Monday Magic

[OKay]

~~~waving Hi to all~~~~

8.5 hours with 5 & 3 year old going top speed playing continually. How DO they do it? OH the energy level of the young is a treasure. THANKFULLY the weather here is warm enough for them to play outdoors. DSon back yard is a youngster play-fest and so they have plenty to keep them occupied. I try to stay in position to see all 3 at the same time. DGD has a camera system in her room that I can carry a phone-size monitor around with me so I can still watch her sleep. If she makes a noise I can hear it on the monitor and see what she is doing. This may be my favorite technology gadget.

[Elizabeth]

It's sleeting outside. I have dinner planned - leftover ham and rice. Then we will knock out homework. Then, we go to XDH's house to feed dog and hopefully find DD's Dragon Singers uniform. Otherwise, tomorrow I have to drive to the airport (WWWAAAAAYYYY across town) and get them out of XDH's truck in airport parking. I am printing lots of stuff right now. Office mate's radio is on a Christmas station, big improvement over Friday's talk radio. They just had a decent rendition of Jingle Bells, ruined by a fake horse sound at the end, why?

[lucylee]

Oh my... I wish some of y'all WERE giving out magic wands... there is SOOO much I'd do with a magic wand today.
* First, I'd make dparents & dinlaws healthy for the rest of their lives, and when the time comes, they would all die peacefully in their sleep. Ditto that for everyone I love. Ditto that for everyone I even KNOW (IRL and here in our little village, and I would definitely extend that magic to all of YOUR loved ones, too!)
* I would make sure ddil has an easy pregnancy & delivery, and that baby arrives healthy & happy.
* I would give ddil a nursing degree.
* I would give ds & ddil a bigger house and I would take away any financial worries they might ever have.
* I would make myself able to NEVER worry or panic about anything, ever again.
* I would make my eyes quit itching!!!
* All my papers would be graded, exam for Friday would be ready to give out, lesson plan for sub would be prepared.
* House would be clean.
* Laundry would be done & put away.
* I would lose 25 pounds -- at least. Maybe 30. I would take away all calories in everything I like to eat.

I guess that's my Top Ten List for the day.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

TV came. TV will likely be packed up and returned. Sigh....

We carried the old tv downstairs. It is a 27" tv which was the largest size we were able to manage on our own, which is why we bought it 10 years ago. I took lots of pictures to put it up on freecycle. Good thing we decided to watch a movie first.

Dh hooked up the new tv. We had a few words about how I still needed the antenna hooked up to the vcr, and then it hooked up to the tv so that we could use the vcr. Dh wondered if it would filter out the digital signal but tried it and, as I expected, the coax input/output is just flow-through so the digital tv signals flow through from the antenna. The tv gets a good number of digital channels (all I expected except three I haven't had since the cold weather started) plus three of the old analog stations which makes it better than the kitchen set-up. (It means that if the wind or snow is breaking up the digital signal, we can still get some poor-pictured tv on the three main Canadian channels.)

He started by checking using the Star Trek dvd. It is all blue. Apparently, the RGB input on the tv doesn't work. We got the dvd player running by hooking it using a composite method which is a lower quality signal. Then it was in all colours, so we know it must either be our connecting cable or our tv's connector. Since the dvd player worked last night with that cable, I'm guessing it is the tv's connector. We have nothing else to test it with so we'll have to take it to the store to figure this out. Sigh....

I'm so fed up with the whole transaction, I'm ready to return the tv. This is a Sony and the most expensive one in this size (just 32", this isn't a big tv for the rest of the world but will be the largest we own), twice what I should be paying, therefore I'm truly out of patience with this whole thing. I've spent hours and hours researching what is available in Canada, breaking down and buying the most expensive because it was the only one with the spec dh wanted that was 'reliable' according to reviews and 2 weeks waiting for the dang thing to come because of the idiot retailer and now the ding-dang thing doesn't fully work. I'm out of patience.

This has not been a good day. On the other hand, I did get the dvd player and audio receiver dusted while everything was apart.

I'm not looking forward to carrying the old tv up the stairs but it should be easier than carrying down (we lifted it down one step at a time because I couldn't carry the weight by being on the bottom and couldn't bend over while holding the tv if I was on the upper end.)

