Dream of Californivacation

Posted on July 17, 2023 by lexicolton

I’m heading home from a trip to San Francisco for my dear friend Jess’ shower.  I haven’t seen her in far too long, so my other dear friend Cathy and I flew in, and did touristy things in SF (Alcatraz, Pier 39, saw sea lions, farmer’s market etc) before getting to see Jess and her friends and family on Sunday.  I flew in a day early to see some work friends in Santa Clara on Friday.  It was great fun for such a short visit!

The XYZ axis of evil (aka Cathy, Jess and I) at Jess’s shower

As for California, I did love the amount of compost containers everywhere, and the amount of to-go containers that were completely compostable.  Why can’t we have that everywhere?!  I wonder how much that cuts down on trash/pollution… trust me I’ll be researching this.  I also got to use public transit everywhere which was awesome, though I’m completely incompetent with maps and the like.  I managed not to get lost because I got to follow Cathy, a New Yorker and master of public transit, around.

Cathy and I on the boat to Alcatraz. You can see “Karl” the friendly SF fog in the background too.

Based on my weekend getting to experience California green-ness it feels appropriate to show you the give-away I made for our Earth day party.  I gave away a bunch of recycled foaming soap bottles that I jazzed up with a couple tablets of blueland soap.  I intended to give these out as consolation prizes to those who didn’t win any of the purchased prizes, but many people chose them instead of the purchased prizes.  I got all the bottles from the local buy-nothing group, and washed them and removed all the labels.  The cricut design stencil I created myself and I’ve included below.

Love the Earth Reusable Bottles

  • Cricut stencil here
  • Cricut Permanent Adhesive foil
  • foaming soap bottles, cleaned and removed of labels (mine were from dove soap)
  1. Customize the cricut stencil to the size and number of stencils desired.
  2. Cut your design on adhesive foil using normal cutting tool.
  3. Weed design, then attach design to clean, dry soap container.
  4. Fill container with 9oz of hot water, drop in foaming tablet

Julius was so pleased with his sourdough turtle that I brought back for him that he said “I am DEFINITELLY moving to California someday”. He previously commented he was going to move there because they had ghost sharks and California rolls.

Patricia also enjoyed her sourdough bear.

Posted in Crafts & Sewing | 2 Comments

We Could Be Heroes

Posted on July 10, 2023 by lexicolton

Patricia chose me to hang out with this Sunday!  Julius went to his friend’s party and we asked Patricia who should hang out with her and she said “mama!”  That’s me!  Patricia never ever picks me to be the one for anything.  Will always reads to her before bed and puts her to bed.  When she’s sad she wants dada, never mama.  I guess now I know how Will felt with Julius.  Actually Patricia picked me to hang out with her on two separate occasions, including when she was sick.  When we hang out she frequently tells me “I love just only mama”.  So I guess she’s trying to butter me up, and let’s be honest it totally works.

When Patricia was sick she had some scary petechiae rash the other day so the doctors requested blood work – which meant Patricia had to have blood drawn from her arm.  This process involves 3 people (not including the patient) – one to draw the blood, one to hold her arm steady, and one to hold everything else immobile (especially her other arm).  She did a good job and I made sure to tell her many times.  Afterwards she recounted the story to Will, “I was SO brave.  I cried when the pointy thing went into me.”

Patricia’s pet name for me is Mommy Llamy.  (An adorable parity on Patricia-licia.)  She is so smiley and cheerful 90% of the time, but that other 10% of complete obstinance and disobedience is so much worse than the Julius “terrible” twos.  I told Will the other day we are so lucky we ended up with two kids because it’s so interesting to see how unique they are and yet how similar they are.  Speaking of which both Patricia and Julius frequently say “what the heck!” and Julius always says “c’mon dude” which I assumed they had gotten from somewhere else.  But the other day I was in the car, and I said, “c’mon dude” to someone doing something questionable and Will said “now we know where he gets it”.  And the worst part, I hadn’t even heard myself say it.  Glad I curbed my swearing…

The other day I talked about Julius defending Patricia and including her made up stories as part of his own tales.  Well Patricia also defends Julius.  The other day the kids were getting their after dinner treat.*  Will told Julius he could have half a cookie dough bite and Patricia responded indignant, “Why?!  He’s a big boy!!”

Okay going to drop a few more stories/Patricia-isms before I show you the silly thing we did this weekend.

Cupcapes  (cupcakes)

Teeny leenies (tortellinis)

This one cracks me up still:

Patricia (sobbing about the train going by):

I do want to ride a choochoo.

But I don’t want the choochoo in my ears.  It’s too loud

Patricia and Julius and I went to Davis Farmland by ourselves and I was a bit discombobulated chasing after both kids so at some point a sheep got a hold of my tea container and licked the top of it.  The next day Patricia reminisced:

Lambs drink their mama’s milk.

Lambs don’t drink Patricia’s mamas tea!

Last one (sorry it’s about poop):

Julius is being silly trying to spell “poopoo”.  He guessed “p-o-p-o” which we told him was pronounced “poe poe”.  He thought it was hilarious and said:

I’ve got to go po po!

Patricia wanted to be silly as well so she said:

I’ve gotta go pee pew pee boo!

She then erupted into raucous (contagious) laughter

Okay so this weekend we went to the Davis Farmland Member night.  It was super hero themed and I had big plans to make us all capes** and masks, but that didn’t happen.  But Patricia and Julius already had incredible capes from Sugar and Daddy-o from Christmas so I made us all masks instead.  As you can tell they double as adorable headbands if you prefer. 

