Bucket List- Tulip Time Pt 1

This past Sunday hubby attended his final graduation ceremony.

Bye bye hubby!

While he was away, Baby Chuck and I took a stroll around town to admire the tulips and enjoy Tulip Time.  Unfortunately, many of the tulips looked like this:

Oh no!  It's a stem fest!

We kept looking until we finally found some blooming tulips.  I saw other families plopping their babies in front of the tulips to take photos, so I did the same thing with Baby Chuck.  He seemed to enjoy it.

Look mom!  We found some!

Get the diaper bag.  I'm going to sneak some tulips back for dad!

Birthday reflections

Last week I celebrated my 31st birthday. 

I don't know about you, but there's something about birthdays and New Years that makes me feel reflective.  Maybe you feel it too?  I find myself thinking about who I am and where I am and what I'm doing.  And then I dream about who I want to be, and where I want to be, and what I want to be doing in the future.

I'm currently reading Parker Palmer's book, Let Your Life Speak.  Here's one of my favorite passages so far:

"Our deepest calling is to grow into our own authentic self-hood, whether or not it conforms to some image of who we ought to be.  As we do so, we will not only find the joy that every human seeks-we will also find our path of authentic service in the world.  True vocation joins self and service, as Frederick Buechner asserts when he defines vocation as 'the place where your deep gladness meets the world's deep need.'"

I'm not sure where that meeting place is, but I'm going to try to spend this year finding it.

Hope you had a good weekend! 

DIY- Baking Soda Deoderizer

I have a love-hate relationship with Baby Chuck's cloth diapers.  I love using them because they help us to save money and they allow us to put less waste into landfills.  Plus, they're so colorful! 

Ah, ain't nothing prettier than a bunch of newly washed cloth diapers.

And yet, I also find myself hating them.  When they're soiled, they're just so darn stinky.  Pee eww.  Ever since Baby Chuck started eating solid foods, his waste has taken on a different odor.  Hubby describes the smell like "cinammony dead cat," whereas I think it's more of a "sweet week-old fish."  

Our last load of soiled diapers was so pungent that I almost passed out on my way down to the laundry room.  Hubby suggested that I wear a double vent gas mask next time, but I figured I'd just open a box of baking soda and leave it next to our diaper pail.  But then, after finding this deodorizer and this DIY air freshener, I felt inspired to make something similar.  I poured baking soda into an old jam jar, cut out two heart shaped vents from a piece of fabric, and then sealed the jar up. 

Smells, be gone!

CROP hunger walk

This past weekend, hubby, Baby Chuck, and I participated in the CROP Hunger walk.  We walked around the neighborhood with other church members church and collected nonperishable foods and donations.  It was quite a daunting task because we had to walk outside in the cold and rain and we had to knock on people's doors to ask them for donations.   

After two hours of walking, we were all tuckered out.  

I was very thankful that we could return home to our warm dog, warm food, and warm pjs .