by The Happy WAHM
It’s the last day of 2014, and before I get really busy in the kitchen, I just want to sit here and write a short entry. Call it my last hurrah for 2014. It’s been an awesome year, and I am grateful.
Let’s see…
Both my major goals panned out. I’m sitting comfortably in my office while I write this, and the thrill of having a professionally designed blog has not diminished.
The minor ones also came to fruition, although not all of them were accomplished 100%.
Here’s a rundown:
Finish three online courses – I only got to finish one. Barely. It was like learning a foreign language, and the degree of difficulty is like a climb up Mt. Everest. I set out with a goal of finishing it with distinction (a 90% rating) and I fell flat on my face with a dismal 86%. As a consolation, I just tell myself that it was what I deserved for studying in a moving car for the whole duration of the course. I was taking on too many projects at that time, and the only time I could study has been on the car ride to the grocery.
Re-structure our homeschool – We’ve decided not to enroll this year, and go independent. We’re totally interest-led now, although I have downloaded the K-12 curriculum of DepEd and refer to it from time to time, just to make sure that the kids will be prepared for the PEPT when the time comes. The husband is also more involved now, since he no longer leaves home to work. The freedom of being interest-led has paved the way for the kids to pursue what they really want. Bea finished a Basic Chinese course online, and is now into coding. Jude, at nine, has his eyes set on NASA. So these parents need to hustle.
Buy a piano – Our kids learned to play using a Casio keyboard, and our piano teacher advised us to invest on a real piano, or a digital one with weighted keys. We settled for a digital one. Our house is too small to accommodate even an upright piano. This is a good thing, as not only are the kids getting the required training, but us adults get motivated to learn, too.
Learn something new – I learned how to crochet, yey! And I’m hooked, pun intended. 🙂
Write a coaching module – Finished the structure and all the points, but still need to improve on it. This goal will spill over to 2015. It has become a challenge to finish, because it is no longer just about my niche. It started off with just virtual assistance, but it evolved to a module on home-based business set up in general. Blame Prof. Ed Hess! His Grow to Greatness courses really inspired me to just go for it.
Add income streams – I was able to set up an internet/affiliate marketing site this year, which I hope to launch sometime in January. The site has been professionally-designed, too, so I’m very excited to have it live. I’ve been dreaming of having such a site for years now, since my very first client as a VA has been an internet marketer. I learned so much about the niche that I’ve been wanting to put the knowledge I gained into practice. The real push came when I stumbled into Mindware Toys. I started to set up the site with just KEVA in mind, but just like the coaching module, it evolved into something more.
With the site still on maintenance mode, I was able to get in a few dollars of income, so my motivation to work on it just increased a hundred-fold.
The year has not been all rosy. There were trying times, but we pulled through.
My husband losing his job. Glenda. That very recent scary accident. And being torn between doing mainstream blogging, versus simply focusing on my niche. Husband’s seven-month hiatus made the decision for me. I had to focus on the income-generating activities to support the family, plus the fact that our firstborn will be in college next year. I just can’t afford to lose my footing on what I do best, which is virtual assistance. The writing will be my respite.
The last quarter of 2014 proved to be pivotal. My husband finally debuted as a WAHD, and it was also during this period that I fully embraced collaborative work. Finally came out of my shell, so to speak.
And this is the part that I get cheesy.
Truly grateful for the friendship of The Techie Mom and Martine de Luna, for it has been with them that I have worked with the most. Then came Artique, Manila Workshops, Mrs C’s Sugarcoated Life, Fancy Girl Design Studio, and the latest is with Chasing Dreams.
Looking forward to more projects with these fabulous ladies next year, as working with them has proven to be professionally gratifying, and personally enriching.
Just as I did this year, I’ll hit the ground running this coming 2015.
A re-designed business site, an affiliate marketing site, officially making e-commerce set up as an added service offering, domain and hosting services, a series of webinars with Manila Workshops, virtual assistance workshops with the Make It Blissful and Manila Workshops tandem, home-based business set up coaching, and hopefully, the launch my hubby’s site, too.
