Now, I would like to write about people reading my blogs. It’s kind of weird how contradictory my feelings are on this topic. You see, I don’t mind being read at all even if I know that my post can get really personal and crappy sometimes. When I started blogging, I already accepted the fact that my blogs will be open books to all sorts of people to read. I know that and I am cool with that but somehow, the idea that people I know personally are reading my blogs kind of gives me a hesitant feeling.

Is it just me or does any of you share this very same feeling?

Please visit DesignMePretty FB page by clicking the logo. And if it is not too much to ask, please also LIKE it.

I mean, I don’t mind if my husband, mother, sisters, close family and friends read my blogs but there are just some people who I’d rather not show my blogs to. Like a former classmate, a former colleague, a former neighbor, my husband’s friends and colleagues, or some random acquaintances who I met once or twice in my life. People who I think do not have to be updated about my life. That is why I am very hesitant to link my blogs and twitter account on Facebook. It kind of sucks because I think, I might get some hits if I connect my blogs to my FB account. If only I could tell the people on my FB list that my blogs are off limits to some of them, that would be great (LOL).

Like DMP. I created a FaceBook page for DMP but I don’t like to let all the people know in FB that I started something like that. Weird huh?

I guess, this feeling has something to do about the thing they say: it’s much easier to open up to a complete stranger. For me, it’s easy to open up to people who are very close to me and yes, to complete strangers BUT when it comes to those people who are in between (not so close and are not really strangers), I hesitate.

So anyway, the very thought that’s on my mind right now are the chocolates I got from family and friends for Easter. You see, my gynecologist said that I should watch the sweets I eat because my baby is 2 weeks bigger than he’s supposed to be. If my baby continues to grow more than what is expected, I might have to do the glucose test again and I don’t want that. I don’t want to spend three hours in my doctor’s clinic so he can stick a needle in me every hour to check if my body is able to process sugar. It’s not the most comfortable feeling so I would like to avoid that but how? I have loads of chocolates and every single one is calling my name.

Where’s the joy of having really good chocolates when you can’t eat them?

Last week, I asked my friend, Lamielle, if she could let me practice on her blog. I have no experience with designing Blogger blogs so it was sort of an even deal. She gets a blog design and I get to practice on a real Blogger blog. I offered to do the design for free but she has to trust me that I won’t turn her blog to a crap. Like I said, I have no experience with Blogger at all and I was not even sure if I can create a decent design. I was not able to guarantee that I can deliver a design so I didn’t charge her for anything and I was not expecting anything in return.

I have a test blog running on Blogger. I set it up a week ago so I have something to practice on but I am too lazy to put all those thingy on the sidebar. I was (and still is) too lazy to gather scripts from different websites and display things on the sidebar of my test blog. I needed a real looking blog ASAP so I asked Lamielle.

Designing a Blogger blog is much more difficult for me than designing a WordPress blog. I guess, that’s because I am used to WordPress. When I decided to practice on Lamielle’s blog, I was only relying on the knowledge I know about designing a WordPress blog. I thought, it shouldn’t be so different. But boy, it is! The design I did for Lamielle’s blog was actually so simple, nothing special, but I needed to shed some serious sweat to complete it. LOL. Anyway, I am challenged and I am determined to learn more about designing a Blogger blog. Fortunately, Lamielle agreed that I could continuously use her blog as my practicing grounds. LOL.

In other news, I think I have some really nice friends in the blogging world and I am really thankful to them! Lamielle already wrote a post about my blog designing services and another friend, Sterndal, not just wrote a post about my blog designs but she also gave me some linky love in her blogs. Ruthi also offered to help me in getting the word out by offering ads on her blog. Sweet!

I think I have done a great progress on my personal project but this progress comes with a downside. I still have freelancing jobs at Odesk, and I have my blogs to attend to, but unfortunately, these two took the back seats since I started working on my personal project. I haven’t been updating my blogs like I promised myself (at least one post on each blog each week) and I haven’t been working on Odesk that much so I really have to catch up on these duties very badly.

Sometimes I think I am so bad with managing my time…, like when I wasted a whole week watching a bunch of movies. Other times I feel that I just have too much stuff on my hand that no matter how good I am with time management, I will never ever be able to catch up with all the things I need and want to do… and this is what I feel at this particular moment.

So anyway, I think that this incredible burst of energy I am experiencing at the moment will have an end. I just hope that it will end after I am done with the project I am working on. I exerted too much effort on it already. I  tried to learn as much as I can in a very short period of time, I am prioritizing it over my blogs, and I am casting the chance of earning money from Odesk aside so I can work on it. I would be definitely disappointed with myself if by any reason, I just decided to give up on it.

I hope this energy and motivation will not go anytime soon.

This time though, I like to believe that it is not upon impulse that I bought another domain name. I like to believe that I have some real plans with it. I like to believe that this project is going to work.

No, I am not going to make it to another blog (whew!). I have enough blogs to keep me busy. This will be for something else and until I am quite sure on how I will go about it, I wont disclose it yet.

Right now, all I have is a domain and a plan. The next step is for me to learn, learn, learn. I have to acquire the know-how that will enable me to run this project and bring it to success. I will have to learn hard and I will have to learn as much as I can. It could take me months or even years, and thinking of how long it will take me already disheartens me a bit. But instead of focusing on the difficulties I might encounter, I tried to feed my enthusiasm. And buying the domain name today is my way of encouraging myself to really get into this project.

