three good reasons to have a fluffy bum

yesterday i talked about how we're potty-training and why my friends object to cloth diapering. if you're still not convinced to make the big switch, here's a couple more reasons:

1. cloth diapers are better for the environment. the cost example i used yesterday assumes 7,280 disposable diapers used over 2.5 years, the diapering life of MY child. that's a lot of diapers. according to the epa, it takes 450 years for a conventional disposable diaper to decompose... but that's just a guess, because disposable diapers have only been around for about 80 years. those 80-year-old diapers are still around, unfortunately. cloth diapers don't fill up landfills.

cloth diapers also don't leach contaminants into the ground. in addition to unflushed (and untreated) feces, disposable diapers are full of synthetic chemicals and materials. if/when those disposable diapers ever do decompose, those chemicals will be in our ground. the same ground that your water comes from, the same ground used to grow your food. ewwww.

2. cloth diapering supports responsible consumer practices. when you purchase cloth diapers, you are choosing to support a company committed to environmentally friendly practices. additionally, the choices for cloth diapers are pactically endless... whereas the choices for disposable diapers are largely limited to big corporations. you can support work-at-home mothers like myself, small businesses, or purchase your diapers from a local creator.

3. cloth diapering is cute. how can you resist this little bottom?


(see more cuteness at gdiapers.com!)

*please note, this is not an advertisement for gdiapers, nor am i affiliated with them in any way other than as an exceptionally satisfied customer. i haven't been compensated in any way by gdiapers... i just love them. there are tons of adorable cloth diapers on the market - choose your own cuteness!

four misconceptions about cloth diapering

we're potty-training at my house, which strangely has me thinking about diapers and how i'm (oddly) going to miss them. probably because hannah's are so ridiculously cute, because we cloth diaper (CD). we're only one of a very few of our local friends who have CD'd "hardcore" for almost all of hannah's life - since she was 3 months old. our friends have many objections to cloth diapering, but they pretty much all boil down to these four.

1. i don't want to have to deal with poop. i don't either, but it's pretty much part of parenting. if you have a baby you are practically guaranteed to get pooped on and/or peed on at least once. it's pretty much a given that your baby will poop in the bathwater, and you'll have to fish it out. dealing with poop is part of parenting.

yes, i know that what parents are really saying is, i don't want to have to deal with poopy diapers. what they don't realize is, they still have to deal with poopy diapers. feces should not be disposed of into a landfill - it contaminates groundwater that way. a baby's poop should be disposed of in the toilet just like an adult's. and it's not like i'm grabbing poop off of my daughter's diapers with my bare hands. i have a diaper sprayer with which to spray off poop, so i don't ever have to "deal" with it. those poor disposable diaper parents, they don't have that tool.

2. cloth diapering is too much work. i've never understood this. when a disposable mama changes her baby, she takes off the old diaper, wipes the baby, puts on a fresh diaper, and drops the soiled diaper in the pail. my changing routine is exactly the same. the only difference is that my diapers get washed and re-used.

3. i don't want to do extra laundry. i don't want poop in my washing machine. cloth diapering is dirty. yes, cloth diapering does create additional laundry. at my house it's one additional load per week. and as i mentioned above, poop gets sprayed off the diapers and into the toilet... so i don't have any poop in my washing machine.

and by the way, because of all the rinse cycles and enzyme detergents and hothothot water, hannah's diapers are probably the cleanest things in our house. underwear doesn't get thrown away every time it's worn, but i guarantee your panties are not as clean as my daughter's diapers.

