Goodness in the world

Lately my heart has been overflowing with gratitude for my life and all of the good things and people in it. Everywhere I look I am able to see the beauty in my world and I am so grateful for that, because there have been so many dark days this past year! And as I'm coming back into the light I am just overwhelmed by all of the good that there is surrounding me. I've caught myself multiple times in the last few days getting all choked up over something completely commonplace--yesterday it was seeing Juliet help Isaac to combine his agave nectar-peanut butter mix so he could more easily make himself a sandwich.

And my heart is especially full this week because we're coming up on the birthdays of my oldest and youngest children. It's bittersweet for me. I am so thrilled by all of the progress that they both have made in the recent past--Abigail is becoming my right hand, my friend, and just the sweetest little darling I could ever ask for. She is maturing into this responsible, humorous, and compassionate young lady and I am so awed every day by how much she is changing and growing.

And Nathan--my dear little boy--is finally starting to drink of his own iniative. Such a small thing in the grand scheme of things, but so huge in our lives! A comment Isaac made today testifies to how remarkable and exciting this is for us--he walked through the kitchen and stopped transfixed and said, "MOM! LOOK! Natie is picking up his cup in his own two hands and he is drinking, Mommy, he is drinking!! All by himself!"

And indeed he was. It seems to be getting easier to persuade him to drink and we are so grateful!!!

Another thing I am really enjoying these days is seeing the similarities between my husband and my children. We inherited an enormous set of K'nex building toys and the five of them (the four oldest kids and Neil) have built some really impressive stuff. Isaac and Abigail in particular are very into K'nex and have built some cool motorized dinosaur models (which actually walk across the floor) and various vehicles. The Ferris wheel & rolling ball machine (both of which are powered by a small motor and do work) are our favorites so far. Right now they are working on a roller coaster.

 Some days I look around my messy house with its skiff of toys and books and laundry and I wish so much that we were done with school and moving on to our "someday house" (which of course will be perfectly clean and always organized!). But really, I love my little house so dearly. I am almost done with all of the painting and I feel like it finally reflects my taste now rather than my taste eight years ago. I am particularly fond of the new armchairs flanking the fireplace--we had the papasan chairs since the year we were married and they lost their appeal about eight years ago when I realized that they spent all of their time taken apart and lying around the living room while the kids played with them. I hated always getting after the kids to leave the papasans alone or to pick them up and I cannot even tell you how amazingly happy I was to give them away to a new home! I practically skipped on my way back inside after helping to load them up. And I've been searching for the perfect armchair for about two years and I am so in love with these gray linen tufted beauties and their nailhead trim. Have I set my heart a bit too much on material things? Quite possibly when it comes to how much I love those chairs.

 And the white cabinets and gray walls were worth every single second of the time it took to convert them from the red walls and builder-basic oak cabinets. The afternoon sunshine fills the kitchen when I'm making dinner and just makes it the happiest, sunshiniest most beautiful place to be. It's so nice to passionately love a room where I spend so much of my time.

 I overheard the girls on March 31st discussing what pranks we might play on them the next day for April Fool's. I have never really done much to celebrate April Fool's day but I wanted to make it fun for them since they were so excited about it--so I got online to get a few ideas and then spent an hour or so setting up about ten pranks. My personal favorites were the Jell-O in juice cups (Luke's reaction was priceless), the socks that were sewed shut at the ankles, and the pillow barrage that toppled down from their bedroom doors in the morning. They were also pretty entertained by the paper mustaches that I added to our family pictures; Juliet was less entranced by the (washable marker) mustache adorning her own face. Isaac, as you can see below, left his on all day.

