Summer Camps

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I don’t have cash to blow on summer camps, but I’m pretty crafty so I’ve made my own. The boys are doing 2 paid camps – the summer holidays are 3 actual months long, after all – but the rest is all me, baby. I have had a few people interested in my schedule, so I thought I would share it for the benefit of all and sundry.

Gardening Camp
Last year was the inaugural Gardening Camp and it was a success. This year I am stepping it up to two weeks, and have secured the services of a “guest lecturer”,  as Husband coined the phrase. Our neighbour is a master gardener, and I have an appointment during the week so he has agreed to babysit. He will be pretty excited when he finds out it is Gardening Camp at our house. He has been working on his garden for 30 plus years and was in the local garden tour, so I feel sure he can add some gravitas to our camp.
Aside from a guest lecturer, we will of course be weeding and seeding, but also making transplant starts of hydrangeas and roses; a fairy garden; using the lawn mowers, and probably riding around in the ride-on mower trailer, to keep the merriment rolling along; composting; working on the hillside path, and perhaps some landscaping blocks around the joint.

Survival Camp
With all the earthquake activity along the Pacific Rim/Ring of Fire, I am doubly glad I had this idea.
Archery; making fire from scratch; foraging edible plants; camping; making emergency backpacks for the kids (we already have 2 big ones); making a solar oven and cooking with it; diy cheese; basic first aid. Conveniently, there is a Ham radio convention in our local area at the beginning of our scheduled camp week, and I have a book which teaches the basics. I shall try and include fishing, as well.

Technology Camp
After watching Honey I shrunk The Kids, the boys were gung-ho for all things technological and unrealistic, so this camp follows a week of paid camp all about inventing things.
We will ride the bus around town – which we never do except at the airport in Dallas; spend time watching planes take off at the local airports; check out the local kids museum which has a lot of electrical kids toys and gadgets; the aviation museum; rebatterise all of the remote control toys laying around, and finish off the week at the local park where Big Hero 6 is showing in the evening.

Sporting Camp
This isn’t really a camp. We will be riding bikes almost every night the whole summer, and doing bmx 3-5 days per week some weeks, but the boys are also doing a kids obstacle challenge out of town towards the end of summer, so we will probably head out that way and camp for a few days beforehand. There is a lot of hiking and biking trails around, and 6yo tried kayaking for the first time yesterday and apparently mastered it pretty quickly, so he and his bros will be keen to do more.

Calming Camp
This is also, not really a camp, but we need a few days off after we come back from our trip away, and doing some calming activites will help us with the time zone transition, I think.
I will be getting a copy of “Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes” and hopefully we can knock a bunch of them out ourselves; yoga; swimming; writing letters to family and friends, and members of the community; writing a letter to Santa to redirect his gifts for them to children in need; kid’s art studio visits.

After all that, there will still be 2 weeks of holidays left. Add in some sleepovers, and we will all be ready for school to go back!
Enjoy

A Case Of The Boohoos

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Last full day of school for the big boys today. 6yo had his end of year class party yesterday and it was fantastically fun, with lots of great activitiea. 8yo had his party at school with thoughtful readings, snacks and outside water games. I got teary a few times listening to what the students read aloud.
One of the boys loved a sport and his mum, and dreams of being married. 8yo said Minecrft a few times and has downgraded his future employment from “sientist” to minecraft player, but he described himself really nicely, so I will try hard to have mellow summer and not worry about the yelling.
We are at the beach for the 30th anniversary of The Goonies this weekend (Heeeeeeey Yoooooou Guuuuyyys); no school Monday for parent teacher conferences; half days on tuesday and Wednesday, and THAT’S IT! Three whole actual months of holidays. Holy shit! I will be boohooing more if my wine stash isn’t up to the task.

