Nice going, Australia.
I guess we can check off down under as one of the places we'd go if McCain wins.Oh, well.
Story here (DC radio page)or here(USA Today story).
Friday, October 31, 2008
Oh, well.
Story here (DC radio page)or here(USA Today story).
5 months
That's when we're planning on doing our refi- and rolling into that the kitchen remodel money. I am very excited.For today, though, I still have a broken dishwasher and an undetermined amount of water damage to the floor joists. Luckily, there are about seven jillion people selling dishwashers on craigslist and my dad's got a pickup. So, seeing as how I've got that well in hand, I'm planning on the rest of the kitchen. The husband wants retro 50's, I don't. My idea is better, of course, so I win- not to mention I'm the one with the magic money-stretcher gene and I do all the legwork.
So I have five months to scare up an unrestored but restorable stove (because I don't have the 9 grand in the kitchen budget for this one):
and icebox:
Unfortunately, I think that this project is going to be hard, and will have to be attacked on many fronts- so shortly, we will be enlisting the assistance of an out of state parent who frequents farmhouse auctions. Hopefully everything will come together, because in my head? It's really pretty.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Seriously, shoot me now.
Right now.Because after the bathroom debacle, I know full well what this means, and it frightens me more than a week of no naps. Last night the husband finally got down on the kitchen floor to see why the dishwasher wasn't working. I helpfully told him that I could hear the water running, but it wasn't coming out of the water shooty thing. I really hoped it was clogged or blocked or something that could be fixed with a screwdriver.
And when we pulled the front off of the dishwasher, there was a puddle of water and a very musty smell, indicating that the water has been going there for longer than the dishwasher hasn't been working. So, now we're in the market for a new dishwasher, but as with the bathroom, a pile of water damage to the structure of THIS house means bad news in a much bigger variety. In the bathroom, it meant we went all the way down to the sills. If you don't know what that means, I'll find you a picture:
See how the floor joists are resting on a brand new 2x4 around the bottom of the walls? That's the sill. All we had in the bathroom and laundry room were walls and the actual ground- our four feet of crawl space under the house. It was a Big.Deal. Now we have some kitchen thing coming- not that I don't want a new kitchen, I do. I really, really hate the kitchen as it is now. But we're still paying for the bathroom, and there's not a lot to spare for a kitchen. And by not a lot, I mean, maybe a little negative. Minus money. It would be better if someone came up to me and offered to pay me to fix the kitchen. Then maybe it would happen.
Not to mention that when we did the bathroom, we found out that there's no support under the same corner of the kitchen where the water is puddling... so no support plus water damaged wood. yay.
But in happier news, I scored two tickets to the Jimmy Buffet-Obama rally Sunday. Go, me!
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Check The Box
So, Jen passed a little note. And i just wanted to pass it back, and say, me, too. This silly blog, which had three readers (maybe) for years, all of a sudden had lots more when I found myself in the really scary place. Even when I didn't think it helped- I found out that it did. Not only that, I found that there were other people like me out there- something that I knew about the interwebs and blogging and message boards already, because that was where I found some IVF friends, people that coached me through and cheered me on during that hard thing. But that hard thing gave way to another, smaller community; one that I was afraid of, and one that I didn't want to be any part of. Turns out, I like it here.So, to you guys, my note passed back says-
Saturday, October 25, 2008
buddy walk today!
Today's the Buddy Walk that we really like, and we're going.Yay! Granted, it's far away, but it's more fun than the one that's local. Oh, well.
Friday, October 24, 2008
I love the mailman!
Well, today I do- only one campaign flyer and a box! For me!It was my brand new wallet! Yeah, I'm a wallet girl, and a minimalist one, at that. I've been using the driver's license insert part that I scavenged from my husband's wallet for years. Really. It holds the credit cards on one side, and my ID and AAA card and insurance card on the other. That's all I carry with me, most of the time- if it doesn't fit in a pocket, I don't need it. Some of my maternity pants/shorts didn't have pockets, and that was truly unfortunate. Anyway, it's been a while and this thing I've been using is coming apart at the seams. Big surprise, it's OLD.
And this is the new one. Pretty, huh?
