Kids:
Last Thursday it came to my attention Danielle was abusing her internet privileges. To make a long story short (she had been warned the day before about disobedience and breaking of the rules) I ended up taking away her internet access.
There was a brief cold spell so to speak, but after she began talking to me again she seemed to be in a much better frame of mind. Saturday she helped me break down my roll top desk and move it downstairs (my back loved that). Even broken into three major sections which comprise the roll top assembly itself, the slab on top of the desk, and the bottom section with drawers, it is heavy and bulky to move.
She also helped me carry the drawers and do lots of other work arranging and carting things around.
She spent more time with me over that four day period when she lost her internet access and Monday night when she went to her Mom's than she has in ages. We're evaluating ways to give her back some internet access though this will involve adding monitoring and filtering software to her PC, I'll post when applicable on this.
Scott has landed a part time Job at Meijer, a large chain out in this area, they are a combination of a department store and a food store rolled into one. He had 3.5 hours of initial training last night and has computer training today, and will probably start this weekend or sooner. He is very pleased because he has been looking for a job for quite awhile. Unlike my older son who, like his dad procrastinated, Scott made a genuine effort to get a part time job at age 16, and I am very proud of him.
I was really touched last night when he stopped in around 7:30 PM to watch a Scrubs with me since he had not seen me after school as he usually does. That really made my day!
Scott was also happy that I gave him my old TV from my bedroom, even though I also made him clean his room before he could set it up in there. While he has no TV connection, it allows him to play video games in his room.
I took the kids to Hobby Lobby over the weekend as well as Danielle,with a renewed interest in drawing and such, needed some new markers. They were also having a 50% off sale on all storage boxes, so I got us each a retro mock up storage box, and on a trip back Monday where we sadly realized that sale was over, I got them each another small sale item. A large clear fuax diamond for Scott because it looks like one of the Chaos Emeralds from Sonic, and another retro storage container for Daniele, who wants to redecorate her room.
Money Burning a Hole in my Pocket:
We have an update here; as you know I had around $350 from a payroll adjustment that I was going to spend on either a new case and video card for the HTPC or an HD TV for the bedroom. After shopping around I decided to wait until Black Friday because prices were just not god enough; for the $350 I could barley get a 19" HD TV for the bedroom.
I was on edelaino.com, one of those deal of the moment sits and i found a special on a 22" HD LCD PC Monitor with an HDMI port for $199. Since the TV box in the bedroom has an HDMI output I realized I really did not need an HD TV, I just needed an HD display, so, I snagged it up and it looks fantastic! It even has built in speakers.
While this was all well and good it caused quite the ripple effect, and the move of the roll top desk to the basement was part of this. My 'master bedroom' is very small. I have a king size bed on one wall and opposite that wall was the roll top desk with the dresser next to it. There was barely enough room to go into the bathroom with the dresser where it was.
Scott, as noted above, was very pleased with the ripple that caused the old TV to end up in his room!
To optimize placement of the HD Display I tried several rearrangements of the room, all were OK but none were ones I could live with, I even thought of flipping the bed around 180 degrees and mounting the HD display on the wall, the only thing that stopped me is since the head of the bed currently is wedged in a small space because the door into the bedroom protrudes into the room and than falls back about a 2 feet, if I turned the bed around it would be very difficult to tuck in the covers and such. With the head of the bed in there is is doable, just.
SO I decided to remove the roll top desk and center the dresser directly across from it with the HD display there.
Sadly, more ripple effect was about to happen! For those who remember this post from January, I had bought a nice four drawer file cabinet. I am the first to admit I procrastinate, and, while I had built the cabinet back in January as of this past weekend it had a mountain (well, almost 2 feet!) of paperwork stacked on top of it that needed to be filed away.
Since the drawers had to be removed from the roll top desk, and all paperwork and other items be removed from under the roll top itself, I easily ended up with another 2 foot tall pile of paperwork. I spent Saturday afternoon, and later Saturday night until 2 AM Sunday morning, sorting and throwing out items that could be trashed and shredding sensitive items that were no longer needed. What was left was filed away in individually labeled pendaflex file folders in the new cabinet.
Now, whenever something needs o be filed it is a joy rather than a chore, I just put it in the appropriate folder! The file drawers in the old roll top desk, now reassembled down in my basement office are delegated for historical storage. Right now they hold tax returns and other archival information.
It is way, way, cool! Yes, I should have done this ages ago, I now have an easily maintainable filing system, a bed room that seems somewhat bigger, and HD TV in the bedroom.
Last Thursday it came to my attention Danielle was abusing her internet privileges. To make a long story short (she had been warned the day before about disobedience and breaking of the rules) I ended up taking away her internet access.
