tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20750639395333397242024-02-08T05:43:58.495-05:00Back to Basics by Living Green...Get back to basics. Learn to live a natural life, a green life, a simple life...learn to find happiness in simplicity. This is my journey towards the life that I want...A simple life, a frugal life, a natural life, a green life, a most peaceful life...Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger84125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075063939533339724.post-12780649176205098172010-02-27T22:20:00.001-05:002010-03-05T20:41:10.258-05:00Are we inadvertently harming our babies?<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/RuqUl6uiWYI/AAAAAAAAAC8/NOUbFR66IhE/s1600-h/Drinking-Bottle-from.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5110060106345765250" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/RuqUl6uiWYI/AAAAAAAAAC8/NOUbFR66IhE/s400/Drinking-Bottle-from.jpg" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><br />
<div align="justify"><span style="font-family: verdana;">It is hard for a new parent to imagine what parents did before the invent of the plastic, on-the-go sippy cups that have become synonymous with toddlers these days. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">One of my goals in my quest to "live natural" is to "go back to basics" (hence the name of my blog). It is my belief that in a lot of ways, going back to the way things used to be done and living natural merge into the same path. However, there <i>are</i> some things to be said for new inventions that make our life easier. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">The problem is that many of these so called "wonder inventions" are harming our environment, they are harming our bodies and worst of all...they are harming our children.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">I am not against toddlers having sippy cups. I am just against what the manufactures use to <i>make</i> these sippy cups. Most baby bottles and sippy cups are made</span><span style="font-family: verdana;"> with polycarbonate plastics and identified by the #7 recycling symbol.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: verdana;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: verdana;">Studies have shown that they may leach Bisphenol A (BPA). BPA is a known <a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/RuqNBquiWXI/AAAAAAAAAC0/cWK7MAkomv0/s1600-h/BEN0807.jpg"></a>endocrine disruptor, meaning it disturbs the hormonal messaging in our bodies. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: verdana;">There is a link between bisphenol-A and phthalates</span><span style="font-family: verdana;"> and early onset of puberty. <i>Puberty and Plastics</i></span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i>, Dec 2003, Mothering Magazine</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: verdana;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: verdana;">Synthetic xenoestrogens are linked to breast cancer and uterine cancer in women, decreased testosterone levels in men, and <i>are particularly devastating to babies and young children</i>. BPA has even been linked to insulin resistance and Type 2 Diabetes. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: verdana;">In 2006 Europe banned all products made for children under age 3 containing BPA, and as of Dec. 2006 the city of San Francisco followed suit. In March 2007 a billion-dollar class action suit was commenced against Gerber, Playtex, Evenflo, Avent, and Dr. Brown's in Los Angeles superior court for harm done to babies caused by drinking out of baby bottles and sippy cups containing BPA.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: verdana;">For more of the science on the effects of BPA on our endocrine system etc. see these studies:</span><a href="http://stanley.niehs.nih.gov/ehp/query.html?col=ehp&qt=%2Bbisphenol+%2BA+%2B+%2B+%2Bplastic%2C+-url%3A.pdf&charset=iso-8859-1&qp=url%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fehpnet1.niehs.nih.gov%2F+url%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fehp.niehs.nih.gov%2F+url%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fehis.niehs.nih.gov%2F+url%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fehpnet2.niehs.nih.gov%2F&qc=ehp" target="blank"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> Environmental Health Perspectives Journal</span></a><span style="font-family: verdana;">. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span></div><div><br />
</div><div align="center"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 180%;">What do do?</span></div><div><br />
</div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">The first, and best (in my opinion) thing you can do is to get your baby off to a good start by breastfeeding. But even breastfeeding moms still sometimes have a need for bottles. And of course, some women are unable to breastfeed or may not have enough milk, and will have to use bottles to supplement. </span></div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">I would recommend <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001R7EXTY?ie=UTF8&tag=bactobasbyliv-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B001R7EXTY">glass baby bottles</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=bactobasbyliv-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B001R7EXTY" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />over the standard plastic. </span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><br />
</div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">In searching for safe sippy cup alternatives (because I am not about to give my two year old a glass cup to carry around!) I found a couple of sites that have compared the different cups available. You can read about the reviews <a href="http://www.naturemoms.com/blog/2007/09/04/bpa-free-safe-sippy-cups/">here</a> and <a href="http://zrecs.blogspot.com/2007/04/stainless-steel-alternatives-to-plastic.html">here</a>. </span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075063939533339724.post-57350711785186590682010-02-27T22:19:00.000-05:002010-02-27T18:51:53.869-05:00Let's Talk Water...<div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">It is my opinion that bottled water is a scam. Here me out...</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">If, like us, you are on well water, chances are that your water is as clean, if not cleaner than bottled water. If you have a contaminated well, that is a whole 'nother issue. I recommend having your water tested periodically. </span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">If you are on public water, it is the law that they regularly test their water and make the results of those tests available to the public. You can look up the results of your local water utility </span><a href="http://www.ewg.org/tapwater/yourwater/index.php"><span style="font-family:verdana;">here.</span></a> </div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Although it is true that your local tap water may not be the safest, bottled water is not as well regulated and studies have shown that it is not even particularly pure. </span><a href="http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/bw/bwinx.asp"><span style="font-family:verdana;">A four-year study of bottled water in the U.S.</span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;"> conducted by NRDC found that one-fifth of the 103 water products tested contained synthetic organic chemicals such as the neurotoxin xylene and the possible carcinogen and neurotoxin styrene. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Bottled water that is labeled "purified water" is taken from lakes, rivers, or underground springs and treated, all of which <em>makes it almost identical to tap water.</em></span> <a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/Rubp4pzJTxI/AAAAAAAAAB0/aMzJ0Fl16_w/s1600-h/bottled-water.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5109027986800725778" style="float: right; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px;" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/Rubp4pzJTxI/AAAAAAAAAB0/aMzJ0Fl16_w/s400/bottled-water.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Other brands of bottled water </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">is just tap water in disguise. In a quote from Jim Shepherd, Dasani's group director of research and development, he says that "Coca-Cola tested Dasani in hundreds of focus groups until it hit on a markedly crisp quality, achieved by adding magnesium sulfate, potassium chloride and sodium chloride to purified municipal water." Which is a fancy way of saying that they simply add salt to tap water in order to make it taste better. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Not only is it <em>more expensive per gallon than gasoline</em> (if that's not a kick in the gut, I don't know what is!), bottled water incurs a huge carbon footprint from its transportation. Meaning that it takes energy, gas, etc. to bottle and transport the bottles. 1.5 million barrels of oil, in the US alone, are used to make water bottles. What's worse (or maybe not, they are both pretty bad) 86% of these bottles are landfilled or incinerated. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">And finally, if all of this has not convinced you, let me leave you with one plea. Please do not re-use your plastic water bottles! It is a noble gesture, I know, it will save you money, it will save the bottles from piling up in the landfills. However, this is a dangerous thing to do! The most common plastic used to make water bottles is #1 polyethylene terephthalate (PET or PETE). If reused, they can leach chemicals such as DEHA, a known carcinogen, and benzyl butyl phthalate (BBP), a potential hormone disrupter. </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">According to the January 2006 Journal of Environmental Monitoring, some PET bottled-water containers were found to leach antimony, an elemental metal that is an eye, skin, and lung irritant at high doses. Also, because the plastic is porous you'll likely get a swig of harmful bacteria with each gulp if you reuse #1 plastic bottles. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">I would recommend investing in one of the re-usable water bottles on the market. My family uses <a href="http://www.kleankanteen.com/">Kleen Kanteen</a> and we love them. Others report success with the <a href="http://www.mysigg.com/">Sigg Bottles</a>.<br /><br /></span></div><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075063939533339724.post-80252566059077240162010-02-27T22:18:00.000-05:002010-02-27T18:52:30.671-05:00More on water...<div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Since water is so substantial to the survival of the human race, I thought I would do some more research on it and how to conserve it so as to make sure it stays around (in an unpolluted state).</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">All the water that goes down the drain, clean or dirty, ends up mixing with raw sewage, getting contaminated, and meeting the same fate.</span> </div><br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5108969721274388210" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/Rua05JzJTvI/AAAAAAAAABk/iQLv5YxHQGs/s400/snowthirteen0207.jpg" border="0" /><br /><div></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">I have found some good tips on water conservation, which is not only good for our Earth but for our water bill (for those who are on public water). Here are some ideas:</span><br /></div><ul><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">If it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down <a href="http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/05/the_limited_flush_if_its_yellow.php">(does this need more explanation?)</a> </span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">This one is probably obvious, but check periodically for leaks and fix them promptly.</span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Take a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navy_shower">Navy shower</a>.</span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Turn off the water while you brush your teeth or shave.</span></div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Always wait until you have a full load before running the dishwasher or washing machine.</span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Plant </span><a href="http://www.wateruseitwisely.com/plantlist/index.shtml"><span style="font-family:verdana;">locally appropriate plants</span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;"> so that you do not have to water your lawn as much. If you feel that you <em>must</em> water, do so at night or in the coolest part of the day in order to decrease evaporation (or go wild and don't water at all - let nature take its course!).</span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Harvest your rainwater. Put a rain barrel on your downspouts and use this water for irrigation. </span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Harvest your greywater. Water that has been used at least once but is still clean enough for other jobs is called greywater. Water from sinks, showers, dishwashers, and clothes washers are the most common household examples.</span> </div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Don’t pour chemicals down drains, or flush drugs down toilets; it could come back in diluted form in your water</span> </span></div></li></ul><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">As an interesting side note, did you know that <a href="http://www.current.com.au/2007/07/05/article/WEWCYHJHRL.html">using a dishwasher actually uses <em>less</em> water and energy than hand washing?</a> That's good news for me. :)</span><br /></p><div align="justify"><br /></div><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">I do have a confession to make...we are not actually a complete "chemical free" home. And out of the "chemical sins", I am probably committing a biggie. I currently use Cascade in my dishwasher. <a href="http://emoticonizer.info/"><img src="http://emoticonizer.info/emo1/hugging.png" border="0" /></a> I have tried homemade detergent (which works wonderfully for us in the washing machine), I have tried different commercial brands of "green" cleaners...nothing seems to work. However, while researching for this post, I ran across someone who swears by Bi-o-Kleen so that will be my next stop.<br /><br />Not only do I hate using the Cascade, but the smell is horrible. I am so used to not smelling chemicals now that it is very strong to me (funny how I used to love going down the laundry isle at the store because I thought it smelled "good", lol).</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075063939533339724.post-73689746953402707392010-02-27T22:17:00.000-05:002010-02-27T18:53:04.008-05:00Going Natural at the Dentist's Office...<div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/Ruft2KuiWTI/AAAAAAAAACU/h0NohBpYtiU/s1600-h/exam.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5109313817123379506" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/Ruft2KuiWTI/AAAAAAAAACU/h0NohBpYtiU/s400/exam.bmp" border="0" width="303" height="207" /></a><span style="font-family:verdana;">I had my six month cleaning this morning and thought I would share a few things that I learned. My hygienist says that she always enjoys my visits because I am a "trip"...well that is one way to describe me I guess!<br /><br />She and I don't always agree on everything, but we remain respectful. She always laughs when I turn down the complimentary toothpaste in favor of my own homemade tooth cleaner.<br /><br />Most commercial toothpaste contains chemicals that I don't really want going into my body. Not to mention, they cost money. I use the "old time" mixture of baking soda and salt. It costs a small fraction of what one tube of toothpaste would cost, one box (mixed with a little salt) lasts almost a year and the best part is that it does a wonderful job!</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">I have always hated the part at the end of my cleaning appointment where they use that nasty, fruity tasting gel to polish my teeth. Instead of leaving with a cleaner feeling mouth, I left half sick to my stomach because of the taste. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">My hygienist and I were talking about how strange I am that I prefer the <a href="http://www.dentalfind.com/glossary/cavitron.html"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Cavitron</span></a> over the usual scaling (and torturous scraping) with the instruments. She said that since I am so "strange" about that (that word keeps coming up in reference to my personality...wonder if I should look into that?) that I may prefer the "baking soda sandblasting" polishing over the traditional polishing (with the before mentioned cherry gel goop). </span><br /><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/RuftequiWSI/AAAAAAAAACM/laqH3S0oVRc/s1600-h/bakingsoda.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5109313413396453666" style="float: right; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 155px; height: 148px;" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/RuftequiWSI/AAAAAAAAACM/laqH3S0oVRc/s400/bakingsoda.jpg" border="0" width="260" height="259" /></a><br /><p><span style="font-family:Verdana;">So it turns out that there is a (in my opinion) better way! I was all excited that this "new" natural way was out there (I have no idea, nor do I really think I <em>want</em> to know, what is <em>in</em> the gel goop). Imagine my surprise when I was informed that this technique had actually been around for years and years...it predates the gel goop.<br /><br />One of the chemicals that I have a problem with, and this one has pretty much inundated all of our beauty products these days, is Sodium <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Lauryl</span> Sulfate (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">SLS</span>). Like with everything else out there, there are two camps...the ones who think the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">SLS</span> scare is a bunch of hype and then there are the conspiracy theorists, like me.<br /><br />The way I look at it, if I can do without it - then why not do without it? Why take the chance. Not ingesting it has no danger of hurting me. Ingesting it possibly does. I'll err on the side of caution. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle of the two extremes. It probably isn't as dangerous as the scare tactics would lead us to believe but it probably isn't as safe as the Food and Drug Administration would lead us to believe either.<br /><br /></span></p><br /><p><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/RubzmpzJTyI/AAAAAAAAAB8/PCtOgyokJBk/s1600-h/skullcrss.gif"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5109038672679358242" style="float: left; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 126px; height: 119px;" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/RubzmpzJTyI/AAAAAAAAAB8/PCtOgyokJBk/s400/skullcrss.gif" border="0" width="115" height="119" /></span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;">The </span><a href="http://www.sciencelab.com/xMSDS-Sodium_lauryl_sulfate-9925002"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">MSDS</span></span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;"> (Material Safety Data Sheet ) on <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">SLS</span> states that Sodium <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Lauryl</span> Sulfate is "Hazardous in case of skin contact (irritant), of eye contact (irritant), of ingestion, of inhalation. Slightly hazardous in case of skin contact (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">sensitizer</span>). Severe over-exposure can result in death."</span><br /></p><br /><p align="center"><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:180%;" >I think I'll take a pass.</span></p><br /><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">The next chemical that I have a problem with is fluoride...yes, good old fluoride. </span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Fluoride occurs naturally in water at varying concentrations.The general term "fluoride" describes a compound of which the element fluorine is one part. Fluorine combines with other elements, such as calcium or sodium, to form compounds that are usually found in soil and water. </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">When water passes through and over the soil and rock formations containing fluoride it dissolves these compounds, resulting in the small amounts of soluble fluoride present in virtually all water sources in low concentrations (less than 1 part per million).</span></span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Here is where the problem comes in. For starters, water municipalities are adding a lot more than 1 ppm to the drinking water (the max allowed is 4 ppm). When you throw in the exposure from the water, the toothpaste, the mouth rinse, the fluoride treatments, <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">etc</span>., that is a <em>lot</em> of fluoride!</span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Plus, the "fluoride" that they add to drinking water, or use in toothpaste, is not he same as the naturally occurring Fluoride. </span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">UNICEF states that "</span><a href="http://www.unicef.org/voy/explore/wes/explore_1870.html#" name="fluoride"></a><span style="font-family:verdana;">fluoride a naturally occurring chemical that is sometimes added to water or toothpaste to reduce tooth decay, but which in larger doses is poisonous, causing </span><a href="http://www.unicef.org/voy/explore/wes/explore_1870.html#fluorosis"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">fluorosis</span></span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;">. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Fluorosis</span> can stain the teeth, or in very high doses lead to bone damage, bone malformations and even death." They also report, "more and more scientists are now seriously questioning the benefits of fluoride, even in small amounts."</span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">The <a href="http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/naturalhazards/en/index2.html">World Health Organization </a>(WHO) also speaks of the dangers of fluoride. </span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">I have found that the </span><a href="http://fluoridedangers.blogspot.com/2005/12/fluoride-never-fda-approved-for.html"><span style="font-family:verdana;">FDA has never actually approved Fluoride </span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;">for human consumption. F</span><span style="font-family:verdana;">fluoride supplements were "grandfathered in" before the 1938 law was enacted requiring drug testing. </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">Once a drug is on the market for any reason, doctors</span><span style="font-family:verdana;"> can use them to treat any disease or condition. Sodium fluoride was on the market <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">pre</span>-1938, but not to stop cavities and not for any medical reason. Sodium fluoride sold as a rat poison.</span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Fluoride has been linked to:</span></p><ul><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">thyroid damage</span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">darkened teeth from <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">fluoridosis</span></span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">brittle bones</span></div></li></ul><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Fluoride has also been linked to problems with lead. Evidently, lead uptake is enhanced in the presence of fluoride. This has been linked to:</span></p><ul><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Behavioral disorders in children</span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Alzheimer's</span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Migraine headaches</span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Clinical depression</span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Dementia</span></div></li></ul><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Oh, and as an added bonus to my appointment, I found out that I have four fillings that contain mercury, one of the most toxic elements known to man! How cool is that. <a href="http://emoticonizer.info/"><img src="http://emoticonizer.info/emo1/beated.png" border="0" /></a></span></p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075063939533339724.post-21082863749273756612010-02-27T22:04:00.001-05:002010-03-05T19:18:36.044-05:00Why my microwave is now used as a cabinet...<div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">For those in my age group, you probably didn't grow up with a microwave. If you did, you probably got it later in life. Yet somehow, now it is hard to imagine our lives without them. They are used to heat leftovers, melt ice cream so it is easier to scoop, get the lemon a bit juicier before squeezing, pop popcorn, melt butter...the list goes on. I have even been to restaurants (granted, they were hole in the wall places) where they used a microwave to cook my food! </span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">As I got more into the "natural lifestyle" I found that I used my microwave less and less. It just didn't fit into my "made from scratch" ideas. Now don't get me wrong - I am not against modern conveniences...I use a food processor!, I use a yogurt maker, but once I got used to home cooked food - I found that even re-heated food did not taste "right" to me after coming out of the microwave.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Then, on the advice from a friend, I did some research on microwaves. Just how <em>do</em> they cook our food so quickly?</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Microwaves cause food molecules to vibrate rapidly, creating friction that produces heat which then cooks the food. In other words, food cooked in a microwave simply absorbs microwave and turns their energy into thermal energy, which cooks the food.</span><br /></div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5111727548735919634" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/RvCBH1r7lhI/AAAAAAAAAEM/xZVHs6WZWtE/s400/microwave.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="center"><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Here are some things that I found during my research:</span><br /></span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></strong><br /></p><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">There was a case in 1991 where a lady went into the hospital for a hip replacement. She needed blood and for some crazy reason, the nurse heated the blood in the microwave oven, in the nurses lounge, before giving it to the lady. The lady died within minutes. I was a bit skeptical because this appeared on one of the many sites that make some pretty outrageous claims (and in making their claims, they make us who actually do our research look like fruit loops). So I did some further research and it turns out that <a href="http://wyomcases.courts.state.wy.us/applications/oscn/DeliverDocument.asp?citeID=4387">this actually happened</a>! I think that the case is still tied up in court - because of course, the hospital is saying that she died of something else (just minutes after receiving this microwaved blood, mind you). </span><br /><br /></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Research was done toward the end of the 1980s in collaboration between a Swiss laboratory, Dr. Hans U. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Hertel</span> and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">ETH</span>). Dr. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Hertel's</span> startling findings showed that microwave cooking resulted in:</span></p><ul><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Increased cholesterol levels </span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">More leukocytes, or white blood cells, which can </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">suggest poisoning </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Decreased numbers of red blood cells </span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Production of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">radiolytic</span> compounds (compounds unknown in nature) </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Decreased hemoglobin levels, which could indicate anemic tendencies </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div></li></ul><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">The publication of the results caused considerable disturbance. The Swiss electrical industry threatened both scientists with legal action if they would continue to talk about the results in public. Under this pressure Prof. Bernard H. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Blanc</span> withdrew from the scientifically reached results by declaring in the modern “scientific” jargon that more research would be necessary to prove them. Dr. Hans U. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Hertel</span>, however, stood behind the honestly achieved results and was subsequently legally prosecuted and condemned, first by the District Court of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Belp</span>, Bern, then by the Upper Court in Bern and finally by the Federal Court in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Lausanne</span>. The study was finally published in 1992.</span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">A study reports that a test done on raw broccoli found that: Microwaving raw broccoli drastically eliminates natural health-promoting chemicals. Of particular note in the research was the post-microwaving disappearance of 97 percent of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">flavonoids</span> -- substances often found in many brightly colored fruits and vegetables. These substances are linked to a reduced risk of coronary heart disease, stroke and lung cancer. <span style="font-size:85%;"><em>MURCIA, Spain, Oct 17, 2003 (United Press International via <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">COMTEX</span>) </em></span></span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Translation: When you microwave vegetables it changes the food. It diminishes the "good" things in food that help to prevent heart disease, stroke and cancer. </span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">There are also warnings in regards to heating breast milk in the microwave. This from the FDA, who although I personally think they say some pretty <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">quacky</span> stuff, most people take them seriously.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">There is a substantial loss of the anti-infective properties of breast milk when it is microwaved. The anti-infective action is a significantly lessened. There's the possibility that other properties of microwaves may also negatively effect the anti-infective properties of breast milk.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">More research is definitely necessary. I do not take these few scientific tests and run with it as the "gospel". However it does raise enough concerns, paired with the other reports I have read, that I no longer use my microwave. </span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><em>And you know what?</em></span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">I don't miss it! I am actually loving the extra "cabinet" space that it affords. If I want to make popcorn I use my <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00004SU35?ie=UTF8&tag=bactobasbyliv-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00004SU35">Whirley-Pop Stovetop Popcorn Popper</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=bactobasbyliv-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00004SU35" alt="" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important;" border="0" width="1" height="1" />. If I need to melt butter I use my little <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002CX9FE?ie=UTF8&tag=bactobasbyliv-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B0002CX9FE">cast iron melting pot</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=bactobasbyliv-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B0002CX9FE" alt="" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important;" border="0" width="1" height="1" />...it really doesn't take that long to do. If I need to re-heat food I either put it in the oven or in an iron skillet on the stove top. </span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">The <em>only</em> thing that I have missed in not having a microwave is the way I used to make a huge pile of pepperoni and cook it until crispy (and stinking the house up) and scarf it down. And that is probably so horrible for me that my body is thanking me for<em> not</em> using my microwave! </span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075063939533339724.post-45903736087897877482010-02-27T22:01:00.000-05:002010-02-27T15:06:52.373-05:00Steps to take before purchasing new...<div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">When I get it in my head to start a new project (and when you get to know "my head" you will understand that this could be anything from re-organizing the pantry to digging a backyard pond to having another baby!) I have a list of mental steps that I take. <a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/Rua0IZzJTuI/AAAAAAAAABc/5aOPvFDJGjk/s1600-h/moola.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5108968883755765474" style="float: right; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px;" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/Rua0IZzJTuI/AAAAAAAAABc/5aOPvFDJGjk/s400/moola.jpg" border="0" /></a></span><br /><br /></div><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">It is my goal to both cut down on my family's consumerism as well as to spend little to no money (because we <em>have</em> little to no money).<br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">I start by making a mental list of the items I am going to need. Once this list is made, I try to find ways to use things that I <em>already have </em>to get the job done. Could I use that basket sitting in the kid's closet to store these canning jars in? Maybe I could use that wooden crate sitting outside for the job? </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">No? Then I move on to trying to think of ways to <em>make</em> what I need. Could I use those scraps of wood and some nails to build myself a small crate? Could I (and I am stretching here, even for me) use those long plants that my mom calls "weeds" to weave myself a basket?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">No? Then the next step is try try to find what I need for <em>free</em>. Could I maybe find a crate in a dumpster? Could I post on <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.freecycle.org">http://www.blogger.com/www.freecycle.org</a> and ask for it?</span></p><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">No? Well then I guess I will have to have some patience and wait until it shows up at a thrift store. It usually does and sometimes, in the process of waiting, I decide to take a different path and don't even need the item after all!</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">I may also look on <a href="http://www.ebay.com/">http://www.ebay.com/</a> or <a href="http://www.craigslist.com/">http://www.craigslist.com/</a> as you can often find what you are looking for there at a substantial discount. In addition, I am a member of several online trading posts/swap boards and they will often have what I am looking for.</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">If, after all of this, I still <em>must</em> have the item, I will start trying to find a way to pay for it. This is a process in and of itself but one that I will not bore you with as I am doubting that you are very interested in my family's finances. </span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">I will also research, research, research. If I am going to actually pay retail price for something, I am going to make sure it is the best product on the market. I do not want to pay hard earned money for something that I am going to be disappointed with or that is only going to last a month. </span></div><div align="justify"><br /></div><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">I usually do the research and the choose the best item in the price range that I can afford. Often times this means compromising on a few of the "perk" features but I can usually find a good quality item that will do the job I need for it to do, even if it doesn't have all of the "bells and whistles".