Thoughts for the Future

It's been a hectic week for me. With an active toddler running around the house that always needs attention, this mom cannot find the right time to finish all of her tasks. Even if I wanted to just close the door in the room to find some quiet time is not possible. Apparently, you can't ignore the world outside your room even if there is a physical barrier between you and the little tot. Don't get me wrong, I love my kid. She is my life and the reason why I work so hard. But the constant pitter patter of little feet and calls for mommy is just too much sometimes. Especially when I’m in the middle of processing ideas in my head.

It made me wonder how my parents got through it. There were five of us with a 2 year age gap in between. It’s like they’ve been caring for toddlers in the house all their life. It must have been total chaos when we were younger.

Now that they are at their retirement age, I wonder what would make them more comfortable in the future. Living around noisy toddlers again or have something similar to Denver Assisted Living. Personally, I am scared of that future. But for now I’ll savor my time with my parents and perhaps let them all be noisy with the little one without worries of responsibilities.

Una makes me feel like levitating

Official entry to Levy's Levytate and Win a Total of $500 Worth of Cash and Prizes.

Levy's huge contest is coming to an end by the end of this month. I've been neglecting this for the past weeks but I'm glad that I still have the chance to join the contest and be eligible for the grand prize. Anyway, Levy wanted us to answer this question:

"What are the things/situations that would make you feel like levitating?"

There are so many important things that I wanted to post here but I'm not sure where to start.

Was it the time when I first saw that two pink lines in a pregnancy test home kit?

I was ecstatic but didn't dare try jumping in our cramped bathroom.

Was it when I gave birth to a perfectly healthy little girl?

Oh, believe me I would if I wasn't high from anesthesia when I first woke up.

I honestly cannot pin point that moment when I actually feel like soaring with happiness.

On finding inspiration

I have been so uninspired recently. With the cold gloomy weather, I cannot even go out of the house. All I want is to curl up in my bed, drink some tea and watch bad drama on the telly.

Where do you get your inspiration?

As for me, I love walking aimlessly in downtown Manila. I used to do that when I was still in the University and living with my parents. There is so much more to see in a busy commercial street that people often disregard. I long ago moved out of Manila and have no easy access to its busy streets. But I still have my occasional walk while window shopping and collecting well made rack card printing in mall establishments. I especially love rack cards found in bookstores and coffee shops.

Since it was a rainy week, I did some edits in the photographs I collected last month instead. I found this little flower along the sidewalk of Camp Aguinaldo.

As you can see, we can find inspiration everywhere. All we need is a keen eyesight and a little thinking out of the box.

Found anything inspirational these days?

Thoughts on going back to school

In less than three weeks, school will start again. Yet, here I am again still not enrolled to any university. I stopped schooling when I was already in my fourth year of my bachelor’s degree and decided to work in a call center instead. But I got tired of being a corporate slave so I decided to go back to school. It’s been three years now since I left work and I have been contemplating since then if I should go back to school or not.

There are many options out there to finish my education. I can still enroll myself in a traditional school but with the number of years that I was out of the university, they told me that I have to take an entrance exam again. Apart from traditional schooling, there is an option for Open University. It is like being homeschooled but I have to do it on my own and will be required to go to school during exams. The third and easiest option is to earn bachelor degree online. But with so many options of online schools out there, I’m not really sure where to start.

I really wish I could finish my bachelor degree before my daughter starts her education. She’s already two years old and I still haven’t decided yet what’s the best option to finish my degree.

on my way to being productive

When I was still a corporate slave, I followed a getting things done system (or simply called GTD) using a pile of index cards. It worked well with me. I had things done on time, paid bills, even had time to meet with friends. It also go hand in hand with my budget system.

But when I stopped working, I feel that the GTD system doesn't work with me anymore. So I stopped doing it. I thought it would be easier to manage a home without one. Let's just say that I was so wrong. My management skills went haywire during my pregnancy. With my morning sickness that happened not just in the morning but all day long, I couldn't find it in myself to do anything. Then we had the baby and you all probably know what happened during those times: sleepless nights, breastfeeding and starting a new routine.

And what do you know, nothing gets done.

So for this year, I'm focusing on my personal growth. I started making a list of things to get done for the day. Nothing too drastic. It serves as my guide for the day. The idea is to know the things that I must do for the day then include it with the other things I planned to do. By the end of the day, I'll look at my list and my must-do task crossed out then I can say that I had a productive day. The trick here is to be realistic on the things that you planned to do and don't overwhelm yourself with the tasks you assigned to yourself. Then before you go to sleep, make a must-do list for the next day.

With this system, I realized that once I'm done with my must-do list and my plan-to-do list, I have a lot of time in my hand. Hopefully, one day I'll include yoga as part of my list.

Project I Will

A new year usually comes with a New Year's resolution -- and with that comes change. Change is good, but people is also afraid of it. Too much risk and so many things to learn. But why do we make a list of things we want to change in our lives but so afraid of changing life anyway?

Change's great enemy is routine. Once people get used to the things they do, even if they don't like, they still stick to it. That's why people always wait for the new year to make a change in their life, to avoid disturbance in their usual routine. That is also one reason why people like me fail in achieving my New Year's resolution. But why wait that long for a change when we can start it now?

Since I am posting this on the first month of the year, I will make this a not-really New Year's resolution. Instead of changing something major with my life, I will start with the small mundane things that we usually neglect.

Project I Will #02

Easy, right? With our busy lives, we tend to forget to enjoy the simple things in life. We always focus on the big thing that we forget that it's also important to stop for a while a savor the moment. Doing this doesn't have to last for only a week, we can do this everyday in our lives, starting now.

This post's inspiration is from a link shared by WifelySteps in her Plurk account. It's a website where you can make your new year's resolution if you can't think of any. But in my case, I'd like to make it a weekly resolution. Like a Project 365 with photography but I would like to call this Project I Will and will be made weekly.

But since I found out about the site this week, I will consider the first entry I received from the site as the first week entry. Since the New Year falls on a Friday, I will start posting new entries in Project I Will on Fridays.

I will end this blog post by doing my first week's resolution.

Project I Will #01

 halu

hello

konnichiwa

ahn nyeong ha se yo

guten tag

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New Year's Resolution Generator can be found in Monina Velarde's website

Dear 2010

Image credit: http://ulifestyle.blogspot.com/ via weheartit

I am looking forward for our time together. I hope you'll give us just as much happiness as I had with your sibling 2009, but not as much of a heartache like what happened in September. We have so much to do and we are just starting. Let's help each other making this new year better than before.

Happy new you, happy new year!