A Christmas Blog Entry

Okay, so I know that it isn't really Christmas yet. However, I don't think I will be near a computer again for a few days so I thought I better send out my Christmas greeting now so that everyone who wanted to get it would.

Enjoy this recent picture of Lukin. He has been such a joy in the last month as we have watched him grow and as we have prepared for the holidays. It is going to be a very exciting holiday.

I should be finishing up with the gift wrapping, but I am not feeling stressed. This is something different for me if you know me at all. Besides, I am printing out pictures to hand out to any family or friends I might see over the break that want a new picture or two of the little man.

Well, I better go and do those things because I have been up since 5:30 (didn't get up when the alarm went off) and I need to get to bed soon.

I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a safe and Happy New Year. If these holidays are not your bag, I wish you a peaceful time of celebration and hope you are able to spend some time with your family before the start of the new year.

Love to all.
~Jennifer

Ready for a Break

Okay. So I am so tired this week and was so tired last week. I am more than ready for the holiday break. Sorry. I mean Christmas break. That's what you get working in the school system.

The plan has been to leave on Thursday after work to head up to Fargo to spend Christmas with my Grandma and Nils. However, I have quite a few things that I still need to do before leaving. I need to make some more baby food so that we are stocked up for the trip. There are apples, pears, broccoli, cauliflower, parsnips, and carrots. I feel like I have written that before. Anyway, that's 6 kinds and we only have 4 ice cube trays...do you see my problem?

Well, I would be okay with going either Thursday or Friday. But Friday would be a little less stressful for the next 48 hours for me. But we will see. Maybe as it approaches, I will be so anxious to get home to see family and friends that it won't matter to me that we will leave late and I will have much stress before leaving.

Okay, better go home and make baby food now.

okay, okay, I'll write in here already...

I know it has been a week since I last wrote. I also know that those of you who attempt to read this would like it if there was some consistency to my blogging. And even though it is the Christmas season, to those of you I say Bah Humbug.

Now it's not that I am anti-Christmas. I am just so exhausted from trying to get ready for Christmas. I have been up til midnight or later every day since at least Thursday. That is just wrong. But there is so much that I need to get done. Of course, one of the biggest things for me to get done is to finish the present for my parents that I have been working on. (I am pretty sure that they don't read my blog since they don't use the computer often. But just in case, I won't mention what it is.) The next biggest task is wrapping gifts. Now I started on Friday night, I think. I wrapped 12 that night. Then the next night I wrapped 10. Yesterday I think I wrapped about 5 or 6 (not as many) and I still have the main gifts for my family and Amanda and our drawn names left to wrap. Although, I think that Carin said that they were going to keep Lukin overnight tonight after we do Christmas with them. That way she can be home around 8 am when her father stops by. That would be great because then I can wrap some more gifts and get some decent sleep.

Of course, there is a certain amount of cooking that needs to be done too. Tonight, I have to make some bars for work tomorrow. I am going to make Oatmeal Carmelitas. They are really good. I hope the staff likes them as well. And not that making those bars will take a long time but I also need to make some more baby food before we go to North Dakota. We have Broccoli, Cauliflower, Carrots, and Parsnips in the fridge for veggies to make and apples and pears for fruit to make. I want them all done by Wednesday (fat chance) so that if we leave Thursday after work, everything will be ready.

So, this weekend I colored my hair again. It is very red. Of course, that's what the box said it would be, but usually they are not so vibrant. Maybe it's because I have been posing as a redhead for so long that the red really takes in my hair. I was worried about the color though because the stuff was coming out the bottle, when I first started applying it, as a Kool-Aid orange color. Yikes!

Well, I am going to go. I don't have any work to work on, except for my post-observation worksheet and I could work on stuff for my other school, but I am too tired to try to think that hard today.

More baby food and the never ending pile of stuff

Yesterday I spent my day getting my Christmas cards ready to mail. That took forever partly because of the computer we have been having lately and partly because I didn't have all the addresses that I needed. But it eventually got done and we even have two cards left if we need anymore.

I spend most of the morning making baby food. We have moved into the vegetables. I made: Sweet potato & Broccoli, Buttercup Squash, (since there was so much squash I made) buttercup squash & broccoli, and Trio of Root (sweet potato, parsnip, and carrot). I think he will like them because he likes people food.

However, even though I spent the time to get those two things done, I felt like I didn't accomplish anything yesterday and so I went to bed and as I was exhaling, I started to cry. I feel like I will never get caught up on anything. I don't know if this is normal with being a new parent: the perpetual feeling that you leave everything half finished for the next several years, or if it's just me. If anyone can offer any advice, I would appreciate it.

2 hours or $229. Which would you do?

Okay, so last night I called Dell to remedy our computer situation since I had finally received the disks that they had sent to me to try to fix the problem. Well, I called and I got this guy and he told me that before we could begin, he wanted to make sure that we had backed up all my documents because we were going to completely reconfigure my computer and everything that was on there would be erased forever. I didn't know that. I asked if he could help me and he told me that he wasn't trained for that. Well. So the guy tells me that I will have to find a technician or someone who can help with that to save all my materials before we do this thing. So I get off the phone and call Geek Squad. They charge, you guessed it, $229 to come out and do this for me. I could hardly breathe when he told me the amount, but I reluctantly set up the appointment.

Then I got off the phone and told Sonny and he was concerned, as was I. I called my friend, Greg, to see if he could help but he thought, and I concurred that calling Dell back, because they should be able to help me, would be a better (and cheaper) option. So I called back and I talked to 'Ann'. She was awesome. She and I were on the phone for 2 hours troubleshooting. We were trying to fix the problem so we didn't have to lose everything in the computer. It would take another woman to realize how important the stuff in the computer is. She helped me to open the tower and take out the video card. I didn't even know that I could know what that stuff was. But now I do.

But anyway, we get it fixed, or so it seems and we get off the phone and I go to eat supper, call and cancel the geek squad appt. and call Greg to tell him it's fixed (but my cell is dead by this point), and by the time I do those things and go to the computer to start, it's frozen again.

Well, it told me to restart and fingers crossed I did it and here we are. I hope that doesn't happen again. Although I need to figure out how to save all my pictures to a disk and all my music to a disk.

And to think, this all started when I wanted to make labels so I could send out my Christmas cards...

A broken computer, carrots, and public access.

Good morning.

So I have to tell you all that although you were all probably missing my blog a whole bunch (giggle), but our computer at home won't turn on. Well, you can turn it on but then it gets stuck on the XP start screen. I was on the phone with Dell for 45 minutes on Saturday, and we didn't get it fixed because I don't know where the disks for the computer are. So that's why I couldn't blog for a few days. We are hoping to get the new disks and get it fixed by the end of this week, fingers crossed.

So last week we made the first batch of baby food. We made carrots. It wasn't hard. You put carrots in just enough water to cover them, add a pat of unsalted butter, and simmer them until soft. Then you process them and put them in ice cube trays to freeze and then you have single servings when you need.

I don't know what made me decide that we wanted to make our own babyfood. Maybe it was cost, maybe just the idea of doing something really good for my son, but I feel like something is weird about it. I mean, I wasn't breastfed, but I breastfeed. I wasn't given homemade babyfood, at least I don't think I was, but I make it. Oh well. I think it was a good decision. I think it will serve him well. Then last night, I made pear baby food, then apple baby food, then apple-pear-cinnamon baby food. They all taste really good. I sample the stuff left in the processor. It's great.

Lastly, I wanted to let everyone who reads this know that I changed the setting so that everyone who wants to post a comment should be able to now. If anyone tries it and it doesn't work, pleasee let me know and I will fiddle with the setting again.