~Coffee Time~林子里~

在这里， 秋天的颜色的确很美。 恰到妙处的金黄， 玫瑰红， 艳红， 粉红，混合得刚刚好。所以一有机会， 就到林子里， 野外， 步行道。也拍了些照片。秋天的童话也许有的， 也希望雪天再晚些。

Black coffee ~~ One day, this black cat ~~

This black cat begins to show up around our and neighbour's houses one night. Donna, our neighbour, stopped us one night before we going into our house. "Do you see that? A black kitten!"

"Miao~~" I was too excited and called out the cat immediately. Ha, the black cat really showed up in front of us. The colour is pure black, except a little white fur under the neck. Until now, we are not sure of is he or she. 

We bought milk the other day and try to feed once in the morning and once in the evening. Donna bought the cat food and keep feeding also. 

It's a pity though, looks like the cat only likes to stay outside, we tried to let it in one night, but we heard the noise of crying and let it out again. What will happen if winter arrives, Donna asked. We don't know, maybe the cat already gone somewhere and finds the destination home, I hope. 

CAT

Black Coffee ~~ the piece of land ~~

This was the 2nd visit we are entitled before it's actually switching the ownership. What brings us this decision? Maybe "fate" is a good word to begin this story.

Our close friend Xiao Liu has invested a big farm in the area. We've visited his farm and like the surroundings. We understand that to take care of a farm is not easy, in fact, it's a very hard full-time job. We hesitated to invest in a similar property. Then an opportunity has come.

It was in early May, this friend noticed that a piece of land just near his property is listed for a sale. The size of the land is a little bigger and the price is only half. There is no cottage built up yet in this property, so the price is not as high as others. Maybe that's what we want. We are not planning to live a life as a farmer yet. 

We placed the offer with another friend, who is always looking for rural land for one of the investing profile. Maybe after several years, we would want to develop this land by providing our projects and blueprints. 

Lemon Tea ~~ Town of Orillia

We visited this lovely town on a sunny Saturday morning. 

We stopped by a lakeside, wondering whey there was a group of people gathering in a coffee, laughing and drinking.  A young couple sitting in the shape of a tree told us that because there was a wedding, so people in the coffee were dressing up. We realized what a great day to have a wedding, sunshine, not too hot, not cold yet. I think the butterflies agree with me too. They hang around this light purple flowers that are outside of the coffee. 

When we walked by where the boats and yards are parked, it looks like there was an event today. People were wearing drama clothes. Until we saw the advertisement. Wow, it's the Pirates Festival today! No wonder, we felt into a town full of pirates now ~~

Lunch was at a historical coffee shop. Thanks for hubby's research, we ended had a wonderful meal at the over hundred year's shop. I am sure we will come back again to this town and have another lunch here. 

Lemon Tree ~ Chicago Botanic Garden ~

No more than a better day like this to visit the famous "打卡" spot for this area. Sunshine, blue sky, casual walking along with the greens, sometimes just sit down and enjoy the summer breeze...

Photos, photos and photos...so no more talking, just images!

Lemon Tee ~ Day 1 in Chicago Down Town ~

This is a super city, full of skyline buildings in the scenes. I enjoyed walking along the lakeside. There is a river across the city, most of the people will choose to take a city tour towards the cuisine.

It's late summer now, the soft wind blows summer breeze from the lake. We saw many young couples were wearing their shinning, romantic wedding dresses, taking the photo, chatting and laughing along the sidewalks. What an attractive scenery!

At this moment, hard to believe that this is one of the cities of recording the higher crime rates in North America. 

Lemon Tee ~ Driving to Chicago ~

Because of the relatives of my father-in-law, it brought up a chance for me to join the short visit to Chicago. The 4th biggest city in the US.

The carpool team made up of 5 people, my hubby, me and my father-in-law, another close couple friend. It took us 3 hours to reach the border in the Sonia area. Three of us were holding a Canadian passport, and two need to present to the custom. That day was Friday, so the waiting time is a little bit longer.   While waiting, we saw the customs officer were very patient and asked detail questions to those applicants who are ahead of us. Some of them were even rejected immediately or kept to another small room for further processing. Finally, it's our turn, the officer was a young guy, his questions were very comment, as a result, our group is okay to continue the journey. But it was already about two hours later.  

