We had an eventful day yesterday. There is a father-daughter dance next Friday, so we had to go shopping for that. We found some very pretty dresses for Maggie and Cassie. We looked at a few different stores, and I was happy that the store we found them at had them for half of the retail price at another store. I do love a bargain. I wanted to make them their dresses, but having been sick all that time put a damper on that. I probably could finish in time, but I don't want to get all stressed trying to do so. The dresses are like what I would have made, though. They are very pretty, one in purple, one in pink. (It pains me, though, I could have made both dresses for the price of one....) Lino found a sportcoat that coordinates nicely. We just need to find a shirt and maybe a tie, too.
We were at the mall checking out other stores for dresses and shoes and decided to go into the pet store. The kids like to see the puppies and birds and reptiles and things. Now, this particular pet store irritates me, because every time we go in, the employees never acknowledge that we are there. Ever. No hello, goodbye, anything. And they don't greet anyone else, either. Just horrible customer service.
While we were there, they let one of the boxer puppies out of its cage. The puppy was, of course, very excited to be out and was running around, jumping on everyone. Well, my kids aren't dog people. At All. The puppy started jumping on Cassie, who started to cry and scream (she was scared). She got scratched. Nate started crying, too and Maggie would have had the dog been there any longer. I kind of moved the dog away and an employee came to get it.
We got Cassie calmed down, explaining that the puppy was just excited to see kids and just wanted to play. Not one of the three employees who were standing near us offered her a reassuring word. Not even a simple "Are you okay?" to try and make her feel better.
It made me mad. At least acknowledge her. Yes, we went into the pet store, however, you don't go in thinking you are going to get jumped on by the animals.
After we left the mall, we headed to Joanns so I could run in for a quick thing. When I got out, Lino was parked and had the back of the van opened. Getting the spare tire. Fun times, flat tires. Not.
Of course, it wasn't as simple as just changing the tire. Our lug nut wrench thing was useless. Lino walked over to Lowes, they don't sell them. Great. He calls his Mom, to have her call his Dad. They come with more wrenches. They have one that fits, great! It breaks. The three of them drive off to Autozone. I am doing my best to entertain three hungry,tired, hungry, bored, hungry children. Did I mention they were hungry? Thank goodness for M&Ms. I found three little Halloween sized packs in the diaper bag. So they had M-ies while we played silly games.
Finally the tire situation is resolved and we continue on our day. Picked up the dresses and sport coat at the first (and much cheaper) store. Get the other pair of shoes. Go to the school to pick up a fundraiser thing we ordered. And eat.
We did discover a new yummy restaurant that has really nice sized kids portions. That alone will have us go back! The food was good, too.
So. Here is hoping for a less eventful weekend.....
Friday, January 30, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Party pictures!
After telling us for weeks that he wanted a Thomas the Train cake, Nate changed his mind when he saw the Stickers pan at the frosting store. I was fine with that, it was actually easier to do! The sheet cake is vanilla, the Stickers is chocolate. Buttercream frosting. I can make frosting, but with his party and the girls' party coming up, I bought it. In a 5 gallon bucket. Seriously, 28 pounds of yummy goodness....it tastes good and is so much less work.
Everyone was excited for cake and ice cream....
My dad. We couldn't find any party hats with Stickers. Nate was happy with the Ernie and Elmo ones.
I am pretty sure he is saying "Yes, way" in this picture. I don't know where he picked it up from, but it was pretty cute and he kept saying it all day.
My mother in law knit him a sweater and matching hat. I thought she used her knitting machine for it, but Lino said that he hasn't set that up yet, she did it by hand. I was amazed, the rows are all so neat and uniform. I would love to learn how to knit someday...
Everyone was excited for cake and ice cream....
My dad. We couldn't find any party hats with Stickers. Nate was happy with the Ernie and Elmo ones.
I am pretty sure he is saying "Yes, way" in this picture. I don't know where he picked it up from, but it was pretty cute and he kept saying it all day.
My mother in law knit him a sweater and matching hat. I thought she used her knitting machine for it, but Lino said that he hasn't set that up yet, she did it by hand. I was amazed, the rows are all so neat and uniform. I would love to learn how to knit someday...
So, that is it. The kids had fun. Nate got some of the noisiest toys I have ever heard, which my dad thinks is funny.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
I really hope this gets stopped, please read!
There is a new law that is due to go into effect on February 9th of this year. If it does, then it will pretty much shut down home based business, small business,(think EBay and Etsy) and put unnecessary strain on companies that make products that are intended for use by children aged 12 and under.
The article below is from Forbes magazine , and while I probably shouldn't have copied the whole thing here, it is an important read. (though I don't make any money from this blog, I wish!)
Please read it. Write your congressmen. Sign the petition. Contact the comittee members.
Scrap The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act
Walter Olson, 01.16.09, 04:21 PM EST
Self-congratulation makes for bad law.
