The Mrs: July 2012

July 31, 2012

A Week Of Cloth Diapers: Tactful And Sane. Ish.

It's Day Two of Cloth Diaper Week hereabouts (also cowboy week, apparently), complete with giveaways! (That's right, I used an exclamation point. Because there's more than one giveaway!)

If you'd rather gnaw off your own arm than read about cloth diapers, there's a special giveaway just for you later on this week. Until then, why don't you go read something more entertaining?

This week's posts will include this love song to Thirsties, the bare bones list of what I think you need to have to cloth diaper on the cheap, a breakdown of our cloth diapering routine, including how I came to grips with our front loading washing machine, a cost comparison of cloth vs. disposables in theory and cloth vs.disposables in fact, and a post by Seth, who (spoiler alert) does not love the cloth diapers.

Don't forget to enter yesterday's giveaway: a Thirsties Duo Wrap
And tomorrow's: a $20 gift card to Caterpillar Baby

* * *

My first (failed) foray into cloth diapering started - as many things in my life do - with an exercise in Superhuman Tact:

Me, a few months pregnant with Norah, noticing that a friend is using cloth diapers: "Oh, but you're sane..."

Yes, my friends, I'm just as awkward in real life as I am online. Surprise!

I bought her sister's diaper stash for $200. It looked like this:

Armed with nothing but my (also Superhuman) mothering instincts, as this was before I discovered the internet as a repository for more information than just when my library books were due, I wrapped a two month old Norah up in a Mother-ease diaper and cover and took the whole idea of cloth diapering for a spin.

For about a minute.

Horrified by the sheer size of the diapers, and completely ignorant as to the next steps (you know, the ones that come after the diaper is dirty), I abandoned cloth diapering entirely. After one diaper.

I'm still proud of myself.

Fast forward three years (and by "fast forward", I mean "go read the post from a few months ago where I explained the decision to cloth diaper because I'm too lazy to recap it all again"), and we have a five month old and a two year old in cloth diapers. Happily, despite their obvious disgruntlement.

I know what to do after the diapers get dirty, I have a respectable stash that didn't require a second mortgage to obtain, and - most importantly, in my opinion - I am sane.

Sane-ish. At the very least, sane-ish.

(Seriously, don't forget to enter yesterday's giveaway...and stay tuned for tomorrow's.)

<< A Week Of Cloth Diapers: Why Thirsties?
A Week Of Cloth Diapers: The Bare Necessities >>

This time last year: Project Grocery: Let There Be Funnel Cake

July 30, 2012

A Week Of Cloth Diapers: Why Thirsties?

It's Cloth Diaper Week hereabouts (also cowboy week, apparently), complete with giveaways! (That's right, I used an exclamation point. Because there's more than one giveaway!)

If you'd rather gnaw off your own arm than read about cloth diapers, there's a special giveaway just for you later on this week. Until then, why don't you go read something more entertaining?

This week's posts will include this love song to Thirsties, the bare bones list of what I think you need to have to cloth diaper on the cheap, a breakdown of our cloth diapering routine, including how I came to grips with our front loading washing machine, a cost comparison of cloth vs. disposables in theory and cloth vs.disposables in fact, and a post by Seth, who (spoiler alert) does not love the cloth diapers.

Today's giveaway? None other than a Duo Wrap from the lovely folks at Thirsties, who took pity on this small blog. Mostly because I begged unashamedly.

* * *

The idea of cloth diapering is overwhelming. Pardon me, that's understated. Let's try it again: cloth diapering and all of it's accompanying stuff is so overwhelming that when we first started thinking about switching I wanted to call the United Nations and ask for an interpreter, and - since the UN was surprisingly unhelpful when it came to explaining what "AIO" stood for - crawl into my closet and forget all about it.

It was the rental package that saved us.

Test driving all of those different kinds of (mostly expensive) diapers let us see what worked on our pork roast of a son and what was more suited to, er...more delicate type babies. Thirsties was it.

The Thirsties Duo Wraps we've used for Oscar since he was a year old are kind of worn and kind of stained. One of them has de-laminated, and the Aplix has come away from the stitching on the waistband, but all I have to do is work up the energy to pull out my sewing machine and fix it.

When Lucy was born, we left her in disposables for a while until her umbilical cord healed up, and when I first put her in her brand new size one wraps she was so bulky and stiff I was sure she'd be mad at me for making her unbendable.

She was. But she got over it.

I made the mistake of ordering six size one Wraps for little Lucy, but little Lucy didn't stay little for long. The newspaper fold + Snappi + Duo Wrap phase lasted only about two ~~seconds~~ months. Oops.

