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Posted by Mommy Woobie on September 29th, 2008 in Mom Entrepreneur, Mommy Thoughts

Here are a few tips I would like to share about being a freelancer over the net. It’s mostly fun, but there are rough spots. Fortunately, I managed to dodge the tighter spots and did well on every project I handled.

Take Care of Your Investment

Working as long as I did on the PC taught me two things: I should at least know how to troubleshoot, and when it needs something, I give it without question. A farmer has his plough, A call center agent has a headset, a carpenter has his tool… and a freelancer writing mommy has her personal PC. It’s been a while since our last memory upgrade, and maybe i need another one again.

As the hubby tells me time and time again, I should treat my workforce (my PC) like a real employee. I have to give it a break once in a while (reformat/reboot), maybe give it a hefty memory boost and find a way to keep it up to date, and jazzed up with the latest versions of the software I use. Business investment for freelancers is easy. Your main source of work power is your brain, so your work station should be state of the art.

Learn the Ropes

Luckily for me, I have friends who walked me through the rigors of applying for and completing a job. I have enough knowledge about client quirks to impress even my former boss. Sometimes it takes just a few strokes on my keyboard to turn a client off, or to get accolades from satisfied customers. Feedback is the single most important thing in the freelancer world. Satisfy one and you can list that client as a reference.

There are technicalities to improving my craft, like learning photoshop (or a logo maker) and finding out how html works. The more you can contribute to the project, the more you will be valued. Content over the net is what drives businesses to fluorish, and if you provide it well, sooner or later everyone will know it.

Selecting Projects

One project is different from the rest, and so there is no set template that you can whip up for one client. ou have to tailor your service according to their needs, be intuitive in finding out what they really want to happen, spend some time talking to them about their project….. In essence, caring enough for their success that they won’t feel cheated of their money.

My rule of thumb when choosing projects is this: choose only the ones I am most familiar with. I never entertain anything that I won’t enjoy doing. I love my job, but some projects are so fun that they don’t seem like work at all.

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Posted by Mommy Woobie on September 29th, 2008 in Family Quirks, Kids' Imagination, Mommy Thoughts

For those who will celebrate a traditional Halloween with their kids and community, here are a few suggestions from Mom by Choice.

For family fun, you can celebrate Halloween by:

1. Picking your own pumpkin and visiting a local pumpkin farm.
The chore of halloween has always been carving the pumpkin lanterns. Well, if you visit a local pumpkin farm, this chore could turn out to be fun. You can join lantern making competitions and attend lantern parties within the farm itself. Pumpkin farm owners know that Halloween is the peak of their business and go out of their way to make the activities on their farms during this holiday a festive one.

2. Read a Halloween Story out loud while eating your homemade pumpkin cake or pumpkin pie (recipe available via the link)

The story can be original and archived for future generations. If you have a family scribe, the story can even be a part of your family’s history for good. Print out the written version of the story and place this in a scrapbook together with photos of your costumes during Halloween. Alternatively, watching a scary movie with the whole family could make the experience less creepy.

Some Halloween Trivia
Did you know that…

• turnip lanterns was the traditional Halloween carved lantern of choice before pumpkins?
• the threat of trick or treat used to be “will sing and dance for treats”?
• originated in Great Britain and Ireland as an ancient Celtic festival?

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Posted by Mommy Woobie on September 29th, 2008 in Mom Entrepreneur, Mommy Thoughts

There was a commotion at home a few weeks back, most of it caused by me. I was typing rapidly to meet the tons of work that I took in when the keyboard suddenly died…. as in, not working. All this at 3 o’clock in the morning. This is one of the downsides of using a wireless keyboard and mouse. When the battery dies, you are in for a rough time. However, the bad stops there.

Once I bought a battery charger for my keyboard and mouse to fuction as I want them to without interruption, the rest was easy. A wireless keyboard makes navigating around my cramped home office space easy. I can type while hugging the baby by adjusting the keyboard (and the baby) on my lap. The same goes for the mouse. However, you should know that there are wireless keyboards, and there are Wireless Keyboards. This photo was from buy.com’s sale.

This Logitech wireless has a peculiar shape, and from experience, I will describe the difference between this and a traditional rectangular wireless keyboard. This shape allows a “natural” resting position for your hands. Why is this important? Your hands get tired. And, if like me, you’re churning out a 100 page ebook from your mind, you need to be comfortable.

