live from sublurbia

To find more school tips, hit this weeks WFMW!

Ah, shoes and socks and bits and bobs, it’s time to get ready for school again. Yesterday I pulled out the school clothes tub to sort through what we’ve got an what we need. Pulled three shirts I’m going to try and de-stain, added three I picked up from an outlet store last week. Pants and shorts we’re good on, but I’ll need to take my eldest shoe shopping.

The day before school starts, we’ll pick up his classroom assignment, teacher assignment, and supply sheet. The supplies usually range from typical, such as paper, pencils, and crayons, to class-wide, such as construction paper, hand sanitizer, and modeling clay.

Some of these things can be acquired sustainability – sure I can go buy a pack of Play-Doh, but I’ve been saving it up from kid meals and party bags. Even getting it out for the kids to play with from time to time, I have a fat ton of that stuff in the house. Paper? Notebooks? Pencils? Recycle-content goods! Even plastic bags have gotten into the act, made with less plastic (and at a higher price, go green gouging!).

And what am I sending the supplies in this year? A reusable bag. Continue Reading »

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I’ve got some things around that are quite trashy. I’m pretty pack ratty, as I’ve admitted before, but I think I am and can stay a far pace away from hoarding … but you never know.

I’ve got tea bag wrappers. No reason to save them, but they smell so nice. And I came up with a use for them. But not the time to use them in.

I’ve got old mailing envelopes. Some can be reused, some can’t. The “can’ts” can be reused in other ways, but I want to do more research on Tyvek before I get into it. I had hoped to have a nice long piece about Tyvek tonight, but I was thwarted by bad javascript. :( I understand DuPont wants to capture information about their users, but should I really have to fill out tons of personal information to read a PDF about the Tyvek life cycle? Continue Reading »

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Between getting organized for guests coming and going, sorting out all of my fabric into type for sewing, sticking close to home to tend roofers and kids with summer colds, I’ve finally rid myself of the giant laundry basket in the den, our seven-year old portable playpen.

Over its lifetime, it housed kids and cats, toys and laundry, bolts of fabric and the occasional birthday gift. Despite the manufacturer’s claims of less than a minute set-up time, negotiating all the bits into position usually took at least ten more minutes and three more inches in height than I have. Nothing like trying to ratchet the “pull and twist” mechanism while trying to not fall into the pen.

Despite the mostly fond memories, the time has come for departure and recycling. I hope someone picks it up to sell the metal tubing for scrap – but we have quite a parade here on Friday mornings, so I think it likely. If I knew where to recycle/sell the tubing or we didn’t have the informal pickups before the formal pickups, I would have taken a sledge and knife to it myself for recycling.

I can’t pass it on, because the wear of a dozen children, pets, and my own rough assembly finally caused something to give and break about a year ago. Not enough to get out of letting it hold “some laundry” for “just a little while”, but enough to catch all the clutter I could throw its way.

Two weeks ago, we finally broke it down, and disabled it as much as possible to discourage its unsafe reuse for children. If I’d thought it through enough, I would have kept the netting to reuse for a project; I didn’t think of one until I finally laid it on the curb for bulk pickup. Too little, too late.

Goodbye, Clutter Catcher of Doom. Good riddance, and dang you held a lot of laundry.

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[Think of a something Thursday!]

Growing up, we had a huge cake box full of cookie cutters. We’d get them out once or twice a year, taking over the kitchen to make COOOKIES. Great busy, messy fun during the summer and winter breaks. But excavating them was a major chore. And the box usually sat around until all the cutters were washed and put up – usually a few days or even weeks (eep!).

I was pretty good about cookie cutters at first, but they seemed to take up an awful lot of space in the “whatever” drawer (Which reminds me – any use for corn holders? I’ve given up on those little stabby knobs.). The cutters spread to the boxed lunch area (cute sandwich shapes!) and the toaster oven (ghostest toastest with the mostest!). I did a quick purging of the kitchen and came up with a count of seventeen, and I know that doesn’t even cover the ones in our art bins. Continue Reading »

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Although, to be fair, Laser Beam is a head taller than me, so he’s actually rather big for a birdie. We’ve got family coming and it really needs doing.

