Cowabunga Dude

Nathan is FIVE!! Can you believe it? I can't.



We had a fairly large party at the house. Invited twin boys who we've known since swim lessons when we first moved here, and who are in Nathan's Pre-K class. And Sunny and Mimi who we've been friends with for awhile. Plus a girl from daycare and skating who shares Nathan's b-day, and whose party we went to on Saturday. We also ran into his girlfriend from Canton, and decided to invite her too, even though we seldom see her anymore. Her Mom was a font on knowledge on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle lore, so that was a bonus.


All total, that means there were 8 kids between the ages of 2 1/2 and five running around. Two other parents never RSVP'd, so I was prepared for having 10 kids. They were actually very well behaved, so well behaved that I was afraid they weren't having fun. Especially when they all sat quietly around the table eating the fruit and veggie platters that Dan made. But there was enough chaos during the pinata to make up for everything (and no, they didn't bean anyone with a bat, you can get pull-string pinatas now).



I love the party dresses that all the girls had on, I'll have to get a cute one for Claire's birthday.

glug, glug, glug

Yay me, I fixed the exterior pipe on the sump pump. But I must have been a little rough with it, and twisted the pipe too much, because I think I'm responsible for breaking the pipe in the cellar.

The water is no longer gushing out of the side of the house and puddling against the exterior foundation. It is now gushing out of a broken pipe and spraying against the interior foundation in the basement. Sigh. This is a job for a plumber, because there is no way I'd be able to do the repair in time to stop the water from backing up too far. I unplugged it for about two minutes and the water level rose considerably. I really wish I knew where this spring was so I could dam the damn thing up. Although I do have really soft hair since we moved.

Our own Niagara Falls

Pretty, isn't it? Too bad it's not supposed to be doing that.

The white pipe is from our sump pump, which keeps the water from the spring in front of the house from turning our basement into a swimming pool. This pump has been going 24/7 since we started getting snows and thaws. Whoever ran the pipes for it did a pretty poor job. When we moved in, a section of pipe had broken and eroded all the dirt above and around it. And last week we saw that another section had broken about a foot away from the first break and was creating another mini-lake in the yard. So I was already planning on ripping the whole thing up to dig a deeper trench that would be more frost resistant.

This ice show just happened today I think. The coupling broke, and the water coming down from the house is hitting the broken pipe and spraying all over the place. I don't want to think about how much of the water is just leaking back into the basement. Although the basement could probably benefit from a good flood, if the furnace and hot water heater weren't down there. Some more pictures to give you a full view of what you get when you buy a hundred year old house.

This is the hole where the sump pump is. I have no idea how deep that hole is, I only know that it is currently filled to the top with water. Where the water is coming from is also a mystery. There is a gravel filled ditch that runs the length of the basement, and I think that any leaking water from the walls is supposed to be channeled from there into the sump pump hole, but I really don't know if that's what is happening.

The reason I don't know is that I try to spend as little time as possible down here. Even at my height, I hit my head on the ducts. And those are the stairs on the left. The steps are only about half the width I'm used to, so you have to watch every step coming down.

But I do think this is pretty cool. The wood beams that support our house, that were put in place a hundred years ago, still have bark on them.

All gone

This was last Saturday, when the kids and I had a grand time building a fort and playing in the snow.

On Sunday, Dan got into the act and made the gigantic snowball pictured here.


Alas, by Monday night it was all gone. Truly. Every bit of snow on the lawn is melted, and all that remains is the icy, dirty piles that line the roads where the plows have gone by, and they're on their last legs too. Today, the ground was dry enough that we could go out and pick up the tree limbs and shingles that came loose during a crazy windstorm last week. You'd think it was spring, we were even up in the high 50's one day.

Meanwhile, everyone is reminiscing about the ten year anniversary of an ice storm that knocked out power for days, even weeks in some areas. Shame that it happed just two weeks after Dan and I moved to Georgia. Look at the fun we missed.

Screw the Networks

Now that our T.V. viewing habits are completely messed up by the strike, I've taken to watching lots of TV on DVD. Although now I'm getting confused about whether watching DVD's is supporting the writers or not. They get residuals, but apparently they're pretty minuscule. I'm know I shouldn't watch reality T.V, Leno or internet downloads, but after that things get iffy.

