Just Three Things

Life... sometimes I feel like I'm living it well, and other times I feel like it is eating me alive. 

This fall has been very, very hard for me physically and it has taken a toll on all of us.  We've been in survival mode around here, but beyond just the week-long flu bug kind of survival mode, more like the month-and-a-half-long kind of survival mode.  And because your family will be able to make it if you go for a month without dusting and cleaning windows, but will not make it if you go for a month without washing the dishes or doing laundry, I have found that it helps so much to keep the three most essential chores at the forefront of my mind.

If you can only do three things, do these three:

Hungry people are unhappy people, especially children.  #1 of the top three is to get everyone fed each day.  Your meals don't need to be gourmet.  Sometimes you just need to fill the bellies.  Use your stock of freezer meals, and when you run out, buy some convenience foods, ask others to bring you meals, and eat PBJ every day for lunch if necessary, just make sure you fill the bellies. 

#1 is going to get complicated if you can't keep up with the dishes, so washing dishes regularly is second in importance.  Try to wash all of the dishes after each meal.  If you keep up in this way, it will only take you about 10 minutes of work at a time.  Really.  If they pile up for 2 or 3 days, it will be a huge project and you may not have the energy to tackle them.  If you are struggling to keep up, buy paper plates, bowls, and cups and use them. 

Do a load of laundry each day.  Just one.  If you have a little extra energy do two so you can take the day off tomorrow.  You can fold laundry while you rest on the couch, and throwing in a load takes minimal time and energy.  You can do it!  Putting them away is great if you have the energy, but the most important thing is just to get the clothes washed, dried and folded so they can be worn again.  Re-wear clothes that aren't dirty so you don't make more laundry than is necessary.

Another way this mental prioritizing is helpful is if you are working outside the home and are struggling to keep up day to day, or if you tend to get sidetracked with hobbies and not get dinner ready... force yourself to have the self-discipline to take care of these three things every day before you do anything else.

On your better days, try to wipe down the bathroom and get the floors cleaned.  Work for 10 minutes and rest for 20 (or more).  Bit by bit, you will get by.  This is a good time to give your child a crash course in using the vacuum or rinsing dishes for you.  My friend Amy says that a job done imperfectly by a child is an improvement over not being done at all by you.  

Lastly, keep praying and reading the Psalms.  It helps.
Auntie Leila has some wonderful advice on this as well.

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Cloth Diaper Tutorial 2

I like to use "pocket diapers". Pockets are convenient to use, wash well, and dry quickly. Pockets need to be stuffed with some sort of absorbent material, and one of the most common pocket diaper inserts are made of micro terry like these. It is nice and convenient to buy them, but it is really very easy to sew your own and you will save a LOT of money by doing so!

How to Sew Microfiber Inserts for Cloth Diapers

I buy the 8 pack of microfiber towels in the automotive department of Wal-mart. They cost about $5. I once found a similar pack at Big Lots for $4! I've also seen great deals at Home Depot. With my method, I get 6 inserts out of that. This beats the $1.99 each I paid at the Fuzzi Bunz store by a long shot, and they are super easy to make! Using this method, you will have four layers of microfiber, which I find is perfect for normal everyday use. These are very comparable in thickness and absorbency to the ones I bought, and they dry in a reasonably short amount of time. These fit perfectly in size medium Fuzzi Bunz, Swaddlebees pockets, and Swaddlebees Econappies or Blueberry OS diapers on the largest setting. They could easily be trimmed shorter to fit size small diapers, though the width should be just fine. I really prefer having them sewn up because they are easier to hang to dry and easier to stuff. I also like that they do not bunch up in the diaper with an active baby/toddler.

1) I make these "assembly line" style. It goes very fast! Before cutting or sewing, I prep them by washing them once with my regular diaper wash. I also trim off the little tags.

2) Trifold two of your towels, keeping the size of the panels as even as possible. This will be the layer hidden inside, so choose the color you like the least for cutting up.



3) Cut both of your trifolded diapers into even thirds.



4) Lay your six uncut towels flat and center an extra panel in the towel.



5) Fold over the sides, trying to keep your panels as even as possible.



