What *I* do to be "Green"

On the subject of being "green" (my brain wanders off on a tangent thinking 'hey world! when has *my* favorite color become such a buzz word that it is now fashionable to be? *I* was into green as a favorite color as a child-but anywho...) I was off surfing green natural living blogs and quite a few had ways for you, the anonymous reader, to do, steps to take, and pointing the "you shall be eco-friendly finger" away from themselves. As my very wise Mother has always told me that it isn't nice to point and that when I pointed at someone or thing, I had three fingers pointing right back at me.....Ha! I see you pointing away from you and checking out your hand to see that indeed Mr.Tall, Mr. Ring, and Miss Pinkie are pointing right back atcha!

My things, in no particular order:

1. I breastfeed--free milk in fun containers!

2. I cloth diaper my baby. Had I had what is available now when my 11 1/2 year old and my nearly 8 year old were babies, you bet your fluffy butt they would have been in them too. And as soon as my family are settled, I am scouring thrift stores, craigslist and freecycle to find a sewing machine and sewing my own out of 2nd hand towels and sewing 2nd hand fleece for covers!

3. I wear my baby. Not so much a huge green thing but more of a natural/attachment parenting thing. However, it is greenish in that very little resources are used in making a simple no-sew piece of cloth wrap, and my little guy rarely needs a coat if it is cold out as he is wraped up safe and warm next to me under my coat and cutting down on the need to buy extra clothing. To watch some videos or look at diagrams on babywearing go to http://www.mamatoto.org/ No more strollers for this family!

4. I'm a happy thrifter. I love me a big old thrift store, a garage/yard/rummage sale, and with the advent of the interwebz craigslist, freecycle, and ReUseIt. I love discovering things, and making old things useful again. I scored 35 all-in-one diapers in size 1 and 2 and 12 cotton pre-folds on freecycle Yippee! I want to turn around and give the AIO's away right before we move so another mother/family can cloth diaper even if it is part time cloth. There is also the joy of giving away on freecycle as M and I gave away some baby items that we were done using or barely used to a family that despirately wanted them and how happy they were to recieve them. Craigslist is great too because it is where we found our minivan.

5. I ride the bus. Because of M's job, I get free bus transportation. Now I know that public transport is not glamorous by any means and sometimes one must put up with the buttmunches that play crappy tinny music on crappy tinny speakers on their phones rather than listening to their music like everyone else does by using their headphones, or the occational eedjit who thinks they can smoke and no one will smell it (it is illegal to smoke on busses, public transport, bus stop shelters, well just about any public place here in England) HOWEVER, I get to do some good old people watching in. Unfortunately, no matter where we move to in the States, we will have to give up the public transport, as nothing is within walking distance. For now it is the bus! yay!

6. We live frugally. I stop and consider every purchase. Do I need this or do I want this item. Can I use an alternate item/way/item at home to do the same thing? For instance, I have always had it in my head to bake bread I needed a bread pan and not so! I now can whip up a lovely braided herbed bread in a few hours. No need for a bread pan. If it something that I need, can I source it locally or buy it from work at home mothers. My baby's fun yet super functional diaper wraps I buy from English moms who also source their items locally. Less items bought, less resources used.

7. We use reusuable shopping bags. Yes we have to remember to bring the bags with us, but the majority of the bags that we have are easier on the hands and fingers than plastic carrier bags.

8. We have a super energy and water efficient washing machine. It is a front loader, and I thought that Id hate a front loader because I was so used to the ginormous American style top loader, but when the clothes come out, not only are they clean, but nearly dry, which is great for number 9.

9. We hang up everything to dry. When I first moved here I was amazed that there weren't laundry rooms in the apartment buildings and gasp horror how do you wash and dry your clothes?! There are nifty compact racks to hang and dry clothes, there are airing rooms with clothes lines and there are airing cupboards here. A little extra work but hey, our shirts and trousers and jeans are already on hangers so easy to put away.

I can't think of a number 10 right now, but if I do later, I'll pop that in another post.

Time to make supper--Scottish Angus beef burgers, British baked potatoes, and British salad leaves and Tomatoes grown in my Mother-in-Law's back garden greenhouse. YUM!

Who said "Going Green" has to be Expensive-Non-toxic Home Made Laundry Soap

First, before we go into the recipe, I need to give props where props are due, as I totally swiped this from one of my favorite bloggers and super funny and awesome woman whom I got to share being pregnant with~~Aubrey at http://thisblessedlife-aubrey.blogspot.com/

"Ingredients needed to make 4 gallons:
4 quarts water1/2 cup 20 Mule Team Borax (sodium borate)
1/2 cup Arm & Hammer washing soda (not baking soda)
1/2 a grated bar of Fels Naptha(I found these 3 soap products easily in the laundry soaps aisle at my regular ol' grocery store)

Supplies needed:
one pot used specifically for making soaps & cleaners in
a grater,
& something to stir the melting soap with a bucket larger than 3 gallons
ideally, 3 old 100 ounce laundry soap containers to store your new soap in
a funnel to get soap into said containers

Step 1: Put 4 quarts of water in your pot.
Add the grated half bar of Fels Naptha soap, the 1/2 cup Borax, and the 1/2 cup of washing soda.
Heat on medium heat.
Stir occasionally until all the soap has melted.

