The Quickie Guide To Tomato Growing: EarthBox 'Em

I am doing something wrong with the tomatoes.

 

This is what mine look like.

 

 

This is what my friend Becky’s look like.

 

 

Becky has a tomato bonanza. She has caprese salad coming out her ears. Me? Clearly not.

I blame it on the raw materials. Home Depot is good for many things (a lunch time hotdog, a cute contractor oogle), but for tomato growing gear, it is to be avoided. 

Instead, go Becky’s route and get yourself an EarthBox Garden Kit from your local garden center or online. (Click this link to go to amazon.com where you can purchase an EarthBox for around $52.) Becky swears this little gizmo is responsible for her bumper crop.

 

I am too bitter to purchase an EarthBox this year, but next year I’m all over it. And I’ll also be buying llama poop from my friend who raises them. Previously, I had ridiculed her for selling such an odd product, but I now see the rationale.

For now, I’ll continue to suffer through Whole Foods, and -- even worse -- the farmer’s market for fresh tomatoes. But next year I’m saying goodbye to these enterprises and the stress they bring. (Why so many dogs at the farmer’s market? And why are there no orderly lines? It is total, barking mayhem.)

Next year I am bringing caprese salad to every social gathering to which I am invited, and maybe even a few to which I am not. That’s how many tomatoes I plan on growing.

If you are not quite as black thumb-ish as guru girl then happy gardening! But if you are, here’s to happy gardening next year, guru girls & guys!

"Candidly Nicole": The Answer To Summer Entertainment Doldrums

Turns out I’m no Nostradamus. I’ve been predicting all along that Princess Kate was going to have a girl. Because I got the wive’s tale mixed up. When a gal’s face chunks up, that’s when she’s having a girl. When a gal’s face stays totally the same, that’s when she’s having a boy.

I’m going to pay dearly for that mental mix up as I placed two bets on the gender. Am pretty sure my friend Benjie will be gracious about her victory, but my fella? He is being completely obnoxious. Grrr…

Clearly, my pop culture radar is off these days, and summer television isn’t helping any. There is nothing new on, and the reruns are killing me. Where’s a gal to go for a little distraction from all the bets she’s lost? 

AOL is the answer. Remember AOL from your first e-mail account in the 90s? Well, it’s making a comeback these days. Dial it up, and marvel that you don’t have to listen to the high pitched connecting sound from days of old.  

This is new and improved AOL, and here’s why you’re visiting it: new and improved Nicole Richie and her show “Candidly Nicole”, which AOL is broadcasting via webisode.

You might remember Richie from her turn on a reality show with Paris Hilton a few years ago. On that show, Richie was almost as obnoxious as my fella has been about his winning bet this week.  

But new and improved Nicole Richie is funny and fast on her feet as she goes about her life and interviews various experts. The “Candidly Nicole” webisodes are Richie’s reality show.

Each revolves around a mission Richie’s on in her personal life. One show focuses on tattoo removal. (Richie’s wild child past means she has lots of tatoos. But her “mother of two” present means she wants them removed.)

Another show focuses on flowers. Richie is the wife of a rock star, and apparently wants to know how to make great floral centerpieces for the many rock star bashes she hosts. So she visits a florist to find out.

I’m not so interested in tattoo removal or floral design myself, but the show is engaging because of the snappy exchanges between Richie and her favorite florist and tattoo removal guy. “Candidly Nicole” seems to be an unfiltered look at privileged, Los Angeles life.

It’s like “Keeping Up With The Kardashians” but with an in-the-know captain at the helm. Plus, it features not one cutesy voice, vacant stare or hair-smoothing move, all of which are mainstays on the Kardashian show, all of which annoy me to no end.

The final thumbs up for this show is that episodes clock in at a few minutes, and they feature no commercial breaks. The next time television reruns bore you to tears, reach for AOL and give “Candidly Nicole” a try.

