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July, 2013

  1. Chill Out!

    July 31, 2013 by admin

    IMG_0848 We have soccer and swim lessons. We schedule playdates with friends and trips to the park.  We have jaunts that sling us near and far to museums, sculpture walks, or zoos.  We bake cookies at 7a.m. and salt dough at 3pm.  There are Lego building marathons and impromptu tinkering.

    WHOA!

    Planned fun can be just as overwhelming as scholarly lessons.  When Saturday and Sunday go by in a blur of joy, but you find yourself crashing on Sunday evening, it might be time to block out a do-nothing weekend.  Everyone needs to recoup at some point, and have a little alone time, no matter their age.

    There is a lot of discussion about over-scheduling kids with extra-curricular activities, private lessons, and test training/ tutorial programs.  But you don’t see a lot of attention paid to the idea that even fun needs to dialed-down every now and then.

    When we recognize that our family has been going full tilt and is beginning to fray around the edges, we declare a “stay-local” weekend.  We give our children a lot of encouragement to read a book on their own, find a quiet project, or just lay outside on the grass and count the clouds.  Of course, we occasionally hear “I’m bored,” as kids never stop being kids.  But with a little nudging, they quickly find an unplugged activity, like a board game, that brings a more subtle joy to their day.


  2. Bring Your Dog Into The Store

    July 29, 2013 by admin

    It’s summertime, so you can’t leave your pup in the car for even a few minutes!  Car interiors heat up very fast in the summer season, regardless of cloud coverage, so never risk leaving your dog in a closed car during the summer months.

    IMG_0335But does that mean you have to leave Fido at home?  Of course not!  Let your pooch come along on adventures to pet-friendly shops during the summer.  Here is a partial list of shops that allow critters (be sure to check with your local chain to ensure that they still allow pups):

    • PetSmart: all stores, nation wide!
    • Barnes & Noble: all stores, nation wide!
    • Mounds: A Wisconsin-based pet store.
    • Bad Dog Frida: Our local pet-boutique.  Check your neighborhood for similar pet shops that might allow your dog to visit.
    • Revolution Cycle:  Yes, our local bike shop is pet-friendly.
    • Star Liquor: In our area, you can even bring your dog on a beer run!

     

    Be on the lookout for small, locally owned shops that might be OK with your dog coming by.  Then you can let your dog accompany you on the next shopping trip!


  3. Sweet Potato Enchiladas

    July 27, 2013 by admin

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    We based this recipe off of one that we discovered a long time ago.  We’ve been tweaking it for several years, so now we consider it our own.

    Enchiladas are delicious tubes of cheesy goodness with a Mexican origin.  Ours are stuffed with sweet potatoes because we enjoy the chance to add this superfood to any meal.  The basic process is simple:  you make the filling, spoon it into tortillas, roll them up, and place in a baking dish with a smothering of sauce, a sprinkling of cheese, and finally bake—it’s a snap!

    Ingredients:

    1 Sweet Potato

    8 oz Cream Cheese

    8 oz Cheddar Cheese

    1 T Cumin

    Salt&Pepper

    8-10 small tortillas

    1 cup Marinara Sauce

    1 cup Salsa

    Tip1: For traditional enchiladas, use corn tortillas.  We’ve made them many times with flour tortillas, which worked great, if that’s your preference.

    Process:

    Boil Whole Sweet Potato in water for 20 to 30 minutes, until soft.

    Remove Sweet potato from water, allow to cool and slip it out of its heavy skin.

    Mix sweet potato with cream cheese, ¼ of the cheddar, cumin and salt and pepper.

    Place a ¼ cup or so of the sweet potato mixture in the middle of a tortilla, and roll it into a tube.  Don’t roll too tight or the filling will squeeze out the ends.

    Line up rolled tortillas on the bottom of an oiled baking dish- we use either a lasagna style pan, or a cake pan.

    Bake in oven at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.

    While enchiladas bake, put marinara and salsa in food processor and puree together to make your enchilada sauce.

    Pour sauce over enchiladas, add the rest of the cheddar sprinkled on top, and bake another 10 – 15 minutes.

