Saturday, January 27, 2007

New Computer Take Two!

I had the joy of the computer singing really strangely to me last night. It locked up and then had a high pitched sound like 'the computer got put on a cat' as the techinican called it. I called Circuit City, they said oh yeah I can hear it bring it in.
That was 6:30pm last night.

I left there at 8:30pm last night after finding out the hard drive was bad on my computer. Since it is over 14 days old I can not return it. Since they are in 'transition' to the new Windows Vista I can not exchange it since they no longer carry my computer in stock! OF COURSE. It is 5 yrs old in computer. (even though it is only 20-something days old). It is still under the manufacturers warrenty since it is kind of new so I (NOT THEM) had to call the manufacturer and get an new hard drive ordered. Lovely. I called right from there and I am glad I did since the guy I had working on my computer ended up having to talk to gateway anyway (???) to verify that I indeed did have a bad hard drive. Then they wanted to get a credit card number to hold payment until the hard drive that was bad was sent back. GRRRRR! Keep in mind that I have a 'protection plan' that we bought when we got the computer just incase anything would happen. Then the manager who luckily hid in another room having a 'meeting' told my helper guy, Chad, that I would have to PAY TO HAVE THE NEW HARD DRIVE INSTALLED!!!
See anything wrong there?
I bought the computer the last thursday in December. We had it installed by them in our house 4 days later. 10 days later I brought it in because it was locking up while online. They couldn't find anything wrong so they gave it back (of course) and NOW the hard drive is bad so I HAVE TO PAY TO HAVE IT INSTALLED????
I THINK NOT!
Chad said I am going to override my manager in this case and NOT charge you for this since you obvisously have had this going on for some time. (Thanks Chad) I could just feel the red appearring in my face due to anger.
I am NEVER EVER GOING TO BUY FROM THEM AGAIN!!! They have great people that work there, at least some of them but for the most part forget it!!!
It was still useable so I was able to bring it home. I plug it back in and *poof* it won't even turn on. I am at a local library working with there computer.
I am expecting a new hard drive from Gateway in 3-5 business days.Brock says I don't know what I am going to do without an computer for a whole week!!

Lovely.

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Auntie Sara would be proud.

Bonjour is Hello.
Salut is good bye.
And this is how you say My name is.... He just can't spell it yet.
That is what I heard Brock say to Reece.
He really likes his 'World language' class.

He went on to say 'I already know droit and gauche (right and left) in French!'

He only had 1 class so far. He has it every other day, since the new semester started this week.

Monday, January 22, 2007

67 hours, Mr. Drama....

The kids were home by noon on Friday due to a half day. Brock had his friend over, Reece had his. Sunday was just a stay at home day.

Somehow Reece managed to NOT do his homework. Surprise, Surprise. Even after I asked if he had homework on Sunday, he still managed to wake up crying saying that he wasn't able to do his homework ALL WEEKEND. He even said he WORRIED about that ALL WEEKEND.
Hmmm.

I can see Friday.
I can see Saturday.
But I can not see SUNDAY. I didn't even take him to his Basketball due to the weather. I snowed a good 4 inches by us. I asked him Sunday night if he had any homework done. He spent 20 minutes looking for a folder he didn't have. Then Monday am he wants me to sign his assignment notebook saying he DID READ, DO MATH AND DO SCIENCE.
I NEVER SAW HIM READ THIS WEEKEND.
I saw a completed math worksheet.
BUT I ALSO SAW AN INCOMPLETE SCIENCE WORKSHEET.
67 HOURS. No time to play AND DO HOMEWORK????

I THINK NOT.
Too bad. I didn't sign the notebook, I just wrote 'Didn't Do'. He will have to deal with the consquences.

Just before he left he was crying about needing various colors of crayons.
??? I thought we bought those already???
Mr. Drama.