Happy webisode viewing, guru girls & guys! (Click this link to go to "Candidly Nicole" on AOL.)

5 Steps To Master A Win-Win Attitude

“It’s not the load. It’s how you carry it.”

You know me and aphorisms. I love them almost as much as Thomas Jefferson did, and that’s saying a lot. Because that guy came up with so many it was almost like a language. (And you thought all I read were the “People” magazine recommends.)

Back to aphorisms… I love the one above. I don’t know who made it up. But I think about it regularly.

It means you can’t choose the load you carry in life, the responsibilities and chores you call your own. Mine include loads of laundry towering as high as the pyramids and sometimes stacks of student papers almost as tall.

I can’t choose these responsibilities, but I can choose my attitude about them. I can be miserable and martyr-like about having to do them, or I can be upbeat. Either way, the laundry and grading still have to get done.

One approach has a bigger cost. So here’s what experts say we should do to get that old “glass half full” bump in mood.

1.      Reframe the challenge. Instead of saying “I have to…”, say “I get to…”

A few years ago I read an essay written by a mom of a kiddo with special needs. She wrote about how her son isn’t invited to any birthday parties and how much that would mean to him, and her, if he was included in these childhood celebrations.

Wow. Perspective check. Since reading that, I’ve uttered not one complaint about driving the Dynamic Duo across town to various birthday parties. In fact, I was ashamed of myself for ever having these thoughts.

 

2.    Connect the act to your values. I value feeding my family healthy food. Grocery shopping is what gets us there. Without it the guru crew is hitting the golden arches for our 3 squares, and how does that make me feel?

 

3.    Break the activity down so it’s manageable. Instead of one enormous load of laundry a week, do it a few times.

 

4.     Make it fun. And delegate. If at all possible. At our house we now have weekly laundry folding parties. Yes, there was lots of complaining about this at first. Now, it’s just part of a much more fun folding routine. Because any chore that includes a 7 year running around with dozens of underpants flying from her head is a fun chore (though it might take longer and the clothes might not be folded quite as neatly).

 

5.     Be flexible. Upon occasion, deviate from the responsibility. Time off is important. And you can always run to Target for new underpants if your laundry vacation leaves you in dire straits. 

You know folks who have that happy vibe, seemingly all the time? You should be picturing Matthew McConaughey now. Shirt optional. They’ve mastered the above 5 steps. Or possibly they’re just having a whole lot of pharmaceutical fun.

 

Here at guru girl we keep our recommendations on the legal side. So I can only advocate trying the above 5 steps for a win-win attitude.

 

And you should buy this really cute sign to help you remember that in life, just like in high heel wearing, it’s all about the attitude. (Click this link to see the Best Made website where you can buy this sign for around $28.) 

Book Review: Last Summer of The Camperdowns & Note To Self: A Novel

 

I really like Oprah’s advice about lifestyle, décor, health and pets. Generally, I really do not like her advice about books. She tends to favor the saga, and I’m not so much a sprawling saga kind of girl. Unless we’re talking Thornbirds, possibly best sprawling saga ever. The star-crossed love between Maggie and Father Ralph? So hot.

 

But this summer I started off with one of Oprah’s recommends, Note to Self: A Novel by Alina Simone. Remarkably, it was not a saga. Unremarkably, it was not that good.

It’s about Anna, a 30something New Yorker, struggling with a midlife crisis and an addiction to the internet. She remedies both by answering a Craigslist ad seeking roadies for an indie film. The film-making experience doesn’t turn out like Anna expected.

 

But, for me, this Oprah-recommended, book-reading experience turned out exactly as expected. The book was well written but incredibly depressing. If you want to feel bummed out about the superficial culture we all call home, this book is for you. You will read it and torch every social media account you ever opened. Which might not be a bad thing because then you’ll have more time to read books!   

 

So I read Note To Self and was disgruntled. Oprah is a media giant. How can all of her book recommends be bad? So I tried another: The Last Summer Of The Camperdowns by Elizabeth Kelly.

