Rainy Days Lazy Little Projects

It's been raining hard over the last few days and there's really nothing much to do when the kids play by themselves so I went over the old clothes that the kids never use anymore and came up with ideas to re-purpose them. Aside from sewing I also did a little crocheting. I made videos of some of them too. Check them out below! Hope you enjoy

• Reusable Face Scrubbies - Simple Crochet

This is really very easy and surprisingly relaxing to make. Click the link below for a quick tutorial.

How to make face scrubbies in just 5 minutes.

• Crochet Ornaments

I am planning to put up the Christmas Tree soon since it's already September and I am crocheting here and there every time I get the chance and these little ornaments are my favorites because they are very easy to do and that I can always do them in between chores. Learn the basics of making these cute ornaments Here.

• 30-Minute Crochet Cellphone Case

I was not able to make a video of this but I will definitely make one and with pattern too because this cute cellphone case is also multi-purpose. 

• Reusable Menstrual Pads

I recently bought some of these online because I am more comfortable wearing fabric menstrual pads than the disposable ones. I was only able to buy a few because they are extremely expensive for what seemed to be an easy sew. So I gathered some old clothes and towels that we don't use anymore and spent about an hour sewing by hand (literally) because my very cheap mini sewing machine can't be used for thick fabrics. I need to make improvements with my stitches but overall I am very happy for this project because I was able to make about 6 pads in just 1 hour. 

Check this video for a quick tutorial.

• Cute Stuffed Animals - Re-purpose Kids Clothes

This is actually my favorite project this week because my kids love all three stuffed animals I made for them. They all took just a few minutes each to make and I am lucky I had all the things readily available for me. Well, almost everything actually can easily be found at home since this is something recycled or re-purposed. I just had a bit of trouble with finding buttons and beads but eventually I also found the perfect match for all three cute stuff animals. Watch this very short video and see how easy it is to make!

If you're looking to start your own Lazy Little Projects like these but wanting to not use old materials, you can check this link for affordable materials.

**Please note that some of the links in this site may direct you to affiliate websites for which I may earn a percentage for any product you may purchase. Thanks.

Kiki's Big Day

Kira and Danilo
Cabugao Elementary School Representatives
Photo Journalism, English and Filipino
September 10, 2019

Yesterday was one of Kira's biggest day yet. She's my eldest daughter turning eleven next month and in 6th grade. And I am one of the many proud parents who attended this elementary school event called 2019 Press Conference held in Sto. Domingo Central School. It was an 11-category competition (English and Filipino) with its theme topic called The Life of A Journalist or Ang Buhay ng Isang Mamamahayag (in Tagalog) and everything that has anything to do with it. Children from grades 4 to 6 from different barangays of Sto. Domingo represented their respective public schools and competed for different categories like essay writing, news writing, photo journalism, drawing (or cartoon making, I am not quite sure which) etc.

Kira, my daughter, competed in the english category of Photo Journalism. Although she did not land a place in the competition, I think I couldn't have been a prouder mother ever to witness her representing her school for the first time. To me, it's not only an honor but a great experience that opened up different windows of opportunities for her to grow.

The night before the competition, Kira and I stayed up late because there were still a lot of aspects in this competition that she still couldn't quite get and I had to come up with a simplified method of explanation in order to cover the important details and get her ready for the big day. I think she's quite good at the photo shoot part, but she really lacked the computer knowledge and a bit confused in captioning. So we spent at least two hours alone until almost midnight (because her little brother and sister, both toddlers, had beed pestering her all night and messing with her stuffs and I had to put them to bed first) explaining to her every detail as patiently as I could. I have to admit I so lack the skills of patient teaching even though I know how to simplify things. I get easily angered if I said something so simple and I get a still confused look in the face of who I am talking to. No, angered is not the word, more like frustrated. In  in Kira's situation, especially when she started crying and saying she wanted to quit, because my voice was getting firm and she probably sense I was getting agitated and frustrated but in truth I wasn't. I felt a pang of guilt and I pity the kid for a moment because I know she was totally confused. I know she's not stupid. In fact she's good in editing videos and stuffs she even has her own youtube channel. She also has good command of the English language too. So how come something as simple as captioning and navigating the computer seemed like a tough struggle for her? She has all the resources available at home, internet, cellphones, computers and a ton of books too. So what else is missing? 

Obviously she's not fully prepared despite all the resources. She was chosen a few weeks prior but it was clear she lacked practice.

The thing is, I do not blame her coach. If anything it was really up to me to follow through her progress during the course of the preparations before the competition. With my hands being full with the little kids, I wasn't able to focus on her. It was my fault to assume she already knew what to do because she didn't ask me for help. I realized at that point that I wasn't paying much attention. Just because she was always so excited for the upcoming event that I easily became confident she didn't need that much of attention.

