I’ll admit it, as a family of four I am now getting my butt kicked with the laundry.

It is not so much the cloth diaper laundry that is killer but just the shear volume of stuff to wash in a week. Sure the spit up outfits and bedding is a temporary contributing factor as is my inability to focus more than say five minutes on any one task before I am needed elsewhere… but I am honestly floundering in the piles of clothes guys.

Thankfully, piles of dirty clothes aren’t hanging around but I have a serious problem getting the clean ones put away. You see, right now there is this giant pile of stuff in the bedroom chair that I fold and mess with on occasion but basically we just rifle through the giant pile to get the wrinkled, clean but cat hair covered clothing item that we want to wear.

Dressers and folding clothes is kind of overrated when you have newborn in the house!

Luckily, this weekend my husband and I were able to knock out the laundry together because we stayed home. Actually, he knocked it all out as a treat to me.

Some ways we’ve found laundry success:

Be strategic about the laundry.
In our house, the key is folding the laundry and putting it away during Everly’s (our toddler) nap time. Folding and putting things away while she is awake means things immediately get unfolded and thrown about the house.

I wash, dry and pile the clothes in a room where Everly jumps in the clean pile and throws clothes around but when she passes out for nap time, if I have the energy and determination, I bust out folding and putting things away.

Also, USE THE BUZZER on your washer and dryer! It is a great way to remind you of when laundry cycles end and prevent the dreaded mildew smelling laundry that sat in the washer, all wet for several hours or days.

I also tend to wash clothes by laundry basket instead of mixing them all together and then separating colors out. In doing this I can avoid the sorting and carting of laundry all around the house.

On my motivated days Everly’s laundry basket down stairs gets divided by light & dark, then washed and dried separately. Then her dry clothes go right in to her room where they are folded and put away immediately, or jumped on and thrown around. Nothing wrong with letting the kid have fun right?

Our upstairs clothes get laundered together and then I know I can just cart them all back up stairs for folding and putting away.

Also, if you wash clothes predominately in warm/ cold water (like we do) and don’t have any brand new, potentially bleeding fabric colors in your load you don’t even need to divide colors. I only divide loads when I am washing new stuff, have major stains to treat or are laundering something new.

You don’t need all the fancy laundry products to get clean clothes!
We don’t use bleach in our house and I make my own laundry detergent for washing clothes, bedding, etc. I do buy special cloth diapering laundry detergent though.

Adding borax to a load of dingy whites will brighten them right up. Also, stains can be bleached out with the sun if you just hang them to dry outside. All my cloth diapers with poop stains get sun bleached as well as my cloth menstrual pads.

Any blood on clothes can be stain treated with some peroxide and then laundered in cold. Cold water rinses the stains out then you can launder with hot water to disinfect if you’d like. Don’t launder your stained stuff in hot water without doing a cold rinse first. The hot water sets the stains in.

Want soft clothes without the perfume and additives of fabric softener? We do! We use distilled white vinegar to soften and also freshen the laundry. Vinegar is great for removing stink from clothes too, like when our cat pees on a bath mat or when our cloth diapers start smelling like ammonia.

Doing laundry doesn’t have to be a huge ordeal and it doesn’t have to cost you a fortune. If you just plan your strategy and arm yourself with simple laundry helping products you an dominate the piles easily and cheaply.

For more laundry tips and posts visit: http://www.blogher.com/fluff-and-fold-family or enter the $250 Sweepstakes at http://www.blogher.com/life-well-lived-moments-sweepstakes-3-share-moment-and-enter-win-250

I figured this would be a timely post to help parents and children color their Easter Eggs naturally this weekend. Initially we weren’t planning to dye eggs with Everly this year for a number of reasons.

1. I hate the smell, taste and concept of hard boiled eggs. It makes me want to puke and with a pregnant, heightened sense of smell it will be even more yucky to me now.
2. I don’t want to buy white grocery store eggs just to dye them and then not eat them.
3. Everly isn’t quite at the age where she’ll care about not being given the chance to decorate eggs.
4. Is she even old enough to enjoy the egg dying process? I am not too sure.