Super Hero Masks

What you’ll need:

  • Scrap Peltex 70
  • felt
  • matching thread
  • 1/4″ elastic
  • Templates here
  1. Choose a template to fit your face.  You can modify the design however you want, you just want the eye holes to be in the right spot, and you want the mask part to be about an inch wider than your eyes on each side.
  2. Cut out one piece of Peltex 70 and one piece of felt.    
  3. Pin or clip the peltex and felt together. 
  4. At the edge of the fabric starting just below the eye hole, stitch around the outside of the mask.  When you reach the opposite eye hole insert elastic, stitch and then backstitch over the spot.  Continue to stitch until you reach just above the opposite eye hole. 
  5. Backstitch and remove from machine.  Fit it snugly around person’s head, using the elastic still attached to the roll.  Clip where the unfinished elastic meets the mask on the unfinished side.  Insert elastic 1/2″ into the mask and sew in place.  
  6. Wear with pride

*Sidenote:  giving Patricia 2 m&ms at the end of every day she was completely dry was the only thing that has worked for us for potty training.  And trust us we’ve been at this for 8 months now.  She is not motivated by our happiness or lack of happiness.  She is not motivated by being a big girl or self pride.  She is motivated by m&ms though.  So for the last few months we started giving her 2 m&ms after dinner as a reward for her good potty behavior.  This has backfired though because Julius, who never needed bribery for potty training, started asking if he could have 2 m&ms as well since he had no accidents.  The kid never had accidents.  So we acquiesced and give him 2 m&ms when he doesn’t have accidents either.  So Patricia forgets about the m&ms sometimes, but Julius NEVER does.  He will even ask Patricia after school, “how many accidents did you have today Patricia?”  So we are going to have to keep giving them both m&ms until they go to college.

 

**Second footnote: I did technically make Will a cape.  I made Will a beard cape for his birthday.  The kind for shaving beards.  Julius assumed this was some kind of beard themed super hero cape so he kept referring to Will as “beard man” all night.  Later I realized it was because I told Julius I was making Will a beard cape.  Will called himself the “bearded beauty”.  I dubbed myself the “purple people pleaser”.

Posted in Crafts & Sewing | 2 Comments

Pupcakes

Posted on July 3, 2023 by lexicolton

Well I’m going to keep this one short because it was my birthday so Will’s birthday is coming up, and I’m behind on gifts.  My birthday was nice, my mom made me a vegetarian dinner and we got to hang out at my parents’ new and improved house on the lake!  Will let me sleep in on my weekend day on too, which is pretty much the only thing I want for my birthday ever anymore.

Kiddos preparing to bake Dany’s cake.

Speaking of birthdays – Dany turned 10 this year!  She’s become Patricia’s doggy.  Patricia loves Dany and is constantly giving her hugs and snuggles.  She also refuses to let anyone else feed her or let her out to use the bathroom or hold her leash for walks.  It’s quite adorable.  Everytime we are naming family members Dany is never forgotten on Patricia’s list.  She frequently asks us “can doggies go ___”.  Where ___ is wherever we are about to head in the car.  She’s always disappointed when we can’t bring her, which is frequently.  We have been making various varieties of pupcakes for Dany for her birthday, mostly made up from whatever dog friendly ingredients we have around.  This year’s version used frozen banana we had in the freezer.

Birthday dog, birthday hugs.

Pupcake

Banana Pupcake*

Ingredients

  • 1 Banana, mashed
  • 1 Egg, beaten
  • 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
  • ½ tsp baking powder**

For Frosting:

  • 1 Tbsp Sour Cream
  • 1 Tbsp natural peanut butter

Mix all ingredients for cake together. Grease two small ramekins with peanut oil (skimmed from the top of the natural peanut butter), then flour with whole wheat flour.  Pour half the mixture in each.  Bake for 30 min in a 350F preheated oven.  Let cool.  Once cakes are cool, remove from ramekins, slice tops off so they are level and frost.  (I piped the frosting as little flowers).  The kids wanted to try the cake so we ate the pieces we sliced off.  

*Note this recipe is like 4 times the amount of calories you should give your dog in treats on a given day (depending on your dog’s weight), so give them just an appropriate sized slice for a treat!

**Baking powder and soda are toxic to dogs in large quantities in raw form (same for humans actually).  Everything I read seemed to indicate in small quantities, when baked,  they do not cause dogs any upset stomachs.  Use your own judgement.

Transfer half the batter to the prepared ramekin.

After 30 min baking.

 

 

Posted in Crafts & Sewing | 2 Comments

Yum Potatoes

Posted on June 26, 2023 by lexicolton

I have a lot of pet names for the kids.  Patricia-licia, Julius-oolious, bunny, goosey, buddy, snuggle bug etc.  Patricia sometimes objects to me calling her one thing or the other “I’m not buddy!  I’m Patricia!”  But the problem is I use them interchangably so often that I sometimes end up calling random co-workers, “bud” or, worse, “bunny”.  Worse though is that frequently I refer to Will as “Dada” in public.  For instance, “hey Dada can you get me that?”  Weirder yet is that Will and I both refer to ourselves in the third person now, for instance “Mama doesn’t like that.” Or “Dada will help you with that”.  It’s extra weird (creepy) when we accidentally do it in public when our kids aren’t around.

