Anyway, since the budget has been so tight we have not been reluctant to ask for things we need when someone posts an offer on freecycle. We’ve managed to get some pretty helpful things like pet food and baby stuff which has helped us big time. This last freecycler takes the cake though!

We expected a box or a sack of clothing items when we came to claim the baby girl stuff. She said she had a range of sizes and some various other odds and ends. She wanted the same person to take it all so she could be done with it. Sounded fine to us, we’ll just pick through it and pass on the stuff we don’t need or can’t use.

I have no problem with used baby clothes. I know some people do and N has even felt a bit bad about so much of Tater’s stuff being hand-me-down but the reality is babies grow out of stuff so fast and will only poo and vomit on things so there is no shame in reusing and recycling clothes. Saves money and is good for the environment right?

Don’t get me wrong, we’ve been gifted many new clothing items and we’ve even bought a few special outfits for Tater but after this recent freecycle score we wont need much clothes wise for Tater until she is in 6-9 month stuff, this makes me pretty happy and very relieved.

Here is what we ended up keeping:

This is the newborn & 0-3 month stuff that is hanging to dry after being washed. We don’t have a dryer yet (well we do but it doesn’t plug in to the outlet right now) so this is how we are drying clothes when we can’t hang them outside.

I know, it looks like an explosion of pink baby clothes. Don’t laugh, it saves us money with the electric bill too! Also, the pink might make my eyes bleed but I can’t complain when it is free right?

This box overflowing with clothes contains all the 3-6 month stuff and some blankets that still need to be washed. We got lots of good stuff! There were 4 total trash bags full of clothes, we are keeping about half of it. Freecycle was good to us this time around!

Now for the TMI pregnancy updates, flee if you don’t want to know about my cervix and other lady parts stuff.

I am still 50% effaced and am now 1cm dilated since my last visit a week ago. I’ve gained 4 more pounds (yep 4 in a week, enter your baby weight guess soon!) and have had more frequent BH contractions since last week too. Oh and I am now having some brownish, light spotting that my midwife says is just the result of the recent cervix check. The cervix check didn’t hurt today either.

Haven’t started leaking fluid and haven’t noticed the loss of my mucus plug. I am also not having any painful contractions though I am noticing some pelvic pain that is not accompanied by tightening. I’ve got irritable uterus it seems (Hot Belly Mama opened my eyes to this) and I need to be drinking more water.

Yesterday I ate an entire half of a watermelon in addition to drinking like 4 glasses of unsweetened iced tea. Still need more water though.

We’ve got 23 days until Tater’s “due date”. She is full term on Thursday and in 11 short days I’ll be at The Farm waiting for labor to start. Time is just sort of flying by.

The post Free baby clothes explosion and some TMI pregnancy talk. appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

When we arrived at the house she was waiting for us in the driveway. Needless to say she wasn’t in the best of moods. We came ready with another copy of the mutual release form for her to sign and we also video taped the entire thing… Here, wanna see?

She basically blitzed the walk though and didn’t seem to care much about the condition of the house, not that it was left in poor condition anyway. We always deep clean all the places we vacate.

She did sign our mutual release form which outlines the early termination of the lease, the agreement that all financial obligations have been met and that we are both legally released from the prior contract. Yay!

Her husbands signature isn’t on the forms as he wasn’t present… His is the only signature on the lease so that could be a potential issue but we are just pleased to have some sort of documentation that proves we didn’t make up the whole being let out of the lease thing.

Basically we are super happy to have this chapter of our lives now closed!

Lets, see… Over the weekend N worked on hooking up this free electric dryer we got off Freecycle. I guess we needed to get the vent hose for it and he had to change out the plug for it since it didn’t fit our outlet or something. We are resourceful and try to make due with what we are able to get… The free dryer was a good score and we got a working washer for $40 at a yard sale so we are making strides in the right direction I think.

Apparently the newer plug he put on the dryer still doesn’t fit our outlet so I am hanging clothes out to dry (which is fine by me) but he is still working on getting the proper plug installed on the dryer.