</span></p><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">On that note...I have actually found that the more "bells and whistles" an item has, the more likely that item is to wear out or tear up before its time. If I want a CD player, I want one that will play CD's...that is its basic use. I do not need one that is going to read the names of the song out loud before it plays them. Just play the damn CD, right? </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">It is a process and it is one that teaches patience and sometimes humility. </span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075063939533339724.post-56041533229086640692010-02-27T14:41:00.000-05:002010-02-27T15:01:42.271-05:00Composting...<div align="justify"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/RxpLVJ-9EDI/AAAAAAAAAIk/0Sv5SpWAgPw/s1600-h/compost.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5123490352916664370" style="float: left; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 196px; height: 188px;" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/RxpLVJ-9EDI/AAAAAAAAAIk/0Sv5SpWAgPw/s200/compost.jpg" border="0" width="263" height="251" /></a><span style="font-family:verdana;">Between food scraps, leaves, garden mulch and other organic material in your garbage, a tremendous amount of waste is created. Yard and kitchen waste account for around 30% of the US waste stream.</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">This is something that I never gave much thought to until I started trying to "live green". Then I decided that I needed to give it a try, for many reasons. One, I was trying to cut down on the amount of garbage that my family produced. I figured that if I could recycle some of it and compost some of it, my actual garbage production would go way down (and I was right). Two, we were spending money on fertilizer and "good dirt" for our garden and plants. Why spend money when we could make it ourselves? </span><br /><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">I'll admit that I was pretty intimidated by the idea of a compost pile. It seemed like an awful lot of work and calculation (how much "green" to put in, how much "brown" to put in). Finally I just took the plunge and went for it. </span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">My compost piles consists of a couple of wooden pallets for the sides and has a chain link fence across the front (because it is enclosed in the chicken coop). Now that i have chickens, they eat pretty much everything that I put into the pile before it actually gets a chance to compost. For those without chickens, h</span><span style="font-family:verdana;">ere are some things you should know if you are interested in your own compost pile:</span><br /></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">First of all, what is compost? Compost is where you turn your garbage into fertilizer by gathering leaves, grass, branches added in with kitchen waste (banana peels, leftover scraps) and letting it decompose rather than throwing it all into a garbage can. </span></div><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">You can go as simple or as elaborate as you choose. You can have a bin in your yard (homemade or purchased) or you can have an indoor bin filled with worms who will compost for you. </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">Either way, your ultimate goal is to create finished compost. Which is defined as a pile of organic material that is so decomposed that it has transformed into something beyond "rotted" stuff and into something useful.</span><br /><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">If you want to use it for fertilizer for your lawn, plants, garden, etc. then you are going to want to invest a little time and work into it. If your reasons are purely environmental, you can pretty much just let it go and not worry about the end results. </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">You can either "cold compost" or "hot compost". </span><br /></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">With cold composting, you pretty much just throw the stuff in the pile and leave it at that. They will decompose over time and that will be that. The main drawback is the smell but if you can stand that, this is the easiest way. </span><br /><br /></div><p><span style="font-family:verdana;">Hot composting is when you get a bit more involved. With this, you will be able to keep the pile neat and decent smelling and in the end you will have a finished product. </span><br /><br /></p><p><span style="font-family:verdana;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/RxpM85-9EGI/AAAAAAAAAI8/4afd0i88t7w/s1600-h/cleanairgardening_1970_111983173.gif"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5123492135328092258" style="float: left; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px;" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/RxpM85-9EGI/AAAAAAAAAI8/4afd0i88t7w/s200/cleanairgardening_1970_111983173.gif" border="0" /></a>If you choose an outdoor compost you have the choice of purchasing a <a href="http://www.composters.com/main.php">ready made </a>bin that usually has a built in feature to make it easy to turn your compost. They are also usually compact and more attractive than an actual "pile". Or you can build your own pile. There are directions all of the Internet for different ways to build your own pile. Some of them get pretty creative. A quick google search will bring up pages of links. </span></p><span style="font-family:verdana;">I would recommend putting it a few feet from the house, just in case of smell or rodents. Regardless of what you use to build the sides of the bin, you will need to have it well ventilated. This means, keep it a few feet away from fences, trees, etc. <a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/RxpLmp-9EEI/AAAAAAAAAIs/8hqELanKhPo/s1600-h/composttwo.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5123490653564375106" style="float: right; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px;" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/RxpLmp-9EEI/AAAAAAAAAIs/8hqELanKhPo/s200/composttwo.jpg" border="0" /></a></span><br /><p><span style="font-family:verdana;">I would also recommend putting it in reach of a hose, unless you do not mind carrying water in a bucket when needed. If you live in a hot area, I would put it in the shade so that it doesn't bake into a hard pile that takes years to decompose. If you live in a really wet area, I would recommend covering the pile. If it gets too wet it will smell bad and will not get enough air to properly compost. </span><br /><br /></p><p><span style="font-family:verdana;">For the pile to be able to reach the temperatures it needs while still allowing the center to breathe, the bin should be between three and five feet cubed (that is, three to five feet wide, long, and tall).</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana;">As for what to add and how, the most common ration I have found is</span><span style="font-family:verdana;"> a 30-to-1 ratio of "browns" to "greens". </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">Greens are made up of fresh plant matter or animal by-products. They provide the</span><span style="font-family:verdana;"> nitrogen, protein, and some moisture to get things going. </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">Browns are made up of dry or dead plant materials. They add carbon and bulk so that the composting microbes can breathe. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana;">If you don't want to get so technical, just follow the</span><span style="font-family:verdana;"> general rule of adding more dry bulky stuff than fresh or green dense stuff. To put it simple, if it's fresh, it's a green; if it's dead and brown, it's a brown.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Greens: grass and plant clippings, waste from your garden (plants that were left too long and got too large, etc.), coffee grounds, eggshells, tea bags, vegetable peelings and scraps, leftovers from dinner, fresh manure (chicken and cow), human hair, milk</span></p><p><span style="font-family:verdana;">Browns: Wood, sticks, sawdust, dead leaves, dry straw, shredded newspaper, dead plants, rice, pine needles.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:verdana;">As you add materials, make sure to spray it down with the hose every few inches. It needs to be moist but not wet.</span><br /><br /></p><p><span style="font-family:verdana;">It can take anywhere from six weeks to two years to produce healthy compost, depending on the materials you use and how much attention you give your pile. </span><br /><br /></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana;">What is happening, unseen, is that the center of the pile is heating up. The microbes, who are eating away, are the cause of the heat. You will need to turn your pile (which means that you will mix it up so that the outside is worked into the inside and everything gets a chance to compost. You can use a shovel to do this. You will notice that as time goes by, your pile will shrink. It should also smell "Earthy" and look like dark soil. This is how you will know that it is ready to be used as fertilizer. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana;">You can also compost indoors, on a smaller scale, by using worms. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermicompost">Here</a> is a link that explains more about that. I do not have any personal experience in this area so I will let the link explain more.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:verdana;">As a side note, my journey down the road of having our septic system pumped led me to do some research on composting human waste. I won't go into that here but for those interested, <a href="http://weblife.org/humanure/index.html">this</a> is an excellent online book on the subject. </span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075063939533339724.post-66689548895276443752010-02-27T12:09:00.000-05:002010-02-27T15:06:05.013-05:00Ways to live simple with the added benefit of being frugal...<div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">I have found that as my mindset has changed so have my "needs" and by "needs" I really mean "wants". I have found that the less I have, the happier I seem to be. And the more I can "make it on my own" the more accomplished I feel. It is the endless quest for "stuff" that puts us on the hamster wheel that we so lovingly refer to as "American society". </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Don't get me wrong, I too often fall into the trap of wanting brand names. I am a product of this society as much as anyone else. I too, have had it ingrained in me that the more popular the brand name on my shirt, the better I am as a person. Of course, I do not believe this on a logical level but there is still that little man in sitting on my shoulder who tries to tell me that I will finally be "cool" if I just loose that extra fifty pounds (even<em> he</em> knows better than to tell me that fifty pounds is a bit more than "extra") and wear that shirt with the brand name that I will finally be accepted by the "cool crowd". </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">But when I get my act together, which is becoming more and more often thankfully, I am able to swat the little man off of my shoulder and realize that it is about <em>quality</em>, not brand name. Ironically enough though, on quite a few of the things, I have found that "quality" and "brand name" actually <em>are</em> synonymous. But there still are plenty of times that "brand name" still equals "made in China and will last one week before it craps out". </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">One way I have found to weed out the crap is to buy most everything <em>used</em>. This serves more than one purpose. Not only does it save me a <em>lot </em>of money, it is also better for our planet...it is the ultimate recycling. And finally, usually if it has survived another family's use and has been donated to a thrift store and is still in decent shape, it is probably a pretty decent product! This helps me work towards my goal of not contributing to consumerism.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br />I<span style="font-family:verdana;"> have found that for the things I feel I <em>must have</em>, that if I will wait long enough, the gods of thrift will provide them for me via the local Goodwill Store! If the gods of Goodwill do not provide them then the gods of fortune usually will. For these things, the things that are unlikely to show up at the Goodwill more than once in a blue moon (and it is inevitable that I will miss that blue moon and someone else would buy it anyway), I usually run across a free offer, a gift card, surprise birthday money, etc. If you put it out there, the Universe will usually provide.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">For those who don't feel that they have the time to bother sorting through the "junk" at thrift stores, I am going to start a list of my "finds". I will list the item I found, the price I paid and the original retail price (found via an Internet search). I will consider it an honor if I can convert at least one person into a thrift store queen. I think some of you will be duly surprised at what turns up!</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075063939533339724.post-41663950284724990872010-02-27T10:42:00.000-05:002010-02-27T15:02:44.493-05:00Walmartization of America...<span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/Rv5bbJ-9D2I/AAAAAAAAAG8/XZf0TtSjtzk/s1600-h/walmart.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115626748834025314" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/Rv5bbJ-9D2I/AAAAAAAAAG8/XZf0TtSjtzk/s400/walmart.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Out of all the places of which I could shop, <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/">Wal-Mart is probably the biggest on my "no-no" list.</a> I encourage everyone to think long and hard before they make their weekly (or daily) trip to the new god of America. </span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">There are <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/">many reasons </a>to avoid Wal-Mart and while they are all great reasons, I want to first discuss the one that finally flipped the switch for me. Did you know that Wal-Mart actually has a say in which products are manufactured and which products are scrapped? For example, a company who makes yogurt decides to market a new flavor. If Wal-Mart likes it, that flavor will stay around. If Wal-Mart doesn't like it, that flavor will end up on the cutting room floor. The reason is that Wal-Mart is now the largest purchaser of grocery products in America. So if they don't buy it, there is really not an economical reason for the company to make it. Do you really want this giant company having that large of an influence on what is on the market? Should that not be up to the customer base instead?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">These business practices have also people on a local scale.</span> <span style="font-family:verdana;">One Toledo company used to produce Crayola crayons. Its biggest customer was Wal-Mart; but when Wal-Mart refused to pay <em>three extra cents</em> per box, the company was ran out of business and many people lost their jobs. Wal-Mart took its business to Mexico</span></div><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">In 1994, Rubbermaid was one of the most admired company in the United States -- but five years later, its fortunes fell so hard that the company had to sell to a competitor. When the price of a key component of its products went up, Rubbermaid asked Wal-Mart for a modest price increase -- but Wal-Mart said no, and stopped sales of Rubbermaid products. At a Rubbermaid factory in Wooster, Ohio, that meant the loss of 1,000 jobs. [PBS Frontline, 11/23/04]</span><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">With Wal-Mart, there is no room for negotiation. They tell you what they will pay you for your product. If you don't like it, they will buy it elsewhere and most likely, you will be out of business.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Wal-Mart perpetuates the cycle of poverty. They drive other stores out of business because their prices are so low. Thriving downtown areas turn into ghost towns. Their prices are so low because of their unethical practices. But with the other stores gone, the wages driven down and nowhere else to shop the people are pretty much forced to shop there. If not forced, they are definitely not given an incentive to go elsewhere.</span><br /><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">While Wal-Mart kills family retail businesses and pushes out jobs that pay well, it also forces suppliers to relocate their plants overseas to meet its low-price demands. </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">Wal-Mart is the single largest importer of Chinese goods, </span><a id="http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.html" href="http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.html"><span style="font-family:verdana;">buying some $18 billion in merchandise in 2004</span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;">, nearly 10 percent of all Chinese goods sold in the United States, which currently has a $124 billion trade deficit with China?</span></div><div align="justify"> </div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">And in its own category of general merchandise and groceries, Wal-Mart no longer has any real rivals. It does more business than Target, Sears, Kmart, J.C. Penney, Safeway, and Kroger combined. </span>Wal-Mart is not just the world's largest retailer. It's the world's largest <em>company</em>--bigger than ExxonMobil, General Motors, and General Electric. The scale can be hard to absorb. </div><br /><br /><object width="425" height="353"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/SFn7syPIbfM&rel=1"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/SFn7syPIbfM&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="353"></embed></object><br /><br /><div align="justify"></div><span style="font-family:verdana;">Something else that is very disturbing is the unethical means they use to produce their inexpensive items. Something that I read really struck a nerve with me. "Close your eyes. Think about the shirt you are wearing. Trace it back through the store, back past being packaged, past being shipped, and to the place it was stitched and sewn together. I’m terrified when I do that and I see a small child, dirty and weary from 18 hours a day of labor, looking into my eyes and awaiting an explanation. What will I say to that little girl? What does taking responsibility mean for me there?