Welcome to Fairy Land!

The joy and perils of being a mom who knows how to sew were more evident yesterday than ever.  But for you to understand what happened yesterday, I must first tell you about the mantel.

Ah, the mantel.  Back in 1999, I lived in an apartment that was the first floor of an old house in Millbury, Massachusetts.  Stained glass windows, cracked ceilings, sloping hardwood floors---this place was begging to be on PBS's This Old House.  The 90 something year old homeowner (a delightful woman named Margaret who had a passion for hounds tooth suits and high heels) lived on the second floor.  To get to my apartment, I had to climb a set of exterior stairs since the house was built into a hill.  One day I noticed that under the stairs there was a pile of wood.  I don't know why I stopped to look at it, but I did.  In the pile was two carved wood and plaster fireplace mantels that had obviously been salvaged from another old house at some point but then forgotten.  They were absolutely gorgeous, but in severe disrepair.  I made a mental note to ask Margaret about them sometime.

Later that week, I ran into Margaret's daughter.  She said, "Your boyfriend has a truck, right?  Can he get rid of all that old wood under the stairs for us?"  I told her sure and asked if we could keep some of it.  She looked shocked and said, "Sure, take whatever you want.  One of my friends asked to keep it there, but then never came back to get it."  So that's how we ended up with not one but two antique mantels.

The Cobbler's mother has "a guy" for everything so she arranged to have both the mantels restored and we used them both at our house in Massachusetts.  Today, one is now over our family room fireplace (yes, we carted them both to our current house in our 2004 move) and one was in Tom Thumb's room being used as a head board because his room used to be the guest room.

Yes, you read that right "was in Tom Thumb's room".  Past tense because of yesterday.  The Cobbler decided that the mantel was too girly to be in a boy's room so he laid out a couple of options.
1. We could sell it.  I really didn't want to sell it.  When we first got it I had hopes that it would be used in our bedroom, but it never really worked out.  I'm still very attached to it.  One day in the future I hope we can use it in our room.
2. We could put it in the basement.  Unfortunately, when things retire to our basement they are never seen or heard from again.
3. We could convince the kids to swap bedrooms.  I thought this idea was a little nuts, but it wasn't feasible to move the mantel into Red's current room because of the location of the baseboard heat.

We ultimately decided on option #3.  Believe it or not, he managed to convince both kids that switching bedrooms (and furniture) was a great idea.  He didn't want them to change their minds so without delay we switched all their stuff around yesterday morning.

Then, Red approached me and said, "I really want a fairy canopy in my new room.  Please mom, my new room won't feel like my room without one."  I must be a sucker because off to JoAnn we went.  I had an old Simplicity pattern that I had bought years ago when I was planning on making a duvet and shams for my room and that pattern happened to include a canopy too.  I copied down the yardages and let her pick everything out.  After an afternoon and evening of sewing, here are the results (the mantel that was the cause of the whole crazy day is visible in the background):

And yes, I know I'm a crazy woman who is easily swayed by the smile and pleading eyes of a certain little girl.  Last night as we tucked her in at 10PM right after I hot glued on the final flower, Red said, "I sure am lucky that I have a mommy who sews."  And I'm lucky to have a daughter who appreciates it.

Lisbeth Salander is the Cure to Elizabeth Gilbert

I found this article fascinating (and humorous!) since I've read and liked both books.  Enjoy!

Book Review: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

"When it comes down to it, this story is not primarily about spies and secret government agencies; it's about violence against women, and the men who enable it."--- journalist Mikael Blomkvist in The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest 


The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest is the third installment in Stieg Larsson's trilogy and is just as riveting as its predecessors, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire.  I was trying to think of a way to write this review without spoiling this book or the previous two, and I think that the quotation above says it all.

With that said, violence is obviously paramount in this book.  Although it is not as explicit as in the first two installments, this book and the others are not for the faint of heart.  If you can't handle blood, guts or attacks on defenseless women, take a pass.  Larsson seems compelled to just throw in scenes to abuse some more female characters for the heck of it.  One subplot line involves Erika Berger, protagonist Mikael Blomkvist's lover and the editor of the magazine which employs him, being relentlessly stalked and sexually harassed.  Ultimately, the stalking of Berger has no bearing on the outcome of the book whatsoever.  It's almost as if he had written that passage and then just tossed it in for good measure.

Larsson's writing style is both a blessing and a curse.  On one hand, he manages to weave a compelling tale that snaps right along despite the book's length (this one clocked in at over 550 pages).  On the other hand, there are so many characters, many of whom have similar Swedish names, that it is difficult at times to follow who's who.  In The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, he printed a family tree in the book to help the reader follow along.  Something similar buried in this book's appendix would have been helpful to me and would have enhanced my enjoyment of the book.  Furthermore, he is so detailed in his writing it becomes at times laborious to read.  I often wondered if it was necessary to know what kind of pizza was stocked in someone's fridge and what they took in their coffee when it really seemed to have no bearing on the story or the character's development.