6) Now you are ready to sew!



7) Set up your machine to use a "zig-zag stitch" with your choice of thread and bobbin color. Stitch the short ends first. It really works best to sew just to the inside of the edges of the towels. You want to make sure you are sewing through all of the layers of the towel so you won't have gaps where gunk can get through and build up.



Finished stitching:



8) Now sew down both sides of the towel using the same technique.



You are all done!



Other Cloth Diaper Tutorials:
How to Re-waterproof PUL in Pocket Diapers
How to Replace Leg Elastic
How to sew a waterproof pail liner

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Cloth Diaper Tutorial 1

This post will not be useful for everyone, but I've had a few requests for this tutorial and I hope that by putting it out there on the web it will be useful to some of my readers, old and new.

How to Re-Waterproof PUL on Pocket Diapers

A picture is worth a thousand words, right? After buying about 18 diapers in poor condition that leaked after only a few uses (I was so ignorant in those days!), I was determined to find a way to refurbish them. I could only find vague references to how to waterproof the PUL again, so after some trial and error (i.e. - 1 failed diaper and 17 successes), I am posting my method here in hopes that someone else can benefit. The spray is in an orange can labeled "Silicone Water Guard" and you can find it in the camping section at Wal-mart. It cost about $4 a can as of 2009. This can lasted for 1 pail liner (required a TON of spray) and 18 diapers. Not too bad really.

For the record, I have used this method on Fuzzi Bunz sized diapers and Swaddlebees Econappis. These two brands are my very favorite because they are easily repaired, both with the waterproof spray and by replacing the leg elastic.



Trace a pattern for your diaper on lightweight cardboard - cereal boxes work great! Turn diaper inside-out.



Stuff the cardboard in the diaper. Watch the sides - keep fleece underneath the cardboard, PUL on top. Find your waterproofing spray - available at Wal-mart in the camping/sporting goods section.



Go outside on a sunny day. Lay out a sheet of wax paper underneath each diaper. Spray a light coating on all PUL surfaces.



Let the coating sit for just a minute, then tip the diapers on their sides to allow any excess spray to run off the side into the grass. Fold your wax paper in half (keeping any excess spray on the inside) and lay the diaper on top to dry.



After a couple of hours, when the spray seems to be dry, remove the cardboard and hang the diapers outside to dry a little longer. Allow them to dry for at least 24 hours before washing or using them.



Turn your diaper right side out again and you should have a nicely re-waterproofed diaper!

Some FAQ's -
Q - What is PUL?
A - Polyurethane Laminate Wiki

Q - How do you know when the PUL needs re-waterproofing?
A - It's most obvious when you can see visible cracking in the PUL. Before trying the spray, I try running them through the dryer on high heat to reseal the PUL. This has worked with my newer diapers just fine. With the diapers that needed the spray, the wet was going right through the center, not just the edges around the legs. Other diapers that have leaked around the legs were just in need of stripping or needed changing sooner.

Q - Do I need to hang them outside to dry?
A - No, but they tend to be "fumey" for a few hours, so I recommend it. If you hang them indoors, use a well-ventilated room. Sometimes I hung them in the basement to dry.

Q - Do they drip after you hang them?
A - No, they shouldn't drip at all while hanging - they only seem to drip when you first spray them if it puddles up a bit - that's why I let the excess run off.

Q - Do I need to wash them before using them?
A - I don't think you really NEED to wash them before using them, though I prefer to do it. (The fleece doesn't come into contact with the spray at all.) If you have a baby with eczema, sensitive skin, or prone to diaper rash, I would just in case.

Other Cloth Diaper Tutorials -
How to sew microfiber inserts for pocket diapers
How to replace leg elastic
How to sew a waterproof pail liner

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"Cut Your Coat to Suit Your Cloth"

The title of this post is an old proverb that means that we need to be adaptable to our circumstances. Basically, take a look at the resources at hand, and do the best you can with them. Your cloth and my cloth may look different. You may have more or less cloth to work with. That is ok. Cut accordingly.

