When It Rains, It Pours......

Just had another one of "THOSE" moments, a bit ago.... While getting DD's lunch pulled together from our "pantry" in the laundry-room, I noticed that the freezer door wasn't sealed. So, I push it shut, thinking that maybe it'd not gotten shut all the way while DH was in there this morning, getting a TV dinner out. Nope, popped right back "open". So, I opened it up and looked around, trying to surmise what may be keeping the door from sealing properly.... I don't SEE anything that looks like it's pushing against the door from the inside, but I do some re-arranging anyway. Still, no seal. So, I HOLD the door shut for a few minutes, wondering if maybe doing that will cause the seal to hold. Yeah, right. (Did I mention I'm not a morning person & I haven't had my cup of tea this morning, so my brain is still being a bit fuzzy.) Well, the freezer WAS staying sealed, as long as something was holding the door shut, so I glanced around for a somewhat tall object that has some heft to it, and grabbed the full (unopened) bottle of Hawaiian Punch left-over from the Neice's and DD's birthday parties, and propped that in front of the door long enough to go grab the phone.

Called DH, he wasn't very thrilled to hear the news, but suggested the usual Red Green trick to buy us some time. And turns out that he wasn't even INTO the freezer this morning, which means it's been open since at least last night, when I was in pawing around for something for dinner. Great!!!!! The pkgs of meat still felt frozen solid, though..... But his Pizza rolls didn't make it. ;) So, it's duct-taped and holding, for now. But...... Unless DH & FIL can find some reason that I missed that the seal isn't sealing...... We're going to have to shell out for a new freezer. And obviously, this isn't the freezer atop our fridge, this is a big, 5-1/2 foot upright freezer. This is where we've still got over 1/4 of a pig we bought this winter for meat. Were we've got our supply of remaining moose & whatever beef we have. Where DH & I keep our TV dinners for work. We've got 2 turkeys in there.... It's not a small freezer, and it won't be a small expense to replace it. And we're going to HAVE to replace it before we head to Anchorage, which means some of the money we were saving for Anchorage, won't be going with us. *sigh*

As I said, when it Rains, it Pours!

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And Dh's ulcer is acting up again. As some of my friends recall, he wound up in the ER this past summer, thinking he was having a heart-attack, only to find out that he has an ucler. It was being exacerbated by the high amounts of advil he was taking for a rotten tooth (wisdom tooth that had abcessed). So, he knows he has this ulcer, and he's been staying away from the advil. But, he had a head-ache yesterday and he took some tylenol...... I'm wondering if the tylenol had something else in it to cause the ulcer to flare up again. DD had hockey practice yesterday, and while there DH's chest really started hurting again. To the point where the security guy at the rink was wanting to call for an ambulance. DH talked him out of it, saying it was JUST his ulcer, and it'd be better once he got home & got some mylanta. The security guy was glad to hear DH call back (when he got home) saying he was ok and feeling better already. I think it was a lie, as DH sat on the couch all evening, unwilling to eat anything more than ritz crackers & milk, and looking very pale & in pain. More mylanta before bed, his nexium this morning before work. And he's STILL not feeling on top of his game, he said. He slept crappy, and his stomach still doesn't feel well..... *sigh*

When it Rains, it Pours......

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And, after sitting there and watching American Idol, and taking 25 minutes to brush her teeth, at 10:05 DD comes out of her bedroom (she'd been told to go get her PJ's on) and says "Oh, yeah!!!! I've got homework!!!!" So, DH takes a look at it and in his pained state can't make heads or tails out of it. One glance and I knew exactly what needed to be done, at least for the top part.... Of couse DD starts getting in a snit about how TIRED she is, and WHY do we have to do this now?!?!?! *rolling eyes* Yeah, as if she doesn't KNOW why her homework has to be done, so she can turn it in the next morning.

So, some arguing and some griping, but the top half of the page gets done, and I set to work trying to figure out how to do the bottom half of the page (same as the top half, but now not only do we have to SOLVE the equation, we have to write up our own equation that MUST be solved, with a total equaling 500). Well, I thought I knew how to do it, but here is DD griping about WHY can't she just go to bed. DH looking like he's going to fall over with the next breeze that blows through. And I'm getting fed up with both of them.

