Fight scorpions

Posted on October 25, 2012 by Liz Johnson

Somewhat recently it seemed like a lot of my friends were encountering scorpions in their homes more frequently.  A few of my friends on facebook were talking about being stung, finding them, etc.  Then there was this article on azcentral.com about the cost of antivenom.  Dude.  $7950 for one dose?  Really?  I kind of freaked out a little.  This coming from the Arizona girl that grew up with scorpions in her house and knew how to catch them in a jar without being stung by the age of 8.  So I called up my favorite pest control company, Foothills Pest Control, and grilled Steve about what we could do to reduce our chances of being stung.  Here’s what he had to say:

Sealing your house for scorpions helps.  Steve comes out for a free estimate, but most average sized homes can get a basic exterior seal for $400-600.  (Less than the $7950 for anti-venom!)  This helps limit the ways they can get in your house.

Regular pest control helps keep the population down.  I’ve lived in Arizona all my life, so I’ve heard lots of people say that to keep scorpions away, you have to kill what they eat.  Like crickets.  Some people think you can’t spray for the scorpions themselves.  I guess it’s a little trickier (they have to come in contact with the spray within a certain time frame or something, ask Steve) but they actually can!  A few days ago we found two in one day!  But it was weird because they were half-dead.  One was laying on the floor right by where I was doing dishes all like, “please…help…dying…” like they do in the movies or on tv.  So I scooped him up and properly squished him.  These little boogers had come in contact with the spray Foothills had put down a few days prior and came out of the walls to let us know they were dying.  YAY!

What else can you do?

Scorpions like debris, so keep the build up clear.  Those dead leaves in a pile in the corner of your yard?  Yeah, like that.

Keep trees, plants, and shrubs up off the ground.

They also like to cluster in palm fronds and lumber piles, FYI.

Oh, and they like large river rock.  Great for them to hide in.  So be sure to teach your kids to kick over the rocks before collecting them.

At our house we like to go scorpion hunting at night with a black light.  We have a little black light flash light and it lights those little boogers up! I’d suggest closed-toe shoes and have a plan for squishing them.  We use the end of a broom handle.

You can also add fine mesh screens to your air conditioning vents.

Keeping bed clothes up off the floor helps too.  Dust ruffles are a pretty little ladder!

One I’ve always heard is to put baby’s cribs in glass jars.  Scorpions can’t climb glass and if you keep dust ruffles up, they shouldn’t be able to get in.

Be aware when you bring things in from the garage, outside or other people’s homes.  I found one alive and kicking this morning under life vests we had brought in from the garage.

If you have any other tips or tricks, please share them in the comments section, I’d love to hear them!

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Docs to Title

Posted on October 23, 2012 by Liz Johnson

Docs to title:  (If you are the home buyer) Your lender has processed your loan to the point of drawing up your loan documents that you will sign and have sent them to the title company.

Docs getting to title are such a big deal that when my daughter was only 2, she’d run around the house parroting, “Docs to title!  Docs to title!”  Grover on Sesame Street said, “Location, location, location,” but my daughter said, “Docs to title!”  Smart girl.

Why are docs to title so important?  Because a lot of subsequent actions depend on them getting there.

  • It tells us that most of the conditions to your loan have been cleared (stated even simpler, your lender has pretty much said they will give you the money to buy the house).  Sometimes they will have a condition or two that are pre-funding conditions, but most are cleared up before the docs are sent out.
  • The title company will not schedule your appointment to sign aforementioned loan documents until they have their hot little hands on them.  They’ve been burned by lenders before promising they will get them there by Wednesday morning…wait, no, maybe by noon, for sure by end of business.  Just for them to get there Friday at 5 p.m.
  • The title company uses the information sent in and with the loan documents to “work up the HUD”  which is lingo for they put all the numbers on a settlement statement, tracking every penny, so everyone knows where the money came from and is going.
It is important to choose a good lender based on many factors, but their ability to get things done within the timeframes specified by the contract is extremely important.  
Feel free to call or email me if you have any questions!
Posted in Buying | Leave a comment

