Agenda Today

Written by andrea on January 5th, 2009

LAUNDRY!  My laundry situation has gotten outta control so today I’ve been steaming away on getting that stuff all caught up.  If I would get in the habit of putting a load into the washer every night before bed then first thing in the morning putting it in the dryer, my laundry dilemma would be no more.  But I am undisciplined.  There are about 47,000 different aspects of my life that would be a billion times better if I would just be disciplined.  I can come up with these rather brilliant planning ideas (like just putting a load of laundry in the washer every night before bed), but I follow through like 3 times, get sidetracked or offer myself an excuse why it is okay to skip that night and I’m totally off track.  It is so awful.  And it makes me feel like a failure every time it happens.  Drives me nuts.  But does it stop…NOPE!

The other item on the agenda today is a deep cleaning of the kitchen.  It’s surfaces get cleaned daily, but it needs the floor tended too, miscellaneous stuff put away, counter fronts wiped down etc.  So between running between floors doing laundry, I’m working on kitchen chores.

My parents, when they built the house they live in, were brilliant about one particular design element.  They put the laundry facilities on the same living level as the bedrooms…where the laundry goes when finished.  Whatever goober though putting a washer & dryer in the basement and the bedrooms on the second floor was not thinking.  If ever I have the opportunity, some washer & dryer in my future will be on the living floor where the hampers, closets and bedrooms live.  This business of lugging a heavy basket down two flights of stairs, washing them, then lugging them back up two flights of stairs to be put away is really annoying.  It isn’t efficient either.   See I know how to be efficient and I certainly know how to plan & organize…but follow through on a continual basis eludes me.

 

Our Saturdays These Days

Written by andrea on January 5th, 2009

Most Saturdays from now through the start of the maple sugaring season (in about six weeks) are going to be filled with working in the woods getting ready.  This Saturday we hung three long sections of wire through the woods.  The tubing which will connect the tapped trees to our sap collection sights will hang from this wire so that it doesn’t sag.  The wire is pretty permanent so it was nice to get that almost completely finshed in one Saturday.

I did discover that I absolutely must acquire boots.  Wearing tennis shoes into the snowy woods for hours can cause feet to get wet and really cold.  Actually, we both need to acquire good functional boots for the sugaring season.  While at the JCPenny outlet the other day, I looked for functional boots, but all they had were those high heeled, non-sensical things some gals call boots.  Personally, I’d fall flat on my fanny if I ever tried wearing something like that in snow and/or ice.

Next Saturday we have to cut, load, unload and stack a bunch more firewood that is needed to heat the sap in the evaporator.  And we’ll probably hang some tubing from the wire lines we’ve hung.  I’m not a huge help during all this, but I can help some since I am still feeling pretty great.

 

Oh, No! No More US Hand-Made Toys??

Written by andrea on January 5th, 2009

I was just reading about this online…never heard about it until today.

On February 10th, 2009 The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act will go into effect which will put strict safety measures on product made for children and requires that toys and product (even books!) made for children under 12 be tested for safety (specifically lead) content by independent labs and labeled with their material contents.

Okay, this sounds great on the surface.  It means those horrid toys made in China and other developing nations for our US headquartered, outsourcing, mega-toy companies will now finally be tested for stuff harmful to children.  That is great!  Awesome & wonderful! BUT what this law failed to do is protect all those US, Europe & Canada based toy makers that already were making a quality product.

Any product made for use for a child under the age of 12 will have to be tested.  That means the industrious homemaker in Iowa that makes cloth diapers for sale via the internet will now have to have each of her products tested at a cost of $4000/item.  And the garage carpenter that makes wooden trains in Maine also will have to have each of his products tested.

This law effectively will put out of business hundreds of cottage industry toy and clothing makers.  All because some corporate guys got greedy and had their silly toys made for dirt cheap in some country without a conscience.

Dave & I have just started creating our little stash of US, Europe & Canada made quality toys for our future tots and we’re no where ready for these companies to go out of business.  It looks like the fix to this dilemma is for the law to be amended to exclude US, Europe & Canadian companies which already adhere to pretty strict safety regulations.

So today I’m going to find some more facts about this issue and write emails to our local Congressman & Senators.  I’m so bummed.  We literally just found out about all these little toy makers located here in New England and elsewhere that we were hoping to one day soon buy from, but now who knows if they will still exist.

http://www.handmadetoyalliance.org/

http://nationalbankruptcyday.com/

 

Tonight’s Dinner

Written by andrea on January 2nd, 2009

This evening, I’m trying a new recipe for dinner, something called Shrimp Rolls.  I thought I’d serve it with a salad of quinoa, cucumber, red onion, tomatoes and Italian dressing.  If dinner goes over well with quality control (aka hubbie), I’ll post the recipes below later this evening or tomorrow.

NOTE:  Okay, hubbie liked these, but I don’t think I did.  The recipe was supposed to be a shrimp knock-off of a New England favorite called Lobster Rolls.  Shrimp just doesn’t replace lobster real well in my mind.  So I’ll not post this recipe.

 

Idea for a Homemade Baby “Toy”

Written by andrea on January 2nd, 2009

I thought I’d try to come up with a few homemade baby toy ideas.  So during this week, I thought through that 0-9 month range in regards to child development to see if I could come up with things to make that would be nice toys to play with and would be an aid to development as well.

My mom told me the other day that she has purchased some patterns to make some maternity tops for me, but she needs me to pick out the fabric.  So when I go to the fabric store, I will see if I can also find a bunch of neat remnants to make the first of my toy ideas.

