ThriftyRambler

Journey To The Center Of The Etch-A-Sketch

February 25, 2015 by admin

One quiet afternoon, Bluey came out of his room with an Etch-a-Sketch.

“Can we take this apart and see how it works? Maybe we can fix it?”

Since the toy was already mostly non-functional, it seemed like a fun adventure.

All we had to go on was the knowledge that there was some sort of powder inside, and some sort of controls that scratched the powder off the glass. We didn’t know much more.

Tip: We did a quick google search to confirm that the powder was non-toxic and harmless. So no worries there! But we wore safety goggles as a precaution.

There are no discernible screws or other points of entry into the Etch-a-Sketch. Apparently, the folks at Ohio Arts don’t encourage this sort of activity. Undeterred, we brought out a flat headed screwdriver, and ultimately a chisel, to split the connection between the red front, and the black back of the device.

Inside, and spilling onto our arts and crafts table, we found a super-fine aluminum powder, and the clever string and pulley system that controls the stylus.

Tip2: Be prepared for a huge mess, if you take this on. The powder gets everywhere, coating surfaces like paint. But it all cleans up relatively easily, so don’t be discouraged.

Seeing how the Etch-A-Sketch works was a lot of fun, and well worth the effort. We’d wondered for years what was inside, and had to satisfy ourselves with a vague: “some sort of powder or sand.” Now we know what the powder is and how the mechanism functions. We weren’t able to fix the toy, but we had lot of fun figuring out how it works!

Category Homeschool | Tags: , Creativity, homeschool, Learning, Science, unplugged | Comments Off on Journey To The Center Of The Etch-A-Sketch
Don’t Miss Out On Michaels!

February 18, 2015 by admin

Why is it that Michaels craft store is so easy to overlook? It is not a part of our heavy store rotation – like Target. But every time we visit Michaels, we question why we don’t frequent it more often.

Bluey loves a crafty or tinkering activity. And if you can catch Plum at the right time, she’ll eagerly join in the fun. Michaels offers a fantastic selection of craft and building model kits, as well as lego knock offs, and a line of construction sets.

If you join Michaels mailing list, download their store app, or simply google your nearest location – you can enjoy 40% off any regular priced item. This readily available coupon brings a large amount of products well under $10. More often than not, you can also find coupons for about 20% off an entire purchase. And Michaels after holiday clearance sales are fantastic!

Tip1: Be prepared to wait in line upon checking out. We don’t know why, but all Michaels seem to have a real problem ushering their guests through check out in a timely manner.

We understand that Michaels also offers a Kids club that allows you to sign up your children (3 years of age or older) for a 30 minute craft for around $2. And they also have a spattering of adult classes throughout the month. We haven’t explored these offerings yet. But they sound fun.

Tip2: You aren’t just limited to kits! Michaels has plenty of other low price point items for your family fun time. Consider getting a plain wooden box to decorate into a container for treasures. Or pick up a plain t-shirt and some fabric paint for some fashion design time.

Rather than purchasing yet another generic toy on a trip to Target, why not visit Michaels and get something that will challenge your child, encourage family time, cooperation, and creativity, as well as result in a unique finished product?

We’re already excitedly talking about our next trip for another car model kit!

Category Rambler Ramblings | Tags: , Art, Creativity, family, kids, simple solutions, togetherness, unplugged | Comments Off on Don’t Miss Out On Michaels!
One Week

February 13, 2015 by admin
We’ve had a heck of a week.

In the past seven days we have: recovered Bluey from a wicked illness, found out we need to find a new place to live, had TRDad go down with a serious knee injury (during a busy holiday week for his work), watched TRMom fighting off her own cold, found the shower drain needed a full replacement, brought Plum home from school sick, and dealt with a crazy email error from the school which set us on edge…

All this while trying to plan for our family Valentine’s Day celebration and maintaining our usual work and family schedules…

How do we hold it together?
- Humor: We crack our jokes, get silly with each other, and remind one another what’s really important.
- Music: Few things happen in our world that can’t be brought into focus with a good song.
- Teamwork: We’re all in this together. We help each other out where we can but if necessary, we remember to call on others to lend a hand.
Next week is coming- there’s no saying it won’t be as active and interesting as this one. Bring it on!
Category Rambler Ramblings | Tags: , Art, kids, Music, Parents, simple solutions | Comments Off on One Week
Our Favorite Lifehacks

