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When I started this blog I was so excited about it, then it seemed like I got distracted and I haven’t been writing. I am going to try to be more active here.
Thanks for everyone’s sympathies for my uncles death. I will blog about it sometime, but I don’t feel ready to do that just yet.
So whats new?
I’m at a new job, did I say? I’m still working full time for the Guard, but its in a new office with a new job (an admin job) and I am very happy with it. I have health benefits!
Speaking of which, Elijah and I have been on the hunt for a new doctor. We were searching for a holistic doctor and found two which accept our insurance. The first one, a woman in Conifer, was really awesome, but I had to come to terms with the fact that Conifer will be quite a drive when I have a sick baby in the winter. So I went with a male doctor (normally I will choose a female over a male, mainly because sometimes, men really freak me out – yes, I know I have issues) who is closer, and I was very happy with his treatment of Elijah yesterday. Elijah has a viral infection in his throat.
My sister came out for my uncles funeral last week. Overall, I think it was a good visit. We didn’t fight at all, although we both got a little snickety at each other a time or two. My sister and I couldn’t be more different. Besides the fact that I am a single mom and she technically has a boyfriend and a husband (its taking a long time for the divorce to be finalized), I am all about the attatchment parenting, eco friendly living, and natural child birth, while she is all about conventional American parenting, cheap and effortless living, and drugged, drugged, drugged childbirth (phew! she took everything they had to give!). Not that either of us are right or wrong, but when you get the two of us together, we sure feel like one of us is right and the other is wrong.
In other news, I have decided to try and make the final transition from flexitarian to vegetarian. I haven’t come out of the closet to my family yet, though. My last meat consumption was shrimp on Saturday morning. Sheesh. I feel like an alcoholic at an AA meeting. Anyway, my mom reads this blog so this might be how she finds out. I just can’t justify eating meat anymore, not when so many people in this world are starving, and knowing they could be fed if Americans just didn’t eat any hamburgers. Also, I had to take my cat to the vet last week, and I started thinking about other pets I had lost, and if, supposing there is a heaven, I would see them in heaven, and if my cats have souls and go to heaven, wouldn’t cows and chickens and fish have souls? Do they all have souls? If they have souls, is it right to eat them? My cat doesn’t seem to care if the squirrels in my back yard have souls or not, why should I? But my cats aren’t logical creatures. Oh the dilema!
Plus, its just better for you.
I also went to see a personal trainer yesterday. I think I went to high school with her. I learned that I am in better shape than I thought. In fact, I’m in pretty good shape for someone so overweight. Its all the walking I do. And all the fat I eat. The two factors combine to create a fit fattie.
I say I eat a lot of fat, because I’ve been keeping track at Fitday and on average, about 30% of my calories come from fat. Isn’t it supposed to be only 15%? The solution, as I see it, is not to reduce the amount of fat I eat (because it tastes good!) but to increase the amount of fatless calories I eat. That makes the percentage go down. So I need to be eating a butt ton more veggies.
I will keep everyone posted on my diet and personal trainer successes and failures. I will also keep you all up to date on my adventures into vegetarianism.
(for the record, I do not let my cats kill squirrels in our back yard)
I read this today on the Yes Magazine website. I think it is worth reposting and spreading around.
Has the cash economy swallowed up your life? Here are some ways to extract some of your time and “life energy” from the cash economy.
Reduce debt. If you can’t pay cash, don’t buy it. Practice being mindful about what you buy and why.
Do it yourself. Grow food, pick berries, can and preserve food, make wine, bake bread. Make or repair clothes, furniture, and gifts. Create your own entertainment. Walk, bike, run, or play basketball instead of joining a fitness club.
Share & Exchange. Take care of neighbor kids and elders. Play music, sing, act in local theater, write poems, hold art shows. Exchange haircuts for applesauce, bike repair for massage, language tutoring for babysitting.
Reduce waste & pollution. Weatherize your home or apartment. Reduce your car usage, or get rid of a car.
Buy local. Run buy-local campaigns, print stickers, publish or post a directory of local businesses. Acknowledge business owners who foster the well-being of the environment, employees, and the whole community. Convert public funds from luring outside corporations to supporting local businesses.
Start a new local business. Start a food market, credit union, wifi network, or even an electricity co-op. Explore ownership options like cooperatives, nonprofits, for-profits, or single proprietorships.
Buy Fair Traded when you buy imports. Vote with your dollar for a better world for all.
Actually, I got home Tuesday night but I’ve been too lazy to write. Making a 900 mile trip with a six month old is no small task. I needed to rest up.
First off, I want to say how saddened I am to hear about the passing of Tim Russert. I literally just heard, and I am seriously, seriously sad. Sunday mornings are never going to be the same again. Was he even sick? My CNN Alert did not tell me how he passed on, so I don’t know. It just all seems so very sudden. My prayers are with his family.
Next, I want to say that I feel bad for Missouri bashing. Its not cool to bash on other people’s states, I get really offended when people bash on Colorado. But, come on, the place has no sidewalks. Its baffling. I know it gets really hot there in the summer time, but I did see people walking and biking, and they have to do that on the sides of narrow, windy, hilly streets that are more often than not surrounded by thick, forresty growth, and thats just plain not safe. While there seem to be almost no sidewalks anywhere in the state, they do have mile markers every .2 miles on their highways. I don’t know if I want to live in a place where money is spent putting in a mile marker every .2 miles on the highway, but not on putting sidewalks on streets to keep people safe. Unbelievable.
Do you live in Missouri or a place like it? How do you feel about your sidewalk situation? Your public transportation situation? Your bike lane situation? Your mile marker situation? I am struggling to understand why people are not completely outraged by what seems to me to be a massive misspending of tax dollars. When peak oil gets bad St. Louis, and cities like it, are massively screwed.
There are a ton of things I was inspired to write about while I was gone, but I need to get organized before I can write them. I just feel so scattered. I can promise up coming posts about natural childbirth, co sleeping, natural household cleaners, and a few book reviews, to name a few. In the mean time, here are some interesting things to check out.
This is a post from the Organic Consumers Association I just got around to reading today.
SOUTH KOREA BANS U.S. MEAT:
The South Korean government has responded to a rally last week involving more than 60,000 citizens protesting American beef imports. Major Asian markets have upheld a ban on American beef since the discovery of new cases of Mad Cow Disease in the U.S. raised consumer health concerns. Despite international pressure on the Bush Administration, the U.S. continues to ignore food safety concerns and violate World Health Organization guidelines by feeding slaughterhouse waste to animals and refusing to test all animals at slaughter for Mad Cow Disease. http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow.cfm
This is a cool website. I’d love to do something like this around here.
http://www.guerrillagardening.org/
Decode eco labels here
http://www.greenerchoices.org/eco-labels/eco-home.cfm?redirect=1
Besides that, here are the weekend plans.
I’m going to an Earth Fair tomorrow at Magna Carta Park in Denver. I was going to go to Wool Market up in Estes Park, but the friend I was going to go with had to cancel, and to be honest, after the trip to Missouri I don’t know if I can afford to be driving up to Estes Park, so Earth Fair it is. On Sunday I am going to be sad, because Tim Russert is no longer on Meet the Press. On Monday, Elijah and I are going to visit a Hindu Temple in our neighborhood. I’ve always wanted to go in there and see what the Hindu religion is all about. I know a very little bit, that I learned in a Humanities class the semester before last, but I think it would be awesome to learn first hand.
Thats it for me. Hopefully I’ll be a better blogger next week.
I’ve eaten a lot of spinach salads the past couple of days. Do you suppose that’s why my breastmilk has a greenish tinge?
Here are the plans for the weekend.
Tonight I’m going to see Indiana Jones at the drive in. Snooch! (I don’t know why, but I’m doing a Jay from Jay and Silent Bob thing today. It just seems appropriate). For those of you who don’t know, I am very likely the worlds biggest Indiana Jones freak. In fact, a week after my son was born I was overcome by incredible namer’s remorse. I realized that I should have named him Indiana. Had I thought of it before he was born, his name would be Indiana right now. I am not even kidding. The year before last, I went as Indiana Jones for Halloween. My business cards are written in Indiana Jones font (and under my name it says “Professional Adventurer since 1983). I LOVE Indiana Jones.
Tomorrow, I was thinking about checking out the Denver Zine Fest, after I possibly go to a Holistic Moms meeting.
Sunday, I have my second cousin’s graduation party to go to. Then I’m chillin at home (that means doing house work, hopefully, if I don’t get distracted by something else, like a game of peek a boo).
Monday, Elijah and I are going hiking. For realsies.
You all should totally check this out. Its a free, online book filled with crazy uses for baking soda. Can I really make my own Gatoraide? Snoogins!
Have a fun weekend everyone!
Okay, so some of my readers may have noticed that I blog much more about living green than I do about being a single mom. This is partially because I’ve been an environmentalist much longer than I’ve been a single mom. I’ve only been a single mom five months now (a little over a year, if you count my pregnancy in there – I wasn’t single through my entire pregnancy), but ever since I first read 50 Simple Things a Kid Can Do to Save the Earth in the 1st grade I’ve been passionate about our planet. I don’t remember who gave me that book, either.
But another reason why I blog more about living green than I do about being a single mother is because I believe the two subjects are inseparable. That is to say, of all the people living green has the most benefits for, single mothers are near the top of the list (our kids, I’m afraid, hold the top slot).
There are two main reasons for this. First, most single moms don’t want to stay single forever, and second, most single moms can use all the help they can get financially. Living green helps you to get and stay in great shape, which (unfortunately, we live in a shallow society that values looks over personality, education, success and kindness – particularly in women) helps you out in the dating department. And living green, if done correctly, is much cheaper than living whatever color not green is. Brown, like smog? I don’t know.
A few examples:
Biking and walking are great exercise. And the more you bike and walk instead of driving, the more money you save on gas, maintenance for your car, and you help the car keep its value better by keeping miles off the car.
Growing some of your own food will save you butt loads in groceries, especially with food prices on the rise. The more you grow, the more you save. Plus, eating more of those home grown fruits and veggies means less junk food, and gardening, like biking, is great exercise. And for those of you who don’t have yards, just about anything can be grown on a pot on your deck, or even indoors, and if that doesn’t work for you, look into community gardening opportunities, which helps you to get out and meet people, potentially single men, or people who can hook you up with single men.
Planting native grass seeds means less watering and maintainance, saving you money on utilities. Mowing that lawn with a push mower is great exercise and saves you on fuel for a power motor. Keeping that lawn small minimizes water useage even more, and minimizes your time mowing.
Avoiding plastics minimizes your exposure to BPA, which can mimic estrogen in your system and cause you to gain weight or make the baby weight more difficult to use. Using natural alternatives to things like drier sheets, glass cleaner, lotion, etc., will reduce your exposure to pthaylates, which have similar affects. I’ll talk more about natural alternatives later, because buying green brands can be more expensive, but there are ways to do it even more naturally and more cheaper.
Not to mention how much doing these things increases your childs health, sets a good example for them to be physically active, pleasantly social, socially responsible, and helps to leave them a world thats sill nice. Because the most important thing to single mothers, more than not staying single or saving money, is the health, well being, and happiness of our children.
Here is a comic series that I learned about on Green Couple today. It is a cute little cartoon that deals with what we’re going to have to do to prepare for a life after peak oil. I hope you all enjoy.
