Why I Like Traveling with Kids

I've spent the past few days researching toddler-friendly vacation destinations, which means I've spent the past few days reading countless suggestions on message boards that perhaps we should just stay home, or very close to it. 

The standard argument, in a nutshell, is that vacations aren't as important as everyday togetherness for keeping your family unit strong. (Duh.) And since kids seem to like the mundane stuff best anyway -- the playground, the hotel vending machine, the rental car -- why bother going anywhere?

I'm sorry, but where's the logic in that? That's like saying, "Birthday cake isn't as important to your health as eating a balanced diet the rest of the year. And sometimes you bake a birthday cake and your kids only eat the icing! Don't waste your time!" 

Danger, at 7 months old, failing to fully appreciate Bermuda's rich history.
P.S. He's the one in the stroller. The tall one is my husband.

And just because you can find something at home, is that a reason to avoid it overseas? I mean, I can sit in the bathtub with a margarita, so why bother going to Mexico? My neighbors have some fish, so why visit the Great Barrier Reef?

I mean, what kind of unrealistic expectations do people have for vacations? I imagine these parents taking their kids to Holland to learn about the progressive use of wind power, and then getting bummed out when their kids only care that the Dutch put ice cream on their pancakes. (The Dutch are geniuses.) 

The thing is, even the mundane stuff is more fun when you're away. I liked grocery shopping at the IGA in Montreal as much as I liked visiting the Notre-Dame. My kids loved "riding in the red car" at Disney World -- um, that would be our rental Prius.

I'm not saying we're the most worldly family ever, but if the opportunity to go to Europe came up tomorrow, I'm not going to say no just because I might have to pass some time in the cultural wasteland of a Parisian playground, eating my weight in beignets while my kids go down the slide for the 10297309th time. That actually sounds amazing.

Vacationing with kids is different, but in some ways, I actually think it's better. Here's why:

1. Kids can pinpoint the true awesomeness of a city in three seconds flat. Whether it's the playground, the street food, or a nice guy on the bus, kids have sonar for fun. They get the "authentic experiences" that travelers wax intellectual about because kids aren't trying to impress anyone. (Where are the locals hanging out? Probably the playground.)

2. Kids give you a permission to be a tourist. It's hard to blend when you're lugging around a three-day zombie disaster supply kit in your diaper bag and your traveling companion has eschewed a "basic black" wardrobe in favor of wearing Angry Birds pajamas all day. But here's a secret: Remember that time before you had kids? When you dressed like a local and memorized useful phrases like "Waar zijn de dichtstbijzijnde pannenkoeken?" You probably weren't fooling anyone then, either.

3. Kids are the great equalizer. Nothing bonds you to your fellow travelers faster than being the other parent using a national monument as a time-out seat.

4. Kids see things like kids. When I was a kid, I thought the countries in EPCOT were the actual countries. My husband still gets nostalgic about his vacations at a rainy campground in New Jersey. I don't think that Monte Carlo would blow my kids' minds any more than the Hot Wheels aisle at Target already does. Yes, kids are easy to please -- but is that really a problem? Is it so bad to go on vacation with someone who thinks that any hotel with an ice machine is a five-star resort and any restaurant with free crayons deserves a Michelin star? Or would you rather travel with someone who thinks the Louvre was too underwhelming, Disney too manufactured, or the Grand Canyon too dusty? (Yep, that was an actual complaint on Tripadvisor.) I'll waste time traveling with my kids any day.

Whose Craft Is It Anyway?

I remember making a project for an elementary school science fair -- I punched holes in construction paper to show how thin the air was in the four layers of the earth's atmosphere. Lots of holes in the troposphere, not so many in the thermosphere. Easy peasy, right? Wrong. Have you ever tried to punch a hole in the middle of a piece of construction paper? How about 200 holes? And of course I started on the project around 8:30 p.m. the night before it was due. My knack for procrastination hasn't changed since the fourth grade; only my bedtime has gotten later.

