This Week's Christmas Craft

I apologize. I am being completely facetious with that title. I've already seen people on facebook complaining about Christmas merchandise being stocked in the stores. I know that there are a great deal of people who get really flustered by the mention of Christmas before Thanksgiving. I am not trying to tease you folks.

The little guy and I did inadvertently end up doing a Christmas craft this week but I promise it was unintentional. And while I personally have never been a fan of seeing Christmas merchandise on the shelves during the beginning of October I feel a little differently about it this year as I have been working on getting my Christmas gifts all planned out since sometime last month.

I wanted to do a craft this week with little Abe. I've done this craft before while I worked in a learning based day care years ago and I really liked it back then. I went upstairs to find my stock pile of tissue paper (which I'm now wondering if I disposed of when I did the basement clean up). All I could find were various types of Christmas tissue paper that I'd saved from gifts I've been given at Christmas. And a few new sheets of red, green, and white as well. "Hmm, I already planned on doing this with him, well, I guess we're just going to have to do it in Christmas colors now."

This is the simplest craft ever. But my little guy did end up struggling with it. First he and I tore some tissue paper into square-ish pieces. I put a little elmer's glue into a dish. I'm talking like 1/4 or 1/2 teaspoon little. Then I added probably two tablespoons of water. I really watered it down a lot. I stirred the water and glue up and then we painted one side of the torn tissue paper with the glue water. As soon as the tissue square is covered in glue water you press it to the side of the jar. Once the jar was completely covered I went over the whole jar with a layer of glue water. And done. After it was dry I set a candle in it and we got to see our lovely craft glow. The specks you see on ours are because we had a few sheets of tissue paper with glitter in the paper.

Little Abe was having a difficult time "painting" the squares of tissue with the glue water. His tissue kept tearing and balling up. I think he was just using too much force which is completely understandable for a three year old. I felt badly that he struggled with our fun craft so once the jar was done I randomly pulled an old pizza box off the table (that I'd completely meant to throw out that very morning) and told him that he could paint sticky water all over the box and decorate it with all the torn paper that he'd like. While I personally am not as fond of how visually stunning the pizza box covered in tissue looks compared with the jar holding a lit candle he really enjoyed painting the box, sticking tissue all over it, and then doing it again, and again, and again. The only problem is that now he thinks we're going to be keeping an old pizza box covered in tissue paper. Oops.

Trip to the Library

My little buddy and I have read 100 books in the past 20 days. That means we were able to go to the library for him to get his "100 books read" sticker and a prize as a part of the "1000 books before kindergarten" program. I accidentally referred to the reward that goes along with the sticker as a treat. So when the librarian handed us a box of books that he was able to choose from for his reward he wanted to know when he would be getting his "treat" too. He was pretty adamant about that treat which according to him is specifically something delicious and not necessarily a neat reward.

We checked out a handful of new books for us to read together and I actually took a few extra minutes to find a few books for myself. I can honestly say that reading is one of the many things I now neglect upon having a child/ being a mom and I swore I would never stop reading (and other things) once I had children. I'm pretty happy to have a few new books in the house now.

One of the books I picked up is a title that a very dear friend has been suggesting I read for awhile now. I'm a few chapters in and although it's a book I would never be drawn to myself I'm really quite enjoying it. The one line I've jotted down thus far though is:

Completely true! Made me laugh and I seldom think about food this way. Oh yeah, the book is "The Body Book: The law of hunger, the science of strength, and other ways to love your amazing body" by Cameron Diaz. Yes, Pieliekamais I'm finally reading it :))))

For the kiddo we checked out several books about being brave. He's working on memorizing the Bible verse this week (let's see if I can do this without looking it up), Joshua 1:9 Be strong and brave. Do not be afraid, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. (yep, I did it) We're going to do a few crafts surrounding bravery this week and so we've checked out a few books about bravery too. The one I like the most is Sheila Rae, the Brave. He was thoroughly intrigued through the whole book and when we finished reading it he said that he "really liked that one," with the little excited tremble that he's known to do when he's overflowing with happy. He also had an opportunity to do a bravery challenge at the library. I told him that he did not need to talk to the librarian if he did not want to but that it would be very brave if he stood beside me and did not hide behind mommy's back. He tackled the feat with absolute courage and did not hide behind me at all. He even handed his own books to the other librarian when we checked out. Progress is progress :)

After the library outing I took him to Tim Hortons to get a treat (a donut and milk). I had my treat at the library though. There was a birds nest in the parking garage and a momma robin was sitting on her egg(s). I noticed the empty nest last time we were there and I took little Abe over to look at it. But this time he spotted it and pointed out that there was a bird in it now. We watched the momma sitting there for a little while. Nature is so incredible! He says to me, "can you say good spying?" (He tells me what to say, A LOT). I congratulated him for noticing the momma in the nest. That is the kind of thing that is truly a treat for me.

