Schedules and Diaper Stripping

To me, summer usually conjures up images of family vacations, cook-outs, and freckled, red-headed 12 year olds zooming down water slides....or maybe that was a Wet n' Wild commercial...I guess their ad campaign worked on me, dogonit.  The leisure that is so indicative of Summer has been elusive for me so far this year.  Then again, I'm not 12 anymore.  Or red-headed.  Or freckled...sun spots don't count.

My dry-erase board calendar has been chock full this month, and it's been difficult to find the time for blogging.

  I have always been excessively talented at making lists and schedules and on paper I am an efficiency expert!  Try as I might though, I can never seem to get them to translate to real life.  FlyLady to the rescue.  My Mom signed up for FlyLady way, way back when I was a teen and I remember thinking how ridiculous it was.  I mean, the point was time and home management, yet there would be 57 emails in her inbox from the beloved woman every time she checked her mail.  You can't get nothin' done reading emails all day, FlyLady!  So I dismissed her and continued with my ineffective list-making.  Then I got a care package in the mail from my Mom, with a stack of printed papers from the FlyLady: instructions on how to get with it by making a control journal.  *sigh*  I thought I had told my Mom already that I thought FlyLady was ridiculous and probably in cahoots with maid services everywhere. *eyeroll* But since she had gone to the trouble to mail it, I decided I should go to the trouble to read it.  The Jarhead probably heard something like this: 

"Wow....not bad." 

Followed by a, "wow, sounds good." 

Then a, "Wow, let's do this thing!"

Yes I was impressed.  And I desperately need help with my time management these days due to our new lifestyle.  The extra steps involved in cooking from scratch, making cleaners...just about everything involved in being green takes time and effort.  It's absolutely worth it, but it is a crunch nonetheless.

Not just a crunch in the time department either.  It costs more.  Some people may argue that point, but when you are in the position of not being able to grow/raise your own food, it's definitely more expensive to purchase organic products.  There is trial and error involved as well.  I have found some organic products are abysmally awful, and others that are exceptional.  Very soon I will write a post sharing with you my findings and recommendations.  For now, just know that I will get better and be more consistent with my blogging so bear with me.

As if I didn't already have enough to do, my poor diapers suffered a great deal in my ignorant, cheap hands and began repelling.

I had originally purchased some Rock N' Green detergent when I bought my diapers, but I noticed after a while that my diapers were kind of funky, my daughters' pee was smelling much more...amonia-ish, and they were starting to rash up again.  I suspected the detergent, and decided I would just use my normal laundry soap, Arm and Hammer Sensitive Skin, on the diapers to see if it helped at all.  It is a free and clear detergent, so I thought it couldn't be too bad.  The first time I washed them, they looked brighter than they had in a while, and my girls didn't rash up with it.  I thought I was a genius and would save loads of money using the cheapo, more effective soap, rather than the expensive stuff.  After a few washes though, my diapers were not getting clean like they had before, they were funky, and to my great dismay, my GroVia AIO's had small holes along the seams.  *GASP!*  I put them on my daughter and she leaked right through.  Twice.  My diapers were repelling.  I contacted the diaper lady here and told her to warn all her customers to never, ever use that soap and it's bad juju on their dipes, and asked her what to do to fix my poor, sad, leaky ones.  She recommended putting two Tablespoons of Original Dawn dish soap in with the diapers, and then rinse them repeatedly in hot washes until there were no more bubbles visible while it was agitating.  It worked.  *Whew*  And I purchased more Rock N' Green detergent.  I discovered our water is hard, so I changed to Hard Rock, and it seems to be doing the trick...for now.  I am on the hunt for something new though; funk ain't my friend.