</span><br /><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">So while the poor stay poor, Wal-Mart's owners, the five members of the Walton family split the profits equally, and their total net worth is somewhere around $100 billion. The Waltons prefer to take a passive role in the company, so they may not be the people making the decision to use their workers to make a buck.</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">If the Waltons are worth more than 100 billion dollars, why will they not pay three cents extra for a box of crayons? Why can't they provide decent wages and benefits to its employees? Wages are notoriously low at Wal-Mart. Not only that but they hire many employees as "part time" help which means they do not have to provide insurance benefits. How ethical is it to take advantage of people this way while the people who own the company are five of the ten richest people in the country?</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075063939533339724.post-5907711277089514112010-02-27T10:20:00.001-05:002010-02-27T15:12:14.569-05:00On Attachment Parenting...<span style="font-family:verdana;">What is this Attachment Parenting (AP) that we have been hearing so much about in the past few years?</span><br /><div align="justify"><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">According to Dr.Sears, who is credited for starting the AP movement, Attachment Parenting AP is an approach, rather than a strict set of rules. It's actually the style that many parents use instinctively. Parenting is too individual and baby too complex for there to be only one way. The important point is to get connected to your baby. Once you have a connection, stick with what is working and modify what is not. You will ultimately develop your own parenting style that helps parent and baby find a way to fit with each other. </span><br /></div><div align="justify"><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">According to Dr. Sears, and I agree, Attachment parenting is one of the oldest ways of caring for babies. In fact, it's the way that parents for centuries have taken care of babies, until childcare advisers came on the scene and led parents to follow books instead of their babies.</span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">I am always fascinated by the studies done by anthropologists on tribes of native peoples who have been untouched by Western society. I am sure that it has just as much to do with their entire culture as it does their parenting (but then again, the two are very intertwined) but they usually do practice what we have coined "AP" and they usually do not have the same problems with their children as we in more "civilized" (and I use that word lightly) societies do. </span></div><br /><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">There are a lot of misconceptions out there that AP is a permissive style of parenting or that it spoils the child. <a href="http://www.askdrsears.com/html/10/T130400.asp">This</a> is a very informative link on what AP is "not". </span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">I, by no means, am a "perfect mommy" and I do find that as my children grow so does change the way I parent. But for infants, I do firmly believe in the things that usually go along with the AP and Natural Family Living movements.</span></div><br /><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">These things can include (but do not always include all), but are certainly not limited to:</span></div><br /><ul><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Natural Birth</span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Homebirth</span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Co-sleeping (aka The Family Bed)</span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">No CIO (letting baby "cry it out")</span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Leaving baby boys intact instead of circumcising</span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Gentle Discipline (no spanking)</span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Cloth Diapers</span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Breastfeeding</span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Child led weaning</span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Wearing baby in a sling</span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Homeschooling</span> </div></li></ul>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075063939533339724.post-20040118863773863322010-02-27T10:18:00.000-05:002010-02-27T15:03:41.442-05:00Where do our priorities lie?<div align="justify"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/RvUzkZ-9DkI/AAAAAAAAAEs/A0kTBSTIeQI/s1600-h/peaceflag.gif"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5113049652492308034" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; width: 304px; height: 166px; text-align: center;" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/RvUzkZ-9DkI/AAAAAAAAAEs/A0kTBSTIeQI/s400/peaceflag.gif" border="0" width="329" height="97" /></a><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Before I get into today's post, let me first speak to the "Love it or leave it" folks. Do you really realize how <em>asinine</em> of a statement it is to tell someone "Well if you don't like it here in America, you can just get out"? That is such a backwards viewpoint that I honestly have a hard time even formulating my thoughts into words. First, there are now laws, no rules, that say that one must "love" their country - or even <em>like</em> it for that matter - in order to reside there. Second, I was born here. My home is here, my family is here. Who are you to tell me to pick up and leave everything that i have ever known, simply because I don't share your viewpoint on America?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">And the irony is not missed on me that it is <em>because</em> I live in America I am free to state that opinion. I don't hate this country but I do think that it has its values really screwed up. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Moving on...I think that this country started out with noble enough values. I just think that they got really turned around somewhere along the way. Nor do I think that every other country in the world is so much better than my own...not at all. There are some countries that are way more screwed up that America. But there are some that have it together a lot more as well. And America does have its good points, it has its beauty, it has its things that make me proud to be here. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">I think that love of one's country is just like anything else...there are good points and there are bad points. You embrace the good things and you work to change the bad. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">I guess that my biggest problem is that a lot of my countrymen do not share my viewpoint on what the "bad" is, so it makes it hard to make positive changes. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">That said, I was looking at the newly released Forbes List for the <a href="http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/54/biz_06rich400_The-400-Richest-Americans_Rank.html">400 Richest Americans. </a>The fact that we even <em>have</em> such a list speaks volumes to me. It reiterates my point that we have our values screwed up. Why would anyone care who the "richest Americans" are? Does that make them somehow better than the rest of America? Do they really work harder than the average American? </span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">I would say not. I would say that some of them got where they are from studying hard in school and working their way up. But for the most part I would say that most of them got where they are because they had access to decent schools and then a lot of luck happened. I know that some of you think that we make our own luck, and I agree to an extent. But a child born into a middle class/upper middle class/wealthy family is going to have a lot more "luck" than a child born into a low income family. </span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Your average sanitation worker works a lot harder than the wealthy man in the cushy office does, yet the difference between their wages is startling.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">The average stay-at-home-mom works as hard as the major league baseball player (granted, in different ways) and she arguably has the more important job, yet compare the wages...zero for the mom versus millions for the baseball player. </span><br /><br /></div><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Why is it that we promote music, screen and sports figures to an almost god like status? What makes us so much more interested in them than in the people who teach our children, put out our fires and clean our toilets?</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Looking again at the list of the 400 richest Americans shows me where America's priorities lie. </span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Our interests lie in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Wal</span>-Mart - out of the top <em>eleven</em> on the list, <em>five</em> of them are affiliated with <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Wal</span>-Mart. Moving on down the list, candy (junk food), casinos and entertainment are also among the top. And even more disturbing are the number of people in the top 400, even the top <em>100</em>, who are wealthy because of oil. That means that while we are paying upwards of $4.00 a gallon for gas, we are lining the pockets of the wealthy, the government and the Middle East. </span></p><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">In going over this list, I really do not see where any of these people have done anything truly noble. This reinforces my belief that money isn't really the "good" thing that so many believe it to be. Money is nice to have. It would be nice to be able to pay the monthly bills without worrying where the funds were to come from, but beyond that - I think that money usually changes people for the worse. I realize that I am hugely generalizing here, but that is my personal opinion.</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/parenting/05/08/mothers.index/index.html">Did you know that the U.S. has second worst newborn death rate in modern world?</a> </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><a href="http://www.cbpp.org/8-29-06health.htm">More than 46.6 million Americans are without health insurance</a>, yet the rich keep getting richer. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">In 2004, the most recent year from which statistics are available, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2007/04/21/weekinreview/20070422_MARSH_GRAPHIC.html"><strong>29,569</strong> people were killed in America from firearm related incidents.</a> Another 64,389 were injured. Go back and read that, let those numbers really sink in. By contrast, in the United Kingdom, there were <strong>163</strong> deaths (in 2003, the latest stats I could find). </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">I just can't figure out this American fascination with owning what are essentially tools for murder. </span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5113051946004844130" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/RvU1p5-9DmI/AAAAAAAAAE8/vmQT2Xei1Go/s400/cabs017_125.gif" border="0" /><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">With all of this, do you know what many of our <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">countrymen</span> are focusing on? They are focusing on the oh so ever important issue of denying their fellow countrymen (and women) the right to marry, denying women rights over their own bodies and making sure that we all live by <em>their</em> morals. America is a beautiful country but I fear for its future if something doesn't change. We need to get our priorities straight.</span></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075063939533339724.post-30596468742204419802010-02-27T08:50:00.000-05:002010-02-27T15:04:05.669-05:00Killing ourselves to feed our lawn?<div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">This post is for Jeffery.</span> <span style="font-family:verdana;"></span><a href="http://emoticonizer.info/"><img src="http://emoticonizer.info/emo/cowboy.gif" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">A beautifully landscaped, green lawn is something sought after by many Americans. It has became the new "keeping up with the Joneses" to make your lawn more full and more green than your neighbor's.<br /><br />The standard way of doing this is to use lawn treatment chemicals, fertilizers and lots of watering; all of which are harmful to our environment, animal life and most scary of all, harmful to us! The only way to reduce a dependence on chemical fertilizers is to develop a healthy lawn, which is <em>naturally</em> resistant to weeds, insects and diseases.<br /><br />Of 30 commonly used lawn pesticides, 19 have studies pointing toward carcinogens, 13 are linked with birth defects, 21 with reproductive effects, 15 with neurotoxicity, 26 with liver or kidney damage, 27 are sensitizers and/or irritants, and 11 have the potential to disrupt the endocrine (hormonal) system. </span><a href="http://www.beyondpesticides.org/lawn/factsheets/facts&figures.htm#vii"><span style="font-family:verdana;">(references)</span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;">. In addition, for you pet owners, pet bladder cancer has been linked to lawn pesticide applications <span style="font-size:85%;"><em>(Journal of the American Veterinary Medicine Association, April 15, 2004.) </em></span></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:verdana;">I am aware that it is easy to become bogged down with facts and figures. It has become so easy to read the above paragraph and it just go right over our heads. There are so many warning out there today that we have become desensitized to them. </span><br /><br /><a href="http://www.chem-tox.com/pesticides/pesticidereport.htm"><span style="font-family:verdana;">This link </span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;">offers some personal stories about the harmful effects of lawn pesticides. </span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/Ru69y6uiWhI/AAAAAAAAAEE/giEYC-UqFo0/s1600-h/DSC09178.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5111231309567646226" style="float: left; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px;" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/Ru69y6uiWhI/AAAAAAAAAEE/giEYC-UqFo0/s200/DSC09178.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><br /></div><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Making a change to "green" lawn care doesn't have to mean turning into a hippie. It can be done a lot easier than one may think. </span></p><br /><br /><br /><br /><p><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></p><p><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Starting with one of the most basic aspects of lawn care, if you mow your grass to the proper height and disperse the small grass clippings evenly, this can provide many benefits. </span><a href="http://www.organiclawncaretips.com/cutting_height_for_grass.html"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Here is a link </span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;">that discusses the different types of grass and the proper mowing heights for each. </span></p><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">If you mow grass too short it discourages deep root growth and results in a rapid loss of the moisture in the soil. On the other extreme, if you let grass grow too tall it causes the excess grass clippings to smother the turf.</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Some other things to keep in mind about mowing your grass:</span></div><ul><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Raise the height of your mower blade during the hot and dry season. A higher setting reduces moisture loss and encourages deep root growth.</span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Keep the blades on your mower sharp and clean, and mow when the grass is dry.</span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Mow over leaves so they will decompose along with grass clippings.</span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Collect leaves and grass clippings for mulching or composting (instead of sitting them on the curb for garbage pickup).</span></div></li></ul><div align="center"><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;" ><strong>How to combat weeds the natural way</strong></span></div><div align="justify"><strong><span style=";font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;" ></span></strong> </div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">If you maintain a thick, healthy lawn this will almost always out-compete weeds. Proper mowing, fertilizing, watering, and soil conditioning will easily eliminate or prevent up to 95 percent of weeds. Why not <em>prevent</em> the problem instead of using a chemical to <em>solve</em> the problem?</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">For the minor weeds that <em>do</em> grow, why not pull them by hand? Consider using household vinegar rather than conventional chemicals. Believe it or not, this is a very effective treatment. (Vinegar can burn grass and garden plants, so be sure to spot treat weeds only.) If you must use chemicals, why not spot treat instead of treating the entire yard? </span></div><p align="justify"><a href="http://www.gardensalive.com/category.asp?c=10&sid=141487&eid=&bhcd2=1190046511"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Here</span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;"> is a site that sells natural lawn care products.