10 Things I (Re) Learned About Camping

I consider myself a veteran camper. I camped as a child and my husband and I have been at it through the entire ten years we’ve been together. And yet, the first camping trip of each season inevitably reminds me of some things:

1. When your mother-in-law tells you that it’s going to be below 40 overnight, pack accordingly. Teenage-esque rebellion should be reserved for your own mother.

2. When you check the weather forecast, pay attention to the overnight temperatures. Then, when you learn it will be below 40, don’t pack short pajamas. You will freeze.

3. Obnoxious neighbors from other campsites are even more annoying than obnoxious neighbors at home.

4. Drinking 16 ounces of tea, followed by wine…not a good idea if you are afraid of the dark and don’t like to whiz in the woods.

5. A full bladder, cold and loud music make the night seem very long.

6. Forgetting things like food, lanterns and tent poles make for very amusing anecdotes, but aren’t all that funny in the moment.

7. Raccoons are not remotely afraid of people.

8. It’s harder to find the clean socks you’re looking for in your pack when you have to pee really badly.

9. A whole day of outdoors and fresh air is better than Benadryl for getting kids to sleep.

10. Open spaces make it much easier to get along with people.

On Going Green...ish

Our family has tried for a long time to be friendly to the environment, but I've been making more of an effort the past couple of weeks to do more. I'm quite proud of myself today.

We've had reusable shopping bags for ages. Unfortunately, they tend to sit in the closet because we always forget to use them. I always kept 2 in my car for those last minute jaunts to the supermarket, and sometimes I even remember to bring the into the store, but last week, I put a couple more in the car for the big shopping trips. So today when I went shopping, I was half done filling my cart when I realized that I had, once again, forgotten the bags in the car. Usually I would just leave them there and promise to do better the following week. But today I was determined! I finished my shopping, explained to the person at customer service that I had forgotten my bags in the car, and then left my full cart so I could go get the bags. I am very pleased to say that I got out of the store with only 1 plastic bag (for the meat). Yay!

I also got some environmentally friendly dryer sheets and dishwashing liquid to add to the Method products I bought two weeks ago. Method has a great tub & tile cleaner, by the way - just as good as Soft Scrub, which I also like a lot.

On the downside of my 'going green' dream, I also tried a Tom's deodorant. My armpits look like they somehow got sunburned. Aluminum-laden anti-perspirants have never given me a reaction, but the all-natural, healthy one did. If I had a dollar for every irony of my life, I wouldn't need to find a job.

Karate and Dance

I’m not one of those moms who has to have their kids in everything, but I do think it’s important to let them try different things that they show an interest in. So MM has been taking dance since September and both kids recently tried karate. We’ll be looking for a new activity come summer.

I had a few reasons for putting MM in dance this year. She wasn’t going to be able to go to school as much and I wanted something for her to do that would have her around other kids. Dance was about half the cost of her preschool, and it turns out that a few of the girls from dance will be starting at the same kindergarten next year, so that worked out well. She had also expressed an interest in taking dance. She’s a very girly-girl and is very much into princesses and twirling, etc. It was only when she got into actual dance classes and discovered there was oh-no-work! involved that she cooled to that idea. This is also a good thing. Why not test the waters even if they’re not the right ones? Now she really doesn’t want to continue, but we’re committed until the end of May, after her recital. I hate having to make her do something she doesn’t want to, but they’re good lessons to learn: finish what you start and be careful of the choices you make. The last reason for enrolling her in dance was because I was hoping to help the extreme turn in of her legs, but since she’s no longer falling over her feet, I see no reason to pursue that further.

A few months ago, she started asking to try karate. Gus had also been mentioning it, so when the opportunity arose, we went for it with some trial classes. It hasn’t been a complete disaster, but it didn’t take long to see that a year commitment would be a waste. By the third lesson, MM was complaining that she didn’t want to go, and Gus was being threatened by the teacher to not be allowed in class. That was the end of that.

I found it interesting and kind of annoying that we had explained in pretty good detail what Gus’s issues are and our concerns about whether he could manage himself in the class. We made it clear that he would probably need extra help, and the school assured us that they had worked with autistic children before with wonderful success. Whatever. The look on their faces when he was running back and forth or when he started talking loudly during meditation told me that they didn’t really get it when told them what they’d be dealing with.

It will be a relief to not have to drag kids off to an activity for a while, especially with the gas prices at $3.75 today. But I’ll be back to it by July when we start swimming. Fortunately, I’ve never had to push them to do that. And maybe by fall there will be a swim class that we can fit into their schedules.

Karate Lessons

Last week my son's school had a health fair. I stopped by because the flyer had mentioned that a karate school would be there. My daughter has been asking about karate lessons for a while, and I thought they might be good for my son who has Aspergers Syndrome (autism spectrum disorder). But my concern has always bee that the schools would all turn out like that school in The Karate Kid. Silly, of course. That was just a movie.

