Filed under: diapering
I think it’s been awhile since I’ve made any posts about my cloth diapering system, and I wanted to share how it’s working right now. There are so many different ways to “do” cloth diapering, that mine is just what works for me right now, though I’m expecting it to change slightly over time, and if I have anymore children, it would be different for them, too.
So let me start off with my “stash” of diapers and equipment:
- 20 Medium sized fitted diapers with velcro (fits from 15-30 pounds or so)
- 20 8×8″ cloth wipes
- 6 Large size covers (Very Baby Snug Wrap)
- 3 Medium Sized wool soakers in (Links are to patterns) Camo print, blue, and white with blue stripes (The adult content notice is NOT in reference to the soaker pattern)
- Diaper pail (Just a basic pail with a lid)
- 2 wet bags made from the same fabric as the covers
- 2 Cotton diaper pail liners–about the size of a pillowcase
- 8 flat cloth diapers–used for extra protection for nighttime
My system is pretty basic, and since my son is getting a little older, I’m finding I don’t have to change him as often as when he was a little baby, usually we wash about every 3 days. I’m really bad about going back and forth between cloth and disposables, so sometimes it seems like we get more days out of our diapers, but it’s because of disposables. We wash roughly twice a week.
I have all my stash in a living room cabinet, it fits nicely inside of there, and I don’t have to worry about it being out where it gets in the way. I keep the diaper pail next to the cabinet or in the garage if company is coming. The garage door comes right next to the living room, kitchen and downstairs bathroom, so it’s pretty easy access.
As far as diapering goes, we are pretty easy-going. We don’t have a diaper changing table, never have. We use the floor, generally, and as long as there are no big messes, that has worked for us. If needed, we go into the bathroom to confine the mess.
When it comes to poopy diapers, I used to use a soapy mixture on my wipes, but found that it didn’t really do much better than plain water, so now we just wet the wipes as needed and clean the babe with a plain, wet wipe, which is really okay if you bathe your child frequently. If there’s a rash, plain water is really your best bet, because other things can irritate skin more if they aren’t properly rinsed off. The poop needs to go into the toilet as well, so if it’s not a newborn with breastmilk poops, then a good shaking should cover it. Breastmilk poops don’t really need anything special, they just don’t have much solidness to them, but when babies start eating food, it can get a little messy and you don’t want that in your washing machine, so it’s best to shake and flush. (use the wipe to push it off if you need a little extra help–just don’t drop the wipe into the toilet)
Changing a cloth diaper is no more messy (sometimes even LESS messy) than changing disposables, and you don’t have a stinky trash can filled with poopy diapers smelling up the whole house, either. You can reuse covers several times before washing provided they are not smelly (like ammonia), sopping wet or dirty from a leaky diaper. We use them about 3 times between washes.
Washing is probably the most complicated part, but even that is not much more difficult than throwing in a load of laundry. I use either a clear unscented liquid (like all free and clear) or plain powdered detergent (like wind fresh from Sam’s club or any unscented white powder). I also use the hottest water setting and do as many diapers as will fit comfortably in the machine–you have to make sure they get clean! My diapers only do a medium load with all of them dirty, but if you have 30 or more, it will be a large load.
I use one scoop or capful of detergent, about 1/4-1/3 cup of LIQUID NON-CHLORINE Bleach (like Clorox 2 or Oxyclean liquid), 1/4 cup of Baking soda and 1/2 cup of vinegar. These are not all necessary for clean diapers, but if you want your diapers to smell pretty good after washing, then it’s probably a good idea to use them all every once in a while. If you just use the baking soda and vinegar once a week or every two weeks, it will help eliminate odors that linger. The non-chlorine bleach is really just hydrogen peroxide which acts as a whitening agent and also neutralizes most odors.
Dry them like any other load of laundry. They can go on the clothesline, too, if you’re into that, and they actually come back smelling even better than if dried inside.
That’s just about it. I don’t really need to fold anything, I just stack the diapers up and stick them back into the cabinet after drying and start over.
Filed under: canning
This weekend my sister taught me how to make apple butter and I also made pear butter from the Ball Blue Book, and I learned how to can both of them.
I am really into this, because it’s a really good way to preserve things that I can’t save otherwise, like tomatoes. I was surprised at how easy it was, and how the most important thing is really that the lids seal tightly, so that they stay fresh.
