I had one of those weeks last week.  You know, one of those weeks where everything goes wrong.  Like if you sit in your Adirondack chairs and they break or it rains every time you have plans.  I’ve had bad days before, but it seemed like last week was against me.  It kicked me in the butt.

We spent that entire weekend looking for Madison’s retainer.  You know, those suckers are $500 and insurance doesn’t pay to replace if you lose them.  She’s been so good with it that it was amazing that we lost it.  We dug through garbage at our house and at my mother-in-laws house too.  We looked everywhere inside and outside, under outdoor wooden benches and even the kids beds!  We literally tore 2 houses apart.  Her orthodontist was on vacation last week, so we couldn’t get in to see him to see what we could do.  I knew heading in last week we were in trouble since the weekend sucked.

So that happened.  Then, my sites went down.  This was a 2 prong problem.  First, I had no access to my sites.  You may have seen some funkiness on my sites.  That’s why (it ended up having to do with a WordPress upgrade.  Hostgator ended up fixing it) I was a wreck on Twitter, on Facebook, and on Google+.  While digging through the backend stuff, I found out I was almost out of disk space.  Now, I currently pay $50 a month (yes, I know its a lot).  They told me I’d have to upgrade to the $80 month package (yes, I almost keeled over).  I had a great friend dig through my sites and found out that I had a rogue plugin that was backing up my site.  It wasn’t suppose to be saving to the server, but it was without my knowledge.  I had backups dating to 2007!!!!  Needless to say, we deleted 10 GB of backups!!!!!  (Crazy, isn’t it?).

Those two issues pretty much consumed my week.  However, this looked up by the end of the week.  First, Hostgator fixed the issue.  In talking with friends, I found a cheaper host for my blogs (which I’ll be moving to this week sometime if any funkiness happens).  I’ll get more space for less money!  I know somebody using this company already and they love them.  Best of all, I was doing laundry Friday morning, and guess what I found??!!??

Madison’s retainer.

My laundry room is also a junk room and also has a freezer and fridge in there (its all downstairs).  I was throwing in towels to the washer and her retainer was sitting in front of the fridge down there.  It looked great, and I ran it upstairs and brushed it.  The bad news is that she can’t get it into her mouth now.  However, we found it and it can be adjusted.  We have an appointment Thursday morning to do just that.

It’s amazing how your week can just turn better on a dime.  I now can sit outside on my Oakland Living outdoor furniture and relax.  How did your week go last week?

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Robert Scoble wrote a post about why your mom won’t be using Google+.  If you read my post from last week, you know I’ve had the ability to play with Google+ for a bit now, and I have to disagree.  Why?  Well, I’m a mom.  And I use Google+.

1.  I love Circles.  The argument seems to be that non-geeks won’t understand circles and won’t use them.  I can think of many reasons why they will.  Let’s say you want to vent about your inlaws or your job or pretty much anything you don’t want the whole world knowing.  You can easily just send a message to your friends complaining (make sure you disable the share option) and you don’t have to worry about the world knowing.  (Yes, I know they can still screenshot it, but if they are your friends, do you really think they will?)

2.  The mobile app is beyond easy to use.  I downloaded in the car on the way to a camping trip, and used it in the car (Need to add that I was not driving).  I was able to easily have the picture appear in my stream (it was a picture of how full my van was packed!).  It was a great test post and I have even been told how great the pictures looked on Google+ versus Facebook.  They just have a much more crisp look to them.

3.  Hangouts.  If you are like me (a mom) and your family lives far away, this is a great feature.  I can talk to my sister and my parents (who both live 4 hours away) and they don’t have to be at the same house!  We can be a family together even though we are in 2 states.  It just makes it easier to get online and talk.  As long as I can write directions on how to use it, my parents (who aren’t all that tech savvy) can figure it out.

4.  Simple interface.  Makes writing direction to use things much easier (see above).  Remember the saying, Keep in simple stupid?  That’s what Google did with this interface.  Simple makes it much more friendly to nongeeks.

5.  Adults are here.  This is exactly what the doctor ordered for us stay at home moms.  Facebook limits you to your friends.  On Google+, you can expand your horizons and follow those who you may not personally know however find interesting.  You can have adult conversations with people who may have opposing viewpoints and you don’t have to worry about whether or not somebody you knew in high school is going to read your insightful comment.

6.  One stop shopping.  Moms need our lives to be as simple as possible.  We are busy.  I like having my email, social networking, documents, etc all in one spot instead of having 20 bookmarked sites to do the same thing.

