The lease for our current rental is due end of May, the landlord wants to know whether we are going to renew the lease. We have decided to move out of this one hundred years old house to a newer house that has more modern facilities, and have been looking at other rental properties. Rental for newer apartments is so much more expensive! We are battling whether to continue to pay rental. It doesn’t make much sense to continue to rent when property prices and mortgage rate are at their low. It cost almost the same to rent vs to buy (mortgage plus property tax plus association due)
So, we told the landlord that we would not renew the lease, but would stay on a month to month basis until we find a place to move. T’s cousin is a real estate broker, she has been helpful to get us some listings and show us around. She also got us in touch with a lender to start a pre-approval process, so we know how much loan we are qualified.
We have been looking at a couple of single family homes and townhouses. We are amazed how the prices have dropped in the last six months or so. Many of this houses are bank-owned or in the process of being foreclosed.
We were looking at a 3 split level end unit townhouse on Thursday. They are 2-stall garage at the ground level, one bedroom and bathroom on each level, kitchen, fireplace and living room on the first level, family room on the second level and a full basement!!
Front of the house shows the garage and front door.
Living room and fireplace on the first level.
Kitchen on the first level, comes with cabinet and fully equipped with appliances i.e. refrigerator, oven, stove, dish washer, garbage disposal and microwave oven.
Full bath on the second level. They are 2 full bath and one half bath in this house!
Guess how much is this house listed for? It has been listed since July 2008 and current list price is $129,900. Since it’s a short sale (the bank owns the property), T’s cousin thinks we can offer around 100k. We are sitting on the decision to make an offer, may continue to look at more houses before we do that!
The nice spring like weather has been around for the past few days. Today the high is going to be in the 70s(20s in Celsius). It’s nice after a long, cold and dragged winter! However, the weather report says it’s going back to the 40s and 50s (5-10 Celsius) tomorrow and stays that way until the weekend!
Spring is definitely making its way. I am looking forward to warmer days, going outside and walking in the park instead of getting stuck indoor whole day.
Applied for secretarial and clerical jobs at the university, and went to sit for the testing required for the positions. The test for clerical assistant is rather simple, I did quite well. But the test for the secretarial job has too many questions on English, I scored 84%, which is just above average score. So, probably won’t get called for an interview for that position.
Was told they will call those who scored the top three highest for interviews and go down the list until they find the suitable candidate(s). In this economy, the HR department at the university gets hundreds of applications for any advertised position! Well, I may have to think outside of the box, polish my entrepreneur skills instead of looking for employment.
I earned about $800+ (in catalina coupons) at the grocery stores last week, which we can use for buying groceries in future or buying stuffs on sale to re-sale and get the cash back.
The moon belongs to everyone
The best things in life they’re free
Stars belong to everyone
They cling there for you and for me
Flowers in spring
The robins that sings
The sunbeams that shine
They’re yours and they’re mine
Love can come to everyone
Best things in life
They’re free
Moon belongs to everyone
The best things in life
They’re free
Stars belong to everyone
They glitter there for you and for me
They are yours and mine
Flowers in spring
The robins that sing
Sunbeams that shine
They’re yours and they’re mine
Love can come to everyone
Best things in life
They’re free
All of the good things
Every one of the better things
A Catalina deal is a promotion or marketing campaign run by certain manufacturers or stores to give rebate in terms of cash coupons for buying certain amount of specific products. What we have at the Jewel-Osco grocery store last two week was a “Buy $30, get back $15″ Catalina deal by Procter and Gamble, General Mills and Coca-cola.
The trick is, at Jewel Osco: the $30 total is based on normal shelf price, even though the item can be on sale for less than the shelf price. Combine with coupon use, you get really good deal, things for free or even making money by buying this items included in the deal!
Walgreen does the same kind of catalina deal every week, but Walgreen doesn’t allow you to use the Catalina coupons on the same item to get more catalina coupons (it’s called rolling the deal in couponing lingo). But, Jewel Osco not only allow you to roll the Catalina coupons, they also take the catalina coupons from Walgreen! So, I used some of the Walgreen coupons at Jewel Osco stores to buy groceries or roll them into more catalina coupons when they have a good deal.
The deal started last week and ends today, but we were busy with MIL in the hospital, so hadn’t have time to go to the store much. I was there on the first day of the sale and spent about $5 out of pocket and collected $50 worth of cash vouchers.
This kind of deal doesn’t happen too often. It’s buy $30 and get back $15 in Catalina coupons, then you can use the coupons to buy more stuffs and roll into more coupons.
