I just booked a rental car for the week of Christmas for our whole family to go down to see Eric’s family in Columbia, MO. We did a trip in April, it was such a pain as Lydia was still little and I sometimes need to breastfeed her. Plus on the way back to Chicago, I got a ticket for speeding, so instead of trying to get to home earlier, we got home late. So I am not sure what to expect this trip, hope the kids will not be that bad.

I am interested to get some knee high socks with fancy colors. I went to the Macy’s the other day and found some nice hue socks, I have been using this brand for a while as their quality is great, it will last a pretty long time. Plus they are always advanced in designs, now you can get colors for the holidays. The other good thing is you can order online, they only charge a $5 flat fee for shipping, no matter how large the order is. So if you want to get everything new in your wardrab, now it’s the time! Do’t get behind!

Today is my first day to do a showing. This lady lives in my building wants to buy a three bed room place, I found two on the market for her. There is a big difference between the two condos, one is highly upgraded, the other one is original and poorly maintained. The price is very different too. I am not sure which one she is really interested in it. I learned from boss and the listing agent about what to say. Overall this is the start of my career!

It’s time of the year to pick a new insurance plan for next year. There are so many insurance plans, I really have a hard time to pick the most efficient but with good coverage plan. I am the kind of person who has cavities each year, that means each year I have to get fillings, most insurance has a $1,500 deductable or higher, that means I have to pay the fillings out of my own pocket, that is quite a pain. Then we found this discount dental plans which offer different dental plans plus discount, you can compare between more than 30 national and regional money-saving discount dental plans. Since 1999, DentalPlans.com has been an industry leader bringing individuals, families and groups affordable and comprehensive discount dental plans. Discover the many advantages of DentalPlans.com and see how they keep thousands of satisfied customers smiling. I always regret that my teeth are not straight due to the poor dental insurance while I was young, now I want my daughters to have the best strong white teeth, so I need to pick up a plan for them since they are young and I really have to work on them to have a good habit of brushing teeth at least twice a day.

All business topics are related o China these days. ICBC bank has overtaken Bank of America as for the market value. While I was in China in the summer, one of my old classmates has mentioned to buy this stock, but I hesitated as Eric said that all of the business analysis said that China’s stock market is over valued. The stock price of ICBC has soared more than 50% since then, but I do not regret, as I am sure that I could pick a good stock to buy.

We really need to refinance now, by talking to our mortgages person, we found out that there are lots of calculations you need to understand, such as you have to pay double on the day you change a bank, that means you have to pay both banks on the same day to close the loan. Also, the tax escrow amount might change. Any closing cost in the total amount that you need to bring to the closing? There are new terms too, such as buy to let mortgages.

Plus you have to Compare mortgages when you want to refinance, as they are offering discount point, different percentage, the closing cost etc.

I have been to the food court at the AON building a few times. You can not go there during lunch time, but after 1:30pm, it is not as busy. They do have more than 10 different choices, such as tacos (I had a fish taco once and it was very delicious), burgers, sushi, spaghetti, wraps, and salad (there is a nice salad bar that has more than 20 choices). The seating are nice and not very crowded.

It’s the holiday time of the year again, I am thinking what to mail for our greeting cards, maybe something a little creative with the kids input on them. There is a context for just creating a Chrismas card we found on a website, $10,000 Create-A-Greeting Christmas cards scholarship contest for high school and college kids, this sounds very exciting, I do not know how are they evaluate the results, to participate is a nice thing for kids to do, they could learn a lot just from doing it.

Each year our company has to send out Business Thanksgiving Cards to show appreciation to our clients and customers, we are thinking to include a $5 stubucks coupon with our company sticker on it too.

I went shopping with a friend at the Michigan avenue yesterday. I got a new pair of boots, which is knee high and burgundy color. I noticed that the new trend is to wear boots with knee high pants or shorts this year. I was wearing the new boots from the store, I felt so good and got some good comments too.

If you have High-Interest Business Debt that you would like to consolidate, Small Business Loan can help you. Some Credit Cards charge interest rates as high as 32%, which can bury your business under a pile of debt and high monthly payments that eat away at your profits every month like an Alligator. We can help you to consolidate your loans, that means you will only have one loan to pay, plus we will offer our qualified customers 6 months free of interest charge, that means you can save thousands of dollars. EZUnsecured.com has been helping Entrepreneurs like me since 2002, one Client at a Time. They do provide great services with properly trained professional people.

I am very excited to start my new career today. It’s nice to have a desk again since I have been consultant for a long time. My husband has reminded me to put some photos on my desk, that is a great idea. I just called one of our neighbors who is interested in buying a new place here.

We went to the Houston Rodeo Events last year, that was our first time and we had lots of fun, I was sitting at section 127, we had a clear view of the show, although there are 10 rows in front of us, but since the seats are inclining up, I did not feel that I have to peak between shoulders. We have seen the shows on TV many times as my husband is a fun at the Rodeo events, but nothing is like to sit in a real show. It is so different, we have enjoyed 100 times more. The price is not very expensive either, we spend around $300 for two tickets only not including the drinks and food. We used Houston Rodeo concert tickets to get our tickets, which is very fast to use, they also have live person who could answer calls. We had questions about seating, a live person answered the phone in 3 minutes and explained the seating in details, she was very helpful, so when we went to the stadium, we really got what we were looking for. We will go again next year if we could get good tickets. Maybe we will have some friends to go with us.

