Stow High In Transit

I received an email the other day about a very well-known four-letter word, that is actually an acronym.  I read the email, gave it a raised eyebrow-shrug-hmmm and deleted it and moved on.  But ever since, I've been thinking about it.  Yep, I've been thinking about S.H.I.T.

A little history lesson first:  A zillion years ago when manure used to be transported by ship, it would be dried out and packed so it was nice and light.  Well, naturally once the sturdy wooden ship hit the roiling seas, the manure would inevitably get wet, causing all kinds of bloaty, smelly, even explosive problems.  So, those smarty sailors started posting signs that said Stow High In Transit... as in keep it off the floor of the boat.  Voila, the creation of shit.  I mean S.H.I.T.  Is it a true story?  Like it matters.  It works for me, and its about to work for you, too.

So, speaking of all things poo...

If you have a pet, I'm sure you've seen all the lovely organic products you can bestow on them.  Natural cat litter for your kitty's delicate pee-pee, 'natural' dog food (good luck with that one, I can't even feed my kid organic cereal), I even pondered the possibility of organic cardboard for my daughter's guinea pig. 

I've tried a couple of these products, but always seem to revert back to good old Purina.  Yes, animal lovers, I know.  Shut up.

A couple years ago I got a great deal on this cat litter made from corn by-products.  It advertised no dust to choke you and your poor kitty, biodegradable, no scent to irritate, yada yada.  I had a wicked coupon, so it was a done deal.  Took my 2 bags of natural kitty litter home, feeling all like such a good pet owner and all self-satisfied with my organicalism.  I get this stuff home and fill the litter box with it, and almost barf my guts out at how bad this stuff smells.  And this is BEFORE there was any poo in it!  Fresh out of the bag and this stuff was already wretched.  It was definitely a source of contention with the other members of my household until it was gone.  So I guess I'm scarred for life, cause I haven't tried 'natural' litter since. 

Moving on.

I love my dog.  She's a 10 year old boxer named Stella, she has a big weird bumpy lumpy thing on her butt cheek, she has the worst breath in the world, and some of her bottom teeth stick out over her lip.  She's got a great smile!  I think she may be at least half goat, cause she'll eat anything (except natural dog food).  She'll eat pretty much everything else. Come to think of it, I think boxers are probably descended from goats and deer.  Any boxer-parent knows what I'm talking about.  Anyway, she's gorgeous and she is the best dog ever ever in the world and that's not just cause she's mine.  If you met her you'd like her better than your dog too. 

See what I mean?  Don't be jealous, and no you can't have her.

Except for this one little problem...well, ok there's many.  But here are two of the most relevant: 

1. She's really bad for my indoor air quality.  Her gas...oh God.  Is this due to the un-organic food I give her?  Am I ruining her poor little body cause I'm too cheap to let Paul Newman feed her?  I've tried the natural stuff on her...not even close.  Boxers have very expressive faces. One look from Stella and it's all over...you know exactly what she's thinking and it is clearly that there is no way she was going to eat that particular food.  Good intentions aside, I'm not going to spend a lot of money on dog food that my dog won't eat.  Simple.  End of story.

2. Stella thinks that the cat's litter box is her own personal cookie jar.  Time for a litter fritter, Stella?  This certainly doesn't help with the breath situation.  What's a dogmom to do?  I mean, I feed the cats (very) un-organic food, and I use that dusty, perfumey, cruddy litter!  If it's good enough for my dog to sneak off, tiptoe (yes, she tiptoes!) over to the laundry room to quietly rummage through the box for her little morsel of goodness, and risk getting in trouble cause you KNOW mama's got ears like a hawk...the cat food must be pretty darn good.

So, it comes around again - am I damaging my pets by not feeding them organic and letting them pee on recycled newspaper or vegetable by-products?  I don't know.  I mean, I hope not.  But the stuff is expensive, and you know how it is when you change your pet's food...there's no guarantee they're going to eat it.  My BFF tried to feed her cats this fancy food with mini-shrimp and gravy and stuff...they tried to bury it like it was a turd.  Lucky for my friend she got it for free and wasn't out any money.

