For two years after I married, my life revolved around two persons — my husband and my daughter. Being a housewife enabled me to devote my time to my family. Within these two years, I learned how to manage our budget and at the same time take care of the family.

Balancing work and home

I manage my time carefully — making sure no one and nothing is left out. Writing one’s plan gives a solid reminder of what to do. My family comes first, of course. Being a wife to one of the busiest persons is hard. All of what I am and need comes next to my husband, and I’m happy to take the backseat.

What I appreciate most in this situation is that I can work at home. Multitasking is one job I do best — baby-sitting and making business calls in the comfort of my house.

Saving up

Because I know that money doesn’t grow on trees, I try to save as much as I can and budget our expenses properly. My husband and I keep an emergency savings account that we deposit a portion of our income every month. It takes a lot of patience and discipline to be able to do this.

Looking for ways to save is always a smart thing. If you spend most of your time online, you’d be happy to know you can still buy stuff on the web and save a lot money! Savebuckets offers a variety of products at very low prices. Their website is user-friendly, so non-techie Internet user like myself can easily navigate around with no problems. Check out the site to do some price compare sometime!

Balancing work and family should be easy. Like I said, it only needs patience and discipline.

The heart and soul of the wedding is the ceremony. This is where you stand before God, family and friends, and commit yourself forever to the love of your life. This is where you make your union official in the eyes of society and of the law.

Church wedding

In planning a wedding, the first thing that must be secured is the church, but booking one can be cutthroat. The most popular churches get booked as early as one-and-a-half years prior. If you’re Chinese and follow Feng Shui, see an expert or consult the Chinese calendar as soon as possible so you can hold down an auspicious date for your wedding.

It is also important to secure the church early so you can work on your requirements early enough. It also gives you a chance to work out any possible problems arising from such things as inter-religious unions, second marriages, etc. With inter-religious marriages, it’s best for the couple to consult ministers, of both religions before deciding in which church to get married.

where you stand before God, family and friends, and commit yourself forever to the love of your life. This is where you make your union official in the eyes of society and of the law.

Planning the ceremony

There are several advantages to keeping the ceremony concise. First of all, venues especially the popular ones, run a very tight schedule. Some have weddings every hour, on the hour. Others have overtime charges. Second, even if they love you with all their hearts, guests do get bored (and sometimes annoyed) at ceremonies that drag on and on. And when it happens, the meaning and beauty of your wedding gets diminished amidst the yawns and blank stares of your loved ones.

To keep the ceremony tight, discuss ways to edit and simplify the service with your priest or minister. Here are some suggestions for Catholic weddings:

1. Omit parts that are otherwise repetitive. For example, you only need either the Kyrie (”Lord have mercy”) or Act of Contrition, not both.
2. Keep the sermon short, about five to seven minutes. After all, the main theme and message of this mass is your marriage, and there’s a lot of that in the Marriage Rites.
3. Sign the documents during Communion, after you and your sponsors have taken it and while the rest of the congregation is taking theirs. You immediately save five to 10 minutes of otherwise dead air.

Short but personal

Keeping your ceremony short doesn’t mean breezing through the mass in an impersonal fashion. There are many areas where you can personalize the service:

1. Write your own vows.
2. Verbalize your prayers. In Catholic masses, sections like the Kyrie and Prayers of the Faithful are the best places to write your own intentions. When you verbalize your own prayers, you take the whole congregation with you.
3. Choose a priest or minister with whom you have a relationship. If you don’t know one yet, try to get to know the one who’s officiating your wedding.

Getting to the church

These days, people don’t just hire a car for the bride, they hire for the whole family or the whole bridal party. This helps ensure that everybody gets to the church and reception on time and without a hitch.

Car rental companies offer wedding packages that include the bridal car and a couple of extra vehicles (usually vans or sedans). Naturally, the bride gets the most special one - available for hire are vintage cars, stretch limousines, and luxury cars. Hotels also include the bridal car in their package.

(more…)

With Valentine’s Day, jewelry stores expect brisk sales. Men are finally getting it into their heads that yes, we women love the roses, the chocolates and the romantic dinners, but jewelry, especially diamonds, will make us do anything they want. (Okay, maybe let them have have their way for just a few days, but after that, we know who’s really the boss, right?)

But why wait for your man to give you jewelry when you can also buy them yourself? After all, you’re an independent career woman with a head for making the right financial investments for your family. If you have extra cash, instead of gambling it on say, the stock market, then buy good pieces of gold jewelry or diamonds.

