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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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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I don’t know if I remember how to do all this! Blogging, Work for me Wednesday, Think of a Something Thursday …

Funny how I’ve been blogging in my head a lot recently. What is this blog? Why is it here?

I didn’t grow up in sublurbia; it was a small town of it’s own that became sublurbia-like, as much as it could. Suburb in the older sense of the term, an outgrowth of a central town, not these mushroom-field boxes of ticky tack.

And yet, here I am in my own little mushroom, finishing up another month of … sublurbian living. I work in the town I live in, finally (I’m still a writer, but from home). And I see my neighbors for long stretches of time as we play with the kids on the street. It’s not all bad, but, some of the plastic sameness still bugs me.

But I can be … domesticated and not plastic. I’m still greenie-eco-gal, but not nearly as much as I want to be. I’m trying to strike a balance between the consumerism that surrounds us, drowns us, and being green — not to be seen but because it’s the sensible sustainable thing to do.

So I’m getting back in my stride. Let’s see what I remember about all this interwebby stuff.

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_{for the whole thirty seconds it took me to think it up …}

Ah, Florida. When Laser Beam and I traded floors for lawns, I figured I knew what I was getting into. Run a mower over the lawn every few weeks, edge once a quarter or so, cut down weed palm branches and hope they fell in their entirety during hurricanes. And I wouldn’t have to worry about sweeping under the table and vacuuming under the beds.

Moving to Cabbage Mere changed that notion. Edging to keep the grass out of the sidewalk and give it the finely expensive waxed look that is … requested by the city and Home Ogres association takes a bit more frequent manicuring than once a quarter. And the sweeping! I’d have done less sweeping if I’d kept the inside and let Laser Beam do the outside. Continue Reading »

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_{Author’s Note: I wrote this out a long time ago, before I came up with the original TOAST (Think of a Something Thursday) format. We’ve come a long way, baybee!}

TOAST: Think of a Something Thursday

Long before I acquired my stable of shopping bags, and when I bothered to remember, I’d tell a store clerk trying to bag one or two items: “No thank you”. A habit borne of managing to accumulate too much junk (which I still do, adventure-girl/packrat that I am) but a habit that also fit in nicely with the Reduce part of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

When I was a kid, the grocery stores in my area were dominated by paper sacks. And that was it for a long time. They were great, useful – book covers, art papers, shipping paper, patterns, “canvas”. When plastic bags started coming around along with the advent of “bag your own” stores in my neck of the woods, the bags were your typical two handled affair seen today. Us kids adapted and used them to make simple box kites. Tie a string, find a gust of wind, and go. No sticks, no tails, no tape and paper and glue … But no sharks teeth or dragons, either. Nothing to paint or enhance. I think after one or two gos we were done and bored.

I started out my latest foray into self-bagging and non-plastic bagging like I do most things. In fits and spurts. (The hub asked me the other day how long my to-do list was. I asked in return, “which volume?”.) But I rounded up a sampling of totes I had anyway (I prefer simple totes instead of most diaper bags) along with the inexpensive reusable bags I mentioned the other day.

Surely there was one perfect bag to hold my ‘fancy’ cheeses, wines, crusty loafs of bread, and swirly pops for the kids, right? Be it a quick trip for a parents-only dinner or the restocking of the hurricane pantry, just grab a cloth bag and go, yes? No, not so much. Continue Reading »

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Mare noted that she picked up a small foldable bag that fits in the glove box. I’ve got those in my eclectic collection; they make great diaper bags for the daily tote to and from school. Diapers go in the bag to school, are dropped off, and the bag is shoved in her cubby bucket without taking a lot of space. It even crams back into its own clip-on bag if I get the notion to stuff things in things (or need a diversion of “magic” for the little ones). I got these (I have two) at Claire’s during a buy X get Y sale.
Continue Reading »

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