Instead we got a handful of plastic eggs to fill with trinkets. Now that Nathan has discovered that brown eggs can be dyed and that they look vivid and amazing we are going to give dying them a try after all. He is going to be the one eating them after this is all said and done though.

I began my natural dye research after it was clear Everly’s 2nd birthday (in just 2 months) will be Elmo themed. She’s 100% Elmo all the time now so an Elmo cake is in order. However, the idea of red dye drenched frosting, with all it’s chemical nastiness wasn’t an exciting prospect for me so I began my research to find out ways to make natural dye easily.

I found a ton of info and not surprisingly, all sorts regular stuff can be easily used to make dye. You just need to know some basics about the dying process first.

Dye Recipe Instructions for eggs:

Image source: Flickr

Select a dyeing agent (outlined below) and place it in the pot. Add 1 quart water and 2 tablespoons white vinegar to pot; if more water is necessary to cover ingredients, proportionally increase the amount of vinegar. Bring to a boil, then lower heat. Allow the ingredients to simmer for 30 minutes. Strain dye into a bowl.

Note: If you are using the dyes to make colored icing or dry items like play dough, omit the vinegar (I’ll post more details about coloring icing and other dry items later).

Seems simple enough right? You are just heating the dye ingredients to extract the colors and juices used for dye. These are a handful of dye ingredients you can round up for your dying:

For Green Dye:
Dried powdered spinach will make a yellowish green. Add 1 teaspoon vinegar to 2 tablespoons powdered spinach and 1 cup boiling water| Add 1/4 teaspoon baking soda and the dye will turn green, and if you allow it to stand for several hours to overnight, it will turn a dark yellow or orange

For Red Dye:
Use 4 cups chopped cabbage to get a red dye. Also, dark red beets will make a red or pink shade (depending on how many you use.) You can use them in the wet form, if you smash them, and strain the juice through cheese cloth. You can also use dried red beets to make a great pink or red icing (perfect for valentines day). Red onion skins can also be used with very little water, boil and then strain through cheese cloth.

For Yellow Dye:
3 tablespoons turmeric works well for a yellow dye. About 4 cups of onion skins will make a deep yellowish gold color.

For Brown Dye:
Try 1 quart strong black coffee with the cold-dipping method for a nice brown color. Also, 1 tablespoon instant coffee (or loose tea) can be used. Tea and coffee produce different shades of brown, so you might to experiment with this one. For an even different color (darker) brown try cocoa powder instead of coffee.

For Blue Dye:
Red cabbage juice used with the cold-dipping method can get a blue dye color. Also, blackberry juice or fruit gives a reddish blue result or blueberry juice or fruit can be used for a blue gray result.

For Purple Dye:
Try 1/2 cup violet blossoms for a nice purple dye. You can also use lavender with 1/8 cup lemon juice, it will causes a chemical reaction and makes a pretty lavender color.

For Pink Dye:
Red cabbage makes a pink color well. Also, dried dark red beets will make a red or pink shade (depending on how much you use.) You can use them in the wet form, if you smash them, and strain the juice through cheese cloth. You can also use dried red beets.

Dye dipping methods do vary depending on the color you want to achieve and the process you wish to take. Cold-dipping produces subtle, translucent shades, but can result in uneven coloring unless the eggs are rotated vigilantly while in the dye. The plus is cold dipping is often a better choice for children who are doing the dying and decorating. The boiling method gets a richer, more even color but makes multi-colored eggs difficult and can be too scary for some parents to allow their children to do. The basic instructions for both methods of dipping are below.

Cold-Dipping Method:
With this method, the eggs and the ingredients for the dye are boiled separately. Using a metal spoon, lower cooled hard-boiled eggs into a bowl of cooled dye, and let them soak for as little as 5 seconds or as long as overnight, depending on the depth of color you desire. Remove eggs with spoon, pat dry with paper towels, and let dry on a wire rack.

Boiled Method:
This method involves boiling the eggs with the dye; the heat allows the dye to saturate the shells, resulting in intense, more uniform color. Set raw eggs in a pot of strained dye; bring to a boil. Remove and dry eggs as with the cold-dipping method.

