About Me & This Blog
Hi, I’m Margarita. I am a self-employed mom of 3, trying to run and grow highly successful and self-sustaining businesses while staying home and raising my kids in an attempt to prevent them from turning into serial killers by practicing on each other.
I was born and raised in the Philippines. I lived there until I was 22. I speak 2.5 languages. I am proficient in English & Tagalog. I can read & write Mandarin (if I have an English-Chinese dictionary beside me), and speak Mandarin only if you talk really sssllooowwww (that counts for 1/2, right?). I also know Spanish from watching Dora the Explorer & Go, Diego, Go (does that matter?). I am an aspiring vegetarian, always think I need to loose 5 lbs., hate wearing socks, and do not like answering my cellphone or watching movies twice.
I spent a good chunk of my life thinking I will end up with a career or a business in the food service industry. I graduated college with a degree in Hotel and Restaurant Administration, and went on further for an Associate Degree from the California Culinary Academy (chef school) where I graduated at the top of my class. I did a brief stint at Starbucks as a manager (which I hated…plus I don’t drink coffee), and another one at Panera Bread as a baker (did you know they work from 10 pm-7 am??). After owning and running my first restaurant with my husband in Knoxville, TN, I started to think I didn’t want to cook for a living. A few months later, my husband and I opened a franchised restaurant. After a few months of that, I finally REALLY convinced myself that I didn’t want to deal with food any longer. Plus, I started having babies. Yes, I can cook, and bake any kind of cake known to man. Just don’t ask me to do dishes.
I stumbled upon my current businesses by accident in 2004. In trying to find ways to entertain myself during the quiet moments of my first baby’s infancy (a.k.a. before he figured out how to walk & talk), I learned to make cloth diapers. I used to sew my own dresses back in high school, and my mom taught me how to make sewing patterns. With much encouragement from my husband, I created Swaddlebees starting with just 2 products. It now offers over 20 different diaper styles and cloth diapering accessories in a wide variety of colors and is distributed all over the world & the US through more than 120 online retailers, distributors and brick & mortar stores. Blueberry Diapers, on the other hand, did NOT start with such humble beginnings. Knowing that there is already a growing market for modern cloth diapers, I created Blueberry Diapers to “test” the limits of this market to see how far I can grow my share of it. I’m always into trying to do things differently and not always doing what everyone else is doing. Sometimes it turns out good, other times, it comes to bite me in the ass.
My ultimate goal for being in business…whatever industry I’m in, is not only so I can feed my kids and buy them shoes once in a while, but to also be able to contribute something to society using the resources available to me, and to help provide jobs and a means of income for those that help us reach our goals. Now whether or not I am able to accomplish that efficiently and effectively is a different story. 
About This Blog
This blog is about my journey as a work at home mom. I like to think of myself as a Cloth Diaper Mogul, just because it sounds so ridiculous and cool at the same time. And there’s hardly anybody else in the world that can claim that title, except for maybe a handful of other people. First of all, who uses cloth diapers anyway? And secondly, who becomes a mogul from cloth diapers??? You’d be surprised at the answers to both questions. Even with the trials, tribulations & successes I’ve achieved to date, I am still far far away from world domination. I have always had businesses since I was in high school, and over the years, I’ve observed a lot of businesses come and go and succeed and fail. With women starting their own businesses twice the rate of men, it is my hope that I will be able to impart some important lessons and practical ideas I’ve learned from having been involved in more than a few businesses of my own, with the current one being a multi-million dollar enterprise. But beyond the fame, fortune and all the luxuries of life that we usually try to achieve, this is about living consciously, and taking responsibility for one’s own destiny. I want to encourage other women to do the same, to find your own power and light your fire, yet be mindful of what you do (and don’t do) and how it can affect your environment and the lives of people you touch.
This blog is also dedicated to all the women around the world who find themselves in a situation where they are juggling the many responsibilities of being a mom, a wife, a working mom, a businessmom, or contemplating on being any or all of the above while still maintaining your own identity, sanity and living a fulfilled life. Yes, it’s hard, and sometimes you just need to read something hopefully informative, inspiring, or maybe just to give you the satisfaction that your kids are better behaved, smarter, or better-looking than mine. Too often we all fall into the trap of trying to do too much in the pursuit of perfection. We try to fill that role of being the supermom or the superwoman and put unnecessary stress on ourselves trying to achieve the almost impossible that society sometimes imposes on us.
While having a business with young kids is usually a recipe for chaos, it doesn’t always have to turn into a disaster.
