Friday Links

Daniel Suelo quit money twelve years ago. I read his monthly posts, and wanted to introduce him to you through this interview. I am not sure how his story translates in our lives now. In Boston, I started to dumpster dive for food after reading his story.

Eug and I are gradually, with a lot of ups and downs, learning to give more aggressively and not do anything purely for money, because we're trying to follow Jesus. The Lazarus at the Gate course in Boston was a great way to have a place to talk to others about it. On the subject of dumpster diving: I noticed Fruit and Veg City in Roeland street clearing a lot of slightly-old produce from their shelves, and I wanted to ask what they did with it (there are many people living on the street and even in the parking lot), but I wasn't brave enough. I wondered if the some of the vegetables were discarded because they need to be cooked before being eaten, and the people on the street mainly ate the leftover foods that didn't need cooking. At Oude Moulen ecovillage in Pinelands, I did ask, and was told that some people from the village help clean up the cafe at the end of the day, and they eat whatever produce is left over.  Not as much food is wasted here.

Noah got this super-cool outfit from new friends at church. We felt really blessed.

I learned yesterday that lye comes from ashes! Who would have known! I saw this very simple tutorial on making backwoods old-school soap, and I'd love to try, since we're producing a lot of ashes at the moment. Does anyone in Cape Town have a very old large pot they'd be willing to give up? We could exchange for soap!

Scratch Patch

My sister in law recommended the scratch patch at the V&A Waterfront as a fun place to go with Noah (with the added bonus it's right next to the aquarium, and right next to the parking lot). She was right! 

Noah really, really loves rocks and has started picking them up wherever we go, often to my embarrassment. So we thought rather than constantly tell him that he can't take rocks with him, we'd take him to a place where he could! It was a really fun hour, where we paid R25 for a little bag and Noah collected, emptied, and collected again for as long as he wanted. He clutched the bag the rest of the day, and has been inventing games with them ever since.

"More rocks there? More there More there, More rocks more rocks more rocks more rocks?!" Yes Noah, more rocks.

 Later in the day, Eli had his bottle.

Noah is obsessed with the flash on our camera and insisted that I take "one more" "two more" "three more" photos. I had to stop after a while for Eli's sake.

A Much Longer Photo Update

I've been thinking about tone during my break from posting: how to avoid making it sound like our lives are perfect, and how to avoid sounding like we're wallowing without making progress. I may be especially guilty of comparing and trying to measure up to people in blogs I read, but to the extent that there might be a few people who actually try the things we do, I want to figure out that balance. Until I figure that out, here are pictures that hopefully are a good representation.

Since Eli was born,

We still go to the aquarium pretty often.

I still make sourdough, though it now takes 16 hours to rise (with the winter), which is actually better. I want to branch out, but I'm going to stick with the tried and true sourdough until Eli is a little older.

We don't have nearly as many pictures of Eli as we did of Noah, and for some reason we struggle to take good pics of him.

We celebrated Noah's birthday at my brother and sister-in-law's house. We said no gifts, but Noah got this incredible train anyway.

I love their living room and the beautiful fireplace.

Cousin Ethan is also expecting a new brother. He's practicing on this doll.

This is how we multitask. Poor Eli.

He's not actually going to school or anything. Just wanted to wear the bag.

This is how crammed we were before the sofa. Yay for the sofa!

Mornings consist of orange and grapefruit juice and Kipper  on Youtube with daddy before I come downstairs with Eli. Kipper keeps Eug sane, so I now love Kipper. When Noah wakes up in the morning, he says "Down, daddy, arroorororo (Paroro, his word for cartoon, because his first exposure to video was the Korean Paroro) rusk"

This is our beautiful fireplace- it makes our living room feel like home.

I started pumping 1 bottle/day two days ago, because apparently babies need to get used to bottles around 6 weeks or they may reject them totally. Eli is ambivalent, but willing to try. 

Noah loves the new couch so much he pretends to go to sleep on it.

The bathroom floor is almost complete after the long wait for the cement. Eug keeps having to do extra adjustments, so it's a lesson for us in DIY and patience.

Runaway capitalism: we bought a soda stream to celebrate buying our sofa. No, really it was a planned purchase since Noah associates daddy with coke, Eug wanted to try something more natural- we won't' use the syrups.