Linking up with This Ain't the Lyceum for 7 Quick Takes!

We have set out on our massive, crazy, summer trip! At this point, even at barely 5 and almost 3, the kids are pleasant travel buddies. They share our enthusiasm for exploring new places and embrace the experience of travel. But it is only pleasant with a decent amount of planning and organization. They are still normal kids after all.

Cleaning Day

Two days before we leave is cleaning day! The kids help. We start the laundry to get ready for packing day. We sweep, mop, and vacuum, clean out trashcans, wash all the sheets and towels, scrub the bathroom, etc. It is *so nice* to come home to a clean house and only have to worry about doing the laundry from the trip.

Yes, the helmet is overkill. But he was still helpful with it on, so it was allowed to stay on.

I have a list of things that must be done either the night before, or the morning, that we leave. Take out the trash and compost (including the coffee filter. Trust me on this one.), start the dishwasher if needed, and unplug/turn off all non-essential electric devices. Coming home to the smell of rotting garbage is best avoided.

Research!

It pays off to check the websites of your airport, airline, hotel, etc. for specific kid resources. Knowing what terminal has the kid play space is a life saver in the event of a flight delay.

Happy kiddo in the midst of a multi-hour flight delay. The kind that's so bad the airline gives out meal vouchers.

I also check for things like laundry availability at hotels and local attractions that have free or cheap kid admission costs.

Directed packing

Packing day is much less stressful if the kids can help with the packing.
We do directed packing. I have the master packing list and I send the kids off to their room to bring me a specific number of items. 5 short sleeve shirts, 8 pairs of underwear, etc. The kids get some agency in what clothes they bring, and only clothes that are appropriate and useful get packed. Win!

The kids currently share a big duffel as the "kid bag". To keep their stuff separated they each have a separate trash bag that their clothes stacks are wrapped in. Small items (socks, underwear, swim suits, etc.) are put in a gallon baggie so they are easy to find.

Kid Packs

Each of the kids has a backpack that fits them relatively well. They each contain:

• 3-4 books (Picked by each kid, but fit easily in the backpack. It's an important qualifier with my kids. John tried to pack the fully illustrated Harry Potter once.)
• A coloring book or activity book.
• Small pad of paper
• Stickers
• Small baggie with crayons, pencils, and sharpener.
• Kid headphones
• Small toy

Each kid also carries their own water bottle in an outer pocket.

To test their choices, the kids have to wear their backpacks for a decently long walk. If it's too heavy, they have to swap something out or leave it out. They are in charge of their own packs in airports and other travel locations. Mom is not a pack mule.

Snacks go in parent backpacks

I learned the hard way that kid snacks are best portioned out slowly. The kid packs are designed for the kids to have free reign to choose from the materials. Having verboten items in there is a recipe for melt down, but if they all get eaten in the beginning there is nothing for when they are actually hungry. So snacks go in parent back packs!

I also have a wet/dry bag (the cloth diapering item that keeps on giving!) in the parent packs with a change of clothes for each kid, travel wipes, and hand sanitizer. Because if you need it, you need it NOW!

TripIt App

I love this thing! The last thing I want to do is be scrambling around for a confirmation number at the airport. I forward all of my itineraries to the TripIt email and it builds an itinerary that I can pull up via the app on my phone. It keeps plans in order and pulls the current part of the itinerary, and the next stop, to the top of the list. We have a complicated trip this summer, and this thing is a life saver!

White Noise 

Good at sleeping while traveling! Not so good at staying in place.

My kids are used to white noise and it's so helpful for getting kids to sleep in unfamiliar places. I go through the trouble of bringing our sound machines, because I don't want my phone to be held hostage during nap time by a white noise app, but I have used an app when traveling abroad to cut down on baggage weight and not have to worry about voltage issues.

What are your best tips for crafting a pleasant travel experience with kids in tow?

40 Bags in 40 Days Plan - AKA. Time to Get Ready for Moving!

Even before I knew we would be moving so soon after Easter, I had planned to participate (for the first time!) in 40 Bags in 40 Days with White House Black Shutters.

