The Fine Print

• @eoski Sony dv311 #
• @eoski canon sr72 95014 #

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• does anyone know where I can watch the first five episodes of this season’s Lost? My tivo ate them before I could watch! #

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• is there an “i hate DirecTV” website? if not, I’m going to start one #

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• just got back from an amazing weekend at Disneyland the kids had a blast #

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I’m always on the search for a cheaper alternative for anything I’m trying to buy. I’m pretty good at knowing all the sites to find the cheapest airline tickets, discounts or whatever and I pride myself on always being able to pay bottom dollar for stuff. However, I’m starting to figure out the difference between getting stuff for cheap and getting a good deal. Case in point, I was cleaning out my garage the other day and came across a bunch of vacuum cleaners I had bought over the last couple years. What struck me is that pretty much none of them lasted longer than 3 months before packing in. I mean, vacuum cleaners are the only products that you hope suck!

Whenever I had to buy a new vacuum cleaner, my decision making process simply boils down to a) does it look good? (yeah, we all know how vital it is to be stylish while clearing those cobwebs. b) it must be a bit more expensive than the cheapest model but not that much more (we all know the cheapest stuff is crap so I steer clear of those!).

However it is quite clear that history has not cast a kind eye on my decision making skills in this area. The cunning marketers of vacuums, being the clever devils they are, have figured out the strategy of people like me and started pricing their crap a little bit higher than normal as a way of signaling that it’s a bit higher quality. But, of course, it’s still crap.

The really curious thing is that I have never bothered to go really high end and buy one of those really fancy cleaners that you see being demonstrated in a wind tunnel or something. Now, those tend to cost about four five times as much as a regular cleaner but I suspect may work much better. I have probably spent way more on regular cleaners at this point anyway, so I might as well give it a shot. Hopefully, they just haven’t taken the old marketers ploy to a whole other level by jacking up the prices to the sky in the hope that you’ll think it’s even better than all the others.  I hope that’s not true though because I’ve got my eye on a cute looking Dyson that looks downright fetching.

General house stuff

• am doing my annual last minute xmas shopping and I’m stunned how much less busy the malls are compared to last year #

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• @TodaysMamaStaff once gave a can of engine oil. wrapped it nicely though:-) #

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• Fooling around with tweets from my new blog. #
• trying to figure out how long this sibling rivalry thing is going to last. it’s amazing how they both always want to be first #
• @takinola watching the kids at swim class #
• @SeekingBalance re: bribing kids - greed and fear always work. the trick is knowing which to use #
• watching the parents at the kids swim class. the dad’s are mostly reading magazines or even on their laptops. #
• only the mums seem to actually be watching the kids practice hmm wonder why that is? #

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I was cleaning out the drug cabinet the other day and just noticed how many of the flu and cold medications had expired zonks ago.  It was really scary to because I don’t make a habit of checking for expiry before popping a tylenol or some cough syrup.  I’m trying to figure out how best to ensure all the medications in the house are still before their “best before” date but other than zealously checking every other week, it’s going to be hard.  There are a few obvious things I can think of anyway.

1. Put all the medications in a single place - I noticed that we had about three different locations in which we kept all sorts of pills and lotions, mostly in bathroom cabinets all over the house.  This may be convenient when you have a splitting headache not to have to schlep across the house for a painkiller but it doesn’t make it easy to keep track of what’s expiring and what isn’t.
2. Buy smaller quantities - there’s probably no need to have that costco-size box of Theraflu.  Half of it’s probably just going to waste
3. Do periodic checks - I’m trying to set up a schedule of checking all expiry dates, probably about once a quarter.  I’ve got a bunch of really boring household stuff that I try to schedule like that (filing documents, etc) so I’ll probably just add this to the list.  These are all the things I hate to do but know will get me in trouble if I don’t so I end up dedicating one saturday a quarter to getting them done.
4. Check every time you use some medication - I’m also going to make a habit of doing a quick check every time I pick up a bottle.

Well let’s see how long this lasts.  Hopefully, it’ll put my mind at ease that no one in the family is going to poison themselves accidentally one of these days.

Let me know if you have any ways of keeping your medicine cabinets safe

Tips & Tricks medicines, prescription drugs, safety

Finally it’s here.  The launch of the tippleBox blog.

Let me take a moment to explain what tippleBox is about.  tippleBox is designed to help working mums find good quality childcare for their kids.  As a parents, we’ve gone through all the angst and anxiety of finding good quality childcare for our kids and realize just hard it is to find someone you entrust with your kids. We’d love to help make that process a little easier for you.

Looking back, I found the best experiences we had were with caregivers who lived in my neighborhood and came recommended by our friends or from other parents at our kids’ school.  tippleBox looks to make that process easy by giving local caregivers an opportunity to post a detailed profile for parents in their community to find and enable parents to offer recommendations on the profiles of their favorite caregivers to serve as guideposts for other parents.

In all, I hope tippleBox becomes a community where a whole bunch of people can get together to help each other navigate the foggy path of parenthood, If we achieve this, I will feel we have achieved something.  Stick around, feel free to poke around and check back soon.

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