If someone you know volunteers at a thrift store or crochets baby hats for the crafts site Etsy or favors handmade wooden toys as a baby shower gift, you've probably been hearing the alarms about the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA).
Hailed almost universally on its passage last year--it passed the Senate 89 to three and the House by 424 to one, with Ron Paul the lone dissenter--CPSIA is now shaping up as a calamity for businesses and an epic failure of regulation, threatening to wipe out tens of thousands of small makers of children's items from coast to coast, and taking a particular toll on the handcrafted and creative, the small-production-run and sideline at-home business, not to mention struggling retailers. How could this have happened?
Congress passed CPSIA in a frenzy of self-congratulation following last year's overblown panic over Chinese toys with lead paint. Washington's consumer and environmentalist lobbies used the occasion to tack on some other long-sought legislative goals, including a ban on phthalates used to soften plastic.
The law's provisions were billed as stringent, something applauded by high-minded commentators as a way to force the Mattels and Fisher-Prices of the world to keep more careful watch on the supply chains of their Chinese factories.
Barbed with penalties that include felony prison time and fines of $100,000, the law goes into effect in stages; one key deadline is Feb. 10, when it becomes unlawful to ship goods for sale that have not been tested. Eventually, new kids' goods will all have to be subjected to more stringent "third-party" testing, and it will be unlawful to give away untested inventory even for free.
The first thing to note is that we're not just talking about toys here. With few exceptions, the law covers all products intended primarily for children under 12. That includes clothing, fabric and textile goods of all kinds: hats, shoes, diapers, hair bands, sports pennants, Scouting patches, local school-logo gear and so on.
And paper goods: books, flash cards, board games, baseball cards, kits for home schoolers, party supplies and the like. And sporting equipment, outdoor gear, bikes, backpacks and telescopes. And furnishings for kids' rooms.
And videogame cartridges and audio books. And specialized assistive and therapeutic gear used by disabled and autistic kids.
Again with relatively few exceptions, makers of these goods can't rely only on materials known to be unproblematic (natural dyed yarn, local wood) or that come from reputable local suppliers, or even ones that are certified organic.
Instead they must put a sample item from each lot of goods through testing after complete assembly, and the testing must be applied to each component. For a given hand-knitted sweater, for example, one might have to pay not just, say, $150 for the first test, but added-on charges for each component beyond the first: a button or snap, yarn of a second color, a care label, maybe a ribbon or stitching--with each color of stitching thread having to be tested separately.
Suddenly the bill is more like $1,000--and that's just to test the one style and size. The same sweater in a larger size, or with a different button or clasp, would need a new round of tests--not just on the button or clasp, but on the whole garment. The maker of a kids' telescope (with no suspected problems) was quoted a $24,000 testing estimate, on a product with only $32,000 in annual sales.
Could it get worse? Yes, it could. Contrary to some reports, thrift and secondhand stores are not exempt from the law. Although (unlike creators of new goods) they aren't obliged to test the items they stock, they are exposed to liability and fines if any goods on their shelves (or a component button, bolt, binding, etc.) are found to test above the (very low) thresholds being phased in.
Nor does it get them off the hook to say an older product's noncompliance with the new standards wasn't something they knew or should have known about (let alone to say anyone was harmed; the whole controversy from start to finish has gone on with precious little showing of real-world harm to American kids from most of the goods being banned).
Thrift store managers, often volunteers themselves, have no way to guess whether every grommet or zipper on a kids' jacket or ink on an old jigsaw puzzle box or some plastic component of Mom's old roller skates would pass muster.
"The reality is that all this stuff will be dumped in the landfill," predicted Adele Meyer, executive director of the National Association of Resale and Thrift Shops. Among the biggest losers if that happens: poorer parents who might start having to buy kids' winter coats new at $30 rather than used at $5 or $10.
And even worse: Since the law does not exempt books, children's' sections at libraries and bookstores will, at minimum, face price hikes on newly acquired titles and, at worse, may have to rethink older holdings.
After all, no one has the slightest idea how many future violations lie hidden in the stacks and few want to play a guessing game about how seriously officialdom will view illegality. "Either they take all the children's books off the shelves," Associate Executive Director Emily Sheketoff of the American Library Association told the Boston Phoenix, "or they ban children from the library."
Antique dolls? Old model-car collections? Musical instruments? Vintage bicycles? Some will go underground in private collectors' clubs, others will be tossed on the bonfires of the new Cultural Revolution.
A traditional attraction on the heritage festival circuit is the kids' dance or performance troupe in ethnic, pioneer or frontier garb, often handcrafted with the sort of ornate detail (beads, pendants, lace inserts, etc.) that will not be practical to test.
The same goes for Native American kids' cherished moccasins, buckskins and powwow gear. Making matters worse, many foreign producers of craft and small-batch toys and clothes, chary of liability under the law, are planning to exit the American market entirely, a step already taken by three German toymakers.