One of the rigors of being a freelance writer is writing. It could be a health hazard. There were times when my whole hand felt like it could fall off because of the strain of typing. While it will take time for most people to get used to this “ergonomic” shape, the effort to learn how to use it will increase productivity a hundred fold. There are a lot of ways to perk up your mind when you feel sleepy, but there is no exact medicine for wrists that are tired or are hurting.

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Posted by Mommy Woobie on September 29th, 2008 in Mommy Alert

Ever since my son could eat semisolid foodstuff, I’ve taken he precaution on “overfeeding” to heart. My advisors, as well as the books and magaiznes that I consumed during my pregnancy told me that “a fat baby makes a fat adult”. However, I really am of two minds when it comes to weight now. I realize that the first stage of weight gain begins during early teens, then continues on to late adolescence.

During the teenage years, whatever a teener consumes, she loses fast. Even the chubbier ones need not worry, cellulite is nowhere in site and all that they have are baby fats. There’s a big difference, in my experience. Baby fats go away even without diet pills (like the all-effective alli). Just a bit of sports interest and running will shed those off.

Beware that there’s an age where all the heady metabolism stops. For me it was 22. After that, it takes longer for the weight to go away.

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Posted by Mommy Woobie on September 29th, 2008 in Mommy Alert, Mommy Thoughts

I wish I didn’t burn all my diaries while I was growing up, because they documented everything that I went through during adolescecnce. Why dd I burn them or get rid of them? Funnily enough, the same reasons why I started writing in it in the first place: crushes, somewhat-boyfriends, and talks of who I’m “more friends” with.

Down memory lane now, I remember bringing my diary to school and writing on it ostentatiously. The best way then to make other classmates and friends curious about your diary is to show them you have one. Secrecy is your best bet at being noticed. And, I somehow knew it.

I think it was around Freshman year in high school (middle school to some) when acne developed. At first I did the “Band-aid” technique to hide it. I was one of the lucky girls who didn’t have much pimples. Some of my friends weren’t so lucky. I think a few dermatologists became instant millionaires then, with an all-girl exclusive school in town. Some girls in my class won’t even attend class when they’re having “bad face day”.

So, to answer the question: I think acne starts when menarch comes.

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Posted by Mommy Woobie on September 23rd, 2008 in Mommy Alert

As soon as the news about the melamine-contaminated milk erupted, I and baby went down on our knees (or should I say, I did and he pulled on my hands to get up) and prayed for the 13,000 babies who were affected (died/became sick) because they drank the contaminated milk products. These milk product come in the form of milk formula, milk in sachets (for recess break in schools) and powdered milk for daily consumption at home.

Melamine?

The melamine that the shady manufacturers include in these milk products are used to create plastic products. They add this to the milk so that they pass quality control with seemingly ample amounts of protein and protein-like bodies in it. These milk products are sweetened and will seem like they are nutritious with the high protein content, but they are not. These are diluted and the protein percentage is a scam.

Why the babies?

Apparently, the contaminants can get excreted by an adult, but babies who consume milk every few hours do not metabolize the contaminants properly and these get trapped in their kidneys. They die from kidney failure. Some signs to watch out for: swelling of the feet and appendages, painful urination and fever.

I spent a few minutes making my son drink mineral water and watching him closely, to his amusement and the hubby’s exasperation. Of course we didn’t buy those products (Mommy consults a doctor for the slightest milk intake modifications) but I was struck with paranoia again.

Let’s ALL pray for the kids who died or are dying due to the milk contaminants.

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Posted by Mommy Woobie on September 23rd, 2008 in Family Quirks, Kids' Imagination, Mom Entrepreneur, Mommy Thoughts

It’s been three months since this working mom resigned from her company to become a full time freelancer and mother. Since that time, I have been busting the laptop I bought (technically, still paying for) with all the gusto of someone who knows how the funds for next month’s food and necessities will come from the sales I make and services I get paid for this month.

Being the breadwinner while my partner prepares for overseas work is a sweet but tiring thing. On one hand, I get to control everything that we do with our earnings and get to demand some time off from chores to finish a project that is due soon. That’s the tiring part.

The sweet part of each completed project, each sale, each paypal withdrawal, is the story of the kid who hogs the nintendo DS just when Mommy wants to relax and play; making Mommy consider buying her own  top secret Nintendo Wii set, while there’s a sale at buy.com, and a package of three games comes with the Wii set.

Owning a Wii set is exciting, at least until the latest latest gaming gadget comes out. For once we could all come together as a family to play in one gaming gadget, and not separately; the daddy plays MMORPG on his PC, the baby hogs the DS and the Mommy is left to play yahoo games on her work PC. Of course there could be a favorite game for each member of the family, and for some reason, I think my cooking video game won’t be welcome much to the race hungry individuals that I will share the Wii with.

