redkitchenette

 
 
   Well, that was quite a week. The family and I drove to my grandparents' place on the lake for a great visit on Tuesday night and stayed until Friday, enjoying the peace and quiet of the woods, not to mention some serious board gaming. Pictionary Man is my new obsession. After a rather unpleasant drive back (7 month old + theoretical 5 hour/actually 7.5 hour drive = not fun!), we spent Friday night resting and recovering and getting ready for my Mom and Dad to come on Saturday. We had a fantastic time hanging out with them and ate a wonderful dinner at East Side Cafe (which I highly highly reccommend to anyone in or around or passing through Austin). They have a great garden on site where the grow their produce and some seriously delicious beer. I had some wonderful wild mushroom crepes (a perfect birthday feast), and even my little baby bear had some grub (she ate acorn squash and goat cheese)!  Topped it all off with King Cake shipped from Houma. I spent my actual birthday, Sunday, at my niece's birthday party rediscovering my mad hula-hooping skills and at home eating way too much boudin. It was a really great week all around.
   Traveling with cloth diapers was less difficult than I imagined it would be, though I can't imagine how it would have been possible if we had stayed somewhere without a washer and dryer. Well, possible maybe, but not nearly as easy. I'm washing diapers - all of our clothes, actually - in baking soda and castile soap, then adding vinegar to the rinse cycle instead of using laundry detergent now, and it's working really well. Everything comes out looking and smelling really clean. Hot water and vinegar is my new kitchen cleaning solution, and that's going really well, too. I'm still using Seventh Generation dish soap and dishwasher detergent, but I'm using vinegar instead of jet-dry and that's been fantastic. I actually think the plain vinegar works better than jet-dry. Next up, I will be gradually weaning myself off of shampoo and conditioner. That's going to be a challenge for me as I have slightly unruly hair, but I'll keep you all posted.
   Okay, I promise I'll have a more informative post tomorrow, now that I'm done playing catch up! I'm off to buy my birthday present to me - a new blender for smoothies!



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