itinerant thinker

You thought I was gone forever, didn't you?

Back for a meme, from Inside the Philosophy Factory:

Bold the ones you've done:

1. Started my own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than I can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland/world
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sung a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched lightning at sea
14. Taught myself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown my own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train -- no, but on an overnight ferry
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitchhiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort -- no, but we once made woven forts out of very long grass
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of my ancestors -- Carmarthen.
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught myself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had my portrait painted -- sketched, I think. But no, I don't think painted.
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris -- why are so many of these about Paris?
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma -- the Red Cross hates my blood and won't take it. Ever.
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job -- sort of; I worked as a freelancer for a company that went bankrupt. They owe me money.
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle -- I don't know, how fast is speeding?
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had my picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House - I've never gone in
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person -- just last month
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Ridden an elephant

That's 42.

posted by Rhonda @ 10:18 PM |

Rough, tough little girl pirate

Originally uploaded by Rhonda

Zoe was a pirate for Halloween.

We did not go trick-or-treating; instead, we went to the college, where the athletic teams were having some activities for kids in the gym. It was mostly stuff for older kids, like bobbing for apples, but Zoe liked seeing the other kids.

Later, Gabe stopped by and Zoe stole his bucket of candy. (We gave it back. All four times.)

posted by Rhonda @ 12:13 AM |

No real content

Your result for Are You a Jackie or a Marilyn? Or Someone Else? Mad Men-era Female Icon Quiz...

You Are an Ingrid!

Take Are You a Jackie or a Marilyn? Or Someone Else? Mad Men-era Female Icon Quiz at HelloQuizzy

posted by Rhonda @ 8:52 PM |

Household

When our utility bill arrived last Saturday, I noticed that we had used nearly six times our normal usage of water. Great. I sent Brian under the house with a flashlight, while I inspected the front yard. There, under six inches of the masses of pine straw that the previous owner has piled in every flower bed, I found water bubbling out of a drain pipe. Our fabulous plumbing company came out on Monday, dug up the flowerbed, fixed the pipe (which had been pulled apart by our house settling--another problem to be dealt with), and turned our water back on.

Now we have much higher water pressure, which leads me to think this leak has been slowly advancing over the course of the year. It also led to the development of a leak in our bathtub. The cold water has always been hard to turn completely off, so this was not an unexpected development, and I thought that instead of fixing the handle, I might replace our boring and kind of ugly faucet with a stylish one that includes a handheld shower head. So I went online to search for fixtures for claw foot tubs. Nice ones run upwards of $600. Basic ones run upwards of $400. The ugly one I already have is over $100--it's known as the "economy" model.

So ... a $1.37 packet of washers it was. I dismantled the faucet yesterday, went to Lowe's after the football game, and replaced the washers last night before dinner. There seemed to be a slight drip, but that went away all by itself. Fingers crossed that it doesn't come back.

On a plumbing roll, I installed a minishower on the toilet today. Now I can spray the poop right off Zoe's diapers with a very powerful (thanks to that new crazy water pressure) stream of water. The package announces that the minishower can also be used as a bidet, but with this kind of water pressure, I don't think that would be advisable.

So here I sit in my tilty, plumbing-challenged house, ready to get to work on my lecture for Tuesday's Faculty Lecture Series. It's the first faculty lecture of the year, and I'm paired with another English professor. We're both talking about text and the body, but mine's about transgender, which I'm not sure will go over well with my heavily conservative, highly sheltered students.

As I sit here typing, though, I notice that my living room smells funny, and I am tempted to again abandon my scholar work to go do some homeowner work.

posted by Rhonda @ 4:29 PM |

Cloth diapering review

Before Zoe was born, we planned to use cloth diapers on her, but everyone said it would be a hassle, and I couldn't find any in local stores, never got around to ordering them online, and so on and so on and we ended up using Pampers. They were fine.

I started to feel guilty, though, about the giant bags of diapers we sent to the landfill every week, and so when BabyCheapskate had a series of posts on cloth diapers, I read with interest. When they posted information on Jillian's Drawers' "Changing Diapers, Changing Minds" program, I signed up.

The store sends out a sampler of popular cloth diapers: BumGenius, Thirsties, FuzziBunz, and the good old-fashioned prefolds (but no pins! you don't have to use pins anymore!). We tried them for three weeks and then sent back the ones we didn't want.

We ended up not using them for the full three weeks. They came just as we got back from vacation and switched from Pampers Swaddlers to Cruisers (bigger size). This coincided with the onset of a nasty diaper rash. When I started using the cloth, it actually got better, and Zoe seemed much more comfortable, but the pediatrician put her on a prescription anti-fungal cream that we can't use with the cloth (any diaper cream with petroleum jelly or oils will coat the diaper and make it non-absorbent). So we had to lay off the cloth. Meanwhile, it seems that Zoe was allergic or in some way irritated by the new disposables, because her rash got uglier and uglier until we switched to a different style. But I had time to cycle through all the diapers at least once before we had to return them.