Crafty Mama

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4yo doesn’t take medecine, period. He had his tonsils/adenoids out 18 months ago and refused meds of any kind 90% of his recovery time. Any time he has a bad cold or sore throat, he refuses medicine, even tea with honey or chewable kid stuff. It’s sort of a nightmare, because I can’t help him but we need to keep doing whatever we are doing, of course. So sometimes I try and hide the honey (buckwheat honey tastes like shit, but it was recommended to me by a Dr for kids’ cough and chest colds) in juice, or even apple cidar vinegar in juice. Of course, he takes one sip and is onto me, like a dog avoiding heartworm tablets, but I’ve got to keep trying.
Right now he has a sore throat and a bit of a cough, so I have found a recipe for gummie lollies that I would like to try. There are a few flavour options so I can do buckwheat honey as well as the local raw stuff I bought a carton of last weekend. Also, I just saw a recipe for rose hip syrup and etc, which will taste like candy and be great for sort of everything. I’ve got to be crafty to stay ahead of the game. Wish me luck.

A Little Bit Less

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It’s summer holidays in just a few days but I’m thinking about Christmas presents already. Organised, or crazy? Probably both, but both have merit. I have a long list of people I like to send gifts to, many of which are sent overseas. Of course, I buy the most things for my own crazy offspring, but this year and from now on, they will be getting less. The less started last year, with less “filler presents”, but over the coming holidays, the boys agreed to writing letters to Santa to ask him to give their gifts to kids who “don’t have enough”. It took less convincing than I thought it would, and received the same amount of whinging as I thought it would, but we are in agreeance. No more presents from Santa.
We have a shit ton of toys in our house, and half of it doesn’t get used often, so that will be a project in itself, but not getting stuff from Santa will help with not piling up the clutter, but also, hopefully, with thankfulness etc. I am sorry to say that there are still things in the loungeroom that have not been used or touched since Christmas. That is what I want to avoid moving forward.
The same applies to birthday parties, at least for the 2 big boys. We have kick ass parties at home, and ask friends not to bring a gift. Getting presents rocks, but can certainly be over the top when you invite the whole class.
The same applies to me, too. Mum was right – I really do want “just good kids”.

Small Townitis – Still Brainstorming

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Summer holidays are just around the corner – literally, right over there. We have a lot of fun things planned, and of course, a lot of other stuff that might not turn out to be as fun as I plan. One might think I could transpose some of that fun stuff to a date night, but not really.
Skating is cool, and where we skate has recently started adults only skate but it doesn’t start til late, and Husband is usually whining about not being in bed by then. Yesterday I found a rink that opens at noon, so we can keep some of our friday nights free for bmx races.
Also, I do not do bmx raxing myself, because I took a tumble nearly 2 years ago and that’s it for me.
Shopping is fun but expensive, and there aren’t  many evening shopping experiences available. Husband won’t be complaining about that.
Notmal bike riding is cool, and with longer evenings it will be fun to do post-dinner rides, but we can do that as a family.
Hiking? There are cougars in our vicinity not infrequently, so no. Apparently there are also bears not too far from here, so fuck no.
Exploring? Now there is a possibility. There are tunnels under our downtown from years ago; a local historian was trying to explore them a few years ago. Most of them are sealed up but perhaps not all. I’ve also seen ads for local haunted tours, which might be interesting if not fun. Perhaps an underground tour of local towns might be the way to go… Plus the cultural side, like museums or art galleries. Ok, sure, that is something, but I’m still looking for other ways to create more excitement, more sizzle. I might be asking too much for my demographic, but I’m going to keep searching.

