Current Mood:
Happy
My taste buds have experienced the delights of the minneola, and they are now hooked! They are a cross between a grapefruit and a tangerine. So they are tart, sweet, and super juicy. YUM! Unfortunately they are a winter season crop, so I’m not sure if they are available year-round, so go get some NOW! 
Current Mood:
Surprised
I found a pretty cool retro kitchen table at a rummage sale for $10. It’s Formica and chrome, totally 50′s. A friend of mine gave me some sweet 50′s teal chairs a while back, so I thought that it would be a great match! However, the chrome legs on the table were pretty funky, all dinged and rusted. So Sarah told me to scrub them down with Coca Cola and aluminum foil. What?! So I had to research it for myself, and found it to be true: Coca Cola poured on aluminum foil (shiny side), then used like a scrubbing pad, removes surface rust on chrome. The article I found said to scrub then dry with a towel. Apparently the article writer didn’t have anything very large to scrub; these table legs were not going to get by with just a toweling. So I rinsed them really well and dried them. And you know what? It worked pretty well! It’s not going to fix the pits and dings in the chrome, so it’s not like I got bright, shiny new table legs, but they do look a lot better! Check what the Mythbusters found.
Word of caution: Do this in a sink, outside, or somewhere that a mess is okay. Because messy it is. Whatever chemical reaction happens with the rust and the Coke and the aluminum creates a nasty black mess. And your aluminum will shred. Take a peek at my results (the leg on the left was cleaned, versus one not cleaned yet):
Current Mood:
Esctatic
What a wonderful way to wake up. This is what I see in the morning when I get out of bed and wander out of the hallway and into the kitchen: Beautiful flowers. It almost feels like springtime here, and it makes me happy. Those are paperwhite narcissus that I bought on clearance from Kmart, they were in Christmas clearance items. So I popped the bulbs in the dirt, watered them, and behold, beautiful spring flowers in the winter! You also see some basil growing there. Yum. And some other viney kind of plant that I have yet to identify.
The flowers only bloom once per season, but that’s alright. Right now is the perfect time for those flowers to bloom.
Current Mood:
Cool
My husband is from San Francisco Bay area, where they have enforced recycling. The trash collectors will sift through the garbage on occasion, and if there are any recyclables in it the home owner will get fined. Pretty extreme, but it works. On the opposite end of the spectrum, my friend who runs a day care, thus produces a lot of little glass jars and such, lives in an area that charges extra to pick up recyclables. Yes, the city (Kirkwood, MO) makes the homeowners pay MORE to take away recycling. Now I’m not 100% sure on how all that works, but I know that schools have recycling dumpsters for people to dump into to help the school earn money, I know that you can take recyclables to get money… Having to pay is a total rip-off.
So while these two places are on opposite ends of the trash spectrum, I think that my city has figured it out a balance beautifully. The plan is simple: Recyclable pickup is 100% free, as much as you have to put out. Trash pickup is paid for by trash tags that you buy and place on the garbage can instead of paying a monthly trash bill. We don’t use a lot of non-recyclable packaging, so our recycling bin going out once a week generally suffices for our garbage pickup. We generate a bag of garbage about every week to week and a half, our trash can holds three bags. Thus a can of trash is going to the curb about once every three to four weeks. So a sheet of five stickers, which costs $13.55, can last us three months or longer. That makes our garbage collection bill about four dollars a month. It makes our solid waste environmental impact pretty low for a family of three. And this happens without very much thought at all on our part. It’s not like I stress out over whether something should go into the trash can versus the recycle bin, and I don’t consciously seek out any particular packaging type.
I’m not bothering to tell you about this just because I want to brag about our lowered environmental impact or what a cool town I live in. This trash pickup scheme didn’t just magically happen. It was decided and voted upon by city council. City council members are elected, as is the mayor. These people work for you, so why not contact your local city council and take action? Wouldn’t you like to reduce your monthly bills and your environmental impact?
The info from our town’s website (I’d offer a link directly to it, but it’s in nasty frames):
Swansea’s Solid Waste Management Program includes the collection and processing of trash, yard waste and recyclable materials. (Click on the below items for complete information on the program and scheduled pickup days). For trash and yard waste collections, you must use a container no larger than 33 gallons and weighing no more than 50 pounds, or a bag weighing no more than 50 pounds [the tags say specifically: No more than one person can lift on their own], or rent a 90 gallon rolling cart (toter) from Allied Waste.
No matter which disposal method you use, you must place one (1) Swansea trash or yard waste sticker on the 33 gallon container or bag. The 90 gallon rolling cart requires 2 stickers. Trash or Yard Waste Stickers are available for purchase at a cost of $13.55 per sheet (each sheet contains 5 stickers) or a yearly sticker is available (with the cost decreasing weekly). Contact the Government Center for current price or to purchase. The yearly sticker is good for one 33 gallon container, weighing not more than 50 pounds.
