Ticket To Ride

So, for this upcoming trip, I will be taking the bus. The Megabus, to be exact. I have never traveled by bus and certainly never for 36 hours. There are restrictions on luggage too, no checking a large suitcase allowed.

That got me thinking about travel and necessities. I'll be gone 10 days. The island does not have laundry

Lucky for me, I am very no fuss about my hair and don't wear makeup. I'll bring ballet flats that fit into a pocket and wear my boots and jeans and sweater and coat. Those are the bulkiest of things needing to be packed. The weather where I am going will be warmer than here. I managed to pack 7 outfits into one backpack with room for my computer and chargers and cords and a book.

Travel light.

I got some great tips from friends on how to do this. The best one was to use gallon ziplock bags. All my clothes fit into four, then I sat on them to vaccum seal. I could not fit an extra sweater, so I wore two. I have mixed feelings about how that is working out!

This is my knee room. Ouch.

Deconstructed and Sacred Space

When we deconstructed the holiday tree, Lily took the ornaments and lights upstairs to storage, only the lights did not make it.....

She already had a strand of LED lights under her bunk bed, she thought three more would be that much better!

Truly, it is magical. She has a bean bag, her art supplies, her nature displays with bones and shells. It is a lovely and calming place to be. Somehow she found my Good Will Hunting soundtrack and chose Elliot Smith as her background music. So so soft and cooing.

I will look for more things to help her create this sacred space for herself. Having a special, calming space is so very important. One of the reasons we made the office into her own bedroom was to give her some of this for herself, a place she could have her not baby safe things, a place to be the big kid.

She still finds her way to the little kids' room in the night, so not to be alone. That doesn't mean she doesn't need this other place though.

Post a Day Fail

I have been breaking a record here, cleaning and laundry and spending time with the kids to not just get caught up but get ahead. It isn't actually working. Things are still chaos and still unkempt. Bah.

I leave in 6 days. 2 of those are ballet/girlscout/playgroup/freezer swap days. 1 is actual day of departure. 1 is church. So, really I have two days left to get all my classroom grading, announcements done, clean the house 30 more times, and get the laundry wrangled.

I am falling into bed early and that means no blogging. That's not what I need. I need to stay true to my own promise, not self sabotage.

So, here are the things I am worried about:
Holly's first loose tooth. If she looses it while I am gone, my heart is going to break a little.
Lily. She's jealous of my trip. She has said this very clearly. She wants to go too and does not understand why she can't.
Isaac. Never been away from me except for one time when he spent one night at Grampa and Nana's house.

I'm not worried about Chad. I'll hide all the duct tape before I go. Why? The kids might use it on him. He'll put up a good fight and eventually they will let him loose. Right?

That's all. Chad is capable and a wonderful dad. That doesn't mean it will be easy or that they won't miss me or that they will keep the house clean, but they will all be fine.

Still, I am going to miss them like crazy..... while I am having a great time.

So, onward!

Part Two of Our Poop Story

When you last left me I was freaking out about rats. RATS.

I had pet rats. I love pet rats. They are an awesome first pet, so smart, so sweet, so clean.

Field rats are not that kind of rat. For one, they are like 100x the size. Ok, not really, but we are talking about a huge size difference. Field rats are HUGE. They are also just as smart. Rats are sentient, clever, and territorial. Bonus, dealing with a nest. Not just a mama and some babies, no, a nest of rats could potentially be a complex society/colony (think RATS OF NIMH).

Rats.

Just so y'all know, I was also tempted to post a picture of a dead badger right here. I didn't. Your welcome. That is what my mind was torturing me with though, nightmares of people sized sentient rats, seeking revenge for their dead mouse brothers. Shiver.

Day eight, I called again to ask when they would please come?! She said, What? I thought they already took care of it!

Day fourteen, which felt like day 12,009,988, the sub contractor guy arrived. He was supposed to come the day before but apparently some lady's shower head was poorly installed and leaking in Des Moines and that verses DAY 14 OF NOT BEING ABLE TO REASONABLE FLUSH MY TOILETS WITH THREE KIDS, LAUNDRY COMING TO LIFE AND ATTACKING RANDOM PASSER BYERS, AND OMG THE DISHES AND BABY POOP AND WTF some lady in the big city wins?

