Home Alone DIY

Several days ago my wonderful wife, Sarah, decided to take a trip to see her parents and show off our wonderful and always growing baby.  Although I'm supportive of her seeing her family, there were some certain nagging questions I had ringing through my head. 

1. Who's going to feed me?

2. Who will wash the dishes?

3. What about all the dirty laundry?  And of course, the follow-up, does this mean I have to begin rationing down my sock/underwear use from 2-3 a day down to just one? 

To fully understand my concerns I have to give you a little background first.  Sarah and I have been married for close to 4 wonderful years; all of which she has done most of the cooking (not to include the odd microwaved cheese and cracker snack covered in ranch dressing, or the peanut butter/jelly taco wrap).  Before Sarah I was at VMI - no kitchens/refrigerators/microwaves and a full service dining/laundry facility. 

Well men, there are a couple of things a real man does to prepare himself for such a survival situation as this.  You have to make rules.

Rule 1. Absolutely no dishes.  This prevents you from having to wash dishes (duh).

Rule 2. Automatically assume you will be re-wearing some of your dirty clothes... several times.

Rule 3. Expect good food... but be ready to settle for hot dogs...

Let's start with rule 2 first.  This is a great DIY laundry service that can work in any home with a bathtub.  Don't worry men... I took pictures so you can't mess this up!

Step 1: Shampoo probably does the same thing as laundry detergent.  Any of your wife's shampoo will probably work, but I don't think conditioner makes as many suds.  Remember the dawn commercials: Suds = clean.

Step 2: Fill the bathtub with warm water and add shampoo.  I used Sarah's Pantene PRO-V  for Curly Hair.  Remember: Suds = clean.

Step 3: Dump clothes into bathtub.  Try to use the 3-4 day old clothes... they might take a while to dry and you'll need to re-wear your underwear from today.

Step 4: After about an hour or so... you can time it by different episodes coming on the TV, drain the bath tub and leave the clothes.  They'll dry eventually. 

Don't worry... you can thank me later.

Lets move onto the food.  You might say: "But Thane, if I don't use any dishes, how will I cook anything?!"

The answer, my friend, is paper towels... as the pictures show; not only is it oven friendly, but you'll also get a nice charbroiled look on whatever you try to cook.

Start by pre-heating the oven to 350.  In this case I wanted to make a piece of bread. 

Next place the bread on a paper towel and put in the oven.  Go back to your TV show and get it in 5 minutes. 

Do you see how tasty and charbroiled it looks?

Next, you'll want your food to look happy.  Remember, the happier your food looks, the happier you'll be eating it.  I put smiley faces on my buns using ketchup. 

Notice whats under them?  That's right!  A paper towel!

For the sake of this blog... any my wife, I wont show you how I cooked the turkey burgers... but lets just say I fell back to rule number 3:  always be prepared to eat hot dogs!

Cloth Wipes Made Easy

Hello fellow cloth enthusiasts! Just thought I would share a step-by-step look at my system for managing cloth wipes. If you're not currently an enthusiast, you might consider becoming one! You can't go wrong. It's an easy way to save a little money, cut back on waste, and grace your little one's bum with super soft 100% cotton.

A little background- at first, I tried putting my wipe solution into a spray bottle and spraying each one individually as I needed them during diaper changes, but my furniture was getting wetter than my wipes. (A better spray bottle probably would have remedied that, but I never got around to trying another one.) Anyway, after some trial and error, this is the quickest and easiest system I've been able to come up with.

It may look like a lot of steps because of all of the photos in this very detailed play-by-play, but it's not! Once your wipes are folded, it takes about 60 seconds from start to finish. Here we go...

Gather your clean wipes, your diaper wipe solution (more on this here and below), and an empty wipes case.

I use Diaper Lotion Potion Concentrate, by Kissaluvs.

(Your empty wipe case.)

