewalk vendors selling such things.

The only problem, we couldn’t find an ice shredder that will shred small pieces of ice, perfect for halo-halo. We have one, but it results to bigger ice. So, that’s my predicament right now. Ingredients are prepared, and hubby is going to buy plastic glasses today. But, I still have to find that ice shredder. Let’s see divine intervention coming. Hmmm..
I’m sure, I will find that thing. We just have to keep looking. The hubby is really enjoying cooking his precious binignit. And its always a bestseller.

It’s my day off today, and tomorrow. Again and again, I’ve always looked forward to this day. The hubby also does, as he likes to have me in the house. I just sometimes feel, I get my life, when its day off. You know what I mean? I get to do the things I don’t get to do during working days. I really have lots of passions and things I love to do, but being locked to a specific work schedule daily, could be a challenge. I would have preferred not to work, but for now, that’s not an option for us. We just can’t afford for me not to work for now. But, I am working on it. I am working on building our financial stability, though I really had to start from scratch. I always keep my faith strong that everything will be alright, and my family will be alright. I don’t wanna lose hope. I don’t wanna settle for this kind of life. I want a good life for me and my family. Not like the ones, families in our crowded neighborhood are living with. I want to provide the needs of my family, and to let them enjoy certain things in life. I want my child to have a good education, and lots of choices when she grows up. I want to be financially free someday.

Before, I lose track of what this post is really all about,  let me go back to the main topic. Today, I plan to update my multiple blogs. I want to watch a movie I rented from video city, the prince and me. I’ll tell you about it some other time, when I’m done watching it. I plan, to pay our electric bill and get the unionbank card of my hubby. In the afternoon, we will be selling “binignit” agan. I also would like to have a date with the hubby in the nice park nearby, tonight. I’d like to spend some time with him, since we have been so busy for the last week.

I also intend, to update my goal list. My book of my plans in life. I needed to rethink about my priorities and of my aspirations in life. I need to really think about what I really like and how I can achieve it.

Let’s see how my 2 days of will go.

Before long, we already had lots of business ideas. Most of them, are pretty hard to implement without a refrigerator. But now, that we have one, we are very busy implementing each one of them. We were excited, and we are just enjoying it. The income from our store, has definitely increased. It may be small, but if you add it up everyday, it will result to a great income and great savings. It is really  nice to venture into small businesses specially nowadays, and to think that our place is really ideal for selling. It’s a small community, and the house that we are renting is exactly in front of a basketball court, so its a nice target. Plus, there are no vendors of different products out here, so if you would sell something, people will really most likely buy them.

Yesterday, we sold cooked bananas in the morning, and it was sold out very quickly. They really wanted snacks and something to eat, and banana is really delicious and affordable right? Plus, in the late afternoon, the hubby cooked “binignit”, a combination of rice, banana, jackfruit, gabi, camote and landang served very hot. It was an instant hit.

We are also selling ice, ice candy, and juice in the house. Ice pop is really in demand. You know those commercial ice candies sold in supermarkets. If you freeze it, its very yummy. Plus, no hassles in preparing compared to ice candy. I really like selling, that was one thing I loved to do when I was younger.

The eyes serve us a lot in many ways, than we ever give credit it for. Sometimes, we think it has been with us since birth and will be with us forever. Wrong notion. Just like any other body part, it has to be taken cared of.
I realize how dangerous my job can be. I am exposed to the computer 9 hours per day, 5 days a week. To add to that, is my browsing while at home, so I can update and maintain my multiple blogs.
For so long, I have neglected it. And thought I was okay. I never had much of headaches and pains anyway. But, when I saw an advertisement and explanation in rated K, about Optein, a supplement that helps replenish our supply of natural lutein, which helps keep our eyesight clear, I was scared. According to the ad, frequent exposures to computers, tv, cellphones can cause eye damage, which will not really show immediately. It could show up in the latter years.
I want to make sure I am taking proper measures of prevention, because I believe that our eyes are very important. I don’t get to eat vegetables always, as to my hectic schedule and busy work life. So, I really need this supplement, to protect my eyes from the harmful effects of too much computer exposure.
I am heading to the pharmacy after work, to inquire about the price and to buy the supplement.

Contrary to what the picture suggests, no, I’m not gonna be rewarding myself with beer, cause I do not drink beer and any alcoholic beverages.  But yes, I would like to reward myself, for making some small yet remarkable improvements and achievements for the past few days, or weeks. I would like to reward myself, cause finally we were able to buy our own refrigerator which we have been wanting for some time, but has not been able to buy, because of some financial constraints. We don’t want to have any debts, so we really saved up for it. Aside from that, I would like to celebrate the fact that our 3rd blog, is now live via wordpress. It took a few days, almost a week or so, for the transfer because of some slight issues.

So, I am celebrating this success with a lazy day. Which means, I will just relax and enjoy this day. That day is today, Thursday of March 12, 2009. For the past few months, I am restless when I am not moving or doing anything productive. As much as I like, I like to be doing something productive all the time, and I feel guilty if I’m not. There are just so much to do. Right after work, even if I am still so stressed, I usually go ahead and take care of the baby or do other errands at home. But, today, I am just gonna go back to my lazy mode.  It’s my reward for myself, for all the hard word I did. I am recognizing and appreciating what I am doing, and I love and respect myself for everything that I am doing.

So, speaking of marking today as lazy day, let me stop myself from making too long of a post, that proves otherwise. Till next time, when I am not in the lazy mode. Bum..bum..bum

I wrote about an article stating that we already bought a refrigerator for our home plus our little sari-sari store. The new refrigerator is perfect cause now there are a lot of business ideas that we can finally implement. I’ve always wanted to sell softdrinks and ice candies. And now, finally it has been fulfilled. We were so excited in making the ice candies. At first, we made buko ice candies, and I was so surprised that it became an instant hit. It becomes tastier when it is already ice. When, we were still mixing it, it didn’t appear to be that delcious. But, every one kept buying over and over again, specially the children and young ones. So, we sold out around 160 ice candies in a matter of two days. So, we made the 2nd ice candy bath last night, and that has kept me busy. The hubby was very hands on and he also helped me in  mixing the mango ice candy and also in packing it. It was fun, making it. We made a total of 120 ice candies, 2 pesos each, so that will sell 240. And the capital was only less than 100. I’d like to see how the 2nd batch goes.

We already ordered softdrinks, and we still have a lot of plans. We want to sell halo-halo, barbecue and also we want to sell different kinds of viands cause no one is doing that here in the neighborhood and I have noticed its a need that we must fill up. We really have lots of plans, and we are really excited with every step and every improvement. We are just enjoying it. I used ot be very strict about numbers and data when it comes to money, but I realized now, I need to have fun. I really do.

We are very active now, in the business side, and I like that. Thanks to God!