Anyway, my dad helped me figure out the logistical hole punching problem through some strategic cutting and folding, and I was pretty sure my rad poster was going to take home the blue ribbon. But then another kid showed up with, like, a working centrifuge that separated blood cells from plasma. Okay, so I don't remember what he actually brought, but I remember thinking, No fair, your dad totally made that!

Not bitter.

Anyway, that's kind of how I feel when I look through Pinterest and see kids' craft suggestions with titles like, "Easy Toddler Craft: Turn an Egg Carton into a Schooner!" I mean, seriously? Did everyone on Pinterest pass on some kind of crafty carrier gene, or are they actually doing the lion's share of the craft while their kids are busy glueing Cheerios in their hair? I really hope it's the latter, or we have some serious work to do in the crafting department around here.

I figured I'd post a sample craft from our house. Here's a train we worked on as a team today. We used a $5 kit from Melissa & Doug. In case you couldn't guess, I was in charge of the wheel stickers and painting a heart. The boys handled the rest.

We also did a bonus bodypainting segment of craft day.

This is what toddler crafts really look like, at least in our house. Not like this or this or this.

And you know what? I don't care if other kids are making Faberge eggs in their spare time. I want my boys to do their own projects, and I think they made a pretty bangin' train today.

Science: It's a Bayside Thing

Is it just me, or is there an uncanny resemblance between this new commercial from the European Commission:




...and this classic gem?

Same fashion sense, same basic production values, same embarrassingly misguided good intentions.

ROOST: Awkward Conversations 101

Just came across an article via Pinterest called "8 Great Date Ideas for Moms and Sons," which sounded cute, even though I always think it's a little awkward to call it a "date." Besides, what constitutes a date? They're toddlers -- we hang out all the time. Is it a "date" if we stop at Panera on the way home from running errands? What about the playground? What if I only take one of them food shopping? Is there a minimum fun-quota that has to be met? If we meet up with my friend and her kids, is that a double date?


But semantics aside, I like having special hangout days with my kids, by which I mean days when we have either more fun or better food than normal. We are particularly fond of the Thomas aisle at Target, and lunch at Chipotle.

He licks the foil just like his mama!

So I figured the article might have some creative suggestions. I mean, Pinterest is the home of black-olive penguins and reindeer cupcakes -- surely these date ideas would blow my mind!


But it turns out the idea behind the article is to lure your kid with a fun activity and then trick them into a super-serious conversation. 


For example:

Head to the tennis court, the batting cages or shoot hoops.... Talk to your son about what it means to be a 'real man'....  Let him know that real men don’t have to be good at sports, or even like sports.

Holy bait and switch! "Hey, son, let's hit the batting cages. You go first. Wow, you knocked it out of the park...but that doesn't make you a man." Awkward. Then there's this one:

Take a day trip or an overnight trip.... Road trips are great for tackling heavy subjects.  While your eyes are on the road, he might feel more comfortable opening up about life topics. 

I just had a flashback to about 15 different car rides with my mom in high school. That's not a date -- it's entrapment. 


The article also suggests taking him out to his favorite restaurant and then asking him what kind of wife he sees himself having. Really?! "How's the burger and what kind of woman do you want to marry?"  That's like the person who announces on their first date that they want five kids. Sloooow doooown. 


Don't get me wrong, I think communication is important, but can't I just hang out with my kids sometimes? And, you know, just try to be as approachable and non-judgmental as possible, so I don't have to trick them into talking to me? If we're going to call it a date, let's at least make it fun. You know, so they want to go on a second date. 

Love this quote...

...if only because it makes me feel a little better about my messy desk.

"There are all kinds of ways to live. You can take your choice. You can keep a tidy house, and when St. Peter asks you what you did with your life, you can say, 'I kept a tidy house, I made my own cheese balls.'"  

