My two sons are in the middle of a 3-week break (they go to year-round school). I thought things would slow down a bit and I had a (apparently delusional) plan to sort through our clutter during this 3-week hiatus. Instead, I've been running around like a chicken with its head cut off and dealing with the strangest issues that I had no idea were going to come up.
First was Action Replay. If you don't know what this is, it's for games played on Nintendo DS and it gives players cheat codes to help them figure out how to play the game and get more points (I think - I don't know it as well as my son does). With previous games, he's just used Action Replay when he's wanted to and everyone's happy and I don't have to get involved - because I know nothing about these games or how to operate a DS. Then he got a new game: Pokeman Soulsilver. It just came out recently and I was surprised he wanted it because he hasn't been interested in any of his other Pokeman games for awhile. Well, Action Replay doesn't have codes for Pokeman Soulsilver. I was told that I could go on their website and manually download them. I went on their website, my husband went on their website, my son went on their website. We couldn't figure out how to download these codes. I tried calling their customer service number for about a week and even tried their automated help line when I couldn't get through to a live person. It was just so frustrating! I tried talking to the store where we get all our games (Gamestop) and after talking to three different employees, nobody seemed to know how to do it and they referred me to Action Replay's website (not going to help!) Finally, finally, one morning I just kept clicking on different areas on their website and got to an area where it seemed to tell you how to manually download codes. I called my son and had him get me to the right screens on the DS as I followed the instructions - it worked! Hallelujah!! However, you should see how many numbers and letters you have to download! I told my son I would download maybe 3 or so a day until we had them all. I felt suddenly very tech-savvy and proud of myself. Now a week later, somehow everything's gotten erased on his DS and he's not sure how. So, I get to re-download all the codes and cross my fingers that it doesn't happen again this time.
Then there's the skateboard. I had the foolish notion that you could just go out, buy a skateboard with your son and be done with it. Silly me. The first skateboard was fine at first, but after a couple of days, it started veering to the left. My husband tried fiddling around with various screws and such and nothing helped. So we took the board back and bought a different one. This one started veering to the right almost immediately. When we went back to the store, an employee told us to spray graphite on the wheels. We tried that and it didn't do anything. So we took that board back and went looking at different stores. After going to about four various sport and board shops and talking to various people, we bought our third board. We made sure this board rolls straight and my son tried it out and liked how it feels. All this took about a week to finally figure out. Is he outside riding his board now? No. He says it's too loose, even though the person at the shop said it was a tight board after he got on it. So my husband will tighten the d#mn thing and hopefully my son will decide it's fine to ride. Otherwise, he pays us back.
One more week of Spring Break to go. Will I ever get to our clutter?
About Me
- wiimom.com
- I am a stay-at-home mom of two sons, 12 and 10. I used to be an advertising manager. I love my new career and have thrown myself completely into it.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Thursday, March 4, 2010
OVERWHELMED!
Wow, it's been a long time since I've published a post - sorry. Things have gotten absolutely crazy around here! It's hard to get computer time since my husband's been unemployed. Between him and the kids, I get squeezed off of it. There have also just been a lot of little things, big things, annoying things to take care of on top of the everyday tasks. Some of these things are big time guzzlers too.
One of the most annoying and frustrating items I've been dealing with since mid-February is COBRA. I've been on COBRA twice before and have never had a problem. The problem is not with the COBRA program but with a company my husband's former employer uses to administer COBRA for them. I mailed them the sign-up paperwork and a check, but they never received it. We had to get about three people involved from my husband's former employer to get it sorted through so we would actually be signed up before the expiration date. I finally had to Express Mail a new set of forms and another check. God only knows what happened to the 1st check and my bank wants to charge me $29 for a stop-payment - not what you need when unemployed and doing things correctly in the first place.