4. cloth diapering is too expensive. yes, cloth diapering is expensive... but disposables are more so. consider a sample diapering outlay over the past two and a half years, assuming 8 diaper changes per day:

- 6 small gdiapers at $17 each (new) - $102
- 10 medium gdiapers at $17 each (new) - $170
- 10 large gdiapers at $17 each (new) - $170
- 40 homemade soakers at $1.79 each - $72
- 30 cloth wipes at $12 per set of 10 - $36
- 2 diaper pail liners at $12 each - $24
- 2 wet bags at $12 per set of 2 - $12
- detergent, electricity, gas, and water usage for one additional load per week for 2.5 years - $75
total diapering cost - $661

this can be greatly reduced even by buying diapers used, if you're so inclined. for example, if you purchased all your gdiapers used at $10 each (instead of $17), your total diapering cost would drop to $479.

compare that to disposable diapers for 2.5 years, averaging 32 diapers per package (smaller size diapers have up to 40 per package, larger sizes around 27) and 70 wipes per package:

- 91 packages of diapers per year (8 changes per day = one package used every 4 days) at $9 per package (times 2.5 years) - $2,050
- 45 packages of wipes per year (one package used every 8 days) at $4.49 per package (times 2.5 years) - $505
- 10 boxes of diaper pail refill liners at $14.99 per box - $150
- waste disposal service increase at $5 per month for 2.5 years - $150
total diapering cost - $2,855

when we have a second child, our total diapering cost for that second child will be... $75. all we will have to pay to diaper our second child will be to run our washer and dryer, because we don't have to buy diapers, wipes, or diaper pail liners. if we had a second child in disposables, we would have to pay $2,855 again over the diapering life of the child.

additionally, i can resell my cloth diapers when we are finished with them. if i resold them all for only $8 each (half of the cost new), i'd make back $260. my total diapering cost for two children would have been my $661 initial outlay + $75 for my second child - $208 resale value recouped = $528.

you can't resell a used disposable diaper.

is all this enough to convince you to use cloth diapers? if cleanliness, ease of use, sanitary-ness, and cost savings aren't enough to convince you, i'll give you a few more reasons tomorrow.

green birthday/earth day giveaway!

i really liked doing my blogiversary giveaway last month, so this month i'm doing a birthday giveaway! (and it's earth day today!) (and it rhymes!) (my birthday is on friday, may 1, the day the giveaway winner will be announced. just in case you want to send me one of these nifty new paddles for my mixer. i have a 4.5 quart kitchenaid stand mixer. i'm just saying.) this is a fabulous prize, if i do say so myself. i would love to win it, so i hope you love it too:


the green baby giveaway includes two bars of handmade soap (lavender & tea tree and lavender buttermilk castile), two push sticks of bum (diaper) cream, a pot of nipple cream, five cloth baby wipes with wipe solution, dusting powder, lavender ooh lotion, and a lavender oatmeal milk bath for mom to soak those long days away. (see how naive i am still, to think mom will have time for a bath?) if you don't have a baby or don't want the baby giveaway, that's okay, you can still enter for a green mommy giveaway. i'll substitute a stick of massage cream for the bum cream, lip balm for the nipple cream, a gentle face scrub for the wipes, and a gentle face toner for the wipe solution. see below for a full list of ingredients in case you're concerned.

to enter, please leave me a comment letting me know which giveaway prize you would like (mommy or baby) as well as a random interesting factoid about yourself. for example: my random interesting factoid is that i make soap! if you don't leave a factoid, you won't be entered, so please don't forget that part. please also leave me your email address (feel free to munge it) so i can get in touch with you about sending you your prize. you have until 8pm pdt on wednesday, april 29, 2009. i'll plug the results into random.org and post the winner on my birthday, may 1. i'll mail anywhere in the good ole us of a or canada so if you're out of the country (besides canada), i'm sorry, but you can still have the satisfaction of having won and i'll choose another winner. there will be only one giveaway prize.

here are the ingredient lists for the giveaway items. please note that you do use these at your own risk; i have tested everything on myself, my husband, friends and family (but not my cat) and found it to be safe to us; the ingredients in the nipple balm are all food-grade and were approved by a lactation consultant. however, i can't be liable for your health or safety. i make every effort to create a safe, gentle, reliable product, but i can't be responsible for any allergic or otherwise adverse reactions you may have. by entering the giveaway and accepting the prize you agree that i am not responsible for the use or misuse of these products or any illness or injury caused by them, however unintentional.

