Fireworks For The New Year

All over the globe, in most major cities in the world, every December 31 at the strike of midnight, the once dark sky will transform into a colorful magnificient display of fireworks and all heads up with lots of ohhs and ahhs, and there are others who are just plain speechless as they observed the glittering display of fireworks right in front of them.

In the beginning, I learned/heard that fireworks was not performed every New Years Eve or at the strike of midnight just for the colorful display that it gives. its been told that fireworks creates noise, lots and lots of noise, that is why it is performed on New Years Eve/Day to drive the bad spirit away for the new year, and the whole year through. In the olden times, and in some countries at present, noise are still being performed on New Years Eve/Day in the hopes of driving away the evil spirits that are lurking around. Yes, these traditions for that purpose are still being observed at this time of year, specially in some countries. These countries who still observe these traditions, aside from using fireworks to produce noise, people also use drums, empty cans, and any other noise creating methods are performed for this purpose.

What about you? Do you watch fireworks show/displays every New Years Day? Like some traditions, do you also believe in noise created during New Year Eve/Day drives away bad spirits and misfortunes?

Happy NEW YEAR 2008, everyone! Wishin everyone the BEST YEAR yet!

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The Birth Month Personality Meme...

I got tagged by Justine with this meme.. Thanks girl!

I am tagging YOU (if you are currently reading THIS MEME/TAG in between December 29, 2007 to January 10, 2008) then YOU ARE BEING TAGGED with this meme! Hope you have time to answer this! Please let me know when you answer this so I can read your blog too.

Here are the rules of this tag/meme:
1. Mention the person who tagged you and create a link back to them.
2. Copy-paste the traits for all the twelve months (see below).
3. Pick your month of birth (see below).
4. Highlight the traits that apply to you.
5. Tag 12 people and let them know by visiting their blogs and leaving a comment for them.
6. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve done it.

Personality Traits for DECEMBER (in GREEN) and What I Think (in BLACK):

Loyal and generous. Rediculously true. Sexy. Nah. Patriotic. I love world peace, and love my country definitely. Active in games and interactions. Used to be a school athlete, not anymore, used to join lots of clubs and organizations, but not at this time. Impatient and hasty. i just rediculously worry too much and get paranoid sometimes. Ambitious. Aim High so that if I fall short, I dont flap to the very bottom...is one of my motto in life. Influential in organizations. Thats cool, maybe i should run for President then? Fun to be with. Loves to socialize. I am shy at times, but friends and family means so much in my life so I try my best to let them know that they are important to me. Loves praises. Loves attention. Loves to be loved. I am kinda private person actually, I am more like the one in the backstage rather than the one on stage... Honest and trustworthy. Is that why I got elected as class treasurer several times? Not pretending. You only have one chance in life to be yourself, so why waste and pretend to be someone else when you are given the chance once to be uniquely you? Short tempered. Changing personality. Not egotistic. Huh? I am not sure about these stuff.. Take high pride in oneself. Hates restrictions. I have my shortcomings too, but I strive really hard to be able to do things that I want to do and achieve in life, I dont like being told that you cannot do this or that, or not good enough, because if others can do it, why cant i?...Loves to joke. Good sense of humor. Life could defintely use a lot of that... Logical. Maybe that is why my favorite subject is Math and i took engineering course?


THE MONTHLY FLAVORS,WHICH ARE YOU?

JANUARY: Stubborn and hard-hearted. Ambitious and serious. Loves to teach and be taught. Always looking at people’s flaws and weaknesses. Likes to criticize. Hardworking and productive. Smart, neat and organized. Sensitive and has deep thoughts. Knows how to make others happy. Quiet unless excited or tensed. Rather reserved. Highly attentive. Resistant to illnesses but prone to colds. Romantic but has difficulties expressing love. Loves children. Loyal. Has great social abilities yet easily jealous. Very stubborn and money cautious.

FEBRUARY: Abstract thoughts. Loves reality and abstract. Intelligent and clever. Changing personality. Attractive. Sexy. Temperamental. Quiet, shy and humble. Honest and loyal. Determined to reach goals. Loves freedom. Rebellious when restricted. Loves aggressiveness. Too sensitive and easily hurt. Gets angry really easily but does not show it. Dislikes unnecessary things. Loves making friends but rarely shows it. Daring and stubborn. Ambitious. Realizes dreams and hopes. Sharp. Loves entertainment and leisure. Romantic on the inside not outside. Superstitious and ludicrous. Spendthrift. Tries to learn to show emotions.

MARCH: Attractive personality. Sexy. Affectionate. Shy and reserved. Secretive. Naturally honest, generous and sympathetic. Loves peace and serenity. Sensitive to others. Loves to serve others. Easily angered. Trustworthy. Appreciative and returns kindness. Observant and assesses others. Revengeful. Loves to dream and fantasize. Loves traveling. Loves attention. Hasty decisions in choosing partners. Loves home decors. Musically talented. Loves special things. Moody.

APRIL: Active and dynamic. Decisive and hasty but tends to regret. Attractive and affectionate to oneself. Strong mentality. Loves attention. Diplomatic. Consoling, friendly and solves people’s problems. Brave and fearless. Adventurous. Loving and caring. Suave and generous. Emotional. Aggressive. Hasty. Good memory. Moving. Motivates oneself and others. Sickness usually of the head and chest. Sexy in a way that only their lover can see.

