However, their cotton covers get filthy. So this morning, I washed them. They’ve never been washed before, and to be honest I wasn’t sure it was possible to really wash the covers without wrecking them – mine are so old that the care instructions have worn away! It turns out that they can be cleaned, and easily, but if the process intimidates you, here’s a walkthrough.

1. Take off any jewelry that could snag, put on some clothes you don’t mind getting wee bits of foam all over, and wash your hands. The pillow form itself is easily torn, and we don’t want it to get dirty either.
2. Spread a clean, old sheet out on the floor. You’re going to open the pillows up over this, and lay the naked pillows on it while the covers are washing. It will also collect most of the loose foam mess from inside the pillows. For heavens sake, don’t put them on your bed like I did – even vacuuming won’t get all the tiny shreds of foam off! I had to go over my whole mattress with a lint roller.
3. Carefully worm each pillow out of its cover.  If they’ve been in heavy use for a while, the pillows will probably have some pock marks and there will be lots of small chunks of loose foam in the cover. The sheet on the floor should catch it all.
4. If there is a lot of loose foam, turn each cover inside out and brush out as much as you can. Then turn the cover right side out again.
5. Take the covers outside, turn them inside out again and shake them out vigorously. You don’t want little shreds of latex foam infesting your washing machine.
6. Launder the covers. If you lack care instructions like I did, my covers took two warm washes (one with 1/2 cup chlorine bleach), and a hot dryer without damage or discernible shrinkage. I put mine through two large washes because they were simply filthy.
7. Now that they’re clean and dry, inspect them for wear. Mine are starting to wear thin on the bottom corners, so I took measurements for future reference. There’s no reason I can’t just make new cotton covers for the latex forms to extend their useful life. Latex pillows aren’t exactly cheap.
8. Time to put them back on the pillows! Fold down a cover till it’s only about 6″ deep. Brush any loose foam off a pillow form and gently work it into the bottom of the cover. Once it’s in, carefully fold the cover up the length of the pillow and zip it closed.
9. Gather the bits of torn foam to the center of your sheet, and use it to empty them into the trash can. Take the sheet outside and shake it out well.

All done! The instructions are detailed, but it really doesn’t take that long. Took me about 2 hours, including the two washes and the dry time.

I’m not sure how often I’d want to do this though. They were really dirty and needed the wash, but washing them regularly would be inconvenient and too much handling could damage the foam. I think I’ll get some pillow protectors instead and see whether the pillow covers need washing again during next year’s spring cleaning.

Saturday GeekBaby and I had what I’ve finally settled on being stomach flu. Then Sunday, his cold started to assert itself. Then Tuesday he managed to bust his lower lip on the cart at Target, and he never really seemed to stop throwing up for more than about 16 hours at a time. So Wednesday I called in sick and took him to the pediatrician.

2. Pediatrician: Well, his throat is pretty red, let me see your throat. … Wow, your throat is awfully red too. He must have strep.

Me: There is no *redacted* way he has strep. The incubation period for strep is 1-3 days and we’ve been sequestered with stomach flu for the last 4 days. His throat is red because he keeps throwing up, you know, the reason I brought him in. (I was politer than this, but still firm, because strep is a dumb diagnosis in this case all around.)

Pediatrician: Well, we need to test for strep anyway, blah blah blah, rheumetic fever, blah blah blah. (She didn’t give me the rheumatic fever discussion this time. I do actually like this pediatrician because she is generally respectful of my own common sense and experience, which is refreshing in a doctor. But she’s got this thing about strep.)

Me: Fine, just remember to do a throat culture too, since he has always given a false positive on the quick test before. (We’re 0/5 on strep diagnoses after culture, and the kid is only 3).

Pediatrician: That’s right, thanks for reminding me. …That’s weird, there’s liquid in this strep culture tube.

Me: If there’s agarose in the bottom, sometimes that weeps. It’s probably fine.

Pediatrican: Good to know.

Instant Strep Test: N3g4t1v3!!!

Me & Pediatrician: Huh.

Pediatrician: Well, his ears are infected, so here’s an prescription for Ab, and how about we give him a shot today to make sure he doesn’t vomit up the first dose tonight.

Me: Sounds good.

GeekBaby: !!!!!!!!!!!!!

