Dear Fred Meyers...

My letter to the Fred Meyer Customer Relationship Center:


Dear Fred Meyer Customer Relationship Center,

I have been a loyal customer in Bremerton, WA for the last three years and am generally very happy with your store. I love the employees and your product selection. I go shopping every week and we know many of the employees on a first-name basis.

My discontent is regarding your “Family Friendly” checkout lane. As a mother with small children, I always refuse to use any other lane. You can imagine my shock when I noticed this month in the family lane a “Betty and Veronica: Double Digest” comic book (#199) that showcased the girls in immodest swimsuits on the cover. This image is an objectification of women and is very inappropriate.  I do my best to protect my children from such images. That is why I refuse to check out in any other lane, and now the filth is encroaching on the one-and-only isle that is supposed to be safe for my children’s eyes. Please value the innocence of all the children in your stores and do a better job of selecting material for the family friendly lane.

On a similar note, the family lane in my store is very popular and it is clear to me that your patrons would be happy to see more lanes that were friendly to families. In fact, I find it odd that any of your lanes would be “un-friendly” to families as implied by your need to have one labeled as being “friendly.” All the material that is un-friendly to families should be located in a different part of the store - in a place that is not so visible by everyone. I realize that you have contracts with magazine distributors and you might lose money by removing them from each checkout lane, but I urge you to refrain from exposing indecent material to every customer that has to check out of your store.

I thank you in advance for your attention to these important matters.

Sincerely,
Lindsey St.Hilaire

Grocery IQ: App Review

I've toyed around with a few different applications on my phone for grocery shopping. Andrew suggested I try Grocery IQ. He found out about it through Life Hacker. I decided to give it a go.

image source

It is SO wonderful!  Here are some of my favorite features:

• Organized List: I can organize my groceries by category. This eliminates me having to go back to different areas in the store if I forget something because it wasn't ordered properly on my list.
• Syncs with online account: I do all my meal planning on Google Calendar.  I can sign into my Grocery IQ account on my computer, which makes adding things very easy! (I type way faster on an actual computer than on my phone...) I enjoy being able to toggle back and forth between Google Calendar and Grocery IQ on my computer. Then the online account syncs up automatically with my phone!
• Email: My shopping lists can be emailed to anyone with the click of a button! This came in handy last week when my parents offered to go to Costco for us. I clicked the button to send my list to her. She was able to print it off and it was still organized by category!
• Shared account: I gave Andrew the password to my online account so he can add things to the list too.

There are many other features, but I appreciate those the most. The downside to having your grocery list on your phone is you are staring at your phone the whole time you shop. I just think that looks bad and that people think I'm neglecting my kids. But I guess it's no different than staring at a paper grocery list.

What do you use for your grocery list?

Adventures in Cloth Diapering: 2 years later...

We have been cloth diapering for over two years now. If you've been around our blog that long, you'll know that we settled on Fuzzi Bunz. They are "One-Sized" meaning they are designed to last from birth to potty training.

Here is the series I posted when we were making all the decisions and getting into cloth diapering:

1. The beginning (We started with Bun Genius)
2. The sun is amazing (stain removal via sunlight) 
3. Reviews and new diapers 
4. And the winner is... (decision to use Fuzzi Bunz) 
5. Cloth wipes 
6. How I wash those smelly dipes

My review of Fuzzi Bunz and cloth diapering in general - 2 years later...

• Smell - After the diapers are cleaned, they smell pretty neutral. I have noticed that once John goes pee the diapers smell like ammonia sometimes. After looking into this problem, I discovered that it is probably caused by soap build-up. This can be solved by "stripping" the diapers. I don't do this on a regular enough basis to know if it would really work. I have stripped the diapers and it does seem to help, but I generally just try to keep him in a dry diaper and deal with the stinking factor.
• Repelling - Sometimes the diapers have repelled pee. For example, more than once the diapers have leaked and they weren't even wet! Again, this problem was solved with a good stripping.
• Rash - About a year ago, John had a terrible rash. His skin was raw and welted to the point that cream would not stick to it. He had it for weeks and I was trying everything to get rid of it. We had to switch to disposables during this time because I didn't want to damage the cloth by using various creams that we were trying (you must use special creams on cloth diapering that won't build up on the fabric, which can cause more repelling). I believe the rash was caused by his "all night diaper" as we called it, which was a Fuzzi Bunz diaper with two absorbing inserts inside... let's just say he had a fluffy bum at night! His bottom just couldn't handle being exposed to all that moisture during the night and the diaper wasn't good at pulling the moisture away from his skin. I sought advice from many friends. One told me I should try athletes foot cream because it has an anti-fungal properties. She told me the key ingredient was Clotrimazole. I was willing to try anything, so we went and bought a tube of athlete's foot cream. It worked!! Within three days, the rash was pretty much gone. Two results came from that experience: 1. We keep athlete's foot cream in our diaper supplies, and 2. We put John in a disposable diaper at night. Thankfully, we have not had the problem again since the disposable keeps his skin dry at night.
• Fitting - The one-sized Fuzzi Bunz diapers grows by adjusting the elastic in the legs and back. This system has worked well and the diapers have really grown with John. He is 2 years and 4 months old now and the diapers still fit!
• Quality? - I still think the Fuzzi Bunz diapers are high quality. No, they are not white anymore and they've seen better days. But, since I've only had 8 diapers, these diapers have been through a lot of washing and wear. I use to have 9 diapers, but the PUL on one of the diapers started to separate, so I had to take it out of the rotation. I think this happened because I started drying the diapers in the dryer instead of air drying them - to speed up the process. Now I make sure to air dry them to prolong the life of the diapers.
• The Verdict - I am very happy with Fuzzi Bunz and we just got more for Baby #2! My friends threw a shower for me a couple of weeks ago and they gave me a set of diapers! I requested a set of 12 so that I could have more in my rotation. It will be especially nice when John is potty trained and I can use all the diapers for Brother. So when John is out of diapers I will have 20 diapers to use for one child (a dream come true!).

Here are some pictures comparing old and new diapers:

New diapers!!

L-Old, R-New (Notice the old is pretty brown!)

Lining of the old diapers, the fabric is pilled and not as soft

New diaper lining - it's like a cloud!

Diaper inserts: L-Old, R-New (notice the old is brown and isn't as soft)

That wraps up my 2 year review! Let me know if you have any questions