I'm not really into action novels nor do I enjoy reading about violence, rape, or abuse.  You're probably wondering why I continued reading the series after the first book.  After all, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo's original title in Sweden was Men Who Hate Women.  It all comes down to Lisbeth Salander, "The Girl" of the series.  Lisbeth Salander is the best developed female character I've experienced in all my years of reading.  The convincing nature of her character was even more surprising to me considering the author is male.  By the end of the third book, you may not like her, but you definitely know her...as much as one could know someone like Lisbeth Salander.

I read these books because I cared about the main character.  I needed to know what happened to her.  I wanted to see the outcome.  If I was not so captivated by her, I never would have finished the series since the amount of violence was a bit much for me.  I liked the books.  They were perfectly fine.  But in the end, it was Lisbeth Salander whom I loved.

Tom Thumb's Airplane Quilt Meets the Princess and the Pea

I have been feverishly sewing away on Tom Thumb's airplane quilt with his help.  He is so excited about it that he will sit on my lap in front of the sewing machine for up to a half hour and push the buttons for me to make the sewing machine stop and go.  I don't know what he loves more---getting more of the quilt done or pushing the buttons.  I think the buttons are probably the big winners...

The quilt top is done.  Here it is---

This is the first time I've ever done anything with stars so I'm pretty proud.  What worked out really awesome is that each block has a different airplane in the center of it.  Now I have to figure out what I'm doing for the pillow shams so I know what I have leftover to use to piece the back together.  Having this done by June is looking more and more likely.  Yay!

Since I've been spending all this time working on the airplane quilt (pretty much every free moment), Red decided she wanted a quilt for her bed too.  There are some fabrics from Heather Ross's Far Far Away line that I have been dying to use so what a perfect opportunity!  Here are the fabrics I've bought so far---

 I love Rapunzel in the tower.

I couldn't resist the owl and the pussycat and the unicorn.  Red loves the birdies and trees.

I can't believe I actually cut the princess and the pea fabric.  To be honest, I was scared to cut it.  It's the most money I've ever spent per yard (I spent $10 on this fat quarter!).  I couldn't help myself!  More updates soon!

Book Review: Summer at Tiffany

Summer at Tiffany was another book that I grabbed in haste at the library as a possible read for our Florida trip.  Although it didn't make the cut to come along, it was a welcome respite after my trudge through The God Delusion.

The book is a memoir of the summer of 1945 by Marjorie Hart.  Written when Mrs. Hart was in her 80s (this gives me hope that it's never too late to write your first book!), Summer at Tiffany chronicles her trip to New York City from Iowa with her sorority sister Marty to get summer jobs.  After being swiftly rejected at Lord and Taylor, the girls on a whim walk into Tiffany and ask if there are positions available.  They are initially rebuffed, but through a series of fortunate events get hired as Tiffany's first female pages.

This book contains detailed descriptions of Tiffany and the colorful employees the girls encounter during their summer.  Particularly fun and interesting are the photos contained in a section in the middle of the book showing sketches of Tiffany's interior during that time period, photos of the girls, and a copy of Marjorie's W-2 showing that she made $220 that summer.  Marjorie and Marty are particularly starstruck when a newly married Judy Garland comes into the store, and are equally stunned to see Marlene Dietrich in the store fresh off a USO tour.

While there's plenty of girlish fun to be had, this book also takes place during World War II.  The girls end up dating two service men that they meet at a midshipmen's dance at Barnard College.  They hear the crash when a B-52 lost in the fog crashes into the Empire State Building (I had never heard of that before!).  She also writes about her reaction to the atomic bombs being dropped on Japan, the death of her cousin in the war, and her experience being in Times Square on VJ Day.

One of my favorite things about this book is how the author recaptured the voice of her youth in her writing.  I loved her saying "Holy Toledo!" and when anyone asked would she like to do something exciting she would respond enthusiastically with "Would I!"  It really helped me get into the 1940s vogue while reading.

While this isn't the most challenging book in the world, I enjoyed it for what it was---a great recollection of an amazing summer.  And who doesn't want to have one of those?

Emergency Preparation Step #1: 72 Hour Survival Kit

Pumpkin checks out the main 72 hour kit.  I think she wants to get in!

One of my goals this year is to get my family prepared for emergencies.  I'm not talking about the apocalypse or total economic collapse.  I'm talking about stuff like:

• What if we lose power?
• What if we can't drink the water out of the tap?
• What if we can't get groceries?
• What if we got stuck on the highway for hours because of an accident down the road?

In recent memory, I think of the Northeast Blackout of 2003.  There was no power.  You couldn't buy gas.  There were no deliveries to the grocery stores for a few days because gas couldn't be pumped to fuel the trucks that transported the food.  This is the type of thing that I want to be prepared for.

