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Walgreens

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Walgreens for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

Walgreens has always been the very first place that I will visit whenever my family needs something health-related. I started doing this when my previous store ran out of the only homeopathic teething product that my infant son tolerates. After much searching, I eventually found that my neighborhood Walgreens' shelves were stocked full of the product! It was a no-brainer about how Walgreens became the first place to go to after that.

As for the Walgreens Brand Health & Wellness Products, one of the mainstays in my medicine cabinet is the Walgreens brand guaifenesin. We've found this to be the most effective product when it comes to combating congestion and coughs and the best part is that Walgreens' pricing is way more affordable compared to a name-brand product with the same formulation. Again, it was a no-brainer. With the financial setbacks a lot of people have been experiencing nowadays, who wouldn't want more value for their money ? 

My mom, on the other hand, is a loyal user of Walgreens' line of supplements - vitamin C, calcium and other herbal whatnots in her arsenal are all from walgreens.

The best part is that buying any Walgreens Brand Health & Wellness Products supports bringing preventative wellness services to local communities through the  Walgreens Way to Well Fund™. I've always been a firm believer in good karma and with this program, you get to take care of your health and help your community maintain theirs at the same time. 

Do check out some other bloggers who are have Walgreens gift card giveaways.

Milk donation

Our deep freezer is full of frozen breastmilk again and we're making another donation. The recipient will be picking up around 600 oz of frozen milk tomorrow.

Coincidentally, my friend just forwarded me a link to a feature about selling breast milk online and a link to a website w/c facilitates the sale of breastmilk. I can't say that I'm not tempted because the milk is selling for up to $3.00 / ounce. And in some cases, where the milk is being sold at a bargain, it was selling for $0.60 / ounce - I did a quick calculation and this means that the 600 oz I'm donating tomorrow will potentially net me somewhere between $360 to $1800.

*blink*

Anyway, I've always been a firm believer in good karma and believe in sharing blessings but I just hope that tomorrow's pick up doesn't end up "nickel & dime"-ing me because I'd be seriously annoyed. I don't intend to profit from breastmilk ever (it sounds so ... uhm ... desperate ?) but I don't intend to be at the losing end either so I asked that the recipient to please reimburse me for the cost of the bags, they don't come cheap.

Dream big

This afternoon, my ex-ex-boss told me that they were experiencing a flash flood. Their neighbor's pond overflowed, water rushed onto the street, and onto my ex-ex-boss' house. I asked if they wanted to come over & hang out at home so he can work but he declined and said that since the streets are flooded, they couldn't leave anyway.

Later, I told hubby about this and he said "That settles it, we're not going to buy a house in that area."

I couldn't help but laugh :) You see, ex-ex-boss lives in a neighborhood where houses typically fall in the 7-digit price range (and for the pilosopos out there, that does not include the decimal places).

Okay rin tong si hubby mangarap... but then again, if you're gonna dream, why not dream big ? Libre naman mangarap.

Conversations with the husband

A thread I've been following recently in my e-group sparked some questions in my mind - are we happy ?

I didn't have think hard to find out what my answer was, I only had to look at my son to see the main reason and proof that I am happy. So that leaves the husband.

Last night, I ambushed him with that question, "Hun, happy ka ba ? Are you happy with our life ?"

He took a few seconds to think and said "Yes, masaya ako. Minsan lang, sobrang kulit nitong ni Swe-cha chaka hindi ako masaya pag ginigising mo ako nang maaga."

[translation: he is happy but sometimes he finds it difficult when our son is being overly rambunctious and he does not like it when I wake him up early in the morning]

:)

I prodded him some more, "Come on, be honest. Aren't you the least bit proud of your son's kakulitan ?"

He thought some more and smiled, "yes, basta hindi ako mag-aalaga, proud akong makulit siya."

LOL :)

Forgetful Achi

Hubby brought our Impreza to the shop last Saturday for an oil change and asked the shop to check out the clanging sounds that he's been hearing - let's just put it this way... you know those empty cans that people sometimes tie to the bumpers of bridal cars so there's lots of noise ? Our Impreza sounds like it is dragging a lot of those empty cans even though it isn't even moving yet.

So mechanic checks it out and finds that the screws to a heat shield has come off. So he's fixing that.

Then the humming sound that hubby suspected was coming from a wheel which may not be perfectly round anymore turns out to be caused by a bearing and of course, it needed to be replaced. Damage to our wallets was estimated at $327 + tax.

The up side of all this is that when hubby asked the mechanic if we needed to see about getting rid of the Impreza soon because it's deteriorating, mechanic says that there is no need because the car is in great shape. The stuff that we've been repairing are just normal wear / tear and are to be expected from a car that has that many miles on it and that with proper care, this car should reach 150k miles easily and w/o major issues.