MAY: Stubborn and hard-hearted. Strong-willed and highly motivated. Sharp thoughts. Easily angered. Attracts others and loves attention. Deep feelings. Beautiful physically and mentally. Firm Standpoint. Needs no motivation. Easily consoled. Systematic (left brain). Loves to dream. Strong clairvoyance. Understanding. Sickness usually in the ear and neck. Good imagination. Good physical. Weak breathing. Loves literature and the arts. Loves traveling. Dislike being at home. Restless. Not having many children. Hardworking. High spirited. Spendthrift.

JUNE: Thinks far with vision. Easily influenced by kindness. Polite and soft-spoken. Having ideas. Sensitive. Active mind. Hesitating, tends to delay. Choosy and always wants the best. Temperamental. Funny and humorous. Loves to joke. Good debating skills. Talkative. Daydreamer. Friendly. Knows how to make friends. Able to show character. Easily hurt. Prone to getting colds. Loves to dress up. Easily bored. Fussy. Seldom shows emotions. Takes time to recover when hurt. Brand conscious. Executive. Stubborn.

JULY: Fun to be with. Secretive. Difficult to fathom and to be understood. Quiet unless excited or tensed. Takes pride in oneself. Has reputation. Easily consoled. Honest. Concerned about people’s feelings. Tactful. Friendly. Approachable. Emotional temperamental and unpredictable. Moody and easily hurt. Witty and sparkly. Not revengeful. Forgiving but never forgets. Dislikes nonsensical and unnecessary things. Guides others physically and mentally. Sensitive and forms impressions carefully. Caring and loving. Treats others equally. Strong sense of sympathy. Wary and sharp. Judges people through observations. Hardworking. No difficulties in studying. Loves to be alone. Always broods about the past and the old friends. Likes to be quiet. Homely person. Waits for friends. Never looks for friends. Not aggressive unless provoked. Prone to having stomach and dieting problems. Loves to be loved. Easily hurt but takes long to recover.

AUGUST: Loves to joke. Attractive. Suave and caring. Brave and fearless. Firm and has leadership qualities. Knows how to console others. Too generous and egoistic. Takes high pride in oneself. Thirsty for praises. Extraordinary spirit. Easily angered. Angry when provoked. Easily jealous. Observant. Careful and cautious. Thinks quickly. Independent thoughts. Loves to lead and to be led. Loves to dream. Talented in the arts, music and defense. Sensitive but not petty. Poor resistance against illnesses. Learns to relax. Hasty and trusty. Romantic. Loving and caring. Loves to make friends.

SEPTEMBER: Suave and compromising. Careful, cautious and organized. Likes to point out people’s mistakes. Likes to criticize. Stubborn. Quiet but able to talk well. Calm and cool. Kind and sympathetic. Concerned and detailed. Loyal but not always honest. Does work well. Very confident. Sensitive. Good memory. Clever and knowledgeable. Loves to look for information. Must control oneself when criticizing. Able to motivate oneself. Understanding. Fun to be around. Secretive. Loves leisure and traveling. Hardly shows emotions. Tends to bottle up feelings. Very choosy, especially in relationships. Systematic.

OCTOBER: Loves to chat. Loves those who loves them. Loves to take things at the center. Inner and physical beauty. Lies but doesn’t pretend. Gets angry often. Treats friends importantly. Always making friends. Easily hurt but recovers easily. Daydreamer. Opinionated. Does not care of what others think. Emotional. Decisive. Strong clairvoyance. Loves to travel, the arts and literature. Touchy and easily jealous. Concerned. Loves outdoors. Just and fair. Spendthrift. Easily influenced. Easily loses confidence. Loves children.

NOVEMBER: Has a lot of ideas. Difficult to fathom. Thinks forward. Unique and brilliant. Extraordinary ideas. Sharp thinking. Fine and strong clairvoyance. Can become good doctors. Dynamic in personality. Secretive. Inquisitive. Knows how to dig secrets. Always thinking. Less talkative but amiable. Brave and generous. Patient. Stubborn and hard-hearted. If there is a will, there is a way. Determined. Never give up. Hardly becomes angry unless provoked. Loves to be alone. Thinks differently from others. Sharp-minded. Motivates oneself. Does not appreciate praises. High-spirited. Well-built and tough. Deep love and emotions. Romantic. Uncertain in relationships. Homely. Hardworking. High abilities. Trustworthy. Honest and keeps secrets. Not able to control emotions. Unpredictable.

DECEMBER: Loyal and generous. Sexy. Patriotic. Active in games and interactions. Impatient and hasty. Ambitious. Influential in organizations. Fun to be with. Loves to socialize. Loves praises. Loves attention. Loves to be loved. Honest and trustworthy. Not pretending. Short tempered. Changing personality. Not egotistic. Take high pride in oneself. Hates restrictions. Loves to joke. Good sense of humor.Logical.

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The Movie: Bourne Ultimatum

We are great fans of the movie Bourne. We bought both Bourne Identity and Bourne Supremacy DVDs the moment they were released and available for sale in store shelves. We had been waiting for the next DVD release of the third Bourne, so as soon as we learned that the third movie (Bourne Ultimatum) came out this December 2007, it was definitely on our short listed list of DVDs to buy this year. As usual, the movie gave the watchers a feeling of suspense, fast, fast, fast, and quick, the whole time. If you plan to watch or buy the movie too, I would denitely recommend that you first watch the first (Bourne Identity) and second (Bourne Supremacy) movies before watching the third (Bourne Ultimatum), to be able to understand the whole movie sequence and story better because the third release is definitely a continuation of both the first and second. I personally think that the storyline and sequence of all Bourne movies are deep, complicated, and intense, you need to watch them by the sequence (first to last) for better grasp and understanding of the whole story. I also think that all three Bourne movies are definitely unique, unpredictable, and fast-paced.

