A great idea to encourage turning over of stuff that’s just not safe after a while – strollers, cribs, baby seats, carseats. A 25% discount is not a bad deal, either. Sure you can surf for coupons or save up points or wait until the kid is 47.95 inches tall to get her a more height-appropriate carseat, or you can take this easy trade up discount and go.

I’m going. Well, maybe one of my carseats is. I don’t actually need any new carseats, or strollers, or anything else. My eldest is well enmeshed in school and my youngest is itching to go. We’ve gone through and rid ourselves of nearly every infant- and toddler-safe toy in the house. So I’ll turn in my beloved Fisher Price Safe Embrace and ensure it will be disposed of safely and properly.

The last time I tried to get rid of one of those, I was adamant that I destroy it enough that it wouldn’t be reused. I slashed all of the buckles, and took a sledgehammer to it. It was TOUGH. Tougher than I, though a couple dozen sledgehammer hits later, we had a good, visible crack in the shell.

This time I let it sit in the garage, passed over every time we did a clean out. Every time I’d remember it was there, I’d forget to find out where to get it destroyed safely. But this is a great opportunity. Take in the carseat, and ensure it’s destroyed by someone responsible (Toys R Us). We have local fire stations that do inspections, but I’m not sure they handle destruction. And all of them are already rather busy with fires and as gathering points for Haiti relief efforts.

Thanks to TRU – sure it’s a marketing ploy, but it certainly can’t hurt to get some of this older gear OUT.

You think with my mega food prep post last month (I know, it’s been a crazy month) I would have covered beans. Small error on my part, sorry.

I’ve been using dried and frozen and freeze dried vegetables for years – there was a metals allergy in my family so I never was much for canned veggies. And maybe it’s my inability to plan meals correctly, but the “standard sized can” of veggies isn’t quite enough for two meals, and too much for one.

But some friends have mentioned giving up on canned foods for various reasons. Expense, BPA-lining concerns, sodium content, and storage. But making your own beans means a lot of containers in the freezer in what you hope is the right amount, a lot of beans until you use them all up, or having to plan that far ahead each night.

One friend I lamented my bean-planning woes to didn’t get it. She could get home, throw food in a pot on the stove, and forget it until dinner time. By the time we used to get home, dinner would need to be ready within 45 min – which meant planning in the morning or the night before (not always possible). So I started applying my Once a Mood Cooking to beans. Here’s what I’ve worked out for me:

1. Cook beans, seasoning to taste (or a little blandly to season when used). A lot of beans! Pintos, garbanzos, white, or mixes. Set up the crock pot, let it crock all day.

2. Make dinner with some of the beans, reserving the rest.

3. Take the rest of the beans and put them on a cooky sheet that has a raised lip or in a casserole dish, one layer, spaced a little apart.

4. Throw the dish the freezer for 15 or 20 minutes until the beans are mostly frozen.

5. Scrape the beans into a bag or container, put in the freezer; repeat step 3 until all beans are done.

6. Optionally, take the bean juice left and freeze it in ice cube trays. Mix in with the bagged frozen beans, or in a separate container for use as flavoring and liquid.

Now you can pour out your beans into a quick meal as needed – lunch for one or dinner for eight, just like the storebought veggies!

I’ve been thinking wayyy too much about food lately. The holidays are coming, I’m packing lunches and snacks for folks, planning my own meals away from the family, either on the road doing small writing projects or at home.

And LEFTOVERS. Oh, the leftovers. And quick-fix meals. And long-term cooking. And my freezer that keeps clicking.

The cycle usually goes like this. I get in a mood to cook a lot, or I find a deal and make a lot of something. Then I have the same tasting leftovers in the freezer forever, using up all of the few containers I have.

So I came up with a better idea while brainstorming this problem. Turn all the food into ice cubes. It worked for my breastmilk in my pumping days. It worked for kiddie purees. It works for my leftover broths!

Ice Cube Soups

I do this with left over broths but you can do it with soup or whatever – pour it into cheap ice cube trays and freeze. Crack into a big zippy bag. When you need a meal, pour some cubes into a bowl that seals firmly (to stand being tossed in your bag). Nuke when it’s time to eat.

One size fits all single meals

Go to a regular store and buy a couple of squarish or roundish containers that seal well (like you use for ice cube soup) that hold 3 to 4 cups of food (for the room not the food). Go to a kitcheny store or dollar store and buy oversized silicone cups for giant muffin sized cupcakes (or a silicone tray of at the regular store) or individual cake pans. Of silicone, that are of a size that they will fit into the solid, sealable container.

Go home. Make a big pot of whatever the heck you want. Ladle it into the silicone cups and freeze. When frozen, pop out of silicone, toss into big zippy bags. Repeat until all pot of whatever is cooked. When done, take the last one and put it in the sealable container you bought. When you eat the food in it, take it home, rinse it out, and put it back in the freezer with a new food shape block from the zippy bags.

