a peek inside the fishbowl

What better way to celebrate the last day of school than with a day of play?

On Thursday June 28 I’m going to be participating in CBC’s first annual Play Day between 3-6 pm during All in a Day. Come join me, along with a whole bunch of other fun folks on Sparks Street between Bank & O’Connor right in front of the CBC building.

I encourage you to bring your kids, although this event is not just for the little people. No sirree. Coming down from the Hill? A hard day at work? This is your opportunity to release your inner child, blow off some steam, show-off your mad hopscotch skillz and maybe get on the radio. :)

There is ALL KINDS of fantastic old skool play planned, including:

• Giant games of chess, checkers and Connect Four (!!)
• Hooping! A hooping expert from the Dovercourt will be on hand to teach some tricks and there’ll be lots of hoops available for people who want to take them for a spin.
• Skipping! With long ropes and short ones. Sing us your skipping songs! (As I did on the radio yesterday, ack!) Miss Mary Mack Mack Mack, all dressed in black, black black…
• A giant hopscotch game from the Parent Resource Centre
• Traditional Aboriginal games from the Wabano Centre
• Stilts (c’mon, I know you’ve always wanted to try them out)

The Nepean Museum will be there in costume with some old-fashioned games like ball-and-cup and Jacob’s ladder, and there will be music and a bunch of kid-friendly instruments to try as well. There will be something for everyone, for the young and the young at heart. And it’s all free.

Join us! It’s going to be a hoot. Perhaps we can convince Alan Neal to try some games too? I would love to see him jump rope, wouldn’t you?

Thank you CBC, for taking the initiative. What a great way to remind us all how important it is to make time for play. And thank you as well for inviting me to be part of it and helping us start the summer off right. :)

As soon as I saw this idea on Pinterest I knew we had to try it out. I’m glad we did because this was the yummiest treat we’ve had all week… and I don’t really even like marshmallows that much!

S’mores on a stick

You will need:

• chocolate chips
• marshmallows
• graham crackers (we bought them in bulk)
• bamboo skewers

Directions:

1) Crush the graham crackers. We used a wooden meat tenderizer and gave them a good pounding right in the bag they came in. No fuss, no muss:

The crumbs should be smallish. Pour them into a small dish and set aside.

2) Melt your chocolate in the microwave. One minute on high, stir, microwave again. Do not let a single drop of water get into your chocolate. Make sure the bowl and the spoon are perfectly dry, otherwise you end up with a mess. (Trust me, I’ve been there.)

3) Spear your marshmallows, dip each in the chocolate, one at a time.

4) Dip the chocolate-coated marshmallow into the graham crumbs. It will look very tempting. It will practically ask you to inhale it:

Don’t give in. Poke the sticks into an empty egg carton so they can stay upright. Make as many as your family will want to eat (er, 12?) and then stop to weigh your options. This is important.

Option One: Eat them immediately, while the chocolate is slightly warm and runny.

Option Two: Refrigerate for 15 minutes until the chocolate has hardened a little bit.

Due diligence is important to me and I wouldn’t want to lead you astray, so for research purposes my assistant and I tried one (POSSIBLY TWO) at each temperature. Option two is the way to go in my view. The chocolate hardens and has a more satisfying mouth-feel, but feel free to do it your way. :)

So there you have it. Pretty neat eh? It’s a great way to get your s’more fix, and oh so easy. As we were making these I realized it would make a great snack/activity for a birthday party (especially one with a camping theme!) or if you were “camping out” in your backyard or living room with wee ones.

Let me know if you try this one out!

First of all, did you know that Urban Barn has a neat little online room planning tool on their website? You plunk in the dimensions of your room and drag and drop furniture that is properly scaled. It’s fun. TOO FUN. I was playing around with our master bedroom so I could determine if we could fit a chaise lounge in there. (Note that the windows and doors are for placement only. I didn’t measure them out properly and I also didn’t bother adding the three small windows over our bed.)

This is my family catching me in the act of an afternoon snooze:

It’s great way of virtually rearranging your furniture and seeing what works best.

So our assignment this past weekend was to nail down some of the plumbing fixtures. We even had a list. I secretly hoped that we’d be able to get everything at one store, but this was not to be. (WHAT WAS I THINKING.)

Truth be told we suffered a bit of sticker shock, and I was reminded AGAIN of how much I gravitate to expensive things even if the price tag is no where to be seen. Why am I like this?

At the Electrical and Plumbing Store in Bell’s Corners I liked one of the most expensive shower sets in the entire place. It was $3600. Behold:

What’s the saying? Champagne tastes on a beer budget? That describes us pretty well, but I think if we saved some cash in some other areas we can put it towards a similar shower we love (although not that pricey).

For example, this is the kind of sink we’re looking at – a white oval undermount. Turns out that it costs $88.00 pretty much anywhere you go (Preston Hardware, Lowes, Rona, Home Depot). A good deal, right?:

We need two of those for the vanity in the family bathroom, and these are the faucets we are thinking of pairing with them (from Lowes):

Kitchen sinks can cost an arm and a leg. I really liked this one from Preston Hardware:

… but as it turns out you can get pretty much the same thing at Home Depot for a lot less:

We haven’t shopped for toilets yet but that’s next. I’m going to check out Westend Plumbing today because they carry Toto. We have a Toto toilet (it runs about $500) and it is – in my experience – a superior toilet. (I once wrote about Toto toilets here, THAT’S how much I like it.)

Out biggest issue this weekend was choosing a shower head set and the kitchen faucet. Why is it that everything seems to be either very cheaply made or really expensive, with not a whole lot in-between?

After MUCH painful deliberation, this is what we picked out for the kitchen at Lowes. (In fact, Mark had pretty much given up at this point):

It’s a Delta touch model. I’m pretty excited about it. (FYI you can get more information and watch a video all about our new faucet here. Note that we did not choose this because it looks like “a graceful flower, heavy with the morning dew.” Ha.) We had a Delta faucet before the reno and we never had an issue with it. Go Delta!

Still on the to-buy list is a faucet for the new bathtub (which we picked out long ago at Boone). We need a wall-mounted set and I’d like it to have a hand-shower attached to it. Something like this might be nice but I haven’t seen in anywhere in Ottawa yet. (And can we get it for under $500? Ugh.) As for the shower, we are still undecided about what we’re buying. I would really like something old-timey that fills the space nicely but not have to pay nearly $4000 for it. I want it to be well-made, something that will last as long as we’re in the house. It seems that where plumbing is concerned you get what you pay for. What do you think?