[picture of paint cans]

It’s been a crazy crazy couple of weeks since the audition and I feel as if I’ve gotten nothing done. Some logo work, some paperwork, wear and tear tests. PHEW! I feel bad because I haven’t really emailed any of the cool inventors I met last month. I need to do that, soon.

And I’m still doing part time writing work, looking for full-time work, coordinating getting a new roof on, and getting ready for family visiting/staying/traveling from now through the end of August. Double PHEW!

Anyway, birdies. I’m on Twitter now, and you can follow me here. I’ve also put together a very basic official “me” page on Facebook here. I’m trying to link them together, or not. Trying to figure out what to do with it all, keep this a mom/idea blog but I guess it’s turning more into an invention blog, which is kind of the point I was going at with the [TOAST] (Think of a Something Thursday) posts.

More birdies – we are at the halfway mark of when the inventor show producers said they’d start talking to people about being on the show. Wooo! Continue Reading »

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FYI, South and West county to be mosquito sprayed Friday night. If you have veggies and rain barrels you’d rather not be sprayed, cover them up.

Don’t forget to cover or keep circulating rain barrels and other water sources, or continue other methods of mosquito abatement. Reading Mother Earth News this month reminds me how much my childhood fowl did to keep the bugs down, but we’re not zoned for that kind of help.

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It’s still the same color and paint job as when we moved in, and, well, we’ve added kids since then. The bathroom is a little worse for wear.

Backing up … WAY up …

I tried out for a reality TV show. Oh, and by the way, the winner of the Amazon GC is Ms Tilla. Ms Tilla, expect an email within 24 hours.

I tried out for Kelly Ripa’s New Reality TV Show (Mom, Inc?) last week in New York City. I had a ton of fun, met a lot of wonderful women (not limited to but including the fabulous Blondee and the inventor of the SafetyTat and one of her little inspirations! And some dragon tamers.

It was a little crowded the first day and a bit hectic. Not to cast asparagus at the production crew – they did fabulous. First-day usual shakedown; moving things around to run more smoothly, it worked out pretty well, I thought. A bit of a delay while Kelly herself came in to do some promo shots and speaking parts (I saw the top of her head! TWICE!), but overall it was a lot of fun.

If you’re going to go to the tryouts (still to be held in Chicago, Dallas, and Los Angeles through the end of this month), here’s how it will likely generally run: Continue Reading »

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If so, head over here and answer the poll! Don’t forget to leave a contact email address so you can be contacted if you win!

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Gosh, I’m not sure I even remember how to TOAST anymore, but here goes ….

I know I mentioned during one of my infrequent spring pop-ins that I joined the ranks of the unemployed earlier this year. Whee.

I have had some interviews, and some nibbles. Nothing I could take to the bank; mostly the jobs were far away but I’m so over that. I want to live in the city I sleep in. Consequently, the pickings have been slim, but I’ve managed to land a job that I can do from home a lot. Some travel, not the corporate salary I’d been spoiled by, but home-based writing, yay.

When it got really slow at the beginning of this month (no criticism of those who are employing me!) I signed up for school. I did it the wrong way, of course, jumping in randomly on the last day of registration and missing a few days (BAD IDEA in the summer). But I caught up and my grades are pretty good. I’m re-learning Microsoft Office (2007 version) and will probably get certified in it later this year.

But my book? I spent seventy bucks on that darn thing (if I’d registered earlier I could have bought it online for about $20). And I can’t sell it back. No one is buying it, anywhere.

Why? Continue Reading »

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(for more WFMW, go to this week’s link!)

So my favorite green cleaner is VINEGAR. I won’t say it cures all that ails you, but is sure is handy. :)

The hardest thing is getting it to “stick” – if I need to soak an area that’s stained (plastic kid tables + food dye = !!!) it’s hard on the rag, but I use an old rag on its way out anyway.

The even more hardest thing is getting it to stick to a vertical surface. UGH! I couldn’t for the life of me, even with my lightest rags, get it to stick to that stubborn stain that comes up in the shower from time to time. I’ve had to resort to the “evil” Bleach Pen.

Until one day I baked up some bread and my stubborn vertical stain problems ended. Continue Reading »

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