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.