                                   --Annie Dillard

:)

ROOST: How to Fake Your Way to Being a Facebook Foodie Mom

I literally just spent 10 minutes giggling at this magical little section of Nickelodeon's nickmom site. It almost -- almost -- makes me forgive them for bringing Max & Ruby into our household.

My personal fave was the most recent post, the Foodie Mom. Quick -- go read it and come back.

...riiiiight!? I think everyone has one or two or five of them in our social circle. And, um, I'm definitely NOT that mom in my circle.

Look! I made pastries!

My friend Brianne is one of those moms. Hopefully she's not offended by me putting her on shout. After all, her foodie-ness made her an excellent college roommate to have -- we were probably the only people on campus using our liter of Smirnoff to make penne alla vodka. Nowadays she runs her own little corner of the blogosphere called Cupcakes and Kale Chips, where she shares recipes like "parmesan balsamic-caramelized onion smashed potatoes." (I didn't make that up.) Most of her meals have, like, seven unique side dishes. Meanwhile, I pat myself on the back if I don't screw up beef stew. (Side dish?! I don't know, heat up one of those Steamfresh bags. What do I look like, a diner?)

As a result, her Facebook updates are usually along the lines of, "Just made the boys a filet mignon with a red wine reduction and a side of braised cauliflower...now onto the honey-glazed pecan tartlets!" (I'm talking out of my ass here, so apologies if those aren't real food terms.) I usually read these posts while my kids are eating Goldfish crackers out of a Tupperware bowl. Look, I try to feed my kids healthy food as often as possible, but sometimes it's 12:15 and they're melting down and only McCain smiley-face fries will placate them.

So I figured I'd come up with a helpful little guide for making your Facebook food posts sound more impressive than they are. With a little bit of clever wording, you too can be a Facebook foodie!

1. Skip the brand names. Cheerios become "toasted oats," Eggos become "buttermilk waffles," and Pizza Rolls become "mini-strombolis." 
2. List ingredients. Add oomph by rattling off the (pronounceable) ingredients from the label. Today we'll be having pasta with tomato puree, cheddar, and paprika extract...or, y'know, Spaghetti-O's.
3. Don't forget the details. Here's where it all comes together. Did you serve PBJ and potato chips? Or did you serve roasted peanut spread with grape jam on whole-grain bread with a side of thin-sliced potatoes fried in soybean oil?

See how easy? 

ROOST: I made a patchwork quilt. Don't judge me.

Okay, I know this is way beyond my normal level of craftiness, which is zero. (If you don't believe me, click the "crafts" tab. I think I'm up to a whopping two posts.)

But I had to do something to save my favorite pajamas! Let me explain. In 2008, I went to Disney World. I'm a total Disney freak, it was my 16th visit, it was Christmas, and I was six months preggo with my older son, Danger. So I was pretty much as happy as I could get, despite the fact that 14 hours a day of Disney magic made my cankles look like legit water buffalo hooves.

Anyway, I bought a pair of awesome pajama pants while I was there. I loved the fabric -- hot pink, day-glo orange, lime green, turquoise, red, and black. It was borderline vaudeville and borderline tacky, and I wore them almost every night (and some days) for about two years, until they finally ripped. Hubby suggested it was finally time to get rid of them. I'm pretty sure I heard joy in his voice -- I think these pants were his Leg Lamp. "I am never throwing these out!" I proclaimed. "I will make them into a quilt!"

Cue one year later and the pants were still sitting on a shelf in my office. "Can we throw these out now?" hubby asked. We were in the middle of a 365 project in which we threw out one item a day, so I had to get going on the quilt or the pants would be tossed.

The only problem was I had never made a quilt before. But between a vague recollection of seventh grade Home Ec, a helpful Joann's Fabrics employee (who patiently fielded questions like, "what's batting?" and "how do you put all the layers together?"), and occasionally checking Pinterest to make sure I wasn't screwing up royally, I managed to cobble it together. Here's a basic patchwork quilt tutorial, if you can call it that. I won't use any technical terms because I don't know them.

STEP 1: Pick out a crap ton of fabric. If you're not familiar with fabric, it's usually 54" wide -- you order the length you need in yards. I bought two yards for the back of the quilt, plus a cumulative 2-3 yards for the front of the quilt. Err on the high side for the front, since you'll lose a lot of square inches while sewing. I got a full yard of polka-dot blue for the front, 1/2 yard of orange, 1/2 yard of lime, 1/2 yard of hot pink, and had about 1/2 yard after I cut up my pants. The cotton and flannel fabrics are usually cheapest, which is good when you need a lot of yardage and there's a distinct chance you're going to ruin everything and/or give up.

STEP 2: Cut fabric into 6-inch squares. My quilt is about 4' x 5', which required 96 squares. (Save some for the trim -- a little over half a yard.)

STEP 3: Make a map. This is nerdy, but it was a huge help. I didn't want to have three big squares of lime next to each other, or to get halfway through the quilt and realize I'd run out of Mickey squares.

STEP 4: Lay the first two squares front-to-front and sew the right edge. Set your sewing machine to go in a straight line, pretty tight stitch. I don't know what the settings are actually called, but I do know that my one-year-old, Dash, changed them every single time I walked away from the sewing machine for more than three seconds. 

STEP 5: Keep repeating step 4 (front-to-front, sew right edge) until you have a full line of fabric squares:

STEP 6: Roll it up and stick a label on it so you know which line it is on your map. Not vital, but it'll save you a lot of time and brainpower later.

STEP 7: Do the above steps for each line in your quilt-map.

STEP 8: Take line 1 and line 2 and lay them face-up on the floor. Flip line 2 over so it's facedown on line 1, and sew the bottom edge. I forgot to take a photo of this step, but it's probably fairly intuitive. If it makes your fabric squares start to look like a real patchwork quilt, you did it right! (If this makes no sense at all, do a Pinterest search, and godspeed.)

STEP 9: Once you have the full patchwork portion of the quilt sewn together, you can cut your trim pieces.   First, you'll need two pieces that are 6" wide (or whatever looks good to you) x (the length of your quilt).

STEP 10: Lay the trim facedown against the left edge of your patchwork, and sew the left edge. Then do the same thing on the right side of your patchwork, sewing the right edge. For reasons unknown, I took three photos of this step.

STEP 11: Cut another two pieces of trim -- this time, 6" wide x (the width of your quilt). It's important to save this cutting until now, so you know how wide your quilt is after the left and right trim pieces are added. Unless you're a master quilter and really good at measuring, in which case, why are you reading this tutorial? I told you I don't know what I'm doing!

STEP 12: Sew the trim on the top and bottom, the same way you did on the left and right. Now you have a finished front piece!

STEP 13: Cut the back piece of fabric to the same size as the front.

STEP 14: Go buy some batting. (If you already have batting, because you knew you'd need it way back in the title when I said the word "quilt," then you're a step ahead of me.) Cut the batting to the same size as the front and back of the quilt.

STEP 15: Make a quilt sandwich. Front side (face up), batting, back side (face down). Oh -- if you want to "sign" the quilt, now's the time to do it, before you close it up. 

STEP 16: Pin the edges together. If you want to tack the quilt, you can do that now. Basically, just take embroidery thread, and at various points in the patchwork, loop the needle through all three layers of fabric and back, and tie it in place. This just keeps the binding from bunching up when you wash it. There are other, more complicated ways to do this, but I didn't try any of them. 

STEP 17: Bind the edges. Okay, this step could probably use its own tutorial, but if you buy pre-made binding, it's actually fairly intuitive and easy. Ask the people at Joann's -- they're really nice. Just fold the binding under at the corners for clean edges.

...and there you go! A quilt you can brag about for generations to come. And a great way to rescue your favorite pajamas, baby clothes, old shirts, etc.

I'm exhausted.

LIST: 7 Reasons I think this Video is B.S.

