Finding My Ideal Work-At-Home Job at Essays.ph

I’m a stay-at-home mom who is homeschooling my three children. Though this is a big task already, I refuse to believe that there is nothing I can do anymore to earn my own money. I tried several things in the past, mostly in sales because these did not require me to go to the office daily. However, I still had to leave my children at home almost everyday to see clients and to attend trainings and meetings in the office. I did this for two years while still educating my children at home. Though I was earning, I was unhappy because of the hours that was spent outside the home. I am of the belief that my place is in the home with my children.

Eventually, I decided to leave this sales job and focus on my kids at home. After giving birth to our fourth child, I decided that I wanted to earn my own money again. This time, though, I thought long and hard about the kind of job that I will be doing. I had a few ideas:

1. I should be able to do it at home.
2. The job should not cost me so much money to start.
3. Since I don’t have much in savings and believed in myself, I decided that my next job would capitalize on what was already inherently mine – my brains and my natural abilities.

I have already been blogging for some time when I noticed that this one blogger homeschool mom was making money by writing online. I asked her about it and she confirmed that this is so. She said that she did make money with her blogs. This totally intrigued me and this began my search for online writing jobs.

I diligently waded through pages of bestjobs.ph and got my first online job editing Korean students’ essays. I wrote about that here. Since this was not earning me much, I gave up on it after a few weeks.

Again, I searched bestjobs.ph and finally saw the ad for Essays.ph. I was very interested and immediately applied and submitted samples of my writing. I did not hear from them immediately so I almost gave up on Essays.ph. At that time, I was busy with my homeschool reviews so I did not push it. When I finally got their email that I was accepted, I was so happy and immediately signed the contract and sent the copy via email.

During my first week, I worked hard to finish my articles on time. Since I was new, it was taking me longer to research and write. My children were already complaining about the amount of time I spend writing and not attending to them. My husband and I spoke with them and explained that I have to do this in order to help add to our income – we do have a big family with four children and a helper. I further explained to them how this job is a blessing to us because I can work but still stay at home with them. I may not be able to attend to them for a few hours but the important thing is that I’m immediately available if they need me.

Now I feel that the good Lord has blessed me so much in giving me an online writing job. I treasure this so much because it allows me to earn while at home. I am also doing what I already like to do – writing. All those three qualifications of the kind of job I wanted was all answered by Essays.ph.

At Essays.ph, I don’t only have the satisfaction of earning money, but I also have the satisfaction of a job well done. After just a few assignments on the gray team (probationary), I was transferred to the Red Team(a promotion – yay!). Since words and writing come easily to me, I don’t find it such a hard job to do because I enjoy it. After all the articles that I have already submitted, I only received one request for revision. This job also affirms my abilities as a writer. The editors are very accomodating and answers our questions as fast as they can. I also have the chance to get to know other writers online through our forum. Working at Essays.ph is truly the ideal online job for me!

Job Hunting in Manila for the OFW

Hubby’s been here since the end of 2008. His job hunt started on February this year. It’s not easy. There have been several interviews. Some resulted in job offers, most did not result to anything. Unfortunately, for some of the job offers the compensation offered was too low for his qualifications. Another job offer fell through because he asked the HR Manager for some time to decide because he had another option he wanted to look into first. The HR Manager did not agree to his request so nothing happened to that, too. So the job hunt continues.

It’s really the classic situation that most OFW’s face when coming back to our country. The OFW has gathered so much experience abroad, however, upon coming home he finds that most want to take advantage of that experience but are unwilling to pay enough for it.

Needless to say, it has been a challenging time for him. He complains of the way the Filipino managers make him wait for hours to be interviewed. One time he was made to wait more than three hours before the General Manager would talk to him! In other countries, people keep their appointments. Here, it’s like a power trip for some managers that they can make people wait.

Well, we’re praying for things to improve soon enough.

A Memorable Week… Got Some More, God?

