Month: December 2011

Dressember Day #13 and a Michael Bernard Fitzgerald Living Room Concert

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Earlier this year, I saw local indie sweetheart Michael Bernard Fitzgerald live for the first time (after a close call at Folk Fest a few years ago when I missed him – boo.). I was pretty excited, not just because his music is super peppy and happy and fun, but also because he seems to always be surrounded by just downright adorable people. I love adorable people! I saw him at the Starlite Room in Edmonton in the spring, and it was a ton of fun.

Then, in September, two of my good friends, Megan and Matt got married, and as a special surprise for Megan’s stagette party, her friends hired Michael to play a private show at a theatre in Edmonton – even better! I bruised my hand at this one while clapping to Brand New Spaces. There was also much wine involved. This night was so much fun and so awesome. I felt lucky to be there!

But a third time in the same year? Nah, too much to ask. But no! Michael decided to do a series of living room concerts to benefit the Calgary Food Bank this Christmas, and my friends Janine and Nikki volunteered their living room for one of these.

Michael Bernard Fitzgerald performing old and new favourites in Janine and Nikki’s living room.

Janine’s kids, Micah and Vienna, were in attendance, so when Michael did his usual quirky mash-up of Low, The Thong Song and Baby Got Back, he changed the lyrics of the Thong Song to “Let me see that suggestive underwear.” Micah thought this was so hysterically funny that for the remainder of the performance, Michael inserted the word underpants into each song. He then wrote a new Christmas song on the spot – the lyrics being simply, “Santa don’t forget my underpants, peee-ew.” Micah was in stitches.

And, my Dressember ensemble for the occasion…

This dress has no label. I bought it at a music festival.

A Day in the Life#1: Unschooling (and Dressember Day #12)

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I’ve decided that periodically, on our days that are especially great (what’s that? You don’t want a play-by-play of the days where we run errands?), I’m going to post day-in-the-life posts showing what we do on a day of unschooling. Over time, these posts will show a variety of types of days, a range of topics, and hopefully a good cross-section of what unschooling an only child can look like.

Today is the first of these! Neko and I had almost a full day at home, and I had some plans of what I could work on with her (yep… that’s not true unschooling), so I thought it would be a good time to start.

We’ve cut out our morning ritual of Neko watching a few (usually at least semi-educational without ads) TV shows and having a glass of chocolate almond milk, as her behaviour has been going downhill lately with more whining, worse sleep habits, and some back-talking and rudeness. I feel Justan and I are at fault, not setting clear enough boundaries and setting Neko up to fail with the morning dose of sugar and screen time. For the past few days, there has been no TV in the morning, and the first thing to pass through Neko’s lips has been protein, or at least whole grains.

8 am We bucked the trend a bit here this morning, and I let her watch Nim’s Island on Netflix, as it was recommended to us recently.

9:45 am Neko did a mosaic craft that my mom gave her for her birthday. Just a bunch of sticky dots that you place on a template, but my thought is that it was useful for… math. And art. And fine motor skills. Oh, and we had breakfast at this point.

11 am I did laundry. Neko finished up her mosaic, and we snacked a bit in anticipation of going tobogganing. Also, Neko put a blanket on the cat. No educational benefit to that, that I can discern, but it was silly and looked cute.

Blanket-on-cat. Cute.

11:45 am Tobogganing! About six blocks from our house, there is a pretty big hill with a nice slope, and now that the snow deep enough and a decent quality, we’ll be over there sliding down that hill often! Last year we got a big, wooden toboggan and two plastic “flying saucers,” and we just got two Crazy Carpets (from the treasure hunt for Neko’s birthday party). This was our physical education for the day. Plus it was just fun. And we got some vitamin D.

Lots of hill climbing… unencumbered glee… and it’s a good sign when you’re laughing hysterically after falling off at the bottom.

This was tiring. And thirsty-making. So we walked home for treats. It was, by the way, nearly impossible to get Neko off this hill.

1 pm Cold drinks! I blended some lemon juice, homemade strawberry preserves (simply strawberries, lemon juice and sugar, simmered) and made us strawberry lemonade. Which, of course, called for fancy glasses. Which, of course, makes it appear that I was filling my daughter with strawberry margaritas. I wasn’t, by the way.

Oh yeah. And water.

Yum!

