Incase you were wondering...

You probably won' be hearing from me until July. (Don't fret it's only a week)

I've been on overload with stuff to do. I'm 2 parties down, 1 to go. K-Girl's party is this coming Sunday and then I'll have a LOT more time again. This week I must get the house in order since we have people who have never been here before not just our close friends that understand. :) So I promise I have a bunch of posts coming up as soon as I catch up. Until then check out the blogs over on the right. Guaranteed to have something worth reading. :)

See you all soon!

Effin' Birds & Poor E-Man

I love my wash line and I love hanging especially the diapers out to dry. Since signing up to Gift of Green's Clothesline Challenge I have been doing really well at getting my clothes out of the dryer and onto the line. I had achieved the 90% minimum that I had been striving for... until The Husband did two loads of wash for me and put them in the dryer. One was my fault - the other his. Both shoot my 90%. Dang it. So today I had diapers again so I just got them up. It's a nice windy day so perfect to get them dryer faster. I'm hoping for a few more like this this week as I have lots more wash to do. I was doing so good.

Anyway, I was out hanging the diapers and out of the corner of my eye I saw a bird and then I saw it. You know, the little present making its way from bird to ground...well almost ground. BAM! Right on the diaper that I was holding in my hand. Now this is probably taking this story too far, but ah well. It wasn't just your every day little bit of white bird poop. Nope. I'm just not that lucky. That bird must have been eating berries or something. Dis-gus-ting! YUCK! I am only thankful that the bird missed me by inches. I much prefer the diaper getting it rather then oh say my head or something, but still. I came in and sprayed of the diaper but there is still a big black spot. I hope it doesn't stain. The last diaper the darn birds got stained.

I really do love birds. But I'm seriously contemplating a tent over our house.

And totally unrelated -

E-Man has croup. ~sigh~ K-Girl had it this past winter. They have both been dealing with a cough for the past almost two weeks now, but it hadn't turned into anything else. Like magic E-Man went to bed last night same as he had been and then I was woken up at 4am to his wheezing and barking. It's such a scary sound to hear from your baby. So scary that sleep deprived as I am I called that a night and he and I came downstairs to finish on the couch. He slept on me and I watched Planet Green and every now and then managed to drift off for a few moments. I took him to the doctor then later after they opened and sure enough they confirmed what I had predicted. So now he has a steroid for the next three days and sadly we must miss Bubblemania with our playgroup tomorrow as he is contagious. That's the part that kills me as I know both kids would have had so much fun...and because it is one more day I'm stuck here in the house with the kids. Hopefully K-Girl chills out a bit by then. We had the temper tantrum to end all temper tantrums this morning. It was fun. Did I mention they are napping right now? It was E-Man's nap time and so I put him down and then I told K-Girl that TV was off limits till the mess was cleaned up so she could A) clean or B) go for a nap. She picked nap. Sadly for her she will get a chance to revisit option A when she wakes up.

Hello Confusion

My poor Dell met its end. Well, for the most part. I mean it does still operate as long as you are extremely careful with it.  The Husband had put it up on the side of the couch to keep E-Man's little hands off of it as he is obsessed about pulling out the plug and trying to eat it which probably isn't a good thing.  Unfortunately there was a small space between the couch and the wall and when one of the cats got the great idea to jump onto the couch they knocked it down.  The computer landed right on its end on the register below and broke rather badly.  The screen is hanging on by one of the hinges and the casing around the screen is broken pretty badly.  And then on top of that my power cord will barely hold on inside and if you bump it even the slightest bit it will lose connection.  The bad part is that it doesn't even have enough power to charge the battery and therefore I have no battery backup.  Luckily The Husband's cord fits, but that is his work computer so he has to take it to work with him.  It was becoming obvious that we were going to have just suck up and deal with forking out the money for a replacement.

My poor Dell...







Of course the biggest question in the replacement process was PC or Mac...

The winner?