A typical scenario: a box of cereal is normally $4.65, it’s on sale for $2.
You buy 7 boxes of cereals 7x $4.65 = $32.55 (over the $30 threshold for getting back $15)
Sale price is 7 x $2 =$14
minus 7 x $1 coupons
Total paid = $14- $7 (coupons) = $7, you pay $7.00 ( and $0.14 in tax) and get back $15, a net profit of $7.86.
Needless to say, I have been buying cereals to make money. :-)
We obviously won’t need so many boxes of cereals for two person, so we gave them away, donated them to the food pantry and women shelter. We even get tax relief for doing that!
The 8-roll bounty paper towels and Tide detergent are normally $14.99, they are on sale for $10 and $11.47 each. But I am able to get them for $1.50 and $3 each with the coupons and Catalina deal. I offered them for $6 to DH’s relatives, they sold like hot cakes!
Throughout the whole week, I spent about $50 out of pocket getting goods worth about $2000. Kept some of them for own use and resold some of them to T’s relatives and friends, made a net profit of $200!
I could have done much better if I could drive to the store in the morning as the store often ran out of the money making items when T got off work. I need to get going with the driving license and get all geared up for the next Catalina deal coming up in about 2-3 months. :-)
We have been running to the hospital every evening to visit mother in law who had a knee replacement surgery on 01/07/09. She suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, which gave her very severe pain. When medicine and other treatments are not helping her anymore, the doctor recommended knee replacement surgery, with the hope to relieve the pain that she has been experiencing and hopefully allow her to be more active.
She is in a lot of pain and very weak after the surgery. In a knee replacement surgery, the surgeon removes damaged cartilage and bone from the surface of the knee joint and replaces them with a man-made surface of metal and plastic. She will need a few months of physiotherapy sessions to help her to recover and to be able to walk normal again.
We bought 5 hair dryers at the drug store this morning!
The drug store has a One-Day sale today, you can buy a hair dryer for $10.00 and get back $10.00 in cash voucher called Register Reward, which make it FREE.
We have been looking to get a hair dryer, T wanted to just go to the store to buy one, but I have learned about this hair dryer deal few weeks ago and have been holding on to buying one at regular price ($19.99). So we decided to stop by the 24-hour store at 7.15 a.m. There were two left on the shelf, one pink and one blue. We grabbed both.
There is another Walgreen stores opens at 8.00 a.m. which is near our house. We made a quick stop at 8.00 a.m. when T was on his way to work. We found six on the shelf and grabbed three.
Now, we have 2 pink hair dryers and 3 blue hair dryers, which we paid nothing but $3.90 out of pocket for sales tax. :-)
We are going to give one to T’s mother as one of the Christmas gifts, as her hair dryer had gone kaput sometime ago. One for me and one for T. The other two will be giving out as Christmas gifts!
You might wonder is this REAL. Yes, most stores have “loss leaders” to get you into the store to purchase other stuffs, which are marked up pretty high. You have to be a deal hunter who don’t buy anything at full retailed price in order to win. :-)
The grocery stores do the same. They have loss leaders advertised in the ads every week, but almost everything else in the store are marked up. For example, some of the Kellogg’s cereals at regular retailed price can go as high as $4.xx. They are on sale this week 3 for $5, with three $1 coupons, they are 3 for $2!
I am a skeptic of FREE stuffs advertised and usually are able to stay away from all the marketing gimmicks. Few weeks ago, I read a feature story on the local newspaper, a woman talked about how she was able to save money and got great bargains using all the coupons. I went on the websites/forum given at the end of that story and started my research for two weeks. :-)
It’s a game you play against the retailers and the manufacturers. As a math person, I find it really fun to find the best way to stretch the dollars or even get stuffs for free. At first, I clipped the coupons that I thought I might use and threw away the rest. Then, I learned about “coupon trains” and you can trade coupons that you don’t want for coupons that you can use with fellow couponers.
The strategy is to use the coupons combine with store sales and you would be amazed what you can buy for FREE. :-)
Selection of stuffs that I bought for FREE or almost FREE using the coupons during store sales.
Organic tomato sauce
Organic pinto, garbanzo and black beans
The tomato sauce and beans were on sale “5 for $5″. With the $1 coupon, they are all FREE. Did not even have to pay sale tax! I don’t even know what to do with the beans, but they are FREE, I am sure I will figure out a way to use them. ;-)
Colgate toothpaste
The toothpaste was on sale for $2.99, with $1.50 coupon, and the $2 store voucher, a profit of $0.55 each!
