On my previous post, I was talking a bit about how we need to be a little creative when marketing and selling in this time of pandemic. After all, we need all the help we can get to make sure we can still financially survive this crisis despite all odds. On this blog post, Iād like to delve into the topic of creativity a little bit more by mentioning the ten basic principles I learned before from a 12-week course I took on the Artistās Way (a course in discovering and recovering your creative self created by Julia Cameron and Mark Bryan). These ten creativeĀ principles are: Continue reading
Category: Self-Help
Dengue Fever Suspicion This New Year, What To Do, and Other Updates
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
Itās a week into the new year and boy oh boy what a crazy schedule it has been!
Iām actually under the weather right now, not because Iāve not been taking care of myself. On the contrary, this time around, Iāve been sleeping 8-12 hours a day since the new year (except the other night when I only had 5 hours of sleep because Tuz wonāt let me sleepā¦) It is because I am suspecting myself to have contracted Dengue because I caught a mosquito with black and white stripes as I was brushing my teeth last night! Prior to that, in the afternoon, I started feeling joint pains and aches. I thought it was because of the chicken I ate (I avoid chicken and other meat as much as I can but Mahal brought home some so I ate..Ā it has high uric acid content that’s why the doctor advised me before not eat meat anymore, tsk, tsk.)Ā Then I had a mild fever. I thought that maybe I was just feeling sick because Tuz also has cough and colds and his temperature the other day was higher than usual (about 88-95 degrees Fahrenheit which is not considered fever yet but his skin was just a little bit hot to touch). I was just feeling so tired and achy all over so I tried to rest. But when I caught that black and white mosquito last night, my suspicion grew so we immediately decided to go to the hospital so I can have myself tested. That was 9:30 PM. We were supposed to come back after 3 hours but the moment I hit the bed after our little hospital trip, I felt so tired again that I woke up in the morning. I still couldnāt do my usual tasks except for a couple of social media posts and rested until this afternoon. I plan to get the blood test results this evening so as to avoid the crowd and I can head to the emergency doctor instead of lining up to go see one of the regular doctors in one of the clinics. At least I can rest some more at home and do some social media tasks for work, and yes, blog, lol.
I paid P2,178 to have the following lab tests last night: Continue reading
How To Make A Relationship Last [3 Major Tips for Those Living Together]
Weāre home now from our very long road trip starting from Cagayan de Oro to Oslob, then Dumaguete, Bacolod, Iloilo, Gigantes, Boracay, back to Iloilo, Bacolod, Oslob, Cebu City, Dapitan, and now back in Cagayan de Oro. Whew! What a blast it has been! We are so tired from our trip but so rejuvenated as well.
We came home just in time for a few things:
- my grandfatherās 95th birthday celebration
- an event I am attending later for Solane as a blogger
- a package that arrived from Blue Bee which I will be using and reviewing before I join their affiliate program
- and most especially, just in time for our 5th anniversary as committed life partners ā¤
Wow! So many blessings! Thank you, God, for all these love and opportunities in my life right now. I really feel blessed despite the fact that I am oh so tired (which is why I am now taking Thiocell to give me more energy, aside from my usual multivitamins and organic supplements ā perhaps, Iāll blog about them next time).
Anyway, that long trip of ours really tested our faith, our patience, and ultimately our love for one another. We are used to traveling together, but itās not always that we travel with a group, more so, our extended family. I must admit that on a few occasions, it did make me feel like I wanted to give up on us because of the little stresses that came along the way (you can read about it here: How to Avoid Travel Burnout When Traveling With a Group) but as always, after every storm, a rainbow always comes and Iām glad that we always get out of it stronger than ever.
So how do we keep managing to strengthen our love and commitment for each other (as if weāre falling in love for the first time all over again) despite our imperfections? How do we make our relationship last year after year after year and hopefully until death do we part? How do you make your relationship last longer⦠until marriage⦠how do you make a marriage last a lifetime?