Fold your cloth wipes in half so that they fit perfectly into your standard wipes case and/or wipes warmer. These GroVia wipes shown here are the standard size, 8x8 (more on these here).

Add a very small drop of your Concentrate.

Hop over to the faucet and fill your empty case about halfway.

Once filled, swish it around a little to mix the Concentrate and water. You've got your solution!

Now get ready to submerge your folded wipes into your newly made solution.

Dunk!

And press down so that the water absorbs into all of the wipes as evenly as possible.

Close your lid and make sure it snaps shut (otherwise you'll get an untimely bath).

Take it in hand, get ready to flip it upside down and "shake it all about".

"Yeah ya do the hokey pokey and ya swish it all around..."

".....And that's what it's all about", ha!

If your top few wipes didn't get as moist as you'd like, add a little more water. If they're too moist, wring them out by applying some pressure with your hand and then pour out the excess water.

Either keep the moist wipes in your old disposable wipes case, or put them directly into your wipes warmer.

And they're ready to go!

Now, back to the diaper wipe solution. Kissaluvs Diaper Lotion Potion Concentrate has worked well for us. (This and more of our favorite CD products here). It's all natural, and get this- it's made in America. It's so rare to see that these days! It's made up of essential oils- jojoba, chamomile, lavender, and tea tree- they work together to moisturize, heal, soothe, and protect against bacteria. And of course they smell great.

Click image for more information on Amazon

                                                            

At first I looked into making my own concentrate. Health food stores carry the individual oils, but they're pricey and there would have been some guesswork in mixing them myself. So, I decided to go with the Kissaluvs since it was the easiest and the most cost-effective. If you really want to go the simple route, I've read that some people use plain water.

Anybody have a different system for cloth wipes? Or recommendations for other wipe solutions? I love to hear any and all ideas and experiences in regards to the great world of cloth diapering, so don't hold back! :)

Turkey BLT + Pesto

You never know where inspiration will strike. Last weekend, the three of us took a day trip to Frankfort, Kentucky, and toured the city's historic downtown. And there we found the Kentucky Coffeetree Cafe. Not only was it complete with the rustic, funky charm that's characteristic of a lot of independently owned coffee joints, but it served an out-of-this-world delicious turkey BLT with pesto.



Reminiscent of the Coffee Gallery in Haleiwa, for you Hawaii folks...



I'm not exaggerating when I say that this BLT is possibly the best sandwich I've ever had in a restaurant, super simple yet savory. So, I had to try to replicate it...

Turkey bacon- the healthier alternative- but regular would be even better :)

I don't like tomatoes, but I'll make an exception.

I tried to replicate the panini style bread that "the original" was served with by browning my bread in the bacon-greased skillet. It got nice and golden.

Alright, the basics are ready; let's get to stackin'!

Unfortunately I couldn't find pesto at the store- this is guacamole- good, but not the same as pesto!

There you have it, a super simple yet delicious meal. I even made a mocha coffee to go with it, since that's what I had at Coffeetree. (I just added Ovaltine Milk Chocolate powder mix to my mug. Yum!) Believe it or not, chocolate lover that I am, I never liked mocha's until recently...I always thought the coffee-chocolate combo was no good. Then, during pregnancy, I couldn't get enough chocolate milk. So that lead me to give the mocha another try post-pregnancy, and now it's all I order when we're out for coffee. So, I guess it's always good to try new things, you just never know when you might start to love something!

 

The original                                     Mine

Notice anything funny? The plates are the same! Haha, what a coincidence. Thane and I definitely enjoyed our version of the sandwich, but it wasn't the same without the pesto...I really think that was the key ingredient. Anybody know where I can get it? Is it sold in a jar? I've really never noticed it at the grocery store, so I honestly have no idea. If I couldn't buy it, it would be worth making it from scratch.

Thane was a very willing taste tester, and even dramatized the event for the sake of the camera.

Moral of the story; BLT+turkey+pesto=delicious!