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couldn't resist

Small Townitis

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I love our lifestyle – let me be clear about that. I love living in smallish middle America. We have playdates aplenty for the kids, and farms to smell the cow shit earth and see the carrots grow, and “downtown” to go for hot drinks and end-of-the-week treats. But after lights out for the littles, I’m at a loss for what to do in the grown up playtime hours.
We have sampled the nice restaurants and some of them are really nice, with great menus and wine selections, etc, but I can’t be eating for entertainment all the time. So I’ve been thinking about how to jazz up my nightlife when the babysitter is available.
My kids are good sleepers, so Husband and I can get busy sort of anytime anywhere without fear of little eyes or ears, so that really isn’t on my list of things I wish we could do more often. Perhaps it’s just me, and everyone else has their social hours dialled,  but I’m grasping at straws. I’m sure there is an underground but I’m yet to discover it, and perhaps it involves whatever the 20 somethings without kids are doing, but it don’t know any of them so I can’t ask them to help a mother out.
What do I even want to be doing? Husband has made it fairly clear that he led me on about getting tattoes, even though he was super interested when I found those cool tatts for him on pinterest, tsk tsk.
As an aside, all of the boys are in school tomorrow and Husband and I are off to the movies, which almost never happens. He doesn’t like wasting babysitter time for going to watch a flick, though, so that’s out for the evenings, too. (Fury Road tomorrow.)
Mini golf is fun sometimes, but I wouldn’t call it foreplay for a great evening. Husband suggested clay pigeon shooting but I don’t think I’d like to do that over and over.
I want some sort of short-lived adventure. Maybe we should take up geo cache, or orienteering, or something similar. The physical running around and discovering things seems excitig but I don’t necessarily want pre-organised things with loads of other people. Not that I’m against making new friends.
I’m going to have to keep thinking on this, and just prepare myself for Mad Max right now.

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Even this guy is on an adventure.

All Over Red Rover

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School is all but finished save for the thank you cards and end of year class parties, hence my drink.

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I’m  a bit of a planner, so I have loosely organised a bunch of stuff for us to do, with one or two actual summer camps thrown in there, but mostly it’s home-school-esque summer camps. Last year they were themed weeks that shaped our afternoons after the kids hung out in the daycare room while I got in a cheeky workout before they started crying for lunch. I’m  assuming this year will be much the same.
Anyhoo, I’ve roughed out our weeks and included in there is, of course, outdoor stuff and tent camping. Mostly it will be in the backyard because I like the hard stuff easy, especially when it comes to fresh clothes after whatever activities or accidents. And while outdoor stuff will prevail, indoor stuff has its place, too, especially on long hot summer days, when all they end up doing is smashing each other’s  lego and crying to me about it. As ya do. So I have put a list together of the movies I would like to have the kids watch, rather than just all the new fangled computer animated stuff that I never had when I was a youngen.
I started introducing them to the awful, boring, non-animated movies in December of 2013, when I forced them to watch a real movie with actual people (8yo’s least favourite movie plot) about one of Santa’s reindeer becoming lost and taken in by a young girl. Turns out that the boys enjoyed it. Who knew? So I’ve  been stuffing Tim Allen down their throats ever since, and I’m  not looking back now.

* Swiss Family Robinson
* Bugsy Malone
* Harriet The Spy
* Racing Stripes
* Sandlot Kids
* The Secret Garden
* Little Rascals
* White Fang
* Milo and Otis
* Beethoven
* Narnia
* Clash of The Titans

Ok, maybe not the last one. There are some freaky plasticine monsters in that show, but I always loved it, so we’ll see.
These movies are in no particular order and don’t include Honey I Shrunk The Kids or Flight Of The Navigator because I downloaded them a few days ago for consumption this week. Rick Moranis was a hit, obviously. Flight Of The Navigator will probably be on Saturday night.
I actually found a downloadable list of 300 family friendly movies which furnished me with the above choices. My list is a list for anytime, but some of them will correspond with our chosen “theme”. Specifically, The secret Garden will be perfect for our “gardening summer camp”; Swiss Family Robinson for “survival camp”; Sandlot and Little Rascals for our week of exercise and calming the eff down from our overseas trip; and at least the first Narnia movie for when the kids do their obstacle course. So. Ya get the idea.
Any cute movies that I’ve missed? I’m looking forward to watching or falling asleep in front of a bunch of these films, since I haven’t seen them in ages.
I heart Scott Baio!

