Out with the Old, In with the New... President, that is.

Today we welcome with open arms a new President, Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III.

I really hope the next six years will not be another six years (or more in the case of GMA who was in power for longer than the regular 6-year term) of hardships, scandals, corruption and sheer moral decay... like what we saw in the regime of the outgoing president who seemed to have completely forgotten the meaning of "DELICADEZA".

Of Second Chances and Not Taking Any Chances

Victim # 1

Victim # 2

VICTIM # 3

THE CULPRIT... THAT DUMPTRUCK ON THE UPPER LEFT SIDE OF THE PICTURE

Just by looking at the pictures alone, are you able to picture the level of uncertainty there is to life on this earth?

One Sunday you could be on your way home after going on a simple errand... you decide to ride a taxicab and sit beside the driver... on the way home you start to pleasantly converse with the driver about how rude other "professional" drivers can be... then you came to the foot of a narrow street where your driver decided to wait for a dumptruck to pass so that your cab can make the turn and you would be on your way home... then WHAM!!!

You suddenly realize the cab you were riding was hit by the wayward dumptruck... then WHAM again!!! The same dumptruck hits a bus that in turn hit a motorcycle and sent its rider flying into the air.

Chaos and a massive traffic jam then ensues as slivers of broken glass and other car parts pepper the busy Quirino Highway.

Fortunately for you, you escaped unscathed.

But what if something did happen and it was the passenger side of the cab that got hit? Surely, none of the three victims were expecting to be part of that big accident that caused quite a commotion. Just the same they became unwilling participants.

How confident are you that your family will be well taken care of if something does happen to you?

Stop leaving everything to chance... If you still don’t have any insurance, do yourself a favor and get one, or even two like I did… visit

http://prospectzone.com

Be a blessing to your loved ones, not a burden. No loose ends should be left untied.

By the way, my husband was the one sitting on the passenger side of that cab.

Moneybookers: an alternative to Paypal

Still sad,sad,sad about oDesk and Paypal. Last email I got from somebody at oDesk named Michelle is that the Paypal transactions will be resumed by June 10... which is technically yesterday, Philippine time. But as of this writing when I tried to withdraw my earnings at oDesk I was still greeted by the same error message indicating that transactions are still suspended.

Reading the forum posts about the matter gave me the unfortunate news that the reactivation was moved to June 11 PST (Saturday in the Philippines). So it is still an impasse as far as Paypal withdrawals are concerned.

Now, when this problem first broke out, Tuesday I think, I had immediately signed up for a Moneybookers account which was to be "use-able" on June 10. True enough my newly created account has now been linked to my oDesk account and I can already withdraw! Woohoo!!! Three cheers for Moneybookers!

However, much as I wanted to withdraw every single dollar I have with oDesk right away I thought it will be more prudent to withdraw just "some" of my earnings. I wanted to see first how the whole thing works and if it will work well with my BPIFB account.

The money I withdrew from oDesk was "immediately" credited to my Moneybookers account and was available for transfer to my local bank account, so with bated breath I pressed on the "Withdraw" button. There were three steps to the process of fund transfer and the second step necessitated that I verify my account. Moneybookers presented options with corresponding time frames. I chose to verify my account via credit card since it was marked "Instant" unlike the verification by sending mail to our residence address which we all know can take forever given how slow our postal service is.

Verification via credit card took just a minute or two, all I needed to do was input my credit card info, and I was off to the third step of the withdrawal process which was to confirm that I wanted to push through with the withdrawal. Naturally, I did.

The "History" tab immediately reflected what transpired in the last few minutes... from Moneybookers receiving the money from oDesk to the credit card verification up to the transfer to my local bank. First the transfer was marked "Pending", but when i checked again after about an hour it has been marked "Processed". Hmmm... I am beginning to like Moneybookers more than Paypal.

Anyway, I am still waiting for the money to be credited to my account by BPIFB. Hopefully, it gets credited tomorrow because it seems Moneybookers pride itself with a fast turnaround. At the latest, my money should be in my account by next week... by Tuesday I hope.

If you would like your own Moneybookers account as an alternative payment method for oDesk, please do sign up using

https://www.moneybookers.com/app/?rid=17024565

or click on this...