Another annoying problem has been trying to start one of my prescriptions on mail-order with a new insurance company that we got as of 1/1/10. For some reason, they won't send me paperwork to mail a prescription to them. They prefer for it to be faxed to them directly from my doctor's office. However, my doctor's assistant has tried to fax it to them four different times throughout a 3-week period. Every time, they say they haven't received it. We've double-checked the fax number and it's fine and the fax from the doctor's office says it went through successfully. It just seems to fall into a black hole on the other side. So I'm still dealing with this issue.
On top of that our refrigerator is leaking water from the top freezer into the fridge below. So I'm constantly sopping up water and placing cups in there to try to catch it. We decided to just buy a new fridge because this one is about 13 years old and we've spent about $100/year for the past four years trying to fix different problems. We spent $100 about five months ago because the motor went out. The repairman said it would be "good as new" with the replacement motor and might have about ten more years left - HA!! We're sick of continually putting money into this moneypit so we bought a new one, on sale, with a $50 instant rebate for getting an Energy Star version. That whole process took a couple of weeks and I'm waiting for the new one to be delivered right now. It's supposed to come some time between 9am - 1pm. So I'm to just sit tight until they decide to arrive. No problem - four hours out of my busy schedule is nothing - nah.
So on top of all this and the everyday items have been the following: planning, shopping for and helping out for both my sons' classes' Valentine's Day parties, which did overlap, buying special pants and shoes for my son before a special field trip because he's out-grown the others, trying to find items for my son's upcoming play, having a pre-scheduled annual doctor's appointment without knowing if insurance is going to pay, having some major homework/schoolwork issues with one of my sons and planning two parties for my son's birthday (one for family, one for friends).
I didn't sleep much last night because I woke up around 2:30, then my head just started going. There's so much clutter I need to go through and projects I need to start and keep working on like putting pictures into an album from years ago and doing some spring cleaning. I worry about how my sons are doing, how we are doing financially, any unforseen bumps in the road in the future, etc., etc. Everything seems more unmanageable at 2:30 in the morning. I'm gearing up for parties on St. Patrick's Day in both sons' classes and my younger son's two birthday parties the weekend before. Hopefully, I can stop, breathe and remember to actually enjoy all this even when I get stressed.
One of the most annoying and frustrating items I've been dealing with since mid-February is COBRA. I've been on COBRA twice before and have never had a problem. The problem is not with the COBRA program but with a company my husband's former employer uses to administer COBRA for them. I mailed them the sign-up paperwork and a check, but they never received it. We had to get about three people involved from my husband's former employer to get it sorted through so we would actually be signed up before the expiration date. I finally had to Express Mail a new set of forms and another check. God only knows what happened to the 1st check and my bank wants to charge me $29 for a stop-payment - not what you need when unemployed and doing things correctly in the first place.
Another annoying problem has been trying to start one of my prescriptions on mail-order with a new insurance company that we got as of 1/1/10. For some reason, they won't send me paperwork to mail a prescription to them. They prefer for it to be faxed to them directly from my doctor's office. However, my doctor's assistant has tried to fax it to them four different times throughout a 3-week period. Every time, they say they haven't received it. We've double-checked the fax number and it's fine and the fax from the doctor's office says it went through successfully. It just seems to fall into a black hole on the other side. So I'm still dealing with this issue.
On top of that our refrigerator is leaking water from the top freezer into the fridge below. So I'm constantly sopping up water and placing cups in there to try to catch it. We decided to just buy a new fridge because this one is about 13 years old and we've spent about $100/year for the past four years trying to fix different problems. We spent $100 about five months ago because the motor went out. The repairman said it would be "good as new" with the replacement motor and might have about ten more years left - HA!! We're sick of continually putting money into this moneypit so we bought a new one, on sale, with a $50 instant rebate for getting an Energy Star version. That whole process took a couple of weeks and I'm waiting for the new one to be delivered right now. It's supposed to come some time between 9am - 1pm. So I'm to just sit tight until they decide to arrive. No problem - four hours out of my busy schedule is nothing - nah.
