Segwyne's Lair

I am a phoenix

2009-12-05T22:09:00.003-05:00

Okay, so maybe that is a bit of a dramatic title, but it really fits my worldview right now. I'm recovering from a really low point in my life, and I find myself reborn from the ashes. I have started a program about inner work called Be A Beacon. It really came at the right time for me.

We have moved into a much better living situation and are now exploring the opportunities that await us here. We lost our van a month after I blogged about it, so now we only have our little car. It makes traveling interesting, to say the least. We are looking to add a puppy or dog to our family, too. In our new neighborhood there is a family with children close to my own's ages, and they have a very similar parenting philosophy to ours, which is so delightful. It is a real blessing to speak to the mom and have her understand what I am talking about without having to go into lots of background explanation.

I have been putting together a collection of my family's favorite recipes. I thought about converting this to a cooking blog, but I don't think that would really be such a great idea. I have too many other interests and things to talk about.

We found a violin for Moira and she has started lessons at the public school. She started late in the school year so she has been getting private lessons, but she said her teacher thinks she is almost ready to join the rest of the ensemble. I never have to remind her to practice, just to practice things other than Mary Had a Little Lamb. It is her favorite. And Eirik is now going to preschool for speech therapy twice a week and riding the bus. Most days when he comes home again, he is asleep. Poor thing.

I have found a renewed interest in genealogy (shh! don't tell my mother). I discovered it in college, and I got my mom hooked. She has been consistent with it these last 15 years, but it slipped out of my life as quickly as it slipped in, and now it is coming back a bit.

My Geocities website died when Geocities died, and I didn't really care at the time. I still have all my files on my computer, so I didn't really lose anything. I found a new host today, so now I am trying to decide what exactly to do with it. I think I will make it multi-faceted. I will put my traditional astrology course back up, and I think I will put my recipes there, too. Maybe some how-to pages as well, and some documentation of various projects. Any requests?

Fomenting Dissension to Save Jobs

2009-07-25T22:20:00.000-05:00

This was written by my brother who is an inmate in the NH State Prison. He asked my mother to send it to all the major newspapers in the state, so I am sharing it here, too, to help spread the word.

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By Douglas Giddens

Recently the administrative staff at the New Hampshire State Prison, in an attempt to prevent further layoffs, has thrown the prison into chaos. By fomenting dissension and intentionally creating a dangerous and volatile atmosphere, they hope that the increase in violence can be used to support the claim that reducing the number of correctional officers is contrary to the smooth running of the institution and the rehabilitation of its inmates.

During the week of June 15, eighty inmates were moved between units. The three units involved are Medium Custody North (MCN), Medium Custody South (MCS), and Hancock Building (H-Bldg).

MCN and MCS are primarily long-term housing units populated predominately by prisoners who are sentenced to ten or more years, who have stayed disciplinary free.

H-Bldg is a transitional housing unit dominated by prisoners who are new to the prison, transitioning back from a higher classification status, or who have not remained disciplinary free long enough to have earned one of the limited number of beds in MCN or MCS, or those who are participating in a residential treatment program, for which two of H-Bldg’s pods have been reserved.

When prisoners enter NHSP, they live in R+D (Reception and Diagnostics) until they are classified by psychological criteria as Predators, Prey, or Neutral. Predators are those who are more likely to cause physical, mental, or emotional harm on others. Prey are those who are physically, mentally, or emotionally weak and more likely to be subjected to such harm. Neutrals are not seen as being especially predatory or especially susceptible to predators. In school, there were the bullies, the bullied, and those who were neither. This is the same principle.

Once categorized, inmates are placed in appropriate housing units: Predators in MCN, Prey in MCS, and Neutrals in either one, often depending on the nature of their crime or the unit requested by the Neutral.

In H-Bldg, these classified prisoners are placed on specific pods, again based on these same criteria (Echo pod for prey, Foxtrot for predators, and Neutrals on either). Over the previous week, NHSP administration has seen fit to disrupt this equilibrium within the prison community. They have taken 20 prisoners each from MCN and MCS and swapped them with prisoners from the most violent and volatile pod in H-Bldg: Foxtrot.

Those chosen for this move from the long-term communities of MCN and MCS were not necessarily those who were problematic prisoners or disciplinary problems. Although some of these men were not model prisoners, they had not been in enough trouble to be expelled from these units under normal circumstances, and many of those moved were in fact model prisoners; men who had been disciplinary free for many years, who held steady jobs in the prison, and who were respectful to and respected by fellow prisoners and guards alike. Some of those moved didn’t have very much time left in prison and will soon be released. There were also those, however, who are serving long sentences with little hope of ever being released.

The propaganda being spread by prison staff is contradictory and confusing. The answers given by some staff members differ greatly from those of others. Some say the idea was to move troublesome prisoners from earned units, but many among those moved were model prisoners. Some say it was to move short-term prisoners from long-term housing units, but many among those moved had little hope of ever being released. Some say that it was long-term, non-problematic prisoners to “teach the new young inmates how to do time”, but the variety of moved prisoners shows the fallacy of this reasoning. Some ranking prison officials suggest that the goal of all of this is to unify the prison so that there are no “good” units and no “bad” units, so that all live in relative harmony. This idea, however, is contrary to all psychological patterning and has been attempted before by this prison with disastrous results.

The fact is that the moves were arbitrary. Model prisoners were whimsically moved for no better reason than that the Unit Managers felt like it. The whole idea behind these moves is to mix the predators with the prey and incite violence in an effort to justify the necessity of having so many unnecessary guards.

Before these moves, the most problematic prisoners were consolidated on Foxtrot where correctional personnel were able to keep a close eye on them. This arrangement, keeping these men under close supervision, allowed officers to prevent many problems and intervene quickly when necessary. Since the moves, these most problematic prisoners have been distributed throughout the prison population and, without the needed supervision, they have been allowed free rein to extort, abuse, and steal.

The first week alone saw more thefts and assaults than were perpetrated in the last six months in these units. The results speak for themselves; one prisoner who has had only one disciplinary infraction in 5 ½ years, and that 3 yrs ago, who is unlikely ever to be released, cut his wrists. He was found with massive blood loss over three hours later and was rushed to the hospital. Another prisoner was reassigned to Foxtrot where it was well know that he had enemies. Another man was attacked and brutally beaten by a group of gang members. These are only a few of many such incidents and, in addition, the prisoners were refused communication with mental health professionals who could have helped to ease this transition.

Are the prison administrators such sadists that they would knowingly and willingly endanger the lives and safety of so many men? Are those charged with the safety of these prisoners so desperate to prevent layoffs that they would sacrifice so many lives to achieve this goal? Do we really want such ruthless and inhumane people in charge of the safety of our state prison population?

Mmmm... Gardens

2009-03-24T06:24:00.002-05:00

Well, we are forgetting about moving for now. It is very hard to find a place large enough for a family of 7 that falls in our price range of 1200+ utilities, AND that will accept Section 8 rental assistance. Most people's reasoning for not accepting Section 8 is that it won't pass the safety inspection. Why are they renting it out if they know it isn't safe? The one place that I was certain would pass (it had just been repainted - the biggest failure in the places we looked at) just flat out refused to consider it. I cried for a couple of days after that one. The house was perfect for us - 3-4 bedrooms, 1 1/4 bathrooms, full basement with W/D hookups and an area that was begging to be filled with shelves for food storage, a fenced in backyard, a formal dining room to fit our monstrous table, and still within easy biking distance of downtown on a dead end road. So yes, I cried. We have since given up on moving out of the project for now. They have also pushed back the start of construction here, so now instead of March 1, they are *hoping* to start by June 1st. The up side is that most of the people we truly don't get along with have either left or are on their way out. Having obnoxious neighbors is one thing, but believing they are dealing drugs in another matter entirely. I don't know why no one has been arrested over there yet, but I have been assured that they are being evicted and they agreed to it in court, so they can't change their minds now.

All this leads up to this post. Since I am staying here, I can plan my garden for here. I got my seeds from High Mowing Organic Seeds (on Sharon's recommendation) yesterday and have been planning and replanning my garden. I now have a schedule for my starts and plantings that I don't suspect I will change anymore. I had done a nice schedule based on our frost date and how long before that each plant is supposed to be started indoors. Then I saw Matt mention that he had done some planting based on moon phase, so I decided that I needed to schedule mine all over again. Now it all laid out on the little generic calendar I printed out for this purpose based on moon phase. That means I fudged a little on my frost date, but I dont' think that will be a significant issue. For example, one of my plants says to start indoors 5-7 weeks before the danger of frost has passed. The last frost date in my area happens to fall almost on the new moon in May, which is perfect for putting plants in the garden. Since I am not sure if the moon phase applies to starting seeds or putting them in the ground or both, I opted to start them inside 4 weeks before and and put them out on the new moon. The other option was direct seeding after frost. My first plants will be started this Friday. I panicked for a little while yesterday because I couldn't find the peas and lettuce seeds I had saved from last year. I hope they are viable, since I have never saved seed before. But I want to start my lettuce on Friday and I couldn't find the seeds! I searched everywhere I could imagine I might have put them. At the end of the day I found them packed up in a box labeled "Gardening stuff". Imagine that. :)

Since I can't put much in the ground for two more months, I am sure my layout will still be changed up before then. But soon I will have little greenies growing in my house. Hopefully the cats will not try to eat them. Yay!

About cars

2009-01-14T11:54:00.002-05:00

Crunchy Chicken posted today about whether higher gas prices are a good or bad thing.

This is a tough one for us. Our "family car" is a 94 Chevy Astro van that we bought used 10 years ago. It gets about 20 mpg in the summer. At that time we planned on having a big family and would be needing the room. That indeed happened. We have 5 kids, so the 8 seats in the van definitely get utilized. At one point, we had 3 kids in car seats, though we are down to 2 now. We also have a 180-mile round trip every other week for visitations with my oldest daughter who lives with her father. This was murder on the pocketbook.

Last year we used our tax refund to pay cash for a used 99 Mazda Protegé. The gas mileage (when it is only being used for the trip to get my daughter) is around 35 mpg in the summer. Winter is harder on the gas mileage since we have to leave vehicles to warm up (especially the van) before we go anywhere or else the cars complain.

The Mazda only has 5 seats. It won't fit our whole family, so if we go anywhere as a family, we have to take the van. The van is going through some trials right now (over 200k miles on it), and we are trying to decide if we should keep putting money into it and hope it lasts as long as we can afford gas, or if we should replace it. But with what shall we replace it? Financing a $20k hybrid car is completely out of the realm of the most remote possibility. I suggested an old station wagon, the kind that has the extra back seat that flips up and faces backwards, but I haven't seen one of those in, well, probably decades. My husband suggested a small pickup truck. Yes, it would mean we have to take both vehicles to go somewhere as a family, but really, we don't make long distance trips as a family very often. He also said that when gasoline is prohibitively high, we can pull the engine out and convert it into a horse- or ox-drawn cart. I don't know how plausible that is, but it is intriguing. We shall await the prognosis on the van right now.

Christmas at our house

2008-12-31T12:08:00.002-05:00

We had a lovely Christmas this year. Our apartment is so small that we don't have room for a Christmas tree this year, so we got some poster board and I outlined a tree, then the kids colored it in. We hung it on the wall and taped some ornaments to it and it is lovely. It comes down today and will be put away in case we need it another year. We hung ornaments from the ceiling and strung lights around the walls at the ceiling, so our living room looked quite festive. Cait is spending Christmas vacation with us this year, part of a new agreement that now eliminates our being on the road on Christmas Day every year for the 4-hour round trip between houses. This is the first time since Terry started working this job that I have had both my husband and my daughter home on Christmas morning. He works on Christmas on odd-numbered years and doesn't get home until after 2, and on those years Cait would spend Christmas morning with us, but go back to her dad's at noon. So this was an exciting year for me.

We even invited my mother over to spend the night Christmas Eve so she could be there first thing in the morning when the kids wanted to open their presents. By the time dinner at 2 rolled around, though, I think we all had had enough of each other. She left shortly after dinner to go visit my brother in Concord, and Terry and I heaved a sigh of relief. But the kids enjoyed her being there the whole time.

We tried to keep Christmas simpler this year. I hand knit something for everyone, and we got them socks and underwear (which they desperately needed), Terry got them each a DVD, and in their stockings were a couple of candy canes, a new cocoa mug with some cocoa mix and a few hair ties. We also got each child one specific present: Cait got needle nose pliers for making jewelry, Moira got a sketchbook that she has been asking for for weeks, Lauren got a stuffed animal since we accidentally culled too many of their dolls, Rowan got a Magna-Doodle since she is always drawing and uses far more paper than I am comfortable with, and Eirik got a rocking horse. My mom gave them each an article of clothing and a book or two. Cait also made presents for everyone, too. Overall, they got what they needed and something they wanted. Next year, though, I want to spread the purchase of such items out over a longer period of time. Did you know that socks and underwear for 5 kids costs $72! One package of each for each one. Egads!

We didn't overdo on confections, primarily due to our new diet, but I am making some decadent chocolate and coconut bars for tonight as New Year's Eve. We also get to get some of our baking fix by hosting our church's coffee hour this Sunday. Overall, it was a good holiday.

Making progress

2008-12-31T11:53:00.003-05:00

I see it has been over two weeks since I last posted anything here. Terry has an appointment for Monday for a physical and to go over the results of lab work he had done this past Monday. We have done a lot of reading about diabetes and insulin and blood sugar and are adjusting to a new diet. After doing some quick caluclations, we realized that he was consuming somewhere around 1000g carbs each day, 750 from soda alone. The USDA recommends 300g per day, and I know that is way higher than it needs to be. He is reading The Schwarzbein Principle right now, and we have read Eat Fat, Lose Fat and some articles by Dr. Mercola and Dr. Rosedale. We are awaiting Life Without Bread through interlibrary loan so it is next on the list. After just this short amount of time with no soda and cutting way back on carbs, his knee has mostly stopped bothering him and he isn't so grumpy. Other symptoms have dramatically reduced as well. I have high hopes. We do however have to buy him some new clothes. These last several months he has lost so much weight that his jeans are now 4" to big in the waist and his shirts are hanging on him. He just got these clothes last February and they fit him perfectly then. So now we just wait for his doctor visit and he wants to get a glucometer.

Health care and poverty

2008-12-12T10:44:00.005-05:00

I find that I have to post an update to my last post, to clarify our situation. I have gotten three responses so far, one was an offer of financial help to get treatment, one was encouragement to find a way to get help, and the third sounded like a scolding for not valuing my husband's life enough.

After receiving the offer of a check from my friend in Europe, I was in tears from her generosity. I started calling around to find out what the total cost would be. When I called the local clinic/hospital's billing office for prices, she told me that they have multiple programs to help those without insurance. The first is a 30% uninsured discount. Secondly, they will work with you to come up with an affordable 0% interest payment plan. Thirdly, she sent me paperwork for up to a 100% income-based discount. She told me there was no need to let finances get in the way of getting help.

But I still have another reason for hesitating to go to doctors. I don't trust them as far as I can throw them. The medical system in the United States is so broken due to corruption. I truly believe that the privatization of health care should be considered a crime against humanity. No one should ever be forced to choose between going to the doctor for a major illness like this and getting warm boots and snow pants for their children for the winter. Or, if it is expensive enough, food to feed their kids. The question is not, "How much is your husband's life worth?", but, "Why is anyone allowed to put a price on human life like insurance companies and drug companies are?"

The medical system has fought against diabetes since the dawn of written history. Anthropologists use diabetes as a marker of civilization. It should therefore be obvious that going to the doctor will not take care of the diabetes. So why go to the doctor then? I do not believe in going to the doctor for treatment of disease. Doctors cannot cure. Doctors can diagnose and can monitor diseases, but they cannot cure them. Healing is done by the body, not by drugs. The only way to truly cure any disease is through proper nutrition (which varies widely depending on whom you talk to) and a careful, deliberate lifestyle. I am willing to go to the doctor for injuries, diagnoses and monitoring, but I will not take their drugs.

Back to the comment though about valuing my husband's life. I have pretty much come to the conclusion that most people do not truly understand what it is like to live in poverty. To ever wonder where they will get groceries to feed their children next week. To be homeless. Remarkably, I was homeless when I first met the commenter nearly 20 years ago. Perhaps he didn't realize I was homeless. Most people have never worried about not having enough money for gas to visit their little girl who lives with her father nearly 100 miles away. These aren't the worries of the average US citizen. But we live these questions a few times a year every year. It is no fun having to call up your daughter to say, "I'm sorry, honey, but I can't come get you this weekend because we have to replace the tires on the car and then I won't be able to get gas, and I don't want us stuck on the side of the road when we run out."

Poverty is alive and well in the United States but most are blind to it. Poverty is what makes us have to choose whether or not we can afford to go to the hospital for a diagnosis of a potentially-fatal disease. It isn't free will, it isn't apathy, it isn't that I don't love my husband with every ounce of my being and don't know how I could live without him. It is that it is a long and complicated and therefore expensive process, one that could very well require surgery (for ancient knee injuries that make it impossible for him to do much physical activity), and that means time lost from work, which means reduced income, which could mean that we have to ask those hard questions again. Doctor or food? What kind of a choice is that? One driven by poverty.

So why don't I get a job? Again, this is a complicated question. At first blush it would seem the answer. First, we have several small children. Daycare costs alone for 4 children, 2 not yet old enough for school, would completely consume all of my potential income and more. A friend and I recently discussed how it might be possible for his wife to stay home with their baby. His baby is about 6 months old or so and he told me that daycare for her is $500 per month. That is one child. Now multiply that by 3 (full time for the two younger, part time for the two older) and that equals $1500 per month. That is more than I can hope to bring home in a paycheck, and is only a little less than my husband brings home. Sure, we could apply for state-funded child care, but that would be an extra $1500 or so burden on the state. Currently, we receive almost $600 in state aid as food stamps. Do you, the taxpayer, really want to replace that with $1500 that the state can't afford since it can't balance its budget?

Secondly, my child support payment would go from $50 per month to about 25% of my take home pay. When I was working full time (which was until 5 years ago) I paid nearly $100 per week in child support. So that brings the cost of my working up to about $1900 per month. Still can't afford it.

Thirdly, when I was working full time, our family life suffered terribly. The children were always cranky about having to go to a sitter, I was angry at society for not paying my husband a living wage and therefore requiring me to work when I wanted nothing more than to stay home with my children and be a mother. To keep the daycare costs down (though not completely eliminated) my husband and I worked separate shifts. That is hell on a marriage. We nearly got divorced. So quality of life is another cost of working away from home, though one that defies a price tag.

We have a plan of action now, one that we worked out after the encouragement from my friends cleared my head so I could think more strategically. I am not letting him go without a fight. Never doubt that.

Diabetes

2008-12-04T08:05:00.005-05:00

After observing my husband's health for some time now, I have come to the conclusion that he has possibly full-blown diabetes. The trouble is that we can't afford the $200/month or more that health insurance would cost us. Why so high? Well, first, he works in the medical industry (a nursing home) which automatically puts his rate very high. Second, he opted out of all benefits in exchange for a 10% higher hourly wage; they call this modified compensation or mod comp. He is still eligible for some benefits and still keep his mod comp we have discovered, so starting in January we will get dental insurance for the two of us as well as eye coverage. The kids are already covered through Healthy Kids Gold, the state's low-income insurance plan for children only. Neither of us has had a dental checkup in over 5 years, when I left my job and we lost insurance through my employer. My husband is almost ready for reading glasses and I get headaches when I drive at night from what my mom says is astigmatism. I can't read road signs because they are so bright at night with the reflective paint that they smear all around and give me headaches. And my headaches hit not with pain, but sleepiness. For a long time I would routinely fall asleep behind the wheel after dark. When I had to be at work at 6 am in the middle of winter, I would allow myself an extra half hour of commute time so I could pull over and take a nap.

Anyway, I digress. My husband's health has gotten to the point that last night I started googling the major issues he has and each one came back as a complication of diabetes. These last few months he has gotten serious about weight loss. To give an idea of the scope of what he is struggling with, my husband is 6'1" and weighed 500 pounds this past summer. That was his peak. He began drinking a smoothie containing coconut oil most mornings before going to work and with that simple addition alone has lost just over 70 pounds so far. That was without any other change in his diet and no increased exercise because his knees hurt him so badly that he cannot do anything more than walk, and unless it is an emergency, our two-year-old son walks faster than he does.

After a huge argument we had recently he has given up soda. He is addicted to it and was drinking an average of about three 2-liter bottles each day. I tried to get him to quit by pointing out the financial burden of $100 per month for his soda habit - money that we could be using to build up our food reserves or towards a down payment for some land. I tried pointing out the health effects of soda, both regular and diet, but he just chose the lesser of two evils - HCFS over aspartame. I tried complaining about the amount of trash it generated, so he started bagging up the bottles to take to his friend who turns them in for the bottle deposits. Finally I had to tell him that he had to choose between the soda and me. It wasn't pretty. I told him I cannot watch him die slowly by his own hand. He snapped back that you can die just by walking down the street, and I said that yes, that is possible, but at least then you are living each day instead of dying each day. He then stomped downstairs and poured the bottle of Mountain Dew he had just bought and poured it down the tub and hoped I was happy. It wasn't until my dear Jenny pointed out that he was exhibiting classic addiction behavior that I had the courage to fight with him like this.

I am very proud of my husband for giving up soda. He has tried many times before and failed. It has been about three weeks now, I think. He has gotten some organic soda, but they are $4 for 6 cans, so he gets one or two a week. I can accept that. I am hoping that this will set him more firmly on the road to good health.

Now I now must find a way to feed him. We believe strongly in local eating as much as possible, and we also believe strongly in a diet rich with animal products as promoted by the Weston A. Price Foundation. They recommend a low carbohydrate diet (60-70 grams per day) for those with diabetes in order to help bring the pancreas back to health and promote weight loss. Sounds great. But that means that he can't eat all the wheat, rice, potatoes and carrots that I have stored for our winter reserves. Mind you, I don't have a lot stored, as I have been slowly building my reserves and didn't start until just a few months ago, but we have enough to feed us (somewhat monotonously perhaps) for a couple of weeks as long as we still have access to fresh milk and eggs in the case of an emergency. We buy our milk locally and they also sell eggs, so I have no fear of losing our supply of those. I far more fear the supermarket shelves running empty in the next few months as lack of credit prevents supermarkets from making their purchases and prevents food from getting shipped.

But how do I feed my husband now? The local winter foods here are beans, starchy vegetables and grains, with some salad greens if they are grown with season extension techniques. I can't imagine beef stew without carrots and potatoes, chili without rice, casseroles without starches. Whoever heard of a casserole that didn't have pasta, potatoes, or some kind of wheat-based crust? I have to completely re-examine all my options.

Christmas trees

2008-12-02T12:34:00.000-05:00

My mother remarked that it has been a while since I last posted, and I suppose she is right. Right now I am crazy knitting, trying to finish the last of my Christmas presents before, well, it was supposed to be before Dec. 1, but that has come and gone because I was playing World of Warcraft too much. So now I am hoping to be done by the 15th or 20th. I just don’t want to be knitting on Christmas Eve. I have also been busy house hunting since we would like to be able to move right after Christmas. Finding 4-bedroom houses for rent is not easy.

I thought today I would talk about Christmas trees. A week or so ago, I was driving with the kids downtown and the fire department was putting lights on the big tree in the square. Rowan remarked that it was the same tree they decorated last year. I agreed and said that was the best thing to do. Which got me thinking about the tradition of Christmas trees.

I hate fake Christmas trees. I deplore them. They don’t smell good, they are a pain to put together, and I consider them a waste of resources. But a real Christmas tree has been cut down at a time in history when we need all the living trees we can get. No, I am not naïve enough to think that it contributes to deforestation, because I have been to a Christmas tree farm and cut my own before. But how good is it for the soil to keep replanting Christmas trees each year? Our soil is depleting at a terrible rate and we need to build it up, not strip it further. I have done no research on the soil necessities of Christmas trees, so I don’t know exactly what the burden of a Christmas tree farm is. But I do know that we have no way to make use of the tree after Christmas. We have no woodstove in which to burn it for heat, we have no compost pile in which to rot it for soil. The only thing we can do in our city apartment is to take it to the dump. They will probably burn it there, but that fire doesn’t benefit anyone by keeping them warm. It only makes room for more brush.

