Saving Stained Clothing, One Dye Bath at a Time

Little children stain their clothes.


It's just a fact of life. They don't have great self-feeding skills, they relish all things dirty, and I don't want to strip them down and pre-treat every time they drop something on themselves.

Usually extremely stained clothing is relegated to the category "play clothes". But I was noticing the other day that Doozer has way more play clothes than nice things. Several of her play clothes were shirts that I love and want to be worn in a more publicly acceptable way.






The idea I had was to dye her shirts a color that was dark enough to cover the stains. I love all things brown so that's what I went with. Cocoa Brown by Rit fit the bill perfectly.



I used the bucket method but used nearly boiling water for part of the bath. After throwing in the three shirts of Doozer I noticed that I had a lot more dye I could use. I scrounged in my own closet and came up with a light blue shirt that had a yellow stain on the front.

The clothes took the dye beautifully. The brown is a bit purple, but that could be because the initial color of the shirts were blue or pink. Right after rinsing I was a bit worried that the appliques were too dark, but washing a drying fixed the problem nicely. Here are the results:


I love how the ric-rac didn't take the dye. The buttons also stayed blue. On the other shirts the buttons became brown.





This one is still a bit stained, but it's a huge difference from before.



Here's my shirt. Sorry, there's no before. Just imagine a light blue shirt. The Hubby says the brown suits me better than the blue. I like how the stitching didn't take the dye.



And now for the last shirt. IN ACTION!

"Show me your shirt. No, not like that!"

In my humble opinion this was a great success. Doozer has gained three more outfits, we have some matchy-matchy clothes, and we got to play mad scientist in the backyard with the dye bath.

Have any of you guys dyed clothes you thought to be without redemption? Have you considered it? Any qualms or fears holding you back? Jump in! The dye bath's fine.

Trust

What do you do when your toddler insists on carrying the eggs back from the hen house at the tender age of 15 months?



Let her show you she can do it.



She's broken only one egg so far. Doozer's been handling eggs for about three months now. Not bad for someone who still regularly stumbles.




This is the face she makes whenever we pull out the camera. I think she thinks she's smiling.

The Monster in My Bed

BuggaBoo is an interesting creature. He likes things to be done just so, and he likes them to be done NOW! One of his most enjoyable activities is crawling into bed with us at the crack of dawn and nursing. Now, I like this ritual as well, but only so much. My perfect morning would be having the boy child wiggle under the covers, nurse once, and then drift off to sleep for another hour or two. His perfect morning would be to wiggle under the covers, kick The Hubby, demand to nurse, pretend to sleep for five minutes, demand to nurse, and then repeat until he finally wakes up Doozer much too early for her liking.

So mornings are something that need to be dealt with. See, Doozer is a fitful sleeper until about 4:00am, so I'm constantly nursing her or switching sides or trying not to move so she finally settles down. BuggaBoo likes to enter the scene between the hours of 5:00am and 6:00am, and since I can't fall asleep at the speed of light like The Hubby can I often don't get a lot of unbroken sleep. I've tried explaining to BuggaBoo that if I don't get sleep in the morning then I'm a grouchy mommy more prone to yelling and such, but at dawn he's not exactly thinking about the rest of the day.

We tried giving him a bright clock and telling him he can't come into our room until the first number was a seven, but that didn't work so well. He woke up at his normal time, came in, and I informed him it wasn't seven yet and he needed to go back to bed. Then every fifteen minutes, just as I was starting to fall asleep he would yell, "Is it a seven yet?" I would say, "Look at your clock," and he would say, "Oh, not yet!" Then the plug got knocked out of the outlet during play that day and I foresaw the plug-knocking happening every day since I don't have a protected outlet near the clock. I didn't want to reset the clock every night so we needed to think of something different.

What it really comes down to is BuggaBoo is very hungry in the morning. He has discerning tastes and often doesn't want to eat what's for dinner. I tell him that's it, that's what we're having, deal with it, so most of the time he doesn't eat enough and goes to bed with an empty tummy. This translates into massive nursing sessions at dawn o'thirty.