I used to make fun of my mother for all the stockpiling she did.  When the preparation for Y2K was going on in 1999, she had their basement stuffed to the gills with provisions.  I thought it was funny.  I feel a little different now that I have children myself.  Right now we are absolutely not prepared for anything and that concerns me.  I started doing some research about emergency preparedness.  The general consensus on where to start is to assemble a 72 hour emergency kit.  This kit is supposed to cover the basic needs for all the people in your house for that time period if you need to evacuate.  There are lots of places to go to on the web for suggestions of what to put in your kit and how to do it.  I based mine predominately on suggestions found at the Survival Mom blog and was also helped by the ladies over at Food Storage Made Easy, but modified it somewhat because my family would never eat stuff like freeze dried food and beef jerky or drink Tang unless literally starving.

I made a kit for our minivan (this is the vehicle we use for most of our transportation) and a more pared down version for the Cobbler's car that he drives to work.  His car isn't the most road worthy so I don't imagine we would want to use that for evacuation purposes.  I figured his kit should just cover the bare minimum just in case we were to get separated.  This is not a likely scenario since he works less than a mile from our house, but I guess you never know.  I got out two duffel bags that we already had and filled them with the following list (Items that are starred are ones that made the cut to get put in the Cobbler's bag as well, but only enough for him. The kid provisions are only in the main bag):

Food---All cans have pop tops so we don't need a can opener
*4 Canned pasta and meatballs (1 for Cobbler)
4 Canned soup (not condensed)
*7 Canned fruit in heavy syrup (1 for Cobbler)
*16 Packets of Gatorade powder to mix with water (8 for the Cobbler)
*12 Granola bars (4 for the Cobbler)
*20 individual packages of raisins
4 packets of tuna (none for the Cobbler who hates fish)

Sanitation
*Clorox disinfecting wipes
*Rolls of toilet paper squished flat to fit in a gallon Ziploc (we got 3 rolls.  Cobbler got 1.)
*Small box of tissues
*Paper towels
Pads and tampons (enough for 1 cycle...I would need them with my luck.  And I hear tampons are good for bullet wounds too.  Not like I'm planning on getting shot or anything)
*Hand sanitizer
*Toothbrushes, toothpaste, floss
Diapers (I will celebrate the day I can take these out of the kit)
*Wipes
bar of soap
20 pack of water purification tablets

First Aid
*First Aid Kit (bought at Target for around $10)
*Thermometer (added to kit)
*Super Glue (added to kit)
*Ibuprofen
*Benadryl
Children's Benadryl
Children's Ibuprofen
*Sunscreen

Shelter/Survival
*8x10 tarp
*5 pack of dust masks
*Duct tape
*Rain ponchos (Cobbler gets 1)
*Waterproof matches
*2 flashlights (Cobbler gets 1)
*Extra batteries for flashlights
*4 glowsticks (Cobbler gets 1)
*Leatherman (it's like an extra fancy Swiss Army knife but with pliers.  Makes a good manly gift.  My husband has 3 of them at least)
*hand and toe warmers
Folding shovel
binoculars
emergency radio
2 heavy duty trash bags
*3 - 1 gallon jugs of water (1 jug for Cobbler)

Other stuff
Read aloud books (I packed Charlotte's Web and Little House on the Prairie)

There are some other items that I still need to purchase and put in.  Here's my "to buy or to find around the house" list:
*10 packets of instant oatmeal
*5 packages of gum
*8 packets of hot cocoa mix
1 package of Triscuits
*Hard candy
12 fruit rollups
*10 envelopes of Lipton noodles
1 package of beef jerky (The Cobbler decided he would rather have that than the tuna)
*5 sets of reusable silverware (1 set for Cobbler)
A campstove or some wingstoves with fuel pellets to heat the cans
A deck of cards and some Uno cards
*Rope
*Whistles
*Rubberbands
*Comb or hairbrush
Trial size disinfecting wipes and regular wipes for the Cobbler (the full size containers were too big for his smaller bag)
*4 emergency blankets
*work gloves
*umbrellas
*bungee cords
*safety pins
sewing kit
*paper and pencils
nail clippers
*tire repair kit
*change of clothes for each person
*$20 in small bills and some change

Then, you're supposed to rotate and check expirations on everything in the kit annually.  I'll have to mark my calendar for Valentine's Day next year.  I love you all enough to keep our car stocked for emergencies.  It's my Valentine's Day gift to you.  Just kidding...

Are you already prepared for an emergency?  Or if you're not prepared, do it together with me! You'll see some other blog posts down the road about what we're doing as a family to get ready for emergencies.

The Mystery Quilt Revealed...

Megan, me & Jean

Yesterday was the long anticipated Mystery Quilt retreat.  Megan and I left at 8AM to secure the "good tables" (i.e. close to the ironing boards) while the rest of the group (Jean, Nancy, Sue and Kathy) came later in a different car.  Here was the scene later in the day once everyone was set up.  Keep in mind this is only part of the room.  There were 80 quilters at the event.