Team Cabugao Elementary School

I think that is not not good parenting. Having confidence in your child's ability but not being vocal about it hurts the the child own's self-confidence and the ugly part is you wouldn't really notice until you really started paying attention and letting them know you are paying attention. The problem with me is that I expected too much of her but didn't realize how misguided she had been because of those expectations. The thing is, I have always treated and talked to her not as a child her age only because when I was her age I knew things she didn't yet know now. I simply expected that she gets it just because I got it. And for that I knew how wrong I have become. I knew I was the reason she lacked confidence, my presence alone sometimes have this effect on her that made her do things not in her best. So what do I do? I explained to her that it doesn't matter whether she wins or not as long as she does her best and enjoyed in the process. Besides, it's her first time to compete and I told her all I am after is her exposure, it will boost her confidence, lessen her fear to crowd and maybe even make her realize how proud I am of her and that I support and believe her no matter what. 

Surely enough after the busy day (me being a stage mother as Jim remarked), Kira, my little popocheng, seemed different to me. I looked at her as she told me hesitantly that she didn't get any place in the competition. I bet she was sad but her sad smile made me realize I did good raising this litte sport. All of a sudden, that big day in her elementary school life made her matured and hopeful and inspired. Her sudden transformation touched me I almost cried. I told her it's totally cool with me that she did not win and that there's more opportunity like that coming her way if she would continue to study hard and learn and always, always listen and pay attention to us elders. We may not always know better but we sure hope all the best for the next generations replacing us someday. 

She hears stories about me as a kid, especially about my school years, of how competitive I was, of how I went to competitions to represent my school and made my teachers and parents alike really proud by bringing them home awards and medals, of how I excelled academically and did things well in flying colors. I was that competitive because I have competitive and talented siblings and didn't want to get left behind or to be compared to them and be looked down upon. I had very proud parents and I knew even then that proud parents disliked being disappointed. In some ways I felt pressured that they expected too much of me because they believed in me. My father used to always say, Always do your best in school because it is a reflection to us as parents and most especially because your mother is a teacher. I don't think we shared the same view though. Not that I did not agree or that I am just making an excuse for being their biggest disappointment, but almost everything I did as a parent, I did not learn from them. I do uphold their words of wisdom and I make sure to pass them on to my own kids but I have a different approach to parenting. I may not be always right with the way I mother them but I know I am doing enough, if not my best, to raise better kids than the kid I was (praying hard and crossing my fingers all the time).

I think it's not bad parenting to set high expectations to our children but it does get bad when we expect to much and not do anything in the process to nurture and support them. Most importantly we should always be aware of how they feel about our expectations of them and we should always keep an open relationship with them so they will have the confidence to talk about their own feelings, their dreams, even their bad days. I don't know with the rest of you, and I think I wouldn't care less about your approach as a parent because I prefer to do what I think and feel is right for my kids. We may not all have the same views as mothers and fathers but I am sure of one thing, we always want what's best for our children. 

And this is my message to Kira:

I want you to know I am a really proud to be your mother. I love you very much. I believe in you and will always believe in you, come hell or high water. It's okay not to be like me as a kid. It's okay not to be an over-achiever or an honor student. I didn't turn out to be that successful in life later on even if I did well in school. What's not okay is to take education for granted. Finishing school will pave your way to better life. Just like my Dad used to always say, education is a whole lot more than any riches this world can offer because it's yours and you earned it. Focus and listen and have the desire to be guided so that you will grow to do good and be good to others. I'm fine with you being you. And I choose streetwise over medals anytime. Aw, you'll understand that someday.

How To Start Earning By Blogging: The Game Plan A

As you all know, you don't really have to be a pro to start blogging and make money out of it. I am not out to give anyone false hopes that this will automatically earn you money but in the long run, as you write and learn and bring forth your wonderful ideas and gain followers and interests, it absolutely will. However you don't just go blogging right away just because you feel like it. Of course you will need a whole lot of patience, a game plan or game plans, a lot of reasearch especially for beginners, set expectations (positive and or negative) and most of all you have to have goals too so that you will work better if not harder in setting your own blog site in motion.

Here's another important thing to consider in starting a blog site: You have to bear in mind that most of those who earn money blogging do not really think of making money at first. They just actually love what they do and love sharing them until eventually it just became its own thing and make money on the side. So in my opinion (but I can be wrong too you know) if your only goal is to make money and does not really care about your blog contents it is sure going to be tough reaching your goal. I am not saying it will not work but it may take a while especially if you're the only one interested in your own thing. Mindset is very important, determination too and of course passion to write. 

