The Beginning of the End

'It' hasn't actually ended yet. What is 'it'?  My life, as it is now.  Read on.

It's been quite a few weeks since my last blog.  All the holiday frivolity and busyness takes up a lot of time, dontcha think?  Even if I wanted to blog (of course I wanted to blog) I was too occupied to hold on to, let alone nurture, a coherent thought that had nothing to do with wrapping paper or red and green sprinkles.

So now that I'm here, sitting in front of the Christmas tree I haven't taken down yet, I'm not really sure what to blog about.  I mean, there are a gazillion subjects I could easily write about, but trying to add that personal twist in is always a challenge.  I decided its finally time to come clean and describe how I came to be...well...me.  How did I get all chemical-paranoid and organically-freaky?  Inquiring minds want to know, right?  I'm hoping so.  This is the first part of an undetermined series of blogs, maybe 2 or 3.  We'll see.


Part I

This is essentially what we call in Shaklee 'My Two-Minute Story'.  When we do a presentation we start out with how we were introduced to healthy living and/or Shaklee products, etc etc.  This is more or less the story I tell.  It's true, by the way.  And it's probably not very funny.

A couple years ago, at about 15 weeks,  I had my 5th miscarriage.  When I came home from the hospital I was an absolute mess.  Besides being physically messed up, I was an emotional wreck.  I had the usual post-tragedy questions...why me?  Why again?  What is wrong with me?  Why can't anyone give me any answers?  WHAT the F*CK?

When you're in the state of mind that I was, you'll desperately search everywhere and anywhere for some closure.  So when your doctor doesn't know the answers, where do you turn?  The all-knowing internet, of course.   I did search after search, looking for information, looking for an answer, finding tons of information and answers that didn't apply to me.  Everyone else HAD an answer, but for me there was none.  I sat at my computer and cried.  Like...Every. Day.  I was told 'try not to think about it', or 'it was meant to be', and no matter how well meaning those words are, they don't help. At all.

One day one of my searches brought me to a website I still frequent - www.ewg.org.  It's the Environmental Working Group website, and it is just chock full of informational goodness about everything that has to do with health and environment and chemicals and their effects on your body and the planet and everything else you can possibly think of.  They even have a sister website - Skin Deep Cosmetics Database - where you can look up your existing products and find out just how bad they really are.  I read.  And I read.  I followed links, searched searches, keyed words.  And I learned SO MUCH.  I've blogged about a lot of what I learned, and am still learning every day, and if I talk to you in person there's no doubt that you've heard it from me over and over again.  I like to beat dead horses, okay?  If I was to start telling you the things that can happen to your body from the products that you use in your home and on your body, we would be here for DAYS.  The chemicals we are exposed to in our daily lives have such a huge impact on our health and our bodies in ways that may never even occur to us! 

Of course fertility is one of them. 

That first day I learned that one of the biggest offenders is household cleaning products.  We are in our homes more than anywhere else, and that is where the majority of our exposure comes from.  We breathe the air, wear the clothes, sleep on the sheets, eat off the dishes.  Within a day or two I had all of our toxic cleaners boxed up and stuffed in a corner of the garage.  I went to the store and replaced them with non-chlorine bleach, laundry detergent without certain ingredients, and $5 bottles of all-purpose cleaner.  It was all shiny and new, and I was ok with it for a while even though it wasn't the most effective stuff in the world. But I was dedicated, so I stuck with it.

Then I learned about body products, too.  Chemical-filled shampoos and soaps and lotions, oh my!  Our skin is the largest organ we have, and it's absorbent.  So when we slather it with chemicals (or sit in a bathtub that was cleaned with toxic chemicals!), those chemicals all get absorbed into us.   

WTF are they doing in there?  Nothing but trouble. 

I dumped all our Herbal Essences and Bath and Body Works and Zest and Lever into a bag and went shopping again and replaced all those items with 'all-natural' options.  I had been having a major skin issue around that time too, and every time I would shampoo my hair, the skin on my shoulders would absolutely be ON FIRE.  When I switched to the natural, non-perfumed, non-chemical stuff, the burning subsided.  Of course, that is a whole different blog you can look forward to about Candida.  (Just check out this list of symptoms!  Candida is horrendous.  Contact me for help on this one.)