    Serve!

    Tip2: This dish can easily be made in advance and heated up when you’re ready!


  4. To Rent Or To Own

    July 25, 2013 by admin

    Home-for-RentWe find ourselves at a crossroads.  Since moving to Madison, we’ve rented within the same building for 3 years now.  We love our location and we are blessed to have a ton of space, a garage, and a large back yard.

    But we have no ownership rights over our home.  If we want to plant flowers or vegetables, we have to ask our landlord and await his determination.  If we scratch the floor, all we see are dollar signs, rather than just being able to shrug it off.  Our walls are white and will stay that way.

    The upside is that when something major goes awry, like water in the basement, it is our aggravation but NOT our expense (only downside- repairs are completed on a time-table and a quality standard set by someone else.)  If we tire of our neighborhood, we can move when our lease is up.  And our bills are typically a fixed amount from month to month.

    Then there is the fact that we want colorful walls.  And we would love to expand our garden.  We don’t want to constantly wonder if the landlord will deal with the leaky sink.  If we fix it ourselves, will he get angry?  We long to establish relationships with the majority of our neighbors rather than seeing them change like the seasons.  We don’t enjoy holding our breath each year, wondering if the landlord will finally sell his building and not renew our lease.

    So which benefits outweigh the negatives?  We aren’t 100% sure yet.  But we’re stepping closer toward home ownership.


  5. Homeschool Huddle

    July 23, 2013 by admin

    In the TR household, we’ve barely begun our transition from not having an established educational curriculum at home, to focusing on homeschooling because your age-peers are going into pre-K this September.  But the panic of, “Can we do this?” has already begun to rear up.

    50139_algebra_smWe find ourselves in a challenging position where we oscillate from “we can handle it” to “maybe not,” on a regular basis.  We’re compare Bluey IMG_0401to other four year olds that have been in pre-school, or some other more traditionally organized care. And we notice small differences.

    But isn’t breaking away from constant comparisons to what the rest of the group is doing one of the reasons for homeschooling?  We don’t want to gauge our kiddo’s progress based on the performance of his peers.  Instead, we want to ask,  “Is he improving regularly?” And  “Is our Bluey happy and on a path that will allow him to unlock his full potential?”

    Crossing educational milestones in a non-linear way is one of the strengths of homeschooling.  We get to teach him what he’s ready for emotionally and academically.  And we are able to structure that learning around subjects he is interested in exploring.

    So Bluey is doing just fine.  We go by our own path and we see his letters improve daily.  His art advances each week and his basic math skills expand every month.  He has an amazing vocabulary and he loves socializing.

    You might be in homeschool mode as a full time endeavor.  Or you may homeschool on one topic as a way to introduce your child to a foreign language or art skill.  Perhaps you have an entirely unique reasoning that brings your family to homeschooling. Whatever the impetus, remember that the reason you aren’t in a traditional school is that you wanted to do it a different way.  And a different path isn’t always going to offer all the same outlooks, or outcomes, that the majority of people may experience.


  6. How Do You Know When It’s Clean Enough?

    July 21, 2013 by admin

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    Our TR home is bursting with 2 kids, 3 cats, 1 dog, and 2 fish.  We are grateful to enjoy a rather large square footage of living space.  But it is still crammed with hand-me-down toys, clothes that no longer fit but may some day, countless books, and a mish-mash of furniture.

    As much as we try to stay on top of the chaos of day-to-day living, we know we aren’t achieving Felix Unger perfection.  Our beloved dog, Molly Moo, leaves bunny sized dust balls throughout the house.  Our children can’t resist the urge to flick crumbs from the couch or table, to the floor.  Our laundry breeds.  Seriously.  How many dirty clothes can a family of 4 create?  Our cats selectively throw up on the only carpeted space.  It just never ends.

    So we find ourselves constantly chasing the mess only to keep it barely under control.  Sure, we could stay up late into the night to clean once our kids have gone to bed.  Or we could decide that it is okay to leave some dishes in the sink to be rinsed tomorrow.  For now, our sanity rests squarely on the middle ground between hospital clean and dorm room dirty.


