Humphrelia

Just like our trip to the beach in May, I have allowed four weeks to pass since we returned from Boston before actually writing about the trip. Perhaps this blog is simply cursed to always be about one month behind…

Malin took her camera along, and Will loves being in pictures (several times, he stopped and insisted that Malin take a picture of him right then and there). So this post has a decent number of photos…

Getting There

We had a bit of a rough time getting to the airplane. First, on auto-pilot, I drove towards the airport instead of towards our park-and-ride facility of choice. After doing a loop around Hartsfield-Jackson, we finally managed to get to our park-and-ride facility. And… naturally… it was full. I’d seen them full before only once - during spring break. I wasn’t sure why they were so busy now. I suppose it was just after school got out for summer, so perhaps a lot of families decided to fly to an early summer vacation destination, much like ourselves. They gave us a coupon for one free night at another facility up the road (same owners of course).

We drove up the road and parked, hopped on the shuttle to the airport, and made it all the way to the airport before realizing that we had left something in the car: Will’s booster seat. We didn’t need his seat for the airplane so much as for the rental car once we landed in Boston. The shuttle driver was nice and happily drove us back to the car and then back out to the airport.

We were finally at the airport - all of our junk in tow! The next bit of fun we had was getting our boarding passes. We had Delta e-tickets, so the shuttle driver dropped us off at the Delta terminal, and we walked up to an available kiosk for check-in. As Murphy’s Law would predict, we were unable to get our passes from the kiosk. As luck would have it, our seats were on a “partner carrier”: Continental. Even though we booked the flights through Delta and Delta and Continental are “partners”, we still had to lug all of our junk to the other side of the airport (Continental and Delta are not on the same terminal) to check-in and get boarding passes.

Thankfully, we had left home early enough to allow plenty of time in security lines. That meant we were early enough that all of the mishaps so far didn’t cause us to miss our flight. In fact, since we were lugging around so much stuff (a three-year-old and a booster seat is what really did it), we were let into the special, short security line that is intended for disabled passengers, passengers traveling with infants, and others with special needs.

This, of course, is the view from the plane - somewhere over the U.S. eastern seaboard, between Atlanta, Georgia and Newark, New Jersey (we had a connection at Newark, continuing on to Logan International in Boston).

Before long, we arrived in Boston, Massachusetts. Read More »

Here we go: another installment of “The Humphries Save The Planet.” I started composting, and it is not the first time. I tried this at our old house when I had the veggie garden in the backyard. I never got the swing of it though. I went the Martha way, which is to say I had a big wire bin next to the garden and put all of our food scraps in (instructions on that method).

As you could see from the picture in the link, manual labor is a key part. And time - lots and lots of time before you can use the compost in the garden. I had lusted over these nifty things, but as you can see from the price tag I was not about to do that (even if it did give you compost in six easy, non-manual-labor-filled weeks). So I had been thinking on what to do for a while and, feeling guilty every time I emptied the coffee filter or threw lemon rinds in the garbage pail, I knew I could do something easy and cheap. I finally came up with something on the drive to the lake last week. Upon our return, I decided to look online one last time to see if my plan would work. I ran across this great video (which is what my plan mainly consisted of - except I used a drill, and my hair looks way better than hers).

I purchased my trash can from Lowes for $13.00, and Will helped me drill the holes in a pretty pattern. Then we loaded it up with the brown and green matter that we had saved over the last two days, wet it, and gave it a spin. Soon I will show you my black gold!

Here is a list of things you can compost:

• Animal manure
• Cardboard rolls
• Clean paper
• Coffee grounds and filters
• Cotton rags
• Dryer and vacuum cleaner lint
• Eggshells
• Fireplace ashes
• Fruits and vegetables
• Grass clippings
• Hair and fur
• Hay and straw
• Houseplants
• Leaves
• Nut shells
• Sawdust
• Shredded newspaper
• Tea bags
• Wood chips
• Wool rags
• Yard trimmings

One last note: I am truly amazed at how much smaller our weekly trash that goes to the street is because of recycling and composting. It has gone down by at least two-thirds and is the most obvious change we have made during this process. This week it is my goal to put up recycling bins for the bathrooms - an easily overlooked place that is full of paper products just being thrown in the trash.

A few years ago, Josh and I decided we would change a habit or a product here and there in our daily lives - in an attempt to become more conscious of our affect on the planet and to just be more conscious as humans in general. One of the first things we did was to replace most of the bulbs in the house with compact fluorescent bulbs. Now you may say, “Most? Why not all?” The simple fact is that we wanted to make these changes without compromising too much (mainly due to the fact that very small bulbs and bulbs attached to dimmer switches don’t agree to well with CFL). We are Americans after all, and if we do it this way then we can convince others to follow along. Because if it is not easy and cheap then it is not sustainable for the laziest among us.

