DIY Holiday Cards

I have a bit of an obsession with holiday cards. I love getting them, I love sending them, after the holidays I keep them in a wooden box for way too long... I love the everything about them! Over the past few years, I've sent out fairly basic cards - the kind with a cute pattern on the front, but blank on the inside. It worked well. I mean, who doesn't like penguins and candycanes (not on the same card)? But this year I got all inspired and shit. Buzzfeed had a post of DIY Holiday Cards, so obviously I couldn't help but look through. And fine, plenty of them have way too much Do, but some looked cute! So I thought, "What the hell, why not?"

One trip to the paper store and several glasses of wine later, success! So I decided to do fingerprint holiday lights - fairly simple, fairly inexpensive supplies, fairly little effort. Seemed like a good option to start this whole thing off. Of course, the very first thing I did (after asking my Charming Assistant to pour me some wine) was to create a template. Can't have my cards looking all willy-nilly, I needed something to go off of!

As you can see, I struggled a little deciding how to write the actual greeting. Never mind, we'll address that later. But so - a basic template for my string of holiday lights. The weird swirly things are where the "lights" will go - gotta have an idea so your card won't get too crowded! Next came doing that for all the cards!

There you go - strands of soon-to-be lights and the ink I'll be using. As a side note, the Color Box was fun, but the pink, green, and dark blue/purple all left something to be desired. You'll see.

All right, they're starting to look as though they might be actual Christmas lights, not just poorly made barbed wire. Go me!

Hey, those look like something you might actually put up on your front porch! Rock on! But something is missing...

Oh, there we go! Now these are things that I could send out without being embarrassed! (Side note - always have to use spell check to get that right. One of those things, you know?) Each card also had a short little note on the back to personalize it. Cause I'm personable like that!

After some trial and error, I've figured out that about eight lights is optimum - more than that and the card looks a little sloppy. Also, you need to have a good balance of red, yellow, and blue - then you can throw in a green and a purple for some interest. Finally, if you can't find the black Sharpie that you're sure you had somewhere in your home, the deep blue felt tip pen will work nicely.

So there you go! Some DIY holiday cards, poorly photographed! Rock on!

Home Composting (or how I became involved in an EPIC BATTLE against a fruit fly invasion)

Earlier this year I was determined to become a homesteading, crafty, DIY bundle of awesome wrapped up in snark and skinny jeans. It has... not quite gone according to plan. Life catches up, you know? And all of a sudden that craft that seemed so important keeps on getting pushed to the side. And your cat eats all your pepper seedlings and instead of starting again you say "fuck it" and decide to try again next year. And cooking, while enjoyable, takes time - time that could be used binge-watching Orange is the New Black and then debating it endlessly with your Charming Assistant.

But there was one thing that I was determined to do, and that was reduce our share of food waste going into landfills. We've had some mixed success with this. We're better about eating all leftovers and not letting them go bad. Then again, just two days ago I pulled out our bell peppers to make a delicious Italian-inspired dinner and found mold all over them. Boo! But one step that we did take was to begin composting at home. I had initially been curious about home composting companies like The Compost Crew or Compost Cab - they give you a compost bin to put your food waste in, and come to collect the scraps once a week. You pay for the service, but at the end of the year you get a portion of your compost back to use however you see fit. Charming Assistant, however, was not sold on the idea of paying someone to take out our trash for us. Clearly, further research was required!

After browsing around the Internet and reading You Grow, Girl cover to cover, I decided that worm composting was the way to go. I convinced Charming Assistant that this was something we could do, and he convinced me that we should start small - he didn't want to be responsible for too many worms - what if we didn't create enough scraps to feed them? Their wormy deaths would be on us. So we started out with a Rubbermaid bin that I'd drilled holes into, damp newspaper forming a layer on the bottom, 250 worms, and a week's worth of food scraps. See?

And it went well! The worms seemed happy, we were taking our trash out less, I could see the beginnings of compost forming in the bin. Then came the peaches. We bought some fresh peaches from our local farmer's market, and set them into our fruit bowl in the kitchen. Well, apparently they had fruit flies on them, which we discovered when we walked into our apartment one evening to discover a cloud of them congregating around the peaches. I flipped out. I literally hunted those buggers down by hand, smashing them gleefully in mid-air. I also set out the classic fruit fly trap of a piece of fruit at the bottom of a soda bottle. It seemed to work - their numbers were diminishing and I could cook without worrying about getting some extra unwanted protein in our food.

Then I went to go feed the worms. And another cloud of fruit flies exploded from their bin. Apparently a warm, damp compost bin is just the perfect breeding ground for them, and they'd happily moved on in. Thus began the epic battle. Weekly cleanings of the compost bin to scoop up larvae and dispose of them, constant refreshing of fruit fly traps consisting of apple cider vinegar and soap, and the occasional smashing of a fruit fly that got too close to me. For a while, we were winning.

Then something changed. This week the fruit flies mounted a massive offensive. Their numbers suddenly exploded, and I couldn't even drink a beer without flies trying to get down into the bottle. I sank into despair. Would we have to get rid of the worms? Put the cats in a kennel and spray the place down with Raid? Say fuck it and burn the apartment to the ground? Probably not that last option. Charming Assistant was the level-headed of the two of us. He quite wisely suggested we get a fly swatter, and take care of the problem on several fronts. The traps should be replenished, the compost bin wiped down every few days, and every fruit fly spotted should be killed without mercy.