  7. The Nature Channel

    July 19, 2013 by admin

    We recently spent a bit of our morning watching a momma squirrel guide her young family back to their nest during a rainstorm.  Another evening, those same baby squirrels were playing on our homemade backyard swing.  We’ve watched baby-birds grow in a nest by our door, seen chipmunks make repeated trips from seed pile to nest, and all sorts of IMG_0117natural wonders right outside our suburban window.

    We call it the Nature Channel, and it beats TV by a long shot.

    All you need is a window, some birdseed, and a patient attitude to bring the Nature Channel to your home.   Hang a feeder at a good viewing spot and watch the critters come!  You’ll see, with patience, several types of small mammals and many types of birds and insects- all from your window.

    Tip: A field guide to animals or birds will help your experience greatly.

    IMG_1632We talk about the animals while we watch, sharing information on the season cycle, the relationships between plants and animals, the cycle of birth and life.  We see some animals over several years returning to our feeders, and with practice we can tell them apart.  We’ve learned how to identify many species of birds, and noticed that some appear at only certain times of the day or year.

    So settle in next to your window and see what the Nature Channel has to offer.


  8. Roll-Out Cookies And Icing!

    July 17, 2013 by admin

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    Cookies are a common occurrence at the TR household.  Our kids love baking them and we all love eating them.  Although we readily consume all sorts of cookies, there is no doubt that the one we enjoy the most is a Roll-out Sugar Cookie with homemade icing.  They’re fun to make! You get to use cutters to create all sorts of shapes and you get to decorate them—it’s quite a process. 

    We’ve spent several years trying different recipes for these particular cookies and their icing, before we found the perfect one.

    Tip 1: Pick up fun cutters at the after-holiday sales at Target and other big-box stores.  We never pay more than a dollar for a cookie cutter.

    IMG_0559The Cookies:

    2 Sticks Butter (8 oz. total)

    1 Cup Sugar

    ¾ t Salt

    1 ½ t Baking Powder

    2 t Vanilla Extract

    1 Egg

    ¼ Cup Sour Cream

    3 T Corn Starch

    3 Cups Flour

    1. Mix Butter and Sugar together with Salt and Baking Powder.  When well blended, add vanilla and egg (first, beat the egg in a separate bowl for best results).  Mix in sour cream, then cornstarch and flour.

    2. Let the dough rest in the fridge for as long as you can stand- a half hour is pretty good, but we rarely last that long.

    3. Flour a clean surface for rolling out the cookies.  Work with a portion of the dough at a time, roll to about ¼ inch thickness.  Try to keep the thickness even.  Use your cutters to get as many cookies as you can out of each rolling.

    4. Put cookies on a non-stick pan, and bake at 350 degrees for 9 minutes.  If they are browning on the edges, they are already done.

    5.  Put cookies on a wire rack to cool.  Cool off your cookie pan before you put the next batch on.

    6.  Cookie dough will last for several days in your fridge.  Just let it warm up a little bit and it will become soft enough to roll out.

    Tip2: You can also pick up sprinkles and jimmies at post-holiday sales!

    Icing:

    2 1/4 Cups Confectioner’s Sugar

    2 T Honey

    2 T Milk

    Food Coloring

    IMG_05681.  Mix the sugar with the honey.IMG_0569

    2.  Slowly add the milk.  If the icing seems too thick, you can add milk, a teaspoon at a time to thin it out.  If icing gets too thin, add a small amount of sugar.

    3.  When icing is finished, separate out small portions into separate bowls for each color you want.

    4. Icing stores easily in a covered container in the fridge, just bring it back up to room temp to use.

    5.  Let cookies cool before icing.  Add jimmies, colored sugar or other add ons while the icing is fresh.

    Have fun making these super-easy cookies!

     


  9. Parks, parks, parks!

    July 15, 2013 by admin

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    This post is by regular contributor, Brenda Winter Hansen, of write again.

