a fun fishing game

My sister-in-law gave my two kids each a fishing pole. This was very nice and the kids really wanted to use them. The trouble is that I’m not really a fisher. I don’t like to eat fish and I don’t like to go fishing. In order to allow my kids to use their new toys I devised a game where i attached magnets to the fishing one and they would fish for objects. Currently I use magnetic shapes that are to build with but they work great. Something I didn’t think of was that this would help my youngest learn shapes. I would ask him what kind of fish he caught and he would respond with, “a triangle fish.” I realized that you could do this with any type of object, letters or numbers or colors. It’s a fun game and the kids are learning something.

the road trip potty

We just got back from driving to Disney World and back. We chose to drive based on the price to fly and then rent and had to drive. One thing that we felt we would have to overcome was the constant stopping to go potty that our three year old would inevitably have to do. See, he’s a new toilet user and when he realizes he has to go, it has to be now. The solution to this came in the form of a small portable potty from Kids R Us. It was great. It folded up very small and the bags contain a small absorbent pad like a diaper. The idea was to let him use the potty while the car was still moving. I know that this wasn’t the safest thing to do, but my wife and I considered it a rational risk. That little potty saved us about 10 stops in total and about the same number of unders.
We took another road trip right after we got back from Disney, but this time it was only a four hour ride instead of the 20 hour drive. We couldn’t bring the potty since we drove my truck instead of a Navigator. The Navigator had room for the potty with two of the four back seats folded down but my truck doesn’t have a flat space like that so the idea was out.
In short, this little portable potty can save lots of time on the road but only in certain vehicles.

find it games

If you have a rather compulsive child then I have a great game for you. It’s called Find It. You may have seen these in stores. They are cylindrical tubes with hexagons on both ends and lots of little plastic beads inside. Mixed in with these beads are a number of odd items like lettered beads, a balloon, a rubber band, an eraser and so on. The idea is to shake and shiver the Find It until you find everything on the checklist. Four adults, myself included spent a collective 2 hours completing one of of these. It got to a point that we had to find an item, the penny, to prove that it was indeed in there (it was).
You can find the games just about anywhere but the website is here. Its really great and worth checking out.

credit score protection

I was interested in protecting my credit since it all anyone talks about nowadays. With all of the identity theft I felt it was worth looking into.
For starters, I found that it is not that widespread. Most people, if they are a victim, are only out a few 10s of dollars maybe 100. There is a very small number of people who get taken for a lot. Second, the easiest way to avoid the problems is to avoid shady things. Don’t respond to the emails and popups.
Third, those companies that offer to protect your credit don’t do anything that you can’t do on your with a little work. Here is a link to a website that talks about how to do it yourself. It costs $30 for each of the three credit agencies to lock your credit score and then $30 each to unlock it if you need to apply for a loan or something.

http://www.savingadvice.com/articles/2008/06/04/102143_never-pay-someone-to-protect-your-identity.html

credit score protection

I was interested in protecting my credit since it all anyone talks about nowadays. With all of the identity theft I felt it was worth looking into.
For starters, I found that it is not that widespread. Most people, if they are a victim, are only out a few 10s of dollars maybe 100. There is a very small number of people who get taken for a lot. Second, the easiest way to avoid the problems is to avoid shady things. Don’t respond to the emails and popups.
Third, those companies that offer to protect your credit don’t do anything that you can’t do on your with a little work. Here is a link to a website that talks about how to do it yourself. It costs $30 for each of the three credit agencies to lock your credit score and then $30 each to unlock it if you need to apply for a loan or something.

http://www.savingadvice.com/articles/2008/06/04/102143_never-pay-someone-to-protect-your-identity.html

automatic shower cleaner

We have used the Scrubbing Bubbles Automatic Shower Cleaner for a few years and I really do like it. It does seem to keep the shower cleaner. I had a thought about how much of the shower it actually cleans so I decided to conduct a test.

When we finished one of the bottles I modified it so I could put some food coloring into it and actually see how much of the shower it reaches. I didn’t tell my wife I was doing this since she might not like the idea of spraying food coloring in the shower. I also used the guest shower since I wasn’t sure what would happen. After spraying the modified shower cleaner it became clear that it really covers a lot of the shower. Here are some pictures:

I know the pictures aren’t the easiest to tell but you can see where the spray hits and where it doesn’t. You can also see that I have the cleaner mounted as is prescribed. All in all, I was very happy with the results of the test. The spray isn’t the greatest at the back of the shower but there wouldn’t be as much water hitting that section as well.