[OKay]

YES!!! DGD-11months old is asleep for the night
YES!!! LO is asleep
YES!!! DDIL is out of surgery. Doc said it was successful and DSon will be able to see her in about an hour (she is in recovery)
YES!!! DGS5 and I are snuggled up on the couch. I suspect he will be asleep soon. He has played hard today and been a total sweetheart helping me here and there.

I was going to order a pizza for dinner, but it just seemed easier to cook than to look up phone number, order, wait for it and then open door to a stranger when i am alone with 3 little ones. I cooked some pasta, covered it with jar spaghetti sauce and grated cheese and told the boys it was called Nana's pasta pizza. The boys believed that nonsense story and ate it as if it was wonderful. I gave them ice cream for dessert and we all were double happy with the spur-of-the-moment-menu.

I am THRILLED that LO has not had anxiety/stress about traveling and being away from home. This is HUGE for him. ****Very Big Sigh of relief****

[Nancy]

Yea for Okay & Indiana!

If I had a magic wand I'd wave it over these peanut butter cookies and make them perfect
in every way they are not! They are going to work w/ hubby for the guys and I'm going to have to start over I think. The prob. is I did not do a test cookie and the first ones were under done two for test I did got over done. They were from the tub nestle toll house, but dang it's not rocket science! LOL! I'm just glad the other batch turned out good that we did up this morning.

I've containerized those and spiffed up the dishes. Next up laundry to fold.
Last load of laundry is folded.
H. is tweaking some plans for sil for tomorrow a diff. house to be built we think keeping fingers & toes crossed.
Going to watch the sea hawks game now.

[Indiana]

I have had a magical day without using a wand. Lots and lots accomplished.

[Harmony]

(OKay) I'm jealous of all the energy you have. Not jealous, really, I'm glad you have it for your family. I just wish I had it too!

Kathryn, sorry your new tv turned out to be less than perfect for you.

I fizzled out. Got my desk less than half cleared. I must get to it tomorrow morning pronto. There are due dates looming.

Kept falling asleep everytime I sat. Managed to get dinner and clean up. I guess I'll start the dishwasher and go off to bed.

[lucylee]

I'm sorry I sounded so whiney in my post. Wanting a magic wand to change all the things I can't change, and some of the things I could change, if only I would.

I have just about finished my laundry -- which was a MAJOR, MAJOR accomplishment, I can promise you.
Talked to dmom & ddad on the phone.
Read the paper.
Sent dbro an email.
Sent and email for dh to his cousin.

I guess I really should divide & conquer on those papers I need to grade.
Surely I can do one or two bundles before I collapse for the night.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Turns out it isn't the tv, it is the dvd player. Dh must have broken it when plugging things in (he didn't turn things off when adjusting cables.) We proved the tv was fine by bringing up the dvd player from the basement which works fine. No problem, thinks I, we'll just swap dvd players since the one in the basement is only used in composite mode (which still works.) Then dh realized the basement dvd doesn't have digital audio (to the surround sound) and we need that for upstairs because we connect the dvd to the projector and the sound to the surround sound and then have a 70" screen for watching movies.

So on the bright side, we don't have to return the tv. On the downside, we have to buy an new dvd player. Since this is a Sony, if we buy a Sony one, it will integrate better with the tv. I now have to research Sony video players. Do we buy a dvd player (do they even make them anymore) or do we buy a blue ray player (I know they play dvds too) or do we buy a game system since it seems to me they have blue ray built into them. I'm in a grumpy mood because it seems that every time we buy something to bring us further into the current times, we have to buy something else because nothing is compatible with our old stuff.

The dvd that is compromised (it works fine, just not on component video) is 10 years old and we saved for 10 months to buy it. We saved by not going to movies and putting the money we would have spent into a special fund. I was working on teaching the kids delayed gratification. When we went to the store to buy the dvd player, we discovered it wouldn't work with our old tv so we were forced to buy a new tv as well. Luckily we had the money to buy a new tv but it kind of blew my delayed gratification lesson out of the water since we hadn't budgeted that into the process but I still bought it the same day.

I'm still in a mood and don't want to go to bed but I'm really tired so should. Tomorrow is another quiet day for me since dh needed the car so I can't go to my Presbytery volunteering.