Update on Images on the Web

I haven't yet found out an easy way to find out if my blog pictures have ever been stolen. If anyone knows, let me know! However, I spent a few minutes today Googling different word combinations about babies, diapers, woolies, etc to see if anything comes up in their Image results. But with THOUSANDS of results, I can't sift through them all.
But something did happen that startled me. I have another blog, besides the knitting one. It was made after my mom and dad's 40th anniversary party in Aug 2007. I wasn't using Facebook at the time and it seemed an easy way to show off large numbers of photos from the big day, and other extended family events. There hadn't been any "stats" available for it through my Blogger dashboard, but today I looked again. One page had been visited. You can look to see how people got to your blog and I followed it to bing.com search engine and some searches with combinations of the words "mom" and "pantyhose". There, on the first page, is a picture of my cousin's daughter....not a mom, and not even showing below her waist (but the caption under the photos is "...after straightening her pantyhose...but judging by her expression, maybe before"). Two rows below that image is one of Meg, from the same post.

How on earth could I know that writting that ("adjusting her pantyhose") would bring up her picture on a search engine? I don't know how popular Bing is, but when I typed the same words into Google, I didn't get the pictures (at least, not as far as I scrolled down). I got a ton of pictures I really didn't need to see on a Tuesday though. And hopefully none of my kids ever Google "pantyhose".
What other phrases should I Google/Bing? And how can I track my photos?

How Do I....

....find out if someone has stolen pictures from my blog, or linked to them? I know at the bottom of each post there is a "Links to this Post" but I can't continuously go through each post and click on that.
A parenting blog I read has recently discovered that pictures of her (deceased) child were on a strangers computer, half a world away, along with child porn. The pictures of her child were innocent, harmless, typical child pictures. She was contacted by the police of that country. Many commenters mentioned that similar things happened to them. But how can I find out if any of my pictures (or posts) were taken?

Stats

Upon reading the last post about my very quick recap of 2009, I forgot Rob's car accident. That was the first weekend in Oct; it took till mid-March to get a court date which was set for Aug 12. All went well. I'm sure there's plenty other things I could have written about. The thing is, it's much easier to post pictures on Facebook, and for people to leave comments. But here, you can write more and put the pictures into the writing. It just takes longer to get the pictures loaded to Blogger. Five at a time? They need to change that!

There's a new feature on Blogger that lets you look at your stats. You can see how many people read which posts, where they're from, how they got here. The two most popular posts for this blog are the ones about Montego Bay and Labadee. Over 90 page views each. This is so cool to see how people get here. Feel free to leave a comment at anytime!

2009/2010 Review

I know I never finished my review of last year. So here it is. House hunting sucked. Packing sucked. The PODS were great, after getting a replacement for the one that leaked. The mortgage lady at the big-name bank, sucked. And cost us lots of money due to her ignorance of her job. Closing day sucked because of the people buying the house of the people buying our house. They couldn't get their down payment to their lawyer on closing day to close that house which meant that our house couldn't close which meant we couldn't close on the new house. The PODS had left before we knew this. We had NOTHING except a colouring book and a hot tub. Some people might have gone skinny dipping in the hot tub. Rob had to work the next day so we finally hit the road during rush hour and crashed at his parents for the night...no pajamas, toothbrushes, or anything. Finally I got the house keys the next afternoon and we started moving in. Found out quickly the roof was more rotten than thought. Then we found out the gas woodstove in the basement wouldn't light and when we lit a wood fire upstairs, the basement filled with smoke. The shed in the backyard was rotten, the swingset nearly fell over. Every faucet leaked. There's no studs in the basement walls. The deck was horribly built. Rebuilding the deck caused the slow water leak in the basement to become a flood during a week of monsoons. Our dog got sick for the first time in December, got better, then died on Christmas Eve. I had a massive tooth infection and got a neck ultrasound and found out I have a thyroid problem (nodular goiter) and enlarged lymph nodes and plaque in the carotid artery. A routine eye exam showed plaque in the blood vessels of the eyes and she said to see my doctor to get my carotid arteries examined. I am at risk for glaucoma and didn't get a total pass on the field vision test. I saw a cardiologist and had an extensive stress test and carotid artery ultrasound and he said everything was fine and clear but I need a different hypertensive medicine. I bought a home blood pressure monitor and my readings at home are WAY lower, much lower than typical 'white coat syndrome' can explain. I still have to wait till the end of October to see an endocrinologist.

Gee. Have I forgotten anything? We got a puppy; nephew of our dog that died. Sigh. I feel like I've been on a merry-go-round and need to get off. Soon.

We Interupt This 2009 Recap...

June 2009

May ended with a trip to Whitby/Oshawa to check out a few houses and see what the housing market in general was like. June started off with no answers to our pressing questions: should we hold off for an offer that makes us happy, even if Rob had to live with his parents for months? Do we upsize our house since we're moving anyway (and the house we were in was proving to just not cut it sizewise)?

We hosted a surprise 40th birthday party for my older brother, Ted, and a mini-party for Huey's 9th birthday (and recognizing all the other May/June birthdays!). Most of our family had never been to our 'new' house in the 3 years we'd been there! The pinata was a trouble-maker. Auntie Cheryl bent our broom trying to smash it open (it actually lasted until this past weekend when Rob fatally cracked it). Why is this underlined? I can't even see an option for underlining!Huey finally resorted to the plastic baseball bat.

