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at The Mustard Ceiling!

Elizabeth is hosting a series called The Summer Side of Life and I am so excited to be a part of it! I posted about our small town’s annual festival that we ~~survived~~ enjoyed last Saturday.

And if you don’t care to see pictures of my sweet boys, at least go over and see pictures of Elizabeth’s home. Don’t you love how romantic and dramatic this bedroom is? I love dark colors in bedrooms – so cozy!

Although she’s changed it since this picture was taken, I love the dining room like this. The giraffe print is so unexpected and fun.

And the “cloffice” is another of my favorite areas. (oh, how I wish I had decent closets, let alone an extra one to use as an office!)

But my absolute favorite part of her blog is Bam or Slam! Each week, she posts an inspiration photo or group of photos with something in common and we get to give our opinions. Last week, it was industrial style. (Which is a BAM! in my book!)

So head on over, say hi, and stay cool this weekend! Happy Friday!

Fruit Fly Death Traps

Come on, fess up, please. I KNOW I’m not the only one with a fruit fly problem, right?
Here’s an easy, chemical free way to get rid of them.
Step 1: Remove their food sources. In my case, this means “clean the kitchen.” ugh. That’s definitely the worst part of this whole process.
Step 2: Put something sweet in a cup. Fruit flies like fruit (duh) but wine and spaghetti sauce also works.

Step 3: Saran wrap the top. Seal it tightly with a rubber band.

Step 4: POKE SOME HOLES. Little ones. With a toothpick or fork. The fruit flies will be able to get in, but not out.

Within 10 minutes, I’d caught my first victim. The next morning, the cups were full of fruit flies. I still have a few flying around the kitchen, so I sent those cups out with the trash and made a couple new ones.

If you have company coming over, put the cup in a pretty container way up high on top of your cabinets, and they’ll never know that you have a fruit-fly-death-trap in your kitchen.
If you’re kind of mean, like I am, you can use microwavable cups and kill the nasty bugs after you catch them. But they will get cooked to the side of your cup, possibly ruining it, so don’t say I didn’t warn you!
Shared at:
Tutorials and Tips Tuesday at Stories of AtoZ

Brotherly Love

Linking up to Pinke Post for Wordless Wednesday!

Turkey Tuesday: Blast from Turkeys’ Past

My husband’s family began raising turkeys in 1959. Fifty years later, we built our personal farm in 2009. I think it’s fascinating to see what has changed and what has stayed the same.

Feb. 67: The turkeys were brown.

Now: Our poults are yellow, and white as adults.

August 68 – the whole family working in the brooder.

Now - We still use cardboard rings to keep the poults close to the heat source, and we often do chores as a family, too! The stoves are still very similar and you can see the feeders that would be lowered when the turkeys got bigger.

June 1969- Grandpa’s turkeys were “on range.” For the first few weeks, they raised them in a shed, and then moved them out. They started 1,000 birds at a time, and only raised two flocks per year. They hoped to get all the turkeys to market before the first snow.

Now- We raise our turkeys in climate controlled barns. They are heated in the winter, and we do our best to cool them in the summer. We raise almost 6 flocks of 20,000 per year.

Here are some more old pictures, just for fun.

Grandpa Bob and his horse, Peg

Bob, 1949

Bart’s Dad, Dave on the wagon, and his uncle Brent in the window

The original house on Grandpa Bob’s farm. This is where my screen door came from.

Summer 1974 on Grandpa’s farm

Empathy: The Empathy Reflex

**This post is part of a series I've been doing on empathy. For other posts on how to show empathy and teach your children empathy, click here.**

Last week, I wrote about the importance of empathy and asked how you show or encourage empathy. Today I want to share with you a concept that serves two purposes:
1. It diffuses the situation at hand.
2. It helps children learn about their emotions.

John Medina, author of Brain Rules and Brain Rules for Baby, calls it the Empathy Reflex and says that it should be your first response to any emotional situation. This is how it works:
1. Describe the emotions you see in the other person.
2. Guess why they are feeling that way.

I’ve tried this with varying degrees of success. I think it takes some practice, at least for me. I tend to be a little judgmental/critical (people who know me know that might be an understatement) so this is definitely NOT a “reflex” for me yet. But an emotional 3 year old at home has given me plenty of opportunities to practice.

Adam: Mom, will you play gominoes with me?
Me: Sure, when I’m done feeding Isaac.
Adam cries or pouts.
Me: Oooh, You’re sad. Are you sad?
Adam: Uh-huh. (still crying.)
Me: I think you’re feeling jealous. Jealous is the feeling when you want Mommy or Daddy to play with you, but we’re taking care of Isaac. Are you feeling jealous?
Adam: Uh-huh. (starts to calm down a bit.)
At this point, I can try distracting him or suggesting something for him to do while he waits.

Although the empathy reflex does not always calm him, it certainly helps. I’ve used it with Adam, my husband and my students. It worked really well with one of my 6th graders.

But possibly even more important in the long run, Adam has just learned a label for his emotion. The first step to understanding others’ emotions is understanding your own. So helping children recognize their own disappointment, frustration, anger, excitement, fear and other strong emotions sets them up to identify the same emotions in others.
Try it and see what you think. Then come back and tell me how it worked. Did it work better with different people? Different emotions? Did it feel awkward or do you already react with some version of the empathy reflex?

Storage Solution: Children’s Books

Well, it took almost a full year, but Adam’s dresser has gone from this:

to this:

Ikea spice racks make a great bookshelf/dresser

I spent a good part of last summer/fall spray painting it and decided that I hate spray painting furniture. I also stained the top. And it’s been like that since February.

Then, I saw Ikea spice rack bookshelves all over the blogosphere and decided that I MUST HAVE SOME. So, I had my Karen pick up 10 before she came to visit.

They are only $4, but not available online. I saw them on ebay for the ridiculous price of $12. Karen just graduated from grad school, and I think she should get a part time job selling Ikea merchandise at an incredible markup on ebay, to help pay off her student loans. Don’t you think that’s a great idea?
Anyway, Karen snapped them together so quickly that I couldn’t even get a picture, and then I spray painted them to match the dresser.

And then came the hanging.

I decided to put them on the dresser because I’m a chronic furniture rearranger, so I didn’t want to do anything permanent on the walls, especially since I knew these wouldn’t be the easiest things to install.

How to Hang Ikea Spice Racks

Supplies:
tape measure
level
#6 x 1 inch wood screws
drill bits
drill

Instructions:

First, I made a mark at 12 inch intervals up the side of the dresser. A foot seemed to be a good distance between the shelves. Almost all the books fit that way, and the ones that are a bit too tall are on the top shelf.

Then, it got tricky. The second screw had to be in exactly the right spot, or it wouldn’t work. After redoing 3 of the 4 shelves on one side, I got smart.
I measured the distance between the two hangers.

And marked it on my level with a piece of tape. (side note: it doesn’t do a lot of good to use a level when the front legs of the dresser are on the rug and the back legs are not. Oops.)

Then, I made the mark for the 2nd screw.

Next, I predrilled holes, using a drill bit that was slightly smaller than my screws. I used the 3/32nd one. And I used #6 1” wood screws (The #8s had too big of a head, FYI.)

Finally, I inserted the screws so they were still sticking out a bit and then popped the shelves on!

These 8 shelves don’t even hold half our books, but it makes it really easy for me to rotate them in and out, and Adam can find what he’s looking for really easily!