Pretty simple, eh? There are rules for larger items too, and it’s all explained on the back of the sheet of tags. Yard waste tags are separate. They even give us groovy recycle bins to use.
Current Mood:
Sad
My dear Mr. Coffee has passed away. I left his eulogy on Craigslist:
Poor Mr. Coffee has brewed his last pot. He wheezed a last electrical sigh and coughed out a puff of smoke last night. He died in his sleep; he was not currently in use. While I am in mourning over the demise of my beloved Mr. Coffee, I know that he can donate his parts to your own beloved Mr. Coffee that may also have problems. I have fastidiously cleaned the interior to provide a tasty brew, but the outside doesn’t look all that grand, for he has sustained many a coffee drip and is a bit stained. Parts that you may find useful from poor Mr. Coffee:
The pot: The lid’s missing one of the little pegs that helps hold the lid on when pouring, but the other is still there. I feel it makes it easier to take the lid off when washing, anyway.
The drip basket: It drips very well, and the automatic shut-off when the pot is removed works very well.
The drip basket holder: Perhaps you need a snazzy new chrome one for your old coffee pot!
The innards: I don’t know much about it, but as I said, I kept it very clean, running vinegar through it once every couple of months. It was cleaned just over the weekend. I’ve also only used filtered water in it (and never poured from the pot), so the little tubes and things should be clean as a whistle!Basically everything on this coffee maker works except for the electronics. Even after coughing out his last puff of smoke, his clock still kept time with pride. So I don’t know what’s wrong with it.
Please, give Mr. Coffee the new life he deserves. He’s kept me well caffeinated for the last 6 years.If you don’t intend on picking it up, please do not reply. My heart is already broken over the loss of my dear friend, don’t make it worse by standing me up.
Model: ESX40 – white
Sad, isn’t it? 
So now I have this gaping hole, not only in my heart, but on my counter as well. So, what should I fill it with? My Crock Pot! It is currently filled with veggies and cooking up a delicious stew on this cold, snowy day. However, I’ve found that Crock Pot can’t entirely fill the void. Mr. Coffee must be replaced. Oh yes, this weekend, Mr. Coffee will have a predecessor. Hopefully, it can live up to my expectations. And no, I’m not ditching the caffeine. I need one vice in my life, okay? 
Current Mood: Cool
Okay, so I’ll admit it. I’m exceedingly inactive. Couch potato to the max. I don’t get any exercise whatsoever, and that’s very unhealthy. Not only is it bad for the heart and muscles and all that stuff, it can also lead to brittle bones. It’s also not so great on the motivation to get stuff done. The winter time doesn’t help at all. I’ve become a lump, and I’m sick of it. So, time to get off my buttocks and motivate. I’ve been interested in yoga for a while, but I have never had classes or anyone show me what to do. Or the motivation to really learn. And why yoga? Because I don’t do cardio. Nope, sorry, not happening. If I’m going to be breaking much of a sweat, I’m not going to do it.
So today, after giving a friend a coaching session on “stop being a wuss” about quitting smoking and getting healthier, and I went and motivated myself. Huzzah! So I looked up some yoga videos on Netflix and added some to my queue. Now, because I’m an impatient sort of person, I decided I wanted to watch a video NOW. Netflix to save the day again, they had an “instant watch” video of Crunch: Super SlimDown. It’s a workout video using yoga positions with pilates. Nice! Being entirely cream-puffy n stuff, even I was able to keep up with most of it. And I feel fabulous! My back hasn’t felt this wonderful in a long time. Probably tomorrow I will be singing a different tune (probably mostly made of grunts and groans as I try to move around in the morning), but seriously, that felt great!
Next stop: Learning all of the positions so that I can properly use my Yoga2Go system that I won from Robyn’s blog. It’s a pretty sweet little system. It has these cards with positions that have colored dots with numbers. You match the color to the particular workout you want to do, then put in order by number, into this plastic sheet with pockets. Then you hang it up and get to it. I’ve been wanting to use the system for a while now, but I don’t know the different positions, and I really don’t want to stop and look at the back of each card… So yeah. Video then cards.
In my previous post I talked about people growing up without certain life skills. Nearly 1000 words of ranting. However, I realized I am not entirely finished with the subject. Growing up, we learned stuff. Either from parents, family, friends, where ever. And some of that stuff we learned is probably pretty doggone cool. Did your grandmother teach you to make a super flaky pie crust? Did your uncle teach you how to whittle some cool designs?
These things we learned in our lives were taught by someone that cared enough to show us. They invested their time, love, and knowledge to pass on something that they enjoyed enough to share. Now what do you do with that skill? Is it covered in cobwebs in the mental attic? Why not pull out that knowledge and pass it on to someone? Not only are you passing on a useful skill, but you are passing along legacy. You can tell your child that your grandparents taught you this. They can tell their children that it was a skill passed down in their family. And another bonus: You are bringing back a hobby or skill that you have enjoyed in the past.
