New York Renovator

I don’t know what it is. I have this thing for vinegar lately. I’ve experimented with it in the laundry (makes clothes soft and removes odors), boiling potatoes with it, and cleaning car windshields with it. Last week I dumped a little in my soapy dishwater (about 1/2 cup; I wash dishes by hand). It really works to cut grease! It also removes baked-on gunk much easier. Try it and see!

The grass is FINALLY beginning to turn green here! Other states are bragging about their flowers already. :-p I have daffodil buds and tulip leaves coming up. And my tiny grape hyacinths are blooming. But that’s it. Still, it’s great to see green again. It’s too early to break out the golf bags, but I at least all our snow is finally melted!

I took the kids out for a little venture to the city (Utica). It was good to get out and they had a blast at the Children’s Museum. But I am exhausted and don’t feel like blogging much. I am doing so tonight because I’m trying to blog once a day for a while, to see if I can keep it up. I tend to blog in “bursts.” I might write nothing for three or four days, then –whammo– four posts in one day. I’m trying to get away from that.

No home improvement projects yet. I’m waiting a few more weeks until I start the outside garden. More on it all later.

I have noticed that a lot of moms have laptops. I visit blogs, and invariably the blogger describes her latest experience (usually a repair) with her laptop. I was blessed with my first laptop four years ago. Wow, was it great! It was perfect for when my back went out (herniated disk) and I was bedridden for a few weeks. I could still stay in touch. I even Instant Messaged my kids, downstairs, when I needed them. It is a little HP laptop, and the biggest problem I had with the machine is that it got so hot. Sometimes it would overheat so badly that the laptop would “freeze” (funny, huh?) or crash.

A few years ago, someone invented these little laptop stands that elevated the laptop. It allowed for the freer movement of air, thus enabling the laptop fans to circulate more efficiently, and keep the inner temperatures cooler. However, when I saw the latest prices (and they have come down), they were “on sale” for $25. $25 is a LOT of money! Especially when you have all these other little accessories to get for the laptop as well.

Well, I was browsing the housewares section at my local department store, and discovered a kitchen sink grid. It’s plastic. I’m not quite sure what it’s used for in the kitchen; perhaps as a liner for the bottom of the sink?

Anyway, it is the same size as my HP laptop. It looked perfect. I bought it ($2) and it works perfectly as a little stand for the laptop!

Moreover, they also make fancy stands with cooling fans built in them. But why pay $40 to $50 for one of these? Just buy a small portable fan (for $5 to $10), and have it blow quietly at the intake area of your laptop! It works!

Well, I did get SOMETHING done this week! I planted the first tray of 72 peat pots. I’m behind schedule right now. I have another tray of seeds to plant. In the near future, I have to get a roto-tiller and till the garden beds. It’s still too cool to set plants out. Last year I jumped the gun and planted seeds (I’ve always done direct planting before this year) April 25th. We had two frosts about that time, but everything made it. This year, I don’t think I’ll risk it. It’s very cool yet and Upstate New York is still full of surprises. Snow is even forecast for this evening.

Well, here’s what I did. I bought the little peat pucks (as I call them). They are dried up and shriveled and look just like checkers. With the addition of water, they swell up. Once they are moist, seeds can be planted. The instructions say to plant the seeds twice as deep as the length of the seeds themselves.

I planted the pansies first. Those are mighty tiny seeds, almost as small as weight loss pills, wouldn’t you say?

But then I opened the nicotania packet, and WHOA! Those are tiny seeds! I couldn’t even handle them. I couldn’t “plant” such tiny seeds, it was more like “sprinkling” them. We’ll see how they turn out. Hmm.

I needed something larger. My hands were killing me by this point. Ahhh good ole New England pumpkin seeds! Much better.

I also planted cantaloupe. And that’s all I did! Next up will be the yellow squash, basil, cauliflower, and Marigolds.

I read a fascinating story by friend and fellow blogger, Dan Weaver, at Associated Content.com.

In the article, Dan ponders the Amish way of life and his (as well as the general population’s) fascination with it. Upstate New York is home to a smattering of large Amish communities. It is not unusual to see them in our public areas- women with Puritan-looking dresses complete with white aprons and gauzy bonnets; children with neatly trimmed black jackets, fathers in heavy blacks coats driving horses with the traditional Amish buggy (and the ubiquitous orange reflective triangle on its bumper, a New York State requirement). We Upstaters know the presence of the Amish. They are quiet in their ways but strong in their faith. Sure, they have problems (who doesn’t), but they do have fewer, less complicated problems. And this is why they are so curious to us.

