Quote Monday is the decider

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Sara: “Wake up, we’re at the campsite!”
Evie: “No thank you.”

Evie, on her first day of school: “I’m as excited as on my birthday!!”

Evie: “Hey! Have we been here before??”
Sara: “Yeah, does it look familiar?”
Evie: “No.”

::Me, staring at Sara with puppy dog eyes::
Sara: “Get what you want, I’m not the decider.”
Waiter, picking up on this: “Oh, do you want a beer? We have specials.”
Me, giddy: “Diet coke please!”

I could tell he was a little disgusted with me, but in my defense, Sara doesn’t like me to drink pop in front of the kids!

Patchwork Products

/ Shane / Leave a comment

I know lots of people who have made quilts from old tee shirts. Some of these ideas are particularly unique, but I’ve never seen any ideas as unique as this: heavy metal quilts, using old concert shirts to make a logo that is distinctly metal:

And while we’re on the topic, how about using little carpet squares to make customized land carpet:

Well, I’ll just let them explain:

First link via Sara I think, but the second was all me

Things that annoy me IV

/ Shane / 5 Comments
  1. When people say, “You know, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.” Says who? The DSM IV? Nowhere is that the definition of insanity. That doesn’t even make sense. How does that cover schizophrenia? If people are saying it as a joke, then I can get on board. But I swear to you that the people saying it honestly believe that is the textbook definition of the word insanity. And they say it like they spent 6 years getting a doctorate in psychology, and now they’re going to bust some knowledge on me.
  2. Sleeping when it’s hot. Uuuugh! Man I hate it. The bedrooms in our house have no airflow, so there’s really no way to cool them down. Even with the AC on, the bedroom will be 20 degrees hotter than the rest of the room. You just lie there and sweat and think about how uncomfortable you are. Thank god we’re getting into cool weather.
  3. Low shower heads. If you are short, this is probably something that just never occurs to you. If the water hits you somewhere between the shoulder blades, it becomes something of a difficulty to wash your hair. I have to stand there with my back in a graceful arc with my hands over my head, like a beautiful ballerina. There is no reason to put shower heads low…it’s not like it’s better for short people to have it closer to the tops of their tiny little heads. Why not start them all at the ceiling?
  4. Speaking of showers, I can’t stand having the bathroom door open when I’m taking a shower in the cold. I like very hot showers, and I want every ounce of that steam in there! This is apparently mutually exclusive with having children. Somehow Evie *never* forgets to turn the light off when she leaves the bathroom (even when you’re still in the shower), but *always* forgets to shut the door.  So now I’m standing in the cold and dark, but I guess at least nobody can see me practicing my shower ballerina moves. The irony is, the second I’m in my clothes I have to throw open the door. Ugh, it’s so hot and muggy and oppressive in there!
  5. We were shopping at the grocery store on a fairly hot day and we noticed that, although the air conditioning was cranked up to ice cold, they actually had heat in the freezer section. Can you imagine anything more despicable? Obviously they’re doing this for two reasons, #1 you’re not likely to buy ice cream if you’re freezing cold, and #2 if it’s the only warm area of the store you’re bound to linger in that section. But just think of what is going on there. You’re fighting the heat outside with air conditioning, you’re fighting your own air conditioning with a heater, and then you’re fighting that heater with your freezer to keep the ice cream cold. All to get me to buy a half gallon of vanilla? Is destroying the earth really worth it for my $6??

Simplifying Childhood for our Children

/ Shane / 2 Comments

I recently finished reading Simplicity Parenting by Kim John Payne.

I admit this is something of a confirmation bias, since I selected a book I am predisposed to agree with, but one particular section that really resonated with me was the one that talked about simplifying a child’s environment, specifically getting rid of toys:

Is this a toy that “does” so much (this button pushes the ejector rods, this button triggers the lights, this button launches the missiles), that my child’s main involvement will be sitting there pushing buttons?