We drove another 5 hours and approaching to the states of Illinois. Funny stories here was when we were passing the toll road, we could not recognize the toll stations, therefore we were missing 2 or 3 times for the charges. According to the couple friend, if we receive the bill later in Canada, it could cost up to 50 Canadian dollars. No way! We definitely would like to pay off here, on the toll station notification, it showed the route only cost $1.5! Lucky that local friends told us we can search the information online and pay the estimation or pay online with 7 days. 

It's a long and happy journey, we arrived at uncle's house at about 6:30 PM. 

A very short get-together in the hot summer

Pauline maybe comes to Canada once a year only since she moved her focus back to South Africa. So whenever the time that she passing by Toronto, becomes the once a year get-together thing for this group. 

Guys met again on the date of June 24. I guess food is no longer the focus, but the other things, such as vegetable gardening, children's love life, and TV dramas. 

One very funny thing with this group is the geographic distribution. Imagine that we have families from China, HongKong, Singapore, and South Africa. It's been 8 to 9 years since the first get-together. We no longer involve the topic about work, we only want to hear children's boyfriend or girlfriends, which Asian drama that you are tracing right now, is that a sad story finally? What green vegetables you are growing recently, how do you deal with your in-law?

Each time we eat, we chat and we laugh, like the teenage hanging out with friends and don't wanna go home until one of us first announce that we should go, then we dismiss. 

When is the next gathering, I don't know, let's keep it at least once a year!

Purple, purple and purple

Not able to recall since when we fall in love with this colour. We began to plan them 4 to 5 years ago, from 1 small pot plant. The first and oldest is still growing in the backyard, we moved those following to the front yard. Because we realized that they enjoy the full sun and afraid of the damp surface.

Our front yard is a sloped surface slowly down to the walking path. Water drys out quickly so the grass is kind of struggling every summer. But this environment is perfect for our lavender. They grow extremely well. 

This year, the continuous high-temperature last week has made them even happier. See, I've harvested over several bunches already~

Black Coffee ~ From blossom to Fruit ~ 47 days

This golden cherry tree has been with us for 10 years. As the symbolic meaning, we planted it in the same year that we moved into this house. It experienced wind, thunderstorms, snow and sunshine days like us. 

Usually, blossom in early May, the flower is white with a yellow heart. We ever confused too in the past, but it is not Sakura. This is one kind of them but this produces fruit, cherry. Not the normal bloody red cherry, but the golden cherry. 

It takes about 47 days, flowers become fruit now. They were "taken care of" by our natural neighbours, yellow birds, red birds, squirrels, etc. Every year, the time we realized they are matured, it was almost gone. Oh right, we get along well with each other, we never fight for the "food".

Before all beautiful fruits disappear before our eyes, let me took their photos, and picked two bigger ones for a taste. Surprise it is a little sweet already! 

Lemon Tea ~ Thank you for the connecting

That was an excellent morning. When I logged into the LinkedIn account, I saw the name, I was no longer remain calm, actually, the whole day I was excited about. I told my friend, "You made my day!"

As Jing said, It's been 15 years since we last met in ShangHai. I would still like to call him Jing, even he already changed his name, maybe all I am familiar with is the life that he called Jing. Of course, I remember, what a sunshine boy! Three years younger than me. I remember his laughs sound,  very special, don't know why I just can tell it was him. 

At that time, we were in the same class. I was not good at IT coding, actually not good at logical things, that was a drawback for my IT program. I always asked help from friends and classmates, Jing was one of them.  Thanks, that made my study life a little easier. I don't mad if he says now that he thought I was stupid enough at that time. 

Thanks for connecting, I am really happy to know that you are living well with your families in the city of Shanghai. I do wish we have a chance to meet again somewhere in the world.  I wish you all the best!

WE THE NORTH

It was the first time in my life too. I  also pay attention to the NBA news. Talk about how is the team been doing in last night's game with my co-worker. And I stay online for the live broadcast event. 

I think I am also influenced by the NBA star. The team from TORONTO. Now in the whole city, you can see the flags everywhere. I saw this great set up in the biggest shopping mall in downtown. Maybe I am feeling proud to be one of the citizens too. 

Work or life ~ answer interview questions

I've completed another unsuccessful interview here. I agreed with my honey that I should write down somewhere, and teach myself how to "fight back" next time. 

For example, "What happened when you did a bad financial decision?" "I don't make a critical financial decision in my current work since everything needs to be approved by the manager and above. " Honey said, it's wrong, I should ask them "...from the job description, it looks like I don't need to make any financial decisions. Can you specify why there are financial decisions I should make in this job..."

