My mother was not a SAHM or a WAHM. She was busy practicing her profession (she is a dentist) and running her textile business in Divisoria. I was left mostly to the care of maids-from-hell. From an early age, I learned to fend for myself. I remember going to kindergaten class simply by walking. I was five years old.

As I look back, I am actually appalled at the seemingly uncaring way of my mother. There were many times that I had to eat at my aunt's place for lunch. Dinner was always late. I had to buy my own project materials for mother does not have the time. I can't remember where I got the money for there was no allowance until I was 12 years old.

I was 12 years old when I entered high school. My school was in Manila, about an hour and fifteen minute travel from my hometown of Taytay. In the morning, papa took me to school en route to his clinic. In the afternoon, I had to commute. In my 4th yr, mama decided to put me in a dorm.

I was given so much responsibility and worries at a very early age. I had to learn how to commute, cook, trade and basically take care of myself. When I entered college, I enrolled myself. There was no mama or papa to help me. In my last year of college, it was usual for me to arrive home at 10pm or sometimes 11pm. The main road connecting Taytay-Cainta-Rosario to Manila was being cemented and traffic was horrendous. Many nights I slept without dinner for I was so tired from school and commute.

I graduated. Looked for a job. Got married. Started a family. Put up a practice. Encountered problems: physical; spiritual;financial; marital. Brushes with in-laws. Got saddled with problems and anxiety of rearing five children. Suddenly I got it. I understood why my mother acted that way when my brother and I were growing up

She had no choice.She was having problems of her own then. In her own way, she manged to mold me into the person that I am today. I became the opposite of who she was and I am thankful.Today, my mother is my best friend. She has turned into a very loving and caring grandmother to my children

Happy Mothers' Day Mama!

Do they look alike or what?
On the left is Jason Castro.
On the right is one of my daughter's friend.

Last night's theme was Rock 'N Roll. Rock and Roll started in the early 50's the indeed the song choices were vast and varied. David Cook's first song was a 1982 Duran Duran song Hungry like the Wolf. His second choice was a classic 1970's song Baba O'Riley. Syesha did Proud Mary to which Simon commented that it was a cheap imitation of Tina Turner. Randy did not like Syesha's rendition of A Change is Gonna Come and she cried.Clever girl. She got sympathy votes for the raw display of emotion.

David Archueta's winning songs were Stand by Me and Love Me Tender. The two songs were caressed to perfection. Dear old Simon said that David crushed the competition.

So, finally, we say goodbye to Jason Castro. He sang I Shoot the Sheriff ala Bob Marley but, really, far from it. His second song was Mr. Tambourine Man, a classic by Bob Dylan, in which, during the first few bars, Jason forgot the lyrics. Simon bluntly told Jason to "please pack your bags". He did!

Bye Jason. I will not miss your singing but I will definitely miss your smiley-face.

Girlfriends! Mommies! Set May 30,2008 your day-off. If you have small babies and kids, book someone to babysit on this day! Carrie Bradshaw is coming to town!

Sex and the City fans were left wondering if Carrie and Mr. Big will eventually tie the knot when the series ended in 2004. I guess Sex and the City THE MOVIE will conclude according to what most fans want: Carrie marrying Mr. Big. But as I scrutinize the movie poster, doesn't Carrie looked worried?

In episode 94, we finally learned Mr. Big's name; John. The closing scene of the last episode showed Carrie on the phone talking to Mr. Big. Mr. Big was actually telling Carrie that his Napa property is finally sold and hinted that he'll be moving back to New York.

The last episode showed Miranda happily married with Steve. Charlotte and husband Harry were about to adopt an Asian baby.Samantha in remission from her breast cancer was still in love with Smith. How ironic that in real life, Miranda, or rather Cynthia Nixon is the one in remission.

Anyway, I can't wait for May 30! I am so excited and so are my girls. My son will probably stay home and watch over Ethan. Oh, did I mention that Ethan and daughters 1,3, and 4 watched Iron Man again? Pathetic!

Summer is fast approaching in the Northern Hemisphere. It is that time of the year when vacations are planned. Informations are gathered as to the best hotels and airlines to book. It has been the practice of majority of travelers to book accommodations in well-known chain hotels. If you ask me, I prefer the smaller-homely bed and breakfast type of accommodations or the smaller private hotels where service is more personalized.

