Post #2 of the night!

Anyone who has kids that get fevers after shots know why I am wide awake at 4am. We all went to bed around 9, and she woke us up at 12:30 wet. Apparently, Daniel was just going to sleep then. Ah, the games that suck you in.

I figured i would tell about my amazing Christmas present. I just got it in the mail today, and I couldn't wait to watch it. Of course with other things going on, it was turned off in favor of bed, but I am still excited.

So Daniel has problems getting me gifts. Partly because he lets me buy anything I want. That means, if I want something and don't buy it, I think its too expensive, or out of our budget, or whatever. So he would either be buying something really expensive, or wasting money. Lose, lose situation right?

Well, I gave him a list of several things he could buy me, andI don't remember the whole list, but one was a Miyazaki movie. He did one better.

After some online browsing Christmas Day, cause I told him we could pick something together, he found a 6 disc studio ghibli movie set. Containing 12 movies. A few of which I already own, a few others I have drooled over, and one I had never heard of.

Anyone that likes anime of anykind, knows its expensive. Every other Miyazaki film I have bought, has cost me $20. This set was $27.50. So forget the fact that I own a few of the films already, it was too good of a deal to not buy.

So now I am the proud owner of a dvd 'set' in a facinating 6 disc holding case (its the same size as a standard dvd case) and a bonus movie, Tales from Earthsea. This is the newest film from studio ghibli...made in 2006. I wasn't sure if it was part of what we bought, and after looking online, it was not. Of course I had already opened it. There is no reason for a good movie to go to waste. I thought about telling them they mispacked my package, but the packing slip was in there. And on the website it said ifyou are military and you say something in comments, they will send you a free dvd.

Daniel sent the package to Rebecca "Reebok" (using someone's sneaker name is a great way to sound cool at the holidays). We think that they either thought my name was cool enough to send me a free dvd, or they want repeat business, or something. They don't have Tales from Earthsea listed on thier website for purchase. Maybe they are giving that movie out to all sorts of people. Maybe its because Daniel didn't use the coupon codes they have listed on thier site. Who knows. Eitherway, I now have 13 studio ghibli films for less than $35 including shipping and tax.

I would go get one, but I am afraid if I leave the room the baby will awake...again. And I think I should go back to bed. We have an appointment in the morning, so we can't even sleep in very hard.

Badger, badger

We are unsure, but we think this may have been made specifically for babies. It draws them in, it calms their tears, and quickly they are bouncing gleefully.
Why do you think the doctor said no Tylenol after these shots?

A Concerned Parent with Badger song.

Giant Rat Cat...or something like that

So we were watching us some good old late night comedy stuff when we heard what I thought was a cat or some other outdoor woodland creature. Only when I went over toward the door and switched on the light the noise was coming from INSIDE the house.

Daniel and I both stood there, afraid of whatever this creature was. It sounded large. At least a couple of pounds. It sounded deadly. Daniel went up to look. I followed out of sheer dumb curiosity.

Why did I do that?

We got into the room...and there was nothing in the mouse trap. thank goodness! If that noise had come from something that was in a trap, oo doggy that is a big one!

The rustling moving noises continued from the closet.

Maybe I should run and get a broom. Maybe I should have shut the door behind me. Or leave. Leave would be a good choice.

Run endorphins. Run through my veins. Heighten my senses.

O great sigh of relief.

The noise that was so frightening was just the bifold glass closet door breaking. A little hand removal of the glass and the freakishly large rat/cat/mouse was detained.

We now have half of a mirror sitting on the floor leaning against the wall. And still the traps in the house are empty. I am reminded of the stray 'affectionately' named Rat. He was adopted by one or another of my siblings and was fed with the other pets on the porch. We called him rat because he was white, and hideous. The result of the power struggle between stray squatter cats and the cats who own the property. I don't know what happened to him. Or "Christmas." Yet another stray that was adopted. He was a Christmas adoption...you can't say no to a pile of kids begging to keep a Christmas present, even if he has one and a half ears, funky lumps under his fur, and other random disease ridden things.

This has been reminiscing with Rebecca...Tune in next week for more!

Happy Birthday Alice!

We made attempt #1 at pocky. While it was yummy tasting, we didn't cut it thin enough, or uniform enough so some pieces are crispy and yummy, others aren't. It was good, and I have learned from my attempts. So yay. Plus the sticks are like baby biscuits and Alice loves them.

Alice turned 1 yesterday. I can't believe a year ago I was living in a hospital room. Man that was no fun. FYI if you plan kids, plan to not have them around large family oriented holidays. I remember 3 different nurses during the night shift right after Alice was born. Talk about a strange night.

