A Web Site for Stepkids

We bought a domain and made a web site for the stepkids who live 200 miles away last year. It has separate pages for holidays where we can give them holiday greetings and such so they know we are thinking about them. We created a private forum on the site where we could chat privately. We also made a guestbook so we could leave them messages.

Well, I think they've only looked at it once the whole time it's been on the Internet (I have a counter on it that tracks visits). Everytime we'd make a new page for a holiday and send them the link via email, they wouldn't look at it. They've never gone into the forum. Never. I would hazard a guess as to why - - because it is private and only THEY can get in...not their mother (unless she would use their id) who likes to stand over them and feed them what they can and can not do where it concerns us.

So I have decided that when the domain is ready to expire, I am going to let it. Obviously, any type of contact with them that their mother can't control is a big no-no so there is no point in wasting money on the domain and hosting space when they won't (can't) even look at it. Seeing as how their mother reads their emails first from us (and deletes them if she wishes too before they see them), I wouldn't be surprised if they don't know about it. Those emails could've been deleted before they ever saw them. Maybe when sd is texting me, I'll mention the web site and see. If they know about it and could care less, then there is no point in my wasting time (and money) creating web pages and updating sites for nothing.

I could keep it so in the future they can never come back and say anything negative about us never contacting them or whatever (I also save every email, letter copy, etc. so there is proof if that time ever comes) even if they do lie to their grandparents about that. However, I find myself caring less and less the more this bull grows. Tolerance levels can only reach so high before it falls and scatters in the wind.

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Make It Seem Like His Idea

It seems like we are the last household in America without a plasma television. My husband has wanted one of these since seeing them for the first time in Japan over eight years ago (before hitting our shores). He was excited to tell me all about the flat screen televisions he saw on one of his many trips there and he's been trying to get one since.

Eventually I am going to have to give in to him (shhh...don't tell him but I wouldn't mind one of them myself). However, I have to make it seem like it is something only he really wants. The problem is it's not just the television you need. Our current television armoire doesn't really fit those types of televisions. I am sure we could make it work, but it wouldn't look the way it was supposed to and we'd be limiting ourselves on the size of the plasma television. We would definitely need to get a tv lift cabinet instead. There is just no other way in my wifely opinion.

You see, my husband doesn't know that the television he really, really wants is actually a whole living room set for me. When it is all his idea, I'll have my new living room set. See how that works?

No, I'm not tricky. I've been married almost 13 years. I know how this works by now.

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Uncertain Relationships with Stepchild

My relationship with my stepdaughter has me confused. When she was younger, we were very close. I was her second mother and she loved me regardless of what she was told outside our home that she shouldn't feel or do by others. Now that she is a teenager and has given in to the manipulations (can't blame a kid really for doing that...it was rough for them for a lot of years), our relationship runs hot and cold. Tonight, for instance, she's texting me pictures of the boy she likes in school, texts me a joke, and is just open and friendly. When she was here last, she was confiding things to me that she wasn't telling either one of her parents, most especially her mother. She trusted me to listen and not judge (and help if I can). At other times, she is distant or just entirely ignores communication attempts. Is it step related? Is it teenage angst? Maybe a little of both?

I am looking forward to the day she turns 18 (or thereabouts). I am hoping our relationship will level out once she is an adult, not totally reliant on her mother or worried so much about her that she puts the rest of us at a distance most of the time.

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We Are Living Little House

Laura Ingalls watch out! We're taking over hygiene without modern facilities and we're doing just fine. We still don't have our hot water tank. They called yesterday morning to ask if they could install it that morning (heck yeah, come on over!). We were surprised by how quick it was and looking forward to hot water again. The installers get here and guess what? WRONG HOT WATER TANK! *sigh*

It seems we are special. We can't just have a REGULAR hot water tank. Ours needs to have a power vent on top so carbon monoxide doesn't back up into the house due to the way it is vented. (Ohhhhh, so THAT is what that was on top of our current - 1974 - hot water tank model.) We are SO special that they have to special order it from Whirlpool. Didn't I say we were special? We are beyond special because it is going to cost us $400 more than our original quote now. Shouldn't I feel really special now?

So now we wait. We were told, as they are charging our credit card for even more credit card debt that we didn't need, that it will take a week for them to get it in stock from Whirlpool and then they can schedule the installation.

So, how are we staying clean? Well, it has been in the 90's here so I put the kids in their bathing suits, go outside with a bottle of shampoo, and hose them down. Everybody but our youngest loves it. For my husband and me, we boil water and dump it in the tub. Then we boil more water and dump it in the tub. After doing this a few times and then adding some cold to make it comfortable, we have a few inches of water to bathe in.

Hubby says we are Amish now. Somehow I think they have better facilities than we do right now.

Oh well, we are expecting warm temps for the next several days so the kids can get by just fine with the hose and a bottle of shampoo. I, for one, would prefer a FULL tub. *sigh*

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Chrome Google or Google Chrome?

Whichever it is, Google has launched a new way to browse thru your browser. It is the beta version for windows currently. If you have Mac or Linux, your version is coming soon.

One of the features I like about it is if you have several tabs open in the browser and one of them crashes, it isn't supposed to crash all of them. That happens too often in the browser I use now and it drives me crazy! If this browser is as good as the one I use now AND won't crash everything at once, I'm in. However, I am going to sit back and see how it goes before I download it myself. I don't want my laptop to be the public guinea pig for this just yet. I'll wait until I see if there are any kinks and how they get worked out first.

You can read more about it here.

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