I Just Whitened My Teeth

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In 3 minutes. With strawberries.
Last year I was browsing hippy blogs and was looking for a way to whiten my teeth, or was it clean them? With less chemically-laden bullshit. I found a page that said mix raw strawberries with baking soda. I tried it last year and thought it made a nice little difference.
Tonight I tried it again, only I got some before and after shots, this time.

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My teeth weren’t especially yellow or anything but at my kids’ school everyone seems to have porcelain veneers, or else just exceedingly white teeth.

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So, I used one of the last strawberries from the over-sized Costco punnet, mashed it, and put in about a tablespoon of baking soda and mixed it up.

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It fizzed a little, and then i put my brush in it and sort of painted it on my teeth,

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all the while, trying not to swallow it, because, baking soda. I put the timer on for 1 full minute after I had pfaffed about not swallowing then adding more and more not swallowing.

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Me not swallowing baking soda.

After the timer went off, I spat it into the toilet and immediately covered it with loo paper and flushed, because I don’t need anyone asking about bloody things in the toilet just yet. I rinsed out my mouth, then did a quick brush using just water.

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Results? I don’t  think the photos are quite as comparable as I thought, lighting-wise, but I’m pretty sure my teeth are whiter!
I would not do this very often, especially as I don’t smoke or drink coffee, but I do think it safe enough to try on the big boys once. They won’t like it, but they will love the results.
Regarding kids’ teeth, we have also had great success using butter oil caps. Warning: they taste like absolute shite.

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Love my brighter smile!

The Inevitability Of It All

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Allergy and cold season has finally fallen upon me. As luck would have it, Husband was home and the kids were all in school, so I was actually able to rest and drink plenty of fluids. By my count, it was 4 liters, not of goddamn cola, but of various teas. I kept my feet up for 85% of the day and even took a nap.

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At first I was thinking of all the things I would be able to do with the extra time from skipping the gym in the morning, but then I just went and read in bed.
Of course, this happens to all and sundry so who cares about my sniffles. But just look at all the vintage goodness I was able to blow my horrific boogies on!

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So much pretty, and I even found a handful still in their wrappings.
We have been tissue-free for a while now, possibly more than a year – I can’t remember, and it is working out well. Generally I save the vintage linen for myself, and the boys use the diy hankies I “made”, which I did by snipping up a bag full of old onesies that were too stained to give away.
Husband has a few good-sized daddy hankies, but he will then reach for TP because his fingers are man-sized and the diy hankies too thick to fit in the tiny space created when he sticks his fingers in his nostrils…
We also did away with paper towels in the kitchen, and just use tea towels for mopping up the constant spills, and linen napkins picked up around town and at estate sales. I do have a few fave napkins, but none so pretty as the bogey rags.
And last but not least on the paper front, we do still use toilet paper, and intend to keep it that way. Kudos to those who use “family cloth”, but I have enough trouble washing my kids underwear, without throwing reuseable toilet wipes onto the mix!
Signing off to wash my hands now.

Those Telling Photos

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I often see maternity pics in my facebook feed, and good on those people for dressing up, or whatever, and sometimes even getting their gear off, and having hands on belly or boobs and belly or siblings and belly or baby shoes, or whatever other combination of must-have maternity photographs they want, taken and framed or just sent to all and sundry over the interwebs. I didn’t do those, and very few people I know have done them. I didn’t want to spend the dosh on more professional photos, especially after Husband never spoke up about the way he really felt about the colour of our faux leather wedding album.  Also, I don’t have any besties who are awesome photographers whom I wouldn’t mind dressing down in front of, for belly photos in some form.
All that being said, I was rethinking everything as I massaged my food baby bellyin the shower today, while the water coursed over my perfectly coiffed hair and lightly sprayed my perfect make up in a softly glowing, naturally lit bathroom, which was flattering from all angles.
People might ask when I am due as I swan around town with trendy maternity clothes and lattes, and enviously glance at my All stars sans pregnacy-induced orthodic insoles. And what could I tell them?
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Numero DEUCE!