conuly

But they say that by the time they get to lunch, the food's warm, not hot. No doubt warmer than it would be without the insulated jar, but....

I'm thinking that like a tea cozy would help keep them warm longer. What would be the best material to make such a thing out of? (Can't find anything on Etsy, and the company doesn't make any of its own.)

Ana's school does Spanish once a week. I'm not impressed, but then, I didn't expect to be. Eva's class doesn't seem to do Spanish, but I'm not sure. Regardless, I doubt I'd be impressed with her elementary-level Spanish either. (Even in MIDDLE school, I passed first year Spanish three times. Every year they just made us retake the same exact curriculum, starting with hablo.)

Can't afford actual Spanish classes. I can at least read the language, very easy writing system there. I want a nice simple after-school textbook or program that we can do a few lessons a week and actually learn a little of the language. (Also, same as above but with French or any other language.)

Some of you homeschool! Help me! Shipping possibly no object, who knows?

What we're reading next, I have no clue. I'm welcoming suggestions! Something a little lighter where nobody dies of smallpox. (That's the part we just finished, with her little brother dying of smallpox. I didn't tell the nieces, but things don't cheer up until the end of the next chapter either.) I mean, this is a great book, don't get me wrong, but I like to alternate in all respects. Maybe we can read The Exiles or, I don't know, Dancing Shoes or something. (Huh. Where *is* my copy of Dancing Shoes?)

Question: What can I do with paperback books to make the cover last longer? Or to preserve covers that already show signs of wear and tear?

Also, I'm going to have to start another running list of chapter books to purchase. If anybody wants to contribute, let me know. I also need advice (and lots of it!) on graphic novels. For the love of god, do I ever!

Honestly, I'm not sure any schools in the city do, they focus a lot on reading. (And come to think of it, I'm not sure they do enough science either, but that's another issue.)

So I've started going extra math with the nieces in the evening. Not much, but a few minutes here and there, that's my plan. Just as a supplement, right?

Yeah.

Ana goes "MORE math? REALLY?" and I know she needs to review basic math facts (I'm going to absolutely go through my Games with Math book and start doing one every day, she has got to get her addition and subtraction through 20 memorized, it'll make her life much easier) and sneaks books and changes the subject and generally tries to derail the whole process. (She also needs to work on freezing up when questions are initially hard looking or when she feels she has insufficient time, and on working out what to do with word problems.)

Evangeline goes "Can I do another? Can I do another?" and sneaks the workbooks away from me and does extra pages on her own time. She does stuff where, logically, she shouldn't know what to do because I haven't read the instructions - but she works it out anyway, automatically filling in the right letter to the box or whatnot. This is a girl who is just good at doing workbooks, who is just good at taking tests. It's not fair, you know? They're both more than smart enough, but Evangeline is going to be lucky through school if she continues being good at taking tests.

Of course, Evangeline is also reading now. Ana, of course, is into graphic novels. The other day we took car service (as we do every week) to the YMCA for swimming, and it was a blissful change from most weeks when they talk loudly, squabble, play "INVISIBLE PUNCHBUGGY NO HITBACKS!", fidget a lot, and generally test my patience. This week Ana took out two books, handed the first one in the series to her sister, took the second for herself, and they sat and read right up until I actually dragged Evangeline into the changing room. Evangeline mostly studied the pictures and sounded out a few words, but still - it was quiet! SO QUIET!

And since I'm being random, on the subject of changing rooms, is there a reason I'm the only one who insists my little kidlet change in and out of her own clothes? It's not like the people "helping" their kids are getting out of there any faster than I am. And am I wrong for thinking it's a bit absurd (I'd say daft, but it's not actually in my dialect and would sound weird if I did say it) that, in the girl's changing room, where Evangeline is the oldest child (boys can go in up until the age of six, but the other children in the room were all 4 and under), people are holding up towels for their kids to change behind, and shooing them back behind the towels? Isn't under six (under 4!) a bit young for that sort of affected modesty in a changing room? Am I weird for the fact that I don't object to Evangeline just, you know, changing her clothes in the normal way? (And when she's older and starts asking for that sort of modesty, isn't that what the separate changing areas in the women's locker room are for? That's certainly why Ana changes in there - she dislikes the chance of being in a room even with small boys to change, and she likes having a separate, closed-off stall to change in if she pleases.) For that matter, there are two (two!) closed-off single-stall bathrooms in the girl's changing room, and four shower stalls. If this level of modesty is really needed, wouldn't it make more sense to just appropriate one of them for a few minutes rather than do the whole "behind-the-towel" dance? It makes sense in a public area like the playground or the beach, but in the actual changing room?

