Thursday, July 31

Two Weeks til Doom

So... the count down has commenced. I have two weeks until I am going to be working full time and going to school full time.

When our hometeachers found out they in unison almost as if they had rehearsed said "Are you crazy?" I think it's because they're in school now. More so because they're um... what is it? Oh yes, Grad students. I actually sort of think atleast one of them might be a little concerned about what will happen after he actually gives in to leaving school. *edit*

I'm supposed to be home teaching tonight. Rebecca reminded me. I don't remember setting up the appointment. I think it might of been set up about 6 or 7 weeks ago which would be why I don't recall it. I know, I know it's the last day of the month but BUT!! We set this up before the month began, so we're not slackers. Don't worry.

I don't really blog much, I'm sure you've noticed. It has to do with a general non-use of the computer at home. I'm only blogging now because I needed to take a break from talking to Rebecca and calling her again for 5 minutes or so didn't seem worth it. Man it's nice that I can type fast. This is only like 5 minutes worth of effort. WOOT!

Rebecca was challenged to a typing test, and she had me do it for her so that she could waste her sister. The ridiculous thing is it made me feel like I sucked cause I could barely get 80 out of it. But if you want an example this is sort of how it is: apple mongoose love kingdom Ralph spoon walrus cribbage etc... Just random words right after each other.

I'm rambling, but it's because I don't really have time to think of a coherent line of thinking in which to really post about. Time is crunching in, I'm trying to get some Final Fantasy XII out of the way before I have to not have free time. I'm hoping my home teachers are over-estimating how bad life will be. It's not like people don't do full time school and full time work. It does happen and it is possible to do it and do it well. I know it is.

Anyway, blog I must go. I am a dead man walking or something like that. 2 weeks til death. :-O I hope I survive death. I like exaggeration. :-)

Wednesday, July 30

Future heartbreakers and loose meat tortillas

OK, so the title is random, but since the post is going to random it fits. We haven't done too much in the last couple of day. The home Teachers came over last night (to my suprise). We had planned on having them come a couple of weeks ago, and even decided the time Sunday...but I forgot. Daniel did as well, since he went by the store on the way home. It is a sort of funny story, and here it goes.

This is Alice looking coy for the camera. Future heartbreakers of America. (Oh and she is not crawling, but she will get up onto her hands and knees .)

I was planning Daniel's much anticipated meal of soft tacos. Its not anyone else's idea of soft tacos except his, but thats because he is picky and dislikes all things saucy/spicy/ethnic. We had bought 10lbs worth of hamburger from Hyvee over the weekend when it was $1.60/lb and had kept 2lbs in the fridge for the purpose of eating and loose meat tacos was the meal of choice. Granted, we only cooked one pound, but this way we had thawed meat for eating.

I also made the dough for the tortillas. (Honestly this makes me sound really domestic, but I insist I am not that much.) I had made them once before and it wasn't a totally hated meal, thus the repeat, but this time I put in 1/3 whole wheat flour. Thats right, eat what you store, store what you eat. (We are trying to get into food storage, very very slowly.) So if any of you have a love of checkers homemade tortillas, I can make them in like half an hour, and they might even be better for you, plus they won't grow mold in 2 days. (We had that happen, and thats what got me to try making them at home)

Alice eating yummy yummy green beans. They are so yummy she can't keep them in her mouth. And she sucked on my peach I was eating for breakfast, after the initial Yucky Fruit look, she seemed to love it, and was sad I didn't let her keep it forever.
So I was letting the dough rest for 10 min while I had Alice on the living room floor eating the laptop power cord and some toys when I see a car go by. Huh, that looks like Will's car. (Yeah that was in my head, fun huh?) Oh my gosh, its Tuesday. I quickly picked up the diapers that were launched toward the wet bin, but didn't make it, carried the laundry that was sitting on the stairs to the top, carried a glass or so to the sink and thought Sweet, they will never see my house clean! Admittedly it wasn't horrible, but lets face it, I don't work, I am at home all day, I have no excuse to not have a clean living room.


