Exploring The Congo

Posted on March 22, 2012 by Samantha

Now before you conger up images of packing my bags and heading off to a foreign land I should tell you that congo is short for conglomerate; a group of entities working together.  My first exposure to a congo was as a shopper on Hyena Cart. If you’re familiar with Etsy, Hyena Cart is along a similar vein. It’s a hosting site for various small businesses; on Hyena Cart it’s mostly children’s items, handmade, natural, and eco-friendly.

I recently decided to help put together a congo to have another venue for my shop. I did the research and am sharing a bit of the process.

Why is a congo beneficial?

It’s yet another link to your items and shop. It’s another venue to be found by shoppers who may not find you anyway. You can link back to your existing shop thus increasing your web presence and the ways Google finds you in a search. it’s very important to have links for yourself out on the web.

If you don’t have a free standing website or shop hosted elsewhere a congo is a way to dabble in a sells venue without the effort of a full shop and stocking lots of items to fill a store on your own.

What’s gonna work? Teamwork! You have the advantage of the advertising and client base of other shop owners. Shoppers may come because they found the link one of the other shop’s facebook pages, but then they see the items you have as well. Your circle of shoppers has grown to include everyone’s circle. More exposure is always a good thing.

Why do shoppers like congos?

Congos tend to get more traffic because it’s a way to shop for a variety of items in one place. Congos usually stock on a theme and have several vendors contribute to a collaboration of coordinating. It’s a great way to scoop up a matching outfit from your favorite vendors all at once.

It’s been an exciting adventure figuring out the ins and outs of a congo, establishing vendors, coordinating items, scheduling a stocking and building a following, but I’m excited to be a part of one and I look forward to seeing where it takes my business.

Posted in business | 1 Comment

Will They Be Courageous?

Posted on March 21, 2012 by Samantha

I watched Courageous this weekend. And I’ll admit I cried through most of it. I know I’m the type of parent who would hold on to a moving vehicle if my child was being taken. And there is nothing in this world that could ever be more important than my kids no one that I’d rather have in my life, nothing that could make me happier than them and if I had to be on a schedule to have them in my life it would take an act of God to keep me away.

Then I wonder what sort of a disadvantage they now have b/c they no longer have a strong father on earth to lead them and guide them and set an example to be a man after God’s own heart. As a mother it’s often hard enough to do your own job let alone fill someone else’s shoes. And then it makes me sad, not only for my own children, but to the children of the world. When did we become a society of self gratification, where our own immediate desires outweigh our families, where it’s more acceptable to walk out on your family and find a replacement wife/husband than to admit you’re struggling and get help, where our children mean so little that people will get into debt up to their eyeballs to have the newest phone, fastest car, biggest house, but scoff at the thought of paying child support, so their kids become reliant on social programs? How is it that if someone fights for the sanctity of marriage and the value of family that they are the crazy ones? When did standing up for what’s right become wrong? I realize that there are people in this world see the dangerous path the world is one, but it seems more and more those people are in the minority. And I’m not talking religion. My faith is mine, but right and wrong go deeper than theology. How is it that half naked women are plastered on televisions every commercial break and yet breastfeeding women are forced into bathroom, and dressing rooms and dark corners for doing what nature designed them to do?

Is it enough to feed them and cloth them, keep a roof over their head and give them what little time you have in a day, to tell them that what’s expected of them in the grand scheme is great than what the world expects? Am I a bad mother for leaving the dinner dishes and instead make a new mess building towers before bed? If the floor isn’t mopped each night have I failed for the day? Are my children missing something because they aren’t enrolled in half a dozen extracurricular activities? Is it enough to spend an afternoon at the park or a morning at the library? Would they have a “better” life if we had more money becasue I worked outside the home and left them to child care?

I never thought we were perfect. Maybe perfect for the life we shared. But is that time enough to carry my boys through to become men like the man they once had as an example or will they be undone by the deck they’ve now been dealt and what the world says is okay because only my voice echos that they are more?

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Make Your Own Play Pen Sheets

Posted on March 19, 2012 by Samantha

It’s funny how certain brand names become synonymous with the product they are. How often do you ask for a facial tissue instead of a Kleenex? I remember when play pens were play pens and now they’re all called Pack n Plays even if they aren’t. We have a knock off, so I try to call it a play pen rather than it’s more popular counterpart. No matter what you call it if you have a baby it’s pretty darn handy. Our crib didn’t survive one of our moves and since we co-sleep most of the time we didn’t see the point in reinvesting in a crib. Our play pen gets daily use for naps and the bean goes to sleep in it at night before I get to go to bed myself.

