Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Failed transaction


My hubby’s Toshiba laptop has been idle for several months now because of blip keyboard.  A couple of weeks ago, he decided to find a keyboard replacement – he searched it online and phoned several computer stores, but unfortunately  he had difficulty of finding a keyboard replacement, looks like it is unavailable in the market.

He decided to look at Sulit.com; he was joyous sharing the news that he luckily found one. He called up, talked – checked the specs of his keyboard, the seller agreed that they have the specs that it is brand new, agreed to the price – P1, 800, and arranged for a meet up.

The meet up was that night, 8PM in a mall near our place.

Since we’re just the two of us, we decided to dine at the mall. We were at the mall at around 7PM, hurriedly eat our dinner and afterwards waited for the keyboard seller to arrive.

That was a failed transaction.

Here’s why.

The moment the seller hand to us the keyboard we quickly reacted why was the merchandise not in the box. Imagine seeing the item wrapped on a plastic bag? But the seller insisted it was brand new.


Then my hubby flipped to examine the keyboard more, it has no seals or stickers and lots of chinks. We pointed out that a brand new has seals, stickers and without crevice.  The seller still insisted that his merchandise was brand new.  My hubby was so pissed off. I am annoyed.


But still the seller wanted to test the keyboard for us to see that is was functional. We approved and test his merchandise.


Unfortunately, other keys did not function.
With no more further discussion, my hubby declared that he will not buy the keyboard. He unscrewed the merchandise from his laptop, swiftly bagged the laptop and motioned me that we leave. My husband was so pissed off to the dishonest seller.

Monday, April 22, 2013

Sun Cellular, The Good Choice in Postpaid



I am a frugal mom and as a cell phone user I also reveal my frugality.

For years now, I am a postpaid plan consumer. I found postpaid economical and convenient versus the pre-paid plan. I have experienced pre-paid and I found that call rate is  much higher than post paid,  and it is such a hassle if  my call was cut off because my credit ran out, and it is annoying to do frequent visits to e-load retailers.

You may ask what network am I am using?  Sun Cellular is my network!
I have been using Sun Cellular for years now. It’s my favorite. And I can attest that it is a good choice in postpaid because it is economical and affordable plus it has fast and reliable service.

Take a look of Sun Cellular’s Plan 600.
 
A. If you like Call & Text Unlimited you will get:
Unlimited Calls & Texts
P250 Consumable** (except International/Domestic Operator-assisted calls
350 EE SMS to other networks

B. If you like Text Unlimited you will get:
Unlimited Texts*
P450 Consumable** (except International/Domestic Operator-assisted calls)
350 EE SMS to other networks

C, If you like Fully Consumable you will get the following:
P600 Consumable** (except International/Domestic Operator-assisted calls)
350 FREE SMS to ALL networks

* Local Sun-to-Sun Calls and/or Texts only.
** Consumable may be used for the following:

  1. Sun Cellular calls to other networks – including NDD & IDD
  2. Sun - to - Sun MMS
  3. SMS2Email

And take a look of Sun Cellular’s Plan 999
Text Unlimited
And you will get:
    Unlimited Mobile Internet
    Unlimited Texts to Sun
    4 Hours Calls to Sun

You will get this Alcatel's Slim Phone if you go Postpaid:



If you are a frugal mom like me, I advise you to switch to Sun Cellular now, The Good Choice in Postpaid!

Friday, April 19, 2013

Easy meal


Lookie, lookie…I have a new header ( again!)  and changed my blog color. Looks nice, isn’t it? I can’t get enough tweaking my blog. It’s addicting…ha, ha!

My kids are on vacation at my sister place in Tarlac for a week now. So, I am having a lot of time tweaking my blog. It’s just me and hubby but during daytime I am by myself because hubby has to work. I am missing my kids but this coming weekend we will visit our kids and my sister’s family.

Since the kids are not here it means less activity in the kitchen. I prepare meals for two – me and my hubby, regularly a breakfast and a dinner. For lunch time, I just eat what was left in our breakfast or cook a quick pasta dish for myself.

I am lonely when my kids are not around. The house is so quiet. I avert my loneliness by tweaking my blog and playing FB games, ha ha. Seriously, I hate summer vacations because my kids are not here, they left me, me and my hubby...they are all grown up - both college freshman and high school freshman this coming school year. They can do what they like, like this year they will spending their summer vacation hopping from one place to another to visit their uncles/unties and cousins.

And when my kids are not around I am so lazy to do house work - clean the house, to wash our clothes, cook our food or even eat. Awww, I’m missing my kids, already. Since I am on the lazy mood, I like to share with you the product of my laziness when it comes to preparing our meal. Here’s my easy meal:

Grilled Tanguige and Kangkong in Oyster Sauce


I think I cook this for our dinner last Monday. For me, grilling fish is easy and fast it’s a matter of minutes. For these tanguige steaks, I marinated it with salt and pepper, squeeze two pieces calamansi juice and lastly drizzle some olive oil. Let it marinate for about 15 minutes. Don’t marinate longer time because the acid will cook the fish. You will get a ceviche not a grilled fish!

Then brush the grill pan with oil and heat the grill pan.

Cut the hard stems of kangkong, wash and cut into halves. Then grate garlic, probably I grate five cloves of garlic because I like lots of garlic. Heat another pan, put some olive oil.