February 11, 2015 by admin
Some of the TRFamily’s favorite life hacks:
- You know those horrible sticky admission bracelets given at museums, concerts, etc? Loop them through a pant hoop, shoe laces, or button hole- (when our kiddos were smaller, we’d loop it onto the stroller). So much less annoying then direct skin contact! A great solution for kids (or adults ) with sensitive skins.
- Save a couple of washed out yogurt containers. They are the perfect size to pass around snacks in the car while on a road trip. Or use them to hold paint or water for your brushes while doing an arts and crafts project.
- Stainless steel straws. Trust us. If you have kids, you will have a seemingly never ending need for straws. Chuck the plastic and get some stainless steel ones. They are healthier (no bpa), environmentally friendly, and frugal! It’s a bigger outlay at the beginning, but they pay for themselves very quickly!
- Snow boots for the whole family – Farm & Fleet. Cheap and comfortable. Enough said!
- Figure out your parking options before you leave for a specific destination. Google “Tips and Tricks to Parking near_______.” You’ll have to dig through the returns for the valuable hints you seek, but it’ll be worth it! Save yourself the trouble of driving around looking for a random spot or blowing your entire budget in a garage.
Category Rambler Ramblings | Tags: , simple solutions | Comments Off on Our Favorite Lifehacks
The Family Calendar Goes Digital

February 6, 2015 by admin

It’s no secret that this is one busy TR family. We’ve always had lot going on from Day 1. Doctor’s appointments, playdates, work events, club meetings, vacation days… it’s a lot to keep track of for any family.

We’ve used a number of different schemes to help keep everyone on track.

For a long time we had a standard bank wall calendar hanging in the kitchen. And we’d scrawl notes on there as we remembered upcoming events. And we’d try to check the wall each morning. As events got cancelled and rescheduled, the calendar quickly became an overwhelmed scribble.

We switched to a larger “Family” calendar we picked up in a bookstore. It featured bigger notation spaces and cute stickers to help serve as reminders. But as our family grew, and activities accumulated, this family calendar also became an over-worked mess.

There was a period where TRMom would print out pages of Microsoft calendar months from her office. So TRMom and TRDad would email and call each other to update the computer calendar, and TRMom would print out a new version weekly. We’d tape it to the wall and write in additions for the next week’s printing. Better, but not great.

We continued to struggle with finding methods to keep appointments up-to-date, how to remember to look at them, and still have a serviceable method of figuring out what was going on in our active little group.

And then we got smart phones.

It took us a good minute to work out the kinks, but we soon found we could easily add or remove calendar items from our shared digital calendars with ease. And by setting your personal preferences, you can receive reminder messages about all, or some of your events. Now it is very easy for us to keep track of this crazy busy clan.

Our good friend Siri can even add calendar events for us, making this the easiest system we’ve used to date. And you can have your family’s Facebook events automatically populate your digital calendar as well.

By setting up multiple color coded calendars, you can even make calendars that show your kiddos only the events or reminders that pertain to them, and leave the “Send In Car Payment” notes out of their line of vision.

We are happy to be able to have synched calendars at a moment’s notice. It helps keep us all on the same page and limits the surprises. We highly recommend that if available, you consider utilizing these digital calendars for your family.

Category Parenting | Tags: , family, internet, Parents | Comments Off on The Family Calendar Goes Digital
Crafting And Science

February 4, 2015 by admin

Valentine’s Day is quickly approaching and our Bluey is very excited. We don’t really go out of our way for this holiday. But when our kids are jazzed about something in particular, we like to support their enthusiasm.

Bluey is determined to create Valentine’s cards and to decorate for February 14^th. But unlike our stock of Christmas and Halloween supplies, we don’t have a lot of love themed, sparkly heart stuff. So we decided that we’d try to make most of our Valentine’s Day stuff from scratch.

This fun project combines Bluey’s desire to make Valentine’s decorations and his love of science!

Tip1: Even though we made these decorations for Valentine’s Day, you can have fun creating them for any holiday or event! Think of snowflake or star structures, to name just a few variations.

Shimmery Shapes (adult supervision required):

3 cups boiling water

½ cup Borax

Pipe Cleaners

Ribbon or String

Popsicle sticks or pencils (something stable that can extend over the lid of your container while supporting minimal weight)

Manipulate your pipe cleaners into any desired shape.

Tie one end of a string to your shape and then attach the other end of the string to the center of a popsicle stick.

