The Saga of the Washer and Dryer

You know you're an adult when you buy a washer and dryer on Black Friday. No sweaters. No cute shoes. No electronics. Just a washer and dryer. That was our exciting, and only, purchase of the day. It was Black Friday. And it was a good deal. Half price.

I'm now the proud owner of a front loader HE washing machine. I've only washed a few loads of clothes, and have discovered something already - I'm kind of a slob when it comes to washing. Things fall out of the laundry basket on the way down the stairs. Caitlin's socks reside all over the house, and I am not good at collecting them all. I forget things. I find clothes behind the kids hampers 10 minutes after starting a load of laundry. I'm going to have to come up with a new system, because you can't just re-open the front loading machine when you realized you've forgotten something (or, in Caitlin's case, suddenly spotted a sock under the sofa). I use to be able to do this, long ago, when I had to walk to other buildings, or down several flights of stairs to find a laundry room (hoping there was a machine available). But then again, I was only washing my own clothes. Maybe over time I'll get better, but we have a lot of kids socks whose mate is still hiding somewhere.

It is nice to have a dryer that just works. With the exception of the 5 months in our rental house in Colorado, I haven't had a reliable dryer for almost 7 years. In 2002 we rented a duplex with a very nice washer and dryer. Brand new. After years and years of apartment living, laundromats, and sharing washers and dryers, we felt so spoiled. We moved from that place in the spring of 2004, and I've had to monitor the dryer ever since. The next dryer cooled down so drastically after the machine reached a certain stage - which was about half an hour into the cycle - that I had to reset the machine back in order to get dry clothes. Half and hour later I had to manually set it on cool down. The dryer that came with our current house had no buttons when we first moved in. The cycles were controlled by a vice-grip set of pliers that you used to move to turn the dryer on and off. Right after I bought new knobs, the timer went out. My clothes dried, but only if I monitored the time of the cycle. And manually set it on cool down. So now, almost 7 years later, I don't have to worry about how long the dryer has been on. It turns itself off! I don't have to set a timer. I don't have to panic that I forgot to turn off the dryer after leaving the house (and then turn around and drive home to double check that the dryer is off). The other night I had clothes in dryer, and went to bed before they were dry, because I could! In all reality, I have so little room to complain. I haven't had to share a dryer for years. And my clothes always dried. So it was good. But when you do all the laundry for 4 people, it's nice to not have to always monitor the dryer.

So now we are officially adults. It had nothing to do with age, I guess, but with lifestyle choices. We own a home. We are no longer nomadic. Now we'll have to decide whether or not we want to move them whenever our time here is done. I'm a little sad that everything we own no longer fits into the small to mid-sized U-Haul. We have too much stuff. We've grown up. But what about all those other adults that really don't grown-ups who don't qualify as adults. They still revel in their child-like living? Maybe they should own a washer and dryer.

Yo Ho Yo Ho

Caitlin's singing her Christmas songs again. This time it's "We Three Kings." She's singing the line that goes "oh, oh, star of wonder, star of light" as "yo, ho, star of wonder...." It's a pirate's life for me.

More Lyrics to Kill

Caitlin's moved on from "Hark the Herald Angels Sing." Now she's massacring the lyrics to "Joy to the World". Her lyrics are:

"Let earth receive her king!

Let every heart prepare to hurt!" (instead of "prepare him room")a

And, she's singing it all at the top of her lungs in the store. Lovely.

Even More Lyrics

Today - yet more new lyrics for "Hark the Herald Angels Sing":

Joyful all the nations rise,

Join the tramp above the skies!

With all jelly all day long!

Christ is born in Bethlehem.

I'm starting to think she's changing the words because we laugh. However, many, many people at Target, and at the mall in general, were amused by the constant singing and improvised lyrics. Really. They told me so.

Tramp... Triumph...Who Cares?

The lyrics to "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" have changed in the last few hours. Now the line "Join the triumph of the skies" is now "Join the tramp up in the skies." At some point we are hoping that Caitlin will be able to say the word "triumph". Before the church preschool Christmas pageant would be nice.

Join the Trip Above the Skies

Caitlin is currently rehearsing "Hark, The Herald Angels Sing" in the bathtub. Her lyrics go something like this:

"Joyful all the nations rise,

Join the trip above the skies! (Join the triumph of the skies)

With all jelly hosts proclaim, (With the angelic hosts proclaim)

Christ is born in Bethlehem!"

I'm worried about the jellied hosts, but the trip above the skies sounds pretty good to me.

Swimming in the Garage

As I was pulling the car out of the garage this morning on the way to preschool, Caitlin said she would like to go swimming. I gently reminded her that the pools in town are closed from September to June. She then told me that she wanted me to set up the blow-up pool in the garage and fill it with water. Ha! That's so wrong on so many levels. First there's the concussion problem we'd have if she flopped into the pool while it's on a cement floor. Then there's the weather now that we've entered the time of year in Colorado known as "it won't be warm for the next 6 months". Brrrr. Might reach 60 today. Who knows?

I guess it's time to tell Caitlin that we'll be heading down to Colorado Springs in a few days. We're staying a hotel with an indoor pool. Although we won't be at the pool all the time, as Caitlin would like, I'm sure it will be enough to make her happy for a while.

