The Smiths were unable to conceive children and decided to use a surrogate father to start their family. On the day the proxy father was to arrive, Mr. Smith kissed his wife goodbye and said, ‘Well, I’m off now. The man should be here soon.Half an hour later, just by chance, a door-to-door baby photographer happened to ring the doorbell, hoping to make a sale. ‘Good morning, Ma’am’, he said, ‘I’ve come to…'’Oh, no need to explain,’ Mrs. Smith cut in, embarrassed, ‘I’ve been expecting you.’
‘Have you really?’ said the photographer. ‘Well, that’s good. Did you know babies are my specialty?’
‘Well that’s what my husband and I had hoped. Please come in and have a seat’.
After a moment she asked, blushing, ‘Well, where do we start?’
‘Leave everything to me. I usually try two in the bathtub, one on the couch, and perhaps a couple on the bed. And sometimes the living room floor is fun. You can really spread out there.’
‘Bathtub, living room floor? No wonder it didn’t work out for Harry and me!’
‘Well, Ma’am, none of us can guarantee a good one every time. But if we try several different positions and I shoot from six or seven angles, I’m sure you’ll be pleased with the results.’
‘My, that’s a lot!’, gasped Mrs. Smith.
‘Ma’am, in my line of work a man has to take his time. I’d love to be In and out in five minutes, but I’m sure you’d be disappointed with that.’
‘Don’t I know it,’ said Mrs. Smith quietly.
The photographer opened his briefcase and pulled out a portfolio of his baby pictures. ‘This was done on the top of a bus,’ he said……
‘Oh, my God!’ Mrs. Smith exclaimed, grasping at her throat.
‘And these twins turned out exceptionally well -when you consider their mother was so difficult to work with.’
‘She was difficult?’ asked Mrs. Smith.
‘Yes, I’m afraid so. I finally had to take her to the park to get the job done right. People were crowding around four and five deep to get a good look’
‘Four and five deep?’ said Mrs. Smith, her eyes wide with amazement.
‘Yes’, the photographer replied. ‘And for more than three hours, too. The mother was constantly squealing and yelling - I could hardly concentrate, and when darkness approached I had to rush my shots. Finally, when the squirrels began nibbling on my equipment, I just had to pack it all in.’
Mrs. Smith leaned forward. ‘Do you mean they actually chewed on your, uh…equipment?’
‘It’s true, Ma’am, yes.. Well, if you’re ready, I’ll set-up my tripod and we can get to work right away.’
‘Tripod?’
‘Oh yes, Ma’am. I need to use a tripod to rest my Canon on. It’s much too big to be held in the hand very long.’
Mrs. Smith fainted
Have a great weekend everyone! Do something crazy! 
Isn’t it amazing how debt collection agencies do their job? Collection institutions are great. It’s a great business. But sometimes, but really most of the time, the collection agents themselves get so annoying that you just want to go there and hit them with a telephone right smack at their mouth, over and over, with the blood gushing all over, until their teeth are gone. So what can we do? Here are some cool tricks.
Before anything else, always ask for the full name of the person you are talking to, so when things get “messy,” you can fight back. I once had the mistake of only asking for a name, and when I called to report her lack of social skills, they said that they have a lot of agents named Ana. So get their full name please! And when things heat up, you can threaten them with something like “I wonder what your bosses will say if I report your lack of social skills?” Also, here are my favorites: “I know my rights!” (kahit hindi naman talaga) “Are you aware that you are harassing me?” (kahit hindi rin naman talaga) “Do you know that I can file for harassment and get you fired?” (kahit hindi mo talaga gagawin kasi nakakatamad). 
Sometimes, when you’re feeling playful, after you get his/her name, ask him/her for a date. Then tell him/her where you will go, what movies are currently showing, enumerate some restos, etc. If he/she hasn’t hang up, ask his/her favorite food, color, movie, song, etc. Just ignore hi/her comments and keep it up.