When we got home from our adventure we decided upon some good outdoor time before reading our books. So we started putting together and painting a box house. He was less interested by it than I thought he'd be but that's probably because I chose to do the activity after a morning of running around. I'll see if he's into it after nap time. FYI, I drive a VERY small car. How I got that thing home from work... I don't even really know. It was a bit like Mary Poppins magical bag if you ask me!

Sorry for the long and random post. I haven't been posting much lately and I just wanted to take a moment in between reading and my kiddo napping to drop a hello. So, hi everyone! I hope you're all enjoying this fabulous summer. I'm trying to stay a little ways away from the computer and spend lots of time out of doors. So far so good! I have not tallied or added up the spending for, gee, at least a week and I'm afraid I might have lost a few days due to my negligence. I'll get at it soon though! I promise-ish 

TV Time Tracker (Super frugal version)

I feel like my child watches a lot of TV. He only watches educational little kid shows (when he's with me) and he generally plays with his toys while watching TV but still. My husband grew up in a household where the TV was always on. When I was a kid my brother's and I were ALWAYS outside but towards the end of my days at home with my mom and siblings the TV was always on and someone was always watching it. I prefer the TV be off more often than not. None the less it feels like the TV is always blabbing away in the background at our house.

Many years ago a friend of mine showed me how her boys had to earn screen time. She used Popsicle sticks and cups. Her boys were school age and if I remember correctly the Popsicle sticks were assigned different time limits, maybe 5 minutes for some of them, and 10 or 15 minutes on others. Since my little buddy is getting bigger, comprehending SO much now, and I am a bit concerned about how much the television is on here I decided to finally (I've been meaning to do this for awhile) put into use the idea she gave me years back.

I am a huge proponent of re-using jars. Thus the empty pizza sauce jar came into play; peeled off the label, gave it a washing, and now we have a TV Time jar.

I don't remember the last time we ate Popsicles so we don't have any sticks lying around that can be re-purposed. I did price a bag of craft sticks at the store. There was one with something like 100 sticks in it for $2.99. Nah, too much. This spring when I was pruning the bushes out back I actually kept a bundle of sticks I'd trimmed that were nice and straight thinking I could maybe use them for something crafty in the future. I trimmed one of these sticks that had since dried out nicely into six equal parts and then spray painted them with a can of yellow paint I had. And there you have it, a FREE TV Time Tracker; my favorite kind of craft. I may spray paint the word's TV TIME onto the jar but for now my mission is accomplished.

We've used the TV time tracker for two days. Right now each stick is allotted 30 minutes of TV time. 30 minutes amounts to two little kid episodes. He has to take a stick out of the jar and give it to me when he wants to watch TV. Then I start the timer (I've had a timer specifically for him for a long time now; we use it mostly for time outs or if we say, "okay, only 15 more minutes until..."). When the timer goes off then we turn the TV off or he has to give me another stick and then I start the timer again. When the sticks are all gone then we're done watching the television for the day.

There are a few really great things about this simple tool. It helps him better learn to prioritize and make choices. It's a great way for me to keep track of how much TV he's watched/ how much the TV has been on during a day. It's a visual way for him to recognize that, say there's one more stick left in the jar, there's only a small amount of TV time left so once it's been used the TV will not go back on today. I have had this idea in the back of my mind since years before ever having a child so I'm pretty excited to have finally brought it out. 

We've started simple with a few sticks being in the jar at the beginning of the day and each stick holding the same allotment of time. As time goes on I almost certainly will have him earn sticks and I will probably give them different allotments of time (much smaller than 30 minutes) as well as adding, oh heaven forbid, video game time. (Maybe when he's 25 he can start playing video games)

Now please, don't get in your into your imaginations that I'm a super structured mom (I'd love to be actually). I'm not. I mean sometimes we eat dinner at 3:30 and sometimes we eat dinner at 8:30. We'll do five crafts in a week and then won't do another for three weeks. I've been an artist with an artistic personality all of my life and structure is, well, it falls pretty far off my radar. But things like this little trick are a great way for me to get structure into our lives and teach my son a few really simple but valuable lessons along the way.

The really great news, (mind you after only two days) is that the TV thus far has not been on nearly as much as I'd thought. He's only used three sticks each day, and one thus far today.

Dandelions and an Earthquake

Since we don't get earthquakes (virtually ever) and since I've never experienced an earthquake I feel it notable to mention that we had the second largest ever recorded earthquake for our state today. It was very mild and we are 80 miles from where it hit (I don't know earthquake terminology so I hope that's proper) but the house shook for several seconds and boy was it creepy. Neither myself nor (obviously) my kiddo, or anyone else around here who felt it for that matter knew what it was until everyone on social media began posting about it. That was kind of a neat added aspect to the thing. Little Abe honestly thought a giant was walking past our house shaking the ground. He looked out the window to see if he could see it.

