It is Fixed!!

I'm happily back and running with my DSL connection. It was some super sneaky spyware that had hijacked my system, which is what I though but I didn't know what to fix it with since what I had been using for spyware obviously didn't work.

People who create evil nasty spyware should be shot. The number of unproductive hours thi sweek is about 15. 15 hours of work I've not gotten done that I still have to do.

Sob

So I'm on dial up. There should be a law against being on dial up. It is so slow it is almost criminal. I mean it.

Obviously I'm NOT handling it well at all.

The trouble with being your own boss is basically you are your own IT department (as well as your own HR department, accounting department, etc). I get nominal support from the company I do all my work for but it really is nominal (eh, we really don't support home computers and a bunch of suggestions of stuff I laready tried!). For being entirely self taught in the IT sector, I'd say I've done really well. I know now the problem is with the computer. The DSL modem is working fine, the router is working find, the computer thinks it is hooked up to the DSL but web pages won't load and I can't check email. So it is a computer problem, not a service provider problem and not a DSL modem problem and not a router problem. And now I'm stuck.

WAH! Does anyone feel sorry for me?

In other news, my grandmother is dying. She has passed from passively dying to actively dying. Have you ever heard of an 87 year old anorexic? I hadn't but that seems to be what we've got. There's a huge disconnect between eating and living and unfortunately it seems to be too late. She had a ocmplete clean bill of health back in February (with every test in the book) and now has a grapefruit sized mass in her abdomen - they don't know if it is colon cancer or ovary cancer but they can't do anything because she only weighs 75 lbs. She's always been tiny but this is way too small to fight anything so they've sent her home from the hospital with a full time hopice nurse.

It is such a shame. Sure she is 87 but two years ago she could have easily passed for 70, she looked that good. My grandfather's last words to my dad and his sister were "make sure your mother eats" but unfortunately they had NO idea what he actually meant. She's slowly starved herself for the past two years but no on quite caught on until recently. And now she tells my dad (her son) she doesn't want to die. No one wants her to but I think it is too late.

This weekend we are going to go see her. We are going to drive to husband in Santa Barbara on Friday night and then on Sat we'll all drive to LA to see her. I'm not good at good byes and this is going to suck big time. But we need to do it, Austin needs to measure himself against her (it has always been a milestone when a grandchild passed grandma and the first words out of Austin's mouth when I told him my grandma was dying was that she couldn't possibly be dying because he just knew he had passed her in height and he had to show her). Then she has to hang on until my brother can get to her. He is in the process of driving to the bay area from Detriot (he's moving here). Grandma hasn't seen his girls (7 and 9) since they were babies. So she's got to see those two great grandkids and then I guess she can go.

Santa Cruz

Last Sunday we spent the day in Santa Cruz for Father's Day. We road bikes along the path that overlooks the ocean and then we went to the Boardwalk to ride rides and then we went to the beach to lay in the sand. I didn't take too many pictures but I posted some in flickr so click that little icon on the left if you are interested.

The day was perfect - not a cloud in the sky and it was probably 75 degrees. These are the days you know why you live in California.

Happy Longest Day of the Year!

Sob! It is downhill from here on out!

Much Better

Whew! I've got order restored, thank god.

Not that every little minute has to be planned out but we really do have to have some structure in our lives and last week had none and by Friday, well things were a mess.

But we're all happy now! Daughter is in theatre camp, son is all signed up and playing tennis, doing work around the house to earn his guitar and I'm a little bit at peace.

Screaming Mad

You know, I really need to work on my temper as it relates to my son.

Now I'M Excited!!

This years birthday party for the princess has given me fits. First, I just couldn't seem to get my act together to even think about it. Second, everytime I would think about it and ask for ideas from the princess all I would get was that she wanted and American Girl party but with no specific ideas about what to do. Some years, when I'm more on top of my game, this would be all that is required and I could come up with something. I love themed kid parties and have thrown some very cool ones back in the day. But I was uninspired.

Then, as if those American Girl people could read my mind, they sent us an advertising flyer -- low and behold they've got party packs. All the goodies and decorations for 8 girls and their dolls! How cool is that? Quite cool. But of course nothing is easy and the princess couldn't make up her mind -- did she want the Mystery Party (my choice), or the Tropical Party or the Spa Party?

So, last week, a mere few days before her actual birthday I sat her down and we picked the date (a month out) and decided the party. The Mystery Party was ruled out because it was doll specific and she didn't have the dolls designed around the party. The Spa Party seemed fun but a bit more work than I was up for. Thus we decided the Tropical Party and I placed the order. The stuff arrived yesterday!

I have to admit, I'm falling more and more in love with those American Girl people -- yeah, yeah, it is just owned by Mattel so it is really just big corporate America but I just can't help myself. We had such a good time when we visited the store back in February and now this. We got a huge box of goodies for the party. And everything came in girl sizes and doll sizes - the doll sized plates, plastic ware, cups, and umbrella's for the cups. There's a lei making kit for each girl and their doll! The goodie bag isn't a cheapie thing but has real ribbon on it. We got place mats, crepe paper, table cloth, and a bunch of table decorations - we decided against the doll cabana because that was extra.

Anyway, the stuff was so darned cute, I just had to share. I'll post a picture later. And now I'm inspired - this will be the funnest party EVER! And if not, it will at least be the cutest!

UGH!

How do you teach responsibility? How do you teach listening? How do you teach 'catch a clue'?

So the boy heads out of the house around noon. Off to his friends on his bike. Are you taking your lock and chain? Oh no, I don't want to. And besides, if we go anywhere we'll use P's and lock them together. Okay, because remember if your bike gets stolen, it will be a long summer.

