Tomatoes Cont.

4/19/10

Ready to carefully remove the sprouted seeds from the paper towel and plant.  I decided to get a Jiffy tray to simplify my life so I moved as many seeds as didn't get damaged in the removal process over to the tray and planted a few new seeds in three of the chambers as well.

4/21/10

Two days later all the sprouted seedlings were looking great, as good as or better than the seeds planted twelve days prior in the tin bucket (that were not presprouted).

4/25/10

Sadly, I am just now getting around to posting this though I created it back in April and now all, but three plants have completely shriveled up and died.  So sad that this endeavor did not turn out as I had hoped.  I think the lesson learned here is that this is not the season of my life to try to start plants from seed.  I will likely go out and buy some starter tomato PLANTS because I would still like to have some fresh off the vine for my family.  Maybe when the kids are older and life is slightly less chaotic I will have the time required to properly care for seedlings.  I think it was lack of adequate light and consistant watering that did these poor little ones in.  Wish I had a better report and I even considered deleting the posts all together, but thought I should be honest about my failures too. :)

I'm on Etsy!

It all started with a hat. I wanted to buy a cute little newsboy hat for my daughter and so I started searching Etsy and instead found a crochet pattern for just the hat I was looking for. So I pulled out the yarn stash and crochet hooks and started working on it. The finished product was just what I'd been hoping for and I really enjoyed getting to make it myself, I love being crafty ;) As soon as I put it on her I started getting compliments on it and wide eyed stares when I told people I had made it when they asked where I got it. Once they heard that they almost always said "You should sell those!" One neighbor in particular really encouraged me to sell them and guarunteed me at least three sales to her as soon as I got myself set up. So I started looking into going beyond purchasing on Etsy to becoming an Etsy seller. There were more details to contend with than I was sure I wanted to deal with, but I made it through and while the shop is not full and still (and probably always) in progress, it is set up and I can now sell to people across the country (technically I can sell to people across the world, but I don't yet want to undertake international shipping so we're staying domestic for now). Check me out at


Little Bits n' Things



P.S. wondering what on earth "Etsy" is? from their website:

What is Etsy?

Our mission is to enable people to make a living making things, and to reconnect makers with buyers.

Our vision is to build a new economy and present a better choice:

Buy, Sell, and Live Handmade.

Etsy

Update to Children's Medicine Recall

I was pleasantly surprised to find in my mailbox today a check for $26.  I didn't at first know why I was receiving a check for $26, but when I pulled the accompanying letter from the envelope I had another pleasant surprise.  It was from McNeil Consumer Healthcare, it was my refund for the three bottles of recalled medicine I registered on their website.  I think that one week is a very reasonable amount of time to wait to receive the refund, especially considering I am sure they have a lot of refunds to send out.  So while I think this whole mess is a mess, they did a good job with the initial resolution.

Stats:
I submitted the online form on May 4th for 2 small bottles of infant's Motrin and 1 bottle of Children's liquid Benedryl
On May 12th I received a check for $26 - approx. $8.67 per bottle of medicine or maybe it was $9 for the Benedryl and $8.50 each for the Motrin, not sure how they broke it down, but I am satisfied with the refund. Also, to give them credit, I may have received the check yesterday (May  11th) as I don't think I checked the mail; the envelope is postmarked May 10th.

Children's Motrin, Tylenol, Benadryl, Zyrtec RECALL

Not a project around the house, but an issue that effects us and so many others so it made it to the blog:

April 30, 2010 McNeil Consumer Healthcare Announces Voluntary Recall of Certain OTC Infants’ and Children's Products

We have mostly been using store brand Ibuprofen (which is not part of the recall, only name brand) for our daughter while she's teething, but we did also have a few bottles of name brand infant's Motrin and Children's Benadryl so I got on google and searched around. These links are to look up the NDC# for your product to see if it's part of the recall (Product NDC numbers are on the label of the bottle and box above the brand name):
Tylenol
Motrin
Zyrtec
Benadryl
All Recalled Children's Products

And this next link is to the online form to fill out lot#, exp. date, etc. of your products and request either a coupon or refund.