Homemade Toothpaste, Deodorant, and Bicycles

This past weekend while we are at our house I made this much needed homemade deodorant. We were both getting ripe without the deodorant, and now the weather is starting to warm up, so it was pretty much necessary.

Homemade Deodorant Recipe:
coconut oil 2-3 tablespoons (enough to make moist),
tea tree oil 1 tablespoon,
corn starch or arrowroot 1/2 cup,
baking soda 1/2 cup

I mixed the corn starch and baking soda, added the tea tree oil, then added the coconut oil to moisten it. Mixed it to make a smooth concoction, and placed in fridge to harden. I store it in a mason jar and we use a piece of old sock rim to apply. If our bathroom gets hot then it becomes more liquid, if our bathroom is cool it becomes more solid. Either way using the cloth to apply works, and if the cloth gets dirty or stinky I can throw it away and get another one. My husband prefers to use patchouli oil, so the next batch I may put some of that in there instead of tea tree oil and see how it comes out. 

And then we made homemade toothpaste, this was trialed on the kids because they like sweets. They always want to eat the fluoride toothpaste, which we have mixed feeling about. We take them to dentist and they get fluoride treatments, prescriptions for fluoride drops/pills, and then fluoride toothpaste. In some cities the water is fluoridated. Instead of figuring out whether fluoride is bad or good, I will just simplify life and eliminate all chemicals and use a cheaper method.

Homemade Toothpaste Recipe:
baking soda 4 tablespoons
hydrogen peroxide 1-2 tablespoons
coconut oil 2 tablespoons
xylitol 1-22 tablespoons
peppermint oil 1 teaspoon or 30 drops

I started by mixing the baking soda and coconut oil, make it pasty. I used to mix the baking soda and hydrogen peroxide first, now I make the paste instead and I reduced the peroxide amount because it kept interacting with the soda and messing up the paste. Then add peroxide, xylitol, peppermint, mix all into paste. Taste and if it is sweet enough for you, if not then add more xylitol. I read about adding calcium and magnesium powder to help re-mineralize the teeth, we do not have this so I did not add it, maybe next batch. I purchased this small bottle at Joann's fabric, it is meant for cake decorating, but works great for toothpaste (I cut the whole large at end so paste is easier to squeeze out), or you can use a jar. I now mostly use a small old jelly jar, making fresh batches every month or two. Also, note by a week or so the paste will get sort of dry, I usually mix in a cap-full of peroxide after this happens so we don't loose those good qualities peroxide provides for our teeth. After 9 months of using this paste our teeth are doing great and staying white and our son had no cavities at his 4 year old visit to dentist. Happy brushing!

The kids (our son and granddaughters) are growing and bicycles are no longer fitting them, so I recently bought a new bike for our son and a new bike for our granddaughter. Husband is not sure why I am buying these bikes and we are moving onto a boat. These are the hard parts of this move.

I bought them anyway and they love them. They have been riding them up and down the street for hours. They are all using training wheels, but going much faster than on a tricycle, and having fun.

When we get outta here, we will be able to park and lock our bikes at the marina bike stands. If later, we can't use or take them, then I will get rid of them, for now we are moving with them.

Sewing, Making Cushions Part 1

Initially we were going to replace the wet moldy foam in vbirth, but we changed our minds the more we slept on the uncomfortable seetes and added a pilot birth above starboard seete.

So we decided to replace all the cushions, in the whole boat!

In the beginning, we outlined the vbirth using paper and bought 3 inch foam, medium density. We worried about the vertical limits with the area, not wanting the bed too high. However, we slept on this 3 inch foam for a bit, and it was not comfy, then it got ruined from spilled kerosene and pee (kids are still peeing bed). Those pieces of foam are trashed.

After more time on the boat, and some remodeling of sette on starboard, I made a paper outline of each area and diagram of how many cushions and approx measurements. As I learned, there are no square measurements on a boat, everything is curved, which makes the perfectionist-uneasy, and me who likes to eyeball stuff-cool.

Using my outlines, I took them to foam place and they cut all the foam pieces, 4 inch med density for vbirth and dining seete, and 4 inch high density for starboard sette - a higher density because it will get more usage. I decided long ago, when making cushions for our old trailer-sailor boat closed cell foam is impractical and expensive, so we purchased open cell foam. The foam was costly, about $500 all together. Fortunately, we had a piece of foam left over from our old boat, which fit nicely in our new pilot birth. Then we decided to go replace trashed foam with 3 separate pieces for vbirth, instead of two long pieces. 

Buying foam is tricky, near our house they sell it in flat pieces, you buy the big piece period. Near the boat they want to cut it for you and keep the scraps, and charge the same price. The scraps are mostly useless to me, so it didn't bother me, but I noticed that foam place glued and sold the scraps - probably in custom cushions. Anyhow, there is one use for scrap foam in our house, to hit other people with it. The kids love to use it to whack each other.

