Sunday, January 10

Kids' Winter Break from school 2009 - pics

Okay, I said I'd have them all up by Sunday (today). I do have most of them now - all that are missing are a couple of one of my friends; I'm waiting for him to let me know if I can put them online. Click the links to see the full sets on Flickr!

The kids' last day of school before the break was Dec. 18. My in-laws kept the kids for us that weekend so that I could get everything wrapped and re-hidden. They came home early on the 22nd (my MIL had an appointment over here that morning, so it was easier to just drop them off beforehand rather than coming here twice in 24 hours), and the three of us wrapped up the rest of the gifts for their daddy and cousins. This year, Miss Hurricane did a much better job of not telling anyone what we wrapped before they had a chance to open it! :D Not much interesting between then and our leaving for Mom's though, so without further ado:

Christmas at our house

Christmas with Poseidon's family

Bro's middle daughter has a December 30 birthday, so this next set has a couple pictures from that day too:

Christmas at Mom's house

While we were at Mom's, 2009 turned over to 2010. A friend from high school was having a New Year's Eve party and invited us and another friend's family. The moms gave permission for me to post their kids too; here's some of the photos I took that night... I'm still waiting for our other friend for permission to post him. He's active military and I don't want to compromise him in any way, but there is one of the back of his head :P

New Year's Eve fun with friends

I absolutely *love* the 'BROCCOLI!!' picture - she is too adorable but that one was hilarious! We had fun that night though... 6 adults sitting around a table talking and laughing, all the kids got along very well and played everywhere with everything, and nobody even started to leave until almost 1:30 a.m.! There also was no alcohol involved (honestly, a NY first for me) but when surrounded by friends and laughing... who needs it?! We all got to catch up on each other and poked fun too. I got to Mom's house and my face and sides were still sore from all the laughing!

We had a great break and visit with Mom & Dad, but I was glad to get back home too. The kids went back to school on Jan. 3rd, then have had Thursday and Friday off due to snow. It's snowing again, so there's a chance they'll be home again tomorrow - and that's fine with me! Poseidon is off work today, and tomorrow morning, so we have time to hang out in our jammies all day and possibly make snow people - or have a snowball fight!

I hope you all had a great holiday season! Many blessings to you and yours~

Namaste :)

Thursday, January 7

Time for a PSA

PSA = Public Service Announcement.

Most of you know that Dad is an HVAC man - the furnace guy, the central air man, you know - if you're hot in summer or cold in winter, he's the guy to call. Even I went to trade school for it and am still fully certified, although 11 years out of practice. The kids & I recently went up to visit Mom & Dad for Christmas break (more on that soon), and on the first day he shared this with me...

The previous week he got a call from a guy who was having problems with his oil furnace. Dad and Bro (he helps Dad out often) went to see what the problem was. It was not good:



Dad looked at it and knew immediately what happened. When he showed it to me, *I* knew what had happened too - and I haven't looked at an oil furnace in almost 10 years! What you see here is the result of a furnace fire. Luckily, the man was awake and realized what was happening and called the fire department. Very little damage to his house and no one was hurt.
So, when Dad got there and saw what happened, he asked what the man had done before the fire. The man said he'd pushed the reset button (that little hole in the pic), waited and nothing happened, pushed reset again... and the next thing he knew there was black smoke coming out of his kitchen vent.

{PSA portion}
Folks, this will not happen if you push "reset" twice. This kind of fire WILL happen if "reset" is pushed more than 3 times. This is the reason your HVAC tech will tell you to only push it ONCE, then call him (or her ). An oil furnace is a totally different, and sometimes dangerous, beast than an electric or gas furnace; those are 'easy' in comparison. Links - How Stuff Works ~ Oil Furnace, light preventative maintenance and Mother Earth News, 1/1/1986 ~ Oil Furnace Troubleshooting. If you have an oil furnace (and you'll know if you do) you should take the time to read those articles, even if you only read the first page.

If your oil furnace isn't working, push reset ONE TIME. Wait 60 seconds. If it still doesn't work, push the buttons on your phone to call your favorite/nearest repair technician.

{/PSA portion}

I took a few pictures of the furnace as it sat in Dad's driveway. The only fix for this was to install a new furnace, and this one will be scrapped. No parts are left useable. You can see all the pictures here on Flickr, and I included some notes on the pictures as well. Hover over each pic to see the notes.



Love to you
~Amphitrite