SpannerSoundKate's Profile

I have to agree that not all screen time is boob tube time. We do let our daughter watch silly TV shows. And many of those shows have some real information on them that is packaged so that she will not only get it, but enjoy it. However, even though she gets bored with the history channel, she loves watching science and nature shows. And she prefers to watch videos of surgery techniques on my ipad over watching movies. As a 5 year old, she can point out a heart on an xray... I know adults that cannot do that. The games that she plays usually involve numbers/math or reading. However, she can beat me at cat physics...trigonometry is easier than most basic math.

My daughter sees my husband and me reading constantly. However, when I was young, I saw my parents reading books and newspapers. Now, I get my information from reading articles on the internet or books on my ipad. My daughter sees the computer as a way to learn things. We make times to do things, to make things, to cook things, in our daily life. But my screen time is often no different than my parent's book or newspaper time. Except when I have a question about the sources, I can instantly check those.
i would never try to replace personal experimentation with reading about it on the internet. However, I learned some interesting things to experiment with on the internet. I can only hope to teach my daughter to think and how to find and evaluate information.

Local honey is better than honey from other locales because it can actually decrease allergy response. There is an interesting immunology trick where oral ingestion of a contact or inhaled allergies can turn off the IgE (histamine related immunoglobulins). Also, I prefer unpasteurized honey for wound dressing...both the high sugar content and the naturally occurring anti-microbials are helpful in decreasing infection.

I think that Molly does a bang up job on all of her projects. We live in a 1930's house that has an original surrounding mantle with the nice trim...fitting for the house. But the brick that surrounds the actual fireplace opening is obvious over 80 years old and is blacked and just plain ugly. I have not totally decided to paint it or to leave it alone as we are selling the house soon and I want it as "neutral" as possible.

But I have looked into painting the brass fireplace door. They make a few different colors of heat proof spray paint. I bought black from Lowes...on sale for $4 for an extra tall can.

My daughter loves to play the banjo... makes a nice sound when strumming. She also likes the mandolin. But since my husband has a recording studio of music instruments, she has been playing a long time. I would mention that buying a decent tuner would be key to tuning correctly. And you don't have to use a standard tuning. My husband tunes his strings oddly, but so that they naturally have a beautiful arpeggio .

We had a tree split and fall into our house about a week before the 100 or so tornados went through Tn/Al/Ga. Luckily, it hit our covered deck first because it would have torn through my daughter's room at 11 PM. More of the tree fell during the tornado but we were lucky that it only damaged our gutters. However, it was the tree where my daughter's first swing was located. I have many wonderful memories of pushing her in the swing.

I use them on the back of every door that I can get away with using. At the front door, it is perfect for gloves, scarves, hats, etc during the winter. During the summer, gardening gloves, ball caps, sunglasses, umbrella, etc. In the craft room? Check! Bathroom? Check.

I believe it was a cup of salt mixed with 2 quarts of vinegar and then 1/4 cup of detergent. I found it on a website when I was trying to get rid of our weeds prior to planting. When I am trying to rid an area of growing something for the next 15 years, I generally salt the earth as well.

It is best not to feed dogs from elevated bowls. It has been shown to increase the risk for a deadly disease: gastric dilatation and volvulus (bloat). This looks really great and I would certainly like to have our dog's water bowl incorporated into a piece of furniture, but it is not safe, especially with large deep chested dogs.

>>>People with kids should try to find blocks with other kids on them to live.<<<<

Mmm, maybe if you wanted to maintain a "peaceful and quiet" community, you could move into a retirement village. They do not allow children. It is not like these people plopped an ugly trailer down in the middle of your dream neighborhood. They have kids, though it sounds like they should have them under better control than to run over to the neighbor's house randomly. Our daughter has never had that issue. But if someone is bitching and moaning about kids playing outside during the day time....seriously??? Were you ever a kid?

I have used the soapy water with fairly good success on my veggie plants. However, even though this does not talk about parasites on animals, I feel the need to advise everyone against using alternative remedies on their pets. There is no good "natural" heartworm prevention. I have see many dogs on the "natural" medication become positive for heartworms. Same goes for fleas and ticks.
In the 8 years that I have been a vet, EVERY animal that was using alternative treatments had parasites. And considering what ticks transmit, you don't want to take any chances.

Disclaimer:
I have no horse in this race, I am an emergency vet so I only see the animals with problems and sell no flea/tick stuff or heartworm preventative. I see the ones that are dying from heartworms or the ones that are seizuring from the off the shelf flea and tick stuff.