And:

By simplifying the number and complexity of our children’s toys, we give them liberty to build their own imaginary worlds. When children are not being told what to want, and what to imagine, they can learn to follow their own interests, to trust their own emerging voices. They can discover what genuinely speaks to them.

Yes. That.

I miss boredom! When I think of my childhood, I remember being bored a lot, especially on lazy summer days. This was usually followed up by the creation of some fantastic game. Now we fill kids so full of activities that they never have time to be bored, the way we were. What are they missing out on?

Toys that don’t do things can become anything, in play. When we don’t try to fill children’s minds and toy chests with prefabricated examples of “imagination,” they have more freedom to forge their own, to bring their own idea into play.

So why do we do this to our kids?

Let’s say your child has a favorite stuffed elephant who sits in a place of pride on the bed when it is not being hauled about. You and your spouse and any family member who sees this human/elephant love story can be inspired to re-create it by purchasing stuffed elephant siblings, other jungle animal cousins, or stuffed “friends” of every kind.

I tell you one thing’s for sure – after reading this I definitely don’t want Evie to have the pillow pet she’s been begging for!

This book is very thought provoking. I don’t agree with everything 100% (I’m not so sure about the chapter on talking less, even if they did use Pa from Little House as the example!), but I’d say I’m there with them on at least 95%. Worth a read for any parent out there who is interested in simplifying their and their kids’ lives!

Applesauce, 2011

/ Shane / 3 Comments

One of our family traditions is picking apples for homemade applesauce. This is something I’ve done since I was a kid, and one thing that I’m really excited to share with my own kids. Usually we do it in Indiana, but we were having trouble finding a way to fit it in. However, one of Evie’s new classmates’ families was looking for some picking partners, which was fortuitous for us: we got to meet some people from Evie’s new school, and we got to pick some apples!

I was kind of bummed that Sara couldn’t go with us, since by definition it’s a family thing. Nevertheless, it was a pretty nice day. Evie, Oliver and I had a great time at the orchard, followed by a picnic lunch and some time at a playground.

We went to the More Than Delicious orchard, which was pretty far from us, but would be a stone’s throw if you lived in the North West suburbs. It was better than I anticipated; bigger, with more varieties than I expected (or were advertised!), and not at all busy (although we were there early on a Friday morning). Apples are a lot more expensive in Chicago than in Indiana. They were charging $50 a bushel, when they’re only $26 a bushel back home. However, they did have “wind-fallen” apples, which are basically just a random assortment of whatever they picked up off the ground, for half price. This particular orchard doesn’t spray much, so there are some bug holes, etc., but for applesauce the wind-fallen ones were perfect. Even with the half-price apples though, we’re still producing applesauce at about the same price we could buy it from the store (and this is assuming our time is worthless!). So it’s definitely for the experience, not to save money!

But the experience is nothing to scoff at. And, as expected, Evie and Oliver loved eating the apples!

I think they ate 3 apiece at the orchard, but when we got home we couldn’t keep Oliver out of them. He even climbed up a chair and onto the table to find them! He liked to take one bite of each and then put them back.

Both Evie and Oliver were pretty keen to help with the applesauce. Evie was actually a big helper all day, both with the actual apples (she cleaned almost all of them by herself), and also with just staying occupied and letting Sara and I get the work done.

It’s a big job and we expected it to take all day. We got started as soon as possible after breakfast, but things were actually going quite smoothly. I guess we weren’t really expecting that both of us would be able to work on it. It still ended up taking 6 hours total, but a lot of that is at the end when you’re just waiting for the jars to process. In fact, it was so leisurely, Sara ended up baking muffins!

At the end of the day, we ended up canning 15 quarts, with another almost full jar in the fridge. Last year we had in the neighborhood of 22 jars, and it only lasted us until spring, even with trying to make it last as long as possible! So we could probably use more, however, now that we can mark this tradition off the list, maybe we’ll just end up supplementing from the store. On the other hand, nothing tastes quite as good as homemade!