We ate sushi for her birthday dinner, and had strawberry shortcake for dessert. FYI: strawberry pie filling isn't very tasty on top of shortcake. In fact, its downright vile. We should have just crushed frozen strawberries and soaked them in sugar.

Anyway, Alice decided the strawberry shortcake was useless, but the sushi was FABULOUS. She hate 4 roll pieces. I stole the shrimp after watching her try to bite off part. We took pictures, but Rachel's camera has some sort of issues and has eaten the photos. Oh well. Next time I serve the baby sushi, I shall take pictures. And maybe I will convince Alice to play with some cool whip for the camera as well. Thats better than what happened with the short cake.

Other things be a-brewin' and I shall perhaps share more about that later. For now, all my siblings are in town...and all of them are out Christmas shopping. My family isn't really a plan ahead sort of folk. As I am sure you can tell from this. Oh well, there is a puzzle with my name on it in the dining room. i just have to move a sleeping baby...and not wake her.

Alice's teeth are growing! She is getting buddies for her fang. One of her two front teeth is totally visible, and the second is making an appearance. That means people other than me can know they are present! Sweet. She also looks less like a vampire. Sad (*_*) I liked my little monster child. (Even though the very strange order of teeth appearing was a little alarming)

I also had a really strange dream involving dead people/bodies, some really strange tv studio thingy, getting felt up by some creepy guy, and leavign some Alice poopy in my pants. You know, just a regular day in the life of me! The general idea was that the bishop wanted people to try out for this commercial about how amazing lawrence is...it was gonna be a nationwide thing (cause that makes sense you know) And so there were all sorts of church people there, though most of the exact names elude me. But that recording studio that was housed in the strip mall by Dillons on Mass was full of bedrooms with bodies (that of course I knew were dead). PLus really creepy killing children. I think they were zombies. Thats the best explaination.

I can't decide if I should blame the AMAZING curry I ate last night, or the fact that I went back to sleep after Daniel left. Or the fact that he noticed we didn't shut our front door and it was open when he went downstairs this morning. All of those things could be contributing factors. Oh, and FYI as long as I was with other church people I was safe. Yay for the power of church people!

Now, the phone wasn't having problems. It was the internet. Right now I am of the opinion that Lawrence Freenet isn't popular cause its slow enough that if you try to open gmail you have to load the basic view...and the signal is so weak that if you open an attachment, plan on it taking forever to load/download and it might reboot the little $120 pepwave wifi reciever. Then you will never actually get to open that pdf file until you get frustrated and plug the ATT modem back in. Pshaw.

We are hooked back up to our el cheapo ATT dsl. It might not be all that fast, but its consistantly slow, and consistantly on. I can catch up on my House that way. (We watched some crazy dude take over the clinic with a gun last night. And, yes we saw the whole thing. Thank you ATT for your consistantly slow internet.) You see, we don't watch much TV, cause why pay for TV when you are poor, but some shows we like. And now that Stylista is over and there is no project runway or america's next top model I have to move onto shows daniel like. Our next show will be Bones. We are sad that FOX moved them from both being on i na row, on the same night, to No one knows when they are on. But hey, I can handle watching the episodes 8 days after they air. I am a fan, but no fanatic. Unlike with Everyday Food Storage. I am a fanatic of that. I am such a fanatic that I am working on posting myself 101 goals in 1001 days...and I know at least a few will be for food storage. (Maybe I shouldn't post that cause now I will have to follow through).

Oh well, off to write my 10 page double spaced ward project paper! I mean, ward history. Yeah. Fun times.

Naturally, we haven't quite returned the hardware and got our refund. I mean, we have 30 days to do that, and the people are sending someone to check on the WiFi thingy they have on the corner. But, if its still obscenely slow Monday night, we will be trying to return it before Christmas.

Magic Jack Fail?

I was going to call Rebecca and ask her some questions, but... I can't even leave a voice mail. Usually if I call I atleast get put right to voicemail but since the end of my lunch break (about 2.3 hours ago) every time I have called I've just gotten a busy signal.

 

How am I supposed to ask a question? Is it lawrence freenet's fault? I highly doubt it, because that's absurd... but is it? :-O I guess we won't know, until Monday... um *smirk*? Anyway, farewell blog. Rebecca is AWOL, and I'm going to try again.

Trial Findings Day 1

We like to be guinea pigs for things. It has been discussed and decided. Last night Daniel went to Lawrence Freenet and bought a router thingy, and set up service. We set it up and immediately checked the connection speed. What the crap 300kbs? 200? Boo.

