The Little Monkey Sticker

I was wiping my little girl's toy drawers and saw several Hello Kitty stickers on the middle one. See that monkey sticker between the mama and papa Hello Kitty stickers? It just seemed to be out of place so I removed it and put it in another spot. BIG, big mistake! The shocking question from my little girl sometime that same day.

Daughter:"Why you throw me away?"

Me: Laughing at the question and asking "What are you talking about?"

Daughter: "Come look! You don't love me!"

Me: Followed daughter to bedroom and looked at her drawers. Still confused, I asked her what she meant.

Daughter: Pointing to the spot where the monkey sticker was and said, "Look, I'm not there. You throw me away."

Feeling embarrassed and surprised, I asked my daughter how did she know it was mommy who threw her sticker away. She replied, "You were cleaning in here and the sticker was here". Apparently, she checks on her stickers every morning. Kids, you would think they don't care and pay attention to what's going on or where things are in the house but in fact they do. I pointed to the top drawer at the spot where I stuck the little monkey sticker. She knew where I had moved it but in her little world, I threw her out. Why? Because that little monkey is a representation of her, mama Hello Kitty is me, and papa Hello Kitty is her dad. She stuck the little monkey, which is herself, in between her mom and dad. When I moved the sticker, she felt I didn't want her close to me or her dad. After this incident, I learned to always let her know what I was going to do to her stuff before I do anything.

Most Repeated Things My Kids Say

If I had a dollar for each time I hear my kids say these things, I'd have enough money for their college tuitions.

Son
'I need money.'
'Can I have money to go out?'
'Can I go out?'
'There's this new Jordan shoes that came out, can I buy them?'

Daughter #1
'I'm hungry.'
'Can my friend call me?'
'Can I call my friend?'
'Can I buy this?'

Daughter #2
'I'm bored.'
'Can I help you with anything?'
'You never play with me.'
'Can I wash dishes?'
'Who do you love more, me or K (her sister)? Me or D (her brother)?'

Two Girls - Different Weight

When my eldest daughter was a toddler, her pediatrician was very concerned about her weight. So concerned that she had me record a journal of what I was feeding my little girl. She talked to me about child obesity which can lead to adult obesity and all the ramblings about health and nutrition. She pointed that my daughter's weight was in the upper percentile according pediatric growth chart. Anyways, long story short, she put my daughter on a diet plan which included diluting the milk to a 50/50 ratio - 50% milk and 50% water, lots of fruits and vegies, less carbs like rice, bread, and crackers.

My two girls are 4 years apart. With my second daughter, she was and still is underweight according to the pediatric growth chart. When my little one was 2, the doctor suggested that I add butter to my daughter's food to fatten her up. I think my disgusted facial expression hinted was very obvious as the doctor immediately suggested that I introduce more fattier food into my daughter's diet to bring her weight up to average.

My mom babysat my kids because I was working then and of course she didn't follow through with the doctor's recommendations. She thought diluting the milk and refraining the eldest from eating was the most absurd thing she'd ever heard and putting butter in food to fatten up a baby was the dumbest thing a doctor can recommend.

Both of my girls have opposite appetite. The eldest one can eat anything and she sure can eat! The youngest one is a picky eater and just nibbles. I'm constantly telling the eldest to stop eating and the youngest to eat more. My sister has a theory. She says that the eldest one is stealing food from her sister and that she would quickly eat her food first, then eat off from her sister. To understand why my sister thinks this way, in a nutshell, there's this auntie-niece rivalry going on between my sister and my eldest daughter. It's complicated but it's not as bad as it sounds. It's more of because when my eldest daughter came along, she was my parents' first granddaughter and because my dad favors girls over boys, my daughter was very spoiled and my sister was thrown off her golden pedestal. We've all heard of sibling rivalry, my sister created a new category, auntie-niece rivalry. Okay, I digressed a bit there. Well, lately, the eldest one has been feeding her sister and my little one has plumped up. Yesterday, she made sorbet sundaes for both of them to snack on in the afternoon despite me telling her just sorbet and no fancy extras.

Is it Lilac or Lavender?

