You can't fix stupid

No matter how hard you try, you can't fix stupid.

And stupid is an equal opportunity disease.

It doesn't matter if you're black, white, male, female, catholic, atheist, you're still susceptible to stupid.

Seems no matter where you look these days, on the internet, there is some bullcrap about nursing in public- to cover or not to cover?

And as there are always 2 sides to every argument, here's an example of the thoughts from either side.

To Cover:

Breastfeeding is the same as urinating and defecating, all natural functions, so all should be done in private. Nobody wants to see your breasts. I don't want my kids/husband to see your breasts.

Not To Cover:

It's just feeding a baby. You see more breast going to the beach. Covering my baby's head causes them to breathe in more carbon dioxide which is not good for them. Would you cover your head while you eat? Would you go to the bathroom or your car to eat? You expect a baby's head to be covered up, but it's OK for you to wear low cut shirts where your cleavage is hanging out all over the place? Get over yourself, nobody is flashing your husband/child, and if you're that worried about your husband getting off on watching a mom breastfeed you have more problems than being worried about my modesty. Teach your child what breastfeeding is and it loses it's shock value- with children, it's not an issue unless YOU make it one.

I, personally, have NEVER had an issue with breastfeeding in public. And I don't cover. I used to, but my oldest son used to sweat like nobody's business when I would cover him, and his temperature would skyrocket. I stopped covering him and he was fine. In fact, my husband is more worried about me letting a nip slip than I am. I could care less.

But I've never had any problems, nobody has ever said a word to me, so it's just  a non-issue for me.

So, for those of you who feel the need to open your pie hole to a woman about breastfeeding her child, here's a few thoughts for you.

Bottom line- if you don't want to see it, don't freaking look.

Kind of like porn- if you don't want to watch it, don't look.

It's your right to look somewhere else, and it's my baby's right to eat freely without being stressed out by having a blanket suffocating them.

I simply do not understand people who have such a problem with breastfeeding in public without a cover. My God, there's bigger problems in this world we need to focus on than how a woman feeds her baby.

Women who have been harassed, aggravated, or nagged at by anyone else for nursing your baby in public, please, PLEASE, stand up for yourself. Stand up for your baby! And tell those snooty jerks to get over themselves and to please, please, try to get some help for their illness. Stupid is a chronic condition, but maybe, over time, we can beat it if we all work together.

And, for you stupid people, please feel free to leave NOW, otherwise, you will be exposed to something that might offend you.
Shield your children's eyes. Make your husband leave the room. Prepare the vomit bag.

Computer problems SUCK!

Most of the time I REALLY take my computers for granted.
I have a Compaq laptop, and an eMachines desktop. Both are very low end, cheap computers, I think I paid $300 for the laptop, and $500 for the desktop with monitor and printer (YAY for almost a $100 discount from BestBuy for buying all 3 pieces at the same time!)
The desktop just turned 3 years old this past May, and the laptop turned 1 year old this past March.
The battery on the laptop hasn't worked in months, so it always has to be plugged in- and a replacement battery is close to $100. But it's still not worth it to buy because my Streets & Trips GPS doesn't work on it! It downloaded the free trial, but when I purchased it, it won't accept the license number. (Yay Windows 7) I called a troubleshooting place, but they want $300 to talk to me. Yeaaah.... I think it's going to be more cost effective for me to just buy a new one.

Now the desktop is starting to have problems. I believe it's just a cable issue from the monitor to the desktop - at least I HOPE that's the problem, because otherwise it's something IN the computer not sending the signals to the desktop to make it work. Occasionally the screen just freaks out and jumbles up, other times it stays black and reads "no signal". Really, I only need to replace the tower, so that's probably what I'll do, if replacing the cable doesn't fix it.

In the mean time, I'm struggling with the desktop working sporadically. I can't print off the laptop, so I use the desktop to print postage. And I also use it for my embroidery machine since they're both stationary, I just keep the embroidery machine ON the desk and leave it hooked up- it works GREAT this way. But, if I can't see what I'm doing, I can't upload anything to the machine to embroider!!
It all just sucks.
And going up to the library to use their computer isn't practical. Not with 5 kids in tow. Plus it's not a secure network, so printing postage from paypal isn't the safest thing to do.
So my other option is to write down the address and go to the post office- which is what I always used to do- always. But now I'm spoiled. I like printing out the postage and just taking it up and dropping it off. It makes me happy.

I'm pretty anti-technology. We have the 2 comps, an ipod, and a pay as you go cell phone that CAN get on the internet and text, but I've only started actually using those two functions in the last couple of months.
I just don't NEED a ton of electronics. I don't need a $4000 computer with the best graphics card, cause my brain can't see a difference anyway. I don't need a $5000 laptop that has 500 gig of memory! I just don't use it.