A visit to Italy would not be complete without visiting the romantic city of Venice. To experience the gondola ride is definitely very romantic. The gondola has been the means of transportation in Venice. Although water-taxis are now used for main transportation in Venice, there are still a few hundreds of gondolas still for hire for tourists. There are more than 50 highly modern yet architecturally challenging personalized and small hotels in Venice. Most hotels listed in Hotel Venice are just a few steps from the water-taxi and gondola ranks. That is indeed, convenient.

Being an architect, it has always been my dream to travel to Italy to see its architectural and artistic wonders. I would want to visit is Florence, the seat of the Modern Renaissance. Hotel Florence is an online directory of small-scaled hotels in and and around Florence. I checked the list and it boast of more than a hundred quaint Florentine style hotels all having the amenities of modern living. How cool is that? The hotels are all strategically located so that commuting would be easy.

If you are a pizza-lover, then Naples is the place to be. Naples is synonymous with pizza due to the food originating from there. I wonder what different pizzas are available in the roster of accommodations in Hotel Naples? There are more than 40 hotels in the list, can that translate to more than 40 unique pizzas too?

It would be a dream come true to finally visit Italy.

I got this award from a new online buddy Emila. Thank you Emila for the thoughtfulness.


To all you great mommies out there, I give you this much-deserved award:

My favorite larger-than-life movie character is Indiana Jones. When I watched Raiders of the Lost Ark way back in 1981, I was hooked. Harrison Ford's shining star as Han Solo shone even more brighter as Dr. Henry Indiana Walton Jones Jr. Indie was an archeologist/adventurer. Set in the 1930's the Indiana Jones movie series were all great hits.

There were three Indie films. The first was Raiders of the Lost Ark where the US government commissioned Indiana Jones to find the Ark of the Covenant before the Nazis do. The second was Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. The third was The Last Crusade where Sean Connery played the part of his father while River Phoenix played the young Indie. The third film was released May 1989.

After 19 years, the fourth installment of the Indie film will have its worldwide premiere on May 22, 2008. I am so excited. His leading lady in the first film will once again be paired with Harrison. Karen Allen will play the part of Shia LaBeouf's mother. Umm.. could Shia LaBeouf be Jones's son? Let's just wait and see: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

I don't care if Harrison Ford is 65! Grandpa still rocks!

A few days ago I wrote and posted an article regarding kidney trade in the Philippines. There is a worldwide need for kidney donors. In the US alone, more than 70,000 are in need of a kidney transplant. So far, kidney trade is not readily observed in the US. In Iran, kidney and other organ sale is legal.

In Minnesota, the director of the kidney-transplant program of the University of Minnesota has proposed the kidney donors be paid for their donation. How much? How about $95,000.00!! I have done some light researching and found that there are so many ads pertaining to the sale of kidneys. The main reason for the sale is, of course, financial. Here are some kidney ads.

Sampler:

Man 40 years old from Sweden,in exellent health would like to sell my kidney. I never used any drugs,i do not drink any alcohol. I eat right and exersice every week.I am in 100% good health. My blood typ is ARH+. Serious only please! E-mail:xxxxxxxx@live.se or xxxxxx@hotmail.com By xxxxxxxxx - Feb 10

Blood : O+ve
Ready to have operation done at any place as long as there is no interference.
I give you a man's word which can be trusted. You give me MONEY (Negotiable). We then follow. I speak through email first and then I will call you.
My Email: xxxxx@yahoo.com
Send me your price and I then tell you my price. After all its my ORGAN that I give you and it has a Price.We speak all other aspects through email.

Description: KIDNEY FOR SALE. MUST PAY BILLS SOON OR MY FAMILY WILL BE ON THE STREET. OPEN FOR NEGOTIATIONS. PLEASE HELP ME KEEP MY CHILDREN IN THEIR HOME. ALL OTHER OPTIONS HAVE FAILED, THIS IS MY LAST RESORT. PLEASE CONTACT xxxxxxxx@yahoo.com

I cannot put words to how I feel regarding this. I know that we are plagued and burdened with problems. The whole world is grasping for, literally, clean air! The price of gas has soared beyond our imagination. It is a great task to rear a family in this time and age. Life, is indeed, harsh and hard. Is the hardship that we are experiencing enough reason for us to lose our quality of being humane?

The selling of body parts is a sure sign that we are losing our humanity. Can't we all try to preserve the civilization and humanity that still remain?