Elastics and hair bands
Some elastics were on sale for $2.xx and $1.xx. The hair band was $3.99. A mix of them and use $2 manufacturer’s coupon for each, there are FREE !
Raynoc Batteries
On sale for $1 for a pack of two AA and AAA. With the $1 manufacturer’s coupon, they are …FREE! T said they may not last as long as other name brands, but who cares when they are free. :-)
Organic Whole Wheat Pasta
They are normally $3+ per box, last week it was on sale for $2.50 with buy one get one Free, with the two $1 coupons, it’s $0.25 per box! This pastas don’t get bad and I bought enough to last us for a long time. : -)
Couponing 101 is to stockpile things when they are on sale and you have coupons that match up with the sales. Our pantry is stocked up with this whole pile for less than $10!
Aluminium Foil and Deodorant
They were on sale and were all FREE after coupons.
Scented oil candle holders and refills
These scented oil candle holders usually are $9.99 to $11.99 a piece! I bought them when the candle holder were on sale for $4.99 each and the refills were on sale $5 for two. I got them FREE with coupons! All I have to pay was taxes due at store that calculated taxes before coupons. At the drug store that calculated taxes after coupons, didn’t even have to pay a cent. They are going to be some of the Christmas gifts we plan to give to family and friends.
Scotch tape and gift wrap
These tapes were on sale $2 for two packs, with the $1 coupons, they were free. The store also gives $2 rebate for the tapes. So, I got 6 packs for FREE and will receive $2 in rebate. Not a bad idea to go to the store to get six packs of tapes and earned $2!
Arm and Hammer Laundry Detergents
Full retail price of the Arm and Hammer laundry detergent normally is $6.99 at the drug stores. With the $5 store coupon and $1 manufacturer’s coupon, one bottle of laundry detergent is $0.99. The drug store was having a buy $25 get $5 voucher promotion.
First transaction, I bought 4 bottles of detergent, which rang up $27.96. After deducting the 4 X $5 store coupons and 4 x $1 manufacturer’s coupons, the total was $3.96 before tax. Sale tax is 7.5 % at where we live. So I paid $4.28 and get a $5 voucher for the next trip. Not only I get 4 bottles of laundry detergent at a bargain, I also gained 72 cents from this shopping trip. The $5 voucher can be used to buy the next 4 bottles of laundry detergent. I rolled that $5 voucher and wiped out the shelf. Basically I got 18 bottles of the laundry detergent for NOTHING! Gave 2 bottles to the in laws and now we have 16 bottles in the store room.
I like my new hobby! Which hobby helps you to save money? All my other hobbies caused a hole in my pocket!!
During our visit to the social security office two weeks ago, we were told verbally that the USCIS has verified the data in the system and I should be getting the Social Security Numbers (SSN) and Social Security Card in the mail within two weeks. Since two weeks has passed and no news of SSN yet. We drove two hours back and forth to go down there AGAIN.
First, we waited about 45 minutes in line, woman clerk No 1 who attended to us checked the computer and said the processing was still pending. She referred to the woman clerk No 2 who accepted our application six weeks ago. Woman clerk No 2 said “Oh, I got to pull out her file!”
She then went inside to dig out the social security card application submitted six weeks ago, looked at them for a couple of minutes. Then she said she couldn’t process the application yet because USCIS hasn’t verified my married name. She was lying to cover her lazy ass! How could USCIS processed my green card and sent me one if they have not verified my name? And, she has my passport, visa, temporarily work authorization stamp, birth certificate and marriage certificate, what else does she need to verify? Furthermore, she should have sent me a mail or call me if the name cannot be verified, instead of sitting on my application for six weeks!!
I was very very furious with this woman No 2, she was obviously trying to make life difficult. However, I kept my calm and told the woman No 1 that I wanted my Social Security card processed, in whatever name she choose. So she processed my Social Security card application in my maiden name.
Then she gave a letter that says the card will arrive in two weeks. It’s a desperate measure to get the application out of that office so we don’t have to deal with this suckers anymore. (We thought of going to another social security office, but afraid they may ask us to return to the first one since the pending application is filed here.) We plan to go to another Social Security office to get the name changed once the SS card arrives, since the card is issued F.O.C.
I asked whether a SSN has been assigned that she could give me, again she lied and said there was NONE! I know for a fact that many people were assigned a SSN a week or two after they entered with an immigrant visa. Mine has been seven weeks, and even the green card which typocally comes after the SSN has been issued!!
Unfortunately, this people represent some of the everyday racism one will encounter in this country!