lavender & tea tree soap: olive oil infused with lavender buds, slippery elm bark, and yarrow; coconut oil, corn oil, water, sodium hydroxide, shea butter, lavender essential oil, and tea tree essential oil.
lavender buttermilk castile soap: olive oil infused with lavender buds; buttermilk, water, sodium hydroxide, stearic acid, lavender essential oil, and pink oxide.
bum cream: soybean oil with vitamin e, calendula oil, shea butter, coconut oil, zinc oxide, beeswax, lavender essential oil, and tea tree essential oil.
massage cream: soybean oil with vitamin e, calendula oil, shea butter, coconut oil, beeswax, sandalwood essential oil, and lavender essential oil.
nipple cream: grapeseed oil, coconut oil, and beeswax.
lip balm: soybean oil with vitamin e, calendula oil, shea butter, coconut oil, beeswax, lavender essential oil, tea tree essential oil, and peppermint essential oil.
cloth wipe solution: water, aloe vera gel, calendula oil, distilled white vinegar, germaben ii (propylene glycol, diazolidinyl urea, methylparaben, and propylparaben), lavender essential oil, and tea tree essential oil.
face scrub: baking soda, kaolin clay, water, phenonip (phenoxyethanol, methylparaben, ethylparaben, butylparaben, and propylparaben), lavender essential oil, and tea tree essential oil.
face toner: water, aloe vera gel, witch hazel, distilled white vinegar, phenonip (phenoxyethanol, methylparaben, ethylparaben, butylparaben, and propylparaben), lavender essential oil, bergamot essential oil, and tea tree essential oil.
dusting powder: cornstarch, arrowroot, kaolin clay, lavender buds, and calendula petals.
lavender ooh lotion: water, olive oil, honey, emulsifying wax, stearic acid, soybean oil with vitamin e, calendula oil, shea butter, germaben ii (propylene glycol, diazolidinyl urea, methylparaben, and propylparaben), citric acid, and lavender essential oil.
lavender oatmeal milk bath: nonfat milk powder, rolled oats, lavender buds, chamomile, baking soda, sandalwood essential oil, and lavender essential oil.
cloth baby wipes are 100% cotton.

please note that both germaben ii and phenonip are both paraben preservatives. parabens have a very long history of safe use in all kinds of cosmetic products and are approved by the fda in usage rates up to 25% of total weight. preservatives are needed in any water-based "concoction" to prevent microbial growth and other nasties. my usage rate is approximately 1% of total weight. i cannot make lotions, scrubs, or toners without preservatives, so if you oppose the use of parabens or preservatives in your care products, please do not enter the giveaway. if you would like more information about germaben ii and phenonip, please click here. for more information about the safety of parabens, please click here.

now i can even make my own dirt

i went to a composting workshop sponsored by our city this weekend to learn how to compost. i was inordinately excited about this because i had halfheartedly tried composting before without any success. it's not terribly difficult but apparently there is a "right" way and a "wrong" way (or rather, a more efficient way) and i wasn't doing it "properly" which is why i was not having a lot of luck at it.

the workshop instructor called composting "nature's recycling program," because there are no landfills or recycling centers in nature to haul away the dead crap and waste. composting is just the process by which nature breaks down all the stuff it doesn't need anymore and transforms it into this nutrient-rich stuff called humus which is not soil but a very nice soil amendment. so it wouldn't be a great idea to fill my proposed raised beds (for my garden, i'm so coveting raised beds AHEM brian) 100% with compost, but mixed with other dirt it will be great.

compost needs four things: carbon materials, nitrogen materials, air, and water. carbon materials are "brown" things like dried leaves, newspaper, sawdust, coffee filters or tea bags, and dryer lint (!). nitrogen materials are "green" things like kitchen scraps, grass cuttings, coffee grinds, and fresh prunings. you need about a 3:1 ratio (50-50 at most) of brown things to green things. aha! my previous compost pile was mostly green things, which can make the pile kind of stinky and doesn't break down as quickly as if there were brown things in it. the instructor said to think of the green things as fire and the brown things as fuel: you can't have a really good fire without the right proportions of each, even though you might have a fire.

