Are We Still Cool? » cheap is cool

Casa Barilla: Pasta in Central Park and VIP Andrea Bocelli Tickets!

Cool Mum — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 12:00:35 +0000

i forgot my camera but a nice person texted me some photos!

Yesterday I took the Cool Kids to Casa Barilla, which is basically Pasta Heaven set up in Central Park for a few days. We arrived a little after the published start time of 10am. The doors weren’t open yet, so we stood in a very short line while we waited. The kids were free and I paid $5 dollars to get in. Money well spent–here’s what I got!

Surprise (to me)! For being one of the first 75 in line, I was handed two tickets for Thursday’s sold-out Andrea Bocelli concert in Central Park! And these are not just any general-admission-sit-on-the-grass tickets. They’re VIP tickets that include dinner and actual seats in front of the grass-sitters! YAY!
My $5 went to the NYC Food Bank to provide 25 meals to New Yorkers in need!
The kids and I devoured pasta dishes and Italian bottled water for lunch (with no lines), then came back later for dinner after playing in the park. YUM. I took a pasta splurge day for sure. It was the perfect occasion for Cool Newbie’s very first pasta.
We got a peek at lots of cooking classes and competitions while we ate and wandered. Maybe CB has a future as a chef?
CB and CN were thoroughly entertained for a long time at the uncrowded Piccolini Playground. They paraded around in their brand new kid-sized aprons while making pasta necklaces and rolling out fresh pasta dough to crank through the pasta maker. Delightful!

On top of this, all of the festival employees working the event went out of their way to be kind and helpful! Thank you, Barilla, for a great day and concert to come! (And I say that without any connection with the company.)

The festival continues through Friday, and if you get out there this morning or tomorrow morning (opening time is 9:30am), you just might score some VIP Bocelli tickets!

Modern Homesteaders: Self-Sufficient or Self-Centered?

Cool Mum — Tue, 10 May 2011 00:37:51 +0000

Cool Dad and I had a great conversation on our way home from the Old Sturbridge Village outdoor museum yesterday about urban homesteading, which is doing things the old-fashioned way and living simply. My fascination with this idea has increased since moving to NYC and learning to live in a small space without many modern conveniences. Heck, before we moved here I didn’t even know how to warm up leftovers on the stove without a microwave! We’re certainly not roughing it by any means, but after doing laundry, dishes, and all family haircuts personally by hand, I feel I can relate just a little bit to those 18th century New Englanders we learned about at OSV.

If it weren’t for Cool Dad, I’d probably be living in a tiny house lit by candle chandeliers, wearing a little brown dress, and living off of avocados and coconuts from my backyard. (Notice none of these are strenuous outdoor activities.) Okay, and maybe I’d have the internet too. Overall, the self-sufficiency of the early settlers is inspiring!

Meanwhile, my husband would much rather be composing a song or a story than cranking the handle of our Wonderwash. He also says he’d rather our kids do something creative instead of helping me do household tasks the time-consuming way (but think about the moral lessons they’d be learning about hard work!). According to CD, God has extended his grace to people through the invention of electric washers and dryers! By accepting this invention, CD says we can have more time for creative pursuits like music and art.

With the extra free time, I speculated that modern conveniences could also give us more time to serve people in our community. Instead of hours spent doing things myself, I could be (theoretically) doing something that helps our neighbors. But then again, the conveniences of factory-produced goods come at a cost–factory workers are often treated poorly, the environment suffers, and consumers have to pay financially and physically for over-processed food that endangers their health.

Perhaps modern homesteaders can serve their communities by making products for their neighbors so that it’s not just about serving themselves? Just like they did in the old days!

And maybe we can all be partial homesteaders in the realms of life that are particularly meaningful to us? In that case, we WONDER if we should retire the Wonderwash (hehe, couldn’t resist). My passion for healthy and real food is much stronger than my passion for clean laundry. My form of homesteading should probably be something like homeschooling and making healthy snacks for my family and our neighbors while Cool Dad does his literary and musical homesteading to change the world. Get out that quill and ink, CD!

What do you think? Is homesteading in modern times mostly about oneself, or can it be used for the common good? And the big question–would a bit of urban homesteading chores make Cool Baby and Cool Newbie more cool or less cool as adults?