So on top of all this and the everyday items have been the following: planning, shopping for and helping out for both my sons' classes' Valentine's Day parties, which did overlap, buying special pants and shoes for my son before a special field trip because he's out-grown the others, trying to find items for my son's upcoming play, having a pre-scheduled annual doctor's appointment without knowing if insurance is going to pay, having some major homework/schoolwork issues with one of my sons and planning two parties for my son's birthday (one for family, one for friends).
I didn't sleep much last night because I woke up around 2:30, then my head just started going. There's so much clutter I need to go through and projects I need to start and keep working on like putting pictures into an album from years ago and doing some spring cleaning. I worry about how my sons are doing, how we are doing financially, any unforseen bumps in the road in the future, etc., etc. Everything seems more unmanageable at 2:30 in the morning. I'm gearing up for parties on St. Patrick's Day in both sons' classes and my younger son's two birthday parties the weekend before. Hopefully, I can stop, breathe and remember to actually enjoy all this even when I get stressed.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
It Feels As Though My House Is Falling Apart!
Right now I'm waiting to get a new garage door opener installed. It's been sounding strange for a couple of weeks now. Last night my youngest son accidentally opened the garage door, then closed it - only it didn't close all the way and when we tried to push the button, it did nothing, just made a weird, quiet humming noise. So we manually tried to open the door and the chain to the opener started falling and completely twisting itself. We finally opened it enough for my husband to get his car out. At first we thought my son did something to cause it to break, but it just seems that it was going to happen the next time the button got pushed and he just happened to be the one to do it. In the last seven years we have had the springs on that opener replaced twice. I'm getting very angry with this opener.
On top of that, in the last year or so we have had to fix our furnace, our air conditioner keeps not working and we'll need to replace that, we need a new refrigerator and have spent about $100 per year trying to fix various things wrong with it for the last 3-4 years (the last fix was about 5 months ago and now the freezer keeps leaking fluid into the fridge), our toilets keep backing up, especially the downstairs one which was replaced about 4 years ago, we had a leak in our ceiling caused by a faulty plumbing job (the repair to the ceiling took about 4 months, no kidding, because they kept messing it up), we had to replace our gas stove, replace our microwave handle and a few of the cupboard doors in our kitchen keep falling off. And these are just the ones I can think of at the top of my head. Our dishwasher sounds kind of funky every once in awhile, but I just try not to use it much and hope for the best. I feel that every week there is a new problem to handle. Of course money is really tight right now because my husband became unemployed as of early January so we're trying to hold off on everything as long as possible.
Do you ever feel as if your house is starting to fall apart? Our house is only about 16 years old and it seems the lifespan of everything is coming to its end. It definitely seems that things don't last as long as they used to. I'm going to buy a bunch of duct tape soon and wrap it around the house to try to hold it all up before it all disintegrates!
On top of that, in the last year or so we have had to fix our furnace, our air conditioner keeps not working and we'll need to replace that, we need a new refrigerator and have spent about $100 per year trying to fix various things wrong with it for the last 3-4 years (the last fix was about 5 months ago and now the freezer keeps leaking fluid into the fridge), our toilets keep backing up, especially the downstairs one which was replaced about 4 years ago, we had a leak in our ceiling caused by a faulty plumbing job (the repair to the ceiling took about 4 months, no kidding, because they kept messing it up), we had to replace our gas stove, replace our microwave handle and a few of the cupboard doors in our kitchen keep falling off. And these are just the ones I can think of at the top of my head. Our dishwasher sounds kind of funky every once in awhile, but I just try not to use it much and hope for the best. I feel that every week there is a new problem to handle. Of course money is really tight right now because my husband became unemployed as of early January so we're trying to hold off on everything as long as possible.
Do you ever feel as if your house is starting to fall apart? Our house is only about 16 years old and it seems the lifespan of everything is coming to its end. It definitely seems that things don't last as long as they used to. I'm going to buy a bunch of duct tape soon and wrap it around the house to try to hold it all up before it all disintegrates!
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Tried to Be Healthy (Failed Miserably)
So last night I made a nice fish dish. I usually make fish on Tuesday nights because the garbage comes on Wednesday and I don't want the fish smell in our garbage for too long. I try to cook fish at least once a week because it is so healthy. So I went to a very good fish market in our area, which I do every Tuesday, and picked some fish called Rex Sole.