GeekBaby: My boo-boo was on my lip, not my knee!!

3. After this last week’s uninterrupted stream of illnesses, (and after digging in the linen closet at 1am desperately looking for fresh queen sheets for my bed) my awareness of how my household completely falls apart whenever I am sick is extremely high. I’m a really rotten housekeeper. So I’m looking at different housekeeping management systems again.

I’m not fond of A Mother’s Rule of Life, (and I’ll be honest, I resent the book a little for taking such a neat concept and going nowhere particularly interesting with it). I’m positively anti-Flylady. Is there anything else to look at?

I’ve been reading Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House. While I’m finding it quite useful, it’s really more of an encyclopedia than a system. What I need is something that reminds me to change the AC filters regularly and get the car inspected. Something like the housekeeping journals women kept of yore, but for the modern age.

So if you’re reading this, what kind of chores and maintenance do you always forget to do? What parts of a household management system work for you, and which don’t? I don’t care whether you stay at home, work from home, or work away from the home. I’m just interested in what works for people, and what doesn’t, and why.

4. Dorian Speed wants to have a Houston Catholic blogger meet up! I’m so there, and if you will appreciate the entertainment value of watching me look terrified of meeting new people without a keyboard interface, you should be there too!

5. Fraggle Rock streaming on Netflix is a wonderful thing when you and the littles are sick. GeekBaby and I went through the rest of the run. And let me tell you, that was quality programming. They had actual plots and character change and everything. Way better than the Bob the Builder garbage that is on television these days.

6. It’s been such a rough week, I’m actually having trouble coming up with 7 Things, Quick or Otherwise. So, enjoy this YouTube video of Benjamin Bagby performing Beowulf. I do.

7. Speaking of Beowulf, how awesome are these socks?? They’re knitted with the opening verses!

I must obtain this pattern. Must.

Woohoo, I made it to 7! Visit Jennifer Fulwiler @ Conversion Diary for more Quick Takes!

Saturday, GeekBaby and I both come down with some horrible stomach flu.  We can’t figure out where it came from.  It was bad.  Neither of us could keep anything down all day.  From midnight Saturday morning to midnight Sunday morning it was nonstop icky.  By noonish today we seemed to be perking up…

So GeekBaby immediately starts running a fever.  He’s fine, it’s just a cold that will run its course, but it means two crucial things:

1.  He’s been nothing but clingy for the last 6 hours.  So even though I’ve felt better, I haven’t been able to do anything.  (Beating Civ Revolutions on Empire doesn’t really count as anything.)

2.  Within 48 hours, I’ll have this cold too.

So much for my grand plans of writing, cleaning, and project-advancing I had for the weekend.

2. Also, in interest of conserving gasoline, we’ve moved the carseat from the Civic to the pickup truck. GeekBaby thinks riding in the pickup truck is a real treat. I’m just happy that the Radian Car seat installs easily almost everywhere.

3. I have a surprise for Himself when he gets home. I only mention this because I know he reads my blog religiously and so he’ll see this tonight. Heh heh heh.

4. Hallie @ Betty Beguiles has convinced me that I ought to be paying better attention to what I’m wearing. So far, I have been sucessful in my fashion resolution – not to accidentally wear any shirt backwards or inside out (or both). I think I’m ready to take it to the next step, and start examining my wardrobe. Essays, yes plural, on this topic are forthcoming.

5. I got the most awesome kitchen tool today with the last bit of my oma money. It’s a new garlic press. I’ve reviewed it extensively for my cooking blog, but to sum it up, I’m in love.

6. We have had the most… uneven week of cooking ever. Monday I made cottager’s pie, and it was fantastic, although I was a little short of mashed potatoes. Tuesday, we made sloppy joes and ran out of ingredients right and left. After two trips to the grocery store, we finally ended up borrowing ketchup from the neighbors. It wasn’t quite enough, although he generously gave me the entire bottle from his fridge. But that’s okay, anything to avoid going back to the store for the third time in an evening.

I bought a replacement bottle of ketchup Wednesday, and brought it over to their house last night after I got home from work. His wife was home this time and she was very funny because apparently there was another whole bottle of ketchup in their pantry. Ah well. Serves me right for not double checking my shopping list against my menu and panty.

