Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Our Cloth Diaper Story

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I never saw myself as a mom who would do cloth diapers. Ever.
My sister who was pregnant at the same time I was, was going to do cloth diapers. Whens he talked about them, having to buy covers, and the different kinds, the fuzzy staticy sound in my head just got louder and louder.

So we did disposables. The baby did well. She didn't care what she pooping or peeing in, or if there was anything there really.

But what did happen were two things.

1. Incredible rash. She got the most horrific case of diaper rash, that bordered on yeast infection (not vaginal yeast infection), that would have her screaming, and crying, and cringing to sit on her bottom. Nothing worked. We knew it wasn't normal diaper rash because it didn't respond to diaper cream, and according to the rash's behavior. (I'm a big fan of WedMd). So, after speaking to my one sister-in-law whose daughter had something similar, I picked up some generic Lotramin AD and used that when she would get such bad rashes. Lotramin AD is for athletes foot, which is a fungus. This rash behaved the same way, and responded well to the treatment. But we had to keep the stuff on hand, because we never knew when the rash would come back, and how bad.

2. COST. After buying yet another box of diapers at Sams club for almost 45 dollars, knowing that what I was doing was tossing everything in that box out because my daughter would pee and poop in it, I said, no more. There had to be another way.

My sister then welcomed me into the fold of cloth diaper converts. She loaned me a huge stack of Chinese Trifolds (very thick cloth diapers, flat, but with two seams running down the length of the diaper, thus dividing it into thirds, indicating where you should fold the diaper), and some covers. It took some practice, but we got it down. We ordered three covers, and bought some flats and some trifolds from Wal Mart or Target and began our journey.

I was given one main website to look at. I'll pass them on here: http://www.cottonbabies.com/

CottonBabies.com is one of the most well known stores for getting cloth diapers and cloth diapering supplies, and things of that ilk. Another great one is http://www.diapers.com/ who carries both cloth diapering and disposable diapering supplies along with a ton of other things.

In my looking at Cotton Babies, and talking with my sister, I kept coming across this one thing brand I liked - BumGenius. But they were expensive! 18 dollars a diaper! We found one BumGenius diaper at Target - someone had returned it there from an online purchase - and we grabbed it.

And, angels could have sung. the Bum Genius is a pocket diaper. So the cover is attacked to the lining. At the top of the diaper there is an opening for you to slide the provided absorbent core into it. The core is made from microfleece that is so absorbent that if the baby is little, (not a toddler) it wicks the urine away so quickly, that the lining of the diaper and the baby's skin remain DRY!

No more trying to lay out the cover, and then trying to lay out the folder diaper, and the lay the baby on top of that. No more.. No more diaper pooching out of the cover. just simple. and so darn cute!

We slowly built our stash of BumGenius diapers. At the same time, I was making cloth diapers, similar tot he bum genius, except they needed a cover. Imagine the diapers that pebbles and Bam Bam wore in the Flintstones, and you'd be pretty close. These were all in one diapers, meaning the absorbent core was sewn into the diaper itself. you put the diaper on like a normal diaper, and then put the wrap cover around it, there you go. Less hassle than the old school cloth diapers, but they still needed a cover.

Finally, we built the stash enough that all we use now are Bum Genius diapers. We use disposable diapers at night or if we travel. But that's it.

There have been no more incidents of rash. and while the start up cost for cloth diapers can be daunting, (typically a bum genius 3.0 cloth diaper - which means it grows with the child, from birth to potty training, One Size fits all) is 18 dollars. I have 14 in the stash. That means we've spent about 252 dollars on diapers BumGenius cloth diapers.

Now I know that's not right because we got some on discount and on sale. (Cotton Babies is great for this). But just think about how much you would be spending for disposable diapers? We easily surpassed that 252 dollar mark in the first couple months our daughter was alive!

Now the laundry question. Really it isn't a question. You put the soiled diapers in a bucket (we call it the diaper pail, and it's about twice the size of a large bucket of ice cream you get at the grocery store). We don't put anything in it. Some people do what is called a Wet Bucket or a Wet Diaper Pail. But then you get a slurry of liquid with your diapers? Eww.
We do a dry bucket. when the baby poops you shake out the stool as best you can, rinse it off (sloshing it around in the toilet) and toss it in the diaper pail.

Washing - Warm/cold Normal cycle. You don't have to use special detergents but you need to be aware that if there are brighteners or softeners in the detergent it will make your cloth diapers less absorbent. So Tide is pretty much out entirely. We use or own home made laundry detergent and it works great.
You can wash these with other things. They don't have cooties. Your pants will not smell like dirty diapers. If you prefer to do only diapers in the load then fine. But they won't contaminate your other clothes.

