Thursday, November 26, 2009

Happy Thanksgiving

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Here's a picture of us enjoying our meal today. Laurel and Matthew are growing up. I had lots of help today!




Thursday, November 19, 2009

Handy People

We are not handy. God did not bless us with the skill set to be fix-it people. We try because we want to be handy, but it usually doesn't work out. The usual scenerio in our home when something breaks is that we look at one another in fear. I immediately think oh, no we are going to have to get someone to fix it. Tim saying "You are going to have to call someone" strikes fear in my heart. Yes, its money, yes its time, but its more than that. Its the "who are we going to get?" problem. Who will actually show up and fix it? This is why we decided to buy a new home when we moved...ha, ha, but that is a whole other post. So this week it was the dishwasher. A strange moaning sound has begun. I mentioned it to Tim yesterday. He heard it last night. "Oh, that sounds bad. I think you might have to call someone" - yikes. Today he did a little online research. We had dinner tonight and he says I think we should try a couple of things before we call the appliance people. We bought some cleaner at Lowes and ran it through the machine. No luck. Tim checked for leaks and found none. "Probably time to call someone" he says. Yikes again. I resorted to the internet myself, hoping that just maybe I could find something. Tim had learned that the "food chopper" in most new machines caused symptoms like ours, but could find no directions as to how to access it to clean it out. We finally found a post with some pictures and decided to give it a shot. An hour of work, a screwdriver, a pair of tweezers, and acknowledging that if this didn't fix it nothing else was within our ability to try and we have a quiet dishwasher again. It seems to be fixed! Yes, we feel proud. You see when non-handy people do something handy there is major pride involved. The childlike sense of accomplishment is tangible. I am blogging at 1 am and we have school tomorrow- you get my point.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Carter's White Cheddar Mac

Our Walmart was remodeled recently and stopped carrying a staple of Carter's diet: Kraft's White Cheddar Mac and Cheese. The child eats this at least 3 times a week plus leftovers. Tim has been buying them in bulk from another store 30 minutes away when he can to keep us supplied. I have called the store, asked employees, and done everything I know to do to get this stocked. Today I got lucky. The management team was standing in the mac and cheese aisle. So there's 20 boxes on order and a shelf tag in place. They will stock it within the week. Carter is back in business and our friends in town whom we've converted to the stuff can enjoy it, too. Now all we have to do is figure out how we are going to get it in Germany...