The other day my little boy, Garrett, who is in kindergarten brought home the wordless picture book, Pancakes for Breakfast, By Tomie De Paola. I love Tomie De Paola’ s illustrations and have for years ( for several years I illustrated children’s educational materials, so I especially paid close attention to his work.)
This simple book taught me lesson on gratitude.
The story goes through the day of an old woman who lived on a farm. She decided she wanted pancakes for breakfast. She then proceeds to have to milk the cow to get the milk, gather eggs from the chicken coop, churn cream to make butter, go out and purchase syrup from the maple syrup man (at least she could buy that and not have to drain it from the trees herself.)
The cute story goes on from there—but it really made me think.Usually, we have cold cereal, a bagel, a yogurt, instant oatmeal you can heat up in the microwave. Pancakes takes about 2 more minutes, but is still so easy!
All I have to do is take out the pancake mix, add water, plug in the griddle, get out the syrup and butter.
I’m so grateful I have the modern conveniences I have today that make my life easier:
A furnace, a washing machine and dryer, a stove, milk from a gallon jug, etc.
Of course, with all the freed-up time we now have compared to 50 or 100 years ago—we have no problem filling it up with other things. But at least these modern day conveniences give us more choices in how we spend our time.
I guess I can make modern day pancakes-- every once in a while.
-Teresa
momsmakingit.com
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
Monday, October 11, 2004
Up & Running and NETWORKING!
After much frustration, time and compatibility issues, and help from some very kind people, my computer is up and running and even networked to our other computers in our house. Yea! Now I can get down to business with marketing and adding to my website!
Speaking of networking--I want to mention a little more about people networking.
Over the weekend we had a several family hunting/camping trip. We were pushing it as you never know what the weather will be like in the Utah mountains in October--but we were lucky. The weather held out for us--a bit nippy, but perfect for talking around the campfire.
I visited with a friend and told her about my newest project of launching my Moms Making It! website. She is a stay-at-home mom with 3 young children and and could totally relate to the ideas I want to share with moms on the website. She bargain shops and cuts coupons to help make ends meet so she can be home with her kids. She has her struggles with how to discipline her kids (one more than the others, but isn't that usually the case?!) and I shared with her one of my dilemmas in dealing with one of my teenagers (dealing with a 15-year-old is a different kind of hard in dealing with a 3-year-old. Both hard at times, but different.)
She also had many ideas of things I could share on the website:
She received CD as a baby gift that has beautiful songs with her daughter's name dubbed in. All her kids love it! It is now know as the "Carly" CD in their home! (I'll feature details on how to get it one an upcoming newsletter.)
She also mentioned that she always looks for the "Toys R us" game fall sale of "buy1 get 1 free" sale they have in the fall. She stocks up on these games for gifts for Christmas and throughout the year. And wouldn't you know it, when I got home and browsed through the Sunday ads, that sale is featured this week!--guess where I'm headed.
Marlo shared with me websites that she loves to visit and gets great information from. I'm going to visit those sites soon and let you know what I find and recommend.
It was so fun to visit with her and benefit from her great ideas and resources!
So lets network. It doesn't have to be sitting around the campfire, watching kids to be sure they don't pick up hot coals or skewer each other with their roasting sticks.
As much fun as that is...online works fine!
Speaking of networking--I want to mention a little more about people networking.
Over the weekend we had a several family hunting/camping trip. We were pushing it as you never know what the weather will be like in the Utah mountains in October--but we were lucky. The weather held out for us--a bit nippy, but perfect for talking around the campfire.
I visited with a friend and told her about my newest project of launching my Moms Making It! website. She is a stay-at-home mom with 3 young children and and could totally relate to the ideas I want to share with moms on the website. She bargain shops and cuts coupons to help make ends meet so she can be home with her kids. She has her struggles with how to discipline her kids (one more than the others, but isn't that usually the case?!) and I shared with her one of my dilemmas in dealing with one of my teenagers (dealing with a 15-year-old is a different kind of hard in dealing with a 3-year-old. Both hard at times, but different.)
She also had many ideas of things I could share on the website:
She received CD as a baby gift that has beautiful songs with her daughter's name dubbed in. All her kids love it! It is now know as the "Carly" CD in their home! (I'll feature details on how to get it one an upcoming newsletter.)
She also mentioned that she always looks for the "Toys R us" game fall sale of "buy1 get 1 free" sale they have in the fall. She stocks up on these games for gifts for Christmas and throughout the year. And wouldn't you know it, when I got home and browsed through the Sunday ads, that sale is featured this week!--guess where I'm headed.
Marlo shared with me websites that she loves to visit and gets great information from. I'm going to visit those sites soon and let you know what I find and recommend.
