My WAHMderful Weekend

I so love being a WAHM! If you’re a regular reader of mine, you’d already know that by now. The thing is, my success (if you want to call it that) as a WAHM has a lot to do with a group of very supportive ladies that comprise our Manila Work-at-Home Moms Facebook group.

Around this time last year, I attended the first ever WAHM workshop organized by Martine of DaintyMom.com and Manila Workshops.  I had just started WAHM-ing part time then. I remember it being so inspiring, eye-opening, WAHMderful experience. It helped me so much that I joined all but one of the WAHM workshops this year.

Fast forward to last Sunday,Oct. 27, our WAHMderful community came together to celebrate its first anniversary during the WAHMderful Weekend held at the SMX at SM Aura. I was super excited! I couldn’t wait to see my WAHM friends again and also to finally meet in the flesh those who I’ve only met online through our group. Here’s a group photo of the attendees.

The speakers were all so inspiring. Apa Alviar talked about The Heart of the WAHM. He gave us a life purpose exercise wherein we were taught how to craft our own life purpose statement. I sort of have one already but it still needs some work, I think.

The next part of the event was the WAHMderful panel of REAL WAHMS, featuring my friends Patty and Michelle plus ME! Yup, I was part of the panel! Oh my gosh, it was so nerve-wracking. It was my first time on any kind of panel ever so I was so nervous. I tried to share as much as I could given the time limit. I was only able to share a little though and was kind of hoping there was more time to share more of my experience, but that is partly what this blog is about anyway. Haha! I just hope that the WAHMs and wannabe-WAHMs in the audience learned something valuable from me. Would I join a panel again in the future? I just might. Maybe next time I won’t be so nervous anymore.

The afternoon session started  was all about the Hands of the WAHM. It started with Ginger, the mom behind Manila Workshops, who spoke about the Art of the “Raket”. She shared several of her AHA moments in terms of finding “rakets” and on being a WAHM in general. Not only does this lady have a lot of businesses, she also has a lot of sidelines. Amazing how she finds time to do everything.

After that, it was Yeng Remulla’s turn to speak. He is the award-winning author of the books Productive Pinoy and Start Something. I loved his talk about The Art of Starting, especially since I’m about to start something big (for me at least) in a few days. I actually won a copy of his book, Start Something. Of course, I had him sign it. I can’t wait to read the book!

The next part involved dividing the attendees into several groups for the huddle up sessions. I decided to join Jayme’s Website and Design huddle up, not really for myself but mostly for my hubby, who’s a part time graphic designer and who wants to be a work-at-home dad in the future. I’m so happy about the tips I got from Jayme and can’t wait to share them with the hubby. I just wish there was more time to discuss details.

Of course, our WAHM events won’t be complete without a talk from Martine. This time around she talked about The Heart and Hands of the Work-at-Home Mom. She shared with us how to marry  our “heart” with our “hands” as work-at-home moms.

It was such a fun event! The sponsors gave away a lot of stuff too. I went home with a big paper bag full of loot from the event.There were booths to check out. There were lots of photo ops with the other WAHMs. Haha!

There was this really cute dessert buffet by Ala Mode. The desserts were yummy!

But the most enjoyable part was really spending time with my fellow WAHMs. Here’s the table I joined. I think we had the noisiest table there. Had a blast laughing and joking around with these ladies!

After the event, we even got a chance to have a couple of family pics courtesy of the official photographer, MRLightworkz Photography, owned by fellow WAHM and new friend, Millie and her hubby, Mike. They’re really nice pics, right?

I had blast! I can hardly wait for the next WAHMderful Weekend!