This is my blog.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Drivers wanted? None here!
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Mikveh Sham(poo)
More Homeschool Pea Math
… back to the split peas!!! Best $3 math manipulative money can buy!
And great for a range of ages, too! Gavriel Zev loved pretending it was soup and (mostly) pretending to eat it from the measuring spoons. Naomi was being ornery and making weird, wild estimates (“How many of the small spoon will it take to fill up the cup?” “A thousand!”), but the beauty of this is that the learning happens no matter what, even if they couldn’t care less. Just let them loose with the split peas and their Junior Scientist Brain will absorb basic concepts of volume and measurement. Amazing!
I still plan to make soup out of whatever’s left after a couple of months… we sweep up and throw away all the ones that end up on the floor. Even though I know, theoretically, that boiling will kill whatever shmutz is on the peas. Maybe I’ll plan a whole “math-themed” supper around the soup!
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Druid Boy
He loves this dirt-coloured hoodie beyond belief… and for some strange reason, so do I!
Here’s Druid Boy with his magical accomplice, Snot Girl:
Buying into the Evil Empire
I shopped at WalMart today, and I am ashamed.
I can’t help it!!! Much of what they sell, you can’t even buy elsewhere because other retailers can’t compete. And okay, sometimes you can buy the stuff somewhere else, for twice or three times the price.
Naturally, I want to be the one to lead the way, and in theory don’t mind paying what something is worth. But the truth is, what the other stores carry for two or three times the price is the same Chinese junk (no boat pun intended) that WalMart carries.
WalMart just gets a bigger, better deal from the junk-makers, so they can undercut at the retail side as well.
But I am proud that I stuck to the list, which had exactly six items on it:
~ hankies – the main reason for the trip, and WalMart has very decent big white ones, 13 for $9.
~ tights for Naomi Rivka – in the back of my mind since someone mentioned going to WalMart for tights a few weeks ago. One pair all-cotton, $5, one pair bamboo rayon, $4.
~ indoor watering can - $3 (plants are dying because I can’t find the blue dollarama one)
~ markers, Crayola – I dunno, maybe $4?
~ inkjet cartridge, $40 (eek!!!) - and, yes, they do probably sell printers, with ink cartridges, for less than $40… what are we supposed to do, buy a new printer when we run out of ink???
~ earrings for me because the top pair is too small and they are slipping into my earring holes…so $10, kind of an impulse because they were only added to the shopping list in the parking lot. But it still counts as sticking to the list, right?
Does it cancel out the good karma of overwintering plants (instead of buying new ones every spring!), using cloth hankies and choosing renewable fibres if I buy the stuff at WalMart…?
While I am celebrating Tacky White Trash day with my trip to the evil retail giant, I was also struck by the insight that Not Every Supper Must Be Wonderful. What a revelation! I couldn’t think of what to make and didn’t want to shlep to the grocery store a day early, so I decided we can darn well eat cheap, easy food lovingly hand-crafted from the contents of the potato room.
Suppers!
Tuesday:
~ Leftover Shabbos chicken soup
~ Superstore Chicken
~ Roast tinned potatoes (no onion soup mix, though… definitely inferior without it!)
~ Creamed corn / leftover Shabbos corn
Wednesday (today) – the supper that doesn’t have to be wonderful!
~ Some kind of soup with broccoli in it
~ Tuna patties (in keeping with the Tacky White Trash theme) w/mushroom sauce
~ Stir-fried multi-coloured Ontario peppers
So yay, me!
Oh, yes.
Like an arrow... or a banana
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
And may I just say...
No, I’m not pregnant…
Two images dredged up from my last two pregnancies for no particular reason. Okay, because I mentioned this squirrel ultrasound on someone else’s blog, only I haven’t looked at it in almost three years and I wanted to know if it really did look as squirrelish as I remembered.
See the shadow? It was all people could talk about; nobody even noticed the baby. Ha ha ha bloody ha. Yes, we’re expecting a squirrel, okay? And we’ll name her Naomi Rivka. Get over it.
And this is one of those ridiculous bulletin-board pregnancy tickers that I usually ignored, but I saved it because (okay, it’s a bit hard to see, but squint) I felt that “getting bone” was at best a really, really disgusting image. Nobody else thought it was even a little funny but maybe it was because they were all crunchy hippie bulletin-board mamas and not complete wackos like me.
That’s why I’m posting it here. My blog, my funny. No highway option.
Argh! More LEAVES!
Here’s our across-the-street neighbour. Notice which way his leaf blower is pointing???
Yes, that’s right. Into…the…Street.
Lest a leaf happen to mar the pristine grass or walkway surrounding his own personal property. To be fair, this guy has some kind of dysmorphia when it comes to his lawn and he is always doing some obsessive-type thing to it with noisy power tools. Really. More than anybody else I’ve ever seen.
As crazy neighbours go, it’s mild, but some summer afternoons when the doors and windows are open, I swear it’s like listening to a dentist’s drill… all day long. And then, just when you think the blowing or weed-whacking or whatever is ceasing, he either relocates to a different spot on the lawn or comes out with another tool.
Seriously. The guy’s lawn is like ten feet by ten feet. It’s not a huge property, but it is indeed obsessively tended. And so, apparently, is the road nearby.
For my full Best-of-Leaf-Rants rant, click here.
