Leah’s Cafe

Was at the ATM machine withdrawing money, keyed in the PIN and amount to withdraw, got the beep beep sound and it said “wrong PIN” on the screen. Scratched head, keyed in PIN another time, got beep beep and “wrong PIN” showed up again.

OMG, I forgot the PIN numbers after not using it for a month. I dare not try another time, as the machine would swallow the card after three unsuccessful attempts! I would be in big trouble if the ATM card get swallowed, it’s not issued by a local bank and it belongs to the big boy !! I hope he remembers the PIN because he was the one who said birth dates are easy to hack and set it up with a string of hard to remember, unrelated numbers. :-)

My niece and nephew study in a semi-funded school. There are a few fund raising efforts being organized every year to cover the deficits. Last year, they were a bake sale, a food carnival and a concert being organized to raise funds for the school. Though this fund raising activities are good fund raisers, they certainly burdened the teachers and children. As they have to either sell the products or have to get people to support the fund raising events.

The board members and the administrators certainly need to learn how to raise money for schools and draw up some fund raising programs that will work effortlessly in the long run. I told my sister in law who is a committee member in the PTA about the innovative fund raiser program that the private school in town had adopted. It’s very similar to what Schoolpop has, though I have no idea whether this private school is affiliated with Schoolpop

Schoolpop has an innovative fund raising program that doesn’t require people to go out of their ways. People can financially support the school by doing what they normally- shopping. If people choose to shop at designated merchants and stores, part of the proceeds will go to the school. The school doesn’t have to do any selling, but receive a portion of the profits. Isn’t that a brilliant idea? If you are a school administrator or a member of the PTA, you may want to let the school board know of such program.

It’s two more days before Valentine’s day, but decided to open up the Valentine package anyway.

A card, a green bag and a box of Hershey kisses (chocolates) from my Valentino!

I called the red bag green not because I am color blind, though it looks like a small pocket book, it can turn into a shopping bag, thus  an environmental friendly bag that reduces the use of plastic bags. :-)

Included in the package also a few books that I have bought earlier, thinking that the big boy could bring back here as he was going to come back. He must also accidentally mail the Lunar New Year stamps  for the year of rat even though being told no one collects stamps any more. :-)

Are you into fashion handbags? They are indispensable pieces of accessory to match your most fashionable outfits, aren’t they? Most women have multiple pairs of shoes and are bordering obsessions when it comes to handbags, aren’t we? :-)

How many of us secretly wish to visit Italy, the famous fashion capitals for designer leather handbags so that we can shop until we drop? The charming and elegant European brand name Bolzano is now available in the North America, Asia, Central and South America. You can now have a taste of European fashion without having to travel to Europe !!

Each Bolzano’s handbag is designed to make astatement and hand stitch to perfect shapes and curves.

Don’t you think this impeccable tote is suitable to go anywhere, it’s perfect for work or taking it out for a weekend of fun!

The mail man was here about noon yesterday, while I was talking to the big boy on the phone. He handed me this package.

Whoa, the big boy was able to get the package out, mailed it and it arrived before the Valentine’s Day! I am going to say thank you and keep my mouth shut about everything else and not to nag about the bigger gifts for the US postal service. :-)

My friend GF lived and studied in Italy for a year, she took the opportunity to travel to many cities in Europe. She told us about her little adventures in Budapest and how she fell in love with the beautiful, uplifting and down-to-earth city.

The slide shows that she shared with us were full of the abiding impressions of buildings, streets, squares, the atmosphere and the feel of different place in Budapest. Indeed, Budapest has the sort of magnetic quality that attracted and charmed people, the city is peaceful and bustling, a big metropolis yet friendly, it treasures the old and embraces the new.

GF went with a group of classmates and they have opted to stay in apartments instead of Hotels. They were able to find some very affordable Budapest vacation rental though it was during the peak season. Many of us might have the impression that accommodations in European cities are not something that can be considered “affordable” especially Euro has appreciated so much in the last few years. Indeed, you would not believe it unless you check out www.apartmentsinbudapest.com !!

