Laane on the World: daily life

Showing posts with label daily life. Show all posts

my computer went black

may 11 2008

I can't believe it: my computer went black.

Twice.

I hope it's the temperature. It's nearly 26 degrees celcius here.
I'm now using a laptop from a friend.
Nice for a little while.

But I was bussy making a graphic for mothersday. Ca't do it with this one.

Well, mothersday is full of surprises.

The children made me breakfast, coffee and peperkoek, and then wanted me to sit on the couch and wait.

I received some very nice presents:
earrings and a pendant...very red
a short blue scarf
a little bureau clock
a little aqua towel
a plastic rose
and ofcourse the lovely poems, spiced up with the funny proof of dyslexia, the drawn hearts and some other sweet DIY.

And I treated myself with a nice plan for my dollshouse 1:12 items.

Am I strange to think that whenever I want to do something for myself, something else goes completely wrong?
I can't do without my computer. It keeps me sane.

Maybe G from B is able to send me what I earned two months ago?
It helps me to find a new computer screen.

Well, I wish everyone a very happy mothersday.

It's summer here, so I maybe I can do something in the garden before we're back to winter or thrown into fall.LOL!

Enjoy Mothersday!!!

Please rate this post here:
Buzzfuse awards the highest rating post with 500 dollar.
When I win my broken computer won't hurt.
So please, please rate here:

Chatter on thursday

may 9 2008

Nature skipped the rest of spring and brought us a summer-week.
I really had to work in the garden this afternoon. Everything is growing so fast!
The brambles tried to overgrow the rest, so I had to take action.

While 3 loads of laundry dried, I cleaned the floors inside.
Behind my back one of the girls almost fell while she tried to sneak in with the mothersday present.

The girls are spending their vacation very well, LOL!
I'm sure they'll surprise me with home-made presents.

I earned some money last month and thought it would be nice to take them to something special.
But it still hasn't arrived on my paypal... what a disappointment!

We had a nice dinner together.
Tomorrow is the last schoolday for one of the boys. Just a couple of days and then the final exams start.

While I was making plans for tomorrow with the oldest - he needs new glasses - the phone rang.

While I said "hallo", the filling from one of the molars fell out.
Grrr!!!!!!!!!!!!

So I have to go to the dentist tomorrow morning...
I hope he's got a bit of time to fix the molar.

Like many people I don't like to go to the dentist, but I don't feel as bad with this dentist than with the ones before.
This one is very nice and caring, and he loves his job.

Well, I hope I can go to the shopping centre after the visit to the dentist, to find my son new glasses.
Keep your fingers crossed I won't look like a droopy drunk old lady. LOL!!

it's Queensday!!!

april 30 2008

It's Queenday!!!

Our former Queen, Juliana, celebrated her birthday on this day.
In honor of her and for some other reasons we kept Queensday on april 30.

Each year Queen Beatrix visits two towns to take part in the celebrations.

This year it's Makkum/Wunseradiel and Franeker in Friensland, the north of the country.

In case you want to enjoy the way we celebrate such a special day, you can visit some sites and enjoy the life broadcasts.

Makkum:

website: Queensday at Wunseradiel
website: queensday at Makkum

Franeker:

website Queensday at Franeker
website local broadcasting cooperation

TV life:

Site of the Dutch Royal Family

I'll update this entry with the url to the summery of the day.

You can find the summary video at the following page.

At the right you'll see: mediatheek. The last link is the summary.

click here

And some photos from people in the country:

Buzzfuse rewards toprated posts.
April is autism awareness month.
This month all my earning
will go to support of autistic children and their parents.
So help me win a buzzfuse reward
and rate this article with a free click.
To be completely sure your rating is counted
you can subscribe free.
Trust me, Buzzfuse is well worth a try.
It really is.
(And you can unsubscribe if you feel you want to.)

inspection of the waterplayground

april 19 2008

A while ago I told you about the changes in the park near the lake.

Now they have built a kind of waterplayground.

It looks nice. I can't say anything else.

Al sorts of low bridges go across the water, like rope bridges, a swinning bridge, and one where you have to take huge steps.

The fun is ofcourse to step in the water and get wet.

With a few moms we had a look, because we're not glad with this new feature in the neighbourhood.
It's meant well.
And it looks nice.
But who takes care of matters when something happens?

Within five minutes we found spots where children might hurt themselves.
Pointy nails sticking out, uneven wood.

