Today's parenting FAIL!

Prepare to be floored.

I got this via @parenting whom I follow on Twitter (thanks, guys!); check it.

The BBC hires a host for a childrens programme who happens to have been born with only one arm. Stupid, frightened, prejudiced parents write in and flood message boards with hysterical crap. Be sure to watch the vid about half way down.

STEP UP parents!

"How do I explain this to a 3 year old?"

Well, just farkin' explain it, dumbarse.  How do you explain a pregnant woman? A black woman? A woman in a wheelchair?

Here, let me help you:

"Mummy, what happened to that lady's hand?" 
"Nothing, Drusilla, darling. She only has one. She was born that way, just like you were born with blonde hair and the cutest dimples evar!"
"Does it hurt?  It looks funny!"
"Do your dimples hurt, silly? No, it's just an arm.  It does look odd, but so does daddy's hair when he first gets up in the morning, LOL. Now come eat your bickie so we can run down to the shops."

SEE?  Easy peasy. Now quit slinking along the edge of motherhood and step up and do your jobs, Moms.

Professor, can I talk to you about my grade?

Well, this week seems to be article posting week!

I blame my lovely and intelligent friends on all of my various boards and on Twitter. They are an amazing, interesting, and varied bunch.

Anyway, here's the article on the inflated sense of entitlement in today's college students.

"“Many students come in with the conviction that they’ve worked hard and deserve a higher mark,” Professor [Marshall] Grossman [U of Maryland] said. “Some assert that they have never gotten a grade as low as this before.”



He attributes those complaints to his students’ sense of entitlement.


“I tell my classes that if they just do what they are supposed to do and meet the standard requirements, that they will earn a C,” he said. “That is the default grade. They see the default grade as an A.”"

[snip]

"James Hogge, associate dean of the Peabody School of Education at Vanderbilt University, said: “Students often confuse the level of effort with the quality of work. There is a mentality in students that ‘if I work hard, I deserve a high grade.’"

And these quotes by students just floored me:

"Jason Greenwood, a senior kinesiology major at the University of Maryland echoed that view.



“I think putting in a lot of effort should merit a high grade,” Mr. Greenwood said. “What else is there really than the effort that you put in?”


“If you put in all the effort you have and get a C, what is the point?” he added. “If someone goes to every class and reads every chapter in the book and does everything the teacher asks of them and more, then they should be getting an A like their effort deserves. If your maximum effort can only be average in a teacher’s mind, then something is wrong.”

Yes, Jason, honey. What's wrong is that you HAVE NOT ACHEIVED ANYTHING. 

Let's say you're stranded on a desert island and there's a cache of food under a large stone.  You go out every day and struggle against that stone - go out 10 times a day and push and groan and really really really make an effort to move that bloody great stone so that you can eat.  But no matter how hard you try, the basic fact is: if you don't move that stone - if you are too small or too weak or whatever other reason - you will not eat.

Just because you pay your money and show up and read the books and attend class doesn't guarantee you an education. You gotta LEARN shit. When you get out in the real world  knowing nothing about kinesiology (what IS that anyway?) you won't be able to tell your boss "Well, I tried really hard!"

Would you like a surgeon operating on you who couldn't recall the basics of gross anatomy but he got good grades cuz he TRIED really hard?!

More student nuggets of wisdom:


"Sarah Kinn, a junior English major at the University of Vermont, agreed, saying, “I feel that if I do all of the readings and attend class regularly that I should be able to achieve a grade of at least a B.”

Yes, Sarah, you should be able to, but you have to show your professor that you actually know something about English not just that you could be arsed to show up for class.


Best quote from article: “Instead of getting an A, they make an A,”

That's right.  We earn what we get.  What a concept.

Parents you are SO falling down on the job. I swear it starts with kindergarten graduations and peewee soccer games where everyone gets a trophy whether they played well or stood on the sidelines whinging. It starts with parents expecting their little perfect miraculous angels to be responsible for their own farking actions.

(PS: yes, I Googled kinesiology.)


 

Article

Oh arrgh!  This dieting article made me tear my hair.  Are humans this pathetic?