She has started reacting this way to seeing the camera held in front of her! So I let Will and Aaron in while I swiped the innards of the diaper bag, back inside itself so they would have seating. Yeah, talk about strange. Daniel wasn't planning on being home for half an hour. He was going to stay a little late from work since, yet again, there was no Sat OT allowed, and run by the store for some things that are cheapest at Aldi, and were almost gone, or completely gone) The whole situation was sort of funny really. Aaron and Alice played on the floor. Alice wasn't sure if it was fun or not, but since I was there and allowing it, she let it happen. There was even a point where Will proclaimed that she looked uncomfortable, and she did, but I wanted to see if she would cry. She didn't. I could have left her there while I made the tortillas, but I just assumed that she would cry if I left. I mean come on, two strangers take care of her while I am in another room AND neither of them are female. Thats two strikes right there.
Anyway, Daniel came home earlier than expected, and we discussed why the prophet is the prophet to the world, how good looking President Uctdorf is, and why Cary Grant should never play a Frenchman. (Expect a review in our other blog where we review old movies, This one was the 1949 "I Was a Male War Bride)


After they left, we cooked the tortillas, the meat and ate it while watching House find out the chick had a broken toe. I knew it was something about the foot, but I had forgotten it was a broken toe.
Oh yeah, and that last pic was where I baked Alice into a JCCC baby pizza. The battery on the camera died before I could get anymore good pics though. I decided to make the whole post nto flow, by including random pictures of the baby, and comments about them. Or maybe thats what kept you all reading. Eitherway, it was on purpose.


Friday, July 25

Enrolled!

Daniel is enrolled.

All the classes he is taking will transfer to KU, and go toward the school of business.

His classes have been signed off by a supervisor, so his company will reimburse us for tuition, fees, and books. Up to 15K, lifetime max. Thank goodness for community colleges that are less than half the price of KU. Not that he won't be paying KU prices eventually, but this way we don't max out the 15,000 early on.

His classes are:

Business communications
Intro to International Business
World Chem (with lab one Sat a month)
Drama in Literature (yay for plays!)

And aside from the Chem class, everything is online! Talk about awesome! Now he has to finish fililng out all the Financial Aid stuff, so we really don't have to pay for it. :-D

Oh, and Alice is scared of automatic paper towel dispensers. Those boxes that spit out paper towels are scary!

Tuesday, July 22

Alice is well!

So we went to see the good old doc this morning. We were in and out in less than 30 minutes. And I am talking from getting out of the car, to leaving the parking lot. That was a record. First visit of the day, and no long line of sickies from the morning clinic hours: Thats a good deal.

He called the hospital and checked on her urine culture. Nothing grew. That means, she didn't have any UTI. Thats fabulous news. For the record, anytime an infant gets a UTI its a bad deal. They are more likely to have lots more, there is a chance of surgery, and pretty much she gets blacklisted and has to go to the doc frequently. Did you know that almost all women getting kidney transplants in thier early 20s had kidney failure as a result of a upper urinary tract infection? Yeah, so our freaking out getting a blessing and visiting the hospital was a good call. Even if she had a UTI its best to catch it early while its still in the bladder...cause once its in the kidneys you are in trouble.

Long story short, no more antibiotics. Plus, her fever is down, so no more ibuprofen. Thats right, no more getting covered in sticky syrupy medicine. I think she would be better at taking it, if it were not flavored. But whatever.

Aparrantly it was probably a summer virus. According to the doc more infants 0-3 months are admitted to the hospital in july and August than the other 10 months of the year. Mostly because they present no other symptoms. Well I am off to log into Daniel's school stuff and check on his fin aid, as well as get him a schedule. Yeah, thats right, I am gonna do it. Not actually enroll, but get him a list of classes. He has to major in business for his work to reimburse, so business it is. The things you do to get your school paid for. :-)

Sunday, July 20

A day of Firsts!

Today was a long long day. I took a nap and still feel like its about midnight, though its not even half past 9. So here are the fun firsts of the day:
*Alice had her first 104 degree fever
*Daniel had his first trip to the ER. (Can you believe he has never been to one?)
*Alice doesn't have an ear infection
*Alice doesn't have a lung infection
*Alice got her first catheter.

Which means: Alice has a UTI! Her very first one! Yeah I have to pretend excitement because, lets face it, its not all that exciting.

She is now on a regimine of infant ibuprofen (the ER doc prefers it over tylenol, and since it knocked her fever down to 99.8 while we were there, we are sold) and K-flex. Daniel is allergic and acted like he might be excited that she is getting a medicine he can't have.

