Treasure Jar

This week marked the first week of our Back to School days. I say “OUR” because even if I do not have to be in school like my children do, I wake up way earlier than the rest of the household. Wait, let me rephrase that… I go to “school” too, in my little room where I am called Teacher Julie which is a world different from my children’s school.

Anyway…

There are days when the going gets rough and even though I have all things prepped down to the last minute details, there are those little things that I forget: that folder in the home library that the youngest is supposed to bring with her to school, the supplements that children should have taken before going to bed, or that change of shirt for PE days. The list could be endless depending on the circumstances.

In all these things that keep me very busy, I am in need of a break, in particular, a chocolate break for which I can derive not just sweet indulgence and pleasure but a kick and boost in my system. Having said that,  I nod my head in agreement to the tagline: Have a break, have a Kitkat.

So for this question…

Did you know that taking a KIT KAT Break can unlock hidden skills in you that make it seem like you can break the impossible? If so, what skill would I like to unlock and why?

a. Type faster and flawlessly.
b. Never forget any detail.
c. Create awesome presentation decks.
d. Multitask at any given time.

My answer to this question would be: Never forget any detail.

Why? Here’s why.

My day begins at 4:30am (or earlier) when I prepare breakfast and packed food for the children to bring to school. The children need to be up half an hour later because the school service arrives before 6am. Then we bring the eldest child to where she can get a ride to go to her university before the husband and I can have our breakfast and prepare for the day’s activities ahead of us.

The activities I need to do are varied, depending on my work schedule though the busiest days I have are three days of work. I have to be home before the children gets home from school though to get dinner ready. Good thing I have small kitchen appliances that make cooking and preparing food easier. So yey!! Laundry is taken cared of by the eldest daughter though when she goes back to school next month, this will again be my responsibility. Ironing is something I don’t do so these clothes that need ironing goes to the laundry shop. The backyard is being tended to by a cleaning lady because yard work is not really my thing.

We haven’t had any household help for more than 11 years.

So tiring just to read about our day huh? That’s why I need to Never Forget any Detail.

As for the skill  “Type faster and flawlessly”, I only need this when I have to make an Assessment Report or  a Progress report that i have forgotten to encode and need to bring to a doctor or to the parents of my student.

For “Create awesome presentation decks”, I don’t see the reason for the need of that skill since I do not work in the corporate world.

“Multitask at any given time”? Multitasking is my other name when it comes to running a household and working at the same time.

I multitask because I have to, with of course, the help of these little things I use at home. Example of one of my fun multitasking skills with a kitchen aid : While I (and the rest of the family) am having a good night rest, my slow cooker is cooking our food for the next day. Now… if I forgot to turn on the slow cooker, imagine how it would be if we wake up with the food uncooked? The horror!

Never forget any detail, is my mantra. This is what digital calendars, alarms, notepads, post-its and children’s sharp memories are for, to not forget details. As long as you don’t forget to make notes of the details you need to remember of course 😀

“Like” KITKAT Facebook page here.

Tags: Have a Break, Have a Kitkat, KitKat Break, KitKat Break Movement

We have been HP printer users for years now. As of late, we use HP Deskjet F2480 at home and before that an HP printer that uses a toner which we used for a good number of years.

With the introduction of new and high tech HP Printers, owning a printer for home-use has never been exciting! This techie mom with a super techie husband and equally techie kids who rely on printers for their projects, homework and portfolio requirements sure can benefit from the new features of our well-liked HP printers.

Here are the reasons why these HP Ink Advantage Printers are useful in more ways than one:

1. HP Ink Advantage printers allow users to download pre-designed templates from content providers in the web
2. HP Ink Advantage Printers deliver high-quality prints with low running costs (now, this is what we money watchers-economode printing setting need, LOL)
3. The print apps provide users the ability to download templates and other printables and install them in the printer for access or via deliveries directly to their printers HP scheduled delivery  at a specific day and time of the week.
4. HP has also underscored the value of productive print apps to enhance children’s learning with the inclusion of education apps from Singapore’s leading education publisher, Singapore Asia Publishers Pte Ltd (SAP), and proprietary brand owner of renowned Primary Math programme in Singapore, onSponge Pte Ltd, (We have SAP books at home on reading, Science and Math, so woohoo!)
5. Designed to enhance the learning experience of young students, the print apps provide busy parents and their children with direct access to educational content that spans across pre-school and primary school levels, and is delivered directly on their HP Deskjet Ink Advantage 5525, 6525 e-All-in-One printers.
6. The HP Deskjet Ink Advantage portfolio allows for affordable printing with Original HP inks, which produces high-quality prints reliably, without the cost and hassles of printer damage, messy leaks, spills and clogged cartridges when using alternatives.