"When it comes to dieting, Americans put on a good show, buying millions of diet books, watching TV programs about weight loss, obsessing over celebrities and their baby weight. But in the end, that may be all it is: a show. (snip)

"Our interest in losing weight is waning," says Harry Balzer, lead food and beverage industry analyst for The NPD Group,(snip)

Dieting was once practically a national pastime. In 1990, the same report found that 39 percent of women and 29 percent of men were on a diet. So, what's happened? Balzer, who's tracked Americans' eating habits since the 1980s, believes the answer is that dieting is simply too hard. "It's much easier to change your attitude," he said, than to sustain the willpower to eat less."

Amazing!  And the most astounding part is that people are like this about everything these days!  Relationships, parenting, breastfeeding (yes, I went there)!

That view is echoed by Kelly D. Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University, who says that diets are "notoriously ineffective," and posits that many overweight people may have simply given up.


Marge McMillan, 60, is one who says she's given up on diets, if not on slimming down. A veterinarian who lives in Medford, McMillan tried the low-carb Atkins diet and Weight Watchers but threw in the towel on both. Now, she's just trying to eat healthily. "Diets don't work," she said. "You lose the weight but regain more."

Not true!  I vented about this over on my Thrifty Dieters Blog.


Dr. Sasha Stiles, medical director of the Obesity Consult Center at Tufts Medical Center, offers additional reasons why dieting is on the wane: "A lot of people are saying I don't have enough money to spend on a diet, or I'm going to try surgery."

Patently absurd.  You don't need a lot of money to diet, I can testify!  As for the surgery, well that's unessessary in most cases, IMHO.  "I'll just get my insurance to pay to dramatically and dangerously and permanently alter my body because I can't be arsed to put the fork down."




There's another possible explanation: Fewer people are dieting because there's no exciting new diet on the scene. In 2004, the top-selling diet book in the country, "The South Beach Diet," sold 2.4 million copies, according to Nielsen BookScan, a data provider for the publishing industry. In 2007, the most popular book, "You: On a Diet," by Oprah Winfrey's health guru Dr. Mehmet Oz and Dr. Michael Roizen, managed only 706,000 copies. This year's top selling book, "Eat This Not That!" has sold a mere 552,000 copies so far, and is more reference than diet book.


After years of being sucked into one weight-loss phenomenon after another - low-cal, low-fat, low-carb - serial dieters seem to have fallen into a fallow period. With no miracle plan animating dinner-party and workplace conversations, it's the same old, same old. That gets boring, says Amy Kropke, 41, of Newton, who says she'd be "fabulous" if she could shed 20 pounds.


"I love that moment where you're like, 'This is it. This is definitely the one," she says, her voice tinged with nostalgia for the days when South Beach thrilled her. She wants to be seduced again, preferably by "something that was easy, that you could lose 10 pounds without having to do too much."

Well butter my broad bum and call me a jumbo bisquit.  Perhaps she'd also like to sit at home all day and veg in front of her 'stories' whilst Zachary Quinto fetched her soda and brushed the cheesy poof dust off of her ratty sweatshirt?

(oh, wait ... that was MY fantasy ...)

If only reading diet books triggered weight loss, we'd be all set. Even without a new hit title, the number of weight-loss books sold in 2007 hit 4.8 million, up from 4 million in 2006, and 3.6 million in 2005, according to Nielsen BookScan. Still, sales aren't what they were in 2004 when the "South Beach" juggernaut was in full swing. That year, 5.3 million diet books sold.
(snip)
"I keep wondering if it's market saturation," said Oliver, professor of political science at the University of Chicago. "You have people who are interested in dieting who tried South Beach and tried Atkins. Some were successful, but they may have gained the weight back. We may be in a cycle where we're waiting for the next new Scarsdale, South Beach, Atkins . . . the whole rigmarole. Someone who is a clever marketer may see this as a time to strike."


So should I begin working on my Paleo Diet book now?  Should I? :excited:

But, if it had been a cloth nappy

... he'd never have hit the ground at all!

(I just had to post this as a poke at folks who get all rabid over the cloth -vs- sposies thing.)

SAO PAULO, Brazil – A disposable diaper has saved the life of an 18-month-old boy, breaking his fall from a third-floor apartment window, officials said Thursday.


