It's A Small World Afterall - Second Edition

Top o' the mornin' afternoon, to ya!

Once more, I've been checking out the analytics for my little piece of the blogosphere (nerd, still), and just wanted to give an appreciative and humble shout out to:

-Miami, FL, USA
-Lake Worth, FL, USA
-Hialeah, FL, USA
-Orlando, FL, USA
-Athens, GA, USA (whatup, new homeys!)
-Atlanta, GA, USA
-Winder, GA, USA (Hi, Mom!)
-Roswell, GA, USA
-Commerce, GA, USA
-Jefferson, GA, USA
-Rutledge, GA, USA
-Warner Robbins, GA, USA (is that you, TopNotchTeacher?)
-Statham, GA, USA (formerly known as Hell's Half-Acre when the passenger train still came through...seriously...)
-Augusta, GA, USA
-Snellville, GA, USA
-Aiken, SC, USA
-Charlotte, NC, USA (of Bosak Buttsacks fame, I believe...)
-Fayetteville, NC, USA (Hello, grandest of Grands! Give Grandad a kiss for me.)**
-Cordova, TN, USA
-Memphis, TN, USA (is that you, My12Hats?) Bring it, biscuit, with another post, willya?! Don't worry, I won't give up on you.
-McNeil, TX, USA
-San Antonio, TX, USA
-Spring, TX, USA
-Bulverde, TX, USA
-Dallas, TX, USA
-New York, NY, USA
-Brooklyn, NY, USA (how's the gestating, friend?) We're like ships passing in the night it would seem. Missed that hug.
-Seattle, WA, USA (Thank you, oh thank you, for alternative rock. Truly.)
-Denver, CO, USA
-San Francisco, CA, USA
-Los Angeles, CA, USA (I knew Hollywood would come calling one of these days)
-Berwyn, PA, USA
-Bloomsburg, PA, USA
-Birmingham, AL, USA
-Farmington, MI, USA
-Chicago, IL, USA (Oprah, is that you? Am I one of your favorite things?)
-Yazoo City, MS, USA (That sounds fun)
-Honolulu, HI, USA (luck-y)
-Portland, OR, USA
-Charlottesville, VA, USA
-Salt Lake City, UT, USA
-Washington, DC, USA (Mr. President?!)
-Canada (Anne Shirley, is that you? I'll be there as quick as I can!) I'm going to be later than I thought
-London, England (now I'm a little self-conscious about my grammar and usage of the English language...)
-Glenrothes, England United Kingdom (England or UK, which do you prefer? I aim to please.)
-Frankfurt Am Main, Germany (Mit tiefer dankbarkeit!)
-Brisbane, Australia (Thanks for sending the sun and moon back our direction every day!) ...and thanks for coming back!
-Shannon, Ireland ("You're a corker, Shannon." Please tell me that's not an insult.)
-Kingston, Jamaica
-Malaysia (Technically speaking, they hit the blog and bounced right back out. Ah, well.)

Wow. That's just crazy. Thanks to all of you for dropping in. I hope you're finding a little something to keep you coming back. God bless you.
Really, really, truly, truly, thanks for reading. Really, I don't have any idea what I'm doing most of the time, and don't know if there is a real point to the blog for anyone else other than me (and it gets lost even on me sometimes), but, truly, thank you for reading! Really. Truly. Too much? Okay.

Now, off to the winnowing Daddy's-out-of-town-and-Mommy's-running-this-zoo-by-herself races! Thanks, KakiBlackBarry for keeping the kiddos while I work (and blog, apparently) today.

P.S. Little Big Man Booty Boot Camp is in full force. Pray, saints... Um, yeah. We're getting there.

**My lovely Grandmother, JoCanMax, is missing from the analytics reporting. She has now been added to the list.

Monday, Monday (ba-dah, ba-da-da-dah)

There you go, a little Mamas and the Papas for you.

