Saturday, February 28, 2009

Atervinning

For those non-Swedish folks out there, that means recycling.

A couple of years ago, it suddenly occurred to me that I probably shouldn't be throwing batteries in the garbage. I mean, they must be full of all kinds of gunk to be able to do their battery thing (how, in fact, they do their battery thing, I have no idea. I tend to run on the assumption that most things around me work via magic, but that's another post for another day...).

So, I got my little self on the computer, and googled alkaline battery recycling for Westchester. Nada. In fact, the Westchester government site actually said that they should be thrown away with the trash. (This has recently been changed, and they have added non-rechargeable batteries to their e-waste recycling days.)

So I saved all my batteries in a ziploc (even though we try to use rechargeables as much as we can, all the kids' toys came with batteries). This year, I organized battery recycling at the kid's schools, and once a month people bring in their batteries. This effort resulted in this:
which required a trip to another one of my kids' favorite places (this illustrious list includes Costco and various cemeteries) IKEA. We love IKEA. I am of Swedish descent, and this store always brings out my Swedish pride. Not only can you go there and pick up a Melbu or a Noresund, but you can tour beautiful rooms of furniture (which somehow don't look nearly as lovely when they're in my own home and covered in piles of crap) and purchase a really cheap lunch served on real plates. I even picked up some frozen Swedish meatballs to stick in the freezer for the kids.

But the best part of IKEA is that they are really environmentally conscious. You can bring in fluorescent bulbs, batteries, and cell phones to recycle. So, the giant bag of batteries got deposited, and we all enjoyed some lunch. And, I got out of there having purchased only my bag of meatballs and a Skoj to hang on my bathroom wall.

Friday, February 27, 2009

Fast February

February is such a sneaky month. After the holidays, time seems to be really poky, and wanders on into February, which seems to go on forever, what with its cold, dark days. And then, wham! It's March. It wouldn't be such a problem, except Miss Serious' birthday is in the second week of March. And that means birthday parties - one for family, and one for her friends.

Miss Serious is extremely attached to the idea of having her friends to a birthday party, and even though my party hosting skills are minimal at best, she always has grand plans of themes and activities. I try to accommodate these ideas, if I can, because we are not following the trend of children's parties around here, which involves inviting the entire class, having it at a "party place" and ending with the writing of an enormous check.

Last year it was a tea party. Miss Serious not only dressed up in a very fancy dress, but required all of us to wear our finery. The tea was complete with crustless tea sandwiches, scones, fine china, etc. After it was all placed on the table in all its tea party goodness, one child looked up at me and asked, in a disapproving tone, "So this is lunch, huh?" This remark notwithstanding, a fine time seemed to be had by all.

This year it's a book party. I love the fact that my kids really enjoy reading, and Miss Serious decided that everyone should come dressed as their favorite book character. She wanted invitations that looked like books, so we came up with:
And, since February has almost vanished, I realized these needed to get in the mail like, today. So, while the kids ate their breakfast, I dragged out my calligraphy pen and wrote addresses (she wanted the cards to look like a fancy invitation). They are now in the mail, and hopefully in a couple of weeks nine little girls will arrive at out house dressed as goodness knows what.

Sadly, I've since discovered that Miss Serious again expects the entire family to dress accordingly. As all I seem to read these days are cookbooks, I wonder if I could rustle up a sticky bun costume...

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Out of the Mouths of Babes.....

I decided this week that I need to get my act together. My eggnog pounds are not magically shedding, even while I continue to eat the same amount of food and resist exercise. Who would have thought? I assumed that just thinking about exercise would help solve the problem, but as this is clearly not the case, this week (well, yesterday) I began to exercise.

I dutifully did my yoga yesterday, and then today as I was putting on my exercise clothes, Big Trouble asked if I would play a game with him. When I told him I was going to exercise first, he asked, "For real?"

There was really no appropriate response, and The Professor's laughter from the kitchen basically said it all, I'm afraid.

Monday, February 16, 2009

You Should Put Some Ice On That

Well, the combination of things being busy and me feeling a bit under the weather have created a dearth of blog posts, but after a day of rest (thank you Professor!) I'm feeling more myself, and able to come up with a string of words to create at least one coherent sentence.

The kids are on their President's Week break, so today, as The Professor had the day off as well, we went ice skating. Miss Serious has been seriously lobbying to go ice skating for a while now, which is interesting considering that the last time we took her, she and Big Trouble decided after 10 minutes (and $38 dollars!!) that they had had enough. I was even more intrigued when she announced last year that she wanted to be a professional figure skater. Not wanting to dampen her childish enthusiasm, I resisted the urge to giggle and/or laugh derisively.

The kids really got the hang of things this year, and were actually getting to a comfort level (albeit with either a wall or adult hand or both) on the ice. And then, the little girl coming up behind Big Trouble, instead of going around him began to shout, "Excuse me!" causing him, in his polite way to turn around and see what the problem was. Big Trouble has not learned how to turn around while ice skating, thus:


Let me tell you, there is not anything more sickening than the CRACK of your child's face hitting the ice. He handled it very well, and even went back out skating. This is what it looked like after only about 2 hours, so I'm expecting that by tomorrow it will be quite spectacular.

Luckily, getting to choose a special dessert seems to heal all wounds. Ironically he chose ice cream....

Sunday, February 1, 2009

All Done!

What with Miss Serious being ill for about forever this past month, I got quite a bit of knitting done, actually beginning and finishing these little fingerless gloves (now now, don't be jealous of my stunning manicure....). They are Eunny Jang's Endpaper Mitts, and I have to say it was a charming pattern. It was easy to follow, even for someone whose brain was only semi-functional due to being woken up repeatedly with a sick child and not being able to leave the house for what felt like an eternity.

These passed the time nicely, and now I have a pair of fingerless gloves to replace the ones eaten by moths. Sadly, they don't really match my coat; my coat is brown, although this morning in the car when discussing the fact that these gloves don't quite match my coat, The Professor announced, "Of course they don't - that coat (mind you, I was wearing it at the time) is green." This coat is clearly brown. Then, to add to the strangeness, Miss Serious agreed with him. Big Trouble sided with me. I'm still somewhat floored by the debate, as the COAT IS BROWN, but unfortunately a different brown than the gloves - apparently a more greeny version of brown, if some people are to be believed.

I used Knitpicks Palette, and went up a needle size from what was called for in the pattern; I tend to be a tight knitter, so this was to be expected. I really liked the yarn for this kind of work; it wasn't splitty and showed great stitch definition. I thought it might be a little scratchy to wear, but it's not, and it's very warm.

I'm always grateful when I'm pleased with a finished project; sadly, many things have come off the needles only to be put away in a drawer because something is not quite right about them. I wore these today, and as long as the moths don't get ahold of them, they'll get a lot of use. (Even if my coat is green.....)