Author Archives: admin

Blender Bikes…

Posted on by

I am starting preparations for my daughter’s school’s Earth Day celebration. I am trying to think of fun and interesting activities for the kids to do. I’m also researching interesting environmental groups who might come to run an activity or have an informational table.

For some reason I have something stuck in my head and I can’t seem to find who does it. Have you ever seen bikes that are rigged to have a blender on the back? The person pedals and blends smoothies. It’s really fun and I think the kids would absolutely love powering their own smoothies. I just can’t seem to figure out who would bring one of these bikes to our event in Brooklyn. Does anyone know?

And if anyone knows of a great organization or activity, let me know!

I will say ahead of time that I do not like activities where you take something that should be recycled and then make something that will just end up getting tossed by the parents. Paper plates that are painted to look like the earth. Plastic “solar” beads. I’m not thinking of good examples right now, but I think you get the gist.

FacebookTwitterGoogle+StumbleUponShare

Snow and more snow

Posted on by

20140213-091456.jpg

20140213-091515.jpg
This is the view into my little back garden. Quite a bit different than the banner photo on my blog. You can see the coop absolutely buried in snow in the background. The poor hens have barely seen the light of day in the last few weeks. Actually we haven’t let them into the larger run since a heavy rain took down the netting covering it. And yet they are starting to give us an egg here and there.

NYC public schools are open today. It makes me laugh to think of how readily our school system in Maryland closed when I was a kid. Being so close to DC, we often had diplomat’s children at our school. I remember one girl asking my friend how you found out if school was closed. My friend told her that if you put your thumb into the snow and it covered your fingernail, then school would be closed. Maybe not the most helpful answer, but it was pretty accurate. I guess New Yorkers are tougher because Lindsay had to trudge off to school on what should really be a sledding day.

I was joking with Lindsay yesterday as we were walking in the cold. I said that on the first few days of spring, New Yorkers are going to be euphoric. I said that we might see people spontaneously burst into song and start dancing with one another in the streets. It’s kind of a nice image don’t you think?

FacebookTwitterGoogle+StumbleUponShare

Frost Valley

Posted on by

IMG_1028Recently I went with my daughter’s Girl Scout troop to Frost Valley YMCA. If you live anywhere near Craryville, NY (which is near Woodstock, NY) I recommend going. This weekend was specifically for all kinds of winter activities, which included hikes, ice fishing, tubing, ice cutting (demonstration on how people used to harvest blocks of ice for their ice boxes), etc. The hardest part of the weekend was deciding on which activities to sign up for.

My favorite activities were the hikes of course. This photo was taken on their highfalls hike. The ice on the left was about 100 feet tall and a stunning shade of blue.

FacebookTwitterGoogle+StumbleUponShare

My Winter Baby Turns 10

Posted on by

Lindsay at 10

 

My sweet girl turned 10 today. Each year I make a special cake for her. This year she asked for a chocolate cake with chocolate feathers on it. I used a recipe from One Girl Cookie’s cookbook for the cake part (it was amazing).

For the feathers I thought I would drizzle melted chocolate into feather-like shapes. I was trolling the internet for chocolate decoration and decided to type in how to make chocolate feathers. I found a woman who made amazing chocolate feathers. Go figure. I followed her instructions and made these. Pretty wonderful if I do say so myself.

lindsay's 10th bday cake-2 lindsay's 10th bday cake-4

FacebookTwitterGoogle+StumbleUponShare

Silver Lining to the Cold Snap

Posted on by

frostAbout 2 days ago I emailed NPR to suggest a story idea. Today they ran it! It is about a positive side to this crazy cold weather. There are a lot of invasive insects that have spread through North America. Some move via firewood, but others are moving North because of climate change. I was hoping that this cold snap would kill off some of these invasive insects and a quick internet search showed that my hopes were founded.

Here’s a link to the podcast. It is quite interesting. And it’s good to think of something positive when you are walking down the street thinking the tip of your nose might freeze off.

The photo above is from the *inside* of a coffee shop. The frost flowers were spectacular on many of the glass storefronts. This was from Monday.

 

FacebookTwitterGoogle+StumbleUponShare

Dehydrated apples

Posted on by

20131220-123818.jpg

Our cup seems to be running over with apples thanks to our wonderful CSA. They’ve been getting overlooked with the abundance of holiday sweets, so I decided to dehydrate them. This is a very simple process, especially if you have a dehydrator.

I just peeled them, used a coring/wedge slicing tool and then dunked them in acidulated water. 2T of lemon juice to 6 cups of water. They are drying for several hours at
135 degrees F.

The house is filling up with a nice aroma that has nothing to do with sugar and butter for a change.

FacebookTwitterGoogle+StumbleUponShare

Fabric Gift Bags

Posted on by

fabric bags-1Every year on Christmas I have a mini freak-out. It usually passes without notice, but this year I’ve decided to pre-empt it. The freak-out is about the big recycling bag filled with wrapping paper.  We usually wrap our gifts the night before, so this colorful paper is only “in use” for a few hours. I’ll spare you my rantings on the subject.

fabric bags-4Anyhow, this year I decided to do something about it. Inspired by my new serger sewing machine, I have been making fabric gift bags. It’s been a lot of fun to use fabric scraps that have been sitting in a box for ages. So much fun that I even ordered some holiday-themed fabric. As I see it, we will be able to use these bags for years and alleviate the need for wrapping paper. I have been plugging away at them and searching the web for different tutorials. Rather than make my own tutorial, here are some links to good ones that I used:

Drawstring bag by Kitty Baby Love. I used their instructions to make the larger muslin bag in the photo above. This bag has french seams and drawstrings on both sides of the bag.

Fabric Gift Bag by Positively Splendid. I used their instructions for the bag shown below. It has a drawstring on just one side, which is nice if you are running low on ribbon.fabric bags-2

I made the bag below with instructions from the book Ready Set Serge.fabric bags-3

Making drawstring bags uses a heck of a lot of ribbon, which can get pricey. When I ran out of ribbon, I wanted to keep going instead of having to shop for more. What do they say about necessity being the mother of invention? I decided to take out my bias tape-making gadget and turn 1″ strips of fabric into bias tape. Then I chose fun stitches and thread to sew the seams closed.

fabric bags-7fabric bags-8fabric bags-6fabric bags-5

And what comes after all these drawstring bags you ask? How about a bunch of these cute zippered bags? So perfect for storing my knitting notions!fabric bags-9

FacebookTwitterGoogle+StumbleUponShare