Snowmaggedon 2010 Pictures

Well, I’m going to be brief and just let the pictures do the talking. It is still currently snowing outside…

Before Shot of the Car and Screen Porch

After Shot of the Car and Screen Porch

Before shot of the camper

After shot of the camper

Before shot of neighbor's house..

After shot of neighbor's house..

Picture of our Street

Another picture of our Street

Picture of the house..

Beautiful Pic of the Trees

The kids trying to get through the snow..

The kids building a snow fort

Capri Sun Juice Bag Project Update

Okay, So last year some time I made a post about the horror’s of the Capri Sun Juice bag and I was trying to figure out what I could do with the bags to recycle them… (http://www.edcharles.com/WordPress/?p=635)

Well, Over the camping season, I collected as many of them as I could in onion bags and I came out of the wild wonderful camping season of 2009 with over 400 juice bags! Hmmm, 400 bags didn’t seem like too many considering my girls can drink these down faster than Dad can drink a draft under a dare at the bar.

While we are experiencing our winter “down time” before the camping ‘kraze’ hits us, I decided to get all of these juice bags out and start to clean them up and make a reflective blanket out of them to put under each side of our camper beds to keep the heat in and the cold out. Here are a couple of pictures of the progress…

Capri Sun juice bags soaking in the sink...

The Capri Sun Juice bags being sewn together...

I’ll keep everyone updated on the final project soon!

Tags: capri sun, capri sun juice bags, recycle, terracycle, upcycling

CSA time – Sycamore Spring Farm

After watching Food, Inc and reading way to many articles about Genetically Modified food lately, Sara and I have decided to ‘adopt’ a farm this year.  Well, not so much ‘adopt’ … but purchase a share  in a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) Farm.

We found our farm by visiting the website called Local Harvest  (http://www.localharvest.org)  which by zip code / city / state you can find family farms in your area where you too can get fresh produce without having to eat something that was shipped to your local grocery store from Argentina.  We’re both VERY excited about the prospects of having 30 weeks of fresh vegetables, herbs, fruits and eggs to tide us through the growing season of the year!  Do you take a risk in not receiving a lot of fresh produce?  Sure, but just as in normal farming, you can also reap the rewards of a plentiful harvest.  What an excellent way to teach our girls that there is a better way to eat, to live, and to be in harmony with the planet that we are constantly destroying these days.

Our farm is named Sycamore Spring Farm  (http://www.sycamorespringfarm.org)  and is less than 20 minutes away from the house in Frederick, Maryland!

They have numerous other items available at the farm such as pick you own events, classes regarding topics such as food preservation and solar/wind power, etc.  I’m especially excited because I may have found a local source to replenish my worm population after my little, umm, how should I say it, slaughter of an excellent pound of red wigglers last year..  ;-(

The early spring is an excellent time to sign up as there are a limited amount of shares on each of the different CSA’s.  Check it out!  What do you have to lose?

A kindle dilema…

While I don’t place myself in the same class as men that browse the jewelry store two days before Christmas to find that special person in their lives the best rock to place on their favorite’s skin for the next generation, I still feel like I may have placed myself in the same class by jumping into the heifer class of consumers this year that decided to buy their special someone a kindle for Christmas.  (Holy hell?!?  Was that a run on sentence or what?!?!)

Wow!  Did I make a mistake!

Was this a mistake in a bad way?  Well, I’m not sure…   Let’s just say that since she has received her new E-Ink tablet full of wonder-fictional bliss on Christmas day, she hasn’t spent a night doing anything more constructive then trying to read enough pages to make her kindle ‘Burn, baby, burn’!

I’m not complaining..  If I’m doing anything..  I’m whining that I haven’t got a decent turn to read on it!

The screen..  Awesome!  The instant gratification of downloading books in a snap..  Amazing!  The “quietness” from not hearing the television blasting reality TV….  priceless!!!!

So..  My review…

Kindle..

Pure bliss….  Pure perfection…  Pure love…

(Now, I just need to buy my own…)

A ‘Real’ Christmas Pine Virgin

Since the early years of my life on this planet, I have never experienced the joy, the euphoria of having a real Christmas tree in my house during the holidays.  Like a pre-heroin addict that has no clue, I didn’t understand the allure of having a real tree exposing my visual and nasal capacity to the realistic experiences that a box of plastic-molded aluminum and a cylinder of a Walmart pine scented candles couldn’t replace.

We were advised to visit Mayne’s farm in Buckeystown, Maryland by numerous friends.  Without distraction, we scheduled a date to visit Mayne’s and pickup our first real tree since we have been together, a nostalgic 12 years of artificial pine’ness that has lasted us up to this point.