The Amish do not reject all modern technology. For example, they use battery operated calculators in their workshops. They do, however, put all technology on probation. As one old woman said in “The Riddle of Amish Culture,” by Donald B. Kraybill, “The telephones are still on probation.” The television and automobile have completed, and failed, their probationary period.

This middle ground for me also means emphasizing simplicity, family, the sense of belonging to a larger community, helping one’s neighbors, and traditional morality. It means viewing hard work as something to embrace rather than to avoid. It means faith in God is something that must be evident not just on Sunday but throughout the entire week. These are the values that have made the Amish attractive and successful both in Pennsylvania and here in Montgomery County, New York.

The simplicity of Amish living is what interests me. Yes, how ironic, these words of mine flowing from the keys of a computer and broadcasting across the Internet! But the thing is– just as Dan implied– the Amish do not reject technology, for technology’s sake. They reject technology if it complicates their life and way of living. Ah, that’s the keystone. Is sitting in front of the television interfering with my ability to read to and teach my children? Is blogging hindering the enrichments of good conversation with my husband, of the delights of my blooming flowers? Is “making money” so important that I will close myself off to the world, huddled in front of my computer monitor, to study the latest SEO tactics?

When I was a teen, my family left town-life and took off to live on a small mountain in the Catskills area of New York. We didn’t “go Amish,” but we learned to hunt for edible plants in the forest, cut our own trees for wood for the winter, plant a garden from scratch (literally– that mountain was solid bedrock and the garden grew more rocks than vegetables), sew our own clothes. We liked being self-sufficient. It was tough, but it was a good experience. I look back on those days with some satisfaction. It has tempered my adult living, to be sure. We prefer living as natural as we can, and keeping our lives as simple as we can. It is life’s complications that bring the stress and turmoil. Technology should be our tool to aid us, not be the mighty god that we have made it to be. And that is the root of the problem, because when it comes down to it, despite our technology, we still hurt, we still laugh, we still age, and we still die. All is the same as it has always been.

Not everyone will want to accept these values. I can’t help but think, however, that everyone would be enriched, not just by buying Amish baked goods or handmade products, but by allowing the Amish way of life to be a mirror for reflecting on our own way of life.

There’s a lot to learn from the Amish, good and bad. They have successfully resisted most of the entanglements of gluttonous, licentious, complicated living. But they do so (most, anyway) because of their tradition. It is tradition that binds them together. This is not necessarily better than materialistic living; it just means that they have fewer distractions and fewer complications.

I think it does us good to reflect and reconsider our way of life, our material life and our spiritual life as well– because our material lives are only a reflection of our spiritual lives (what we truly believe). I’ve been a Christian for over 20 years now, and have spent most of those years studying the faith, testing the faith, questioning things. Is it true? Am I convinced? Absolutely. As Alexander Hamilton once said, there is no doubt in my mind that the Christian religion is the truth and I can prove it before a court of law. The evidence is overwhelmingly in its favor. In those moments of my life when everything gets “complicated,” there is that foundation stone on which I can rest. Material things come and go, but belief– which is the inner conviction of something one has proven to be true– remains constant. A person could never really find peace by tossing out his TV and driving a horse and buggy for the rest of his life. Simple living is not the end-all of life. Simple living does not necessarily bring peace of mind. Peace comes from God, and God has revealed Himself to us through Y’shua (Jesus). It is being convinced of the truth that brings balance. And that balance is something we all seek, isn’t it?

I’ve noticed that Feedburner is no longer generating feeds for my url to this blog. I believe this may have something to do with my switch from Blogger web hosting to Bluehost hosting. I cannot seem to figure out how to transfer the feed from the old hosting to the new hosting. Feedburner is owned by Google, so there goes any expectation of help or ease of use. :S I have had to reburn all my feeds onto a new Feedburner account. I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience. The new feedburner url is here. From that url, you can choose your feeds reader or use your browser’s feed capabilities. Thanks for your understanding!

