The Humdrum Hero

Organize Your Passwords: KeyPass Review

2012-01-18T07:33:00.000-08:00

I recently received an email from Zappos informing me that a hacker had gained the account information of 24 million of its customers. EEK! From their end, Zappos had things under control. Their software was good, kept costumer passwords scrambled and didn't show all of the credit card number. In the email, Zappos customers are instructed to login to their Zappos accounts and change their passwords... as well as change passwords at other websites where they use the same email address and password.

So, this brings up a very important issue. We all know that we should never ever, ever use one password for everything. What happened to Zappos is just one reason why. But, many argue that it is just too hard to remember all those passwords for all those accounts. (I've got over 162 accounts out there orbiting in cyber space.) Enter KeyPass Password Safe. If you don't have a program to keep your passwords safe, you might want to give KeyPass a try. It is free and uses open source code. It can be as powerful or as simple as you want it to be.

My Review:

I've been using KeyPass for over a year now. Previously I had used SplashID to keep my passwords organized and safe. However, SplashID isn't free after various version upgrades, I had to shell out more $$ if I wanted to continue using it. I chose KeyPass as my free alternative because it could import my files from SplashID. The importing wasn't seemless, but all the data did make it from SplashID to KeyPass. I had to move information from one field to another which was a big project (still working on it) but it was better than having to start from scratch.

Now, for using KeyPass. This is where it can be as simple or as powerful as you want it to be. In order to access KeyPass, you can set up a master password or key file that will unlock your passwords for access. I chose to use a master password simply for ease of use. A key file is likely more foolproof, but I'm not the Pentagon and I think I would likely mess up the key file and loose all access to my information. The key file can be any file you choose, but you have to make sure you never change it, otherwise it will not open KeyPass. Now, KeyPass is a very lite program; you can easily put on a USB drive (with a key file if applicable) to use anytime, anywhere.

For the first few months that I used KeyPass, I just used it to look up my usernames and passwords as well as to input new account information along the way. I didn't use any of the bells and whistles. For organizational purposes only, KeyPass is great. Recently, however decided to try out those bells and whistles, and the nerd in me came out. It's so FUN! KeyPass allows you to drag and drop your username and password from KeyPass to your web browser. No typing needed. If that doesn't make you feel like royalty already, there is more! From KeyPass, you can select the account you want to access, and automatically open up a browser with the account's URL. Then, use KeyPass's "Perform auto-type" and what your username and password magically appear, all with just a few mouse clicks. Brilliant. You can even customize the keystrokes KeyPass needs to make in order to auto-type everything. It's fun, for me, but perhaps not for everyone.

But there is more! If you hate coming up with strong passwords, you can use the password generator. I love how I can set up the parameters for how long I wan the password as well as if I want it to have symbols or caps in it. I use the generator for accounts that I don't use often, but need a good, strong password.

One more thing, KeyPass users can easily print a master copy of all the passwords to keep in a safe place (like a safe...heheheh). All the instructions are found at KeyPass's website. I haven't covered anywhere near all the neat things KeyPass is capable of, but, if you check it out and like it like I do, don't forget to donate to the cause.

Preparing for Trigger Thumb Surgery: Before, During, After

2011-12-06T06:54:00.001-08:00

After my initial post on my first daughter's trigger thumb surgery, I received more responses than I had expected. Now, two and a half years and one more trigger thumb surgery later (on another daughter, not the same one!), I wanted to share the more details about the surgery with those of you who have expressed so much interest.

The Surgery
Trigger thumb release surgery involves an incision being made near the base of the thumb where the bump or nodule on the tendon is. The surgeon cuts the sheath that the tendon goes through, making it big enough that the enlarged spot on the tendon can easily slide through the sheath to straighten the thumb. The surgeon sews up the incision and bandages it up either with a hard cast or a soft bandage, depending on preference. This surgery is a minor one (though when it's your child, it doesn't sound minor), taking only 15-20 minutes per thumb. Though, when you factor in anesthesia, it's more like a 2-3 hour ordeal. In the end, it's really quite magical, the things that modern medical advances can do!

Hard Cast or Soft Bandage?
I had two daughters that have had bilateral trigger thumb release surgery (surgery to fix both right and left trigger thumbs). One daughter's Orthopedic surgereon perferred using hard casts while the other perferred using a soft bandage. The reason the one surgeon liked the hard casts: with a cast on for 2-3 weeks, it gives ample time for the incision to heal, and since kids can be pretty rambucious, this can make sense. The other surgeon's reason for using the soft bandage: with a bandange, it can be removed after two days and the child can go straight to using his/her new thumbs.

Having the rare chance of expeiencing both the hard cast and the soft bandage, I'll share the pros and cons. If your surgeon gives you the choice, hopefully this can help you make your decision.

Hard Cast
Pros

3 weeks gives wound time to heal, letting the swelling go down and the incision to close up.
If you have a very accident prone child, this might be a very safe option, because it wouldn't be fun to break open a freshly stitched up job.

Cons

Parents will invest plenty of time helping their child eat, dress, and wipe after up after the bathroom.
Getting the cast cut off can be a bit of a traumatic experience for a child.
Child doesn't get to realize the benefits of their new, working thumbs until weeks after the surgery.
Bath time is crazy for a few weeks. Plastic bags on casts...

Soft Bandage
Pros

Only needs to be on for a couple of days, so I only had to spoon feed my daughter for a couple of days as opposed to three weeks.
No need to schedule an appointment to have them removed. You can remove them yourself after a couple of days.
Child can start using thumbs as soon as bandage comes off, though he/she may not want to for a day or two. Remember, they've been locked in place for months.

Cons

Parents have to help the child take care of their incision while the wound is healing, keeping it clean and not playing too rough. We put band-aids on each thumb to remind our daughter.

Tips for Before, During and After Surgery

Because there have been enough questions, I'd like to address some of my thoughts about preparing your child and yourself (the parent) for the surgery.

1. Schedule the entire day for surgery: Though the surgery will only take 2-3 hours, schedule the entire day. I had my husband take off work to help me out. It is nice to have someone to help out, especially if you have other children at home. Can you do it on your own? I think so, but it would be more stressful.

2. Talk to your child in simple terms about the surgery: You know your child best. If you think they need a couple of weeks to allow the idea of getting their thumbs fixed to sink in, talk to them early about it. For most of us, we'll be taking in little children between the ages of 2-4 for surgery. Typically, they don't need the worry of knowing about a looming surgery date. With my kids, I didn't tell them about it until 3-5 days before. We all know that kids get scared of anything that has to do with cutting. I was very careful not to use the word "cut" when I told my kids what would happen. I explained it something like this: "When we take you to the doctor to fix your thumbs, they will want you to get in some doctor pjs first. You will get to put on your own clothes again after the doctor is done. First the doctor will help you go to sleep so that he can work on your thumbs. The nurses will put a funny plastic thing on on your mouth to help you sleep. Then, when you wake up, your thumbs will be fixed! You will have bandages on your hands to protect your thumbs." I didn't want to go into a lot of detail about the bandages and how to take care of them until we actually got to that point. It turned out to be wise.

3. What to bring the day of surgery: Usually the surgery is planned in the morning because there is a 12 hour fasting restraint. Because it was early, I woke up my kids and took them in their pjs first thing. Be sure to bring a change of clothes, paying attention to a shirt that will have wide sleeves to get over the bandage or cast. (I forgot this both times I took my daughters for surgery!) Normally, the hospital or surgical center is pretty mindful of having a little gift for the pint-sized patient, but if you aren't sure, have a back-up plan of a something soft and cuddly to give your child afterwards... because they will not feel well when they come of the meds... And for you, the parent, the surgery wait is about 2.5 hours, so if you can focus on a book, bring one. If not, they usually have TVs and magazines in the waiting rooms and chatty people too!

4. Parting: Depending on where your child has surgery, there may be different rules about how long the parent can stay with the child before the surgery. It's a good idea to check with the hospital or surgery center before hand to find out if you can be there until the child falls asleep or if you have hand them off to a nurse before the anesthesia. We've gone through both scenarios and both went fine. When the nurse had to take my daughter, I told my daughter that the nurse would take care of her like a babysitter and bring her back to me when the surgery was done. I didn't hear any crying, and didn't ask about it afterward, so ignorance is bliss in this situation :)

5. Be prepared for sadness after the surgery: Even though as a parent, I was really excited for my daughters' thumbs to be fixed and really excited to see them both after their surgeries, the look on their faces reminded me that they were not yet in the mood to celebrate. Coming out of anesthesia is a pretty confusing thing for kids, plus they may be feeling pain from the surgery. I remember when my daughter 2 (she was 3) went through surgery, I was escorted to her room as she was waking up. I held her in my arms, watching her eyes open and close. At one point as her eye opened, she held up her hands so she could see them. When she saw the bright pink bandages on them, her eyes got big, her mouth frowned, and she began to cry and cry. She yelled "I wanna go home! I want these off!" and started hitting me. I'm really glad that the she didn't have hard casts at that point. She pelted me for a good ten minutes until we could get the discharge papers taken care of and reassure her that we would go home and that the bandages would come off in a couple of days. My daughter 1 (she was 4 and a half when she had surgery) woke and was very weepy and sad. Even the Barbie doll the nurses gave her didn't make her smile. For both my daughters, that original sadness only last 1 or 2 hours. I found it helpful to rent some movies and have some good cuddle time for the rest of the day. Order pizza or have dinner made in advance. Take it easy!

Daughter 2 an hour after surgery, with soft bandages, watching a video.

Daughter 1, with hard casts, waking from anesthesia.

6. Something for the Pain: The surgeon will likely perscribe a pain medication to help control pain after surgery. Neither of my daughters liked it. We ended up throwing it away both times. We go by just fine on a dose of children's tyenol or ibuprofen. In fact, one dose was all they needed. They didn't complain about pain.

7. When the dressings come off: Whether your child gets a cast or a bandage, there is some prepartion needed for you and your child when it is time to remove the dressing. With a hard cast, there will very likely be fear of the cast saw, no matter how carefully you prepare your child. And then there is an ick-factor of seeing the incision area that kids (and mommies don't like to see). What I'm saying is, don't expect that everything will be "all better" once the dressing is off. I warned my daughter 2 right before I took off her bandage that it wouldn't look all better. She started crying when she saw her thumbs, not because it hurt, but because of how it looked. Daughter 1, because she had hard casts, also had to deal with the yucky skin that's all flaky from being covered. Both my daughters were totally disgusted with the stitches and the incision. We covered the incision with bandaids for a few days. You can use alcohol to wash off any remaining idoine (yellow stuff) from the surgery...or you can let it slowly wash off with soap and water. If after a week the ends of the stitches are sticking out and irritating your child, you can cut the ends off with nail clippers.

See, it looks yucky!

8. Using those thumbs: If your child isn't using his/her thumbs after dressing is off, don't be alarmed. It will take a day or two. And soon, they'll be using them quite adeptly. It could take up to a month. If you notice problems, it's a good idea to call the surgeon. My daughter 1 had some therapy after her surgery, but this is generally not necessary. It's only been about three weeks since daughter 2's surgery and she has been using them fine.

9. Follow up with the surgeon: You will likely visit the surgeon once or twice to check on the healing progress of the thumbs. Then, it's history!

I hope I've covered most aspects of the process of trigger thumb surgery. My twins just finished making a mess in the kitchen and have moved on to the laundry room. I should stop. I hope you have a good surgery experience!

Please, those of you who have had children undergo trigger thumb surgery, share your tips as well. Let's bring some awareness to this seemingly obscure phenomenon of pediatric trigger thumb!

Surgery Center Vs Children's Hospital

2011-11-22T06:48:00.001-08:00

In this post, I'm sharing my thoughts about pediatric trigger thumb surgery. Two of my children have had it; one at Denver Children's Hospital and the other at the Surgery Center in Manhattan, KS. We had great experiences both places. But, if you have a choice between a hospital or a surgery center, there are differences to weigh. Here are so of the things that I noticed.

At the surgery center before surgery with her bear, compliments of the surgery center.

1. Size: Hosptials are big and busy. Surgery Centers are smaller and often located right near a hospital. Hospitals have sick people, so if you are concerned about germs, it's just something to consider.
2. Check-in: Check in time varies between a surgery center and a hospital. We didn't have insanely long waits at the hospital, but the surgery center, just because of its smaller footprint, was faster for us to get from the car, to check-in, to the waiting area, and then to the operating room.
3. Level of care: If you can go to a children's hospital, you will get very specialized care, targeted to children, which is very nice. The children's hospital gave my daughter a Barbie doll after her surgery. That was very nice. At Denver Children's, one parent is allowed to accompany the child going in for surgery until he/she is a asleep under anesthesia. We didn't get to do that at the surgery center. However, the surgery center did a wonderful job with our three year old. There was a little stuffed animal waiting for her which she got to take with her to surgery. They even allowed her to take her nasty, filthy blankie too! The doctors and nurses at the surgery center were very sweet to our daughter. It helped me feel good about my decision to have her surgery there.
4. Cost: Surgery Centers generally cost a bit less. I tried to get a quote from the hospital and the surgery center here so that I could compare the two, but the hospital never got back to me.
(For those of you wondering what the insurance gets billed for a job like this, it's roughly $12,000.)
5. Accessibility: In my experience, the Surgery Center really wins here. When I call, I get a person on the line right away. I ask questions and I get connected with a knowledgeable person. When call-backs are necessary, they are fast. Calling a hospital is a bit more daunting, starting with an automated message and then a menu to choose from.

Pediatric Trigger Thumb Surgery, Again

2011-11-15T11:21:00.001-08:00

Let me explain. About 2 years ago my 4 year-old daughter underwent bi-lateral trigger thumb surgery at Denver Children's Hospital. Just today, my 3rd daughter (3 year-old) just had her bi-lateral trigger thumb surgery at an outpatient surgery center. Having the somewhat rare, opportunity to take two children through trigger thumb release surgery, I'd like to do a bit of comparing and contrasting on the differences in the two experiences (which have both been positive) for those of you out there who have children whose cute little thumbs are stuck bent. (According to the stats on my blog, there are more of us out there with kiddos dealing with pediatric trigger thumb than I'd imagined.) Here's a quick run down of each daughter and the circumstances surrounding her trigger thumb experience.

Daughter 1:

We first noticed her bent thumbs when she was about 2 years old. My husband and I thought they were cute and didn't think much of it until she was 3 and a half and starting to use scissors. She could not open scissors. I figured her stuck thumbs might be hindering her.
We went though at least 2 health care professionals before I self-diagnosed my daughter and then asked for a referral to a specialist.
Surgery on both thumbs performed at Denver Children's Hospital.
Surgeon put casts on her hands and forearms to protect the incision and stitches.
Daughter went to a few sessions of physical therapy after the surgery.
Now, two years later, daughter is doing well. She's using scissors just fine!
For more detail about her surgery, follow this link: http://humdrumhero.blogspot.com/2009/11/congenital-trigger-thumb-or-my-child.html

Daughter 2:

Daughter 2 is a fraternal twin. My husband and I jokingly checked her thumbs and her twins sister's at birth when they were born to make sure they didn't have trigger thumb. Both girls thumbs extended fully with no problems, then. Little did we know.
By 18 months old, Daughter 2's thumbs were locked. Interestingly, her twin sister has nodules on each tendon at the base of her thumb (tell-tale sign of pediatric trigger thumb when accompanied by thumbs that are stuck bent), but does not have locked trigger thumbs.
When daughter 2 turned 3 years old, I scheduled an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon. Surgery before the age of 3 is usually not recommended.
Surgery on both thumbs at a surgery center near a general hospital.
Surgeon put soft bandages on her hands and instructed us to keep them on for a couple of days. After that, we should cover the stitches with band-aids until the stitches dissolve.

Next post I'll talk about the differences that I observed between a hospital and a surgery center. I'll also keep you posted on the healing of Daughter 2's surgery and the healing process.

Made in USA for Christmas

2011-11-08T08:52:00.000-08:00

I have been somewhat inspired by ABC News Made in America series. The premise of the series is that if we all made even a minimal effort to buy products made in the USA, we could help create jobs right here. So, while the lawmakers are fighting on Capitol Hill, we can get to work and start making a difference. I like that idea.

With Christmas fast approaching I've been looking at toys a lot. The internet has really simplified my shopping because I can read reviews of products before I buy them. It's also really helped me hunt down USA/American Made toys. Typically when I think of American made toys, I think of wooden ones. Now, wooden toys are quite nice for babies, but for older kids... blocks and puzzles aren't going to cut it. I'm going to highlight a few affordable favorites that I have found.

This Christmas I plan on buying some American made toys on purpose for my kids. I hope you will too!

10 Made in the USA Toys
for kids ages 5-10 (in no particular order)

1. Wikki Stix are a fun, reusable craft toy, great for quite play without a mess. Checkout the reviews at Amazon. Price: $8-30 www.wikkistix.com

2. Arrow Copters are flying toys that can be launched high, I mean HIGH, into the air. Read reviews at Amazon. Price: $10 http://www.arrowcopter.com

3. Shrinky Dinks are a fun craft toy for boys and girls. (These have been around for years, and their simplicity is what I think keeps them around!) Design and color and then place in oven to shrink. Price: starting at $5 http://www.shrinkydinks.com/

4. K'nex building set - My 8 year old son LOVES these (girls love them too). I love the expandability of these toys. With the option to put on motor on his contraptions, it will be a long time before he outgrows these. Plus, they are compatible with Legos bricks. (Some special pieces may be made in China.) Price: $20.00 and up www.knex.com

5. ZingWing- Model airplane toys. Kids and adults alike dig flying toys! These look like quite a bit of fun, though I haven't actually found a lot of reviews on them. I contacted the company and learned that some of their models are made in the USA while others are in China. Price: $1.99 and up http://zingwing.com/models.html

These four models are made in the USA:

http://zingwing.com/diperdo.html

http://zingwing.com/zingwing.html

http://zingwing.com/zoomerang.html

http://zingwing.com/maxair.html

*A reprsentative from the company says they plan on moving production back to the USA in a few months. I hope that happens and goes well for them.

6. Lauri Toys Tangrams Plus - (Lauri Toys makes lots of toy puzzles for younger kids as well, all made in the USA). This is a nice puzzle toy with lots of puzzle cards to stimulate a young mind. Read Reviews at Amazon.com. Price: $10

7. Silly Putty: Don't forget this time-tested favorite! I recently saw silly putty on sale at Target for $1. Makes a great stocking stuffer or party favor. http://www.sillyputty.com/

8. Slinky: Okay, here's another kid pleaser. When I think of a slinky, I think of a crumpled up one that I can't get undone... that's what happens when you give them to kids under 4. But, older kids really like these. Don't be fooled by the dollar store, Chinese-Made imitations, though. The original slinky is much better quality. Price: $2.50 and up http://www.poof-slinky.com/

9. Books: Thank goodness we still print books in the USA! And, you can find these with little effort. I recently bought a Disney Princess Paperdoll set for my daughter and a novel for my son that were both printed in the USA. Price: varies

10. Yo Baby Kick Flipper: This is a great toy that gets kids moving. It's like a skateboard without wheels. You have to see it to understand it. Includes a DVD for instruction. Price: $15 www.fatbraintoys.com/specials/made_in_america.cfm

For Even more great Made in America toy gift ideas, visit: http://www.fatbraintoys.com/specials/made_in_america.cfm

EEK! Bead stuck in Toddler's Nose!

2011-10-03T09:30:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to write about this embarrassing/funny/crazy/disgusting experience for some time now. It happened a few months ago. I was pretty exhausted and was trying to get the kids in bed on the fast track. We did a haphazard clean up of the room and I then proceded to tuck the kids in bed. Upon tucking the twins in, I noticed that one had a little bead, about a 1/4 inch in diameter in her had. It was from her older sister's bead necklace set that evidently didn't get put away. My sweet daughter wanted to keep it and was treating it like a treasure, so against my better judgement, I let her keep it with her. Bad mommy, I know.

I didn't even have time to get downstairs after tucking the kids in when I heard my daughter crying. I couldn't understand what she was crying about, but I knew what she was crying about. I knew she had stuck that bead up her nose... because she likes puzzles and a bead in the nose is an absolute perfect fit. As I surveyed the situation I could see that the bead was "up there" pretty far... out of the reach of a tweezer for sure. Well, I've been a bad mom before, so this wasn't the first time an object had been lodged in a child's nose under my supervision. When my older daughter stuck a crayon up her nose I closed her clean nostril with my finger and instructed her to pretend like she was blowing her nose. Out it popped. I wasn't sure if it would work on this child because she's younger and not too good at blowing her nose. We tried, and sure enough, it didn't work.

