This is me and my hubby during our valentines day celebration. We stayed on the 13th of February till the 14th, which is the actual valentines day, in a hotel. It was our first time to be in a hotel together. Yes! That is very true. Some of you might be surprised cause you as a couple are frequent visitors of hotels. But, we are very simple people and for us, staying in a hotel is already a big luxury. However, since we have the money for it (which I really did set aside), we went there to have our much needed time alone. My hubby has been working really hard and I knew he deserves some rest. It was really a good break for both of us. Our much needed rest from all our responsibilities as parents.
We were both awed by the beauty of the room itself. Both of us told each other how nice it would be that we would have this kind of house. And yes! I am gonna make that as an affirmation. That someday, we can have our brand new house for ourselves. A house which can be a haven for us after a hard day at work. We were both envirograted and refreshed after a day in that hotel. We stayed in Verbana Suites. For only a thousand pesos, we get to stay for a full day. We checked in by 12 pm I think and checked out the same time by the following day. The room was very clean and cozy and not like the other cheap hotels. The room was very very spacious. In fact, that thousand pesos was good for 3-4 people. The room had a queen size bed and a smaller bed. So, there were two beds. The cable tv was a great source of entertainment too. I didn’t get to take advantage of their wifi too much. One day was indeed too short. But, at least I got a break from reviewing safe weight loss pills.

The life of a mother, specially that of a working mom is more than just challenging. Even I, as a mother and wife for more than 3 years, is still having difficulty achieving balance in everything that I do. Basically, the main reason why most mothers resort to anti aging products as their best friend in life. Life is short as they say. And as for me, I wanted to do many many things. Things that I love to do, things that I am passionate about. I couldn’t believe how I am able to manage running the house, having a full time job, taking care of my baby, running a mini store, taking care of my husband and running multiple blogs online. I even do side writing jobs. Some days are great, some days are just crazy. It’s all about how I manage it. I mean, there’s always the same amount of hours everyday. But the factor that spells out everything and can make a big difference is how we manage ourselves. Whenever I come across articles and blog posts that talks about how to manage one’s time efficiently, I couldn’t help myself but read it until its finished. With so many interruptions and new technologies nowadays, everyday could really be a challenged. I couldn’t even imagine, how I was able to dream about going back to school few months ago while juggling work and my responsibilities at home. But, that can wait. Yeah! I wanted to graduate college, but I’m not a superwoman. I am already a very busy mom and I just can’t add any more responsibilities to my long list of things to do. So, my secret to staying sane every day is to have a time for myself and to unwind. Have some time just to clear my mind and forget about worries and responsibilities. That’s my most favorite part of every day. (Oh no! You got me wrong. It doesn’t mean I hate my responsibilities or the things I do for my family) I love them with all my heart and they are my motivation for doing all of these things. But still, I am a human needing space and time for herself……Give me a break…….

Well, it looks like I haven’t clearly set up the reason for this saving goal. It was vague when I said it would be used to improve our financial situation however for this 100 day challenge where my one goal is to save as much money as I can, I haven’t been really clear as to why I needed to save. Here it is. This just became clear by yesterday. The money we will be able to save will go to our Emergency Fund. We don’t have any Emergency Fund yet and so I need to start working on it. Ideally, in my own terms, I want this Emergency Fund to support us for a matter of 6 months even without any other source of financial income.  This is for emergency purposes. This is one of the things that financially wise people do before venturing into any kind of business endeavor or whatsoever. So, instead of getting lured in buying a eye cream for dark circles, I would rather save my money and add it to our emergency fund.

As of now, both me and my husband work. Our wages are above the average, specially mine, very much above the average. But, it is very difficult to save up, for some reasons. It is just so difficult. I tell you, it is a very challenging thing to do specially because we live in the city. We live in the heart of the province of Cebu, in the main city itself where anything you do has a cost. Where anywhere you look, there’s something nice to buy. It is more of a challenge than you could ever think of. The cost of living in a city is way higher than in a province.

But I will not give up. If i have to sacrifice some things such as buying my favorite foods every now and then or getting to buy t shirts once in a while, then, let it be. I know I can achieve saving up for our Emergency Fund. I will. I can and I must……….

This is the 6th day of my 100 day challenge . This is a challenge where the next 100 days of my life will be devoted to one single goal: to save money. In my last entry regarding this challenge, I noted that I already had 9,500 in savings from my blogging earnings.  Now, at this point, I have an additonal 1500 from blogging ventures and additional 4,000 savings which is coming from my salary.  So, on my 6th day I have saved a total of 15,000. I still have to earn and save 35,000 to complete the 50,000 goal for the 100 day challenge. I think if I would really take this seriously, I can save 50,000 in less than 100 days. But, we’ll see. We’ll see how much I can save in a span of 100 days as well.

I went to SM yesterday and it so happened that it was my first time to buy something at CD-R king. It was my first time, yes! and I was super duper amazed with the variety of great products and new technology that they offer. I found the products I have been looking for and was planning to order internationally online. But, it looks like they’ve got it at cheaper rates without any shipping charges cause you just have to come to their shops.  I found the hidden camera or monitoring system that I have been looking for in USA sites. But, I was so surprised they have it at a cheaper rate. The palm monitor cost more than 3,000 pesos. There is a small palm monitor, big a bigger screen than that of cellular phones, and this is where you can see the live videos from the camera. It is great, but I still have to save up for this and I also want to learn how this really works. Second product which got me interested was this USB TV Dongle. Through this, you can watch live tv on your pc and you can even record your favorite tv shows so you have freedom of time. I’ve been looking for a tv recorder long time ago, and I am so amazed to find this. This tv Dongle only cost 1500 or something. Yeah! That cheap! I wanna buy this but I am not sure when I would be actually buying this.