I love it so far, but on top of the always annoying when moving to a new computer, setting everything up to be "comfortable" - getting the documents, photos, favorites, etc with the new computer I am also using a Mac for the first time. It's all pretty straightforward and some of the features that are on here are just wonderful. So I am happy that I made the change, but there are a few issues. Any of you out there using macs? I have a question or actually I have two...

First, I had Live Writer for my Dell and I loved it. I published every blog from LR. I miss it....quite badly. I also noticed that they do not have a mac version of that program so I'm stuck on that. Anyone else have an editor they use and like? I do truly hate using the actual blogger dashboard.

Second, I also had Paint Shop Pro and used it for all editing. I miss it. What would you recommend? I'm not a photographer, but I really liked that program. I can't even see where I can edit size and put text on photos using iPhoto so I'm sure I need to d/l a different program for actual editing.

So other than those two issues I'm a happy person. But if you are hearing less from me for a bit that is why. I'm slowly getting everything set up.

Photostory Friday #2

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Welcome to the second week of Photostory Friday and I'm making it with about 15 minutes to spare. It's still Friday so here we go...

Yes, my daughter is related to Gene Simmons.  She was the flower girl for a wedding last summer.  At the reception there was a chocolate fountain which K-Girl was very excited about.  She enjoyed her chocolate mostly on marshmallows.  This is the aftermath.  Not sure on how exactly we got this face, but can we just say instant sugar high?  And that a chocolate fountain is every 3 year old's dream come true.  The rest of the evening she enjoyed the dance floor.  Such a little party animal.  :) 

Pennsylvania, a leader in puppy mills

I warn you that this is not a fluffy post.  OK?  OK.  With that warning let me climb up onto this soap box.  Just a moment...

Ok here we go...

Meet Molly.  She has been part of our lives for 6 1/2 years now.  The Husband and I moved in together and then he was going to go for his regional seminars which is home a week gone a week for about 4 trips.  To help me not be so lonely I finally talked him into getting a puppy.  On a whim we picked up a newspaper and went to see about getting a puppy.   Where did we end up?  Peach Bottom, Pennsylvania at a place called Puppy Love Kennels.  Sounds nice enough right?

It was the type of place that made us a bit uncomfortable.  The conditions were less than wonderful.  You went into the barn and there were stables with bedding on the floor and puppies.  I remember there being another area with other older dogs and them just jumping on each other inside cages.  We almost left without a dog because we wanted a beagle and they had no purebred beagles.  But there were these little beagle mix puppies.  And then there was Molly. 

Molly was this little sad puppy sitting all alone and she just melted my heart.  Her coloring and her big brown eyes just had me from the start.  I couldn't leave without her.  So I picked her up and loved on her a bit and never put her down.  She was mine.  We went to pay by going into this office and the lady gave her a medication or two and we left with our Molly. 

Life was good with Molly.  It was normal puppy-hood for her and us and it was lucky for The Husband that he wasn't around at all for the housebreaking.  But when it came time to get her spayed we started seeing issues with her.  I guess during the procedure they found that her ovaries were attached to her intestines making it more difficult.  After this discovery we were also pointed out that her teeth should not look like they do.  We had never really taken notice.  Normally dogs have bright white teeth looking something like this...

Molly's teeth?  These are her teeth...

 

Yeah they are brown.  They have always been brown.  She gets dentals about twice a year.   Each of these dentals cost us $358 (more depending on if there are any extractions).  It used to only cost us $191 to do it, but now that she is over 5 years old she is considered high risk and therefore requires more fluids and whatnot when put under anesthesia.   The problem?  She has no enamel on her teeth.  She has had several teeth pulled in her life.  Three of her baby teeth were extracted and then her adult teeth she is now missing her entire bottom row of front teeth and a couple others. 