Dry on a normal cycle.

Ta-Da.

The next step is cloth wipes. Yes. I did just say cloth diaper wipes. I had no idea they existed until I got a complimentary pack in a diaper order. And when I saw them I went, what the heck?
All they are are squares of fabric, like a softer canvas? Almost a twill, like a khaki fabric - with a tight hem around them. And that's it.
So I went and made my own. I took flannel squares the size of large wash cloths and sewed them together two ply. Now of course I don't measure, so some of my wipes are larger than others, and I had to figure out how to make the zig zag stitch on my sewing machine work, but that's it.
Now what about the solution?
To quote my niece - Easy Peezey, Lemon Squeezey.

Get a squirt bottle, fill it with one part baby wash (Johnsons will work fine. Right now I'm using California Baby baby wash because I don't like at as much and I have to get rid of it) and a couple drops of baby oil, and the rest with water. screw on the lid, and there you go. Leave the squirt bottle out at room temperature so the fluid won't be "cold."

When you go to use a wipe, get the wipe, either squirt the child's bottom, or squirt the wipe in your hand, and there you go.

I found the biggest thing when it comes to using cloth wipes, is you can't be afraid of them. You can't be afraid of the poop. This is why I advocate using larger, or making larger cloth wipes, that way your hand is well covered.

Toss the cloth wipe in your diaper pail, and wash with your diapers. (Make sure you open up the cloth wipes and shake out any poop that maybe in it)

Like I said, I never thought I'd be a cloth diapering mom. heck I live where the world's largest Procter and Gamble plant is located. I've worked on the lines making Pampers, and to this day I can recognize the perfumes from Pampers a mile a way.

But I found a better way for my family when it comes to this. A way that's better for our daughter, a way that's better for our wallet, and a way that's better for the environment. When we used to have a full bag and half of dirty diapers out of our Diaper Champ, we now only ever have maybe a quarter of a bag, because we only use the disposables at night.

There are numerous cloth diapers. There's the BumGenius. There's the G Diaper (which answers the argument of "well you have to wash all the diapers right? and that costs money. The G diaper has a compostable, yes compostable absorbent core. It composts for your garden in I think one hundred days. If you don't want to compost, it is also flushable. Yes, flushable. totally safe.)

My point is, don't be afraid to try something new. You might just love it.

I LOVE cookbooks.

When you read that title, all in capitals, you should imagine me jumping up and down, and
screaming like a little child. There are few things that excite me as much as a great cookbook. It combines two of my favorite things: a book, and the promise of good food.

I remember really wonderful moments, most often, by how good the food was. I remember our wedding reception, and how lovely it was to be with all of our friends, but I also remember thinking, I probably won't go with this caterer again....

Or the time when I re-met my Uncle who I never got to spend time with because he lived on the opposite side of the country, and I had only heard his voice on the phone a few times. That amazing time getting to hang out with him where he and I just looked at eachother in shock that we were actually seeing the other. Then hanging out with my aunt and cousin. Add to that, we went out for amazing Indian food at the Bombay house.

Or the day my friends and I were lost and poor in Edinburgh, and were soaked clear through because of the rubbish rain. We were a pitiful lot, and almost went to eat at some American chain restraunt, until someone saw this tiny pub tucked in the side street called Filthy McNasty's. I don't remember much else about the day, except for the amazing cream of mushroom soup, the way we had the entire pub to ourselves, and the rotten rain. But because of the amazing cream of mushroom soup, it is a treasured memory.

Or on sad days in New York, finding my way to Tea and Sympathy, and just soaking up the place with a good pot of tea, and finding comfort in an amazing macaroni and cheese. I know the name is a pun on some song, but it still serves up what's advertised.

Or as simple as the Pecan Pie that is always made at every Thanksgiving, from my great grandmother's recipe. It's one of the only things I have of hers.


My life bookmarked by food. It's weird I know. But there it is.

So cookbooks are treasured.

I can't remember when I first started my collection of cookbook. but I can remember one of my first ones. My very first cookbook that was all my own and not my sister's and my brother's, was the Cooking With Friends cookbook - a spinoff of the hit show Friends.