And if you already own a copy of Bourne Identity and Bourne Supremacy movies, it is defiinitely worth it to add Bourne Ultimatum to your collection too.

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Blog And Earn

You blog almost everyday, talking about different things that interests you, and writing about things that you encountered or experienced on a daily basis. You blog to give your honest opinions and sincere reviews about things, without realizing that by talking about a particular company or product, you are actually giving them exposures and credits, that are mostly beneficial to that company. And it also means that you are basically giving them free promotions and free exposure of their products and services, that may one or another leads to additional income for their business and/or organization. You blog about these companies and/or products and unknowingly helped boast their business further and possibly lead to more exposures and generate more sales for them. But dont you know that advertising is one of the most expensive cost that many businesses allocate a huge budget for inorder to have their services or products be out there and be known to more people? So why not blog for money using a blog you already own, talking about a particular product or service, and at the same time actually get paid to blog about it?

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Family Traditions On New Year Day

I remember when I was a kid, most of my childhood years, I observed my mother wearing polka dots and circles wardobe during New Years Day. She also tried to make sure that me and my sister would be wearing polka dots dresses that day as well. She said that circles and polka dots symbolizes coins/finance and/or prosperity and financial success. So if we would wear polka dots on New Years Day, more money would be coming to our family for the whole year through. That was what my mother used to tell us, basing on what she also learned from her business-minded Chinese friends, people that they meet and mingle with on a daily basis on a business-sense level. My parents specially my mother, got influenced by them and learned some of their traditions, and she decided to practice some of them within our family. What could we loose, so we wore polka dots, hoping to bring more success in our family business. We also gathered all kinds of different circular fruits and put them all on the table during New Year Day. We also made sure that we prepare more foods that we could actually consumed that day so that we would never run short on food, and ended up being empty-handed on foods for the rest of the year.

My New Year Day memories as a child were surrounded by these traditions that our family practiced. Sometimes things that did not came out true to life as we hoped. Sometimes business did not come out great all the time, there were slow days, and there were great days. But we did manage to live with those traditions and observed them together as a family. Having those traditions helped us came together as a family, looking forward to them, traditions that surely bring us memories and great family times.

What about you, is there any family traditions that you and your family observe every New Years Day? Best wishes for you and your family on New Years Day, 2008!

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Complete Solution For Your Ecommerce Store

Did you ever dream of owning your very own ecommerce store but you do not have the proper programming education, nor the knowledge to start coding a whole online store from scratch? Did you ever wish that your online store will be up and running very soon but you do not have the budget and the resources to hire you own internet or online personnels to provide you with high-end ecommerce software to make your online store into reality? If you have this delimma and concerns, look no further because realizing your dream of owning your very online store do not have to be so difficult and complicated anymore. You no longer need to hire programmers and provide them with office space to help you develop an online store, because you can now jump start your ecommerce virtual store by using a readily available shopping cart software. All you really need is to have the products to sell, then add them online by utilizing a shopping cart program that is designed to handle the technical capability of selling your products online.

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Seafood Extravagansa

I never got the chance to post about our special dinner we had few days before Christmas Day, but my Hubby surprised me with an Eat-All-You-Can Seafood Buffet in one of the little-bit-expensive restaurant in our area. He told me that it was gonna be an advance special dinner celebration for us for Christmas. We usually dont go to expensive restaurants on a daily basis because that would definitely kill our budget, but of course once in awhile, we like to go out, explore, and savor the taste of some (overprice) foods, roam around and enjoy the evergrowing neighborhood.

During the night out, the restaurant specialty for the night was Seafood Buffet. And I think my Hubby tried to timing the seafood buffet because he knows how much I love seafoods, but never got the chance to eat as much as I used to anymore since we got married because he does not like seafood, and with that I dont like to prepare two separate meals everyday. So I seldom cook seafood in our household, and maybe that is one of the reason why he brought me to the seafood buffet dinner, and let me enjoy some of my favorites!

There were all kinds of menu in the buffet, probably twenty (20) different variety of seafoods. There were shells, crabs, shrimps, salmon, and other foreign sounding recipes. I tried to grabbed as much as I can with the price that we paid for per person. But there was only so much that I could take and eat in a single meal. I was only able to make two (2) trips and/or two (2) mounting plates of seafood in the serving area. I should have not grabbed the soup and crackers, I would had been able to grab more of the crabs and shrimps!

After having two plates of seafood extravagansa and a glass of cold Sprite softdrink, i went to the dessert area and had pieces of bread pudding, peach and grape fruit cobbler, a lemon gelatin, and a warm cup of coffee. The dinner came out very satisfactory and memorable, and we had a great time.

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Last Minute Gift Wrapping

I woke up at one oclock in the morning, tip-toed to the living room, grabbed all the items that I need to wrap and start packing them nicely as gifts! I know, it is totally last minute, its December 24, and that is the only time I have the chance to wrap without my Hubby getting suspicious and peeking all around, what I am wrapping and all. I just dont want to hand things unwrapped, that would not be meaningful and magical at all. So the best I can, wrapped everything with colorful christmas wrappers, in assorted colors and designed, put some ribbon for added touch and since I could not find the paper tags for labelling the gifts, I used customized cut red ribbons to put the labels (greetings, to and from) and used Sharpie permanent pens to write.

I also pulled out and unpacked the new Selphy CP720 Canon compact printer that came with my digital camera and decided to print some photos during the trips that we made this year and decided to frame it as a gift for my Hubby. I just hope that he will NOT be reading this post until I am done giving him the framed photography of our vacations. But then I think he wont be online today, we have so much things to do in our list for the day. So hopefully my surprise gift for him will not get ruined if he happened to read this post.