We pointed out these matters to one of the workman.
He agreed these spots were overlooked and walked away, telling us to wait.
When he came back he had a large hammer and one of the DeWalt tools, a kind of electrical saw.
He took care of the uneven wood and slammed the pointy nails flat.

Well, that's one.

Now we have to get the council interested in employing a supervisor.

Someone suggested the parents could take turns, but I don't think it's wise.
Children from other neighbourhoods visit there too, including the worst bullies.
I'm rather firm and strict, but I'm sure they take it against my children and the children of my friends when I send them away.

So it should be someone independent from the neighbourhood.

DIY with two left hands

april 13 2008

He should have taken the date into consideration before he decided to do some DIY.

Really, he needs it, and we all know it since he drilled straight through a wall in the girls' room....
TWICE!!!

We finally bought some lights for the livingroom last week.
After more than 20 years the Ikea ones can be considered ikea-antiques.

So he got the drill and some other equipment, and got tremendously stressed.
The children found their way to the farthest corners of the house.
"Dad is going to hang the lamps... He has to drill!!"

When taking the lamps out of the box it was clear: not one hole, but two needed to be drilled.
Oh my dear!!

Some tactfull moves showed that one of the old holes could be used.
Woohaa!!

So only one hole a lamp... that's three holes.

The first lamp is ready.
Don't look if it hangs straight. It doesn't.
Tomorrow I'll put a little glue on the screw, which will cover up his mistake.
The lamp is little, so I'm sure it'll work.

It took me 20 minutes to clean up...

The other one is above the couch.
This time I could convice him to put a sheet between the couch and the drilldust.
His stress is almost visible in the room, the next round of drilling might reveal it, so a call goes through the house: "He's going to drill again."

Need we inform the neighbours that their painting might come off the wall when he drills a bit too far, like that time in the girls' room?
I'd better put my best anti wrinkle cream ready, because we still have one lamp to go.

He's born with two left hands, as they say it here.
None argues with that!!!

lazy saturday

april 5 2008

Finally, finally, finally.... I had a lazy saturday!!!

I didn't sleep in.... the kids were too bussy having fun, but I listened to the radio, untill a political program started.
Not today!

A short shower... have to keep an eye on the kids, a dive in my clothes ... have to be presentable, and I went downstairs, made some coffee and took a slice of peperkoek (I'll look up the recipe), and nested myself on the couch.
I even had ten minutes before the phone rang.
What a disturbance!

A friend called, asking if I was really sure I didn't want to come with her to a beauty salon. No way!
She's 10 years older than I and has patches of discoloration and hyperpigmentation. Every once in a while she has a treatment of skin lightening.
Well, as my skin doesn't see much sun, it doesn't lightening, so I told her to show herself of this week and enjoy herself.

With a new cup of coffee I took a look at the paper.
It has been ages ago I read the paper at the same day it reached our house.

Ofcourse the complete amount of children filled the house, ofcourse they had their arguments, ofcourse dad pushed loads of groceries in the kitchen, and ofcourse the laundry machine turned and turned and turned.

But the weather was so gray, and the sound of hail and rain kept on going, that all sounds seemed to be confined to other lifes.

After lunch a patch of sun invited the girls to visit friends, one of my sons went with his dad to town, another one went to work, one fell asleep, and I didn't care if I has them all accounted for.

I watched a movie, designed a site for a friend, and took the time to bagpipe and sing a bit.

What a life!
Some people have days like these all the time and don't value them.
Well, I do!!

So I decided not to cook and fill them all with frites and some fresh vegetables someone else has to clean and slice.

What a day!!

Internetconnection and computers

march 31 2008

It'll be fun the next days.
Some friends are without internetconnection, as is my oldest son.
Guess where they use the computer...

Yep!

Well, one of them has promised to help one of the children with a paper for school.
That'll really make a difference.

I'm happy I'm not the only one here in the house with a computer.
One of the boys is away from home all day, and he's given them the opportunity to use his computer.

Aren't my children sweetiepies???

recycling plastics

march 31 2008

A few months ago our neighbourhood became one of the very few test areas of recycling plastics.

We were very enthousiastic, because we want to do all we can to prevent pollution and useless waste.

That the container was too far away was a bit of a trouble, because it turned out that plastic tends to need quite some volume.
We found some ways to prevent shops to put more plastic on our groceries than absolutely needed and we created some ways to deal with the volume.

Now we're saving quite some money, because we're not needing to dispose of so much household waste anymore.

