On a soapbox, and with a mission

I am passionate about food, cooking and healthy eating. My passion is slowly turning to anger, however, since we decided to be a single-income family.

I think the idea of Whole Foods Market, with organically grown, safe food throughout, is a great idea. I also love the idea of the new small neighborhood markets popping up around the country which stock locally produced organic items (see Amy Culbertson's article in yesterday's Star Telegram). But to shop at these places on a regular basis is completely out of our budget.

Even at Wal-Mart, where I grudgingly shop due to their low prices, I have a hard time staying in our budget. I have determined that it costs less to purchase frozen dinners or the processed boxed kit-type meals than it does to buy each item to make the meal from scratch. It's also cheaper to run by a fast-food restaurant than it is to try to cook. No wonder we have a problem with obesity, high cholesterol and heart disease in this country!

My mission is to start exploring why this is so, and to somehow involve myself in a change. Healthy eating should not be a luxury item for the wealthy, but should be available to everybody as a choice.

When the circus comes to town...

I will never take Gabriel. At least if the circus uses live animals. I have been a contributor to The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee for about 5 years now, and I think that the work they do is truly amazing. It is a huge parcel of land where retired and ailing show elephants can go to rest, play, and remember what it was like to live outside of captivity. Once the elephants make it there, they never have to perform for an audience again. They do allow volunteers, but only to work around the property or in the office - not to see the elephants. They have grown from having just a few Asian elephants to having a large Asian community, an African barn that's growing and a Quarantine barn for newcomers.

Show elephants are picked up in many different ways(straight from the wild, from private owners or from overcrowded zoos), and their lives are pretty terrible from then on. The young are usually separated from their mothers too early. They are made to stand for unbearable amounts of time, and rarely have chances to lay down to sleep, which is the position elephants are naturally inclined to. Because of this they develop severe problems in their feet and legs, and sometimes their entire bone structure. Sometimes they are beaten to rehearse and/or perform, and have multiple injuries along with psychological stress disorders. Also, their health is not looked after well, and they develop tuberculosis or other life threatening diseases. So to be able to finally get to a place where they are loved and cared for, allowed to roam around outside, splash around in mud puddles, and generally have a good time is a reward all of them have earned in their lifetimes.

The way I found about the Sanctuary was through a daughter of a good friend of our family. When Linda was young, she worked with a young elephant at Six Flags names Sissy (or maybe it was at Seven Seas - a precursor to Sea World that used to be located near Six Flags). Years later, Linda developed ovarian cancer, and was given only a short time to live. Somehow, she found out about the Elephant Sanctuary and discovered that Sissy was one of the retired elephants living there. She would watch the web cam day and night in her last months, and when she passed away, her request was for people to consider donating to the Sanctuary in lieu of sending flowers.

I now receive a quarterly newsletter, and love reading about what these dedicated people and volunteers are accomplishing. These majestic creatures do some wondrous things, whether it be playing, showing affection for each other and their caregivers, or gathering around one of their "sisters" when the end is near to sing her on her way. It's so hard to get through those articles when one of them dies, but worth it to learn how much elephants are actually like us.

I know it will be hard to explain all of this to Gabriel when the time comes and all of his friends are going to the circus, but I will let him pick an elephant to feed and turn him on to the web cam. And this post is to persuade anyone with kids to think about doing the same thing. If enough people catch on, maybe the day will come when no one wants to attend circuses using animals, and they are forced to stop the practice altogether.

Organizing Junk

I spent all morning reorganizing our garage full of stuff. It was driving me crazy. I found some stuff that should have never been put out there. I got two beds situated for Bones, our outdoor cat who considers the space to be HIS garage. I found one slightly hibernating lizard (he was a big sucker), and a mama Charlotte spider with her egg sac close at hand. I put some of the baby stuff up into the attic, along with some Christmas stuff that never made it back up. I threw a couple of things away, which I hate doing. But how do you recycle used pillows that are yellowish and dirty from sitting in a garage for over a year? Yuck!

When I was finished, I had a possible Ebay pile, a garage sale pile, a "what in the world are you thinking" pile for Jav and a keep pile. I guess if you just walked into our garage you would never know I had actually put any effort at all out there, but I know, and that's all that matters.

I'll get to the pictures of the remodeled bathroom eventually. We still aren't supposed to mess with the tub, which looks great.

Goodbye pink!

The only thing I didn't really like about this house when we moved in was the guest/kids' bathroom. It wasn't done for guests, or for kids in general. It was decorated for a little girl. A very feminine girly girl. Everything was pink. The wallpaper was pink and gray stripes. The floor was pink and white linoleum. The shower tile was pink and white. The toilet was pink, and the tub was a weird pinky-peach color. It was awful, to say the least. I wanted to gut it and start over. So when we found out we were going to have plumbing work done in the wall, in which the cabinets would have to be moved and the wall torn up, we decided to go ahead and take the plunge and remodel. (A little scary monetarily with one income right now).

So we now have new cabinets with built-in sinks, new floor tile, new shower tile, white walls, and a white toilet. And tomorrow the final step will be finished as our tub gets repainted white. We decided to go with green and white, since green is Jav's and my favorite color, it's gender neutral, and it goes well with the rest of the house. I'm posting the BEFORE pics today, and will get the AFTER pics tomorrow.

Fresh

I'm trying to maintain an herb garden for about the 3rd year in a row. I really want to pay enough attention to them this year to keep them from dying out. I have chocolate mint, basil, lemony thyme, rosemary and oregano. I'd still like to add sage and dill to make it complete for this year. And I love the addition of my St. Francis statue in the middle of my herb garden. It makes it seem like a real garden. I used the basil and the thyme last night to make Provencal Chicken and Stuffed Provencal Tomatoes. (The small white pot was the basil, and I pretty much stripped it clean.) My kitchen still smells like La Madeline this morning! There's nothing more satisfying than going outside and clipping off herbs that you are growing yourself and using them to cook. And we sat outside for dinner in the wonderful cool weather. Since we will not be traveling to France anytime soon, why not imagine using food and atmosphere?

April Fools!!

I'm not one to pull April Fool gags on people. It's hard for me to think of things that won't make people really upset before I break the news that I'm just kidding. But I got my husband today, and I am so very proud.

We recently had alot of plumbing work and remodeling done in our guest bathroom. I told him this morning that when I got out of our shower in the master bath, I went into that bathroom to get something and there was water all over our brand new floor as if something was leaking. I had even closed the bathroom door and put towels down in case the water seeped onto the hardwood floors. He had the "Oh Good God What's Next?" look on his face. As soon as he opened the door I whispered "April Fools". He couldn't get super mad at me because Gabriel was sleeping right next door (also part of my Master Plan). Now I have to be on my guard for the rest of the day. And probably next April 1st.

Now I remember why I never prank anybody.

Fighting the instinct and losing

Well, we found out the reason Gabriel cried so much the first night we tried to skip the nighttime feeding is because he was cutting his first two teeth. He had two brand new little bottom toothies the next day. I felt so bad about just letting him cry for so long. Then the next two nights he slept right through the night. But now he's waking up again sometime between 3 and 5. I decided that I'm not going to worry about it if he wakes up. As my Mom pointed out, if we wake up hungry in the middle of the night, we get up and get a snack. So that's all I'm doing - getting him a snack since he can't get up yet.