From the mind of a 4 year old…

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As we sit here eating lunch today, Jake is at the counter breakfast bar and I am at the table. I shamefully admit that we are watching Tom & Jerry while eating and am sitting sort of sideways to him.

As I watch Tom & Jerry (oh, the memories) I hear:

“Do boxes talk?”

I responded, “only if you are weird.”

So my friends, Tom and Jerry aside, how are my parenting skills today?




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Missing: One tooth

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lost tooth

Madeline lost her first tooth.  She wore this expression the entire next day.




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My “former” life keeps creeping back in!

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I call myself a “recovering former working mom” because I stopped working to stay at home with my kids last November. Before that I worked full time as an Architect, specifically a school architect. Most of the schools I worked on were in low and middle class towns and every dime mattered.

There were some state and federal programs in place to help these schools and one program that helps get technology and computers into the classrooms is called E-Rate. E-Rate is administered under the direction of the FCC and makes discounts available to eligible schools and libraries for telecommunication services, Internet access, and internal connections. This includes DSL service, wiring, and even VoIP Services.

Since quitting my job I have rarely entertained the idea of going back, but every once in awhile when I hear about things such as E-Rate that remind me of my former career, I reminisce. But only for a minute….




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In Loving Memory - Tyler

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I thought all the tears were dried up, but that’s not the case, so this will be short.  Tyler died at home, early Saturday morning.  For the first time in 17 years, we don’t have a cat.

 

We were told that the kitten was a male, so we named it Tyler.  The vet laughingly informed us that it was a girl.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I always loved this picture; the three of them crammed into one chair, Mackenzie’s leg thrown over Ty.  Tyler and Dylan (the black & white) were litter mates.




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Old age and failing senses

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hearAs it gets ever closer to my 36th birthday, and I get ever closer to 40 (seriously?) I have realized that I’m not quite as sharp as I used to be. I used to be able to hear a conversation from 2 rooms away, and see the TV from the couch without wearing glasses. While my sense of smell seems to grow even sharper with each passing day (hardly a gift when you have kids and a dog) my other senses are just not as good.

Lately I’ve been noticing that I can’t always make out things they say on TV even after rewinding it with the DVR about 14 times. Even with the volume turned up sometimes I just can’t make out what they are saying. I may have to resort to turning on the closed captioning on my TV, or getting a set of those amplifying hearing aids. Have you seen those commercials where they can hear conversations from like a block away? Hey, those would be fun just to have!




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Something you probably didn’t know about car accidents

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Back in April I posted about my husband’s car accident in a post titled: A man and his truck…..

Well, it turns out that the insurance did total it out and gave us a nice amount for it, although we were not thrilled with having to buy another truck. We bought that truck brand new and it really didn’t have too many problems.

At one point, we did explore the possibility of buying the truck back from them and paying to have it repaired from the insurance money but we were concerned that it may never run quite right and cause additional problems down the road.

I didn’t realize it, but apparently you can get additional money in the case of a car accident, especially where you are not at fault under something called “diminished value.” The fact that a vehicle has been damaged and repaired has a negative effect on its value and you can re-coup this difference in all 50 states. I don’t need this info now but it is certainly good to know in case it ever happens again.




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Overheard in the house today…

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Jake was talking on the phone to his Grandma…

Obviously I only got Jake’s side of the conversation.

“Did you know I got a car from the garage sale?”

“I got a John Deere gator.”

“Yeah and did you know Max went to sleep and will never wake up?”

“Yeah and did you know he’s with God?”

“And they are all playing together?”

“What dog did you have when I was growing in mommy’s belly?”

“Ok I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Ok, I’ll talk to you tomorrow when you go downstairs and find your pool.”

Awesome!




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We interrupt your previously scheduled post…

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I’m not a deep or publicly emotional person. I’m just an “Accidental Mommy” and have always kept that kind of stuff to myself because “emotions are for girly-girls”. It’s not that I don’t have deep emotion, I just generally save it for when my husband most needs some good nagging.

Well, keep your panty hose on, because it’s gonna get a little bit mushy.

(by the way, this is another of those late night posts, and WHAT DID MY DOG EAT? He is killing me.)

My daughter will be 8 months old on July 27th. It is seriously hard to believe the time has gone by so quickly. Every day something about her amazes me. I mean, I made her! (well, Ed was there too I guess…) She has recently started crawling. It started out as the funniest “slither-crawl” with her actually covering some ground but not being able to move her arms and legs together so she would end up on her belly between every move. We encouraged her so much for the few weeks she did that. In hindsight, why did we do that? Now she is at full blown, “I’m getting up and leaving this room and you have to chase me and keep me out of trouble” stage.
Continue Reading……




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A little word of advice…

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If you place a can of beer inside the ice reservoir in your freezer, DO NOT use the ice crusher dispenser to get crushed ice.

You will get a crushed beer can and beer flavored ice.

Seriously.

Someone in my house just learned that the hard way.

It wasn’t me.




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A mind is a terrible thing to lose

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I’m normally really good about keeping track of all our appointments, classes, lessons, etc.  But, this week  I had total amnesia.  On Wednesday, the girls had a class in the morning at a museum, Michael had his weekly speech appointment, and I would be attending a First Aid training class (required for Girl Scout leaders) in the evening.  A busy day considering we were headed to three different towns and three different combinations of family members, but very do-able. 

My problem started Tuesday.  The girls went to the new American Girl movie, and were so torqued up when they got home that they wanted to play with their dolls.  Thinking, “Sure, we don’t have anything to do tomorrow”, we let them stay up until midnight.  Around 3 am, we realized they needed to be up at eight.  Man, did they look rough when I dropped them off! 

Don took Michael to his appointment, and the girls and I headed to the pool in the late afternoon. “La, La, La, it’s such a nice night to be at the pool.  Hmmm, what’s for dinner?  How can that lifeguard be so fat and save anyone?”  These were the deep thoughts bouncing through my cavernous mind.  Fast forward to 2 am, when Don woke me up and said, “Didn’t you have that first aid class last night?”  Twenty five dollar class fee - nonrefundable.  I believe Homer Simpson said it best, “D’oh!”

Not sure if this is an Accidental Mommy moment, but it’s was very frustrating!  Kind of scary, too.  Am I losing my mind???

After reading this, why am I up at these strange hours?  Could that be the cause?




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A solution for expensive prescription eye glasses

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I wear prescription eyeglasses for driving and occasionally if I go to a movie or am watching TV. My prescription is not real strong and I can actually get by without them, the problem is that I’ve come to rely on them.

The last time I ordered new glasses they easily cost me over $200 from the eye doctor, for something I hardly wear and when I do, no one except my family ever sees me wear them.

That is where ZenniOptical.com comes in. They have glasses, including the frames and lenses starting at $8, and the their selection of frames at that price aren’t too bad looking.

Fox News even did a story on them: Zenni on Fox where they did an experiment and had some positive results. It sounds like for older and children and adults, who have gotten all the proper measurements for the prescriptions, you can get a really good deal. I definitely would consider trying them for a second, spare pair of glasses.




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In Loving Memory - Max

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note: this is a “sticky” post, please scroll own for newer content

Click the image to see a larger version.




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