Cleaning up our act

Thoughts on the keeping of house, formerly known as housekeeping:
Washing machines: the powers that be in consumer marketing are to be commended for an amazing feat: the positioning of much more expensive front-loading, high capacity washers as a critical new NEED rather than a regular old WANT. I think much of the populace has been convinced these are a necessity (kinda like A/C in your car). Some of these new washers cost about three times as much as the plain old top loading box that used to, well, simply clean our clothes and leave them sitting in sodden heaps around the agitator. Okay, I will recognize the incovenient truth that the new models may use just a third of the electricity and water, but some take much longer to finish a load of wash -- 75 minutes compared to 50 with the old kind. And we know someone who spent an extra $200 to buy a set in red. Did anybody ever have to pay extra for good old avocado or harvest gold in the seventies?

Here's a cool alternative: how about a single unit washer/dryer combo (front loading for coolness of course) that costs about 1300 bucks. Or, go for the full-on high capacity set. Don't forget you also have to buy new special "high capacity soap." They've really got us now! Okay, so say we buy these washers and dryers for about $1000 apiece, instead of $800 for the washer/dryer set. And we can do more laundry in one load (with our special new soap) . . . but are clothes cleaner? Do they last longer? Is life better? I hope so, on all three counts.

I also want to report a minor kitchen cleaning triumph -- the successful mopping of kitchen floor two weeks in a row (it becomes a grunge fest at best by the 5th day after any given cleaning) with the big industrial mop, which is actually quite efficient once I get past the hauling in from garage and filling of bucket drama. My sister Diane and I had this in-depth discussion of how there is no intuitive path for efficient cleaning of the kitchen floor for either of our houses, which she attributed to the presence of the island. Anyway, I may have conquered this challenge but it's too early to say. I will continue to work away at my goal of cleaning that floor once a week to stay ahead of the dusty fuzz colonies and kid detritus under the table. Albeit with the old-time floor cleaning technology, which may just help to realign the cleaning universe, which was imbalanced by the proliferation of all these new, high tech, high capacity, higher priced washer/dryer sets. So there.

Hearts in LoSpace

Here's our online Valentine. Hey that rhymes -- it's fun to say. Now you try! And happy heart's day! Love from us. PS: Click it to play!

Click to Play Now

Delaney Sitting Pretty

Check it out . . . our nearly 6 month old baby is sitting on her own, for several minutes at a time. She doesn't yet arrive at sitting position on her own, but that's coming. She also eats from a spoon, but I don't think we have yet found a food she really loves. And sweet potatoes don't love her! We had a couple of bad days after that trial. It was more of an error, really.

She and Roman are getting along quite well, though he is still resisting most photographic efforts. Here's one where he's being marginally cooperative. Roman is a walking case study for renaming the terrible twos to the tiresome threes, but the alliteration just isn't quite the same. I'll keep my ears open for a better suggestion . . . like "the throes of three." You get the idea.

Rock Street Xmas #3

Our third holiday in this house -- and more fun with Roman, who really got into the Santa concept for the first time this year. Of course we don't have a chimney and he did ask why Santa doesn't just use the door. Hee hee.
Here are a few Christmas Eve pictures to make your day merry and bright. And no, the fake tree hasn't been disassembled and stored yet!

(above) Roman, "asleep" and ready for Santa . . .
(below) Laney and our infamous tree, Roman in his reindeer headgear

Baby Book DOUBLE!

Oops I forgot one special note in this morning's blog. I took Laney to Idaho on 11/30 and stayed with my family for the weekend. A little snowstorm came through that day, so she took her first plane trip AND saw her first snow on the same day -- baby book DOUBLE!! See photoevidence below . . . then read on.

a new acronym: NAGUOT!!

LoSpace
Holidays! Holidaze!
We are all there. You're so busy, you don't even have time to read this. So I'll make it fast and funny. Here are some of my holiday time-savers. Use them all year round!
Well, one that's holiday specific is to get all shopping done as early as possible in December (or after Thanksgiving) so you have the rest of the month to party! Yeah, right -- it actually gives you the rest of the month to catch up on buying the stuff you forgot when doing all shopping "as early as possible." Here is a list of happy little time savers, or tasks I have deemed NAGUOT (which means Not A Good Use of Time, not to be confused with nougat, the mystery fluff in candy bars).
Folding washcloths and baby pajamas (cram them in a drawer for dang's sake, they're just going to get wet eventually)
Mailing gifts at the post office (anybody on my list who needs a gift mailed is going to get something sent from a website, and believe me, there are some good websites sending stuff these days!)
Writing a return address (I loved those free labels we got for awhile but the charities are on to me and quit sending them when I didn't donate)
Watching commercials (unfortunately we had to invest in a digital recorder to avoid this one but it is easy to set and play back)
Reading junk mail (I put it in the recycling on the way back into the house)
I'm sure there are many more great ideas I've had, but was just too busy to make a note of them.

In other great news, I downloaded the last 5 months of digital photos from the camera to my computer. There are about 100 pictures of Delaney in varying degrees of cuteness, but the real keepers were taken by our patient and talented friend Marcy Modrick (she also digitally edits and sends them back to you the same day -- now that's a good friend). Just one sample below -- see what I mean?














One hilarious shot from our camera (I call it Still Life, Roman with Tomatoes):















In kid news, Roman is doing very well being house trained and Laney is starting to eat rice cereal at "dinner" time (I think it is more accurately described as gruel but that just doesn't sound as appetizing . . . ).

So one week to go til Christmas Eve and we still have those last minute gifts and errands to finish. I have come to the realization that no, it will never end. Good luck with your own last minutes and happy holidays anyway.

Bad Spam

It's that time again!
I got this email recently with the following "subject, " and I quote:
"Tiered of being passed over for that job promotion because you don't have the proper DEGREE?" Huh. After all my degrees and everything. Then I thought, "No! I'm TIERED of getting solicitation emails that aren't even spelled correctly!" Someone should give me a "job promotion" to Lead Spam Checker. I could ensure these emails are spelled correctly, grammatically appropriate, and have subject-verb parallelism. Whatever. Now I'm boring even myself.

What's happening at Rock Street? Well, I am eyeing the prefab prelighted Xmas tree nervously. It seems like it gets heavier every year, and who knows what kinds of vermin and arachnids took up residence whilst it was stored in the garage over the past 11 months. On the upside, I love its prefabbiness! We don't have to get rid of a giant brown shedding inside-out pincushion every January! It is blanketed in cheerful and tasteful white lights, which have mostly worked for the past 3 holidays. So wish me luck deploying this 200 pound piece of American abundance, again. Hopefully this year we'll also be able to disassemble it, not like in 2003 when sections 2 and 3 became inextricably locked together . . .

Here's a preview of our Xmas family pictures. Roman is 3.5, which means he doesn't like to pose for family portraits. We have to take what we can get.

I seem to remember my parents having about 3 years worth of pictures where I was grimacing like a Where the Wild Things Are outtake, so I guess it's the old cosmic reconciliation I keep hearing about . . .

Also, stay tuned for the second annual Griffenzuela Xmas pdf! Once again we will try to conserve paper and postage with an e-greeting. And again, anyone who wants a traditional printed copy please email me and I will send you one!

Happy Day After Thanksgiving Day to all, and to all a good night. You know you'll need some rest to get through the next month!!!