My Christmas List

I'm the type of person who is very outspoken when it comes to gifts. For example, when Riley celebrated his first birthday, I gave our guests choices of what to give. It's more practical that way because first, it was what Riley needed most and second, it would sure be put to good use. Also, they won't have to think hard on what to give my son, right? Its a win-win situation! I'm not ashamed to tell people what present/s I want because I don't want to end up with stuff I don't need.

That being said, I won't play hard to get this Christmas! I'm writing this list so you can have ideas on what I want on this season of giving (and receiving!). I could buy all these myself but if you like to give me any of these, sino ba naman ako para tumanggi? :)

Eyeglass from Four Eyes. I've been joining this website's contest for three times now but, alas, I've never won anything! So please if you have a heart of gold give me the gift of cool eyeglass!

Jumpstart frame for only Php 1995.

iPhone speaker dock. Riley and I love singing and dancing! If you ever saw us sing or dance around in our house, you would see that we need a speaker for our only source of music - my iPhone.

Philips AD200 Docking Speaker for iPod/iPhone (Black). Available at Lazada for Php 1894.

Spy Camera watch. The only accessory I wear is a watch. I have few watches now but I 'd like to own this special watch. It has hidden camera and sound recording. It's gonna be helpful just in case I ran into trouble. But I pray to God I would never have to use that features ever.

Watch from Lazada for Php1999.

The Fault In Our Stars. Before I buy a book, I read its eBook version first. You know, so that I can check if its worth buying or not. I've read this book and love it! So yeah it's worth having and adding in my book collection. 

The Fault in Our Stars at National Bookstore for only Php 399.

Backjoy Posture - Long hours sitting while using the computer gives me a backache nowadays. So give me the gift of comfort!

Backjoy Posture+  for Php 2,990.

(Kiosk located at SM North Edsa Annex 2nd floor)

Panasonic Lumix GM1. A micro four thirds camera the size of a digicam but with the capabilities of a DSLR with interchangeable lens. Who wouldn't want that?

Panasonic LUMIX DMC-GM1 with a whooping price of Php 54,053.00. (Naka sale pa yan sa Lazada!)

52 days before Christmas. :) What about you, what's on your Christmas list?

The Right Kind of Way of Disciplining

I am only on page 6 of this book but I am learning more than I bargained for when I bought this. It's that effective to me that my ways have mellow if not totally change. Being a single parent, I always feel the need to discipline Riley ALL.THE.TIME! I feel that one little mistake needs to be corrected immediately. Or it would result in bad habit and he'll grow up to be a bad person. Being the toddler that he is and the control freak that I am, sometimes I easily lashed it out on him. How can I make him understand that what I am doing is for his own good? That I just want to teach him the appropriate behavior. Before I got this book, I thought that hitting or slapping or shouting would make him remember not to do awful things all the more. But the effects are opposite. Spanking and shouting are counterproductive. In fact, they teach children - how to shout; how to hit; how to be sneaky; how to fear; how to be ashamed; and how to take anger out on others. (p.4) It's difficult to justify the admonition "Don't hit!" while you're hitting your child for hitting. Hitting begets hitting - as well as anger, revenge, etc. (p.5)

I don't want my son to grow like that. I am changing my ways day by day. So when the stubborn playful Riley caught me in a foul temper, I psyched myself not to react instinctively. I pause and control myself. Or, I blurted out "Disciplining without shouting or spanking" and I will suddenly remember why I shouldn't hit him when he have done something unacceptable. I stop being a disciplinarian and I try (harder!) to respond gentler with him. It takes a lot of patience! 

I still have 147 pages with this book but I think I already know what to do. I think I understand where my son is coming from. We don't want someone nagging at us all the time! Or someone who constantly controls everything. I want him to follow the rules because they are right and good and not out of fear. And in time, I hope he will grow up to be a good young boy. Isn't that what we all want for our children?

Read Before Watch

And now that I finished reading the Hunger Games book, I'm ready to watch the movie! I know I'm a year late but hey, its better late than never, right?

For some reason, I prefer books more than movie in terms of story. Coz ya know movies can't show everything that's written in the book. They cannot show what the characters are thinking exactly. They cannot depict the page by page representation of the book, really. So I make it a point to read it first before I watch the movie adaption of it.

I've been reading this past weeks. (yey!) Just finished the Fifty Shades trilogy, and currently reading the second book of Hunger Games which is Catching Fire. I love my Ipad so much! I can read my ebooks easily here. (plus i can blog here too) Ebooks are my addiction right now. Its convenient and practical for me. True that nothing beats the joy of reading a real book, keeping and collecting it. But compare to prices, ebooks are much more cheaper and sometimes I can download it free. Ah well, when I have a budget, I promise to buy at least one book quarterly. But for now, ebook it is.

