Another Adjustment

It seems like life has been all about adjustments lately.

Some big, some not so big.

One of the not so big ones is this:

For the first time in my life I'm not hanging out washing on a Hills Hoist.

It's brought up all sorts of dilemmas. Where do I start hanging? Should I start at one end and work my way down one line line and then the next? Or should I start at one end and peg on each line?

Oh, these are indeed the big issues!

The Fellowship of Women - Part 2

Following on from this post about some special 'women's time' I'd shared recently, I thought I'd share some more special 'women's time' that I'd had.

Some of my local friends got together and organised a baby shower for me! It was so much fun and so nice to see everyone all at once. We don't all get together as often as we'd like (how much is that the story for most friendship groups?) so it was lovely to sit down with everyone and chat and play some very silly games and just have a morning (which turned into all day) of fun. I was completely blown away by the lengths they'd gone too, I was expecting us to just sit around and watch the kids play while we had a chat but one industrious couple (yes, the one man present was the Master of Ceremonies) devised all sorts of crazy antics for us.

The kids, big and little, had a great time! I love getting together with homeschooling friends, the bigger kids are so caring and considerate towards the littlies!

 

The first was your usual baby shower fare, everyone had to bring a photo of themselves as a baby and we had to work out who was who. Some were easy, some were tricky!

The second game was by far the funniest (and potentially most disgusting) "What's the baby eaten?". The couple had gotten about 8 disposable nappies and smeared them with all sorts of household items. The players had to sniff and smell the nappies to figure out what it was! Ick! We did get some funny photos though of all of us with our noses stuck into the nappies. They used all sorts of tricky things like vinegar, Vegemite, perfume, vanilla and eucalyptus oil.

Trying to figure out what was in the nappy. It was harder that it sounds!

I also got showered with gifts! A voucher to a lingerie shop in town to treat myself to a new maternity bra or two, some kids books and outfits, some chocolate and a lovely package from Pepper Place that I'll post more about once I've actually used them and have pics of them on the new babe!

I'm so blessed to have met these amazing women and formed such close friendships in the short two years that we've been here. I'm so going to miss them when we move!

Strip Washing Cloth Nappies

I thought I'd take advantage of all the rain we've been having to give our cloth nappy stash a strip wash. Strip washing removes any built-up washing powder residue, increases absorbency and leaves nappies smelling wonderfully fresh (which ours mostly do anyway because I only line dry them). The built up residue can also lead to skin irritation in some bubs. It was never a problem for Elliot, but Archie has been suffering from a bit of nappy rash lately so hopefully this strip wash will sort it out.

To strip wash the nappies you just need to put them through a hot water wash cycle with no powder or detergent. The water will probably be sudsy from all the residual powder being washed out. After the initial wash cycle you just need to keep rinsing until the water runs clean. On our machine it took one more rinse and spin cycle. Then hang them on the line in the sun to dry. Easy peasy!

Some people say to put a bit of vinegar in the final rinse stage to make sure there's no residue left but I don't use vinegar on our nappies. It can destroy the PUL (waterproof) lining and the elastic. A cloth nappy stash is such an investment I'm not taking any chances with it!

Reducing the Waste

After reading this post about how little rubbish we had in our wheelie bin a friend sent me a text message asking me to share some tips on reducing the amount of rubbish.

So over the past few days I've been making a list lof what we do. Here goes!!

We:

# make as much food from scratch as possible. I make all our stock, bread, bread rolls, pasta, pastry, pizza dough, pasta and pizza sauce, cakes, muffins, desserts, sweet biscuits, ice cream, grated cheese, dried apple, dried banana, hommus etc

# buy in bulk. Every couple of months I go to a bulk whole foods store in the next town and get big lots of nuts, seeds, rolled oats (5kg at a time), and I order in 20kg bags of organic wholemeal flour. I then store this (except flour) in our chest freezer. I put the bag of flour into the freezer for a couple of days but then decant it into a big storage container to save room in the freezer. I also buy 1kg blocks of cheese, 1kg tubs of yoghurt, the biggest packets of sugar etc from the grocery store.