Thursday, October 23, 2008
couldn't blog
We were painting yesterday. Took a lot more effort than I thought, although I should have really known better. It was a straight into the bath kind of morning...
It's a good thing that stuff is non-toxic, right?
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Oh My Gawd
I just sent a snippy email to my husband's grandmother.I think I may be going to hell.
She sent me one of those forwarded full of tripe 'Obama's a Muslim, where is his money from, and why would he bother to volunteer, anyhow' emails. I usually delete them.
I sent her a short note that said this: I'm not changing my vote. Stop sending me lies' with a link to the Snopes thing on how the email was false.
Gah.
Monday, October 20, 2008
The Grocery Game
So, I came across this website while looking for something completely different. I was searching for a recipe, and found what I was looking for on a message board for coupon people. I'm not a coupon people. I will occasionally use one of those stick on coupons if I remember to peel it off while I'm in a line, or if the cashier does it for me, but other than that, it seems like a waste of time. I mean, how am I supposed to remember what I have a coupon for or not? And those organizer things are so goofy, I don't want to carry that nonsense with me.But I do love to get stuff when it's cheap, and I think maybe I'm a little broken because it's kind of a sport and I might enjoy it a little more than most people. Which brings us back to the stumbling upon of 'the coupon people'. There was a $1 trial period, and I thought, well, what can it hurt? I don't normally do coupons, but we'll see where this goes. If nothing else, it's a waste of a dollar, and I've wasted a lot more than that on a lot less. I got the trial, printed my little list and bought the Sunday paper. I found an old paper at my mom's house, too, and lifted the coupon inserts from a few weeks ago that way, so I had two Sundays of coupons to use.
I tried it for the first time yesterday, at our regular grocery store. On things that I wouldn't necessarily buy, but things that would definitely get used, I spent about 40% of retail. I came home with five pounds of chicken, soup, cereal for Noel and some frozen veggies for $8.
I'm sold.
In my area, there are several stores on their lists, so I picked the three that we go to on a fairly regular basis; Publix, CVS and Walgreens. I'll be heading to CVS today to see how that one goes, but I have high expectations.
The premise is simple, and completely opposite from how we have been shopping lately. We keep the freezer stocked with some staples, like chicken breasts, ground beef, some veggies and then I'd go to the grocery store for perishables when we needed fresh stuff a couple of times a week. This worked fine with one baby. It doesn't work all that well having to cart around two kids. It meant a lot more of me telling my husband to just grab something on his way home, because I didn't get a chance to go to the store. It meant a lot of ordering bagels on the weekends from the bagel joint down the street because we didn't have them here. Nickels and dimes add up, I know, and that's the way it goes. With the way this coupon thing works, you buy what you'll use when it's really cheap and get extra to keep around for when it's not. Even if I don't follow the stockpile plan like some people do, we'll still spend a lot less on things like cleaning products, shampoo, toothpaste, and other household things. You have to be a little flexible on brands and products that you may not normally buy, but it's not saving money if it's something you really just won't use. We don't use prepared or packaged convenience foods, so even though the hamburger helper WAS really cheap, I still didn't buy it.
The basic premise is this: you pay for a subscription, which gets you a weekly list of the stores you pick. The list is of the products that are on sale and also have coupons available. Basically, it's someone else doing the work of checking flyers and keeping track of older (ie, not just this weeks) coupons. Then you can go through the list and print only the items you want, and go through the coupons and cut only the ones you need for that list. Off to the store, and save a bundle. Some people have systems where they keep all their coupons with them in case they're out and happen across a deal, but I can't imagine I'll be that person. I'm still not really that into carrying the expandable coupon organizer around. I'm pretty sure I'll be extending my subscription when the trial is up, and I hope they'll add the Whole Foods in my area (it's available in Arizona? or maybe California? someplace that isn't here, anyway) because I'd get a lot more use out of that.
And that's how I started cutting coupons this weekend.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Ooh! Ooh!
Go look!Right now!
New baby smell!
Camp Homeschool!
And also, I love this Jack's Big Music Show- it's the one with the jug band, and who doesn't love a washboard? But it's ALSO the one with Laurie Berkner's "Farm Song". This was the first episode of Jack's Big Music Show that I ever saw, and when the video for the song came on, I saw the horse!
The horse with Down syndrome!
