Food budget project

I have been challenged this week to create a food budget plan for 3 people that would be sufficient in protein for a pregnant person (no, it's not me...it's for a workshop). The respondents to my pre-class survey had varying amounts of food budgets anywhere from $80-$125 for an average of 3 people. Getting down to $80 for 3 people using the plan I did was not possible...though I got close! I think it would be possible if you assumed that you had some of the things on the list in your cupboard already or used non-organic produce and dairy products or more conventional meats. Just one note: I did forget to include canned tuna in the calculations because we already have it in our cupboard from Trader Joe's. Oops!

As usual...get ready for spreadsheet mania!

Nunamoochie Retro review

This past week, I had the pleasure of hosting a traveling wrap! The wrap is a beautiful size 6 handwoven called Retro, made by Nunamoochie. Nunamoochie is a small, fairly new company based in the US with production in India by the US owner's family. I had already really enjoyed their Mehndi wrap, which I ultimately converted to a soft structured carrier. We are at the end of our wearing days and I wanted to give wrapping (specifically back wrapping) another go with a different style of wrap. I already have a Natibaby Hemp Odyssey and just find it is a little too stiff even after lots of washing, twisting, wearing and ironing. Mehndi was wonderfully soft right out of the package and didn't need much breaking in - it was just *slightly* too thick for us, and ever so slightly too narrow for my big, tall boy by the time we got it. But Retro...oh, Retro!! It makes me want to wrap again!

Tablecloth Mei Tais!

This is a post to share some of the resources and fine-tunements I've used to make my new, absolute favorite carrier. I am sharing a link to a shop on etsy from which I bought a pattern for a soft structured carrier, and I know it might seem obnoxious to withhold information about how I completed THIS one, but since a lot of it is from her, and I respect her time/work/intellectual property, I am not going to give out tons of details about my waistband and body panel design, just some specifics on things that are unique to this carrier - a tablecloth mei tai with padded-to-wrap style straps and a ring waist that is fully reversible :) I love this style because it has the look and feel of a woven wrap but I find it MUCH easier to do back carries with the structure of the waistband and body panel. The long and wide straps make it so that you can still tie it off like a woven wrap (Tibetan finish, chest belt, ruck, etc), spreading the stress points across your chest and shoulders to more evenly distribute the weight. So here we go! More details after the jump. Scroll way down if you want to skip the background information :)

I have made a number of mei tais with and without wrap style straps, one of which was reversible (the purple one) but super duper heavy, using this amazing tutorial - I have used osnaburg (khaki-colored one), tablecloths (green & blue with hood), curtains (the white one with blue flowers), twill (the black one with music notes), brushed canvas with quilter's cotton for decoration (purple one), and home decor fabric from Joann's (not pictured).

Very first attempt at the DIY thing - decorated with fabric markers, using osnaburg from Joann's

Green fabric is from a heavy, woven cotton tablecloth that was $1 at Goodwill. Blue, zigzag and cars fabric are twill from fabric.com, if you search "Premium Prints Felix" you will find the fabric. It should be 100% cotton and medium to heavy weight

Target Tablecloth found new at Goodwill for about $10. Inner supportive layer is duck/canvas from Joann's

Black medium weight twill from Joann's (inner layer is duck), with quilter's cotton for decorative panel and hood lining. Hoodie hood was a pattern I made myself, but a pretty similar tutorial can be found here

Purple brushed canvas from fabric.com with Michael Miller fabric for hat and decorative panels. This is fully reversible. Padded straps with layers of fleece and waistband made from retired yoga mat. The beginnings of the waist straps are also padded with fleece. I used Fine and Fair's tutorial for padded straps for this carrier. 

Then I moved on to soft structured carriers, just in the last few weeks. I have made two so far though one will not be pictured as it's a surprise gift for someone. I used Sew Toot's Little Pick Me Up pattern from Etsy...it is well worth the purchase price. She is much better at explaining things than I am and must have busted her butt for hours to put the pattern and tutorial together. The Mahogany carrier was constructed using the waistband pattern and method of construction from the LPMU pattern, and that is also how I learned to sew the darts for a deeper seat.

I guess it makes sense here to put another jump that just skips directly to the details of the Mahogany carrier. Here we go.

Goat's Milk Formula with Kaitlyn!

Lovely Kaitlyn is the one who originally termed the coin "oatmeal", and here she is to share the recipe she found for goat's milk formula for babies, with a little bit about her feeding journey with her adorable son Theo! Fun fact: Kaitlyn and I met while both wearing our babies in the produce section at Wegmans. It was friendlove at first sight!

Two pink lines. I was simultaneously thrilled, terrified, and pregnant. As ecstatic as I was to be in the process of creating a human, I was also a new mom to a 5 month old baby boy. One of my first thoughts turned to my milk.