We will wait for two weeks, if there is still nothing comes in the mail, I am going to get the congressman office to file a complaint against them or write a “Letter To The Editor”. I know the law protects me from being discriminated, they have picked the wrong person to mess with !!
I love the Hakka dumplings my mother made. Her recipes called for glutinous rice flour and tapioca flour , which are not stretchy and rather difficult to handle. I helped whenever my mother made dumplings during special occasion i.e. winter solstice, but almost always ended up making dumplings with holes. So I never try making them myself.
I could not find glutinous rice flour and tapioca at the Korean grocery store. So, decided to make different kind of dumplings with wheat flour - Jiaozi. This kind of dumplings is very popular among the Chinese people from Mainland and Taiwan. I used to have that very often during get together with Taiwanese friends from the Chinese church before I went home to Malaysia in 2001.
Hakka dumplings typically use a lot of turnips, leeks, carrots, a little bit of dried shrimps and shredded pork for the filing. Most of the recipes I found for Jiaozi called for ground pork, shrimps, Chinese chives, napa cabbage and ginger.
The first attempt, I followed the Jiaozi recipes I found online, make them with ground pork, shrimps and Chinese chives as main ingredients. The dumplings turned out to be really twisted and ugly after throwing them into the boiling water, though the taste was alright and T cleaned up everything. :-)
I found this video on Youtube that shows this expert mama demonstrating how to pleat the dumplings, so decided to make the second attempt.
I don’t really like the Chinese chives, so I omitted that this time. I have turnips, carrots, mushrooms, gingers, scallions, shrimps and ground pork. Basically, what I can easily find, at the Korean grocery store we shop. :-)
I was afraid the “paste” might not be sticking with too much vegetables and less meat. But it turned out fine. This time, I decided to make pot stickers instead dumplings. They are basically the same, the difference is just cooking them in the boiling water (Jiaozi/dumplings) or pan fried (Guotie/pot stickers).
Three cups of flour churned out about fifty of dumpling. I cooked enough for our dinner, brought some over to the in laws and the uncooked leftover were assembled on a baking sheet, froze for 20-30 minutes until no longer soft, and then placed in ziploc bag to keep in the freezer. They will be handy bento lunch for T to bring to work and my lunch. :-)
Four days after receiving the Welcome to America notice and 45 days after entering the country with a n IR1 spousal visa, the green card came in the mail today! ( I don’t know why it’s called green card when it’s not green in color! )
They did mess up my name as they did in the Welcome Notice, so we would have to send it back for correction. What fun we have with the immigration services !!
Still no news from the Social Security office. We may make another trip down there next Tuesday ( T ’s day off from work) if we do not receive anything in the mail by next Monday.
T’s father found this book at the church bazaar for 50 cents! He intended to give it to T’s aunt who collects this kind of recipes books. He left it on the coffee table and I started reading it one evening when we were hanging out at the in laws’ place.
The recipes book is fun to read, it has so many intriguing “old farmer” stories and cooking tips scattered among the recipes. One of the not so secret tips especially to those factories that make traditional biscuits/cookies/mooncakes in Malaysia, she used lard in her pie crust recipes!
Most of the recipes called for fresh produce and simple ingredients. I like that as I prefer to cook our meals from scratch with fresh ingredients instead of cooking from over processed ingredients.
I borrowed the book to try out some recipes and T’s father then decided to give it to me. :-)
Pumpkin pie is one of the must have dishes for American Thanksgiving celebration, which falls on next Thursday.
The women at the international spouses meeting had a little adventure with pie making this morning. Merilyn who organized the cook out had us met at the kitchen of a church. She prepared the store bought pie crust and filings. Everyone had great fun making and baking the pies.
I was late and missed the fun of making pumpkin pie with them, but was in time for pie eating. They had made extra pies and we were able to bring one home each!
Teresa shared the story of the first Thanksgiving, the pilgrims and their Native American friends. I learned something new about the history of America. :-)
We will be celebrating our thanksgiving with T’s parents at his uncle’s house. T’s aunt will cook the main dish and the turkey, but every household will bring a dish. T suggested I bring a non spicy Malaysian/Asian/Chinese dish. I haven’t decided what to bring to the lunch party. Most of the dishes I usually cook need to be eaten piping hot, and do not taste good when it’s cold, which are not so party friendly. Do you have any suggestions?
Six weeks after arriving here, the much anticipated welcome notice from US Citizenship and Immigration Services finally came in the mail today.
