Oct 15, 2009 | Green Living, Uncategorized
Happy
Blog Action Day!
The topic?
Climate Change
My family thinks about climate change daily. I’m not kidding. My kids worry about it constantly.
We have been trying to live a “greener” life to make changes in our own little ways. But is it enough?
People brush off the issue, we all want to pretend like nothing is going on.
But- look at the changes happening in our short little span on this beautiful planet…
I have personally seen coral reefs that were once gorgeous when I was a child, almost completely disappear or turn into brown deserts due to slight temperature changes in the water. Oceans are rising at a rate three times faster than the historical norm!
(Ask any fisherman, surfer, scuba diver and they will tell you it is true.)
My grandfather (now in his 90’s) tells us how he used to ice skate on the pond in his hometown. Now it’s rare to see snow there at all.
Storms have intensified. Natural disasters are now a yearly event. Water shortages abound, and as a result disease and famine spread.
The ice caps, glaciers, and mountain snows are disappearing. 2008 was the 8th hottest year in recorded history according to the NOAA. Polar bears are drowning because the ice is so thin in places.
Even if you don’t believe in Global Warming or that Climate Change is not occurring, how could changing your own little world hurt?
Hopefully we can make a difference if we TRY.
What have we got to lose?
Our futures,
Our lives,
Our planet.
Oct 13, 2009 | Uncategorized
I admit it.
I love rain.
I love the way it makes the air smell.
In Panama we had rainy and dry seasons. In the rainy season it would rain every day, but at an almost set time so you knew the sun would come out eventually. As a kid it was great. We would don our bathing suits and cover the drains with palm fronds so that the street would flood, like a mini-swimming pool. (No, there was virtually no traffic.) The frogs would lay their eggs in multitude and you could scoop them up and fill tanks and bowls in the house to produce so many little tadpoles and baby frogs. The only downside was riding your bike home from the pool and having the skies open up on you. You could grab a palm frond or other giant leaves to sub as an umbrella. It wasn’t unusual to come home drenched to the bone, but the rain was so warm and happy that it was like taking a shower from heaven.
Now this year in Arkansas we’ve already gone 12 inches over our usual annual rainfall. It has rained for several days straight again and the sun is not peeking out anywhere, thus the problem. I have to have me some sun.
Where are you, Mr. Sun?
My roof is dripping in the bathroom again. And the roof guy told me I don’t need a new one? I’d get up there and see where it’s leaking if it would stop raining long enough.
My yard looks like a mud pit again.
I guess I shouldn’t complain. The westcoast is in major drought. If I could only send it that way for a day or two…
When it does stop we get these beautiful scenes for a few hours.
Oct 9, 2009 | Uncategorized
I have to admit, I am SCARED about Halloween (always) since I found out about my kids’ food sensitivities.
Trick-or-Treating when you can’t have food dyes is a
nightmare!
School parties are horrific- people send red or orange punch, colored cupcakes, bags and bags of nasty red and black candy. Not fun. Having three little sugar fiends who try and hide whatever “bad” candy that they manage to get without mom’s knowledge is not fun either. (Well, the insane reactions and rashes afterwards aren’t anyway.) If you didn’t know it already, Red 40, Yellow 5, and many others aren’t even allowed in some countries in Europe as they are not as safe as the FDA wishes us to believe. We just found out that most marshmallows have suddenly started putting Blue 1 in them, which is a big problem for kid #2. Great, now I have to make marshmallows too?
My oldest son (AKA kid#2) went to a birthday party a few weeks ago and had gotten a “goodie” bag filled with candy that he can’t have without my knowledge. He hid it under his bed and was steadily sneaking it. I couldn’t figure out why he was acting absolutely INSANE, not listening, jumping all around, screaming… Well, needless to say daddy found it and solved the mystery.
I’m taking a preemptive approach this year,
I’m pre-ordering candy (AWESOME & INTERESTING CANDY) from The Natural Candy Store.
(And, NO, I don’t get freebees or even acknowledgment for mentioning this.)
They even have sprinkles for sugar cookies and cupcakes!
Maybe the monsters will only be the ones in costume this year!
Oct 8, 2009 | Uncategorized
When you give a mom a mirror…
Which is not very often- probably not enough,
She’ll see frown lines
and freckles that must be cancerous,
and remember that she needs to put on sunscreen,
She remembers that she never put on much sunscreen in her days on the beach
surfing and swimming so
she will think she needs to go put sunscreen on her kids,
Putting sunscreen on her kids she will see their little faces and think
that maybe they do look like the eyes
that were staring out at her from the mirror,
That will make her think
that maybe she is the same girl after all.
She’ll see time passing and like it.
Inspired by Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop.
Oct 6, 2009 | Florida, Travel, Uncategorized, United States
We’re back! Disney was fun. This fall break the kids have is going to be nice. Great deals on vacations, good weather, small crowds! Now for some shameless pics of my kids…
(All taken with my phone so forgive the bad quality.)
We happened to be there during the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival, Oktoberfest, Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party, and German Reunification Day which was fun too. (We didn’t make it to the Halloween Party for 2 reasons-
1) It would have been $420 more for us to go.
2) The kids can’t eat any food coloring so candy would have been a problem!
We had loads of fun anyway, and on the last day we went to the parks it was a special fireworks show which was the best I’ve EVER seen. Also Magic Kingdom was open until 1am that night and we actually stayed all day which ended up being really neat. The kids were great, except for maybe two small incidents- not the easiest thing for a severely hypoglycemic kid with sensory issues going into a crowded park- but he only had one melt down. The youngest had his on the plane which lasted a good ten minutes. The worst thing was that we were the ONLY family with kids on that flight! Talk about business people praying they weren’t sitting next to us! He crashed and slept the rest of the way which was good for all.
I am now trying to wade through the laundry. Tonight Emily and I go see “Mamma Mia!” which I’m really looking forward to also!
Sep 28, 2009 | Green Living, Uncategorized
I bit the bullet and dyed my hair last night. I was trying to NOT color it, but I am so grey now! My hair was orange on the ends where the old henna was coming out and turning red as it did- brown in the middle and white on the roots about four inches down! Ick. Plus- at the Girl Scout fall event on Saturday a friend I hadn’t seen in awhile thought I’d sprayed that colored white hairspray in my hair (THAT is how white headed I am!)
So, this time I didn’t try the
cassia obovata like the last. It turns white hair blonde, and didn’t quite look right on me. I used a mixed henna product called
Light Mountain Natural. This does look better, but it’s pretty dark. I’m hoping it lightens up in a day or two. It did cover ALL the grey and it’s really soft and healthy.
Maybe I won’t look like such a dork in Disneyworld. W
Well, maybe?