While walking in the park with my girls, we came upon an area that was filled with a sweet floral scent. I walked a bit slower, turning my head in different directions to try to find any nearby rose bushes. I didn't stop walking, I only slowed down my pace. Even though I really wanted to find out where the fragrant came from, in a split second, I decided against it because I didn't want to waste time. I was keeping tabs on time, making sure our stroll in the park was not too long so that my eldest daughter could go home and start on her homework and for me to cook dinner.

My girls did continue to walk but they didn't hasten their pace. Instead, they meandered. They paid attention to everything along the way. They noticed the little pink flowers on the bushes, the broken glass on the trail, and the spider webs on the bushes. They stopped and looked at everything that their curious minds saw along the trail despite me hurrying them along. When we turned around to walk home, my eldest daughter stopped in front of a bush. She said the fragrant seemed to have came from that bush. I smelled the little purple flowers on the bush and indeed it was the sweet floral scent that filled the air. My eldest said it smells just like our hand lotion. I looked at the flowers and my first thought was, "Lilac?". Okay, by now, you all should know I'm not good with flowers but lavender was a second thought that popped in my head because its scent is commonly used in hand lotions, soap bars, and dishwashing liquids. I didn't bring a camera with me that day but returned the next day and nipped off a tiny branch of flowers to take to a plant nursery and ask if they can help me identify the flower.


At first, I wanted to plant this flower in my backyard but moments later, my youngest daughter pointed to a trail of ants. I looked closer and saw a lot of ants around the bush which was not a good sign. I definitely don't want ants in my backyard. We ended up not going to the plant nursery after all but since I took a picture of the flower, I'll probably go this weekend and find out more about this flower.

A Bet With My Sister

Last year, I bought a bunch of different potted flowers to brighten up my dull garden. I bought red dahlias , yellow calla lilies, and some other flowers that I can't recall at the moment.

My flowers slowly stopped blooming after a few reblooms. At first, I just trimmed off whatever looked dead but I eventually cut off everything and all that was left was soil in the pots. Well, early this year, one of the pots showed signs of blooming and I was so happy. It was my first successful rebloom flower! After 5 years! My family didn't believe this either. They asked which flower pot it was and would occasionally checked on that particular pot whenever they came over to visit. I was certain it was my dahlia plant so I told them it was my dahlia pot. My sister was the most skeptical of all. She even placed a bet that it was weed growing. If she was right, I owe her a pot of flower for her backyard and if I was right, she owes me two pot of flowers. That was how confident she was. Well, turns out, she was right. Here is my so-called rebloomed dahlia flowers...

This is how clueless I am about flowers, I really thought the yellow dandelion flowers were mini dahlias until the white fuzzy ball bloomed. What is that fuzzy thing anyways?? So yes, I lost my bet and my sister says she wants a rose bush instead of a pot of flower, and she says she'll come with me just in case I pick up a pot of weed instead of roses :-{

Teaching My Kids My Worst School Subject

My worst subject in school was math. I was not one of those students who understood concepts just by listening and got it the first time around. I was one of those who had to go to after school tutoring and do the problems over and over again to understand the concepts. Repetition was the only way I learned math and then I would forget when we moved on to new concepts. So here I am now, teaching my worst subject to my kids.


In the beginning of the school year, my third grade daughter was having a hard time in math. She was so confused because I was teaching her the old traditional way of solving multiplication and division problems and her teacher was teaching her new methods by the Everyday Mathematics system. Kids are now being taught to use different methods and strategies. There were many times when my daughter would say I was teaching her the wrong way. She kept mentioning about partial algorithm and lattice algorithm. I had no idea what she was saying and she had no idea what I was teaching her. It was definitely very frustrating for both of us. When she failed on her first test, I talked to the teacher and then I understood why my daughter was confused. Today, kids are taught to use the partial-products algorithm like this:

83
x27
----
80x20 -> 1600
80x 7 -> 560
3x20 -> 60
3x 7 -> + 21
----
2241

and the lattice method by using grid of squares:

8 3
+---+---+
|1 /|0 /|
| / | / | 2
1 |/ 6|/ 6|
+---+---+
|5 /|2 /|
| / | / | 7
11 |/ 6|/ 1|
+---+---+
14 1

1,11,14,1
-> 1,12,4,1
-> 2,2,4,1
= 2241

No wonder my daughter didn't understand what I was teaching her. I was teaching her the traditional multiplication algorithm which is done from right to left and the new partial-products algorithm is done from left to right. I can't wait to see how fourth grade math is taught today!

