May Highlight: My Featured Photos on Instagram

This blogger application on iPhone is really cool and I'm loving it. I don't have to log on to my computer to update my blog. I can now blog using my phone.

I'm so happy to share my featured photos on Instagram for the month of May. My IG friends have labeled me "the feature queen" :).  So flattered!!!

Here are my featured photos for the month of May. I didn't expect that I will be getting more after my first feature last April.

My yellow tulips (BL) was featured by Igersworlwide.

My silhouette photo that I took using my iPhone in Boracay (TL) was featured by dailythemes.

My purple lotus was featured by rawmothernature.

My first time to try macro and my droplets on flowers shot  (TR) was included in this feature by macroflowerpassion. I still need more practice though on macro :).

My orange tulips was chosen as one of the finalists for instaphilippines_mayflowers. 

My yellow tulips photo was featured by loving yellow.

My pink tulips shot in was featured by igpinay.

My pink lotus flower was featured by fabphotos.

This was my entry for Mother's Day special and I won this challenge. The topic was "Why I love my mum." I miss my mum who passed away 20 yrs. ago.

So many photo entries for flowerstalking purple flower challenge and my lotus flower photo was featured as the winner. Well I guess it's true that lotus is really lucky :)).

I was invited by a friend to join this 50shadesoforange 4grid challenge. My photo was one of the favorites :).

This photo was featured by flowerstarz.

I love Mount Fuji. So happy and lucky to see Mt. Fuji so I posted this and my photo was featured by mylove4nature. 

This colorful elevator ceiling photo was feature twice - by fabphotos and igpinay.

My orange roses (BR) was featured by photogram_naturepics.

My yellow rose (BL) was featured by flower_daily.

My pink lotus flower (TL) was featured by ig_4every1.

My yellow flower (BL) was featured by mydailycapture.

My infiorata (dried flower petals) photo was featured by ig_4every1.

My purple flower (BR) was featured by fabphotos.

My pink lotus flower (BL) was featured by pict_lovers.

My yellow rose was featured by flowerstalking.

My purple tulips photo (TR) was chosen as one of the winners for the purple challenge along with these purple photos.

Back to Normal

Testing the blogger app on my phone while having coffee break  at work :).

What's up with me? Everything is back to normal. The girls are back in Manila. It's sad to see them leave again for the start of school year in Manila. I will miss them again, huhuhu. But I'm happy too because we had the chance to be together again for a month and spent a few days in Tokyo last week. We were so lucky the weather cooperated with us. We had a lot of fun in Tokyo, the best family bonding. The highlight of our trip was our Mount Fuji-Hakone tour.  

Well, I have to go back to work now. I will write a separate post about our Tokyo trip with pictures. Promise !

One (1) Year into Blogging

It's been one year since I started blogging and I've written more than a hundred posts and got more than 8,000 views. Wow, I can't believe I've gone this far :). I don't get to write more often lately but I plan to write 1-2 posts every month to keep my blog going. Happy Monday!

Photo Thief Victim on Instagram

Last week I found out that one of my followers on Instagram had stolen three of my photos. My Instagram is not private, so everyone is free to follow my IG.  I usually follow back a new follower if I like his or her photo gallery. I didn't follow back this follower. I don't even know if he/she is a male or female. This follower keeps on liking my photos every time I post new photos. I got curious so I checked his IG profile. I was surprised to see 3 of my photos in his gallery. He/She took a screenshot of my photos and he/she posted the pictures in his/her gallery. Really bad!. All the other photos are obviously stolen from the internet and maybe from other IGers as well.  I blocked and reported this photo thief to Instagram. I also posted the  stolen photos on IG Photo Thief Magazine and reported to @C0nscience.  This photo thief is still active on Instagram and has more than 1000 followers. If you chance upon my blog and you happen to have an Instagram account, better block and report this photo thief.  Username is RABAB_JAWELI.

These are the photos that were stolen from me. The pictures were badly cropped, I can even see the lower portion of my profile picture.

http://instagram.com/glo_gee

My Love for Instagram

I have not posted  here for a month because I got addicted to Instagram, haha! Writing is not really my passion. Photography is my passion. I just love taking pictures. That's the reason why I decided to revive my IG account. I created my Instagram account 8-9 months ago, but I'm not active because I don't have followers. I revived my IG account and joined the iHeart faces photo challenge for the month of March to keep me going, but I was not able to complete the photo challenge. I couldn't keep up with the daily challenge due to busy schedule. When the Cherry blossoms and tulips started to bloom the first week of April, I started posting pics again, just for fun.  Then I noticed that my number of followers started to grow and more and more IGers are liking my photos. I gained 400 followers in one month. Unbelievable! And then, four of my photos were featured on different categories this month. Wow, I'm loving IG :)) !! Now the challenge is for me to continue improving my photography skills to keep up with the expectations of my followers.

