Thursday, May 3, 2007

Housecleaning and getting ready for a Big Weekend!

This morning at breakfast, I told my kids that I know of a woman who has a big event coming up this weekend, AND she is leaving on a trip on Monday, AND her parents are coming into town on Sunday to watch the kids. She really could use some help getting her house ready for the weekend, and I'd said we'd come over and help out. They would each be paid $10 per hour *if* they did the work without complaining, dawdling, or needing to be nagged.

They, of course were onto me right away--"why don't you just SAY you need help if you need it?" and "gee, that woman sounds a lot like you, Mom." To which Paul said, "that's probably why Mom has such sympathy for her!"

But I'd decided that perhaps for myself it'd help me get over the housecleaning slump if I pretended it was someone else's house, and I'd been asked to help, or hired, or something other than just cleaning up my own mess. I told the kids we'd do this: work from 11 to 12 straight, then stop for lunch, and get back at it from 1 to 2. And you know what? We have a pretty clean house now! It did take some nagging at the beginning as the kids just take a while to get into cleaning. But once we got our groove we all just kept at it until it was pretty clean.

Each kid gets $20 now for helping me out. Thanks, kids!
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I am having awful trouble with my computer. I don't know if it's Earthlink's fault....but starting at about 10:30 am yesterday I wasn't able to get my email, and I couldn't access webmail, either. The 'net worked fine.....until I called Earthlink, thinking surely it was going to be a known issue and they were going to tell me it would be back soon. But, they didn't. Rather, a tech guy actually got on my computer remotely, using a network with my computer (not so sure I like the idea of that still) and fiddled a bunch with it. He couldn't figure out what the problem was and handed me on to another tech. This new guy said it was the modem. I don't see how it could be the modem, as the internet was working. This morning it was the same. But, while the first guy was fiddling, the internet stopped working and only started again when Paul did some fiddling.

Right now I'm having trouble accessing some websites, and still can't get my email except through dial-up. And I still can't get on Earthlink's webpage, either.

Anyone know what's going on? Is this a problem specifically with my computer, or with Earthlink, or what? Help?!?

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