FINALLY! Something truly interactive.

Stupid, but interactive. I feel like I'm on my deathbed here, so I can't take long to note this story, but I need to get it down so I don't forget it. I nearly hacked up a lung at this one...

Nikolai's standing in front of the fridge (buck naked, incidentally -- this seems to be his M.O. these days, which would explain my consistent lack of visual aids) playing happily with his Word Whammer. It was encouraging him in its insistent and maddeningly repetitive way to begin to spell the word "Mud".
Word Whammer: "The word mud begins with the letter M. Can you find the letter M?"
Nikolai's eyes scan the fridge and find the M in a matter of seconds. He plucks it off the fridge and shows it to the Word Whammer.
Word Whammer: "Find the M. Can you find the letter M?"
Nikolai's eyes drift to the M in his hand, and a look crosses his face that reads "I thought this *was* the M..."
Word Whammer: "You're looking for the letter M. The letter M makes a Muh sound. Find the letter M"
Nikolai: "It's right HERE silly people!"

We're heading in the right direction. Unlike Dora, JoJo, Steve, Joe and the Little Einsteins this one at least *can* respond accordingly.
As a side note, the doctor says my lungs are clear and this is just a very nasty flu virus that is going around these days. I hope I didn't pass it to anyone.

Dentifrice Options

This evening I noticed Nikolai's breath had that "not so fresh" smell. I didn't mention it to him, in an effort to spare his feelings, but I think he was sensitive enough to my reaction that he realized its unpleasantness and began exploring possible solutions.
The substance was chosen carefully by Nikolai himself, and at the very least offered a fresh clean scent. His comments regarding it were brief but powerfully and succinctly spoken:
"It smells so good, Daddy!" (repeat 30 times)
He first examined its abilities as a carpet cleaner, applied liberally and firmly. Apparently its performance was lacking somewhat in this capacity, and further experiments were necessary. His next exploration of its powers evidently tested its strengths as a furniture polish. In spite of its boasted "Goes on Clear" feature, it didn't appear to be performing up to its obvious potential when applied to furniture. His final test for this lucky stick of "Gilette Series Power Strip +DRY LOCK Technology" was as a dentifrice. He was very pleased with the results, and the poison control center says that it's only a mild irritant.

His breath smells *much* better.

And here I thought I might be looking thinner...

Nikolai's often compelled to share with me: "Mama, you have a great BIG GIANT BOTTOM!!". He insists on reminding me of this endowment at least 6 times a day.

Sears

This is a painfully long story, and might be uninteresting to anyone but myself and anyone considering buying a large home appliance from Sears and which might require delivery. At the risk of boring my audience, albeit small, I will share my experience with Sears. Consider yourself warned.

