Friday, September 11, 2020

Perennial Sunflowers, all the Bees, and I am a Monarch Foster Mom

And to think that once upon a time, during the first full summer on our new-to-us property, we could not find a single bee.

Look at my yard today!

A few years ago, I failed in saving the seeds from our beloved Mexican sunflower, and instead, I impulse-purchased a perennial sunflower from an online seed company. It's even better than the Mexican sunflower, because not only is it big and beautiful and bright, but it also comes back to me every year without me having to have the very specific seed-saving skill-set!

Also, as I discovered just this spring, it transplants like a dream! When I was first planting things, I didn't understand at ALL how different my property's sun exposure would be in different seasons--that entire half of the yard that was sunny as hell all spring was... not sunny as hell after the elms leafed out, sigh. So even though I was terrified of killing it, I took a big leap of faith and tried to transplant some of that years-old perennial sunflower clump that was still beautiful and bright, but not getting so big anymore.

This whole sunflower garden lives on the other side of the house now, and it's flourished all summer, getting at least twice as tall as its sunflower sisters back over in the shadow of the elm trees:



Look at my BEES!!!




Way back in 2015, Will created a butterfly garden in this area of the yard, and although the rest of that garden is long-gone, the milkweed comes back every year, and every year we carefully weed around it and let it spread. It's a happy coincidence that right by this sunflower garden, then, is lots of lovely milkweed!

Every year, I also admire the monarchs that visit my flowers, and the monarch caterpillars that I see munching on my milkweed, but this year, I got the advice from my local native plants Facebook group that it's good to bring those little monarch caterpillars inside and feed them up in captivity, safe from predators. So when I went outside last weekend and saw monarch caterpillars all over my milkweed, never mind the fact that we were expecting a couple of friends of Syd's to come over for a socially-distanced backyard camp-out in just a couple of hours and I had not yet made our yard look like trash people do not live here, I nevertheless got a mask, got in the car, and went out solely to buy this exact kind of mesh hamper. It's perfect because it zips fully up and has openings in two sides, so it's easy to give my foster babies fresh noms twice a day. 

Look how much they love their noms!


I currently have one chrysalis at the top of my hamper, and four constantly-chewing caterpillars at the bottom of my hamper. I am so invested in their welfare, you guys!

Wednesday, September 9, 2020

If You Didn't Make a Vacation Photo Book, Was it Even a Vacation?

This photo is underexposed because I gathered all my vacation photo books up to photograph them on my deck, but then I got distracted looking through all of them and by the time I remembered I had actually wanted to photograph them, not just read them all, it was getting dark.

If you didn't already know that I'm middle-aged, check out my super expensive hobby of making photo books of all our family vacations!

They cost a zillion dollars each, but I like to pretend that 1) it would cost just as much to separately print the photos, buy a photo album, and mount them (it wouldn't), and 2) since I only buy them when Shutterfly has a good sale going, I'm saving money on them (I'm not). 

I don't even care, though. If ever there was a woman who enjoyed looking at her amateur photos of her happy family on vacation, that woman is I!

Also, I tend to upgrade my choice of album every time I make a new one, and then like it so much that I decide it's my new standard, but then the next time I make a photo book I buy an even bigger, even nicer one and instantly that one becomes my new favorite and so it continues. My first few books, for instance, are 8"x8" ones--one of them is even paperback! Then I got way into the 10"x10" book, because I could make my photos so much bigger--


--but that was before I made this 11"x14" vacation photo behemoth:


To be fair, though, this was a long vacation, and I took a LOT of photos, and unusually, many of them came out really well! I love this photo book the most:


Today, I finished the photo book from our 2018 vacation to California over Thanksgiving--

--and since Shutterfly had a couple of great deals going, I also finally bought the photo book from last year's vacation to Kauai, which I made at the very start of our pandemic staycation, along with, you know, a lot of bread, but couldn't bring myself to actually purchase because I'm pretty sure that pandemic staycations mean boom-time for purveyors of photo books, and so there were no sales of note to be found.

So I spent a zillion dollars on these two photo books today, but I SAVED something like fifty-plus bucks! And they're both going to be giant and awesome and I'm going to love them.

And now I'm all caught up on our family vacations back to 2016. Heck, I don't even remember off-hand what vacation we went on in 2015... clearly I need a photo book to remind me! See, they're USEFUL!

You guys, Shutterfly is one of those companies that tries to get free publicity by doing those viral marketing giveaway things, so here's a link that gets you (and me!) a free 8"x8" photo book. I have no idea if this is actually a good deal or not, but, you know, if you've been needing a gateway into the expensive hobby of vacation photo books, here you go!

Saturday, September 5, 2020

How to Make String Art

I originally published this tutorial on Crafting a Green World.

