Vaccines

Without getting into all of the sordid details, I have a fear of getting my children vaccinated. I know all of the reasons for vaccines, but the bottom line is that the heavy metals scare the crap out of me. I've read pages and pages of research to support both sides of the vaccine debate and yet I still feel that rather than making a truly informed decision, I'm burying my head in the sand.

My five year old had about six vaccines, spread out over 7 months and only one dose at a time. We rejected any combination vaccines, and then when it was obvious to me at a year that he was speech delayed (he had no sounds at all besides Dada and Mama), we stopped completely and never went back.

The baby is almost 15 months and hasn't had one vaccine. She has been enrolled in an early intervention program since April that addresses her low strength issues. A PT comes to our home once a week for an hour long session, and although she is doing great and has made incredible strides, she is still not walking and so she qualified for six more months of services.

It seems risky to me to vaccinate kids that have neurological delays; it's like asking for trouble as far as I'm concerned. But on the other hand, now that they are both older and their immune systems are a little stronger, I think often about how nice it would be to know they are protected from something like pertussis.

We have a 15 month check in two weeks and I've promised myself that I will make a real decision before then. One of the ways I plan to do that is by finally reading the Vaccine Book by Dr. Bob Sears; a friend recommended it a few months ago and it's been sitting on my shelf ever since. Once I make a decision I know I'll feel confident in it.

Black bean brownies

Sounds pretty gross, doesn't it? My friend Gina and I were talking about brownies and how they are a weakness of ours, and she suggested a tip she learned at Weight Watchers. When making a box of brownies, instead of the oil and eggs, add a can of black beans. Can you imagine? The good thing about this is you're lowering the fat considerably and upping the fiber big time. Since all three of my kids tend to um, how can I say this delicately? Since they tend to get a bit backed up, I am always trying to increase their fiber intake.

Normally I make Barefoot Contessa's Outrageous Brownies , but in a pinch I'll buy Ghiardelli brownie mix. It's pretty close to BC's, and much less time intensive. So today that's what my husband picked up, and although I normally bake with my 5 year old, I made the brownies on my own so he wouldn't see the secret ingredient. No one even noticed anything was different. It's hard to believe, but I'll make them like this again for sure.

When Jessica Seinfeld's book was all the rage, I made a few of those recipes, including cookies made with chick peas. Over the years I've hidden vegetables in things like tomato sauce, but Jessica inspired me to try chicken tenders and fish fillets dipped in sweet potatoes and squash as well as pancakes made with an orange puree of I'm not sure what. Most of the time the boys realize that something's different, which is why I was surprised the black bean brownies went over so well.

No Garbage for a Year

Recently while skimming one of the six homeschool yahoo groups I'm subscribed to (what can I say, I'm a bit obsessive), something about garbage caught my eye. A poster was asking for recommendations for the best waste removal companies in the Atlanta area. She went on to say that for the past year her family had only had one bag of garbage a month, and so rather than pay for a weekly service, she took her garbage directly to a dump. But now they were generating more garbage, a whole four bags a month, and the dump was now charging and she thought it might be cheaper to pay for a service that would pick up.

Normally garbage is not a very exciting topic to discuss, but because of how a)competitive and b)environmentally conscious I am, I needed to know more. I asked how many were in her family and how she managed this feat. As I waited for her reply, I thought about the mounds of garbage we throw out each week, even with composting, cloth diapering, recycling, and trying to limit what comes into our home in the first place. But one bag of garbage a month? I convinced myself that she was single, worked long hours, traveled a lot and ate most of her meals out of the house.

Imagine my surprise when I heard back from the no garbage lady and she informed me that hers was a family of five, just like mine! The big difference between her family and mine is that they are vegans and we most definitely are not. But still...how much garbage does being a carnivore generate?

Thus began my garbage research. I started talking to like-minded people trying to find out how much garbage they had each week or month. A woman at a homeschool group, who has a family of six told me that they had two bags a week. My competitive spirit kicked into overdrive and I began studying what type of garbage we had the most of each day.