Is chemical exposure responsible for my miscarriages?  Who knows.  I'm sure it could never be proven that that is specifically what caused them.  All the chlorine bleach, optical brighteners, preservatives, synthetic scents, and everything else I've been exposed to my whole life... could I have come out completely unscathed?  I doubt any of us have.  Maybe that's why today's cancer rate is 1 in 2.  Ya think? 

I can't say that de-chemicalizing our lives has made a huge difference for ME, but I'm hoping that by keeping their chemical exposure as minimal as is possible, that MY children don't have to go through what I have had to.  That MY daughter doesn't have to deal with the heartbreak of losing baby after baby.  That MY son doesn't get cancer or a brain tumor or Parkinson's disease.  Considering the rate of exposure we all deal with from every direction, the least I can do is make sure they get as little as possible at home.  We are CONSTANTLY inundated with toxins in every shape and form...(don't even get me started on food!)  And if we have the choice we shouldn't have to live with them too. 

This is MY choice, and it is this knowledge and these experiences that have made me who I am today.


To be continued...

Total Buzz Kill

This year at the beginning of the summer I instituted a rule:  Nothing with a screen between noon and 8 pm.

No t.v., no computer, no video games, no ipod.  Strangely enough, I kind of think the kids were excited about it in the beginning, this new rule that would really mix everything up.  Only at first did I have a little trouble enforcing the rule, and that was mostly because I would forget about it!  And of course now that the season is winding down and the late-summer boredom has set in, it is harder yet.  Regardless, the rule worked really well all summer, and I'll definitely do it again next year.  The kids played outside so much...like we used to when we were kids!  You know, before all this fancy schmancy hand-held technology.  HA!  We're old!

Because of my no-screen rule, all summer I was supplying constant ideas of new things they could do outside, or suggesting something to draw, make out of dough, paint (including objects), or construct out of other things.  We also spent a pretty decent amount of time at the beach.  Nothing like an endless amount of sand and water to really make a bunch of happy shorties.

That's a great thing about this area - how close we are to so many beaches.  And (amazingly) they're clean.  And not crowded!  Of course Lake Michigan water is body-numbing frigid most of the summer but hey, you get hot, you jump in, you cool off....quickly. What more can you ask for?

Since we've lived here, our family has unofficially chosen one particular beach as our favorite, and we go there more than any of the other area beaches.  It's a Lake Michigan beach, and most of the summer it was fantastic.  There's a little 'pool' area that's warmer than the lake, a little stream from the pool into the lake, tons of cool rocks and fossils to collect, bigger rocks for climbing, lots of beach glass hunting for me, and the sand is pretty fine and light.  It's a great spot.

Except for the second half of August.  Oh Goodness.

We've visited this beach twice in the past two weeks, and ended up running out of there after only about a half an hour, chased out by those nasty little biting black flies.  I've experienced this quite a bit, in quite a few places around Wisconsin.  I'm sure it happens other places but I just don't know about it.  Is it the lake?  The sand?  Obviously they wait until the end of the summer to appear...but why?  And why do they have to follow you and bite you and make it so dang miserable that you have to leave?!  My friend told me yesterday that it hurts when they bite you because they are literally ripping off a chunk of your skin.  Awesome.

Where we live we also have big-time mosquito issues.  Wisconsin doesn't spray, so we have to take it into our own hands.  Luckily, Shaklee H2 works great as a natural repellent for your body, but we do go through our share of Off and have even stooped to spray the yard because it was just so hard to be outside without it.  Yes, I know.  Bad chemicals.  But what's the alternative?  Don't go outside?  I'm still trying to figure that one out.

Since I compost and we eat a lot of fruit and vegetables, I often have a lot of fruit flies in the kitchen.  Naturally there are ants, and once in a while some moth or other weird freaky bug comes wandering in to die a most hideous death at the hands (or paws) of my cats. 

What's an eco-friendly mom to do?  Spray the crap out of everything with chemicals and hope for the best?  Well, maybe. But not until I get so fed up there's no other choice!  Until then, I try to control it all as greenly and as safely as I can.