Last night I tried leaving out a snack for BuggaBoo in his bedroom. Inspired by these cute lunch plates I made him an underwater scene. I'm sorry there isn't a picture, it was 11:00pm when I finished! I cut three fish from a low-carb pancake, put them on a blue plate, and gave them raisin eyes and banana leather bubbles. Raw pumpkin seeds were the rocks at the bottom of the fish bowl. Thinly sliced carrots were cut into seaweeds shapes, and nori was cut into waves for the surface of the water. Cheese was cut into a moon and little dots of cheese for stars. It was pretty fun and easy to put together!

BuggaBoo didn't even notice that they were fish. He kept insisting that they were just pancakes! So I'm a bit bummed by that. He still bugged me a lot this morning, but he only nursed once. I had promised to let him paint this morning so he just couldn't stand to see me in bed anymore.

However, there is something happy about all this. He has been in a much better mood this morning. So I think that qualifies this as a success. Hooray! I'm ready to repeat this experiment tomorrow.

There's just one catch. I can't think of tons of food that I can safely leave out overnight that aren't full or starches and sugars. Any ideas?

Skinned Knees from Falling Off the Wagon

Do you know what tastes good?

Hot dogs.

If you have a barbeque, what do you need to prepare?

Hot dogs.

If you have family in town on a loverly Sunday what do you have?

A barbeque with hot dogs.

What is not allowed on the GAPS Diet?

Um. Hot dogs. 'Cause they have sugar and other starches in them.

So this weekend was full of half-way fails of the diet. I had (many) hot dogs and a few new potatoes from our garden and way more GAPS legal macaroons than I needed. However, I did not eat any buns or mayonnaise with soy oil or the muffins I made Sunday for my church class. I did eat some of my homemade sauerkraut which hopefully helped.

I certainly felt nasty after the day of gluttony. My belly hurt a lot. So, lesson learned!

I have decided to not hold myself so strictly to the GAPS Intro at this time and start easing into the Full GAPS Diet. There are way more options for food and that makes feeding BuggaBoo easier.

In other news I think I may be sensitive to coconut. I recently went all out and made coconut butter, bought five gallons of coconut oil, and acquired coconut flour for baking. I also made the aforementioned macaroons using dried unsweetened coconut. Coconut oil doesn't seem to cause me any troubles. But any other type of coconut seem to make my throat itch and hurt like I have a cold. I also have difficulty swallowing. I'm really upset by that because coconut is so delicious! I think I'll try some more experiments before I call it quits.

On a happier note I've been able to sneak some meat to BuggaBoo. Having been raised vegan his whole life until very recently BuggaBoo is understandably reluctant to eat meat. He likes bacon and ham and fried chicken skin. Oh, and pork rinds, because I persuaded him to try them on the premise that, "They taste like chicken skin!" He really loves pork rinds. I do too. Oh, and I totally want to try a variation of this recipe for pork rind pancakes. Pork. Rinds.

Right, where was I? Sneaking meat? Okay, I made chicken and pork pancakes. Because BuggaBoo will nearly nearly anything in pancake form. So I combined this recipe for coconut flour pancakes and this recipe for savory chicken pancakes to create a sweet-ish breakfast pancake that just happens to be made mostly of meat. Here's the kinda recipe:

Meh, 1/4-1/3 cup chicken
3-ish eggs
3 Tbsp fat (coconut oil, butter, something solid)
1 1/2" x 1 1/2" section of zucchini, or maybe more. Whatever.
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp honey
coconut flour to thicken

Throw everything in the blender, whiz until smooth. If it's pancake batter consistency then cook it up. If it's not then add the coconut flour a tablespoon at a time until it's thick enough. The coconut flour will make things thick in a hurry so don't add too much.

I fry these up in a cast iron skillet using tallow that I've saved from making bone broth. Tallow rocks for pancakes, I never have them stick. Trust me, the pancakes won't taste funny. And sometimes when I want to I'll put a whole bunch of tallow in the pan and make myself some fritters a la country fair. That's some good stuff.

That's it. I think they would be good with some seasonings like cinnamon or cardamom or cloves. Or all of those. Yum. Also, doing this in a blender beats the eggs enough that it eliminates the need for any baking powder, since baking powder is not GAPS legal. You may notice the lack of milk or other liquid. The zucchini makes up for that nicely since it liquifies in the blender.

