With more and more information available online, people’s attention are getting less and less. People are reading less and less and now, they just want to look at pictures before deciding whether to read. I suppose that is why Pininterest is so popular.

Pininterest has a section called “Goodies” which includes Pin It Button for websites. However, I couldn’t quite figure out how to use that for this or for my blogger blogs. For this wordpress blog, I merely searched for Pininterest Plugin and installed the first plugin I saw out of the various available.

As for my blogger blogs, I used this – Pininterest Pin It Buttons And Follow Buttons For Blogger and WordPress from Spice Up Your Blog.com

I implemented the step by step instructions from that blog on how to install the pininterest Pin In Button for all my blogger blogs. Great! Now, visitors will have more than one ways to share content from my blog. My Parenting Blog especially is full of images of crafts to share whilst my Quotes Blog has many beautiful Quotes and Images.

Happy Pinning.

Dove Hunting Trip

Father’s Day is coming soon. What would be a unique gift for a father? A really unique gift for a father who loves hunting would be a surprise dove hunting trip to Argentina. Argentina Dove Hunting is a unique experience that is hard to describe. The best thing would be to let father experience it for himself.

Imagine it, during the dove hunting trip, father can get to wake up early in the morning in Cordoba, Argentina to a hearty American-style breakfast. After that he will be driven to the hunting area and be paired off with a  birdboy to start his hunt. He will hunt for 4 hours till noon when he will be treated to a Argentinan Barbecue called the “Asado”. After lunch father can have a nap on a hammock or get right back to another few hours of dove hunting if he chooses.

At the end of the day, father can sip champagne or ice-cold beer in the Argentinan sunset before adjourning back to his lodging. Dinner will be an international style meal accompanied with the finest wines in Argentina. After dinner, father can take a walk or swim or soak in a hot tub or have a massage and a relaxing steam bath. Sounds wonderful.

Dove Hunting Season is all year round in Argentina so sending father there in June for a surprise Father’s Day trip should not be a problem. Would you consider such an interesting and unique gift for Father’s Day instead of boring old towels or wallets or photo frames?

It is not hard to make someone happy. Giving a true and genuine compliment will surely make someone’s day. So, if you observe somebody doing something right, why not tell them about it? You will be rewarded with a big smile.

The other day, I was queuing up at Mc Donalds to buy lunch for the family. The line was very long. There were only two cashiers. I was observing one of them. He was serving the small boy and his father before me. Although he was very busy, he had a big smile for the boy who was obviously very delighted to order. Then he gave the boy three toys to choose from for his Happy Meal. The boy chose one and smiled. The guy smiled back at him and said “Thank you for ordering, please come again.” Then he looked at the father and said “Anything else?” No customer was too small for him. He thanked the little boy for ordering.

When it came to my turn, he took my order, noted everything in his head, then everything went into the packages in a jiffy, and he turned around and asked for the amount. I gave it to him and said “You are very fast.” He stopped in his momentarily in his tracks obviously surprised but smiled in return.

I think  he deserved a complement. Sometimes the best complements come from a stranger at the most unexpected of times. I shall always remember how an irrate customer thanked me over the phone, asked me how long I was working for the company and said “You are very good. I believe you will go far.”

Why not make someone happy today? If you see someone who deserves a complement, say it. Don’t keep it to yourself. Don’t write it on  your blog. Tell the person and get rewarded with a big smile. Happy Tuesday!

MOM = Mind Over Matter (My Latest CafePress Design)

I haven’t been blogging much lately. I have been so engrossed with self publishing my books and my squidoo lenses and creating designs for my cafepress shop. At the back of my mind are more poems I want to write and perhaps publishing some rhyming children’s books. So much to do so little time.

We didn’t celebrate Mother’s Day because the kids are having school tests. Besides, the man of the house believes that Mother’s Day are supposed to be celebrated by the kids with their mother so this mother will have to wait till her kids grow up enough to want to do something for their Mother. Well, this mom secretly wishes that the man would be involved in teaching them how to appreciate their mother by helping them to plan but then because May also happens to be my daughter’s birthday and our wedding anniversary, and too many celebrations tire him. lol.

So it was business as usual. this mom had to teach the kids, queue up in a long queue to buy takeout McDonald’s meal for the family because that’s the man’s idea of celebrating Mother’s Day. Then at the end of the day, one of the kids wanted this mother to play ball with him while the other wants me to play writing conversations with her while this mom tried to dry her hair with the hair dryer. This mother said, “Hey, whatever happened to my breakfast in bed and cards, and flowers and gifts and massage?” So the little one hurried over to give this mum a hug. lol.

That hug is worth all the presents and cards or flowers in the world.