Along the way, we have also taken this idea to the food we eat, and we have slowly been changing into more conscious eaters. This means more vegetables, more fruit, no junk food in the house, no soda in the house, eating at home as much as possible, and, finally, cutting out a whole lot of processed food. We still eat out and drink like fish (Josh makes beer after all) - we even drink soda and go to fast food joints, but only once in a while. Even then, we try our best to keep it somewhat healthy. This was probably the hardest for me as Will loves Chik-Fil-A and - I mean - who doesn’t? He still begs, but I resist.

Ok, back on topic! So this year we decided to step it up a little more: first we started recycling, and then I decided to get rid of all the harsh chemicals to clean the house. NO, I did not stop cleaning! I traded them for more earth-friendly ideas. Now I know I could have gone out and bought green-wise stuff, but I really felt that was just not being very conscious. I decided Bleach, Baking soda, and Vinegar are all I need, and I must say it has been a smashing success. I have a spray bottle with water and a few drops of bleach (chlorine free) for cleaning the counters and hard floors. Important note about bleach: you only need a few drops. You don’t even need to be able to smell it for it to disinfect your counters and what not. Baking soda is a miracle powder: it has gotten the toughest dirt out of the bottom of my shower, cleaned the grout in my bathroom, and whitened my laundry. The best part of all: it is way cheap! More info here on the wonderment of the BS. Vinegar: in a word - URINE. If you have a dog or a child then you know what I am talking about. Vinegar breaks down the enzymes in urine instantly, and dogs will not mark again if they can smell it. We could talk about all its other great features, but read this article instead. Oh, and the smell is gone once it dries.

Ok, the point of this post! I have decided to start posting about my newest experiments into going green. I am always trying something new to see if it will fit into my life and save me money (lest I remind you about gas prices). Not everything I do will sound sane or even doable by all, but maybe it will give some of you the info you need to try something new.

Next week: composting on the cheap!

I feel like every time I post to this blog I preface by writing “We’ve been really busy for the past couple of weeks.” I guess by now you’ve figured out that we somehow keep ourselves very busy pretty much non-stop… The past few weeks have been no exception.

Will has begun to disperse his Star Wars obsession out to a couple of other subjects: Harry Potter and Indiana Jones. As Malin has mentioned, we’ve let him watch the first three Harry Potter movies. He won’t be allowed to watch the others until much since they get into PG-13 territory. He has yet to see an Indiana Jones movie, but still has managed to be completely fascinated with him. It’s really funny to hear him talk about it and mix up his characters, “I’m Anakin Jones!”

A recent favorite activity of Will’s is to play various games on the computer at Lego.com. They have games ranging from Lego Star Wars to Lego Indiana Jones and everything in between (Knights vs. Wizards, Robots and Spaceships, etc…). He would spend all day doing this if he could. We try to not let him though, interrupting his office potato habits by taking him to the pool, taking outside to play, or reading books to him.

Last weekend we were in Boston to visit my brother, Jake. We actually spent most of our time around Cambridge (which is where Jake lives) and slept in Woburn (a 15-minute drive from Cambridge) where the hotels are much, much cheaper. Malin has yet to download photos from her CompactFlash cards to the computer, so I’ll post again later with details and pics. (Hopefully, less than 4 weeks will go by this time).

Yesterday we spent time in town, going to a Japanese book store in Smyrna and then to Decatur to walk around/shop/eat. We got a chance to eat lunch at the 5^th Earl Market, and decided that it is definitely a better destination for fancy sandwiches than Muss & Turner’s (no offense meant to Muss & Turner’s). It’s hard to compare them to Alon’s though because they are so different. Alon’s is much more of a market whereas 5^th Earl Market (despite the name) is more of a restaurant (and thus more like Muss & Turner’s in that respect).

In any event, we split The Moat. It is a big ol’ BBQ sandwich that includes a “white” BBQ sauce. The white sauce is basically like the white sauce (aka yum-yum sauce) that is available at most Hibachi (Japanese steakhouse) restaurants. It is good and tasted good on the sandwich, but I still prefer coleslaw as a BBQ sandwich topper (call me old-fashioned, I guess).

I was so busy trying to document the wedding in my last post that I nearly forgot that the weekend doubled as a beach vacation for us.

We brought a big Tonka dump truck for Will to play with in the sand. We also brought his “tools” - a plastic toy shovel and rake, made for sandbox play.