HP Ink Advantage 3515

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HP Ink Advantage 3525

HP Ink Advantage 5525

“Busy parents and young students often spend time finding good education content and accessing this content,” said Albert Mateo, Jr., general manager, Printing and Personal Systems, HP Philippines. “The education print apps on HP Deskjet Ink Advantage series will leverage HP’s leadership in cloud technologies and high-quality printing to deliver new learning experiences for families, who can now directly access education content and low-cost printing without having to worry about costs or wasted prints.”

Here is more information about HP Ink Advantage Printers:

This content service is offered in addition to a broad range of mobile printing solutions that HP pioneered, allowing customers to print from virtually anywhere, anytime and from the widest range of mobile devices.

HP’s mobile solutions span HP ePrint, HP wireless direct and HP Printer Control.

There are more than 46 million web-connected HP printers worldwide that have access to HP’s suite of mobile printing solutions. Notably, there are now more than 8 million downloads of the HP ePrint app globally

Delivering premium content to support the preschool to primary academic journey

Developed for young learners across pre-school and primary school levels, the new HP print apps deliver premium education content from the following providers:

• SAP Education Print App complements in-class learning with content that is selected from SAP’s best-selling primary school assessment books, delivered on a daily or weekly basis. Bite-sized practice materials are delivered to encourage good study habits and positive learning by pacing children’s learning through daily practice. The SAP Education Print App now offers assessment content for English, Math and Science. SAP plans to offer content for Chinese language later this year.

• onSponge Learning Print App provides access to the proprietary +hinkingMath™ resource – a flagship product line of the company. Each week, a series of practice problem sums for students in Primary 3 to Primary 6 levels will be made available through the print app, helping young learners to hone their problem-solving skills with core techniques and develop their reasoning abilities. Users can access the step-by-step solutions of the problem sums on www.onSponge.com, where they can also post questions at the Forum for online help.

The print apps offer anything from family activities, business, marketing, home, travel and other interests. Calendar templates, photo albums, coloring pages and signs, game pages, maps and even recipes are just some of the myriad downloadable printables.

Most of the applications from a wide array of choices are free of charge and may be accessed through the HP ePrintCenter.

ABOUT HP:

HP creates new possibilities for technology to have a meaningful impact on people, businesses, governments and society. The world’s largest technology company, HP brings together a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure to solve customer problems. More information about HP (NYSE: HPQ) is available at http://www.hp.com.

Tags: HP Ink Advantage, HP Ink Advantage Printers, HP printers

The Maya Kitchen will feature Sandy Daza on November 24, 2012. He will be sharing his home cooked favorite recipes as the guest chef.

The following recipes will be featured:

• Shepherd’s Pie
• Crispy Fish with Garlic Sauce
• Shrimp Puttanesca
• Spam Fried Rice
• Coq Au Vin
• Bread Pudding

Tags: Chef Sandy Daza at The Maya Kitchen, home cooking with Sandy Daza, http://www.themayakitchen.com/, Kitchen Confidence with Sandy Daza, Maya Kitchen Culinary Center, Sandy Daza, The Maya Kitchen features home cooking with Sandy Daza

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas and I can feel the cool breeze already.

I am on the look out for sale/marked down prices before Christmas events. I know some of these can be a real competition but let me not get into that ugly part, lol.

Some of the things I may need to get IF I manage to go to one. Or two.

• shoes for school (and for me)
• undergarments for the kids
• gifts for relatives
• outdoor clothes (because we plan to be more active, hah!) and that includes looking at wide selection women’s north face jackets, running/walking outfits and even yoga clothes. (Ok, I think I am over-excited with this one, lol)
• small kitchen appliances

That’s it. I have to print this list I guess so I don’t get things we won’t be using.

Tags: sale events

Unilab Active Health’s  Run United 3 of the Runrio Trilogy 2012 is happening on September 16, 2012

Last year’s Run United 3 had an estimated participants at over 14,000! Wow!

Run United 3, the third leg of the Run Rio Trilogy, has always been much anticipated because it offers what is dubbed as the ‘Afroman distance’ or 32k category—not usually included in other run races.

Other race categories are:

• Ceelin 500m dash
• 3k
• 5k
• 10k
• 21k

The 32K runners will have a gun start at Bonifacio Global City (BGC) starting at 3am, an hour ahead of the 21k runners. They will be led from BGC to take their first 10k in University Parkway area, then move up to Kalayaan Flyover. Then, they will go all the way down to Buendia, take left at Roxas Boulevard, turnaround taking the roads of Vicente Sotto, Diosdado Macapagal and on to EDSA before finally turning left at Seaside Boulevard for the finish at the Mall of Asia (MOA).

