Doubting Thomas

Why do I doubt my son?  After all these years you would think I would have learned that when he puts his mind to something he's going to get it done.

On Saturday we went to a birthday party and one of the gifts was a gyroscope.  It was no surprise that my son thought it was "awesome!"  He immediately told everyone in the area who was listening that he was going to make one out of K'Nex.  Of course I shrugged it off and said something like, I don't think it's possible but you can certainly try.

Yesterday, he created this....

I admit it's not exactly a gyroscope but it is definitely more than I was expecting him to be able to do.  Oh, and he's already destroyed that one and is working on a bigger and better one.

Dodged That Bullet

Today, I was able to witness, yet again, how the Lord protects me and my family (and our possessions). 

The kids usually have Lego class on Thursdays, but due to a conflict for some of the teachers there is no class this week.  Class last week was cancelled at the last minute as well, so I decided to make a trip to that area so my kids could meet with a friend at a park.  The friend was available yesterday and today and for whatever reason, we decided on today.

On the way to meet our friends today, I stopped by the new house to drop off some stuff.  While there, I noticed the power was out.  Based on the rather soft ice cream in the freezer, it had been a few hours.  I called the electric company and found out it was only our house.  It took them about 4.5 hours to fix the problem; apparently a transformer that serves only our house had blown and it took a while to get the replacement installed.

As I was sitting at the park with our friends, I couldn't get over the fact that if we had gotten together with our friends yesterday, we would have gotten to the house on Friday afternoon to no power and rotten food.  It also made me thankful that hubby had not moved and plugged in the chest freezer he bought at a yard sale a few weeks ago because if he had, I probably would have had even more stuff in the freezer that could have gone bad.

God is great, all the time!  Even with the little things.

Kissing My Bank Goodbye

Well, I'm officially over it... my bank that is.  I've been with them for over 6 years even sticking with them through a merger.  When I was informed that I would be charged a $30 per month fee on one of my accounts I decided it was time to go. 

I know it was the right decision to make, but can I just say how much of a pain it is to switch while still being able to pay your bills.  Add to that, we are trying to buy things for the new house while not digging into savings too much.  Hard to do when your savings is spread among multiple banks.  Ugghh!

Saving Money

I have always thought of myself as being frugal with my money.  I've been balancing a checkbook since I was 16 (down to the penny I might add - hey, I'm type A).  For as long as I can remember, I've always looked at those lists that give you ideas on how to save money.  After all, maybe there is something new that I could be trying. 

One of the things that has started to show up on lists in the last few years is cutting your own hair.  I've cut my husband's hair since we've been married (easy to do since it's a buzz cut).  I've cut my kid's hair since they were born (I did pay to have my daughter's done once and it wasn't worth it so I never took her back).  The thought of doing my own hair though has been a bit petrifying.  What if I cut it crooked?  Will I notice?  Will everyone else notice?

I think I am finally to the point where I am going to try to trim my own hair.  When I was about 16 I tried to trim my bangs and it didn't go well.  Not even a little bit.  I think my bangs ended up being maybe 2" long and I have a big forehead so it was not pretty.  I don't have bangs anymore and I'm letting my hair grow out so even if I mess it up the fix will not end up shorter than cuts I've had in the past.  The thought of paying someone $12 just to trim my hair is more than I'm willing to spend on my hair right now.

Considering I can cut my daughter's hair which is three times as thick as my hair and it turns out like this....

Front Before

Back Before

 

 

Front After

Back After

I think I'm going to give it a try.  I'll let you all know how it goes.

Melting This Mommy's Heart

As my regular readers know, my son was recently given a computer.  As part of setting up his computer I set up his email account with the email addresses of family and his closest friend back in Virginia.  He's been sending quick message back and forth with his friend as well as some family members.  How surprised was I when I got this message in my Inbox yesterday?

I'll admit it, I teared up.  Not only did he send me this on his own, but he figured out how to put the emoticons in the message and he also figured out how to enlarge it.  This is one proud mama.

Writers Block

A couple days ago I was asked if I could write a guest blog post for a "commercial" blog site.  The only blogs I've written so far is for my own blog and once for a friend's blog (not commercial by any means, but she does have a few more followers that I do).

Luckily I have one more week to write it, because right now I've hit a wall.  I know I want to write something about my kids but other than that, I'm at a complete loss.  

I was told I could even reuse an old post.  So can any of my faithful readers give me ideas on a post you enjoyed or one that I could enhance, or even a topic you'd like me to cover?  Any thoughts would be appreciated because at this point, I'm empty.  Thanks.

If you give a boy a computer...

...he exceeds your expectations by leaps and bounds. 

My son is into everything techie.  His father is a computer programmer who made his own robot a couple years ago, so being that he's "75% like Daddy" he's very into robots and has started talking recently about programming as well.

Hubby's rule is that our kids can't get their own computer till they can read well and can start to spell at least a little.  So  they've been using mine.  It was a daily routine for my son to ask to use my computer to look up some K'Nex creation he wanted to make.  Needless to say, it got to the point where this Mommy would go for long stretches where she didn't have access to her computer (I realize that can be a good thing, but I will leave that discussion for another day).  At the end of the day, I would find that I had a TON of things that piled up that I needed to get done on my computer (among them invoicing customers and paying bills).

Yesterday, was the first full day my son had his new computer (I think it's safe to say we were both equally excited about that).  So far, he's done a search on K'Nex (of course), watched a Bill Nye video, but he's also sent emails to all the grandparents.  He even sent an email to his great-grandparents.  When he was using my computer, it was torture to get him to send an email.  Granted the emails weren't that long, but he took the initiative and he did all the typing on his own (he just asked me to check the spelling).  He's even gotten responses back (boy was he excited about that)!

I am hoping that having a little more access to a computer (yes I monitor what he can do and how much) will continue to help him expand his learning.  So far, it's going great!