I've heard people say some natural or safe cat litters are great, and I'm sure they are.  For those people.  I've heard of people who feed their dogs all 'real food' like raw meat and rice and whatnot.  That is some dedicated dog-parenting, I tell ya.  Good for them, huh?!  But I'm not gonna do it.  Maybe one of these days I will find another coupon and get one of those healthier pet products for cheap, we'll all love it, Stella will even love it a second time around, and me and my zoo will live happily ever after.  But for now - or until I win the lottery and hire my pets a personal chef and maid - I will have to stick with what I can afford and what doesn't offend my senses any more than necessary.

Sorry, pets....I do love you!!  Now come here and let me squeeze the S.H.I.T. out of you!!

Post Script:  I just realized that there is something eco-friendly I do for my dog.  I wash her in Basic H2!!  You know, Shaklee's organic cleaning concentrate that cleans everything you could ever imagine, including your pets.  Yay, I'm a good dogmom after all!!

Open Mouth, Insert Plastic

Some time ago...at least a couple years now...I heard that microwaving food in plastic containers could cause cancer.  I don't even remember where I heard it or read it, but whatever it was was enough for me.  I immediately stopped heating food in the microwave on or in plastic.  Now of course, we know so much more about the whole plastic issue, different types of plastic, leaching, BPA, and all that.  Yes, some of it may be potentially safe to microwave, and yes, there's some controversy about water bottles in cars causing breast cancer and stuff, but better to be safe than sorry, I say!

Thinking about all this new information, I am amazed that my kids don't at least have a fine coating of plastic on them from all the crap they've probably ingested.  My son at least, since he's been around longer...the poor kid used to drink out of BPA-full Avent baby bottles that I put directly in the microwave to warm up the water for his (non-organic!) formula *gasp!*.  I think about it all the time and feel guilty that I didn't know then what I know now, and I often wonder if any of those old life-style habits had any impact on him.  Like, when he throws a temper tantrum I get these crazy ideas that its because his Hamburger Helper (yuck!) was microwaved on a Star Wars plate back in the day, or when he completely covered his face with my nasty MAC lipstick that he absorbed the chemicals and it addled his brain.  No, I know it didn't, but as a mom I can't help but to feel guilty and wonder.

Lucky for her, the beebs is a bit of a lower-risk kid.  I nursed her till she was 14 months, and by the time she started eating regular food I think I had probably done away with most of the plastic.  I hope.  But then I start thinking about how I gorged myself on Hostess cupcakes while I was pregnant with her, and it starts all over again....

Well THAT'S a whole other blog.  Stay with me here...

I always grocery shop with one of my BFFs.  We pick out the healthiest options all over the store, pass our knowledge of ingredients back and forth, and know that if one of us is buying a particular brand that the label has been read and it is a safe choice.  We are also both fully aware that the wonderful men in our lives often have to be silenced with artificially colored, flavored, or hydrogenated bribes.

The other day BFF and I were in the freezer section at Woodman's, fulfilling my husbands order for what I call 'shitty freezer food'.  (What can I say...his desire for crap is strong. Or in his words 'That's why I take vitamins Bonnie, so I can eat this stuff cause it's good.')  Sale labels naturally caught my eye, so BFF and I start investigating the freezer case that contains the Boston Market frozen entrees.  This is relatively unfamiliar territory for both of us, and it's a bit of a novelty, so we jump right in and start making fun of it while I pick out a couple things. 

BFF picks up a lovely box with a picture of gravy-smothered chicken-fried steak, perfectly crisp-tender beans, and slow-roasted potatoes.  It's amazing, isn't it?  That they make such wonderful, special, homemade food, pack it all up for you, and sell it for 2/$5?  Oh!  Be still my heart!  As we stand there admiring this wonder of convenience food, she notices and proceeds to point out to me that Boston Market freezer entrees are now Eco-Friendly!  Imagine our sarcasm-laced excitement. 

'OOOOOH!!  How CUUUUTE!!!',  I gush.

She continues to read, 'NEW TRAY MADE FROM 40% LESS PLASTIC THAN BEFORE'.  Wow!  So, you'll die 40% slower than you would have before, sweet!  Sold!  I put the items in my cart, wrap up the shopping trip and take my goodies home to show my husband what I bought him.