In a snap, something can change in our lives even if we are not prepared for it. Our supervisor just declared that I’m gonna be transferred to another account. I am so relaxed and comfortable here in the current account I am handling and I’ve been here for around 3 months now and then suddenly he will blurt out that he needed to transfer me and he needed me to handle another account. I am not so comfortale with quick changes and honestly, I do not know what lies behind. But, I want to trust that God has a plan for me and this is just part of the plans He has for me.

I am a Christian and though I am vocal and open about it to anyone who would asked, I have not lived the life of a Christian fully. Growing up in a family who never valued faith and christianity, in fact i grow up in a catholic family, it is quiet difficult for me to integrate my daily life in God’s presence.

Even as of now, we are churchgoers and I feel focused when I am at church but I have not been reading my bible. I have not been regularly praying and connecting with Jesus. I didn’t have the desire to reach out to others to tell them of God’s message. I didn’t use the promises in the bible in my daily struggles and victories. I lived a life so much in tuned with the world, but not listening to God’s words. I loved him and I believe him and would say I am entrusting Him with my life, but I never made the effort to get to know him more and to live my life in His presence.

But God really loves me. He sends people and events to help me wake up and do something about my lack of purpose and lack of initiative in doing things for Him. I thereby, lack a personal relationship with Him. A real and loving relationship with my Father. Most of the times, I would find myself demanding that kind of love from my husband, when the truth is, only God can fill this emptiness which is in one side of my life.

I am very very passionate about my life. I lived my life full of dreams and ambitions and I cherish every moment, but I have forgotten about God. All my dreams are just for myself. I am too boastful to think that I can do things by myself. I feel like God is so far away from my life. Mainly because I did not do anything to draw him close to me. I have been lazy in my Christian life.

And I feel so sorry…………………… “Lord, I ask you to forgive me for the way I have lived my life. I have lived my life as if this is the only world that matters and I have forgotten about you. I have not done anything to bring you into my life. I ask you to forgive me Lord and from now, I ask you to help me remember that nothing else matters but my relationship with you.”

I believed God did something to wake me up from somber. Yesterday, before going to church, my husband opened the television in a channel where there was a foreign pastor preaching about God’s message. The message was very clear and was perfect to make me guilty.

He says there are kinds of relationhip to our father. First, all of us have a direct relationship with Him because he is our creator, whether we accept that or not, whether we lived that or not. The other kind of relationship is a distant relationship. It means one believes in God and profess that they are believers and they are Christians but they don’t have a personal relationship to God. They are not living a life in God’s presence. They are the ones who would only go to church on Sundays.

There were still a lot of adjectives to describe a distant relationship with God but the way I have lived my life surely fell into that category. This morning, before starting work, I decided to have a one hour devotional since we have so much freedom in our work and I can actually choose to do it if I want to. My excuse of why I don’t pray and read the bible at night is that I am very tired already from the days’ work. But then, those are lame excuses. If I really want to, i can always give time and make time to read God’s word and to learn more about Him.

As I listened to online site given by my devoted Christian sister who is in New York right now, I learned so many good things that I have never learned before. I realized there is still so much to know and so much to learn that will help me in my faith. When I was baptized as a Christian on my 23rd birthday, that was the beginning of my infancy in my Christian life and I would say until now I am still on the childhood stage. I never matured and I never really grew up. But stil, God is good.

Truly, there is nothing more important than living a life according to God’s purpose. And I am determined to live that out starting today..

This project means that the next 100 days of my life will be devoted to only one goal. And that goal is to save money. Specifically, I want to save around 50,000 by the end of 100 days. Each day I will be patiently working on this goal. How? By finding ways of how to save money each day and of course by regularly setting aside savings from the money we both earn.

So, tomorrow will be the very first day. To start with, I now have 9,500 in my savings and these money comes from my blogging ventures. This is the money I earned in this month of January. Probably, the highest money that I’ve earned in just a month. This goes all to our savings.
So, I only need around 40,500 more to complete this goal. Tomorrow will be another day and let’s see what we’ve got.

When my tooth ache returned after taking Gardan, I decided it must be a tooth ache issue nevertheless. So, I called the dentist and good thing they scheduled me on that day right away. I wasn’t able to attend our monthly birthday bash celebration, where I asked someone to replace me as a host because of my situation. I went straight to the dentist after my work. I would say it was quick and efficient indeed. I liked the dentist. She was nice and precise. She found out that my 3rd molar on the upper right jaw needs to be extracted. It was in a very bad condition. So, I am scheduled for extraction hopefully tomorrow. I want all of this to be finished as soon as possible. Right now, I am taking antibiotic and I need to be reminded to take it religiously because you know how it works. Once you forget once, you have to start all over again. I am a bit scared because my last extraction was really more than a torture, it was like hell. And I don’t want to experience it again.

Today, is our BONUS day. Yipee! I don’t want to expect much but I hope it will be good enough. This is supposed to be our XMAS bonus which was delayed. So, everyone is awaiting for it later today. Tomorrow is supposed to be my day for being with baby but it looks like tomorrow will be my extraction, so today, I want to be with her. After work, I’m planning to take her to the park. At least, I won’t have to spend. I need to bring her a yaya along, so I won’t have a hard time chasing after her. She’s so malikot. So, that’s my one single task for today. Just be with her and spend quality time with her. We don’t necessarily have to be metal buildings like in malls or play centers but we could be in places near to nature such as in parks.

It has been 6 hours since I took Gardan and I am still pain free. I am observing if the pain will come back and I am really hoping hard that it won’t. It is a killer pain and I really cannot bear more of it. I really hope and pray that Ate Joy is right. That Gardan will take care of this pain and that this is not a toothache but a result of BUGHAT. Will be updating you more later today or perhaps tomorrow.