Nourishing Avocado Hair Treatment

Posted on September 28, 2012 by Liz Johnson

In the spring I was referred to a great salon, Curls Gone Wild in Gilbert (if you go tell Crystal I say hi).  There I learned to embrace my curly hair and how to care for it properly.  I got the DevaCurl products to help care for my delicate waves.  But I’m frugal and eventually the product ran out.  So I bought L’oreal’s sulfate-free shampoo, conditioner and gel at Target.  Oy.  What a mistake.  My hair has become a seriously dry, fried mess for the last couple months.  The gel was so sticky I didn’t use it more than twice, and only twice because I was convinced the first disaster was due to the humidity.

The good stuff!

In an effort to give my curls the moisture it needs, I tried the Wrapunzel hair treatment.  We got a big fat avocado in our Bountiful Basket this week, and since I’m the only one in the house that likes avocados, I felt it was safe to smush it up and put it on my hair.  I also got the coconut oil offering this week, so I tried that instead of the olive oil in the recipe:

Wrapunzel
As seen in
The Curly Girl Handbook by Lorraine Massey with Michele Bender 

1 ripe avocado, peeled and cored
3-4 teaspoons honey or agave syrup
8-10 drops olive oil or jojoba oil

1.  Put the avocado, honey, and oil in a blender.  Blend briefly until combined.
(I just smushed it all together because it sounded more fun.  Which was a mistake.
Because when you rinse chunks of avocado out of dried out curly hair, it’s kind of a huge mess. So my recommendation would be to actually blend it as the recipe states.)

2.  Apply the avocado mixture to your wet hair, especially targeting the ends.

3.  Wrap your hair with clear plastic wrap or a towel, making a turban.
Leave on for 20-30 minutes.
(I got to working and forgot about it for like an hour.  Eventually I got a craving for guacamole and realized it was time to rinse.)

4.  Rinse your hair thoroughly, cleanse, and/or condition, then style.
(I joyously used my finally acquired No-Poo, One Condition, and followed up with a little anGel.  Phew!  Much better!)

You know how Pinterest had a bunch of “beach-y wave” how-to’s this summer?  Yeah, my hair is totally capable of looking like that without the tutorial.  I just have to treat it right!

No exaggeration. This is what 2 months of terrible shampoo will do to my hair.

 

Keep in mind this is just after one day of the avocado treatment and using my DevaCurl products once after months of abuse. Give it another week and my curls will look a million times better!

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Today’s Board – Blending Families

Posted on August 29, 2012 by Liz Johnson

Recently DBF (Darling BoyFriend) and I went to an event (I know!  We totally got out of the house and socialized!) and a couple friends asked us what our schedules are like.  Do we have our kids the same nights?  Do we have the same parenting schedule with each of our ex’s?  How do we keep track of who is where when?  Do we ever get nights without kids?  How’s it going with all four of them?

Fabulous questions.

Sometimes we have all four kids in one night.  Sometimes we have just two.  Rarely we get one by him/herself.  And yes, sometimes we get a night with (gasp!) no children.

Each of our parenting schedules are different.  We worked those out with our ex-spouses independently, based on what we felt was best for our children and what the parents’ schedules are.  For example, DBF and his ex have the kids on their days off of work each week.

How do we keep track of who is where when?  Best question.  Occasionally one of us has a moment of panic:

“Where is #3?!  Who has her right now?!”  
“Honey, she’s with your mother.  She’s fine.”  
“Oh. Ok.”  

We’ve tried all sorts of things:

Google calendars was first. We shared events with our ex’s, with each other, grandparents, color coded and all.  But that didn’t really work for us.  Mixed in with work events were four crazy kid schedules.  And when other parties don’t prefer google calendars, well, let’s just say it involves a lot of texting.

We tried a calendar on the wall.  We tried four calendars on the wall.  Seriously.  One in the kitchen, one for each of my two (one likes bunnies, the other doesn’t so much), one for his two.  And when I botched up color coding the nights with my sharpie I trashed that one.  Plus it drove me nuts switching nights just because the stupid calendar was all wrong and I didn’t know where the heck people were.  Have you ever tried to keep up four calendars?  It’s darn near impossible.