Below are the major 3 things I learned along the way (which I learned the hard way by the way) and which I want to share with you in case youāre in a relationship too, whether a new one or a seasoned one, and you want to make your relationship stronger too. As I continue to embark in this amazing relationship with my best friend, my life partner, my soulmate, my Mahal, here are the 3 major tips I can give you based on our own experiences: Continue reading
Manny Pacquiao vs Keith Thurman: Life Lessons to Learn from this Fight
Hey, everyone! We just got here in Oslob afterĀ a 16-hour road trip all the way from Cagayan de Oro. I rested for a bit when I got here because I was already so zombified the past few days from everything thatās been happening (work, Mahalās DTI graduation, packing for this trip and the road trip itself). I mentioned before that weāll be doing a Mindanao-Visayas tour this month together with Mahalās sister, his sister’s boyfriend and her daughter who came all the way from Belgium and now weāre here!
READ RELATED POST:Ā HOW TO GET TO OSLOB FROM CAGAYAN DE ORO VIA CAR AND BOATĀ RIDES
Iām actually super tired from the trip. I only had a few hours of sleep on the boat as I tried drafting the Part 3 of my Boracay blog post series last night. Since that would entail a huge amount of time and energy for me, which right now, I donāt have, I decided to rest instead. I do, however, still want to update you here on my blog and all I can think about was that boxing fight our very own 40-year old Manny Pacquiao had against 30-year old Keith Thurman. We were watching it yesterday while we were packing for our trip and boy oh boy, wasnāt that a really good fight! Even veterans watching from the ringside described it as Pacquiao’s best one since his magnificentĀ win over Antonio Margarito back in 2010.
How to Beat Stress – 3 Simple Yet Amazing Steps I Adopted from Tony Robbins
Itās early Sunday morning today in the Philippines but my body clock is still on Saturday mode, around 6PM US Eastern Time. Since itās the weekend and Iām at the farm, I want to write a little something about stress and how to beat it. Iām not stressed though. I havenāt been in a while. And Iām always a lot happier when Iām here at the farm.
However, I know that many of us live most of our days in a stressed state despite the fact that we know itās not good for us. Stress can literally kill you overtime because it can cause sickness, the worst of which is cancer (Iāve personally known 3 people in my life who had cancer and from what I observed, it may be mostly because their family and situations stressed them out so much), and if not cancer, then so many other illnesses are brought about by stress that are slowly building in our body. Cortisol is good in small amounts. We do need it to survive. But if you are constantly producing cortisol in your body because youāre in a constant state of stress, thatās when it becomes bad.
So why not find ways to beat it, right? And I mean, beat it right at its core and not just put some band-aid solutions for it. This way, we get to live longer and better.
Tony Robbins’ How to Raise Your Standards – Here are the Two Amazing Steps I Took
This is my 18th day of consecutive blogging and I’m happy to say that I haven’tĀ faltered (yet ā hopefully, I wonāt ever) in my renewed commitment to do one of my first loves which is writing, hurray! I first did this last year, month of May, for my 30-day blogging challenge, which I finished with flying colors. But after that, I went radio silent again for some time before I blogged again. This time, I want to do this for as long as I am alive and not just 30 days. In poker speak, we must always up our ante! SoĀ Iām giving myself a little pat on my back for having done this for 18 days straight so far. Hurray for little triumphs like this!
I think one of the major things that really helped me focus on my commitment to blog daily are the teachings of Tony Robbins, particularly about āraising your standardsā.Ā As Tony Robbins said:
Finding Calm in the Midst of a Storm – How Do You Calm Your Nerves in the Middle of Chaos?
I’m in the middle of a tight deadline today so I’m going to make this blog post short. Mahal is at the farm since Friday evening. It was actually an emergency run because… remember the new motorcycle I told you about in yesterday’s blog post? The brand new one we bought in cash for our farm helpers so they can have transportation to use for mushroom delivery instead of renting someone else’s motorcycle (which we have been doing for a long time now)… yes that motorcycle! Did our farm helper steal it???!!!
