I finally moved the blog and merged it with my shop! Check out the site over it's new address at www.thelistlab.net. See you there!
Streamlined Life: Back to the Drawing Board
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| a new "big-girl" toy for me! |
Happy New Year! My last leg of 2012 had been incredibly busy and 2013 is bringing so much excitement for me. 2012 had been getting my feet wet on creating passive income and I'm glad to be pretty successful on achieving it. 2013 is opening up a new biz idea and taking it to the next level.
So...back to the drawing board and creating awesome stuff! My arms are filled with business, marketing, art and design books and courses and I am happily engaged on each one of them.
What are you looking forward this 2013?
Awesome Life Practices in "Real Life" Part 4: My Body
Last week, I attended our high school reunion and had a super awesome time! A batchmate commented on how I didn't look like I had a baby. High five! OK, confession time. Here's a peek at some of my daily routines logged at my ListLab planner on how I take care of my body.
I've got special routines on the list like thyroid meds for my post-therapy maintenance and bone stretching exercises that a physiotherapist taught me to take care of the "very mild" scoliosis I got a few years back. The question I simply want to convey with this post is "What practices can you realistically do daily to take care of your body?"
Lately I was able to squeeze "walking" to my daily routine before and after work. It feels good that little things like this can add up to become a good habit and eventually a healthier lifestyle change. Take it a habit at a time. Make it something easy and fun. Herbal tea break, anyone? :)
Design & Style: DIY Wedding Hairstyles
Don't you just love it when you recommend a resource to a friend and he/she actually uses it? I asked my sister to take a look at this hairstyle book and a few days later, she sent me a link of these hairstyle pics that she did herself.
Neither my sister nor I is good at styling hair so I was pretty amazed at what she came up with within a few minutes of giving the instructions on the book a try. She told me it was actually easy and the only tools she used are a comb and some bobby pins. The lower left pic (called the Sweeping Twist) is my favorite. I might just use it on her wedding!
Awesome Life Practices Part 4: My Body
I once told a friend that I would love to give a talk on self-care someday. Not because I'm an expert but because I am genuinely interested on that topic myself. It took me years to fully appreciate the uniqueness of how my body works and I am still continually finding and doing ways to take care of it the best that I can.
I'll talk more about my real life practices on my next post. Have a lovely weekend everyone!
New to this series? Check out the introduction and sources HERE.
Design & Style: My Sister's Wedding Suite (A Sneak Peek!)
I started designing my sister's wedding suite a few weeks ago. Check out the draft above (dates shown are prior to change).
My secret sauce for my creative process for this project are my husband's inputs and comments. My sister wanted something FUN and I initially thought of a circles and swirls patterns but my husband came up with this brilliant paper plane theme. Nel & Ramil met abroad and the idea's just perfect. I can wait to finalize the details and see all of these designs printed!
Awesome Life Practices in "Real Life" Part 3: My Nutrition
Prepare and cook your own food...that's my best tip about nutrition for you. It sounds so simple but by doing that, you get to control everything that goes to your table and get to appreciate and enjoy the process of food preparation. Learning about good eating and cooking practices is really the foundation for optimal nutrition.
Above are images of what's cooking at our kitchen recently. From top to bottom: Puttanesca, Pancakes (from scratch!) with Fried Apples, Salmon with Cream and Chicken BBQ with Mixed Veggies. Props to my husband for teaching me how to cook!
If you feel you still need more skills to feel comfortable in the kitchen, check out Jamie Oliver's Home Cooking Skills website. Seriously helpful. Join me as I learn, too!
Design and Style: ListLab's New Collection Sneak Peek!
I've had many requests for printable binder sets in portrait orientation over my ListLab Etsy shop. Finally, they're in the works! Here's a sneak peak of one of the floral themes I'm working on. I just woke up one morning inspired to go crazy with flowers and plants icons for the headers. I'm crossing my fingers I can release the complete collection before the year ends!
Awesome Life Practices Part 3: My Nutrition
One of my "health heroes" is Andrea Beaman. She was able to heal herself from her thyroidism not through medication or surgery, but through healthy eating. I had undergone radioactive iodine therapy before I learned about her story. I am amazed to discover that I could have healed myself using the power of food alone.
Design & Style: Curly Girl Must-Haves
I am one happy, curly girl. I wasn't always glad like this about my curls before (you know it comes with free frizz) when I was still clueless on how to manage it properly. I came across with the THE book for us curly girls and my love affair with my curls got SO much better. Tell you what, the secret is simply to give those curls lotsa moisture and lotsa TLC. Absolutely no fine-tooth comb and hard towel rubbing allowed!
I have rounded up my 10 favorite curly hair products that worked for me:
Awesome Life Practices in "Real Life" Part 2: My Money
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| My Toshl log dated exactly a year ago. Whoa, on Jam's formula milk bubble! |
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| A preview of Money from the Mac App Store |
I have come to know that the only way to make me regularly practice finance management is to make sure that platform is fun, intuitive and easy to use. Here are my fave money apps and software that I personally use or have used in the past.