She is also asleep.
Oh, and wearing a onesie. First time all day.

So now that you have an overview of the day here are the details.

Alice was cranky Fri night and refused to sleep until she finally passed out 2+ hours after her bedtime. Saturday we were all "lalala its Daniel's birthday." She was slightly cranky, but fell asleep in the car making the whole carseat taken into Target. Sometime in the early pm Daniel noticed she felt hot. We checked her temp and it was 102.4. That was worrysome, but considering how much the doc's office blew off her temp after shots last time, we figured we would give the insurance's dial a nurse a call. They said watch for X symptoms, if she gets worse, call back, if fever doesn't go down with tylenol call back, etc. It went down and all was well in the house. She even took a nap.

She went to bed, and though she wasn't the best sleeper, at least as long as she was clutching my clothes, arm, or hair she was fine. Sigh of relief, right?

1am, awaken to her crying. She feels really stinking hot. She is also wet. We change her, take the temp and everything. its 103.9. The dial a nurse line says that 104 is when you worry. (Um, yeah right, THATS when I worry). But in my excessive tiredness, and the fact that it had been 6 hours since the last tylenol dose, so we drugged her up to her dismay. We stayed up for another 40 min in order to make sure the fever was going down then fell back asleep.

She was a very restless sleeper, waking herself up like every 2 hours. In the morning we drugged her again. The temp, was below 102, so we figured it was clearing up. She wore a diaper to church. That is all.

She wasn't heppy during sacrament meeting, so I ended up in the mother's lounge and hall with her. I nodded off. A couple of times. She acted ok. She was hanging with another baby in the hall, and talking to her and everything. She still felt sort of hot, and looked ready to pass out, but was jib-jab ing along. Good times. I pulled rank. We went home. Alice and I passed out on the couch. For like an hour of half of joy. Her temp was ok before. She woke up, and I laid her on my chest and she passed back out.

Then she burned Daniel. Thats what happens when you check someone's diaper and they pee on you with 104 degree pee. Its ok to laugh, I just snickered to myself writing that. After checking the temp, I said, we call the doc's office and the home teachers. The guy on call said, its best to take her to urgent care or the ER. We live 5 blocks from the ER, AND its only $15 more in co-pay...so after a kindly visit from Nathan Markham (who isn't one of the HT's but lives close) we take our freshly drugged, tepid (95 degree) sponge bath baby to the ER.

And thats what life is like in our house. Good old day of rest. It was the calmest ER I have ever been to. No one was in the waiting room when we got there. There was a few when we left hours later though. Fun things that got people to the ER that day: one guy cut his finger off, iced it down, and had it reattached. A kid went down a waterslide and got a goose-egg on his head. And, someone had an abscess that smelled like cottage cheese. We were by the nurses station.

But anyway, we are going to set an alarm and give Alice more yucky medicine at 1am, 7am, 1pm, and 7pm. And she gets to go to the doc for a follow up Tuesday. Fun times, fun times. And we forgot to call Gar. We were even planning to. Oh well. Next weekend. Or later in the week.

Saturday, July 19

Daniel is 25!

Well saying that just made me feel old.

One year ago today (July 19th, 2007) we got a sonogram of Alice. She didn't let us know she was a she though. Daniel thought she just looked like mud. She did measure right at 20 weeks though. We both took the day off work too. That was back before I realized we needed every penny we could make. Technically we didn't, well no we did because we were saving up for a downpayment on the house. Glad those days are over.

So we went shopping today. We went to a couple of yard sales, but didn't find much. There was one that had tons of cute stuff, but lets face it I don't wear jewelery, I have lots of art thats still not hung up, AND students don't have baby stuff. But they do have really cute stuff. We also went to Walmart to spend Daniel's gift card from work.

FYI Walmart no longer carries FFXII. Sad. Don't worry we bought other stuff. Including some glade candle airfresheners. There was a lady i nthe aisle that told me we could have a free candle holder. She gave me two because she said she had 60 and no one was talking to her. They didn't have all the scents on her table though, so we went down to the aisle and smelled them all, and even restocked her Vanilla. It was only $2.50 for a three pack and we don't use smelly things very often, so I figured why not. Later in line we got behind a lady who spent $260. Yeah, crazy I know. And it took so long I decided to look at the candle holder. In it was a $1 coupon. That means the candles were only $1.5o. Score.