With daily use we have to wash the sheets pretty regularly, but it’s not always easy to find sheets that fit and when you do they’re usually pretty boring. Ours are white and after several years of use are getting kinda dingy. I could hunt some new sheets down, but I’ve decided I want cute sheets and I already have fabric laying around. You could easily use an existing sheet as well.

*pre-washing and ironing your materials makes all sewing projects easier.

You could probably use about a yard of fabric, but I wanted my stripes to run along the width, so I needed about a yard and a third. I put my mattress on my fabric and cut out about 5 inches bigger all the way around.

I had a straight selvage on one side. I left it intact and just cut the other 3 sides. Then I cut a 4″x4″ corner out of each point. The one inch difference between your added edge and this cut compensates for the mattress thickness.
I’m using a knit which shouldn’t fray or unravel. Enter in that lazy bit I’m often talking about and I’ve chosen to leave the edges untouched. I could finish them by running them through my serger and if you’re using a woven fabric you’ll want to do a small hem. Or maybe cheat and use fray check.
Line up the small edges of your square (right sides together) and sew them, mitering the corner. I forgot to take a picture; I got distracted listening to the boys outside. Midkid says to Eldest “throw the ball at the bat.” Apparently his swing was off today. Back to sewing; once sewn your sheet will resemble a fitted sheet. The picture above is after I’ve sewn the corners together. I then lined up the short side with the long side at each corner these edges are perpendicular to our sewn edge. I drew a line at a 45 degree angle from the point of the last seam to my un-sewn edge and then sewed along that line. Once sewn and turned right side out it’ll look like this:
Re peat for each corner. Since I serged it the corner we mitered was cut off. If you’re just sewing you’ll end up with a triangular flap; you can cut it off or leave it folded inside your sheet. The mitered corners are what holds the sheet on without elastic.
Here it is on the play pen mattress;
I love the stripes!
I do not sew and sell bedding for children as I don’t want to deal with flammability requirements and liability. If you choose to do so please make sure you’re aware of the laws regarding children’s bedding as well as the CPSIA.
Happy Sewing!
Posted in DIY, sewing | 1 Comment

Blarney Stones

Posted on March 16, 2012 by Samantha

Blarney stone refers to a chunk of bluestone that’s built into the battlements of Blarney Castle in Ireland. Folklore has it that if you kiss the blarney stone you will be blessed with the gift of gab; being able to speak eloquently. However, kissing the blarney takes a little flexibility and a lack of acrophobia (fear of heights). To celebrate St. Paddy’s Day tomorrow, we made our own little blarney stones. The weather has been gorgeous, so we played outside on the patio.

1/2 cup used coffee grounds
1/2 cup salt
1/4 sand
1 cup flour
1/2 cup water
Combine the dry ingredients then slowly add water. You may not need all the water if your dough gets tacky quickly, if it feels too dry and a little more.
We turned it out on a floured surface to knead it and better incorporate the ingredients.
Divide your dough into how many pieces you want. 6 seemed like a nice even number, but we could have done more smaller ones. We hid some change inside them, but you could easily place little trinkets or toys, like bouncy balls. Eldest child thought it would be a good idea to leave some empty and make a game of it to see who would score the prizes. I think we’ll end up with a blarney stone hunt.
Once our little stones were ready I put them on a parchment lined pan and we threw them in the oven on 170° for about 2 hours, flipping them over half way, and then we left them to air dry the rest of the way. They’ll be like rocks once they’ve dried and we’ll be able to whack them with a hammer tomorrow.
Happy St. Pat’s! May the luck of the Irish be with you and yours!

Posted in craft, holidays, kidspired | 2 Comments

Salad Spinner Painting

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Samantha

I have a salad spinner. I rarely use it. It’s not that we don’t consume green leafy foods that require rinsing, but that I find it easy enough to rinse in the sink and shake out by hand. It would be far more work to pull the spinner out of the cupboard and then wash and return it after. Have I mentioned how LAZY I am?! In all honestly said salad spinner should have found a new home when we were purging and simplifying. But I remember it being pretty pricey, even though I got it during my Pampered Chef consultant days, and there’s something very grown up about having a salad spinner.

Enter my new use for my salad spinner. Remember those Spirograph thingies from our childhood? You could make swirls and the there was a “tie-dye” thing where you put in the paint and it would spin across the paper. See where I’m going here? I should be sewing or cleaning, but decided that while the bean napped a fun project with toddler child was in order.

