kubiac
-
Posts
1,454 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
1
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Blogs
Classifieds
Store
Posts posted by kubiac
-
-
I stayed out of Starbucks all week, whoohoo!
Lots of food stretching this week, and did some planting to take advantage of the coming rain.
We had a lovely frugal family movie night on Saturday with a Netflix'd copy of Frozen, popcorn made on the stovetop and hot cocoa using a weird collection of cocoa we've somehow acquired.
DH took the kids out so I could do the massive garage declutter which went well. Need to chuck a couple of big things in there or list them on NextDoor and then return the dumpster.
Also, going to donate a couple more surplus kitchen gizmos.
On the other side, at some point I do want to order a replacement lid for a Revereware saucepan I got at the thriftshop. I've been using a overly large lid and it's driving me crazy.
An upcoming project might be learning how to make sourdough from Zero-Waste Chef:
http://zerowastechef.com/2015/03/01/how-to-make-a-sourdough-starter-in-stick-drawings/
-
Would you please share your recipe?
May I share Mark Bittman's video tutorial on granola? He has so much personality he even makes granola interesting. :)
http://www.nytimes.com/video/dining/1194817105861/making-granola.html
The Prudent Homemaker's "Eat for 40 Cents a Day" series is terrific, and I especially like her "compare apples to oranges" article:
My Zero-Waste Home guru Bea Johnson was on CNN the other day and stated that packaging is generally 15 percent of the cost of a item, so simply buying bulk can provide a savings on that scale. (Obviously maybe not on every item, but something to consider?)
http://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2015/01/28/ms-im-garbage-ron-1.cnn
-
4
-
-
Jump squats are the best/worst.
Burpees when you're ready.
-
1
-
-
If you do anything like Bea Johnson's #zerowastehome or packaging reduction, Sprouts is far and away the best general resource. Love their produce, love the bulk options, love the plant-based/whole-foods/health orientation. They have some specialty meats like bison, if you're into that, and the wine/beer selection seems solid.
It's my favorite supermarket by a huge margin, not least because the prices are terrific.
-
1
-
-
If you *really want to get TMI, check this out:
http://www.vice.com/read/i-fertilized-my-salad-with-period-blood-0000400-v21n8
Vice.com - I Fertilized My Salad With Period BloodI bought a $12-a-box 10-pack of Instead Softcups at the drugstore to try out the system. Even though those are still supposedly "disposable" I'm still using the first one. I put it in the dishwasher (TMI?!) at the end of my cycle to superclean it. Insert and remove in the shower when you are just starting out.
I won't go back to tampons.
-
1
-
-
-
My aunt had multiple fainting spells and hospitalizations after a similar surgery, just FYI, but it did significantly decrease her weight/BMI and improve her overall health.
There is a book called Eat to Live by Dr Joel Fuhrmann that I consider transformative. If you come across it, take a look.
-
TNG, girl. No debate.
-
1
-
-
Argh. I bought books. Bad kitty.
-
The Ordinary Princess by M.M. Kaye is terrific and just about the length of the two books you mentioned.
-
2
-
-
Thank you Mystie! I double-posted this because I was using the Tapatalk app on my phone. My bad!
-
Thank you for each and every response, they are just what I needed.
You guys are unequivocally The Best.
-
I decided to walk to DS1's school for pickup and along the way I found a $10 bill in the gutter and saw a rainbow; so mark that up as a win for simple living!
-
Can you guys help me educate myself on the next step in reading "instruction"?
DS-almost-five can read. We finished the BOB books, and he does very well (although not flawlessly) with the likes of Frog and Toad, Little Bear, Beginner Books, etc.
Anyway, now that the "mechanics" are mastered, what do I do to help him build stamina, fluency and a passion for reading?He has a bedroom library of "I Can Read" level books and I plan on reading aloud to him until he has his driver's license.
Do you have your kids read a certain number of pages/books per day/week? Should I entice him with appealing twaddle like Ninjago books?
I feel like I was ready for "learning to read" but now I'm overwhelmed by the thought of guiding him through "reading to learn." Help?
-
Can you guys help me educate myself on the next step in reading "instruction"?
DS-almost-five can read. We finished the BOB books, and he does very well (although not flawlessly) with the likes of Frog and Toad, Little Bear, Beginner Books, etc.
Anyway, now that the "mechanics" are mastered, what do I do to help him build stamina, fluency and a passion for reading?He has a bedroom library of "I Can Read" level books and I plan on reading aloud to him until he has his driver's license.
Do you have your kids read a certain number of pages/books per day/week? Should I entice him with appealing twaddle like Ninjago books?
I feel like I was ready for "learning to read" but now I'm overwhelmed by the thought of guiding him through "reading to learn." Help?
-
Barbara Stanny's books are excellent, esp. Prince Charming Isn't Coming: How Women Get Smart About Money.
Ditto Lois Frankel's Nice Girls series.