Make sure that the grill pan is screaming hot, it’s time to put the fish on the grill to avoid the fish from sticking on the grill pan.

When the oil is hot on the other pan, put in the grated garlic and a little salt, when it is light brown remove it from the pan. Set aside.

Use the remaining oil to cook the kangkong. Put first the other half with soft stems then the rest of the kankong. Add in about two tablespoon of oyster sauce, a little bit of salt and pepper.  Stir. When the leaves are wilted remove from the pan. Transfer to a platter and sprinkle lots of garlic bits.

How do you know that the grilled fish is done? If the meat of the fish is opaque throughout, it’s done.

Breaded Pork cutlets and Cauliflower with garlic



This is our viand last night. Wash the pork cutlets. Marinate with salt and pepper, let it stand for 10 minutes.

While marinating the pork cutlets, prepare the cauliflower, cut the stem, cut the florets into smaller ones and wash. Grate some garlic. Heat the pan and put some oil.  Put in the grated garlic and a little salt, when it is light brown remove it from the pan. Set aside.  Use the remaining oil to cook the cauliflower florets. Add in some salt and pepper, mix and cover the pan. Cook within five minutes, I like a crunchy cauliflower. When it is done remove from the pan. Transfer to a serving plate and sprinkle with lots of garlic bits.

Prepare a couple of tablespoon of flour and add in some salt and pepper, and mix. Divide the flour mixture into two bowls. Dredge the pork cutlets in the first bowl with flour. Crack an egg, beat and dip the pork cutlets. And dredge again to the second bowl with flour. Heat another pan, put some olive oil and fry the pork cutlets.

That's it. My easy meal.
Probably the two dishes was done in less than 30 minutes.

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Missed event


Weee, I was one of the bloggers that won at the McCormick Grilling Nation Blog Contest, Take your grilling flavor to the next level, see my name?


I am so ecstatic!
It was my first win after joining numerous, numerous contests and giveaways ha, ha!  I won a free pass for a family of 4. I wanted to be present at the event and enjoy my winning so I asked my hubby and kids to go with me.
When they agreed, oh I am very excited. And I am imagining of meeting other bloggers, the McCormick freebies, and the grilling demo and lastly savor the grilled dishes ha, ha!

So, April 7 was a date. It will be my first time to attend a blogger event.  And will be a perfect family bonding.

Unfortunately, something happened. I missed the grilling event.

My mother-in-law’s (MIL) birthday celebration that was supposed to be an April 6 was moved to April 7 because my eldest sister-in-law is available on a Sunday, April 7. Hubby’s sibling’s decided to move the birthday celebration of my MIL.

I missed the event but I am not sad. Family is still the priority, it was a fun filled 76th birthday celebration of my MIL.  It was another cherished bonding moments with in-laws.

Monday, April 8, 2013

How I map my domain name to work with Blogger


I’ve ached for an own domain, one of the things that hinders my decision to have one,  is that I don’t know how to configure it to my blog.  You may think it is effortless huh, but it’s complicated to me. Yes, I read a lot of articles regarding how to have an own domain, kind of preparing myself,  but then again I have doubts because I am non-techie; I might wreck my blog, ha ha!

Last Holy Week I finally decided to have my own domain, I guess it was the right time, right time to ruin my blog, ha ha. Seriously, I  think I am confident to apply the theories I have read online. So, I searched for registrars that offer cheap domain. Here’s what I found.


Actually, it’s not really $1.99, when I checked out, I was surprised that I need to shell out a $2.13, of course there are hidden charges. Anyway, it is still the cheapest from what I have searched.

So how I started?

I typed in my domain name, I’m glad it was available.


Next to do is to edit the CNAME (short for canonical name) Record of my domain name with my Blogger account.
1. From the Tools Menu, select DNS (Domain Name System) Manager.
2. Click Edit Zone.
3. In the CNAME (Alias) section, click the www record and in the Points To field, type ghs.google.com. 4. Click SAVE.
After this, I tried to configure my Blogger account to use my domain name.
But it said it needs to be verified by Google.
Whut? I searched again how to do it.

So, I verified my domain name manually by adding a DNS TXT.
1. Log-in to my registrar (Hosting Dude).
2. In the TXT section, in the Host field type in @ and in the TXT Value field, type google-site-verification=S1_...(sorry, I forgot the full text)
3. Click SAVE.
Here's how it looked like.



Then, back to my Blogger account.
1. From the Settings tab, select Basic.
2. From Publishing, click Add custom domain.3. Click Switch to Advanced Settings, and then I typde in my domain name.
4. Click SAVE.
Now my domain was verified by Google, mapping my domain was done successfully! Weee...


Here’s another thing that I did, I wanted to change my blog’s email.
I sign-in to my old blog email address.
1. Go to Permissions, under Settings.
2. Click the Add Authors button and send in an invitation to my new blog email address.  
3. Open my new blog email in a different browser, accept the invitation.

4. Open my blog using the new email address.
5. Now that my new email account joined the blog, click the drop down menu and choose Admin, and click Remove my old blog address.

6. I open my blog with my new blog email, and it worked!

7. I did not delete my old blog account; Google said that I should leave it active because photos I uploaded will break.

I also changed the comment notification of my blog.
Click Settings, under Mobile and Email, I just typed in my new blog email.


That’s it!
And I am so happy I made it.