by The Happy WAHM
I’m writing this post from the bank. It’s a Monday and there’s a long queue. Thought I’d better use my time productively.
I’m having two events this weekend. Gloria and the WAHMderful Weekend. To say that I have a busy week ahead of me is an understatement. Truth be told, I still don’t know how I’m going to manage the schedule. Recording and tutti rehearsal on Friday night, the concert on Saturday night, and the WAHMderful event from 9am to 4pm on Sunday. I will have to stay overnight in Manila on Friday, and still undecided whether I should go home to Batangas in the morning of Saturday, and come back again in the afternoon for the concert in the evening. Then stay overnight again on and go home on Sunday afternoon.
And before the weekend, St. Jude Science and Technological School will be celebrating it’s 4th Founding Anniversary, so that’s another event that I need to attend. Or not.
My main concern is not seeing my kids for two days and two nights straight if I don’t go home. The second concern is my responsibility to my clients. Yes, I do work on weekends, since I don’t actually work full time on weekdays, While I can be connected through my mobile phone, there are tasks that require me to be logged in to at least three websites to be able to accomplish any one of them. So I guess I need something with a keyboard for that. 🙂
Oh, well. I just need to make the best of what this week has to offer.
So let me just tell you more about my glorious weekend. The Gloria concert is a fundraising effort for a dear friend, Brutus, who’s been battling the Big C. We had our first fundraising concert for him last April, and we really need to raise more. Hence, the new effort. I’m really hoping that we can entice more people to come. Those who cannot come because of prior commitments can still buy tickets to give away to people who they want to be blessed with the music and fellowship. As a matter of fact, I have, on hand now, 16 tickets to give away, courtesy of a few generous people who cannot come, but want to share their blessings for our friend.
Should you find it in your hearts to help out in this effort, please feel free to share this really awesome poster created by one of the members of The New Covenant Singers.
As you can see from the poster, there will be five choirs at the concert. Each choir will have its own repertoire, and a tutti at the end, to perform five songs with John Rutter’s Gloria as the finale. Our friend is a member of four of the five choirs. He’s our power bass. There could be four to five members from each of the sections, with him as the only bass, and still his voice would ring above everyone else’s.
I know we cannot really raise the million that he needs, but we’ll really be happy to see people come for an evening of praise and fellowship.
And in the morning after, I’ll be off to the WAHMderful Weekend event as one of the “experts” to ask. Hey, look! There’s a poster!
There will be four keynote speakers, and a huddle up with us, the real players in the featured niches in WAHMing. The attendees get to choose the niche they want to know more about of. My business partner and Tehnical Operatons Manager of VASupportPro, Jennyfer Ang-Tan, will be with me in the Virtual Assistance huddle, too. We’ll be ready to answer your questions about the virtual assistance and online store management niches, including how to set up a WordPress website without paying an arm and a leg, how to set up an online store, and I’ll also be throwing in the 5 Ws to Becoming a Virtual Assistant. All our answers will be based on real-life experiences – what worked, what did not. We’ll be sharing how we can actually support a family with just one client. Yes, it is possible!
Ready to transition to a work-at-home career? You can still register here!
A whole blog post, and my number still has not been called. Oh, well. I think I’ll just catch up on my reading. 🙂
by The Happy WAHM
Another workshop over, and more to go! My sleepless nights and stressful days are far from over, but I’m not worried. Gone are the days that I worry about waking up with skin breakouts due to lack sleep, or stress.
Well, truth be told, I never really worried at all. I was a tomboy growing up, so a whole day would pass without even looking at the mirror. I take a bath, I comb my hair, and that’s that.
As a folk dancer back in high school, I would wear make up at every event. And since I was a simple soap and water person, pimples became part of my facial features. Still, no worries. Didn’t really care.
Then off I went to college, and the pimples continued to haunt me. Still, I continued to defy any beauty product. No to facial wash, no to cleansing creams, no to toners. No to even going to a salon. I do my own nails. I don’t color my hair. And I basically had two hairstyles in my 44 years on earth – long and short.
And then after having three kids, I met my mother-in-law. She would give me lipstick, lotion, toner, day cream, night cream, cleansing cream, foundation, etc. And with the exception of the lotion, all of those went to my sister, or to friends. But her words would always resonate in my oft sleep-deprived brain: “You have to take care of yourself. You have to feel beautiful for your husband.”