We had a selection of the following:

• All-in-ones: exactly what it sounds like. Cover, padding, and fastener in one easy package. Nothing to stuff, no cover to use. This is like a disposable diaper.
• Pocket diapers: like an all-in-one, but it has a removable pad. This makes for faster drying and adjustable absorbency.
• Fitted: Like an all-in-one without the cover. Use with a waterproof cover.
• Pre-folds: Old-fashioned squares of cotton. Fold in thirds, wrap around, fasten, and top with a waterproof cover. Or, fold in thirds, tuck into a cover, and fasten the cover. We used ours with Snappis.
  

My verdict on each of them:

• Prefolds: These were easy enough to get on using a Snappi. I actually don't mind the prefolds, but I didn't like using a cover. So the prefolds went back.
• ImseVimse Organic diaper cover: Hated this. It looked bulky (even when the diapers didn't). Also, now that I have looked at the page, I realize that I was using it inside out, because I assumed (crazy me) that the tag went on the inside. Ooops. Made Zoe look lumpy and uncomfortable. This went back.
  
• Thirsties Fitted: Fine as a diaper, but you have to use a cover with it. See above. Also, because it's not a pocket diaper, it takes longer to dry. So this went back, too.
  
• Thirsties All-in-One Pocket: I quite liked the fit of this. Svelte, but not too tight around the belly or thighs. It dries faster, because you pull the padding out for washing and drying. Unfortunately, it leaked out the legs, despite the double-gusset design that others rave about. After the second leak, I stopped using this one. It was the only diaper to leak.*
• FuzziBunz Pocket: I liked the look of this, it fit great, and it never leaked. Zoe seemed really comfortable in it and it never left red marks at the elastic sites. It fastens with snaps instead of Velcro, which is great for the laundry but not so great for getting it onto a squirming baby in a hurry. It was also a couple of dollars more expensive than the others. If it hadn't been more expensive, I probably would have kept one but not bought any more; instead, I sent this back.
• BumGenius Pocket: This was our favorite. Fit really well. A little more bulky than the Thirsties, but no leaks.* It's one-size, so we won't have to buy more as Zoe grows: it has rows of snaps to make it shorter or longer to fit. It looks really nice, not too bulky or lumpy. It's also super easy to put on: easier than disposables. We kept this one and ordered a dozen more.
• BumGenius Organic All-in-One: We only tried this once, because the cotton has to be washed multiple times before the first use or it isn't absorbent. It was fine. The fit was comparable to the BumGenius Pocket, but because it's an All-in-One, the padding stays attached in the laundry. That means drying time is longer, and if I'm using these daily, I don't want to run out to the laundry room only to find that my diapers are still damp. Also, it's $7 more than the regular BumGenius. I like organic, but not that much. This one went back.

The package also included a few samples of flushable liners, so that when the baby poos, you can just drop the whole thing in the toilet, no spraying, no swishing. I usually forgot to put them in, and every time I did put one in, Zoe failed to poo. So I can't say how well those work. We never had any trouble just dumping her poo into the toilet, though. I ordered a mini-sprayer with the diapers. It's like a kitchen sink sprayer that hooks onto the toilet, so you can spray rather than dunk. I don't know if it will be worthwhile or not.

So far, our foray into cloth has been awesome. I don't know that I would have wanted to keep up with the extra loads of laundry when Zoe was a newborn, especially when she was such a spitter-upper that I was washing her clothes, my clothes, blankets, and burp cloths all the time as it was. And I probably would have been overwhelmed with trying out different types of diapers on top of learning everything else. But I wish we had switched months ago.

_____________
* Actually, the BumGenius did leak once, but it was due to user error. I put it on her a couple of nights ago with only a doubler (an extra pad for overnight), rather than a full-size pad. I noticed the mistake, but the regular pad was in the dryer, and it was only two hours to bedtime. I figured it was just for an hour or two, and we weren't going anywhere, so a small leak wouldn't be a big deal. But then we decided to go out for dinner at the last minute, I forgot to change her, and the evening ended with Zoe squatting down and peeing on the restaurant carpet. We blotted it up and tipped well.

posted by Rhonda @ 11:04 PM |

In lieu of content

Originally uploaded by Rhonda

I know I've not been here in a couple of months. In that time, we took a summer vacation to Washington, where Zoe spent some time with her godfather and her cousin Colin (plus his mom and dad). She liked Seattle, hated her lifejacket, and LOVED the fresh blueberries.

Here she is chowing down on blueberries.

I also started a very busy semester. I have a couple of extra projects that I'm working on, which means lots of meetings, and now that I'm in my second year, I'm not longer (theoretically) exempt from committee assignments (I say theoretically because I had committee assignments last year, by virtue of what I teach; now I have more). All together, that means I'm too busy to blog.

Zoe's walking--I'll try to edit a video to upload this weekend.

posted by Rhonda @ 10:18 AM |

Sigh.

Today, in a discussion of DeLillo's "Videotape," a student asked me if I remembered the Kennedy assassination.

I'm only 35, people.

posted by Rhonda @ 6:20 PM |