Up to now, I was convinced that there was no need to set yet another “tradition” into place with the Charles’ family and was totally comfortable with the artificial tree ‘ceremonies’ performed each year.  With my selfishness set aside, I was willing to be flexible and try at least one additional change to our regime…

It was early November, the date was set.  There is very little that is planned in the Charles’ household without at least a three to four week deadline time frame.  At this point, I was still not convinced that this is something that I wanted to do (like I had ANY choice in what I wanted to do at this point).

We decided that Sunday December 7th was going to be our day because it was only three weeks away from Christmas and that it shouldn’t be too crowded when we got the tree.  Oh, were  we misguided in our thoughts.  It was extremely busy and very muddy as we had just received six inches of snow in the area from an early morning system  that had passed through.  The mud had caused an unbelievable traffic jam on the farm of 4X4 trucks slipping through the mud and people in a mass chaos trying to get back to their vehicles.

It took us a couple of minutes to park our car in the middle of a mud field that would have made a farm full of pigs ecstatic  and then we were off for the Christmas tree ‘nook’  (What the hell do you call a field of Christmas trees?  A nook..  A christ-mi?  A boog-ville?   A treefarm?)

Once we made it past the broo-ha-ha (and YES that is a technical term – Broo-Ha-Ha) of the tractor and trailer ride we were at our final destination and something that was the epitome of my Charles’ family desire.  To get the best looking Christmas tree in the bunch…

Well, we had a great time (other than Mia crying the ENTIRE time back to the car after we cut the tree out of the field and carried it back to the comfort of our ‘homeville’)

The place was a MUD-PIT!!  Seriously, I’m not joking..  N0..  seriously..  Woodstock people would’ve walked away blushing…  No..  Really..

There are a couple of pics that I wanted to post about this..

So, what’s my personal opinion about this?  I was soo freaking stressed out about this little adventure..  Dare I say more stressed than having an upper GI at my doctor’s office.

Once we got past the insanity of getting into Mayne’s farm and then once we were in the car heading out I finally felt my normal Christmas holiday meds kicking in and stabilizing out everything.

So what’s my overall opinion about Mayne’s,  a real Christmas tree, and what I would do next year…

• Next YEAR – I’ll be heading back to Mayne’s farm to get our family’s X-mas tree…  Screw the mud this year, it was an overall awesome experience!!!  (and something that was FREAKISH in nature and would not normally happen)
• As Amy said to me, “Think about it this way, you will never forget your first experience getting a live Christmas tree [because of all of the mud]!” — and this is certainly true.  I’ll never forget this day
• Next year, I might not bring the girls with me  (Just kidding!)  [Actually..   I might take a couple sedatives before we leave the house...  lol]

With this said, we got the tree home to the house and  off the top of the explorer and I did the first annual bitching about how much I would need to trim off the tree to make it fit in the great room.  Surprisingly, there was not much trimming needed and then the tree was quickly stood upright in the house to begin it’s three weeks of dehydrating.

I am a big proponent of doing things BIG!  So, of course, our trees must have a massive amount of lights.  My whole goal is that when you walk by the tree and are looking at it, it MUST appear to be twinkling.  A LOT..

Well, little did I know, (As I have NEVER had a real tree), that it would take a little bit more lights that our old artificial tree.  When the tree was finished with the lights, I had placed 3000 lights on the tree!  While for some people, this feat may seem a little “Griswold-ian”  (Keep up with me here okay..  Clark Griswold?!?  Oh Whatever)  We BOTH like it!

Here are a couple of pictures from the overall event leading up to the fully decorated tree….

The Mud-Mobile @ home....

The Corn Stalks that I backed through....

The Tree ready to Go!

The Partial Family Pic!! It's Hannah taking this picture!!! lol!

The lights going up...

The lights are up! All 3000 of them!!

The Pickle is ON THE TREE!! WOOT!!!

The finished project!! Ahh! 'She's a beaut' Clark!!'

Thanksgiving fun with the fam!

So we had a whirlwind of a trip to PA to visit the fam over turkey day this year.  Here are pics and some short ditties (<—  is that even a word???) on the trip..

First up…. Packing to leave..

The infamous bookcase...

I love this pic of the girls right before we were ready to leave because of the explorer in the background and the MASSIVE blue box on the top.  For those of you that knew my dad, he used to build furniture (and everything else) in his workshop.  While every piece that he made will be treasured for more than a lifetime now that he’s gone; every piece he made either weighed 5 thousand pounds or it was so ‘gi-normous’ you needed a crane to move it!  He built a bookcase and the bottom was easy to transport but the top.. well..  that is a different story.  The big blue box on the top of the explorer is the only place that the top would fit….  So the family enjoyed the flapping of blue tarp the whole 4 1/2 hour trip up to Nana Charles’…..  lol

My Mom & Sister

Here’s a good picture of my mom and sister…  (Thanks Sara!)

