Hello, friends! How have you all been? I recently recovered from my second bout with Covid-19 and although I still struggle mentally every once in a while, I feel I am in a much better place these days.

Matchy-matchy with this Barbie!

Anyway, if you’re like me in that you're also looking for some extra ways to make some more money this year, whether to help you save more, or to help you start a side hustle, the internet can be a great place to turn for some money-making opportunities. Here are a few easy ways to earn money online. 

There are lots of options to make extra money online, whether you want to make a passive income, use your skills, or turn to some more unusual methods, like deciding to buy bitcoin.

Sell Your Photos

Are you good with a camera, and do you live in an area where quality images are in high demand? Stock photography websites are large banks of photographs covering just about every subject that you can think of. Photographs can upload their pictures to one of those websites, letting magazine editors, designers, or any other organisations who have a website to buy them to use. The advantage of stock websites is that you can sell photos lots of times, so you can make money with minimal effort. Photography sites you could try include Getty Images and Shutterstock.

Create How-To Videos

This is something I've been enjoying doing using Instagram Reels where I share recipes. YouTube has recently become the go-to source for all kinds of guides and courses. Instructors can monetize their content through advertising revenue, sponsorship, affiliate marketing, or by charging a subscription fee or password-protecting content for paying customers only. To succeed, get to know the keywords and phrases that people are searching for. A good way to do this is to start typing how to (and your topic) into the search bar on YouTube and see what phrases come up in the auto-fill dropdown. Make sure to use the same keywords when you write your video's title, description, and tags. You can teach anything, from DIY to make-up skills, from French to cooking.

Become A Copywriter

Do you want to be able to earn a good income online, no matter where you live? Copywriting could be a good option for you to work online and make more money. Copywriting is a huge industry, with plenty of opportunities for earning ability. There is a lot of demand for writers who can create fresh, well-written marketing content. A big benefit of freelance copywriting is that you can be paid in US dollars, but live just about anywhere else in the world. Native English speakers are in particularly high demand. You can find freelance writing gigs through agencies, by seeking your own clients, or own sites like Fiverr.

Teach English

If you speak English as your first language, you already have the main qualification you would need for a fun way to make an income that could help you to earn steady money from just about anywhere in the world. You can find jobs teaching English through sites like GoOverseas.come, TeachAway, iTutorGroup, and English Hunt. You can teach virtually, over the phone, or in person. It could even be an opportunity to travel and teach in another country for a short time.

Moving is something I am quite familiar with, as I have been moving to different locations since I was 22. My initial reasons for moving out include safety purposes (my work shift used to start at 5am), convenience, and to save time commuting and money taking cabs.

How I wish I can live in my Animal Crossing island, Soliantu

Are you planning to make a fresh start in a new location? I am sure a lot can relate, especially now that national elections is coming. I know for a fact that a lot of people have decided to migrate if the wrong people get elected into the position. Either way, the beginning of the year is an ideal time to make some changes in your life, and moving somewhere new is a great way to do it. But, while fresh starts bring plenty of excitement, they can also cause a bit of anxiety. It is perfectly normal to feel a little nervous when moving to a new place, especially if it is a long way from your current home. However, the good news is that there are many ways to make moving cross country a lot easier for yourself while keeping your stress levels low.

If you have a move coming up, these tips should help you to make it less stressful:

Start Packing

Early One of the worst things about any house move is the packing. Packing up your belongings always takes so much longer than expected. Most people discover they also have far more stuff than they anticipated. Giving yourself a headstart on your packing is a great way to make it a less daunting task and will allow you plenty of time to sort through your items and declutter at the same time. Taking the time to declutter is a great way to ensure you are only transporting things you need and want to your new home ready for your fresh start.

Choose a Moving Company

When planning to move cross country, it can be challenging to take care of the entire moving process yourself including all the packing and heavy lifting involved. Transporting your belongings from state to state is also tricky and involves a significant amount of driving. Hiring a company that specializes in cross country moving and getting them to complete the move for you will make your life so much easier. With the help of the moving company, relocating will be so much more straightforward and much less stressful than it would be to complete on your own.

Do Lots of Research

Moving to a new neighborhood out of state can mean you have a pretty steep learning curve ahead. To avoid any surprises along the way, it is a great idea to research your new home town before the move. Understanding the state's laws and regulations will help you get your paperwork ready ahead of the move. 

It is crucial to check how to establish a legal domicile in your new state for your tax purposes. Another critical admin task to complete is researching how to get your driver's license transferred to the new state so that you can drive legally. If you have animals, it is crucial to check whether you need to apply for a pet license in your new state, as these requirements vary from state to state. Researching all the information you need to know about your new state and getting all of these admin tasks out of the way will enable you to focus on the excitement of your fresh start in a new location.  

Seeking help in the form of therapy is actually something that I have been mulling over for a couple of weeks now. Grief, isolation, poor management of this pandemic by the government, and a lot of other stressors is enough to drown a person, I'm not even sure how I am able to cope. I'm not even sure if I'm really coping at all.

I found this information and I hope it can be useful for you if you are going through this at the moment.

