Written by Mama Monday

Happy 2013, everyone! Here are some highlights from the past year:

• We took trips to Florida, Vermont and Tennessee to visit family (and on one of those trips I used only my Thirsties, including on the plane).

• Kate, our four year old broke her arm not once, but twice, but learned to ride a two-wheeler and swim underwater completely on her own despite the time she spent in a cast.

• Lauren started first grade and has taught herself how to do front handsprings on the trampoline. She’s has a very active social life for a seven-year old and would be happiest if she could have back-to-back-to-back playdates.

• Cooper, who will turn two in February of 2013 is finally putting two words together “blue car,” “yellow car,” “daddy’s car,” and “kick it.” He can also name almost every kind of ball: “Foobbah, boccabah, backetbah.” For someone who has two older sisters and is surrounded by pink, he seems determined to bring some testosterone to the house,  and honestly it’s rather refreshing. He also seems determined to avoid ever peeing on the potty.

• We welcomed another member to our family: Sam the kitten. He fits right in with his extremely affectionate personality, high energy level and his tendency to get into mischief.

• We also lost our almost 13 year old family dog in mid-December and so we’re adjusting to being a cat family. While I am vacuuming less and no longer picking up dog poop in the backyard, I miss my old girl like crazy. She was worth every bit of extra work I had to do to care for her 115 pounds of pure hairy love.

• For the past four months or so I’ve kept my promise of no longer buying any cleaning products from the store. I’ve made my own all purpose cleaner using a citrus/vinegar base (see picture) and I’ve used baking soda, vinegar, Tea Tree Oil and colloidal silver for just about everything else. In addition to making my own laundry detergent for my clothes, I’ve been using soap nuts for my cloth diapers. I’m still relying on a left-over bottle of store bought glass cleaner for my windows and mirrors so if anyone knows of any streak-free homemade, all-natural glass cleaning solutions, please let me know.

• In 2013 I plan to continue making and using my homemade cleaning products, to always remember to put my my re-usable grocery bags in the car before I leave for the store, to potty-train Cooper and to spend less time cleaning the house and more time playing with my kids. Seriously. The crumbs on the floor can wait another half an hour but my kids won’t. They are growing up way too fast.

Are you making any New Year’s Resolutions this year?

Photo credit: mypurlsofwisdom.wordpress.com

The three R’s:  Reduce, Recycle and Re-use.  I’m fairly good at reducing, I’m great at recycling but I have to remind myself to choose to re-use.

Making my own cleaning products, mostly from baking soda, washing soda, vinegar, citrus oils, Tea Tree Oil and colloidal silver has been fun. I’ve also made my own bar soaps from glycerin, oatmeal and Tea Tree Oil. But I’ve had to resist the temptation to go out and buy all new matching plastic spray bottles, containers and soap molds. I seem to be a natural consumer. I enjoy shopping. I like buying new things. I like having cute coordinating sets and pretty patterns. But I’m slowly changing my habits.

Over the years I’ve brought hundreds of bottles of all-purpose spray cleaners, window cleaners, disinfectants.  And as long as I’ve been able, I’ve recycled the containers they came in but now that I need a spray bottle or two of my own, I’m thinking “Hey, there’s nothing wrong with this spray bottle. I’ll just rinse it out, peel off the label if I can and Voila!” I just save myself a dollar or two and resisted the temptation to be a conspicuous consumer.

The All-Purpose cleaning spray that I’ve been making takes two steps, the first of which is to soak orange rinds in vinegar in sealed glass jar for two weeks. It just so happens that the pasta sauce I use comes in a very nice glass jar with a screw-top lid.  After a little scrounging in the old recycle bin and I was ready to go. After two weeks, I strained the citrus vinegar mixture, added about a third of it to my re-used plastic spray bottle, added some water, and about fifteen drops of Colloidal Silver as an antimicrobial/disinfectant and my cleaning spray was ready to use.

I also made some home-made laundry detergent (for our clothes, not our cloth diapers). I made a big batch of this and I’m using a very sturdy yellow pail with a lid that once held (drum roll, please) kitty litter! (I’ll let you know when I’m officially trying it out and will provide the recipe once I know whether it’s any good). I’m still finishing off some all natural laundry detergent that I bought in bulk.

And what do I use to spray on my homemade facial toner (witch hazel and 10 drops of Tea Tree Oil)? Why a small bottle that originally held some Thirsties Booty Luster diaper spray! Do you find and re-use things from around the house? Please share how you find new uses for old items.

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New Wool Dryer Balls (Photo credit: Dazed81)

Dryer balls: something I’ve come across time and time again when perusing cloth-diapering blogs, yet not something I’ve ever used. Here’s the little I do know about them.

Plastic Dryer Balls: I’ve seen these at the grocery story in the laundry section. They come in a package of two, they’re blue and they look like they belong in the aisle with the pet toys. Seriously. The package says they naturally soften clothes (by pummeling them around, I suppose?) and will decrease drying time up to 25%. I’ve never even been moderately tempted to buy any, maybe because I don’t use fabric softener and I’m perfectly happy with the softness of my clothes without it and maybe because I’m skeptical.

Wool Dryer Balls: I’ve also come across dryer balls in green living blogs because they also supposedly soften clothes, require less drying time and decrease static electricity. Living in a dry climate we do have some static once in a while but it seems to go away after I fold the clothes. I’ve never dealt with “fabric cling” but that could be because I wear jeans and yoga pants and uh, little else. Since I can make them myself or maybe because they look like giant colorful Christmas ornaments or toys, I am tempted to try wool dryer balls. I’m not sure if they do anything different or better than the plastic balls but they are more earth friendly and cost-efficient if I make them myself.