Now I have a two year old and a five month old in prefolds and Thirsties Duo Wraps.

We (and by "we" I mean "they") have the occasional leak or blow out, but no more frequently than they did in disposables. I have no plans to buy more diapers. Ever.

So far, so good.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

<< Lannis: Winning One Battle...
A Week Of Cloth Diapers: Tactful And Sane. Ish. >>

This time last year: Lannis: Solicitors

July 28, 2012

Lannis: Winning one battle...

Today I am here to say I am officially winning the battle of the green in my backyard. Remember this?

Yep. It’s coming along nicely.

Right now, 95% of it looks like this:

[Disclaimer: it’ll be mowed on Saturday—that’s a blue job. Heh.]

There’s a couple of square outlines where the climber should have be moved earlier—but the grass will come back.

There’s a patch that is still short due to high traffic and compact soil—but I bought a foot-operated coring lawn aerator and will be tackling that in the fall.

And then there’s one dried out patch that could be because Mr Lannis cut the grass too short after my last hand-weeding (don’t worry—I snuck into the garage and shifted the height on the lawn mower when he wasn’t looking. I’m relieved, too), or it might be due to grubs...

Yes. Grubs.

Disgusting, slimy-looking, whitish-grey grubs. ::shudder::

And how do I know? Well, because I’m 99% sure our front lawn is infested with them.

And I know because our neighbours’ lawns are overrun with them.

Yeah... the front lawn? Let’s just say I called retreat on that battle when the heat wave hit. It’s looking pretty snarly and ugly right now. And after some research into nematodes, I’ve realized I just need to let it go for a bit and when the weather cools, I’ll work on it.

Nematodes, weeding, aerating, top dressing, and over-seeding. How’s that for a To Do list?

(Psst... don’t tell anyone that I’m not planning on having the energy to get it done... ha!)

Occasional poster at The Mrs, I'm Lannis - or Leslie, depending on which circles you're swimming. A while ago I decided that I don't care anymore, hence my general standards for life are lower than The Mrs' (but she still loves me.) [Editor: I do]

I live in a small town with my favourite people: my husband, Mr Lannis, and our two boys, along with two cats and one hamster.

If you follow me on Twitter, you might witness my issues with linear thought, road rage, spending more money on food than books, and potty mouth. Be warned.

<< What The CSA?
A Week Of Cloth Diapers: Why Thirsties? >>

This time last year: Ladies Who Lunch...At Their Desks

July 27, 2012

What The CSA?

This post could also be titled "What The Hell Do I DO With All This Lettuce?", because: seriously.

And you may be thinking "it's not THAT much lettuce, lady", and you'd be right, except this is a picture of last week's CSA basket, and I had all that lettuce still in my fridge when I got this:

So it IS an enormous amount of lettuce, and I'm not crazy.

Through my super human powers (of using the internet), I translated the beets I still had from two weeks ago, the beet greens and lettuce from last week, and the lettuce and potatoes I had from this week into a version of this salad, as my contribution to a dinner with some friends visiting from Germany. I don't know if they liked it, because they spoke German. (Totally not true. They spoke French.)

I also raided Food52's archives to make this for dinner, using up about half of the Swiss Chard. Don't worry, there's more. Lots more.

Between last week and this week, I have more green beans than I can shake a stick at*, two (more) loaves of dessert bread (Date & Walnut and Rhubarb & Something I Don't Remember And Can't Make Out From the Photo), a summer squash, more potatoes, two dozen eggs, the cutest little cabbage ever seen, more blade steaks, a round steak, garlic sausages, a pork butt steak that is confusing me, a whole free range chicken, and some bacon.

For sixty dollars.

Now I don't know who's getting screwed. I don't think it's me.

*Explain, please. Maybe with a drawing. Or don't, because I think I'll use that for a mandatory entry into Monday's giveaway.

<< Coming Soon...A GiveaWhat?

This time last year: The Day I Got Boring (One of my favourites)

July 24, 2012

Coming Soon...A GiveaWhat?

Yes, my friends, despite the deep cynicism and utter lack of hope displayed in this Facebook status, Thirsties has indeed agreed to give one of my lovely readers a Duo Wrap next Monday.

That gives you (checks the watch she can't wear because IT'S TOO HOT FOR WATCHES FD FESSAYJDFG SDHFEOFDKLF ZXQWUK...) um, less than a week to round up all those people you think would like reading ~~poems to Terry Pratchett~~ ~~all about maple candy~~ stuff I write about, and bring them on back here.