</span></p><div align="center"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>You have heard of recycling but what about grasscycling?</strong> </span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span> </div><div align="justify"><a href="http://www.wastediversion.org/grasscycling.htm"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Grasscycling</span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;"> is the natural recycling of grass by leaving clippings on the lawn when mowing. There are many benefits to grasscycling. </span></div><ul><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">It makes turf greener and tougher. </span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">It prevents common turf diseases. </span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">It reduces or eliminates fertilizer needs. Grasscycling provides about 2 pounds of nitrogen per 1,000 square feet of lawn per year.</span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">It cuts down on watering needs</span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">It eliminates the disposal of grass clippings and leaves. </span></div></li></ul><div align="center"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>Instead of using fertilizer, why not use compost?</strong> </span></div><div align="center"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span> </div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/Ru6xFquiWfI/AAAAAAAAAD0/-gW4e5WqtuM/s1600-h/compost.jpg"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5111217338039032306" style="float: right; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px;" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/Ru6xFquiWfI/AAAAAAAAAD0/-gW4e5WqtuM/s200/compost.jpg" border="0" width="119" height="178" /></span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;">Having a compost bin is an easy thing to do. It isn't just something that people in rural areas do, suburbanites and apartment dwellers can do it too! </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">You can compost with a small compost bucket under your sink (complete with lid and filter, no odor), you can compost with a backyard bin or you can build your own composting system. The possibility's are endless. </span><a href="http://store.compostguide.com/"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Here</span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;"> are some commercial composters and </span><a href="http://www.compostguide.com/"><span style="font-family:verdana;">here</span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;"> is a link to a great composting guide.</span><br /><br /></div><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Smart Watering can also cut down on the amount of chemical you use on your lawn.</span><br /></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Watering your lawn, on average, accounts for 40 to 60 percent of residential water consumption during the summer months. This makes lawn maintenance not only a chore but also a drain on the pocketbook and water supply. What is worse, is that much of the water applied to lawns is never absorbed by plants.<br />The greatest waste of water is from watering to often or too rapidly. </span></p><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Water applied too rapidly is lost as runoff, which may carry polluting fertilizers and pesticides to streams and lakes. Water is also lost into the air when applied as a spray, especially on hot afternoons. </span></div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><div align="center"><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:180%;">What do do?</span> </span></div><div align="justify"><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></strong> </div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>Water infrequently yet thoroughly.</strong> In the absence of rain, most ground covers will benefit from a very thorough, once per month watering (during the growing season). Saturate to a depth of 8" to 10". This watering schedule will create a deep, well-rooted lawn that efficiently uses the water stored in the soil.<br />Your watering practices should be influenced by the weather. Decrease the amount and duration of your watering during cool or humid conditions and skip a scheduled watering after a moderate rainfall. </span><br /><br /><br /></div><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>Water during the "right" time of day.</strong> If you water early in the morning it will prevent mildew diseases and it will cut down on evaporation. The type of soil you have will determine how often you should water and how much you should water. </span></p><div align="justify"><a href="http://searchwarp.com/swa35170.htm"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Here is a link </span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;">on how to determine the type of soil you have and how to water accordingly. </span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong></strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>Set your sprinklers so that you are actually watering the plants and not the driveway.</strong> Use timers and/or moisture sensors to prevent over-watering. Soaker hoses deliver water directly to the base of the plant, reducing moisture loss from evaporation. A sprinkler head should spray large droplets of water instead of a fog or fine mist, which wastes water by evaporation and wind drift. </span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075063939533339724.post-30469976217863872832010-02-27T08:41:00.000-05:002010-02-27T15:07:20.544-05:00Going Out Green...<div align="justify"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/Ruk256uiWVI/AAAAAAAAACk/1a46lVRK5DU/s1600-h/baptist.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5109675620873427282" style="float: right; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px;" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/Ruk256uiWVI/AAAAAAAAACk/1a46lVRK5DU/s320/baptist.jpg" border="0" /></a> <span style="font-family:verdana;">A few weeks ago I heard a knock on the back door. It is rare that we get visitors this far out in the sticks so I answered with wonder. There stood your typical looking Southern Baptist preacher type. Being the friendly host I am, I smiled and said "hello". </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">He said that he worked for the local funeral home, selling burial insurance. Before I knew what was coming out of my mouth (because honestly, I'm mostly full of shit) I said "Oh, we are going to compost my body, but thank you anyway". The worst part was that, completely involuntarily, as I was saying this I was motioning to the compost pile just a few feet away from him! I swear, I didn't mean to point at it as I was telling him this...my hand just kind of raised up, all on its own, and motioned that way. But the look on his face after I did was completely priceless! He uttered "Oh my!" and then just stood in dumbfounded silence for a few moments. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Well then, of course the next logical question out of his mouth was "Honey, do you go to church anywhere". Now you've got to get a mental image of this man in order to make this story worthwhile. What you have got to focus on are his eyebrows. The more I talked, the higher up on his face his eyebrows went. The wider his eyes got. It was priceless really.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">So I answered, "No sir, we are a Pagan family...we haven't found a church for us in this area so we worship at home". So the eyebrows shit up a little more and he uttered another "Ohhhh my". </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">I should have, at this point, invited him into my home...just for pure meanness, to see if he dared to enter my lair (bwwwhahaha). But no, I just stood, with a fixed smile on my face, as he invited me to his church. I then bid him a good day and shut the door as he left.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">That did get me to thinking though...<em>are </em>there "green" ways to handle ones body after death?</span><br /></div><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">So evidently, you <em>can</em> actually <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/2007/04/ill_compost_your_corpse_1.html">compost</a> your body! That is if you can get through all of the red tape first. What to do, what to do...I have so many causes that I could take up in order to cause a stir in this small town of mine. Do I do the gay cause? The Pagan cause? Women's rights? Or should I campaign for the right to compost my body?</span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">There are also a few companies who make "green" coffins. Read about them <a href="http://www.uono.de/english/home.html">here</a> and <a href="http://www.ecopod.co.uk/index.php?pageid=24">here</a>. </span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">There is a company by the name of Promessa who offers to essentially freeze-dry the body, eventually turning it to powder (at 1/3 its original weight) for storage or burial in a small urn.</span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Then the good folks at the <a href="http://www.greenburialcouncil.org/">Green Burial Council </a></span><span style="font-family:verdana;">want to make green burials the standard, doing away with embalming, vaults, conventional markers, and metal caskets. </span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><a href="http://www.greenendings.co.uk/links.htm">Green Endings</a> will even organize an eco-funeral in your own backyard. Which would be groovy. </span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">There are also places, easily found by a Google search, where you can be made into a diamond, launched into space or sank to the bottom of the Ocean (although I don't think those are necessarily "green"). </span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075063939533339724.post-21267012793558128562010-02-27T06:18:00.000-05:002010-02-27T15:02:16.891-05:00Heading down South...<div align="justify"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/RwOeHp-9D6I/AAAAAAAAAHc/fJWXTvuHQZ0/s1600-h/gladrags.gif"></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/RwOdeJ-9D5I/AAAAAAAAAHU/w7QTp35SIqk/s1600-h/moongoddess.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5117106743024619410" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/RwOdeJ-9D5I/AAAAAAAAAHU/w7QTp35SIqk/s320/moongoddess.jpg" border="0" /></a> <span style="font-family:verdana;">Today I am going to write about some products for areas down south of the head and neck. </span><a href="http://emoticonizer.info/"><img src="http://emoticonizer.info/emotionhand/bye3.gif" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Let's get something out of the way first. I'm not sure when it started nor who started it, but a woman's "time of the month" has gotten a bad rap. I will give you that it can definitely be annoying. But the rest of the descriptions it gets "gross", "nasty", "the curse", etc. are largely undeserved, in my opinion.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">A woman's cycle is a completely natural part of being a human. It is what lets our race continue on generation after generation. It is a normal bodily function just as eating, sleeping and using the bathroom. It is the body's way of naturally cleansing itself when a pregnancy does not occur that month. It may not be something that will ever be kosher to speak of at the dinner table with honored guest, but it is definitely not something that should carry the stigma it does. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">And I will tell you this, for the unfortunate women out there who have, for some reason, gone through early menopause - they would probably give up an arm or a leg in order to have it back so that they could have children. </span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">My cycle coming each month is what lets me know that my body is still able to conceive and carry a child. And after having gone through infertility, that is a wonderful thing to me.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">I personally call it my "moon time". This is because in the days before electricity, women's bodies were influenced by the amount of moonlight we saw. Just as sunlight and moonlight affect plants and animals, our hormones were triggered by levels of moonlight. And, all women cycled together. Today, with artificial light everywhere, day and night, our cycles no longer correspond to the moon. Just as the moon controls the tide, it can also control our bodies. </span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Throughout all cultures and time, the magic of creation resided in the blood that women gave forth. This blood was regarded with reverence: it had mysterious magical powers. The blood was shed without pain, which was an experience that was not understood. Early menstrual rites were perhaps the first expression of human culture. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">There are many things that I do not like about disposable pads and tampons. I don't like the waste. Think about how many menstrual cycles a woman will have in her lifetime. If she starts at age twelve and goes through menopause at age 51 (which are the national averages), she will have had roughly 468 menstrual cycles...less if she has children or breastfed. But just going on that average, if she uses 20 disposable pads per cycle, that is 9360 pads in the landfill. Think of how many women are in America alone...can you even <em>imagine?</em> You could fill a huge landfill with pads alone!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Traditional tampons and disposable pads currently on the market are made from cotton, rayon and blends of these fibers. The cotton used in these products has been grown using as many as <em>35 different pesticides, herbicides and fungicides</em>. Then they are manufactured using a chlorine process to whiten or transform the wood fibers to make rayon. </span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Chlorine bleaching produces an unwanted by - product called dioxin - a toxic substance linked to breast cancer, endometriosis, low sperm counts, cancer, birth defects, miscarriages and immune system suppression. </span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">These products are also run through acid baths and caustic sodas during manufacturing to enhance absorbency. Disposable pads and tampons are left un-rinsed of these toxic residues. Deodorizing chemicals are sometimes added. All this is a danger because the vagina is a main entry point into the body. What is absorbed through this skin goes into the blood circulation. </span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Tampons and disposable pads are often a source of vaginal irritation as well, due to the wood and chemicals that together form their extreme absorbent fiber. An additional problem is created by synthetic backing on disposable pads that prevent air from circulating, which can lead to bacterial growth and odors not normally associated with menstruation. <span style="font-size:85%;">From </span><a href="http://www.wisementrading.com/feminine.htm"><span style="font-size:85%;">this site</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;">.</span></span><br /><span style=";font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;" ></span><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/RwOe55-9D8I/AAAAAAAAAHs/knrDZfTsgpI/s1600-h/gladrags.gif"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5117108319277617090" style="float: right; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 264px; height: 214px;" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/RwOe55-9D8I/AAAAAAAAAHs/knrDZfTsgpI/s400/gladrags.gif" border="0" width="264" height="217" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">For women who choose to wear pads, there are several cloth pads on the market. <a href="http://www.gladrags.com/">Glad Rags </a>is probably one of the most popular. They are used the same as disposable pads but instead of throwing them out, you wash them. For those who use cloth diapers, this should not really be much of a stretch. Most women simply keep a container with a lid beside the loo and at the end of their cycle the simply go dump the contents into the washing machine. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/RwObDZ-9D4I/AAAAAAAAAHM/XWbhIlZ9liw/s1600-h/divacup.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5117104084439863170" style="float: left; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px;" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/RwObDZ-9D4I/AAAAAAAAAHM/XWbhIlZ9liw/s400/divacup.jpg" border="0" width="161" height="172" /></a>I personally prefer the re-usable cup. I use the <a href="http://www.divacup.com/">DivaCup</a>. There are many brands on the market but they all work the same way. A menstrual cup is a type of cup worn inside the vagina. Instead of absorbing the blood, like a tampon, it holds the blood. It is them removed, emptied, washed and reinserted. <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/menstrual_cups/473758.html">This </a>site has a comparison of all of the cups currently on the market. I found it to be a big help when choosing which one to use. <a href="http://menstrualcups.org/">This</a> is another site for cup users. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Since we are on the subject of "down South" we may as well discuss other things that can be inserted into the nether regions....condoms. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Most condoms are made of latex or Polyurethane (Plastic), neither of which I relish the thought of being in <em>my</em> yoni. Not only are they made of these synthetic materials, but they usually contain chemicals meant to lubricate or to kill sperm. Again, not something I want in such a personal place. The body does it own job of lubricating and the condom should hold the sperm, killing them in addition is...well...over kill!</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">The only alternative that I have found are sheepskin condoms. They are quite a bit more expensive than the old standby. And they are only good for protection against pregnancy, not against STDs. But for those in relationships where you know you are STD free and are only worried about pregnancy, they seem like a wonderful choice.People seem to prefer them because they "feel more natural." By the way, unlike what the name implies, they are actually made out of lamb intestines, not sheepskin.</span> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075063939533339724.post-2783902421186308592009-10-06T17:03:00.000-04:002010-02-27T15:04:29.373-05:00The Languages of Love...<div><div><div><div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/RwhKup-9D_I/AAAAAAAAAIE/cICmg52KqRw/s1600-h/hands.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5118423141910908914" style="float: left; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px;" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/RwhKup-9D_I/AAAAAAAAAIE/cICmg52KqRw/s400/hands.jpg" border="0" /></a>For those of you who know me, you will probably find it surprising that I am advocating a religious book. You will also probably find it surprising that I am advocating a relationship book written by the "experts". I'm honestly not much on parenting or relationship books. But this book is on to something. I read it years ago and was recently reminded of it while reading an online chat board. I thought I would talk about it here - not to promote the book, but to discuss the ideas mentioned in the book.</span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">The basic premise is that most couples do love each other and that they do want to make the relationship work, but that they often do not know how to show this love in the way that makes their mate feel loved.</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">The book goes on to say that their are primarily five languages of love. In layman's terms, this means that what makes <em>me</em> feel loved may not be what makes <em>you</em> feel loved. And since it is human nature to speak our own "language", we could completely be missing the mark and not even know it.</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">According to the book, the five "languages" are:</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">(1) Words of Affirmation - Simple statements, such as, “You look great in that suit,” or “You must be the best baker in the world! I love your oatmeal cookies,” are sometimes all a person needs to hear to feel loved.</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">(2) Quality Time - This is more than your mate watching TV while you read a book, it is about focusing all of your energy on your mate.</span></div><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">(3) Receiving Gifts - Some mates respond well to visual symbols of love. The single rose picked up on the way home from work all the way to the diamond earrings "just because". Tokens such as this make them feel loved by their partner. </span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">(4) Acts of Service - Sometimes simple chores around the house can be an undeniable expression of love. Even simple things like laundry and taking out the trash require some form of planning, time, effort, and energy.</span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">(5) Physical Touch - Many mates feel the most loved when they receive physical contact from their partner. For a mate who speaks this love language loudly, physical touch can make or break the relationship.</span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/RwhI6Z-9D9I/AAAAAAAAAH0/L2CpzwgxGfQ/s1600-h/love.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5118421144751116242" style="float: right; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px;" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/RwhI6Z-9D9I/AAAAAAAAAH0/L2CpzwgxGfQ/s400/love.jpg" border="0" width="230" height="165" /></a>So here is what the book says, in a nutshell. If you are a person who feels love from physical touch you are probably going to try to <em>show</em> your love via physical touch. It is natural that we would try to show our partner we love them by treating them the way <em>we</em> would want to be treated. But if you are partnered with someone who feels love from acts of service and you are trying to love them from physical touch, instead, they aren't going to feel your love very much. Because you aren't giving them what <em>they</em> need in order to feel love. </span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">So basically we have to find out what our partner needs in order to feel love - and even if it isn't something that we personally understand, we should speak to them in their language. If they need for you to do laundry in order for them to feel that you love them, then do laundry. </span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/RwhLHp-9EBI/AAAAAAAAAIU/WMkKPCAt-4U/s1600-h/wine.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5118423571407638546" style="float: left; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px;" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/RwhLHp-9EBI/AAAAAAAAAIU/WMkKPCAt-4U/s400/wine.jpg" border="0" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/RwhLHp-9EBI/AAAAAAAAAIU/WMkKPCAt-4U/s1600-h/wine.jpg"></a></span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/RwhLHp-9EBI/AAAAAAAAAIU/WMkKPCAt-4U/s1600-h/wine.jpg"></a></span> </p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">On the same token, you have to realize that if you are the "acts of service" person but you are not partnered with an acts of service person, you doing all of the laundry in the world isn't going to make them feel loved - because that isn't their love language. </span></p><br /><br /><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">To see what "language" you speak, there is a simple multiple choice test. Check the one that most applies to how you feel:</span></p><ul><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">I feel especially loved when people express how grateful they are for me, and for the simple, everyday things I do.</span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">I feel especially loved when a person gives me undivided attention and spends time alone with me.</span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">I feel especially loved when someone brings me gifts and other tangible expressions of love.</span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">I feel especially loved when someone pitches in to help me. Perhaps running errands or taking on my household chores.</span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">I feel especially loved expresses their feelings for me through physical contact. </span></div></li></ul><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Most people will be a combination of several of these but one or two will probably stand out above the others. </span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">The book also mentions the "love tank" (got to love these cheesy terms, lol). Basically, every time your partner "speaks" to you in your "language of love", it puts something into your "love tank" (which is being compared to a gas tank). If, for the most part, you are walking around with a pretty full "love tank", chances are that you are going to be more willing to give your partner what <em>he</em> needs as well. If you are walking around with an empty "love tank" you are probably going to be feeling pretty resentful and burnt out...and not very willing to give much of yourself to your partner. </span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Anyway, it's a pretty simple concept, as in it may be taking a complex thing (a relationship) and putting it into too simple of terms. It definitely won't fix relationships with major problems. But for day to day life, I really do think that it is something that we could keep in mind. I think that the simple act of learning what our partner needs and then making the effort to do it could change a lot of relationships for the better.</span></p></div></div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075063939533339724.post-82181047782880732622009-08-25T18:14:00.001-04:002009-08-25T18:16:12.047-04:00Zoe in the Cat Food<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; color: rgb(0, 102, 0);">Well, it happened...Zoe discovered the cat food. :) Putting the catfood over into the water was Ben's favorite activity when he was her age. We have it in the closet now so she never knew where it was....until today. </span><br /><br /></div><object width="320" height="265"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Nif7cX8nr0k&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x234900&color2=0x4e9e00"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Nif7cX8nr0k&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x234900&color2=0x4e9e00" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="320" height="265"></embed></object>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075063939533339724.post-5302212999192280012009-08-15T21:12:00.005-04:002009-08-15T22:15:42.566-04:00Cleaning the natural way...<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">This is a topic I get excited about so I am kind of unsure how to best direct my ideas when it comes to this post. Do I start with the natural products and tell you all of the wonderful things you can do with them? Or do I start with the different places in the home that need cleaning and tell you how to clean them naturally?<br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">In this post I am going to list the most common household cleaning jobs and then I am going to tell you how you can do them with natural cleaners that will not harm your family and will not harm the environment. Not only that, but you will save a ton of money!</span><br /></div><p><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><a href="http://www.mamashealth.com/doc/cleanprod.asp">Here</a> is a link on the dangers of common household cleansers. </span><a href="http://www.sixwise.com/newsletters/05/07/06/the_toxic_dangers_of_typical_laundry_detergent.htm"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Here</span></a><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> and </span><a href="http://www.sixwise.com/newsletters/05/02/08/the_toxic_danger_of_fabric_softener_and_dryer_sheets.htm"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">here</span></a><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> are some links on the dangers of laundry detergent and fabric softener. I have a feeling that this post will be long enough without me trying to list the danger of each thing you are replacing. </span></p><p align="center"><span style=";font-family:Verdana;font-size:180%;" >Laundry</span></p><div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Not only is regular laundry detergent and/or fabric softener toxic but it is expensive!</span><br /><br /></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">There are many recipes for homemade laundry detergent floating around the Internet. There are also several commercial laundry cleaners on the market (for a pretty price!). I think that the success of them depends on the hardness of your water. I will tell you what works for me. I have well water and I do not know the hardness of it.</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">I skipped the recipes where you have to cook things and mix things because as well as wanting to be "natural" and "frugal", I want things to be simple.</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">We use three things: Plain Ivory Soap, Baking Soda and White Vinegar</span><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=FFFFFF&IS2=1&npa=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=bactobasbyliv-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&m=amazon&f=ifr&asins=B001G8WJ68" style="width: 120px; height: 240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=FFFFFF&IS2=1&npa=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=bactobasbyliv-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&m=amazon&f=ifr&asins=B001TCBELC" style="width: 120px; height: 240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=FFFFFF&IS2=1&npa=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=bactobasbyliv-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&m=amazon&f=ifr&asins=B000JCK91O" style="width: 120px; height: 240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe></span></div></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">We put the clothes in the washing machine, take the bar of Ivory soap and a metal cheese grater and grate a few swipes over the clothing. Dump in a scoop of baking soda and fill the fabric softener compartment with the vinegar. The soap is basically the same as the old time Ivory Soap Flakes that your grandmother used to wash with and the vinegar acts as a fabric softener - without leaving a smell.</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">This works on my husband's smelly work clothes, it works on the baby's smelly cloth diapers...I have never had a problem.</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">For stains I use a bar of old fashioned castile soap and an old toothbrush. Then I hang the clothes out in the sun (the sun bleaches clothing as well as bleach).<br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=FFFFFF&IS2=1&npa=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=bactobasbyliv-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&m=amazon&f=ifr&asins=B001ET77OI" style="width: 120px; height: 240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe></span><br /></div></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><br /><div align="center"><span style=";font-family:Verdana;font-size:180%;" >Bathroom<br /><br /></span></div><div align="center"></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Again, vinegar and baking soda do the job. </span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">For the toilet, I take a large container of water and pour it into the bowl. I'm not sure why, but this forces all of the water in the toilet to go down but it doesn't refill like it would if you simply flushed it. The toilet being empty of water makes it easier to clean. Then I dump in a few scoops of baking soda and a few glugs of vinegar (which makes a neat foaming volcano that my kids loves, lol) and I let it sit. After a while I scrub it with the toilet brush. I take a cleaning cloth and a spray bottle with a mixture of vinegar and water to clean the seat and outside of the toilet. If I have build up that won't come off with baking soda and vinegar, I use a Pumie Stone.<br /><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">For the mirror, again I use the vinegar and water in the spray bottle. We don't use paper towels in our home so I use a squeegee. You can also use wadded up newspaper rather than paper towel.<br /><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=FFFFFF&IS2=1&npa=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=bactobasbyliv-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&m=amazon&f=ifr&asins=B000NZKHKU" style="width: 120px; height: 240px; font-family: verdana;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=FFFFFF&IS2=1&npa=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=bactobasbyliv-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&m=amazon&f=ifr&asins=B0000DAPGS" style="width: 120px; height: 240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:verdana;">Depending on how dirty your sink and tub are you can either use vinegar/water and a cloth, baking soda and vinegar scrub or the Pumie. I have also read that Bar Keepers Friend is pretty Earth friendly.</span><br /></div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=FFFFFF&IS2=1&npa=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=bactobasbyliv-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&m=amazon&f=ifr&asins=B000V72992" style="width: 120px; height: 240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe><br /><br /></span><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">For the germ-a-phobes out there, you should know that white vinegar kills bacteria, mold, and germs. Heinz company spokesperson, Michael Mullen references numerous studies to show that a straight 5 percent solution of vinegar—such as you can buy in the supermarket—kills 99 percent of bacteria, 82 percent of mold, and 80 percent of germs (viruses).</span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">He noted that Heinz can't claim on their packaging that vinegar is a disinfectant since the company has not registered it as a pesticide with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). However, it seems to be common knowledge in the industry that vinegar is powerfully antibacterial.<br /></span></div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><br /><div align="center"><span style=";font-family:Verdana;font-size:180%;" >Kitchen</span><br /></div><div align="justify"></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Studies have shown that when you use a newer model, energy efficient dishwasher, it actually takes less water and less energy than washing them by hand. If you have a dishwasher, my friends have had wonderful luck with Bio-Kleen.<br /><br /></span></div><span style="font-family:verdana;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/RvFypVr7liI/AAAAAAAAAEU/cwApllBlwRw/s1600-h/dishes.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5111993106563831330" style="margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; float: left;" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/RvFypVr7liI/AAAAAAAAAEU/cwApllBlwRw/s400/dishes.bmp" border="0" /></a></span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">My dishwasher went to the dishwasher place in the sky so I hand wash. I either use a Dr. Bronner's liquid soap or Seventh Generation Dish Washing Liquid. The Dr. Bronner's is amazing. You can wash your dishes with it, dilute it and use it as a fruit and vegetable wash, mop your floors with it, bathe with it, wash your hair with it, wash clothes with it...the list is endless. It costs more than other liquid soaps but it is very concentrated so one bottle lasts me almost a year. However I don't do laundry with it, as that would make it disappear a lot faster.The only drawback to the Dr. Bronner's is that it does not suds in the way that most dish soaps do. If you need suds to feel like your dishes are getting clean, better to use the Seventh Generation.