According to Liz Strauss I'm An S.O.B!

Liz Strauss

Ever have those odd days when things just don't feel right and just when you're ready to throw the towel in, something amazing happens to pull you out of the dumps? Well, I may just have encountered this rare phenomena (for the lack of a better term) in the form of the fabulous and ever-famous blog guru Liz Strauss, Founder of SOBCon and a social business strategist. One rare instance which I may have never found out about if I wasn't obsessing poking around my stat late at night! (I mean, really late! a.m. late). What can I say, I'm a night owl (and a zombie occasionally). So back to the phenomena...

The Red Deal

Next Saturday is the Chinese New Year Party. As mentioned in my previous Siesta Saturday , I Celebrate two New Years and Jan 26th is this years' Chinese New Year which is The Year of the Ox. It is also a BIG event for me this year- hence reason why I'm in a quest for the perfect little black dress. Have you submitted your finds yet? Lucky entry will win a surprise gift.

For those not culturally-challenged, RED in Chinese Tradition, is a big deal! Red connotates GOOD Luck making it specially important during Chinese New Year. Want some Good Luck? Wear Red! Need to know more? Familyculture.com have more answers. Or have Sara Naumann tells you all about the famous RED UNDERWEAR! Hmmm....I'm seeing fiery red now...

Admittedly, I don't like the color red! Yet this is the only time I will make exclusive exemptions. Who doesn't want Good Luck for the whole year right? I, of course have a great idea on what to wear. Forget red clothing. I'm going for this:

Traditional Lotus Flower Carved in Red Cinnabar Necklace

Want to try your luck with red? You can find more of these Red Chinese-inspired jewelries online at Golden Flower Creations. The stock is limited due its' distribution exclusivity to a Chinese Martial Arts School intended for New Year. But after Jan 24th, rest of the design will be available to public.

If you want other than the color red, how about this?

It comes with matching Oh la la Earrings and is part of a whole slew of beautiful bracelets which can be found at Golden Flower Creations other online store HERE . Or you can click on the widgets on the side bar on the right to browse both stores.

What are you waiting for? Grab some RED today!

As for me, Here's my 1st Hong Bao {red envelope} with goodies!

The Proximity Award from HelloSweetWorld and Wolf of Musings

One Lovely Blog Award {again} from Wolf of Musings
Lemonade Award from Joanne of Barely Domestic Mama and Lisa of Serah's Soaps
Friends Award from Julia of Our Simple Life

ThaNk you...

"I'm sure I've missed a few couples of them here and there but please know I appreciate each one of them..."

I'm passing it on... I'll make it simple. No rules. No Instructions.
Just Grab!

To New Bloggy Friends:

Beth of Anti-Supermom
Cynthia of Confessions of a Yummy Mummy

Lori of Time of your Life
Alicia of More Than Words
Janah of So Not Mom-A-Licious
Michelle of One Crafty Mama
BlueViolet of A Nut in A Nutshell
Valerie of It's a wonderful Life
Namaste of Shut the front door
Martha of A Sense of Humor is Essential
Bird,Frizzy and Little Yaya
MammaDucky

There's more of you I want to mention but my fingers and eyes are bloody tired! So, It's up for grabs to all my bloggy friends who want it!

And to all my readers and visitors, yes YOU,
this award is for you too.
I appreciate all of you and your presence here. Always...

Enjoy your Saturday!

Articles you might enjoy:
Year of the OX
DeCode Wednesday

Awards Galore

I'm no Diva (though I have the attitude sometimes and self-proclaimed as one ☺ ) , not a celebrity , not an A-list blogger (yet), but when you have kind and generous people giving you great awards and recognitions, you just can't help feel like a super Divalicious Diva and super-special! ♥♥♥

And that's exactly how I feel right now - even though I've been such a slacker-blogger! I said slacker because I have not been consistent (coupled with internet outage at home for 2 weeks!) with my blogging lately and these awards has been waiting for me for ages! Today I was able to snag all of them - I think!- If I missed any, my apologies - and note that, these postings were actually scheduled! I was able to do this while "stealing" internet connectivity from an unknown neighbor's Wi-Fi broadcast one particular night!- just like Robinhood eh?!

To cut the suspense, here (finally) are the Awards bestowed upon these humble blogger :

I recently got all these from Renee' of Cutie Booty Cakes for being the first commenter on her blog! Awesomeness! - Thank you!

This is my 2nd Kick Ass Blogger award and this was awarded to me by Iceah of Wow Legs- Salamat!!!

Cathy of Me and My world and Jenn of Peacock's Nesting Place awarded this to me - You rock too!

