New Year's Resolutions

I know I have made this promise before, but this time I really want to deliver.  I have a million things floating in my head that are just dying to be blogged about and I am setting a resolution this year to find time to actually post them this year.  Cleaning tips, cloth diaper reviews, recipes, funny stories and pictures that want their 15 minutes.  So, here's to finding that 25th hour in the day and making this blog happen!  Happy New Year!

Cloth Diaper Woes

As you may have read in my previous post, we bought a house recently and have been staying with my in-laws until our house is ready.  As I was getting everything ready and we finally made the move, I thought I had it all together (well, as together as one can be with three kids under 4 and a busy farmer for a husband.)  I was excited to be doing laundry in a house with a water softener because our old house had crazy hard water and stain removal and the dingy's were a constant battle.  That is until I had to wash the cloth diapers.  We have used cloth diapers on all of our kids and have never had a problem.  It did take a lot of research and a little bit of tooling around with the amount of detergent and the number of rinses before I figured out what worked best for our water, but once I had the formula I never had an issue. And then we moved.  The soft water I had been looking forward to has now become the bane of my existence.  I know they say to use less detergent and more rinses.  Did it.  Try washing more often.  Did it.  Try stripping and starting over.  Did it.  I am tempted to try vinegar, but have heard such mixed reviews that I don't know if I want to risk it.  I miss my cleaning smelling, easy to wash, super absorbent diapers!  Currently I do a cold wash with 1tsp detergent, hot wash with about a tablespoon of detergent and then up to three rinses.  I have tried less to detergent to cut down on the rinses, but then the diapers smell disgusting and worse than disgusting after they are used.  It didn't help that my father-in-law was trying to be helpful one day and threw the diapers into the dryer after only the cold wash...I think he may have baked in the stink ;)  He meant well so I guess I'll give him a pass.  I never thought I would be doing laundry, longing for my hard water back!  

We are finally finishing up with the updates on our new house and plan to move in this week.  I am seriously considering not hooking up the water softener.  I hate hard water stains, but I don't know if I can take the smelly diapers!  I think a little extra cleaning might be easier to handle than the eye-watering stench of a cloth diaper with soap build-up.  I guess the grass isn't always greener on the other side and the water isn't always better!  Maybe there is a way to have both soft water and clean diapers, but I'm not sure I have the time to figure it out.  They can't smell any worse though, so maybe I should just fiddle with the softener and see what happens.  Wish me luck!  

New House, New Cleaning Routine

We just bought our first house a few miles away from the farm in Dousman.  It is a little bit bigger than our rental down the street from the farm, but still nice and cozy.  We are in the process of fixing it up so we can actually live in it and as you might know, remodeling can get a little dirty.  Between all the dust from demo, the soot from chimney removal and walking in and out a million times a day, the dirt has kind of taken over.  Being a little OCD about laundry, I couldn't take the kids black socks anymore so, even though I know there will be more dust and it might seem futile, I HAD to wash the floors.  Might not seem like a big deal, right?  Well we have hardwood floors in the living room that we just had refinished (beautiful job Robert Nelson from Nelson Flooring) and laminate in the kitchen and dining area so I couldn't just whip out any old thing to clean it with.  The guys who did the hardwoods recommended WATER ONLY and I knew laminate could be touchy too.  I decided to swiffer the floors with a dry cloth and then go back over it with a very slightly damp cloth.  Worked great! Floors are now sock approved and ready for action.  But I got to thinking: If I can't use cleaning products on my new floors, what am I going to to do with the swiffer sweeper and wet jet that I had been using?  I know I can use the dry cloth, but what about tougher messes?  I tried wetting the swiffer dry cloths and that worked for now, but with all the hard surfaces, I know I will be going through a lot more of them than I had been.  Hmmm...what to do... I know!  I'll make my own pads!  What about cleaning solution?  Hello Google!  There are about a thousand videos and tutorials on making your own pads, but more importantly reusing the swiffer wet jet bottle.  So now I can put all my awesome sewing skills and some of the extra cloth diapers doublers that I have to good use!  And I can keep using my wet jet with plain water instead of cleaning solution.  I knew my husband was pretty smart, but who knew deciding to have the floor refinished instead of carpeted would actually end up saving us money in the end!