# don't buy prepacked, individual or convenience foods. My one regular exception to this is a treat for the boys, the individual Babybell cheeses. They absolutely love them and are fairly healthy too. We go through 1-2 packs every fortnightly shop depending on how much we go out. They are only for snacks when we go out, not at home.

# try and buy foods with as little packaging as possible. I hate that some foods come in a package within a package (the rice cakes I buy from Aldi do and it drives me bananas) or like cereal in a bag in a box!

# try and avoid putting fruit and veg in those plastic bags they have for you to use. It probably drives the checkout people crazy when I put my big pile of bananas or 5 loose avocados on the belt, but it saves a bag! The bags I do get I reuse later.

# buy meat in bulk from the butcher. They use the same bag for 500g of mince as 1-2kgs so I get more and then freeze it, generally in a reused fruit or veg bag. If we don't have any of them I use a reuseable plastic container.

# shop for fruit and veg at the farmers markets. I take our reuseable bags and just load up the pram. It's not unusual for Elliot to be holding a pumpkin or two or a watermelon in season! He refuses to hold pineapples though, they're too spikey!! I also don't get things indiviually bagged unless they're fragile or I'm buying a lot of something ie 2-3kg of apples. I'm also mindful that many people I buy from are farmers local to the area and that every bag I use, they have to pay for it. It saves me rubbish and them money if I don't get a bag!

# buy things in reuseable packaging ie glass. Then we wash it well and put it in a box in the laundry to be reused to store something (cable ties, loose screws etc) or bottle something (jam, chutney etc). Moccona coffee jars are great for storing food in the kitchen (sugar, dried fruit, nuts etc) because they seal so well! It is an expensive brand of coffee, but whenever it's on sale I get a couple of bottles. Also an op shop in town quite often has the jars for sale for a dollar or two.

# reuse other packaging eg storing homemade washing liquid and spray & wipe in old vinegar bottles

# make some of our cleaning products, or use general household/kitchen items for cleaning eg vinegar, bi-carb. Then I just top up spray bottles or shakers in the bathroom, kitchen and laundry.

# compost all of our fruit and veg scraps

# feed most of our food scraps that can't be composted to our dog. She is very tiny and doesn't eat a lot though so we do chuck some out, especially bread crusts!

# give our egg cartons to friends with chickens. We are often gifted yummy free range eggs too! Yum!

# use boxes for craft activities

# collect newspapers to use as weed control in the garden or tear them up into the compost

# use paper on both sides for shopping lists etc

# recycle envelopes (mostly for when we go to the dairy and leave money in the box)

# use cloth nappies and cloth wipes. We do use some disposables too, very few through the day 2-3 a week and one every night.

# use face washers to wipe the boys hands and faces after meals

# put leftovers or things to store in the fridge in a container with a lid instead of glad wrap or alfoil

Most of our rubbish is tins from tomatoes, chickpeas, beans etc and milk and cream bottles that I don't like to reuse. It doesn't matter how much I wash them they still smell like sour milk! We also get junk mail delivered. My days of devouring the catalogues for bargains is over but I still haven't gotten around to putting up a "No Junk Mail" sign. We'll have to wait and see if the junk mail gets delivered to our new house out of town. Lots of my friends that live out of town don't get junk mail, and I'm sure it is one thing we won't miss!!!

I hope this list helps give people one or two new ideas on how to reduce their rubbish. If we all do a little (or big) bit, it can only help our precious planet Earth.

If you do other things to reduce your rubbish, please let me know in a comment below. I'd love to get a few new ideas!!

Smug Satisfaction

In our house the rubbish is Matt's job. Pretty much everything to do with rubbish is all him, taking out the bag, putting the bins on the curb, bringing them in, you know the drill. Everything except putting a new bag in, why is that? (for what it's worth, we reuse plastic shopping bags to line the bin. I think we probably use 2-3 a week. We are always walking a fine line between having no plastic bags for the bin because I absolutely refuse to buy bin liners and most of the time take reuseable bags to do the groceries.) Anyway, I have little to do with the rubbish and that is the way I like it!