About a year ago, I started to notice melasma on my face. My mother’s side of the family has it, so I guess it is kind of genetic? Not sure. I just joke about being mestiza as reason for having it. But deep inside, I was starting to worry. I also started to notice the darkening of my pimple scars, too. Things that I really didn’t care about were beginning to cause me concern. Especially since I’ve been spending all my waking hours with my impressionable kids. Their quips of “Maganda ka naman, Mommy, kahit hindi ka mag-ayos,” started to get on me. My kids are conscious of how I look, even when I’m not.
So I started staying longer on the facial care aisle at the supermarket. But still felt no love for what I found there. I was afraid to try any of those out as they might do me more harm than good.
My mother, who’s been actively using whitening soaps to treat her hyper-pigmentation, introduced me to Evaderm. It’s a premium whitening soap with kojic acid as its primary ingredient. It’s something that I would not really try if not for these three reasons: 1) I know the manufacturer personally. 2) The manufacturer uses her own products, and she has the skin that I could only dream about. 3) It’s FDA approved.
The first week just went by without any fuss. I was using soap, just as I always have. No big deal. It was my mother who actually gave her day by day assessment of the product. No feeling of skin tightening, no itchiness, no feeling of dryness, etc. And I would just say, “Yeah!”
Then I attended a parent-teacher meeting at my daughter’s school, and people started commenting on my skin. They were asking if I had a treatment or something, as they noticed a different glow. Bear in mind that I still don’t look at the mirror that much, so I was clueless on what they were talking about. 🙂
After about a month, I checked on my pimple scars, and they were barely noticeable. Hmmmm… something must be working! And also, when I looked at some snapshots, my face would appear like it has foundation on. I guess it’s the coconut oil in it that helps keep my face moisturized without actually using any moisturizer.
I have yet to see if by continuing to use Evaderm, I’ll be offered a modelling stint and be the face to represent the product. Dream on, o ye empowered WAHM! Right now, I need to get back to work and be thankful that there have been no episodes of skin breakouts, even when I only get 3 hours of sleep on most days. And that’s all thanks to Evaderm, just as I hinted at in yesterday’s post.
Want to try it yourself? Just head over to their Facebook Page to know more about this product. Or you can take my word for it and head over to any Generika Drugstore branch or Sta Lucia Supermarket to grab your first bar.
by The Happy WAHM
One word. Successful.
And it was.
The workshop borne of a Facebook status of someone in my friends list pushed through despite the storm signal being up at number 2. With only 18 days of preparation, from the moment I made the announcement that I’m going to conduct a WordPress Workshop for WAHMs (without even consulting my partner), we were able to confirm 20 warm bodies, out of the 41 who actually registered. but with the final date not being a fit with their respective calendars, the rest just begged off and asked that a re-run be scheduled, and soon.
This workshop was a first for both me and my partner, Jenn Tan, although I’m not a stranger at coordinating events. I knew what we needed to do and have. Only problem was, we both have demanding clients to take care of. So we thought it best to ask for the assistance of a good friend, Patty, who is a professional event coordinator an event coordinator extraordinaire. I knew I wanted the workshop to be at colab, a place I fell in love with when we had our Real Ways to be WAHM workshop there. And when it comes to food, I knew we’re safe to go with Almost Gourmet, so we did.
The preparation was not easy, especially for Jenn, whose task was to create sub-domains for all the attendees. She had all kinds of trouble installing the script and all, and all I could do was pray that the glitches would be sorted out. True to her moniker – The Techie Mom – she, of course, got everything ready for the event.
The one thing that we really made sure would be out on time was our special giveaway.
Special thanks to the designer of the mug, Chris Oliver Tan, Jenn’s other half, and of course, to The Mug Shop, for the wonderful print.
And a workshop would not be complete without certificates! Those, I printed myself, kudos to my ever reliable Epson L-200.
We loved the questions that were thrown our way, and really, even the basic stuff could not fit in a day of workshop, so to be able to address more of our attendees’ questions, we have created a Facebook Group where we can continue to support these ladies who have bravely trooped to the workshop despite the rains and traffic and storm signal.
And despite the lack of sleep and the stressful days leading to the workshop, I am so grateful that I didn’t have the unsightly pimples to show, thanks to my trusted soap, which you will read more about in tomorrow’s post!