As our family is seeking to live an abundant and frugal life, one way we do this is to minimize the amount of disposable products we use. Disposable products are certainly convenient, but it is just literally throwing away your resources. Instead of paper, we turn to CLOTH whenever possible. Cloth will wear out eventually, but it takes many years and countless uses as opposed to single use disposable items.

• cloth napkins
  
• cloth diapers
• cloth baby wipes
• washcloths
• cloth shower curtain liner
  
• kitchen cloths, old towels, and cleaning rags (instead of paper towels)
• handkerchiefs (I'm still working on converting myself... I'm so accustomed to kleenex.)
  
• even cloth feminine products
  

Skip this paragraph if that last bullet point makes you start to hyperventilate:
I seriously used to wonder what women did before modern products were invented. It was a mystery to me for a long time. Well, they used cloth! And sorry if this is TMI, but you know how after you have a baby, you need to use those products for WEEKS after... well, paper and plastic on those very sensitive places feels awful. Cloth is so much nicer! Trust me! Realizing this made me so much happier for choosing cloth for my babies. Imagine wearing paper and plastic on those sensitive places 24/7 for YEARS! Makes me shudder to think of it.

Now, I don't want to guilt you into this, it's a personal choice for our family and it is one that makes us happy. I also use my sewing skills to reduce the cost for all of this cloth. I write this post in hopes of inspiring. Take from it what you will. And my advice to people on things like cloth diapers... don't knock it 'til you've tried it!

I saw a discussion on Diaper Swappers a couple of years ago asking the question, how cheaply could you cloth diaper a baby? The answer from some of these women? FREE! No, your eyes do not deceive you, FREE! How on earth would you do this? Well, you use recycled materials. You can sew prefold diapers out of old t-shirts and old flannel sheets and receiving blankets. You can sew fleece or wool diaper covers from old felted sweaters. I just finished sewing a set of baby wipes out of old flannel pajama pants and a receiving blanket. You don't need a wipe solution, just use plain water, dampening a wipe when you need it. I wish I had seen this thread when I was expecting our first littles! If you decide to get some easy-to-use modern cloth diapers for your baby, you will still only pay 1/3 of what you would for disposables, even after factoring in water/electricity cost. Line dry and you will save even more! If you go the middle route, buying prefolded diapers and covers, you can buy everything you need for less than $100. I find that you can use most diapers for at least two children, so you can double your savings there.

Are cloth diapers starting to sound a little more appealing to you?


Cloth Diapers and Homemade Wipes - See? They're cute too!


Homemade Recycled Wool Pants for a Newborn - these are waterproof!

One of the big questions... Does this create more laundry? Some perhaps, but I don't notice much... Diapers are an extra load of wash every three days and when needed feminine cloth washes with those. Cleaning rags are washed every couple of months. I do a load of bleached whites about once a week with kitchen towels and rags, baby bibs, face wipes, handkerchiefs, etc... but throw in other whites after the bleach soaking to fill the load. I guess I've just switched over so gradually that I hardly notice it.

You don't have to go whole hog. Pick something and give it a try. We've made very gradual changes over the course of 8 or so years. Just something to consider. :)

Remember, don't knock it 'til you've tried it!

Spring Cleaning!

Yesterday, we had a gorgeous, sunny day in the 50's with no wind. When I heard the forecast that morning, I made the spontaneous decision to start spring cleaning. All of the downstairs curtains went straight into the wash and were hung out on the line an hour later. (I choose to have white cotton washable curtains in all of our windows, except the bedrooms which have blackout lined curtains.) I spent the rest of the day washing the windows inside and out and all around. (Whoever invented double hung windows was a genius!) Just for good measure, I washed the ceiling fans and light fixtures. Today I'll touch up the curtains with an iron and rehang them and the house is going to smell AMAZING! I just love that fresh smell!

I need to do the same process with the bedrooms, but that is a bit trickier since the Littles need naps and those blackout curtains are there for a reason!