Naturally, this starts another conversation...or more like him making fun of me...about the plastic issue.  One of the many 'kooky' things I do is to take the few 'microwave in container' foods we get OUT of the container and put them on a glass plate to microwave them.  Kooky, I  know.  And so does my husband, so there is no end to how much I get made fun of.  It's ok though, he can make allll the fun he wants because little does he realize that I often switch out ingredients and add extra little healthy tidbits to his food to try and counteract all the bad stuff he consumes.  Oh, whoops.  I guess the cat's out of the bag.  *evil grin* 

When he's giving me crap, one of my husband's favorite sayings with a big eye-roll is 'you can't boil the ocean, Bonnie', jokingly insinuating that everything I do is absolutely pointless.  We have a friend who insists that no matter what we do we will all die of ass-cancer, so let's all enjoy ourselves and eat shitty food and not take vitamins and not recycle so we can all die happy and unburdened and not inconvenienced in any way.  Apparently, my healthy greenness is a never-ending source of entertainment for those who love to give people crap.  It's ok, I can handle it.  (To my husband's credit, he does take his vitamins, he does acknowledge that some of his choices are NOT good, and like the confident man he is he has no problem making fun of himself.  He even suggested I photograph his microwave dinner the other night cause he knew I was going to make fun of it in this blog!  What a guy.)   

Well, it's past lunch time and the smells from the kitchen are making my stomach growl.  No worries, I will NOT be microwaving anything on plastic.  A non-GMO veggie burger on a multi-grain sandwich bun for me, please.  I'll also be drinking perfectly purified water from my Shaklee Get Clean water filtration pitcher, cause it's BPA-free.
That's right; La. Dee. Da.  That's how I like it.

Do me a favor though, next time you are going to microwave something in plastic...switch it to a non-plastic plate.  You can make fun of me all you want but just do it, and know that at least it won't come back to bite you in the ass!

Organicalize: It's a made-up word.

I try to buy organic.  Period. 

My grocery bill is generally higher than need be, but the health benefits of buying organic...yada yada yada we all know what they are.  But, I am also (relatively) normal and not made of money, so when it's between spending $4.99 and $1.79...guess what wins out.  I do what I can, but some prices are just absurd and I refuse to pay them.  I often end up switching out the organic product I chose for the much cheaper regular version, and end up with probably 50% of my groceries actually being organic, and the other half being 'normal'.

Rest assured, I am still out there reading labels like a madwoman on the non-organic stuff.

I was informed the other day that organic cereal is 'gross' and will not be eaten.  Why is it gross?  Because it's organic.  Oh, right, of course!  Duh, it's so obvious.  I mean come on, really?  But being the perceptive mom I am, it didn't take me long to figure out exactly what's going on here.  This is interesting considering my last blog was about how hateful my kids feel about the hot lunch at school.  Apparently, BREAKFAST is where it's at.  Yes, Breakfast At School, provided by the same folks who think mini corn dogs are nutritious and tater tots are a vegetable, is corrupting my child.

Our school is on this lunch card program that is hooked up to your credit card and gets refilled when it gets too low.  I get periodic emails saying that my payment has been approved, a card has been refilled.  The kids do buy their lunches sometimes, and it adds up, right?  Well, shame on you mom, you should have kept better track of whose card was being refilled more often.  Two words...THE BOY.  The boy has been taking himself out to breakfast a couple mornings every week.

A couple weeks ago, he came home with a Hostess-like cherry pie.  More recently, he came home with a gooey Honey Bun.  I barfed a little in my mouth when he ate it.  (Yes, I let him eat it.  Everything in moderation, right?).  He told me this was leftover from breakfast and he was able to take it home.  Uh, yuck, why would they be serving that stuff for breakfast at school?!  Here and there, when we have an especially rushed morning I will approve a trip to the cafeteria.  This boy is VERY hard to feed, and breakfast at home is always an interrogation and may involve force-feeding and threats.  When rushed, it is impossible to get food into this unwilling child.  I would rather he ate something than nothing, so fine, go to the cafeteria.  But now I am seeing how this little convenience is totally working against me and The Greater Good.  He won't eat organic cereal at home because he has now sampled the pleasures that are Froot Loops and Lucky Charms and the like.  The organic cereal I buy can hardly hold up to those...it's practically twigs and leaves in comparison. 

I admit sometimes I get carried away.  I buy some weird stuff, like veggie cheese or soy sausage or tofu hot dogs; stuff that there is no way anyone else here will even attempt to choke down just on principle, and I get that and don't blame them (too much).  I even had a stray thought the other day about giving our guinea pig cardboard to chew on and wondering if there was organic cardboard...no worries, I ended that thought process pretty quickly.  But I've tried those organic cereals, and they are good.  I mean, how badly can you screw up cinnamon toast crunch? 

