Crack Potting with Autumn

Little Autumn has been getting what I can only assume are night terrors every night since Tuesday of this week.  The first night I was able to deal.  Now it has been 4 nights and I'm starting to crack.  She never was up much as a baby.

Somehow in my foggy pre-coffee haze on Thursdsay (or was it Wednesday) I managed to recall that I had bought a slightly expensive cut of meat to make a pot roast with a few days earlier.  It was sitting in the fridge waiting to be remembered.  I hauled out the shiny unused in a few months crackpot and started dumping crap in.

Autumn wanted to see what I was doing and then said "Mommy!  I help?"  Part of me was saying "Go watch Nemo for the 800th time (probably not an exaggeration at this point) and let me be" and then I vaguely remembered blaming my mom for giving up trying to teach me to cook and pulled up the stool.



I tried to let her dump the Onion Soup Mix in but for some reason she was scared of it.  She tried to eat the raw potato as she thought it was an apple so that was a no go.  So I dumped the bag of baby carrots (yes I'm too lazy to buy the cheaper adult carrots and peel them.) into a dish and showed her how to throw them in.  "Its like throwing rocks into the lake, honey."  I said.

She likey that idea and started to pick up the carrots, one by one, and toss them in saying "I did it!  I did it!" with each one.



 There were about 60 carrots I would say, and since she had to do her victory dance after every win it took a little while.

8 hours later (hey, its a crackpot, it takes that long!) my husband was saying that it was the best meat he had had in a long time.  My friend Nancy says that is the secret (shhh).  Don't cook for your man for about 6 months and then when you do he finds it DELISH!  I have got this down pat.

Out Of Touch

We have been internetless for almost 3 weeks now!  I have to write blogs in Notepad and then go to the library or a kind friend's house and post them!

We got rid of the internet because of its cost.  I can't believe how much cable companies charge for "high speed" internet.  We had a great deal with Comcast at first and when that ran out it kept going up every month and was going to top out at 72$ a month!  We have only basic cable which is less than $20 a month.  My husband hasn't had any work at his second job for months now and that really has forced us to cut way back. Thank God that his regular job gives him a free bus pass and that the bus comes to our town and picks up within walking distance.  For the first time in my life I have had to turn down doing things with family and friends due to gasoline prices.  Some would say this builds character or teaches me a life lesson of some sort.  I say its a reflection of the sad times our nation is facing.  Gas will cost $3.65 at 9:00am and $3.72 at the same station 4 hours later.  Someone needs to stop this madness.  The world is going online and we can't afford it!!


The temporary solution with a permanent side effect has been to use the Public Library!  Ours is within walking distance, has free wi-fi, and you can bring your own computer/device to hook up to their unsecured connection.  Of course one has to be careful with that but for checking and writing emails, updating blogs, uploading photos, etc. it is perfect.  My only problem is I can rarely go without Autumn and she is not exactly library material yet.  Plus they are not open on holidays, Sundays, and some evenings they close at 5 instead of 8.  But its better than nothing!  The best part is that I am reading books again!  Haven't done that in years.

There was also another cost for having such easy access internet at home.  I was spending most of my days online and doing the bare minimum of being a SAHM in between Facebook posts and reading news sites.  I personally feel that I wasted much of the summer except the last 2 weeks.  My back hurt daily from sitting in bad positions as I have no good place to use the computer except on the kitchen table or the counter top.  I did not get in very good shape as I had planned because when you are in your 30's and sit on your butt for 80% of the day the weight does not exactly fall off you!  It kind of settles in to squishy parts.  I also barely took any walks and walking has always been something that has defined me.  I try to use the 3 kids as an excuse but most of the time at least one of them was in summer camp...!!

I have a wonderful opportunity to operate my church's website and other online doings.  This means I will need to use the internet!  But in order to avoid falling back into bad habits we are going to do something a little non-traditional.  I am going to purchase a device to use as a wi-fi hotspot.  Verizon has a hotspot that does nothing else but be a hotspot.  There is also a chance for us to get an iPhone which we could tether because we have a discount for a new phone waiting for us...we haven't firmly decided yet.  We can't get either one until mid-September when our finances will have a little more breathing room.  Either way I am excited to be involved in our church in more than just attendance.

Well I am off to read the latest book I got at the library:  In The Plex by Steven Levy.  Its all about how Google was born and raised.  If I can't use the internet I might as well at least read about it!!

Feelin' Buggy

I got my camera back from the cleaner's on Friday evening. It had HORRIBLE crud all over the sensor, which is the part of the camera you don't want to touch unless you know what you are doing. I used LeZot camera repair on Cherry Street in Burlington (right over B&J and NO I didn't get a Vermonster while I waited!!).