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I’m Supposed to Give HOW MUCH for the Tooth Fairy?!

Cool Dad — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 15:00:45 +0000

We were talking with friends the other day, and the topic of losing teeth came up. Yes, I’ll admit it: I went a little overboard during National Chocolate Chip Cookie Week and didn’t brush my teeth. Joking! We talked about the pain and eccentric satisfaction that came with losing a baby tooth while growing up.

While some of my friends enjoyed the rite of passage, I hated it. I remember having that sinking feeling when one of my teeth started to get a little loose. I would spend all day in school rocking it back and forth with my tongue. I guess it looked like I was chewing Red Man — which probably helped me fit in better as a the new kid in our country town.

And then came that fateful day when the tooth was ready to bail. It would dangle by that fleshy cord, and I could spin it and twist it and bop it. When I built up the courage, I would give it a good pull, and it would come loose with a bloody snap. Ew.

At least my suffering was mitigated by a visit from the tooth fairy, which netted me a sweet shiny quarter. So, I was pretty shocked my friend told me what the going rate for a tooth is today: FIVE DOLLARS?! These tooth-losing kids make Donald Trump look like, well… me!

According to one of those online inflation calculators that we all love to play with, the inflation rate during the 25-year period since I lost my baby teeth is 102%. If kiddos are pulling in a cool fiver for every tooth these days, they’re profiting from a 1,900% inflation rate!

And think of the poor Tooth Fairy! To get an idea of how her expenses have ballooned, think that gas was $1.25/gallon in 1986. With her 1,900% increase in payouts, that’s like us paying $23.75/gallon for gas now! Her teeth holding sacks must be long worn out and held together with duct tape.

Even more shocking is that I just remembered that there is no Tooth Fairy! I’M the one paying out that $5.00 per tooth! Well, I’ve learned that in marital and family communications, the use of the words ‘always’ and ‘never’ are highly discouraged, so as to promote understanding and I will NEVER pay the Cool Kids $5.00 a tooth. If I wanted teeth that badly, I could probably find a dentist on Craigslist selling ‘em by the bucketful for a lot less.

Honestly, I don’t know if we’ll bother with the whole Tooth Fairy mythology when Cool Baby starts losing his teeth anyway. It’s not that I’m not willing to part with a quarter every now and then. The Tooth Fairy just doesn’t sound very cool. If we’re gonna tell a lie, might as well make it a cool one.

CB: Daddy, I wonder if my tooth is still under my pillow.
CD: Go ahead and check!
CB: (checks) It’s gone! And there’s a quarter! Who took my tooth and left me a quarter? The Tooth Fairy?
CD: No, even cooler…

JAMES FRANCO!

Actually, if CB’s teeth are that big when he gets older, then I’ll have worse problems than leaving a few bucks under his pillow. But you get the picture.

What do you think: How much should kids get for losing a tooth?

2 Favorite Kitchen Gadgets For Making Baby Food and Toddler Food

Cool Mum — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 01:58:59 +0000

1. Electric Vegetable Steamer – Every few days, I load this up with big chunks of organic fruits and frozen vegetables. Mine has two stacking compartments (only one compartment shown above), allowing me to steam vegetables, chicken, or fish at the same time for the rest of the family. Yes, you can steam fruits to make delicious apple/pear purees without ever having to finely chop or peel anything!

This wonderful appliance turns off whenever the timer goes off. (Read: no more watching/burning things on the stove while you leave the room to change a diaper.) After removing the lid and letting things cool a bit, you can easily scoop the soft delectable apple from its skin and it’s ready to be pureed for babies or cut up as toddler food. The pears can be pureed with their skins on. Warning: you may be tempted to sprinkle a little cinnamon on the steamed fruit and eat it yourself!

2. Immersion Blender – Next, I throw the steamed vegetables and fruit into the large cup that came with my stick blender/immersion blender. You can combine peas with carrots, for example, or keep all of the flavors separate. Between flavors, I just rinse the blender and cup quickly under running water. Easy!

