Parenting Tip

If your kid has a boogie nose - don't give her a dandelion to blow on.  Especially if she always smells flowers.

Rose Petals

Today, for the first time, I have a bedroom floor showered with rose petals. 

What is the occasion? 

Well let me tell you.  It all started with an innocent trip to the garden.  This year has been an amazing year for my roses, one bush has been in bloom since spring!  When looking at them today VF noticed that there were buds, and picked one.  I showed her that when the green leaves were peeled back they revealed the red petals underneath.  Well, VF though that was pretty neat, so she kept the rosebud as a treasure and wouldn't give it to anyone.  Once we came inside she did a bit more investigating.  After all, if the green revealed red, perhaps the red would reveal a new color.  Petal by petal she peeled, until the bud disappeared.  And that is how I ended up with a bedroom floor covered in rose petals.

Super easy/healthy dessert

Berry Dessert

Berries
Yogurt
Cinnamon
Brown Sugar








Fill four custard cups with berries - I used blueberries.  Stir some yogurt with cinnamon and spoon on top of the berries.  Sprinkle some brown sugar on top and broil for 5 minutes.  Easy right?  And you probably have most the ingredients in your larder already.  Tasty, tasty tasty!

New Deck

We FINALLY have a fully operational deck!  It took up all summer, but better late than never. 

Let's see it started in April when we hired a friend to build it.  The first day of demolition was enough to make anyone nervous. 

Building took about 2 months since our friend was doing the building on weekends and free days.  After getting it all built, I waited for the stars to align to do some staining.  I needed a day that wasn't too hot or cold, a day that would be followed by dry days without rain forecast, and most difficult of all a day that I had back-up for watching the baby.   Tricky, huh.  Truth be told the deck still isn't completely stained, but I think the high side has been knocked off it. 

The last piece of the puzzle was getting some furniture for the deck, and this one took a while.  After paying for it all to be built we had limited resources set aside for shopping, which meant waiting for a clearance sale.  The umbrella and base came from Kohl's bought on clearance with a 30% off coupon.  After using it I wouldn't recommend it, but it will last a little while.  Then the furniture came from Sears - also on clearance.  I had been shopping craigslist looking for a lucky find for a couple weeks - and I think S just got tired of hearing about it.  We went shopping and after some minor dramas found what we wanted.  I put together the chairs, and he helped with the table and voila!

Now we have an excuse to invite everyone over for some grilling!

Smelly Diapers

As I mentioned in my previous post, Cloth Diapers, we have gone the old fashioned route of not using disposable diapers whenever possible.  For the most part this has been an easy and rewarding switch.  Until a couple months ago that is.  Lately there has been a smell.  More than that, a stench from the diapers.  It seemed that once soiled and thrown in her wet bag they conspired to knock out anyone who entered the  room.  And since they are the room that VF sleeps in, generally with the door closed this was a bit of a problem.

First let me tell you more about the smell.  I'm not exaggerating when I say a stench.  It was a super concentrated ammonia burning smell that was very distinct.  Trust me, if this happens to your diapers you will know it.  Now after a few washes with an extra rinse thrown in and no improvement I decided a bit of research was needed.  I read a few cloth diapering websites and found that there are two issues that can lead to smells.  The first is detergent build-up.  While this was a possibility since I don't use a "diaper detergent" it seemed unlikely as I wasn't having absorbancy issues.  The second issue was ammonia build-up.  Given the smell I felt confident that I had found my problem.  Now for a solution. . . what?  It depends on your water type?  sigh.  Sure enough the solution to the ammonia issue was not as straight forward as I had hoped.  Depending on how soft or hard your water, there are different solutions. 

Now here in CR we have a pretty hard water supply.  It is listed as hard with 7.0 grains per gallon being pretty typical.  So if you are in a similar circumstance, this may be the solution for you.  If not you'll need to conduct a few experiments I am afraid.  At any rate, I read good things about the Rockin' Green Hard Rock Diaper detergent so I bought a sample size and gave it a try.  It was enough for 4 washers, and it certainly helped.  Helped, but not completely.  The stench wasn't quite as eye watering, but it was still there just lurking, and waiting for another chance to strike.  I already had some Borax and Washing Soda so I tried these next.  I did a load with a mix of both powders - super hot water and let me tell you, this did the trick.  It worked so well that I complete forgot about the smell until I was getting ready to do the next load of laundry! Only as I carried the wetbag to the washer did I think - wait a second.  Why can I think clearly and why aren't I wanting to hurl? 

Going forward I think maybe every 2 or 3 loads I'll do the Borax/Washing Soda mix just to ensure future happy breathing.  But for now I am calling this problem solved!