And I cried a little. And I do every single time I see this one.
You can see it, too- here. Under the box for the video, it's the one with the thumbnail of Laurie, in a yellow shirt against a green backdrop.
Also, check out the one with the two guys on a yellow background- it's super cool, too. But there's no horse with DS.
It's finally over
The last debate, that is. We still have three weeks of fast forwarding through nasty campaign commercials, but at least it's almost over, too. I'm about done. If I'm tired of listening to it, then regular people must be about to jab soup spoons in their eyes, because I have an inhuman ability to enjoy all the political BS. Must get that from my dad. The husband thinks I'm crazy, of course, because he can't stand it. I just don't think it's all that much worse than him watching Ninja Warrior.But anywho, last nights debate. Eh. I missed the first thirty minutes, which, according to the pundits I saw, had McCain doing very well. When I got around to watching it (had to see the tivo'd Pushing Daisies first. Priorities, you know) McCain was blinking in hyperspeed, and saying "OK?" at the end of every sentence. Whatever he was talking about had him visibly, uh, imploding. Unfortunately, I have NO idea why- I was too busy watching his body language to listen.
And good gravy, people. The Joe Plumber line of conversation was a bust, in my opinion. Then again, nobody's trying to reach me- I'm not undecided, I'm not going to change my mind. I'll be at the library down the street on October 20, the first day of early voting here.
But the thing that had me wanting to drive my happy ass to New York and personally bludgeon McCain's fast blinking face was the 'special needs families' crap he tossed out, apropos of nothing. That was actually in response to the "how will your vp do if s/he had to be president' question. Oh, Palin? I'm gonna dodge her qualifications by saing "special needs". And he didn't get the people-first-language memo.
After that response I had to stomp out to the living room and yell about it a little, waking up Noel in the process. Go, me!
Three more weeks of this baloney, and then we can all get back to whatever we were doing before this campaigning started. Personally, I think I might try my hand at a mushroom log.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
I know he's not the only one
Do any of your kids do this? (I'll try to get a picture of it)Where they tense up all the muscles in their head and neck and arms? I used to worry that kiddo was having seizures until he did it and laughed, so it's clearly intentional. I think it's related to low tone/muscley stuff, but it cracks me up. Noel mimics a picture of a gymnast in one of the books he likes by putting his arms straight out to his sides and stretches his neck out and waves his jazz hands does the tense up thing.
Goofy kid.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
I can't believe I'm doing it
But, two requests, and here I am.I haven't told anyone I know in real life that I have a blog, and not even my husband knows. It wasn't supposed to be a secret, though, I just started it ages ago, and now it's been so long that it seems silly to say, 'Oh, by the way, I've had a blog for four years...". In the beginning I needed an outlet for infertility treatments, and since then, well, life happened. And here I am, still with the blog, and still, nobody knows. If someone I knew were to google the kids' names, they'd find this, and the kids' photos are here, so it's not like I'm doing a great job of hiding- but I have kept pictures of myself off. That's pretty easy, really, since I'm always on the other side of the camera.
But since I was asked, here's a shot of me (new hair) and Noel, playing with a backdrop and the camera's remote control.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Is this normal?
Heh. And by normal, I know... what is normal, anyhow? I'm convinced I live in abnormal crazytown. And I"m ok with that. Really.Are almost-eight-month-old babies supposed to be pulling up to stand and have eight teeth? Because I know one who does. We joke that for Christmas, we're buying Darrah a bike. One without training wheels.
Although one great thing at our house lately is the giggling. The two sprouts will sit and face each other, and for no apparent reason, laugh. Darrah is completely mobile now, and will take herself wherever she pleases- usually to chew on something inappropriate. Noel is taking up to eight steps by himself at therapy, and two at home. He can very clearly walk just fine, but as a means of transportation? Not so much.
The chickens are sleeping outside, finally, and I'm glad to not drag the brooder (read: gerbil cage) in and out of the house.
We've finally rounded the bend to whakadoodle, I think- oh, the poor kids. My husband and I are probably going to be the most embarrassing parents in the history of the world.
