BBQ AZ Style

So I've been amazingly busy these past few weeks, so I have a few guest bloggers filling in for me. Lindsay, my dear friend, has great experience getting kiddos to eat their veggies. She's going to be sharing some tips with us on how to get our kids to eat better {and possible us as well}. And Nina, my lil' sis, will be reviewing training pants for you all. So now that we've got the next few blogs planned out, I hope you all enjoy! {And thank you Lindsay & Nina for helping me out!!}
~Tonya


We just finished having an outdoor barbeque at our house. Barbeques in February is one of the perks of living in warm Arizona. One of my favorite parts of having BBQ’s is the food. Not just any food, but the food that my friends and family bring. It is a great way to try new foods or familiar foods prepared in different ways. Tonight was a perfect example.
Our guests were given the task of bringing any side dish they would like. One friend came with a spinach salad topped with diced fresh strawberries. The strawberries complimented the baby spinach perfectly. Now these are two ingredients that I commonly have on hand, but hadn’t thought to put them together for a simple salad at home. The flavors so nicely paired that the salad didn’t need salad dressing, saving fat and calories, (that were later spend on dessert!). Another tasty dish that arrived was a broccoli salad. This was made with fresh broccoli, red cabbage, sweet onion, raisins and a very small amount of coleslaw dressing. Both of these salads were a simple combination of ingredients that boast a large nutrition load. The darker and brighter the color of the vegetables and fruits, the more phytonutrients it has and the better it is for you. Broccoli, spinach, red cabbage and strawberries are all great examples of this. These foods are also full of fiber, another very important nutrient for our health.
In addition, for those of us with picky eaters, foods with few simple ingredients are often better accepted, especially when one ingredient is easily liked such as strawberries. Even if your picky eater just picks the strawberries off the top of the salad today, she is becoming exposed and getting familiar with the spinach. Continue to offer these simple health foods and eventually they will be likely to try them and like them! The bottom line is that healthy can be delicious and easy!

What are some different methods you have used to get your little one{s) to try new foods?

~Lindsay

Brrrrr. It's Cold Outside!

What happened to our fall weather? It must have skipped us here in Tucson. Our winter temps have arrived sooner than I would have liked. But fortunately for us desert dwellers, we still have plenty of sunshine during the winter {or fall since that is the current season}. Now that it’s much cooler, line drying is taking a lot more time than it did during the hot summer months. And I’m sure that many of you living outside of sunny AZ have been dealing with longer line drying times for quite some time now, unless you’re a punk & live in Hawaii {I’m talking to you little sis!}. So while you may be thinking the dryer is the way to go this time of year, remember that UV rays are still beneficial for your diapers. Even on cloudy days, UV rays still sneak through the clouds. Find a window and lay your diapers out on a drying rack, and let the sun work its magic. But do remember that it does take a longer time for stains to be removed during cloudy days, and it’s always best to sun your diapers while still wet. It helps stains to come out faster. And for those of us blessed to spend a gorgeous winter in Tucson, it is now safe to keep our diapers outside for longer periods of time. No more worries about having too much heat hurting the PUL/TPU waterproofing and elastics in our diapers. Yay! So bring it on Old Man Winter. I’m still sunning my dipes and doing my best to avoid using my dryer. While it may not be possible to avoid using the dryer for those of you in places where you actually have winter weather, do remember to use the UV rays to your benefit to keep your diapers stain free as much as possible. To read more about sunning your diapers click here.

Perseverance

CW playing in my 1st garden. Yes, I grew that honeydew!

I am currently experiencing a major setback with one of my favorite hobbies, my garden. After two years of successful and productive summer gardens, I have nothing but dirt outside. I won’t get into details about what’s been going on, but I will focus on how disappointed I am. It bothers me so much, that I hate to talk about my garden or anyone else’s garden. I hate taking the trash out, because then I have to walk by the desolate ground. It’s a huge failure, and I hate failing. But it’s time to stop wallowing in my personal pity-party and get back out in the dirt. This past week, I spent time “working the land” as I like to call it. Really, I was just tilling it with a metal rake, and then flooding the garden with a lot of water. I was working to get it back to a good starting point before I begin again. Sunday morning, I replanted. This is my third time planting since March. *sigh* So depressing…so much work and nothing to show for it! Anyways, it’s been replanted, and I’ve been spending a lot of time making sure the ground isn’t drying out. {This may have been one of many problems this season.} Now I’m optimistic. I feel good about this replanting. It’s difficult to pick yourself up after failure and trying again.

BW staring at the 2 lone squash plants.