This has been an extra memorable week for our family. It’s so good that I just can’t let it pass by without blogging about it. The events so far:

• A few days ago, my darling baby boy, who was walking with a glass of water, tripped while I was using this laptop. The water spilled all over my hubby’s keyboard. Gasp! We immediately turned it off and turned it over so the water can come out. Hubby then took it to the service center the next day for check up. After the diagnosis, the verdict: the laptop did not get wet inside, no need to do anything. Phew! Hubby took the laptop home. Yippeeee!!! He was not even charged for anything at the service center. Double Yippeee!!!!
• While hubby was on the way to the service center, he got the call that we have been waiting for. The call was for a job interview this Monday! Praise God! We’ve been looking forward to this because he’s been out of work since the start of the year.
• This morning, we brought Artsy Princess, Sunshine Girl and Flash Boy to our homeschool support group. All three had fun and the exercise that they needed. But the real good news to me is this: the directress of this group asked me to blog about our support group. She said that she’s been reading my blogs and she likes it. Here I thought that nobody reads my blogs.
• Upon coming home, I checked my email. Got an email from a fellow homeschooler thanking me for blogging about our homeschool experience. This is truly an encouragement for me and inspires me to keep on blogging.
• Hubby and I had a long discussion about our family and we saw how God’s hand is at work. We acknowledge that God is in control of our life and He knows what is best for us. Praise God!
• We attended our Worship Service at the Victory Christian Fellowship at Alabang. Preaching was by Pastor Jannsen Morados – he’s our hands-down favorite. He preached about Nehemiah, Rebuilding Our Nation and our role in it. Much of what he said is a confirmation of our prayer just before we attended the worship service. God is good!

The Lord is truly, truly good. He is the Giver of the good times and the bad. In both times and at all times, He is always there for us. All He asks is for us to trust Him and obey Him.

Musings on “How Can a Good God Let Bad Things Happen?”

Note: This is not yet my review of this book. However, I did receive this from NavPress for review. I have been reading it almost daily and I just can’t let the new insights I’m gaining to just pass by. Hence, I am blogging about the things I’ve learned from this book so far.

How Can A Good God Let Bad Things Happen? by Mark Tabb

God is good, isn’t it? I’ve lived most of my life believing this basic truth about our Lord God. I still believe it till now. That has not changed and this is not what the author, Mark Tabb, wanted to point out.

What he wanted his readers to see is that even though God is good, God can still let bad things happen to us.

From reading the first few chapters of the book, here is what I have learned:

• Sin is already in this world. Ever since Adam and Eve chose to eat of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, sin came into this world. Along with sin are its curses, death, destruction, cruelty and the like. Therefore, sin being a part of our innate nature, bad things really just naturally happen.

 

• Satan is not responsible for all of the bad things happening to us. We, too, are responsible whenever we choose to make the wrong decisions. God, in His grace and wisdom, gave us the will to choose. He does not want to dictate to us as if we are just mere puppets. He loves us and respects that we can make our own decision. Therefore, bad things can also happen due to the wrong decisions that we make. Consequences will always be the result of our unwise decisions.

Mark Tabb uses the life of Job to point out these truths to us.  Job, who is righteous in God’s sight, was prospered greatly by the Lord. Satan then comes to God and challenges Him. He said that if Job were not blessed with so much, then he will probably start cursing God. So God tells Satan that he can do with him whatever he pleases, but Job’s life must be spared. And so Job loses everything, literally. He loses his children, his assets, and he loses his health. He was covered with sores from head to toe. Job’s wife challenges him to “Curse God and die!” And here is Job’s answer:

He replied, "You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.                 Job 2:10

Now here is where it gets interesting. The author points out that God does not just allow bad things to happen to us. By saying that God allows bad things, we are also saying that God is not the One responsible for the bad things, somebody else is. Usually, that somebody is Satan. Instead, God, in His Sovereignty, gives us the bad things along with the good. He does this because He is the only One who knows what will  happen next.