Here are  some of my featured photos.

My yellow tulips shot was included in this feature by Yellowmazing. 

My Iwakuni bridge shot was featured by Instalove_it.

My pink tulips shot was included in the April blooms weekly feature by IG_Philippines.

My pink tulips shot was included in this feature by FlowerStalking.

Lesson of Time: Karma

"So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you" - Matthew 7:12

Karma is one of the main laws of the universe. Karma is the universe’s way of keeping our world, and the people of our world, in balance and in harmony.  A common saying for the law of karma is ‘what goes around comes around’.  

photo source: google images

To my previous officemate (Trace Trajano) who betrayed not only me, but also our other officemates whom you convinced to invest our hard earned money in your realty business, then  you suddenly disappeared without a trace after getting thousands of dollars from us, watch out for your own karma. The money that you took from us will not make you any richer after what you have done to us. What goes around, comes around. You did something bad to us, so expect bad things to come back to you. Maybe not now, not tomorrow, or next month, but you will surely get your own bad karma, remember that!

Instaquote

Here's another hobby of mine, I love collecting quotes. I remember I used to have a small notebook where I write quotes that inspire me and write striking quotes from the books that I am reading. When I joined twitter,  I stopped writing in my notebook and instead tweet and retweet my favorite quotes (level up na :).  What I like about twitter is that I can always go back to my previous tweets anytime I want to read them again.

Now that I have an Instagram account, I decided to level up this hobby of mine. I discovered this very nice application on iPhone to create beautiful text images. I first tried the free version of Instaquote and I instantly liked this app. Since the options in the free version are very limited, I upgraded to the Pro version which is a paid application (not bad at 170 JPY) so that I can make my creations more creative.  Here are some of the picture quotes that I created and posted in my Instagram account and got a lot of thumbs up from other instagrammers :).  The background pics are all mine.  I love taking photos so I use my own photos as background.

Sakura (Cherry blossoms)

I took this photo on the way to Hachikita ski resort.

Boracay Paradise :)

Spring tulips

http://instagram.com/glo_gee

Amazing Benefits of Strawberries

I love strawberries! Strawberries are in season now here in Japan, so I always make it a point to buy strawberries every time I  get the chance to go to Gourmet. The price is a little bit expensive, but the benefits are worth the price.

50 Things Money Can't Buy

Money changes everything, as I remember from the song of Cindi Lauper (in the 80's), but money definitely can not buy everything.

===========

Money

It can buy a house, but not a home.

It can buy a bed, but not sleep.

It can buy a clock, but not time.

It can buy a  book, but not knowledge.

It can buy a position, but not respect.

It can buy medicine, but not health.

It can buy blood, but not life.

It can buy sex, but not love.

Spring Photo Challenge

I joined Instagram about 8 months ago but I was not active in posting pictures because I didn't know how it works back then.  I decided to reactivate my Instagram last December when my 2 girls finally joined the band wagon :). I started following their account.  I learned from them how to make my Instagram fun and exciting by using different filters to enhance my photos and how to use hashtags to share my photos to other photo enthusiasts out there and to gain likers and followers too.  I started posting pics again after being inactive for 6 months :).

For this month, I will be doing something different on my Instagram to revive my passion on photography. I didn't actually lose my passion for taking pictures. I just don't have much time now to spend on this hobby given my busy schedule.

I decided to join the Spring Photo Challenge of iHeartFaces for the month of March.  The mechanics of this photo challenge is very simple: submit one photo or as many photos as you can that follow the theme for that day. Add your photo on Instagram or Twitter and use  the hashtag iheartfaces so that everyone can find your photo entry.  There are really no strict guidelines for this challenge. You can participate anytime you can, can join any day or all of the days, there is no stress at all (yay!).  Well, this is really a fun challenge because it brings out the creativity of everyone.  I hope I will be able to complete this challenge till the end of this month.

I have submitted my photo entries from Day 4 to Day 9, and tried to catch up the first 3 days that I missed. I have completed the 9 themes as of today, yay!

http://instagram.com/glo_gee

Message for Today

Today, Glo, we believe God wants you to know that ...

if you feel too busy, you are.

Give yourself permission to be un-busy. Give yourself an hour or a day to simply be. 

Allow yourself the luxury of a small retreat. Allow your spirit time to be restored. 

Even God took a day of rest.

What's Up?

I just came back from a ski trip with Rokko Island Pinoy friends in Okuibuki ski resort located in Shiga prefecture.  It was a fun trip as usual.  I am tired and sleepy now, so I will not write long. I will post more pics next time.  Happy Sunday!

7 Rules of Life

A very timely reminder ...