2 pm Things got pretty boring at this point when we cleaned out Neko’s bed. It’s a loft bed, and she has tons of books up there, and extra blankets, and random toys… anyway. It was gross. And messy. So we did that. (Also, I’m watching Louis CK as I write this and I apologize if it’s affecting my tone.) Neko then chose a selection of toys that she wants to keep on her bed which are, she says, “fake Pokemons.” She basically chose regular toys and assigned them special powers. I don’t get Pokemon. These are life skills of some sort, I’m quite sure.

3 pm As I had promised Neko earlier in the day, it was time for Just Dance 3 on the Wii. This is, for the record, also my workout for the day. That game gets your heart pumping! I also secretly (not anymore) hope it will improve my moves, you know, for the next time I’m at the club.

Hawt. We had a good time.

This, of course, was part two of phys ed for today. And the required daily pop culture lesson.

4 pm Here was my one, actually educational plan for the day: to print off a 10×10 chart so Neko could fill it in with the numbers one through 100. She’s been having trouble learning to count, and I thought a visual cue, and writing the numbers herself, would probably help her make the connection. So I made a ten column by ten row table in Pages, made the cells square, and printed the page. Then I had Neko fill in the bottom ten squares, left to right, one to ten. We then went across and did the teens. Then the twenties. Up until this point I was leading Neko through it, and she wasn’t totally understanding the pattern of the whole thing. But around 28, she saw the pattern. She started filling in the cells by herself, only asking for help once or twice per line. This was so cool to watch. Each time she figured out the name for the next ten spot, she was so very proud of herself. I honestly almost cried, watching her. I told her that once she had filled in the chart, she would be able to count to 100. She said, “I can only write to a hundred, I can’t count to a hundred mommy.” I explained that using her new chart, she’ll be able to count to 100 whenever she wants. Her eyes filled with excitement and she said, “I want to fold this up and put it in my pocket and keep it with me every day!”

Definition of the term “awesomesauce.”

After that, we called my parents so she could count to 100 on the phone for them (my mom is a kindergarten teacher, so she was thrilled to listen), and Justan came home and Neko showed him her number chart, and then she went to play with the neighbours for a while.

Oh, and today was Dressember Day #12.

Dress: Majora (Value Village) // Boots: Thrift shop

Dressember Day #11

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Visited a heritage breed show today. Neko and I loved the petting zoo and spent a lot of time cuddling ducks, hens, kids and bunnies. A little Polish hen made friends and snuggled me for about 20 minutes.

Here is today’s ensemble (comfy and warm for traveling), with a miniature donkey.

Dress: 725 (clothing swap) // Sweater: clothing swap (no label) // Tights: left at my house after a Rubik’s Cube party (yes, really) // Shoes: El Naturalista

Furoshiki: The Ultimate in Eco-Friendly Gift Wrapping

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We all remember the newspaper gift wrapping trend of the 90s. Anyone who was at all eco-conscious at the time was encouraged to wrap their gifts in newspaper or the Sunday comics – it looks fun! It’s reusing! Yay! That got old pretty fast, though. Since then, there have been a lot of ideas generated on the most earth-friendly ways to wrap our gifts. Recycled kraft paper; reusable cloth bags; and cloth such as towels are all fairly popular ideas. A few years ago, while researching an article to collect some of the best ideas for eco-friendly gift wrapping, I came across one idea that I’m still shocked hasn’t really caught on in the mainstream: furoshiki.

My furoshiki creations for this Christmas.

Furoshiki is a traditional Japanese method of wrapping and tying cloths to wrap gifts or transport items (such as library books). I’ve heard from some sources that the tying cloths were considered special and passed among families over time.

It’s really very simple. My furoshiki usually consists of just wrapping the cloth around the item and tying it in the way that intuitively seems to work best. That said, there are specific methods that work best for different sizes and shapes of items.

While there are websites where you can buy furoshiki cloths, and they now carry them at Lush (and the ones at Lush are really cute!), I mostly buy scarves for $5 or less at thrift shops and garage sales. I stockpile them during the year and when Christmas rolls around, I have quite a few and can usually manage to wrap a large percentage of my gifts in furoshiki. Many of them get passed back to me and I reuse them, though I hope it will catch on among my extended family and they’ll start using the cloths to wrap their gifts, too.

Top left: DVD wrapped in a plain green scarf (from a thrift shop) // Top right: book wrapped in another thrift shop scarf, with coordinating ribbon added // Bottom left: Lego set wrapped in a full sari (it’s twisted and brought back around at the bottom) // Bottom right: Notebook wrapped in a furoshiki cloth from Lush, with a tag made from wood paneling and painted.

Not a fantastic photo, but I love this gift. It’s a tartan scarf doubled and wrapped around a Contiga travel mug. I think the knot at the top worked out really well.

