I thought this moment would never come. :) but here I am, starting my very own "my son says" blog posts. :) just small cute things that come out of his mouth to keep

April 30, 2010
While me and Mike playfighting around the house, Mike grabs Ari and lifts him in the air and playkicks me with his foot. After he let's Ari go, Mike laughs and says - that's right, tell Mommy you are a warrior!!! Ari looks up, runs towards me, puts his hands around my face and says "SORRY". That was like the sweetest moment. :)

1 May 2010
After doing his business at the toilet and seeing it flushed down with sad face:
"WHERE IT GO?" :)

Had a bit strange experience today at the local grocery store.

This guy with dreads said he liked my hair and asked how long did I have them for. Without waiting for me to answer he then goes: can I touch your hair? By now I'm kinda used to it, so I answer - go ahead. He touches it and answers his own question - 8 years!

WTF? how the hell did he know?! Considering that I had them cut at least 4 times by now he couldn't guess it by the length. Any ideas? :)

Location:New York,United States

As I look at my beautiful son sleeping next to me I can't help but wonder - what part of him should I kiss today to make it a special celebration day?

Should I kiss his eyes that are perfectly almond? Or his hair that are almost straight and silky? Or the dimples on his chicks and chin when he smiles because he's got them from my father?

Or should I stop looking for asian in him because so many will not accept him as being such? His skin is darker, his hair curlier, his arms and legs are longer, and his eyes being just a bit too round for Asian child...

Or may be as his mother it's not my job to guess the shape of his eyes but to make sure there are happiness and true joy in them. I don't see the color of his skin - it is the glow and warmth that get my attention. The texture of his hair concerns me only because I am planning to lock his hair before he gets to school to display his pride and connection to his heritage.

And to answer the question of the post - today my son will get more kisses and hugs than he can handle. He will fight, say his "no no no" and try to get away from me. He is so very independent, my little warrior child. And no matter which side he gets that personality from -that's one thing I want to believe he'll keep throughout his life.

But all those kisses are not because of some silly made up day. Every day in our family is a "kiss a little boy with the heart of the warrior" day. And that's the way it should be. He deserves it.

Coming to grips with the fact that his mommy may not be ready to recognize the greatness in his latest state-of-the-art cooking developments, Ari had not given up trying alltogether. After all, he is willing to live with a woman who just is not with the latest trends in cooking as long as she can put a smile on his face, which she can -- and that gotta count for something.

But she surely can not say "no" to this (and who could, really?) -- iPhone box stuffed with fresh garlic. Did someone just say desert?

Ps: I think he shows a lot of potential to become great Korean chief very soon.

Today I woke up from my nap just to see this strategically placed in front of me on the bed.

Poor Ari tried very hard to convince me that it was very "nyammy" and a truly smart mommy would not pass on such once-in-a-lifetime treat. But me being an old poop butt had decided against it.

Did I miss out?

Location:Home

My first paid project was a design for online moonwalk rental directory. The year was 2005 (if I'm not mistaken), and that's when I realized that freelancing career is as real as my customer service job which I held for 4 years.

I remember working harder than I ever did and not really expecting to get paid for it, thinking to myself - why would anybody be willing to pay for something that is so much fun to do?

I remember staring at my first payment transaction with Paypal and the feeling of pride and gratitude I've had when I've realized that doing this is worth something not only to me but to others as well.

That directory's owner had contacted me today for new project after all these years. Freelancing rocks!

Planning to spend full day outside tomorrow, as this will be my day off. Looking forward to it, been inside entirely too long.



Mobile blogging -- posted from iPhone

Location:New York

Today was mostly uneventful day - work, parenting and fun as usual. I had watched Japanese "Grudge" (JuOn) last night and have to say I wasn't impressed. It is actually pretty boring and confusing storyline with practically no special effects.

I usually like Asian cinema for that exact reason - no distracting effects but the storyline is usually good.

Besides that I don't have anything else to post today - just getting used to blog more often. Sorry for the useless post.

Ps: oh, the spring seems to finally come to NYC! The weather is beautiful and it really sucks to stay in but you do what you have to, and for me that means working regular hours (well, close to it). tomorrow we supposed to go and look at our second apartment. Wish me luck.


Mobile blogging -- posted from iPhone

Testing emoticons on iPhone.


Mobile blogging -- posted from iPhone

Weekend of Korean horror movies is now officially over. :) loved
everyminute of it. Can't help thinking -- whatsup with Asian movies
and hair? Hmmmm
sent from my Project 365 app
http://bit.ly/5G0JwQ

"Aaaaaaaargh-rrrraaaaaaah!!!"
Stick finger in your mouth, hook it behind the cheek and pull it out.
There you go. Now you too know that I'm NOT happy. Adorable, ain't I? :)
sent from my Project 365 app
http://bit.ly/5G0JwQ

As everybody is still sleeping in my household, I am taking these few minutes before starting my work day to blog.