This past weekend we were supposed to go camping.  I booked a place in a state campground that was only 30 minutes away, got out all the camping supplies, set up the tent to make sure nothing was missing and planned to take off work an hour early to set up camp on Friday.  Then last Thursday the weather forecast was showing 80% chance of rain and thunderstorms so we cancelled the reservation last minute.  But by this point we had the kids all jazzed up for camping.  Will had the brilliant idea to instead pitch the tent in our basement, and cook some camp meals on the screen porch.  So we did!  We cooked corn on the cob and hot dogs (on skewers so the kids could help “cook” them) on the camp grill and served it with watermelon.  I also made some microwave tiny baked potatoes because they are delicious – more on that later.

We roasted marshmallows for s’mores over the camp grill and then turned in for the night in our tent in the basement.  The tent took up our entire basement.  It was huge.  Honestly, it really didn’t fit.  We then told “ghost stories” of which Julius told a very long tale about a person who was being haunted by a ghost complete with some masterful use of spooky lighting with the lantern.  Will told a story of a friendly ghost.  I told a story that was a retelling of “Splat the Cat What was That” with different names.  The lantern was passed from story teller to story teller.  After we’d told our stories, I asked Patricia if she wanted to tell a story and she very seriously said “yeah” and took the lantern.

Her story started with, “This story is about a pumpkin” followed by an extremely long pause (perhaps to indicate the end of the story) to which I asked, “is there more?”  And she said “Oh it’s not scary.  Once upon a boy or once upon a girl, a dinosaur keeps biting people”.  When I asked what happened to the pumpkin she said “oh it got bited.”  “By the dinosaur?” “No.  By something. I don’t know what.”  To which Julius declared “this is getting too spooky” and decided to retire to bed.

Okay back to these potatoes.  I love these potatoes from the “little potato company”.  They are super delicious and because you make them in the microwave they are like the easiest side ever.  The thing I don’t love about them is they come wrapped in two types of plastic in a single use container.  We’re still fighting the good fight to limit our purchase of plastics, one “you’re weird” look at a time.  (Most looks we’ve gotten are by bringing our own bowls to the ice cream shop and order cones so we don’t need to get styrofoam bowls.  We’ve gotten a few looks but honestly I feel like a hipster when I do it and I’m cool with that.)  Unfortunately we aren’t exactly winning the fight.  Any chance to cut down on plastics though is still a win.

My version of the potatoes is just as quick – but instead of a single use container I use a gallon stand up stasher bag.  You could also use another microwave safe container with a lid you can put loosely on.  In addition the recipe below makes two servings of the spices so they take even less time the next time you make them!  Also I’m sorry the picture is so bad.  Will suggested I jazz it up.

I didn’t have a good photo. Bee and rabbit not to scale.

Lemon Garlic Parsley Potatoes

Ingredients

  • 1 lb of tiny red potatoes or tiny yukon gold potatoes
  • 1/2tsp ascorbic acid
  • ½ tsp sugar
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 1tsp onion powder
  • 1tsp dried parsley
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • 1/2tsp dried minced onion
  • ½ tsp dried minced garlic
  • 2 tbsp oil

Wash potatoes and place in gallon stasher bag (or another container with loose fitting lid) close zipper of bag halfway.  (Note:  no need to dry the potatoes before putting them in the bag.)   Microwave on high 5 minutes.

While the potatoes are in the science oven, mix together all the rest of the ingredients except the oil.

Carefully remove potatoes from microwave and open container (be careful of steam). Test potatoes for done-ness using a fork.  If they are not soft, microwave in 1 min increments until done.  (Mine took 10 minutes both times but we have an ancient microwave.)

Once potatoes are done, let potatoes sit for 2-4 minutes in the bag.  Drain any water that has accumulated.  Toss with half of the seasoning mix and 2Tbsp olive oil.

Eat those spuds!

Yummm!

Posted in Culinary Delights | 6 Comments

Danycon 2023

Posted on June 19, 2023 by lexicolton

Oh my gosh I can’t believe I haven’t told you about Danycon 2023!  This was our 7th Danycon!  (8th if you count Danycon and friends.) As usual it was a ball of fun.  We did no kiddos again so Erin’s mom watched their kids and my parents watched ours.  Erin’s new job provides free standby flights but Erin had to be very creative to get here because apparently it was college graduation weekend in Boston!  We’ll have to take note of that next time… but I’m happy to report that everyone got here before the festivities actually began!

Danycon 2023

The Danycon 2023 gang!

Theme

This year’s theme was Murder Mystery!  We decided on this theme last year during a brainstorm with Erin and Mark.  For the shirts this year Will and I spent an entire night on Midjourney coming up with a detective corgi.  Midjourney had no idea what Sherlock Holmes’ hat looked like, but we ended up getting to our winner with “corgi detective in tweed hat film noir style”.  As part of our theme we held a murder mystery dinner and played a bunch of deduction games! 

Swag

The swag this year was very silly.  I wanted to give out copies of Larry Levy’s Deduce or Die (which is free to print and play), but since it was recently reimplemented as Loot of Lima (which we also own) we decided it might be frowned upon.  Instead I gave out disguises (aka silly glasses with noses, mustaches, and beards), invisible ink pens and uv flashlights with pads, licorice pipes, and the usual Danycon shirts.  The pads had secret messages written in invisible ink that lead to a board game scavenger hunt in the man cave.  The prize for the scavenger hunt was a copy of Hooky for each household.  The bags also contained a set of “Don’t Get Got” cards, a game that we’ve been playing lately at every family get together.  I will tell you that it makes me suspicious of everyone.  At one point Bailey swapped two entire bags of chips for her clue which I think was the most masterful execution of any of the cards.