When I was a kid, we had a couple of pieces of string art, made by an aunt, framed and hung in our house.

I mean, it WAS the 1970s, the heyday of string art.

But whereas the 1970s craze was all about making a string art owl from a kit (which we had), or a string art sailing ship, also from a kit (which we had), you can now do quite a bit better.

A lot of the imagination that you can bring to string art now comes from how simple technology is to use. Can you imagine what my aunt could have created if she'd had access to clip art and a printer? Google Images? A Cricut?!?

Because I promise you that designing your piece is by far the hardest part of making string art, and even that isn't hard. I know you've got access to Google Images and a printer, after all!

So no more kits for you! I'm going to show you how to make string art the completely DIY way--from scratch, by hand. It's going to be awesome. Here's what you need:

Tools and Supplies

  • Wood, cut to size. I can always find some scrap boards to cut down over in my Garage of Mystery, but other good sources of wood are Craigslist, Freecycle, or your local Restore. Maybe you'll be lucky enough to score a finished plaque!
  • Nails. For this particular project, I'm using 1 1/4" ring shank underlayment nails. They're a little thicker than you need, but I'm doing this project with kids, and that extra width helps them keep their grip. Feel free to use whatever nails you like and have on hand.
  • Embroidery floss. This is another supply that you might just find that someone you know would LOVE to give you. There are a surprising number of people in this world who've given up cross-stitch!

Directions

1. Prepare your wood. This step can take a lot of different forms, depending on what wood you choose and the tools you have available. You can use everything from a pre-finished plaque to a pallet board, but whereas that pre-finished plaque is ready to go, but also pricey and unsustainably sourced, something like pallet boards or scrap wood might need to be cut to size and sanded down, but they're free and keep more resources out of the waste stream.

If you're preparing your own wood, don't skip sanding it--if this is one of your first woodworking projects, you'll be surprised at how much nicer your wood looks after it's sanded. My secret trick is to round the edges of the wood piece while I'm sanding it. It won't replace the services of a router, but just sanding all the edges makes the finished piece look more professional.

Staining and sealing the wood is optional, but if you choose to do so, remember to use water-based stain and sealant.

2. Create your template. Create a template for your string art on typing or notebook paper. You can draw freehand, of course, but Google Image is also your friend, and I love using my old-school Cricut. I mean, it can draw me a parasaurolophus at the size of my choosing! How AWESOME is that?!?

3. Nail directly onto the template. Place the template onto the plaque, and then begin to hammer nails right through the paper, following the lines of the template.

Try to keep your spacing and the nail heights even, but don't stress out too much. The one thing that you DON'T want to do is pull a nail out and leave an empty hole. Just work with where you're going!

Watch, as well, for narrow spacing. You can see above how I modified my parasaurolophus, as I noticed while I was hammering nails that some of my spacing--the tail, for instance, and certainly the legs--was going to be too narrow to look nice when wrapped with string:

Try to remember, though, that nobody is going to be looking at your project as closely and critically as YOU are, so roll with any imperfections that come along.

Once you've hammered in all the nails, tear the paper away. I had to get into a few little nooks with a pair of tweezers, but it wasn't difficult.

4. Wrap with embroidery floss. Now for the fun part! Wrapping the nail art with embroidery floss is the MOST fun, and you'll find that even kids who are too young to hammer nails (although don't dismiss their abilities without really thinking about it--you'd be surprised at how young a kid can handle a hammer!) can have a ball wrapping nails with yarn or embroidery floss.

Tie a knot around one nail (secure it with a little white glue to be safe), then wrap the floss around the perimeter of your piece to outline it. Weave in and out of the nails, wrap it completely around some nails, take a break to go back and forth across your piece--feel free to have fun!

Once the perimeter is wrapped, go back and forth across your piece at every angle, with no discernible pattern, to cover the surface area with embroidery floss. After a bit, you'll be able to notice spots that have gaps and you can easily cover those. This takes a LOT of embroidery floss, so be prepared to use at least an entire skein, and possibly more, depending on the size of your piece. Tie the floss off around a nail, and again, dot the knot with a little white glue to make sure it holds.

When you're finished, you can continue to embellish your piece (not everyone I know is as science literate as I am, so I made a label for my string art parasaurolophus), and mount a picture hanger on the back so that you can hang your new masterpiece in a place of honor.

And now you can make another one as a gift for someone else!

Thursday, September 3, 2020

Homeschool Math: Perfect Squares Hiding inside Area Models

Syd was simplifying radicals the other day, and not having a fun time of it. She was struggling to link the concept of factoring the radicand to simplifying, and I was trying, as usual, to think of hands-on manipulatives that might clarify the process. 