Cultural Appropriation with Parenting

          Cultural Appropriation typically means taking something from another culture and using it ourselves. Usually we are using that "thing" (fashion, art, belief, idea, practice) out of context or as some would say, "picking and choosing" parts of a culture that we like and implementing them in our own lives. This can have moral implications depending on how you use it. But I believe that even with the best and most open of intentions, it can be used to make parents who read about cross-cultural parenting feel bad about themselves, or feel that they are not measuring up to a certain standard. 

In defense of: Obnoxious "Professional Parents" in Public.

          You've seen them...you've heard them...maybe you ARE one of them! The loudly speaking, overly demonstrative, talking-about-herself-in-third-person, saccharine-sweet Professional Parent.  My mom and I used to make fun of them and make uber-snarky comments about them when we saw and heard them at Wegmans (why were we so mean?) This is a group of people that used to be at the top of my list of People I Want To Punch In The Throat. Not like it kept me up at night, but it was a source of mean fun to talk about how obnoxious they were. This was until I realized....DUNDUNDUN...I am married to one! And sometimes I act like one myself.

Life Hack: Infant feeding

How to keep a baby clean without using a full-body bib:

Product Review: Dolcino wrap and moby wrap

The Dolcino woven wrap and moby wrap were items that I lucked into before I knew a ton about the world that is known as "Babywearing". It turns out that I lucked into some pretty great things, though!

Fuel Oil cost of wash update...(super boring)

...It's worse than we thought!

Matt calculated based on our boiler, cost we paid for fuel, using 60 gallons each wash (wash, rinse, rinse...still conservative if you don't do the cold pre-wash you're supposed to). Here's what he wrote in another nerdfest excel file:

Cloth diaper first year cost analysis (boring warning)

This is an analysis of the financial and time cost of cloth diapering the way that we have done it, vs disposables the way that we will do them.

Assumptions in cloth diaper cost calculation: This is if you NEVER use disposables, ever, and NEVER use electric dryer and only line dry. Not quite realistic, so in reality it might be more expensive. This is also assuming you are buying new from amazon, and that you would never have to buy more than six covers at a time, and never have to buy replacement covers. This is assuming that it takes one wash with two rinses to get them clean (it sometimes takes more), Even if you DO use the occasional disposable, you do have to do laundry every 2-3 days with cloth. You can save money by buying used cloth diapers. This is calculated assuming that your washer uses 20 gallons of water to fill and to rinse each time and that it's heated by fuel oil at 80% efficiency starting at 50 degrees Farenheit. Washing in cold is NOT an option for CDs...can I get an amen?

Assumptions in disposable calculation: This is assuming an average of 7 changes/day. When they are newborns, it is more...some days, it might be less, as little as 5 especially when you get into potty training. I know there are even cheaper diapers out there than the Target brand but that's the "cheap" comparison I used. When we go full-time disposable we will probably use Earth's Best as they were rated as the best bargain and most health-friendly. Sam's Club I heard work really well and are as little as 11 cents per diaper. This is considering the occasional coupon and bulk deal from amazon, and not considering other sources of coupons/rewards programs.

Other Considerations: What a lot of other comparisons I've read do NOT include is the cost of your TIME!! Mommas and Poppas, your TIME is worth something! Whether you are compensated financially or not, in actuality, or if it's just intangible. Whether you spend your extra time with your kids, on yourself, with your spouse, cleaning (psssht), or in creative endeavors...your time matters. In my case I calculated out how many extra 8 hour shifts an average-paid nurse would have to work to make up the difference between cloth & disposable per year. For funsies I also included how many peppermint mochas I'd have to give up. I know it's not an option for everyone to just tack on a few extra shifts, but for me it is, and again...this is just for my family but I hope it's helpful to others as well. I personally value my time because it is worth something intangibly and at times even financially...like when it's spent making things for my friend Amy's Newborn Naturally Shop!! I allowed 15 minutes per load of wash which I think is a little conservative...time spent spraying poo of each poo diaper, being at the washer at the right time in our case to switch from hot water wash to cold rinse, and line-drying/sorting/folding.

What we did not include: This is strictly a financial/time analysis. It does not include the health/environmental impacts of creating garbage or using water and heat to clean diapers. That's a whole other issue that other people know a lot more about than I do. This is just my own analysis for our family. It does not consider the potential toxins that are in disposable diapers (though that did inform our choice to use Earth's Best...Target isn't that bad either).

Conclusions: The first year is a wash, financially, and if you are paying yourself the difference you save in money for your time...you are not making a whole lot per hour. Each consecutive year/child you use cloth diapers it makes more of a difference, since after you are paying for wash water/power, detergent, and wipe solution. What value you place on the financial difference is up to you and your family. We decided that my/our time is valuable enough to pay the difference right now and give up some other things or work the occasional extra shift. That might change in the future.

Excel charts to follow! (this is the super boring detailed part)

My 3 months of being a secretary after college (thanks, anthropology degree!) have finally paid off!

