Tech

We’ve been making a lot of unplanned upgrades. Micah’s cell phone died, and we didn’t think it was worth paying $50.00 to replace it with the same one. His contract isn’t up until November, but I was eligible for an upgrade. I bought a Droid Eris, and he got my EnV2. We both got upgrades out of the deal. I may never own an iPhone, so this is the closest I could get for under $100.00.

The battery on my laptop didn’t hold a charge anymore, and the AC adapter was held together by electrical tape. It was like this for a couple of months before I finally figured it was time to find a good deal on a battery. Then, I’d replace the adapter a few weeks later. This turned into a disaster.

I bought the battery on eBay. It arrived, and the first thing I noticed was that it was incredibly bulky. I assumed it would be bigger because it was a 12-cell battery. This was ridiculous, though. The laptop sat at an angle on the table and was lopsided. I couldn’t even type with it. A few hours later, I planned on removing it to request a return. That was when it crashed. I spent more than 15 hours over the course of two days working to fix it. Luckily, they were Micah’s days off, so he helped with the kids. I was able to backup my files by use of an Ubuntu live CD and a flash drive, which was just in the nick of time. The hard drive since has stopped functioning properly (lots of bad sectors). I tried to replace it, and that didn’t fix the problem. I’ve concluded there is most likely damage to the motherboard and possibly the memory. It’s not an easy fix, but I haven’t given up on it entirely. It is going to take a lot of new parts and time, and I need to find the cheapest parts possible to make it worthwhile.

Meanwhile, I ordered a new laptop. I didn’t want to do this for at least another year or two. I really struggled with the decision because I don’t let myself buy things very often that are only for me. If we do have a little extra money, I’m always buying clothes for the kids or doing some work on the house.

It shipped on Monday and will be here tomorrow! With 3 kids running around the house, it’s a lot easier having a laptop that I can move around.

Winter is always a quiet time around here. It won’t be quiet for long. The twins have February vacation soon, and Lily will be here in less than 4 months!

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Year’s End

Christmas 2009 was simple and lovely. We spent the weekend at home, and my parents visited. It is still strange to be at my own house instead of theirs for Christmas, cooking the roast and putting on pots of coffee. We are the hosts now! Everyone had fun and had plenty of time to relax.

Santa’s work was overwhelming this year, but he finally arrived with everything the kids wanted. The biggest hits of the day were William’s firetruck and Wonder Pets Fly Boat, and the twins’ puppet theater and dollhouse.

We woke up to a beautiful sunrise on Christmas morning. It was so early, but no one wanted to wait to open presents!

We have so much to be thankful for this year. I can only hope that 2010 will be filled with as many blessings.

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The Holidays

It’s hard to believe that it’s almost Christmastime again. We started the festivities with Thanksgiving.

We started a tradition last year of visiting the tree farm on Thanksgiving day. The owners are so nice, and there is just something about the smell of a baking turkey mixed with the smell of a freshly cut fir tree. The kids get candy canes and sit by the fireplace at the farm while we wait for the tree is baled.

I love this time of year.

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You & I

The last few weeks have been lovely. Fall is here, the leaves are turning orange, and I am spending weekdays alone with William. He loves being the center of attention for a few hours every day.

The house becomes quiet, he climbs into my lap, and we read together. He loves to go online and look at pictures of farm animals and trucks. When the bus pulls up and the girls come home, there is such a sense of excitement. The art board in their room is covered in paint and construction paper creations. I am so happy that they love school.

Sean Lennon – Idea

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School Days

I can’t believe it. My babies started kindergarten today. I am waiting for them to return home and tell me all about their day! Will loved the attention he got from being alone with us today, which surprised me. I thought he would really miss his sisters, but he didn’t mention them once. I’m sure that will be different once he realizes how often they will be gone at school.

My heart was pounding as they hopped onto the bus. I just wanted to yell, “No, stop! They’re too little”, but of course I couldn’t.

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Heat

We have survived much of this summer without air conditioning. We have a fan in the attic to circulate air outside, window fans, and roman shades. I actually saved about $125 in June and $125 in July by doing this. August, however, is not as bearable. The humidity has been terrible. Here’s a video I took of one of the storms that has kept us awake at night:

I was enjoying this season, but now I wish it would be over soon. I am anxious to start school shopping for the girls and do some work around the outside of the house. It is too hot to try right now.

On the upside, I may have a few clients lined up for web sites. I love any opportunity I can find to work from home and build on my portfolio.

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In Breezes

Summer is passing by so quickly. We uprooted our lives so I could take a full time job, and in the end it turned out to be a disaster. In a single day I went from working mother back to SAHM again. It was discouraging, but I know it was best for my family. There are moments I don’t have to miss, and I am going to catch every one.

Needtobreathe – More Time

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The Songs

Micah has been talking about writing and recording songs for a while. I can take credit for only a few things here (the name, photos, the concept of the retail song, and a few lines in “Nobody’s Hero”). This is win.

Fortune Devoid – Nobody’s Hero

Fortune Devoid – Retail Slave

Fortune Devoid – Wish You Were Here (Cover)

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Validated

I have spent many hours working on this. My site is almost completely XHTML 1.0 transitional. I have to say “almost” because of a few exceptions I have to work out. The twitter script is not compliant. Everything gets a bit messy when you use PHP includes from WordPress and Gallery2. Those are things I could fix over time, but there are many files and I’m not sure when I’ll get around to it. Lastly, I need to work with the “cam preview” feature on the main page of Our Home Life. It uses JavaScript which is provided by WebcamXP. I am beginning to hate JavaScript.

There was so much code to run through. I had never even added a valid doctype to these pages. I just never had the time to sort through each one, but I was determined. I had to train myself to avoid tables at all costs and learn how to make pure CSS layouts. I learned, quite painstakingly, which elements could not be nested. Working with HTML that is upwards of 12 years old is tricky – especially when it has been morphed repeatedly over the years.

In the end, it was worth all of the hard work. The physical appearance of each page has changed very little, but there is one wonderful difference:

Switching to strict will be next. This will have to come in stages, but right now, my eyes are glazing over from staring at Notepad for 2 days.

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Lazy Sunday

Now that we’re home from church and finished a few things around the house, we can sit down and relax. The kids want to have a picnic lunch in the backyard. Here are some sights from this morning:

The Alternate Routes – Ordinary

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