The holidays have been fun but also stressful so I had to prioritize, again—family, friends, social obligations, self. Christmas shopping, family gatherings, family trips, and visiting friends were just some of the things that kept me away from blogging.

I wanted to write about 2011 and how that year has been really good to me, to us as a family, but I didn’t find the time. Now that every thing is slowing down, I could start picking up from where I left off. I’ll start with updating my blogs to working on blog design projects. I also plan to launch my online store not later than March so I hope that I could really populate it by then.

Family wise, every thing is doing great. My baby is healthy, happy, and active. He’s an amazing baby and he is growing up quite fast. My husband and I are as happy and as in love as ever. I thank God every single day for blessing me with such a wonderful family.

My career is another story. I wont say it’s doing great because it is not really the case but I wont say it’s a crap either because I am not really trying. My career as a freelance web designer/writer is just as successful as I am allowing it to be. I could be more successful on my job but right now, it is not my main focus. My family is my number one. I don’t mind not earning plenty of $$$ as long as I am doing great job at being a mom to my baby.

This 2012, I’ll continue prioritizing family over work. I will continue putting my baby above all the other things I have to attend to. I’ll sure accept some web designing and writing gigs but not more than what I can do in my free time.

Before I asked for a maternity leave, I told my remaining employer at Odesk that I will be able to do a bit of work again starting July, but it’s almost August and I haven’t reported to him yet so when I got an email from him asking me about continuing work, I was not surprised. I knew that one of these days; he’ll contact me about whether I still want to continue working for him or not anymore. Truth is, I am not really that eager to continue working for him. He is a very kind and patient employer, and the tasks he gives me are very interesting, but the pay is very low. He gives me bonuses every now and then but they are not enough to compensate for the low pay.

I was technically doing jobs for him but it was more like learning stuff and getting a small amount from learning.  The tasks he gave me were really interesting and I had plenty of time so it was okay. But now, not anymore.

I have to prioritize what I do with the very limited time I have for my online activities. I have to choose those that give me better benefits—emotional and financial. Blogging will always come first because, though I am not really earning from my blogs, they serve as an emotional outlet. Blogging has oftentimes cured my boredom, my sadness, my annoyance, and so on so I really have no plans on giving up blogging.  Blog designing comes in second because it serves as an artistic outlet and although I can’t really make a living from it, I earn a pretty decent amount from it. Odesk will have to come in last.

So now that I am slowly coming out of my maternity leave, I am devoting my online time on my blogs and my blog designing services. If I would have plenty of time, I would update each of my blogs once a week, but since I am still just sort of squeezing in my online activities, updating a blog each week should suffice. I also accepted a couple of blog designing projects—one for July and another for August. I told my clients who, despite the fact that I was on maternity leave, contacted me for a spot on my queue, that I can’t promise a 3-5days turn around because I am still adjusting to the whole motherhood thing. I told them that I can only promise a 14days turnaround and if they are okay with that, I can put them in my queue. Two out of four clients said they are not in hurry so they’re the ones I am serving now.

If only I wouldn’t need to do the house chores, I would have time for all my online activities. Right now, my baby still sleeps a lot. I could use his sleeping time to work on my freelance jobs but unfortunately, there are house chores waiting for me. Then there’s also the fact that there are frequent visitors who want to see the new member of our family—this is the main thing that is stressing me right now.

Sigh. I can take care of my baby very well and I can babysit him willingly but as for the housework…I wish for a maid because I’d rather work on my online jobs than do the house chores.

I got my first birth preparation class yesterday and after that, I didn’t really do anything else. Lately, I am having a hard time working with my pregnant body. I always feel so tired and sleepy. The moment I sit in front of my computer, my baby starts to kick. Obviously, my baby doesn’t like me sitting around, so I lay or take a walk instead. Also, I am experiencing something that comes with pregnancy called carpal tunnel syndrome—my fingers and my wrists are extremely painful that it makes it hard for me to work with a computer. During the day, the pain eases up a little bit but it comes back again in the evening.

I haven’t been getting enough jobs done and it’s a pity but I don’t like to push myself. Last week, I was able to earn 73.51$ from Odesk and 64$ from my blog designing services. A weekly total of 137.51$ says it was not a bad week and based on how things are going on with me right now, I’d be happy to earn half of that this week.

