Monthly Archives: March 2012

Mar 27

Sweeter Than Cotton Candy

When I was in second grade or so, my school had a fair and I was able to see cotton candy spun. I thought it was SO cool at the time and I’ve wanted to see it again just for fun. The malls here have newer cotton candy machines, where for $2, you can watch the stick drop into a container (Reminds me of a centrifuge. IS it a centrifuge?) where sugar is quickly, well, spun around. Then you can watch the cotton candy just whip up and get all yummy looking on the stick. That is the technical explanation, by the way. ;)

Noah watched the whole time, and he was really excited by the creation of cotton candy. What really blew his mind was that the door opened and he got to eat it! He giggled and said, “I didn’t know it did that!”

It was very fresh tasting, melted in my mouth instantly and made me realize I might have a slight addiction to cotton candy. The three of us shared (Liv can’t have any, of course), and it was a very good amount to split among three people. I can’t imagine giving an entire batch-worth to a kid, though. The thought of it exhausts me.

We did enjoy every bite:

And, because this post is mostly so I can show off my cute kids, have some of Olivia from today. (She “sits” for pictures more; imagine that!) Her onesie is very appropriate:


Her smile in that top middle one gets me every time.

Mar 25

Secret to Laundry!

I think I’ve found the secret to doing laundry and not hating it for the rest of forever. At least for me. What is it?

One load a day.

That’s it! Really. I was getting overwhelmed and having designated laundry days didn’t work, especially since Olivia has reflux issues. Instead, I do one load of laundry a day and every other day (or every two days), I add in a load of diaper laundry. Since Liv spits up (and that’s putting it mildly) on everything, we often have a full load each day and I do separate colors from lights and denim and darks and reds and towels.

If I don’t have a full load, I skip a day, or I combine darks with jeans and lights with colors. My clean laundry basket doesn’t get too overwhelming, my dirty clothes basket isn’t piling high and I think I actually run my washer less this way. I don’t have to run a tiny load in the middle of the week because I’m unprepared, or whatever.

So, for me, that’s what works for right now. I’m so glad because laundry and I, we are old enemies from way back.

Mar 21

Out at the park

Finally, the park pictures! I didn’t mean to take so long (sorry Mom!), but I was having a little issue with resizing the images via command line and I was determined to do it that way. To tell you the truth, if I had been able to do it via terminal over a year ago, I would have posted far, far more pictures. Oh well; better late than never, right?

Since there are more pictures than can be reasonably put in an entry, I uploaded to Flickr:

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Out at the park, a set on Flickr. (There are 57 total photos.)

Those are from the park visit last Friday, and I hope you can see how much fun we had! Olivia actually wore that same outfit today since it’s a favorite around here. For me, it’s the colors (and those adorable Babylegs) but for Joshua, it’s totally the saying on the shirt. ;)

I’m really proud of myself for not only learning how to parrot the script Joshua taught me to type into terminal but for dissecting it and understanding exactly how it works. I’m familiar with coding and writing programs (at least, once upon a time), but for some reason, my mind has not been able to grasp the concept of using the command line. SSH for my website? Forget about it. Not happening.

Except, all of a sudden, it is. It’s just clicked for me and, while I’m a little frustrated at not knowing it all right away (I might be a little impatient), I’m happy to be learning something new. I think Joshua enjoys teaching me, too, which is nice, because it’s an activity we can do together. His new blog, FsckingLinux.com, has actually been really helpful for me too because I find myself learning more just by reading what he writes. That is something else that I’ve been having a problem with and I can attribute most of that to “Fibro fog” (and then pregnancy brain), but it seems like I’m “getting” it now and I’m having a lot of fun.

Certain distributions of Linux are very intuitive for new users; for example, my mother uses Linux with no issues and she’s a very casual computer user. I recommend it for anyone sick of Microsoft’s mind games, actually, but that’s besides the point. This intuitiveness aside, I really wanted to be able to do things via terminal because it seems more streamlined when Joshua uses it. Anything that makes life easier for me is pretty much what I’m all about. That’s why I have two kids, of course, and a dog. Duh.

I’m done. Goodnight.

Mar 20

Peaceful Mondays

Honey-glazed ham in March sounds wrong, somehow, but it wasn’t wrong at all. It was so very, very delicious. I ate my fill (with green beans, so I don’t have to feel terribly guilty), and my mouth is already watering as I think ahead to tomorrow’s breakfast. Joshua re-fries the ham with more honey and it’s probably very unhealthy but so good. He introduced me to this wonderful idea last Thanksgiving and I’ve been thinking about it since. Plus, it “decluttered” space in our freezer, right? ;)

Anyway, my cousin Alexa came over today to see the kids and visit for a bit. Noah was so excited that she was coming, he was hyper with anticipation and listening for a knock at the door the entire time we were waiting. Liv must have approved because she decided to share one of her big smiles while Alexa was watching.

I also managed to get a lot done around here while getting extra Liv snuggles and helping Noah clean his room so I feel pretty good. Liv even helped me do dishes by hanging out in her papasan chair right next to the kitchen:

A pleasant day, over all, with two very sleepy kids. Noah is hard to get a picture of at night so have a cowgirl, instead. (Har har.)

Mar 19

More Noah Progress

Noah went through more of his non-plushie toys today. We are trying not to push him too hard, but we do try to steer him towards certain toys or set certain limits for him. When we see that he’s hit a wall in the decluttering process for the day, we stop, and we praise him for being able to let go of stuff that he really won’t miss. (In fact, he has not asked for anything we decluttered together – not even the stuffed animals! – and it’s been a week for some of it.) At four, the idea is to teach him about not hoarding, not being a pack rat and learning that less can be more, especially since the less you own, the more time you can spend playing and the less time you spend cleaning!

I do find myself having to watch my words, because sometimes I want to say, “but you play with that so much!” and really I ought to say, “okay, sure. Why this one?” (and the latter question is just to make sure he’s thought it through). Perry the Platypus from the last post is a great example; I felt like he played with Perry a lot but he felt like it was too frustrating of a toy.

In addition to the stuffed animals, this is the box of toys he has chosen to get rid of:

I’m glad to see that green skull go and the train tracks will be sold so he can have some pocket money. It surprises me what ends up leaving but, truly, he has so many toys that he has no room for new ones and there are already a couple of things on his personal wishlist to get.

While I’m at this, I’ll share my own bit of decluttering today. (I tend to focus on my stuff or Noah’s stuff or else it gets overwhelming for me and, well, chores still need to get done.) I love the Forever stamps provided by the USPS and I had bought multiple books back in 2006 and 2008 when I needed to mail wedding invitations and birth announcements, respectively. Since I overbought, we’ve been using these stamps since and a lot of the $0.39 and $0.02 and $0.41 stamps were in a pile, getting unused. Today, Joshua looked up the cost of postage for one letter ($0.45 now!) and I did a little math to use up most of what was left. This is the result:

Not too shabby. Getting rid of clutter (yes, this counts!), and saving some money without any effort. Love it!