Find things to do for kids & families in Schenectady, Albany, & Troy.

Random header image... Refresh for more!

My New Jewelry Tree

by Katie

We’d already started on the bathroom remodel project when Cute W said his mom needed ideas for a Mother’s Day gift for me. I immediately thought of my soon-to-be counter space that would come with my little window seat. After all, how much sitting around would I actually want to do in the bathroom? (I thought that the answer was hardly any, but now that I see it, we’ve been joking that we might start having parties in the bathroom. “People can bring their swimsuits and you can give them margaritas and beer in the shower,” M suggested. She’s a clever girl).

Anyway, all that impending nice free space just made me want to accessorize. And besides, I’d already asked for a jewelry tree for Christmas because my necklaces keep getting tangled. I have a lovely wooden jewelry box that Cute W gave me years ago, but there’s not quite enough space. And it doesn’t help that J is constantly begging to paw through it so that she can see everything.

I explored a bit and ended up requesting a metal jewelry tree made by Serendipity Metal Art and sold on Etsy. It arrived recently and it’s absolutely gorgeous. Seriously, this photo doesn’t do it justice because of my poor photography skills. It’s a bit of a silhouette here, and in person, it’s a gorgeous copper color. In fact, you can click the link to see the color better on the site (you can also go for silver-toned instead).

IMG_3278

One of the features that I’d liked when I’d read the description was that you can gently bend the limbs to make the flat tree a bit more three-dimensional. But when it arrived looking so beautiful, I was a afraid to mess with it. I didn’t want to ruin a good thing. But really, if you want to use a bunch of different limbs, the only practical thing to do is to bend them a bit, because otherwise everything would be overlapping. So I held my breath and started shifting things. Again, the photograph doesn’t do it justice, but once I started moving little branches forward and backwards, it just started looking better. Plus, it was fun, because I got to feel like I was being crafty and creative without any skills or talent whatsoever. Love that! So here it is with shifted limbs and a bunch of my jewelry hanging off of it.

IMG_3280

Pretty, right? Plus, I don’t exactly wear a ton of jewelry, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t like the stuff I have. So now I can enjoy it every day instead of having it all stuffed in my jewelry box, which is plenty full with earrings and other jewelry that I don’t want to get rid of but which didn’t make the “display” cut. And it will look lovely in my new bathroom!

Twitt

May 24, 2013   1 Comment

Halfmoon Carnival, Full Moon Hike, Patriot’s Invitational, Karner Blue Time, and More This Memorial Day Weekend!

by Katie

Can you believe it’s Memorial Day Weekend already? Instead of in the listings below, there’s a list of Memorial Day Parades and Observances here. Speaking of KidsOutAndAbout links, here’s this year’s KidsOutAndAbout survey of top places to take your kids in the Capital District. So vote and share to make sure your favorites get the credit that they deserve. And finally, here’s the weekly newsletter.

Multiple Days:

Friday, May 24th:

Saturday, May 25th:

Sunday, May 26th:

Memorial Day, Monday, May 27th:

Twitt

May 23, 2013   No Comments

Stormy Weather

by Katie

You know things aren’t wonderful when I wake up extra early in the morning and can’t go back to sleep. Maintaining sleep is one of my greatest talents. But our school district’s budget was voted down last night–not just voted down, but, like, trampled upon–and now who knows what schools are going to close or which teachers are going to be laid off. It makes me sick to my stomach just thinking about it. Of course, it’s tough to whine and complain about anything school-related when you’ve so recently watched videos of elementary schools smashed into smithereens. But since yesterday morning, when I biked to the high school and saw a bunch of plastic-wrapped “Vote No” flyers that had been tossed onto people’s driveway like old potato chip bags, I’ve been alternating between white-hot rage and despair and trying not to think about it. And I do feel like, if there were any justice, people who had actually gone to budget meetings and written to their legislators and their school board would get extra votes. Because anyone who thought that budget was decided lightly clearly hasn’t been paying attention. And I didn’t even love the budget, but I rarely do. Okay. I’m going to try to stop moaning about that.