I was really frustrated by my experiences using the food processor or the blender to make baby food. There were always big chunks of food that wouldn’t get touched by the blade. I have a strong aversion to scraping the sides down too. The stick blender is light years better because you have the control to guide the blades and you can do so many fun things with it!

Have you ever tried these?

This is part of Works for Me Wednesday.

Wonderwash Review Update: Week 3

Cool Mum — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 14:03:35 +0000

Women Washing Clothes by a Stream by Daniel Ridgway Knight

This week, I’ve decided that laundry is a result of the Fall of Man. Remember the good old days before Eve took the fruit? No clothes meant NO LAUNDRY to be done! I’ve also started to identify just a little bit with the billions of women who got through life just fine before the invention of the washing machine.

Now it probably sounds like I’m about to give up on the Wonderwash. Quite the opposite! I’m getting my system down and am still keeping up with the laundry before it gets unmanageable.

Lessons this week:

1. Cranking laundry can be empowering! The rinse cycle has this irresistible swishing noise too. I guess the novelty hasn’t worn off yet…there was a time in my life when I thought mowing an acre of land for 3 hours on a non-riding lawn mower was also “empowering.”

2. Eco-friendly detergent is the way to go. When you have to handle your own laundry, you realize the harshness of regular detergent. I need such a teeny tiny amount, so the extra expense is truly negligible compared to my pre-Wonderwash days.

3. My kids don’t need as many clothes! They only wear a fraction of the clothes they own now, because we no longer have to stretch the wardrobe to make it to laundromat day. This means that when Cool Baby outgrows his 4T clothes, we won’t need to buy such a huge stash of 5T clothes. In addition, the Wonderwash and hang-drying seem much gentler on the fabrics so they’ll probably hold up better. More money-saving aspects of the Wonderwash!

Wonderwash Review Update: Week 2

Cool Mum — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 04:26:05 +0000

Another week without hitting the laundromat, and we are still going strong! [original post and Week 1 update] This week I allowed myself a 2-day break from washings for our anniversary celebrations (what a luxury haha). Around the same time, Cool Newbie decided to have an accident on my queen-sized bedsheets!

I was nervous about my next wash day as I saw the pile growing, but somehow I was able to catch up in one round (2 full loads) of Wonderwashing and hang drying.

This week’s lessons:

1. Queen sheets fit! The queen sheet set did fit into the Wonderwash, but it couldn’t hold much beyond that. My navy blue sheets had to be hung on the actual shower rod, which worked but was a little unsightly.

2. Stomping baskets serve a double purpose. I can stomp the water out of the clothes with them, and then later use them for transporting the dry laundry to different rooms. They are so small and cute (see photo) compared to the usual overwhelming baskets of clean laundry we had before.

3. Always wear shoes. One evening I did my clothes stomping routine without the usual flip-flops because I had left them in the room where Cool Baby was sleeping. I had used particularly cold water in the rinse cycle that day. My feet froze! Clean-bottomed shoes are a must for this crazy clothes-stomping business.

4. Drill that shower rod into the wall! I realized this week that our drying method is completely dependent on the fact that our shower rod is secured to the walls by screws. We have slippery tile, so there’s no way a regular tension rod would hold up a shower curtain, much less many pounds of dripping clothes. Our success with the chandelier is also because of those shower rod screws.

Two weeks down, six to go!

Part of Works for Me Wednesday

High Rollin’ at the Palisades Center Mall [video]

Cool Dad — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 17:44:29 +0000

We’re so cheap! We won’t even spend a dollar on the little amusement rides at the mall. We will, however, let Cool Baby sit in one and turn the steering wheel to his heart’s delight, and then walk off without spending a dime. Hopefully, we can pull that off in 2026 when he asks for a car.

Despite our frugality, I’m glad that I loosened the pursestrings when we visited the Palisades Center, a mall in West Nyack, NY. The PC, as lazy bloggers call it, is one of the largest malls in the country. It even has an indoor ferris wheel! When I saw it, I thought back to the fond memory of riding the Wonder Wheel at Coney Island for Cool Baby’s birthday. (Cool Uncle footed the bill.)

I parted with $4 for CM and CB to ride the FW, and it was the best $4 I’d spent in a while – at least since the last time I bought Trader Joe’s Sea Salt Brownie Petites, which happened to be that morning.

