Happy Leap-day to All

And to all a goodnight, since I'm so very late in posting this.

Events fully deserving of a "Hey Nonny-nonny"

The sink and dishwasher are working again and dishes were washed last night.

The Hey Nonny-nonny (because "Huzzah" isn't celebratory enough) comes from the fact that a plumber wasn't used. I called one yesterday but upon getting his voice-mail decided to call my dad, who's about 900 miles away, just to see what his thoughts were. After a couple times of "uhm.. it would have helped if you gave me that information earlier" since I didn't know what symptoms were important and what wasn't, we came to the conclusion that it was a simple clog between the disposal and trap and something Son and I could handle.

While I was getting the safety inspection for the car the Kidlets cleared out the cupboard, and washed everything off when it was time for it to go back in, and got a flashlight and drain-pan ready so everything was set when I got home. When I was ready to get started (which took a little longer than getting the stuff ready) I called dad and with him on the phone Son and I took off the, fortunately just finger tightened, affected pipes and sure enough there was a big clog and everything worked great after that.

So, my dad's a genius, my kids are awesome helpers and I didn't have to pay for a plumber. I like this outcome a whole lot better than what I was expecting.

What I feared has come upon me

Actually, I'm pretty happy with having managed to go two-and-a-half years before running into a maintenance problem I couldn't handle (or wait for my parents to visit and dad to handle). Plumbing and electricity are far beyond my abilities though and this is a plumbing issue. For some reason the main sink has begun to drain into the dishwasher, making both of them unusable.

Having poked around to the best of my ability, and crying a little, I've come to the conclusion that crying and calling for help are pretty much all I can do. So, I quit crying, put in an e-mail to the church administrator ( who's a wonder at getting the best work at the best price) and will call her tomorrow, and made some rum "fortified" spiced chocolate to drink while watching the cartoon "Dai-Gata Defenders" and working on various knitting and crochet projects. Hopefully we'll be able to get everything running again soon, since it's hard to feed kids when you can't wash dishes, and I can't say I'm thrilled at needing to pay for the help but at least it's available and I can.

Yay! I survived

This was my first full Tae Kwon Do class as I missed half of last week's class doing the paperwork to enroll the five of us. Being a full length class isn't why I'm so thrilled though. I mean really, my physical fitness may be nearly non existent but I'm quite confidant of my ability to do a full class with our regular teacher. The thing is he wasn't there. Apparently, I found out afterwards, he'd hurt his back at work and wasn't able to make it. Instead, the dojo's Master was there and when he had us start class with running I knew things were going to be rough. And they were. He got a lot of teaching packed into an hour class though and I have to admit that while I might prefer a more relaxed pace I certainly wouldn't have the same feeling of accomplishment that I now get to enjoy.

Shh! Don't tell anyone I only bought this bottle a week ago

And look how far gone it is. Oh, you thought I drank all that? The truth is that I'm not the least interested in drinking vodka. It is the cheapest and easiest method of extracting essential oils though and the space in the bottle represents pumello, clementine, and coffee extractions that are processing as I write. If I had my absolute preference, I'd have a distilation unit. Since I don't know how to make one, or have a safe place to use it, this will have to do.

How do I love the Kindle Fire? Let me count the ways.

Hopefully though no one is counting the number of incredibly cheesy blog titles I use.

Anyway, shortly after getting the Kindle Fire, a Christmas gift from my in-laws, I told them that it ranked right up there with the yarn winder, another Christmas present, they got me when John and I were dating. This was very high praise as I still use the yarn winder often even after twenty years which is pretty amazing for a plastic mechanism, and a feat I'm quite sure the Kindle won't equal. Now that it's been a month I am, if anything, even more pleased with it.

I don't have a lap-top or smartphone so had been considering a tablet of some kind for awhile. There had been a lot of discussion about the relative merits of various e-readers on the Ace of Spades HQ, a blog I read a lot, Sunday Morning Book Thread and with the release of both the Fire and the NookTablet I pretty much decided that e-reader was the route for me. Eldest Kidlet got a NookColor from my in-laws for Christmas last year so I was actually planning on getting either a second one or a NookTablet, to take advantage of the fact I already had an account, when I went to Wal-mart. The readers were all similar enough that I actually ended up praying about which one to get and, although I suppose it may just seem like confirmation bias, I am sure this was the one for me.

Cue raptures 3, 2, 1, The Free Books! Squee! Enlargeable fonts! Double squee at least! Finally able to knit/crochet/whatever and read at the same time which approaches the perfect activity in my world and for which there are not squees enough. The reading area I created in my room last winter, and used twice, is used almost every evening now as I rotate through my various needlework projects or watch anime on Netflix instant streaming. I now read my Bible in the morning, with a through-the-year e-Bible I actually paid a couple of dollars for but like a lot, and read a small devotional called Daily Strength for Daily Needs that was in the public domain. After that I check the weather with the free Weather Channel app, my e-mail with the free Yahoo! app and FaceBook with an app whose price I bet you can guess. After walking Hank and getting breakfast ready I check my blogs and, more to the point, my blog lists since my blogs are mostly there as a way to store the lists of blogs I read. I've even found that the durable casing and sealed battery, something I foresee as being a great nuisance sometime in the future, means the Fire can be used while soaking in the tub( me, not it, of course) which was something I had figured would be impossible.

So, does that mean I'm writing this on my Kindle? Sadly that is the one major flaw. While the Fire is quite sufficient for commenting on other blogs and I can write a post title, it will not pull up a keyboard in the body section of Blogger. I also can't find a way to write a comment on my own FaceBook wall, although it is possible to "like" or comment on someone else's post. The only other, minor, complaint is not really the Kindle's fault but my own. I. just. can't. stop buying books. In fairness, the Kindle does give me another pricing option and the ton of free books means there is a chance that if my book budget doesn't go down I'll at least have gotten more books for the cost.

Mommykitten as Mastermind

Son has a habit of picking a word and then saying it at random intervals for several week or months after which he moves on to a new equally random word. This annoys me. A lot. In the last six months or so we have been treated to exclamations of bacon!, tomato! and, most recently, spleen! and I have become quite tired of it.

About a week ago I came up with the perfect counter attack. Every time I hear spleen! and it's not used correctly in a sentence Son has to go look on Wikipedia, yes I know that won't work for everything but it's a start, and find me a new and interesting fact about the subject. He's decided that spleens are actually very cool and under known organs, and his continued research has led him to decide that he never wants to use kidney! as his word as they are decidedly not cool, just disgusting. Considering that this is a child who never wants to do research projects I feel very crafty for getting him started. Who knows, maybe he'll develop an interest in medicine. Even if he doesn't though, we'll both have gotten some interesting facts such as the 1X3X5X7X9X11 mnemonic for the anatomy of a spleen.