…discovering there’s more to life than being the mommy
Today Amelia figured out how to get her pacifier in her mouth by herself. Somehow she ended up holding it and she kept trying and trying and finally put it back in her mouth. So she decided to keep practicing. It’s so fun to see her figure it out on her own. Little moments like this are what make being a mom so great.
I’m highly pissed off right now at Target. I did my baby registry with them and have had nothing but problems. I tried to return some items, but you are only allowed to return 2 items in a year without a receipt. They keep track of this with your driver’s license. So like lots of moms, I had to return several packs of diapers because they were the wrong size or brand. Amelia can’t wear Pampers brand. Well, who the hell gives a gift receipt when giving diapers?! No one. So I could only return 2 of the 4 packs, consequently disallowing me to return anything else for the next year! How absurd is this?
So I went today to return some items that I know where showing as purchased on my registry, because as long as it shows purchased on your registry you can return it. You have to print the purchase log though. I went to do that and it turns out there is an expiration date on the darn registry. 90 days, of which I was not aware. So my registry is gone…does not exist and cannot be retreived. Target deletes it completely, like it never existed. I’m once again stuck with items I did not, nor ever will use because I don’t have a receipt (no one gets a receipt for nursing pads either).
Every time I think of this, it pissed me off even more. I will from now on, not be buying anything from Target. All baby needs will be purchased elsewhere. Fortunately there is one other store in town that carries my brand of bottles.
Lesson learned…don’t get a registry from Target, because you know that at least half of what you get won’t be marked off on the registry. Also, if you know someone that has gotten you something at Target, make sure you beg and plead for the gift or original receipt, just in case you ever need to return the item. Because even if it is purchased off the registry, with a new baby in the house, you might not get around to returning the item before the 90 days are up and then you will need that receipt since your registry will become non-existent.
Target is not this new mom’s friend anymore.
Two Names You Go By:
1. Arenys
2. Rayne
Two Parts of Your Heritage:
1. Spanish
2. Italian
Two Things You Are Wearing Right Now:
1. Jeans
2. Knit Cap
Two Things You Would Want in a Relationship:
1. Honesty
2. Trust
Two of Your Favorite Hobbies:
1. Digital Scrapbooking
2. Knitting
Two Things You Want Really Badly At The Moment:
1. Mac Laptop
2. to be a SAHM
Two pets you had/have:
1. Dogs
2. Fish
Two people you talked to today:
1. My husband
2. My instructor (I’m at developer training)
Two things you did last night:
1. Scrapbook
2. Spend time with Amelia
Two people that live in your house:
1. Husband
2. Daughter
Two things you ate today:
1. Toaster struddles
2. Pizza (will eat for lunch)
Two people you miss:
1. My mom (she lives in FL)
2. My daughter (she’s at daycare)
Two Things You’re doing tomorrow:
1. Training
2. Reading
Two vacations you’ve been on:
1. Sedona (honeymoon)
2. Vegas
Two Favorite Holidays:
1. Christmas
2. Thanksgiving
Two favorite Alcoholic beverages:
1. Smirnoff Black Ice
2. Beer
Two bands you have seen live:
1. Rascal Flatts
2. Keith Urban
Two things you will do after you finish this survey:
1. Pay attention to training
2. Eat lunch
What has been your biggest AHA moment while blogging or journaling? What have you learned about yourself???
Let’s see. Probably my biggest AHA moment is the whole blogging concept. Back in the day, I so wanted to jump on the bandwagon of having a website. The few I created were so cheesy and the content was lacking. I didn’t know what to put out there. Then I discovered blogging and the AHA just came out. I finally knew exactly what to do. A blog was the perfect thing.
What I’ve learned about myself. I’m silly. My life tends to be a little boring and I’m definitely no writer! LOL! I lack composition skills to the extreme, but like all the other average Janes out there, I still plug away at this “blog” just in case anyone is out there lurking and actually finds what I write even remotely interesting.
Last week I posted that I was going to upgrade the hard drive in my eMac. Here’s my process:
I purchased a Western Digital 250GB hard drive Friday at lunch. When I got home from work that night, I put it in an enclosure and attached it (via Firewire) to my computer. Using Disk Utility, I partitioned and formatted it. Then I downloaded CarbonCopyCloner and installed it. I used it to clone my internal hard drive to the new drive.
Saturday morning, I booted to the firewire drive to make sure that my clone was working. All was well. So we tackled the swap. I found a take-apart pdf manual that was very helpful. So my husband and I followed the instructions and carefully took apart the eMac. Swapped the hard drive and put it back together. Booted the machine and I was up and running.
It was the easiest thing. I was a little nervous taking the computer apart, but we made labels for all the screws as we removed them, so we’d know exactly where they went.
