Computer Access for Kids

It is a love hate relationship! I personally love the internet. It allows me to learn and find out things that either I would never know or it would take me forever to access. On the other hand, I hate the internet. It is the portal to ruining your teenager. They have access to everything. Even when you give them a little leash and freedom, they access more – sometimes without you even understanding or knowing what they are doing.

As the experts recommend, our computer is in a public place in the house, but apparently they are quick to minimize. I do appreciate reflections in dark windows though.

It is funny, to us old folks, we are afraid that every keystroke is visible to someone else on the web. To the younger generation, I think they think of the computer as a shield that no one can identify themselves through.

I’m not sure that the good outweighs the bad. It used to be that you could protect your children if you just kept them away from the bad characters or the bad sections of town. Now those things have direct access to your own living room.

I have now changed the access to our computers so that only I can log the kids in. Therefore they can only use it with my direct absolute supervision, as opposed to reasonable oversight, but unfortunately I’m sure it is only a matter of time before they figure out how to get around that. Hopefully, their frontal lobe will have developed by then.

How to Fix a Leaky Toilet

It is like water torture in our house. The toilet keeps refilling about every 15 to 30 seconds. I had mentioned it to DH who keeps pooh-poohing all the jobs left to get the house in perfect shape for the market. I got so frustrated I actually went online to try to find out as much as I could and maybe fix it myself. I learned that scrubbing the seal in case gunk had built up can be any easy fix. I figured that would be an easy place to start and I probably couldn’t screw up too much.
Daringly, I tried it (I don’t have a real good track record on such home repairs). Some black stuff came off but it did not seal any better. Then the seal stuck up and all the water drained out of the toilet. Of course, we only had minutes until another showing and I was freaking out. When I finally got the seal working again, I was not going to touch it anymore. So on it continues to run.

I have begged, pleaded, and, yes, nagged, but to no avail. I tried to explain how a buyer would perceive it, but there was / is always something else to do. Sure enough, what comment comes back from the last showing, “Did you know the toilet’s running?” I forwarded the realtor’s comments to DH. This morning, I think I have him cornered and we are going to go to Home Depot. Of course there is still the light switch, the door, and the trim to get done too. As my father said last night, “Right now, I bet you wish you were renting.” Meaning that we could just finish the lease and be gone instead of this protracted sale. As always, fathers are right.

Webkinz

Do your children get into Webkinz?



My kids have been obsessed with them for a couple of years now. Even my 13 year old still wants Webkinz. Now I have to admit that some of the stuffed animals are very cute, but I am so confused by the games on the computers. DS was just explaining to me that he thought the Chihuahua might be November's pet of the month and if you added him next month you would get an extra token. Of course I'm so lame that that didn't mean a whole lot to me. He said that you need ten tokens to make the wishing machine work (don't worry that didn't clear it up for me either)or more for something specific. You can get all sorts of things from the wishing machine like a quad, milk truck, and so on. At least Webkinz are better than furbies.



One night I go so fed up with furbies chatter, I actually killed it. I took the batteries out and I finally hid it. Worse than furbie were these darn virtual Pet things. I believe they were made by a couple different manufacturers.




They were cute at first, the kids could take care of their own pet, but they soon became annoying and obsessive. And then those virtual pets led to virtual pets on the computer like SimDog.net. DD became a slave to the computer. If you didn't feed, brush, wash, and exercise the animal at appropriate times,you were "killing" your animal. DD practically went into seizures when we went on a trip and did not have access to "care" for the animals. Mind you I don't think the welfare of our own animals crossed her mind once. (For those of you who think such a cyber animal teaches responsibility - my first hand research says "NO").

At least the Webkinz, let the kids "take care" of their pets, but don't penalize them for living life in the real world, nor do they make horrible repetative sounds in the middle of the night. This trend may be a keeper.

Ringtones that Adults Can't Hear

Can you believe that there is a high pitched ringtone that adults don’t hear the same way teenagers do? DD found it on a website for ringtones (She is still dreaming about getting a cell phone). I could only hear the faintest noise, certainly if it was a cell phone in my purse, I would never hear it. Frankly, I’m lucky if I hear it if on full blast. I looked up information and got mixed information, but the basic concept seems to be that adults lose the ability to hear certain frequencies. Even if adults hear it, we don’t hear it to the same extent that teenagers do. If you want to try to hear it, check out the story on NPR.

If only I could get her to talk to her friends on the phone in that tone then my house would take on a new peace. (I don’t really mean that because then I wouldn’t know what she was up to, but a woman can dream).

Congressman Courtney Responds

DS had to write to a Senator or Congressman about an issue that he cared about. He wrote to Congressman Joe Courtney about the importance of maintaining our national parks. Today, he received a reply. He was so proud. My I-hate-to-read son read the entire 5 paragraph response. While I’m sure it was written by some assistant, I can’t tell you how much it meant to him.

Crocheting for a Cause

Aside from playing games with daughter that she found in Discovery Girls magazine, what did I do today?



I made baby caps for Knit One, Save One. As I mentioned on my ltginfaith.blogspot.com on Mission Mondays, Knit One, Save One is a project of Save the Children. The program combines a need for infants with political advocacy. So I found some of my x-sister-in-laws yarn that she left behind and then had to pray that I could locate one crochet hook (I wasn't able to in my house, but I called my dad and he found one of my mom's), and off I went. Three hours and some odd minutes later and several YouTube videos later, I had three baby caps ready for mailing.

Perhaps you may be inspired to try the same, either for this program or for others. Winter is coming and the economy is getting tougher, it may be difficult for all of us. But these caps sure made me feel better, if you need a pick-me-up, pick up your knitting needles or crochet hook. If you are not sure what to do with them, YouTube is a great resources. Keep searching until you find instructions that make sense to you.

Natural Artworks

Sometime when you do your chores, you find little moments of grace. DS is fighting a nasty cold so I did his chores today. As I brought the compost up to the compost pile, I found this tree:






Isn't it beautiful.

Here are a couple other art pieces that God made to decorate my yard.




I got to see them up close as I got to leaf blow for the first time in my life. When we ran out of gas, I finished the old fashioned way with a rake and a tarp. Man, can leaves be heavy. Sadly, tonight you would not even that I worked on the yard. Ok, my muscles know, but people looking at my yard would not.