What's That For?

The other day I was watching TV. I think I was watching the news. My 6 year old was on the floor sorting out his Pokemon cards for the 835th time.

A commercial came on and I didn't pay any attention to it until my 6 year old looked up and asked, "Mom, what's that for?"

I looked at the TV. It was a commercial for carefree pantyliners.

So I did what any responsible mom would do. I pretended like I didn't hear him.

Maybe when he's old enough to stop sucking thumb at bedtime I'll stop pretending that I can't hear his question.

Sisters

I saw this on a car in the grocery store parking lot yesterday:

I have 4 sisters.

This made me smile.

Holding On

I've been trying to encourage my kids to watch the Olympics. For some reason, they don't seem interested. My 6 year old started to watch some of the speed skating competition. He watched for a minute and looked confused.

I said, "It looks hard to skate that fast, doesn't it?"

He asked, "Are they allowed to hold onto the wall for help?"

"I guess so, but then they wouldn't go as fast."

"Mom, you should skate in the Olympics. You can skate without holding onto the wall!"

He made my day.

Are You Calling Me Old?

I was telling my husband that I recently read in a book that only old people wear watches these day. Young people use their cell phones to tell the time.

He laughed and pointed out that I'm the one who wears a watch. He never wears a watch.

My 6 year old said, "Mom, you should give your watch to dad!"

My husband wasn't as pleased with our son's comment as I was :)

The Missing Disc

As I've mentioned before, my husband likes to fix things. Mostly TV's these days. But he also fixes computers, computer monitors, game systems etc... Yes, I married a geek.

We've sold a few of these toys things on craigslist. Some that he bought just to fix and others he bought and used for a while and then decided it was time to upgrade. I am usually the one dealing with the interested buyers. I try to negotiate a fair price, schedule a pick up time etc...

Recently my husband sold an xbox. The original xbox. Yes, it was old, but it still worked great. We had been using it as a media center for a while. But then he decided to upgrade our media center. I have no idea what kind of media center we have now. I really can't tell the difference. (Please don't mention that to Mr. Cookie. He is very proud of his upgrades.)

The xbox was connected to one of the TV's until the day it was sold even though we hadn't used it a few months. Or at least we thought it wasn't being used.

I posted the xbox on craigslist. Someone wanted to buy it. My husband packed up the xbox and met the person. The next day I was going to the library. I couldn't find one of the discs that was due at the library. I asked my son where it was. He ran into the living room to retrieve it. He came back empty handed. "Mom, I put the disc in the xbox."

I asked my husband where the xbox was. He had sold it. It was gone and the disc was gone with it. The library disc.

My husband asked my son why would he put the disc in the xbox, when we were supposed to be using the newer, better, thing? The disc wasn't working in the newer better thing. So my son thought maybe it would work in the old trusty xbox. It didn't. The disc was scratched.

I went to the library with one disc of the 2-disc set. I explained what happened but I knew that I would have to pay for the disc. Of course I had to pay for the 2-disc set. $37 for 2 discs that don't even play. I was told that if I can find the disc within one year and return with the original receipt that I could get the money back.

I decided to ask the buyer if they have the disc and if they would be willing to return it. I called the number and a woman answered. She immediately knew that I must be calling about the disc. She wouldn't accept any money and said that she would mail it right away. Sure, I thought. I can't imagine it being high on her priority list.

Two days later the disc arrived in the mail.

What a nice person!

I spend so much time dealing with people on craigslist who say they are going to buy something and never show up. Or people who offer $100 for a $400 TV. Or people who are phishing for information and not really interested in buying anything. I can't tell you how much it made my day to find such a sincere, honest person. And of course being able to get back my $37 from the library is nice too.

My First Sale

I posted earlier about my husband's new hobby, fixing broken TV's and how it has transformed me into a used TV salesman.

I am happy to say that we sold our first TV last week. The craigslist buyer came to the house on Friday afternoon, picked up the TV and gave me the cash. I was thrilled. Thrilled to have the money and thrilled to see the TV gone!

Friday night at 9pm my cell phone rang. It was the TV buyer. He said the TV wasn't working right. It was shutting off by itself every 15 minutes or so. My heart sank. For a second, I lost faith in my husband's TV repair skills. My husband called the guy back 10 minutes later.