He sent in an email asking if service was that slow every night. I mean for real, having the slowest ATT DSL gave us faster speeds and it is cheaper. Of course upload speeds were also at 300 which is pretty fast I guess but we never upload. (Except for the fabulous torture pictures on my favorite blog of course) If anything we might watch some TV online. But, its hard to watch last week's episode of House when your internet won't load streaming video without lots of blips and pauses. I still don't know if Cuddy is going to get to adopt that girl's baby or not. I know she talked with her lawyer, then I saw 13 and Foreman making out. Yeah, that made no sense. What happened to 13 the lesbian? Did she just like boobs? Is this just a way to keep people watching? Are the producers makign sure 13 has no convictions at all? Is this just for the holiday season, afterall making out = joy right? Anyway, I digress.

We are giving the internet some more time to prove its worth. I mean when we woke up this morning it was running at between 950 and 1050 (me and Daniel both checked.) Thats much more acceptable. Its not that I insist on getting 7gigs or whatever the max is they advertise, but I do insist on getting some sort of quality. Last night's speeds were not what is considered wifi broadband by most of America...let alone internationally. We did research. Maybe the FCC deems it broadband, but that standard was set years ago. Things are supposed to be getting faster.

Oh, and I have tried downloading a couple of free scrapbooking things....I was sort of bummed out by the slowness. Like 50kb/sec and if I tried to have 2 running it split that between the two. Also worse than ATT. Grr. Give it a chance, give it a chance.

ALice tried to kill herself this morning. She was super excited to see cheerios. Only problem...she has had those little toddler puffs things alot lately. The cheese ones are addictive, and I am not even a toddler. SO she immediately shoved too many in, and I let her cause I am neglective/inattentive/glad to have her leave me alone. A few seconds later, cough cough, gag cough. She, thank goodness, learned her lesson and is eating them one at a time AND chewing. Yeah, for real now.

And I learned that the ward history is supposed to have signed release forms for all pictures. Jigga what? And to think, last year we sent in our ward newsletters that we were doing (covered in pictures). We also indicated years people were born, thats a no-no too. So I guess putting in new babies is not supposed to happen or something. And I thought about doing things all fancy and stuff, but pretty much they want an essay and all pictures in black and white with names written lightly in pencil on the back.

Huh. How did I not know this last year? I blame baby brain. Not that I can say if my baby was born last year or not. One can only guess. Anyway, I have to assign a couple more things to people to write about. Like random ysa stuff. I am sure not gonna write about ysa stuff. I have no interest in that at all. Plus they have stuff so often, its hard to remember anything in particular. Maybe institute musical. Ha. I wonder if we can include a copy of that for the history. It doesn't say its not allowed...and as long as its on a cd/dvd it can fit into a folder.

The conniving wheels are turning blogorama. I am off to connive at my pleasure!

Snow Day! (sort of)

Der Morgen Schnee schwebt in Schweigen. Alle Welt ist in Weiß gekleidet.

Well, according to the weather people we are in what is considered 'moderate' snowfall. Its pretty. Daniel told me that he was gonna be late to work. No biggie really. He will just have to stay a little late to make up for that.

Best part of the morning? Frost on the windows. You see our home was built in 1981. The windows, while double paned, have metal frames. It makes for "oo pretty" frost on the metal frame. Its less pretty when you think frost =cold. But whatever. Since the frames are metal, they get freaking cold and water sits on them pretending they were white frames (they are black). I wonder if we get some Rustoleum and paint them if it will help them be more temperature proof. I can only guess that it will work. But painting and those things are things left for non-precitation / above zero days.

Today Alice and I will be holed up in the computer room with the space heater. That way we don't have to heat the rest of the house as much. I have it on 60 right now. But lets face it, lots of windows and doors plus that dang drafty fireplace make the rest of the downstairs feel cold, even if the heat is on 70.

We have yet to catch any more mice. We hope that means we are out of them. Might I say YAY!

While we could go to the store for groceries, but thanks to my hoarding ways, I mean providence, we should be fine even if we couldn't get to the store for a few weeks, maybe a few months. Our optimum selection of foods might decrease toward the end, but we would be fine.

I feel bad for all those with finals that have to not only leave thier houses, but take possibly daunting tests. I guess my baby is mad that she has a sealed bread bag and unpeeled bananas, so I should change her and feed her already. Its impressive how easy it become to ignore whining.

Strange Sunday Insomnia!

So I have a pile of Christmas cards written and stamped. They just need addresses. Gar - Alice chewed some on yours. Daniel says you will like it cause its authentic that way.