7. I’ve decided that GoodReads is an acceptable social media platform. You may expect drastically increased activity in that sector. That is all.

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen @ Conversion Diary. And wish her Happy Birthday, too. Happy Birthday Jen!

 Waving one’s hands in the air and shouting abject agreement at one’s iPad doesn’t really count as comment.

So posting will be light numerically in the next several weeks as I try to make some diamonds from this crude.  But when they come, they’ll hopefully be entertaining and interesting.  I probably won’t get one up tonight, I have CCE tonight, but if I don’t have one up by Monday, harass me in the comments to get back to work.

Let’s take a moment for the Nobel Committee lose any remaining credibility.

Okay, we’re back.  What I thought was most interesting in the whole business (that the Nobel Committee involves snobbery and politics isn’t exactly a stunner) were the mainstream com boxes.  I wasn’t stupid enough to go into them, not having my hipwaders handy, but it wasn’t possible to avoid them either.  And what I thought most interesting was the oft repeated opinion that because a particular commenter “couldn’t get more than a hundred pages in” to the work, that the work has no merit.

Seriously?  As a complaint, that’s pretty laughable.  A commentor of unknown background, age, and education stating that because Tolkien didn’t write an easy page turner and couldn’t maintain his interest, that the book has no literary merit.  This complaint presumes two things.  One, that entertainment of the reader is the sole determinant of literary merit.  And two, that this unknown’s opinion matters in determining literary merit.

Good grief.

1. Roll with your toddler being a little uncooperative.  GeekBaby has no interest in naming his toys, so I made the bear’s lack of a name the point of the story.  And GeekBaby got into that. 
2. Don’t push the math.  Allow them to do it if they’re inclined, and remember that the creative play of the story is good for them too.  GeekBaby doesn’t do very much creative play, and what he does do is entirely reenactments of things he’s seen.  Sometimes it’s creative, and sometimes it’s just exclamations over how Woody and his friends are going to be burnt up by the fire.  Chiefly, my kid just wants to do whatever I’m doing, which means he wants to play role playing games too.  So I’m using that desire to sneak more creative play into his diet. 
3. Always have a narrative way to defeat a challenge.  It didn’t initially occur to me to use the flashlight to defeat the shadow beast, Himself came up with that idea.  But it’s a good one, and if GeekBaby hadn’t been so tired we would have tried to gently lead him to the idea instead of Maverick saving the bear.  From now on there will be at least one narrative method of defeating challenges. 
4. Always be gauging your toddler’s attention and enjoyment and stop when he stops enjoying the game. 

 
6. Pluralization implies > 1. Lovelace is wrong. 
 
If you aren’t reading The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage, why not? It’s fantastic. Now with 100% more vampire poets. 
 
The iPad app is also fantastic, although not all the stories have been released on it. Just The Origin (free) and The Client ($2.99). But it lets you read them in landscape mode complete with extensive footnotes and primary historical sources. Did you know that Charles Babbage hated street musicians? And had at least one joke where the punchline was a table? 
 
7. On Sunday, GeekBaby smashed my foot with the kneeler during the opening hymn. Turns out there’s a nerve (the sural nerve) that runs right over the top of the foot in just that place, then down under and up the leg alongside the Achilles tendon. The falling kneeler pinched that nerve, and as I was already in the middle of singing, I let out a very loud ‘Aaaaaaaaah!’ and collapsed as my leg had stopped functioning and felt like it was on fire. I limped for the rest of Mass, which puzzled our associate pastor mightily as he’d seen me hurrying into the pew without limping less than an hour ago. 
 
Then, later during the Mass while I wrangled the sulky child in my arms, he braced his stout little legs against the back of the pew in front of us and pushed with only a fretful fraction of his might. And down I went again. This time I almost took out the (extremely understanding) lady in the pew behind us. 
 
And I only have one. It’s days like that which make me doubt my sanity over wanting more. Then he hugs me and little arms around my neck remind me. Then he kisses me and the copious amounts of slobber and snot tempt me to doubt my sanity again. My mental state apparently has mood swings. 
 
That’s all. I’ve been feeling particularly humorsome lately. Visit Jen at Conversion Diary for more Quick Takes!

Baby steps.
 
 
 

(Yes, I’m wearing pearls with my Wonder Woman shirt.  What of it?)