Two weeks ago the children went with school to the waste incineration facility to see what happens with our waste.

No word was spent on how plastics are recycled.
Luckily one of the boys wrote a paper about the subject a while ago, so they could present the subject at school.

We have strict rules for what needs to be in the plastic container and what not.
That's because the High Density Polyethylene is the plastic they want. That means: bags, bottles, films around food and some other products, and plastics like we know as Tupperware.

The first step in plastic recycling is sorting the usable and unusable plastics, followed by cleaning, drying, and a thourough control to remove the contaminations that are left.
Then the plastic is cut into small stripes and flakes.

These are transported into a large kind of barrel where pressure and heat ensure uniform melting.
Again a filtering process cleans the mixture.
Then it's pressed out of the barrel and immediately cut into granules.

These HDPE Granules are cooled and packaged.

The quality of the granules depends on three important features of the production process:
- the filtering. The cleaner the material is the better.
- the venting of the barrel, so unwanted gasses and moisture can disappear, leaving less bubbles.
- temperature in the barrel. Too low means that the mixture isn't melted evenly, too hot means the plastic can loose all structural integrity and becomes useless.

The HDPE Granules are used to make new plastic products, like garden furniture, plastic containers and packaging material.

It's fun that we found the best way of storing our waste plastic while talking about the recycling of it.
We now use a container with a lid that can be pushed open from the outside, but not from the inside.
Ofcourse the container is made from... HDPE Granules!

Please rate this post here in one click.
Thanks!

Hawthorne Direct - informercials - manages the whole proces between product and customer

march 9 2008

Direct response television (DRTV) is a great way of advertising and selling products.

A few students have done some research in this area and they found out that people are taking action on an infomercial faster than on the usual brochures.
It's easier too.
No need to go to a shop, just call a number.

But the awareness about the need for a product depends upon the quality of the infomercial.
Many companies make the advertisement themselves. To be honest...it shows.
Not only in the way the actors speak, but also in the sales figures.

So why not hire a company with experience.

Hawthorne Direct is an advertising agency specializing in DRTV, infomercial production, commercial production, and TV media buying.

That means that they take your product and bring it to the customer in the most creative and appealing way, and manage the whole process.

No need to try to find a way to make a commercial. Their experience will be translated in the best presentation.
No need to deal with broadcasting cooperations and fight for the best time.
Hawthorne Direct has plenty of marketing experience and they'll negotiate the best time for the best prize.

You'll see the results in the sale figures immediately.

a stone and glass

march 7 2008

One of the boys had to babysit this evening.
When he was talking with the oldest boy he heard a loud noise against the kitchenwindow.

They both went to look and it turned out there was a large hole in the outer layer of the double glaze.

One of the boys here immediately started to look around in the neighbourhood, eager to catch the stone thrower, but he saw no one.
He found the stone though, under the window, between the glass.

We told him that the stone might have been caught under the wheels of a car and shot under pressure against the window.

He just didn't believe us.

I remember the large windows at the university.
We always knew when a certain driver had been near the building.
He didn't know why, but everyone else did.

He manouevred so close over the pavement that he often caught the little gardenstones under his tyre and those which got trapped at the site and escaped were shot with high speed against the windows, creating the same holes as our friend now has in the window.

I hope they won't react bad, because our son and their babystitter couldn't prevent this.

stay at home mom

march 4 2008

Someone asked me what I do all day.
I'm just a stay at home mom.

Well, my last day was, without details, filled with this:

