The End Of The Holidays

After this Christmas all I can say is “wow”.  I can’t believe how many toys and things Elliana received for Christmas this year.  Our families went absolutely nuts buying stuff for her since she’s the first grandbaby (on both sides!), and half the stuff she won’t be able to use until next Christmas!  Seriously, why waste money on all this stuff for a baby that’s 2 months old?  My Grandma even admitted she wanted to buy her a Power Wheels, but my grandpa wouldn't let her lol!

I took photos of her on Christmas with all her presents, but I should have waited a few days.  We had more festivities Saturday and Sunday, and now she’s got stuff out the ears.  I know I have to say thank you and be thankful that our family members are absolutely crazy about her, but I’m still kind of worried.  I don’t know where I’m going to put all this stuff.  Plus I’m kind of scared to think of what she’ll get next year if she’s gotten more than she’ll ever need this year…not to mention how spoiled she’s going to be.  I guess spoiling her is their job, right?

Hubby surprised me Sunday with a few late Christmas presents for me.  He wanted to wait until all the holiday stuff died down to give me my presents so I could enjoy them instead of running around like a chicken with my head cut off.  Hubby knows I prefer practical gifts, so he appealed to the office supply queen in me. He gave me a new paper shredder to replace my old one that died last month. He also bought the ink cartridges I needed so I have plenty of ink to print pictures of the baby, and he made me a gift basket of various office stuff I can use for work. Then of course he gave me some non office stuff as well. I got a cute pair of pj pants and some of my favorite chocolates.

I gave him a few small things like the chocolate oranges he loves so much, a new case for his new phone, and some other small odds and ends, but we bought our Christmas presents for each other on Black Friday. That's when he got his home theater system and I got my netbook, which we're both enjoying together.

Now I'm just so glad all the Christmas stuff is over with for the year because it means there are even more sales out there to hit up.  We did go shopping both Saturday and Sunday, and I totally raided the gift basket isle at Walmart for 50% off gifts for family we won’t be seeing for another couple of weeks.  Sometimes waiting until after the official holiday stuff do your festivities can pay off!  A few of those gift baskets ended up being for me as well because you always spot a few gifts that you wish someone would give you!

Merry Christmas

Did you all have a Merry Christmas? We sure did around here! I swear all the grandparents went absolutely crazy this year buying for their new grandbaby. She's only 2 months old, but her toy box is already overflowing. She won't be able to use over half the stuff until next Christmas lol, but they bought it anyway! And oh the baby dolls...she's gotten 6 of them so far...all bigger than she is. I know she's getting 2 more from my Mom, but we're not doing Christmas with her until tomorrow night. I'm afraid to see what else she may get.

Hubby and I both got some pretty awesome presents as well, and we ended up with $125 in Walmart giftcards between the two of us. I also got a couple gift cards to other places that I'm going to love using. I do feel bad because I didn't have presents for half of my family. I mean I ordered them presents, but they haven't arrived yet. Actually quite a few things I ordered ended up delayed, and not all of them were from the same retailer. It's funny how all the bills and junk mail made it through, but the presents got delayed. I even got mail for my sis-in-law wanting her to buy Medicare supplement insurance that said "to be delivered on", and it showed up on time. She has never lived at this address, and she hasn't lived with us in 7 years, but that junk still makes it through on time!

Anywho I know my family and friends understand that their presents were delayed, and most of them keep telling me it just extends Christmas a little if they have to wait, but I still feel bad that I got all these awesome presents and had nothing to give out in return. Hopefully their presents will show up soon. Now I think I'm going to go enjoy the last 45 minutes we have of Christmas day, and I'm going to spend it snuggling with Hubby. He did a great job of putting the baby to sleep tonight, so maybe she'll give us a little couple time tonight.

The Heat Debate

Hubby and I are still arguing over whether we should install central heating or gas heat.  This is a discussion we’ve been having for quite awhile, and I thought it would have been solved before the baby got here, but it hasn’t.  I say we should install gas heat.  We’re stuck with propane as our only choice in this area, but I still think it would be cheaper than installing an electric furnace.  It would definitely be the cheaper option when it comes to installation. 

Hubby is dead set on central heat and air.  He wants to give me the option to choose whether or not we go with a furnace system or a heat pump, but he’s bound and determined to get something that’s electric.  I’m getting to the point I don’t want to argue with him about it anymore, but I know we can’t afford to install a central system like that right now.

I don’t think he takes into account the costs upfront for installation as well as extras you may need such as furnace filters. I think I need to plead my case one more time on why I would prefer to get propane heat installed, and then I'll see what happens. All I know is we're going to need something soon. As much as I love our wood heat I think we do need osmething else.

Just One Of Those Weeks

This has totally been one of those days.  I attempted to go shopping for Christmas presents, but it’s just too much of a madhouse out there for me to deal with in my current state of mind.  This is one of those days I’d like to pick a place on the map, oh let’s say like the Dominican Republic, and say ok let’s search for puerto plata hotels and get the heck out of here for a few days or weeks or even months!

I’ve been ill all day mostly because it seems like everything I buy lately is either broken in the box, quits working right after I get it home, or doesn’t match the label on the box.

Hubby’s entertainment system I bought him for Christmas died a week after we bought it.  It’s an RCA RT2870.  It worked fine for days then one day I tried to turn it on and nothing happened.  The red light on the power button is on, but when you hit the button or try to turn it on from the remote the blue light around the volume control flashes then nothing happens. Then I started smelling that hot wire smell you get when wires are melting.

