Monday, November 28, 2011

GREAT deal from Eversave today!

Okay no, this is not my official "writing" but WOW, Eversave has a fantastic deal right now...pay $10 for $20 to spend at Overstock.com  . I'm loving all these deals like this that keep turning up :)  Just click on this LINK FOR EVERSAVE to purchase your deal.
I couldn't think of a title for today's post. I'm drawing a complete blank. Give me a title--any title. I want to write today but am drawing a complete blank. I suppose that's a sad state of affairs when I can't even retrieve what it is my mind is trying to get out! I could sit here and torture myself, staring at the blank screen or I can ask for help. I'm a big proponent of asking for help ;)

Give me a topic--a good, clean, topic you crazy people (oh there I go talking to myself again)--and I'll write about one. The winning topic will get a prize! No kidding, I'm going to give a prize to the person that piques my creative juices the most. Nothing huge, just a little sumpin sumpin from Avon, of course lol.

Ready, set....let the party start!

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Thanksgiving, after all, is a word of action. ~W.J. Cameron

Thank you to Chris VanZant, of Thunder 106, for posting the Cameron quote in the title. I am thankful for this holiday; even with the overshadowing of the holidays preceding and proceeding this day, this day brings us to our core of humanity--to remember all the blessings in our lives and be thankful for those blessings. I am thankful for who I was, who I am now, and who I will be in the future. I am thankful for the trials and tribulations that have helped strengthen my fortitude. I am thankful for the friends that can't comprehend why I lacked confidence in the past, and thankful that I am beginning to feel what they saw all along.

I am thankful for my children. My incredible, funny, passionate children. Each of them consistently presenting new ideas, new challenges, and new joy. These creatures that are forced to ride along my crazy ride--they adapt and adjust and carry forward with me and there is no blessing greater than the love that not only they give me, but also the love I am blessed to feel for them.

My wish for you all is simply to be thankful. Even if you feel all despair is lost-be thankful you are able to have the feeling all is lost, because it means there is still something there to care about.

Thanksgiving

The real reason I had children: to have people to watch the Macy's parade with me, and if they get tired of my corny sappiness and make fun of me, I can threaten them with being grounded and then I still have people to watch the parade with. Amen. :)

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

SAVE BIG MONEY @ In the Hands Of A Child!

Black Friday-Small Business Saturday-Cyber Monday

Are YOU Ready?!?!


HOAC (Hands of a Child) is having a HUGE Black Friday  Sale with up to 45% discounts on Hands of a Child Products.*

They will also be offering additional discounts up to 30% on ALL other products they carry during CYBER MONDAY.*

 And NEW this year--HOAC will be participating in Small Business Saturday, which brings you even MORE SAVINGS with a fabulous discount on 1 Year Super Memberships up to 33%!

Start planning your purchases NOW and SAVE LOADS OF MONEY on Lapbooking units, Notebooking units, and so much more!


*Excludes custom Designed Project Packs, already discounted products, and Super Memberships.



Tuesday, November 8, 2011

We love Homeschooling!

Ah, the blissful sounds of children doing their schoolwork as mother prepares lunch. Youngest child espousing and demonstrating his newest international knowledge.

Yea, whatever. M wants to know what's the big deal if she only missed by "a hundred cents." D decides to make that second sandwich, after the first one made up of a pound of fabulously processed deli turkey didn't fill him up, rather than finish his math work. Z tells me all about the newest techniques he learned from Lego "Ninjago" tv episodes, then goes out to the living room (where studious D and M are sprawled out on furniture pretending to concentrate on math) to demonstrate. I look up in time to see what resembles the Tazmanian Devil tornado with Zachary sound effects spinning around the living room-then CRASH, THUNK, THUD, OUCH, BAM, CRASH, OUCH! Really, I did try not to laugh as I asked him if he was okay, I tried very very very hard. It is D and M's fault, they were laughing first, rotten kids. I got out to truly make sure that Z was alright, especially after noticing just how many things fell off the entertainment center--he replied "NO!" I asked him what hurts, he gave back a sarcastic "my BODY". Seriously Zach, you should've just added in the "DUH." So there I was, desparately trying to comfort the child but my body convulsions from laughing so hard just about knocked him back down. Dylan's description to Zach of what happened sent me over the edge into tear producing hysterics--especially because it was so accurate: "it all started with Zach going 'wooooooooo, NINJAGO, aaaaahhhhh'....he started spinning out of control, not watching where he was going, stepped on his lethal Ninjago Legos, fell over into the entertainment center, knocked over the sewing kit, fell onto the floor, there was a silent 3 seconds before he rolled over groaning, knocked into the entertainment center causing an avalanche of (you guessed it...) his stuff on the entertainment center that shouldn't be there like HIS Lego pen, HIS Lego army dude, and last but not least the candleholders...."