6.30 waking some of the children and their dad. The shower runs, the pile of wet towels grows.
Also the pile of sandwiches, and row of other breakfast food and drinks.
7.00 the first one leaves
7.45 the second boy leaves... late.
8.00 the girls leave. After I've given one of them a letter for the teacher.
8.05 boy 3 passes me upstairs and jumps under the shower.
8.15 after asking and begging I can finally shower too.
8.30 I'm leaving home with wet hair.
9.25 after bycicling and 2 busses I arrive for the first meeting
9.30 meeting with son 3 and his psychiatrist. The diagnosis PDD-NOS is nearly ready.
11.00 after a coffee I'm at another building and meet with son 2 (ADHD and dyslexia) and his therapist.
12.05 short talk with the secretary to ask her to present my son's psychiatrist a form that needs to be signed.
12.15 Running helped to catch the buss.
13.00 I'm too late to have lunch with the girls, so I eat something with my autistic son.
13.15 Mail, laundry, vacuuming.
14.15 call from an educationadvisor for an intake. We want advice or help to get my autistic son at a good school, if there is any......
15.00 try to work a bit.
15.15 girls arrive home with a letter from the teacher. She tells me she wants me to come to school at dinnertime, because she has a babysitter at that time. I explain to the children that she invited me for a meeting. Considering the normal rules of etiquette she has to be as polite to make me choose the time. (I have 6 kids and no sitter).
15.30 motivating kids to clean their room or 15 minutes. In the meantime I try to work.
16.00 mail from school about a problem with one of the boys. Ugh! Writing a reply while there is loud noise from drilling and hitting bricks. I'm happy I can still hear my thoughts.
16.10 starting preparations for dinner while trying to help one of the girls with her bagpipepractice.
16.20 son arrives home. He needs things for school. Mailing his dad to buy it and bring it with him on his way home.
16.25 while the boiling water is playing around the potatoes, one of the girls is practicing on her chanter and the drilling and hitting goes on, I work a bit.
16.45 mail from a friend who is journalist. He sends me an article and he wants my opinion... NOW.
17.00 soup is ready.
18.00 dinner is gone, the dishes are ready. The drilling stops and the world feels empty.
18.05 helping with homework.
18.20 one of the boys comes home and tells us it snows outside!!!
19.00 homework is ready, I try to work a bit with a cup of coffee.
19.20 talking with the girls. Then they're off to bed, I do the dishes and answer the phone to advice a collegue about a client.
20.00 I want to watch the news on TV, but I fall asleep.
20.15 fresh and wide awake again. Having a look at the girls, clean the bathroom.
20.30 the father of the kids arrives home from work. Update about the day. Discussion about the attitude of the teacher. Split up tasks that needs to be done tomorrow.
21.00 Holby City on TV...for me!
21.50 dealing with a hungry autistic boy, check laundry and fold the dry items, try to work a bit online, try to find out which articles of the law are dealing with the renovation noise in the neighbouring home. Talk with son 3 and a bit later a long talk with son 2. Help a friend with website.
23.30 try to get two boys take their meds and wave them to bed.
24.00 walking with son 2 near the lake. Enjoying the stars and trying to get used to the cold. Walking neighbourhood surveillance. It's quiet.
Visiting some online friends, keeping an eye on the elections, start the laundrymachine again, clean the kitchen....
3 in the night..... to bed.

about schoolchoice of the girls

march 3 2008

It's a day that I feel like I'm working at a helpdesk.

Got a letter from the school of the girls.
The teachers want to talk with me about my dyslectic daughter.

Already a while ago I made clear I didn't agree with them that she needed to be in a small group.
Her problems isn't an attention problem.
I agree with small groups when that means more help with her dyslexia, but there's no school here that provides that extra help in the group.

She applied for a place at a school where they have a special program for kids like here and where they give lots of attention to creativity.

They have their own testing program, and we're OK with that.

So I'm in for quite a "dynamic" talk.

I have had enough experience now with special education and false promisses.
I can say so, after 4 boys in the system.

So she has to have very good arguments to make me see things different.

Well, there's no appointment yet.
They wanted to make an appointment at 18.00 hours.
Ha. That's dinnertime for us, and I'm not going to leave 6 kids alone.

treadmills

february 9 2008

Most of the time I dream of living somewhere in Scotland, far away from the citynoises and the toodoo of normal life.
Just homeschooling my children, growing my own vegetables, and walking past a lake without houses on the other side.

But on days like this I enjoy living at the border of the city.

Today the sun is shining and the temperature is well enough to get people outside.

I've seen quite some people trying to loose winterwieght by jogging ro running.
It's clear they're not used to the rythm and the exercise.
Their heads sticking out in front, like the nooses needs to guide the way.
The backs as straight as a broomstick, they're not used anymore to bending and soupleness.

But I admire their courage to show their lack of exercise to the world.

Just when I turn my head to answer a question of one of the children my eyes catch a movement in the house opposite ours.

The curtains are open, which only happens when they are cleaned, so I guess it's done on purpose.
I see he and she running on treadmills.
So that's what was brought yesterday with the large truck!!

It's kind of funny to see them running inside their house while others walk past.

Spring cleaning

february 9 2008

Either our local newspaper employs a new reporter or the early vibes of spring are triggering unsuspected urges to write about nature and health.

There's a huge article about the way the council deals with open spaces.
It's like all open spaces in town need to be filled with houses.
We're told by the paper we don't want houses, but nature.
And I fully agree.

