What have I done in a week?

1. Took down the living room mini blinds, scrubbed them and put them back up. Did you know they are a very light off white? We thought they were beige. Ha. Of course the set for the double window was too big for the tub, so it needs some TLC, but you can't see the spots until its dark outside and you look from the inside. :-) The only down side is that the oxyclean I used (or my powerful muscled scrubbing) took off some of the paint. But you have too look to see. Plus they are easier to open and close! Sweet. Cost=FREE

2. I cleaned the oven door. You know the glass window where you can look at what you are cooking? Well, ours was pointless as the only thing visible was brown shadows. I got out a screwdriver and took the cover off of the insulating part of the door. Started cleaning the glass there and realized, I have to take that piece of glass out, since the brown stuff was on the other side of it. So I got the drill and the hex heads out, a few minutes later I had the piece of glass in my hands. I tried just using dish soap to clean, but that stuff has been on there for probably 10 years, so I got smart and dumped some powdered dishwasher soap on it then scrubbed that around with a damp cloth. Most of the time I use a small amount of liquid soap in the dishwasher, and reserve the powdered for the nasty baked on pots and pan. It worked. Maybe 30 minutes later I was screwing the whole thing back together. Cost = 2 hours of a whiney baby (she was just acting clingy, so she sat on the floor by me and complained. It happens.)

3. I put up a towel rack in the guest bathroom. Anyone that has been to our house might know that the guest bathroom was once the home of the washer and dryer. Some previous owner put in a half bath. Its tiny and pretty scary. But there was already holes and anchors in for a towel rack so I had a really easy time screing in the joints, then hand tightening the anchoring thingy. We didn't have a screwdriver thin enough so I ended up with a butter knife. But, hey we can now hang towels in there! Cost = $1 a few motnhs ago? (we got two at a yard sale for $1 and now one is up. Give me some time and I will get the second one upstairs!

4. I got food poisoning. Yeah Tuesday was fun. I was supposed to go visiting teaching, and once Daniel got home I got in the shower, but once I got out, I sat down and it felt so good to not be standing. He called and informed them I wasn't coming. Cost = not time hanging with soem awesome chicas

5. I got visit taught. Is that the right phrase? I loved the topic for this month. It was just an all around Women are amazing! Divine nature rocks! It was a total throw back from being in Young Womens. Cost = vacuuming? Just kidding, this was just a great thing.

6. I didn't blog. At all. Its impressive. I even started a couple of posts and either Alice wouldn't let me finish them, or they ended up sounding so dumb I decided whatever. Cost = bored readers. I know all of you religiously check here, or are directed here by Daniel's posting in his little forum that we have new Alice pictures. Either way the ticker is going up and that makes me feel important in a not so important way.
I was almost inspired enough by cleaning the oven door, to post a tutorial (since its impossible to find one online. I looked, I know) but I couldn't find a second battery for the camera. I think the rechargable batteries are in some Alice toy...one she doens't even play with very often.

7. Oh and I got a bunch of the music for RS picked out. I have at least a month totally done, and a few other weeks. All I need now is soem willing pianists. Or, with my luck, to get released and into a new calling. Actually, if that happens I am totally cool with it. I have had that calling for 3 years now I think. But, thats how calling work in our ward sometimes. Since its a student ward, most of the ward is transient. That means if you don't leave, they tend to keep you in the same calling. I think thats partly because its easier. My calling I had before this was as a teacher and I was in that calling for 4 years. Finally the relief society president said, you have had this calling since before I got mine, and I have had 3 sets of counselors and she released me. I was sort of excited at the time, but soon I missed teaching. Oh well, I am sure thats how things go. Even when you are excited for a change, there are things you miss about the past.

How to get your sleep!

Alice is sleeping.

And, she has been asleep in the bed since 9. She was probably asleep around 8:30 and then she did not wake upwhen I put her down. Yes, you read that right.