Add Borax and boiling water to a mason jar or other heat proof clear container. You want to utilize a container that you can see through as part of the fun of this project is witnessing the crystallization.

Mix the borax and water if necessary. A lot of the borax will settle to the bottom of the jar and that is okay.

Place your shape into the hot mixture and secure with the stick lying across the jar’s opening.

Leave undisturbed for at least 8 hours.

Tip2: You can create colored crystals by adding food coloring to the mixture before you hang your shapes.

This experiment/craft project gave us a chance to talk about crystals and how they are formed. The boiling water holds more Borax than cold water would. As the mixture cools, it can’t hold as much Borax. As the Borax molecules group together, they form these beautiful crystals. It’s related to what happens when it snows: warm clouds of water vapor get cooled, and become supersaturated. The water molecules group together and make snowflakes!

Tip3: Once your shape has crystalized, you may have to chip away at the bottom or the sides to release it from the container. And to clean your jars, you may have to add hot water to the hardened borax that has settled to the bottom.

We hope that you enjoy your shimmery shapes as much as our family. We plan to add some to home decorating and the rest will be gifted during Valentine card deliveries.

Category Get Crafty! | Tags: , Art, Creativity, Holidays, kids, Science | Comments Off on Crafting And Science
Surrounded by Molds

February 1, 2015 by admin

We wanted an adventure on a recent weekend that was somewhere new and something unique. It took a bit of research as we’ve already been to a ton of places within a two hour radius of our home. But perseverance uncovered what we hoped would become a very interesting day trip.

Just outside of Sparta is the FAST Corporation. The company makes fiberglass statues and when they are done with a mold, they store it on their surrounding property with the hope to reuse it at some point.

Tip1: A sign at the entrance cautions that molds are favorite nesting spots for wasps in the spring. Since we visited in the dead of winter, this was not an issue.

When you first pull into the free parking area, your eyes are drawn to the welcome sign and a small grass yard with some abandoned statues. We had a moment of worry that this was all the corporation had to offer. And then we did a 180 and realized that we were surrounded by molds of all sorts and sizes. Let the adventure begin!

Tip2: There are no public restrooms on the property during the weekend. You might be able to use the FAST restroom during business hours.

Our family spent a transfixed hour romping among the molds. We saw everything from dogs to dinosaurs to indians to ET, the extra terrestrial. It was oddly peaceful and a lot of fun to try and guess why someone would order something like a gigantic devil’s head.

Even though we were dressed properly for a winter outdoor explore, the weather certainly influenced the amount of time we spent here. We imagine you could easily take two hours to walk around this property in the warmer months. This TR family is eager to return and discover molds we may have missed on our first visit to FAST!

Category Jaunts | Tags: , Animals, Art, backroads, freebies, Outdoors, Traveling with kids, Wisconsin | Comments Off on Surrounded by Molds
Stir Fry With Seitan

January 30, 2015 by admin
We recently added this dish to our rotation. It is simple and delicious- two qualities that are right on target for how we like to cook.

We were inspired to create this dish upon reading about a beef-based version in a British cooking magazine. We thought to switch out the beef for vegan seitan and go from there. Seitan is a wheat-based meat substitute. It’s easy to make at home, or you can buy it at most supermarkets (we like Upton’s). A few other changes to the original British recipe and we ended up with a family favorite- no leftovers from this one, we’re pleased to say.

Ingredients:
- 1 T Oil
- One 12 oz. Package of Seitan
- 2-3 T Black Bean Sauce
- 1 T Soy Sauce
- 1 T Corn Starch
- 1 Green Pepper, cut into thin strips
- Scallions for Garnish
Process:
1. Slice the seitan into thin strips. (Some brands/batches of seitan slice better than others. Don’t panic if your’s crumbles more than it slices.)
2. Heat the seitan in the oil in a large skillet or wok.
3. Add the Green Peppers, and sauté 3-5 minutes.
4. Add the Black Bean sauce and simmer 2-3 minutes.
5. In a small bowl, mix the soy sauce and corn starch together.
6. Pour the starch into the pan and mix. Cook through until sauce thickens.
7. Serve over brown rice and garnish with scallions.
Tip: This whole dish goes together in about ten minutes, so make sure you cook the rice first!
Category Recipes | Tags: , good eats, vegan, Vegetarian | Comments Off on Stir Fry With Seitan
Two By Two

January 28, 2015 by admin

Kids from birth to around 16 years of age do a tremendous amount of growing. Recently our Bluey hopped from a size 5T to 6T within mere weeks. His PJ bottoms inched towards his knees and his jeans were way too tight.

