All About Me: Cloth Diaper Addiction!

I'm so excited to be a new contributing writer at Cloth Diaper Addiction! I have followed their blog for quite a while now and have loved all the great information they have and the diaper reviews they do.

I'm over there today introducing myself as a new contributor. Check out my All About Me post here!

One Word 2013: Wholly

I first read about One Word at the beginning of 2012 and tucked it in the back of my mind as something to think about doing for 2013. As the new year approached this winter I started seeing One Word mentions everywhere, and I'm so grateful for the reminders from all corners of the blogosphere! I started asking God what my word should be during the Christmas season, and the one He brought me to kind of surprised me. I think that it's going to be just what I need for this year, though!

When I first thought about the word Wholly, the words entirely and fully came to mind. I often struggle to be entirely and fully present with where I am and what I'm doing. It's easy to dwell on the past or future and completely forget to be in the present. As I looked up other definitions for Wholly I found that it has a much deeper meaning than I realized, and really will be a good challenge to grow this year. Some of the other definitions I found are: entirely, the whole amount, involving all, complete, undivided, not broken. Not only that, but the word Wholly is used in the Bible to describe sacrifices to God and those who love Him being wholly devoted to Him. 

So I feel like God is calling me to be whole this year: wholly present with my family, putting my whole self into the things He is calling me to, and following His leading to become a more whole, complete person. Whether it's being a wife and mama, tending a garden, raising chickens, menu planning, budgeting wisely, or seeking God, I'm feeling called to be dedicated wholly to whatever I set my hands to. 

A Very Merry Christmas

My heirloom Christmas Cactus

I found it hard to get excited about Christmas the first few years Ben and I were married. Three extended families and both immediate families all within 30 minutes, reduced the holiday to a chaotic scheduling nightmare. We were hardly at our own home at all, so decorating seemed just silly, and our tree sat neglected and dying. Last Christmas we didn't get a tree at all because it just seemed like a waste of time and energy since I was 8 months pregnant and we were trying to prep the house for a baby.

This year was so different! We decided that our Christmas goal needed to be to keep the busyness to a minimum, so we approached the holiday with a willingness to say no if need be. Most of the extended family events got scheduled in a very spread out fashion, so the pace of everything was slower than years past. For Christmas day we decided that Christmas morning was going to be just ours. No running around to our families' houses first thing in the morning for us, thank you very much! We went out to Ben's folks house for a short brunch and presents, and then came back to our place and had my family over for the evening. Doing Christmas that way felt so much more relaxed and peaceful, and I was so thankful that it worked out that way.

There is just something about tinies and Christmas that brings back all the magic of the season. Having Ava with us this year has refreshed the excitement of Christmas for me, even though she is too little to remember it. I've been happily basking in the glow of our homey Christmas tree this week, just feeling thankful for her and so peaceful and happy about our little family. We had a very merry Christmas indeed!

There's just something so precious about flannel nighties...

An honest struggle and pushing the reset button.

I haven't used this space in quite a while now. It's been a mental struggle this summer to figure out whether I want to blog or not, and if so what the purpose of my blog will be? Part of the problem has been simply all the wonderful blogs I follow already. Sometimes I read their content and it resonates deep within me, leaving me feeling like I could never put my thoughts into words as beautifully as they do anyway, so what's the point? Other times the blogs I read leave my head full of so much learning and thought that I wonder if I can even come up with anything original anymore. The blogs I read each have their own unique voice. Some are beautiful storytellers who use lush poetry to bring me to tears; others research deeply and matter of factly write to inform and bring awareness; others have a mix of styles, but all have touched me and helped me grow into who I am today. So really the struggle for me this summer has been the question of what is my voice in this community? Do I have anything to offer here? What do I hope to gain from this space?

Finding a "voice" to write from sounds easy but I feel like for an introvert it becomes a more difficult task. It's finding that balance between being genuine and over-sharing. It's saying no to the temptation to be a chameleon and sound like someone else just to fit in. A lot of my mental struggle with this place has been just debating with myself... who do I sound like on my blog? How do I make sure that I am just being myself here? It actually has reminded me a lot of my struggle in college to find myself and stop making myself into the person I thought people wanted to be friends with. Once I settled into the realization that it was ok for me to be ME, I felt such freedom and that was when the true friendships deepened.