Here are just a few things I have found and used:
A little bowl of apple cider vinegar with a drop of dish soap mixed in lures those pesky fruit flies to a liquidy death.  Works great.
Repel mosquitoes safely with H2 wipes or all-purpose formula sprayed on.
You can even spray fruit flies right out of the air with the H2 all-purpose. It's kind of fun!
If you know where the ants are coming in, pour some cornmeal around and the greedy little bastards will snatch it up and take it back to the nest where all their greedy little bastard friends will eat it.  Unfortunately for them, they can't digest it, so it swells up inside their disgusting little bodies and the greedy little bastards burst.  Whoopee!
I've also heard that drawing a chalk line works cause the ants won't walk across it, and sprinkling baby powder around for the same reason.

These solutions are all fine and good, but I'm out of apple cider vinegar, and I don't know where my ants are coming in...they just appear in the middle of a blank wall, the little teleporting freaks!  This spring my super-efficient and green friend Libby gave me this awesome bug-zapping contraption.  Looks just like a tennis racket, but has a little electrical charge that zaps any of those rotten little fliers right out of the air.  WHAT FUN.  When we first got it, we would literally go seek out the bugs, like turn on the porch light and wait beneath it.  We sure are easily entertained, but in all seriousness this thing is awesome.  No chemicals!  I even got a couple ants with it even though they weren't flying.  Oh, and the crackle it makes when you get a bug is oh so satisfying...

Of course all good things must come to an end, and the good bug-zapping tennis racket unfortunately came to an end.  When something is that much fun, it is irresistible to the shorter people that are always hanging around, and you know how badly they treat their toys?  Ya, same story.  So now what?

Well...I have a spider.  He moved in over the kitchen sink the weekend we were out of town, and I've left him there for 2 weeks now.  He's caught ants and fruit flies and who knows what else...it's hard to tell what the little mummies might have started off as.  I am one of those people who really do NOT like spiders.  There are some crazies who catch them in their house and set them free outside.  Crazies!!  Not me.  I usually smash them, spray them, electrocute them, flush them, whatever.  Their demise is my comfort.

But not this time.  This little daddy long-legs is my friend and I like it.  I even put a chunk of overripe banana under his web to attract the fruit flies so he wouldn't move away!  Yep, I just keep getting nuttier and nuttier over here.

At any rate, my new friend certainly doesn't help with what's going on out in the yard or at the beach, but bugs are allowed to be outside, I suppose.  Next year I will get a new bug-zapping tennis racket to take everywhere with me!  In the meantime, just call me spider mom!

Earth: Without it, we'd be aliens

As you are hopefully aware, it is (almost) April, the official sponsor of Earth Day. Of COURSE I'm going to dedicate a blog to it.  You do realize who you're dealing with here, right?

*Ahem*  In honor of Earth Day, I thought it would only be appropriate to dedicate a blog to the blue planet; home to one and all of you, my lovely readers.  Since it is so early in the month, if you haven't already thought of something earth-friendly that you and your family will do for Earth Day, now is the time to come up with something.  Why not?  It's a good learning experience, and any changes you make are only going to better everyone's quality of life.  Being the green goddess I am, I am going to make a few suggestions.  PICK ONE AND DO IT.  Ya, that's right, I'm gettin' bossy.  Don't make me come over there....

1. Still using those cruddy toxic cleaners?  Well hello, have I not mentioned Shaklee?  Come on, get with the program.  Shaklee's Get Clean line is fabulous, cheap, and the stuff works great.  You'll never go back to your smelly, asthma-inducing, cancer-causing, skin-removing toxic crap again.  It's eco-friendly, made with corn and coconut surfactants, and you can literally throw your dirty mop water out in the yard and your grass will be greener.  Plus, Basic H2 was the first official Earth Day product!  It biodegrades in 30 days, the wipes are compostable, and did you know that Shaklee was the first company to offset all carbon emissions?  Just flippin' try it, already.

2. You know you've got Rot Pot envy.  Get yourself a Rot Pot.  Seriously folks, start a compost!!  You can get one of those barrel-type composters that fit in any yard, and reap the benefits all year long.  It cuts down on garbage, and those of you who pay for garbage stickers should appreciate that.  Use the compost on your vegetable garden, and oh my, will you be glad you did it.  My tomato plants get as tall as me!!  It's easy, cheap (after the initial investment of the barrel), and worth it.  My pile is free...just fenced in with chicken wire on the side of my yard.