I did buy my first thumb drive last week lol :) I needed to get some of the pics off my laptop to free up some space cause it's been moving sluggish lately, so I'm trying to clean it up in hopes it will help get it back up to speed.

I can't imagine someone who is technology hooked having something go wrong with their stuff... as little as I have, I'm insanely frustrated with the troubles I'm having. Maybe that's WHY I stay so far away from electronics... more gadgets that can break!

Are you a technology-aholic? Or fighting the gamma rays with me? :)

July 24, 2011

I've started looking at employment websites for Dallas area jobs.
I found an apartment community maintenance supervisor position. The job itself wouldn't be hard for hubby. I know he could easily excel. That's just the kind of guy he is. All arond handyman kind of guy.
The downside to that job is that he would have to deal with people. Lots of people. People who are renting the apartments. Many of them are going to be problematic. They're going to be mad that something in their apartment is broke, they're going to be mad that they aren't going to be happy that it took him however long it did to get to them. He might see some disgusting apartments. He might smell some horrible apartments. He might be hit on. He might get attacked for declining the advances. He might see children in bad situations. He might see animals in bad situations. So I just don't know if it's the best job for him.
I found a couple of welding jobs, but they don't discuss income, and we've decided that, if we're going to do this, we're going to pay cash for a house so we don't have a house payment, so he can take a pay cut, but no less than $8 an hour. And most welding jobs don't pay more than $16 to start, despite the fact he's got 24 years experience as a welder.
There's been so many companies, in the past, that we've applied him to and they don't consider his 12 years in the Navy in his experience. How they can do that, I have no idea, but it is the case. I mean, I would think that if he could serve his country for 12 years working on ships keeping them maintained so that their nuclear reactors would be ready in the event we needed them in a war, that would be good enough to be considered for his pay rate to weld frames for stupid vehicles. But it doesn't count. It doesn't matter. And it's a horrible state of society.

BUT he has been out of the Navy for 13 years now, and has done mostly welding jobs during those years.
He does now have his Class A CDL with hazmat, tankers, doubles, and triples endorsements. He only has about 2 years of on the job experience with it, but he's kept up with his physicals and tests.
So, I'll just keep looking and applying and see what we come up with.

decisions decisions..

Sometimes things happen that at the time seem horrible, and at the time they probably are. But after you get through them, you realize that they did happen for a reason.


You know, that whole "light at the end of the tunnel" thing?

Today we were on the way to my doctor's appointment. I had an X-Ray scheduled, and a follow up with the neurosurgeon.
The boys asked if we could take the big van. We hadn't taken it in a long time, but daddy had been taking it to and from the bus stop, and I had been driving it around town, so we figured it was OK. The transmission was having problems, but it still worked, we just had to manually move the shifter from 1 to 2 to D.

So, we got out on the road, pretty much on time, and everything was going great. Then, out of nowhere, the transmission started squealing and the van started slowing down.
Hubby fiddled with the gear shift for a bit, to no avail, so we pulled over to the shoulder and stopped. And there we stayed.

We called a few people, left some messages, sent a couple of texts. Nada.
I jokingly mentioned to hubby that, if we were in Texas right now, we'd have a ride.
Thank God for mobile internet. I was able to log on to facebook and contact my friend who lives in the same town I do, and she was able to come pick me up and take me back to my house! Thank you, Danielle!!!!

I sneakily left her some cash, so don't think I just made her drive 60 miles out of her way on her own dime.

Once I got home, my original thought was to get in the car and drive to the van, then bring everyone home and get the RV hooked up to the tow dolly to take it back to the van and bring the van home.
Confused yet?

I got in the car and got down the driveway when I realized how much time and gas I would be wasting making the extra trip in the car. But I guess I didn't think about it, until then, that I was expecting hubby to do all of the work. HE would have to hook the tow dolly to the RV. HE would have to get all the things together he needed to get the van on the tow dolly. HE would have to drive the RV to the van. WHY?
I had no idea.
I underestimated my own ability to do these things.
So I went in the house and called him on the cell and asked him what he thought about ME bringing the RV and tow dolly to the van, and he asked why I would do anything different.
See who has the confidence in me in this relationship?

I got everything together and drove back to the van. The generator ran from the driveway to the side of the highway where the van was, and stayed running for about 30 minutes. Then it was done. It threw in the towel along side the tranny in the van. Which meant no A/C for the RV.

For a while we've been debating on whether or not to sell the RV or fix it up. Mechanically, the only issue has been the recent problem with the generator not staying running. But it COULD be the coil hubby just replaced. Otherwise, it's sound as a pound. It's just cosmetic crap. And it needs a new roof. Like- remove everything off the top and rip the rotted plywood off and replace it, new roof.
Of course, we did just replace the furnace motor. And we did just put $300 into the engine for a tune up, timing, and computer adjustment. And we have $2000 worth of tires that have less than 10,000 miles on them. And the tune up we just did on the generator. And the new catalytic converter and pipes. And the new seals for the toilet- which weren't expensive, but time consuming. It's nickle and dimeing us to death. Oh, and the washer/dryer is still broke. Meh.

