The Appliance Virus

So, Saturday the dryer caught this mechanical virus that's going around and died. Then yesterday while we were on our way to a meeting at the Habilitation Center the car overheated, due probably to a water pump going bad...still waiting to hear from the garage ICU on that one...

Then in the afternoon my daughter says "The washer is leaking." It appears that the washer had caught the appliance virus from it's partner, the dryer, and it died as well. What a shame, they loved each other so much and they were only three years old.

The hall bathroom faucet also has the virus...and I'm watching the toaster closely for symptoms.

How come it can never be just ONE major thing that breaks down? And why do they all break down right before Christmas?

Answer: Appliances are a sentient evil beings who take great pleasure in our angst.

Who Does This??? Really...

This AM our dryer stopped working. We go through washers and dryers faster than the average family with 2.5 kids. WAY faster. Washing clothes and sheets for 11 people tends to do that to a machine.

If I had a nickle for every dryer we've had to buy over the past 39 years...well I'd have about 60 cents...

Faced with calling a repairman, who would probably charge $70 to even get in his car and come here, and then charge us another $100 for parts, my husband started looking at Lowes and Home Depot. Well even the cheapest new dryer runs $300. So I suggested he look on Craigslist.org

He found a one year old Hotpoint dryer for $165. It's still under warranty. And I'm sure it's been used once a week for that past year.

Reason for the owner selling it? She finally found a dryer to MATCH her washer. I wasn't aware that a dryer had decorative value. Like, "Welcome to my home! Would you like to see my matching washer and dryer?"

I can't complain, though. If there were not people out there who would give away perfectly good clothing and furniture, my kids would have far fewer clothes, and I would have no playroom furniture, and the kids wouldn't all have their own TVs.

This lady offered to bring the dryer to us for an extra $25..but like any self respecting large adoptive family, we have a 15 passenger van, and a 23 year old son with Down Syndrome who just loves to help his father do stuff like this.

Life is good.

Christmas Already?

This pic is of the Brazilian Pepper Tree that is "non native" to this area, and homeowners are supposed to cut it down. Because of this, no self respecting suburban tract home would ever have one in their yard.

Living where we do, on an acre of land on a dead end street, though, we have that option. They do run rampant, and we cut some down, but I simply love this tree. InOctober the tiny yellow blossoms turn into white berries, and now in early November they are taking on a pretty pearly blush color.

Around Christmas time there will be multitudes of bright red berries , which with their cool green leaves look pretty much like regular Christmas holly.

The berries do have a pepper taste to them, but in large quantities they are poisonous, so I don't bring bowers of them into the house at Christmas. You'd have to eat a lot to get sick, but with my kids, I just don't trust it. They've been known to eat weirder things.

It's one of the only ways we know that the seasons are changing, as we don't get snow or very bad cold snaps. Winter here is a joy.

My husband and I have spent over 40 Christmas seasons together. Our first holiday together was back in 1968 when we were teaching in a little rural town called Ridgway, PA. Now they got SNOW!. It was kind of like living in a Currier and Ives illustration. The old buildings and store. The Victorian homes. No fast food restaurants, no big chain stores. We had to bundle up to go Christmas shopping in a snow storm that first year.

Best photo I could find of Ridgway
We went from family run store to family run store to find gifts for our combined families. The city had colorful lights strung, and everyone was happy and friendly.

We actually went out to a farm and picked out a cut tree that year, and it cost us all of about $5. We sat in our third floor apartment in the old Bogert Hotel (which was mostly for hunters) and created our own ornaments from styrofoam balls, ribbon and pins and sequins. And on Christmas ever we made the long trek down to Freeport, PA, where his folks were from, and then to my parent's home in Penn Hills, a suburb of Pittsburgh.

I wish it could all be that simple again. I'm thinking when the kids are all grown in a few years, and we have our own normal sized little house, maybe it can be that simple again.

Bubbles Bubbles and More Bubbles

This photo is of Jennifer, Danielle and a friend's baby. Jennifer is 22 and enjoys being a responsible adult now. That includes going to work at the Hab Center and bringing home a paycheck every two weeks. And, of course putting the paycheck in the bank and buying things for herself.

Last night, quite a while after dinner, Jen decided on her own to run a second load of dishes for the day. Neither of us noticed this. Apparently she discovered that we were out of dishwasher detergent, so, priding herself on her independence, she improvised and used dishwashing liquid.

A while later my husband went into the kitchen and was faced with a wall of soap suds. This kind of stuff doesn't faze us or get us upset. It's such a minor thing in the scale of problems we face every day. He got out the wet-dry vacuum, but it, too overflowed with bubbles.

Anyway, this AM we can put the dishwasher back together again and everything is dry.

My Little Destructo Twins, Matt and Jenny

When Matt and Jen were little we called them "the destructo twins." Everything they touched they broke.Up until they were about 8 or so, that was very true. And, having parented nine kids with DS from birth, I think that attribute runs across the board. They delight in pulling up vinyl flooring, taking a loose thread from a carpet and pulling it down to the backing. Banging holes in the wall, and then proceeding to enlarge them bit by bit. Mangling toys.

But when they hit middle school age, all that is usually over. I say usually, because there is always an exception.

My Jeremy, who is 14, is STILL a destructo kid. For three years he's gotten a new cd player/radio for Christmas, and within a month each time the thing has been broken. I told him he wasn't getting a new one this year. (But that's OK, as he really really wants one of those spiderman gloves that shoots silly string webs.)

He also recently kicked holes in his hollow core bedroom door, and then took it apart piece by piece, until there was nothing left. Somehow I don't think things are going to change with this young'un. He's also my only real runner. Gotta watch him 24/7.

Gotta love them all...

ROFL - CATS

My friend, Helen, sent this to me this AM. Love it, because it's so true!

If only they were all this easy to solve

Had to laugh this AM when I got a phone call from the Habilitation Center, where Matt and Jen work. Both have down syndrome, and Matt (seen here at last year's special olympics equestrian event) is 23 and Jennifer is 22. I hate to get calls from schools, so when even the Hab Center calls, although it's not a school, I have to steel myself for what is to come.

The supervisor says,"We have a big problem." But she's laughing. I say, OK, What is it?

She says, "Matt is in here all worried and thinking that he needs to come home...because he has a hole in his underwear."

After we both stopped laughing, she said, "I told him I'd call you and let you know, so he'd go back to work."

She said, "If only all the problems we had here were that easy to solve."

Ain't that the truth!

Glorious Morning

Got up this AM to take Jack outside on his never ending search for the perfect place to drop his poop. Summer is finally winding down here. The overgrown back yard was quiet for once. No air conditioners running anywhere- it's about 74 degrees this morning.

The tree frogs are buzzing happily, bird are chirping, the black and yellow butterflies are floating about. The only noise is the dull drone of traffic from the highway about three miles away. Sound travels too well here because everything is flat.

But what's really glorious about the morning is that it rained last night and everything is washed clean. The trees are still dripping down on Jack and I. I so love the rain. It feels like God is washing everything clean for a fresh start. Not just outside, but in my heart as well.

When you start a day with joy, the rest of the day will be joyful. I wish it would rain here every morning.