The youngest is attending a birthday party of a school friend this weekend – and out of courtesy, I had called her parents to ask what she was into these days. And guess what her mother said – xbox games or the DS 3D games. Wow! these days kids are very expensive! when we were young – our parents would ask for books or something simple – but I’m guessing in the West – they just ask for whatever the kid is playing even though they are expensive gifts, the parents don’t have trouble asking for it during the kid’s birthday.
There is probably going to be pizza only at the party – and my kid don’t even eat pizza – so she would only have a piece of small cake – and that piece of cake is going to cost us closed to $35 for a birthday present – darn! We can’t let her attend many birthday parties no more if every kid wanted a xbox game or a DS 3D game. Would you ask for such an expensive present for your kid’s birthday? I don’t know what to think – since the kids are only 6 years old – what will they ask for when they turn 16? I think we are good with our kid’s gifts – we never let them have expensive toys or gifts.
It’s understandable why many friends from Philippines, China and Thailand wants to leave their country and marry someone here – it’s a fake illusion that the West or the men in the West are rich I think. Some girls from home might think it’s marry up – when it comes to marry to people from USA – and Canada or just about anywhere out of their country but when I see these beautiful ladies marrying someone so old – my heart goes out to them.
Of course, my friends claimed that it is for love but really? anyhow, recently I met a young Filipino who married a older gentleman in town and at first, everyone in town had mistaken that the young girl was a friend of his son – she looked like she was 13 or 14 yrs old – I kid you not. But we come to learn that she was the new wife – WOW! the young girl was nice but after talking with her a few times, I met her once at the local cafe – and she was busy sky-ping with family or friends back home. She sounded frustrated and I really didn’t want to be a busy body – but she started tearing and I went over to ask her if she was alright.
Long story short – she thought that when she married this older man in town – she was marrying someone well to do – she had promised her family to send home money as soon as she arrived but the new husband didn’t have any to give her to send home – so they are currently sleeping in separate rooms because she is mad with him. The new husband is currently on unemployment and has a teenage son who is just about ready to start college next year – so money is tight.
Yes, everyone hope for a better life – the grass is always greener on the other side – and everyone wants to reach for the stars – but be careful ladies. Be careful.
A week ago, I read how some who were with Google adsense got banned for no reasons at all at John Chow’s and this blogger had been with Adsense for a long time. Adsense is one of the more popular affiliate programs that helped bloggers make money online and truth be told – I hear a lot of bloggers just get banned for no reason whatsoever that they can think of. But like the author on John Chow said – don’t put all your eggs in one basket – and I hope you didn’t either – because there are other affiliate programs that do pay pretty well and you can work well with them without fearing that all your hard work to increase your traffic would have gone to waste – because Google deems it as some potential fake click or at risk. So yes, there are other ways to make money online – and a good affiliate program is everywhere – you just have to look for it and work with them. I’ve had great success with some – but not with Adsense – I don’t regret not having adsense – or making the big bucks with them – because there are other companies that are reasonable and don’t just ban you for nothing. And yes, Zac Johnson is the one that got banned about a week ago.
It’s late March but it’s snowing !!!! it’s worst than in February whereby the weather was spring like and now in spring we are getting snow and cold winds – what the hell right? a totally opposite in weather. Had I known that the weather was going to turn this way – I would have done all my travel in February instead of waiting for warmer weather in Spring and Summer.
Quite frustrating because we were planning to head up to the city to do some shopping soon – but if the weather is this way, no one wants to go to the city because of the long drive and the icy highway. I find that we are always being fooled by the weather here in Canada – so maybe next year we should planned to go to the city in February and holiday in the South in March and April.
Yes, appointments at the doctor’s this week for some annual check up – JOY! not! of course but what can you do when you want to live to a ripe old age and see your children get married, so I pacify the spouse. The only thing I don’t like about visiting the doctor’s is going up on their scales and getting my weight recorded down for I’m ashamed to say that the week’s spring break holiday made me quite a pig or a cow as my youngest would like to put it. I loved my food too much and I loved trying just about everything when I was in Taiwan and the Mango smoothies and juices that I had must have added like 10 kg on my hips. But no regrets because what fun is it when you don’t try and eat as much as you want when you are on a vacation right? *shrug*
While we all came back home from our trip to Taiwan after a short spring break – the spouse headed out to Budapest for work and this time on his own of course. I had to head back with the kids and prepare them for the new term for school. While some of you may envy that the spouse travels for work – and goes just about everywhere – he said he doesn’t envy his lifestyle at all. Staying in hotels and eating hotel’s food isn’t an enjoyment for him anymore – in fact, he usually just stays indoor and order room service if he didn’t have to – for a business lunch or dinner. This trip he is away for 14 days but it may be more – who knows – it usually last longer and being a spouse of a traveling working man – I am used to it and I just go about my own things with my kids in tour. My life does not spin around the spouse’s schedule as his is pretty busy but whenever he is online – we all skype with him a lot.
We just got a quote back from our contractor for changing the bulbs in your backyard to leds because it will save us money in the future plus, it is also safer for us because LED bulbs won’t burn or go on fire. During spring and summer – depending on the weather, we entertain a lot in our backyard, so we had wired our backyard with a lot of lights – to pretty up the place. Anyhow, we finally decided we should change everything to LED because we don’t want any accidents to happen during the summer and we know that LED bulbs last almost forever and sure it can be expensive at first but it is a good investment. So we’ve shopped around with different contractors and different company to buy these LEDs light bulb and is also considering about changing our indoors fluorescent tubes to LEDs. It has a 5 yrs warranty and a 10 years life span on them – plus it saves a lot of money on power bills. I think it is worth looking into.
My son who loves hotdogs when he is home in the West – wouldn’t eat any of the chinese sausages on the streets of Taipei. How funny is that ? cultural difference or just being a Canadian snob? his dad say that he is just being a snob but he claims that they didn’t look appetizing at all. My daughters on the other hand would try just about anything and everything and some of you may be asking me if it was alright to eat street food in Taiwan – and I have to tell you that it’s no difference from street food found on exhibition or any kind of Farmer’s market here in Canada. So if you are thinking of visiting Asia anytime soon – make sure you are no food snob.
My son asked me if he could drink this ? since it was only 3.3% alcohol, he said to me, but it’s only a cocktail ! but you see in Taiwan the age limit for drinking is different as compared to the West. The spouse looked at him and laughed and allowed him to have a bottle which I frown. While in Canada, you can only buy liquor in an authorized store, in Asia, you can buy them in a grocery store, making it a lot easier for kids to get to them. No wonder we see a lot more drunk driving in Asia than in Canada where I lived.
So it’s the March break the the spouse is in Taiwan, so what do one do with a bunch of kids who are bored? you bring them with you on a short trip to Taiwan – and the cost, I’m sure you are wondering – good ole Airmiles. It’s funny to bring your western kids to a very Chinese place – especially if you have all of them with blond air because no matter how advance Taiwan is, they are extremely curious with your blond hair kids. It will be an eye opener for my kids that’s for sure and weather isn’t too bad either at this time of the year, not too hot nor too cold.
