live from sublurbia

For more WMFW tips, visit our hosts at: We are THAT family.

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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. Continue Reading »

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_{For other WFMW tips, see our hosts at “We are THAT family”!}

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I told myself I wouldn’t pressure myself to WMFW on vacation, but sometimes inspiration smacks you upside the head.

Instead of making sixteen billion different custom sandwiches for the kids every lunch day we have sandwiches, we made three or four and cut them up. The kids served themselves, family style, and all we had to do was shout “This plate is peanut butter, this plate is jelly” half a dozen times.

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 …

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To find more school tips, hit this weeks WFMW!

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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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Sorry, boring and quick this week, but one I figured out by accident – folding the napkins in the dryer.

I usually just toss our cloth napkins in with any old load of laundry. This leads to a pile of randomness going from the panlaundrium to the sofa, and napkins getting lost along the way.

What I figured out yesterday, however, is that I can tilt the dryer tumbler to have a flat surface – and put folded napkins atop that surface. They are up and out of the way while I hang (sometimes) the other clothes up or roll the clothes (more likely) into a waiting panlaundrium basket.

Then, before I re-load the dryer, I tuck the folded napkins into my pocket, or make a trip to the little baskets I keep around for holding the napkins until meal time.

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_{For more WFMW ideas, go visit this week’s Carnival at We Are THAT Family!}

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Apple. Tree. You know the old saw.

I meant to blog about garden plot markers months ago. A number of websites suggest old vertical blind slats be used to tell our turnips from our carrots in the early planting stages, save used popsicle sticks, and suggested uses for other reusable items. I made a mental note to try and talk my SIL out of her old blinds to follow that advice, until the new coffee machines showed up at the office.

One of the first things I did was to take it apart and see how it worked.
After some trial and error, I finally figured out how to stock it, and worked to free the plastic sliders the coffee packs ship on. Three or four of the sliders sat my desk for a week or so until I finally took them home to sit on my desk there. Then one morning, as I racked off six more flavors of coffee, it struck me – white, plastic – I can use them in the garden. Continue Reading »

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I was going to talk about file sharing and information sharing on the net, but I’ve just heard that Vimeo is going to start deleting source content of “free” users August 1. Download it if you don’t have it, folks!

They state they won’t delete the files they convert to Vimeo content for free users, but they can’t hold the “big” original files any more. It makes sense, but … that’s really short notice.

So, download it to have it, choose to upgrade your account, or just panic. And stop counting on “free” services as your only back up, if you have. :-) Good luck!

[TL;DR version - big files go in, little files are made. Big files will start to go away - back them up now and/or upgrade your account.]

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For more cheerful WFMW tips, go see the host at We are THAT family.

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As I look at the sofa with crayon on the back (we were doing so well, finishing up six years of being kid-ded and this is our first incident) I realize that the toy situation around here is quite out of hand.

My task this week is to conquer the toys. And I am armed with Laundry Baskets.

We tried big buckets to hold the toys, but they were too big. We tried little baskets, but they were too small. I’ve found some laundry baskets, finally, that are just right. They fit into my stacky storage thing from Sterlite, and aren’t too too big, or too too small.

And, they’re matchy-matchy so it doesn’t look like a bunch of random boxes and baskets shoved wherever. And less than the cost when you buy a big wooden thing that chips and little perfect holders that shed and tear with normal kid use. But when the kids “outgrow” this, I can put it to use in the garage and buy them some real furniture I don’t have to fear they might be inspired to carve a treasure map into.

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This week’s theme over at WFMW is: Summer Recipes!

Not that hard; it’s summer here all year long (thereabouts) so just about anything we do is fair game. The “recipes” the kids come up with every Saturday during our picnic playdate and lunch – usually involve stacking, smashing and rending lunch into objects of art for the eyes, then stomach.

But my favorite summer recipe this year is Freezer Jam. Most of the fun of a dry run on canning, without the greater chance of my lack of lots of experience giving us botulism.

It started out with a trip to the cousins’ house, where they’d just gotten in a huge batch of strawberries from the co-op.

The general recipe we followed was printed on the pectin packet: Continue Reading »

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(For other WFMW posts, see the little linky!)

So I totally loved the concept presented last week by the WFMW host; one bag to grab and go for swimming sounds so … serene.

I think if we had enough swimsuits and fewer activities, we could manage it. But I’m perpetually behind on laundry and life, and I so far have sent my kid to summer camp with an Uncrustables sandwich every single day this break. That’s fifteen sandwiches I’ve not made or supervised him making. But I will get the kitchen tidy (soon!) and he can then make his own …. but I digress.

One kid has swimming two, sometimes three days a week. The other has six, sometimes seven days of swimming. And depending on my working-at-home schedule, one or both of them swims later in the day for extra practice. (I have *got* to get these kids water-safe!)

Helvetica can’t deal with her own swim gear, but will imitate Wolfie. Wolfie needs … reminding. So I rolled out my sewing machine and made an addition to the name tags I’d already put on their gear. Bowties. Continue Reading »

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(for more WFMW, follow the linky!)

I’m always trying to figure out ways to speed things up, use end bits, have fun with the kids doing something. This last week I figured I’d try Peanut Butter and Jelly sticks – the kids like PBJ, and maybe I could do something interesting with them; make it easier to do a PBJ roll sandwich?

I picked up a “water bottle ice maker” silicone mold to give it a shot. The results were … interesting. The Peanut Butter shaped and froze well, but the Jelly did not. Images beneath the fold. Continue Reading »

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