You can make yourself crazy trying to keep a stock of well fitted clothing and shoes.

So what to do? Well, a lot is dependent on the age of your child. You can find many unique solutions to the constant need for clothing and shoes when your kids are under 10. But once they start to inch towards puberty, we have found that kids become a lot less flexible about exploring options.

Our Bluey is six, so we’re enjoying his laissez faire attitude. We’ve tried a couple of different things to keep ahead of the constant growth.

Thrifting is a great resource if you have time and patience. Since the stock of clothing is constantly changing, you might not easily find that pair of size 4T pants. You then have to consider if the savings is worth the effort.

Hand me downs are great- when your kids are the same gender and/or have the same taste in clothing. Our Bluey has inherited many an adored pink kitten shirt from his sister. But the dresses and nightgowns are summarily rejected. So we have an abundance of certain sizes and styles without actually filling the current needs.

A whole new wardrobe every few months is fantastic. But our budget just can’t handle the turnover demand. We try to stock up, when funds allow, on sale/clearance clothing a few sizes up. But that strategy if very hit or miss. And again, we typically end up with more of one particular item rather than a well-balanced future wardrobe.

Our tried and true problem solver has been to always have at least two pairs of pants and two shirts in the proper size. We have our own washer/dryer and we do a load of wash every day-with four people in the house, the dirty clothing adds up very quickly! Bluey doesn’t really care what he’s wearing as long as it is comfortable and happens to mostly conform to his broad sense of style.

Although his clothes wear out pretty fast under this system, they keep up with his knack for outgrowing them, so it all works out.

We aren’t necessarily saving a boat load of money with this solution to the clothing crises, but we are sane and happy. And Bluey always has something that fits!

Category Thrifty Tips | Tags: , kids, Parents, Savings, simple solutions | Comments Off on Two By Two
Animals In Winter

January 23, 2015 by admin

We don’t let winter keep this TR family indoors. There are many great, fun things to do outside during the winter: sledding, building snow forts, conducting science experiments, and more!

A fun adventure we enjoy is to go on a winter hike. Hiking in the winter is a different experience than going during a warmer season. For one thing, you have to dress right.

You might think there are fewer animals to see in winter. A lot are hibernating and many others migrate. There aren’t a ton of critters left to observe, right?

Wrong. A lot of Animals are still out and about during the winter months, even in the most extreme weather. You just have to know what to look for.

We are reminded of one of our favorite illustrated books on this topic: Animals In Winter, by Henrietta Bancroft, Richard G. Van Gelder and Gaetano di Palma. We’ve been reading this book to our kiddos since they were tiny tots. The poetic writing and space pen-and-ink drawings beautifully capture the wonder of the wilds in winter. Our family learned from the start that animals are up to all sorts of activity during the winter.

We took this knowledge with us on a recent walk at the Waubesa Wetlands State Natural Area. Bluey had been learning about foxes and wanted to try to see some in the wild. Using this as our motivation, we headed out to a likely habitat.

Tip: Be prepared when heading out for a inter hike. Parks and natural areas are sparsely attended in the thick of winter. Dress warmly, and be careful not to overestimate how far your group can hike. Remember you have to be able to make it back to the car. Bring a cell phone.

Immediately upon stepping out of the car we found a trail of canine footprints that were too large to be a fox. We guessed they were coyotes which we also knew to frequent that area. Undeterred in our desire to explore, we followed the coyote pack’s prints through the fresh snow and saw where their path crossed those of squirrels, rabbits, chipmunks and deer.

And it’s not just mammal prints we found. We saw hawk footprints near a deer carcass, including a great imprint of the bird’s tail feathers as it crouched in the snow. We’d never seen that before!

As beautiful as this natural area is, we would never be able to have this adventure if not for the recent snow and cold temperatures. We were able to enjoy a beautiful hike, see some amazing signs of animal life, and engage in a meaningful discussion about our local wildlife and what these animals might be up to in the winter.

To top off our discussion of animals that migrate, hibernate or stick around in winter, a large group of Canada Geese passed over us on their migration route as we headed back to our car.

Category Get Outside! | Tags: , Animals, books, kids, Learning, Nature, Parks, Science, Winter | Comments Off on Animals In Winter

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