Friday, February 11, 2011
The bird
I walk into the house today after leaving Paige for a playdate to find a bird in my kitchen. Just flying around like it owns the place. This is an incredibly stupid bird. It has managed to pick a house to get in with four giant dogs.
"Wait a minute," you say. "You only have two dogs." That was true a few days ago, but Doug and I thought - hey, four is better than two! We would love to never have friends over again (not that we are copious entertainers, but still)! So, Baxter and Audrey joined our Missy and Elizabeth this week. Back to the story, Levi and I had 260ish pounds of dogs helping us catch a 4 ounce bird. And it only took about an hour. LOL
The crazy thing is I'm not terribly surprised a bird got in my house, these things just seem to happen to me. And to think, we plan to add a baby to this mix, what could go wrong? 4 dogs+2 rats+3 kids+ an occasional bird= happy house
"Wait a minute," you say. "You only have two dogs." That was true a few days ago, but Doug and I thought - hey, four is better than two! We would love to never have friends over again (not that we are copious entertainers, but still)! So, Baxter and Audrey joined our Missy and Elizabeth this week. Back to the story, Levi and I had 260ish pounds of dogs helping us catch a 4 ounce bird. And it only took about an hour. LOL
The crazy thing is I'm not terribly surprised a bird got in my house, these things just seem to happen to me. And to think, we plan to add a baby to this mix, what could go wrong? 4 dogs+2 rats+3 kids+ an occasional bird= happy house
Monday, August 9, 2010
Go read this blog
This is my friend, Holly's blog. She is wonderful and her life makes mine seem a bit, um, underachiever-y.
A Lifetime of Days
A Lifetime of Days
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
.JPG)
Friday, July 9, 2010
Sno-Biz
What did you do today? I bought a Sno-Biz, Hawaiian Shave Ice! Well, technically, Doug and I did. :-) Cool, huh?
About a month ago, we drove past the Sno-Biz and lamented the fact that it has not opened this year. Paige noticed the "for sale" sign and, on a whim and out of mild curiosity, I called the broker. It was a reasonable price, I thought (not knowing how much a business really costs, to be honest). I called Doug and expected him to shoot down the idea of buying it immediately. When he didn't, I started to think seriously about it.
I met with the broker and got some basic information and then Doug and I met with the broker and seller for more detailed information and a tour. We were impressed with the simplicity of the operation and talked about it but decided the initial investment was just too much for us to take on right now.
About a week later, the broker called and offered us the option of purchasing it for a very minimal investment with the seller financing about 3/4ths of the sale price at a great rate and with unbelievable conditions. I called my dad and asked for a loan for the rest. He responded with an even better rate than I expected and offered to send a check right away. It is in the mail as we speak. We should close on Wednesday, barring any major events. As you might imagine, time is of the essence in a seasonal operation as this is, so we are moving quickly.
I have completed a host of applications and filed a silly number of forms in a span of two days. We are now officially Dolbi, LLC dba Sno-Biz and are well on our way to being legal to hire employees and collect sales tax. I have an appointment with an accountant tomorrow to make sure all ducks are firmly in a row, but so far there have been no real glitches.
We will both keep our full-time jobs and just hope to break even for the next few seasons, but then maybe be able to put money away for retirement and college and cars and vacations and...
So, that's my very unexpected and rather spontaneous news. :-)
About a month ago, we drove past the Sno-Biz and lamented the fact that it has not opened this year. Paige noticed the "for sale" sign and, on a whim and out of mild curiosity, I called the broker. It was a reasonable price, I thought (not knowing how much a business really costs, to be honest). I called Doug and expected him to shoot down the idea of buying it immediately. When he didn't, I started to think seriously about it.
I met with the broker and got some basic information and then Doug and I met with the broker and seller for more detailed information and a tour. We were impressed with the simplicity of the operation and talked about it but decided the initial investment was just too much for us to take on right now.
About a week later, the broker called and offered us the option of purchasing it for a very minimal investment with the seller financing about 3/4ths of the sale price at a great rate and with unbelievable conditions. I called my dad and asked for a loan for the rest. He responded with an even better rate than I expected and offered to send a check right away. It is in the mail as we speak. We should close on Wednesday, barring any major events. As you might imagine, time is of the essence in a seasonal operation as this is, so we are moving quickly.
I have completed a host of applications and filed a silly number of forms in a span of two days. We are now officially Dolbi, LLC dba Sno-Biz and are well on our way to being legal to hire employees and collect sales tax. I have an appointment with an accountant tomorrow to make sure all ducks are firmly in a row, but so far there have been no real glitches.
We will both keep our full-time jobs and just hope to break even for the next few seasons, but then maybe be able to put money away for retirement and college and cars and vacations and...
So, that's my very unexpected and rather spontaneous news. :-)
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Khan Academy
My friend, Laurel, posted about the Khan Academy on her blog and I followed the link expecting it to be nice. Holy cow! This site is amazing!
The article Laurel posted about (Global Teacher) only touches on the enormity and quality of the lessons available for FREE! I plan to use this as a very large part of the kids' math, science, current events, and history curriculum fro the rest of their education.
Today, we watched lessons on multiplication tables for Paige and "lattice multiplication" for Levi, which I had never even heard of! Levi also watched the "intro to physics" and we talked about how Myth-Busters uses those principles.
Sal Khan is a genius and amazingly generous man and I am so thankful to have people like him in my "village."
The article Laurel posted about (Global Teacher) only touches on the enormity and quality of the lessons available for FREE! I plan to use this as a very large part of the kids' math, science, current events, and history curriculum fro the rest of their education.
Today, we watched lessons on multiplication tables for Paige and "lattice multiplication" for Levi, which I had never even heard of! Levi also watched the "intro to physics" and we talked about how Myth-Busters uses those principles.
Sal Khan is a genius and amazingly generous man and I am so thankful to have people like him in my "village."
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Yea for volunteers!
We had our homeschool co-op meeting today to plan for the fall semester and it was the easiest meeting and the easiest term yet to plan! There are more volunteers for class teachers and assistants than I have ever had to work with. I am used to having to scrounge for classes and beg for assistants and this term there is none of that! We actually have more classes than we need!
It is so wonderful to see the idea of a true cooperative coming together just as the original planners had in mind so many years ago (gosh, what is it, six? maybe?). It took us a bit to get there but it really feels like a family-run unit this time. The fact that there is so much "new blood" this year is also helpful. The homeschool community, in general and in our group, is becoming much more diversified and that is a beautiful thing!
It is so wonderful to see the idea of a true cooperative coming together just as the original planners had in mind so many years ago (gosh, what is it, six? maybe?). It took us a bit to get there but it really feels like a family-run unit this time. The fact that there is so much "new blood" this year is also helpful. The homeschool community, in general and in our group, is becoming much more diversified and that is a beautiful thing!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)