TOPAZ HORIZON

I used to have a column in parenting website, Juana.com.ph. The website folded within a year and that made me very sad because I loved being a parenting columnist. Loyal Readers would know one of my dreams is to be a columnist.

This was taken shortly before I wrote my letter.

This is us now. Stronger, better, happier!

The school year has finally ended! Let me tell you, mamas, that when I paid the last quarterly installment of my boys' tuition, I literally felt weak in the knees as I stood at the cashier window of my sons' school. "Nakaraos din," I breathed out and I felt a bit like crying, too. I'm not being melodramatic. Last year was tough financially mostly because clients weren't paying on time. Plus, I was sick a lot and busy with the kids too much to take on more projects that could've eased the money situation. Only by the grace of God that we made it.

The climb to success starts with a good education.

L-R: Mommies Michelle Aventejado, Bianca Gonzalez-Intal, me

Vince and I are super enjoying Netflix's shelter show, "World's Most Extraordinary Homes." If you have Netflix and don't know what to watch, I'm sure you'll like this. I don't know any mommy who doesn't like looking at other people's houses!

Marriage, or rather the failure of it, is quite the topic these days. Recently, a celebrity stylist introduced her child to the world and people were horrified—not because she had a baby while unmarried but because the father of her baby was still very much married. No one likes a homewrecker. Not ever and never ever. Also recently, it looks like divorce will finally be legal in our country. So there's a lot of talk on how that is good news and bad news.

I'm a great believer in marriage and that is why I never wanted to get married because it honestly is an institution meant for superhumans. Marriage is HARD. But I also believe that it's one of the most beautiful things about the human experience, and so I am glad I did get married. Even when being married is not easy.

That said, I will always support divorce as a civic right. As I said, marriage is for superhumans and I don't know any superhuman haha. Joking aside, even though I believe in marriage, I also believe that people should feel safe and secure. Anyone who feels threatened and abused in a marriage should have the option to leave it. A marriage should be a good thing so if it is a very harmful situation, a spouse should be legally allowed to leave for his or her (usually her) and the children's safety.

I'm glad that our divorce bill allows for a cooling-off period because I believe that a couple should work out their differences. (Except when there's abuse. Leave. Period!) Sometimes time apart helps a husband and wife realize what the problem is and they may forgive and try again.

What do you think, mamas? What do you think of the divorce bill? What will make you leave your husband? Will you forgive your husband if he had an affair?

Anyway, I'm publishing a guest post because I think it's relevant today (coincidentally, it's the season where we're all asked to forgive so...). Tell me what you think!


The decision of whether or not to return to a former love can be a challenging one. At one point or another, everyone is likely to have weighed up the pros and cons in their mind of going back to a past flame. Well, in this article, we are going to weigh up some of the main ones. If you are currently going through this dilemma, hopefully, this article can go some way towards making this decision just a little bit clearer to you. So, without further ado, let’s get started.

Reasons Not to Go Back



First of all, when you go back to an old relationship, it is very difficult to recapture the initial rush of excitement that you had in the first place. If you are planning to give your ex another chance, don’t dive straight back into a full-on relationship. Instead, you should meet up on a more casual basis to find out if what you once had is still there. Another reason not to go back is that you are doing it for the wrong reasons like because you are simply feeling lonely. Though going back to a past lover may provide a temporary fix, you are unlikely to get the long-term fulfillment that you are looking for.

If the reason that you broke up in the first place is that the other person hurt you in a major way, you need to be totally confident that they are not going to do the same thing all over again - something which is very difficult to achieve. After all, you don’t want to end up getting taken advantage of all over again. Finally, if you go back to a former relationship, you have no room to meet new people and perhaps grow and develop yourself.

Reasons to Return



There is a power in forgiveness, and if you are sure that you can move past what went wrong in the first place, you may find that this is the right path for you. Perhaps the other person has undergone some profound changes in their life after losing you. However, if you are the one who did wrong, it may be worth taking a look at Get Your Ex Back: Super System Program. There is always the danger that if you don’t give it a go, you may end up regretting it.

There is always a chance that you vow to do things better the second time around. You can learn from your past mistakes and establish a relationship which works better for the two of you. You may have both had the chance to grow and develop, and you are bringing these positive changes back into each other’s lives.

As you have probably gathered, the decision to bring a past lover back into your life is always going to be somewhat of a gamble. Ultimately, it is all up to you as to whether it is one that it worth taking or not.

* This is a guest post, with my edits. To place a guest post, email frances@topazhorizon.com for my rates. Photo 1 and 2 from Pexels.com.