I should not forget to mention, and thank, Xend, for always being so supportive of WAHM workshops.
With the workshop over, and it being a Sunday, I’m going to take a bit of a time off, maybe go to the supermarket with my ever comfortable jeans and shirt, but this time, sporting my new-found A-Strap comfy feet friends.
But before I go, let me say again, THANK YOU to these awesome ladies!
Will there be a re-run?
Stay tuned!
by The Happy WAHM
In less than a month, I’ll be in front of like-minded WAHMs again, doing what I love most – sharing what I know.
This has been in my mind for the longest time, but I’ve been putting it off coz I always succeed in talking myself out of it. I tell myself “people won’t be interested”; “I can’t make it fly”; “there are lots of workshops about the same topic, who will come to mine”; and a host of other negative thoughts. But then, if I count the number of aggregate hours (yes, hours) I spend online answering questions thrown my way, those hours can already make up some weeks.
So why not put together a day of hands on tutorial for those who are brave enough to get acquainted with WordPress, up close and personal! And I’ll have my partner, The Techie Mom, by my side, to whack me on the head if I ever tell you something that is not so true.
So here’s what we are going to do.
We are going to create a subdomain for each one of the attendees. Like yourname.margeaberasturi.com, so that you will have a real hands on experience of the WordPress.org platform.
But you ask: “I already have myname.wordpress.com account. Can’t I just use that?”
Well, yes, you can. But you will be missing out on the fun! And fun has a name. It’s called plugins!
So, yes. Our hands on tutorial will allow you to really create your own site from scratch, and by the time we’re ready to go home, you will be dreaming of ways you can tweak your site to improve its content and design.
Now, for those who already have existing hosted WordPress sites, you can, of course, use your dashboard, and apply what we’re going to share with you, when applicable, to your site.
So, are you ready to join us?
Just head over to this link => Getting to Know WordPress
I will be so thrilled to see you!
by The Happy WAHM
It’s Sunday morning. The house is quiet. The girls are out with their Dad getting a haircut, and the little boy went to tag along.
Strange, huh? The Daddy accompanying the girls for their salon visit? Well, that’s their bonding time. Me, I was sweeping the floor when they left. And now I have just finished my morning coffee and browsing through my feed, and came across a post about numbers. It’s not about the numbers, the guy said. And I wholeheartedly agree.
Each time I add a year to my age, I don’t really mind. It’s not about the number of years I have lived. It’s about how I have lived those years. And so far, so good.
I have two Facebook profile accounts, two Facebook pages, one Twitter account and three websites. One Facebook account is used to connect with family and friends, while the other is a mix of family, friends and business acquaintances, created specifically for my online branding. I have 121 people following me in my personal profile account, and 109 people following me on my brand account, not counting the people I already have as friends. I have 273 followers in my brand’s page and 289 followers on my other biz page. I’m not even aware anymore how many are following me on Twitter because I very rarely tweet.
So why am I sitting here writing about those numbers? Not to brag, for sure. Those numbers are not high enough to brag about.
But even if they are, I still won’t. See, I got those numbers fair and square. Didn’t have to pay for people to “like” me. Neither did I spam friends’ inboxes to force them to like my pages.
Well, maybe I did send my link to some friends, but only to those I am close enough to say that I am trying to get some words out and I need help. So if you’re reading this, and you happen to be one of the 10 people I sent my link to, consider yourself a close friend.
On this quiet Sunday morning, while the sun is still undecided whether to come out or not. which makes me undecided whether to do my laundry or not, I’m writing this post to say thank you to the number of people who have decided to follow me and put their trust in me not to flood their feeds with insignificant content. I may not even be consistent on the frequency of my updates, but that’s only because I really don’t post just for keeping the pages active. I post when I feel strongly about something and I feel the need to share.
So it’s not about the number of followers that I have, it’s about their reason for following me. And whatever that reason is, I want to make sure that I will be worthy of their time.
And it’s not about the number of updates that I post, it’s about what I post, and how my followers will benefit from it.
Errr… now I’m thinking… how is this post beneficial to my readers now?
Not really sure. But I had this strong feeling of gratefulness. And I just need to share how grateful I am for all the blessings, and you, if you are reading this, are one of those.