Photo courtesy of: Inkycircus

If my opinion, motherhood may be the most demanding and stressful job in the world. Being a mother is a 24/7 occupation or shall I say, preoccupation. It all started (the occupation/preoccupation) when you carried the fetus in your womb for 40 weeks, gaining a gazillion pounds in the process. When the baby was born, you became a SAHM to take care of the infant, making sure he was fed, bathed, sang to, talked to and loved. You nurtured the child. You taught him things about life, God, the birds and the bees, the universe.

You were there when he took his first walk. You were not offended when his first word was dada and not mama. You had endless doctor's appointment and immunizations. You learned to drive sans your arms as you were using your left hand to unscrew the baby bottle while your right hand was groping for the milk canister in the baby's bag which conveniently rolled on the farthest side of the passenger seat. You became adept in procuring costumes for school plays and presentations. You made do without so many things just so you can have your child enrolled in extra-curricular activities- to enhance his well-being and make him well-rounded.

You were expected to be the driving force of the family. You were expected to cook superb meals, plan and give spectacular birthday parties, and be the life of every family activity. You were expected to pat your child's back, hug and reassure him in times of great disappointment when all you wanted to do was curl up and cry too.

You can never ever get sick. In the rare times that you do get sick, you feel sicker thinking how your child was coping up. You lament on how you never go out with your girlfriends anymore but deep down, you don't really want to.

You can't wait for your child to grow up. Please grow up so I can have more time for myself and my neglected career. The child grows older and you do get more time for yourself as he has learned to do things for himself. However, the anxiety never leaves as new sets of problems present itself in an almost regular consistency- the angst of a teenager; the bickering among siblings; the i-hate-you-mom-i-wish-you'd-die phase; love hurts; career choice; rearing his own family and countless more. Now I know.

Motherhood never ends. You can't stop being a mother even if you want to. To all the great mothers out there, I salute you!

photo: Norman Koren

"All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel Mother." - Abraham Lincoln

It is indeed great to be a mother. Motherhood is such a great blessing. In a child's eye, the mother is the most beautiful woman in his life, for it is from her that he was loved and cherished unconditionally.



Share your favorite Mother's Day quotes and place your blog/name right after the piece of artwork.

1. Irresistible Fascinations / Naomi 2. Manna from Heaven/Lena 3.And Life Goes On/Lena 4. Your site and name

I am tagging a lot of mommies now:Venus Darlene Sheng Jo-N Shimumsy Yums Anne Alleh

I took this quiz and was rated as a great English speaker though one in need of some brushing-up. The thing is, I was not shown the mistakes in the quiz that I took. It was suggested to me , however, to enroll in an advance English class, translating to moolah for the site that gave the free test.



Why don't you take the quiz and find out if you are a source of nosebleeds? A nosebleed, in Filipino idiom, has the connotation of either a writer or a speaker who uses high falluting words or one whose work or speech is plagued with errors, syntax et al. So which kind of a nosebleeder are you?

If you are a high falluting word nosebleeder, lighten up! If you are the grammatically incorrect nosebleeder, dude, who cares?!

Iron Man rocks! I have always liked Robert Downey Jr. He is one of today's best romantic-comedy actors. I so adored him as Larry Paul, the lawyer boyfriend of Ally in the defunct Ally McBeal show. For the longest time, Robert was a self-confessed drug dependent. He lost so many leading roles in the offing because of his addiction.

When I heard that Downey Jr. was playing the role of Tony Stark aka Iron Man, I was not impressed. I cannot imagine him playing the role of a Marvel super hero. He is just too glam for an action hero role. Think: Brad Pitt as the Hulk. Ewww... With great uncertainty, my kids, Ethan and I went to see the movie.


Surprise! Surprise! Robert did justice to the role. He was not the cutesy-cuddly Robert of old but a mature, highly buffed, toned muscle, withasenseofhumor-sexy Iron Man. He fitted the role to a big capital T! His body looked so toned and lithe, I felt like drooling. The scene that impressed me most was when numerous robotic hands were putting on his gear! Kewl!, Ethan said.

I liked the movie. Why? Because I was not expecting the movie to be of consequence yet it delivered. I was actually expecting Robert Downey Jr. liken to a square peg in a round hole. However: I was mesmerized! Captivated! Iron Man 2?

An online buddy ,Herson, introduced me to a site that pays you to do essays and research works. He said he has been with that company for a year and that the pay is good. Wanting to spread out my wings in terms of writing and well, earning money online, I signed up. All I had to do was fill-up the online application form and attach a sample of my work. I was readily approved to be one of the site's new writer for hire.

