My So Called Life

Things our Kids Should Know (Before College 2030)

/ Shane / 1 Comment

The other day I wrote an article about Things our Kids Should Know Before Starting College. This sparked some debate on Facebook about whether or not balancing your checkbook is already out of date (I say it’s not, but clearly this is not a settled issue).

This begs the obvious question: which pieces of advice WILL be out of date by the time the kids go to college? Should I not recommend that my children remember to charge their car phones or learn how to clean VCR heads? How could I even know what sorts of things will be out of date by the time they are ready to move out on their own?

I think about my grandma and how, in her lifetime, we went from outdoor toilets and horse-drawn carriages to always-connected-cell-phone-computers-in-our-pockets. Surely by the time I die, some of the things common in my life are going to seem as silly and outdated as going without indoor plumbing. But which ones? How could my grandma even have imagined something like an iPad when she was a kid?

No worries my friends, my friend Dan is here to pick up the slack: Things our Kids Should Know (Before College 2030). His (much more useful) list covers everything from augmented reality glasses, how to disable your personal robot, nanoparticle food, and reminders about how to correctly use your personal defense drone (and how to appease the Google/Robot overlords, of course).

Indy Mini-Vacation

/ Shane / 4 Comments

We took a little bit of an extended weekend last week and took a quick trip to visit my sister in Indianapolis.

Let me first start by saying that this is probably the most I’ve ever enjoyed my sister’s dog Luna. I love dogs, but I often don’t love that particular dog. My kids are usually terrified of Luna, and I can’t blame them. She towers over them, and it is very easy to get accidentally scratched or knocked over in her exuberance, to say nothing of slobbery smooches all over your face. The anxiety of the kids kind of rubs off on me. However, this time wasn’t so bad. I don’t know if Luna is calming down as she gets older, if my kids get less anxious as they get older, or maybe it was just being in Luna’s own environment, which was less stressful for all of us. In any case, I think everybody enjoyed Luna a little bit more this time.

Of course, the main thing to do in Indy is go to the Children’s Museum. It is *exhausting* going to that place. It’s so big, and there’s so much to do, but it takes a lot out of you.

Evie enjoyed drawing self-portraits:

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And we all enjoyed reproducing “American Gothic“:

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Sorry Rachael and Matt, I think Sara and Ollie did it best:

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Probably the most exciting thing for me was getting a chance to play Carcassonne. This is a board game that I have heard a lot about, but never had a chance to play. I have to say, it lived up to the hype. There is a lot of strategy, and I can see that each game would be a little bit different. It has a lot of things in common with other games that I like, with no obvious downsides (and you can play with only 2 players!). Plus, I won, so definitely that game is awesome.

The other best part was the awesome chocolate covered cherries Rachael made for me, which were the best I’ve ever eaten, homemade or otherwise. Therefore, I promptly forgot them in her refrigerator.

Evie found time to absolutely massacre Rachael in checkers, and we played a lot of hide and seek (and lots of hide Luna’s treat).

We took a leisurely Monday getting home, with several stops along the way including a stop at Purdue. The kids were pretty excited to see where Sara and I met, lived, and got married, and I enjoyed my trip to the APO office. I’m not sure why I get such a kick out of dropping in there, but it’s fun to see a place where I spent a lot of time, and to look at all the names and pictures of people I haven’t seen in a long time. It sure helps to have a friend of yours be the one in charge of the yearly scrapbook when we were pledging. Sara and I are well represented. And yes, I bragged to my kids about all the plaques with my name on them. (And yes Nathan, I showed them how you won the Friendship Award 6 times, no need to bring it up again in the comments!)

We even had a chance to stop in at Triple XXX and introduce Oliver to the Purvis burger:

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Cheeseburger + Peanut butter = Happy Ollie

The only black mark on our trip was totally our fault. We 1) forgot Ollie’s face steroids, and 2) didn’t bring Evie’s inhaler. This directly resulted in Oliver having a massive, itchy, sore face eczema outbreak, and Evie developing a reoccurring wheeze and cough. And with Evie having breathing trouble, this also lead to a pretty rough night of sleep for the 4 of us, which never helps anything. Sara even asked me if she thought we should bring the inhaler, and I said no. Lesson learned. The problem is that, even with the proper medicine at home, if you don’t nip these problems in the bud, it takes some time to get them back under control.

All in all a good trip though; hopefully Rachael and Matt enjoyed hosting us as much as we enjoyed being there (probably doubtful).

The Case of the Bread in the Night

/ Shane / Leave a comment

“Aw, shoot, we forgot to put the bread in the oven!,” I said.

It was about a quarter ’till eleven p.m. and I was just climbing into bed. Unfortunately two loafs of bread had already been rising on the stove, so it’s not like we could just put them away and save them.

“Just put it in the oven. We’ll hear the timer when it goes off,” said Sara.

“Are you sure? What if we don’t hear it?”

“Well, I’ll hear it for sure. And if we don’t, it will just keep going off until we do hear it.”

I wasn’t really sure that would be a good outcome in this situation, but I was so exhausted I did what I was told, climbed into bed, and fell asleep before my head hit the pillow.

The next moment I was jolted awake by the timer going off on the oven. I leaped out of bed before I had time to wake up, grateful that I had heard the timer. I stared blearily at the clock. Something about the time was nagging at me. It seemed wrong.

11:45?

In my haste, I slammed into the foot board while rounding the corner, waking Sara.

“Is it 11:45?” I asked as I ran from the room, confused.

The bread didn’t seem to be burned, but it was pretty dark and I didn’t seem to be thinking clearly. Just to be sure I turned on a light to check. In my sleepy state I somehow flicked the garbage disposal switch instead of the light, even though the two are nowhere near each other. Perhaps the bread was a *little* dark, but maybe not.

