Housekeeping
Since Liz sold her Mac and got the eee PC, I've assumed responsibility for storing and organizing our photos and videos. Yesterday I copied all of the videos from our camera to my computer, made sure they became a part of my nightly backup job, and titled them all with a date and description. I also copied all of the photos from our digital camera that we've taken since Liz sold her Mac. I'll probably be doling out pictures and videos to flickr and youtube in small batches between now and Christmas. I am very happy, though, that they get backed up to my office in Lindale on a nightly basis. At this point, it would take a lot for us to lose our pictures of Margaret. Even if our house burns down, I'll still have a copy of every picture we've ever taken. Having "lost" all of my pictures before, this makes me feel very comfortable with our current situation.
Teeth!
In case you didn't notice Liz's comment to my previous post, Margaret's first tooth make it's appearance on Monday.
Stupid Band-Aid Tricks
The other morning, as I was opening a bandaid in my semi-dark bedroom, I noticed a faint blue glow emitting from the wrapper as I peeled it open. So I opened a second one and paid close attention. Sure enough, the glue that holds the two halves of the bandaid wrapper together glows as you pull the papers apart. Use this newfound knowledge to amaze your family and friends.
Margaret Update
It's been around three months since my last meaningful post about Margaret. Plenty has happened between now and then. Most of you reading this probably already know most of it, but I'm going to write it all down anyway because I may want to read it again at some point in the future. So where to begin. It looks like the last time I posted about Margaret, she was just starting to roll from her back to her stomach. Back then, it was only a one way process. Now she's has regularly been rolling in both direction for quite some time. She's also started spending more time on the floor and on her stomach. In the last week or two, she's even started the beginning steps towards crawling. When she lays on her stomach she's beginning to pull her legs up under her body and push herself forward.
Hit a Deer
So as many of the 5 or so readers we have may know that we got a new van. Well a week ago Rick and Charla got a new van too. So when they got it we all loaded up in it and went for hot chocolate. Was a lot of fun so this week we thought we would return the treat and take them for hot chocolate in our new van. Not five minutes into the trip and we had hit a deer. I was in the very back and didn't see a thing. Just heard a loud noise and looked out the window were I saw pieces of our new car fly by. From there we of course pulled out to get out and check the damage. Our head light was broken and the drivers side door wouldn't open. Bummer.
Will and Rick went and pulled the deer out of the road so that no other wrecks were caused. We are all just thankful that Will reacted the way he did and did go off the road HWY 346 for the locals that know. Its very curvy and has no sholder. We would have all been in much worse shape had anyother thing happen besides what did. So we are all just thankful for being okay. With a car loaded with kids and families it was pretty easy to get over the fact that our new car was hurt. Plus the car we bought was far from perfet on the extorior to begin with.
So now we are stuck with as a one car family with a somewhat broken car. We knew this would happen at some point just didn't know it would happen with in 24 hours of being a one car familiy. Shouldn't be a big deal as our insurace has a rental car if we choose to file a claim. Will is about to head out to a body shop and just see what it would cost to make the door open. From there we can order and over night the shipping on a new head light and be back in business.
One ironic thing is the car wasn't inspected when we got it I was suppose to carry it up to the dealership to have that done. Well when I called they told me an hour wait. Which I was not willing to do with a baby. So I thought I would spend the 15 bucks myself. Well of course I get out and about going to have it done and Margaret needs a nap. So we come home and we going to do it today before going to Longview. So that of course isn't going to happen. I figure we could throw a fit at the Toyota place for them selling us a car that wasn't inspected. So if it comes to that we might see what they can do for us. But for now just going to try and handle things on our own.
So much for getting to save the first car payment... Or the next few.
Asus EEE PC 1000 Review
So now that I had my Asus eee pc for a little while I have had time to decide how well I like it. A few things to keep in mind are that I am a stay at home mom and I mostly surf the web, read email, and watch videos. The time I do get to spend on the computer happens all over the place, kitchen table, living couch, floor, cooking, etc. Notice I
didn't mention sitting comfortably at a desk for extended lengths of
time. Keeping all these things in mind, I must say that I love my new
computer! It really fits my lifestyle well.
I chose the version with Xandros Linux pre installed. My first
impression of it was god, but I ultimately decided to install Ubuntu
EEE. After a day and a half with Xandros I found it to be a little too
locked down for my liking. However Ubuntu EEE fits the bill just
right. I am able to watch all my shows, email, surf the web, perform
basic photo editing, and pretty much everything else I'd typically done
on my Mac. Won't be playing WOW or anything but I didn't do that in the
past either.
The portability is wonderful. I can easily carry it in one hand and the
baby in the other. The hinge on this thing is "beefy" I would be very
surprised if it ever breaks. It is probably half the weight of the
machine. It also came with a sleeve for when we take it places which was
a nice little perk and something I honestly think should just be
included in the price of any portable machine.
The screen is nice and bright and is very easy and comfortable to use.
The keyboard is great for the size of the machine. There was no learning
curve at all for me. It's 95% the size of a full size keyboard and the
difference is hardly noticable. The Intel Atom Processor is blazing
fast for the little machine. I currently only have one gig of ram but
will probably upgrade to two seeing as its only around $30 to do so.
The only gripe I have so far is that the track pad buttons are a little
more difficult to push than I would like. I have solved that by learning
to tap the track pad to click. I never liked tap clicking before but
having spent a few days doing it, I am used to it. I couldn't have seen
myself liking the tap clicking option a week ago though.
The near eight hour battery life is also very nice considering that I
only have plug it in at night. Its very nice and light in my lap and
doesn't get hot so no risk of buring myself or having to keep it on a
table or desk at all times. I went ahead and opted for the solid state
drive due to having a baby I know it will probably get
bumped/dropped/something so the smaller drive was worth the durability
factor to me. But if you need more space there is a 160GB version.
Over all I would recommend this netbook to anyone with similar usage patterns as myself. Or anyone just looking for a light computer to be able to put in almost anything and carry anywhere. The pros greatly out weigh the cons in my opion. As long as you know what you are getting and you are sure it will meet your needs.
Two to One
It's not often that you trade cars and reduce debt, but that's exactly what Liz and I did today. We've had our Subaru payed off for a few years now, but owed about $7k on our Nissan. As I'm only working out of the house 2 days a week now we'd toyed with the idea of dropping down to a single car for a few months. During that time we've tracked how often both cars were in use at the same time and it wasn't much at all. We kinda wanted a Honda Element or some other similar SUV, but all of those would have increased our monthly expenditures. Rick and Charla got a minivan last week, which I didn't think much of until I heard how much they paid for it. They payed way less than an SUV would cost, and there is a ton of room inside. So we decided to keep our eyes open for one that fit our budget.
For Sale
Well I am eBaying my MacBook. Its been a good computer to me, but I found something new I want. So always have to sale something to get the new toy. I am most likely going to buy this Asus EEE PC. Looks like it will fit my life style great! Be easy to move from a soon to be crawling baby, up to 8 hour battery life, and its very durible to being dropped. The 40 BG SSD sounds sexy... I think I am going to get the black one but I am sure I will change my mind a lot between now and then. I am going to get the linux verison and then install Ubuntu EEE. Looks pretty sweet.
So very excited I always love getting new tech toys. We went a looked at the smaller one at Best Buy last night and look pretty cool.