The big boy finally got around to change his auto insurance policy after being told repeatedly that he was paying way too much. He contacted several providers and asked each one of them for an auto insurance quote.
After comparing, sure enough, he was able to get one that cost less than half of what he was paying previously! I was tempted to say “I told you so.”, but bit my tongue and said “That’s good!” :-)
One of my hobbies is sewing and I am quite an addict to fabrics. There is something about the texture and the weave of different fabrics that intrigued me and I ended up collecting them faster than I can sew them into something.
With a cabinet full of fabrics, I dare not buy more, at least not until I use up some of the fabrics first. But that doesn’t stop me from drooling at this Robert Allen fabrics.:-)
Can you imagine how the final product made of this lustrous and sumptuous fabrics will look and feel like? Can you imagine the luster and supple feel of silk on your skin? Your sofa will never look the same with this designer decorative fabrics!
Though I started the lazy weekend on slow speed, gotta do some house cleaning and tidy up the mess too since the part time cleaner did not show up on Friday.
So the day went into high speed after brunch. Get the laundry out and cleaned up a little but didn’t finish the job.:-) But I ran a blogathon for 2 hours, churned out quite a few paid posts on various blogs. It’s quite a productive weekend, I must say.
We have two HP printers, one is the all-in-one printer that can be used as scanner, copier and facsimile machine and the other one is a monochrome laser printer. We bought the all-in-one machine first, thought we can use it as facsimile machine.
However, we never did use it as a facsimile machine because the ink cartridges cost a bomb, even with cheap HP ink that we bought! It was not cost effective use this machine for printing or faxing because one ink cartridge can only print less than 100 pages before it went out.
We then bought the monochrome laser printer, though the toner cartridges are equally expensive, but at least it lasts, it usually can print up to 2000 pages before it needs replacement. So, we found the monochrome laser printer to be more cost effective for our printing needs (which seldom requires color printing) and some more it gives better printing quality.
So we wanted to sell the all-in-one printer now. We try to put it on Ebay. We used to get some computer parts from Ebay. They are people who sell all sort of used computer parts or accessories and used cisco too. We hope they are people who are looking for this kind of used all-in-one printer !
It has been months that I have a chance to sleep in during the weekend, it’s such a luxury and nice feeling to sleep until you are awake naturally.:-)
Started today slow because I didn’t get up until 10.30 a.m. Went for a walk, the weather is really good. Too lazy to cook, so just grabbed two slices of breads, ate them with orange juice and a bowl of cereal, that’s my boring brunch of a lazy weekend.
My friend Anna is organizing a Valentine’s dinner and inviting all the couples in the church to join her and her husband for a romantic dinner and dance. She has booked the upper floor of the magnificent Majestic Hotel in town and got a very good rate for the candlelight dinner. It’s a pity that the big boy is not here and we won’t be able to join them.
Well, though we are currently being separated physically by circumstances, we still do exchange gifts on Valentine’s day. The big boy usually gets me some romantic Valentine’s gifts (a.k.a. junks), whereas he usually gets practical gifts from me.
Haven’t decided what gifts to get him. Did find some Bestbuy coupon codes and Target coupon codes online. If I decide to order things from Bestbuy or Target, this online shopping coupons will be handy to get great gifts.
My consolation for this year’s Valentine’s Day is : this is going to be our last year of being separated on Valentine’s day and the reunion has a date.
Met an interesting character today, or should I say an interesting couple. The man looks like he is in his early 50s and the woman late 30s or early 40s. They are both retired from full time work. In fact, the man sold his private medical practice and is not working currently. Though the woman was an accountant, she is currently a SAHM.
He must have gotten married after his retirement because they have a 2 years old baby!! They live a huge house with every modern gadget under the sun. The little girl’s room is so high tech and they probably spend a lot of money on the interior decor of the baby room and the baby bedding. I heard the man was wise with his money management and smart investment strategies, he had accumulated enough wealth to be able to retire before his retirement age.
