Friday, February 10, 2023

Frances Finds: A game on managing a grocery store!

I've been using our grocery trips as part of our homeschool lesson. It's math, home economics, social studies, and health! Plus, I think they're old enough to learn how to feed themselves. And they should know about the prices of the food they eat and so they'll not waste food. So to make it more fun, we've made grocery shopping a game! Like I'd tell them "Here's your budget. You have 30 minutes. Go!" They love it!

With all the skyrocketing prices on just about everything, however, let me tell ya that it's not been fun to go grocery shopping lately. Having to see my kids' faces when they go, "These cookies are more expensive than those cookies if you compare them by weight!" is just sad. But it's also gratifying when they go, "Let's buy this brand of fresh milk, Mama. They all taste the same anyway!"

Teaching kids about life. What an experience!


So when my boys saw me playing a game called Tap Supermarket, they were intrigued. "Are you doing the groceries, Mama?"

"Nope. I'm managing the supermarket!"

And that's how my boys took over my game and learned about supply and demand, customer service, replenishing stocks, making money, and figuring out what to do with that money! 

Check it out:


So this is basically what it looks like. You have a supermarket and you have 1K and half the store stocked to start.


It's super simple. You need to make sure the shelves are stocked well and the lines at the cashier moving. But it may be simple but it gets really complicated!


You have lots of customers coming in, they're emptying your shelves, demand for new products is going up, and you're understaffed --- ahhhhh!!!

My kids LOVE it! 

Depending on your attitude, it's either so exciting or stressful haha

 
There are lots of other games on this online games site if Tap Supermarket proves to be too exciting for you. It's a money and finance site and they use fun games to make money and finance more fun and not so intimidating. I was quite impressed with my kids' mental math skills!

Here are a couple more games we like to play:

LEGO City Adventures Build & Protect teaches the kids about running a city by collecting taxes! They don't understand why we need to pay taxes and I always say, "Well, the streetlights need electricity, the roads need to be maintained, the garbage needs to be collected. We pay for those with our taxes." This game illustrates that practicality well.


Mahjong Solitaire is a great memory and matching game. Plus, the mahjong tiles show famous landmarks all over the world, like the Eiffel Tower, the Hollywood sign, Mt Fuji, Merlion, Stonehenge... and I'm ashamed to admit I don't recognize the others!!! 


Anyway, if you aren't doing anything this weekend or you'd like your kids to play online games that will teach them about math and money, check out https://www.mortgagecalculator.org/money-games! Happy weekend of fun and learning, mamas! 

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Thursday, February 09, 2023

I'm back!


Hello everybody! I'm back. That's the longest I've not blogged, I think. So let me tell you what's been happening. 

Today marks my one month at my new job! I'm not announcing my job yet because I'm still on probationary status haha so I'll do a job reveal the second I get regularized. 

My job is very busy. Lots of writing! But I breathe writing so no biggie. Lots of meetings! Which badly drains introvert me. But since everyone is so nice, it's okay.

My biggest adjustment is working in a cold office. Yeah, surprisingly, I adjusted quickly to not being with my sons because the first three days of me at work saw me crying and saying I miss them. But my kids, bless their hearts, they said they don't miss me and, well, I suddenly didn't miss them that much, either 😅 Joking aside, I think they do miss me. They just didn't want to see me crying and so they did me some tough love. Those boys.

Anyway, I had asked HR at my initial online interview if the office is cold because that's, like, my dealbreaker. Cold pala is relative because she said it's not cold at all but here I am, freezing every day. But one month in and I'm better. I've decided to not be stylish and just bury myself in ugly but warm clothes. Plus, I commute. I go against the flow so it's an easy and super-fast commute, but ugly sneakers is the way to go. So no office OOTDs then!

I've also adjusted to my big neon, lime-green desk. I toned it down with a lot of industrial black and livened it up with a few touches of pink and a plant I named Chantelle. And since my youngest boy said he loves that shade of green, he helped me choose my desk stuff and so more of that green! I haven't put up photos of my husband and kids yet. Because seeing their beautiful faces makes me miss them and I don't want that.

The plan is to stay in this job till I retire - 14 years from now! Of course, plans change. I planned to be a magazine editor-in-chief till I die and look at what happened to that. Well, one month into this job and I'm optimistic. So let's see where this goes! 

I work in corporate communications. It's a big local company. We help Pinoys, Filipinas especially. I cry every time I watch videos of the women whose lives the company has changed ❤️

The team is cool. So capable. And hardworking. And terribly young. Today I told one of them when she was talking about her dad, "Gosh, I just realized I'm almost as old as your dad. You're young enough to be my kid." 