Another furoshiki cloth from Lush. I’ve already used this one to wrap gifts a few times. So cheery! This is a birthday gift for Neko.

Sometimes, I use an item like a playsilk, towel or scarf that I’m actually giving as part of the gift, to wrap another gift.

This is a large, rainbow playsilk that I bought for Neko for Christmas. I decided to make it do double duty and also use it to wrap her new wool jammies!

How fun is this? I get to skip the tape and scissors, be waste-free on Christmas morning, and they look so pretty! I also find wrapping this way much quicker than any other method I’ve tried.

Winter Festival and Dressember Day #10

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Early this morning, at 7 am, my alarm rang to tell me it was time to wake up Charlotte, Neko’s friend who had slept over last night for Neko’s birthday party, to take her outside to see the lunar eclipse. I went outside to see if it was even visible, and on seeing that it was, wondered to myself what to do. If I woke up Charlotte, would it wake Neko? Would she be really overtired then? If Neko didn’t wake up, what would Charlotte do until she did? In the end I fell asleep for a bit, then woke up at 7:45 and when I went back outside to see if the eclipse was still visible, Charlotte woke up and came out to see. I’ve been a zombie today, though I guess it was cool to see the eclipse (I hate to sound like a brat… but I’ve seen about four now… and I wouldn’t normally get up at 7 am to see one).

After Charlotte had gone home, we drove up to my parents’ place in my hometown. There was a winter festival happening tonight in my hometown, and I’ve always wanted to take Neko to it. This is the first year it’s worked out. First, we had cake and gifts at my parents’ house, as it’s our niece’s birthday today.

The festival had a hay ride, craft sale, free hot dogs and hot chocolate, skating, and Santa. The local shops were also open late. I ran into a few people I knew, which was neat (a couple of them I hadn’t seen since high school).

Neko finally got to see Santa and tell him what’s on her wish list!

I wore one of my favourite winter dresses, an organic cotton piece from a Vancouver designer. With tights and long wool underwear, a hat and mitts, and my Keen boots, I stayed warm outside for quite a while! Though, it’s also only about freezing, so quite warm.

Dress: Two of Hearts // Coat: Bench // Long underwear: Hocosa // Boots: Keen // Mug: Contiga

My parents have a lovely woodstove so afterward we took to the loft and watched the Doomsday Marathon on National Geographic. (And ate oranges.)

Neko’s “Fake Birthday” and Dressember Day #9

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All day today, Neko told everyone it was her birthday… her “fake birthday.” In reality, today was the day of her birthday party, which I’d be willing to bet is more like her birthday to her, than is the day of the anniversary of her birth. Ah, well. We started off with a “Chickadee Party” with Outdoors In, a local organization that teaches classes about nature and animals. Judy, the instructor, offers a lot of neat classes on seasons, survival, habitats, adaptation and so on to homeschooled kids, and given that Neko is really into nature and science, we go to a lot of these. Today’s class was on birds and different animals and how some adapt, some hibernate and some migrate during winter.

“Mice” hiding under the “snow.”

A mouse emerging from the melting snow in the spring.

The idea was that this was the “Christmas party” to end off the fall sessions of Outdoors In, so we ended with cookies and hot chocolate.

Here was today’s dress:

Dress: vintage store in Vancouver (gift) // Long underwear: Hocosa // Shirt: Old Navy

The evening was Neko’s birthday party. Neko turns six later this month, but given the proximity to Christmas, we try to have her party early. This year marks her first sleepover! We started off with Make-Your-Own-Sandwiches. The girls could choose toasted or untoasted; mayo, mustard or roasted red pepper hummus; ham or chicken; spinach, sprouts, tomatoes, pickles, onions, avocado or red pepper; herbed havarti, cheddar or emmental.

My chicken/hummus/pickle/tomato/sprout/avocado/red pepper/onion/havarti sandwich was EPIC.

Next, we had Make-Your-Own-Sundaes, featuring chocolate marshmallow swirl ice cream (Neko’s choice, but sickeningly sweet) with blueberry sauce, strawberry sauce, chocolate chips, cookie dough, coconut, cinnamon, maraschino cherries, pecans and cashews.

I made a photo treasure hunt, as most of the girls in attendance are just learning to read. This went over like gangbusters.

Going to the basement to find the treasure. Yes, I know how creepy our stairs look.

The treasure was Crazy Carpets! I couldn’t have guessed how well these would go over!!

