live from sublurbia

The white stuff
The white stuff
(Verse) The first spoon was a great spoon
The second spoon was a spat
The third time I got hot holders
Now I hope they last
I can see it looks like chalk
But it don’t seem t’come off
Can see it in every piece from you
Even on my pots
(Chorus) You got the white stuff baby
I don’t know how you got it on
You got the white stuff baby
That’s the reason why I sing this song
All that I needed was you
But now, you’re dusty white
And all that I wanted was spoons
Spats that don’t scrape and tongs too
Oh Oh Oh Oh, Oh Oh Oh Oh.
Oh Oh Oh Oh, Oh Oh Oh Oh.

But seriously folks, I have white stuff ALL OVER my stinking silicone cookware. I started with a spoon, and then a spatula, then flat pot holders, even a silicone tagine (still unused because I fear the white stuff). I’m not sure what is causing it. I loved them and then, well, neglected them a bit and now we have the white stuff.

Is it the soaking occasionally when I’m lazy? You know, in a greasy dishpan with Dawn detergent. Running pieces through the dishwasher (hard to find good, environmentally friendly dish soap for there - I use Publix Lemon)?

What would fix this issue, anyone? Scrubbing with Dawn has not really done much. Would vinegar help? Or hurt the silicone? What about Charlie’s Soap (I use it in my washing machine, might try it in the dishwasher)? Baking soda paste? Borax? I’ve done internet searches, and had been preparing to simply experiment when the lovely reverse WFMW came up …

Feed me your ideas and experience!

For this and other bad puns, mangling of boy-band lyrics, and problems that you might be the only person able to solve, see all the Works For You Wednesday posts this week at rocksinmydryer.net!

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Between vacation, school starting (two different schools this year, oh boy), job changes, life changes, tropical storms, swimming lessons, belly dancing class, and trying to find one lunch bag that actually works for Wolfie and the varied shapes his lunch takes, I’ve been BUSY.

However, while my kids are all now back in school, some of my friends are in that last week or two of trying to keep everyone happy, entertained, and for a reasonable cost. And some of them found it. Post-it-notes and Sharpies!

I blame Big Sis, who combined numbers one and two, below, one inside-day when there were Chores To Be Done. All the beta moms, actually … my peer group who started on the kid train a little earlier than I, helped me come ip with these ideas while talking about amusing their broods. Mostly class of 2020, some class of 2021, but boy this social networking stuff really lets us brainstorm up good ideas. So most of the credit for this one goes out to all you Beta Moms.

Idea 1: Make a treasure or scavenger hunt with sticky notes. Write each clue pointing to the next and hide them throughout the house.

Idea 2: Make a chore list with the sticky notes. As each kid finishes each chore, they count towards points for a prize or treat.

Idea 3: Cover a poster (one with lots of something the child likes, such as dinosaurs, turtles, superheroes) with sticky notes. As the child does each task or meets each mini goal (I used this one for potty training), the child gets to remove a note and uncover a dinosaur or butterfly.

Idea 4: Write numbers or letters on the notes, have the kid(s) find them all and put them in order.

Idea 5: Write out common letters and have the kid(s) spell out words they know.

One of the great things about this is that a prepared mom, dad, or assorted kid- herder has the sticky notes for Evil Potties anyway; five can be a portable busy game, too.

See this and other kid-straction ideas on Rocks in My Dryer: glow sticks for the win!!!!

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I like to fiddle with cooking. Just to tweak it or improve it, or cut out foods we’re not fond of or don’t have in the house. And I don’t have the eleventy million spices listed in most cookbooks. So I’m teaching myself as I go; which flavors go with the usual suspects from our garden and pantry.

Recently I found myself with a couple of pounds of left over squash and not a lot of other fresh foods in the house. We were in that “no shopping” time before and after a traveling week, so I flipped through Bowl Food to figure out how to use up the squash for that night’s dinner (the rest I planned to toss into a lentil stew).

Inspired by squash risotto, I fried onions and squash in curry powder and a drip of oil. I brought water to a boil, and added cous-cous (and a chicken bullion cube) to the pot. I turned the stove off, removed the pot from heat (glass top + cast iron = keeps cooking even when off), added canned chicken, and let it sit, covered for 5 minutes.

The next night, more squash, plus an onion and canned tomatoes and garbanzo beans were mixed with a store-bought packet of lentils and seasoning. I’ve got a bit of a taste now of what the store’s spices are, so I can make my own next time around.

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So I’ve been spending way too much time on etsy, drooling and dreaming, admiring my friend’s stores and treasure lists and admiring fellow crafter’s creativity.