First news -- I got the job! :) I am so excited to have the privilege of working over the internet and get paid real money on hourly basis. Couple of problems though. Turns out, I had forgotten what it was to work on an hourly basis. No, I'm not working too fast. haha It's actually the opposite, I get carried away with my tasks, get too creative and end up with extra hours on simplest tasks...

For this reason I had ended up working offline for about 4 hours without loggin those in -- just to catch up. Gotta do better today! :)

Ok, I'm off to my morning coffee and work. Another great day ahead! :)

All right, today is Sunday, and that means it is time to set new plans for the following week.

But before that I'd like to share a good news -- I had gotten my second interview on oDesk this afternoon and if all is well, will start tomorrow. I am so excited and looking forward to it. :)

So, if everything goes right, I hopefully will be working in a daytime and freelance at night. The plans are as following:
1. Finish up my website. This is not even funny. As long as I remember working online, I never had my website together and this is embarrassing. So, this is number one on my to-do list.
2. Submit at least 10 bids per day. This is important because even if I get a job working for someone else, I do not want to abandon my own. 10 bids per day are very doable, I just need to stick to it...
3. Start doing eye exercises every day. Yeah, this is a huge downside of working on the computer. I would hate to have to wear glasses, so it's workout time, dear eyes! haha
4. Respond to each and every email/message/phone call promptly. I don't even know why it should be on my to-do list. This is the basic of human communications, so JUST DO IT ALREADY!
5.  Finish up Blogger redesign. Hopefully it won't take me years to complete. :)
6. Blog, blog, blog. Post something at least every other day.

So, this is this week's plan. I know, the saying goes "if you want to make God laugh -- tell him your plans"... My plans might be small and insignificant, but these are the bricks for my foundation, the steps to a better me. After all, the world is made from things that are small and seem to not matter...

Wow, it is so crazy, but the week is almost over. Where did all the time go? Hmmm...

Well, lets see what I got done.

First of all, I had my first interview on oDesk. I really want to get into that. I've been doing freelancing on my own for about 4 years now but I have to admit that I do not feel that I really know what it takes to run a fully operating freelancing company. At this stage I should be the one hiring people and extending the blessings I've gotten to other people. I seriously have to reorganize and rebuild.

Whats funny is that I have more skills and experience in web design than I need. I am very familiar with most of the software and scripts out there. But I am not very much a "people's person". I'm working on it now but it's not a one day journey. I'm proud to announce that I had not missed any emails this week and got back to all who emailed or called me. Hurrah for me.

I had started working on couple of illustrations for my portfolio. Just realized today that I do not have much to show, since most of my work is done for other designers. So now I also work to put up some demos. By the way, if any of you guys reading this -- if you need a website -- just let me know. I'll do it for free if you agree to keep the small link in the footer. Just email me short description of your site and your plans on how the site is going to be used "webmaster(at)unblinded.com and I'll get back to you.

In my personal live not much had changed. We have couple of things that should happen within few weeks but I'll keep my mouth shut about it for now. :)

That's it for today! :)

This is a thumbnail of a site I am working on now. I had seen this site grow from the bottom up -- it was me about a year and  a half ago who was hired for the simple project of building an HTML site based on the template. It was me, who was later hired to manage this site on the monthly basis. And it was me again who spent all day today converting 50+ html pages into Joomla CMS.
Yeah, I guess I had to learn this the hard way -- it is better to put some work into it now and use the backend system than to build a quick html site and have nightmares over updates later. And you would think I would get this lesson much earlier but no, I had to spend about 6 months fighting with the obvious. Oh well, I am still learning.
The rest of the time I spend with my son. It is amazing how fast he is growing and so frustrating not to be able to dedicate myself to see him growing.
He gets so frustrated sometimes because we don't get what he wants fast enough, and of course I get even more frustrated when I have a screaming/kicking/on the floor kinda kid on my hands. I just wish he would start talking fully but I also know that he does things at his own timing...
For example, Ari is a HUGE fan of "Little Einsteins". This kid can walk around all day singing their opening theme song (which I grew to hate by now) and absolutely loves to watch it. Well, except for one episode.
It is called "Little Purple Plane" and it features a really nice song by Mozart, little girl Annie and her toy. Little plane needs to fly over the bridges and mountains to save (don't quote me on this) a Green Helicopter, who is stuck on top of something (I think its a tree, but once again, do not quote me on that). Perfect, right?
Well, everytime this episode comes up on TV both me and Mike have to jump up and turn the TV off. Because whenever Ari sees it -- he will FREAK OUT, tears/toys/everything else he gets his hands on go on the floor, etc. What is going on?! Its just one more mystery to being a child, I guess...
Patience and understanding -- that's what I need. The problem is, I never had much of either one... Oh well, I guess that's another lesson to learn, huh?