Caua Felipe Massaneiro survived a 30-foot (10-meter) fall because his diaper snagged on a security spike embedded in the concrete wall around his apartment building in the northeastern Brazilian city of Recife.


The boy dangled from the spike for a moment, then "the diaper opened and the baby fell to the ground, but at a much slower speed," a police officer said. "The diaper obviously lessened the impact of the fall and saved the baby's life."


"It was a miracle," said the officer who declined to be identified because she was not authorized to speak to the press.

I'm really glad the baby is alright!  And while I'm commenting, I hope they crack that dad upside the head with a board.  What idiot leaves an 18 month old in a room with a sofa up against a window?!

He'd "never done that before"?

My 17 month old can climb on top of his sisters's bunk bed and it has no ladder!

Suburban Sucktards

Did y'all enjoy bodog's first ever post on the farm blog? I just read it and it made me lol. srsly.

But now back to business. Over on The Thriftymom Blog, I just blasted the National Letter Carrier's ASSociation for disallowing a mail man to wear a kilt.

Well, it appears that Stupid People In Charge hasn't reached it's zenith. Check it:


"HICKMAN, Neb. – Talk about your one-horse town. This burg of 1,084 residents is just that.
But some folks don't want that distinction. They want an aging horse named Peter Rabbit, who lives in a pasture in town, gone for good.
Other folks say the horse should stay, despite an ordinance that bans livestock inside city limits.
"I feel bad for the poor horse. He's probably going to die soon anyway," said Jamie Cox, who manages the town bar, Sadie's Place. "As long as he's being taken care of, they should leave him alone."
Hickman, once a sleepy farm town, has become a bedroom community for the capital city of Lincoln and is one of the fastest-growing cities in Nebraska.
With houses having sprung up around Peter Rabbit's pasture, Mayor Jim Hrouda and five of the six City Council members are determined to enforce the livestock ban. Shortly after a council meeting Tuesday, the horse's owner, 76-year-old Harley Scott, was served an eviction notice that orders the animal off the land.
Scott said he has no intention of complying with the Sept. 15 deadline. He faces the prospect of being fined up to $100 a day if he's convicted of violating the ordinance."

Narrow minded idiots and upscale gits!

Please tell me why one elderly animal can't be grandfathered in at this point?

Oh, wait ... it's because it's a yucky horse, right? Horses should only be white, flying through the air, and on telly.

Never mind that your bloody thousand dollar pedigreed dogs cover your house in dander and dog hair and poop quart-sized loads all over the yards, that horse must go! He doesn't match the suburban mailboxes that the housing committee requires being a certain colour, a certain height, a certain style, and landscaped around accordingly.

Besides, all that pasture could be covered with MORE hundreds-of-thousands-of-dollars McMansions so you could have neighbours on the other side who can look right in your upstairs windows!

Gosh, wanna bet that horrible old Harley Scott has a clothesline up in his backyard?! *GASP*

Get the pitchforks and torches!

Yeah, yeah, I know that much of what I just wrote might not be true, but I'd bet you a $13 bag of feed that most of it is.

But no matter what, it's a stupid, senseless waste of time and an example of folks caring too much about appearences at the expense of personal liberty and that old horse's well being.

Jim Hrouda and the City Council members (and like-minded residents) of Hickman, Nebraska?

FAIL!

Get lives and quit meddling in the business of folks who aren't harming anything or anyone.

Doubtful Duds?

It was brought to my attenton that I hadn't blogged in, like, forever (*waves at Jodi*) and I realised it was true. Dang.

I guess between my being busy, my being on so many bulletin boards, including my own, plus Twitter, I can just yak all day about whatever I need to, whenever it occurs to me.



Well, I promise to pay better attention to the blog. Heck, school starts in less than two weeks. That aughta give me PLENTY of crap to bitch about, lol!



Here's something right here. What the Blue Heck is up with this?



"SEATTLE - A 6-foot-tall, 250-pound letter carrier is campaigning for the right to take off his pants. Dean Peterson wants the U.S. Postal Service to add kilts as a uniform option for men.


The idea was soundly defeated in July at a convention of his union, the 220,000-member National Letter Carriers' Association, so Peterson knows convincing management will be an uphill struggle, but at least he'll be comfortable in his kilt, or Male Unbifurcated Garment.