Coloring your Easter eggs in natural ways is a great activity for children to partake in. It teaches the usefulness of plants and other ingredients in nature, it spurs creativity and urges resourcefulness too; all while having fun and celebrating the Easter holiday!

It can also be a great adventure when children are given some leaway to forage around and find the ingredients for the dyes, they can even combine several ingredients, make some predictions about what color will be produced and have a fun surprise when they actually see the results of their colored their eggs.

With earth day just around the corner, why not try a new approach to Easter Egg coloring? It is fun, creative, educational and eco-friendly!

If you enjoyed this and would like more craft project inspiration you should check out some of my past projects here.

Well, I did it! I finally prepared as somewhat “raw” meal for the family and it wasn’t half bad. Technically since we used a skillet instead of the food dehydrator it wasn’t 100% raw in terms of cooking but it was much different that what we’ve gotten used to.

I made black bean burgers. Sounds simple and kind of odd uh? Basically you sprout the black beans for several days before your meal.

Then you mash them. My recipe called for scallops, garlic, red pepper, cumin and parsley to season the beans. I just threw the beans, spices and some water in the food processor and blender.

My food processor is super small so I used a blender but had to go back to the food processor because the blender doesn’t really work on thicker consistency stuff like black bean burgers.

I ended up adding too much water to my mix which meant the patties weren’t going to be shapeable or hold their form so I sprinkled in some bread crumbs. When N got home we talked about cooking or not cooking them. The recipe called for putting them in the food dehydrator, raw style. N wanted to fry them in the skillet so I added an egg to make them hold form under heat better, then more bread crumbs…

They were very good! It is recommended to eat them on a bun with typical burger toppings and whatnot. We disagree. They are much better and you can taste all the diverse flavors more without the bun and all the extra stuff.

Just some light salt and it was super yummy!

Now, for those of us converting from processed foods to more raw foods it is important to take digestive enzymes or as one of my clients says, “eat more raw fruits and vegetables” so your body gets those natural enzymes to help you break down and digest the beans easier.

I read an interesting article a few months back comparing the digestive enzymes and bacterias in our gut to those in what is considered 3rd world countries… Turns out those people in less developed societies, those that are forced to eat off the land have more beneficial enzymes and bacterias present than those of us living predominantly off processed, cooked foods.

The thing is our bodies need those enzymes and nutrients found in raw foods to thrive. Cooking and over-processed stuff just saps the good stuff right out of our food before we even begin dygesting it.

I am not saying we all need to adapt 100% raw diets, we certainly aren’t but the evidence does support trying to incorporate MORE raw foods. One step at a time I am trying to do this for my family.

I’ve had green cleaning on the brain as a result of helping a friend with her eco-friendly cleaning company. Not only is it something I feel passionate about but it is also insanely cheap (cheaper than most of the toxic commercial cleaners sold in stores) and refreshingly many people are looking to green their own house cleaning routines.

Here are ten of my favorite green cleaning tips and recipes that anyone can try. I hope you give at least one a try and let us know how it went for you. Don’t hesitate to come back when you’ve got a nagging green cleaning issue to tackle either!

1. Baking soda to clean the oven grime off stove tops and ovens.

Baking soda and vinegar water removes soap scum in bathrooms much like Comet or other scouring powders do. I normally sprinkle my damp sponge or cloth with baking soda, spritz down the area to be cleaned with vinegar water and then I’ll scrub away. I use my vinegar water spray to further wet the stubborn spots and I reapply the baking soda to the sponge as needed.

2. Peroxide and the moldy shower.

If you aren’t excited about using nasty bleach to kill the mold (like me) you can try peroxide and a brush/toothbrush. Peroxide is a great killer of all sorts of organic messes. Everyone knows it dissolves blood stains but it also works great on mold spots. Don’t be afraid to apply several times or even leave it to soak in for a while if you’ve got a big mess to clean.