I somehow managed to not take a photo of all of them playing Just Dance 3, which was the highlight of the night, and so cute and funny to watch. This was Neko’s early birthday gift. Two of the girls went home around 9 pm, while Charlotte stayed to sleep over. While Neko and Charlotte stayed up to read/look at books until 10:30 pm, once we turned out the lights, they were asleep in minutes.

Now, Charlotte has requested I wake her at 7 am to witness the lunar eclipse. That is about two hours earlier than I’m apt to wake up/come alive, so I’m not sure how the morning will look. I’m quite sure, though, that it won’t be pretty.

Soup Day and Dressember Day #8

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Sometimes when I have the extra two kids, I like to do theme days. They’re fun for me to plan, because I can incorporate the meals, books, activities and crafts or experiments. Today was Soup Day! There wasn’t a lot to it, but it was fun. First, we read Stone Soup, by Ann McGovern (my copy is from the 70s or 80s and is well loved). It’s about a traveler who stops at an old woman’s house to beg for some food, only she says she has none. He says it’s fine, he has a stone that he can use to make soup. They throw it in a pot with some water and boil it, and he keeps suggesting she add more ingredients (chicken, carrots, onions, beef bones, barley) and of course they end up with delicious soup.

After we read the book, I took out three pots and put a clean, round stone and some chicken broth in each, then let each child choose veggies, legumes/beans, a grain and a meat to add to their own soup.

The three stones we used to make the soup.

Finn only had peas, corn, cauliflower and rice in his; Mairead chose peas, corn, cauliflower, carrots, spinach, rice and chicken; and Neko wanted peas, corn, carrots, cauliflower, legumes, macaroni and sausage. I tried all three, and they were tasty! I also made some fresh bread for them to dip in their soup.

After lunch, we read another favourite – a really funny book by Jackie Urbanovic called Duck Soup. It’s about a Duck named Max who loves to cook soup, but one day, when his friends come to visit, they find a big pot of soup on the stove and think he has fallen in, so they dump it out in an attempt to save him. It’s really cute.

I’m sure we could have done more for Soup Day. Does anyone out there have any ideas?

Also, today was Dressember Day #8. All this time there has been the issue of trying to stay warm… today I was too warm! I was wearing tights, with wool socks and wool/silk blend long underwear overtop, then wool leg warmers, plus my dress and for much of the day, a short sleeved, hooded cardigan. With the soup and bread cooking, I was cooking too.

Dress: Zara // Long underwear: wool/silk blend from Hocosa – LOVE // Legwarmers: Cronert Button-Up Legwarmers from Sock Dreams // Socks: Smart Wool

Dressember Day #7: Whirling Wednesday

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Today I wore another one of a few work-safe dresses I had to pinpoint for the month. Some of my dresses either aren’t dressy enough, aren’t conducive to demonstrating baby carriers, or are just plain too short or too low cut, so I had to choose my work-day dresses first.

This, incidentally, is one of my favourites.

Dress: Bellissima Petite // Shoes: Mantles // Both via clothing swaps

The nice people of the Dressember Facebook page tell me that today is Whirling Wednesday, so that explains the above photo. And yes, I do always make that face when I whirl.

Dressember Day #6: A Woolen Tragedy

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Today I wore one of my favourite dresses; a cute taupe wool piece that I bought myself at Portabello Arts Market for my 28th birthday. It’s by a Vancouver designer, Cici, and is great for work in the winter.

Well, you may remember from my first post regarding Dressember that I store my dresses hanging from a pipe in the basement. As it turns out (and I had never really noticed this before), the duct that runs adjacent to the pipe is a heat duct, and it gets quite hot. Apparently, my lovely little wool dress was up against this duct for a period of time. The result?

Yep, major heat damage. I’m going to attempt to dye the whole thing, but that’s not happening this month, so I wore it today anyway and recycled yesterday’s emerald shrug. I was cooking at work! Oops, I mean, I don’t work in a kitchen – I was really warm. And, consequently, dopey.

Dress: Cici (Vancouver) // Shrug: Gilmore // Tights: Army and Navy. I don’t recommend buying your tights at Army and Navy; these are crap. // Boots: a reappearance of the Paris cheapies

Dressember Day #5

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Dress: Vintage handmade // Shrug: Gilmour (clothing swap) // Shoes: American Eagle (thrifted) // Brooch: origin unknown but the missing stones add character

Not much to post today other than the dress. Neko came to work with me for a couple hours; we went tobogganing, talked about base-ten numbers and trans-gendered folk, and read some stories. This blog will turn more unschooly soon, I promise!