Sound so unconventional, don’t they?
Surely we have heard more cultural conversations about today’s metrosexual man and the increasing urbanized male population who are fashion conscious, sophisticated and metropolitan. Should we even be surprised or wonder why men’s jewelry is approaching center stage in the fashion world?
But what kind of jewelry do modern men want? What catches their eye? As more men are at ease and confident enough to wear the tateossian bracelets, necklaces, or rings, many are also not afraid to show their desire to parade their identity.
I guess more varied forms of jewelry will become socially acceptable for them and to the ladies whom they try to impress. Anyway, if your man wears any jewelry, it will be so easy for you to get a gift for him! :-)
It’s a known fact that most banks derived majority of their profits from all the miscellaneous fees they charged. We have maintained a current account and a mortgage with this particular bank since 2003. We noticed on the statements that we were charged an extra service charge monthly.
We called the bank to clarify, was told that if the account balance goes below a fixed amount, they would charge a service charge. Alright, since they said so, we started adhere to their minimum amount requirement, but we still get the service charge in the statements!
Then, we checked with our friend, we found out they were not charged the same fee even though they have the same current account and mortgage, they were also not required to maintain a minimum amount to get the fee waiver, like we were told. We are mad that they lied to us about that being one of the standard charges in the new tariff introduced.
We are going to write to them to request for a refund, if we don’t get it, we are prepared to get lengthy with them, maybe report to the Bank Bureau or the Central Bank. It’s not a lot of money, maybe less than 200 bucks. They may think most consumers are too occupied to send numerous correspondences for that little money. But they need to be told it’s wrong to charge fees as they like it.
During the recent move, I cleaned out the closets and dressers, sent all the clothes that I could no longer fit in to the recycled center and threw away all the expired cosmetics. I don’t have even a lipstick around the house now.
When working in the city, it’s customary to wear make up and heels to work, because nobody wants to be the odd one out there! But, ever since I moved back to this small town, I gladly follow what the majority of women do here - stopped putting on make up and wear flat shoes to work.
After years of lack of practice, I definitely need to learn how to put on make up again! Also got some natural skin care products to slow down the aging process. :-) In fact, neglected aging skin is crying out for attention. I am one lazy bum when it comes to applying make up and skincare, the simplest steps and the quickest will do the trick!
Since the part time cleaner couldn’t come this week, I got to get my bum off the computer chair and start cleaning and organizing today. It seems like I have tons of errands to run in the afternoon too.
I need to stop by the bank to deposit a check received a week ago and got to stop by the post office to mail a parcel to an ex-student who had requested some materials. The CD writer at home won’t work, need to stop by the computer store to ask the guy there to duplicate some audio files for the classroom use.
Also need to get the ball rolling for a few other things i.e. take the passport sized photos for renewing the passport and background check required for the Visa application. The first form that we need to file is still pending waiting for me to gather all the documents.
The big boy can be as stubborn as a cow sometime, he never uses a hand free! If I happened to call when he was driving, he would ask me to call back later because he can’t drive and talk.
I have told him to get a hand free Bluetooth headset, but a year later he still hasn’t bought it. He doesn’t want to know such thing called “hand free”. Would you be fed up? But, I choose not to. If I want him to have a hand free Bluetooth device, the only way is probably to place an order at the site that sells Cheap Cell Phone Accessories and have it delivered to him anonymously.:-)
Another annoying thing is: the signals at his parents’ house are very weak, I could hardly hear him if I happened to call him when he was there. Unless they decide to install the cell phone repeater, the only way for us to have a decent phone conversation is for him to call me back on the house phone. But, that’s always understood, he would rather speak louder on the cell phone, as though volume make a difference! :-)
On the way to pick up the part time cleaner, got a text message from her that she won’t be able to come today. Since I was already out of the door and was just about 5 minutes away from my parents, I stopped by their place instead.