My husband told me to embrace being their mommy figure. So I will. I guess that says it all. I'm matronly 🥰

And yet, look at little old lady me. I have a new job. When you're 46, it's not easy to go job-hunting. It's so disheartening really, all the rejections. Then this came along because a former colleague referred me and now I'm doing what I do best and still learning more. My learning curve is slow in this industry that's so different from all my previous jobs. I'm always asking for explanations and clarifications (corporate lingo is a foreign language!). But everyone's been so patient because they know I've not worked for a corporation for a decade.

I didn't think I would get this job, to be honest. Those 10 years of being unemployed kept being mentioned during my interviews. I explained I wasn't jobless. I was working hard all that decade as a blogger, writer, editor, PR consultant, etc etc. I've never worked so hard in my life, these past 10 years. Then pregnant, breastfeeding, taking care of little ones pa! With no household help!!!

And that's why I went back to corporate. I got tired of the hustle. The endless prospecting. The chasing of checks. The working alone. 

The last 10 years was amazing. Best decade of my life! I learned a great many things and achieved what I never thought I would. 

Business owner. 

Influencer. 

Speaker. 

Newspaper columnist. 

Book editor. 

Co-founder. 

A frikkin' author!!! 

I still plan on continuing all I've done. I'm in the middle of writing a novel and a book of short stories. Yes, two books! We have big plans for Lean In Manila (yes, we'll be back with that, too!). I quietly started a Facebook group called Masayang Menopause. I'm now a bookstagrammer. And I'm also cooking up some stuff that's so exciting! 

So, yes, the last decade as a hustler will still continue but at a more relaxed pace now that I have a regular income. I can now focus on my passions! Oh, 2013 to 2022 was the best fun. But I'm old haha. I want to relax... by going back to being an employee in an industry I've never been in! What?! 

Life is full of surprises. 

I'm grateful. I've lived many lives. Here's to a new one!

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Wednesday, December 14, 2022

I blame just one person for all this melodrama

As per the last time I blogged about these people, their names are not mentioned so this won't appear on Google search. The photos should tell you who they are but I won't write their names, okay. Why? Because fans of the older brother and his wife leave abusive messages and threats. I'm not even the younger brother and his wife and I experienced a tiny bit of the vitriol they get every day. I can't imagine being them. 


Have you watched this docuseries on Netflix? You should! The first chapter (3 episodes) is so romantic and nakakakilig. Watch!

But I'm a storyteller. I know what they're doing. They're softening us up because this week's chapter is going to be hard-hitting, explosive, shocking... all the adjectives you see on tabloids! Exciting!
 

But let's get serious. Let me tell you something that's been bothering me ever since the start of this whole circus. But no one has actually commented on it.

But first, I want to establish I'm firmly on Team MM. Not even Team H&M. Just Team MM.

Everyone's mad at MM, assigning her the Angry Black Woman trope. But it's PH who has an axe to grind. PH is the one angry, the one hurting, the one whose mother was killed, the one who had no special protection deal with the press, the one with the explosive secrets, the one publicly struggling with mental health issues, the one who has been hounded by tabloids for almost 40 years, the one whose wife was bullied relentlessly by the press and countless men and women all over the world. He has every right to be angry.

MM? Why would she be angry? She said herself she had a happy childhood, that even though her parents were divorced, her mom and dad doted on her, that she was a daddy's girl. She studied in an exclusive girls school, had a good acting career, was busy with her humanitarian causes, has tons of friends who adore her, had a lifestyle website that made good money, and was never in any scandal. Her haters say they never heard of her. That's easily explained - only the scandalous ones are talked about. The good girls in Hollywood are boring. And MM is a good girl. So good that even when the tabloids offered money to her castmates to say they slept with her, they said no. 

MM's life was PERFECT. Then PH came along and she lost her sweet career, her beloved website, her relationship with her dad, her squeaky-clean reputation, and her peace of mind!!! 

The third date was camping with no bathroom, shower, or toilet anywhere. MM, you should've run away! 😂

She's so unused to bad things happening that she had suicidal thoughts when things got tough. She didn't know what to do. Her life was the most negatively affected by this romance, not PH's. Because PH's life has always been hell. His parents had their affairs all over the tabloids, his former family treated his brother better, his parents had an ugly divorce, his mother was killed, he had to comfort a grieving country when he was just 12, then his father married the woman who tormented his mother, his normal teenage adventures of parties/girls/alcohol were gossip fodder of an entire nation (possibly the world), and his girlfriends were hounded by the paparazzi and eventually chased away. 

PH has always hated his life. He repeatedly said in interviews when he was young: "I don't have photos of my family here in the army unlike the other soldiers; I don't want to live in the UK, I want to live in Africa; I'm angry at the tabloids, etc." 

PH is angry and he's not going to shut up until his anger is spent.