I normally do some deep cleaning during the Ember Days but this year more purging of stuff felt needed. Now that we are likely moving shortly after Easter, I'm taking the 40 Bags project even more seriously.

Because I'm still my Type A self, I made a color coded themed chart with specific topics for every 7 days of work! I do intend to take Sundays and feast days off. I tried to vary the themes to have some more physical weeks and weeks that were lighter. It's a marathon not a sprint here.

Paper clutter tops my list of things to clean out since it is probably the largest problem to tackle. I think it will have the largest visual impact too. I'm hoping that helps give me the inertia to keep going on the things I REALLY don't want to do....namely cleaning out the kitchen stuff....

Anyone else participating this year? What's the biggest area you want to tackle? What have you been avoiding at all costs?

A Few Texan Secrets for Hospitality

I learned a lot of tricks for hosting, cooking, and cleaning while growing up in Texas. When I moved out to California, it became apparent that people were not aware of the tips and tricks that go into the image of southern hospitality. 

It's not as hard as it looks y'all. Pinky promise. 

Here's a few of my Texan secrets to hospitality. 

1. What's your go-to "someone's coming over" recipe?

I have aspirations of being that person with cookie dough ready to go from the freezer. But the reality is I kind of hate baking, I'm not a sweets person, and I'd rather sip then nibble.

If it's a last minute get together - I put some coffee on, pull a dip together, and I don't sweat it.

For planned dinners, I lean on the crockpot. This is one of my absolute favorites. I like to add some thickly cut potatoes, carrots, and onion for the chicken to cook on. After the chicken is done cooking, lift out the veggies with a slotted spoon and broil in the oven until golden brown. Delicious!
Sometimes, if I get ambitious, I'll make a gravy out of the remaining drippings. Or I leave it in the crockpot to become part of the chicken stock I'll make from the bones of the meal later.

I don't like to always serve the same thing, but I do hold a general "recipe" of sorts in my head when thinking about a company dinner: a protein, a veggie, a "base", a sauce or dressing, and something sweet or umami.

I prefer to think of the carbs as a base instead of a starch. I use them more as a staging grounds for the protein instead of a side. Polenta/grits or mashed potatoes are some of my go tos, and focaccia is one of my favorite breads to make and serve. I also love wide egg noodles. Because if it's big, it's fancy (I don't make these rules, I just acknowledge them.)

Every good southern girl knows the secret to making a dish fancy is adding a glaze, sauce, or dressing. I have a lot of go to easy ones, but I'm starting to think I should just make another whole post about this.

On to the next question!

2. You have 5 minutes to tidy before guest arrive. What are your tidying shortcuts?

Baskets - everywhere.

It's like some sort of rule with kids that their main method of picking up is throwing everything into a basket. So I roll with it. The only toys allowed in the living room right now are our "Advent toys" aka Little People Nativity Sets and it's got it's own basket. All other toys have to live in the kid bedroom, and also get thrown into baskets for picking up.

So do kid books. So does dirty laundry. It works. It allows me to give a useful assignment to the kids while I tackle the bigger cleaning chores.

Vacuum as you go

The extra step of making a nice sweeping pile and using a dustpan might not be in my 5 minute cleaning budget. Solution - vacuum! I have a cordless vacuum that will switch quickly from floor to carpet and get be lifted up to quickly get the sofa and upholstered chairs.

Start from the door

I start cleaning from where guests will enter and prioritize from there. You know your home's hotspots. Mine are: entry way, table surfaces, sofa, bathroom surfaces. I take the vacuum with me to the front door, and start going!

3. What sort of music sets the mood for the perfect gathering?

I'm generally a country music girl (Texan roots don't die), but my current trick for making a gathering more cozy is playing this:

Nothing like the sweet sweet sound of a crackling fire. 

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Your turn! Answer the questions in your own post or in the comments below. Here they are again:

1. What's your go-to "someone's coming over" recipe?

2. You have 5 minutes to tidy before guest arrive. What are your tidying shortcuts?

3. What sort of music sets the mood for the perfect gathering? 

Next Week we're talking Faith Formation!