I mean, it's not like I'm letting Evangeline run around the place naked, but for the brief moments between off with the bathing suit and on with the panties (let alone her actual clothing, by which point I really don't care), does it matter if she's, well, naked? In the changing room? AM I THE WEIRD ONE HERE?

(It may just be this group. LAST session we had swimming on Wednesdays, and though there was much "helping", nobody did the towel thing that I saw. THIS session we're on Tuesdays, different group of kids, and it was towels all over the place.)

but getting into a groove and getting into a rut are two entirely different things?

I know that you're not supposed to boil certain vegetables because they lose some of their vitamins to the water. You're supposed to steam them or cook them in some other way instead.

I often try to get rid of spare vegetables by adding them to something else. Carrots, for example - the nieces don't consistently like carrots (that is, when one does the other doesn't), but they're cheap and we always have them, so I'm always grating them up finely and adding them where they're relatively inconspicuous. This helps bulk out the meal slightly, makes it a little more nutritious, and I get to move some carrots out of the fridge! (You'd think I'd learn and stop buying carrots, but then I see a few pounds of them for a dollar in the dubious produce section, and even old carrots keep. The siren call of carrots cannot be resisted...!)

Now, I've recently started making spinach rice. It's a good way to use up spinach (you buy it, but it doesn't get used that fast!), and it's yummy. You cook the rice same way as always, but when it's almost done you toss spinach leaves and butter (or margarine) on top and let it cook a bit longer. And in the process, I discovered that if you add very finely grated carrots to the rice BEFORE you cook it, and stir it in, the rice turns a pretty orange color, but that's about all. I love it!

Except... do the vitamins go away or not? I know that some of them disappear into the water when boiled, but then the water gets absorbed by the rice, so...? Are the vitamins gone now, or are they part of the rice, or what? (My knowledge of nutrition is somewhat limited, admittedly.)

The big bug had a bag.

The duck made a quick quack.

I stood and stared at his stuttering steed.

Kit-kat, ship-shape, hip hop. What's it called when you do that? I can't think of the term. I remember rhyming of course, and alliteration, but what's this again?

Edit: Thank you, steorra! It is apparently known as para-rhyme or double consonance. English certainly uses it enough for effect that I *knew* I couldn't be the first one to notice it and want a name!

Also, consonance of just the last consonant is called Half rhyme.

And from that roof I get the biggest icicles. I'm sure we have icicles on all sides of our house, which I simply can't reach, but the ones I can get to from my window sometimes get as big as my arm or larger - I swear one year I had one bigger than Ana! But of course, she was smaller then.

I used to take these icicles for myself to lick and then throw out the window or keep in the freezer until summer (something which never works as well as you think), but now I give one each to the nieces. Oh, I know you're not supposed to eat snow anymore and all that, but they don't really eat that much of it before they get bored!

So the big icicles, in the corner by my window, are all gone. (We might get more again soon, it's been snowing off and on all day.) But the little ones I couldn't reach, at the far end, are still there. And it's so strange - they had started out going straight down, like you'd expect, but now that the snow on top has melted some and they're hanging on by a thread (one just popped off just now!) they're all leaning in at an angle, towards the porch. Maybe the base of the icicle wears away unevenly? But why on the side *away* from the sun, then?

1. The kids keep coming home from school cranky and yawning. They get to bed too late.

2. When Jenn and/or 'dul gets home, it's already pretty late, and that's when they start cooking dinner.

3. Bonne-maman eats too late.

4. I'm home all day.

These added up to...

5. I should just make dinner every night instead of twice a week.

Which is what I'm endeavoring to do - prep dinner during the day, heat it at dinnertime. Anybody have any simple meal ideas? They should NOT rely on dairy (some substitution is okay, but it adds up fast), and they SHOULD have a good amount of vegetables or fruit in them.

Today I made:

Black beans with corn, red pepper, garlic, and culantro (that's not a typo)
Kale with tomatoes and sweet chorizo (bonus, the sale gave me three ounces of the spicy type free, so I'll use it elsewhere)
Sweet plantains with lime juice
Rice

So you can see that I have a green veggie (the kale), a yellow/orange veggie (the corn, and the mangoes for dessert), a red veggie (the tomato and red pepper), some starch (brown rice and plantains) and, of course, some protein (black beans and the chorizo). So that's a pretty complete meal, and other than the fact that mangoes cost a dollar apiece right now and I don't like them it was all pretty inexpensive, though it'll be cheaper still if I plan my menu in advance for next week. That's why I'm asking for ideas! Ideas for sides or for main dishes (which do NOT need to be meat-based) are appreciated. No crock-pot, so nothing like that.