On even bored times, ask them for advice on marriage, or maybe a recipe turned bad like “Alam mo kanina parang matabang yung paksiw ni misis? Bakit kaya? Siguro kulang sa suka?” Or maybe something very deep and cerebral like “yung bang uod pag namatay inuuod?” As always, just ignore their comments and start yapping. After all, they called you, right? So put your “crazy” hat on and have fun. They’re really asking for it anyway.
I caught up with a friend this morning, and among the topics of our conversation was getting out of debt. It seems that he too would want to be freed from the shackles of paying the high interest rates that his loans and credit cards have enslaved him. We talked about getting our Christmas bonuses and what to do with it. We both have the same thing on our minds, paying debts. How appropriate was it that while doing my Morning Coffee I came across this post by Salve Duplito in the Inquirer entitled “Should you borrow to pay off debt?” Read it here.
At the end of the article, she lists some tips on how to manage debts. Here are some that I find interesting.
Prioritize. Writing down all your debt may be a scary thing, but you need to get a grip on how much you really owe. (Don’t forget the loan your mother or father extended to you.)
Several months ago, my wife and I did this. And the results are quite shocking. Everything was listed, to every single centavo, to every person we owed, whether it’s 50 pesos or 50,000 pesos. This helped us gain perspective on how much we really owe and thus make a financial plan.
Avoid new debt. Just remember that if you can’t pay in full, then you can’t afford to swipe.
Very true. If you can’t pay for it, you can’t have it. As you all know, we have terminated all of our credit cards and only pay in cash. We also make sure that whatever big purchase we have is something we totally need.
Save, save, save.
This is something we are diligently doing. We’re trying to save as much as we can.
Of course, not because we’re doing all this crunching we are missing out. We do enjoy a sale here and there. We also set aside some date money so we could relax, go out, watch a movie, and/or eat somewhere fancy. It’s just a matter of balancing everything and trying to live healthy lives. And while I haven’t gotten my own LCD HDTV just yet, I’m pretty optimistic that someday soon I’ll get hands on that beauty, and maybe more.
Jeanny of Startin’ A New Life Too tagged me with six random things that make me happy. I’m actually lazy when it comes to tags. Most of the time, procrastination gets the best of me, so I end up forgetting all about it. So before I get all busy, I gonna do this one fast. Here are the things that make me happy.
Number 1. My wife. She’s just awesome. I don’t even know how to start or what to say. She’s amazing! The best thing that has happened to me. I love her so much that it hurts!
Number 2. My family. And by family I mean mine and my wife’s. No matter what happens, I know my family will be there for me. We may not communicate and see each other as much as we want to, but we all know we can count on each other. Sheesh! I think a tear just fell. Okay! Moving on!
Number 3. My friends. You guys know who you are. Most of you don’t even read my blog (stupid fools), and the lot of you who do read tease me nonstop when I drop words like Orovo detox or something. You guys are crazy.
Number 4. Breakfast-in-bed Sundays. What’s not to like anyway? Fried rice, good! Bacon, goooood! Bed, goooooooooood!
Number 5. Cheese ice cream. Either Quezo Real from Selecta or cheese ice cream from Amici de Don Bosco. Selecta’s Family Pack ice cream is just 135 pesos! We currently have a tub right now. 
Number 6. A trip somewhere. Either out of town or out of the country. I like beaches, even though I don’t know how to swim.I like going away. Seeing new things. Exploring. Experiencing different cultures.
That’s it! Of course a huge bank account would also make me happy. So time to pass this around, I guess. I pick you ‘Nang of bitter:Sweet Life/ and Cathy of Perfectly Imperfect.
My wife gets inspired to cook whenever Mai posts one of her recipes. She was saying that the dishes look so easy that even I can whip it up. Also, she’s been bugging me to get her one of those iPod docking stations for the kitchen. It’s just the cutest little thing and perfect for our tiny kitchen. So a few nights ago, my wife was feeling like she might be getting a cold so she decided to make Mai’s Fast Onion Soup, but with some twists. Mai said that the soup helps “alleviate colds’ symptoms” so she decided to give it a try.