For his belated birthday/ mothers day we went to a local farm and bought some garden goodies. Things like potted herbs, tomatoes, zucchini, egg plant, collard greens and other stuff we’ll grow and eat. We only spent $20.00! He is working on getting a vegetable garden going now, he made some good progress on it this morning too.

We are hoping to grow as much as we can ourselves to cut down on the grocery costs and save more money. Oh, and we stopped by the Hostess/ Wonder Bread outlet store over the weekend and got 7 loaves of bread and 2 packs of buns for $8.00. Those are in the freezer now and will also help to cut the grocery bill and save money.

On the baby front: In 33 short days I’ll be staying at The Farm, preparing for Tater’s birth. Time is still flying and there are only 45 days until my due date (but we are open to Tater coming either before or after said due date if she feels ready). Things are still going great with the pregnancy and I am feeling good. Totally beginning to slow down energy wise and am having trouble breathing thanks to the cramping of my lungs but it is all good!

We are getting more and more excited and still have so much to do before she comes! We have been showered with many helpful things thanks to many of you and this has left us feeling so much more calm and prepared for Taters arrival. We’ve just about got everything we’ll need for her first week of life now and are focusing our attentions on gathering the medical supplies for the birth kit, then we’ve got to get busy gathering stuff like the cloth diapers and clothes she’ll need in the weeks following her birth.

Slowly but surely we are pulling it all together and before we know it we’ll be parents and it will all just fall right in to place. Exciting! Hopefully everyone had a good mothers day. I am off to read all your blogs now and find out how your weekends went!

The post The Renters and the Slumlords: The drama comes to a close (and other updates). appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

You see they closed their accounts prior to the beginning of February and our electronic bill payment to them (for rent) wasn’t paid since their account is no longer… So we needed to get some proof of our payment being sent and thus returned as a result.

I know it just keeps getting better and better with them huh?

Anyway, we spent like 30 minutes at the bank tracking down some proof about our payment. Then we pushed off to the post office to get our certified letter in the mail to them detailing why they have broken the terms of the lease. We also included our March rent payment in the letter, who knows if they’ll pick this certified letter up…

Then we went by the freecycler’s house to pick up that older vacuum that was offered up the other day. We also got a stack of cute cow plates and bowls from another freecycler for my cow kitchen obsession. Sometimes freecycle is so great!

The real focus of the day was to tour a slew of rental/ lease purchase homes though. We saw 3 homes today 2 rentals and one rental with a lease to own option. N and I fell in love with one of the rentals. Here is a photo of it.

We love it because it is on five acres of wooded land, it has an old country house feel and just seems like it will be a good fit for us. We weren’t able to see the inside of the home today as the owner was away but we did peek in the windows as the owner suggested and looked around the property.

It has some real potential with it’s garden beds, planted bulbs and even some fruit bushes and tress. Deep down we are both hoping it works out as a rental and is something we can maybe buy later down the road.

We are excited about the house but know we’ll just have to see how everything pans out. If it’s meant to be it will be.

Oh and by the way that vacuum we got free today freaking rocks! It looks old and beat up as you can see from the photos but works great.

It is a Filter Queen (model number 937241) and apparently it is a work horse and was/ is a pretty expensive vacuum (you can read more about it here)!

It is over 20 years old and still works great as opposed to our newer Eureka Altima Upright vacuum that was just over a year old and melted itself up. Oh and did I mention it has more suction and better filtering than the Eureka?

We are pretty impressed with the vacuum and can’t believe someone gave it away for free, how fortunate were we? So, now we can have clean carpets again.

We do want to try replacing the hose on it since it’s currently wrapped in duct tape… It still works great just looks a bit ghetto. N was even thinking of trying to donate our broken, crappy Eureka to a vacuum repair place in return for a discount on a new hose for the Filter Queen, barter style. It’s worth a try.

So all in all we had a super productive day and are pleased with all the progress we made. Tomorrow if we get a wild hair we’ll take the blanket from Tater’s bedding set and go compare it to the furnature we liked at Baby Depot to see if it goes. Window shopping could be fun if we have the energy. We also hope to see the inside of the cute country home too, if possible.

The post The Filter Queen, a cute country home and more landlord drama… appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.