Thursday, September 14

My Trouble With Blogging

Is that I rarely have one thing to talk about. It's all a-jumble in my head. (Which, incidently also makes it really hard to come up with titles for my blogs.) Cute things Olivia does, problems I'm having with different appliances... and really that's about all that changes from day to day. We don't go out, we have no friends and no adventures. Unless you call a bike ride an adventure. We did ride through some sprinklers. Scary. I used to solely blog pictures and explanations of different funny/odd/cute things Olivia would do. But now when she does something funny/odd/cute and I go running for the camera, she stops and comes running towards me as soon as she hears the thing turn on. A lot of our pictures now-a-days are of her right up in the camera lens, reaching for it. I've had to become sneaky-sneaky with the camera. I hide it behind my back and turn it on while talking and then get down, flash the camera really quick, then hide it again. Which results in fuzzy pictures. None-the-less, here are some recent ones.

This is what Olivia looks like after her nap, watching I Love Lucy. She's a little bit of a zombie.


Here she is in her new fall wardrobe (Yay, jeans that fit cloth diapers!). I tried to get a pic of her facing me, but as soon as she turned around and saw the camera...


This happened.


Oh, yeah, and while Grandma and Grandpa Brooke (that's my side of the family - don't be confused) came to visit over Labor Day, They helped us buy a potty for Olivia! Not that she's ever used it, but when I can tell she's about to poop, I say, "Do you want to go in the potty?" and she heads towards the bathroom. So I thought it's never to early to try! She mainly just sits there and reads books.


And she has this weird thing she does recently. She covers herself with a blanket and runs into walls.


Isn't this adorable? And shocking that she let me take a picture of it! I'm glad, because it's rare she ever, ever lies down, and on a person?! I had to get photographic evidence.


And this happened just today. I can only surmise what happened: She had her afternoon juice sippy-cup. She always shares her afternoon juice with her baby doll. She saw her baby doll in the toy box, but she was futher away than she could reach. But does she give up?


But off of the Olivia-topic. Remember when I was talking about appliance problems? I have my fair share to choose from to blog about. For starters, our printer doesn't work. So when I needed to find the Farmer's Market in Lafayette, I Mapquested it, zoomed in on the complicated down-town part, took a picture of it and used my handy-dandy go-go-gadget camera as I navigated those tricky one-way streets. Aren't I creative? :)

I don't have a picture of this one, but I would really appreciate some input. Another appliance that has been nothing but a headache is our dishwasher. Over the weeks we've lived here, it has steadily turned our glasses and plates white with this strange residue. And it doesn't just rinse off. It has to be scratched off with a fingernail. Is it soap? Is it our hard water? I've tried with powder degergents, liquid detergents, the expensive Cascade liquid detergent, heated dry on, deated dry off - it just keeps getting worse! I finally resorted to handwashing dishes - but that's so annoying! We have a dishwasher! Or rather, a dish-dirtier. Anyone else have this problem? Anyone ever solved this problem? If not, ask your moms. I'm desperate. And I'm a housewife. Hehe.

And finally - the TV that Josh and Olivia were working on so hard. The problem was that the on/off button wasn't working. So Josh thought he could fix it by taking the whole thing apart (we know the truth - he just wanted to gut the thing to see how it worked). He solved the problem by removing the button entirely. Which left a gaping hole leading to circuitry, so that is now covered with tape. What's that you say? How do we turn our TV on and off without a button? (P.S. Olivia broke the remote a long time ago and no other remote will work. Josh blames the remotes, I blame the TV) We're lucky enough to have a freak TV that turns on when you press the volume up button on the TV. And to turn it off, we unplug it. So that's how Olivia helped Daddy fix the TV.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dishwasher:

I know I'm just a random person, but the white stuff on the dishes is probably lime. I'd try using jet-dry or some other brand of rinse agent in the dishwasher, per the package directions. Most dishwashers have a special spot to put this stuff in. You can also try running vinegar through the dishwasher.

If it's really bad you might also need a water softener. Does this also happen when you boil a pot of water on the stove?

The other thing is that you could be etching the glass in the dishes (although if it scrapes off, probably not.) Use less soap if that's happening.

FJ said...

I was going to point to the water too. Upland water is awful, and it was horrid on our dishes when I was there. Jet dry or some type of calcium deposit remover. Another thing to try to see if it is the water is leave some water in a clear glass out overnight. If there's white stuff in the bottom, it's your water. (This is better than the boiling because sometimes boiling makes it stick to the pan, this wont stick, just be flaky at the bottom)

FJ said...

Oh, and as to the printer, you dont happen to have an HP do you? Mine keeps messing up and my sister, who has a totally different HP printer, is also experienceing problems. I'm not so happy with their printers. Hopefully their computer is better... since we just got one.

Beth @ The Natural Mommy said...

YES it IS an HP!! :( And we used jet-dry yesterday and there was some improvement. It still doesn't remove peanut butter...

ashley said...

I have to rinse off all my dishes before putting them in the dishwasher - especially peanut butter!! Knives are the worst, so I try to rinse them off right as we're done using them - before whatever it is is dried on.

I had some trouble with spots on my dishes, but I switched detergents (from a generic to a name brand) and all is okay now. So I'm not much help in that area. :-/

Beth @ The Natural Mommy said...

Hey Ashley -
I find myself wiping off all the dishes before putting them in the dishwasher, but that makes me think - why don't I just clean them by hand, since that's what I'm basically doing anyway! I don't know, are my expectations of a dishwasher too high? I've never had this problem with any other dishwasher. But, Frankie, I didn't have one in Upland, so maybe it's just as bad there. Maybe I should switch to a brand name detergent. I just hate spending the extra money. But if that, combined with jet-dry and a good rinse will work, I suppose it's worth it.

ashley said...

Well here's how I figure it. I pay a flat rate for my water. If I rinse all my dishes in cold water, then I'm not paying for gas to heat the water. And since it takes me FOREVER to wash dishes I figure I'm paying the same amount to run the dishwasher. Of course, I try to only run the dishwasher when it's full. If it isn't and I need the dishes, then I wash them by hand. I figure it all works out in the end. And my hands appreciate not having to sit under hot water washing dishes! (Oh, and I try to always rinse the dishes right when I'm done using them - a little bit of water to clean off a plate is better than waiting until it's caked on!)