Even if you don’t have children, there are plenty of people in the world that are eager to learn. Younger family members, neighbors, you name it. If you are a master in something, perhaps you could teach a class. Don’t keep your knowledge locked up in your head, share it with others.
Current Mood: Surprised
I had a conversation with a friend of mine this morning. He lives in Europe. I told him that I was knitting, and he said that knitting was a very large part of their country’s lifestyle. So important, in fact, that it is taught in school. So we talked back and forth about homemaking classes and such in school, and he said that they have whole schools dedicated to teaching homemaking. That got me to thinking… Why don’t we have schools like this? Required classes in school or some kind of prep school to teach teens and young adults basic life skills? While you may scoff at this, there are many, many people that enter the adult world without these living skills. My poor husband, bless him, is one of these people. So, using him as a model, I will relate how people are unleashed into the world without knowledge.
My husband moved directly from his parents’ house to mine, so he has never truly lived on his own. The man that I married was severely lacking in life skills. He couldn’t cook because his mother always cooked. He didn’t know how to sort laundry, another thing she always did. He did know how to mend, because his mother was a seamstress. So my husband, at 21 years old, was really not ready to enter the world of independent living. It’s not because he didn’t want to know, but because he was never taught by enforcing it. Read: chores.
I see this repeatedly today, where families will rely on one person to do a particular chore (or they just don’t do it at all by going out to eat, having a housekeeper, drop-off laundry, etc). This leaves children sorely ill-equipped to live on their own. Granted, the way that many of our baby boomer (and older) generations were raised, the man has certain household things he does, the woman has certain household things she does. The man passes on his knowledge to his sons, the woman passes on her knowledge to her daughters. The man changes the tires and mows the lawn. The woman sews on buttons and dusts. Yes, it’s 2010, and many people are making sure that their children are more well-rounded than these traditional roles (and many have not grown up in traditional households), but there are still a lot of people that are lacking this basic knowledge of living.
Here’s a small list of things every adult should know how to do:
I know that not everyone has the facilities to teach these things, such as apartment living, but these are very important things to know. Of course some things are age/life appropriate. You’re not going to teach your four year old how to clean out gutters (I hope!), and you can’t really show your kid how to turn off gas to the house if you don’t have a gas main. Oh wait… do YOU know how to turn off the gas? What if there was an earthquake or some other major catastrophe?
Some of these things also require us to get past our own personal laziness. Why mend clothes when you can go just buy new ones? Because we just don’t know if our children will have the money to buy new clothes. Why teach them to chop veggies when there’s meals in a box? Because they may be interested in exploring culinary things. You might have a chef living under your roof!
Please, please pass your life skills on to your children. They will need to know these things later. Dads, teach your daughters how to replace drain pipes. Moms, teach your sons how to sew a button on. When you come upon one of these basic life things, make sure that your kids are watching. It is preparing them for living on their own. Oh yeah, it’s also a good excuse for assigning chores!
And if you’re an adult that doesn’t know how to do these basic things, please do ask. If someone looks at you like you are stupid, explain to them that it’s a skill that you were never taught. And if you truly are embarrassed, or you don’t have a friend that knows how to do a particular thing (not everyone knows how to patch a leaky basement wall), look it up. Not only on the Internet, but also get books. Yeah, you know, those big stacks of paper bound together with colorful covers that impart information? Because you never know, there may be a day that we no longer have the Internet, but we will still know how to read.
Current Mood:
Playful
So I got a lot of stuff done today, as you can see my preening above. However, that is quite a bit of stuff to get done and to be able to talk about at 6:30pm. However, as I preened, my kitchen revolted. Yes yes, that’s right, supper didn’t quite get finished as I expected. The rice cooker timer went off a bit sooner than I expected (due to my back-patting on the Internet), so I had to rush up to get the stir fry cooked. And the wok was full of rust, because my hubs didn’t clean the wok properly, but only due to lack of knowledge, since I never explained it. So as I was scrubbing the rust while the rice got cold, I chuckled to myself. I was extolling my marvelous domestic achievements before they were finished… A classic case of counting my eggs before they hatch. I will go hide in my corner again and get back to clicking my knitting needles together. *click click*
Current Mood: Cool
So we’ve completed week one of home school. Wee lad still has a project he wants to do with Dad, but otherwise our week is done. Here’s what I’ve learned so far:
We don’t have a set schedule yet. I don’t know if we ever will have a full-out schedule, because he seems to be getting along well with the free-form learning.
As I’m finding out, there’s no right way to do this, especially with the younger ones. Do what feels right to you. Take cues from your child. And if you aren’t sure how to take a cue… well… How did you get this far along in parenting?