Then we went to Target since we still have Alice's gift card from the baby shower. And they had it! The guy thought they had put it on clearance, but then found it and hunted us down in the store. For the record, Target was so much less chaotic that it was pretty much amazing. Daniel even made the comment that we might start shopping there instead. Afterall, great customer service, and prices that are pretty much the same as Walmart (being right across the street does that). Besides, we looked at the baby stuff since Alice has been doing a great job of getting longer and found some great bargains. We got some shorts and a couple of shirts for 98 cents each. Sweet! Plus, there was a couple of cute dresses for like $3 each, and a pack of 5 onesies for $6. That's right. She has clothing! She will be sporting something cute tommorow.

Speaking of Alice: this afternoon Alice was playing and I let her have the laptop to play with. Next thing I see, she has the computer screen upside down and the keyboard won't use all the keys. In fact I tried to search for 'display upside down" and got "d *pl * up" etc. Luckily a reboot solved that problem, and I found out that if you go under graphics options when you right click on the desktop you can change that. Problem solved, and a great trick to play on friends and family.

Friday, July 18

Chicken, it's what we eat.

Warning: These paragraphs are not spaced out very well or even coherant.
 
So apparently Rebecca has bothered to tell everyone what we're having for dinner which is nice I suppose...
 
I was saying that she is doing considerably more of what would typically be called the role of a home maker than she had been. Atleast, it seems that way to me. I assume it's because of the power of Alice domination that the high chair permits, thus allowing more spare time. It's not just the baking and the cooking. It's the tidying consistantly.
 
Quite honestly our house looks BEAUTIFUL!!! Well, basically. And she's cooking me dinner. :-O  Of course tonight I kind of wanted to go get myself some tortilla shells and hamburger, but who knows.  We're going to go shopping today. Rebecca didn't get the numbers completely right about my pay... I was shorted 24 and then over paid 26.6. But yah, kinda absurd.  This is technically the third mistake in the last three weeks.
 
I put the trim up for the back door again yesterday, I secured it about 2.5 times harder than it was before. And now the back door sticks a lot. Not very important because honestly I think there isn't a lot of reason to go back there. But eventually there might be. 
 
Rebecca is cute, and so is Alice. My home is filled with cute women.
 
I got to go.

Alice talks about chicken!

I had to give tis a fun title. Lets face it, Alice does not talk. She doesn't even say Dadadada or Muhmuhmuhmuh consistantly. Unless she poos, then I have encouraged her to say dadadada. (I always was the smart one.) But anyway, here goes the blog:

So Daniel was overpaid today. Its sort of funny, not haha but ironic. Two weeks ago they shorted him 28 hours, then overnighted a check for that. Yet, it looks almost as if they paid him an extra 28 hours this week. So our next check will probably be really small again. Its not that big of a deal, but its sort of messed up. I have never worked for a company that had so many issues with payroll.

I have been aparrantly very homemake-ly this week. Thats what Daniel told me. Though he probably used a real word, I just can't remember it. I think he mostly said that because I have baked bread twice this week. Well, I took one loaf to Emporia with me when I visited family, and we don't have any store bread, so I baked some yesterday. That in conjunction with my scrubbing down our bathroom led to the comment I believe. Oh and the cooking.

The deal is, with Alice, I can put her in the high chair, pull it in the kitchen, have some food for feeding her and cook while giving her occasional bites. It works out really well. Plus I have discovered a great one pot meal to make in the rice cooker. There isn't even any rice in it. (Sad I know, but we don't have any in the house, so its out.) Its pretty much scalloped potatoes with some random piece of meat on top, slightly too much water added and cooked 30 minutes. I got that number from the front where it said for sweet potatoes cook 30 min. Maybe at some point I will cook sweet potatoes in there, but since I don't like then and I doubt Daniel does either, its all gonna be Alice food. Yeah, there is no motivation there.

Speaking of her, Alice in her enthusiasm for food has begun eating her high chair. You know, when I am not feeding her fast enough because I am trying to take a bite of my own food. Maybe she is trying to help me lose the weight that I gained back by going on the pill. (talk about dumb, oh well for the assurance that I will not have another infant soon, its worth it) ANyway back to the high chair eating: This results in food dribbling down the tray and into her lap. So much for bibs, we need a wet suit. And washcloths.