Rex Sole is a tasty, very flaky fish. But the hard part about it is that it has bones. You have to cook it and then cut through it and remove the spine and bones in one sweep-through, if you can. Now these aren't large fish. So to feed four people, I had about 10 fish. You have to do this with all the fish and when you try to remove the spine and bones, they sometimes fall apart, which makes it a lot more messy and difficult.
Anyway, it was done and we finally sat down to eat. The kids weren't excited about what we were eating - fish is never their favorite thing, but we made them eat some of it. My husband and I thoroughly enjoyed it! The fish was very fresh and when Rex Sole is very fresh, there can be a wonderful brininess (salty-seawater flavor). We very much enjoyed our meal, but there wasn't a lot of fish flesh after removing all the bones and skin. So we ended up hungry. After dinner, the whole family was still hungry.
Well, the weekend before we had a couple of our sisters-in-law over and one of them brought over a couple of Philly Cheesesteak sandwiches (can you see where this is going?) They were wonderful!! Filling, meaty, cheesy - just got to you where it matters. So we were all feeling a bit unfulfilled and decided as a group that what would fulfill us at this point would be splitting a couple of, yes, Philly Cheesesteak sandwiches.
So off to the restaurant I went to pick up a couple of orders and I realized my evening of trying to eat healthy went bust - oh well~
Rex Sole is a tasty, very flaky fish. But the hard part about it is that it has bones. You have to cook it and then cut through it and remove the spine and bones in one sweep-through, if you can. Now these aren't large fish. So to feed four people, I had about 10 fish. You have to do this with all the fish and when you try to remove the spine and bones, they sometimes fall apart, which makes it a lot more messy and difficult.
Anyway, it was done and we finally sat down to eat. The kids weren't excited about what we were eating - fish is never their favorite thing, but we made them eat some of it. My husband and I thoroughly enjoyed it! The fish was very fresh and when Rex Sole is very fresh, there can be a wonderful brininess (salty-seawater flavor). We very much enjoyed our meal, but there wasn't a lot of fish flesh after removing all the bones and skin. So we ended up hungry. After dinner, the whole family was still hungry.
Well, the weekend before we had a couple of our sisters-in-law over and one of them brought over a couple of Philly Cheesesteak sandwiches (can you see where this is going?) They were wonderful!! Filling, meaty, cheesy - just got to you where it matters. So we were all feeling a bit unfulfilled and decided as a group that what would fulfill us at this point would be splitting a couple of, yes, Philly Cheesesteak sandwiches.
So off to the restaurant I went to pick up a couple of orders and I realized my evening of trying to eat healthy went bust - oh well~
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Winter's My Second Favorite Season
Fall's my favorite season, although nowadays, Fall gets really hectic with planning for all the holidays with the kids and the fact that my husband's, my, and both my brothers' birthdays happen during the Fall in addition to my husband's and my anniversary. So Fall's a bit of a whirlwind, which sometimes makes it so stressful that it's hard to appreciate it as much as I used to. When I was a child, I looked forward to the weather getting chillier and the days getting darker earlier - it made me feel cozy. I also liked all the upcoming holidays - I loved them all - Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas.
Winter has always been my second favorite season because I really like colder weather. Now let me explain that I've grown up in Southern California so when I say the weather gets colder, I'm not talking about snow storms or below freezing temperature. I'm sure that would change things for me a bit. I'm talking about getting some rain, which I love! And temperatures in the 60's, maybe the 50's. You can start putting on sweaters, which is a treat in Southern California. Also, I get sick of all the sunshine. When you have sunshine most days of the year, it does really get boring. You start to crave the excitement of real weather.