Does anyone use Lawrence Freenet? Or have they used them in the past? Its slightly more than what we are paying for internet right now, but the bandwidth speed is higher. Plus its local, and I would rather help out the local company defying Sunflower Broadband than use the internet of a national monopoly...well I guess they aren't one anymore, but they were! Plus they never had people call us back like they told us they would. They raised our rates when they said they wouldn't and all in all...we only use them cause they are the cheapest option out there. Besides with Daniel's raise we can spend an extra $3 to help poorer families have free internet.

I started this post over 2 hours ago...then spent 2 hours doing some major research and writing my talk for next week. I think I really just felt like throwing myself into open ended scripture study. My topic? Christmas. Surprise right? Well, I have no cheesy stories, no thoughts about candy canes being like shepherds crooks, stars symbols of Bethlehem or gingerbread men being signs of future tummy yumminess. I only have hard scriptural quotes, and a couple of prophety quotes. I deny the warm fuzziness of popcorn garland and paper chains. I bring what I want to hear about with regards to Christmas. And if you wanted to hear the Luke story...you went to the wrong ward people. (OK, technically Daniel is talking too, so who knows he may be talking about the Juke story, but I sort of doubt it. he didn't want the christmas theme. I wanted it, cause it was pretty much, talk about Christ and how zmog-azing He is. (Personal interpretation, but he is totally zmog-azing and you can't deny that.)

And we had a trap FINALLY catch a mouse. After us hunting and smashing mice...even the accidental smashing, its a great relief for a trap to work. It only took 6 weeks of having traps set.

Oh, and with assistance, I took our computer room completely apart, moved two large bookcases to different parts of the room, as well as the rest of the furniture. It looks good. Well, it looks ok since it hasn't been completely put back together. Daniel will be replacing a piece of trim for FHE or something. We have lots of practical FHE lessons. Like grocery shopping. Or, house repairs. Or, occasionally, movie night. cause movies teach you all about being a good person.

Alright. I know I have to get up in the morning since Alice has an appointment that I want to cancel (I do NOT drive in bad weather) plus I sort of wanted to finish making Daniel those mittens (first one was a deformed flop. and I only cut out modified pattern ones...no sewing yet.) And my leg is asleep, so the rest of me should be too.

Aren't laptops great? I wrote this whole thing while lying between two slumbering heaters. Yay for that. And Yay for Wi-fi too. So long awake journel.

Soul lossage and more!

I'm cold. And its like 50 outside. I am a wimp. I need a blanket.

So last night Daniel did all nighter #2 for the week. At 4 I got up because Alice woke me and Daniel told me that he trapped a mouse under the bookcase.

I decided to set up the live catch trap at the edge, so Daniel could stop listening to the scurry scurry and finish his paper already. (SWEET, Daniel saw me typing this and brought me a blanket!) So I move my Analytical Chem book to set the trap down and then I see a mouse head pop up IMMEDIATELY. I screamed. I pushed the book back.

It was an automatic reaction.

I screamed again. Not because of the mouse, but well...

I no longer have a soul.

I found a recipe for making homemade pocky. I am a dork and excited about it. I am sad i didn't find tahini/sesame paste at walmart though. I will have to go to a grocery store that actually has an asian section if i want to find it i guess.

In other cooking news I made cinnamon rolls for the ward party, using my breadmaker. Might I say that its a fabulous piece of equipment. i think any baked item you could ever want could be made in there. Even quick breads. i haven't done them yet, but I believe they will. Anyway, the cinnamon rolls are yet another food storage friendly recipe. (Thats one nice thing about a bread machine) And since I am a food storage fanatic, I should get my self to the cannery. Maybe now that Daniel is done with school. That is if the weather agrees with us. Oh, yeah and our money agrees with us.

So anyway. Since yesterday, I have sewn a cute mushroom purse, found a pocky recipe, and lost my soul. Seems productive, no?

Becca: 1+G (Bonus for high gore count!) Daniel: 2 Mice: x-3

Curses and Drat

Blinging Bobaloo...

I'm supposed to be working on my homework and um... I was. Until the Magic jack really started to annoy me. Then I started to try to figure out how to stop having it pup up all the time. Answer is, I don't know.

I heard a noise that sounded almost for certain to be from this room. For the record I have been overly anxious about the possibility of this being true so my senses could be playing tricks on me. I poked around and saw nothing. Then I went back to my seat and stare briefly. Just as I was about to go back to work *gasps* I thought I saw a shadow dart across the space in front of the closet door. I saw it so poorly I don't even know where it went. I almost woke Rebecca but instead I tried to find it behind the bookcase with a broom and such... no luck. Then I checked the closet. No luck. Either my psychosis about mice is leading me to hallucinations (quite possible) or they're ridiculously sneaky (quite possible). I read online to try to find out how many you're likely to have and well nobody knows... But someone says they're like rabbits and if you have 2 you have like a billion. So well if this is number 2, where are his minions? Probably in the wall... Gross.
But supposedly if it's mice they can get into things you can stick a pencil into... so um... that's pretty ridiculous.

