Babies R Us, the baby division of Toys R Us is having another trade in event. Bring in an old stroller, car seat, crib or play yard and get 25% off the purchase of a new item in any category listed on the site. Click the link for the full list of eligible items.

This is great for us because our baby car seat is over seven years old and more than likely expired. I say more than likely because I’m not entirely sure where it is! Many folks that I have talked to about car seats don’t realize that they do expire.

Since I’m on the topic of car seats I should give a quick reminder as rummage sale season is just around the corner. I never buy safety items like that used. There is absolutely no way of knowing for sure that they haven’t been in a crash, when they were bought or even how they were stored before being put up for sale. Just like bike helmets, once they’ve been in a crash they need to be replaced.

Peace,
Tony

While my five year old was cutting hearts and having fun after lunch, I was supposed to be watching the clock as well as playing with her.

There I was looking at the minute hand on my watching thinking I had almost another hour to go before picking up her sister when my cell phone buzzed in my pocket. I looked at the caller ID and it was a fellow dad who I met in the parking lot of school. His son and my daughter have been in the same class for the last two years, he wanted to know if I was on my way to pick up my daughter.

I looked at my watch and said “Oh goodness no, I still have quite a bit of time ye…. OH CRAP!!!” Yeah, somewhere in there I lost the hour. It was ten minutes PAST the time I should have been there!

We made record time to the school and picked her up no worse for the wear, but man do I still feel absolutely stupid for letting the time get away from me like that. Now I have my phone set to buzz when it’s time to leave.

I know it will be a very long time before I live this one down and I’m ok with that. It was incredibly stupid of me to lose track of time and at least it ended well. My ardent hope is that I don’t do anything even more stupid to overshadow this one…

Peace,
Tony

In the last couple of weeks I have been chronicling my attempt at restoring order to my cluttered house. One of my goals in this effort is to get my kids to pitch in and do some of the work for themselves.

Typically I get most of the housework done while they are both in school. I get around five hours a week where the house is empty and the slate is primed for some serious effort on my chores. Tuesday and Thursday mornings I drop my five year old off at preschool and come home to shower, clear the dishes and counter and get a stomp on the laundry. I’ve already written how much I loathe doing laundry, but getting into a routine seems to help. I’ve also found that it doesn’t pile up as much if I keep the machines loaded.

Anyway, I digress. Back to the point, sort of. Two weeks ago I finished getting the girls’ clothes sorted and hung and I looked down at the floor of their room and thought “This has got to change.” I cleaned up the floor, put toys where they belonged, cleaned the bedding and got everything squared away.

When they were both home, we went into their bedroom and I told them this was the last time I was going to do that. I left their dolls and ponies, dressup dresses and books in the room. I was pretty clear that on Tuesdays and Thursdays I will continue to clean their room, but if I have to pick it up it will disappear for a while. “The best way to avoid that, girls, is if you pick up right before bed time. ” Welcome Project Clean Bedroom! At bed time if they are ready to go, the room is clean and there is still time they can have a bed time show, a twenty minute episode of Dora or something.

They don’t want to clean the room first, fine, no bedtime show and if it is a Monday or Wednesday night I’ll clean it in the morning.

Hey, how cool is that? Their room has been tidy since, and the only thing missing from it is the dress up bins.

Peace,
Tony

A while ago I wrote about the great toy purge of ‘09, where I took most of the toys in the house, put them in boxes and brought them out to the shed.

With overwhelming success and happiness that came from that I wanted to update progress.

Yesterday my five year old worked on cutting hearts out of loose leaf paper. The same stuff I had to write essays on before there were word processors. She found out she can make more hearts quickly by folding the paper and cutting out several layers. Wonder of wonders, sometimes they stuck together, much like a line of paper dolls.

To further the enjoyment, she taped some together to resemble butterflies and dragonflies. She spent nearly two hours creating projects with loose leaf paper, scissors and tape. Bad dad moment here to be written later…

After dinner last night the older sister got in the act and for another hour and a half they both played butterfly and dragonfly games. With paper, tape and scissors! They were both running all over the house fluttering their heart bugs through a complex story involving the “ever forevergreen tree” and things like that. There was no fighting!

I challenge my readers to beat that with a store bought toy. A store bought toy other than a video game, that is just counterproductive.

Any takers?

Peace,
Tony

In preparation of our third child we have been cleaning house and getting ready for the new addition. I wrote over at Brew Dad how I was able to pass on some magazines for a little beer sample.

Swapping stuff is something that I think is essential in frugality. Those magazines ended up with someone who will use them and I ended up with some great beer. Seems fair to me! Sure, I could have asked for something more useful to the household, but I did make some space in the office. A little hop in return seemed reasonable!

Peace!
Tony

My wife and I use Allrecipes.com a LOT. She found a recipe for french dip that I had to try. It turned out phenomenal. The roast went in at 8am on high for four hours then I turned it down to low until 5pm. My wife worked on straining the dip from the crockpot to avoid as much of the oil as she could.

Here is the recipe: (search French Dip Sandwiches if the link is broken)

Ingredients

* 1 (4 pound) boneless beef roast
* 1/2 cup soy sauce
* 1 beef bouillon cube
* 1 bay leaf
* 3 whole black peppercorns
* 1 teaspoon dried rosemary, crushed
* 1 teaspoon dried thyme
* 1 teaspoon garlic powder
* 20 slices French bread

I used reduced sodium soy sauce.

Pull the finished meat with forks and serve with provolone cheese in the french bread. Astounding!

Peace,
Tony

When we still lived up north we had a living room that had to double as a “family room” or indoor place for the kids to play. We had one of those shelf things with six bins and the toys stayed in there unless they were being played with. It was easy to toss them back in when the kids were in bed or napping. That was when the kids were under two and four.

