hopeful

Question: How do you prepare a two-year-old and a four-and-a-half-year-old for a twenty-six hour road trip across five states?

Answer: I have no idea. But I thought I'd start with tote bags.



We've made this trip before, last year in fact - we packed up the minivan and strapped in the boys to make the cross country trek from central Illinois to western Montana. It was different last year, somehow. For one, Emmett was still very much a baby - in a rear facing car seat with a propensity to sleep a lot and in that blissfully unaware stage (you know, where you could pull into a drive-in and order yourself a milkshake without your kid even noticing) that made him kind of a non-factor in the equation. Finn stayed content with books and DVDs and more sleep than usual. Now I've got  two kids to keep entertained, two kids who aren't particularly good at entertaining themselves in the best of situations. I am thus determined to be prepared.

Over the last few weeks, I've been building a stash of goodies for the trip. I'm not talking about the edible kind (though we will bring plenty of those), but the keep-'em-happy kind. I've been searching the Internet for parenting articles about road trip happiness (and have found a lot more directed at older kids, unfortunately), and I've talked to Finn at length about the kinds of things he wants to do in the car.

We will bring the portable DVD player, but I honestly don't want them watching movies the entire time. I did think ahead to purchase new, sturdy, kid-sized headphones (aren't they cute?) for both boys, since last summer Finn watched (and we listened to) It's a Very Muppet Christmas (the really annoying one with Joan Cusack) about seventeen times in South Dakota alone.

I love the Crayola Color Explosion markers that only show up on special paper (instead of all over my kids), so both boys got a set of those. We've got coloring books and colored pencils and pads of paper for drawing. Each boy gets a set of binoculars and a flashlight, and we picked up some garage sale books last week so they each have some books they've never seen before.Finn's got a stash of Highlights Hidden Pictures magazines to bring along, and Emmett will probably get a few little cars to play with.

Last year, Finn developed a deep affection for travel brochures. He actually slept with a stack next to his pillow the whole time we were at Grama and Grampa's house. That stash migrated to every deep corner of the van. This year, I made him a brochure box that he can use to stash the brochures he picks up. Hopefully this will work for both of us.



Now that I've got this ever growing pile of activities, where do I put it all? I thought a couple of tote bags might do the trick and decided to make them extra special by customizing them. Here's a quick tutorial on how I did that for your appliqueing pleasure (I can't believe spell check let me get away with that).

I would love to hear any great road trip ideas you might have, particularly for the preschool/toddler set.

Happy trails, all!


What you need: blank canvas tote bag,initial pattern, scrap of fusible interfacing, iron, scrap of fabric, sewing machine, thread

1 - Start by pressing the tote bag and the fabric scrap so that everything is nice and smooth.

2- Using a word processing program, print out the desired letter. Mine were Franklin Gothic Heavy, size 700 in outline.
 
3 - Cut the fabric and the interfacing slightly larger than the letter. Use an iron to fuse the interfacing to the back side of the fabric. This makes the initial substantially sturdier. Pin the letter to the right side of the fabric/interfacing and cut it out.

4 - Pin the letter where you want it on the bag. Use a zigzag stitch to attach the letter to the bag (it helps to practice on a scrap of fabric first so that you get the zigzag to the appropriate width and length - mine was 2.5 wide and .5 in length).

 
6 - Trim off loose threads. Enjoy your bag!

If your love for cooking and recipes is anything like mine (and I would venture to guess that for many of you it is), you have a recipe problem. Not a problem with the recipes per se but a problem with organizing the recipes in a way that they are usable. They are everywhere, in all kinds of formats, and they are driving me bananas.

Way back when I was in library school, I picked up a key phrase in the world of library and information science. It went something like this: information is only as usable as it is findable. I'm sure that the scholar who coined the phrase said it far more elegantly than that, but you get the idea. What's the point of having a bazillion recipes if, when you are making your grocery list for the week, you can't find the recipe you want?

At present, my recipes are in the following places:

• in cookbooks - These are the easiest to find as they have indexes and are all together on a shelf. They subsequently get used the most.
• in magazines - If the magazine in question is Everyday Food, then they are on the top shelf in chronological order going back to 2005. A print index is occasionally released, and I think there is an index on the website as well. If the magazine in question is any of the countless other magazines to which I subscribe, the recipes are likely still in the magazine with the corners bent over. They are then in a huge pile waiting for the day when I get a system figured out. On a side note, I find it hilarious that all of my January magazines want me to "get organized" when one of the areas in my life most needing organization is...figuring out what to do with my magazines.
• in a folder on my hard drive - Those that I download from the Internet get saved in an aptly named "Recipes" folder. This does not mean I ever look at them again.
• in a folder in my email - Those recipes that I receive by email often end up here. Per the above re: ever looking at them again.
• in my allrecipes account - Those recipes that I save in allrecipes get saved in the "recipe box" feature.  The catch is remembering what recipes I saved there when I am looking for a recipe.
• on my pinterest board - Again, there if I remember to look.
• on sheets of paper in a folder on my shelf - These are generally recipes that I find online then print out or recipes that I photocopy from books I check out from the library. This collection may also include recipes clipped from magazines or recipes given to me by friends. To be filed into aforementioned desired system, of course.
• on this blog - With a grand total of 33 entries at present, I can generally remember what recipes I've included here...for now.

Does anyone out there have this figured out? Or have any brilliant ideas?Anyone?

     "Are the spice bottles in your kitchen out of control? Do you end up      searching in every cabinet and going through bottle after bottle just to      find the one you want?" - from The Swivel Store website

It has long been on my agenda to reorganize my spices. I have not one, not two, not even three, but four different containers for bottles of spices, which makes it really tough to find the bottle I need when I need it. It also means that I often end up buying spices because I can't find the one I want only to discover it later. Which is why, for example, I have three bottles of nutmeg. Spices are not cheap, nor do they stay fresh forever, so it was time to get organized. Additionally, I wanted to take some time to reevaluate which spices I use most often. I frequently find myself reaching for paprika, but it doesn't have a space on my spice carousel. It was time to clean and relabel those easiest to reach bottles with my most frequently used spices.

I decided to move forward with the project when I saw the Swivel Store prominently displayed at the local Walgreens. It's in the line of "As Seen on TV" products (the last of which I purchased was The Magic Bullet a.k.a "The Ultimate Party Machine!") which I typically find a bit off-putting. I mean, with all that hype, is the product really worth it? I decided to give it a go and spent the $20 for my very own Swivel Store.

 
With my fancy new chunk of plastic in hand, I then proceeded to empty my cupboards of every spice I could find and bring them to the dining room for sorting and organizing.


I won't bore you with all the details of the process.  Let's just say that when I got started, I had 73 bottles of spices in 4 different places. Now I have a freshly sanitized and newly relabeled countertop spice carousel that holds my 16 most frequently used spices, a fancy Swivel Store that holds my 20 second tier spices, and a small basket of refills and very rarely used spice blends that fits neatly on a top shelf.



Of note, I chose to work on this while Finn was at preschool.  Emmett hung out with me and shook the various bottles and jars. His favorite: boring, white Cream of Tartar. Go figure.



As for the Swivel Store, I don't think it is the greatest organizational tool ever to hit the market. It's cheaply made and does not include any type of adhesive to attach it to your cabinet (I used some 3M strips that I had laying around to do so), so it shifts a bit when you pull out the sides.  It does, however, hold a lot of spices in a very small amount of space. More importantly, it was there when I needed a good reminder to move forward on this project. And now...it's done! Time to get back to cooking. I'm feeling like something spicy tonight...