The Absentee Blogger

I'm an absentee blogger lately. Sorry. Brandon got sick the weekend of Halloween, and I followed suit. He recovered quite a bit quicker than I did. For a head cold, this one really wiped me out. The head and stomach hurt, and I spent a few days eating only saltines (although the scale is not reflecting my drastic cut in calories). After a week, I was up and down. I'd feel good one day, and be up. The next day I'd feel horrible, and be down on the couch. Top it all off with trouble hearing out of one ear, a sensitive stomach, busy kids and a traveling husband and well, the blog lay silent. I'm now on the road to recovery, thanks to some antibiotics and steroid spray to clear up the non-draining sinus (which should lead to being able to hear again someday!), so I thought I'd catch you up on what we've been up to:

Halloween-

Thank God it's over! Is it just me, or does it get crazier every year until you kids go to college? Brandon was Juice Box and Caitlin was Tinkerbell. Caitlin spotted a cute Tinkerbell outfit in the thrift store when I was looking for a miners hat for Brandon (not even for Halloween - for Constitution Day. Heck - why not add another costume to October?). Yay! Before that she wanted to be Clifford. That would have been labor intensive.

AWANA-

we signed the kids up for AWANA on Wednesday nights. There is very little close by where we live, so it's a 7 mile drive to the church where they meet. Initially it was very chaotic, but we now understand what we're doing, so it's good. The kids love it, and are very good at verse memorization. Brian and I have made it "date night" for us, since we have a 2 hour window kid-free (!!!). Every other week we meet up with another couple whose kids are also in AWANA. It's a nice change. The only downside is that we don't get home until almost 9:00. That's late for our kiddos to get into bed. But they're learning God's word, which makes it all worth it.

Brandon -

He loves school. We had a parent-teacher meeting a while back, and found out he's reading at an early 3rd grade level. Go Brandon! He loves math and science, and seems to be doing well in his class. His teacher got him into a handwriting workshop that meets twice a week for just under half an hour. I'm glad he's getting help at school with his handwriting. We butt heads on this one at home. It's the one area I almost can't help him with.

Caitlin-

Also loves school. She's in preschool 3 days a week, and is so happy. She has been writing a lot, and attempting to read. Every day when Brandon does his homework she drags out her "homework" so they can do it together. Parenting her "4 Going on 14" attitude is another story. Her favorite phrase is, quite literally, "Just let me do what I want to do!" What she wants to do is wear shorts and flip-flops in the snow, forgo underwear and socks, cut her hair off, and listen to her CD player loudly at all times. So far, I've let her cut her hair short. I've hidden all forms of sandals and flip-flops, and have absolutely no issues going through her drawers if she can't wear appropriate clothing. Luckily, the weather here get cold enough that eventually even the most stubborn of children will at least wear something warm.

Me -

I've been doing publicity for my MOPS group, a Bible study on Revelation, and meeting with a group of women on Thursday mornings. Other than that I'm a full time mother to two children.

Brian-

He's been doing a new job within the same company for a couple of months now. It seems to be going well. You'd have to ask him for more details.

I think that's about it from our little family. At some point I'm going to put more pictures up on the picture site, but that's for another day. Maybe the Thanksgiving holiday. Maybe.

Brandon's Rules

Sign found in Brandon's room this morning. Spelling and rules written just as they appear:

Rules in hear:

1) No snapping (as in snapping your fingers)

2) No wisiling

3) No jumping on the bed

4) No hiding anything

5) No playing with anything unless I say

6) No fiting (fighting)

7) No stomping

8) No annoying

Now you know the rules of Brandon's room for next time. Don't say you weren't warned!

Why I Shop There

Why do I shop at King Soopers? I complain about it a lot. The stores are poorly laid out. The cashiers are slower than molasses. But, this is my latest receipt:

It's the sales. Granted, the prices are better than most grocery stores, but it's still a grocery store. But this week was the "mega event" (really - that's what they're called) "buy 10, get $5 off" promotion. I didn't need to go shopping last week. This whole trip was stock-up shopping on sale items. On this trip I bought 10 boxes of Annie's organic mac-n-cheese, 2 quarts of organic chicken broth, 5 cans of other chicken broth, 2 bags of Ricola, coffee creamer, dividers for my binder, and 3 Halloween pumpkin buckets for the backyard. 24 items in total. By combining store savings, specials and coupons, I bought $47 worth of food stuff for $10. There's more this week, too, so I'll be back. I don't think I've ever gotten a 79% savings before. It's so much better, too, when you can get great deals on organics. They're usually so expensive!

I wish Safeway did this with items I actually use (I'll be skipping the fruit roll-ups and Count Chocula cereals, thank you). It's so much closer, too. King Soopers is by Caitlin's school - a full 8 miles away - so I doubt I'll shop there very often after she is out of preschool. Maybe I'll make special trips out for these great deals. Might be worth the gas money. Since my daily/weekly schedule will completely change yet again next year with Caitlin in kindergarten, I don't know how things will fall into place. But if I can keep shopping like this, we'll have more money to do fun stuff!

Costumes

Okay, I'm a little late on this one. Brandon was sick the weekend of Halloween, but was able to go out for a while to go trick or treating. Combine that with a busy week, Mommy catching Brandon's cold, and Daddy being gone on a business trip, and well... there was very little getting done.

We had a juice box and Tinkerbell around for Halloween. Here's the picture to prove it.

Once I figure out this new computer, I might get a few more pictures up on the Picassa site. Good luck to me.