I have already made cucumber dill pickles, but didn’t use a water canner for it, but the jars did seal. The apple and pear butters were very different, because you actually had to cook the stuff, not just the juices like the pickles. I have learned that you can’t reuse the lid for canning, and that you can buy this part separately–which I didn’t know before. I like the fact that you can use just about any preserving jar for anything you make, with few exceptions. I think a canner set is going on my Christmas list, because it would save us a good amount of money in the long run.
What really impressed me about the whole process of canning is that if you have someone else to share the experience with, it makes the process more fun. I had a lot of fun, and it was nice knowing that I wasn’t just going to use all of it myself, but I was going to give it away to my family, too.
Filed under: exercise
I’ve been doing Pilates mat workouts for about 3 months now, not totally consistently, but I’m trying. I have seen an increase in my flexibility and even a little better posture. I know that it helps me to eat smarter, and that it also seems to help me be more calm.
Though, I think that those are secondary reasons to exercise, ones that I wouldn’t have predicted would be beneficial before I began. I am really more concerned about feeling good about my body, and what exercise can do to make me feel physically better overall.
When it comes to body image, I have always had minor issues, but nothing that made me yo-yo diet or obsess over my weight or figure. I always liked my body in high school, and two children later, I think there are things that I can improve upon, but none that I “hate.” I’m not talking about how I look with clothes on, or any features that God gave me, but about the excess tissue that comes with lowered metabolism and the stretch marks that unfortunately cannot be avoided sometimes with pregnancy.
I don’t know why people have negative body image, and I don’t want to speculate. I think that it’s mostly the result of negative feedback from other people, because we aren’t born obsessed with our weight. Somewhere along the line, someone has to tell you something that triggers that negative image, and honestly, I think that anyone who has a negative view of their body needs some sort of help with positive reinforcement.
But like I said, I’ve always had a positive view of my body, but there are times when I look in the mirror and think, I really need to work on that, or I wish this was a little smaller. It’s for this reason that I exercise. I don’t go to the gym, because I think the gym is too expensive, for what most anyone can get at home (and I can’t afford to pay for), and I don’t think that the gym is always a positive place for one’s body image. To be mystical, I think sometimes there’s just too much “negative energy” there. But that’s just me. If you like the gym, by all means, keep going.
But overall, exercise is also a time for me to focus on something outside my regular routine. It’s something that I do to improve my physical health and appearance, and it’s a break from my kids (okay, I do it when they go to bed). I think that everyone should exercise whether it’s alone or with other people, but not because of a body image problem or an obsession with weight (which are, essentially, the same thing). No, I think that exercise is good, and it’s shown to increase blood flow, which, for most people, is a really good thing. It’s a great stress-reliever, which can only be good in a culture of high stress jobs.
Filed under: flylady
I’ve realized today that I need a better cleaning schedule. Flylady has zones, which are great, but I also need to make a schedule for my own house of the things that need to be cleaned on certain days.
Like today. Today is Wednesday, when our Bible study group meets at our house. Which means the downstairs needs to be vacuumed and presentable for the people coming over. And trust me, it doesn’t look as good on Thursday evening as it does Wednesday evening.
But in order to get the downstairs clean, I have to do a list of chores that sometimes seems a mile long. This can get really frustrating, but I realize that if I kept certain things a little nicer in the first place then I wouldn’t have to do a mass clean every week.
Anyway, I’m getting off point. Flylady has zones that you do each week. One zone per week, and you clean that entire zone over the course of the week. But what do you do when you have a regular meeting that requires 3 of those zones to be clean every week? You can do major cleaning, like moving the furniture and sweeping cobwebs, once a month, but you have to keep those rooms in order daily or weekly in the meantime.
I have a list of chores to do each week that goes like this:
Scrub kitchen table and chairs, vacuum front room and living room, clean kitchen counters, clean up toy room (which takes up to an hour sometimes), then get all the hotspots in all of these rooms picked up, which often includes taking laundry upstairs, removing toys, and going through the mail that gets tossed wherever. This is not an exhaustive list, but in general, it takes the place of my weekly cleaning, because it takes about 2 hours total to get it all done, and the stuff Flylady calls her “home blessing hour” are things that I feel do not need to be done every week anyway.
