Floral Pliers
For those moments when I’m feeling conflicted about the whole butch-femme thing: Floral pliers from UK retailer Bloomsbury. They also have an array of other tools in similar patterns. (Thanks to Shiny Shiny for the link.)
Tools and Hobbies
Most Important Tools
Forbes recently published a list of “The 20 Most Important Tools Ever.” I always find these sorts of lists interesting, even though I often (as in this case) disagree with many of the choices. (I view knifes and swords as variants of the same thing, not deserving two separate entries, for example.) Not making the
Oh Oxo!
The LA Times had a nice story about Oxo tools a couple of weeks ago. (Thanks to FOOD Blog for the sighting.) I’ve been a big Oxo fan for years, and was glad to see the coverage. (I’d own all of their products if we weren’t a lesbian family with one stay-at-home-mom, paying federal taxes
The Mom Bookmark Folder
As a mom, I’m always looking for ways to make all the detail tasks of motherhood more efficient. One trick I’ve learned is to create a bookmarks folder in Firefox (or other tabbed browser of your choice) full of the sites that help me lead my daily life. I’m not talking about the sites I
Electric Trains
My partner and I spent much of the last two days trying to get a fifty-year-old electric train to run around our Christmas tree (aka our non-denominational holiday bush) for our train-obsessed son. The trains are part of my ancestral set, which belonged to my uncle, then my brother and me. They’re nothing fancy–low-end O-scale
IKEA Assembly Tips
One of the advantages of hosting Thanksgiving this year was that my parents stayed for a few days to help babysit. My partner and I were able to run some errands, including a trip to IKEA, our favorite home-furnishing store. IKEA is fun with kids, too—in fact, it’s one of the most kid-friendly stores that’s
New Market for Handmade Items
There’s a new e-commerce marketplace called Etsy that looks very intriguing. It’s quite similar to E-Bay, in that it lets people buy and sell items, but limits itself to handmade goods. Etsy is still fairly new, but has a good interface and some innovative search features, so you can easily find items by type, material,
Essential Tool: A Headlamp
Enough politics for a while. Here’s another in my ongoing series of Essential Tools: a camping headlamp. Even if the closest you’ve been to camping is sitting on your back porch with a beer, one of these lightweight lamps can be indispensable when you’re working behind a bookshelf, under a cabinet, or in the corner
Essential Tool: A Rubber Mallet
One in an occasional series of essential household tools: A white (non-marking) rubber mallet. Whether it’s assembling a rocking horse, fitting shelves into a bookcase, or flattening chicken breasts for Poached Chicken Breast Stuffed with Goat Cheese and Spinach (cover the chicken in plastic wrap first), this is a tool you never knew you needed