I just finished an epic game of Bananagrams (read: in the top two of Best Games Ever) with Ma Luffin' Mayun, so my daily allotment of intellect (wanting to begin with) is beyond spent. (I won, by the way. We finished at almost the exact same time, him a little before me, but he misspelled a word so I win. **Find the word he misspelled and I'll send you a cookie. Seriously!)

I'm tired. REALLY tired.

We're blessed around here to generally have weekends that stay pretty free from plans other than just being together as a family, getting into whatever we decide in the moment. Some weekends are a polar opposite to that and seem to be full from closing time on Friday straight through to Monday morning. This weekend fit the latter description. I had big winnowing plans for Saturday and made sure the FabFive knew about them on Friday night. They nodded and went on with life. Then Saturday morning arrived and almost from the outset, not one thing I planned to do got done. Not.one. All day. The entire day. Not.one.thing.

It certainly wasn't a bad day. In fact, it had a lot of good in it. But there seemed to be a huge presence of the tyranny of the urgent throwing it's grotesque weight around. I am not easily ruffled or worn down in my patience, but I ended Saturday really exhausted, more than a little befuddled, and beyond ready to just go to bed and hit the reset button.

I'm tired, but there are lots of good things going on around here. And since I recently heard there was a study done by every other person who has ever lived in the history of the world that determined sleep is a good thing when you're really tired, I'll try to keep it brief using Ye Olde Bullet Points...

-Brilliant Beauty and her messy room, paired with the subsequent meltdown when she was told to clean it, got an unplanned bedroom beatdown on Saturday. I consistently help her winnow her room (otherwise her sentimental illness would dictate saving a scrap of every little thing she's ever touched), but we still filled one thirty-gallon trashbag with clothing and toys to give away, and another one half-way with just plain trash (papers, broken toys, etc.). Sheesh. I just started writing out some more of the details, but I think it deserves it's own post, so we'll save it for later.

-Laundry is the order of the day for tomorrow. I've got to get it caught up. The air is starting to thin out near the top of the pile.

-Little Big Man is still riding the PottyTrain and doing pretty well. We're not to the destination, but we're getting there and the ride isn't as uncomfortable as I thought it would be.

-It's time, no Time, with a capital T. Time to get a grip and winnow some weight. I'll tell you what's in the plan for making this happen. I'm excited and already have my feet on the path. We'll see.

-The kitchen's winnowed, Brilliant Beauty's room is winnowed, the living room is in process, and Little Big Man's room is next. Hopefully, it will be quick, fast, and in a hurry. Afterall, how much can a person have who's only been on the planet for under three year? (you don't want to know...)

-I'm loving Ma Luffin' Mayun's and my upcoming thirteenth anniversary. I'll post about it this week.

skj OIr fs .ffs.;kioooooooooooooooooooooooooo . . . okay, I'm basically falling asleep as I type. I think I'll go conduct my own research study to see if all this talk in praise of sleep for curing tiredness is really accurate.

I got nothing but love for ya, blogosphere homeslices, but I've got to go to bed.

P.S. Here's our Bananagrams game** (on the table my mom used to do her homework on when she was a kid...I love it, ESPECIALLY where the finish is rubbed off) Don't forget to find the misspelled word!

1.6 Per Minute And Other Random Drivel

1.6 per minute is the rate at which I can load ten seed beads onto a safety pin, close the pin, and toss the pin aside. (Why on God's green earth would I even do this? Looksee.) I can do this twenty-four times in fifteen minutes (hate the game, not the playa).

Laundry's backed up again. Sheesh. One of these days I might know how to tackle one part of a project without completely abandoning another. But I am learning, and sure enough the breakdown started at the very FIRST load that I didn't immediately stop and take the time to fold IN THE LAUNDRY ROOM. Lesson learned; hopefully application of said lesson to follow.