(It's a short book! It's easy to read it several hundred times in rapid succession!) When Gerald first sneezes, he sniffs and rubs under his trunk, presumably wiping away his snot. But when he sneezes the THIRD time, his tissue goes all the way to the bottom of his trunk. OMG CONTINUITY ERROR!!!

Which all raises an interesting question. Do real elephants sneeze?

The answer is apparently yes. Incidentally, I love looking at pictures of elephant family groups, they resemble ours with older siblings and whatnot. I don't know of many animals that can do that.

Also? Videos of elephants painting. You don't see people teaching dolphins to paint!

Ana and Evangeline sometimes come out with gems of wholly inaccurate information. For example, in California they told us that they thought if water got in their ear they could go blind.

Me and my mom: No, honey, in fact, that's pretty much the stupidest thing that's ever been said, seriously.

Them: But Grandma said...!

See, now, there's the problem. If it should happen again (we found out after the fact that Grandma is also responsible for them thinking mice and raccoons go seeking out little girls to get sick, although how much of this is what she actually said and how much of this is small child hyperbole and blame-shifting, I don't know), what do we say? I mean, if we've already dismissed the idea as being completely asinine and without merit. If we know in advance where the idea came from we can say "sometimes grown-ups make mistakes, sweetie", but usually they don't pull out their credited source the first time we ask, only after we share our opinions on their little tidbit of false information. (I hate that. If I ask who told you, and you say you don't know, keep saying you don't know! Don't remember after we tell you you're wrong! NOT COOL. That's what happened when Ana's friend told her sex = grown-ups kissing in bed. It took me a month to track down where she heard this! Well, actually, that explanation of sex isn't that far off, but anyway.)

Hey, hey, LJ, what on earth should I say?

He introduced me to we_swap_snacks and I'm so in my first snack swap.

I got matched with somebody in Saskatchewan. Which I apparently can't spell. Hold on. Spellcheck, I choose you!

Huh, there's an a in that word. Got it.

So, as I was saying, I got matched with a Canadian. I was hoping for somebody overseas, but I've never been to Canada, so that's all right.

Having never been to Our Neighbor to the North, I have no idea what sort of snacks are common there, so I'd love it if my Canadian friends can post about snacks they miss after visiting here, or things they've seen in the media but have never personally had. Also, I'm going to keep a running list once I get it started of things I'm buying to swap, so any critiques of "Man, that's ALL OVER THE PLACE" would be useful. I'd hate to embarrass myself sending something she can pick up down the block for a buck!

I'd also like to send some NYC-specific treats, and here I have the opposite problem. Having lived in this city pretty much my whole life, I have no idea what's NYC-specific! If it doesn't say I ♥ NY on it, how can I tell? (And I really am reluctant to buy tourist crap.) I may post in newyorkers for help picking NYC-specific snacks and convenience foods.

Any advice?

( MY LIST! )

(And please feel free to spread the link to that entry around, I need help!)

...why not help me with something else and list me some fairy and folk tales. Not specific editions, per se (although if you have one that really rocks, that's awesome - and I'm openminded. If it merely seems like it could be traditional, such as The Apple-Pip Princess (black princess FTW!), or if it is based off of a traditional story, such as Bubba, The Cowboy Prince, I'm game), but just... stories themselves.

My nieces flatter me by saying I'm the best one to read books to them, they do, but I want to learn how to tell stories without having a book with me as well. And I also want to build up a supply of traditional stories in the bookcase, so I've got it both ways.

I suppose I could look up the Aarne-Thompson categories and mix and match to make up my own but... seriously, it's 1:44 here already. I don't know if this is an aspie thing or a me thing, but delving into an online (no mess!) pile of sorted and organized stories (and I've already told you all how I really like traditional stories and their variations as it is, oral tradition and how it changes is the underpinning of most of my interests)? I wouldn't get to bed until morning. TUESDAY morning, that is.

So, uh, no. Not today. (Maybe not ever. I know my limits. TVTropes is bad enough!)

No, no, no. A simple list of every fairy/folk tale our collective mind knows will suffice for now. I'm only going to list-list the traditional (old, that is) ones, but I'll keep recent books in mind if they're mentioned. Fables, too, those are good.

( Read more... )

You saw Friday's ep, right? The horror movie one? ( Read more... )

So, anyway, neither of us watches horror movies much. Me especially. I appreciate the value in a good scare, but not the kind of good scare that will potentially give me nightmares. (Do you know how LONG it took me to finally get through House With a Clock in its Walls? Of course, I probably shouldn't've been reading it at midnight, alone in the attic....)