Sobbing.

I digress, I greeted him at the door. Showed him the pipes, all I knew about ins and outs, and the issues, and then I left him to do his thing.

He came to the backdoor and told me he needed a specialised tool and would head to town for it.

3 hours later.....(and while my fantastic friend Ashley brought chicken dumplings and mashed potatoes and I ate and ate, yum......) plumber guy calls my cell phone.

I was expecting to hear that he had to drive to the time zone/state over to buy said special tool.......

Ah. No. He was asking for me to flush all the toilets, start the washer, run all the faucets, and any other drains to drain. All at once. He had been working outside clearing the blockage the entire time and I never noticed his return.

I gleefully drained the tub, started both washing machines, turned on the shower and flushed both toilets twice. Seriously, I was gleeful like a squealing pre-teen Justin Beiber fan getting an autograph and a sweaty hat. Maybe more so. So many apologies to my friend Ashley for my emotional breakdown of joy. May you never have to witness such embarrassment again!

The blockage? The wrong kind of toilet paper, a faint smell of bleach...and paper towels and Styrofoam (which was what the rats used for next building, they pulled it from the dumpster he thinks).

What happened? I did ONE load of diaper laundry with a 1/2 cup of bleach. I bought one package of toilet paper that was not septic. We were using antibacterial (orange) Dawn to wash dishes. Pretty much a trifecta of how to ruin the delicate balance of septic system bacteria. See this? I used this.

From our washing machine cleaner, SAYS it is safe to use.

What we learned: 

• Bleach of any kind, any amount, no. I don't care if so and so's mum used it with no issues....here you go with my tale of woe added to the collective of anecdotal evidence. Bleach is a recipe for septic tank destruction. Any kind. Anywhere. 
• Antibacterial soap of any kind, herbal, EO, or Dawn/Dial cannot be used in a septic system home if it will be going down any drain. Fine to use in buckets and dump outside, or with paper towels and thrown away. Not washed on rags, though.
• Toilet paper brand and type matters. Look for this:
• Just because a dish soap is not antibacterial, does not mean it is septic safe. Check.

  

  DO NOT RISK IT.

  
  

  

  SAFE TO USE, MAYBE.

• We waste water. We waste water doing dishes, taking long showers, doing laundry. We waste thousands of gallons of water. Literally flushing that expensive and fragile commodity down our drains. 
• Rats. All about field rats. Nightmares forever.  Plumber dude assured me that they cannot come up the pipes into the toilets. Right?!
• Also, I am suspicious that the paper towels were from the rats. I have a three year old. So there is that. 

What we do now to save water:

• Different setting on our washing machines use different levels of water, we use the less water options and extra rise is used sparingly.
• Clothes get inspected visually and by smell if they need to be washed, if clean they get worn until they are actually dirty.
• We developed a dish washing in the sink system that uses one side for soapy water and the other for soaped dishes, then rinsed when second side is full. This uses less than 5 gallons of water. I used to be that lady that just ran the hot water and washed and rinsed in the constant stream, individually soaping each dish with a new squirt of Dawn. Smacks my head. 
• Kids share bath water. Bath only when absolutely needed for chaos clean up or hygiene. 
• No bleach. 
• No bleach. 
• No bleach. No bleach in laundry, no bleach in the kitchen sink, no bleach tabs in the toilet, no bleach. Also, no tea tree oil either. Anything that kills bacteria is a bad, stupid, ignorant idea. No, anything. Norwex is pretty awesome though. 
• Septic tank feeder bacteria, can be flushed into the tank every so many months. No one told us about this when we moved out here. It isn't something I found on any blog or homesteading info site. So, now you know.
• Water ran to heat up the hot? Can be caught in a pitcher and used to water house plants or fill a stock pot. 
• Oh, and no bleach. For the love of all things flushable and functioning I will never use bleach again. #Citygirl. Well, in my own machine. I may take those diapers to a laundermat.

*Our water bill was like $30 that month and the plumber bill was less than $200. So this tale of woe ended well, or at least better than expected.

So, a little exploring around my cleaning supplies revealed this: even bleach SAYS it is septic safe. Go ahead, believe the lies. I did. I lived to tell about it, so may you.

LIES.