So without further ado, I'd like to share a game plan with you, my personal game plan on how I  aim to make money blogging. I call it The Game Plan A because in case this plan will not work, I have a Game Plan B to Z as back-up. 

Before I started blogging, I had a really hard time organizing my thoughts and I have gone through a really tough starting point because I didn't really know how or where to begin. My problem was not that I do not have anything to begin with but I have a whole lot that it overwhelmed me. I knew that wanting it so bad is not really enough without actually doing it because otherwise you'll just go in circles. And it really took me months being indecisive before I started writing my first entry. But you know what, once I took that leap, everything else just became easier. It's like my thoughts magically organized themselves and I couldn't wait to start another topic! It's like I just opened up a door in my head and ideas just keep coming in. 

Well, I didn't automatically gain interests because I have very few friends to share it with and I am not really very active in social networking so I started to plan carefully and make some research, experiments & tests. As it turns out, it's very very important that you set goals and expectations along with your game plan, make an outline of the plan you have in mind, simplify the steps you intend to do in the process and follow them thoroughly. That way it will be easier to pinpoint which step or steps in the process are not working out in case after some time you still don't gain audiences or interests. I personally think there's no particular  recommended step by step procedure in blogging because it will really depend on you, dear blogger, to be bold and experimental, to not be afraid to fail and always be determind to keep trying, to come up with interesting ideas without compromising your own passion. 

The Game Plan A:

Step 1. Ask yourself, what am I in this for? 

Let's get real here, I initially thought that blogging is for kids. Although I sure want to do it, I hesitated because I have this nagging thought that had I really really wanted to this, I should have started a long time ago. Like, am I not 2 decades too late in taking this seriously? And a whole lot of unwanted thoughts that kind of got in the way for short while and I did kind of procrastinated until I decided to simplify my case. In some sense I gave myself an ultimatum by saying, Look, it's either you're going to do it or you're not. Either way, you procrastinating isn't helping because stalling one decision stops the progress of everything else. I really think I made such a good point that I just precedeed to 

Step 2. Make a list of things about blogging that you think or feel you need to know more about.

This is the beginning of a wonderful journey in writing and even though you have been writing all your life, just like me, you're not expected to  know much about blogging the minute you decide to do so. Honestly, I was never a confident writer because I have always been afraid to hear negative comments about my work. And because of that fear, I rarely had people read what I write and therefore left myself often clueless if I've written anything good or not. It took a lot of effort to motivate myself and be open for people's opinion. After a while, I realized that hearing what others think of something you are passionate of doing, may it be positive or negative, leaves great rooms for improvement. It makes you work harder and better. 

Here are some of the sample questions and or topics I took note of and made some research online: 

• Blogging for beginners
• How to earn money blogging
• 2019 Blogging trends
• Free blogging sites

Those are just the keywords actually. One you type in those keywords on search engines, it will give you a whole lot of results pertaining to what you're looking for so you could just start from there. Browse the lists and just click on the articles that interests you. Most of those results you see from Bing or Google search engines are actually from bloggers too so remember to take notes of the important things you learn and apply it later on as you go along. 

Below are some sample screenshots of the search results I made. 

Some of them I actually clicked and read and most I skipped and browsed through pages until I found other eye-catching topics that seemed relevant and interesting to me. Browsing blog topics and checking out other blog sites also helps if you're still undecided about what you will blog about. But make sure you refrain from plagiarism and be original as much as possible with your contents.

Step 3. Decide what blog hosting site you will want to sign up for.

There are a whole lot of blog hosting sites out there that will really attract your attention but if you're just a beginner, I suggest you start with  the free hosting so that you can freely experiment on ideas. As you go on working with your ideas, it's a good thing to keep researching too in order for you to make it better. 

Here are the top 3 blog hosting sites I have tried already. Check them out and take note of the features that suits your blog concept:

1. Blogger.com
2. Wordpress.com
3. Wix.com

Step 4. Name your blog site and start writing. 

It is highly suggested for begginers who aim to earn money that you choose a blog site that is Google Adsense ready. We'll talk about that more in the next topics. For now, concentrate on the stuffs you want to blog about. Do not overthink it yet, just get to the zone and write. 

Step 5. Publish your work and share it on social networking. the more shares you have the greater possibility of interests, followers and audiences you'll get. 

Remember, you have to love what you're doing  because that is the best key to your success in blogging.

Happy writing! 

To Write or Not to, Right?