Anyways, earlier this year, my hubby and I bought some photo frames that can accomodate two (2) 4x6 each. But the photo papers and ink that came with the new compact printer is only good for five printing. Unfortunately, I made two printing mistakes because its a new printer and i just unpacked and tested it. So I ended up having three photos as I hoped, made two mistakes, overall that made me one photo short to finished my photo project for the gift. I will just explained the whole oppsy surprise gift escapade with one lacking photo as soon as my Hubby open the gift.

As far as the performance of Canon CP720 printer, it is very very satisfactory! I am so happy with the quality of the print, very fast printing speed and yet the quality of the photos are definitely awesome. So nice, I am so glad I decided to keep it instead of selling it on eBay because I already have regular printer and thought that I do not need another one, but seeing the result and the performance of the print, I am definitely happy I kept it.

Merry Christmas To All!

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Dreams Do Come True

Time and time again, there are people out there who dream, and achieve their dreams. And by working towards your dream, you get closer and closers towards making your dream come true.

The other day, I was reading my co-blogger Justine post about this super talented young filipino singer, Charice Pempengco, who was invited to perform live in US thru Ellen DeGeneres hit telivision show. And then today, I went to my co-blogger MalditangPinay post and she also have a post about the same newly discovered singer named Charice Pempengco, who became even more heard thru the website YouTube.

When I played her performance YouTube videos both when she was in singing contest back in the Philippines and also during her live singing performance at Ellen DeGeneres, she definitely have an amazing singing talent, and if you havent read nor heard about this talented kid from the Philippines, check out this video and you will know why she deserve the recognition that she is getting nowadays:

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Our Lighted Christmas Tree

At exactly November 30 morning, we gathered some of our christmas decors from the storage and got them all ready for decorating that same day. We decided to pull out only the outdoor decors this year. That same day, we were able to see some holiday transformation in our yard, we were able to put up three (3) blow-up christmas balloons aroound 7 to 8 feet tall each. We have Winnie The Pook, The Moose Family and the Snowman (as shown in my earlier post at nightime shot).

To date, aside from the blow-up balloons, we also ended up putting up three lighted grapevine deers, one lighted snowwhite christmas tree and a lighted angel. And of course, our old favorite, the icycles in the edge of the roof is there. We like to look around the yard specially in the evening when all the outdoor decors are all lit up, they look so warm even in the cold freezing times. So we thought, that the outdoor decors would be enough for this year, enjoy seeing them outside, viewable in some windows.

Then one day, while talking to a friend, she mentioned about her Christmas tree that they just put up on their living room. Few hours later, while we were sitting in the living room, watching telivision, I realized that we could not really enjoy the christmas lights when we are indoors relaxing. So the following day, I digged up an old christmas tree we had in a box somwhere, and put up this color lighted christmas tree around four (4) and a hlaf feet tall and put it in the living room. Just wanna share a photo of it, see above, took it in the night when it was lighted beautifully in the dark room.

Three (3) days more to go, and its Christmas Day! Hope you all haev a MERRY one! Dont forget to say a prayer for peace and harmony too. Merry Christmas too all.

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Five in a Row...

1. Name one thing you do everyday.
the one thing that i will never miss to do everyday is wake up! sometimes i forget to eat, so that wont count, right?

2. Name two things you wish you could learn.
speak and understand Spanish, learn how to oil paint

3. Name three things that remind you of your childhood.
pony tail, seven-seven hair-do, color yellow

4. Name four things you love to eat but rarely do.
love to eat rarely eat nowadays...mango, buko salad, biko, suman

5. Name five things that make you feel good.
beach, flowers, dogs, soft comfortable bed/coach, happy-times photos

Thank you PrettyLifeOnline for this tag :-)

To all my blog visitors, please feel free to grab this tag if you have time and would like to answer the five (5) questions above! Hope you dont forget to let me know if you answer this meme, so I can check your blog for your answers too. Have a nice day

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My Quickie Lumpia

Few weeks ago, I bought an eggroll wrappers in one of the local supermarket here in our area. I was planning to make some Lumpia for one of our meals. I think lumpia is the same as what is commonly called Eggroll everywhere? (Im not sure so let me know if Im wrong!)

Few weeks later, I noticed that the eggroll wrappers i bought remained untouched, still left unopened and stored in our refrigerator. So yesterday, I decided to finally take the time to do it. Usually I have green beans added to the recipe, but I didnt have one, I only have carrots and potato available with me. So I decided to make use of what were available, and Im calling my revised lumpia recipe as Quickie Lumpia:

Ingredients:
1 pound of ground beef
3-4 pieces medium size carrots, diced
3-4 pieced medium size potatoes, diced
minced garlic
minced onions
soy sauce to taste
minimal water
oil for frying

I simply cooked the ground beef in the frying fan, wait until it browned, removed the excess oil from the beef fat, and then added the onion, garlic, and soy sauce and cooked them thouroughly with the ground beef. Added some water, just enough to cook the potatoes and then the carrots.

When the beef, potatoes and carrots were all cooked, i placed two (2) spoonfuls of cooked filling into the eggroll wrapper and wrapped them up in a roll. Then fried each wrapped lumpia in a heated frying pan with oil . Serve with warm rice. Am I making you hungry? Im ready to go to the kitchen right now...

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Our Bird Got Character

We have a cockatiel bird, he is mostly grey in color and like many other cockatiel birds, he looks like he is wearing a tuxedo. I dont know if all cockateil or all birds are like that, but our cockatiel bird definitely has some character!