The weather has been kind of gloomy all day so I wasn't real inspired to go take a walk and use it. Then I rediscovered the website What's That Bug? through Facebook postings they have, and I spent the greater part of the afternoon trying to get macro shots of tiny bugs that were on my plants. I use the term "my plants" loosely. The yellow flowers I have on my back porch yardage are completely there on their own. I planted a bunch of wildflower seeds years ago on the left hand side of my porch and each year they migrate to the right about a foot or so, and are completely different colors. I don't ask questions.

A little earlier in the day I had a tension headache bad from the shoulder wrenching work I did on Wednesday. I'm that out of shape. 4 days later and I'm still crying about it lol It is the kind of headache that makes you hate everything and everyone, and throw a little (a lot) PMS on top of it and let's just say Kris spent the better part of the day in the basement "cleaning" the floor. He was supposed to go to work at UVM today but then at noon decided that the basement needed a good scrubbing now that the water is finally gone. One Vicodin, four oreos, and a couple handfuls of Cheez-its later I was on my way to the park with three kids by myself.

Of course on the way to the park the kids did everything that normally I would ignore but until the V kicked in annoyed the crap out of me. So I put my camera in front of my face and took a few shots of a Hover Fly.

It really is very calming to take pictures. We then continued on to the next torture chamber I mean playground where they played great for about 5 min and then Autumn decided to see what its like to go down the twisty slide face first and we had to depart.

On the way out I just about ate this thing dangling from the tree!

Its an inchworm! Or looper worm. Its actually a moth caterpillar and turns into a Geometrid Moth. I have a Tussock moth caterpillar at home that I have been keeping in a tupperware container with maple leaves. I broke out the 10 gallon tank terrarium that I have and put them both inside.

There seem to be a lot of tussock caterpillars around this year.  I had only seen the milkweed tussock variety in the past!  Shall be interesting to see what it will turn into!

From Tortoise to Hare in 60 minutes!

I don't know about y'all but I have a need for speed when it comes to my computer. We currently have three computers in the house. One, my husband's lap top, is about 6 years old and was refurbished when he got it. I no touchy touchy that one its so slow I would drop kick it in about 2 seconds and he would lose all his geeky science documents. Another is my teeny tiny netbook. Its great for Facebook, email, and can handle my 4 and 8 gig SD cards. This brings me to the third and final pain in my a$$: An HP Pavilion desktop from...2005? 6? Mom?? My parents gave me this computer and don't get me wrong, I am SO grateful to have a large computer to work with my photos.

HOWEVER!

It came with some baggage and I just never got around to unloading.

First, I have XP Home Edition. I don't know if other OS will fit into this but THAT'S WHAT GOOGLE IS FOR!!

Here are the issues I was facing:

1) It started up fast SEEMINGLY (I do believe that is a real word!) but then the hard drive would be chuttering away (totally not a real word) for a good 5 minutes after and it could only handle one process at a time. That means that if I'm editing in Lightroom I can't be surfing the web or even use Picasa (secondary editing program). The Task Master would not show any other program running that was eating up the usage so I could not figure out what the heck.

2) Every time I have tried to download any programs I am unable to save the programs to the C:\Program Files folder. Access Denied EVERY TIME. I mean, come ON!!! I am an "Administrator" and all so I should be in God Mode, right???

3) C: drive disk space was very limited. I knew this and just was too lazy to do anything about it!

Here is the morphine that took away my online pain:

1) I went to Start>Run and typed in msconfig and then clicked on the toggled for Selective Startup. Next I went to the Startup tab at the top. Now, there were about 30 different things that were running at startup in here! No wonder all that chuttering was aflutter!

Here's the thing though--you don't want to just start willy nilly unchecking crap! Your computer DOES need some of it. What I did before I touched ANY of them was go to Bleeping Computer and clicked on their tab that says Startup. In here is a search box. The best thing to do is write a list of all the startup items in the msconfig box on a piece of paper, and then search one by one on Bleeping Computer's site and it will tell you which ones to keep, which to uncheck, and which you need to make a decision about based on your needs. In my case, I do not own a printer so I unchecked all the HP printer driver stuff. Once you have whittled the checked stuff down and are satisfied, click on Apply and then close it out. You must restart your computer to see the changes...a good idea anyway.

2) For the program files issue it was a little more complicated HA! What I basically learned how to do is change ownership on a folder. Didn't know such a thing existed! There is a great article that I followed in the Microsoft Support forum for this task. It seemed to work...guess I'll find out next time I download King's Quest IV!!

3) I then went into my Control Panel>Add/Remove programs and ditched every single DVD movie maker, Scanner, WebCam, and Flight Simulator I could find, and also some programs that I would never, ever use. I only use this computer for photos and surfing the web and I only use 3 programs just about EVER.

