Money


ROOT CANALS

Yesterday was the continuation of my root canal on my lower right side. It didn’t feel as bad this time, probably because Duc used a thing to keep my jaw open. Doing that helped me “doze” off instead of concentrating on keeping my mouth open. He also put my permanent crown on my upper left tooth. It was disturbing hearing Duc talk with his assistant Stephanie about dentisrty. He’s been coaching her, a good guy imo to talk her through everything he’s doing although it makes me a little too conscious of what he’s doing. I feel more comfortable with him as my dentist than I have ever felt in my life. He really puts me at ease. I don’t know if it’s because he’s a friend and I feel more trust in him or just his bedside manner. She spoke about how easy root canals were and he told her all the procedures in dentistry are easy on paper but a lot of factors can make it trickier, i.e. placement of teeth, patient reaction, how far back the teeth are, how many canals there are, how many roots there are, etc. Fun stuff (

MOVIES AND GROWING UP

C had swimming as usual yesterday. I saw P there again. I remarked on how damn cold it was and that it was probably due to global warming. She suggested I watch “Who Killed the Electric Car?” Maybe we should sign up for Netflix. I seem to be spending more and more time in front of the tv. J has a sixth sense for when I’m on the computer these days and wakes up as soon as I get online now. He’s growing such a personality too. Yesterday, when I wanted him to nurse, he wasn’t having it and pushed me away. He’s never refused milk before. He also refused the bottle at my mil. He also has started batting toys on his swing. I’m not ready for him to grow up yet. Ahhhhh…

B has to do a computer timeline at school now. We had to submit two photos. One of when he was a baby. One more recent. I used a photo I took of him at the Corona Del Mar Castle building contest. He looks so happy at the beach. I looked through the baby photos and since Easter was coming up, I asked him if I could submit the one of him in his spring outfit, sitting in the easter basket wearing bunny ears. Think he was 5-6 months old. Soooo cute. His answer was, “No way, that’s so embarrassing.” I asked him again 5 minutes later. He said, “MO-OOOOOM-MMM.” Oh well, it was worth a try.

ACTIVITIES TO DO WITH THE KIDS

I met this woman Sulan at the park today. I met her last time as well. She had a few good suggestions for occupying kids during the summer. I told her I didn’t want them to spend all their time playing video games. She has theme days i.e. making a movie day, arts and crafts day (draw a flower in the garden day) , math/worksheet day, write an article day and science day (google cool science projects). She has a website which she runs where she programmed cool free educational software – free math/chemistry games (sort of like teaching tools) for kids to play and along the side are google ads where she gets $/click. I may try to find it.

EASTER BASKETS

I popped by Target this morning. It was great. They open at 8am so after I dropped B and C at school, I swung by there via Irvine Center Drive. I wanted to get all the goodies for their Easter Baskets or in this case bucket (bought that at Big Lots in Laguna Woods). I didn’t want to concentrate on just easter wrapped candy (i.e. candy that just has a different wrapper) but candy that they don’t often have or at leaast has some significance with the “Easter Basket” tradition. I bought jellybeans, malted choco balls, bunny-shaped chocolate, easter animal pez dispensers and also some egg shaped gum because C seems to have a thing for gum. I also bought some goodies like hot wheels truck combo that has a car inside, pokemon card packs, some crayola goodies for C. I also bought some clothes for a portrait sitting later on. I want the kids to have a photo taken together professionally, maybe at Kiddie Kandids since that seems to be the place to go by all my friends.

FINANCIAL ADVICE

The pokemon cards rang up at $13.99 but on the rack they were $9.99. Normally, I would never have noticed because I don’t really pay attention when cashiers ring up things but it just so happened that yesterday I read Common Billing Errors that can Cause You Money – most notably “With the computer age, many people assume the bill is automatically correct and don’t review what the actual charges are. While computers can make errors in calculations less likely, they are far from foolproof. The result is that consumers lose billions of dollars by making unnecessary overpayments each year.” It stuck in my head and I had resolved to be more proactive when it comes to finances since budgeting may play a bigger role in the near future. It’s good to make it a habit of being aware of your money and where it is going.

Id theft is a scary thing too. I think I may do 1-888-5-OPT-OUT and buy a cross shredder. I’ve always wondered what would happen if you submitted a taped up cc application and now I know.

Forgot to order my credit report earlier this year so decided to order it today. Can never be to careful about identity theft. Ever since A got his cc # stolen (mind you just the # not the actual card), I’ve been ultra paranoid. His # was somehow stolen and used to make a new card. We always thought it was that Argentine/Brazilian (?) bbq place we went to. It was soon after that we started getting all these unauthorized charges on our card. We had a few drinks while waiting for our friends to arrive (was a dinner surprise) and we suspect the bartender did it because he went to the back to charge the card even though there was a cash register at the bar. Fancy place like that, they probably figured we wouldn’t notice the charges? We reported it on New Year’s Day too and they actually came. Love the Irvine police.

Free annual credit reports