I don't know which dolly I'm pushing in the picture but thankfully I never named my children the same names as my dolls. Otherwise my kids would have names like, "Bwubbin."30 May 2007
Me Pushing Dolly
I don't know which dolly I'm pushing in the picture but thankfully I never named my children the same names as my dolls. Otherwise my kids would have names like, "Bwubbin."
"Daytag" is a Rip-Off
Don't even try to defend them. If you're working for them and want to say something nice about the company, I'll understand in the same way I'll understand an RJ Reynolds CEO telling me that cigarette smoke doesn't REALLY kill people. People kill people. Just admit that "Daytag" stinks, and we can still be friends.
Actually, we have a dishwasher we're pretty happy with from them. It's making a lot of noise when it washes the dishes but it seems to be working reasonably well for being about six years old. We're pretty ok with the dryer as well.
We *used* to be happy with all of our appliances from Daytag. We (idiots!) decided we'd like to use the local place for everything. Maybe we'd pay a little more, but we'd have the satisfaction of knowing we're buying products locally and blah American blah blah service and stand behind your product blah. I even bought the overpriced warranty to go with my appliances!
Hey, a word about the overpriced warranties. They are NOT overpriced if you wind up with a lemon like we got for a clothes washer. The washer was about four months old when it overflowed out the BOTTOM of the machine, ruining every internal piece of the appliance. The Daytag people had to keep sending out the repair man and reconditioning the whole stupid washer on more than one occasion. Basically, each time our engine flooded out, it was a whole new machine on the inside. The only thing that was "old" was the mouldy shell! Thanks Daytag!
Not to mention the inconvenience of having a musty overflowed basement. Soggy nasty clothes. Using a LAUNDROMAT full of cigarette smokers with my asthmatic child while we wait weeks for parts to arrive and an appointment on their calendar. Every time this would happen, it was sure to be a busy week, or snowing. There were some interesting people at the laundromat but that is a whole 'nother post... The whole idea of the Daytag repairman having nothing to do is a total myth, folks. His calendar is booked solid.
After about the second ENTIRE rebuild of our machine, I suggested that on the third that maybe we should just do something different. You know, give me the cost of a washer b/c your service guy's time plus parts is way more than I paid for the whole thing EVERY time you come out. Or do you have a discount for me to maybe trade up or something? Some other idea maybe? It would save YOU guys money, and I'll be happy and tell my friends and continue to be a loyal customer. Nope. Loyalty doesn't count for crap.
Eventually, even our warranty policy ran out of money and we got a whole whopping $70 "buyoff" and had to keep a bad washer. We've cost the Daytag people maybe $1000 in parts and labour and I'm unhappy. I'm going to be sure to tell all my friends that Daytag smells so that they don't get into this predicament themselves.
Why can't corporations be reasonable? This machine was obviously a lemon, and they would rather repair it constantly --at a loss to them -- until my warranty runs out of money, than to just replace the thing right off the bat when I had problems so soon after purchase.
One of these days I will be looking for a new washer and dryer set. Has anyone made a reasonably recent purchase that they're happy with? But not such a recent purchase that it hasn't had a chance to totally fall apart yet. Comments welcome!
Actually, we have a dishwasher we're pretty happy with from them. It's making a lot of noise when it washes the dishes but it seems to be working reasonably well for being about six years old. We're pretty ok with the dryer as well.
We *used* to be happy with all of our appliances from Daytag. We (idiots!) decided we'd like to use the local place for everything. Maybe we'd pay a little more, but we'd have the satisfaction of knowing we're buying products locally and blah American blah blah service and stand behind your product blah. I even bought the overpriced warranty to go with my appliances!
Hey, a word about the overpriced warranties. They are NOT overpriced if you wind up with a lemon like we got for a clothes washer. The washer was about four months old when it overflowed out the BOTTOM of the machine, ruining every internal piece of the appliance. The Daytag people had to keep sending out the repair man and reconditioning the whole stupid washer on more than one occasion. Basically, each time our engine flooded out, it was a whole new machine on the inside. The only thing that was "old" was the mouldy shell! Thanks Daytag!