 For 21k runners:

The 21k will have an earlier gun start at 4am compared to Run United 2’s 430am. They will have the same route as the 32k runners, but instead of going to EDSA they will turn right after Macapagal Avenue, turning right at Seaside Boulevard and then all the way to the finish line in MOA.

“Run United 3 runners will get to run across three cities— Taguig, Makati and Pasay. Based from the feedback we got from them, they really enjoyed the experience and the new routes. The earlier gun start of both race categories will give runners a safer route as well,” said Coach Rio of RunRio Inc.

Online registration for Run United 3 started on August 6 until September 2, 2012.

In-store registration started on August 13 and will be up till September 9, 2012.

Registration venues: Riovana in BGC and Katipunan, Quezon City; and Toby’s at SM Mall of Asia and Trinoma.

Some important things to note:

The runners will receive their complete race kits upon registration (Active Health Sun Visor, Singlet, Bib with B-Tag and wrist tag for 500m dash runners).

The wrist tag for 500m dash kid’s runner which is usually given on race day will now be included in their race kits upon registration.

Run United 3, which is for the benefit of Gawad Kalusugan and Children’s Hour, is part of the ULAH running series.

A bit of history on Run United:

Run United started with only 8,000 runners when it was launched in March 2010 and the numbers have steadily grown in succeeding events. An estimated 14,000 runners participated during its last offering— at 2012 Run United 2.

Run United 1 on March 4 started off this year’s RunRio Trilogy, followed by Run United 2 last June 17. Runners who completed all the longest distances (21k-21k-32k) in all of the three Run United races will be recognized at the RunRio Trilogy Awards Night.

 Don’t forget to drop by these fun and exciting activities centers:

•  Active Kids Zone
• Runners’ Lounge
• I-Connect Zone
• The Food Pavilion
•  Health, Sports, & Leisure Zones.

For further information or inquiries on race details, results, photos and discussions, please visit the following websites:  www.unilabactivehealth.com or www.runrio.com

Tags: 2012 Run United, 32k Afroman Distance, RU3, RU3 2012, Run United, Run United 3 2012, Run United 3 September 16 2012, Unilab Active Health, Unilab Active Health Run United, Unilab Active Health Run United 2012, Unilab Active Health Run United 3 2012, Unilab Run United, Unilab Run United 3, Unilab Run United 3 2012, www.runrio.com, www.unilabactivehealth.com

Are you ready for the Unilab’s 2012 Run United 2 on June 17, 2012? The 2012 Run United 2 will be at the SM Mall of Asia grounds.

Here are the different categories:

Ceelin 500 meter dash for children 5 – 12 years old

3k, 5k and 10k run singlet

21k category. The 21km runners will run the Bonifacio Global City to Mall of Asia race route. Shuttle service will be provided from MOA as pick-up point for 21km runners who has to go there if they have family members and friends running at the MOA.

Visit Active Health for more information.

“Active Health delivers Unilab’s vision of providing active health solutions for Filipino families,” Unilab Active Health Head Alex Panlilio said. “We encourage families to start or continue leading active lives through our events like Run United“.

There will also be a Team Bike Boutique, the official merchandise partner of Ironman races worldwide, to organize the Run United Race Expo happening on June 13-16, 2012 at the BGC Grounds near Mercato. This four-day race expo will have fitness and athletic brands showcase their services and latest products like gadgets and running gear.

According to Coach Rio de la Cruz, “Major international marathons like the ING New York Marathon and Chicago Marathon hold their own expos days before the event. Together with UNILAB Active Health, we look at some of the best practices from international races, and apply them to the Run United Series to further enhance the race experience of the Filipino running community.”

Registered participants of 500-meter dash, 3km, 5km, and 10km will receive their singlet upon registration.

The Active Health race belt bag, bib with timing chip, and Riovana 10% discount stub can be claimed during the 1st ever Run United race expo scheduled on June 13-16, 2012 at BGC Grounds near Mercato from 12nn to 8pm.

IMPORTANT: 2012 Run United 2 singlet size availability will be on a first-come, first-served basis, so register early to get the singlet size that fits you perfectly.

Tags: 2012 Run United 2, Ceelin 500 meter dash for children 5 - 12 years old, Run United 2, Run United Health Expo 2012 BGC, Run United Race Expo, Team Bike Boutique, Unilab 2012 Run United 2 June 17 2012, Unilab Active Health, Unilab Active Health Run United