Anyway, here's a few reviews to cheer up your darkened T.V.....


Kitchen Confidential - I don't know why Fox pulled this after only four episodes. It's crass, sexist, violent - you'd think it'd be an instant hit. Maybe the "gourmet food" angle turned people off. Personally, I just had trouble trying to believe that Will from Alias could be anything like Anthony Bourdain. I read Kitchen Confidential a few years ago, and it was almost enough to make me want Dan to change careers. Dan and I have been watching a few episodes each night since he got it for Christmas, and it's really funny. Especially the bits where they torture the intern. Although I worry that it's giving Dan ideas. And after he shares it around work, I'll really worry about anyone who comes unprepared into that kitchen. They've been known to send fellow employees out looking for ingredients that don't exist.


Odyssey 5 - This was a Sci-Fi show on Showtime. Yeah, try to figure that one out. I found it a few weeks ago on the Sci-Fi network, although they only ran one episode. It's possible that taking out all the swear words and gratuitous nudity made the censored episodes hard to follow. Decided to rent it because the premise was cool, and because it had my new T.V. boyfriend, Christopher Gorham from Ugly Betty, in it. (And if you ever find Jake 2.0 on Sci-Fi, he's excellent in that too.) It's about a space shuttle crew that witnesses the destruction of the earth, and then has their minds sent back in time to their younger selves to try to prevent it. Lots of stuff about sentient beings roaming the internet and synthetic creatures making trouble. In the meantime, they're trying to work out problems in their personal lives that may or may not be repeating in the new timeline. I'm not quite done with the series, and I've been warned that the never resolved cliffhanger ending will drive me crazy, but I've really liked it so far.



Freaks and Geeks - What a wonderful show. It's set a few years before we would have been in High School, but looks horribly familiar anyway. Imagine if we'd turned our backs on our Honor roll, band geek, friends to start hanging out with Heavy Metal listening, class cutting, stoners. Hmmmmm. Moving right along. The problem with watching it as an adult, is that I can't decide if I relate more to Lindsay or her mother now. Although it's Sam who really steals your heart. (and he's the intern in Kitchen Confidential too)


Deadwood - Borrowed this from some of Dan's co-workers. I think the third season stumbled with the Hearst plotline, but the brilliance of earlier episodes outweighs that. Although sometimes I feared that the T.V. would burst into flames each time Bullock sent a lustful look Mrs. Garrett's way. Tim Olyphant could outstare a statue.

What else should be in my Netflix queue? I'm going to give Undeclared a go next, with Seth Rogan and many of the Freaks and Geeks & 40yr-old Virgin folks. Any other late, lamented shows that would make good viewing?

Up to our necks in snow

And I thought is was hard to take pictures of the tree. It's even worse trying to get kids in motion while opening presents. Nathan got all the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but seems most excited about his dinasaur "Cuddly". He came with a website link that let Nathan name a star. We picked one in Ursala Major somewhere. Claire got about three baby dolls, but for some reason has focused on the one that cries when you put a pacifier or bottle in it's mouth.

Today was supposed to be a day of semi-relaxation mixed with home improvement while the kids went to Grandmas. But we're looking at another foot of snow today, and didn't want to have to worry about driving over to get the kids tonight. So instead, the kids are eating popcorn while Dan is shovels the driveway and I tear all the old, broken, dingy window blinds down and replace them with old, dingy curtains. And I'm kind of astonished that whoever did the last paint job here didn't remove the blind brackets first. I've always thought the paint was one of the good points here, but now that I'm looking at a square of brown paint in the kitchen corner windows, and a swath of white paint over the front door, I'm pretty annoyed.

And Dan is annoyed that he can't find metal shovels anymore.

Someone's in the kitchen

Sometimes, Claire is a perfect little Sous Chef...........

Sometimes, she is not.

To kids from one to ninety-two

Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before!
"Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store.
"Maybe Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more!" Dr. Seuss

Christmas is not about flat screen T.V.'s and diamond jewelry. Christmas is a four year old who:
Knows all the words to Rudolph the Red-nosed reindeer.
Is learning math by adding up the number of school days and home days until Christmas.
Can't wait to make the Chocolate Chip cookies for Santa.
Thinks a lucky rock is the perfect gift for Papa.
After seeing a manger and hearing my explanation of who Jesus was, decided that Jesus should go out and fight bad guys with Luke Skywalker and the Ninja Turtles

and a two year old who:
Yells "Christmas tree, Christmas tree" whenever she sees lit up houses or wrapped presents.
Wants to open and read all the Christmas cards.
Gets wonderfully sticky whenever she eats a Candy Cane.