This year we have talked with the kids and decided to forgo a Christmas tree this year. We will hang the lights around the rooms downstairs and hang the ornaments from the ceiling where toddlers and kitties can’t reach them. It helps when proposing such a thing to one’s children to point out that Laura and Mary Ingalls didn’t even see a Christmas tree until they were almost teenagers and they never had one in their house. The children wanted to know where Santa would leave the presents and so that is one thing we are still working on. Laura and Mary got their presents in their stockings. That is an option if we can find a place to actually hang their stockings. We usually leave them on the ends of their beds since we have no mantle. I am not leaving all the kids’ presents on their beds for them to open before we adults even wake up. We will figure something out in the next three weeks.

Yikes! Only three weeks? I have to go back to my knitting. I still have a pair of socks to make. I will try to post again soon.

Offline

2008-11-02T16:19:00.002-05:00

I am embarking on Pioneer Week tomorrow and am thus swearing off the computer. Go check out Crunchy's challenge by clicking on the banner to the right and join us. I will see you in a week.

27 in 33

2008-10-31T20:03:00.003-05:00

By the time I turn 33 in March, I will have moved 27 times. And I have spent multiple years in multiple houses. My first move was when I was 4½ years old, so really it will be 27 times in 29 years. Moving sucks. So why am I moving again? Because I have to. We don't exactly think this place is paradise (far from it), but we had hoped on staying until we could move onto our own land so we would never have to move again. Alas, the housing authority has to upgrade everything in order to change the way they are funded since their current funding is going away. They are switching from subsidized rents to Section 8, which is a program that provides housing vouchers for those who are eligible. There is lots of good news about this.

The HA is paying for all costs associated with the move, including movers. I have never had movers help before. This will be delightful.
The HA will help us find a place to go. Extra eyes scouring the For Rent ads will be useful, and I am sure the HA has connections to local landlords.
We can finally get out of the projects and not have to listen to "He-ey!" all day or threats of violence at 11:00 at night.
Occupancy laws require them to find us at least a 4 bedroom dwelling, "even if that means we have to put you in a house." Oh, twist my arm.
We can go anywhere within the HA's jurisdiction, which is a pretty generous area -- this entire county plus part of the neighboring county. I would like to get back to the towns near where we have family.
Moving in March will allow me to still have a garden since I won't have put a lot of work into a garden just to leave it behind when we move.
Did I mention we get movers for free?

The down side is that we do have to move again. They are remodeling one building at a time, moving everyone out of each building and trying to keep them as close as possible so as to disrupt lives as little as possible. There is no building-by-building timetable yet, but construction begins March 1. There are 220 households affected and we will all be switched to Section 8 at that time. I'm not waiting for them to get to my building. We will go in March so as to have a chance to settle in to our new place before starting in on the garden. Fortunately, homeschooling means there will be no disruption for the kids on that front. No changing of schools part way through the year.

I have five months to declutter. Five months to decide what we will keep and what will be gotten rid of. Even with movers helping (which would have been nice for either of the two moves we made while I was 7 months pregnant), I want to pack as little as possible. I have five months to imagine what our new place will be like. I have five months to mentally gear up for yet another move. I don't think I've ever had that long before.

Bibliomania

2008-10-21T13:09:00.002-05:00

My best bud posted this at her site, so i thought I would join in.
* Grab the nearest book.
* Open the book to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
* Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

"John and Barbara gurgled from their perambulator."

I had to hunt under the piles of papers threatening to fall off my desk to find a book. Turns out I had rescued a small pile of books from destruction by the boy (who turned 2 today). The books in the pile are Mary Poppins (on top) and two Hardy Boys books from when I was a kid, The Flickering Torch Mystery and The Mystery of Cabin Island.

What about you? Feel free to post it in the comments.

Some thoughts on religion in our country

2008-10-14T13:54:00.005-05:00

My brother-in-law forwarded this to me today. He often forwards me many posts about loving God and how we as a nation should embrace our love of God. I love my brother-in-law dearly, but usually these posts leave me saddened that others feel that they need to force their Godness on others, rather than speaking to the more universal aspects of Christianity. But this post was different. Instead of feeling battered about by a Bible, I felt a call for religious tolerance. Maybe that wasn't the point of the post, but it is what I came away with. I am not a Christian. I am a Unitarian Universalist, and the UU religion is based on support of diversity of beliefs. I personally feel most comfortable with Earth-based creeds, and the UU faith encourages me to follow that. I love my faith because I feel that it demands that we follow our religion and develop our spirituality, regardless of what specific doctrine and path to spirituality we choose. I think this post touches on that.

I wish that America could find a middle ground, one that allows everyone to feel welcome, be they fundamentalist Christian or devout Pagan or decidedly atheist. Our country was supposedly based on religious freedom (not really, the Puritans were anything but religiously tolerant), and yet we have become a bizarre mix of fundamental Christian and Atheist. There is a middle ground. Just because one person wants to do something doesn't mean they are going to try to force you to do the same. I do not believe prayer or Bibles (or any other religious trapping) should be required in school, but I also don't believe they should be banished from school either. I think prayer groups for students are fine, since anyone who wants to can go and if they don't want to, they don't have to. I am even fine with the school permitting use of their space for such a group and for other groups of differing religions.

Okay, on to the post from my brother-in-law:

Remarks from CBS Sunday Morning (everyone should read!)

I only hope we find God again before it is too late!!

The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning

Commentary.

My confession:

I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees.. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are: Christmas trees.

It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, 'Merry Christmas' to me. I don't think they are sl ighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu . If people want a creche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and we aren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and where the America we knew went to.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking.

Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her 'How could God let something like this happen?' (regarding Katrina) Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, 'I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?'

In light of recent events... terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found a few years ago) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he's talking about. And we said OK.

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with 'WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.'

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Are you laughing yet?

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on

your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they

will think of you for sending it.

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

Pass it on if you think it has merit. If not then just discard it... no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don't sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.

My Best Regards, Honestly and respectfully,

Ben Stein

What I've been doing

2008-10-03T20:01:00.002-05:00

It seems that it has been almost a month since I last posted. Shame on me. So what have I been doing? Well, we have been finishing up the garden. We got about 10 carrots, the longest of which was about 3-4", a dozen or so good sized potatoes (which is remarkable, since I never hoed them or did anything else with them), a handful of tomatoes, a boatload of cherry tomatoes (which we don't eat and I would have bought a different type of tomato if I had realized that one was a cherry tomato), a few peas, several cucumbers, several blossoms of broccoli and cauliflower, some lettuce and lots of lettuce seeds, a strawberry or two in the few days after we brought them home, some tiny onions, and a couple of radishes that never got big enough to even be a single bite. We are still waiting on the beans that I planted very late. The beans are growing nicely, but now I worry that they won't have time to dry properly before the season is over.

I learned some valuable lessons with this garden, though. First of all, I can actually grow something and not have it die as soon as it sprouts. That discouraged me for a long time. I learned that watermelon and pumpkin really do need sun rather than mostly shade. The potatoes did okay in the shade, producing a half dozen or so that were as big as my fist. We had nine potato plants. The "Atomic Red" carrots are really red and look neat. Tomatoes should definitely be caged, preferably with something other than a bent split cheap curtain rod. Trellises need to be securely planted in the ground for the peas and cucumbers so they don't continually fall over onto the peas and beans and squish them. Slugs really like strawberry plants. Inchworms really like broccoli and are nearly impossible to see there. It is a good thing I started working with the white cauliflower first and saw the green worm against the white flowers. Yuck. If I hoe the potatoes, I could probably get a lot more potato from each plant. Fences would have been nice so as not to lose baby plants to 3-year-old neighbors stepping on them to reach the first bright red cherry tomato or to 5-year-old neighbors playing lawnmower with a stick. I can really put a lot of stuff in a small space using the square foot method, but I really should do it right and not try to fudge it by eyeballing distances. My "feet" turned out to be closer to 14-15" rather than 12", thus requiring a bit more weeding. I already have nest year's garden planned out, and it will be roughly twice as big as this year's.

In addition to the garden, the school year has started up. Moira has done a block of mathematics and is now starting a block on farming, while Lauren started with a block on form drawing and is now beginning her letters. Oh, and we did a week on nature as well at the equinox. One day that week we harvested elderberries from a tree in the park nearby and made elderberry syrup for coughs and colds this winter. The people on the internet lie. Whoever would put elderberry syrup into yogurt is masochistic. The stuff tastes like Robitussin, which I suppose is appropriate. Ick. Even with extra sugar to try to make it more palatable. Now it tastes like a very sweet bitter flavor. Moira agreed that it did work for her the one time she took it, and is amenable to taking it again if she gets to hacking her lungs out again.

And finally, knitting. My order of yarn came in from Knitpicks.com and now I am slowly but surely working on Christmas presents. Since I know they will never read this blog, I will telly ou what I am making. For hubby and Eirik, I am making earflap hats (scroll way down to #37). For Cait I am making Pixie slippers since she is the only one in the house now without warm woollen slippers. I saw her Shrek slipper today but I don't know where the other one is, unless the one Rowan was using as a treasure holder is the other one and not the one I saw today. Moira is getting a lace cowl, Lauren is getting tights (no pattern or picture, but I am using this yarn, color Princess Multi), and Rowan is getting bloomers. My goal is to have them all done by December 1 so I don't get overwhelmed in December. We will see how that goes.

So that is what I have been doing other than worrying about the economy, the election, and all the other normal everyday worrying that everyone else is doing.

Showing off my knitting and the kids

2008-09-09T13:50:00.005-05:00

I finally decided to show off my work on Ravelry. I still have more stuff to photograph and put up, mostly mittens and hats, but I got all the slippers and recent stuff put up. If you don't have a Ravelry account and do a lot of knitting or crochet, I recommend the site. It is a lot of fun. My username is Segwyne (big surprise there, huh?). The pictures are also up on Flickr, for those of you who don't do Ravelry.

And here are a couple of the kids:This is the first carrot we have pulled from the garden. It is shaped more like a radish.

The girls are doing a craft they got at their Girl Scout meeting last night.

Eirik is taking off his slippers after I photographed them for Ravelry.

What a handsome devil!

I can do it!

2008-08-24T20:52:00.004-05:00

This has been quite a year for growth for me. I have learned that I am capable of so many things I never thought I could do. I have planted a garden, actually harvested food from it, made jam, tried my hand at water bath canning, and today I even scheduled the upcoming school year. I am still working out in my own mind why I think myself so inept. I have always had a terribly low self-esteem, and I am not completely sure why. Perhaps because I have always lived my life as an outsider. Perhaps because I am naturally a pleaser. I don't know. I have lived a pretty bizarre life by most standards, so people often have trouble relating to me and my experiences, and I to theirs. But I will try not to dwell on the wherefores for long. Ultimately, they are proving irrelevant.

I just noticed this newly found self-confidence today. Public school starts tomorrow and of course we homeschool. So Caitie has gone back to her dad's for the year, and Moira and Lauren have both started asking about starting lessons. My history with providing lessons is spotty, at best. The first year I took Moira out of public school, no reporting was required since Kindergarten is not mandatory here. The next year, I had to submit a curriculum with my letter of intent, but I wanted to "unschool", and use no formal lessons. I came up with ways that her learning might take place over the next several months and qualified my submission with the statement, "We reserve the right to adjust this curriculum as needed to best meet the needs and interests of our child." I worried all year that I didn't do enough, teach enough, show enough to her. In December, I had gotten myself so worked up that I found a curriculum that I liked and bought it. We started the lessons in January, which complicated things. I decided to just do what we could and then we could finish the rest of it the next year. Then when I was filling out the evaluation paperwork at the end of the year, I read through the sample and saw that I had done plenty. My one-page paper was nearly two pages long so I had to edit it down.

The next year, we started again with the curriculum pretty much where we left off, but by now we didn't have enough to finish the year. I did well with giving lessons regularly until we ran out in December. The rest of the year ended up being mostly unschooling. I was feeling better about it though after having gone through it all once and passing. I think that is a significant statement. I have been viewing homeschooling as a test for me to prove I am good enough to teach my child, instead of viewing it as educating my child and to hell with the system, which has enough faults of its own. She did fine at her year end evaluation, even with no formal lessons after early December.

Today (homeschooling year 3.25), after the girls asking if they could learn Spanish (a language I studied in high school and college, but haven't really used in 12 years or so) and if we could start lessons tomorrow, I sat down to schedule and coordinate their lessons. I picked up the curriculum overview (which I had actually not read since I bought it two years ago, instead diving straight into the syllabus) and read up on grade 3. Lauren will be doing 1st grade this year, and I think I will repeat it again next year so that she is on track with the lesson content. If she struggles with 1st grade this year, I will repeat her Kindy year, or maybe I will combine them together and stretch out 1st grade for her. When I looked at my chart and lessons and planned projects (not too many, I was realistic), and field trips (I may have planned a bit too much financially, we will see), I looked at it and felt confident. I can do this. It isn't going to be terribly difficult. The hardest part will not be the lessons themselves (which I have feared in previous years), but maintaining the discipline to do them every week, establishing the household rhythm that lends itself to learning. Finding the link for the curriculum showed me that the author actually did what she swore she wouldn't do - write syllabi for grades beyond first. My first thought was, "Whew! I can get a syllabus and know I am doing it right." Then I thought, "No, I don't need someone to tell me lesson by lesson. I just read up the overview and I can do this myself. I don't need to spend all that money."

That is what I have been feeling all summer about various different projects - I can do this! And I daresay, you can too, if you want to.

Fun in the Kitchen

2008-08-19T07:15:00.003-05:00

I have been busy in the kitchen these last two days. On Sunday, I attacked my kitchen to-do list. I made laundry soap, sausage seasoning, sauerkraut, ground some rye into flour and started a sourdough starter.

Then yesterday I made some plum jam with my mom. I had picked half a bucket of plums from a generous neighbor and wanted to try my and at canning. My mom had never canned either, so we found a recipe here. It is a highly detailed recipe. I think the most precise measurement on it says to use equal parts plums and sugar. Of course, it forgets to tell you to sieve the puree (who wants pits in their jam?). Using this recipe and Sharon's instructions on water bath canning, we got some yummy jam. It took us a while, and since we didn't have anything useful like a jar lifter or a funnel, we made a big mess. The jam kept spitting out at us as it boiled while we tried to get it up to the 220° jelly mark on my candy thermometer. We gave up at 215° and said, "Well, if it is runny, so be it." It gelled up beautifully, though. The hardest part was getting the processed jars out of the boilng water. Since we had no jar lifter, I used regular tongs to pull the empty jars out after sterilization, but they weren't strong enough to lift the filled jars (and I couldn't stick one side of the tongs into the jar and lif tthem up sideways, either). We made four jars, and the first three I lifted out using two wooden spoons pressed tightly around the rims. The last jar I just reached in with my already wet hot mitts and grabbed it out.They sealed almost instantly, so I think we managed okay.

Last night before going to bed, I had more plum puree that I wanted to make into fruit leather. Of course, I had no parchment paper or plastic wrap or wax paper, so I looked in my food drying book. It suggested using brown gift wrap. I don't think I have ever seen brown gift wrap, so I was trying to decide between cutting open a paper bag and using wrapping paper. I decided the wrappig paper was more slippery, so I used that. I spread out my puree and slid my three trays into the dehydrator and went to bed. This morning, only one tray had dried, the other two had started to dry around the edges only. Of course, now I can't get the paper off the leather. I got out a cookie sheet and spread the undried puree from the other two trays on it and stuck it in the oven with the pilot light on. I plan to make bread later today, so perhaps the leather will dry better then. If I had been fully awake when I pulled out the cookie sheet, I would have greased it with either butter or more likely coconut oil. Oh well. I still have more plums.

Moira wants to make a plum pie today. I am ready to get rid of the ever-present fruit flies. The plums aren't even very old, but if one leaks at all, the flies are there. I also found some cherries I had brought home last week in my fridge, so maybe today I will try making some cherry jam.

Birthday socks that don't fit

2008-08-15T12:27:00.003-05:00

When we went to Panteria in May, Cait saw some striped knee-high socks she wanted. Unfortunately, we had spent the last of our money (and then some due to miscalculating on my part), but I mentioned she had a birthday coming up. She said she would like some in pink and army green. So I bought the yarn for these socks and attempted to get an entire pair of knee high socks knitted in secret in 2 weeks. I got one done and gave it to her on her birthday, promising to get the second one done as soon as I took a breather. She tried on the sock and the foot fit fine, but I had added too much for her calf (she doesn't exactly have curvy legs, my little bean pole) so it kept sliding down her leg. I made the second one up with this in mind. When it came off the needles, she tried it on and loved the fit. So I ripped the leg down on the first one and re-knit it to match the second one. I finished the first one again and told her to get the second one so we could see how they looked together. But she had washed the second one, so it shrank. My lesson: Only use sock yarn for socks. She finally pulled it on and of course the first one now fit well but was bigger than the second one. I suggested she wash the first so they would both be shrunk the same and we would see how hard it would be for her to wear them. Getting one sock on after that was a 5 minute ordeal. Sadly, we had Lauren try them on, and they fit Laurne like a charm. I only used half of the yarn I bought for the socks, so I have two choices: I can either knit them up again, but larger to allow for shrinking, or I can buy new sock yarn and knit them in the same size, and find some other project for the Knit Picks Pallette yarn. The colors are Petal and Clover. Christmas is coming up and I want to start knitting on all those projects so I have a hope of getting them done on time, but I want to replace Cait's sock, since that means she now has no birthday present.

Another letter to my Congressman

2008-08-15T12:22:00.002-05:00

Even though my Congressman doesn't seem to read my emails, I am not giving up. I have written a new one with a practical band-aid solution for him to consider. If you would like to copy this and send it to your Senator or Congressman, please feel free.

Dear Mr. Hodes,

I am writing to you today to suggest a simple way to help folks control their heating costs this winter. My idea is to replace current thermostats with ones whose range is 40-70 instead of 55-90. It would be like the revision of speedometers in the 70s. If we include education on the benefits of wearing layered clothing and keeping our thermostats lower, we can reduce the amount of fuel needed to keep people warm this winter. A lower highest temperature will also help prevent accidental adjustments to high temperatures. Bumping the thermostat or a child's playing with one will no longer be able to turn one's home into a tropical jungle at 90 degrees. I would like to see Congress provide incentives to companies to make these low-range thermostats and encourage homeowners to install them.

Since the technology already exists, there should be no expensive retrofitting required for their manufacture, and most homeowners are competent enough to replace a simple thermostat, and if they are not, it is a simple matter for their energy company to do so.

Thank you for reading my idea.

Sincerely,
Judy Anderson

Dinner will be served at the sound of the smoke alarm

2008-08-01T21:47:00.002-05:00

Yes, it happened. Or it would have if it hadn't happened so many times before. I was making a new recipe, Chicken with Sweet and Sour Sauce, from Nourishing Traditions and I set the oven on fire. Yes, literally, the oven itself was on fire. The recipe called for broiling the chicken, which I did. I apparently need to clean my oven though, because I noticed smoke pouring out of the burner that is over the vent. I opened up the door and saw flames licking the ceiling of the oven. I pulled out the chicken and turned off the oven, but the oven continued to burn. I couldn't really throw anything like baking soda or flour onto it because it was on the ceiling not the floor, and gravity would have asserted itself. So I waited for it to burn itself out, then stuck the chicken in again to finish broiling. It couldn't reignite since its fuel was all gone, so I figured it was safe. However, the smoke alarm did not actually go off. The house was thick with smoke, but I had unhooked the smoke alarm some time back. I decided to do that when it went off the day after I cleaned the oven. The oven was sparkling clean and still it smoked up and sent off the smoke alarm. Maintenance laughed at me and said I should keep a better eye on my food. But my food was fine and the oven was clean, so I just disconnected the downstairs smoke alarm. The upstairs one is still on. Later in the evening when I was taking the laundry off the line, I heard another smoke alarm going off. I was glad I wasn't the only one. I think I need to clean the oven now. The dish came out well in the end and was quite good.

In other news, we have expanded the garden. We reclaimed 10 square feet from the weeds (which were tall enough to obscure the children when they lay down) and planted more food and some flowers. We each planted 2 square feet. Cait and Lauren each planted nothing but marigolds, I planted beans, Moira planted cilantro and radishes, and Rowan planted beans and lettuce. Half of my lettuce has bolted, so now I get to figure out how to save those seeds. My peas, cucumbers and tomatoes are all fruiting. I have two each broccoli and cauliflower starting. My potatoes flowered and were lovely, I'm not sure what is going on with my onion, though. The strawberries are spreading like crazy, and I think it might have been a bad idea to plant them in the middle of my plot where I did. My watermelon plant finally has 3-4 true leaves, but isn't exactly thriving.

Oh, and a tree decided to land a mere foot from my garden, a big tree, no less. It took several days before maintenance came and cleared the fallen tree away, and they took down a half-dead tree as well. They let me have a bunch of the smaller diameter wood when I asked for it. I asked for the whole tree actually, saying I would have my mom bring over my dad's old maul so we could split it, but the chainsaw guy took it himself to burn in his own woodstove this winter. Fair enough, since I have electric heat anyway. But at least I know have "just in case" firewood to burn in our "just in case" woodstove. You know, just in case. Can't you just picture it? In the middle of some blizzard when the power has been out for a few hours, all we need do is pull the tarp off of the stove, tip it upright (it is currently on its side for some unknown reason), make sure the empty stovepipe outlet is not pointed toward the wooden patio fence, and fire it up. We can sit around the stove outside on the patio, drinking cocoa, cooking our dinner and keeping warm as the blizzard rages around us and we get all wet because instead of snowing on us, it is now raining on us since the snowflakes melt as they get near the stove. Everyone else will be shivering inside while we stay toasty outside in the blizzard. C'mon, it'll be fun! No? Well, it does conjure up a funny image.

What the kids have been up to lately

2008-08-01T21:13:00.003-05:00

What a week it has been. Jenny asked for an update on the kids, so I will start there.

Cait has turned 12 (OMG!) and has taken up jewelry making with beads. She would like to sell some stuff on Etsy and is saving money to get all the tools she needs to do it right. She is also blossoming into a young woman, and has discovered her own bioweapon - BO. Whew! I commented to her the other day that she was a bit ripe and we should pick out a deodorant for her when we went grocery shopping. Her response? She took her baby brother's hand and rubbed it in her pits and said, "See, Mom? He's the one who is stinky!" What a ham! He, of course, thought it was funny.

Moira has spent this last week at Girl Scout Camp, in a program called Chocolate Chef. She sent us a lovely (short) letter mid-week. It read, "Dear Mom and Dad and Girls, How are you? I have 2 3 4 5 friends. Do you miss me? Love, Moira." It was so sweet.

Lauren has gotten comfortable enough in the water this year that she now swims out deeper than she can touch and does not panic. I am so proud of her! This time last year we had a hard time just getting her into the water instead of playing up on the shore.

Rowan will now go up to her chin in the water, but is not yet swimming. She also has her first loose tooth. I think she is the same age Lauren was with her first lost tooth, but 4½ still seems so young to me.

Eirik is still not talking any more than Mama and Dada and No. He is happy to walk out up to his neck into the water and no longer clings to me with a death grip when we go out to my chest height. He also ripped the refrigerator lock off so he can now freely open the fridge. I also discovered that he can open the back door and unlatch the patio gate. So now I need to get another padlock so he doesn't run off.

The kids are all doing quite well. Lauren is looking forward to lessons starting up in September. Cait has mixed feelings. She shocked me a couple weeks ago. She asked if she could still live with us even when she was grown and had a family of her own. We told her yes, she will always be welcome in our house, though we suspect she will want her own space by then. We decided we will have to build her a house next to ours when that time comes. Of course, that means we have to find some land and a house for ourselves first.

