After slogging through three years of motherhood while teaching nearly full time, I was heartily ready for a break.  Last spring I took a year’s leave of absence to be with my children and experience stay-at-home motherhood.

I loved the intensity and importance of being with my kids full time, until one day, I didn’t.  Was it a dramatic episode?  Nope.  I simply reached a point where the endless cycle of laundry, meals, and playtime wore me out.  My brain felt rather mushy and creating daily structures and routines exhausted me.

Plus, although frugal living is a passion of mine, it felt a bit uncomfortable to have absolutely no spare room in our budget.  I longed for the occasional dinner out or swimming lessons for the kids.  If we stayed exactly on track and no emergencies came up, we still had to take a little out of our savings each month.

So, just a few weeks ago, I headed back into the classroom to teach high school Spanish a few days a week.  Our amazing daycare provider (who also happens to provide eco-friendly childcare options) had a spot available for my daughter and my son added a few hours to his day at preschool.  We braced for a horrid reentry, but everyone has slid into their new schedule incredibly smoothly.

What did we do that helped?

Plan ahead. We set up lunches, the diaper bag, breakfasts, and morning clothes the night before I’m going to work.  It makes the mornings flow so much more smoothly and helps the kids have an easy transition to childcare and school.

Split the work. My husband and I take turns doing all the preparation for the next morning and also share cleaning and shopping responsibilities.  The kids are learning how to clear their plates and empty the dishwasher as well.

Prepare your kids. We always discuss the next day’s plan with the kids so that they’re prepared for what’s coming.  We describe the transition and talk about their feelings of being sad to leave us,but happy to play with their friends.

After having the experience of working outside and inside the home, it’s clear to me that neither is easy.  Also, every mother has to make the choice that fits her personality and those choices may change as children grow.  Whatever we end up doing as moms, it’s worthwhile to consider our own happiness in the equation, since that impacts our job performance as parents so dramatically.  For now, I’m thrilled to be getting a bit of mental stimulation, while still being able to hang with my kids at home during the week.

Have you found a balance between your goals as a parent and your career aspirations?  Are you naturally inclined toward domestic life or are you happier at work?

Now that we’ve cleared the air about our stance on secondhand car seats, I thought I’d share the exciting story of my own daughter’s infant car seat. We purchased a basic infant car seat before she was born. We weren’t opposed to borrowing one from a friend, but unfortunately none of our friends cooperated by reproducing before we did. (Later we learned that we could have gone without an infant car seat altogether and purchased a convertible car seat instead—that would have lasted longer.)

Once Audrey was over a year old, she outgrew the car seat for height. We passed it down to a friend of a friend, whose baby used it for eight months before he became too heavy for it. On it went to my cousin’s new baby, who outgrew it just in time for me to pass it along to another friend. This is where the car seat is today. As the seat expires very soon (they say to toss a car seat after five to seven years), it may be enjoying its last car rides this year. I am perfectly comfortable with the idea of reusing a car seat in this way—passed along from friend to friend, so we can keep tabs on the seat’s whereabouts.

Thank you, infant car seat. You lived a productive and useful life. You also saved three new car seats from being purchased and later thrown into landfills, where they would never decompose. You did your part.

Two decades ago, when Rebecca and I were frugal college friends, we experienced a rare snowstorm. Thrilled to be able to enjoy the change of season, but too cheap to buy a large plastic disk we’d never use again, we went to a thrift store and bought two vinyl garment bags. While it seemed like sheer genius (we’d just unzip the zipper, tuck our legs inside, and fly down the hill!), it actually was a total flop.

Still, I love the idea of creative sledding and have seen many solutions while perched at the top of a nearby hill on a snowy day. They all involved recycling something that people already had in their garages.

• Lids from large plastic Rubbermaid storage tubs.
• Inflated inner tubes (works in summer or winter!)
• Squares of plastic tarp
• Laundry basket
• Plastic garbage can lids
• Kiddy pool (load up the whole family in this one!)
• Cardboard (apparently you can slid on cardboard on the grass in the summer too!)