Power of Prayer

I was supposed to make dinner reservation last Monday, the latest would had been Tuesday for my daughter's 5th birthday at a new seafood buffet restaurant. I even checked the weekend weather forecast to see if rain would be in the picture. Saturday - no rain, Sunday - yes rain and so I reminded myself to make the reservation for Saturday. Well, I didn't call the restaurant until Friday and (surprise, surprise) Saturday was completely booked. The manager said that he had one slot open for Sunday at 7pm. Without giving much thought, I grabbed that slot right away, feeling relieved that I was able to make the reservation. As soon as I sent an email out to my family about the dinner, I immediately got multiple replies, "Sunday is raining". I had completely forgotten about the rain on Sunday. So what do you do when you screwed up like this? You pray! And that's exactly what I did. I prayed.

I say my prayer every day to Guanyin, Goddess of Compassion. I am a firm believer in the power of prayer. On Friday night, I said my prayer and asked for a few hours of no rain so the guests can arrive and depart safely the restaurant. Like I mentioned earlier, the rain we've been having is fierce with gutsy wind and surprise hail on and off. My mom, brother and husband suggested a few times to postpone the dinner until next week. On Saturday, my brother called again and tried to convince me to postpone dinner. I told him "Guanyin will clear the rain for a few hours, don't worry". Yeah, my brother thought I was going nuts.

Sunday morning...

I was awakened by the sound of rain smashing on my bedroom window. I looked outside and it was storming. By mid-day, it rained harder. My brother called and asked if dinner was still on and I told him yes. My parents came over and while we were eating lunch together, the rain was pounding so hard on my kitchen skylight, I could feel everyone's anxiety about dinner later on. After lunch, my husband talked to me and said it was raining too hard. I told him not worry about it, and that the rain will stop before we leave the house. He didn't buy what I was saying at all.

3:30pm...

The rain suddenly stopped. I looked out the window and not a drop of rain outside. My dad said how weird that the rain stopped and thought maybe it was only a momentary stop and would resume shortly after. At 5:30pm, I looked out my bedroom window and saw blue sky with only a few gray clouds. You can click on the picture and look at the time stamped on it.


In the living room, the sunlight was beaming through the cracks of my window shades, even I was in disbelief. No way, I thought, the sun is out? And surely enough, when I looked up in the sky, the sun was there trying to break through the clouds.


6:30pm - Time to head out to the restaurant! During dinner, there was a feeling of awkwardness about the rain suddenly stopping. Nobody brought up the subject entirely but I heard a few quiet murmurs about "the rain really stopped". Well, the food was terrific. No wonder so many people raved about this all-you-can-eat place! We left the restaurant at 8:45pm and didn't arrive home a little after 9pm. At 9:45pm, it started to rain again. It's actually storming outside as I'm typing this post.

Sometimes when you experience a situation where you can't explain why or how it happened, it's better to uncomplicate things and accept the simplest answer right before you, that miracles do happen.

Tips On Prolonging Cell Phone's Battery Life

My dad complains about this all the time, and as with anything in life, you don't really pay much attention to other people's problems until it becomes your problem. About six months ago, my dad said that his cell phone battery drained too quickly. He said on some days, after he fully charged his phone, the battery went on low within an hour. I told him there was no way a phone battery can drain that quickly unless there was something wrong with the battery itself. He bought a new battery for his phone a month or two ago and then told me the customer rep at the store advised him to turn off his phone when charging especially at night so that the phone would not overheat.

This past week alone, I noticed that my cell phone battery drained itself too quickly. It'll be on full charge and by mid-day, the battery was at 50% with minimal use. Minimal as in only checking my emails and responding or sending 3-4 text messages. I used to charge my phone every other day but lately, I'm finding myself needing to charge twice a day.