View of the quilters from our "good tables"

We set up our equipment, grabbed a quick breakfast, and started in with Step #1.  This year went really well for me since my presser foot was pretty accurate and I didn't make too many mistakes.  By lunch I had quite a bit done, but was falling behind the speedy sewers.  

Jean and Nancy pressing up the baby quilts they were working on.

Our crew enjoys lunch.

People who had finished their Mystery Quilts from last year's retreat hung them on the walls to be voted on for prizes.  Here are the contenders:

The bird one was really cool.

 I voted for this red one that had Asian fabrics in in the squares.

 Here are more to choose from.

 First place went to the bird quilt!.

I worked away and made some progress. Then, finally the Mystery Quilt committee revealed what this year's quilt is supposed to look like when they displayed their samples:

I completed a lot of the smaller blocks to join together to make the bigger blocks, but this is about as far as I got in terms of completing a block:

Hopefully I'll be speedier getting this quilt done than the two years it took me to complete my last mystery quilt.  I'd really like to have it completed and on Tom Thumb's bed by summer.  So with some luck, you can report back to this blog on June 21st and you'll see this quilt done! 

At around 3 o'clock, "The Crimson Cutters" pulled out to attend the U of M vs. Indiana U basketball game in Ann Arbor.  Can you tell who they're rooting for?

I'm already looking forward to next year!

A morning at Mommy Camp

The winter days have been tough for the kids.  It has been so bitterly cold that they haven't been able to play outside or really even go outside except quick transfers from the car into a building.  Because of this they are stir crazy, picking on each other constantly, and Tom Thumb's antics which are normally slightly erratic have become all day scream fests.  My friend Colleen gently reminded me this morning that Red was exactly the same way at age 3, but it's hard to remember that when the volume in our house is at heavy metal concert levels all the time.

This morning I had a brainstorm about how to entertain them --- Mommy Camp!  This past summer when Red was at science day camp for a week I tabled housework and Tom Thumb and I did Mommy Camp --- art projects, baking, book reading, eating snacks.  It was all fun and no chores.  I thought let's do that today!  First, we did some coloring, and then I broke out a new 24 pack of Play Doh that we forgot to give them at Christmas.  It was indeed like Christmas morning, albeit with a little screaming from Tom Thumb since Red wasn't too keen about sharing the hot pink with him.  Tom Thumb made lots of "spaghetti" and "confetti" while Red built a whole fairy village---

She was quite proud of it and attempted to not squish it into the containers when she put it away so she could reassemble it later.  We cleaned up, I looked at the clock, and they had been playing for an hour and a half!   

Thank goodness for new Play Doh!

Book Review: The God Delusion

Let me be up front about a few things before I launch into this review---
1. I was raised ELCA Lutheran
2. I had a period of being agnostic in college that ended when I returned to my Christian roots following being in a car accident.
3. I've been out of college for a lot of years and have forgotten how to cite and quote.  If I'm doing it wrong (which surely I am), my excuse is I'm 11 years rusty and will save figuring it out for when the kids are in high school.
4. I still don't know in a complete way how I feel about this book or what its ultimate effect will be on my world view now that I've finished reading it.
5. If you're offended by any questioning of your faith or religion, please stop reading now.

Now that we've gotten all that out of the way, here's the review.

Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, is an Oxford scientist who was raised Anglican but became an atheist.  This book is his manifesto about why people shouldn't and needn't believe in God.  I was lead to read it by a Well Trained Mind forum thread entitled "If you are an "Ex-Christian, may I ask why?".  I feel that if your faith (regardless of what it is) goes untested, then it's useless and static.  I hadn't been challenged in that way in a long while so I decided to take the plunge.

Dawkins argues his point that God does not exist from several angles.  After an introduction, he first discusses the arguments for God's existence that are presented by noted theologians and lay people.  He systemically points out logical fallacies that exist in these arguments. Next, he devotes two very heavy, verbose, and term laden chapters to scientific arguments against the existence of God.  It actually took me two weeks of on and off reading to wade through those chapters.  In them, Dawkins argues for the superiority of evolution over creationism or intelligent design and his assertion that existence of religion is the by product of evolution (i.e. religion had a positive quality that enabled those who had it to be the survivors in the natural selection process) and that is why it exists, not because there is a God.  His chapter entitled "Why There Almost Certainly Is No God" ends with his central argument summarized in these six points:

1. One of the greatest challenges to the human intellect, over the centuries, has been to explain how the complex, improbable appearance of design in the universe arises.


2. The natural temptation is to attribute the appearance of design to actual design itself.  In the case of man-made artefact such as a watch, the designer really was an intelligent engineer.  It is tempting to apply the same logic to an eye or a wing, a spider or a person.