1. Do your children attend your parish’s religious education program? 

2. Do you or have you ever taught religious education? 

3. What is your favourite religious education resource for kids?

Let's Talk Chores

Welcome back to JEI (Just Enough Info) with The Zelie Group!

This week we're talking chores - for mom, for kids, and housekeeping services.

Per my usual, I have opinions! Lots!

1. What chore should you be doing now instead of answering this question?

I normally write here during two situations: 1) we're in the middle zone while the laundry is in the dryer and the kids are on an independent projects/morning recess, or 2) it's naptime and I have to be silent in my teeny-tiny apartment or I'll ruin it for everyone. I don't mess with naptime...

So at this moment, my chores are either done, are being done, or cannot be done!

It's both great and terrible. There is always something I'm magically not getting to. 

I have developed really good systems for getting my daily chores done. Cooking, dishes, laundry, sweeping are so programmed into me that I start to do them automatically. I can trust my hands to handle those without too much worry.

But the bathroom!
It's SO NICE when it has been recently cleaned, and it really truly only takes 15-30 minutes to do it if I'm also scrubbing the tub. But I will come up with tons of things I'd rather do.

Yesterday I actually scoured the stove, scrubbed the subway tile in the kitchen, and beat and aired ALL THE RUGS instead of cleaning the bathroom for 15 minutes. I literally spent an hour doing everything else but that bathroom that would have taken a quarter of the time.

It's a flaw....

2. Do your kids have chores? If yes, what’s your chore system?

They do!

I start giving them "jobs" as soon as they are capable of following directions. So about 9 months or so.
They initially are just putting away their own toys and books. By which I mean they throw toys and books into bins. Sometimes the right ones.

Now, at 2 and 4 years old, they can:

• Put away their own clothes in their dressers, and put away some of the household laundry
• Help set the forks and napkins on the table before dinner
• Pick up their own toys and books

These are the things they are expected to help with everyday, but there are lots of odd little chores they do depending on the work of the day.

Often I'll give them a little job out of whatever I'm doing. Putting away mixing bowls while I'm unloading the dishwasher, wiping down surfaces while I'm sweeping, putting the paper/cardboard in it's recycling bin while I do the glass/plastic, etc.

Giving them jobs that mean something lets them contribute to the good of the family on an age appropriate level and teaches them practical skills. Even for jobs they can't directly help with yet, like fixing the toilet or canning, I have them observe and I talk through what I'm doing.

We don't really have a chore system beyond me repeating over and over that "it's laundry time!" or "setting the table time!" and "clean up time!" at regular points every day.

3. If someone gifted you a housekeeping service, would you use it?

On a regular basis? Probably not. Mostly because I feel like I have the day-to-day stuff pretty under control.

There are times when I would really use it. Namely: right before a new baby is born, postpartum, and before moving.

Having homebirths means I get really intense about cleaning things when I'm in my due window. But it would be really nice to have someone else fulfill my weird need to have the bathroom scrubbed at all times while 39 weeks pregnant. 

Last time we moved, there were so many deep cleaning things that kept popping up that I just did not want to deal with AND pack AND supervise tiny humans. 

When the above situations are not happening, I keep on top of things by doing deep cleaning on Ember Days. That translates to four times a year.
The Ember Days are supposed to be for fasting and prayer, and we do that too, but I like the concept of getting rid of the physical clutter along with the spiritual and mental clutter.

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 Your turn!

Link up if you have a blog, respond in the comments if you're a reader.

Make sure you read the rules of the link up, and follow each of your hosts in some way!

Jessica – Pinot Noir and Prayers | Instagram | Facebook

Alicia – Sweeping Up Joy | Pinterest | Facebook
Kirby (me!)  – Under Thy Roof | Instagram | Facebook
Kerry - Fishbowl Fortune | Instagram | Facebook

Next week's questions on self-care for moms:

What is your mom beverage of choice?

What do you do to relax?

When was the last time you got away with girlfriends or alone (and the grocery store does NOT count)?

Busy Person's Hand Soap - How I Make DIY Castile Soap

You might have heard the FDA recently decided that antibacterial washes will no longer be marketed in the US due to evidence they are no better than regular soap and water, and may even be harmful over the long term.

