Ewww

Ewww. Just Ewww.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am much more intimately acquainted with the plumbing in this house than I would like.  The plumbing here is nothing short of a country-ingenuity masterwork.  So when I heard some strange sounds coming from the pipes today I ran through my checklist:

Washing machine in the basement – Clear of any backup.

Dig through the snow to reveal the outside clean-out buried in its hole and run it through – Clear of any backup and no real resistance to the 40 feet of PVC I ran down it.

Open up the clean-out in the basement and check for blockages.

Now that step deserves a little explanation.  I have several improvised tools to reach in there and cut through roots or snag things and pull them out.  Today required something new.  With a garbage bag snugged at the shoulder I reached in with a bent wire hanger.  I had to reach all the way in, and while the garbage bag was a good idea, it wasn’t quite made for the job.  Leaning over the washing machine, arm up to my shoulder in the sewer line and feeling a lot like Mike Rowe doing artificial insemination for cattle, I finally snagged the cute little guy in the picture.  It’s about four inches across and has fins and a tail.  It was obviously meant to swim.  I really need to get a fish tank so things like this stop going for swims in the toilet.

Back to Kindergarten

I helped out in my son’s Kindergarten class and I wonder if they will have me back.    I was helping with an art project at a little station in the room.   I would have small groups of children for about 15 minutes before they rotated.  I like art.  I could do art.

My son was asked to introduce me to the class.  “This is my mommy.”  The teacher validated that and asked what my name was.  “Mommy.”  “Right, but what do other people call her?”  “Uh, Mom?”  It was so hard to not laugh, but it was pretty cute.

My son was in the first rotation with some cuties who asked me my name.  All my life I have had my name mispronounced or mangled and I know it is hard for little ones.  “Mrs. Lotsofsyllables” wasn’t going to work either.  So I went with the quick and easy nickname I use in gaming: Coke.  Each group of children merrily pasted and cut while we chatted about Coke and who is allowed to drink it at their house and who wasn’t.  I overheard a lot of comments to my son about how I must really like Coke, and he’d confirm it.

We were adding feathers to turkeys they had painted previously.  Not all turkey feathers need to be perfect, or in a certain pattern or even place, at least in my world.  Art should be fun and creative instead of just copy the example exactly.  I had one little boy giggle while he showed me he wanted to put a feather on the turkey’s bum.  He looked completely shocked when I said, “Cool! Those are called ‘tail feathers’.”  When he saw I was really ok with it, he put all his feathers on the bum.  So to his parents, sorry if that’s not ok with you; they aren’t permanent.  One little girl wanted blue and purple feathers in a pattern, and one little boy was in such a rush for recess that his turkey had all of one feather.  But they were happy, so it’s all good.

For some things I can be very go-with-the-flow, but with others, I expect a certain level of compliance.  Part of my job was to staple the feathers in place after they were pasted.  It was six of them to one of me and a few times I had several being rather insistent.  “You know what? I left my Super Mom cape at home, so I can only staple one at a time, and those that ask me nicely will get helped first.”  Most of them started adding please, but one little boy asked, “Really? You have a Super Mom cape?”  “Nope, not really, but I can make one.”  The awe in his face was precious.

So if your child came home from school with a funky-looking turkey and stories of a Super Mom named Coke, thanks for letting me share in their art and laughter.  We had a great time.

Bang Your Head Against this Motherboard…

I fried my computer.  I didn’t mean to, but it fried anyway.  It worked great Saturday night, then when I turned it on Sunday morning there was a *pop* *sizzle* and the smell of plastic turning on the grill.  How do I love thee Newegg? Let me count the ways…

Three days later and I had the new power supply installed but the computer couldn’t make it to bios or Windows.  OK, something hardware I’m guessing?  I cleared the CMOS just for kicks.  Luckily I have built a few computers with similar specs over the last year or so which gave me a few rigs for testing parts.  RAM, graphics card, harddrives, and even the processor all worked fine when swapped.  I’m thinking that either both PSU’s I tested with are giving shoddy power or the motherboard, like me, is just plain done.

SO… to buy a new motherboard for 1-2 year old parts or keep my rig as spare parts for the other computers and build myself a screamingly fast quad-core…  I’ll get on that quad right after I pay back a few loans and do some other equally responsible adult stuff.

I saved a card from high school with a picture of a brick wall.  Inside it said, “If ever you feel like talking to a man, beat your head against this card until the feeling goes away.”  Today, that card could just as easily show a motherboard and speak of doing your own repairs.

The Night Before

Written on Oct 23rd but posted today

It’s the night before we try to fly out for our big trip to Disneyland and Sea World with five of our six children (the sixth had a scheduling conflict).  Two of the teen girls are giggling and loud, but too cool to admit they are excited.  The two little ones are so excited that they are still wired two hours past bedtime.  Then I heard one cry, a sad cry.

“Mom, I’m afraid of being far away from you and losing you,” my 6 year old said into my shoulder as I hugged him.  It’s the first trip they can remember taking and it’s understandable that he’d be a little apprehensive.  But then I saw the show that was just ending.  “Who turned on ‘An American Tale’ for them to watch the night before we go on a trip?”  I asked aloud.  Yeah… so now I have four more loads of “oh Mom, can you wash this for me” to do before I can go to bed and two little ones afraid of being separated from me and my husband while simultaneously being so excited they can’t sleep.  Textbook case of “What not to do when planning a family trip.”

But ya know what? (“Chicken Butt” says my brother.)  It’s all part of the fun of going to Disneyland and I don’t mind staying up to wash their clothes because I’m too excited to sleep either.

I Suppose Instructions are to be Read

I began writing about the things for which  I am grateful, and looking on the bright side of things, as I understood the 21 Days of Gratitude to be.  It pays to read the directions.  It seems each day there is a specific prompt or assignment for your writing.  Ooops.  Ah well, my intentions were in keeping with the spirit of the challenge, and I’ll look at the directions as a guide from now on.  No biggie, I can roll with it.   I just figured it out when Katrina over at Self Symmetry blogged about the “assignment” for the day, then I went to the source and read the directions.  Such is my life, and I’m ok with that.