No way was I going to take the kid to the ER on a Saturday night for a bead in her nose. So, I Googled my way to safety. Don't try rigging your shop vac with a small enough attachment to get the object out of the kid's nose. I know. I tried. My daughter was too squirmy and afraid of the shop vac's loud sound. As a result, she was afraid of any vacuum for a couple of weeks afterward. Every time I turned one on she'd plead, "Don't vacuum me up!" Bad mommy.

Next, I read the following from a babycenter.com article:

How will the doctor get it out?

The doctor will look in your child's ear or nose, and then decide how best to proceed. There are a number of techniques and tools that she may use.

She may block one nostril and have your child try to blow his nose. If he can't, she may have you cover your child's mouth with your own and give a short, quick breath to dislodge the object as she closes one of your child's nostrils.

She may instead use small, tweezer-like forceps or a suction machine to remove the object. (If there's an insect in your toddler's ear, she may use mineral oil to suffocate the insect first.) If the object is metal, she may be able to use a magnet to remove it.

After the object is out, she'll look in your child's ear or nose again to make sure there's nothing else in there. She may prescribe nose or ear drops or antibiotic ointment to nip any infection.

I figured that as disgusting as it sounded, I would try blowing the bead out of my child's nose. I held my terrified little girl (remember, I had just tried to vacuum her up) in my lap. I closed her clear nostril. I told her that I was going to give her a "kiss." The first time I blew into her mouth, I didn't use much force because I was worried to hurt her so the bead didn't come out, but it had moved a bit. The second time, I sent a little more force behind the blow and the snotty bead shot out of her mouth and into mine I was pulling away from her face. It was that fast. It was so disgusting we just had to laugh.

So, if this happens to you, you might want to try this before you go to the ER. Have fun!

Dealing with Allergy Related Congestion

2011-09-15T11:39:00.000-07:00

I've been treating my allergies naturally for the past couple of years and I like it enough to continue. I'm not sure there is one herbal or homeopathic medicine that works for everyone, just as no prescription drug works great for everyone.

What I've learned from treating my allergies naturally is that I have to treat each symptom on its own. For instance, if I have an itchy throat/nose/face, I reach for Marshmallow root and Astragalus root capsules. When my eyes are watery and itching, I use homeopathic eye drops. And for my absolute least favorite sypmtom, congestion, I use my least favorite treatment: the nasal rinse.

Well, actually, it's a love hate relationship with nasal rinse. I love that it works. I hate doing it. It took me some time to learn to realize the benefits of using a nasal rinse. First time I did it, I expected immediate results with no more congestion. Although it did relieve some of the sinus pressure I felt, it didn't completely relieve the congestion, so I figured it wasn't for me. I was wrong. When congestion comes on, it is smart to treat it with a nasal rinse and then do so a couple of times a day and then daily until congestion is no longer an issue. Since I've stayed on top of my congestion with the nasal rinse, It's been much more tolerable. It means a better night's rest and that is worth the discomfort from giving myself the rinse.

So exactaly how does one administer a nasal rinse? There is something that just doesn't seem right about shooting liquid up your nose. It's not an intuitive art, so WebMD has a really nice slideshow about it. I thank the model for doing it. I don't think I would have wanted to be that model for that.

Make Your Nasal Rinse

1/2 cup of warm water
1/2 teaspoon of salt
a pinch of baking soda

In a cup, combine ingredients and stir until salt is dissolved. Use a bulb syringe or other dosing syringe to administer.

Swallow your pride and shoot your nose with some nasal rinse per WebMD's instrucions. Be sure to have some nice soft tissues on hand. You'll be glad you did.

The Almost Perfect Lunchbox for Us

2011-09-08T19:25:00.001-07:00

Originally submitted at locknlockplace.com

Much better than what we used before

Pros: Quality Materials, No leaking, Great size for kids, Easy To Use
Best Uses: Kids lunch

I really, really like these lunch boxes. I bought two; one for my son, one for my daughter. Both are in grade school. I've been packing their lunches for a couple of years and really hated all the different containers, the leaking drink bottles, and hard to open leak-proof containers. This lunch box addresses most of my problems and nearly fixes them.

First, my kids love these lunch boxes... it actually seems to make eating their lunches more fun for them. The divided container is my favorite because it forces variety. The divided container is also where my only complaint is. The different compartments are not leak-proof from the inside. So, you can only use dry food in them. I'm currently experimenting with Press 'n' Seal to see if I can get keep watery things (like applesauce) to stay put in their compartment. I think it's working.

The other food container isn't divided. I use it for a sandwich. I cut the sandwiches in half or fourths to fit them in. No biggie, since I always cut sandwiches anyway.

I love how easy these containers are to open. Most leak-proof containers are hard for my kids to open and close. These containers solve the problem... and I must stay they are fun to open and close. :)

I like the size of the drink bottle. At one and half cups, it's perfect. (It's really hard to find water bottles that aren't less than 2 cups.) It washes easily since there aren't any sippy spouts or anything. It's simple and I love it. I guess if you child has a hard time drinking from a water bottle, this might not be a good choice for them, but it works great for us.

All three containers fit nicely in the lunch box and in my kids' backpacks. Other lunchboxes they have had have been so bulky.

This set does come with neat chopsticks, but since my kids don't use those, I just pack a spoon or fork and a napkin in the inner pocket on the lunchbox's lid.

This lunchbox works much better than anything else we've used so far.

(legalese)

Rethinking Laundry

2011-08-17T14:43:00.000-07:00

So, after trying out homemade laundry detergent and not thinking it worth my effort, I started to wonder if it made much of difference to do what I'd been doing for ages: using less detergent than the manufacturer's recommendation. Turns out I was onto something... using lots of detergent leaves residue/buildup on clothing and actually makes them look prematurely dingy. Check out this Wall Street Journal article. Near the end of the article, it quotes Seventh Generation's co-founder Jeffery Hollender in saying, that for most of our clothing, water is really all we need to wash our clothes, and the agitation of the washer does the rest. Now, really, that isn't that crazy since many messes are water soluble. I'm not going to go overboard and say that I've decided to stop using detergent all together. Up to this time, I usually used about half the amount the manufacturer called for. But, what if I did even less, would it make a difference?

THE STUDY
I decided to do a bit of my own scientific study on the matter. I got three white clothes of the same material (new birdseye from my clothing diapering days) and swabbed them with the same amount of watermelon juice. Watermelon is a summertime staple at our house and doesn't normally wash out of clothes all by itself, so I figured it would make the perfect visual test. I chose to use cold water Tide for detergent because it typically has the best track record. I washed each cloth in a large load of laundry, in cold water. In one load I used the normal amount of detergent I had previously used: 1/4 cup (the number 2 line on the Tide lid, even though the manufacturer says that for large loads, I should fill to the number 3 line). In another load, I used 2 Tablespoons of Tide. In the last load, I put no detergent in at all, letting the water alone do the work.

I felt like I was back in elementary school as I took pictures and recorded my results. *Now, as I've said before, I'm no photographer... I did my best. The lighting was slightly different for the before and after shots, even with my efforts to control it. The "after" results really aren't as dingy as they look.*

Here they are:

You can click on each image to get a better look at them. As you can see, with the water, the watermelon did get washed out somewhat, but left a stain.

And here, with the my regular amount of Tide filled to level 2 (1/4 cup)... Tide label would have had me fill it to level 3. There is a stain there, just not as visible as when washed with water.

Here, the results from using 2 Tablespoons of Tide. It may not be completely visible here, but it took out the stain just as well as the above load washed with 1/4 cup of Tide.

My Conclusion: It's A-Okay to use less detergent without compromising results. In fact, I'm starting to wonder what would happen if I used 1 Tablespoon... And how to get out that watermelon? Pre-treat it. It's the only way. I used my stain-remover concoction .

Another tip: for whiter whites, soak a load of clothes in 1/2 cup of Borax (a lot cheaper than Clorox 2 and works just as well) for a half hour to 1 hour before washing.

Homemade Laundry Detergent Review

2011-07-19T16:56:00.000-07:00

Last year I read about making your own laundry detergent. I was skeptical. Why? Mostly because a lot of people swore by it (like I said, I'm a skeptic). Also, with all the recipes for homemade laundry detergent one can find on the web, they are all very different. Some are for the liquid form, others are for the powder form. While the ingredients are all pretty much the same (Borax, Fels Naptha soap, and Washing Soda), the ratios are quite different. Google it. You'll see.

I had never heard of Borax, Washing Soda, or Fels Naptha soap previous to my looking into homemade laundry detergent. As skeptical as I am, I'm also agonizingly curious, so I had to go ahead and making some laundry detergent. Upon buying these ingredients, I took a look at each product label.

Borax is a naturally occurring mineral compound that can be used as a laundry detergent booster, an alternative to color-safe bleach, and great multipurpose cleaner and deodorizer.
Washing Soda a.k.a soda ash, is sodium carbonate and is also consider a laundry booster and multipurpose cleaner.
Fels Naptha is a nice stain remover in the form of a bar.

My Experience
I choose to try the powered laundry detergent because making the liquid stuff just looked too laborious. The powdered stuff is just a matter of stirring our three ingredients together. Some say to use a tablespoon per load of laundry and others say to use 2 tablespoons per load (What to do???). For the record, I used one Tablespoon per load.

I used this homemade powder stuff for about 5 months. I can't say it cleaned my clothes better than the stuff I was using before. (I think it was Wisk.) Nearly every time I put the tiny Tablespoon into the washer, I had my doubts. I had read that the Borax label recommended half a cup in each load of laundry if using it as a booster. The washing soda also recommended a modest 1/4 cup amount for laundry booster. And here I was, using it as part of a detergent, barely using a couple teaspoons... (Anyway, I still pretreated all soiled clothing with my stain remover that I love.) Like I said, no real difference in cleaning my clothes.

I did, however, notice a difference in my washing machine: a greyish waxy film, making a ring at the water level. Yuck. That, I'm pretty sure was from using the Fels Naptha Soap. After all, one of soap's main ingredients is oil. I cleaned the waxy film and went back to my regular detergent, with a few changes. I'll talk about what changes I made in my next post. Suspense, I know.

Perfect Hard Boiled Eggs...Finally!

2011-06-28T15:02:00.000-07:00

This post isn't timely for Easter... but maybe if you'll be taking a potato salad or egg salad to summer picnic it might help. For years I have fought with hard boiled eggs. I've figured out to cook them quite perfectly so the yolks weren't green... but peeling the eggs, that has been an issue for years. How could I cook them so that the shells weren't hard to take off?--ALL the time. I looked all over the internet for tips. Some say to rinse the eggs in cold water after cooking, others say not to; to let them cool on their own. Some say to boil them in vinegar and salt water. Some say to poke a hole in the eggs with a pin before boiling. Well, I've tried most of these tips and none were completely fool-proof for me. I NEED fool-proof.

So, this last Easter I turned to my Facebook friends, asking them for their fool-proof method. One friend gave me a new suggestion I had not yet come across in all my looking. She said that she has always removed the eggs from the fridge about 2 or 3 hours before she cooks them so they come to room temperature. Then, she cooks them like usual.

Now, room temperature eggs. That was one thing no one had ever suggested. Apparently, it was the silver bullet for me. So now, here's my fool proof hard boiled egg cooking method:

Perfect Hard Boiled Eggs

1. Remove eggs from the fridge 2-3 hours before cooking them so they can come to room temperature.

2. Place eggs in a sauce pan of water (also at room temperature). Bring the water to a boil on high heat.

3. Once water has come to a boil, turn off the heat, place a lid on the sauce pan and set a timer for 15 minutes.

4. After 15 minutes, remove eggs from water. Allow eggs to cool to room temperature. (I like to let my eggs cool in a colander in the sink.)

5. Peel eggs!

Now, how come I never thought to ask my Mom about this?

Shiney Fixtures!

2011-06-24T13:48:00.001-07:00

I don't normally take household cleaning advice from dirty old men, but this guy that did some work on our tub offered unique enough advice that I figured I'd try it. He said that if I waxed my sink, tub surrounds (not floor as it would make it slippery) and fixtures after I washed them, they'd stay shiny longer and wouldn't need scrubbing as much. I'm all about less scrubbing.

I just used some car wax we had hanging around. (We don't wax our cars, so it was just going to continue hanging around.) I applied the wax to all the sinks in my house as well as fixtures and tub surrounds. I must say, it is nice. When doing my routine cleaning, I no longer need to buff the fixtures dry to make them shine. I just wipe them and when they dry, they are shining. I love what it has done for my kitchen sink. I used to scrub it once a week. Now, maybe every couple of weeks is all it needs. The wax does wear off, so I reapplied it after about a month and a half.

Adblock Plus Now for Chrome!

2011-06-08T14:01:00.000-07:00

I have LOVED Adblock Plus as an ad and pop-up blocker for Mozilla Firefox for some time. Only downside of it was that it was only available for the Firefox browser. Well, I'm happy to say that there is currently a beta version available for Google Chrome users. This is great since the previous ad-blocking software available for Google Chrome (AdSweep) wasn't that stellar. All you Chrome users outta check it out: AdBlock Plus for Chrome.

Moving with Ooma!

2011-05-24T12:37:00.000-07:00

I recently finished an out of state move (whew!). I'd been using Ooma for my phone service for almost one full year. When I first got Ooma, I had my old number ported to Ooma. After this most recent move, naturally, I wanted a local phone number. Time for another port! Because Ooma didn't offer any local numbers in my area, I had to take the long route: get phone service through a regular carrier (so I could get a local number) and have the number ported to Ooma. Though I'd been through this porting process just about a year ago, a bit had changed. Let me tell you about it.

Porting My Number To Ooma
After getting the least expensive phone service through a local carrier ($40 a month with taxes, once all was said and done!), I went straight to Ooma.com to begin the porting process. Submitting the order is a lot easier this time around than it was last time. Everything is now electronic, including my signature; no need to fax any documents! That was really nice. (BTW, it costs $39 to port a number.) The only thing I didn't get a chance to clarify on the order form was that I wanted this new number to replace my old number. I just have Ooma basic, so I can only have one number serviced through Ooma. If I'd of had Premier, I could have had both numbers on my account.

The whole porting process didn't take very long: I sumbitted my order to have my number ported on April 22 and by May 5th, the number was ported, so it went a lot faster this time than it did last time. But, it wasn't completely seamless. My port was scheduled for May 4th, but was actually ported a day later. On May 4th, I received automated phone calls from Ooma about every two hours all day, informing me that Ooma was working on the port. It wasn't until the afternoon on May 5th that a real person from Ooma called me and told me that they couldn't port my number because I didn't have premier. When I explained that I wanted this new number to replace my existing one, there was no problem and the port happened within an hour.

Caller ID Confusion
Now, it's time for the yucky news. With my old Ooma number, I had caller ID with name (I have basic service). When my old number was ported to my new number, I no longer had caller ID with name, just the number. I emailed customer support (this is the best way to get service, I have found) and was told that for some reason Ooma had not turned off the caller ID with name after my initial premier trial subscription ran out (a free premier trial subscription comes with every new Telo). So, I was basically getting a premier service for free, which I liked! Well, as I looked on Ooma forums, there are others out there who have basic service and have caller ID with name, so there is some discrepancy here which is a bit unnerving.

At any rate, I can live without the caller ID with name. I can Google numbers I don't know. Also, from Ooma's website, in my account, I can view call logs and add numbers to my contact list, putting in the name of the person/company. Next time someone calls from my contact list, Ooma will pull that info and it shows up on my phone. So, I can have caller ID with name for the people I know.

My thoughts on Ooma
Would I recommend it? Yes. The price is just so impressive and so far can not be beat for what they offer. Call quality isn't as perfect as a land line, but it's a lot more reliable than a cell phone. Let me explain that. For the majority of our calls, the quality is like a land line or better, but every once in a while a call will get dropped or break up. For the first year I had Ooma, I had it with DSL internet and I noticed echoing on some calls. Now I have cable internet and I don't notice any echoing. Since I've had my Telo for over a year, it has paid for itself. I intend to continue with it. Hey, just getting that bill from the local phone company for the one month that I had service through it, was a sour reminder of the chunk that phone service can cost. I'm not up for it.

Make a Resuce CD for Your Computer Now!

2011-04-25T13:15:00.000-07:00

I have posted info on some ways to access your hard-drive should your computer become incapacitated for some reason, via a Linux live CD. Today I want to talk about something less intimidating... hopefully something that everyone with a computer should be able to do: Making a FREE AVG Anti-virus Rescue CD. Everyone ought to have something like this on hand. Should your computer ever become compromised, you can use this CD as your first line of defense to check for viruses. Just slip a live anti-virus CD in your computer and boot from the disc. AVG will automatically update virus definitions before it preforms a full system scan.

So, getting the free CD is easy:

1. Head to http://www.avg.com/us-en/avg-rescue-cd

2. Download the rescue CD

3. Burn the image onto a CD. This is the ONLY part that I think would be hard for newbies, but not insurmountable. Burning an image is not the same as burning the files to a CD. You have to expressly select the option "burn image" or "burn iso image" (depending on your burning software) in order to burn the image correctly.

4. There. You have a rescue CD. Now, label it and put it in a place you'll remember. Hopefully, you'll never need it, but chances are pretty high that you'll at least have a friend who might!

Cinnamon Swirl Bread

2011-04-19T14:22:00.001-07:00

Preface
Okay, background: My kids went to a peanut-free school. They bring their lunches to school... so no PB&J. What is a Mom to do with picky kids? If they don't like what I pack, they just don't eat their lunch. That is really frustrating. They come home famished. And I'm irritated. I came upon making this Cinnamon Swirl Bread to help remedy the issue. I make it with white whole wheat flour so that it can be as nutritious as possible, yet tasty enough that my kids will eat it. We spread cream cheese frosting on it and have a yummy Cinnamon sandwich ready for lunch. But it very good as toast with butter on top too.

Cinnamon Swirl Bread
2 1/2 cups warm water
1/2 brown sugar
1 T yeast
1/4 cup canola oil
1 T salt
2 T lemon juice (helps make bread soft)
5-6 cups of white whole wheat flour (enough to make a soft, not sticky dough.)

In a large bowl, combine all ingredients but flour. Let yeast bubble. Next, add flour, cup by cup, stirring as you go, until it gets to hard to stir, then use your hands unless you have a nice mixer. Knead the dough for about 5 minutes. Allow to rise (40 mins). Punch down divide dough into two equal parts. For each piece of dough, roll out, spread with a thin layer of butter, sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar. Allow to rise until double in size (40 mins to 1 hour). Bake at 350 degrees for 30 mins. Makes 2 loaves.

I like a nice swirl in the bread, this is how I got it:

1: shape enough dough for one loaf into a loaf.

2. Next, roll it out so it's nice and looooonnnnggg.

3. Spread a very, very thin layer of butter on it, sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar. Too much of any of these ingredients and your bread will separate at the swirls. Practice makes perfect.

4. Starting at one of the short ends, carefully roll up the dough, pinching on the sides as you roll. And now, it should look like the loaf you started with at the beginning, expect it's filled with yummy stuff.

5. Delight in the perfect swirl inside.

Cream Cheese frosting

5 oz cream cheese
2 T butter
2 c. confectioner sugar
1/2 t. vanilla

Mix ingredients, adding sugar slowing on medium speed until thick and smooth. Top on cakes, cinnamon rolls, etc.

Prologue
The end of the story. We have moved (hence my blogging hiatus) and now my kids go to a school that is no longer peanut-free! This has been wonderful! It was one of the first things I inquired about when I was registering my kids at the new school. The lady at the school said, no, it wasn't peanut-free, but they do have lots of kids with lots of different allergies and they deal with them on an individual basis. I know I'd be opening a can of worms if I say too much about this peanut-free thing (google it, people on forums and message boards can get pretty feisty), but I did just want to say, that it can be done: a child can go to school and have a peanut allergy without making the entire school peanut-free. There, I probably opened a can of worms anyway...

Great Pillows, Made in the USA at a Great Price? Yes!

2011-03-14T08:34:00.001-07:00

Okay, a few weeks ago when I was changing the bedding in my kids' rooms, It became painfully apparent that I just had to get some new pillows for my kids. They, the pillows, resembled stale toast more than they did actual pillows. They aren't that old, and are clean... but you know how pillows get all frumpy and chunky? That's how they were. So why have I been putting off buying new pillows for my dear children? Well, pillows are expensive and I never seem to be satisfied with my purchase... I've bought name brand pillows like Serta and cheapie pillows from Walmart, all with the same results. It's really irritating.

At any rate, I decided to bit the bullet and just shell out the dough to buy 4 pillows, knowing that they probably wouldn't hold up for more than 4 months at a time. I checked Amazon and Overstock for reviews and wasn't feeling sold on any of the pillows there because of prices and the mixed reviews. (I wanted down alternative pillows.)