My first trial for an equation adding up to 500 doesn't quite cut it..... So I erase to try again, trying to explain to DD what I'm doing as I'm doing it, so she can learn this. DH tells me he's going to bed. Ok, Fine..... You weren't exactly helping me out anyway.

DD then had the AUDACITY to say "Well, _I'm_ tired TOO, why can't _I_ go to bed and YOU do the math problem, Mom?!?!?" *snitty tone, as she said it* WTF?!?!?!?! Who's homework is this???? And WHO waited till 10:05 to TELL us she had any????? Ok, so I erased my notations and told her to put it in her bag and take whatever grade her teacher gives her. Only, this morning I wrote on the pg that I'd like another night to solve this problem, and explain it to DD as she obviously doesn't understand the concept.

It's pre-pre-algebra. The problem looks something like this:

A: ________
B: ________

C: ________
D: ________

A__________ + B___________

C__________ + D___________

Now the totals of A+B plus C+D must add up to 500. WE must fill in the blanks. The ONLY number we're given is 500.

My first trial was to break 500 in half, so the totals of A+B and C+D would EACH be 250. Then I was going to break 250 down by dividing it into smaller dividends. So, A would be something like 5X25, and B...... And that's where I hit my brick wall.... I realized that other than 250x1, 250 didn't have any other dividends than 25 and 5. It's a derivitive of prime numbers, which means that ultimately, it's divisible only by 1 and itself. There goes that solution.

I think the answer, reverse engineered, will be more along the lines of.....

Total: 500=200+300

A+B=200
C+D=300

200= A) 140 + B) 60
300= C) 200 + D) 100

A= 70x2 B= 20x3
C= 10x20 D= 5x20

Turn it around and it'll look like:

A) 70x2
B) 20x3
C) 10x20
D) 5x20

A) 140 + B) 60 = 200
C) 200 + D) 100 =300

200+300 = 500. And there you have your answer.

Now to explain to DD (and DH, hopefully) how I got to that number, how I determined what the smaller numbers should be, and WHY it works that way. LOL This may finally explain to DH how algebra works. I hope so. I'm really actually hopeless at multiplication & division, but I did ok in Algebra. He does well with the basics of Addition & Subtraction, Multiplication & Division, but was hopeless (even worse than me, at multiplication & division) at Algebra. Maybe between the two of us we'll get DD through it. *wink* And, ironically, I've used algebra more in that problem than I think I have in the last 10 years. Since I graduated HS, really. LOL

Anybody wanna check my math?!?!?! I'll reciprocate by proof-reading an essay!!!!!! LOL (That was my tactic in school, was having a math wiz check my numbers, in exchange for proof-reading something of THEIRS. We both got better grades on papers that way, without turning in faulty work to the teacher.)

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On a brighter note.... Looks like we've got another Chinook blowing through. The temp this morning was almost 20 deg. F. when I looked at the thermometer at 8 am. As the sun's coming up (rose just a couple of minutes after 8, this morning), it's getting warmer. But you can tell a breeze is blowing. It's partially cloudy (and getting clowdier as the breeze blows them in), but feels nice out there. Yep, definite Chinook! I really do think that darned "ground hog" was right this year. We were cloudy on Imbolc, which means no "shadows for the groundhog", which means a shortened winter. We may still have another good snow (esp. if those clouds are heavier than they look), or two, but the over all length will be somewhat shorter this year, I think.

That's ok.... 4 years ago, we had our last snow on May first (and it was a doozy!) but by May 18th, the temp was 85 deg. F. and INCREDIBLY sunny!

Oooooh, the sun just hit through the top of the clouds, so you can see these gray clouds across the horizon and a good distance up, and then these scanty, white clouds, back-lit by the sun, going directly over top of us...... Pretty!!!!!! Not as pretty as Mom's sunsets, but still!!!!

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Ok. I think that's it for today.

Have a Blessed Day!