The part of town where I've spend my youth doesn't have the charm anymore of the old days.
Some architects have pumped the open areas full with buildings that only show off their socalled creativity. There's no coherence anymore between the buildings, it's just a chaos of styles.

Spring shows itself in the way people deal with their environment and themselves.

On the other side of the street there are some people talking while one of them is washing the car.
I overheard his wife telling the neighbour she'll have a colon cleanse next week, to get all the waste out of her body.

Well, I don't feel that need. Instead I want to go outside and enjoy some gardening.

But the kitchencupboards need a clean too.

Oh my dear...do I feel the need for springcleaning?

first time: police at night

february 8 2008

When we were enjoying our little evening walk last night my son said he forgot his passport.
We need to have it with us wherever we go, so he offered to go home and get it.

I didn't feel like walking somewhere all on my own, so we came up with all sorts of excuses.
One of them was there's never any police that time of night.
Not in our neighbourhood.

In all these years of evening/nightwalks we never saw any police.

So when I car drove into the street we didn't look up. Kept on talking.

It was the police.

I greeted them friendly... they drove on.

Must have been frightened by my old face. LOL!

New theatre seats

february 8 2008

2 months ago I visited one of my friends from university.

Because that time of my life is in the past for some time now, I expected to see a middleaged man, with a beard and some grey spots between the hair that used to be as dark that a blue shine always accentuated it.

I had no beard.
And in case he had grey spots... they were not visible.
The blue shine had disappeared, which was a pity.
In fact, I might have walked past him town and haven't known it was him.

Only when he started talking I recognised him.

We went to his study.

It was exactly like his old room. Decorated with wonderful furniture he inherited from his grandfather, and an ugly glass table he should never ever brought in.

It soon was the subject of conversation, untill he brought up that he wanted to change that corner of the room into something that would match the old furniture.

"Why don't you buy home theater seating" I suddenly said. Surprising myself.
He promised me to think about.
And I forgot all about this, untill he called me yesterday to invite me to be the first to sit on his new chairs.

"Only when you throw the table out", I answered.
"Consider it done".

So I'll have a cup of coffee there soon.
Just like the old days, when we spent time together often for a short while and then didn't see each other for months.

finding out the right date

february 8 2008

Today I suddenly remembered one of the mothers of the playmate of my girls celebrates her birthday...one ... of ...these... days.

I just couldn't remember which day.

I have a small agenda I write the birthdays in, but I couldn't find it.

Because it was bugging my mind so terribly I decided to ask my girl to go and play there, have a look on the calendar and remember the date.

She was happy to go, had a good time and came back with the right date.

What a relief!

A Cat 5 cable

february 8 2008

Sometimes it's fun, sometimes it's not, and sometimes it's just a matter of knowledge.

My son with asperger syndrome knows a lot of computers and electronics.
That comes in handy, because he can fix a lot.

He's often asked by people to help them out, which sometimes results in a call for his brother to get something he needs in a shop nearby.

One of the girls in his house is moving, and she's worrying a lot about her cat. She's afraid he won't get used to the new house.
We had a talk about that yesterday.

An hour later he called.
Mom, I need a Cat 5 cable. Can you or someone else get one and bring it here?

"Do you need a special length?", I asked. Thinking that a leash for the cat was wanted.
"Good question, I'll call you back."

During the next call I landed on my feet: it's a special kind of network cable. LOL!

please, vote for me.

february 7 2008

I've participated in a contest and now it's time to vote.

Please vote for me.

I can win real diamond earrings.
Wouldn't that be great?

You can find the form ::here::.

Vote for: Laane World

Thank you so very much!!!

dentist appointment and cancellation

february 7 2008

It was november when I made the appointment for the dentist for yesterday.

It couldn't have been a better date and time.
In the middle of the vacation, first thing in the morning, on a day the father of the children was able to keep an eye on them.

Because of the vacation my mouth had time to heal for 4 days before the school would bother me again. (it's a surgical matter).

Last week I got a letter... appointment cancelled.

I was angry for a moment.

Well, by the time it was yesterday I'd accepted the fact and opted to sleep in for an hour.

Forget it!

The phone rang: where was I?
At home ofcourse.
Didn't I know I had an appointment?
Yea....HAD!
No... I should be there NOW.

She denied I'd received a cancellation.

Luckily I checked the date the evening before and the letter was right in front of me.

With HER signature!!!

Do other people have to deal with issues like these too?