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That’s what my grandma calls them – Seat Covers.
Pretty fancy seat covers, if you ask me.
Bum Genius 3.0, One-Size diapers if you want to be exact.
We’re going on two weeks of (nearly) exclusive cloth diaper use, and so far I really like them!
One thing that really made the whole project a bit easier is my hand-made flannel baby wipes.
Not having to sort out the disposable wipes from the washable diaper makes the changing of messy diapers just that much easier.
So far, using the cloth diapers has been no more trouble than the disposable diapers – but I’ll have to give a regular diaper report… if only because they’re so fun to photograph!
A testament to my, umm… less-than-thorough-cleaning, becomes an impromptu, hands on science lesson.
This is the view I grew up with. Minus Dan, of course. This is the valley that my parents bought when I was fifteen. All eighty-two acres are just as lovely.
When we moved there, the valley was filled with scrubby trees. We cleaned it out, dug a whole out of the hill, and put in our house. For the better part of a year, we lived in the shell of that house while we continued to work on it. We didn’t have running water or electricity at first.
We read books aloud to each other by lamplight in the winter evenings. We watched the fireflies as they filled the valley in the summer nights.
We hauled water up from a spring on the property and heated it on a wood burning stove. Dishes were washed by candelight. Showers were taken outside in a little solar heated shower, often at night, for privacy – not from neighbors because there aren’t any.
For a while, there were no windows on the main part of the house, but my siblings and I insisted on sleeping out there anyway. In the winter we heated stones on the wood stove, wrapped them in towels, and put them at the bottoms of our beds to keep our toes warm. In the summer, bats often joined us in our “bedroom” at night. We drifted off to sleep watching the fireflies glowing softly below us.
We loved ever minute of it! It was my parent’s dream come true… a piece of land, and a fairly self-sufficient home. We poured our sweat and blood into that land, and we love it. Those of us kids who have left home, look back on it with a fondness that we may never feel for any other piece of property. The siblings still at home may not feel that attachment, but that’s because they were still essentially babies while we were taming that bit of land.
Mom used every bit of daylight to plant her cottage garden in the front of the house, and for years she has nursed it along, and now it rivals many botanical gardens in it’s variety and beauty.
Dan and I sat on that very bench in my mom’s garden, under neath the fragrant blossoms of the crabapple tree and the sparkling canopy of stars, nearly every evening during the spring of our courtship. We watched the otherworldly dances of the fireflies that filled the valley below us. Many times since, we’ve commented that that valley must have the most amazing firefly display in the world. It’s incredible.
Things around here have been phenomenally crazy for the last few weeks. I can’t believe that it’s been nearly two whole weeks since I last posted.
We have so far:
Visited with my brother (Caleb) and his girlfriend, Alison who came home for a week.
Visited with my brother (Jared) who came home from college two times during the last couple of weeks.
Visited with my sister (Anna) and her family, who came home to participate in all the visiting (see above) and celebrate our mom’s and Bessie’s (my niece, Anna’s daughter) birthdays – (see below).
Started raising cockatiels with my brother (Zion).
Met my uncle from Chicago at a local(ish) campground.
Camped.
Hiked.
Fished. (Okay, only a little, but as my uncle says… “Fishing requires patience, but fishing with children requires the patience of an angel).
Uploaded and edited roughly 1400 photographs.
Celebrated my mom’s 49th birthday.
Celebrated my sister-in-law’s 46th birthday.
Celebrated my niece’s 3rd birthday.
Celebrated Easter Sunday.
Changed 224 diapers.
Had/have a bad cold and a case of hives (mine!).
Attended a play.
Prepared roughly 42 meals.
Washed around 746 loads of laundry.
Washed 300 loads of dishes in the dishwasher.
Had a picnic.
Did major grocery shopping twice.
Took a mass family picture involving 20 individual and wiggly people.
Played at the park.
Juggled three fussy babies.
Figured taxes. Repeatedly.
Bought two cars.
Cleaned up approximately 29 spills.
Visited the Science Center.
Put out four oven fires.
Had two tires repaired.
Potty trained a two year old.
Mopped the floor. Once.
Learned of two separate and potentially serious car accidents involving my parents and my brother.