We know this episode was full of references to this and that, but we just don't know to what.

1. Generally, where is there a site where I can see all the various things Psych has referenced? It's a very referency show, there must be a site about this somewhere.

2. Specifically, that scene at the end, with the three of them standing and looking out at the lake? It's obvious that's something (especially with Juliet emphatically shushing Shawn as he ruins the moment), but what movie is it?

So, Ana's lips are ridiculously chapped.

[Poll #1327895]

And a very, very, VERY random question: Why do pimples on or behind the ear hurt more than pimples anywhere else? What's up with that?

I know that some types of potatoes are good for baking, and some types of potatoes are good for boiling, and some are good for frying. Others are "all-purpose" potatoes, presumably good (or bad) at everything.

But... how do you know which is which? I mean, if I handed you a random potato, and you didn't know what variety it was, and maybe you'd just found out that there are more than three types of potatoes in this world... how would you know what to do with it without asking?

(Not that I know how much she can really read, but I'm going off what she admits to.)

This means I want suggestions for books in two different categories:

1. Books without words, where the kid works out the story alone

2. Beginner books that are intended for early reading - I've heard of, say, Bob books, or republished Dick and Jane books, that's the sort of thing I mean. They don't have to be inspiring, they just have to be simple.

Any suggestions?

Oh, and I've added a lot of books to my various online catalogs, if you're interested in what the nieces already read.

I have more books in Amazon than the others because I also include books there that I don't actually own - ones we took out from the library or read at the bookstore, especially if we happened to decide *not* to get it and I know why. After all that effort I'm now slightly irked that so few people call my reviews helpful there. (Well. Not that much effort. I get lazy after the first two words!)

I realized after I took a picture that it *can't* be plantago anything - the bottom of the leaves is right, the roots are right... but instead of the veins in the leaves going straight up and down, they kinda meander. Honestly, I don't know what I was thinking.

( Read more... )

Honestly, I don't normally see big-leafed plants like that, and what I do see are carefully potted plants that are tended, you wouldn't think they're natural to our climate up here! But this year I see these everywhere, and in untended gardens, too.

Long-ass roots, as I said.

Edit: The nice people in gardening are saying it's burdock, which seems right. If you can say otherwise, though, do tell me.

Does the "squeek squeek" bats purportedly make ever sound more like "skiffle skiffle"? If not, what the heck was that flying above my head yesternight that was grey (probably - y'know, it was dark out) and looked bat-like and went, uh, skiffle skiffle as it flew?

(If you can't answer, I'll just have to crosspost, so save me from that!)

Ana tentatively agreed that she'd be more likely to try egg whites (no guarantee she'd actually enjoy them, but that's fair, I have my own odd aversion to pasta with non-shrimp seafood mixed in) if the egg was made into a cute shape.

Like with an egg mold.

Thing is, I hate peeling eggs. I never really get it right, and it's a pain and a half, and shell gets everywhere - ugh!

So I had a bright idea. At least, I think it was a bright idea. What if I used a poached egg instead of a hard boiled one? Would that work? I can't think of any reason why it wouldn't, other than the fact that the texture of the egg wouldn't be quite as smooth and shiny.

Edit: How about this one - what happens if you boil popcorn instead of frying it?

JKR's flash-only site is nifty, even if it suffers the flaw of being flash-only.

So why on earth is her text-only site so... uh... ugly?

All these predictions!

I understand why the sea level rising, say, 100 feet is horrible. I understand why less rain in various parts of the world is horrible. Changing weather? These things are concrete to me.

But then I keep reading that predictions say the world could warm one degree, three degrees, five degrees in the next century, and... I stop.

I grasp that these increases in temperature are what ultimately causes the rising sea level, the droughts. I get it.

But I don't get how what seems to be such a small increase in temperature can really be such a big deal. Three degrees? I doubt I even *feel* three degrees either way, even if we *are* using Celsius. Five? I'd barely register it. So how does it make such a big impact on the entire Earth? That, I don't understand.

I remember this book I'd forgotten all about, and I lost my copy irrecoverably.

( Read more... )

Edit: Thank you, sayga! Afternoon of the Elves.

Edit again: Another book request? I hate to leave my helper unhelped.

It was growing on our nearly-dead tree outside my window. I couldn't get a good picture of it, but the limb fell down recently (honestly, the best thing to do would be to chop down the whole tree now, but nobody listens when I say that) so I went up and took two pictures, one of the underside and one of the... uh... otherside.

( The top )

( The bottom )