So still not impressed?  Molly has allergies.  At our old house they used to be really bad because we had the type of tree she was allergic too right in the back yard.  She was constantly having problems so we did allergies.  This dog is allergic to all sorts of things.  At the top of her list are Sycamore and Walnut Trees, Houseflies, and Human Dander.  Human dander!  Yes, my dog is allergic to us.  And those are just the things that she scored highest on.  We used to give Molly injections for her allergies until one day we accidently hit a nerve and she turned and tried to bite us.  From that moment on she would not allow us to get near her with the shot so that was the end of that.  How much did the testing cost?  Oh only just shy of $200.00 and the medication?  $145 for a refill.  So better on the wallet that we had to stop giving her the medication, but unfortunately she had to suffer a bit with just quick fixes including being on prednisone for a long while.  The problem with the prednisone is that long-term use can result in loss of hair coat, weakening of the muscles, liver impairment and behavioral changes.  Good stuff. 

 We then knew that the place we had gotten Molly was a puppy mill and we felt horrible knowing that we had supported them...but we had saved our Molly.  ~sigh~  It was then that we began to start seeing articles about the kennel and how it was shut down and how they reopened and etc etc.  It just never stops. 

Tonight I finally got a chance to watch Oprah's show on Puppy Mills (the encore presentation) and it was just too much at times.  I broke down into full out tears when she did the segment on how many animals are euthanized every.single.day.  The biggest reason I am writing this blog is to encourage each and every one of you to look at Oprah.com and educate yourself.  Do not support puppy mills.  And fellow Pennsylvanians please click HERE and urge legislators to pass new laws that makes the current treatment of these dogs illegal.  Please please please speak up and let them know that you do not approve of this treatment of animals. 

I started a binder shortly after we got her which contained all of her vet receipts so that we could track everything.  I have fallen way behind on it and know that it is not nearly complete.  However, I just sat and totaled our expenses on her that I do have in that binder and the total came to...

*drum roll please*

$3808.63

Seriously.  Just vet receipts.  Our dog is only 6 1/2 years old.  She's our little money pit and has been a huge burden on our wallet at times, but we love her...as long as she keeps her temper in check. ;)  So what else are we going to do other than continue to pay out?  So if you think that puppy mills only harm the dogs please think again.  It is not fair to responsible pet owners to have to pay for all of the problems that come from over breeding and inbreeding of these animals. 

 

DO NOT SUPPORT PUPPY MILLS! 

Did you know that Pennsylvania is listed as being the SECOND in the number of puppy mills in the state?  It is second only to Missouri.  Other top states include Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. 

In Lancaster County, Pennsylvania alone the the puppy industry is valued at 4 million dollars a year.  That is ONE COUNTY.  And I feel oh so proud to say that our Molly came from one of those mills. 

If you buy your puppy at a pet store there is a 99% - again NINTY-NINE PERCENT - chance that you have bought yourself a puppy mill dog.  Instead visit your local shelters or research breed rescues if you have your heart set on a specific type of dog. 

Puppy Love Kennel is now operating under the name CC Pets LLC at least as far as the website.  Just do a Google search on "Puppy Love Kennel Pennsylvania" and you'll see all sorts of good stuff.  Whatever the name the owner is Joyce Stoltzfus please please do not give her any of your money.  The puppies that she is breeding are not healthy and these conditions have got to stop. 

Take a stand.  Voice your disgust.  Tell your friends.  Do something now that you know better.

 

Molly and I thank you. 

It could be a long week...

*Click the comic to see the larger image*  I just love these comics.  If you aren't familiar with them head on over to Baby Blues Homepage. 

This week The Husband is away on business.  Not only do I work the regular hours but I now my breaks have been removed.  I'm on whenever the kids need me whether or not I need some time to recover or not.  E-Man is teething on top of the rest of his neediness.  K-Girl is her sassy self.  And I am, well, still tired.  My plan when I am alone without reinforcements is to stay as busy as possible and this week is no different.  We have something going on every day and hopefully that helps.  I even managed to get a shower yesterday. 

