Saturday, September 17, 2011

SCORE!!!!!

I could not be more excited! Absolutely no one will share in my excitement but I just scored my first RagaBabe! It's used, but I don't care! Still stalking the site for a new one :) AAAHHHH!!!

Friday, September 16, 2011

Whoo, Busy Busy

Whoo! Busy week! We finally figured out that MissE's been teething and that's the cause of a lot of her issues and I've decided to open a co-op that I've been working hard on for the past few days!

Please visit my co-op and "like" it at http://www.facebook.com/controlledchaoscoop !!! You get fantastic discounts (usually wholesale prices) by joining! I'm so excited! There's lots of items available for all walks of life like cloth diapering products, luxury skincare items, natural wooden teething toys, mama bling nursing necklaces, beautiful and realistic sugar items, candles, and so much more!!!

Oh yeah, and my new book about cloth diapers came in almost a month before I thought it would and I read it in one day! I loved it! It would've saved me so much research time if it had been available when i was first considering using cloth diapers! It's called Changing Diapers by Kelly Wels. I pre-ordered from her website in order to get an autographed copy, but I'm considering getting another copy off of amazon to loan out to friends and family who are interested in learning more about cloth diapers :)

More will follow soon!

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Closing Shop

So today I went shopping with MissE and my mother-in-law at Borders because it is my all-time-favorite store and it is closing :(

There was next to nothing left and almost every fixture was either gone or had a "sold" sticker on it. When I was checking out with my two books, the cashier was even telling another employee how someone bought the stool she was sitting on while checking him out!

Because of the lack of titles left at Borders, we headed across the street to Barnes and Noble. Now here, of course, I found many books I was interested in but refrained myself and managed to leave with only four, all of which were cookbooks. I now have two and a half pages of my notepad written out with the titles of recipes I'd like to try in the near future. I plan on grocery shopping tomorrow to go ahead and get started!

I also spent the morning scouring a cloth diaper addiction swap and managed to score four diapers for MissE. A raspberry AppleCheeks, a pink GoGreen Champ, a spearmint OS Fuzzibunz, and a brown OS Fuzzibunz. I kept going back and forth between brown and orange and finally decided that brown would match more things and I could easily get an orange in another brand. Now if only I could snag a RagaBabe (or ten), then my life would be complete. Okay, maybe not to that extent, but you know what I mean.

All in all, it was a pretty good day :)

Saturday, September 10, 2011

You're a Winner!

So a few days ago we received a phone call that my name had been drawn from a sweepstakes I entered and that we had to go to a resort about 2 hours away to claim our prize (which takes 3 hours with the baby). We were guaranteed to have won a car, an island getaway, a shopping spree, or some cash. Plus, we would get a trip and a small visa gift card for showing up.

So we wake up early and head out to claim our prize. On the phone, they made it sound like a very personal experience and even had me confirm my arrival time so that someone could meet with me. We get there and apparently we were one of many. We waited in line, filled out a form, presented two forms of ID, and waited for someone to take us away.

Here comes the catch: They were trying to sell us a time share.

While waiting for someone to show us the wonders of their resort and dazzle us with the benefits of owning with them, Mister was looking around the room and stereotyping which couples would be paired with what kind of agent. He was spot on with some of them that we saw while on our tour. We were paired with an older German gentleman, who mentioned that my name was German and we found our connection with him and how they stereotyped us to find our match. His name was JP.

JP took us to a large room with many table and chairs all full of agents and couples. Upbeat and positive music was blaring throughout the room ("Celebrate good times, come on!" is still running through my head) and JP sits us down and starts showing us photos of their properties, asking us questions about our vacation habits, and running through the numbers.