 

Huzzah! Finally, a piece of writing Oprah and I agree on.

Camperdowns is a great read! Set in the 70s, it’s a coming-of-age tale about Riddle, a 13 year old who lives with the WASPiest parents in the WASP-iest place ever (horse country on the Cape).

Riddle’s a scrappy heroine trying to figure out her place in the world and the answer to the summer’s mystery: what happened to a local teenage boy who mysteriously disappeared? But Riddle’s no girl detective. She’s the daughter of Camp, an intellectual running for political office, and Greer, a retired Hollywood actress, whose biting tongue is almost as big as the box office she once earned.

The book’s dialogue crackles, as do the plot twists. Camperdowns is the rare combination mystery and morality tale. Author Kelly plays with the concept of good and evil, painting characters with shades of both. Interesting and thought provoking.

Go, Oprah! And go, summer reading. What are the books you can’t put down this summer? Write about them in the comments section! Next, I’m picking up Life After Life, a book my well-read and ace-book-picking friend, Shawna, says is excellent. (Click this link to go to amazon to view more information about The Last Summer Of The Camperdowns.)

Founding Fathers Of Funk: The Guru Crew

 

 

 

 

In my last post I talked about traditions -- the smaller, the better. This is yet another example of guru girl recommending something she doesn’t always do herself. Because we have traditions around here, and our all-time favorite one involves marching in the 4^th of July parade.

I defy anyone to find a more elaborate, time-consuming tradition. And yet, we do it. Year after year. We enlist various friends and family members to help out. Some of them have driven the car. Some have thrown candy. Once, our friend Hannah even posed as the Statue of Liberty and submitted to green face paint.

Being in the parade is a family tradition. It’s only grown more complex as the Dynamic Duo have grown older. We no longer march. We dance. The last few years our theme has been “Founding Fathers of Funk”. There is elaborate choreography, an amp and the blaring of a Neil Diamond/Nikki Minaj mashup.

Parade preparation always involves arguments. Sometimes the 10 year old’s choreography is too complex, and my fella doesn’t always learn it immediately. This makes the choreographer angry.

One year they banned the throwing of candy from the floats. We did it anyway (as did everyone else). This made Grandma Guru angry.

But in the end – all drama aside – the parade is always worth it. Despite the fact that we’ve never won first place or the accompanying prize: a six pack of soda from the local grocery store.

We’ve won something greater.

The 10 year old would say it’s the right to charge $2 to every person who asks to pose with our Founding Fathers backdrop. (This is untrue, as we will not allow our budding entrepreneur to do this.)

With the parade, we’ve won an experience that we share and value and talk about all year in an effort to improve our offering and finally, finally win the Mountain Dew.  

It offers a sense that we’re in this together, no small feat in a world that has families together but apart, thanks to ever-multiplying activities and gadgets.

I think the founding fathers would be all about small town parades and the families who participate in them. Life, liberty and the pursuit of funk.

Now that’s guru good.

Jumpstart Happiness: Traditions & Cake

Ever since I saw a performance of “Fiddler On The Roof” as a child and wept over the song “Traditions” I’ve been a believer. In traditions as a good thing. Turns out I’m not alone. Experts on personal and family satisfaction say traditions make us happy.

I know what you’re thinking. “Great, guru girl. I don’t have time to do my laundry. Where am I going to find time to dream up, implement and take great joy in yet another activity, especially one that sounds arduous and complicated?!”

Good news! It turns out traditions can be just actual, everyday events that you do anyway. The key to making these events increase your family’s happiness is to talk ‘em up. Celebrate them. Basically, brand them. Just do it, people ;)

A good tradition doesn’t need to be Martha Stewart perfect and complicated. It just needs to be something you do regularly and get fired up about.