There was a brief cold spell so to speak, but after she began talking to me again she seemed to be in a much better frame of mind. Saturday she helped me break down my roll top desk and move it downstairs (my back loved that). Even broken into three major sections which comprise the roll top assembly itself, the slab on top of the desk, and the bottom section with drawers, it is heavy and bulky to move.
She also helped me carry the drawers and do lots of other work arranging and carting things around.
She spent more time with me over that four day period when she lost her internet access and Monday night when she went to her Mom's than she has in ages. We're evaluating ways to give her back some internet access though this will involve adding monitoring and filtering software to her PC, I'll post when applicable on this.
Scott has landed a part time Job at Meijer, a large chain out in this area, they are a combination of a department store and a food store rolled into one. He had 3.5 hours of initial training last night and has computer training today, and will probably start this weekend or sooner. He is very pleased because he has been looking for a job for quite awhile. Unlike my older son who, like his dad procrastinated, Scott made a genuine effort to get a part time job at age 16, and I am very proud of him.
I was really touched last night when he stopped in around 7:30 PM to watch a Scrubs with me since he had not seen me after school as he usually does. That really made my day!
Scott was also happy that I gave him my old TV from my bedroom, even though I also made him clean his room before he could set it up in there. While he has no TV connection, it allows him to play video games in his room.
I took the kids to Hobby Lobby over the weekend as well as Danielle,with a renewed interest in drawing and such, needed some new markers. They were also having a 50% off sale on all storage boxes, so I got us each a retro mock up storage box, and on a trip back Monday where we sadly realized that sale was over, I got them each another small sale item. A large clear fuax diamond for Scott because it looks like one of the Chaos Emeralds from Sonic, and another retro storage container for Daniele, who wants to redecorate her room.
Money Burning a Hole in my Pocket:
We have an update here; as you know I had around $350 from a payroll adjustment that I was going to spend on either a new case and video card for the HTPC or an HD TV for the bedroom. After shopping around I decided to wait until Black Friday because prices were just not god enough; for the $350 I could barley get a 19" HD TV for the bedroom.
I was on edelaino.com, one of those deal of the moment sits and i found a special on a 22" HD LCD PC Monitor with an HDMI port for $199. Since the TV box in the bedroom has an HDMI output I realized I really did not need an HD TV, I just needed an HD display, so, I snagged it up and it looks fantastic! It even has built in speakers.
While this was all well and good it caused quite the ripple effect, and the move of the roll top desk to the basement was part of this. My 'master bedroom' is very small. I have a king size bed on one wall and opposite that wall was the roll top desk with the dresser next to it. There was barely enough room to go into the bathroom with the dresser where it was.
Scott, as noted above, was very pleased with the ripple that caused the old TV to end up in his room!
To optimize placement of the HD Display I tried several rearrangements of the room, all were OK but none were ones I could live with, I even thought of flipping the bed around 180 degrees and mounting the HD display on the wall, the only thing that stopped me is since the head of the bed currently is wedged in a small space because the door into the bedroom protrudes into the room and than falls back about a 2 feet, if I turned the bed around it would be very difficult to tuck in the covers and such. With the head of the bed in there is is doable, just.
SO I decided to remove the roll top desk and center the dresser directly across from it with the HD display there.
Sadly, more ripple effect was about to happen! For those who remember this post from January, I had bought a nice four drawer file cabinet. I am the first to admit I procrastinate, and, while I had built the cabinet back in January as of this past weekend it had a mountain (well, almost 2 feet!) of paperwork stacked on top of it that needed to be filed away.
Since the drawers had to be removed from the roll top desk, and all paperwork and other items be removed from under the roll top itself, I easily ended up with another 2 foot tall pile of paperwork. I spent Saturday afternoon, and later Saturday night until 2 AM Sunday morning, sorting and throwing out items that could be trashed and shredding sensitive items that were no longer needed. What was left was filed away in individually labeled pendaflex file folders in the new cabinet.
Now, whenever something needs o be filed it is a joy rather than a chore, I just put it in the appropriate folder! The file drawers in the old roll top desk, now reassembled down in my basement office are delegated for historical storage. Right now they hold tax returns and other archival information.
It is way, way, cool! Yes, I should have done this ages ago, I now have an easily maintainable filing system, a bed room that seems somewhat bigger, and HD TV in the bedroom.
4 comments:
You know dad, I DID work for mom starting when I was 16 or so :P
... and a fond memory of time with Danielle.
Glad you found the perfect way to burn that money.
Chris - As we discussed via e-mail, you did do work for mom, but she gave you that job after getting tired of waiting for you to find one. I am proud of you however for doing good in college and in your partner company job in your B sessions!
Like me, you do procrastinate, and subscribe to the philosophy of "Never do today what can be put off until tomorrow!"
Bev - It's funny but this past week with no Internet both the X and I have seen a drastic improvement in d's attitude and the amount of time she will spend with us!
AND I still have $150 of that payroll adjustment to spend!
Whoo Hooo!
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