Not to mention the inconvenience of having a musty overflowed basement. Soggy nasty clothes. Using a LAUNDROMAT full of cigarette smokers with my asthmatic child while we wait weeks for parts to arrive and an appointment on their calendar. Every time this would happen, it was sure to be a busy week, or snowing. There were some interesting people at the laundromat but that is a whole 'nother post... The whole idea of the Daytag repairman having nothing to do is a total myth, folks. His calendar is booked solid.
After about the second ENTIRE rebuild of our machine, I suggested that on the third that maybe we should just do something different. You know, give me the cost of a washer b/c your service guy's time plus parts is way more than I paid for the whole thing EVERY time you come out. Or do you have a discount for me to maybe trade up or something? Some other idea maybe? It would save YOU guys money, and I'll be happy and tell my friends and continue to be a loyal customer. Nope. Loyalty doesn't count for crap.
Eventually, even our warranty policy ran out of money and we got a whole whopping $70 "buyoff" and had to keep a bad washer. We've cost the Daytag people maybe $1000 in parts and labour and I'm unhappy. I'm going to be sure to tell all my friends that Daytag smells so that they don't get into this predicament themselves.
Why can't corporations be reasonable? This machine was obviously a lemon, and they would rather repair it constantly --at a loss to them -- until my warranty runs out of money, than to just replace the thing right off the bat when I had problems so soon after purchase.
One of these days I will be looking for a new washer and dryer set. Has anyone made a reasonably recent purchase that they're happy with? But not such a recent purchase that it hasn't had a chance to totally fall apart yet. Comments welcome!
27 May 2007
Another J picture
Yes, it was taken at the same time as the last one, but since I think he's cute, you have to see this again...26 May 2007
25 May 2007
My Children Wait So Politely!
I know hardly anyone was there yet, but could we PLEASE get a NORMAL picture next time??24 May 2007
More Fashion Sense!
Perhaps I inherited my innate sense of the cool, the hip, the now, and the groovy from my parents.23 May 2007
I Am THE Fashion Guru!
Just admit that you guys will NEVER equal me in my fashion sense, and that you are envious.
22 May 2007
17 May 2007
16 May 2007
15 May 2007
13 May 2007
12 May 2007
This is the Bathroom
It's *reasonably* clean. My second son G cleans all the toilets each week in exchange for a dollar. Then he tithes on that. So my toilet isn't as sparkly as some but you can't beat it for the price LOL!
Happy Mothers' Day!
Now that most of my children are past that cute stage where they don't talk and can't go anywhere unless you carry them, I understand my mother SO much better than I did growing up. Now I understand why tossing a fully shaken purple pop on a newly-cleaned white rug just MIGHT elicit a pretty angry response from the local housewife. I understand what it is to be unappreciated at times ... just every now and then. I know the frustration of FINALLY getting five loads of wash done and folded to find that some little boy has draped his socks on the DOORKNOB and behind his dresser. Five of them, and only two matching.
I also know what it feels like to learn that 50 plastic cups must be purchased for some important event... tomorrow morning. What it feels like to get a phone call from school. How "volunteer" work is really anything but. And how being a mom is a pretty easy job, if only it weren't for the hours.
So I want to wish all you moms out there a happy Mothers' Day, but most especially my mom because she had me to raise! I'd print her address here for sympathy cards, but I think maybe she's forgotten about how bad we all were since we've been gone so long and I wouldn't want to help her remember and retraumatize her LOL...
11 May 2007
Baby J
I'm hearing grousing from dh that I am loading all HIS pictures onto my blog. So I found a picture I'm SURE he didn't take! This one is from the hospital where baby J was born. He looks like he's doing the wave!
10 May 2007
OK Last Pic...
Yes, there were actually PEOPLE living in this room at one point. There is even a small smeary handprint in one of the hallways.
Want to go Downstairs?
Sorry, Dh wasn't brave enough so we'll wonder forever what could have been lurking down those stairs!!
More pics
The eviction notice! And the price! I wish I could have the house in good condition for that price... sigh.
Welcome Home!!
I KNOW you guys want a tour... Here's the beautiful yard. It really is a gorgeous place and I'll bet once all the trash/ needles/ cars/ rusty tools are cleaned up the house truly will be a gem.
Want to Buy a House?
I know I'm receiving bunches of comments on the blog and in my personal mailbox asking, how on earth are you keeping your house so CLEAN? And I even got a comment wondering if it's even MY bathroom?
And I'm *tempted* to say that it isn't really my bathroom, it's just the BOYS' bathroom and we let them use it when we release them from their cages each afternoon. But somehow, I thought if I typed that I would get a visitor from the state requesting, nay, DEMANDING, to come in and smell my French Toast candles for themselves. So I'll have to tell the truth. (Doggone it! It would have made my day to see the British nanny show people come over as well. I coulda been on TV!!)
The bathroom and the kitchen you see are actually taken from a REAL house in which REAL people had been living just before the photographs in question. It is about a mile up the road from us and was a very old and in its day surely a very beautiful place. History tells us that the owners of that house also owned the tiny house across the street as "slave quarters." It's a place you can't see from the road and the lot is situated SO nicely. Someone has bought it and is doing extensive work on it.
At the time it went up for sale, we weren't really aware of how structurally bad the place was, or how thoroughly mouldy. These aren't things you can see from the sidewalk, and the lot is large enough that quite a few of the major defects of the place are not visible from the road. So Dh toured the place with our ever-patient Realtor, and snapped these pictures about two years ago. Actually, the really sad thing is, you could see little childrens' toys about this place and KNEW they had kids living in that filth. Did you guys click on the kitchen pic to make it bigger? It's actually MUCH WORSE than it looks at first glance. I will have to dig around and see if I still have a photo of the sheriff office eviction notice and the yard, etc.
And I'm *tempted* to say that it isn't really my bathroom, it's just the BOYS' bathroom and we let them use it when we release them from their cages each afternoon. But somehow, I thought if I typed that I would get a visitor from the state requesting, nay, DEMANDING, to come in and smell my French Toast candles for themselves. So I'll have to tell the truth. (Doggone it! It would have made my day to see the British nanny show people come over as well. I coulda been on TV!!)
The bathroom and the kitchen you see are actually taken from a REAL house in which REAL people had been living just before the photographs in question. It is about a mile up the road from us and was a very old and in its day surely a very beautiful place. History tells us that the owners of that house also owned the tiny house across the street as "slave quarters." It's a place you can't see from the road and the lot is situated SO nicely. Someone has bought it and is doing extensive work on it.
At the time it went up for sale, we weren't really aware of how structurally bad the place was, or how thoroughly mouldy. These aren't things you can see from the sidewalk, and the lot is large enough that quite a few of the major defects of the place are not visible from the road. So Dh toured the place with our ever-patient Realtor, and snapped these pictures about two years ago. Actually, the really sad thing is, you could see little childrens' toys about this place and KNEW they had kids living in that filth. Did you guys click on the kitchen pic to make it bigger? It's actually MUCH WORSE than it looks at first glance. I will have to dig around and see if I still have a photo of the sheriff office eviction notice and the yard, etc.
09 May 2007
Home is Where the... Heart Is
Keeping the house tidy is a little difficult sometimes with five little boys. But I find the French Toast scented candle in the dining room really helps mask those day-to-day odours between deep cleaning days!
Homeschool in the Kitchen
Sometimes, while I'm homeschooling, I leave all kinds of papers about in the kitchen. I'm always sure to tidy up after we do our schoolwork so that my countertops are free for YUMMY food preparation.
Oh, come on somebody leave a comment before I post a BATHROOM picture.
Teaching Mathematics
When we started homeschooling, what I did was use a lot of pretty close to free stuff. The dry erase board and markers, and some flashcards and paper pretty much was the sum total of our mathematics curriculum. I used some worksheets from Sam's Club. You can get about a TON of math worksheets in some of those workbooks from Sam's Club for about $7 each. The only thing I don't like about those workbooks is that they tend to repeat themselves... that is, the first grade workbook has a bunch of sheets you already did in the kindergarten book, or the book on "time and money" would include the same worksheets you just did in the first grade book, etc. But for 300- odd sheets per workbook, the kid doesn't notice so much when you repeat a few. Plus it's extra practice!!
The Emperor gets all the easier worksheets or ones with a lot of colouring to do. He will do homeschool with us while he is home in the morning. If he is a good boy, he will get a "homeschool star" at the end of the day just like the Elf. They also can get one star for memorizing a verse in the Bob Jones Bible lesson. I have a sticky note for each boy with 20 little boxes in them. When the sticky note is full, they can trade it in for a PRIZE. There are some old discarded Happy Meal toys the older boys are done with, as well as some cool pencils and google-eyed notebooks to choose from. It's a lot of work for a pencil, but the boys are VERY into getting that star for the day!
Now we are at the point where I am ready to follow a curriculum. We have the basics of adding and subtracting down. Elf can add and subtract columns of numbers including the borrowing and carrying. He can add and subtract money if the decimals are lined up nicely. (That's KEY!)
I have purchased the Miquon Math Blue book. They are beginning to multiply fractions like 1/4. When I think about it, they are basically teaching the Elf algebra but using little shapey boxes instead of x and y. **I** have to pause sometimes to figure out how to do these things. But Elf seems to have a talent for mathematics. So does the Emperor. He is learning his times tables with the Elf.
I am concerned that when the Emperor goes to public school kindergarten next year, they will not realize that the kid has a brain. He tends to run around and act goofy a lot of the time. He also has a LOT of trouble with his handwriting, despite my teaching him and the really GREAT work they do at the public preschool. So they'll see this bouncy kid who scrawls instead of the little math fan who is reading some basic Dick and Jane. We are sending him to public school on a "we'll see how it works out" kind of basis.
The Emperor gets all the easier worksheets or ones with a lot of colouring to do. He will do homeschool with us while he is home in the morning. If he is a good boy, he will get a "homeschool star" at the end of the day just like the Elf. They also can get one star for memorizing a verse in the Bob Jones Bible lesson. I have a sticky note for each boy with 20 little boxes in them. When the sticky note is full, they can trade it in for a PRIZE. There are some old discarded Happy Meal toys the older boys are done with, as well as some cool pencils and google-eyed notebooks to choose from. It's a lot of work for a pencil, but the boys are VERY into getting that star for the day!
Now we are at the point where I am ready to follow a curriculum. We have the basics of adding and subtracting down. Elf can add and subtract columns of numbers including the borrowing and carrying. He can add and subtract money if the decimals are lined up nicely. (That's KEY!)
I have purchased the Miquon Math Blue book. They are beginning to multiply fractions like 1/4. When I think about it, they are basically teaching the Elf algebra but using little shapey boxes instead of x and y. **I** have to pause sometimes to figure out how to do these things. But Elf seems to have a talent for mathematics. So does the Emperor. He is learning his times tables with the Elf.
I am concerned that when the Emperor goes to public school kindergarten next year, they will not realize that the kid has a brain. He tends to run around and act goofy a lot of the time. He also has a LOT of trouble with his handwriting, despite my teaching him and the really GREAT work they do at the public preschool. So they'll see this bouncy kid who scrawls instead of the little math fan who is reading some basic Dick and Jane. We are sending him to public school on a "we'll see how it works out" kind of basis.
08 May 2007
Do NOT Mess With the Force!
This is the Emperor. He is going to be six in a few months. He doesn't suffer from low energy at ALL. He likes to fight with cardboard tubes, plastic light sabers, sticks and whatever happens to be lying around. He is in almost constant motion except when he is playing GameBoy or sleeping. Isn't he cuuute?
05 May 2007
The strangest blog I've ever written!
I have stupid old strep throat. I'd *really* like to know where I got it from. I never go anywhere! The only place I had been to this whole week was the dentist's office and I'm pretty sure they at least rinse the instruments off between patients... I heard in the news this week about a lady who got Hepatitis B from her dentist's office and they had already been following accepted sanitation procedures... scary. The only other possibility is that someone brought the germ into the house without getting it themselves... and somehow *I* got it and they didn't.
Or, it's the melamine-tainted chicken. Anybody else paranoid about this? Like, oh, a bunch of chickens have been eating PLASTIC and we went ahead and sent thousands of them to be slaughtered and brought to the local grocery to be put on your dinner table. But there's no problem. Our government tells us that it's SAFE to eat chickens with melamine. And that Agent Orange doesn't really cause medical problems. Oh, and that mercury filling thing? SAFE. So is thimerosal in your baby's shots.
Anyway.... So now I'm all germy and disgusting. I can't touch anything or dh will go, "You're getting germs all over that! Now I have to wash that..." This includes the children LOL! OK, I was pretty sick there for a while until I went to the doctor. Actually my fever was just under 102 and I'm still pretty shaky but not as feverish. I'm still sick, which is why I have an inordinate amount of time to sit here and type and shed my germs all over the keyboard...
If anyone's out there you can try to leave a comment. If I ever figure out how to do this, I'm going to "moderate" comments so I don't have Islamic jihadis or Klansmen recruiters leaving messages all the time. Or the Nigerian scam thing. You know, of all the gazillion times I hit the "report spam" button on the viagra, pornhotwebcamxxx, getwhateverdrugnow and etc. junk I get on AOL, that was the ONLY thing I got an actual letter in response to!! All right. So leave a comment if you're there. :]
Or, it's the melamine-tainted chicken. Anybody else paranoid about this? Like, oh, a bunch of chickens have been eating PLASTIC and we went ahead and sent thousands of them to be slaughtered and brought to the local grocery to be put on your dinner table. But there's no problem. Our government tells us that it's SAFE to eat chickens with melamine. And that Agent Orange doesn't really cause medical problems. Oh, and that mercury filling thing? SAFE. So is thimerosal in your baby's shots.
Anyway.... So now I'm all germy and disgusting. I can't touch anything or dh will go, "You're getting germs all over that! Now I have to wash that..." This includes the children LOL! OK, I was pretty sick there for a while until I went to the doctor. Actually my fever was just under 102 and I'm still pretty shaky but not as feverish. I'm still sick, which is why I have an inordinate amount of time to sit here and type and shed my germs all over the keyboard...
If anyone's out there you can try to leave a comment. If I ever figure out how to do this, I'm going to "moderate" comments so I don't have Islamic jihadis or Klansmen recruiters leaving messages all the time. Or the Nigerian scam thing. You know, of all the gazillion times I hit the "report spam" button on the viagra, pornhotwebcamxxx, getwhateverdrugnow and etc. junk I get on AOL, that was the ONLY thing I got an actual letter in response to!! All right. So leave a comment if you're there. :]
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Happenings at the House
Well... I've absolutely neglected this blog. I kept meaning to get back to it but then what do you say. Sometimes I just peek at other...
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In one of his classes, Emperor had only a couple friends because "the rest of the people are jerks and say nasty things to me." A...
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Well... I've absolutely neglected this blog. I kept meaning to get back to it but then what do you say. Sometimes I just peek at other...