Our “new” house is a split entry with L shaped family areas on both floors. The upstairs we kept for a living room and dining room, downstairs became the catch all family room. That is also where the tv resides. Last spring I came to this epiphany: every time I went into the “kids area” of the family room I had to kick toys out of the way. Even the dog chewing stuff up hadn’t help keep things cleaned up. I watched the now five year old play in there after I had cleaned it one morning. Toys went flying out of the bin while she looked for … who knows what. They flew out and I stood there, mouth agape.
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I  hope everyone had a happy and safe New Years Eve. If you made resolutions be sure to take small steps to help with success! I have long since given up making resolutions for the new year. They never work out for me past the first couple of weeks due to the size and unrealistic scope of them!

We went out to dinner last night at a local place three blocks down the road. They have $5.99 burgers all the time, we split one and the girls split one, it made for a cheap dinner. It is amazing how much food comes with one “serving” at restaurants! When we each order our own plate my wife takes half home and I end up feeling uncomfortably full for eating the whole thing. Splitting it is just the right amount for us.

I digress, after dinner we went to the gym and took the girls swimming. Then we let them stay up late, with a fancy bed time snack and a movie from the redbox. While they were watching that my in laws and wife and I played Farkel and the Worst Case Scenario game. My father in law was able to make it half way around the board, but the scenarios are a lot more unrealistic than I remember. Funny to read through them, though! (Or maybe I’m bitter for only getting one right. )

The kids went to bed and we watched a movie until midnight then off to bed!

I can’t remember the last time we actually went out for new years, though I’m pretty sure it was before we were married. It is much safer to be hunkered down at home by 9pm in my opinion!

Peace!
Tony

Yesterday I wrote about changing my brake pads. Well, the old ones must have been “tuned” to the rotors, because my wife complained of the brakes surging on her drive into work yesterday. It looked like the rotors were warped. Basically the heat and cold of driving and stopping stresses the disks that the pads grab to stop the car and warps them over time. It becomes noticeable when even pressure is put on the brake pedal, say coasting up to a red light, and the car feels like it is almost rocking into the stop. Not smooth like the pressure on the pedal.

Anyway, since I just had the brakes off, I figured getting the rotors off and replaced would be pretty much a snap, all I had to do was go one step further and knock the rotors off too. Hour, tops! Yeah, right.

First, the economics. The rotors for the car I’m working on are $26 a piece. To get the old ones “turned” or machined back to square is $10.  The problem is my preferred shop doesn’t turn them on site, so I’d have to drive to another shop. Second, to turn the rotors, I’d have to take them off, put the car up on jack stands and wait until they’re done to bring them back and reinstall.

I digress. The lessons I learned with this work up are 1) a heavy brass hammer is less effective than WD-40 and a lighter ball peen hammer 2) if I know it would probably be easier to take the middle part off first so I can get better leverage, just do it 3) a father in law who had done this for many years is enough incentive for the misbehaving parts to toe the line.

Gaining experience and learning from my mishaps is one of the advantages to doing this myself. For that reason the second side is ALWAYS easier. The second side of the brakes went faster! The second side of doing the rotors went significantly faster! I just have to wrap my noggin around these lessons and make the results repeatable.

It comes down to a simple equation. How much is my time worth? When my wife is feeling fine and the in laws’ garage is warm, putting two or three hours into figuring out the fix is completely worth it compared to the shop’s two hours and hundreds of dollars. Now, if is something like an oil change with a coupon for $18 or buying the $15 dollars of oil and filter? Those three dollars are worth having them do it. $60 for rotors from the store and two hours instead of $200+ and two hours? It should be a no brainer, right?

I think the next project is going to be the outer tie rod ends.

Peace,
Tony

I have to shake my head some times at how easy some stuff can be that we are so willing to pay others to do. Working on the car is not something I grew up doing, but even so dad and I would sit down and change the brake pads on the family cars. I had help doing it in college but still refused to pay someone else to do it, and more recently my father in law would guide me through the process on the other vehicles. (And warm up his garage for us to work in…)

Swapping out brake pads is incredibly easy and doesn’t require any fancy tools. The local O’Reilly Auto Parts lends out a sweet set of tools to twist the brake plunger in if that is needed, like on our Mercury diSable. We could still do it with a hammer and screwdriver, but that part is a bit frustrating. They put a $50 charge on the card and refund it when you bring the tool back. Can’t go wrong.

Anyway, take the tire off, two bolts off and the calipers come off, take the worn pads out, put the new pads in, push the plunger back either with a 6″ C clamp or that tool if needed, slip it back on, replace the bolts, put the tire back on and away we go!

Unless… yeah, it is NEVER that easy, is it? Last night one of the stupid bolts wouldn’t go back in. I had to take the part that holds the calipers in place off. The dumb stupid #$**& bolt wouldn’t go back in! The best I could figure is there was too much grease in the hole and it just wouldn’t go or the little plastic sleeve was a bit out of whack. Anyway, it was nothing a bench vise and gentle turning couldn’t fix.

As is clearly evident, I’m not a car guy! I don’t even know the proper names for all these parts but that doesn’t mean I can’t do it. Even with the frustration of that bolt there were only four bolts to unscrew and then replace after getting the tire off. It isn’t rocket science. All totaled up the cost of this little adventure was $35. I don’t even want to know what they would charge me at the service shop.

It also took about two hours in the garage, although frankly, I don’t include that as a “cost” since it is almost a perk to be working on something without watching the kids. That stupid bolt refusing to do what it was supposed to added the extra hour to the job. If everything went smoothly it would take less than an hour. Nothing ever goes that smoothly though.

So, $35 and some grandma time for the kids instead of $100+ and being stuck at a repair shop for a couple hours. I’ll do it myself, thank you very much.

Peace,
Tony