We have three adults in the house, and make a lot of coffee! I’m always keen to tips on recycling the coffee grounds and leftover coffee. Here are a few tried and true uses that I have discovered:

1. Compost the grounds, with the filter if you want. It’s great for the compost pile and the garden. One note: don’t use the coffee-tainted compost for lime-soil-loving plants (such as peas). Coffee grounds acidify the soil and lime-loving plants will not do well. Tomato plants, on the other hand, revel in coffee-flavored compost!

2. Use cooled, diluted leftover coffee to water your houseplants once a day. Of course, don’t overdo it, and be aware that coffee will acidify the plant’s soil. Don’t use on plants that require sweet, lime soil.

3. Use coffee grounds and leftover coffee to fertilize blue hydrangeas. I have some lovely Nikko blue hydrangeas near the foundation of my home. Blue hydrangeas need acidic soil; if there is lime in the soil, the blooms are pink, not blue. My home is 150 years old, so there’s a ton of lime in the soil that has leached from my limestone-mortared foundation. I was told to buy aluminum sulfate at the garden center to have blue blooms– too expensive! i don’t know what got into me a few springs ago, but I started pouring coffee over the plants every day, and I have had blue blooms. One note if you attempt this– start early in the year, when the plant is coming out of dormancy. Otherwise, the bluing won’t be as successful throughout the summer.

4. Sprinkle coffee grounds in your flower beds. This will keep the cats from using your flower beds as their litter box. :-p

If you have any other ideas, feel free to leave a comment! I’d love to know. If you found this post helpful, please stumble it with StumbleUpon! The convenient button is below. Thanks!

Well, to my shame I admit that I have not even begun planting seeds yet. I have an excuse, though! I had massive blogs problems and spent all weekend migrating from Blogger to WordPress (I still have to customize my templates). And I was sick last week with strep throat. It was the first time I ever had it, and I am glad it’s over. I still have laryngitis, though- I can’t yell at the kids so that’s the worst thing of it all!

Back to the Growing Challenge, I bought the supplies two weeks ago. They’ve been collecting dust because I haven’t done anything with them.

I usually sow seeds directly into the ground (I do it in late April despite all the frost warnings), so this is a new thing. I am going to try my hand at planting flower seeds. I usually buy a few overgrown annuals in July, when most stores are getting rid of their annuals stock. But planting annuals so late in the growin season means I only get two or three months of color from them. So I’m going to try nicotania (which I hear has a heavenly scent) and marigolds, to keep the slugs at bay.

And here’s a peek into what my veggie garden will have. I bought seeds from Johnny’s Selected Seeds this year. I had their seeds my first year gardening, and had good success. WalMart seeds I’ve used and those seeds tend to be hit and miss. I had to resow half the seeds last year, too. Because I expect to be busy with the house this summer, I do NOT want to babysit a hit-and-miss garden.

So there ya have it! If I can get motivated enough, here’s hoping that by Wednesday I’ll have the pellets planted.

Well, since I switched from Blogger to WordPress over the weekend, I’ve had to hunt for a new template (WordPress calls them “themes.”) So I am trying out a variety of themes and TRYING to whittle it down to something I like! And I thought home decorating was hard! Sheesh! So things may be up and down and all around. I apologize for the confusion. I really liked my old template but it is not compatible with WordPress. Feel free to offer opinions or advice! I’m still hunting for the “perfect” theme. I’ll be getting back to my regular “home and garden” postings as soon as I figure the design out.

OK, I got the new blog moved from Blogger hosting to WordPress hosting on Bluehost. It was hairy, let me tell you. The hardest part was fixing all the old permalinks from Blogger’s to WordPress’. Wow, what a job. I’ll have to tell you what saved the day, when I have time.

I have to make this theme more personable, first. It is really me, New York Renovator! I’m working on a custom header and adding some purdy pictures and videos. It’s taking time… a lot of time, actually.. but it’s getting there. In the meantime, enjoy some archived articles of you feel like reading. The earliest ones are full of all the home remodeling projects we got into.

I’ll soon be back with updates on our Growing Challenge, gardening tales, and hopes to renovate more of the house.

P.S. If you decide to do the same thing, I recommend Bluehost web hosting service. Their tech help is very nice. I ought to know, as I spent most of Saturday chatting with them! If you are interested in checking out Bluehost, would you consider using my affiliate link? Bluehost has a generous affiliate program. If someone buys hosting service through my recommendation, I get $65!