Diaper Woes...

So poor Gavin has been squeezing into his infant prefolds for WAY too long. I've been meaning to sew him up some diapers, but getting to the sewing machine has been a bit of a challenge, to say the least! But now that he weighs nearly 20 pounds, and his prefolds are only meant for up to 15 pounds, the situation was getting a little critical. My original "plan" (HA!) was that Owen would be POTTY TRAINED by the time Gavin outgrew his infant prefolds, and Gavin could wear Owen's Fuzzi Bunz. But alas, Owen is on his own timeline, and potty training is probably still a way off in the future. Not to mention the elastic has gone in them AGAIN, and I just don't have it in me to replace it all again right now.

I went to the Cape Breton Baby Company on the week-end and I picked up some beautiful wool Stacinator diaper covers at a steal. She wanted to get rid of them because she'd had them forever and no one was buying them, so she gave them to me at cost! I got 3 of them, one in a size medium and 2 in toddler size. The toddler size is a bit big yet, but he will grow into them eventually. They're SO nice and soft, and so much better than the PUL covers I was using with the prefolds. Now I just needed some diapers to go with them. I didn't want to invest in a whole new set of diapers, so I thought I'd make some pocket fitteds, and I could use his infant prefolds as inserts. It seemed like the cheapest, least wasteful option.

I sewed this one pretty quickly, (fast sewing is the only kind of sewing I can do these days!), so the quality is less than stellar... don't look too closely! You'll also have to forgive the photo quality; it was 10:00 last night, and Gavin was just waking up, needing a boob and a diaper change so the photography was a little hasty! Anyway, you'll get the gist.

I used the Mama Bird pattern again... it's a really simple, quick pattern.

I used some leftover t-shirt knit that I had used to make Owen some pants. It's nice to be able to use up leftover fabric!

I had some leftover microfleece that I used for the inner. It's nice because it wicks the moisture away from the baby.

The diaper looks wonky in this picture, but it's really not... just the way it was sitting. Like I said, I was in a rush!

And here is the pocket, showing the prefold, folded into thirds as an insert.

Now I just need to make about a dozen or so more. :)

A full and busy week!

Sorry I haven't been around this week. Things have been a bit busy around here (well, busier than usual!). My husband took the week off to work on the basement (hooray!), building and installing lots of shelving in the furnace room (hooray for storage!!), and also working on making a playroom for the kids! They have no idea that they're getting it, and we're hoping to have it done as a surprise for them for Christmas. It's a pretty small space, with very low ceilings (my poor husband's head almost touches the ceiling while he's working down there), but it will be a great playspace for the kids. And perhaps I'll regain a tiny bit of sanity, knowing that I can simply avoid going down there if I don't want to see the mess! Right now our living room doubles as a play room, and the kids can destroy it in about five minutes flat. Also, Gavin will be mobile pretty soon (he can already scoot around on his tummy!), and in spite of my hypervigilance, there are always little tiny toys on the floor. So it will be nice to have the bigger kids' toys downstairs, so Gavin can safely play up here. I promise to post plenty of pictures when it's all done! :)

Boosting Immunity

As a family, we are trying to protect ourselves as best we can against H1N1 (and viruses in general), by boosting our immunity naturally. We have decided against the vaccine, for numerous reasons, so we need to be proactive in protecting our health. A friend and I researched and collaborated on various ways of boosting our immune systems. I wrote them out, and posted them on our fridge (complete with nice magnets!). :) I've been meal-planning around the foods on this list to ensure that we stay as healthy as possible this flu season.

Is anyone else taking a proactive approach? Any other suggestions for anything I might have missed?

Cleaning out the medicine cabinet

My weekly cleaning routine entails cleaning a different part of the house each day of the week. And whatever part of the house I'm cleaning, I try to tackle one extra chore in that room, in addition to the regular weekly cleaning. So on my last kitchen cleaning day, I decided it was time to tackle the medicine cupboard. It had been long-since neglected, and it had become more of a junk cupboard - a place to stick things when we didn't know where else to put them. (Sorry I didn't take any before pictures - just trust me when I say it was bad!!). One thing I've figured out is that the best way to avoid sticking things where they don't belong is by labeling!! Once there's a label on something, I'm far less likely to put something there that doesn't really go there.

(I know that's a funny place for our keys to go - it looked more normal when it was our "junk" cupboard!)

We're also gradually moving away from traditional, over-the-counter medications to more herbal remedies, so I wanted a shelf just for the herbal remedies that would continue to grow as we eliminated the other stuff. Being able to see them there, separately, makes it easier to see how we're doing in that regard.

There were lots of expired medications in there, as well as some medications that were recently deemed unsafe to give children under the age of 6 (according to Health Canada). That list that you see on the cupboard door lists all of the ingredients that kids under 6 should not be given. I figured by the time my kids were 6 those meds would be expired anyway, so I might as well go ahead and pull them out of there now. I bagged up those meds, plus the expired ones, to take to the pharmacy for disposal (so that they wouldn't end up in a landfill).

I love how great it feels to organize just one tiny area of my home. It seems so insignificant - just one little cupboard - but every time I open it, it's like a choir of angels is singing to me. :) And doing one little cupboard here and one little drawer there adds up to a lot of organization over time. And brings just a little more peace into my day.

Pumpkin-Fetching

We have an annual Hallowe'en tradition of going to Flemming's Farm to pick out our pumpkins each year, and this year was no exception.

Norah seems to have found the perfect pumpkin.

Owen, of course, picks the furthest one he can find!

See just how far he was...