So here are a couple of ditties from the visit to Mom’s….

• Potatoes in a bag..  Nice..
• Hey here’s an idea, let’s update our Facebook status’ every minute!!
• The Tale of Despereaux was a HORRIFIC movie for a kid to watch! – Especially after consuming soo much tryptophan —  This movie was more depressing than Tom Arnold’s acting career
• We all agreed that if my mom joined facebook, her updates would consist of, “I’m tired – heading to bed”,  ”Just got home from work – heading to bed”, “just woke up… I’m tired – I’m going to take a nap”
• Don’t place the rum in the stainless steel collection cabinet, as it releases the gas from the stove.   lol

Japanese with the Kirby's

The 2nd half of the trip was spent at Grandma P’s… On Saturday night, we all went out to the local Japanese steak house for some fun!!  Believe or not, I think this was the first time the girls have experienced chop sticks!  lol    Here are some ditties from this trip…

• Uuugh, ever since Michael Jackson died the Internet has been sooo slow!!!  (Sorry Kath, you’re never gonna live this one down!!  *grin*)
• Family photos…  Little Miss Sunshine…
• Papa setting Mia up for shots of Milk…
• You want sake?!?!?
• The sink drain is fixed…  *grin*
• The ceiling is going to be done by Thanksgiving…
• Uuugh, I just HAD to fix that Barbie Radio didn’t I?!?

What do I give thanks for?

With Thanksgiving just around the corner, there is so much in my life that I am thankful for that I just don’t give enough attention to each day.  So, here is a little list of things I’m thankful  (Big, little or something that stupid to you but important to me..)

I’m thankful for..

• A great wife
• Two wonderful kiddo’s
• A roof above my head
• The ability to purchase whatever I need or want for me and my family
• The falling leaves… (even though they really piss me off sometimes)   ’cause it reminds me of the cyclical game of life and how every ending has new beginning
• my car has given me 125000 miles of “no major” repair work…
• That I am able to have a flexible work schedule so that I can see my daughter off every morning onto her bus…  It’s the small things like this that just make my life, my day, and my world
• That I can escape into my own ‘man cave’ every night to refresh, relax, and recharge for the challenging times ahead…
• Barley and Hops
• Cellphones – Instant gratification
• Wonderful Family
• Skype – Dude, seriously..  there should be an Ad campaign that says…  ”Skype was MADE for grandmas!”  This is the best thing for the girls to be able to see and interact with Grandmas’ (and Paw’) whenever they want to…  Distant sux, but technology can fix most of that…
• freecycle and craigslist
• Chicken nuggets, hot sauce, and ranch dressing…  Ohhhh   baby..  (lol)
• Lifetime friends…  (This one goes out specifically to Michele – who our daughters are going to experience a second generation of friendship! )
• laptops and wifi
• hotcouponworld.com  (Dude, seriously, save massive cash..  check it out  http://www.hotcouponworld.com)
• Costco
• knowing that there are people out there going through the same thing that I am, and STILL thriving…
• More to come…

Fishville.. I’m addicted..

Like every other one of the zygna games (minus Mafia Wars..  just gotta stay away from at LEAST 1 game!)  I’m totally addicted to Fishville and it’s only day 2.

But, I’m still trying to find some good websites out there that list the different levels and what XP points you need to have to get to those levels..  Anyone have some good suggestions?

I found Adam Nash’s blog that has lots of information about the game..  Very Nice..  It’s located here  -> http://blog.adamnash.com/2009/11/12/fishville-economics-points-experience-levels/

Here’s my current level information:

• Level 1 —  Start
• Level 2 — 140 XP needed
• Level 3 — 480 XP needed
• Level 4 — 1070 XP needed
• Level 5 — 1960 XP needed
• Level 6 — 3250 XP needed
• Level 7 — 5040 XP needed
• Level 8 — 7430 XP needed
• Level 9 — 10570 XP needed
• Level 10 — 14610 XP needed
• Level 11  – 19700 XP needed
• Level 12 — 25990 XP needed
• Level 13 — 33630 XP needed
• Level 14 — 42770 XP needed
• Level 15 — 53560 XP needed
• Level 16 — 66150 XP needed
• Level 17 — 80690 XP needed
• Level 18 — 97330 XP needed
• Level 19 — 116220 XP needed
• Level 20 –
• Level 21 — 161350 XP needed
• Level 22 — 187890 XP needed
• Level 23
• Level 24
• Level 25
• Level 26
• Level 27
• Level 28 – 412230 XP needed
• Level 29 -
• Level 30 – 515410 XP needed
• Level 31 – 573000 XP needed
• Level 32 – 634790 XP needed
• Level 33 – 700930 XP needed
• Level 34 – 771570 XP needed

Tags: Fishville, Fishville XP Levels, Zygna