Then, I thought of hotels and how they can have such nice pillows (not all, but some do!) and I was sure that they don't pay high prices for their pillows since they probably change them out quite often. So, I started searching google for hotel pillows and found Royal Pillow. (I'm not getting paid for this plug.)

Royal Pillow is based in Florida, sells pillows made in the USA to hotels, hospitals and even regular people. And their prices are amazing! I bought 4 pillows from their current promotion: Micro Denier Fiber Pillows (down-like) for only $6.99 a piece. Now, I must say that shipping was steep. I think I paid about $12.00 for it, but for 4 pillows at that price, it was still a lot lower than what I could have spent.

My pillows arrived in a timely manner, within a week of ordering them. I really, really wanted to like these pillows, but because I paid so little for them I was skeptical. Upon taking them out of the box, I noticed right away that they were a LOT softer than any other down-alternative pillow I had bought. They actually feel like down! I ended up taking a pillow and sleeping on it for a week to see how it compared to my down/feather pillow. It may be too early to tell, but so far, I prefer it to my old pillow because it offers just a tad bit more support.

So, now that I know I like these pillows and want some for my bed, I'll be ordering at least a couple more! So glad to finally have some pillows I'm actually happy with!

If you are looking for pillows, check out Royal Pillow. They also sell down and feather pillows too at great prices.

RIT White Wash: My Experience

2011-03-07T06:46:00.000-08:00

About a year ago I picked up some RIT White-Wash in the laundry isle at Walmart. I didn't have a use for it right away, but I'm always interested in trying out whiteners. Well, this last month I had a pretty good opportunity to try it out.

I bet you don't know what happens when you wash a pad of neon Post-it page markers in a load of white laundry. I think I'm probably the only one in the world with first hand experience in this area. Well, you get neon marks all over your whites. I had a minor fit as I surveyed the damage. (It might be worth noting that I didn't notice the neon marks on the clothes until after I had taken them out of the dryer to fold.) I had no idea at first that Post-its had caused the mess. When I figured it out using my "detective skills," I knew a child of mine might have information on how it all happened... but that's another story.

My Experience
I figured now was a good time to try out that White-Wash. RIT White-Wash claims: "RIT White-Wash reliably whitens solid white fabrics." On the box it says only to wash clothing that is all white, no colors. I had a very light colored cotton shirt in the load that had neon marks on it, so I figured I'd throw it in with the White-Wash just to see what happened. I also treated the marks on this shirt with my reliable DIY stain remover just for an experiment.

RIT White-Wash can be used on a small amount of clothing in pot over the stove or in the washing machine. I chose the washing machine since I had a med/large load. I followed the directions exactly. Start to fill the washer with hot water, and slowly add RIT White-Wash just above water level. There is a warning on the package about the dust (not inhaling it or getting it in your eyes) as well as the fumes (keep the place ventilated). First, it really stinks. So, take the warnings seriously. You are also supposed to add your regular amount of laundry detergent and wash as normal. I did this.

The Out Come:
I have mixed opinions about RIT White-Wash. It did NOT whiten the whites. I washed mostly cotton fabric and some synthetic fabric like nylon and polyester. I didn't notice any difference on any of the fabrics. If they were dingy when they went in, they were dingy when they came out. If they were bright white when they went in, that's how they looked when they came out. Now to the neon spots. The neon pink and green spots on the clothes were removed. The neon yellow ones, they were hit and miss. Must have been a weird pigment issue. Anyway, the light colored shirt I put in, it was slightly lightened, but still had color so it looked fine. The neon spots on the shirt were yellow, but remember I had treated those with my stain remover and they came out completely. Yippee for the stain remover!

I don't think RIT White-Wash is a total waste. If you need to do first aid on a load of whites that got washed with a red sock, this would probably take the pink out of your whites. But, just as a whitener, I don't think RIT White-Wash cuts it.

Changing Your Tracfone Number: My Experience

2011-02-24T08:01:00.000-08:00

The Plug
I'm a proponent of prepaid cellular because I'm just not that attached to my phone. It's not an emergency-only phone. I'm just not much of a "chit-chatter", so 900 minutes can last me a whole year (costs $120) and there aren't any other phone plans that can beat that yet. My husband uses double the amount of minutes I do and it's still a great deal we haven't been able to find elsewhere.

There are some down-sides to Tracfone. For one, there are some really spiffy phones out there that Tracfone just doesn't offer... yet. (I'm sure they'll be offering android phones eventually.) For another, customer service is all overseas, so if you don't understand people with accents, you'll be in a bind.

Changing the Number
This Monday I began the days long effort of changing my husband's Tracfone number. We're in the process of moving and wanted him to have a local number to keep from having a roaming rate eat his minutes. Tracfones are pretty inexpensive and even free with an airtime card, so why would we bother changing the number on his 4-year old phone (from the ice age, really)? It gets an analog signal, and there aren't a lot of phones anymore that pick that up. Case in point: when we are driving in the wastelands of the West, my husband's phone can pick up an analog signal to make calls with and my phone, just a few months old, cannot. We like that analog capability, so we want to stick with it for as long as it works.

On my first phone call to customer service, I used my husband's phone, thinking that that might help with the change. Shouldn't have bothered doing that. I used 15 minutes and really didn't need the phone to do it. So, start smart, use a landline. On my first call, I told them what zip code I wanted my number changed to, the costumer service rep gave me a number to dial as soon as I was off the phone that would make the change. Easy. I dialed the number and was told to hold while they updated my phone. I heard a loud beep for a few minutes and then it stopped. I was supposed to wait an hour for changes to take place. I waited 24 hours just to be sure. Nothing. No new number, but now my husband's old number no longer worked, so he couldn't make calls.

Tuesday I called costumer service again. (They are very nice.) They had me push a bunch of codes into the phone on the prepaid menu under code entry and then said to wait again for an hour for the changes to take place. I had to wonder if the rep just wanted to get rid of my because he couldn't solve my problem.

Called again on Wednesday. I spent a long time (30 minutes) on the phone entering different codes into the phone. Then I was told that my phone had an error on it and it would take 24 hours to clear. So, call tomorrow. They gave me a ticket number that I was to refer to when I called back.

Called on Thursday. I gave the rep my ticket number right away. I think that helped, because she seemed to know what was going on and what had already been tried. She didn't ask me to punch in codes I'd already done a handful of times. She had me punch in one code and then my phone automatically shut off and turned back on and it had a new number on it! Yippee! It took a long time, but it's done. And we can keep our old Tracfone.

Old Vinyl Floor Transformation

2011-02-11T10:40:00.000-08:00

When we were getting ready to put our house up for sale a month ago, we found ourselves carefully deciding what was worth spending money on fixing. We really felt like something needed to be done with our vinyl kitchen floor. The cost of putting in a new vinyl floor wasn't too awful, but the time that it would take to remove the old vinyl prep the floor seemed too daunting for our limited time frame. So, I took a good look at our floor. The problem with it isn't that it is out-dated, it just had has a lot of scratches in it that dirt was stuck in, making it look really dirty and dinged up. I wondered if I could give it a face lift and make it shine. Our floor is a no-wax vinyl floor, so I figured that I wouldn't be able to put wax on it. I was wrong.

After doing some looking around online, I found that many recommended scrubbing down the floor with a vinegar/water solution (I used a 1/1 solution) and then waxing it to seal the scratches. The price of wax was about $9 and the scrubbing would just take time. It took A LOT longer than I anticipated. I srubbed the floor for a total of 7 hours. I had a large scrub brush, medium sized one, and a toothbrush... all helped with the job. I used an old towel to wipe up the dirty water as I went. My arms and upper back were killing me by the end. But I persisted because the scrubbing with vinegar really was doing an excellent job. I had attempted to scrub the floor in the past using commercial cleaners like Mop and Glo and Pine Sol, but they just left a sticky film on the floor that only attracted more dirt.

After scrubbing, I gave the floor a few good passes with a clean mop and straight water and then dried it with a clean towel. The most amazing thing was seeing how the clean the towel was after I had rubbed it across the floor. The floor was totally clean. Next, I applied 3 coats of vinyl floor wax (allowing 30 minutes to dry in between coats). Now, not only is my floor clean, it shines and it looks A LOT better... to the point where I feel good enough about putting it up for sale without replacing the floor.

Metal Snap Removal, In Case You Were Wondering

2011-02-03T06:33:00.001-08:00

I was wondering why my son hadn't worn the new pants I bought him months ago. He told me it was because the snap kept coming undone. Okay. Makes sense. So, a faulty snap... I figured it was a loss. Then I thought that maybe I could take the snap off and replace it with a button. Now, I know there are tools out there that you can buy to remove snaps, and while I'm sure they are great, it turns out a simple flat head screwdriver will do the trick! Rather than reinvent the wheel, here are some detailed instructions for the process: http://www.sewing.org/scripts/blog/2010/04/how-to-remove-a-no-sew-snap/

How the Snap Removal Went for Me
I will say, that some care needs to be taken to make sure you don't hurt yourself in the process of removing the snap. Now, I had an auto mechanics teacher back in high school that told us never to use a tool for something it wasn't made for. So, don't call it a screwdriver, call it a pry bar. Pry away from yourself and your hands (we always says this, but one one always does it). I did it on surface that I didn't mind scuffing. The trick is to bend one side of the snap away from the other side that it is fixed to. The result left a small hole where the snap had been. I used a scrap of fabric to reinforce the area with the hole, sewed on a button and made a button hole for it. Worked! And I probably only spent 20 minutes on it.

Had the boy try his pants on... and he barely fits them anymore! Rats!

Getting the Stink Out of That Which Can Not Go in the Washer

2011-01-18T15:55:00.001-08:00

I've been busy doing a lot of cleaning. Hence, my absence. I typically do much of my "Spring Cleaning" during Christmas break and January. The New Year just feels better with a deep clean. I've learned a few new things about cleaning that I'll be sharing.

Today's Topic: Stench Yucky, smelly, musty, smells that you can't seem to get rid of. I'm talking about stuff that Fa-breeze can't cut through. And I'm talking about things that you can't put in the washer: carpet, couches, mattresses... surface wash only stuff.

Recently, we started using a mattress that had been in storage. It had a musty, storage smell that I hoped would go away on it's own. I couldn't let it air out outside since the weather wasn't allowing for that. So, I tried shampooing it with the hand tools of my carpet shampooer. It didn't touch the smell. I gave up for a day. Hoped it would air out. It didn't.

So, I searched around online. Most people were saying to put vinegar in a spray bottle, spray the offensive area, allow it to dry. Easy enough. I tried it. It helped. I had also read about using ammonia in a spray bottle, applying the same as the vinegar. If figured I'd give it a shot. Because ammonia is so repugnant, I opened the window and closed the door of the room while the mattress dried. The results were great. The stench was gone...without smelling ammonia instead.

Now, would two applications of vinegar have done the trick? Perhaps, but I think it might have taken 3-4 applications of vinegar. I use vinegar to get the sink out of the carpet after cleaning up barf. It works. Now I know that ammonia works too (seems stronger) and that vinegar is easier on the respiratory system. I have found vinegar to be quite effective in removing the yucky cigarette smoke smell as well.

Get the Stink out of Towels and Dishcloths

2010-12-31T08:17:00.000-08:00

I don't have this problem near as often as I did when I lived in a more humid environment, but it does still happen on occasion. The problem? Stinky, mildewy towels, and dishcloths. And it doesn't matter how much you wash them, the stink doesn't leave. Know what I'm talking about?

So, I found something that works years ago and thought I'd share: Lysol, all purpose cleaner. You can buy the stuff at most stores for $3-4. Lysol promises to disinfect and kill badcteria and viruses. I buy the bottle without the trigger on the end because it makes for easier pouring. I usually get lemon scent because it's one of the few scents I can handle.

Here's what you do:

1. Fill washer with hot water and about a cup of Lysol all purpose cleaner.
2. Add offending laundry.
3. Allow the laundry to agitate for a minute and then let it soak for at least an hour before resuming the laundry cycle.
4. Dry laundry as usual.
5. Enjoy better-smelling towels.

Touch up Wood Furniture with Shoe Polish

2010-12-21T07:54:00.000-08:00

While I was polishing some shoes with brown shoe polish (probably the first time in over a year), I found myself reading the label of the shoe polish container. It said it could be used to touch up wood furniture. In the past I've used Old English Furniture polish to touch up wood. It's expensive, can be messy (it's a liquid) and stain anything you spill it on. But it's okay. I've also heard of using a brown crayon to touch up furniture. This I don't like because it leaves a waxy residue.

So, I first tried applying some brown shoe polish to our armoire door in a place where the wood stain was worn off. It blended very nicely. Happy with the fix, I decided to try something a little more drastic. We have a light colored Target special chest of drawers that got scratched pretty badly during our last move. Every time I walk past it, my eyes notice the deep gouge. It's not real wood, just particle board, so I wanted to see how the shoe polish would take to it. It did a pretty good job. At least now when I walk past the chest, I don't notice any blaring imperfection.

Before

After

How to Change the Default OS on a Dual Boot System

2010-12-13T11:08:00.000-08:00

Okay, not a lot of people will have interest in this, but of the few who might, and for my own good, I'm going to document this.

I recently got a new computer that came with Windows 7. I like it well enough, but I really like the Ubuntu and had wanted it on my next computer. I was initially planning on buying a computer without an OS so I could put Ubuntu on it, but then I found this great deal of a computer that came with Windows 7. So, here I am with a computer with Windows 7... and I still want Ubuntu, so I decided I'd just do a dual boot system. The dual boot thing was working just fine, expect that the default OS was Ubuntu and since my webcam (Microsoft lifecam) doesn't work with Ubuntu, I wanted the default boot to be Windows 7 until I get a webcam that will play nicely with both operating systems.

To change the default boot means to change the GRUB. And here's the best instructions I have found on how to do it: http://www.hackourlives.com/change-default-boot-order-ubuntu-10-04-lucid/ You have to get into the terminal in Unbuntu, type in some fancy commands and change the boot order number, but It's all well written. It worked for me... and when I get a good webcam, I'll be changing the boot order again, probably back to Ubuntu... But that's a topic for a whole "nother" post: Windows7 vs Ubuntu. :)

Feb 03 2011 Update:
My boot order changes worked great until my Ubuntu system updated and a new kernel was downloaded. The new kernel goes in the GRUB menu, the old one doesn't get replaced, so it pushes everything in the GRUB menu down. I figured this was going to be a mess to stay on top of. (One reason why Ubuntu isn't quite for everyone yet.) But, I found a hack that will be easy for me to keep on top of my GRUB menu. Ubuntu Tweak. And use these directions to clean up old kernels you don't want. The nice thing about Ubuntu Tweak is that it won't let you accidentally remove the kernel you are using because it doesn't list the current kernel on the list of kernels available to delete. Works for now.

Free 411 after Google 411

2010-12-07T07:48:00.000-08:00

I recently wrote that Google 411 was throwing in the towel. So, I had to find a new 411 service.

Why not just use a phone book, you ask? Because I have three different ones with different results in each and it is a pain to compare the results of each one. It's just easier to have a service look the number up for me. Plus, I hate looking things up because I don't like to think alphabetically, okay?

After trying out the list of free 411 services I blogged about earlier, I choose two services that will likely end up on my cell and/or my home phone's speed dial.

DEX- 1-800-Call-Dex : Many free 411 services are loaded with ads that make it hard to navigate and even harder to remember why I was even making the 411 call in the first place. Dex has no ads, unless you count the Dex greeting at the beginning which is short and painless. This service can understand voice quite well.

1-800-Call-411: This is probably my favorite service. When I first tried this, the company phone it connected me to was busy so they gave me the the company's phone number so I could call on my own later. That was nice. The voice recognition is nice, but if you have a lot of background noise, you also have the option to type the zip code of the business you are looking up. You can also get the business address and have it texted to your cell. And of course, no ads! Only hook on this is that it is Microsoft based... so if you have issues with them, you might have to work through them before you can comfortably use it.

Undelete! Undelete!- Recuva!

2010-11-27T08:21:00.000-08:00

Okay, I only learned about Recuva because I deleted some seriously important files from a USB drive. But, I'm glad I know about Recuva.

Recuva is Windows freeware, but I understand it can work on Ubuntu through WINE. With Recuva, you can "undelete" files from your external memory widgets like an mp3 player or USB or other memory card. According to their website, you can also permanently delete files using Recuva.

My experience:
I used Recuva to recover files that were accidentally deleted on a USB drive. Downloading and installing Recuva software is easy. (You can also download a portable version so you can have it with you wherever you go.) I had no need to use Recuva's documentation in order to get to work on undeleting my files. You simply select the drive you would like Recuva to scan and recover. After the scan is performed, Recuva displays a list of the files found. There were a lot. This thing recovered probably everything ever put on the USB drive (in my case over 1000 files). Some files no longer had the correct file names, but had numbers assigned to them instead. The actual organization that the files existed under was gone. For instance, if you have your files in folders, Recuva isn't going to recover the same organization scheme... no folders, just the files. That's really all that matters anyway. From this list I selected the files I wanted recovered. Then, I choose to recover them. At this point Recuva prompted me to select a location to save the recovered files. From there, Recuva recovered the files! Now the real work comes to go through it all, organize them and find out what is needed, and what isn't. Unfortunately, no computer program can do this... yet.

Manage Computer Time with a Timer

2010-11-19T16:17:00.000-08:00

I recently downloaded Cool Timer (free) to help control the time my family spends on the computer. It's all to easy to sit down to a task and end up getting distracted with news, email, games or whatever and find that the original task took a whole lot longer and anticipated to complete.

Cool Timer is a simple, straight-forward timer that even my kids can use. I have them set it before they start on the computer. It is understood that when the "fog horn" (my son's favorite alarm sound) goes off, time's up. One less thing I have to keep track of.

Good to Know: Zamzar Converts Files

2010-11-16T20:40:00.000-08:00

I had the need to convert a Microsoft Publisher file to something else so I could actually view it. Note to self: If you can use something other than Publisher to create a file, do it!

Enter Zamzar.com. Zamzar is a very helpful free service that allows you to convert a wide variety of files to any one of another wide variety of files. The site is very straight forward and easy to use with no need to set up an account. Wahoo! All you do is select the file you wish to convert, and select the type of file you'd like it to be converted to, type in your email address, and click "convert." Within minutes you will receive an email from Zamzar which contains a link to your converted file. From there, you download the file for keeps.

I first converted my Publisher file to MS Word. The conversion went quite well. The only thing different was the font. No biggie. Since Word and OpenOffice are "compatible," I tried opening this new Word file in OpenOffice Writer. Yuck. It was an indistinguishable mess. So, I used Zamzar to convert my original Publisher file to OpenOffice Writer (.odt). It did a great job. The converted Word file and the converted Writer file looked identical.

Zamzar also offers image, video, music, and e-book conversions...

Bagels!

2010-11-04T20:12:00.000-07:00

Last year I tried to make bagels. I used this recipe from allrecipes.com. Given the couple hundred quite positive reviews, I figured I could whip these out with no problem. Afterall, bagels are just a form of bread and I've been making bread for over 10 years.

Sadly, I did not succeed with this recipe. I tried making it again 4-5 times before I gave up and just tried to accept the fact that I couldn't conquer bagels. The problem was, my bagels turned out flat and doughy. It was irritating because some, of the same batch, would turn out not as doughy as others. I had no idea what was going on, but I blamed it on high altitude since I live at over 5000 feet.

Well, this year I tried again. But not without thinking very hard about what I was going to try different. The basic method to make bagels is to mix the dough, let it rise, form into bagels, let rise, broil, boil and then bake. Somewhere in this process my risen bagels would fall (that's why they turned out flat and doughy). I figured it had to do with the broiling since I noticed that they often started to go flat when I moved the broiled bagels into to boiling water. Previously, I had broiled them too far away from the heat. I also hadn't really given the oven a chance to heat up before I broiled the bagels. And last, the recipe I used said to broil them on an ungreased baking sheet. When I tried that, the bagels stuck to the pan, making them hard to turn turn over to broil the other side. And too much handling will make a risen bagel fall.

So, for success with the bagel recipe, I formed the bagels by taking a bit of dough, and forming a ball. Then I just poked a whole in it and tried to make it look pretty. I set them to rise on a greased pan. Like so:

Once risen (about30 mins), I set my oven on broil and allowed 5 mins for it to heat up. I placed my bagels on the highest rack about 5 inches under the heat. Broiled them for 1.5-2 mins on each side. It's the consistency that's important here. I found that the you need a good, toasted bagel. If it's too soft, it'll fall. And obviously you have to watch this part because it wouldn't be nice to burn them this early in the game!

Next, Boiling. After broiling in the oven, it's time to boil in some water. I did as the recipe suggested here. I boiled them in a big pan of water with 1 tablespoon of brown sugar (you can do white sugar or honey too) for 6-7 mins on each side.