I was also fretting this morning because we’d installed some tiles in the new bathroom that were just bad, which means that we’ll have to yank them off and order something else. That’s a delay. We ended up going to shop for Tile at 8 am before Cute W headed off to work. We picked something nicer. At least, I hope it’s nicer, because the drywall’s already going to be angry with us.

M’s been fighting off a cough that makes her sound like she has tuberculosis. Luckily it looks like they’re going to have to call tonight’s soccer game. I think she could use the rest.

The good news is that my neighbor Mary is improving. She could still use any good-health karma that you can throw her way.

Yikes! Anybody else’s lawn flooding? I think I’m going to go down and murmur encouragement to my sump pump.

Twitt

May 22, 2013   2 Comments

Updates

by Katie

The fish remain alive, and they seem pretty perky. We have a ridiculous, noisy, jerry-rigged filtration system, and if the pets survive through the week, we’ll probably buy something more suitable this weekend.

Have you been wondering how the bathroom’s doing? Afraid to ask? It’s true that we hoped that we’d be done by now, but they’re making progress every day. Today the toilet and sink were installed along with a door, closet doors, and the shower doors. So we’re getting closer. I’m waiting to just do one final post with the full reveal because I don’t want to bore you with too much information. Tonight I ran out to Lowe’s to pick out a toilet paper holder and a towel bar as well as some more tiles to make a little back splash for our sink. And my children are arguing over who gets to use the toilet first. Also, who gets to shower first.

M: Can I use the shower first?

Katie: No.

M: Why not?

Katie: Because Daddy or I will get to use the shower first.

M: Not fair!

Katie: It’s quite fair, really. In fact, to be really fair, maybe we should take the first shower together.

M: GROSS!!

I hoped that this would make M change the subject. Mission accomplished.

My neighbor Mary could still use your prayers and positive thoughts.

Tomorrow’s the school budget vote. I wrote a while back about why schools are struggling so much. I’m pretty nervous, actually. Our school district exceeded the tax cap and needs 60% approval for the budget to pass. If it doesn’t, closing M’s middle school or an elementary school are back on the table. They also might switch from full-day back down to half-day kindergarten. I hate the whole process, because it would make so much more sense if we could vote on pieces of the budget while it’s being formed. As it is, you’re pretty much screwed when you vote for it and screwed worse if you vote against it. So we’ll see what happens.

I still haven’t planned out our activities and camp schedule for the summer, and when I start to think about it, I sort of feel like I need to breathe into a paper back. But then the next thing you know I’m washing dishes or running out to choose bathroom accessories and I forget about it for another day and a half. I really need to get on that. This morning I was putting together the KidsOutAndAbout special camps newsletter, and there are some seriously cool camps out there.  Here’s the page that links to them. Personally, I like just browsing through the week-by-week lists.

Hope you’re all well.

 

Twitt

May 20, 2013   4 Comments

This Week

by Katie

I’ve been absent all weekend. Sorry about that. Yesterday was Niska-Day, and that’s a big day at our house. On Friday night M had two friends sleep over, and in the morning they were already on their way to roam the neighborhood as I stumbled out of bed. M and her friends ran the one-mile Fun Run, helped me bring furniture to the front yard, and volunteered to be J’s “staff” as she organized her Melon Ball Stand. They even wore name tags, hers labeled “Boss” and theirs labeled “Staff.” When Little Sister gets to play with Big Sister and her friends, that’s one of my favorite things ever, right up there with when Big Sister used to help Little Sister read or when either Baby would fall back asleep in the wee hours of the morning. We had a nice bunch of folks hanging around our lawn, and it was so busy at home that we never even got around to walking up and down the street to chat with neighbors. After the parade our children were both whisked away to by friends’ parents (awesome!), although we followed soon after. J was excited to come back home to hang out at our neighbors’ party, which featured a bounce house, a slip and slide, and a hot dog rotisserie. Meanwhile M stayed at Niska-Day straight through to the fireworks, except for when she briefly dropped by while we were at the neighborhood party to drop off two goldfish!

