where the moon shines

I’ve been suspended at Twitter. Ugh. 

I don’t spam, I hardly even update there.  I did post a link yesterday but that was only for the post below, and there certainly is nothing malicious about the link is there?  Ohh, maybe it’s because an ad appears when you click on the ad first, before you get my actual page? Like this, check it out. 


Anyway…

I’ve been cooped up at home since visiting the office on Friday morning. It is just too hot to go outside.  I need to go to the mall though and pick up some stuff:

1. Sunblock – I need this before we leave for Baler
2. Lock and Lock for my camera storage.
3. Maybe get that Crumpler bag I’ve been eyeing too…

I probably should have gone to church with my parents, but I’m way too lazy for even that. How embarrassing to admit. 

I was trying to overhaul my photoblog, but decided to try a real gallery. I didn’t like how it turned out though so I’m going back to the original idea of using WP as my platform.  I think I’ve found a way to make it work the way I want it. Fingers crossed!

I’ve also joined MyLot, even though I don’t really know what it’s supposed to be.  I’m still not done setting up my myLot User Profile so I haven’t really explored the rest of the service yet. Anyhoo… back to photo blog tweaking/gallery hunting…

UPDATE:

I am no longer suspended. That was quick. I wonder what prompted it though?

Anyhoo… Bakerella shared this video of an awesome wedding photographer tandem. I want one for my weddding announcement/prenup!

Meet the Brockintons from ashley brockinton on Vimeo.

I was browsing through links that I’ve saved on the Favorites bar of my browser, and one of those blogs happen to be a digital scrapbook designer’s blog: Summertime Designs.  I found her blog a few months ago, and was thrilled to see her give away fabulous kits, all for free.

She’s offering another kit on her blog, the wonderful Easy Breezy Kit. But it’s more than just another freebie kit. She made it to help Baby Bree and her family. Bree is a beautiful and cheerful baby battling neuroblastoma cancer.  The donations that Summer receives will all go to Bree and her family.  Check out the link to see what she got for them on the first round of donations they received in the past.  I’ve already made my donation, I hope that you’d consider doing so too.  I donated an amount that I would normally use to pay for a digital kit; it’s also equivalent to a few doses of the best diet pills, not that I buy any.

If you need to be convinced to donate too, then take a look at Baby Bree, isn’t she just cute?

If you’re into digital scrapbooking, here’s a preview of the freebie kit.  The download links are available even without donating, but wouldn’t it be awesome if we’d donate before we download though?  Click on the image to get to the post:

For non-digiscrappers, you get nothing for donating, but the wonderful feeling of helping another family

When I joined the account last November, I inherited an entire team from another manager who moved to the Billing LOB.  The team name was GRID, after the racing game.  They were a merry mix of mostly non-tenured agents, with a splash of the very tenured.  One thing was obvious – they didn’t have much ownership for the team as a whole.  We’ve come a long way from that time, and we’ve seen a lot of members come and go. We’ve joked about changing our team name (specifically to Viva Piñata), but we never really got down to doing so. 

Yesterday, we finally went out as a team to somewhere farther then Red andG2.  We spent more than 24 hours eating, drinking, singing, swimming, and joking around, at Villa Natalia, Sta. Maria, Bulacan. 

It probably wasn’t the best team building activity that any one of us has been to, but it was our team excursion.  It would also keep them quiet for awhile, until they ask for another outing in two months’ time. Haha

The team’s being split in two; I’m keeping eleven and most of them are remnants from the original team I took over for 6 months ago.  Of the ten that got transferred, majority joined the team in the last 2-3 months.  I’d still keep tabs on them though, they won’t really be rid of me that easily.

I took pictures, of course. But I’m not ready to share them just yet. I’ll try to write up another post before hitting the sheets.

Tonight will be my last night at work and then I’d be on a two-week vacation! Yay!

I’ve got a lot lined up for the next fourteen days (in no particular order):

• Go swimming for our much anticipated Team Building (happening on Wednesday-Thursday)
• Meet up with girlfriends (tomorrow it’ll be Anliza, then an EcoPark photo shoot on Sunday with Jo, and hopefully time for my 8/0 UP friends too)
• Baler, Aurora with the boyfriend (this is for Mom’s outing/meeting for work, but R&R too); this will be for four fun days at the beach! 
• Register to vote (hopefully by Monday/Tuesday next week)
• Ship out our package for Pens of Hope.
• Sketch out my next (and hopefully last) weightloss plan
• Draw a plan for our next giving project

These are some of my bloggy goals although I doubt if I’ll actually get to them:

• Redesign this blog.
• Overhaul my photoblog (or maybe I should just put up a real gallery?)
• Explore other online earning channels 

Okay, it doesn’t look like much does it? There’ll be lots of time to slack off too

Mom decided to brave EDSA and drive herself to pick up Dad from the airport this morning.  I decided to go with her, I knew it wasn’t going to be an easy drive. She only drives from home to work (and back), and that’s not even daily – only when Dad’s away and the car’s free.  

From the passenger seat and with the belt safely on, I could sense that Ma was somehow nervous and of course we were going at a very safe speed  

So with Dad back from his business trip from The Netherlands, there’s something for everyone in his bags.  He got me a violet Ruth-Robin bag with Amsterdam written all over it, and I picked out this cellphone charm from the handful that he brought back:

Of course I’d take a photo of it and display it on my blog – this is my blog after all and I can talk about the mundane if I want to  But as soon as I looked at the photo I took, I wasn’t happy.  And just as I’ve done so many times since January, I took shot after shot until I captured it the way I really liked to show it off. 

I tried it this way:

But that didn’t make me happy so I tried another angle:

I didn’t like the edge of the table there though. I did like how the charm itself looks so defined.  Still, I wasn’t satisfied so I tried another way:

Now that, in my eyes, was promising.  It was clear.  But the mini havs totally upstaged the Amsterdam building.  That cannot be. 

So try again I did:

That one’s close enough, me likey.  I am almost done then?

Even with the floor showing through, this is my favorite from the bunch.  I love h0w the colors came out. I used a trick that Walter (an OM from work) showed me last week, it was using the internal flash (is it called internal?).  The colors turned out softer and more natural than when you just use the flash like normal diba?