The pumpkins were all looking a little green this year. Not sure what that's about. Mrs. Flemming said it had something to do with the weather. Everyone's pumpkins were green this year. Any ideas for some green Jack - o - Lanterns??

One more gander... just in case she missed one...

...a view of the pumpkin field. I was sitting, cozy, in the van... nursing my hungry babe and watching the action, while Bruce wielded the camera and the children.

Happy Hallowe'en week, everyone!

Off to the Eco Expo

One of our favourite events to attend each year is the Cape Breton Eco Expo. I don't know that the kids fully understand what it's about, but we take them anyway! There are some great kids' exhibits (like a constellation tent!), so they definitely get some entertainment value out of it. Last year there were some really great booths, and I'm hoping that it has expanded this year. There was a booth of handcrafted items made from recycled materials, which I loved. And someone was selling handmade cleaners, and someone else was selling handmade personal care products. I think there was a candlemaker there too, if I recall correctly. And lots of information booths from various organizations. Nova Scotia Power was there, talking about their renewable energy goals. There will be a presentation from the Cape Breton Vegetarian Society, talking about the benefits of a plant-based diet for both us and the planet, which I will definitely be attending. No matter how far we've come, we still have so much to learn, and I love any and all opportunities to do so! And it's fun to meet with like-minded people, or those who are just beginning their journey.

Have a great week-end! See you next week.

Project: Garbage-Free

Yesterday's post made me realize that we are inching closer to our goal of being garbage-free. There was a time when I would never have thought that this was achievable. The days when our garbage was overflowing with disposables of all kinds. The days before we began composting, when all of our food scraps, shamefully, landed in the landfill, instead of being returned back to the earth where they belong. The whole idea of a landfill rubs me the wrong way. The fact that, as human beings, we are so incredibly wasteful that we actually had to create an entire industry around collecting people's garbage, week after week, and dumping it into a big pile. When the pile gets too big, we cover it up with some nice grass, and start a new pile. It's completely appalling. If you haven't already, I encourage you to watch this video: The Story of Stuff. It's one that I watched in the early days of our journey, and it's very eye-opening and inspiring.

I recall reading awhile ago about a culture (for the life of me I can't remember what it was) that doesn't even have a word in their language for garbage. Everything they have and use either continues to be used, or gets returned to the earth in some manner. That just goes to show how completely unnecessary it is. With just a little more effort and consciousness, I think being garbage-free is completely attainable.

I know that we've come a long way. When we first started this journey, over two years ago now (wow, has it been that long??) we took out a kitchen-can sized bag of garbage every single day. That was just part of my evening kitchen clean-up, was to empty the garbage. And it was full. Now I would say that, on average, we empty the kitchen garbage once a month. How have we done it?

• As I mentioned, we've ditched the disposables
• Our community started a curbside compost pick-up (if your community does not yet have one available, I strongly encourage you to lobby your municipal government to start one), but soon we will be starting our own backyard composter
• Just generally become more conscious of what we purchased, so that we don't have much crap to throw away
• Started buying flushable, biodegradable kitty litter
• Stopped buying processed foods, which are often packaged in non-recyclable packaging
• Started repurposing things that would otherwise have been garbage
• As of yesterday, started buying recycled and recyclable toothbrushes. :)

Really, those were the major things. And yet, we're still managing to produce a bag (albeit a small one) of garbage a month. I'm more determined than ever to stop producing garbage. :)

So how are we going to do it? Well, when we first started budgeting our money in a purposeful way, the very first step was to track our spending. Every penny. You can't possibly know where you're going unless you know where you've been. In order to know what you're wasting money on, you must first write down every itty bitty expenditure. At the end of the month, you add them all up, categorize them, and stand, with your mouth gaping open, at all the waste. Well, I've decided to track our garbage production in the same way. Enter, the Garbage Log:

I tacked a piece of paper above the garbage can, and anyone who throws something in the garbage must write down what it is. I figure this will achieve two things: One, we'll think twice about what we put in there. Is it really garbage? Is it compostable? Recyclable? Are we just not sure? Do we need to call the recycling hotline (yes, we have one of those!) to find out? Can it be re-used? Freecycled? Re-purposed? The remaining things, the things that we determine are, in fact, garbage, will require more thought. How did we acquire them? Why? Is there a garbage-free alternative? Was it something that someone else gave to us? (Which, admittedly, happens often... packaging, etc. from things other people give us, that we have to dispose of - things that come from the Dollar Store, etc.). Can we find a way to tactfully refuse such things, or request garbage-free alternatives?

Just this morning, it occurred to me that one of things we throw away are the rubber bands that hold our broccoli together. We just have so many of them, that I really couldn't justify keeping them any more, so I started throwing them out. (I guess that's a testament to how much broccoli we go through around here. lol). Well, it occurred to me, that Hank's, the place we go to get our produce, would likely be very happy to have these back! I'm going to start saving them up in a ziplock bag, and returning them there.

It also occurred to me that if we only bought clothing made from natural fibers, it could eventually be composted when it was completely worn out. (After being used as rags, and whatever other use we can get out of it). So no more polyester purchases.

These two things occurred to me just from putting up that Garbage Log - before I had actually written anything on it!

Anyway, that's the plan! I'm on a mission to be garbage-free. I also think this is going to be a very cool homeschool project! Environmental Science, anyone? :) I'll update periodically with our progress, and I'll post what things are on the Garbage Log so that you all can help me eliminate those things. Does anyone care to join me in this?? I'd love some company in this so we can challenge and encourage each other!