Mr. Cookie spoke with the TV buyer for about 5 minutes. He asked questions about the TV, about the signal etc... Then he said "It sounds like there could be a problem with the outlet you are using. If the outlet is loose it could cause the TV to shut off automatically." He suggested that they try a different outlet and call back if it doesn't help.

Six days have passed. The TV buyer hasn't called back.

I wonder if we can send a bill for technical assistance.

And I wonder if he was having the same problem with his old TV.

I Missed the Frat Party

My Japanese exam yesterday when better than I expected. I didn't ask anyone to sit under a chair like I may have on the previous quiz. But I probably wrote "Please help the phone." I was going for originality on that one.

Now I have a composition due tomorrow. A one page paper written completely in Japanese is due tomorrow. And the worst part is that I'm expected to write about my day.

We learned lots of great verbs in class. Verbs like, to go, to eat, to play, to watch TV or to watch a movie. We learned how to say "I'm working at my part time job today" or "I'm studying to be a dentist." Important things like that.

We did not learn how to say, "I did the laundry, washed the dishes, broke up an argument between my kids, listened to my friend about her divorce, spoke to my son's teacher about cuss words on the playground, paid bills online, negotiated TV prices with people from craigslist (another post to come about that), postponed making a dentist appointment or gave up on looking for curtains to go with the new paint in the bedroom." I don't understand why they don't put those activities first in the textbook designed for college students.

I guess I am not your typical college student. I do all of the work but miss out on the frat parties on the weekend. And I'm not sure that's a bad thing anymore.

Exam

In 2 hours, I will be taking an exam. An exam in my Japanese class that I am not prepared for.

I have been studying. I studied last week. I studied this weekend. I studied last night. I studied this morning. Still, I feel unprepared. I feel old. Studying didn't used to be so much work! Or maybe I blocked out that part of college.

I usually volunteer in my son's kindergarten classroom on Tuesday mornings. I cancelled this morning so that I could blog study some more.

Anyone want to let me copy off of their paper?

Before and After

As I mentioned earlier, I have been busy working on painting my bedroom.
Here is a "before" photo.


Notice the beautiful ladder in front of the windows. I love that way it filters the light. And the plastic floor covering is great for unexpected messes.

10 days later the room looked like this.
The furniture has been rearranged so that the ladder is off to the side of the windows and the light bulb stands alone to make a statement. The plastic carpet has been replaced with a worn out grayish color with a few stains to give it that "lived-in" look.

We're almost done moving everything back. We tried moving the bed to a different wall, but I think tomorrow we'll be moving it back to where it had been before this project got started.

I'm happy to see the cold lavender color gone. The new color is called "Navajo white." Turns out that it's more of a Navajo yellow. Still it's calm and peaceful, which is what I wanted for the bedroom.

Not Me

I know it's been a while since I last blogged. I'm sorry, but I don't have a good excuse reason. I've been busy painting the master bedroom. I'll try to post some pics tomorrow. So stay tuned!

I've written "Not Me" posts in the past. These are posts where I list all of things that I haven't done and would never do. For example:

1. I didn't leave my cell phone on while I was volunteering in my son's kindergarten class. And it didn't disrupt the class by ringing during reading time. Then I didn't fumble with the buttons so that I accidentally answered the call (instead of silencing) and then immediately hang up on my friend. Then my friend didn't call back and the ringing didn't disrupt the class again. And when she left a message, my phone didn't start chirping to let me know that I had a message waiting because I had "missed" a call.

2. I didn't return my friend's call and leave her message and then have my bluetooth accidentally dial her number 3 more times. And then I didn't immediately hang up so that my friend doesn't have 1 message and 3 missed calls all from me. (So sorry about that!)

3. I didn't write "Please sit under the chair" on my Japanese quiz this week.

4. I didn't buy 36 boxes of oatmeal at the store this week. (It was a good sale!)

5. I didn't stay up late watching a movie instead of studying for my Japanese quiz earlier this week and that doesn't explain #3.

6. After painting all day, I didn't consider even for a second my kids' attempt to get me to serve ice cream for dinner.

7. I didn't go a week without writing in my blog. Real bloggers never do that.

8. I didn't dip my hair into a can of white paint while painting the window trim.

9. I didn't drive 20 miles to Krispy Kreme for a box of donuts. Two weeks in a row.

10. I didn't wait until 12:30 to take a shower when I was scheduled to volunteer in my son's classroom at 1pm.

11. I didn't take my son to the wrong ice skating rink to go ice skating with his cub scout den.

These are all things that I would never do.