Not only do we have fruits and vegetables as landscaping, not only do we have chickens, not only did I have a baby in my bedroom, now the entire bunch of us keep the haircuts in-house. I like to go for something like this
or this
or this
. So, because I'm lazy and haven't made an appointment at my regular hair place (it's an aveda salon, so it's not like I don't have any hair sense at all) and I was just past done with the overgrown mop on my head, I handed my husband the clippers with the biggest guard on it (1.5inch, by the way) and closed me eyes. And...it's as good as any other cut I've had for any price. See? I live in crazytown.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
what 31 for 21?
Seeing as how prior to starting the 'post ever day' thing I was posting every 2 weeks, give or take, I hope you will all forgive my skipped days. We just get, you know, busy. Not that I don't love to ramble on about myself, of course.Yesterday we went to a giant plant sale, where I bought a blueberry plant and a carambola tree. I seriously love the edible landscape, even though none of mine is producing- it's all still hanging in there. The little mango tree, bananas, papaya... they're not dead yet! They'd just like to be fed more, and with the advent of chicken compost that should be coming soon.
The husband started collecting orchids last year, and surprisingly, he still is. I make fun of him, but they are pretty. We came home with some big purple flowered thing yesterday, too. And ferns.
And that's all the news that's fit to print this weekend.
Thursday, October 09, 2008
All's Well, mostly
I guess it was just a weird kid day, yesterday. Noel finally started eating at lunchtime, took another nap, and woke up just fine. Never a fever, no other signals, just a strange morning. So YAY! I love it!During second nap, though, UPS came to my house. Before I opened the door, there was honking and yelling, which is hardly unusual- we live on a busy thoroughfare. It's one of the direct shots into downtown, and the reason we almost didn't buy the house.
Anyway. I opened the door as the UPS guy was coming up our steps, and said' sounds exciting'. He told me a dog got hit by a car, and the driver didn't even stop, didn't slow down. The honking was the AMBULANCE that tried to signal the car's driver to stop. The yelling was one of the neighbors, waving his arms and shouting to alert the driver. None if it worked, or perhaps it did and the driver just didn't care. Who knows.
I thought it was down the street, maybe a block away. When the brown truck pulled away, though, there was the puppy, right in front of my house. Looked dead.
Yelling neighbor went to get something to move the dog, and when he came back, we saw the the puppy wasn't dead after all. We moved him to the side of the road, and both of us, soon joined by two others, stroked the little dogs head and told him he was a good boy and didn't deserve it. And then he died.
Yelling neighbor buried him in one of the empty lots.
When my husband got home, I cried about it, then told him that if he didn't get that damned fence up in our front yard, I'd do it myself. Because traffic that won't stop for puppies won't stop for kids, either.
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
it's not all bad
So.Noel woke up this morning at 6:45. Little early for him, but not enough to make me take note. Except he woke up crying, full bore. And then Darrah was crying, big, giant hysterical tears, just because.
Noel then turned down breakfast. Twice. No fruit, no cereal, no eggs. I even pulled out avocado. Nothing. Now he's sleeping.
I hope it's a little bug and not a big one- so far there's no fever or any obvious sick indicators. Poor little monkey.
Sunday we were heading to a late breakfast with my mom. Halfway there, the car started losing power and then wouldn't start again. We pulled over, mechanic husband got out. Poked his head back in after a few minutes and said, "I can't find anything wrong". We called AAA and my mom. The kids and I piled into gramma taxi.
Noel was very confused as to why we parked on the side of the road and left daddy there, but he really likes gramma so that was short lived. About four miles down the road, I thought of something. I called the husband's cell, no answer. I sent a text. By the time he called me back, the tow truck was there.
He got towed back to the house, where he went into the shed, got the lawnmower gas can, and put more gas in the car.
The gas gauge was stuck. I haven't run out of gas since college, so that was a shock, but it's way better than having to replace a fuel pump (which was the expected problem).
Oh, and the chicken roof? Didn't work. Wet chickens.
If there's ever a good time to have a sick kid, though, it's on the day that I'm trying to put together a catalog and price sheet for workie work.
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Of course it is.