So now we got the foam, I had to figure out the material. This was the most tricky part, besides sewing it. I finally chose vinyl on bottom (after lots of research I purchased on sale - at half price, marine grade vinyl and polyester outdoor material at Joann's fabric), lighter in vbirth and darker in cabin seetes, and a light/dark stripe back cushion for each cabin seetes. I've attached photos of the vbirth, still working on the cabin seetes. Overall, the cost of fabric, thread, fiberfil, and zippers, was about $500.

A piece I did not show, but added was fiberfil. I found at Joann's fabrics the waterproof and mildew resistant stuff, its about 1 inch thick and allows for forgiveness if the cover is a little to big or corners not right.

Sailrite.com has DIY web page that is super helpful, I paid $5 for cushion "how to" and it was worth it!  I also spoke to one of the upholsters at the shop near our house and he was helpful in how to measure and sew up the edges of cushions.              

The last picture is my hearty Pfaff 332 sewing machine. We bought it on Ebay and have been pleased with its performance.  Its an old machine, but it has power my household Singer did not have. It is between a household and industrial machine. I repaired our sails already with this machine, had some patch work and seam repairs, it did great on the tougher thick dacron and thin fragile nylon.                                                                                                              

M-F Schedule

So true. Me and hubby worked Monday to Friday schedule for years, and what do we have to show for all those years of hard dedicated work, a dwindling and abused 401K that we can't even touch unless we get penalized about 30%.

This is glorified slavery. Employers gave us crappy insurance, days without breaks or lunches, interrupted our weekends, stupid titles without raises, raises so tiny the taxes just took them, and hours without our family.

We are still so programmed to the M-F, from years of schooling and working, it just seems like now we have broken those chains that kept our creativity and spirit locked up.

Now we don't live by a schedule of having to be depressed for Mondays and thankful for Fridays. Or, to hurry up and enjoy the 2 days of the weekend, that really wasn't ours because we had those days to make up for what we did not get done during the week.

Without the M-F schedule when I am at the park on a Tuesday morning I feel guilty, it is so weird. I feel like I should be doing something, going to school or work, and like I don't deserve to have this freedom of going to the park on a Tuesday morning. I am working through this, as I have spent all my life living with a schedule, from preschool-to-college-to-career.

I love life without the M-F schedule. I will do my best not to ever, ever, do that again!

Living arrangements in our 2000 sq ft house

Our house is 2000 sq ft.  There are two stories.  Upstairs we have 2 bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen, dining room, and living room; downstairs (our basement) we have 2 larger bedrooms, bathroom, and laundry room. And we have our backyard, with a one car garage and attached room where our pets stay. We are moving onto a boat that is less than 300 sq ft, and no garage. Needless to say we have much change to go from 2000 sq ft to 300 sq ft.

Right now we are living upstairs, and using our basement to clean and store our sails, make projects like cushions for boat, and a play room for the kids. Our dining room is converted to our get rid of room, things we either know we are getting rid of or we are not sure what to do with. Our kitchen is really bare, we emptied most of our cabinets, and have only a stove, fridge, and child table in there. Our living room now consists of foam to lay on, boxes, couple lawn chairs, a tv, and a couple end tables. Our bedrooms each contain air mattresses, clothes, and toys. We keep going through the toys, bedding, and clothes; we have to whittle down to very minimal clothes, toys, and bedding. I keep thinking to myself I only need what is necessary a few sweaters or pants, and to let go of those things I have kept for years because I may or may not fit into them again. There is still much to downsize, however, we have gotten rid of so much already it is amazing.

It seems like we have been downsizing and selling our stuff for years. In reality, I think its been almost a year we've been doing this. And finally, we are getting to the hard stuff - our pictures, paintings, and other memorabilia things. Sometimes it is so hard to go through that stuff and figure out what to do, and other days I just easily do it. Thank goodness we have had many months to do this, I feel like it has been a blessing to be allowed to go through each box, drawer, cabinet and decide to keep or get rid of. Then go through the keep pile again and decide again to keep or get rid of. We almost feel right now to just get rid of everything left over because we are so tired of deciding what to keep, and we really don't want to have a cluttered boat. And we have to move soon, so we now have to be fastidious.

Our relatives think we are weird cause we live in a house that is bare and we are getting rid of everything. Well these are some tough decisions we have had to make, and we will keep making them and plugging along. We cannot wait until we leave this big house. I cannot imagine I am saying this because years ago I had to have a big house. I cannot imagine also that I have accumulated this stuff all these years, just moving from one house to the next, what a waste of time, energy, and money to keep all this stuff.

Oh, what a change of mind we've had!!

Cleaning and fix boat, then clean and fix boat some more

Our trip back to the boat a couple weeks ago meant more work, clean a lot, there is dirt everywhere. The boat is structurally sound, but needs seriously cleaning and repairs. The previous owners just made a mess.

Installed composting head, tested it out and it works great. The urine jug gets full quick with all three of us peeing in it, then emptying it is a chore and sometimes the urine smell is yucky. We are thinking about alternate ways of emptying our pee. The compost for poop works great. There is hardly any odor. We poop in it, use toilet paper, spray little water, turn handle, and no odor! We love this composting head.

