Sunday, October 07, 2007

Weekend Wrap Up

* Isn't that a fabulous photo? I love it. I took the camera outside yesterday and did an impromptu photo shoot with my kids. I decided I wasn't shelling out $$ for school pics this year, and did my own. I am very pleased with how they turned out, and I like that I can just order the sizes I want. For MUCH cheaper. My favorite little 3 year old came outside when I was finishing up, and I took 2 photos of her with Ms. Thang.. and a gorgeous one of her by herself. So I order a few of her for her mom as well. The light was perfect for photos, and I just love how the sun shines down through this tree in late afternoon. Gorgeous. This is the maple tree that sits next to my driveway on the inside of the fence. It dumps a TON of leaves on the driveway and into the yard, but I don't care. It's worth it in my opinion. It hasn't been lost on me that we will have less leaves to rake this year since the loss of our tree over the summer. Speaking of that, I put down grass seed last weekend, and it's rained once since. Figures huh? but we have a chance of rain every day this week, so I guess that's alright. Hopefully some grass will grow somewhere.


* We went apple picking yesterday. Each year it gets later, in the hopes that it will be cooler... but yesterday it was 80+ degrees out, so my plan isn't working out so good now is it? Wacky weather shifting going on in the northeast. Stays warmer longer.. snow shows up later.. stays cold and rainy well into late June. So anyhow.. today I put in my first batch of Crockpot applesauce. There is nothing that screams fall more than cinnamon applesauce simmering in the kitchen all day. The plus side of this warm weather.. is I haven't had to turn on my heat yet. A few years ago it was a stretch to get to October 1st, and some years we didn't make it. The past 3 years it's been well into October. Maybe in a few more years we'll make it to November. But I doubt it.

* If you ever have the misfortune of a ball point pen making it into your dryer, and getting ink all over your clothes, and dryer... rubbing alcohol and a lot of elbow grease will get it out of most every type of fabric. Some cottons don't give up ink... so accept that some of your clothing will be a loss. Fight the urge to beat your son.. er.. the guilty party into oblivion. You might note that I have nagging tendencies. It's not like I allow laundry to be just tossed into the washer. There is sorting and nagging involved. Ms. Thang found her allowance in her jeans before they were laundered today. Apparently someone, we won't name names, couldn't be bothered to check there pockets and just "yes mom"-d me... and well.. there was much cursing involved. The kicker is that the several items I had to dispose of.. belonged to the party who didn't put her... their laundry into the washer without checking pockets.

8 comments:

Sgt said...

Our wash bane are markers. Apparently my kids confused the term "washable".

The drain catch in our front loading washing is my secret piggy bank. Every few months I go in and pull off the hose and clean it out. So far $19 in change and a silver necklace is my record. Even better, its like recycled allowance.

DeKalb Public Library said...

When you took your "school" pictures, was it with a digital camera? If it was, where did you get your prints printed? I'm searching for a good online upload-to-prints service.

Katherine said...

Sorry, that last one was me. Blogger apparently can't read my mind. Silly.

onescrappychick said...

How do you clean that.. I have a front loader ... for 5 years.. and have never cleaned the drain catch LOL

Carly said...

I really like the leaf photo! I also use Snapfish quite a bit. I did buy an HP printer that will do 4x6 and 5x7 but I'm going to stick to 5x7's with it because the ink costs too much to do ALL of the 4x6 I want. The quality on Snapfish is pretty good. I do a bunch of prints and once because of shipping but now they have an option where sometimes youcan print locally.

PS: my laundry demon is TISSUE.

Sgt said...

I learned about the drain trap when we had a service guy come out and mock us as to how simple it was when the washer stopped draining right. Apparently a coin had lodged into the blades that spin to drain it.

To check ours, there is an access panel below the front door. It takes 4 screws and it pops off. (oh.. make sure you unplug it). Then there is a big hose like thing that comes down from below the wash drum (I have no idea the technical terms for these things). Right before the hose goes into the pump piece, there is a section that sort of drops down on the hose. This is the trap. To take it off, you need a good grip and some pliers to remove the pressure clamp that connects the hose to the pump. Once you've gotten it off, its just a matter of reaching in and cleaning out the trap (which is just a little pit full of anything that made it to the hose). Depending on space, you might be able to dump it out into a bucket, but with ours there was little space or slack to do anything.

FYI: Expect water in that hose.

Happy Treasure Hunting

onescrappychick said...

Well.. who knew?!?! I'll have to have The Boy do this when he comes home... I'm prone to breaking things when I start projects like this without him. HAHAHAHA.

Sgt said...

maybe he can help me figure out why changing the cord on my dryer (from 3 prong to 4) went from 2 minute job to 25 minutes of cursing and giving up after the stupid little screws which hold the wires don't seem to tighten now.