3. Soap scum magic mixture

Baking soda paste or vinegar water spray are great ways to remove soap scum. You can also spray on lemon juice on the soap scum to dissolve it. For our tub/ shower I prefer to use dry baking soda on a sponge to scour away the soap scum because spray bottles are lacking around here. Got a spray bottle? You could just combine all three cleaning agents and spritz them on the soap scum, leave it to work it’s magic and return later for alight  scrubbing and rinse.

4. Lemon to disinfect porous surfaces.

Most people know to clean a wooden cutting board with lemon juice but few take this advice further beyond the cutting board. If you are like me and have a wooden kitchen table or if you are lucky enough to have butcher block counters or a wooden baking cart or anything else porous you can use lemon juice to disinfect these too.

You see wood absorbs just about everything, then it comes in to contact with your food so you don’t want it absorbing nasty cleaners that can cause overgrowth of superbacteria, which disinfectants can cause.

5. Vinegar to clean the microwave

I’ve blogged about placing  vinegar/ water in a microwave safe bowl and nuking it, it loosens all the baked on microwave grime effortlessly. The steam from the warmed mixture does wonders saturating the mess in the microwave then all you have to do is wipe the steam and wet gooey mess from the microwave with a dry cloth.

6. Squeaky clean and streak free windows

A simple solution of vinegar and rubbing alcohol will leave your windows looking spic and span in no time. The trick? Both ingredients will evaporate as they cleanse, making the job easier on you! The recipe: one cup of water, one cup of isopropyl rubbing alcohol, and one tablespoon of white vinegar. For even more success skip using the cloth to clean and instead use a newspaper. Works like a charm.

7. Skip the Draino, clear your drain naturally

Homemade drain cleaners often include the following ingredients, baking soda, table salt, cream of tarter, vinegar, lemon juice and boiling water. The idea is to first add a dry, caustic agent followed by an acidic liquid agent, then the boiling water flushes and burns it all ideally clearing the clog. My favorite recipe calls for 1/4 cup of pure lemon juice, 1/2 cup of baking soda, 1 cup of white vinegar and 1 gallon or so of boiling water. First you put the baking soda down the clogged drain then you slowly pour a mixture of the vinegar and lemon juice down the drain. Wait about ten minutes or so for it to do the trick then quickly pour all the boiling water down to flush the mixture and the clog.

8. Homemade gel air freshener

Did you know you can easily make those gel like air fresheners sold in stores using stuff you already have at home? All you need is some gelatin powder, water, salt and some fragrance old drops. Boil one cup of distilled water, mix in four packets of gelatin and stir until it is dissolved. Remove from heat and add another cup of room temperature distilled water, 2 tablespoons of salt and about 10 drops of your fragrance oil, mix. Pour the mixture in to small jars or containers and let it sit at room temperature for about 12 hours or so, then place in your stinky rooms and you’ll be good to go.

9. Vinegar as a fabric softener & freshener

Vinegar is great for a number of things, it is especially a wonder for laundry. Got a stinky front loading washer? Vinegar in the load, in place of the fabric softener will not only remove the moldy/ mildew smell but it will leave you laundry feeling oh, so soft without the harmful dyes, scents and other junk in many commercial fabric softeners. Did you know those fabric softeners even contribute to the wearing down of your garments faster? All the more reason to freshen and soften naturally!

10. Homemade carpet freshener & dirt loosener

Baking soda not only deodorizes stuff but it works magic to cling to and help you vaccume up debris and pet hair from carpets. Same goes for borax, though it’s not as natural. Furthermore, if you have a nasty pet accident you can use vinegar to scrub urine, let it completely dry. Then sprinkle some baking soda or borax over the spot, allow it to sit and become ground in, then run a vacuum over the area to finish the clean up.

We use the carpet cleaning trick often with our 3 indoor cats and the white carpeting in our home. I am happy to say the carpets still look pretty great and not stinky.

The number of natural cleaning solutions out there are endless. Each time I find a cleaning challenge I often learn a new recipe or trick but basically the standard ingredients stay the same.