3. The temptation is a false one, because the designer hypothesis immediately raises the larger problem of who designed the designer.  The whole problem we started out with was the problem of explaining statistical improbability.  It is obviously no solution to postulate something even more improbable.  We need a 'crane', not a 'skyhook', for only a crane can do the business of working up gradually and plausibly from simplicity to otherwise improbably complexity.


4. The most ingenious and powerful crane so far discovered is Darwinian evolution by natural selection.  Darwin and his successors have shown how living creatures, with their spectacular statistical improbability and appearance of design have evolved by slow, gradual degrees from simple beginnings.  We can now safely say that the illusion of design in living creatures is just that--an illusion.  


5. We don't yet have have an equivalent crane for physics.  Some kind of multiverse theory could in principle do for physics the same explanatory work as Darwinism does for biology.  This kind of explanation is superficially less satisfying than the biological version of Darwinism does for biology.  This kind of explanation is superficially less satisfying than the biological version of Darwinism, because it makes heavier demands on luck.  But the anthropic principle entitles us to postulate far more luck than our limited human intuition is comfortable with.


6. We should not give up hope of a better crane arising in physics, something as powerful as Darwinism is for biology.  But even in the absence of a strongly satisfying crane to match the biological one, the relatively weak cranes we have at present are, when abetted by the anthropic principle, self-evidently better than the self defeating skyhook hypothesis of an intelligent designer.
(God Delusion p. 157-158)


See what I mean about heavy and verbose?  And this was the summary!
The final chapters are dedicated to the question of do you need religion to be moral and all the evil that exists in the world as a direct result of religion.

Reading the book has lead me to question some of my religious beliefs and why I have held them.  When asked in the past why I believe in God by others, I generally point to two instances in my life when I felt God directly intervened.  Dawkins argues for the possibility that those who have had personal experiences with God are likely being deceived by a hallucination or a misfire of the brain or they're just plain mistaken.  When he references the 1917 report that 70,000 pilgrims in Fatima, Portugal saw "the sun tear itself from the heavens and come crashing down upon the multitude", he says,

It may seem improbable that seventy thousand people could simultaneously be deluded, or could simultaneously collude in a mass lie.  Or that history is mistaken in recording that seventy thousand people claimed to see the sun dance.  Or that they all simultaneously saw a mirage(they had been persuaded to stare at the sun, which can't have done much for their eyesight).  But any of these probabilities is far more probable than the alternative: that the Earth was suddenly yanked sideways in its orbit, and the solar system destroyed, with nobody outside Fatima noticing.  I mean, Portugal is not that isolated. (God Delusion p. 91-92)

As an example of his humor which is scattered throughout the book, that passage was footnoted with "Although admittedly my wife's parents once stayed in a Paris hotel called Hotel de l'Univers et du Portugal."

Furthermore, I found myself agreeing with most of what he wrote about the terrorism and abuse performed in the name of religion today and the violence of God in the Old Testament.  Overall, it was an interesting and eye opening read.  His writing style, though tedious during the scientific parts, is generally clear, occasionally funny, and has what I found to be a remarkably respectful tone towards religion given the subject matter at hand.

Finally, you're probably wondering---do I still believe in God after reading this book?  I don't abandon life long beliefs over one book, but it made me think.  It made me question.  It makes me want to know more about religion, science and faith.  How do you reconcile these?  Can you?  You'll see me read a lot more books on those topics in the coming months because of this book.

We started First Language Lessons

I read on the Well Trained Mind forum here that a good time to start First Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind (FLL) is once you've completed lesson 140 in The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading (OPGTR) (if you haven't heard me rave yet, this book is worth its weight in gold!)  Red finished that lesson recently so we started in with the first lesson in FLL.  The lesson was easy--- learning the simple definition of a noun.  While it was not exactly inspiring, I'm confident that working our way through this book will give her a good foundation in grammar and writing.  I have the older edition that covers grades 1 and 2 in the same book so we'll take our time and work through it SLOWLY.

Red has also taken a sudden interest in finishing OPGTR.  I think it may have something to do with the improvement of her reading skills*.  It's almost as if overnight something clicked and she can read well.  She went from doing maybe one lesson a couple of times a week with me asking her to her asking me to do four or five lessons per day.  We're at around lesson 160 out of 231 and gaining fast.  In fact, yesterday morning before school she casually mentioned that she might want to bring a chapter book to school for stamina (this is a period during class in which everyone silent reads).  When I asked her if she wanted to bring one with her today, she said, "I don't need to.  I told my teacher yesterday that I know how to read chapter books, and I asked if she could get me one to read during stamina.  She told me she would have one for me today."  I was so proud of her!