She has aslso started 'talking.' Ok its not any identifiable word, usually, but she is getting there. I was talking to Danno on his break and she acted interested in the phone (not unusual) and so I held it up and he said "Hi! This is your Daddy." She resulted in a long drawn out 'i.' Technically you could say there was an 'h' as well. I started laughing, and Danno thought I had said Hi mocking her. Nope, sure didn't. Thats classic baby babble. OK, I admit she was wet. I had discovered it moments before, but hadn't changed her yet. She is much more talkative when she is wet. Or in front of a cat; those gods of fringe must be conquered.

Tonight for dinner I am cooking something involving black beans and chicken thighs. The beans I cooked yesterday in the crockpot, and the chicken is thawing in the fridge. It really doesn't matter what I make, Danno dislikes beans. That means it can be ethnic, or strange, or technically a flop, and it really won't matter. I will eat it cause I won't throw it out, and he will eat it because I cooked it. Even if he ends up eating half a loaf of bread an hour or so later. I am leaning toward, the chicken, beans, some salsa, and corn. Making some type of southwest chicken stuff. Sounds good. Except for those yucky bean parts. Lol.

Tuesday, July 15

Day Trips

So this morning Alice and I dropped off Daniel at work and drove down to good old E-town for some party time. Ok not really. We got a call from my mother last night askign if we would go help Rachel peel off wall paper in Rachel's room so the Relief Society could do thier service project and paint. I said sure because my mom gave me $50 last time I went down there, so why not.

Well lets jsut say, one of the beauties of a good old 1880s home is the loverly plaster walls. They are great. Getting to them though...dang. There were two identifiable layers of paper, as well as at least one layer of paint. That meant lots and lots of scraping. and lots of little bitty pieces of plaster/wall paper paste/ paper everywhere. By the time I left I was covered in it, as was Jesse.

So when I got there, no one was working on it, my mother was in the garden picking green beans and Lyd was doing whatever. I went in and tried helping, but lets just say, the tools they had were not right. The only other room they had de-papered was the living room, and the paper was so old, and there was only one layer, so it came off really easy. They used a putty knife to start the edge, then pulled the whole strip down. Well things just aren't always that easy. less than an hour later I had cut myself. Yeah seriously. On the thumb.

That will teach me to try and use the scraper like that. So I took Lydia to the store to get supplies, including paper scrapers. $50 later I had a replacement curtainrod (cause one sort of had issues when I was taking it down), two painter tools, drywall joint tape, joint compound, a floor lamp (they only had table lamps in the living room and I thought they would appreciate it), as well as light bulbs to go in it. Yeah, thats right all sorts of supplies. So we went back, assembled the lamp, fed and changed the baby, did a little bit of scraping, and the like.

Pretty soon my mother says she wants to take us all out for Lydia's birthday. Its Thursday. Sounds like a waste of money and time to me, who no longer eats out and has to leave in 2 hours to get Daniel. After about an hour of attempting to make Lyd help, we went to a buffet. How can you tell you are cheap? You eat the 3pm buffet. The foods not that pretty, but its $3 less per person than dinner. So after that I dropped Rachel off, helped Jesse scrape for a while and talked with thier Relief Society president when she called. Good old Sis Good. A fitting name for her.

I also attempted to convince Lyd to have the singles do a service project for thier FHE (which meets on Tuesdays since they aren't supposed to use the building on Mondays), but that resulted in her going to the library for over an hour printing out a copy of the ward roster and spyign around. Yeah, for real, the library is like 7 blocks away. I was annoyed.

So I left late. The paper wasn't completely removed. I did get some patchign done, and soem had dried enough I could sand, and yeah it looks good. But still. Anyway, I wanted to leave around 4, but decided 5 would be ok so I could help them out some more. I was in scraping with Jesse, Alice was sitting in the living room shrieking at the cat, and my mother was sweeping the living room. Then my mother dropped her broom. The handle hit Alice. Alice fell over. Alice screamed and cried. I held her while doing some more damage to the wall paper.

We packed up at about 5:05. My mother who has moved across state, but still visits Emporia often enough, it doesn't seem like it, wanted to take a desk she got from her mother before she died. In her car. It was hard to fit. Really hard. Finally Jesse and I laid down both of the front seats, put it in through the passanger side, turned, shoved it against the side and got the driver's seat back up AND the doors shut. Done, and done. It was 5:30.