My computer is much faster now with the faster hard drive and more disk space. And now I can use my external storage drive for backup and I now store everything in my home directory so I know exactly where everything is. Right now I’m using Synk Backup, but still trying to figure how to use the scheduling features so that I can backup every night.
You’re packing for a weekend away from your family. You’re going to be seeing a bunch of online friends for the first time at, oh I don’t know, maybe a CHA tradeshow in California.
What do you pack? What do you wear???
Well, let’s see. Since most likely it will be a casual trip, I would definitely pack jeans and some nice t-shirts. My sneakers and my casual black slip-ons. Have to pack my makeup…have to make a good impression. I’d probably include some nice dressy pants and a blouse in case we go out to a nice dinner. But nothing too fancy. I’m a casual girl, so most of my attire is going to be casual.
Should I be embarrassed to admit that I still wear my maternity underwear? They are bikini style made to sit under your big belly. Right now, they sit just above my scar, but because of the band design, they don’t bother me too much.
My husband keeps complaining that I’ll never wear sexy underwear again. I haven’t worn my thongs in months! But at 3 months post-partum I’m not yet ready to go for sexy. I’m still going for comfort, so he’ll have to settle for the non-sexy undies for a while longer. My maternity undies are about as sexy as I’ll get right now. Doesn’t that sound odd? Who knew maternity underwear could be sexy, but they are much nicer than my granny panties. 
And no. I don’t wear those anymore. But if you’ve ever had a c-section, you know they are extremely comfortable in the early days after delivery since they come no where near your scar.
I stumbled on digital scrapbook one day two years ago while browsing the internet for something else. I’d always liked the idea of scrapbooking but never really got into it. Digital scrapbooking sounded appealing for many reasons, primarily it involved computers. So I signed up and off I went. I did indeed go wild in the beginning as I do all new hobbies. But of course this always leads to burnouts. I get burned out from “being obsessed”. It also happened with my knitting and when I discovered bookcrossing.com. So after almost a year of non-stop scrapbooking, my interest died.
Now that I have a daughter, I want to capture all those wonderful moments in her life and my interest in scrapbooking has been renewed somewhat. So what’s on my project to-do list? I need to finish my pregnancy scrapbook. I started it, but never finished. And to continue to make more layouts featuring my daughter.
If you’d like to check out the layouts and albums I’ve already created, visit my gallery at DigitalScrapbookPlace.
I have an old eMac (2004, but still) with a 40gb hard drive. It’s been driving me nuts because I have to keep everything on an external HD. Well, during the holidays, we were rearranging and my husband dropped my external HD onto the floor. Thankfully the case cushioned it’s fall because it worked fine. But it got me thinking that I need some sort of backup system.
So, today I went and bought a new 250gb HD. Yep. I plan on taking the plundge and attempting to replace my internal HD on my eMac. I’ve already replaced the CD drive with a DVD burner so I’m familiar with taking it apart. Pray I have success.
My plan is to put the new drive into my external enclosure. Format it and use CarbonCopyCloner to clone the system to the new drive. Boot to the new drive and make sure everything works. Then swap the drives. Once I’ve booted to the new internal drive, I plan on moving all my data from my existing external drive to the internal and using the external for backup.
It’s going to be tricky, but I’ve been reading plenty of info online on how to do it and I feel confident (albeit nervous) that it will go okay. Then I shall revel in the increase of space. I will finally be able to use my Home directory as it was meant to be used – to store my photos, music and documents. It will also make it easier to use several applications that depend on the iPhoto and iTunes libraries being in the default locations. Currently I also have some applications installed to the external drive because of the lack of internal HD space. It will be nice to have all my applications in one place. And maybe, just maybe, Photoshop will run a little better and not slow down my entire system.
So wish me luck. I will post my experience once I’m done and hopefully it will be a success story.
When I was 35 weeks pregnant (back in September 2006), I was having some contractions. So I went to my OB and he sent me over to the hospital to get monitored. I was there for about 4 hours. Well the hospital put the wrong code on the report or something and the insurance won’t pay. Now I’m fighting with the hospital to change the code so that it can be re-filed with the insurance. The doctor had no problems resubmitting the report. But it’s the hospital that’s not doing their job. Go figure. And of course it’s records that is supposed to be fixing it, but billing keeps asking about it. And apparently no one communicates with each other.
I keep bugging them about it ‘cause I don’t want to pay $800 if the insurance will pay it. Hopefully it will be resolved now. They should be resubmitting it on Monday and billing will finally be notified, if the lady sticks to her word. Cross your fingers.
mamaLove is the personal site of Rayne Bair. Happily married since 2001 and proud mama of one adorable little girl. This site details a journey through motherhood and the discovery that there is life beyond being the mom. learn more ...
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