Book It!

I always seem to have more books on my reading list than I do time to read them. I find this to be a common thread among parents, especially those with little ones like me. The trouble with this is that my reading list keeps growing longer (for there are always books that I find to add to it) and it seemed as though, when I did have a few quiet moments to enjoy a book I never had that one book that I was enjoying right handy. So, I started starting new books. Crazy, I know, but this is how it works. I keep one book in the car with me to read while in the pickup line, waiting for my son at school, during which time my youngest is usually sound asleep (in warmer months we walk to school, but with single digits it is just a bit too far for my littlest one), and I keep a second by the bedside, for evening reading. There is a third book next to the rocking chair for when I am rocking and nursing the wee one, and a fourth in my husband's vehicle for when we are on long car rides (this one is read aloud by whoever isn't driving, so we both enjoy it together). Every moment of quiet time I have, however short it may be, I am able to pick up a book and enjoy it. Remarkably, I haven't felt the least bit fragmented by my multiple-books-at-a-time project. In contrast, I actually find it refreshing in the way that I don't feel obligated to read through an entire chapter or so at a time, instead giving myself permission to pick up and leave off wherever opportunity allows, thanks to the help of some scrap paper bookmarks. Here's what is being read around here at the moment:

From the (paper) heart...

That chocolate-and-roses day is approaching, some call it Valentines Day, I always referred to it as Singles Awareness Day.  Why?  Well, when you are single, you know when it is Valentines Day.  When you're married it can become just another holiday.  Of course, when you have children, especially school-aged ones, the day usually involves a celebration of some sort and perhaps even the exchange of valentines with friends.  Sure, I'll take the chocolate and roses, but the cartoonish mass-produced valentines?  Let's just say, I'm really not a big fan when it comes to sending them myself (though we teach our children to be gateful for all they receive).  Somehow the idea of exchanging a valentine seems to have been lost in the over-commercialization of, well, everything.

Even as a child I didn't quite embrace the idea of commercialized paper cutouts that were purchased, signed, placed in construction paper mailboxes, and then almost immediately dumped in the trash can (save that one from my third-grade crush which was kept in my jewelry box until the end of junior high, despite the fact that it didn't have my name on it, only his).  Even back then, I opted for something more personal, and chose to print my valentines using our DOS-based home computer program, creating nifty little dot-matrix printed, quarter-fold cards for each of my classmates.  Arguably not much "greener", but they were certainly less commercialized and, back in 1989, anything printed on a home computer was unique.

For every season and holiday there is a certain area in those big box stores dedicated to merchandise specifically produced for that particular time of year.  While I haven't yet been able to completely avoid big box stores, I do try to avoid that particular and ever-changing section of them as I have found most of the merchandise there to have such limited use and a short lifespan which, ultimately, secures it a long, guaranteed reservation in a landfill somewhere.  There are, however, a few exceptions when I feel compelled to visit that particular area of the store.  For instance, the after-holiday clearance sale at which I splurged 29 cents each for three medium-sized red heart-shaped metal cookie cutters last year.  (Three, you ask?  Why certainly one would have been fine, but I have two very helpful children!)  This week, in anticipation of the upcoming festivities in my son's pre-K classroom, we put those little red gizmos to use!

I should warn you that I have, admittedly, never experimented with recycled paper before - though I did understand the basic idea behind it.  Buy or make a special paper screen frame, fill a washtub with water, use good quality paper ripped apart and blended with water in a blender, place the screen in the wash tub, pour the pulp in, even it out, lift the screen, squeeze the water out of the pulp mixture, and let it dry.  That all seemed a bit messy and expensive, so I made use of what I had on hand instead (you will find that to be a recurring method around here).

First, I removed the screen from my kitchen window and placed it over my kitchen sink.  It's the dead of winter, and it wasn't getting much use there anyway.  Then I took some handfuls of junk mail confetti from our paper shredder bin, put them in a blender, and poured some warm water over them.  I let it sit for a few minutes to soften the paper, then blended it to form a pulp.  I added a few drops of red food coloring (my son's choice), then blended just a bit more.  It turned a lovely pink color that we thought was pretty, or at least as pretty as mushy paper pulp could be.  I placed the three heart-shaped cookie cutters on the screen and used a spoon to scoop some of the pulp out of the blender and into the hearts.  Next, I used my fingers to spread the pulp evenly and squeeze out as much water as I could (being careful not to put too much pressure on the screen, hence why in this case I opted not to allow my over-zealous 4-year-old do the first round of squeezing).  We then removed the cookie cutters and placed the shapes on a piece of felt, then covered them with a second piece of felt.  I stacked some magazines from the recycling bin on the counter and put the felt-heart-felt sandwich on top of them, then enlisted the help of my son to push on them as hard as he could to squeeze out as much of the remaining water as possible.  The hearts had turned a nice purple color at this point, and we transferred them to a cookie sheet lined with a paper towel to dry overnight. I then replaced the window screen, before my husband returned home!

Once dried, they turned out lavender on one side and pink on the other (perhaps next time we'll try a little paint instead of food coloring) and once he finishes signing each of them with his newly-mastered handwriting, they will be distributed among his classmates to join their Spiderman and Dora construction-paper mailbox mates.  I'm not sure how much those store-bought valentines cost, but these cost us nothing, used resources we had on hand, and yet contain a little something more than just paper... the gift of our time (and perhaps a few speckles of plastic envelope windows here and there too).  Maybe next time we will throw some flower seeds into the pulp mix and make plantable valentines (or Mother's Day cards for the grandmothers - stay tuned)!