It’s scary to think that, right? That God can and will choose to give us trouble in life. But thinking about it some more, I realized that this is really God’s Sovereignty. You see, if I will only keep thinking that God is only all good and nothing bad can come from Him, then I am limiting God. The truth is God is God. He can really do anything He wants to do with our lives. It’s hard to understand and even harder to accept, but if I don’t accept that truth, then I am just deceiving myself.

However, even if we experience troubles in our lives, the kind that is not caused by sin, we must learn to place our trust in the Lord with the assurance that He knows best what He is doing.

My husband has been job hunting since the end of January. He’s been to several interviews, seemingly with good results. Until now, though, he is still out of work. He is the best at what he does. Anywhere he goes abroad, he succeeds. Strangely enough, he’s not experiencing that success, so far, here in Manila. We’ve not had any stable source of income since he came home from New Zealand. Come March, our children got sick one after the other. We had to confine them several times and pay the bill in full each time. Why so much trouble? I don’t believe that this trouble resulted in any sin that we committed. I do believe that the hand of God is behind all that is happening right now, good and bad. And I can believe that because I know that He always has the best plans laid out for our family. He has a purpose for our family, and if it will take those bad, troubled times to accomplish His purpose, He will do it. So be it, then.

So far, I am challenged by this book. My knowledge of God is being added to. I understand more about the Sovereignty of God. What, then, does God expect from us? One word: TRUST. Trust Him no matter what. Trust Him in everything.

Yes! You Can Live on a Single Income.

Help For The Stay-At-Home Mom

Even as a young girl, I already knew that I wanted to be home for my children when the time comes. When I had my first child, though, I was working in my parent’s business and I was the only one helping them manage it. Leaving the business was almost out of the question. I struggled through our daughter’s first year, thinking that I’m missing out on so much. I would always call the nanny at home to find out what she’s doing, what words she can say, if she’s already crawling, walking or running. At night, my daughter preferred to sleep with her nanny over me.

Before the decision to stay at home to care for our child came about, my husband and I had to seriously consider how we would fare just living on his income alone. Considering that our lifestyle called for us to live on two incomes. we had to think of ways that we can pare down our expenses in order for me to stay at home. Staying at home meant living a simpler life for us. Though it overwhelmed me, the changes we had to implement in our lives were:

1. Limit our eating out. When the hubby and I were dating, and even till now, we loved to dine out. We especially loved to try out new restaurants and would consider a fine meal worth the high cost of it. Knowing that we are now living on a single income, we’ve had to limit the eating out only on special occasions, and even then, with a budget. One of the ways that we would save on our bill is to never order drinks like soda, juices, coffee, etc. We would ask for just a serving of water and this brought our bill down considerably.

2. Watch our use of electricity. In the past, I have to confess, we were quite wasteful. We would leave the light and fan on in a vacant room. The TV would be on when no one was watching. Since staying at home, we implemented an important rule with our children that lights will only be turned on if necessary. If daylight is still coming in, we don’t turn on the lights. We always, always turn the light off when we leave a room. Did you know that even the simple act of leaving the microwave plugged in will still add up your electricity? As long as the LED is lighted, electricity is still coming in. We were able to lower our electric bill this way.

3. Plan the Menu. I must admit that menu-planning is a challenge to me and it continues to be until now. I like things to be spontaneous. However, without a menu plan for the week, we’ve always had to go to the corner store and buy what we don’t have. Of course, this adds up to more expenses because corner stores are more expensive than buying it all in bulk in the grocery.

4. Make a Grocery List. One of the surefire ways to save your hard-earned money is to avoid going around in the grocery without a plan or a list on hand. Without a list, you can just wander around and pick up anything that catches your eye. But if you shop with your list, you’ll know what to go for and you can avoid all those fancy ads in the grocery. Of course, before you can make up a grocery list, you’ll need to plan your menu. Plus, with a grocery list, you can avoid the constant need to go to the grocery store for what you don’t have, thus saving you the gas money.