3. Are you recycling?  NO?!  Get your building, neighborhood or town to start.  You'll be everyone's hero, and who doesn't love a little hero-worship?  It's the 2000's, after all, everyone should be recycling.  It feels terrible to me to throw away, or see someone throw away, recyclable items.  I can't handle it.  I'm the kook digging in the garbage cans, taking home the recyclables so they don't end up in a landfill.  If we (planet Earth) continue the way we are going, imagine what life will be like for our grandchildren!  Full. Of. Garbage.  Is that what you want for them?  Ya, I didn't think so.  There's an activist in all of us, now get out there and activate it!

4.  Your community won't support recycling cause you live in the boonies?  REUSE.  Make some stuff and start a little business.  I've seen some great businesses online where people are cleaning up selling things made from reused items.  Mason jar chandeliers (very Pottery Barn!) go for a couple hundred bucks!  Knitted items from grocery bags, felted yarn goods from thrift store sweaters, endless items made from old reclaimed wood.  Get creative, it's a great outlet, and if you can make some dough doing it, kudos to you.

5. Did you know that if you measured and added up all the energy-escaping cracks in your home, it would on average add up to a hole 3 FEET in diameter?!  The cold is still here and the inevitable summer heat is coming.  It's never too early or too late to make your home more efficient.  Quit being such a primadonna, lower your thermostat and put on a sweater!  Fill those cracks in your home where cold air comes in or goes out, put in some new insulation, get some thermal shades.  Check your water heater, furnace and chimney, and if you're due and able, replace those old appliances.  If nothing else, you could be saving a boatload of money by keeping a tighter ship.

6.  Buy local.  Eat less meat.  Support companies and buy products that support the environment, and don't fall for 'greenwashing'.  Grow a vegetable garden.  Use reusable bags.  Turn off the dang lights.  Only run your washer and dishwasher when full - a full dishwasher is more efficient than washing the equivalent amount by hand!  Be conscious of how wasteful we all are.

I think that last one hits the nail on the head, don't you?  BE CONSCIOUS.  Pay attention to what you're doing, because in the long run it affects us all.  I could go on and on, but you know what to do.  We've only got one earth, and we better take care of it.  Even if our generation doesn't reap the fruits of our labors, future generations will appreciate what we've done to preserve what we can.  After all, what would we do without Earth?

The Ghosts of Products Past

As I am sure many of you did, I grew up with bleach, ammonia, Tide, Downy, Mr. Bubble, and Twinkies.  Little Debbie oatmeal cream pies were the best, and who can forget your mom's Diet Chocolate Fudge Soda, chock full of artificial sweeteners and who knows what else.  Remember getting the first Equal gumballs in the newspaper insert?  I do, and I ate the first one (and I still don't like aspartame).  The tub got scrubbed with the worst of the worst cleaners, and then we soaked up the residue in our baths.  Baby powder fights, weird concoctions of lotions to slather on, bare hands touching chemicals of all kinds.  To compound my chemical exposure, when I was a teenager I got a job at a pet store.  Every day, I would go in and bleach the heck out of the puppy kennels...with bare hands, inhaling the fumes.  But we all turned out ok, didn't we?

Ok, let's not actually answer that.

The first green products I learned about were for cleaning.  One day I was bleaching my kitchen floor...the next day I was packing up all the toxic stuff and sending it off to the garage.  I started using Seventh Generation, Method, Green Works, and a few others.  They were expensive and not usually effective, but I was dedicated to using green products and stuck with them.  (This was before I discovered Shaklee).

Very shortly after my cleaning product revelation came my enlightenment about personal products.  I packed up all our Pantene, Bath & Body Works, Johnson's and whatnot, and offered the fuller bottles to my mom and sister.  What they didn't absorb (no pun intended) got squirted into the garbage or the toilet, and the bottle recycled.  Ya, seriously, I stood there and emptied each bottle so I could recycle it.  Who DOES that?  Anyway, I was left with a few items I couldn't get rid of 'just in case' and of course I get stuff now and then that I'll never use...whether by gift or freebie or whatever.  These unusables get stashed away and forgotten.

In my quest to replace everything we ever use anywhere, there was definitely a trial and error process.  There have been numerous natural products that have not worked out, and end up sitting in a cabinet or closet.  Just because it's natural or non-toxic doesn't mean it's going to work or be the right product for us.  The Beebs and I found that out the hard way.  After a very scary incident with an allergic reaction to the 'Fragrance' in a Burt's Bees baby wash (97.3% natural!), and a very humorous incident (I wasn't the one laughing) with a face wash/lotion for me where I ended up looking like I had lobster-red sunburn on my face, I realized that not everything from the health food store is going to automatically be the right product. 

So the question is:  Where do your abandoned products go?

Well, I suppose we can call it the product graveyard.  I've definitely got one and to my husband's chagrin it is in the garage.  A big old cardboard box full of Windex, bleach, wipes, bathroom cleaners, kitchen cleaners, floor cleaners and more; all full of the type of chemicals that I do NOT allow in my house anymore.  Pretty much all my Shaklee cohorts have a similar box in their garage.  And those personal products...?  Lucky for me I've got a little extra storage space in the bathroom closet.  I'll never use that paraben-laden sunscreen on the kids, or the lotions, or makeup, or hair products, but there it sits.  I don't even use perfume, though I have half-dozen bottles of it sitting in the closet.

Crazy, you say?  I'll admit to a little crazy.  But the thing is...I've done a lot of research on this stuff.  I might seem paranoid or over-the-top to some, and others might say they are way too attached to their signature fragrance or mascara or favorite bathroom cleaner to ever give it up.  Fine.  I'm not trying to convince you to give up what you love.  Do what you want.  But be informed about what it is you are bringing into your home or putting on your body, especially if you have kids at home. I could use this opportunity to tell you how great and green and non-toxic everything Shaklee makes is and how that's mostly what we use now, but me selling you better products is not the point here. 

The point is simply:  When you've come to your senses and learned enough about the ill-effects chemicals can have on your family's health, and you replace all your bad stuff with good stuff, there is a solution for all those unused products!  And it's not that you have to stand at your garbage can squirting out six bottles of Johnson's baby lotion!

The easiest and most economical way to get rid of these chemicals is to use them up.  Then you can recycle the bottle and be done with it.  If you don't want to do that, and I don't blame you for not, read on.

Toxic products can't actually be recycled, per se.  Disposing of chemicals improperly can cause a lot of environmental problems like soil and water contamination...check out what happens from chemical runoff.  You can take your stuff to a hazardous waste collection facility, or most communities often host events for gathering all the unwanted products...and some even do it year-round.  Contact your village or your local solid waste or sanitation department to find out when and where you can take yours.  Hopefully there isn't some dude in each town with a garage full of cardboard boxes...

For anyone who didn't notice the first time...let me point out that these products are considered hazardous waste!  If they have to be taken to a hazardous waste collection facility to be disposed of...why are you using them in your home?!?!

To find out what products are bad, check out this awesome glossary, or visit EWG and Cosmetics Database. To get the green and non-toxic products that you now know are much better for you, go here. My intention is to educate you about healthier products so you can make better choices.  If your choices include Shaklee, great.  If not, that's ok too.  I am just as happy hearing that you learned something here and will stop using the toxic chemicals you've read about!!

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!!

Mom vs. Vomit

Kids and cleaning products were made for each other.  As were kids and candy, kids and puppies, kids and padlocks, kids and boarding schools.... *ahem* sorry, I got carried away. But seriously, what would one do without the other?  My kids, as I'm sure yours are too, are capable of the most fantastic messes my imagination couldn't hope to compete with.  The Cat in the Hat's got nothing on them.  I always say crumbs seep out of their pores and they can destroy an entire room (that it took me 3 hours to make sparkle) in 3 minutes flat.

One of the most common things I come across in my daily cleaning is spots.  Spots on the couch, spots on the carpet, spots on laundry.  Some of those spots take more of the shape of intentional marker scribbles, but who's counting?  So, I arm myself with cleaning products (non-toxic of course) and go to work removing spots from every surface.  Another day, another load of laundry full of stains and spots.  Lucky for me I have this Shaklee stuff called Nature Bright to remove the evidence of 'having a good time', as my mom always says.  Without Nature Bright, a lot more stuff would go in the Goodwill pile because of stains.  I am secure in the knowledge that there is not a spot I can't conquer with Nature Bright.  I absolutely will not use chlorine bleach or any other stain removers (or cleaners, detergents, soaps, etc.) that will maim, directly or indirectly kill you, irritate the heck out of your skin, cause an asthma attack, or at the very least make your eyes water.  I believe that last statement covers probably 95% of the stuff that is sold in grocery stores.  Anyway...

As I mentioned in another post, my 9 year old son is involved in Taekwondo.  This past weekend there was a tournament two states away from us, which involved about six hours of driving, an overnight stay with relatives and a 55 MPH ice rink commonly known as I-294.

The boy has participated in quite a few tournaments before, and never really had a case of 'the nerves'.  That is MY job, and I do it well.  So, what happened this past Saturday probably can't be explained away as nervousness. This was a smaller tournament than the last one and he felt very prepared for the events he participated in, even excited to compete in one particular event for the first time. 

As we turn onto the street of the high school where the tournament took place, I hear a meek little 'Mom, I don't feel so good' from the back seat.  I swear it was slow motion...I turn around in my seat while simultaneously asking 'Are you going to barf?' and grabbing the nearest plastic bag.  I got it in his hands not a second too soon.  Thinking it may have been nervousness, we sat in the car a few extra minutes for him to chill out (and see whether there would be a repeat), then headed inside.  He seemed ok, if a little wigged out, and was even able to laugh about it a little.  He managed to get through his first two events, even placing 2nd in one of them, before it was time to toss the cookies again.  Thank goodness for extra large garbage cans on wheels.

His next two events were a couple hours away, so we bundled him up with our coats and he chilled out in a corner with a Sprite and some crackers to wait.  One or two more trips to the garbage can and he seemed to really perk up, like whatever it was might have been out of his system.  With the help of another TKD mom, we got him to agree to participate in one more event, which he did, and then we headed back to our relatives house an hour or so away.  We hadn't quite turned into their subdivision when I heard the distinct sound of liquid hitting the bottom of a bag.  A paper bag.  That leaked.  All over the seat and the stark white pants of his TKD leadership uniform, which ran us a cool $150.  The poor kid had to strip in the car and hang around pants-less while I ran in the house to collect all our junk and bring him new clothes.  Another hour or so car ride later and we're home in time for him to lose it again, this time into the kitchen garbage can.

The barfed-on TKD uniform pants came out of the wash sparkling clean and restored to their original bright white...or so I thought until I investigated the inside of the pants, and found the evidence that this really was a flu bug, and not a case of the nerves.  But hey, what did I say about conquering stains?  That's right.  I'm not afraid.  Already through the washer and dryer usually means an item is doomed, but not at my house!!  And this is one stain there can't be ANY evidence left of, EVER.  Nature Bright to the rescue once again.  

So bring it on, life!  Hit me with whatever stains you've got, I'll conquer them all - blood, sweat and tears...and vomit -  and do it safely with non-toxic products.   But really, I can wait quite a while before being put to the test again.  At least until AFTER the next taekwondo tournament.  And please, no blood!!

Can we have ice cream for dinner?

Hi, and welcome!
Since this is my first blog, I imagine introducing myself is in order. I'm a stay-at-home mom of 2 with my own health & wellness business. I try to keep my house as green as it is possible for us; we compost, recycle, grow vegetables in the garden, reuse, reduce, etc. I buy organic. We don't use products with 'bad' chemicals to clean, do laundry, or wash our hair and faces. In the winter our heat is set to 62 degrees during the day (I wish I could take credit for that one, but its really my husband being cheap). My kids know we do not eat certain things, and words like 'hydrogenated' in the ingredients mean its BAD.

That said, I should also mention that I live in a fantasy world where everyone happily does what I want them to.

My 5 year old is usually pretty compliant. Eats what I give her, doesn't complain too much, tries new food items, etc. But every so often she gets a feeling of entitlement when it comes to deciding what she wants for any particular meal, and makes sure I understand that there will be no substitute for what she has decided is on the menu. Ice cream for dinner, or for that matter Doritos for breakfast, are not usually part of the idealistic meal plans I fantasize about.

I have these daydreams where my family is all sitting at the table, getting along, talking about school and work and friends and sports, and happily eating the wonderful, healthy, organic, vegetarian dinner full of nutrients and green vegetables! that I've prepared for them. Yeah, right. The kids whining about Ding Dongs break through my reverie every time.

I really admire those parents whose kids would never dream of asking for Little Debbie at the store. But one has to wonder...how did they do it? Hypnotism? Beatings? WHAT??? Could someone please let me know?!