Well we had a week of real weather last week. We actually had five straight days of rain, which I never remember happening in my 41 years of living here. Some of the days had heavy rain. We had a lot of flooding, to the point where we actually made the national news. We even had a couple of small tornadoes, which is unheard of. We saw a car that was stuck in a flooded street and there was an ambulance trying to figure out how to best get the trapped person out of the vehicle. We had a couple of neighbors whose backyards and garages flooded. We got lucky - we stayed dry.
I love the rain and so do my two sons. When it's raining hard, they love to run out into the rain and get sopping wet. I let them because it happens so infrequently. Then they come inside, strip and go straight into the shower to clean and warm up. Now my husband is even starting to have fun with the rain. He's always liked hot weather, not cold, because he grew up in Waukesha, WI and had to deal with freezing winters. But since the boys and me enjoy the rain so much, it's kind of rubbed off on him. Now he's saying he's looking forward to more rain and he's never said that before.
So now the forecast is saying clear weather until Thursday (about 5 days away). We'll get some logs ready because it's so fun to get a fire in the fireplace to feel extra cozy. I'll plan on making some kind of stew in the crockpot to go along with the cozy theme. If it's raining in the morning, we make our boys hot chocolate before school and they love it. We'll take advantage of all this right now, because in a couple of months it will go back to days on end of endless sunshine. I know that may sound like heaven to some, but really, it does get a bit boring.
Winter has always been my second favorite season because I really like colder weather. Now let me explain that I've grown up in Southern California so when I say the weather gets colder, I'm not talking about snow storms or below freezing temperature. I'm sure that would change things for me a bit. I'm talking about getting some rain, which I love! And temperatures in the 60's, maybe the 50's. You can start putting on sweaters, which is a treat in Southern California. Also, I get sick of all the sunshine. When you have sunshine most days of the year, it does really get boring. You start to crave the excitement of real weather.
Well we had a week of real weather last week. We actually had five straight days of rain, which I never remember happening in my 41 years of living here. Some of the days had heavy rain. We had a lot of flooding, to the point where we actually made the national news. We even had a couple of small tornadoes, which is unheard of. We saw a car that was stuck in a flooded street and there was an ambulance trying to figure out how to best get the trapped person out of the vehicle. We had a couple of neighbors whose backyards and garages flooded. We got lucky - we stayed dry.
I love the rain and so do my two sons. When it's raining hard, they love to run out into the rain and get sopping wet. I let them because it happens so infrequently. Then they come inside, strip and go straight into the shower to clean and warm up. Now my husband is even starting to have fun with the rain. He's always liked hot weather, not cold, because he grew up in Waukesha, WI and had to deal with freezing winters. But since the boys and me enjoy the rain so much, it's kind of rubbed off on him. Now he's saying he's looking forward to more rain and he's never said that before.
So now the forecast is saying clear weather until Thursday (about 5 days away). We'll get some logs ready because it's so fun to get a fire in the fireplace to feel extra cozy. I'll plan on making some kind of stew in the crockpot to go along with the cozy theme. If it's raining in the morning, we make our boys hot chocolate before school and they love it. We'll take advantage of all this right now, because in a couple of months it will go back to days on end of endless sunshine. I know that may sound like heaven to some, but really, it does get a bit boring.
Friday, January 15, 2010
The Party's Over
Geez, it's January 15th and I finally got a chance to get back onto my blog. First, we had the holidays and the boys were home from school and the hubby had days off work and we were busy with activities and they all hogged the computer when we were home. Then, the boys go to a year-round school and they had three weeks off, instead of two, which most schools in the area got. So we went skiing the week of 1/4, when everyone had to go back to school and work. It was great because the slopes weren't very busy and we didn't have to pay increased holiday prices. In fact, we found a great mid-week deal at a resort which included lift tickets, breakfast and 50% off coupons for equipment rentals, so it was a steal. The day after we got back from vacation, the boys had the beginning of their winter football season. So we were on the field all day with both their practices and games, then there was a family party immediately after because my husband's aunt was in town for a week (from Wisconsin). Then we had one day to get ready before the boys started school again and I really needed to unpack everything and get some laundry done. By the time the boys went back to school and I could reasonably get back on my blog, it was already 1/11.
