Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Christmas

We had a nice quiet Christmas at home. Just us, no visitors, no driving for 8 plus hours to see our families. After seeing all the storms that have hit the Northeast US in the last few weeks, I'm glad we chose to stay home.

Of course, the kids only got a few things each, as they already have enough toys around here to start a day care center. Now that I am mostly done with the clothes rewashing and sorting and storing, I think I'll start sorting the toys in the attic and all around the house. My 6 yr old would like to play with his Duplo battery powered train. The tracks are in various bins scattered around the house. Maybe I can find enough to make an oval track to start with?

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Amnio results are in

Everything they test for came back normal. #10 will even us out again, 5th girl! Of course, I gave away most of the baby stuff after Sam out grew it. Oh well, Mom owns a children's clothing consignment shop. I'll get "new" stuff.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

I hate laundry!

The next child who goes into the attic better have a responsible teenager with them. The kids were looking for something, I don't know what. They spilled all the bins of off season clothes all over the floor. Just what I need, more laundry. At least I found the maternity clothes.

I've finished the rest of the clothes I brought down. There are still 6 18 gallon bins of stuff to bring down, wash and sort. I scrubbed out the bins and washed the tops that already came down stairs. I thought I could get the extra clothes washed by this weekend. Maybe by next weekend I'll get to them?

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Headache day 2

I wish the darn thing would go away. I've gone through Caffeine withdrawl before, but I don't remember it being this bad. Maybe I'm getting another sinus infection. I think I have motrin or tylenol in my purse.

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Boy, I have a headache today

I had an amniocentesis yesterday. The dr said I had to avoid caffeine, drink plenty of water,not lift anything heavier than 25 pounds, etc for 3 days. The lack of caffiene is giving me a headache? I didn't think I drank that much caffiene, only a few cups of strong tea every morning.

The dr thought #10 is a girl, but the amnio will show for sure. Rosalie Arlene? Rosalie was hubby's cousin who died recently. Arlene is hubby's mom.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Tv, part 2

It looks like from the ground that the wire just came loose from the amplifier. I just can't tell if it unscrewed or if the plug pulled off the end of the coax cable. Tomorrow the kids have an early release from school, so I'll have my 14 yr old help me get out and set up the extension ladder. Then my 10 yr old monkey can climb up and see if he can reach the wire. If not, I'll have to remove the bolts that hold the brackets around the pole so we can lower it down. Time to find the pickax and loosen up the soil at the base of the mast. It is packed hard like cement. While it is down, I need to replace the motor so we can turn it. The hd stations come in fine, except it has to be pointed straight at them to get a picture at all. Not like the old analog stations...

Saturday, November 29, 2008

Blasted TV

All of a sudden we get no signal. I don't know what broke this time. It's either the signal booster or the coax wire where it attaches to the antenna. Just what I want to do in my spare time. Climb up an extension ladder and take out the bolts that attach the mast to the brackets, so we can lower it down and check all the connections.

On the upside, the rotator motor is broken, so I can replace while the antenna is down. Digital pictures come in fine off the air on my pc, so we are not getting cable...

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Snow!

We had flurries yesterday. The kids were so excited. Of course, there was no accumulation and the flakes melted as they hit the still warm pavement and grass.

We're visiting our families in upstate NY sometime over Christmas break, but haven't decided just when. There should be snow for the kids to play with. We'll be staying in a warm hotel and not my parents icebox, er, house. It is too cold in the house if the butter you left on the cabinet to soften is still too cold to cut an hour later.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

My online "friends" know

Is it really bad that I haven't told my family about #10 yet? My dad was so negative about number 9, with my c-section and disability before his birth due to me messed up back. The house was trashed when he came to visit us before #9 was born. I just don't want to deal with him right now. Maybe after my next dr visit and ultrasound?

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Halloween was boring!

Usually we have 10 or 12 groups stop by. We had 2 this year. 4 children. Good thing I didn't buy a case of full size bars this years. I got a few bags of the miniature bars and told the trick or treaters to take a handful each. #'s 8 and 9 got into the left overs yesterday morning and finished the candy, plus whatever other candies their siblings didn't put away.

At least I mostly finished #1's costume. It still needed to be hemmed, but I just zigzagged the edges and will hem it later. It is a mideval type gown with over sleeves and a floor length full skirt. It will take a while to hem it. She still wore it, but had to hold up her skirt so she wouldn't step on it.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

New Dr

I like the one I saw Thursday. She has no idea why I am still spotting occasionally. The ultrasound showed a very active baby, but they can't tell yet whether it is a boy or girl. She says they will let me try for a VBAC, as I had the first 8 naturally and only had 1 csection with #9.

I have to see the maternal fetal specialist for my next visit in 6 weeks. She's the Dr I do not like. I've seen her on a consult basis with the last 4 pregnancies. She usually treats me like there is soemthing wrong with me for being a practicing Roman Catholic and having all these kids. But, I can see the other doctors for other visits and have one of them deliver this one as long as there are no problems.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Dr appointment

I had to find another OB/GYN, as mine is an Army reservist and has been activated. My first appointment is Thursday morning. I'm huge- I don't know if it is just because I've had so many or something else is going on. It should be interesting. The same practice delivered #5 10+ years ago. They are 20 miles away from my house. My favorite dr was 6 blocks away. Wah!

Monday, October 6, 2008

So tired

Iwent to bed early-10 pm and didn't get up until after 7. I'm still tired. This pregnancy thing is harder than it was when I was younger, maybe because I was at home and could nap when the older kids were young? Forget the kids taking a nap- mommee needs a nap.