Cloth diapering for me has been a lot like my garden. I’ve had good experiences and have also faced a setback. My washing machine was broken for quite some time, and it took me and Mr. GBE awhile to figure out what the problem was. While the machine was broken, it took forever to wash diapers. I’m talking 4-5 hours. I dreaded wash day. Some of it was inexperience: not using enough soap, using too much & not rinsing enough, and forgetting to pre-rinse. But the main culprit was not enough water! I would take buckets of water and pour them into the washer during the pre-rinse, wash cycle, and rinse cycle. It was insanely time consuming. It was unbelievably frustrating. *Ack* Looking back, the only thing that kept me going was my stubbornness to make cloth diapers work. I just loved them so much, even with all the work I had to do. Thank goodness Mr. GBE realized this was crazy to spend so much time washing diapers. He watched me do laundry one weekend and called the repair man as soon as they opened on Monday. Once my machine was fixed, my wash routine was so simple. No sitting around and waiting for the right time to add water in the cycles. I felt liberated by my free time! I’m so glad I stuck it out during the rotten time. Wash routines are meant to be simple!

I’ll be discussing wash routines next, as well as keeping you all updated on my garden. For my local followers, we used Authorized Technical Services {520.903.141} to repair our washer. And for my gardening buddies, I’m working with Westwind Seeds to rehab my patch of dirt. Neither one has asked me to pass along word of their businesses. I am just pleased with both, so I thought I’d like to share with you all.

~~Tonya~~

Practice Safe Sun

Here in Tucson, we are experiencing an incredible heat wave. As I was driving home last night from a fun diaper consultation at 10 pm {too many diapers to look at and so little time!}, it was 100 degrees on my car’s thermometer. So, when I say incredible heat, I really mean intense, awful, searing heat. This time of year not only do we need to protect ourselves, babies, and pets from the heat, but our diapers as well. I do sun my diapers, and I have blogged about the benefits of using the sun to get stains out here. But this time of year, it’s best to sun your diapers for a shorter period of time and early morning is best. I also do not have my covers/shells in direct sunlight. Honestly, I’ve never had a stain on a cover/shell and have never needed to put one in direct sunlight. However, if you do have a stain on a cover/shell, sun it briefly and early in the morning. Look at the care instructions on your diapers. Most of them say to hang dry or to tumble dry on low heat. At this time of the year, a dryer on low heat has to be cooler than the 110+ degree heat we’ve been experiencing here. That’s not a fact, just my wacky, unscientific opinion. I have no idea how hot dryers get, but 100+ degrees is blistering hot here in Tucson. Ack!! {Where are my monsoons?!} And do not underestimate the value of sunning your diapers indoors when it is too hot to have them outside. The UV rays can still work their magic indoors. Finding a sunny window in the afternoon may be a good alternative if you don’t get a chance to wash and dry your stash in the early morning hours. Today I put my diapers out for only 30 minutes at about 9 this morning. {I got a late start on my wash today.} Take care of your diapers and make your investment last!!

My little Wildcat is too cool!

I should mention that I'm sponsoring a giveaway {ends 7/5/11} over at Times for Keeping. Erin's a sweetheart of a gal, and she recently gave birth to her second baby girl. Her precious little doll tested out a GroVia newborn AIO. You can read her review here. And if you are looking to purchase GroVia newborn AIOs, Green Baby Elephant LLC has them in stock!!

The 3 R's

Jack Johnson, my new fav singer, has a song titled “The 3 R’s.”  It’s crazy addicting, and I find myself singing it to myself quite often.  Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.   He sings about ways kids can live the 3 R’s. 

"If you're going to the market to buy some juice
You've got to bring your own bags and you learn to reduce your waste
And if your brother or your sister's got some cool clothes
You could try them on before you buy some more of those
Reuse, we've got to learn to reuse
And if the first two R's don't work out
And if you've got to make some trash
Don't throw it out
Recycle, we've got to learn to recycle…"

Such a simple message.  Not so simple to apply to our lives in today’s throw away culture. 

Growing up, my mom & dad were “green” because they wanted to save money.  I thought they were trying to ruin my life.  My mom made us bring lunch from home and use reusable lunch sacks.  Even in middle school! *Gah*  Talk about social suicide.  When we were young, she would find different toys and furniture in the alley or garage sales and fix them up for us.  This was cool since we did get “new” things.  But in all honesty, it wasn’t the same as getting something new in a box.  We saved cans and took them to get cash.  My dad used the backs of envelopes as note paper at his business.  He still does this today.  He also used paper towels to dry his hands and would let them air dry so they could be used again multiple times.  We {meaning me and my siblings} thought our parents were so lame.  Hello, let’s throw stuff away and buy new!!  And I can’t even count the number of times we were told to turn off lights when we left the room and to keep the front/back door closed.  “We’re not paying to heat/cool the outside.” Lame-o parents always ruining our fun.   

And the cycle of “lameness” continues with me and the hubs.  We yard sale, garden, recycle everything that we can.  Lights are turned off when not in use.  Thermostats are set to save a little money.  We use reusable grocery bags {when I remember}.  Electronics are unplugged when not in use.  And now we cloth diaper.   To say that using cloth diapers was life changing would be an understatement.  The amount of trash we throw away is so much less than it was with our first child.  And this may be a little TMI, but it’s not half as stinky as it used to be.  Think used diapers, garbage can outside, and hot Arizona summers. *Gag*  When I made the change to cloth wipes {this was a gradual transition} our trash output decreased even more.  I love that I’m not hauling garbage outside as often as I used to.  And not to brag, but *ahem* our recycle bin often has more in it than our garbage can.

