Happy New Year 2009!

Image by alexpenev in Sydney Australia, one of the first places in the world to celebrate the new year.

WW - Gingerbread House

Kids Glasses - The Best Deals

Adam has been wearing glasses since he was five and he has been averaging a pair every six months. The first year, I had vision insurance through work because I knew that Doug, Adam and I would need glasses. We went to Pearle Vision and came away with his first pair, which we purchased extra insurance on. We lectured him on how he needed to take extra good care of these glasses and miraculously, they remained intact until he needed a new prescription the next year. By then, I decided to drop the vision insurance and was hip to inexpensive glasses on the web. We even got the same name brand for less than half the retail price. But these didn't last. And we do everything in our power to repair glasses including using safety wire and super glue. Here's the history of Adam's glasses:

Date	Retailer	Price	Shipping	Total	Result
Feb 06	Pearle - Spongebob	$238	-	$55*	Great, used until new prescription was needed!
Apr 07	39DollarGlasses - Spongebob	$79	$6	$85	Screw fell out, rim broken
Aug 07	Zenni Optical - Titanum blue	$24	$5	$29	Rim broken
Apr 08	39DollarGlasses - Jimmy Neutron	$79	$5	$84	Spring hinge broken
Oct 08	BestPriceGlasses - Generic light blue	$12.50	$3**	$15.50	Perfect!

* Price after insurance coverage
** Shipped with Dova's glasses below

Adam is shown wearing his latest pair of glasses from Best Price Glasses. He picked the light blue color (wasn't our choice), which looks even eerier under a flash. This pair was by far the cheapest pair, and they are actually quite sturdy.



We knew that Dova would be harder on her glasses from this bit of foreshadowing. When we took her when she two-years-old to Pearle Vision to look for Adam's glasses, she managed to break two pairs of glasses right there in the store. Ripped the arms right off the hinges. tearing right through the metal. So when she got her first pair of glasses when she was four, we gave her the same lecture about taking care of them. We were also afraid that she wouldn't wear her glasses, so we bribed her with an expensive pair of Barbie glasses to start with. They have since come down in price on the Internet. I never liked the way these fit her because her eyelashes hit the lenses when they weren't falling down her nose. She had the same "falling down the nose" problem with her second pair of glasses, but this last pair seems to stay up the best.

Date	Retailer	Price	Shipping	Total	Result
Jan 08	TheEyeDoctor - Barbie pink	$134	$8	$142	Twisted hinge, screw fell out, lens kept popping out
Jul 08	Zenni Optical - Titanium purple	$24	$5	$29	Tweaked too many times from being stepped on, plastic on arm broken
Oct 08	BestPriceGlasses - Generic purple	$12.50	$3	$15.50	Perfect!

Dova runs through glasses on average every four months! This is much faster than wearing out shoes. But with Best Price Glasses, they are practically disposable. And so far they have held up better than her other pairs.

Are you wondering if this is a sponsored post? Not at all. I'm eyeing a pair of glasses too, because my spring hinge is broken and only held on crookedly with super glue. I guess the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree...

Edited to add May 5, 2008: Since this post, I got a new pair of glasses for myself with high index lenses and a pair of prescription sunglasses from their sister site Prescription Glasses Online. They are da bomb!

Christmastime at Disney's Hollywood Studios

In 2006, we spent money for extra tickets to Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party. We got to enjoy a slightly less crowded Magic Kingdom, and the cookies and hot cider were a nice touch. The fireworks were also spectacular, but in the end, it really wasn't worth the extra ticket price. This year, the only evening we spent at Walt Disney World was at Disney's Hollywood Studios (I will forever refer to it as MGM Studios, but I'm trying). At dusk, we waited for the Osborne Spectacle of Dancing Lights. At first I thought this might be the guy who did up his house to YouTube fame, but it turned out to be a different family.

I also remember that the fake snow they blew two years ago really seemed like ice crystals that melted, but this year the fake snow was just soap bubbles.  I caught some on my tongue before I realized this, but it didn't stop the kids from trying.






