House Projects: Bane of Existence or Heaven on Earth?

Over the past week I’ve been busy finishing up birthday presents, having my entire family home, having my kids go on a sleepover, getting to go out with my husband, going to visit in-laws, having book-club, working on new things for the shop, and a house project. This is the project I have been [...]

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Kilowatt Update, Week 1

Last week I announced that we were embarking on a kilowatt usage tracking experiment. Some background information:

Our house is 1864 sq ft., built in 1948.
We have natural gas heating and hot water.
We have energy star for our fridge, dishwasher, washer & dryer, dehumidifier and chest freezer. (If there was energy star for ovens & [...]

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Monkey Feet!

Yesterday, minutes before KAB arrived for our birthday outing (her b-day, my half-b-day, a few days late) I finished her present, a pair of Monkey socks. The pattern was fun to knit and I love the way they came out. The gratuitous pictures:

Stats (because I’m missing working outside [...]

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Puppy Love

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You Spin Me Round and Round

We’re going to be doing a little test around here the next couple of weeks. We’re going to keep track of our electricity consumption to see just how much we are using. Though we do meter reads, that doesn’t make it real enough. We’re also going to try and remember to do [...]

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A Whole New World

I bought a serger.

Or rather, a portion of our tax return did. With it I have conquered my fear of sewing knits. I made L3 a hoodie t-shirt today! My sewing horizons are expanding and I’m really excited about making more clothes for the entire family in the future, as well as [...]

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My Bliss: Our Dining Room Window

We’ve been in our home for over five years now. Every time I sit at the dining room table I look out the window, actually find myself just staring out the window. You’d think I wouldn’t be so enamored of the view after so much time, but I still love it, in all [...]

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Sopping Wet and Searching for a Silver Lining

On Tuesday evening I sent the kids down to the basement in search of their paintbrushes because they wanted to paint. L1 was at a grad school class. The kids came running up the stairs exclaiming, “Mama, the basement is flooded!” “What?!?” says Mama. I look down the stairs, see the [...]

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Super Tuesday!

Get out and vote! L4 and I will be walking down to vote sometime this morning.
***Later***
Oops, make that afternoon!  The polls didn’t open until noon here.  It’s done.  And I love taking my kids with me to vote.  L4 was asking if she was 18 yet so that she could “boat” too.  Hehehe.

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Recovering from Affluenza

Wow. We’ve been wanting to purge the kids’ toys for awhile now, and I finally made yesterday a purge day. As you can see, our babes have had an abundance of things, the majority plastic and purchased by others who were well-meaning. When we say, “they don’t need more toys” maybe others [...]

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