I was excited. Finally, a writing gig where I am not hired based on my site's PR or popularity or location or domain(or lack of it). Google will be happy with me. No more paid blogging! I received emails after emails of writing opportunities. As I peruse the topics, I thought what the heck did I get myself into? Here are some samples of opportunities offered to me.

Topic: Mobility/Continuing Care Nursing Care Plan
Type: Case Study (Health and Social Care)
Pages: 30
Level: Specialized Level (Nursing)
Page cost: $10.65
Total: $319.50
Deadline: 2008-05-07 06:21:15 PST
Style: APA, UK English
Sources: 10

Topic:How does an initially successful behaviour establish itself
as a self-defeating behaviour and why is it so difficult for the client
to recognise it?'
Type:Problem-Solving (Other/Not Specified)
Level: College Level
Page cost: $7.14
Total: $71.40
Deadline: 2008-05-03 23:36:17 PST
Style: MLA, UK
Sources:2

I signed up to write for subjects in art, religion and other easy social sciences. The clients specify the number of resources that is why it's imperative to do research work. Researching is not really a daunting task: but if you have to write a 30-page-10-resources-research- in- specialized nursing, a subject I know nothing about, to be written in UK English in 3-4 days, I say, old chap count me out.

The in-demand topics are business, health care and philosophy related. As I continue to receive offers of perplexing topics, my nose persists to bleed!

A Global Day of Prayer is set on May 11, 2008, Pentecost Sunday. Please click on the link below for more information. We have shown complete support and participation during Earth Hour. Let us do the same and more.



Check this out please.

A Global Day of Prayer

photo courtesy

Good-bye Brooke White. Simon comment of Brooke's first song being a nightmare must have made an impact on the voting public. America preferred Jason Castro than Brooke even when his two songs were forgettable. What is it with Jason? Simon is short of telling the American voters to stop voting for Jason. Jason really, really needs to go home!

Next week's show will be a wreck for Jason and Syesha. It is the do or die episode for them. The two Davids are the likely finalists. I like the little David but the big David is brilliant.

That is the title of Ethan's play, or shall I say operetta. The play tells a story of three fugly caterpillars wondering what their special gift is. They see that the ant's special gift is its strength; the spider its wittiness; the flower, its beauty. Still, the caterpillars were sure that God has special plans and gifts for them so they waited patiently. The moral: Wait patiently for the Lord. Everything will fall in its rightful place in His time. This, indeed, is a beautiful message to instill to children.


Ethan's Self-Portrait. Kinda gearing towards impressionism huh.











Eat your heart out, Vincent!
This is Ethan's picture concept of the play.








The Cast. Encore! Very well done.
Kudos to the never-tiring teachers!

PR! The mighty Google has once again waved its mighty wand and has merited page ranks to deserving sites. The italics in the word deserving because I truly question the basis of page ranking. Why? This blog is still PR 0 despite its technorati rank, izea real ranks, link popularity and backlinks. This site has all the markings of at least a PR 2. I do not question other sites but mine. You see, my other blog, Manna from Heaven has now a PR 3!

Manna from Heaven is my two-month old personal inspirational blog. It has very few posts and links. I just keep the blog to vent and air my spiritual inspirations or sometimes, my lack of it. On the other hand, And Life Goes On , is a personal blog that airs all my angsts aside from making it a venue for paid ads and reviews. It had a PR 4 for an hour or two, then poof! Zero again.

Having said that, now I know why this blog is zilch. We, paid bloggers, have been warned of paid links and reviews. Reviewing sites and products and putting backlinks to these sites count as paid links that Google does not like. Um.. so the G robot read my paid-review-links and other non-adsense click-to-get-paid links and decided to count my site out?

Page Ranking counts to bloggers like me who earn extra for product and service reviews. The higher the PR, the more opportunities are available. What good is my PR 3 in my inspirational blog? Should I start to use that blog for paid reviews?

Nah!

I was about to log off and call it a day when this caption caught my attention: The Worst Foods in America. With piqued curiosity, I clicked on the link. There are 20 listed worst foods in the US categorized under worst salad, worst burger, worst kid's meal, worst chicken meal, etc. The food are labeled worst because of the caloric, fat and carbohydrate contents.

The king of them all is the worst food title given to Outback's Steakhouse Aussies Cheese Fries with Ranch Dressing. At 2,900 calories per order, this food is equivalent to eating 14 donuts. Note that to gain one pound is to eat 3,000 calories more that you burn for the day. Now we know why we're fat! Sigh!