Aloha Friday | The Angel Forever

Category Archives Aloha Friday

Is being an adult overrated?

Posted on February 27, 2009 12:00 am by TheAngelForever

There are days that I wonder, why do kids always wish they were adults? Seriously, kids do not have to think about the never ending home repairs and expenses. There are no worries about buying new cars. They do not have to work out budgets for groceries, utilities, insurance, vacation, car expenses and the other items needed for life in the so called real world. The list just gets more complex and "interesting" when you add in loans, mortgages and the cost of raising a family. Of course, not everything has to do with money. As an adult, the responsibilities are endless. You need to schedule time to do laundry, get car repairs, clean, organize and perhaps even try to relax.

The last few months have made me wonder why being an adult was something I always longed for. As a child, I do not remember my parents worrying about so much. Is it the recession that is the culprit of all of my fears, or did the adults in my life simply hide everything? Of course, the reality of so many things happening at once made me think about being an adult and taking care of all of the "things" in life.

Today hubby’s car decided it may be giving up. His car is a 1998 Corolla and has 104,000 on it. In the scheme of things, we have hardly done any major repairs on it. Clearly, the car does not owe us anything. The cost of a major repair, assuming it has anything to do with the transmission, is not worth it. We went to test drive a car and may make a final decision after getting some price quotes.

So my question for this week is inspired by all of these adult decisions being made around here lately:

What three things do you wish you did not have to worry about as an adult? If you would like to explain why feel free, if not that is fine.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the Mr. Linky there if you are participating.

Aloha #37

Categories:
Aloha Friday decisions family photos vent

Garbage galore

Posted on February 20, 2009 12:31 am by TheAngelForever

The new refrigerator is finally here and phase one of "Project Clean the House" is finished. The proof is below.

This would be all of the garbage and recycling that we set out. Please excuse the gross nature of the photos (the kids are much nicer to look at), especially three of the cans that were original to the house.

The lesson learned, we need to purge "stuff" more often. Having open space for the boys to play in is important. Once we move toys and clean upstairs we will have a great playroom.

So here are my questions to you this week as we plan phase two of "Project Clean the House":

What are the best ways to store and organize toys? Remember my boys are 5 and 21 months old. Have you ever had a yard/garage/tag sale? If you have had any, tips would be greatly appreciated. We will likely have a sale in the Spring.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the Mr. Linky there if you are participating.

Aloha #36

Categories:
Aloha Friday house photos

Pricey week

Posted on February 13, 2009 12:02 am by TheAngelForever

When we bought our house almost five years ago, we remodeled the entire kitchen. This is why it was needed.

A wall was moved, pass through was put in, new stove/vent/dishwasher were bought. Only one item remained from the original kitchen. That item was the refrigerator.

Over the years the refrigerator has given us a lot of trouble. Not staying cool enough in the summer, forming ice on produce, and the latest water sitting on the bottom and forming chunks of ice that was not in the freezer. The sad part, the refrigerator was manufactured in 2001. Not too old, but not worth spending a lot to fix since it is not an Energy Star appliance.

Over the weekend, we started to look for a replacement. Things went into rapid mode Thursday while I was sitting with JSL and feeding him. I heard water dripping in the kitchen. I followed the noise into the refrigerator. To my horror there was a huge waterfall inside. I moved things around and followed the flow of water. It was coming from on top and everything was soaked. By the time I moved everything and put a container inside to catch the water, it was starting to slow down.

I called JL at work and told him our time was up. We had to make a decision and get a new refrigerator before this one completely died on us. The little guy and I went to two additional stores this morning. After JL got home from work, we brought the boys to Nana and Papa’s house and went to buy a new refrigerator.

I am happy to report that we are the proud new owners of an Amana that has the freezer drawer on the bottom. Now we just hope that the "old" refrigerator keeps plugging before our new one arrives Thursday (they were already booked for Monday delivery).

So my question to you this week:

What is the most expensive item that you bought this week and why did you purchase it?

_____________________________________________________________________________

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the Mr. Linky there if you are participating.

Aloha #35

Categories:
Aloha Friday house shopping

Crafty creations

Posted on February 6, 2009 9:23 am by TheAngelForever

It has been a stressful week here in Angel Land. Some of the culprits include:

Room parent phone calls – Managed to get people to bring in napins, cups and juice. Nobody wants to do cupcakes, so it looks like I shall do that next week to send in on Friday.
Bird fiasco on Wednesday – So many things I wanted to get done were not able to get accomplished since I was waiting for return phone calls.
NHL’s allergies have been out of control – I feel helpless and wish there was something more I can do for him. Several medicine changes have been made and we are hoping one of them works. So afraid of another Singulair situation taking control of my child.
Finalizing plans for Disney World – The only reason this was slightly stressful was thanks to Disney not posting their hours in a timely fashion. This weekend we are able to make our dining reservations, so today/tomorrow we will finalize those items.

Thanks to all of this, I was exhausted at night and never did anything special for my 2 year Blogoversary. Oh well, I can figure that out for next week perhaps. Hmmm. . . . .

When the boys are in bed I have been knitting again. It is something that is mindless and works well to take my attention away from the stress at hand. Of course, I have been stuck making the same knitted cloth for a while. I now have well over 25 of them (need a cloth anyone?). Here are a few:

One of these days I will break out of my shell and make something different. For now these are quick and easy and satisfy my need for knitting. I may try a pair of mittens soon, my friend is supposed to give me a great pattern to try on straight needles.

So here is my question to you this week:

What type of craft activity do you like to do? When did you start doing this and why do you enjoy it?

_____________________________________________________________________________

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the Mr. Linky there if you are participating.

Aloha #34

Categories:
allergies Aloha Friday decisions Disney knitting photos vent

Suitcase solutions

Posted on January 30, 2009 9:01 am by TheAngelForever

When we were married we had a lot of items on our registry. Thanks to keeping a kosher kitchen, we needed two of most cooking items (meat and dairy). With this in mind, we did not register for luggage. JL had a few small pieces and we were given a large one from my grandmother to use for our honeymoon. When we went to Las Vegas Aunt S and Uncle M gave us another piece to use for taking dress clothing.

It has been over six years since our last big trip. When we travel to Disney World we will have to pack for four people for an entire week. Clearly, the few small bags we own will not cut it. So we need to research luggage brands, acceptable sizes for airlines and all of the rest that goes along with serious suitcase studies.

Back in December, on my birthday, I received an e-mail that I had won a Lands’ End rolling duffel bag from Did You See That? I was so excited because it was something we needed very badly. Last night, I packed it for the first time. There is so much room in it thanks to well defined compartments. I was able to put winter clothing for an entire weekend for the two boys and myself. Here are photos of it all packed and ready to go.

Now I wonder if we should take this with us and maybe get more of the larger ones for Disney and beyond. So my question this week:

Do you have any suggestions on what type of luggage to look for? What have you had success with that is durable and good for family travel?

_____________________________________________________________________________

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the Mr. Linky there if you are participating. Th

Aloha #33