My freelance jobs’ assignments are plenty and so are my house chores, but here I am still in my pajamas. I’d be happy to tell you that I am sitting in front of my desk and trying to do some work but that’s not what I am doing. Instead, I am sitting comfortably on the couch while being surrounded by all the throw pillows we have. I have my laptop on the couch’s armrest and every now and then, I tap on the keyboards to write in a few sentences.

No I am not sick, just plain lazy.

I am not working and this entry is written purely for the sake of that: to avoid work. I don’t know why I feel like this today. Of course, I suspect it’s just because of the gloomy weather but a corner of my mind says that low self-discipline should be held responsible.

a scene from the vampire diaries

Since I got busy with looking for freelance work and actually doing some freelance work, I unintentionally put a lot of things on hold. Things I enjoyed doing like reading—I’m stuck with Harry Potter und der Orden des Phönix. I started reading the German version of Harry Potter months ago but I can’t seem to get past the 5^th book, and that’s not because the level of German used in the later books is getting more and more complicated for me to understand, but because I can’t find the time. I have more than 10 new books I got as gifts and some I bought myself months ago that are still unopened, unread. What a pity!

Other things that seem to pile up on me are the episodes of Vampire Diaries. I missed three episodes already!

Was I that busy that I even can’t read a single page of a book or spare an hour for a TV program I like to watch?

So today, these are the things I am going to do. Read and watch. I’ll read a few minutes before I take my nap later. Right now, I’m blogging but that is just while I wait for the TVD episodes to load. After I posted this, it’s couch and TVD time for me.

I had enough of winter and snow already, and I think I will get really crazy if the weather decides to give us full blown winter again. After having cold temperatures since November, I think it’s now time for spring. But logically, spring will just start in mid-March here in Austria.. that’s still four weeks from now.

The reason why I am eager to have warmer temps is because I want to take leisurely walks. I need it. As a stay-at-home wife, I also get bored just sitting inside the house the whole day. I need some fresh air. Of course it is possible to go out and take a walk during winter, but since I am a bear in my previous life, which means I hibernate in winter, I hate going out when the temps are below what I think is bearable.

Also, I want to be free from layers and layers of clothes I need to wear before I get out of the house. I want to be able to go out wearing just jeans, t-shirt, and maybe a light sweater.

Here are some photos take last year to show of how beautiful spring looks like here.

This is taken at a nearby creek. Everything's green and so fresh to look at. The water is also so clean and clear, you can drink it! And you can bath in it too if you can take its below 10deg temp.

My husband and I take leisurely walks together. Sometimes, he brings his camera but more often, I bring mine because it's way more compact. But if then, I play the photographer and I don't get to be in a lot of photos.

I allot a few minutes each day to check my emails, my twitter, and my Facebook. Facebook is as important to me as YM because I get to be in contact with close friends and relatives through it. But there is something I don’t like about Facebook and that is the obvious fact that it became a network where people mindlessly boast about what have they have or what they’ve done and I hate it for that.

Imagine: FB buddy #1 posted photos of her recent trip somewhere. Fine. But 200++++ photos!?! Not fine. I mean, what’s the point? If she wants to share about her recent trip then that’s okay but I think, she should just choose the highlights. If I see such albums, I immediately lose interest. We also take thousands of photos of our trips but I really don’t see the point of posting more than a hundred photos in one album.

Imagine: FB buddy #2 updates her status just about every hour to tell people where she’s at, what she’s eating, what she has on (including the brand of her clothes), what she’s buying, what’s she’s doing, etc. I mean… duh!?! How shallow is that?

Imagine: FB buddy #3 is an acquaintance in high school or some point in the past who simply added you and you kind of felt weird about her adding you because you’ve been not really friends but you accepted her anyway because you are not a snob. But then this FB buddy messages you like you to have been the best of friends. Weird! And it gets weirder the moment she says, “wow, big time ka na ngayon, hindi ka na ma-reach, etc.”

I am not a snob but I can’t stand such people. It’s nice to share about your thoughts and about what’s new in your life to people who are living very far from you but a lot of the people on FB just don’t get the point of this at all. A lot of them obviously just flash what they have. I also don’t like the opposite of such people, i.e., people who are so nosy and envious. People who are just checking what you have and asking you blatantly how you’re able to acquire/do such things. What the ef!?!

So I learned to categorize my FB buddies. They may be listed as my friends but not all of them can see my wall and my photos. Some very private albums (like my preggy album) are just available to very few chosen close friends and relatives. Albums containing our trips are also just available to real friends.

Here are some photos of our small trip to Italy last year. These are not bad photos (I think) but these didn’t make it to my FB album, because quite frankly,  they’re showing the same thing–my face and I have some of them already in my FB album so why post the same thing over and over again? Understand my point?

vien in some hidden ally in the old city of trieste, italy

vien in some hidden ally in the old city of trieste, italy

vien in the plaza of trieste, italy

But compared to other westerners, I think my husband is pretty game when it comes to eating foreign dishes. I can say that because when we were living in China, we tried a lot of restaurants there—old, new, big, small, expensive, cheap—anywhere where we can try out new dishes. And when we do find a restaurant which serve good food, we always ask for some restaurant business cards so we can keep one and give some to our friends to whom we can recommend the restaurant to. Most of the restaurants in China have names in Chinese and since we cannot read Chinese characters, we always have the business cards with us so when we like to go somewhere; we just show the business card of that place to the taxi driver so that he knows where we want to go. It must easier that way because we cannot speak Chinese and most of the Chinese taxi drivers cannot speak English.