I was appalled. I asked her, didn’t she remember the Great Fin Debacle of Carrot Festival 2010? Oh, she did. But she was cheerfully optimistic that things will go much better this time. What made me most annoyed was that she hadn’t even won the fish herself. A friend had won the fish but wasn’t allowed to take them home, even though they’d successfully kept another fish alive for four years! So, why, why, oh why, can’t they care for these other two as well? M dumped the fish into Fin’s old bowl, rounded it out with some tap water with no regard to temperature shock or potential invisible toxins, and then she sprinkled in some two-year-old fish food.

By the time we arrived home and saw them, the fish were clearly unhappy, and I expected them to die overnight. This morning they were alive but suffering, and I was searching the internet for goldfish advice. The trouble was that most sites explaining the care for goldfish offer complicated and costly lists of what to do to encourage optimal health and emotional well-being. I was like, where’s the site that tells me how to just make sure I don’t make them suffer or kill them? We fussed with some fish tank equipment we’d inherited (the mom who’d allowed M to come home with fish–I’m beginning to think it was just a scheme so she could unload an old tank, two-thirds of a filtration system and random supplies), I transferred the poor things to a larger tank with warmer water, and by the end of the day they seemed perkier. And J is getting attached already. Yikes.

Today we had one of our favorite church services of the year, when the graduating seniors and the rest of the youth group run the show, and it included a meditation on bacon that thrilled the girls. On the ride home, my bickering children irritated me so much that I took a Mama Break and went up to my room to read a magazine for a few minutes. J, who had been the less annoying child by far during the ride home, came upstairs to apologize, then stretched out on top of me like I was a bed, and she was asleep–lying on my back–within five minutes. Clearly she was still recovering from the Niska-Day festivities. M had an afternoon soccer game in the middle of all that cold and rain. When it was over, M bounded over to me and asked, “Remember how the game stopped because the girl from the other team had to go out because she hurt her teeth?” I’d seen the girl go out, but I didn’t know it was a tooth issue, I answered. “Yup,” M beamed. “And look! She hurt her teeth on my arm!” She held out her arm, covered with a huge bandage. Apparently she’d been bleeding on the field, but I’d missed this completely.  Later she was touching her wound, and Cute W accused her of trying to irritate it to encourage a scar  for bragging rights. Honestly, I wouldn’t put it past her.

IMG_3257

So here’s what’s up this week.

Monday, May 20th:

Tuesday, May 21st:

Wednesday, May 22nd:

Thursday, May 23rd:

Friday, May 24th:

 

Twitt

May 19, 2013   No Comments

St. Sophia’s Greek Festival, Lupine Fest at Albany Pine Bush, Niska-Day, the Little Mermaid Jr., Bike Rodeo, and More This Weekend

by Katie

Hey everyone. I was trying to decide what to write about, and then I remembered it’s Thursday, so I’ve just got the listings for you.

Here’s this week’s KidsOutAndAbout.com newsletter. Come to think of it, we’ve also got a running list of Memorial Day Parades and Summer Camps.  And here’s what’s up this weekend.

Multiple Days:

Friday, May 17th:

Saturday, May 18th:

Sunday, May 19th:

Twitt

May 16, 2013   No Comments

Slow Cooker Meals

by Katie

Our schedule continues to be crazy, especially at dinnertime, so I’ve been trying a bunch of new slow cooker recipes. I thought I’d share some links.

The clear winner among our new recipes was this Chickpeas in Curried Coconut Broth recipe from Oxmoor House on the My Recipes site.

Image from Oxmoor House & myrecipes.com

Image from Oxmoor House & myrecipes.com

 

In fact, our only problem with it was that it didn’t make enough for everyone to get leftovers the next day. I’ll absolutely double it next time. This one was spicy, and when I first tried it, I thought it might be too spicy, but mixing it with rice made it perfect, and all four of us liked it. We are so doubling it next time. Wait, I said that already, didn’t I?

