It has been a while since I last updated my IPOD playlist. Like most things here in Sydney, CDs and DVDs are expensive! Good thing there are many ways of buying music and videos over the internet. Just like www.MP3rocket.com, which allows free music downloads! And for a minimal fee, you get more services like unlimited downloads and you can even burn them on CDs. How cool is that?

Depending on your usage, the basic set-up will give you the minimal functions but if you want to maximize MP3rocket’s features, then upgrading to a PRO account is a must. This is ideal if you want to get access to more movies and music and enjoy them in the comforts of your home. The user panel is so easy to use it’s a matter of clicking a few buttons to download. I will tinker with my basic account more and see if I should upgrade. Ah, the wonders of technology.

Buh bye April. HELLO MAY! What will you not miss about April? And what are you looking forward to in May?

I can’t think of anything that I will not miss in April. It was a good month. I am looking forward to cooler weather (it’s our first autumn and winter..) and the launch of a blog project!

~ my entry for That’s My Answer!

Blue Mountains, April 2008

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When is the last time you cleaned your home? Would you ever hire a cleaning service?

With other chores to do like cooking, ironing and laundry, there’s no way for me to clean the whole apartment in one shot. Plus, I have a toddler to attend to and she tops the priority list!

So what I do is, I clean certain areas of the apartment everyday. The living room today, bedroom the next, then the kitchen, etc. I would hire cleaning service if my husband and I can’t manage to do the chores anymore. If we can afford it and the free time would allow us to spend quality time with each other as a family, why not?

~ my entry for That’s My Answer!

I have a bad feeling that my Dell laptop will conk out on me soon. I have uninstalled many applications I rarely use and ran the disk defragmenter tool but the performance is still slow. What usually takes less than a minute to boot up has now become at least 2 minutes or more! I tried to free-up the memory by copying image files to a CD but that didn’t help either.

I’m not ready to let go just yet. My old ibook will be my fall back but I’m still very much dependent on this PC. Well, I just have to remember to make frequent back-ups of my PC files, just in case.

Last Saturday, my husband, daughter and friends went to Blue Mountains. We left the city after lunch and we didn’t expect that Blue Mountains will be very crowded. Nonetheless, it was a beautiful sunny day and the cool breeze just made it perfect for a quick weekend get-away.

The rock formation in photo is the Three Sisters. You want to know the legend behind these towering rocks? Read on.

The Legend

The Aboriginal dream-time legend has it that three sisters, ‘Meehni’, ‘Wimlah’ and Gunnedoo’ lived in the Jamison Valley as members of the Katoomba tribe.

These beautiful young ladies had fallen in love with three brothers from the Nepean tribe, yet tribal law forbade them to marry.

The brothers were not happy to accept this law and so decided to use force to capture the three sisters causing a major tribal battle.

As the lives of the three sisters were seriously in danger, a witchdoctor from the Katoomba tribe took it upon himself to turn the three sisters into stone to protect them from any harm. While he had intended to reverse the spell when the battle was over, the witchdoctor himself was killed. As only he could reverse the spell to return the ladies to their former beauty, the sisters remain in their magnificent rock formation as a reminder of this battle for generations to come.

~ Source: BlueMountains.com

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My husband has a tentative business trip to Perth planned in June. He was told that it is for two weeks and that he has two options. Either he flies back to Sydney after a week or he can stay in Perth for two straight weeks but he can bring us with him. The company pays for our fare and hotel.

If the first option pushes through, we are thinking of going with him on the second week. And that means scouting for cheap flights. The last time we checked on the internet there are budget fares as low as 260aud.

We have to wait and see. It would be nice to see Perth at least once in our lifetime.

What three things do you think of when you think of Thursday?

When I think of Thursday, I think of: the nearing weekend, the TV show Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares and mall night (Rhodes shopping center closes at 9pm).

~ my entry for That’s My Answer!

(My entry for this week at Litratong Pinoy was shot in Pampanga in 2005. This is near the Lighthouse Grill cafe/restaurant within The Lakeshore Estate. The food at the Lighthouse Grill is really good especially the crispy tilapia which is their bestseller. There should be a lot of residents at the Lakeshore now compared to 2005 when the estate was just newly built.)

Ang lahok kong ito sa Litratong Pinoy ay kuha sa Pampanga noong 2005. Malapit ito sa Lighthouse Grill cafe/restaurant sa loob ng The Lakeshore. Masarap ang pagkain sa Lighthouse Grill lalo na ang crispy tilapia na sikat sa kanila. Malamang sa ngayon ay marami na ang nakatira sa Lakeshore dahil noong 2005 ay nagsisimula pa lamang magtayo ng mga bahay doon.

My husband likes going to the gym at least three times a week. He said that he feels more energetic after his workout. At the same time, it is a stress-reliever for him after a long work day. Good thing the apartment complex has a gym, which is so convenient for him. It has basic equipment like ellipticals, thread mills, bikes and benches for weight lifting. However, I may never come to enjoy going to the gym as much as my husband does because I prefer running outdoors more.

Iris shared this personality test to me a long while back. The results made me smile from ear to ear because they are all true! Now I know why easily get along well with men than women. Lalaki yata ako sa past life.