We gathered our supplies:
Salad spinner, washable paints, paper, and some small jars

Already starting mischief.

A more responsible parent would probably lay down newspaper or similar on the table top. I figured I was doing good making the turkey take off his shirt. And hey it’s washable right?!

Our paint was on the thick side, so we added a little water so it would spread more easily. I let him pick 3 colors:

Lay your paper in your spinner. Ours has two baskets and we’re using the larger one. In the future I might cut down our paper so it fits more evenly.

Let your little artist pour in some paint. You can see this is very exciting!

And it gets better! He spent most of the time squealing “I did it! I did it!”

Through subsequent spinnings we learned that small dots of paint yield more appealing swirls. And after the first two papers he wanted new colors so we added a little blue to our green, orange to our yellow and white to our red.

Tada! And as we finished cleaning up the bean woke from his nap, so our little project took just the right amount of time. I apologize for the horrible pictures there are no windows in the kitchen and the lack of natural light does nothing for my already marginal photography skills.

Posted in craft, kidspired | 2 Comments

TBI Awareness Month

Posted on March 5, 2012 by Samantha

It’s come to my attention that March is TBI awareness month. Yay! I’m not excited that such a thing exists, but I’m so very glad that programs like the Wounded Warrior Project are raising awareness. Until it beat down my door I had never even heard of Traumatic Brain Injury. Concussions are a mild form of a TBI, but repeated instances like repeated IED exposure damage the brain to the point where your memory, thought process, and decision making abilities are altered so greatly you can become a totally different person.

TBI usually has a partner in crime. In most cases if you have a TBI related illness you will also have PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It’s my understanding that professionals are trying to rename PTSD to alleviate the stigma of having a disorder. Our troops are returning from war in every growing numbers and struggling with these invisible wounds. And our military is failing them.

I love a man who fights this battle every day. I watched him walk out on his family and his life because he couldn’t cope with the scars he carried in his mind. He will never be the same and neither will we. Few things are worse than seeing this illness tear down a strong, courageous, family devoted man. No one should ever have to experience what we went through.

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Dough Pops

Posted on March 4, 2012 by Samantha

Growing up this was a bit of a treat for us. Our version of fry bread could be why I have a carb addiction. No Atkins for this girl! True fry bread has native roots and is often referred to as elephant ears at the fair where they’re covered in powdered sugar; yum-o! Our adaptation yields different, but equally satisfying result. We make them as a snack or as a side for a meal.

Ingredients:
51/2-61/2 cups flour
1 package yeast (2 1/2 tsp)
2 1/4 cups milk
2 TBS sugar
1 TBS butter
1 1/2 tsp salt
cooking oil

In your mixing bowl combine 5 1/2 cups of flour and yeast. I use my Kitchenaid bowl.

In another microwave safe combine milk, sugar, butter, and salt. Heat in microwave for about 1 min. You want to heat the milk and melt the butter. It should be about 120 degrees.

If it’s too hot you will kill your yeast. Stir this mixture and add to your mixing bowl. Stir till combined. The dough hook on my Kitchenaid is my best friend.

It’s important for little helpers to directly supervise the mixing process.

If the dough is still sticky add more flour in 1/4 cup increments until it’s soft, but elastic. Then turn out on a floured surface and knead for about 2 minutes.

Now no waiting required! You do not need to let the dough rise. The yeast will puff them up while cooking.

In a skillet heat your oil over medium heat. I like coconut oil. It doesn’t get the burned smokey taste of vegetable oils and it’s a smidge healthier. I like good fats! I start with about 3 TBS and add a little more as needed. You don’t need a ton of oil.

While your oil is heating take small chunks of your dough and pat them into about 3 inch patties 1/2 inch thick. I don’t go crazy trying to get them to look pretty and even and round. If this is your style feel free to portion them all equally.

Then put them in your oil and fry them until golden brown and then flip them over to brown the other side.

Enjoy! They’re best when warm and can be sprinkled with parmesean cheese and herbs, cinnamon and sugar, or powdered sugar.
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Cloth Diapers and Daycare

Posted on March 1, 2012 by Samantha

I dug this out of my archives:

While mama, daddy, and the occasional unsuspecting older sibling may be cloth diapering experts sometimes someone has to care for baby that isn’t as in the know. We’re lucky to have a large circle of friends that use cloth, so I can just as confidently drop of my child with a pile of pre-folds as I could a pack of sposies. Our other sitting options have been great in learning about our diapers and working with them. So we’ve got some tips and tricks for making it easier on those willing to watch your little cloth diapered babe.