Other common behaviour questions, such as " your weakness", "how do you communicate bad news", "how to get information if there are no data at all..."

Learning the industry strategy

Always try to understand more about the retail culture in this country, is it all based on a discount? To me, it looks like that. And it has a similar effect to the current industry I am working with. 

A co-worker is showing me the incentive system in the organization. I was wondering why it caused so much attention to this company. With over 100 store clients, per each product they sell, the company then subsidy various incentives to the store. By doing this way, the store is able to attract the retail customer by giving a store discount or cash rebate. 

Ah, no wonder, there are very few people purchase the original pricing goods usually. As I see, during the discount seasons, such as Black Friday Sale, Boxing Day Sale, etc., people like me will drive early to the malls and shop everything for the whole year. 

I think the longer we stay here, the more we convinced ourselves that it works well this way. 

Our Tulip Diary

At first, the front yard was very bare, only green grass. When the weather turns in very hot, the purple Irish will blossom. But the yard still looks pale in the entire spring. 

So we decided to plan something, began with a small Japanese maple, then another. We love those tree peonies that friends plan in their backyard, we made our own in the front yard. From one branch to two, now we have four. 

To enrich the color and species, we plan a lot of tulips. Some of them are collected from small pot sales from grocery stores. Some special color and types, are actually from the Botanic Garden in Burlington. 

Every spring, the park organizer will dig out some retired tulip bowls and sell at a very low price to the public. These tulips have been taken care of and some of them even from the Netherlands. 

While keep collecting this and that, we just realize that our small front yard is turning into a good shape and give us an amazing look. 

Taste of Spring

We are not telling you how we think about the beautiful flowers, how we breathe the fresh air from the mountain. 

There are many things happen since spring, and it will continue in such away. This is absolutely new to us, are we ready? I do even bother to ask this question. A friend told me: Keep thinking, problems continuing, keep doing instead, there are answers. 

We met this piece of land and we love it. We set up a joint corporation with friends and placed a purchase offer. It is 160 acres in size, with forest, lakes, and streams inside. This opens a new chapter in our life.

We will set up the shareholder agreement soon with the help of our lawyer. We will set up the journals for the finance, we record every step that we made, we are learning from the beginning.

Let's celebrate!

一点感悟 ~ 止损也是进步

今天好像又完成了一件大事， 我们把位于HAMILTON的一处出租出手了。 

其实那个小房子方方正正的， 要格局有格局， 前厅后院， 我两当时入手也觉得可以试试。 其实开始也慢顺利， 三个小租客，虽然只是打工一族， 但是对住房要求不高， 也按时交房租。 我们也投了些资本， 帮他们更换了全新的窗口， 维修过冷气机之类的。 

直到大概快一年后， 其中的小年轻开始拖延房租， 到最后只好搬走， 剩下的最后一个男孩也撑不下去了， 也搬回了父母处。 

结果房子就这么放吉了快五个月。 

当然期间， 也有尝试再放出去市场看看来找的租客。 因为前面有过和不负责任的租客对博小额法庭的经历，对选择新租客格外小心翼翼， 兴许也是这样， 房子就这般吉着了。 

我们想着想着， 不如也放出去市场， 一来对新租客没信心， 二来房屋贷款要续了， 踌躇着放了算了。

四月初的时候， 这个买主出的价格我们觉得适宜， 便签了协议。 直到今天再律师楼签单， 还是有些小波折。因为房子太旧 （超过百年）， 当时的电线设置不符合现在的规定， 我们找了有经验的师傅， 花了些时间， 修理好了相关的设备。 

从这件事， 我们也学的宝贵的经验。 地理位置无论如何非常重要， 及时止损也是进步。

Work or life ~~ thanks for letting me know

Lady S and Smith were talking about our team today, I maybe missed most of the conversation already. I joined the talks when they mentioned that Sandy joined the interview with Ms. C at that time when they were hiring her. 

Lady S believed that Ms. C will not fit the team during the interview, it did end up like that, she left the team about 2 months ago. Smith said that it was very difficult to tell at the beginning since things will change and people will change. 

Suddenly, he said that did I know my situation when was at my interview. No, I would never know. He said I was a little nervous, the director finally told them that he would take the chance, the thing worked out well now. 

The small conversation made me a whole good day! Hopefully, it means I am "in the team now"!

Coffee and Team ~~ South African Violet and Spring

We fell in love with this simple flower. They have too many different shapes. We grow several types of indoor. He likes to groom them from cutting the leaf, watering carefully a very little weekly, watch them growing a tiny every day. 

If you ask me what make them so attractive. En, during the long boring white color winter, the little growing purple blooms always bring me joy. 

To enrich our collection, we went to see the Spring South African Violet show at the Prince Edward Garden, and purchase several more. As we wish, he already plant them well ~~

Black Coffee ~~ still in love with the metal watch

I have been searching for this type of product for or a long time. I was very happy when I saw this at a corner in the department store. It has the best colour combination, feels like a deep deep black ocean with sharp starts. the golden metal number looks like reminders ~ it's time to move on.

I don't know why I am still in love with actual watches. Everyone knows that nowadays, cell phones, fit bits or apple watches,  already taking place of the function of a watch. 

I disagree, I like to check a time via the non-electronic device. It just looks so elegant~~

TAXATION ~~ Think hard for better solutions ~~

Recently we helped our clients in dealing with filing tax returns for last year. Since I am not yet experienced as my partner, I usually transform what I have calculated in EXCEL into Taxation software directly. 

But my partner usually points out where the numbers could be transformed/translate into a different way, resulting in saving clients a little within CRA's criteria. Such as balance income between partner and couple, by the means of admin and management service fee. This is reasonable, for the case of our client, himself as a self-employed, spent a lot of time dealing with accepting orders and development. His wife then helped him a lot in scanning the payment and invoices. 

Glad that I had this chance to be trained. I hope in the future, I would able to build up more in-depth analysis, and help our clients for tax planning ahead. 

EXCEL EXCEL - Combine multiple data files by power query

This is a powerful technique that I recently learned. Where there is a request to analysis multiple files, this skill can save time:

Life 101 ~~ Developing my precept ~~

I read an article in we chat public channel, they talk about the 8 basic precepts that most entrepreneurs found have in their personalities. 

They are:

厚道 - Be kind
善良 - Kindness
守信 - Trustworthy
宽容 - Tolerant
诚实 - Honest
谦虚 - Modest
正直 - Upright
执着 - Perseverance

I have a thought on top of it. I think the no. 1 and no. 2 are kind of similar thing, if you are a kindness person, you are sure will be kind to others. And beyond above, I do want to add integrity and self-discipline.  

This is base on my own observation. If a person who is thorough integrity with the stuff that he/she handles, there is no doubt that he/she will stick to the goals and other personality will be shown, like trustworthy, tolerant, honest and Modest, etc. 

From my research, I realized that most entrepreneurs are very strict to their schedule or personal calendar, in the other word, they are very self-discipline, stick to finishing one task after another. 

So to develop my own precept, I would say that:

善良 - Kindness
守信 - Trustworthy
宽容 - Tolerant
诚实 - Honest
谦虚 - Modest
正直 - Upright
执着 - Perseverance
廉正 - Integrity

自律 - Self-discipline

Coffee and Tea ~~ the cutest boy and girl ~~

My mum and dad love this photo so much! They even asked the worker in the photoshop to paint them into color and stored in a big frame.

We were smile and sweet in the photo. Even my husband said I looked very cute in the photo. Let's keep this sweet memory forever!

My elder brother and me!

Coffee and Tea ~~ when we were small kids ~~

I was in the photo. It was shot in the kindergarten. Mum said it's very lucky that they took this photo and I have this memory in my life.

Dad asked me each kid's name, he showed me how to write their names, and I wrote them at the back of the photo. Maybe some of the names are not exactly, however, I am not able to verify. 

Hello to every one of you, best wishes to all of you, my first group of friends, maybe we will meet somewhere, sometime, some day~

Do you remember those days ~~ My classmates ~~

How are you? I am in Toronto with my husband. Today, the weather is not good, we have flurries. The temperature is low, max only 3 below zero.

Where are you guys and girls? Maybe some of you in North America too? After graduation, you went to your home country or you have just relocated somewhere. 

This photo brought me into the old days. I remember we were sitting in a big classroom, discussed how the culture is involving in the business world. In my current location, I do tasting the sweet and bit in my current work. 

I really want to share it with you again!

Do you remember those days ~~ University of Bradford ~~

To follow up with what our lawyer told us in the will meet, I began to clean up and organize our home documents.

When we move here, we brought a small amount of very very important documents. As time goes by, a little by little, we were occupied by other stuff and they've been sitting somewhere or forgotten. 