Step 2: Then, pour it into your bucket & leave it for about an hour to cool off. I used my empty diaper pail as my bucket.

Step 3: Once it's cooled off, add 3 gallons of very hot water to your bucket & stir thoroughly.
Step 4: Use your funnel and pour your new laundry soap into your storage containers. They will gel up as they cool & resemble everyday laundry detergent. Use about 1/2 cup per full load of laundry.

Voila!

And here's the breakdown:
I spent $14.25 total at Winco (grocery store) on a 55 oz. box of Arm & Hammer washing soda ($3.14), a 76 oz. box of 20 Mule Team Borax ($3.27), and 7 bars of Fels Naptha soap ($1.12 each). This will allow me to make a total of 56 gallons of laundry soap (!!). To compare, one 150 oz. container of Whisk laundry detergent (a little over *one* gallon) costs $13.00 at the same store.
I've been using this soap for a few weeks now & it's been working just as well as any of the overpriced detergents from the store. :)"

Please go and read Aubrey's blog, and see the pictures that go along with this recipe http://thisblessedlife-aubrey.blogspot.com/

I am sooo going to do this once we move to the States. (I'd do it now, but we are trying to use up, get rid, pare down on extra items as we aren't sure when we could be moving) I imagine that this laundry soap could have essential oils, like tea tree or lavender, added to it if one would like some fragrance, other wise it is truely fragrance free, and not fragrance masked like most "color-free fragrance-free" laundry soaps out on the market. I also imagine that this is an excellent laundry soap for cloth diapers, as it is fragrance and soap residues that gather in the fibers, and makes that ammonia-y soap build-up smell.

reason 4,657,245,478,463,456,346,767,345 to be excited to move back to the States-Home made laundry soap!!! Hurrah!

Cloth Diapers-my stash-i will write explainations later

1 The explainations are mostly for those who don't cloth diaper. These are my fitted diapers with the white in terry cloth, the cream in bamboo fabric, and green in a super soft "teddy" diaper. These velcro on much like disposible diapers do. They are the absorbent part of the diaper, much like the terry cloth squares of yesteryear sans pins to fasten.

2 This is what they look like opened up, complete with an oval booster for extra absorbancy in case of a heavy wetter like Alex. Ooo! they are so soft and fuzzy and lovely against my baby's skin.

3 This is the teddy with out the booster in it, just so you can see.

4 With these kind of diapers, we use a waterproof wrap that velcros over top the diaper. Think of the rubber pants of yesteryear, but more diaper changing friendly as well as baby skin friendly. The wrap have proven to be the "fun" part in cloth diapering as you will see further on. This one is just a basic white one.

5 Diaper in!

6 This is where you imagine baby wearing the yummy softness that is this diaper!

7 All done up.

8 We also have some prefold flat diapers that we use. and the following few pictures are just showing a fold or two and wearing those in a wrap.

9

10

11

12 Cloth diapering can be versatile as well. We have used a couple of boosters on some of the small wraps to go under some outfits that require slimmer, or less fluffy diapers.

13

14 My pocket diapers... these are great for grandmas or other care takers as all they have to do is put them on baby without worrying if they have all the parts in the right order or right way around (poor sweet mother-in-law on one of her first solo changes got the order right, just the wrap in backwards.) These diapers have a pocket that an absorbant cloth is stuffed into before hand and are similar to a disposable in that once assembled is basically one piece.

15 Here are the blue and green diaper opened up with their absorbant cloths on the outside.

16 Partially stuffed--kind of like putting a pillow in a pillowcase.

17 And fully assembled. Once used, simply pull the cloths out and put into a dry pail with a lid and wash when you have a full load. Or, I am L.A.Z.Y. and wash the whole pocket diaper together, and separate the parts when I hang them up to dry.

18 The fun part! Wraps! This is my collection of wraps--I have some more plain white ones, but I wanna show off the better ones. This is a front view, but it is the next picture that delights me so much.

19 Fun Hineys!!! I love the floppy ears of Dudy Dog and the adorable Tractor Ron (the company we purchased them from gave them the names) The Blue Propeller Butt (our name) is made of faux velvet, but so soft. The red cow butt makes me giggle and the angels are sweet. The wraps can be worn as outer clothing on warm days when most babies are sporting white disposable butts, the wraps are dual purpose function and fun, and I love it when I buy things that have more than one use, as I feel I am getting more bang for my buck! Wraps need not be changed at every diaper change like the inner diaper, unless they are dirtied by number two.

20 Like I said before, I am lazy, but washing and drying diapers, dare I say it, is a breeze. We got into a routine and it is second nature to was and dry and fold. If *I* can do laundry like this, anyone can!

21Neatly stacked and put away with love