Three Packages

The next best thing to receiving a letter from a friend is receiving a package from a friend. This morning the post woman dropped off three packages! I made me forget the q-tips that Monkey dumped all over the floor and the hideous pile of laundry bursting out of the hallway closet. Three packages - two from friends! Monkey was equally thrilled.

Monkey hauled them upstairs and started to unwrap the first one. In it were some toys and cuddlies for him and his sister, gifts from my Hubby's sister and her family - thanks guys!

The second was a package from well.ca. I ordered some Jason Natural Kids Only! Orange Toothpaste, Nature Clean Furniture Polish,  Dr. Bronner's Organic Baby Mild Liquid Soap and some lavender essential oil. The last two items are for making a cleaning solution for my cloth wipes. I really like ordering from well.ca because I pay less taxes and shipping is free - yay!

I looked at the third package and my heart went pitter-patter. I carefully removed the tape and opened the box. Beneath a layer of bubble wrap I could see the back of a canvas and a small green note. I pulled back the wrap and turned the canvas around. This is what I saw...

Breathtaking!

I wanted to hug my friend Cindy and hang the painting right away. But for now I'll have to send my dear friend a [virtual hug] (Thank you!) and wait for Hubby to get home to put it up.

To see more of Cindy's art check out her blog: Cindy's Wobblog.

Cloth Produce Bags

More and more people are bringing cloth bags to stores when they shop. The fact that many stores are now charging a small fee for their plastic bags helps, but I think they should charge more. Really, $0.05 is hardly a deterrent for a lot of folks. Why not charge $0.25 or even $1.00! I know I would rather juggle my purchases around in my arms than pay $1.00 for a flimsy plastic bag... that will probably break apart as soon as I try and stuff everything in it anyways.

One of my projects this month was to make or buy cloth produce bags. Even though we use cloth bags to haul out our groceries most of the items we buy are wrapped in plastic. I entertained the thought of sewing some small bags, but I wanted to test drive a few models first.

My parents bought mesh style produce bags that cinch together at the top with a string. They are definitely "breathable" but not good for bulk foods that would fall through the holes (flour, cornmeal). Also, the string adds extra weight at the check out.

A mesh bag.

Keeping this in mind I ordered some bags from Kootsacs. The store carries silk, ripstop nylon and 100% silk bags. The nylon and cotton bags work best for produce so I order two of each. Added bonus - the bag don't have strings on them! I received my bags today and I really like them, they'll get their first test drive this Saturday.

Garage Sale Finds

Today my good friend Cindy posted her latest painting over at Cindy's Wobblog. It's called "Shop Til you Drop". When I first saw it, it made me wish I was going house to house on a crisp sunny Saturday morning checking out the local garage sales. I like the unique houses in her pictures. I have a bad habit of judging a garage sale by the house, something like judging a book by its cover. If the house is poorly maintained and the yard is a jungle I'm much more hesitant to stop there. But, if I saw garage sales at houses like the ones in Cindy's painting I would definitely stop! People living in houses like those must be selling some neat art, interesting books or maybe even some colourful Popsicles!

Check out her Etsy shop for more Wobble art!

This past Saturday was my second time checking out garage sales this year. I didn't find a lot but I did find a few exciting things.

Robeez slippers for Sweetpea :)

Boardbooks for Monkey.

Weekly Menu

Saturday: Honey baked ham, scalloped potatoes and broccoli.
Sunday: Dinner with family.
Monday: Shepherd's pie and sliced veggies.
Tuesday: Greek chickpea soup and homemade pita bread.
Wednesday: Pork Chops with Golden Apple Sauce, brown rice and salad.
Thursday: Broccoli pasta.
Friday: Perogies, sausage and peas & corn.

Family Time

The transition from one to two children is going well - very well actually! We still feel tired after a long night of little sleep but Hubby and I both feel so blessed by the gifts of Monkey and Sweetpea. I thought I'd share a few pictures from the last few days.

Enjoying the simple things - Hubby reading a book to Monkey while holding Sweetpea.

Sibling time. Monkey likes to stroke Sweetpea on the head and say "shhh shhh".

Monkey enjoying the sand and new play set at Grandpapa and Memere's home after Hubby helped set it up.

Sweetpea sleeping on a fold out chair while we work in the garden.

Our First Rabbit Kits

I am very excited to share these pictures with you. Now that it's been over two weeks since Sofia's kindled we can hold her babies. There are seven in all and Sofia's doing a great job raising them.

So cute! Trying not to get attached...

We'll keep a few for breeders and sell some to help cover costs. The rest will feed our family...

Plastics Contest: The Result

After one week of picking things out of the garbage I can proudly say that we only made three small (20" by 22") bags of garbage. Our compost is back up and running, and the recycling is piling up under the kitchen sink (as usual). Sweetpea has been sporting cloth diapers most of the week and Monkey alternates between undies, cloth training pants and pull-ups.

What did I learn over the last week? It's very difficult to live plastic free but not all plastics are created equal. Some can be recycled and others get thrown in the bin. Every time I threw plastic food wrap in the garbage I wondered if I would decompose before it did. Sort of a grim thought, I know, but I've seriously entertained the thought of not buying anymore plastic wrap once our roll runs out.