So I tell my sister about this during one of our talks and she tells me.. "so you guys aren't going to replace the Impreza yet ?"

"No"

"Are you sure ? The longer you wait, the more the value will depreciate. Maybe you guys should see about selling it and getting a new car."

I went quiet for a minute because I was trying to figure out if my sister was serious or not. I'm pretty sure that she was teasing me but she sounded so serious!

"Uh, I'm still unemployed, remember ?"

* deafening silence *

And then I added, "We can deal with a $350 auto repair bill this month but it's going to be much harder coming up with the $350 or more every month for the next 5 years."

"Ay, oo nga pala no."

...

This just made me realize that I've been unemployed for the longest time that it seems so normal now. Sad, no ?

It's also made me look back and realize how much better our financial situation was back then because while hubby and I have always operated in tipid mode, we could easily afford a new card DP plus a $500 monthly payment.

And now ? It's a complete turnaround. Super-tipid mode na :)

Parmesan Cheese Container

Is it that obvious that I love reusing containers ?


Sometimes, I embarass myself when I see my stash of containers grow and I start throwing stuff away but I try to keep them as much as I can - I'm such a hoarder! [translation: basurero]


We go through a lot of parmesan cheese in our house and once, I saw the small containers go on sale and I just had to get a few. Here is a perfect example of how I reused the small parmesan cheese jar - a container for loose crayons (the kind that kids get from restaurants). The flip top lid makes tidying up so easy because you can just drop the crayon in (or shake it out if you want to use it).





I wonder how long it'll take us and how many restaurants we'd have to visit with Swe-cha before we can get a full set of colors (I'm not looking to get a full set of colors from any one restaurant).

Momtrepreneur

I've been talking about setting up a business - an online shop, really - with my partner since last year and as we're both first-time mommies, we both had our hands full with our babies and have not been able to devote a lot of time to our venture until recently.

http://savymommy.awardspace.biz/

Now, we haven't really launched this with a lot of hoopla & publicity yet, we've been getting a lot of hits and have even run out of some stock (but don't worry, more are on their way!) for some products. Who knew that breastmilk storage bottles were going to be such a big hit for Mommies in the Philippines ? But then again, breastfeeding is widespread now (yay!) and disposable milk bags are such a waste!

Our humble shop started with feeding essentials for your baby and while still keeping with our principles of selling products that we firmly believe in and use ourselves, we've expanded our product line and are carrying Aveeno and Cetaphil products now.

I'd like to post a shoutout to Moms out there who have children with Eczema (unfortunately, my partner's baby has eczema so she's always on the lookout for products such as these), SavyMommy now has the following products especially formulated for atopic skin:

Aveeno Baby Cleansing Therapy Moisturizing Wash P650
Aveeno Baby Eczema Therapy Moisturizing Cream P750
Cetaphil Restoraderm Moisturizing Lotion

Do drop by our site and check out our products. Mention this blog and you'll be eligible for our pre-order promotion for Aveeno Eczema products - buy the Aveeno Baby Cleansing Therapy Moisturizing Wash for P650 and get the Aveeno Baby Eczema Therapy Moisturizing Cream for only P700 -> instant savings of P50!

Mention "newlyweds at work" and this blog when you pre-order, you also get free shipping.

Ashtray

It's been a year since we started buying baby food for our son and in typical-basurero fashion, we've been collecting and keeping the empty food jars (clean & sterilized), in the hopes that we can repurpose / recycle them in some way.

I had to throw a lot away (I started throwing jars a few months ago) but I thought that it would be too wasteful to throw the ones that I've already washed and kept so we held onto them in the meantime.

This post is part of a series of ways that we've found to reuse these baby food jars :) I'm tagging posts like these "go-green", for now, even though smoking isn't exactly good for the environment.

Use: Ashtray for when a smoker comes-a-visiting.

Pros: We get to cover it with the lid so the ashes don't go flying around as it gets thrown in the trash. Also, being in a lidded glass jar gives me the confidence that no live embers will touch the trash & ignite something else even if we throw this in with the rest of our household trash.

Sterilize

Last night, I watched Swe-cha play with his milk bottle cap while I'm giving him his milk just before bedtime.

As he twirled the cap around and tried to fit his feet inside, a thought occurred to me - why do we persist in sterilizing his milk bottles and nipples even though we said that we'd stop doing that when he turns 1 ?

The answer was simple,... love namin sya eh and sterilizing, whether or not it is needed, is a labor of love.

---
cross posted on our family blog.