This morning we had friends over for some social time and had lunch together.  It was nice and we also made plans for Friday to go over there.  We are all looking forward to that.  It's always nice to get together with other 4 year olds.  K-Girl and N. are only a month and a half different in age and when they are together they are so very similar.  They are both silly in the same ways.  They both have their sassy ways.  They both are particular about what they want and they have their things that make their mother absolutely crazy.  It's nice to see that no matter how strange and completely frustrating K-Girl can be that she is totally normal and if not, in the words of my friend, there is something in the water. 

With the help of Carolyn, I am making some headway with E-man and the whole night weaning thing.  Before this I have been unable to find anything that E-man would drink from a cup other than water or water with a tiny bit of juice.   She suggested that I try almond milk and so I decided I'd give it a try.  Sure enough he drinks it!!  Last night he was up twice in the first two hours that he was down.  I nursed him twice and then the second time when I put him down he woke right back up so I decided I had enough and I was going to try the almond milk in the Adiri bottle.  I came down and got it and offered it to him and he drank an ounce and a half and then went to sleep.  He was up 5 times in total but after those first two times I didn't offer to nurse him and instead gave him the bottle of almond milk.  He ended up going right back to sleep each time and drank a total of about 5 or 6 oz.  I am so excited.  So I'm officially on with the night weaning and I am hopeful that this will discourage him to wake at night and if it does not go well then I am going to have The Husband go in and offer him the bottle.  If that doesn't help, well I haven't thought that far ahead.  I'm still celebrating this small victory.  We'll figure it out as we go.  But this is huge  for me.

So hopefully my week goes well and the kids aren't too hard on me.  But if there is one thing to be said it is that this house is getting pretty clean.  There is something about my husband being away and the house staying clean.  Each day I can build on what I did the day before.  I say by the time Friday rolls around this house should be pretty amazing...unless the kids get the better of me.  Anyone else find that their house stays cleaner when the husband is away?  Why is that? 

 

*No offense honey.  You know I would rather you home than not.  :)

Scary but good info to know

Please take a moment and visit The Family News and read this post:

 http://amanda-familynews.blogspot.com/2008/06/please-read.html

She talks about a tragedy that happened when a little boy died from "dry drowning".  I had never heard of such a thing.  The end of her post where she talks about the tub drinking the waters gave me chills as E-Man is constantly being told to stop drinking the water.  Anyway I just wanted to pass along the info so that you can be aware. 

I'm never this lucky...

I won something!!  I'm so happy I just have to share.  As I've said before I have joined with Gift of Green for the Clothesline Challenge 2008.  She did a random drawing to win one of these nifty peg bags and I actually was picked!  Now to show you how excited I am to have a new bag for my clothes pins take a look at my sad sad bag I am currently using...

 

See I told you that it was sad.  I got this when I got the husband and he had it for he doesn't know how long before that.  It's old...ugly...and torn...and did I mention ugly? 

Thank you oh so much, Amy! 

Switching it up...

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

This week I'm switching it up a bit and taking part in Photostory Friday.  I figure it won't hurt my head nearly as much as haiku's do and since I have no plan for this week's haiku I'd much rather share a picture.  Head on over to What Works For Us and get  in on the fun.  So onto Photostory Friday Week #1 -

This is an oldie but one of my favorites.  K-Girl is 17 months old in this picture.  It was one of the first times she got to experience a good leaf pile.  She had such a good time and the lighting was perfect to get some really nice pictures. 

It just makes me a bit sad because right after this I had camera problems and my memory card died.  I had just taken the pictures off my camera before this photo session so I didn't lose many, but I lost all of these picture in original format.  Now I only have then in internet viewing sizes that won't print out well at all.  It could have been worse, but I'd love to have enlargements of some of these pictures. 

And could anyone tell me when my baby went and grew up?!  Has it really been 2 1/2 years since this picture?  ~sigh~  Time goes by so fast.  And now she's a big ole sassy almost 4 year old!  Did I mention sassy?

Compost

Here is K-Girl beside our composter.  Don't worry though, it really isn't as scary as she is.  Our's is a  Soilsaver composter.  We picked it up at Sam's Club.  They had them for I believe $40.00.  I have seen the same composter elsewhere for $70+ so I thought it was a great find. 