Mom is doing spring cleaning in preparation for CNY. She dug out all the book collections that my sisters and I left behind. She was rearranging them on the shelves and asking whether she can give or throw some of them away. I picked up some of my books and told her to send to the recycling center. But, I couldn’t stay long, the cleaning stirred up so much dust in the air, causing watering eyes and itchy nose, and I was sneezing non stop. Well, we really should get some of our reading materials in the form of downloadable audio books, not only can we “read” while driving, it can reduce the above dilemma and save the trees. :-)
Do you subscribe to magazines or you get them from the news stands? I used to subscribe to some of the fashion magazines when I was in my 20s. But, nowadays, I would only browse the glossy women’s and fashion magazines at the bookstore, the library or the hairdressers. I find them too expensive to purchase monthly, even with a subscription, they cost a bomb.
Do you know that it’s possible to get magazine subscriptions online for a fraction of the cost! I didn’t know that until I look at this site, I am absolutely amazed at the low prices. Take reader digest and National Geographic for example, the subscription for 12 issues costs $9.49 (less than $0.80 per issue ?) and $34.58 respectively, which is a huge saving off the newsstand price. Ermm, maybe I should hint hint for a subscription of my favorite magazines for the Valentine’s or birthday.
Though it may look like I couldn’t be that busy with three days and 14 hours of teaching, the work at home job has been keeping me occupied this days. Have been really busy finishing up assignments, creating new sites and blogs, troubleshooting CPU overloading problem, migrating blog on subdomain to a new domain and experimenting with other ways of making money online.
Since we have decided to sell the tutoring business and move to IL, making money online will be the main transitional job that keep me busy until I get a “real” job. If work at home turns out fine, I may not even go look for a job outside the home when we are in IL. Since the big boy is making enough to pay bills, it’s time for me to take a backseat and work at more relax pace. I need to recuperate from working my butt off running a tutoring center and a preschool! :-)
Have you ever used dry shampoo to clean your hair? I have learned about it several years ago but have never actually seen an actual bottle nor used it.
I know many Chinese people observed a taboo of not washing their hair with water for several weeks after delivering a baby. The taboo is observed with the belief that exposing yourself to water too soon will cause rheumatism and arthritis later in life. I don’t know if that belief has some basis, but I cannot imagine washing my hair for a couple of days, what more a couple of weeks! I would think a bottle of Spray Powder shampoo is going to be handy in this situations, don’t you think?
If you have wavy hair with very active oil glands like me, you will understand the meaning of “bad hair day” whenever you can’t wash your hair daily due to whatever circumstances you are in.
I remember during a trip to Cambodia and Vietnam many years ago, we took a taxi (which is a pick-up truck) from Phnom Penh to the border of Vietnam (I can’t remember the name of the town). The whole journey took us about 12 hours. The pick up truck rocked so much as it ran through paddy fields, potholes and unpaved roads, which stirred up so much dust we couldn’t even open our eyes. Even though we wore scarves to keep our hair from the dust, by the time we reached the destination 12 hours later, our hairs were caked.
The worst was not that, we discovered that the whole town was having a temporarily water cut due to some road construction work that day when we arrived at the guest house. After wearing a scarf and a hat all day, our hair were in a mess, not to mention the dust that caked on the hair. We bought a few bottles of drinking water and washed our hair with the water! How we wished we had known about Salon Grafix Spray Powder Shampoo then!
This reminds me that we need to keep a bottle of Salon Grafix Spray Powder Shampoo in our carry on luggage the next time when we travel to places like that. Do you know we can even order the shampoo to match the color of our hair ? I think it’s also a must to have if anyone would want to have clean shining hair without grease after being on a trans-continentals flight for more than 20 hours!