Here are the rest of the projects I hope to do for "Spring Cleaning":

• Shampoo the rugs and furniture
• Wash the trash cans and boot trays
• Clothing swap
  
• Clean oven (need to choose a cold day for this!)
• Clean shower head
• Vacuum fridge coils
• Wipe out kitchen drawers
• Give the counters/backsplashes a good scrub
  
• Dusting picture frames/books/display dishes
• Wash duvets and air pillows
• Swap humidifiers for fans/window ACs
  
• Prepare for a garage sale in May
  

B.C. = Before Children, I took a week and devoted it to spring cleaning. I think when we have older kids to pitch in this may be possible again, but for now I just plan to chip away at these jobs over the next three months. Slow and steady wins the race, right? :)

How do you do spring cleaning, and what is on your list?

Paradigms In Frugality

Several posts ago, I explored the idea of paradigms in our spiritual lives. I described the concept of a paradigm shift: describing a profound change in our frame of reference. Now I'd like to examine how to break out of our current habits in an effort to create new, more frugal habits.

So many of the things that we do are just habits. Some habits are very good. Most of us were probably trained as children to "close the door behind you when you come in the house." There are many reasons why this is a good habit.

1. Save energy - don't let the heat out in the winter or the heat in during summer
2. Keeps critters out and babies in. :)

In almost every case, developing a good habit takes work and purposeful thought. Good habits don't just happen. Bad habits, do. It's the law of entropy at work in the world around us. If we just let life carry us, we slip into bad habits like wastefulness and overspending. It is not an easy thing to do, but in order to really change our lives and create more frugal habits, we have to have a shift in our paradigms.

I have found that the best way to create new, purposeful, frugal habits is to consciously think about what I am doing and why. Here's an example: Instead of always turning the dial on my clothes dryer to the 70 minute timed cycle that it takes to fully dry a load of clothes, I tried turning it to 60 minutes. About 95% of the clothes were fully dry at the end of that cycle. A few things were slightly damp, but hardly enough to even bother hanging them out. Then, I tried drying a load of clothes in 50 minutes. Amazingly, about 90% of the clothes were fully dry! The items that were not dry were my thicker towels that easily dried out hanging on the towel bar in the bathroom from whence they came, and clothes with thicker waistbands or layers. In my laundry room, I keep a large drying rack and a stash of hangers hanging on a pipe near the ceiling. I simply hung up the couple of items that needed extra drying time and got them the next day. Now, I always set the clothes dryer on 50 minutes. This paradigm shift, this VERY simple change in my habits saves 20 minutes of electricity in our dryer. Our electricity is rather expensive compared to our other utilities, and it's like buying 3 loads of drying time and getting one free!

That was an example of money saved and only a little bit of time spent, here is an example of TIME and SANITY saved, which are extremely valuable in our busy lives. All of this for being willing to learn from others:

At the Grocery Store - Preacher Man recently accompanied the Littles and I to the grocery store. He was driving the car and was getting ready to pull in and park in the nearest space by the door. I stopped him and asked if he could park in a different area. He asked why and I explained that while the spot was relatively close to the door, it was a long, long walk to retrieve the cart we would need, and with two littles and many grocery bags in tow, it would make life difficult. He saw the advantage immediately and parked nearest the cart return, which is what all of us moms do, right? :) After we finished checking out, Preacher Man started steering a fully loaded cart the OPPOSITE way of what I was used to going. I followed him rather confused, not sure what he was meaning by that. Once we got to the door, I realized that he was leaving out the pharmacy door, which was directly across from our parking spot. All this time, I had been going through the front door, nearly doubling the time it took me to get back to my car. This is not such a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but when the weather is yucky, little ones are needing to get home, or the parking lot is full of snow as it will be in coming months, it makes a significant difference! I started laughing and explaining to him what a genius he was for seeing something I had been missing for all of these months.

Observing how others do things and even asking them to explain what they do and why is another excellent way to learn how to break out of our current paradigms. Other people see things differently, and sometimes better. Being open to new ideas and living life as an observer and a constant learner will be a great advantage.

Sometimes I wonder if the things that I am blogging about seem too elementary, especially to some of you seasoned homemakers out there. Then it dawns upon me that most of these ideas were new to me at one time, and I was happy to learn them when I did. Sharing and learning from others is the only way I have gotten to the place where I am today, and I hope you, my readers, will be eager to share your ideas and methods with me, as I post tips and ideas that I have picked up along the way.

Have a blessed day!