In recent weeks, as thousands of crafters and retailers began to compare notes and realize that they would soon be left with stocks of unsalable merchandise, forced out of business or both, the protests have begun to mount: alarm-raising at hundreds of blogs and forums, a torrent of Twitter discussion, YouTube videos, endangered-products lists, Facebook groups and so forth.
A group called Handmade Toy Alliance is calling attention to the law's burdens in that area. Booksellers are mobilizing. Yet prominent consumer groups have continued to defend even the law's more extreme applications, and their spokespersons are dismissive of public outrage. "I haven't heard a single legitimate concern yet," Public Citizen's David Arkush wrote last month.
The consumer groups--and the congressional offices of key CPSIA backers Bobby Rush, D-Ill., and Henry Waxman, D-Calif.--have blamed opposition to the law on "misinformation" and "confusion."
Defenders of the law point out, for example, that item-by-item enforcement at thrift shops is unlikely to be an enforcement priority any time soon for the Consumer Product Safety Commission's 100 field investigators.
The thing is, few librarians, eBay (nasdaq: EBAY - news - people ) sellers or knitters want to be told that they're outlaws but at too small-fry a level to attract the authorities' attention. They want to be legal.
Besides, the law grants enforcement authority not only to the CPSC but to the 50 state attorneys general, which means anyone who ships nationally, small fry or not, is at the mercy of whomever turns out to be the least reasonable attorney general, a post for which there is always considerable competition.
As CPSIA opponents mobilize, the phrase "unintended consequences" is often heard. Part of the irony, after all, is that the Hasbros and Targets, with their standardization and economies of scale, can afford to adapt to such rules as part of their business plan, while the sorts of enterprises that initially looked to benefit most from the Chinese toy scare--local, organic and so forth--are also the ones who find it hardest to comply.
But the failure here runs deeper. This was not some enactment slipped through in the dead of night: It was one of the most highly publicized pieces of legislation to pass Congress last year.
And yet now it appears precious few lawmakers took the time to check what was in the bill, while precious few in the press (which ran countless let's-pass-a-law articles) cared to raise even the most basic questions about what the law was going to require.
Yes, something's being exposed as systematically defective here. But it's not the contents of our kids' toy chests. It's the way we make public policy.
Walter Olson is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the author of The Rule of Lawyers and other books. He edits Overlawyered.com.
****
So, thanks for reading that article. Pass it on, spread the word. I understand the intent of the law is to keep kids safe, and I am all for that. I just think that 'they' rushed this one and didn't think it all the way through.
The article below is from Forbes magazine , and while I probably shouldn't have copied the whole thing here, it is an important read. (though I don't make any money from this blog, I wish!)
Please read it. Write your congressmen. Sign the petition. Contact the comittee members.
Scrap The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act
Walter Olson, 01.16.09, 04:21 PM EST
Self-congratulation makes for bad law.
If someone you know volunteers at a thrift store or crochets baby hats for the crafts site Etsy or favors handmade wooden toys as a baby shower gift, you've probably been hearing the alarms about the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA).
Hailed almost universally on its passage last year--it passed the Senate 89 to three and the House by 424 to one, with Ron Paul the lone dissenter--CPSIA is now shaping up as a calamity for businesses and an epic failure of regulation, threatening to wipe out tens of thousands of small makers of children's items from coast to coast, and taking a particular toll on the handcrafted and creative, the small-production-run and sideline at-home business, not to mention struggling retailers. How could this have happened?
Congress passed CPSIA in a frenzy of self-congratulation following last year's overblown panic over Chinese toys with lead paint. Washington's consumer and environmentalist lobbies used the occasion to tack on some other long-sought legislative goals, including a ban on phthalates used to soften plastic.
The law's provisions were billed as stringent, something applauded by high-minded commentators as a way to force the Mattels and Fisher-Prices of the world to keep more careful watch on the supply chains of their Chinese factories.
Barbed with penalties that include felony prison time and fines of $100,000, the law goes into effect in stages; one key deadline is Feb. 10, when it becomes unlawful to ship goods for sale that have not been tested. Eventually, new kids' goods will all have to be subjected to more stringent "third-party" testing, and it will be unlawful to give away untested inventory even for free.
The first thing to note is that we're not just talking about toys here. With few exceptions, the law covers all products intended primarily for children under 12. That includes clothing, fabric and textile goods of all kinds: hats, shoes, diapers, hair bands, sports pennants, Scouting patches, local school-logo gear and so on.
And paper goods: books, flash cards, board games, baseball cards, kits for home schoolers, party supplies and the like. And sporting equipment, outdoor gear, bikes, backpacks and telescopes. And furnishings for kids' rooms.
And videogame cartridges and audio books. And specialized assistive and therapeutic gear used by disabled and autistic kids.
Again with relatively few exceptions, makers of these goods can't rely only on materials known to be unproblematic (natural dyed yarn, local wood) or that come from reputable local suppliers, or even ones that are certified organic.