So, Noel said his first mimicked word today. The very first time he ever heard me say something and then tried to approximate the sounds coming out of my mouth. His actual first word is 'go', used in every way. It's a verb, a noun, a grunt of displeasure. When he's frustrated, he strings several together and nobody ever misunderstands the meaning, even though 'gogogogoGO' doesn't actually mean anything.So, this morning, after he had broken one coffee mug (with coffee) and dumped the second on his (white, last clean) shirt, we were all in the bedroom. Noel had already had one bath this morning and I wasn't going to do it again, so he got wiped down with wipes. Put on a new shirt that didn't seem to be dirty. Darrah needed a diaper, too, so while we were all there, I turned around to get her new drawers.
Noel took that opportunity to grab the pack of wipes and pitch it off the bed, out the door and into the dining room. Kid's got an arm.
I had half a cup of coffee, after actually making three (I've got one of those one cup deals for a coffee maker) and Darrah was already having a clingy, if you don't hold me I'll whine about it mornings. I was pretty done.
I closed my eyes, inhaled deeply, and said "well, shit" under my breath.
And Noel, without missing a beat, said, "shh ttt", with two distinct syllables, but I doubt it was a coincidence.
Mom of the year!
Woot!
Monday, October 06, 2008
Chicken Ranch in the City
Really, there will be chicken talk in a sec, but first...I found out a couple of days ago a long ago friend was pregnant and moved out of state with her boyfriend/fiance/baby daddy. Yay! Congratulations! Woohoo!
The same friend who told me the news just called last night to tell me that she's forwarded my phone number to the old friend- positive amnio for t21. I tracked down an email address and shot off a 'anytime you want to talk I'm here' note. Now I'm just waiting. I SO want her to call me. I'd love to talk to her, not least because I haven't in a long time, and she's an awesome person. More so, though, I remember how tough the beginning was and how dark it felt. I don't know what kind of choices she's making, I don't know how far along she is (I was told, don't recall), I don't know how her boyfriend feels about any of it.
But I really hope I hear from her, regardless. I hope she calls.
And on that note... more chickens.
This is the full coop and run. The run is 4 feet by six feet, and 5 feet tall. The coop is just three walls, and the little box on the side is the nest box- we won't be using that until after February, most likely. Hens generally start laying at about 5-6 months old.
Because I'm a little concerned about predators there's two feet of some kind of critter fencing along the bottom of the screened in portion. Here's a better look at that:
Why yes, I did build it with zipties. Quality construction is overrated.
Because we needed a door, and because you can't attach a door to screen, I made my husband build me a free-standing door frame. Looks a little odd, but it works. You can see the brick I've been using to keep the door closed in some pictures... don't worry. I bought the latch for that last night. Soon it'll actually close.
This is the roof of the coop- it's a green roof, and I'll be planting it soon, maybe this afternoon when it stops raining. No, the chickens are still not smart enough to come in out of the rain, so after I took these pictures, I attached a vinyl sheet to the top of the screen so maybe they won't walk around in the mud peeping about the water falling from the sky. We're testing it out now.
Anyway, the green roof will keep the chickens cooler in the summer because it's extra insulation. I skimmed several sets of directions to build green roofs for much larger buildings and one article about doghouses with them, and picked and chose what parts I thought would work best for my project (cheap or low-labor, right?). In the end, I set the roof to have a slight grade, so there's drainage to a gap in the walls for that. On top of the wood, I stapled roof flashing (found in the shed) and sealed all the holes or seams between pieces with some roof sealer gunk I found in the shed, too. On top of that, I used spray adhesive (husband lifted cans of this stuff from work a million years ago. dunno why) to stick a fun noodle I cut in half lengthwise and then cut into slices about two inches thick. It was like a bunch of half circles of foamy noodle (like Plinko, says the husband) to keep the weight of the soil from impeding the drainage. On top of that went landscape fabric, and then a mixture of peat moss, vermiculite, and dirt (about equal parts of each). Just in case somebody cares about building a green chicken coop, ya know.
Here's the roost- it's a bit of a branch that fell down in some hurricane we had blow through recently. You can also see the gerbil cage that the chickens still call home.
They really like to stand on top of the cage. Every once ina while they'll get on the roost, but mostly they like the cage.
Happy chickens.
Sunday, October 05, 2008
First out?
Am I? I made it through 3 days of 31 for 21, and last night lost it.The husband went to his poker game, I fed a couple of kids, let out a dog, and brought in the chicks for the night. I know. They better start staying outside full time soon, because I'm tired of moving them twice a day.
