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In honor of Will’s birthday, we went to the donut shop this morning. We bought 2 dozen donut holes and one chocolate cake donut with sprinkles to hold the 4 candles. The highlight was Will floating around, today, so happy it was his birthday, and Sylvie, following along caught up in Will’s enthusiasm.

Will’s big present from us was a set of walkie-talkies. He was pretty quick to catch on once we explained that they are like telephones and allow us to talk to each other from far away. We played with them for a few minutes before heading up to his school. Can’t wait until school/work are out for the day!

Will had his first scrimmage on an under 5s soccer team, today. He was so excited, he was fully dressed and ready to go by 6:30AM for his 9:30AM practice. We spent the next few hours bouncing around the house and not eating breakfast.

The soccer league sells jerseys, so we had to buy ours this morning. Its hard to size these guys considering the kids will use these same reversible jerseys for the next few years. We opted for dress-sized and a pair of small shorts. Sylvie was ready to play, too, and the only way I could keep her from throwing a tantrum was to buy her a pair of soccer socks. Will, outfitted in his new jersey and shorts, and Sylvie in her new socks, hit the pitch for some scrimmaging. Under 5s soccer is not exactly soccer. Until the kids are 4.5 or older, they have a hard time with the whole concept of the game. Rules like “no hands”, “each team has its own goal”, “the ball needs to stay within the white lines”, and “players should stay on the pitch” are all beyond these kids. For brief periods, Will was really in the game – kicking, passing, dribbling, scoring in the closest goal… But like the rest of his peers, he spent the majority of the morning on the sidelines begging for food.

We were busy swinging the lead and swabbing the deck in preparation for Captain No Beard Will’s big celebration next weekend. Lots of pirate activities afoot.

Doug made some awesome daggers out of PVC, electrical tape and gold spray paint.
Here’s how:

Materials:
– Gold Spray Paint (or silver if you aren’t a dandy)
– Black Electrical tape
– Cutting device – we’ve used hack saws for cutting PVC before, but today Doug broke out the chop saw for mass production
– PVC glue
– Length of PVC – we used 1/2 diameter, schedule 40 thickness
– t shaped PVC joint to fit the PVC

How much PVC?
– Our dagger “blades” were 6in. The hilt was measured to fit a 4 yr old’s hand (~3 in of grip + 2in per arm of the Quillion, or crossguard, and a t fitting for the crossguard). You need to add .5 inches to each measurement, as this is how much will fit into the t-fitting of the hilt. So, our final measurements were 6.5in + 3.5in + 2.5in + 2.5in or 15 inches of PVC.

Cutting and assembly:
– To cut the grip, fit your hand on the PVC then add 1/2 inch to accommodate the grip that will fit into the crossguard or t joint.
– Cut 2.5 in pieces for each arm of the crossguard.
– Cut your dagger or sword blade to your desired length.
– Coat insides of the t-joint fittings, then insert each PVC piece.
– Let the dagger dry for 30 minutes standing on end. You don’t want to lay this down in case you were too generous with the glue…

Decorating your dagger/sword:
– Once the PVC glue has dried, spray paint the blade and hilt, and let this dry.
– When the paint has dried, wrap the grip with electrical tape beginning at the bottom and wrapping the electrical tape at a 20 degree angle around the grip until you reach the bottom of the crossguard. Be sure to wrap the electrical tape tightly. When you reach the crossguard, wrap 2 final turns of electrical tape squarely against the butt of the crossguard.

En guarde.

It is pizza and movie night, Friday. And since I’m sick with the plague, we’re not making our own pizza, but instead, you are learning about one of our favorite local pizzerias – Gioia’s Pizzeria. Check it out.

There have been a rash of new babies born among our circle of friends over the past week. We plan to bring them meals. But first, I made them welcome home fudge using the Nestle recipe, but adding toasted hazelnuts. Oooh my! I broke down and sampled one of the dishes, today, as I wasn’t sure it was going to be okay. Wow, the hazelnuts were a yummy addition!

Also, I’m starting Twinkle’s Evening Shell from Twinkle’s Big City Knits in shell pink yarn. This marks the 4th pattern I’ve started from the book. I keep unraveling my knitting for 2 reasons – the instructions are poorly written and I can’t commit to just one pattern. Hopefully, this one will survive to completion.

