Where in the World is Rebecca Today?

A few weeks back I talked about things we were doing to get our home ready for Winter and I mentioned making draft stoppers for the front door and living room door. Today I decided to make the front door draft blocker.

[It will be on the inside of the door, but there was better lighting if I took the photo outside!]

You will need:

-A pair of thick tights (40 denier or higher. Used is Ok, but make sure it doesn’t have any holes)
-Sand (I used about 6KG of builder’s sand, but you could get sand from a beach or a sandbox too. We just happen to have builder’s sand in the shed)
-Cardboard or a funnel
-Scissors
-Rubber gloves (optional, but it keeps the sand from getting stuck under your fingernails)

Step One:
Cut down the center of the tights to separate the legs.

Step Two:
Roll up the cardboard to create a funnel inside the leg, or use a funnel.

Step Three:
Fill up the leg with sand. This is best done outside! Once you think you have enough sand in the leg, stretch it out and move the sand around until it’s about the same length as the bottom of your door. Tie off the end and snip the edges. It should look something like this:

Step Four:
Take the other leg of the tights and stuff the sand-filled leg inside of it, leaving a small “tail” at the toe end. Tie off the outer tight at the top, cut the loose ends off, and tie a knot at the toe.

Your sand sock/draft buster is ready to use!

I’ve also been informed by my friend Lauren that if you use unscented kitty litter instead of sand it will absorb odours too. I did try this, and I have to say it wasn’t a success for me as it was too dusty and even though it says “unscented”, it still smelled like cat litter. I’m wondering if the clumping kind would have worked better, though.

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I was on BBC Lincolnshire last week talking about Halloween with William Wright. He asked me to come on as an American to talk about Halloween, since it’s not celebrated all that much in the UK.

Here are a few guidelines for having an authentic Halloween:

-Wear a costume. If your child is going to go trick or treating, they need a costume. You don’t have to go out and spend a lot of money on this, either. One of my favourite costumes was made on Halloween out of things we had in the house. I became an Absent-minded professor with a button down shirt open over a t-shirt, an untied tie looped around my neck, a pair of boxers (I wore tights under for warmth), and one slipper and one shoe.

-Trick or Treating is for kids. The general cut off IMHO should be the lower teens, unless you have a younger sibling or babysitting charge to take around. Groups of 19-20-yr-olds begging for sweets just isn’t cool.

-If you are escorting a younger child, don’t expect candy for yourself. Some people will only give candy to the little ones, but it helps your case for candy if you put on a costume.

-If someone doesn’t have candy, that isn’t an excuse to throw eggs or do other vandalism. Some people just don’t like Halloween or forgot to plan for it. Be gracious and thank them for their time before leaving their property.

-If the light is out, don’t knock. A common undocumented rule in the US is to leave your front light on if you want trick or treaters and to turn it off if you don’t.

-Trick or Treat only on Halloween or your town’s designated night. Trick or Treating is one night. Some towns designate a different day for Trick or Treating other than Halloween, but it is always just one night. If your town is doing Trick or Treating on the 30th, don’t go out on the 31st, too!

-Be polite and say thank you. Loads of kids would come to my door in the US and some wouldn’t even say “Trick or Treat” let alone thank me for the candy. A little manners goes a long way!

-If you’re giving out candy, remember to only give out wrapped candy. Unwrapped candy isn’t safe, and neither are home baked goods. Save the home baked goods for the people you know directly and not the strangers. Small coins are also sometimes given out in the US by people who either don’t want to give candy, or have run out. When I was younger we also occasionally would receive a small bag of pretzels, crisps, or even a pencil.

-Likewise, parents please go through your children’s candy before they start eating it. Check to make sure things are still in date and that wrappers are secure. Throw away unwrapped candies or home baked goods, unless you know the person who gave it to your child.

-Halloween does not have to be scary, and in fact, can be fun and even silly! The producer at BBC Lincolnshire told me her child was terrified of the skulls and spiders decorating the nursery he goes to. You don’t need scary skulls and spiders to decorate for Halloween. Witches, black cats, mummies unravelling, even just plain pumpkins and coloured leaves can be a nice Halloween decoration.

-Please remember that just because you see something OTT on an American TV programme, that doesn’t mean it’s something done by middle-class America. This note applies to Proms as well! When in doubt, do some internet research or find an American friend to ask.

Have a safe and happy Halloween!!

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, or the RSS feed(s), please notify me.

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I had a problem. Tim and I have stainless steel flasks we use for carrying around tea when we are out and about. And of course, we have milk in our tea in the flasks. You can imagine where this is going, I’m sure.

Yes, I forgot about emptying the flasks the time before last. I dumped them outside and discovered we had made tea-flavoured cottage cheese (no, I was not about to eat it!), and left a film on the inside and bottom of the flasks. I thought I had cleaned them out, but the next time I made tea in them, my husband complained that it tasted funny.