<br /><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=FFFFFF&IS2=1&npa=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=bactobasbyliv-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&m=amazon&f=ifr&asins=B00013YX5E" style="width: 120px; height: 240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=FFFFFF&IS2=1&npa=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=bactobasbyliv-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&m=amazon&f=ifr&asins=B000RAFNPK" style="width: 120px; height: 240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=FFFFFF&IS2=1&npa=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=bactobasbyliv-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&m=amazon&f=ifr&asins=B0016LPGAG" style="width: 120px; height: 240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe><br /></span><p><span style="font-family:Verdana;">For cleaning the counter top I use vinegar and water. For cleaning the stove top (when it is all gunky and crusty from food), I use baking soda and vinegar. I let it sit and it just wipes off with very little to no scrubbing. </span></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">To mop my floors I use a wet dish cloth and a little leg action...or I let my kids slide around on the floor that was wet with a little wet soapy water (they LOVE this!). But I also recommend the Clorox Ready Mop. I don't like the fact that it is made of plastic but it IS convenient. Unlike the Swiffer Wet Jet (which is what I used to use) the Ready Mop doesn't require batteries (we use rechargeable but still, I prefer not to use them at all). The Ready Mop has a refillable bottle and you can use dish cloths for the pads instead of having to buy the ones especially designed to be used with it. The Swiffer Mop has Velcro attachments which makes it hard to use anything other than what they sell to go with it. The Ready Mop has a "catch" system where you stuff the corner of the cloth into the "grips" and it is held on that way. Since the bottle is refillable, you can fill it with the cleaner of your choice...vinegar, Dr. Bronners or I have even heard that Murphy's Oil Soap is pretty "green".</span><br /></div><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=FFFFFF&IS2=1&npa=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=bactobasbyliv-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&m=amazon&f=ifr&asins=B001HA4MME" style="width: 120px; height: 240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=FFFFFF&IS2=1&npa=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=bactobasbyliv-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&m=amazon&f=ifr&asins=B00005UVD7" style="width: 120px; height: 240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><br /></span></p><p align="center"><span style=";font-family:Verdana;font-size:180%;" >Living room/Bedrooms</span></p><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">We have removed the carpet from every room in the house. We feel that carpet has <a href="http://216.194.201.160/cehn/education/toxicchemicals.html">toxic chemicals </a>on it and that it is <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/10/001005075332.htm">impossible to actually keep clean</a>. It can harbor all kinds of mold and allergens. </span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">So to clean the living room and bedrooms, not much is left other than dusting. To dust wood I usually just use a real feather duster. When it needs a good polish I use lemon essential oil mixed with a little carrier oil (which is whatever other oil I have handy). I have ready that Murphy's Oil Soap isn't all that bad when it comes to toxicity, but if I can make my own I prefer to do so as it saves money.</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">I have also heard that salt and a fresh lemon can do wonders around the house. But I use Real Salt and it could get expensive to use as a cleaner (as could fresh lemons.) </span></div><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=FFFFFF&IS2=1&npa=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=bactobasbyliv-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&m=amazon&f=ifr&asins=B000BD0SDU" style="width: 120px; height: 240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">So as you can see, it doesn't have to be complicated or expensive to clean your home the green way, with green and natural cleaning products. </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075063939533339724.post-42501217380229091772009-08-05T17:00:00.002-04:002009-08-05T18:18:59.292-04:00Why I try to avoid plastic...<div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">My reasons to avoid plastic: </span><br /></div><ul><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">We are trying not to lead a disposable life </span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Plastic isn't very “classy” - my opinion only </span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">The feel of plastic is usually “cheap” </span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Less plastic = less petroleum usage = less dependence on the middle east </span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Plastic contains carcinogens</span></div></li></ul><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Now, most of my friends will tell you (and I would tend to agree with them) that I have probably gone a bit overboard on the "no plastic" thing. So sue me, finding different ways to do things is a challenge and it is one I enjoy. It gives me something to do. </span></div><div align="justify"><br /></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">It is amazing the things you never think about until you have a reason to. I never realized how much the presence of plastic has completely inundated our lives and surroundings. It is pretty much impossible to go completely "plastic free". The keyboard I am typing on is made of plastic, my telephone is plastic, the list goes on and on. Even when I try to be conscientious and research what I am buying - the plastic sneaks up on me. Just the other day I purchased a bottle of olive oil. It was in a glass bottle with a metal lid...I thought I was doing well. I got it home and opened it to find a plastic pouring spout hiding under the metal lid.</span></div><div align="justify"><br /></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Not that I think that the plastic pouring spout (not that <em>alone, </em>anyway) is going to give me cancer or destroy our planet, it is just that it proves the point that you cannot get away from plastic in today's society. </span></div><div align="justify"><br /></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Several research studies have found that when plastic comes in contact with certain foods, molecules of the chemicals in the plastic can leach into the food or beverage. </span></div><div align="justify"><br /></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Certain characteristics of the food item can make it more likely pick up plastic molecules:</span></div><ul><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">The more liquid a food is, the more it touches the plastic, so the more opportunity it has to pick up plastic molecules. </span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Acid foods, such as tomato sauce, appear to be particularly interactive with plastic. </span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">If you heat a food item in a plastic container—even if the container is microwave safe—the transference of plastic from the container to the food is even more likely. </span></div></li></ul><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">When molecules of plastic—or more properly, molecules of the chemicals that get added to plastics during manufacturing—get into our bodies, it's not a good thing. They can cause unwanted effects in the human body.<span style="font-size:78%;">(from </span><span style="font-size:78%;"><a href="http://www.megnut.com/">http://www.megnut.com/</a>)</span></span><br /></div><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">So what is a foodie like myself to do?</span></p><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">I started by purging my kitchen of plastic. I got rid of it all...right down to the very last storage bowl, utensil or measuring cup. I found that as I (slowly) replaced these items with (better quality, no doubt) glass or stainless steel counterparts, I actually felt better about cooking! It was more aesthetically pleasing to flip my pancakes with a stainless steel turner than with a flimsy nylon turner.</span></div><div align="justify"><br /></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">For food storage I initially compromised a bit. I purchased glass storage bowls that had plastic lids. I made sure to never put the food high enough so that it would touch the food so as to avoid leaching.<br /><br /><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=FFFFFF&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=bactobasbyliv-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&m=amazon&f=ifr&asins=B00005B8K5" style="width: 120px; height: 240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe><br /><br />Then one day it dawned on me, (I sometimes have these "light bulb" moments, it's actually quite humorous) why not use glass canning jars!?<br /><br /><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=FFFFFF&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=bactobasbyliv-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&m=amazon&f=ifr&asins=B000SMYZ1U" style="width: 120px; height: 240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe><br /><br />And to take that one step further, instead of recycling the glass jars that some of our food comes in (peanut butter, pesto (which I should be making homemade but can't get my basil to grow enough so that I can), salsa (which again, I should be making homemade but I can't seem to get it to taste right!) why not use THEM as well! </span><br /><br /></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Some of these jars are actually quite attractive and some are actually intended just for this purpose (the Pesto I buy come in an actual Kerr canning jar). </span></div><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Another idea is to just leave it in the pot you cooked it in, put the lid on and store it in the fridge that way. One less thing to wash! (It probably comes at no surprise that I'm a bit anal about what type of cookware I use as well...we will save that for another post).</span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Just an interesting FYI...Have you ever noticed the little numbers on the bottom of plastic bottles and other plastics? Those tell you what the plastic is made of and also indicates where it can be recycled (some facilities only take certain numbers of plastics).</span></p><p align="center"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);font-size:130%;" >Safer (not <em>safe</em> but saf<em>er</em>) plastics are:</span></strong></span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">#1 polyethylene terephthalate (PET or PETE)</span> - usually for soft drinks, water bottles, ketchup and salad dressing, peanut butter, pickle, jelly and jam jars </span></p><span style="font-family:verdana;"><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">#2 high density polyethylene (HDPE)</span> - used mostly for milk, water and juice bottles, yogurt and margarine tubs, cereal box liners, and grocery, trash and retail bags </span></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"></div><span style="font-family:verdana;"><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"></span></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">#4 low density polyethylene (LDPE)</span> - bread and frozen food bags and squeezable bottles </span></div><span style="font-family:verdana;"><div align="justify"><br /></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">#5 polypropylene (PP)</span> - margarine tubs </span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><p align="center"><span style="font-size:180%;"><strong><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/RuWvVZzJTpI/AAAAAAAAAA0/1vYzw0FCZOU/s1600-h/poison.jpg"></a></span></strong></span></p><div align="center"><strong>Plastics to avoid include:</strong> </div><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /><br /></span><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"><br />#3 polyvinyl chloride (V or PVC) </span>- 2nd most commonly used plastic in the world. Many toys are PVC too and kids put everything in their mouths so watch out for those! </span></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"><br /></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">#6 polystyrene (PS)</span> - foam & Styrofoam </span></div><span style="font-family:verdana;"><div align="justify"><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">#7 other (usually polycarbonate)</span> - many drinking cups are made of this, baby bottles, big water jugs, kid's sippie cups <span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">(more on this issue later)</span></span> </div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></span></span></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075063939533339724.post-24176576653709922832009-08-05T11:48:00.004-04:002009-08-05T16:41:48.302-04:00Book Rentals?<div style="text-align: center; color: rgb(0, 102, 0);"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;">Book rentals...what a novel concept! I love reading and I love for my children to read. But I don't always have the </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;" >time</span><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;"> to get to the library and I rarely have the </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;" >money</span><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;"> to get to the book store. This site solves both problems. It is like your own personal library. You "rent" the books, which are sent to your home, and then mail them back when you are finished...no due dates...no late fees!</span></div><br /><a href="http://www.mb01.com/lnk.asp?o=2355&c=33929&a=45167"><IMG SRC="http://www.mb01.com/getimage.asp?m=753&o=2355&i=33929.dat" width=300 height=250 border=0></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075063939533339724.post-91270952900155762212009-08-05T11:30:00.003-04:002009-08-05T11:47:33.675-04:00Zoe is ONE!!!<div style="text-align: center; color: rgb(0, 102, 0);"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Happy Birthday baby girl...I can't believe it has been a year!</span></div><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/SnmnluPYKgI/AAAAAAAAA6c/RkVBuZgv9K4/s1600-h/zoebirthday+059.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/SnmnluPYKgI/AAAAAAAAA6c/RkVBuZgv9K4/s400/zoebirthday+059.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366504697498184194" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/SnmpRXP57kI/AAAAAAAAA6k/KK9FXUQaQM8/s1600-h/zoebirthday+060.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/SnmpRXP57kI/AAAAAAAAA6k/KK9FXUQaQM8/s400/zoebirthday+060.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366506546752253506" border="0" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075063939533339724.post-62626633062377699002009-08-04T10:50:00.001-04:002009-08-04T11:00:29.869-04:00Toys...what to do?<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/Rv0Vzp-9D1I/AAAAAAAAAG0/P0SU6VcJmok/s1600-h/peekoutlaugh110203.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115268728950165330" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center;" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/Rv0Vzp-9D1I/AAAAAAAAAG0/P0SU6VcJmok/s400/peekoutlaugh110203.JPG" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:verdana;">Toys for my children is an issue that I have long struggled with. When my first child was born, I was clueless. I was mainstream and thought that cheap, China made, plastic Wal-Mart toys were just the thing that one bought for their babies.</span> <div><br /><div></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Somewhere during my son's first year I discovered the "natural movement" and rid our house of 98% of the plastic toys (there was still some plastic, the wheels on the wooden trains, etc.). I read about the dangers of plastic toys. Treehugger.com says that "PVC (aka polyvinyl chloride) seems to be everywhere we look. Some beach toys, teethers, dolls, and even (gasp!) rubber duckies are cheaply manufactured with the environmentally dubious material. A dioxin-producing powerhouse, PVC releases toxins into the environment all the way through its lifecycle from manufacturing to disposal. Many PVC toys also contain phthalates, chemical compounds that make the PVC plastic more flexible, which initial studies have linked to both cancer and hormonal disruption."</span></div><div></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">So then I went a little crazy with the wooden toys (gasp! ME, go crazy with something? Never!) They were just beginning to become popular so they were even found in places like the Dollar Store and Wal-Mart. </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">My house again became over populated with toys, albeit <em>wooden</em> toys. My children and I were slowly becoming overwhelmed with <em>stuff</em> but it was hard to stop when I was finding very expensive toys for less than a dollar at thrift stores. </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">I started weeding out the flimsy, cheap wooden toys but we still had a lot of toys.