Photographed most of the above.
A small bonfire, marshmallows from the surplus grocery store, and my camera…
As you can tell, I could easily have been entertained all evening!
The exert below was taken from Elizabeth Elliot’s book Keep A Quiet Heart
When we were growing up our parents taught us, by both word and example, to pay attention to little things. If you do a thing at all, do it thoroughly: make the sheets really smooth on the bed, sweep all the corners and move all the chairs when you sweep the kitchen, roll the toothpaste tube neatly and put the cap back on, clean the hair out of the brush each time you use it, hang your towel straight on the rod, fold your napkin and put it in the silver ring right before you leave the table, never wet your finger when you turn pages. They kept promises made to us as faithfully as they kept those made to adults. They taught us to do the same. You didn’t accept an invitation to a party and then not turn up, or agree to help with Vacation Bible School and back out because a more interesting activity presented itself. The only financial debt my parents ever incurred was a mortgage on a house, which my father explained was in a special class because it was real estate which would always have value.
When I went to boarding school the same principles I had been taught at home were emphasized. There was a hallway with small oriental rugs which we called “Character Hall” because the headmistress, Mrs. DuBose, could look down that hall from the armchair where she sat in the lobby and spot any student who kicked up a corner of a rug and did not replace it. She would call out to correct him “It’s those tiny things in your life which will crack you even when you get out of this school!” In the little things our character was revealed. Our response would make or break us. “Don’t go around with a Bible under your arm if you didn’t sweep under the bed,” she said, for she would have no pious talk coming out of a messy room.
“Great thoughts go best with common duties. Whatever therefore may be your office regard it as a fragment in an immeasurable ministry of love” [Bishop Brooke Foss Wescott, b. 1825].
It is not easy to find children or adults who are dependable, careful, thorough, and faithful. So many lives seem honeycombed with small failures, neglectful of the little things that make the difference between order and chaos. Perhaps it is because they are so seldom taught that visible things are signs of invisible reality; that common duties may be “an immeasurable ministry of love.” The spiritual training of souls must be inseparable from practical disciplines, as Jesus so plainly taught; “The man who can be trusted in little things can be trusted in great; the man who is dishonest in little things will be dishonest in great. If then you cannot be trusted with money, that tainted thing, who will trust you with genuine riches! And if you cannot be trusted with what is not yours, who will give you what is your very own?” (Luke 16:10-12). (The footnote to “your very own” says, “Jesus is speaking of most intimate possessions a man can have; those that are spiritual.”)
A few days ago, I ventured out into the yard (at dusk, no less) to take some pictures which I will post next) with a fairly new lens.
This is where Mr. Truxton stayed… snug as a bug in a rug.
This is my version of the Moby Wrap. A very simple, no-sew project.
As of last night, we are temporarily harboring a family of “economic refugees”. Incorporating six new people into our little cottage is going to be interesting and, I’m sure, educational for us all. One interesting challenge that will arise, is feeding the eleven of us without sending anyone over the brink into financial ruin.
So, the first meal… Posole – which, by the way qualifies as holiday feasting here, even if it is fairly inexpensive!
It ended up costing around $.70 per serving. And that’s not even counting leftovers – we’ll see tonight if there are any, but I bet we can at least send the guys off with lunches.
But wait! It gets even better! The pork loin roast ($2.49 per pound) is certainly not the cheapest way to obtain pork roast. I wouldn’t normally use a roast of this quality in a stew, but I had this in the freezer already, so I am today. The posole (hominy) was $3.49 (on sale) for a #10 can. I only used half the can in this stew.
I may be strange, but raw meat actually looks very appetizing to me at times. Like now. I think it’s my Indian blood. But don’t worry, I refrained.
Actually, I sort of cheated on the price figuring, since I already had all my spices (I used bullion for the broth) and also the dried chiles (you know the kind – you get them at Wal Mart, in crinkly plastic bags that aren’t really sealed).
I tweaked the recipe a bit. I used what I have on hand (that’s the Ozarkian blood in me, I guess). I’m cooking it in a crockpot. Once it’s stewed all day, I’ll take a picture of the finished product.
My very real-life green….
And it’s slightly more attractive relative…
