Thursday, June 26, 2008

How I Paid Off $35,000 in Debt, and How You Can Too

No, it's not me. I like some of the ideas and hoping my dear hubby would read this too...hehe!

Last December, after twenty years of owing money, I finally paid off all of my debt (except the mortgage — and I’m working on that). Co-incidentally, Leo paid off his debt at the exact same time. I didn’t pay off my debt overnight. It took many years, and I made plenty of mistakes. But with patience and perseverance, I met my goal.

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Monday, June 23, 2008

Summer Events In Knoxville/Oak Ridge

Happy Monday all! Hope you guys had a nice weekend. Ours was okay. We missed The Secret City Festival events, which held at the Alvin Bissell Park last Friday and Saturday. I have forgotten that all kid's events were scheduled on Friday. The park is just several blocks away from us and still we missed it all. Oh well, there is always the next year.

Then on Saturday, The Secret City Festival events continued with WWII Combat Reenactment and WWII Living History at the same park. And guess what? We did not make it to the shows either …haha. It's all my fault. I saw my sister online on Skype and we chatted for 2 hours. By the time I was done chatting with my sister, it was already lunchtime for Billy. So we decided to just stay at home for the whole day instead. Pretty boring, huh!

This weekend, dear hubby is taking part in Dragon Boat Races in Knoxville Dragon Boat Festivals. It is a charity event with Knox Area Rescue Ministries as the beneficiary. Other than the dragon boat races, there will be an entertainment, cultural activities and fun activities for children. I am so excited, not only because of dear hubby is participating in the dragon boat race but also because they have Asian cultural performances and activities that day. Horaaay! It will be my first time watching Asian cultural performances live in East Tennessee. It should be fun for Billy as well, as there will be Children’s Fun Zone and this year for the first time they have Asian Culture Center…..yeah!!! I will try to take good pictures but we will see.

All Day Activities:
*More than 25 heats of racing
*Live Music by Dishwater Blonde at noon
*Live Music by Mission Possible at 2p.m.
*Performances by the Organization for Chinese/Chinese Americans at various times
*Children's Fun Zone sponsored by Coulter & Justus with inflatables, games and new this year - Asian Culture Center with fun interactive activities!

Just Billy Having Fun!



Cape Charles Beach - West Virginia

Saturday, June 21, 2008

This Week Picture


Billy was picking flower in the park near the White House.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Please Help - Milk Pledge For Needy Children.

"Malaysians drink about five litres of milk annually compared to Europeans who drink 150 litres of milk a year." :-(

Hi all. I read about this ‘Milk Loves You’ campaign and ‘Feed A Child’ on-line pledge in NST yesterday. The online pledge will provide six months of milk supply to 400 children in Pahang, Malaysia. Packaging manufacturer Tetra Pak will match your clicks with the number of milk packets to underprivileged children.

I did my part and would like to ask you to please help the needy children to have their milk soon. As soon as the clicks reaches 100 000, the manufacturer will donate the milk packets to the deserving children. All you have to do is going the website and click on 'Make Your Milk Pledge'. It’s very easy, no ads....hihi!

Thank you very much!



The New Straits Times - 2008/06/19

Click a milk packet to a needy child

KUALA LUMPUR: Click on a webpage and packaging manufacturer Tetra Pak will match your clicks with the number of milk packets to underprivileged children. The on-line pledge will provide six months of milk supply to 400 children in Pahang. Tetra Pak's managing director, Peter Jhaveri, said the company was targeting 100,000 clicks.

"Each on-line click represents a packet of milk. As soon as we receive 100,000 clicks, we will donate the milk packets to deserving children," he said after the launch of Milk Loves You! campaign and Feed-A-Child pledge here on Monday.

Tetra Pak is a packaging and distribution company for liquid food industries. The milk packets will be given to Tengku Puan Pahang Tengku Azizah Aminah Maimunah Iskandariah Sultan Iskandar. She also made the first pledge after the launch. She appealed to all Malaysians to click on-line. She said most Malaysians do not include milk in their diet.

"As soon as I knew I was to donate milk to underprivileged children, I called several homes. They told me their children do not want to drink milk because they throw up."

She then made a personal pledge to Nestle, which was also present during the launch, to donate mini corn flake packets to encourage children to drink milk. Jhaveri said Malaysians drink about five litres of milk annually compared to Europeans who drink 150 litres of milk a year.

"Children here stop drinking milk after two or six years old. Efforts should be taken to instill the benefits of drinking milk," he said.

Those interested can click on www.milklovesyou.com.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

It’s A Sad Day.