JP then drove us around the property, made commentary on all of the amenities, took us on a tour of a few of their available rooms, and stayed upbeat and positive through it all even though we had already made it fairly clear that we weren't interested. You see, we already own a time share that we just bought last year so we weren't really in the market for another one. We own with the Disney Vacation Club and you can click on the DVC icon on the right of the page for more of that and my referral information. We are also in the process of working Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover and are on baby step 2, which is all about getting out of debt, so financing a second (and unnecessary) time share was definitely out of the question.

When we come to the end of the tour, he shows us our options, prices, and asks us what we think. I feel terrible about wasting his time since I'm sure these agents work on commission when we told him both of our reasons why we were not in the market for a new time share. He then thanks us and gets his manager to come talk to us about our prizes. Manager comes and asks us about our choice and we run through the same scenarios of why we we not buying that we did with JP. He then asks us about which trip we'd like to take (we chose a cruise) and then went to get another higher-up to give us our vouchers and direct us to our next location.

We had to take our forms to the next building where we waited to be given our prize. They would only take one person from each group so Mister went while I nursed MissE. He came back and informed me that we won the island getaway, the only prize we didn't want since we were already getting a trip. Oh well, it's still awesome.

So we left with our two travel vouchers and visa card in hand. We stopped at a shopping strip about an hour into the drive home and promptly spent the gift card, ate dinner, and shopped a little more. A very long day but we left with more than we started the day with so all in all it was good.


Thursday, September 8, 2011

Rabbi Preaches Potter and Portrait from Wine Corks

Here are a couple of interesting stories I read today. (You have to click on the blue word to get the link).

The first is about a rabbi who says that the Harry Potter books teach morality and ethics so he preaches them to his congregation. (I'm an avid Harry Potter fan).

The second is about an artist who creates giant wall portraits of his subjects made entirely from wine corks.

Enjoy!
Any thoughts on these?

Breaking a Cardinal Rule

Rules are meant to be broken, right? If you read my last post, you are aware that I was about to break one of the cloth diapering cardinal rules: never try a new diaper on the road.

I chose to embark on this rule-breaking scheme because my cloth diaper trial package was arriving the day before we were going out of town for the Labor Day holiday weekend. The package arrived on Thursday and I spent all day (and most of the night) prepping MissE's new diapers. I separated out the natural fiber diapers and inserts and threw those in the washing machine with some Rockin' Green cloth diaper detergent. After 5 washes, I added the rest of the diapers for one final wash since the synthetic diapers only need to be washed once.

This. Took. All. Day.

At about 11 p.m., it was finally time to dry! Knowing we were getting up at 5 a.m., I decided to put the diapers in the dryer instead of line drying, thinking this would be the fast and easy route. Begin 70 minute tumble dry cycle number one. At 3:30 a.m., MissE woke up screaming so I sent Mister to check on the diapers. Begin 70 minute tumble dry cycle number two. Mister goes back to bed while I browse the Internet as I nurse MissE back to sleep. Get up at 5 a.m., check on diapers, pull out dry diapers, begin dryer cycle number three for still damp inserts and diapers. By the time everyone is finally up, out of bed, car loaded, and baby dressed, some of the inserts are still not dry! I end up just throwing everything in a large tote bag and lay the damp inserts out on some of the luggage and seats in the back of the car to dry on the way.


This was also our first road trip with the baby. A drive that normally would take us 5 hours took 8... Anyway, we decided to use disposables on the road since we were unsure of the abilities of the cloth. Very first diaper change results in wiping a poo explosion out of MissE's car seat, stripping off her poo-covered clothes, and cleaning her off as best we could with baby wipes in the front seat of the car (yes, she got a bath that evening).

We (finally) make it to our destination and swiftly slap a cloth diaper on MissE's bottom! We continued to only use cloth for the rest of the trip, the drive home, the few days after, and I am still washing every day in order to only use cloth! (Note to self: need more diapers).

I am in cloth nirvana! I will never go back to disposables again! Not only are these diapers super cute, there hasn't been a single leak and no more daily morning up-the-back poo explosions! It's actually quite convenient when going out to store the used diapers in my wet bag to take home to wash instead of trying to find a trash can or worrying about leaving a dirty diaper in someone's home trash can.