There's a decent chance you've already seen this video, since it's racked up a quarter-million views in the past four days. But I'm calling fraud on it. Watch it and see what you think:



Look, as the mom of two toddler boys, I've walked in on my share of messes. And it's because I've walked in on my share of messes that I can spot several red flags in this video:

1. In real-toddler-world, all five pounds of flour would be in a big pile in the middle of the kitchen. Once a toddler discovers something that can be spilled, the world stands still until every last drop has been dumped on the floor. I've watched my one-year-old sit at the kitchen table and shake juice out of a leak-proof sippy cup for upwards of ten minutes. I've found him in a mountain of wipes, but I've never found a trail of wipes throughout the house. Toddlers tend to keep their messes confined to their current location, a.k.a. the location where mom currently isn't.
2. I don't see two kids running with a bag of flour, period. A toddler with a five-pound bag of flour is like me with a 20-pound bag -- not gonna happen unless you're talking about this kid. There's flour on the couch -- that's over their heads. Could you hold a 20-pound bag of flour in one hand and casually toss flour over your head with another? On that note...
3. What's with the weird spots of flour on the picture frame? I've spilled a lot of flour, and I can safely say that flour doesn't clump when it hits glass. Unless, say, you're a fame-hungry youtube mom going for maximum shock value, so you spritz a little water on the glass first. Just sayin'.
4. The TV has a light dusting on the edge. Very thoughtful of her kids to leave the most expensive thing in the room relatively unscathed. My kids, in contrast, have a magnetic pull to the most valuable thing in the room, which is why they'll draw on my computer monitor with a Sharpie when there's a blank notebook right in front of them.
5. When I notice my kids have been unusually quiet, I don't grab the video camera just in case they've decided to antique my living room furniture. 
6. If I ever stepped out of the bathroom and saw a trail of flour in the hallway, I wouldn't mutter, "Oh...oh, boy." It'd be more like, "GET IN TIME OUT RIGHT NOW! HOW DID YOU EVEN FIND THE FLOUR?! IT'S ON THE TOP SHELF OF THE CABINET! HOW THE FREAK LONG WAS I IN THE BATHROOM? DO THEY EVEN MAKE A VACUUM THAT CAN FIX THIS?!?!?" But, I guess you can't just hand your boys a bag of flour, help them powder the room, and then yell at them -- that would confuse them. Just sayin' again.
7. She disabled comments. Go figure.

So, what do you think -- real or fake?

ROOST: Alicia Silverstone says her 5-month-old is potty-trained -- um, for real?

Okay, I just came across this post on Babycenter -- Alicia Silverstone has been all over Twitter bragging that her five-month-old poops on the potty. Yeah, her five-month-old. Apparently she's a proponent of "elimination communication," which is a fancy way of saying you watch for your kid's potty signals and dangle him over the potty. Yay, one diaper saved!

Possibly mid-potty-dash.

Hey, if Batgirl wants to spend her day scrutinizing her infant's facial expressions -- "is he pooping or just staring at a cracker crumb?" -- that's totally her choice. But I can't help but think it's a total misnomer to suggest that the baby is potty-trained. The parents are the ones watching for signals, making the mad potty dash, and wiping up afterwards. Until a kid is old enough to at least utter the word "potty" -- or, I don't know, crawl -- the parent is the one who's potty-trained.

I'll stick with diapers. I have enough to worry about without anyone pooping on the floor because I missed a scrunchy-face. What about you -- have you tried, or would you try, EC-ing?

ROOST: Maybe this will make me productive.

I'm a serious procrastinator. I have items on my Stickies to-do list that are so old, I've had to transfer them across THREE computers -- no joke.

Sometimes I'll look at an item on there and not even remember what I'm supposed to do. The other day, I noticed a note that said "Jenn conf." Um? I know six Jennifers, four of whom I might actually need to do something with or for. Did I have a conference? Did I need to confirm something? Finally, I remembered that I needed to send my hubby's cousin a confirmation card. Woohoo, my memory serves me again! Well, except that the card is still sitting on my desk, unwritten. I'll do it tomorrow. It's on the Stickies.

