Monthly Archives: March 2012

Read at Your Own Risk: Helpful Tip for the Stomach Flu

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It happened again. This might be the 7th time since Labor Day. So I consider myself somewhat of an expert at this kind of thing. Especially since the first episode lasted on and off for 6 weeks, one while my parents were visiting, one over my birthday (this was the worst for all of us), then 3 weeks later while on a very tropical vacation. You would think I got this by now….

“Mommy, my tummy hurts.”

I dismissed it, when I now hear “My tummy hurts” I usually direct him towards the bathroom with promises “I won’t, I’m not, I am not coming in, I promise…just give me a holler when you need help and I’ll be right here.”

Nothing happened, but “Mommy, my tummy still hoots (hurts).” Hmmmmm, he seems fine. He went to T-ball this morning, loved it. Was enjoying a visit with his Pop Pop and Gramma and seemed fine. so.

I went for a run, Matt put the boys down for a nap. Upon my return, still sweaty from my run I hear shrieking coming from G’s room and book it up there. (side note: I run these stairs, two at a time, at least 30 times a day, often times carrying either a 33lb-er or 18lb-er on my front or back…when I am load-less it is almost as if I can fly up those stairs.) And good thing I did because I found G, tucked into bed, half of his face and head and sheets and pillows and pillow pets (4), and blankets and bed frame and carpet and books and wall COVERED in vomit.

Sorry for the detail. Hope you weren’t eating lunch.

Then I remembered the Vomit Carper Cleaner. Every Mother Needs This pin but at the time was more thinking “I’d like to get this off of my sobbing child” than “Hmmm, I wonder what the BEST and most effective way to clean this up would be?” BUT, as I told you before, I have been here MANY, MANY times prior to this, and with a child that has a sensitive stomach, I knew this wasn’t the end of it. So we took care of our current situation, put him back to bed (repeat x4) and then I went searching for the pin (on my iPad, while, no joke, watching G nap so he wouldn’t get sick on himself. I caught him 4 times while sleeping.)

“Hmmm, this looks awfully involved…and I’m not feeling so hot myself….” – famous last words

Ok, so we’re going to get gross here, but I’m sure if you’re reading this, you have had to clean it up at some point in your life. And if you have never had the pleasure, I’m sure you will get what is comin’ to ya soon enough.

First, this recommends scraping away the larger chunks with cardboard. I would recommend using a fork instead, that way you can kind of scoop away and you are not grinding it into the fibers of the carpet like cardboard would do. (I still can’t believe I am writing about this.) Plastic utensils work great for this.

Next, I read all of the measuring and ingredients she used and I was like, “Seriously, f’ that. Salt? Dish soap? Alcohol? I have run all over the house for that so screw that, I am going to stick with my good ‘ole trusty vinegar.” I use vinegar for everything! (Here are 45 uses for vinegar in case you are curious!)

Thank goodness for Costco. Where else could you find 10 gallons of vinegar for $1.59?*

So I doused the area with cold water (instead of spraying, like the pin advises) and tossed a folded bath towel on top to soak everything up.

Toss the towel aside, spray on vinegar, dousing it, you want it very wet. (I always have a spray bottle of diluted vinegar and water under the sink**, I just added straight vinegar to the almost empty bottle.)

Again, since I have been dealing with this for some time now, I have a dedicated nylon bristle scrub brush that is used only for cleaning carpet stains. Similar to:

I mean seriously, can this post get any more interesting?

Gently work the carpet fibers in an upward motion (make sure not to spray yourself in the face as the bristles come up.) Gross, I know, but still, I wouldn’t be telling you this is if I haven’t had some sort of experience with it.

Clean the brush off in a separate bucket of warm water and keep brushing (essentially, that is what you are doing) the area covered in vinegar until everything is pulled up from the fibers. So she recommends using a sponge. 1) sponges are my nemesis and I despise them more than anything in this world. 2) Using a sponge just smooshes everything into the carpet fibers. This is not what you want to do. You want to pull those fiber up and brush.

I then flush with warm water, alternating soaking it up with a folded bath towel until it it clean. At this point I feel it is ok to start patting and scrubbing the carpet with a towel, rather than a brush because all of the solid pieces should be out by now.