A lot of times when we wake up in the morning and open the lights in the room where he is placed, he starts humming and whistling a tune, as if he is happy we are finally awake to give him company? But when we turn on the tv, he seems to really get upset because he usually just starts being obnoxious and shouting his lungs out. He also hates it when the volume of our tv get really loud and that is when he usually shouts in unison with the tv sounds to the point where we cant undertsand the words on tv and we cant hear each other talking.

But what is quite shocking is that our cockatiel bird seems to really remember some tv commercials that he likes. And everytime such commercials are aired and played on tv, he start to sing-along and whistle with the tunes. We noticed that he likes commercials with music that are mostly lively beating and cute whistle sounding into them. He also usually dances and moves with the music.

We definitely love our cockatiel, our bird with an attitude. He can definitely rock the house!

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Shopping Cart For Your Online Store

Owning an online business is a dream come true to a lot of people, including myself. But for a lot of people, getting started is the hardest part of all. With the fast-paced development of technology nowadays, and the complicated process of starting your very own ecommerce store, sometimes you may feel like you will never even be able to make the first step to do it. But with the availability of shopping cart software nowadays, it is not as complicated as you really think. Once you determine the type of product to sell, the next step is to put those products online. And to add your products online, you need a ecommerce program, and this is where the shopping cart software comes in, a program where you can add your products to start selling your products on the internet and run your very own online store.

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Getting Traction In Slippery Ice

Winter time is definitely more stormy than any other time of the year. Weather can change from rain to snow and then sunny in a day or two.

Yesterday, I was walking on our driveway and try opening the gate to drive the car out. While walking towards the gate, I realized that the driveway was a little bit slippery and icy, so I walked really slow and carefully too. But even with how careful I was, my shoes slipped and if I was not holding the gate that time, it would have been a painful disaster. Good thing that I was holding on to the gate the whole time while swinging it open and with that I was able to regain balance right away when my feet started slipping.

If I have known how slippery the driveway was, I would have put on my shoe chain, a removable attachment that you can easily put on and off in the bottom of any rubber shoes during snow and icy conditions. The show chain that my hubby bought me one time, really comes handy on winter times specially on snowy and icy conditions. It can be attached to most rubber shoes and boots, and comes in different sizes for men and women. So if it ice and snow in your area quite often, having a shoe chain might be a great accessory to have. Just like car chains, snow chain is made of metal, that is made to attach at the bottom of a pair shoes, and helps give traction while against snow and ice.

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Creative Blogger Award

Receiving a Creative Blogger Award, is definitely a nice compliment. Like many bloggers out there, maintaining a blog to me is not the easiest thing to do. It is an everyday challenge to come up with a new unique post, a genuine article that readers hopefully can relate to. And the challenge of putting words together and create a sentence, to create a paragraph is also quite a task. With that said, it is nice to receive a Creative Blogger Award, because it feels great to know that your mind-buggling hardwork is not just for nothing.

Quoting Justines line regarding this award:

Blogging is really fun but not that easy to do, you have to really make time to do it...Being creative is really important and of course being hardworking on finding things to blog about...You cannot just put anything in your page just to make it look good or what so ever...It is really a must to spend time and have your creativity in making one...

Thanks Justine for this recognition and award. I am a regular visitor of your blog as well, and you definitely deserve this award too, so congrats! I also would like to award this to my co-bloggers who obviously do great job making their blog looking nice and pretty, and updated all the time: Raquel and Amy

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True Blue Award

First of all, I wanna say thank you to Denz for awarding me with True Blue Award because I think this is definitely a cool one! I truly appreciate your thoughts and giving me this.

And if you all noticed, the whole graphics of this award features a dolphin image. Originally, the name of this blog was DolphinState because I am a dolphin fanatic, i collect dolphin stuff, and having a dolphin image in the True Blue Award, makes this award even more meaningful to me! Although, i ended up having to rename this blog to HonestlyFresh because people thought that my blog was talking about dolphins, which is not...

I would like to give this award to Waliz and Marie. They are truly amazing bloggers with really great blogs.

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To Buy Or Not To Buy DVDs

We finally broke our regular record this month, we ended up buying four (4) new release DVDs within a month period: Harry Potter 4 or 5?, Pirates of The Carribean 3, Bourne 3 and Lost 3

Earlier this year, we decided to upgrade our cable TV channel package and add HBO and Cinemax channels pack together with the regular package so that we can eliminate the costly habit of buying DVDs everytime new movies comes out in the store. We thought that if we have movies on TV that will keep us busy, we will not be so tempted to buy new DVDs everytime new movies came out, it will save us $19.99 per DVD movie we do not buy.

Since we made that commitment, we have done very good until this December, when most of the new DVDs movie being released are movies that we already have copies of the earlier episodes. So sadly but excitedly, finally we broke our regular record, and bought four new DVDs to add to our old collections. Hopefully, we can think of these purchases as Christmas gifts for ourselves so we dont feel so guilty about spending the money on DVDs that will eventually depreciate in value as years go buy and new technologies comes out, like the new HD DVDs, which are double the price of DVDs, and of course like computers and telivisions, the new technologies are always better, faster, more loaded with features, and more capabilities.

There is always something new to buy, hopefully we spend our bucks in things that lasts. Right now, we are satified with DVDs, we no longer watch old tech VHS movies because its getting outdated. And it seems like DVDs is going on the same boat too, specially that the market is pushing the HD DVD nowadays, so hopefully DVDs will remain for a long time, even if HD DVDs are heavily marketed nowadays.