Anyway, after I got the kids off to sleep I intended to come back out and get posting, but Noel and I fell asleep together, and I woke up at 12:07. I figured that 7 minutes or 7 hours, I still missed it, and I was tired.
Oops.
Friday, October 03, 2008
Oh, yeah.
I forgot, I named the chickens- now they're known as Pixie, Dixie, and Mr Jinks.No, not really. Pixie, Trixie and Dixie. I was listening to Little Feat yesterday, and decided Dixie Chicken was tres appropriate. Then I thought that maybe they should have three names, rather than all of them being named Dixie, and I thought about maybe naming one Dixie Carter (did you know she's a tri delt?).
But I think what I've got is pretty good. The lighter of the three is Pixie, and the other two are kind of interchangeable at the moment.
And they're not smart enough to get out of the rain. Figured that out a couple days ago.
Damn chickens.
debatable
So, I watched the VP debate last night. Y'all already know I'm a pinko bleeding heart leftist elite commie liberal, though. We just call it dirty hippie around here.I won't go into full tirade mode because it gives me tired head, so suffice it to say this- she didn't go making any giant boo-boos, leaving me and my giant bowl of popcorn a little disappointed. I did yell at the screen a few times, but didn't wake up either kid. Usual crap that I don't believe, don't agree with, and don't accept.
Eh.
We have to play photo shoot again today, because I didn't get around to actually trying to do the snaparoo thing until everyone around here was itching for a nap. And man, are they crankpots. This is the best I got.
Thursday, October 02, 2008
Maybe later...
Today is our ridiculously crazy day- we have therapy in the morning, then home for lunch (me, two kids, a dog and three chickens) and then back out the door to playgroup. Then home, and hopefully a nap for the sprockets, and maybe then I can post an actual post. Or maybe not. We'll see. For now, though, I'm totally cheating, but it's important. Really.Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Here we go!
So, it's October,and I decided this year to play along with the "Get it Down: 31 for 21" blog every single day game. So, for all of you who are NOT the choir (ie, you people who have no idea what I'm talking about. You know the saying 'preaching to the choir'?)It's for Down syndrome awareness month, because who knew? October is something other than breast cancer awareness, even if every blessed thing turns pink this month. I guess while you're thinking about boobies (or as we tell Darrah, the bee bah), you should also think about Down syndrome. Or something.
Right. So that's why I have that shiny new clicky button over there on my sidebar. See it? It's green.
So, what's with Darrah, anyway? She's like an alien baby. We don't know what to do with her. I mean, not really, we feed her and dress her and she seems to like us, so that's good. But here's the thing- our total baby raising experience has been based on the atypical. Then we had another baby, and man, is she atypical. We went from one extreme to the other, for serious.
She's got 5 teeth, soon to be 6. Really. We noticed that she was teething, and after several weeks of her gnaw-gnaw-gnawing on everything, out popped a tooth. Then came FOUR more. She was born bigger, at 8 pounds, and then kept up that growing thing. She's pushing 20 pounds at this point. Can you imagine? Noel only weighs 27. They're in the same size diapers. They can wear the same shorts.
She's already pushing up into a creeping position (hands and knees), but not going anywhere like that. Crawling (on her belly), though, gets her all over the place. She's trying to pull herself up to a stand.
And good gravy, is she demanding. If there's something that she wants and can't reach it, she cries. If she's hungry, she wants to be fed THAT SECOND. If she sees me, daddy's no good any more. She hates her carseat, but since we switched over to the convertible, it's better than the hate of the bucket. Howls if we don't let her have a sippy cup. Girl's only had a bottle 6 times, max, and she's figured out Noel's straw sippy.
She loves her some Noel, though, and he's allowed to do anything he wants to her. He sits on her, he tries to pick her up, he hits her with toys. She doesn't care- she just looks at him and laughs.
Clearly these children are already plotting against us. Whatever.
And on that note, I have to set up all my gear to photograph my own kids, so my mother can have one of these
and one of these
, new stuff for my bizzy-ness. I've got to love my mom, the walking advertisement. Doesn't hurt that the kids are cutey cute, either.