But here’s the biggest problem: I can only do so much of this before Wednesday, and I can’t leave any of it until Thursday. Which really just means that Wednesday is the day I have to spend cleaning, because nothing stays clean long enough to do it beforehand. It’s not a full-on pile of garbage come Tuesday evening, but it makes me wonder how things do pile up so quickly, even if it’s not as bad as “Hoarders”.
Well, I’m almost finished, anyway, I just need to get a few things picked up before starting the dishes, so I better get back to work!
Filed under: deep thoughts
I’ve spent some time recently reading about the process of courtship and betrothal, not for personal reasons, obviously, but because I’m interested in how it compares to dating, and what the real reasons are behind a Christian cultural shift back to this old style of matchmaking.
One of the things that has popped up a few times is the idea that courtship keeps hearts from getting broken. This has many implications, and the fact that the statement above has been proven false more than once makes me believe that maybe courtship isn’t right for every reason.
So about the question. Should we ever allow heart-break? If we try to shield our children from ever having their heart broken by someone of the opposite sex, does that truly prepare them for marriage? I’m sure that in many traditional societies, this kind of thinking really makes no sense. Basically, children who have their spouses chosen for them don’t ever really have to think about dating or finding a mate, and therefore will probably not get their hearts broken by the opposite sex prior to a marriage. But most traditional societies today are also often poorer societies, meaning that they have less access to modern medicine, and meaning that death is a natural part of life, so there is some experience in loss that we typically find much more tragic here in the US.
So what I’m trying to say is that in our modern society where we typically do not lose loved ones until old age, heart-break does not happen the way it does when you lose a sibling or parent or other family member often throughout your life. Which means that we really are afraid of loss, not broken relationships.
I am thankful not to have lost anyone very close to me to death at this point, most of the people I have lost have been older and their deaths, while no less tragic, were somewhat easier to handle than the death of a child or parent. But I have known the pain of a broken heart through a broken relationship. This kind of pain is something that, while not everyone handles it in the same way, all people WILL have to experience in at some point in their lives. Losing a relationship is in many ways like losing a loved one. The person is not gone forever, and there is a chance of reconciliation (if you both want it), but in the meantime there will always be a twinge of grief when you think of that person, no matter what the reason behind the break-up.
Ultimately, though, I think that allowing children to have their hearts broken is not a bad thing. I think it gives us empathy for others, it makes us stronger, and it certainly helps us understand more of what God has been through with us. But also, it can prepare us for marriage, as well. Within marriage, things are not a rosy picture every second of every day. In fact, there are times when our spouses will break our hearts, too. It won’t be the worst kind of heartbreak, but hurt feelings and shattered expectations still take time to heal. If we expect for things to always be happy and never prepare ourselves for grief, we can end up much worse off. Knowing pain helps us to avoid that which is painful, but it also reminds us that we are human.
Alex has been going through the infant into toddler stage for a while now, and he has really begun to blossom into a cute and funny little boy. He has been saying a new word or two every day, and it’s hilarious sometimes what we hear. Some of his new words are: my, bite, door, ball, hey, what, and why. He says “what” in a very inquisitive way, and asks for a bite of whatever I’m eating.
He’s also become very destructive. I’ll leave a room only to come back later and find everything I had put away strewn all over the floor. This is highly amusing to him, and he also finds great enjoyment in putting things in unusual hiding places. This is not a new thing, but it seems to be getting worse. In a way, it’s funny to find things in unexpected places, but sometimes, it’s rather frustrating and even sometimes a little gross.
He loves cherry tomatoes and would pick them off the plant if I let him. He eats them like grapes–which he also loves, and gets upset when we run out of them. He’s a piggy with food, he eats practically anything you set in front of him and is constantly asking for more. I can tell he’s growing fast, he’s speeding past Nour’s size when she was nearly a year older than him. It’s fun to watch him manipulate a fork (a metal salad fork–it’s the only way he will use one), and just watch him grow up in general.
He and Nour get along okay as long as she’s not being bossy, and she’s usually bossy, so there are times when I see the beginnings of a rivalry. Overall, I think they will be buddies, because she finds ways to amuse him, and she’s usually trying to help out whenever he gets crabby, but she still has the tendency to be the bossy big sister that we all know and love. The two of them still share a bath sometimes, and she loves helping wash his hair and belly, and they love splashing each other (and the floor) with the water. It’s a lot of fun to see them growing up together, and I can tell that their relationship is strong right now, even though Alex is still learning how to socialize.