But if there's one thing that can cure my procrastination, it's a time crunch -- maybe because I've been working on crazy deadlines for the past 12 years. Which could explain my newfound obsession with this site, which I read about in Tim Ferriss' Four-Hour Workweek (awesome book!) about three years ago and, um, have been meaning to check out ever since.

The site is http://e.ggtimer.com/, and it's nothing fancy -- you type in a time limit, it counts down and beeps when time's up. It's really loud. A few minutes ago, I did a demo for hubby. I set it for 30 seconds, started clicking around the web and managed to get so distracted that when the timer went off -- again, 30 whopping seconds later -- I jumped out of my chair.

But anyway. I've found two fun ways to use it:

1) to limit my FB stalking. I set it for 10 minutes, and when it beeps, I log off. Haha, just kidding. I reset it for another ten minutes. But just like the snooze button on my alarm clock, it eventually guilts me into getting up and doing something productive.

2) racing myself. I've been picking annoying tasks on my to-do list and saying, "Can I get this done in 5 minutes?" Some things I can do in five minutes: follow up on old invoices, check my wireless statement, make a pork roast.

Who knows what boring things I'll accomplish tomorrow!

ROOST: Sometimes I feel like Nick Jr. is patronizing me.

I'm not even going to call this a confession. It's just a fact: We watch a lot of TV around here.

I know the two-hour rule, but I don't really care. It's not like we veg out on the couch with a trough of soda and cake. Sometimes we pay attention, sometimes it's just background noise -- but it's usually on. Let's just say I owe a huge debt of carbon-footprint karma.

I know this is supposedly causing some combination of obesity, ADD, diabetes, and brain rot. But I grew up watching Sesame Street, Mister Rogers, and Wheel of Fortune...and Cheers, Married with Children, Newhart, Tracey Ullman, 90210, and ABC's entire TGIF lineup. I watched a lot of TV. Scientifically speaking, I should have grown into a big blob of stupidity, but I actually was smart. The kind of smart that makes you uncool.

So, as someone who feels super-unapologetic about my own TV viewing, I always feel like Nick is pinching my cheeks and saying "there, there" when I hear their show intros. You know the ones: "Blah-blah encourages social development, multilingualism, good hygiene practices, and a thorough grasp of chaos theory." Really? Because I thought it was a show about singing animals.

What's not to love?

A few examples:

THE SPIN: Yo Gabba Gabba encourages preschoolers to move their bodies for healthy physical development; to make music to express themselves; and to share and care by supporting social and emotional development.
THE REALITY: Yo Gabba Gabba has Biz Markie and robots. Cherish this half-hour.

THE SPIN: Max and Ruby encourages preschoolers to explore family dynamics and the diversity of the world around them; and to share and care by nurturing social and emotional development.
THE REALITY: Max and Ruby explores what would happen if your parents disappeared and you were inexplicably left in the care of your naggy seven-year-old sister.

THE SPIN: The Fresh Beat Band encourages preschoolers to make music in many different ways; to move their bodies and dance; and to share and care by nurturing social and emotional development.
THE REALITY: Why do they giggle so much? They giggle at everything. It's like they just got back from the dentist.

THE SPIN: Ni-Hao Kai-Lan encourages preschoolers to explore Chinese culture and language; and to share and care by supporting social and emotional development.
THE REALITY: Kai-Lan's friends are a diverse mix of crybabies, whiny crybabies, and short-tempered crybabies. And you'll learn words like "mooncake," which is useless in any language.

Honestly, I don't expect TV to teach my kids social skills, their alphabet, or new languages. Those things are supposed to be my job. I don't want to leave them on the couch and pretend it's preschool. I just want to sit down with my boys now and then, and watch some singing animals.

