hummmmmmm

Wow, I haven't been here for ages. Thinking of creating another blog to sell used baby items locally. So I have to come back here to get familiar with this site.

Still alive and well (I think)

I have not been able to update my blog but I am alive. More posts to come soon.

Suze Orman

In my entire life, well the past 10-15 years or so, I have read a number of financial books. There were books that I found very difficult to understand and some requires a bit of digging (research) before I knew what I was reading. Actually, there were books that I do not understand today.

Recently, I stumble upon Suze Orman's show on Channel 13 and then decided to get some of her books from the library. One of the books I got from the library is "The money book for the young, fabulous & broke".

In the “don’t do it” section of her book, she mentioned:

“People first. Then money. Then things. So what’s it mean? The nature of money is that it will come and go in your life. And the last time I checked, there’s no way you can take a penny of it with you when you finally exit this world. I can also promise you that when you are on your deathbed, you are not going to be thinking about how great your life would have been if only you had bought that latest and greatest car, plasma TV, or fabulous outfit you always wanted.”

Had I known what I know today, I would've done somethings differently when I was younger.

Busy?

Wow, I am busy. With a new born and a 2 years old at home. I am running between the 2 of them and sometimes both of them crying for me at the same time. It's absolutely heaven when both of them takes a nap at the same time...which rarely happens because the 2 years old one doesn't really take naps anymore. My quiet time is at night when they both asleep. I catch up with my showers, my reading, cleaning, paperworks, emails etc...or simply just sit down and do nothing.

New addition to my family

I haven't been able to keep up with this blog the past few months. We have a new member in our family this month and she is keeping all of us busy. And oh the older child is very much jealous and missed me a lot while I was in the hospital. Among temper tamtrums of terrible 2s, dealing with constant feeding of a new born and my postpartum swelling and pain - I think we all need sometime to adjust and for me to get back to normal self again.

I will visit this blog more often as things get a little better.

Additions to my kitchen

I’ve been adding items to my kitchen, cookwares, serve wares and food storage. I had been watching the 14 cup food processor on Amazon and finally when it dropped to a lowest price, I took the chance and bought it. However, after using it 3 times within 10 days, the motor wouldn’t stop. I had to send it back to Amazon for a replacement. The replacement came quickly (within 2 days). When I got the replacement, I quickly tested it before I washing all the parts to be used. I’ve been using it to make pizza dough and bread dough. I also used it to puree some vegetables but so far no one likes the puree but myself. I will use it more often to do other stuff…shredding, slicing.

I purchased a few pieces of cast iron cookware as well. I got a 12 inch skillet, a 5 quart dutch over and a reversible grill/griddle from Amazon. They are all Lodge Logic brand. My first piece of cast iron was the reversible grill/griddle and I had no idea how to take care of it. Only after grilling some chicken breasts with some lemon marinate did I realized that I should not cook anything acidic the first few times such as lemon and tomato sauce. Anyhow, I learned all that from reading all the reviews. And I also learned to re-season it from reading from all the reviews. I think it’s working much better now. I love grilling vegetables and chicken breasts (for chicken sandwich) on the grill. I cook eggs and pancakes on the griddle side. And the 12 inch skillet, I use it for stir fry mostly. And I use the dutch oven to bake bread so far but there are a lot of uses for the dutch oven which I can’t wait to try. I’ll try the beef stew in the dutch oven next time.

I ordered 3 4-cups Pyrex glasses to store food. It was the cheapest that I could find comparing prices from Amazon and other place. They are great because I was so tired of store my food in plastic containers (which can leech chemicals) and when I have to heat them up, I have to pour them to plates to heat them up and then I have to wash the containers and the plates. Pyrex are very durable glasses so you can see what you store inside them and it can go from refrigerator microwave to serving table.

Corningware simplylite bakewares: 1.5 quart, 2, 2.5 and 3 quarts from Amazon buy 4 for the price of 3. Amazon takes off the lowest price item. They are also great for storage as well as baking. So far I have used them for storage in the refrigerator and use to transport food for my grandma’s potluck birthday party. The lids are a bit difficult to open but I found a way to open from the other three angles rather than from the angle where they intended you to.

I sure have a lot to explore with the food processor and the cast iron cookwares. I am also looking into investing into a bento box. I’ve been reading on that topic and check out what you can put into the bento boxes. There are so many different types of bento boxes out there but one particular one that really grabbed my attention is the Mr. Bento box. It’s not a cheap investment so I have to read more on what I can put in there before investing in it.