After boiling, I transferred the bagels to a wire rack with a towel under it to drain off excess water. After draining, I transferred the bagels to a greased pan and cooked them for 20 mins. at 375 degrees. And the finished product:

Yeah, I know, pretty exhaustive process... but they are good and It's kinda fun to know how to do.

One other tip: I didn't make my bagels plain. Mine are cinnamon. I waited to add a tablespoon of cinnamon and reserved about 2 teaspoons of the sugar called for in the recipe until the dough was all mixed. Adding the the cinnamon last gives it a swirled look (which I prefer)... if I'd have added it first, I would have given the bagels a brown look... but I'm sure would have tasted just as good.

Bye, Bye Google 411...

2010-10-26T08:22:00.000-07:00

Last time I placed a call using Google's free directory assistance, I was informed by the automated recording that Google will suspend the service on November 12th this year. Boo hoo. Seriously, I know that Google wasn't offering this free service out of the kindness it's big cooperate heart...They had ulterior motives.

I enjoyed free 411 service so much I figured I needed to find another one. I found this list of free 411 services. Some even have live operators (if you find humans helpful as opposed to computers)! It's too early for me to test them and decide which one is going to get programed into my phone, but it's a start. The list is a big dated, written back in 2008... but, like I said, it's a start. I'll be giving them a try.

Learning Web Design

2010-10-22T09:51:00.000-07:00

I have had this crazy interest in learning to design web pages (probably cuz mine stinks). It's not like I have oodles of free time, but I decided I'd start at my own pace and maybe someday I'll like how my website looks... Plus, I figure web design would be a great skill to have.

So, right now I'm taking a free XHTML class from about.com. It's got 10 lessons that I can do at my own pace. At the end there is a test that if I pass, I'll feel happy about. It's not like a college degree or anything, but really if someone wants you to design their web page, I think they care more about whether or not you can do it, not that you went to Harvard to learn how to do it.

Next I plan on going to Google Code University (free too) to learn more about programming languages for web design: JAVA, CSS...

And this is the beauty of the internet: Information at your fingertips!

Get Your Sample Ballot Now

2010-10-20T08:05:00.000-07:00

I think a lot of people don't bother voting because they feel like it's a test that they don't get to see in full until they are in the voting booth. Then, you're standing there reading all the wordy political mumbo-jumbo, feeling like the world depends on your "right" answer, but you don't have the resources available in that booth to make the best decision. But, it doesn't have to be that way. Make your vote an open book test. Get a sample ballot.

How? For most places, you can Google your county's name along with "sample ballot." And, if your county is tech savvy enough (I sure hope so) they have it available from the clerk and recorder's website for download. If not, call your clerk and recorder's office and request one. Many newspapers also put out an election issue which sometimes includes a sample ballot as well. But who subscribes to those anymore? (I'm joking here. I know a lot of people still do, but I don't.)

I like to print off a sample ballot a couple of weeks before an election and fill it in as I research anything I'm not sure about. The internet is a great way to help me find in formation for and against different proposals. After I fill in the ballot, I take my cheat sheet with me on election day and use it to fill in the real ballot. No more walking out of the election booth feeling unsure about my "answers."

Oil, a Goo-Gone Alternative

2010-10-07T20:47:00.000-07:00

I like Goo-Gone. But it's pretty flammable. And since I ran out of it and haven't bothered to buy more, I started using olive oil instead. Back when I was reading up on the many uses of olive oil, I learned that you can use it to clean sticky residue off many surfaces. I've tried it quite a few times and have found that it does quite well. The only draw back is the oily residue you are left with. But to remedy that, I just spritz the area with some 50/50 vinegar water solution (handy cleaning solution) and wipe it off. You can use other cooking oils for this purpose as well.

Block Ads in Google Chrome

2010-10-01T11:57:00.000-07:00

I have three different web browsers on my computer. I use all three. In order of preference, they are: Firefox, Chrome, and Explorer (I only use the last one when I am forced to). Since I use Firefox the most, I have the AdBlock Plus add-on installed. I love it because I hate ads and it just does such an excellent job blocking them. That's my plug for Adblock Plus.

But we're talking about Chrome. I'm starting to like Chrome more and more (it's fast, fast, fast), hence I'm using it more and more. For Chrome, the ad block add-on of choice is Adsweep. (But it also works for Firefox and Opera browsers, though I haven't bothered installing it on my Firefox.) It's super-simple to install. Open your Chrome web browser and follow this link.

Now, my blog has text ads on it. So I'm sure I sound like a hypocrite. But close to no one reads this blog anyway (been blogging for 1.5 years and have made a measly $9)... so it's not like I care. I just like to get out useful information. But, hey, Google lives off of ads and they are allowing Adsweep. So, I'm not that crazy.

Cooking Bacon on the Waffle Iron

2010-09-27T11:25:00.000-07:00

A few months ago I watched a video where Chef Alton Brown cooked his bacon on a waffle iron. I figured this was a pretty ingenious idea. I tried it.

Previously, I had been cooking my bacon in the oven on a roll pan/cookie sheet. The downside to this method is that you have to have a pretty hot oven (heats up the whole house, which is not ideal in the summer) and you have to turn the bacon over half way through cooking it. The more contact I have with a hot oven, the more likely I am to burn myself somehow. Oh, and while the bacon cooks, it wallows in its own fat. Turns out pretty tasty, but I was open to finding a better way to cook bacon.

So, the first time I tried cooking bacon with Alton's waffle iron method, I used my Black & Decker Waffle Iron/Grill. I didn't put the grill on a cookie sheet when I cooked the bacon as Alton Brown does in his video... and my counter wasn't exactly 100% level, so the grease went the path of least resistance and made a mess all over my counter, not to mention making a huge mess out of my waffle iron! I figured I'd go back to cooking bacon in the oven.

But, my stubborn streak forced me to try it again a while later. This time, I placed a cookie sheet under my grill and securely propped up the grill in the back against the rim of the cookie sheet so that the grease would collect in the right direction. My results were much better. Good enough that this is now my preferred bacon cooking method. I think this would work great with a George Foreman Grill as well. Though I don't have one, so I don't know. In the above pictures I'm cooking turkey bacon so there is minimal fat. I can cook about 4 strips at a time and it only takes about 2-3 minutes to cook.

What CAN I Drink Out Of?

2010-09-22T14:48:00.000-07:00

Once plastic was seen as a miracle invention. Now with news of BPA and other harmful substances that can leach out of plastics the consumer is left to wonder what to do next. Buy the latest miracle invention?... And in 20 years they'll find something bad about that. It's just how it is. There is a side effect to every great advance.

As a result of rearing four children, I recently found my supply of mugs and glasses running low. Tired of cleaning up the remnants of broken beverage containers too often, I was really hoping to buy something a bit more kid-proof this time around. I figured I'd go with plastic, but with the recent buzz over BPA, I was having second thoughts. Yeah, I know that living causes cancer, but if I can try to prevent it with the knowledge available, provided it won't break the bank, I'll do it. So I searched for PBA-free plastic tumblers. There is BPA free plastic... but the cost is relatively steep, in my opinion for something that hasn't withstood the test of time yet.

Then I revisited tried and true glass. I had written glass off initially because, well, it breaks. But, not all glass does. And it has withstood the test of time. My answer? Duralex Glasses. French. Heat treated/tempered. Very durable. I Ordered twelve 8.75 oz. cups. They are nice and heavy. Great for everyday. Love how they are shaped- good for dunking cookies. Easy to hold. I'm going to order some 12 oz. ones too. They are great in the dishwasher, come out dry and without any little pools of water on the bottom. Duralex makes bowls and plates too...

Also check out: http://www.zoebonline.com/kidishes-kid-friendly-tempered-glass-duralex.html

My First Summer of Charcoal Grilling

2010-09-15T19:46:00.000-07:00

Our grilled pizza over a campfire on a family vacation.

Unconfirmed sources say that 75% of Americans own an outdoor grill. Until this year, I was part of that 25% who didn't own a grill. I was never very interested in grilling because I always thought that grilling was for people who eat a lot of meat and we just don't a tone of meat. Guess you could say we're flexitarians if you want to put a name to it.

But then I got to reading about how cooking your meals on an outdoor grill can help keep utility costs down in the summer. Since I hate heating up the house with the oven on a hot day, I was interested. Naturally, I read up on it. I learned that you can cook just about anything on a grill.

Next thing, I bought a cheapie charcoal grill from Home Depot just to give it a whirl. The first meal I did with the grill was grilled cheese and chicken sanwiches. They took forever to cook (like an hour). Stubborn little me had to figure out how to regulate temperature so that I could cook just about anything on a grill! I found this website most helpful when it comes to learning how to figure out if your grill is hot enough to cook with (it's a dutch oven cooking site, but the principles are similar):
http://www.dutchovendude.com/campfire-cooking.shtml

The basic idea is obvious, but new to me: if it feels as hot as the oven where you normally cook it, it's ready for the grill. If it's not hot enough, add more charcoal. Just stick your hand over the heated charcoal/fire. Closing the air vents or the grill lid will decrease the temperature. It's a lot the same for a campfire too. Only, with a campfire, it's easier to add wood to make it hotter than it is to make it cooler. Obvious, like I said, but brilliant to a newbie like me.

And then I started cooking. Yum. I've cooked with our dutch oven, aluminum foil, my regular pots, pans and casserole dishes and straight on the grill itself. Pizza is by far our most favorite thing to grill. And I've discovered what 75% of Americans already know. Not only does food taste wonderful from the grill, but it's also so much fun to cook.

Making Lotion

2010-09-14T11:26:00.000-07:00

I decided to make my own lotion for a number of reasons.
1. It sounded fun.
2. My daughters all have varying degrees of eczema, so we go through A LOT of lotion.
3. I like expensive, smelly lotion.

There is more than enough information on the internet for making lotion. It can be confusing... to the point that I just about shied away from trying. All I wanted was a simple, basic recipe and maybe a bit of background info on all the ingredients and the process (but not TOO much!)

Here's the simple, basic recipe and tutorial I found, compliments of the Soap Queen: http://soap-queen.blogspot.com/2008/11/gift-series-lotion-tutorial-from.html I've used this recipe and tutorial a few times now with success every time.

Lotions recipes are quite involved when it comes to ingredients... so if you want to make something moisturizing that is very simple and only uses two main ingredients, perhaps this easy whipped shea butter should do the trick (also from the Soap Queen): http://soap-queen.blogspot.com/2010/01/easy-whipped-shea-butter.html

So, where to buy all the ingredients? I buy from Brambleberry.com but there are loads of other places online or perhaps you are lucky enough to live near an actual brick and mortar store!

Share Your Screen Using Skype

2010-09-09T12:35:00.000-07:00

I often try to help out my mom with her computer questions. But she lives far enough from me that I can't just drive over and check out her computer. Hence, we often use Skype to communicate. If you've ever tried to help someone with a computer long distance you know that it can be very confusing for both parties, no matter how wonderful your communication may be. Well, my mom taught me about this really cool feature Skype has that allows you to share your screen. Once my mom shared her screen with me, it was a lot easier to walk her through her computer issue. It's great. It works with Mac OSX and Windows as well as Linux (you have to download the most recent Linux beta version 2.1).

The Makings of an Inexpensive Family Vacation

2010-09-07T06:37:00.000-07:00

Yeah, the economy has got a lot of people talking about stay-cations and not taking a vacation at all. But I think it's even possible to take a vacation... just on less. We gave it a try. I'd like to share the strategy we used.

Guidelines for Planning an Inexpensive Vacation:

Decide how far you are willing to drive. (This decision should take into account your sanity and as well as your budget.) Check out this gas calculator from AAA.
Get a map and check out what places of interest there might be within your appointed travel radius.
Research your options. This is the exciting part. Bet you never knew how many unique things there are just within a few hours of your own home! Look for National Parks and Stake Parks (they have very reasonable admission rates) and free things to see and do.
Plan Lodging. Now, if you've got more than 1 kid, I don't suggest cramming yourselves into a hotel room. They are expensive and there is little room to play. Instead, check out camping options. Even if you are not much of a camper, there are some great campgrounds all over the country that rent out modest cabins (with bathrooms) for $45-150 a night. The benefit here is that your kids have a place to play (outside) and you can cook your own meals (over a fire or grill). Check reviews of the places you would like to stay before you make a decision. Reserve your lodging.
Food. You can bring a cooler or just buy it once you get to your destination. We do a combination of both. We planned to eat out for a couple of meals, but also made a menu of simple and tasty meals we could cook on a grill.
Lists: Make lots of lists. Type them up and save them so you won't have to come up with them again next year. If camping, make a list of cooking supplies you'll need, including groceries. Have a list of any bedding or toiletries you might need as well.
Budget Money for the sites you'd like to see, the trinkets you'll likely pick up along the way... and anything else.

CASE IN POINT
We just got back from our family vacation few weeks ago. We decided that we could stand to drive 8 hours each way. That took us to Mt. Rushmore. The admission is $10 a carload. Not bad for a family of six, huh? We camped at Rafter J Bar Ranch for about $93 a night (four nights). The cabin slept six people and had a kitchenette as well as grills and picnic table outside. We took a day to drive to Rapid City (30 min drive) to take in some free attractions there: Storybook Island (highly recommended- the kids could have stayed there all day, no joke) and Dinosaur Park (fun for the kids, but only a 20 min visit, really). Groceries cost us $80 for the trip. Gas cost us about $110. In total our trip was $650. For five fun days with the family, this was totally worth it.

Remove Permanent Marker from Microfiber Couch

2010-09-02T08:42:00.000-07:00

This title might lead you to infer that I, a mother of four, might have had to clean permanent marker from my microfiber couch recently. My first reaction might have been: AHHH! But, knowing that rubbing alcohol is a gentle, yet effective cleaning agent, I tried it and had success. Dab some rubbing alcohol on a lint free rag and blot the area. I followed the procedure with a light water rinse of the area. This works on a lot of different surfaces: walls, carpet, even the dust jacket of a book (not that I've had to). . . Not that anyone would ever need to remove permanent marker from anything of value.

Driving Through Wyoming ... Again

2010-08-27T14:09:00.000-07:00

Wyoming is a nice state. It has some really neat scenery... but it's not exactly a vacation destination. Let face it, when traveling, Wyoming is normally the means to an end. Having driven through Wyoming enough to know this, I try to plan pit stops that will be fun for the kids because stopping at a gas station in the middle of Pringle, WY just isn't very exciting.

This year we drove through Wyoming on our way to Mt. Rushmore. (I'll write more on why that's such a family-friendly vacation on another post). Before we left, I looked up parks in Cheyenne, WY that would be right off the interstate, so as not to delay us anymore than necessary. I figured we could have a picnic lunch at the park and let the kids blow off some steam at the playground. The first park we stopped at was Pioneer Park. It wasn't very well maintained. Although the city's website said the park had public bathrooms, they were all locked up. The play area was nice enough, but we weren't really impressed with the park. So, if you are driving through Cheyenne, don't stop there.

Instead, stop at Lions Park. It's a great park just off the I-25 interstate with a few different play areas, picnic tables and restrooms. They have the coolest playground I have ever been to. Playgrounds these days have really been dumbed down for safety reasons, taking a lot of the fun out of playing outside. I'm not against safety, it's just a shame we haven't figured out how to let our kids have fun and be safe. That's why I wanted to write about this park. I wish we would have taken pictures, but we were all too busy having fun. Sometimes that's more important anyway. There was a merry-go-round with climbing rope shaped like a cone on it. So a child could climb up and sit inside the rope while riding around. They also had quite a bit of equipment that used centripetal force. All you had to do was sit or climb or hang on and the equipment would start to spin. Anyway, all of us, from 30 year-olds to 2 year-olds enjoyed this place. So, next time you are driving through Cheyenne, Wyoming, check it out!

Here's a picture I found online that helps explain the merry-go-round. The one at Lions Park wasn't quite like this, but you get the idea:

Learning More About Making Yogurt

2010-08-24T07:06:00.000-07:00

I've been making my own yogurt on and off for several years. But just recently I learned to make vanilla yogurt in a way that my family particularly likes. So, I've been making it even more.

And I started to have some questions:

How is yogurt culture made to begin with?
Why does my yogurt start only last for 4-5 batches of yogurt... and then other times it lasts much longer?
Can I freeze yogurt start and then use it later?

And I have found some answers:

How is yogurt culture made to begin with? Well, I did a few Google searches on this and I have no idea still. If anyone actually knows, please comment!

I learned that the reason my start sometimes lasted longer than other times had to do with how often I was making yogurt/"feeding" the start. When I make it daily, the start lasts a long, long time. When I make it every other day, it lasts about 2 weeks.

Yes, you can freeze your yogurt start for up to a month or so. I froze mine while we were off on vacation and made yogurt with it after we got home. I let it thaw and then made yogurt as usual. It turned out great.

I've got terrible allergies this time of year and learned that milk products don't help. So, I've been cutting back on my dairy consumption. But I learned that yogurt is something I don't want to give up. Here's an informative article about the health benefits (which are many) for yogurt.

And here's a really good article about yogurt making, complete with troubleshooting tips:

Why Yogurt

Store Emergency Numbers in Cell Phone

2010-08-12T19:25:00.000-07:00

Today I was driving in the grocery store parking lot when I saw a truck with no one at the wheel but a Golden Retriever rolling backwards, crossing my path, headed straight for a tree and a natural gas meter thingy. And of course, the truck hit the meter first, and the smell of natural gas began to fill the air. I parked my car. I figured I should call someone. I didn't have the police dept phone number handy. So I called 911 from my cell. Not really an emergency, I would have rather called the police. But, I figured that because it was a gas leak in a public area, it could easily get out of control, so it wasn't too crazy of me to call 911.

But the experience got me to thinking. At home I have a nice phone list that I can go to with all sorts of handy numbers, including emergencies. I should at least have emergency numbers on my cell phone. Well, they are there now! Police, Fire, Gas and Electric. Because, in emergencies, the mind is the first thing to go, it helps to have them on speed-dial.

How to Adjust Your Own Glasses

2010-08-04T14:11:00.000-07:00

As quirky as it may sound to learn to adjust your own eyeglasses, there are some definite advantages to this skill. Glasses almost always get bent out of shape on a weekend or sometime when you can't get to the eye doctor to get them fixed. Or, sometimes even though you have had your glasses professionally adjusted, they just don't fit right. Wouldn't it be great to know how to do it yourself? Sure.

Here's how I did it:

First, I Googled "how to adjust eyeglasses." From my reading I learned that metal frames are the easiest to adjust on your own. That's what I have. I also learned that a hair dryer comes in handy when adjusting the plastic coated ear pieces. Holding the ear piece under a hair dryer for a few seconds (10-15) can help soften the plastic so that it will bend without cracking.

Here are the tools needed:

Needle nose pliers
screw driver (small ones... you can buy small screwdriver kits at many dollar stores)
soft cloth (fleece worked great for me)
hair dryer
Your old glasses to use as a guide

1. If you have a pair of old glasses that fit right, compare them to your new glasses to determine where the adjustments need to be made.

2. Generally speaking, with metal frames, you can make them wider or narrower by carefully adjusting them with your hands.

3. For the nose pieces, you may feel most comfortable removing the plastic pads with a screw so you won't have to worry about breaking them while you adjust the metal piece of the nose pieces. For the metal pieces, I used a small fleece scrap and put it in between the needle nose pliers and the glasses so that I would protect the glasses' paint job. After adjusting the metal part of the nose piece, put the plastic nose pads in. (I didn't remove my nose pads to do this adjustment because I was willing to take a risk...)

4. For the ear pieces, which are often coated with a plastic coating, hold them under a hair dryer (on, of course) for a few seconds until the plastic is warm. Adjust as needed.

This being my first time adjusting my own glasses, it took me a few tries to get them just how I wanted them. There was a lot of trying on and taking off. But now, if I had to do it again, I could be much faster.

Bought My Eyeglasses Online!

2010-08-02T13:50:00.000-07:00

Yes, as crazy as it seems, I bought my prescription eyeglasses online. And it only cost me $33.90 It all started when I read an article about it from my favorite blog lifehacker. Very interesting, I thought. I'll have to remember that when I need new glasses. At the time, I just had reading glasses and wasn't in need of anymore. So, I just put the idea in the back of my head.

But my eyes started to change. I headed to the eye doctor. I learned that I could now "graduate" from reading glasses to wearing glasses all the time! Okay, not really that exciting. Doc said that I didn't really need to wear them all the time, but I could if I wanted to. I have a great doctor who doesn't pressure me to buy glasses from them. She offered to write me a prescription since I didn't quite know what I wanted to do at the moment. I took her up on it.

