Frugal

I have been feeling deliciously guilty about the rather decadent (in my opinion) diaper stash I've accumulated for boy #3. I totally splurged on one-size bamboo fitteds, a few snazzy Gen-Y covers and a variety of pockets -- some new, some clearance, some like-new or gently-used. I also bought a handful of bamboo and hemp inserts to replace the microfibre inserts in the pocket diapers. I knit several pairs of wool shorties and soakers, something that would have cost me a fair amount to purchase but only cost me $$ in yarn to make.

Yes, I was feeling almost naughty about the amount of money invested in the diaper stash, at least until I read this: Battle For Baby's Bottom. I've always known that cloth is cheaper in the long run -- I work in a cloth diaper shop, for crying out loud! I deal with the numbers every time I'm at work. I know that a child can be cloth diapered from birth to toilet training for an outlay of around $400, including the "extras" needed (wet pail, travel bag, Snappis, etc). I am also intimately aware with the resale value of cloth diapers that have been well cared for over their lifespan, having bought and sold used diapers myself. For some reason, though, this article made me sit down and do the mental math on the true cost of our stash.

Product Name: Easyfit All-In-One
Company: Tots Bots
Country of Origin: Glasgow, Scotland
Materials: Exterior: 100% Polyester with Polyurethane Laminate; Interior: 50% Rayon from Bamboo, 50% Polyester

Diaper Type: One-Size All-In-One
Weight Range: 8lbs - 35lbs
Height of front rise at each setting (approx.): Infant - 14cm (5.5"); Medium -15.5 cm (6"); Toddler - 17cm (6.75")

Another example of helping the kids grow up with a responsibility to not waste food. Again, perhaps walking a fine line between coddling, and teaching a healthy responsibility towards our food chain, but I think we are on the right side of the line.

The life of a parent is full of maintaining a fine balance and drawing fine lines. In this case we absolutely despise wasting food and avoid it at all costs, but this can be difficult to do when raising kids who can invariably be picky one day and not the next. We want to raise them with a proper respect for food, but at the same time to not want to be pandering to their every wish so that we are guaranteed nothing will go to waste. Another fine balance to maintain. We've used creative means like this for years now, to get the boys to eat. There was the "supper timbit" stage when we'd deep fry things in ball form to get the kids to eat them. It is like a "gateway drug" for them - if they'll eat a new food in deep-fried-ball format, you can often convince them they'll like it in other formats, too. Yet at the same time, our kids are no strangers to going to bed (or to school in the morning) hungry because they would not eat what was on the table. They are very used to hearing the phrase "this is not a restaurant".

In this case rather than be authoritarian and demand my son finish his sandwich, I decided to see if I could "slighly reformat" the sandwich and trick my son into eating it by making a big deal out of it, making it as fun as possible for him, and part of that was making a movie and telling him he was going to be a Youtube star. It worked so well that a little while after making this video the other boy asked for his uneaten sandwich to be turned into a grilled sandwich ;)

Like to make gifts, but are pushed for time? Want to give homemade, but feel uncreative? Essential oil reed diffusers are easy to make with extra points for presentation -- they look so pretty when done! They are also a welcome, more natural way to fill a home with lovely scents!

Diffusers allow you to use essential oils to scent your home instead of heavy chemically-scented products that easily irritate eyes and airways. They are natural, fairly non-toxic (depending on your oil choices) and blend better with a home's own "scent".

When I was a kid I loved Christmas -- I adored the cheesy music, the month-long anticipation of The Big Day had me unable to sit still, I couldn't get enough of the various preparations for family meals, church services, concerts, and school break. This love of the Holiday was still so strong with me that when I met DH we had to strike a compromise in which I could only start listening to Christmas music on December 1st or as soon as the first snow fell -- whichever came first. Given we lived in Nova Scotia, I never got to start early (though the arrangement had to be modified once we moved to Ottawa!).

As an adult, though, I started losing the excitement and joy -- there wasn't any fun in picking out gifts for people, the malls were a torture to be avoided if at all possible, and I even stopped loving the music as much. Christmas had become a chore. I was done. Once the kids were here, we kept it pretty simple but a big part of me craved to recapture the excitement I remembered from my own childhood.

Yesterday I went into St Vincent de Paul, which is like a Salvation Army used store. I like to pop in there a couple of times a month at least, just to have a look around at what might be available at an amazingly cheap price. This practice allows me to be frugal, and also allows me to support the notion of keeping perfectly good item from making their way into the overcrowded landfill site. Far too many people in our society throw out perfectly good items just because they want the latest-and-greatest model.

When I saw this coffee maker I grabbed it right away, because I'd been looking for a small-sized coffee maker to augment my Aeropress. I did not want a full-sized machine in part because we do not have much space, and in part because smaller machines make better coffee because the longer the grounds are in contact with the hot water, the lower quality the coffee. It was not until I got home that I realised it was almost the exact same colour of red as our coffee grinder, to boot!

Tired of shelling out for expensive, chemical-laden beauty products?

Here's a 'recipe' for a simple exfoliating scrub you can make with ingredients found in your kitchen that won't break the bank. This works great and so safe you could eat it -- quite literally!

Here is a two-part video I did on rendering fat. Fat gets a bad rep, but the fact is that our bodies need a certain amount of it because some nutrients are fat-soluble and not water soluble. And animal fat is not necessarily unhealthy if used in moderation, and if you are getting lots of exercise like I do.

In this video I render fat from pork chops with fat from my home made bacon, so as to give the fat a bacon flavour. This fat can be canned in mason jars for long term storage, and has all sorts of uses in applications where you want to add a bacon flavour to something. And who doesn't want everything to taste like bacon?