Baking soda, vinegar, peroxide, lemon juice, rubbing alcohol are found in most homes and they harness simple yet effective cleaning powers when used on the proper cleaning challenges. I hope this article has given you some ideas and resources so you may take a stab at greening your cleaning routine. One step at a time we all can become more eco-friendly!

“I wrote this blog post while participating in the TwitterMoms and Mrs. Meyer’s blogging program, making me eligible to get a $30 gift card. For more information on how you can participate, click here.”

On our quest to live more sustainably and to be more eco-friendly we’ve made several changes to our daily lives. As some of you already know, I’ve made the switch from disposable feminine hygiene products to reusable ones this year. Being a seasoned cloth diapering mom has proved that bodily functions aren’t world ending in the laundry department.

If I can get poop, pee and vomit out of clothing without stains or a gross washer why not a little blood? I know that sentence made you cringe. I was cringing and gagging when I first heard about washing sanitary napkins too.

When I began looking in to all the positive opinions about them I became intrigued. Then I opened my eyes to the environmental impacts of the plastic and all the resources needed to make them and was more swayed. Plus, reusing cloth pads saves money over your lifetime and it is better for you.

When someone linked the chemicals in bleaching the pulp with fertility issues and increased menstrual pain I was pretty much sold on the idea of making the switch to cloth menstrual pads.

One of the main concerns over disposables (diapers, tampons and pads) is that the chemicals used to process, bleach and make them absorbent are super bad for you.

• According to Greenpeace, there are traces of dioxin and TBT (tributyl-tin), two highly toxic chemicals in disposable diapers. The EPA lists Dioxin as the most toxic of all cancer-linked contagions.
• Sodium polyacrylate (the clear gel-like substance you often find on your baby’s genitals after a diaper change) was banned in 1985 because of its link to Toxic Shock Syndrome but is still found in diapers and menstrual pads.
• Some disposable pads contain latex (to make the plastic soft) and dioxins (a carcinogen left from the bleaching process). These have been linked to many period related issues and are also allergens for some.

There is some debate about the dangers of these chemicals and the impact on us. Do I think the government and product manufacturers are intentionally poisoning us? No!

Is there a chance that there are unrealized or minor dangers resulting from the use of these chemicals? I think there most certainly could be. Personally if there is a more natural, potentially safer alternative I prefer it.

Chemical ingredients aside I’ve sure felt different since making the switch. I’ve had way fewer instances of cramps, lighter flow and a few other personal things that I wont list here (email me if you are curious).

Generally I’ve felt much better and had more pleasant periods. Additionally, my cycles have also become much more regulated and clear cut since making the switch.

Although, N will vouch for the fact that my mood (aka bitchiness) leading up to the time of the month hasn’t changed much. I am sure that is one area he would be glad to see improvement in… Ha, ha.

Why am I telling you all this again? Because I am reminded of the torture that is a disposable pad tonight… Sadly, being sick means I’ve gotten behind in my laundry washing and I am wearing a dreaded disposable tonight, none of my cloth ones are clean and dry. The plastic feeling is so gross and the material part is like sticking to me… SICK!!!

Tonight is a major reminder of what I AM NOT missing with disposable pads.

Wanna learn more about cloth menstrual pads? Here is one mom’s video review on her pads.

Sources:

1. New Tests Confirm TBT Poison in Proctor & Gamble’s Pampers®: Greenpeace Demands World-wide Ban of Organotins in All Products
2. Your Baby’s Safe…Are You?
3. American Women’s Club of Hamburg: Hidden Dangers of Disposable Diapers
4. Why use a Reusable Product

Yesterday our AC was out and we spent the day in a 80+ degree house waiting on the repair man. It started getting warm in the wee hours of the morning, like 3am-ish. The night was sleepless because of the uncomfortable temperature of the house and we all were up and at em quite early yesterday.

Got the call in to the repairman, N headed off to work and E and I waited around for the repairman. Of course they never come soon enough when something like an AC needs fixing. So we wandered the house in minimal clothing and tried to keep things nice and dark to keep the hot summer sun out and the temperature inside down.