Jamey of Walking by Faith awarded this to me - Muchos Gracias mi Amiga!

These awards makes me special and inspires me to keep on blogging even though I haven't been really good(struggling) at keeping up lately. I cherish your kindness! In retrospect, It is good to note though that my creative life is doing well. Part of its' success is because of you! yes YOU reading this now. Thank you for believing in me in spite of my shortcomings. I am giving everyone the "YOU ROCK!" award to everyone who follows my blog and to those who come here just to read or visit. I really appreciate your presence here. YOU COMPLETE ME!

Promo 1 - Zen Earring Winner

First, let me thank all that joined my 1st Promo giveaway. It was a success considering my inconsistent spurts in updating my blog or lack thereof ! (huh! That's a great idea! I should blog about that! )

Now for the drawing : My daughter wishing to be a mom blogger someday requested (coerced me) that she pick the winner for the giveaway. So here she is :

The Magic Bowl

The Future Mom Blogger
SEE NO (cheating) EVIL

Lucky Number :

Lucky Winner : Meet Loraine Vorster of Pink Tulip from Johannesburg, South Africa

Congratulations Loraine ! I'm happy that my earrings will grace your lovely earlobes and all the way to South Africa! I'm so Jealous of my earrings if I must say! (And not being in your earlobes! but that it gets to travel to places I can't of course) Hope you like them!!!

To the rest of us, Sorry girls...but you can always snag one at my store if you want one! :) But No worries, I have more planned giveaways in the future. Cross your fingers and watch out for it! It's just gonna get better... Think of the Holidays !

Again, Thank you to all who made this a success! Salamat!!!

Giving back the Love

As part of my way of celebrating my first sale at etsy, a good sale at the festival and for the people who have supported me in one way or the other, I am giving away a pair of earrings to one lucky winner. And since Zen being my day to day Mantra in life, it's but appropriate that I chose the ZEN Earring as the coveted Prize. All you need to do is leave a comment telling me you want to play. I'll random.org the winner on Oct 15th.

Zen Earring

In this respect, I want to let everyone know that my life right now is like a calm river just free flowing down the river bend.We encounter hits and bumps along the way but with God's grace we are surviving. Hubby hasn't found a job yet. We are currently evaluating our situation and contemplating a move to where we can start a new future. It is a tough process but I believe we will find the right path. Like what Mark_Salinas said : "Your path has not been determined.You shall have more experiences and pass many more milestones during your journey! A fantastic day awaits!"

Yes, I want to hold onto that declaration : A fantastic day indeed awaits! It may not be here in Charlotte. It may not be now, but it will! Thank you to all who had played a role, major or tidbit in this soap opera drama of my life. You are all award-winners in my list!

Celebrating Friendships

I have been so blessed with friends I never knew I have until I found myself in a sad situation. They say that you discover who your true friends are during times of trouble and I sure did here. I am blessed and so grateful to those who reached out to me and offered words of consolation and words of promise! You all have given Blogosphere a whole new meaning. To me, it is now the Holy Grail for finding Precious friends! So as a way of celebrating your friendships, I am awarding you with these awards I recently got from other great bloggy friends. Everyone will get both award.

The first award, I got from lovely Iceah who according to her has got great legs! Hence her blog title is Wow Legs! :)

The rules of this award are:
1. The winner can put the logo on his/her blog. 2. Link the person you received your award from. 3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs. 4. Put links of those blogs on yours. 5. Leave a message on the blogs of the people you’ve nominated



And this one, I got from ThirtysomethingReality who I admire for being a biker's lady and trying to be a biker lady herself.



Now all of you are getting it:
Purpled Sky
MammaDawg
Jamey
Dawn
Ms. Bar B:
Jonara Blu Maui
HEALTH NUT WANNABEE MOM
Jennifer
Cristin
angie
Dawn@Embracing the Ordinary Life
MrsPartyGirl
Debateur
ChristiS
Weith Kick
Jenn P.
Vodka Mom
tubelessstl
Jennifer
A Day to Share with Tammy
Givinya De Elba
Sassy Mama Bear
Belle
jwordsmith
Beth
Marlene
spinninglovelydays
Amazing_Grace
Penelope

I was also tagged with these three things below. I'll try to get to it when I can. Thank you for thinking of me.

Baby Bump Tag by Iceah (show your pregnancy picture)
Tagged by Jamie 6 quirky things
Tagged by Ms. Bar B 10 things

For now Congratulations and Thank you to all! Now go Celebrate!

And the winner is...