After leaving the doctor's office I remembered that lifehacker article about buying glasses online. I figured now was as good a time as any. If my online eyeglasses ended up making me look like a fashion misfit I only really needed them for reading anyway and I usually do that out of the public view. Plus, why spend $300 on glasses that I didn't need all the time anyway? I'd convinced myself to give it a try.

I chose to order my glasses from Zennioptical.com (there are lots of other places that sell glasses online). My main reason was price and selection. They have a lot of selection for very low prices. Quality was not the main issue for me, cost was. Zenni's website is pretty easy to use. It's a little busy for me, though. I really like their search options. You can search for glasses based on a number of different factors, including temple distance. I used my old glasses as a guide to figure out what measurements I would like in my new set of glasses. I ordered the ones pictured above.

To order your own glasses, you need to know your pupilary distance (PD). If I had been thinking, I would have asked my eye doctor for this. She didn't include it on my prescription. But, it's really not that hard to figure out with the help of someone else. It's basically the distance between the center of each of your pupils, measured in mm. My hubby measured mine. Mine is 56.

Ordering was easy. The total came to $33.90. Prescription glasses with clip on sunglasses. Not bad, eh?

I messed up when inputting my address. Instead of selecting "US" in the country drop down box, I accidentally selected: "US-Virgin Islands" ( I don't even know where that is. Someone get me a map!). I didn't notice this mistake until after I had waited three weeks for my order. I called customer service. All operators were busy so I left a message. I had serious doubts that they would call me back. But they did! The very next day I received a call. The service representative explained my error. She said it happens a lot. (Thanks, but I still feel dunce-y.) She said she'd have it shipped to me as soon as they could locate the package. Within a week and a half, my glasses arrived. Zenni communicated with me via email to let me know that they had found my package and when it would be mailed to me. This was a positive customer service experience for me.

My glasses arrived well-packaged in a hard case. The clip on sunglasses aren't real classy, but I wear them occasionally anyway since I guess I am a bit of a fashion misfit. I don't really recommend them, but they work. They also came with a cleaning cloth. Handy dandy.

I'll write about adjusting my eyeglasses in my next post.

BTW: The Virgin Islands are by Puerto Rico.

Yoga for Runners

2010-07-28T19:52:00.000-07:00

A Bit of Background

I'm a recreational runner. I've been in a few races, but I really don't like to race and have no intention of ever doing a marathon. I just like to run. I usually run about 3 miles 3-4 times a week as one part of my exercise routine.

Three years ago I started having pain on the outer side of my knee about a mile into my run. I learned that this was (ITBS) ilio-tibial band syndrome after I had really hurt myself, hoping that I could "run" the pain off. I took a whole year off from running hoping things would heal on their own. But, when I started to run again, I had the same problem of knee pain early on in my run. I learned some exercises and stretches I could do for my ITB and learned to slowly increase my distance over a few days. That helped. Then I got a bike to incorporate cycling into my exercise. Not long after I started cycling, I started having pain on the same ITBS knee, but this time it felt like it was under my knee cap. I found that it was all part of ITBS.

Rather than let the problem continue, I decided to turn to Yoga for some help. I have shared some of Esther's yoga videos before. They are excellent! Here are some particularly helpful videos for ITBS and running. I have been doing them on the days I'm not running or biking and so far I haven't had any pain. I hope this will continue!

First, a general yoga video for runners:

This one is targeted for opening hips so that you don't strain your knees to begin with, but is also helpful in correcting the problem once it has started.

And this one is for the knees.

As I have learned, coming back from an injury takes patience as well as persistence. Patience, to keep yourself from doing too much too soon. Persistence, to continue with the therapy to help correct the injury. Hope this helps other runners/cyclists out there.

Update: August 12, 2010
For the past year, my husband has been having knee pain when he rides his bike. He decided to give the above yoga techniques a try and he too noticed improvement. He stretches before he goes out on his bike now with the knee and hip opening techniques. It's really helped!

More Thoughts on Ooma

2010-07-27T15:10:00.000-07:00

With Ooma, I'm now basically in charge of my phone service. So, there are some preventative measures I will have to take to ensure that I have continued, reliable service.

Ooma won't work if:

The power goes out
My internet service is interrupted
My modem konks out
My Ooma device dies on me

As you can see, there are a few different factors that play into having Ooma work. Here's my plan to protect myself if any of the above senarios does in fact take place.

Power:
This is a relatively easy fix. I should have this anyway: A battery back-up for my computer (aka uinterrupted power supply or UPS). They are just fancy surge protectors that give you some extra time to shut off your computer when the power is out. Prices start at $40 and go up. Ooma doesn't suck much power, so it could run on one of these for the duration of most power outages.

Internet Service Interrupted:
I'm not too worried about this. Typically when this has happened, it's only been for a couple of hours at the longest. I have a cell phone, so I could get calls out. IF I had Ooma premier, I could set it up so that my calls got forwarded to my cell phone or another number. (If someone called while my Ooma isn't hooked up, they would just get dead air, no voice mail or anything.) I don't get enough phone calls to worry about this. More than likely, I'd just miss a couple of political calls. :) If this outtage were expected to go on longer, I'd find a place (library or something) that had internet and get signed up for Ooma Premier and then just cancel it when my internet service resumed.

Modem Breaks:
Here's another thing that would be smart to have. An extra modem. If you've ever had one break on you, you know that it's a pain to wait 3-5 days for a replacement to be delivered to you. However, if I were fortunate enough to live in a place that had stores nearby that sell modems, I don't think I'd worry about having an extra modem on hand.

Ooma Breaks:
It's not very cost effective to have an extra Telo on hand ($299). What I would do instead is sign up right away for Ooma Premier ($9.99 per month) so I could have my calls forwarded to a cell phone. I would go ahead and buy another Telo and once recieved, cancel Ooma Premier. This is of course assuming that my current Telo lasts a good long time. (Telos do a have a one year warranty.)

Major Crib Recall: Now What?

2010-07-21T15:40:00.000-07:00

I'm sure that many are aware of the most recent, sweeping crib recall. When I heard about it on the news, I was pretty sure that the cribs my twins are using would be involved in the recall. I got onto Evenflo's website and sure enough, they were.

Our cribs have worked fine for us and one of them was used with two of my other children, so I wasn't really worried about having a recalled crib, but I did figure it would be sensible to go ahead and order the kit to fix the cribs. I was able to locate the model number and date of manufacture on my cribs with no problem (they are on the headboard.) The Evenflo website states how to find this info and says that you can order repair kits on their website or you could call their phone number. Well, it's hard to find where on that website you can order the repair kits. The link is not anywhere handy. So, I called the toll-free hotline. No help. It just tells you to order the repair kit online. So, I go back to the website, this time looking very carefully for the info. Found it. After scrolling down to the bottom of the long webpage, I found the link "Register for Recall." Don't know why they didn't put this link in a better place.

Anyhow, from there it was easy. Entered my crib's model and date of manufacture and address. Now I'm waiting for my parts. We'll see how easy the repair kits will be to install...

Update as of August 27, 2010
I received one of the repair kits yesterday in the the mail. I'm trusting my second kit is on its way since I registered for them on the same day. My husband installed the kit on one of the cribs last night. It consists of four metal pieces, 4 screws, and 4 wing nuts if I remember correctly. My husband described the fix as a bit "chintzy" but it does do the job of keeping the crib side from sliding down. In my book it's not a particularly pretty fix. Once installed, the metal pieces (rather large) are quite visible. But, It'll do. Here's a pix of the fix:

Update as of October 20, 2010:

I received the repair kit for my second Jenny Lind crib about a week and a half ago. Yeah, it took a while. This repair kit is even worse than the above one. It consists of some heavy duty straps, a couple of metal rods and some "locking rings" (for locking the mattress in the lowest position). I put this repair kit on myself. It was easy to get the straps and the metal rods on, but the locking rings? Forget it. I got one on after too much work and decided not to put the rest on since my daughter will be moving to another bed soon and I didn't want to have to remove the locking rings from all four sides when I have to take the crib apart. Of course, I'm sure the companies don't care how dorky these repair kits make the crib look because they want us to buy another crib. I think pack 'n' plays are looking better and better (price and all). Here's a pix of the least aesthetically pleasing part of the fix. (This crib doesn't have hidden hardware.)

Ooma, Free VOIP Phone Service: Part 4

2010-07-14T09:17:00.000-07:00

I've only been using Ooma exclusively for a month now. Not long enough to know if it was worth my money. (I'll break even in six months, taking into account what my phone bill would have been.) In the previous posts I've attempted to explain the process I went through to setup Ooma with my DSL internet. It was not without hassle. I expected this, however because I see Ooma as a do-it-yourself phone service. So, I'm mostly happy with the system because it works.

Call Quality

I'd like to focus on my experiences with call quality today. First, Ooma has a distinct dial tone which is sort of fun but might freak out visitors who pick up your phone. No biggie. The vast majority of the calls I have made with Ooma have been just as good as those that I had made with my land line and they were hands-down better than calls I make with my cell phone.

But, I have had some weird issues. My husband and I have both experienced a strange connection a handful of times. It has only happened when we have dialed the number and connect to voice mail/answering machine. We hear a jumbled, computery, train wreck sound. So, we hang up and dial again and it works better. I don't know what this is about. Like I said, this has only happened when we get connected to voice mail, no other time.

I have not, as of yet, experienced any dropped calls. I'll be sure to post any experience I may have with that in the future right here on this post.

Ooma gives new users a 60 day trial of their Premier service. I'm not going to list all of the features of Ooma Premier, but one of them is anonymous call blocking. This sounds nice, but you'd be surprised how many numbers are anonymous that come from people you know. My husband's work phone, for instance, could not get through. So, I should have changed that feature, but I figured that soon my trial period would be up and I would lose that feature. I'm pretty sure that I should have. However, a couple days after my trial expired, my husband still could not get through. I decided to wait on it before I called costumer service. I had my hubby try to call me this morning and he got through. So, I'm thinking there was a bit of lag on the suspension of my trial period.

In a nutshell: Ooma is not worry-free, not hassle-free, and not effort-free. I am still liking it though. Must be my do-it-yourself leanings that make me like it. I would like to see Ooma improve on customer support and fix some of the other funky issues they seem to have.

Ooma, Free VOIP Phone Service: Part 3

2010-07-12T13:44:00.000-07:00

So, I've got my phone number ported to Ooma. My phone company has closed my account associated with my phone service. I'm ready to distribute the Ooma dial-tone to all the phone jacks in my house.

DISCLAIMER: The easiest way to use Ooma on multiple phones would be to buy a phone with multiple handsets (if you don't have one already). Hook the base phone up to Ooma and put your other handsets where you need them. No wiring issues and line splitters. But, if you are stubborn like me and want the phone jacks to work with Ooma, read on:

First, Ooma has very little information on this issue. Here is a link to their official support on this. I do suggest that Ooma users/future users look at this first so they can formulate what questions they will yet have.

As I have said in other posts, I have DSL for my internet. Ooma doesn't offer a lot of help to someone on this. I don't recommend trying to call customer service for this issue. The Ooma forums are much better. Real Ooma users who speak and write English can help there. It's quite helpful.

In the end, My husband invited his tech-savvy friend over to open our phone box and mess with the wires to get it to work. We had a home-run line straight from our phone box (outside) to our computer. So, we had to do some wiring in our phone box and I don't get how they did it. Sorry. But it works now!

Ooma, Free VOIP Phone Service: Part 2

2010-07-08T10:48:00.001-07:00

Today I'll talk about the process of porting my existing phone number with Ooma. It took just about 5 weeks for my port to complete from the time I initiated the request. That was longer than I had expected. And I expect it would have taken longer if I had not contacted customer service. Here's my story:

Porting My Existing Phone Number With Ooma

In theory, porting your phone number should be a rather simple process, and for many it is. Check Amazon.com for reviews. For some reason, I had some issues. I couldn't get any customer rep to explain why either. I suspect this was because of the language barrier.

Porting can be done online, once you sign on to your "My Ooma" account. You simply fill in some information about you phone company that you currently have and make sure Ooma has your correct address. Because a customer rep had inputted my address incorrectly during the setup process, I had to stop here and try to change my address via "My Ooma." For some reason, each time I made the change, it didn't show up on my account. So, I called customer service. They manually changed my address so I could proceed with the port request.

At one point in the request, I was asked to check a box saying that my DSL internet was not associated with my phone line. This is something Ooma requires, I think, so that they are not held responsible for complications that could arise from this. Well, my DSL and my phone number are on the same line. So, I chatted with a Qwest customer service rep and asked them how porting works from their end. I asked them if I would need to separate my lines and get "dry loop" internet before the port. The rep told me I did not need to separate the lines, and that Qwest would separate the lines on the day of the port. So, I went ahead and checked the box that said my DSL and phone line were not associated... even though they were.

After submitting my online request for a port, I received an email (same day) from Ooma with LOA (letter of agreement) attached which I was instructed to fill out and sign and either fax or scan and email back along with a copy of a recent phone bill from my current phone company. No problem. I was just giddy that they didn't require that everything be faxed. Talk about 21 century! I sent back the necessary documentation right away. I received an automated email confirming that they had received my information.

The next morning I received another email from Ooma the same as the first, asking for the LOA and copy of a phone bill. Even though I had already done this, I sent it again, writing that I had already sent this information... and received confirmation. Minutes later I received another automatic confirmation of receipt.

At this point, I got to wait for emails telling me of the status of my port. After one month of not receiving anything, I called customer service. I asked the rep of my status and why I had not heard anything from them. He put me on hold for a while. Once off hold, the rep told me that my port was in process and I should be receiving an email soon. I was skeptical since I had read this before a month ago in one of the confirmation emails. How soon should I expect it? He said within five days.

Later that same day, I received an email from Ooma informing me of the scheduled port date. Coincidence? I doubt it. My port was to happen in two weeks.

Got to say, at this point I wasn't sure how smooth the actual port would go since I'd had all these issues leading up to it. I continued to monitor the status of my port online via "My Ooma" account. As my port date came closer, it was pushed back one day. No biggie.

On the day of the port, I was expecting to have internet issues and phone issues. In the morning, I received phone calls via Qwest with no problem. Early in the day I had to go out of the house for about an hour. I called home with my cell while I was out just to see if I could get though. I could... My Ooma voice mail greeting picked up. That was fast!

So, in the end, I was pleasantly suprised with how well the port went. I experienced no down time to my knowledge (since I wasn't home during the port). But even if it were just an hour, that would have been fine by me. My DSL was working fine too.

Next Post: Distributing the Ooma Dial tone through out my house.

Ooma, Free VOIP Phone Service: Part 1

2010-07-05T13:51:00.000-07:00

Okay, now that I am all done setting up my new Ooma Telo and have been using it for a bit over a month, I'd like to share info about my experience. I'll do this in a few different posts because there is A LOT to say about it.

Ooma is a free* phone service you can use with your existing internet connection. I put the asterisk by "free" because while you do have to pay a one-time fee for the equipment ($199-$250), you also have to pay an on-going monthly tax to Big Brother. Mine is $3.74 a month. And if you want the added bells and whistles Ooma offers, you need to subscribe to their Premier service which is $9.99 a month (still better than a landline, in most cases).

PART 1: Ordering, Setting It Up

I ordered Ooma from Amazon.com because I love Amazon. They had the lowest price too and shipping was free. I paid $199 for my Ooma Telo. It arrived in a timely fashion (about 5 days). Here's what it looks like straight out of the box:

You get the Telo device, a phone cord, power cord, and manual. Upon opening the package, I was impressed with the packaging itself, and the sleek look of the Telo. I was shocked at the owner's manual. It is very short, and lacking in detail to the point that I had more questions after reading it than I did to begin with. Here's a link to that manual so you can see for yourself. Besides that, the manual is nicely designed and isn't full of editing errors, so that is comforting.

I set up the Telo as soon as I had a kid-free moment. Getting back behind my computer with the owner's manual, my new Telo and two new cords, I marveled at my cord plantation already growing freakishly well without water or light in such a dark corner. *Shrug* The thing must be plugged in, so proceeded to plant the new cords in their new home.

I have DSL for my internet. It seems as though Ooma assumes that most people have cable internet. They don't provide a lot of information on how to set up the Telo with DSL. I found that I needed a splitter (not explained in the documentation) since I needed two phone jacks at the wall (one for my DSL modem and one for the Telo). Luckily, we had a splitter sitting in the garage. I stuck it into the wall jack. I had my modem/router plugged into my computer, but because Ooma advises to plug the Telo directly into the computer for the best sound quality, I did so. So, essentially, my Telo is connected to my computer with the ethernet cable, and my DSL modem is connected to my Telo via another ethernet cable. I was concerned that this might affect my modem's performance with speed, but I have tested it since then and I have not found any speed difference with my modem being plugged into my computer vs. being plugged into the the Telo and then to the wall jack.

Next, I plugged the power cord into my surge protector (or better yet, an uninterrupted power supply, which I hope to be getting soon). I plugged the phone cable that came with the Telo from the jack labeled "wall" on the Telo to the jack in my wall (remember, I had a splitter here so it could share with DSL) and plugged a phone into the jack labeled "phone" on the Telo. After plugging things in, I was ready to get my product activated.

To activate, I went to Ooma.com and clicked on the "Activate" link. I'm a pretty savvy person when it comes to technology, so I was pretty confident that I could handle the activation process. I think I could have... But... The first thing you are asked to input is your activation code found on the back of the Telo device. It's supposed to be a seven digit code. Mine was six. So, naturally, the system could not activate my Telo. Great! I get to call customer service, which, from reading reviews on Amazon, I am aware is outsourced. Yippee for language barriers in customer service!

I didn't have to wait long to get on the phone with someone. The service rep was nice enough, but because of that language barrier, she had a hard time understanding my trying to explain to her that my activation code was only six digits. I tried to ask her why, but she didn't understand my question. She just went ahead and activated my Telo for me from her end. This meant that she input my address, my name and other account info herself as I dictated it. Hahahah. When I signed into my account after I hung up with Ooma, I saw that my address was incorrect. So, I had to fix that. Anyhow, once my Telo was activated, I picked up my phone and heard the unique Ooma dial-tone. I set up voice-mail and other preferences from my Telo next. That's pretty step-by-step and easy, so I'm not going to talk much about it here.

Normally, if you are planning on using your current phone number with Ooma, you have to get it ported and during that port, Ooma assigns you a temporary number. The service rep didn't do this for me and I didn't ask. This didn't make my Telo unsuable, but it did mean that any number I dialed from my phone connected to Ooma had to be dialed 1+ area code+ number. (Note that I still had my landline service and all other phones in my house ran off the landline phone company. If I stopped here, It'd be like having two phone lines: Make calles on Ooma phone and still be able to receive calls through my landline.)

Anyway, I made a few calls with my phone that I had connected to the Ooma device and didn't notice any difference in call quality from that of my land line... so I figured I should take the plunge and get my landline number ported.

Next post I'll talk about porting my number. Fun, fun, fun!

No Spill Miracle Bubbles

2010-07-02T16:16:00.000-07:00

I was in Walmart the other day, doing some browsing. I rarely venture into the toy section, but since I was sans children, I did. For $2 I got an 80z. bottle of Miracle Bubbles in a no-spill container. I figured if it worked, it'd be worth it because my little ones spill more than $2 of bubbles every summer.

We tried the new bubble container out on my spill-happy four-year-old last night. Okay, this really works for the generally stable child who knows how to use bubbles. Sure, it gets a little messy around the slit in the lid where you pull the wand in and out, but my daughter hasn't spilled the first half of the bottle (like she routinely does with new bubbles). And sure we have had a few spills when my 20 month old twins go crazy with it, but it's still much cleaner than the regular container.

The bubbles can be stored with the no-spill lid on. The wand snaps onto the appendage sticking out from the lid. (Directions say not to store bubble wand in lid.) This is totally worth the $2. I don't say that very often.

A Dutch Rubber Mop For Wet or Dry Messes

2010-06-25T14:42:00.000-07:00

I really don't like traditional brooms. They get all messy and are absolutely disgusting to clean. And hair? They don't really sweep up hair. All the hair just sticks to all the other yucky stuff already sticking to the ends of the broom. And we live with it.

But, I first came across the dutch rubber mop while reading an article in Parents magazine (not an endorsement). I was intrigued. I looked it up on amazon. I watched this dorky video.