ROOST: Backyard Science for Toddlers

Yesterday's weather forecast called for ridiculous apocalyptic amounts of rain. I was okay with that, because "rainy day activities" coincidentally overlap with several of my personal favorite activities such as watching TV, drinking assorted hot beverages, and lying on the futon.

But it didn't rain, so I put my hot-chocolate-and-Pixar plans on hold and took the boys outside. I'd seen a blog post about fun DIY chemistry projects for kids, and this one was my favorite suggestion of the bunch. By which I mean it seemed like I had a 99% chance of not screwing it up.

First, I filled a water bottle with plain old vinegar and punched a hole in the cap using a grilling fork. Yep, we're running a high-end laboratory over here. Then I filled four plastic cups with baking soda, 7-8 drops of food coloring, and water.

Spoiler alert: That's where I screwed up. The first step. When I poured a test drop of vinegar into one of the cups to make sure I wasn't about to drench my children with a technicolor explosion, the baking soda mixture just sparkled like a nice bottle of Perrier.

Hmmm.

I consulted my hubby, the engineer, who told me (in so many words) that baking soda isn't exactly a strong alkaline, which is why I'm allowed to put in in cookies without poisoning anyone. He suggested I dump most of the water out and add more baking soda before administering the vinegar catalyst. He's very useful to have around. 

So that's what I did. I handed my two-year-old the vinegar bottle, informed him that the usual "no dumping your bottle just for the heck of it" rules were temporarily suspended, and let him have at it.

He took the job very seriously. He was having so much fun that my one-year-old -- who was busy digging wet leaves out of the trunk of his Little Tykes car -- eventually wandered over and joined in. 

Although for the most part, my one-year-old was more interested in dunking his hands in the mixture and licking his fingers. And that, my friends, is why food is perfect for toddler science experiments. We'll move on to barium* in a year or two. 

Total cost of the materials: $2. (I'm not counting the food coloring. We've had the same four bottles for several years now, and they seem to mysteriously regenerate.) And the liquid didn't stain their hands. Win-win!

* Not a clue what barium is. I passed chemistry by doing lots and lots and lots of extra credit.

ROOST: DIY Recipes for Natural Cleaning Products (and Cool Uses for Vinegar)

A few days ago I washed my hair with vinegar. On purpose.

The inspiration came while reading my friend Whitney's DIY blog. Whitney is one of those crafty super-moms -- like, "Oh, yesterday I photographed a water birth, knitted eleventy baby hats, and redecorated my son's nursery." Most of the projects on her blog are so out of my league that I get to line two and I'm like, "Fat quarter whaaaaa...?"

But I was psyched when she recently posted recipes for natural cleaning products, for two reasons:
1) I hate the smell of cleaning products, which is one of the key reasons I almost never clean, and
2) They all seemed easy to do.

Click the pic to check out her post:






One catch -- so far I've come up dry in my quest to find castille soap. Well, I found it at Whole Foods, but it was $16, which is way more expensive than my current strategy of not cleaning at all. I found some on Soap.com but just need to figure out how to fill out the order minimum to get free shipping, because I haaaaaaate paying shipping :)

But her post did inspire me to figure out other ways to use natural products I have lying around the kitchen. I read several places that vinegar made a great hair rinse for breaking down soapy residue, which my hair desperately needed. So I diluted a tablespoon of cider vinegar in a cup of water, brought it in the shower, and tried it.

Two things happened.
1) My scalp immediately froze and I thought, "OMG! This shit is like menthol! It's reacting with my scalp!" Then I remembered that I'd diluted the vinegar in cold tap water. Duh.
2) It smelled like Easter egg dye. My first instinct was to mask it with conditioner, but I figured that would defeat the purpose. So I rinsed and hoped for the best. The good news: When I got into bed, my husband didn't say "Why do you smell like salad dressing?!" or anything like that.

Best of all, it actually made my uncooperative hair look shiny. And it bought me an extra day or two between shampoos. Woohoo!