Anyway, whether it was imagined or real this will probably motivate me to make sure our traps are set up, possibly in the utility closet. And... also I need to do some basic handyman-ness.

Here's the list of things off the top of my head. Actually cut the carpet in the closet so that it can be put snuggly beneath the base boards... possibly patch the indentation in the concrete underneath there... who knows? Get a sander, sand out a spot for our stove so it can be where it's supposed to be. Remove and replace back door, so that we can install trim... Consider replacing dry wall. Probably replace washer in sink upstairs. Learn about roofing because we probably have a small leak that I'd rather not deal with right now... Figure out how to do stuff on our very slanty roof... Kill both the imaginary and the real mice. I don't care about live catching... it's not like killing every mouse in my house will extinct the species or that they're really all that nice having them around... probably. Though supposedly they do eat insects... Well, I could see moving on to operation if you're in the wall, you're going to die there. Anyway, I haven't heard anything for quite awhile. I should go back to work.

Edit: It's hard to concentrate... I now have a confirmed mouse sighting... that or I'm crazy. Who knows maybe it's even Rebecca's couch friend since it appears to be living in this room... part of what's so distracting.

I think that I have it trapped underneath our bookcase. I say that because I haven't seen it for awhile while I was stalking it that was the only place that really made much sense for it to have gone, unless it's actually like under my feet and I just didn't notice. This one appears to be smaller than the one I caned... smaller and friskier(more speedy). Anyway, Rebecca was talking about spending some money today. Maybe we'll blow like 60+ dollars on anti-mouse power. We might even go with killing traps and just not put them out until we're going to bed. Who knows... Anyway...

Photos!

First allow me to vent my annoyance at things. Then we will be onto Merry Merry times!

Our phone sucks. Its very cheap. But its cheap. As in, its a internet phone so it was $40 for the hardware plus software use for 1 year. Only problem. It reboots. 5-10 times an hour. Yes, an hour. While it reboots the thing takes over the screen. (It has to be on top) and it tells you tell your friends about it. Bah. It sucks. They even told me I shoudl try using an externally powered usb hub. What the heck? I need to buy some special hub when in all your self help thigns it says do NOT use an external hub. It must be plugged into the computer. Bah. I am sick of it. I am sick of downloading thier update.exe and running it. Lucky me---upgrading now. It hasn't helped. It didn't help last night. Or the night before when I downloaded 'new' copies 3 times. Bah Bah Bah!

So enough of that. If you call, leave a message. We might or might not get the voicemail, but maybe.

Here is the paron I got in the apron swap. Its cute. I like it. Its festive, and all, and not coveredi nSanta. I don't like the idea of Santa. I don't know if we will do 'Santa' when Alice gets older and learns about him or not, But for now, no santa's in my home. My partner was kind enough to grant my wish and send a holiday themed apron with no santa. (As an FYI when I was looking for fabric I thought, gosh the santa fabric is really cute. Too bad I don't want to have to deal with Santa yet.)


Then ALice grew teeth. I tried to take pictures of her "fang" (she hasn't got middle top teeth in, but got the left one next to them. its fabulous by the way...if you can get her mouth open). i tried, but she refused, so here is a picture of her wondering why I keep going for her mouth wihile holding a camera. She got it open, but you cannot see any of the teeth. Thanks for trying Alice.


OK, third I joined Psst... a program that pillsbury/general mills/etc owned by the same people are doing. They sent me a pile of coupons for Grand's Cinnamon Rolls (in the freezer section). I finally tried them. They looked great. Took 18 minutes and were browned beautifully. Don'tcha think?


Yum! I added the icing. Double Yum. Too bad when I ate one it wasn't quite cooked in the middle. And by the time Daniel had his (4 hours later for dinner) it was dried and nasty. Overall, not worth it. Especially at more than $3.50 a tube. I was planning in saying, great for a special occasion, but you have to plan to eat them all when they are done. You also need to make sure to cook until browner than mine and the edges will be very crunchy, but it will not be doughy in the middle. And if you want to try yourselves, I have coupons for $1.25 off. That Still dont make them worth it if you ask me.