Of course, you could just pick up a used sled from a local thrift store, but if you have just one or two days of snow per year like we do in the Pacific Northwest, I’m not sure it’s worth storing it. I also happen to love the adventure of repurposing something and laughing hysterically when it doesn’t work out–which is what Rebecca and I did twenty years ago!

Time-consuming and endless.  That’s how I’d describe my domestic duties.  But perhaps you’re more enlightened and would pick adjectives like “Rewarding and fulfilling.”  If so, please inspire me!

Do you incrementally work on general household cleaning duties, or do you prefer for things to build up to near disaster before you attack?  Who is in charge of washing cloth diapers or buying groceries?  Do your children do small tasks for you as well?  Is your partner involved in domestic upkeep or do you shoulder the responsibility yourself?

Any tricks you’ve implemented might be a help to the rest of us!  (My resolution for order and focus this year has me using the quicken calendar to remind me of three chores each day.  It’s not perfect, but it’s certainly an improvement from what I was doing before!)

We hear this tip again and again: don’t rinse your dishes before loading them into the dishwasher. Still, from my observations, most people do rinse dishes, potentially wasting hundreds of gallons of water each year.

Today’s dishwashers and detergents are designed to whisk away food bits and leave your dishes sparkling clean. I have tested this with my own new dishwasher and Biokleen Dishwashing Powder. I’ve put in yogurt containers with ½ cup of expired yogurt still in there. (I know I should be better about not wasting food, so I did feel bad about this!) Pans with cheese and bits of pasta still baked on. A dish full of old whipped cream. Spoons coated in dried-up rice. Jars with the peanut butter scraped out.

My dishes always come out clean. I never need to re-wash dishes after they’ve been in the dishwasher—unless I have accidentally blocked the sprayer with a long knife or something. Now I make sure it can spin freely before I press the “on” button.

So if you are a dish-rinser—stop! Try sticking everything straight in the dishwasher. If each item doesn’t come out sparkling clean, you may not be using a good detergent for your water type. (As I mentioned, just one tablespoon of the Biokleen dishwashing powder works perfectly with my soft water here in Portland. I use plain vinegar as a rinse agent instead of Jet Clean or something similar. Check out our dishwashing detergent post to find one that works for you.)

It’s also possible your dishwasher has passed its prime if you need to rinse beforehand—older models aren’t as efficient as new ones.

If you’re a rinser, try quitting for just one load, and let us know how it turns out! Your life could get easier!

The bad news is that only one of you will win the lucky copy of The Eco-nomical Baby Guide.  The great news is that you can pick up a copy for less than fifteen bucks on Amazon or read it for free at your local library!

Why should you buy a copy of our green, thrifty treatise on raising a green baby?

Maybe it’s our five star rating on Amazon, or our glowing reviews on Goodreads, or the fact that investing less than twenty bucks on this little gem can save you thousands on your baby’s first year alone.  We don’t mean to sound like an infomercial, but we really, truly believe that The Eco-nomical Baby Guide is worth reading.  It’s the book we wish we would have had back in those early days of parenting when cloth diapering, buying used, and buying less were all tricky concepts.

The good news is that one of you will have our book in your mailbox in a matter of days!  The Eco-nomical Baby Guide giveaway ends at midnight tonight, so be sure to enter.  If you don’t win, put the book on your baby registry.  You deserve a copy!

There are a lot of eco-friendly dishwashing detergents out there—but how do they work? It can be frustrating experimenting with so-called green products, only to spend extra money on products that don’t function nearly as well as their toxic counterparts. Believe me—I struggled through all of this during my liquid dish soap search.

Luckily I hit the jackpot with the first dishwashing detergent I tried: Biokleen automatic dish powder. I wrote all about it here: Best eco-friendly dishwasher detergent: Biokleen! So should everyone rush out and buy my recommendation? Not so fast. What works for me here in Portland may not work somewhere else with different water. We have very soft water here.