"In one word, it's comfort," he said.


With his build, Peterson said, his thighs fill slacks to capacity, causing chafing and scarring.
Peterson, 48, has Finnish and Norwegian ancestry but not Scottish. He began wearing kilts a couple years ago when his wife brought one back from a trip to Scotland. (A spokeswoman for Britain's Royal Mail said kilts are not allowed as part of its letter carrier uniforms.)


Now Peterson wears them everywhere — to one son's football games, the other son's concerts, shopping and gardening."


(snip)



""Unbifurcated Garments are far more comfortable and suitable to male anatomy than trousers or shorts because they don't confine the legs or cramp the male genitals the way that trousers or shorts do," he wrote. "Please open your hearts — and inseams — for an option in mail carrier comfort!"


The union's executive committee recommended disapproval, saying there was not enough demand for kilts to be worth the bother of the resolution, and delegates agreed by a large margin.


But Peterson said there are plenty of approved uniform items that very few mail carriers wear, including a cardigan sweater, vest and pith helmet. He said many convention delegates did express support after his resolution was voted down."



WTF?! Who gives a great flying very bad word at the moon if a bloke wears a kilt? And I'm not just saying this as a proud Scottish American, here.



As long as his bits are covered and the garment is businesslike, who cares? Here's a pic of Peterson in his proposed official USPS kilt:



That looks like a perfectly acceptable form of dress to me. Can't they wear shorts? What's the difference? This has got to be some bizarre male stereotyping thing because there is no logical explaination why they would say no.

This is particularly stupid: "The union's executive committee recommended disapproval, saying there was not enough demand for kilts to be worth the bother of the resolution."

What? You're meeting right that second. Just effing approve it.

So my conclusion? National Letter Carrier's Association: FAIL!

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One last note: many of you know that after my last child was born (March '07) I lost a huge amount of weight (121lbs). Well, at the holidays I gave myself a break and stopped actively trying to lose weight. Well, since about March I have been piddling about and making NO progress jump starting my diet again (I need to lose 20 more lbs).

I was Googling along last week checking out the recommended carbs for a healthy diet and I came across this diet. I posted about it on my forums if you'd like to follow my progress (or comment!) It's pretty cool and thrifty, too.

Drama close to home

So, my husband, the Mr Evil Genius, aka Bodog has put up and interesting blog post over on his personal blog about the bru-ha-ha over Irmo SC high school Principal Eddie Walker's resignation.

I had a huge, long post about it but could never finish it. See, I know the guy and I kept getting so damned angry at the idiocy (on BOTH sides of the argument) that I just couldn't get my thoughts together (Mrs Chili, I am not, lol! BTW, that's her design idea up top there).

Anyway, so, briefly:

I don't agree with Eddie. I'm sad that his narrow views of sexuality - which reflect the dogma of christianity - would cause him to resign his job. A job at which he excels. I'm sorry that Lexington/Richland district 5 will be losing such a good principal.

But, see, here's one thing that has been making me really angry about Eddie's resignation. Folks are so busy being outraged at his opinions that they forget that he has the right to have them.

Eddie can think whatever crazy thing he wishes. If he wants to believe that gay people have sex all the time willy-nilly he can. If he wants to believe the frankly ridiculous notion that is espoused by some christians that folks choose to be gay, then he can. If he wants to resign his job because of the formation of a Gay-Straight Alliance ... then he can.

Eddie Walker is NOT trying to get the club shut down. He is NOT trying to ban gays at Irmo High School. He is just choosing to resign his job because they are asking him to support something with which he feels uncomfortable.

I DON'T AGREE WITH HIM, but I do agree that he has the right to his opinions - no matter how stupid I think they are - and the right to resign his job because of them.

Yet so many are vilifying the man rather than the idiotic religious pin-hole view of biology. He wasn't born with this bias, folks. It was indoctrinated into him by his church.

I can tell you, with the utmost confidence, that Eddie Walker would help out any fellow man regardless of race, creed, colour, or sexual orientation. He might disagree with a lifestyle but he would NEVER turn his back on another human being.