Alice loves cheese. I attacked to teah her that there are other food groups. She is now differently abled. At least for the next 5 days. She has fallen off the couch, and off of laps several times because of it. I think it throws off her sense of balance.




The last pic is just showing how silly she looks when she only has one hand and one club. She plays differently.


SO yeah.

Alice lost a hand

Well, technically a thumb.

You see. Its all because she likes cheese. She was snacking on cheese at lunch and I was using the cheese slicer to get her more. Then what the heck, she starts crying.

Blood. Blood. Blood. Bandage Blood. Crying crying crying.

Bleeding seems to slow some. Wash.

Bleeding continues.

For 15 MORE minutes. The calculated time was 22 minutes from the time I left Daniel a voicemail, to the time i called and told him he needed to be home to drive us to the doc's office.

Alice was a trooper.

2 stitches.

Consult the regular physician. Negate 2 stitches.

She was amazing in the doc office.

Welcome "dermabond" in other words super glue.

Wound washed again (3rd time). Wound bled again. Glue applied. All the cound stuff happened while Daniel ran home to get the diaper bag. We were done and leaving within an hour of showing up at the doc's office.

Alice now has one hand. The second is entirely encased in gauze. We bought a big bandage to wrap her hand in. Change bandage every 24 hours through the weekend. Call if it gets infected and you see pus. Yum.

I have no soul.

I am a murderer, and I have no soul.

Mouse sighting has been confirmed. I was going to the bathroom and I indicated that I had "seen the mouse" run from behind the pantry door into the dining room. Rebecca was enlisted. I circled around, we took some paneling boards that we had previously purchased and still had lying out and placed them at both exits perpendicular to the ground.

The search then commenced... Once I was able to get a mouse to move it scurried around so quickly and disappeared from view, then I immediately saw another one! What there are two? The search continued as things went from the floor to table level or outside the room. Finally the mouse came out again. Rebecca screamed. I screamed. Alice looked on with confusion. I reminded myself of Tom and Jerry and swung a broom. I clobbered it on the head. It twitched, it fell over. We got a cottage cheese container and sealed it inside. Who knows if it's dead... it will be thrown away with the trash tomorrow. You hear that mice? SHOW YOURSELF AND DIE!!! FOR I HAVE NO SOUL!!!

Hangin with my Homie...sort of

Saturday night I was watching TV with Alice. It was maybe 9pm. Daniel was already in bed (he stayed up most of the night Friday working on homework). It was fine. Until I saw something move out of the corner of my eye.

I assumed it was my imagination, but looked anyway. Then a scurry of a shadow later I was on my feet holding the baby and screaming bloody murder for Daniel. I heard him jumping out of bed noisily and coming down.

I explained, completely calmly (yeah right), that I happened to see a MOUSE ON THE COUCH NEXT TO ME AND THE BABY! He was like, are you sure? THEN, I saw the offender run around the corner from behind the couch to the computer room. I pointed, but Daniel was still in wake up shock and never saw the offender.

I had been planning on going to bed at 9, when the show I was watching was over. But, alas, adrenaline kicked in. The computer room got cleaned. Furniture got moved around. All things that were near the wall, but not against, were pushed against it. The room was vacuumed. Multiple times. The futon, the cumb covered Alice snack haven, was vacuumed. Shelved were pushed against the wall and VHS tapes that we haven't watched since i got married were boxed up and marked to giveaway. (Lets just say we haven't even got the VCR hooked up because we would have to unhook the DVD player, and that's annoying.

Well, whereever he, the offending mouse, ran to in this room it was well hidden. No sign or sound was heard from him since. Except last night. Or rather this morning.

I had the most fanciful dream. I was mouse chasing. It ran under the computer desk. There was some notebook or something that had fallen down and left a shadow for the mouse to hide in. I went after it with Lysol spray (Don't even ask) and then he jumped out for me. It was black instead of gray, and growled like it was a rat and attacked my head. I was too scared to even call to Daniel and when I finally did he didn't come. I opened my eyes and Alice was touching my arm. Funny that I was so freaked out. It wasn't like she was touching my head where the mouse/tiny rat attacked me. All because I sprayed it with lysol disinfectant. For real, that stuff won't kill you.

Not a good job, but a job.

So I just finished some of my long term homework assignments for school. I know I didn't necessarily do a great job, but at least I did it. One of the difficulties came from having to write a report... I think that I may have honestly never written a report. And you know, using formatting dealies like AMA or MLA after not doing either for years is kinda mind boggling.

I should be in bed, but I kind of feel like celebrating having things done by wasting time online. I have a final in 4 and a half hours. The final will take probably approximately an hour to get to. I need to get up in atleast 3 and a half hours probably more like 3.