A lot in the works, and so I’m claiming my one word for 2015 to be… DISCIPLINE, because at the core of all these lies my true purpose, that of being a MOM, above all else.
Have an awesome New Year!
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by The Happy WAHM
If you fell down yesterday, stand up today. – H. G. Wells
And fall, I did. Literally. With a very loud thud.
As Jude puts it…
I thought the ceiling was going to collapse.
I don’t know how it really sounded from downstairs, as I was busy picking myself up from the upstairs bathroom floor, and screaming at the top of my lungs for my husband.
I lost my balance as I was toweling dry, and I fell hard on my butt, and as I fell must have hit the back of my head on the wall, because I remember feeling an excruciating pain on my head just as I felt the thud of my butt on the floor.
I saw the scene flashing before me in slow motion. I remember thinking “this is not happening,” and thinking “no, I won’t be paralyzed. I won’t let myself to be.” And the moment I landed on the floor, the first thought was “I have to scream now, or they will never know what happened.” And so I did.
As I opened my mouth for that first scream, I was already thinking of getting up. “I have to get up, I have to get up.” My mind was working overtime. I was feeling excruciating pain on the occipital area of my head, and at the same time, pain was also shooting up from what feels to be the base of my spine. And that pain worried me. So I made myself move.
I was able to get up on my own and wrapped myself in a towel, but my world was spinning. I thought for a while that my vision was blurred, but I refused to acknowledge it. I focused on the pain, trying to think of what organ connects to what, and what could be causing the pain on my back. I moved my legs, and in my fuzzy mind thought, “Oh God, thank you. I can move my legs.” My greatest fear was paralysis, and the fact that I was able to get up was comforting enough to take my mind off the nausea.
My husband came just as I opened the shower curtain. He did not hear my first scream, but Jude did. And the boy called him. He heard the second. And the third, just as he opened the bathroom door. I think that earns him the title Flash, because I know I timed my screams on five-second intervals. I was very conscious of keeping my mind busy, so I even thought of counting in seconds.
We were preparing for a lunch date with a family friend when it happened. After lunch, we were supposed to go straight to the Christmas presentation of Greenhills Christian Fellowship, and then drop off my little something for a friend at her house. We went ahead with lunch, but by the time we were due to go to GCF, I was ready to call it a day. My body was aching all over, and the dizziness was stubbornly staying.
Last night, I had nightmares. The scene of my fall kept repeating in my mind, even in my sleep. I pity the husband who stayed up all night monitoring my temperature. They all say I felt hot, but the thermometer told them otherwise. So maybe I’m just one hot WAHM. Period.
Emergency over. I’m now back at my workstation. Grateful, just a little bit more than the other days, that God has been there, as He always is, to protect me from further harm.
More than ever, I want to keep my own version of the gratitude jar project alive. I don’t know how to call it yet. Choose Happiness? Happiness Jar? Maybe you can send in suggestions. 🙂
I’ve distributed some of the jars, while others are still with me, about to be prettified. The way I know how, okay? 🙂 My version of pretty might not be the same as yours, so please bear with me.
Meanwhile, I chose to be happy yesterday while fighting the nausea, and indulged in sweets.
Because you see, happiness is a choice. And you can be happy any time, under any circumstance, even in an emergency. You just need to choose to see the good side of things. The good side of what happened to me? Aside from having a good reason to indulge, I also had a good massage. 🙂
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by The Happy WAHM
About a month ago, I asked fellow WAHMs for suggestions on a payout processor. See, I’ve been having serious concerns about my current processor. I’ve been with them since 2012, and honestly, I was only really happy with the service for maybe the first four months, when service was on time. After the honeymoon period, everything just went downhill. I have written about our bumpy start here and here, and after those times, I just had to go with the flow, as choices have really been limited.
I could take the crappy customer service, for as long as they credit my payout on time. But even that just felt too much to ask from them. And so last month, I just felt that I need to move on. I feel so bad, really, because I was among the first WAHMs who endorsed them to clients and fellow freelancers. But we all need to get paid on time, right? So, I’m moving on…
I’m really grateful to fellow WAHM, Kristine, for suggesting Western Union in my survey thread on Facebook. There were other great suggestions, of course, like Paypal, Xoom, Orbit Remit and RemitHome. But after going through each one of them, except Xoom [you already know what happened there] and Paypal, I decided to give Western Union a try.