 And last but not least, a few things that have made me think, "Oh, what a wonderful world!":

1) Selling our cantilevered umbrella (thanks, Craigslist) for just about the cost of the chicken coop materials.
2) A quick evening run to the library by myself and coming home with SO many books on topics that fascinate me & I'd been wanting to do a little more research...literally so many books that I had to borrow a library cart to get them all to the checkout desk (I couldn't physically carry them all even in my bags!).
3) Plants! I am so much happier with live greenery and flowers in my home. A few weeks ago I bought myself some flowers at the grocery store. Just as they were starting to look tired my visiting teacher stopped by with a beautiful bunch of purple tulips. When the tulips began dropping their petals, Neil surprised me with a gorgeous potted lily. And a few days later, my dear friend Jen brought me some potted cuttings from her aloe vera--all the way from Arizona!!--on a morning when I had literally been thinking that very day about tracking down an aloe vera plant for my kitchen.
4) Listening to Abigail pray last night at family prayer. So incredibly heartfelt, specific towards the needs of our family and extended family, and really taking the time to ponder and think as she was speaking.
5) Yesterday the boys and I mixed up some homemade playdough. Normally it's banned from our house (I hate the mess!) but this recipe seems way less prone to crumbly stickiness than does the storebought kind. It has been the source of much joy over the last 48 hours.
6) I quietly supervised yesterday while Abigail and Isaac made a batch of homemade instant oatmeal. They did a great job and happily ate the fruits of their labor this morning before I was out of bed (another win!).
7) I'm finally feeling enough like "myself" to start doing things again that I eliminated because of stress but have missed nonetheless: composting, cloth-diapering, and cheese-making. None of which are vital to my life but all of which add something intangible that makes me feel more content with the status quo (okay, the cheese is pretty dang good).
8) I expected the marathon recovery to be really awful. I was definitely stiff for a couple of days, but I ran 2 miles yesterday and it helped so much with the soreness that I ran 4 miles today. Now I just need a new goal to work towards!
9) My little lettuces are up! I love seeing those little green shoots every morning and evening as I walk quietly out to visit the chickens. It's rapidly becoming one of my favorite parts of the day.
10) I am so blessed in my marriage. Did Neil want chickens? Not particularly, but he knew how much I did & how long I'd been reading up on them and thinking about them and so he supported our endeavor and threw himself into it whole-heartedly (he did nix a couple of other suggestions about our urban homestead--and wisely so!). He is definitely the voice of reason in our relationship (I am all to prone to passionately commit myself to something new without fully considering the ramifications) but he is so supportive and logically helps me find a way to achieve my goals.

And last but not least, I hung the salt-dough Easter ornaments that we made last year. I love looking out and seeing these bright little flashes of color twirling against the sky.

i don't know where my camera is

We had such a nice weekend.  Unfortunately I have no idea where the camera is, so no pictures, but it was lovely nonetheless. 

Neil and I went on a date Friday night, and we bought ourselves some goodies at the grocery store and cooked an elaborate little dinner for ourselves after the children were in bed.  It was so nice to be able to linger at our own candle-lit table and chat.  On Saturday morning Abigail and I got up early and went to the library book sale and the farmers' market together; it seems like it's so rare that we get to spend that one-one-one time together these days and it was a little jewel of a morning.  When we came home we did yard work and planted flowers and generally wore ourselves out, and Neil and I practically fell into bed at the end of the day.  Yesterday we had our first 9 am church in several years (hip hip hurray!!) which meant that everyone got long naps in the afternoon, we had time to cook a delicious dinner and go on a walk together, and then Neil and I played board games for hours after the kiddos were in bed (then Luke was up all night and the nice weekend was over).

Luke is getting enormous these days--he was one month old yesterday, and I'll be interested to see how much he weighs when we go in for his checkup tomorrow.  He's already pushing the limits of his 3-6 month clothes, and he's now wearing Isaac's diapers (another reason why I LOVE cloth diapers--I only need one size!!). 

A few things

This is Juliet's superhero costume.  She wears it all the time.  I think it's adorably hilarious.

This spring I planted fifty or sixty gladiolus bulbs.  I'm not a fan of paying exorbitant florist prices, but I must admit that nothing gives me a little lilt of happiness like a vase of gorgeous flowers sitting on the kitchen table.  So I love this time of year when I can grow my own!

We're eating a lot from the garden these days--I go out in the morning and see what's ripe and that's what we have for dinner.  These onions, peppers, zucchini, and rainbow chard came together with some whole-wheat linguine (unfortunately, we discovered that we prefer the taste of kale to chard.  Next year we'll plant more kale and less chard.  We were seduced by its gorgeous coloring!)

Last night we had mashed turnips, baked zucchini, the first of the tomatoes, and fresh cherries and apricots.  (We also had a million cucumbers to eat but I forgot to cut them up.)  And then after dinner I spent an hour picking beans, and we pulled out about two pounds to eat, then blanched and froze another 3 quart bags of beans.  And then we canned a bunch of cherries.  We're slowly shifting into those typical late-summer evenings...harvesting and processing.  A lot.  Oh boy.  My feet hurt just thinking about it...tonight is reserved for blueberries (again!) 

And last but not least, I want to give a shout-out to our cloth diapers!  We've been using them for thirteen months now (we started in June with Juliet before Isaac was born; Isaac began wearing them when he was two weeks old).  I am still so in love with cloth diapering.  Aside from the fact that I never have to buy diapers ever ever, which is completely awesome, they are so lovely and user-friendly.  No more diaper rashes, and the cloth diapers smell so much less than disposables (which I didn't expect at all--but when we were on vacation a couple of months ago and Isaac wore disposables, I noticed that the disposables are much more odorous).  If you're contemplating making the switch, I would highly recommend cloth diapering (so would Neil).  And yes--they do get completely clean.  :-)

for your information

I read this post today at new-to-me blog Simple Organic (which has some great articles!) and thought it was a great overview of why anyone would choose cloth diapering.

As a sidenote, we've been cloth diapering for nine months now, and I don't even think about it anymore. It is SO easy, and so not gross at all. I asked Neil the other day if he would cloth diaper our kids if I died (I always ask him things like that when I'm wondering if he's really invested in something or just humoring me), and he said yes, he would, because the cloth diapers don't stink like disposables and we haven't bought diapers in months.

Seriously, I can't say enough good things about cloth diapering, and it was really intimidating to me at first. Go read that article! It's short. :-) And please feel free to email me if you have questions about diapers or about anything. I LOVE getting emails from readers!! (just ask Necia, who didn't know what she was getting into when she asked me about bread recipes...)

cloth update

Since a bunch of people have asked, here's how I feel after a week about the cloth diapers.

Loving them.

Yes, it's a little more work. Mostly just running another load of laundry every couple of days. I've been really impressed by a) how well the diapers hold everything in and b) how clean they get in the wash--not a sight or a scent of a stain. (I'm doing a cold soak, cold rinse, then adding a little Tide Free and Clear and running a hot wash/cold rinse, then air-drying the covers). But it isn't gross--actually, I would say that the "stinky" diapers aren't nearly as noticeable odor-wise as with disposable diapers. (and believe me, I've had plenty of chances to test this theory out.) I was really amazed to see how things just sort of...peeled right off (and btw, did you know that it's technically illegal to not dispose of the waste in disposable diapers in the toilet before dropping them in the trash? I certainly didn't).

In addition to the Fuzzibunz, we also ordered some prefolds and wraps (the Try-it Kit from cottonbabies.com) and I have really liked those. In fact, the prefold lasts just fine through Juliet's nap, which is great because those are much, much, much cheaper. So right now we have 2 Fuzzibunz, 6 prefolds, and 2 wraps, which is about enough to get us through one day. I ordered three bumGenius today and I'm planning to order another lot of prefolds and wraps so that I can do laundry about every other day.

Juliet has really taken to the new diapers--I must say that she's much more compliant about diaper changes now when she's had the chance to pick out the panda bear cover over the froggies, etc. And I really think her little backside looks darling in all the fun colors and patterns (seriously, have you checked out how adorable cloth diapers are? Totally stylish). I was a little worried about how much more frequently I'd have to change her, but it hasn't been much of an issue at all--I change her about every 2-3 hours during the day, depending on how much she's drinking, and then she's gone up to 13 hours at night.

The only thing I'm not crazy about is the fact that I haven't yet mastered the art of folding the prefolds so they don't leave little red marks over her backside, and they tend to bunch up a bit between her legs. The Fuzzibunz don't have this problem, but then again, each diaper is $18 more. Juliet doesn't seem to care, so I don't know if it's just me being neurotic or if it really makes a difference. And depending on how I do the fold (standard three-fold vs. bikini twist) her shorts don't fit as well (bikini twist works best, but has the drawback of occasionally leaking a bit onto the cover--but it's never made it through to her clothes). I'm also liking the velcro wraps better than the snaps on the Fuzzibunz--just a bit more user-friendly. The one thing I really do love about the Fuzzibunz is they're basically just like a disposable diaper--it takes me a grand total of 20 seconds to change a diaper, whereas the prefolds and wraps require a bit more finesse for a novice like me (a minute or two per change, depending on how wiggly Jules is).

Anyway, I'm really liking the switch. And here's a little secret I haven't told Neil (are you reading this, honey?)...I really don't care whether it saves money or not (although it certainly will). The more I learn about cloth diapering, the more I wish I would have done it earlier, and the more I wish I'd even known it was an option. Super easy, kind to the backside (who wouldn't want to have a nice little layer of microfleece?), and guilt-free.

roundup

• we're headed up to the temple tomorrow. I am really looking forward to this, because we haven't been able to go in a LONG time (some pipes burst in the winter and it was closed for awhile for repair; then I got to be out of commission for awhile following surgery). I can't even tell you how excited I am, especially after all the great Conference talks on the blessings of the temple. I'm also excited because we're going up overnight so it's a less rushed and more peaceful experience, and what's not to love about a hotel suite with a pool (thank you, Priceline).
• we tried the first cloth diaper last night. Juliet was SO excited, and I was pretty happy with the performance of the diaper--it did leak a little, but then again, it was on her for 13.5 hours (we did bedtime early last night, because it was that kind of day) and I forgot to stuff the soakers more towards the front, because she's a total stomach sleeper. In any case, the fleece liner and Juliet were totally dry (and the soakers were definitely not). Thus far, I am optimistic--I think the next shipment should arrive today (we decided to try out prefolds and wraps too) so I'm looking forward to giving those a spin too.
• our garden is growing like CRAZY. we keep having thunderstorms, and every night it seems like the peas have grown 6 inches and the tomatoes are trying to break free of their cages. already.
• we have also had tornadoes, and all the fun weather means that my left foot has been swelling like crazy. I think this is probably due to some of the vascular repair that the surgeon did along with the hernia removal, but it was sure a relief when the weather cleared up and I could see the veins and tendons in my foot again.
• I'm doing some editing work again--I kind of had a dry spell there for awhile, so it was a relief when on the day I got my last paycheck from the university, I also got a call asking me to take on a fairly large project. I really do like editing--for one thing, it's always nice to have a measurable accomplishment at the end of the day that stays done (unlike laundry).
• speaking of measurable accomplishments--I finished up my 8 weeks of meal plans and grocery lists for the months after the baby is born. enormous relief. and I've made 3 of the 15 planned freezer meals, so we're on a roll!

am i crazy?

so we've decided to take the plunge. cloth diapers ahoy!

we decided to (tentatively, depending on how we like them) go with the FuzziBunz (we're still debating one-size or perfect size). Our reasoning: we like the snaps, we like the all-in-oneness of the pocket, and we potentially like the idea of having only one size of diapers for all the diapering years (major plus: being able to have juliet and the new baby in the same size of diaper). if we decide not to go with one-size, it will probably be because you can buy factory seconds for the perfect-size for a discounted price.

our plan is to begin with juliet right away, and begin with the new baby around 6 weeks or so (once we are not crazy and sleep-deprived and hopefully the baby is on a good intestinal schedule).

as to WHY we're doing this, i confess that environmental concerns don't weigh with me nearly as much as a) baby's health (read this article, for instance, which discusses concerns ranging from diaper rash to testicular cancer) and b) budgetary factors. yes, the initial investment is NOT cheap, but since we're planning to have more children, we hope this will pay off in the long run.

your thoughts? if you've done cloth, what have you used? any reactions? feedback? advice? i have been doing SOOO much research but i'm sure there is a lot out there that i don't know. (and are the rest of you going to want to come to my house if there are cloth diapers lurking about?)