I have some friends are very rich in China, so I was thinking why not help them to buy a place in Chicago as an investment. Then I can help them to manage it by renting it out. The concern I have is that I am not sure how difficult it is to exchange the Chinese currency to USD or a large amount, as the Chinese currency is not free trade yet.

I found this on 340otp.com

“Condo Sales up in the Chicago Loop

The Chicago Loop is seeing a marked increase in condo sales despite bad news coming out of the real estate market across the city.

According to the most recent report from the Chicago Association of Realtors, the Chicago Loop saw a total of 401 condos sold during the third quarter of 2007.

This is an 80 percent increase over the same period last year, the largest increase for any neighborhood in Chicago.”

This is really an exciting news for me as that means I have lots of work to do!

A new interesting sporting is booming up, which is the airsoft guns. One of the first things a new buyer discovers is that the Drozd isn’t a true full-auto gun, at least not what most people imagine. You can’t just mash down the trigger and shoot until the ammo is gone. This gun operates in the burst-fire mode, only. Why is that?

Well, the CO2 gas that powers the Drozd is a refrigerant. When it expands, it draws heat away from whatever it contacts. In the case of the Drozd, it cools the action of the gun – rapidly! If the gun were allowed to keep on shooting, it would freeze solid after not too many seconds. So, the designers put a limitation on the gun to allow it to fire in short bursts. There are two burst modes – three and six shots. In either of those modes, all the shots are fully automatic – the trigger just has to be held down to complete the burst. To fire another burst, let the trigger return to the forward position before pulling it again. When you pull the trigger again, you’ll get another burst.

Pyramid Air is the finest and most extensive site on the web for air guns and air rifles! We sell BB guns, pellet guns, CO2 guns, CO2 rifles, BB pellet guns, and air pistols from the finest manufacturers all over the world.

There is a 5% coupon on the site that you can use to purchase all products, which is a good deal! You can use it even for the discounted products. So why not take advantage of it.

It’s time of the year to enroll in the flexible spending account again. The child care is the one we would use the most, I was hoping the amount can be higher, such as $10,000, if someone can raise that amount, we could save $1000 more per month. We have never used the transportation account, but since my husband is working in the suburbs, I am sure that we can use some for the train pass.

I have a friend always go to internet to find bargain deals, such as discount and coupons, she mentioned that each month she could save lots of money from these coupons and promotions. She has got a cheap digital camera for 60% of it’s original price, which is a very deal. Since Thanksgiving is coming, we all know that the deals are waiting for us after the thanksgiving day. Some stores even offer free products for the first 10-100 customers; you can find all these information from this website. There are electronics, such as cheap HDTV discount hdtv, best buy plasma tv, discount lcd hdtv, and hdtv wholesale deals, household stuff, such as diapers, we do use this a lot since we have two little babies. Why do you spend more money for the save stuff. I like this site as it could offer variety stuff, I even keep the URL in my favorite folder to make things easier. You can also sign up on their newsletter which you could get reminders for the stuff that you are interested. In order to be rich, we have to do both ways, to make money and to save money. Right now I am the one in charge of spending at home, so I could use the website to do more clever spending and try to save the money for the holidays! You will be amazed at how much you can save everyday, try it and you will know it yourself.

Our nanny has been complain about her husband, she mentioned that he is just sitting at home and do not want to find any job other than doing massage for other people. She said that she is also very tired, however, she has to work in order to make ends meet, and she does not want to fight with him as that will not make him feel good. So she is regret of getting married, I feel so sad for her and really can not help her much.

These days I kept on hearing about people get rich just through doing something on line, it always sounds amazing to me. But ecommerce hosting will help you to make your dream becomes true! They offer very fast process setting up clients
with site design, shopping carts, free ecommerce installation, SSL Certificates, and using the credit card to make a payment. My husband has set up a small business and we used this whole process, it only took us less than half an hour to get everything set up. It is really quick and user friendly. By using the ‘online store, you can create your shopping cart, then you can review everything before your check out, each item has a link to the detailed page, in case you change your mind and would like to purchase different things, it is very easy to do so. Another thing is you can submit a ticket if you have any questions, the sales representative would help you immediately within 12 hours, so you do not have to wait for 3 days to get things like lots of other hosting site. They have very secure servers so that your site will not be down often, as that will be a huge probem if you have to deal with the slow connection, the breakdown of the website, etc. This website is a really good help to our house hold, now we just need to concertrate on building up of our business not to worry of how to run the website.

My Dad’s story continues:

“Two years later, the “cultural Revolution” broke out in China, the whole country was in a full chaos. I lost contact with my friend and hadn’t had any news about him for a long time. I only heard he had gone to his province with his wife and two daughters; meanwhile I was married and had a daughter too.
Twenty years have passed in a flash. One day I received a phone from him and we met in a restaurant. At the dinner table, we exchanged only some greetings and he hurried to tell me a secret: since our meeting in Beijing many years ago he was keeping up a relationship with the “girl” that he would like to introduce to me in the past. My God! What was he doing? Why did he even mention this to me, a pride or a confession? I can’t say a word.”

This is a shock to me too as I have met this guy at my parent’s place, he seems to be a nice guy, I have never thought that he had a romance here. Especially in those years in mainland China, people are afraid of doing things wrong, as you never know where are you going to be end up, maybe in jail, maybe be sent to very far away place to work on a farm, plus he had a wife and kids, this is really not loyal, I understand why my Dad has nothing to say to him.