We also bought 3-D glasses for the show, which gave added a prismatic effect to lights. After the lights finally came on, you really didn't need them, it was more spectacular without them (that is, don't bother buying them!). Here's the obligatory video of the spectacle, complete with my crazy kids:



On the way to the Fantasmic character show, I snapped this photo of Mickey's wizard hat. It looked magical!



The kids and grandma enjoyed the Fantasmic show (this name is just a bit to close to orgasmic for me), but I felt that it was nothing to write home about.  Too much water and not enough fireworks!

Cough Cough Cough Leak!

Image from CDC.

I had heard that after having a child through vaginal delivery, you increase your chance of "stress incontinence" as you age. When I was young, I had a bladder of steel, so I never thought it would happen to me. But then I delivered a 9 pound 8 ounce baby boy, which definitely did a number on my perineum. Now when I have a bad cough, I have to wear pantyliners to catch the inevitable drops that come out. By the end of the day, I start smelling like the ball pit at IKEA (check the link for a cool video. Mark lived at IKEA for a week and this video shows him jumping into the ball pit during the first night. I'm beginning to think that I wrote this post just to include that link). Supposedly there is a simple 20 minute procedure that can fix this problem. I found this site which describes it, "Urethrocliesis is a vaginal operation for stress incontinence in which the whole length of the urethra is narrowed by two rows of nonabsorbable sutures." Um, no thanks, just pass the Depends.

But enough about leaking, and on to the coughing. Last December, I came down with this nasty illness which took me months to get over. I had a 103°F fever for 11 days, and terrible cough. My stomach muscles were sore from all the coughing. In the end it was defeated by some heavy duty antibiotics (Levaquin) and Advair. I never did get a chest x-ray because the first doctor pissed me off, but my guess was that I had pneumonia. I was so weak afterwards, my leg muscles hurt from having too much bed rest. After the initial illness, I continued to get colds easily for a few months, and then this nasty cough came back in full in March. This time I was hacking up all sorts of colored stuff, so I finally went back to the doctor on Doug's advice (can you tell I am a terrible patient?). I finally got a chest x-ray and a heavier dosage of Advair. Both my husband and son have asthma, but I've never had lung issues. I often kid that they gave me asthma. Miraculously, Advair slowly but surely cleared up the problem. The chest x-ray came back with a terrible diagnosis. Possible emphysema or COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). Emphysema? That's an old person's smoking disease! I've never been exposed to anything that would cause something like that.

So I went on to see a pulmonary specialist and had a CAT scan and a lung function test performed. By this time, my cough had cleared up. All the tests came back normal. My affliction was chalked up to having a "asthma-like" reaction when I was sick. I hate having alarmist doctors that get you all worried for nothing! I was seriously thinking that I was going to die from emphysema.

Since the last day of our vacation early this month, I've had another one of those colds. No fever, but cough cough cough. I've even resorted to taking cough syrup with codeine (please don't make me take a drug test for work). It's been over three weeks now but I won't go to the doctor until next year to keep my insurance costs down. Adam went to the doctor for a similar cough, and all they did was ask him to take a larger dose of his asthma medication. In the mean time, I've been religiously taking my Advair. And wearing my pantyliners.

11/10/09 Edited to add - For real support for urinary incontinence, check out the Urinary Incontinence Support Group on MDJunction.com.

Merry Christmas - Minty Goodness

Image from MSM London

This time of year brings out all sorts of minty treats such as candy canes. I even got a Christmas card this year full of propaganda on the origins of the candy cane, most of which are debunked by Snopes (I am the Urban Legend police, but that's a whole other post). I don't like candy canes per se, but if you crush them up and put them in peppermint bark, I'm all over it. Lately, I've found some other great minty sources that are relatively inexpensive.



3 Musketeers Mint - I don't normally like 3 Musketeers either, too squishy and not enough chocolate. But these 3 Musketeers Mint are beautiful white inside, with a delicious fluffy mint center. Like a fluffy York Peppermint Patty. Better than either a regular 3 Musketeers or a York Peppermint Patty alone.


Image from Slashfood.

Hershey's Candy Cane Kisses - They are just like peppermint bark with crushed candy canes in them.  If you're a mint and white chocolate fan, this is a total treat.