IF we can get the generator running properly, I'm going to use it on a trip down to Texas for 2 weeks to visit my 'like-my-sister-online-BFF' galpal Kenderly. And we'll see how it fares for me.
But we're still leaning toward the decision to just sell it and buy new. Unfortunately we're having trouble finding what we want and need in new ones for less than the price of a new house! I mean... even without bunk beds in the back, go price a 35+ foot Class A and see what you find!

DITLO 7under1roof

So a bunch of women started doing this "Day In The Life Of" post in my cloth diaper group on cafemom and it's pretty cool. So, here's mine! This is from yesterday, July 11th.


I woke up at about 10AM.

Goodmorning stretches!

I made pancakes! First I decided that I needed to figure out a way to tell the difference between my gluten and dairy free pancakes and the kids pancakes. Bubby asked for chocolate chip pancakes, and sissy asked for blueberry.
Then I decided the kids would think it's fun to have colorful pancakes!

 Pink for blueberry, green for chocolate chip!

And, mommy's plain old gluten and dairy free ones :)

Of course, I can't start my day without coffee. Unfortunately, I've switched to decaf, to try and help 7's tummy.

And I can't have a cup of coffee without my Coffee Mate and sugar!

Then it's off to the bathroom to break up a fight between the two older boys. See, they each have their own soap dispenser, and Nicky used Bubby's.
Ugh.

I did, however, decide that was a good time to clean the bathroom. It was pretty gross what with 4 males in the house.

Then I decided I needed to vacuum the floor. The dog is shedding and the kids have been cutting out paper to keep themselves occupied.

But first, I have to tape up the cord where Sissy vacuumed the other day... and ran it over.

Well, Tommy pooped.... on the floor. Dangit, I didn't get his diaper on him in time. SO in the shower for him.

Oh, while I'm in the bathroom, I need to wash my nursing pads (I wash them by hand).

Then I put them in their mesh bag to run them through the dryer only to find......


dangit.

Time for num nums!
And a happy baby follows!

OK, Tommy cleaned and diapered, nursing pads in the dryer, and now....

vacuum cord taped up.

Time for diaper laundry!

You can tell I have an old washer- it still has an agitator!!!

I was looking at new washers at Lowe's the other day and all of the top loaders have been changed to the agitator-less.

OK floor has been vacuumed.

Now, time for dishes.

Dishwasher full.

Ah... all clean!

Changed diaper, and happy baby again!

Welp, time to add my stuff to the rinse cycle!

Step over Apollo to get in and out of the laundry room.

Time to pump!



WAIT!!!

Can't pump....

Both babies want to nurse.

Diapers dry, time to fold and put away!

Clean diaper on Tommy, and he's off to nap!

While I clean the carpet!

AAhhhh... much better :)
Haven't cleaned the whole carpet in months!!

Hi Apollo! You already had your breakfast, get out of the pantry!

(and yes... the door latch there is at the standard height... and his head is above it.)

 While the battery in my camera was charging I baked some gluten and dairy free Bialy bread.
(I think I spelled that right.. might be Baily..will have to double check my cookbook.)

I also used my meat grinder (thank you honey!) to grind up some deer steaks into deer burgers!

I also shredded some potatoes and made hashbrowns, and sliced an onion and fried it up. YUM!

Getting beans soaked for dinner tomorrow night.

Daddy getting ready to leave for work.

Apollo, you'll have to move so daddy can get out the door, hun.

Bye, Daddy! I love you and will miss you while you are at work!

Time for 7 to nurse again, and mommy to get off her feet! That carpet cleaning did a number on my back!!!
Time for some blogging!

Gotta go turn the sprinkler off on my garden.

I can't wait til the roots get established and I can start using my pipeline system! Another week I'd say!

Mmmmm peppers!

Kale!

'

Let's see there's a row of corn, and a square patch of brussel sprouts and broccoli.

Broccoli and tomatoes.

A pumpkin in the very far corner.

Bellpeppers, squash, and tomatoes.

Zucchini, and tomatoes.

Potted herbs- Aloe, rosemary, basil, oregano, sage, and mesculin in the deck box.

 Thyme, Pineapple Sage, and another kind of sage I'd have to look at the tag LOL

Time for some cafemom!

Nursed 7 to sleep :)

Cleared off my sewing table- finally!

And, time to get to work, now that all the kids are asleep!








At 3AM I finally crashed.

And that is a day in the life of 7under1roof :)