Updates

There's been a pretty long hiatus here, filled with my studying and taking my first (of three) comprehensive exams and caring for BabyG & GreenDaddy's superhuman efforts at working full-time and going to school.

So much has happened since we dropped out of blogdom. Here are some updates on old stories:

1. BABYG: started babbling (about saving the earth)
2. EC: We got so good at EC that we only had to wash diapers once a week, two or three weeks in a row...
3. EC: That phase ended and we're washing every four days, now. BabyG smiles through pees instead of screaming through them, which has thrown us for a loop.
4. NATURAL CLEANING PRODUCTS: The house has been spring cleaned with lots of vinegar and I have many updates on the home cleaning products which I am liable to share in a later post.
5. BABYG: Smiles and giggles and communicates incredible amounts.
6. GREEN LIVING: I am everyday more and more happy about the water filter a plumber attatched to our sink. That's the best green thing we've done.
7. GARDEN: Though squirrles killed most of our tiny garden, there is a giant chard that regrows everytime we cut the leaves off and eat them, there is a giant dill weed which is a fantastic looking plant, and there is a fairly twirpy looking leek doing its best.
8. CHRISTMAS TREE: Christmas holly is looking nearly dead because we never took it out of its bucket and planted it.
9. PRAIRIE, COMPOST: When we thought his parents would be visiting, GreenDaddy mowed the lawn & raked & put the scraps in the compost. Before that, I was fond of telling people that we were trying to reintroduce prairie into our back yard. In fact, I said that so much that I convinced myself it was the truth and was incredibly disappointed when GreenDaddy mowed.
10. COOLER THAN THOU: We're managing to use less than one kitchen garbage bag full of garbage a week...we compost, recycle, and use the Freecycle network to dispose of the rest of the would-be trash.
11. FREECYCLE: I have been stood up by seven or eight members of the Freecycle network who said they would come get my stuff. I called one a dip in an email to a moderater, and she acted like I wrote &#$%!, not "dip." The second round most everything was taken. I still haven't given up on Freecycle.
12. COUCH: Even though Kate gave us her couch, I didn't give away The Ugliest Couch You Have Ever Seen. Instead, I decided to use it as an experiment. I dyed one side of it by smearing shredded beets and beet water into it, then ironing it dry. It is a weird pink. I'm going to work on dying the rest of it in different vegetable or herb based dyes. Beet side looks pretty good.
13. GARDEN: One Christmas gift I gave GreenDaddy was some crystalized fox pee, to scare the squirrels away from the garden. I am excited to use it and I am aghast that I forgot to mention such an exciting acquisition earlier.
14. I HAD ANOTHER GRATUITOUS CHILDHOOD FLASHBACK THAT OSTENSIBLY HAS SOMETHING TO DO WITH GREEN: It involves kittens and square dancing.
15. BABYG: Can turn from her back to her side and can grab things.

16. BABYG: Has written a series of poems to the Boob. Percy the cat has written one snide little piece to it, as well.
17. PLASTICS: Woe are we who cannot wean ourselves from plastics.