I had E in just a diaper all day, even at nap time. Turns out that was a mistake because she’s able to remove the Velcro diapers if she wants to and she did just that.

We came in the get her after her afternoon nap and there she was standing up in her crib totally naked, diaper wadded up in the corner and a urine soaked bed. We lucked out because it was just a urine mess.

Today was another story, when N and E got up this morning there was poosplosion all over the crib. Much like the vomitsplosion we had a few months back. Poor thing had her diaper still on (because she wasn’t sleeping naked and thus didn’t have access to unfastening her diaper) but lots of poop leaked out all over the bed, her arms, her doll, blankets, crib bumper and everything else in that crib.

Needless to say the morning started off with a bath and some bed stripping. A poop covered laundry doesn’t scare me though. Never thought I’d be saying that. Ha, ha.

Seriously though, cloth diaper laundering has taught me lots about how to treat various messes on linens. I don’t need no stinking stain removers or heavy duty detergents either.

Just rinsed all the poop covered stuff in cold water, specifically in a cold wash & an extra rinse with NO detergent in the washer. Then I did a hot wash with Planet Detergent (my cloth diaper detergent) and then took the stuff outside to dry and sanitize.

I know I say this all the time but it is amazing how effective the sun is at removing a majority of laundry stains. It doesn’t cost money and it can lower your energy bills by drying the laundry as well as bleaching out stains. I love harnessing the power of the sun to remove poop stains, blood stains and other food stains (like pasta sauce, berry stains and more). If you haven’t already tried “sunning-out” a laundry stain I’d encourage you to do so, it is amazing!

Some other homemade laundry ideas are:

Homemade bleach (that is safe and non-toxic)

Combine 1 cup of hydrogen peroxide with about 3 tablespoons of lemon juice, add to 15 cups of cool water. Mix and use int he wash as you would standard bleach. Can dilute further if you pan on soaking clothing in the beach or simply store in a cool, dry & darn location where it will keep for about four months.

Add Borax to the wash

Borax (Sodium Tetraborate) can be purchased at places like Walmart, a hardware store or even a local grocery store. It is a natural alternative to color-safe bleach, it naturally softens hard water and boosts the cleaning power of your existing detergent. It is also HE compatible and is an effective stain remover. Just add 1/2 cup to each wash.

What is your favorite laundry tip or your biggest laundry nemesis?

What Evansville, Indiana lacks in natural food stores it makes up for with farmers…

Back in Flagstaff, Arizona we loved our natural food store but when we joined the local CSA we weren’t that impressed with the variety of the shares we got. The things we got were good, it was just the exact same thing each week for months. (Wondering what a CSA is? Read more here.) Our food came from kind of far even with the CSA and we really had a heck of a time finding affordable organic/ free range meat options in Arizona.

In Northern Arizona the only real option was to buy a share of an animal from a farmer (or the whole thing). You pay the farmer upfront, they feed and raise the animal, when times comes for slaughter you go pay the meat processor, pick up your meat and haul it back to your house to store and consume.

Here in Evansville we found a place that does a meat CSA (Stonewall Farms) and we totally signed up! We spotted their booth at a local community event and purchased a few steaks from them to enjoy. They were amazing steaks and we loved the idea of supporting them.

“All our animals have free range all day, every day and they receive no pesticides, antibiotics, hormones, animal by-products, or herbicides…not on the pasture and not in their feed. We believe that because they are giving their lives for us, we owe it to them to see they lead happy, healthy, stress-free lives.”

We are getting 20lbs of meat per month in a variety of cuts, chicken, pork and beef. We are also getting farm fresh eggs each month and a turkey in November. It averages out to about $5.80 per pound over the course of the entire year which is not a bad price for grass fed, hormone free meat. Especially considering the wide range of variety in the cuts and types of meat you get.

What is bad is that we just paid $10 a gallon for Organic Valley milk at the River City Food Co-op. It is the only place in town that carries this milk and after polling my facebook friends I now know we paid way more than they do. We want organic, hormone free cows milk. How is that so impossible to find? Strongly considering going the raw underground route because paying $20 for two gallons of milk is CRAZY!!