I sort of feel like a 4th grader at her first sleepover...its probably a high induced by the lack of irresponsibility, or freedom from opression, or something.

So how did I do it? I read up on high needs infants, and what to do with them to get them to sleep. Maybe Alice isn't as bad as some babies, but trust me, this girl is needy. Then I decided to implement some of the suggestions.

1. I let her sleep. As much as she wanted, everytime she acted like she wanted to. There was a point where my legs were falling asleep because I had been holding her sleeping for a while. I got a foot rest. Problem solved. (Yes we do attachment parenting)

2. We did all sorts of 'wind down' type things. We found the sling, and carried her around in it for 30-40 minutes. She was physically opressed, but still allowed to stare at things, and it worked.

3. We fed her. I tried to get her on a schedule of eating in the day...12 lunch, 4:30 dinner, 7:30 cereal snack. Yes, I drugged her with carbohydrates.

4. We watched some old school Tom Hanks movie. Alice was asleep in bed the whole time. Happy happy times!

Alice gets Pictures!

So Julie came to visit and we took Alice pictures. Alice was not having it, and in all the pics we got one 1 that she was smiling in. So here are a few...including the one smile!

What's up with the Olympics?

Tonight I figured, lets watch some online Olympic action. I mean all the real awesome sports aren't even broadcast.

Like Fencing, table tennis, and the classic Handball. Handball, that's silly enough to maybe even be interesting. Besides, its China verses Brazil. Those Latino's are going down.

Imagine my suprise that in order to watch online you have to download Microsoft Silverlight. Yeah, that's right, only the biggest names can let you watch the Olympics. NBC on TV, ATT on phone TV, and Microsoft for online coverage. Hmmm, oh yeah, the man is in charge of the Olympics. I think that sort of defeats the ideas behind the Olympics, but whatever.

So I download the software and install it.

Then it tells me I can't watch with the option I gave. I told them I watch broadcast TV, NBC with an antenna. Not good enough to watch it online.

What are you kidding me?

I said I have Sunflower (The local monopoly of a cable company) and tada, I am allowed to watch it.

To be even more annoying the Silverlight software shut down this browser window while I was writing the blog. So much for watching Handball. Microsoft, stop taking over my computer. There is a reason why I was using Firefox.

Nights of Torture

Alice has started being evil at night. Her sleep schedule got really messed up when she was sick 2 weeks ago, but I thought we had recovered.

Lets just say Monday night she woke up wailing at 2am...refused to take a pacifier (boob or otherwise) and was an all around butt. At 3am, we got up. We got up and watched half of Pygmalion. At just after 4am she decided boobs were her friends and nursed herself to sleep. Lets just say Daniel and I were both tired yesterday.

Last night was a similar action. Only instead of it beign 2am, she just refused to go to bed. We finally sat her between us, with youtube music videos playing. I was almost asleep when she decided that she wanetd to sleep. It was midnight. Midnight!!! I don't even stay up that late.

So now I am sort of torn. I am glad that she is weaning herself from the pacifier, but why am I becoming the pacifier of choice? (She will literally scream more if you try and put the pacifier in her mouth) She also is talented enough to pull up on things that she can grab, chair legs, people's clothes, etc; so, if we even wanted to put her in the crib we would need to lower the mattress. In that case there is no freaking way we could get her in while she was asleep. She already wakes up and freaks out as it is.

My hope is that she has teeth that are just under the surface and driving her mad. I even gave her Tylenol last night in hopes we could all just go to bed. I don't know if it helped or not, but an hour later she was ready to sleep.

I miss the pacifier. :-(

Rebecca says Hi

So... Rebecca wanted me to post. So I guess I'll just ramble. I've been approved for debt(financial aid)! But I've also been approved for some debt resistance(a grant!). It's pretty cool. I'm planning on going into debt as much as they let me so that I can pay off other debt. I.E. our HELOC and or Rebecca's financial aid debt... I don't really feel like posting. So I'll just save this and maybe fix it up later.