Maybe what it comes down to is that the boy is prejudiced against organics.  I have so much trouble feeding this child and we get in so many arguments about him not eating, or what he's eating or what he wants or likes or dislikes or whatever that maybe he's traumatized.  Somehow he's come the the conclusion that all the food in our house is gross, so is it that off-the-wall to think that he believes anything organic is gross?  Does that even make sense?  What's a mom to do?

So, when you see me in the cereal aisle picking out ridiculously sugary, artificially flavored and colored cereals...don't be alarmed.  I may have come up with a solution.  I'm thinking about taking those cereals home and switching out their inner bags with some lovely bark, twig, and pebble cereal from the organic aisle.  I thought I was above trickery, but I'm not.  Not where nutrition is concerned.  Some peoples kids eat healthy stuff willingly, and some peoples kids sneak off to breakfast at school and stuff their pockets with cherry pies and honey buns.  I will not be outsmarted by a 9 year old.  Lucky for me I've learned a few tricks along the way.  Let's see how long it takes him to figure this one out...





 

Hot MAHMA!!

I've been a stay-at-home mom for over 7 years.  Sometimes I question my sanity, but mostly I am just glad that I'm here.  For us there have been some challenges financially, but we've made it this far.  Actually, in general we are all lucky that we've made it this far, because there are days...oh, there are days where everyone better just count their blessings that they lived through it...

As a SAHM I cook, clean, schedule, run taxi service, decorate, undecorate, bathe people, clothe people, treat what ails them, etc. etc. whatever.  It's what I do and it takes me all day.  Even though I worked for almost two years after the boy was born, I still can't imagine how the moms out there who have full-time jobs get everything done on top of working.  Kudos to you, ladies!

One of the things I've done over the years is try and make (or save) money anywhere I can to help our family finances.  I could probably dedicate another whole blog to my home business mis-adventures.  I've watched kids, done Tupperware, ebay, crafting, couponing on a massive scale, etc. I have to laugh when I think of how many ads in newspapers I've seen for work from home jobs that are total scams, or internet sites about how you can make jillions of dollars by following their simple system...just spend $500 on their package to learn how!  Assemble crafts at home for $350 a week, or stuff envelopes, or something equally too good to be true.  Be a secret shopper! Or internet jury!  It was fun, but none of these things lasted very long or made enough money, though I do still find myself selling stuff on ebay just cause I like it, and I've got a listing on Amazon, too. 

When the boy was in kindergarten three years ago,  I discovered Shaklee.  Since I was already using green and non-toxic products and trying to make money from home, it seemed like a perfect fit.  I got the business presentation, tried a couple of the cleaning products, and I was IN.  The difference between this stuff and the 'green' products I was using from the grocery store is like night and day.  I used to pay $4.79 for a very popular brand of non-toxic cleaner that didn't really work all that well.  Then I moved to paying $2.79 for a different, yet equally popular brand of so-called green cleaner which worked better, but that I later found out was 'green-washed'.  Then I tried Shaklee's all-purpose cleaner to the tune of about 10 cents a bottle, and it cleaned circles around the other stuff while at the same time being green and non-toxic and cheap and just freaking all-around lovely.  By the way, YES I said 10 CENTS per bottle.

Since I became a Project MAHMA mom and been working my business part-time with one or both kids at home, and I've been making a decent amount of extra money.  Now that both of my kids are in school full-time (GOD BLESS whoever created all-day kindergarten) I need to justify my presence at home all day a little more heavily, so I've revised my plan and created my goals.  Three years later, my Shaklee business is on fire, I'm still at home, and I'm significantly contributing to our household finances.  Maybe not full-time corporate job $$ yet, but it will be, and it won't take me too much longer to get there either.  At this point, I don't intend to EVER go back to work.  And at the rate I'm going I won't have to.

Some people really love their jobs that they do outside of their homes.  Some people don't.  I've never been good at taking orders or doing what other people wanted me to and I can't honestly say that looking back on any of the jobs I've had that I was ever a very good employee.  But I am my own best employee, now! 

I'm my own boss too.  I'm really good at it and I'm a pretty darn cool boss if I may say so myself.  You can ask my kids how good I am at bossing them around, they'll tell you.  Heck, if the kids aren't home all day for me to boss around, who else am I going to tell what to do?

