March 26, 2012

• I’m Grateful For:

  • Have you heard of a tag-a-long bike?  It’s a half bike that attaches to the back of a parent bike, so that kids can learn to ride.  Well… we needed one, badly.  Of all our kids, we’ve never had one like Aaron, who cannot watch where he’s going and pedal at the same time.  If he looks up, he can’t pedal.  If he’s watching his feet, he pedals right off the road.  It’s… issue-ful.  So I went on Craiglist to find one (because he’s too big for our toddler trailer, anymore), but the tag-a-longs are around $100!!  For something we’ll only use one year, that’s a LOT.  But I remembered that Aunt Barb had one years ago (Lydia was five-ish?) and so we called – since both her kids are now in their mid-20s, maybe she’d still have it and be willing to sell it?  Guess what!  Uncle Bob found a tag-along at a garage sale just last summer for super cheap, and even though they still have their old one, he picked it up, planning to re-sell it for more at their annual yard sale.  So they said we can come and buy it for super cheap from them – tonight!!!
  • My friend V.  She sold me this Nook (that I have alternatively cursed/geeked over for four days now), and included an AMAZING number of e-books on a little flash/thumb drive.  My friend Ali, who has SO patiently helped me to figure this Nook business out… and led me to the N2A site to get the chip that will allow me to access Kindle (since Calibre rejected five of the six Kindle books I ‘fed’ it).  My friend Missy, who led me to the FB page ‘A Pixel of Ink‘ – which heads-up people to more than a dozen free books a day.  Some are (((meh))), but some look really good, too!!
  • My niddah.  Which (hello) doesn’t sound like a blessing to a lot of people, but the timing is PERFECT for me – this coming Shabbat is the 7-day-to-Passover mark, and being clean for all the fun is a HUGE blessing.  I don’t like worrying about stuff like that!
  • Colored Printer Ink!  I have needed colored printer ink for… oh, about three years, now.  Only printer ink is SO. HoMiGAWSH. Expensive… and I know it sounds stupid, but I’ve got this phobia where colored printer ink is concerned (don’t ask – I don’t know why)… so I haven’t bought any.  But to make my myth cards, to print my chalk blogs (to have a record of the kids’ pictures in my own book)… I need colored ink.  So last night I went to get some, and it was on clearance for $10 off, so I got two.  And a service lady came over just then, and pointed out a sign that said “Buy more than $49 in HP ink, get two reams HP copy paper free”, so she helped me get the right stuff ($4.98/ream).  So I saved $30 on that trip, got TWO colored ink cartridges, AND two reams of paper out of it!!
  • I never thought I’d say this, but I’m grateful for Manga.  ((Backing up…))  Lydia hadn’t heard from either of her penpals in MONTHS… and was really feeling down about it.  And then yesterday a letter was in the mailbox – FOR HER, ohmiGAWSH, the joy!!  So she tore it open… and Elora draws manga.  She’s doing a comic book, and asked Lydia for character ideas.  Well!!  So we were on our way to my mother’s when we picked up the mail, and had an extra five minutes, so I impulsively turned off at the Byron exit and detoured us to the library, where I checked out a ‘how to draw manga’ book (for Lydia), a ‘how to draw Transformers’ book (for Isaac), a Superman book (for Aaron), and a Marvel Superheroes book (for Ethan).  Ever since, they have been drawing like MAD!  And Lydia’s Manga looks fantastic!
  • The previews before movies.  We went to the movies last night (pending adventure blog post!) and there were all of these animated previews… this Wallace&Gromet-esque pirate movie ((yuck)), Ice Age 4 (((ehhh))), Disney’s “Brave” (Fiber, you HAVE to go to YouTube and watch the preview – it’s SCOTTISH!!!), Despicable Me 2 ((gag)), and Madagascar 3… which normally I’d be amused by, but HoMiGAWSH, was that preview funny.  With Marty and the Polka-dot-Af-ro! Polka-dot-Af-ro!  I was TOTALLY busting a gut.  Toooooo funny!  I’m grateful for belly laughs.  And fun adventures.  I may have to post our Adventure blog early.  Like… tomorrow, maybe!
  • A plan, man.  I’ve got a plan, man.  Cuz… my blueberries get choked by weed e.V.e.R.Y year, and it’s just bogus, man.  So I’ve got a plan.  And tomorrow?  It gets implemented.
  • This is a mixed grateful… cuz it’s not exactly totally grateful. See, I have a thing about pictures.  Most of you know this… me n’ scrapbooking, me and pictoral accounting of our lives.  So… after the Air Zoo, I got to thinking about my mom’s photo albums, and how my kids might like to see pictures of my childhood, growing up military.  Only a few years ago, I remember my mom having a photo album upstairs (she keeps them in her basement), and I’d opened it, and the pictures were BADLY out of order.  And I couldn’t think why that would’ve happened… I mean, once people page their pictures, the pictures tend to not wander around in the books, y’know?

  So anyhow, when we went over there Thursday, I asked if I could borrow her photo albums to show the kids.  She said, “Well, you have that disc!”  What disc?  “I made a disc, Anna, and gave it to everyone.”  But the only disc I’ve ever gotten from her was at grandpa’s funeral – she made a disc of all the super-mega-old pictures of the great aunts, great-grandparents… all the black-n-white photos.  I’d never seen any other disc.  And if she DID make such a disc, she’d only have three people to give it to – me n’ my brother and sister… and since my sister LIVES with her, that’s kind of redundant, and my brother isn’t into the whole family history scene… so it sounded… odd?  Anyhow, she assured me that she’d make me a copy.  That’s the grateful part… I’m getting pictures of my childhood!!

  The not so grateful part is complicated.  See, Brian hadda go over Saturday morning to get his ball joint tool thinger (I don’t know, it’s auto-related and I’m blonde).  My mom said she’d drop off the disc Sunday to us (r’something) and then told him “Anna will be disappointed”.  He said she sounded as if something were WRONG with the photos.  And all I can think is that a) she pulled them out to put them on her computer, and didn’t do it page-at-a-time, and that’s why they were all out of order in the book… and maybe they’re going to be a mess on the disc?  Or b) that when she pulled them out, she said, “Oh, we don’t need THAT picture!” and started tossing the ones she didn’t like/want, so there are a lot of pictures missing…?… which is CLASSIC my-mom.  Or c)  that she lost half the pictures in the taking-out-of-the-books, and/or didn’t know what she did/didn’t copy to her PC, and… this could be very, very ugly.  In which case I will STILL be asking for the albums… but anyhow, now I have concerns.  And BTW, Brian told her we’d be gone Sunday, but she wasn’t seeming to be listening (Brian said), so if she showed, it wasn’t before we left at 5pm for our adventure… which means she would’ve not gotten us here, and I didn’t see a disc (he said she alluded to just dropping it off if we weren’t here).  So… I don’t know. 

  I think I need cheering up after that.  I may have to read the first seven over again to feel better!!

  • 10:59 am
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