Mai got her broth from Healthy Options. But we were on our way to S&R Alabang hoping that a pre-Christmas sale might be happening, plus some Ben&Jerry’s Banana Split craving was actually kicking in, so we’re crossing our fingers that they have some kind of chicken broth there. We actually found one made by Swanson.
The complete recipe can be found here. Here’s my wife’s version. Chop three kinds of onions (red, white, and spring). Sauté the red and white onions in olive oil (we didn’t have sunflower oil). Then add the chicken broth and water. A home-made broth, if you know how and have the time to make one, actually works too! Add a slightly beaten egg and stir. Season with soy sauce, salt, and pepper. Finally, add some leftover chicken that was shredded and some spring onions on top before serving. It was delicious! I think using three kinds of onions made a lot of difference, plus I liked the added chicken strips on top. Of course, as I can’t upload photos, I’m using Mai’s, just imagine the added chicken and spring onions. Just take my word for it. It’s really good and very easy to make. I am one very lucky man!
The forecasts by economists (and by economists I mean GMA and other government slugs) and financial leaders are so confusing that we are left more dumfounded on what’s really happening. The government says we’re doing okay, but others say that we better brace ourselves. I’m not really that worried. Filipinos aren’t afraid of tightening our belts. We’ve gone through much worse. We’ve lived through the Marcos regime, the Asian Financial crisis, El Nino, La Nina, and even Kris Aquino’s love life and Erap, not to mention the sex scandals (saved in flash drive, memory cards, and, would you believe, available in dibidis ) that every struggling wannabe seems to have. Nothing can really affect us. These are all entertainment for us.
Nevertheless, Money Smarts has this list of suggestions in prepping our finances. Be sure to check back the site later and read the comments, which I’m sure is filled with a lot more tips.
A comment there says to look for second source of income or sideline. So far, we’re currently doing everything on the list .We hope to finish number 4 by the end of the year. Life will be so much better being debt free.
I have come to realize that a lot of us have taken extra jobs just so we can have something extra, to prepare ourselves for the hard times that may come or not. Forums are gleaming with folks looking for other money-making alternatives. And of the forums that I’ve visited, one of the most popular ways is by doing online work like affiliate marketing. As per Answers.com, “affiliate marketing is a method of promoting web businesses (merchants/advertisers) in which an affiliate (publisher) is rewarded for every visitor, subscriber, customer, and/or sale provided through his/her efforts.”
Clickbooth is one such site that offers this. If you are a publisher, meaning that you have a site or blog that gets a lot of traffic, you can earn quite a lot from signing up with them. It’s quite easy. First, you sign up as a publisher. If your site gets approval, you will get some advertisers that you have to promote through your site either through banners or by doing a short post about them. Every visitor, subscriber, customer, and/or sale that you get through your site earns you some percentage. So more traffic to your site means more moolah!
The site also has Clickbooth Webinars. A webinar is a seminar, workshop, or lecture that is delivered over the web. Through webinars, we can learn how to maximize earning through affiliate marketing or pay-per-click marketing (another pay-you program). And what’s nice about this is that Clickbooth offers webinars for free. Apart from that, we can also learn from referral programs. Every publisher and/or advertiser that we refer gets us additional cuts. That’s why forums are filled with members referring different sites. The more people sign up, either as advertiser or publisher, means more moolah for you.
My wife and I were talking the other day of the many options that are available right now. There are so many options where one can earn that it’s mind boggling how some people whine about the lack of opportunities. If you look hard enough, I think you can find something right for you.
A husband's weblog of thoughts, observations, interests, opinions, and adventures. For comments, reactions, suggestions, and donations, you can contact me at thehusbandspeaks@gmail.com.
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