Monthly Archives: November 2011

B.F. Day Playground Redesign Meeting Open to Public

If your kids attend B.F. Day Elementary, you might have heard the great news about plans a playground redesign. I'm especially excited about this because it means that perhaps in the not-too-distant future, my kids will no longer bonk their little melons against the oddly-placed bar at the top of the slide! This project is in the very early design stages, but it gives the community an opportunity to brainstorm ways to make the expansive space surrounding "the big toy" much…

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Cupcakes and Couture meet Santa

Cupcakes & Couture, a very special mommy and me playdate, is coming to Wallingford Center this Tuesday, November 29th from 9am to noon. It's a free event for moms and tots to enjoy a free Trophy cupcake, coffee, and a photo booth with Santa. The Seattle Nanny Network will also be there to keep the kids happy with crafts so you can enjoy some kid-free shopping! Local Etsy vendors will also be on hand selling their wares for the holidays. Here's the…

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The Garden in Winter

Getting the garden ready for winter is often enlightening. As you are out cleaning up old stalks, raking leaves, or picking up wormy apples, you might also find some interesting ground beetles or other insects searching for food on a semi-dry or warm day. It’s often the first clue that there is more going on out there than it seems. This is a good time to think about how your garden serves the creatures who stay here for the winter –…

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Christmas Ships at Gas Works

The Christmas Ships and the Parade of Boats will serenade Wallingford from Gas Works Park this Thursday, December 1st from 8:20 - 8:40 pm. It always seems to last longer than that, though.  In a good way. From Argosy’s web site: "The Argosy Christmas Ship™ festival is a holiday celebration that has been a Northwest tradition for 62 years... From our flotilla of ships to the crowds of people who gather onshore, this celebration is one of the gems of the…

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Are Problems at Hamilton Being Addressed Constructively?

The annual school reports have been released for Wallingford. In general, the school reports don't tell you much. The student and parent survey results are more a reflection of the relative performance of teachers within a school and come out about the same across schools (they are useful within a school, but not for comparing schools). Standardized test results are held up high by reform advocates but mostly just reflect school demographics, with a tweak towards how aggressively the school teaches…

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You Inspire Me

In the end, twenty-four of you took us up on our offer and donated to the Wallingford-based food bank and family services organization FamilyWorks and received a jar our our "fresh from Wallingford gardens" honey as a thank you. The food bank has over $1,400 more to work with thanks to you. We stopped off at FamilyWorks on Tuesday to drop off the honey (donators are encouraged to pick up at FamilyWorks itself, so they can see where their donations are…

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Thanksgiving Recycling Checklist

Thanksgiving is undoubtedly the most wasteful time of the year as far as food goes. Don't buy more food than you'll need. Freeze leftovers before you're tired of them. Avoid unnecessary packaging. But for those items that just need to get out of the house, use this checklist of what goes in which bin: FOOD AND YARD WASTE: Poultry, meat, fish and bones, pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns (no candles), plus every other kind of food item except fat, oil, and grease (see…

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