Not going to bother to fix things. I still haven't gotten my financial aid, but it's something I'll work on. School has started, it's kinda annoying. :-( I have so much small things I'm supposed to do. It = lame.

So I'm going.

The Cricle of Life

Oh yes, an homage to Elton John, or Disney, or lions.

So yesterday I found out that someone died. He was a member of the Stake presidency for years, and he was even my professor in pharmacy school for a couple of semesters. I was rather surprised. I mean, I know that the stake asked everyone to fast for him, but I didn't think know why really. I just knew that he had fallen sick quite suddenly. His obituary was rather impressive, I guess I didn't know how big their family was. Sometimes its sad when you think of someone's father/husband/brother/grandpa dying. I think that its mostly sad because you know that the person will be missed. I am glad that I know (and the family knows) that families are forever. I can't imagine what it feels like to think that everything just stops after the mortal existence. I don't even want to try. Sometimes things make you grateful for the things you tend to take for granted. Yay for the gospel in our lives. For that matter, yay for the comfort that we have through the Holy Spirit and the hope we can have because of the atonement.

So now I am getting to prepare a veggie tray for 10 (as if I know how much that is...yeah not really). And, for the record, the internet doesn't seem to know either. So I will just prepare a veggie tray, and maybe take along some extra stuff in baggies.

Rachel bought a car. It is a 96 something or other, and maroon. I remember all the important details, or rather the only important detail - the color. She also has the weekend off so she is visiting!!! I am so stoked!

Oh, and in other cool news, someone else is getting induced Monday. I bet this will be the longest weekend of her life. I am sort of excited and have started making little baby booties out of eco friendly felt. Yeah, thats what they call it now when they make it out of recycled pop bottles. Thats right, between the felt and stuff I already had around the house, they will cost me next to nothing while being tres chic, and cute to boot!

And somehow it must be dinner time...thats what Alice is implying through her whining and pinching...not to mention the constant drooling. She makes me think of Pavlov's dogs. :-)

My new Favorite Recipe!

So I have planned us an ongoing menu. It only includes dinner, and some days are very very vagues (like Wednesdays are Crock pot days) but the idea is that it will make grocery shopping easier, and give us something to look forward to.

Last night was pasta night. Did we eat pasta though? Nope. We did eat ice cream though. And some amazing cheese bread.

Its essentially Italian bread dough, topped with Italian dressing, some herbs, and cheese. It was actually really easy. In fact it was much easier than my usual adventure in baking bread. (Last week the adventure ended up in bread dough boiling out of the pans when it rose. Eek!)

I just mixed up regular flour, salt, sugar, yeast (though I didn't have the instant dry yeast, but it rose just fine, so whatever) then added water and some veg oil. Mix the suckah up, and knead (my idea of that is mashing it around in the bowl I was using adding flour if needed) then coat with a drizzle of oil and let rise. Since I didn't have no instant rising yeast it took more than the '20 min' the recipe famed, but it still rose. Anyway, smash it down, spread some Italian dressing around, sprinkle with herbs and put just enough cheese on top to cover. The recipe called for 8oz, I used maybe 4. Then bake!

When done 'tis like the glory of a papa Murphy's bread stick pizza thingy. Ah love.

And aside from the fact that Alice needed maintenance 2 minutes before it should have been done, it would have even looked glorious. Instead I turned the oven off, helped her out, came back to well browned cheese (not a bad thing, but slightly less 'ummy) and figured, whatever we can eat it after I pick up Daniel.

Anyway the offical recipe can be found here.

I am going to try it as pizza crust, since it tasted similar to digorno/freschetta plus its probably better for you. Thats right, mushroom pizza. Mushroom 'stroganoff' (doubt that counts as stroganoff if there is no meat) and eventually mushroom burgers. I bet those cook on the george foreman just fine.

Mushroom, mushroom!

Badger badger badger badger...ok the title reminded me of one of the most pointless, yet catchy youtube videos/songs.