I searched google to find a way to clean out my flask, and after wading through many sites about how to clean your hip flask, I was getting no where. I changed my search term to “clean steel Thermos”, even though ours aren’t Thermos brand flasks, and found several e-how articles. I tried the following:

-bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) and hot water
-fill it halfway with white vinegar and top off with hot water
-mix hydrogen peroxide with bicarbonate of soda
-soak with regular dish soap

And nothing worked, so I went to a favourite LJ community of mine, Hip Domestic. I got lots of solutions that either didn’t make sense to me or that I didn’t have the supplies for, and then jackmaybenimble came forward with a great soloution – Steradent.

She instructed me to put the Steradent into the flasks (with water) and then to use pebbles. She suggested glass pebbles like the kind you can get to put in vases, but I just grabbed a handful of pea shingle from outside and washed them off. Seal up the flask and then shake. The combination of the fizzy Steradent tablet and the rocks act like an agitator to help scrape off the inside.

And you know what? Both flasks look brand new. I’m going to give them a re-wash to make sure all the Steradent is out, but there isn’t even a stain on the bottom! All the filmy stuff that was clinging to the sides of the flasks is gone, and we’re confident we will have tasty tea tomorrow!

Why isn’t this stuff listed on a cleaning website?

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When Tim and I were in Austria, we bought several bags of Mozart Kugel that we wanted to share with our family. I hung onto them until Christmas, and I was planning on using leftover gauze bags from our wedding to put a few pieces in and tie them onto packages as decorations. I was browsing Craftster one day when I stumbled on this post about making your own crackers, and I thought that would be a really fun way of distributing the candy.

Authentic crackers go bang! when you pull on them, and some airlines even consider them explosive. I wanted mine to snap, and I wanted to include the traditional paper hat and silly joke (or “motto” as it gets called). So I hunted online. If you are in the US, you can get your supplies from a site called Old English Cracker. If you’re in the UK, you can do what I did and order your pieces off Amazon or go directly to the seller on Amazon, Fred Aldous. I spent about £7 for 24 snappers, 12 hats, and 48 “mottos” including shipping. Next year, I’ll only need to order snappers and hats!

After you order your inside bits, and know what kind of “prize” you want (If I was in the US, I might look at Oriental Trading Co. for some inexpensive prizes), you need to start collecting your tubes. For each cracker, you will need either 1 empty kitchen roll (US: paper towel) tube or 2 empty toilet paper tubes. Depending on the size of your household and how quickly you use those products, you might have to start collecting early! You will use one tube as the middle, and cut the other tube in half to be the sides. If you are using a kitchen roll tube, cut it in half, and then cut one side in half again. If you are using a combination of TP tubes and kitchen roll tubes, check to make sure they are the same width. If not, make sure you use all 3 pieces of kitchen roll tube on the same cracker.

Other supplies include: curling ribbon, tape, and wrapping paper.

You’ll need a piece of wrapping paper that easily wraps around the three tubes plus leave some extra on either end. Our pieces were just big enough, so when I make them next year, I’m going to add a little extra to the sides.

Lay your wrapping paper print side down, with the large tube in the middle and a small tube on either side. Take your snapper and put it inside the tubes, making sure it’s not sticking out on either end, and secure it with tape to the inside of each small tube. The one pictured has the snapper taped down flat, but I also taped some in diagonally, and those seemed to snap better. At this point, put the hat and motto in the middle section (it’s a lot easier at this stage).

Next, roll the wrapping paper around the tube, securing with tape on the middle piece. You shouldn’t need tape on the side pieces, and I think it works a lot easier to leave those tape free for now.

This next step might take some practise. Cut a length of the curling ribbon and pinch together the wrapping paper between one small roll and the middle roll, being careful not to tear the paper. Wrap the ribbon around the pinched area and tie it as tight as you can (again, without ripping. Told you, it might take some practise)

Now pick up the cracker, with the pinched side down and insert your candy/prize through the other end. If it falls out the other side, you didn’t tie the ribbon tight enough. Repeat pinching and tying on the other side of your cracker.

The very last step is tucking the stray wrapping paper around the ends (if there is any) and curling the ribbon ties. At this point, you might also want to straighten the wrapping paper around the sides and tape it down.

The whole family loved them, and my SIL told me they looked like professional store-bought crackers! Can’t wait to make them next year!

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Occasionally, I like to post things here that are useful to the masses, as opposed to just blog posts….

Just in case anyone else is having this problem:

Go to Tools -> Options -> Applications then scroll down to mailto and make sure GMail is selected in the drop down. If GMail doesn’t show there, follow the lifehacker instructions on how to add GMail to the options.

Also, if you were using Better Gmail 2, No Squint, or any other add-on that firefox 3.5 tells you is incompatible, search for the websites for each add-on and on the sites there should be updates for 3.5 and instructions on how to install.

It’s also worth noting that Firefox 3.5 doesn’t have a huge memory leak previous versions of Firefox seemed to have been plagued with.

[X-posted to LJ]

[Note to LJ users reading this via the LJ feed: Please click on one of the links at the top to go directly to my blog to leave comments, as comments left on the LJ feed will not be seen by me.]