I went into the kitchen, after wiping away my tears, and finally started to stop laughing. Dylan asked me to make him a sandwich. I lamented that I don't understand why we can't be a "typical functioning homeschooling family." Dylan's reply was "Ms. Osmun--that's what I call the lunchlady--will you make me a sandwich?" Oh good LORD. No, I didn't make him one. Mallory kept shouting "BE QUIET I'M TRYING TO DO MY MATH!" (from the kid that wants the margin of error in math to be + or - 100....) Things settled down at that point-Dylan made his disgusting sandwich, Mallory stopped complaining, and Zachary was recouperating from the Lego induced injuries**(see Tim Hawkins link at bottom of this post!), so I sat at the computer to check my email. Well, you can not imagine the horror that came next: Z asked if he was good and ate all his lunch (a nutritionally microwaved piece of Ellio's pizza thankyouverymuch), could he do his math, too? I told him I thought that was very rude; unfortunately he took me seriously at first, nothing a smile and hug couldn't fix.

Our next lesson was about compassion and health. Dylan started talking about how sick he was, and vomit, and about how usually he's the last one sick and ends up having to take care of everyone else. Mallory complained about how lately she and Dylan are sick at the same time, and it's always a competition, and he always runs a bigger fever or throws up and it's not fair! Dylan kept talking about taking care of everyone, and talked about the time that Zach woke up in the middle of the night, and sat at the edge of the bathroom saying he was going to throw up. Dylan kept saying "come on Zach, come here Zach, come in the bathroom Zach, get to the toilet Zach...HURRY Zach..ZACH--ugh..." I don't think I should tell you what he got hit with from Zachary. Zach answered, "Dylan, I love you so much that when I start throwing up, I want you to be right there next to me."

Last statement to be quoted is Zach's absolutely perfect, sumsitallup words: "I love homeschooling at our house!"

**Tim Hawkins hilarious take on the dangers of Lego's

Monday, November 7, 2011

I fixed it I fixed it!

With a little help from my (internet) friends. Okay, a LOT of help from the internet lol. First up, replacing the power supply unit (PSU). I wish I had saved the site I found where one person gave some really great advice to buy an Antec PSU. The 350w would have been fine for my PC, but I ended up buying the 450d Green. I priced PSU's at my local Best Buy stores and the least expensive was a 350watt for $55.99. I bought the Antec PSU on Amazon for $44.99--and if I had remembered to use EBATES I could have ended up with a decent cash back award on top of a cheaper price. This could have been a much easier replacement if I had WRITTEN down exactly which wires I unplugged from which location when taking out the old PSU! I made mental notes of them but, well--it's pretty cobwebby up in that note-taking area and I should have known better, but I guess I forgot that I don't remember much.  ;-P

The Antec box gives you their website, and from there you can download the user guide. I have to admit that wasn't super helpful to me; eventually I realized I needed to see pictures of my actual computer and found that by Googling my exact PC model. There are plenty of youtube videos showing installation, however you really need to be watching something that is identical or close to identical of your own computer. The best advice I can give is write down exactly where the old wires were plugged into, how many prongs those plugs are, the color of the wires--basically as many details as possible. If you do that you will have NO PROBLEM putting in the new PSU.

Excited doesn't cover how I felt when I didn't get electrocuted upon plugging in the computer, or when the computer didn't blow up upon being connected and turned on. (not sure which would have been worse.....) That welcome screen came up and I was so cocky and doing the "I da man" cheering--until the message said "wrong password idiot, access DENIED". Okay it did not say that exactly but it may as well have. Apparently I had changed my password to something those kids would NOT figure out, for once and for all, and like the dunce I am clearly becoming--I made a mental note of that, too; I could not figure out the password. I clicked on the "reset password" link--guess what, if you don't yet know this, you have to set up a password reset disk (actually you have to use a flash drive to do it) in order to reset your password with Windows Vista. There is no other way to do it unless you have an additional administrator set on your computer. I googled like crazy, spent hours trying all different solutions, put out the "HELP" call on Facebook...but nothing was working.

Finally, FINALLY, I found something that worked: Offline Password and Registry Editor. This program actually deleted my password so I could finally get into my desktop. Thanks to this author  Tim Fisher and his fantastic writing, advice, included reviews, and screenshots, I was finally able to get into my computer. And now that I've blogged about it, I don't have to worry about only having mental notes! Yay me!!