The notice says I should hear from them again within 30 days. Guess that means I will receive the green card in the mail within 30 days. However, they jumbled up my name AGAIN! I called to inform about that. The customer service person told me the card production has been ordered and there is nothing she could do to fix that. She suggested I send back the green card for amendment when it arrives.
We may have to make an Infopass appointment to get that fixed. It’s amazing that a government department that deals with so many immigrants assumed everyone else has the same first-middle-last names sequence.
We were at T’s parents’ place, his parents and I were watching the telecast of the election results. It became more and more evident that Barrack Obama is going to be the next president an hour after we started watching, T refused to watch further. :-) Where we live in the Midwest is traditionally a Republican’s stronghold. However, it’s Obama’s home state and the unhappiness with Bush administration thus McCain has totally reversed the voting patterns.
It’s interesting how some of the republicans who ran for state attorneys, governors, circuit clerks sensed the trend and started to disassociate themselves from McCain and Bush in their ads. They tried to put forth their agendas without mentioning the party they represented. Whereas, all the ads of democrats have Obama and his endorsements! T’s father who is a longtime republican pointed that out to me few weeks ago and told me McCain is going to lose!!
I continue watching the election results after we went home and T went to bed. I watched until Obama gave his speech at the Chicago rally. It was a very touching and charismatic speech, indeed. Let’s hope he is sincere and will be the president of America who makes a difference to lives of ordinary Americans and the world.
Today is the presidential election day and T’s day off from work. He voted early so we could go down to the nearest social security office to inquire on the status of my Social Security Numbers (SSN) and Social Security Card. The car park at polling station was full even though it’s 6.30 a.m. Either because many people were exercising their rights before they started work or they thought it would be less people early in the morning!
The nearest local Social Security office took about two hours to and fro, we would prefer to find out the status through phone if someone would pick up the darn phone at the Social Security office.
We drove down there, waited 30 minutes in line, was told the woman who processed our application was on leave and we would not get any information other than the Immigration Services had validated my data. Though the woman who talked to us was all polite, you know she didn’t care and would not go an inch further. She could have go ahead to assign the SSN or corrected the mistake in my name, but she choose to do nothing. The Social Security office at this location sucks, the people work there are worst than Malaysian government servants.
We were invited to join T’s parents, his uncle and aunt for dinner. They said it’s traditional pizza and popcorn dinner, but I am not sure it’s their family tradition, midwest tradition or American tradition. :-)
T’s uncle and aunt live about 25 minutes away from where we live. They run a farm corporation with thousand acres of corn, wheat and soy field. Their home is on the farm. T’s uncle is in his 70s and he still works in the field! It’s harvesting season right now and they have been really busy. When they told us their workers have been working 120+ hours per week, I poked at T who worked about 45 hours a week and complained about over working.:-)
We had two large pizzas with meatball and mushroom toppings. They were very delicious, but pretty greasy and high calories. T somemore brought home the leftover to eat for lunch!
We chit-chatted and played the dice game Farkle after dinner. It ’s a very fun dice game with simple rules. The cover of the container said it’s a game of guts and luck. Really, through the game, it’s so obvious who would take chances and who were the conservatives. :-)
T’s mom was having such good luck with the game, she kept getting three pairs, two triplets and straight. We had a good laugh and the game ended with her reaching 10, 000 points, way ahead of all of us!
The Taiwanese woman we met at the International Cafe invited me to join the quilting class on Friday. It’s a outreach ministry of Network of Nations, a Christian group. The ladies are mostly the spouses of International students. They accompany their spouses who study Masters or PhD at the University here. As they cannot work and have their mornings free, some of them go for English classes and they meet regularly at a house near the university for craft/sewing/cooking sessions.
Since the meeting place is not within walking distance, I planned to take a commuter bus to go there. However, T found out his father would be running errands in the morning and could give me a lift, so I didn’t get a chance to take the bus yet.
There were about eight of us were there, three other Asian women are from Taiwan, China and Indonesia. The Indonesian woman was very happy to learn that an American woman and I can speak Indonesian/Malay. She wanted to teach us cooking some Indonesian dishes! We spent time chatting and getting to know each other while our hands were busy with the quilting. Actually, we were doing the cheater quilt. We sew on the pre printed quilt instead of starting from fabric pieces. :-)
We got a pair of used washer and dryer for a steal but ended up have to resell the dryer due to it being a gas dryer and we have only electric hook up in the laundry room at the basement. It’s necessary to get a dryer as we won’t be able to dry the laundry on the lines when the weather turns cold.
