Unstuffed Cabbage

So my mom made an amazing two pot dinner tonight for us that was vegetarian with the substitution of meatless crumbles for ground beef, and could be made vegan by making mashed potatoes with Earth Balance and rice milk instead of using milk and butter for them. It was awesome! And with the base ingredient of the unstuffed cabbage being, you guessed it, a head of cabbage, the recipe made A LOT! I have a HUGE container of left overs in my fridge after three hungry adults each ate two portions. I don't have the recipe yet, but it was basically a head of cabbage, a lot of onion, some garlic, two bags of meatless crumbles, some canned tomatoes and a crock pot, then served over mashed potatoes. Again, awesome. And this is definitely a meal that will reheat beautifully and would make a great veg'n offering at a pot luck.   I love having dinner with my parents, I always get left overs, and great ideas!

La Leche League

This morning I attended my first La Leche League meeting.  I have been participating on their online forums for a while and have received wonderful support from other mommies so I thought it would be beneficial for us to attend a meeting in person.

I have some social anxiety issues, but I was perfectly comfortable in this small nursery room in a local church, surrounded by other mommies and their little ones, several nursing openly while we discussed the benefits of breastfeeding.

As a bonus of this meeting I have been given more resources to add to my growing circle of eco-frugal groups and organizations; including a local green families group and a huge consignment shop for children's goods.  I can't guarantee that I'll be checking these things out this week, but I certainly intend to check out all options and learn what I can to help my family and our planet.

And I cannot express enough that breastfeeding is both free, and green.

Finally!

Sorry about the absence, but in the interest of frugality we have dial-up here, and the connection was not happy with me.

My latest adventure will be making wool soakers for V's over night diapering.  A wool soaker is generally a pull up style diaper that goes over her prefold (or fitted for those who use them) cloth diaper and keeps her dryer during the heavy wetting period of night.

I have a hand-me-down wool soaker that we recently started using and I love it!  V gets a touch of diaper rash on occasion, especially after a particularly wet night.  Using the soaker, she wasn't even pink in the morning.  The only problem with the wool soaker I've found is that when she has a poopy blow-out it is a terrible mess!

Environmentally, the wool soaker (not addressing the raising of wool here) is outstanding.  Because wool is naturally water repellant, antibacterial, and antimicrobial, when it is removed in the morning you just turn it inside out to dry and put it on again before bed.  Most people only wash their wool soakers about once a month with a wool safe wash and then re-lanolize if needed.  I had to wash a poopy blow-out the other day and have yet to re-lanolize so we our without soaker right now, and that makes me sad.

To re-lanolize, I had my wonderful hubby pick up generic lanolin at the pharmacy and will be melting a very small amount with a tiny bit of Dr. Bronner's baby soap, and some hot water, and soaking the cover in a sink with that mixture added, then rolling it in a towel to blot dry and laying flat for the two days it will take to dry. Sounds like fun doesn't it?  But a $3.00 tube of lanolin ointment will last us quite a while, and a drop or two of Dr. Bronner's is certainly not going to hurt my baby budget!

I already have at least one of Hubby's sweaters to sacrifice for our daughter's tush, and have been given permission to search for others in storage.  V's Gram is going to send down her old wool sweaters as they die and I can always hit up thrift stores.

I have also found patterns online for making prefolds out of recycled clothing and bedding and will definitely keep that in mind in case she grows out of her Premium sized prefolds. Although that is a distant possibility at this stage in the game.

I have found that we are really happy with LiteWrap diaper covers.  They are $7.95 each regardless of size and wash up very well and generally keep blow-outs restricted to the cover and off her clothing.  My only problem with them is that they are made in China and I would really prefer a USA option, but those economical covers are more expensive and less substantial.

Some cloth diapering folks complain about "diaper butt." Or how well padded the cloth diapered tushy ends up being.  I have to say, especially now that V is standing with assistance and trying to sit up, I'm glad she's well padded.  There are inevitable tumbles and thuds in her future, and if I can soften the blow just a bit, I'm glad for that.

Happy Holidays!

Well, we have survived our first winter holiday season as a family with an infant. I stayed up very late more nights than not sewing, painting and gluing. V was very patient and let me use her tiny hands to stamp shirts and press ornaments without fussing. Everyone had a wonderful time and no one went too crazy with the gift giving, except my father, who gave us a very nice digital camcorder to record these precious moments. Of course V refuses to roll over on camera now that she's been rolling for a little over a week. :)

I hope everyone has had a nice and comforting holiday and that they are looking forward to the new year with hope and positivity.

Holiday giving on a budget

So as you have probably figured out, I don't like to spend a lot of money. Especially on things I can't guarantee the recipients will like. So this year I decided to make, or customize, every single give I'm giving.

I am a huge fan of Michael's craft stores.  I know, not very eco, but if you hit a good sale, it can be very frugal.  I found some amazing jewelry supplies this year that I swear I've been waiting for.  I snatched up several pieces for the women in my family and have made them all little pieces of wearable wonderfulness (details after they receive them).  Then there was the three for $6.00 photo ornaments. I had to have those. And there are going to be wearable pieces of baby related stuff for the men... It was a very nice way to create keepsakes for the family of the first baby holiday.  So I've (obviously) been staying up very very late the last few nights playing with scissors and glue and paper and model magic and my baby girl.

For wrapping paper I intend to snag a newspaper from my parents and use leftovers that my husband has hoarded over the past year. I am not spending any money on fancy holiday paper ever again. Maybe I'll dip her hand in non-toxic tempera paint and make baby print paper. ;)

Tea for four

As part of my UU Church's annual Service Auction, I offered up a
Saturday afternoon tea and two people signed up. It turned out that my
Gram was going to be here for the event when she came down to meet
V for the first time.

I was lucky that my hubby has been paid well for some jobs recently but
I also wanted to have this event without spending a lot of money.
I ended up buying tea using my husband's employee discount. I baked a
simple, few ingredient cake and chai tea biscuits, and made cucumber
sandwiches. Not expensive, but well presented. What mattered most wasn't
what was on the plates (even though my food was awesome), but what
happened around the table. We had four generations of women sharing tea
and snacks and life stories. It was wonderful.

Fun with friends

V and I had a wonderful, and affordable, day with friends
yesterday. My Friend Jess and her daughter Grace came over and we baked
cookies using ingredients I've had for ages, assembled a gingerbread
house and played with V. She even got to experience her first
snow.
This gem of a day was proof that you don't have to spend a lot of money
to have a wonderful time. All you need is good companionship,
conversation and if you are lucky, cookies.