I have to admit I went a little crazy with the fly swatter. It's a good thing there was no one there to observe me - I was rocking the crazy eyes as I stalked the invaders around our apartment. But oh, it was so satisfying! I felt like Gimli in the Two Towers, gleefully counting out each kill.

It's been a few days since Operation: Exterminate went into effect. I've dutifully cleaned out the bin (god those larvae appear so quickly!) and kept the traps topped off with apple cider and soap. And killed every fruit fly that my swatter could reach. So far, so good - last night, I drank a beer without sticking my thumb down the neck of the bottle. Tonight, maybe I can enjoy a glass of wine without keeping a napkin over it as it sits on the table. Next week, who knows? Maybe we'll have defeated the problem completely!

Meanwhile, I'd like to reassure you that I react very gracefully when a fruit fly collides with my face.

Channeling The Network

I know that I have a shit ton to write about (wedding, honeymoon, job) but here's the thing - the government shut down has me mad as hell. Not just because I'm an ardent Democrat (which I am), and not just because I grew up and live outside of DC (which I do). But the shutdown is actively hurting people that I care about. My sister works for the CDC, and has been deemed non-essential. Therefore, she's on furlough. My sister also has a husband, and two young children, who depend upon her income. Why do they depend on her? Because my sister and her husband made the decision, together, that she would work and he would take care of the twins. So while he does work part-time, his full-time job is taking care of my niece and nephew. Which means that they are down to a small fraction of the income they rely upon to survive. And I'm mad as hell.

I just don't get it. I honestly don't. How do politicians, who profess to work for their constituents, continue to actively work against the interests of those same constituents? I know a lot of people believe that the blame should be laid at the feet of both parties, but in this case its just not accurate. The Republicans are attempting to strong-arm the Democrats into defunding a LAW - a law that was passed by Congress, signed by the President, and deemed by the Supreme Court to be constitutional. That is not democracy. That is a child throwing a tantrum, and holding its breath until it gets its way. The ACA isn't perfect - there are modifications that could be made to improve its accessibility and affordability. But it is SO much better than what we currently have.

Before Palmer and I got married, my insurance cost over $300 each month. Every month. Until quite recently, I made $23,400 a year. Pre-tax. Insurance would have taken that down to $19,800. Rent, split with Palmer, is $800 a month. So that would take me down to $10,200. My cell phone plan, which I need for work? $1188. So now I have $9012 left over. Again, this is all pre-tax. How about parking? Oh, that's $120 a month. So that's $7572 left. Let's go back to taxes again. Assuming I qualified for the very lowest tax rate (which I don't), that'd be about 12% of my income. Now I have $4764 left to work with throughout the year. Oh, but can't forget auto insurance, which is about $1400 each year. And now I'm down to $3364. Divide that by 12. I have $280 a month to work with. That has to provide for food, clothes, gas, vet bills, contacts, and birth control. Oh! And the car loan! Which is another $45 a month. Do you see what I'm saying here? I work hard, and I make above the minimum wage, and I am STILL operating at a deficit because of the extreme costs of health insurance. And do you know what that $300/month health insurance got me? Extremely high (or non-existent, in the case of Dental and Vision) co-pays, and no coverage for birth control or depression medication. And THAT is supposed to be the ideal? Are you kidding?

Do you know what would have helped me? Having birth control covered, because that's $79 a month right there. Not having my rates raised for pre-existing conditions, like asthma and anemia. Not having my rates raised because of my recurrent major depression. Hell, having been able to be under my parents' health insurance until I was 26 would have saved $7200! Look, I know that insurance costs money. I know that insurance is, when you really look at it, a losing gamble. But here's the thing - by losing, you win. By buying insurance, you are hoping that you never have to use it. You want to not have to use it. Insurance isn't really there to make the day-to-day expenses cheaper. Yes, lower co-pays are amazing, and I missed my good insurance the entire time I was on the crappy one. But you know what I was grateful for? That when I had to go to urgent care for my broken toe, or my UTI that was transforming into a bladder infection, or my inflamed lymph node - THAT was when insurance was there. Because I paid a shit-load every month, I was covered in those instances when I would have otherwise been screwed. THAT is why we have insurance - so that when you break a leg, or get in a car accident, or have appendicitis - you've already paid in to the system, and now the system is paying you back. And you pray that you never need it. But when you do? It's a god-send.

So WHY is the Republican party so against every American having insurance? I honestly don't understand. If a person doesn't have insurance, but they have one of those pray-it-never-happens accidents, do you know what happens? They still get treated. You go to the emergency room with a broken leg and they have to treat you. And if you don't have insurance, do you know who pays? Everyone else that does.

So basically, the ACA is working to help every uninsured American get health coverage. Something that the Republicans have said they support - just not in the form of the ACA. Meanwhile, let's not forget that the ACA is law. I don't think I can repeat this enough - Congress passed it, the President signed it, and the Supreme Court declared it Constitutional. Yet the House GOP is holding the government hostage over something the American people have clearly, repeatedly, said they wanted. And their intransigence is causing my sister and her family to suffer. Instead of allowing more Americans to receive health coverage, the Republicans are actively harming those who've made their career out of public service.

And people say we should hold both parties accountable. As Jon Stewart said, this isn't a fender bender - this is the asshole causing the head-on collision.