Have you ever own a Mac? I mean Macintosh Apple computer, not McDonald hamburger.:-)
We have decided that we are going to leave behind the desktop and the very archaic laptop, no way we are going to lug them to IL. We would probably give away the 3 years old desktop to my father. Maybe my little brother whose last computer died on him recently would want it? My ex-colleague has been looking for an archaic laptop for his experiment, I would probably let him has it.
We plan to get a new computer when we are in IL. I have never own a Mac and naturally my choice will be a PC that I am more familiar with. But, the big boy had a chance to play with his father’s Mac recently, he thinks it’s a cool machine to have. If you own a Mac currently or in the past , what do you think?
My 10 years nephew is growing so fast, he is going to be taller than his mother and all three of his aunts in a year or two. It’s hard to imagine the baby boy we used to babysit is going to be a grown up man in no time.
Currently, he is going through growth spurts and have extremely good appetite, he has grown so tall, all his long pants look like Capri. It’s also due to long hours in school and a sedate lifestyle that mostly spent in front of the idiot box and computer. He has put on consider amount of weight in the last year, he has a belly now.
His mother was complaining that he needed a new pair of shoes every three months! Even his karate uniform needs to be replaced since it’s too tight and obstruct movement now. You know the karate uniforms are usually loose fitting and have rooms for growth. But, he has outgrown the uniform that he has since he was 7 years old. I don’t think he worries about being overweight, but his mother wants him to watch what he eats and his dad teased about buying the best diet pill for him. I do not know about the diet part, but I think the karate practice is good in keeping him active once a week.
Our neighbor on the right are an old couple who are retirees. They live very simple and frugal life. We knew they worked hard and were great savers when they were young. We also knew that they bought their current residence with cash!
They asked me to explain a letter from the land office and to help with a tendency agreement recently, so I learned that they have several rental properties that bring them residue income every month. You would not be able to tell from their humble outlooks that they own several properties around town and their net worth is over several millions!
My little brother who works in the bank selling personal loans told me that his clients are mostly high income earners who have a few big cars and big house in payments and have maxed out their credit cards. (In another words, they are in debt up to their nose) So, never judge a book by its cover, nor a person by the car she/he drives or the way he/she dresses.:-)
One of the things that the big boy repeatedly told me on the phone: the cold weather in IL is going to be harsh for me. It’s definitely going to be tough for a person who can’t stand the “cold” of an air-conditioned room in the tropical weather. The last time I live in a cold weather was in VA, even though we hardly get snow there, I was all wrapped up and layered.
The day temperature in IL right now is about 20 F( -8 C, about 8 degree Celsius below freezing point) during the daytime and lower at night. What do you think I am moving over only after April, when it gets a little warmer?:-)
One of the first things we need to do is to get some warm socks and leggings for me. I think I may need them even during the spring. The temperature can still hover around 50 F (about 12 C) in May, and that’s “cold” for me. It is definitely going to take a few years for me to get used to the cold weather in IL.
My friends often ask me how are my in laws are doing since I told them sometime ago that they were dealing with cancers. They probably imagine my in laws are at their sick beds with no hope of cure.
In fact, it’s quite the opposite, both of them have gone through various cancer treatments. (spent tones of money on top of their health insurance coverage). Currently, MIL’s cancer has been in remission for a few years and PIL’s cancer is dormant. They do not look like they are not sick but they live very active lifestyles.
They have sold their house in CA, moved to IL, where they were originally from and most of the relatives live. They live in a retirement community, have many friends and are actively involved in clubs and organizations that they are members. The duplex apartment they bought is quite spacious and nice. The big boy likes to hang around at their basement watching his favorite games.:-)
My MIL likes music, she plays piano and sings in the church. My FIL still works part time, and recently started writing a newspaper column with a daily again. Both of them travel together quite often for leisure and to printing shows. (FIL is a hobby printer) We do hope they can stay healthy like this and enjoy their retirement after working hard all those years.
I never have pimples when I was growing up, I guess I am lucky to spare the agony of those unsightly acnes that some of my school mates had. I was pretty confident I won’t have skin problems!