I left.

Alice had to eat and get changed halfway back.

20 minutes or so I was back on the road and she was sleeping.

We got Daniel at 7pm. He did lots of OT today. I didn't spend any money except money that doesn't exsist. (Thats how cash from non-work sources goes in our house) And we have at least 3 lbs of fresh green beans. And so does my mother, and so does Rachel.

Tuesday, July 8

Weekend fun

So for the fourth we got together with the family in Emporia. We had poppers and the confetti bottles...so festive. Plus we had a box of fried chicken courtesy of Walmart's Deli Dept. There was nothing present to feed Alice, until I realized some rice side dish had green beans in it. So I picked through the thing, and removed all the green beans. Then I did the sort of gross, thing of licking off the spicy tomato sauce and chewing/mashing them up. She was pretty happy I did.


My mother shared a strange story when I did this about a couple who were both doctors and the mom chewed up all the baby's food for her. Yes like birds, only not swallowed and regurgitated. Still, its quite nasty. So anyway, here is Daniel, Alice and me with Isaiah being held by Jarom in the back. Aunt Sarah took the picture on my camera because her disposible's flash wasn't working. I might go ahead and print them out and mail them to her, since she acted bummed that I was going to email them, and she wouldn't have the photos themselves.
Lydia was there. Her hair is a reddish orange color, courtesy of her psycho former roommate. Rachel, who was on her mission in the farthest south part of the continuous states has lighter hair as well, courtesy of the sun. And I was there with my non-dyed and not out in the sun self. Yes, I had the darkest hair. It was definitely a first. Even my aunt was like, I knew there was something different, and its that your hair is so dark. Its not all that much darker, but their hair is lighter. I admit I am sort of tempted to dye my hair now, but that won't happen. I don't want to have orange hair.


Here is a quality picture of Daniel enjoying Alice. Alice was tired and in a sucking mood, but didn't want to eat or sleep. Thus the pacifier. We took it away from her for a while, like when she stopped sucking her thumb, but sometimes she just wants something to suck on. This picture was actually from right before we left and she had woken up but didn't want to be awake. Don't worry a few minutes of feeding her, plus riding in the car, she slept the whole ride home.


As you can see, no really cool pictures. Not even a picture of the wading pool that I took her to. Oh man, did she hate that. I tried putting her in it and she would stand but start getting sad. Then I tried making her sit, wail wail cry cry. She immediately clung to me and I got soaking wet. The water was sort of cold, so its understandable. I hadn't been to the Peter Pan Park wading pool since I was a youngster though. They had 2 lifeguards on duty, and until about 2pm, we were the only ones there. But around 2pm another group of picnic-ers sent about 15 kids over in swimsuits and armed with water guns. Good times, good times.


The old changing rooms/restrooms were built in 1940 by the Youth Association...perhaps a work program? But they were all padlocked and not really in use. Well, one door was open and I think it was just a changing area. There is a small bathroom made out of cinder blocks next to it. Not as pretty as the limestone, but probably cheaper and faster to build.


So last night I cut my hair. It was pretty great to go from shower to bed, to wake up and all I had to do to it was brush the bangs down. Alice has learned to grin for the camera. As soon as I pulled it out she started doing these excessive smiles. So I of course took pictures of her. The real reason was to show off my new hair. Yeah yeah, its cute, it is. I know they are sideways, but I didn't want to edit them, so this is what you all get.


Oh and I went out to the front of the house and picked some green beans from my plants. I know, its silly to have them growing in the front, but most of them were in the back, and we had pulled out some bushes in the front and it just looked bare. So I moved a couple of plants. I cooked them. That will be Alice food once I throw it in the mini food processor. Speaking of that thing, I bought it at a yard sale for 50 or 75 cents, and its the best investment ever. I use it for all of Alice's food (well except the 4Th of July thingy) and it chops really well. The only downside, is that I have learned you can't put much in, and you shouldn't put too much liquid in either. It has some vent type holes on the top, plus the liquid will go out over the bowl and down the inside of the lid part leaving some very exciting liquid stuff all over the cabinet. That leads me to believe its a really old school electric spice grinder. The blade is also permanently attached to the bowl, so its hand washing every time. Good thing she doesn't really eat messy foods yet. I can only imagine spaghetti or mac and cheese in there.
So there you have it. Me with short hair. Oh and, Alice LOVED the fireworks. Our neighbors in their excessive disregard to the no fireworks rule, had all sorts of stuff smoking, blowing up, and shooting sparkles all evening and well into the night. Her faves: sparklers. She squealed so loud you would have thought she was closer. Then again, she also was very much excited for the bush I was sitting by, so much that she tried eating it. I don't think so, you can explore plants when you stop trying to eat them. You know what I just thought of when I looked at this picture? Princess Leah...help me obiwankanobi (spelling will be totally wrong) you're my only hope. Its actually just curly not in a bun. Here is a second pic as proof.

