Leah’s Cafe

After a few weeks of trying to get quotations from the contractors referred by friends. I get frustrated and decided to do something about it today. I drove around the neighborhood, spotted a house that undergoing renovation, parked my car, went in and asked to speak with their boss.

The boss was not there but he was nearby, so they gave me his phone number, I called him and he appeared at my door within 10 minutes. He took the measurement and gave me a quotation. Apart from the efficiency, his price is less than half of what the other contractor quoted me!! Guess whether we are going to hire him? LOL

It seems like this people do not have a standard price and just simply charge what they fancy. We have gotten four quotations so far, one of them is over 2000, two are in the range of 1600, and the one that we decided to hire is below 1000, go figure. Well, it certainly pays to compare and shop around.

When hubby told me how much he is paying for his car insurance, I nearly fainted. I am pretty sure he is paying way too much and there are ways he can find a better deal if he shops around. He just didn’t bother to ask for insurance quotes or compare car insurance from a few places to get the best deal. He probably just took the first thing that he stumbled upon and never even read the small prints. That’s my man, who find number crunching too challenging a task.

We have a lot of bills already in our life, and paying for car insurance that cost a bit more is not high on our priorities list. Anyway, to be a smart consumer, we should always compare and shop around to get better deal. The Internet certainly does make it easier for that. We can check out insurance comparison sites that have done all the leg work for us.

We no longer have to make a dozen calls to all the insurance companies or brokers asking them to send quotes one by one. It’s easy to find affordable, cheap car insurance that’s still of the same quality as that policy you’re paying more for. Check out the links and start saving yourself some money on your auto insurance. And I told hubby, for the next renewal, getting car insurance will be my job.

I have not gotten out of the door since yesterday. I cook whatever leftover in the fridge for lunch and ate the same for dinner. I read all the blog entries in the Google reader but didn’t jump out to comment. Not in a very social mode, that’s for sure !

When I announced to the parents of students that the center would be closed for a month, everyone assumed I would be flying over to meet hubby in IL for Christmas.:- )Unfortunately, we would be spending our Christmas apart again this year.

The original plan was for him to fly back here so that we can celebrate Christmas together. Though a bit disappointed that he would not be coming back here as planned, the brighter side of thing is that he is working a lot of hours at a better paying job. I am looking forward to visit him next spring when the weather gets warmer!

My sister’s boyfriend works in the UK and they have been in this long distance relationship for more than two years. My mother is nagging her to death about the current arrangement. She wants them to get married and my sister to apply for a transfer to work at her company’s headquarter in London.

My sister is very career minded. She has no plan to settle now in the near future yet. She thinks she is still too young to settle down and she wants to give her career more attention right now. Well, she is not exactly young, she is going to be 30 next year. My advice for her was: if she thinks she has met the person that she wants to marry, it’s better for her to start thinking seriously about the relocation.

At the end of the day, whether they decide to start looking for houses to buy or looking for properties to rent would depend on where they work and what are their long term plans i.e. to stay in the UK permanently or to move home after a few years. If both of them are going to work in London and they do not plan to live there for good, I guess they would just look for flats to rent as temporary shelter until they decide where to settle down.

My cousin Veronica recently got married and had a grand wedding reception with 500 guests. It was a big event, I thought my cousin must have hired a wedding planner to do the job as her father could certainly afford it. When I found out she single-handedly organizing the whole event by herself, I wanted to take my hat off and give her a salute, man. (never mind that I was not wearing a hat) :-)

The most amazing thing was, there was no hiccup at all throughout the wedding. From the guest sitting arrangement to all the unique wedding favors she has prepared, everything just flow so smoothly. I told Veronica that if I ever get married again (opps..), she will be my wedding planner.:-)

My friend Jo runs a non-profit organization for unwed mothers and single mothers just called. She wants to know whether I can take in a teenage girl who is 6 months pregnant for a week while they setup a place for her.

They started a help line that provide counseling for unwed mothers few months ago and the response was overwhelming. I think Jo underestimated the physical needs for shelters for this unwed mothers who are mostly teenage girls from dysfunctional families. While Jo is getting more volunteers to set up a shelter, she is calling us to help to take them in temporary.

Many of us who are middle class live in our comfort zone and never realize that they are many people who are destitute and need God unless we get involve with them. They are many ways one can get involved with a ministry that helping the marginalized groups of people in our society.

One way you can help is to get involve with the Car Donation Ministry (www.carangel.com) to help the single mothers, homeless, troubled teens, adult rehab and prison reform. You can Donate a Car and they will use it to raise fund to spear head projects for the groups of people they are involved with. The current project is using the car donations to raise fund for creating Free Children’s DVDs, anti-drug documentaries and distributing uplifting books into prisons.

Nowadays, people may not get much from selling their old cars and hence, find it more meaningful to do a good cause. Car Donations have become the choice of a lot of people considering the amount of work one has to deal with if they dispose off their cars to used car dealers. Sometimes, one end up wasting a lot of time plus the stresses of putting up ads, finding willing buyers and getting rid of the car. Why not get involve with a worthy cause and get help to dispose your car at the same time?

In addition, it will help you with saving in tax. You will receive your IRS tax deduction. Now, isn’t that a good reason? You help someone and at the same time, you get a tax deduction. On top of that, the Car Angel Ministries will take care of the paperworks.

I hope you will go over and learn more. If it compels you, please do share the link with your friends.

Two more classes tomorrow and Friday, then I would be done for the year. Since I started the tutoring center three years ago, this is the first time that I am taking a month break at the end of the year.

Enough of  teaching non-stop whole year round and running holiday program during the school break!! It’s time to close the center for a month and take a break, thanks to all the extra income from blogging, I can afford to do that!