A few years ago, I rescued a set of dining chairs from Urban Ore, one of our favorite places to find treasures. (Also a popular haunt for the MythBusters team.) If you’ve never been, it is thrifter paradise – a giant warehouse of stuff Goodwill and Salvation Army wouldn’t touch – everything from old windows, doors, and toilets, to furniture and ancient electronics.

Anyway, as is the standard ritual when I bring a thrifted chair into the house, I disassembled and recovered the seats. I’ve since had two kids who are learning to eat like civilized beings, but who have their share of cookie monster episodes where more food ends up on their surroundings than in their mouths, and as such, the fabric seat covers just aren’t holding up.

The solution? Recover these seats in new fabric and covered with vinyl.

Tools Required:
– screwdriver that fits the screwhead on the seatbottom (you’ll be happiest if you have a cordless electric driver)
– flathead screwdriver or tack puller to remove the staples holding the old material to the seat bottom
– pliers to remove staples
– power stapler and staples (I used 3/8 in)

Choosing the fabric:
I considered oil cloth, but wasn’t excited about the limited selection. There are a few cotton fabrics laminated to vinyl, but again, the selection is exciting, tho limited. So, I opted for upholstery weight fabric and clear vinyl. There are various vinyls on the market. The one I chose had a picture of a chair on the wrapping and had a stretchiness to it.

How much fabric do you need?
You can figure this out in one of two ways – the least error prone is to take the seat bottom off the chair, remove the old fabric, measure the old fabric and then multiply by the number of chairs. You can also measure the width and depth of the seat cushion and add 6-8 inches to each measurement to account for the depth of the padding and the fact that you need plenty of “hangover” fabric to securely fit the cover to your seatbottom. (My reasonably standard seat bottoms require 24in x 24in squares of fabric per seat, but I have another set that requires 30in x 24 in, so it is prudent to measure your own set.) Here’s a calculator for figuring out how much fabric you need.

Removing the seat bottom:
– Turn your chair over and unscrew the seat bottom (Note: you can click on any of the thumbnails below to get a full sized picture)

– With your flathead screwdriver or tack remover and pliers, remove the staples holding your old fabric to the seat bottom

– If you need to buy your fabric, you should measure and calculate the amount you need based on the old fabric you removed in the step above. If you’ve already purchased your fabric (and vinyl), you can get started making your pattern.

Cutting the new fabric and vinyl:
– Place the old fabric on your new fabric, cut around the old fabric. I usually allow plenty of excess for error, trimming the cover to fit after I’ve attached it to the seat bottom. I also don’t use one seat cover as the template for all of the new seat covers as I’ve learned that there is a little bit of variation across the seats, and it is always better to custom fit to the seat you are working on.

– Cut your vinyl to the same size as your new seat cover.

Covering the seat bottom:
– Attach the new fabric seat cover to your seat bottom using the power stapler. Lay your seat bottom padding centrally on the wrong side of your new fabric cover. You’ll be stapling the excess fabric to the wooden side of your seat bottom. It is important to get your fabric taut across the seat bottom and to keep the fabric clear of your screw holes (screws don’t travel through fabric well). I do this by choosing a starting side, securing the fabric to that side with one or two staples, then pulling the fabric taut on the opposite side and securing that side completely. I work in a cross – securing top and bottom then side to side. As I work, I cut the excess fabric clear of the screw holes. The fabric will inevitably stretch on the seat bottom, so you can’t possibly get it “too tight” in your securing. The tighter you can stretch it, the better. I fold my corners like “hospital corners” when making a bed.

– Attach the vinyl. Using the stapling pattern above – staple one securing staple at top and bottom sides, secure the bottom side, secure the top; flip the seat and follow the same process – affix your vinyl. Again, it is important to avoid your screw holes, so as you work, continue to trim the vinyl clear of the screw holes.

– Re-attach the seat bottom to the seat. I work in an X, securing the top left then the bottom right, ending with the top right and bottom left screws.

– Voila! A new seat bottom that can handle toddlers AND fraternity boys!

There are a few companies/organizations out there that really have me figured out. They do such a good job of profiling me, identifying products of all sorts that I love, that they MUST be cheating, somehow.

NPR is one of those organizations that has our family figured out. We own many CDs because we heard them on All Songs Considered. We’ve got the NPR cookbook. My library is stacked with NPR recommendations. My anti-sweets husband even took up eating chocolate because he heard an interview with a chocolate taster on NPR.