Unless you've not been paying attention to the news, there is a bold and loud change happening in Hollywood and all over the world. It's the #MeToo movement, which is women very publicly sharing their stories of sexual harassment at the workplace. Famous women like Uma Thurman, Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie, Taylor Swift, Cara Delavigne and many more shared their stories and these definitely made headlines and magazine covers, propelling the movement and making that hashtag go viral.

People can't stop talking about it because most working women have a story to tell. And many from all ages, economic backgrounds, races, and industries did. The first few stories were enough to unleash a storm of other stories so silently endured because women were afraid and ashamed. Well, not anymore!

Read the story on TIME.com

I've been meaning to talk about the #MeToo movement here on the blog because this is a working mama blog, but because I've never actually experienced sexual harassment in any of my workplaces, I didn't think I could. Well, the recent awards shows in Hollywood was all about ending sexual harassment in all industries and the fact that this month is International Women's Month makes this as good a time as any! So please let me say something and I hope you can say something, too.

I've been very fortunate to have worked for female bosses nearly all my life. There have only been three times I had a male boss. One of them gave me a really romantic gift and I resigned soon after in horror. I don't want that kind of shit in my working life. My husband still teases me about the gift because even he thinks it's so romantic. Now, I acknowledge it was so easy to resign because the job didn't pay well and I didn't like the work anyway. I was young and didn't really care for anything so I got off easy.

Many women don't have it that easy. Many women can't walk away from a job because (a) it's their dream job and/or (b) they have mouths to feed and bills to pay. It's easier to take the abuse sometimes if you're convinced it's part of the package (i.e. the notorious casting couch) or if you're doing the job because people depended on you. It's also harder to say no to an abuser if he threatens you or your family. I know many girls who were forced in these situations. They are good girls, wonderful women.

That's why whenever I see condemning comments on these #MeToo news, I get really upset. You know, the ones that go, "Why didn't she just quit her job? No dream job is worth it! If she really hated it, why didn't she just leave? Why didn't she report it the first time it happened? I would NEVER do that! Women like that are nothing more than prostitutes."

Well, they all have a point and yet it's really not that simple. As for prostitution, let me just say that when I was in college taking up Creative Writing, an alumni talked to our class and we were so eager to listen to him. All he did was dash our dreams when he said, "If you write for anything else that isn't from your muse, if you write for money not for your art, if you accepted payment from a client, if you work anywhere that you don't like, if you even did something for your boss that isn't part of your job description, you just prostituted yourself."

Full disclosure: I write for money. I'm not ashamed of it, too. I'm pretty proud of the fact that practically every word I've published has given me a really nice life. Not all of us can write for free, ya know. Gotta feed the kids and send them to school. So prostitution is a strange word to use for working women although I know a lot of conservative men who think that any woman who works for money is little better than a whore. That's why a lot of men think they can harass women at work. They think no man is looking out for her, that she'd do anything for the money because she needs it, that she's game. And we women, we've been taught to smile, to accept it, to be flattered by it, and most importantly to never ever talk about it.

Well, no more!

I guess all I want to say is that sexual harassment and abuse of women is evil, and there is a special kind of evil when working women, especially working mothers, are subjected to it. There is immense power the abuser exercises over us when they know we really really want this job or that we really really need it because we have children. These predators prey not really on our bodies, but on our dreams, our hopes, and our need to provide for those we love. It's a sad story from the dawn of time and it's still a story we hear today.

And you know what else is evil? When we do succeed in our work but no one believes it's your talent and hard work that did it. They all think it's because of the sexual relationship—it's never rape or harassment to them because the woman "agreed" to the sex. So now the successful woman starts to wonder if what these people think is true: "Did I get the job because I was the most qualified for it or because I did that horrible thing? Did I get promoted because I brought in a lot of money to the company or because I did that horrible thing? Is my success real or is it all a fraud?" And now the dream, the hard work, the success—all that is tainted. What an evil thing to do to us!

I'm so glad that this #MeToo movement is rocking Hollywood right now. It's changing everyone not just in Hollywood or in the US, but all over the world. Many countries are now talking about the problem of sexual harassment at work and how to deal with it. The #MeToo movement is making women think we don't have to take sexual harassment. It's changing the way we think of men and women and the workplace, that these things aren't normal and part of the job, that these things are evil and must be stopped. It's making men think that they can't do this anymore because we women won't have it and we will talk about it, maybe even shame them, maybe even have them arrested. In fact, so many men (producer Harvey Weinstein, TV host Matt Lauer, actor Kevin Spacey, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, etc) have lost their jobs and their positions of power because of this movement. Good riddance!

I'm sad that all these stories are so horrifying but I'm glad they're all coming out. We need to talk about evil because silence is how it does its work best. Now that we have a voice, we need to trumpet out that we're not taking this anymore. What a wonderful time to be a working woman!