Licorice pipes

 

Schedule

Once again Will used the same website as last time to create the schedule – it allowed Will to pick game choices in advance and everyone else to input their game preference. This made it very quick to swap from game to game!

Games

We got to play a lot of new games (some that we didn’t get to for the past Danycon!)  I think Turing Machine was the hit board game of Danycon, though Forgotten Waters was super fun and we all wanted to play again (but we didn’t have time).  And of course everyone seemed to have a blast with the murder mystery.  My favorite game was our 3 minute play of funky chicken crossed with happy salmon which was just utter chaos and hilarious.  For the total list of games we played, see below.

  • Forgotten Waters
  • Chronicles of Crime: Danycon Custom
  • So Clover
  • KuZOOka
  • Paleo
  • Mosaic
  • Lost Ruins of Arnak
  • Big Top
  • Turing Machine
  • Ready Set Bet
  • How to Host a Murder: the Last Train to Paris
  • Paint the Roses
  • Hooky
  • Turing Machine
  • GAP
  • Happy Salmon
  • Pairs
  • Strike
  • Tapeworm
  • Whirling Witchcraft
  • Telestrations
  • Don’t Get Got

    The crew playing Forgotten Waters

    The rest of the pirate crew

Activities

Scavenger Hunt

Our UV light scavenger hunt had each answer as a board game.  I had to change some of my awesome clues because Will got rid of the classic games.  Each player had their own set of unique questions, that lead to a silly word scramble metapuzzle.  Here are some of the questions from the scavenger hunt.  They are all searchable :) Here are the answers.  Oh and here’s the list of Will’s owned board games!

  • Thats So Raven! Erm…so…shamrock?
  • Will just bought this game so he can ogle Duke leto atreides.  Wait!  Is that why Will has a beard now?!
  • Will’s only signed board game copy.  The designer and I share a birthday
  • E
  • This game is known by some as sir shuffles a lot
  • Lexi is always playing at least one game of this on BGA
  • This is the second of 2 games that have an author on the box instead of a designer.  He wrote the Kingsbridge series.
  • B
  • Quick get out the vacuum…err thruster jets…
  • This game might be for horrible people but the people who make it are awesome.
  • Drafting AND monsters?! This is sounding familiar… 
  • U
  • Alfred Hitchcock knows a thing or two about murder
  • I would consult with this detective
  • Plant me some beans
  • R
  • The only thing better than Happy Salmon?
  • The very first game we owned from this green haired designer.
  • A party game known in other circles as “eat poop you cat”
  • S
  • The hanging gardens of babylon, the colossus of rhodes, the statue of Zeus at olympia… i think there’s a few more….
  • Jim darkmagic and omin dran?  You had me at magic missile
  • I wonder if Matt leacock took his name off the game in 2020.
  • G

    The game’s afoot!

    The first clue

Chronicles of Crime

Will and I (but mostly Will) created a Chronicles of Crime episode based on DanyCon (I just helped with the story).  We decided to use the Welcome to Redview edition because it’s a bit less menacing looking.  If you have a copy of Chronicles of Crime: Welcome to Redview and want to play it yourself I won’t spoil anything.  To play it you have to unzip this file then load community scenario in the app and select this file.

Here they are playing Will’s scenario – they have just discovered the card for Julius (age 5).

Murder Mystery

We did “How to Host a Murder: Last Train to Paris” which was good fun as always.  For dinner we had a vegetarian cassoulet and for dessert we had frozen cream puffs.

A motley group of dinner guests.

Bubble Tea!

We all (except Will) love bubble tea!  It was a bit of a disaster because I broke a pitcher due to the tea being too hot, but it was yummy!

Bubble tea!  (Various configurations.)

Overall a very successful Danycon.  We have been joking (or maybe seriously considering) doing a Danycon cruise one year… let’s see if it happens!

 

 

Posted in Parties | 4 Comments

Tingling Goblins

Posted on June 13, 2023 by lexicolton

Patricia today walked out of the porch and said “I have shoes on!” Followed closely by “bye guys I’m going to Davis Farmland”.  And she trotted off.  We did intercept her before she got very far.  It was adorable.

We went to Julius’ preschool “graduation” last week.  It was very cute.  The sang a bunch of “sunshine” themed songs all while this giant thundercloud loomed ominously overhead.  My favorite part was seeing Julius looking all around for us in the crowd, then his big giant smile (and shout of “mommy!”) when he saw us.  It was so darn cute.  I can’t believe my big guy is going to school next year!  Childhood is definitely going by too fast.

Two more quick cute stories before I show you what I made Julius for his graduation present.  We showed Aladdin to Julius and Patricia this weekend but I had to explain a couple of concepts like stealing and poverty to them before they understood some of the songs.  Julius knew that poverty was when you had no money, but I somehow don’t think he connected not having money to not being able to eat.  Patricia still did not quite grasp why you’d need to steal because as she pointed out if Aladdin wanted some bread “he just has to say, ‘please could I have a piece of bread?'” Which is a nice thought, always helps to be polite.  Patricia still uses the baby sign language for please when she says “please” which is basically rubbing her hand in a circle on her torso.  This means whenever she asks for a napkin because her hands are covered in peanut butter or some other unmentionable goo (read: all the time) she conveniently smears the substance all over her shirt before obtaining the napkin.  Can’t fault her for politeness.