What about you, do you still watch VHS copies? Do you usually buy new DVDs movies when they are release in the market? Are you planning to buy the latest HD DVDs and the HD DVD player?

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Holiday Greetings

Wishing you ALL advance
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
From Our Family To Yours

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UMMMM and MUUUUU

The other night, we were watching TV when a new commercial of Real Californa Cheese came on. I am the type of person who likes funny commercials and one of my favorite commercials on TV are commercials from Real California Cheese, where they have all kinds of funny and unique scenes about california cows being happy and having fun and using their famous commercial quote: Happy cows come from California.

The new commercial is about a duck meditating on top of a huge rock situated below a tree in the farm field. Usually when you meditate, you just relax, be calm, and utter the word UMMMM, and that was the duck was doing. Suddenly while meditating, two california cows approached the duck and told her/him that the duck is meditating the wrong way, the cows corrected the duck telling hin/her that instead of saying UMMMM, she/he should say MUUUU.

Haha. I thought the whole commercial was so funny :-)

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Chuck Roast Meat for the Dogs

Late last night, we decided to pull out a huge piece of meat, Chuck Roast, from the freezer, slow cooked it in the crock pot with chunks of potatos and carrots in it. This is the first time that we tried slow cooking a meat still frozen, fresh directly from the freezer. Due to previous experience, my hubby decided not to add water in the crock pot together with the ingredients (meat, potato and carrots) because he did not want it to overflow later on, incase the frozen meat will have more juice once it is completely thawed.

The meat has been cooking since late last night up to the time we are ready to eat tonight, so its been cooking for almost twenty (20) hours already. We re-heated the sauted mushroom that we also pre-cooked last night to go with the meat. While slicing the slow cooked meat into eatable strips, ready for serving, my hubby realized that the meat is totally dried out from lack of water, and we forgot to add water during the whole twenty hours of slow cooking it.

We tried to eat some of the dried meat anyways, but realized that we cannot stomach another meal out of it. So we decided that we are just gonna give all of it to the dogs. It is a huge meat, it could easily give us three (3) separate heavy meals, which we are no longer getting because of how it come out. So we just ended up slice the rest of the meat into cubes, put it on the container, and give it to our doggies for their next four (4) meals, starting tonight.

We usually dont do this (buy around $20 worth of meat to feed to the doggies) because of the price of meat nowadays. But this time, the dogs luck out completely, we slaved and labored for almost 20 hours with the smell and aroma of the cooking, looking forward to dinner, and then they are getting all of it! It is like an advance Merry Chrsitmas for them, i guess. They finished their meal tonight really fast, and they have smiles and waggy tails after eating, they are very happy, so we are happy knowing that they are happy to have it and that the meat didnt end up in the waste.

The good thing is, this meal disaster happened at the end of the year (2007), not the start of a new year (2008). So we think its good because we really dont want to start the new year with bunch of disastrous cooking, that would be a loooong year to go. THanks for reading :-) Truly appreciate your visit here!

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Television in the Bedroom

When I was growing up, we only have one wooden boxed television (TV) and it was a black and white with small screen TV and it was situated in the living room where all my family gather everynight to watch shows together. We only had the regular channels with around 10 channels choices, there was no cable TV, we only had an antenna at the roof top.

Nowadays, most family have multiple television, one for each room, some people even place another TV in their kitchen and bathroom. We currently have one TV in the living room and one in the bedroom. I used to not be able to sleep with any kind of noise when Im trying to sleep, but nowadays, since we have television in our bedroom and we watch shows from bed every night, I have come to love the idea of having TV in the bedroom, not just in the living room. Surprisingly, I can now sleep in the night even if the TV is on, but when we feel like it is almost time to sleep, we usually put the TV on a timer 30 to 90 minutes more showing time and set it to have it turn off automatically so that even when we fall asleep, the TV will not be stay on the whole night and dawn.

WHat about you, do you watch TV in your bedroom? Can you sleep with a music on or the TV on?

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Christmas Tag

I found this fun Christmas Tag from 4ForMe blog and it is perfect for this holiday time, and decided to grab and answer it!

1)egg nog or hot chocolate? hot chocolate. i tried eggnog, and im not the best fun of it.

2)Do you wrap your presents or not? absolutely, its the wrapping part that makes gifts more presentable and make it even more special!

3)Colored lights or white? i actually like both depends on where I use it. For Christmas trees, i prefer colored lights coz they look like fruits and ornaments in the night! For white lights, i like it best for icycles and outdoor decors, they just make the whole displays so much brighter and more twinkly and sparkly!

4)Do you hang mistletoe? No, we usually dont. But we have mistletoe in our oak trees!

5)When do you put up your decorations? I like to usually put up early like around November so that I can enjoy the decoration longer, but this year we started decorating a day before December 1.

6)What is your favorite holiday dish? My mothers Pineapple Ham is my absolute favorite! Too bad I can no longer have it, but hope to be able to learn how to cook the same way exactly the same way and taste that she did it.

7)Favorite memory as a child? Lighting fireworks outside the house with my family, christmas eve parties and gift exchanging, christmas eve church celebration, and opening stocking on Christmas day which we believe were from Santa!

8)When and how did you learn about Santa? My parents, school and TV.

9)Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Yes

10)How do you decorate your tree? When I was a kid, together with my brothers and sisters, we used to make our christmas trees out of suds of soaps, another time clear plastics, another time with cottons, another time with umbrella skeleton. All of them we accent with ornaments and glittery garlands.