7.  Sparks.  This looks for videos and articles it thinks you’ll like, so “when you’re free, there’s always something to watch, read, and share.”  If your bored, have a go in there

8.  With a Google+ account, you get unlimited photo storage on Picasa.  I love being able to take a picture with my phone (which I have available to me most of the time.  I don’t normally carry my camera all too much), upload it, and not have to worry if I’m going to exceed my storage space.  And who doesn’t like free?

9.  You control your privacy unlike Facebook who doesn’t bother to tell you that they sold your information till after the media catches it.  Google Plus also makes it easy to control your privacy settings.  You don’t have to dig through 20 menus to get there.

10.  I’m here, and your mom loves me.  Why wouldn’t she want to hang out where all the cool people are?

Related articles

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Can I warn you all to get your adjustable office chairs ready?  If you get an invite to this awesomeness that is called Google +, you better be ready for the time suck it is and of course, be comfortable in your leather office chair.  I’ve handed out quite a few invites myself (if you are interested in one, comment down below or message me your email address so I can get you one).

Google + is everything Facebook isn’t.  Really.  You get to categorize your “friends” into “circles”.  I have several circles set up like bloggers, family, friends, etc.  The really cool thing is that you can put people into multiple circles.  I’ve heard that at some point you will be able to have shared circles.  Another cool thing is that you can’t see what circle I’ve put you in (so no guilt attached if I just put you in blogger and you put me in friend!).

Hangout is super awesome.  It’s like having a call with a bunch of people on your google interface.  It’s very, very cool as long as you are dressed and have your hair and makeup done.  LOL

You can also +1 what people say (I liken this to “likes” on Facebook).

You can tag people (including yourself).

There’s a mobile app for it.

You can look at the stream for your groups.  SOoo if you just want to check what’s up with your family, you check that circle and it filters everything else out!

Google + how do I love thee?  Let me count the ways. (see above)  Honestly, it’s better than Facebook!  I just hope that when everybody can get in, they will, because as long as this can scale, it will beat Facebook.  So get comfortable in your fabric office chair, let me know you want an invite, and enjoy!

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Until I offered her some cake.

About 2 am yesterday morning, I woke up. I literally sat straight up in bed and realized that 1. St Nick was suppose to come that night and 2. That Daisy (our puppy) had surgery scheduled. Needless to say, I got up and put the St. Nick gifts out right away. As for the puppy, I wasn’t 100% sure. What a great way to start your Monday morning.

I did call while I was taking Will to school, and Daisy was indeed scheduled to get fixed. I went and grabbed her and dropped her off. I didn’t have any time to prep the kids for this.

At dinner last night, Madison wanted to know why Daisy went to the doctor. (Well, that’s what I told her). I told her to ask Bill and he told her to ask me. (Nothing like passing the buck, right?). Now, how to you explain getting fixed to a six year old? I basically told her that Daisy was at the doctor and getting fixed so she couldn’t have puppies. (It wasn’t like I had any computer support or IT support that could google what you say to a six year old.) Obviously, this was NOT the correct thing to say, because she bursted out into tears. She wailed about how Daisy should have puppies and she’d take care of them, and on and on and on. It was pretty bad. Until . . . .

I offered her dessert. I asked Madison if she’d like some cake. Immediately stopped crying.

Note to self: Cake solves almost everything. However, on a more serious note, how do you explain why you get a dog fixed to a 3 and 6 year old. Any suggestions on what I should have done different?

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Okay, maybe it wasn’t.  Maybe it was just because we don’t have a memory foam mattress.  I don’t know, but this dream definitely ranks in the top ten for bad.

Now, I’ve had your run of the mill bad dreams before.  Everybody has those.  I do not even normally remember those.  It is the dreams that cut to the core that freak you out — it is the dreams about your kids.  I have dreamed I have had a miscarriage (while I was pregnant and since I had one before that it was a little freaky), I’ve dreamed that one of my kids died before, but last night ranks up their with both of these.  I dreamed that Will had a grand mal seizure.

Now, Will doesn’t have epilepsy.  The only seizure he has had in his life, I was on plane when it happened (he was home with my mother in law.  Let’s just say that babysitting job didn’t pay well enough for what happened).  It was ruled as an abnormal febrile seizure, and he’s never had one since.

I’m afraid to google to see what it means.  LOL  However, I just can’t figure out where that came from.  We spent the day at Great America yesterday with the kids, and they had a blast.  I was dead tired when we came home.  I didn’t even the mattress toppers on my bed last night; I’m pretty sure I was asleep before my head hit the pillows!

So anybody want to take a stab at the meaning behind this dream?

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