The media needs to instead tune into the voices of some of the TRULY prejudiced and bigoted parents whose children attend the district. These are the sick sorts who, instead of saying "well I don't agree with it but you have the right to get together as a club" are spouting hatred. THESE are the type of people who would happily BAN clubs that didn't match their ideals. Wrong sex, wrong race, wrong religion ... yer outta there.

Trust me. I've heard/read some mind-blowing moronic attitudes voiced around here recently.

Rather than attacking a good (if misguided) man we should be hacking at the root of the problem: those erroneous beliefs and an enormous group of people who have no grasp of SCIENCE.

Of dolts and duct tape

Ohhh, have I got one for you today!

I almost posted this over on Blue's Blog because I felt the need, upon reading this, to use (v. bad word) or maybe (oh dear! naughty!), so if one slips out, forgive me.

Check it out. Parents whinge about tape on doors.

"At a heated meeting Monday, Michelle Mata told the Lake Local school board in Millbury that the tactic panicked her son during a recent weekend trip to Chicago.
Sylvia Keeler said she may file charges. Her son, Mark Hummel, said he worried he could be trapped during a fire."

Oh cry me a river, emo boy! Trapped? By one piece of duct tape?

Well, I am of an engineering bent and love science, so I was fascinated and wanted to explore this topic.

Let's take a look at this.

This is the door to the bathroom in my home. It is much lighter that the average hotel room door (a heavier door would be advantageous to opening).



I taped it shut with not one but two bits of regular 3M duct tape like ye get from Lowe's:



Taped thus, the door came open easily.

Well, I don't know details of the hotel door taping and I also wasn't trying to get out from the inside. What I needed was help for this to be as accurate as possible.

How could I simulate a 'panicky' high school student?

Like this:



Yeah. Ohio moms? Yer kids are SO playing you and you need to wake up and start parenting.

For your further entertainment pleasure, here's a hot discussion on the subject.

Here it is over on our own Evil Genius Woman boards. Feel free to join us and tell us what you think!

Oh, by the way. Just a thought. Don't hotel doors open INWARD? That would make the whole thing moot. Even my 14 month old could the bloody damned thing.



The Human Crash Test Dummy: daughter of that woman who duct taped her child into the loo!

UPDATE! -

I just gleaned this from the Topix forum (abt page 133 I think) linked above:

"Okay people, i was one of the students in the room where the conflict arose. A simple strip wasn't all it was. It went from the wall around the handle twice back onto the wall. As simple as it sounds it was more. Yes, i agree everything has been blown out of proportion, but to sit there and riddicule everyone for not being able to open the door is rediculous. I don't for one beleive that this matter should have escaladed into a lawsuit, no. Personally i hope for everything to be closed and done sooner than what it seems to be. " (sic)

Uhm ...

I surely surely hope this is a joke. If this is an actual forum post by a student in this Millbury Ohio high school, then you Ohio Moms need to stop being concerned about duct tape! Not only do your wee delicate babes NEED to be taped in a room they need to be in there doing their English Homework!

Empty gestures

So, yeah, Earth Hour.

CHICAGO - "From the Sydney Opera House to Rome's Colosseum to the Sears Tower's famous antennas in Chicago, floodlit icons of civilization went dark Saturday for Earth Hour, a worldwide campaign to highlight the threat of climate change.

The environmental group WWF urged governments, businesses and households to turn back to candle power for at least 60 minutes starting at 8 p.m. wherever they were.
The campaign began last year in Australia, and traveled this year from the South Pacific to Europe to North America in cadence with the setting of the sun.

'What's amazing is that it's transcending political boundaries and happening in places like China, Vietnam, Papua New Guinea,' said Andy Ridley, executive director of Earth Hour. 'It really seems to have resonated with anybody and everybody.'

Earth Hour officials hoped 100 million people would turn off their nonessential lights and electronic goods for the hour. Electricity plants produce greenhouse gases that fuel climate change."

Right. Now, I have no problem with this gesture in theory. Any conservation is good and I suppose it could have 'raised awareness'. But here's my thing. What good is raising folks's awareness of anything: pollution, wildlife endangerment, climate change, cancer, etc if the people in question do nothing about it?