We've been fighting some kind of cold or flu, or maybe both. This being sick and trying to clean sucks. I got some herbs at the store and have been making all kinds of teas to help our congestion and cough, some work better than others. Slowly our medicine cabinet is shrinking and our herb collection is growing. We intend to stay away from modern medicine and nurture our illness with natural remedies. It takes longer, but in the long run it will make us stronger. Plus we no longer have insurance, and cannot imagine how expensive it would be for all three of us to visit the doctor and pay for the medications prescribed.

Now that we have stayed on the boat we are realizing how much stuff we still have in our house that we gotta get rid of. The boat is nice and cozy, just big enough for us. There is storage everywhere in this thing. It is smaller than our house, but cozy. So we get back home and we realize, oh my we have a lot more stuff to get rid of. We have to reduce our clothes, kitchen, bathroom, toys, books, memorabilia, pictures on wall, papers, tools, hobby stuff, bikes, and finish scanning all our thousands of photos. It is a lot of work, we have already reduced so much, we have more to do but I know we can do it.

We left her again and cannot wait to go back!

Homeschooling our son

Our son is preschool age. He is so happy now that he does not go to daycare every day. When I first got laid off from my job, he used to ask me every morning "am I going to preschool" and I tell him no you stay home with mommy and we will have school at home. He would be so happy after we talked about no more preschool. Then he would not want to get out of his pajamas, I think he knew that when he got dressed that meant he had to go to school.

Now almost 4 months after being home together, he still asks me about once a week, "do I have to go to preschool?" Then I remind him we have school at home and he no longer goes to preschool, he says "oh". When we drive by his school he says "hi" and "bye" to it. He will then point up to the hill, where I used to work near his school, and says "there is mommy's work". I remind him that he and mommy work and have school at home, and he says "oh". He is still processing all this information.

I can say that I am learning more every day about him and his personality. His favorite color, foods, toileting habits, clothes, naps, and toys. He shows us how creative and curious he is every day. We spend all day together, and now that my hubby is home more too, he loves it. He is a different child now that he is with us more, we love it.

We read to him daily, its pretty much when we/he feels like it. He talks clear and can count to 10. He can recite half the alphabet. We plan to keep his home school as unstructured as possible. We have a routine, he gets up every day by 7 am, takes his nap about 1pm for couple hours, and goes to bed by 8 pm. While he is young we let him learn his environment, while learning the basics learning blocks for english and math, and living life. He knows where the store, post office, mall, marina, mountains, ocean, and capital are. He points to their directions when we are driving. He also is learning the parts to a sailboat, he will tell us about the mast, jib sail, and main sail. He really likes talking about the jib sail.

We like to keep him active too. We go for walks almost daily, sometimes to the park or store. And take him to places where other kids are, so he can interact and play in a different environment from home or boat. He is pretty social at times, but when he is building legos or trains no one else exists and no one can interfere with it. He gets very focused on those building toys.

With a tv and computer it sometimes is hard to limit screen time. We let him experience cartoons, movies, and games, but then we turn them off and go do other things. It is easy to use screen time to keep him occupied and out of our hair, but that is no good. We will watch movies or cartoons with him in morning or evening, then turn them off.

This last week we learned I am pregnant, so this sort of puts a wrinkle in some of our plans. I am happy because I didn't want him to be an only child, our son is too little to understand. He did say he wants a brother. We are planning another home birth with the midwife, not sure where, can't imagine all this labor on a boat (a baby born on the boat?). Our son was born in water, a birthing pool in our living room. We will see what happens.  : )

More downsizing

We managed to sell our living room furniture, upon return from purchasing our boat. Now we are using lawn chairs and foam to lay on. There is still so much more to go, we have collected so much stuff over the years. We just keep plugging away selling and donating our stuff. And scan away all our pictures and next all our documents, that'll be a huge job. I'm still persuading my hubby we need an adf scanner for that job.

Cleaning sails is a chore.  The sails for this 32 ft boat are huge compared to our previous smaller 26 ft boat. The drifter was easy to clean, a fragile nylon fabric, we had to be pretty careful with the cleaner and the way we did it.  Now it looks nice, smells good, and is in need of some patch work. The main, jib, genoa, and staysail are big and in need of more cleaning and repair. We've tried to get the rusty stains out of the genoa with not much luck, and used just about every chemical we could find. Unfortunately, none of them worked, but that big old sail looks somewhat cleaner.

Finish the rebuild on the car is still going on while we are downsizing and fixing this boat. It makes me tired just thinking about all what needs to be done to finish this car, but once it is done we will be so happy.

Play! Well we would like to do more of this, however, we are so busy with all these projects our heads are spinning. For the kids, we do try to get some play time in.  Seems like we are way more busy now with out a full-time job, except we don't have all the crazy stress of the job, and we get to hang out and enjoy each other. This was the whole purpose of changing our lives!