Category Archives: heloise

Little Finger Eater Stopper

. heloise, kids, pins .

I’m switching it up a little today folks! I typically blog about other peoples pins that I find and do, and very rarely do I ever blog about any of my own pins. Particularly, this next super awesome, wow-why-didn’t-I-think-of-that brilliant idea that came to me out of necessity.

ain’t that the truth…

Now, before we go any further I would like to state that I do not have one childproof cabinet lock on any drawer or cabinet in my house. Mainly because I find them so. extremely. annoying. I would rather teach and show my boys their limits then have to deal with those awful contraptions (how very French of me, huh?) I also don’t have a lot of harsh, harmful chemicals under my sink so I am not as concerned if they were to get under there. But really, they don’t…….I digress….

So anyways, little smashed fingers! Ouch! Nothing worse than hearing your little crawler yowl in pain because he proudly pulled himself up on the drawer, pulled it open and then, uh oh! Someone loses their balance, leans on the same drawer except now his little fingers are gripping the top. He promptly closes it, subsequently smashing those same little fingers in the top of the drawer. Grant’s favorite finger eater was his dresser. Over and over again he would smash his fingers in there. I wish I had done this back then….

Two self-adhesive, felt chair pads…bam

This came about when I was trying to mute my slammy kitchen cabinet doors. The little kitchen cabinet door pads were not cutting it (they were still slammy and loud!) so I busted out the felt chair pads and noticed that, obviously it makes the drawer or cabinet stick out a bit. The light went off in my head…..or maybe it was a screech coming from Brody……but I doubled them up, stuck them on all of my kitchen drawers, and now no more pinchy fingers! (Good for dresser drawers too, those were the culprit of smashed fingers for Grant when he was a little nugg.)

NOW, this is not fail proof because we all know toddler and baby fingers are chubby. It may garner a small howl or whine if there is an actual drawer slam, but no where near the pain. I haven’t had pinched fingers in 5 months.

The first of many, Hints from Heloise  Keloise.

Natural Summer Remedies: The Test

. heloise, i want to make this .

I have mentioned that the house we are living in is fairly new to us (just celebrating our one year anniversary a few months past.) And although I LOVE my neighborhood there are a few things about it I could live without. Because one thing about new neighborhoods in Colorado, they are typically waaaaaaaay far out there. In the midst of farms, land, and other new developments spouting up here and there. Now, the dust sucks and I feel like I dust twice a week and I can deal with that (because I actually do NOT dust twice a week, I just SHOULD dust twice a week), but it is the FLIES that just kill me in the summer. With a back door wall that seems to be kept in the open position (thanks to the likes of a certain three year old, ok, I am totally guilty of it too….) But we often have no less than 4-5 flies in the house at all times. And as soon as I swat one, another sneaks it’s way in. We are a three fly swatter household and Grant is not afraid to use one!

But then I found this (from The Healthy Home Economist):

Fly Water BagGallon Ziploc bag, water, a few pennies

I hung this contraption in my backyard on a flowerpot hook that is no longer in use. It looks so white trash. SO. And I am sure my neighbors are wondering what the hell I am doing now. But guess what neighbors? I don’t have flies anymore! THIS WORKS! And so I am putting one up on my front porch too, wonder when HOA will tell me to take it down?

Next Summer Remedy: Using dryer sheets as a mosquito repellant. Apparently I didn’t pin this one, could be because I made it up? Here is a list of dryer sheet alternatives, but using it as a mosquito repellent is not one of them. But I swear that I have heard of this as a remedy* and wanted to put it to the test. So last weekend I brought them to the bonfire we had with our neighbors. Now, Matt and I came away bite-free (I cannot speak for our neighbors) and  I can’t say for sure if it was the dryer sheets or the fact that all of us had on LONG SLEEVES AND JEANS, or perhaps the alcohol consumption…but I cannot confirm or deny this one. But if you do try it in a more controlled setting, let me know how it works out for ya.

[As I went to post this to Facebook, ironically enough, in my news feed was an article from Stylist that test natural home mosquito repellent remedies and my dryer sheet tip was listed! However, seems as if you need to rub it on your skin. I just had mine in my pocket. Rubbing dryer sheet on my skin is just about the last thing I want to do...gross.]

*My research drove me to Snopes, they deny this one. I don’t believe them.

This Works! Another Time Saving (and FUN!) Household Tip

. heloise .

Happy Memorial Day weekend everyone! The unofficial kick-off to summer….and I LOVE SUMMER!!!!! This summer especially since last year’s was a big bust of waddling around hugely pregnant, bed rest the month of June, and then our little Itty Bitty came and well, that took care of any fun to be had in July, August, or September as I recovered from being sliced in half while figuring out how to care for two children (because even though I knew how to parent one child, did not mean I know how to parent two!) So this summer I am taking FULL advantage of EVERY SINGLE DAY! I’m not sure you will meet someone as pumped up about summer as I am this year (unless you talk to any school aged child, my enthusiasm matches something similar to theirs on the last week of school!)

Another thing I love? I mention this weekly so it should come as no surprise that I am talking about STRAWBERRIES. again.

I’m not sure why I haven’t tried this until now, but THE easiest way to cut your strawberries in slices is with an EGG SLICER! I did this last night. It was AWESOME!

Image

Kelly Schoger – saving 5-10 minutes of your day, one pin at a time

Source: Real Simple

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.

Read Instructions First

. heloise, i want to make this, kids . , , , ,

When my mom gets a new gadget, she ALWAYS says to me “Next time you’re in town maybe you can show me how to use it.”  As if I am some magical gadget gnome with the power to figure out all smartphones. And because I am an instruction manual reader, ALWAYS, my next question to her is “Have you read the instruction manual?” and ALWAYS the is always “no.”

Toddler Instruction ManualI read this, but it is not relevant to my model

Sometimes manuals offer tips and really helpful functions that you may not have known about.  Well guess what?  Same goes with pins. I pinned 501 pins in February (my inaugural month). Yes, I counted.  Now, I obviously did not read every single one of them.  In fact, a few of them I saw and said “I can totally do that”, did not read the instructions and what happened? They were kind of total failures. People, always read instructions first.

This weeks “Failures”:

Earlier in the week I made shaving cream bath paint!*  Sounded super easy and quick and I had been running solo for the past 10 hours and wanted something fun for bath time. Remember that thought: “fun for bath time.” We will get back to that.  Right, well it was super easy and quick and fun to make.  I used one bowl and a muffin tin. I mixed each color in the bowl and whatever color I had just mixed, I just added more shaving cream and a different color to make a new color.  For example, I made “red” which was more pink.  I then filled the muffin tin and had some extra red “paint” left over in the bowl.  So I added shaving cream and yellow food coloring and made orange. When I was done with the orange, I just added more shaving cream, more yellow food coloring and it turned back yellow.  That way I wasn’t constantly cleaning out bowls. I made 6 colors in about 7-8 minutes.

shaving cream bath paint

Now, what the original post for this did not mention is that you should probably NOT play with this at bath time. G’s bath water looked like the Ganges River.  I even drained the tub twice (we will talk about me and water conservation at a later date as well….I know, wasteful, but also, gross.)  I probably won’t do this again at bath time, but would recommend this activity on a day when you can just toss your kid into the tub without the intention of taking a bath…with the sole intention of playing and making a mess.  I mean, how often does your kid get to play in the bath tub?!?

Notice the clean water…he had JUST started playing because as soon as this touched the water…boom, Ganges.

I also tried the World’s Easiest Boiled Eggs! trick from my heloise board (Hints from Heloise?  Anyone?  Anyone?) Last night was the second time trying this and for the second time, I didn’t get the results I was expecting or that the pin showed.  The first time I shook the pan so hard I ended up with tiny shards of egg shell embedded in the yolk. Yum!  This time:

Cracked EggYou can’t put all your eggs in one basket without cracking a few eggs

and then, when peeled turn out like so:Needless to say, I STILL hold true to what Martha told me looooong ago.  The best eggs for hard boiling are old eggs.  The membrane on an older egg is tougher and less sticky, therefore will stay together easier and help pull off the peel.  On newer eggs, well, we all know what happens with them (see above, I had just purchased these eggs the day before.)  SO, lesson learned on this pin, you still need to use older eggs, but this method could make peeling much faster.

Next failure, the Calm Jar from my kids board.  Easy, mason jar, food coloring, water, glitter.  Turns out I had all of those supplies and G and I put it together quickly.  I even let him pour in the glitter (because that wasn’t messy). And we shook and the glitter settled to the bottom in less than 30 seconds. Wha, Whaaa. I can tell you this right now, 30 seconds is not going to help my child calm down.  A few days I was talking with one of my mom friends at Little Gym and she had made hers too, but with glitter glue and said it worked great! So I READ THE INSTRUCTIONS and promptly decided to ignore them because it calls for 1 tsp of glitter glue. SERIOUSLY?  You expect me to measure glitter glue?  Instead, I emptied an entire Crayola Glitter Glue pen into some hot water, 2 drops of blue food coloring, 1 package of glitter (2 grams), and shook.

20 seconds later, about 90% of the glitter had either floated to the top or sunk to the bottom.  What was left was this:

It took another 2 minutes for the remainder of the glitter to settle.

Grade: B, still does not meet MY expectations, but G likes it and it works so I should just get over myself, right?

and lastly, Car Drawing: We have done this twice now.  Attempt 1: miserable failure.  We used the small Crayola Pip-Squeaks markers and transparent tape and for about 10 minutes I struggled to tape that damn marker on any size car I could find and I could not, for the life of me get those markers to stay touching the paper.  I did not take pictures.  I was somewhat annoyed at yet another failed idea and thus, the inspiration for this post.  So, I recreated the scene of the crime to take pictures and wouldn’t you know it.  Like a car engine that stops rattling when you bring it to the mechanic…it worked!  The only thing I did different is I used the tall skinny markers instead and I didn’t pull the tape quite as tight as before (which was SUPER TIGHT!)

This car was particularly fun because it was a pull back car and could zip away and draw by itself!

The only thing I learned from actually reading the instructions after the fact is to tape down some craft paper or a larger piece of paper under the one that the drawing is taking place on or else you will be cleaning marker off your table when you’re done.

And so I leave you with this.  You should always read the instructions first….but then it’s totally ok to toss them out and use them as inspiration.  After all, isn’t that what Pinterest is for?

*So not a total failure, but just not what I was expecting