Somewhere around January 11th of 2006 we headed in to Sears with the intent to buy a dishwasher for the new house. I dread dishes so much that merely the thought of functioning without one was (and incidentally is) intolerable. My mother and Carl were kind enough to give me a $300 gift certificate for Sears so I could get a dishwasher as a housewarming gift. So, gift card in hand, we head in to Sears to look for dishwasher. We left Sears having ordered a dishwasher, a double wall oven and a side by side refrigerator. We are true Americans.
They told us that they wouldn't be able to deliver the appliances until the 30th of January. I was really disappointed, and not at all happy about having to wait for 3 weeks to get my dishwasher, but figured nowhere else would be any better.
The week before the appliances were to be delivered, they called to tell me that the wall oven and dishwasher had been "delayed" (the woman didn't speak much english and so there was no explanation as to why it was not going to be delivered as expected.) Its expected arrival date was February 30th. A month later. Do they assemble these appliances out of dung beetles in remote african tribes? The refrigerator had not been delayed and they were to deliver it on the 30th of January as expected.
The 30th of January came, and I took the day off of work, anticipating the delivery sometime that day. They had not graced me with a call to inform me of the time frame in which to expect them, so I sat at home the whole day. Sometime nearing 5:00 the delivery people call and ask "So, did you receive your appliance satisfactorily?" To which I respond "Why no, I have yet to hear from the delivery person." He responds with concern about the whereabouts of the delivery person. Several hours and several calls later I offer to go out myself and examine the roads to make sure he hasn't driven off a cliff, which is a lot more possible than one might think in my neighborhood. I drive around all known back roads in my "neighborhood" to no avail, no sign of the missing man and his truck. After another hour or so I get another call telling me that the delivery person finally made contact again, and informed call central that he was unable to fit his large truck through the gate on our road. (could he not call to let us know this hours before? did he go out for beers afterward because the experience was so traumatic? who knows) Sears called back the next day to inform me that they would be sending out a different and smaller truck for the refrigerator delivery the day following, which would be two days later than expected. Another lost day of work. No time frame given this time either, so sit at home the whole day. The end of the day comes around and the delivery person arrives with a refrigerator. Not OUR refrigerator. They get the fridge in to the house and try to slide it into place and it's too big. They brought the wrong one. No dishwasher, no fridge, no wall oven. Hm.
February 27th comes, and they give us a time frame this time. They are supposed to arrive early in the day. We get a call from them shortly after they are scheduled to arrive "We're sorry, we couldn't fit our truck through your gate. We're going to have to return with a smaller truck." Is it just my inflated expectation of your average company's abilities to function well, or should they *not* have written a note in my file somewhere saying "SMALL GATE. BRING SMALL TRUCK." No appliances.
End of February behind us now. No dishwasher, no fridge, no wall oven. Hm.
Sears calls us ot inform us that they will deliver the wall oven and the dishwasher the following day. By some serious miracle, they arrive, they get in the gate, and they unload a dishwasher AND a wall oven, both the proper appliances.
Hallelujia.
No, I am not the type to hire someone to install something that I can do myself and since the estimated installation person's first opportunity to come to our house was about a month out, I get all the proper gear and get started installing the dishwasher myself. Matt helped, and we get done with just about everything and discover that Maytag, in its brilliance, failed to place a PLUG at the end of the POWER CABLES. I'm ready to slap a stupid 3 prong plug on there, but Matt won't let it happen. He wants someone else to be responsible for this if it goes wrong.
ratsafratsareigndeer
It's the beginning of March, and we have a nonfunctional dishwasher and a nonfunctional wall oven and no refrigerator to speak of.
Finally, we get the fridge situation sorted out and they decide they will deliver the fridge on March 25th. Upon learning that they deliver on Saturday I supress the urge to yell in the man's face about my 5 lost days of work thus far. I am impressed with my self control.
Saturday comes and goes. Late in the day Matt says to me "ring ring! Hi, this is Sears home delivery. we were unable to get through your gate because our truck was too big..." But, no. Not a word. Not a peep. They just didn't bother to call at all. No arrival, no call, no recognition from Sears that the delivery date has come and gone and they never arrived. End of March...no refrigerator, nonfunctional dishwasher, nonfunctional wall oven. Good thing we paid good money for this stuff.

I keep seeing advertisements for Sears which say "Are you ready for all new appliances in your kitchen?" I say "why yes, I am."

My opinion of Sears has sunk. I really honestly didn't think that was possible.

**UPDATE**
Sears left a message telling us that unfortunately, they couldn't get through the gate with the truck.

Thank goodness it's not April

So far my resolve to be more productive has been derailed every day since I proclaimed my intent.
I did, however, go dancing on Saturday night. That was an interesting thing, for sure.
Now I have a fever, and am not getting anything done.
I haven't given up.

On a completely unrelated note, today Nikolai decided he wanted to wear his roller skates. He donned the skates (the kind that are two pieces that fit over one's shoes), no shoes no socks and no pants. Wandered around the house like this for a while. It's times like this that keep us happy as parents (or at the very least, entertained).

My April Resolution

I resolve to be more productive in the time given to me at work. I have been feeling like I'm really not pulling my weight, and I'm entirely too ignorant about things about which I should not be ignorant.
Therefore, I resolve to not only increase productivity in the time allotted, but to also follow through on my decision to further my knowledge by learning in a school environment (ok, I'll accept online courses).
I hope this makes me feel better...

(insert subject here)

(insert witty post here)

Do you like cake?

So, I wonder if I'm the only one who is enraged by the whole "credit" situation in this country. Is this really the way of the future? Is credit-worthiness really an accurate judge of character or responsibility? What if one's responsibility manifests not by obtaining credit and not using it (which is the expectation currently), but by refusing credit and debt altogether?

If we equate this to dieting, here's what we're expecting the average tax-paying God-fearing red-blooded American citizen to do:
1) Go to the store while very very hungry
2) Purchase a cake or pastry (of choice, whatever looks most delicious)
3) Bring cake home and place it on the table with forks and serving utensils
4) Serve one's self a heaping pile of cake (don't forget the milk!)
5) DO NOT EAT!
5alternative) Eat cake, but regurgitate immediately
6) If step 5 is unsuccessful, dieter is tattoo'd on the forehead "BIG FAT PIG" or "CAKE SNIFFER". And legally prohibited from removing this tattoo for a 7 year period of time.
*NOTE* Dieter's ability to purchase fuel for transport vehicle, to obtain housing, or to feed children is dependent on his/her never ingesting cake (for more than brief periods before regurgitation).

I just don't know if this is gonna work.

These represent a good hour of lost productivity last night (as well as a sizeable chunk today looking for a link).

*sniff*

well, I seem to be getting sick again. I sure am tired of getting colds. I think I've had my fair share of them this year. Nikolai was a bit sick last week, so it could be whatever it was he had.
man, being a homeowner sure is an interesting thing. I've never had such a long "to-do" list in my life.
I really need to call the septic tank people back. our yard is starting to smell like a herd of buffalo-with-diarrhea passed through.
I must get some hearth rugs, or some sort of coal solution, because a few days ago a rogue coal went on an adventure through the carpet and padding and made it a good way through the floorboard before it was discovered.
one of these days I might get someone from Sears to come install our appliances that are taking up space in our kitchen and laundry room, and which have been very useful thus far in a "plant stand" sort of way.
I'm only half done with my door-botttomectomy procedures. I have another patient in the queue.
we have yet to discover a real solution to our internet challenge. I'm gonna feel like I'm stuck out in the boondocks until this is fixed.
our cord of wood is now 1/2 cord of wood. time to re-order.
pg&e still has yet to send us a bill. I'm having a hard time feeling motivated to follow up on that one.
the water coming out of our washing machine smells like we're washing the buffalo-with-diarrhea, can't figure out why
only half the windows are covered with curtains
I could go on and on, but I'm getting overwhelmed just typing this.

and it gets better every day:
yesterday my car decided of its own accord that it had entirely too much paint, and needed to strategically remove some in order to be operating optimally, aerodynamically. its solution was to drive into one of the pillars in the borland parking garage. this did an acceptable job of paint removal. later that same day, it realized that silver was too dull, and it should add some World Rally Blue to its decor. I don't think David was too happy with this solution, but I tried to explain to him that when a 3 ton vehicle gets it in its mind to do something, a human my size can do little to argue. add to "to-do" list: follow up with Allstate.

POP! POP POP POP POP!

oh kelly, now I've lost a good portion of my productive time to this. it's so very theraputic, though.

props to kel for the link.

A pawprint? Where?!

Why is it that kids' shows absolutely insist on recruiting the child's involvement in the task at hand? The kids in blue's clues are always expected to find the clue before Steve or Joe. Dora can't even open her backpack or look at her map without you saying "BACKPACK!" or "MAP!" If you ask me, that makes her a pretty lousy explorer. Where did she go before the audience was around to yell at her backpack and map? How did those items get IN her backpack? How did her eyes get so BIG?! But I digress...
I think for most young children this isn't really annoying. In my young childhood years I don't remember thinking to myself "Man, what a moron. How can he run his own show if he can't even find giant blue pawprints right in front of his face?" I think younger kids these days just sort of take it for granted that the TV, an inanimate object that often appears as exciting as a rock (when turned off), is going to ask them questions or tell them to stand up, take a bow, move your hand like a lion going through a hoop, or tell the TV about their favorite part of the show. I think most young children enjoy this interactivity, and don't think twice about it.
And then there are children like Nikolai.
He is OK with simple questions, "Do you see the yellow banana in this picture?", because he just doesn't answer and that's just fine with him. For those of you who know Nikolai this makes perfect sense. It's when the characters on TV try to get him to *do* something that he becomes uncomfortable. And the characters on TV are really pushy, too. They start out by asking nicely, but don't account for those young viewers who are going to be offended by the expectation that they should go along with something they declined to do in the first place. Here's a good example:
JoJo: Do you want to take a bow with me?
Nikolai: No. I don't.
JoJo: OK, Stand up, please!
NikolI: NO! NO THANK YOU!
JoJo: Now put your arms out to the side like this.
Nikolai: NO! I DON'T WANT TO! (yelling at the tv as one would yell at a mostly deaf great grand parent, looking at JoJo like she's deaf or really just that dim-witted)
JoJo: Now beeeend at your waist like this.
(Nikolai begins to cry and scream at JoJo, I finally intervene)
Mama: Nikolai, it's ok, just don't listen until this part is over.
Nikolai: FAST FORWARD MAMA! Can you fast forward, mama?

If JoJo weren't so pushy this wouldn't be a problem. Of course, I can't take it all out on JoJo. Really almost all children's shows are guilty of this these days. I think that if TV characters are going to pretend to interact with the children in the audience, then the shows should account for multiple answers to questions, kind of like a "choose your own adventure" movie plan. Most of these questions really are presumptuous, such as "Do you like music?". I know a child who'd answer "no" to this question.

This reminds me, though, of another time when we were watching Blue's Clues and Joe was wandering around and walked past a pawprint. Nikolai scared the bejeesus out of me when he *screamed* at the screen "A CLUE!!! A CLUE, JOE!! RIGHT BEHIND YOU! BACK THERE! LOOK! IT'S A CLUE!!!" And Joe just kind of looked dumbly at the screen, like he generally does, and Nikolai threw his hands up in the air and walked away. This just strengthens my argument against unilaterally interactive TV shows.

A day in the life of Rebecca

7:00 am: wake up, get dressed, brush teeth, gather stuff, etc.
7:30 am: wake Nikolai up, get his clothes for the day, wrap him in a blanket and put him in the running car.
7:35 am: drive past Gail to drop Melissa off at school; backtrack and drop Nikolai off at Gail's; backtrack again to drive myself to work with a 9:00 arrival time.
9:00 am to Noon: do as much work as I possibly can between meetings.
Noon to 1:00 pm: pay bills online, set up service appointments, wood deliveries, septic maintenance, pump maintenance, deliveries, run all errands, do shopping, etc.
1:00 pm to 2:40 pm: try desperately to focus on work for a few hours.
2:40 pm to 3:10 pm: pick up melissa from school and drop her off at her dad's house.
3:10 pm to 5:00 pm: do the final work I'll be able to manage, pray I'll have more time tomorrow to focus on critical things I didn't finish.
5:00 pm: pick up melissa from her dad's house, pick up nikolai from gail's, do grocery shopping with kids if necessary, get gas if necessary, drive home.
6:00 pm to 9:00 pm: light fires in woodstove and fireplace; make Nikolai dinner and make him eat it; stoke fire; make melissa dinner; stoke fire; help melissa with homework; stoke fire; clean all rooms in the house; stoke fire; wash, dry, fold and put away at least 4 loads of laundry; stoke fire; do the dishes; stoke fire; make myself something to eat if it wasn't the same as Melissa's food; stoke fire; do at least 1 deep cleaning task, last night's task was disinfecting the bathrooms; stoke fire; clean the bathtub and give Nikolai a bath; stoke fire; read bugs books to Nikolai, and put him to sleep; spend quality time with Melissa and/or log in and finish tasks I didn't get to finish at work; fall asleep exhausted around 11:00.

tired yet?

Hot cocoa and a crackling fire

This weekend was really great. It's the first weekend we've had, really, where nothing was expected of us. Nikolai's been increasingly distressed at having to go to Gail's every day, and so he has developed a heightened awareness of "Saturday". He was so very happy to have the weekend days to play and enjoy family life. When we got home on Friday, our house was covered in tiny hail balls that were more like snow than hail. Thinking this was our only opportunity to enjoy "snow" this year at the house, we bundled up right away and rushed outside to throw some hailballs. When we had pretty much exhausted the play value of the snail, we went inside and curled up next to the fire with some cocoa. Melissa was glad she stayed on Friday night to enjoy it.
Saturday Melissa went to her dad's house and we picked up Anthony for Saturday night. Nikolai loves to see his brother and spend time with him, and Anthony so very patiently obliges. Well -- patiently for a 14 year old.
On Sunday morning for a few hours while laying in bed I kept hearing the sound of animals pouncing on the roof. In my sleepy and not so logical thoughts I concluded that there had been a serious squirrel population explosion. After a few hours of envisioning the squirrels fencing and frolicking on the roof I woke up enough to realize there were no squirrels on our roof this time of year (never mind the fact that they had no hope of surviving our Feral Animals Of Doom), so I got up on my knees and peeked out the window to see a totally white world. I couldn't believe how much snow there was. I got everyone up and we went out and threw snowballs and stomped in the snow.
Against my better judgement I actually made a snowball with the cleanest snow I could find and handed it to Nikolai. When I told him to take a bite he looked at me like I was completely out of my mind. It didn't take long to convince him that indeed it was actually ice, and therefore edible (Saturday's Cherry Icee from Burger King helped). After we were frozen and wet and done (ok, so *I* was frozen and wet and done -- Nikolai was frozen and wet and couldn't care less about it because he wanted to stay outside and play in the snow), we came inside and shed our wet snowy clothes and realized that in my haste to get everyone out the door before the snow melted I'd forgotten to light a fire (D'OH!), so we decided to go to Benny's House for pancakes and hot cocoa. This was followed by a lengthy trip to the Big Yellow Toy Store, a trip to Office Max to get an office chair for mom, and then to the Pat Store.
What a wonderful weekend.

If you work at borland, read this

Even if you don't work at borland, you can read it. it just won't be nearly as entertaining.

http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2006/03/07/borland_ditches_delphi/

Much thanks to Sheree for the link

sometimes words just don't do life justice

I love being a mother.


Check out the shoes:

(double click to start movie)

where did I go wrong?

I've noticed lately that having a conversation with my three year old often ends with me cowering fearfully behind a shield of silence. When did this happen? We used to have really great conversations like:
"Hi Mama!"
"Hi sweetie pie, did you have a good day at Gail's?"
"yeah"
"Did you eat?"
"Yes, I did."
"What did you eat?"
"I ate milk."
Then we sweetly hug and I kiss him on the cheek.

Now, our conversations are something like this:
"Mama, the sky is BLUUUEEE!"
"Yes, it is! And look at the white clouds!"
"No! NOO! NOOOHOHOHOHOHO...THERE AREN'T CLOUDS!", followed by several moments of screaming and crying uncontrollably. Suddenly I'm really appreciative of the car seat straps containing him.
"Yes, I think there are some white clouds. Can you see them out your window?"
"NO! You CAN'T say that! GO AWAY!"

And then I slink down in my driver's seat wondering "What the hell just happened?" Was this supposed to be a "rhetorical statement"? Am I missing something here? Three is just so much fun.

who needs a spoon

BONK

You ever have a day where everything just seems 1/2 an inch off? You reach for a door handle and jam your thumb. You run into a doorway going through. You set your drink just far enough off the edge of the table that it spills. Well, yesterday was that day for me. Today I'm at about an inch. Not sure what's going on, but I'm ready for a readjustment.

I'm supposed to go have Indian food with the international folks today. That is sure to be a lot of fun, and maybe I'll have something more interesting to post after lunch. Sorry for being so boring.

I am

a mother
an engineer
a woman
a photographer
a web developer
a delphi programmer
a c++ programmer
an auto mechanic
a chimney sweep
an architect
a builder
a seamstress
a fashion designer
a house cleaner
a chauffeur
a mover
a doctor
a plumber
a salesperson
a tech support person
a therapist
an author
an electrician
a gymnast
a database administrator
...avoiding work

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

seaweed is cool, seaweed is fun. It makes its food from the rays of the sun.