Awesome Life Practices Part 2: My Money
The series' second installment is finally here and it's all about money!
I used to hate managing finances. I'm not good at math and I just feel heavy all over when the topic of finances comes up. Now, I'm slowly learning how to make abundance flow naturally in my life and I'm getting to know its spiritual (yes, I said spiritual) role in the universe. I also found tools to make its management fun like Toshl (real cheap subscription, you'd want to pay more because of the app's fun and intuitive approach) and these pretty finances printables over ListLab Etsy Shop (Don't tell me you're still using boring planners.:)).
Above is the list of my financial gameplan. What does yours look like?
New to this series? Check out the introduction and sources HERE.
P.S. The pattern on the image are arrows going up and down depending on how you look at it. What direction did you first see?
Eco Loca: One Ingredient Beauty
I realized I left my favorite face cleanser the moment I got to the plane. I doubt it's available here in the UAE and thought of getting a replacement. I brought a big bottle of honey though for my big home spa treat plans for my husband and remembered reading about women who uses honey as their face cleanser. It's been a week now since I gave it a try and I'm glad to report that I do not miss my old cleanser at all. It is probably because I need all the moisture I can get due to the drying effect of the warm tap water here.
Awesome Life Practices in "Real Life" Part 1: My Environment
Hi, everyone! I'm blogging starting today from sunny Abu Dhabi! It had been a week since I got here and I really had a fun bonding time with my husband.
Awesome Life Practices Part 1: My Environment + An Intro to the Series
"How you start your day is how you live your day;
and how you life your day is how you live your life."
- Louise Hay
I'm stretching myself in this blog today. For the first time, I'll be posting a string of posters that I made about "best life living" and I call this series, "Awesome Life Practices". At first glance, the posters look like a long list of to dos, but they're actually super doable real life practices that I believe can be incorporated in our modern lifestyle and are the ingredients crucial to form an awesome life, at least for me.
Design and Style: DIY Mineral Makeup
Hi, folks! I made make-up this afternoon, yay! :)
It's been a while since I touched this stuff from my previous biz. I'm meeting my sister in UAE soon and I thought to pack some for her. It's actually pretty easy to make powder foundations, correctors, blushes, bronzers and eyeshadows once you have all the tools and ingredients with you.
Light and Grace: The Jesus Biography
I almost titled this post, "The Book I Was Almost Scared to Read". Philip Yancey, the author, of The Jesus I Never Knew, said in the book, "No one who ever meets Jesus ever stays the same." and a part of me knew that even before I started to begin reading.
Eco Loca: Lip Scrub-A-Dub
Just to humor you a little, after posting about quitting sugar, my DIY post today is made up of 2 kinds of sugar. This is my favorite lip scrub recipe and it is based on the book Green Beauty Recipes by Julie Gabriel. It does a great job of removing flakiness and dryness on the lips and it smells delicious! You only need a few minutes to whip this up and you can store it for 3-6 months.
Foodie Round-up: Quittin' Sugar (Join Us?)
"Jen, OK na ko." ("Jen, I'm OK now.), Ma said with a big grin in her face. She just came from the doctor's clinic that day with test results on her hand. After weeks of quitting sugar, she was able to normalize her alarming high sugar level and dismiss problems with her kidney. Weeks before that day, I joined my mother on her "quitting sugar journey" because I simply love wellness experiments and I know it can help me regulate my energy levels and even help me shed some weight.
Light & Grace + Free Stuff: Belief Busting Affirmation Cards
Yesterday, I had the chance to carve time and finish my Digging Deep journey (which I HIGHLY recommend if you wish to overcome a barrier in your life and if you are ready to move on to bigger things) and I had come to realize the power of affirmation and the different ways to declare it. I am aware of affirmation concept before but only yesterday did I got convinced of the truth and science behind its ability to turn around negative beliefs in our system. They are SO many ways to declare affirmations and one of them is the visual way. I'm guessing that it is the most effective way for me so I'm starting with that. I tend to rewrite my affirmations and I come up with different ones regularly so I thought of making an editable template for my wonderful declarations.
Of course, you get to join me, too, if you wish! Download my freshly-made printable 'Post-It' size affirmation cards on the button below. Each card has a typable field that can contain 4 rows of text (please make sure you have Century Gothic font when you use this) and a gold glitter motif. The sparkly look makes me smile by just looking at it! Tack it (I love using old earrings, check out the image above.), tape it, leave it everywhere it can regularly be visible to you. It would be awesome to use your own handwriting for your affirmations, too.
Important Affirmation Writing Tips!
Digging Deep suggests that affirmations should be on the present tense (hence the words "I AM" on the cards), should contain positive words (no "don'ts" or "can'ts"), should feel real and believable and should be specific.
If you wish to dig more in this entire powerful process, join us in the tribe here!
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