Image from Tracking Trader Joe's.

Trader Joe's Candy Cane Joe Joe's - These are Oreo-like cookies with crushed candy canes in the centers. Delicious! And a perfect snack for Santa.

Merry Christmas everyone!

WW - Happy Chanukah

Visit by Wordless Wednesday or 5 Minutes for Mom for more participants.

Happy Winter Solstice

And here's a cake to celebrate it! Or rather, it's the table on our deck that we failed to put away before the snowstorm. The winter has barely started and we've been hit by a massive ice storm, and now non-stop snow for three days. It is still snowing heavily as I write this, and the cake will likely get taller, but being the Winter Solstice, the sun sets at 4:16pm today.

I was thinking that it was unfortunate that we took our Disney vacation before winter started, and now we have the whole dreary winter to follow with nothing to look forward to.  No wonder why everyone wants to go in February.  And then I realized that had we gone just one week later, we would have had trouble flying in during the ice storm.  And two weeks later, this snowstorm would sure have put a crimp on air travel.

After the ice storm, Adam's school was closed on Monday and Tuesday last week to allow continual clearing of the roads.  People were still out of power and the middle school was being used as a warm shelter.  By Monday afternoon, the school called and said that due to the condition of the roads and impending snow forecast, that the schools would be closed for the rest of the year and reopen on January 5th.  Wow!  I am so grateful that Doug is home to take care of the kids. I have no idea how families with two working parents manage this unplanned school closing.  Since we took Adam on vacation during the first week of December and the school was closed starting Thursday afternoon for the ice storm, he has gone to school for a whooping three and half days in December!  He's been sick most of this time, so it's just as well that he take it easy during this time off. Having already used up 8.5 of the school's 5 snow days, I'm not sure what the school is planning to do to make up the days.  We started after Labor Day so he'd be going to school in July at this rate.  Some New Hampshire towns were talking about canceling midwinter or spring break.  I also heard that since a state of emergency was declared after the ice storm, that the schools may be exempt from the required 180 days.  I would vote for canceling one of the weeklong vacations.

The table wasn't the only thing that we didn't put away, Here's our grill too:


There will be no barbeque's at our house any time soon!

The Corporate Giving Tree

Last month I received an email from work asking employees to adopt a child from a local orphanage.

It is the time of the year when we should be thinking about the less fortunate.  We want to sponsor a child from the [home] this year.  We have a wish list with 27 children between the ages of 10 - 14 years old.

We have two gift tags per child one for toys and for clothes.  We have put a Christmas Tree in the cafeteria with the wish list.  The gifts should be labeled with the child name and please use gift bags instead of wrapping paper. 

You generosity will be greatly appreciated and needed by the less fortunate children in our community.

Deadline to drop of the gifts is Monday, December 15th.

So being a good doobie, I went to pick off two tags from the tree. And this is the first one I found:

Guitar Hero for the Wii? How unfortunate is this kid?  He already has a Wii and many "fortunate" kids don't even have Guitar Hero.  There tags for other expensive items like a Nintendo DS.  Such gall!  There was such a backlash from the employees of our company that the tags just remained on the tree. 

I thought some more about it and realized that the Wii is probably owned by the home and the kids share it.  And just because they are asking for extravagant gifts does not mean they are not unfortunate.  Not having parents is something unimaginable for me and my family.  Anything that would put a smile on these kids faces would be worthwhile.  Besides, who else is there to buy gifts for them?

So I ended up picking the Wii Super Smash Bros. Brawl for a boy from half.com (new for $30 including shipping instead of $49.99 from a store), and a "clothes" item for a girl.  She wanted a clock radio and a Fossil watch.  Of course I had no idea that Fossil watches are status symbols that are pretty expensive.  They didn't carry it at Target (that's my criteria for too expensive).  So I ended up finding this Elgin watch at BJ's Warehouse Club.  It had a classic beauty that even I would be proud to wear.  I hope she feels the same way. It had small diamonds too. And what a deal, a supposed $200 list price for only $39.99.  I checked back at home and Elgin watches easily retail for twice as much as I paid.  I also gave her the receipt just in case she didn't like it.

After I handed in my gifts in early December, I received this email from work (excerpted):

...We understand that some of the gifts requested are expensive items.  Just a suggestion:   Perhaps you could get together with some of your co-workers or your department and pick one tag off the tree for one child.  It would be less expensive for all to contribute to one gift. 

Also, the Children's Home suggested gift cards to Walmart are always appreciated if you can't pick one of the tags...

What?  I didn't have to go spend the big bucks and could have split it with someone or cop out with a gift card?  Well, what's done is done, and I should get better karma for being extra generous, right?  Still this email didn't help the number of tags still left on the tree.  Finally on the due date for the gifts, we received this email.

We still have 15 children with no gift this Christmas.  The kids will appreciate a gift card to any of the shopping stores like Target - TJ-Max - Walmart - Chunkys.

The deadline to drop off the gifts has been extended until Monday, December 22nd.

I guess the economic climate is so bad that no one wants to be generous. Our company is experiencing a drop in sales and we have a hiring and travel freeze. The tree was taken down with tags still left on it.  There were even simple items like jeans from Old Navy.  I work with a bunch of Scrooges!

Photo Hunters - Wide

Here's a crazy wide angle photograph of Adam. His tiny legs remind me of tiny Tyrannosaurus Rex arms.

TT #53 - Family language

In our family, we've misused or developed our own words that we use as everyday language. Some have come from the kids, and some just from total silliness. Here's a sampling:

1. Hanatizer - Hand sanitizer. This indispensable tool has become a contraction in our family.
2. Gril - girl. Adam said girl wrong once, and it stuck.
3. Jas - yes. In some languages, ja does mean yes, but it is prounounced "ya" and not bastardized the way we say it.
   
4. Burpies - Burp cloths which were my old cloth diapers. Both kids used them as lovies, and Dova, who is nearly five, still needs one when she is upset or when she goes to sleep. I realize that this is a pretty universal term, but not everyone understands when I say it.
5. Cheese Nachos - This means, "do you understand me?" There was a quote in Newsweek about 15 years ago where someone was searching for the name, Henry Cisneros, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. The quote was something like, "I can't remember his name, it sounds like Cheese Nachos." How this managed to morph into "do you understand me?" I have no idea. Sometimes it is shortened to just "nachos".
6. Sna Sno Snuts - Pistachio nuts. When Adam was 2, he asked for some pistachio nuts, but we just couldn't understand him. Sna Sno Snuts? What the heck are those? When we finally figured out what he meant, the name stuck.
7. Guacamole Cheese - Block of moldy cheese. Doug once asked me what the ingredients of my famous chili were and one of them was "block of moldy cheese." He heard that as "guacamole cheese" and it has stuck ever since. I cut the mold off first of course!
   
8. Hot and Sweaty Chicken - Rotisserie chicken. Every time Dova sees rotisserie chicken at the grocery store, she calls it hot and sweaty chicken and that name fits it perfectly.
9. Fresca - Refreshing. That's where the name Fresca comes from right?
10. Winkle - Somehow wee wee and tinkle got mixed together as winkle. It started from a rhyme Doug made up, "If you sprinkle when you tinkle, please be neat and wipe the seat." Wait, that doesn't explain where we got winkle from. Oh well!
    
11. Kitty Gak - Cat hair balls. Hopefully outside but inevitably on our rugs. I know that gak is a real term for gooey stuff for kids and I won't go near it because I think it's a front for hair balls.
    
12. Lavash - Normally a flat bread, but in our case, we use lavash to refer to the drool stains on pillows. Gross, I know!
    
13. Googly-goo - Baby drool. We even have a song for this one. It goes to the tune of some song or advertising jingle we can't remember. The song transforms and ends with, "Ask any mermaid you happen to see, What's the best tuna? Chicken of the Sea". I tried on Melodyhound and Tunespotting with this entry to no avail.
    
    
    

WW - Princess Jasmine

Hear more about how Dova got this extravagant costume from her grandma over at BlogHer (aka I've made the big time!).

Silly Monkey Story - Our First Photoshopped Family

While we were still dressed up from our niece's Bat Mitzvah, we set up for our annual family portrait for our holiday cards. Year after year, we've managed to get all four of us together in the same shot. There's no cheating with multiple shots in our family. After upwards of 20 or 30 shots, there's usually one that all of us look good in. Last year's photo was such an ordeal, that I swore that we'd have to photoshop the next one. But first, I always take a series of test shots to set up the lighting, background, etc. And Adam graciously provided a series of monkey faces.











Here is the photo where three out of four of us looked good. Dova's smirk and reflection from her glasses were not so good...



So I took this good photo of Dova, from another test shot.



And I photoshopped her face onto the family portrait. Luckily, it lined up well and I had to do minimal blending. While I was at it, I got rid of some of that eerie glow around Doug's glasses. So voilà, here is our photoshopped family:



Alright, after all that work, maybe multiple shots aren't such a bad idea.



Hosted by Karen at 3 Garnets and 2 Sapphires.

A 4- and 8-Year Old's Wisdom on Mothers and Fathers

Karmyn at Dreaming What Ifs... is the master of interviewing her children.  So I took these wonderful questions about mothers and asked my children.  Some of the questions have been altered to remove the religious aspect from them.  And I've expanded it to ask include Fathers as well and interviewed my children separately (for the most part).

Why are there Mothers?
Adam:  For the Dad, so they can both have the same amount of work for the children. 
Dova:  So more people can help in this family. 
(Apparently these answers are the result of having a stay-at-home dad).

Why are there Fathers?
Adam:  So they can do all the yelling for the mom.

Dova:  To keep mom company.

How are Mothers made?
Adam:  They are made from their mothers and ancestors.

Dova:  From people.

How are Fathers made?

Adam:  The same way as moms.

Dova:  By their moms. Hearts beating, and your eyeballs are stuck to your brain and you can't pull them out.  (Verbatim, I can't make this stuff up.)

What ingredients are Mothers made of?

Adam:  Tomboy, molecules, girls, long hair.

Dova:  Love, people, make-up.

What ingredients are Fathers made of?

Adam:  Grumpiness, love, happiness and madness.

Dova:  Love, ink, people.

Why do you have your mother and not some other mother?

Adam:  Why not you?

Dova:  Because we like you here.

Why do you have your father and not some other father?

Adam:  Because the mom likes the dad and the dad likes the mom.

Dova:  Because we love him here.  ( Dad gets top billing.)

What kind of little girl was your mom?

Adam:  Smartest Chinese girl on earth who skips a lot of grades.

Dova:  Sweet, afraid when she got in trouble, afraid they would yell at her and spank her.  

What kind of little boy was your dad?

Adam:  A fast little boy, intelligent, not very good at math.

Dova:  A little boy like Adam.

What did Mom need to know about Dad before she married him?
Adam:  What he likes, his favorite food, his birthday, what he likes to play with.  (What am I, a servant?)

Dova:  That you love him.

What did Dad need to know about Mom before he married her?

Adam:  If she liked him and he liked her.

Dova:  He loves you.

Why did your mom marry your dad?

Adam:  Because he's grumpy.

Dova:  Because she liked him.

Why did your dad marry your mom?

Adam:  Because they both liked each other and they were boyfriend and girlfriend.

Dova:  Because you colored on him.  You colored your whole body even your hair so you look colorful like Ariel.  (I swear I didn't spike her milk.)

Who's the boss at your house?

Adam:  Mom and Dad.

Dova:  Dad and Mom.

What's the difference between moms and dads?

Adam:  Mom's have longer hair than Dad, and Dad is a boy and the mom is a girl.

Dova:  Girl's hair is longer.  That's all I need to know.

What does your mom do in her spare time?

Adam:  Play soccer with me and have ice cream with me and Dova.

Dova:  I don't know, stay in bed all day, do nothing and sleep?  (For her, I had added the caveat that this was time away from the kids.  Apparently, they don't think I have free time - so true!)

What does your dad in his spare time?

Adam:  Work on the computer.

Dova:  Work on the computer.

( Ha! Who has the internet addiction in our family, eh?)