Polka Dot diaper                                      Cow print diaper                               Flat diaper



Oh, and remember the dryer debacle? I was excited to see that the property had a clothes line! The first time I washed MissE's used cloth diapers, I put them on the line and everything was dry within a few hours!

While we were there, it was easier to wash at night and hang them to dry while we slept so there were clean, dry diapers in the morning. Kept this up at home by laying them over the fence to dry in the mornings. The flats and some of the covers and pockets dry in less than an hour and I haven't had to leave anything out for more than a few hours. This is one happy mama! Plus, line drying helps the waterproof layer of your diapers last longer so that the diapers may be used for subsequent children. :)


I am becoming more and more "crunchy" by the minute! Breastfeeding, co-sleeping, baby wearing, and now cloth diapering! My next mission is to convince Mister that we should use cloth napkins instead of paper towels. I'll keep you updated, lol.


 Diapers drying on the fence at home

Friday, September 2, 2011

Welcome & Current Addiction: Cloth Diapers

Hello and welcome! Not much to this blog, just a place to post about the going-ons of my little family. I am a new mom to a beautiful baby girl born in the middle of June, we'll call her MissE. Hubby just started a new job after a short stint in the Air Force and is loving it so far (we'll call him Mister).

My obsessions and addictions change as swiftly as my baby's diapers. Speaking of which, my current obsession revolves around the notion of cloth diapers. I know what you're thinking; safety pins, rubber pants, smelly wet pails, and origami-type folds only a highly trained master could successfully achieve. Today's modern cloth diapers are nothing of the sort, although you can still get that kind if you wish. Modern cloth diapers come in all varieties, shapes, sizes, and (of course) adorable colors and prints. There are now dry pails which reduce smell by using air flow, and waterproof-lined bags for use when you're out and about to carry your diapers in. Best of all, you just throw it all in the wash! You have to use a cloth diaper safe detergent and add an extra rinse, but other than that, it's not really any different than your regular washing routine.

Oh, and no toilet dunking if you don't want to! There are now modern day conveniences for getting off stubborn poo like flushable liners to place inside your diaper and simply flip into the toilet, or a diaper sprayer that attaches to your toilet to spray out the mess. I don't have to worry about this for a while since we are still in the exclusively breastfed stage which is completely water soluble.

I have a laundry list (pun intended) of cloth diapers I want to try! And all different types! There are tons of big name brands out there and probably 5 times as many WAHM (work at home mom) brands. There are the original flats and prefolds with pins or a Snappi (more on that later) and a cover (not plastic pants, CUTE covers). There are AIO's (all in one's) which are just like a disposable in the sense that you simply place it on and when it's soiled you take it off for a new one. There are AI2's (all in two's) which comprise of a shell and an insert where you can switch out the insert and keep reusing the cover until it is soiled. There are also pocket diapers which are similar to an AIO except that you can adjust the absorbency by stuffing the pocket with inserts and removing them reduces drying time compared to the AIO. There are also hybrid diapers which are like an AIO but with either an insert or an earth-friendly disposable insert, great for those who want the benefits of cloth but the convenience to throw away a disposable!

I could go on and on but I'll leave you for now. I have lots of favorite sites so far and will post them later, though some are linked through the icons on the right of the page. There is also a new book that is supposed to comprise of all the information that most (like me) spent hours and weeks researching on the Internet about cloth diapers coming out in October that I have already pre-ordered for an autographed copy.

I have ordered a cloth diaper trial from Itsy Bitsy Bums (and cannot recommend her highly enough, fantastic service). I will be breaking one of the cardinal rules of cloth diapering, which is to never try a new diaper on the road, as my diapers will come in the day before we go out of town with family for Labor Day weekend. Stay tuned to hear about that adventure.