5. Do as many errands as you can in one day. Avoid going out often. This saves you on the cost of gasoline. Organize all your bills together and see what you can do in one day. Can you pay your utility bills at one time after doing your groceries? Achieving multiple errands in one day not only saves the gas, it saves you the cost of hiring a babysitter for several days if you did your errands on different days.

These are just a few of the ideas that we have implemented in our home in order for me to stay home with the children. Was it worth doing it? I’ll have to answer that with a resounding “YES!” In the years I have been home, I’ve seen my children grow. I’ve wiped most of their tears, answered thousands of questions, washed their scraped knees, picked them up when they fall and put them all to sleep. I’ve had dozens of hugs from big arms to small arms, lots of kisses mixed with sweat, mucus and saliva and sang so many lullabies until I’m numb in the head.

Staying at home to be with your children is indeed daunting and overwhelming if you’re not prepared for the changes. With an open mind, an open heart and a lot of creativity sprinkled in, staying home and living on one income is possible.

My Friend is Giving Away Three Books!

A TOS Crewmate is hosting a giveaway for THREE books on her blog. Visit her blog for more details.

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/momof7kids/685805/

Blogging with Windows Live Writer

Blogging on my Multiply site is very different from blogging here on Blogger. I felt that in Multiply, my creativity is limited because there’s not much I can do in my blogs there. Also, I could never figure out how to put photos in my Multiply blog.

So far here in Blogger, I have been enjoying writing my blogs with the help of Windows Live Writer. With Windows Live Writer, my creativity is not limited to the few options available on Blogger. Where there are few fonts to use on Blogger, Windows Live Writer has all the fonts available.

Another advantage is that I can write my blogs offline and save the draft. Aside from that, editing my blogs are ever easier because Windows Live Writer pulls my blogs online and takes it to my file where I can edit it.

Publishing photos have also been fun. Here are ways that photos can be published on Windows Live Writer:

Drop Shadow Border

Instant Photo Border

Photo Paper Border

Reflection

Solid Border

View Full Album

One of the ways you can post your photo album. Fun, right?

And that’s just about posting photos, there are so many more you can do with Windows Live Writer. You can post videos, tables, maps, add hyperlinks and so much more.

I learned about Windows Live Writer from Amy Bayliss. I posted a previous blog about this. Try it, you’ll probably enjoy it as much as I do.

Becoming A Home-Based English Editor

One of the first things Gary D. and I did was to look online and in the Sunday newspaper for work. I discovered a website www.bestjobs.ph that has plenty of work at home jobs posted. While I did apply for many of the jobs, I did not get even a single response from those ads. One Sunday, I saw an ad in the newspaper for a Korean company that was looking for Home-Based English Editors based somewhere in Mandaluyong. Now this really excited me. They did not require experience but they did require someone who communicates well in English (of course), with a PC and an internet service at home. They did say that work can also be done in an Internet rental shop, and you can work your own hours.

I applied for this job and was accepted. The job calls for me to download a Korean student’s essay and edit it. Apart from editing, we are also required to write down our comments. There should be from one to four comments per essay. Payment is given for every essay that we complete. The company will pay us between P10.00 to P15.00 (US$0.20 to 0.30).

At first, I was excited to do this job. It’s not hard for me to edit a student’s essay. However, it took me about 20-25 minutes to finish editing one essay. I did some computations and I figured that if I wanted to make about P10,000.00 monthly doing this, I’d have to be editing about 40 essays a day. Sleep would be impossible if I wanted to finish those 40 essays a day.

Gary D., to his credit, was very patient with it all. The two weeks that I worked there, I had to tell my children that I can’t be disturbed. My eyes started to hurt because I was working eight hours straight staring at my laptop. After two weeks, we computed my pay and it did not even reach P500.00 (US$ 11.00)! It was only when Gary D. told me that I paid my helper more than I was being paid that I finally decided to resign from this job.

Now I’m not saying that all home-based work is this way. I’ve read about others doing legitimate home-base work and are earning a lot from it. I will continue my search for that.