    A lot of people have a love-hate relationship with their neighborhood park. Parks are likely one of the most problematic issues for every city (especially the big ones) because there’s often not enough money in the city budget to take care of them.  Everybody loves to use them, but not everybody respects them. Sound familiar?

    Many homeowners fear that a nearby a park will attract unsavory behavior: drugs, sex, vandalism, litter!!! The bad news: those things do happen in parks.  But then again, these days they happen just about everywhere else, too. The good news: you can change it. Yep!  Every time you go to the park, enjoy it and leave it a better place for the next visitors. With a little persistent work, a park can go from sour to sweet faster than you’d think.

    First of all: we need parks. They’ve got an assortment of trees, grass, picnic tables, playground equipment, space to run and play and get out our ya-yas. Not just for kids either. Studies show that time spent in nature in your own neighborhood reduces mental fatigue and aggression.

    Cool, huh?

    Second: the more you, your kids, and your neighbors go to the park, the stronger your neighborhood is. Seriously. It’s a gathering place. You meet your neighbors, they recognize you and your kids, social ties are formed. Rinse, repeat, and voilà: built-in accountability. Then when your teen is caught climbing on top of the public bathroom’s roof, your neighbor can say, “Hey, dude, I know it’s cool up there, but would you mind coming down because I don’t want the little kids to get hurt trying that same stunt.” Your kid knows the neighbor and IMG_0459is less likely to be a jerk and more likely to think of the little dudes.

    Third: Crime is more likely to happen in barren, neglected spaces (think vacant lot) than a planned open green space where people enjoy gathering often. The more neighbors frequent a park, the more witnesses there are to prevent crime. If you do see a crime happening, be safe and report it, don’t try to stop it.

    What can you do to improve a park gone sour? Claim it. Visit habitually and bring a friend, your kids, and a few plastic bags to collect and dispose of garbage (maybe gloves or an $8.00 pickup stick too). Is the garbage overflowing or no receptacles are available? Call the city. Repeatedly. Show them someone cares enough to ask about the park. There is little else that is more effective or less costly than pride of place. When people invest even a little bit of time and effort to keep their local park clean and free of litter, the rewards are amazing. Also, attend neighborhood meetings if you have the time and energy.

    And now some of you are asking, WHY? Well, to recap:

    1. More calm, less stress. We all need that.
    2. Pride of place = a better place for everyone.
    3. To set a good example for your kids. (yeah, sometimes this takes a while to kick-in)
    4. Because it’s the right thing to do.

     

    So get out. Take a break, make a few PBJ’s, fill a big water bottle and bring a Frisbee, because it’s time to take your kids to the nearest park and have fun. Yay!


  10. Badger State Trail

    July 13, 2013 by admin

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    Our readers know that this TR family loves getting out on our bicycles.  We enjoy urban biking as much as exploring the numerous State bike trails.  Recently, we enjoyed an exciting portion of the Badger State Trail (BST).

    It cost us $8 for a daily pass to access the BST.  For this particular trip, our goal was to experience at least one tunnel.  Bluey is still too little to handle much more than 5 miles of biking, so TR Dad mapped out the perfect place to join up with this extensive trail.

    Tip1:  Children 16 and under do NOT require a pass to explore the State trails.

    We parked our car off the side of the road and geared up!  Once on the BST, it took about 5 minutes of biking to approach the entry of a tunnel.  Bluey hesitated, but he was up for IMG_0282the adventure!

    Tip2:  A smart phone’s flashlight app is not sufficient light for the tunnel.  Be sure to bring one flashlight per bike.

    It was pitch black and very wet inside the tunnel.  We were expecting the darkness, but not the wetness.  It was quite an unique experience for us and we had a blast making our way through the tunnel.

    Once on the other side, we biked for about 10 more minutes until we found a nice little picnic bench in the shade.  A quick snack, a friendly chat with another biking family, and some water were all we needed to head out again.

    Tip3:  There wasn’t a single bathroom facility on the trip.

    We spent just over one hour exploring this portion of the BST and we can’t wait to return.  What bike trails do you recommend in your State?