One of his ex colleague who used to run a web design business on the side helped him to do all the uploading and web maintenance. But, ever since the guy lost his job, he has been caught up with his own life and hasn’t have time to do that. The domain has actually expired! few months ago. Though father in law has bought a new domain and a hosting plan, he  has been waiting for this guy to upload the files to the server for him in the last couple of months. He has also been thinking of paying someone else to do the web design.

I thought may be he can  use the blog format instead of a website, that way he does not have to worry about the archiving and blog is interactive. I also told him if he wants to set up a blog, I can help.:-)

However, candle lights are hard to capture on pictures. I do not have the camera skills to do that!

My niece happily posed for me with hair wet and missing front teeth.

The other models wouldn’t pose for me, could only captured their backs. :-)

The lantern party ended at about 10 p.m. The children wanted to continue, but we  couldn’t as there was no more candles.

We are sad but glad that her sufferings ended. She was a kind aunt who concerned about everyone and remembered every occasion to buy gifts for everyone. Her kindness and generosity will be missed.

In fact, mom brought all the food from today’s Hungry Ghost prayer, so we could have dinner at my sisters’ place. Both sisters just got off work when we arrived. Our super impatient mom got down to business immediately and have dinner served right away! We chit-chated after dinner, my parents dozed off before 9.00 p.m and me too, soon followed suit. 9.00 p.m is really too early for a night owl. :-)

This Chinese herbalist doesn’t use the traditional herbs that need to cook for long hours, the doctor actually gave her some herbal medications in pill forms! He recommended her to see the acupuncturist at the same building to expedite the recovery.

Mom thinks the acupuncture helps and she feels less pain after the half an hour session. So, we are going back tomorrow for another session.

The MRI showed the disc between two of the bones on the spine (L5 and S1) has extruded and pressed against the nerves. The nerves happened to be the ones that control the leg movement. That’s why mom has been having leg pain. The extrusion is actually quite bad and the only way to repair such condition is going for a surgery according to the orthopedic.

The orthopedic said there is no medication to cure this kind of problem, he can only give pain killer for pain relief. Since mom is not keen to go for surgery and it may be a while for the pharmaceutical companies to come out with the right drugs for this kind of health problem, we will bring her to try some alternative medicine in the next few weeks i.e. acupuncture, Chinese herbals and chiropractic .

The children are going to stay with us for 6 days. We are looking forward to see them and enjoy the time with them. They are good children, they can play together pretty well, of course the cat and dog fights are inevitable.

They are also very independent children, they do not need much attention from the adults. In fact, they can be little helpers around the house. Their mother has trained them to wash dishes, sweep the floor and pretty much can take care of themselves, we just have to feed them regularly. :-)

She is her usual impatient patient who will not wait for the medications to work. Every time someone mentioned her sister’s husband’s mother’s sister ..you got the idea… was healed after seeing this and that doctor, she wants to go see the same doctor. The end results: she has seen 8 doctors, got back 8 packs of medications, and she is still in pain.

It took a while to persuade her to see our friend who is an orthopedic. He thinks she may have some problem with her spine or nerves, he gives a 10-day medication to relieve the symptoms and if the pain persists by the time we see him again on Friday 30th May, he recommends going for MRI (magnetic resonant imaging) to diagnose the problem.

One interesting observation, we all know the doctors are very busy people, but none of the doctors we have seen in the last few weeks own a PDA! Looks like no tech geek among doctors in this small town. I bet they probably have not heard of PDA loaded with medical software that allow them to have access to online medical reference and drug guide.

This kind of PDAs apaprently are very popular among healthcare professionals who are more tech savvy. One of the PDA software companies - Epocrates has sold over 500,000 copies of its medical reference software to healthcare professionals.

This announcement was paid for by Epocrates.

Since their youngest daughter is already 8 years old and our family is not going to have a baby anytime soon, so it’s better for them to give to someone who needs them!

My fifth uncle is three years younger than the forth uncle. He is a smoker, lives very unhealthy lifestyle and never exercises, he is diabetic since his mid 50s. His diabetes gets really bad the last two years, my cousin has to inject insulin to his body system everyday to control his diabetes right now. This diabetic supplies are not cheap, luckily he is rich!

In fact, he would have died two years ago if he has no money to go for a major surgery to remove a tumor found in his brain. The tumor was so big that it had started to press on some nerves and caused numbness in his left hand and left leg. He had to go through physiotherapy to learn to walk again after his surgery.

You could say it was a near death experience for him. You would think he would live more healthily after that. But he said: I would rather died if I have to abstain from so many food and can’t do so many things. :-)

Though they were born in IL, both of them have lived most of their adult lives in sunny California, high on their wishing list will be one of the Air O Swiss humidifiers, the cold and dry weather is something they need to get accustomed to again!

He got a part time job with the newspaper(writing a column), they have funds allocated to sponsor him a new laptop. Since he needs only the basic desktop publishing and word processor, he had suggested that he uses the old one that the big boy currently uses and we can have the new laptop!

So we are looking for deals online right now. The big boy and I are both excited about the newer and faster laptop. (Excitement, which by the way is an understatement!)

My late grandmother would boil some eggs, colored them red and cook some vermicelli top with brown sugar. I hated both of them, so I always let my brother had them all. My mother has very good memory, she remembers everybody’s birthday (including all her ten siblings and their spouses, children and grandchildren). Without keeping a written record, mind you! It’s not uncommon for my relatives to call her to find out the ages and birthdays of their other siblings or cousins. She will buy gifts for her older siblings on their birthdays, but the strange thing is, we do not have such tradition in my family! We knew each othe’s birthday, but we just don’t do anything about them each year!

How about your family? Is celebrating birthdays a tradition or something that no one pays attention to?

Don’t you think this is wonderful for someone who would like to maintain independence after surgery? It’s also a nice little stool to have around even if you don’t need it in the shower for it’s true intent!

Imagine, if you have a small built in shower and you can’t shave your legs and you just need to prop them up! Great! When you don’t need it, it is small enough to sit right outside the shower stall and throw your clothes on them, sit and put your shoes on and do your make up. If you need it in another room for whatever…it’s also light enough to drag around.

Her mother brought her to the studio to see other children at the ballet class and showed her the beautiful Dance Shoes, hoping to entice her into taking up ballet. But looks like her mother my sister in law can only continue to admire these cute little pinky ballet shoes on Just For Kix.

If you ask me, I think it’s never a good idea to impose your unfulfilled dreams on the little ones, it will backfire one day even if they obliged now. :-)

Ever since my brother was promoted to be a manager in a multi-national company, he received many hampers and gift baskets from the suppliers and sub-coordinates during the festive season every year. His small family of four usually couldn’t consume all the goodies, he would pass some to my parent and us his siblings.

Last few years, he used to get a lot of junk food in all this gift baskets. But, this year he received quite a few that has expensive wines and liquor. Since he is not really a hard drinker, he kept the wine and gave the hard liquor to my uncle who loves to drink.

Everyone in my family loves fruits, how we wished the people would give my brother some fruit baskets like the ones from The Fruit Company.

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? :-)

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? :-)

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 get on a diet. I do not know about the diet part, but I think the karate practice is good in keeping him active once a week.

In fact, it’s quite the opposite, both of them have gone through various cancer treatments. (spent tones of money on top of their 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.

Guess what was the first thing he got for himself with his first paycheck when he started working ? Yes, he got a huge aquarium! Over the years, he had accumulated a few glass and acrylic aquariums. He even spent thousand dollars hiring workmen to custom made some stainless steel racks for the aquariums!

Two years ago, he started rearing saltwater fish. It was rather amusing to see him working on his fish tanks every weekend. He was taking apart a fan, fixing it above one of the fish tanks, trying to create sea breeze in the house. The most amusing part was, he and his wife went for a vacation, only came back a few days later to find salts everywhere in the house and the fish of course have died.

We have no idea whether it’s because the filter or the pump was malfunctioning or the fan stopped working. However, he quickly cleaned up the whole house to avoid getting more grumbles from his wife. We were quite amused by all his craze for his pet fish, actually.

My trip to PJ was mostly to meet up with old friends and to visit my sisters’ newly bought condominium. I really like the place, they have done a good job furnished up the place, make it into a cozy home. The kitchen cabinets are still in very good shape considered the fact that the place is more than 10 years old.

Though the condo is not a big unit, it’s spacious enough for three of them (my two sisters and brother). The location is also very strategic, it’s within walking distance from public transport and that’s very convenient for the first sister who doesn’t drive and often work late. The common areas in the condo are also very well maintained and the security is well managed, the only down side is: the monthly maintenance fee is rather steep and is on the high side. I only wish when we move to IL next spring, we would be able to find a condo or an apartment as nice as this one.

All my siblings were home yesterday for the Tong Zi Festival (Winter Solstice). Mom cooked some customary Tang Yuan (glutinous rice balls). They are easy to make, but most of the adults in my family do not fancy this sweet balls cook in syrup, they were for my niece and nephew who like sweet stuffs.

However, we were looking forward to eat the vegetable glutinous rice dumplings that mom also make on the same day. Mom cooked the vegetable dumplings in chicken soup, very yummy, especially on cold days, one of the comfort foods that we miss very much.

They have found some nicely made and affordable window treatments. They were able to add a hip, modern style to their interior without paying a fortune with the ready made curtains that look custom made. The kitchen curtains that they have gotten really brighten up the whole kitchen. Though they do not have a budget for extensive interior decorating after spending their whole fortune on the down payment of the house, I am sure with a little creativity, they can add an extra bit of flair to their home with the fun retro or funky contemporary patterns like those available on www.contempocurtains.com.

I was not really excited about going places with them but was happy about the don’t need to drive part. I really thought they are going to stay at a hotel because we have made plan much earlier to put up at my sisters’ place.

Apparently, they want to put up 2 nights there too. There are only 3 bedrooms in my sisters’ condo, got enough space to have so many guests meh? Looks like I may have to change my plan again. Sigh, some people really do think the Earth revolves around them, what to do?

On hubby side of family, my father in law was a historian and journalist, he has done very extensive research on his family and his wife’s family ancestry line. That was pre-internet age, he did it manually and researched the family history through census, Church records, tombstones, court records, death certificates, old newspapers, obituaries, and birth certificates. He went so far to Europe to trace the roots of his family. He visited Germany, where his ancestors came from, to trace the lineage. He did find some valuable and vital information of his forefathers through Church records in Germany!

When you start researching your family history, it will help to identify the influences that make you who you are today as an individual, parent and wife/husband, as well as, the development of personal beliefs, actions/reactions, and values. It was interesting to find that the maternal family of hubby has a tie back to Benjamin Rush, the eminent Physician, writer, educator, humanitarian, an interesting figure as one could find in the formation of the United States, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

With the help of internet, it’s never been easier to trace your family roots, especially with the help of genealogy sites like TribalPages.com. It has over 175,000 Family Trees and over 80 million names and 2 million photos in the database! It’s Free. You just have to sign up, add names and instantly create your family tree.

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.

It hurts so much she doesn’t really want to get up and do things, but she knows she should get up and move around because that’s the best thing she can do. We are heart broken that my mother in law is so debilitated at such an early age. She has had chronic every day pain for so long now, that her tolerance to pain is worn down.

She has gotten some over-the-counter topical pain medications that offer temporary relief from arthritis pain for her. She finds some products have a strong medicinal odor and she doesn’t like them. The topical pain killers come as gels, creams, lotions or patches that are applied directly to the skin over her aching joints.

We recently got a tube of Freeze It Gel from an advertiser. It’s a gel contains Aloe Vera, Vitamin E, ILEX, 3.5% menthol and 0.2% camphor as pain relievers. ILEX is an herbal extract from a South American holly shrub. ILEX is used around the world in various health and wellness formulations. It says can help to enhance the effects of the pain relief ingredients. The label says it can relief sore muscles, muscle sprains, body pain, and arthritis joint pains.

My mother in law has been using Freeze It for a couple of weeks now, she likes the gel because it has a mild flavor, does not emit a strong medicinal odor that she hates. She also like the fact that the gel is water based and does not make her skin sticky with oil after application. Most importantly, it was effective in relieving her joint pain. We can see her smiling and being active in the Church again! If you or your loved ones are suffering from the same ailment, do check out this product!

I like Japanese plum wine, it is my favorite alcoholic beverages around. It’s sweet with an almost syrupy consistency. It’s also very flavorful. All these characteristics make it easy to appreciate and fun to drink. The best thing about this wine is, it comes in an easy to open bottle, no need corkscrews.

The bottle that my sister bought as actual plums in it. Actually, depends on the brand, the wine may use white wine or sake as a base. The alcohol content is quite high for non drinkers like us, I think it’s 14-15 %. You can get drunk drinking this.:-)

I think this is the first time they didn’t want to go along with their parents’ traveling plans. They were usually quite enthusiastic about going places with their parents. I wonder that’s an indication that they are trying to exert their independence? :-)

The farms are all fenced up with agricultural fencing. I remember sometime last year, hubby was robbed in to help mending gates and fences that were destroyed in the storm. As a city boy, that was hard work for him! His uncle had decided to replace some of the very old fences with more durable treated wood products. I guess it makes sense to invest in better quality fencing since the business has been really successful and their children will continue to run the corporation for many years to come.

Seriously, the Russian girls are really beautiful, they are usually tall and slim, I have not seen any fat or short Russian girls so far. Sometime I wonder should my my friend who is single in his 40s try his luck with the Russian girls. (Ok, call me busy body) He learned Russian in college and can still speak a little. So, communication should be easier and he would brush up his Russian in no time if romance blooms.:-)

I hope he doesn’t reply so much on the pills. But, dad is stubborn and has low threshold for pain (mom always says I am exactly like him in that sense) he won’t listen, and mom just let him be most of the time. Mom may nag us to death but she is not nagging with dad, one thing that I probably have much to learn.

Thought at least dad will be around, but I got up at 9.00 am to find him gone too. Dad didn’t even tell me he won’t be around today! Looks like I am going to be home alone this weekend!

If we go up on Saturday, we hope to stay till Monday morning. May meet up with some old friends, but don’t think I would have time to meet up with everyone. As my mother and I are going there to help them to measure the windows so that we can sew the curtains. They also need help to scout and shop for some of the essential items. Home ownership is a big responsibility, they surely are overwhelmed with all the miscellaneous things they have to deal with.

So he decided to work in the bank while looking and waiting for the right job to come along. He works in the loan department, selling unsecured personal loans. At first, my mother was apprehensive about his choice of job. She was asking:”Do you have to collect debts? Would people beat you up if they are broke and drunk/drugged?” Excuse my mother’s ignorance.:-) We jokingly told her that the banks are licensed loan sharks.

Of course my brother’s job is selling the loans, the approvals are done by the credit control people and the collections of bad debts are done by the debt collectors. In fact, it’s interesting to learn that except for the first month, he had to buy leads of people with credit card debts and called them. He doesn’t even have to call people from second month onwards. People start calling him instead. His clients have introduced new clients to him. His clients are mostly those in SMI (Small Medium Industry). These people previously used credit cards as revolving cash. The interest rates are lower for unsecured personal loans compare to credit card interest rates, which is why the unsecured personal loans are attractive to these businessmen.