Anyway, it makes me happy that we are leaps and bounds closer to being more eco-friendly and healthy in our food choices now that we’ve found a good CSA meat source. Combined with our vegetable garden we’ve almost eliminated all the bad crap from our diet. Still looking for a viable milk solution and perhaps a better deodorant option because the deodorant we’ve been trying out leaves me smelling kind of off. Not total stinky armpit like, just not shower fresh. Be glad you are reading this and can’t smell me right now. Ha!

It is only May 6th and we already have over fifty photos in our May 2010 digital photo album. Figured I could make this a photo essay of the last week or so to recap and share it all.

What? Pictures are the only way I can seem to remember what I’ve done these days. Plus, it is my goal to take at least one photo of Everly each day so we have it all documented and for the scrapbook or whatever.

Here are the finished Eclair sandwiches I made.

Turns out I don’t have the tip for piping filling in to things like I thought I did. Plus, the Eclairs didn’t rise as much as I expected them to so I resorted to piping filling on top of one and sandwiching another right on top.

This last Saturday we hung out at a local eco-minded event where we snagged organic free range eggs and 2 amazing steaks from Stonewall Farms where they are offering a new meat csa. This means we can buy shares of meat and not have to buy and store the whole cow or whatever. So excited!

We also got to show Everly some farm animals that were there:

While we were chilling and talking with other eco-minded locals like Wendy Bredhold, Dana Nelson, Ruth of the Evansville BirthNetwork and Katie of Little Ants this adorable little hula-hooping boy spotted Everly and came over to visit with her.

We had a blast at the event and are super glad we made it out. Met several cool people, found some new eco-friendly community resources and enjoyed a day out as a family.

Everly and her dad take a morning adventure each day, on one of their outings they came across this turtle in the road. N scooped it up to save it from becoming road kill.

A month or so back I was witness to a fellow driver carelessly speeding down our street and running right over a turtle in the road. I was upset and even had N go check it see if it needed saving after the incident. It was very dead though.

Anyway, he saved this turtle and brought it back home to show me (and to set it free out in our pond). Everly got to meet him too. She crawled all around the kitchen after Mr. Turtle. He wasn’t slow either. Now he’s got a new home away from roads out back in our pond.

Trying to get chores done around the house can be a challenge when Everly is clingy. Some days she just wont stand for having the focus off her. She has to go everywhere I go and do everything I do so I find ways to make it happen.

It is crazy but she totally loves hanging out in the laundry basket. Not sure why… It is kind of strange but hey, it makes her happy and lets me get stuff done so what is the harm?

Oh and look what came in the mail today:

It is an early Mother’s Day gift from my parents back in Arizona. 12 of the most amazing dipped strawberries from Shari’s Berries for my enjoyment. Totally a surprise. Everly is ready to dig right in too, LOL!

Last month I took the plunge. I decided to order a set of cloth pantyliners that were on sale at one of the online diaper shops I frequent. They were only like $9.00 for a set of six and I’ve been curious to try the whole cloth menstrual pad thing for a while now (better known as “mama cloth”).

I already wash Everly’s cloth diapers so why not add a few cloth pads to the mix once a month? Everyone says they are sooo much more comfortable and heck they’d sure save money.

The average women goes through about $150 – $200 worth of menstrual products a year, every year for around 30-40 years – That’s over $6,000! from: http://labyrinth.net.au

Besides, one of the main arguments against disposables (pads, diapers, etc) is the environmental and health impacts. The bleaching of paper products is one major health issue that stands out for me. There is also the huge amount of resources it takes to produce these disposable products (cut trees for wood, water used turning the wood to pulp and then paper, etc).

Having a set of reusable pads sure would save money over time and it would also leave less of an environmental impact over the course of my life. I figured why not? It can’t hurt to try.

N wasn’t that thrilled, I know the idea seems a bit gross right? Wont there be unsightly stains, goopy chunks and all around vomit inducing stench? Most people would think so but the answer is absolutely not!