I did NOT find a way to model simplifying radicals using manipulatives, alas, but while I was playing around with the decanomial square I DID find a hands-on enrichment that kids who are first learning the concept of perfect squares might enjoy.

I like this little activity because it connects the mathematical definition of the perfect square with the Montessori-style sensorial skill of eyeballing it, or even measuring it by feel. Although you're technically not allowed to eyeball stuff as mathematical proof, pattern recognition via the senses is very important. That's how kids learn to read, for one thing, and it's how IQ tests are built, for another. 

Use this activity with a kid who's first learning, or reviewing, the concept of the perfect square. You can do it with paper area models that a kid can draw and color on, or you can do it, as I've done here, with the decanomial square model, which is extra fun because it has pieces you can manipulate. Kids could try to find the largest perfect square(s) that would fit inside the area model, or just find any perfect squares that would--whatever they find fun and you find helpful! Here are some models that show examples:

These first two are when I was still thinking I might figure out a way to model simplifying radicals. I LOVE combining manipulatives with a dry-erase board to help kids connect the model to the algorithm it represents.


For all these examples, I've pulled an area model from our decanomial square, and we're arranging the perfect squares on top of it, leaving, of course, a remainder since the area models aren't themselves perfect squares.









You can write algebraic equations with these, showing how to use the Order of Operations and/or solve for x. For example:

5 + 5 x 5 = 30

or

8^2 + 2^2 + y = 80

You just can't, you know, use them to model how to simplify radicals...

The search continues!

P.S. Here are the resources that I used to help both kids master radicals.

Six Months Ago: Homeschool Science: Dissect a Sheep Brain
One Year Ago: August Favorites: Soap Operas, Broadway Musicals, and Ballet Studios
Two Years Ago: We Went to Canada and Saw the World's Highest Tides in Fundy National Park
Three Years Ago: History of Fashion: How to Put on a Doric Chiton in Ancient Greece
Four Years Ago: Cruise to Alaska Day 7: Haines
Five Years Ago: Watercolor and Wood Burned Building Block Excess
Six Years Ago: Cardstock Covered Wagons on the Oregon Trail
Seven Years Ago: Demonstrating the Commutative Property of Addition using Cuisenaire Rods
Eight Years Ago: Cave Painting with Story of the World Ancient Times
Nine Years Ago: Giant Cardboard Constructions
Ten Years Ago: Have You Climbed a Tree Lately?
Eleven Years Ago: Where Small Things Will Soon be Sorted
Twelve Years Ago: Scooby Dooby Doo, Where are You?

Wednesday, September 2, 2020

August Favorites: Public School, Poor Coping Techniques, and a Pandemic Playlist

Ugh, you guys. I was so naive. I legitimately thought that public high school, even pandemic-themed virtual public high school, meant that my homeschooling workload would be cut in half. I figured I'd help Syd with her homework, maybe sneak in some fun activities to supplement her learning, maybe focus on my OTHER high-speed learner while Syd contentedly worked away on her own high school stuff, maybe just get caught up on all the arts and crafts activities that we've been longing to do in our non-school hours. Finish our paint-by-numbers. Buy some resin supplies.

What virtual public high school ACTUALLY consists of is me homeschooling some other teacher's lesson plans every day, all day, with no prep time. Trying to interpret some video lesson to figure out what the teacher wants my kid to learn from it, then trying to teach it to my kid some other way so she actually will learn it. Still being the bad guy, since all the instruction is still coming from me. Getting just as frustrated as she is with weird and wonky technology and online stuff that doesn't work right. I swear to the heavens that she has submitted that very first Upload a Photo assignment to her algebra teacher 40 times, and the algebra teacher still can't open it and so still won't award her the points. All her other teachers can see her photo uploads!!! WhAt ThE hELL!?!?!?!? Also, her French teacher kept assigning the kids readings in their French textbook, and Syd kept doing them, but bombed the first quiz, and it turned out that Syd randomly has a different French textbook (????) that's just randomly also in the online portal where she accesses her online biology textbook, but that's not the French textbook that the French teacher wanted them to use--it was some other textbook, in some other online portal, but we didn't notice because, you know, THERE IS A FRENCH TEXTBOOK RIGHT FREAKING THERE.

Want to guess how many times Matt has caught me sitting on the kitchen floor in the middle of the day, crying while rage-eating macaroni and cheese straight from the pot?

More than once, you guys. More. Than. Once.

Anyway, that's why I read so many books in August. It's because after I finish the daily hell of mentoring Syd's virtual public schoolwork, all I want to do with the rest of my life is 1) watch my month of Disney+ that I got for my birthday (I have seen Hamilton as many times as there are days), or 2) read quietly while listening to Spotify. Preferably no other humans exist in the dimensions in which I do these activities. If they do exist, they ideally should also be very, very quiet. If they wanted, they could hand me the pot of macaroni and cheese when I spontaneously start crying.