And yet we all blame the woman! It's always the woman's fault even though she hardly has said anything. It's PH who's always dropping the bombshells about his original family. But, of course, who do we blame? The woman. The way we blame rape victims, sexual harassment victims, or when a man cheats, kasalanan ng babae kasi nagkulang siya. 

Bakit laging babae may kasalanan? Wala bang sariling pag-iisip yung lalaki? Hindi ba siya marunong mag-sariling desisyon? Why do we treat PH like he's this innocent young boy? He was frikkin' 32 years old when he met MM! 

It's misogyny that we blame MM. Because why blame her when it's PH who rushed her to marry, who didn't prepare her for the role, who didn't protect her from his family and the courtiers, who revealed the (not so) shocking tidbit about a racist family member? MM never even heard that skin-color comment herself and PH should never have told her. She was already mentally fragile tapos gagatungan pa ni PH???

I've always blamed PH for all this shit. Buti na lang mahal siya ng asawa niya. Kung ako si MM, walk out ako agad. The hate is never worth it, kahit sinong Prince Charming pa siya.


Anyway, all that said, I'm glad PH is now making it up to MM. He took her and their kids out of that toxic environment. He looks like he's completely besotted with her. He's a happy daddy. He's working hard to be financially independent (unlike the RF that still depends on the taxpayer to pay for their palaces, designer gowns, helicopter rides, etc). And though it's distasteful, he's defending his decisions (yes, HIS decisions!) even if it puts his former family in a bad light.

Ya know, if my father also had a torrid affair, caused my mother torment, divorced her and stripped her of protection which eventually had a hand in causing her death, I'd hate him, too. If anyone goes after my husband, maybe I'll stand back muna kasi he's an adult but if foul na, I'd defend him tooth and nail, too. 

But if anyone dares go after my children, I'd be out for blood. No one touches my kids. And the abuse the kids of H&M get from the tabloids and the rest of this evil world??? I don't care if anyone will call me inelegant, classless, walang modo sa reactions ko. Nanay ako. Come after my kids and I will do everything to destroy you.


I'm sure any good parent will understand. And that's why I'm Team MM. And maybe Team PH... Nope. I still haven't forgiven him for finding a perfectly happy-on-her-own woman and then changing her life for the worse.

Then again, there's this viral Tiktok that jokes that that's what men do. But of course, it's the woman's fault for letting him, right? 🙄😠



UPDATE: Finally watched Vol 2 and I was right!!! 




P.S. The most asked question sa akin about H&M is, "Bakit dami nilang kwento eh diba they wanted privacy?" They NEVER said that. Whenever people ask me that, I judge them severely: "Aha, you're one of those people who only read the tabloid headlines, don't click to read the full article, and don't confirm your sources."

Here's what they said in 2020, with my edits and notes in italics: 
After many months of reflection and internal discussions, we have chosen to make a transition this year in starting to carve out a progressive new role within this institution [within daw, sa loob, hindi sa labas!].

We intend to step back [step back, not step away] as ‘senior’ members of the RF and work to become financially independent, while continuing to fully support HM The Q [as in they won't stop their public royal duties but W didn't allow this at the Sandringham Summit].

It is with your encouragement, particularly over the last few years, that we feel prepared to make this adjustment.

We now plan to balance our time between the United Kingdom and North America, continuing to honour our duty to The Q, the Commonwealth, and our patronages [again, their original plan was to still work as public royals].

This geographic balance will enable us to raise our son with an appreciation for the royal tradition into which he was born, while also providing our family with the space to focus on the next chapter, including the launch of our new charitable entity [space daw, not privacy].

We look forward to sharing the full details of this exciting next step in due course, as we continue to collaborate with HM The Q, The PofW, The DoC and all relevant parties [collaborate daw, but this wasn't allowed].

Until then, please accept our deepest thanks for your continued support.
Reading comprehension matters!

And because people keep screaming "Privacy!", their global press secretary, A.H., accused the British tabloids of inventing this lie and last week told The New York Times: 
[H&M's] statement announcing their decision to step back mentions nothing of privacy and reiterates their desire to continue their roles and public duties. Any suggestion otherwise speaks to a key point of this series. They are choosing to share their story, on their terms, and yet the tabloid media has created an entirely untrue narrative that permeates press coverage and public opinion. The facts are right in front of them.
So there's my answer to that "we want our privacy" lie. 

P.P.S. Am I against W&K? Ya know, all I'll say again is I'm Team K. Why do I support K? Because MM said on their O interview, "K is a good person." 

That means that K didn't treat her badly. As for W... That's a post for another day!
He's a senior journalist who had to delete this Tweet because someone from the Palace threatened him, which means the RF actually does have a say on what's published about them. It's not true they maintain a "dignified silence."

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