So last night for Family Home Evening we learned about getting the most for your money. Alright, we went grocery shopping. But we found some great deals.

First, peaches were 99 cents/lb at Checkers. Daniel likes peaches. I like peaches, and even Alice likes peaches. She is like, attack that fruit! I just let her chew on the big fruit as seh seems to find that enjoyable, and doesn't spit any out that way. We of course had one after the 'lesson.' So that was exciting.

Then as we were walking I saw a sign that said all Portobello mushrooms that are marked sliced, but are whole are 59 cents. I got three. I couldn't help myself. Mushrooms are like fancy, rarely eaten foods in our house. Maybe its because Daniel doesn't like them very much, but they are YUM! (As you can see, I do.) I just don't know what to do with a pound and a half of portabello mushrooms. I have found a recipe called "Killer Shitake Recipe" and I know they mean killer in a wow, cool dude, awesome, way. But its funny to think of them as murderous fungi. Plus, I am sure the recipe works well for portobellos as well. Though, honestly they will most likely end up in stroganoff.

We also found some cereal that made Daniel happy. Can we say Chocolately Pebbles? Yeah it was the cheapo brand, but he never, ever gets that stuff because the real deal is NEVER on sale. As a funny side note, when put in milk, the chocolate coating stuff comes off and you have regular looking crip rice in chocolate milk. Yeah, thats quality. But it tastes fine, so he might start eating it often.

Oh, and the thing that has been stressing us out at the house is here. Thats right, tuition is due today. Soon our credit card will have $1020 on it. :-( We know that even if it takes us 4 months to pay any of it, and we pay the whole thing at the same time, we will spend the same amount as if we enrolled in the tuition payment plan but its still a sad sad day. Oh well, once the Financial Aid office actually reviews the tax forms then he can accept whatever aid is offered, and we are set until we get reimbursed in January. Le sigh.

Oh, and Daniel had a great dream relating to this. We got some modifications done by two professors to our car so it could go to space! And we found a ginormous diamond! Then the car broke down. :-( And the repair bill was going to be 150K. So he was like, well maybe the professors can help us out. The younger professor said he would start putting $500 every 6 months into an account for us. The older guy said he would buy the diamond for 100K. Daniel thought the diamond was worth more and said no. The something happened and the diamond got chipped. Alice dropped it or something. He took the diamond to a pawn shop and they offered him $1000 since it was chipped. He took it out of despairation. We went back to the car shop and the mechanic said that after he watched the car for a while it was fine. So he would take $50 for his time and we would be ok.
Moral of the story: don't get space modifications on your vehicle.

Sam made me Mad!

So, we canceled our service with Sam* yesterday. It's actually going to go through on next Friday. We did it because he was giving us ridiculous charges. I mean, why would he want us to give him like 33 cents a minute for long distance calling? If you go to Sam's website there isn't even such a plan there. The only plan he has is 12 cents a minute, atleast the only one that doesn't cost anything... So... since Sam's hours of operation aren't very good we couldn't call him, so we had to trust his website that was full of lies.

So basically, Sam charged us for like 110 minutes of long distance at about 33.2 cents a minute when we were expecting it to be 12 cents a minute. I guarantee that is not what they told us it would cost when I last talked to him either but whatever. And yeah... when I went and talked to him on the phone about it, he acted like I was stupid. He said "Well, that plan is only available on the internet, and since you already have the phone you can't have it. Now if you'd had a plan you wouldn't of been charged so much." Rebecca even told him that we could probably have called from a pay phone for less and HE AGREED!!! Sam is a jerk. I told him to cancel my phone service.

So for all of you that care, as of Friday our phone number 785 331 2788 will be disconnected and anyone wanting to call us will have to call our other number that I have forgotten but we can let you know if you harass us or whatever. And we'll make sure to post eventually. I apologize to those whose phone service claims we don't have a phone, but we do. If you can't call us but need to talk you can resort to e-mail and have us call you... Sorry, but Sam made us mad so we had to cancel.