part of the composting workshop - and what really drew me in, i'll admit - was that every participant got a free composting bin and free compost. so there are two delicious bags of compost sitting in my garage (awaiting my raised beds, AHEM brian) and i set up my new free bin yesterday. i filled it first with some old trimmed branches (to create a nice airspace on the bottom), then with grass clippings, then shredded newspaper, and then watered it on top. the water helps sustain the decomposition process and has the nice side benefit of keeping the newspaper shreds from blowing away. then another layer of grass clippings, another layer of newspaper shreds, and a bit more water but not so much that the pile is soggy. i'll turn it (basically stir it up) every week or so and (supposedly) in a couple months i will have beautiful black compost for my raised beds! (AHEM brian)

again this was all sponsored by our city and i would bet it's not unique to us. another cool thing was that they subsidize the purchase of two fancier composting bins, this one for only $20 and this one for only $40. both have lids which would be wonderful for us as i do hoard kitchen scraps for our clean greens bin, but they can go in the compost pile. without a lid, i need to be careful to bury our kitchen scraps so we don't get rodents or yucky flies. i am coveting that bio-stack one.

you do not need a bin to compost; you can just do it in a pile in the yard. or you could make your own. be sure not to put "icky" things in it like pet droppings, diapers, or meat or bones; remember, you are (theoretically) using the compost to provide nutrients for your vegetable garden (AHEM brian), so you don't want that stuff in your food supply. more information about composting is here.

by the way, did you know that newspaper has a grain? this now makes sense to me - it's made from trees, and wood has a grain, so. if you tear your papers lengthwise, along the grain, they will tear into nice strips, but if you tear cross-wise they will just rip into chunks.

blogiversary giveway!

don't know if i should have celebrated my 100th post but i didn't. so, i'm celebrating my one-year blogiversary. and because you are all so sweet to me with your comments, i'm going to be sweet to you with a giveaway. i have found i really love blogging, even if it is just random things that are of no interest to anyone but myself. even if i have a "loyal" following of about three people. i really appreciate that you are reading this and the comments i get are very encouraging to me. not just encouraging like hey, your sewing is nice or have a great day, but also encouraging to know that occasionally, there are other people in the world who notice my blog and take the time to let me know that something i wrote interested them in some small way. so, thank you.

a little background: i try to be a socially and environmentally responsible as i can be, but let's face it, i'm probably just like a billion other people out there. i'm not changing my life or turning my world upside-down to do so. i admire people who do because i just don't have that kind of energy or passion for that cause. i don't have the money to be able to consistently make socially responsible choices, which means even though i detest wal-mart with a passion because of their business practices and the way they treat their employees, i occasionally buy a cd there. (don't get me wrong - i don't make a habit of shopping there. our wal-mart is pretty grungy, for starters.) i recycle all our cans and bottles and newspapers and tin foil and yogurt containers, pretty much anything that has a recycle sign on it, but i'm not great at re-using. we are slowly switching to cfls. i bring my own bags to the grocery store. i try to line-dry as much as possible to save energy but brian complains bitterly about "crinkly" shirts so i certainly don't line-dry as much as i could or should. i like supporting the little guy but i'm not going to drive 8-10 miles to the other side of town to go to the independent coffee shop when there is a starbucks less than a mile from my house.

so when we went in to said starbucks two weeks ago for an afternoon treat, i discovered that they were no longer just giving away those cardboard mug warmer thingies with your coffee. you have to ask for them. they're still free - you just have to ask. the barista told me it was because they were trying to do their part to save the environment by not just handing out that much paper with every drink if not everyone desperately needed one. i don't know if that is just that one shop or the company as a whole, but i appreciated it. it's a tiny little thing, but it's tiny little things that can add up to a big thing. and on a completely capitalist note, if it helps keep their costs down then maybe they won't raise the price of my latte by a nickel if the price of their stock goes down.

for a big company that puts a lot of little companies out of business, i kind of like starbucks. they pay their employees well and have a good corporate culture. they always seem to be up there on the forbes list of the best companies to work for. and they're kind of like mcdonald's in their ubiquitous-ness - when you order a big mac, you always know what you're going to get. same at starbucks. which brings me to my giveaway: i went home and thought, that is GREAT about not giving out mug warmers. i've been meaning to make myself one anyways for a while, so this gave me the push i needed to do it:


(yes, that is a coffee roaster and yes i roast my own coffee and yes i'm kind of strange like that. but if you've been reading for any length of time you know that i do a lot of random things.) i can keep it in my car or my handbag and never have to get a cardboard warmie thing again. and i want you to do your own little tiny part too, so i'm giving you two, one for you and one for your sweetie or your best friend or your kid or just to keep around for when you treat someone to a coffee. i'm also including a $5 gift card so you can go try out your warmie thing.

so leave me a comment if you would like to be entered and let me know one small, simple way you are trying to change the world around you. please also leave me your email address (feel free to munge it) so i can get in touch with you about sending you your prize. you have until 8pm pdt on friday, march 13, 2009. i'll plug the results into random.org and post the winner along with a picture of the actual prize (i haven't made the prize ones yet, the yellow daisy is MINE you can't have it) on blogiversary day, march 15. i'll mail it anywhere in the good ole us of a so if you're out of the country, i'm sorry, but you can still have the satisfaction of having won and i'll choose another winner.

and yes, i know how long and verbose this is, but if you've read any of my blog posts at all you know that's just part of my charm, that i take forever to say things. have fun with this and thanks for reading!

update: i have been informed that they are not in fact called coffee warmie thingies. they are either coffee cozies or reuseable coffee sleeves. am i the only person in the world who didn't know this?

baby recipes

planning on making my own "toiletries" for the kiddo, brian thinks i am a bit nuts but is willing to let me. maybe because i've "proved" myself in the past by making my own stuff for my own use. he and i and lots of other people have used them and not died yet or had their faces melt off so i guess he figures our gal will be no different.

baby soap:
20 oz. olive oil
10 oz. coconut oil
10 oz. corn oil
2 oz. shea butter
10 oz. water
5.875 oz. NaOH
1 T. lavender eo
1 T. tee tree eo
1 oz. calendula oil

diaper cream:
1 oz. sweet almond oil
1 oz. shea butter
1 oz. calendula oil
½ oz. coconut oil
½ oz. beeswax
½ oz. zinc oxide
a few drops lavender eo
a few drops tea tree eo

bandicoot's ooh lotion:
20% olive oil (or maybe some sweet almond and/or shea and/or calendula subbed in?)
5% e-wax
5% stearic acid (possibly less for a thinner lotion?)
6% honey
1% citric acid
63% water
germaben ii
a few drops lavender eo

cloth wipe solution:
1 tsp. white vinegar or liquid soap (we'll see which works better)
1 T. calendula oil
a few drops lavender eo
a few drops tea tree eo
¼ c. aloe vera gel
½ c. water
germaben ii

baby powder:
4 oz. cornstarch
4 oz. arrowroot
1 oz. white kaolin clay
1 oz. powdered lavender buds
1 oz. powdered calendula petals
6-10 drops lavender eo

because it is so gentle and basic, the baby soap is also nice as a face soap. i might infuse the olive oil with lavender, yarrow, and slippery elm bark. likewise, remove the zinc oxide and the diaper cream becomes a very nice lip balm. baby powder is also nice for big girls as it is talc-free. and interestingly, the wipe solution (with vinegar, not soap) is very similar to a facial toner recipe i make and love; i am thinking i could maybe sub in citric acid for the vinegar, if i wanted to cut out the vinegar smell?