It is amazing how much food waste that our small family makes in just a day.  I hated to throw all that food in the garbage so composting is just the answer. 

I really didn't know what all was involved in composting when we started out, but truth be told it is not hard and not that much work at all. 

First we put it together and put it outside in a place that was easy to get to but not totally in the way of everything.  Sun is a bonus and the area should be even.  Our land was not exactly even, but it does alright - the lid just fits a bit so so. 

So after you get it all set up all you do to start is put your base in - about 4" of carbon materials such as twigs, straw, or dried leaves.  After you have that in then you take a few shovel fulls of earth and throw that in there.  When you have these layers in there you are ready to add your kitchen scraps. 

You can throw most of your kitchen scraps in your composter.  The things that are a No-No are meats, fats, bones, fish, diary products, and cooking oil.  All fruits and vegetables, egg shells (crushed), tea bags, coffee grounds and filters are safe to put in. 

We have some large Ziploc containers that we use to store our compost before throwing in the bin.  These containers are rather large in the whole scheme of things and we have no problem filling one of them in a day.  Kids waste a LOT of food.  Above is just since this morning and it is nearly full.  

Now you just throw the scraps in and then you can give it a turn with your shovel.  You do not need to turn it but about once a week - more is better as the more air you get going in the pile the faster it will break down and whatnot.  No layer should be more than about 12" thick though so you should layer with kitchen waste, plant matter, and earth. 

Another idea you may have going through your mind is will it stink.  It really doesn't stink.  If you have your compost pile working well it should not have an odor.  If it gets a bit stinky it may be too wet or too compacted and needing being turned. 

Composting is very well worth it to me.  It makes me feel better than throwing all that food and stuff in the trash.  You don't need to have a compost bin like this either.  Try a search for composting and you will find a lot of information on how to make your own.  Here are two great sites I found:

http://www.stopwaste.org/home/index.asp?page=445

http://www.rivcowm.org/composting/compost_build_bin.html

So why not start composting and saving that waste?

Out of sight out of mind?

Once a week I take my daughter to my inlaw's house for the morning.  On the drive over there I pass the landfill.  Maybe that is part of what has really opened my eyes or maybe it isn't.  But I do know that each and every week I pass by it makes me want to do things just a little bit better for the environment than I had done before.  I want to save one more piece of trash than I did before.  I want to strive to take just a little better care of this planet that we call home.  I want to teach my kids and my family to want to do the same.  And if I can help a few people here and there do a better job at that then all the better.  I just wish I had pictures from when I first drove by to see how much larger it has gotten since then. 

 

On days that the air is moving in the right way we can go out our front door and smell the gas from the dump.  It's really quite disgusting.  It's a way I use to tell my daughter about how we need to make less trash to send there as she really dislikes the smell.

My husband told me that on any week day you can go down to the one road that goes from the major highway to the landfill and you will see trash trucks pulled off the side of the road waiting to be able to drive to the dump.  There is an ordinance that prevents them from driving on the road until after I believe it is 6 am.  He said that it's just truck after truck after truck from that road to the highway.  I'd like to drive up and see it sometime.  Perhaps when E-Man starts sleeping and I'm a bit more rested.  But it probably one of those sites that will bother me more than drive me. 

The other night we went to a small local ice cream store for ice cream.  It was YUMMY and they even served the ice cream in nice Solo plastic cups.  The cups were recyclable as I believe all Solo is (although I'm not sure on that account).  They were a number 1 so they should be recycled.  But no where in the building was a recycling can made accessible for the public.  Instead you were to throw your plastic in the trash can.   I stacked my family's empty cups and took them with us.  It's small gesture and I'm sure one that I am most likely alone in making, but I hate the fact that I could recycle that container but it would have been easier for me to chuck it in the trash. 

Then a couple weeks ago we stopped to get gas and the girl at the pump in front of us was cleaning out all the junk in her car.  I just sat there watching as she threw in plastic bottle after bottle into the trash.  I wanted so badly to get out and tell her that they have a better place, but I'm not that radical.   Instead I ranted to The Husband when he finished pumping and got back into the car. 