Now, somebody go make me a reuben!!

The Great Lunch Debate

I pack my kids lunches for school about half the time.  The other days they buy it at school.  There is a marked difference between what I pack and what the school serves.  We have a large selection of lunch boxes with characters, and thermoses and flip-straw cups.  Some days the school menu is just too good to pass up, so they buy it.  It's ok.  Everything in moderation.

I get the same complaints almost every 'cold-lunch' day; 'why can't we have white bread?', 'I want Capri Sun!', 'why do you buy such weird stuff?'.  But when I'm packing, they get what I give them and that's that.  I get pretty consistent resistance from the boy no matter what I'm serving, breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  He has actually said 'No thanks mom, I don't really like food'. On the opposite side of the spectrum, my beebs (the girl) is quite compliant and will eat just about anything.

Amazingly, both of my kids now have said to me recently that they don't like hot lunch at school, the food is gross, and probably hydrogenated.  Yes, they actually said that!  Hallelujah!  Have they really been listening to me all along? They know the difference between a healthy lunch from home and the processed slop they serve the kids under the guise of 'healthy'!  Hot lunch at school sure is convenient, but I can pack lunches, and I certainly won't cry about not having to spend that money - if both kids buy lunch, it's almost $5 a day! 

It's interesting to me that a school lunch program considers processed butts-n-beaks chicken nuggets a healthy choice because they are 'breaded in whole grains'.  Really?  Whole grains, huh?  Right-o, it must be health food!  I mean, do they seriously consider french fries a vegetable?! Actually, ya. They do.  This is a perfect example of why supplementing their (and our) diets with vitamins is so important.  The food they serve through these programs is nutritionally insufficient, as is much of the food available to all of us.  Modern mass production of food is not good for the nutritional content of that food...things are not the same as they were 50 years ago! 

It's certainly no secret that many school lunch programs in this country are lacking in so many ways.  The USDA guidelines are out of date and you know, I'm thinking that the organization as a whole could use an enema.  Back when the guidelines were created - over a hundred years ago - malnutrition was the epidemic, not the obesity epidemic we face today.  The current USDA guidelines also served the purpose of a marketing strategy to get people to support the agricultural industries.  The industries might have needed the help back then, but I dare say they are a little more stable these days.  Naturally the dairy and meat industries don't want you to decrease your consumption of their products, no matter how unhealthy it is for you or what doctors and scientists say are the correct amounts.  It's a conspiracy, I tell you!  Jamie Oliver, help us! 

So, I ask the kids what kind of stuff I can pick up at the store to pack in their lunches, with 'healthy' being the underlying theme.  I'm looking for some ideas of a couple different fruits, some sort of sandwich fixins, maybe veggies and dip, you know...veggie-tofu stir-fry in the thermos - ok, that last one may be getting a bit carried away, but I'm so excited about the kids volunteering to make healthier choices that my expectation meter is going through the roof.

The beebs tells me she doesn't care, as long as she can put it in her new Dora lunchbox.  Wait...she wants to take her lunch because she wants healthier food, right?  She really gets bent out of shape when something is hydrogenated, I mean, she's literally cried over Oreos so it couldn't possibly be just the lunchbox.

The boy says, 'I want a lunch like ______'s !'

Well  now ______'s mom is a nurse, so of course I do a little internal jump for joy.  A nurse knows about good nutrition, right?!  I stand riveted, with a smile plastered on my face....

'His mom packs him a Slim Jim, a Ho-ho, a Hi-C juice box, and a piece of candy for dessert.  I want that.'

Despite the questionable source for this information, my eyes roll back in my head, I go to my happy place and imagine that I end our conversation like this:

'Listen boy, you'll eat what I give you and you'll LIKE IT.  I don't want to hear how the ass clowns at your lunch table make fun of you cause you're the only one eating brown bread, or the juice in your juice box is partly vegetables.  Some day you'll thank me for not feeding you a pile of crap that rots your guts, makes you fat and gives you cancer!  Now beat it, or I'll show you where you can put your Ho-hos!'

My head spins, and as I fade into unconsciousness I hear a dreamy sounding, 'yes, Mommy I'll eat it.  I love it, Mommy, it's yummy!  Can I have more green vegetables please, Mommy, they're my favorite.....'