Thought some of the ladies (and gents, if that’s your thing) might enjoy a little break from the vomit action for a little eye candy

Pull out the baking soda (I Costco-ize this as well. Because it comes in a 13.5, resealable bag with built-in handle. And then I won’t have to buy baking soda for 6 months or so.) and sprinkle, let sit for an hour and vacuum up.

Now that I type this out, it does sound time consuming. But seriously, we’re talking about cleaning up PUKE, I think you would want to be as thorough as possible and so you kind of expect it to be time consuming. Except when the pukes overlap and well, seriously? Why am I writing about this again? I’m sorry, I’ll stop talking about vomit.

Except, it hit me on Monday.

*This could be a major exaggeration as I cannot recall the exact price of my jugs of vinegar at Costco. Then again, it may not.

**I give this to G to help me clean. He cleans nose and hand prints off the windows, cleans the table, counter tops, floor, chairs, carpet, garbage cans, pantry door, couch, etc. you get the idea. The kid likes to clean. So I would rather him use something harmless and useful. He does a great job and loves helping out. Plus, that is one less (see above) that I don’t have to clean myself!

Sunday Strawberry Tricks & Organic Stuff

. heloise, Monsanto . , , ,

I eat a very healthy diet. Almost everything I make, including my spice mixes, I make myself so I know what ingredients I am eating. I eat organic whenever possible, including my condiments, baking goods, and spices. Often times my obsession with needing to know the ingredients of whatever I am eating is annoying to others, I’m sure. But this isn’t because I am some hippie, granola-lovin’, (ex) Boulderite. I need to know what I am eating because if I don’t, it could kill me. I have allergies and food sensitivities to some of the most common ingredients found in most packaged goods. Soy, preservatives, high fructose corn syrup, food dyes, 80% of all dairy products…and my beverage limitations: no wheat or hoppy beers, no red or white wine other than sweet Riesling, no coffee, no hot black tea, no soda.

Basically I can drink water

and MARGARITAS! (but none of that mix crap, must be homemade)

In a nutshell, my diet it pretty pure, but only because it has to be. I have a HUGE sweet tooth and I would down an entire pint of Ben and Jerry’s, often, if I could, but the repercussions from that would take days to recover from. And so, over the past 6 years I have learned what food my body thrives on and what food my body would prefer NEVER TO HAVE IT IN AGAIN AND IF YOU PUT ANY OF THAT CRAP IN ME I WILL LET YOU KNOW HOW COMPLETELY PISSED I AM FOR DAAAAAAYS AT A TIME! – says my body….if I eat something I shouldn’t. It’s kind of limited, but a very healthy diet. When I cook, at least I know what I am eating and as much as possible it is organic, (because, again, don’t let me get started on the whole GMO issue and MONSANTO..because that damn company and their damn seeds have almost killed me 4 times now.) BUT buying all organic does get expensive and sometimes you have to make a choice. Which is why I love this chart of the Dirty Dozen and the Clean 15 from my Organic Board.

So strawberries are one of my favorite fruits ever. I remember requesting fruit tarts for my birthdays when I was in middle school, instead of cake. I am weird.

So, organic strawberries it is. They are #3 on the Dirty Dozen list and we eat them every day practically. And so imagine my delight when I stumbled upon the Hull a Strawberry with a Straw pin. Because let’s face it, hulling strawberries kind of sucks. I got out of my seat, grabbed a big, fat straw (we do have multiple sizes, shapes and flexibilities in this house) and hulled an entire pint of strawberries in about half the time.

Hipstamatic, making pictures of strawberries look cool since 2010

Here’s the thing though, the strawberries need to be fresh. If you use ones that in in “smoothie shape” (just a day past their prime), it might be a bit difficult.  The fruit has to be firm to shove the straw all up in there.

Now if you will excuse me, I have to go test out the Vomit Carpet Cleaner. Every Mother Needs This, pin. It’s been that kind of weekend.