Here are some other eco-friendly products on the market:

• Seventh Generation Automatic Dishwasher Powder
• Citra Dish Automatic Dishwashing Detergent
• Grabgreen Automatic Dishwashing Detergent
• Sun and Earth Automatic Dishwasher Detergent
• Seventh Generation Auto Dish Gel
• Attitude Dishwasher Liquid
• Basil Dishwasher Liquid by Mrs. Meyers
• Planet Automatic Dishwasher Detergent
  

Have you had good luck—or horrible luck—with any of these? Please post your findings. If you want to specify where you live or what type of water you’re dealing with, that will help us refine the results. Thanks for your input!

When I received a stack of sturdy Hefty Basics plates in the mail, I decided to give them a go at an upcoming baby shower I’m throwing, knowing that they’d end up in the compost bin afterwards. They’re free of inks, dyes or coatings and can be composted after use.

Is Hefty eco-perfect? No. But I do feel like when mainstream manufacturers like Hefty start to make environmental efforts, the impact can be tremendous. It makes me think of Stoneyfield Farm Yogurt working with Wal Mart to make organic products available to the masses.  Like many conscientious consumers, I avoid Wal Mart, but their partnership with Stoneyfield Farm does get eco-friendly products in places where they wouldn’t previously be an option.

Hefty is also teaming up with the Arbor Day Foundation to plant a tree for every ten “likes’ they get on their Hefty Basics Tablewear Facebook page.

Are these plates as tough as Chinet? Absolutely, and they aren’t as bleached. Still, Chinet is made of 100% recycled material, and Hefty Basics hasn’t advertised what percentage of recycled material is in their plates.

Would you like to try them for yourself? If you win you’ll get a coupon for a free set of Hefty Basics to try out for yourself. There will be two winners.

Three Ways to Enter The Hefty Basic Paper Plate Giveaway:

1. Simply post a comment

2. Like us on Facebook (then tell us you did it in the comments)

3. Spread the news about the giveaway! Email someone, post it on Facebook, tweet it, blog it, or send someone a message about it via carrier pigeon. (And again, don’t forget to tell us all about it in the comments!)

This contest ends on March 14th and is only open to U.S. Residents.

Winner will be randomly selected from the list of comments so don’t forget to note your multiple entries with one comment each!
We will notify the winner via email.

Also, if you’d rather win a copy of our book, The Eco-nomical Baby Guide, you have until Wednesday at midnight to enter that giveaway!

I wish I could claim a higher number, but I think mine is about 10-20 percent.  In the next few weeks I may be joining a grower’s market to help boost our intake of organic produce without skyrocketing our grocery costs.  I’ll keep you posted.  In the meantime, how much of your overall food bill is invested in organics?

If you live in Merced, California, you can wander on down to The Frog Shop any old day and buy adorable children’s garments at cut rate prices.  And as you stride out the door, you can know that the green glow wasn’t just about the wall color, but about the fact that you just recycled while having a lovely shopping experience.

This is the second half of our interview with The Frog Shop’s owners, Corinne and Heidi Britt.   Check out the previous part of the interview in last week’s post.

What are some of your customers’ favorite products?

Our customer favorites are as varied as the parents who buy and sell in the store. One thing parents comment on is our “mompreneur” hand-made section. We sell hand-made hairbows, hats, blankets, bow-holders, booties, diaper bags, seat covers and jewelry. We love being a place where crafty stay-at-home moms can sell their wares. And our families love shopping the unique items we carry. They can’t find these items anywhere else. I think we all feel good knowing the money is going to a stay-at-home-mom to help her stay home, as well.

What are the biggest challenges you face as an eco-friendly small business?

Our biggest challenge has to be keeping the doors open in the current economy.  We are working moms too, and trying to balance our family and work lives. Another challenge we face is trying to keep our prices reasonable for our families, while still making enough money to pay the rent.

Also, because we’re still fairly new (we will celebrate our 2^nd birthday in June), we are still learning what our customers want and need, and how we can find it for them.

We started carrying FuzziBunz cloth diapers after a few parents recommended them to us. Now we’re the only retailers who carry them in our area. We also are one of the few stores that carry cloth diapers, raw wood toys and organic cotton clothing (when available).

Bravo to Corinne and Heidi, and to all the other small business owners out there who are making green options available to new parents while helping build local communities.  You are on the front lines of cloth diaper education, breast feeding support, and gear recycling.  We wish you continued success!