This summer seems to have gone by too quickly. Will has been getting up early for work to avoid traffic and I’ve been extra tired all the time, so we’ve been hitting the hay by 9:30 every night. No jokes. We’ve also been taking childbirth classes after work and on weekends, so it seems like our free time has really evaporated. What little time we have left we’ve spent lounging around my parent’s summer house in RI doing absolutely nothing. Which is exactly what I think summer should be used for.
Since we’ve been driving so much back and forth to RI for birth classes, doctor’s appointments, and hanging at the summer house, Will and I have been listening to books on cds that we got for a steal at Savers! We found both Pillars of the Earth as well as World Without End by Ken Follett for $4 each! Each volume is 45 hours of audio! ‘Why read those books’, you ask? Well there are two popular board games that we really enjoy based on each of the books, so we figured it was due time we gave the books a read. I can tell you that Pillars of the Earth does not disappoint! It has totally engrossed me. It also makes me extremely thankful that I live in the 21st century.
In other news, I’ve started getting nervous that we haven’t done anything for the baby’s room yet, so Will agreed to paint the room this past weekend. Except I didn’t get any paint swatches. So he couldn’t buy any paint. But I DID manage to finish the baby registry – so at least I have a list of all the things I think we’ll need when the baby arrives! And I purchased a single adorable outfit off Amazon, so if nothing else, our baby will be looking dapper for about 30 seconds before destroying the outfit with its un-diapered bottom. And on that subject, I have to tell you one last quick story.
Will and I are planning to use cloth diapers. Before you say anything, if you read this blog you know how big of a hippie I am and that two of my biggest hippie concerns are recycling and energy. So it will come as no surprise to you that the thought of throwing away over 5000 diapers over my child’s diapering lifetime is enough to kill me. Well I have gotten heckled by friends, co-workers, and even COMPLETE STRANGERS when I mention offhand I’m planning to cloth diaper. I was with my mom in Babies R Us the other day looking for a suitable diaper pail for cloth diapers (spoilers, there are none) when a woman, trying to be friendly, starts offering us some free advice on her daughter’s favorite diaper bin. My mom mentioned that my husband and I were planning to cloth diaper so that bin wouldn’t be suitable for us, and the woman’s reaction was something of horror. Her response was a sarcastic, “good luck”! My response to that was, “thanks, I’ll need it, but I’m an environmental hippie so I think I’ll be okay” which I hoped would stop her commentary. Her reaction to that was to ignore me and look at my mom and say “well, we’ll see how long that lasts, won’t we?!” To which my mom responded with, “I cloth diapered 2 of my children so I bet she’ll get through at least one.” That shut her up. I’ll let you know in another 6 months how much of a disaster cloth diapering is, but for now, let me live my flower child dreams.
And on that note, here’s a tutorial on how to make something else recycled! For Dany’s water bowl we’ve been refilling the bowl over the course of each day using an old liter plastic Dasani water bottle. It is much easier than picking the bowl up and dragging it over to the sink. The one downside to the dasani water bottle method is that because it sits on our counter and looks like it should be in the recycling bin it confuses our guests. Multiple times we have had to dig it out of the recycling bin after overly helpful guests try to help us tidy up. (Honestly not a complaint just evidence that it looks like garbage!) To solve this dilemma I took a clear mead bottle and etched the word “water” into it so guests would no longer think there was a piece of trash sitting in our counter.
Finished water bottle!
Glass Water Bottle
- clear wine bottle
- Armour etch cream
- plastic paint brush
- X-acto knife
- contact paper
- Print out the word water (or whatever word you desire) in the font of your choice.
- Place the print out over your contact paper on a piece of scrap cardboard. Trace the letters using an X-acto knife.
Trace letters with X-acto knife.
- Remove the letters you cut with your X-acto knife, but be sure to save any letters that have negative space that you don’t want to etch such as “a” and “e” in water.
Remove letters from your stencil, reserving any negative space inside letters.
- Prepare your wine bottle by scraping the label and glue off with steel wool.
Remove label with steel wool.
- Let bottle dry completely.
- Apply contact paper stencil to bottle.
Apply contact paper to bottle.
- Following the instructions on the bottle, paint etching cream over your stencil continuously for 3 minutes.
Paint etching cream over stencil for 3 minutes.
- After 3 minutes, rinse the stencil and bottle under cold water.
Rinse stencil under water.
- Remove the stencil from the bottle.
Remove the stencil from the bottle.
