Household odds and ends

Two little things to share...

Newspaper bag full of bottle caps to be recycled

As excited as I am about our county's expanded recycling program, I regret that they do not accept any plastic bottle caps (because they're small and can clog up the recycling machines, I've heard). But I found an alternative to just throwing out my caps: Aveda has a cap recycling program. The Aveda webpage says it's just for schools, but I called up my local Aveda-affiliated salon and the employee said she'd be glad to take my bag of caps in to the Aveda Institute here in Charlotte, which is a collection point. I brought them in last week and am already filling up a new bag.

Herb drying sack hung in laundry closet

When my garden herbs revived with the (somewhat) cooler weather, I thought I'd try preserving some of them by drying. I researched methods online and tried this first:

1. cut the herbs with long stems
2. rinse and shake
3. gather into bundles (I used half twist-ties to keep them together)
4. set out to dry for a few hours (I put them on a plate on my counter)
5. punch holes in a small paper bag
6. tape the bundles of herbs inside at different levels (try to keep them from touching)
7. close and hang in a dry place (for about 2 weeks)

It worked! I opened the bag and found my oregano nicely dried. I stripped the leaves off the stems and put them in a labeled Ziploc bag for future use. I look forward to trying this again!

TOPS!

She's a fiesty one, our Teresa. Lately she's taken to yelling "Stop!" at David and I when we're doing something she doesn't want us to do (like working on the computer or putting on her pants). Only, she's not so good at putting the "s" sound at the beginning of words, so it comes out "Tops!" Which makes us laugh. And then she laughs at us. Not good.

So we've started time-outs. Right now we're sitting her on the floor in the guest bedroom and making her stay there for one minute. After the fourth time or so, she started obeying. When the time is up, we look her in the eyes and say, "You don't yell 'Stop' at Mama or Papa. Tell Mama you're sorry." And she says "sowwy." I doubt she understands much of this, but we're developing a habit. Baby steps towards discipline, right?

Miss Defiant herself

Bike riding with Mama

David and I found this bicycle with a child seat attached at a yard sale for $10. It's obvious that the seat is old, but everything is in very good condition. I gave the bike a bath and an adjustment, filled its tires, bought Teresa a helmet, and we were good to go.

Ready to ride?

When her helmet arrived, Teresa was very excited and wore it around the house. She let me put her in the bicycle seat without any fuss and seemed to enjoy our first ride.

Let's go find some yard sales!

We've gone out maybe 5 times total, and 3 of those were yard saling trips on Saturday mornings (I can hit more yard sales in the surrounding neighborhoods riding the bike than I could pushing Teresa in the stroller). Lately Teresa is not as fond of the bicycle; I think she gets tired of killing time at the yard sales while I shop!

I don't wanna!

Teresa plays the piano

Nothing special, but she does turn the music page so it looks like she's actually going to play the song printed in the first one. :)

Music? I don't need no stinkin' music!

Yummy soup and ball seat

Because it has been sooooo long since I've posted, let me treat you to two Teresa videos from earlier this month:

Rabbit Nest!

One of the books we've been "reading" (really just describing the pictures) with Teresa is a Little Golden Book called Little Cottontail. On the second page, Little Cottontail's nest is described as "soft and warm, with a bed made of grass and tufts of fur."

Today, while I was clearing the wax bean bushes out of the garden, I discovered this:


A bundle of dried grass? That didn't get there by itself. What put it there? I moved the top bundle aside and found this:


Can you see the tufts of fur beside the wood? Here's a closer look:


Thanks to Little Cottontail, I recognize this as a rabbit's nest! Right IN my garden!


I used my hand cultivator (little rake) to see how deep the nest went (not too deep) and brought up a lot more of the fluff. It looks like this made a very cozy nest under the protection of my thriving bean bushes. We had seen a rabbit in our yard regularly 2 or 3 months ago, and something was definitely chomping on my chard (but, amazingly, no other produce!). But I had no idea his residence was my garden. Gives new meaning to the term "garden bed"!

Cool dudette

Teresa, Teresa, yogurt eater

July Garden

The garden is producing very little this month; it was nearly decimated by the June heat wave we experienced here in Charlotte (in the 90's for several weeks). I've pulled up everything but the tomato and zucchini plants (which are still bearing here and there), the cantaloupe, and the beans (which are still in the ground only because I'm collecting seeds for next year).


1.5 hours of labor and 3 hours of simmering later, I had my very own homemade pasta sauce. I was very disappointed to see that 14 tomatoes only made half a jar of sauce. Fortunately, it tasted very good - sweet and fresh!


Harvest of carrots. Some were molding in the ground, so I had to pull them all up. They may be small and funky looking, but they taste great and are keeping in the fridge just fine.


The mystery volunteer plant (that God planted and I watered) turned out to be a cantaloupe! This one is almost ready to bring in and slice, and there's another one growing, too. :)


From garden to plate: homemade pizza with sliced tomatoes and basil; steamed zucchini and carrots.


My four little butternut squash. Two are hand-sized and two are barely bigger than small. I haven't baked them yet.

TN & KY vacation

Two weeks ago we took Teresa to visit my extended family in Tennessee and Kentucky and we had a great time. Here are a few videos of Teresa enjoying our adventures:

Teresa observes fish at Ripley's Aquarium in Gatlinburg, TN:


Teresa pets a goat at the Louisville Zoo:


Here's a rare one: David is videoing and I don't know it! I'm pleased that he caught some of my better mommying moments. I'm sure we will treasure the footage of Teresa blowing bubbles with her great grandmother for years to come. I was delighted when Grandma offered me 3 of her lovely plants (including a "purple shamrock") - they survived our journey home and are now thriving.