Today was a finely orchestrated travel saga. Wayne was on high alert to mounting wait times at the border. George and Claire had to wait for nearly 3hr on their trip last week. Despite that, we still had some tripping to complete. We got packed and got our van from valet. We had a move packet of directions and reservations for dim sum. We arrived at the opening of Granville Market. We even got a free spot despite the line of cars arriving with us. We grabbed goodies from Granny Muffins. There were lots of lovely places more in the interior of the market, but 2yos don’t like window shopping. All the tables were taken except a big fold out table. When we were almost done, the owners, some late merchants, asked for their space back.
The kids played outside chasing pigeons while we enjoyed the sun and snow covered mountains. We wandered over to the kids market which didn’t open until 10am. The kids played on a wooden play boat and watched the ducks.
March 30, 2009
Vancouver day 4
March 24, 2009
School daze
Kindergarten has been my odyssey this week. Over the past 4 weeks, Wayne and I have looked at 4 different schools. Mostly, I’ve been really jazzed about school. I’m so excited for Sara to go to the big K. It seems like a lovely adventure. I love watching how the teachers teach. Some parts have been more stressful. The after school care part has not been so much fun. I think I need to get different friends (I say this tongue and cheek). Most of the Moms I know don’t need to figure out after school care. The moms from my daycare going to after school care all have siblings already in school so they’re not scrabbling for spots in schools or after school care. So I’ve felt a little rutterless despite having an awesome network of parents I know. That said, I’ve been shaking trees and I’m thrilled with the contacts my friends have helped me get. I’ve talked to 7-10 other families that my friends referred me onto once I advertised my need for advice. I thought I was paying attention to after school care. I would tour on site facilities when we’d see one on a tour. I’d note the brochures about after school care in the packets of info from schools. I just made a poor assumption. I figured enrollment deadlines would occur after we found out which school we’d be assigned to at the end of May. WRONG. I called a popular after school program and was surprised. I got a fire lit under me. I needed to start working. Ironically, the program wouldn’t give me references for privacy reasons. I was left pondering a childcare situation which I had to sign up for within a week with no recommendations. So I did the proverbial shaking. Luckily, Mom’s been visiting so I’ve had time to talk on the phone. Wayne’s been busy writing a talk in the evenings. I talked to the head of our current daycare, my friend from swimming, pulled out 2005 rosters from Mom’s group, scoured my church directory. And I got results. One day I got 6 messages. And lots of rave reviews for certain programs. So today, I did the footwork. I toured facilities with and without kids. More questions came up. More calls. At one point I had to wait 30 min just to talk to the Seattle Public Schools enrollment office. So I felt a little protective of the application as I handed off officially today. But that’s done. Now I just have a 9 page after school program application to do and a line to wait for at 6:45am one cold morning. Sigh.
March 19, 2009
Spider policies
5 yr olds would make good hospital administrators. Policies of our household are discussed in exquisite detail. Today, Sara, our household administrator, declared that we can kill Mommy and Daddy spiders, but not baby spiders. This accurately describes my actions. If it’s a large, poisonous brown spider near the kids, I kill it. If it’s a smaller garden spider and I have energy, it gets released. If not, it’s often continues cohabitation with us. The one on our ceiling will continue to live with us until it gets discovered again.
March 15, 2009
Week
Tired. Need to unwind. Late before work and I’ve planned and cleared my desk.
Thoughts of the busy, crazy wonderful week.
Applying time management techniques…finally.
Trying to cook. Not successful.
Crazy hosting. 4 adults, 5 kids under 6, tired, stressed, sick husband; but depth with good friends.
Made lovely creamy chicken soup with broccoli and mushrooms (so… I actually did cook).
Watched Mama Mia on an alone night, again.
Pondered academics and all that craziness. More admiration for my Dad.
Laundry piles stressful and diminishing.
Looking forward to Mom coming.
Mesmorized by the Lion King.
Had lovely date with Wayne at Crush.
Took kids swimming. Horses got spa treatment. Pool cold.
Maiden voyage to Trader Joe’s, Laura screamed the whole time. Less fun.
Sara loving Johanna playdates.
Wayne and I switching work intensity.
Kids flourishing in my stress. They’re so cute and such a joy!
Teaching Sara to sound out words.
Talking to Laura about colors.
Reading Goldilocks alot.
Rain, wind, cold, and snow…March madness.
Bought beds for girls. Big triumph of week. Ikea and independent store combo. Mostly a triumph of marital relations. Wayne and I work together well. Even with kids climbing on everything in stores.
Church intense. Facing death of a member. Sadness. Choosing joy over fear. God is an awesome God!
Sara asked me to sing songs in bed. I sang worship songs while Laura slipped off to sleep. Sara sang with me. My heart soared.
No hot chocolate for Lent. Wayne avoided wine flight be missed promise of no alcohol for Lent. I haven’t read as many Psalms as I’d like, but I’m reading more Bible stories to kids.
first time to church in 3 weeks.
Crazy, lovely week. Glad for a new one with the promise of some rest.
March 2, 2009
Improved netbook.
I just added an extra 512Mb of memory and a DW1390 wireless card to my Acer Aspire One 150 netbook. Now it has 1.5G and the wireless works (ie. the old card disconnected often and did not work under OS-X). I am writing this blog post with the new, cute little machine.
I had two hard problems. The first was that I could not figure out how to hook up the antenna for the DW1390. It had two triangles colored black and white, and there where two cables, black and white. The problem was if I matched the cables to the colored triangles on the card, I would end up reversing the connections from the original card. Searching Google I found reference to a Samsung N10 where they said keep the connections the same as the original card (thus plugging the black cable into the white triangle and the white cable into the black triangle).
The next part had me sweating. All the guides imply the keyboard is hard to remove, but I had no problem I just pushed the tabs back and they stayed out of the way. Sadly this was because I had pushed them so far back that they twisted behind the case. Also sadly 1 of the 3 clips was BEHIND the LED light transport (which was melted into place, no removing it). With a razor, paper clip, and screw driver I was able to restore the position of the clips and have the keyboard snap in place securely. Word to the wise, DON’T push the clips into the case!
–Wayne
March 1, 2009
Oven repairman
Well I learned today that if things turn really bad in this economy, at least I can find a job as an oven repairman.
Our oven has been on the fritz for the better part of 6 months now. It started out every once in awhile complaining with an F-code that the oven was overheating. This then turned into multiple F-codes about overheating and the temp sensor being bad, and then it just generally lost its mind. Finally I got fed up when it started beeping at 2am about overheating (it had not even been turned on for more than 24 hours). So I bought a new temperature sensor. Turns out that was a major pain to replace, because it required moving the oven, which turns out is bolted to an airduct running through the kitchen floor. Fortunately I realized this before ripping it to shreds.
Immediately after replacing the temp-sensor I turned the power back on and it started beeping and gave me an F-2 error code. Well I muttered some “F” codes of my own back. So now I was stuck; should I buy a new oven or perform a brain transplant on this one. Both options were expensive, but getting a new oven was 5-10x more expensive (not to mention not being able to find a down-draft oven that isn’t a nightmare of lameness that is Jenn-Air). I decided to go with the brain surgery option.
Thanks to Google new control computer arrived amazingly quickly. I finally figured out how to get the front panel off and removed the old computer and replaced it with the fancy new one. Wired it all back up, put all the screws back (I had 2 left over from the air duct, but I couldn’t get them back in — oh well) and then proceeded to power back up. Luckily no dreaded F-codes and I proceeded to cook a pizza in it without the F-codes and oven shutdown that inevitably happened when we used it before the repairs.
–Wayne