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

It's been almost a week since the spotting stopped.

Maybe we'll have a number 10. I don't want to find a new dr. Mine is an Army reservist and was activated last spring. He is within 1 1/2 hours of my house. I don't think I can deliver at a military hospital since I'm a civilian.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

#10?

I'll be 8 weeks tomorrow and the spotting has stopped. Maybe we'll have a number ten in mid May? My girls have been praying for a baby sister for several months, as we would then be even again.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

I hate it when pc's don't work correctly.

I like determining why things don't work. PC problems can be frustrating, but very satisfying to me when I figure them out. But when there is nothing I can do and higher level tech support needs to address the problem, it really annoys me. I don't want to just know the answer, I want to know why. Maybe that is why the A+ book puts me asleep. It just teaches the exam. I want to know why that is the answer, kwim?

Monday, September 8, 2008

School!

I have 7 in school this year. I forgot how much trouble the 2 and almost 4 yr old could get into without siblings around to keep an eye on them. I have to wait for the big kids to get home to get anything done.

On the upside, it is nice to not have kids fighting over the pc all day. L, almost 4, gets a turn everyday now. And if S (2) takes an afternoon nap, I can spend some time with L, helping her with games or making crafty stuff.

Saturday, August 30, 2008

New pc woes

After spending 2 weeks of my spare time trying to get my pc working again-new power supply, new mother board and memory, etc, we finally decided to take back all the parts and buy a new HP media pc. The new one has Vista home premium and windows media player on it. It does not see the tuner card, though it is installed in device manager. I think I finally found the solution on HP's website. http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&docname=c01187871 I should have known it would be challenging when we started it and the pc froze at the registration page. Then every reboot it kept going into safe mode. I finally restored it to the factory shipped settings and was able to get the darn thing working. Is it to much to ask that the pc work out of the box? I don't think that is an unreasonable request...

Saturday, August 23, 2008

#9

He was climbing on something Thursday night and fell, hitting the side of his head and splitting it open. Once daddy looked at it and decided it needed stitches or something, I took him to the ER. We were there for almost 5 hours before they were able to examine him and glue it together. During the first 4 hours he was climbing on the chair backs in the waiting room, trying to jump off... Almost 2 and no sense yet. :)

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Our vacation

We cleaned the house for a week and took 2 15 passenger van loads of stuff to the dump. It is still not clean, but we can see the floors in a few rooms. If only we did not have so much stuff. :)

The laundry never seems to get done and put away on a consistent basis. I just wish the kids would put the clean laundrty that gets sent back to their rooms away and not throw it on the floor and ignore it. My girls have more clothes then they know what to do with, as evident by the mound of them on their bedroom floor. Ironically, they have nothing to wear.

Toys- Argh! My younger brother used to buy my sons any lego set he thought they would like. Thank heavens he is out of the military now and a poor college student. They only get small sets and not the hundreds of pieces sets they used to get. Only my 3 yr old daughter plays with most of the dolls now. Her big sister (12) was ready to strangle L after she gave most of the barbies haircuts. Most toys are now in the attic, as they were not picked up by their owners. I'll sort them this fall, when it gets cooler. Maybe I can give away the baby toys, finally?

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

I knew I forgot to post something...

Anne is back. Her friend's mom asked her to move out the day that school was out for the summer. We are trying to clean out the smallest bedroom, which has become a storage room, so she can have her own room. It would be really nice if she helped... Once the kids have all hubby's computer stuff out of the room, I need to patch the plaster in a few spots and wash down the walls so we can repaint it. It has been a pink since we purchased the house 15 years ago.

Sunday, June 1, 2008

Work and school

I'm bored! That is a good thing, as I am at work. Not bored would mean very busy due to network or hardware problems. But still, I think I would like a little work to do. I may have to re enroll and sign up for courses at George Mason to try and finish my bachelor's degree. It has only been 24 years since I started my degree. :)

Sunday, May 11, 2008

adding an email to my journal

How the heck do I do that on blogger? I'm so confused. :)

Saturday, April 26, 2008

My job

For months, there has been conflict between me and the head of our other phone staff at another office. The other staff operates as a call center-they create the repair ticket from a list of questions and then pass the ticket on to techs for trouble shooting and resolution. Those of us still on site create the tickets, but we also trouble shoot everything we can think of before we send it to the more experienced techs. This means we are on the phone longer than the recommended time. With my recent evaluation and pay raise, my boss here told me he has recieved favorable comments from our customers on my willingness to stay on the phone with our customers and not hurry them. Gee, I think I'll keep the VIP's happy...

Sunday, March 9, 2008

Daylight savings time

Who thought this was a good idea? Wasn't it Thomas Jefferson? It was so hard to drag myself out of bed this morning and get ready for work. I am not a morning person!

On the upside, I will see the sun today without having to walk out of the building on a break. I'm tired of winter, especially the illnesses.

Saturday, March 1, 2008

Rotten appliances!

The darn dishwasher died. It was 32 months old. I called costco and asked if they knew how long the warrantee was in effect. They told me if I wasn't happy with it, to return the dishwasher. I woman-handled it out to the van and brought it back to costco. They gave me a costco cash card for the entire purchase price. Unfortunately, they do not have dishwashers in the stores right now, so I have to order one off the website. It will be $100 more than the original one was, with shipping. Yeah!

Monday, February 25, 2008

New blog

My old one is still on Live Journal, but there are so many blogs on blogspot that I read. Maybe I'll post on both?