Hook Me Up, Xtracycle!

Today at work we had a small awards ceremony at which I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I, and the other members of my department, were the recipients of awards for dramatically reducing our case load over the last year, and doing a few other lawyer-ly things that the judges like us to do. In addition to a nifty certificate, we were also given a cash bonus. Yes, cash! Who knew this was possible? Anyway, the cash is enough for me to obtain the thing I have been coveting and coveting and coveting:

XTRACYCLE!!!! Is it not the most wonderful thing you have ever seen? I plan to also attach a stoker stem and handle bars and foot rests so that I can haul Garion around along with all my stuff. Oh, I will be one big, bad, hauling-by-bike machine! ********** Ok, in the interests of full disclosure, I had already ordered the Xtracycle about a month ago and have been preparing myslef to have no spending money until after Christamas. But now it all works out : ).

Just in case you missed it in the comments:

http://alwaysalwaysright.blogspot.com/

Where Grumpator Goes, There Go I, Arrgghh.

In honor of talk like a pirate day (a day late):

My pirate name is:

Red Prudentilla Kidd

Passion is a big part of your life, which makes sense for a pirate. Even though you're not always the traditional swaggering gallant, your steadiness and planning make you a fine, reliable pirate. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

His Father's Son

Said by Garion on the way home from school today:

"Mom, whenever I argue with someone at school, they are always wrong and I am always right."

Clean and Green

After Garion was born, I started reading a lot about the various chemicals and solvents sold in the grocery stores that we typically use to clean our homes with. Much of the research, some of which is just now staring to become more mainstream, suggests that many of those chemicals are not only unnecessarily harsh, but kill beneficial bacteria and have unknown consequences on humans exposed to their various fumes over a lifetime. Or, in a nutshell, lots of them probably give you cancer. I started looking for alternatives and here's what I've found for "make it yourself" cleaning products. I've been using my homemade products for a couple of years now and found that they clean just fine and smell nice too.

glass/window cleaner: 1/4 cup vinegar, 1 cup water, 1 tsp. dish washing liquid (I like the hippy kind from the hippy store). Mix it up, put it in a spray bottle and use the same way you would windex. Works great, no streaks and it is cheap, cheap, cheap. I also discovered, when I was to lazy to walk across the house one day, that rubbing alcohol works really well too.
*as a brief aside, I also quit using paper towels to clean the mirror/glass and started using rags or wash clothes, they work just as well and are nice and re-usable.

tub scrub: baking soda. If it's really bad baking soda and vinegar. If you want a little sudzing action, make a paste out of the baking soda and some dish washing liquid.

toilet bowl cleaner: straight vinegar, baking soda if you need to scrub. I have read, and it seems likely, that vinegar has lots of anti-bacterial properties.

all purpose, counter-top cleaner: 20 drops lavender or peppermint oil and two cups of water. Mix it up, put in a spray bottle and use like you would the other stuff. Lavender and peppermint are also supposed to have antibacterial properties.

fabric softener: I put about 1/2 cup of vinegar in a Downy ball and toss it in the wash. The vinegar works great but doesn't leave any kind of residue on your clothes (clothes do not smell like vinegar when done, which is nice, because who wants to walk around smelling like a salad?) As soon as I finish my current bottle of laundry detergent, I'm going to try making my own. I won't post the recipe yet, since I haven't tried it and therefore can't endorse it, but I'll let you know how it goes.

Go forth and clean green.

Too Busy to Blog, or Lazier than a Couch Potato Wilting in the August Sun

So, instead of blogging lately, I've been running around all over creation. On Labor Day weekend we labored ourselves up to my parents house where we had a lovely visit with two of my cousins from Spokane and their respective families. My brother brought down kayaks and I was persuaded to actually swim in the river. (My parents' house is right on the Verde River and they aren't even millionaires--I don't know what kind of extraordinary karma you have to have earned in your previous life to have a house on a river in Arizona, but apparently my parents were the Mother Theresa and Abraham Lincoln of their past lives because they've got it.) Normally I have nothing against swimming in rivers but this time of year it requires a near act of heroism for me to get in the Verde. Because instead of its normal beautiful green murky color this time of year, the Verde River in August is a robust shade of brown. As in a shade somewhere between two month old baby poop and cow pie. It's like swimming in a big stinky mud puddle. As an extra bonus, the bottom was nice a mucky and every time you stepped in the muck, little bubbles came floating to the top that smelled like cow shit when they popped. Yeah, that was just as special as it sounds. It was so bad that my brother's fiance lost one of her shoes in the muck and we never found it--that is some serious muck, people. Regardless of the muck and swamp gas, fun was had by all.
Last weekend, my mom and I went on a great trip to San Diego. I had a conference on Thursday and Friday and then my mom and I stayed to play the rest of weekend. Saturday was a picture postcard kind of day. The temperature was in the 70's as we strolled around Coronado Island and planted ourselves at the beach for a while. Palm trees were swaying, the ocean was waving (or whatever oceans do), and the living was easy. I could have stayed forever. Sigh. Work is so never going to be featured on any postcard.....sigh......