Nikolai is 3

Wow. I can't believe three years has passed since I gave birth to Nikolai. We had a small (family) celebration for him on Friday evening. Anthony and Nikolai and I went to The Train Place for his special birthday dinner; this was a huge hit. We came home and he opened presents (bugs books by A. Carter, thomas aqua doodle train thingy, remote control "Scrambler" from Bob the Builder). We also enjoyed a small cake together. We didn't make a huge deal out of it, since we were going to be having a party tonight. The party went very well, and he was so happy to see his friends there. It was a special thing for him to have his friends come to his house. We had a construction theme going, complete with posted Stop Yield and Party Zone signs. The candles on the cake were orange cones. Before I put them on the cake I asked him how many candles we needed to put on the cake and he said "THREE!" Once the candles were blown out he took the digger off the top of the cake and dug in. He ate about a piece of cake's worth using the digger's scoop. Fortunately we got this on video. I'll post photos sometime soon.

Amazing adventures in the life of Rebecca

So, last night I decided it would be a good idea to saw about an inch off the bottom of my bathroom door. In retrospect it occurs to me that I might want to consider the safety and appropriateness of my being allowed to function in public.

I was really excited about getting rid of that extra pesky inch. I'm a huge fan of bathroom rugs, and find a bathroom without them to be cold and uninviting. Without them I am aggravated by the constant irritating presence of loose dirt and other such unsavory things sticking to the bottom of my socks. As a side note, I think that bathroom-floor-dirt is an interesting phenomenon. No matter how many times I sweep and mop, there is dirt. I can wash the walls, scrub the toilets and bathtub and sinks thereby removing every ounce of visible dirt, and then after a thorough sweep get down on my hands and knees and scrub the floor by hand and then wipe it down with copious amounts of antiseptic wipes. Upon reentry (once dry) my socks are instantly covered with sticky pieces of some unrecognizable 8 month old piece of food. I think raisins breed in my house.

Bathroom rugs are the solution to this problem. As you walk around the bathroom, both sticky and loose pieces of dirt are buried deeply beyond site in the carpet pile. It's a perfect solution, unless you have a tendency to examine bathroom rugs with a microscope (not that I've ever done this, but even the surface of my kitchen counter would be sickening let alone my bathroom rugs).
Obviously the people who constructed my bathroom did not like bathroom rugs. Perhaps they were the scientific type and didn't understand the proper application of microscopes, or perhaps they just had no sense of home decor. For whatever reason, they decided to leave about a millimeter of space between the bottom of the door and and the floor. Totally bathroom rug prohibitive. They were probably trying to find a reason for me to actually use the jigsaw I bought 6 years ago.

I actually removed the door and placed it on the kitchen table and sawed off an inch of the bottom of it. My hand and arm still hurt today from the violent vibration. Doors are *not* easy to saw through, even when they're not insulated inside/outside doors. I also do not recommend a jigsaw as the tool of choice, nor a kitchen table as the optimal location. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be, and when I was done everything had a thin brown dust all over it. But now, I can have my cake and eat it too.

The rugs are beautiful.

My horoscope for this week:

"Misguided by the success of Orson Welles' groundbreaking all-black production of Macbeth, you will be humiliated this week, after the scathing reviews of your all-black production of Othello come in."

Wow

This kid's gonna be bummed when he's done going through puberty.

(Headache update: mostly gone...whew)

What is it with the funny names?

My children, in their brilliance, really have chosen creative names for their pet objects and animals. As we all know, Melissa at 7 named her white cockatiel "White Lump". Anthony was a tad less creative with his favorite pet named "Bird" (yes, it was a bird), however he did name a large train track he constructed when he was four, they were his "convisements". Following in this unspoken tradition, Nikolai has named two of his (actually Anthony's, but he loves them so much he just might adopt them) cars. One is hot pink and orange, and its name is "Egg Burp". The other one, a nice little yellow car with a sweet disposition in spite of its chronic halitosis, is named "Fenninnime". I shudder to think of the possibilities for my grandchildren's names...