Camera woes!

Why is it that between cats and kids nothing can stay decent? If it's not one of them then it' s the other of them that makes it that way.

My Mom gave me this Sony camera that takes digital pics on a memeroy stick or on a floppy disk. The disk drive was going out but it could still be used with the memory stick. Well it was sitting on the computer desk and the cats knocked it off along with the phone and half of the other stuff that was on it. I don't know how they managed it but it fell and landed just so that the screen broke. So you can still take pictures onto the memory stick but you can't see what you are taking unless you take out the memory stick and put it into the computer. Makes it a little difficult to take decent pictures.

I decided that since I now have everything for this camera that I would buy a new one off e-bay. That way all I need is the camera and hopefully one in which the disk drive works. So I bid on a camera and won. Description says that it's on perfect working order with only a few minor scratches. GREAT!! I paid for 4 day shipping. Well 4 days passed, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Ok this isn't looking good. After 16 days the camera FINALLY shows up. I take it out of the box and realize that I made a mistake. I bid on an MVC 90 instead of a 92. The camera came with a memory stick adapter which is a floppy disk that memory stick goes into. I did read this but guess I didn't quite understand the description since I was thinking of the 92. Anyway all is not lost - right? WRONG!!

When I put the disk in it doesn't work, so I try another, and another, and another. You get the idea. The drive is bad on this camera also. Difference is that you have to have the drive to use the memory stick on this one. Needless to say I was NOT happy. I'm sending it back and I better get my money back.

So I went to Sears and bought a Sony cybershot. I really like this camera and it takes great pictures. I can also use my memory sticks. It takes excellent pics and is very easy to use.

Happy Birthday Ellie!

Happy 1st Birthday Baby Ellie!!

Today is Ellie's 1st Birthday. She's crawling but not yet walking. She's pulling up to a stand and will walk pushing the little walking thing but hasn't gotten up enough confindence to walk yet. Not bad considering that she didn't even crawl when she came to us 2 months ago. She'll be walking soon.

We had a little party for her. Cake and ice cream. We had friends over for dinner so they joined us in the festivity. She got a talking phone and a "gumball machine". It's a fisher price toy that drops out these round balls. She loves the little balls so we got the machine that goes

with them.

We were supposed to meet her Mom at the park and have cake and ice cream with her but she didn't show up. I was a little irritated with her considering - I had to get 5 kids off to school, 3 cats to the vet for their spay and neuter surgery, and the 4 little ones dressed and ready all before going to the park at 10am. I rushed everywhere wanting to make sure that I wasn't late and then she didn't even show up!! She was supposed to bring cake and ice cream and had asked Angie the week before what kind she wanted. Angie of course wanted to know where her Mom was and where the cake was. Angie LOVES Happy Birthday. How do you nicely tell a 2 year old that her Mom didn't show up? I really wish she wouldn't tell her she was coming when she's not.

I think that Ellie had a good birthday party even if Mom didn't see her. As you can see from her face she LOVED her cake!!

Bedroom

When we bought the house this side of the house was rented out as a unit. There was our living room, our guest bedroom, and then the stairs to a bedroom upstairs. They built it so that you could access the upstairs from this side of the house but you had to go through one room to get upstairs. We wanted to use both rooms as bedrooms so we needed to do something with the stairs. Our first idea was to wall the stairs and make a hallway with a door into the downstairs bedroom but it would have left the bedroom very small. We decided instead to direct the stairs through the wall into the "library/office area". This way the guest bedroom was off the living room and had it's own access and the upstairs bedroom had it's own access near the other bedrooms. It also gave us a straight shot up the stairs. This being helpful since the stairs are narrow and we couldn't really take anything up them going around a corner. So we took down the banister and opened the wall. This is a picture of the stairs with no wall after taking down he banister. You can also see where the stairs came down into the room. These pictures are taken standing in the bedroom door.