This morning however I made a mad dash out to the wheelie bin that was already on the curb, with the last bag from the kitchen. Monday is our rubbish day and Matt normally puts the bins out the evening before. He had done this, but hadn't taken out the last bag from the kitchen because we were up all night with a certain 15 month old who thinks sleep is an optional extra.

As I hurled that last bag in I had to double check that the bin hadn't already been collected. I looked across the road, bin full to overflowing. Same next door. And down the street a bit. The truck had definitely not come, but our bin was less than 1/5 full! The bottom was lucky to be covered! I knew we didn't make much rubbish, but until this morning I hadn't actually seen how little our family of four actually produces! I asked Matt later if today's bin was a 'normal' amount for us, his response "I don't know, the bin is always really light though".

Today was such a validation of one of the reasons why we choose to do what we do. Why making as much of our own food from scratch is a good choice. Why making many of our own cleaning products is a good choice. Why using reuseable products over disposable is a good choice. Why buying in bulk and choosing products with as little packaging as possible is a good choice. Good choices for our health, the environment, our budget, the education of our boys.

I couldn't help but feel proud, and a teeny bit smug! :)

My new new project

I'd love to be crafty, but I just can't be bothered. I don't have the patience for scrapbooking, the knack of sewing, the talent for painting or drawing or pottery. So, I knit.

I started when I was pregnant with Elliot. I knitted a little matinee jacket in lovely pale yellow (we didn't find out the gender of either baby until they were born). And in true 'me' fashion I never finished it. My mum is a good knitter (though she rarely knits, only when babies are about!) and she made a couple of much nicer matching sets of booties, jacket and wee little hat. So he wore them a couple of times and then within a couple of weeks they didn't fit because he'd turned into the Michelin baby!

I started using cloth nappies when he was about 5 months old. I always wanted to use cloth nappies but got talked out of it by everyone (why would I want to make all that extra work for myself?). Once Elliot was born I thought I'd give myself time to get over the c-section before venturing into the wide new world of cloth nappies. I started off with the old school terry flats and pilchers but after a week of horrible plastic pilchers I started looking around on-line for some alternatives for waterproofing. And I found wool! Sounds insane, but it works! I got out the old knitting needles and gave it a go!

Woollen covers only work if they are made from pure wool. A blend of no more than 30% acrylic will still work, but the more wool the better. The woollen pants absorb the wee and evaporate it away. Despite being made from pure wool, soakers, shorties and longies are incredibly easy to use because they only need to be washed and lanolised every 6-8 weeks depending on how much they are used. Obviously if they are dirty ie toddler food messes or those delightful poo-plosions they need to be washed more frequently. It is such a simple process too, and in a week or two I'll take some pics of the process in another post.

Getting started on Archie's brand new, never worn by anyone else longies.

My first couple of pairs were a soaker style, and I quickly realised they were ok, but not what I was after. I wanted something that El could wear out as shorts with a t-shirt, and I quickly found this easy and cute pattern for little shorties. The pattern is basic, so it is so easy to customise with stripes, different cuff and body colours, patterns within the knitting etc. The pattern was also really easy to customise into longies too! Awesome!

I've since found a great pattern for longies that is made by knitting two identical pieces and sewing them up the middle. The only copy I have though I hand wrote from the net somewhere and now I can't find the link! Oops! One should always bookmark anything of interest!

I've been feeling like I've been neglecting Archie a bit lately, he has so few new clothes (Elliot just got an entire wardrobe full of the next size up) and I've not knitted anything just for him. I recently found this pair of longies I made for Elliot but he never wore them because they were too small, so he's been wearing them. But it's not the same, poor wee man.

He's such a happy little man, he obviously loves his hand-me-down longies!

So I'm putting aside my previously posted about shrug for myself and I'm going to concentrate on making him a few pairs of longies to wear over winter, and maybe some matching hats/beanies too!



The Australian Nappy Network has heaps of info on cloth nappies. Can you tell I love cloth nappies?