</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Then came the toy recalls. I feel like I should preface that sentence with some classical piano music to make it sound more dramatic....Don Don Don Daaaaa. It finally dawned on me that just because a toys is made of wood, that does not make it any better than a cheap plastic toy. You need to know what kind of wood is is made of, where it was made, how it was made, what kind of paint is on it, etc. </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;">I also began to realize the importance of "non toys". My children still have a lot of toys, despite my endless pruning. But the things they seem to enjoy the most have nothing to do with actual toys. </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">When children play with natural toys their imaginations are being awakened. They are using simple materials, that are readily available, to create their own world. A stick can be a sword, a magic wand, a mixing spoon for a cauldron...the possibilities are endless. They are not limited by the design of an executive who designed a one dimensional product simply to make a profit. </span></div><div></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Beside that, when I buy toys for my children I think about the "play value" of the toy. I don't want a toy that is going to do all of the work for my child. I think such toys dull the imagination. Why buy a farm set where the cow moos for your child at the push of a button? Why not buy a basic set where you child can moo for the cow...or if she wants her cow to bark, it can bark. Or even better, why not let her use materials found in nature...that interesting piece of wood can be a cow one day and be carrots for her pot of "soup" the next. Does your baby<em> really</em> need to be surrounded by loud, flashing, blinking, beeping toys? What does this do to the developing brain? To the developing imagination? </span></div><span style="font-family:verdana;"><div align="center"><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Photo of my son making soup in his toy drum</span></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115233733556637458" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center;" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/Rvz1-p-9DxI/AAAAAAAAAGU/oUtiO1a8MYg/s400/cooking073103.JPG" border="0" /></span><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Another thing that I do to encourage my child's imagination is to give my son dolls and my daughter tractors (as well as the other way around). I don't limit my children's play based on backwards (in my opinion) stereotypes.</span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">It is hard and often frustrating to be so diligent in today's world. My children do not watch a lot of tv, yet they are still bombarded with the American idea of "You NEED this product to make your life better, to make <span style="font-style: italic;">you</span> better". My son already knows that if he sees it advertised on television that there is a huge chance that he isn't getting it.<br /><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">So this has been a wake up call for me. I am again purging toys, even the wooden ones. Any toy that comes into my house now has to go through my mental checklist. I try to buy natural wood toys, toys without paint. I also check to see where it is made. If it was made in the US or Europe I allow it. Things seem to be of better quality from these places.<br /><br /><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS1=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=bactobasbyliv-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&m=amazon&f=ifr&asins=B0002HYCKA" style="width:120px;height:240px;" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder="0"></iframe><br /><br />One need not go to the boutique toy shop on Main Street in order to purchase good quality toys. In addition to using what is found in nature, I have found most of our toys at the local thrift stores or re-sell shops. I have also traded for toys on online parenting boards.<br /></span></div></div><br /><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=bactobasbyliv-20&o=1&p=13&l=ur1&category=toysandgames&banner=091DNYMZVS7SNWRS6FG2&f=ifr" border="0" marginwidth="0" style="border: medium none ;" width="468" frameborder="0" height="60" scrolling="no"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075063939533339724.post-61963941725806511222009-08-03T10:36:00.004-04:002009-08-04T10:33:18.248-04:00Cloth Diapers...<div align="center"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/Rv0Jep-9D0I/AAAAAAAAAGs/51Ojup-ZO2o/s1600-h/funeral0606fifeen.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115255174033379138" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center;" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/Rv0Jep-9D0I/AAAAAAAAAGs/51Ojup-ZO2o/s400/funeral0606fifeen.jpg" border="0" /></a> <span style="font-size:85%;">My daughter Natalie, in a prefold</span></div><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Cloth diapers are not what they used to be. I found that they were really no more trouble than disposable. There were a few extra steps involved but it wasn't the tedious chore that some make it out to be. For those interested in trying them out, here is an overview.</span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></div><span style="font-family:verdana;">There are four basic types of cloth diapers.<br /><br />There are prefolds, which are just the flat, "old-time" diapers (not to be confused with "flats" which you have to fold a few times in order to create the thickness).<br /><br /><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=bactobasbyliv-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B00081GLNQ&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="width: 120px; height: 240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe><br /><br />You either pin them or use a plastic Snappi to hold it on. Or, some diaper covers are made so that they will hold the diaper in place without having to use a separate pinning mechanism. In the summer, my babies just wear a pre-fold without a cover.<br /><br /><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=bactobasbyliv-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B000TZZOIO&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="width: 120px; height: 240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe><br /><br />The pros are that they are cheaper and a lot less trouble to maintain. You don't have to worry about stuffing them (like with the pocket diapers). You can just wash them, dry them and throw them in a pile until you need them.</span><br /><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">The cons are that they can be bulky (although if you are having a girl it isn't as much of an issue because she can wear dresses and you don't have to worry about fitting pants over them).<br /><br />Then there are fitted diapers, which are like disposable diapers in their shape and in the way you put them on. They have elastic around the legs and either close with Velcro or snaps. You have to use a cover with these as well.<br /><br /><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=bactobasbyliv-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B000V8BZCS&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="width: 120px; height: 240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe><br /><br />The Pros are that you don't have to worry about pinning them and you just put them on like a disposable. </span></div><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /><div align="justify">The cons are that they are more expensive, you still have to use a cover and they can take a long time to dry. They do come with inserts though. The inserts looks like cloth maxi pads and you snap them to the inside. This is nice if you have a heavy wetter. Some of the extra padding already sewn into them and that is what makes them take forever to dry. </div><br /><div align="center"></div><br /><br /><div align="center"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5114163247317847810" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; width: 241px; height: 285px; text-align: center;" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/RvkoYJ-9DwI/AAAAAAAAAGM/7yvRu_1ExIk/s400/bensit.JPG" border="0" width="174" height="285" /><span style="font-size:85%;">AIO Diaper on my son</span><br /><br /></div><div align="justify">Next are the all-in-one diapers(AIO's). These look like the fitted diapers and have elastic around the legs and also close with either Velcro or snaps. The only difference is that you don't have to use a cover. They have a layer of waterproof PUL already sewn over them or as a layer inside of them.<br /><br /><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=bactobasbyliv-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B000H8CPUI&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="width: 120px; height: 240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe><br /><br />The pros are that these are probably the most convenient as you literally use them just like disposables. You don't have to worry about stuffing them (as with the pocket diapers), you don't have to worry about a cover, you don't have to worry about pinning. </div><div align="justify"><br />The cons are that they can be bulky and that if you have a heavy wetter they can leak. They are also pretty expensive. Depending upon how many layers are sewn into the diaper, they can take a long time to dry.<br /><br />Last are the Pocket Diapers. They are "All-in-ones" in that they have the waterproof cover already sewn on. The difference is that you stuff these with 'inserts' (which can be anything from a pre-made insert to a folded up flat diaper).<br /><br /><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=bactobasbyliv-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B00213FT3C&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="width: 120px; height: 240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe><br /><br />The pros are that you can stuff them with as little or as much "stuffing" as your child needs (or as the situation calls for, stuff it heavier for long car rides, lighter for around the house). They also, for some reason, tend to be more trim and not as bulky as some of the others. </div><div align="justify"><br /></div><div align="justify">The cons are that you have to take the stuffing out before you put them into the hamper and then after you wash them, you have to stuff all of the inserts back in them.<br /><br />The Pocket Diapers were my favorite with my now four year old. But I got so that I literally dreaded getting them out of the dryer and having to stuff them all. That's why I switched to the pre-folds....they were so much easier. I am also concerned with using synthetic fabrics...I much prefer natural fibers. With Zoe I use unbleached prefolds with wool covers. </div><br /><div align="justify"></div>I also had times when I used the cloth at home and disposables at night and when we went out. Every little bit helps with finances and with the environment. It doesn't have to be "all or none".<br /><br />Within the four basic style of diapers you will find different features and different materials. It can get pretty overwhelming. You just have to break it down in your mind. Categorize it into one of the categories and then go from there.<br /><br /><div align="justify">One of the variations is that some of the fitted diapers and AIO diapers are what they call "one size". These are made with tons of snaps so that you are supposed to be able to fold them down and snap them so that they will fit a newborn and then unsnap them as the kid gets bigger and use them all the way up to toddler years. I've never had much use for these as I never could get a good fit with them.<br /><br />With all types, you will find a few "store made" brands and then tons of WAHM (work-at-home-mom) brands.<br /><br />Then there are the covers. That opens a whole new Pandora's Box. The basic two, though, are wool versus synthetic waterproof materials.<br /><br />I much prefer wool. Wool can store moisture up to 35 per cent of its own dry weight yet it remains dry to touch and speeds up the body's own cooling system. Wool is breathable, it doesn't hold in the heat like plastics would. It allows for the circulation of air. This helps to prevent diaper rash. Wool contains natural lanolin which creates a natural waterproof barrier. Wool is also an anti-bacterial. It does not have to be washed between every diaper change. Once every few weeks should be sufficient. Just let dry between uses.<br /><br /><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=bactobasbyliv-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B000TXPW38&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="width: 120px; height: 240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe><br /><br />You could also use a cover made with PUL. Some people find these to be less intimidating than wool...although, once you get the hang of wool, it really is quite simple.<br /><br /><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=bactobasbyliv-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B001TUYHHC&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="width:120px;height:240px;" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder="0"></iframe><br /><br />There are many places online where you can buy and/or trade for new and used cloth diapers. Unfortunately, ebay has prohibited the selling of used cloth diapers at this time. There is a petition circulating to try to get this rule amended but in the meantime you will have to look elsewhere. Some of the sites where I have found mine are <a href="http://www.diaperswappers.com/">http://www.diaperswappers.com/</a> and <a href="http://www.mothering.com/">http://www.mothering.com/</a> as well as <a href="http://www.amitymama.com/">http://www.amitymama.com/</a>. You can also do a google search on the type of diaper you are looking for and find tons of sites.</div></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075063939533339724.post-61990108505556771412009-08-01T18:26:00.014-04:002009-08-03T12:44:23.960-04:00Native American Festival<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/SnTDHLzUIII/AAAAAAAAA50/gxeHcpm3NG0/s1600-h/indianpainting+035.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/SnTDHLzUIII/AAAAAAAAA50/gxeHcpm3NG0/s400/indianpainting+035.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5365127584299622530" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center; color: rgb(0, 102, 0);"><span style="font-family:verdana;">We went to a Native American festival at Red Clay today. We went a few years ago when Ben was little and were pretty disappointed. We bought an Indian head dress and when we got to the car we saw a tag on it that said "made in China". We have been going to classes at Red Clay during the week recently and I mentioned our disappointment to the ranger who was teaching our class. She said that the whole festival had been revamped and that now only Native Americans were allowed to be vendors and that they were only allowed to sell thing that were actually hand made. So we went today and were very pleased. Ben bought a much coveted blow gun. These are made from hollowed out river reed and they are what the Natives used to hunt. The kids got to practice with one at their class and when Ben found out that there is a tournament every year at the festival...well, I'm sure you can figure out the rest of the story! He is waiting until next year to actually be in the tournament as he feels that he needs more practice than just a day's worth.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/SnTOVIoLCvI/AAAAAAAAA58/7CXdD-cjvZo/s1600-h/indianpainting+038.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/SnTOVIoLCvI/AAAAAAAAA58/7CXdD-cjvZo/s400/indianpainting+038.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5365139918593657586" border="0" /></a><br />Natalie wanted her face painted at one of the booths but it was hot and she was sweaty and I knew that it would get smudged within minutes so we told her that we would paint her face when we got home. It looked so much fun that the entire family got into it and we all ended up with war paint.<br /><br /></span></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/SnTUC_fbX3I/AAAAAAAAA6M/TM8mxfJLNRY/s1600-h/indianpainting+045.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/SnTUC_fbX3I/AAAAAAAAA6M/TM8mxfJLNRY/s400/indianpainting+045.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5365146203973181298" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/SnTQV4R5XcI/AAAAAAAAA6E/_Oek-5mtXHs/s1600-h/indianpainting+041.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/SnTQV4R5XcI/AAAAAAAAA6E/_Oek-5mtXHs/s400/indianpainting+041.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5365142130408381890" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/SnTYewnVkwI/AAAAAAAAA6U/EBU3AiIKTqg/s1600-h/indianpainting+051.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 360px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_dGuXAxSyzss/SnTYewnVkwI/AAAAAAAAA6U/EBU3AiIKTqg/s400/indianpainting+051.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5365151079062672130" border="0" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075063939533339724.post-7512658828286438442009-07-31T13:02:00.001-04:002009-07-31T13:06:35.028-04:00<div style="text-align: center; color: rgb(0, 102, 0);"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Ben wasn't as enthusiastic about his "interview" for the first day of school. :)<br /></span></div><br /><object width="340" height="285"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/N2bclGk-poU&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x234900&color2=0x4e9e00&border=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/N2bclGk-poU&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x234900&color2=0x4e9e00&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="340" height="285"></embed></object>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2075063939533339724.post-73196592111069257542009-07-31T11:49:00.003-04:002009-07-31T11:57:17.811-04:00Natalie<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; color: rgb(0, 102, 0);">For some reason Natalie thought that she needed to have a pony tail for her first day of school. She insisted that I put it in the night before...and of course, it got rumbled during the night. First thing when she woke up, she pulled out the hair band and asked me to fix her "pony" back nice. </span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></div><br /><object width="340" height="285"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/XuBRJMtXn0A&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x234900&color2=0x4e9e00&border=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/XuBRJMtXn0A&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x234900&color2=0x4e9e00&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="340" height="285"></embed></object><br /><br /><object width="340" height="285"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Us9oPk43kjU&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x234900&color2=0x4e9e00&border=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Us9oPk43kjU&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x234900&color2=0x4e9e00&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="340" height="285"></embed></object>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0