Friday, February 11, 2022

7 Quick Takes about Zoomorphism at the Grocery Store, Freezing Rain, and a Question about Irons

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It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

1


Happy Friday from this sweet potato pig.


I actually didn't notice the cute appearance of this sweet potato until the kids pointed it out, but once they did it was a little hard to bring myself to peel it.

It has eyebrows, for goodness' sakes.

2


The weather has been a little nutty here. During the day, the temperature is above freezing so there is water pooled everywhere on the ground from snowmelt or rain, then they all freeze overnight so we can ice skate down the sidewalks to work and school in the morning. 

Practically everyone's yard is a skating rink and the usual puddle at the bottom of our driveway has become an ice floe.

It's hard to complain about 50° days, but I am a little bummed that this happened to be the weekend we planned a sledding get-together for my 8-year-old and his friends. I highly doubt there will be any snow left, so maybe it will have to be a mud wrestling party instead.

3


Lately I've been waking up in the middle of the night and having a hard time going back to sleep. It's actually really annoying.

Sometimes when that happens I'll get up and read, but lately I've been lying there and kind of drifting in and out of a shallow sleep, and it's very weird. 

I'll start dreaming, but I'm still half-aware so I feel like I'm simultaneously (1) lying in bed and (2) doing whatever I'm dreaming about. Except I know that both things can't actually be happening at the same time, so I spend most of the dream trying to work out which one is real.

4


I started reading a book called Time Management for Mortals. (I'm almost as much of a sucker for productivity books as I am for parenting books.)

I think this one is going to take a much different tack on time management than most I've read, though. Here is the first page:

Page 1: In the Long Run, We're All Dead.

I'm only about 5 pages in, but how can you not love a book that starts like that?

5


I have a cleaning question that not even Google could answer, so I'd like to take it to you guys and see what ideas you have.

The other day, I ironed some unwashed red fabric to make curtains and the red bled/melted off onto the face of my iron. I guess it was probably too hot. Anyway, you can see some of the residue it left behind, and it's firmly stuck there (except sometimes when I iron clothes now and it leaves pink marks on them.)


The red doesn't easily wipe off, and I'm afraid to scrub the iron with anything abrasive that might ruin it. How would you clean it off? 

6


My 2nd grader brought home this laminated chart and is now obsessed with the Chinese zodiac:


He's asking what year everyone we know is born in, and then makes them sit and listen to their horoscope while nodding appreciatively. Then they have to give him the birth years of everyone they know.

It's like a pyramid scheme.

Funnily enough, the child who shares Phillip's zodiac animal is a carbon copy of him, and the child who is my exact replica also shares mine. Interesting, right?

7


I mentioned I read Hunt, Gather, Parent and then got rid of our chore chart, an Evans family staple that's been hanging on the wall for 10+ years. Of course the kids love not having an assigned chore each day, but I've found it surprisingly freeing as well. 

It gave me permission to randomly ask the kids to do whatever needs to be done around here, without an opportunity for them to protest "but I already did my chore!" It shifted all of our attitudes from "these are the chores for which this child is responsible" to "there's a lot to be done around here and we're all responsible."

An unexpected side effect is that we're all spending more time together, too. Instead of sending them off to "go do their chore" while I do something separate, I'm saying multiple times a day "Let's go __________ (make dinner, clean the bathroom, whatever.)" The same amount of work is getting done, I think, but we're having a greater number of positive interactions while doing it.

The kids are still working on things like not walking past the overflowing trash can and just emptying it without an engraved invitation, but I have faith that it'll happen. Baby steps. 

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7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I used to clean my iron with curling iron cleaner. It always worked for me.

Diana Dye said...

Would it work to heat up the iron and iron an old towel until it all rubbed off? Maybe a wet towel or turn the steam feature on too?

I wake up in the middle of the night often. Putting in ear plugs and a mask over my eyes really helps me, even if I'm not trying to drown out noise or block light--I dont know why it works.

me said...

Try : vinegar or alcohol or WD-40 or Mr clean magic eraser. Nail polish remover might work too. Hair spray sometimes works on stubborn stains.

Nicola said...

You'll laugh at this, but turn your iron at at a low to medium setting and run a paracetamol tablet over the marks. As it 'dissolves' with the heat it takes away the marks. You can also use a cloth lightly soaked in vinegar and wipe the plate with it. Good luck!

PurpleSlob said...

I'm so lad to be back online!! I missed you!!
#5, I was gonna say the eraser too. Let us know what you did!!

ming said...

for your iron: heat iron to high, fold a sheet of wax paper and iron the paper, make take a few times, test by ironing an old cloth. My mother removed all sorts of stuff using this method. Love your blog.

Tracy said...

I’d spray vinegar on a old towel and heat up the iron and ‘scrub’.