“At work, ISTJs get things done on a timely basis. They honor deadlines, and they believe in thoroughness. A half-finished job is not a job well done. They established procedures and schedules, and are uncomfortable with those who do not do the same. ISTJs put duty before pleasure. As long as they can fulfil their responsibilities, they feel useful and thereby satisfied. Their work does not have to be fun, but it has to count toward something productive. ISTJs believe that vacations are something that one takes only when work has been accomplished; thus, at times they do not take vacations even when they could and should.”
- ISTJ - The Reliant (Lifexplore)

“ISTJs are very loyal, faithful, and dependable. They place great importance on honesty and integrity. They are “good citizens” who can be depended on to do the right thing for their families and communities. While they generally take things very seriously, they also usually have an offbeat sense of humor and can be a lot of fun - especially at family or work-related gatherings.”
- Portrait of an ISTJ (The Personality Page)

Hello, ka-rubbing elbows ko pala dapat si Warren Buffet and George HW Bush. Ha ha.

I am interested to know what my friends Roselle, Junnie and blogger-friend Bambit will get.

I must say that Wordpress 2.5 is pretty darn cool behind the scenes. Have you upgraded to WP 2.5 yet?

I have upgraded over 12 sites to 2.5. Phew! I like the interface and all but I had problems with the upload function (which was resolved by changing folder permission settings) and now with the email function. Sigh.

~ my entry for That’s My Answer!

Antonio’s Breakfast, Tagaytay Philippines 2005

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Do you have a welcome mat at your door? What does it say? Would you like a customised one? *wink* What would that say?

We don’t have one right now. But if ever we’ll get one, it would have a boring welcome message, “Wipe your feet CLEAN please.” Ha ha.

~ my entry for That’s My Answer!

When was the last time you played on the swings? Went down a slide? Built a sandcastle?

The last time I played on the swing was with my daughter, at the park in the apartment complex where we are staying. I was on the swing while she sat on my lap. I don’t fit on the slide on the kid’s playground anymore but my Amelie sure had fun getting on it! Hmm, we spent the whole summer here in Sydney and never got to see a single beach. Yikes.

~ my entry for That’s My Answer!

I have joined this experiment that I picked up from Bambit. Here’s an excerpt from their wiki site:

First off, welcome to the site. It is said that there are over 70,000,000 blogs in existence. This is an experiment to see how long it will take to get 1,000,000 blogs to list themselves on our site. Will it work? We think so. The experiment is to see how long will it take. What do you think? take our poll. We started April 10th, 2008.

I’m # 920

Join now!

We were at a friend’s house yesterday in Baulkham Hills for a barbeque party and saw so many beautiful birds in their backyard. This photo with the playful larakeets is my favorite. Needless to say, they are the most beautiful birds I had ever seen.

Have a great week y’all!

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Worldwide Link Love (Tag No. 2 )

Got this tag from Jeanny and Meeya

~ start copying here ~Join the Worldwide Link Love!

Benefits of Worldwide Link Love!

1. Make new friends around the world.
2. Feel the Link Love.
3. Gain new readers and subscribers.

Rules:

1. Copy from ~start copying here ~ to ~ end copying here ~ and paste it on your blog.

2. At the end of the list, put your name and the country youre in, it doesn’t matter what’s your nationality just put the country where you are publishing your blog. Don’t forget to put links at your name.

3. If u have many blogs, you can link all of it, just make sure you post the same on each blog.

4. Tag eight (8) or more of your blog friends.

5. Tip for blogspot users: make sure you copy and paste the code in Compose mode.

Wanna join, and you can’t find your name on the list? Just leave a comment here.

Worldwide Link Love! Participants:

1. Julia (Philippines)
2. Catherine (Malaysia)
3. shimumsy (u.s.a)
4. Mitch (Philippines)
5. Hailey (Philippines)
6. Sexymom (USA)
7. Liza (Philippines)
8. Sasha (Philippines)
9. Thesserie (Netherlands)
10. Dagboek (Holland)
11. Enjoy Your Meal (Holland)
12. Meeya - Marikit (USA)
13. Meeya - My Memes (USA)
14. Meeya - My Finds (USA)
15. Jeanny (Phil)
16 Jeanny (Phil)
17. Christine - About Christine (Australia)
18. Christine - My Cyber-Life (Australia)
19. Christine - Only The Good Stuff (Australia)

So I am tagging : Mich, Roselle and Mel

.

(We visited Ground Zero in 2005. I had mixed feelings of sadness and presentiment when I saw the whole area. Presentiment because I imagined how the victims tried to escape the Twin Towers by jumping off these tall buildings. The same with the ones who were left to die inside trying to escape.

There were fresh flowers hanging on the fences, huge billboards with the names of those who died and there was a man playing what seemed to me as tunes of sorrow on the violin. There was a huge cross in the middle of Ground Zero built in remembrance to the lives lost in this disastrous event.)

Nakarating kami dito sa Ground Zero noong 2005. May halong lungkot at kaba akong mararamdaman nung nakita ko ito. Kaba dahil bigla kong naisip kung paano nagsipagtalon ang mga biktima mula sa Twin Towers sa kagustuhan nilang makatakas. Ganun din para sa mga naiwan sa loob at nagsumikap makalabas.

Sa bakuran nito ay may mga nakasabit na mga bulaklak, mga nakapaskel na pangalan ng mga nasawi at mayroon pang tagaroon na tumutugtog ng violin. Naglagay sila ng malaking krus bilang pag-alaala sa maraming buhay na naglaho dahil sa pangyayaring ito

Along Riverside Point, Singapore 2005

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