At just about $10 (price fluctuates), I figured it was worth the risk. I've had my rubber mop/broom for over a month now. I use it all the time. I haven't used my regular broom at all. In fact, I haven't used my mop at all (I used a Swiffer with a homemade fleece cover for mopping). I mop like the guy in the video above. But I have read that others take an old kitchen towel and attach it to the mop head with rubber bands for mopping. I'm sure it would be very easy to attach elastic to some terry cloth to make a cover for the rubber mop. I haven't bothered yet. I used this mop to scrub and clean my exterior windows too. I just love being able to rinse off the rubber broom head and always have a clean broom/mop. I cut my family member's hair and it does a very, very good job of cleaning that mess up. I would think that for someone who has wood floors and/or pets, a rubber mop would be better than a Swiffer because there are no refills to buy and it picks up everything! This mop is also advertised to pick up pet hair and dirt from carpets when vacuuming isn't enough. I haven't really tried that. I understand that it's quite an exercise. I do enough of that.

The only thing I don't like about it is that since it is 12 inches wide, it doesn't fit into my regular dustpan very well. So, I'll have to look for a 12 inch wide dustpan.

Still Paying to Make Long Distance Calls?

2010-06-24T16:11:00.000-07:00

I think we're on the brink of an era in which the term "long distance" with regard to phone service will be a thing of the past. Why do I say this? Cell phones let you call anywhere in the US. Only thing you pay extra for is international calls. If you use Skype, it's a similar thing. Many VOIP phone services don't charge extra for long distance either: Phone Power, Ooma, & Vonage to name a few... And then there is even Google Voice.

For this post I want to focus on Google Voice. You no longer need an invitation to hop on the band-wagon. Just click on the link and set up an account. If you already have a Google account, just sign in with that to start your Google Voice account.

Just what is Google Voice? It's not a substitute for your current phone company, but it can offer you a lot of things that your current phone company charges you for... like free long distance calls (over your phone).

When you set up your account, you can pick your own phone number. Next you set up what phones you want the Google Voice number to ring to. For example: cell phones, home phones, work phones... (You can give this number out to people rather than your home number or vice versa.) You can set up your own voice mail, block calls, and listen to your voice mail from your inbox. Cool? Well, if those features aren't enticing to you, the ability to make free long distance calls should. This is how you make one. Log onto your Google Voice account. Input the number you would like to call and which phone you would like to make the call with (home, cell, work). Google voice will call the phone you selected, you pick up, and wait for Google Voice to connect you. Easy. Oh, and they have really inexpensive international rates too.

To learn more about Google Voice, visit their YouTube channel.

I told you-- They (Google) are taking over the world.

You Can Try Linux!

2010-06-17T11:04:00.000-07:00

It started when someone was talking to me about having an old computer and wondering what do with it since the it had so little memory (256 RAM). Well, I told her I thought a Linux operating system (OS) would be a viable option, but that I'd have look into it since I didn't know any off the top of my head.

And so I did a lot of looking, because I confess: this stuff is insanely interesting to me.

Here's what I learned:

Did you know you can try a Linux operating system on your computer without having to actually install it?
Did you know that there are some pocket size Linux operating systems that you can literally carry with you and use in any computer? --You can basically leave no trace on the computer you used. (Not that I need to be that stealthy, but it's cool).
Say your PC crashed and you need to get onto the internet. If you have a Linux OS image on a cd, you can, in many cases boot up your computer with it since it runs off of RAM, not the hard disk (where a virus is).
You can run a Linux OS without even having a hard drive on the computer too!
You don't even nee d anti-virus software for Linux! Talk about freedom.

Okay, that's all very cool and intriguing to me. If you aren't intrigued, read no further. If you are, here are the tiny Linux OS images I burned to CD and tried out this week:

You don't really need much to try these out. If you have a CD-R disc or a USB drive, you've got what you need. Now, of course, your computer has to be able to boot from either of these devices as well... so it can't be too ancient. But most computers born within the last 10 years can do this. Each website (Slax and Puppy Linux) have good documentation on how to download and burn the images to a CD or put on the USB drive.

The only really important thing that I ran into was burning the image to my CD. I have XP and it gives you only the option to write the file to a cd, which as I learned, is not the same as burning an image. To do that, I had to download a tiny file called ISO Recorder. It literally took less than a second to download. I used the handy tutorial to copy the image to a CD.

From there, it was just cool. I stuck the CD in my drive, restarted my computer and at the prompt hit F12 (different for different computers) to access the boot menu, chose option 4 (boot from CD). It took about 30 seconds for the Linux OS to boot.

At first glance, both Slax and Puppy Linux are great. Slax recognized my internet connection right away. Puppy Linux did not, but it was easy to set up. I just had to manually tell the OS to probe my computer for a connection. I haven't used either OS a whole lot, right now I think they are both great, though there is something about Puppy Linux I like more... I can't put my finger on it. Maybe it's just the cute puppy. :)

Other Thoughts: I was thinking about what this new knowledge does for me. Well, I'll be less hesitant to throw out a computer. Putting a Linux OS on a older computer for my kids would be a very viable option. For someone just needing a computer with just an internet connection and an open source office suite, why spend money on and operating system when there are so many free Linux distributions out there?

Update, April 26, 2011: Since posting this, I have had a few opportunities to help other people with their computers using these live CDs. On the whole, I started to favor Slax over Puppy because it is so good at automatically recognizing an internet connection. That just makes it more user-friendly since most people that have a compromised computer are just dying to have their internet access back. Also worthy of note, if you are trying to use either of these live CDs with a computer that has a wireless connection to the internet, it can get harry. Linux doesn't play really well with wireless connections yet. I say YET. Linux will get there as the demand increases, I am sure.

The ATM Ate My Money...

2010-06-09T07:44:00.000-07:00

Ever wonder just how secure your money is once you stick in and envelope and pass it on through the ATM? I have. But it's just an unknown that I'd learned to live with. And I will try to continue to trust that it usually works without kinks... but it might take some time to get over my latest mishap.

A few weeks ago I lost $80 in cash in/at/around/though an ATM. I had gone to an ATM to deposit the money one day and found the ATM under maintenance. I decided not to go into the bank to do the transaction because I had three little children in tow and just didn't want to deal with that. So, I came back the next day instead. I remember pulling my money out, looking around to make sure that no one was watching me, and sticking it in the deposit envelope. I distinctly remember thinking that it was quite interesting that I could just put money in there and it would go to my account without any real evidence that I actually put the money in there. And how does my envelope stay with my transaction info? Oh well, finished the transaction and left.

The Story
About a week later I received a letter from my bank telling me that the deposit envelope was empty and that $80 was deducted from my account. What?! Why didn't they call me before the $80 was deducted? That would have been nice. I felt robbed. As I should. I don't have those $80 anymore. So who does? I figured I had a responsibility to report it. After all, what if this was happening to others? But, I knew that I had no evidence that I put money in the envelope, so the chances were slim that I would get my money back.

I called my local bank branch and they went ahead and credited my account $80 while they conducted an investigation. About a week and a half later I received a letter from the Bank (this is a large bank, so it was from headquarters) telling me that the investigation had been conducted and that the deposit envelope was indeed empty. Therefore, they would be withdrawing the $80 from my account on a future date (in two days... would have been nice to have that warning the first time they took money out!). If I wanted to look at the documentation used in the investigation, the letter said, I could just call their 24 hour number.

At this point, I was consigned to the fact that I'd been robbed and that I would most likely not be getting the money back. But, I was very intrigued as to how such an investigation was conducted so I called the Bank. This is were the fun started. The nice customer service representative told me he had no idea how I could get the investigation documentation and that he didn't know how they investigated these things. He told me to call my local branch. I asked the rep, "What is a person to do? How can they trust ATMs? How can I make sure this didn't happen to me again?" His answer: "Don't use ATMs to deposit money." Okay, I thought that was one of their purposes. Oh well.

I call my local branch. The assistant manager tells me that they don't know anything about the letter that I received and that they don't know how the investigation was conducted either. The lady who was handling my case is on vacation... so they didn't even know that an investigation had been initiated. They tell me they'll call me back. "Wait," I ask, "how often does this happen? Can I trust an ATM again? I was talking to a rep at the 24 hour hotline and he said not to use ATMs to deposit money. Would you agree with that?" Her response: "Absolutely not. Just get to know me." What is that supposed to mean? That would require that I go into the bank to do my transactions, therefore defeating the convenience of an ATM. I didn't press her anymore. She did go on to say that empty envelopes happen quite a bit. Okay... (I'm feeling less and less sure of either my bank branch or ATMs. I'm not sure which.)

I get a call back from the branch manager. She is just as confused as everyone else. I go through the whole story from start to finish. I just tell her that I've come to grips with the fact that I won't get my money, but that I am very curious to know about how the investigation was conducted. She didn't know... after all, she didn't even know that it had been conducted. But, in order to stop spending time on this, I suppose, she called it a loss for the Bank and said she'd make sure the $80 stayed in my account because I'm a "long-time customer" in "good standing." I told her that I had lost my confidence in ATMs and wondered how often this sort of thing happens. She told me that this was the second time she's seen it happen in 23 years. But the the assistant manager said it happens all the time... I didn't tell her that.

The End
I have my $80. I still have no idea how the investigation was conducted... and will probably never know. I have decided that for me personally, I will limit my ATM use because now I'm paranoid. Maybe I'll start using it all the time like I have for the last 13 years once I get over the paranoia.

Ironing Large Items Like Drapes

2010-06-05T19:50:00.000-07:00

Next time you have a big thing to iron, you might try doing it on the floor instead of an ironing board...

I bought a nice set of drapes for my patio door. I made sure they were machine washable since I didn't want to worry about sending them to the cleaners. The washing part has been fine and dandy, but the ironing part is something I dread. If you've ever tried to iron a large item using a conventional ironing board, you know what I mean. Every bit of newly iron fabric inevitably falls to the floor and gets wrinkled again. Frustrating! Last time I ironed my drapes on the ironing board I timed it. It took over an hour! Sheesh. So, needless to say, when it came time to clean my drapes this year, I was really not looking forward to over an hour of ironing. Then I got smart:

Made sure the kids were out of the way first (napping), and then I spread my drapes on the floor. Just right onto the carpet. I went ahead and set my iron to the correct fabric setting and just ironed the whole thing right on the floor. I had to move the iron to a plug on the other side of the room halfway though since the cord wasn't long enough. But, since I wasn't having to move the fabric over an ironing board, the finished product produced far fewer wrinkles than my original method. My drapes are thick enough, I wasn't worried about melting my carpet underneath. I suppose I could have put down a large cotton sheet between the carpet and the drapes if I felt the need. And the biggest advantage of it all, ironing on the floor took about half the time.

Getting Housework on Auto-Pilot

2010-06-02T08:42:00.000-07:00

Six months ago I made a New Years Resolution to get the house more organized. Little did I know what a lofty goal this would be... only because it has opened my eyes. I started with little things like organizing the kids toys, the flow of everyday paperwork, and most recently housework.

I have often heard friends of mine describe an elaborate system for keeping their homes clean. It seemed so daunting. I'm not a messy person. I like things clean, but I've never had much of a system for it. I just cleaned as needed. This approach has worked for years. But, I started to notice that some things fell through the cracks. Things like cleaning out the garage, that happen yearly, can easily be forgotten altogether. And when my husband asks what he can do to help, caught of guard, I don't usually have a good answer. And, knowing that the summer is approaching and I'll have four children at home during the day, I wanted to make sure I was equipped to have them help me with the workload. So, I figured it was time to think about housework so that I could stop thinking about it.

Here's what I did:

Wrote a list of chores that need to be done regularly, acknowledging that the list would never be complete, but that trying is better than nothing!
Separated the tasks into daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and semi-annual, and annual categories.
Sat at the computer and typed up my "Grand Chore Chart."
I assigned weekly chores a certain day of the week, taking into account my schedule, and what I can actually do on any given day. For less frequent chores, I took into account, weather, and our family schedule as I assigned certain months for certain tasks.

Here's what I ended up with:

The Grand Chore Chart

I know, a lot of work. But I have heard it said, "the busier you are, the more time you should spend planning." This is true here. I've been running off this chore chart for about three months now. The benefits have converted me.

Benefits:

Weekends aren't filled with cleaning because I've taken care of so much of it over the week. Therefore, I'm finding more time to spend with my family.
When my husband asks what needs to be done or my children want to earn the right to play the computer or something else, I can quickly tell them what needs to be done.
I feel like the time during my day is freed up because I'm not having to think about what I might be forgetting.
The kitchen disposal isn't near as disgusting to clean when I do it weekly!

Of course, there are some days when I don't get the allotted tasks done. No biggie. I just catch up or leave them out altogether for the week. After all, since I'm doing them weekly, it's okay if I miss a week.

How to Propagate Roses

2010-05-25T13:27:00.000-07:00

I had no idea propagating roses could be so easy! I have a few bushes I love enough to propagate. Now I will!

Self Opening Scissors For Kids II

2010-05-24T11:49:00.000-07:00

I ordered some self-opening/spring action scissors for my nearly 5 year-old daughter a few weeks back. For most kids, I don't think these kids of scissors are necessary, but for my daughter, they have made a difference. (My daughter has very loose ligaments/ligament laxity in her hands, to the point where her thumb can come out of the joint when it is extended too far. The the loose ligaments are what allow that hyper-extension. So, learning to use scissors has been difficult and sometimes painful for my daughter.)

I ended up purchasing Koopy Kids Scissors as pictured above. At just $3.47, I wasn't sure what sort of quality to expect. I have been pleasantly surprised. These aren't "baby scissors," but are definitely shaped for a child's hands. Take note, they are sharp with a slightly blunt tip. These scissors are perfect for my daughter. The plastic arrow (good quality plastic, by the way) can be flipped up to enable the self-opening option, or down to use like regular scissors, or to store them in the closed position. Because the scissors self open, I wondered how easy they would be to close. My daughter has hand no problem with closing them. In fact, I have been so happy to see her actually start cutting things without giving up. She's starting to cut on the lines too. It was well worth the $3.47.

The BBB Method For My Hot Tub

2010-05-19T12:14:00.000-07:00

I never meant to be a hot tub owner. It just came with the house we bought. Luckily the tub was relatively new and in great condition. I hoped to keep it in great condition, so knowing nothing about hot tubs, I went to a local hot tub dealership and asked about what sort of chemicals I'd need. $50 later, I walked out to my car with bromine and a bunch of other stuff.

And the costs kept adding up... After a year, I'd figured that I spent about $400 dollars on chemicals and filters (keeping the hot tub running all year, even in the winter)...not including the power bill (which, by the way, is about 8 bucks a month in the summer and 12-15 in the winter).

After that first year I learned a few things too. I learned that I didn't like using the hot tub in the winter. WAY too COLD outside for me. I learned that it was a great swimming pool for the kids in the summer. I learned that I hesitated to use the hot tub because I didn't want to have to put more chemicals in it... because that meant I'd soon be having to buy more!

So my quest for a cheaper options was born. I stumbled across the option last year of using Bleach, Baking Soda and Borax (BBB) to maintain hot tub/spa/or swimming pool chemistry. At the time, our hot tub was winterized, but I resolved to give it a try once spring returned. And it's spring! And I tried it! And it works!

Here's what I did: I filled up the tub like usual. I have a 350 gal Jacuzzi J345... so it takes about an hour to fill. Once I got it full, decided to go ahead and put in some Bleach (perfume free). I didn't know how much to put in since I hadn't found any information that detailed online. So, I just put in 3 cups. That was plenty. Next time I refill, I'll start with two cups. I ran the jets awhile and waited for the tub to heat up. I then checked the PH. This is the important part: Get the PH adjusted before adding Borax since it's a buffer that will help the PH from creeping up when you try to adjust alkalinity. Our water's PH is typically high, so I had to add a few tablespoons (3) of PH decreaser (which I had on hand since I have such a plethora of chemicals!). If the PH were too low, I could have added baking soda at about a tablespoon at a time to get it where I needed it. Once the PH was adjusted, I added a couple tablespoons of Borax. I let the jets run a cycle and then went ahead and adjusted the alkalinity using baking soda, adding it at a tablespoon at a time until it was perfect.

It's been a month now of maintaining my hot tub with Bleach, baking soda, and borax. I'm soooo happy with it. Why? Mostly price. I'm not a chemical snob so I don't care that I'm using chlorine in instead of bromine. Every couple of days (or after each use) I have to add about 2 tablespoons of Bleach to keep the choline at the right level. That's it, chemical-wise. The PH and alkalinity have stayed steady. I'm a much happier hot tub owner now.

The Benefits of Customer Service Via Chats

2010-05-17T07:47:00.000-07:00

I've been spending more time than usual with costumer service of various internet/phone companies. I'm in the midst of a switch. The switch being: Dumping my landline, in place of VOIP using Ooma and keeping a standalone DSL connection through my phone company. (I'll write more on my Ooma experience later.)

In the past, when I needed to contact my phone company (not to name any names: Qwest), It meant:

Listening to silly touch tone menus
Being put on hold for no predetermined amount of time
Talking to someone with an accent that sometimes was difficult for me to understand, not to mention what a hard time they have understanding me...
Walking around with a phone glued to my ear while I try to get other things done with the background noise of my lovely children
Finding it difficult to get a word in before the service representative commenced to tell me how to fix a problem they didn't yet fully understand

I decided to try out the costumer service chat option via my phone company's website. I love that:

Although I still have to wait, I can have both hands free and no phone glued to my ear while I wait
There's no such thing as awkward silence when chatting. It's okay if I don't respond to the service representative right away... I have time to think and formulate my questions and responses
The tone of voice and emotion of both people gets taken out of the communication
I feel a bit more brave to demand the service I want
While I'm sure that much of the costumer service is still foreign, there is less of a language barrier
I can say what I want to say without being cut off
Even though they may try to tell me I need to call customer service, I've found that if I hold my ground, they will answer my questions through the chat instead

I'm learning quickly that I prefer online customer service chats. So long as the company I'm dealing with offers this service, and my web connection isn't down, this is the way to go!

PDFs! PDFs! PDFs!

2010-05-12T16:50:00.000-07:00

Used to be that you couldn't make a .pdf document without the Adobe. That was a while ago. Now there are quite a few different ways to make a .pdf document. If you have OpenOffice (the free office suite comparable to Microsoft Office), you can use it to make your .pdfs. If you don't, there are a few little .pdf utilities you can download.

I've been using Cute PDF and have been happy enough with it that I haven't bothered trying any other programs.

Now, say you want to convert a .pdf to a word document... and you don't want to have to download a program to do it. Check out www.convertpdftoword.net. Simply upload the .pdf you wish to convert and then click the "convert and download" button. Very simple, very straightforward and quick. I tried this out using a phone bill and I was quite impressed, it kept all the formatting.

Mothers Day: Likes and Dislikes

2010-05-10T15:51:00.000-07:00

My Mothers Day irises, I picked for myself from my yard on my crinkly vinyl tablecloth. Now, to my husband's credit, he did buy me a pretty periwinkle plant.

Things I like about Mothers Day:

It's nice to have a day to recognize mothers/women.
It's nice to have a reminder that I'm long over-due for thanking my Mom for all she does.

Things I Don't Like About Mothers Day:

Though unintended, it seems to separate women who have children from those who don't.
I don't like that some women expect to take the day "off." How can you take the day off from being a Mom? A little extra help is nice, a flower, a card... but, really, is there such thing as a day off?
I don't like how I feel that I have to be an extra good mother on the day... which is nigh to impossible when 18 month old pours the juice from breakfast all over the floor and then demands a diaper change while the other 18 month old wants to play in the juice.

Other Thoughts

To me, all women should be celebrated on Mothers day. I can think of many women, old and young that influenced me throughout my life. Some had children, some did not. But they had a mothering influence on me. And I try not to have dorky expectations for myself about being a perfect mother... since I'm aware that the popular idea of perfection is not perfection.

Print First Class Postage With PayPal

2010-05-04T10:56:00.000-07:00

If you are like me, most days it's a pain to go to the post office to mail a package. Doing it online is a great solution if you have a scale that can weigh in ounce increments. If you've ever tried to do this through the USPS web site, it works okay. I say just okay because they don't give you all the delivery options that you would have if you were in the post office buying postage. There is no First Class or Media Mail delivery option. These options, while they take the longest, offer the best rates. But, hey, you didn't have to get in your car and go to the post office!... Right?

However, there is another, less-advertised option. If you have a PayPal account, you can use that to print first class or media mail stamps! Here's your link to start online shipping with better prices and more options: https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_ship-now

So, about how much might you save using First Class over Priority? I checked prices on a large envelope weighed 2 ounces for this case study. Cost to ship First Class? $1.58. Cost to ship Priority? $5.05. That's a savings of $3.74.

The final word: If I'm going to ship at home, I'm doing it through PayPal.

Baby Books in a Snap

2010-04-29T05:55:00.000-07:00

I've been pretty diligent at keeping a history for my children, so they have something to enjoy when they are older. With my first son, back in 35 mm camera days, I just used a three-ring binder, card stock in sheet protectors, and photo corners for his baby book. I just attached certain pictures to pages, wrote a bit if a caption and done. No scrap booking for me. I not into it. the process was still more time consuming than I would have like, though. Then, with my second child, a friend of mine who was really, really into scrapbooking, made a scrapbook for me. All I had to do was cut out pictures, glue them in and write a caption. It was easy enough.