Yes it looks cheesey. Yes, it smacks of money grubbing, and marketing and merchandising. But you know what, that silly little book has some of the best recipes in it, including a recipe for chocolate waffle sundaes, and a pretty mean meatloaf. (Having never grown up on meatloaf as a child, I had no idea how to make the dish. And when my husband confided that it was one of his favorite meals, I set out. This recipe has become the backbone for all further meatloafs I have ever made..)




It's a silly, gimmicky, cook book, but it's definitely a goody.

My very first cookbook was a shared cookbook between the three of us, and it was called Kids in the Kitchen. I have it to this day. It is in tatters, there is no spine left, and I keep it in a plastic sheet protector so the pages that remain don't get lost. I learned how to make Ants on a Log (or whatever it is, where you put peanut butter on a piece of celery stick, and then raisins on top?), meatballs..... Some of the recipes were incredibly simple looking back, but it was my beginning, and I still love it.





Then comes the heirloom cookbooks. Specifically The Joy of Cooking. The story goes, that when my great grandmother passed away, and her husband remarried the woman we would eventually call Grandmother Carol, Grandmother Carol couldn't cook. She was raised rather well to do, out in Boston, educated at Ratcliffe (the Harvard for Girls at the time) She could throw a mean tea party, but normal every day cooking wasn't something she could do. And having just married a man of the earth - he was driller for the mining companies out west - cooking became a necessity.



So into her hands comes The Joy of Cooking - the Bible of cookbooks. It tells you everything, how it all works, how to do pretty much whatever has to be done. And from that book, she became an excellent and a very precise cook.


On a side note, when my sister was in Denver doing graduate school, and needed a recipe for something. The immediate response by the older generations (our grandmother Earline, and her sister Billie June - both daughters of the previously mentioned Driller) was, "It's in her Joy of cooking..."

But uh oh, my sister didn't have a Joy of cooking. The Shame!

Grandmother her sister and our Billie June shipped out copies of The Joy of Cooking out to her. Billie June actually shipped out two from how the story goes. Only one got to her, but still.

Another very special couple of cookbooks that come from my dear Scottish friend Danny, who now lives in England. He was a trained chef/cook/somethign wodnerful in the kitchen who on the first day I met him, made me an excellent trifle that I still have dreams about. We got to talking about food, and I said that we basically lived on chicken back home. So when the time came for me to leave my new spiritual home in Glasgow and come back to the states, Danny gave me a gift. One of his own cookbooks - 500 ways to cook chicken. and a children's cookbooks. I asked him if he was certain. "This was my first cookbook. I have it memorized now." And two small souvenir Recipes from Scotland cookbooks, a litle larger than poastcards.

Or the cookbooks given to me from my friend Jane's kitchen after she passed away. she knew I was a vegetarian, but she also knew that my favorite dish was chicken tandoori. So every time she had me over for dinner, she amde me some chicken tandoori. And I didn't feel guilty, not one whit, even when I took home leftovers (which was every time). In those cookbooks, I can see her side notes, her alterations, and it's as close as I'll get to having her cook for me ever again.

Now we move on to my new favorites.



Deborah Madison "Vegetarian Suppers." My parents gave this to me for my birthday. I have long vascillated about being a vegetarian. I was unintenionally almost a veggie while I was in Scotland, not because of ethics, but because there were still outbreaks of Mad Cow disease (to this day I don't know if I'm allowed to donate blood because I was exposed to the disease. For some time I was completely prohibited. All over three hamburgers.) and because I was too poor to afford meat. I ate a lot of chicken. A LOT of chicken. That was as ritzy as I got.

Then in college, I was veggie for about a year but dining hall food didn't help support a healthy diet if it wasn't processed, meat based or deep fried.

So like I said, I have gone back and forth. I lean very heavily towards vegetarianism, just for the health benefits. But when I tried to cook vegetarian meals, the majority involved tofu (which my husband won't eat), pasta, or they all tasted like Mexican food.


Then enters Deborah Madison. Beautifully produced books. The food portraits are stunningly lovely and just make your mouth water. the ingredients are easily gotten. (And if I can get it in our local Weis Markets in hickville USA, you can get it wherever you are..) No weird things that you can't pronounce, that you don't recognize. It's all good food. And it all tastes divine.


There is no use of a common spice to cover up the food. It doesn't rely on chili powder or curry (though I love a good curry). This book, the recipes, and flavors in the recipe, they all speak for themselves. There is no need to cover up the flavors of the food, with spice when the food tastes this good. There's definitely spices used but it's all to enhance and draw pout the natural flavors. Just lovely.