They are many people in the opposite situation i.e. moved into a place that has gas hook up and try to get rid of the electric dryer. So, we have been looking at craiglist.com for a reliable ,less than two years old used electric dryer for a couple weeks. We did find some very good deals. But T was concerned about hauling it home and bring it down to the basement, and it’s not worth hurting our backs doing that.
We finally decided to get a new one from the store today, so we don’t have to worry about delivery and installation! We went to Sears to check out the GE dryer that we saw online. It was priced at about $750 on sears.com.(not including all the taxes and delivery charges, which will be about $100+)
But then we saw a LG dryer that in the same price range, has the same functions and a larger capacity, but was on clearance due to a scratch on the top of the dryer. We don’t mind the scratch as it ’s hardly visible and saving of $200 is a substantial amount of money for us who are just starting out.
So, we decided to buy the LG dryer instead. They are going to deliver the dryer on Tuesday morning and I am looking forward to clear the laundry piles.:-)
T’s parents wanted to buy the dryer as a gift for us. Didn’t want them to spoil T or denied them a chance to help us out, so the compromise was: we paid 2/3 and they paid 1/3!
We went down town to shop for warm clothes and household stuffs after dinner. We wanted to check out the dryers at Sears but it was closed when we reached there at 7.15 p.m. In this small town, most stores close at 9.00 p.m and some close at 7.00 p.m!
We first went to TJMax, a discounted store, it’s quite small, thus the selection is quite limited. Found a few trousers that I like, but could not find the “short” ones, the “normal” and “long” ones were too long for me. Bought a pair of jeans that has the “short” version and two pairs of tights. Also went to JCPenny, which’s just a few blocks away, bought half a dozen of warm socks and a pair of chenille gloves, we bought a little over $10 so we could pay with the $10 coupon we got in the mail! (That’s how desperate the retail businesses are trying to get people into their doors!)
Then, we went to Target, bought some hand towels and washcloths. These towels and washcloths which were at least $2-$4 per piece were on sale for $1.58 per pack, four washcloths in one pack and two hand towels in one pack. Though they are not the plush and soft type, I prefer the thinner ones, they are easier to dry and save on energy. :-)
Though we do have enough hand towels and wash cloths, they are all in brown color and got mixed up a lot. So, we got them in two colors, beige for T and green for me, so they don’t get mixed!
We also checked out the clothes drying rack. We saw one selling for $29.99 on target.com, but it’s not available at the store. Drying racks are probably not very popular here as most people just dry their clothes in the dryer. We wanted a rack to hang the almost dry and some of the sweaters as dryer tends to shrink them.
Actually, this chrome metal drying rack is quite small and won’t be able to hold too many clothes., but it’s the better built one that we can find. We actually found a wooden drying rack almost the same size of this metal one at the garage sale two weeks ago and paid $2 for it.
This wooden rack is quite light, it was blew off from the balcony on the second floor to the lawn few days ago! Despite falling from 12 feet height, it’s still in tact and nothing is broken. It might look flimsy, but it’s surprisingly well built!!
In the last two years, in fact, in all those years as a bachelor, T often just had some junk food, coffee or skipped the first two meals of the day totally! By dinner time, he would be so hurry, he would have eaten a horse, if it’s available!
A combination of heavy dinner at odd hours and then late night snacks in front of TV. Are you even surprised he put on back the 30 pounds that he lost in the first two years of our marriage? Since he wanted to lose weight and stay healthy, we thought bring lunch to work might help.
As a start, we got a food container from Walmart, it’s not strictly a Bento box, just a plastic container that has two compartments.
The first day, I cooked a little extra during dinner and have the leftover Ginger Onion Chicken to go with the rice. Cut some celery and tomatoes for some extra fiber. It’s good that T loves vegetables! He just put the vegetables on a plate and reheated the rice and Ginger Onion Chicken in a microwave.
The next day, there was no leftover from dinner because he cleaned up all the Steamed Asam Catfish we had for dinner. So, I made him two slices of Peanut Butter Sandwich with Blueberry Jam, egg rolls and cut half an apple.
It went on well for the rest of the week except for one day he came back with the lunch unopened as he was too busy that day. It’s cold in the morning, my brain might be still trying to defrost, in a blur, forgot to take pictures of his lunches! I prepared most of the food at night, some days the lunches were all packed, he just have to take them out from the refrigerator and go.
I went on to purchase a Clickety Click three-tier Bento box from Ebay.
Thought the yellow Monkey who says “My name is Mink, I like to read the fantasy story. I am very excited when I read” is so cute, though T is not totally impressed with a monkey lunch box. He thought it’s for the little boys, not a big boy like him.:-)
We could see the mall from the highway the last time we went down to the Korean grocery store in Naperville, but we did not stop because we were in a hurry. Since today is T’s day off from work, we decided to stop on the way to check out the Chicago Premium Outlet mall.