Bachelorette Parties & Sparkly Heels

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I am SO glad I no longer have friends that are in the Bachelorette party stage of their life. Don’t get me wrong, they are MUCH better than baby showers. But well, as stated in previous posts, those late, debacherous, alcohol-fueled nights take me DAYS to recover from and these days, I do not have minutes to use for recovery, let alone days. So, when my Best Friend, Kelly got married a year and a half ago, not only was I ecstatic for her but I was also secretly happy that this would be the last bachelorette party I would have to attend ever! Or for a while at least.

Look, we are upright, and in control, and not at all sloppy or flashing panties!

So imagine my disbelief when, upon waking the next morning I discovered this:

If you look closely, you can still see bits of Kelly’s feather boa stuck to the bottom

It actually is a lot worse than this picture portrays because there is a HUGE chunk, like it was chewed on by a confused squirrel or GOT IT STUCK IN A SEWER GRATE on the way to the sweet, serve yourself wine bar, The Tasting Room. Or maybe not, I’m just sayin’, it very well could have happened that way, buuuut, I do not recall this particular incident. Hell, it could have happened while we were retrieving an inflatable palm tree from AOL headquarters (don’t ask, but I can assure you there was no B&E involved). Regardless, it happened and I was sad it happened because I had bought these shoes just for this occasion, therefore, it was the first time wearing them. And the last time.

So, when I came across the Refinished Sparkly Heels pin (from my sista! Holla Jodes!) I knew I would try it on these shoes. Because what do I have to lose? They look like crap right now, if it doesn’t work, they still look like crap. No loss right?

So I FOLLOWED THE INSTRUCTIONS to a tee, probably painted on 6-7 coats and this is how they turned out:

They look a little too hooker-y to me

I chose gold because they do have this iridescent sheen to them and I thought it would be a nice contrast. Yeah, not so much. I despise them more now than when they had the huge chunk out of them. So I am going to peel that gold hooker glitter off, find some super fine black glitter and start fresh. I think Carlos Santana designed these shoes with black heels for a reason and I will now respect that and simply dress them up with some black glitter to cover the big chunk out of his CHEAP PLASTIC HEELS.  I will certainly post the results when I get around to the re-do. But seeing as how I haven’t had a date night with Matt since August, I do not forsee myself needing these darlings anytime soon.  And THANK GOD FOR THAT!

The Friday Flop – Sunday Edition

. Drinking, Friday Flop . , ,

If I was from the south, I would start this out with a very exasperated, and very drawn out “Y’all?”  Like, seriously, this past week?

But I am from the midwest, so maybe a “you GUYS!” would be more appropriate for me. It was a long, tiring week of solo parenting as Matt was traveling for work and I also had a higher than normal volume work week, trying to get a report done (which seems like it would be easy if you had more than 45 minutes of the day to yourself!) but with an newly budding early riser (5:45am anyone?) and both kids schedules screwed up from Daylight Savings Time, my 15 hour, pro bono days left me little room to so anything, particularly any fun Pinterest stuff. Also, despite exhaustion, my insomnia kicked in full tilt, so explain that one to me. (Not that this has anything to do with anything, but seriously, if you know how that can happen, I would love to know.)

You, reader, probably already knew this…”something must be going on with Kelly this week, I have seen hardly any posts from her except for those Car Bomb Jello shots and I am eagerly awaiting the results!” I’m sure that thought went through you mind a few time this week huh? Well, those Car Bomb Jello shots, or at least, the party they were created for…kind of did me in* (party was on Friday). I was going to update yesterday, but my brain was having a hard enough time forming words, let alone sentences, and certainly not entire paragraphs that made sense.

Car Bomb Jello ShotsSo yeah, more “finger-jello, chewy” than “slurpy, jello-shoty”

and that is why, this is the MOST disappointing Pinterest Fail ever. Seriously, have you ever chewed straight alcohol? Beer? Because, the recipe I followed made these buggers REALLY chewy. And maybe they would have been better if they were smaller? Or also perhaps, not in Car Bomb form, because they were kind of gross to me. Eating beer is not something I recommend. But don’t get me wrong, I ate my fair share of scraps (there were FAR more scraps than shamrocks) but I will admit, it was so weird eating them. And I think that is why they were consumed, because they were interesting, buuuuut, in my opinion not necessarily good (however, very festive and people love Car Bombs). Watching peoples faces as they chewed through it was rather amusing, so they were good for that. But, if I were to make these again, I would definitely reduce the amount of gelatin I used by half. I do know the gelatin to liquid ratio, so I really want to try this with wine (a sweet Riesling would be great!) and also IZZE would be a fun one to try too. Maybe not “fail”, but certainly did not live up to my expectations and such a let down.

Which leads me to Friday Flop, Sunday Edition #2, which is a guest post!!!!!! Which is also so, SO awesome because I was so busy this week I just didn’t have enough time to do much Pinteresting, therefore, I have very little content for today. So, THANKS DENA!

Dena and I go back, back, waaaaaay back to our Ked-wearing, Boulan Park Middle School Boys Basketball cheerleading days. (B-B-B with a P, anyone?) Anyways, Dena is also obsessed with Pinterest and while nerdily im’ing about this blog and failed projects etc. she graciously offered to do a quick post on one of her more disappointing pins. Which, I have seen, I was VERY interested in making it and so I am grateful that Dena had to deal with those feelings of disappointment (and the clean up) and not me. So, without further ado, Dena:

Okay, so here is the pin - http://pinterest.com/pin/93449760988051382/ – looks delicious, right? Healthy (I love knowing I’m avoiding processed or artificial ingredients when possible) and pretty easy and I had everything necessary already on hand.
Yeah … well here’s how it turned out:

The taste wasn’t terrible, but it certainly wasn’t delicious.
Moral of the story – I wouldn’t make this again. And that beautifully shaped thing in the photo with the oats and blueberries nestled into the top? FALLACY.
Now off to clean the microwave …
And with that, I bid you a Happy Sunday Funday!
*In my old age, my alcohol consumption has dramatically decreased, taking with it my tolerance. However, my brain has not caught up with this idea and when I do, on the rare occasion throw a few back….it turns into throwing a few more back than I really should have. Ouch, and also, really thinking about never drinking again.

Jello Shots

. Drinking . , , ,

This is the prequel to my Saturday post where I will tell you how awesome my Car Bomb Jello Shots turned out for the Pre-St. Patrick’s Day party at our neighbors house on Friday night.

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Ok, so maybe more like, Car Bomb Finger Jello…but still, EDIBLE CAR BOMBS!

But there has been an over abundance of talk this week about jello shots around my area……………and then, literally, less than 10 minutes ago, I found THIS!

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I think it is some sort of jello shot receptacle filler.

We shall find out in 2-3 weeks because faster than you can say “tequila!” I bought it. Oh yes I did.

Fastest pin ever.

I also wonder how many Jellinators have been sold as a result of Pinterest?

Plus, now you have a super awesome recipe for Car Bomb Jello Shots that you can make for Saturday. Let me know how they turn out!

I Should Have Thought of That

. baby, Greek Yogurt, kids, yum . , ,

Oh wait, I already did.  You see, when I was making the Frozen Blueberry Yogurt Dippers I mixed in some Organic Strawberry Fruit Spread in with it. While I was scooping out blueberries from the yogurt big blobs of yogurt would fall on the tray with a splat, I thought to myself, “That will freeze in a little drop, I could just put this yogurt mixture into a ziploc or pastry bag and make little Frozen Yogurt Nibs. And then I will make a pin about it! And then I will blog about it!” Turns out, someone already had my brilliant idea, probably inspired by the same pin I was inspired by. And guess what? I didn’t pin it. Seems a common theme here. I need to stop doing that. Unfortunately for the original pinner, they haven’t labeled it well and can’t find it so I had to make my own for the sake of keeping this “Pinterest” related and not just “hey, this is something I made.” (SORRY DENA, TOTALLY not recreating a pin to claim it as my own, but I have searched for the past 10 minutes! I know it’s a pet peeve of yours ;) )

I digress…I made them and THIS ONE IS A WIN! QUICK! EASY! YUMMY! We are typically not dessert people, but these are great little treat after dinner or as a snack. And would probably be a great snack for someone watching their diet, these are not just for the kid crowd, folks!

Yum!I’ll admit it, I got a little fancy and used a piping bag and a fancy tip. ONLY BECAUSE I JUST BOUGHT THEM, Not at all because they look nicer for pictures

The Friday Flop

. i want to make this, yum . ,

Last week I posted about all of my so called “failed pins.”  When I look back, it was more like, some of them didn’t meet my expectations and I could probably figure out a better way to do it. So they were not real “failures”, but more so “flops.” Well, I had a few more this week and so I have decided to start a series called The Friday Flop. Just a simple wrap-up of my less than stellar “pin” attempts and how I could have improved it. Also, I am not a quitter, so I’m sure I will update on my sequential attempts.

Failure #1

Frozen Banana Bites: I did it again.  I saw a the picture and didn’t read the pin, I didn’t even pin the pin, and what happened? A big chocolately, banana-y (but delicious) mess. Here, take a look and tell me what you would ASSUME this picture meant because this is the exact pin I saw:

You might say, “Huh, it looks like they dipped an entire banana in chocolate, froze it, and then cut it up because how else would you get that little delicious banana nugget cut so perfectly?”

Or you might not, but my first glance at this, that is what I thought. And it was most likely from my iPad, so also a smaller version of the picture. Because a rationally thinking person would say. “But, if you cut through frozen chocolate, isn’t it going to crumble and fall apart?” No? You wouldn’t ask that? Because I did and my mom even asked the same thing, because she is smart and taught me everything I know. Yet, I insisted that what I saw was the correct way to do it. So that’s what I did. 1) Melt chocolate, 2) dunk/smear banana with chocolate, 3) freeze, 4) cut…..5) chocolate crumbles off banana onto plate (or floor, or counter,  or shirt…most likely shirt in our case.)

This is a CHOCOLATE COVERED FROZEN BANANA, people….I know what you’re thinking. And gross (I totally thought the same thing) and it makes me giggle every time I see this picture. Yes, I am like a 10 year old.

It was not the correct way to do it. It is now, quite obvious to me that this picture shows sliced bananas that are then dipped in chocolate or have chocolate poured over them, because THAT MAKES TOTAL SENSE. That flat part I’m looking at, that was the part on the tray. Seriously, a genius over here. Geez I wonder where I put my brain sometimes.  Regardless though, chocolate and frozen bananas are freaking awesome and make a nice little treat. Make these.

Failure #2: Bleach Pen T Shirt.  Insert frowny face here. Seriously, this is my saddest failure yet. And I even read the directions. However, I suppose it is my own fault for deviating a bit from them. It’s like the time I made homemade cream puffs from scratch and Martha told me to use parchment paper but I didn’t have any so I used tin foil instead (BECAUSE THAT MAKES SENSE, RIGHT?) and then the entire batch, all 50 of them burn because I didn’t use exactly what Martha had called for. The cream puffs were for a Christmas party that night. The raspberry cream filling had already been made so I had no choice but to drive to the store and buy parchment paper. The cream puffs turned out perfectly. I have had it in my arsenal of cooking tools ever since and learned that when Martha asked for parchment paper, she does not mean tin foil.

Cute shirt, cute little gecko…what could go wrong?

Well here’s the thing. I used my the wall vinyl from my Cricut (What is a Cricut you ask? Only the worlds most awesome crafting necessity!) and also, I realized as I was sitting down to do this project, the Bleach Pen I bought was gel. I don’t think I did that on purpose because I probably wouldn’t have bought gel had I been in my right mind (hmmm, a theme is popping up here!) So I used the gel bleach pen and the vinyl and…..

Voila!

Not quite what I was expecting. But not quite disappointed at the loss of the t shirt. Costco made these fabulous Calvin Klein t’s affordable and so it simply gives me an excuse to buy a few more. In the meantime, this t shirt will now become my tester shirt. I’m going to get a liquid bleach pen and some contact paper and give it another try. Oh no, this project is far from over. I will not give up on this one.

I can’t be the only one with miserable first (or second) attempt at some of these Pinterest projects. What projects/recipes/tips/etc. have you tried and failed at? And what would you have done differently or how did you fix it?  If you would like to put together a little write up and have a guest spot on The Friday Flop, let me know!