This book also doesnt solely rely on tofu in every recipe. There is a section that uses tofu, but it's only one section in contrast to over ten others that don't? So if you don't like tofu, you will absolutely not be left out in the cold here.


Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING I have made out of this book has been amazing, and delicious, and uncomplicated. That's probably one of my other favorite things about the books. It's not difficult to get great results.


Even my picky husband likes the food from this book.


LOVE this book.


http://www.amazon.com/Vegetarian-Suppers-Deborah-Madisons-Kitchen/dp/076792472X/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1272645031&sr=1-4


My next favorite cookbook of the moment is Jamie Oliver's Jamie At Home.


There's a few really interesting things about the book.


The tone of the book is conversational and laid back. It's not uppity, or presumptious. If you've seen his shows, Food Revolution being one of them, this book is written pretty close to the way he speaks. Terms of endearments, rhetorical questions, the lot. So it's easy to follow and read.


Gorgeously shot. again the food portraits are just beautiful. There's a few shots of jamie cooking over a BQ or hosting a cook out. It's really just lovely to look at if nothing else.


I also love some of the story behind this book. Everything he uses in these recipes, save the meat, and the liquor (there's a couple drink recipes in there), all of the veg and such, he grew himself in an unloved garden. He and some friends brought it back, and the recipes here are the result of that experience, of his connecting literally with the earth to coax the vegetables out of her soil. Because of that, on the page preceding the recipes for each section, Jamie talks about how to grow that specific vegetable, tricks he learned, his experience, and so forth. I found it really inspiring to start gardening again. (I'm not a huge fan of it, though I am a huge fan of having vegetables grow in my garden, and having fresh produce, and knowing where my food comes from. So I have to suck it up, I suppose.)


Again, the ingredients aren't hard to come by. They're mostly things you could grow in your garden, or get at a farmer's market.


I recently purchased a whole bunch of strawberries, and I recalled seeing asection on Rhubarb in the Oliver book. And while I didn't make anything out of the cookbook, it was enough for me to go, oh yeah I want to do this or this.... and to start experimenting and cooking again. so if a cookbook will inspire you to cook, even if it's not necessarily one of its recipes, I'd say that's still a positive result.


http://www.amazon.com/Jamie-Home-Cook-Your-Good/dp/1401322425/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1272645790&sr=1-1


Other essential cookbooks: I think the only other essential cookbooks would be The Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day series by Zoe Francois. These books deliver what they say they will. How to make bread, mix the ingredients, no kneading, let it rise, and then keep the dough cold until you are ready to use it. Really indispensable when it comes to bread making. Multiple recipes and multiple uses for each bread recipe. Fantastic and simple.


http://www.amazon.com/Artisan-Bread-Five-Minutes-Revolutionizes/dp/0312362919/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1272646572&sr=1-1


http://www.amazon.com/Healthy-Bread-Five-Minutes-Day/dp/0312545525/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1272646572&sr=1-2





Friday, April 23, 2010

Poem of the day - Lake Isle of Innisfree


The Lake Isle of Innisfree
- by W. B Yeats




I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree


And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;


Nine bean rows will I have there, and a hive for the honey bee,


And live alone in the bee-loud glade.




And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,


Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;


There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,


And evening full of the linnet's wings.




I will arise and go now, for always night and day


I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;


While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,


I hear it in the deep heart's core.













Moments that make you pause

Spring has sprung here in T-Town Pennsylvania. And that means a lot of things. It means hanging laundry out on the clothes lines, it means flowers, it means, playing outside, it means warmer weather, it means no more cabin fever. It means life!

The first indicator of spring, aside from the geese flying north, and the snow drops, is hanging a load of laundry out on the clothesline. That to me is when spring has begun. There is something so simple, so sufficient, and perfect about hanging a load of laundry out on the line and letting it dry in the breeze and the sunshine. (I wax poetic about it now, but I'm sure later I'll be grumbling about it too.)



My clotheslines are in between three crab apple trees. I double lines on each tree, so in effect I actually have six small lines. And I use every bit of it.

What you see, or what you may not recognize immediately are cloth diapers. Yes those pastel colored giant maxi pad shaped things are cloth diapers. We used to do the old school cloth diapers that involved folding and twisting, and covers, but then we found this company called BumGenius, and tried one of their diapers. We have never gone back. The fit from birth until potty training, and they're as simple to use as a disposable diaper. Love them. And they're just so darn cute. If pastels aren't your thing, they have other colors too.

But back on track.