Yesterday I told Julius he could come with me to the store but he had to put his shoes on.  For some reason or another he only had one sock on (happens daily), so when I was asked, I told him he needed to wear socks with his sneakers and to go upstairs and get a new pair of socks.  I stopped paying attention and he got in the car and I realized he had on one boat shoe (on the foot with no sock) and one sneaker (on the foot with the sock).  I couldn’t help but applaud his innovative solution.  I wonder if anyone at the store noticed.

Julius, as you probably know by now if you’ve met Julius recently, is obsessed with sharks.  His favorite shark is a goblin shark.  Don’t look it up, you’ll regret it.  They are horrifying.  A thing of nightmares.  Julius thinks they are cute.  Which I guess they sort of are if you can find a picture of one with it’s mouth closed.  Anyway I was determined to make him a cute goblin shark stuffed animal.  I also really wanted to use old jeans to make it, of which I have a nearly infinite supply thanks to Will’s knife-knees that rip holes in jeans after a single wear.  Goblin sharks have a long, flat, pointed nose (reminder: don’t look it up) on a smallish body with a really neat looking long tail (you looked it up didn’t you?  I warned you.)  To make the nose flat on the horizontal I had to join the head of the shark to the rest of the shark (which was made on the vertical).  I don’t love how that part came out because it would have been better to make the shark one continuous piece, but overall I think she came out pretty cute. (It’s a female goblin shark – Julius named her Meringue.)  Oh one last thing.  I thought I was being really clever with the jeans because they are blueish grey with a bit of texture (maybe like a shark’s rough skin) but apparently goblin sharks are this sickly greyish pink like a naked mole rat (if you’ve gotten this far without googling, don’t do it now).  I guess that’s from not being exposed to light?

The great news though is that now you can make your very own upcycled goblin shark for nearly free.  For mine I just bought the eyes which were less than $1.50 thanks to the nice cashier who gave me some coupons. 

Stuffed Goblin Shark from Upcycled Jeans

What you’ll need:

  • 1 pair of ripped jeans (mine were from one of Will’s size 34×34)
  • stuffing material (I use recycled polyester polyfil)
  • pair of 18mm solid black eyes (I used these)
  • black embroidery thread and embroidery needle
  • My pattern here

Cut out all pattern pieces from jeans, starting with the larger pieces, and squeezing in the smaller ones where able.  For the pieces with NSA (no seam allowance) add 1/2″ seam allowance to the pieces when cutting. 

Stitch all fin pieces together to form a total of 8 fins.  

Clip curves on fins and turn right side out. 

Pin the two body/tail portions of the shark together from front to the point where the tail meets the body on the underside of the shark.  

Remove pins and insert first dorsal fin and second dorsal fin inside the shark, then repin.  Stitch.

This is around where you should pin the dorsal fins, but note they should be stitched and turned by this point and they should be placed INSIDE the fish at this point.

Attach snout of shark to front of shark, centering along the spine of the shark, right sides of fabric together.  

Pin belly of shark to snout of shark, and all along shark belly down to the tail area, ending in the point where the tail meets the body.  

Insert fins in spots indicated on the pattern (in between the layers of fabric).

Again this is where one of the fins should go, but it should go INSIDE the two layers of fabric.

Stitch, leaving a gap between the front and second fin on one side.  Clip curves (especially where the tail meets the body.

Turn right side out.

Stitch gills and smile using a backstitch. 

Apply eyes by poking a small hole using a seam ripper, inserting the eye, then closing it with the washer.

Stitch along the tail on the mark indicated.  

Stuff the top portion of the tail and the rest of the shark.

Ladder stitch the opening in the shark closed. 

Julius brought Meringue to school today and I was really proud. :D

Posted in Crafts & Sewing | Leave a comment

Dirty Laundry

Posted on June 6, 2023 by lexicolton

Julius and Patricia were so cute yesterday.  On the way to pick up our farmshare Julius was telling a story about one of his teachers.  Patricia wanted to participate in the conversation and told us that her friend went to <made up word that sounded like merfissle tree>.  Julius’s response was “I don’t know what that is”.  So to make Patricia feel better I asked her to repeat the word.  It was still totally non-intelligible.  I asked her one final time to repeat it and as I was deciding how to respond Julius chimed in, “oh yeah, I’ve heard of that, it’s the place where breadicorns live” and made up a whole silly backstory to go with it.  Patricia went along with it, pleased someone was listening.  It was adorable.

Well last week was the week from Hell and it just keeps on continuing.  I got sick Monday night with a horrible sore throat and fever, and Will got sick Tuesday with the same.  Julius had been complaining his tummy hurt the week before so when I went to go get tested for strep at the minute clinic on Wednesday, the NP said I should test Julius as well, since strep sometimes manifests only as stomach pain in young kids.  So I took Julius to the pediatrician to get him tested for strep and the pediatrician (not our normal one) starts asking him questions about his stomach and concludes he doesn’t have strep but needs to go to the ER for an xray.  (Which is weird because his stomach was no longer hurting.)

So I drag myself over to the ER with him to be on the safe side and they get xrays of his bowels (thankfully it was fast because I was still feeling absolutely terrible).  The doctor calls me back a couple hours later and tells me he most likely has chronic constipation and he should take Miralax for the rest of his life.  On top of that he should start Miralax and an enema tonight.  Um okay, makes zero sense to me but I acquiesce because I’m still feeling like crap and don’t feel like arguing.  So I drag myself to all the drug stores in town (now I really just want to sleep) and none of them have pediatric enemas.  The pharmacists tell me that’s something specialized that I need to order online.  We get home past Julius’ bedtime, so I don’t give him Miralax and obviously no enema.

Oh I forgot, also that day I get a call from Dany’s doctor that she has some tick borne disease and needs to come in for blood samples on Friday, and I need to capture a urine sample.  Thursday I am feeling a bit better so I collect and drop a sample off at the vet. I’m thinking this is going to be a better day.  Then I get a text from Patricia’s teachers in the morning warn us that she is complaining her tummy hurts and isn’t eating anything.  I think, “ah ha!  Maybe Julius does just have a stomach bug and now Patricia has it because she drank out of his water bottle earlier in the week”.  Patricia vomits all over her teacher and gets sent home.  She vomits all over me twice at home but then seems to be a bit better. (She tells Julius when she gets home, “Julius! I burped all over Ms. Sara then I burped all over my shoes and Ms. Sara had to wash my feeties”.  Julius who has heard the story with the word “vomit” instead of “burp” says “and I heard you burped all over your clothes too Patricia”.  And she giggles and says “oh yeah, I did.”)

Friday Patricia has to stay home on account of all the vomiting the day before.  She’s mega cranky and refuses to nap even though she is very unhappy, so I let her sleep on me in the afternoon and I take a nap too (I’m also not feeling great again, I think my sore throat turned into a sinus infection now).  Patricia and I both sleep thru my alarm to take Dany to the vet.  We pick Julius up from school and Julius’ doctor calls to see how he’s doing and how the miralax and enemas are going.  Oh right, forgot about that.  I had convinced myself she was completely over-reacting because I mentioned Will takes miralax daily.  (I’m still convinced of this.)  I explain I don’t want to give him miralax for the rest of his life without first tracking his bowels for at least a couple weeks.  I also tell him the details of his poop for the last 2 days (he pooped without an enema right after the doctor appointment on Wednesday so I’m not sure an enema would have helped).  She asks about the enema I explain that I’m waiting for it to come in because no stores carry them.  At this point she probably thinks I’m not listening to her recommendations at all and then tells me that “we don’t have the liberty of time” because “Julius’s bowels could explode”.  The xray report did not seem to indicate anything like the potential for bowel rupture, in fact the only thing it mentioned is that “in certain circumstances the presence of small amounts of gas in the bowel might be indicative of IBS”.  That doesn’t read like “imminent bowel explosion” to me, but what do I know, I’m not a doctor.  So I say okay I will give him the Miralax if it’s really that concerning.  I’m very annoyed now.  Wouldn’t my son have indicated some form of pain at present if his bowels were going to rupture?  But to stay off the bad parent list and prevent alleged bowel rupture I give him two tall glasses of microplastics for the next 2 days.

That’s when the horrible GI problems start.  Patricia hasn’t vomited since Wednesday, but she has all the other GI symptoms now.  And on Saturday so does Will.  I’ve somehow escaped.  Patricia is still unhappy, but by Sunday it seems she has turned a corner.  Will is still feeling awful. Julius and I have escaped it seems.  Monday Patricia again doesn’t eat any of her food at school and again asks for Mama and Dada at school (all very unusual occurrences).  I pick her up, nurse on call confirms that this vomit/GI thing is the exact symptoms and timing of what has been going around.

Which brings me to today!  Patricia is 100% back to normal.  Now Julius and I have GI problems.  Great.  Halfway thru the day I get a call that Patricia got a cut on her eyebrow that probably doesn’t need stitches, but might.  I show the picture to Patricia’s pediatrician and she suggests we go to the main Umass hospital since they have pediatric surgeons there if stitches are necessary.  Ugh.  Well the rest of my day is we waited for 4 hours, and when they finally saw us the bleeding had stopped completely and they determined it was just a scratch and didn’t need any stitches.  I’m afraid to think about tomorrow.

And on top of all that – the laundry is looking at me dirty again.  Really dirty.  haha. Okay that phrase just makes me chuckle.  If you want a sign that is guaranteed to make you chuckle, even when you’re washing vomit out of the family laundry, I highly recommend this next tutorial.

Dirty Laundry Sign

What you’ll need:

  • small canvas (mine was 8″x10″)
  • ocean blue acrylic paint
  • white acrylic paint
  • cricut adhesive vinyl sticker and pattern here

First I painted the entire canvas white and let dry.

Then I cut out my vinyl text – you can resize it to fit your needs!

Using transfer tape I adhered the vinyl letters to the canvas.  Here if I was smart I would cover the letters and around the edges with mod podge. It prevents the paint from bleeding.  But I wasn’t smart, so I didn’t do that.

Paint 2-3 coats of blue on top of the lettering.  Let dry.

Peel off the vinyl letters.

Use more white paint to touch up any bleeding.

Hang with pride.  Laugh everytime you step into your laundry room.

 

Posted in Crafts & Sewing, Home Improvement | 4 Comments

Holey Moley

Posted on May 29, 2023 by lexicolton

Monday again?!  Boy does time fly.  I’m in a bit of a project slump the last few weeks because I’ve got a bunch of mending projects piling up.  I started mending socks last summer, did I mention that?  It’s kind of fun.  My grandma used to mend socks, and my mom and uncles used to tease her that she was the only person they knew who still did that.  At some point in my teenage years, my grandparents gave me a little sewing chest and in it (among other things) was one of my grandma’s old darning mushrooms and some darning thread.

Last summer when I started flying places again I took a bunch of Will’s holey socks on the plane and darned a few of them.  I felt pretty accomplished and the patches looked pretty cool.  Will even said they were very comfy!  Win!  Unfortunately though, after only another couple months all of them ended up threadbare or with even more holes.  On top of that, other socks in the collection also ended up with holes. So now I have a basket full of around 24 socks that needs darning (at least one hole each).  I don’t think I will ever have time to darn 24 socks in this lifetime so I’m going to get higher quality socks for Will and see if they last longer.  I really hope they do.

I’m pretty proud of the patches, but this is what I’m working with…

Well I always save holey socks and I’ve made sock puppets, sock unicorns and other sock creations.  Unfortunately with the rate Will demolishes socks, and my slowness at sock darning, I have a plethora of holey socks just waiting for reuse.  Well…  when I was picking wool dryer balls (I love them) out of my sheets the other day I had a great idea… I would turn my socks into dryer balls!  I found with Will’s calf length ankle tube socks (he’s like a men’s large sock) I could use 3 socks to make a very dense and firm dryer ball!  (Some of my cheaper wool dryer balls started out thick, but disintegrated and turned into dryer puffs rather than balls….

DIY Sock Dryer Balls

What you’ll need:

  • Old holey socks (cotton or wool, whatever you have will work great) – The equivalent of 3 Men’s L ankle socks per ball
  • Needle and thread
  1. Take first sock, and fold in half lengthwise from toe to heel. 
  2. Start rolling from toe up towards the heel, pulling as you go to make a firm roll. 
  3. Once you reach the heel start rolling ankle and calf portion around the roll you made. 
  4. Take a second sock, and continue wrapping in the same direction, starting at the toe (but do not fold in half this time).
  5. When you reach the heel, move the ankle 45 degrees towards the direction around the roll and start wrapping. 
  6. Shift slowly 45 degrees again, so you shape the sock into a ball shape.   Pull very firmly throughout the process. 
  7. Place your ball shape inside another sock, pushing it all the way down to the toe, and pulling and shaping to form a very firm ball. 
  8. Twist the open end of the sock a quarter turn, then turn inside out and fold the ankle of the sock back over the twist (which should be holding the sock’s ball shape). 
  9. Pull the middle part of the sock down over the sock ball, and again twist a quarter turn at the opposite side, turn inside out and fold the ankle of the sock back over the twist.  During this process reshape sock. Repeat one more time depending on sock side. 

    This is what the quarter twisted end looks like, once you have turned it inside out.

  10. Using a ladder stitch, stitch the ends of the sock closed.  

Toss in the dryer with any clothes to reduce dry time!  Note – I personally don’t put essential oils in mine because essential oils are flammable.

Posted in Crafts & Sewing | 4 Comments

The laundry is looking at me dirty again

Posted on May 24, 2023 by lexicolton

Wow what a weekend!  We spent the last weekend give or take a day on either end having our annual DanyCon Convention!  It was a blast.  I’m so exhausted though that the last two nights I fell asleep on the couch after dinner and slept for 2 hours.  Not exactly ideal.

Because I’m so tired I’m going to just cut to the chase and show you the latest thing I’ve been working on.  It’s my washing machine closet!  When we redid the basement they basically walled off the area with my washing machine, dryer and sink and added some double doors so I could have full access.  It’s worked out okay, but because there is no insulation behind the doors the cold basically oozes out of there.  The first thing I did when I moved my desk downstairs was to add weather stripping to the base of the doors and between the doors and just that little change it made it so much warmer.

I also immediately installed a retractable arm to hang clothing from.  I used to have a clothesline hanging across my basement so I could dry my clothes easily, but it felt odd to add that back to the nice finished space.  So I used some 2″x4″s to attach a retractable laundry rod above the washer and dryer.  Instead of using a line and clothespins,  I used the rod and pants hangers with clips to hang all the diaper covers and other clothes that I don’t put in the dryer.  It works great!

My next problem was that I had this shiny new basement and the area for my laundry was just so ugly!  It was functional, but it was messy with all the bare pipes and unfinished floor showing.  So I spent a lot of time envisioning ways I could add shelving and cover up the pipes.  The other thing that I was annoyed with is because they didn’t finish the area with the washer and dryer, they left all the insulation exposed on the inside of the closet.  Since I was going in there all the time I didn’t want insulation brushing off on my skin or clothes.  This lead me to realize that the ceiling in the closet (and the unfinished back area) is also totally exposed insulation!  So, if there was any insulation shards getting lose with day to day wear I’ve been breathing that in for years.

So my next step was to tackle the exposed insulation.  I used black sheeting to cover up both the insulation on the inside of the walls as well as the insulation on the ceiling.  I used a staple gun on the ceiling, but on the walls (which are steel braces) I had to use duct tape.  Seems to be holding up okay so far.

After that was done, I finally could get to work on adding shelves.  I had a couple goals for the shelves.  I wanted to get all the junk on top of the dryer out of the way and onto a shelf so I could fold, and I needed a place to store my laundry baskets when they weren’t in use.  This meant I was slightly size constrained.  Again, my walls were unfinished concrete with pipes sticking out everywhere so the only place to mount shelves was from the ceiling.  I found these super cool ones off Amazon that look like industrial pipes.  They also happened to be the right measurements to hold my laundry baskets.  I cut down some scrap plywood I had leftover from my kitchen shelving project to the right size to use as shelves (it seems they don’t sell them without the planks which is too bad because it was half the price).

Since I used rather long plywood for the shelving I needed 3 braces to support the shelves.  This left me with one extra brace to use somewhere else.  I chose to use it as an additional laundry hanging space over the utility sink (a requirement I found I needed when hanging tie dye shirts to dry).  I was able to reconfigure the pipes to make the bar longer in width.

Next I wanted to hide the pipes.  For this I bought 4 matching polyester curtains from Savers and straight up staple gunned them to the ceiling.  I hemmed the curtain over the dryer to make sure it comes no where near the back.  (This was another reason to use polyester.)  This makes the whole closet feel much cozier, and infinitely less ugly!

The last step was to add a silly laundry canvas I made (sidenote: there are so many good laundry puns, it was hard to choose).  I staple gunned this to the fabric as well, in case you’re wondering.  I also threw a basket under the sink for dirty laundry that isn’t immediately bound for the wash, and hung up two hooks on the inside of the door.

I’m in love with the mini-renovation.  I keep opening up the closet to admire it while I’m working.  And it makes me so much happier to do laundry when everything is so tidy and organized.  (Plus it motivates me to fold the laundry immediately to keep things tidy.)  The total cost for everything I needed to purchase for the reno (which was the plastic sheeting, curtains, shelf mounts, and the retractable hanging arm) was less than $250.

Next I guess I have to tackle the ceiling in the unfinished area… I’m dreading that!

Julius can read now, luckily he is still too young to understand my humor.

You can barely see the black sheeting on the left side because it blends in so well. This picture shows the hook on one of the doors as well as the bar over the sink for wet clothes. Oh and I forgot to mention I put a hand towel on a magnet hanging from the washing machine, and a bottle of soap on the shelf so I can wash my hands here when they are really messy. (Read: frequently)

Here’s a better view of the shelves which perfectly fit laundry baskets stacked 3 high.  In the foreground you can see the retractable clothes hanger.

Full view of the closet. No more pipes seen!

Posted in Home Improvement, Thrift Finds | Leave a comment

Currying Favor

Posted on May 15, 2023 by lexicolton

Happy Belated Mother’s Day to all the mamas out there!  I hope you had a wonderful day!  Julius was so cute for Mother’s day this year.  He was counting down the days to Mother’s day because he made me lots of gifts.  I got to sleep in on Mother’s Day so when Will was in the bathroom in the morning Julius snuck this on our little chalkboard…

This made me the happiest of all somehow. (Used to say Earth day :D)

Isn’t he the sweetest?  Oh and as for all the gifts he made me… in addition to the usual magnet from his school, he also made me a paper airplane, a shark puzzle and a “make your own flower” kit.  Very thoughtful.

He’s definitely my son….

Patricia made me a cute picture and a flower at school.  She tried to open it for me, but I was impressed that she did eventually realize she should let me open it (good thing too because there were a lot of tiny rocks involved).  After presents they then helped me plant 100 bulbs (I know I’m like 2 seasons behind on bulbs, but better late than never?!)  On top of all that this was the first weekend in a long time that I haven’t logged into work and it was great.  Hopefully I’m starting a trend because this weekend is DanyCon and we should have lots of board game fun!

After planting!

So I have been delaying sharing this one for a while, I’m not sure why!   I originally made the recipe around Erin’s birthday in the fall, so it’s been around for a while.  This is another spin on a family classic.  Will’s mom makes a great curry chicken salad that’s really refreshing.  Normally it’s made with shredded chicken and bacon, but I wanted to make a vegetarian version.  After thinking thru how I was going to get the satisfying salty smokey pop from the bacon I realized I could use smoked almonds.  I am pretty sure I nailed it.  I tried every type of smokey almonds in the grocery store in a taste test and the hands down winner was Blue Almond “Smokehouse”.  I think they taste the smokiest and are the best bacon substitute for this recipe.  Some day maybe I’ll try and make my own.

Curried Chickpea Salad

Ingredients

  • 1 lb dried chickpeas or 3 cans (drained and rinsed)
  • 1/2 cup mayo
  • 2 Tbsp major grey chutney (I like Patak’s)
  • 3 tsp curry powder
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp lemon juice
  • 3 cups grapes, halved
  • 6 oz smokehouse almonds, chopped (about a cup)

If using dried chickpeas, rinse and drain, then place in instant pot.  Cover with water by 1 inch, let cook on high pressure for 45 minutes then naturally release for 10 minutes. (Wait 10 minutes, then move valve to opened).  Set in the fridge to cool.  Mash lightly if desired (we think it’s better less mashed.)

Stir together all ingredients except grapes, almonds and chickpeas.  Add in chickpeas and grapes.  Leave in fridge until chilled.  Just before serving, add in almonds.

 

 

Posted in Culinary Delights | 6 Comments