Posts made in May, 2010

Garden – Summer 2010

Posted by Michelle on May 29, 2010 in Gardening, Home Matters | 0 comments

After quite a few stops and starts, I was finally able to start my very first garden earlier this month! And of course, I neglected to post the few photos I took. While I originally wanted to do a no-till lasagna garden and also considered a square foot garden, I ended up just getting a 4′ x 4′ resin raised bed kit and filling it with bagged organic garden soil. Not as frugal as I originally wanted it to be but I’ve made peace with this fact of life.

In my 4′ x 4′ garden bed, I’ve planted a cantaloupe plant and a cucumber plant. I’ve also sewn the seeds for Thai basil, cilantro, daikon radish and snow peas. I also have a tomato plant and cucumber plant in separate pots. (No real reason for this other other than plain laziness.)

Garden - Day 0 (5/18/2010)

About a week and a half after planting, my daikon sprouts are thriving (YAY!) while my cantaloupe and cucumber aren’t looking so hot.

Daikon sprouts

2 Year Old Smoker?!

Posted by Michelle on May 27, 2010 in Life, Linky Love, Media, Observations, Parenting | 0 comments

Parents Let Two-Year-Old Smoke 40 Cigarettes a Day! | momlogic.com.

Wow. I mean, effing wow. Not only is this 2 year old a 4 pack a day smoker, he’s over fifty pounds!

From the original article at The Sun (UK)

“He looks pretty healthy to me. I don’t see the problem.”

Progress Report: 1+ month

Posted by Michelle on May 19, 2010 in Observations, Parenting, Therapy | 2 comments

When I picked up The Little Empress from school on last Friday, her teacher was thrilled to report that she was a very good talker that day. She’s signing a lot more at school and verbalized “peas?” (please) and “hep” (help) when she needed help doing something. She’s doing a lot of mimicking, repeating sounds that other people are saying as well as mimicking animal sounds like a horse’s neigh.

This is so big. For the past few weeks, there hasn’t been too much that has changed aside from more babble sounds but now that she’s starting to add words to her vocabulary, I am getting so excited! She’s responding so well to her school and she loves her classmates and teachers. I’ve noticed now that she’s trying to speak more at home too which is great. She may come to us babbling but if we remind her, “Use your words, say ‘please’” rather than letting us tug on her, she’ll usually oblige with the cutest “pease?” you could ever imagine. She now regularly says “up” in addition to her sign for it (standing with her arms above her head) which we have been trying to encourage for close to a year now.

While she’s still pretty hyperactive, she’s not so quick with the tantrums. She will try to use her words more often than not though she may not always be able to get her point across. I’ve noticed that she’s starting to sing as well as dance. She doesn’t really have actual words to her singing, of course, but she does babble in melody and has an amazing sense of rhythm. I’m so excited to see all these developmental improvements! All right!!

Foyer Table – Prelude

Posted by Michelle on May 16, 2010 in Crafting | 0 comments

From DIY Projects

Every Saturday, it seems like on every corner there’s some hand written sign advertising a yard sale. On a whim, I decided to stop by a garage sale or two this weekend to look for a few things that I’ve been meaning to buy but just could not bring myself to pay full price for. While I did not end up finding what I originally meant to get (baskets for organizing and/or any office supplies), I did end up picking up this little gem of a find.

I’ve been wanting to put some furniture in our entry way for ages now but have always left the store wheezing at the prices. I just can’t fathom spending $$ on a piece of furniture that I know will mostly be ornamental. I spied this little console/foyer table sitting forlornly in one corner of the third garage sale I hit up on Saturday. It is a solid wood piece but light enough for me to carry and sturdy enough to be a cute little table for the entry way. I’d found a similar one at Cost Plus for over $70 so I told myself if I could get it for under $15, I’d snap it up.

Turns out it was only $5. SCORE!!!

This little table needs quite a bit of TLC. There are quite a few gouges and rough spots from where the wood has taken a beating. My current plans are to refinish it. Looking up what I need to do, it looks like I’m going to have to get some wood filler to fill the holes before sanding it, priming it and then painting it. When I’m done, I’m hoping that it will be a stunning black with a cute brushed nickel pull.

Not that I’ve ever done anything like this before, of course. Bless The Hubs ™ for his patience because he heard my grand plans for refinishing this piece and has decided to let me amuse myself with the possibility that I may actually finish this project. Not mentioning, of course, the stash of fabric that has been left upstairs in my closet-sewing room among my other hobbies. I figure at least it is a nice, small starter project and won’t cost me too much considering I’m not crazy enough to buy any big tools for this project.

File Folder Fun

Posted by Michelle on May 10, 2010 in Homeschooling, Parenting | 0 comments

File folder games

In my quest to supplement The Little Empress’ education — and help her learn to speak better — I’ve been scouring the web for older toddler and preschool activities. I’ve noticed that TLE loves to play games — no surprise there, considering who her parents are — so when I found this site for Free File Folder games, I was absolutely over the moon. There’s a ton of free, printable games out there for little ones, whether they’re just playing at home or being homeschooled by their parents.

TLE loves to pretend to sniff flowers whenever she sees one and lately has been asking for apples to snack on (she learned that sign very quickly!) so I thought it would be fitting to print out the Apple Colors and Beautiful Bees matching games.

Open folder for the Beautiful Bees Game

I love these games because they’re simple and free! Just print them out using your own printer and tape them to an empty file folder. I was lucky enough to score some self-sealing laminating film off of Freecycle a few months back and have put it to good use by laminating the game board as well as the game pieces. Eventually, as I print out more of these, I’ll probably file them away in a hanging file folder of their own where TLE can get them for herself but right now, I’m storing them out of sight in TLE’s preschool folder where I keep all of her school information.