introducing vinegar

this weekend when my sister came to visit she also brought her laundry to wash in our washer instead of paying to take it to the laundromat. brian grumbled a little when i first told him this would happen, but i reminded him of all the times his mother had let us bring laundry over, and all the times we had been sure to do laundry before leaving my mom's house, so we wouldn't have to pay for it at the laundromat. i figured letting my sister do laundry at our house was like good karma. good laundry karma.

i also introduced her to vinegar in her wash. to be fair, i only discovered this trick about two months ago but i am already in love with it. conveniently, i found out about it approximately six days after i bought the costco-sized pack of dryer sheets. so if anyone needs or wants dryer sheets i will gladly pass them on to you. otherwise i have dryer sheets to last the rest of my life and then some. vinegar cuts the detergent residue from your clothes and leaves them very fresh-smelling (but not vinegar-smelling). distilled white vinegar is the only kind you should use, which is nice because it is also the cheapest kind. i got two gallons at costco last week for $3.57. you just do your wash like usual and the vinegar goes in the fabric softener dispenser in the washing machine. if you don't have a dispenser, i have read that a downy ball works great also. it only takes about ¼ - ½ cup; i just pour it in to the line in the dispenser.

that little conversation with my sister got me to thinking about how i do my laundry and care for my clothes. (also a conversation with her boyfriend in which we educated him on the properties of lint.) i would like to think i do a pretty good job on my clothes, since they look nice and wear well for a long time. many of my clothes i have had for years but they don't look it. a girl i used to work with would often comment on what a cute new sweater i was wearing, when in fact the sweater was years old and i just hadn't worn it lately. so, here is how i do laundry:

1. i very rarely hand-wash anything. sacrilege, my sister says! (she hand-washes a lot of her stuff, even her cashmere.) i have nothing against hand-washing, in fact i admire people who make that effort. i just am not one of those people. 99% of my stuff is washable in the washing machine.

2. i very rarely dry clean my clothes either. dry cleaning is not environmentally friendly and i don't like bringing those chemicals into my car and my home. (the rare occasions i have to go to the cleaners, i always air my clothes for 24-48 hours afterwards.) again, 99% of my stuff is washable so it is usually not an issue. when i do have to dry clean my clothes, i usually use dryel. it's cheaper, more environmentally friendly, and more people-friendly. i will usually "clean" clothes with dryel 3-4 times and then they go to the dry cleaners.

3. on the subject of dry cleaning: almost every fabric can be washed - 99% of the clothes you buy that say "dry clean only" don't desperately need to be dry cleaned. granted, some things are insanely easier to clean that way (brian's suits all go to the cleaners). wool can be washed and dried - just carefully, because it shrinks. silk can also be washed, gently; silk charmeuse (the lightweight shiny silk) needs a little extra care so it doesn't get "scuffed." most synthetic fabrics can be washed and often just need a gentle cycle. imho that "dry clean only" label is there to cover the manufacturer in case you royally screw up and destroy your clothes.

4. sort, sort, sort! pretty much everyone knows to sort by color, but less people realize that clothes also need to be sorted by fabric weight. you don't want your jeans bashing up your lightweight tees. we do five loads each week at my house: whites, lightweight darks, heavy darks (jeans, sweats, khakis, etc), light delicates, and dark delicates.

5. as far as delicates go, i throw a lot of stuff in there that my mother and sister don't worry about. all my underwear, even the cotton ones, go in delicates. so do all my socks and brian's dress socks. sweaters, of course. even brian's nylon track shorts go in delicates. the general rule in our house about clothes (excluding undergarments) is that if it is 100% synthetic, it goes in delicates; if it has cotton, it goes in whites or darks.

6. i also don't use a mesh bag for my delicates. some people would faint at this i think but it works fine for me. i hook my bras together at the back strap instead of leaving them unhooked, and they stay like that when washed, so they don't get tangled into an awful knot and the hooks don't catch into anything.