But really, if she reads only one book before she leaves your house, make it (as suggested above) The Millionaire Next Door.
-
Also, I do home-make cleaners, but I would still love to see some other recipes if you would post them.
Nothing you can't find a million times on Pinterest, but cut lemons and kosher salt is my secret weapon. I use them on copper-bottom pans, but also they are great for scrubbing out bathtubs and sinks and all that. Ideally I zested them beforehand, and after the fact, I can send them down the garbage disposal to clean that out. The whole works is biodegradable and would usually go in the compost pile, but I don't want to put large quantities of salt into the compost pile on account of possible negative impact on the soil food web.
-
Use it up: We had a couple of small get-togethers last week and there is just too much leftover food. We're eating through all of that and then I want to eat from the pantry and the garden as much as possible. (Quinoa til we choke!) We have broccoli, onions and greens in the garden now, and fava beans and peas coming soon. The chickens are being very kind to us as well.
Wear it out: Kids seem to have broken the pencil sharpener but I think it has a replacement warranty so I'm going to call and try to get it replaced. We have to do better habit-training with the kids about school supplies: maybe if I labeled the jars, at least the big kid could put his away better.
Make do:
* My homemade cleaners have really become an ingrained habit! I still buy dishwasher pods and scouring powder (Old Dutch or Bon Ami), but everything else seems to be a combination of Dr. Bronner's, washing soda, baking soda, vinegar, rubbing alcohol, etc. Need to make another batch of citrus vinegar soon--we eat tangerines incessantly this time of year and I should stock up on white vinegar now so I can stuff them with the peels while citrus is in high season.
* I've also had great success this year propagating houseplants or just collecting them for free. Dining room is currently decorated with (a) succulents from a friend's wedding centerpiece, (b) succulents given away by a neighbor who was sick of them--I broke the main one up into four smaller groupings and gave two to friends, (c ) a spider plant that was sending off shoots into my mother's yard from the neighbor's house, and (d) a fragment of an ivy plant from my son's Montessori classroom. They've livened up the room greatly and I already had all the pots in my stash!
Do without: We are not leaving the house tomorrow. DH is out of town and I think tomorrow needs to be a quiet at-home day. Maybe the kids can help me plant another garden bed.
This week I hope to bring in some recycling for cash (we are in a bottle bill state), sell some books on Amazon, and continue to declutter the boys' clothes. I'm also going to order a dumpster from the city so I can start some massive decluttering work on the garage.
A decluttering success from last week was installing a magnetic tool bar in the kitchen. This allowed me to chuck the grunky 10-year-old knife block and free up counter space.
Also hoping to persuade the family to go on a trip to Legoland for DS1's birthday, rather than hosting a plastic-toy-attracting rager here. We'll see...
-
We have done this and it works for us, because our lifestyle is very stable/boring/conservative, so the unfreezing call is a rare and mild inconvenience.
-
I want American public schools not to look and act like derelict prisons, complete with chain-link fencing, window bars, cracked asphalt, peeling paint and a general air of totalitarian command-and-control in a milieu of rusty industrial distress.
I want beautiful garden plantings, skylights, blond-wood furniture, room to move, inviting libraries full of books and cozy chairs and soft rugs, sophisticated office furniture, computers that are less than a year old, decorative fountains, real art, cafeterias that serve beautiful locally sourced plant-based meals, uncluttered administration buildings and paperless offices and shiny musical instruments and clean glass windows and intentional architecture and mature trees.
-
A Child's First Book of Poems with pictures by Cyndy Szekeres has a really terrific selection.
Our favorite is The Golden Book of Poetry: 85 Childhood Favorites, from 1947 by Golden Press. Illustrated by Gertrude Elliott (blogged here: http://postapocalyptichomeschool.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-big-golden-book-of-poetry-85.html),but it can be hard to find.
The Faber Book of Children's Verse by Janet Adam Smith is excellent, but probably for the whole grammar stage rather than K.
-
I <3 this thread.
A juvenile Cooper's hawk got caught in some bird netting over our vegetable garden. It freed itself but we had a chance to watch it and take a photograph before it flew away. It left behind its dead prey (a warbler) so we got to examine that as well. :)
We live in the middle of the city so everything past pigeons and squirrels is crazy-exciting wildlife to us.
-
Finance has the money...right?
Sounds pretty good to me.
:D
-
We're in California, and maybe I'm selectively filtering, but I feel like sirs and madams are virtually unheard of here. When I hear a kid do that in a video or on TV I'm always duly impressed, but it sounds very unusual to my ear.
Nothing New/Mindful Spending Week Nine
in The Chat Board
Posted
I fixed all the Maglites! I fixed all the Maglites! Or maybe they were never broken in the first place and just wanted a long rest after being abused by preschool-age children? Suffice it to say, they all seem to be alive, with fresh batteries no less, AND I had the fun of finding the extra bulb hidden in the endcap of the red one I bought at a garage sale.
#REPAIR