However, my husband then accepted a layoff offer from his company. We're in the middle of a huge recession and my husband is currently unemployed (officially, I am too). So he's been home all week and on the computer constantly. He's getting in touch with a lot of current and former associates and has a pro-bono project he's doing with a former associate in the hopes of it turning into a paying gig. So I haven't had a chance to get onto my blog!! Sorry about that, although judging from the number of comments from previous blogs :( I'm not sure anyone has noticed. Well, now I'm going to try to get more followers so I don't feel like I'm just talking to myself. I'm still fairly new to this so I need to learn a lot as I go.
Ok - now to get back to the whole room-mom thing, things are quiet on this first week back from school. I just got back from volunteering in both kids' classes and there are no projects or parties to plan until Valentine's. Then we'll see how it goes because I'm sure their parties will happen on the same day. I'm looking forward to it, though, because Valentine's Day is just a fun, happy holiday. I love all the pink and red and chocolate and sweets and cards. So I'll be happy to run between the two classrooms (I presume). The week after, I've volunteered to chaperone a field trip for my younger son's class (3rd grade) and in March, I've volunteered to chaperone a field trip for my older son's class (5th grade).
March might get a bit crazy because I think both classes want to celebrate St. Patrick's Day and my younger son's birthday is the day before. I'm sure there will be a celebration for the extended family, one for his friends and a little class celebration (I'll probably bring in cupcakes or hand out goody bags). For St. Patrick's Day, because I'm Irish, I'll also have to make the obligatory corned beef and cabbage. Oh, by the way, did I also mention that it will be both our sons' last day of acting class? So we will be in both their classes to watch a performance (which probably means me at one class and my husband at the other unless he's gainfully employed by then, PLEASE!) And of course, since it's the day after my younger son's birthday, I'll need to bring treats in for his acting class. Yikes! March is going to kill me!! Oh and wait, on top of that, that week is conference week at school so the kids get out early all week and I'll have to set up a meeting with both teachers.
I really better take advantage of the downtime right now.
However, my husband then accepted a layoff offer from his company. We're in the middle of a huge recession and my husband is currently unemployed (officially, I am too). So he's been home all week and on the computer constantly. He's getting in touch with a lot of current and former associates and has a pro-bono project he's doing with a former associate in the hopes of it turning into a paying gig. So I haven't had a chance to get onto my blog!! Sorry about that, although judging from the number of comments from previous blogs :( I'm not sure anyone has noticed. Well, now I'm going to try to get more followers so I don't feel like I'm just talking to myself. I'm still fairly new to this so I need to learn a lot as I go.
Ok - now to get back to the whole room-mom thing, things are quiet on this first week back from school. I just got back from volunteering in both kids' classes and there are no projects or parties to plan until Valentine's. Then we'll see how it goes because I'm sure their parties will happen on the same day. I'm looking forward to it, though, because Valentine's Day is just a fun, happy holiday. I love all the pink and red and chocolate and sweets and cards. So I'll be happy to run between the two classrooms (I presume). The week after, I've volunteered to chaperone a field trip for my younger son's class (3rd grade) and in March, I've volunteered to chaperone a field trip for my older son's class (5th grade).
March might get a bit crazy because I think both classes want to celebrate St. Patrick's Day and my younger son's birthday is the day before. I'm sure there will be a celebration for the extended family, one for his friends and a little class celebration (I'll probably bring in cupcakes or hand out goody bags). For St. Patrick's Day, because I'm Irish, I'll also have to make the obligatory corned beef and cabbage. Oh, by the way, did I also mention that it will be both our sons' last day of acting class? So we will be in both their classes to watch a performance (which probably means me at one class and my husband at the other unless he's gainfully employed by then, PLEASE!) And of course, since it's the day after my younger son's birthday, I'll need to bring treats in for his acting class. Yikes! March is going to kill me!! Oh and wait, on top of that, that week is conference week at school so the kids get out early all week and I'll have to set up a meeting with both teachers.
I really better take advantage of the downtime right now.
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