We used nothing for a while.  Kids came and went, and miraculously, with all the adults in their life, they were just fine.  Loved, safe, and cared for.  But that didn’t work for us because inevitably I got the questions.  ”What’s for dinner?”  ”Which kids do we have tonight?”  ”Are #2 and #3 there?” “When will we get to play again?”

So now we have this:

It’s a white board on the kitchen wall.  It is right by our table, so when people start asking questions, they know where to look.  The first morning it was up was pretty cute.  #2 (6 yr old) slid up to me in his socks on the tile floor with a big smile on his face.  ”I know what’s for dinner,” he proudly says.  ”Oh yeah?” I ask, half distracted getting kids ready for school and forgetting the new board.  ”Yeah!  Spaghetti!  But not for me and #3, because we are at our mom’s house and we don’t have spaghetti over there but maybe we should get some because I like spaghetti.”  (Monumental.  #2 is our pickiest eater.)

After I add trim to frame it and stencil fleur-de-lis to make it gorgeous I will update the picture.  (PS – don’t hold your breath.)

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Kids Artwork Display

Posted on August 12, 2012 by Liz Johnson

How cute is her little hand?

 

Last year I had the never-ending battle with kids’ artwork.  I had two cork boards, one for each kid, on which I displayed their artwork.  But it always got bogged down with layers upon layers of cuteness.  So when I saw this display by Less-Than-Perfect Life of Bliss on Pinterest, I had my inspiration.

Now we have 4 kids in our home and we had a slightly different idea of how we wanted our display to look.  So DBF, a couple kids and I went to Michaels.  We found frames at awesome prices, although some were a little more than $2.  Since I stink at completing crafty-type projects and there was much debate in the house as to how the project should be finished, it sat like this for a few weeks:

All but one kid went back to school this week, the fourth goes back Tuesday, thus this project needs completing asap.  We already have cuteness that needs to be displayed!  (Plus our new four-year-old friend down the street asked me where my pictures were. Doh!)  So tonight I was determined to get it to a point of usefullness.  Here were my basic supplies:

Here’s the list:

  1. 8 picture frames (2 per kid)
  2. Screw driver – helped remove the backing that some of the frames already had.
  3. Staple gun
  4. Wire, the stuff they use to hang picture frames
  5. Wire cutter
  6. Needle nose pliers
  7. Curtain thingys – they are those rings that you hang around your curtain rod and then clip your curtains to.  I used the needle nose pliers to pry the clips off.  The rings are so far unused (recycling ideas anyone?)
These steps assume your frames are ready to go.  One of mine wasn’t so I had to paint it.  Rustoleum has a spray paint with primer so that went very fast.  

Put down a towel to protect your frames and surface:

Basically, I strung the wire across the back of the frame, attaching it with the staples:

I liked the original idea of using the binder clips on nails because it can really get the job done quickly.  And when it comes to crafting, if I don’t get it done quick, it may never get done at all.  But I tried that once and in a higher traffic area and the binder clips just fly off the wall, still holding the artwork.  This particular wall is in a main hallway of our house, we walk/run/hop/throw shoes in this area a million times a day so I need these babies to hang tight.  Thus the need for a (hopefully) more sturdy solution.

Anyways, next I pried the clips off the metal rings, pinched the clip onto the wire and hung the frame.  Add art and voila, project done.  (Maybe.)

So I may have to update this later, depending on what I decide to do.  We talked about maybe putting a mat behind the artwork and wire so that we don’t have to look at the white walls behind the artwork.  We might just paint the wall.  And we might add little sticky things to the corners of the frames like my grandmother used to so that they stay straight because we are both tend to be a little perfectionist detail-oriented.  Or maybe the craziness of the school year, holidays, and blending two families into one with four kids will keep us busy and we won’t notice crooked picture frames with white walls behind them.

For now, they eagerly await artwork:

 

Posted in For the Home, Kids | 1 Comment