And it did not disappoint.
Here’s what clinched the deal for me…
My scheduled payout is always the 15th of the month. But because present payout processor has never acted on my transactions on time, I have since requested client to allow me to process my salary on the 10th. I would receive my payout around the 20th, or worse, even later. There were months that processing my transactions would take them 15 banking days, so you can just imagine my frustration. Of course, I would not want to request the client for an even earlier payout. It’s not fair to him that he should suffer for the inefficiency of our present processor.
So last December 9, I went ahead and processed my payout, thinking that the Christmas parties might get in the way of employees attending to their tasks promptly. What do you know, they acknowledged the transaction on the 12th. Three days for a mere acknowledgement!
So I was thinking, maybe it’s time I look at other ways to get paid. I remember that my client has a Western Union account, so I went ahead and logged in, checked out the terms and then sent out a proposal to my client for a change in processor. Within minutes, he replied with a go-ahead. And so I did. That was yesterday morning. And this afternoon, the money was credited to my bank account. Amazing!
So now, my only dilemma is the other transaction with the [now] old processor. Since they have a sending limit, I always have to process my payout in two separate transactions. So I have transactions A and B with the old processor. What I did yesterday was to process the amount of transaction B with Western Union, as a test on how they would perform, and then immediately sent a request for the other processor to cancel Transaction B, but keep Transaction A. Alas, up to this time, they have not acknowledged the request for cancellation, nor do they have any notification on the status of my other transaction. Based on our bank records, both amounts have been withdrawn, and should be credited to my account already. But well…
Suffice it to say that we will be using Western Union from hereon.
Here are some share-worthy notes:
- No sending limits – you can get paid with any amount, the sending fee is adjusted according to the amount being sent. Fee is competitive, as well as the conversion rate.
- Different sending options – your client can send using either his bank account, a debit card, a credit card, or can go to a WU branch and personally transact.
- Different receiving options – you can opt to receive through your bank account, or pick up from hundreds of accredited establishments. Most major banks in the Philippines are listed at the WU site.
- Opt to send free of charge, just adjust the sending date. So let’s say you want to receive your payout on the 15th. Your client can save on the sending fee if he chooses to send using his bank account balance. It’s free for the client, but it will take 4 days to reach you. So you can work around that by sending the money just 4 days earlier.
- Instant notifications. Your transaction is acknowledged in real time.
For yesterday’s transaction, I chose the option for my client to pay via his credit card. At the WU site, it says that it will take 1 to 2 days. But as it is, it only took 1 day to reach me. Good, yeah?
Some points that might appeal to your clients:
- If what you are getting is substantial [more than the sending limit of your processor], then doing the transaction twice proves to be more expensive in the end. With a flat fee of $4.99, if your client has to process twice, then it will amount to $9.98, as opposed to WU’s $8.00.
- Using their credit cards can earn them points with the card issuer.
- They earn WU reward points for every transaction fee they pay.
And of course, it may also be good to point out that Western Union has been around for decades. And with the news of remittance companies being shut down by Westpac in Australia, we would want to be with a service provider that has been in the industry long enough to weather these kinds of storms.
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by The Happy WAHM
I always write when I’m emotional. And this morning, I’m feeling just that.
I have just turned over my cross-stitch hobby kit to my middlechild. Out of nowhere, the thought just came that it’s time. A decision was made. She will have my cross-stitch kit.
A few days ago, we were [again] at National Bookstore to pick up a book I had them keep for me. It was a book I saw during their warehouse sale. I thought of getting it for my friend and partner, as I know that her family is into Star Wars. But knowing that they also frequent the bookstores and are avid collectors, I did not buy it outright. I first wanted to find out if they don’t have a copy of it yet. But she took a long time replying to my text message [like I texted her about lunchtime, asking if she would like to have this Phantom Menace book, and she replied early evening that yes, her husband and son would love to have it]. So suffice it to say that I lost the opportunity to buy that book for her. But, persevering soul that I am, I called up NBS to ask if they still have a copy. Alas, hardbound Star Wars books on sale go in a flash, so no, they no longer have a copy. But because I’m social that way, I was able to make a teeny-tiny request of them calling their other branches to see if there are other copies lying around, and if they can have one reserved for me. So a few days ago, I received a call from NBS, telling me that they have found a copy for me, and that they have it reserved, waiting to be picked up.