I also tried Slow-Cooker Asian Pork With Snow Peas, Red Peppers, and Soba Noodles from Real Simple. Cute W and I liked this one, but both girls turned up their noses with this one. They didn’t even want to eat the noodles. The one thing I liked was that the pork tasted like pork I’ve eaten at Chinese restaurants, something I’d never achieved, but between the girls’ lack of enthusiasm and the extra work at the end (cooking noodles and the veggies separately), this one isn’t a do-over for us.

M’s favorite of our new recipes was a  Crock Pot Cream Cheese Chicken by Food.com. It doesn’t win the healthful award, but it was a surprisingly unique flavor–tasty, tasty.  We followed the advice in the comments and added mushrooms and some white wine, and at the end I threw in a bit of cornstarch to thicken the sauce.

M was out the night that we tried Slow Cooker Cuban Braised Beef and Peppers from Real Simple, but the rest of us thought that it was worthy of a do-over. The only criticism, from all of us, was that it was a bit bland. Next time we’ll add a couple more peppers that are spicy.  Instead of rice, we ate these with corn tortillas for a change from some of the other sides.

Black Bean and Butternut Squash Chili from All You on the My Recipes site was a final surprise hit. Everyone ate it happily, and it’s super-healthful. I took a shortcut and used that frozen pre-cubed squash (I’d also done a ton of chopped onions earlier in the week) to make it a little easier.

Really, it was a pretty successful Slow Cooker Initiative. I thought I’d have some more patter, but I’m too sleepy for chatter tonight.

 

 

Twitt

May 15, 2013   2 Comments

Girl Drama

by Katie

I mentioned recently that M is going through some social turbulence these days, but I just didn’t have the energy to figure out how to explain it in a way that protects her privacy but gives a little insight into my current mom issue. First of all, I have to take a moment to express my deep gratitude to the Universe that my life is this good. Both of my children are healthy and happy, they’re doing fine in school, they (mostly) behave themselves, and they have friends. It is only because our lives are going along so smoothly (knock on wood!) that I can pay any attention whatsoever to my 5th grader’s social life.  And in fact I’m increasingly thinking that my best bet is to stop paying attention.

Among M’s friends, there’s been quite a bit of shifting and realigning over the past few months. M has inherited Cute W’s lack of social anxiety, so she doesn’t seem particularly concerned about any of this. But I get the sense that there could be both hurt feelings and anxiety among the girls, and the moms. It’s awkward for us mamas. We’re friendly, and we’re used to carpooling, coordinating plans, and signing up for camps together. Now all of that’s become tricky as the daughters and their relationships are evolving. Personally, I’m not worried about M being bullied (she’s tough), but I do fret about her being unkind or standing by while girls are getting their feelings hurt, either because of divided loyalties or because she’s oblivious (like–ahem!–her father can sometimes be). But knowing too much isn’t helpful, because I don’t have too much control over anything anyway. But I hear plenty of news from the moms who get more information than I do. It feels like a stark contrast from how things worked back in the old days when I was in elementary school. Back then my mom was concerned that I stopped asking friends over for a year or so, but she had no idea about the details. Which were, basically, that Jodi B. had declared me her best friend and asked me to say it back, and when I told her that I didn’t want to rank my friends, she shunned me and told all of the lemmings in our group of friends to shun me, too. If asked thirty years ago, I could have explained it in a 45-page document. So I had to depend on compassionate random acquaintances to allow me to sit on the fringes of their lunch tables for a year or so, but I settled in with another crowd eventually.