The guy at the fair seemed nice enough and I asked lots of questions about their ability to teach a child with special needs. He said that they do have some autistic students, but at the same time, he said that they tend to ignore inappropriate behavior. The rationale is that they want to reward appropriate behavior and not give attention for misbehaving. But, anyone who has been involved with autistic kids knows that they often need a lot of redirection. So immediately I wondered if my son would be running around the room, being ignored.

I also asked if the school was geared toward competition. That's not really the environment that I want either of my children in. I want them to have fun and gain confidence, even to learn a bit of self defense ( especially my son, who is at risk to become a target for bullies as he ages) but not to become obsessive with tournaments or winning. For one thing, we can't make the financial commitment that the tournament path can often require. Heck, I'm not sure we can afford to have them both enrolled at all. I'm not sure about this because they refused to give me any fees until AFTER my kids had their trial lesson. Then when he gave me the appointment card, there was no address. I'm also not interested in having a child so focused on winning at such a young age. They have plenty of time for that later.

There was a phone number, so I called to get the address so I could get directions online. Three calls and still no one has answered the phone and after 3 days, no one has returned my call. I'm not feeling so great about this place.

I went online to see if I could find anything and I did find a website (originally I had been told there wasn't one). The information I originally wanted about pricing wasn't there, but I saw some other interesting things.

There was a student featured and also a parent featured. Both were being lauded for their intense commitment to their practice and to tournaments! One parent brings his child to lessons every day! I may be overreacting, but that doesn't sound to me like the laid-back vibe that I heard about at the fair.

I'm going to keep the appointment, mostly because I already mentioned it to my kids and if we don't go, there will be major drama. But I don't have a good feeling about it.

I've done something right

It is very gratifying for me to know that I have two kids - five and seven - who can actually appreciate and enjoy April Fools Day without getting bent out of shape at being tricked or without becoming mean in their humor. They actually got me a couple of times! I can't remember the last afternoon I spent laughing so hard.

This is in direct contrast to some other people I've seen today on other sites that can't take a joke to save their clearly miserable lives. And what's worse, not only can they not enjoy the joke, but they feel the need to ruin it for everyone else. That's just more annoying than I can even express. I've gotten tricked a fair few times today and I'm laughing at myself.

It's not about being mean in the trickery. It's about being able to laugh at ourselves and our own silliness or gullibility. It's about lightening up for a day.

Craftiness

I have a formal wedding to attend in June and I really don't want to/can't afford to buy a new dress, but all the dresses I own are a bit too snug (meaning I can't breathe in them). So I've got a long black broomstick style skirt with a very pretty silver flowery print. I just need a top to go with it. So I've decided, since I have time between now and June, to make a top. This one in fact:

Lion Brand Elegant Shell

Instead of using the organic cotton, I originally thought to use Paton's Brilliant in Black Dazzle(on my good friend Griffinitter's suggestion), but then I thought the finished product might be too scratchy. So she suggested Lion Brand's Microspun in ebony, and wow! how soft! Then we determined that the outfit needed a bit more up top to balance out my sizable hips. So I'm making a short-sleeved shrug to go with it in the same basic pattern as the shell, but with the Brilliant.

I'm quite excited because I ordered 3 balls of the Brilliant and thought I would need more for the shrug, but so far, I've gotten 7 rows out of the first ball and I'm almost sure I can get 2 more. So I might squeak through with what I've got. If I can get 27 or 28 rows, I'll have a rectangle of about 31 inches by 13 1/2 or 14 inches. That should make a nice sized, summer weight shrug. I may even get fancy and put a little silver edging on the sleeves, but we'll see how it goes. Hopefully I'll post some pics soon.

My New Zen

It's not the most up-to date MP3 player, but I just got the Creative Zen and I'm liking it immensely. I had an older generation Zen for about 2 years now and it never gave me a moment's grief, so I wanted to try upgrading. The newer Zen has a nice big screen, can handle video and pictures, along with all the other past features: FM radio, voice recording, etc.

Some cool new things: It has an organizer and alarm clock, and best of all expandable memory! With a standard SD card, you can have virtually unlimited memory. This is really nice because the software comes with Audible, so I'm pretty excited to start a new audio book library.

The controls take a bit of getting used to with this little cutie, but I was able to get the hang of basic operations without having to consult the user guide on my computer. The updated version of the Media Explorer is way easier to use than the old MediaSource. My playlists actually make sense now!

The sound is great, but I never had any complaints about the sound on my old Zen. I love the screen colors - bright enough to be very attractive, but easy on the eyes. The font is also a good size, so I'm not squinting to read what I'm doing.

Creative makes a reliable and cost efficient product. Definitely worth serious consideration.

And here's a pic of my new baby.