Seven Quick Takes Friday: Rants and Raves

Yes, I realize it is late Friday evening, but better late than never, right? So here are seven things I'm currently ranting or raving about:

1.  Rave. This year marks my first official Mother's Day! I'm excited!!! The paychecks from Adam's new job haven't quite kicked in, so we'll be celebrating on the cheap, but if I just get out of doing dishes for the day, I'll be happy. :-D

2. Rave. Our three-year wedding anniversary is coming up! From what I've read, the traditional three-year gift is leather. So what would be a good leather gift item? So far, I can't think past buying him an actual cow.

The joke may be cheesy, but I'm going to milk it for all it's worth

3. Rant. We have absolutely idiotic cats. For whatever reason, one of them (or maybe even both of them-- I can't pinpoint the exact criminal) has started peeing in various places on our brand-new carpet. I don't know when this occurred, because I never noticed any wet spots on the carpet, and only discovered this a few days ago when it started to smell! Okay, now that I've ensured that nobody will ever want to visit our house, I'm asking you if you know of any good way to get that smell out of the rug! I'm more interested in ideas for room-wide treatment as opposed to spot-cleaning, but I'll try anything as long as it works.

Meanwhile, it's PUNISHMENT TIME.

4. Rant. Have you heard of that flats-and-handwashing cloth diaper challenge happening at the end of May? It's a week-long event the cloth diapering community is doing in response to a news report about babies in desperately poor families getting infections from sitting in diapers too long or reusing disposables. You may be surprised to learn that I am NOT participating. In fact, I'm really not thrilled with this at all. Don't get me wrong; I am absolutely convinced that cloth diapers save a lot of money, and during my handwashing days, I was SO thankful to not have to worry about buying diapers, when we were having difficulty just affording groceries. My main problem is this: most people who don't cloth diaper choose not to because, well, they just don't want to, and they probably won't give a hoot about this event. As for the impoverished folks who DO want to use cloth diapers? They would be benefitting a lot more from this challenge if the CD community were taking that money they're spending on special five-gallon drums and plungers and rubber gloves- and flats for THEMSELVES!!!- and donating it to something like the Cloth Diaper Foundation instead. You know, so that the struggling families who actually DO want to use cloth diapers can get access to them? I don't know; call me an evil, joy-sucking curmudgeon, but to someone who has been in a situation of need before, the whole thing sounds more like a cloth diaper activist crusade than a real effort to improve people's lives. Hopefully I'm missing some key point and someone will set me straight. :-P


5. Rave. Okay, before I get labeled a heretic, here's a real good case for cloth diaper advocacy:

As you can see, we're all ready for that cow.

I've been waiting forever to unpack the props!

Just try to tell me these are not the cutest pictures you've seen today. :-)

6. Rave. Make It and Love It, one of my favorite crafting sites, just published a list of things you can do with fabric scraps! This is very good news, because, well... let's just pray that Adam never finds out how many boxes of fabric we brought in the move.

7. Rant. The price of gas. Oh. Em. Gee. Last I looked, it was $4.05 per gallon here! Chalk another one up for the cow gift idea...

Cowabunga, man!

What is the price of gas in your area?

For more (and much more lucid) Seven Quick Takes, head on over to Conversion Diary!