DIY Parenting or Raising MacGyver

I've done the occasional dabbling in DIY projects like the playgarden and Q's robot costume but lately I've really started to re-catch the "hardware hacking" bug that I had as a kid. Spurred on by the short distance our dollars seem to be going these days and Q getting to an age where building stuff and basic science is almost as cool as Word Girl, I've found some fantastic resources and communities online.

• The best DIY site I've found out there is Instructables.com. An open forum for everyone to post and use instructions on building most anything you can imagine.
• Curbly and the Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories are two great DIY blogs that are either posting their own projects or pointing us all to the innovative ideas of others. Curbly is centered on design while EMSL registers a bit higher on the geek berometer.
  
• ReadyMade and MAKE are DIY magazines that also have great websites. A subscription to either one of them will definitely be on my xmas list this year.

And then there is Bre Pettis. Bre is the Jesus of the modern DIY movement. Formerly with MAKE, Bre is now creating videos for Etsy, blogging, and doing 700 billion other things to bring all us hipsters into the hardware hacker fold.
Coolest of all, his pilot tv show, History Hackers, just aired on The History Channel. (If you're like us and don't have cable you can find a torrent file online if you look hard enough.) The show is AWESOME! It even held Q's attention and he's 3... and its not a cartoon. History Hackers manages to perfectly blend Mr. Wizard, Nova, and Mythbusters together with a DO try this at home theme. The show is very well produced but still maintains a genuiness. I think the reason HH captures the attention of both adults and children is Bre's honest excitement for what he is presenting. Bre's ability to translate something like Nikola Tesla's ideas to something palpable like turning your bike into an AC generator with a few basic household items makes HH one program that I will make a point to sit down and watch with Q (and ozzi provided the show gets picked up for multiple seasons).

Y Water is AWE... wait for it...

SOME!!! Y Water is the coolest kid product I've seen in a long time. It's organic vitamin water for kids that comes in these funky designed bottles that can be connected together to build whatever you want. I'm already fantasizing of a giant double helix of water bottles in the playroom. Imagine instead of throwing out or recycling your water bottles you reuse and collect them as toys. Brilliant!!

Even their website is great. Super interactive and fun. Just like their product.

Unfortunately as of right now it's not available in MN. I'll do some heavy lobbying at the Coop next time I'm there. I can only imagine the cost of FedExing a case or two here from LA.

I'm callin' 'er done.... for now.

I dialed back my overly ambitious plans for gardening this spring. I'm relatively satisfied with what we managed to get done and am leaving all the plans for the front yard for next year. What we did get done turned out to be a pretty nice play garden. I'm also pretty proud of the amount of recycled/reused materials I was able to use.

The veggie fort turned out pretty sweet using the neighbors tree trimmings. It seems pretty sturdy and will really look cool once the sweet 100 tomatoes, yellow plum tomatoes, and scarlet runner beans start to grow over it all.

It looks like the poppies that we transfered and split from the neighbors yard will survive along with all the other flowers and veggies that we purchased... except one Himalayan Blue Poppy that didn't make it. Hopefully the huge volume of basil we planted will keep up with our steady use. We should have everything we need for a great ratatouille this fall. Mmm.

Pimp My Ride - Toddler Edition

We got a secondhand Fisher Price trike for free from someone a while back. The other day I was looking at it and thought to myself that what it really needed was some "chrome rims". After a lot of taping and two coats of the silver metallic spray paint that we have left over from Q's robot costume I thought to myself, "We need more spray paint!"

Before:

After:

Happy Birthday K8!

Monday was K8's Birthday. For her gift, Q and I went to the new Patina on Snelling and picked out a great box made out of recycled magazines for Ozzi's baby stuff, a candle lantern made out of recycled metal and glass, and Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth.



I also made her the best carnitas I've ever made.