Your Health In Your Hands

That's my impression of Kaiser Permanente health plans. Ever heard of them? I did when I was in the US. My mom and brother have a health coverage. Well, I thought, they're just one of the HMO's available. Perhaps like mine. But no, it isn't. It's more than just an HMO. It offers you more alternatives in taking control of your own health.
california kaiser health plans

Just how professional are they? Unlike other HMO's, Kaiser health plans manages your health record for you. They have their own medical team that takes care of their clients. Plus the features of california kaiser health plans allows you to choose what coverage you need - individual, family, corporate. Another one that I like is that feature which allows you to save for your health protection - the health savings account. It lets you decide on what to spend your money. It doesn't have a fixed amount because it is a savings account. Thus if you have more money, you can save more. But if you don't, then you just stash away whatever is affordable to you at the moment. Great huh?

I've personally witnessed how the system works because my brother was hospitalized while I was in California. And I can tell you how good they a job they have done. But what are my words compared to what someone has experienced first hand? My brother has beyond just kind words for them. Sadly though, they're just in California. Can't these guys come over to the Philippines too? The Philippines could use a professional service company such as theirs.

Child Stress

My daughter had to submit her assignment last monday. It was an oratorical piece on "The Youth of Today in a Fast-Paced World". To help her without depriving her of the chance to develop her own writing skill, I asked her to writer her own version and I'd write mine. After that, we'd just fuse both materials together.

As I was working on merging our works, I realized just how stressful it is to be a child nowadays. Demands from both school and home have deprived my child of her youth. Clearly, it is a result of being goal-oriented and the drive to excel in everything that she does.

Stress leads to many wrong things - mentally, physically, socially, etc. It would be unfair to expose the children to so much at a young age. gradually would be better.

What am I saying? well, it's just that our children need our love, support and time. But above those, they also need time to be themselves, to be children, to be carefree and be with friends.

I'm glad Ikee has that with her friends from her swimming team. Perhaps, I should just give her more time to spend with them.

Moms Know Best

Mother knows best. Why? Because mothers take everything into consideration before making a decision. When shopping for things that matter, like computers and electronic items, the wise mom would check out an item in one store and jump to the next one and to the next one to compare prices, quality, design and after-sales service, if there's any. Sometimes, though this becomes tedious that, mothers, including myself, tend to get so tired that we don't have energy left to tend to the needs of the family. Or sometimes, we give up such that we end up buying the next available one and thus defeat the primary reason for comparing prices.

Well, there's good news for us moms. With the power of the internet, shopping now becomes more convenient, less time-consuming and fun. Even shopping for computers, which require some technical knowledge, is easier because we can compare those right from our home. It's so easy to do while doing our chores. I made the choice for our laptop by checking out the internet.

A word of advice though - you should set your parameters before checking lest you get confused. With so much information, sometimes it is also hard to choose when everything is there. You must know what the basis for your choice would be. Then, use the power of the internet to find what you are looking for.

Eco-Friendly Companies: John Aquino

Saving the Earth is everybody's business. Not, just the student who takes it up in class, not just the science teacher's who is tasked to inform the class about the problems in the globe, not just Al Gore's who travels the world to disseminate information about Global warming. Not just theirs but ours too because we are all affected by what is happening to the earth and its atmosphere. Here is one person who is in business because he tries to save the earth by being in the business of solid waste management. I received this one in my inbox lately and I'm glad we have something like this in Manila:

Turn your trash into cash! (call us: 8977199 / 5633027 / 0921-8370993)

Did you know that poorly running air conditioners are not only less cooling & noisy but also consume 50% more electricity than efficiently working ones? Yes. Those sad & tired A/Cs are electricity- gobbling monsters!

TIP! Inefficient air conditioners consume 50% more electricity and malfunction often. You end up wasting more money via your electricity bills and occasional repair fees.

So now you want to sell away & get rid of those old, inefficient, sometimes even irreparable scrap A/Cs right?

But due to the influx of very cheap surplus air conditioners available in the market today… What fool would buy your bad A/C if they could buy very cheap but efficient ones? Right?!?

But because we utilize A/C parts, we'll buy them from you. Yes! We're the fools who'll buy your old inefficient or scrap air conditioners and even pick them up from you!

You can't pass this up now. Sell it now or keep your trash forever!

So convert your bad air conditioners into cash. Free yourself from clutters. Save the environment by letting us recycle your trash and we all win!