Saturday, July 5

MAgicjack is it possible for you to work?

SO no one has been able to call into our magicjack line meaning the lure of having a phone for $20 a year is losing its sparkle. I have found out fun facts from tech support though:

1. MagicJack has been having problems with other phone companies (ie the other companies won't let them call us) How mean of the big bad scary phone companies. That means people with Verizon, Vonage, and Skype can't call us. I might say whatever about two of them, but Verizon? Seriously?

2. I told them that my brother with Sprint tried calling and it did the same thing to him this was the response: "Did he put 1 before your number." LOL. Who doesn't know that you have to put 1s before numbers. Even better, Daniel's mom tried calling and on the software it said she called twice, and we didn't answer the second time, but it automatically put her on hold. I had to hit resume and Daniel talked with her. The ironic part is that once he was talking with her the software didn't even register that the phone was in use.

I dunno, after talking with a couple of different techs, and having a few test calls it appears to be working now. But if anyone wants to try it, we are posting it on the internet. Afterall we can always change the number anytime for free once. SO get bored, prank call us!

Oh, and if you don't mind subtitles there is an awesome little 1961 Italian film called "Divorce Italian Style." It was totally different from what Daniel thought it would be after reading the back, but way way more awesome. Its at the Lawrence Public Library (or it will be after we return it). All I have to say is, word to the makers of this film.

Thursday, July 3

Well I was going to write more, but Alice just published that post. So I guess I am done!

Happy Post

So I have had some not so happy posts lately, so this should counteract them...at least somewhat. I just get rather annoyed when I feel like I am getting ripped off...if I were a firecracker I would be jumping jacks. They are fun.

Yesterday we got almost all of the remaining back of the house on...we have a 14" piece on the end left, but it started hailing so we called it off for the night. It was sort of cool because it was threatening rain, and it would rain for 2 minutes or less, then stop. Then I went out to warn them that the news said there was hail in the storm that was coming, and 10 minutes later hail hail hail. It didn't last very long though.

We are hanging with la familia for Independence Day. Aparrantly my Aunt Sarah has ordered 50 pieces of chicken to be delivered to the park and they are making and bringing side dishes. Oh and my bro is bringing us some N64 games. Some of which might be cool, but he was planning on selling his system anyway, so since we only own like 4 games (but we have 2 copies of 007 Goldeneye!!) he is bringing the games that we don't own to the picnic. He is also trying to convince Taryn and Isaiah to come. She called him while I was talking to him, so he let me go.

Ooo Ooo, guess what else I found out though. Daniel was shorted 24 hours on his most recent paycheck. Though we have a few people sending us money, so its not a huge deal (especially since he will be getting the money) but its like, huh thats cool. Daniel says that if we have to wait until his next check to get paid for them, he wants them to be counted as OT. As if that will happen, but if they do make us wait until the next check he will have more than 100 hours on it without OT. There was quite a bit of payment issues though, someone in his department got paid 45 hours extra. They are going to have a small check in 2 weeks though. 3 Day weekends are awesome.

We still aren't exactly sure what we will do about the partition between the 2 sides of the duplex. We thought about a fence, but we would either have to attach it to the building or make a hole in the concrete to put in a post. I guess we will have to come up with a plan soon though. We were thinking of finishing that this weekend.

Oh guess what else? So the Airpines are charging people to check bags now BUT since we bought our tickets between May 15 and June 14 we are able to check the first bag free, second bag $25. All tickets purchased June 15th and later is $15 for the first bag, and 25 for the second. Yay! I am so glad we bought our "Christmas in October" plane tickets way way early. That means we can pack the cloth diapers and not have to worry about packing very light. Lets face it, two big bags for three people isn't bad at all. We were thinking carry ons and maybe check one thing,, but no we get twice the space! Yay!

