Good Tidings

Today I am going to count my blessings just because finally, I feel that my prayers are being heard. The first quarter of the year has passed by so quickly and as I reflect back, I realize that I have so much to be thankful for already in the past three months.

1. Career. Take a look at the update I've made at this post (striked through items 1 & 2) and you'll know what I'm thankful about with regards to my career. Yes, I've been promoted, and although I don't have my own parking space, it's as good as having one already coz I can now reimburse my parking fees. After 8 years in the IT industry, I am finally at the senior level. I could have reached this level sooner but by jumping companies almost every year for several years, I missed out on my promotions. Well no regrets; I have learned from all the companies I have been to and I'm happy where I am now. It's just too bad that my promotion didn't translate to a substantial increase (last year's merit increase was even higher in terms of percentage, compared to what I got now) because upper management changed (thus budget policies also changed). But I did get an additional benefit of insurance coverage so that's still something to be thankful about. Also, our bonuses will be given out next payday so that gives me peace of mind about my upcoming condo annual payment. It's still short of what I need but I'm sure I'll be able to find ways to procure the remaining amount.

2. Mustang. Again in reference to a past post, we finally have a buyer for our blue Mustang. It took almost a year because when we listed it at P400,000 (about $10,000 in today's conversion rate), nobody was inquiring about it. Only when we lowered our price to P300,000 did people start asking about it. My only wish was that the buyer would keep it for his/her own. But I think the buyer is going to bring it to Cebu, and that's where muscle cars are being smuggled in/out of the country. Oh well, at least now we can focus on restoring our yellow Mustang. My brother says he's going to change the color to black with red stripes, which is fine by me. Also this one, I'm sure I can handle (I've driven it around our neighborhood once) because it's power steering and is fully-automatic, unlike the first one. I may (or my brother) even create a separate blog about it so that's something to watch out for. If not, I'll just blog about it here so you'll still be updated.

3. Family. My brother is graduating from college on March 28. We're still not sure if he's going to continue to law school. We'll know soon enough when the results of the law exams come out next month. My mother was hospitalized two weeks ago because of hypertension. Good thing she didn't have a stroke or anything worse. I'm really thankful that she was cleared in all the tests done on her. Maybe she was just stressed that time that's why her blood pressure shot up. All is well now, just need to keep her diet in check. My elder sister is going to take up a medical transcription course, which is great. My younger sister is fine, as am I. I'm just having the sniffles right now but I'm already taking medication so that will take care of my cough and colds. I think I must find or buy a jacket/sweater that's thicker than what I use at the office; the airconditioning is freezing cold (it's centralized so we don't have control of it) that's why I got sick in the first place.

4. Online revenue. After several months, my efforts are finally paying off. I've already received payment from Gomez peer last month, a total of $5.38. Not bad for something I just installed on my PC and forgot about. I made another installation on another PC so that I can earn more at the same amount of time. For my blog ads, I haven't reached minimum payment yet from Google ads, Adbrite, Widgetbucks and Bidvertiser. But Text-Link-Ads has been very good to me so this is my current favorite. I average $14 a month and just last month, I got an additional $25 because I referred a friend.

5. Friends. Two of my high school friends got married last week. My boyfriend came with me to attend both weddings. Caroline's was on March 7 and Joan's was on March 8. Another friend from college, Naz, didn't get married but his team won at the Pinoy Indie Games Competition. Read the article and see the video.

I guess that's all for now. I enjoyed doing this so I'll probably update you again next quarter. Start your own gratitude journal and let me know about it :)