New year resolutions, financial wake up calls, keeping track of expenses

As the new year rolls in, I looked over last year’s new year resolutions and to check off the ones I have accomplished. I am not sure if it is accomplished if I have looked into something but it was better than not doing anything at all. The only one that I can check off is getting pregnant.

As this year starts, I have another list (only 5 this year). And I have started on 4 of the 5 on the list.

Selling the property is one of our resolutions this year. We had a low offer on the second week after we listed our property on the MLS. After many considerations, I have decided not to go through with it because the buyer did not qualify for a conventional loan. They wanted a FHA loan which I thought it was a hassle and it might take longer than necessary to complete the transaction.

And then came the snow storms. We practically have one every few days. We hire a landscape guy who looks after the property when it snows. We send him a money order and a little extra fee to cover the fee when he cashes the money order or check. So far it’s going well. I hope the storm stops soon and we’ll sell the house as soon as possible to cut our costs. Even thought it’s an investment property and all expenses are tax deductible but they are still out of pocket money for now.

When I started looking into our financials, I looked into my 401-k which I left at one of the companies that I worked. I no longer work there for 4 years but my 401-k is still there. I didn’t touch it at all. When the recession came in 2008, my portfolio lost half of it’s value and now it finally caught up to what it once was. That’s when I got a wake up call and realized I should’ve looked into my financials more closely. I rolled over my 401-k to an IRA last month.

One of the few things that I have been procrastinating to do is setup Quickbooks (an accounting software) and keep track of our expenses. I spent most the day yesterday putting in our expenses for the month of January. First I jot down all the expenses in a piece of accounting paper as the days go by. After I setup the chart of account in Quickbooks, I entered those charges into Quickbooks. There are some looking and digging but I finally did it in one day. And January is one of our bigger expense months. It has Chinese New Year expenses, property taxes, and some after Christmas shopping. I used to keep some of our expenses in a spreadsheet but it is much better to use an accounting software to keep track of expenses. You can see all the details that make up the amount with just one click. It’s not a complete functional company profile with assets, liabilities and income. The main purpose for us right now is keeping track of expenses. Does it count every penny we spent? No, I think I have about 95% of all the expenses. There are times when my husband buys lunch at work and he does not like to keep track of every penny he spends (which drives me crazy at times).

I think it’s a good start for now.

Pregnant

I am pregnant with our second child. This pregnancy sure is a lot more worse than the first. In comparison, this pregnancy made me very sick for a few months – threw up, couldn’t digest my food and heart burns, and my taste bud was very very sensitive. I’m just glad those first few months are over.

My husband and I can’t believe we will be going thru this all over. The sleepless nights for many months and the doctor visits for vaccines. We couldn’t help but wonder if our first child will hate the new baby and how would she reacts to the new baby.

Have 2 children meaning a lot more expenses. One good thing is the new baby will be able to use the same clothes that her sibling used. Money that will spend on formula and diapers are avoidable.

What does this mean to our retirement? We do not think we’ll be able to retire at the normal retirement age since we have our children in our mid 30s to early 40s. I’ll discuss more on that.

I can’t believe I’ve been writing this blog for almost 2 years. The update is getting less and less often. It really has to do with time and topics.

Acrylic paint remover

Our tenant damaged our rental property and left a lot of garbage in the house and acrylic paint in the restroom and laundry area. It left a very ill feeling in my stomach to ever rent again. And don’t ever be nice to them if you ever decided to sue them for anything. They turn around and do you a big favor.

As we decided to sell the rental property and move on with our lives, we have to fix it up to working conditions and clean it up. One of the hardest things is to remove acrylic pain from tiles. It’s hot pink in color. They sure do not look good on bathroom tiles and on washer and dryer.

I did some research online on how to remove pain from anything. I had no idea what kind of paint they were but figure they are acrylic for T-shirt printing paints. And suggestions were made to use the following mixture to remove acrylic paints.

2 part ammonia
2 part white vinegar
1 part salt

Mix the ingredients well and then spray on the paint and leave it overnight. Since the property is 2 hours away, I did not want to wait overnight or stay over at a hotel for this. I let the mixture stay on the paint for about an hour or so and then I start scouring. At first it was the smaller spots that came off easily. After scouring with hot water on a heavy duty scotch brite scouring pad with my thumb and finger, I tried the paint scrapper and it worked really well. The paint came off easily.

I am very please with the result. It took me about 2 hours and $3 to clean this mess. The property looks much better and it’s ready for the market. I am not sure if the market is ready for this.

Christmas tree and the meaning of holidays?

We bought a small table top Christmas tree just to have it for our first child last year. As of today, we still haven't gotten a chance to get it out of the box and put it up. I question the purpose of it. Do I have to be a Christian to celebrate Christmas? I am not even a Christain.

What is the meaning of holidays? I realized my husband has been doing a lot of get together around the holidays. They do a lot more than my family. It's actually nice to do some catch up at the end of the year to see how everyone is doing. Our family only get together on special occasions like wedding, big birthday party, funeral. Holidays aren't a big thing for them. And they don't ususally all get together with extend families.

It is nice to have get togethers with extended families once in a while. I guess in my parent's side of the family, they are too focus on making a living. They don't want to give the extra time they have off during the holidays to extended families. They rather rest and spend it with them immediate families. There is nothing wrong with that. It's just makes the extended families a little more distance.

One of the few things I regret not having to learn earlier

Not learning to cook is one of the few things that I am regretting not started earlier in my teens. Have I mentioned this earlier in my blog? I believe I have mentioned this earlier.

As the holidays come closer and family get together on my husband side have always have home made food to bring to pot luck dinner get together. I am the one who, for the past few years not have any home made food to bring along. We do take out from some bakery or of some sort. I sure feel guilty about it. I need to step up a little more on the coming year and get some home made food ready.

sewing projects - continue (2 reusable sandwich wraps and a fleece hat)

sewing projects continue - chair covers, cover for basket and dust covers

So much to do, so little time.

more sewing projects - aprons and bookends

This was my first sewing project. I made an apron for myself by coping the pattern from an old apron using the fabric from the sheet set. It turned out not bad. I later, used another old sheet to make an apron for my toddler.











Bookends I made out of random left over fabrics from my parents. I got the patterns from a book that I took out from the library. I already returned the book to the library so I do not know the title of the book. It's something "25 projects..." The bookends are filled with rice. There were stencils of a happy face and a face with touge sticking out. I didn't do the stencils because I don't have the tools to make them and I don't want to invest too much on it. Thus they are plain. They do look cute with ears. Good enough for me.

I also made some window draft dodgers and a door draft dodger as well. They are not filled because I do not have enough rice. I will fill them up before we need them in the winter.

Here are 2 of my sewing projects

A sling to carry stainless steel water bottles with sports cap. I think this is a 25 or 27 oz bottle. This is actually my second project. My first project was an apron. I'll post that later.
















I purchased a yard of polyester fabric and cut into smaller than normal size napkins. I have some 9" x 9" and some 8"x8" and maybe some 10"x9" because I cut them by scissor and not by rotary cutter. It's more manageable to hand wash with smaller napkins.



The orange napkin is the orange napkins which I purchased in Century 21 Department store a while back and they were too big (20"x20") so I cut into quarters and make 4 napkins out of one large one. It's a lot more manageable to hand wash. They are about 8"x8" to 9"x9". They do not look like you buy them in stores but they do the job at home.

More project pictures to come later.

Sewing Projects

It’s been a while since I last updated my blog. I’ve been busy working on sewing projects which I found myself passionate about. It’s been hot and humid and sometimes have some nice weather in between, we did have some family outings. With a toddler, time is a very limited resource.

As I said, I found myself passionate about sewing. Well, it’s not just any sewing project. There have been things that needed to be fix around the house for a while. I did not have a sewing machine at home at the time so everything have to taken over to my parents place to be fixed because they have an industrial sewing machine at home. With a toddler, I don’t have the time to go there. Plus, their place is not child proof. It makes these projects forever not able to do.

Hence, we invested on a basic home sewing machine. With my lack of knowledge on different fabrics, I’ve been reading clothing labels and feel the different fabrics before buying any for my projects. I spend a few hours one day in Joann’s fabric store just to look through the different fabrics.

I’ll share some of my finish projects later.

Long Beach Island, NJ over the weekend

One of the few exciting things happened to me over the weekend. My husband and I left our daughter with my mother and we went to a private beach, Long Beach, NJ upon invitation from family as a family reunion location this year.

It’s been a while since we were on vacation. Last time we were on vacation was in September 2009. It’s almost been a year but it seems a lot longer when you are home with a toddler.

There are actually two Long Beach in the east coast, one of them in Long Island, NY and the other one in NJ. The one in NJ is private. I’m not sure about the Long Island one where a recent 12 year old who drown happened in Long Beach, Long Island, NY during a class trip. A heart-felt sympathy goes out to the victim’s family and friends.

