Jun 30: Its Raining Its Pouring
It rained last night, YEA! Very excited since we are in a drought and all the beautiful grass Joseph planted, and my rosemary bush died because of it. During the thunderstorm, we had a crazy boom unlike anything I've ever heard. Our back gutter fell off our house! Well, I guess we need to replace the gutter system now. Luckily the front stayed on.
Just one more thing we need to fix, and soon.
Just one more thing we need to fix, and soon.
Jun 26: Small Accomplishments
Today has been a day of small accomplishments. The most important one is mopping the kitchen floor. I've been trying to do that for weeks, but things seem to pop up and it never got done. Teagan also prefers to eat his Cheerios off the floor, so I've been pressing myself to do it.
I also was able to get all my errands done for the week. And the amazing things is that I've also been prepping for Alex's birthday party on Saturday. And I've got most of that done ahead of schedule. It didn't help that it was due to the fact that my car is still unusable in this 90+ degree weather and I had to do it the day I had Joseph's car.
Alex has made some small accomplishments of his own. He finally got me to see the light, he is a big boy and doesn't need a nap. It took a while for me to let go of the pleasure of my free time (aka naptime). But now life is better. As long as I can keep Alex from waking up Teagan from his naps.
I also was able to get all my errands done for the week. And the amazing things is that I've also been prepping for Alex's birthday party on Saturday. And I've got most of that done ahead of schedule. It didn't help that it was due to the fact that my car is still unusable in this 90+ degree weather and I had to do it the day I had Joseph's car.
Alex has made some small accomplishments of his own. He finally got me to see the light, he is a big boy and doesn't need a nap. It took a while for me to let go of the pleasure of my free time (aka naptime). But now life is better. As long as I can keep Alex from waking up Teagan from his naps.
Jun 26: Security Umbrella
Since the purchase of the little green umbrella, Alex takes it everywhere with him. Yesterday we went to spend the day with my aunt, and yes the green umbrella came with us everywhere. He was depressed if Annette tried to make him leave it behind. She said "I've heard of security blankets, but never a security umbrella."
Jun 23: Little Green Umbrella
Alex loves to wear his frog boots and carry an umbrella in the rain. When it starts raining, he begs to go on a walk. (He takes after me, I love playing in the rain.) For a while now he has been using my old purple umbrella. But that had several holes in it, so it couldn't do its job to well. Today while at Target, Alex and I went to pick him out a new umbrella. Green or blue or plaid, which one would do? Alex took one look at the green umbrella, and it was love at first sight.
Today, Joseph has been swamped at the office. So I called up my Grandpa and Grandma Jackson and we went to Johnny Carinos to take advantage for their family plates for regular plate price deal. Alex brought along his green umbrella. I tried to talk him into leaving it in the car, didn't work. So it sat on the table till our food arrived to then be hung on his car. Upon leaving the restaurant, I was glad he brought it. It was raining buckets! Though it didn't help me and Teagan stay dry, since Alex was carrying it. And it didn't help Alex too much either, the wind was whipping the umbrella and the rain. But Alex loved carrying it and did manage to stay dryer than Teagan or I. And I was able to transport Joseph's dinner to the car and the food stayed dry.
Today, Joseph has been swamped at the office. So I called up my Grandpa and Grandma Jackson and we went to Johnny Carinos to take advantage for their family plates for regular plate price deal. Alex brought along his green umbrella. I tried to talk him into leaving it in the car, didn't work. So it sat on the table till our food arrived to then be hung on his car. Upon leaving the restaurant, I was glad he brought it. It was raining buckets! Though it didn't help me and Teagan stay dry, since Alex was carrying it. And it didn't help Alex too much either, the wind was whipping the umbrella and the rain. But Alex loved carrying it and did manage to stay dryer than Teagan or I. And I was able to transport Joseph's dinner to the car and the food stayed dry.
Jun 23: WRT54GL, now more useful
I've had an OpenWRT compatible wireless router for almost 5 years now, starting with a Belkin FD7230-4, and then getting a Linksys WRT54GL about a year ago. When I first got the 54GL, I tried to load a few third party firmwares on the Belkin, and after much consternation, went back to the original. I was not interested in compiling my own firmware, but it seemed that I would have had to. Over the past month or two, I've tried three times to get openwrt or xwrt to work on my 54GL. I was attempting to use Kamikaze 7.09 based images, and after flashing several different times, was never able to get the Wide Area Network connection to load (Actully, when I tried DD-WRT I did get it to load, but I couldn't figure out how to do some of the things I needed it to do). Command line attempts to bring up the WAN connection yielded "invalid substitution" errors on the OpenWRT based images. Google didn't show anyone else with this problem, and I didn't have time to dig into it (minutes that my router are down are minutes that my website is down). So I always reloaded the linksys firmware, (via TFTP) and reloaded my settings from the backup I'd made.
Enter Tomato Firmware: An "it just works" firmware for WRT54GL and similar. No building your own from the ground up, no busted start scripts, and it includes all of the features that I need from my router right now. It runs DNSmasq, so it is a full featured DHCP, DNS and TFTP server (which takes three jobs away from my main server). I installed it, the web interface worked, it actually kept most of the settings from my linksys setup, so I didn't have to reload wireless settings. I just had to add my static IP clients, re-add my port forwarding rules, and set up the DNS records. I'll have to see if I can get it to run OpenVPN server and NTP, but if not, that's not a deal breaker (I may even do without NTP for my small network). Then I can really start migrating off my old Athlon XP hardware.