We don’t know the exact moment when our son discovered how to manage the controls of the handheld, we just woke up one morning and saw him tinkering with the DS ’til he got to the start portal of Mario Kart. But as my son’s grandmom always tells us, “if a child has gamer parents, with techie lifestyles, would he even think of NOT playing video games?” And that was that.

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Posted by Mommy Woobie on September 23rd, 2008 in Mommy Alert, Mommy Thoughts

We have been travelling via car lately to get around town, and luckily, I wasn’t the one driving. There are freshener products that when mingled with auto air conditioning could cause a passenger to swoon. I’ve had people tell me that it could be psychological, that a previous experience never erased the aversion to air fresheners in my mind. Nonetheless, it takes a bit of effort for me to ride in an airconditioned car without expressing my discomfort.

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Posted by Mommy Woobie on September 23rd, 2008 in Mommy Thoughts, Philippines

Family traditions are what define us as a person. Geographical location doesn’t matter, really. It is the history of a family, the lessons that are passed on from generation to generation that make us the way we are. Even people who have migrated somewhere else, and have embraced the new culture there, yearn for the old traditions that they grew up with.

As a freelance writier, I have been asked to write about family traditions by a person who lived only briefly in the locale where her parents grew up. It really was an awakening for me. Somehow, no matter where our children go, they will always want to see the places where their parents and family members lived. I put in all my effort to making the places that she misses so much come alive. It was just a small favor that I can do for someone who didn’t get to experience what I did as a kid.

Family is a big deal to everyone, no matter how much some may deny it. No man is born an island.

For those who are planning a vacation in the USA with their family, a Branson holiday package looks inviting. Imagine spending Christmas in Silver Dollar City, with the kids enjoying all the pastries and candy they want and the adults enjoying the scenery and the music that Branson is known for. This is certainly a wonderful place to connect and communicate with family members, particularly those in the US who could be very homesick. A reminder of their roots make their lives away from their ancestral home a lot more pleasant.

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Posted by Mommy Woobie on September 16th, 2008 in Family Quirks, Mommy Thoughts, Philippines

There are certain Filipino traditions that are so ironic that I never fully understood what they meant or insinuated. A lot of these confusing traditions have something to do with “hiya”, or the Filipino version of ‘feeling shame’ over trivial matters.

1. Offering Food and Declining the Offer

When you come here, you often hear “Kain!” when lunch time or dinner rolls in. This is the Filipino way of offering food to strangers and people they barely know. In fact, it could be a way of greeting someone while you’re eating. Instead of saying “Hello”, you say “let’s eat!”.

The confusing way this tradition was explained to me was this: It’s polite to offer to share your meal to a person, BUT, it is equally polite for the other person to decline the offer.

My initial questions as a meticulous kid of 6 was “why offer in the first place if you don’t expect the other person to accept it”. As a matter of fact, most people who get offered to eat decline the offer REGARDLESS if they’re starving or not.

2. Paying for Someone’s Fare in a Jeepney

A jeepney is the primary mode of transport for Filipinos. It means sharing the spacious backride of a jeep with at least 10 other people. One Filipino tradition/quirk that always had me laughing silently was the instinct of bringing out your wallet and paying the fare of a friend who just happened to ride the jeep with you.

The scene in a jeepney when two friends collide is this. The one (friend 1) who is already on the jeep says hi and exchange pleasantries with friend 2 (the one just getting on), they then simultaneously ask each other “have you paid your fare?” then scramble to pay each other’s fare. A wrestling match of hands giving money to the driver ensues as both insist that the other should keep his or her money. Taking this to an extreme scenario, if friend one doesn’t offer to pay for friend 2’s fare, friend 1 apologizes profusely and announces to the whole world that he is “sorry I could not offer to pay your fare, I am having financial difficulaties as of the momen”, OR at the very least, sports an ashamed look.

The last time I laughed out loud at this exchange, I felt the very painful pinch of an aunt. So, I never laughed  out loud again.

A Filipino Mom’s Dilemma

Considering how these Filipino traditions are pointless and confusing, though they could have originated from very good values, I am having trouble thinking up ways of explaining these to my son. Offering food and offering to pay for fare are very good things to teach my son, but I am still of two minds about these.

Maybe I’ll just go with the explanation that was given to me… “It’s just the FILIPINO way“.

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