After restarting yet again the computer now starts up with almost no grinding noises and I can run Lightroom AND Chrome at the same time, AND a bonus is that Lightroom is loading and exporting almost twice as fast as before which should cut down on the long hours I spend working on photos that most people will never see! Crap there goes my Me Time!!

I hope this was useful in some way...I also recommend Analyzing your C: drive (or whatever your main drive is) in the Defrag application. If you don't know where that is it is under Start>All Programs>Accessories>System Tools Defragging can make a huge difference especially if you are adding and deleting files often like I do.

I Need an Intervention

Best Chocolate Chip Cookies EVER

That is, if you like yummy soft but crunchy-ish on the outside heavenly delight!

Since I can't write my blogs without putting in the babble that my brain is constantly rattling off, I have highlighted the important stuff in bold print ;-)

OK I hope no one is opposed to shortening here because it just doesn't work with butter!

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees!

First in one bowl dump 1 and 1/8 cup of flour. I use hippie whole wheat flour which makes it thicker, but you can use whatever you have laying around the house. Lighter flour makes them thinner. Next add 1/2 tsp salt (more if you like more), and 1/2 tsp baking soda. Or is it powder. The one in the box that's an odor absorber!!!! I can never remember the difference. Set this concoction aside for later.

In a mixing bowl plop 3/4 cup of shortening (butter FLAVORED is best if you have it, but regular is fine too) and then add 1/2 cup of light brown sugar and 3/4 cup white sugar. Sometimes I put in a whole cup of white sugar. I'm just crazy like that. If you want to change it up a bit and really taste heaven use Sugar in the Raw! YUMMY! If diamonds had a flavor they would taste like that sugar!!! Found in your hippie food aisle.

Using an electric mixer, combine these three things until blended. Next add a couple few eggs. If you have three, go for it. If you have two it will still work. Just makes them softer if you have more. Add to this 1 tsp vanilla extract and beat until the dough is doughy. Once its doughy enough slowly add the flour mixture until blended. If it seems too floppy add a bit more flour (Becca I am avoiding the "M" word just for you). Once you are satisfied with the texture throw in 2 cups of chocolate chips, chunks, or devlins. Whatever you have laying around! Stir these in with a big ol' spoon. Lick everything and then get two fresh spoons and drop them on the cookie sheets about an inch apart. No need to spray the sheets, the shortening will take care of that for you!

Bake for about 11 minutes. Remove and enjoy! Ok you may want to cool them a bit...

Here's a handy hint that I learned from the back of a Betty Crocker bag: to keep your batches from spreading make sure you cool the pans down in between dropping the dough on them! I just wave the pan around and if anyone walks in the way well, that's what I call collateral damage ;-)

The Ten Things You Aren't Cleaning in Your Bathroom (or maybe you are...and its just me)

I have set for myself a Housecleaning Itinerary for Good Housewives (or H.I.G.H....cause that's how I feel after inhaling that much Windex, Scrubbing Bubbles, and Lysol) utilizing my iPod Touch's calendar thingy. Monday I clean bathrooms. Or at least 1 out of the 3 if I'm having a slow day. This week I took on the "guest" bathroom which is just a sink vanity and toilet. How dirty can it get? Its the size of a small broom closet after all. Right past it is my laundry room: the generator of the Everlasting Lint Ball. You would really think in the 70 or so years that the modern clothes dryer has been around someone would have solved the lint trap problem. Everytime I take that sucker out its like New Year's Eve at midnight in Times Square.

Okay let's move on to the topic at hand. I realized that if I really got down on the floor in this bathroom in the sunlight a lot was revealed to me. Namely, a lot of pee. Now, I don't know how many men you have in your house, but when it comes to who peed on the toilet at such an angle that it made its way down into the fancy artistic part in the back the general consensus is : Alicia. I mean, it HAS to be her. Autumn is in diapers, I'm a big girl and make sure I don't drip, and both Kris and Alex claim "Not me" so that only leaves one suspect. Poor little scapegoat Alicia.

Yeah, I accidentally hit the "add watermark" button to this export and was too lazy to redo it.

As soon as I had finished gagging my way through cleaning that off (thankfully for you I took the pics AFTER it was cleaned!) I decided to see what else had been ignored, neglected, and otherwise thoroughly UNcleaned. That counts as number 1 by the way. :)

Number 2: Do you have these "vanity" lights in your bathroom?

I do. I have 4 downstairs and 16 upstairs. That's 20 of these bad boys for you math whizzes. See that dark patch at the top? That my dears, is DIRT. When they are on they are so bright you can't see it, and when they are off, who cares!?! But they are glass, uncovered, and supply the best light in the bathroom. Hell I think I'll just let this one get dirtier then maybe I won't flinch every time I walk past a mirror! JUST KIDDING!!

