Is this time different?

Wow life has gotten crazy.  That is probably the biggest understatement.

Obviously the virus of which we don't speak it's name is the headliner of all news.

So a list of things that has changed for my family in the past 2-3 weeks

1. School and daycare was shutdown or an additional week after spring break. Which they added 2 additional weeks - So we are homeschooling
2. Work has strongly encourages us to work from home if possible. I was able for 2 weeks until they wanted me to coming.
3. My work office is changing buildings to have our team seporated across buildings
4. Summer plans are all on hold
5. Tickets we bought for skiing are all in question
6. The stockmarket has fallen like a rock 
7. Whole state is on lock down

Here is a list of some nice things

1. Taxes are now not due until July 15th yeah I get to keep the money longer
2.  I accidently over bought toliet papper months ago.  I though we were out in Janurary so I push up out Amazon subscribe and Save order. I counted yesturday we had 120 rolls.  We donated 24 rolls to our friends who were on their last roll.
3. Went through a list of services we aren't using and cancalled 
1. Car wash (we only use in the winter)
2. gym - no point when you can't go
3. consumer reports - good resource, but not something we use every month. No real reason to keep it until you need it again
4. RoadRunner - havn't cancalled yet. It is nice when you have to buy shoes.
4.  One eatten out/in once since this all started. Really only to support local a business. They are hurting.
5. Bought flowers for a friend who was sick. They liked it and the flower store thanked us like 5 times
6. A lot more outside walking time with dog and family

Besides out dog who is getting like 10 walks a day since he is a year and half old Lab with so much energy it is required. This last month has pretty much sucked for the entire world.

Before I started back at work this was my schedule. We kinds skipped Spring break and just went straight into homeschooling. Sorry kids.

6:30 - Wait up at and get breakfast ready
7:00 - First try to get the kids up. Mostly they get up, but sometimes they need an extra 15
7:15 - Make sure kids are up and changed
7:30 - Eat breakfast and let the kids play until 8
8:00 - 9:30 - school (circle time, math, literacy)
9:30 - 10:30 -   snack and recess - we do this in the basement as it did snow a foot the first week, I  workout during this time. Either run on treadmill or weight exercises. Today the kids rode their bikes and I ran along side them.
10:30 - 11:30 - back to teaching - science and art
11:30 - 12:30 - Lunch and recess again (outside recess) - we have been playing soccer during this time in the driveway
12:30 - 13:00 - Switch with Wife (continues the schooling) who was working in the office and I walk the dog.
13:00 - 18:15 - Working from home
18:15 - 19:30 - Dinner and story time with the kids
19:30 - 20:00 - relaxe/recharge/bathroom/walk dog
20:00 - 22:45 - finish working
22:45 - 24:00 - looking leason plans for next day and figure out how to homeschool. and get ready for bed

So I have been pretty tired these first two weeks and they have been a learning curve.

More to follow on homeschool and how we are dealing with the food shortages.

Another day another emergency

Well on the work yesturday my car decided to die.  I've taken it in and the first estimates are $1,000 to fix turbo hoses. 

I called the wife and had a good talk about. Do we keep this 12 year old car or do we sell/trade-in to get a used car that works as a communter. Or do we keep it now and get it fixed and start looking to sell and in a year or so get a car after we have saved for awhile. 

I've kepts very good book  keeping on the car and when back to see over the life of the car how much I've spend on Servies i.e. things breaking.  In the 12 years I've owned the car I've spend $12k.  About $1k a year which isn't awesome, but it actually is worst then that.  For the first 7 years the car was under warrenty.  4 of it manufactures and 7 extended.  The extended was 3k.  So for 8 years of used I sent $15k to make sure it still ran so ~$1.9k a year.  After looking at these numbers it is becomig hard to keep my paid off car that I love.

Love live the three pedal cars.

I am every torn on buy a car.  For one I like buying very good things and keeping them a long time. I take very good care of my things and expect them to last forever.  So buying used it very difficult on me, but I know from an financial stance it is the best thing to do.

With two kids and a dog a sedan is becoming a little tough moving everyone around.  If I had my choice of new cars today I would want a Tesla Y, but those are expensive. I've looked at used model 3s and they seem to have kept there value so not much of a discount.

Current plan it is to start taking pictures on my car and look to sell it. Then depending on when it is sold; live off one car for awhile and then an a year or two buy a car that best fits out needs.  Maybe by then I will feel better (I'm smarter) about buying a used car. 

Life with Twins and the effects

Having twins is always a surprise. Not because now you have to change twice as many dippers and twice as much crying.  It really is you have to buy 2 - 4 times as much stuff.  This is especially true if both parents plan to work.

My twins are in kindergarten and as of today we have bought 10 car seats, 4 car seat bases, and 4 strollers and we got two others for free.  That is just to move them from place to place.

Car seats are a hard thing to get ride of.  The official stance is don't buy a used car seat because you don't know if they have been in a crash.  The other things about car seats are they expire.  They have a life I think of about 5-8 years. Which is roughly 2 kids back to back.

You have three choices

• Sell it (very hard) maybe to friends
• Gift it
• Take to recycle center (target takes them)

Lets move on to sleeping.  They have cribs, travel cribs, blankets, baby bumps.  Just to name a new.  Luckily for us we bought convertible cribs and are still use them in their full size form.

I believe we had 4 Travel cribs at the grandparents houses and they are still there. These should be sold and we also have 6 cots that we still use regularly.

The toys these kids get through the first 6 or so years is crazy.  So many books. So many matching games.  Not include all the plastic toy of he week they get at birthdays.

Books are easy. These can be donated. As long as the games are in good condition they can be sold or donated.  The other toys. Well depending on the condition it look for some to pass on and enjoy.

Clothes.  As the kids have gotten bigger we have saved there clothes by size and "gender"  this has made it easier to donate/sell/give away.  I haven't gotten into much selling of the clothes mostly because it seems like tons of work for little gain, but I know people make business out of doing this. 

Some days I look at our playroom and really feel like we should be a minimalist family.