The kitchen continues to be like-totally-awesome...totally. I can tell the whole of the FabFive is jazzed. Ma Luffin' Mayun can hardly bring himself to leave any dishes unwashed in the sink. Where's he been all my life? Apparently hiding under over-abundant and ill-used kitchenwares. Go figure. Truly, it's a whole lot easier to maintain cleanliness and order when you know what you've got and where it goes.

You know the one credit card remaining as the last of our consumer debt? It's gone. Yep, wiped out. Obliterated. Paid-in-full. No mo'. Ahhh, serenity now.

Girls aren't born knowing anything about proper potty protocol for themselves, much less the opposite sex. Girls who become Mommies and have little boys to put through Booty Boot Camp get to learn all sorts of things previously unbeknownst to them. Here's a for instance: the ongoing challenge and concentration required by the fellas for tinkling into a hole. That stuff will shoot every which-a-way if your not careful. P.S....Two-year-old boys aren't careful. We're making it. We have more successes than accidents in this our second week in, and Little Big Man thinks he's something. His mommy agrees.

I don't wear scrubs everyday (you can breathe a sigh of relief, PostmodernPrettyMama). It turns out hearts and flowers and pinks and turquoise on my clothes make my blood sugar spike.

I'm thinking through ways to find the best one for attacking the anarchy that is Our Garage. Yuck. It will be a room addition soon. The task at hand for now is to pray and get it ready. And so, we shall.

We've been eating pescatarian since last Thursday. We're digging it. We'll see if it goes anywhere long-term.

I.love.my.netbook.

Hm. I think I'm out of topics for now.

Happy Hump Day, and thanks for reading!

It's A Small World Afterall

Top o' the mornin', to ya!

I've been checking out the analytics for my little piece of the blogosphere (nerd), and just wanted to give an appreciative and humble shout out to:

-Miami, FL, USA
-Lake Worth, FL, USA
-Athens, GA, USA (whatup, homeys!)
-Atlanta, GA, USA
-Winder, GA, USA (Hi, Mom!)
-Roswell, GA, USA
-Commerce, GA, USA
-Jefferson, GA, USA
-Rutledge, GA, USA
-Aiken, SC, USA
-Charlotte, NC, USA (of Bosak Buttsacks fame, I believe...)
-Fayetteville, NC, USA (Hello, grandest of Grands! Give Grandad a kiss for me.)**
-Cordova, TN, USA
-Memphis, TN, USA (is that you, My12Hats?)
-McNeil, TX, USA
-San Antonio, TX, USA
-Spring, TX, USA
-New York, NY, USA
-Brooklyn, NY, USA (how's the gestating, friend?)
-Canada (Anne Shirley, is that you? I'll be there as quick as I can!)
-London, England (now I'm a little self-conscious about my grammar and usage of the English language...)
-Frankfurt Am Main, Germany (Mit tiefer dankbarkeit!)
-Brisbane, Australia (Thanks for sending the sun and moon back our direction every day!)

Wow. That's just crazy. Thanks to all of you for dropping in. I hope you're finding a little something to keep you coming back. God bless you.

Now, off to the winnowing races!

P.S. Little Big Man Booty Boot Camp is in full force. Pray, saints...

**My lovely Grandmother, JoCanMax, is missing from the analytics reporting. She has now been added to the list.

The Bladder Whisperer

Here's the deal. I am taking the rest of this week to finish up the winnowing in the kitchen. I'm nearly done, but totally dragging my feet on the last couple of cabinets. I need to wrap this project up, move on to another area, so a self-imposed deadline will be just the thing for giving me the last necessary little shove of motivation. Certainly, by starting on the laundry room and then moving into the kitchen, I started on the heftier end of the proverbial one-bite-at-a-time pachyderm. I've got to tell you, this ol' eleefunt has been a little gamey and pretty tough to chew. But starting where I have sets me up nicely to move on into some less intense, but just as impactful, cleaning up and cleaning out projects (until I start in on The Garage, but let's curb that nausea when we get to it, shall we?). So, Project Kitchen Cleanout ends at 11:59 pm on Saturday February 6, 2010.

