Author Archives: admin

Dinosaurs!

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Since the Holiday Chaos has wound down we have been keeping busy.

This week we went to the U of M Natural History Museum and had a ball. I haven't been there in a few years. It is nice and small so a two year old can actually make it though most of the museum. There were a number of other families there on a Tuesday afternoon. Eli loved the Dinosaurs most of all (of course). They have a few nice examples. They have a full Allosaurus and Hadrosaurid, a partial stegosaurus, t-rex skull, and a pair of Mastodons (I know they aren't dinos, but I wasn't going to argue with Eli too much.

He also had a good time checking out some of the Michigan animals we see while canoeing. He made howling noises when we saw the wolf and coyote. And he loved climbing in the dugout canoe and playing with the interactive parts of the museum. They have a cast of an Ankylosaurus tail club to touch and he kept talking about it. Overall, a good way to spend a few hours. I always find something new and always enjoy the Anthropology section on the top floor.

'Tis the Season for hot, cheap soup.

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Even better, ones made in crock-pots (slow cookers) that are ready to eat when you walk in from work. I made this lentil-vegetable soup for the family the other night, and liked it enough to bring it into the work “Holiday Potluck.”
6 c water
1/2 c red lentils
1/2 c bulgar wheat
4 carrots, 1/4-1/2 inch slice
1 medium onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/8 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp (smoked) paprika
*1/4 tsp cayenne pepper *I just shook it in, so I'm only guessing on the amount
*1/2 tsp cumin
*1/2-1 tsp salt
2 tsp Better Than Bullion (or enough bullion to make 2 cups, or replace 2 cups of water w/stock).

Combine above ingredients in crock pot. Cook on high 3-4 hours or low 7-8 hours.
Add below items and cook for 15 min, or until heated through.
1/2 c cooked white beans (or increase lentils by 1/4 c and water by 1/2 c)
1 c frozen spinach
1/2 c chopped parsley
Finish w/lemon juice or soy sauce, if desired. (Also, the acid in the lemon juice will stop the lentils from further cooking, so that's helpful if keeping the crock pot on.)
Enjoy!

Save all of us.

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This is a scary time and I have held my tongue about the auto bailout because so many other people seem to be making sense. The problem is they don't make decisions. I saw this at Jalopnik and though that it was pretty cool.

This is a map of manufacturing sites for the Detriot 3 Automakers. It does not even count the suppliers.


View Larger Map

My Hero

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I am pretty sure that if you combined MacGyver, DiVinci, Paul Bunyan, and a healthy dash of Jesus you would end up with this man:

<%image(20081209-na.jpg|227|261|Norm Abrams)%>

Norm has not one, but two shows. He has his own show, The New Yankee Workshop, where he builds the coolest everything. He also is on This Old House. The man can do anything and his shop must have required divine intervention to become so amazing. He also has the advantage of owning every tool, clamp and gadget ever needed. It's almost like on the 8th day God created tools and on the 9th day he created Norm to name them and watch over them and use them.

Eli and I both love watching his shows. He can't stop yelling “DRILL, DRILL” or “BIG SAW!!!.”

If you want to also stalk Norm he provides a camera in the shop for just that.

Kids do stuff

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It seems I haven't updated anything about how the kids are doing in a while.

Eli is speaking in full sentences. We are doing pretty well coping with a two year old's whims. The morning routine is going better. We have him get dressed before breakfast and he can do 80% of it by himself. His clothes often are on backwards, but he is pleased because he did it himself. Sometimes he will complain about his butt because his underpants are on backwards, and he is getting a wedgie. Speaking of underpants, he is in them full time. For a while he was still wearing a diaper at night, but now he gets up in the middle of the night (not very happily) and goes to the bathroom. This morning he got water all over his shirt while washing his hands, so I had to get up to change his shirt at 2:45am.

Amelia has a couple teeth now. She also sleeps from 10pm-5am most of the time, occasionally even longer. She is eating non-milk food (I hate to call rice cereal or mushed sweet potatoes real food). She is getting big. She enjoys the johnny-jump-up, which also induces pooping. She is much lower maintenance then her big brother was, so I am glad we had them in this order. She is almost ready to sit up on her own.

Paddle tags

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Kevin Callan has a cool link on his blog. Cottage Life mag. has paddle themed Christmas gift tags on their site. They are free to download in PDF format and can be printed on label sheets and stuck on gifts, or printed on paper/card stock and taped/tied on.

I'm not sure how well this fits into the whole “green” thing, but you could reuse them every year, or at least print them on recycled paper.

Diet

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It's time to start thinking about New Year's resolutions. I saw this article on the This Old House blog about going green. It had some good resolutions.

Some of mine are:

  • Killing Vampires. We used to have the tv on a power strip that got turned off, but when we got a repalyTV we had to leave it on. I need to get it off the same strip as the TV and DVD players. The computer area probabbly a big draw. I can put the printer and scanner on a strip that goes into the UPS but gets turned off 99% of the time (or just unplug them since we use them so little). We recently set the computer to shut down at 11pm and we usually don't use it in the morning, so it will only be on a few hours a day. We also need to get better about switching off the strip with the cell phone chargers.

  • Stopping some gaps. The seal on the bottom of the side door is breaking off and I can see light through it. I also need to gasket or foam the outlets in the house.
  • Think about the upstairs. Our second story has original insulation over most of it. The problem is that all the easy places already have been bulked up. The whole cape cod shape makes it a real pain to add to the woefully inadequate insulation we have there. It pretty much requires a gutting.