Kids and Food and Allergies

I recently joined Influenster and oddly enough, I had a bottle of Hellmann’s Mayonnaise sent to me to try out. We normally don’t go through enough mayo or spread of any kind to make us go through an entire jar before the expiration date. Of course that was before the kiddo.

IMG_9850When we first started feeding him solid foods, we noticed that he would develop a rash on some occasions. There wasn’t ever a rhyme or reason to it either. Then we started making foods for him using the Hellman’s mayonnaise bottle I received.

We made egg salad, cheese sandwich roll-ups (pictured to the right) and various other items. That mayonnaise became the control in my little experiments. It was one of the things that would keep him eating what was on his plate.

Well, eventually with the help of that awesome squeeze bottle (seriously, no more messy butter knives) of Hellmann’s, we have discovered that there is a 99% chance that he has a yeast allergy!  He has a doctor appointment next week, so cross your fingers and expect to see yeast free recipes here soon.

Hellmann’s totally wins props for tagging their social media campaign, #SqueezeMoreOut! I really do like the no mess bottle, especially now when kiddo is clinging to my leg acting like he has never eaten before. I haven’t reached the bottom of the bottle yet but so far it’s been nice to not deal with a mess. I wonder if the bottles will transfer over well to the other condiments. I can’t stand when they splatter on my food or worse, me.

Note: This is a sponsored blog post. I received this product complimentary from Influenster for testing purposes.

Just No Good At This

Well, it appears I’m just no good at this anymore. I’m posting once every six months it feels like. I blame facebook for this. I tend to post my random thoughts there. I’m trying to not do it as much, but sometimes it’s easier to understand the context if we’re friends.

Things are going well on the not working anymore front. I’ve got enough freelance to keep me busy and current while still being able to stay home with the little man.

Speaking of my little man. He is one now. He’s walking and talking and climbing all over the place. We used to be able to confine him to the living room area but once he figured out how to climb over the couch, we figured confinement was a moot point. Now we just try to keep him out of the toilets and trash cans and hope for the best!

In other news, there isn’t much. Instead, here are a few links from the past week that I felt were worthy of sharing.

 

52 Week Challenge

In 2013, I did the “52 week money challenge” and it’s what paid for all of the nursery furniture. I wasn’t planning on being pregnant when I started, I just wanted a way to force myself to save a little “just in case it’s needed” money. Well, it’s a good thing because we ended up needing it!

The idea is that on week 1 you put $1 away. On week 2, put away $2. Week 3, $3 and so on. By the end of the year, you should have $1,378 saved. It’s a good way to save if you’re not good at saving! I’m starting an account at the local credit union  and the plan is to use this for gifts etc for next year.

Anyone else thinking of giving it a go this year?

Ch-ch-changes

This weekend I put myself first. I have put off and put off redoing this site and this weekend I did it. I am not completely done. I am not settled on the colors and logo. But I am picky, so it will take time.

I do have to thank the bumble bee that I stepped on. Had it not stung me and made walking painful, I probably would have done yard work or something that “needed” to be done. I have a hard time taking time for myself. I think we all know that.

So back to that bumble bee sting. 36 hours later and it is still swollen, itching and painful. I have discovered that the use of toothpaste does help. I am taking an antihistamine and that is probably why this is turning into a ramble. Sorry about that.

The pain

So how many people have actually done the things they’ve posted on their Pinterest boards? I’ve been pretty good about trying the ones on mine. For the food pins, I have used my office as my test subjects, much to their waistline’s displeasure I am sure. I’ve cut back and occasionally have Josh try them. I think I’ve only had one recipe that I didn’t like (a brie bake).

I took a hiatus from Pinterest at one point. Their terms of service made me uncomfortable. Times have changed and I’ve started pinning again. I didn’t really miss anything as I’m seeing a lot of the same pins pop up. I tend to use it for blog hopping. A find a pin I like, check out the site, and then start the hopping from there. You should try it. You might find something fun.

15 Years

In April, this site will have been around for 15 years. People don’t believe me but yep. 1997. Crazy, huh? I’m slowly making changes in my life to slow down the hectic schedule that seems to have plagued me. I’m not making time for myself anymore and that is wearing me down. Things that have been on my proverbial To Do list too long need to get done. The things that get left on that list are things that would be for myself. I love my family and friends but I need my me time! 2012 is my year. 2012 is for me. Now to just make me some more money so I can do more for me.

One thing on the list is to redesign the site. I’ve thought about getting a pre-made theme but part of me feels like that’s selling myself short. I’m a freaking developer. I do still Heart Geeks, but maybe it is time to retire Millhouse.

 

ipad 2 case

So I manged to sell my iPad 1 to offset the cost of an iPad 2. I reserved it from Best Buy but after five weeks of waiting, I grew frustrated. I eventually managed to get one at one of the Apple stores. I have never been so grateful to have three Apple stores. I didn’t wait in line for four hours like some of the poor souls that I met. I waited 11 minutes in line and got mine.