*All references to Sam should actually be referring to AT&T. This was done just to mess with Sam

Phones make me sad

I got mad.

I yelled.

I was hung up on by one rep.

I hung up on the second.

The automated menu disconnected me once. Yes even that computerized man hung up on me.

Yeah, good times. The second rep even asked if I was on a cell phone because he was having problems understanding me. No, I am talking on my home phone through your company, so if you can't hear me, its YOUR fault.

So for the last hour I have been on the phone getting lectured about how the FCC is charging me for this streaming radio. Yes, that's why AT&T sent the bill. After all, AT&T is the government. Oh, no wait they are just a giant phone corporation.

Then I called the radio people. They said on June 20th (could not provide a time or an IP address) I, Rebecca, signed up for streaming Internet. I told them they were lying. I told them that the phone bill is in Daniel's name. The charges on the phone bill, are listed separate from the rest of the bill, and they say his name.

She read off my email address as if that was proof that I signed up for the service. Um yeah, my email address must have done that.

I took the address down for the company and I will be requesting the IP address and time. Its $.43 cents that will give them more paperwork to deal with, and that makes me happy. I am also tempted to send in a small claims court form as I read on the internet that someone did it and the company offered then $200 plus their refund to not file a court case. Also, I am pretty annoyed that they said that I had already been charged a second month and that it would likely take 2 months for the refund to even show up on the bills coming from AT&T.

That means I have to actually send in a letter with my payment stating that I am not paying for the streaming radio thing. By the way, its 700 channels Commercial free! I was so glad they told me, maybe I will go click on some junk mail so I can get signed up for it again.

I was also told by Linda #319 (that's what she said was her name) that I may have been signed up by filling out a survey online, or some offer for a free gift card. Well, now that sounds like one heck of a scam right there. Everyone knows that those gift card things are strange, and if they are going to be charging you they have to say so. I have read their privacy statements and their terms of service. I know. I sort of sounds like pfishing. Now granted our web history is maybe a month old, so I have no CLUE if it was or not.

I did file a complaint with the FCC though. I also stated that they said I was getting a refund, but I had not seen it, and I believe its fraudulent anyway. I even told them, that if they do get into some loophole, its still bad business practice.

I am drained. I want to shut down. I want ice cream. No, I actually don't. But I want to do something mindless. Perhaps play Final Fantasy. Perhaps even Daniel's game.

5am Rants for $15

Its hot. Hot enough that I woke up and couldn't sleep until I got a drink of water. That was over 30 minutes ago.

When I got downstairs the light from the computer that was left on beckoned me. Come, see the world.

OK, not really, but I figured I would pay our phone bill and see if we had any moeny to pay it with. I.e. Daniel who has been told he deserves a raise since January is actually expecting one. Now I checked with the bank, and I can't even tell if he got the raise or not. It seems to be more that the last few checks, but he might have done more OT. Well, expect an update on that.

Anyway.

Back to why I blog.

The phone bill.

It was $72. No, seriously, thats like almsot twice our typical cost.

So I began the whole, what the heck is my username and password to actually get the bill. I usually get the total from the email and pay them through bill pay, no need to look at the bill when its the same within $1 every month, right?

So I admit, I am partly at fault. You see, Rachel came home from her mission. I like Rachel. Call it good times/family bondage/memories. So yes, I racked up $20 worth of long distance in a month. ONe phone call was almsot $10. Thats pretty impressive actually.

But there was this other charge...for streaming radio??? What the heck. I googled "OAN Services Inc" because the bill lists them way after all the regular phone bill stuff. Its some third party company that seems to have been signed up for everyone with AT&T home service. Um, for real now thats fraudulent. I can also expect them to read off my name, phone number and address and email address as if I had set up the service myself. (well technically Daniel as his name is on the bill) I am not even that angry, but I do sort of want to call them myself and get angry. Its just too strange.

ok, its 5:15 and I am out.