11)Snow...love it or dread it? Snow to me is like a dream. I grow up from a tropical country so we dont have snow. Having snow here in the US is definitely a plus plus fun fun and they look so clean. I just hate shoveling snow and too much snow, you get stuck, the car get stuck. But the look of snow is definitely amazing.

12)Can you ice skate? I tried ice skating few times, i can ice skate, but i am not a pro, i am definitely an amateur ice skater!

13)Do you remember your favorite gift? Hard question! I dont know which one I consider the most favorite...

14) What is the most important part of the holidays? JESUS IS THE REASON OF THE SEASON, and a lot of people forget about this! I am a Christian, so this is important to me. Family is also very important.

15) Favorite holiday dessert? Chicken salad, flans, and cakes.

16) Favorite tradition? Family gathering and church celebration.

I am tagging EVERYONE of you who have time to reply and want to grab this tag. Its Christmas Season, Christmas Tag can only happens during Christmas times, so hope you grab this chance before the year is over! Please let me know if you grab this tag so that I can visit your blog and read.

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Dusk to Dawn and Blinking Lights

We have this all-white Christmas tree that we installed outside more than a week ago. And when it is lit, it looks so nice and pretty illuminated because of all the tiny clear christmas lights on it. So this christmas tree looks really nice when the lights are on in the night.

Last week, i noticed my hubby re-arranging the christmas tree and adding lighted deers on the side of it to complete the outdoor display. He also decided to install an automatic timer so that it will turn off and on automatically without having to go outside everyday to do it manually.

The first night came since i saw my hubby did the re-arranging and we noticed that the Christmas tree started to blink on and off every one-second interval. So we started thinking, we could not recall the tree having a blinking lights. We know for a fact that we bought a non-blinking lighted christmas tree. That night, the christmas tree was blinking the whole time it was on, and we could not figure out why. The next night, and the night after that, the same thing happen, it is still blinking. So we tried to recall what we did, when my hubby first install the christmas tree, there wasnt any blinking, but since the timer was put on, the lights blinking every second.

Then my hubby started to realize that he installed the Dusk-to-Dawn timer. This type of timer has a built-in sensor that can detect darkness and brightness. When it is getting dark in the night, the timer will toggle to turn on the lights, and when the early dawn starts, when the sun started to rise, the timer toggles to turn off the lights. We then finally figure out the reason for all the blinking after analysing how the Dusk-to-Dawn automatic timer works. When it get darks in the afternoon, the lights turn on, but then the lights are so bright, the timer thinks it is daytime, so it turns off again, and then it is dark again, so lights turn on again, and the same cycle continues over and over! So my hubby ended up rotating the automatic timer with the sensor facing away from the christmas tree so that when the lights are on in the night, the lights wont hit the sensor and mistakenly think it is bright and daytime. Problem solved.

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Rainy Days and Driving

It is that time of year again when we could definitely expect some rain for a change. Living here in California (CA), we normally dont get a lot of rain. There are so much sunny days in CA, probably almost the same number days that Washington State have rainy days. I heared that it could rain and drizzle in Washington almost everyday for months. In contrary, CA is the exact opposite, just like Florida, CA should also be called the Sunshine State. And with limited rainy days, we could really use some rain too, and that is why the two (2) days rain yesterday and today (Dec 6 and 7), are much needed in most part of CA.

But when it is raining it is harder to go out and drive specially in the dark. Some of the road lines that wore out could really use some re-painting so that they would be more visible in a rainy days too. Roads are more slippery when wet, so it would be safer if we all remember to slow than a little bit. Driving in the night in the rain was even harder when an incoming traffic would not be considerate enough to change their high beams to low beams, specially when they noticed that others are trying to be considerate to them and put on low beams so they wont get blinded by the bright lights.

For safe driving for everyone specially in rainy and snowy situations , hopefully we all try to be more attentive with the road condition, and try to remember the road rules for safety driving and be considerate to others who are using the same road as you:

When you are driving with somebody in front of you, use low beam so that your bright light wont cause reflections in the car in front of you
Do not use high beams when it is foggy
Slow down your speed, usually 5 miles slower than the speed limit when its raining, and even slower when it is snowing
Change from high beam to low beam when you notice ahead that there is an incoming car so that they could see the road too

Driving yesterday and today in the rain, so far, these are some of the basics that I think some drivers forgot, they might not be aware of it but they do affect other drivers, who use the same roads.

Last night, we passed by police cars in the road side trying to assist somebody who probably misjudged the road condition, or it was slippery and the car slipped, or probably went too far over the white lines and ended up in the shoulder and rolled the car in the field. We didnt know what really happened but hopefully accident like this can be avoided by trying to be more cautious with the current weather condition and drive safely and carefully. Winter times is tough driving with more challenging conditions like rainy, snowy, and block ices. Drive safely and be considerate to other drivers.

Written by JAZEVOX. All Rights Reserved.

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A Blogging Buddies Award

Thanks Joy for this great Blog Buddies Award that you gave me :-) I truly appreciate this and happy to receive it!

Blogging will not be so fun and exciting if not for co-bloggers out there who share the same passion and enthusiam about what I enjoy doing like blogging! So thanks to all my co-bloggers out there.

Blogging truly gives me the chance to write. I read books and magazines a lot and somehow, i cannot help but see myself writing some things as well, just like the authors of the magazines and books that I read. And in some ways, blogging is definitely a great outlet to have this writing desire comes into reality. Hopefully, day by day, as I go along, I can reach more and wider audience, and my writings will be an inspirations to others, or atleast make sense to a lot of individuals.