How to Believe What You Want is Possible
When I started this blog, sharing about what I learned in Jack Canfield‘s book THE SUCCESS PRINCIPLES has been one of those topics I really want to tackle chapter by chapter and dig into.Ā It still is. And because I want to practice the principles I’ve gone through before putting them here, it usually takes a while before I get to write my thoughts.
So far, I’ve already told you the first three fundamental principles of success according to Jack Canfield:
Now, let me share with you the next principle I learned in this favorite book of mine.
The Fundamentals of Success #4: Believe It’s Possible Continue reading
Going Limitless ā Thoughts About Building Businesses and Life We Love
Yesterday morning, before the trip to the farm, Mahal and I had a talk. I told him I was feeling overwhelmed with everything thatās been going on. We are still in the beginning stages of the farm even if itās already been more than a year since we started setting it up. Thatās coz farming is so dependent on the weather, the availability of āingredientsā for the mushroom fruiting bags, the people we hire and fire, the availability of water in the natural spring, etc. We havenāt yet really fully set it up, and weāre already thinking of setting up another business in Oslob ā a bar ā to complement their existing mini resort, Oslob New Village…
After the Storm Comes the Rainbow (I’m Back and Feeling Better Than Ever!)
Each year, it has always been my goal to write more, journal my thoughts and feelings more, and share my life on my blog. My blogs (both old and new) have always been my alter ego, my memory bank, my soul. Iām a loner. Iām an introvert. I have very few quality friends by choice and even in my young adult years as I was surrounded by so many friends and colleagues, I really didnāt open up much except to a chosen few. So blogging, for me, is very personal. Having said that, I can say that my blog has become my sounding board, my confidant, my best friend (apart from Mahal of course) and I am quite happy about it. My blog is just always here to listen to my woes, adventures, and excitements and it doesnāt judge. It just is⦠even when I donāt get to update it as much as I would like to. But when I do, like right now, it can be very cathartic. And if you happen to visit and read my blog, thank you. I appreciate it. I hope it wasnāt a waste of your time and you get something good out of it somehow. You can check out my self-help posts, I find them the most helpful if youāre not into purely travel and lifestyle posts.
I mostly blog for myself, partly because I easily forget things Iāve experienced, lol. No, really, it’s true! Whenever people would ask me, where to go or what to do in this place, etc., my first mental reply would be āVisit my blog coz Iāve already forgotten!ā or my mind would automatically go āShit, I need to check my blog coz I think Iāve already written about it.ā LOL! Aside from documenting my experiences through photos, Iāve accumulated through the years, itās still better to always have organized documentation of my experiences through my blog. At least other people who happen to drop by can get some information they need or some sort of inspiration when they need to. And whenever I need the same, I can always go back to my old blog posts.
However, whenever I feel down, exhausted, overworked or depressed, which Iāve been feeling since the second week of January⦠(first week was super fun since we were still on a Christmas and New Year high!), I find it hard to write. I am simply overcome with not-so-good emotions and it takes a while for me to get back on track. This is because whenever that happens, Iād go into survival mode and whatever positive energy I have left in me (if there is still some left), I would spend it on my main priorities which are my family and my work. I still want to be the best mother I can be for Tuz, the best partner I can be for Mahal, the best I can be for my clients. Everything else has to wait its turn based on its relative importance.
Thatās what happened to me this first two months of the year, hence, my absence here and on my Facebook page and other social media accounts. To summarize: Continue reading
A Look Back at 2018… Grateful for the Year that Was
I am just full of gratitude these days. Arenāt you? And why shouldnāt we? Being able to wake up every day, be with our family and do meaningful work are actually more than enough to thank God for this wonderful gift of life He has given us. This is why my previous post was all about gratitude, for allowing me to have a career in the online worldĀ and live a dream lifestyle that I have chosen since retiring from government service in December 2007.Ā This post will also be about gratitude as I look back to all the previous yearās blessings. And I believe, I have one more gratitude post to write after this. My heart is just brimming with joy that I need to express all of them before I burst out of utter bliss. ā¤
Before I look back at 2018 though, I want to look back at the last 3 years since weāve had Tuz.
In a nutshell⦠Continue reading