The hot tub was enjoyed by all the kids. From left--Lucy, Meg, nieces Allie and Abby, and Jasmine at the front right (my cousin's daughter). Huey got in later, and I think Logan was away with his Daddy.Even Cooper had a great time at the party, especially with Ted!From left, Cheryl and Mike (my younger brother), Uncle Duncan (Jasmine's grandpa), Lucy and Rob; enjoying my FIRST attempt at cooking ribs!The ribs were such a hit, I cooked them again later in the month.

Mid-week following the party, we listed the house for sale. Despite our carpet salesman's attempts to win us over, he didn't, LOL. We'd been working with Andrea since Sept. 2002 and had no reason to leave her, even though she wasn't optimistic with the listing price Rob insisted on. Showings started a little bit slowly, with the first one being cancelled, but on Sunday we had a showing that resulted in an offer being presented that night---3 days on the market. There was a lot of back-and-forth negotiating, and in the end, the client wanted to sleep on it cause it was getting late. We settled in the morning with our conditions being met...at almost the asking price. A closing of Sept. 30 meant I'd have a few weeks while all kids were in school for packing, and they were happy to not start at a new school on the first day of school, where they might get lost in the shuffle. The purchaser had a condition though that he'd sell his townhouse in two weeks, which our agent was happy with. We continued with showings and silently laughed when several agents said during the agent open house, that it was priced too high!

However, Rob still did not officially have a new job!!!

In between showings, we still had speech therapy, pre-school 'tutoring', child development social worker visits, swim lessons, and my dad was in the hospital.

The offer we had was accepted on Monday June 15, which meant his two week clause should have been over on June 29, but the next part of the story happens in July. So maybe we had given him three weeks.

On June 30, Rob got an email from the 'manager-to-be' with an email attached that Rob never responded to, about employment verification. It was dated June 4. We looked closer at it, and the original sender had spelled my name wrong and we had never gotten that email. He immediately sent off the employment info, which wasn't acknowledged until July 6. We were beginning to realize just how SLOW things could be there!

May 2009

May was an interesting month. We continued with the waiting for Rob's security clearance for his new job at OPG. I continued planning a surprise birthday party for my brother. We continued getting prepared to sell the house. We continued imagining scenarios of quick sell vs wait for price; Rob living with his parents; buying a new home quickly instead, etc.

Knowing we were going to have a period of time without medical/dental/vision benefits, I focused (LOL) on getting those things checked up. I wasn't due for a vision test or new glasses, so I started with kid #1, Hugh. He had been to Rob's opthamologist when he 1, and then to my optometrist when he was about 3. Or 5? All I remember is that I had a crawling baby with me too. At the end of grade 1, the class got vision screenings by the Lions Club. He came home with a note saying that either he didn't understand the test, or he might have some colour blindness issue. Knowing that Hugh often has trouble with directions, I filed the note away and promptly forgot it, thinking we'd take him in 'someday'.
I mentioned this to the assistant doing the pre-screening. She got out the colour blindness test book (click the link to test yourself!), and right away it was obvious!! My about to be 9 boy is colour blind! He's always been good at art, and very detailed, so we were stunned. Now, his is not severe, but can affect future occupations. We started remembering instances that could have tipped us off. Reading the diagrams and putting together Lego of various shades of grey. Not 'knowing' the difference between the beige house and the grey house. Not realizing I had coloured my hair. We began questioning him all the time...he didn't understand why Daddy would bother repainting the living room the same colour when we had always said we didn't like it, LOL!! He has trouble with shades of grey, esp. in combo with lavender and beige. Dark blue and black are hard to tell apart. Different shades of rust/orange/brown in combination appear very similar. He will be able to drive.
Further research indicated that colour blindness is passed through the mother's side. Apparently, my mom's dad was colour blind. Shortly after this, when we had that surprise party, my cousin's (my mom's sister's daughter) son was wearing something that made me question him too. Don't know if she's followed through though.
Huey is a little farsighted, and like me, is very light sensitive due to pale pigmented retinas.

Next came Lucy's trip. It was her first time. Turns out her eyes are totally wacky and she needs glasses!! But no colour blindness or light sensitivity.
Then it was Meg's turn. She didn't get perfect on the colour blindness test, but she was only 3 1/2 (they use one with shapes). She is also light sensitive.

We have bushes out front, and every year, there are baby birds, usually these ugly starlings/grackles (?). The momma's get upset when the birds fall out of the nests, and they'll hover nearby, but they can't do anything about it and they don't last long. Good lessons on life for the kids.

I managed to get the kids to pose for the almost annual crabapple tree portraits.

It took a LOT to get a picture of Lucy smiling!

And Meg and Lucy discovered 'meat on a bone', aka "Cavegirl meat".

I had been having a lot of dental/jaw/joint pain over the first 5 months. It was absolutely horrendous at times. My dentist adjusted a filling, and that gave relief for a short period, but I just sort of resolved that I would forever have an 'issue'. I did decide to get a new nightguard. Oh, that was fun, getting the mould. She had to use a small child's size tray!! A little while later, one night while washing my face, I felt a lump on my jaw. Well, not quite the jaw, not quite the gums, sort of really deep in the gum/fleshy part. When I went back for the nightguard check up, she took an x-ray, and noticed a spot that 'could become troublesome' and 'should' get looked at. But not by her, of course. I'd have to go to Brampton. Although her ad in the phone book said they do root canals, they don't actually.

Well, with all the business of 3 kids, about to sell the house, possibly not having dental plan to cover any treatment, and feeling better....I neglected to go get it checked. Stay tuned for what happened in September!