On a separate note, one of my friends asked me recently why I'm going through all this work on her education when I'm sending her to school and not sure if we'll be homeschooling again in the future.  The answer to that question is I want to know what she knows.  I never want to be at a point when I don't where she's at grade level.  That way if at any point during her academic career we decide to home school again (even if it's this year), I will know right where to pick up. I've spent a lot of time this year working on reading with her.  As her skills improve, I want to spend more time on writing and math.  We're getting close to being done with the kindergarten read alouds I planned so I'm going to begin working on the grade 1 plans soon.  I also want to get a firmer hold what I'm doing with Tom Thumb.  It's not like I have any major plans here (come on---the kid is 3!), but I do want to have some read alouds, art projects, etc. planned for him as well.  I'll post how the planning is going soon!



*It may also have something to do with the fact that a long time ago (and I mean MONTHS ago)I mentioned that when we finished the book we could go to Chuck E. Cheese.  We have the same deal with when she learns how to swim by herself without a noodle.  I may be seeing a lot of Chuck in the near future.

Updates on heat, "paper towels" & other frugal musings

You may recall this post when I decided to turn down the thermostat in an effort to save money for my sister's wedding.  Here's the update...

Drum roll please...

We saved $30 on our bill last month vs. last year same time period!  Based on my initial projections from the thermostat calculator from the post linked above matching closely with our actual savings, we're right on target to save this year around the cost of a bridesmaid dress--- ha ha!

And no, this still isn't the dress.

What's really great about it is that we're not suffering.  We're not freezing cold!  In fact, when my husband told me last night about the savings I said, "Well, I guess we won't be saving that money anymore because didn't you turn it back up to 68 when we got home from vacation?"  He said, "No, it's still at 64.  I guess we're just used to it now."  I can't believe it!

You may also remember when we got rid of the paper towels.  It's been about two weeks now, and with a few exceptions it seems to be working out.  Here are the exceptions:

• Greasing pans - I always use a paper towel when I grease a pan.  Maybe I can switch to wax paper or sandwich bag and leave it in the can of shortening?  If anyone has any other suggestions, let me know.
• Cleaning up cat puke - I'm sorry, but there is NO WAY I'm going to clean up cat puke with a cloth and then let it hang out until I have time to do laundry.  I may have to keep one roll around just for the occasions that the cats decide to cough up their breakfast on the rug.

My latest frugal adventure may involve making some of these.  How cool is that?  I have so much extra fabric lying around that it would be a cinch to whip some of these up to replace sandwich bags---except for the one going in the shortening can. :-)

In tribute to Andrea

My sister Andrea and I got talking about top 5s after my High Fidelity post, and she said this still would have to be her #1 song after all these years (she was 6 years old when it came out).  Coincidentally, when driving around in Florida on vacation this song came on the radio and I said to the kids, "Auntie Andrea loves this song!"  So this one's for you, Andrea!

Book Review: High Fidelity

Want to read a lot in a short period of time?  Plan a vacation where there is no computer, no web access, and your hostess is a big fan of Jeopardy.  While at my grandmother's house this past week, I read a whole pile of children's books from her local library to the kids (including finally finishing The Magician's Nephew, which Red and I have been working on for a while) and read two books myself.  I had been waiting for a while for Mennonite in a Little Black Dress to come in at the library, but I wanted one more book to bring along that looked interesting but was also light weight---literally not figuratively because I had to fit it in the diaper bag with all the other stuff the kids wanted to bring on the plane.  During my quick perusal of the library shelves, I found High Fidelity.  It was the paperback copy that came out at the same time as the John Cusack movie with his mug on the cover.  The book looked modest in length (Yay!  Light weight!) and I had seen the movie and vaguely remembered it being good.  I checked it out and it quickly became part of my carry on luggage.

After wrapping up the Mennonite book, I plowed into High Fidelity.  I had no idea when I checked out the book that the author was Nick Hornby.  I recently read his book A Long Way Down and was not super impressed by it so it was good that the author remained a mystery to me until later.  For those of you who have seen the movie but not read the book, here's your first surprise---the book is set in London.  Yes, gone are the streets of Chicago and we are dropped into the world where hollering "Bollocks!" is standard fare.  Once you get over the fact that they are not in America and the slang is going to be unfamiliar, it moves on much as the movie. 

The main character Rob is a 30 something owner of a vintage record store who never grew up.  The book opens with a summation of his first six relationships, going all the way back to his first tongue kiss at age 13, and how they all went to pot.  Fast forward to the present, in which his long time live in girlfriend Laura has left him for Ian, the extremely loud love maker who lives in the apartment above theirs.  Next, Rob meets singer-songwriter Marie and attempts to replace Laura with her, while essentially stalking Laura and her new boyfriend.  When I put it that way, the books sounds just awful and not something I would normally want to read at all, but then it got good.  