My husband, very quickly, sent me the news article about the decision and I just laughed. My thrifty ways are vindicated!

I've been making our hand soap for a few years now. Not really to avoid the antibacterial chemicals, but because it's cheap (and I don't like lugging heavy things home from the store. #carlesslife)

Three years ago I bought a whole case of Castile Soap from Amazon (that's 48 bars), and I'm still using it!
I essentially convert the bar soap into a liquid soap. It's easier than you think.

I came up with this version after trying a number of recipes on Pinterest that were either too difficult, too time consuming, or did not work consistently. Consider this the busy person's DIY hand soap!

Here's what you'll need:

Ingredients

1 Bar Castile Soap
Tea Tree Essential Oil
8 cups Water

Directions

1. I grate the whole bar of soap, using a fairly fine grater, into a bowl large enough to contain the water as well. I recommend metal or glass as you will be pouring boiling water into this bowl.

This is the most time consuming part of the process, but this makes things much easier later on.

Helpful tip: Do NOT set your grated soap on the counter when making Italian food. #AskMeHowIKnow

2. Boil the water.
I just use my trusty grimy tea kettle for this. The water amount does not need to be completely exact in this recipe. I normally just fill the kettle and set it on to boil while I'm grating the soap.

3. Fun part! Pour all of your boiling water into the bowl with the grated soap. Gently stir to make sure all of the soap is dissolved, but you don't want to be stirring up too many bubbles.

4. Add about 10-15 drops of Tea Tree Oil. I'm told this has some natural antibacterial properties, but I also just think it smells good.

You can add a few drops of other oils at this point for fragrance, but make sure you research them to verify they are safe for direct skin contact.
If you don't have oils, I don't think they're strictly necessary. The soap will still work without them.

5. Now leave it in a safe place and don't touch it! Seriously, walk away and forget about it for a few hours. The soap needs some time to be still so it can start to thicken into a liquid soap consistency.

Often I make soap at about 8am and it has thickened enough by lunchtime, so expect 4 hours.

6. After you've gotten in some good doing-anything-but-messing-with-the-soap time, come see if it's thickened!

Do not be worried if it looks solid on top, I promise it's not.

Take your big spoon and stir it around to break up the big clumps. Once that's done you should be left with a bowl of liquid soap!

Troubleshooting: Did your soap sit too long and now it's an unbreakable mass of solid, jelly, soap? Boil some more water and pour a little bit on at a time while stirring. Make sure not to add too much or you'll be stuck waiting for the soap to thicken again.

7. Time to store your soap!

I've found an old liquid laundry soap bottle to be the perfect size for storing my homemade soap.
My trick it to stopper a funnel with my finger, ladle soap into the funnel over the bowl, then move the funnel over the laundry soap bottle and let the soap flow into the bottle.

Boom, soap!

Making each batch of soap comes out to about $2. Thrifty happy dance!

7 Ways I've Become Surprisingly Crunchy

Linking up with Kelly at This Ain't the Lyceum for another round of 7 Quick Takes!

I have lived in the San Francisco Bay Area going on 8 years now. It has changed me in surprising ways - espeically when it comes to some crunchy parenting and living choices.

Yup, I drank the Kool-Aid a little bit.

Here are 7 things that I never saw myself doing that I do now.

1

Babywearing

This one isn't super weird - we had a big hiking style carrier when my sisters were little - but I did not foresee myself using babywearing in place of a stroller 95% of the time.

But the realities of needing to navigate stores with narrow aisles, and using public transportation means that throwing the baby on my back in the Ergo is often the easiest option.

I'm not ideologically opposed to strollers. We have one. It's not great - I call it the Hummer of strollers - but it is fantastic for hauling the 20+ kids books we get from the library every week.

2

Cloth Diapering

This one surprised me. Never did I think I would end up cloth diapering, and probably wouldn't have if we didn't have cool neighbors who were doing it when our oldest was a newborn.

Actual thought process: "Well the neighbors do cloth diapers and they're not crazy or a masochistic. Not having to order diapers online would be nice. They say they potty train faster....Let's do this!"

We've lucked out with a pretty awesome cloth diaper service (for which I'm sure our neighbors who share laundry with us are very grateful) and it's been a great fit for us.