If you're going through a difficult time you may be wondering if you need to do some grief counseling. Grief counseling can be a great way for you to get over the loss of a loved one. It is never easy saying goodbye and it can take quite an emotional toll on you.

Fortunately, there are several ways therapy can help you to deal with your loss and get back to some sort of normalcy. Here's a look at how grief counseling can help you. Talking to someone who is not as close to the situation can be refreshing and help you sort through your feelings.

What Is Grief Counseling?

You may have heard about grief counseling and you may be wondering exactly what it will entail. Grief counseling helps people to cope with loss.

If you are having prolonged sadness and you can't seem to find any way to cope with your loss no matter how much time has passed it may be necessary for you to get counseling. You can talk about your feelings and find ways to deal with them.

While there are several stages that a person goes through when they are dealing with grief, if it begins to interfere with how you live your life daily or you are severely depressed and can hardly get on with your life, help may be necessary.

It may also be necessary if you are having problems with your current relationships because of your grief. 

What You Can Expect

During grief counseling, there will be conversations about the relative or friend you have lost. You will also analyze your feelings.

It may be that you feel the need to speak about what you are feeling with those close to you but you do not feel comfortable talking because they are going through the same thing that you are. Maybe you feel it would be burdensome for you to talk to them or maybe you just feel as if they don't want to hear what you have to say.

You may also need to talk about how it feels or felt to make preparations to say goodbye, from arranging the service to buying Cremation Jewelry from Memorials.com. Everything you feel and think will be examined so that you can start healing.

Handling Guilt

If your relationship with your loved one was tumultuous it can leave you feeling guilty because of what you may have said or not said to them before they passed away. However, you should understand that these feelings are normal.

It will help if you express these feelings to someone else and this is what you get a chance to do during your therapy session. You may even be told to write a letter to the deceased person to share how you feel and express your sadness that you didn't get to tell them exactly how you felt about them before they passed on.

Finding the Right Counselor

For grief therapy to be effective you need to find the right counselor. This means that you will need to ensure that you ask the right questions. You need to find someone who has had experience in dealing with loss for a few years.

You also need to ensure that you look at the recommendations for the counselor you are choosing. This is a lot of work when you are going through grief and you can get help finding a good therapist if you consult your doctor or ask for recommendations from friends.

Find out if you can have a few consultation sessions with your therapist ahead of time to see if they are a good fit for you. You need to find someone who is not just experienced and qualified but someone whose personality is a good match for yours.

It doesn't make any sense for you to go to counseling about your grief with a therapist you are not comfortable with.

Start the Healing Journey

Going through the loss of a loved one can be extremely painful. However, if you find that you are not slowly starting to heal even over long periods, it may be necessary to speak to a grief counselor so you can get the help you need to start living your life once again.

While you will never be able to completely get over the death of a loved one, moving forward and remembering the good times is necessary if you want to continue living a healthy life. If you need help you should not be afraid to ask for it. There is nothing wrong with needing a helping hand to cope with grief.  

I was beating myself up for the past couple of days because I was dreading having to write my traditional year-end blog post. Writing this today is already a day late, as I was used to publishing it on the last day of the year, but I figured no one else may care anyway.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And so here comes my end of 2021 blog post, one of the most difficult I have had to write, for one of the - if not the - most difficult and challenging year I have had. 

I lost my Tatay in June of this year, and even after six months I can't say I have grieved completely. Sometimes I am busy with something and suddenly remember, and it's whiplash all over again. I still get crying spells sometimes, and they get triggered by various things. I still can't bring myself to open our text messages and Messenger thread again.

It's uncanny how news of the death of Hollywood legend Betty White somehow gave me comfort today, because of what she said in an old interview.

In a 2012 TimesTalks conversation with New York Times columnist Frank Bruni, White said she found "nothing" difficult about getting older, citing her mother's own optimistic approach to death.

"My mother had a wonderful approach to death," White said. "She always thought of it as — she said, 'We know we have managed to find out almost anything that exists, but nobody knows ... what happens at that moment when it's over.'

She continued: "And she said, 'It's the one secret that we don't know.' So whenever we would lose somebody very close and very dear, she would always say, 'Well, now he knows the secret.' And it took the curse off of it somehow."

Thank you, Betty White. ♡ 

“Never. We never lose our loved ones. They accompany us; they don’t disappear from our lives. We are merely in different rooms.” - Paulo Coelho

My Tatay's death felt to me like Comet Dibiasky from the movie Don't Look Up, but the other big things that happened to me deserve to be mentioned as well.

This year I:

• moved out. I started living independently more than ten years ago, but this was the first time I truly felt like I live in an adult apartment
• quit my old job. After another day of working until past 1AM, I threw caution to the wind and sent in my resignation letter even without a new job waiting for me. I figured it was time I say yes to myself.
• proved that big risks offer big rewards. A new job snapped me up right away and I've never been happier and more fulfilled in my professional career.
• learned how to cook and bake. As I said, I started living independently more than ten years ago but I only learned how to cook and bake recently. I started learning in 2020, but my repertoire vastly improved this year. Thanks to my oven and my cooking bestie, my Instant Pot.