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Posted by Mommy Woobie on October 22nd, 2008 in Mom Entrepreneur, Mommy Thoughts

When I gave up the Personal computer to purchase a laptop, I instinctively felt that I could have problems with memory. But then again, who will need too much memory with only a few word docs and a few photo files to manager right?

I was wrong! A few dozen client requests later, I had a hard drive full of documents, zip files, article softwares, encyclopedias, a grammar book, a spelling book, some idiom references and writing courses, and what-not. Living on an external hard drive became my new normal and it’s ok, but I dread the time when I would have to cllutter my space with another one. Nonetheless, I still have enough space on my desk for my magazines and notebooks. I keep a separate notebook for each blog and manila folders for inspirational materials.

Working over the net could be hassling particularly if you have a hubby who gets exasperated with every techie request I make. I’m a dreamer geek not a techie geek.

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Posted by Mommy Woobie on October 21st, 2008 in Family Quirks, Mommy Thoughts

Here’s a sale alert at buy.com. There’s an Acer laptop for 300+ US dollars, which is a lot cheaper than my own Compaq laptop. Actually, I can think of a lot of other notebooks that are cheaper than my Compaq, but I had mine modified to accommodate more memory for all the “paperwork” my freelance writing job brings.
There’s a microSD for 5.99, which may come in handy during the holidays (for digicams that need lots of extra space).

Of the featured products, I like this best: a 2 GB Kingston flashdrive for 12 US dollars (there’s a 4 GB for 32, which is ok too, but the color is gold! ugh). Being a telecommuter made me appreciate the size of a portable device where I can store my files in while travelling. If you have most of your stuff in a flas drive, and you are sure to have internet access in your travel destination, why lug your laptop with you right?

Heh. Is it obvious that I want to leave my laptop behind when I go home this Halloween season? I really don’t want to work during the holidays, but I can’t resist the offers with the little pinoy devil’s birthday coming up.

The best part of this month’s sales at buy.com is the pink for october donations. Pink for October is a breast cancer awareness movement that has been around the net for a time now. Every purchase at buy.com will enable you to donate to the movement. So, if you have been looking to buy anyway, why not buy now when your purchase will count more?

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Posted by Mommy Woobie on October 11th, 2008 in Mommy Thoughts, Pregnancy

This post is for Apple, my best friend, who is now 8 months ‘big’. I am excited to be a godmother to her child and yes, I know what she’s going through.

• Want to scratch something down below your leg but can’t do it without toppling over.
• Getting tired of Would-be-Mommy’s Milk supplements
• Feet are swollen and cracked from the weight
• Tummy itches.
• Face itches.
• Back itches at the slightest breakout of sweat.

Note: I think that everything itches during pregnancy because we know we can’t get to scratch them at will. It’s like a mind over matter thing. Or, we are just really irritable at this time that we take it out on scratching. If this is the case, always have a roll of tissue you can tear at will when you feel irritable. Calamine lotion was my best friend. Spread it on itches but never on the tummy.

Tummy itches come from within, and most of the time, these are not external.

My skin didn’t break out like some others with more sensitive skin, but I did break out in some places, and I used water and crushed papaya on the scars. Do not use commercial acne treatment because your skin is extra sensitive at this time, and if a bad reaction occurs, you will have to take antibiotics, which is risky for a pregnant mom.

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Posted by Mommy Woobie on October 9th, 2008 in Mom Entrepreneur, Mommy Alert, Mommy Thoughts, Proud Mommy

Here’s an update of what life has been for this WAHM (work at home mom) these past weeks.

1. Global finances and the recession in the USA alerted me to possible client and project decline. But not so! As soon as the recession news hit, jobs poured. Could it be that everyone’s hitting the internet to catch those who want to invest on the money making online business models?

2. The latest news in melamine contamination tell us how the damage isn’t isolated to Milk Products. Some MEAT products have been contaminated as well. Going to the supermarket today showed me just how this affected the shopping habits of moms. There is a BIG Christmas tree-like pile of Chinese luncheon meat at the center of the grocery store but people are avoiding it like the plague. Also, I found it understandable that moms came very close to sorting the milk products shelves themselves. I heard one grocery attendant mumble “Can’t these people read labels?” after the tenth mom asked her if they are selling milk from China.

3. The baby AJ can speak some straight words, but they’re all in Ilocano (my regional dialect). He shouted “Umaycan” (translation: “Come here!”) while he was calling us to go to the dinner table to eat dinner. Boy, was the hubby furious that he’s not learning English first. I, on the other hand, am very proud.

4. I’m planning on buying a treadmill while they’re on sale BUT (a) we don’t have space and (b) the baby could get excited and claim it as his.

5. One client didn’t pay me for a week’s worth of work. Yeah he just disappeared from elance.com, and we couldnt contact him. Sucks, but karma is a bigger beetch, so I’m doing fine.

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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, 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 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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