New Computer and New Camera!

This boy almost never stops moving!

Jumping on the couch (a no-no, oh well)

Cupcake with a peanut butter face

Bubba making a silly face

Yes, I am blogging in the middle of the day. On Monday, taking advantage of 50 month interest free financing, we bought a new computer and a new camera. Can we afford it? Not really, but for $35 a week who could say no?

I have lived without a computer during the day for 6 months. Relying solely on DH bringing his laptop home from church. That worked okay, but it was getting harder and harder to do. I need to be able to work on things during the day, while the kids are asleep. I also need it to start preparing my homeschooling items. I am making 26 boxes to do one weekly, starting in May after Granny goes home. I am so excited about it!

So, we are back in debt, but it was for a good cause. The new camera is an awesome big fancy one with two lenses. It takes multiple shots at a time. Now I feel so inferior that I think I need to take a course in how to use it. The cool thing is, if I practice and get any good at it, I could start a little side business. Photography here is so expensive and if I was able to do it for others I could charge small fees and still making a killing. That would be really great.

Today has been a hectic day already. It's only 10 am here. DH took the car in early to get the oil changed and to have it checked over. Our a/c has never worked (not that we need it to at the moment), but we think it only needs freon. So, that would be a good thing to get done now in preparation for next hot season. We had our 6 months inspection done yesterday, it just passed. The front brakes need to be checked before the next 6 month inspection and so do the front tires. Depending on what that might cost, we may do that this week too. We are also having a tow hitch put on. With just the one vehicle we need to make the most of our space.

For instance, when picking up my mother and her friend at the airport (in about 10 days), with all of us in the van, we have no room for their luggage. The drive down to the airport is a hard one. Two and half hours on a winding, two lane, road. All of the planes from the States arrive around 5:30 am. We have in the past just gotten up at 2:30 am and driven down, but that is getting harder to do now that the kids are older. They don't go back to sleep in the car and it makes for a really long morning there and back. So, this time we are driving down the night before and spending the night in a hotel. That means we have to take the play pen for Bubba to sleep in, etc. Not to mention our buggy is a huge monster (a double), that folds flat, but is still wide. And with its big tires, it takes up a lot of room. Roof racks are not real dependable here because it rains almost everyday. With the tow hitch we can borrow the church's little trailer and use it for luggage and buggy and play pen. Anyway, it ain't cheep. $450 for a tow hitch bought and installed. Oh well, has to be done. With gas being about $8 a gallon here we can't afford to borrow a car and use two cars either.

I am almost through all of the laundry that has accumulated since Bubba and I were sick with chicken pox/shingles. DH is a treasure, but he is not a laundress. That's okay. I love to do laundry. My mother was so strict in how laundry was done when I was growing up, that I can get any stain out of anything. But I have unusually high standards for how it gets done, so it is just better if I do it myself. Bless his heart. On the day we got married. He was trying to help me by washing clothes (we weren't living together, he was hanging out at my house that morning waiting on me to get through with work). He washed and dried my most expensive outfit and it shrank like 5 sizes. I was so mad. Whew. Not as bad as when he left all of our luggage in Alabama when we flew a group here to do a mission trip. Four weeks, included a Kiwi wedding for us, with none of my clothes. Yup. All of the men on the trip were amazed that I didn't murder him on the spot.

Well, back to work. No rest for the wicked. I have security locks to install so that Mr. One and a Half can't unlock and open the sliding glass doors anymore and escape. He's a smart one.