At first, I thought maybe somehow the battery got damaged after I dropped my phone in the street a few weeks ago. Got an ugly scratch and dent on the upper left corner because of that drop. Good thing my daughter was with me that day because I was holding two bags, her jacket, and my cell phone when I dropped it and didn't know I dropped it. I felt something slipping, paused for a bit, and then continued walking. My daughter said, "Mom, you just dropped your phone". We looked around and found it under a parked car. Anyways, so glad my daughter was with me that day, otherwise, I would have lost my phone. Okay, so back to the battery problem. I thought the battery got damaged from this incident. I did some online research and found some very interesting tips on how to prolong a cell phone battery's life. I tried some of the tips and immediately noticed a significant difference in how long my battery lasted. By the end of the day, my phone battery now shows only 25% used rather than at red 7% like before.

Here are some great tips I learned:

1) Keeping your phone on vibrate uses more energy than if you were to leave on silent or ringtone. I used to always leave my phone on vibrate. Not anymore!

2) Avoid taking pictures, downloading anything, or surfing the net when you are outside and won't be able to charge your phone any time soon. These functions, especially taking pictures, will drain the battery very fast.

3) Heat will damage the battery. Turn off your phone while charging it and do not leave your phone in direct sunlight, or anywhere hot.

4)Completely drain your battery every month and then fully charge it.

5) For iPhone users, here are the features you should turn off when not in use. To learn how to reset your settings or adjust any of the settings below, click here.

* Minimize use of location services
* Turn off push notifications, push mail, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, EQ, and 3G
* Fetch new data less frequently
* Adjust brightness

Beautiful Love Story

My sister forwarded this beautiful love story, I thought I'd share it with you.


“You can't undo anything you've already done, but you can face up to it. You can tell the truth. You can seek forgiveness. And then let God do the rest.”


He met her at a party. She was so outstanding, many guys chasing after her, while he was so normal, nobody paid attention to him.

At the end of the party, he invited her to have coffee with him, she was surprised but due to being polite, she promised. They sat in a nice coffee shop, he was too nervous to say anything, she felt uncomfortable, and she thought to herself, "Please, let me go home..."

Suddenly he asked the waiter, "Would you please give me some salt? I'd like to put it in my coffee." Everybody stared at him, so strange! His face turned red but still, he put the salt in his coffee and drank it. She asked him curiously, "Why you have this hobby?" He replied, "When I was a little boy, I lived near the sea, I liked playing in the sea, I could feel the taste of the sea, just like the taste of the salty coffee. Now every time I have the salty coffee, I always think of my childhood, think of my hometown, I miss my hometown so much, I miss my parents who are still living there." While saying that tears filled his eyes. She was deeply touched. That's his true feeling, from the bottom of his heart. A man who can tell out his homesickness, he must be a man who loves home, cares about home, has responsibility of home... Then she also started to speak, spoke about her faraway hometown, her childhood, her family.

That was a really nice talk, also a beautiful beginning of their story. They continued to date. She found that actually he was a man who meets all her demands; he had tolerance, was kind hearted, warm, careful. He was such a good person but she almost missed him! Thanks to his salty coffee! Then the story was just like every beautiful love story, the princess married to the prince, and then they were living the happy life... And, every time she made coffee for him, she put some salt in the coffee, as she knew that's the way he liked it.

After 40 years, he passed away, left her a letter which said, "My dearest, please forgive me, forgive my whole life's lie. This was the only lie I said to you---the salty coffee. Remember the first time we dated? I was so nervous at that time, actually I wanted some sugar, but I said salt. It was hard for me to change so I just went ahead. I never thought that could be the start of our communication! I tried to tell you the truth many times in my life, but I was too afraid to do that, as I have promised not to lie to you for anything... Now I'm dying, I afraid of nothing so I tell you the truth, I don't like the salty coffee, what a strange bad taste... But I have had the salty coffee for my whole life! Since I knew you, I never feel sorry for anything I do for you. Having you with me is my biggest happiness for my whole life. If I can live for the second time, still want to know you and have you for my whole life, even though I have to drink the salty coffee again."