He made several trips from the house to the beach. The first afternoon we were there, shortly after arriving, Donna took him and Catrina (Audra’s and Jason’s young cousin) to the beach to play. We returned again the next morning, and again in the evening, and again the next day, etc…

During some down time before the wedding, the three of us (Malin, Will, and me) went for a stroll on the beach. Malin took many pictures of us on the beach. When we walked under the pier that was near the house, she handed me the camera and asked me to snap some in order to get herself in some pictures. The first photo up there on the right is shy Willie getting a piggyback ride from mommy. The one below shows the two of them looking for shells under the pier:

There were actually lots of seashells to find down there. Just a few feet away from where they’re standing was an alley of crushed shells that seemed to run the whole length of the beach:

Tiring of my photography skills (or lack thereof), Malin eventually reclaimed her camera to prove that I was actually at the beach with the two of them:

She also got some great shots of Will playing in the sand. This one is my favorite:

The rest of the vacation centered around the wedding and our preparation of food for ourselves and the other guests: a low-country boil on Saturday, crab cakes and fish’n'chips on Sunday.

Unfortunately, we had to leave the beach on Monday. I can’t wait to go back… perhaps later this summer?

It has now been nearly a month since Memorial Day weekend. Sorry for the long delay. Malin and I need to work on a better way for me to get to her pics. She takes lots of photos, but I sometimes have to spend a good bit of time digging around her hard drive to find the ones I’m looking for when I post.

So as you may know, we had a long memorial day weekend on the beach at Oak Island, NC. We were there to see our good friend Audra marry her fiance (now her husband), Jon. We were also planning to bring some foodie entertainment for everyone, and Malin would be taking pictures the whole weekend. Read More »

Last night I saw a huge moth on the back deck. It was quite still so I was able to get close and measure - its wingspan was nearly 6 inches!

Here’s a pic of the big ol’ critter:

In other news, for anyone who was curious about the details of the beer dinner that Malin and I attended (mentioned briefly in my previous post), I’ve finally posted all of the gory details so you can now read all about it.

Will finished school last week, and we have been hanging out here at the house enjoying the air condition in between my work and watching an inordinate amount of Harry Potter. He is only allowed to watch the first three as the fourth one is rated PG-13.

Now, before I get emails, let me explain: when we first had Will, I definitely did the high-and-mighty “I am going to do the best job at raising him and controlling what he is exposed to and yadda yadda…” I have a 2×4 sticking out of my head because that is all bat-shit insane. You cannot really control anything: he is all boy, all the time. So we have shifted our focus to “let’s keep it to ‘innocent’ violence.”

Can you believe that just came out of my mouth? Innocent violence?! Who says crap like that? Well, I do. We say “shooter” instead of “gun” and “fall down” instead of “die”. He may be starting to grasp that death is a permanent thing and all around uncool. So, I guess in the end, my crazy has given way to a more conscious way of dealing with BOY.

On other notes, on the next-to-last day of school, a manila envelope was sent home with him. I did not think anything of it, and neither did Josh. That night I opened the envelope, and the coolest, most awesome gift that is not a gift (but really is) was inside. See picture:

Will sewed all these little sequins on all by himself. Is that not the coolest thing ever? No really - EVER?! I love to sew and had given up any notion of sharing my past time with my BOY. But, when he brought these home, a little spark was lit, and I asked him if he liked sewing, and he said, “yes.”

Music filled the room - I swear (or maybe the TV was up a little loud…).

I am going to frame these, and when he is 16 he is going to beg me to stop carrying them around with me where ever I go.

Among other amusing phrases, “Stormpoopers” is just one of the things you’re likely to hear around our house thanks to our very amusing three-year-old.

Aside from that little quip, the title in no way describes the rest of this post. The past few weeks have been quite busy for us; I’ll try to recap below.

Clown Caper

The Saturday before Mother’s Day was the Counterpane Clown Caper Carnival at Will’s School. My parents came down on Friday and accompanied us to the carnival the next day.

It was a fun parade. Many of the children arrived in costumes - mostly clowns. There was the obligatory Panda Bear, too.

The entertainment consisted of numerous carnival games and the like, all suited for the kids - ranging from Will’s age and into the early tweens.

Will had several favorites: fishing (for blocks of wood shaped like fish), golf (putting to be precise), darts (Will has no skills here yet which made for a nerve wracking 5 minutes), and the bean-bag toss. The objectives of the games have nothing to do with being competitive, so every child plays the game until they “succeed”. Their reward for so doing is a bead necklace - not unlike those traded at the reputedly debaucherous Mardi Gras of New Orleans:

Apparently my dad and I were both amused - by what I can’t recall:

Will’s favorite part, above all of the carnie games, was the horse riding. Will met two horses, Carrot and Jake. He has asked about them almost everyday since the Clown Caper…

Mother’s Day

The next day was Mother’s Day. The plan was to take Malin out to breakfast at The Original Pancake House and then to let her go pick out flowers and other plants (she has a green thumb and likes to make the yard pretty in this fashion).

