it's all about branding

Ramil and I have long been thinking of starting our own business. We have thought and talked about a lot of things regarding the cafe-resto that we want to start. Among the things we failed to come up with however, is our logo. This is a small but very important detail in one's business. Whether people admit it or not, branding affects consumers' behavior and the first thing that would reflect a brand is its logo.

Good thing I came across a site that could help me come up with a logo design. The site offers free trial and I was only glad to have my hands have a go at it. The site is very helpful and accurate in terms of coming up with the design that would closely approximate your business' personality. There's a detailed, step-by-step process that helps even those who are not naturally creative and artistic. It's very flexible and very easy to play around with. Coming up with your own logo design has never been this fun, I didn't have to put up with complicated buttons like those in popular photo-editing softwares. Look at the logo I was able to come up with.

After creating your logo, they have a good collection of attractive templates to go along with your business card. Here's my card for our future business.

So I guess we've got our business personality covered already. Now, if we could only come up with the money to turn this business into a reality.

nearing father's day

This year is Ramil's second father's day. I've been thinking of what to give him to make the day special and memorable for him. How I wish I have enough budget to give him a bottle of his favorite perfume or even something like the cartier watches I saw online. Since we're trying to cut down on our expenses lately, I just might treat him to a spa or just give him a massage myself. Haha! Either way, I just hope he gets to enjoy the day. I know he loves being a father and Mateo and I try to show him how much we love him too everyday.

half in, half out

I will once again be teaching on a part-time basis this coming school year. I'm afraid I'm dreading it more than last year. I've been finding it hard to find any free time to do the things I need to do. What more when classes start already? Wah! I've actually been tempted more than once to just stop teaching altogether but my love for it won't let me. I hope things will not be as difficult as I'm expecting it to be and I hope I get to enjoy the school year too.

travel thoughts

The summer break is almost over and my mind is filled once again with travel thoughts. Some of our relatives have Las Vegas travel plans and I can't help but be envious of them. It's only a good thing that we were able to go to Boracay last March, at least we got to go somewhere. We're planning to save up for another vacation next year. Hopefully, we get to travel out of the country next time.

a rare collection

My sister was thinking of activities for her class this school year. She was thinking of bringing her class to the National Museum. I enthusiastically encouraged her to do so because I still remember my own visit to it. It definitely made me appreciate art and history. Not to mention that it got me interested in their big coin collection. It made me want to look for more rare coin collections that I can view. It's not so easy to start your own coin collection. You have to make sure that everything in your collection are certified coins. And of course, you need a good number of them to be able to consider it a significant collection. I guess I just have to settle for looking at others' collection.

a dangerous job

The husband of my mom's friend is a policeman and there are a lot of times when he'd be called to go attend to a dangerous situation. I know that my mom's friend always fear that something might happen to her husband during those times. She'd get all nervous whenever she'd see the bulletproof vest, the tactical gloves, guns, and the like being readied by her husband. That's also the reason why she's so proud of her husband, she just prays that no harm comes to him.

almost over

The summer break, that is. Although it didn't really give me a much-needed break because Mateo's yaya left a month ago, I will miss being with Mateo the whole day. Even though it was a bit difficult trying to look after Mateo and having no one else to do the household chores, I enjoyed spending a lot of time with him and getting to know him so much more. It's back to teaching for me in a few weeks' time. I just hope we find a good yaya soon!

wanna be a model?

A friend of mine has always been a looker. She's the type you might see in a beauty contest. Not only is she beautiful, she's got brains as well! What she's interested in though, is to be a model. She wanted to try her luck for a long time already but she's a bit shy about it. I told her to try Look of the Year. Aside from giving her a big exposure to the modeling worlds, she could win 10000 USD. I think that should be enough reason to join. They're looking for young ladies from all over the world to send in their best pictures so I'm going to work on convincing her to try it out. Even if she doesn't win, it just might jump start her modeling career.

http://www.lookoftheyear.com

jump in

It seems that everyone is jumping in the bandwagon. Ramil and I were talking about my online earnings the other day and trying to plan our gameplan for the coming schoolyear especially with me doing part-time work only (again!). I told him that I still don't want to count paid blogging as a permanent way of earning money because trends come and go and we don't really know how long before this one goes. It seems though that a lot of people think its here to stay. Paid blogging services are sprouting like mushrooms everywhere. I just recently signed up with a new one I found, Bloggerwave. It is very similar to another paid blogging site I've been using and it looks just as promising. So I guess we can hope to see my online earnings consistently in the next few months. So to those doing paid blogging or would like to start on it, Bloggerwave is now looking for bloggers to sign up.

a post-mothers' day gift

My sister and I will be having a facial treatment on Sunday. It's actually her post-Mothers' Day gift to me. Hehe! We're both a bit nervous because we haven't had a facial treatment in a looong time. The last time I had one was before I got pregnant with Mateo, which was around two years ago. She, on the otherhand, got traumatized with a very painful treatment last year. It took me a bit of time trying to convince her to try it again. I'm still a believer of treatments like these. I know some people who swear by their own best acne treatment. As for me, with my very oily skin, I'm a bit happy that being in my late 20s has made my skin 'slow down' a bit.

another honeymoon

Ramil and I plan on going on another 'honeymoon'. Not right now though but we plan to celebrate our 5th, 10th, 15th, etc. wedding anniversaries by going on a major trip somewhere. There are so many places we want to visit and as much as we'd want to do this every year, we can't. Such a trip can be pretty hard on our pockets. We're not like the rich people who can even afford a private jet charter. Still, we hope to make our 'honeymoons' very special. We'll be celebrating our 3rd wedding anniversary this December. I can't wait for the 5th. Haha!

upgraded!

Ramil just upgraded his laptop. It has considerably slowed down these past few weeks. According to him, he needs a bigger system memory. So for his birthday last April, he asked for an upgrade. He bought a 1GB using our paypal earnings. Hehe! His laptop is now so much faster than my newer one. Now I'm itching to upgrade my laptop's memory too!

rest and relax

I haven't had any rest and relaxation these past few days. Ever since Mateo's yaya left, I've been juggling house chores, baby duties, and teaching. I've been meaning to look at some patio furniture but I can't even squeeze any time to go looking. Mateo is such a handful lately that my full attention has to be on him whenever he's awake. I'm praying for a new yaya soon!

more on getting my body back

Summer is here and the days are scorchingly hot. It makes it really difficult to do some physical exercises. Most of the time, I'd rather bring Mateo with me inside our room and turn on the airconditioner. Of course, I could always take Anoretix and that would probably solve my weight-loss problem. I feel like I'm so near yet so far when it comes to how my body was before I got pregnant.

itching to go swimming

The summer heat is scorching hot these past few days. And to think that we live here in the hills of Antipolo where it's so much cooler. I've been wanting to go swimming for several weeks now and we are planning to have a quick outing in one of the nearby resorts in two weeks. Even though I'm excited, I'm also a bit apprehensive. I guess it means I only have two weeks to get my body into shape. It's not like I have a fitness equipment at home that I can use. If worse comes to worse, I'm going to need to buy another swimsuit that would look more flattering on my body right now. Either way, I'm just happy I get to swim soon!