Okay, let me stop right here and say that I'm entirely distracted by this picture. I mean, look at that toilet. So shiny. Check out the unstained floor surrounding it. So sanitary. Observe the grout creating the seal between the toilet and the floor. So white. All of this cleanliness in combination...so set up just for a photograph because, really, whose toilet looks this clean? And if you tell me yours does I'll know you're lying, so don't even try it (buster).

I have a confession to make. I've never potty-trained anyone. Yes, I do have an eight-year-old. No, she's not still in diapers (smart alecks). When she was almost three her daddy and I went to Mexico for a week on a mission trip, leaving her in the extremely capable hands of Papa and Tunan. I only requested of them two specific things: one - don't feed her marshmallows all week, and two - don't potty-train her while I'm gone. One week and approximately six-hundred-forty-nine mini marshmallows later, we returned safely home...to our potty-trained firstborn.

First-time mom reaction then: Aw (sniff). I didn't get to help her learn to potty (sniff sniff).
Third-time mom looking back in retrospect: Ah, I didn't have to potty-train her. YAY!

Thanks, Mom. Moving on...

So what happens at the stroke of midnight on Sunday February 7, 2010? The week of "Little Big Man Booty Boot Camp" begins. That's right. He's twenty-eight months old, has a better vocabulary than some teenagers I know (Dude. 'Sup?), and tells me everyday just before he "places" it in his diaper, "Mom, I'm just poopin'". As thoughtful and light and breezy as that may sound, I'd prefer he "just" put it where it goes. A focused agenda to teach Little Big Man to put his money where his mouth is (or his pee and poo where his potty is) will be the order of the day.

I am home after church on Sunday morning and do not have anywhere else I am required to be until Thursday morning at 10:45. Hence, in that concentration of hours Sunday through Thursday, Little Big Man will be given the opportunity to, uh, enjoy the breeze so he can fully tell when it's time to do business (dollars and cents. Dollars he gets, cents he ain't got...insert "no sense" jokes here). At any given moment in those days within the walls of Quaint Cottage I can assure you a diminutive and denuded derriere (oui, oui) will be seen riding a scooter in the kitchen, running football plays in an oversized helmet (picture Rick Moranis in Spaceballs), plopping down to read a book, and, hopefully, learning to ready, aim, and fire into the porcelain throne we adults take for granted every day.

By the by, this afternoon we had a trial run. Dollars were deposited responsibly. Cents, being the smaller monetary denomination, he felt free to frivolously toss about practically anywhere. If I can convince him to combine his dollars and cents and deposit them rightly, a nice new pair of tighty whiteys are his for the taking (although they'll likely have to be plastered with Spidey or Buzz to make the deposits worth it).

So on this coming Sunday, this eight-and-a-half year veteran of Mommydom will commence to convincing the kid commodes are cool ("somebody copped my copper clappers").

Come on, Little Big Man. Make that "change".

(Get it? Ah, nevermind.)

WinnowingWoman's Weekend Wrap-up

I tend to shy away from bullet-point posts, but sometimes it just shouldn't take thirty-two bazillion words to say what needs to be said. Hmm, word winnowing, perhaps?

Here's a recap of this week's efforts around Quaint Cottage and among our FabFive...

-Laundry has seen a major transformation around here since "the system" sort of rose like a phoenix from the ashes of stinky clothes (ashes might've been all that was left if some sort of order hadn't been found). It's not completely caught up because I still haven't convinced anyone to go around au naturale as to prevent further laundry buildup (Little Big Man is the closest to being on board with this idea), but I am consistent everyday with washing, drying, AND folding. Hurrah! And I don't hate it.

-I started the winnowing process full-throttle in the kitchen. What an undertaking. I am taking pictures each step of the way and will get them up here this coming week. I'm never surprised but always thrilled to experience the catharsis of ridding my world of unused, underused, and superfluous stuffs, and doing this within the kitchen has been a whammy of a job. Details are on the way...