With my twins, we finally got a digital camera. I found that as a result, I was printing fewer photos. But, I was uploading photos to my computer, typing in captions and organizing them. I started to wonder how I would handle their baby books. Since there were two to worry about, it had to be easier than anything I'd done.

So I turned to online photo services: Snapfish and Shutterfly. I ended up ordering my photobooks through Snapfish because the price was less and I liked the whole story board set up better. Just a matter of personal preference, I guess. I had both books done and ordered in a day and a half. It was simple. I went through my archive of photos for the first year of their lives, selected the ones I wanted to include, put them in a folder and uploaded them to Snapfish. My biggest complaint here is that neither Snapfish nor Shutterfly (I chatted with costumer service reps from both companies) manages to keep the Picasa captions associated with pictures after the upload. This is a huge drawback to me since I use the desktop Picasa app to edit and organize my photos before I upload them anywhere. So, I had to retype captions for the pictures, which is my only complaint with the whole process.

$40 for two 20-page photobooks later, I waited for the books to arrive in the mail. About a week and a half later, they came. The moment of truth! And I was happy with the books, the print quality, the quality of the cover and binding, everything.

Finding the Cheapest Land-line Available

2010-04-26T14:54:00.000-07:00

I am getting dangerously close to ditching my land-line completely. :) You know, going the VOIP route for my phone service. But, while I am still in the research phase, thought I'd share something I learned. If the idea of going land-line free makes you queezy, there is the option of having your land-line for a backup at lower rate than even the basic service. Normally, you have to call your phone company up to get the details and rates since it's not something they advertise. I did this just because I was curious.

Case in point: My phone company is Qwest. Their advertised basic phone package (unlimited local calls, with hefty long distance fees) is currently $16.95 a month. When I talked with a customer service rep, I learned that I could get measured service for $10.52 a month, with free inbound calls. Out bound calls would be 5 cents a minute for the first minute and 2 cents a minute for every minute thereafter. Of course there are still all the ridiculously high federal taxes and surcharges too which would probably add another $15-20 onto the bill (even more than your phone line! Insane?).

Conclusion: It's still really, really expensive to have a land-line.

How to Email a Text Message to a Tracfone

2010-04-24T15:08:00.000-07:00

I find texting tedious. I think that thumbs are for the space bar, not every key on a cell phone's key pad. Be that as it may, texting is a useful thing. Sometimes I find that it is easier to type up an email and then send it to my phone (directions, shopping list, etc.). These days sending a text via email is getting pretty easy to do. For instance, in Yahoo! Mail you can send a text message just by clicking on the drop down box by "New" and select "Text Message." From there, you simply type in the 10 digit cell phone number you want to text, write your message and hit send. EASY! Unless you have a Tracfone (I do, by the way, and I really like it!) . . . I tried just typing in my Tracfone's number, writing a quick message and sending it. It could not be delivered. Well, I could not stand for this, so I found a way around it.

Tracfone uses a bunch of different carriers, depending on which part of the country you are and this is why my messages couldn't be delivered with just my number. But, all is not lost. This handy-dandy web site allows you to find out what carrier your Tracfone uses. Simply click on the link by "Tracfone," enter the Tracfone number you wish to learn about. The results will likely be some big carrier like Verizon, or in my case, AT&T. Now, knowing that, I go back to the said website to find out what my address is. Under AT&T, I find that the my address would be: phone#@txt.att.net This means, you basically have an email address for the cell phone. A handy thing to know, I think.

Lemon Bars That Still Taste Wonderful

2010-04-21T07:13:00.000-07:00

I snagged this recipe from Prevention Magazine (made a few minor changes, of course!). I think it's a pretty lame magazine on the whole (sorry, I do) but I do like one section where they take a recipe and make it healthier. They did this with Lemon Bars. I'm a sucker for these. So, I had to try it. And yes, it is good. It's got half the sugar and half the fat of regular Lemon Bars. Would have taken a picture, but they were gone too fast.

Lemon Bars

Crust:
1 3/4 cups flour
1/2 sugar
1/4 tea salt
1/2 cup butter

Filling:
3 eggs
1/2 lemon juice
1/4 tea baking powder
1/4 cup flour

Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. For crust mix flour, sugar, salt and cut in butter until a crumbly dough forms. Press into 9 X 13 inch greased pan. Bake for 10-12 minutes until lightly golden. Meanwhile, mix all ingredients for filling. Pour lemon mixture onto the lightly cooled crust. Bake for 20 minutes or until filling is lightly firm and not liquid. Allow to cool and cut into bars. Dust lightly with confectioner sugar if desired.

Of Course, Another Child With Trigger Thumb!

2010-04-19T13:17:00.000-07:00

Just call us the Poster Trigger Thumb Family. My oldest daughter has just finished much of her recovery from her bilateral trigger thumb surgery (both thumbs). I also have fraternal twin daughters. 18 months ago, when they were born, my husband and I jokingly checked the thumbs of the twins to make sure that they were both straight. Because really, what were the odds that we'd have another child with the same problem? Hee hee. Ha ha. Ho ho.

Fast forward 18 months later. I'm clipping one of the twin's fingernails. I noticed a bit of a pop when I try to get my daughter to hold her right thumb still. She cries a bit. Oh no! I thought. Could this be trigger thumb? I checked her left thumb. It was locked in a bent position, going nowhere. I felt the bases of each thumb and sure enough, they both have the tell-tale knob on the tendon. What of the other twin? She's good; no little knob-ies. I like to think she takes after me.

You'd think that because I have already gone through this with one daughter, it wouldn't really be a big deal to me. And it really isn't. It's not life threatening. It's no emergency. But... I start thinking: Am I producing genetically inferior children? I've got four and 50% of them have trigger thumb! Oh well, they are really super cute, so I can get over the fact that we don't have designer children.

So, I call my eldest daughter's orthopedic surgeon. I just want to know if there is anything we can do, or if we just wait. Really, I know the answer. In many cases, trigger thumb can correct itself by age two. But since my daughter has a left thumb that is already locked and the right thumb that is well on its way to becoming locked (I'll be surprised if it doesn't), surgery will be the only option for her if I want her to be able to straighten her thumbs. And depending on the surgeon, they don't like to do it until 2-4 years of age. So, for now, we wait.

Self Opening Scissors For Kids

2010-04-15T09:57:00.001-07:00

I was visiting with my daughter's occupational therapist the other day. I asked about the difficulty my daughter has with opening scissors. The therapist suggested I purchase some self opening scissors to help her out. Because my daughter's ligaments are very loose, self opening scissors will protect her from hyper-extending her joints. I never knew self opening scissors existed.

Pictured above: Fiskars spring action scissors for preschoolers for $3.50 at Amazon. I will be ordering some and we'll give it a try.

How to Preheat Oven Faster

2010-04-13T08:03:00.000-07:00

Ideally we preheat our ovens while we're mixing or preparing the food. But there are those times when we just forget and/or are short on time. So, here's a tip to cut oven preheat time in half... at least.

1. Turn on oven to broil.
2. Set timer for 3-5 minutes. (depends on your oven and how hot you want it to get)
3. After timer goes off, take off broil and set oven at desired temperature. Oven should give you the signal (beeping, or a light) within a few seconds to let you know that it is preheated.

Easy as that. My oven preheats in about 10-15 minutes depending on the temperature, so using the above preheat method, I can cut the preheat time to 3-4 minutes. Of course, I'd rather just remember to preheat while I'm cooking, but this trick can come in handy.

Making Vanilla Yogurt

2010-04-08T09:54:00.000-07:00

I've been making yogurt on and off for some years now. I would like to say I'm a pro at it, but I keep learning something new. So what's new now? I finally made a premixed flavored yogurt using a start other than plain yogurt. Now, normally I use plain yogurt as my start (with active cultures, of course) because that is what the recipe says to use. The grocery store that I currently shop at only carries plain yogurt in a large container. That sort of bugged me since all I really need is about 1/2 cup for a start. So, I got to thinking, why can't I get a small container of the flavored stuff and use it as a start?

Not only do most yogurt recipes say to use plain yogurt for a start, they also say to flavor the yogurt after it has incubated and then been refrigerated. Well, I really wanted to try to make a premixed yogurt just like you can get at the store. And, in short, I found that it can be done! My picture above is proof. It's vanilla yogurt with chopped strawberries.

First, I tried making vanilla yogurt with a vanilla yogurt start. It worked wonderfully. Then I got adventurous and used the vanilla start to make blueberry yogurt (using 1/4 cup crushed blueberries) and that turned out lovely! So, now I'm going crazy with yogurt experiments. There are plenty of yogurt lovers in the house, so this works for us.

Vanilla yogurt recipe:

3.5 cups milk (skim, 1%, 2% or whole)
1/3 cups powdered milk
1/4 cup sugar or other sweetener
1-2 teaspoons vanilla (depends on how much flavor you like)
1/2 cup yogurt (plain or any flavor, just has to have active cultures)

Directions:

Combine milk, powdered milk, and sugar in a microwave safe container. Stir. Microwave on high for 7-9 minutes (depends on the microwave) until mixture is about 185 degrees (Fahrenheit). This doesn't have to be exact, but just has to be below 212 degrees (boiling point). Stir the mixture once half-way through heating. **It's pretty important when heating milk to stir it and make sure you don't let it get too hot. Once I took my hot milk out of the microwave after microwaving it a bit too long and put a spoon in it and the hot milk blew up at me and burned my hand. So please be careful!** Let mixture cool to 100-110 degrees. This takes about 15 minutes when I put it in a sink of cold water. I set the timer... if you let it get too cool, just stick in the microwave to get the temperature back up in the right place. In your yogurt container, stir in vanilla flavoring and yogurt start. Add a bit of warm milk, whisk away lumps and add the rest of the milk. Whisk until smooth. It's important make sure the yogurt is blended fully, no lumps. Now it's time to incubate. I have a Salton yogurt maker that I use. You can also use an oven at 100 degrees. There are other incubation methods too.

An Anti-Virus Switch: AVG to AVAST!

2010-04-06T06:44:00.000-07:00

Ever since AVG 9 came out, I've been having problems. First thing I noticed was that my web searches were at a crawl with the AVG link scanner. So, I disabled link scanner. That fixed it. After another AVG update I noticed that I couldn't get on Twitter or Gmail. Each time I tried, Firefox crashed. Now I was getting a bit irritate. I have liked AVG for a quite a few years... but loyalty is a funny thing in the tech world. I can turn on anything if it starts to decrease my productivity. So the seeds of disloyalty were sewn.

Now, I did try to look for help on AVG forums and other tech forums on the web. Others were having similar problems. They seemed to be related to a Firefox ad-on or a ZoneAlarm issue. But, it was never really pinpointed. I got tired of waiting for a fix from AVG.

I made the switch to AVAST! Why? Because its name is also a really cool pirate term, of course. That, and it's free and has positive user reviews. I've been using AVAST! for a week now. I really like its user interface. It is far more customizable than AVG was with scans and other settings. The program even talks. Said something about how my "virus definitions were up to date." The first time it did it, I was pretty weird-ed out, but I got over it. AVAST! does real-time scans too. It's pretty nice. My biggest beef with AVAST! is that it hogs system resources more than AVG did. This wouldn't be a big deal if I didn't have a 7 year-old computer! So, I guess the time is coming closer that I will break down and get another computer. Anyway, AVAST doesn't slow things down near as bad as Norton did, but I there is still a noticeable slowing.

Not An April Fools Joke, But Funny Anyway

2010-04-02T08:29:00.000-07:00

Rep. Hank Johnson for Georgia's Fourth Congressional District worries that Guam might "tip over." Now, to his credit, he said he wasn't being literal, but it's a funny clip. How was no one not laughing?

The Last Frost: When Will It Be?

2010-03-31T12:50:00.000-07:00

Every year I wonder when I should plant my garden. It always seems like such a gamble, knowing when the last frost will be. And it is, but here's a link that should put the gamble more in your favor. Just select your state and then view the .pdf to find the city with temperature data nearest you.

If your graph reading skills are subpar, it really helps to read the directions. The 90 column means that if you plant seeds during those dates, there is a 90% cent chance that temps will drop below the temperatures stated. The 50% column, a 50% percent chance that temps will drop after dates stated. And the 10% column, a 10% chance that temps will drop after the dates provided.

That said, I chose to go ahead and plant my peas, lettuce, and carrots during the 90% window, since these plants are hardy and can stand some cold temps. I am going to plant my other crops in the 50% range rather than the 10% because last year I did plant things in the 10% range and found that my harvest was much too late for my liking.

A Tool Set Every Parent Ought to Have

2010-03-31T08:11:00.000-07:00

It is a known fact that far too many children's toys require batteries. It's also a known fact that far too many of these toys require smaller-than regular screwdrivers to remove the battery cover. For years, I improvised, using my pocketknife or the corner of a flat screwdriver that was too large, to get the battery covers opened.

Last year I took my children shopping for Christmas gifts at a dollar store. My daughter was trying to find a gift for me. Usually, I try keep out of it because I like the suprise, but I chanced across this small precision screwdriver set. I had to have it!!! So, I coaxed her into getting it for me. It came in very handy on Christmas morning! :)

It has also come in very hand since. My screwdriver set is a Dollar Tree set, but I have seen them at other dollar stores. Usually they are located by the eyeglasses and sold as an "eyeglass" repair set. It's pretty decent quality and it's only a buck... Worth much more than that in my book!

Olive Oil replacing Shave Gel/Cream?

2010-03-30T07:44:00.000-07:00

I was looking into the virtues of Extra Virgin Olive Oil one day and was intrigued by one use in particular: a shaving lotion, rather than using a gel or a cream. I think I was interested in this because I really never have been 100% happy with any shaving gel/cream that I have used. Upon learning that olive oil is quite moisturizing and does not clog pores, I thought I'd give it a try.

I mixed a few drops of peppermint essential oil (to make is smell nice) in a squeeze bottle with olive oil. I used it the same way I have used a shave gel/cream. I found that it provided what felt like a thicker protective layer on my skin, yet, the shave was just as close. And, what I like the best the oil is moisturizing enough that I don't have to put lotion on afterward.

For more interesting uses of olive oil:
http://curbly.com/chrisjob/posts/1799-25-alternative-uses-for-olive-oil

Astrid Lindgren, Children's Literature Author

2010-03-25T07:44:00.000-07:00

My all time favorite children's author is Astrid Lindgren. My oldest sister first introduced me to Pippi Longstocking stories as a child and I have always loved them. It wasn't until I took a children's literature class in college that I really started to delve in to the Lindgren's other works. One of my favorite books I read during that class was Karlsson-on-the-Roof (there are three in a series, this being the first). I like to describe this book as the Pippi Longstocking for little boys. At the time I read it, I had checked it out from the university library. It was so entertaining I wanted to own my own copy so I could have it to read to my children. But, when I looked for it, I found that it was out of print. :(

Well, yesterday I decided to look for the book again and I am happy to say that it is back in print!!! And so are a lot of other Lindgren books! I'll be buying a load of them soon. Thank goodness for Amazon's free Super Saver shipping!

"Do Unto Otters" and Email Etiquette From Laurie Keller

2010-03-24T11:51:00.000-07:00

My husband checked out this funny book from our library last week: Do Unto Otters by Laurie Keller. It's probably the best book I've read about manners. My kids loved it, and I enjoyed it too. It's silly and maybe a bit educational (don't tell).

Here's a sampling of Laurie Keller's talent from Amazon. Some Email Etiquette for us adults:

A Visit to theDenver Mint

2010-03-23T07:07:00.000-07:00

We kicked off Spring Break with a day trip to Denver. One attraction we included in our plans, was a tour of the Denver Mint. There are only two Mints (Denver & Philadelphia) that give public tours and since we live so close to this one, we figured we should take advantage of it. Plus, the tours are FREE.

I booked our tour a couple of months in advance through the Mint's website. While it's certainly advisable to reserve a ticket for the tour, it's not necessary. One could just show up at the Mint's tour entrance and wait for a standby ticket. Those who reserve tickets must show up within 15 minutes of the scheduled tour.

Since it's a government building, tourists should bring next to nothing on the tour. A wallet (that fits in your pocket) and keys are pretty much all you can take. No purses, cell phones, cameras, bags or strollers. It's a short tour, 20-30 minutes, so it's not too hard to take a baby, in your arms. The Mint has no public parking, but there is public parking (which you have to pay for, of course) a few blocks away from the Mint.

My kids' ages range from 17 months to just about 7 years old. My twins (17 month) obviously didn't have a lot of interest in the tour. Neither did my 4 year old, but my oldest was quite interested. We had a friendly tour guide who was knowledgeable enough to answer our questions. It was really quite interesting.

The biggest let down of the tour was that we didn't get a newly minted penny. :( I had read online that this was the common practice, but I guess things have changed. They do have a gift shop outside the Mint, though, for those interested in souvenirs.

All in all, a very nice use of time. If you ever have time to kill in Denver, the Mint is a great budget-friendly option.

And if you can't visit a Mint in person, you can always take a virtual tour.

Recovering from Trigger Thumb Surgery

2010-03-18T08:23:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I took my daughter to see an occupational therapist to evaluate her recovery from the surgery she had on her thumbs in December (3.5 months ago). Normally, a visit to the an OT isn't necessary after this surgery, but because my daughter couldn't bend her left thumb at the joint, even a month after her casts were removed, I figured we should check on it. FYI, my daughter is right-handed and her right thumb is recovering just fine.

In some of my previous posts on this subject, I shared how I have tried to incorporate some exercises for her recovering thumbs into her routine. These have helped. I have really been pushing scissor skills as well. This is where I have seen the most dramatic improvement. A month ago my daughter couldn't open scissors; she could only close them. Now she can open them. Granted, it's still a bit of a challenge for her, but there is progress.

In consulting with the OT yesterday, I learned that my daughter has weak muscles in her wrists and thumbs. I asked if this was a result of her having locked trigger thumbs for the first few years of her life. OT responded in the positive and the negative. "Yes," in that having locked trigger thumbs my have hampered her from participating in activities that would have helped her strengthen her wrist and thumb muscles, but "no" in that weak muscles can be a side effect of having genetically loose ligaments (which is common in girls). The loose ligaments can hamper the strengthening of muscles around them. My daughter does have loose ligaments in her thumbs.

So, what can we do? The OT said I should continue doing all the things that I am doing with her at home (this means fewer appointments for us! Yippee!). She also encouraged me to massage my daughter's left thumb because she has a bit of scare tissue there. I will lead my daughter in exercising her left thumb by supporting the base of it with my fingers and helping her bend her thumb up and down. Not real fun for a four-year-old, but necessary. As far as what the OT can do, she went ahead and measured my daughter's thumbs for thumb splints. The splints will be soft (have to wait a couple of weeks to pick them up), removable, and washable. The splints will give my daughter's thumbs support, something that her loose ligaments weren't giving, so that she will have more opportunity to bend and use her thumbs, strengthening those muscles. She won't need to wear them all the time, just when she's doing fine motor sort of activities.

*If you are interested in reading other posts about my daughter's trigger thumb saga, the easiest way is to use my blog's search on the upper right-hand side. Use the search term: trigger thumb.

Microwave Popcorn: From Scratch

2010-03-16T11:05:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty sure we all know that microwave popcorn we buy from the store isn't very healthy, but it is so nice to be able to pop it in the microwave and have popcorn in a matter of seconds. Plus, have you ever tried popping popcorn the old fashioned way, on the stove top? I have, and I like to do it, but hot oil and little kids running around makes me anxious. So I wondered, can I make microwave popcorn on my own? Why of course!

After a quick search at my favorite recipe website, allrecipes.com, I found what I was looking for. All you need is a brown lunch sack, some popcorn kernels, oil and salt. Here's the link to the recipe: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Microwave-Popcorn/Detail.aspx
Here are some of my tips:

Stand the bag up in the microwave while it's cooking.

The recipe calls for 1/2 cup of popcorn kernels. I cut the recipe in half and found that the bag was full enough just with half. I'm not sure I'd want to try to put too many more kernels in there.
After popping, transfer popcorn to a bowl and season more if necessary.

But, there!- An alternative to processed microwave popcorn!

Stinky Drain Prevention

2010-03-12T10:50:00.001-08:00

You'd think that a sink wouldn't get so dirty since water (a pretty clean thing) goes down it a lot. Sure you can treat the problem once it surfaces: baking soda, vinegar, bleach, lemon juice, to name few .... (be careful not to mix chemicals in a sink drain. Yipes!) But an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure...