My first idea is to make a small quilt (of sorts) made of basic squares of fabrics that are visually and texturally different enough to be of interest to a baby.  I don’t plan on this quilt even being particularly pretty, but sensory stimulating to the eyes and skin.   This quilt might be a good place for baby to have “tummy time”.  I know there are mass-produced things out there similar to what I am thinking about, but I think I can make something neat here at home.  I might also see if my mom can cut small squares from some of her more interesting leftover fabrics and send them to me.

 

A Comment About Voting

Written by andrea on January 2nd, 2009

As politically oriented as I am, I have stayed away from “political commentary” on this blog.  Mostly because the blog’s purpose is not political.  But I have an issue on my mind that I think I need to write about to feel like I said something. I suppose it is not entirely a political issue either, but religious in nature also. I am not even a single-issue voter, but I’ve got a single-issue concern on my mind.

Why do persons who claim to be Catholic (specifically) not carry that faith with them into the voting booth?  The absolute least amount of work a Catholic can do to help stop the practice of abortion is to use their power as a voter.  How can you say you are pro-life and actually vote for a pro-abortion candidate?  That is an act which utterly and completely negates your espoused desire for ours to be a life loving country.

I know all too well why so many non-Christians will ask why they should become a Christian when the Christians they know do not live their faith. We are all human.  We are all sinful. We will all falter.  But voting is an intellectual act that one would suppose requires forethought.  Therefore, there is no defensible argument for being pro-life and having voted for a pro-abortion candidate. Oh, you say you wanted change!  Change from what?  We are and will remain, for the foreseeable future, an abortion friendly nation.

Over 40 million people not alive right now because of legal-abortions in the US since 1973…hmmm, guess we’ll never know how they would have voted?

 

12 Days Left in the First Trimester!

Written by andrea on December 31st, 2008

Wow!  Only 12 days left of my first trimester!  I’m pretty excited about that.  Thus far, pregnancy agrees with me and I’m still feeling pretty awesome, aside from being pretty frequently tired.

It is really neat to think that this is our last New Year’s Eve by ourselves.  Next year, we’ll have a little baby, yeah!

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Written by andrea on December 24th, 2008

Merry Christmas Everyone!  We both pray you all have a safe and wonderful Christmas.

 

Tired & Dave’s Real Birthday

Written by andrea on December 19th, 2008

I’m tired.  The first trimester tireds have hit me hard.  No morning sickness, just tired.  I slept like 10 hours last night and am tired already.  And it is a weird tired.  I don’t feel like I could necessarily fall asleep, it’s like I need to just lay down and sit still.

Today is also Dave’s 40th birthday.  And he’s on cloud nine because we are supposed to get tons of snow this afternoon and overnight.  I’m baking him a cake, fixing enchiladas (one of his favorites) and have a few little presents to give him this evening.   One of the books I bought him is still not here, but I’m hopeful that it will arrive with this afternoon’s mail.

The enchiladas I make are pretty easy.  I brown hamburger and a small onion, pour in one can of enchilada sauce (yellow can, forgot the brand).  Then I layer small corn tortillas on the bottom of a 9×12 baking pan, put on a layer of the meat sauce, a layer of Mexican cheeses, layer of corn tortillas and repeat.  Then I pour another whole can of enchilada sauce over the whole thing and top with a layer of cheese.  Bake until the top is golden brown (or darker) and very yummy.  I use to actually roll the meat sauce in the corn tortillas, but then it dawned on me that turning it into a lasagna of sorts was easier and tastes exactly the same.  And Dave loves it.  I usually use the hot enchilada sauce and several jalapenos in the meat mixture too.

 

Behind on Blogging

Written by andrea on December 18th, 2008

Okay, so I took a little time off from blogging.  At first, it was on purpose because I was busy putting together a surprise 40th birthday party for my dear hubbie.  Well, then I just got generally behind and I’ve got lots to blog about too.  But, today isn’t the day to get caught up, maybe tomorrow because we are supposed to get 10+ inches of snow and I might take part of the day to blog a bunch of stuff.

In the meantime, Dave updated the photos link over to your right (Our Photo Gallery).  He’d gotten stuck at August for a long time, but now it is up-to-date through December.

Today, I must get to the grocery store so I don’t have to go out at all tomorrow during the snowstorm.  Not that I have issues driving in snow, I just believe that the fewer cars there are on the roads the faster and more safely snow can be removed by the plow guys.  And since I’m a lucky stay-at-homer…that’s where I will remain tomorrow!  Oh, and Dave might come home early tomorrow so he doesn’t have to drive through the worst of it in the afternoon!!!  Yeah!

Also today, I need to hit the butcher shop, post office and bank.  I’ve got to get my family’s Christmas presents in the mail today so they will hopefully get them before Christmas.  And I finally finished my Christmas cards last night.  I really was wondering if I was even going to get to them this year, but I did.  I cheated on a huge percentage of them and purchased cards.  I’ve been trying to make most of my Christmas cards for the last few years, but there is always a percentage of folks that end up getting purchased cards from me.  And I was totally lame about not writing much in the cards too and didn’t even bother putting together a newsletter of any sort.  So a whole bunch of people are going to get a card that says:  Love, Dave, Andrea & baby due 7/27/09.  Rather rude to surprise baby news on extended relations & old friends like that, but my excuse is that I’ve been tired.

Well, I hope the sonogram picture below is fixed for everyone now.  My beloved computer guy hubbie knew what I did wrong and why it wasn’t showing up for folks that use Internet Exploder.  I’m telling you, if you use Microsoft’s Internet Explorer try Firefox instead.  Dave made me a convert.  Maybe I’ll put a link here for Firefox tomorrow, it’s free and way easier to use.