Cooling Down for the Summer Heat

Summer has raised the temperature earlier than expected this year. And experts say it's gonna stay for a longer time compared to recent years. Oh no!

Beach freaks out there, hold your horses. Living it easy this summertime may not be as easy as we all think. This summer heat may actually cause harm if we don't take extra precaution. Remember, the risk of heat strokes go up in summer heat.

One simple way to prevent it: water. And lots of it.

I've been trying to get the kids to drink more water daily. It's a good thing that Kowi naturally loves agua. Not so with Kuya. I'm having a more difficult time to get him to drink the colorless stuff.

He'll drink iced tea, juice and even the (hopefully) occasional soda, but not water.

So I searched around and found an inexpensive (okay, downright cheap) way to hydrate my son.

The solution? I put in fresh slices of cucumber to his water and viola--he loved it. He drank a whole glass in one sitting.

Cucumber water. Who would've thought? Try it. It's the perfect cool down concoction for summer.

photo courtesy of marthastewart.com

I Smell Like Grass--And I Likey

The first time I used cologne was in high school. I was very fond of using JBC regular scent (Johnson's Baby Cologne) and I thought that there was no other smell quite like it. Very light and quite nice for every day use. Then I discovered Angel's Breath. I love that scent. Although other "Angel's" have sprouted, I think that Angel's Breath is still the best smelling of all.

In high school senior year, I was using Denenes and used to buy it in really big bottles. I would just transfer small amounts into my atomizer for my bag. I remember my Ninang Mildred even took home my atomizer becasue she loved that smell so much. There were also times when I used Nenuco and Para Mi Bebe, but I would always return to JBC after a while.

I discovered Gap Grass in the mid 1990s when a friend gave me a little metal canister as a gift for my birthday. I sooo love the smell. Not "matronly" floral and not "sweet sixteen sweet." It was just right for any occasion. But somehow I never got a refill. Apparently I was the only one who wanted to smell like my mom's lawn.

And now Bench has it's own version, Grass Cucumber Cedarwood. I am sooo loving it. Just bought my second bottle and I'm not getting tired the scent at all. I absolutely love smelling like freshly cut, wet grass. And the fact that it's only Php 160.00 ($3.50) doesn't hurt a bit.

Really Cool Online Math Website

As I was doing Kuya's Math worksheets for his exam tomorrow, I stumbled upon Dr. Math. It's a cool website that has a variety of Math questions ranging from Elementary through High School.

I was looking Math exercises for Kuya and saw Mad Math where he can practice addition, subtraction and multiplication online. Actually, it's a way to practice all basic Math skills so there are also problems in division.

The site is great because you can customize how many problems you can give and what problem types. you can also choose subtraction with negative difference and division with remainders.

I added it to my favorites. Kuya and I will be checking this site out frequently. This just saved me printer ink and paper. =)

Needle In A Haystack

I've been wanting to buy James Patterson's Double Cross since it was released last year. Somehow all the bookstores in the country were out of stock--for 9 months.

My Dad has been a James Patterson fan for about a few years. He loves the Alex Cross and the Women's Murder Club plus the few stand alone books that are out. So far, he's missing Double Cross in his collection.

I had planned to surprise him for his birthday with a copy of the book last September 9. But I was pleasantly surprised when Power Books told me they were all out of copies and were taking orders.

By some stroke of luck, as my sister and I were in National Bookstore, I saw it. It was a paperback copy of Double Cross and the last one. Wedged between Cross and Mary, Mary, Double Cross screamed at me. I just bought it immediately. And now my Dad's reading it.

Fish Oil Benefits

I have been looking for flavored fish oil or chewable fish oil tablets here in Manila since last year. But my search was unsuccessful. The only fish oil supplements that I found were the regular ones and it really tastes fishy.

I am a big believer in fish oil. I started doing a lot of research on it when I came across an article that claimed daily intake can improve learning ability and decrease in aggressive behavior of children diagnosed with autism, dyslexia and ADHD. As many as 4 out of 10 benefit from a dramatic improvement and as much as 7 percent can be completely cured. Those are great stats.

Mainstream students can also get the same benefits from fish oil with the same percentage. Aside from increases in concentration, children can benefit from better vision, better hearing, better motor skills, more coordination and a friendlier personality.

Adults can also benefit from taking fish oil supplements. Effects include lower blood pressure levels, less risk to various forms of cancer, anti-inflammatory properties and decreased risk for blood clots. In addition, women may experience improved fertility, a more regular monthly cycle and less PMS symptoms.

Another side effect of fish oil is improved skin and shiny hair.

Wouldn't it be great if chocolate had the same side effects as fish oil?

Good thing Tita Tinai sent some strawberry-flavored fish oil for Kowi. It's fresh from Norway. Thank you! I'm expecting another batch when supplies run out. LOL.

Kuya and I have been taking our regular fishy-flavored fish oil quite religiously since last year. So far, so good.

My Alexa Ranking

When I started getting serious about blogging, I placed an Alexa widget on my blog to track my ranking. It was around 8 million ++. I was so embarrased that I removed the widget.

As I was doing my daily blog rounds, I read about a post by Lord Story that Alexa would only track your rankings if you have the Alexa widget installed on your blog. I immediately put it back.

Now the trick is to make it go up. Hmmm... care to share your Alexa tips?

Watching Wall-E

The kids and I watched Wall-E yesterday. The movie was very entertaining, funny and absolutely charming. It didn't have a lot of conversation in it. And I was a bit apprehensive that the kids would not be able to appreciate the film.

The first 30 minutes of the movie features Wall-E's life on Earth. It was entirely about Wall-E and his pet cockroach cleaning junk and compacting trash into cubes. Apparently, they were the only creatures left on Earth. The funny thing was that Wall-E had the "ability" to decide which is trash and which isn't.

Wall-E has a house full of odds and ends, collected from years of sorting trash. He has an assortment of knick-knacks that he finds useful or interesting. Once he found a diamond ring. He threw away the ring but kept the box. He also found a plant and planted it in an old boot. Another thing that I loved about Wall-E was his appreciation for music and dancing. He watches tapes of old musicals from his VHS player and listens to music from his cassette player. He certainly isn't your typical robot.

But everything changes when Wall-E meets EVE. It had been 700 hundred years since the humans left the planet due to toxicity. Probes were sent periodically to check if it was viable for humans to return to Earth. EVE was one of those probes. She's sleek and dangerous and Wall-E falls for her. This is where the adventure starts.

I highly recommend Wall-E to kids of all ages. The musical score is great. I love La Vie En Rose. My kids definitely got the message: Be resposible for your junk. In the end, how could we not love an adorable, garbage-collecting robot like Wall-E?

Pitcure courtesy of www.firstshowing.net

I went grocery shopping last weekend and found something totally cool. I'm not sure if they're new here, but I certainly haven't seen it before.


Mop slippers! Who would've thought you could walk your way to clean floors?

I'm going to give it a try and see how it holds up to my tiled floors. But I'm not going to retire my conventional mop just yet.

Kowi and I can do our morning dance to High Muscial hits and mop the floor at the same time. Now, if I could just get one in Kuya and Kowi's size...