Instead they must put a sample item from each lot of goods through testing after complete assembly, and the testing must be applied to each component. For a given hand-knitted sweater, for example, one might have to pay not just, say, $150 for the first test, but added-on charges for each component beyond the first: a button or snap, yarn of a second color, a care label, maybe a ribbon or stitching--with each color of stitching thread having to be tested separately.
Suddenly the bill is more like $1,000--and that's just to test the one style and size. The same sweater in a larger size, or with a different button or clasp, would need a new round of tests--not just on the button or clasp, but on the whole garment. The maker of a kids' telescope (with no suspected problems) was quoted a $24,000 testing estimate, on a product with only $32,000 in annual sales.
Could it get worse? Yes, it could. Contrary to some reports, thrift and secondhand stores are not exempt from the law. Although (unlike creators of new goods) they aren't obliged to test the items they stock, they are exposed to liability and fines if any goods on their shelves (or a component button, bolt, binding, etc.) are found to test above the (very low) thresholds being phased in.
Nor does it get them off the hook to say an older product's noncompliance with the new standards wasn't something they knew or should have known about (let alone to say anyone was harmed; the whole controversy from start to finish has gone on with precious little showing of real-world harm to American kids from most of the goods being banned).
Thrift store managers, often volunteers themselves, have no way to guess whether every grommet or zipper on a kids' jacket or ink on an old jigsaw puzzle box or some plastic component of Mom's old roller skates would pass muster.
"The reality is that all this stuff will be dumped in the landfill," predicted Adele Meyer, executive director of the National Association of Resale and Thrift Shops. Among the biggest losers if that happens: poorer parents who might start having to buy kids' winter coats new at $30 rather than used at $5 or $10.
And even worse: Since the law does not exempt books, children's' sections at libraries and bookstores will, at minimum, face price hikes on newly acquired titles and, at worse, may have to rethink older holdings.
After all, no one has the slightest idea how many future violations lie hidden in the stacks and few want to play a guessing game about how seriously officialdom will view illegality. "Either they take all the children's books off the shelves," Associate Executive Director Emily Sheketoff of the American Library Association told the Boston Phoenix, "or they ban children from the library."
Antique dolls? Old model-car collections? Musical instruments? Vintage bicycles? Some will go underground in private collectors' clubs, others will be tossed on the bonfires of the new Cultural Revolution.
A traditional attraction on the heritage festival circuit is the kids' dance or performance troupe in ethnic, pioneer or frontier garb, often handcrafted with the sort of ornate detail (beads, pendants, lace inserts, etc.) that will not be practical to test.
The same goes for Native American kids' cherished moccasins, buckskins and powwow gear. Making matters worse, many foreign producers of craft and small-batch toys and clothes, chary of liability under the law, are planning to exit the American market entirely, a step already taken by three German toymakers.
In recent weeks, as thousands of crafters and retailers began to compare notes and realize that they would soon be left with stocks of unsalable merchandise, forced out of business or both, the protests have begun to mount: alarm-raising at hundreds of blogs and forums, a torrent of Twitter discussion, YouTube videos, endangered-products lists, Facebook groups and so forth.
A group called Handmade Toy Alliance is calling attention to the law's burdens in that area. Booksellers are mobilizing. Yet prominent consumer groups have continued to defend even the law's more extreme applications, and their spokespersons are dismissive of public outrage. "I haven't heard a single legitimate concern yet," Public Citizen's David Arkush wrote last month.
The consumer groups--and the congressional offices of key CPSIA backers Bobby Rush, D-Ill., and Henry Waxman, D-Calif.--have blamed opposition to the law on "misinformation" and "confusion."
Defenders of the law point out, for example, that item-by-item enforcement at thrift shops is unlikely to be an enforcement priority any time soon for the Consumer Product Safety Commission's 100 field investigators.
The thing is, few librarians, eBay (nasdaq: EBAY - news - people ) sellers or knitters want to be told that they're outlaws but at too small-fry a level to attract the authorities' attention. They want to be legal.
Besides, the law grants enforcement authority not only to the CPSC but to the 50 state attorneys general, which means anyone who ships nationally, small fry or not, is at the mercy of whomever turns out to be the least reasonable attorney general, a post for which there is always considerable competition.
As CPSIA opponents mobilize, the phrase "unintended consequences" is often heard. Part of the irony, after all, is that the Hasbros and Targets, with their standardization and economies of scale, can afford to adapt to such rules as part of their business plan, while the sorts of enterprises that initially looked to benefit most from the Chinese toy scare--local, organic and so forth--are also the ones who find it hardest to comply.
But the failure here runs deeper. This was not some enactment slipped through in the dead of night: It was one of the most highly publicized pieces of legislation to pass Congress last year.
And yet now it appears precious few lawmakers took the time to check what was in the bill, while precious few in the press (which ran countless let's-pass-a-law articles) cared to raise even the most basic questions about what the law was going to require.
Yes, something's being exposed as systematically defective here. But it's not the contents of our kids' toy chests. It's the way we make public policy.