After we had the stairs taken out we framed the wall and used plywood instead of sheetrock. Our thought on this is that nobody will go thought the plywood. It also less likely to get get dinged by things falling down the stairs. We figured this was safer since we are only doing one layer on this wall for now. After we get the electrical in this room and the stairway done then we will finish both sides of the wall. So we put up plywood, filled in the cracks with wood putty and painted. So here are pictures of the stairway with plywood and a picture of the dresser in the place that the stairs used to come into the room. The last picture also has the wall painted.

I'm Back!

Ok I started this last week and never got back to it. Internet is back up, all the kids started school, and I'm adjusting to a new schedule and fewer but younger only kids. No extra hands around in the morning/afternoon until Rod gets home. I'm adjusting! I have 2 down for naps right now and 2 watching Dora. I hope to get back on here soon to put carpet pics up. It looks SO great with our new carpet. Like a real living room.

As seen on TV!

You are never gonna believe what just happened! I'm sitting here at the computer working on my blog, the kids are watching The Three Stooges, and Rod is sleeping. It's 9:45 pm and there's a banging on the door.



Now, we live out in the middle of nowhere and don't typically have visitors at 9:45pm. So I get up and peek around the corner at the front door. I see a man with a flashlight standing at the front door.

I slink over to the door and ask the person (who appears to be a fireman) on the other side what they need. Now considering what happened last week with the guy trying to break into my house (you can read the journal entry from 7/22/05) and the fact that it's almost 10pm I was NOT convinced that he really WAS a fireman when his response from the other side of the door was -"It's the fire department and you have a really big snake in your front yard".

Yeah right and I just fell off the turnip truck!! Ok it's 10pm, it's dark, I live down an alley - why is the fire department in my yard and why should I believe that there is a snake in my yard?!

My response "WHAT?" thinking that MAYBE I didn't hear him right. So his response "There's a really big snake in your front yard and we were wondering if you lost it?"

Now I'm not about to open the door for this guy who claims to be a fireman with a large stray snake in my frontyard. I told him to wait there, I run back and tell Rod, who is sleeping since he has to go to work at 3am that there is a man at the front door who says there is a snake in our yard.

He must not have heard me right because he said "What?" So I repeated myself. So he gets up and gets dressed. I run back to the front because I'm sure that by now my kids have probably let the strange man in my house since they are so friendly.

I then got the bright idea to go to the front window. Out in my driveway is a fireman shining a flashlight into my garbage can and my neighbors van with the headlights on. I decided that since my neighbors were out there then this must in fact be a REAL fireman that I have left at the door!

I open the door and the fireman repeats the question. Now, there are a few things that I DON'T do - spiders, roaches, mice and snakes - YUCK! After reassuring the fireman that it was NOT my snake but it WAS my garbage can I decided to be brave and go see this snake for myself that has caused the commotion.

In my garbage can was an 8 foot, albino python similar to the one seen here. Now obviously the thing was somebodies pet. It's like one of those things that you see on animal planet or something. When the neighbors pulled into the driveway he was heading into our yard.

What a suprise that would have been when Rod left for work in the morning!! They went to all the neighboring houses and couldn't find anyone who had lost a snake.

They asked if they could borrow my garbage can to take him back to the station house. They loaded the snake and garbage can up into the firetruck (it was at the end of the driveway and not visible to me) and off they went. They reassured me that I would get my garbage can back. I just hope they don't bring it with the snake!!

Old and New

What is now our living room at one point in the history of our house was the garage. They converted it into an "apartment". Remember when I said that there were 4 apartments? Well the garage conversion was one of them, the only thing missing was the kitchen. The people who owned it rented out each "apartment" and only two had "kitchens" or what you could call a kitchen!! Anyway the garage was converted, a room was added on to the back and there was a room upstairs added. The front window was stained glass and they were screwed closed since they didn't locked correctly. They also weren't very energy efficient considering that you could look outside through the cracks. The front door also would swell when it got cold and we couldn't open it. We took down all the walls in this room, redid the electrical, put in a new front door and a new window. I have to say that it looks MUCH better. In this picture you can see the old window and the old front door. The walls were also a baby blue color.