-Ma Luffin' Mayun made our first recycling drop today, dumping our collection of paper and plastic. Nice. We certainly haven't mastered the task of recycling, but we have gone from a household that recycled nothing to sending two huge plastic containers of recyclables, reducing our bags of trash and wastefulness. And, as usual, kitchen scraps are feeding the compost pile that will hopefully feed future garden beds.

-Cloth diapering is everything I thought it would be (including the poo). I love it (insert eye-rolling, sneering, and smirking here, possible nay-sayers). This week's development can be described in two words: Bosak's Buttsacks. People, this development is a thing of beauty and deserves it's own post this week. Too, too awesome!

-In the age-old tradition of saving the best for last, I am pleased to report I am no longer blogging from a Blackberry Curve (it's nothing personal, Blackberry. I just realized you're really not my type). Instead, I am pleased as punch to report that I am typing this on a brand-spanking-new HP Mini netbook which, after the mail-in rebate, set us back a whopping $100.00. In addition, I fired my cellphone carrier, got a wireless 5GB/month data plan for $50.00 LESS per month than I was paying for my Blackberry, got a new, no-contract cell plan with unlimited talk-text-web, and fired my home phone company. So the combination of all these changes take us from being a family with no internet access, over-priced cell service, and a landline we rarely used to having a new computer with embedded wireless internet access, an inexpensive, unlimited cell plan, and no more wasted payments for a phone we're not using. All these changes will save us $50.00 every month. Ahh, feel the love.

So, there's my winnowing week in a nutshell. Just under thirty-two bazillion words. Not too shabby.

And now, I leave you with self-portraits of Brilliant Beauty upon her discovering the fun of a webcam. Enjoy.

The Many Uses Of Cloth Diapers...Including Cloth Diapering

I thought about titling this post “Winnow the Poo”, but I thought better of it. Aren’t you so relieved?

So being…well… me, I have talked about (read: threatened) taking up cloth diapering for each of the three Us-es’ hineys. For a dizzying array of reasons I have never stepped out and actually done it. I know it seems to some more than a bit antiquated in these days of disposable-this-and-throwaway-that. Maybe it seems like an empirically unnecessary time-sucking chore. Or maybe it just seems “nehsty”.

Yeah, maybe, but not to me.

I’ll save us some time because to describe all the reasons cloth diapering is appealing to me would really require putting descriptors on entire parts of my psyche and bends of my personality. Who’s got time or energy for all of that? Let’s sum up instead: I want to cloth diaper. I think I would like it. I think I could do it. I’m going to try it.

So since I’ve determined I’m going to try it, I decided to do a little online research to see what I need to know or what I might not be anticipating in the world of cloth diapering. I’ll tell you right now what I was not anticipating: the outrageous amounts of money people are putting into this practice of cloth diapering.

Unbelievable. Really. Like, I don’t even believe it right NOW and I’ve done the research. Isn’t one of the reasons touted for cloth diapering so that you can save a fortune in fudge not buying disposable diapers? Well, then why does it cost so much to set a new mommy up with everything she needs to cloth diaper? Mind-boggling. My mind=boggled. Bogg.led. Seriously.

Now picture me, a woman determined to cloth diaper, in the midst of an unwavering personal campaign to winnow, doggedly resolute against spending superfluous funds to see my goals accomplished. So what’s a girl to do?

I’m so glad you asked . . . Take it on as a challenge and prove it doesn’t have to cost the equivalent of a country’s gross national product.

Fundamentally, to cloth diaper you need:
--cloth diapers (gasp…no?! Really?!)
--a way to fasten the diapers (diaper pins, Velcro, duct tape, etc.)
--some sort of non-plastic-most-likely-nylon diaper covers (unless you like being peed on…or worse)
--a pail or bin for wet/dirty diapers
--knowledge about the best way to wrap and fasten the diaper onto your baby (there are tutorials galore online, and practice makes perfect)

Really, truly, that’s it. In my mind everything else being sold for cloth diapering is a luxury and not an essential.