At chez guru girl one of our favorite traditions is Taco Night. Everyone gets excited about it, starting the very morning I announce it. It’s not like I have to do anything special. We have tacos about once a week anyway. It’s a tradition because we all like it and it brings about much high-fiving. Taco Night makes us feel connected and celebratory.

Like one of my favorite parts from this past 4^th of July celebration: the making of the annual 4^th of July cake. My mom started this tradition a few years ago. Grandma Guru is a great baker.

 

She whipped up this cake with no problem.

 

This year there was a problem. Grandma Guru was not along for the trip. This left me to do the honor. I wasn’t going to do it. Until the Dynamic Duo looked crestfallen at the news.

So I baked the darn cake. And it was a hit. Even though it was totally from a mix and somehow there was a big dip right in the middle of it. I just loaded on extra frosting and called it good.

My creative friend, Shawna, added a new twist. Before digging in, she had us all sing “Happy Birthday” to America. And because we couldn’t find birthday candles, Shawna solemnly held a large, decorative candle instead.

This is Shawna before her inspired sing-a-long.

 

That night at bedtime, when I asked what favorite parts of the day had been, the 7 year old piped up, “Celebrating America’s birthday”.

That’s some good stuff, and all it took was cake fixings, fruit and an off-key rendition of “Happy Birthday”. Tevye was right. About traditions and probably a lot more!

Enrich The Swear Jar: Make A Duct Tape Garland

What’s not to love about a festive, summer garland? Especially one that’s made from duct tape, something we have in plentiful supply around here.

So when I read about this great and easy-to-do craft, I was in!

I pilfered 3 rolls of the 10 year old’s duct tape, and I got busy.

 

The magazine said it was easy.

1.      Cut piece of rope to desired length.

 

2.    Drape a long piece of duct tape over the rope so the tape’s ends meet up. Snip a “v” into the end so the section hangs in an attractive point.

 

3.    Repeat with alternating duct tape colors until your garland is done.

 

Like many things in life (break ups, child birth, living carb free), these directions are easier said than done.

For one thing, duct tape is very sticky. So when you drape it over itself onto the rope, the tape sticks together in irritating clumps that are impossible to smooth out because they’re so darn sticky.

And it’s not like you suffer through this process just once. Instead, you must repeat it for every single point you make for the garland (which is typically 10). Basically, it’s Greek Crafting 101, and you’re Sisyphus.

 

I gave up after making 3 points. My failure was partly due to the fact that my 10 year old photographer was laughing so hard that her pictures were blurry. But the failure was mostly due to my skyrocketing frustration with duct tape that refuses to lie and craft magazine editors who do nothing but lie.

Easy project, my a$$, lying magazine editors. This project did not put me in a festive or patriotic spirit at all. Tune in later this week to see what did!

Color Code Your Bookshelf

 

Summer is my favorite decorating season. Mostly because I don’t teach during summer session so have several blissful weeks to fluff my house. Unfortunately, this summer I’m on the decorating disabled list. Because, as you know, my favorite decorating activity is spray painting.

I’ve tackled lamps, frames, bookshelves. You name it. I’ve spray painted it.

A few weeks ago I spray painted our patio table and chairs. Many cans and coats later, the patio set looked great. My pointer finger, however, did not. It held the spray button down for so long that I gave it a raging case of pointer-finger-carpal-tunnel syndrome. 3 weeks later, my finger is still stiff and weak.

So spray painting is out for now, but my latest decorating project is just as easy as a spray paint makeover and provides just as much instant impact. I’m going to color code my bookshelves!

Here’s how it works: Line up your books by color. Pile some vertically and some horizontally. Throw in some framed artwork and voila! Instant intellectual rainbow. In your living room!

I am on vacation this week but will post my before and after pics as soon as I get this done at home. Happy 4^th of July, guru girls & guys! We are busily preparing for our float in the parade tomorrow. Will post pics of my favorite dancing presidents soon!

Photo credit: From Dwell.com; google "color coded bookshelf" for more in-depth instructions