I have another client for my pretty blog design services this week and I hope I can work on her project and finish it before the week ends. Of all my online freelance jobs, I prioritize my designing services because I really like doing this job and it is something I started on my own. But I don’t like to give up my Odesk jobs because they assure me of a weekly income (if I work on my tasks).

The weekday is almost over and as I have guessed, I am still nowhere near what I earned from Odesk last week. I am supposed to cram now and try to earn as much as I can, but the day is just so nice to sit in my office and do some work so I decided to spend this wonderful day outside.

I have no pressing deadlines so I am not a bit worried about not working today. Of course, there’s a drawback—I don’t earn if I don’t work, but that’s okay. One of the joys of working at home is the fact that I get to slow down when I want. I don’t have a boss who will reprimand me or give me a suspension. I do have employers, true, but even they can’t force me to work if I don’t like to work. They can give me deadlines but as long as I am able to meet them all, they don’t really care when, how long, and what time I work. And I can consider myself lucky because my Odesk employers are not imposing impossible-to-meet deadlines. It’s really all up to me to manage my tasks and my working time so that I don’t go over the deadlines (I admit, I still need to work a bit on my self-discipline).

Anyway, I noticed that this blog’s design does not really look nice on a PC. I just learned that last night when I loaded this blog using my old PC laptop. The colors are just too bright/light to have the effect on a PC. It’s looks OK on a Mac so at first, I thought it was just because of my old PC’s low display capabilities but I tried it on my husband’s much better PC laptop and it’s the same. So, that means, I have to work on it again to make it look nice both on Mac and PC.

I said in one of my previous posts that I will allot a day each week to learn web designing and I am glad that I have a running project now that allows me exactly that. Cool. I get to learn and earn.  After the jewelry online shop I set up, I am now working on a company site.  It is a site that has been running on HTML pages and the client wants us to transfer it to a CMS (like WordPress). This is still under the 3$/hr job, but I am having a great time working on it. The jewelry online shop is now up and running and I am also commissioned to sort of oversee it. I was actually appointed to hire a copywriter for that site so I hired a friend (who is, of course, very much capable for the job). He’ll be in charge of the content and I will be in-charge of the campaign, traffic, and so on.

So anyway, here’s a photo of me today. It’s completely out of the topic but who cares. LOL.

6 months and 2 weeks pregnant

Have a nice weekend everyone!

It’s difficult to mix work and holiday together so I didn’t even try. And the good thing was that, my employers at Odesk didn’t give me tasks to do during the Christmas week. So from the 20^th to the 26^th of December, I didn’t really work except for an hour and that is only for finishing one last entry before I shut down work to enjoy Christmas.

I did have a merry Christmas and I hope that you all did too. My Christmas was nothing glamorous. It was simple and solemn but nonetheless, happy in its own way. I spent it with my husband and my in-laws.  The whole day was filled with eating activities (hehe) and videoke showdown. In the evening, we shared what my mother-in-law prepared for our special Christmas dinner—it was really good. Then after that, we opened our gifts!  I got some really nice and thoughtful gifts like baby books, yoga mat, preggy pillow, chocolates (plenty of them), some kitchen stuff, and  €€€ (hehe).  After that, we hang out a bit longer to share drinks and play some games.

And because of Christmas I only earned 8$ from Odesk.

By the way, the other employer who was paying me 10$/hr, the one I mentioned in my last post, is no longer my employer. She dropped me right before the Christmas week because she postponed the launching of the site and therefore, does not need my immediate services anymore. She said she’ll contact me in the future. I honestly think that I am just too expensive for the kind of work she would like me to do though. I mean, I believe that when I think, I work. So when she asked me about my opinion on this and that, I logged them as work hours and that didn’t make her happy. She wants free ideas and input from me and that’s simply a no-no for me.

In other news, my other employer gave me a task this week and he said that he’ll be giving me more next week so I’ll be working for him like 12-15hrs/week starting next week. That will be around 90-105$/week and I am so happy about that.  I am quite happy with this employer. He is fair and very professional. I hope to get another employer like him so I can complete a 250$/week target. That’s ambitious (hehe) but there’s no harm in ambitioning (my first time to use this word).

In yet another news, I am thinking of changing all my blog themes to the new Thesis Theme. I know it looks boring but I think it will help my blogs rank better since I know too little about SEO. I am hoping Thesis Theme will do the SEO part for me. I will just have to try and personalized it a bit so even if it looks plain, I can still add my personal touch to it.

