Category: Everything Else

Two items via the Huffington Post:

Sarah Palin gives interview while man in background slaughters turkeys. No, I am not kidding.

and, Chicago Chryster dealer offers Buy One Get One for $1 deal. Pretty sweet, I guess, except for the fact that I wouldn’t pay a whole dollar for a PT Cruiser.

The EPA is asking the public, Do greenhouse gases that cause global warming endanger public health and welfare? Tell them what you think. Comments close on November 28th.

One more reason to disapprove of video games: $1 Billion in Wasted Energy a Year. See which are the worst offenders. We do keep the TV and the consoles on a “killswitch” that shuts everything down when they’re not on (Monday through Friday), hope that’s helping.

Speaking of the killswitch, Danny Seo of Daily Danny is giving away an awesome surge protector with remote. I’m not seeing a deadline on this giveaway, but I would hop on over ASAP.

Attention fellow Facebookers: become a fan of Papa John’s pizza and get a free medium pizza with any online order.

I am excited: I love mazes and labyrinths, and I’ve just learned that we have one of the 10 Most Incredible right here in Pennsylvania.

I can’t wait to do this! As a bonus, they have loads of kid farm activities; we could easily make a day of it. I’m not going to lie to you, I am totally looking forward to the singing chicken show.

Thinking about buying an Energy Star washer and dryer, a hybrid car, solar panels? Be sure to check out the databases of Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency: Federal and by state. (via ecogeek)

It’s snowing at the moment; I’m off to frolic. Picture and quote later in the day!

Three years ago we moved three kids, three outdoor cats, one construction worker, one auto mechanic (my brother), and two big elderly dogs into this house.

A house with cream carpets so brand-spanking new that I had chemical-inducing headaches for a week.

Our first house-related purchase was a steam cleaner and it got a LOT of use. When we bought it we also stocked up on several containers of Bissell Multi-Allergen carpet cleaner.

Paranoid about chemical residue on our carpets- where the kids would be in constant contact with it- I would insist on multiple rinses each time we steam cleaned.

Which is about as much fun as it sounds.

Eventually we ran out of the Bissell stuff, and I kept putting off buying more because it’s really quite expensive, and I wanted to research less chemical-laden options.

The Good Guide had nothing to recommend. No carpet cleaning products earn more than a “fair” rating.

We tried Dr. Bronner’s Sal Suds but in spite of multiple trials we never arrived at a perfect concentration- too little didn’t clean enough, too much took forever to rinse out.

Carpet cleaning was put indefinitely on hold.

Last weekend we were having family over for Jacob’s belated birthday cake and presents, and Jeff and I faced the cold hard reality: we had to clean the carpets.

Jeff asked what he should use; I didn’t know. I didn’t want to put the money out for a product I didn’t really want coming into contact with Jacob’s horribly sensitive skin.

“I don’t know. Vinegar.”

And you know what? Jeff tried vinegar. This is huge: a year ago he would have huffed his way to Walgreen’s and bought some Bissell. “Real men use chemicals.”

But you know what else? Vinegar gets your carpets clean! Really, super clean! Six-month-old ground-in pond mud clean!

He pre-treated spots by spraying them with the vinegar-water-tea tree cleaner that I use for everything, letting it sit while we watched Cloverfield (a little over an hour. It’s a short movie).

Then he added two cups of vinegar to a gallon of water and used that in the steam cleaner. And then he rinsed. Once.

And I didn’t make him rinse again.

Thoughts

I love the Autumn,
And yet I cannot say
All the thoughts and things
That make me feel this way.

I love walking on the angry shore,
To watch the angry sea;
Where summer people were before,
But now there’s only me.

I love the wood fires at night
That have a ruddy glow.
I stare at the flames
And think of long ago.

I love the feeling down inside me
That says to run away
To come and be a gypsy
And laugh the gypsy way.

The tangy taste of apples,
The snowy mist at morn,
The wanderlust inside you
When you hear the huntsman’s horn.

Nostalgia- that’s the Autumn,
Dreaming through September
Just a million lovely things
I always will remember.

-Jacqueline Bouvier

from A Family of Poems: My Favorite Poetry for Children

Well, let’s pretend it says November and then go our wanderlust-y, gypsy ways, shall we?