If I don't get too lazy, I'll try to write if the Hunger Games movie lives out to how wonderful and beautifully writen the book is. Until then, booklover joycie is signing off. :)

Books to Ponder

As I was cleaning my hard disk drive, I came upon a lot of junk - photos, old files, sites I saved, etc. My laptop is getting a little slower and this afternoon my brother said and warned us that we never know when will our hard drives die. So it's better to save important files or be sorry for the rest of our lives. (Ok, the last statement is a little over the top) But seriously, we have to know to properly back up very important files. Because once it gone, it's gone. I came upon a document that is named 100 Books I Have to Read. I forgot where I get this but I saved it obviously for me to keep and for me read and ponder. I have a looong way to go with these 100 books and I feel incompetent and ashame to even brag I love reading! This is the serious stuff I should allot my time with. What happened to my one book at a month? -_-
Anyway, here they are:

100 BOOKS YOU HAVE TO READ
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen()
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien(¯)
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte()
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling(¯)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee()
6 The Bible(N)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte ()
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell ()
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman ()
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens ()
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott ()
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy ()
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller ()
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (N)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier()
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien ()
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk ()
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger ()
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger (¯)
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot ()
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell ()
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald ()
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens ()
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy ()
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams ()
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh ()
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky ()
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck ()
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (ü)
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame ()
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy ()
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens ()
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (¯)
34 Emma-Jane Austen ()
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen ()
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (¯)
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hossein ()
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres ()
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden ()
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne ()
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell ()
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown ( ü )
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez ()
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving ()
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins ()
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery ()
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy ()
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood ()
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding ()
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan ()
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel ()
52 Dune - Frank Herbert ()
53 Cold Comfort Farm ()
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen ()
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth ()
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon ()
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens ()
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley ()
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon ()
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez ()
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck ()
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov ()
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt ()
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold (¯)
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas ()
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac ()
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy ()
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding (¯)
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie ()
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville ()
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens ()
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker ()
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett (¯)
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson ()
75 Ulysses - James Joyce ()
76 The Inferno – Dante ()
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome ()
78 Germinal - Emile Zola ()
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray ()
80 Possession - AS Byatt ()
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens ()
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell ()
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker ()
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro ()
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert ()
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry ()
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White ()
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom (ü)
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ()
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton ()
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad ()
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery ( ü )
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks ()
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams ()
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole ()
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute ()
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas ()
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare ()
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl ()
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo ()


LEGENDS:
 ü -  books I have already read 
¯ -  I watched from movie
N -  books I didn't completely read

P.S. What books have you read so far with these lists and what are your favorites? I'll put it to top priority list. hehe. Please do share!

Unexpected Shopping Spree

Last Saturday, around 12:00 noon, the electricity were cut off from our whole town! You can't imagine how mad we all are with the scorching heat, and the water shortage and the absence of television. I don't like brownouts. I can't live without the comfort of electronics. So before, we turn wild, we decided to head off to the nearest mall which is in another town. (Please Mr. Henry Sy build an SM Malolos!) That means another leisure time for the little son and another shopping spree for the little girl (a.k.a. ME!) Well, I tried my very best to buy only things that are on-sale and low-priced. And I succeeded! Here's what I bought:

Books from Booksale and my new bookmark

I really think I should get back to serious reading. My reading materials are all about parenting nowadays and I just like to read normal novels. :p I have a complete set of Sidney Sheldon's novels and after collecting all of them, I am looking for other authors. I tried one Nicholas Spark's which is "At First Sight" but I guess I am more into suspense and mystery stories. I found this book "The Rainmaker" by John Grisham priced below P100. I don't know if I will like it or not but I'll blog about it when I am finished reading it. I decided I will have a Book of the Month entry here to force myself to read again! No more excuses!

Can you guess what are these yummy looking tiny things? 

They are eraser! Yes, I am reserving them for Christmas! Or maybe I'll just collect them. Very cute and very affordable. Priced at P50 per box and the box contains 6 pieces of erasers. I bought 3 boxes. Looking at them makes me hungry! Lol.

Cowboy hat

I think this is a steal at P88. And I bought it so I can have a costume for Halloween party this year. Ooops did I say Halloween when we are only in the month of June? Lol! My son also has a costume ready in my mind too! (Spell EXCITED!)

Kato Lychee Juice with Nata de Coco

Saw this at a Japan Home Plus store. I wanna tried it and the taste is fine. Refreshing and not the usual drinks. There are three different flavors but I only bought 1. Maybe next time I can try the others too.

That's how I spend my money last time. My hard earned money I must add. I think I spent it wisely this time. Which is what we all must do when we are confronted by an unexpected shopping spree! Have a good night!

Smart Parenting

If you notice, most of my blog about child development are from Smart Parenting magazine. Ever since I became a mother, I always read their articles. They make my life easier. :) I learn a lot of things from them.

I love this book! It is entitled “The Smart Mom’s Guide To The Toddler Years.” And I think every parent should have this book! The monthly developments of a toddler from 13 to 36th month are specifically detailed in every chapter. There are milestones marker, what to expect, bits of information and the common questions about what’s happening in our child. This book is really heaven sent to me and to think that I bought it for P100 only. It is really very helpful and what I like best is that it is easy and light to read. As much as possible I write about what I read here to share it to parents like me. 

My other books from Summit Publications are Learn and 150+ Fun and Creative Activities for Kids

For more readings and activities join the SMART PARENTING community. You will be updated with news and helpful articles in taking care of our little ones! Its not that hard to be a smart parent after all. When you can have all the help that you can get. Thank You Smart Parenting!