How many millions of people read the newspaper every single day, about things that they themselves could help change with almost no effort, and say: "Wow, that's a damned shame" then take another bite of toast and turn the page?

To me, Earth Hour is like a person who knows she's too fat so she says; "I'm obese! It is affecting my health! Today, I shall not eat ANY fast food!"

This sort of thing is tailor made by the ineffectual activist ("sign the online petition!") for the self-indulgent ("My plastic water bottles and disposable diapers ARE stuffing our landfills full, but I carry them to my SUV in an unbleached hemp tote!") to make them feel better about themselves. A way for the normally wasteful to balm their wee consciences with an hour of darkness before switching back on every telly in the house and firing up the Wii and anxiously checking the temp on their wine refrigerators.

So, no, I didn't turn my power off. I had no intentions of doing so.

Oh, Blue, aren't you concerned about the environment? About the polar bears?!

Hah.

I do three times more conservation of energy than the average person. This isn't a brag. If you read this blog regularly, you know it's just my chosen lifestyle.

Emphasis on chosen.

Why? I dunno. It just makes sense to me. I have an almost pathological loathing of waste. Why would you throw perfectly good clothes away when you can donate them? Why would you buy individually packaged food when you can divide up large packages? Why would you uses a clothes dryer so everything has that slimey softener feel and sickening fragrance? Why would you buy a monsterous SUV for your family of three? Why would you want to build a 400k McMansion 3 feet away from two almost identical McMansions in a neighbourhood where they tell what sort of post box you are required to put up? Why would you use snack sized ziplock bags, period?

These and other questions ...

But, seriously, it comes down to choices. We choose to do or not do, and that's cool. For myself, I'd MUCH rather spend my cash buying Zesto's ice cream cones and eating them in the park with my children than spend my cash for plastic nappies that will still be yucking up this planet when my grandkids have kids. I'd rather mush up the peas we're having for supper to feed to my baby than spend 50c on a ridiculous wee jar of the exact same thing from the store.

We all decide what sort of lifestyle we want to live and if yours is making you feel guilty about the environment then bloody well do something about it. Not some empty, quick gesture, but Some. Actual. Thing. Turn the heat down. Wash some dishes in the sink. Combine trips into town. Take your lunch. Recycle those newspapers and cans.

Conservation is no different from saving money or losing weight or supporting a cause like curing cancer or feeding the poor. You must actively participate. Sensational gestures without follow-up lifestyle changes amount to no more than signing online petitions. They soothe the guilty conscience and otherwise do ... nothing.

A sad day in South Carolina

I just learned of this horrible thing.

(A) home erupted into a storm of fire and smoke Sunday morning in Ocean Isle Beach, N.C. Six of the seven students killed attended the University of South Carolina; the other attended Clemson University. Six other South Carolina students in the house survived.

Please keep the families of these South Carolina kids in your thoughts. As a former University of South Carolina student and the daughter and daughter-in-law of USC graduates, I am particularly saddened.

Go hug your babies right now, folks.

Grand Mom

How frickin' cool is this?

Mom givs birth to her own grandbubs after her daughter - an only child - was unsuccessful at carrying to term. That just rocks.

Rosinete Palmeira Serrao, a government health worker, gave birth to twin boys by Caesarean section on Thursday at the Santa Joana Hospital in the city of Recife, the hospital said in a statement on its Web site.
Serrao decided to serve as a surrogate mother after four years of failed attempts at pregnancy by her 27-year-old daughter, Claudia Michelle de Brito.

Brazilian law stipulates that only close relatives can serve as surrogate mothers. De Brito is an only child and none of her cousins volunteered, so Serrao agreed to receive four embryos from her daughter.

Cool!

Would you do that for your daughter? I totally would. What about your sister, SIL, cousin?

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Low impact

So, I found this cool article on a family that went 'deep green'.

They don't use electricity (washing clothes by hand - w00t!), ride on transport that depends on fossil fuels (planes, trains, automobiles), or buy anything new (ala The Compact). The bloke calls is 'no impact living' and blogs it here.

I find this fascinating - being a thriftychik - and inspiring. I also plan to wander back through his blog and see how they cope with having a child while doing this (their daughter is two). I maintain that people, mostly women, waste a STUNNING amount of money, energy, time, and resources on their kids.