But, you can have acne at any age. Acne is not an adolescent problem alone. Right now, two decades later, due to all the hormonal changes that associate with the ovarian cysts, I started to have pimples. They are really mild compare to what many people have, it is not even too noticeable, and typically only comes and disappear with the PMS. I can count myself lucky as I do not have to deal with pimply face and skin problems.
Acne during your teenage years can be embarrassing and a blow to your developing self image and confidence. Adult acne not only is an annoyance, it can leave lasting physical and psychological effects as well. You wish that it was all over and here you are in your 30s still suffering from acne.
For those seeking tips to prevent acne or information on acne treatment, check out acne.com, all the necessary information about acne is available on it. You can find various causes and effects, types, preventative measures, and common myths and claims on acne, so do surf over and find out.
Remember, acne cause more damages to our child’s esteem than we thought. So, deal with it correctly. One of the greatest myth is chocolate cause acne. Well, contrary to popular belief, chocolate does not cause acne. So if you are missing out on foods which were wrongly thought to cause acne, all the more you need to find out more about the myth of acne and be enlightened! :-)
After reading about Joyce’s Giddy giddy chicken stew, I have been craving for the comforting chicken stew and wanting to cook it. I didn’t have time to do grocery shopping last two days. This morning, I dug out some ingredients from the refrigerator, realized that though lack of some ingredients, I still have enough ingredients to cook chicken stew.
So, here is my version of chicken stew.
The chicken stew that my mom cooked called for potatoes and dried mushrooms. But I only have fresh mushrooms and some corns on the cobs that were intended for chicken soup. I dumped all into the stew and ended up having a big pot of chicken stew for 3-4 person, which I planned to share with my parents when I go to their place in the evening.
2 chicken breasts and 2 drumsticks (cut into bite size)
2 carrots (skinned and cut into about 1/2″ length)
2 corns (cut into 3-4 parts)
1 package of fresh mushroom (500g) (cut into two)
2 onions (sliced)
3 shallots (sliced)
1 teaspoon of bean paste (optional)
1) Heat up the wok, fry the shallots until a little brownish
2) Add in the bean paste, keep stirring until fragrance.
3) Add in the chicken, stir fry a little bit.
4) Add in the rest of of the ingredients, stir until the juice start boiling.
5) Lower the temperature and let it simmer for about 20 minutes.
6) Add salt to taste. (I don’t add salt coz I used the bean paste)
This is an easy no brainer recipes that tastes good and make you feel comforting especially on a cold day.:-)
We had a frightening experience few years back. While driving on the highway in full speed, a pebble or a tiny hard stuff hit the windshield. The whole windshield turned into spider web lookalike crack lines.
My friend KE who was driving the car got us down, he broke the windshield completely. Then he drove us back home in the car without the windshield before he drove to the workshop to get the windshield replaced. He drove really slowly and carefully, but if you ask me, the 45 minutes drive in a car without the windshield was quite scary!
We should have just called a friend to pick us up. We should have called the toll service or let the technicians from the workshop pick up the car. Do you know that places that do repair and replacement of auto glasses like Minneapolis auto glass can have their certified technician come to wherever you may be? They can pick up the vehicle and return to you the same day if needed!
This site and in fact all my blogs hosted on Wordpress have been experiencing CPU overload issues recently. Did you get the error page that tells you the blog is experiencing a high loading issues when you tried to access my blogs in the last few days?
It’s a pain in the butt, still in the midst of troubleshooting the cause(s). The support staff of the host company said it may be due to poor execution of the plugins or high traffics. So it’s deduced that it’s the plugin issues, because no way my blogs will have overloading problems due to high traffics. :-)
I turned off every plugin on every blog ( 5 of the blogs are hosted on the same hosting plan) and activated them one by one, the process is tedious and it takes time! Still haven’t figured out which plugin is the culprit, but haven’t seen the error page since this morning, so the plugins turned on so far passed the tests!