Spring means clotheslines. It means the geese flying north. And it also means the flower bed my grandmother Esther planted about over thirty years ago will start to show its colors again. Year after year, this tulip bed comes up, and lives and blooms, in spite of me. It is still the showcase of our yard. When I look at the date of this picture I've included, I see it's almost fourteen years to the day that she passed - off by a couple weeks. How apt that on her anniversary, she sends us her hellos again.



ellie the wonder-dog making sure the flowers are doing alright.








what am I reading..... Laurie R. King

Someone once told me, in a friend request on Facebook of all places, that one of her earliest memories of me was leaving the public library with my back pack stuffed full of books, to the point of overflowing, and myself carrying said back pack, and yet another pile of books that towered above me. She said I was about five or six?

So I guess you can say that my love for books and reading began very very early in life. It's something I am doing all I can to encourage in our daughter. Our first book we read together was The Hobbit, followed by J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan. We have since gone through the first three books of Harry Potter, some of the Faerie Queene by Spenser, and we're now working on The Magician's Nephew (the first book of Narnia - not published order, but order of events) by C.S. Lewis.

Grad School taught me to read a book fast. And by fast I mean FAST. We did a book a week, books like Moby Dick, in a week.

So along with the speed reading, my voracious appetite for books, I can move pretty fast. 500 pages in a week? In a few days? And I am always on the hunt for a good book, or three to be reading.

So last week, I found myself in the position that comes to many readers. I had just finished some great books, and I found myself not knowing what else to read. I wandered through my library's shelves, when my eyes came upon two books I had read years ago, but enjoyed, and I thought, "I wonder if she has anything new out..." And of course she did. Then commenced the happy dance.

I speak of Laurie R. King. I can't tell you how many books she's written. She has a couple series she works on. She came to my attention because of her Mary Russell Series.

Set early 1900s, (that last book was set 1924?) she takes a well loved, revered, and almost sacred character of literature - Sherlock Holmes - and she gives him a female foil, a young American woman named Mary Russell, who is almost equal in wits (he has about twenty some odd years on her, so there's the experience card to be played there), and she marries them.

These are not romance stories. These are not bodice rippers to include famous characters just to make money. These books hold the integrity of Sherlock Holmes (being a Sherlockian myself). He sounds the way he should sound. He acts the way he should act. The writing style is a little more fluid and lush than Conan Doyle's work. She doesn't write in riddles, or monastic sparsity, or over romanticizing, or extreme description. She has developed Holmes and Russell so well and with such integrity, that you begin to take for granted that, yes of course, these things happened.

The stories are mysteries, ones that Doyle would be proud of. And it's none of the mysteries that keep the reader in the dark as well, making you feel stupid. As the stories are primarily told first person from Mary's point of view, you discover things as she does.

The first one, that I have yet to read, is called The Bee Keeper's Apprentice, which is a nod to Doyle. The epilogue on all of the canonical Sherlock Holmes material (even when you write to 221 B Baker Street London, like we did in eighth grade) says that Holmes retired and took up bee keeping in Sussex. It is there that King picks up the thread.

The ones I have read are The Moor; O Jerusalem; The Game; Locked Rooms. The last two books take place back to back withing days of one's end and the other's start.

(I am currently re-reading The Moor until I can get to the library to get some of the others our, perhaps even the first one! And even having read The Moor before, it still holds up. It still is a lovely piece of work, and one that I don't feel like I'm wasting my time revisiting.)

I have a whole list of other books that I've been reading/read, but I'm saving those up for another blog posting.

Feel free to send your favorites or currents to us, to endorse, or to warn against.. :)

"Home is where my books are."

Friday, April 16, 2010

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

There are few movies that take me to my childhood as quickly as the Ghost and Mrs. Muir, starring Gene Tierney and Sir Rex Harrison (the same Sir Rex Harrison from My Fair Lady and the original Doctor Dolittle), and a very sweet Natalie Wood.

We must have had a total of five VCR tapes, and some of theme way back then were even dubbed copies of films. ahh, the early days of Pirating - for a fun little tangent... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeTybKL1pM4&feature=PlayList&p=492D1325DBF38988&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=2

But back on track....

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir was released in 1947, in lovely black and white, when Rex was at his peak of loveliness. don't believe me that the man who almost whispered the words to "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face" could be lovely? Then look no further.

Set in the early 1900s, Gene Tierney plays a young widow, who like all of us I imagine,after her husband's death, determines to no longer be saddled by her in-laws. She takes with her her young daughter Anna, and the maid, and rents a house that no one else wants, because it's reuptation of being haunted.

