Posted on August 16, 2009 by Moonraking
Take a glass and put some fruit-fly bait in the bottom. A piece of tomato or banana works well.
Cover the top with saran wrap and poke some decent-sized small holes in the top [just realized my holes have been too big -- they should be tiny, made with a pencil tip or some such]. Use [...]
Filed under: D.I.Y., home/garden | 7 Comments »
Posted on August 9, 2009 by Moonraking
We dug up the boxwood bushes in front of the house. Waiting to see if we get any takers. Sarah commented that the house no longer has that “New England mental institution, Brick n’ Boxwoods look.”
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Posted on August 8, 2009 by Moonraking
When we came home after over a month away we found a very damp basement. No actual puddles or leaks but a kind of miasmic moldy atmosphere and, we discovered, some actual mold in some cabinets.
We went out and bought a new energy-efficient dehumidifier (we had one that looks like it dated from the 1980s). [...]
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Posted on April 2, 2009 by Moonraking
The girls and Sarah volunteered to make the Pin the Tail on the Cat for Keith’s 5th birthday party. Or Pin the Tail on the Pot Luck as they referred to it. I thought it was pretty great.
Btw, I finally bought myself a snapshot camera, so prepare for a new visual emphasis on Moonraking. Sarah [...]
Filed under: D.I.Y., art, kids/family life | 4 Comments »
Posted on February 11, 2009 by Moonraking
I finally read The Road — almost the whole thing in one sitting in bed and then finished it off the next day. It’s pretty harrowing. I’ve been haunted by that recent article in The New Yorker, “The Dystopians,” about ““back-to-the-land types,” “peak oilers,”… all-around Cassandras, or doomers,” and others who believe the U.S. and [...]
Filed under: D.I.Y., books, fiction | 10 Comments »
Posted on February 4, 2009 by Moonraking
I love kids’ science. Moonraking reader Amrak Ecilop tipped me off to the excellently gruesome activities offered this week at Ithaca, NY’s Sciencenter:
Winter Break Fun!
Monday-Friday,
Feb. 16-20, 2 p.m.
Visit the Sciencenter for a special daily hands-on activity every weekday at 2 p.m. during the winter break:
Monday: Tick Puppets
Create a marionette puppet of an engorged tick.
Friday: Blood [...]
Filed under: D.I.Y., kids/family life | 6 Comments »
Posted on December 1, 2008 by Moonraking
Celie and Iris got a new puppet theater today as a belated birthday present. They wrote and performed their first three-act play: Mousie and Bunny — Fights and Friendship.
Dramatis personae: Mousie and Bunny
Act I.
One day Mousie went to a puppet show and he met Bunny.
Bunny: I am the biggest bunny in the world!
Mousie: And I [...]
Filed under: D.I.Y., kids/family life | Tagged: Bunny, ice cream, Mousie, puppets | 2 Comments »
Posted on November 9, 2008 by Moonraking
Celie and Iris’s 5th birthday party today. We felt like we were keeping it really small: just five kids invited, no parents or siblings for the most part (drop-off); no friends from school other than one neighbor friend. (We sold the girls on the rationale that they had a separate party at school — we’d [...]
Filed under: D.I.Y., food, kids/family life | Tagged: birthday cake | 4 Comments »
Posted on November 2, 2008 by Moonraking
Oobleck brownies recipe:
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
sprinkle cinnamon
dash salt
tablespoon of Ovaltine
green food coloring to taste.
Pour into baking pan and cook at 325 degrees for 20 minutes. Allow to cool and cut as brownies. Pretend to eat. (It’s less revolting than anticipated.) Eventually scrape off into trash. You just took care of a good hour [...]
Filed under: D.I.Y., food, kids/family life | Tagged: Dr. Suess, oobleck | Leave a Comment »
Posted on October 31, 2008 by Moonraking
The Holloween scene.
When Sarah asked Celie want she wanted to be, she said “a nice Witch.” Then, to Sarah’s amazement, they actually had a Nice Witch costume at Target. But then Celie changed her mind and started telling people she was a Bad Witch. Sarah also augmented the costumes in various ways (like the moon [...]
Filed under: D.I.Y., kids/family life | Tagged: Holloween | Leave a Comment »