Walter Olson is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the author of The Rule of Lawyers and other books. He edits Overlawyered.com.
****
So, thanks for reading that article. Pass it on, spread the word. I understand the intent of the law is to keep kids safe, and I am all for that. I just think that 'they' rushed this one and didn't think it all the way through.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
No more wild hair....
I managed to get some pictures of Nate's hair after baths yesterday. Better than the 'bedhead' pictures from his birthday.
Certainly is different...I like this picture. He wanted to carry Yellow Bear and play at the same time...
Monday, January 19, 2009
Finally starting to feel better....there is hope!
So after a month of being sick and in extreme pain and not being able to do anything, I am finally starting to feel better. After my trip to urgent care, it seemed as though the antibiotics worked for a few days, but halfway through didn't seem to be effective. Blah. I was able to find a regular doctor, and she seemed to think that I had a few different things happen at the same time: sinus infection, migraine and stiff neck (she had never heard of stiff neck being a symptom of sinus infection)
In between opening presents and making cupcakes, they wanted party hats. So, we made hats.
She gave me some anti-inflammatory meds, and after I asked, some medicine for the pain. I have a pretty high pain tolerance, but the neck/head pain made it nearly impossible to sleep and was really affecting how I managed to get through the day....which was barely. I spent the better part of the past month just existing on the couch, not able to play with the kids or do much of anything. So, I needed something.
Luckily, Lino had 3 days off in a row, which allowed me to take pain meds and sleep to try and shake this. Finally this past Saturday, I woke up with my head seeming a lot better (the headache is still there, but mild in comparison) and the neck pain nearly gone. Finally. It feels as though I lost a whole month, there is so much I didn't get done! Did I mention that while all this was going on, the kids and Lino have each been sick with some fever/stomach thing? Yeah, it has been fantastic.
Nate's birthday was Sunday. Lino went shopping after work on Saturday since we hadn't had a chance to go together. We always spend the kids' birthday days as a family, no parties, and I like it that way. The party with my dad, sister and Lino's parents will be next week (that gives me a chance to get the house back in order!
Nate liked his presents. As he opened the cards and presents, he would get all excited, "Look, it's this!" He got a Mater Shake and Go car, a fire station to go with the train Santa brought, a Transformer Bumblebee and Wii Mario Kart. (we totally scored on the Mario Kart....) We will need to exchange Bumblebee, since he wasn't made nicely, but in all, Nate was excited. This year, Nate was very excited about blowing out the candles, and he actually let us sing Happy Birthday at cupcake time! (I will do a big cake for his party, he wants a Thomas cake)
In between opening presents and making cupcakes, they wanted party hats. So, we made hats.
At bedtime, Nate was convinced that when he woke up today he would be 4. Not quite, buddy. Slow down with the getting bigger....it goes too fast for Mama.
PS- Did you notice his hair? He had 'bedhead' for these pictures, but you get the idea. We were forced to go short when we tried to trim his bangs. We cut too short. But, he was pleased, now he has short hair like cousin Leo, which he has been asking for since we saw them at Thanksgiving! I do miss his wild curly hair, but, I think the short is cute too.
Monday, January 5, 2009
We interrupt this blog...
I am tired of being sick and feeling like crap. I have had a stiff neck since Christmas eve. Really painful. I also had a migraine, and a fever/chills on Christmas. The migraine and stiff neck stuck around, and after more than a week of taking Excederin/Tylenol/Advil, Lino brought home some Bengay and Thermal wrap things to try. Those didn't really work either. Friday night I woke up to what felt like exploding sinuses. Fabulous.
On Saturday, I finally decided that more than a week of this was enough, so we brought the kids to my inlaws and went to Urgent Care. Apparently, I have the classic symptoms of a sinus infection. Stiff neck, jaw pain (which I have, it hurts to eat, but didn't realize was a symptom), teeth pain, eye pressure and sinus pressure are the classic indications of a sinus infection. They did x-rays, and prescribed some antibiotics and allergy meds.
So, I have been taking those and hoping they worked like magic and the pain would go away, but it hasn't. (And I have a pretty high pain tolerance) It wakes me up at night, I can't find a good postion to sleep in, it is making me extremely nauseated and it is affecting how I interact with the kids. I can't really play with them and help them with stuff because the pain is too much. And that sucks.
They have today off from school due to icy roads, and they have been wonderful, playing nicely while I rest on the couch, but I hate that I am in this much pain. If the pain doesn't start to subside I am going to see if the Urgent Care place can give me something. It is silly to keep taking Advil/Tylenol if it isn't working.
So. That is it. Thanks for reading my whine. Hopefully I will feel better soon.
On Saturday, I finally decided that more than a week of this was enough, so we brought the kids to my inlaws and went to Urgent Care. Apparently, I have the classic symptoms of a sinus infection. Stiff neck, jaw pain (which I have, it hurts to eat, but didn't realize was a symptom), teeth pain, eye pressure and sinus pressure are the classic indications of a sinus infection. They did x-rays, and prescribed some antibiotics and allergy meds.