A few other cool uses for vinegar:

• spray it on weeds in your driveway
• spray it around your door to prevent ants
• pour some down the kitchen drain to deodorize
• clean your hairbrush (same basic principle as the hair rinse)
• soothe itchy bug bites (I live in mosquito heaven -- this TOTALLY worked!)
• leave a bowl out to neutralize a nasty odor (smoke, puke, etc)

Happy vinegar-ing :)

ROOST: Upcycled Storage Jars (Super Easy Craft Idea)

An unexpected side effect of my newfound Pinterest addiction is the urge to do crafty things. The problem is that I'm not a crafter. Honestly, to date, the pinnacle of my crafting career is that I bought a Knifty Knitter (a loom for people who aren't coordinated enough to knit properly) about 15 months ago and so far have fake-knitted about seven inches worth of a scarf. If all goes well, I should be finished it by winter. Of 2015.

Anyway, I stumbled across a DIY blog post for making amazing candleholders out of old glass jars. If there's one thing we have an abundance of in our house, it's glass jars -- that's where salsa comes from! The problem was that the plans called for Mod Podge. Actually, pretty much everything on Pinterest calls for Mod Podge. I'm surprised I haven't seen a recipe for Mod Podge cookies.

Anyway. Given my track record in the crafting department, I decided maybe I should take baby steps. So I made a much, much, much, much simpler version. First, the finished product:

Still cute, right? And they're doing a fabulous job of holding annoyingly small clutter. One holds my jewelry* and the other holds choking hazards we've confiscated from the kiddos**.

YOU'LL NEED:

• about three feet of raffia (I had some left over in my gift-wrap drawer)
• a button or two (I had some left over from pabnts that my husband asked me to fix circa 2005)
• empty glass jars

THE DRILL:
1) Clean the glass jars. I soaked them in warm soapy water for awhile to get most of the label off, then scraped off any sticky stuff with my fingernail.
2) Hold the raffia about four inches from the end, and wrap it around and around and around and around until you're about four inches from the other end.
3) Thread the two ends through a button. Stack two buttons if you're feeling advanced! (I wasn't.)
4) Tie a bow.
5) Pat self on back.


* This isn't where I keep my jewelry on a permanent basis. I tend to take off my jewelry in the downstairs bathroom and then never have the motivation to bring it upstairs to my bedroom. Also, thanks to my love of cheap costume jewelry, there is probably a whopping $17 worth of jewelry in that jar.


** Martha Stewart would vomit in her mouth.

ROOST: I'm having a steamy affair...with my slow cooker.

Since I inundate you with my crockpot recipes, I should explain how my crockpot and I got together.

Because I don't have the patience for anything that requires more than two pots or three ingredients, I had exactly four dishes in my repertoire, and I'd estimate that my husband had eaten each one of them approximately 400 times.

(He cooks too. Don't get any June Cleaver notions. It's just that I work at home, and by the time 4:30 rolls around, I'm usually too hungry to wait for him to get home, get inspired, and get dinner started. So I'm just like, "Welcome home! I made crab quesadillas...again!")

Then we got the slow cooker for Christmas. Technically he got got the slow cooker, but I've commandeered it. Here's why I love slow cooking: Do you remember spin-art?

Put a piece of paper in the spinner, squirt some paint, and hope for the best. You never knew what the finished product would be until it stopped spinning, but it was always AWESOME! At least by my standards. I had spin-art all over my bedroom in 1988.

That's kind of how I feel about the slow cooker. I dump some ingredients in, stir, and 6-8 hours later, I find out what sort of tasty masterpiece I've created. (Or it tastes like total ass, and we wind up eating Spaghetti'O's instead. Usually that happens when I try to incorporate lentils.)

Anyway, thanks to the slow cooker, I'm happy, my husband's happy, and I'm eating REAL food for a change. I actually bought celery last week. And my potato peeler is finally getting some action!