The more I read the more I realized that Rob is me at age 20.  Coincidentally, the book was written around the time I was that age.  No, I never owned a record store, or rattled off top 5 lists with my employees (although my top five songs are "Dancing Queen" by Abba, "Brown Eyed Girl" by Van Morrison, "Bizarre Love Triangle" by New Order, "Tear in Your Hand" by Tori Amos, and "Cryin'" by Aerosmith---which was a toss up between that song and  "What It Takes" for the #5 spot.  Good thing this isn't for an interview.  I might have to call back and change my answers like Rob did in the book), or dated a semi-famous singer, but I did jump from relationship to relationship looking for something.  And I made a lot of mix tapes...a LOT of mix tapes.  I think everyone I knew had a mix tape from me.  Back to my relationship issues---I was never one to do the dumping. I just sabotaged things to make that occur imminently.  I don't know what I thought would happen after stacking all the furniture in my college boyfriend's dorm room up against the door and then climbing out the window (keep in mind, we were in the midst of a serious prank war at the time, but did I really think he would find that amusing?).  In Rob's case, when the spark starts waning he searches for a more glittery substitute.  He spends time phoning up and visiting those first six girlfriends in an attempt to figure out how he went wrong all those times.  Finally, he has a break through when Laura's father dies and he meets his mortality and his relationship saboteur ways head on.  

I enjoyed this one. For me, it was a glorious trip down memory lane littered with pop culture music references and witty banter.  Record shop employees Barry and Dick felt like friends to me.  You'll have a whole slew of music titles you're going to want to listen to after reading this one and you'll be glad for it.  Let's dust off the old mix tapes and break out the boom box!

Cutting up the mystery quilt

My fabric choices for Mystery Quilt 2011

I'm attending a mystery quilt retreat with one of my book club friends and her entourage on February 12th.  Never heard of a mystery quilt before?  I hadn't either until I went to my first retreat with the same friend two years ago.  Here's what happens.  You get a list of fabrics to buy with amounts based on what size you want to make.  For example, this year the list for a crib size quilt was:

1 1/4 yards of medium multicolored print that looks good as a 6" square

1 1/4 yards of light solid or small print for background

1/2 yard medium to medium dark solid or small print

3/4 yard light medium to medium solid or small print

3/4 yard medium solid or small print

Then you get a list of cutting directions.  Here's the list of how I had to cut fabric B (i.e. the background fabric of above) prior to the retreat:

8---2 1/2" width of fabric strips

2---4 1/2" width of fabric strips

1---6 1/2" width of fabric strips

There are directions for how to cut each fabric and what equipment and supplies you need to bring.  I think the most difficult part is choosing the fabric.  You have no idea what the design of the quilt will be until after you start making it.  At the retreat, you are given directions one step at a time as to how to cut and sew things together.  

I have been meaning to make a quilt for Tom Thumb's bed for a long time.  His room is minimally decorated with vintage airplanes.  I had searched high and low for a fabric that I liked that had vintage planes on it with no success.  Then I walked into Joann one day and there it was.  I bought everything they had (which was a little over 6 yards) because I didn't know what I wanted to do with it.  Curtains?  Bedspread?  Pillow shams?  I didn't know.  Then the fabric went to sleep in my craft closet for a year and a half because I couldn't make a decision.

Then a couple of months ago, Jean invited me to go to her quilt guild's retreat for this year.  We had such a great time two years ago.  Imagine a banquet hall full of women with sewing machines, sewing, talking, laughing, eating snacks.  My favorite part was seeing how everyone's quilt developed.  They all were the same design, but looked unique because of the different fabric choices.  Here's a link to her guild's retreat from previous years.  Check out all the variety!  I finally finished my mystery quilt from two years ago just a few weeks ago.  Although I'm a little nervous to be making a quilt with the plane material with no idea what the ultimate design will be, I'm excited that it will get me to work on his quilt.  My advance cutting is done.  More pictures will be coming post-retreat!

To grandmother's house we go!

We just returned on Tuesday from a week in Naples, Florida at my grandmother's house to celebrate her 81st birthday.  My Grandma and Grandpa bought the Florida house when I was a wee two year old.  All my Christmas and Easter childhood memories are tied up in that house.  There was the year the house was so full of relatives I had to sleep on a sofa out by the pool next to the Christmas tree.  I remember all the Christmas Eves that we ate at the Registry Resort's holiday buffet, and I went to bed with an achy tummy because I took my parents' instruction of "Eat whatever you want!" quite literally and ate six desserts.  I remember the turquoise blue shag carpet in the living room, which was followed by the short peach carpet, and has now been replaced by beige.

Since my grandfather died in 1998, I have been traveling to Naples to spend Grandma's birthday on February 1st with her.  In the beginning, it was all about shopping, eating out (The Pewter Mug was a must with its salad bar and prime rib), walking the beach, and laying by the pool with a fruity frozen drink in hand.  This went on even after I got married in 2000.  He said, "Go ahead.  Go by yourself and have fun with your Grandma!"  And we did.

Then, the kids came along and the dynamic changed.  Going it alone was no longer very appealing.  The house is not child proofed by any stretch of the imagination (think lots of glass and expensive knick knacks) and the sliders from the main living area lead straight out to the pool.  From 2006 until last year, I was in constant fear of a kid falling into the pool and drowning.  This was the first year I felt like the kids knew not to go near the pool without an adult and there were six adult eyes watching them at all times to make sure that they didn't.

