where the moon shines

October is already drawing to a close. Years ago, I regarded October as a busy month because it is dubbed as the National Children’s Month. Government and Non-Government agencies alike usually have programs all throughout the month, and the organizations that I’ve been a part of would surely participate in some form. 

Now that I am no longer involved in children’s organizations, I still find myself looking around for signs that this month’s theme is actually being publicized. Call it bad timing, but worldwide, October is Pink Month for Breast Cancer Awareness – and you can see that everywhere (including in this blog).

The other day though, I did see a banner about this year’s theme right in front of the offices of the ABS-CBN Foundation. Other than that, no sign. I don’t read the papers much, but of what I’ve read, there was no mention of children’s month. I usually get to see the weekend news; but then again, no news on Children’s Month. 

Then just now, after searching for signs on the Internet, I found that there was a festival right around the corner. The Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA) spearheaded a Children’s Theater Festival this weekend (October 24 to 26). Their Theater Center is about three to four blocks from here, and I could have brought my nephews and nieces there had I known of the Festival beforehand. Alas, that’s how out of the loop I am. Buti pa when PETA had their shows and festivities in far away Raja Sulayman Theater of the Fort Santiago, I was able to go. Now that they’re here, and they’ve been here for YEARS, I haven’t been to see a single production. 

What I’m trying to say is, it is so frustrating that no matter how long the child-welfare circle has been celebrating Children’s Month, we still haven’t been really able to break into the mainstream.

Who knows about October being the National Children’s Month in the Philippines? I hope that we have had more success in raising awareness of actual child rights/child protection issues.

I scrapped a page! Yay!!!

Click on the photo for a larger view and the credits.

Now, though there are a thousand and one words that I would like to write, let me take time to visit the rest of the Scrapbook Saturday gang (a day late, as usual!).

Over the weekend (and still ongoing) my site has been through changes! So for my seventeenth edition of Thursday Thirteen, here are both subtle and obvious changes to verabear.net:

• 1- The main theme/template. From bright to dark.
• 2- Changed the default logo that came with the theme. I might be changing that one again this weekend though.
• 3- Removed the About the Author and Ads sections of the Sidebar
• 4- Added ads under the Header and under the Footer, but only for the Main Index page.
• 5- Changed the way Archived posts are displayed. The default display only listed the contents but I wanted the actuall posts shown too when you clicked on a Category, for example.
• 6- Edited the appearance of the Threaded Comments Plugin to match the template.
• 7- Removed the “author” property (e.g. posted by verabear) for each post. I don’t feel that I need it because I’m the only one who posts here anyway.
• 8- Added a gallery plugin – NextGen – which I may not be able to use after all because I’d have to pay per additional 8M of PHP memory.
• 9- Changed the color scheme for my Bidvertiser and Google Ads.
• 10- The Subscribe area. I never had one although the previous template also had an RSS link by default.
  Still looking forward to changing/adding the rest…
• 11- A photo gallery that’s hopefully integrated with WP
• 12- Top Commentors plugin
• 13- I might add an Instant Messaging Control box so we can chat real time when I’m online    I had one back when I was still blogging at my Blogger address but the only one that ever chatted with me was Tracy and we chat on Messenger all the time anyways. Haha. Maybe I’ll get to know more blog readers next time I set it up, or at least I am hoping too.

Feedback has been generally positive about the new look. More importantly, I am quite happy with the changes.

**Checkout my previous TT’s here and here.

**I have just added Mister Linky, please add your links so Thirteeners can easily find you

I really should be sleeping now, the sun is already up. Boyfriend has already gone to bed without me. I’m waiting for a download to finish, you see. 11 percent left…

I had already taken Zune out for his morning walk. He is used to going out and doing his thing before six in the morning. My parents get up around 5-530. They aren’t here though – out of town to witness the consecration of our church’s newest bishop. I know Zune must be missing both Mom and Dad, so I figured I’d take him out for his morning walk so as not to completely break his habits while they’re away. Last night, it was Alfred’s turn to take him out for his 6pm walk (I was at work).

While there’s 8 percent more of the download, I’d like to take this chance to thank my top ten Entrecard droppers for the past thirty days:

Thanks for coming by to visit! 

Wow, I finished this post just as my download completed, sweet! Oh, this got me to wondering if there was a plugin that would count the number of comments posted by a particular person? That would be cool so I could also thank my top commenters who are not EC droppers.