What do YOU do to 'be green' or 'reduce your carbon footprint' (I already hate that trite phrase, taken up by pseudo-conservationists who pat themselves on the back for ordering in bulk; organic, non-bleached, hemp-waste-fiber-lined, disposable nappies for two bucks a piece) if anything, as a parent?

Do you do what you do for the environment? To live more simply? To save money? To be healthier? To reduce consumerism? To reduce waste?

Do you find yourself being less thrifty/waste conscious since you had kids (buying convenience foods, snack-sized ziplok bags, name-brand clothing) or more so (buying food in bulk and freezing, cooking more/packing lunches, yardsale shopping)?

I think I'm getting thriftier and thriftier, lol (and my motivation, btw, is mostly financial. I'm trying to save money and live as simply as possible. I think improving the environment and personal health will follow). I constantly search for ways to save money like buying washable containers for juice and snacks so that I can pack those things from out of bulk containers into lunches and snacks-on-the-go.

So please share your 'style'!



Right now I:

-Buy food in bulk, divide and freeze.

-Cook/prepare several meals at once and freeze/refrigerate.

-Cook from scratch as much as possible.

-Try never to use plastic cling film, aluminium foil, storage bags, baby wipes, paper plates/napkins. I also save what little aluminium foil I use, wash plastic storage bags (unless they've contained raw meat), AND disposable baby wipes (yes, you can launder them several times before they fall apart). I use one small box of plastic wrap and foil per year, have the same box of store brand ziplok bags I bought when we moved here 5 years ago, and don't have paper plates in the house.

-Cloth diapered all 5 children (same nappies, too, but *whew* some of them are falling to bits!)

-Buy all clothing and furniture at yard sales, thrift stores, via local buy-and-trade list, or free off of Freecycle (or hand-me-downs and freebies). Exceptions: mattresses and underpants.

-Use all compact florescent bulbs. The only incandescent lights I have are ones in the barnyard for heat (over baby animals for instance).

-Hand wash dishes and hang all clothes to dry.

-Do all household and automotive repairs possible myself.

-Scavenge!!!

Of course, I also:

-Farm, and so run a tractor and a pick-up truck for hauling.
-Drive a huge full-sized van.
-Have an online business and so run a desk-top, laptop, and many peripherals all day, every day.
-Am addicted to films which means a huge telly, DVD player, VCR, and hundreds of films which come in those ridiculous packages with all the plastic on (and don't forget the sticky bits!)
-Ditto Diet Coke which I consume in insane quantities and wonder why EGH is not actually COMPOSED of, like Hydro-Man, (Except he'd be, like, Diet Coke Man, LOL). I do recycle every single can, though.

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Sailors and soldiers

Hey! That was my idea!

LOL, do you have or have you ever considered a tattoo with your kid's names on?

I've been wanting one for years!

Obviously I couldn't get one while I was pregnant and I also wanted to wait until I was done. NOW I can't figure out how I want it to look. I'd like one on my arm but I don't want to look like a sailor with a list of names down my arm, LOL!

Suggestions?

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I'd also like to take a moment to remember those innocent folks who died during 9/11 and all the soldiers out there fighting for our defense and freedom right now (and, of course, all those who have done so before).

We must be ever vigilant. The world is full of crazies.






I'm a huge patriot, as you can tell by the stuff in my shops. Anything patriotic, pro-American, or sporting the U.S. flag, I just love! Go USA!

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And I thought *I* had predators

Ewww! Check it.

So, d'ya believe in El Chupacabra?

I vow never to complain about the stray opossum or raccoon again, LOL!

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Going backwards

Did you see this?

The death from childbirth rate is still only 13 in 100,000, but, as the article says: "the fact that maternal deaths are rising at all these days is shocking."

Indeed. That's still over 500 deaths a year from childbirth. That's over 500 mothers.

I'm fascinated by these findings also because *I* possess all of the three suggested qualities that might be causing this increase in maternal mortality: older mom, overweight, and had c-sections. (They also mention larger babies and complications and my smallest baby was 9lbs even, my largest 10lbs 8oz, so I 'qualify' there, too.)

Thoughts? Opinions?

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