So, onto the reason for the post. If you’ve seen Apple’s smart cover for the iPad, you’ll know it’s a nifty idea. However, there are a few things wrong with it. Dust gets through the folding points on the cover. That’s not the biggest problem for me though. It’s the lack of a back. I don’t want to have to baby my iPad 2. I didn’t baby my iPad 1. So, after looking around, I finally came across the Mivizu Sense for the iPad 2. I took a risk and ordered it. Overstock.com had it for under $25 so I went for it. I don’t know if they underestimated the popularity or availability but it ended up not shipping on time. So, Overstock.com actually sent me an iPad 2 screen protector and a Mivizu iPad 2 Endulge Case to hold me over until the case arrived. +1 to overstock.com for that! They sent a note along with the protector and sleeve and said it would be shipped out by the end of the next week.

Not only was it shipped out, it arrived by the end of the week! Excellent. So, after a week of using it, I made a video highlighting the smart cover-like points.  It’s below. So, if you have an iPad 2, it isn’t a bad investment. I will warn that it has a potent new case smell for the first few days. Still worth it. I found that the iPad 2, in the Sense case fits in the Endulge case! I’ve lent the Endulge case to a friend while he waits for his Mivizu case to arrive.

I was warned by someone that I might see wi-fi signal degradation with the case on it but I have yet to experience that. If any of you experience it, please let me know.

Oh, if you find it is sold out everywhere, as of this morning, you were still able to “like” their facebook page and get a coupon code so you can buy it on their website.

Holiday Time

A felt cone turned hatThe holidays are fast approaching. Last year I found garden gnome holiday cards at IKEA and purchased them to give to co-workers. I had planned on making cards, but this was too perfect. I don’t particularly like garden gnomes. You can thank a Goosebumps TV show episode, Revenge of the Lawn Gnomes for that. Those gnomes were creepy. Anyhow, I decided to embrace the gnomes and get the cards. To top it off, I decided to make little gnome hats for all of my coworkers. I made felt cones and used scrapbooking brads as decor. For the Christmas folk, they got “Christmas” colors of green, red and gold. Hanukkah folk got “Hanukkah” colors of silver, blue, and white.

This year, I’m not sure I will do anything. There is a lot of new staff and they haven’t quite learned about my quirky need to craft. I will probably need to break them in easy. But, I may also be inspired and do something after all. Rip the craft band-aid off quickly.

Anyone have any inspiration for their holiday projects? A theme for this year?

Business Card

It occurred to me as I was preparing for a meeting of my peers, that I need business cards. I have my work issued business cards but I am lacking any that are just about me, promoting just me.

I have been thinking about these business cards and was finally inspired to do one. I say inspired but really it was more like, “Duh dummy, do this and it would be ‘so’ you.” I am now finalizing my design for my own personal business card. Of course I am having trouble in the final hours. I thought I was done and then I said no. I don’t want to use that domain.

I have a few domains. One for testing, one my blog etc and a couple for other projects. I want to develop a domain that is strictly my portfolio and to host a blog on my work as a developer. I don’t want it tied to miftik.com. Not that I have ever hid the existence of this site, but it is something I would add to my portfolio, not host it on. So, now I am trying to decide on a domain name. I had one that I thought was really good but Josh says it reminds him of a URL for a late night infomercial. Not quite what I was going for. I still plan to use it but I am sticking with my original plan and giving myself until this evening to come up with something different. I want to put in my orders tonight.

I’ve decided to only do a small run of 100 of the business cards. I’ve never used this printer before. I’ve only seen samples and pieces others have had printed. However, they weren’t the same specs for my card, so I won’t know until it is done. Perhaps I’ll make some miftik.com cards too if they come out nice. Thankfully my design can transition nicely into that.

So, I’ll report back if the final products look good or not. I know you are all waiting with baited breath.

Decline of the Weblog

I’ve been thinking about this for a while. Has the popularity and ease of use of microblogging sites such as twitter or communities such as Facebook led to the decline of the weblog? The intent of this site some 13 years ago was to let my family know what was going on in my life. Now I find that I post more on facebook and twitter because they are all hanging out there. At the same time, I don’t want to stop my posts here. I have a large portion of my life in these 1’s and 0’s and I don’t think I’m ready to give it up.

I try to post but more often than not, the convenience of 140 characters is enabling. I think having my tweets fed to the site is enabling as well. I might just make it a side bar thing so that it doesn’t post to the main site or RSS feed. I’ve been tinkering with designs but so far I haven’t hit something that I feel will last. The I Heart Geeks look suits me. Maybe I’ll do something simple for the body of the site and something that can change for the masthead.

Decisions. Time to make some.