The first wrinkle is that The Original Pancake House in Peachtree City closed. Say it isn’t say! How could they close!??! Where else can I get Bacon Pancakes (no, that isn’t a joke… and, yes, they’re awesome). We had to eat at J. Christopher’s instead, which was okay but quite a disappointment comparatively (no Bacon Pancakes after all).

After eating, we scrambled all over Newnan in search of the Andy’s Nursery there. We had been before but couldn’t remember exactly how to get there. To insure we found our way, we printed directions from Google Maps. The directions, as it would turn out, were completely wrong! I’m not sure what about the address so thoroughly confused Google, but thoroughly confused it was. The address we entered included the City and State, and Newnan isn’t really big, so that luckily put a limit on just how far away it could take us. But it did take us to the complete opposite side of Newnan from where the place really is. To make matters worse, the woman at the store who answered the phone and tried to give us directions gave pretty bad directions. Eventually we found it, and all was right.

The Fifth Earl

The weekend after that, Malin and I attended a really cool private dinner at a gourmet market and restaurant in Decatur named 5th Earl Market. You’ll find more details of that evening over at Hump’s Brewing (at least you will after I get around to posting about it - still collecting photos from the evening…)

Water Grenade Mischief

The day after that dinner was Sunday. On Sunday I showed Will how to play with water balloons. We found a slew of balloons at the “Dollar Spot” in Target. They even came with a little plastic filler that is meant to screw onto a faucet. Unfortunately, the threads of this piece of plastic fit nothing - not any of the faucets in the house and not the house outside, either. It looks like its meant to fit the threads on the faucet of a utility sink (which have the same coarseness as a garden hose but a little smaller in diameter).

In any event, we improvised. By simply unscrewing the cap on the kitchen sink faucet, we had a nice spout onto which to wrap the mouths of balloons. Install balloon, turn on water, wait for three seconds, turn off water, tie the balloon, repeat… We filled up around six or seven and then headed outdoors to assault mommy (just kidding - no humans or animals were intentionally struck with water balloons)

Some of the balloons were quite full. Will accidentally squeezed one of them a little too hard in his hands, and - oops! like pulling the pin and then dropping the grenade - the balloon exploded, thoroughly soaking Will in the process:

Grandma Frannie’s Birthday

The following Wednesday, May 21^st, was my mom’s birthday (Will calls her Grandma Frannie). The following day, Malin, Will, and I packed a ton of stuff into the car and drove to Greenville to visit her. We were also attending a wedding in NC that weekend and were breaking the drive up by stopping for a night in Greenville, both on the way there and on the way back.

Will found a great birthday card at the Publix. It was an amusing, oversized card that played music when you opened it. Knowing Will you might be able to guess the theme of the card. Upon opening it, one was treated to the theme from Star Wars (the intro music that begins each film and is heard during the opening text crawl of all six films).

We also got her the recently released Indiana Jones trilogy on DVD. Unfortunately, we didn’t get a chance to watch any of those movies while we were there.

The Wedding of Audra and Jon

The morning of Friday the 23^rd, we packed the car back up for a five-hour drive to Oak Island, NC. Our good friend Audra was getting married. The weekend was fun and quite eventful - so eventful, in fact, that it will be covered in more detail in a post all of its own. Be on the look out for that very soon…

Summer Break

Today (Friday the 30^th) was Will’s final day of school. He is now officially on Summer break and won’t go back to school for seven weeks. This should be an interesting couple of months… Luckily we bought memberships to the Fernbank Museum, so I see that in our future - at least once anyway.

Tomorrow we are off to Lilburn. Malin and another friend of hers have been preparing a Jack and Jill Baby Shower for our friends, Scott and Karyn (Jack and Jill meaning husbands and children are invited - not just the Jills).

The week after that we are traveling to Boston to visit my brother and to see the sights. Malin and I have never been to that city before, so we are pretty stoked - especially since we love seafood and shellfish, which is supposed to be a specialty there (and pretty much every city so close to coastal fishing waters…).

It seems I am not alone in my love of swine. The online comic xkcd is usually funny and often strange, but last Friday they really hit a home run:

Their most recent comic, from yesterday, is cute, too. And it’s also centered around a food item that, like bacon, can be ordered from Waffle House:

A coworker and friend also forwarded me an e-mail about the most e-mailed photos, and one of them centered around our favorite food - combined with a close runner-up: the donut.

I had seen these cardiac thrombosis cakes before on a television show: Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations. In one episode of the show, Tony Bourdain visited the Pacific Northwest and makes a stop at Voodoo Doughnut, the purveyor of these fine, freaky, triple-bypass inducing, delicacies.