So, I have been taking those and hoping they worked like magic and the pain would go away, but it hasn't. (And I have a pretty high pain tolerance) It wakes me up at night, I can't find a good postion to sleep in, it is making me extremely nauseated and it is affecting how I interact with the kids. I can't really play with them and help them with stuff because the pain is too much. And that sucks.
They have today off from school due to icy roads, and they have been wonderful, playing nicely while I rest on the couch, but I hate that I am in this much pain. If the pain doesn't start to subside I am going to see if the Urgent Care place can give me something. It is silly to keep taking Advil/Tylenol if it isn't working.
So. That is it. Thanks for reading my whine. Hopefully I will feel better soon.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
End of the year...
I have been really busy since that last post....and we have all been sick. I was sick on Christmas eve til the day after Christmas (I still have a migraine, actually). Cassie was sick Christmas eve, Lino was sick the weekend after Christmas, and Maggie has been sick since yesterday. Blah. I am ready for us to be healthy!
Despite all of that, the kids really enjoyed Christmas. Santa brought them lots of new things. Lots of Sleeping Beauty for Cassie, Tinkerbell and Diego for Maggie and Stickers (Lightning McQueen) for Nate. I have no idea where we are going to put it all. In fact, due to my migraine issues, most of it is still around the tree.
I sewed a total of 10 tote bags...1 for a friend, 3 for teachers/principal, and 6 for Lino's mom, aunt and cousins. I forgot to take pictures of the cousins bags. I broke plenty of sewing needles, found a new place to get twill tape and poked my fingers more times than I care to remember. (It is nearly impossible for me to sew with bandaids on, and I can't use thimbles....) I got a thank you note in the mail today from the principal, she really likes hers, and all of the cousins seemed to like theirs. Yay.
I was able to get the family jammies done, and am pleased with how they turned out. Eight yards of red flannel, 5 white tshirts, 5 yards of white fuzzy trim, elastic and drawstring. Easy peasy. I might even try doing some for Etsy next year. Nice simple design that I can do in some common sizes ahead of time.....we'll see.
Nate is doing great with no more Mama drinks. It went much easier than I thought. He still needs either me or Lino to lay down with him til he falls asleep, but we expected that. No tears at all about stopping nursing, so that made it a whole lot easier.
I hope everyone has a super safe New Year's Eve, and a very blessed 2009. I tend to not make resolutions, because it seems as though I never keep them, but I do hope to 'stress less' next year. Enjoy all of the little things, and not be so anxious. (I do worry a lot, and it isn't good.)
Merry New Year!
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
9 days left til Christmas!
I still have 10 tote bags to make (the embroidery machine is going as I type!). I have the fabric cut out for some, will cut the rest later. I think if I prep as much as I can, it shouldn't be too stressful. Though, I need to have 3 of them finished by Thursday. I also cut the fabric for jammie pants for our hliday tradition. They go together fairly easily, so that shouldn't be too stressful.
We still have to figure out what to get my dad for Christmas. I just don't know. He is a Yankees fan, but that seems to be our last resort theme for birthdays/Christmas. Not enough time to do a photobook (which I wanted to do for his birthday, so I can make it really nice) He has a digital camera and nice printer, so a little portable photo printer is out. We've done a fun snack basket before. He doesn't do chocolate. He has a Playstation that we (my sister and us) got him a few years ago. I don't know how often he does that anymore. He is colorblind, so that lets out fun little games....it is stressful. I want to do something he will like, but just have no idea.
This Saturday is the last of our gift wrapping fundraising dates. At the first PTO meeting I attended, they talked about various fundraisers, and also mentioned that the library just needs help. There are books that are so old, pages fall out when they are opened. Numerous shelves are empty. Well, when I heard that, I started thinking. Childrens books are my 'thing'. I just love them. Books have always been a big part of my life, my mom was an elementary school librarian. So I feel very connected to libraries.
I came up with the idea of contacting Borders bookstore in our area to see about charity giftwrapping. The manager at the store closest to us gave me a complete brushoff. So, I called the store in a city about 10 minutes away. The coordinator at that store was super friendly, and set us up with 3 dates! Borders supplies the wrapping paper, table, tape, and scissors, we just need to bring bows, tags and donation buckets, and we keep anything we raise.
Our first date was the Saturday after Thanksgiving. It wasn't too busy, as far as wrapping goes, we did maybe 7 things. We still collected $170! Not bad for 5 hours of mostly people watching. We had our 2nd date last Saturday, and we were much busier wrapping, and collected $282! I think that is fantastic. One more day to go. I am hoping that we can do $300-350. Wouldn't that be great? This is free money for the library.....I am so excited.
The kids are super excited about Santa coming. Santa needs to have his elves start wrapping things. I am excited to see their reactions this year.