Oh boy, a giveaway. I feel all grown up and stuff.

<< The Four Year Old's Photo Essay

This time last year: Lannis: "Help!" She Squeaked

July 23, 2012

The Four Year Old's Photo Essay

We have reached the pinnacle (depths?) of cheapskatery.

We gave Norah our old pink camera for her fourth birthday, and while I was busy (sort of) castigating myself for not putting more thought or expense into a present for her, she was busy doing this:

My favourite photograph she's taken so far? It's got to be this one:

Bless her chubby little toes.

Happy birthday, weirdo.

<< Lannis: While The Mice Are Away...

This time last year: Food Waste Friday: Slack, There Is A Lot

July 21, 2012

Lannis: When the mice are away...

Someone was - um - less than sober when she took these pictures...[end sing-song]

* * *

Not gonna lie... sometimes I miss being kid-less.

Like, when grandparents take them for three days and one of my favouritest people in the world comes over and we put on our drunky pants and like true grownups decide to spend time reassembling Lego figures—because what else do real adults do sans kidlets?!

And then one of the Lego figures decides to take a swim.

That’s fun, folks.

Who knew the Sea King liked mojitos?

<< You Know What This Means, Don't You?

This time last year: I Am A Goodwill Convert

July 19, 2012

You Know What This Means, Don't You?

Last Friday, I did this:

And while it ~~needed~~ ~~needed~~ NEEDED(!) to be done, it was a bittersweet moment for me.

Why bittersweet? It was Friday. The kids were home, and awake - except Lucy, who was sleeping on the floor beside me, like this, except with her eyes closed and not moving because - you know - she was asleep and not trying to hypnotize me with her chubby little baby hand:

I did not organize and file that enormous pile of business receipts on a Monday.

You know what that means? It means that Monday July 30th is the last day my children will be in daycare.

Goodbye Mondays, with your huge swathes of time to myself. Also, goodbye daycare, with your forgotten shoes, constantly runny noses, the need for disposable diapers, and a $138 payment every two weeks.

I won't miss you.

(Except I probably will, some Mondays when it's so hot and the kids are so grumpy that I am alternately mad because I'm melting and angry because I'm not melting because then I'd be melted and presumably wouldn't be able to hear the whining and crying or see the hitting and pouting and the kids would just feed themselves off the crumbs on the kitchen floor until Seth came home and then he'd see the puddle of me on the living room floor and assume it's cat puke and pretend to not see it until someone else points it out to me but it would be me in that puddle so the joke would be on him hahahahahahahahahahahaha......)

<< Guilty Pleasures
Lannis: When The Mice Are Away... >>

This time last year: All Kinds Of Random

July 16, 2012

Guilty Pleasures

By the end of this post, you're going to close your browser, or reader, or email, and you're going to say one of two things to yourself: "Holy crap. That woman takes a lot of pictures of her clothesline", or "Holy crap, that woman takes a lot of pictures of her clothesline".

Consider yourself warned.

Here's my confession for the day: I love hanging stuff on the line. This is not a ::cough:: frugal thing, because I know I'd do it evn if it were more expensive than using the dryer.

No, this is a full on sensory experience slash meditation slash personal growth thing. Yes, I love the smell of freshly line dried sheets. I love that diapers hung on the line come off less stained.

But most of all, I love the actual hanging of the clothes. The snap of the cloth before I lift it to the line. The feel of the early morning. The quiet.

Because it's my only excuse to get out of the house and enjoy the outdoors alone. In peace. Without having to watch out for someone taste testing all of the weeds in the backyard.

Ssssshhhh. Don't tell anyone. Let's all pretend it's an onerous chore for me so I get to enjoy it and get credit for doing it.

<< Lannis: Doing It Right
You Know What This Means, Don't You? >>

This time last year: Vacation: A Birdie Joke

July 14, 2012

Lannis: Doing it right.

Last weekend marked the end of a (wonderful!) whirlwind week for the Lannis family.

Our favourite American relatives (okay, our only American relatives) came to visit.

It’s Mr Lannis’ sister, Rhonda, her husband, and three daughters (ages 8, 6, and 3.5 years).

It was (naturally) psychotic around here — a little upside down to say the least.

If they weren’t sleeping here, then we were driving to see them where they were staying (an hour away at Nana’s house), and that was just to rendezvous.