Much as I cherish my 1st award, it is time to pass it on to someone who I think is a Kick-Ass blogger!

But first here are the rules:

Do you know any bloggers that kick ass?Maybe they've got incredible, original content. Or they're overflowing with creativity. Is it someone that helps you become a better blogger? Or a bloggy friend you know you can count on? Or maybe it's someone who simply inspires you to be a better person... or someone else who sends you to the floor, laughing your ass off.Whatever the reason may be, I'm sure you know at least a couple of bloggers that kick ass. Well... why not tell 'em so?

LOVE ON 'EM

Choose 5 bloggers that you feel are "Kick Ass Bloggers"
Let 'em know in your post or via email, twitter or blog comments that they've received an award . Share the love and link back to both the person who awarded you and back to www.mammadawg.com . Hop on back to the Kick Ass Blogger Club HQ to sign Mr. Linky then pass it on!

Here are my Top picks in no particular order:

Potpourri - You get this award because you are a filipina like me and I love the fact that you are in Sweden and yet we exchange comments like we're in the same time zone. You also love my jewerly which warms my heart.

Jonarablu - You get this award because I liked you from the first time I found your blog. You have that sweetness and caring persona about you and has been very helpful to me with my jewelry questions. Most of all, I admire your jewelries a lot!

Filipinamomindenmark - You get this award because your blog design is so cool! I love it! I also like the fact that you are in Denmark and for being so thoughtful dropping me a note before you left for the Philippines for a vacation.

Tammy - You get this award because you have been a very wonderful bloggy friend. So supportive and so helpful. Most of all I would like to believe that we have established a friendship beyond our blogs. POW!

Beth - You get this award because I admire you for being a superwoman. 3 kids,2 Ragdoll cats, a Rat Terrier, a Doberman, and a tortoise and still find time to do other things including jewelry making! I love it that you also live close to the beach. You got it all!

There you go ladies. You deserve it! Thank you for your friendships. Speech, Speech!!!

Any Thoughts ?

To Hell on Monday

When I was growing up, I found this tiny book titled "To hell on Monday" in my parents' mini-library. Always the curious kid, I flipped through the pages and read a few, but my brain being young at that time, had not the ability to comprehend or even pathom what the title implies. Yet for some odd reason, the title stuck with me all through these years. Was it a revelation or just a plain reminder of how awful mondays are ? I tried to find the book online to reconnect to this apparent mysterious imprint etched on the regresses of my memory, unfortunately it is unfound. Do you ever have such a phenomena like this?

Nonetheless, don't you just hate Mondays ? I do. For any working individuals like me, Monday is such a dreadful day! It's the precursor to another gruelling week of work. A hateful reminder that you have to shed your jammies in place of office suits and get your lazy butt in high gear to keep up with your corporate persona. Monday is like reality TV, only a lot less glamorous and definitely hated by most.

But not so, if you're in the Middle East. Saturday, is their first day of the week and just recently, in Kuwait, the Amir proclaimed that Sunday should be Kuwait's 1st day of the week. Now that's something!

On a happier note: My monday today is filled with glad tidings! Weith has given me this award:

According to him: Maricris at Zen Ventures gets it for having what I think is an interesting, quirky writing style. Did you know she pumped gas for the first time recently?

Yes, no denying, I am weird, quirky - watchamacallit -writer, which sets me apart from the norm (what is normal anyway?)- which at any proportion definitely makes me a Kick-ass blogger! :) and oh by the way, I can also kick-ass in person. I have a background in Shaolin kung-fu and Tai-chi. Yaaaa!!!!

Thanks Weith! It is such an honor and that's very true in it's truest sense. Recognition is the highest form of flattery that you can bestow to another human or (with my current status) alien. And especially when it's the 1st.

I shall savor this moment for now...before the award moves on to another deserving alien...er blogger...

btw, you might also be interested in checking my not- so-quirky contributions here: Working Mother

So how's your monday ? Do you ever feel like you're entering the pits of hell when Monday rolls around ? Even moreso, a gruelling aversion by just the mere thought of it ? Monday or not, what is your most hated day and best loved day and why ?

Any Thoughts ?

Zen Ventures

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Zen MamaVentures for a short time has evolved from a simple outlet of thoughts to a whole new level in blogging. It has become actively involved in Social Media and Mom networking projects aiming to cultivate and promote the power of a woman/mom's voice in this consumer-driven world with companies providing a win-win situation for both.

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Ocean Isle Inn-A winter Getaway

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You leave a comment but the author doesn't give a hoot, do you visit that blog again? What do you think? - by Maricris