Here's how you can slow the stink from forming in your sink. It's really quite simple. When finished using a sink/drain, just flush it with good, old, inexpensive cold water. Normally we wash our hands, dishes, and take showers in warm/hot water. Since, bacteria needs a warm, moist environment to grow, all this warm/hot water is great for stink!

This same idea works well for keeping dish clothes odor-free. Rinse with cold water and then wring out. Note: Dish clothes should be changed frequently (like every day or two) to prevent bacteria too.

Recipe Template for 4X6 Card

2010-03-10T08:00:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to post this for some time now. I decided to give my little sister a collection of my tried and true recipes as a wedding gift- an inexpensive, yet thoughtful gift. I tried to find a decent recipe template online through Microsoft Word, but I didn't like any of them. I wanted columns for the ingredients and a paragraph at the bottom for the directions. With the help of my husband, we created a template that I'm happy with. I thought I'd share.

This template is for a 4X6 recipe card. You can download it from my drop.io. There are two recipes on the template for fun. The first recipe is formatted for regular recipes without a lot of ingredients. The second recipe is formatted for those recipes with a lot of ingredients. You can add more pages to the file simply by adding another page (ctrl + enter) and then copying and pasting the text on the new page.

A Visit From the Tooth Fairy

2010-03-08T07:28:00.000-08:00

Last week I got the chance to be a tooth fairy. Even though my son knows that I'm the one that does it, it's still fun. This was his first tooth that he pulled. Earlier in the month I had asked our dentist what the going rate for a tooth was these days. He said some people give 10-40 dollars, but that he thinks a dollar a tooth is decent. I got nickels, pennies, dimes and sometimes quarters for my teeth. So, it's generous enough from where I'm coming from. Plus, you can fold a dollar! I'm an origami nut. Since it was his first tooth, I threw in a quarter.

Here's a link with easy instructions for folding a dollar into a heart like the one above. (A crisp dollar bill is the most obedient.)

Musings: Folded bills make great gifts too. I received a $50 dollar bill folded in two hearts as a wedding gift from a good friend. I'm so sentimental, I've kept it and don't intend to spend it. And my non-sentimental son immediately unfolded his tooth fair gift and promptly put it in his wallet.

Yodlee, More than Mint

2010-03-03T07:26:00.000-08:00

I wrote about Mint just a little while ago. It is great for someone who does nearly all of their banking and transactions electronically, but it doesn't have a lot of wiggle room when it comes to adapting to different circumstances. I used Mint for a bit and then decided I needed to have more control over budgets and upcoming transactions. So, I decided to try Yodlee.

I like Yodlee much better. I like the way it looks, I like the many options I have for budgeting and analyzing trends and transactions. I really like the calendar feature in which you can view when upcoming bills are due. In Yodlee I could set up recurring payments and bills manually, something I couldn't do in Mint. Through Yodlee, one can also authorize the payment of bills. I don't do this because I happen to live in a state where that is not available. No biggie, since bill pay isn't a feature I was looking for. One thing that I wish Yodlee could do, is a projected balance. Say you want to look in the the future a month or two, viewing your future balance, which would take into account your budget, bills, etc. I can't find a free online service that will do this. :(

*** Yipee! I was wrong about this. You can view projected balances! See comments below.

Whiter Whites With Dishwasher Detergent

2010-03-02T08:04:00.000-08:00

I don't think there is any way around soaking your whites to keep them white. What sort of solution a person soaks them in varies, but it always includes soaking. I had been soaking my whites over night about every other time I washed them in Clorox 2. Then I had twin babies and I never could think far enough ahead to get laundry in the washer at night.

About a year and a half later I feel like I have my head back. I also have a lot of dingy whites. Out of Clorox 2, I decided to see what sort of things I could use that I probably already had. A Google search later and I decided to try soaking my whites in hot water over night using 1/4 cup of dishwasher detergent and the regular amount of laundry detergent. I was pleased with the results. My whites looked whiter. And hopefully if I continue to soak them every couple of washes, they'll be the way I like them: white.

Other whitening options:
Oxyclean
Bluing
Washing soda
Borax
Baking soda, Vinegar, Hydrogen Peroxide

Bonkey, The Backup Monkey for Automatic Backup to Amazon S3

2010-02-26T08:15:00.000-08:00

If you got through the mouthful of a title for this post, then you've pretty much got the idea of my automatic syncing solution for for my home computer.

To sum up my current situation, I have 6-7 GB of files that I would like to backup off site, on the cloud. I chose to use Amazon's cloud service, S3. At .15 a GB per month, that's a very cost effective solution for my situation. After much looking around, I choose to use Firefox's S3 Fox plug in to upload and organize my files on my S3 account. Bonkey (F-R-E-E, that spells free) is the program I choose to use to help me sync my files automatically.

At this point, Bonkey (still in the development stage, see blog) isn't completely user-friendly, but it is certainly a viable program for the user who is willing to learn. Bonkey runs on a Java platform, so you do have to have Java (free) in order to use Bonkey. All backups run in the computer's background, which is nice because I can just keep doing my thing on the computer without being hassled by the program.

I am running Windows XP and downloaded and installed Bonkey without a hitch. In order to get started, I had to setup my S3 account on Bonkey by supplying the security credentials from my S3 account. Bonkey has some nice built-in directions that assisted in this. Next, I had to set up backup groups. This is where I had a bit of confusion. I first made a backup group for my pictures. Naming the backup group was easy, but figuring out how to tell Bonkey which files to backup was a bit confusing and I couldn't find much documentation on this. But, I finally got smart and figured out that I needed to locate the files I wanted backed up and drag them to my "pictures backup group." Enabling synchronization is pretty straight forward. Just click on the backup group and you get to customize synchronization options. Full backup or just sync? Zip files or keep the original size? You can choose your backup target to be S3 or some other place like an external hard drive or another drive on the computer. Additionally, you can also choose how often and what time of day you would like the backups to run.

I've been using Bonkey for 2 weeks now. It has handled scheduled backups on time without problems. I have checked the files backed up to my S3 account to make sure that they indeed are the most recent ones and they are! Do you know how happy this made me?

Final thoughts: Isn't the Bonkey, the Backup Monkey, well, cute?

Amazon S3 For Home Computer Backup

2010-02-24T07:40:00.000-08:00

I've been working over the last month, trying to get a very inexpensive online backup solution for my home computer. I settled on using Amazon S3 to store my files. That was the easy part. Then I had to pick which S3 browser/client I would use to upload, organize and move my files to S3. There are quite a few free S3 clients to choose from. They all have their pros and cons, so let me say that I think it's mostly just a matter of opinion what one my choose to use.

I started out using Cloudberry explorer's free edition and the s3 Fox plugin for Firefox. I used them both to upload files to S3. There was a bit of a problem with this when it came to syncing files. Sometimes Cloudberry didn't recognize the files uploaded through S3 Fox and sometimes S3 Fox didn't notice files uploaded by Cloudberry. So, at this point, I knew I needed to pick one S3 client. I chose S3 Fox. Here's why: It's just a plug-in, so it takes up very little space on the computer. Plus, Cloudberry's free edition expires every 18 or so days (see comments below for clarification on this), and I didn't like the idea of having to download the new edition every few days. Those are the reasons I chose S3 Fox.

I did use Cloudberry Backup (free trial) for a bit, but it didn't really serve the purpose I had. I just wanted it to sync the files I already had on S3, but it just made a whole new backup of all my files. So, I had two copies of everything. Not what I was going for. Although, I did find that this was an easy to use program and for someone is looking for automatic backups rather than syncing of files, this might be a viable option.

So, once I chose to use S3 Fox, I had to delete all I had uploaded on my S3 account and start over again, uploading everything. I have about 6-7 gig of data I want to store online. This took about 4 days, since I didn't really baby-sit each upload. It's wise not to upload more than, say 2-3 gig at a time, since uploads did get tripped on occasion. S3 Fox has two syncing options: up to S3 or down to your computer (Cloudberry has more). You can create sync folders of the stuff you want to sync. I found it easiest to group things that needed syncing often together and things that didn't need syncing often in another group. I figured I could just sync my files manually every month or so... that was better than the once a year backup I had been doing!

But, I still wanted more. I wanted the syncing to be automatic. So, I'll tell you more about my free solution next post.

CitiBank Resurrects Annual Fee: Bye-Bye CitiBank Card

2010-02-22T10:04:00.000-08:00

I've carried a citibank credit card for almost ten years. I'm a very conservative credit card user. I pay my balances off in full each statement. I like the ease of credit cards, but when I got a letter in the mail informing me (a perfectly loyal customer with no late payments ever) that they would be charging me an annual fee of $60 from now on (that would be reimbursed if I charged $2400 in that calendar year), I decided carrying a Citibank credit card would no longer provide that ease. I called to opt out and cancel my card immediately. It was a simple, quick call. I'm sure they are getting a lot of them.

So why the annual fee? It has something to do with the new credit card legislation. Here's a news article that explains how the recent credit card legislation (which was intended to help consumers) backfired... at least for many Citibank customers.

Oh well, no loss to me. I don't care much for Citibank as a company anyway...

Tylenol and Ipuprofen Dosing Chart

2010-02-16T10:29:00.000-08:00

I've had some sick babies. We ran out of the infants concentrated Ibuprofen and Tylenol rather quickly. I hate going to the store when babies are sick. The Children's Tylenol and Ibuprofen meds I had in the medicine cabinet read to "ask a doctor" for children under 2. I asked the internet instead because it's not always easy to get a doctor on the phone. Here's a nice dosing chart for both Tylenol and Ibuprofen: http://www.allaboutkidspediatrics.com/parents/dosage.html

Aldoshoes.com Review

2010-02-15T05:54:00.000-08:00

What follows is a long, boring, detailed experience I had with Aldoshoes.com. Don't read it unless you are bored or were thinking about ordering something from Aldo shoes.

I would like to detail an online shopping experience I had with aldoshoes.com. First let it be understood that I'm a pretty avid online shopper and that this was my first (and last) experience with Aldo shoes.

Just after Christmas Aldo shoes was having an 80% off sale on a lot of their shoes, rendering $100 shoes actually worth their new $20 (give or take) price tag. While shopping, I chose some very cute shoes listed $20.99. Stuck them in the shopping cart and the price bumped up to $29.98. Took the shoes out of the cart, went back to shopping, made sure the shoes were actually listed for $20.99. They were. Stuck them back in the cart and up the price went again to $29.98. Blast! But, I wanted the shoes and figured I could contact customer service about it and get a refund. This was not a naive thought. Most online retailers will happily credit customers for problems like this. I added a couple of other shoes to the order for $9.99 each. Good deal, all in all, I thought. I sent an email to customer service about the price discrepancy in the shopping cart as soon as I received an order confirmation. I received an email a back within 3 days stating that I should call customer service about this. I tried and the automated message said they were experiencing a "high volume of calls..." so I just hung up because I didn't have time to wait at the moment.

Next, the waiting. Aldoshoes.com is based in Canada, so I figured it would take a while for my package to arrive. Sure enough, it did. About a week and a half after ordering, I received one package with two shoes (shipped from the US) . The shoes ended up not fitting. They were too small. This surprised me since Aldo shoes doesn't sell half sizes (I'm a 7.5), I ordered an 8 and was actually worried they would be too big. I waited for my last package to arrive to make sure that the shoes in there fit before I sent back my returns. Nearly a week later I received my last package. To my surprise, these shoes fit well enough, a tad on the big side, but well enough since I was pretty sure if I ordered a size down they would be too small. These shoes were the ones that gave me price issues in the shopping cart. I decided to keep them.

So, now I tried to call customer service. I got to wait on the phone for 10 minutes. Then I gave up. I called again a few days later. I waited for 10 minutes again. Couldn't wait any longer. I hung up and sent an email again to Aldo explaining that I had tried to call and couldn't wait on the phone for so long, adding that I would love to receive some service via email. A whole week later I received an email response saying that Aldo was no longer experiencing "a high volume of calls" and that I should try to call again. I did few days. I had to wait again for 10 minutes. I hung up. (As you can see, ten minutes is my limit.) I went ahead and tried to take care of at least returning the two pair of shoes that didn't fit via the internet. This was a relatively simple process... although I had hoped to exchange the shoes for a different size, I found that Aldo doesn't do exchanges for online purchases, only returns. LAME.

Okay, to put this into perspective, it's been a month now since I made the order and two weeks since I have received the shoes. The shoes I kept, I have worn and discarded my packing slip because I wasn't planning on returning them. Makes sense, right?

At this point I'm starting to give up the $10 price discrepancy on the shoes because I've already wasted a total of 30 minutes waiting on the phone. 30 minutes is already worth at least $10 to me.

Next, I'm at a month since I returned the two pair of shoes and still have not seen a refund on my credit card. So, I call Aldo and figure I'll bring up the measly $10 as well. I call, wait for 7 minutes and finally get though to someone. She's not particularly friendly, but I'm nice and just try to explain my two separate issues. I get hung up on! I have never been hung up on. I wasn't being mean, just detailing my situation and I guess she didn't want to listen. So, I just dial their number and call Aldo again. This time I get a friendlier person on the line (I didn't even tell her I was just hung up on) and tell her about my experience. She told me they were experiencing a lag in the returns department and that I should be refunded in the next 10 days. About the $10, she said she would look into it and if I was indeed charged $10 more than what they were selling the shoes for on that day, I would be given a refund if I had the original receipt. I told her that I no longer had the original receipt since It's been a few weeks since I've been wearing them and no one told me in all my other attempts to correspond that I would need it. She said it shouldn't be a problem. The Aldo rep. told me she'd call me within 3-5 days about it.

True to her word, she called me about 4 days later. Unfortunately, I was out so she left a message on my machine. I tried to call back. Waited 10 mintues, and hung up. Sounding familiar? I called again, waited 7 minutes and got through. The rep. I talked with said that I could not receive a refund, even though I was due one because I no longer had the original receipt. I told her I had a copy of the order from my email, but she said since it wasn't the original, it wouldn't work. I asked why this mattered since they knew that I ordered the shoes. She said that if they gave me a refund without the receipt, and I actually had one I could go to the nearest Aldo store (for me, it's 3 hours away) and receive a refund from them. Okay, so am I getting that Aldo operates on the premise that customers are naturally dishonest and thieving? Sure seemed like it. I told her that I live three hours away from an Aldo store and that I'd never be going to one, that I wasn't that dishonest, and that I would have kept my receipt if someone would have told me that I would need it for a credit way back when I sent my first email about the issue. To no avail. I said thanks anyway and that I was not planning on doing business with Aldo again because of this sour experience which wasted my time and money. We hung up.

I called again, hoping to get an in with someone else, but long call short, I got nowhere. I could not believe it. I felt utterly helpless because it really seemed like no one would listen to my case.

The Sad Ending: Aldo shoes charged me $10 extra for a pair of shoes and would not refund it because I didn't have the original receipt (that's the one they sent with the actual shoes). At the time of writing this, I still have not been refunded for the two pairs of shoes I sent back to Aldo over a month ago. Can you see why I'm not keen on buying ANYTHING from Aldo again?

Tax Time Begins

2010-02-11T07:31:00.000-08:00

By now we all should have the stuff (W-2's, interest statements, etc.) mailed to us that we need to do our taxes. Yippee! I'm a tax junkie. I'm not sure why. I usually have it filed and get my return by late Feb or early March.

Here's how I handle the tax season. I use TaxAct for my federal Return. It's free and quite accurate. Over the years, I have sized TaxAct up to other tax services like Turbo Tax and they all do a good job on federal returns. I settled on TaxAct, as a matter of personal preference. Like with all free online tax services, you have the opportunity to upgrade your account to get more help, in the end paying for your "what-began-as-a-free-return." With TaxAct, I learned that you shouldn't upgrade unless you really, really want to. Once you have upgraded, you can't change your mind and "down-grade." Instead, you have to set up a whole new account and input all your info again. I learned the hard way a few years ago.

As soon as I get the first tax form in the mail, I get on my TaxAct account and input the info and logout. I continue to do this each day I get new info and by the time I get the last tax document, I'm pretty much done. I print off the return and go over it on my own to check for errors.

I don't use TaxAct for filing my state return. Why? For one, because it costs. For another, I have found that online commercial tax preparation services don't always have very accurate state returns. For state returns I found that I am better off going straight through the state. Most states have efile options on their web page that are free to use. I've had the best luck with this in all three states that I have done taxes in, as opposed to using commercial filing services.

FYI: TaxAct's free version (free, no matter your adjusted gross income) can handle a variety of tax forms/situations. For example, handling moving expenses, independent contract work, tuition deductions... etc. Happy filing.

Taking the Plunge with Mint.com

2010-02-08T14:44:00.000-08:00

I've mostly been a proponent of using technology to make my life easier. But I haven't embraced technology when it comes to personal finance very fully. I have enjoyed online banking for quite some years now, but I had always managed my accounts and budgets with Splash Money Desktop on my computer (sans the online account syncing option because of my paranoia). I guess after years of manually inputting all our paychecks and receipts into Splash Money, I decided I have had enough fun and would rather let a computer do it.

Enter mint.com. Why did I choose them? Mostly because I have read good things about the site and didn't want to spend oodles of time looking into other alternatives. I just need a basic financial picture. Plus, it's free. I hate paying for something if I can get it for free.

I set up my own account and it really was surprisingly simple. It took probably 20 minutes to grab all my account info from other institutions and my account was up and running. It's nice to see the whole financial picture in one place. And it's really nice that I don't have to input all the receipts anymore.

One thing, mint.com can only grab info from accounts that you use online that also work with mint.com. So, if you have a mortgage or other loan through an institution that mint.com doesn't work with, you can't "see" that account on mint.com. (You can send a request to mint.com to let you know when they do start working with that institution.)

If you're worried about security like I was, read here. And to learn more about the pros and cons of mint.com, to find out if it's right for you, read here.

Therapy After Trigger Thumb Surgery

2010-02-04T07:03:00.000-08:00

Painted clothespin puppets, with felt details (glued with Tacky glue) have disguised the thumb exercise involved in this play.

I wrote about how my daughter's doctor told me that in most cases children didn't need therapy after trigger thumb surgery. I had my doubts since I know that she hasn't been able to use scissors properly, even before the surgery. So, I did some of my own digging for information on how I can help her strengthen those muscles that she hasn't really ever used since her thumbs have been in a locked position for at least a couple of years... perhaps since she was born. I figure I can do some play therapy with her and if that doesn't work, then we will go to an occupational therapist.

In the three weeks since my daughter has had her cast removed, we have seen improvement. For the first couple of days with her casts off, my daughter continued to use her fingers to play, leaving her thumbs out of the game (just as she did when she had her casts on). My husband and I explained to my daughter that it was necessary to use her thumbs to help them continue to heal. She was receptive to this. By the week's end she was holding crayons correctly and starting to pull apart duplo legos.

Here's a link to some info I found on helping a child learn to use scissors. Now, with my daughter, I'm not sure if the challenges she's faced with trigger thumb are the "trigger" (heheh) for her difficulty with using scissors, or if it is only slightly related. (She doesn't seem to have strong enough hands to open scissors.) At any rate, I have decided to do some intense therapy in this area with her. I do preschool with her at home, so we just use a bit of preschool time to practice exercising those muscles in her thumbs and forearms. The picture above is of our latest activity: clothespin puppets.

Here are some other things we have done:

Ripping paper. (Funny that I have to teach my daughter to do this when it has come so naturally for the others!)
Picking up cotton balls with salad tongs and dropping them in a bowl. (Opening the tongs was difficult for her. )
Using a bulb syringe. I have started letting my daughter play with a bulb syringe while in the bath tub. She can't do this with one hand, but with two she can. Hopefully she'll get to the point where she can do it with one hand.
Play OPERATION. Bought the board game OPERATION for some fine motor skill practice, but my daughter is afraid of the sounds the game makes.

Home Organization

2010-02-01T07:37:00.000-08:00

I few days ago I wrote about a video I saw at Monkeysee.com on home organization and how it inspired me to get to work on organizing a place in my house that has needed it for a long time: our family message center, as professional organizer Janet Schiesl calls it. According to the video, a family message center includes a place to write messages for family members, a family calendar, phone list, and a family file. I have a small kitchen (limited counter space) so I wanted everything to be accessible, but hidden. Here's what I came up with:

The calendar is held by the those nifty 3M Command clips. The phone list is taped underneath, at a level that is accessible to my kids since it has emergency numbers. The pull out drawer has our family file (Office Depot purchase) and the phone books and other reference materials are in a magazine holder. On the counter we have the phone, next to it we have a container for writing utensils and scissors... and there is some scratch paper (that isn't visible) for taking messages.

The other day my husband was using the phone list to make a call and commented, "This is pretty handy." I second that. It was worth the trouble. I should have taken a "before" picture to compare to this... but it might have been too embarrassing anyway.