Aluminum Dryer Balls: When searching “dryer balls” I also came across a site that claims that aluminum dryer balls are the way to go: easy to make from heavy duty aluminum foil and a great way to cut down on static cling. I can see how aluminum might help to cut down on static electricity and apparently they aren’t any more difficult to make than balling up some tinfoil into some tennis-ball sized forms.

Because I use only Thirsties Duo Fab Fitteds with Cooper right now, if I am using the dryer, it takes about an hour.  In the summer, thanks to the hot sun and dry air in Colorado, my diapers actually dry faster outside, especially if I turn them inside after about half an hour. If dryer balls can help cut down on the time my diapers are in the dryer, that would be great. And from what I understand, they soften clothes and diapers by the motion and gentle pounding they create.

Do you use dryer balls? Which kind do you use and how well do they work? Should I give them a try. Tell me what you think and Happy Holidays!

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About two weeks ago I packed up some shorts, some bathing suits and about half of our stash of Thirsties Cloth Diapers and Cooper and I flew from Colorado to Florida to visit my parents for a long weekend. As promised, I used cloth diapers on the plane and the whole time we were there. I packed my little bag of soap nuts to launder them with, thanks to a tip from a reader, and I was ready to go. And so was Cooper–to go Number One or Number Two, that is.

Our flight left before eight so we were up before dawn and driving in the dark. I had Cooper sleeping in his traveling outfit so I just woke him up, popped a clean Duo Fab Fitted and a cover on him and right on time, my sister and her 6 month old pulled up and we headed to the airport.

I checked Cooper’s diaper as soon as we had checked our bags. It was still dry, no surprise since he had only briefly nursed before getting into the car. I had packed four clean Duo Fab Fitteds and two extra covers, as well as two emergency disposables. Amazingly enough the flight was not full–not even close–and both my sister and I each got a whole row of three seats to ourselves. That’s the one plus to open seating–if you have a baby on your lap, many folks keep right on walking and though they might smile or tell me how cute Cooper is, they’d much rather sit next to a quiet stranger who is planning on reading, sleeping or working on his laptop for the whole flight than seemingly charming toddler.

I changed Cooper only one time on the flight, right on my lap since I was alone in the row. It was like any other diaper change because it was only wet. I tossed the wet diaper into my wetbag and cinched it tight, thankful that I wasn’t going to be the “lady with the funny smell” coming out from under her seat.” I suppose if it had been a poopy diaper I would have dumped the solid waste in the airplane toilet like I would have a home, but thankfully, I didn’t have to worry about it.

At my parents’ house I did a full load of diapers on Saturday–which meant all of Fridays dirty diapers and all of Saturdays except for the last two. Then I did a smaller load Sunday night as we packed up for our return trip. I put the wet diaper Cooper had slept in in a wetbag and stuffed it into the suitcase to wash when we were back home in Colorado.

All in all, traveling with cloth was much easier than I had anticipated. Sure the diapers took up room in my suitcase and diaper bag, but other than that, there wasn’t a single reason why I wouldn’t do it again. Of course, I failed to mention Cooper’s behavior, not to mention lack of sleeping on both four-hour flights…so cloth or disposable, I’m not in a rush to get back on a plane with him anytime soon.

I like to pick up things here and there throughout the year, long before cardboard Christmas trees, blue Hanukkah stars, red tinsel bells and cartoon snowmen with green scarves decorate every aisle of every store.  I find things on sale and if I buy a few things each month, it’s easier on our budget than doing all of my shopping over a few weeks in December. I’m going to be telling some secrets in this blog so I hope my family doesn’t read this.

In past years, I’ve given my sister and mother re-usable bags for grocery shopping but that was the extent of my “green gifting. This year, as I’m making more and more efforts to be Earth Friendly, I ordered some reusable produce bags for myself and my family. It’s so silly to bring in reusable bags and then fill them up with plastic produce bags. The bags are of a super lightweight mesh and fold up very small for transport. I ordered them from a popular website that sells high quality hand-made items and I felt like the price was more than fair.

As most of you know, I’m also working on making my own non-toxic cleaning products from everyday household products like baking soda and vinegar. On a whim, I also decided to make some home-made anti-bacterial hand-soap after I found some old glycerin bars from my old soap making days. Over ten years ago, I started making soap as a craft with an eight year old I was babysitting. Back then I wasn’t worried about being non-toxic and we were adding all kinds of scents and colors and we did made some cute, though not all-natural, soap. This time I just used the pure glycerine (melted in a bowl in the microwave), stirred in some Tea Tree Oil for it’s anti-bacterial properties, as well as some quick-cook plain oatmeal. I used the oatmeal for it’s soothing properties (my daughter with eczema takes oatmeal baths to help heal her itchy, dry skin). I liked how the oatmeal gave my soap some color and texture too. I’d love to add some fun essential oils next time if I remember to pick some up at the store. My favorites are peppermint and orange. Instead of buying more plastic molds, I wanted to use things I already had on hand. I poured the soap in small plastic snack-sized plastic cups for big bars and used the lids for smaller bars. (The soaps in the picture are from my first batch).

Lastly, I’m giving both my mother and sister a box of soap nuts because I really like mine–all-natural, compostable and re-newable. I sent a trial bag of five nuts back with my mother after her recent visit and she reports that she’s very pleased with the results–clean, soft clothes and no artificial scent. I’m glad you like them, Mom, because you’ll be getting some more!

I know not everyone would appreciate these kind of practical, no-nonsense and no-frills gifts, but like me, both my parents and my sister and brother-in-law are environmentally conscious and extremely practical. They take pride in being frugal and resourceful and I’m glad because frankly, I’m having fun with this and hopefully, making a small difference in the health of the planet.

Do you ever or receive give home-made or green gifts? Happy Holidays!

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