Nate is adjusting to 'no more drinks' happening soon. There have been some nights when he has fallen asleep on the couch, and doesn't do any. He is also sleeping through the night now with more regularity, and if he does wake, he usually will settle himself back to sleep. (Those first few nights of no more middle of the night drinks were hard....) He also talks about when he will need to stop altogether.
Yay, the first bag embroidery is done....9 to go!
We still have to figure out what to get my dad for Christmas. I just don't know. He is a Yankees fan, but that seems to be our last resort theme for birthdays/Christmas. Not enough time to do a photobook (which I wanted to do for his birthday, so I can make it really nice) He has a digital camera and nice printer, so a little portable photo printer is out. We've done a fun snack basket before. He doesn't do chocolate. He has a Playstation that we (my sister and us) got him a few years ago. I don't know how often he does that anymore. He is colorblind, so that lets out fun little games....it is stressful. I want to do something he will like, but just have no idea.
This Saturday is the last of our gift wrapping fundraising dates. At the first PTO meeting I attended, they talked about various fundraisers, and also mentioned that the library just needs help. There are books that are so old, pages fall out when they are opened. Numerous shelves are empty. Well, when I heard that, I started thinking. Childrens books are my 'thing'. I just love them. Books have always been a big part of my life, my mom was an elementary school librarian. So I feel very connected to libraries.
I came up with the idea of contacting Borders bookstore in our area to see about charity giftwrapping. The manager at the store closest to us gave me a complete brushoff. So, I called the store in a city about 10 minutes away. The coordinator at that store was super friendly, and set us up with 3 dates! Borders supplies the wrapping paper, table, tape, and scissors, we just need to bring bows, tags and donation buckets, and we keep anything we raise.
Our first date was the Saturday after Thanksgiving. It wasn't too busy, as far as wrapping goes, we did maybe 7 things. We still collected $170! Not bad for 5 hours of mostly people watching. We had our 2nd date last Saturday, and we were much busier wrapping, and collected $282! I think that is fantastic. One more day to go. I am hoping that we can do $300-350. Wouldn't that be great? This is free money for the library.....I am so excited.
The kids are super excited about Santa coming. Santa needs to have his elves start wrapping things. I am excited to see their reactions this year.
Nate is adjusting to 'no more drinks' happening soon. There have been some nights when he has fallen asleep on the couch, and doesn't do any. He is also sleeping through the night now with more regularity, and if he does wake, he usually will settle himself back to sleep. (Those first few nights of no more middle of the night drinks were hard....) He also talks about when he will need to stop altogether.
Yay, the first bag embroidery is done....9 to go!
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Viruses and dents, oh my
It has been busy. On Saturday we brought the kids to my dad's so they could help him put up his Christmas decorations. It also gave us the chance to run our big errands. About 9 hours later we picked up the kids, but I think we were very successful. More importantly, the kids didn't give my dad any trouble at all, he said they were great all day, which is a relief. They do have fun when they see him.
The rest of the weekend was spent battling computer viruses and malware ads. I have been going to Baby Center since the girls were little, and have made some friends on the March board. Well, the powers that be at Babycenter have bought another online community and have been working to switch over since spring.
About a month ago or so, the 'old boards' was apparently hijacked by pretty malicious viruses, and it was only after some members complained that they started to do anything about it. We got hit with Antivirus 2009. It is persistent...really hard to get rid of. Well, this weekend, I went to check the March board and Bargain board, and almost immediately after logging onto the bargain board, our computer was attacked. I get that it is the computer owner's responsibility to have virus protection software, however, this is a major company (Johnson and Johnson owns Babycenter), they should be able to prevent it from lurking on their site. But, they are closing the old boards in a week, so they apparently aren't focusing on it at all.
I ran our AVG scan no less than 4 times on Sunday, and again yesterday. It seemed to be better, except for some takeover ads. Lino ran adaware last night, there were 20 malware things....
No more old boards for me... :( . Maybe once we get the computer all set I can check in on the new boards. I really enjoy staying in touch with my March mom friends. We have a group on Facebook, and I hope that they all check in there, and there are blogs that I follow, so I won't lose touch completely. I just don't love the new Baby center boards, and if they are going to be a target for viruses, I can't go there.
As for the dent....on Sunday Lino was headed outside to return a movie (Wall E, which was super cute, by the way!) when the son of our across the street neighbor came to the door. Now, keep in mind, that in the 5 1/2 years that we have been living here, we haven't ever really spoken with him. He will maybe wave when he comes to visit, but his dad hasn't ever really talked with us. The grandmother lives there, and she will come over once in a while when we are outside, but she is only comfortable speaking Portuguese, so I can't really talk with her.
Anyhow, the son comes to the door. Apparently when he was backing his very large pickup truck out of his dad's driveway, he was too busy talking on his cell phone to notice that Lino's car was parked in front of our house. He told Lino that he hit it, and 'hopefully the scratch will buff out'.