This is indeed a shopper haven, you can find 120 impressive name brand stores all at one mall! Ann Taylor, Banana Republic, Brooks Brothers, Calvin Klein, Coach, Elie Tahari, Gap, Giorgio Armani, J.Crew, Kate Spade, Kenneth Cole, Lacoste, Nike, Polo Ralph Lauren, Salvatore Ferragamo, Sony, Theory and many more.
When you hear the announcements in English and Japanese, you could guess they must have a lot of Japanese tourists shop here. We do see a lot of Asian women who look like they were tourists buying handbags at the Coach store. I do wonder the woman who bought more than ten Coach handbags resells them or just a Coach fanatic? :-)
We were there for about one and half hours, we could hardly “see” everything, in fact spending more time backtracking T who sat on the benches along the stores instead of going with the shopping flow! It’s fine since it was just window shopping. The name brand clothing and shoes may be less expensive compare to Asia, but they are till high priced items. However, you can still find bargains for things on closeouts or last season’s clearance. I found a pair of really comfortable leather shoes for about $10 after 80% discount!
Only brought four pairs of shoes from home due to luggage space constraint. It’s getting cold here, can’t wear the sandals and slippers. I have been wearing the tennis shoes since arriving here. So, we dropped by Kohls on Saturday evening, wanted to get shoes that can be worn to Church and work, or maybe also boots for the winter.
The shoes department at this Kohls was having a sales, though there was not much of a crowd there, the shoes were in quite a mess. The big boy got impatient after an hour of trying on many pairs of shoes. So, I shooed him to the demo massage chairs nearby, so he could have a good massage and I could shop in PEACE.
At the end, got myself a pair of slipped on Oxford shoes with leather upper and flexible outsole. The elastic inserts on both sides allow easy slip-on wear. The suede trim along the collar, mirco-suede lining and cushioned footbed really make your feet stay comfortable. This patten comes with a wider version and that solved the problem of not able to find shoes that fit my unusually wider toes. -:)
Also got a pair of Suede Clog Slippers. The suede upper gives an earthy look and the faux-fur lining and padded foot bed are very comfortable. I only realized they are slippers for men when we reached home. But, who cares as long as they are comfortable.:-)
Both were on 40%-50% discount, we paid about $60 inlcuding taxes for both and received $10 voucer for next purchase. Didn’t have time to look for winter boots as we have to rush off to meet the in laws for dinner. We most likely would come back here to continue the shopping next week.
My in laws are in their 60s. After battling with cancers and illnesses for the past 10 years, they decided to sell their house and moved into a retirement community. Though they still lead an active life, they could not cope with yard work and maintaining a house anymore.
The retirement center is built on 30 acres of scenic campus with park-like setting. There are two stocked fishing ponds, large community areas, ample parking for residence and guests, garage parking and 24-hour security.
The landscaping, building and residence maintenance are contracted out to professionals. The center is run by full-time activity director and staffs who organize social and recreational activities. The other facilities include game Room, fitness center with personal trainer, library, computer resource center, craft and hobby room, wood working shop, resident Gardens.
It offers choices of apartments, duplexes, independent living, assisted living and nursing home.
The in laws at first moved into a three-bedroom apartment and stayed on the waiting list for duplexes. They later moved into a two-bedroom duplex once it’s available.
The duplexes (what we called semi-D in Malaysia) are really nice, they range in size from 1,300 to 1,700 square feet. These professionally landscaped single-level brick homes feature two to three bedrooms, two baths, and include a fully equipped kitchen, an attached garage with opener, spacious sun room, and a full basement.
All interior and exterior maintenance is done for them, the lawn is mowed for them. The retirement center offers flexible dining plan and serves three meals daily at the cafeteria. The retirees can bring guests and can also reserve private dining rooms for special events.
The in laws usually have breakfast on their own, and if they do not feel like cooking lunch and dinner, they order meals at the cafeteria. Then, they just drive or walk over to the cafeteria during designated meal time.
The food at the cafeteria is prepared by professional cook. The in laws brought me there for brunch yesterday. They have good cooks, I must say. The food not only delicious, they are prepared the healthy way too. The retirement center is pretty well designed to ensure personal independence and quality of living. I really don’t mind living here when we retired in future!!