First of all, I am not an expert blogger and serious blogging is not actually a profession that I honestly think suited for me. Writing to me is more of a rusty childhood skill that I am only able to hone in my adult life in the hope of recapturing its last dying spark. A long time ago, I used to believe it's a skill I am really good at and there's a few who really believed in my gift. But you see, where I came from, that's all you will really ever have, that big childhood dream and the people you will disappoint later on in life. I mean that's how it always seemed to me, and nothing ever really made me think otherwise up to now.

Don't get me wrong. I am not really out to express my frustrations by putting all the blame to the sucky hometown I am stuck in most of my life. My own failures are due to the stupid choices I made and really, it has got nothing to do with where I came from. But for an argument's sake that I am really hesitant to make, how many of my so-called failure friends would actually, honestly, disagree when I say that there's no room for progress here when you have big dreams? You either get the heck out and chase it somewhere else or forget about it and stick around to give them the satisfaction of watching it all die before your eyes. I literally see it that way that I see these sea of crabs unable to climb because they just keep pulling each other down. For a town that never floods and is really far away from bodies of water, it is actually home to a different species of crabs, mentality wise. 

Haha! I think I sounded way over bitter there, huh? Re-reading what I just wrote, I think I made it seem like I have deeply rooted unresolved grudges about to blow up. But nah, I don't really think it's worth making a fuss over  things I am not even sure now if I really felt then. I mean all I am saying is that I have always had a very one-sided view about Sto. Domingo, of how sucky, non-progressive, and millennium-bugged, as I often remark it is and it may have (or not really) crushed my dreams once but I am not one to complain because obviously, I keep coming back you know. 

I know I never had a room for growth in here back then and I don't think I have it now, seeing nothing's much has changed and success is still sought elsewhere. Same old same old. Go out. Make money. Go back and get stuck. It's totally heartbreaking how I am so not proud I am from here. 

And for that reason, I decided to start this blog challenge. I have a list of goals I aim to reach in 4 months time that I will eventually talk about later on. Personally, I wanted to know if I will be able to see things differently and prove myself wrong. Kind of like a redemption if you will, and yes it's also some sort of a social experiment and I'm hoping to reach as much audience who can share their inputs too as I can.  

Okay, so I guess I'll start from this first entry then, and just see where it goes in 4 months time. 

Blogging, Underrated

I am so pissed right now with this iOs app Easy Blog which I am using right now to manage my Blogger posts! I literally screamed and cursed after accidentally hitting Clear below my screen next to Done and I sat for an hour and a half writing about the most common question you encounter regarding blogging which is, Can You Make Money Blogging? And for a non-pro blogger who prefers impromptu writing, I personally think it was a really good read. Oh, man, it really does suck. I will make a mental note to always click save so it will still be on the draft page if I get idle thinking and get blank about what sentence I should write next. 

As I mentioned before, I am not a blogger by profession and I don't write for a living. Truth be told, I am a very distracted full-time mother of 2 handful toddlers and 1 moody adolescent and barely get my own me time to focus on me stuffs. I mean that if I write, it's mostly very careful of my train of thoughts because it will be published or posted here as is. 

That is not advisable though, for those of you with an ample time in your hands to write beautifully and all or else you'll end up erasing everything and starting over again. Waste of time and energy. 

Well, anyway, I'll take extra care next time. 

So, the question is, Can You Make Money Blogging? I certainly like to believe so. In doing my research online, it seem to be working well with a lot of people. I'm just not sure though where those people are literally (country of origin, etc. ) or where they actually live or how much Facebook friends they have (cause it's an advantage too, having to be able to share your blog in social network sites cause you'll be able to reach a whole lot of audiences). Now, if you're going to ask me personally, my answer would be: I don't really know. I mean, I would like to answer the question based on personal experience but I'm still in the middle of this little experimental blogging challenge for four months and this is just my second blog entry. Honest to goodness, location-wise (we live in a very flat, dry, rural farming hometown), with very few interesting events or subjects to talk about (mostly only about rice farming) and less and less opportunities to reach a target audience, I really think blogging here is so f^<*%d! because there's nothing to talk about but other people's lives and of people meddling with other people's business (a common activity of the locals which I am not fond of doing, unless I am inspired by them) Writing this now, it kinda made me realize that the reason I haven't met a single professional writer here is because of those factors. 

That is sad, but that will not stop me from completing this daily blogging challenge. I guess with a little bit of hard work, a creative imagination, and a burning passion for what I really want to do, I will be able to answer a yes to the so-called question every aspiring bloggers ask. I aim to do that by the end of this year (2019) with a step by step guide to successful blogging bearing titles like Make Money Blogging Even There's Nothing Interesting to Blog About or Rural Blogging: Anyone Can Write or something of the like. 

I would love to make a list of the good reads I found on the web about things you may also find helpful but I'd do it later on because I have to ask for the author's permission first.