Abe's Montessori-ish room

I love the idea of a Montessori or "yes" room - A room that is all baby-proofed, where things are designed to be fun and safe from the vantage point of a crawler or young toddler. Though a lot of these rooms utilize a "floor bed" and I did not feel comfortable with that quite yet...I borrowed the ideas of things at baby's eye level and only a few toys/books in their reach at once to reduce overstimulation. It seems to be working really well, so far! Here's a brief tour of our work-in-progress with some brief explanations of why :)

Amazingly hand-painted letters from my sister-in-law Kait! 

We attached them with 3M Velcro command strips...it's okay with me if he takes them down and looks at them/plays with them. We had this wall painted a darker blue because eventually I want to add a constellation map with fine lines of white paint and dots for stars. We have fuel oil for heat and the baseboard radiator really doesn't get all that hot. He doesn't seem super interested in it and mostly stays away from it. 

Uhhwha? 

Re-purposed TV stand from used furniture store. Doors from the bottom side cabinets were removed so he wouldn't pinch his fingers opening & closing them...though he found that super fun. Mirror & cool mist humidifier are safely out of reach, but he loves popping his head up and seeing his reflection. The fabric bins (giraffe: homemade, stars: $5 at Home Goods) keep toys he isn't playing with out of reach/out of mind, so he can really only get into the animals and toys on the bottom shelves. 

Really super cute canvas print of map of US at his eye level (it was cheap enough that we don't mind if he paws at it), and again more storage for out-of-use toys, diapers, blankets, etc. 

24" x 24" acrylic painting I made (again, at his eye level) of his favorite page of Nancy Tillman's "On The Night You Were Born". He giggles like crazy at this page every time we read the book and kisses the bear, so he loves being able to crawl right up and touch this too. In fact, he just woke up from his nap and he's giggling...I'd like to think it's either at this or his amazing storyboard by our friend Eric! It's right across from his crib

The above-mentioned amazing storyboard! Painted in watercolor for our baby shower gift from The Marlowes. It's the fully illustrated Dr Seuss "My Many Colored Days". He freaking LOVES the little yellow guy...especially the last picture! 

Bedtime stories! Crib bumper haters; It's breathable mesh. It's going to be okay. 

Home Goods ugly throw pillow makeover & Christmas crafts

I LOVE HOME GOODS. I have only recently discovered this store and its full potential for all things crafty. After reading Deborah Needleman's The Perfectly Imperfect Home, I started to get a little obsessed with throw pillows. They're a great, inexpensive, small-space way to add color and personality to a room (did I actually just write that?). We went for fairly plain couches so I have been using the pillows to add a little funk...we got a super-cute fox pillow, a little blue deer, and various others from Goodwill (new from Target) and Home Goods.

...But the really fun part is scouring the clearance rack at Home Goods for REALLY NICE down pillows that have super ugly covers...the pillow itself is still much much nicer than the much more expensive poly-fil pillow forms from Joann's, even when they are on clearance! (Side note: You can do the same with framed art, mirrors, etc...we found a beautiful mirror for $14!) THEN...look in the clearance section of the kitchen department for tablecloths or cloth napkins. These provide either a lot of yardage, or pre-cut squares of nice thick upholstery fabric for way cheaper than at the fabric store. You can also find single curtain panels in a lot of the clearance sections or the "new from Target" section of Goodwill. These are usually looked over because who needs a single curtain panel? But it's as low as $6 for nearly 3 yards of beautiful, thick, 100% woven cotton fabric! That's a really good price.

So for one gift (above), I re-covered a super ugly fest throw pillow that came with our scratch-n-dent couches from Save More Furniture in Owego (it's where floor models go to die) with fabric cut from a $6 clearance tablecloth at Home Goods. I used this tutorial. It came out great, I think! I also did a similar cushion (I forgot to get a picture!!) with quilting cotton and a tutorial for pinch pleats. I actually just did them by machine instead of by hand and got the same result.

A second gift I loved making was cut from a combination of a cotton tablecloth (Home Goods again) and a clearance fat quarter pack from Joann's. I used my new free motion foot to sloppily embroider my friends' last names into the cushion. They tell me they are really digging it with their maroon couch. This is what I mean by adding a "safe" or comfortable amount of a bright color like orange that might be overwhelming with something bigger. They are such bright, happy people I had to go with orange, though!

The next few pictures are of things I made mostly using just one jelly roll from a quilt shop in Greene...though jelly rolls or design rolls can be found everywhere. They are great for lazy people like me because the designs are pre-coordinated for you. I got four throw pillow fronts using a combination of paper piecing and quilt-as-you-go (Radiohead fans will appreciate this), two table runners (though only one is pictured), and most of a quilt for my lovely mother-in-law featuring an appliqued boom bass. Fun!

And then a random-ass piece of quilting experiment...

And finally...a jelly roll quilt with Moda's Kansas Trouble Favorites! I had never used Moda fabric before. It's soooo much nicer than the calicos at Joann's! This used the entire jelly roll mostly because of the diagonals, and because I used the strips to bind it off, too. That's all...Happy New Year!