Fighting to Stay and Work At Home

The title of this blog actually means two things for us. First, we really just want for Gary D. to stay at home with us. We no longer want to be separated from each other. We have endured the two years that he was gone and now we just want to be together. When he came home, the children has flourished even more. Our Flash Boy, the baby, grew by leaps and bounds since Dad came home. Sunshine Girl has become more confident. Artsy Princess’ constant illness have gone away. Guitar Babe has relaxed and become more like a child again. As for me, I, too, have relaxed in every way possible. No longer do I have to constantly worry about being alone in our home. I’m able to rest more in him. Many of the responsibilities that I carried on my shoulders are now back on his shoulders. We just want him to stay in the Philippines with us. Really, the money earned working abroad is fine, but it doesn’t compensate for all the emotional losses we’ve experienced while being separated.

The other reason for the title of this blog is because I am also fighting to stay and do work from home. We are a family that homeschools and I love being a SAHM (Stay at home Mom). I can’t imagine our life being any other way. Of course, realities set in and the reality of earning more money for our living stares us in the face all the time.

We have considered putting the children to regular school so that I can work outside the home full-time. But we just can’t see that as the solution for us considering that we would have more expenses if I’ve had to work away from home. Expenses by way of purchasing office wear, transportation allowance, daily food allowance, hiring another live-in helper, paying for school bus service and the biggest of all, the kids’ tuition fee. Even if we had combined salaries, we feel that the expenses just does not justify my working full time. Apart from that, there would also be the stresses of not being available to the children when they needed me.

So we want Gary D. to stay in the Philippines with us and I want to continue to be with my children at home.

We are working on ways that we can do that and I’ll be sharing with you in future blogs what we have done and are doing to accomplish this.

On Writing Full Time

One of the first things I've done was to consider what I'm really good at and what I enjoy doing. I know I do considerably well with writing but have never considered going into full time writing. However, writing gives me an outlet with which to express myself. There are just so many thoughts in my mind all the time that writing is much like a brain dump to me. If I don't write down my thoughts, they're just floating around in my mind. When thoughts are floating unattended in there, new thoughts and ideas just can't come in.

Since hubby was in the US, I've already read intermittently about people earning money online through writing or blogging. I was curious about this but never took it as seriously as I should have. However, this did lead me to open my very first blog with Multiply. Multiply gave me my first taste in blogging, uploading photos and videos, etc. This is where I first learned that I can do it.

Last year, I applied to become a homeschool product reviewer for a magazine in the USA. I did not really think that I'd make it since they said that there are over 800 applicants for only 100 spots. Fortunately, I'd been accepted to become one out of the 100. I believe this meant that my writing is good enough for this magazine. So on I became a product reviewer and blogged my reviews in my Multiply site.

A few months after that I attended a homeschool conference with over a thousand people. Imagine my surprise when some people would stop me and say that they've been reading my blog and appreciated my reviews. Some even went on to say that they were so encouraged by my blogs and would forward it to friends. Wow! Then this must mean that my blogs are good. The seed that was planted in my heart some years ago is now being watered and growing.

I still was not that convinced because I kept putting off creating a new blog. You see, on Multiply, you can't apply Google Adsense in your site. So there's no hope of monetizing my blog there. Although, I would highly recommend Multiply for its ease of use and privacy.

What solidified my decision to open up this blog was our need to make money. For me, working outside the home was not an option. I really, really love being able to stay home with my kids. Teaching them at home is important to our family. The option that I had for me was to find work that I can do from home.

Writing for my own blog is one of the things that I'm doing now to earn. There's no earnings yet since I've just started but, hopefully, one day soon, I'll see the money coming in.

Gary D. is Home for Good!

Who is this Gary D?

Gary D is my pseudonym for my wonderful hubby. He loves Gary Valenciano and his first name's initial is D, hence the name.