Sarting the GAPS Diet--In Which I Still Try to Fix Everything With Food

Scatter-brained post ahead!

Ever heard of GAPS? The acronym stands for Gut and Psychology Syndrome. Basically it's the understanding that gut health can affect the rest of your body, including stuff that's "just in your head." ADD? Probably gut related. Autism? Probably gut related. Depression? Gut.

The GAPS Diet is a program you can follow to heal your gut, thereby healing food sensitivities, allergies, mental, and behavioral problems. Many things can damage your digestive tract. The most common are antibiotics, hormonal birth control, chlorinated water, artificial flavors and colors, preservatives, lack of probiotic foods, not being breastfed, and eating improperly prepared foods that contain phytic acid and other anti-nutrients. Whew!

How does this apply to our family? I can't speak for The Hubby because I'm not him and therefore I don't want to air everything of his on the internet, but he's had several courses of antibiotics as a child, ate tons of processed foods and artificial sweeteners, and is diabetic. He's also working nights, which takes such a huge toll on his body and health.

For myself I've also have taken many courses of antibiotics. Looking at the list above I've done everything on it except two things: I was breastfed for a year and I've never taken The Pill.

My kidlets have had it better. They're still both breastfed, BuggaBoo had only one dose of antibiotics in his life (his fever broke right after the dose so we knew it wasn't due to the antibiotics and stopped administering them), they're not vaccinated (thereby decreasing the toxic load on their bodies) and we eat some probiotic containing foods. But I haven't been sprouting and soaking my grains, they eat too much sugar and such, and they are both exhibiting symptoms of food sensitivities.

What are our symptoms? Read on, they're in handy list form!

BuggaBoo's Symptoms

-Major reflux as a baby, will still sometimes spit up food or breast milk at 3.5 years old

All this in 5 minutes, plus more

-Ongoing cradle cap
-Lives for sugars, which negatively impact his behavior and cause extreme mood swings
-Has started to hit himself on the head when frustrated (not sure if this is normal toddler behavior or what)
-"Allergy shiners", dark or red circles around the eyes
-Starting to show sensitivity to noise
-Ongoing vomiting issues with no concrete reason (He started throwing up again Sunday morning, while nursing all over me. Delightful.)
-Often complains of "feeling sick" (our code for nauseous)
-Suspected thrush, but no classical symptoms
-Rotting teeth and malformed jaw


Doozer's Symptoms

-Until recently she wheezed
-Eczema behind and in her ears
-Suspected thrush, but, once again, no classical symptoms
-Yeast diaper rashes when younger

My Symptoms

-Ongoing yeast issues, including skin rashes, slow-to-heal lip splits (taking about 6 weeks), coated tongue, and, erm, the usual for the last 4+ years.
-Depression
-Intense cravings for sugar and other refined carbohydrates
-Bloating and stomach pain
-Incomplete bowel movements
-Acid reflux
-Extreme fatigue
-99.9999% sure I have hypothyroidism
-Weak teeth despite fluoride treatments
-Anxiety
-Sinus issues for, oh, I dunno, since I was about 12. So 15 years. Going dairy free didn't help.
-Brain fog. It cleared up for a bit after I first added fish back into our diet, but now it's back.
-Cradle cap, for as long as I can remember. I've even tried medicated shampoos. Nada.

Due to all of this I decided to try the GAPS Diet. On the 16th of this month I started Phase 1 of the Introduction Diet. It is extremely restrictive. At this stage I am eating:

-Meat and bone broths
-Boiled meat
-The "ooky" stuff left over from making broth, like marrow, chicken skins, cartilage, connective tissue, etc. Eating this stuff is a very important part of the diet.
-Well boiled onions, leeks, broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots.
-Winter and summer squash
-Garlic
-Ginger, chamomile, or mint tea with a small amount of honey
-Sea salt
-Sauerkraut juice (to repopulate my intestinal flora)

The children are eating a less restrictive diet because, well, they're a bit picky. In addition to what they'll eat from the above they're also having:

-Eggs, mostly just the raw yolks
-"Ice cream" from frozen bananas, raw egg yolks, and a bit of honey. Sometimes I add frozen cherries or blackberries.
-Whole milk plain yogurt
-Coconut flour pancakes

The first few days were no fun. I think BuggaBoo was vomiting from a die-off reaction. He also took two long naps on Sunday and was very irritable. I was not a happy camper and felt exhausted. I also had pretty bad headaches, lots of sweating, back and face acne, and a nasty mouth. Doozer was sleepy and cranky. On day three we all seemed to be doing a lot better and I had more energy. Today, Day 5, I'm sleepy again and feel the starts of another headache. My face and back are still breaking out badly.

But I see progress. And that's encouraging. I'm excited to see where this goes and such. I have found for me to feel satisfied on this food I have to eat a lot of fat. My most favorite thing to eat is the "ooky" stuff, but I've been that way since I was a kid. And since all my meat is grassfed the fat tastes so good. Yum! The meat itself is not settling too well for me, but that's okay. I'm perfectly happy to drink broth, snack on veggies, and chow down on "ooky" stuff all day long.

And I've noticed I don't have too many cravings for breads and sweets unless I"m looking at them. This does mean that I have to lay off looking at food blogs (boo!), and it's hard because my dear friend just dropped off some sourdough bread for my family (double boo!). And the kiddos don't quite understand why we're not eating that stuff.

Okay, that about does it for today. Hopefully I'll be a bit more coherent about this later. For now please read these thoughtful posts by Cara at Home, Health, and Happiness, and Jenny at The Nourishing Kitchen. These wonderful ladies wrote about GAPS much better than I did. May I blame it on the detoxing?

I Was Featured!

Huzzah! My post on cherries was featured over on GNOWFGLINS & Co. How exciting is that?! I'm feeling pretty good about it. So head on over to this week's Simple Lives Thursday, there are a lot of interesting blogs to check out. Have fun!

Turning Curses into Blessings

Summer is in full swing around here, which mean all of those lovely homesteading activities I fondly dreamed about are actually happening. My thoughts are not so fond now.

My internal monologue hit a swearing peak yesterday while my hair kept getting snagged in the twigs of our apple tree during thinning. As soon as I thought, "Man, why do we have SO MANY apples, I wish we had less," I knew I needed to shift my thinking or risk losing my sanity.

I could curse the fact that we had so many apples to thin out, and the future crop that will need preserving will be so large. Ditto the pears.

Or I can feel blessed because I'll have green apples just in time to make pectin for my raspberry jam. And I'm blessed to have new friends to share my apple crop with, making it manageable and blessing others. Also, how grateful I am to have future food assured and plenty of cool garage space to store fresh apples. Ditto the pears.

I could curse the fact that we planted so much garden this year it was hard to get to it all, and now all our greens are going to seed and turning bitter.

Or I can feel blessed for this opportunity to learn how to eat things out of my comfort zone. I'm grateful for fresh eggs from our hens and nitrate-free bacon from the store that makes eating greens more enjoyable. Also it's a joy to discover that some radishes bloom purple and feel excited for the seeds that are forming to preserve our heirlooms for next season. And now it's time to plant our fall crop, which is fabulous because here in the Pacific Northwest the best gardens are in fall.

I can curse the fact that because of all the things that need to be done I don't always have enough attention to devote to my kids.

Or I can feel blessed for this chance for my children to grow, for them to learn that they don't always need their mommy to play. They are finding joy in working with me (if I can look past the apples that Doozer unnecessarily thinned) and discovering that preserving the harvest can be fun and tasty. They are learning about priorities, and that there are other people in the world besides them. What a wonderful lesson!

In Genesis the Lord tells us that the ground was cursed for our sake. Well, I have learned something new today. A curse is just a blessing looked at from the wrong end. I am naturally a lazy person, so getting the initial gumption to start a new project is daunting. But there is so much joy in finishing it! Not just the first glow of success, but every time I grab another jar of blackberry jam or pull a homemade shirt over BuggaBoo's head or gather eggs from our well-built hen house I have continuing happiness and pride.

We are not a privileged family in the familiar sense, but when I look around me I see my world overflowing with blessings.