Most of the people who live here are in their 70s and 80s, the oldest man lives here is 105 years old! He drove a car until recently he decided to surrender his driver licensse and gave his car to his grandson (who must be in his 60s!). Parents in law who are in their 60s are the youngest couples here!!
T left for a toy show to trade his action figures and hot wheels 6.30 a.m. So, he had arranged for his parents to pick me up for Church. His parents attend the United Methodist in the neighboring town, about 15 minutes drive from where we live. Most of their relatives i.e. uncles, aunts, cousins, nieces and second cousins attend this church. However, we do not plan to attend this church, so today is just visiting.
Oh boy, I have never seen a congregation with so many elderly people. :-) It’s not that I have anything against elderly people, we were at the second service at 10 a.m. more than half of the people are older than parents in law, who are in their 60s! However, it’s encouraging to see some older people are continuing to serve God in whatever capacity they can.
We went to the cafeteria the retirement community where parents in law live for Sunday brunch after church service. It’s a buffet on Sunday. They have wide selections of breakfast, sandwiches, salads, fish and chicken. I had some baked salmon, salad and a croissant sandwich, they were delicious. They must have good cooks at this retirement community!
We went to the International Cafe at the Lutheran Church on the university campus to meet up with a group of international students and Christians who meet there every Friday evening for dinner and socialization. They are students from Asia, Africa, South America and the Middle East.
Was nice to meet some Chinese women from Taiwan and China. They invited me to join a quilting class that they are organizing next Friday! Really excited about the quilting class, can put the three boxes of fabrics from the estate sale into good use! It’s something to do and keep me occupied when it gets cold in the winter.
Someone introduced me to Renee, a math instructor at the university and Gleen, an ex HR person at the community college, they told me I can apply to teach math at the junior college or university as long as I can show evidences of a Masters degree and teaching experience. I thought that would need a PhD to do that, but they confirmed that won’t be neccesary. That’s good news!! I am glad we make that connection here at the International cafe! I have initially thought of taking a course that leads to an IL teacher license that enables me to teach in the public school system and have been browsing the web for information on this courses. Looks like it might not be neccessary.
We bought a pair of GE washer and dryer off a co-worker of the big boy. The co-worker just recently moved in with the boyfriend, so they were trying to get rid of the extra pair of washer and dryer quick and cheap. The pair were at least $900 when they were bought new from the store 9 months ago, we got them for $200, it’s a good deal, isn’t it?
The washer worked just fine, but T only found out we have electric hook up at the laundry room in the basement, and the dryer needs a gas hook up! Alas, we have to sell the dryer and get an electric one. We listed the gas dryer on craiglist.com yesterday, to sell it for $150.
We had a couple of people called or emailed to inquire immediately, one guy suggested we trade with his 3 years old electric dryer (he just moved into a house that has no electric hook up, only gas hook up), another guy is going to come by this Saturday to look at it and may take it right away!
If we manage to sell the dryer for the asking price of $150, that means we only pay $50 for the washer! It’s quite a crazy experience, isn’t it?
*We ended up selling the dryer to a Mexican couple who hardly speak any English for $100 !
Today is the big boy’s day off from work, we decided to go for garage sales. We started with no anticipation of what to expect but ended up loading and unloading the backseat and trunk three times. We found a bunch of stuffs we need for the kitchen and household, at really good prices. We paid $0.25 to $1 for individual items or $0.50 to $5 for a box of miscellaneous stuffs! We spent about $70 in total for everything we hauled home!
2 Vintage blue cornflower Corning Wares, an Anchor oval pan, a Pyrex square pan, a Pyrex rectangular pan, and a Pyrex casserole.
2 dinner sets. Each set has 24 pieces. Both are unused, still in the box!
8 jars, different shapes and sizes. (They are good for storing food and my fruit enzymes projects.)
A set of unused 12 drinking glasses, 4 wine glasses and some miscellaneous drinking glasses.
14 crochet and craft books.
78 spools of threads and other sewing supplies.
3 boxes of fabrics.
A rocking chair.
A clothes drying rack.
A rice cooker, a crock pot (slow cooker) and a food processor.
2 steam irons, come with fabric starch and “Magic sizing“.
A winter coat, a huge bag of sweaters and cardigans.
The estate sales is at the house of an old woman who has moved into nursing home. Her daughter engaged an agency to conduct the estate sales. It’s amazing to see what one can collect in her lifetime! Looking at the boxes and plastic containers, it’s obvious that she was a collector of many stuffs! She also never throw away all her children’ stuffs. They were tones of wooden toys, sport equipments and even a pool table at the basement!!
We could see the mall from the highway the last time we went down to the 