Unlike most families that do ancestor worship and major feasting on the second day, my family’s tradition is to do all these on the third day. My mom is a fast worker, by the time we got up at about eight, she has gotten everything done. She told us not to take breakfast because lunch was ready. We were eating lunch at 9 am !!!

However, this worked out really good for me, after all I didn’t have to skip lunch like I planned to. I was planning to go out at about half past nine to meet all the mummy bloggers at Pantai Puteri. Though I didn’t know where exactly Pantai Puteri is, since Miche said it’s near Klebang, I drove towards Klebang from my parents’ house. I have not traveled much on this route in the past ten years. Oh boy, the roads have changed a lot, they built a new highway that cut through some of the old towns. All the old shop houses along the way were demolished and the old towns disappeared, replaced by new housing areas.

I had to make a few U-turns and to finally got on the right track. Luckily, when I reached Klebang, there were road signs pointing towards Pantai Puteri and it was easy to find the place. Chinnee, Jesslyn and Miche were already there when I arrived, and Joanne arrived a bit later.

The children were happily running around playing with sand and picking the pine cones to create patterns on the beach.

I had a great time tasting all the different types of pineapple tarts that Chinnee and Miche brought along. I also learned to differentiate the ones made from margarine and the ones that made from butter. :-)

I forgot my camera in a hurry to rush out of the door in the morning, so I would go steal some photos from all the mummies later. :-)

Part of Illinois was hit by the worst ice storm last week and as much as 12-18″ of snow fall in many parts of Illinois. Temperature fell below O Fahrenheit or -32 Celsius at night!

The big boy was worried how a person who lived in the tropics her entire life (..yours truly) is going to adjust to this extreme weather. I told him jokingly that he can start stocking up  warm clothings and boots made from Emu Australia to keep me toasty.

Or he can get me an air ticket to fly home and stay until the cold winter is over. That way we can avoid turning the house into a big oven and paying through our nose for utility. For all you know, the utility may come up to be more expensive than an air ticket to fly home. :-)

We have not seen some of our rich cousins for years because they usually go for vacation during the festive season and don’t make it to the family gatherings.

They don’t usually come back to our hometown, seldom attend weddings or funerals, so it’s not surprising that the younger people won’t recognize them even if they bump into them on the streets.

I bet they probably book into places like Branson hotels that have golf course, so that their children and spouses are occupied while they play golfs. We also heard that they have gone for skiing trips in Europe during the CNY. Guess the rich doesn’t really need relatives. :-)

My sisters and I were too lazy to get out of the house to visit relatives and friends during the CNY, we would rather stay home watching DVDs while munching the cookies.

It’s not very often we get to sleep late, laze around the house, watching soaps on DVDs like no tomorrow. We have watched enough Hong Kong and Korean soaps for the year, I think.:-)

The Korean dramas were in Korean with captioning or in Mandarin. We had dad downloaded them for us quite some time ago but didn’t have the time to sit down to watch them. When else but CNY is a best time to go on a soap marathon? :-)

During our CNY gathering, two of my friends said they are tired of working for others and they are thinking of starting their own business.

It is definitely not easy to build your own business from scratch. It had been an uphill task for us running a small business of our own. We started off with our savings and went into some financial bind in the second year when business didn’t pick up as expected. Sleepless nights struggling with cash flow problem was not exactly what we would call fun.

It’s not that easy to get business funding from traditional lenders. Using revolving cash with credit cards will just be committing suicide, so our advice to our friends was make sure they have strong financial backup before going into business.. or even think about it.

It’s almost like a tradition, we have known each other since we were 7-8 years old, we would meet up on the second day of CNY. We do not have fixed agendas nor a fixed venue to meet, but we would get together and yak for half a day. This year, we have decided to meet at my house.

They are five of us, two work and live in Klang Valley and two work in Singapore, but all are back to our hometown. We were all singles for a long time, one of the reasons that the gatherings were able to go on for so long, as we do not have to deal with the in laws and out laws issues. :-) Two of us got married 3 years ago and the rest are still singles. The only status change this year:  one is pregnant with her first child. We were wondering whether she can make it to the gathering next year with a young child in tow.

We have started the annual gathering ever since we went our separate ways after sixth form. Even though we joked that we should meet at places like Sea Pines rentals so that we didn’t have to meet all the relatives who were concerned about our marital status, we usually just gathered up at one of our parents’ house. We make sure we would be free to meet up on the second day of CNY.

It’s a tradition that my mother had started about ten years ago, on the first day of CNY, we would all get up early, have simple vegetarian breakfast and get out to start our visiting.

We would start with my mother’s fifth brother’s family, the uncle that we are closest and keep in touch the most. My fifth uncle insisted that everybody received an “angpow” from him though my brother and I are supposedly disqualified because we are married. We would stay for an hour, amazed at how fast the children have grown up and lamented about how we are getting older.

Our next stop was my mum’s eldest brother and his family. We are not very close with this uncle and most of his children are very successful and rich, they don’t stay at his house during CNY, they stay in the hotels! Except for the eldest cousin who would talk to us and would ask the same old questions about where we work and live, the rest of them would continue their Mahjong games. Our eldest uncle is 80 years old, widowed and remarried when he was in his 60s. He looks so healthy and doesn’t even have a trace of wrinkles or pigmentations on his face. He runs and swims everyday!

Our last stop was my mum’s forth brother and his family. Our forth uncle and aunt have two daughters and a son, all of them work or live overseas. Only the son was back for CNY. Our forth aunt is the kindest and most generous person, she gave us so many things to bring home, it defeated the purpose of bringing her any gifts. My mother and fourth aunt shared the same concerns, they both have children in their 30s and late 20s who are singles. My two sisters got their fair share of “concerns” for being unattached in their late 20s. It’s just so much a dejavu! :-)

It’s noon by the time we have done with all the visiting, that ended our half day vegetarian diet, we came home to our carnivorous CNY lunch. How many of us can resist all the sumptuous mom’s cooking?  Need a miracleburn after the festive season? :-)

When a friend was bragging about how much she and her husband spent on getting blinds and curtains for their new condominium, I knew she went to one of those places that make money from customers who do not shop around like her. IMHO, it doesn’t have to cost that much since the blinds are not made of gold or platinum! :-)

There are so many varieties of window dressings to choose from, one can buy the ready made or custom fit, to decide on the kind that meets your need can be quite challenging. More so if you want to try to save some money while getting gorgeous blinds or curtains.The best thing to do is to shop around and compare prices before making a decision. They are so many different types of blinds and shades with very reasonable pricing if you shop around. You might be interested to check out the levolor blinds and shades, they are made from a variety of materials i.e. aluminum, faux wood, composite wood and wood.

Most stores have experienced people on staff who can help you with any questions you might have. You can even request free samples or pay a nominal fees to have samples sent to you. Most of the time, you get the money back if you do end up buying blinds in the color of the sample that you paid for.

My two sisters were home a few days before the CNY eve, so there was really not much things to do when I went back the day before the eve.

My first brother cleaned up the altar and hang up all the CNY decorations, we girls just sat around watching DVDs and chit-chatting.

We have the customary reunion lunch. Mum cooked our favorite dishes and all of us ate way too much. :-) Yes, we have reunion lunch since all of us were already there the day before the eve. In fact, we meet so often over the weekends, it’s more a formality than a custom. But, it is probably going to be the only time we meet together as a whole family next year. As you might have heard or read here that I am in the process of moving to IL.

During a gathering with a group of female ex-classmates recently, all of us have noticed Kay’s face is smoother and fairer compare to the last year when we met up. As women who are approaching 40s and started to get wrinkles and pigmentations, everyone was curious what was her secret.

She told us that her sister in law introduced her to Nu Skin and she had started to use the skin care products. She said the Tru Face Essence really works to brighten and revive her skin tone and complexion. Apparently, Chantal Pharmaceuticals has produced a whole line of skin care products for Nu Skin that includes Ethocyn. Ethocyn is a patent ingredient that can give skin the kind of resiliency and firmness that we all dream to have.

Have you started to see unfamiliar traces of age through the mirror? Don’t you just hate those lines and pigments that show up uninvited ? Looks like it’s time to make a plan for an investment so that we can get older gracefully. :-)

Wow, I managed to stay away from all my blogs for the entire CNY holidays and that’s a whole week! It’s a miracle… LOL! Well, I have decided to take a break from blogging, relax and spend more time with family and friends during the festival.

It’s been a pretty relaxing and fun CNY for me. The week just went by so fast that I didn’t really have time to even enjoy it. In fact I don’t even remember what transpired … LOL! Some more, I forgot to bring the camera for all the gatherings and outings, so didn’t snap any photo at all.

While there are still a lot of people on their CNY holidays, myself included, most adults have started work, children have gone back to school. While I still have three more days of the holidays left to enjoy before going back to the tutoring center, I am back to all the paid posts that have waiting for me here. :-)

Coming from a country where ownership of guns or any type of firearms required a special license and you can get death penalty owning one without a license, can you imagine the shock when I saw guns being sold at Walmart when I first arrived in America.:-)

I visited a friend in PA that summer, his father is one of those die hard pro guns fellows. He has 30 over guns and riffles in his collections. Mind you, they were not the BB guns , they were real guns, long ones and short ones. My friend’s father used some of them for hunting deers, but most are collectibles. He let me held the guns, they were damn heavy, I almost dropped them. He thought that’s so funny that he invited me to go to shooting practice with him, I had to say “No, thank you”.:-)

A blog is a journal or an open diary, and a blogger is someone who owns a blog. A journalist may be a blogger, but it seems like every Tom, Dick and Harry who owns a blog and writes about social political issues start to act like they are the journalists. This people need some sort of solution to shrink the swelling head, don’t you think?

People don’t blog about political and social issues doesn’t mean they don’t care a little lesser than you do. Blog about social political issues and rant about the government do not make you more altruistic than us.

As the weekend looms… and the Super Bowl looms… all the big and small boys will be gluing to the idiot box. I’m so not into sports. Watching the super bowl is definitely not high on my list of things to do on a weekend.

I’m actually quite surprised by the number of women who enjoy watching football and baseball games. They may even dress in clothings that has their favorite team while screaming to the screens. They know the rules, the plays and the athletes. Some of them even do the Fantasy thing, play the games on their computers! As for me, sport is boring, takes up a lot of time and makes too much noises, I would rather hide at a quiet corner and read a book.

The majority of people who are involved in the political scene in this country belonged to two groups of people. First group of people are the elites, they are either from well to do family or they have a professional background that they can fall back in. They could afford to have  dreams and have the financial mean to fight for their political ideology. If they don’t win the election, they won’t starve, they have their professional practice, family business or properties to fall back on.

The second group of people are those from middle or lower class families, they see political career as the shortcut to upgrade their social standing. You may say they are mostly very ambitious young people who have started to path their political career even while they were students in the universities. Most of them won’t join the opposition because it doesn’t benefit them financially.

The third group of people are those who have a dream with no background but decide to pursue his political ideology anyway. They either make it the first time or they won’t last long because they do need bread to live on. Some may become bitter and disillusioned about the whole thing and evaporated from the surface of the earth.

Can you think of anybody that fits right into this three groups of people?

Seven years ago, when I was back to my hometown and the big boy was still living in CA, we kept in touch with IM, email and phone calls for three years until we decided to get married.

During the first year of the separation, we discovered that there were VOIP calls services online in Beta stage, we tried out a few of the services. But the noise was so bad, even with the noise canceling headphones, we couldn’t figure out what each other said most of the time.

This time that we are separated again, the VOIP technology has improved tremendously and becomes much cheaper than the conventional long distance calls. Even without using the noise canceling headphones, we can hear each other crystal clear. In fact, the noise canceling headphones have been lying there collecting dust this days.