Today’s NPR recommendation is a singer/song writer, Laura Gibson. It is coffeeshop music. Kind of makes you feel like you live in a story book where you float just arm’s distance from cotton candy clouds in your smocked dress over fields of dandelions readied for your blowing.
For those without imaginations, it is warm lazy summer packaged into music. Hear for yourself.

I didn’t know this, but Art Garfunkel maintains a website, and he also has maintained a list of all the books he has read since 1968. You can check out the entire list or just Art Garfunkel’s favorite books. The list of favorites resembles my highschool reading list, but I think most of those are classics because they really are good.

I attempted the Gordito recipe off Mayo Clinic last week, and it required some tinkering. I added an egg, and I’d say that was the very least it required. It worked well enough for our purposes making mini quesadillas that were interesting and at least on par with those made using off the shelf corn tortillas. I’ll invest more effort in finding masa harina next time or at least add more fat.

Our version of theFonda mushroom quesadillas was:
5 leaves of epazote, finely chopped (I rinse, then holding the wad of leaves tightly between my index finger and thumb, snip fine shreds from the wad using scissors)
2.5 c chopped assorted mushrooms (oyster, crimini, woodear, … whatever is reasonably priced balanced with the cheap white button mushrooms)
1 tbs butter
2 cloves garlic
salt and pepper to taste
1 c grated monterrey jack
8 corn tortillas (either store bought or made adapting the Mayo Clinic Gordito recipe recipe by adding an egg)

If you are making your own corn tortillas, start that recipe first, as you’ll need all the quesadilla ingredients on hand when you start to assemble them. The Mayo Clinic gorditas performed best when I made them into tortillas and then topped them with quesadilla ingredients. If you intend to make pie-like, filled gorditas, do not cook the gordita mixture until you add the quesadilla filling described below.

Heat the butter in a large skillet until melted, add the garlic, epazote and mushrooms. I don’t saute the garlic first as I prefer my garlic cooked as little as possible. Saute the mushrooms until they have wilted and slightly browned. They’ll lose their sponginess and become firmer and meatier when they have sufficiently wilted. ~2-5 minutes depending on the mushroom variety. Salt and pepper to taste.

Prepare the cheese.

To assemble, (if using store bought tortillas) heat 2 tortillas until they bend, but do not break and have not begun to brown. Place ~1/4 c of cheese and mushroom mixture on top of one tortilla, top this with the second tortilla. Cook until the cheese has melted (~1-2 minutes per side). If you are using the homemade gorditas, I cooked those until lightly browned on both sides, then topped with cheese and mushrooms and placed them on a cookie sheet in the broiler until the cheese has melted. Repeat with the remaining tortillas.

Serve with: Herdes tomatilla salsa, black beans and slivers of avocado.

I’ve been reading Adventure in the Rocky Mountains,
basically the letters of a plucky woman who traveled the Westerns United States by herself in the mid 1800s. Since I’ve been to both Tahoe and many of the cities in Colorado she mentions, it is interesting to read how the landscape and inhabitants of those regions have changed and not. It also has me thinking that although I appreciate these are remarkable letters in both their detail and their description, our collective literacy must be on the decline since the advent of email. No one writes like this anymore. I’ve read many articles portending the decline into idiocy caused by email, IM, cell phones, and the internet (in general). I’ve rolled my eyes through each of those because I still read books, my friends and family still read books, we’re all basically literate… But, over the past few years I have noticed a decline in my ability to communicate. Some of this is the effect of having to communicate across national borders, as I’ve been working with a team in India whose first language is not English. Although the engineers I’ve worked with in the states are for the most part highly educated, I’d claim English is not THEIR first language, either. So, in my case, some of the language decline is directly related to the company I’ve kept. For the life of me, tho, I can’t recall the last letter I’ve written that wasn’t a 3-lined thank you, and before this blog, I certainly had not stopped to record events in my life in greater detail than a few words, with the exception of my life changing trip to India which required documenting. As someone whose preferred communication form is pen to paper, I can’t imagine that others are doing a much better job maintaining their writing skills. So, what are we missing? Are there fewer novels in the world today? Will historians have to piece our lives together from LinkedIn and MySpace profiles, the pictures on Flickr? And aside from the garbage we’re leaving behind that will outlive us by thousands of years, will there be little other description of what life was really like? What the air smelled like and what angst we suffered before the first days of… or prom … or …? Are they going to think that reality TV was reality? Or are blogs and Wiki’s replacing the letters of past, and AOL spk – which killz me – is my generation’s hieroglyphics?

Adding to the history books – our kids were Super Kids: