This is truly amazing…. It’s almost like one of those ‘roombas’, that automatically vacuum your house. Instead of electricity, this one just requires that I slip it a few bucks. The result? A mowed lawn!
Amazing new invention!
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Category Archives: Beasties
Sick. Music. Week 16.
Well, I just spent the past week or so sick. I haven’t gotten much done. I was even too sick to post the normal weekly post I’ve been doing. It all started out with several days of fevers – those were the good days. It went downhill from there.
I missed the Decemberists concert. The kids and Jolene went alone. They did get some pictures, and Maddie made sure to record videos of the songs for me on the camera. That was very sweet of her. I was super sad that I couldn’t make it – I had been looking forward to going for months. The pictures and videos they took of the concert are here.
I did fix my issue with not seeing the concert, though:
The tickets you have purchased are:
———————————————————-
The Decemberists
Royal Oak Music Theatre
Royal Oak, MI
USA
Tuesday , 8/11/09 , 8:00PM
General AdmissionSection Row Seat Price
GEN ADM $26.00
GEN ADM $26.00
So there’s that! The opening band is one called the ‘Heartless Bastards’. Strange name, for sure, but I’ve listened to them before and the music is pretty good.
The baby….
Well, we’re in week 16 now. Most of the same stuff from week 15 seems to be happening, with the addition of some additional hearing capabilities and facial expressions being added on. The biggest news is coming this Monday. We’re going to get to see the baby for the first time, through the wonders of modern medicine.
So that’s the big news. I’m looking forward to it. I’m taking my pills, which I have bought for $4 at Walgreens in preparation. Those are supposed to fix my problems so I’ll be able to leave the house – I don’t want to miss that.
Garage Sales!
Since it has been 9 years since I had a baby around, we are severely lacking in the baby supply department- as in- we are starting from scratch. At the same time, we are trying to pay down debt, go on vacation and do some projects around the house. So, last weekend, I started garage sale shopping for baby items. Last weekend, I found a baby swing and 5 blankets just by dragging David around Midland. The weather was bad and there weren’t many sales to be found.
Last night, David picked up a Midland paper for me and he and I sat down with Google Maps and mapped out the route of every garage sale that listed baby items in their ad. Maddie and I waited for the rain to stop and we headed out. She had $50 of her own money and I took $100 with me.
She bought lots of random things- a handmade cheetah print hair clip, a cheetah print pillow, a floaty raft to take to Branson for the pool, cake pans and her best deal of the day-she found a white and brass daybed for $7. She is cleaning her room right now to make room to move her old bed out and the new bed in.
I spent $77 and here is my list:
11 newborn onsies
5 newborn t-shirts (all snappy instead of pull-over the head in case I manage to break another baby’s clavicle during childbirth)
1 hat
3 bibs
1 snowsuit
6 ‘bag’ style jammies
8 sleepers
1 pair of duckie slippers
2 pairs of socks
1 brand new boppy pillow
1 play-yard/bassinet/changing table combo
What to Expect the Toddler Years
2 crib sheets
All of the clothing is newborn sizes and winter clothes, and almost everything is Carters, in yellow and green and in perfect condition.
It was a very productive day- and I am exhausted. Maddie, on the other hand, could have gone for another 4 hours!
New ‘netbook’
Madalyn got a new ‘netbook’ for her birthday yesterday – a Dell Inspiron Mini 9. She bought it with her birthday money and money that she has been saving up. It’s a really, really small notebook. Here it is next to my laptop for a size comparison:
The Netbook
It’s tiny, and perfectly sized for 12 year old girl hands. My hands, on the other hand, had considerable trouble typing on it while using it. ‘.com’ would turn into ‘.cim’, with my fingers too fat to easily type on the small keyboard. I’m sure with time I would get used to it. I don’t think it would be workable for a note-taking device in college, as I’ve seen some people try.
It’s about as powerful as a ‘last generation’ laptop, and has the following:
1.6 gigahertz intel ‘atom’ processor 8 gigabytes of memory 1 gigabyte of ram9 inch screen Windows XP WiFi enabled SDCard memory expansion slot
4 hour battery life
It has no hard drive – it uses flash memory, like a smaller iPod. Given all that I expected it to have more than a 4 hour battery life, but I’m not complaining too much. $249 for this computer at sams club, it’s more than acceptable.
The Cleanup
What wasn’t so acceptable was the amount of garbage on the meager storage that this computer had. A full Windows XP disc image of drivers, which would be useful if she were replacing components of the computer (not really possible), copies of other drivers, a full mccaffe internet security installation, Microsoft Works, Powerpoint 2007 Viewer, and so on… Dell could have made my job easier by using a more updated windows installation and less cruft.
4 hours of updates, deinstallation of the assorted crud, and installation of smaller, better programs to handle her homework and entertainment needs, and she should be set to go. Her first full day of usage is still upcoming – the poor girl had to spend hours looking at it sitting in its box at sams and then at lunch.
The She-Beastie
Of course, with her own computer comes more responsibility. The first major difference is that previously, we had a computer in her room with which we had to log her in to meter out internet usage. Being a fixed computer, we also had remote desktop viewing capabilities, so she and her brother knew that we would be able to ‘see’ what they were doing despite it being in a different room.
I could install a remote desktop application on the netbook, but we decided against it. She’s going to need to develop her privacy, after all. The netbook will sit on moms desk so that it doesn’t get used prior to homework or other obligations, much like the desktop comptuer is now.
She’s been taught fairly well about what to do and what not to do while online. We’ll see how things go.