Long Beach, NJ is about 2 hours away from NYC - 100 miles from Brooklyn. I don’t know if there are public parking around but there might. Our family reunion was in a private house which one of the distance family members has for the weekend. I’m not sure if it’s rented or it’s from someone related. All those houses have three floors. The floor has nothing because it’s close to the water, it’s intended it might get flooded. The second floor has bedrooms and bathroom(s). And then the third floor has a living room, office space, a bathroom, a kitchen and a patio with BBQ grills. It’s overlooking the ocean. It’s absolutely beautiful when the sun sets.
This house equip with an elevator. My husband was curious and we got on it for a ride. We couldn’t find the switch for the light inside the elevator so we were riding in the dark from the ground floor to the third floor. He got it kick out of this. And when we finally got up there, he looked for the switch and he found the hidden switch.

I overheard one of the family members that he’ll be coming back to this beach because he got invited by someone else (in a different beach house of course) and he said the houses right next to the beach costs about $12,000.00 for a week. When I got home, I told my mother about how much those beach houses next to the water costs for a one weekly rental, she opened her mouth in surprised. When I heard it, I was in shock how much it costs too. I know it costs a lot but $12,000.00 is A LOT.

We had a great time there. I love the part when a driver stopped for us and had his/her hands out to have other cars behind him/her to stopped for us when we cross to street to go to the beach. It’s courtesy that you do not see in NYC. From the many books that I’ve read about the rich, it’s very common for the rich to be courtesy (not all). And I believe that’s one of the many reasons they are where they are.

When I was younger, I used to love going to the beach and get burn. As I get older, I do mind getting burn. I don’t mind getting a little tan but sitting under the sun and getting skin cancer. I don’t like that anymore. Do I still dream of one day owning a house by the beach? I don't think so. I might prefer something/somewhere else.

Tracking Expenses Manually (inspired by frugaldad’s blog)

A while back, I attempted to write down all expenses on a daily basis for 1 week. I believe I did spoke to my husband about it and he agreed to do that. It was an eye opened for both of us. I believe I’ve used excel to track that.

After reading frugaldad’s blog, I attempt to do it one more time. However, this time, we’ll log our expenses manually and we’ll do it for 1 month (my husband agree to do it for a month). I am excited that he agrees to do it. It’s not easy convincing one’s spouse and I’m sure some of you know what I am talking about.

My first response was trying to get 13 columns columnar paper from Staples or ebay because it’s a lot neater to track anything that way. I would keep double entry on the ledger. After reading some of the comments in frugaldad’s blog, I decided to just use spiral notebook which I have many on hand which I purchased them last year or the year before (before school year started). It was very cheap to get those spiral notebooks. It might be 10-20 cents each for 70 pages. I will have a 4 columns on each pager, they will be 1) date 2) description 3) expense category 1 4) expense category 2. I have about 8-9 categories of expenses and will take 3 pages both back and front. At the end of the month, I will tally up at the end of the page. And I will do this for all the months (if my husband decided to do this all the way through the year till 6/30/2011). We’ll sit down and look at the numbers each month and discuss it.

I’m excited! And I can’t wait to start officially on July 1st.

Planting herbs

Last year, I started some herb plants at home. I spent some amount of money on a light, pots and soil. It didn’t work out that well because it brought bugs. I’m not sure if it was the soil or the air. We tried different soil and try other methods of killing the bugs but it was not successful and I finally had to give up on them.

I did planted basil and parsley outdoors during the summer months and it worked great. The basil was very easy to plant either indoors or outdoors but outdoors definitely beat indoors. I had so much basil that I froze them with olive oil and kept in cubes in the freezer. I still have a lot in the freezer that I haven’t gotten a chance to use. I think it’s time to throw them out.

This year I am planting the basil again but I am not planting too many of them. I only have 2 basil plants and they are working well consider I only use basil every once in a while.

I wish the parsley plants are doing much better but they are not. Parsley doesn’t grow as fast as basil and I love fresh parsley in my salads and juice.

Emergency kit for auto and/or home in case of natural disaster, terror attack, hurricane, fire and etc…

I’ve been busy preparing for an emergency kit for auto and home. I’ve checked out some websites (one of them is the American Red Cross) on what is needed in first aid kit and in emergency kits. Since having a toddler at home makes me unable to go out as free as one pleases, I have order most of the stuff online. I got them through ebay.com, amazon, dealextreme.com and etoncorp.com. It’s been fun shopping and waiting for products to arrive in the mail. It feels like someone is sending me a gift everyday. I wait for the mailman to drop it off and see what is in the package. It certainly feels like gifts from the mailman except they are paid for from my bank account.

My emergency is still in the process of completion. I ordered some items from oversea and they are taking at least 2 weeks to get here.

It certainly feels good to have a kit ready in case of emergency. I hope I don’t ever have to use it.