jamjaree's Profile

I think this room looks wonderful. I love that it's not so design-y and really does look like someone was smart and thrifty and resourceful to create a fun and aesthetically pleasing space for their home. A real home that gets lived in and dirty and used by kids and tired parents - a family! So many of the rooms on this site are beautiful and great for inspiration points, but they look like they hired professional designers to do a room and come across as being slightly sterile and blandly over designed. I also like seeing photos of the kids using the space. Sure some of the other commenters points about safety are worth considering, but perhaps the parents have trained their kids to be safe and smart so they aren't such serious concerns after all. Thanks for sharing this room Meg and AT!

Thought this was going to be a post that featured rugs and their sources. The two I clicked on didn't even mention the rug. Oh well..;

Love it! Such a happy pretty place!!

I had the same problem with the kitchen bags. They would leak out any wet garbage and cause a smelly mess before the trash can was full and I had a chance to empty it. I used the pet bags for scooping kitty litter and didn't have the same issue. But I tossed the baggie with kitty waste pretty quickly so maybe that's why I didn't encounter such issues.

Eventually I had to switch up to Seventh Generation's trash bags because they were at least made of post consumer waste plastics. I would have preferred to stay with biodegradeable ones instead though.

Our baby isn't out yet (any day now!), but we have two cats and they've been pretty active lately during our sleeping hours. The boy cat has taken to caterwauling very loudly in front of every closed door in the house (that's six doors: closets, pantry, front door, etc.). Also he claws at the bottoms of the cupboards in the kitchen and bathroom until he gets one open so he can step inside. This results in a repetitive banging noise until he gets the cupboard open. Then too he sometimes likes to turbo around the house along the long hallway and up and down the living room furniture.

We live in a 650 sq ft apartment so we can hear all of this. I'm able to go back to sleep after the initial waking but my husband can't and I'm sure when the baby is out she'll be awakened by this.

We've done a few things to curb this behavior. I switched up their daily feeding time from the mornings to the evenings. Just before we go to bed, I feed them. Even though they have food in their bowls all day, they look forward to the fresh kibble and they stop stalking us in the mornings when we want to sleep in.

Around 5:30pm or so, I take away all their pet beds and fold up any blankets they might be curled up in and basically leave them no places to cozy up to for a nap. They kind of just sit there blinking for about an hour or so, but it's worked. They don't get to sleep like they used to between 5:30pm and our bedtime (usually 10:30pm~11pm).

Less frequently (every other night or so), we'll give them a new toy (plastic ring from the milk jug, empty toilet paper roll, crinkled up gift wrap paper, anything new and different to catch their interest) to play with about an hour before we go to bed. Sometimes it will be the laser light that they get to chase for about 15 minutes. They are totally stimulated and by the time we have finished getting ready for bed, climbed into bed, lights off and ready for sleep, they have settled down (back in their beds and blankets which I've returned to their respective spots) and are ready to settle down for another few hours of sleep.

This routine has been working for us for the past week or so. Hopefully it will continue to keep them quiet while we sleep.

Good luck with your cats! Hope this and any other suggestions from the readers help.

You could use the handprint as a stamp of sorts and do repeats to make a bigger art piece (I'm thinking poster). Like white hand prints striped with red hand prints and a blue hand prints box to make an american flag poster? If you like american flags as decorative motifs. Or a peace sign. I'm coming up with cheesy examples here but I think you get the idea.

The website has photos and descriptions of the new liner vs. the older liner with BPA: http://mysigg.com/liner/

I emailed the company to ask about trading in my bottle and they directed me to that page to determine if I had the newer design or not. Turns out I do so I won't be asking them for a trade in. I did appreciate their quick response.

I've made baby quilts for all but one mom-to-be. I keep the pattern simple (blocks, strips, etc) and focus on cute fabrics so the quilt doesn't take too much time. And I'll also embroider the baby's name on it too to make it a little more special.

I suppose that's a selfish gift, giving them something that I want to give as opposed to something I think they'll need. But I guess most of my friends/family have so much "cute" stuff flooding in, I want to give them a little something that isn't so generic. And they've usually had the functional items all covered.

I was just about to purchase some toilet bowl cleaner myself, so this review comes in quite handily. But isn't scent a little subjective? If that's the only basis upon which you prefer one product over another I don't know if it's enough for me to try it out. If Clorox's cleaner requires additional flushing to get rid of bubbles (how big a deal is that?) then I'd likely stay away from using their product (no need to waste that water) or just live with the bubbles.

Is Bon Ami too much like the baking soda salt combo? I find that it's finer and scrubs a bit more thoroughly than baking soda. I'd sprinkle a bit of Bon Ami onto the surface of the oven and go at it with a scrubby sponge. I might dip the scrubby sponge in really hot water and then squeeze it out first so that it's nice and hot and then scrub like crazy. I haven't tried this on baked-on oven gunk. But I have found it to be successful with baked-on gunk on casserole dishes.