The day’s actual agenda would range anywhere from local parks, to sandy beaches, to Canada Day celebrations, to monstrous theme parks (Canada’s Wonderland: despite the early-onset of gastro-intestional pain, missed rendezvouses, vertigo, nosebleeds, feared migraines, and not enough time in the day, you were surprisingly good to us).

And we’ve been riding this whirlwind approximately once a year since the kids were born — it gets easier every visit.

Years ago I learned to put a laundry basket of possibilities in the back of the van; backup clothes including PJs, bathing suits, towels, underpants, short and long sleeves for every family member, and just replacing whatever we’ve used from it each day. It’s been a godsend, not needing to pack and repack for each outing, simply replenish the snack cooler and jet...

In years past, this visit was a longer (closer to three weeks), but with all that distance between us and North Carolina, we’ll take what we can get. Those girls are absolute gems, and Mr Lannis’ sister and her husband are the kind of warm, hilarious, and laid back people everyone needs in their lives.

Truly, they make me feel blessed.

All the running around and kid-wrangling has got me thinking, though, about what makes these visits so successful. Somewhere along the line, quietly, without discussion, Rhonda and I have made an agreement when it comes to these five adventurous kids...

It has never mattered who belongs to which kid — if they are hungry or need to go to the bathroom, you feed them and take them, no question or thought about it. Granted, we establish food allergies first off, but after that there’s no, "well, go ask your mom," kind of foolishness.

We each discipline our own kids (unless, say, it's a violence-related infraction, in which case whoever is supervising the kids deals with it instantly, of course — and these issues, thankfully, are few and far between).

But food, drinks, and bathroom breaks? Especially in big public places like Wonderland? Just handle it.

We'll ALL benefit from the even blood sugar and lack-of-accidents... ha!

To our American Beavers: we love you and miss y’all already. ♥

<< CSA Ya Later
Guilty Pleasures >>

This time last year: Project Grocery: Shaky Hands

July 12, 2012

CSA Ya Later

I've got one week of CSA boxes under my belt, and already I'm a pro.

Um. Not really.

For instance, yesterday I showed up at Kerri-Ann's stall at the farmers market with two twenties, and was too chicken to remind her that we had agreed on thirty dollars when she tucked the twenties away and didn't give me change.

In fairness, she did put more in the box this week:

Now I've got all week to work up the courage to tell her I have chives, dill, and oregano growing in my backyard for free, and that I'd rather do my own baking, however good her rhubarb banana bread and butterscotch walnut cookies sound. She's just so nice.

And I'm such a weenie.

My CSA box this week also had lettuce, spinach, two different kinds of beets with lovely fresh greens, a bunch of radishes, more onions than I know what to do with, fresh farm eggs, and a Cornish hen.

You may be wondering how I did with last week's bounty - including that blade steak that so confused me (as an aside, DISQUS decided to stop notifying me of new comments, so I got your advice too late WilliamB. Boo.)

As a matter of fact, I think I did quite well. The only things that got wasted were some radishes that I trimmed and washed...and promptly forgot on the counter overnight to dry out and get incredibly whizzled.

The romaine lettuce was stir fried with garlic and used as a base for the blade steak, which was a kind of failure due to my complete inability to braise anything smaller that a two pound roast.

The radish greens were chopped up small (to avoid that "I'm being stabbed in the mouth" feeling) and used with three of the eggs in this Smoky Mountain Wilted Lettuce salad (which was awesome, by the way):

I also managed to throw some radish greens into this Summer Vegetable Stir Fry (also awesome):

So far, so good. Cornish hen's on the menu tonight, along with roasted radishes and beets with brown butter.

Oh boy. What would I do without Epicurious?

<< God Bless You, Kijiji (Also, You Suck.)
Lannis: Doing It Right >>

This time last year: I Know That's Not Where I Left My Toilet Brush

July 9, 2012

God Bless You, Kijiji (Also: You Suck)

Remember this lovely collage (from this Kijiji post)?

Now (and no thanks to people very much like these wonderful specimens), it looks like this:

Alas, we still haven't found the right ~~lunatic~~ ~~Darkfriend~~ kind soul for Daisy to go home with.

You'd think, with all the caring people in the world, whose tender hearts are so burdened with the well-being of strange cats that they watch Kijiji for people they can chastise for ~~euthanizing~~ ~~giving back to the pound~~ ~~writing terribly awkward sentences~~ trying to find a better home for their pets, that someone would have rescued her by now.

Instead: (double click to enlarge)

BWA-HA-HAAAAAH!!

::wipes tear::

Those three have restored my faith in humanity, they really have. And while they were doing that, me and these two guys went out for a beer and had a great time.