Here are my supplies and the price I paid for each –
-12 100% cotton prefolded cloth diapers (These are the basic ones you can buy at The Big Bullseye…or The Forbidden Place if you must.) This pack cost me $15.00.
-14 diaper pins (These were tricky to find, but I found them at We-B-Toys.) This is more than I probably need, but we Us-es lose stuff. I paid $3.00 (The pins “live” in a bar of soap which makes them easier to push into the cloth).
-4 pair of basic nylon diaper cover pant thingys (chocolate…candy…coated). Whatever they’re officially called, I paid $14.00.

Here is where I splurged. I purchased two pair of higher-tech diaper cover pant thingys, a) because they added a little convenience for whenever necessary, and b) how stinking cute are THESE?!

Here’s how they work –

(See how you fold the diaper towards the front and tuck it into the pouch for extra absorption? Cool, huh?)

And voila! It fastens like a disposable diaper. No pins needed.

Here’s the second of the two pair, modeled here by Pretty Baby.

Again, these two items were my splurge and cost $26.00 total.

So, all things considered, I spent $58.00 on all my supplies to set us up for cloth diapering. If you need something to compare that cost to, try this tidbit. While I was in the store that sells the nylon pant thingys one of the salespeople tried to sell me a “starter kit” (as well as trying to sell me special detergent, diaper liners, mechanical prosthesis that changes the diaper for you . . . okay, maybe not that last one). It came with one pair of pants similar to the two pair I splurged on, and six-100% cotton prefolded cloth diapers. And the cost? One.Hundred.Dollars. Yep. For less than half of the supplies I got, they would allow me the honor of paying almost twice as much.

Upon departure, Brilliant Beauty received her first lesson on retail sales and working on commission.

These are the plain nylon pant thingys . . .

Here is the pail I use for the wet/dirty diapers. It didn’t cost a thin, red cent since it’s one of seventy-four Easter baskets hanging around here. I sprinkle a little baking soda in the bottom of the pail for odor control, and then throw the diapers into the wash daily (and I keep the “24” DVDs nearby because who couldn’t use Jack Bauer’s help with dirty diapers?).

So I have now cloth diapered Pretty Baby for a little over a week and, as I knew I would, I love it. It just feels like it makes sense.

I was given an awesome diaper shower by KakiBlack and JenBen before Pretty Baby got here. I was so blessed by the friends who gave at the shower that I still have not had to purchase diapers or wipes, and Pretty Baby is almost four months old. Amazing. We still put her in a disposable diaper at bedtime because, well, we like sleep. Also, this is MY decision to cloth diaper and I don’t intend to impose it on grandparents, friends, or other family members by making them cloth diaper. We will continue to send disposable diapers with her when she goes a-visiting unless expressly asked to let them try the cloth diapers. I don’t anticipate that happening.

I realize I’m a latecomer to this cloth-diapering thing. I am, after all, just starting it on kid three. But I think the timing is perfect. We are in a routine -- a constant -- which allows me the room to experiment and learn and practice -- a variable. As a first-time mom to Brilliant Beauty, this might’ve felt overwhelming as I started learning her and myself as a mommy. After Little Big Man arrived, there was too much internal tumult to work on rising above, not within him but within me. Once Pretty Baby got here, we’ve started making our adjustments well, and we’ve seen no return of days like these. So now works. It works well. I’m loving it all.

Hence I have not actually winnowed the “poo”, but I am winnowing out our own personal contribution to Disposable Diaper Mountain. And I guess you could say, quoting from the modern-day classic, “I’m takin’ it back to da old school ‘cause I’ma old fool who’s so cool”.

Whoomp! There it is!