Introduce your caregiver to your cloth. Convenience diapers such as All-in-Ones and Pockets are the easiest for them to figure out. Bring along your wet bag and wipes if you’re also using cloth wipes and show them how everything goes into your bag and comes home. On one instance we had the caregiver place the diapers in a plastic grocery bag and then the wetbag. From that experience we learned we needed to be clearer about that aspect of our diapering system.

Give them an opportunity to see them in action. Demonstrate how to use your diapers and walk them through a changing with your child. This is more important if your using a system such as pre-folds that may require the use of pins or snappis. Most diaper manufacturers have how-to instructions make a copy for your caregiver to refer to during their initial weeks of cloth diaper use.

Be flexible. Your favorite system at home may not be the most convenient for your caregiver especially if they have multiple children to care for. Would it be easier for them to have the aplix version of your snapping diapers? Or to have only one style in the diaper bag? I know families who have a stash of diapers that only go to the daycare and this keeps things simple.

You were a beginner once too. Have you ever put wool over a PUL diaper? Accidentally used microfiber against babies skin? Mistakenly used an unapproved cream on your diapers? Had a pre-fold pinned so wonkily a poo escaped? These are things your caregiver may experience if you don’t share some of your own learning hurdles. You can’t expect them to get it all over night either, so give them a trial period to get the hang of it.

Enjoy this chance to share your joys of cloth. You have your own reasons for using cloth diapers, from saving money and the planet, to being healthier for your baby, or just because it’s cute. This may be your caregivers first exposure to modern cloth diapers and their opinions may be formed on your attitude and how you present them. You may be planting the seed for a future cloth diapering family to grow.

If you’re using a child care center be aware of your state’s regulations. Many centers may claim regulations prohibit cloth diaper use and this is rarely the case.

Looking for a cloth diaper friendly center? The Real Diaper Association has compiled a list of cloth diaper friendly daycares.

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8 Reasons I still Breastfeed

Posted on February 28, 2012 by Samantha

The babe is just over a year old and we’re still nursing along. I find with each of my children I have nursed longer and longer and when left to make their own decisions they have been happy to keep at it. I know the benefits and even pumped for surro baby. I would never look down on someone who has chosen to or been forced to formula feed, but this is what works for us and here’s eight of the many reasons why.

8 – It forces me to sit down and take a break. No matter how crazy my day is I still get to sit down and put my feet up.
7 – It’s convenient. I have what I need when I need it
6 – It’s frugal. If I had to buy formula it would be a real kick to our budget.
5 – It’s healthy for him. I know he’s getting the nutrients and antibodies he needs. Even the AAP advocates for breasfeeding.
4 – I’m teaching my children it’s acceptable and normal to nurse. One day they will be husbands and they will be able to support and encourage their wives.
3 – It’s like an extra workout each day. I’ve always lost my baby weight easier when nursing.
2 – He has a secure bond. He knows he can play and explore, but when he comes for nursies I’ll be there.
1 – He sometimes unlatches. looks up at me and says “mmm”. He likes it and is happy.

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Mock Chicken Noodle Soup

Posted on February 26, 2012 by Samantha

We’ve had the crud around here the past few days. I’m one of those lucky people who gets an allergy flare up and then ends up with a full blown sinus infection. The things that I learned to use in Alaska don’t work as well here. It seems as though the littles have the same “weak genes” as their dad would say. We’re surrounded by runny noses and plowing through our wipes stash. When you need to battle the sickies you call on chicken noodle soup to save the day. Unfortunately we’re several days past needing to go to the grocery store, so we’re chickenless. I do, however, have lots of yummy home canned chicken broth and the reality is that’s the important part of chicken noodle soup anyway, so we threw together what I refer to as Mock Chicken Noodle Soup. It’s about as quick as opening a can, but is more comforting and tastes better too.

2 cups of water
1 quart of chicken broth
2 cups of egg noodles
half bag of frozen veggies
2 tsp salt or to taste

Take it all and throw it into a pan except the salt and bring to a boil. Let boil for about 5 minutes, then reduce heat and simmer for about 20 minutes.

Depending on how salty your broth is you may want to add salt before serving. I don’t add much salt to my broth, so I end up adding a couple tsp.

Even snotty faced babies like it:
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