One size fits all larger meals

This one I actually stole from the beta moms. Make a big giant batch of dinner. Take a sensibly-sized re-heat container, put a plastic bag in it, and freeze one meal’s worth of the food.

When frozen, remove bag of food, tie off, repeat until all the food is frozen. Pull each meal out of the bag and put back into the re-heat container for defrosting and eating.

Individual heat and eat meat on a stick

I do this for the kidlets; make meatballs or whatever on a stick. Basically make yourself a batch of your favorite meatballs (I use a store-bought Swedish mix, or you can do Italian or other).

1. Make meatballs the usual way.
2. After cooking and cooling, slide onto wooden skewers.
3. Freeze on a cookie tray.
4. After frozen, stack in a container (frostiest free I found are Lock and Lock brand).

Now, those might be a little dry, so if you have a gravy, you can probably do this:

2a. Put wooden skewers with meat on a wire rack.
2b. Put wire rack on cookie tray.
2c. Paint with chilled, thickened sauce/gravy of choice.

Wrap City

Burritos, tacos, tamales

Make in bulk. Freeze individually (wrapped in a teeny bit of wax paper to keep it from sticking to a partner). Grab a couple when you need a quick bite to eat.

Wraps: Tortillas, pancakes, expensive wrap carb diet things.
Fillings: Beans, meats, cheeses, barley, beans, beans, beans, spinach, nuts, cottage cheese (does that freeze well?).

This is a good way to use up leftovers, too. Have a bit of meat and beans left? Make a burrito and freeze it up for another day. Have some lasagna left? Freeze it up in single slices. If you’re working with more structured foods or you want to use a seal-and-save method of saving, put the food on the plate, freeze it. Once frozen, then go ’seal and save’ it.

And I’ve gone through and upgraded everyone’s website and life except for my own. Shoemaker’s children and all that.

Soon. Sooon! Big changes rolling out.

My sister and mom decluttered the panlaundrium and kitchen a bit (See, I told you my methods make sense! They put everything where I expected except for my little plastic IKEA bowls – I think they ate them.) and it didn’t “hurt” as much as I expected. Decluttering for me, as opposed to me decluttering, drives me NUTS, but now that it’s over and I didn’t know it was happening, well, maybe it wasn’t so bad after all.

And seeing progress makes it easier for me to make progress.

Anyway, I have ton of blogging and reading to do, but I need to go spend some hours on my clients first, catching up on their bloggy administrivia and support, then do the same catching up on my own (I’m revamping the site so don’t mind if I go dark a few days).

Stay tuned and happy back-to-school!

Thanks, Heather*, and good luck on the Diaper Drive!

6 size 1 disposable diapers from my eldest’s short time in disposables

1 flannel 2T jacket

Size 0 left shoe, worn once for pictures

Information about recycling at our old home

A packet of unopened crayons suitable for school this year

Lots of random unsharpened pencils from various goody bags over the years

A peanut M and M that looks like a Teenage Mutant Ninja turtle

Can’t wait until school starts; with the kids out of the house I’ll probably find even more.

One time we got smart – jelly on white, peanut butter on wheat. Two days later even smarter – different shapes! Pictured are cheese (triangle), jelly (square) and peanut butter (rectangle). We’re still repeating ourselves, but not quite as much …

And of course, sitting down with a round of milk and cookies, because it’s three o’clock somewhere! I love milk and cookies time. But I think we all (adults included) need a nap time, too.

Going to be a bit quiet here the next few weeks as family season ends and school starts, plus I’ll be ripping out the website guts a bit so pardon the mess. :)

Happy last days of summer!

Dear Target,

Oh, Target, Target, Target, you make me laugh. Buying more underwear means less laundry? Noooooo. Maybe a less frequent need to launder for fear of running short of running shorts, but really? You’ll have to do more once you get there. I don’t call it our Laundry Pile of Doom for nothing.

Mad props for the SpiderMan lunchbag, though. Very cool; I need only add a napkin pocket and drink cosy (which he liked from an Arctic Zone bag that didn’t have Spidey adornments).

Dear Payless Shoes,

I heart you very much, but bigger kids like super heroes, too! My size thirteen boy really wanted Marvel Hero shoes, but they only go up to 12 in the stores we searched virtually. He went for Transformers, but still … And littlest one says thanks for bringing back AirWalk star shoes one more season.

Yo, Land’s End!

Nice quality policy! Backpack with zipper stuck? Send it back for credit. For which I’m happy – we have used it less than a year. Kiddo went for a darker blue of a different type, and is super happy it’s so “Spidey Blue”.