Having kids was something I always wanted, but I never really thought about “being a mom.” I always thought of it as me having them, but they have me just as much, which is really awesome. I love being with my kids, and I love seeing them learn and do new things and the looks on their faces when they figure something out for the first time. I am really proud of my kids, and I wouldn’t trade them for the world. They are such little sweeties (especially Alex, okay, just kidding, they’re both sweet, when they want to be).
Filed under: gardening
As far as growth was concerned, my garden did very well this summer. But I had a few other “issues” to deal with. mainly weeds and pests, and I have figured out a way to hopefully eliminate (or reduce) both.
For one, I’m going to use straw and newspaper in combination, as my friend Suzanne suggested, underneath the soil in my raised beds. This helps keep weeds from growing through and composts nicely, too.
Second, I’m going to build a better fence around my garden with the chicken wire I already have and some posts and boards I’m going to have to buy over winter.
Third, I’m going to mulch and put rocks between the beds to make it a cozy little garden area, instead of the mess in the corner that it feels like right now.
I also need to make some shields for my corn (the birds!) and a few other veggies, and I’m going to use some screen over other veggies that the animals like to eat (lettuce, broccoli, carrots and berries). I realized that I need better supports for the tomatoes as well, so I’m going to build some chicken wire tomato supports to place around each plant. And I”m going to plant fewer tomatoes next year. I realized that two plants of grape tomatoes can produce way more than we eat (or I should say “I eat”) and I have been giving them away a lot, too. Maybe only 6-8 plants instead of 12…
I also realized that if I add some sand to the soil it will help break up the chunks that are still there, and will hold some moisture that seems to leave rather quickly on the hotter days.
So I’ve got a lot of ideas for how I can get this done, and even spent part of yesterday drawing it up, but I am really not sure how much it would cost. Maybe more than we can afford, but we’ll do as much as we can.
Cool garden news: My sunflowers are beginning to bloom. They’re short, but they’re popping out!
Filed under: 5S
I realized today that I’ve sort of abandoned the whole “Five S” system for a while, even though I’ve still given it a great deal of thought. I read an article about Starbucks implementing lean manufacturing the other day, and it gave me a pretty good picture of what we ought to do to make our lives simpler. Of course, we don’t need to make tasks move as quickly as they do at Starbucks, but less walking back and forth to get things done is still beneficial for anyone who doesn’t have all the time in the world to spare.
I learned the term “streamline” from an organization book I bought several years ago, and have tried to use it in my kitchen in particular. When we say “streamline” we really mean “lump together” tasks that often fall in the same category or are done in the same place. You wouldn’t keep the knives ten feet away from the space that you use them most, you would put them right there, so you can reach them without walking all over the place. Same with the cutting boards. You would keep them close by as well, so you don’t have to move everywhere just to do one task.
And so it goes with the kitchen. I’m trying to come up with ways to do this in other parts of the house as well. Specifically, I’ve been keeping the DVDs and videos in the same place for several years, right under the DVD player. Generally, everyone does this, and we don’t even think about how it saves us time and frustration. There are lots of different ways we can do this kind of streamlining, it’s just a matter of coming up with clever ideas to do it.
Filed under: gardening
No, I don’t have any new pictures right now. But what I do have is a boat-load of tomatoes, potatoes, onions, some carrots, a pumpkin, a little corn, and a whole mess of herbs.
Yesterday I made some tomato sauce with about 4 pounds of Roma tomatoes, of which I have several more pounds ripe and many unripe on the vine. I also made some salsa with some patio tomatoes–the ones that get to about 2 inch diameter, which turned out well with my green onions and some nice red and white onions from the garden as well.
I managed to grow 2 sugar/pie pumpkins, one is fully grown and done, the other is still growing and getting bigger. The one that is grown is larger than the ones I bought at the farmer’s market, so I think it will yield at least 2 pumpkin pies when it’s baked and pureed. The other is considerably smaller, so it will probably end up getting decorated.
What has been successful:
Tomatoes–all of them have grown some delicious fruit.