Okay, *sometimes* I will do the New York Times crossword. But I still don't want to talk.

My obsession with series books continued through August. It turns out that most of what I read is part of a series!

After reading this series with me, Syd described John Lewis as a BAMF:


She is not wrong. Telling her immediately afterwards that John Lewis had died the month before was pretty crappy, and I wish now that I hadn't done it.

I did just pick up Book 3 from the library, though! Perhaps that will give a chance for the hero worship to eclipse the sadness...

Here's one of Syd's heroes that she handed over to ME, and she didn't tell me any sad things about him to ruin my experience:


I also just picked up The Last Olympian from the library! Syd tells me that after I read that, I can start the Heroes of Olympus. I think the Trials of Apollo comes after that?

Will is in charge of all of our library Lumberjanes requests, or at least I think she is--I just magically find the newest Lumberjanes graphic novel on our library shelves every now and then and happily read it! Here's the one that I read in August:
   
And I think the newer ones are already in our holds queue!

My obligatory Aubrey/Maturin read was my favorite one yet:


You know how I feel about those two! There's a scene here in which both Aubrey and Maturin are afraid that Maturin is going to die during their imminent adventure. Aubrey is trying to toast Maturin, starts to tell him how much he loves him, gets choked up, and then accidentally drops his cup, it shatters, and he FREAKS OUT because apparently sailors are superstitious as hell. I LOVED IT.

And don't even rag on me about spoilers, you guys--this book is something like 40 years old!

My favorite non-fiction book of August also turned out to be part of a series, although I didn't know it at the time:


I checked it out from the library because I'm into rockets, but the book is so well-written, and has just as much to say about dying small towns and family members who don't love you as much as you wish they would and busting through your academics because it's about all you've got as it does about rockets.

Also, Will and I made something called rocket candy together when she was deep into her pyromaniac stage. Turns out that phrase was coined by this guy, who invented it as a teenager! We're very lucky that he lived through that experiment...

Here are the whopping three books that I read in August that it turns out are NOT part of a series:


I particularly wish that El Deafo had a sequel, though!

Will, fortunately, has had a very smooth transition into August. Her days continue to look much like this--

--and even better, and knock on wood(!), we've possibly found a venue to host her PSAT AND her AP exam (it's an hour and a half away, but whatever--I'm thrilled!), and so far her very first real-live college class seems to be challenging and engaging and fun for her.

Will is a beast at getting her schoolwork done and happy as a clam afterwards, burying herself in fantasy novel after fantasy novel. Here are her favorites from August:

You'll see, of course, a goodly amount of Tamora Pierce--of course! And apparently she's also on yet another Wings of Fire read-through...

Here's what else she read in August!

That reads like a life well-lived, doesn't it?

Another pandemic fun fact: along with my resting heart rate, my insomnia has been ratcheting up like you would not believe. I've had some level of insomnia since I had the kids, but now I do shit like waking up at 4:00 am on a SATURDAY and wandering, zombie-like, around the house, until by the time someone else finally wakes up at a reasonable hour, I'm presenting them with a spotless, dirty-dish free kitchen in which there are freshly-baked blueberry muffins and a breakfast casserole I'm just taking out of the oven, and I cannot tell them my name or what year it is.

I've become, then, a connoisseur of those ten-hour ambient noise YouTube videos. Some of them sound cool but are too gimmicky--a pirate ship during a storm would NEVER have zero people hollering on it!--but others are pretty awesome. I like to turn those fireplace videos up until it sounds like there's a forest burning down, and this is my favorite rain video:

That, plus my weighted blanket and a sleep mask, generally gets me to sleep... until 4:00 am, at least! After 4:00 am, I'm just gonna go vacuum the kitchen and bake muffins.

I am in a podcast drought! Much of it has to do with the fact that I don't feel like thinking during my free time right now (not when there are books and Disney+ for zoning out in!), but now that 1) my birthday Disney+ subscription ends tomorrow and 2) I have my sewing machine back and it works great--YAY!!!--so I can start sewing again, I'd love some more good podcast recommendations. In the meantime, I'm going to share with you what I'm mostly listening to while I read:

It's my dorky, dorky, nerdy, dorky personal playlist of my own personal favorite songs. Feel free to skim through it and judge me for my choices. It's even got my name on it, so you can come stalk me, I guess. I mean, I'm pretty boring--as you can tell from my Spotify favorites!--but if you want to quietly watch me quietly reading while listening to indie folk/Broadway show tunes/vintage country gospel, feel free.

Also... send me your best podcast recommendations!