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A sight for sore eyes, and tired dirty hands
This is by far the ugliest fort I’ve ever seen But like my son says, “At least we have a fort.†Since my oldest son began to walk as a baby, I’ve had this dream of building/growing a fort out of beans for him. Lack of sun and space has always stood in the way. Funny. Now that I have the space and the sun, he’s old enough to help me design the fort… and perhaps, he’s now too tall to stand inside. Using whatever tall sticks, old wood and broken furniture the previous owners left behind at the lake house garage, we built the fort. This bothered my Father…
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How to sync your MP3 player to ITunes
The good thing about MP3 players is that now many of them come free with cell phones, giving you the power of the 2GB Ipod Nano with your phone in one single device. The bad news is that Itunes does not recognize most MP3 players and won’t sync the music to the device. Here, I’ll show you how to work around that quirk, and load songs from Itunes onto any MP3 Player in just a few minutes, probably seconds. How do I know this? Verizon gave me a $100 credit toward a new phone, so I picked up The Juke, primarily because it works like an I-Pod Nano. Then, my…
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This hill serves us well
In the winter… and again in the summer, when it’s too cold to swim.
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I’m coming home to get some needed R&R
The lake is lovely, what I saw of it anyway. I had hoped to escape the mad-rush of school, homework, and sports schedules by taking off with everyone for an extended stay at the lake. Instead, it was work, work, work. Some of it I created myself by deciding to build this bean fort, which was much more complicated than I imagined. More on that ugly contraption later this week. Yes, the ducks are lovely, but much work to the lakehouse owner who must work to keep the ducks away with red plastic tape, so that we’ll have a clean place to walk. Much of the work we did this…
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Hot pepper, toilet paper tubes and Irish Spring
A list of 13 ways to deter pests and creatures from your garden. This is what it all comes down to. A few simple items that will either make or break our summer garden fort, made with Jack and the Beanstalk beans. I’ve been reading with horror about the varmints and diseases that will likely attack my pests once I place the plants for our 20-foot bean fort into their final growing spot at the lake. Lord knows, there are plenty of creatures up there willing to take a snack out of our foilage. The list includes deer, skunk, rabbits, groundhogs — all hungry, and ready to eat the plants.…
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This is what I’ll miss when they’re all in school
The quiet heartbeat of the house. It’s just me and him… cleaning up breakfast dishes, gathering laundry, getting ready for the next onslaught of chaos when everyone arrives home again. I treasure these moments. They’re rare, but they’re the ones you remember for a lifetime. The next time someone rolls their eyes at me when I express how sad I’ll be when all the boys are in school, I’ll just show them these pictures.
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What you do with leftover eggwhites
It happens. A recipe calls for simply the yolks of the eggs, and has listed no alternative use for the whites. I know, you probably pour the whites in Tupperware, expecting to use them in the near future. But, you forget, and they are forever discarded. Instead of casting them away to die as leftovers in your fridge, toss them in your mixing bowl immediately, and turn that baby on. Preheat your oven to 200 degrees. With the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites on low-medium speed until foamy. Add 1/4 teaspoon of cream of tartar and continue to beat the whites until they hold soft peaks. Once the meringue…
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I still have her red coat to prove it
Maybe the wheels started turning when I saw pictures of her boys on her blog, and they were wearing those same familiar sleeves of Buzz Lightyear, Batman and Spiderman. Something about the way she wrote about growing up in a small town that made me think we’d click, or was it her passion for renovating her old house? Then I learned that Amy was a not-too distant neighbor, so I made it my mission to meet her. Yesterday morning at Pistachio’s, it finally happened. Did we say Hello when we met? Can’t remember… the words just flowed too effortlessly between us, in spite of constant interruptions by our boys…
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Doing Laundry, Nibbling Pie Crust
This week’s Haiku Friday. I bought a pie crust couldn’t find it anywhere I was bewildered. Then, I found the shell where I once found the glitter, in the laundry room. So, I teach the kids, pie always tastes much better when the shell is filled. Interested in winning Discovery Slide Point-and-Shoot Digital Camera? Then, click here.
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