So now, that we’re using cloth diapers and wipes, I’m looking for more ways to reuse things.  Much to the hubs frustration, I’m refusing to use paper towels to clean with.  I use our kitchen towels to wipe down the counters, table, and floors. {Yes, mealtimes are insanely messy here.}  I can use one kitchen towel instead of multiple paper towels.  And when it’s been used, I just throw it in the wash with whatever load is going in, except for diapers.  Easy.  Cloth wipes are also doubling as Kleenex for the boys.  Unfortunately, noses are always running.  Those I’ll throw in with diapers to wash.  Once again, less trash to throw out.  Awesome! 

I’m not trying to say, that we are such a super duper “green” family.  We’re not.  There’s more we could be doing, but we don’t for whatever reason.  I use paper bibs at restaurants.  We’ve been known to use paper plates on occasion.  Paper napkins are always used.  Disposable cups serve their purpose every now and then.  Ceiling fans are sometimes left on in rooms during the summer.  My list of transgressions can go on.

I’m learning that living the 3 R’s isn’t so difficult.  Small changes can have a huge impact.  However, at times it can be challenging.  Cloth diapers on vacation isn’t always the easiest, and grabbing a paper towel and tossing it in the trash means there is one less kitchen towel to fold.  But what kind of lesson am I teaching my boys?  Being mindful of our waste and using what we have is something that they can learn and pass on to their children.  Hopefully, I won’t have them commit social suicide in the process!

What do you do that is green? What are some things you’d like to try to change to become less wasteful?

Sun Tan

The hot, Arizona sun is great for drying cloth diapers.  Even when it’s not so hot, the sun here is still great for sunning your dipes.  Drying your diapers outside will save you money by not running your dryer, and the UV rays are a great way to kill any germs and remove any odors  that may be lingering on your diapers.  But wait there’s more! {I watch too many infomercials.} The sun will naturally bleach out stains!! To good to be true?! In this case, it isn’t. It doesn’t even have to be hot outside for the sun to work its magic.

For the record, I do use the dryer to dry my diapers.  Anything that is cotton {mostly my GroBaby/GroVia’s}  goes in the dryer for about 20 minutes on medium heat.  I found that this helps keep the diaper from getting stiff and rough when drying in the sun.  I have tried air drying and then putting in the dryer for a bit to soften, but that didn’t work for me.  My BabyKicks 3g pockets also go in the dryer to help soften them before air drying.  I also add my cloth wipes {WHAT?! Cloth Wipes? That’s crazy talk you say? We’ll discuss this later} to the load.  By the time 20 minutes are up, the wipes are pretty much dry.  Why don’t I dry them outside? Not enough room on the drying rack.  Plus, they dry quickly with what needs to go in the dryer.  What doesn’t go in the dryer? Shells/covers, empty pockets, microfiber inserts, and hemp inserts. Yes, I threw in a huge amount of cloth diaper verbage.   We’ll cover it all in a future post.

Blueberries are often on the menu for breakfast in this house, and the end result is well…uh…nasty.  Even after a good soak and wash, there is some staining on this GroVia booster.  The picture below is proof of that.  No worries though.  I’m putting the good ol’ Arizona sun to work.  Unfortunately, I ran out of daylight and it’s going to have to go back outside in the morning. Oh well.  No rest for the wicked or is it weary? Who knows.

Perhaps  you aren’t lucky enough to have Arizona sunshine.  Some of you are still in the throes of winter, like those in North Dakota.  Don’t fret.  Laying your diapers in the sun even inside can have some benefits.  It will take longer for stains to be removed, but it is better than nothing.   If this isn’t working for you, a little elbow grease and lemon juice may help.  After applying the lemon juice allow it to dry in the sun.  Wash the diaper again to remove the juice.  This should help to remove the stain.  If you do live in a place where there is little sun, and you are a victim of chronic staining, I have three options for you.  One is to get over it!  Harsh, I know. But seriously, stains happen.  Know that your diaper is clean, and don’t worry about what they look like.  The second option is to use fleece.  I have yet to have a diaper with fleece hold a stain.  FuzziBunz, Thirsties, and BabyKicks are all pocket style diapers that use fleece.  Third is to use a diaper sprayer.  A diaper sprayer attaches to your toilet to spray off the poo into the pot.  Prompt rinsing of the diaper will help keep the stain from being held in by the material. 

So, if you’re ever driving by and you see a drying rack full of cloth diapers, stop by and say “Hi!” Just kidding.  I don’t open the door to strangers.  I have to set a good example for my boys.  J

P.S. After I sun the booster a little bit longer tomorrow, I'll post a pic of it.

Maybe you live in a HOA and are not allowed to have a clothesline to hang out clothes.  Use a drying rack instead.  I live in a HOA and move my drying rack all over my backyard to follow the sun.  I even put the diapers out in the front yard by the door to get the last remnant of sun in the late afternoon.  I do have a courtyard, which makes it a little more difficult to see my stand of diapers out by my front door.  

~~Tonya~~