We have been busy these past few weeks visiting our in-laws. It was fun meeting them and the cousins had a blast playing with each other. However, they said too much of anything is not good and having fun is no exception. Because of the many trips we had we had been sick for the last three days – from me to my eldest and even my youngest who is only 8 months. Fortunately, it’s nothing serious just runny nose and colds. So we stocked up on medicines and vitamins at the nearest pharmacy. I am doubly careful on the medicine I buy these days because of the Actos lawsuit I heard over the news. It’s about the Actos drug which is a prescription drug for diabetes that was shown to lead to heart disease and a couple of other complications. This just shows we really can’t be too careful even if the medicine is already prescribed by our physician. It pays to research before using any medicine.

For my husband’s 31st birthday I bought an Ipod touch. It was the first Apple product we ever had. We were curious about all the attention Apple was getting and we wanted to be able to try it first hand.

It has been six months since I bought it and I think it’s time to give our verdict. The Ipod has a lot of uses but primarily we use it for checking our emails. Sometimes it’s a drag to turn on the PC or the laptop and the Ipod has proved really convenient in checking our mail and of course our Facebook accounts.

For music, my husband attaches it to the car stereo via USB. We found out that to add music we have to download Itunes first which is a drag to tell you the truth. That means we can’t just add music whenever we want from any PC. What I

The camera, although it’s only VGA, has proved to be useful in catching some candid pictures of our kids which we can upload to Facebook through Wifi in an instant. We can also capture a video in HD but since our memory is limited we don’t do this too much.

Although it has many uses the Ipod touch is still a luxury gadget at its price tag of P11,000. It just added some convenience but we can definitely live without it. Since it’s expensive we make sure we cover it with the best ipod touch cases so that we can use it for a long time. But since it’s from Apple we’re convinced we would be doing just that.

A week ago my mother-in-law arrived for her yearly vacation. It meant lots of trips going to and fro from our house to hers. We had lots of fun catching up and eating delicious food together. We also went to the sauna which was my first time, by the way, where she initiated me to the different kind of culture in that place! LOL! If we’re not at the sauna we are at the mall hanging out.
Unfortunately, because of this recent flurry of activities our family is now suffering from colds so we have been self medicating by drinking lots of water and vitamin C. We have also been spending lots of time at bed taking a rest. It was during that time when I got hold the news about the drug, Topamax and its unfortunate effect on babies. They found out too late that babies born to mothers who took the drug while pregnant has increased risk of having oral palate defects. So now they have to hire an Austin personal injury attorney to help them file a lawsuit. I felt bad about them and immediately felt guilty about being irritated about my cold. This is just a small sacrifice that I had to endure compared to their situation.
If you’re one of the victims, by the way, you can contact a lawyer from the address below:

O’Hanlon, McCollom & Demerath – Personal Injury Lawyers – 808 West Avenue, Austin, TX. 78701 – 512-494-9949

The most unforgettable wedding for this year was Prince Williams wedding to Kate Middleton. It’s nice to see two mature adults formalizing their love for one another. It was very obvious that this was something that they have planned for a long time.

It was reported that millions of people watched that glorious event. A lot of people were interested in the Middleton Family. I’m sure they were wondering why the Prince chose one of their daughters to marry out of all the girls he could have made his wife. The way they acted on the wedding day itself made it obvious that they are a respectable family. As a matter of fact, even the younger sister, Pippa, won the admiration of many even if it’s just for her flattering maid of honor dress. It was rumored that the mother of the bride, Carol Middleton, ditched the original outfit she picked and chose another one at the last minute. I say she made the right choice because her outfit was just fitting to her role as the mother of the bride. She should be emulated by the every bride’s mother and wear something that fits her body shape and style but does not upstage the bride in any way.  The wedding shop at Gray & Osbourn has summer mother of the bride collection to suit the season and flatter all shapes.

Speaking of goals, I have been thinking a lot about our long term goals. On our list is having our own business. I was not able to pursue our plans to start an online furniture business because of so many excuses that I have but I’m not giving up. I know people are looking for furniture online especially the modern ones like Adirondack furniture. In our place, they can buy this either at the malls which are accessible or at the local sellers which are not that accessible. I’m pretty sure in a few years time more and more consumers will be confident in buying online including furniture for their home. Since my dad has his own furniture shop I’m hoping that I can start my own online shop with his help. I’m really not sure how I’ll be doing this while taking care of small kids but maybe a few years from now we can make this into a reality.

Now that my hubby is officially a work-at-home dad – he submitted his resignation last Monday – we are making plans for the future. We have so many plans and I’m glad we can finally move on and start making those happen one by one! When he was still working at the office he usually comes home tired but now that he is working at home he’ll have more time and energy to focus on more important things.

So in order to take advantage of our new situation I decided to use Workflowy to list our plans and achieve it one by one. What I like about Workflowy is it is so easy to use yet so efficient. It’s an online tool that lets you make a list in bullet format. You can have unlimited number of bullets or categories which is great especially if you have a lot of things to do. It doesn’t get messy because you can hide the sub-categories whenever you want to and display it when you need to. I have started using it by making a list of our long term goals and short term goals. Workflowy makes visualizing our goals easier, I tell you. I asked my husband to look at it and he understood it at once.

Wanna take a look at our goals? I’m going to give you a little peek. Here’s our short term goals for this month.

See how nice and organized it is. There are some subcategories that I hid but I can see in just one click.

Time is precious and lost time is gone forever. I am glad that there are some free tools that help us use our time wisely and efficiently.

I saw my mom sporting a new ring. She said she had her old ring reshaped to look like one of those class rings. I wanted a ring too but not a class ring but my wedding ring. I lost it a few years ago and up to this day I’m still missing it. My husband promised me that we will be shopping for a new ring soon. I can’t wait for that day to come because I really miss having my wedding ring. This time I will be choosing a different design. I hope my husband agrees because it will not come cheap. LOL!

Since my husband will start his new work – we will also be brainstorming on business ideas.  The most logical step for us is to try and mimic my dad’s furniture shop.  Since he has resources, suppliers and contacts, we won’t have a hard time starting a store – much less an online store.  We will probably start with popular items like sofas, pine beds, TV stands and the like. Hopefully things will be clear to us as soon as my hubby gets free time to think about our future business plans.