My Very Own "Bucket List"

Have you seen the movie “Bucket List” starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman? If you haven’t I will suggest that you find a copy ASAP. I saw it on HBO… several times… because I always manage to catch it when it’s halfway through.

While my chances of meeting someone like Jack Nicholson’s character in the movie… obscenely-moneyed-happy go-lucky… is probably 1/1,000,000 I have decided to write out my very own "Bucket List" just in case I do get to meet someone who might not be as obscenely moneyed and happy-go-lucky but is more than willing to “sponsor” my dreams just the same. Hehehe…

Kidding aside, I’m writing this list after reading Jack Canfield’s “What Do You Want in Life” article.

According to Jack Canfield, “One of the main reasons why most people don't get what they want is that they haven't decided what they want. They haven't defined their desires in clear and compelling detail. They don't know what they want …”

Naturally, this got me all fired up because I certainly want to get what I want. I know my desires are well defined in clear and compelling detail… or so I thought.

As I opened up a new document to begin listing down the things Jack Canfield suggested, I hit a dead end. Per Canfield, I was supposed to write the following:

30 Things I want to Have
30 Things I want to Do
30 Things I want to be before I die
20 things I love to do (that I could earn from)

I wanted to start with, “The 30 Things I want to Have” because I thought it was fairly easy since I believe I know what I want to have, but again I don’t know where to start.

For one I don’t want my list to be “trivial”… I don’t want it to contain just the latest gadgets or the newest craze. After all I am almost 40 (well, in 3 more years) I am supposed to have more “substance” than a teenager.

But, so far here is what I have… a random listing of “wants” yet as detailed as I could picture it as Jack Canfield adviced:

A high-end, fully-loaded SUV with an automatic transmission (think Montero, Pajero, Fortuner, X-Trail, Navara, CRV, etc) – I really want to be driving again but I don’t think I can do that with a stick shift anymore considering how uncoordinated my extremities and my brain are. Why an SUV? Because I think an elephant driving a mini cooper is not a pretty sight. :-)

A successful, passive/residual income-earning business of my own – I’ve been a stay-at-home (okay, work-at-home) mom for more than a year now and apart from the usual financial concerns that all freelance workers have I can say it is more “me” than being a “corporate slave”. However, the only way I can continue with this lifestyle “choice” is if I have a business that earns passive/residual income on its own.

Actually, my blogs have already started earning passive/residual income but I could use a few more hundreds or thousands of dollars to really live the lifestyle of my choice.

A fat, overflowing to the brim bank account – I have always known about the importance of saving, having an emergency fund, a retirement fund, a nest egg, etc. but somehow after 15 years of salaried employment I don’t have any of these to my name… not anymore. I used to have them, but the “money emergencies” I went through after I retired led to their depletion, so you can say I am back to square one, not really for myself anymore but for my son’s future.

A house I can really call my “dream home” – this would preferably be somewhere “high” and on a land that is made of adobe or something sturdier… definitely not limestone unless I want it to be suddenly swallowed by a big sinkhole. I’m thinking of a flood-free, exclusive subdivision somewhere in Quezon City.



To be continued…

Gratitude and its many blessings

I saw this in a magazine and I felt I just have to take a snapshot of it and share it with you. I don't think I need to expound on it not illustrate it in great detail... we all have stories about gratitude and the many wonderful things reveling in gratitude has done to "improve" our lives... maybe not literally but at least psychologically and emotionally.

We all live and measure the quality of our lives using our own set of standards and those very same standards dictate when we are able to say that we have enough or when we are wanting. This is no truer to anyone than me. I used to view my life as a sorry excuse for living... especially when my resources were reduced to almost nothing.

Well, my resources are still only a tad away from "nothing"... but I have never felt gratitude to be such a strong force in my life than these past few weeks.

The funny thing is since I have started to feel that way about my life, God has been giving me more reasons to feel grateful about. It's like gratitude begets more feelings of gratitude.

I suppose what Rhonda Byrne and Bo Sanchez have been saying is really true, that you attract what you constantly think about. Feel grateful about what you have and life (or the universe) will give you more things to be grateful about. Try it and be amazed.

Well, more than the law of attraction, I believe everything really happens in God's perfect time.