When I see them again today, there is a strong feeling flushing my mind: Do I remember? Do you remember? We were ever that young and full of energy. Mum and Dad looked so fantastic!

It was back in the year 2000! That is a graduation photo with my parents at the University of Bradford, UK, for my Master's degree in International Business Management. 

EXCEL EXCEL ~~ Change the DATE format to TEXT format

We ran into problems when we are trying to upload data from Quadrate (Data Workbench) to SAP if there are columns that are showing the transaction date for each record, if we don't change the data type to TEXT, the upload will be failed.

I play and test a bit, summarize what I learned so far:

1. Add a comma sign in front of the date, however, it has a limitation, all the date must be the same in the column to take the max advantage of this skill

2. By using a TEXT formula, it can change the entire column but need an additional help column to paste the value back

3. By using the DATA function, TEXT to column

Work or life ~~ 55 Vogell Road ~~ Happy Valentine's Date!

💗

It was a big surprise when I arrived at my desk that morning. There are a handful of beautiful candies on my desk. They were placed nicely in a paper cup, with a little flag in the middle. The first thing jumped out of my mind was who is admiring me, although I am in my 40 and not so attractive, hopefully, he is a handsome guy. Soon I laughed at my self~~every one's desk has the same thing! And when I turned around, I saw that the reception lady Sheila, who was holding a food plate that full of these cups and smiling at me with a warm morning smile. After the morning hellos, I realized that these were from the community committee, simply to address their thankfulness to the employees who contributed to the charity events last year. 

Oh well, although it was not for me only, it gave me a whole good mood. In my eyes, everything looks PINK that day!

Work or life ~~ Insurance paid for family members is eligible medical expense

Read a Youtube post about medical expense claim for income tax return. From the post host Liu Jiang's wording, when we bought that private health insurance for our visiting parents, the fees can be claimed as a medical expense.

Surprise me and I spent the time researching the CRA website for the reference:

https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/technical-information/income-tax/income-tax-folios-index/series-1-individuals/folio-1-health-medical/income-tax-folio-s1-f1-c1-medical-expense-tax-credit.html

EXCEL EXCEL ~~ Utilize Power Query to quickly resolve small problem

I agree you may want to take advantage of this tool to solve your work problems.

Such as this one. My coworker lady Sandy need to transfer a data in the format of .csv into Excel. I helped her to load the data via Power Query from the DATA tab. The job is done just in a minute!

Work or life ~~ Family Gala ~~ Passed by Kingston ~~ Thousands of Island

Beautiful scenery, beautiful date, sunshine, blue sky

It was a beautiful day when we were on the way back from Montreal to Toronto, we passed by Kingston, thousand of islands.

While we were driving lone the Island Parkway, there were ideas that jumped up more than twice. If I were one of the house owners in this spot, will I ever need to go abroad for vacations? I probably not. I can sit here all day long, just watch the birds fly over the water or land on some spots, late summer winds blow and refresh my mind.

I am a lucky lady that I have you by my side!

Work or life ~~ 55 Vogell Road ~~ Story of Green life

Like most of the office gurus, I brought in my little green to my spot too. This small cup grows very well and getting bigger and stronger.

Unfortunately, I did not keep a photo of its' original look. Imagine that it's long leaves not yet grow like today, just as small as the height of the cup.

To the opposite, I also adopted one giant green plant from company to home. It was two years ago when the office was in renovation, there were decisions that all the senior green plants will be replaced by the new orders. HR encouraged employees to bring back home some of those.

It was quite a big project for Sam and me moved it to home, as the pot is so big and heavy, and we don't want to break it during the transit. We let it lied down at the back of CRV, and I hold the main branch all the time during the transportation.

It grows well at our home till now~

Work or life ~~ 55 Vogell Road ~~Add a drop down list in an email template

This was one of the work plan projects for this year. I developed a small email template that enables the drop-down list in the email. 

The pro side is that there was a record of the request. But the short is that people may not use it at all. Well, I am not going to persuade everyone to apply in daily work. This is only a once a while or occasionally request thing. But a very good chance that I can practice my template skills.

Since this template is built under Office 360, the first step is to enable the Development tap in Word. Only the plugin created by Word, then able to be copied to the Outlook email body. Unfortunately not Excel. 

Secondly, modified the list content and format under the same mode. Copy the whole block that created and pasted into Outlook, an email body, same as email template then is done.