It isn't a scratch...it is a major dent!! I guess he told Lino to get an estimate and that he would pay for it, but Lino is ticked. It isn't going to be a quick little fix, the dent needs to be popped back and then the whole rear quarter panel will need painting.....so the guy is going to need to get Lino a rental. Lino can't take time off from work, and with the girls in school, I can't not have the car, in case I need to go get them.
So, now Lino needs to spend part of his day off on Thursday at the mechanics. Hopefully the neighbor's son doesn't try to skip out of paying for the damage. Lino is willing to wait until after Christmas, we realize that money can be stretched at the holidays (he has a wife/girlfriend and a daughter). He needs to fix it though.
Sigh. Lots of sewing to do still, the tree needs to go up (which I wanted to do on Thursday, because we have school stuff Friday night and Saturday, and Lino works on Sundays).....
Weaning is going okay. Nate still does drinks at bedtime, but he has slept straight through the night for nearly a week now. That is good. He seems to be a little clingy some days, though, which is to be expected, I guess.
Anyhow. I think I need another chocolate milk.....
The rest of the weekend was spent battling computer viruses and malware ads. I have been going to Baby Center since the girls were little, and have made some friends on the March board. Well, the powers that be at Babycenter have bought another online community and have been working to switch over since spring.
About a month ago or so, the 'old boards' was apparently hijacked by pretty malicious viruses, and it was only after some members complained that they started to do anything about it. We got hit with Antivirus 2009. It is persistent...really hard to get rid of. Well, this weekend, I went to check the March board and Bargain board, and almost immediately after logging onto the bargain board, our computer was attacked. I get that it is the computer owner's responsibility to have virus protection software, however, this is a major company (Johnson and Johnson owns Babycenter), they should be able to prevent it from lurking on their site. But, they are closing the old boards in a week, so they apparently aren't focusing on it at all.
I ran our AVG scan no less than 4 times on Sunday, and again yesterday. It seemed to be better, except for some takeover ads. Lino ran adaware last night, there were 20 malware things....
No more old boards for me... :( . Maybe once we get the computer all set I can check in on the new boards. I really enjoy staying in touch with my March mom friends. We have a group on Facebook, and I hope that they all check in there, and there are blogs that I follow, so I won't lose touch completely. I just don't love the new Baby center boards, and if they are going to be a target for viruses, I can't go there.
As for the dent....on Sunday Lino was headed outside to return a movie (Wall E, which was super cute, by the way!) when the son of our across the street neighbor came to the door. Now, keep in mind, that in the 5 1/2 years that we have been living here, we haven't ever really spoken with him. He will maybe wave when he comes to visit, but his dad hasn't ever really talked with us. The grandmother lives there, and she will come over once in a while when we are outside, but she is only comfortable speaking Portuguese, so I can't really talk with her.
Anyhow, the son comes to the door. Apparently when he was backing his very large pickup truck out of his dad's driveway, he was too busy talking on his cell phone to notice that Lino's car was parked in front of our house. He told Lino that he hit it, and 'hopefully the scratch will buff out'.
It isn't a scratch...it is a major dent!! I guess he told Lino to get an estimate and that he would pay for it, but Lino is ticked. It isn't going to be a quick little fix, the dent needs to be popped back and then the whole rear quarter panel will need painting.....so the guy is going to need to get Lino a rental. Lino can't take time off from work, and with the girls in school, I can't not have the car, in case I need to go get them.
So, now Lino needs to spend part of his day off on Thursday at the mechanics. Hopefully the neighbor's son doesn't try to skip out of paying for the damage. Lino is willing to wait until after Christmas, we realize that money can be stretched at the holidays (he has a wife/girlfriend and a daughter). He needs to fix it though.
Sigh. Lots of sewing to do still, the tree needs to go up (which I wanted to do on Thursday, because we have school stuff Friday night and Saturday, and Lino works on Sundays).....
Weaning is going okay. Nate still does drinks at bedtime, but he has slept straight through the night for nearly a week now. That is good. He seems to be a little clingy some days, though, which is to be expected, I guess.
Anyhow. I think I need another chocolate milk.....
Friday, December 5, 2008
Cassie's New Look
Doesn't she look adorable? She has been saying for a couple of months now that her eyes are 'kind of foggy' when she looks at things. At first, I wasn't sure if she meant it, because she didn't really act as though she was having trouble seeing. However, I called to make the appointment when I noticed she would stand right next to the tv to watch and still said her eyes were foggy when she tried to look at things.
We had the appointment yesterday. Lino went into the exam room with her. Apparently she has astigmatism in both eyes, and she is farsighted. She was very brave when the doctor put the drops in her eyes, and patient while we waited for them to work. The doctor told Lino that the prescription she gave her isn't full strength, I guess that if she gave her the full strength, it would be too much for her eyes. So we go back in three months to recheck.
We were all very excited that they had those pink frames. They are perfect for her. She wasn't sad at all about needing glasses, and picked that shirt today because it matched her frames!
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