The other question I have been asking is what can I offer here? Obviously the point of a blog is that someone reads it. What insights, learning, or stories can I or should I share here? I've had so many ideas for a "theme" or general tone for this blog, but I have realized that I just can't pin it down that narrowly. I want to write about life, family, natural living, simple living, organizing, gardening... I don't want it to become a one-topic space. I'm not going to be strictly a how-to blog, or a garden blog, or a cloth diaper blog, or a parenting blog, though I will certainly write about those things. This blog is just going to be about life -  the people I love and the things I enjoy.

So what do I want from this space? I need a space to think out loud, clear my head, organize my thoughts. I'm naturally introverted, so most often there are a myriad thoughts spinning around in my head that go unsaid and unwritten. I've been feeling lately like it would be healthy for me to take the time to think out loud here and open up a little; airing out some of the deeper ideas I have and being brave enough to say them out loud is not a strong suit of mine and would be good for me to develop. The other thing I want from this blog is that little extra push of accountability; that extra little incentive to follow through on my interests and passions, instead of being consumed with a new idea only to move on a few weeks later with no follow through.

So I'm going to just go with the flow and just be myself. I'm going to write about what I love, and use this place to push myself to grow, learn, and get things done.

My Green(er) Kitchen

I used to be a paper towel addict. They were used for literally everything you can imagine in our house and we went through a ridiculous amount each week. I knew there were cloth alternatives, but since that involved more laundry I wasn't too interested. One day it just clicked for me though. I was standing in the grocery store staring at yet another package of very expensive paper towels and I realized... I was quite literally throwing my money away on them. That was when I decided to kick my habit.

Going in to the switch from paper to cloth I knew that my system would have to be easy in order for me to stick with it. I did a bit of research and ended up finding these fabulous unpaper towels from Athena Creates. I bought a family pack of 56 because I knew I wasn't going to want to do laundry too often, and then I bought a cute bamboo organizer to set them in on the counter. These unpaper towels have been amazing! They are made from cotton birdseye fabric and are about the same size as regular paper towels. They clean better than paper, wash up well, and we use them for almost everything that we used to use paper for. (Dog messes still get paper. Yuck!)

The next thing I had to figure out was what to do with the dirty ones. I found this wet bag at My Beautiful Girl and just had to have it! I have an accidental rooster theme going on in my kitchen, so this wet bag was perfect. It has the perfect amount of space for my unpaper towels and washes up beautifully each time.

My favorite reusable kitchen products, though, are these washable bowl covers that I got from MBG to match my wet bag. They have elastic to fit snugly around all shapes and sizes of bowls and casserole dishes. The adorable cotton print on top has a food safe nylon hidden under it. If they don't get too dirty a wipe with a damp cloth is all they take, and if they happen to need a wash they go right in with the unpaper towels. We absolutely love being able to reduce our use of aluminum foil and plastic wrap in our kitchen with these!

I also bought cheap microfiber cloths from the auto cleaning section of the hardware store for cleaning around the house. They get tossed into a laundry bag in our basement and washed separately from everything else.

So that's my green kitchen set-up! I love how much I have reduced our paper towel usage since switching to cloth and my purchases have already paid for themselves a couple times over with the cost savings of not buying paper towels.

I'm linking up to Your Green Resource this week. Check out other blogs via the linky at SortaCrunchy!

*Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with the shops mentioned in any way and they did not sponsor my review. I purchased products from them of my own accord and all opinions here are my own.

Sometimes you just need to feel epic.

I forget sometimes that what I do has significance. The daily monotony can get to me and it seems like all I do each day is change diapers, wash diapers, offer my boob to Ava every hour (high needs baby!!), and (maybe) make dinner and do the dishes. Sometimes it just seems impossible to get everything done. When I need a pick-me-up I make a cup of coffee and play this song:

This song makes me feel like I just ran a marathon, climbed a mountain, and conquered nations. I'm really not sure why or what it is about it. It just does.

I finished telling my birth story to a friend a few weeks ago and she exclaimed, "Becca! You are WOMAN." And that's how this song makes me feel. What I do is important.

I. AM. EPIC. 

I. AM. MAMA.

I. AM. WOMAN.

My thrift haul today

I'm joining up with the links at SimpleDesign this week to share my thrift finds. I headed out to the thrift store today to find some towels to use as dog beds and hit the jackpot on a couple cool vintage things!

 Hand-crafted wooden pull toy: $2.

Pair of vintage chairs: $20.

I'm so excited about finding a cute wooden pull toy for Ava! I've been watching for one for a while now. The chairs need some serious TLC but with some sanding and a few coats of bright paint they are going to look so awesome! I'm thinking maybe purple, green, or red, but white would be pretty too.