Interested? Let us know. (call us: 8977199 / 5633027) FREE PICK-UP SERVICE

We also buy office and home appliances/equipmen ts/furniture/ wares, demolition/renovati on debris, heavy equipments, scrap cars/trucks/ etc., surplus, warehouse stocks, salvage items, etc.

We offer clear up-clean up-pick up services for warehouses, basements, garages.

Do something for your country. Pass this message around. Forward this message to your family and friends. This venture helps both the environment and the economy.

Guess, this would be a good way to clean up while we prepare for christmas huh?

Semestral Breaks and Holidays are Family Time

It's almost the semestral break in my daughter's school. At least twice in a year, we would like to go out to take a vacation somewhere as a family. It is at this time when I, like a bulb connected to a switch, am set on a hunt for special bargains and travel discounts.

However, this time we may have to forego of the travel plans. Ikee has only 2 days for the semestral break which fall on thursday and friday, and 2 days for the weekend. But that weekend includes one day for the all saints day which is highly celebrated here in the Philippines. People, like us, trot to the cemeteries to pay our respects to the dead members of the family. Unfortunately, Nov. 1 falls on a saturday which makes it inconvenient. Well, Nov. 1 is something short of a reunion anyway so that should do for now.

The next time we may have the opportunity to travel is going to be during the Christmas break. We're considering going to the US to visit my mom and brothers. But going on vacation means we need things like lodging, food and transpo. As the self-declared family tour director and guide, I normally look for resources on the internet including vacation rentals for things like lodging and transportation.

One of the places we have always wanted to bring my daughter to, which we have not yet done, is Florida. My husband, who has been there, highly recommends the holiday spot. He particularly liked Orlando mainly because of the Walt Disney World and we are so looking forward to spending time there. But of course, we're on a budget, as always, and thus I need to look for florida vacation rentals and orlando vacations rentals which may let us keep our expense within our budget. I mean, you know, we don't want to run out of money right in the middle of the trip.

This website, www.vacationsbyowner.com, has practically everything I would need to prepare for a trip to Florida. As we have experienced it, the best and probably the cheapest alternative to a hotel room is having a home rented so that we can do everything that we need there at the same or probably even lesser cost. Let's do the math. For like 130 USD per night, we have 3 rooms which means we can share it with my relatives, we can cook, play, use the internet, swim at a pool, do the laundry. A hotel room would cost us about 65 USD and we'd have to buy food from the resto. we'd have to have the clothes washed at a laundromat to which might cost us a few more dollars. Plus, we won't be able to go picnic which we like. Thus, in my family renting homes will always be a consideration for any vacation that we plan. I do hope our next trip will be to Florida though. As always, I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Would 1 week there be enough?

Use The English Language When Teaching An English Class

The title says it all I guess. I had been in English classes for two days now to prepare for my IELTS exam. It felt really crazy to be enrolled in those since being educated in the Philippines, I had undergone at least 15 years of formal english lessons in school. But, I thought it would be good to know what I would be in for during the exam.

The lessons were ok but could be better actually. There are a few comments I would raise with the owner though and I am seriously thinking of calling his attention about them. Firstly, the instructor spoke in Filipino while he was teaching English. I found that really crazy. I mean he would probably rationalize that he was just giving us the answers to the questions, which by the way I had expected to be rationalized. However, instructors are expected to teach what they preach.

Secondly, there were several grammatical errors in today's exercises. Not that I know English perfectly, which I do not claim to be so at all. But, I would expect my teachers to be better at it than I. One or two mistakes could have passed as typographical errors. But when there are at least 5, the impression you'd get is that the teacher doesn't really know the answers or that the material had not been thoroughly reviewed. I would be guilty of the second one because most of my blogs do not go through a second reading nor editing. But, hey, I'm not here to teach grammar.

I do hope that the review centers would be careful about what and how they present the materials. These are not given for free and there are people who depend on them for the information that would have a great effect on their lives.

How would you react if you were in my shoes?

Top Entrecard droppers for September, 2008

Thanks to the following for being the Top Entrecard droppers of this site for Sept. 2008:

Wonderful Pic Colection
Hong Kong, iPod and Joomla
From Melissa's Desk
Your Parenting Info
And Life Goes ON for a Filipino MOM
I Am Crazy For My Kids
Mumsy
April's Little Family.
The Single Parent Talks
Goldtone Designs Luxury Lounge Travel Wraps

Keep 'em comin'! Cheers!

Wanna Work in Canada? Check This Out.

As I was dropping my cards at entrecard, I came across Canada Visa Application Online REsource. Although it is really a business blog, it tries to reach out to the readers by offering some tips and help. You gotta give it a try. I'm probably going to attend their seminar in October.