3

Homebirthing

Another thing I did not see myself considering before I had kids.

Our oldest was born in a hospital with a CNM. It was not a great experience, and postpartum care was terrible. When I turned up pregnant with #2 I was less than keen to repeat that situation.

So we looked into homebirth!

We surprised ourselves and ended up going with a LM/CPM. She was awesome! Prenatal appointments were largely at our apartment (no need to worry about childcare!), the birth went really well, and postpartum care was fantastic.

It's not the best choice for everyone, but it works great for me.

**You made it through the birth section. Yea you! Now it's going to get a little grosser. You can skip to number 6 if desired.**

4

Placenta Encapsulation

After our oldest, John, was born I had a really bad round of postpartum depression. After surviving that, I was willing to do just about ANYTHING to prevent it.

I still have to do a little mind distraction in order to swallow the weirdness of ingesting a human organ, but I can do it.

I didn't have any issues with PPD the second time around. Whether it was due to using the placenta medicine, knowing better how to handle recovery + newborn, or just a better support system is unclear. I would probably do it again. Just in case.

5

Mama Cloth

File under "Things That Sounded Super Weird and Gross": reusable menstrual supplies!

But it's surprisingly clean and easy.

I even used them postpartum (with this kit from Lunapads). So much more comfortable, and it takes up significantly less space than my old stockpile of disposable supplies. 

**See that wasn't so bad, was it?**

6

All the Weird Veggies

We started getting a farm box when we were newly married. I would probably never have cooked with celery root, butternut squash, kale, chard, or a number of other veggies had they not just appeared in my kitchen demanding to be used or rot.

I have learned how to make things tasty to our family's palate without a lot of waste, and I've become a much more adventurous and confident cook because of it.

7

Cleaning Clean

Never did I see myself having so many uses for vinegar!
Once I had little crawlers underfoot, it became a lot more important to use cleaners that I did not have to worry about baby fingers touching (for the sake of my poor stress levels.)

As life as gotten busier, I've discovered some pretty great commerical green cleaners. I swear by this Mrs. Meyers Scouring Powder. Comet did not work nearly as well on soap scum and greasy tea kettles. And it smells so good!


Anyone else have the experience of our location changing your choices? Do you do any of the stuff on my list?

Cleaning in the Season of Lent

I am one of those clean moms. The ones people feel the need to share memes with that include something vaguely condescending about how "the dishes can wait."

The first few days of Holy Week I spend cleaning.
Like really cleaning.
I-scrub-the-walls-and-move-big-furniture kind of cleaning.

I think people picture me being something like this.

Yeah, no.

The reality is that my home is not just my home. It's my office, gym, and child care center. 

I can't leave my mess and go somewhere else for most of the day. I have to, literally, sit in the mess until I handle it. So I handle it.

Home is also where most of my prayer and reflection happens.

Have you ever looked around your typical church and noticed how little stuff is around? You could try and make a mess out of it (and trust me my kids TRY), but it is quite hard to do with so little material.

Yet the church never feels lacking. It has just what it needs for the functions it has at any given time.

Forcing these big cleans, as the church does during this season, is really helpful for discovering all of the things you had lost and flaws you didn't know about. 

Pro: Found my pasta crank I thought the kids had lost forever! We can make pasta again!

Con: Discovered some serious mold in my window and lots of rotting wood. 

Would I have liked to not know about the fluffy white, and not-so-fluffy black, mold growing oh so near my head at night? 

Yup, yup, yup. 

But should I know so I can deal with it? 

Yes....

And what are the kids doing while all this cleaning is happening?

Generally, helping too. I give them a spray bottle, with vinegar and water, and a rag (Therese gets her rag pre-sprayed) and they go to town with me. 

This year they got really into it. Monday afternoon I caught them taking turns wiggling under John's bed on their tummies to grab lost toys, books, and giant dust bunnies. With a little direction about where to put their re-discovered (and very dusty) treasures, they were able to finish the whole self-initiated task on their own.

I made another pot of coffee in the meantime.

"Treasuring the moment" is what the memes are telling me to do, right?