Mr. Manners

So Brock had a friend sleep over on Friday. VERY NICE kid. His name is Alix. His step mom and dad I used to work with at Anchor Foods. His Dad also used to go to school with Duner. I also happened to meet his mom at a parenting class I had with Brock. Alix was 9 months, Brock about 3 months. Alix's mom eventually married someone that I used to work with in high school at Target.
Small world...
Anyway... That kid is the model child. WOW! Can I have please? May I please? Do you need any help with...? He sat at the table and waited to get up until everyone was done. He didn't eat anything until everyone was ready to eat. If someone wanted something he had, no arguments just ok, its yours. He had such a deep voice too. Very different from my kids. Many times I had to point out to Brock you don't do that or you DO do this. Brock doesn't usually have friends over. He is very awkward and you could say not very thoughtful. Alix wasn't done eating an Brock left him at the table, I had to ask him to return to the table.

I was so mad, I had Brock read an entire book of manners when Alix left.

That afternoon, Reece had some friends over. When one of the friends left Reece stayed down stairs with another friend. I couldn't really chew him out, but Brock was quick to get the book and point out that it says this in this chapter.... Mr. Manners.

Saturday, January 20, 2007

Finally!

Thursday was the Pine Wood Derby Races for Reece and the boy scouts.
This year Reece made his car with grandpa Z. He was pretty excited about it this year. I am surprised the car survived from December until now without missing some pieces somehow!

Normally, Reece cries and makes it perfectly clear he doesn't take losing well.

We prepped Reece by telling him, crying won't be happening this year. He really needs to suck anything unexpected and deal with it. He responded by rolling his eyes at us. We are so uncool.

We get to the races and Reece has to use the bathroom. He must get that nervous bowel thing like his dad. We get it weighed in and it seems we need to add weight. Luckily they have a station set up where we can add weight to it. COOL! They really had it laid out well this year. We immediately walked in to the weigh station, then over to the weight add on station. His good friend made a Semi Truck for the races. The back end of course didn't race. It was very original. There was some indy looking cars and lots of extra lego pieces added to some cars. I think, by looking at the other cars, he already knew it wasn't going to go well. He was mellow, but glad to be with his friend Jacob.
Finally it was his turn to race. They have them go down multiple times, usually using different lanes each time. They lined the cars up and let them go.
First run, he placed 4th. Out of 4 cars.
Second run, 4th.
Third run, 4 th.
He got real quite, but NO DRAMA! I must say he reacted so well. He may have had tears well up but NO displays of agony that we had seen in the past. I was quite happy with him! I didn't want to help him too much with his car. I wanted him to be responsible for his actions and emotions.
He showed us he has become MUCH better.
He said I owed him Mc Donalds and Family Video for that.???
I didn't say that!

Sunday, January 14, 2007

Another Project down...

I spent about 3 hrs this am insulating the garage. I probably spent 1 hr moving objects. 30 min measuring, and 1 hr cutting the insulation. Yeaaaahhhh!!!
The Best part of the whole project is the fact that exact measurements are not required. I really like that. If it is to big, just jam it in. If it is to small, well then you do have to redo it. But usually I over estimated so that wasn't an issue.
They are now building two more homes near us, so the kids like to go and check that out, But I don't like them to go around there. Yesterday I hunted Reece down and found him playing on one of the mounds of dirt from the newly dug out basement. I guess it is better than him walking on the new basement walls. We also have a digger sitting right next to our house and is very tempting to the kids to check out.
Last night we took the kids to see Open Season. It is about a bear named Boog, who gets lead down a road of bad choices by Elliott the one antler deer. While a over angry hunter, named Shaw tries to evoke revenge on them. It was a very cute movie. We went to the late movie, Zeb fell asleep on the way there and I figured he would stay asleep the entire time but he was awake the whole movie. We had brought in a blanket so he could sleep if we needed it but he seemed to really like this movie.
When we left the theater we got stopped by a large black man and a plump white lady who were begging for money to catch a bus to La Crosse. Duner said we don't have any, since we just use our debt card for everything, so we could not help them even if we wanted to. They talked to Duner a little while longer but I went to buckle Zeb in the car. It was late and I was cold. I felt sorry for them, but how did they get here with out money? Why would you travel if you couldn't afford it? It just seemed fishy.
I am glad I wasn't alone. It is too scary out there.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Newbie Wisdom

Since my youngest felt the need to watch TV at 4am this morning, I had some extra time to browse on my computer... I found these cute "Common Mistakes made by Newbie Triathletes"

2. Big girls on mountain bikes. Big girls on mountain bikes are surpassingly fast. Do not take it for granted that just because you are on a big ring, carbon fiber, aero bar out-fitted, race-tuned tri-bike that you'll easily pass that big girl up ahead. Make this mistake at your own peril and your self-esteem will suffer.*** I will agree to this one! I had a big girl on a mountain bike FLY past me! Twice! She took a wrong turn and still whizzed by!****

1. Beer. Avoid all triathlons that are not sponsored by a brewery. Not only does a post race beer greatly help in the recovery process, but it also helps one forget all the mistakes. Plus as an added benefit after enough beers, that big girl on the mountain bike don't seem so big anymore.

I just thought the last one was cute.

Friday, January 05, 2007

Full Moon = No Good.

Everywhere you turn these days people are hacking and just generally sick. Since, I work at a Doctor's office so I see it even more than most people and Christmas was a BAD time for everyone to get together.
It is one of the few times I see one of my sister's. This year she looked awful. She had a chest cold and looked like she struggled to breathe. My other sister had just recovered from that but lives almost 200 miles away, so I am pretty sure she had NOTHING to do with her getting sick.
After I asked my coworker how her Holiday went she said " You mean the vomiting and Diarreha?" Not so good. Another has a 'Sexy Voice' due to her cold and one of the Md's that I work with had been fighting to keep her voice this week. It is not helping that we had to over book her severely! We only have 2 Md's. Between them on Wednesday they saw 64 patients on Wednesday. She was unable to dictate or talk to her family at night in an effort to save her voice. Thursday morning she whispered to me, 'Absolutely no more patients today'. Just as we filled her schedule. That meant No double booking, and since our other Md's schedule was filled the day before we had to start turning people away. Which went unbelievably well.
It was a full moon on Wednesday and usually that means trouble. Just before 9am we had a fire alarm go off. Not a test. Apparently the coffee guy, cleaned our coffee maker and the chemicals he uses sometimes make the alarms go off, because they are so strong. Which is what happened. So we left the building, or at least stood in the exits and waited for the fire dept to shut off the alarm.
Thankfully they came within 10 minutes or so and we quickly tried to finish anything that we were doing when it went off. We had forwarded the phones during that time and so we had some people just come down since they could not talk to anyone. Apparently the fire trucks in front didn't disturb them at all. People very much amaze me sometimes.

And of course, each and every January we have to start copying all the ins cards all over again and changes to governmental insurance and you have the craziest Wednesday I have worked in a long time.

Monday, January 01, 2007

Internet pediment

It feels like forever since I have been able to blog.
Our computer died last week. We had a power supply go bad and it wrecked our motherboard.
Sadly we put it out of commission. Even more depressing was the price we had to pay to get another one. I really had advertisers. They show a GREAT price for a computer but then to get it to work you have to pay to have programs like Microsoft works added in. I thought Bill gates was a Billionaire. Doesn't he have enough money already?
I don't get our new computer til tomorrow. We are having somebody come over and try to salvage the hard drive and make sure our Road Runner works ok. I really like to look up so much online it has been a eye opening experience to have life without a computer. Even Brock called me at work the other day, he was home with Duner sleeping and he doesn't like to wake him up, and he asked 'Mom, can I play on the internet?'. That was an easy answer. I said "We don't have a computer with internet access".
'Oh Yeah' he said.