One last news, I think I will own a MAC soon (big smile). With all the Christmas money I got plus a little saving from me and some help from my husband, I could perhaps get one Apple laptop by the end of January 2011. I am not 100% sure yet but I am crossing my fingers.  I hope, I hope, I hope…. =))

I tend to our garden. I see to it that the grass is always watered so it stay green. I also see to it that the lavenders we planted in our small front yard are watered. I mow the grass too. I don’t mind doing all of these at all because it is such a tiny garden and it doesn’t take a lot of time and energy to mow it and to water it. I like doing it and I am happy to see the healthy grass and plant in our front and back yard.

But why do I always kill the plants in our house?

It’s not like I don’t care for them. I do. But they still always die on me.

I get plants as gifts from my pupils and their moms and I appreciate all these plants. I placed all of them somewhere I think they will fit and thrive better.  I talk to them, water them, weed them, etc. but they always die. Remember that orchid we bought for our guest toilet? Yeah. That died too.

And the orchid shown on the picture is an orchid given to us on our wedding day.  It stayed at my in-laws house during the time we’ve been in China and it had been healthy there. When we moved to our own place here in Graz, we took it from them to bring to our new place.  We call it our wedding orchid and I am the steward of it.

Maybe it was a mistake to take it from my in-laws’ house because it’s never healthy as it was when it was there. I think I might be killing it too. I am not sure but when we took it, it has a lot of blooms. Now there’s just one and only bloom and the other branches are dead.  I said to myself, it is sad that I unintentionally killed all the other plants in our house but killing this one too would be a catastrophe. I can’t kill our wedding orchid! That’s just simply not right. It should thrive better under my care.

I had to do something to prevent myself from killing it.

So I googled some articles on how to take care of orchids and other plants and I learned that I should not water them that often.  Ha! It’s like that the best way to take care of orchids is not to take care of them at all. But I followed the tips I got from the net. I took out all the dead roots of our wedding orchid and repotted it. I still water it but not that often and not that much anymore. So far, it looks good because it is growing some new leaves.

I really hope that it can recover from my overwatering. I hope that it will live and bloom many flowers again.

These photos were taken two years ago and my brother-in-law, Benjamin would probably kill me for posting his photos here without his permission. I don’t know how often does he visit my blogs but I don’t think it is that often so I am kind of hoping that by the time he directs his browser to this blog, this post is already buried by other posts (Hah!, Like I blog so often).

I am not a professional photographer and I am not trying to be one but I like taking photos and I really like taking photos of people. I like to pursue this hobby but my problem right now is; there are not a lot of no willing people  I can photograph. My husband is very handsome but he’s a lousy model.  He feels uncomfortable if I ask him to make some poses for the camera. And there’s my brother-in-law who needs a lot of cajoling before he agrees to do such thing. The last time I got my brother-in-law to do a mini-photo-shooting with me was two years ago and if I ask him that now, he’d probably give me the look that says…hey, I’m a cool guy and that is so gay.

You see, he’s now a teenager and is very self-conscious. He’s no longer the cute little boy who likes to get into my nerve by pulling my hair or by pinching me. He’s now a self-proclaimed DJ and we have to be cool to be near him. I kind of miss those times when he was just a lovely boy who likes to show us crazy stuff he can do.

Time really flies away so fast.

P.S. These photos are unedited. Except for resizing and copyrighting it, I haven’t done any special editing to these photos.



First, I thought of creating a list of my new year’s resolution but I decided against it because of two reasons. One, it think it is too late. The first month of the year’s gone and no, I won’t be creating a New Year’s resolution for the Chinese New Year (which is next week, I think). Two, I am, anyhow, not good at keeping resolutions so why bother? I won’t put myself under the pressure of having to resolve things within a time frame.

winter in graz

But I will list my plans. I like plans.  At least with plans, there are always alternatives if they don’t work out. Resolutions, on the other hand, sound so drastic. Like, I “need” to change things or else I will be the same person I was in the previous year and my life will stay the way it is. Resolutions are more like promises to yourself you have to keep. They just have to be fulfilled.

Who wants such pressure? Obviously, not me.

So here are my plans for this year.

1. Put the house together in accordance to what we need and what we can afford. My husband and I just bought a house and like many other young couples who are from humble families, most of our savings went to the purchase of the house. It was also necessary for us to take a housing loan to cover that which can’t be covered by our savings. The house is “Belagsfertig”. That means, it is completely finished outside but it still needs work inside.  The heating, electrical circuits, floor, kitchen, toilet, bathroom, and the painting still need to be done and those are what we are working on right now. We decided to do some things ourselves to save some money and because we already have a very handsome credit, we agreed not to take more credit.  Hopefully, we will still be able to save money for some nice stuff for the house.