Let me use my cloth diapering experience to illustrate why: At any time I’ve got a few of urine soaked diapers (that sometimes have poop in them) waiting to be laundered in the diaper pail already.

Frequent washing (with my favorite all natural “cloth diaper safe” detergent, Planet) and hanging outside to dry is the best way to keep cloth diapering from being a gross experience.

You just flip the diaper inside out over the toilet so the solids fall off, the rest goes right in the wash. The right detergent rinses and dissolves the “pieces” and it all goes right down the drain. No stinky washer and no yucky remnants in the washer. People can’t believe this but I assure you it is true.

After washing if there are any unusual stains the bleaching effects of the sunshine will leave everything good as new. I know this too is hard to believe since we are all conditioned to think we need heavy duty stain removers for the laundry. Truthfully most mass-marketed laundry detergents cause more laundry problems than they fix. So, hanging your stained stuff outside in the sunshine to dry is great for removing stains and for saving on energy costs.

By the way, just last week I also learned that cloth diaper detergent and sunshine removes vomit mess from bedding and clothes. Even a white nightgown was stained orange from Everly’s mac & cheese puke but now it’s 100% stain free folks!

Basically any bodily function kind of stain or laundry mess can remedied by washing “cloth diaper style” like I described above and I put this to the test about two weeks ago with my new cloth pantyliners.

First thing I noticed with them was how darn soft and nice they felt. Very soft and comfortable unlike plasticky disposable pads. The next thing I noticed was the absence of my cramps and back pain. I didn’t even attribute this to the cloth pads until reading more about other women’s experiences making the switch to mama cloth.

Remember how I only got 6 pantyliners? That is all I needed for 5 days! My cycle was crazy light which isn’t characteristic for me so I was able to do my usual two loads of diaper/ pantyliner laundry over the course of the 5 days. Adding mama cloth didn’t impact my laundry routine at all.

The best part is the cute pads are still cute and stain free!

I am super impressed with cloth pads so I decided to grab four regular size cloth pads and a little mama cloth wetbag so I am all set now. I am totally making the switch for the long term. Now the only thing left to make the switch on is “family cloth”. That is another messy issue for pondering another day though.

Everly has begun to let us know she’s not interesting in eating jarred baby foods anymore. I even brought one along for our trip to the Olive Garden on Saturday so she’d have something safe to eat.

She just whined and refused to take bites of the jar food but when N offered her a bit of his pasta she was all over it. She eats so darn much too! She ate like half his pasta, poor guy.

I get that she’s becoming more independent and that she’s adventurous with foods but now that she’s eating what we are eating I am even more paranoid about all the bad stuff we are consuming.

Most meats have this solution injected in them, they come from animals that are factory farmed and fed things they aren’t meant to eat… Our vegetables and fruits are splattered with pesticides, dyes and waxes. Some are even genetically modified to make things easier for farmers and less natural for us.

Convenience foods are laden with preservatives, flavor enhancers and colors so that they keep on shelves longer and appeal to more consumers. Then there is the major issue of BPA leaching with canned goods and bottled items.

Our food industry (the majority of it) has become nothing more than a money making venture that is overrun with greed, short cuts and wrong choices. Rather than being concerned with health and nutrition we (farmers, manufacturers and consumers) are all more interested in our pocket books and now all we have is crap on the shelves.

Right now Everly eats organic, no GMI, no BPA, MSG free and preservative free baby foods… Those are much easier to come by because they aren’t too costly and I can order them online. Did I mention natural foods are hard to come by here?

Like most parents I want Everly to have the best, safest foods. I know that we aren’t eating the best stuff ourselves but we are already all contaminated and ruined by the toxins. She is not.

Now that she’s only wanting to eat what we do it seems we’ll need to be switching our entire diet and kitchen contents over or we are gonna have to make peace with the shit foods that fill the store shelves.

Curious to learn about the food industry, you know the stuff they don’t want you to know? Watch this documentary on PBS 4/22/2010 or record it.

Now for a little quiz and some reader interaction! Which of these quick lunchtime foods is best when you take a look at the ingredient lists? Why do you think so? Tell me what you think!