Tuesday, July 1

Why do they even have home warranty's?

SO after being told by two different people at the warranty place that we can have a second opinion, and they do another work order, the guy from evil Ace PLumbing calls and says that if they come out, and the unit is working we have to pay another $60. What the heck?

I called them, and was on the phone with this girl for over an hour while she talked with Ace Plumbing. Finally I got so upset I yelled "If your warranty doesn't cover this, why the hell do we have one?" I passed off the phone to Daniel after that.

Pretty much, we were stupid to have Ace Plumbing to do the repair. Had they not touched it, we could have had someone else come out, and take care of it. Second, aparrantly even if it had been the previous owners that did a shoddy patch, the warranty won't cover it. The warranty only covers normal wear and tear. Are you freaking kidding me.

I made Daniel ask if there is any way to get a refund. They didnt' know. We could cancel coverage, they knew that. What total crap. I am so frustrated. The neighbor says we should take Ace Plumbing or the previous owners or someone to small claims court. I don't think that will happen, but Daniel doesn't know if that will accomplish anything anyway.

The guy from Ace Plumbing responded to my email with this birght gem:

Mrs..Cook [because they still can't use my first name, they only put Daniel's info on the invoice as if he is the man, therefore in charge, or whatever sexist crap that is],
I have received your e-mail and talked with the technician about this job,I don't understand why you are being so resentful in your message to me, it seems you would allow me time to acquire information before responding (I emailed him a second time after the check cleared the bank, but they had not responded to my inquiry, and lets face it I was annoyed that they had not responded). That said, we repaired a copper liquid line to the A/C system that was cut by someone while they were using a sawzall to remove siding.(This gem of knowledge given by the technician was referring to the scrape that was pictured in a previous post. As you noticed the scrape was STILL there! Fabulous!) The cost of this repair was not covered by your warranty company due to this not being normal wear and tear. This is the warranty companies policy. (I find it interesting that if a patch comes off, its not covered, the previous owners obviously patched it, as the AC was working before Friday) In order to make the repair we had to stand in front of the pipe to get to it,this is where the new grass is ,nothing we could have done about that, I would suggest watering it down good , June and July typically not a good time to plant grass without lots of water. (Thanks for that shining gem of advice, had I known this was a bad time to plant grass, I wouldn't have. And I definately wouldn't have watered it twice a day for the last week and a half eiher. If only a plumber would have todl me of this previous to today. I also would have to note the grass that was trampled was in the front yard, more than 50 yards from the AC unit.)After you have your new siding installed would be the time to calk around holes in the siding. The pipe was not insulated, but it would be a good idea for you to insulate if you would like, but we would suggest you wait until the carpentry work is near completion as not to tear it. When the tech. arrived he went to your door and you husband greeted him, he did inform your husband of who he was and what we were there for. Anytime an A/C system is worked on in this fashion we would have to go inside the house to the thermostat and or furnace in order to check out and test the repair. (I am not an idiot, I know he came to the front door initially, I am talking about the back door where he helped himself inside without knocking or anything. My bad for not wanting my breast exposed to some creepy guy that asks if a baby wearing a pink onesie is a boy. I told him yes.)The tech informed you of the situationand that the warranty company was not covering the repairs, he gave you an aprox. est.. of $300.00 dollars (he actually said $250-300, and all up it was $375.88, because he did not tell us that the $60 service fee was seperate), the total bill was $315.82 including tax. I'm not sure what else you were expecting us do do , we made the repair. Thank You Dave Cobler, Pres. Ace Plumbing Inc.

I currently despise them, and I am sure they have written me off as a nut, or fanatic, or whatever. heaven forbid an intelligent opinionated woman think you are ripping her off, then call you on it. The worst part is that at this point I have no idea what to do. We were stupid as we had him repair it, and we were more stupid (or at least naive) to think the home warranty would cover it. They said at this point its a he said, she said thing. Yeah thats right, it would be a battle of the sexes. I hope that Paul W. of Ace Plumbing got his butt chewed out for making me mad. Then again the president of the company never even acknowledged that he also trampled part of my garden, so maybe it was a they paid for it, so tough cookies.