Enter Tomato Firmware: An "it just works" firmware for WRT54GL and similar. No building your own from the ground up, no busted start scripts, and it includes all of the features that I need from my router right now. It runs DNSmasq, so it is a full featured DHCP, DNS and TFTP server (which takes three jobs away from my main server). I installed it, the web interface worked, it actually kept most of the settings from my linksys setup, so I didn't have to reload wireless settings. I just had to add my static IP clients, re-add my port forwarding rules, and set up the DNS records. I'll have to see if I can get it to run OpenVPN server and NTP, but if not, that's not a deal breaker (I may even do without NTP for my small network). Then I can really start migrating off my old Athlon XP hardware.
Jun 20: Self Accomplishments
I taught Teagan self entertain at a young age. It helps when you busy errands every Momma has to make, and stuck either in the car seat or a cart seat. He usually motor boats, plays indian all over the place. Today on our walk, he started it up. But a new game, pat- a- cake. It was ever so cute to watch him play as Alex pulled the wagon.
Teagan has also decided he wants to start self feeding. He's like eating the snacks, but just recently add mealtime food. I'm very excited. Though I'm not sure what to think about his latest snack. Alex has really gotten into fruit leathers that we have bought at Costco. After opening one for Alex I throw away the trash in the living room trash can, which usually only has paper scraps. Teagan scurries to the trash, pulls out the wrapper and starts sucking all the flavor off it. It is really quite funny to watch.
Teagan is showing major steps to walking, he can stand up for a bit on his own and even take a few steps. But he enjoys crawling more, so walking is a game. Hopefully I'll be patient enough to wait till he decided to walk.
Teagan has also decided he wants to start self feeding. He's like eating the snacks, but just recently add mealtime food. I'm very excited. Though I'm not sure what to think about his latest snack. Alex has really gotten into fruit leathers that we have bought at Costco. After opening one for Alex I throw away the trash in the living room trash can, which usually only has paper scraps. Teagan scurries to the trash, pulls out the wrapper and starts sucking all the flavor off it. It is really quite funny to watch.
Teagan is showing major steps to walking, he can stand up for a bit on his own and even take a few steps. But he enjoys crawling more, so walking is a game. Hopefully I'll be patient enough to wait till he decided to walk.
Jun 17: Free Movies
I'm so excited the summer is off to a go start. We found lost of free movies! And the best part is between the two theaters nearest us, we will have a free movie every week! Today we went to see Doogal. Alex gets so into movies. He was very worried and started to cry when the train was falling into the lava, and fell into the tunnels, and then when Sam was hurt and all the other sad or troublesome spots. Teagan lasted though all but the last 20 minutes of the movie! He loved eating popcorn, and when I wasn't fast enough he enjoyed eating my fingers too.
Next week will be even better, The Bee Movie and my aunt will be joining us too!
Next week will be even better, The Bee Movie and my aunt will be joining us too!
Jun 16: First Steps and sick
So Teagan is finally starting to take his first steps. We've been trying to get Teagan to walk to Joseph and myself to no prevail. But Alex hopped on my lap for some cuddles and Teagan walked to bear hug Alex. What ever works.
The men in this house have been sick since Wednesday. It has been no fun for me, especially since it has been variations of the stomach flu. Fortunately, Joseph convinced Alex to use "the sick bucket." Which made clean up slightly easier. Despite all the hard time with cranckiness (that still hasn't left) and diaper rashes. It was a nice chance to cuddle with the boys. Friday night was a very rough night, so about 10pm after we clean Alex and Teagan up again, we all headed down to the family and watch "The Seven Little Foys." The whole time while cuddling. Everyone enjoyed themselves, and mostly stomachs finally settled for the night. Then Saturday Joseph and Alex were complete bumps on the log, and fell asleep in each other's arms. That was the sweetest sight I have seen. I'll have to upload the pictures. But since recovery from the stomach flu is a slow, I'm still a little busy.
The men in this house have been sick since Wednesday. It has been no fun for me, especially since it has been variations of the stomach flu. Fortunately, Joseph convinced Alex to use "the sick bucket." Which made clean up slightly easier. Despite all the hard time with cranckiness (that still hasn't left) and diaper rashes. It was a nice chance to cuddle with the boys. Friday night was a very rough night, so about 10pm after we clean Alex and Teagan up again, we all headed down to the family and watch "The Seven Little Foys." The whole time while cuddling. Everyone enjoyed themselves, and mostly stomachs finally settled for the night. Then Saturday Joseph and Alex were complete bumps on the log, and fell asleep in each other's arms. That was the sweetest sight I have seen. I'll have to upload the pictures. But since recovery from the stomach flu is a slow, I'm still a little busy.
Jun 12: It is amazing
I just read an article featured by Discovery Channel, and it seems that scientist have sprouted the oldest know seed. The date palm seed was 2,000 years old and sprouted about 3 years ago. Very cool. I wonder what they are going to try and grow now? datepalmseed
Jun 12: GO North Carolina
NBC did a recent top 10 best places to live. They used all the other one to compile this list. Charlotte, NC was #9. But it gets better! Raleigh was #1! And it topped many of the other best places to live list too. And why not? We have the RTP (Research Triangle Park) that is a huge technology hub. Lots of stuff to do, museum wise too. And more than a half dozen hospitals within about 20 minutes of each other. LOTS of colleges and universities. And a great access to locally grown produce year round. The best parts of Raleigh, in my opinion, are the little suburbs in it, the old places. I've family that live on a good piece of land (meaning they have a standard swimming pool and still lots of yard around it) right near most things in Raleigh. I also love driving around and seeing all the different types of buildings. It is good to live in a place I love.
« previous page
(Page 1 of 15, totaling 150 entries)
next page »