While Cool Newbie and my acrophobic self gladly stayed on ground level, CM and CB rose high into the air, and then back down, and then up again, and so on. As you can see in the video below, CB loved it.

I’m glad that I was a little less miserly that Saturday afternoon. We’d like to know if we’re the only penny-pinching parents at the mall.

Do you pay for rides for your kids at the mall?

A high tolerance for pain: Why are we doing this again?

Vitamin D for Babies: Carlson Baby Ddrops Vitamin D vs. Enfamil D-Vi-Sol

Cool Mum — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 04:26:16 +0000

my vitamin bottles. no, they're not giving each other mugs of coffee. they're fighting!

Most pediatricians around here recommend that breastfed babies take vitamin D supplements. I went to Target and only one brand offered these supplements–Enfamil. So that’s what I bought.

After giving one dose of the sticky sweet yuckiness that is D-Vi-Sol (yes, I tasted it), I decided to look around for alternatives. But, then I ran into a price issue. The Enfamil D-Vi-Sol was available at Target and most grocery stores for about $10. The Carlson Baby Ddrops Vitamin D sold at my health food store for around $26. Too bad. I knew Cool Dad would not go for that.

But wait! After reading the packages closely, I realized that Carlson is the clear winner in this battle–in terms of ingredients AND price!

Round 1–The Ingredients

Carlson: Vitamin D3 (Cholecalciferol) 400 IU, Fractionated Coconut Oil

Enfamil: Glycerin, Water, Polysorbate 80, Citric Acid, Vitamin D3, Sodium Citrate, Sodium Hydroxide, Artificial Flavor and Artificial Caramel Color.

Is there any question that Carlson wins this category (barring a coconut allergy)? Wow!

Round 2–The Price

At first glance, Enfamil appears to win. Until you look at the number of doses offered in each container.

Carlson: $26 for 365 doses = about 7 cents per dose

(Even better: $16 including shipping on Amazon for 364 doses = about 4 cents per dose!)

Enfamil: $10 for 50 doses = about 20 cents per dose

Carlson wins again!

Round 3–Ease of Use

Carlson: you have to turn the bottle upside down and aim correctly while hovering over baby’s open mouth or a pacifier

Enfamil: it comes with a standard medicine dropper that you insert into baby’s mouth

I truly detest medicine droppers. It seems impossible for me to get the liquid to the proper level–always too much or too little. I also love that Carlson doesn’t require contact with baby’s mouth, so there’s no washing involved. I prefer Carlson.

The Winner–Carlson Baby Ddrops Vitamin D!

If you know any moms who are breastfeeding or moms-to-be, send them this blog post and save them some money!

Cool Food: Trader Joe’s 17 Bean & Barley Mix, Part 2

Cool Mum — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 14:14:32 +0000

In spite of forgetting about these beans on the stove and overcooking them slightly, they were so delicious! They didn’t even need to be seasoned (this kind didn’t come with a packet anyway) because of the blend of all the bean flavors. I have minimalist tastes, but they would probably be even more tasty with spices added.

I made more beans the next day using the quick soak method (boil and then set aside for an hour before cooking) and added them to some ground turkey with garlic powder for a chili-ish type of thing. Another success! I think I’ve found the perfect unemployment food for us!

I’m not sure which is more exciting–the health benefits of the beans, the low price, the taste, or the satisfaction of strutting around the Bronx asking people, “Hey you, how many types of beans did you eat today? One? Well, I ate 17. BAM!”

Cool Food: Trader Joe’s 17 Bean & Barley Mix, Part 1

Cool Mum — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 19:48:54 +0000

“These beans are colorful from the rainbow!” says Cool Baby.

Have you ever tried a dry 17 Bean and Barley Mix? I picked it up at Trader Joe’s to see if I could season it very simply rather than making soup like they suggest.

Soaked the beans overnight, and then will cook and season today. Dry beans are so much cheaper than canned, and what other food says that in one serving you can get 52% of your daily fiber, 13 grams of protein, and a whopping 20% of your daily iron?

YES! I’ll let you know how this experiment turns out.