It didn't get stolen, but it wasn't because of anything he did. And P's did get stolen.

The decided to go to the guitar store. Well, there was no place to lock the bikes so they just left them there and went in the store. What were we supposed to do???? Eh, take turns watching them, lock them together, not go in the store -- seems like there were several choices.

Lets hope this is the lesson he learns from. P's parent's are not rushing out to buy him a new bike but he does have a back up. My son seemed a bit weary and I think he realized he lucked out this time. We'll keep our fingers crossed.

My Babies!

My Babies!
Originally uploaded by Tricia D.

Admit it. I have the cutest kids EVER!

Well, looking at this photo a bit now on flickr, I probably should have photoshopped out the mic. It looks like he has this black growth on face. Oh well.

This was taken on Sat the 4th after the high school kids and my son did a performance of Seussical (the only thing we do this year). They (the performers) got to perform at The Rep for two shows. It was a fundraising performance to help raise more money for their trip to Scotland. The did get some money in but I think it went for general costs vs. back into the kids' trip funds. Rats on it all.

It was fun to see the show on a proscenium arch stage. The stage at the high school stuck out into the audience and was three sided. This was more traditional and it worked well(after the entire show was re-choreographed) and was fun. The same, yet different which helped since I've seen this show at least 20 times.

Anyway, my little JoJo being congratulated by his siter.

Last Friday

So last Friday morning the princess comes into my office holding a sign that says "I'm Nine" and has 9's all over it. But it was only 6:59 and since she wasn't born until 7:01 we had to wait two minutes for her to actually be nine.

She had an alright day though I think she still wishes for bells and lots of hoo haa on her birthday and I couldn't manage it this year. We're not even doing her party until July 9th and that is another touchy subject.

I still find it unbelievable that my baby is 9.

School's Out

Another year bites the dust. Amazing how time does fly no matter how cliche it is to say that.

Gone are the days where I had about 6 hours a day to get stuff done. Here are the days of "mom, I want a ride to the movies right now." We had the "I'm not really hear to serve you, I'm only here so you don't have to be in daycare" discussion tonight so I think it will work out. All I need is warning and a bit of planning and then I can be very flexible. Oh yeah, and I need to expect that I will be working nights again. UGH. I'm too old and tired to work at night but that is about the only way I'll manage to get everything done in the next three months.

The princess turns 9 tomorrow. I'm speachless.

Guitar Lessons

After about six months of listening to my son beg and plead for guitar lessons, I've finally got something arranged. The teacher shows up on Wednesday at 7:30 pm to do a bit of an assessment and have some goals discussion and then can recommend acoustic or electric. I initally was opposed to electric but then I found out you can plug headphones into them so I don't have to listen. Electric is looking better all the time.

The teacher was a rocker in the 70's and now mostly plays at churches (he says to make up for the 70's which is really quite funny) so I have a feeling my son will love that since lately he's just been listening to Queen, The Who, Ozzy Osborne and Led Zepplin on his iPod.

On to another musical adventure which I find totally amazing since there isn't a musical atom in my body.

Mating Moths, Part II

In response to the question in last entries post.

No, we've not kept the moths in a tank -- they've just been in cool whip containers with toiletpaper rolls. The idea being that they'd cocoon in the toilet paper roll but that only happened a few times.

We were able to take them outside without even touching them and then didn't seem to want to fly around the house at all. They only wanted to fly to each other. I think they needed to get to a mulberry tree to eat but a couple died and I don't know if they die normally after mating or really anything about their life span for that matter.

Regarding the mating, they attached themselves at their butts. As in: "oh gross mom, their butts are stuck together." But I'm not sure how they fertalized the eggs because a single moth was able to lay eggs all on its own so maybe the fertalization process comes right after the egg was laid. It is a mystery. We did have some information on the silkworms/moths but that has disappeared into the black hole that is my daughters room. I suppose I could look it up on the internet but at this point, I think I'm through. We've got a batch of eggs in the fridge and we'll pull them out next spring and see if we've got worms. They will then go to the nearest mulberry tree and my experience with silkworms will be through.

I'd sure like to figure out what to do with the seven batches of silk I've got. Any ideas?

Mating Moths

Mating Moths
Originally uploaded by Tricia D.

We've been raising silkworms. After a brownie meeting in late April, my daughter shows up with a bunch of silkworms. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of those but they came to us in all sizes. We took very good care of those silkworms, finding mulberry leaves to feed them so within a few weeks, they began to make the cocoons. We had white ones and yellow ones and we were all very excited.

And then one hatched and we had this scary moth with glasses thing in our house. It didn't move much but we took it outside but after a particularly bad windy spell, I felt sorry for the moth so I brought it back inside. By this time, another one had hatched and they found each other. It was love (and babies) at first site.

A third one hatched and it sat around waiting for a mate. But numbers 4 and 5 hatched close together and found each other leaving #3 to lay eggs but those are probably sad sad eggs that won't live.

Meanwhile, the first set of eggs (along with the parents) went back outside, under the orange tree. Not that that will do them anygood so they eventually flew off leaving the eggs. My daughter, being a good silkworm rescuerer put the eggs in the fridge.

I think next spring we're going to be raising silkworms again!

I think I might stay

Not that I was a big huge writer or anything -- hardly. In four years I only managed 319 posts in diaryland. But it was time for a change and I wanted a place that I could use with flickr for pictures so here I am. And I think I like it.

Testing the photo feature

Flower
Originally uploaded by Tricia D.

I'm using this pic to see if I can actually send a pic from flickr to the blog.

The picture was taken at the Portland, OR Japanese Gardens.

Here I am

Looking around, surveying the joint. Interesting