Totally off-topic: I just saw this bit about The Sims Online shutting down after six years. How is this relevant? I was a beta tester and had loads of fun back in the day. I was so into it that I had a “news” web site for it where my Sim did interviews with other Sims, reviewed people’s homes, and discussed other happenings in the online world.

I left the game soon after it launched. Too many fucktards started playing and the nice community the beta testers enjoyed quickly disappeared.

Categories: gaming
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I’m posting this mostly to save it somewhere where I can find it again easily …

This is originally from Greenopia.

Party Planning Guide: Green Baby Shower

By Stef McDonald

Invitations

• Go paperless and send e-mail invitations.
• If you want to go with old-fashioned paper, buy invitations made on recycled stock or print your own invitations on plain recycled cards or paper.
• Include a note to invitees encouraging them to choose organic and eco-friendly gifts.
• Include a note to invitees asking that they bring gifts that are unwrapped. As the host of the event, you can provide guests with reusable brown paper gift bags, raffia ribbon, and a minimal amount of tissue paper for a splash of color. It’s au naturale and you and your guests will be impressed with how the gifts look.

Decor

• Place fresh-cut flowers from your local farmer’s market or nursery or garden supply source on tables with food and drinks.
• Get small pots of native flowers and plants and place them around the room.
• Place soy candles on tables.

Food and Sweets

• Get food from a local restaurant or catering service that uses organic ingredients. Or make your own dishes using organic ingredients.
• Serve bowls of fresh fruit.
• Get baked goods from a local business that uses organic ingredients. Check your local farmer’s market for bakers as well. Or make your own baked goods using organic ingredients.

Gifts

• Buy clothing made from organic cotton or organic bamboo. Get bath and body products that are all-natural, organic, or chemical-free, without artificial preservatives and fragrances.
• Avoid wasteful wrapping paper and instead wrap your gift in an organic cotton towel or blanket.
• Don’t discount hand-me-downs. If you’ve had a child and have clothing or other items in storage that you’re willing to part with, bring them along.
• When the time comes to open gifts, hand out one gift to each of the guests and allow them to be opened as a group.

Extra Touches

• Bring a blank notebook and ask guests to write personal messages to the baby-to-be in crayon.
• Send leftovers and flowers home with the guests.
• Send the soy candles home with the guests and ask them to light them when they hear the happy news of the baby’s birth.

Categories: ideas, baby, events
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I came across this recipe today when The Daily Green e-mail hit my inbox. I’m excited about trying a whole wheat, more nutritious cookie recipe, but I have the little “no dairy and no soy diet” problem. (I don’t think I explained the story here, but basically, due to possible allergies, in order to continue giving my son mama’s milk, I have to cut out daily and soy from my diet.)

So I was checking out the recipe for this cookie and wondered about butter substitutes. After a quick Google search, I came across a site called Living Without Milk. Perfect! On their site they give a bit of advice on how (and what) to substitute for butter or margarine. One suggestion is combination of applesauce and shortening, both of which I already have handy in my pantry.

Looks like I’ll be baking this weekend!

SERVINGS
Makes 4 to 5 dozen cookies

INGREDIENTS
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
10 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened*
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup nuts, chopped **

PREPARATION
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly oil a baking sheet or cover with parchment paper.

2. In a large bowl, sift or whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Cream the butter with the brown sugar until light in color, about 4 minutes. Beat in the egg until well incorporated. Stir in the vanilla. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and blend well. Stir in the oats, chocolate chips, and nuts.

3. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto the prepared cookie sheet. Bake for 10 minutes, or until brown. Cool on a wire rack.

* to be replaced with 7 and 1/2 tablespoons of applesauce and 2 and 1/2 tablespoons of shortening.

** I will most likely omit the nuts due to the high allergen probability.

Categories: cooking, recipes, food
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I just noticed that on the sides of these plastic bags, there’s a REUSE logo and a list of “10 WAYS TO REUSE YOUR TARGET BAG”:

1. Tiny Trash Can Liner
2. Doggy Duty
3. Water Balloon
4. Road Trip Rubbish
5. Soggy Laundry
6. Ice Pack
7. Toiletry Tote
8. Kitty Litter Liner
9. Tomorrow’s Lunch Bag
10. Care Package Padding

The best idea would be to bring your own shopping bags, but if plastic bags are a must, I suppose the ideas above are good ways to reuse what you already have. And to make each bag go even further (think of it as prolonging it’s demise in a landfill), I like the ideas where you can easily keep reusing the bags, such as 6, 7, 9, and 10.

Categories: ideas
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Now that the baby is over 10lbs, he’s been fitting into his bumGenius diapers a lot better. (Honestly, they were just so bulky before that I barely reached for then because I couldn’t fit any onesies over them unless I put him in 12-month clothing). I also realized something the other day: instead of using the inserts that came with them — which has a folded part because we’re still using the dipes on the smallest setting and causes extra bulk — why not stuff them with a couple of the preemie prefolds I have laying around? My son pees a lot, but I change him every couple of hours anyway, so two prefolds haven been absorbent enough for him. The best part is that they make the dipes SO MUCH more trim. I can actually put the baby in regular-sized clothing while he’s wearing them!

And YAY for finding a new use for the two dozen preemie prefolds we have!

Yes. I really am excited about this!

Categories: diapers, baby
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One more reason why my cloth diapers are better than disposables? Blow-outs.

While Ethan is in cloth for most of the day, I do still use disposables on him on occasion. Usually while I’m feeding him because I know he’ll either poop and/or pee before we’re done. I just figure it’ll cut down in the amount of cloth dipes I have to wash, but now I’m starting to rethink the idea.

Just in the past couple of days, Ethan has had some powerful poops while I was feeding him. So powerful that they’ve blown right up his back and seep through his clothes. So not only do I have a now-thrashed disposable diaper which needs to be changed before he’s even done eating, but I also have soiled clothing (his, and sometimes mine). Plus, like this morning, it was so bad that I just had to give him another bath; wiping him down would not have been enough.

So let’s recount, in an effort to “save” one cloth diaper, I’ve:

• used up at least two disposables
• had to add to his laundry pile
• had to add to my laundry pile
• run water for his bath

Yup, this pretty much settles it. He’s going in cloth all day as long as I’m the one changing his nappy. (D, on the other hand, still refuses to do cloth, but he’s usually only around to change one or two nappies a day.)

Categories: diapers, baby
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