SparkDad

and now I must sleep…

I am not sure what is wrong yet but something is wrong with the layout and the double columns. I am on the way to Skeeter’s school, so working on this will have to wait.

Update – I changed themes and the columns are right, but now the word wrap is off, which I can live with

Last week was my first week at home all day with Porkchop. Mama and I pulled him out of pre-K after his graduation ceremony. Nothing wrong with the school at all, we just had to make the transition to home and that seemed to be good timing.

Keeping up with the housework with him home is a bit more difficult. I can see that large projects will have to be broken up into more segments when I have the boys at home. I could use the good old tv babysitter to take care of this, but one of our stated reasons and goals for me staying home was to get Porkchop ready for Kindergarten which he is not quite ready for.

This week we did flash cards 2x per day and worked on letter specific worksheets. In addition I wanted to him to do some fun projects such as science experiments and art projects. One day Porkchop painted Cascarones.

What are Cascarones ?

Cascarones are confetti filled egg shells hand painted and brightly colored.
Cascarones’ egg shell have a very small opening on one end and the inside is drained out. The empty shell is thoroughly washed and then dried. The clean shell is now filled with confetti and sealed with a tissue paper. Cascarones are brightly colored.

How did Cascarones originate?

Cascarones have an uncertain beginning, however historians have traced their birthplace back to China. It’s believed that they were brought from Asia by Marco Polo. These original eggs were filled with a perfumed powder and the eggs were used as gifts. From Italy the tradition was carried to Spain and then to America. Carlotta, the wife of Emperor Maximillian, was so fascinated by the eggs that she brought them to Mexico during her husband’s rule in the mid 1800’s.

In Mexico people replaced the perfumed powder with confetti. It was then when Mexicans labeled the egg shells…. Cascarones… Which derives from the word "Cascara" which means shell. In Mexico Cascarones were popular at one time, but the tradition eventually faded. Only in the late 1960s and early 1970s Cascarones regained popularity in South Texas, where it has now become a family tradition. Some make very creative Cascarones’ designs that sell for as much as $10 for one Cascaron.

Throughout Mexico and the American Southwest, Cascarones are used to celebrate. The fun is derived from breaking the egg over someone’s head; allowing the confetti to spill out. Prior to Easter, or during “Fiesta San Antonio” churches and schools do fund raisers by selling Cascarones. Others just enjoy cracking them over their friend’s heads. Many say… the confetti shower brings good luck and good fortune ! but if anything they are lots of fun and almost addictive !!

Mama and I love our house. It is not huge at only 2000 square feet, but has a very open floor plan. The kitchen opens into the dining room and entry hall making it very good for entertaining. The only problem with the house is a huge lack of storage. It is hard to keep the closets neat and organized.

One of my June-July projects is to handle these storage problems. Yesterday I hit the food pantry. I organized it and found out that everything does not fit. There is no place to put the bread! For now the bread is on the top of the refrigerator. Not the best place to store the bread. I think that condensation will make it get soggy but we will see.

I copied Mama and used an empty coke 12 pack boxes but in half to store cans of soup and tomato sauce that we have a lot of.  That worked out very good.

I am going to be looking around the home improvement sites to see if there is a better way.

Anyone who knows personally knows that I am not particularly handy with tools. I have very little patience for this sort of work. Mostly because nothing ever works the way it is supposed to, especially when you do not know exactly what you are doing. In order to save money however I decided that this repair was one that I could do. I notices that the garbage disposal had been leaking and had soaked the wood in the bottom of the sink. I pulled everything out and replaced the bottom board. Then used a $1.29 can of plumbers putty to reattach the garbage disposal to the sink.

I got it all put back in and it still leaked! Grr! This was supposed to take about an hour. 5 hours later after I had taken everything apart again and reapplied the plumbers putty , correctly this time, the sink is leak free! I was very proud!

The only problem I have now is that my Reverse Osmosis system is leaking because I lost a very small o-ring that goes in it. I will have to get that part and then we will be set! Not only did I save Mama and I money, but now I know that I can make these sort of repairs!