At night, this mom was back to worrying about the girl because she was having a fever and a bad cough and her period came. So this mum had to spend 4 hours rubbing her back and tummy because it was painful from too much coughing.

Yes, it is business as usual for this mother but it does not matter.

What this mom wants most in this world is for her kids to be healthy and happy and good people.

Recently, we went out with dad for a meal. I still remember the day the doctor told us that he may have to go home from hospital and ‘eat’ from a feeding tube for the rest of his life. A feeding tube is inserted into the nostril (or sometimes through an incision in the stomach) and milk is poured into the tube and goes directly into the stomach. You don’t get to taste your food or experience the joy of eating.

To be able to eat is actually a blessing. How many of us take that ability to eat for granted?

I am thankful that now dad can eat normal food. Although he is in a wheelchair now, has a colostomy bag, has to be helped around everywhere, needs someone to bathe him etc, this ability to eat anything (or almost anything) he wants and likes is a blessing.

We had bah kut teh with dad. Though his mind wandered through the meal, as it sometimes does, we are happy, that dad is able to be with us, to smile and laugh and ….. eat.

My latest online venture is starting a CafePress Shop. I have started the shop with a niche for moms who like funny quotes to lighten up their day. I am not a good artist but I am good with words and I love Quotes, that is why I decided to concentrate my shop on Gifts for Mothers with Funny Mom Quotes.

It is easy to do many things online like starting a blog, writing Squidoo lenses, even starting up shop and publishing your own book! However, do not be fooled into thinking that because these things are easy to do, it is easy to make money online. Many of these things do not make money online. It is the process of doing them which is fun and fulfilling.

These days I carry a notebook around with me, to jot down all my thoughts and ideas and writings. If I don’t, I forget them and they are lost. Starting on new things like writing a book and starting a store has made things interesting again, just like the early days of blogging. The good thing is my books and items are print on demand so I don’t have to come up with any money for this hobby. That is a good thing because otherwise I would not have the financing to do any of these things which I love. I enjoy doing them even if I don’t sell a single item or book. Isn’t that crazy? I guess that is what they call passion.

Below is the my facebook page for my second book. Have you liked it yet?

“I know that I should not let my self value be tied to the opinion of others but if someone keeps on telling me that I make them feel very tired and I am a liability to them, I can’t help but feel low and my self worth takes a dip.”

Feeling for the day:

While looking at his site, I saw that he was also selling portable solar power panels. There was a video of a lady who bought this solar panel and installed it on her roof herself. That looks quite interesting. Generating your own electricity using Solar Power is supposed to help to keep energy bills to the minimum. I wonder whether this portable DIY Portable Solar Panel will help. I would surely appreciate any way to lower my bills and help me to save over time.

I certainly need to reduce my electricity bills. It’s just been going up, up and up. Gas Prices are rising everywhere. I don’t see my utility bills coming down anytime soon. I guess it must be because of my air-condition usage. We turn it on frequently. The other problem is because I live in a terrace house. We have very little light in the house. It is so dark even during the day, we have to resort to switching on the lights all day, every day. I try to buy energy saving lamps but my electricity bills keep on rising. I would certainly appreciate any tips to reduce energy usage besides solar power. A gas and electric price product comparison site would also be useful.

Another one of my daughter’s classmate left this week for a private school. Yet another will leave at the end of this term in about a month.

While another parent in my daughter’s class went to school to collect report card copies etc to be submitted for her application for a private secondary school. My daughter is only in Std 4. I haven’t even decided where to send her in secondary school and people are applying already?

Education system and education choices here are in a sad state. I don’t know where to send my girl to in Secondary school and we are hanging on to Chinese school despite the crazy homework load and it IS crazy. Everyday, all she does is go to school, have meals in between, do homework and sleep. There is not time for ANYTHING else! I feel sorry for her. Heck. I feel sorry for me. Ok. Enough Ranting. I must leave my energy for homework guidance later in the day.

Cactus Flowering Plant

I don’t have green fingers but I can grow these. They are Cactus Flowering Plants. I don’t know what they are called exactly. My sister gave them to me. All I had to do was stuck the stems into pots and they grew and grew. They can grow straight up or as a bush depending on the size and shape of your pot.

The flowers from my cactus flowering plant don’t look as good because I keep on watering them by accident! lol. I’m not supposed to water them since they’re a cactus plant. In bright sunlight the tiny pink flowers will flourish and grow beautifully.

This is the only type of flowers I can plant. The rest are all eaten up or damaged by insects because I don’t have the patience to look after them. Once, I saw someone place brightly colored cactus plants in a row. They look so beautiful. Just take a look at these cactus flowering plants images. Don’t you think they are beautiful?