At a jewelry store where customers can buy jewelry per gram, for example, you can purchase beautiful pieces. What’s more, lay-away plans are now fairly common among established jewelry stores, and clients can make monthly installment payments for a fixed period before bringing home their new babies.

Make no mistake though, investing in jewelry is a long-term process. You can only get your returns after a few years or so. So you shouldn’t invest your entire savings in them. If you’re fairly liquid and you have extra cash you don’t know where to put it in aside from the bank, then you can invest it in jewelry. Most mothers invest in jewelry not just for themselves, but also for their children. It is just a nice idea to turn over beautiful pieces to your grownup daughter when she turns 18 or keep the pieces as part of their inheritance.

So if you think you can hock your gold jewelry or diamond pendant in a pawnshop for a fair price when you’re a little short on cash, you are sadly mistaken. When you’re in a rush to sell your jewelry, you will hardly get their full value. If you have to pawn them, you will only get 2/3 of the price. But if you sell it at the market place, you will get its full value. Jewelry is a worthwhile investment because it will never go out of style. It will never get old. Just clean it, take care of it, and of course, don’t lose it.

(more…)

Thierry Mugler’s Marketing and PR Directory for the Asia-Pacific Region John Marangos tells you how to wear your scent — and shows us why Thierry Mugler scents are a world-wide phenomenon.

I. Don’t stick to the textbooks when it comes to wearing your scent. John, who has been in the fragrance industry for over 21 years, suggests that you wear your fragrance in whatever way makes you feel good. “I believe that fragrances are mostly about pleasure, so if it makes you feel great to rub your fragrance on your belly, or spray it on from head to toe, it’s entirely up to you.” If you don’t know yet how you’d like to wear your fragrance, he suggests trying the pulse along the neck and wrists, as well as behind the knees and the ankles.

II. Layering scents is a crime we commit everyday. “Many people don’t realize how much layering of fragrances goes into our daily routine. Your shampoo, conditioner, soap, body lotion, tissue, and hand wash all have fragrances.” So layering two perfumes, John feels, would just add to the hodgepodge of scents. “Layering two fragrances would be like mixing two or three wines. I think that’s the best example — it would be like mixing a pinot, a shiraz, and a cabernet.” Not a very good combination.

III. Try this test. John suggests using a body wash, lotion, and perfume from the same fragrance line on one hand, and just the perfume on the other. “You will notice that the hand you’ve applied all three fragrances to will have a depth in its scent that the other hand will not have.”

IV. To make a fragrance last longer, use eau de parfum. In case you didn’t know, the difference between an eau de toilette and an eau de parfum is not just the price tag. An eau de parfum holds more of the essence of he fragrance, and will last six to eight hours. But John also says, “It is important to note that we all have very different skins. The way a fragrance smells on you is affected by your age, your diet, your skin type, and various other fragrances in your daily routine.” One fragrance can smell a hundred different ways on 100 different people.

V. Your fragrance should be all about you. Thierry Mugler put it best when he said, “I would much rather have one woman who really loves our fragrance and can’t live without it than 10 women who just like it.” All Thierry Mugler fragrances are not meant to please everyone.” But they obviously please many without even trying, even when some 500 fragrances are launched every year. Thierry Mugler’s Angel has remained number one in France, number two in Europe, and the one of the top 10 in the USA. Alien captures the same creative force behind Angel, with Thierry involved in every step of the process.

Let me tell you about the day I decided not to be straight. Straight-haired, that is. See, for practically all my life, I’ve had a great and long-lasting relationship with my naturally long, straight hair. I never had to get on the re-bondwagon or abuse a straightening iron. Thing is, in a land of the straight-haired, the girls with the curls were the ones I envied.

So as it happens in everyone’s life, I hankered for a change for something different, even if it was a short-lived affair. Which is why I decided to add a twist to things, and finally get a perm.

I’ve heard and read about “bad perms” all my life, and so there was that looming fear of running out of the parlor with a fabulous new hairdo — for a poodle. Thanks to the digital age, though, there is now a breakthrough in the curling technique, and it’s called the digital perm of “digiperm”.

What makes it different from your regular perm? It is a precise method of curling that ensures the perfect curl. Each roll of hair curled is attached to a machine through wire cables. Each roll is then heated for exactly 20 minutes, ensuring the power absorption of the curl medicine into the hair strand. A neutralizer is then added to make the curls look natural. The results? Why, hello, rockstar Rapunzel! Natural, beautiful curls that get even better as time passes.