(If anyone else has similar slices of wonderful humanity to share, I've got a Kijiji replies album up on Facebook. It's pretty rad, but it could be radder...)

<< Lannis: Dun, dun, DUN!
CSA Ya Later >>

This time last year: Not Food Waste Friday

July 7, 2012

Lannis: Dun, dun, DUN!

All I have to say is this:

Holy crap, that woman has an enormous fridge.

That is all.

* * *

Yep. I did it; I cleaned out my fridge.

And I took pictures.

Partly because with Food Waste Friday and Sandi’s (semi-)regular fridge cleaning, I felt compelled. But mostly because I was flabbergasted at how much stuff was in the damn thing.

It’s not that I never clean it out—I go through and pitch stuff that’s expiring and give the trays a wipe every now and then—but this was a big clean out. Like, haul everything out, shelving included, and wash it all down.

So here we go.

The before—

Run, children, it’s about to get scary...

Okay. You were warned...

Here’re the contents spread out on our kitchen counter—

Seriously.

THAT was hiding in that fridge. All of it. Can you believe it? Me neither.

Items that ~~surprised~~ astounded me:

This Wall o’ Dairy, for one. Impressive, yes?

And I can see we need to go on an egg run. Seriously. I’ve mentioned before that Mr Lannis likes his eggs, and he hasn’t slowed down (yet). That dozen-and-a-bit will last maybe three days...

Oh, and this photo is missing the cheese. I mean all of the cheese: a block of marble, a container of parmesan, assorted cheese strings, and a bag of shredded mozza to add to pizza.

See? Cheese.

Er... or you don’t see, since I neglected to take a photo. It was there, believe me.

What also shocked me was the number of bottled drinks.

As a rule we’re filtered water drinkers (our very same fancy-pants fridge has a dispenser on its inner wall), and the boys get juice (made from frozen concentrate) at breakfast. And Mr Lannis likes to make his own lemonade by the glass when the craving hits.

Erm... and that’s my booze. Yep. All of it. Mr Lannis, while he enjoys a glass of wine here and there, is really more of a beer drinker.

Pfft. Beer. Whatever.

Condiments anyone?

Yeah, that’s no fewer than four types of mustard there. I’ll let you think about that for a moment...

...

Four. Types. Of. MUSTARD.

I have no explanation.

And five different flavours of jam, only one being homemade (Mr Lannis’ mom’s blackcurrent jam—yum!). And assorted sauces and toppings and whatnot...

The giant tub of mayo is Mr Lannis’ fault. NO ONE ELSE IN OUR HOUSEHOLD TOUCHES IT.

[::shudder::]

I’m pleased to say that with all the clean out, there was really very little waste—two almost-empty bottles of salad dressing (not pictured) only days past their prime. Really, like, one expired three days ago. (I was impressed, too.)

And the grossest thing I saw was this—

I know! No fungus, nothing rotting, no science projects hiding in Tupperware, or grimy fridge trolls of any kind... I’m (almost) disappointed.

Then this happened—

Uh... hm... my pristine fridge looks an awful lot like my messy fridge.

Well, this is embarrassing.

Perhaps I should get to work on getting rid of some of that booze...

<< Welcome To My CSA Basket

This time last year: The Day We Went To Visit Lannis

July 4, 2012

Welcome To My CSA Basket

Okay, it didn't come in a basket. And it's not organized like most of the other CSAs I've ever heard of...in fact, I can't really call it "organized" at all.

At the market this morning, I finally did it. I screwed my courage to the sticking point, girded my loins, and did all manner of other dirty sounding things that gave me the nerve to talk to Kerri-Ann, and now I have thirty dollars worth of radishes, onions, peas, romaine lettuce, eggs, and grass fed beef on my counter.

(Yes, on my counter. I took the picture, then I sat down at the computer.)

What do you think?

Also (and this is for you, WilliamB, and anyone else that wants to chime in): Blade Steak?

Discuss.

<< Seth: Baby Whisperer

This time last year: The Other Waiting Room

July 3, 2012

Seth: Baby Whisperer

Lucy, a few weeks old. Not settling between nighttime feedings. Not at all.

Seth says: "Maybe we should swaddle her."

She starts sleeping through the night within days.

- - - - -

Lucy, four months old. Waking up at five in the morning, every morning by working her little hands out of the blanket. Sleeping for ten minute intervals.

Seth says: "Maybe we should stop swaddling her."

She starts sleeping until seven fifteen every morning.

I'm going to make him write a book. That, or open an advice stand at the end of our driveway.