Simple Living: Clothing

I read somewhere that the average American female owns something like eighty shirts. Even if half of these shirts are off-season, this stills leaves the hypothetical female in question with enough shirts to go a month without doing laundry.

I probably own this number of tops. My weight fluctuates wildly, which accounts for some of the excess. I live in an area with temperatures over a year ranging more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit, which adds to my wardrobe needs. However, there is no denying that I simply have too many shirts. I decided to pare back, and here is how I did it:

1. If it's too big, it goes. It's one thing to keep my skinny clothes because I dream of fitting into them. But am I dreaming of gaining a few pounds? Of course not. I have several friends who are a little bustier than me who will happily take the hand-me-downs.

2. If it's not my style, it goes. I get a lot of hand-me-downs--no complaints here. There are items I love, items I pass on to someone else, and items I wish I could wear without feeling like a kid playing dress-up but for some reason can't. I tend to keep the last group anyway. Today I am passing them on.

3. Keep a light at the end of the tunnel. I made a deal with myself that for every five shirts I got rid of, I would buy one I really love from a local thrift store. This helped me make some hard decisions. Children aren't the only ones who respond to bribes, and I have already earned three 'new' tops. This will require a ten dollar expenditure, but ultimately expand my useable wardrobe while also giving me a little more closet space.

Once you have finished with shirts, why not move on to pants, dresses, and pajamas? Make sure you are giving away or donating these garments where possible, and replacing them with used ones. This keeps your fashion carbon-neutral and keeps small children out of third-world sweatshops.

Simple Living: Eating Out

I recently watched a rerun of an Oprah show on voluntary simplicity. It was such an inspiring show that I visited Oprah's website to read the comments. It was a little depressing to find that many of the comments were from people who felt that they can't afford to live more simply.

This seems counterintuitive to me, because needing less money to survive is one of the major points of simple living. It was emphasized on the show; for example, one woman was comfortably supporting a family herself as an elderly caregiver, which pays just a bit more than minimum wage. If you can live comfortably on a smaller income, you are free to either find a job you love more, or to work less hours. Simple living is a frugal choice, without any kind of investment needed. It's hard to see how using less electricity would cost more, unless you think the only way to scale back is to go solar.

I have been thinking about my blog for a while, but unsure of what to post here. I hate sounding preachy, and for the record, I don't think I am always a model of green living. However, I am doing my best on a daily basis to use less and less, and to make what I use more meaningful. After reading the comments on Oprah's website, I decided to devote space here to cheap, common sense ways of living a little more simply.

Here is one tip on scaling back on eating out, something which kills many American budgets. We all have our favorite restaurants. Figure out how much you spend for one fast food meal. In my case, it's about $4-5 per person. Next, figure out how much a meal at your favorite restaurant would cost. My favorite cuisine is Indian, so I'm looking at $12-15 per person. Is one Indian meal worth three drive thru meals? Absolutely, at least to me.

We don't eat fast food a lot, but I certainly know it is there in an emergency. We have fewer 'emergencies' if I know there is an Indian restaurant visit coming a little closer every time I think ahead and pack sandwiches. Trading food we really don't like for more food we love is not a hard switch, but these are the decisions that will get you on the road to more simple living.

The Great 20th Century Cookbook

I love to read about how people used to keep their homes and cook, and the easiest way to do this is to purchase old cooking and housekeeping books. My latest acquisition, The Great 20th Century Cookbook from 1902, is a little frightening however.

Although we think of modern lives as being filled with chemicals, they clearly were a large part of life in 1902 as well. I can't imagine keeping cobalt, powdered lead, and other chemicals in my home, but the housekeeping section of my book seems to assume that housewives have these things lying around. When we work with cobalt or lead in the lab, we wear thick rubber gloves, safety goggles, and face masks.

Another common misperception, and I am sure I have pointed this out before, is the relative lack of meat in the turn-of-the-century diet. The menus provided in the book seem to include moderate amounts of meat once a day. This is confirmed by other old cookbooks I have collected. One from the forties tells housewives that they should try to increase their meat intake to once per day. The portions are small in both books--this new one thinks a single calve's liver can feed a family. In my house, that would be more than enough because no one would want more than a bite!

The lack of cleanliness is the other thing that is striking. In my 1902 book, dusting is believed to be bad for the health. Instead of kicking up dust inside, housewives were supposed to drag out the furniture and dust in the yard. The book recommends doing this once or twice per year. Similarly, this housewife was told that heavy carpets don't have to be taken out and beaten every year. Every other year is fine... remember that this is before vacuum cleaners.

From reading the book, it seems that cooking and laundry were enough to keep a woman hopping. The process for doing laundry begins with starting a wood fire in your yard early in the morning and ends with ironing and starching well into the night. With people wearing maybe one or two outfits on a regular basis, this is a lot of work for a small amount of actual clean laundry. It makes hanging out my laundry seem so easy that I am a little embarrassed for all the times I have resorted to using a dryer.

Here are few other interesting tidbits of information that most of us now would consider questionable:
1. Night air causes illness.
2. People with fevers should be given only a small ration of water or they will become sicker.
3. Wine is very bad for you and should be administered only on a doctor's order. Cocaine and opiates are better and more modern choices, even for children, and can be used liberally for a variety of ailments.
4. Hydrophobia, now called rabies, can be cured with a root called elecampane soaked in fresh milk. (Rabies is incurable once symptoms set in.)
5. For poison oak, apply lead powder directly to the rash.

Some of the folk remedies are harmless enough that I plan to try them, although powdered lead will not be making its debut in my medicine cabinet anytime soon. The point is that we tend to romanticize old times as being cleaner, safer, and less complicated, when just the opposite seems to be true. Today I am going to count my blessings as my clothing washer takes a full day's worth of work off my hands.

Say Hello to Spring with Yummy Vegetarian Meals

In the winter, I just want meat. I try to hold back for the sake of my waistline and the billions of people who share the planet with me, but it can be a struggle.

I found the following three vegetarian recipes in various places on the internet and really loved all of them. They are hearty and comforting, which is important on a cold, dark day. Best of all, they use things that can be found in the average house, or at least in the average grocery store.

1. Mock Crab Cakes
The creator of the recipe says these taste just like crab cakes and my kids beg to differ because we hate crabcakes, but we love these. My husband the crabcake lover says they are by no means a crab cake, but that they are quite good. Either way, they are delicious, and I can see potential for modifying the recipe to suit what's in the farmer's markets once we are back in fresh produce season.

2 c coarsely grated zucchini (liquid drained, squeeze out)
1 c Panko bread crumbs
2 T grated onion
2 T mayonnaise
2 T cream cheese (opt, I add)
2 eggs
2 t old bay seasoning
1 T chopped parsley
2 T garlic (minced dried or fresh works)
In a mixing bowl, combine all ingredients, mix and shape into cakes.
Put by tablespoon or cookie scoop onto a fry pan with your favorite oil and fry.
And once you mix the "batter" use it immediately so it does not get soggy.
I make up the batter then throw in zucchini and then the panko bread crumbs last and make them all right away.

2. Low Fat Vegetable and Pasta Casserole
Ingredients
1 (16 ounce) package penne or rotini pasta--best and most filling with whole grain pasta 
2 cups chopped broccoli
1 cup mushrooms, sliced
1 cup green bell pepper, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tablespoon butter
1/4 cup flour
4 cups skim milk
1/2 cup parmesan cheese or romano cheese
white pepper (I used black, no biggie) 
5 tablespoons fresh basil, chopped (I used 1 1/4 Tbsp dried basil)
1/3 cup dry breadcrumbs
butter-flavored cooking spray (I suggest skipping this. You don't need butter-flavored chemicals... simply toss the breadcrumbs with a little melted butter.)
1. Cook pasta 6 minutes in boiling water.
2. Add the broccoli through bell pepper to the pasta and simmer 6-8 minutes more until pasta is al dente; drain.
3. Make white sauce: sauté the onions and garlic in butter 1-2 minutes in a saucepan over medium-high heat; stir in flour and milk and cook, stirring, about 5 minutes until mixture coats the back of a spoon; remove from heat.
4. Setting aside 2 Tbs parmesan cheese, stir the rest of cheese and the pepper into the white sauce.
5. Combine the pasta and vegetables, white sauce and 4 Tbs of the basil; place in 13 X 9-inch baking pan or 3-1/2 quart casserole.
6. Mix the breadcrumbs with the remaining 2 Tbs parmesan & remaining 1 T basil; sprinkle over the casserole.
7. Spray butter-flavored spray over top to coat.
8. Bake at 350° approximately 30 minutes until golden brown.
Came out bubbly and great even with my few little changes.

3. Baked Lentils With Cheese, from the Less Is More:Recipes and suggestions by Mennonites on how to eat better and consume less of the world's limited food resources cookbook. Lots of vegetarian recipes in this book that still feel like real food! Plus, this is a super cheap and super healthy dish, especially if you stock up on cheese while it is on sale like we do.
Preheat oven to 375
Combine in shallow 9X13 baking dish:
1 3/4 C lentils, rinsed
2 C. water
1 whole bay leaf (I skipped it because I don't really like bay leaves)
2 t. salt
1/4 t. pepper
1/8 t. each marjoram, sage, thyme
2 Large onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 c. canned tomatoes
Cover tightly and bake 30 mins.

Uncover and stir in:
2 large carrots, sliced
1/2 C thinly sliced celery
Baked covered 40 mins. until veggies are tender. Stir in:
1 green pepper, chopped (optional)
2 T. finely chopped parsley
Sprinkle on top:
3 C shredded cheddar cheese
Bake uncovered, 5 min until cheese melts.

The Laura Ingalls Test

Today I was at Target and I saw something I thought I needed at a price I couldn't pass up: children's jeans for $10. My second grader and kindergartner have both outgrown about half of their wardrobes in this new year. They each have about five pair of school pants left, which are becoming more worn by the day. It makes sense to buy these high enough quality jeans and fill their wardrobe out a little. Yet I put them back and walked away (sadly).

At the same time, I have been reading the Laura Ingalls books--again--this time with my 7-year-old daughter, the one who 'needs' pants. In these books, the narrator repeatedly mentions having only one or two dresses each year, plus an old patched one from the year before to swim and play in. In this context, five pair of school pants, plus skirts, dresses, church clothes, and a drawer of play clothes, seems enough. Even excessive.

In the nineteenth century and before, consumer goods were made by intense labor. Growing cotton is hard on land and hard on workers. It had to be spun into thread and woven into cloth before Mrs. Ingalls spent hours cutting and sewing it into the garment her daughter would wear. The process hasn't changed a lot. We have some mechanization, and we have passed off the labor to the third world, but making garments is still a labor intensive activity.

Here's where the Laura Ingalls test comes in: imagine talking to Mrs. Ingalls and saying that you need to buy new clothing for a child that has five presentable outfits. She seems like a polite type, but she would certainly be surprised if not dismayed. If you are like many American families, you could also imagine telling her that your family is already in debt and that you might even put this purchase on credit as well. One hundred years ago, this would have been viewed as highly irresponsible.

This is an amusing mind game to play whenever you find yourself about to make an impulse buy at any price. Here's a less pleasant one. Picture yourself explaining the situation to a mother in the modern day third world instead. Her government accepted money from a US corporation to kick their family off their ancestral farm land, which is now being destroyed by cotton crops. With nowhere to live, she and her family moved to town, where the only way to survive is to work twelve hour days, seven days a week, in a factory where our $3 t-shirts are made. Even the toddlers. And they barely make enough to out rice and beans on the table once a day. This is the true story of our clothing, repeated over and over in every country you see on a clothing label after "Made In". Would she understand? They don't resent us because of George W. Bush. It goes farther and deeper than that.

This isn't a guilt trip. We aren't going to stop being Americans overnight, and neither will you. Just something to think about. Every decision we make is either supporting a very unfair, unpleasant status quo or helping to create a new one. So, I said no to the jeans. We'll find something fair trade or gently used before next year rolls around, and the kids will make their wardrobe last until then.

Free Burt's Bees Toothpaste

All I can say is right on. Get your free toothpaste here.

Yes, We Can...

...afford to eat better.

The professor in my argument class this quarter decided that our main focus should be health care because of the timeliness of the issue. Like we can't just flip on the television and hear about that--but whatever. We had to write several essays related to health care and have class-wide discussions on it.

My first essay focused on why our health care costs so much--more than twice what it does in other industrialized nations, in fact. The answer seems to be that we are sue-happy and, more important, very unhealthy due to a really crappy diet. Obesity and related problems create up to half of our national health care bill. That's not counting things like type 2 diabetes that are closely tied to but not entirely caused by obesity.

My second essay discussed how we can change this. I said that if we are really serious about it, we need to treat junk foods like another famously harmful substance: tobacco. According to my research, the average obese person has health care costs far exceeding a smoker. So why are we serving junk food in our school cafeterias? Why can people buy chips and soda with food stamps? Why don't we tax these foods and make them illegal on school campuses?

My teacher wrote a note on my paper suggesting that most Americans can't afford healthy foods. And I say: Yes, we can.

Convenience foods cost more than whole foods per pound, and they seem to be the culprits in our expanding waistlines. People think that dollar menus are cheaper than cooking, but are they really? Sure, it's hard to beat one dollar for a burger, but no one is getting fat from that two hundred calorie burger. They are getting fat from a larger, three or four dollar burger, along with two dollar supersized fries and a large Coke. A single value meal is around six dollars, about the cost for a healthy homemade dinner for your whole family.

People in third world countries eat better than we do and have lower rates of diet-related disease, because they can't afford our crappy diet. Americans have more expendable income than most Europeans, who also manage to eat better. Anyway, whole foods are cheaper than Frankenfood if you look beyond out of season pomegranates and radicchio. So it's counterintuitive to suggest that money is the issue.

I think time and laziness are the issue. I'm not saying fat people are particularly lazy, but that we all are in this country. Some people are blessed with metabolisms that can handle all the extra calories and the sedentary lifestyle, others are not so lucky. And none of us feel like dedicating an hour to cooking in the evening, although many of us do it anyway. It's easier, albeit more expensive, to just open a box. And therein lies the problem.

We do have the money--beans and rice are cheap. We do have the time as well, for the most part. Most people feel like they have no time, but when their favorite TV show comes on, suddenly time is in surplus. We spend time on the phone, time shopping for things we don't really need, time waiting in fast food lines. It's only when it comes time to throw the beans in the crockpot that we get all short on time. Suddenly we don't have even a minute, unless that minute is spent in a McDonald's drive-thru.

If you aren't working, or even if you are, you have time--as much or more time than I do, at least. We can eat healthy. Yes, we can. To borrow another famous tagline: just do it.

There are a few caveats here. If you are feeding yourself on less than $5 a week, then you will be relying on ultra-cheap, ultra-unhealthy foods like ramen. But you won't get fat... you'll have a hard time just getting enough calories to survive. Obesity comes from eating too much--way too much--for a period of years, not from spending a few tight months eating from a Styrofoam cup. Also, organics do cost more. But you won't get obese from eating a conventionally grown apple.

In one of our class discussions, a girl said she and her one year old live on fast food because she is too busy as a single mother to cook and she can't afford better food anyway. But she gets her nails done every week and has a constant flow of new clothes and Coach handbags. She has time and money to shop and watch someone airbrush her nails. Just not the time to eat healthy.

It's not her fault, either. Every time you turn on the TV, some expert is claiming that Americans are fat because we can't afford the money and time for a healthy diet. People are being encouraged to make unhealthy choices and told that they have no control over something as basic as what they put in their mouth. But we all have the choice. We all have the option to eat well. Say it with me: Yes, we can.

Part-Time Homeschooling

I completely believe in homeschooling. My children never learned so thoroughly nor developed socially as well as they did when we were a work at home/learn at home family. Going back to college only reinforces my belief, because the top students in every single one of my classes are fifteen-year-old homeschoolers who shame the rest of us with their ability to learn.

Not only are they better students, the homeschoolers at my college are a refreshing change from the kids near their age. They dress more modestly, are better spoken, and fool around less in class. Many of my non-homeschooled classmates have difficulty relating to people in the class who are older than them or from different ethnic backgrounds. They stay in their own enclaves and giggle while the homeschoolers seem to socialize with a variety of people, and at more appropriate times.

I'm sure this is a generalization. I'm sure there are many mature and well-taught public school graduates and many immature and academically unprepared homeschoolers as well. However, this generalization has been true 100% of the time in the last year and a half of college. Which worries me, because my kids are now attending conventional school.

As I said above, I believe in homeschooling. On the other hand, something that I didn't consider when I married an older man is that at some point, I would need to pick up the financial workload. My husband is about 15 years away from retirement while I am in the middle of my childbearing years. When he reaches senior citizen status, we will still have children in the home and need to provide more than a retiree's lifestyle. We can save for that time, but these savings will barely put a dent in the financial needs of our future. Going back to school seems like the only realistic option, but it definitely infringes on the lifestyle I feel called to.

I decided to make a list of the things I feel my kids are missing out on by attending 'real' school and attempt to address them one by one.

1. Lack of appropriate socialization. What I hear over and over is that homeschoolers don't get socialized; however, my experience is just the opposite. They do not spend all day in a small room with people their own age, but is that really preparation for the future? On the other hand, they usually accompany their parents on daily errands, sometimes even go to work with them, as well as volunteering, going to lessons, and attending mixed age co-ops. My kids saw more of the community when we homeschooled and seemed more socially aware.

My solution has been to involve my children more in the community now that we are in school. I have taken them to school with me on occasion so they see what other kinds of formal education look like, and we are always looking for volunteer opportunities. We continue to take various lessons and try to maintain our friendships with adults and children of different ages and backgrounds.

2. The moral and ethical void of public schools. Wow, if my kid comes home with the words to another Black Eyed Peas song memorized, I am going to scream. When you send adults into the world, they have the foundation to deal with it; when you send children, their foundation is unset and prone to taking imprints you may find unpleasant.

This is honestly the hardest issue to overcome. We have a character building program that I bought while homeschooling, and we continue to use it. I am much more restrictive on television viewing than I was when we homeschooled. We take time for morning and evening prayers, and I emphasize moral and religious values at every opportunity. Is it as good as homeschooling? Nope. Is it sufficient? For now, yes, and when it stops being sufficient we will stop being public schoolers.

3. Materialism and emphasis on appearance. I used to love it when my friends came over with daughters in princess costumes. The clothing children wear to co-ops ranges from mismatched rags to thoughtfully created designer ensembles, and every variation in between. It doesn't seem to affect the social sitch at all in that crowd.

This is a hard one to combat at schools because no one wants to have their kid be the one ostracized because the parents take a stand on principle. My fourteen-year-old is willing to take that stand on his own: he'll dress however he wants, and everyone can take it or leave it. But he is a product of homeschooling, while the younger ones are more impressionable. I will buy new garments when needed provided they meet standards of decency and are within a certain price range. We do a lot of this at thrift stores, and I alway point out the waste involved with so many people buying and then getting rid of perfectly nice, stylish, name brand clothing. The result is that the younger kids seem to feel that the name-brand game is a little silly, but necessary if you want to get along, and something to be begrudgingly worked around. Which is exactly how I feel.

As for the constant need for stuff, I know that many public school parents will buy their kids the foods and toys seen on television. I believe that a constant pursuit of stuff is wrong, and I show it through my actions. We also purchased the Veggie Tales film, Madame Blueberry, which addresses this behavior in a more interesting and less preachy way than I can.

4. Bullying and victimizing behavior. It's the nature of many children and adults to try to gain power however they can. Honestly, the way we dealt with bullying in the homeschool community was for any adult present to step in and stop it, then report the incident to the offending child's parents. Believe me, no one seemed to have trouble doing this. If anything, many parents seemed over-sensitive to it. Public schoolers, on the other hand, are supervised at recess on about a 1 adult to every 100 children ratio. They can't see and intervene constantly. They have these bullying assemblies, but my second grader could not even define bullying after the last one. It wasn't a semantic issue; she honestly had no idea what it was except that it was very mean and bad.

Luckily, we have a large family, enough that everyone here has been on both sides of mild variations of bullying behavior. So they can see that it is mean and how bad it makes others feel. My kids are pretty empathetic, so this small amount of experience goes a long way. We talk a lot about how important it is to be friends with the kids standing alone at the perimeter of the playground and to include anyone who wants to play.

5. The lack of an education. Isn't it ironic that so many parents send their kids to school to get an education? Yet that seems to be conspicuously absent. They barely get in their three R's and the occasional science or social studies unit between announcements and crowd-management. We did that the first hour of the morning when we homeschooled, then had hours for social studies, history, science, art, archaeology, religion, and dance lessons. All before noon, usually. By the way, my kids go to one of the highest rated school districts in our state. They are getting the best education available in American public schools.

I quickly identified the shortcomings of the school and have taken measures to overcome them. The elementary school we go to is good at teaching math, and pretty good at handwriting and reading. They make it as boring as humanly possible, but my kids love to learn so it doesn't really phase them. They read and write voraciously, so I haven't ever had to teach or police that, even when we homeschooled. That leaves the other things on the list, and I continue to do our Sonlight curricula minus the math and phonics to make up for this. We still take the occasional day off for museums. I have even taken members of the brood to school when we were learning something relevant to our other lessons. One of my teachers worked in Antarctica and gave a slide show on it; I brought Grace because of her obsession with penguins, and she talks about it still almost a year later.

So, I think we have the bases covered, for now at least. The secret to part-time homeschooling is to view the school as a flawed adolescent babysitter. Watch, listen, overcome the shortcomings that you can, and remember that you can always scrap Plan A and go back to homeschooling if need be. I miss my homeschooling mommy friends and the joy of watching my children's faces light up when they finally got it, but those are selfish desires that I can deal with alone.

Christmas Wishes

With finals over, I am finally free to rev up for Christmas. We actually have most of the shopping done, but there is decorating and general festivity to be done. However, my biggest gift this holiday is a 'B' in physics.

To clarify, I am usually a solid A student, but this one subject has been kicking my backside. I already had a B in Physics, but the final was scary in a 30% of our final grade kind of way. So when I saw that it hadn't had a negative effect on my grade, joy is probably an understatement for the way I felt.

What does this have to do with the holidays? Delayed gratification. It's something that our Santa Claus culture celebrates in words and disdains in actions. Right now the message everywhere we go is "don't you want....?" The impression I get from most of my non-homeschooling friends is that they feel compelled to buy their children every item on a long wish list of toys. For the record, I think this will have a long term negative effect, especially on their physics grade.

Being a college student, especially a pre-med student, requires a grasp of delayed gratification. How frustrating is it to do the same problem over and over, ending up with the wrong answer every time, until at last you have worked through the bugs and get it right? We have about twenty problems like that for homework every single week. No wonder over half of my class was gone before finals week. Modern life is about getting what you want as easily as possible, right? And Christmas is a frenzy of this attitude.

What will my children do if they want to be a doctor or a dentist or a lawyer? Will they be able to put in hard work with the reward deferred for a decade or so? A lot of young adults now can't seem to put in the two years necessary to get basic training for a skilled labor job. They don't even want to start at the bottom at a normal, every day job. Remember how Jacob worked seven years to win the hand of Rachel, only to have his father-in-law switch out his daughters? Jacob worked another seven years to get the wife he really wanted. That's a little extreme, but it stands in sharp contrast to modern men who expect sex on the third date.

I don't want my children to end up unsuccessful because their desires aren't handed to them in a pretty wrapped box. I want for them to want, and work, and associate the hard work with the eventual success. I want them to know what intellectual hunger feels like. I want for them to decide what success means to them and then to pursue it wholeheartedly.

On the other hand, I think that never getting what you want is disheartening. Not to mention that our society preaches that only naughty children don't get showered with gifts on this one special morning. So here's how I have been handling it: one present from parents, one from Santa Claus, and a stocking of fun but useful things including a little candy. They get many gifts from aunts, uncles, and grandparents as well, so it's hardly an austere existence.

I try to make sure that at least one of those gifts is their heart's desire, whatever that happens to be. Because I'm not into buying toys outside of major holidays (it severely limits their ability to have fun making homemade musical instruments with cardboard), this hardly seems excessive. This year, wish lists in my home include blocks, erector sets, bicycles, and some new-fangled cupcake-only version of the Easy Bake Oven. These are things that Santa is happy to buy.

These are things that my children have wanted for months, so imagine their joy when their wish is at last gratified. The world waited thousands of years for Christ, so waiting a few months for a new bicycle doesn't seem unreasonable. This patient waiting will come in handy should any of them decide they want to be a doctor.

Things You Know About Me, Things You Don't

Throughout the last twenty-four hours or so, I have been questioning why I was so initially freaked out when my doctor said he had read my blog. I think it's because I felt like he must know me better than I had realized, which throws me a little off guard. However, this lead me to another train of thought. Different groups of people know different sets of facts about me, and I always feel like that is a bad thing, which is a topic I have blogged about before. For instance, my blog readers know that:

1. I am against many forms of traditional medicine. Especially the so-called preventative care. I treat immunization schedules and treatments for routine illnesses with what many might call reckless disregard.

2. I am 'green', even obsessively so. I hide my crunchiness well, so unless you read my blog, you probably don't know.

3. I have a bitchy ironic sense of humor and like to make fun of things that don't make sense to me.

4. I hang out clothes, grow food, patch worn clothes, and generally enjoy a third world lifestyle.

What is the impression I give my doctor, my professors, my children's teachers, the public at large? That I am ultraconventional, put-together, etc. It's not like I try to lie, just that I think people take you more seriously when you don't look like you crawled out of a dumpster and you don't debate everything they say. So if you read my blog, you see a hidden, more subversive side of me. But you don't see the whole picture; for instance, people who see me in person know that:

1. I get embarrassed easily and will blush deep scarlet and even get shaky when caught off guard. Like yesterday :-).

2. I am a little obsessive about purses and shoes matching, etc.

3. I am a veritable well of useless knowledge. For instance, I know the details of how various flu epidemics have killed people. I just like epidemiology (shrug). I also know what all those weird nursery rhymes mean--most have a dark past and were written about very situations going on in the world at the time. And lots of random stuff like that, things that get pulled out in somewhat related conversations.

4. I am kind of a perfectionist.

Here are some things you probably don't know about me, whoever you are:

1. I am ambivalent about almost every controversial topic. There are people who can see both sides and decide on one. I see both sides and get confused. Because it usually comes down to security vs. liberty, personal rights vs. the common good, etc. And I like both.

2. I am secretly intimidated by cool people. Not Hollywood cool, but people who really have an identity and do neat things. What do I do that's really cool? I can't think of anything...

3. I am an obsessive science nerd. Probably how I learn all those random facts.

4. I don't believe in complaining about children. They know when parents do that. They sense it. And it bothers them--at least, it bothered me when I was little. As for my own brood: suffice to say, they are all cute and generally healthy and generally well behaved except for a few age-appropriate issues that we are working on together. I love them all and would have more if my uterus would cooperate.

See what I mean? I'm like a multiple personality or something. Should I work on becoming more normal? I kind of like my quirky, weird self, though. At least I'm never bored.

Blogging gets results (?)

If you are my doctor, it's okay to keep reading. I'm not freaked out by you reading my blog. I just didn't expect it to be brought up at an appointment. I was caught off guard, but it's really kind of cool when I think about it.

If you aren't my doctor, I had a doctor's appointment today. He told me that he had come upon my blog and read my one of my various complaints about his staff and shown it to them. It was a lot easier to get this appointment, as I blogged a few days ago. So maybe blogging gets results.

Here's where I confess that I am a big fat liar. When my doctor said that he read my blog, I immediately assured him that my blog was a small thing that I write for family and friends and venting pruposes. It may have started that way, but I have a lot of readers now that I have never met. So there: I am a big, fat (unwitting) liar. But if my doctor is reading this, he's a big fat liar too. Because when I starting hyperventilating when he said he read one of my posts, he said he would never read my blog again if it made me so uncomfortable.

I was uncomfortable--epic understatement. I wrote that post one and a half years ago while in the aftershocks of seeing my normally healthy oldest child almost die, and I never realized it would come back around years later. I didn't know what I had written, but now that I've re-read it, I stand by what I said--it was totally honest. Albeit one-sided. I can only really show one side here: mine. Blogs are about personal experience, and I've only experienced my life.

So, whoever you are, doctor or not, I am officially giving you permission to read, and, no, I didn't mean you are really a big fat liar.

For the rest of you, it was the normal thing plus a little bloodwork to try and nail down some of the symptoms that those of you who see me in person are tired of hearing me whine about. No biggie, hopefully.

The End of Doctor Drama--Can It Be?

The last time I saw my doctor, he assured me that they were overhauling their scheduling. So patients could actually get appointments, and little stuff like that.

Last week I had to make not one, but two appointments. One a routine appointment for me, and one just to make sure my youngest daughter's flu wasn't swine flu (it was, btw, and she's already over it). In both cases, I was able to make an appointment. Rachael had to see a resident, but whatever, I needed an appointment that day so I couldn't be choosy. Last time I called, I couldn't see anyone or anything there in the next week, and they didn't schedule beyond that. The appointment for me was schedules two weeks in advance--that's right, no 'We're full this week, so call back next Monday'.

The staff seems generally nicer as well. Could it be that they were just as dismayed by the old system? Now the doctors are in 'teams' sorted by color, which is a little fourth grade for me, but I got an appointment so WHATEVER.

N.P. in a C.P. World

It always seems to me that there are two camps: the natural parenting group and the conventional parenting group. When I read the c.p. magazines like Parents, I am a little appalled at the cavalier attitude toward kids. Like they are swine flu and I need a checklist to manage them. On the other hand, I don't really fit in with the n.p. group anymore. I am in school too much to homeschool, and as a result my kids sometimes have to do things they don't want to do, just like their mommy. My dryer is running at this moment, proving I am not the uber earthy mom I once was.

Still, I find myself applying n.p. principles to c.p. problems. Like:

A. Mornings. I was reading a c.p. magazine the other day and it had a big article on having smooth mornings. Most of the tips could be filed under: be a drill sergeant/Nazi/total meanie that your kids will cry about in therapy someday. Here are a few of my tips:

• Rub backs and kiss the rounded cartilage-y part of their ears.
• Make something really yummy for breakfast--they will come.
• For teenagers, start their shower running, then wake them. Even my 14 year old won't waste hot water.
• Do everything you can the night before, like picking out clothes, packing lunches and backpacks, etc.
• Have fun morning traditions that no one wants to miss. Grace plays violin in the morning, and sometimes we make pictures for their bus driver if we have time.

No spray bottles of water and they still get out of bed? Indeed. Here's another c.p. magazine favorite: toddler tantrums. According to Parents, I should respond to a display of emotion by isolating the child in a homegrown version of solitary confinement and putting a stop-order on parenting them until they agree to stifle their rage, or at least put it aside until I'm not looking. Instead, I:

• Give choices. Toddlers get mad when people make every decision for them, because they have just realized that 1. they are a separate human being from everyone else and 2. everyone else seems to be deciding what to wear, eat, play with, etc. Don't let them jump off the roof, but I think they can handle picking out shoes even if they end up wearing play shoes at the mall or even a mismatched pair.
• Help verbalize emotions. Like, "you don't like it when we have oatmeal for breakfast? I'm sorry, that's what we have. You can choose to not eat it, but you'll be really hungry by snack time." Sometimes they just have something to say and it is too complex for their vocabulary.
• Hug them a lot. I mean, they're two. I sometimes feel like screaming and I have sixteen times as much life experience through which to filter the whole confusing mess that life can be. If my two year old gets a little overwhelmed, it's understandable.

Here's one not from a c.p. magazine, but from a c.p. teacher. She is a little peeved because my daughter keeps reading books outside her assigned level. Either too hard and the second grader does poorly on the little computerized test they take on the books they read, or too easy because even if she reads at a fourth grade level she still likes second grade stuff like ballerinas and unicorns. So I pull out my best n.p. skills and:

• Tell the seven year old to read whatever she wants, that the tests are totally unimportant compared to the fun of reading, and that the teacher can call me if there is a problem with that.
• Send the teacher a letter politely expressing the above. (she never called)
• Encourage the seven year old to at least look for a book in her assigned level before getting one that is technically too easy or too difficult.
• If she isn't feeling like she understood the book well enough, we can read it together or she can just not take the test. Whatever, if the grade is that important, just don't take the tests unless you are confident you can ace them.
• Look at the library for fourth grade level books about ballerina mice and girls who live in forest groves with unicorns.

Just because you are forced to live in a c.p. world, that doesn't mean you can't be a n.p. parent. If anything, I think it's easy to be the perfect earth mommy when you control your own sphere, but being a n.p. parent while surrounded by every random bit of insanity the planet can throw at you... well, that's an art form.

Woman kicked off plane for breastfeeding?

Yep. Here's the link.

Okay, so she was asked to cover up and didn't. Maybe she was hot. Maybe the toddler was stressed out by the change in schedule and didn't want a blanket over his or her head.


If you are sitting in the window seat in the back of the plane, with only your husband next to you, you kinda think that you can skip the blanket regardless of what the control freak flight attendant says because anyone who doesn't want to see your mammaries would have to crane their head to see them anyway. My youngest had this thing against blankets when she was breastfeeding. She would play 'peek-a-boo' and the blanket ended up covering nada. This was a real problem in my hood--the mommies at our homeschool co-op would enshroud themselves in the break room even though it was just us girls. I think the blanket is unnecessary, because anyone with a little decency would simply look away.


I breastfed the same child on a plane on the way to California. And back. And to Colorado, and back from there too. The abrupt change in elevation hurts little ears and the sucking alleviates it. 'Lap children' have to be in your lap anyway. Maybe the mommy in question was trying to get the toddler to sleep before the plane took off so she could chill with her Ipod during the flight.

Who cares why? She should be able to feed her kid the food that God intended for them. Doesn't this seem like a violation of civil rights? We have to be so sensitive to everything and everyone now, but harried mothers and their toddlers don't count?


This was probably all the complaining flight attendant saw:

How You Like Them Apples?

They aren't just for dessert and snacks anymore!

We have an apple tree that blesses us with more apples than any reasonable family could eat. They're great for snacks and really unhealthy desserts, but I am always looking for a way to incorporate them into actual meals. Here are two super awesome and reasonably priced recipes that I found at the most unexpected place: Williams-Sonoma.

Puffy Apple Pancake




















Ingredients:

1 small apple--I made ours with THREE and it was very good
4 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 eggs, at room temperature
1 cup milk, at room temperature
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons confectioners sugar


Directions:

• Preheat an oven to 400°F.
• Grease a 9-inch glass pie dish with butter.
• Peel the apple, then cut it into quarters and core. I have one of those nifty apple things that does it for me. Using a small knife, cut the apple quarters into small chunks.
• In a small bowl, using a fork, stir together 2 tablespoons of the sugar and 1/4 teaspoon of the cinnamon. Add the apple chunks and toss with the fork until the pieces are evenly coated with the cinnamon-sugar. *NOTE* If you use more apple, you'll need more sugar and cinnamon as well.
• Pour the apple chunks into the prepared dish, spreading them out evenly with the fork. Set aside.
• In a blender, combine the remaining 2 tablespoons sugar, the remaining 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon, the eggs, milk, flour and vanilla. Put the blender lid on securely and, holding the lid down tightly, blend on medium speed until all the ingredients are well mixed and frothy, about 1 minute. *ANOTHER NOTE* I did this part by hand. I think it took less time than getting out the blender and then washing it and putting it away.
• Put the dish in the oven and bake the apple chunks for 5 minutes. Using an oven mitt, carefully pull out the oven rack until the dish is visible. Do not remove the dish.
• Pour the batter evenly over the apples. Slide the rack back into the oven and close the oven door. Bake the pancake until puffed and brown, about 25 minutes.
• Using oven mitts, carefully remove the dish from the oven and set it on a wire cooling rack.
• Dust the pancake with confectioners sugar using a fine-mesh sieve. Cut into wedges and serve immediately. Serves 8.

Once you've had apples for breakfast, why not have them for lunch as well? I made these sandwiches and they were good enough that I am no longer dreading eating apples three or four times a day for the next month and a half.

Peanut Butter and Apple Sandwich

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons whipped cream cheese
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon honey
1 Granny Smith apple
2 tablespoons peanut butter, preferably all- natural
2 slices sandwich bread

Directions:

• Put the cream cheese, vanilla and honey in a bowl. Using a fork, mash together until smooth.
• Put the apple on its side on a cutting board. Using a sharp knife, cut the apple in half lengthwise. Then cut each half in half again to make quarters. Lay each quarter on its side and cut away the tough, papery core and seeds. Cut each apple quarter lengthwise into thin slices. *Again, I use the apple machine for this. It takes like twenty seconds to core, peel, and slice one apple!*
• Using a table knife, spread the peanut butter on one slice of bread. Spread the cream cheese mixture over the second slice of bread.
• Cover the peanut butter with a layer of apple slices, and top with the second bread slice, cream cheese side down. Press down lightly. Cut the sandwich in half or into quarters with the sharp knife and serve immediately. Ignore small children begging for a bite. Makes 1 sandwich. You'll need a lot more than that!
  

One Girl's Green Wardrobe

Does 'back to school' have to be expensive or bad for the environment? My seven-year-old eco-fashionista doesn't think so! Here are a few ways your kids can be paragons of style without compromising their values or your finances.

Buy Organic

T-shirt by Born On Earth, which is a new brand that makes children's clothing from organic materials. It's all made in Southern California, so you don't have to worry about oppressing people in the third world. If the shirt doesn't look brand-new, it might be because Grace has worn it at least five times since the company sent it to us (thanks, guys!). I tried to convince her to save it for the photo shoot... no luck. So you can see that it washes and line-dries well! We have gotten so many comments (especially when we went to Seattle last weekend... it was a real showstopper in Pike's Place) on this shirt because of the cute graphic on the front and the little details all over it. Check it out...

This tee has a modern, fitted cut and it's long enough to cover what low-rise jeans don't. If your little ones also happen to have been born on earth, you might want to check out their website.

Organic, fair trade clothing is more expensive than what you would pick up at Target, but it is well worth it. Take for instance, Born on Earth. The products are 100% organic with water-based inks. They plant one tree for each purchase through a partnership with Trees for the Future. Even their tags and bags are 100% recycled and recyclable. You'll be able to afford at least a few key pieces from green clothing makers if you fill out your wardrobe with the ultra low-cost options that follow.

Recycled Clothing

The outfit above is entirely from freecycle. The shorts are faded, but I think that's back in style now. The shirt was a boy's stained white t-shirt. I sun-bleached it to fade the stains and then tie-dyed with bright colors. The result is a beautiful, wearable piece of art that Grace helped make.

There are many sources of free clothing. First, freecycle and the free section of Craig's List. Second, hand-me-downs. Make it known that you take hand-me-downs and you'll start getting offers. Most people would love to have another mom to give their children's cast-offs to, but they are afraid to offend someone by offering.

Speaking of free clothing, the shirts below are from freecycle as well. Little girls can't wear thin-strapped tanks alone to my daughter's school, but they are cute and modest when layered to cover stains and worn spots in other shirts. I made the skirt--isn't it adorable?

Support your Favorite Cause

Grace cares deeply about the plight of endangered animals, so when she saw this shirt at the Bellevue Mall, she had to have it. We were even more thrilled when when we found out that one dollar from every tee goes to the World Wildlife Fund. You can get this shirt at Justice, which is in most major malls now. If you don't have one near you, there are also eco-themed tops at Cafe Press. Check out the bee green Kids Hoodie.

DIY

What can you do with really pretty toile curtains from the Goodwill that don't look right on a single window in your home? If you're a hippie mama like me, you can trace your daughter's favorite jumper onto newspaper, adding a half-inch all around for hems, and use that as a sewing pattern for a stylish jumper. This is a super easy project and the only costs are the curtains (99 cents) and the thread (pennies).

As you can see, procuring a school wardrobe without trashing the planet is attainable and even easy. Just remember to Recycle (by passing on your unneeded clothes and accepting hand-me-downs from others), Reduce (as in reducing the social and ecological impact of your new stuff by buying organic and fair trade), and Reuse (mend, tie-dye, and repurpose to get the maximum use out of every item).

Here's a game for my readers: of all the shoes Grace owns, only one pair was bought brand new. Can you guess which? The choices are: brown flats from first picture, gold sandals, or black tennis shoes. Leave a message with your guess and I'll tell everyone next Monday.

Solar Power

I'm in the middle of a huge writing project on solar power, which means I can't say much about it without plagiarizing myself. However, I can say this: I never realized how do-able making your own solar panels can be. There are a lot of options I have run into while researching my project that seem totally possible, even with my limited skills. I am especially interested in recycling broken solar panels--recycling and carbon-neutral power are two of my favorite things.

My children are really into this concept also. We've done a few solar science projects that have only whet their appetite for more. So, I am tossing around a few ideas right now. I'm thinking about trying to sell this as an article for a major magazine or a feature for a major TV show. After all, how many families decide to build their own solar panels?

I'll be sure to report back here when I have my thoughts on this a little more organized. Oh, and check back tomorrow for my ultra-green back-to-school post. I have made some cool stuff and even procured a few samples from the latest green kids' clothes companies.

Alternatives to Driving

Rising gas prices have led to a flood of articles on saving gas dollars, but most of them focus on things other than actually reducing your time on the road. Here are a few ways I am reducing my driving time.

1. Get to know your public transportation. If you aren't in a major city, it probably sucks. As in: it will take you twice as long to get anywhere. However, this is something that you can get used to. Consider: time that you drive is generally wasted time. You are not accomplishing anything. You are not making meaningful interactions. You're just burning fuel. When you are riding the bus, you can talk to your children, teach homeschooling lessons, make phone calls, pay bills, balance your checkbook, read a book, crochet Christmas gifts, mend socks, etc. The bus may take more time, but unlike driving time it can be productive.

2. Choose one or two days a week that you will drive. For us, it is currently Friday and Sunday. Friday is my errand day; Sunday is church day. I occasionally fall back on the car on other days for birthday parties, lessons, etc, but having two official driving days makes me really avoid driving on those other days.

3. Cut back to one car. It's easier than it sounds. My husband and I have always shared a car. In his old job, our kids walked to school and he took the car. I simply did without a vehicle during the ten or so hours he was gone. If I needed the car, I would drop him off and pick him up, but this wasn't really efficient. Later, when our children began going to a school farther away, my husband took our kids and some neighbor kids to the school on his way to work and the other mom picked them up after school. She thought she was getting off easy because she didn't have to get up as early.

My husband's job for the last several years required some driving, so his company provides one for work days, which eliminates the need for this kind of planning. It's made me lazy, but I'm trying to improve. When we homeschooled, I was getting really bad about spending all day in the car. I restricted my gas budget to $10 per week, and this helped me prioritize my driving.

Cutting back to one car is not just an eco-friendly decision, it is an economically positive one as well. Half the insurance, half the car payments, etc. Similarly, driving less will also save money. It's the way the rest of the world lives, and it's a decision that will probably be forced on us by finances in the near future. As Americans, we need to get used to the idea that oil isn't the answer to every problem.

Get Your Free Kashi Cereal...

...here!

I love it when healthy food is affordable, and you don't get more affordable than free. These samples usually come with pretty decent coupons, so if you like your whole grain cereal you can get another box for a low price.

The Joys, and Trials, of Freelance Writing

As much as I love being able to make a living from home, there are a few things that bother me about freelance writing. Most of them fall into the following categories:

Repeat Work: Repeat jobs are like a so-so gift handed to you in a beautifully wrapped package. Don't get me wrong; I want those repeat jobs, because they make up a decent percentage of my living. However, I find it hard to write on the same subject indefinitely. Last year I wrote so much about soccer that I am now an expert despite never having donned a jersey. Right now I am doing my fourth job for a design agency, writing about (you guessed it) design. I feel guilty for being so tired of both topics.

If you are a client, yes, I still want the repeat work.

Random Ratings: At one agency I work for, both the customer and an employee of the agency rate each complete job. The customers here are invariably positive, but the employees are harsh. One gave me a low rating for misspellings, but I was supposed to write the article using misspelled keywords. It was to take advantage of people misspelling things in search engines. This is not an uncommon search engine optimization strategy, so the employee should have known--and they would have if they had read the directions I was given like they are SUPPOSED to.

In another ratings snafu, a client accidentally rated me too low on Elance. They didn't understand the parameters of the scale. Their written evaluation is nothing short of gushing, but because few people leave reviews this one negative number rating has lowered my six month satisfaction rate from 100% to 75%. Ouch. These low ratings affect my ability to get other work, so it's very concerning.

I don't mean to complain about a job that has been nothing short of a blessing, but like all jobs it has its frustrations. If you want to join me in wondering how much you could possibly write about logo design or , here are a few links to places where you can get money for freelance writing:

Textbroker
Elance
Go Freelance
Squidoo