I’d planned to pack in a lot more writing this summer, but those long summer nights and pest-hunting in the garden and playing with the kids kind of derailed that. So I’m surfing etsy, looking at ideas to buy holiday gifts and maybe make some of my own.

Whenever I run out of things to think up to do, etsy is there with ideas and gifts to window-shop for hours. And then I wander off reading blogs, and I spend more time ‘reading’ than ‘writing’.

So that’s what works for me on Wednesdays when I want to write but am looking for ideas - cruising etsy. What kind of crafter sites do you like to surf?

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Raindrops on Roses and Whiskers on Kittens …

Despite the many years of crazy auntie and mommying under my belt, we’ve not had any really prolonged stretches of boredom or inactivity. But I’m reminded by this week’s themed Works For Me Wednesday that boredom does happen.

We’ve got the usual treasure tricks in our corner - tents indoors or out, dress up clothes, musical instruments, coloring, decorating shirts and bags, tending our gardens indoors and out. But hurricane season is starting: we need to entertain two of them this time should a storm hit. In the dark. With no air conditioning.

For our hurricane party this year, I’d probably pull out the dominoes and play stacking games. Get out my battery-powered tape recorder and tell stories. Get on the big bed and snuggle with stories. Make a race track series out of cardboard bits from the recycle bin and race dried beans or little toy cars. Send our dolls and stuffed animals on an ocean voyage with us in the hurricane-safe room, finding treasure and outrunning pirates (or being them).

One of my mom friends came up with a brilliant plan for summer boredom: Holiday Gifts! Last year was a blur of late nights making ornaments and presents for the teachers, friends, and family. But this year, shop early for supplies, plan it out, and break out the ready to go craft at an appropriate time. Last year we bign and wee hands produced an army of snowmen. Maybe this year we’ll just go wild with snowflakes and glitter. Then run outside in the sprinklers until the glue has all washed away …

June 1 has passed, we’ve already had a named storm. For once, my hurricane closet is fully stocked. Planning for games and activities is usually a last-minute thing. Maybe this year I’ll take advantage of my preparedness on the food and flashlights front and pull together some games.

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Shopping online can be a huge time saver for me. If I buy in bulk enough, I can meet or beat local retail big-box store prices, and save myself the extra trips to the store because I forgot and ran out. Or at least minimize; if I’m out of wipes I can’t wait a week for “Free” Super Saver shipping to get me an item. And here in sublurbia, your choices are big-box stores, warehouse stores, or boutiques, each with their own problems.

I use online shopping mostly for purchases I can delay, do in bulk, or return easily if it’s not quite what I want (this is often the case with clothes or shoes when I’m limited by a brick-and-mortar store’s options). Disposable wipes, for example. While most of my daycares never had a problem with cloth diapers, they drew the line at cloth wipes. I tried CostCo and BJs a while, but I never could time my trips right to get the wipes. Or they’d change the brands they were offering, dropping my favored eco-friendly non-scented brand.

I ended up signing up with Amazon.com to buy my wipes in bulk with their (then new) subscribe and save program. Sign up, get a shipment boxed to qualify for both the discount and free shipping, then suspend my subscription until I was ready for more.

The last time I was ready for an order of wipes, I couldn’t find the items as part of their S&S program. I decided to place an order for the next cheapest set of wipes, but at the last moment hit a link that ended up taking me to my old subscribe and save list. Even though new users couldn’t add these items to the S&S program, I could still buy the items at my S&S discount.

I experimented with a few other items, and found if I clicked quickly enough, I could sign up for S&S items, cancel the first shipment, and then “suspend” my subscription. I could hang on to the price, free shipping, and discounts, buying the item(s) whenever I needed them. Or at least until Amazon is hurting enough to suspend their “free” shipping program and the Subscribe and Save program.

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I do not like to check the box,
I do not think they’ve had the pox.

I will not bus them here or there,
I will walk them everywhere.

I do not like green forms and spam,
I do not like them, Sam-I-Am.

One school year is winding down, another is spinning up. Tis the season of application packets. And we aren’t even applying for colleges yet. Old school exit forms. New school entrance forms. Allergy lists. Pink sheets, blue sheets, yellow sheets, food sheets. Continue Reading »

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One of my favorite and convenient shopping sites is Amazon.com. I used them first in 1997 to help me find a book I’d been trying to find for a handful of years. Their search expired, but I found it a few years later, likely on Half.com. I kept an eye on the site, though, finally placing my first book order in late 1999 for a book about the internet. My orders picked up in 2000; I’d just gotten a new job and wanted a few specialized technology books to help me on my learning curve for new software.

After that, I mostly bought baby gifts for friends, or household goods. As the kids came along, discounted toys and baby stuff, more household goods, and baby wipes. I’ve always been more comfortable in a “real” book store or library, and while I appreciated the expanded selection of Amazon, it was and is more useful to me as a list-maker and gizmo site. I’ll build a list of books - and look for them at thrift stores or borrow them from the library or trade among friends.

But I noticed a couple of years back that you could leave stuff in your “shopping cart” for longer than the amount of time they say items will stay in the shopping cart. And if the price has changed since the last time you looked at your shopping cart while logged in, the site will post a message for a moment, informing you of the change.

So I started buying my items, then immediately putting them back in the shopping cart. If the price changed within 30 days to a lower price, I called Amazon and they honored their 30 day pricing guarantee, giving me a price adjustment. But I had to remember to keep the item in there, and I had to remember to check the price … it made sure I logged in daily; kind of a hassle. Plus some sellers would adjust their prices minutely. Up or down a couple of pennies, which was useless to me for price matching purposes, but served as an annoying reminder that I hadn’t gotten around to buying or reading the biography I’d wanted after hearing an interview with an actor a few months ago.

Then I found refundplease.com. They’ll track the 30 day window on prices for you, and send you an email. I’ve been using it for a few months to track prices (along with my old method of keeping it in the shopping cart and logging in daily) and it’s caught the price changes every time. I’ve heard of a few other sites, but this one has worked well enough for me. I’ve never been spammed as a result of adding my address there, but I wonder just what they do with that immense database of information. Or could do. Can you imagine trending prices and discounts on Amazon? Seeing what’s hot and what’s not? Cool beans.

Keep things in my basket to watch for price changes before I buy, using refundplease to keep an eye on it after I buy it, I usually can keep my purchased priced reasonably. Or convince myself the items will never go on sale, so I should find another way or do without. I use another method for buying bulk repeat items online through Amazon, but I’ll touch on that another day.

For more WFMW ideas, head over to the mothership at http://www.rocksinmydryer.net!

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Works for me wednesday!

I wrote earlier in the week about the use it or lose it aspect of gift cards as more and more retail establishments fall into bankruptcy. In keeping with this theme - something I learned the hard way with gift cards and vouchers is definitely “use it or lose it”.

Or at least be careful in how you use it.

I’m a listener to Public Radio; a contributor, too. “Back in the day” as my parents would say, you could get a real deal as a contributor to your local station. There are some decent gifts now, too, and you can also decide to not accept a gift and increase your donation to the station by that much more.

Sometimes they run contests. One year, I won. Two round-trip plane tickets, whooohooo! I had plans to be married within a year or so, and figured I’d use the tickets then. My letter came in the mail and I filed it carefully away (mumble mumble big pile of papers here or there). I called the airline a few months later only to find they’d gone out of business.

Another time I was given two unlimited day passes on the local commuter rail system. Not bad at all. I offered them to a co-worker as a free way to try the system. Thankfully, he turned me down, and I ended up using them myself on a couple of occasions when I forgot my wallet. Even more thankfully, there were no ticket checks on those days. Looking more closely at the stubs I realized the tickets had expired a few years earlier. The station was digging back pretty deep into that prize closet.

Got a gift card? Won a prize? Use it or lose it, man. Use it or lose it.

_{For this and other Works for me Wednesday ideas, check out the mothership of WFMW: rocksinmydryer.net.}

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Normally, I am a huge fan of gift cards. This is teacher appreciation week, and I’m racking my brain looking for a little something to contribute. I hadn’t planned on gift cards, but I’ve not yet come up with something. Probably baked goods and/or a veggie/fruit plate for them to nosh on.

However, considering the way things are kind of going a bit off of the deep end economy wise, that gift card in your wallet may just turn to dust:

Brian Riley, senior analyst at research firm The TowerGroup, estimates [Linens’n'Things filing for bankruptcy protection] will freeze about $42 million in consumer gift cards, affecting about 400,000 customers. Gift cards become valueless when a company files for bankruptcy protection.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/20080502-1211-linensnthings-bankruptcy.html

Go find something you need, need to replace, or need a backup for. And don’t buy gift cards off of people that they “aren’t going to use” unless you’re sure the store is still accepting cards.

I know this is saturday, but I may repeat it for WFMW. It qualifies as something I probably will learn the hard way. I’m sure I’ve gotten short changed on these cards before … I’ll just link this.

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