It's the same almost everywhere.  I think that right beside of trash cans there should be recycling cans - at gas stations, at the mall, at restaurants, along the streets, at Starbuck's, at grocery stores, at Target, at Wal-Mart.  EVERYWHERE!  I don't understand why there aren't more. 

We somewhat recently started to recycle more than just glass/plastic/cans.  We started to recycle paper/cardboard.  I can't tell you the difference that makes for our trash.  After E-Man's party on Sunday there were so many cardboard packages.  I pulled them out of the trash bag that others had put them in and sat down and worked at breaking them down.  I had to pull off all the tape and all the twisties that were still on them and flatten them out.  It did take some time, but I did it while the kids played and watched some TV.  It's maybe not the most convenient thing to do, but I feel it was worth it.  The bag went from too full to fit everything in to not even half full when I was finished.  That's results!  I recycle all that now though - snack boxes, cereal boxes, waffle boxes, mail, receipts, packaging, tissue boxes (pull out the plastic), toilet paper and paper towel rolls, etc.  It makes a huge difference to the amount of trash we now put out. 

The next thing we started to do was compost.  And I promise I've talked about this in I believe two other posts and it is coming next.  First I wanted to write this post.  But composting is HUGE.  With kids the amount of food waste is amazing.  It's more than I thought it was now that I'm saving it.  Check for that post in the next couple of days. 

I hope that you try and do just a little better and try to remove the out of sight out of mind mentality that we have all gotten into.  It does matter and you can make a difference in just small things that you do.  Perhaps next time you are holding onto that item with the little triangle printed on the bottom you might just pass the trash can and hold on a little longer until you come across a recycling receptacle for it.  Our Earth would thank you as would I.

Anyone interested in party pictures?

Sunday was E-Man's first birthday party.  For those of you that didn't know we had a monster theme.  I found this adorable little guy for sale on Etsy and he became my inspiration.  

Click on the banner to go to her store and check out all her cute little monsters.  They are really well made and very soft and cuddly.  I give her two thumbs up on her dolls.  E-Man seems to like his too. 

 

I decided that I would make the cake to look like his monster.  I have never attempted decorating a cake like this before and I think it turned out awesome if I may say so myself.  I just made a regular 9x13 cake and then I took 4 cupcakes and cut them down for the arms and legs.  I used Wilton's icing colors to make the colors.  Then I decided that since I wanted to give E-Man his own cake that it needed to be just as cool as the cake everyone else was having so this is what I came up with.  I made his cake using one of my glass Pampered Chef mixing bowls.  I just filled the bottom a bit and this is what it came out as.  Perfect for him.  

I knew I was going to need more than just one cake for as many guests as we were having so I made up some cupcakes.  I had two pans of these little guys.  I used a Wilton hair/grass tip to do the fur and then the round tip to make the eyes.  I must say that I still don't understand how to get the tip for the fur to work correctly.  I saw these cupcakes and I wanted to model them after those.  I didn't quite do that, but they were still cute. 

Then there was the actual cake mess.  And a mess it was! 

Holy wow! 

Oh and how nice would a sister be without helping her little brother out?  K-Girl enjoyed herself as well. 

Then it was onto the presents. 

E-Man raked up quite the booty. 

This party stuff is hard work.  He needed a quick sit rest. 

Peek-a-Boo from under the table.

My little guy was down right tired after the party.  But there's always room for a burger and a hotdog.  ;) 

And I just want to give credit one more time for E-Man's outfit.  You can check out my post here, but please check out Monster Fluff Studio.  She has ADORABLE monsters and other fleece soakers, skirties, shorties, and other great stuff.  She was a pleasure to work with. 

One Year pictures are this weekend so I'll share them when we have them. 

So that's one party down and one to go.  K-Girl chose Hello Kitty & Chococat as her party's theme.  I need to get planning.