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Powered by LifeTypeI have to say that the real baby is much more squashed in me than that little graphic baby is on the sidebar. (S)he pokes up knees and heels all the time and increasingly presses on my bladder. I am ready to go, but still have plenty of things I can do while waiting. When Mom and Janet first arrived, I was feeling anxious to get the baby out the next day, but I am content to wait until the right time.
Here are some things I have written down on scraps of paper that haven't made it out to the blog until now:
We got ants in our car, presumably from having food everywhere on our vacation trip, and one time when we were buckling in, Jonathan exclaimed that he had an ant crawling in his ear. I couldn't see it, but he said it was far down and wiggling. I told him it was probably just a phantom feeling after one had crawled in and out. However, a day or two later, Jonathan came up to me and said, "Mommy, I removed a dead ant from my ear!"
When we were at the Maggie P, the boys were playing on the top bunk with Aunt Janet's supervision. She then needed to leave and formally announced her abdicating of responsibility. Not 5 seconds later, we hear a big clunk. Noah tried climbing down (but only actually fell the last foot or so because Jonathan was holding onto his arm.) Jonathan's explanation for how it happened was, "He wanted to do it by his own accord."
8/12 - Jonathan counted backwards from 19, his own idea, and with no help.
I am starting to get used to the idea that this new house is my own, and not just someone else's with my furniture in it. We are starting a compost pile, and there are a lot of local corn husks and cobs in it already. Jon keeps clunking his head on low ceiling pieces, especially in the basement and coming in on the porch. I'm not sure if there's anything we can do about it.
We have running hot and cold and drinkable water! Jon hooked up my brand new front-loading washer two days ago and installed the dryer yesterday. Hooray! The washer really does dry things better and the dryer has a shorter running time. Jon looked in two stores for an umbrella type clothes line without success, but we'll get some kind of line out sometime. For the moment, I'm using regular detergent in the washer, but being careful to use a small amount. I drew a line on the cup for what seems good. It has not sudsed up too much. Otherwise, he detergents cost twice as much (and effectively four times as much since you only use half the regular amount.)
Breakfast time! Even when you live 5 minutes from church you can still be late, and I want to avoid that.
I believe there is a run down umbrella style clothes line in our back yard if you want it. Should I take a picture and send it to you? Needs TLC, but if anyone could bring it back to life, Jon could!
Glad to hear you are settling in!
Sure, Jill, thanks!
Jason hits his head on things at our house, too. It can't really be helped. Perhaps a helmet is in order.
I believe this is the umbrella dryer that we have:
amazon.com
It's a good value for the money, esp. compared to the prices of other umbrella dryers out there. It has held up nicely. We do put it away for the winter.
Which washer/dryer do you have? We bought the Bosch 500 plus series. I LOVE THEM.
As for detergent:
We use Charlie's Soap (charliesoap.com - one "s", not two). Free shipping. It works fantasically, esp. after the first couple of weeks have passed and all of the old detergent residues have washed out. It's cheaper than any conventional free & clear that I have used. We finally bought the big five gallon tub, and it should last us upwards of two years. It has worked even better in our front loader than in our top loader, and there is no sudsing issue.
If you are looking for umbrella style clothes lines try urbanclotheslines.com I brought one from these guys a few months ago and its great...I find my laundry smells fresher and I feel better!
Stephan was apparently hit by the bayesian filter, because 4 out of 9 times "Swiss" (capitalized) was used by spammers. If left uncapitalized, 6 out of 6 times were spammers...
@serina: The amazon link looks good - the urbanclotheslines seem really expensive for a stick with some ropes. (and note that the stewi line is sold on that site - Stephan's link doesn't include prices)
It does include prices on the German site, but they're in the range of 2-5 times the amazon product (though only the cheapest one looks as though it may be similar in design - the others are clearly designed to outlast one's house).
Who is Bayes?
Bayesian filtering, apparently a combination Presbyterian minister/mathematician.
Hrm - Presbyterian math, something like:
Q. "Why does 2+2=4?"
A. "Because God pre-ordained that it would be that way".
Sorry - I've only gone to two Presbyterian churches for any length of time, one which thought the sermons had too much doctrine in them, and should have more happy stories, and the other had their pastor leave, and so had a guy who led the international evangelistic ministries be the preaching pastor while looking for a new one, and I don't think people would say he was particularly gifted in teaching or preaching --- so insert your own Presbyterian math joke.
The combination of mathematician/theologian is apparently not that unusual, one famous one being Blaise Pascal.
I guess there are Presbyterians and Presbyterians. just as other denominations differ. Historically (and in my experience) Presbyterian sermons are ver long and stuffed full of doctrine. They do generally seem lacking in happy stories, but often include (or begin with)jokes. The modern-day ones, I mean -- it's hard for me to imagine my stereotype of a dour old Scotch Calvinist making a joke....
I remember reading that Charles Spurgeon disliked the "fad" of making jokes in sermons, because it detracted from the gravitas of God's word and made attendees focus on the speaker and his entertainment value. (I'd have to be home to look up the precise quote.)
Serina - we got a Frigidaire 3.5 cu.ft. front loading washer. The dryer is the cheapest we could find at Sears two years ago that still had a low heat setting. The two of them are working great together. Even though the dryer is not as large capacity, the washer gets the clothes so dry in the spin cycle that the dryer takes less time than a wash! This feature will also be nice when we get an outside line up. And I've been using regular detergent with fine success. I think you only get oversudsing problems if you use a whole cup of regular detergent, which I never did in our old washer anyway.
Great to read of the composter, water, washer ... hoping Jon can 'raise the roof' (I mean the ceiling) of your new place ;-) Hope to visit next time we're in 'da Burgh.
Hmm. This is the most interested and normal-looking spam I've seen in a long time. At first I thought it must be a real person -- until I saw what post it was a comment to.
There apparently is good (ie. better) money in natural disaster and other popular news item links. I forget the number of domains that were registered in the days following the Haitian earthquake that were things like haitihelp, haitiearthquake, etc. that were all links to warez/porn sites, etc.
Spammers are getting ridiculous, if sometimes almost amusing. How about this one from a friend's blog: "Hi there, neat blog, just have something to ask you, what antispam program you have on your site for comments since I am getting tons on my site."