Surely if it had been cooking for an hour instead of half an hour, double the correct time, it would look burned, right?

I stumbled back to the bedroom.

“What time did we put the bread in? Wasn’t it like 10:45?”

“I don’t know. I think so, but that doesn’t seem right.”

Well, apparently it was right, and the timer had been going off for half an hour without waking us. It turns out that our bread is a hearty creature who laughs in the face of an extra baking. It was surprisingly edible. The crust was sort of thicker than usual, and a slice had to be eaten with plenty of water to avoid dehydration, but other than that it was fine.

I think it is safe to say we won’t be doing THAT again anytime soon!

(and by that I mean listening to my wife)

Things our kids should know (before college)

/ Shane / 9 Comments

I feel like I was more or less prepared to live on my own at the start of college. However, both from our personal experiences, whether they were from ourselves or seeing others, and from seeing other parents with college-age kids, it seems that many people are unprepared to handle the day to day activities required to live on your own. In most cases, it seems it’s not because the kids are too young, or too irresponsible, or had parents that were too overbearing. I think mostly it’s just a case of overlooking things; nobody ever really discussed some of these details with them. Main things are covered, but the little details slip through the cracks.

So Sara and I attempted to put together a check list of things we’d like our kids to know by the time they start college. Granted, we’ve got a little time before this is really an issue for us, but the Internet is forever and the list will stay here until we need it. A lot of these things are probably applicable to living on their own in general, but our experience is specifically with college being the first time out on our own, and there are some challenges that are specific to that area.

In no specific order:

  • Know how to write checks and balance a checkbook.
  • Know how to wash and dry clothes. This includes trying a variety of machines, at least one of which is a pay machine, before going.
  • Expectation management: Expect to go to all your classes, buy all your books, etc. College is now your full time job; you should expect to total 40 hours/week of class or studying (which is probably less than recommended but more than needed to just skate by–this should be a good intermediate amount). Believe me, it still leaves you plenty of free time.
  • Live in the dorm for at least one year to meet new people.
  • If you have a credit card (and I think both having one and not having one are okay), do not charge more on it than you can pay off that month–EVER. Waiting until you have the money for something builds character, and being fiscally responsible means you’ll ultimately have more stuff in the long run (and live a longer, less stressful life in which to enjoy it!)
  • If you live in a dorm, enjoy the fact that you don’t have to cook, but make good food choices.  Eat a salad every day (oh, the prep-work that you are missing out on)!  Eat at least 5 servings of fruits and veggies daily.  Don’t exclusively drink pop (it is gross and full of chemicals).  When you live on your own, realize that simple meals at home are cheaper and healthier than lean cuisine and take-out.
  • This is the only time you will ever have a free gym membership!  Figure out how to use the machines, take advantage of any free or low-cost classes you are curious about, and play wallyball!
  • Know how ATMs work. Understand ATM fees (don’t use another bank’s ATM).
  • Know basic household maintenance (how to change a light switch, how to remove and clean the trap under the sink, etc.)
  • Know basic sewing skills (how to hem pants, how to sew on a button, etc.)
  • You don’t need to be the cleanest person in the world, but you do need to be responsible for yourself.  Make sure you know how to vacuum, dust, sweep, do the dishes, take out the trash, etc.

Anything we missed? Anything you wish you knew when you (or your children) went to college?

February Food Swap

/ Shane / 2 Comments

Time again for a Chicago Food Swap wrap up! (You can see previous food swap posts here.)

In exchange for:

We received:

  • 2 Blue Moon Cupcakes
  • Cranberry Pepper Jelly
  • Cinnamon Pecan Butter
  • Salsa Verde
  • Blood Orange Marmalade
  • Macadamia Nut Caramel Corn
  • Meyer Lemon Marmalade
  • Cranberry Curd
  • Homemade Granola
  • Cherry Pie Filling
  • Pumpkin Butter

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This month’s swap was at Katherine Anne Confections, so in addition to the above, we also tried 3 delicious varieties of fancy-schmancy caramels : rosemary sea-salt, chocolate walnut, and vanilla. Believe me, they didn’t last long. I was very suspicious about the rosemary sea-salt, because sweet and salty is *not* my thing. But actually, it wasn’t bad. I would probably choose one of the other ones personally, but after trying it I can definitely say I would choose eating a rosemary sea-salt caramel over not eating caramel any day of the week.

This time around, Sara went in targeting marmalade, and ended up with not one, but two of them! I call that success We haven’t tried any yet. Sara said the salsa verde was the best thing she tried at the swap, but I haven’t tried that yet either (Soon, my sweet salsa verde. Soon.)

There were a lot of baked goods this time, which isn’t bad, but it’s not really what we’re in the market for. We make lots of baked goods at home, so they’re just not as exciting. Canned jams, however, seems to be what we are in the market for. Right now we have something like 8 different open jars of spreads in the fridge, with a dozen or so more in the pantry. And they are all wonderful.

I should also mention that both of our jams were delicious and interesting too. I almost didn’t want Sara to trade them! Sara bought the Chinese 5 spice powder from the last food swap, and I hadn’t been super fond of it. It’s very anise-y, and it kind of takes over whatever it is in. But something about this jam really was the perfect use for it. The flavor combination was awesome. The mimosa jelly is really good too, although I’m not sure the champagne really made much of a difference (other than being able to say it’s mimosa jelly instead of just regular old “orange”, which is non-trivial).

Sara reports that after her 3rd swap, she’s starting to recognize people and just generally feel like she’s not the new kid on the block anymore, (Look, it was a phrase before the band came around, that’s why they used that as their name! No judging.) but more like she’s one of the grizzled veterans.

The kids and I are definitely still excited about getting all of the delicious food, that’s for sure!