I would take it back to the store, but Hubby threw away the box even though I’ve told him a gazillion times never throw away a box for anything electronic or anything that costs that much until I know I’m not going to need to return it.  I told him to put the receipt on my desk, but I can’t find that either, so if he threw it away we’re screwed.  We can’t RMA it without the receipt!  I swear he never listens.

Sigh.  I think the issues are just with Hubby’s presents because his other Christmas present didn’t work either.  I bought him the installation kit to hook up his stereo in the Blazer, and it ended up being the wrong kit.  I didn’t buy the wrong one.  The wrong kit was actually placed in the wrong packaging.  Luckily I had the receipt for that one and returned it, but not until after Hubby spent an hour taking the dash apart in the Blazer to install the thing.  That put him in a bad mood which means it put me in a bad mood, too.  When he’s ill he’s going to make me ill!

I seriously need to just take a nap, but with the baby wide awake right now that’s not going to happen.  She’s fussy as well, so she must be reading off our moods.  Maybe I just need to walk outside and scream real good.

That Time Of The Year

I hate this time of year.  I love Christmas, but I hate the Christmas shopping season.  I have such a hard time buying for my family and friends because I don’t know what anyone wants.  This year add the fact that I have absolutely no time to do my shopping.  Heck I’ve been trying all day to get this post written, and I’ve had to save my draft at least a dozen times.  Every time I think I have a minute or two to blog the baby tells me otherwise by waking up screaming.
Anywho, so what do you get for those that are considered hard to buy for?  I thought about getting gift cards to favorite restaurants, but I don’t know where half of them would prefer to eat.  I could always fall back on the generic gift cards to Walmart or even those prepaid debit cards, but that seems lame to me.
I know my Mom is wanting to replace all her cheap blinds with the nicer faux wood ones, so I may talk to my Grandma about splitting the cost to buy those for her.  The only problem with that is she lives in a manufactured home from the 70s, and the ones made back then don't exactly have your standard size windows. She has a hard time finding blinds that fit, so we'd most likely have to have them custom ordered and/or custom cut at the store. That could get expensive. Sigh. I guess I'll figure something out, but I do need to do it quickly. If I don't get my shopping done this weekend I'll never get it done. The only present I've bought was for Hubby, and that one is going to have to be returned to the store because it doesn't work! Yeah it's going to be a busy weekend.

How My Netbook Improved My Life

I've been wanting a netbook for awhile now because I thought having one would make my life much easier. First of all I wouldn't have to repair my laptop that's seriously outdated anyway. I've had it tucked in a drawer for months needing repair, but I just haven't felt like doing it. I thought having a netbook would be much easier because it would be so much easier to carry with it's small size especially now that I'm lugging around a baby tucked in a car seat and a diaper bag everywhere I go!

Even though I've wanted one for awhile I had decided to put my purchase off until after the new year since we had so much other stuff to worry about with the baby and then the holidays coming up. Then I ended up in the hospital for 9 days laid up in bed bored out of my mind with nothing to do but watch tv and listen to the beeping of my monitors. I wasn't physically able to take care of my newborn, so Hubby was handling that while I was shooting off short little text and picture messages to Facebook and Twitter from my phone. That was the only contact I had with the online world, the only way to share my new baby girl with my online friends, and my only way to contact my bosses to let them know of my emergency hospital stay.

That's when we realized how much easier those 9 days could have been if I'd had my netbook already. I could have taken advantage of the free wifi in my room, and I couldn't have not only contacted everyone I needed to contact, but I could have even kept working from my hospital bed! I could probably say I would have been the only woman in history to go back to work within hours of delivering lol!

Hubby decided he was going to buy me one as my Christmas present, so I picked out the one I wanted, and he ordered it from Amazon on Black Friday. I decided I wanted the ASUS Eee PC 1005HA-PU1X-BK 10.1-Inch Black Netbook after reading numerous reviews on it. This one has meets all my spec requirements, and it has the 10.5 hour battery life. As it's setup out of the box I'm getting about 8 hours battery life, and that's to be expected since the battery life depends on the computer's power settings.

It arrived Monday, and it's so much more than I expected. I love it, and I'm so glad I chose this one. I'm quite impressed with it, I have to say it has made a world of difference already. For starters I moved my desktop pc back to the office where it belongs which got it out of the living room floor. I can now work on my Netbook in the living room without having to worry about trying to be close to the baby. I was also having to use our tv as my monitor in the living room, and now I can put a movie on for the baby while I work from my netbook. It keeps her occupied, and I get more accomplished. Yep, at 5 weeks she does watch the tv. She's got two movies that totally intrigue her.

Also now I'm not carrying around a huge stack of photos everywhere I go without the baby. Now I'm carrying my netbook, and I can just pop up a slideshow of photos at anytime. Oh yeah, and when the baby's with me the netbook slides perfectly in the outer pocket of the diaper bag.

The best part of all for me is the fact that I can now keep myself occupied at during those late night breastfeeding sessions. I can lay in bed with her, and I can keep myself occupied online so I don't fall asleep without having to turn the tv or lights on which disturb her and make it harder to put her back to bed. When I'm having trouble putting her to sleep I can load up the ambient sound mixer on the Johnson's Baby website, put my laptop near her crib, and let the white noise and various sounds put her to sleep. We've used that technique two nights now when she was fussy and didn't want to sleep!

I never thought a little 10" netbook would make my life so much easier, but it has.