New Gadget Again!

This year has been a mixture of good and bad experiences for our family.  For one, I would like to think that this year was good for us financially and career-wise.  First we were able to get the company car, and since we had some savings, we were able to add some cash to upgrade the company car to an SUV (Ford Escape).  It makes us a bit more confident when it comes to heavy rains.

While we were drained financially when I miscarried last March, we were not exactly in a rut.  I'm really thankful that I had a great job that at least paid for all the bills, and hubby is able to save a bit while I cover most household expenses.  

Last month I was able to convince hubby to help me get a Macbook Pro.  Since my office laptop did not allow me to install Photoshop, I had to have a reliable laptop to use.  The laptop hubby was using had an LCD problem so he has to use it with a monitor, and that is not exactly handy.  The old netbook is being used by my college student-househelp, and its not also exactly the best in performance when it comes to Photoshop -- meaning it hangs a whole lot and is really frustrating (happened to me the first time I tried to make the backdrop for the bazaar).  Anyway, I digress. The MBP is now my home laptop.  The office laptop only goes home with me on weekends.  Its 12 months to pay at 0% interest so it isn't as heavy to pay.  Always been my dream gadget (yes, I've wanted this one ever since I can remember, and I can live without ever getting an iPhone but a Mac is one thing I've dreamed of owning).  

Now that the bazaar planning is already in the works, I've decided that the next business investment for me would be a DSLR.  

Background, since I started with organizing bazaars, I bought another business investment every run.  The past two years (2009 and 2010) it was for the digital printing business --- heat press last 2009 and the pvc card package in 2010.  This year we bought a DSLR.  Hopefully by 2012 we can already seriously start the digital printing business. Always told myself that I should make sure to teach the hubby how to do it in Photoshop since its not something I can do all by myself.  That's my target in 2012.  

This is what we got:  Bought it from Kimstore and although there was a slight glitch and I'm waiting for the replacement SD card, I'm happy with the ease in dealing with them.  Happy that we have this and hoping I can learn how to use this well soon!

Developing Jessica's Artistic side

This morning our family decided to go to Trinoma to have a little family time.  We had to leave early because we didn't want to have a hard time getting a parking space (QC malls are notorious to me for having limited parking spaces, no matter how big the malls are, same with SM Megamall).  We also had to drop by my mom and dad's house to give them some chicken nuggets so we went out early.  We did arrive at Trinoma around five minutes to 10am so we got a great parking space but the mall was still closed, we had to wait around 10minutes or so.  It wasn't too bad, except Jessica wasn't in much of a mood to go around walking.  We first let her play at Kevin's playroom at the Kids Zone.  The one hour there will give me and hubby some time to walk around the mall by ourselves, plus it lets Jess interact with other kids there.  I saw the Gymboree there also offered an hourly rate, but it costs a whopping Php 320 an hour, so I had to beg off on that, I should get a trial class instead. hahaha :-p  Anyway, we ate lunch after fetching Jessica when the hour was done, and so her wearing a pirate's hat and a sword.  Really cute but she removed it even before I got to take her picture. duh.

We decided to eat first before going around again, and unfortunately Jessica requested to eat at Jollibee and we didn't have much of a choice.  Gave her a jolly kiddie meal and she was happy for a while until she requested for something we couldn't understand (except for a word: yellow!).  After she was done crying we just told her we're going to the toy store and it improved her mood. We  went to Toys R Us and Jessica would point at so many toys she wants which I would reject because they seem pretty useless to me: stuffed toys, barbie dolls, pink wand, etc etc.  But she did point some stuff that would be useful like Megablocks, but she had those already and won't need new ones.  She then got this one and for me its pretty useful and would be something good to develop her artistic and creative side, which I think really has potential (hubby draws well and is good at this, I AM NOT! hahaha).  And its handy enough to bring anywhere. I may just need to replenish paints and crayons (and lots of paper) but essentially its easier to lug around because of the compartments and the retractable legs.  It costs Php 1,399.  But hubby agrees its worth the money.  So I went for it.  We also bought some drawing notebooks, more markers, poster paint and glitter paint (Jessica wanted these) at National bookstore.  I'm happy she loved it and used it immediately after we unpacked it.

 This looks like a laptop table.  She can sit on the floor or couch when the legs are used or use the table on top of a table when the legs are folded.

The paper can be locked in so it won't move while she's working on her artworks.  Notice too the slots above so she can easily place the watercolors in separate compartments.  I see these watercolor types in Japan home for 88 bucks so I know I have a problem once the first set runs out.

Under the blue cover comes separate compartments and free art materials: 8 watercolors, 2 containers for water, one of which has this great cover of using a brush, 5 markers (the ones we bought from National are already included here), two brushes and 12 crayons.  I was also able to sneak in the scissors - Jessica loves to cut paper.  

Clean up is pretty easy since we can easily wash or wipe it, whichever would be applicable.  I love it! 

I think this is more effective than the megasketch we bought just a week ago, which can be used by our next child anyway so I'm not too sad she doesn't use it much -- she was back to asking for bond paper after a day! :-D

And then my recurring thought is this.  I am glad and thankful that I have a good career that allows me to buy these things for her.  When she starts studying and we're spending 2x what we spend now on tuition fees, these gifts won't come off as easily. 

Car Maintenance

Ok, so today I had the new car scheduled for maintenance, its actually the third maintenance schedule for the 10,000km or 6months PMS (whichever comes first).  The sad thing about it is the mileage is only at 3,000 km. But since this is something we have to deal with because of the warranty, then it has to be done at the dealership.  Good thing about it is that hubby told the service advisor to use mineral oil instead of synthetic oil.  I mean, who needs expensive oil for 3 months use and like another 1000 km?  We barely use the car, I use it daily for a 4km trip to and from the office, so really, by how much can you really tire the car out, right.  So anyway, from the initial quotation of P 8,960, the actual bill came out at P5,894.47.  Whew, that's a whopping P2,000 off by just using mineral oil instead of synthetic oil.  The joys of having a husband who knows he's way around cars.  Now what I have to prepare for next is the next PMS, which comes around December. Whew another 5000 I think. :-(  Looking on the positive side, at least I am not paying for any amortization.  So this is enough I guess. :-)  Count your blessings, right?

Fixed!

Whew. That was a scare.  Ok updating my previous post.  I deleted some widgets and removed that hacked script. Whew.  Irritated.  Can't believe someone would hack my page.  Now more than ever I want to get my own domain.  But that's too much to ask now that I still have a lot on my plate.
Maybe some other time. :-)

Where'd my blog go??

Drat, someone might have hacked into my account and got through my blog.  I'm quite irritated.  I still do not know how it happened and what to do with it but I am posting anyway.  Not in a mood to check on it today, but believe me, I am sooo pissed!