More words of wisdom............

Poor Frosty

 

He's just about buried. I had to dig the timer out so he'd light up tonight. I'll have to remember to move him further from the road too, the plow hill just about hides him from sight.

Fifteen inches was the official total, and they didn't even cancel school.

Definitely getting a White Christmas

I'm incapable of getting good pictures of decorating the Christmas tree. Either the kids are out of focus because the move around too much for the low flash setting, or the high flash washes out all the lights. This is the best I could do.

I've been wanting to get some snowy pictures up to please Joy. We've had snow almost every day for the last two weeks. Flurries some days, a few inches on others. I think we're at about a foot on the ground now. Tommorrow we're going to get hammered. At least a foot of snow in 24 hours, maybe up to 2 feet, with lot's of wind to cause snowdrifts. Dan is supposed to be working a charity dinner, I really hope they call it off today so he can stay home and drink hot cocoa with me and the kids. I'll post some pictures of that when the coast is clear.

But, just for Joy, here's a shot out my kitchen window. I wanted to get it when the thermometer said 0, but it's a completely unreliable piece of crap and currently says twenty when it really around five.


Now I have to do some caulking around that window, because it's very drafty. And then I need to rid our kitchen cabinets of mouse poop and plug some more holes. As well as wrap some pipes to keep the pipes leading to the washing machine from freezing again. Is it okay that I sometimes wish for global warming?

The Employee handbook is 142 pages

Was I too vague yesterday? Yes, I got the job. The ins and outs of how that happened so fast are still a mystery. As is the fact that I somehow managed to have my first day of work be the day before I was offered the job.

Now, I am filling out forms. Lots of forms. Three cheers for:
-Employer sponsored Health insurance starting immediately
-Vision and Dental
-Pension and a 401k with decent matching
-Flexible spending accounts for daycare and health
-discounts on loans and mortgages
-Paid holidays and Personal time (I'll even get paid for Christmas!)

Hip, Hip Hooray

Working 9-5

Yay!!!!! I can finally delete all the job search sites that I've been looking at for the last 2 1/2 years!!!!

Spoke too soon

You can ignore my last post. Someone in my department gave notice yesterday. All the bosses were in a meeting this morning, and I was not surprised that the first thing my supervisor did when she finished was to call me over and ask me to stay. It is still just a temp job, until a permanent replacement is found. However, it seems that if it was up to her, or the majority of my co-workers, the replacement would be me. I kinda felt bad for the woman who's leaving, because people were talking much more about my future prospects than hers. But she hadn't been there long, we actually started the same day.

Cross you fingers that no one who's already employed by the bank applies. No one has the last two times it's been open because it's near the bottom of the payscale. Then hope that HR doesn't have requirements that would exclude me no matter how good by recommendations are. In the meantime, I'm still employed.

And to add to this cheery post, here are some Christmas card rejects.

Easy come, Easy Go

The temp job has proved to be a temp job. I really like it there, my co-workers really like me, but there's just no permanent job for me. Last day is next Friday. So, onto plans A,B & C.

We're going to keep the kids in daycare for as long as we can afford it. Which gives me the freedom to just take any temp or part-time job that comes along. Kelly Services got good reviews of my work, and I'm also going to try to get into the bank's on-call teller system. That would make me an internal candidate for any future openings at the administrative offices.

Also, someone's advertising for Admin and HR people for permanent and temp jobs, and offering a wonderfully high wage for it. It must be Wal-mart getting geared up to do hiring for the new store, which is quickly rising up out of vacant land outside Potsdam. I don't really want to be a Wal-mart person, but the idea of working for them during a hiring blitz is intriguing.

Since the mall is forty minutes away, and the Wal-mart is still a work in progress, we country folk have to find other ways to get our Christmas lists to Santa. In Canton, they plan a tree lighting ceremony for the day after Thanksgiving, then all the kids line up to see Santa on the town green. He arrived by horse drawn carriage, and there were also a half dozen people dressed as Frosty, Rudolph and various North Pole critters walking around to keep the kids entertained while we waited.