I've also been looking into ways to replace or eliminate commonly used plastic items in our home with more eco-friendly options. I'll be posting my finds over the next few weeks.

Weekly Menu

Here is our menu for the upcoming week (April 17-23). Now that garage sale season is starting up I'll have to move our grocery shopping day from Saturday morning to another time. Maybe Monday morning? hmmm...

Saturday: Chicken enchiladas and Mexican style rice.
Sunday: Dinner with hubby's family.
Monday: Slow-cooked beef with red wine. I never ended up making this last week :o)
Tuesday: Tuna casserole.
Wednesday: Hot Honeyed spare ribs with mashed potatoes and sliced veggies.
Thursday: Pioneer woman's cauliflower soup and homemade bread.
Friday: Basil tomato pasta and salad.

Lunapads.com - 20% off all Products

If you are interested in trying out cloth pads, Lunapads.com is having a site launch sale and all their products are 20% off until April 16th at 12:00pm PST. I just ordered a bunch for myself! Thanks Chelsea for letting me know about this awesome sale :)

Lunapads Mini Pad & Liner

Reducing Household Waste: #3 Plastics

What would I do without plastics? It wraps our leftovers, it holds our milk, it keeps my socks on and it makes my glasses look good. Stopping our use of plastics is near impossible - I would have to stop driving my van and wear glasses with inch thick lenses (not good!) - but we can try to reducing it. I've set for myself a few tangible goals for the month of April:

• Make or buy cloth produce bags
• Purchase a glass juice jug
• Buy condiments in glass jars
• Buy laundry detergent in a box
• Ask to have deli meat wrapped in paper
• Attempt to make my own yogurt

Wish me luck!

Reducing Household Waste: #2 Postpartum & Menstrual Care

Day 3 of the Plastics Contest and we have 1 small garbage bag in our trash can. What's in it? A couple disposable diapers (mostly from Monkey), some disposable (non-flushable) diaper wipes, plastic food wrap, containers and bags and some disposable pads.

Sounds like we have more trash than at my parent's house but they don't have two diaper wearing pooping-peeing kids, a woman having a postpartum bleed and another having a menstrual bleed (our Korean student). Clearly we have a disadvantage here! I'm trying to even out the odds though by using my handy dandy cloth pads.

When most women think about cloth pads certain adjectives come to mind: gross, dirty, leaky, stinky, inconvenient, old fashioned and crunchy. Most modern cloth pads aren't any of those things, except for crunchy, cloth pads are definitely crunchy.

There are a lot of benefits to using cloth pads. They're healthier than most disposable pads and tampons which often contain fragrances, dyes and bleached paper (Less Toxic Guide). They also save you money (yay!) and are very comfortable.

I use Perfect Pads, made in the US. The only thing that I don't like about them is I don't have enough (I only have 6) so I usually use disposable pads while waiting for them to go through the wash. I've also had a difficult time finding a Canadian retailer, so far this is the only one I could find (the other Canadian retailers listed on their site no longer carry the product).

How about you? Have you even used cloth pads or has the thought ever crossed your mind? It's really not that bad, you should try it out!

Reducing Household Waste: #1 Cloth Diapers

This morning I picked a banana peal out of the garbage. With the Plastics Challenge under way I couldn't ignore it. Now that day 1 is complete, I can proudly say that we only have 2/3 a small bag of garbage.

Using cloth diapers makes a huge dent in our household's waste! I can't say the same the laundry though, but luckily for me I don't mind doing laundry. Besides being better for the environment, cloth diapers are better for your little one too. Disposables are filled with harmful ingredients that have been linked to asthma, cancer and brain damage (Less Toxic Guide) - Yikes! There are even benefits for you, like saving your hard earned money.

Right now, I've got Swetpea in unbleached cotton pre-folds with Thirsties covers (no leaks - love em!). Monkey grew out of the BumGenius 3.0 pocket diapers a while back so we've been using disposable diapers for him. But! I am determined not to let disposable dipes be our downfall in this contest so he's been wearing undies and peeing all over the floor instead. Why am I doing this again?

Do you use cloth diapers? What's you favorite dipe? Have you thought of using cloth diapers?

The Plastics Challenge

The dining room table at my parents' house is the catalyst for hearty discussions, spontaneous opinion giving and the occasional contest. As a family we are not shy about sharing our thoughts and opinions. It might begin with a simple comment about the extreme sourness of the homemade pickles (which I made) that leads to the rebellious act of eating store-bought pickles that starts the discussion about consumer waste and the overuse of plastics. Somehow a contest of who can use the least amount of plastics over the course of one week is the result of this pickled plastics debate.

So here I am, with a three week old newborn, a toddler that poops in his room, trying to think of all the ways that I can reduce plastic waste throughout this week. Here's a rough list of items I have to stop using (or at least reduce):

• Disposable diapers - newborn & toddler 
• Disposable pads
• Plastic food packaging and wraps
• Plastic bags

Basically, my dad and I are going to do a bag count of the plastics and other non recyclable garbage we discard over the week. Whoever fills the least bags wins the contest!