Thank you for reading my blog, and hope this wont be the last time here, you are always welcome to come back and read some more! Have a nice day.

To all my co-bloggers who work day and night filling up their blogs with fun and informative postings, please feel free to grab this award, we all deserved this!

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Good Food Bad Service

Yesterday, for the second time we went to have dinner in this newly opened Italian restaurant here in our area. Our first visit was the best, the foods were excellent and the service was phenomenal. During our visit yesterday, I decided to order the same foods as the last time since it was a great meal, as I can recall. I had Fettucini Pesto with Shrimps for main course and the order have complementary warm soup and warm bread. During our yesterdays visit, we were served by another waitress, and that is when our fine dinning experience started turning into a disaster. As usual, we got served with the first course, the soup, salad and bread. We requested for a butter for the bread, nothing came. A minute after the soup and salad were served, which just started to eat, the main course arrived. We were quite unhappy because it will hard to finish the soup and salad without the main foods (pastas) getting cold already. By the time we finish with the soup, salad and the main dish (pasta), still no butter came as requested. And then minutes later the waitress came back and asked us if we wanted to have additional bread, and we said yes, so we asked her again to include a butter, and she came back with the bread and finally, butter. The pasta were good even though it ended up getting cold for standing for quite sometime in our table.

The same waitress passed by our table so we called her attention to request for some containers to place our leftovers, she said yes, but we never got the containers. Long after, she came back again to give us our bill, so we asked her again for some containers, and this time she came back with the containers. But when we checked the bill for our orders, we realized that the total due is higher than we thought, so we checked the details in the receipt and realized that the orders written there didnt sound like the one the we ordered. We then realized that the waitress ended up giving us the wrong bill. The bill we got was for the older couple that were seating next to our table. We told the waitress that it wasnt our bill, so she had to go to the cashier again to look for ours.

After all, we left the restaurant and left the waitress $1.50 for a tip! The tip could have been higher if she gave us a great service, she seemed physically present but definitely mentally absent. She was trying to serve the customers all at the same time, then she get confused and very disoriented and forgetful, and probably all the customers she served that night were served very poorly, we can hear from the other tables...

This posts sounds nothing but complaints, but this is what happened yesterday, but overall, we had great food, and we are hopeful that we will have a better service the next time we come by to the same restaurant and have italian food cravings again.

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Reading Level Of This Blog

Do you want to find out the Reading Level of your blog? Try this!

The rules are simple:

* Take the test and see which grade your blog is.
* Make sure to link back to me on your post.
* Tag at least 1 person.
* When you’re finish taking the test, come back and comment here so I can check your post.

Here is the RESULT for this blog (Honestly FRESH) :
(removed)

I am tagging Chant, Marie, Lanie, Malditang Pinay, CC, and YOU too!

Many thanks to my blogger friend Joy for this really cool tag :-)

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Weird Me Tag

Hey Miss Chant thank you for this tag.

Before I start this tag, I have to say that I dont really consider myself weird...Im more like the simple, ordinary type of person with big dreams and radical thoughts.

Since this tag, is about finding the weirdness in me, im gonna look for unusual things that I do that I think NOT everyone else does, so here it goes:

My Weirdness:

1. My hubby knows when I am awake some mornings because our doggies can talk, sometimes i give them voices as if I know what they are thinking...

2. When there are long articles I see in the internet that i like, I dont read them in the computer, I print them so I can read the hardcopy instead...

3. I can write bunch of lists of things to do in a matter of week, and they just file up one after the other...

4. I can watch my favorite movies over and over, once or twice or three times in a week, same movie if I like it...

5. If I dont have less than 7-8 hours of sleep at night, I usually ended up with a migraine or headache in the morning...

6. Some people think that some artists are weird, but I like to do some painting but I just want to paint flowers, and landscape/sceneries, no weirdo bloody stuff, and headless creatures, just beautiful flowers and stunning sceneries

7. I would like to have my own reading library, because I love to collect lots of different books and magazines and I want a library to put all of them in one place...

Since everyone might believe that its been a Tagging Season, meaning, some cannot comply with the tags every now and then due to overloaded tags pending prior, I wont tag anyone in particular, but if YOU (the one reading this) have a time to spare to reflect and find of things that make you kinda weird, please feel free to grab this, and let us know so we can read your asnwers...

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A Strong Desire To Paint

Last night, I was watching Donny Deutch tv show, The Big Idea, where he had show guests that talk about their big ideas and inventions that changed their life. Last night episode of The Big Idea featured this corporate guy from the east coast that gave up his six (6) digits salary as a lawyer and decided to become a Lego Artist full time, to follow his real passion, the one that truly makes him happy. I heared it a million times, start with your passion and the money will follow, hopefully! I mean, who in the world would not want to do the things that you LOVE to do and get paid for it really good for it too. The Lego Artist now tour all over different areas, to display his amazing Lego artworks.

I currently dont have a six (6) digit income to give up like the guy featured in the show, so i guess it wont be such a hard decision for me, but I always wanted to paint, but never had the chance to really grab a formal education in that field. I been studying computers, and been working with computers since and its something that I like as well. But there is always that passion in me to paint, if an opportunity arise. At an young age, my older sister seem to notice my desire to do some arts because she started giving me pastels and watercolors as gifts during my graduation and birthdays. And my hubby been encouraging me to do some painting as well by buying me an easel. My hubby and I, sometimes we roam around some stores and ended up buying some sets of oil paints, some ready-to-use canvas and all kinds of brushes, that I can use to start painting. If only one day, I have a room dedicated for this area, where I can set-up all my painting materials and started doing it, it would be nice!

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