Alternative: if in case, we are not able to save money, we can always use our old stuff and be content with it until we are able to afford fancier things.

1. Make teaching props during the summer break. The most difficult part of my job is preparing teaching materials. It is taking so much of my energy and my time so to make my life easier for the next school year; I plan to prepare my teaching props this summer.

Alternative: If by chance, I can’t find time to do this during the summer break, I’ll just have to be content with the teaching props available at the learning center or I’ll just have to accept that my second year of teaching won’t be that much easier from my first year.

Those are the two main things. The less import things are as follows.

1. I plan to visit home.
2. I plan to take more pictures. I am living in a very nice city so why not compile my impressions of it?
3. I plan to save for an iMac. I do have a lappy and it is still very good but an iMac is just so… beautiful. I don’t plan to buy it this year. I just would like to save for it.
4. I plan to learn how to bake. I am already excited because I am getting my very own kitchen soon! With all the things I need for baking and cooking.
5. I plan to start a garden. The house we bought has a tiny garden! Excited, excited, excited!

Those are my plans and some of them I share with my husband.

I know. You’re probably a bit disappointed. I imagine you saying like… that’s it?!? Really? What about having a baby?

I’ve been asked about that question several times.

Baby…. hmmmm.

That will have to wait a bit.

I don’t know when exactly but I still have enough hormone pills for six months.  Haha.

Seriously though, we think we are ready but we still have wait until the house is ready and then we can start trying. *wink

Looking back at the previous year, I’d say that it is one of the years (2007 being the other one) that left a big impact on my life. There are a lot of things that happened in this year that changed the way I look at life and at people. I hope that all the experiences in this year have also made me a year wiser and not only a year older.

Here are the things I did last year that I think contributed much to the person I am this new year.

• Successfully completed my German competency course. It wasn’t easy especially because the interest to learn this particular language was not there. There was only the need to learn it. My attitude towards it was: I am learning it because I have to and not because I think it’s fun. I could have stopped sometime in the middle of the course if I wouldn’t have cared wasting the money spent on the course (it was expensive). But there came a time when I started to appreciate it and later on, I am really glad that I did it.
• Left China for good. I could say that in my three years of stay in China, a lot of bad things happened to me but I could not deny that the best thing happened to me there as well. So it’s like, one best thing evens out all the bad experiences I had in China. China has been good to me…to us. It wasn’t always easy (especially for my Austrian husband) but living there was very beneficial for us. In China,  we experience comforts we could never afford here in Europe. I don’t know if I will ever go back there but China and the people we met there who became good friends of ours will always have a space in our hearts.
• Started a life in Austria. I had my doubts. I doubted if I ever could make it here. If I ever could get a job. If I ever could find friends. If I ever could call it a home.  This stage of my life is still a work in progress. There are still a lot about this country and its people that I have to learn. I might not like or like what I’ll learn but so far, Austria has been good to me and I think that I am in the positive way to clearing all my doubts.
• Cut down on my blogging. This was mainly because I was busy with other things. I had to prioritize stuff and that means my blogging has to be given up to some extent but because old habits die hard, I am still here and blogging. In fact, I started another blog.
• Learned how to drive and acquired a driving license. I am from a country that sees being able to drive a car as a luxury not necessity. Earlier in my life, I gave learning how to drive some thoughts but I never considered it as something I must do. That’s until I married an Austrian.  Understandably, it was not easy for me. The theory lessons were done in Austrian dialect so I have to record each lesson and listen to it over and over again so I could understand or, at least, have an idea what the lesson was about. Another thing that made it difficult was: I think I have no talent at all with driving. It is already more than four months since I acquired my license and yet, I still can’t drive well.
• Found a job in Austria. I needed three long months before I landed a job. Within these depressing months, my self-esteem hit its all time low. I am just so glad that I have a loving husband. Right now, I am very much contented with my teaching job. I am not teaching in a regular school but all the same, I am still teaching and that’s great. It’s really a huge blessing that I still can practice my profession in this country without going through the complicated nostrification (educational degree comparison and evaluation).
• Experienced a car accident. It didn’t do me any damage—no scratch. Nothing. It just left me a little bit of a shock. It was not a major accident but it left a major impact on how I look at life.  I often hear clichés like life is too short, enjoy the things you have while you still can, and etcetera but I never really cared. I mean, I know they that these lines are true but I didn’t feel that they should also apply to me but that changed. After my accident, I value my life and all the persons and the things I have more.