You might have heard of pay-per-click or pay per action advertising, but have you heard of pay per play advertising? It’s a relatively new way of online advertising, and for webmasters and blog owners alike, another way to make money online!
In a nutshell, you get paid for playing the Net Audio Ads on your site for every impression. How this work? A short five second audio clip will automatically turn on when a visitor arrives at your website or blog. This super short commercial may not be annoying, but I do think you need to have above average traffics to get paid reasonably well.
NetAudioAds™ claims that it has over 66,000 advertisers and over 550,000 websites responsible for up to 43 million impressions the 5 second audio ads on a monthly basis and their list of advertisers included household names like Taco Bell and Harley Davidson.
They currently have a lucrative affiliate program which allows any sites to sign up to share in the affiliate revenues. This program will cease come February 1, 2008, so you have two more weeks to decide whether you are game to try it!
Well, why not take a look and try it? Who knows it will be the next big thing. After all, what have we got to lose?
Yesterday, I went down to the land office to pay for this year’s property tax. Was told the rebates for the last three years were not included and they are including them to offset this year’s property tax.
Whatever that mean! We are glad we can claim the credit, we don’t have to pay a cent out of the pocket this time. Though in actual sense, we have prepaid our property tax for 3 years because this people at the land office screwed up the calculation last three years.:-)
Credit card debts accumulated through uncontrolled consumerism and medical expenses are the two major reasons that caused many people have their credit score ruined or went into bankruptcy.
With poor credit score, people end up only qualified for bad credit loans when it’s time to apply for homeloans. This bad credit loans which typically have higher interest rate. It’s not surprised that they may end up in a vicious cycle. It maybe “normal” to be in debt, and many normal people are in debt up to their eyeballs. But being in debt makes a slave because you no longer have the freedom to use your money the way you prefer. It certainly takes a lot of will, discipline and courage to slay the debt monster in our modern society.
Everyone especially the insurance agent will tell us it’s important to be insured. But, do you know that many of us are sold the whole life policies or investment linked policies, which are only good for the agents who sold them? Sadly, over 70% of the life insurance policies sold today are cash value policies. A cash value policy is an insurance product that packages insurance and savings together.
If a married man is the main bread winner, what he needs is a 20 years term life insurance. Term life insurance is an affordable life insurance, it costs only a fraction of what you pay for a cash value policy. You can invest the difference using other means. Do not invest money in life insurance; the returns are horrible. Your insurance person will show you wonderful projections, but none of these policies perform as projected. That also means when the 20-year term is up, the man shouldn’t need life insurance at all - because with no kids to feed, no house payment, and retirement fund saves up, his spouse will just have to suffer through if he die without insurance.
No matter what the insurance agents tell you, insurance policies are for assurance, they are horrible choices as investment. Do you know of anyone who got rich with insurance and still alive? Yes, many, the ones who sold them!
An old schoolmate has been bugging us about investing in a retirement fund for several months now. We told her that we would take a look at it when we have a chance to do so. Since she has been visiting us quite persistently, we decided to take a look at the sheets that she passed to us last week.
She told us that the retirement fund is better than CD or fixed time deposit because it’s guaranteed 6% return. We did a little calculations [Well, this is a rare occasion that my background in Mathematics comes in handy.:-)] and discovered that she didn’t tell us the whole truth.
She told me that we need to invest a certain amount for 10 years, then we can either take out the money after 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, 25 years, or leave the money there but take out a fixed sum annually until we die or when we reach 81 years old. What she didn’t tell was: the 6 % return that she quoted is for the last case scenario, that’s when you leave the money there until you die!
If you would take out the money at the end of 10 years, the return of your 10 years investment is just a miserable 2% !! It’s worst than CD!! The lesson learned here is: you should never trust what a sales person tells you without reading up and looking at the fine prints.