7. smaller loads are better - don't overfill your washer. about 2/3 full is a good rule of thumb for both front- and top-loading washers. your clothes need space to move around in the water in order to get clean. also, if they have space to move around, they aren't forced to be rubbed up against each other for the whole cycle, which breaks down the fibers. fabric fibers are weakest when wet.

8. cooler water is also better. i wash "regular" clothes in warm water and delicates in cold, and my washer (the whirlpool duet sport) does only cold water washes. the only things i wash in hot water are towels and sheets. cooler water is gentler on your clothes.

9. my washer also allows me to choose the spin speed. regular loads get a high spin speed, because cotton is very absorbent and so i feel like that high spin speed is necessary to get the water out. delicates get a medium or low spin speed, because i feel like the synthetics don't hold as much water, and it's gentler on the clothes.

10. i generally line-dry my delicates. most of them are synthetics which dry pretty quickly. i hung a couple lines in our laundry room so i can line-dry even in the winter. i would line dry a lot more of our laundry but brian complains about the "crinkly" stiff feeling in his shirts, and i don't have that much line space anyways.

11. like washing, drying on a slightly lower heat setting is better, i think, even if you have to run the dryer for longer. the only things i do on higher heat are towels and sheets, because those would take forever otherwise. remember, that lint that you clean out of the trap is pieces of your clothes. the goal is to minimize your clothes from falling apart.

12. also, i don't use dryer sheets anymore because of the vinegar. if i have to tumble dry my delicates i will throw in a half a dryer sheet to prevent static cling, and sometimes i will put a half a sheet in with the whites (where most of brian's poly/cotton work shirts get washed, and they can get a little static-y). vinegar is cheaper than dryer sheets and better for our skin and the environment in the long run anyways.

yeah, that was long. sorry. i tend to ramble. how do you do keep your clothes nice?

the year of living gently

a couple of years ago i decided to swear off new year’s resolutions, since i’m never disciplined enough to keep them and failing is so discouraging. however, this does not encourage self-improvement. i have been in a better frame of mind for the last six or eight months, so this year i decided rather than resolving to do something and failing at it, i would choose a theme for my life for the year and stick with that. i decided it would be much more difficult to fail at a theme because i would have so many different opportunities to work it into my life. this also fits into the self-improvement thing that new year’s resolutions tend to be (which i am generally not opposed to – self-improvement, that is), which i need, since i am a work in progress and rather imperfect.

so my theme for the year is living gently. (this has been my theme since January 1, even though we are already ¼ of the way through the year.) i would like to be gentler to my husband and the people around me. i am trying to be actively aware of when i am a bitch (especially when i am pms-ing) and relax some. kindness begets kindness, and gentleness is a form of kindness, i feel.

i am trying to be gentler on our finances as well, which means fewer shoes and more cooking at home. paying off bills too, so that we are not beholden to anyone (even if that someone is a bank). I feel like we could live very gently if we did not borrow from anyone. this philosophy initially seems diametrically opposed to the goal of buying a house, but I am not sure how feasible it is to save $350,000+, so I am not counting the mortgage that we will have. is that cheating?

i am also trying to live more gently on the earth. we are recycling more at home (hooray, brian is finally recycling soup and cat food cans!) and trying to be gentler on our driving. we have not gone so far as to get a hybrid (i am not opposed to them in principle but i am in cost) but we do try to carpool whenever possible. i love love love the nylon shopping bags my mother made me a couple years ago (they’re pink!!). i would like to start composting but i am not sure how disciplined i would be about it since we do not have a yard at the moment and therefore nowhere to put the compost.

my final thing is that i am trying to be gentler to myself. i have realized that i am most own worst enemy and my own harshest critic. aren’t most people like this? i am trying to remember that i am beautiful just as i am, even if i do need to lose 20 pounds. after all, my husband thinks i’m sexy. i am pretty darn good at my job. i am a good person, even if i can been a super-bitch when i’m pms-ing. there are people in my life who love me, and God chose me to be His child, even when I do not feel the extent of my own worth. gentle!