Number 3: Do you have these lovely standard model white doors in your home?

Ah, the modern stylings of the "shadowbox" door as I like to call them. Well when they start to get like this:

I'd be happy to go back to the Flintstone's boulder slab! These things are the biggest pain in the hee-haw to clean!! Especially if you are like me and only painted halfway down and then got distracted by something shiny 5 years ago and never came back!!! ACK!! Guess I have a few spring projects coming up, eh?!?

Number 4: one of the things everybody touches! Now, you may think I'm talking doorknobs, but no I expect you to clean that while you are gouging out your eyeballs on the door. I'm talking higher.

I wish I had taken a "before" pic of this. I had to first Windex it and then use a Magic Eraser (TM and all) to get the weird grayish splattery stuff off it. And this is something I wipe down regularly. I just never really took the time to actually look at it. As you can see I still need to take a nail file or some other pointy object and dig out the edges and screws. Yah, kids, wash your hands after you use the light switch! Oy vey.

Number 5 is something that I can almost guarantee you have not cleaned in a very long time unless you had a prophetic dream with an angel telling you that it existed. When I cleaned mine a large plume of volcanic ash hit me square in the nose. I put a mask on after I did the first one...

Moulding! Or Molding. Depends on if you are from England or New England. I have always cleaned the wide part that you can reach without a chair, but never have I ventured to the tops of Mt Killmenow and been spewed on like this. Oh and my fake plants are probably another thing I should be cleaning but I didn't take any pictures so I'm just going to pretend they are real plants and they clean themselves.

Number 6 for me is the paper towel roll holder! Ahh, pristine white plastic with tiny little divots all over it that clutch the half dirty water that flies off of people's hands as they grasp the paper towel. Yes I see the glass as half empty in this case!

The only thing that gets that dirt out all the way is the dang Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. That thing is seriously MAGIC. It doesn't seem to have anything going for it except whatever freak side effect of some NASA experiment that accidentally polished the floors created! I use it on any of this "textured" plastic such as the refrigerator and freezer handles, kid's toys, and now the paper towel roll holder. Magic I tell you!!

Number 7 is slightly related to number 5 except for this you need to get down on the floor. I live on a plot of land that was desperately trying to look fertile when we moved in but really just gave up and became the dusty desert that it is today. Hence why I do not garden. But in the summer time during the day I leave the windows open rain or shine and when the wind blows or cars go by or a butterfly flaps it's wings sand and dust come floating on in. Apparently it enjoys settling on all of my moulding. The piece in the following picture is from the bottom of the bathroom door which is very near my sliding glass door. I vacuum this moulding all the time but never really look at it.

YUMMY!!! O000h and look I think I actually painted this piece! Magic Eraser works on this also.

Number 8 is a place I know I would rather forget: behind the sink faucet!

Mildew is one thing that grosses me out. I can watch mutilated dead bodies till the cows come home on CSI or Bones but slimy mildew? That's just plain nasty. For you I used the after picture. The before was not something I wanted to look at. That angle just isn't obvious until you get up on the toilet and look down!

Number 9 is the decorative finials on the end of curtain rods!

They are so pretty from down here. But as the top of the toilet was my lookout I noticed my amber acrylic fobs were looking a little tan! A quick wipedown with Windex Multi-Surface (antibacterial of course, and no I'm not plugging I really use this stuff, its heaven!) and they are sparkling fake jewels again!

Number 10 is probably the catcher for many foul balls. Pause. So as I had my head behind the toilet cleaning up the golden drizzle I turned to breath and noticed that the side of my vanity cabinet had these white high velocity spatter patterns on them (yeah I know, too much CSI!!). For these I have not found a cleaner that will remove them completely or even mostly. If I do you will be sure I will post it! I was only able to get peace of mind that they are now completely sanitary and disinfected even if they still have to exist. I don't know what those children are drinking but it quite effectively stains finished wood!

Well I hope you enjoyed my list. I plan to tackle the laundry room next. It looks clean at first glance but then again, so did this tiny little bathroom. I'd do the kids bathroom but my hazmat suit is at the cleaner's.

Have fun getting H.I.G.H.!

Hello, Beautiful.

The Bissell. With TurboBrush. Bed Bath & Beyond had them for $170, Costco had them for $85. This is what Kris' hard earned money is buying and wow does our carpet look amazing.

The answer to a dirty white kitchen floor: Mr. Clean Magic Eraser Mop (right) and Mr. Clean "Classic" Squeezy Mop. Both under $15 each.

A Befloor and After:

Bliss. Now if only everyone would go away so it would stay like this HAHA