I read Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer as part of Sharon's Post-Apocalyptic Book Club. It is written in diary format from the POV of a 16-year-old girl. It was a great read, and when I was done, I suggested that Cait read it, which she did. She says she enjoyed the book, proven by the fact that she spent probably 6 hours a day reading it.

Moira has been reading anything she can get her hands on. A lot of Secrets of Droon, the Sisters Grimm, etc. She even began The Fellowship of the Ring, but I think it was a bit too much for her because it is now back on the shelf.

So that is what they have been up to lately. Enjoying the summer, nearly daily swimming (at least when it isn't thundering) and playing with the kittens (named Mini and Salem) who are now 3½ months old.

Civilization

2008-07-27T21:50:00.002-05:00

I'm trying to post a video I saw. Let's see if this works.

I hope you enjoy it. Requested updates on the kids coming soon.

Identity Crisis

2008-07-14T19:34:00.003-05:00

In case you hadn't noticed, this blog has been having a terrible identity crisis. I can't decide if I want to blog about parenting, knitting, activism, or what. I have mostly been blogging just about what happens to inspire a post. It probably doesn't help that I read such varied blogs on a regular basis. The only blog type I read regularly that hasn't influenced this blog has been comics. Be very thankful of that. :)

I don't blog often enough to separate the content into multiple blogs, so I suppose I will have to figure out some other way of organizing the content. Or maybe a multi-purpose blog isn't so bad after all. Any thoughts?

Monkey update

2008-07-14T19:22:00.003-05:00

Well, I made a huge mistake and washed Monkey after Eirik smeared chocolate all over his head. I had originally stuffed him with woollen and linen fabric scraps. This was for a few reasons: 1) it used up the fabric scraps so I didn't have to just throw them in the trash; 2) it gave Monkey a bit more weight; 3) I didn't think I had enough polyester fiberfil to stuff him. So I put Monkey in the washing machine and then in the dryer since I knew he would never dry satisfactorily on the clohtesline with all that fabric inside him. I learned that that particular yarn felts up beautifully -- if you want to felt something. That means it shrinks, too. It also shrinks around the stuffing, so parts that had more stuffing didn't shrink as much as parts that had less stuffing. Originally his mouth and his butt were the same size. Now he has a teeny butt and still has a big mouth. Not only did Monkey shrink and felt up, he also didn't dry as well as I had thought. A week later I was trying to identify the festering laundry smell near Eirik's pillow. I finally realized it was Monkey. I took a pair of scissors to Monkey, but I stuffed him as I knitted him, so I have to unstuff him through several incisions. The good part is he won't unravel due to the felting. The bad part is I have to work the stuffing out through much smaller holes. I cut open his crotch (I figured that was the most logical place to start since that is where the stuffing when in, and it was quite the enterprise to pull the packed stuffing out of his feet and up through the shrunken legs and out the crotch. Of course, I had to make some rude comments about it to Caitie who was watching to make her laugh. That was some stinky fabric that came out, and it still wasn't dry! I still have to cut open his armpits, tail, mouth and ears. Then I will see if I can salvage Monkey. If not, I will have to make a new Monkey since Eirik likes him so much.

Response from my Congressman

2008-07-03T19:04:00.002-05:00

I heard back from my Congressman today regarding the letter I wrote to him (see here). Here is his response, and my return reply is below that. Let's see if I get another canned response or if this one actually gets read.

Dear Mrs. Anderson,

Thank you for contacting me about the rising cost of fuel. I truly appreciate hearing from you, and I am working hard to stand up for New Hampshire 's interests in Congress.

I understand how important affordable fuel is to you personally. Oil companies are reporting record profits while New Hampshire families are struggling to deal with rising gas and heating oil prices. I am working in Congress to find both immediate and long-term solutions to this problem.

One major cause of rising oil prices is unregulated speculation in the oil market. I am a co-sponsor of H.R. 6334, the Increasing Transparency and Accountability in Oil Prices Act. This legislation would stop excessive speculation in the petroleum markets by closing loopholes that drive up energy prices. Energy analysts recently testified before Congress that if excessive speculation was limited, gas prices could drop to as low as $2 per gallon. H.R. 6334 has been referred to the House Committee on Agriculture.

To help lower the cost of fuel, it is also critical that we increase our domestic energy supply. There are currently 68 million acres of federal lands that have been leased to oil companies but have not yet been drilled, limiting supply and driving up fuel prices for New Hampshire families.

I am an original co-sponsor of H.R. 6251, the Responsible Federal Oil and Gas Lease Act, which provides a common sense solution to this problem. This bill prohibits oil companies from receiving new leases unless they have demonstrated diligent efforts to develop the lands they currently own for the production of oil or natural gas. On June 26, 2008, I voted for H.R. 6251, which, unfortunately, did not pass in the House of Representatives. I will continue to fight for sustainable energy policies and encourage responsible drilling on federal lands.

The House also recently passed legislation to encourage new, affordable energy sources. I am an original cosponsor of H.R. 6049, the Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008. The bill extends existing tax credits for the production of renewable energy sources, as well as credits that will make it easier for families power their homes with less expensive energy sources. Greater production and consumption of these new energy sources will reduce demand of fossil fuels and lower prices. On May 21, 2008 H.R. 6049 passed the House by a vote of 263 to 160 and is now awaiting action in the Senate.

While curbing our dependence on foreign oil is critical, drilling in places such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and off our coasts will take as long as ten years to increase in our oil supply, and will not bring immediate relief to our skyrocketing fuel costs. Through development of new technologies and renewable energy, the United States can achieve energy independence and lower energy prices even more quickly than by threatening our public health by drilling for non-renewable energy sources. Please know that I will keep your views in mind as I continue to work for lower fuel costs for New Hampshire citizens.

I encourage you to continue to contact me about the issues that are important to you. Please visit our website www.hodes.house.gov where you can also sign up for my electronic newsletter and receive periodic updates on my activities as your Representative in Washington .

Sincerely,

Paul Hodes

Member of Congress

And my response back:

Dear Mr. Hodes,

I can see that you did not fully understand my original letter or did not read it in its entirety. I do not want you to find ways of keeping gas prices down. On the contrary, gas and oil prices should keep rising so that we will use less and less of them. My desire is for you to help enable us as citizens of New Hampshire and as citizens of the United States to reduce our dependence on ALL oil. Encourage the rail system to be re-established, improve interstate bus systems, encourage re-localization of all parts of the economy. Stop importing everything from China and Taiwan. Only then can we truly be free of the tyrannical rule of oil.

Sincerely,
Mrs. Judith Anderson

Monkey pictures

2008-06-23T15:48:00.003-05:00

See pattern here.
See story here.

Here are the long-awaited monkey photos.

Sockless Monkey Pattern

2008-06-22T22:50:00.005-05:00

Sockless Monkey

See story here.
See pictures here.

Please Note: The yarn I used for the pattern did not wash so well. Poor monkey is now fat and *very* short.

Materials:
Worsted weight tweedy grey yarn (Dalegarn Heilo 0007) – 100 g
Worsted weight cream yarn (Daledgarn Heilo 0020) – 50 g
Worsted weight red yarn – 2 yards scrap (I had some Lopi leftover from another project, colorway # unknown)
Size 4 dpns (two sets if possible, though not necessary)
Stitch holders (if not two sets of dpns)
Slippery scrap yarn for crochet provisional cast on.
2 large buttons for eyes.
Yarn needle

Gauge: Not really relevant as long as it is relatively dense so the stuffing doesn’t poke out between stitches.

Abbreviations:
Dpns: double-pointed needles
CO: cast on
K: knit
Yf: yarn forward
Yb: yarn back
Slip 2 tog kwise: slip two stitches together knitwise
Psso: pass slipped stitches over

Legs:
CO 3 stitches in cream/white.
Knit front and back of each, dividing onto 3 dpns (6 stitches total)
Knit front and back of each stitch (4 per needle)
Knit front and back of each stitch (8 per needle, 24 total)
Knit 35 rows, switch to grey yarn and knit 40 more rows.
Transfer first leg onto stitch holders or scrap yarn if you have only one set of dpns.
Repeat for 2nd leg.

Body:
Leaving Leg 2 still on the needles, knit one round.
CO 3 stitches (27 total)
Knit all stitches of Leg 1
CO 3 stitches (54 total)
Knit 2 more rounds.

Bum:
Re-distribute stitches so that half of each leg is on one needle, and the other half of each leg is on the other two needles. Leave the half on two needles be, you will be working the half on one needle. This helps avoid a ladder up the center of the bum. Unless of course you wish to define the cheeks.
Using cream yarn, knit 27 stitches, yf, slip one stitch, yb, slip stitch back onto left needle, turn.
Purl 26 stitches, yb, slip one stitch, yf, slip stitch back onto left needle, turn.
Knit 25 stitches, yf, slip one stitch, yb, slip stitch back onto left needle, turn.
Purl 24 stitches, yb, slip one stitch, yf, slip stitch back onto left needle, turn.
Knit 23 stitches, yf, slip one stitch, yb, slip stitch back onto left needle, turn.
Purl 22 stitches, yb, slip one stitch, yf, slip stitch back onto left needle, turn.
Knit 21 stitches, yf, slip one stitch, yb, slip stitch back onto left needle, turn.
Purl 20 stitches, yb, slip one stitch, yf, slip stitch back onto left needle, turn.
Knit 19 stitches, yf, slip one stitch, yb, slip stitch back onto left needle, turn.
Purl 20 stitches, yb, slip one stitch, yf, slip stitch back onto left needle, turn.
Knit 18, turn.
Purl 19, turn.
Knit 20, turn.
Purl 21, turn.
Knit 22, turn.
Purl 23, turn.
Knit 24, turn.
Purl 25, turn.
Knit 26, turn.
Purl 27, turn.

Body resumed:
Using grey, knit 50 rounds.
Using cream, knit 1 round.
K25, slip 2 tog knitwise, knit 1, psso, k 25, slip 2 tog knitwise, knit 1, psso.
K23, slip 2 tog knitwise, knit 1, psso, k 23, slip 2 tog knitwise, knit 1, psso.
K21, slip 2 tog knitwise, knit 1, psso, k 21, slip 2 tog knitwise, knit 1, psso.
K19, slip 2 tog knitwise, knit 1, psso, k 19, slip 2 tog knitwise, knit 1, psso.
K17, slip 2 tog knitwise, knit 1, psso, k 17, slip 2 tog knitwise, knit 1, psso.
K15, slip 2 tog knitwise, knit 1, psso, k 15, slip 2 tog knitwise, knit 1, psso.
K13, slip 2 tog knitwise, knit 1, psso, k 13, slip 2 tog knitwise, knit 1, psso.
K11, slip 2 tog knitwise, knit 1, psso, k 11, slip 2 tog knitwise, knit 1, psso.

Transfer stitches evenly to two needles, with each ending with the double decrease.
Using Kitchener stitch, graft ends together.

If my instructions have been clear enough to follow, You will have a shape that looks like a sock with the ankle and cuff divided into two legs. Stuff the monkey from his crotch, then seam it.

Arms:
Make the arms exactly as you did for the legs, but when you get to the 40th grey row, bind off. Stuff, and sew to side of monkey about half way along “foot” part.

Tail:
Using cream yarn, co 3 stitches.
Knit front and back of each, dividing evenly onto 3 dpns. (6 stitches total)
Knit front and back of each stitch (12 stitches total)
Knit 10 rounds.
Switch to grey and knit 50 more rounds.
Bind off.
Stuff if desired (I stuffed it as I knit it - every 10 rows or so I pushed some stuffing in there to just below my needles where it wouldn’t interfere with my knitting.)
Stitch to top of bum, centering it as well as possible.

Face:
Using a provisional cast on (I used crochet) and cream yarn, co 27 stitches.
Knit exactly the same as the bum.
Unpick the provisional cast on and transfer onto needles so you can work in the round.
Using grey, knit 1 round.
Using kitchener stitch, graft the mouth onto the face, with the bottom of the mouth about even with the top of the arms. Remember that this should be roundish.
Just before you finish grafting, stuff the mouth.
Finish grafting.
Using red, duplicate stitch a lip line across the mouth almost from corner to corner. I had only red yarn that was much bulkier than the rest of the monkey, so my duplicate stitch goes over two stitches at a time so as not to stretch out his mouth.
Stitch two large matching buttons on for eyes
Ears:
Using grey, CO 30 stitches, dividing evenly onto 3 dpns.
Knit 3 rounds.
Knit 12, slip 2 tog kwise, k1, psso, knit 12, slip 2 tog kwise, k1, psso.
Knit 10, slip 2 tog kwise, k1, psso, knit 10, slip 2 tog kwise, k1, psso.
Knit 8, slip 2 tog kwise, k1, psso, knit 8, slip 2 tog kwise, k1, psso.
Knit 6, slip 2 tog kwise, k1, psso, knit 6, slip 2 tog kwise, k1, psso.
Transfer stitches evenly to two needles, with each ending with the double decrease.
Using Kitchener stitch, graft ends together.
Stitch ears to sides of head above arms, just below the white part of the head.

It may be easier to bind off the mouth after the one grey round and just sew the mouth on, but I wanted to make it look as seamless as possible. I grafted my arms and tail onto the body, too. Unfortunately, it was my very first foray into grafting, so my monkey has obvious armpits if you lift his arms. With his arms down, his shoulders look seamless. Next time, I will graft the tops and bottoms of the arms separately

Sockless Sock Monkey

2008-06-19T21:11:00.005-05:00

See pattern here.
See pictures here.

I have finished knitting a sockless sock monkey for my son. I had to make up a pattern as I went, because all the instructions and patterns I found involved cutting and sewing an existing pair of socks (hence the name sock monkey). I didn't have any of the "right" kind of socks, but I had bought some lovely wool yarn with which to knit the monkey. Also, I didn't want to knit up a pair of socks just to cut and sew them. Too wasteful for me. So I started knitting and tried to make my monkey at least resemble the appearance of the proper style of sock. I read up on the differences between the authentic vintage sock style and the more modern one using an updated version of the same sock. I studied the cutting pattern so as to most closely simulate the proper seams. I also tried to size the "socks" to something a little bigger than my foot, but not as big as my husband's, the monkey would be approximately the same size as a cut-and-sewn monkey.

It took me about two weeks of knitting. I knit in the playground while I pushed the boy on a swing, while standing in the kitchen waiting to flip pancakes, or just sitting at the table to get it done. The hardest part for me, strangely enough, was the ears. I got the legs and body knitted up, and the girls stuffed it with woollen fabric scraps. I knitted up the arms and tail, stuffed them with more woollen fabric scraps, and attached them. I knitted up the mouth and finally liked how it looked on the fourth (or maybe fifth) time I stitched it on. I kept stitching it assymetrically, and I am a stickler for symmetry. Then I knitted up the ears and stitched them on. And I had a cat instead of a monkey.

It took me probably half an hour to figure out why I had a cat instead of a monkey. See, I had done something strange with the top of the head, (which would have been the toe of the sock) and used adjacent paired single decreases instead of a single double decrease to shape the toe and I ended up with ladders between the pairs. I had then knitted ears just the right size to cover up those ladders, and of course, putting smallish ears on the top of the head gave me a cat instead of a monkey. Once I realized my mistake, I knitted up new, bigger ears, but then I had to figure out what to do about the unsightly ladders. So, after having stitched on the eyes by sewing in from the back of the head and anchoring my thread knots in the fabric stuffing deep inside the head, I frogged the whole top of the head, snipping the monkey's stitched on eyelashes as I went. I had to set it down to put Eirik down for a nap, and when I came back downstairs, Moira asked me if I was doing brain surgery on the monkey. I said I supposed I was, and gently picked up all my stitches onto my needles again and started the toe-top all over, this time using one double decrease on each side of the head. The result was a much better looking head. I stitched the ears to the side of his head, and voila, I had a monkey.

I gave the monkey to my little punkmonkey son and we went out to the swing. He had much fun throwing the monkey on the ground while swinging and making me rescue him. He then would coddle the monkey for a few moments before throwing him down again. Finally, at one point I picked the monkey up off the ground and put him in the next swing over, which was empty. He left it there. We got down and went and played at the slide where Monkey was hurtled headlong down the slide. Eirik and Monkey returned to the swing where the coddle/rescue cycle began again. This time, Rowan was swinging right nest to him, so I put Monkey next to her. This time, he climbed down out of the swing and walked right under Rowan to get Monkey back. She was on her back swing and he got kicked in the head and went sprawling on the woodchips. Poor guy. Being only 20 months old, he was resilient and was soon playing Throw the Monkey again. He seems to really like it, which makes me very happy. There is little that is more disappointing than spending so much time and effort on an unappreciated gift.

I will try to post some pictures here if I can get my camera to work. I suppose I should also try writing out the pattern, too.

100 Item Challenge

2008-06-15T10:06:00.000-05:00

There is a challenge to pare one’s belongings down to 100 items total. I did this once some time ago and the paper I am copying this list from has 58 items on it. I have added some things on here that I didn’t think of then, and separated some things that I think now should be listed separately. I am unsure if this means per person or per household, so I am going to combine the two. I am going to list items by type with no duplicates within the type unless so noted. So for instance, I list my sewing kit, which includes measuring tape, needles, pins, scissors, etc. But I only need one measuring tape, one pair of scissors, and so on. I do not include consumables. So here is my list.

Kitchen

my pots/pans
extra stockpot
baking sheets and pans
measuring cups and spoons
2-3 assorted mixing bowls
1 place setting per person (cup, plate, bowl, silverware)
cutting board
2-3 wooden spoons
ladle
large fork
chef knife
paring knife
bread knife
sharpening stone
spatula
pitcher
2 wash basins (one to wash, one to rinse)
can opener
scissors/shears
coffee filters and holder (for straining debris out of collected water)
portable fire pit (if not in a house or for summer cooking)
grill brush
case of matches or flint
3-4 cookbooks (just the ones I already own and use on a daily basis)
gardening book
foraging book
5-6 dozen assorted canning jars (probably would need more if I can all our harvest)
brewing supplies
teapot
wood cookstove (if in a house)

Bath

4-5 dozen washcloths (they also currently double as our TP)
1 Towel per person
comb/brush
hair ties for each
razor
toothbrush for each
non-toxic cleaning kit (includes 2-3 spray bottles, washing soda, borax, etc.)
5-7 cleaning rags
wash tub
plunger
wringer
laundry basket
cloth pads (there are/will be multiple women in the household)

Bedroom

tents (if not in a house)
sleeping bags, pillows
3 changes of clothes for each
kids’ dolls (1 each)
cold weather outer gear for each (coat, mittens, etc.)
baby sling (at least until youngest is 3 years old)
handkerchief per person

Outdoors

axe
saw
hammer
spade
trowel
bucket
clothesline and pins
field guides to plants and animals
tote bags/backpacks for each
utility knife
hand crank flashlight
bow and arrows
fishing net
skinning/tanning book
maps, atlas, directions to loved ones’ homes

General

Circle Round book
3-4 health books (just the ones I already have)
family photo album
some kind of lamp
fire-safe with legal documents such as birth certs, etc.
sewing kit
string
knitting needles, crochet hooks, and accessories (such as darning needle, cable needle, stitch holder, etc.)
god and goddess statues
Book of Wisdom (my own homemade book that contains this list among other things)
knitting pattern books
sewing patterns
pleasure reading books
spinning wheel
loom (probably warp-weighted, since it takes up less space)

I could expand this out to 100 if I divided up things that I consider go together. I’m not listing my individual knitting needles, for example. But this is a great exercise to determine what exactly we truly need.

Write to your Representatives

2008-06-12T12:04:00.002-05:00

Here is the letter that I just sent to my Congressman. Feel free to copy it, personalize it, and send it off to your own representative.

Dear Mr. Hodes,

Ms. Shea-Porter recently sent out a survey to her constituents regarding energy prices and I wished to address this issue with you as one of your constituents.

I understand that everyone is focusing on our need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, but I think we are missing the point, which is that we should be reducing our dependence on all oil, foreign or domestic. Instead of pouring money into the bottomless pit of oil exploration and development, we should instead focus on helping people transition to a low-energy lifestyle, where the price of oil will be mostly irrelevant since we won't need it anymore. As I see it, trying to be more self-sufficient for our oil needs is like the drug addict who tries to produce their own drugs instead of seeking a rehabilitation center. Instead of more drilling, we need to create an oil-addiction rehabilitation system.

We can encourage people to save energy at night by going to bed earlier instead of sitting up watching 24-hour television. We can encourage people to purchase well-built American-made products that will last instead of cheap plastic from China that will break within a month of purchase. We need to rebuild a new, sustainable economy out of the ashes of this destructive one that is dying before our eyes. We need to allow the price of oil to rise to the point that everyone finds ways out of necessity to do without it.

Please don't waste our time and effort trying to keep our addictions fed. Instead, use our resources to help us make the inevitable transition so that we don't crash, so that we can learn the skills we will need now while we can still afford to make learning mistakes instead of when those mistakes mean the difference between life and death.

Respectfully yours,
Judith Anderson

What is survival, anyway?

2008-06-10T09:37:00.002-05:00

Dmitry Orlov said recently, "But the tragic thing is, to prepare for collapse, you have to start living as if it already happened, and very few people are willing to do that. They will wait until it is too late, and then expect somebody to come to their rescue." Sharon also has a challenge (that I am not fully participating in this time) that involves learning new skills, so I decided to add laundry 100% by hand to my list of skills. Don't get me wrong - I love my washing machine. With 5 children who love to get dirty, I do a lot of laundry. I have no intention of giving it up any sooner than I have to, especially since water and electricity are included in my rent. Drying by hand is a cinch - a clothesline outside in nice weather, an empty closet left ajar, several hangers and a box fan in the house in wet weather and that's all there is to it. But actually getting the clothes clean is another matter.

I have some minor prior experience. Six years ago when Lauren was a baby, we got our first set of cloth diapers. We lived in an apartment and had no washing facilities, normally doing our laundry at the laundromat down the road. We had a total of 24 diapers; enough for 2 days, not enough to justify a washer load at the laundromat. So every night after I put the kids to bed (after working a 10-hour workday a 45-minute commute from home), I plunked all the wet and dirty diapers in the tub and washed them by hand. I had no washboard, and didn't know how helpful a plunger could be. I just swished the wet diapers in the tub first, and wrung them out by hand. Then I washed the dirty ones in order from least poopy to most poopy. She was exclusively breastfed, so the poop wasn't too bad to deal with those first few months. I took a handful of diaper on each side and just rubbed them together until they came clean. Then I wrung them out by hand. We had no clothesline then, so the clean diapers were draped over the shower curtain rod (it went all the way around) until we got a clotheshorse. Altogether, the process took me about an hour each day. For eight to ten flat diapers.

So as I was thinking about how life will be without electricity, I realized that meant no washing machine. Laundry for 7 people was going to take me about 30 hours each day, then I still had to cook, do other cleaning, garden, and try to squeeze in a little shut-eye, too. Yikes! I gave thanks to the gods for my washing machine and tried to never think about laundry again. Then I learned about using a plunger to do the agitating. Whew! What a relief. So now I am on the hunt for a clothes wringer, since that really will probably be the most time-consuming aspect.

I began to call local hardware stores, but that isn't an item that is kept on hand. It can be special ordered for me, or I can order online. I checked Lehmans, but wanted to find something a little lower-priced. Ebay had lots of them for sale, but they all praised the aesthetics, with no mention of functionality. I don't care what it looks like, does it work? Then I remembered that LATOC has a preparedness store. No laundry solutions, though. That got me to reflecting on other people's idea of "survival". Yes, hunting knives and food stocks are very important. There are several items for creating electricity, but nothing to get you clean. How close to an animal are you going to when hunting it with your knife if you are wearing clothes saturated with sweat and blood? Maybe it is the difference between men and women. I want to be fed, clothed, sheltered, AND clean. Is that really too much to ask?

Toilet Paper on the Clothesline

2008-06-10T08:26:00.003-05:00

This past winter, we decided to finally get rid of the toilet paper. My husband has, over time, brought home over 100 washcloths from work where he uses them to mop his brow. At one point I counted nearly 200, some of which I promptly gave away. So now I put a small stack of washcloths on the toilet tank behind the seat and we use those as our TP. I keep a bucket in the downstairs bathroom, and the washing machine is immediately outside the door to the upstairs bathroom. I can't put more than a few in each bathroom at a time or else the boy will take the whole stack and dip it in the toilet, which gets flushed every two or three uses.

So the other day I was hanging the laundry out to dry and realized that up to 1/4 of my clothesline space was used for drying toilet paper. How many other folks hang up their toilet paper to dry? Not many. I did notice that more of my neighbors are starting to use their clotheslines, though. Every apartment here has three lines run from the house across the patio, to the fence on the far side. They weren't ideally placed however, and the lines for my building are on the south side of the patio, right up against the fence. This means very little sun. On dry days at this time of year, though, I can still hang two sets of clothes, sometimes even three. I can fit anywhere from half a washerload to a full washerload at a time if I push things close together. If it is just adult clothes and/or towels, I can fit the whole load. If it is mostly kids clothes and/or washcloths, I can only fit half the load.

It is nice to know that we use almost no paper products now except paper to write on. We have an abundance of towels and washcloths that get used for everything that most people use paper for. I made up some nice muslin napkins for the table, and I haven't had a roll of paper towels in the house for over a year. Now to get rid of the last of the plastic. I still use ziplock bags for dividing up larger purchases into more manageable sizes, and gladware for leftovers.

Another Year

2008-06-09T09:57:00.002-05:00

It looks like it will be a year before we can get out own place. We met with Habitat for Humanity and they say we qualify for their help. The problem is that they are busy through the end of this building season, so won't be able to start anything new until next spring. I'm crossing my fingers in hopes that the farmland will still be available then. I have noticed that many large land properties are staying on the market for quite some time. One we have been watching has been on the market for nearly 1½ years, I think.

I got a garden planted this year finally. The maintenance guys rototilled a nice big patch out back for us. I have 4 tomatoes, 2 peppers, 4 broccoli, 4 cauliflower, 2 cucumbers, 8 peas, 16 carrots, 3 strawberries (one of which sent out a runner that has developed roots), 2 onions, 9 potatoes, 1 pumpkin and 1 watermelon. I wanted a large variety, but I also didn't want to overwhelm myself, either. Some I bought as seedlings, some I planted from seed. Some were things that had started to sprout in my pantry, namely the onions and potatoes. The seeds may or may not be sprouting. It is hard or me to tell if the green I see is the seed I planted, a seed from the mostly composted cow manure I planted them in, or a seed from the field that was dug up. So I will nurture them all until I can identify them.

We are having horrible hot weather here. It has hit 90 degrees a couple of times, and close to it every day for the last week or so. The forecast keeps promising thunderstorms, but they dematerialize before they get to us. We got one rainstorm overnight last week, but it did nothing for the heat. Until the weather breaks, I am keeping the kids in the house. The TV is on more to keep them still so they don't work up too much heat. I can't wait until it rains so I can send them outside. The garden will appreciate it, too. I have been watering it both in the early morning and the later evening, using almost 1.5 gallons each time.

So that is the news from here. I will try not to wait a month again for the next post.

One denial closer

2008-04-26T09:04:00.002-05:00

Yesterday we went to the bank. Really, my husband did since he is the only income in the house, so the bank doesn't care about me, which is a good thing, given my crappy credit (what divorced person doesn't have crappy credit?). I took the kids to the park to await his call saying the appointment was done. I was so nervous I was almost ill. I was so afraid the bank would laugh at us and ask how delusional we thought we were for wanting a mortgage. About half an hour passed then he called. "Come pick me up," he said. He didn't say anything about how it went. I called the kids and for once they didn't whine about wanting to stay and play longer, thank goodness. I picked him up and he said, "Good news and bad news. Good news..." He paused and I said, "She didn't laugh in your face?" He chuckled and said, "That, too." Apparently the bank doesn't finance farms. She directed us to the USDA Rural Development program, and I ended up talking to some guy who asked how much experience we had and if we had a business plan? I didn't know you needed a business plan to live and raise a couple of chickens and goats. To me, that is akin to asking a pregnant woman if she has a degree in early childhood education. A little while later I realized that she probably thought we are going to run a commercial farm rather than a home with a few animals. I called back to explain, but it was near the end of the day, so I had to settle for leaving her a voice mail. The good news, though is that otherwise, the bank was happy to give us the loan. She sent it on up to her supervisor to see if there was something else they could do for us. When hubby told me that, I started to cry. I truly thought that my dreams of having a home of our own would only be that - just dreams. So now I wait until Monday when businesses open again to see if it was a misunderstanding or if banks now decide what kinds of pets homeowners can have.

Almost surreal

2008-04-21T20:34:00.004-05:00

It all started 2 weeks ago yesterday. I was at the farm where I buy my milk and I nonchalantly asked the farmer's wife if she happened to know of any land available that we might be able to farm on. She answered that she did in fact read of some land that was up for sale as conservation land in a nearby town. She couldn't remember any other details and didn't know where her paper was that she had found it in. So armed with that minimal amount of knowledge, I called the town office and asked if they knew what property it might be and whom I should speak with. They directed me to the head of the conservation committee, who gave me the name and number of the committee member who was handling it. By Wednesday I had the info packet. Over the weekend the lady answered my questions on the property and I started calling banks to find a mortgage. Last Friday we went to walk through the land, which is beautiful fields and forest. There are multiple building lot locations available to choose from when deciding where to put the house. Today I got an appointment for this Friday to apply for the mortgage at a local bank, and we will be signing a purchase and sale agreement, and I will be dropping off some floor plan sketches to the local lumberyard for an estimate on building costs. We will be building the house with our own two hands as we have time and money to do so. In the meantime we will be camping out all summer on our own land.

There are two lots we have to choose from. One is 31 acres, the other is 25 acres. They have 8 and 7 potential building sites, respectively. There will be a conservation easement on all but 2 acres of the land to protect the groundwater since it is part of the town's watershed. The 2 acres is where we will put the house, the barn, the chicken coop, hubby's forge, and any other buildings we might need. The larger lot is about half field, half forest; the smaller lot is about 1/3 field, 2/3 forest. We haven't decided yet which one we will take. They are almost the same price.

I have been sitting with graph paper and pencil for a few days now sketching out floor plans of various sizes and layouts. The lumberyard offered a free review with one of their engineers to make sure that the design will hold up, eg. the carrying beam is strong enough to hold the second floor. We plan to model the house after the one I described a few posts ago. We plan to have a THWASPCO like Greenpa, a root cellar and a barn. Non-structures will include a compost pile and a nice, big garden.

The only challenge we have to pass now is getting a mortgage. I feel slightly insane trying to get a mortgage in the midst of a credit crunch, but the land is only $100k. I am hoping that a local bank will be happy to give us one even if the major national lenders are in trouble. The town wants to close on June 3rd. The mortgage lady at the bank said that is not a problem.

Honestly, I feel scared and exhilarated. We have been wanting this for 10 years now, and finally, it feels like it is just falling in our laps. The land is exactly what we want. Yes, it would be nice for there to be a pond on site, but there is a lake just a half mile down the road with a public beach that is really nice. We are exactly the kind of people the conservation committee wants on the land. It is in one of the two towns we wanted to be in. So now it just comes down to money. And that is what scares me. I am afraid we will be denied when we have no down payment. We aren't allowed to save up for a down payment, though. As soon as we have cash assets of $2000 or more, we are ineligible for food stamps or public housing, which makes saving up a down payment a bit difficult. I am keeping positive by reminding myself that we *do* deserve this. We have been pretty good about our budget for a year and a half. We have been on time with our rent payments for the last couple of years. That should count for something.

Buy Nothing Month sins

2008-04-14T10:36:00.003-05:00

I thought that the Buy Nothing Month Challenge from Crunchy Chicken would be a breeze. I don't usually feel a "need" to have something. It's funny how much you suddenly "need" as soon as you swear it all off. I have gone to Sunday confessional twice at Crunchy's blog. I thought I would update you as to how I am doing on here as well.

Two days into the challenge, I got a call form the local kitchen store that the pot I have been waiting forever for finally came in. It was a 2-qt stainless steel saucepan. I had a 1-qt and a 3-qt cast iron saucepans, and an 8-qt stainless steel stockpot, but I needed something I could heat tomato sauce in without wasting the energy needed to do it in such a huge pot.

It is also very hard to do this challenge in a month when I have two children's birthdays. When we got them each their own bed, we discovered we owned 3 sets of twin size sheets and had 4 beds. So I took Rowan out for her birthday and got her a set of sheets so each bed could be used. The rest of the sheets are about 10 years old and getting pretty threadbare and elastic-worn. I promised the other kids they could each pick out new sheets for their birthdays, too. We go out today to get Lauren's.

All the rest of my sinful indulgences have been edibles. Ice cream, chocolate, etc. I think I have bought junk food 5 or 6 times this month.

Buy Nothing Month

2008-04-01T11:40:00.003-05:00

I have entered Crunchy Chicken's Buy Nothing Challenge for this month. You can read the rules at the link above this post. I confess that I bought a WoW game card yesterday since I was planning on buying one in a week or two. Don't grief me about WoW. It helps me keep my sanity. As the world goes to hell in a handbasket around me, I can pretend to some sort of normalcy when I play. It is my drug of choice right now. When the grid crashes I will have to find a new drug, I know. And I know that the environmental impact of playing WoW is not small, but that and driving 90 miles each direction for my daughter on the weekends are my hugest impacts by far. So check out the challenge and join us.

Hodge Podge

2008-04-01T10:51:00.002-05:00

I have several things to talk about today, pretty much all unrelated.

First, the property manager here has given me permission to start a community garden in the small field (huge useless lawn) on site. She even said it used to be a community garden, but they had problems with crime and eventually dropped it. When I asked about reviving it, she said I could be in charge of it. I made up a flyer (pending approval) pointing out the benefits of gardening and inviting everyone to participate. I even promised a potluck dinner at the end of the year with garden grown veggies. The property manager offered to have maintenance do the tilling for us, and I am just waiting on her approval for the date and such. Woo hoo!

Secondly, I cleared out a lot of space in two closets so I can start storing food. I am waiting for a call from the local homemade candy store (wouldn't that be store-made, though? local, anyway) about 5-gallon buckets. I also need to find shelving to fit in the closets. I am very proud of my food shopping thriftiness lately. I visit the food pantry (which is still very well stocked, fortunately) on Wednesdays, then I make up a menu for the next 7 days based on what we got from the pantry. I try to have to put no more than a dozen items on the shopping list. Last week, I had probably 10 things on the list. I was able to buy almost all organic and spent just under $50. I am desperately hoping that the price of organic food won't rise as much as that of conventional food since organic requires less oil inputs. We are down to eating meat about 3-4 times a week now, down from 6-7 times a week, and nearly all of it comes from the food pantry. We still have to buy meat for our cat, but even some of that can come from the pantry. After all, even with 6 mouths to feed every day, there is no way I am serving roast chicken 3 times a week. One, we get other meats as well usually; two, that much chicken causes appetite fatigue in our house; and three, ... well, I can't think of a three. We are purchasing a piglet this month for a local farmer to raise for us, and the price of uncertified organic hamburger at our local farm is $3.39/lb.

Third unrelated item -- a few days ago I took a detour while taking my daughter back to her dad's house to stop by the house in Nostalgia and we were invited in by the same man who bought the house from my folks 20 years ago. It looks so different. He has expanded the second floor to be a full storey instead of a loft, installed a bathroom, a full-fledged kitchen, two bedrooms upstairs and windows downstairs. It looked so much smaller than it did when I was my daughter's age. It was very cozy. The gentleman said that he was struggling with the payments for two reasons. He is a carpenter and work has been slow, and the taxes have gone up from $600/year in 1988 to $3400 now. Ouch. But it was very nice to see the house again. I had just driven up the seemingly shortened driveway (surely the whole property shrank over 20 years) and looked around while staying in the car, but the man came out and I explained who I was and that I just wanted to show my daughter, and he invited in me in for a look-see and a chat. Very talkative gent. I think we spent 45 minutes there chatting, so I had to make up time since my husband had specifically said not to take 5 hours for the 4+ hour trip. I made it home in 4.5 hours. Very little traffic at that time of night helped a lot. The little hill where I used to build my forts turns out to be about half the distance from the house that I thought. The 30-40 feet in my memory turned out to be merely 10-20 feet.

Spring Cleaning?

2008-03-20T07:03:00.003-05:00

I have been faithfully reading Casaubon's Book for a while now and she is currently teaching us all about food storage. I was bemoaning to myself that I have no place to store food in this tiny apartment with 7 people in it, when I realized that I do. I will a couple of closets that are not being used to their maximum efficiency. There are clothes sprawled across their floors, boxes that have been opened and look like they have thrown up and all kinds of other fun stuff. So today I am going to start reorganizing and decluttering them. My youngest and last child is now 17 months old and has not used his baby bathtub since he was about 9 months old. I took out the stick-to-the-floor seat when he was 10 months and would stand up in the tub. It wouldn't sitck very well to the bottom of the tub, but it did stick to his behind, making him stand up crooked and smack his sister in the head when he turned around. (They share baths.) Both of those are still in my closet. It is time to Freecycle them. I plan to get rid of most of my baby stuff. Most of it is unnecessary consumer goods. There are a few things I will keep, like the moses basket, for when my grandchildren come along. That basket has been used with my 5 kids, and 2 of friends, and I have only had to redo the handles that wore out. I have just a couple of cute outfits I will keep, too. I had originally planned to have one more child, hopefully a son I could name Boris, but after learning about overpopulation and its troubles, I can only hope vainly that one of my children will give me a grandson named Boris.I will also keep the handmade baby blankets, but donate the rest. Eirik has never really used baby blankets, preferring to sleep in my or his sisters' beds. Once the closets are cleaned, I am calling the local restaurants for 5-gallon buckets and lids so I can see if I can get any whole wheat before it is all sold out across the country.

Nostalgia

2008-03-03T20:50:00.005-05:00

I have spent the last few months fighting a hereditary winter depression, but with spring right around the corner, and all my girls' birthdays underway, I am feeling like posting again. I recently posted a question to Greenpa over at his blog about housing design, and today he did his best to answer me. I am so honored.

I thought I would use this post to talk about the house that I consider my childhood home. When I was 2, my parents bought a 5-acre parcel in a backwoods town that was so small it had no traffic lights and a one-lane bridge that went to the next town over. When I was 4, we temporarily lived there in a trailer for a couple of months until my folks found a small house to rent where my youngest brother was born the next year. When I was 8, my parents started building on that property. They had a nice house planned, with a 2-car garage attached by a breezeway. They started the garage first, since it was smaller and the plan was to move into the garage while they built the house so as not to have to pay rent any longer than necessary. The house never got built, and we lived in the garage for just over 3 years, but those were the happiest years of my life.

They built this "house" with their own two hands, and I was proud to help whenever I could. They did have a cement truck come in and pour the floor, but they built the framework for the cement (I don't know what it is called) and leveled it themselves. They did all the framing and putting up the exterior walls themselves, and our church held a work day when it was time to put the roof up. It took several months to complete the house, and we moved in in January 1985, two months before I turned 9.

The house was situated about 300' in from the road. I know our driveway was incredibly long to walk up and down, and impossible to shovel. My folks always hired a plow when the snow came. Being so young at the time, my impressions of size were distorted, but I think I remember my dad telling me that number as the length of the driveway.

Our house was 20'x24', with a 12' loft along the southern 24' wall. The door was on the western 20' wall, and since it was supposed to be a garage, we had two huge windows in the south wall, which were going to be the garage doors after the house proper was built. Those windows had no glass, just two sheets of plastic over them inside and out. Lots of sun, lots of winter warmth. We got upstairs by way of a ladder that was too steep to be called stairs, but just flat enough that we could go down facing forwards if we wanted to be naughty. Upstairs were five windows, three along the south wall, and one each in the eastern and western walls. I have not seen this kind of window anywhere else. They were square, probably 3' to a side, with just one sash, and to open them we pushed them up and out from the bottom and stuck a pole in to hold them out. No screens. My cat used to like jumping out my window, then coming back inside and doing it again. There were no windows in the northern wall, and the roof was saltbox-like. It was two stories high on the south side, went up to a peak, then down to the first floor on the north side. It was covered in asphalt shingles. The walls were insulated, and half of them were sheetrocked, the other half just had clear plastic holding the insulation in so it didn't fall out. None of the sheetrock was painted. The ceiling was also insulated with plastic over it.

There were no interior walls, either. The ultimate in open-concept living. There was a railing along the edge of the loft so we didn't fall down onto the woodstove. The woodstove was in the center of the house, slightly offset to the north so that the stovepipe went up beside the loft instead of through it. We had a propane stove that we used in the summer when it was too hot for the woodstove or when Mom was baking. Our woodstove was not designed for cooking, though it did work well for it. The northeast corner was the kitchen area with the stove, some salvaged countertop for storage and workspace, and a small table for the two dishpans which constituted our sink. The southeast corner housed the table and chairs, which sat right in front of one of those huge windows. The southwest corner was the living room, with a sofa and an easy chair, and the northwest corner had the ladder upstairs, the woodbin, and some bookcases. Upstairs we visually divided into three "rooms". I hung a blanket from the rafters to segregate my 8'x8' "room". My two younger brothers had the middle 64 square feet, and my parents had the western 64 square feet. The front 4 feet of the loft was for walking, and at the end (down by my room) was the "indoor pot". This was a 5-gallon bucket with a toilet seat set on top. We were only allowed to use it at night or if we were sick. Mom emptied it into the outhouse when it got full.

We heated entirely with wood, and when I was 10 or 11, I used to start the fire each morning. My dad worked second shift, and although my mom stayed home with us kids, she kept his hours. We weren't allowed to wake them up until at least 10 am. Being a kid, I naturally got up at 6 every morning. We were homeschooled, so I would get up, go downstairs and light the fire, have a bowl of cereal for breakfast, then start my schoolwork. I remember the woodstove as a long, cast-iron box on legs. The stovepipe came out a short end, with the door on the other short end, and the long sides had a hunting scene on them. It was a beautiful stove. The top had a single level, so it was easy to cook on it. We always had a big stockpot of water sitting back there to keep the humidity up. It also provided conveniently easy hot water if you weren't going to drink it. If you were going to drink it, we had a teapot so the water would stay clean. I suppose we used the stockpot like the hot water reservoirs I have seen on pictures of wood cookstoves.

We had no electricity or running water. The house was wired for electricity, but my folks never had it run in from the street because they were going to wait until the house was done and do both buildings at the same time. We lit our home with kerosene lanterns, had a fridge only in the winter (the entire outdoors was our fridge then), and had a 13" TV with rabbit ears that ran off of a 12V car battery. We had a well that sometimes worked and sometimes didn't. I don't know why it didn't work in the end, but it was near the bottom of the driveway and had a red pitcher pump on it. I remember watching my mom dig the hole for the outhouse, which is featured in some very funny stories that I tell my children. (Like the time the baby goat jumped down there. Eeew!) The outhouse was situated off the northeast corner of the house, probably 10'-15' away from the house. It certainly wasn't as elaborate as Greenpa's THWASPCO, but it served the purpose.

I have great memories of that house. I wish I could buy it back and move my family back there again. It has probably been brought up to date in the almost 20 years since we moved out, though.

Fundamental personal changes

2007-11-10T21:33:00.000-05:00

Please bear with me in this post. Ironically, it is about chaos vs. order, but it is vary chaotic in its organization. I have not posted for a while here (big shock, huh?), but it isn't from a lack of thinking about it. Primarily, I have just been spending far less time on the computer in general. This last summer, I decided that my family would benefit from more structure in our lives, and less chaos. I started by simply adding a walk to the mornings. My routine then was to get up, start the laundry in the washer, make breakfast, hang up the laundry and go for a walk. The kids then had the rest of the day to do as they pleased, which usually meant arguing or fighting or being random balls of chaos run amok in the house. I then started taking them outside and actually sitting out there with them the whole time for a few hours each day after lunch. This of course meant I could not turn on the computer at 10 am and spend the rest of the day here surfing and researching. I had to actually sit outside. Now don't get me wrong. I love the outdoors. I just never felt fulfilled doing nothing, and nothing meant not actively thinking with my brain. I didn't know how to really enjoy the moment and just live. I read about living, I daydreamed about living, but I didn't actually live. It is kind of scary now that I think about it. I had noticed this tendency to not live a few years back, but I didn't know how to face the problem. I had always lived inside my head, from the time I was 4 and learned how to read. I read avidly. I even had a job where I could read a novel while I ran my machine (not that I was supposed to, but I was tucked away and had a great view, so I could hide my book if someone was coming). I could put away a short novel in one 10-hour shift, a longer novel could take up to 3 or 4 ten-hour shifts. Even when I wasn't working, I was reading. When I was pregnant with my oldest daughter, I subscribed to Harlequin, and had an ample supply of "bodice-rippers". I would read an entire book while my husband was gone to work and I had nothing to do all day except watch TV or read. Goodness knows I couldn't do housework. Not for lack of capability, but for lack of knowledge. So I spent a good 25 years living in my head. When I was 28, I learned about Rudolf Steiner, and his warnings against living in one's head. But I didn't know any other way to live. Living entirely in my head, I didn't do any real living. So my venture to sitting outside while the kids played was "capital B boring." Then I read Sharon's post called Knitting for the Apocalypse, and decided that I could do some knitting while I sat outside. The weather was gorgeous, I was skilled enough at knitting to do it with my eyes shut, and I could feel like I wasn't just sitting there. Actually, my first sitting outside project was weaving the rug I posted about a few months back, but I quickly got bored of that and gave up before I considered it done. It was "good enough." After spending several afternoons outside, I noticed that I didn't feel so drawn to the computer to read my 300+ daily emails as soon as I got up. Reading was no longer my raison d'etre. I started getting other things done around the house. The first time I noticed a shift in my functioning was when I finished knitting a pair of socks for Eirik and was shocked that they were done that quickly. Every other time I have crafted something, my purpose for doing it was to get it done. I wanted to skip the doing it and just have it done. This often meant that I took shortcuts, finished it when it was "good enough", or just plain quit the project altogether. So I finished the socks and thought, Now what? I found a ball of yarn that I had bought last year to make mittens for a local charity, but I never got around to making any. So I decided to make some mittens. My first pair took only 4 days, and could easily have been done in 2 or 3 if I had committed more time to them. By this point, I was getting on my computer after dinner, and only occasionally turning it on earlier in the day, ostensibly to check the weather. We had also started the school year, and had a more structured day. I got up, started the laundry, made breakfast, started the kids on their chores, hung up the laundry, went for our walk, laid the baby down for a nap, and did lessons before having lunch and going outside. Now, I spend more time doing things around the house and far less time on the computer. It is rarely turned on now before the kids are in bed at 7:30, my email is down to 50 or less usually, and about half of those are usually from Freecycle rather than any discussion lists. I get my blog subscriptions via email, so I don't spend time checking all the blog websites to see if there is anything new, and I only have a small handful (not even) of websites that I visit on a regular basis because they don't have RSS feeds. Sometimes I will look up something specific, like when I wanted a recipe for Pumpkin Soup, and on those days I can get a bit more lost on the web. But usually after those few routine computer stops, I play World of Warcraft with my husband, and that is the extent of my computer use.

Wait, wasn't I talking about chaos vs. order? Oh yes. Sorry, the chaos isn't completely gone. What I have found lately through knitting is grounding. Knitting is a very base activity. It is a very rhythmical process, and I can literally do it with my eyes shut. I had always been curious what people meant by grounding, and I finally know. Knitting is literally a no-brainer. I can give my brain a rest, and get something productive done at the same time. A few days ago, I spent one day standing in the kitchen (my haven, my solace, my refuge) knitting a slipper for Rowan and reading _The Long Emergency_ by James Howard Kunstler. In addition to the normal daily activities of cooking and cleaning and refereeing the kids, I got one entire slipper knitted and 100 pages read. I decided that I am going to read this book before I have to return it to the library, unlike some books I have borrowed. The next day, I read and knitted less. I got about 2/3 of the other slipper knitted, and not nearly so many pages read.

Terry is making us a new trestle table, and it has been quite the experiment. I never realized how much care had to go into designing a table so that it would be stable. The first time he built it, we had to flip it over because we had assembled it upside down on our existing table. I suggested flipping it end over end onto the floor. As soon as its weight was on the end on the floor, that end collapsed and boards fell everywhere. Terry was mightily angry, so I put it back together myself. Then we flipped it over sideways and it stayed together. But it still rocks and I don't trust putting anything heavy on the ends, like my sewing machine. This process of building in the house has been very hard on me. There have been boards everywhere, and tools everywhere, and often times I could not maneuver in the house because it was so full. Disassembling the old table and putting it away helped greatly, but now he has brought more boards home to improve the design so it is more stable. I have boards all along my living room floor, and to top it off, I brought home new chairs from Freecycle yesterday. We had been seating one child in a folding chair that was falling apart, and when the chairs were offered up, it said there were four of them. When I showed up to pick them up, there were six. Our house is tiny to begin with, so when you add a gigantic trestle table (5'x7', it will easily seat 10-12), several 8' and 10' boards and 6 kitchen chairs that won't stack because they all have arms, there is no room to move. I found myself getting very frustrated this morning and asked the kids to take the chairs out onto the patio. They won't be hurt if it rains, which it isn't supposed to do for a couple of days, and Terry said we will finish the table tomorrow, so hopefully I can restore my world to order again after that is done. Being able to sweep is bliss.

I am craving order far more than I ever have before. Oh, I always desired order in my life, but I only gave myself chaos. I couldn't stick to any semblance of order for more than a couple of weeks. The fact that I have done so now for several months astounds me. I am less tolerant of chaos, and I have been getting frustrated much more easily at disorder. I actually cleaned my room yesterday. I have this urge to just take everything and ruthlessly get rid of stuff. I need less clutter, and I need more order. I am leaving behind my title of Queen of Chaos, and although I have a long way to go to become the Queen of Order, I am starting on that journey. I am learning to live in the moment, and when the day comes that I can no longer get on the computer due to the coming economic and social collapses, I will not be completely lost, wondering what to do. I am never bored anymore. It is nice.

Funky funk

2007-10-19T18:09:00.000-05:00

What a funk I have been in. I figure it is a combination of several things. First, PO sucks. Being aware of it sucks. Knowing that within 5 years, it is quite likely that die-off will have started sucks. Knowing there is nothing you can do to stop it really sucks. I should have taken the blue pill.

Another factor is that where I live sucks. I live in a project, and it is filled with negative people. Everywhere I turn, my neighbors lead very negative lives and it is contagious. I fought it for a long time, but it is finally catching up to me.

Thirdly, one of my neighbors is a friend. She and her boyfriend split up earlier in the year, and he took their two boys. They are in a legal battle for custody and it is very reminiscent of the battle I went through 10 years ago for my daughter, which I lost. By being friends with her, I am reliving my custody battle, and all the agony and pain that goes with it. I am trying to help her all I can, giving her the knowledge and tools I didn’t have when I went through it. She is very much like me, and it pains me to see her go through this. I guess I have felt like if I can help her get her boys back, then my losing Cait and all its associated pain will not have been for nothing.

And so I find myself in a funk. I get through the day and hope I don’t yell too much at the kids. After they go to bed, I play WoW for a few hours, finally signing off when I start to fall asleep in front of my screen around 11 or 12 at night. Eirik wakes up at 6:30 or so, and my day begins. Not enough sleep hasn’t helped my mood any. I know it is ironic, to be aware of the causes and effects of PO and global warming, and yet playing WoW each night to numb my brain from that awareness.

On the other hand, I have started a productive new hobby. After reading this post by Sharon http://casaubonsbook.blogspot.com/2007/09/knitting-for-apocalypse.html, I picked up my knitting needles. So far I have made a couple pairs of mittens, a pair of socks for the baby, a “mug rug” that I am going to felt up for Rowan, one for Terry, and next on my list is to start slippers that I am going to felt. It is good to have wool between my hands. Until just the last couple of weeks, I have been very impatient with the whole knitting process. I work to make a project, and it takes forever. But I was shocked at how quickly Eirik’s socks came together when I just knitted while sitting outside on my porch watching the kids play since they aren’t allowed out of the house without an adult. I swore I would never turn into a porch monkey, “hanging out” on my porch waiting for some juicy gossip (which is more than abundant here) or just doing absolutely nothing. Then when I had to start accompanying my children every moment they were outside, I needed something to do. I picked up the needles and started clicking away. I’m hooked now. (That was a better pun for crocheting, but it is my feeble attempt at humor right now.)

I’m taking a break from WoW tonight. Terry rented a couple of movies (Blades of Glory and Next), and we are going to spend some time together. And I can knit while watching TV, something I can’t do while playing WoW. J

A couple of photos

2007-09-20T13:42:00.001-05:00

Eirik has become my little "helper" in the kitchen a lot lately. He can reach all the knobs on the stove, he can race to the fridge to climb in as soon as I open the door, and he has started keeping track of my pantry inventory. Rowan taught him this talent, and he has been an eager student.

"Hand me the beans, please?"

"Mom, I can't find the peanut butter!"

"Bad news, Mom. There is no more peanut butter."

These were just so cute, I had to share them.

Fun Lessons

2007-09-20T13:25:00.000-05:00

This week we took a field trip to a local PYO apple orchard. We got ½ bushel of apples and promptly made apple pie. Yummy! I decided to include some of Moira's work this time, so here are the two fables from this week.

Very beautifully done

Unfortunately, you can see the first attempt she made on the other side of the paper through the writing side.

The format we have been following has been to read or tell the fable and draw the picture on day 1, then she retells it to me and we write a sentence about it on day 2. She already knew The Tortoise and the Hare, so she told it to me on day 1.

The after school program here started up yesterday, and the ladies who run it asked me what they should have Moira do during the homework time. So today I made up some "homework" for her. I made up some spelling words for her to copy. She is now very excited to have some homework.

I also realized that I need to be a bit more fair with Lauren's lessons. Moira whined today that Lauren always gets the fun lessons, and as I thought about it, I can see her point. Moira desperately wants to be independent in the kitchen, yet to whom have I given the kitchen lessons? To Lauren. The banana bread, the corn bread, the apple pie have all been supposedly Lauren's lessons, even though all the kids have helped with them. So I need to try to be less specific about what lesson is whose and let Moira have some "fun" lessons. Now that we have playdough (from one of Lauren's lessons) she has been more willing to play with that instead of begging for her own lesson. I think I will structure it more so that the activity is for every child, Moira gets the fables, and Lauren and Rowan's lessons are to make things out of playdough.

Next week we will take a break from fables to learn about St. Michael and St. George. I plan to bake a dragon bread with them. That should be interesting.

2 weeks of school down

2007-09-15T09:50:00.000-05:00

First, my rioting update. Nothing new. We are holding steady. Actually, I take that back. Terry has gone three days without soda. I think he might be detoxing, because last night and this morning he didn't feel all that great. I know this is really hard for him, and I am very proud.

Okay, on to school. Moira has already begun whining about having to do lessons. But she also whines about wanting to go to school. This week we covered The Fox and the Grapes and The Dog and His Shadow. For Lauren's "work" we made corn bread, planted some chives, and made playdough. I started knitting some toe-up socks for Eirik. I have finished the toes, plus about an inch or so of one sock.

Our daily rhythm is working out nicely. I have made it about three weeks now, I think that must be a record. We haven't let the rain stop us from our walks, either. The first rainy day, we took a "dash around the block" instead of a walk. It was pouring. The next day, the downpour stopped just as we finished up our chores, so we boogied out, and a few minutes after we got back inside, the skies opened again. This morning it was steady light rain, so we decided to try something a bit different. I put Eirik in the sling (as usual), then put on a massively huge cloak I just got back after my husband lent it out about 8 years ago. Boy, have I missed that cloak. :) So then the girls piled under the cloak with me, one on each side and one behind me, and we took our walk that way. I saw more than one driver smile as they drove by at the sight of an eight-legged green cloak holding a baby. The hood didn't keep him as dry as I had hoped, but he didn't seem to mind. He thought it was funny.

The rain has stopped and the kids want to go out, so it looks like I will get some more done on that sock today.

Rioting update

2007-09-06T14:24:00.000-05:00

Well here it has been several weeks without an update, and for that I apologize. I haven't made many changes since I have been struggling to get our day-to-day lives under control and preparing for the new school year (see my previous post for that). We got a new trash can, which I suppose adds to our consumer goods category, but really it was necessary to handle the trash category. Before the riot, we were using a 13 gallon trash can and filling it pretty much every day. When we cut back on the amount of trash that went in there, it could take 3 to 4 days or longer to fill up. That led to the disgusting problem of bugs. As I counted over 200 flies in just my two front windows alone and more buzzing around my kitchen and living room, my dear husband went out and got five fly traps and a smaller trash can. The new one is only 8 gallons and fits neatly under the sink. This solved the problem of bugs since we could now empty it more often, and also the brand new problem of the almost-toddler pulling up on the can and fishing stuff out of it for oral exploration.

As for heating and cooking, I moved the children's play area out into a more public part of the house rather than a bedroom. While it has not had a riot-related effect yet, I anticipate that we will use less heat since the kids won't have an opportunity to play with the thermostat. It also dawned on me that my toaster oven is also an oven (duh!) and will use less energy reheating leftovers than the full-size oven does. I feel so silly for having purchased an appliance for a specific feature, then not using that feature.

Washcloths in lieu of toilet paper are working great. I simply moved the bucket for the used ones in the downstairs bathroom to behind the door so the baby (again) doesn't get into them.

Gasoline usage has dropped a bit now that summer is over and I don't have to take the kids here, there and everywhere. I overbooked it in response to the complaint of, "There's nothing to do. I'm bored!" and I think I went overboard. Lesson learned. Terry can't ride his bike to work right now until we get him a headlight and a new pair of shoes so his feet don't hurt every day, so he has been driving. We will get there, though. If I am to cut down to 50 gallons per person per year, that gives me 350 gallons for our car per year. Picking up my daughter across the state on alternate weekends sucks up 234 of those, leaving us with only 2.2 gallons per week left. At 20mpg, that isn't much. I have two choices here. I can either exclude the trips to go get Cait and allot myself 300 gallons per year for the other 6 of us, or I can continue to try to scrunch down our gasoline consumption. Our second largest gasoline use is our biweekly trip to the farm 30 miles away for fresh milk. That uses another 70 gallons per year. That gives us 0.88 gallon of gas per week allotment. One trip out to visit family and we are over budget. I think I will count half of Cait's usage. That gives us 163 gallons per year, or ~3 gallons per week, after getting Cait and after the farm trip. In our car that is about 60 miles, which I think is very doable for us. I would love to get down to 1 gallon per week, with special exceptions for visiting family, who all live 18 to 60 miles away.

Still no word from my landlord about electric and water usage. I haven't made many changes in those categories since the last update though.

Consumer goods is doing okay. I think I may start categorizing snack foods as consumer goods, though. :) We can definitely cut down there.

So that is the update for this month. Stay tuned.

First week of school

2007-09-06T13:50:00.000-05:00

We just finished our first week of school here at home. This year I am using Melisa Nielson's curriculum from A Little Garden Flower. They are fabulous. My biggest goal right now is to get a rhythm established so the children have more order in their lives and less chaos. Chaos is one of those things that if it's all you know, it is hard to break out of. Alas, it is all I knew growing up and I don't want to pass that on to my children. We are up to having a pretty good routine set down right now. We get up, have breakfast, do chores (all the way down to the 3-year-old), go for a walk, then come in and do our lesson. By then it has been lunch time, so after lunch the kids have free time until dinner. This has been working very nicely. I hope I can keep it up for the long term.

Moira is starting grade 2 and we are working with fables this month. I tell her a fable on one day and we draw a picture from it, then the next day she tells me the fable, we come up with a summary, and we write it on the paper with the illustration from the previous day. So far we have covered "The Ass and His Shadow" and "The Boasting Traveler." They all got together and acted out "The Ass and His Shadow", with Moira and Lauren being the traveler and the donkey owner, and Rowan as the ass. She crawled away very quickly down the hall and the girls had fun pretending to fight. They held their hands in front of them and kind of waggled them up and down very fast so that their hands collided.

Lauren is starting her first year of kindergarten, as well as trying to do everything that Moira does. Of course, Moira participates in Lauren's lessons as well. I have Moira on a four day schedule and Lauren on a three day schedule. This week for Lauren we read "The Great Big Enormous Turnip" by Alexei Tolstoy (I think), baked banana bread, and made corn husk dolls. I originally planned to make corn bread, but I had a bunch of bananas that needed to be used up pronto, so I made that instead. We made the corn husk dolls this morning from husks we shucked from last night's dinner. Much fun.

Eirik has already pulled out the arms of one corn husk doll, and it is sitting here armless on my desk awaiting reconstructive surgery. I also caught a few pictures of him in my little pantry cabinet which I will post later.

The other day I decluttered the kids' toys. I took about half of the toys and put them in my closet. The first time I decluttered toys it was very easy to chuck half of them. That time I just dumped all the fast-food kid's meal toys into the garbage and there went a huge source of frustration on everyone's part. The second time I purged their toys, I quietly packed away all the plastic disposable toys and waited to see if they noticed. They didn't really, so I chucked them after a couple of months. This time, though, we have been very good at not letting junk toys in the house, so all the toys are ones that I approve of. The problem now is not quality, but simply quantity. So instead of chucking, I plan to rotate through them. There has been far less crying about cleaning up now, and less need for careful navigation through the house. I rearranged the house so that they kids have a designated play area that is in a main part of the house, not behind closed doors anymore so it is easier for me to rein in the mess before it gets completely out of hand.

All in all, it has been a good week.

Rioting, week I don't know

2007-08-16T11:11:00.000-05:00

So I just posted my non-riot blog post and decided I should post my weekly (yeah, right) rioting update. It has been a busy summer, so I haven't done a lot these last couple of weeks.

Gasoline: I didn't keep track of exactly how much gas we used. It was more than ideal because my husband got pulled over for riding his bike to work before sunup without a headlight, so he had to drive in each morning, then come home at lunch to pick us up so we could drop him back off again, so I could take the kids to the Junior Ranger program run by the Army Corps of Engineers, then pick him up at work, then go back to pick up the kids! Lots of wasted trips. Fortunately, he only works 2 miles from home, so even lots of trips don't take much gas. Needless to say, we are getting him a headlight and tail reflector this weekend.

Electricity: Nothing new in this category.

Heating and cooking: I think I actually increased my usage a bit here. But it was with good reason. I started baking our own bread. I finally found a flour that works. I had tried many times to make whole wheat bread, but it always came out dense and crumbly. It wasn't good for much other than drying out to make bread crumbs. Then I got some very fine whole wheat flour from the food pantry (the local HFS donates there regularly) and tried making a loaf with that. It worked! It turns out that I had been buying Graham flour, which is not good for making a light fluffy bread at all. So now I am getting King Arthur brand whole wheat flour. The package says it is from VT, which is well within my 100-mile area, even if it isn't organic.

Garbage: I learned that I need a smaller trash can for the kitchen because putting all the soda bottles in the recycling makes the trash fill up much more slowly. I took it out only half-full yesterday because it got really stinky. And it was attracting flies. I know that can be remedied by a compost pile, but I don't have one yet. We have talked about converting our current trash can into a compost pile when we get a small trash can. I will keep you posted on that.

Water: I am getting disenchanted with not flushing. Not flushing has taken away my opportunity to clean the toilet. I used to swish it with the brush before I sat down and then just flush it away when I was done doing my business. Now I don't have the chance because I can't see through the yellow water to see if I got it all the way clean or not. On top of that, "letting the yellow mellow" also lets scaly nasty stuff build up at the water line. So I need to figure out that part. I might just find a really big rock and put it in the tank instead so that we use less per flush, but still flush each time.

Consumer Goods: This is so hard. It shouldn't be, which makes me feel guilty about it. I suppose I need to distinguish between investment and spending. I consider many of the books we have started buying to be investments since they are supposed to help us learn skills and techniques to become more independent. But it's not like our spending is high to begin with simply because we don't have much money to spend to begin with. I did buy a huge crochet hook when I bought some fabric for my baby sling business today. It will be much easier to make more rugs when I finish the woven one, which I think will be very soon.

It's so quiet

2007-08-16T10:55:00.000-05:00

A friend took my three middle girls for two whole nights, so yesterday, Hubby, the baby and I went to pick up Cait by ourselves. It was very quiet. Cooking breakfast this morning for just two (hubby was at work already), was weird. So today Cait and I are spending time just us (Eirik doesn't intrude much). We biked down to the fabric store and had fun just browsing. Cait was (as most 11-year-old girls are) drawn to the bridal fabrics. We got girly and it was fun. There is a little bit of ice cream still in the freezer along with some carob fudge I made some time back, so we are going to make banana splits this afternoon. I wish I could have a day like this once in a while for each of my girls. That is one drawback to having a large family. Doing something for one child doesn't cost much. Doing it for five does. With just Cait here, I can say yes to a lot more that she asks because I know I don't have to say yes to everyone else, too. I don't mind letting Cait play a video game on the computer. She is 11 and old enough to play responsibly and she is mentally developed enough to handle it. Her younger sisters are not. So too often I have to say no when she asks to play a game because if I say yes, I have to say yes to everyone else, too, and I won't do that. I try to let her do it whenever they aren't around, but that isn't often. So today I think she may end up going computer crazy. But that is okay. I will let her splurge while her sisters aren't here. Maybe I will introduce her to World of Warcraft. Maybe. We still have banana splits to make, and some sewing to do, and we are going to the bookstore today, too. And I can buy her a book without having to go through the arduous task of saying no to nearly every non-book in the store that 3-year-old Rowan and 5-year-old Lauren want just because it sparkles or has a toy, or whatever. Because saying yes to one means I have to say yes to all. If all aren't there, I can say yes to just one. Normally I would feel all kinds of Mommy guilt about enjoying the fact that my kids aren't here, but I know they are having a blast at my friend's house. I just hope my friend is still sane when I pick the kids up tomorrow.

Week 4 update

2007-08-05T13:27:00.001-05:00

Yes, I know, my weekly updates have run a bit over a week each. This one is going to be real quick because there are 8 children running around my house. Aaaah! OK. We haven't really made any changes this past week, but we are doing well with keeping up with the ones we already made. We have been looking for real estate online and talking with a realto She has been very helpful and now we need to go see a lender so we can find out what first-time buyer programs will fit with hour plans best and then we can seriously look at properties that will fit the criteria for the programs we will choose. We had been looking in basically all of Cheshire County, but after visiting with his brother yesterday, my husband mentioned that he wants that particular part of the county so we can be near family. So that is that.

Giving baby a nap - a primer

2007-08-04T09:20:00.001-05:00

I realized today that I go through pretty much the same steps every day when it is time to give my son his morning nap. I thought I would share it with others so that they might see that it is nothing like "they" say it is.

1. See baby drooping in high chair after breakfast rubbing eyes.
2. Take baby upstairs to bedroom and lay down on bed with him.
3. Offer baby to nurse since this is pretty much the only way baby goes to sleep for Mommy.
4. See baby's eyes pop wide open and become suddenly wide awake.
5. Struggle to hold baby still so he can fall asleep on the bed in front of the fan instead of making him sleep on his mattress on the floor in the stifling heat.
6. Get frustrated, give up struggling and watch baby crawl off bed and head for Daddy's computer desk.
7. Watch baby pee on floor under Daddy's chair, then proceed to turn off the power strip for Daddy's computer.
8. Get up and remember that baby hates it when you sit at the computer because he always falls asleep there.
9. Pick up baby and turn on computer.
10. Start reading email while holding baby.
11. Pick up mouse and mouse pad that baby just threw on the floor.
12. Pick them up again and try to keep baby on your lap while he squirms to get down and play.
13. Pick them up a third time and put them at the back of the desk, then turn 90 degrees so that baby cannot reach them.
14. Listen to baby scream because he is exhausted and cannot reach the mouse to throw it on the floor, nor can he get down and bang things about.
15. Take baby back to bed and offer to nurse again.
16. Watch baby's eyes fall like lead.
17. Go back and finish reading email.

That's all there is to it, folks. 17 simple steps to get your baby to sleep. After you master these steps, you can skip steps 2 through 8. Ideally, you will figure out some way to skip steps 4-15. Afternoon naps require a bit more creativity since you already checked your email for the morning nap. One option is to save your favorite websites for afternoon nap, if those also make baby sleepy.

Rioting, week 3

2007-07-27T21:26:00.000-05:00

I am now three weeks into the Riot for Austerity. I didn’t post an update last week because I just got too busy. I am trying to apply the 90% reduction to computer time as well.

Gasoline: I blew it this week. We filled the gas tank last weekend and it cost $73! Holy Moley! I took Moira to camp and that was a 50-mile round trip. But swimming lessons are over, so that cut out 10 miles every day for four days. The problem was that today I had to go back and get her again. Even worse, we got almost home and stopped at the beach to go swimming. Then she discovered that she forgot her towel at camp. So we had to go back for another 40-mile round trip to get it again. Our tank is now almost empty. Terry only drove to work three days this week. He was ill on Monday, and didn’t feel like riding his bike, so he drove, then came home after just two hours. The next two days he felt well enough to work, but not well enough to ride.

Electricity: I still don’t know how much we use, so I am just trying to reduce in general. We moved the computers upstairs to our bedroom so it is much more inconvenient to be on them before the kids go to bed. It works – we are on them less now. Our freezer is chock full, which I understand helps keep the energy use down.

Heating and cooking: We got a woodstove on Freecycle. That also contributed to our gasoline consumption since it was also about a 50-mile round trip to get it. It is currently in the back of the van and we have no idea how we are going to get it out of the van, or where we will put it once it is out. But at least we know we will be warm this winter, regardless of where we are living. I have been trying to convince my husband to take the plunge and buy some bare land and go year-round camping. Our lease is up in one month. We will see if he goes for it.

Garbage: I still don’t have a scale with which to weigh my garbage, and I am not inclined to buy one, either. I am now taking the trash out every two or three days, and it is not full to the top, but it is heavy enough to threaten ripping the bag when I take it out of the can.

Water: We have stopped flushing for every single toilet use. I did have to start actually putting the lid down because the baby found the colored water fascinating. My girls learned the little rhyme I learned from a fellow rioter: If it’s yellow, let it mellow; if it’s brown, flush it down. They then started asking about if the pee turned brown, does it count as brown or yellow? I said they could flush it then. My husband flushes it when he can smell it from outside the bathroom (usually it also means the lid is up). I am also washing the dishes in a sink of water about half the time now instead of in constantly running water. I still don’t know, however, what our actual numbers are for usage.

Consumer goods: In addition to not flushing the toilet anymore, we stopped using toilet paper. My husband has brought home around 200 washcloths over the last two years from work, so I put them to use. I have a pile on the back of each toilet, and a bucket in the downstairs bathroom. The TP does come out when we have company, though. Consumer goods I am noticing is a tough one to kick. We went to the bookstore and spent far more money than I had originally anticipated. The sneaky part is that my brain has a way of justifying each and every purchase. Whether that justification is logical or not is a matter of opinion. The Field guide to edible wild plants and the book about tanning and skinning were based on our preparation for the future and self-sufficiency. Harry Potter, though, is Harry Potter. You can’t refuse. Next on my book list is a book that Sharon Astyk mentioned in her food preservation blog.

I am still plugging away on my rug, too. I want to finish it before I start any new projects. It is trying my limited patience. I am not one to finish things that I start, and that is something I have to conquer. I may not make it as large as I originally intended (which was 4’ by 6’), but I will go until I have used up all the sheets I assigned to it. It is already about 12-18” wide now, and maybe 3’ long.

We are also starting the house-hunting procedure. I am hoping to buy a piece of property this fall, before the dollar completely fails, even if the housing market does crash shortly thereafter. It would be very nice of the housing market crashes before the dollar, but I don’t know if I want to bet on that.

First week on 90% Reduction

2007-07-12T18:44:00.001-05:00

Last week I joined the Riot for Austerity - 90% reduction. Somehow I failed to find the actual rules for it until I asked on the email list this morning. So here is my first "status report".

A bit of background:
I live with my husband, our four children, a cat, and in the summer and on weekends, my oldest daughter lives with us, too. We live in a rowhouse, which I am guessing is about 1000 sq ft. We live on the outskirts of the county seat, which is a small city. We are fortunate in that we live in a very environmentally conscious and liberal county. Our city bus system has switched over most of the busses to biodiesel, most of the traffic lights are LED, and the mayor was elected as a write-in. As far as cities go, I absolutely love this one. We live 1.5 miles from my husband's work, and I stay home with the kids and homeschool. My oldest (who lives with her dad during the school year) just turned 11, and my children who live with me are 8, 5, 3, and 8.5 months.

Okay, on to the status report.
1. Gasoline. First I decided to calculate how much gas we currently use in our lifestyle. There was a time when we both worked 45+ minutes from home in opposite directions and drove out of state several times a year. We used to put 20k miles a year on our '1994 Chevy Astro. But then we had too many kids for daycare to be a reasonable option, I hated being away from the kids so much anyway, so I quit and that freed up quite a bit of driving. My oldest lives 90 miles away from us, and my ex and I split the driving evenly, with each of us making the trip back and forth to pick her up. We tried moving closer to her to cut down on the travel (everyone hates being in the car for a 4 hour round trip, especially the younger kids), and my husband got a job just 15 minutes from my ex's house as a first step to moving us out there. He commuted 1:15 each way every day for several months before we realized we were never going to move out there. That was a lot of gas back then. Now my husband works 1.5 miles from home in a nursing home. We still make that 90 mile trek every other weekend, but that is the only major driving we have to do. We even got a bike so hubby can bike to work. I only drive now to take the kids to swim lessons (over next week, thank goodness), and to run errands, which I try to consolidate. Some places we can walk, like to church (3/4 mile away). Some places we can take the bus, like the library. Over the last three months, we have spent $300 on gas. At just a few cents under $3 a gallon here, that is about 35 gallons per month. For a household of 7 (since much of that is going to get my oldest, I am counting her), that is 5 gallons per person per month. Considerably higher than the goal of 10 gallons per person per year. It is a 180 mile round trip, we get 20 mpg, so going to get my daughter every other weekend takes 9 gallons of gas each trip. That sounds about right since we have a 22 gallon tank and it takes almost a half a tank. If we subtract 9 from our 35, that gives us 26 that the 6 others of us use. That breaks down to just over 4 gallons per person per month. Still not down to 90%, but a lot better than it used to be. Once summer is over and hubby is biking to work regularly (not calling up at 2 and saying, "Honey, my legs ache after not riding a bike for 20 years and then walking all day. Can you come get me?"), and there are no more swim lessons or camps to take the kids to each day, I will see if I can get my driving down to just twice a week.

2. Electricity. Our electricity is included in our rent, and my property manager hasn't emailed me back about finding out how much we use. When we were paying for our own, I seem to recall we used 7-8 kWh per day. We now have an upright freezer and a mini-fridge that we got to help us to buy local and in bulk, and we also now have a washer and dryer, though I only use the dryer on rainy days, in the winter, and on days like today when the baby has a double ear infection and won't let me put him down long enough to hang laundry. I'm sure my electric usage is now higher than 7-8 per day, but I think it is still below average, especially since we don't have A/C. The baby did find the electric heater controls though, and every once in a while I get to wondering why I am roasting alive. If the goal is 90kWh/month, that breaks down to 3 per day. I have a ways to go on that one, too. We are pretty good at shutting off lights and box fans in empty rooms, and I am doing well at not having my computer run 12-16 hours a day anymore. It's progress.

3. Heating and Cooking. These are both electric here. See above. I have gotten better about keeping the temperature down in the winter. I grew up with a woodstove and got used to being able to be 85° in the middle of winter just by sitting near the stove. I am now down to being comfortable at 68°. Hubby would be happy if we dropped it more, but I am still struggling with that. On the other hand, I can tolerate more heat in the summer than he can. He relies on strategically placed box fans. We have 3 box fans and one window fan. The window fan is in our bedroom and is on whenever the baby or we are sleeping. So probably 12-14 hours a day. Two box fans are in the girls' rooms - one each. They are on when they are in their rooms - probably 12 hours a day. There is also one downstairs for during the day and when DH and I are still up after the kids go to bed. It is on probably 8-10 hours a day. For reference, we live in southwestern NH, so although we don't get 110° weather, we did have 95° and 95% humidity just a couple days ago. I'd like to experience the desert sometime, just for comparison. :)

4. Garbage. We finally got off our duffs and started taking advantage of the recycling center. Our city couldn't have made it any easier without coming to our house to pick it up for us. All we have to separate are the papers from the corrugated from all other containers, including all plastic #1-5 and #7, glass, steel, you name it. The problem was that we have a dumpster on site here (included in our rent), and it was very hard to make it a priority to do the right thing instead of the easy thing. One day last month, DH surprised me, though and brought home two huge plastic totes. I popped them in the mudroom, labeled one "Paper, cardboard" and the other "Glass, plastic, metal" and we drastically cut our trash. Dh has a soda drinking problem though, so we have a huge amount of plastic 2-liter bottles to recycle. Two 2-liters a day is typical. He has been trying to quit for years now. I try not to nag him about it because that is his worst vice. He doesn't smoke, doesn't drink, doesn't womanize, doesn't gamble. He is wonderful. I just wish we could eliminate that source of trash. Before recycling, we would fill a 13-gallon barrel about once a day. Mostly with soda bottles. Now we are filling about 2 a week. I decided that I have to take it out that often whether it is full or not (it usually is), because once I waited longer and found icky maggots between the bag and the can. I don't know what they were doing there, but I didn't want them around at all. Ick. Yuck. I have never weighed our trash, and I don't have a bathroom scale with which to do so. I will have to find some way to weigh it though, since the goal of 1/2 pound per person per day is by weight. For a family of 7, that allows us 3.5 pounds per day. If a bag of our trash weighs about 20 pounds or so, then we are about twice the goal. Still not bad, though.

5. Water. Again, this is included in our rent, so I don't know how much we use. I shower 1-2 times a week, DH showers 2-4 times a week (depending on the heat), and the kids get 1-3 baths during the week (depending on how dirty they get), which they double up in, i.e. 2 kids per bath. My oldest showers about 1-2 times a week. DH shaves about twice a week. To improve there, DD and I can take shorter showers (mine are about 20 minutes, hers are about 40 - I have no idea what she does in all that time! She doesn't have anything to shave yet.) We can also turn off the water while we lather. DH takes pretty quick showers, about 10 minutes. He shaves before he gets in. I just asked him and he uses running water to shave instead of filling the sink. He also just volunteered to start filling the sink to save water. I have no idea how much water our washer uses, but I use it probably 7-8 times a week. One load a day handles all our clothes and towels and whatnot. The occasional extra load comes from sheets. We have no bedwetters, and even the baby will wake me up in the middle of the night when he needs to go potty, so our bed stays dry, too. Unless he is sick, like last night, when he had a fever well over 101. For dishes, we wash by hand. We only have enough dishes to last one meal, so we wash after each meal. I confess that I allow the water to run while I wash dishes. I have always hated washing dishes. Hated it with a passion. It was so bad that I used to let the dishes pile up literally for days and there were flies all over my kitchen. I just could not face a sink full of soapy water. So to keep CPS away I had to start washing dishes. Doing it with the water running was the only way I could face it. I do need to start saving water by using the plug in the sink.

6. Consumer Goods. Here we probably are closest to target. Our income is only $23k/year, nearly all of which is spent on rent, food, gas, and child support. After some inspiration from some of the others, we will be cutting out our toilet paper expenses. We have probably 200 washcloths that DH has brought home from work. He puts them in his pocket to mop his brow at work and then forgets them there and brings them home. So we have quite a stock for using as TP. We have not been using more than maybe a roll or two of paper towels a year, and we can now eliminate even that. We have never bought napkins. My kids recently lamented for some, so we found some white muslin, ripped it into 17" squares and hemmed them. (Ripping ensures straight threads.) They are having great fun using them. I use only local castile soap (from Vermont Soap) for shampoo, soap (duh), and nearly all household uses. I will soon be using it for dishes (once I start filling the sink and then finish using the Seventh Generation dish detergent I have), and *maybe* laundry. I am currently using Sun and Earth brand laundry detergent. I have used Borax and washing soda in the past, but wasn't thrilled with the results. I don't know if it was the soda or the washer that was the issue, so I should try the washing soda again. Vermont Soap can be used for laundry it says, so I wrote to them and asked how much to use. They said 1/4 to 1/3 cup. I nearly fell over. I would only get 8 loads of laundry out of the 16 oz bottle and it costs over $7 a bottle. I started experimenting with not using any detergent in my laundry, and no one has noticed yet. I do use detergent when there are poopy diapers in there, though. Too much icky factor for me there. But my son only poops once every day or three, so that isn't very often. And sometimes I even manage to catch it in the potty. Our biggest consumer goods costs are buying DVDs at Walmart, and our WoW accounts. All total it is far far less than $10k per year. I will have to do some more research to find out where we stand in relation to $1k per year.

7. Food. We receive food stamps and also patron the two local food pantries. It took me a long time to start using the food pantries, but once neighbors started bringing me their unwanted organic foods from there, I started going. We get our milk raw from a small commercial dairy (maybe 50 cows, all of whom are named and loved), just under 30 miles away. We get our honey from a farm stand/market about 20 miles away that gets it from an apiary somewhere here in NH. I think it might be Littleton, but I'm not sure. They sell it in bulk, and I just bring back my glass jars for refilling. My spices are all organic, from Frontier/Simply Organic, which I get at either that farm market 20 miles away if I am there already, or at my local supermarket 2 miles away. My supermarket has a huge organic/natural food section. I am very lucky. I visited my local farmer's market last week for the first time, and we brought home some salad greens and some strawberries. Yum! I have been getting my eggs from a neighbor down the road, but she got rid of her chickens because she is afraid she is losing her house. She offered to let me grow a garden in her yard, but if she is selling, I don't want to lose my garden. Grass-fed beef is available at the dairy, but we haven't bought any yet. We eat way too much meat to afford grass-fed. I don't know any other way of eating. As in, I haven't experienced any other way of eating, not that I don't know there are other ways out there. When I met DH, he ate red meat probably 5 times a week. He still would if we could afford it. Our food efforts have focused lately more on organic than local, but if we can achieve both at the same time, I will jump on it with both feet. I have no yard that is safe from vandalism here except my patio, so I need to get off my duff and plant something in containers. I just need to get containers. We almost never eat out, so we are doing well there. I cook almost entirely from scratch. Whatever processed/package stuff we get almost always comes from the food pantry.

I think that's it. That is where we are at the end of our first week.

Eye Opener

2007-07-04T19:18:00.000-05:00

I have been doing a lot of reading about peak oil, global warming, and overpopulation lately. Most of what I have read indicates that we are currently about 5 billion people over the sustainable population of the Earth. The sites I have visited talk about how there will be massive scale deaths as we run out of resources to support ourselves. That many people will have to die and not be replaced to being us back in balance with the Earth.

Now, I have often ranted about the incompetence of the FDA. I see them approving drugs that have not been satisfactorily tested, or the tests have been horribly biased. I see too frequent drug recalls because the products were not tested or were tainted. I see more side effects listed on drugs than conditions they are meant to treat. I see our society trading in acute, usually non-fatal diseases (if good hygiene is maintained) for long, drawn out chronic disease. We vaccinate our children, pumping them full of mercury and then wonder why they get brain-damaged. We have chosen autism over mumps. Our medicines often cause as many problems as they treat.

For the longest time, I thought this was sheer incompetence or arrogance. Now I think I understand why it happens. We have known that we have overpopulated the world for some time. But of course, we aren’t going to just have a mass suicide to bring our population down to a sustainable level. Nor can we advocate mass murder to do the same. But we can impoverish our health, dropping our sperm counts and fertility, thus reducing our reproduction and slowing our population boom. We couldn’t do it ourselves, but we could allow someone else to do it for us. So now I just have to wonder if they are arrogant for assuming that we would be okay with this or that they could do it without our catching on, or if they are genius for figuring out how to swindle our numbers without our knowledge.

Playdough Discovery

2007-06-28T10:37:00.001-05:00

Originally posted 6/14/07

A little while ago, I made some homemade playdough for the children. I colored it with turmeric (great dye for yellow/gold color) so that it wouldn't look completely blah. The children enjoy playing with the playdough using rolling pins, cookie cutters, cookie sheets (which I later discovered when I preheated the oven for dinner), butter knives, you get the idea. All this cutting to the playdough ends up chopping it up into crumbs, and a lot gets lost to the floor.

Fast forward to yesterday. I have been letting Eirik go naked because it is nice and warm, and we have been doing a pretty decent job of getting him to the bathroom when he needs to go. I do better at night than during the day and we do inevitable miss some during the day. Eirik also likes to store up his bowels for a couple of days at a time, so it is not at all unusual for him to wait 3 days or more before moving them. So yesterday I was sitting here checking email and I turned around to see what he was doing because he was being rather quiet. I looked just in time to see him stuff some poop in his mouth. Horrified, I jumped up and scooped him up, only to discover that it was not poop at all. It was playdough that had fallen on the floor and gotten a wee bit of water spilt on it to give it that perfect breast-fed poop consistency. The turmeric matched the color perfectly. He did not appreciate my stuffing my fingers in his mouth to scoop it all out, though.

Living life

2007-06-28T10:36:00.000-05:00

Originally posted 5/24/07

I haven 't posted in a while, in case anyone had noticed. I went from posting 2-3 times a week to maybe once a month. What happened? I got a life. We have had a lot of beautiful weather so I have been spending more time outside with the kids. I also made a real life friend just up the road and have been spending time with her and her kids. I am trying to kick my internet addiction, so I took up a project. I decided that I could do better things than spend 6-8 hours a day on my computer. My house now looks a lot better (though it is still far from perfect), and I have been making a rug. Today Rowan is sick, so we are inside, and I thought I would post a picture of my rug and my two youngest kiddos. So as of today, here they are.

And now my little helpers...

I am making the rug out of some old worn out sheets, which I thought was a pretty clever use for them. It is plaited. I have never seen a braided rug like this, but I really like it. I already made one out of washcloths to use as a mat for beside the tub. I decided that 150-200 washcloths in the house was too many and we needed a bath mat. That came out pretty cool. This rug is going to be much bigger and go in the living room. I really like that this one is completely interwoven. It isn't one long braid that is then sewn up into a rug. That will make it more durable, I think. I also love that I will be able to just throw it in the washer and dryer when it gets dirty.

So that is what I have been up to lately. I will write again when I am stuck inside for some reason. :)

Mother's Day Story

2007-06-28T10:35:00.002-05:00

Originally posted 5/13/07

Here is a very cute story that came into my inbox this morning.

This is a GREAT children's' story!

So, we had this great 10 year old cat named Jack who just recently died. Jack was a great cat and the kids would carry him around and sit on him and nothing ever bothered him. He used to hang out and nap all day long on this mat in our bathroom.
Well we have 3 kids and at the time of this story they were 4 years old, 3 years old and 1 year old. The middle one is Eli. Eli really loves chapstick. LOVES it. He kept asking to use my chapstick and then losing it. So finally one day I showed him where in the bathroom I keep my chapstick and how he could use it whenever he wanted to but he needed to put it right back in the drawer when he was done.

Last year on Mother's Day, we were having the typical rush around and try to get ready for Church with everyone crying and carrying on. My two boys are fighting over the toy in the cereal box. I am trying to nurse my little one at the same time I am putting on my make-up. Everything is a mess and everyone has long forgotten that this is a wonderful day to honor me and the amazing job that is motherhood. We finally have the older one and the baby loaded in the car and I am looking for Eli. I have searched everywhere and I finally went round the corner to go into the bathroom. And there was Eli. He was applying my chapstick very carefully to Jack's . . . rear end. Eli looked right into my eyes and said "chapped." Now if you have a cat, you know that he is right--their little butts do look pretty chapped. And, frankly, Jack didn't seem to mind. And the only question to really ask at that point was whether it was the FIRST time Eli had done that to the cat's behind or the hundredth.

And THAT is my favorite Mother's Day moment ever because it reminds us< that no matter how hard we try to civilize these glorious little creatures, there will always be that day when you realize they've been using your chapstick on the cat's butt.

Perfect Day

2007-06-28T10:35:00.001-05:00

Originally posted 5/8/07

I have just had the perfect start to a perfect day. I made a new friend just up the road a few days back, and she invited us to breakfast this morning. So this morning I got up, played with the baby for a minute or two before kissing my husband goodbye as he left for work, then took a quick shower. I put on a load of laundry then the kids and I got dressed and left to go visiting. The kids skipped and galloped on the sidewalks, then walked along the stone walls and retainer walls lining the sidewalk as though they were balance beams. I wore the baby in his sling and held Rowan's hand so she didin't fall.

At one point I was struck with the beauty of the day. It reminded me of the (old?) TV ad for Claritin - the one where they peel a film off the picture and all the colors are brighter and more vibrant. The sky was a deep royal blue with not a single cloud in sight, the grass was lush, my children's blonde hair truly glowed in the sunlight. The forsythia were the brightest yellow, and exactly matched the few specks of dandelion yellow in the lawns. Rhododendrons bloomed their pinky purple color and birds were singing to each other in their joy for the day.

I wonder if this is what Buddhists refer to when they speak of "being in the moment." I was just overcome with joy and beauty and exuberance. If the kids had asked for a huge box of candy, I might even have said yes.

Now I am off to put the baby down for his nap since he fell asleep here on my lap. It is time to make lunch for the kids, which we will eat outside, and then more play outside. All is right with the world. What a perfect day!

My first sale

2007-06-28T10:34:00.001-05:00

Originally posted 5/3/07

I just posted this as a bulletin, but then I thought I should have made it a blog entry. So if you read the bulletin, you've already read this.

For those who don't know, I own a business making and selling baby slings. My brand is called Natural Caresses, and I have been struggling to really get started for nearly a year now. But last month I got my business cards, and then I printed up some flyers and brochures at Staples, and I have started putting them in appropriate places around town.

So yesterday I was wearing Eirik in the sling at the playground (he's 6 months old already!) and another mother came up to me and started asking me about it. I gave her my card (which I now alway have on hand), and told her to give me a call if she was interested in one. This morning she called and said she would like to buy one. I nearly dropped the phone to jump with glee! I arranged to meet her at the playground again, packed up all my slings (my very meager supply), packed a picnic lunch for the little'uns, and we went to the playground. I apologized for my lack of variety (I haven't had money to build an inventory and only had four slings - 2 of each style), and offered to loan her one while I made one special for her, but she fell in love with one I had on hand and tried it on. Her 1-month-old baby took to it nicely, and she bought it on the spot. I gave her a discount since all of the slings I have have been used for demo purposes, so none are brand new.

I am soooo excited! I have only ever sold two others, and really, my hubby sold them, not me. I am going to take this money and go buy more fabric to make more. I can get fabric enough for 2 more slings with the money I made on that sale, and will continue this process until I have about 30 slings on hand. That's only 15 sales I have to make to do that. Then I will open a website to sell them, too.

I attribute the ease of this success to the Secret. It took me a year to get out of my inertia with this business idea. Three weeks after watching The Secret I got my business cards (and they came two weeks earlier than the website said they would), a week after that I got my flyers and brochures printed up, and one week later I made my first sale. Yes, I worked hard to get here, but if I hadn't watched the Secret, I don't think I could have broken my inertia.

So by the end of this month, I expect to make 5 sales. I will report back then. Go me!

Reunion

2007-06-28T10:33:00.002-05:00

Originally posted 4/8/07

My husband's brother-in-law passed away 6 days ago, and yesterday we went to the celebration of his life. This was the first time in 3 years that we had seen anyone in my husband's family. Longer for some. My husband has been unhappy that his siblings always seemed to expect us to do all the traveling for visits, and frankly, so have I. Only once has anyone in his family come to our house to visit, and that was for Moira's first birthday party back in 2000. My husband and his brother have been polite to each other, but no more for several years, and I have lamented this. Religion stepped in and reared its ugly head and there were heated discussions between my husband his his brother's wife, who is a Catholic convert. But yesterday, we got to see all of his family. No one recognized one sister who has lost 271 pounds and is getting herself put back together health wise. This was a wonderful thing (though embarrassing since we felt like we should have recognized her, after all, she is family). we had a chance to reconnect with all the sisters (except one who has nothing to do with any of the family) and it was great to see how much the kids have grown. One of our nieces is almost 15, no longer the little girl she was when we last saw at age 12. She is now a young woman. His sister is now grandmother to a 6-year-old boy who played most of the time with our almost-8-year-old daughter. But I think the best part was seeing my husband's brother and his family again. Their youngest daughter is 5 months younger than my oldest, and I last saw her when she was probably 5 or 6. She is now 10. They didn't even know about my youngest two children. There was no hostility (that I felt) like there has been in the past, and we learned that they just moved much closer to us. That will make travelling for visits nuch easier, and maybe we can start again to become more family. Ironically, we discovered that we both patron the same dairy farm, and they bought their house in one of the towns we have been looking for property to buy. Although the reason for the reunion was unfortunate, I am very happy with having reconnected with family again.

Throwing her to the wolves

2007-06-28T10:33:00.001-05:00

Originally posted 4/3/07

Moira and I have reached a compromise. She believes that public school is so great, so awesome, and homeschooling sucks. After all, she has *no one* to play with, and her sisters are "annoying." Public school is all about coloring and workbooks, and playing in the playground. So I agreed to enroll her in public school for two weeks. Then I take her out again. I had hoped to be able to do it like a class audit, but the teachers and principal aren't really agreeing with me. They only want her there for a couple of hours, but that is not long enough to give her a good idea of the public school culture. So I am enrolling her in the other elementary school here. We have a choice of two schools to pick from here - both are about 1/4 mile from us.

I am so scared. Part of me is scared that she will be miserable since she obviously forgets the misery she had in kindergarten. Part of me is scared that she will love it and hate me when I take her out again. But I am afraid of school violence (the local high school has a full time police officer there), I disapprove of their teaching methods, and I remember how ostracized I was in public school. I feel as strongly about public school as I do about nuclear radiation. How much is safe? None! But I hope that two weeks will not cause any irreparable harm, and should hopefully give her enough time to understand the public school culture, which I think is what she craves. She seems to think that simply joining a class will instantly give her friends, that she won't have to work at making friends. But she has a hard time making friends because she is mean to other kids. She is very bossy and other kids don't like that about her. I fear she will come home miserable after just a couple of days. It is ironic that to make her a happy, well-adjusted adult, she will be an unhappy child because she thinks I am stifling her. I want to make her long-term happy, not short-term happy, and I am afraid I won't succeed.

I remember when I was homeschooled, I begged my parents to let me go to school. Just like Moira does to me. Why? I had no friends. But I had no friends because we moved all the time and lived in the middle of nowhere. Moira has lots of kids around here to play with if she treats them nicely. She also goes to Brownies on a regular basis, and church every week, so she does have access to other kids, as I did with 4-H and church when I was young. When I did go to public school, I was tormented by the other kids and completely miserable. In four years and three high schools, there is only one person that I still keep in touch with regularly. One out of 1300. I am now glad that my parents homeschooled me because I learned how to learn. School doesn't teach how to learn, it teaches how to obey. Children don't remember jack that they learn in class. I remember very little from the academic part of school. Which is interesting since I am such an overachiever and graduated 5th in my class of roughly 100.

School isn't about learning the three R's anymore. It is about learning to survive in a cruel world. I was hoping to shelter her from that cruel world until she is psychologically old enough to roll with the punches instead of taking everything deeply personally. Enrolling her in public school feels like I am throwing her to the wolves. I told her that I will not force her to do her homework, but if she doesn't do it, she will get in trouble with her teacher. I will not strain our relationship for anything as stupid and pointless as homework. I'm probably the only parent who wants her child to fail at school.

Prayer, spells and The Secret

2007-06-28T10:31:00.000-05:00

Originally posted 3/27/07

What do these three things have in common? I have often said that pagan spellcasting is exactly the same as prayer, just with different terminology. Prayer is asking God to do something for you (yes, I know, Christians also praise God in their prayers and thank him, but that is not the kind of prayer I am referring to right now). The Christian (or Muslim, or whoever is doing the praying) has a need which they put in the hands of God. (This is my understanding of prayer from growing up in a very fundamental Christian family.) Spellcasting is having a need, and putting it forth to the Universe. Both involve some minor ritual. Christians bow their head, fold their hands, close their eyes, kneel, and speak their need. Pagans' rituals vary dramatically, but usually involve casting a circle, lighting a candle or five (Catholics often light candles, too), and speak their need. I have always been amused by Christians' arduous attempts to segregate themselves from pagans, and yet, the customs of each are so similar. I am not trying to put down Christians, in fact my best friend is Christian. I am simply trying to point out a theme here.

Okay, so what about The Secret? I just got my copy of The Secret the other day, and realized that the barebones of spellcasting and prayer. The goals of The Secret, prayer and spellcasting are all the same: to effect change in our lives by asking the energy of the Universe for assistance. Visualization plays a major role in both The Secret and in spellcasting. I imagine that it is a major part of prayer as well, though my childhood church did not emphasize its importance.

I abandoned prayer when I had a major spiritual crisis and left Christianity in search of something that felt more right for me. But spellcasting seemed too artificial to me as I read it in the innumerable books of magic I read. Scott Cunningham's Earth Power set was the style that felt most comfortable for me. It is very simple, very unassuming, very humble. It is also probably the closest spellcasting style I have seen to The Secret.

I realized last night that I unknowingly put The Secret to work for the birth of my son. I wanted a particular midwife to be my attendant. It never even crossed my mind that anyone else might attend. I knew who I wanted, and that was that. There are several OB's and midwives on staff at my local hospital, so the chances of getting this one woman were not in my favor. But I told everyone who would deliver him, and I knew it in my heart that she would be there. Well, I went into labor two hours before the start of her 24-hour shift. 24 hours later, he was born on her shift. Amazing! (No, I did not have a 24-hour labor. After we checked into the hospital, the baby decided he wasn't ready after all and went back to sleep for the next 20 hours. When he decide he was ready, he only took 2.5 hours.)

So now I am putting The Secret to work for me. My family is going to look at a house that costs 20 years of my husband's current gross income, and I expect in a year to write in here that we are moving into our own home. If you know me and my circumstances, you know what a feat that will be. But we will keep thinking positive, stay upbeat, and dream in the present tense.

Pocket Taser Stun Gun

2007-06-28T10:30:00.001-05:00

Originally posted 3/23/07

(reposted with permission)

Pocket Taser Stun Gun, a great gift for the wife. This was submitted by a guy who purchased his lovely wife a "pocket Taser" for their anniversary.)

Last weekend I saw something at Larry's Pistol & Pawn Shop that sparked my interest. The occasion was our 22nd anniversary and I was looking for a little something extra for my wife Toni. What I came across was a 100,000-volt, pocket/purse-sized taser. The effects of the taser were suppose to be short lived, with no long-term adverse affect on your assailant, allowing her adequate time to retreat to safety.... *

*WAY TOO COOL!

Long story short, I bought the device and brought it home. I loaded two triple-a batteries in the darn thing and pushed the button. Nothing! I was disappointed. I learned, however, that if I pushed the button AND pressed it against a metal surface at the same time; I'd get the blue arch of electricity darting back and forth between the prongs. Awesome!!! Unfortunately, I have yet to explain to Toni what that burn spot is on the face of her microwave.

Okay, so I was home alone with this new toy, thinking to myself that it couldn't be all that bad with only two triple-a batteries,. right?!!!

There I sat in my recliner, my cat Gracie looking on intently (trusting little soul) while I was reading the directions and thinking that I really needed to try this thing out on a flesh & blood moving target. I must admit I thought about zapping Gracie (for a fraction of a second) and thought better of it. She is such a sweet cat. But, if I was going to give this thing to my wife to protect herself against a mugger, I did want some assurance that it would work as advertised. Am I wrong?

So, there I sat in a pair of shorts and a tank top with my reading glasses perched delicately on the bridge of my nose, directions in one hand, taser in another. The directions said that a one-second burst would shock and disorient your assailant; a two-second burst was supposed to cause muscle spasms and a major loss of bodily control; a three-second burst would purportedly make your assailant flop on the ground like a fish out of water. Any burst longer than three seconds would be wasting the batteries.

All the while I'm looking at this little device measuring about 5" long, less than 3/4 inch in circumference; pretty cute really and loaded with two itsy, bitsy triple-a batteries) thinking to myself, "no possible way!"

What happened next is almost beyond description, but I'll do my best.....

I'm sitting there alone, Gracie looking on with her head cocked to one side as to say, "don't do it master," reasoning that a one-second burst from such a tiny little ole thing couldn't hurt all that bad.. I decided to give myself a one-second burst just for the heck of it. I touched the prongs to my naked thigh, pushed the button, and HOLY MOTHER, WEAPONS OF MASS +!@$$!%!@* DESTRUCTION

I'm pretty sure Jessie Ventura ran in through the side door, picked me up in the recliner, then body slammed us both on the carpet, over and over and over again. I vaguely recall waking up on my side in the fetal position, with tears in my eyes, body soaking wet, both nipples on fire, testicles nowhere to be found, with my left arm tucked under my body in the oddest position, and tingling in my legs. The cat was standing over me making meowing sounds I had never heard before, licking my face, undoubtedly thinking to herself, "do it again, do it again!"

Note: If you ever feel compelled to "mug" yourself with a taser, one note of caution: there is no such thing as a one-second burst when you zap yourself. You will not let go of that thing until it is dislodged from your hand by a violent thrashing about on the floor. A three second burst would be considered conservative.

SON-OF-A-.. that hurt like hell!!! A minute or so later (I can't be sure, as time was a relative thing at that point), collected my wits (what little I had left), sat up and surveyed the landscape. My bent reading glasses were on the mantel of the fireplace. How did they up get there??? My triceps, right thigh and both nipples were still twitching. My face felt like it had been shot up with Novocain, and my bottom lip weighed 88 lbs. I'm still looking for my testicles. I'm offering a significant reward for their safe return.

Still in shock

Proud to be a New Englander

2007-06-28T10:28:00.000-05:00

Originally posted 3/22/07

This came in my inbox last night. I just had to share it.

> Forget Rednecks ...here is what Jeff Foxworthy has to say about New
> > Englanders...
> >
> > If you can drive 65 mph through 2 feet of snow during a raging
> > blizzard without flinching, you live in New England.
> >
> > If you've worn shorts and a parka at the same time, you live in New
> > England.
> >
> > If you consider it a sport to gather your food by drilling through 36
> > inches of ice and sitting there all day hoping it will swim by, you
> > might live in New England.
> >
> > If you're proud that your region makes the national news 96 nights
> > each year because Mt. Washington is the coldest spot in the nation,
> > and Boston gets more snow than any other major city in the US, you
> > live in New England.
> >
> > If your local Dairy Queen is closed from September through May, you
> > live in New England.
> >
> > If you instinctively walk like a penguin for six months out of the
> > year, you live in New England.
> >
> > If someone in a Home Depot store offers you assistance, and they
> > don't work there, you live in New England.
> >
> > If you've had a lengthy telephone conversation with someone who
> > dialed a wrong number, you live in New England.
> >
> > And, you know you are a New Englander when "Vacation" means going
=""> > anywhere south of New York City for the weekend.
> >
> > You measure distance in hours.
> >
> > You know several people who have hit a deer more than once.
> >
> > You have switched from "heat" to "A/C" in the same day and back again.
> >
> > You install security lights on your house and garage, but leave both
> > unlocked.
> >
> > You carry jumpers in your car and your girlfriend/wife knows how to
> > use them.
> >
> > You design your kid's Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit.
> >
> > The speed limit on the highway is 55mph -- you're going 80 and
> > everybody is passing you!
> >
> > Driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with
> > snow.
> >
> > You know all 4 seasons: almost winter, winter, still winter, and road
> > construction.
> >
> > Your 4th of July picnic was moved indoors due to frost.
> >
> > You have more miles on your snow blower than your car.
> >
> > You find 10 degrees "a little chilly."
> >
> > You actually understand these jokes, and forward them to all your New
> > England friends!

How do I do it?

2007-06-28T10:27:00.000-05:00

Originally posted 3/15/07

Wow, I am finally starting to see how much myspace is geared to the young unmarried crowd. There is no category for parenting or even family to pick from, so I had to choose Life.

I think it is funny when someone sees how many children I have and asks me how I do it. I would like them to see my house first thing in the morning when I am trying to cook breakfast and see that I don't "do it". Part of my daily morning to routine is to acquire a headache from listening to 3 children all crying or screaming at once. The baby cries because I won't hold him while I am cooking. I burn myself often enough that I won't risk trying to cook one-handed while holding my precious baby in the other arm. So he lays on the floor and cries while his sisters make goofy faces to try to cheer him up. Then Rowan starts crying because Lauren took the paper she wanted to color on. I ask Lauren who had the paper first and she bursts out crying when I haven't even scolded her for taking something away from her sister yet. She just knows it's coming and tries to beat me to the punch. Then Moira makes some annoyed face and Lauren takes it personally and starts bawling harder. Then Rowan starts crying again because Moira won't instantly hand over the crayon she is using when Rowan wants it. I tell Rowan she needs to wait until Moira is done with it and she flops on the floor in tears. Then Moira asks if she can play outside in the pouring rain and I say no because it is raining. Moira drops her shoulders and juts her head with her eyes bulging out and incredulously demands, "What?!" as if I had just announced that I would soon begin chopping off people's fingers. Only 10 minutes have passed for all this. Then I smell the pancakes burning and the girls staunchly declare that they won't eat those pancakes. Meanwhile, Eirik is still crying because I am not holding him.

So to all of you who want to know, "How do you do it?" I would like to say, I don't. The children that you see when I am out and about are not the same children that I live with.

I hate daylight savings

2007-06-28T10:26:00.002-05:00

Originally posted 3/14/07

Did you know that we are on daylight savings time longer than we are on standard time? Why is this? Some folks will tell you it is to help the farmers by giving them more time to get the chores done. That is bull. Farmers live by natural time, not the artificial time of a clock. Farmers actually get more annoyed than others I know about daylight savings. Some will tell you it is for energy conservation. This is partly true. Putting the high point of the sun (noon) in the middle of the work day (1pm is halfway from 9 to 5) does maximize our daylight working hours.

I think this is stupid and egotistical. It is stupid because the wise man would simply adjust his artificial-time-based working hours to 8 to 4 to maximize daylight hours during the official workday. It is egotistical because rather than adjusting ourselves to reflect nature, we try to make it appear that we have altered nature to suit ourselves. Instead of changing the workday to 8-4, we have simply renamed 8 am as 9 am and 4 pm as 5 pm. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, instead of calling it a duck, we dress it up in wool and call it a sheep.

So if it is a matter of semantics, why am I so bothered by it? Because we are forced by society to follow the stupid artificial time of clocks instead of the natural time of the sun. I understand the need for standardized time and time zones, but let's base it on the actual time please. Change America's working hours to 8-4, teach people to get up a little earlier out of desire rather than being tricked into it, and leave our poor clocks alone.

And why the hell do we try to save daylight in the summer when daylight is so abundant? Why don't we try to save daylight in the winter when light is more scarce? Pretty soon we will be on daylight savings time all year again, then they will introduce daylight double savings, to put our clocks into a 2 hour difference with the sun. Just you watch.

Taking charge and fear

2007-06-28T10:26:00.001-05:00

Originally posted 3/10/07

I have never been organized. I pulled off an illusion at it for a little while, but if I was truly organized, I wouldn't be where I am now. I have had a rough couple of days now and have thought that I am completely useless, good for nothing but as a feedbag for my baby, and generally feeling like a failure at life. I have been on the verge of tears for two days, my house is a disaster, my children are whiny, and my husband is displeased with me. And why shouldn't he be? I have done nothing in the upkeep of the house except to wash laundry (only because I have to have diapers for the baby), cook meals (to shut the kids up), and wash the dishes (so I can cook more meals to shut the kids up). Last night, we hardly spoke to each other and we were only 5 feet apart. Just before going to bed, he said he missed me. I asked what he meant, and he said that he missed spending time with me. The baby has been incredibly clingy this past week and cries almost every time I set him down. Sometimes, I can't even go to the bathroom. I discovered that he seems to only want to sleep either in my arms or in our bed upstairs. The sheepskin on the floor next to me downstairs is no longer good enough. So the baby has been very demanding of my time lately, and I have no idea when the last time is that my husband and I went anywhere by ourselves.

The good news is that in this week of self-deprecating hell, I have figured out a few things. One is that decluttering one's house is not something that only needs to be done once and is done. It has to be done regularly. I did a massive declutter about a year and a half ago and felt good about our home. I was able to stay on top of things and it was decent. But two moves and another child later, the house is more than I can handle. I finally realized I have to declutter again.

At this same time, we are participating in a mandatory program to get our money together (it's a condition of our lease for public housing). I tried for years to create a budget for us, but it seemed like every time I faced our finances, I made them worse. I decided to quit trying to fix them and just go on in blissful ignorance of our financial state. Which partially explains why we are in public housing. So now I have to look at our money again. Terry says the difference this time is that we have someone to help us do it right. The first step was to track our spending for a few months to see what our spending habits are. I had tried this in the past, but only for one month at a time. During those months I found myself changing my spending habits since I knew I would be recording everything I bought. This, of course, did not provide an accurate picture of my spending habits. When you have to track for 3 months, though, your real spending habits resurface and you can get an accurate picture. So I went back to see what December looked like. We spent more in December than we earned. Since we don't have credit cards, I figured that we must have just spent some of a balance forward from November. But January looked the same. I don't know how we spent more than we earned for two months straight for a total of over $200. February we did better (of course, that's when we got our tax refund, too), but only by $75. We will see how March goes and then we turn it all in to our program coordinater. I really want to buy a house in before my children start moving out on their own, so I have less than 8 years to do it. I *have* to get my butt in gear to do it.

One of my husband's complaints is that I don't get stuff done during the day while he's at work? Why not? Because I forget. My brain is a seive. I read once that children under the age of three have an ethereal connection to their mothers. I'm sure that all children do, but those under three cause a drain on the mother's memory capabilities. I have had a child (or two) under the age of three for almost 11 straight years now. My husband's answer: Write it down. This makes sense. If I write it down, I will be reminded. But I wouldn't write things down. And if I did (like when he would put pen and paper in my hand to do so, or he would write ot down for me), I would deliberately avoid the paper. I hated my to-do list. I loathed it. You want an easy way to make me cry? Show me my to-do list. Even if I made it up myself in an effort to get things done, I cried about it. Only once in my 30 years of life on this Earth have I ever completed an entire to-do list. Sometimes I would deliberately not do something on my list so that it wouldn't be done. There's logic for you. My husband laughs at me logic somtimes. I love logic puzzles, and am quite capable of very clear rational, logical thought. I would do quite well as an accountant (for someone else, not me). But other times, I completely refuse to acknowledge logic. No matter how obvious something is, I will refuse to admit it. For no reason whatsoever.

So today I was looking at a website I just found, called The New Homemaker. On it are lots of resources for homemakers, including cleaning tips, cooking hints and recipes, household management systems, and money management. I decided the other day that my whole life is out of control because I had given it up. I was content to be a leaf blowing on the breeze because it was too scary to take charge of my life and give it direction. Much easier (so I thought) to let life happen and deal with things as they came up. But it's not. If I want to achieve anything in this life, I have to take the reins. I have to become proactive. My best friend is far more proactive than I, and I always admired that in her, but thought that I couldn't do it. Anyway, I was reading that website and saw an article that talked about organizing resolutions (from the new year). It said, "Write it down. I have a fear of lists, that they will define me as a failure rather than just be a reminder. I resolve to overcome this fear." That really hit home for me. Now I understand my loathing of to-do lists. I never looked at a list and saw what I had done. I only saw what I had not done. I harshly criticized myself for failing, I used them to show myself how useless I was. I have a lot of negative self-talk to overcome. It is amazing how much I beat myself up. If I said to someone else all the things I say to myself, no one would come within a mile of me for being so abusive.

Now I just have to figure out why I speak so badly to myself. But at least now I have the courage to grab the reins of life, I have a direction in which to head. I need to find a local support system, and I need to face life one day at a time. If I have to write "clean cat poop off the floor for three days in a row because I didn't do it the first time, that will have to be okay. I have to remeber Thomas Edison's philosophy - that I haven't failed x number of times, I have found x number of ways that didn't work. I am x number of attempts closer to achieving my goals. I need to stop hiding from life on the computer and start living it.

Today's to-do list:
Finish the laundry
Do some decluttering
Sweep the floor
Open the Earthdawn book and start prepping the adventure I will be running in just one week
Finish making the pemmican I started
Tell my husband I love him
Tell each and every child I love them
Tell myself I love me (if I say it enough, I might start to believe it)

Chili

2007-06-28T10:23:00.000-05:00

Originally posted 3/6/07

I love chili! I really, really love chili! I have fallen in love with chili, which is remarkable since I detest beans for being too squishy. That, and I am a huge wimp when it comes to spicy food. But I love the chili that I devised from a recipe from my husband's family. Here it is:

Judy's 0 Alarm Chili

Brown and drain 2# of burger (I always fudge this amount, it is often closer to 3#). Dump it in a really big kettle. (My dutch oven boiled over, but it fits with plenty of room in my 8-qt stockpot.) Sauté ½ large sweet onion and add it to the/ pot. Add the following to the pot:
minced garlic, probably ¼ cup
28 oz can diced tomatoes
29 oz can tomato sauce
40.5 oz can beans (I use kidney, but I bet that any kind would work)
1 Tbsp salt
2-3 twists of a peppermill
2 bay leaves
1 tsp chili powder (which can then be set on the table for those who want to liven up their own bowl)
4 oz can chiles
1 tsp oregano
¼ tsp cumin
½ tsp allspice
Simmer this for a minimum of 1 hour, preferably at least 4 or 5 hours. Serve with whole grain brown rice that has been simmered for an hour or more in chicken broth and butter. Voilá! Taste the love! If there is any left over, it tastes even better reheated on the stovetop the next day.

Boyfriend Season

2007-06-28T10:17:00.001-05:00

Originally posted 3/3/07

You may have noticed that I changed the About Me part of my profile to rant about not being invited to Myspace Singles. I have often felt that online dating was getting a bit out of hand, but now I know it has. One of the ads that I often see here on myspace after I post a bulletin or some such has a picture of a handsome young man, with what I would call "bedroom eyes". It says "Boyfriend Season is right around the corner..." and I never bothered to read past that.

What is Boyfriend season? Does that mean that all we parents get to go to the Fish and Game Department for tags for boyfriends? As a mother of 4 girls, I am dreading when they get old enough for boyfriends. I will gladly sit at the door with a hunting rifle and try to take them out as they dash for the door to try to date my daughters. How many tags do I get? Is it based on how many daughters I have? How beautiful (and thus desired by potential boyfriends) they are? Do I technically have to wait until they ask my daughters out? Or are those free? Do I only need tags for the ones that my girls say yes to? Oh please tell me where I can sign up for Boyfriend Season!

Now some dumbass daycare thinks breastmilk is a biohazard

2007-06-28T10:15:00.000-05:00

Originally posted 2/26/07

City Kids DayCare Chain Charges Mom MORE Money to Watch Breastfed Infant

Friday, February 23, 2007

Now if this one won't get your feathers ruffled, I don't know what will. It's about ten times more important that we spread the word on this than it was to spread the word about the Pork incident ladies, so please help me out.

Here's the deal...

There's a mother named Robin Neorr here in the Columbus area. After her daughter was born late last year and she went back to work, she enrolled her daughter in one of the City Kids Daycare in downtown Columbus.

Robin was told that she would need to pay an extra $50 per WEEK because her 3 month old daughter is breastfed. You read that right, an extra $50 a week to feed that little girl the best food available for her.

Why?

Well, Robin was given several reasons.

She was told that her milk was a hazardous body fluid that had to be kept separate from all other food. As such, the day care center kept the prepared bottles of breast milk in a separate refrigerator in the director's office. (They even labeled it with a "bio-hazard" sticker, apparently confusing breast milk with, I don't know...uranium?) They also claimed that they would have to purchase a separate warming pot for heating up the breast milk. In other words, they had to go through SOOO much extra trouble that they would have to charge her an extra fee.

What was their reasoning for needing all this extra fuss over breastmilk? Well, Robin was never really able to find out the answer to that question.

The Centers for Disease Control does NOT consider breast milk to be a fluid that requires "special precautions." The Ohio Department of Health also does not consider breast milk to require any special handling. In fact, when I searched the Ohio Administrative Code, I stumbled across Chapter 12, which covers the Rules for Licensed Child Care Centers. I found it VERY interesting to read the section on "Infant formula and food."

Here are a few snippets from it...

Center policies and practices shall support parent preferences in infant feeding, including breast feeding and introduction of solid foods as long as developmentally appropriate and not detrimental to the health of the child.

Infants shall be served food in conformity with dated written instructions from the parent or guardian or physician. The instructions shall include amounts of food, type of food, and feeding times and be updated as needed based upon the child's needs and parent's instructions.

Now, it gets more interesting if you keep digging. Here's what it says about the requirements for day care centers as they handle bottles of breast milk.

If breast milk is provided by the parent or guardian, it shall be labeled with the child's name and the date of receipt and immediately refrigerated or frozen. Refrigerated breast milk shall not be stored for more than twenty-four hours. Breast milk shall be kept frozen no more than two weeks.

and...

If formula or breast milk is to be warmed, bottles shall be placed in a container of hot (not boiling) water or be placed in a commercial bottle warmer. The container of water shall be emptied and cleaned each day. The bottle shall be shaken well, and the milk temperature tested before feeding. Frozen breast milk shall be thawed under cold running water or in the refrigerator.

and...

The unused portion of formula, breast milk or food remaining in a container from which the infant has been directly fed, shall not be reheated or served again.

Now, that doesn't really seem so tough does it? Take a gander at what's required for the handling of formula...

Bottles prepared at center: when infant formula is prepared by the center, it shall be prepared in conformity with written instructions from the parent or guardian, or physician. All powdered or concentrated formula shall be prepared according to the manufacturers' instructions unless written instructions from a physician or an advance practice nurse certified to prescribe medication are on file at the center.

and...

The center shall clean and disinfect all counter surfaces and equipment needed to prepare the formula. All equipment shall be washed in a dishwasher or scrubbed with hot water containing soap, and be thoroughly rinsed. Equipment not washed in a dishwasher shall be boiled for five minutes or more just prior to filling bottles. Handwashing facilities shall not be used for formula or food preparation or for rinsing or washing dishes and bottles. Handwashing facilities shall not be used for formula or food preparation, or for washing dishes and bottles or rinsing for reuse.

and...

Open containers of ready to feed and concentrated formula shall be covered, dated and refrigerated. Prepared formula and food shall be discarded if not used within twenty-four hours.

and...

Any formula or food to be stored at the center for any period of time, whether prepared by the parent or guardian or the center, shall be labeled with the child's name and date of preparation and shall be used only for the intended child.

and...

Until used, all formula or food shall be refrigerated immediately after preparation or upon arrival if prepared by the parent or guardian. Formula or food that is commercially prepared may not be required to be refrigerated until after opening. Formula and food shall be stored no longer than twenty-four hours.

Now tell me...which one do YOU think requires more work?

Exactly.

Here's where it gets even more interesting. One of the posters on the AP Village discussion forum called City Kids to ask about enrolling their own child. According to her post, here's what she was told:

"Well, I have to see, I think there is a new policy about breastmilk. We might charge extra or maybe we aren't taking them any more. It's nothing with me or the director but the owner has a problem with breastmilk."

When asked by the caller if they were serious she stated that "all day care centers are going to this policy soon."

Yeah, can you even believe it?

Now Ohio does have legislation giving moms legal protection when they breastfeed in public but it currently has no laws on the books in regards to the use of breast milk in day care centers. In fact, only the state of Louisiana has a law (House Bill 233) making it illegal for day care centers to discriminate against breastfed children.

Robin understandably wanted to avoid negative press while her daughter was still being cared for at the center. However, her daughter's last day was Tuesday and Robin is now on a crusade to not only spread the word about this day care center that has chosen to discriminate against breastfed children but also to push for new Ohio legislation that would keep this same situation from happening to other breastfeeding moms.

So, what do we need you to do?

First, help spread the word. It took all of two days for the National Pork Board to change their course when faced with the onslaught of phone calls and emails from the Lactivist community. If we can mobilize to protect one web site then we sure as heck can mobilize to show day care centers that we will not stand for this type of discrimination against breastfed babies. So please, blog the article, post it in your favorite discussion forums, get the word out.

Second, make your voice heard with the parties involved. Patricia Elam has owned and operated the downtown Columbus and Hilliard City Kids centers since 1989. If you'd like to contact her to let her know what you think of her center's policies, you can email City Kids at citykidsdaycar@aol.com or you can call either of their centers at (614) 464-1411, or (614)777-4320.

If you are a Central Ohio mom and would be on board for a potential nurse-in at City Kids Daycare, please drop me an email so that I can start building a contact list. If you are a mom anywhere in Ohio, please give serious thought to contacting your local representatives and your state senators about the need to push through legislation that would protect breastfed children.

If you are a lawyer or know one that might be interested in taking on a civil suit against City Kids Day Care, get in touch with me and I'll get you in touch with Robin. If you are a reporter that would like to cover the story, drop me a note and I will DEFINITELY get you in touch with Robin.

We can not let day care centers dictate what we feed our children.

How stupid am I?

2007-06-28T10:14:00.000-05:00

Originally posted 2/22/07

Those of you who actually read my bulletins may have noticed that I enjoy filling out silly surveys and quizzes. Well just now I was checking my page here and I saw that one of the sponsors was a quiz labeled "Are you Stupid?" So of course I had to go see just how stupid someone could be. First I had to input my first name and an email address so they could send me the results. That was acceptable. But being the paranoid person I am, I used my internet alias and my spam account. I'm not that stupid. :) Then I had to enable javascript. OK, many sites use java to run correctly. I answered 20 questions which were fun, such as, "Do you think President Bush will be re-elected in this upcoming race?", and "Should thespians be allowed to adopt?" I finished the questions and the site then required last name. mailing address, phone number and DOB. I filled all of the m except for DOB with bogus information. I lived at 123 Anystreet and calling my number would get you directory assistance. It then asked me which special offers I wanted. I clicked no to all of them, and it was quite an extensive list. It said I had to pick at least one, so I chose one that said "Candy - Hershey's or Reese's?" because I am not diabetic (which offered several options), I have no roofing projects I need done, and I am not interested in a career in criminal law (that's Jenny's thing). Then it asked me to choose where I wanted my $50 gift card to be spent, and that is when I decided I'm not that stupid. So to answer their original question of "Are You Stupid?", my answer is, "Only a little, for clicking on your link to begin with!"

Shock Value

2007-06-28T10:13:00.001-05:00

Originally posted 2/21/07

A friend of mine recently sent me an email with graphic pictures of animals being abused. I do believe my friend had the best of intentions when forwarding. The bottom of the email basically said that if the reader cares anything about animals, they will forward it on to everyone they know, and if they don't forward it, they don't care about animals. This bothered me. First of all, spreading horrific pictures across the internet isn't going to change what is happening to these animals. The only thing that can change that is writing to your lawmakers, writing to the companies that perpetrate some atrocities, refusing to buy products made by those companies, and joining animal rights groups that take action. Spreading pictures is pointless.

Perhaps the original author of the email intended to get people angry enough to do the things I mentioned above. I think he went about it the wrong way. Rather than sending the pictures themselves, it would have been more appropriate to post a link or twenty to activist websites. Instead, my children were looking at my screen when I clicked on the email and they got a glimpse of the pictures before I could minimize it. My 7yo daughter is extremely sensitive to such things. For a while she truly believed that she was half dog. Fortunately, she wasn't the child who was with me when I opened it. But she could have been. She would have had nightmares for a long time.

Therefore I refuse to forward the message on to others. While I have no problems with the basic message itself, I do have problems with its presentation. I am all for animal rights. I am not an activist for them (I am an activist for children's health), but just because I don't succumb to the shock value of those pictures does not make me heartless. I would ask everyone to think carefully before forwarding emails like the one I received. Perhaps the message is a good one, but is the presentation equally good?

Respect

2007-06-28T10:12:00.000-05:00

Originally posted 1/31/07

Whatever happened to respect? When I was a kid, children called their elders Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so. They were polite and said please and thank you and "may I?" I was mortified this past Sunday at church when my 7-year-old daughter called an elderly man by his first name, something I would never deign to do. When I whispered to her, "How about 'Mr. Robinson?'" she just shrugged. I have noticed that this is quite common with today's children. I was taking a walk one day and a small girl was playing jump rope in her front yard. She asked me what my name was as I walked by and I said, "Mrs. Anderson." I was in my early 20's. She then asked me, "Are you a teacher?" I replied that I was not. She asked why then I was a Mrs. I explained that it was because I was married. She could not grasp that concept.

I think part of the problem is our fear of aging. When we are shown respect and called by our title and surname, we feel old. We think of those people we addressed the same way when we were young and think of how old we thought they were at the time. So to feel like we are still young, we don't want to be called that way. Parents are no longer called Mr. and Mrs. Smith by their children's friends, they are Tom and Sue. Or even Dad and Mom. I think that one comes from children's innate aversion to calling adults so casually, and their discomfort with calling them so formally. So they choose intimate names instead and often afford the friend's parents more respect than their own parents.

The same change has occurred in the workplace. The boss is no longer Mr. Lucier, he is Rick, or even Ricky. I cringe when I hear grown people called by diminutive nicknames. How much more disrespectful can one get? Not only does it fail to acknowledge that the person has reached adulthood, it also fails to acknowledge that they have even reached puberty. I suppose I can understand a person's reluctance to call a supervisor by their surname if the supervisor is younger than they, but people in positions of authority deserve respect no matter their age.

So here I was, mortified at my daughter calling a 70+ year old man by his given name, and wondering how it happened. I thought and I thought. How did my daughter come to be so disrespectful? It is because our society shuns respect, which is ironic considering how much we seem to demand it. It is very frustrating to introduce your child to someone and say, "Moira, this is Mrs. Johnson," just to have the new neighbor say, "Please, call me Sally." It is also extremely difficult when people don't introduce themselves with last names. I don't know the last names of most of my neighbors. When my daughter tells me she met a new neighbor, I have no way of knowing whether that person is a child, teenager, or adult. I really have no support in today's world in teaching my child respect, and everyone we meet seems to unconsciously try to sabotage all my efforts to teach it. It is very frustrating. Is it okay to say, "Please, Ma'am, I am trying to teach my child to respect adults. I am not trying to make you uncomfortable?"

Dental work

2007-06-28T10:11:00.000-05:00

Originally posted 10/11/06

Okay, so my daughter had her teeth cleaned a month or so ago and the dentist said she has one tiny cavity. He said it isn't her fault; the bristles of her toothbrush are too big to fit in the groove of her molar. His suggestion was, of course, to get sealants and a filling for that one tooth. I said I would think about the sealants, as I wanted to know exactly what is in them before I put them in her mouth. (Yet another flare-up of my TFYS.) I asked what he would use to fill the tooth and he said amalgam. I said no. There will be no mercury going in her mouth.

"Oh, it's safe," was his reply.
"That's what they said about thimerasol, too," I retorted.
"What's that?" The man had no idea.
"The mercury that is in vaccines."
"Well, amalgam has been around longer than vaccines."
"That doesn't mean it is safe. What else can we use?"
"Resin. It's made from pretty much the same stuff as the sealants."
"How long do sealants last? Do they wear off or are they life-long?"
"Usually they are life-long."
"Then I want to research it on my own before I commit to anything." He gave me an eyeroll. Nothing worse than a parent who doesn't do as they are told, apparently.

So I came home and researched more about dental sealants, and discovered that the material they are made from contains a substance called bisphenol-A (BPA), an endocrine disrupter. (www.holisticdental.org/dentalsealants/DentalSealantToxicity.pdf ) My husband and I decided we would forgo the sealants and invest in a sonic toothbrush instead so we won't have to worry about how deep her grooves are. We still had to figure out what to do about the cavity. We don't want to leave it unfilled, because that can lead to problems of its own. We don't want to fill it with a heavy metal that is a known neuro-toxin, and we don't want to fill it with an endocrine disrupter that has been linked to infertility, and probably other things as well. So we decided to try silver. I called the dentist's office, and they said yes, they do silver fillings. I scheduled an appointment and told them we would skip the sealants and go with a silver filling.

So today we went to get her tooth filled. When I signed her in, the receptionist asked me to look over the paperwork to make sure it was right. It said I wanted amalgam. I said it was not right, I most definitely did not want amalgam because it has mercury in it.

"I wanted a silver filling, not amalgam."
"Silver is amalgam."
"No, amalgam is mercury. I want the metal silver, not the color."
"Silver is used in the amalgam."
"Then it isn't what I want. I will not put mercury in my child's mouth."
"What about the white resin then? It doesn't have mercury in it."
"No, I don't want that because it contains endocrine disruptors."
"Let me go speak to the dentist about it." A few minutes later she came back. "He says that all of our fillings are amalgam or white resin."
"Then I am sorry I wasted our time. Thank you very much." And I collected my children and walked home.

So now I am trying to find a dentist who will use something that does not contain mercury or BPA. I am discovering that this is no easy task. I searched holistic dentistry in NH and there was nothing. I tried Vermont (we are only ½ hour away from the border) and the only hit I got was in Colchester, which looks to be just north of Burlington - about 3-4 hours drive. So then I looked at Massachusetts (very close there, also), and got two hits - one in Groton and one in Brookline. I am going to guess that Groton is about 1.5-2 hours away, and Brookline is further. Then I tried another page and got something that looked promising in Concord (1-1.5 hours away). I called and asked if they can do mercury- and BPA-free fillings. She assured me they could. So I asked if they take Healthy Kids Gold (our state's version of Medicaid for children) and she said they don't see children. The youngest they see is young adult; they do mostly cosmetic dentistry. Of course. It couldn't possibly be that easy. So I asked if she knew of anyone and she gave me a phone number of someone who might.

I called this next office and certainly they have fillings that don't have mercury. I asked about BPA and she didn't know what it was. I told her and she said she didn't know if it did or not.
"If it is the same material used for sealants, then it does."
"I don't know if it is or not. Would you hold so I can ask?"
"Of course."
"The dentist said it is not the same material."
"Does this material have BPA in it?"
"We don't know."
"Well someone must."
"I don't know who would."
"Well, can you call the manufacturer? Whoever makes it would know if there is BPA in it or not."
"I will have the dentist get back to you on that."
"Thank you."

Ahhhh! Trying to find an acceptable cavity filler is like pulling teeth, to use an appropriate expression. So now I sit and wait and expect to hear that it does have BPA and then I will have to find some other alternative. Why can't they just use silver without the mercury?! Now do I really want to go to a dentist that seems so ignorant of the material he works with?

I believe

2007-06-28T10:10:00.000-05:00

Originally posted 9/24/06

I went to a new church today for the second week, and decided to make an appointment to sit down and talk religion with the Reverend. I got home and realized that if I am going to discuss religion with a minister, then I should first attempt to put down in writing what I actually believe. So I did just that when I got home after I took a rest. Here is what I came up with. What is particularly remarkable about this is that I actually knew when I was done writing it. I didn't end it because I couldn't think of anything else to say, I ended it because it was complete. I have never written like that before. The other thing is that it is remarkably well organized. I never felt like I should go back and reorganize it into something more coherent. That is also amazing since I am a stream-of-consciousness writer, rather than having any organization. So here goes...

I believe there are immortal divine spirits. I believe they exist primarily on a different level of reality from us. I believe every living thing has a soul or spirit that is connected to the divine spirits. I believe the relationship can most easily be comprehended by us as that of parent and child. I believe that life on Earth is all related to one deity, whose "home" and domain is the planet Earth. I believe each deity has a distinct home/domain.

I believe that our bodies are holy, and when used and treated in accordance with its holy and perfect design, we will maintain perfect health, our birthright. I believe that the world is holy and sacred, and when used and treated as such, will support and nurture us indefinitely, as the physical manifestation of the Goddess' love for us. I believe that we are hear to serve the Earth and the Goddess, not for them to serve us.

I believe in eternal life, but not in eternal damnation. I believe in reincarnation, and that we live each life to learn new lessons. I believe that if we do not learn our lesson for this life, we will return to learn the lesson in another life.

I believe that the gods are more powerful than we, but even they have limits to their power. I have not yet concluded whether or not they are subject to a universal/multiversal deity. I believe that the more we live in accordance with the natural laws, the stronger our relationship with the Goddess will be, and the more we each will benefit from it. I believe that every action we take, every word we say, has an effect on this relationship.

My mental affliction

2007-06-28T10:09:00.000-05:00

Originally posted 9/13/06

I was just taking a quiz that contained something along the lines of, "I tell everyone about my mental illness. Agree or disagree?" I said I disagree, as I don't have any mental illnesses. Which reminded me that I had said I would post about my TFYS disease. So here it is.

What is TFYS disease, and how do you know if you have it or not? There are no diagnostics you can run for it, no tests to pass or fail, and no doctor can diagnose it. Some may confuse it with OCD. Symptoms and signs include mild paranoia, obsession, cramps, and isolation. I will address these individually.

Paranoia - this usually manifests as a belief that our government and society may not have our best interests at heart. They may be protecting their own financial interests, or their power over the people, or simply trying to save face by not admitting to being mistaken. The usual foci of the paranoia are the CDC, the FDA, the USDA, the pharmaceutical industry, the Department of Education, the agricultural industry, to name a few.

Obsession - this usually manifests as a desire to find all extant information on a subject before making any decision. Those suffering from this disease can often be seen at the library with stacks of books all on the same subject, or on the internet with heaps of bookmarks on the same subject. These books and bookmarks are often for the less commonly held beliefs and opinions of said subject. They also collect magazines such as Mother Earth News, or Farm and Field.

Cramps - Victims of TFYS often find themselves with cramps, particularly in their hands. This usually stems from signing many waivers or writing out explicit instructions regarding themselves or their children. The more children a sufferer has, the more likely they are to suffer from cramps.

Isolation - Those who suffer from this disease often have very few friends. Their symptoms frighten many people who then tend to stay away from them. They also tend to actively seek isolation, desiring to live in rural areas, often with small farms or homesteads. Their children often do not attend public school, and adults often shy away from things like flu clinics.

These are the most obvious signs and symptoms of Think For YourSelf disease. It is an affliction that can only be self-diagnosed. It is growing in frequency in the United States as well as the rest of the world, and there is no known cure, save perhaps for a head injury that results in a personality change.

Poverty and child rearing

2007-06-28T10:08:00.000-05:00

I was filling out some paperwork today and it got me to thinking about poverty. What exactly is the definition of poverty? I looked it up at the U.S. Census site, and sure enough, my family falls into the category of poverty. Is that something I am ashamed of? No. Shame implies a level of self-blame. I don't blame myself or my husband for our rearing our children in poverty. I blame our culture.

Our culture, despite all we claim, does not encourage people to follow their dreams, unless it is pre-approved by society at large. I am living my dream right now, and it has put us in the category of poverty. I stay home and rear our children myself instead of handing them over to some daycare worker or public school system to rear for me while I work. I did work for a few years while trying to rear small children. It greatly boosted our reportable income and lifted us up out of poverty, but the cost to our family was too great. Three years ago now my husband and I had a discussion about my continuing to work. I was 4 months pregnant and working as a temp, and I was miserable. We were paying my brother's girlfriend to watch our 2 children (then), but as a temp, my work was erratic. My last paycheck was for $45 after taxes and deductions, while the daycare expense was $60. So my husband actually had to pay $15 for my going to work for two days. Where is the sense in that? We decided that I would stay home and he would be the sole income for our family. It sounds awful, but really, our standard of living has not gone down too noticeably. I would, in fact, say it has gone up, because now we are eligible for housing assistance, so we can live in a place that is non-toxic and large enough for us. My children all suffered for two years from lead poisoning in our old house because the landlady wouldn't do anything about the problem. We lost maybe $100 per week of actual usable money from when I was working steadily full time, but our expenses went down at the same time. But now we are considered impoverished and there is such a stigma attached to poverty that suddenly people look at you with pity and contempt.

"You should go get a job." I hear that often, and I respond with, "I have a job. I am rearing some beautiful children that will grow up to be healthy, responsible adults." But child-raising has become looked down upon as something that is a bother rather than a joy. "That's not a job, that's being lazy." Tell you what, you stay home for a week and be solely responsible for the care of four small children and see how lazy you can be.

So I guess I am writing to whine about how our culture, which professes to be the land where dreams can come true, has made it so difficult for a married mother to pursue her dream of rearing her children, which a mere few decades ago was the expected job of married mothers.

Transferring

2007-06-28T09:38:00.000-05:00

I have been keeping a blog at myspace, and decided to copy it over to here. I am justing posting them all as new posts, I haven't really written them all today. Hmm... I will have to wait until my blog is reachable again.

2005-09-29T19:27:00.000-05:00

I had tried to remember so much this week. I should have posted as they happened, but I didn’t. I went for a walk in the late evening with the kids and we looked up at the stars. About a block from us there is sufficient darkness to be able to see some. Cait immediately spotted the Big Dipper, so I showed her how to find the Little Dipper, the North Star, and how to find your direction at night. We also identified Cassiopeia, but that was about all. Cait inquired after Orion, and I explained that we can only see Orion in the winter.

Sometimes Cait astounds me. She gets bitten by the reading bug a couple times a week, and she will read an entire book in one sitting. The Secrets of Droon by Tony Abbott is her favorite series right now. She read another one yesterday in mere hours.

She is also getting interested in playing D&D. She wants me to help her make up a character and teach her how to game. I am happy that she wants to join us, but she can’t seem to stay awake late enough. We game on alternate Saturdays from after dinner to about midnight, and she usually conks out around 9 or 10. Moira wants to game, too, so maybe I will start a campaign just for the two of them.

We borrowed Van Helsing from the library last week, and the girls watched it almost every day. We looked up where Romania is, and Transylvania, and we talked a little about who the Gypsies are. Cait now wants to be a vampire for Halloween. Her tastes in entertainment are growing up more rapidly than I would have thought. She is obsessed with the X-Men. It seems like only yesterday that The Big Comfy Couch was her favorite show.

I borrowed a book called The Explosive Child by Ross Greene to try to figure out how to deal with Lauren and her random fits of violence. I started crying on the second page. I had started to think that I was the only one with a child like that and that I was a terrible mother for raising such a difficult child. I’m about half-way through it now, and if Terry and I can successfully implement the suggestions in the book, I think we will end up with a much happier home life. Having a three-year-old get so mad over not being allowed to have soda at bedtime or the fact that she outgrew last year’s clothes that she throws everything she can see, including a sit-and-spin, is not a fun way to live. But then she turns around and brings me flowers and draws me pictures and says I am the best mommy in the whole world.

On another note, Terry and I have been fantasizing about our dream home. It will be like a hobbit hole. It started when I saw a house in Mother Earth News that had a sod roof. We thought we would extend that to include the walls, too, and soon we had our very own hobbit hole. Someday.

I will try to remember to update as things happen rather than trying to remember it after a week.

The Anderson Family: First Blog

2005-09-17T23:11:00.000-05:00

This has been a pretty eventful week, I’d say. I finally got the kids to the library again after being gone for a whole week (gasp!). Two of the books that Moira had borrowed seem to have gone AWOL. I could swear that I returned all the books at the same time, but those two don’t seem to be at the library, nor do I find them here. If they aren’t found by the end of the month, she won’t be allowed to check out any more books. That will devastate her. Cait borrowed a Secrets of Droon book and finished it in about 3-4 hours, then wanted to go and get a new one. She had to wait a couple of days, though, before we had a chance to get back there again. This time she got another Droon book and a Magic Treehouse book, too. I’m so glad that she has found books that she enjoys. I remember spending long lazy days doing nothing all day but reading at 10 years old. I read fantasy novels with my folks in the evenings, everyone taking turns with the reading part. That was when I was exposed to Tolkein, Saberhagen, Feist, Eddings, McCaffrey, and every other fantasy author at our library. We read every book they had. On my own, I read a lot of Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys, Boxcar Children, and so forth. Mom wanted me to read the Bobbsey Twins, but those were “too old” for me.

Moira has been in an experimenting mood lately. We found a volcano kit and a slime lab kit at the swap shop and brought them home. We built the volcano a week ago Friday and let it dry over the weekend. So Tuesday we exploded it. Unfortunately, we were missing a vital piece of the kit – a vial that was to contain the reaction and send it up and over the lip of the volcano. Instead when we poured the water in, it seeped down and out the bottom. It was very anti-climactic. I promised we would find stuff to build a new one and try again. A day or so later we made Sewer Slime with guar gum and borax. I misread the directions and put in a tablespoon of borax-water solution instead of ¼ teaspoon so it gelled up almost instantly. I need to find a steady supplier for guar gum now so she can make more of it. I already get the borax for washing my laundry.

Moira decided she wanted to experiment in the kitchen after baking banana bread with me and she wrote up a nice recipe. I took dictation for her because she didn’t feel like writing it down. I suppose it would have forced her to slow her thinking, so I was happy to do it for her. She wanted to make a cake, but ended up making a cinnamony quick bread, not surprising since we had just made one and those ingredients were already on her mind. She was quite disappointed that it was not a cake, but it was yummy bread. At the time, Cait refused to even try any of it. Sometimes she just seems to randomly want to be mean to her sisters and I still can’t fathom it. Today they both made new recipes. Moira basically made another version of her cinnamon quick bread, again trying for cake. Cait, having no reference to start from, wanted to make cookies. She used peanut butter and whole wheat flour as a base and some cinnamon and other stuff, but didn’t put in any sweetener. I tasted it before she put it on the cookie sheet and suggested she might want to add some sweetener. Would she like sugar or honey? Sugar. Brown or white? Brown. The dough was very dry, so I helped her add some butter to it. When it was mostly palatable (I am by no means an artist in the kitchen), she pressed it in one big flat sheet on a cookie sheet and we baked it. When Moira’s bread was done, Cait’s “cookies” went in. Moira’s bread was yummy again, and Cait couldn’t wait to try her cookies. While they were waiting, they ate the entire mini-loaf that Moira made. It wasn’t very big to begin with. Cait was disappointed with her cookies. She said they weren’t very good and would I like to try them. What is it about humans that makes us say, “Ew! This is so gross! You have to try some!”? I said I would try some later and she broke off a piece for my trial and threw the rest in the trash. But she didn’t mope and get all upset about it like I would have. She asked me what she did wrong, and I said we could check some extant recipes for comparison.

I wonder what next week will bring.

First Blog

2005-09-13T23:05:00.000-05:00

Well, I have been reading some blogs and finally decided to give it a try myself. I'm off to set up a profile and figure this thing out.