It was so fun to visit with her and benefit from her great ideas and resources!
So lets network. It doesn't have to be sitting around the campfire, watching kids to be sure they don't pick up hot coals or skewer each other with their roasting sticks.
As much fun as that is...online works fine!
Friday, October 01, 2004
It's a Love/Hate Relationship
...With my computer, that is! I love my computer when it is working--but when it's not working, the word (H A T E) comes to mind.
Just as I was ready to start marketing my site, my computer died. I saw it coming for the past month: it was getting slower and slower at bringing up programs, it would freeze and I'd have to restart, the CD-rom kept popping out for no apparent reason and it would take up to 10 times of pushing it back in before it would stay. My productivity was going way down, and my frustration was going way up.
My husband started looking for computers for me almost 2 weeks ago. But, the frugal one that I am, told him to hold off--I was going to save my 4-year old computer, and make it last at least a couple more years. I first went through the adware fixes and used McAfee to be sure I didn't have a virus. But that still didn't improve performance. It got so bad that I backed up all important documents and then reinstalled my operating system.
However, my operating system reinstalled next to, not over my old one. I wanted to totally get rid of whatever was causing the problems. So it took another day and a phone call to an expert to get it installed properly.
OK—I’m Ready to start again with a totally clean slate on my computer. I plugged in our DSL modem and installed the software. After a few problems I got it up and working! --for 2 hours that is. Then it began to act schizophrenic!-- IM would work, but IE wouldn't. I'd get on the phone with tech support and then all the sudden, it would work before they did anything. (No, I'm not really calling because I just want to talk to someone!! It really wouldn't work 2 minutes ago!)
Then my computer just shut down randomly. Even with the newly installed operating system!
That's it! After spending 3 days trying to get my computer working, unsuccessfully, I admitted my husband was right. I did need a new computer. That's what it takes--Days of frustration and non-productivity to allow myself to spend $800.
It took half a day of shopping around to find one that was a good deal and would fit my needs now and for the future. I guess I could have gone online to Dell, but every day without a computer meant no work. No moving forward. (Isn't that funny--it is hard to think of life without my computer!!)
Our challenge now is getting my extra internal drive, with all my important data to fit into the new computer. The new computer uses ATA connections for the drives, not serial, which is what my extra drive has, of course. So we purchased an ATA converter, but the drive doesn’t show up as having data on it.
My husband is at the computer store with the computer, drive, ATA converter, etc. trying to find a solution. I thank him for sharing in my frustration. I'll let you know how it turns out. I'm wishing for a happy ending!
Just as I was ready to start marketing my site, my computer died. I saw it coming for the past month: it was getting slower and slower at bringing up programs, it would freeze and I'd have to restart, the CD-rom kept popping out for no apparent reason and it would take up to 10 times of pushing it back in before it would stay. My productivity was going way down, and my frustration was going way up.
My husband started looking for computers for me almost 2 weeks ago. But, the frugal one that I am, told him to hold off--I was going to save my 4-year old computer, and make it last at least a couple more years. I first went through the adware fixes and used McAfee to be sure I didn't have a virus. But that still didn't improve performance. It got so bad that I backed up all important documents and then reinstalled my operating system.
However, my operating system reinstalled next to, not over my old one. I wanted to totally get rid of whatever was causing the problems. So it took another day and a phone call to an expert to get it installed properly.
OK—I’m Ready to start again with a totally clean slate on my computer. I plugged in our DSL modem and installed the software. After a few problems I got it up and working! --for 2 hours that is. Then it began to act schizophrenic!-- IM would work, but IE wouldn't. I'd get on the phone with tech support and then all the sudden, it would work before they did anything. (No, I'm not really calling because I just want to talk to someone!! It really wouldn't work 2 minutes ago!)
Then my computer just shut down randomly. Even with the newly installed operating system!
That's it! After spending 3 days trying to get my computer working, unsuccessfully, I admitted my husband was right. I did need a new computer. That's what it takes--Days of frustration and non-productivity to allow myself to spend $800.
It took half a day of shopping around to find one that was a good deal and would fit my needs now and for the future. I guess I could have gone online to Dell, but every day without a computer meant no work. No moving forward. (Isn't that funny--it is hard to think of life without my computer!!)
Our challenge now is getting my extra internal drive, with all my important data to fit into the new computer. The new computer uses ATA connections for the drives, not serial, which is what my extra drive has, of course. So we purchased an ATA converter, but the drive doesn’t show up as having data on it.
My husband is at the computer store with the computer, drive, ATA converter, etc. trying to find a solution. I thank him for sharing in my frustration. I'll let you know how it turns out. I'm wishing for a happy ending!
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