What would it take to make your mom perfect?
Adam:  You are perfect already.  ( That's my sweet boy!)

Dova:  If you put me to sleep every night.

What would it take to make your dad perfect?

Adam:  If he didn't yell so much.

Dova:  Sometimes leave him alone.

If you could change one thing about your mom, what would it be?

Adam:  Stop from yelling.

Dova:  That you wouldn't make me put away anything for a whole day because I don't want to clean up.

If you could change one thing about your dad, what would it be?

Adam:  If he would shave off his moustache - No, don't write that!  Too grumpy.

Dova:  These are really hard questions.  Too grumpy.

(In the end consensus on that question!).

After the ice storm

Here in New England we suffered a massive ice storm which left half a million people without power. We were fortunate to regain power after nine hours on Friday, but many of our neighbors and surrounding areas are still in the dark this weekend.

It started on Thursday when the public school emergency announcement system called in the morning to declare early release for the students in anticipation of the storm. It rained steadily all Thursday, but temperatures stayed above freezing. When I went to leave work at 6 pm, my car was encased in ice. I hadn't put my ice scraper into the car yet, so I waited in the parking lot while my windshield washer and defroster melted the ice.

That night, we woke every few hours when we heard cracks from the trees outside and we worried about the house. We lost power briefly but it came back. Then we heard something hit our roof. It wasn't loud enough to sound like any damage was done, but Doug and I were both awakened by the sound. A few minutes later, the phone rang. It was 4:30 am. I knew it had to be the school announcement system telling us that there would be no school, but Doug felt that could be important and we should answer it. Since the phone was on my side of the bed, I ignored it. The answering machine picked up and sure enough, it was the automated announcement. They really ought to enforce more reasonable hours for calling!



I woke up on Friday morning when Doug's alarm clock went off. He usually uses the radio but this time the buzzer was going off. We quickly realized that the power was off, and that this incredibly smart radio was using the backup battery to buzz the alarm at the correct time. How cool is that! And what wondrous device is this? The Bose Wave Radio, a hand-me-down from my mom.



We looked outside and thankfully saw that no large branches hit the house. I tried to call my work on my cell phone to see if they were open, but all the extensions gave back a busy tone. The main number just rang and rang and the usual message never came on. I figured that they had no power, so I decided not to go to work.  We have Vonage for our landline, so no power = no internet = no phone. Thank goodness for automatic forwarding and my iPhone for phone and internet access. We got our wood stove going for heat and listened to the radio. There was not much news about the storm, so we just took it easy and spent time doing things around the house. I finally took out the Christmas tree for the kids to decorate and I stamped and sealed all our holiday cards. We had cold sandwiches for lunch, read Harry Potter out loud and I even took a nap.



In our yard, we lost one small cherry tree and had damaged pines along our road.  Quite a few birch trees were bent all the way over and touched the ground (above). Doug cleared the pines away while I took pictures and Adam had fun knocking ice off the trees.  Our house looked beautiful with all the iced trees around it (first picture), and we were extremely grateful that we sustained no damage other than power loss. We regained power at 3 pm, and things were back to normal.

On Saturday, I tried to take the kids to my company's Children's Christmas Party off site, only to find it canceled. Along the way, we saw the extent of the damage. Many trees that were blocking the road had been cut and dragged to the side of the road. This tree was split right in half in my town. 



We went grocery shopping and came back to learn that one of Dova's friends who lives only a couple miles away was still out of power. We invited her to sleepover, gave them both warm baths and made a dire situation fun for the kids.

The most insidious thing about an ice storm is that once the ice is melted off the trees, there isn't anything to show for all the damage.  There isn't two feet of snow left behind, it looks all so normal except for some crushed ice under the trees.  We got one last call from the emergency announcement system saying that two middle schools in our area were open as shelter with both food and cots.  Since it is 15F as I write this, I am grateful that there are places for my neighbors with no power to go.  The next issue after a prolonged power loss in the wintertime is burst pipes.  Wood stoves and fireplaces may keep some rooms of a house warm, but probably not enough to prevent all the pipes from freezing in these temperatures. 

Hopefully, power will be restored soon to our neighborhood and surrounding areas. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers.