Life on the Road

Sorting and unpacking revealed a treasure-trove of girl clothes I was saving for the next one…  But since I don’t think *he* will want them, I want to sell or trade them.  After posting to one group and contemplating posting to another, it occured to me that it would be far easier to post the info here and just refer to it from other places.

Soon-to-follow posts will include the gender-neutral and boy clothes R.T. is so speedily outgrowing.

I’ve photo’d them in size groupings, mostly (click thumbnail pics to see a larger view).  I’d love to get rid of whole chunks rather than piece by piece, but will take whatever I can get.  We can negotiate a price, and/or see my “ISO” list at the end.

Obviously, I can give you more details about anything, as needed. 

Thanks!

Cute winter things.  Snowsuit says 6-12 mos.  Reversible jacket has no tags - I want to say 2T?  Cute suede/furry boots (Ugg knock-off).

Newborn:

12 mos.

18 mos.

24 mos./2T

TAKEN:
Pink turtleneck

TAKEN:
Black longsleeved dress
Blue longsleeved dress
Pink w/bows dress

TAKEN:
Sleeveless floral dress (top center)

3T

TAKEN:
All 3 dresses

Shorts overalls with hat, 5; 2 pairs of pants, 6

Girly socks

Shoes - new & like new - I got rid of the ones she actually wore…

In Search Of – Just a random list of things I’d be willing to trade for.  Try me on others! 

• Medium-long or Large Diapers, gender-neutral or boyish (fitteds, wool covers/shorties/etc.)
• Cool diaper bag
• Family cloth?
• Modest swimwear / swimwear fabrics (lycra, Taslan (?), ??)
• Wool for dipes (fresh or recycled)
• Handcrafted gifts/toys/household goods
• Modest apparel – clothing for a tall mama & girl (size 6-ish); papa & son (men’s L) and baby (12 mos. and up)
• Modest apparel – fabric & patterns for the whole family
• Fabric & notions
• Snaps (ployacetyl resin (”plastic”), size 20)
• Crochet supplies ? (we’re just learning)
• Books (kids ages 0, 3, 14; Christian fiction)
• Fun food stuff / kitchen stuff
• Old-school homemaking stuff

One thing I’ve been persuing in my quest to be thrifty is changing our laundry soap.

The first thing I tried was a make-your-own-detergent kit from Soaps Gone Buy, to make this recipe:

Powdered Laundry Detergent

1 cup grated Fels Naptha Soap

1/2 cup washing soda

1/2 cup 20 mule team borax

Mix and store in airtight container or bag. For light loads, use 2 tablespoon. For heavy loads, use 3 tablespoons.

Obviously the pre-grated soap and all is more expensive than buying everything totally from scratch, but it seemed like the best compromise for trying it out - and it’s still cheaper than the brand name stuff.

I liked it, especially at first…  But I had the feeling it was just not doing all it could be. 

Did I mention that the water here is disgusting?  It’s very hard, and it’s also nasty well-water with all kinds of yuck in it…

Miss J was still in diapers during the early parts of this quest, and we were having trouble with an amonia smell whenever she wet, as well as varying degrees of diaper rash that looked almost burn-like. 

The consensus of opinion was that this could all be attributed to detergent residue.  Too much detergent, or a “bad” one (for the siutation, at least), so it wasn’t getting rinsed out completely - in spite of a complete extra wash/rinse cycle to re-re-RE-rinse the diapers.

Home-made detergent, as I’d made, is one of the common “good” choices.  Rats.

So I tried ordering some Charlie’s Soap online.  Again, I liked it; again, especially at first.  Over time it seemed to still build up.  And by “over time” here I’m talking about two to four washings, not months or years…

Then I tried Purex, another popular cloth diapering choice.  Same result.

By now I was very frustrated.  I guess that’s not bad, since probably nothing but that level of frustration would have gotten me to shell out for Allen’s Naturally (although it is still supposedly a good value, since you use so little).  And…

It works!

Jewel is out of diapers, so R.T. may just have different chemistry.  But we’ve been using this for over a month now, and I’m still happy.

I also just found another option, though.  Someone from a cloth diapering online community discussed diaper laundry wuth a friend who is a chemist.  She (the chemist) looked at what was out there, then created this recipe:

1 55 oz. box Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda
1/2 cup Mule Team Borax
2 Cups Oxygen Cleaner-She recommends Sun ($5 @ Dollar General)
1/2 cup Simple Green
1/2 cup Calgon Water Softening Powder

Empty all into a bucket and mix together with your hands. Use 1 heaping scoop (1/8 cup) for diapers, 2 scoops for regular laundry. After we’ve used this for a while some have had to increase to 2 scoops for diapers, 3-4 for regular laundry….you will probably have to experiment a bit to see what works best with your water.

I chuckled when in her comments she said “this should work comparably to Allen’s.”  Made me wonder if I shouldn’t just stick with Allen’s…  But someone sent be a baggie full to try, so what the heck. 

I just watched the neatest video on YouTube, and I had to share it.

 No, it’s not the latest music video….  Or stupid pet tricks…  Or …  

 Actually, it was made by a governmental agency in India, with help from UNICEF and the WHO.  I’m a lot of fun at a party, eh? 

It’s really, really amazing how God made us!

My philosophizing about why so few people would imagine that’s possible will have to wait for another day…

Let me start off by saying that my local La Leche League leader is just really cool!  (Check out her website: Kristin Jayd - belly masks, organic produce, photography…).

She recycles old wool sweaters into the most gorgeous diaper covers…  She sells her “booty sweaters” on her Etsy site, Booty Boutique, but check out the one she made for RT (and his Papa, Wolf!):

And furthermore, I also always thought of wool as hot…  maybe that’s just because I’ve typically seen it in sweaters.  :)  Actually, as a breathable natural fiber, it keeps R.T.’s skin much cooler in our tropical weather than the modern “waterproof” fabric diaper stuff we have.

In case you missed it, I am now a huge fan of wool.  I tried raiding our local Goodwill for wool sweaters, to learn the “booty sweater” craft for myself, but I guess in this climate people just don’t have ‘em.

If you happen to be cleaning out your closet, remember us!

Not only transitioning to using them, but making them, too.  I guess I’ve never been one to do anything by half measures, but… whew!

I was lucky enough to be referred to a great online group of diaper seamstresses, so I was able to get a lot of information and a lot of specific questions answered in short order.

As I mentioned in my last diaper post, I got my hands on some fabric and a couple of patterns, so all that was left was to take the plunge.

The first “plunge” involved getting the sewing machine out, cleaning it up, and figuring out how to use it again (it’s been… six years, at least?).  Kudos to Viking, it runs like a champ (although I’m sure somewhere in its little sewing machine brain it’s wishing I would take it in for a maintenance service appointment).

For my first attempt, I used a pattern called the “FattyCakes Diaper”, designed by one of the ladies on the sewing forum, made up as a cover (rather than a “diaper” per se).  I used white PUL (the waterproof stuff) for the outer layer, and purplish suedecloth for a lining.  You can make them with just the waterproof layer, but with Jewel’s sensitive skin I thought that wouldn’t be wise.  This is a sized piece, so it was made for J.

Here’s the result after the bulk of the work is done (no fasteners yet):

And here’s the way it looks in use, over a prefold diaper on a 2.5 year old - who, I might add, was delighted with the idea that Mama had made a special diaper just for her!

Although I had some questions about where to place the fasteners, since it was designed for snaps rather than hook and loop, I have to say that for a first attempt I consider it a big success.

The next plunge was getting the serger unpacked, cleaned up, and ready for use.  This proved trickier, as it was much dirtier, had many more moving parts, and was somewhat the worse for wear.  But this, too, was accomplished.

To practice serging, I cut up a Goodwill shirt from Nick’s outgrown pile  (100% cotton waffle weave), and serged the edges to make cloth wipes - a whole bunch of ‘em:

But now it’s back to diapers.  I’m going to put together an adjustable-sized pocket diaper from the KCK One pattern, which claims it will be usable on both Baby Blessing and Jewel - and of course, therefore, be usable throughout Baby’s diapering career.

Got to keep getting as much sewing done as I can…  Things are going better, but there’s still no telling when Baby will decide to make her appearance! 

Well, today’s the day…  I am going to sew a cloth diaper!

Wolf found my sewing machines, which had been buried with all our stored stuff, and I cleared off my desk to use temporarily as a sewing table. 

I have been accumulating the fabric, patterns, and notions I need from various sources.  I’ve tried to be very frugal about getting the materials together, searching for people selling off their excess, stores with cheap shipping, and so on.  And of course recycling our old t-shirts and towels into the mix takes a big bite out of what the budget would be to buy everything new.

• I have PUL fabric for the waterproof outer layer, which I bought as an assortment of remnants from someone online.
• I have a pattern for an adjustable one-size pocket diaper that will work for the new baby as well as Miss J, as well as a couple other varities of patterns I got free online.  Since it’s a .pdf file and I can just print out more copies as needed, I’m not going to worry about transferring it onto a more durable medium right now (lots of people apparently love using clear vinyl “tablecloth” stuff for that).
• I have polyester thread and ball-point sewing machine needles from WalMart.
• I have the specialized notions from an online vendor (same place I got the pattern) - Fold-Over Elastic and polybraid elastic (for different kinds of diapers), and TouchTape (harder-working type of hook & loop) for the fastener.
• I have a good-sized piece of suedecloth for the inner “wicking” layer of the dipes, purchased at JoAnn’s Fabrics with my 40% Off One Item coupon.
• For absorbant inners, I have the prefold diapers we’re already using, for covers, or “pocket” diapers that get stuffed each use (but are easier to wash and dry!), plus the Goodwill pile to raid for styles that have absorbant layers sewn in.
• And I have the basic basics already in my sewing kit - pins, marking pencil, good scissors (although it seems a wheel cutter is the popular thing for this), stitch ripper (who me?  mistakes??), etc.

All the fabric (and elastic) has been pre-washed and dried.  The sewing machine is threaded.

Now all I have to do is…  Do it!

I keep hearing people talk about Pedoodles…  Shoes for babies and little kids that cost more that I pay for shoes, but everyone insists they’re worth it.

I mean, they’re really cute:

But $34 for something she’ll outgrow that fast?  I dunno…

Maybe I’ll win a pair! 

If you want to get in the running, a pair of Pedoodles is the giveaway of the week over at Our Blessed Arrows.  Can’t hurt to try, right? 

I’m all about good deals these days.  Ms. Frugal Shopper, that’s me.

But I’ve often noted that there are certain things that are just not a “good deal” to get, even if they are less expensive. 

Common examples are certain store brand and generic grocery items. 

Don’t get me wrong:  I love the Costco and BJ’s warehouse store brands - everything we’ve tried of theirs is great.  Trail mix made with real M&M’s Brand chocolates, marshmallows that everyone likes better than Jet Puffed, and on and on…

But Safeway brand graham crackers?  Yuck.  Generic ice cream?  Just not even in the same league…

Even those, however, pale in comparison to the two disasters we had recently with “bargain” pet products.

The first disaster was dry cat food.

Look, we have SIX cats.  They eat only kibble.  And they like it.  Period.

Typically we do get kitten chow for the babies, and a decent brand of food for the old ladies, since we realize that good nutrition is important for all of them, too.

One week, though, the budget was especially tight.  Wolf was driving the U-Haul truck back across the entire country from Arizona with all our earthly possessions - and using about twice as much gas as we’d budgeted for.  I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to get him home, and then I discovered that the cats were completely out of food (and the person in charge of that situation hadn’t told me).

So I took what little cash was in my wallet, trekked over to the Family Dollar, and picked up a bag of the most generic cat food known to man.

I didn’t get the impression that they were eagerly gobbling it up, but it really wasn’t high on my list of concerns right then.

It was probably a couple of weeks later when I started worrying about Loki.  She wasn’t adjusting well to having the kittens around, and it seemed like she was avoiding the food, water, and perhaps even litter box, because she didn’t want to be there and have one of them jump on her tail.  She was getting thinner, and then she started sneezing…

I took her to the vet, who gave her subcutaneous fluids and drew blood to run a battery of tests.

The results were comforting on one front, and alarming on another.  “Is she better or worse than when you brought her in?” they asked first.  Not all the way “well” certainly, but definately improved from that low point.  That confirmed what the vet thought from the results - it was an allergic reaction to something, and she would get over it if the offensive substance was gone.

By then we had created a separate “old cat room” for the two senior ladies, with a magnet-locked cat door that only they can use.  They have a private litter box, fresh water, and - yes - premium “Senior Formula” cat food. 

“The offensive substance,” indeed.

I couldn’t move quickly enough to throw away the remaining generic food from the other food dish, and replace it with the good stuff.

It took several weeks for Loki to get back to herself, and we also found ourselves nursing two of our four kittens through the same awful sneezing, vomiting illness.

I almost killed half of our cats, just to save a buck…

The second generic debacle, as unlikely as it sounds, involved cat litter.

We use scoopable cat litter.  And with six cats, we use a lot of it!

It’s not cheap, although I do what I can with buying it at the warehouse store, buying the giant bucket size, and watching for sales.

One day we thought we’d check out the local feed store, and discovered an amazing thing - a 50 lb. sack of generic scoopable cat litter, for about the price I usually pay for the 20 lb. buckets!  WOW!

As such things happen, it worked into the litter box rotation gradually.  There was no “magic moment” to look back on and pinpoint.

About this time, we took all four of the kittens (who were six months old at this point) to the vet to get spayed/neutered.

Then we started noticing that someone was peeing… all over the place - but in weird places.  We had had some problems previously with one of the girls acting out by peeing, but (a) the vet had speculated that getting her fixed would, well, fix her, and (b) these incidents didn’t fit her pattern.

I was horrified when I found the culprit.  Charles, our darling and only boy kitty, strolled into the bathroom and squatted on the bath mat right in front of me!  Not marking or spraying, just peeing!

Discipline didn’t help.  We called the vet, but they didn’t have any helpful advice.  I was seriously agonizing over whether he would have to become an outdoor cat - which is not something I even believe in.

I fell back on some of the advice we’d gotten for our troublesome girl, and decided we should try a different litter.  Nick changed out one of the boxes for a fresh batch of (freshly purchased) our old “regular” scoopable littler in a big bucket.

*POOF*  No more pee anywhere else…

All that extra laundry, and stress, and grossness - trying to save a buck on cat litter.

The moral of the story is clear:  You have to know when to save that last penny, and know when to say when! 

I can appreciate it when people aren’t drawn in by a promotion, and realize that if they have to spend extra money to “save” that money, then they aren’t really saving…   But you do have to pay attention to the details to know when this is the case.

We were in a discount shoe store today looking for a new pair of “Church shoes” for Miss J, who is having a growth spurt.

There were two ladies in front of us in the checkout line, and both had issues with their purchases.

The first was a couple of rounds of normal things like, “What do you mean those are $40? The shelf tag says they are on sale for $29.99!”

The second was more entertaining…

She had a pair of shoes marked $49.99, and a purse marked $16.99.  She also had a coupon that would allow her to save $10 on a purchase of $60 or more. 

Well the pure was on sale, it turns out, for $10.99.  But in addition, the store was running a “Buy One, Get One for 50% Off” sale.  So the purse rang up at 50% off, or only $5.49.

Now she was well short of her $60, and could not use the coupon. 

She was frustrated, and told the clerk that in that case she would just take the shoes, and not get the purse.  “I’m not going to go find something else, and spend another $20, just so I can ’save’ $10!” she declared.  So she paid and left.

…Apparently missing entirely the point that the she would have gotten the purse - marked $16.99 but ringing up at $5.49, at a savings of more than $10, even without using the coupon!

BTW, they didn’t “get” us…  We bought J the one pair of shoes that was needful, and went on our way thankful for the few dollars we had saved by shopping there. 

Well, I guess it’s a little Dickens -

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

I got a great deal on a bundle of diapers (some new, some lightly used) from a blogger I ran across who was clearing out her inventory in preparation for a move. 

(Some of these are linked, just so you can look and see what they are if you’re curious.  They aren’t affiliate links or anything else I have a stake in.)

• Some Rumpsters all-in-one diapers for Jewel
• Some all-in-one diapers for the baby
• A number of infant size prefolds
• A few regular size prefolds
• A few “Trickle Free Trainers” which J will presumably need… some day
• Some Snappi fasteners for prefolds

Whew!

So the Rumpsters we could use right away, but the prefolds weren’t much help until we got some covers.

We went through one round of wearing them, then tossed them in the wash and put on (gasp) a disposable.  I “line” dried them (on a drying rack in my bedroom, actually), and everything went swimmingly. 

Then I ran across the Miracle Diapers loan program.  Having lost our business this year, and been on the road, and being pregnant, I am on WIC and qualified for their program as well.

They sent me a package for Miss J that included a dozen prefolds, 3 waterproof (PUL) covers, 3 infant size prefolds for doublers, and 6 cloth wipes. (They’ll be sending along a package for the baby with more and smaller goodies in a couple of weeks, too!).

So we were all set with the prefolds, as well, and enough diapers to wear while the rest were washing.  No more ’sposies for us!

A few wrinkles to iron out soon made themselves apparent, however.

• While the Rumpsters didn’t bother her at all, Miss J is chafing on her inner thigh from the the PUL covers.  Apparently, when they get damp, these produce an unhappy friction.  Hopefully this will be simply solved by changing more often (thus removing the “damp” factor).
• When I washed and hung the Rumpsters the next time around, apparently the ambient humidity in my room was a lot higher.  Things didn’t dry, and didn’t dry…  And then they got mildew spots!  Eeeeew!!  (Needless to say that started another round of laundry - including extra sani-washing).  Looks like my plan to save money by not drying them in the electric dryer has been foiled before it even got off the ground…

Stay tuned for the next exciting eposode.