And indeed it is haunted by its first owner the cantankerous Captain Greg. Cross the salty sea Captain, and the 'Modern' woman with refinement andjust enough gumption, and sparks fly, and romance brews.

This a classic, eloquent love story, where the main characters never kiss. The lack of physical contact does not cut down on the chemistry, tension or romance in the air. Nor does the story suffer in any way.

As I mentioned, this was one of the very first movies we owned. We owned both a dubbed copy, until we could find it legitimately recorded. And we wore both of those copies out. It was a standard at sleep overs, rainy days, and blizzards.

Years later when I saw it in a Borders, I knew it had to come home with me. (It came home with Seven Brides for Seven Brothers -one that shall also get an entry I am sure.) I put it in the next day, slighly fearful that I was remembering it through rose colored glasses, and that it wouldn't be as good as I had remembered. But it stands the test of time. It was still as beautiful, lovely and charming as it had ever been.

And I added Rex Harrison in his Prime to my Hollywood Dreamies List.

Watch it to teach your daughters what a real romance is. Watch it to remind yourself too :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpY7YmtvY_0 - the original trailer.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Baking Soda cleans Tub Scum and home made wood polish

I am increasingly skeptical of using chemicals in cleaning and caring for my home. Something about the idea that the chemical being used can cause suffocation, severe burns, completely remove pigmentation, and kill germs, mold amd mildew with just a touch, indicates it should be used with prudence. (This is bleach i'm talking about, something I bought today under great hesitation, but my shower floor was horrific). So I understand the purposes of chemicals, but I am all for it if there's a more simple, more cost effective, less toxic, less hazardous, and more natural way to go about things.

So I decided to post my two favorite discoveries in the realm of natural housekeeping.


I have heard that Baking Soda is a wonder-all. People use it to wash their hair (it's called the No-Poo method). It's used to wash faces, and all sorts of things.

So out of desperation and a really minging ring of tub scum around my bath tub, that even the scrubbing bubbles don't touch, and the Magic Eraser will do, but it takes an ENTIRE magic eraser and a whole heck of a lot of elbow grease (And really what's in the magic eraser to make it magic? I'm a little scared..) I figured what the heck for the baking soda.

So I slapped some dry Arm and Hammer baking soda on the wall, rubbed it in kind of, and noticed that that the black ring started to come off. It was almost melting off.

Encouraged, I did this with the entire ring around the tub. I put some baking soda in my hand, rubbed my hand over the tub ring, gave it not even a minute, before I started rubbing it off, and it basically melted away.

Then I added warm water to the mix. (I imagine cold water would work fine. The warm water tap is closer to me when I am leaning over the tub). I splashed and rubbed some water on the ring, and it really did just come right off.

No elbow grease. No weird funky chemicals or fumes. No damage to the tub.

Just dry Baking Soda, lightly rubbed into the tub.

Now, on to the home made wood polish.

I grew up on Pledge, that great aerosol lemony smelling spray. I loved to dust just because i got to use the spray can.

But as I have gotten older, I have become more skeptical when it comes to the chemicals in things. And I don't dust nearly as often as I should. My grandmother would be mortified I think to see how often, or how infrequently her former home gets dusted.

But today I stumbled across a recipe for home made wood polish.

What you need:

squirt bottle

Olive oil

lemon juice.

Fill the squirt bottle up about two thirds of the way with olive oil. Add lemon juice the rest of the way. Screw on top. Voila.

Spray squirt solution on the wood you wish to polish. Use a dry rag or cloth to spread it around and absorb excess. There you go.

I just did this, including the dusting/polishing. And I have to say my wood furniture looks great. The oil absorbs really nicely. I forget what the lemon juice is for in the solution, but it is there for something. Maybe to break down grease, as it is a citrus?

But I feel better now about dusting my house, and polishing the wood. And although it's not the Pledge scented stuff, and the aerosol can isn't being used, it still feels fun to use the spray gun and pretend I'm shooting something with a water pistol.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

how this came to be

Let's be up front. I love movies. I love books. I love little random bits of little known facts, tidbits. I love secrets. I love good food. I love a good story, a good song, and I just can't help sharing those things with people.


Far from being a blog just about movies, and books and music, I thought I'd look at the little gems I come into contact with every day. Those little things that make me smile, that make me want to hold on to that moments forever.


Right now I feel like SNL character Brian Fellow (portrayed by Tracey Morgan). So, at the risk of infringing on SNL - Hi, I'm Brian Fellow.




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