Today is indeed a very sad day for me. I have received an email from my friend back home this morning says that one of our friends has just passed away yesterday. It comes as a shocked to everyone as he was a healthy and athletic person without any major health concerns. In fact, he passed away while jogging in the sport complex. He was still young, maybe in his late 40’s or early 50’s.

He was a family man, a great friend and a great teacher. I'm blessed to have known him and have been his colleague for ten years. I have great respect for him. He was like a big brother to me. While I was still singled, he was the friend I came to when I need any advice (work related or personal) from a man point of views. He had never been biased or prejudiced when giving his opinions or advice and whatever you share with him will safe with him. What a great person he was.

He will be certainly missed by his beloved family, friends, his students and everyone who knows him. My heart and prayers go to his family. May God blessed and give strength to his wife and family. May you rest in peace, cikgu Bahrin.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

We Are Back!!!!

Yeah!! We are back in town! So happy we made it home safe. We got home at about 11.00pm last night(Monday night). Actually, we supposed to stay overnight in Asheville, NC but last minutes we changed our mind and drove home. It was a nice driving home, at least for me and our little passenger as we were in our sweet dreamland most of the way. (LOL)

I still have loads of works to be done. Did all the unpacking yesterday and today will continue with house cleaning and laundries. Lot more works waiting for me, huh!

I will share about our trip when time permit.

Time to jump into the pool.

Enjoying his pool.

Hmmm...look like Billy need bigger pool soon. (LOL)

Monday, June 9, 2008

Dolly Parton's Imagination Library

Have you heard of Dolly Parton's Imagination Library? The program being implemented in the state of TN and 42 more states in the US to promote the pleasure of reading on children.. It’s helping every child, regardless income to own a book and library at home by providing free books to children from birth until they are five years old. One book is mailed to the child’s home every month. How cool is that?

I have my son enrolled in the program about three months ago and he has received his second books last week. Billy already has a pretty big collection of books but it is also nice to receive free books to add to his small library.

So if you are parents of a preschooler and living in TN, make sure you enroll your child in the program. Every child under 5 years old is eligible. You can get the form from your public library or register your child online at Dolly Parton's Imagination Library. It is a great program. Thank you to Dolly Parton. She is really a real diva.

The Imagination Library is also implemented in Canada and the UK. So parents in Canada and the UK, if you would like to enroll your preschooler, check the Imagination Library site out. :D




Thanks Dolly Parton for the books.

Friday, June 6, 2008

On The Road Again

Hi all! I am taking a break from my busy Friday. This would be my last posting this week, probably would be a while before I could update my blog again. Maybe! But I may surprise you…..hihi!

We are going on a trip again. This time we are heading to Washington DC. Dear hubby is going to a conference at the Uncle Sam capital city. It will be held at the Marriott Hotel, Crystal City. Actually, we were there last year. We will be staying at the same place, so nothing new. I would be happy to stay home with Billy especially if we had to fly but dear hubby said he would rather drive and have us come with. At least we do not need to put up with airport hassles and all. Unfortunately, Billy will be missing school for one and a half weeks.

We will be hitting the road tomorrow morning drive through Kentucky and West Virginia and arrive at Crystal City at around Sunday evening. We should be able to go around Washington DC and would probably visit a few more places we did not get to see last year. It is pretty easy to go around and the subway is close by the hotel.

After the conference, we will take the weekend to drive to Maryland and later to Virginia Beach before heading back to TN. We should be home on Tuesday. (June 17th)

Okay, I better run. I still have to finish my packing. Have a great weekend everyone!

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Out Of Luck

Thank you all for the kind wishes on our anniversary. Sorry about the short post…hihi! We had a great time last weekend and on our anniversary. A little unfortunate we has to put on hold what we have planned last week because of the bad weather.

Actually, we planned to go to the drive-in theater last Sunday. We just wanted to do something different and memorable on our special day, konon. Dear hubby has been persuaded me to go to the drive-in theater for a while but the summer warm weather always put me off. Last Sunday was supposed to be cool and nice but the weather forecast has changed. It was raining on the late afternoon. We will still be going to one after we get back from our trip this weekend. I am hoping they will have ‘Sex and The City’ movie on by then….hihi!

On our anniversary we went to our favorite restaurant by the lake but to our disappointment they were close that day. So we head to another restaurant at the lake, Chinese restaurant sajalah….haha! Malaslah mau fikir. We had a nice dinner. Nothing really super special, let alone a candle light dinner. (LOL) I was not that excited to take pic either. That’s explaining why only one Billy’s pic in that post.….hihi! We might have our special anniversary dinner in DC sometimes next week.

After dinner we take a walk at the lake. Billy had so much fun watching geese and ducks swimming in the lake. I should have taken a few shots, oh well, maybe some other time.