I’m beginning to think that 5th grade social dynamics feels a lot like going to that gymnastics meet where J didn’t even score a participation ribbon. It was excruciating to watch, but she got through it, and my fretting didn’t help. So I’ve told myself that I just need to stay out of it. I mean, seriously, what would have happened if my mom had taken on Jodi and her friends (and all of their mothers) to negotiate on my behalf? It probably just would have caused additional angst and humiliation on my part. Or, if anything my mom did helped us to remain friends, I’m sure she would have been sorry if she’d known that she’d helped keep me in the clique that was doing drugs and giving boys blowjobs within a couple of years. Which sounds crazy, because I can’t imagine any of these cutey-patooties going the way of the Jodi B. crowd. But just like my mom didn’t know my friends as well as I did, I don’t know M’s friends as well as she does.

Of course the intellectual idea that I should stay out of it all is easier said than done.  I’m curious about anything that happens with M. I’m constantly hungry for information, and she feeds me so little! Plus, there are even studies that show that gossip can function for good in moderating behavior. If there are girls doing things like making up fake messaging accounts in others girls’ names, I want to know about it, if only to remind my daughter that that kind of behavior is not acceptable. But while chatting with the mamas about what’s happening lately, it’s hard not to slide into outright diplomacy efforts, justifying my daughter’s position in the latest brouhaha. Which is just ridiculous.  I mean, I have heard myself saying things where I’m like, “Katie, get a hold of yourself and shut up already. ” So I’ve told M I’m going to try to resist the mom chatter unless I hear about something specific she’s done that needs to be addressed, and I’m not going to ask for details on her social life unless she’s got something she wants to share (she’s not big into sharing). The only stipulations were that I always want her to be kind no matter who her friends are, and if she notices that any girl is consistently sad or receiving abuse, I want her to let me know so that I can pass the information on to that girl’s parents.

We’ll see how it goes. Probably more than a year ago I made some random joking remark that was the sort of thing one of her friends might say, and she was fine, but as soon as it was out of my mouth, I thought, “That was a screw-up.” Because she doesn’t need another joking friend, and she doesn’t need someone who’s emotionally involved in her daily social life. She needs her mom to be an oasis from all of that. So I’m going to do my best to take a step back, and I checked out Queen Bees and Wannabees (Rosalind Wiseman) with the hope that a little solid advice will help me avoid future screw-ups. Or at least reduce their number.

You know, I’d been worried about middle school because I always think of it as fraught with social peril, but we seem to have moved into the social peril phase, anyway. So now I’m hoping that the prospect of some new friendships will be good for my daughter and all the girls.

Am I being insanely optimistic?

Maybe.

But I’m definitely grateful that I’m not turning 11. It seems exhausting.

Twitt

May 14, 2013   7 Comments

What’s Up This Week

by Katie

I had a relaxing Mother’s Day. The girls know that breakfast in bed is not what this mama wants. Instead, I am encouraged to sleep in. But I did have a surprise waiting for me:

IMG_3246

During the day, the girls helped me to pot a bunch of succulents. My plan is to put them on top of the cabinet in the new bathroom. My original “artistic vision”  was a long terra cotta something-or-other, but I couldn’t find one, so I went with some dip bowls from Target with some rocks for drainage at the bottom. Hopefully they’ll work.

IMG_3244

And we ended the day with Indian food and a show:

IMG_3245

 

I hope that you all had a wonderful Mother’s Day. Here’s what’s up this week:

Multiple Days:

Monday, May 13th:

Tuesday, May 14th:

Wednesday, May 15th:

Thursday, May 16th:

Friday, May 17th:

Twitt

May 12, 2013   No Comments

A Poem for Mother’s Day

by Katie

Happy Mother’s Day!

I’ve been saving up this awesome poem for the occasion ever since I heard it, gosh, months ago.  And if you all already knew it, well, you should have told me. Because it’s a new favorite. It’s “The Lanyard” by Billy Collins.

If that one leaves you craving more and you have some Serenity Time, check out his “To My Favorite 17-Year-Old High School Girl.” And before long you might get so sucked in that you’ll just have to read a whole bunch of Billy Collins poems.

If you’re a new-ish reader, here’s a list of other Mother’s Day links that I’ve shared in years gone by:

Enjoy the day.

Twitt

May 11, 2013   1 Comment

← Previous Entries