I thought I'd start out with this post, in celebration and thankfulness to the Lord for bringing him home to us again. For everybody's info, Gary D. left to work for the US last November 2006. I was only three months pregnant with our fourth baby at that time. It was bittersweet, him having leave us. While we were looking forward to the dollars that he would earn, it hurt us to be so far apart. Gary D seriously loves to be with us, you see. If he's not doing anything, he'd rather be with us than be with anybody else. Our children enjoy a lot of playing time with him, and we love to have long conversations with each other. Despite this, because of our growing family, we decided to separate.

It was a difficult two years away from each other. Our children experienced several hospital confinements, and I developed anxiety attacks. One of our children was ill several times which our pedia attributed to missing her daddy so much. My anxiety attacks was brought about by the stresses of living by ourselves and caring for four children alone. For Gary D, his difficulty lay in not being around during those times. When we were at the hospital, he felt helpless and alone over there.

He did come back in May 2007 during the birth of our son. At the same time, his brother died a week after I gave birth. He was here for a total of six weeks. After six weeks, we had to take him back to the airport and say our sad goodbyes.

By the end of last year, he was allowed a three-week vacation by his boss. He came back home with the plan of leaving us again in three weeks. The children and I prayed that he will decide to stay with us instead. Upon coming home, we still continued to experience a lot of emotional stress due to adjusting to him being home. Despite missing him so much, we have already been used to living without him. We developed our own rhythm to life and suddenly he's here, and we have to consider him all the time. He, of course, noticed this and was saddened to see how much we have all changed while he was gone. One thing he did see clearly was the difficulty of raising up the children by myself. Guitar Babe, our eldest, once told me "Dad is not our dad anymore, he is just the giver of money". Sad to hear but I can't blame her, she's telling the truth.

After about a week and a half, he was already unsure about going back to work abroad, but can't decide yet because of the lack of a job here in Manila. However, going back abroad will mean that we will have to go into debt again for the purchase of his return ticket. We felt that we can no longer do that again. We considered for him to go back and return again when he has found a job here. However, we did not consider this a wise move because of the debt that we will incur to purchase his plane ticket and the amount of time that it will take for him to save up for another plane ticket home. We felt that this was already impractical.

The deciding factor, though, was really what God had put in his heart for his family. We are a family that deeply loves the Lord. This family needs a present husband and a father to four precious lives. We had to ask ourselves, “Was the money he was earning worth the time lost with us?” And the only answer was “No”.

After some time, he finally decided he’s not leaving us anymore. It’s a risk we took. He doesn’t have a job here. I, too, am not working. After considering the possible things that could happen to us while he’s still looking for a job, we decided we’ll go for that risk rather than risk losing each other.

This is the reason for this blog and this blog’s title. We are a Filipino family dedicated to staying together here in our home country. We have not given up our dreams to migrate to another country, but as of the moment, we are here to stay. This blog will be about our efforts in making it work here. We’ll be sharing about our income generating opportunities and how it is working for us.

Getting Into the Groove (of this Blog)

Phew! Although I do maintain a blog on Multiply, I haven't been that technically savvy with it. I mean I've seen posts with pictures on it. I tried doing the same thing but have been unsuccessful so far. Not one to give up, I've been researching on ways that I can post pictures within my blog. So far, I've come across Split Decisionz, a website by Amy Bayliss where she offers tutorials, some free blogger templates, buttons and the like. I am subscribing to her site because I know I'll learn much from her.

Now I am going to try to post a photo here and it should appear below this sentence:

Okay, so far I got it to go where I want it to go. But what's with the blue line? Earlier today I kept trying to post photos in my other blog, but I was obviously unsuccessful since that first blog doesn't have even one photo on it. I decided to let it go for awhile and just come back to this.

Now what I've done is to choose to tick box where it says no layout. I then cut my original post and pasted it on top of this photo. Worked, right? Right, but I am wondering how to get rid of that blue line.

By the way, that pix was taken by my Guitar Babe during her beach outing with her grandparents.

Okay so back to the purpose for this blog.