Claire didn't last through the hour wait. It was below freezing, and a layer of snow and slush covered the ground. (Something Mom should have thought of before deciding to wear a pair of lightweight sneakers instead of boots.) So while she and Grandma retired to make Hot Cocoa, Nathan and I stuck it out to see the big man himself.


Apparently, he wants Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle toys this Christmas, and was devastated that the free goody bag had a book instead.

In other Christmas news, I'm trying to figure out how to decorate the house when I have absolutely no exterior outlets. Just to get this modest display up took three extension cords leading from the farthest corner of the garage, a timer and a small three outlet adapter.

I want to put lights on the porch, and bought an adapter to convert the light bulb socket into a plug, but I don't want to risk overloading that. Also, the porch is Zeppo's domain, and I'm not sure how he'd take to a change in decor. Although he's left the garland on the lamppost alone so far.

Whatever we do will certainly pale in comparison the the neighbors. They've been lit up for over a week, keeps me up nights.

Huh?

I set up an interview for Tuesday and they want three letters of reference. I don't think I've needed that since I applied for college, and yet the prospective boss indicated that it was the most normal thing in the world and required by the company. Ugh.

Most of the employees are nurses and health care workers, so I can see the point there. But I've never been asked for this for accounting jobs. They seem content with just running background checks.

So now I have to come up with a member of the community ("like a teacher, or politician"), and two employers. And I know that Hyatt employees aren't supposed to do letters, they're very much in the "let's avoid lawsuits by only verifying dates of employment camp". Plus, Hyatt employees don't stick in one job for long, so I don't even know if I can find my former bosses.

Should I just cancel the interview?

Hat, Glove and Scarf time

Does anyone wanna come over and take my doggy for a walk? It's 20 degrees out and I'm still not warmed up from the walk I took him on two hours ago. I suppose I should be grateful that it's not snowing again. Only six more months to Spring!!!

Crash and Burn

Ugh, I'm having a miserable week. Coughing. Coughing. Coughing. Night and Day. I stayed home from work Wednesday, and got some drugs from the doc on Saturday, but I still feel pretty rotten. Can't sleep unless I am propped up by four pillows, and even then I wake every hour with a coughing fit. Or drenched in sweat. Attempts to speak either come out in whispers or devolve into hacking fits. I dread having to call out to the kids to stop doing something, because half the time I can't get the words out.

The silver lining is that Dan took a week's vacation to chill out a bit. So every night he's been home to corral the kids. Except last night, when he was passed out drunk on the futon from too many Jager Bombs. You see, his co-workers like to have a yearly bar-b-que party, and since they're all apartment/frat house dwellings college kids, it was decided a few weeks ago to have it at our house. I cheerfully cleared out, and took the kids to the Grandparents for the afternoon. I expected to come home to my loving husband, who, knowing I've been sick all week, would have had things cleaned up and be prepared to take the kids off my hands again. Instead, he was the victim of peer pressure, which I'd think would be pretty hard since he's not only the boss, but also 8-15 years older than everyone else.

At least his friends can hold their liquor better, because someone did manage to clean things up, and one guy stuck around to make sure Dan wasn't alone. Although I was also really ticked off that they lit a bonfire in the backyard. Not surprised, these are chefs after all, they have to set things on fire, it's part of their nature. But I mentioned it to Dan last week and told him if he thought they'd like to burn some of our yard waste for fun, we should first get a permit. Instead, I came home to an illegal fire that was way to big to burn out before bedtime. The aforementioned responsible friends made sure to clear a ring around it and bank it a bit, but it was still smoking in the morning. Not happy about that, especially because I think that enough smoke got in the house to send me into twice the usual number of retching fits.

Whew, had to get that all off my chest.

P.S. You have to watch Ratatouille. Just don't watch it on an empty stomach.

Bethel, VT

Found this cool photo on a blog today. That's my Dad's house on the hill on the far left.

Halloween

Halloween's over. Baseball is over. If I can just get over this cold and sleep for more than 6 hrs on a regular basis, I may feel half human again. Although with skating lessons tomorrow night and a Bowling B-day party on Saturday, I don't think I'll be able to unwind quite yet.

Halloween pictures!!