I was awakened from a nightmare when my husband’s alarm clock reliably rang yesterday morning. Before slipping back to sleep, I was able to mumble the summary of my terrifying dream to him.  He kissed me and assured me that it was just a bad dream then he went on with his morning routine.  I continued to sleep until I felt his goodbye kiss lightly on my lips.

The rest of the day went by just like all my other Mondays. My morning was spent on grocery shopping and I went to my classes in the afternoon. The only thing that wasn’t usual was our learning center’s early Christmas dinner in the evening.

Right after my last class, I and two of my colleagues, headed off to the place. We drove in a convoy.  Tanya was driving in front because she’s the one who knows where the restaurant is. I was driving behind her and Kristin was driving behind me. It was a snowy evening and we were driving on a 30-zone winding street fully covered with snow. There was almost no traffic so I could understand that clearing this street off snow doesn’t happen in a frequent interval.

We were driving slowly and I remember Tanya being 20 meters ahead of me. Then it happened on a slightly inclined curve. The curve, although slightly descending, wasn’t that sharp at all so I am absolutely sure that I didn’t do any harsh maneuver with the steering wheel. For the life of me, I can’t understand why it happened. I just felt that my car glided, spin, hit a post, and rebounded back on the road.

When I felt the car slipped, I got nervous and in my nervousness, I left the gas pedal and the steering wheel completely letting the car control itself. It happened too fast. I didn’t even have the time to scream. The next thing I know was I was facing Kristin who is getting out of her car. How did that happened? She’s supposed to be driving behind me.

And then it dawned on me. I just had an accident. I could be dead now.

So, am I dead now?

I made a quick self-check. Does any part of my body hurt? What about bleeding? No? Really? Okay, good.

Then I went out of the car to check it. Around that time, Kristin’s worry stricken face was already right beside me. She tried to do her own physical injury check on me while shooting rapid questions which I could only summarize as, “Are you ok?”

From the look of it, she was even more shaken than me. Later on, she explained that being the one driving behind me, she saw how the whole thing happened and it looked far worse that it is.

The car, as expected, received some damages. The plate number in front is crushed and separated from the car. The bumper obtained some scratches and maybe some dents. I picked up the plate number and put it on my dashboard. There was no way I could attach it to the car so I placed it where it could be easily seen.

After checking the surroundings for damages (there was none, the post looked perfect ha!), we drove to the restaurant which is just 100 meters away from where the accident happened. I wanted to call my husband immediately after arriving at the place but Tanya advised me to calm down a little bit before calling him and that’s what I did. Later on, I realized that it is better not to tell him until I am home.

Soon enough, dinner conversations filled the air making the whole mood lighter.

By the time we were ready to go home; I was relieved to see the street wet and not snow covered. If it would have been otherwise, I wouldn’t have the nerves to drive home.  I was still terrified.

Upon reaching our building’s parking place, I took out my phone to call my husband and I’ve seen that he tried to call me several times. I also read his messages asking me if I am okay and why I won’t answer his calls. I finally called him and told him about the whole thing. Then I asked him to come down from our flat so he could take a look at the car.

I know he will not be angry and I was right.

When he saw me, he gave me a tight hug.

He said that all along, he had the feeling that something bad had happened. Then he told me that he’s thankful I am safe. He didn’t bother taking a look at the car but he promised to do it in the morning.

We talked more about it before going to bed and we agreed that I am not to drive until I practice driving on their company’s test track. That’s what we will do this weekend. I will practice driving on simulated snow and ice covered streets to get a better feeling of the car on a slippery road and to learn how to react.

The shock was completely gone after I had talked to him. The release gave me an utter sense of my being. I am alive and I am cuddled perfectly warm in my husband’s loving arms. The feeling of closeness made me truly thankful that I am alive. I thought that it would be so unfair to die when I am this happy.

Before saying our goodnights, he told me something that made my hair stand on end. He told me about the nightmare I told him that very morning. I can’t remember it completely anymore but according to him, this is what said.

“They said that the accident was so bad they needed to cut my legs off to take me out of the car.”

***

p.s. this is unedited