Potatoes–an unexpected surprise, I’ve gotten several pounds of potatoes each time I go to find them. It’s fun to get dirty, too!
Pumpkins
Basil, Chives, Oregano, parsley, and dill. The cilantro went all weird and bolted really early for some reason. At least I’ll get coriander when it’s done drying.
Onions–they had to be picked small because of a lot of rain that started rotting some of them while we were away, but we got a lot of them and they are being used well.
Lemon Verbena–both plants are growing like crazy, and I’m glad one is in a pot, because they will need to come inside for the winter, I think.
Peppers: I’ve gotten several already, but I realized that most of my seeds somehow got mixed up, so I’m not really sure what is going to come out of the garden when they are all grown!
Squash: prior to the squash bug infestation, I got several good sized squash.
Cucumbers: Big fat ones. Yum.
Peas: Got a considerable harvest before we left. Might plant again soon.
Beans: I need to get vine beans next year instead. The bugs or the sun or something kills the leaves and fruit of these plants.
What wasn’t so hot:
Corn: I think that this just didn’t get um, fertilized properly. I guess I’ll have to do this by hand next time.
Zucchini: I don’t know why, but they just wouldn’t grow, then the plant died. Boo.
Lettuce: Well, I would have done better if the freaking rabbits didn’t keep eating it.
Broccoli: Same problem.
Carrots: Got a few, but they suffered from rabbits as well.
Berries: I guess this was a trial year. I need to learn more about berry bushes.
Watermelon: plant wouldn’t grow, even when I moved it to a more open space. Guess I’ll have to try again next year.
Cumin and Chamomile didn’t get anywhere this year, I’ll have to start them a little earlier next time and keep them watered well.
Mildly successful:
Eggplant: I don’t know about these yet, because they JUST started flowering. They may get a chance to grow something tasty, but I’ll have to let you all know later if they got anywhere.
Strawberries: I think the problem was that they need to be covered because the birds peck away at the berries, and we ate the ones they didn’t almost straight off the plants. But they were good, anyway.
On the whole, a fairly successful summer, but it’s not over, and I still can grow a fall crop if I want (or “late summer”), because I still have 2 good solid mild months coming. I think this was a learning year, but some stuff was really easy to grow, while others needed more help. For someone who just planted and watered, I think I did okay, but I know for next year what to do differently.
I should warn you that you may see a temporary (or permanent) shift in the focus of this blog, not because of anything I’ve decided, but because I’ve really had a change in priorities lately. I want to share more about my observations of Egypt, and the fact that I have learned a lot more than I ever expected in just a few short weeks there.
I am struggling with where to begin, because there is so much to share, and I can only think of a small part of it at one time. I want to be able to do each observation justice, but I tend to go all ADD when I’m writing and lose track of what I’m talking about.
The time we spent in Egypt was short, but very informative. I learned a lot through conversations and observing the behavior of people on the street, but the most important things were things that would affect us, if we live there.
One of the things that we have felt that we will do when we move to Egypt is teach marriage and family ministry classes. This is something that has become a greater need in the last few decades in Egypt, as the influence of western culture has come in, and many Christian families are struggling to have marriages that are what they were 40 years ago, even in Egypt. The divorce rate is still low, but happiness in marriage is waning, and we really want to change that for as many people as we can reach. We have been training with our church’s marriage and family ministry to be marriage coaches, but we really see ourselves translating and converting the material to fit Egypt’s growing need.
There are also many people in Egypt who are seeking to change the status quo, and a couple of family members have expressed interest in our marriage information. Hopefully, this material can come of good use to the training center and churches who are seeking to strengthen marriages for young couples. I want to make it clear that we are not the ones who wrote the material, nor are we the experts on it, either. We would simply be teaching someone’s material that has proven effective, with his permission, of course.
The fact that these two things have come together, and that this subject has come up often in our discussions of Egypt is no coincidence. I really feel like God is moving us in this direction and hope that we will be able to do some good.
Surprising, the culture of Egyptian marriage is much like our marriages here. There’s not much difference in the way things are handled within the Christian community, except for a lower divorce rate, and the fact that people often live in unhappy arrangements because they feel like they have to, rather than leaving. Here or there, we want to see marriages becoming stronger and happier, through real helpful counseling by Christians who have been there and who are truly invested in helping marriages become stronger, and not just some group’s theology.