While the trip is no longer about how many new restaurants we can try or how many pina coladas we can drink, we had a grand time.  The weather was a bit cool (60-ish), but far better than the snow and cold we were facing at home.  When I asked Red before we left what were her top things she wanted to do while in Florida, she rattled off this list:

1. Go to The Best of Everything.  This is the one shopping destination that she insists upon.  It's like a sparkling princess palace of jewelry.  This year Grandma bought her a headband that looks like a tiara, and I bought her a necklace with a fairy pendant on it.  When The Best of Everything is mentioned to any female member of my family, the immediate response is, "Oooooh!  If you see something I would like, buy it for me.  I'll pay you back.  I promise!"

2. Go to the library.  While not anything more special than any other library, it is a must.  Red and Tom Thumb pick out a giant pile of books that I must then carry.  Next, they check out what's new in the children's section's aquariums.  Finally, we must ask the librarian if she can help us find the book about the girl who takes her dung beetle to school for show and tell.  Every year we check it out and every year we can't remember the title and have to pester the librarian figure it out.  Amazingly, every year she figures out the title of the very book we want.  This year it was checked out by someone else (oh no!!!) so we had to find a different book.  Just in case you're wondering, this is the infamous dung beetle book!

3. Go see the trains.  The Naples Depot and Lionel Train Museum is a place we discovered last year.  The Naples Depot is a train station turned museum owned by the city that was built in 1927.  While the inside of the depot isn't so interesting for kids (although I got a kick out of the Swamp Buggy Queen memorabilia), the place to go is the model train museum out back.  Staffed by a bunch of old retired guys in train engineer hats, this place is kid heaven.  There is a large Lionel model train set up that the kids can run themselves.  We were there for about two hours during which time the kids were making the planes and helicopters fly around, running the drive thru at McDonald's, unloading logs and running them through the sawmill, and loading chunks of ice into a freight car.  There are dozens of buttons to run many of the different locations in the set.  Tom Thumb was glued.  Outside the museum part, there is a small train to ride that circles the perimeter of the museum.  The volunteers take turns driving it and running the crossing gate that prevents cars from coming into the depot's parking lot while the train is going around.  Right now, it's open Thursday through Saturday from 10AM to 2PM.  It's a must see if you're in Naples with kids.

4. Go to the beach.  We didn't make it there for the first time ever.  While trying to take photos of the kids making orange juice (see photos below) I smashed my big toe on my left foot into the kitchen cabinets.  Don't ask me how I did it because I still don't know, but it was violent enough that I crushed and bloodied my toenail.  I had to deflect suggestions to go to urgent care the rest of the day, and I got to use some Neosporin that expired in 1994 (I didn't notice until after I used it.  My sister teased me that it would have graduated from high school by now!).  So needless to say, I was in no state to be walking on the beach and the Cobbler didn't want to go it alone with the kids.  Better luck next year. This is where we normally go.  It's free, it's nice, it's got sand.  Ah, the memories.  Like the year when Red was a toddler and I took her to that beach and locked our keys in the trunk of my Grandma's car.  Some random guy in an SUV gave me and the very sandy Red (the towels were locked in the car too) a ride back to her house for the spare key.  Thank goodness for good Samaritans.  Don't you love the juicing contraption?  My grandparents bought it at Williams-Sonoma years ago.

5. Swim in the pool.  Red had a break through while we were in Florida with swimming.  Last summer she was so afraid of water she wouldn't even put her face in it.  With a lot of swim lessons, we managed to get her to the point she would go in the pool, but she still wouldn't go in water over her head without someone holding on to her even if she had a flotation device.  She now will swim by herself in deep water if she has a noodle to put under her arms.  This is a HUGE improvement.  She was so proud of herself and we were so proud of her.

Also on the trip, we met up with some old friends from Massachusetts at the park so the kids could play and then went to their house for dinner (Thanks Nancy and Mike!).

And my wonderful husband celebrated his 38th birthday on January 29th with a chocolate carrot cake made by me and Red with ingredients we found around the house.  We had the ingredients for the chocolate frosting recipe that was on the outside of the can of Ghiardelli cocoa so we made that instead of the frosting in the cake recipe.  The cake and frosting were delicious!  

The kids arranged the candles all on one side of the cake.  Don't look so scared---40 is still 2 years away!

Unfortunately, Grandma came down with the runny nose/sore throat/fever that's going around the last two days we were there so we didn't get to do really anything official for her birthday.  We did get to give her her gifts, sing "Happy Birthday", and I taught her how to shoot videos with her digital camera.

We beat out the blizzard on Tuesday and made it home.  Now I just have to go through the whole unpacking/laundry/cleaning ritual that happens at the end of every vacation...and I'm happy to say it was a good one.