Her tears made the letter totally wet. Someday, someone asked her, "What's the taste of salty coffee?" She replied, "It's sweet."

Pass this to everyone because love is not to forget but to forgive, not to see but understand, not to hear but to listen, not to let go but HOLD ON!!!!


Photo Courtesy: Just Be Photography

How to Protect Your Published Contents on Blogger

http://www.dynamicdrive.comI read this post by Deb at Menopausal New Mom about a blogger who copied/plagiarized two other bloggers' contents and images. I left a comment that there's actually something that bloggers can do to deter others from stealing your published content. In this post, I will share with you some codes you can implement that will disable the right click function to prevent anyone from stealing from your blog. Before I go into what you can do, I'd like to forewarn you the method you're about to read is not, I repeat, is not 100% fool-proof. I will explain why in a minute. This method will make it difficult to copy contents. Anyone who is knowledgeable with html or javascript, can of course, figure another way to get the information they seek. So please bear that in mind!

If you try to copy and highlight this post, you will notice that you can not. Why don't you give that a try now. I have included a script in my blog html to prevent my contents from being copied. The script works on most browsers but not all. If you happened to be able to copy, then the code I embedded in my html does not work on your browser. That's the first unfortunate thing I want to let you know about these codes. They don't work 100%. Even if the code works on a particular browser like Internet Explorer and Firefox, it might not work in a few years when these browsers update to a newer version making your code obsolete.

Another method people can use to enable the right click function after you disabled it is as shown here by BlogAnything. Copying text content is harder than copying images. It is because even with the disable code you used, the user can always go to VIEW -> PAGE SOURCE and copy the image URL. Of course there are many other ways. So yeah, while it does make it harder to steal online material, it's not impossible. Anyone who is determined to do so, will figure out a way to do so.

Now that you know the cons about disabling the right click function, and you still want to install the code, the code is below. If you are using Firefox browser, don't bother installing the disable right click code because Firefox overrides the code. In another word, it doesn't work. It took me several days of looking for codes after codes until finally my brother who is html literate explained to me that Firefox won't let you do that.
 
Disable Right Click Code:




Copy the above code and then go to DASHBOARD - LAYOUT - PAGE ELEMENTS. Add a new gadget HTML/Javascripts. Paste the code in the box and click "SAVE".

Good luck and I hope if you do choose to disable the right click function on your blog, it will deter people from stealing what you work so hard to publish. Happy blogging!

Code Source Credit

Who Would Beat An Elderly Person?

I read this news yesterday and even watched the 9 minute surveillance video of a group of teenagers beating a 57-year-old woman while she was waiting for the city train late in the evening. After beating her on the train platform, one guy threw her onto the rail tracks and then the teenagers jumped down to continue to beat her. This comes a few weeks after a group of teenagers attacked an 87-year-old man when he got off the bus. The man was hospitalized for the injuries and died two weeks later. I think I was more angry than shocked when I read about these two attacks.

What has become of society this past decade? Moral values have decayed and violence up. School and workplace shootings have become common news. Not to mention broad daylight shootings and robberies are more common now. When I read what these group of teenagers did, I wonder where are these kids' parents and how were they raised. To even raise your hand on an elderly person, that's just really an all time low in the person's values and character.

The law is pretty lenient on people arrested for criminal offense if they're under 17. Kids are smart, they know this too. They know they can get away from a lot of harsh punishment if they're a juvenile. This leads me to think maybe we ought to impose more severe punishments regardless of age. Going back to the teenagers who beat up the 87-year-old man, what logical excuse can they give? That they were just having fun? That they didn't know a few punches from each kid would kill him? The police have not arrested any suspects for the 87-year-old man's beating but one 15 year-old was arrested for the 57-year-old woman's beating. I used to raise my eyebrow when one of my coworkers, who is in her mid-sixties, said we should bring back the hanging gallows and public whippings like Singapore. She told me that people didn't lock their home front doors nor did they lock their car doors back in the good old days. She'd leave her car keys in the ignition without a shred of fear that it'd be stolen. She said it was S-A-F-E back then. I wonder what caused all of this to change. Why has society gotten so much worse and dangerous today? What do you think?