Super easy/healthy dessert

Berry Dessert

Berries
Yogurt
Cinnamon
Brown Sugar








Fill four custard cups with berries - I used blueberries.  Stir some yogurt with cinnamon and spoon on top of the berries.  Sprinkle some brown sugar on top and broil for 5 minutes.  Easy right?  And you probably have most the ingredients in your larder already.  Tasty, tasty tasty!

New Deck

We FINALLY have a fully operational deck!  It took up all summer, but better late than never. 

Let's see it started in April when we hired a friend to build it.  The first day of demolition was enough to make anyone nervous. 

Building took about 2 months since our friend was doing the building on weekends and free days.  After getting it all built, I waited for the stars to align to do some staining.  I needed a day that wasn't too hot or cold, a day that would be followed by dry days without rain forecast, and most difficult of all a day that I had back-up for watching the baby.   Tricky, huh.  Truth be told the deck still isn't completely stained, but I think the high side has been knocked off it. 

The last piece of the puzzle was getting some furniture for the deck, and this one took a while.  After paying for it all to be built we had limited resources set aside for shopping, which meant waiting for a clearance sale.  The umbrella and base came from Kohl's bought on clearance with a 30% off coupon.  After using it I wouldn't recommend it, but it will last a little while.  Then the furniture came from Sears - also on clearance.  I had been shopping craigslist looking for a lucky find for a couple weeks - and I think S just got tired of hearing about it.  We went shopping and after some minor dramas found what we wanted.  I put together the chairs, and he helped with the table and voila!

Now we have an excuse to invite everyone over for some grilling!

Smelly Diapers

As I mentioned in my previous post, Cloth Diapers, we have gone the old fashioned route of not using disposable diapers whenever possible.  For the most part this has been an easy and rewarding switch.  Until a couple months ago that is.  Lately there has been a smell.  More than that, a stench from the diapers.  It seemed that once soiled and thrown in her wet bag they conspired to knock out anyone who entered the  room.  And since they are the room that VF sleeps in, generally with the door closed this was a bit of a problem.

First let me tell you more about the smell.  I'm not exaggerating when I say a stench.  It was a super concentrated ammonia burning smell that was very distinct.  Trust me, if this happens to your diapers you will know it.  Now after a few washes with an extra rinse thrown in and no improvement I decided a bit of research was needed.  I read a few cloth diapering websites and found that there are two issues that can lead to smells.  The first is detergent build-up.  While this was a possibility since I don't use a "diaper detergent" it seemed unlikely as I wasn't having absorbancy issues.  The second issue was ammonia build-up.  Given the smell I felt confident that I had found my problem.  Now for a solution. . . what?  It depends on your water type?  sigh.  Sure enough the solution to the ammonia issue was not as straight forward as I had hoped.  Depending on how soft or hard your water, there are different solutions. 

Now here in CR we have a pretty hard water supply.  It is listed as hard with 7.0 grains per gallon being pretty typical.  So if you are in a similar circumstance, this may be the solution for you.  If not you'll need to conduct a few experiments I am afraid.  At any rate, I read good things about the Rockin' Green Hard Rock Diaper detergent so I bought a sample size and gave it a try.  It was enough for 4 washers, and it certainly helped.  Helped, but not completely.  The stench wasn't quite as eye watering, but it was still there just lurking, and waiting for another chance to strike.  I already had some Borax and Washing Soda so I tried these next.  I did a load with a mix of both powders - super hot water and let me tell you, this did the trick.  It worked so well that I complete forgot about the smell until I was getting ready to do the next load of laundry! Only as I carried the wetbag to the washer did I think - wait a second.  Why can I think clearly and why aren't I wanting to hurl? 

Going forward I think maybe every 2 or 3 loads I'll do the Borax/Washing Soda mix just to ensure future happy breathing.  But for now I am calling this problem solved!

Animal Cracker

Animal Cracker by Andi Brown
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Animal Cracker is the fictional story of a woman who works at a nonprofit animal organization and her office woes. The plot itself isn't terrible, but the poor execution and worse editing makes 2 stars a gift.

Basically the staff all hate their boss. He is certainly a loser and deserves it. Diane makes it her goal to take him out, and has some adventures along the way. All set up for fun and laughs, right?

Unfortunately, I don't think any of the readers thanked by the author were actually professional editors. Oh yes, and did I mention this book was self-published? At any rate, there are plot holes too big to ignore, and whole scenes that have no point. Why did I need to read about Diane going to the theater alone? To show she is independent? To show that she liked movies even before dating the movie snob?

Why was it necessary for her to be hung up on a guy that she stopped seeing months before the book took place. Especially when that guy didn't make a single appearance in the entire book.

Why would any member on the board still want a president after it is known that he embezzled large amounts of money? Why is the guy who is so obviously a cad treated like a god by all but our heroine Diane? Just because he is good looking? He isn't shown to be clever enough to run a con, or even manipulate people. So how does he get away with this again?

I don't know how old our author is - but she is NOT 24. If she was she would know that 24 year olds don't know what an information operator is - let alone what sort of information they can give. She would know that a 24 year old wouldn't try and board a plane as a man with a womans ID card. She would know that they don't use a racial stereotype at every given opportunity!! Especially if they are well educated!

Can someone please explain to me how Dag can be a cross between rag and nag? (pg 56)

Finally, she needs to re-check the book because the number of random paragraph breaks are too many to list.

Shadowman

Shadowman by Aaron Dennis
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Shadowman if the fictional story of a man on vacation who suddenly falls into the world of Voodoo/Hoodoo. He takes this news in stride and tries to succeed in this new role without a backward look at whatever life he has left behind. Fortunately he has a friend who is able to liquidate all of the assets he once had and mail them on down so he can live this new life without too much strain.

This book reads like a video game. You know how the shopping area of the game just has booths filled with stuff and since your character can't click on it to see what it is it just remains unimportant stuff? Well this book is the same. The setting is New Orleans, but the author fails to capture any of the spirit of this city. Perhaps if it were any other city this would be easy to overlook. The main characters actions are very fated, he just bounces around trying to figure things out, just like in a video game. The characters receive only the slightest fleshing out, they are dreadfully two dimensional and very predictable.

I would consider recommending this to a younger reader who really loves the genre a whole awful lot. Otherwise there isn't a lot to draw in a reader.