Coming from the MBAPs party, we were supposed to go to two more dinners. One with a relative celebrating that passed the nursing board exams, while the other with friends one of whom is celebrating his birthday.

But just after our first commitment, the streets have flooded. No car can pass through and people have been stranded. Some business has closed down early, well except for fastfoods. I wonder if flood is covered by business insurance.

Anyway, we just head off for some coffee and tea. My daughter had an oreo cheese tart which made her so active and funny. I think I won’t let her eat that again beyond 6pm. Ok, noted!

It was raining cats and dogs yesterday I was surprised that most of the MBAPs made it to the party. I thought everybody will be stranded somewhere along the way. Good thing though, we didn’t, or we would have missed the fun get-together with these ladies. But at the back of my mind I was thinking hard if I was able to tell the help to put the motorcycle covers over the bike. I just had to call home just to make sure.

Anyway, I really had fun meeting up with these ladies again.

I just noticed one thing though. I don’t have much pictures of myself!!!
Calling Alpha, Kelly and Joy! Ahem! :p

This morning, I read that in order to stay financially healthy is to make sure you are paying only 28% or less of your monthly income for your monthly home mortgage. It’s just one of the five things to take note of. The other one is to have at least 5% of your income go into your savings including investments such as stock options.

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It has been said, blogged and shared a lot of times that the best hours to shoot outdoors is an hour after sunrise and an hour before sunset. Then, I found an interview with professional photographer Dan Lipow on what to do with the rest of the day.

Q. The hours just after sunrise and before sunset are the best times to photograph outdoors. But what do you do the rest of the day?
A. First, you can utilize your camera’s ability for exposure compensation. If you underexpose a very bright scene, by one-third or two-thirds of a stop, that adds richness to it. I also set my camera’s white balance to a cloudy setting or an open shade setting. These settings will help warm up the image, and that can add a lot more dimension to the photo.

You can read the rest of the interview here.

I have a guy friend who co-owns a shoe store in the provinces. I must say he is quite successful. I asked him why not have a branch in the metro. He said they have done more than that. They now have an online store that ships to anywhere in the world! It may look easy to put up an online store that you’d think you could do it on your own. When in fact, he said they owe their online store’s success to an ecommerce fulfillment program they have invested on.

Well, for a non-business person like me, I always thought those online stores were so easy to put up without knowing you really need experts to succeed. Now I know better.

I am not really a business-minded person. It amazes me how some people could think of making money in the simplest of ways. Like some teenaged girls are buying wholesale clothes and then sell them in their own websites. The common strategy nowadays is to open an account for your store in any of the hottest social networking website. Buyers can search for you, and they could recommend you to other contacts especially if they love the goods and service. Sounds easy, right?

It looks like hubby’s business trip is finally pushing through soon. I just hope and pray that it will NOT be in October especially 2nd week, when we are booked to go to Hongkong and Macau with his entire family.

He said that if that happens, he will book for Orlando vacations next year to make it up for me and our daughter. Nah! I still prefer that he comes with us this October. Although a business trip in October is way better than him not around in December for Christmas. Hmmm… Let me rephrase that. I just hope and pray that it will NOT be in October or December.

I am starting to feel I made a mistake in changing my schedule. First, my body is starting to complain, sending up migraines to the brain every so often. Second, I don’t know why but I have been eating more than ever. Probably to compensate for the tiredness. I am starting to gain the extra pounds, visibly! I definitely need a diet pill that works. Third, and worst of all, I’ve been doing things half-baked.

So last night, I promised myself that whatever I am doing, I will concentrate doing it. Like if it’s quality time with my family, I will clear my mind off and turn off my laptop. If it’s work, I will **try** not to open my Firefox. If it’s my ME time, then, I can blog, dance or shoot some pictures.

This week, I had the difficulty of choosing what to wear for office. Not that I have gazillions of clothes to choose from. It’s just none of my slacks could fit me. So I opted to wear skirts and dresses this week. Either I start fasting now, take some diet pills or buy a whole new wardrobe. The last option is the most fun thing to do. But I really don’t like myself feeling heavy and looking stuffed up in pictures. So I guess I need to go easy on my food intake, skip snacks perhaps?

With the dog-eat-dog corporate battle these days, you would always want to have the competitive edge that could help you move up the ladder according to your time plan. Still, you do not always have the luxury of time to attend a graduate school which is inconveniently located at a city far both from your home and work.

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Today is our last day in our office. Tomorrow, we will start using the new office somewhere in McKinley Hills. (So can we be called as the girls from the hills? Hehehe)

So today, we are committed on buying our favorite, Red Mango at Megamall. We won’t have this easy on the new office. I wonder if they have that on Serendra, huh?

Hmm, but if this is really yogurt, why do I feel guilty after each cup? :p

The reason I bought the 50mm f/1.8 also known as the nifty fifty was because, as an amateur, I want to achieve bokeh on my photos.

But what is bokeh. It is a Japanese term for the subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image projected by a camera lens. If you notice that any shiny item on the background, once taken out of focus, becomes a little dot of light? That’s a scientific phenomena and it’s always a circle dot. Cool huh?

The above photo was not taken with my 50mm. I took this using my kit lens. Below is a simple bokeh tutorial.

So how do you achieve the bokeh effect on your pictures with a kit lens?

1. Make sure your subject is very near.
2. Make your background very far.
3. Zoom in (more than 50mm).
4. Use a big aperture (reason why the nifty fifty does it great. aperture is f/1.8 Note: the lower the number, the bigger the aperture. f/1.8 is a bigger aperture than f/2.0)

Try it!

While women love collecting jewelry, some men are into collecting coins as another form of investment. Coins, like jewelry, increase their value over time. This is one way to preserve and increase family wealth. And you can pass them on from one generation to another.

There are several choices in metal collection. Silver has proven to be an industrial commodity over the years, thus making it an investment opportunity. You might be surprised to know the silver price at Monex is one of the most competitive ones you’ll see in the market. Check their website to talk to an account representative or to see live prices.

I have this habit of browsing pictures over at Flickr. I realized that a great photo doesn’t necessarily need a high end for-professional-use kind of camera. In fact, I saw several macro shots taken with a point-and-shoot camera. I guess this only proves that a big factor in creating a great photo is the creativity of the photographer.

Although, let’s admit that those expensive lenses can make these great pictures, uhm, greater.