After the earthquake (its so strange typing that) we went outside to collect dandelions from the yard. I stumbled upon a dandelion salve recipe HERE and I intend to try it out. We haven't put down a grass fertilizer or any weed killer for a few years so our dandelions should be pretty healthy (that's hilarious right? Talking about healthy dandelions?). I purchased grape seed oil today to infuse the dandelions in oil and I'll have to buy coconut oil later but it was pretty neat picking dandelions from the yard to use for a really practical and neat purpose. I hope this stuff turns our great because I'm pretty excited about it. There is also beeswax in the recipe I'm following (yes I've substituted grape seed oil for olive oil) but it just so happens I know a bee keeper so she'll be getting me the 2oz. of beeswax. I don't think I'll be buying an essential oil for fragrance since the dandelions are good enough for me. We'll wait till we cross that bridge anyhow.

Average daily spending for 2015: $18.15

Using what you've got; Fingers crossed

It has begun!

I've just finished planting a few seeds for the very first time EVER. With the exception of elementary school experiments of course. I'm rather excited!!! Should I have probably purchased the little seed starter greenhouses? Probably so. Should I not be having my very first go at starting seeds in an egg carton tucked inside a juice bottle? Probably not. Even so I've done it and I'm excited and we shall see what happens. I do honestly get the hugest sense of satisfaction out of avoiding a purchase and being able to make due with things around the house (things that would have gone to recycle sooner than later too).

Today I've only started a few lavender seeds, two juice bottles worth; if I'm lucky I'll get eight plants out of that. But I'll soon be starting roma tomatoes, pole beans, and watermelon. Yep, I've officially decided on my garden this year and I am so happy (this will only be my second go at a vegetable garden). I have purchased seeds for carrots too but those apparently can go directly into the ground so I won't be starting those in egg cartons and juice bottles.

My strawberry plants from last year look incredible, such a hearty beautiful green and growing and growing by the day. I put too many plants into that one container last year so I've moved one plant to a different pot and intend to move one or two more shortly. Maybe I shouldn't mess with success but there really were far too many plants in that little pot.

I'll keep you updated, because I'm sure everyone is so interested to find out how my juice bottle seeds end up.

:)

Yellow Apple Basket Flowers

Sustainability folks and homesteaders alike seek to re-use things, find new uses for things, and get as much use out of something as possible. I'm just an increasingly more and more frugal gal but when I look up "homesteading" on pinterest I'll tell you that something inside of my heart starts to sing! I did so yesterday for practically an hour while my little guy was napping and it was a gloriously wonderful hour that planted hundreds of seeds in my mind. I'm actually looking forward to gardening and being outdoors considerably more than I already was and I found some ingenious ideas for gardening outside of the confines of our yard that my hubby is not very supportive of me digging up for a gloriously big veggie garden.

Today's project involved that pile of yard waste I posted about a little while back, an old rotty apple basket that I found in my basement during my recent basement clean up and some VERY invasive scraps of yellow perennials that were given to me many years back by my Grandmother.

My Grandmother was a wonderful gardener who had English garden type perennial beds surrounding her home. When my husband and I were first married she gladly split a great deal of her perennials and helped me plant a beautiful bed in my yard. I planted daisies, hostas, lavender, coreopsis, and several other plants with her from her garden. One of the plants she gave me was a very lovely yellow flower, Lance-leaf Coreopsis. That particular plant took over my bed, choked out my other flowers and just spread like wildfire. It's really beautiful but I got pretty mad at it the year before last for eating up all my other flowers and just started pulling it out everywhere I could find its remnants. I also found that it was super hardy, as I threw some scraps into a bucket and they took root in the other yard scraps I had in the bucket and bloomed for the whole rest of the year.

Today I have pulled up most of the remaining coreopsis plants (that have survived despite my having tried to eradicate them two years back) and placed them into this apple basket from my basement. I actually put three plastic jugs into the bottom of this basket as it's HUGE and I did not have enough scrap dirt in my driveway to fill it, plus I wouldn't have been able to carry it full of dirt. The dirt is not the best quality but I did manage to get most of the leaves, grass, and roots out by hand. I'm hoping the lovely yellow super invasive flowers from my Grandmother will bloom in the basket. I really think they will as they are hardy as all get out. And I think it will be a beautiful addition to my front bed at ZERO cost to me. I like the rustic look of the basket too. If the experiment fails I have only spent a small amount of time putting this basket together and will have lost nothing. This is my kind of homesteading beautification.

Now you must try and imagine these flowers in that old apple basket in front of my house. Of course I will post a photo later on this year if this experiment ends in success.