But that’s not what this entry is about. 🙂
On that trip, my son asked for a fresh supply of clay and some popsicle sticks for his project. You know that feeling of being unfair to the other child when you buy something for one? I had that exact feeling. I just felt that it was unfair not to have something for Bea. So I asked her to choose one from the shelf, as we were on the arts aisle. She picked a cross-stitch kit.
And here is that kit now. Still unfinished, but you can see that for a first project, she’s doing a great job at it. Not to mention that she’s enjoying the craft.
So why choose today to give her my collection?
Well, today, I’ll be meeting up with former officemates at the mall. As is my routine, each time I need to be out of the house, I ask my kids who would want to go with me. It’s my way of involving them in my activities, and at the same time giving them the opportunity to go out and socialize.
This morning, my favorite middlechild joined me in the bed for a cuddle. I always have that time in the morning, before getting up, of cuddling with any one of the kids. This morning, it was Bea.
She knows about my afternoon out with girlfriends, so I asked if she wants to go with me. Surprise, surprise! She did not want to go. When I asked why, she said she’d rather stay home to finish her cross-stitch project.
And so I got up, opened the drawer where I keep all my hobby kits, and showed her my collection of cross-stitching books, aida cloths, skein threads, patterns, finished and unfinished projects and in between, told her stories of how I chose a particular pattern to work on, how I got into the hobby, where I got my first crosss-stitching book, etc. Most of my projects have dates on them, dating back to 1994. And then I showed her how I use old magazines to tape each pattern on, so that individual patterns that I buy are organized and kept like a real book of patterns, and how I make markings either on the cloth or on the pattern as a technique in making my life easier. 🙂
We spent half of the morning just talking about the hobby. And while I’m writing this post, she’s busy finishing her first project.
I don’t know if her interest in cross-stitching will last, or if it is just a passing fancy to match the crochet projects of her older sister. But whether this is just a phase or a life-long passion, I commit to support and encourage her all the way.
Meanwhile, I still have my quilting and sewing kits left in the drawer, waiting for the next set of hands to own them.
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by The Happy WAHM
October 31. Eleven days since we first informed PLDT of the problem we’re having with our internet connection.
Every morning, we would lose our dial tone for a period of about 30 minutes to an hour. Then it will be a reorder tone for about another hour. For that same period, the internet will be intermittent. I would be able to connect to Gmail on HTML view, compose an email, only to be told “you are no longer connected” when I’m ready to send the e-mail. Then the intermittent connection will ”improve” to consistently crawling, where I can actually log in to Facebook, but the page will just be loading but not actually displaying. So I could see that I have 15 messages and 52 notifications, but when I click to read, monitor would be displaying a white screen while I could see that little something beside the news feed tab going round and round, telling me that I am indeed connected, but the connection is so poor, it could not display the page.
So I would always end up leaving my desktop on, hoping that the internet would normalize, while I connect with my Globe stick on my laptop. So basically, I’ve been consuming electricity by keeping my desktop on just so I could monitor if PLDT would somehow miraculously restore the service we’ve been diligently and religiously paying for each and every month.
In an ideal world, when you pay for services, you actually get the services you’re paying for. When we subscribe to a service, we actually get into a contract with the provider. We commit to pay our obligations, while they commit to provide the service. But with PLDT, it does not seem to work that way. When a subscriber fails to pay on time, they just go ahead and cut the service. But when that service is problematic, you cannot simply say, I won’t pay.
Sad thing is, when a company is as big as PLDT, it cannot help but be arrogant. What can you do? You cannot even get another service from another company, because there is no other company. I cannot say, I no longer want your service, because the truth is, I need the service. I work using the internet. So I have to stick it out, however bad the service is.
I cannot help but be whimsical, on this day that I have not been productive at work. I’m just writing down the things that I wish for PLDT, in an ideal world.