On a lighter note, Rebecca was right. I got a raise. The funny thing though is that I didn't get the raise I was told I would get or the raise they were planning on giving me, but a smaller raise. So... I continue to expect a raise. My supervisor is kinda fuming at HR... who would of thought?

Food Glorious Food

So Daniel, then Alice, and Finally I (thats me) have been sick. The last 2 weeks we have had crinkled kleenex piles, fevers, runs to the bathroom, humidifiers, and fluids. Lots and lots of fluids. It made me realize we should probably get a bigger water storage stash.

In fact, we need to start eating. I have worked on getting food storage together...of course we are almost fresh out of wheat since I 'try' to bake our bread. Don't feel like I am amazing, I have flops and certain people saying its not good sandwich bread so we do buy some store bread. But either way, I get to be all provident this way.

Don't you love that word?

Anyway, my favorite food storage blog is Everyday Food Storage. I am an Everyday Food Storage FANATIC. (AS a side note, I just realized there is a button for making things link...SO much faster than editing the HTML). While I won't say I am as good as her at using food storage, we are using it. In fact, our fridge looks somewhat bare since I have been working on using more shelf stable things. The added bonus, Alice can eat all canned veggies since they are super soft. I mean we still have frozen and, since its not exactly garden season very limited, fresh.

Anyway. Now that I am still drippy and gross, but for some reason energized (I think its the fact that we got a crazy big paycheck so Daniel prolly got his raise) so I am off to clean house some more. I might even vacuum! And, I am gonna make up some menus. That way I don't look at all this canned food and think...yeah I have that. Plus I should bake some more bread. I don't know if I feel like doing that now, but it should be done. Now if only I knew how to turn food storage into those nifty little toddler snacks. You know the fruit and veggie puffs. Actually, I don't think I could make them even if I didn't use food storage...but yeah.

I am the god of the bathroom!

I fixed our upstairs bathroom sink yesterday.

It had dripped since we bought the place. Well, it started as a drip if you didn't have the handle off just so. Then it became a bigger drip that didn't care. Then I thought I got it off and we just used the hot side. But it wasn't really off. It kept dripping...slowly, but it was there. I noticed it dripped more when we ran the washer (prolly cause its upstream of the washer).

Anyway. We assumed it needed at least a washer. Perhaps even a replacement faucet. We also knew there were no stop valves under the sink and we would need to turn the water off and put in valves.

Both of those options were yucky options. At least until Daniel finishes the semester in a week. Man its almost over. Crazy/AWESOME!His first final is tomorrow morning.

Anyway, yesterday i was like...hmmmm I wonder if I tightened this screw under the pretty little C cap if that would do anything.

5 Seconds later

Wow. Its not dripping. I washed my hands. I even turned on the cold side while washing my hands. Then I started laundry.

SWEET!

I am the mastermind of home repairs! All you other Slim Shady's are just imitating. (OK sorry that was a throwback from high school...or very early college days.

But, yes I am amazing. You can all fall and worship me now.

Apron Swap! and Picture books

SO I signed up for an apron swap...and I just got mine in the mail. Lets just say...the person making my apron is a much better seamstress than I.

And the box it came in was huge! (Made me feel like a bit of a slacker with mine.) Anyway, the apron was way cute. I took a picture. I might re-wrap .it and put it under the tree. I am having issues understanding the computer today though. ITs called a drippy sniffy nose. And a drippy sniffy brain.

We also got our photobook from snapfish today. I wanted to get on and look at my project and see if I somehow chose an off center page...cause there is one that cut Daniels face off. OK I know there should be an apostrophe, but every time I try and use it it pulls up some quick links thing...causa Alice was sitting on the keyboard. She thinks the beeping noise is music. Dont ask, it makes her happy and it doesnt destroy thing. Man I use contractions too much. Anyway I made a typo in the book too. Its still nice, but yeah Alice lover her Mommy is a good scentence.

I miss my apostrophe!

Alice loves the book.

I sort of want to bake cookies in my new apron.

Only then I would have to be baking and in the kitchen. And I totally said no to a question for work, cause there is no way you can find out how much an oil change costs at Walmart online. So there goes my good streak of answering questions.

Trying to be Handy...in a Failing world

So Alice's rash was gone by yesterday evening. I guess that means, tada Roseola. Or heat rash, or something. Either way, its gone now.

So our bread machine died a couple of weeks ago. It was a sudden thing. One day it worked just fine. The next day, it would mix the ingredients, but never switch over to "rise" or any other cycle. It was sad, but I am back to making bread by hand again. At least until we can find a break maker for as close to free as possible.

So last night I cooked our after Thanksgiving Turkey. This 13 lb beauty cost us $6 and had an extra butt inside. At least it looked like the place where tail feathers are attached. I also in a recreation of Thanksgiving made homemade mashed potatoes AND baked bread. We now have over 12 cups of sliced turkey in our fridge and freezer for sandwiches, etc.

Well this morning Daniel tried to make himself toast with my, naturally, fabulous bread. The toaster goes down, and the toaster pops up, but the toaster never gets warm. Jigga what? Is the kitchen a vortex of small appliance killing madness? Probably. I tried reseting the circuit. Didn't work. I dunno what to do about that one.

I also got out the screws to reattach the little rolly slider thingy that keeps the drawers from falling out. That was pretty easy. Then I reattached the cupboard doors. No prob. Then I thought...hmm I think the drawer that hits the oven because its not installed right, is the same size as the hole in the little floating cabinet. Cah-ching! So after some work, I get the thing out. I also stole a roller thingy from a bottom drawer that can live without it, and was gettign ready to take out the rest of the hardware when I realized I should measure the new hole cause that cabinet is shorter. Yeah it is. 5 inches less deep. So everything got put up. I can't even get the drawer back in with the hardware on (gayness!)

And I got a question to answer on ChaCha, so I ran off to ansewr that. Right when I start getting back to back questions Alice flips out. She was wet, and it was nap time, so I helped her out. Of course I will probably not get any more questions today...cause now I am at the bottom of the queue...or I will be if I can ever log in. Such is life.

Now if only the Dow Jones would go back up so my retirement investment would be less puny.

Infant Rashes and Roseola

My sinuses are full of something...something that is giving me a sinus headache. Such is life I suppose.

Miss Alice is better...I guess. She now has a rash. All over her body and head. I had noticed some irritation over the weekend on her head (she is sensitive to Olive oil..or aLLERgic (She also was holding down the shift key, thanks kiddo). See there was a bit of irritation amongst her hairline...then i thought she might be getting diaper rash....only there was redness on her belly and back too.

Gah.

My research has told me that it could be Roseola which starts as upper respiratory sniffles, turns into a fever...then a rash. Well she was a little drippy back last week when Daniel was getting sick, and she definately had a fever over 103....and it went away then the rash. But what I raed says it should go away after a few hours. What does that mean? 3 hours? 12? 48? Few is not helpful here people. I mean some sources say 1-2 days. Others a few hours.

And I don't even know if I should waste the money to go to the doc, since all online stuff indicates that there is no treatment for the rash and once the fever is gone for 24-48 hours she isn't even contagious. If the rash lasts longer than a week we are supposed to notify the doc...but it also says its not diagnosed unless a dog does a med history and physical. I guess I can talk with Daniel and see what he thinks.

WebMD says to not freak out...but sometimes WebMD is wrong. What if its poison ivy?? OR maybe she is allergic to our soap. I did give her a bath with some baby soap stuff that wasn't Johnson and Johnson's baby soap. What if the pretty smelling stuff made her break out. What if the rash and the fever are totalyl unrelated. We do have teeth that have popped in so it is possible. Its also possible that sometime over the holiday she caught some virus from some random kid (ok family) and this resulted. Or even just allergic reaction.

I should probably not post this, as it may appear that I am freaking out. I really am not, I just have questions the internet has not answered yet.

So long querying blog!

Porn for New Moms?

I just checked my email and an online bookstore sent me an add for their cyber monday (you know the online version of black friday). I was appalled when I looked at it though. The first book they has listed on their 'best selling books' list was "Porn for Women" with a picture of a topless man vacuuming or something (I didn't really look that closely). Every other book was a cookbook. A cookbook, people. I was surprised to say the least. I unsubscribed from thier emails and I tried to go to thier website and complain, but couldn't find a contact us thing. Maybe its because I didn't want to try and find it.

I also noticed a "Porn for New Moms" on their home page when I was trying to find a contact us link. I just wanted to leave. I am sure it was 3 rated, and pictures of little babies, but I hate that the title is what people will go for, not the book itself. I mean for real. Shock factor?

On a side note, I had my own porn for new moms this morning. I opened the washing machine to throw diapers in the dryer and I smelled poo. I started pulling the diapers out, wondering why it smelled yucky (they never do after I wash them usually). Then I saw it.

The nose offensive porn.

A poo blob on the side of the washer insides. My guess, it floated away during a soak session...then was spun out. Thanks to Daniel being scared of a blowout and not flicking the poo into the toilet. I know, I know...TMI. But I did warn you with the title now didn't I?