Here is a picture of the new window. It's energy efficient, you see out of it and best of all it locks!! It also looks nice which is a huge plus!!!!!






The new front door also looks nice and you can open it even when it rains or is cold.

Right after we moved in we had some Jehovah Witness's knock on the door. It was cold and rainy outside. The door wouldn't open and the windows were screwed shut! We also had one of those black security doors on (it has also been removed). I still wonder what they must have thought!! Here was this lady staring out the window with all these kids and I just kept saying that I couldn't open the door!!! Don't have that problem now though.

Arches

Ok I think I have this down. Definetly like Flickr better than the Hello program. I need something simple that I can use quickly.

When we moved into our house we basically had 4 different "apartments". You couldn't go from our living room to what is now our library without going through a closet (which had a door with a deabolt on it when we bought it). They had made a step out of a cement block on top of a wooden box. It was called the "laundry room" in the listing but a washer barely fit and I'm not sure where the dryer was supposed to go. We decided that we really would like to go from the living room to the rest of the house and not have to go through the "laundry room".

The beginning pics are on the mini disc from my camcorder that I need to get repaired. When I get it fixed I will post them.

Here's a pic from the middle of the process. We have moved all of the the water and gas lines from the wall and framed the walkway. This used to be a wall. To the right is where the hot water heater is and to the left is where the door used to be. This is standing in the living room looking into the library.


Here is a picture of the completed arches. This picture is taken from the library looking into the living room. On the left is the new hot water heater closet and on the right is a new storage closet. The wall behind the tv is where the old door going into the "laundry room" used to be. The door coming out into the living room was in the same place as the arches are. It was like going through a maze to get from the living room to the rest of the house. It definetly helps it to flow together much better.
And a pic standing in the living room looking into the library. Rod & I even built the steps!



And just so for the sake of adding a pic. Here is a picture of 4 of my girls. Destini, Ladaria (who is determined that she is going to fool Taniyah into "drinking" from the doll bottle, and Angie.

Destini and Angie's Room

When we moved into the house this was one of the 7 possible bedrooms. It had old, dark wood panels on the entire room including the closet. When we took the paneling down we had a mess. Part of the wall was plaster which was breaking into pieces from the foundation shifting. There was drywall where they had covered the window that used to go outside but was added onto and is now Rod & I's bedroom. There was also drywall over what used to be the closet door from the old master bedroom which is now a bedroom/hallway. That'a a whole other post though! Anyway, the drywall wasn't as thick as the plaster so they tried to even it out with mud. My guess is that they gave up and put up the paneling instead of redoing the room. So, we took ALL of it down and redid it. Here is the finished product.




Here are the beds with newly painted walls. I'm going to get tulle to hang from the ceiling over the ends like a canopy and put blinds in the windows.






On the dark pink wall I'm going to paint a castle. We also cleaned the hardwood floors and oiled them. They still need to be sealed though.

These are the new closets. The boc thing is the air return for our central air. Before we bought the house that closet opened into the old master bedroom ( we know because the neighbors house is the same floorplan that we used to have). They made it one HUGE closet. A little to much for two little girls. We put in the divider when we redid the room. We will make one side for the two girls and the other side for dress clothes that are inbetween kids. The idea is that the clothes that are in between sizes won't keep ending up in my laundry after falling on the floor when the owner of the closet is looking for something else or just playing in their closet.

Having Fun and Learning

I think I may have figured out how to make a collage AND post it on my blog! If it shows up here then I did it.

I'm trying to figure out how to effieciently use this photo program to use on this blog. I think I've got it figured out. Now if I could just get all the pictures to post under one blog instead of a new post for each picture. Oh well. The pictures above are Taniyah, our living room, and Tyreque sleeping. I guess this is one way to get all the pics on one post. The only problem is, if you don't have 9 pics in to make the collage it doubles the pictures. I'm slowly figuring this blog thing out.

I really wish that I could put all my pics in the same blog entry so that I could write a blog. Hmmm, I guess I'll have to keep playing with it. 

How do I get all my pics on the same post? 

Just having fun