I quickly realized that we could and should be recycling all of our paper, rather than just newspapers and magazines as we had been. I set up recycling boxes under each desk in the house to help with this process and so far it's working well. Next I moved on to food garbage. The garbage lady mentioned that they cooked everything from scratch, which she felt reduced the amount of waste, but I cook from scratch too, so that didn't make sense. I looked at my waste removal company's website and found out that we can recycle cardboard too, so now our cereal and cracker boxes get thrown into the recycling bin.

Even with these changes, there is no way we could only have one bag a month! So for now my goal is to be more aware, to take the empty egg cartons to Publix to place in their egg carton recycling bin, and to get our weekly garbage down to 4 bags.

Volunteering

A few months ago I mentioned that I'd agreed to co-chair our school's Auction, which aside from the capital campaign is the biggest fundraiser they have each year. Although it was a tough decision at first, because of how time consuming it is, I set up firm parameters with my co-chair, parameters that will allow me to fall asleep at night without worrying how to price the sterling silver necklace that was donated for silent auction.

My co-chair is great; she's like me two kids ago with boundless energy and great ideas. She's incredibly organized and well connected. I'm enjoying working with her immensely.

The event will be at the Marriott in Alpharetta, a location we have held Auction in the past. The space meets our needs perfectly, the price means we will be able to turn a profit on ticket sales, and the community is happy we've selected it again. It's so nice to be involved with something so exciting.

Tonight at dinner I was discussing some of the details with my family, and one of my children asked why I wanted to spend so much time on planning this big party. I was stumped for a minute and then I found my words and shared with him how important I think it is to give back to a place that gives so much to our family.

There are many benefits of being involved, such as getting to know the families at school, supporting the dedicated staff, and being an important part of our children’s education. My main reason for volunteering is that, along with a group of very committed parents, I am helping to change the world where my son spends his days.

Delicious Living

At the end of May we visited my husband's family in Florida, and one day while we were there I ran into the food co-op, called Ever'man's. Each visit I try to get there at least once, because otherwise we'd all subsist on fast food and meals at chain restaurants like Red Lobster and Ruby Tuesday's (MIL's personal favorite). I can't go a week eating that way and neither can my kids. I picked up some yummy things like Thai dumplings and an avocado sandwich on sunflower bread, and on the way out picked up a free magazine called Delicious Living.

That night back at the hotel, I read the magazine cover to cover and realized it was my kind of mag; about organic/natural living but not in your face, and not the more commercialized type of natural living magazine that seems to be popping up more and more lately. I entered an online contest that ended the next day, and was for a year's supply of free children's products made by companies like Nordic Naturals, Santa Cruz, Nature's Path. I enter contests and I've won a few over the years (Free weekly flower delivery for a year was probably my favorite.), but as I entered this one I knew I had no chance since it was a month long contest and I was only entering once the last day of the month.

So of course I won, I was one of ten lucky winners. This week I got the box of a "year's supply" and while it was more like a month's supply, we were so excited. The boys and I have been anxiously awaiting the UPS delivery for the past month. There are all types of vitamins, including the fish oil my 5 year old takes, a few 10 packs of boxed juice (banana, which no one liked, but it's great in the morning smoothies with frozen strawberries!), coupons for free Panda Puffs and Gorilla Munch, and four jars of peanut butter. Pretty cool for the small amount of time it took me to enter the contest.

Thanks Delicious Living! The link to the magazine is on the right; they have a great blog and most months they offer some type of contest. Good luck!

Three Months?

I could go on and on about how busy we've been since last I posted, but I'm sure that's implied. Instead I'll just catch up on where we are now.

Our house is still for sale, I am still planning to homeschool my oldest, the middle child is enrolled in private K, and the baby turned one three weeks ago. I am doing much better with eating and preparing healthy foods, but I'm not where I need to be yet, nor am I exercising as much as I should be. But I'm trying not to beat myself up and instead focusing on what I have accomplished. Such as:

1. Being the queen of storage bin organization.
2. Initiating a total deck rehaul, which included staining an hour a night for five nights.
3. Planning a big party for my daughter's 1st birthday, including an intricately beautiful cake.
4. Starting to map out a curriculum plan for homeschool.
5. Agreeing to co-chair our school auction for the second time.
6. Negotiating a killer deal on the facility for said auction.
7. Being an adult and realizing that a Caribbean cruise was not in our best interest financially at this point in time.