I wish they would man the fort.
Do you know how much time a subscriber spends waiting on the line to be attended to? An average of 30 minutes! Imagine yourself without the luxury of a cordless phone. You stay with your ear stuck on the receiver, listening to some music interspersed with the latest promotions, topped by some instruction on how you can try to troubleshoot your connection yourself, when you could be doing something more productive with your time, like cooking lunch. Why, oh why, can’t PLDT aim to be at least more responsive, if they cannot be proactive? Have someone answer the phone, promptly, please!
I wish they would stop the recording already.
Just this month, we have called the fault report line several times, and we have just about memorized those recorded troubleshooting guides. It has become such an irritant, knowing that they don’t work anyway. Been there, done that, that’s why we’re calling. If that’s all I’m going to get, why would I bother?
I wish they’d have an SLS.
Or at least have their people know what the acronym means! It’s amazing how clueless their client care people were when we asked them what PLDT’s SLS is. We asked because we didn’t want to be complaining about a bad service when in truth it is still within internal Service Level Standards. But alas, they don’t even know what it means.
Ideally, for a service company to be efficient, there should exist a standard of service. Like when a fault report comes in, how long should it stay on queue for support to assess the problem? And then after the assessment, how long should the problem be handled by outside plant before it gets escalated to the next team of experts? And in total, how long should a fault ticket be handled and resolved? Setting a standard ensures that people are actually working for a resolution.
I wish they’d stop giving customers the run-around.
It won’t hurt to admit that there is something you don’t know. Telling me that “there is an ongoing problem in the area” is not going to work either. I call to report that I have an almost non-existing connection from 7am to 7pm, and connection stabilizes from 7pm onwards. Please don’t tell me that there is a problem with the line. The problem is not with the line. The problem is in the distribution. Check the node. But first, find out what a node is.
I wish they’d use some common sense.
I was truly surprised to find out that on October 24, four days after we called in the first report, the ticket was closed. I asked why they closed the ticket, when the internet connection has not stabilized yet. The genius reply, in vernacular:
Your report was about the loss of dial tone. It was not about the internet connection. You have to file another report for the intermittent internet connection.
Errrr… Did you think that when I didn’t have dial tone, I had internet connection? And wasn’t it the internet connection that was the point of my report? The loss of dial tone was merely mentioned to help you assess the problem!
I wish they’d call us back.
It will be much appreciated, and somehow appease an already irate customer, if someone would just bother to let us know the status of our fault ticket, say, after 24 hours. Or at least, do not, and I mean, DO NOT, tell us to call you again to follow up on the status, because, going back to the first item in my wish list, it’s not fun to have my ear stuck on the receiver for 30 minutes, waiting for someone to attend to my call.
I wish they’d hire someone who knows better.
Based on previous conversations with the client care on the phone, it is either that PLDT is failing in providing adequate training to their technical support on the phone, or the technical department is badly in need of direction in recognizing, and ultimately, resolving connectivity problems.
I wish they’d let their bosses know.
To ensure the quality of service we provide, this call may be recorded.
Oh, sure! And then what happens to the recording? Why is the service not improving? I’m amazed at the marketing promotions that I see on Facebook, offering 999 for 3mbps. I pay 1,600 monthly, and I very rarely hit 1.5mbps. Why, why, WHY? There is a disconnect somewhere.
I just wish that one day, I will experience PLDT in an ideal world.
For now, I am just grateful that I have a back up broadband stick that tides me through the day, while I try to enjoy the ADSL at night.
Do you have questions, comments or feedback about this post?
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[photo source: wecreatehere.net]
Re-structure our homeschool – We’ve decided not to enroll this year, and go independent. We’re totally interest-led now, although I have downloaded the K-12 curriculum of DepEd and refer to it from time to time, just to make sure that the kids will be prepared for the PEPT when the time comes. The husband is also more involved now, since he no longer leaves home to work. The freedom of being interest-led has paved the way for the kids to pursue what they really want. Bea finished a Basic Chinese course online, and is now into coding. Jude, at nine, has his eyes set on NASA. So these parents need to hustle.