I'll keep you updated.

Garage Sales

Yes! It's that time of year. Fluorescent signs are popping up all over the city proclaiming the return of garage sale season. I love those signs almost as much as the tulips sprouting in my garden. However, the one problem with those signs is their small text that I can never read. It doesn't help that as soon as Hubby sees one the car jolts forward and he tries to speed by. I've gotten around this problem, much to Hubby's disappointment, by bringing along a handy garage sale map. Today, I managed to see a couple of the season's first garage sales. My find of the day are these threading toys for Monkey.

How about you? Are you a garage sale-er? Last year was my first year of intense garage sale-ing. I went almost every Saturday morning for a few months. Ah the thrill! My favorites items to look for are books, kids clothes and toys and art supplies. What are yours?

Garage sale-ing: (verb) the act of going to garage sales.
Garage sale-er: (noun) the person doing the garage sale-ing.

Weekly Menu

Last week when I was making dinner (the pot roast) I managed to cut my finger, with my new super sharp knife, and then splatter sizzling oil on my face, neck and arms. I took these injuries as a sign from God that I need to keep things nice a simple for a while. So, you'll see a lot of repeats in my menu this week. I'll start trying new exotic things again once we've established more daily rhythm and routine with Monkey and Sweetpea.

Saturday: Mushroom pork chops, rice and peas.
Sunday: Chicken fajitas with the fixing :)
Monday: Slow-cooked beef with red wine.
Tuesday: Beef and veggie stirfry.
Wednesday: Slow-Cooker Baked Beans and sliced fruit and veggies.
Thursday: Vegetable soup and homemade bread.
Friday: Peirogies, sausage and broccoli.

A Prayer Request

I have a prayer request. My sister-in-law's grandmother unexpectedly passed away today. This is a very difficult time for her and her family. Could you please keep them in your prayers? Thanks :)

Potty Problems

A few weeks ago Hubby spent a whole day teaching Monkey how to use the potty. I'll admit that when Hubby returned to work after that weekend Monkey's potty follow-up was (as my dad would aptly put it) half-ass. Really who thought of starting to potty train a toddler a week after having a baby? Obviously some one wasn't thinking, that's the problem!

Alright, I'll give Hubby credit. Despite my lackluster follow-up Monkey knows how to pull down his pants and do his business. Pee usually gets into the potty (yay!) but the catch is... poop usually makes it on the floor, in his room, at nap time. Yes, we've tried duct taping the diaper, placing the potty in his room, showing our disappointment and even a firm spank on the bottom (gotta watch that you don't get poop on you hand though). I guess there's still the one piece PJ backward trick. Thank goodness this will end one day... I just wish that day was yesterday!

When Rabbits Kindle

Over the last two days our two female rabbits (does) kindled their second litters. The first time they kindled they lost all their kits, but this was mostly our fault because they didn't have nest boxes. Story here. This time, however, we built them nice nest boxes and supplied them with lots of nesting material.

Sofia got to building her nest right away. The day before she kindled she had laid out quite the pad. It was nicely lined with fur that she pulled off her belly. Odette, on the other hand, kept on throwing out all the nesting material through her cage (not very smart). We kept on giving her more but she kept on throwing it out. Finally, the day before she started pulling out her fur but her nest box looked like my Husband's room in university - an unorganized mess!

Sofia kindled first. Right after she kindled I could see the mass of fur covering the kits bobbing up and down. I stuck a couple fingers in her nest today and could feel her warm kits moving around. How exciting! I did pull out one dead kit from her nest. Hopefully there aren't any more. Odette kindled second, sometime last night. This morning all seven of her kits had died. They were scattered across the nest box barely covered in any fur. I can't say I'm surprised at the outcome.

Sofia eating a celery top.

We'll re bread Odette in the nest day or two. Hopefully she'll figure it out the third time round. If this keeps up over the summer she'll be joining us at the supper table.

Odette.

Easter Sunday

Christ is risen! Alleluia! Alleluia!

Here a few pictures of our Easter triduum.

On Saturday we dyed some eggs using natural dyes (purple cabbage and turmeric).

The egg on the right was dyed in turmeric. We bought the beautiful egg on the left from an Ukrainian Easter bazaar a week ago.

On Easter Sunday we went to church and when we got home Monkey had his first egg hunt. Later on we celebrated Easter with family and friends.

Weekly Menu

Alright! Things are starting to get a little more predictable around here. I wish predictable meant long and restful sleeps, but not with a 2 week old. That's ok, we're all feeling pretty good, despite the fatigue and massive amounts of laundry. Here's our menu for the week. Have a Happy Easter!

Saturday: Asparagus risotto and salad.
Sunday: Easter at my parents'! Hot Cross Buns.

Monday: Company pot roast, mashed potatoes and sautéed mushrooms.

Tuesday: PW Chicken Spaghetti. 

Wednesday: Shepperd's pie and sliced veggies.

Thursday: Turkey noodle soup. 

Friday: Slow cooker pepper pork chops, rice and steamed broccoli.