Next month's project, other than teaching my kid, is to paint the front door and continue my Total Photo Organization project, started in February, abandoned for a few months and picked back up again in June. I am putting all photos prior to June 2004 (when I began using a digital camera exclusively) on CD. This has involved going through old albums and choosing anywhere from 100-200 of the year's best pictures, taking them to Target and waiting five days for them to be done. Last time, Target decided they no longer offer this service but after many phone calls and complaints, I got them to do it one more time. Yay me! Now I'll be moving my business to Walgreen's, and after careful consideration, have decided to scan negatives instead of photos, since the clarity should be better. This will be a little more time consuming, I think, but worth it in the end. I am halfway through 2000 so I have four more years of post-kids pictures. After that I'll tackle the four years of pre-kids life with my husband, and if I'm super ambitious, I will scan all of my childhood photos.

I'm tired just thinking about it. At night all I have the energy for is a chapter each in two books I'm reading, Positive Discipline for Teenagers, and It's All Too Much, which is essentially about how American homes are overloaded with crap. One of the most shocking things for me to read is that Peter Walsh thinks I should get rid of all of my storage bins. His rationale is, if you're not using it and haven't used it in a year, there's no need to keep saving it. Not sure if I agree with Peter, but we have at least decided to look through bins that haven't been opened in years, and we have a garage sale scheduled for next weekend.

House on the market is hard

Have you heard of the book Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six Word Memoirs? In case you haven't, here's the Amazon review: Can you describe your life in six words? That's what the editors of storytelling magazine SMITH asked readers in 2006; the results, though decidedly uneven, make for compulsive reading and prove arguably as insightful as any 300+ page biography. Taken as a whole, this cascade of quotes from contributors famous and unknown creates a dizzying snowball effect of perspectives and feelings. Highlights from professional writers and artists include journalist Chuck Klosterman wondering, "Nobody cared, then they did. Why?"; pop singer-songwriter Adam Schlesinger lamenting, "We still don't hear a single"; and comic strip artist Keith Knight illustrating "I was a Michael Jackson impersonator." At their best, these nano-memoirs evoke the same kind of rich emotional responses as a good story: 9 year old Hannah Davies considers herself "Cursed with cancer. Blessed by friends"; Zak Nelson says "I still make coffee for two"; Scott Birch claims "Most successful accomplishments based on spite." Some entries read like bumper stickers (Rip Riley: "No wife. No kids. No problems"), and others are just plain weird (Amy Sedaris: "Mushrooms. Clowns. Wands. Five. Wig. Thatched"), but this compelling little book will have readers and their friends hunting for favorites and inventing six-word self-definitions of their own. This review in six words? Read. Enjoy. Pass it on. Repeat.

Right now mine could be house for sale leads to divorce. It's killing us, I tell you! In an effort to keep the house show ready most of the time, we are rarely relaxing. At night after we do the usual clean up there's a deep clean to do, papers to file away, laundry to fold and put away, our desks to straighten, etc. It is really stressful to leave the house knowing that while you're gone someone might come in, and if they do you want them to have a good impression of not only your house, but of you.

In my search for a new house I've been to at least two places that were completely messy, dirty, and cluttered. In one there were plates of half eaten food on the kitchen counter, dirty diapers on the floor, and laundry spilling over the beds. Last week we walked into a lovely from the outside house only to find beds unmade, the toilets peed on and overflowing garbage. I hope no one ever sees my house that way.

But because of this pressure to have everything just right, I am on edge and snapping at everyone. The least little thing out of place makes me uptight, because I know there's a good chance I'll be the one picking it up or putting it away.

We're going away for Spring Break and I hope lots and lots of people view the house while we're gone, leading to an offer so we can stop showing it!