Thanks, Ladies.

Do you ever get down on yourself and think “I have no friends, no one likes me. Woe is me!” Okay, maybe it’s just me. But that’s what I was going through this time last year. I was sad that certain relationships weren’t maturing the way I wanted, and I was missing depth in friendships that I really longed for.

Well, lately, I’ve been feeling truly blessed by friendships. I’m now surrounded by some great women who I know really care about me, and value my friendship. But what I do a terrible job of is telling people that I appreciate them. SO, to my friends…I’m going to take a turn towards the sappy and say that I love you & appreciate you so much!

Yes, I should say this in person. But I’m no good at being sappy, so it’s baby steps, y’all.

$3K for Seed Project (And Vegan Recipe...)

A week of fundraising for The Seed Project is over, and about 7 parties raised around $1125 for GAIA and $2013 for Heifer Int'l. Saturday night, Jen celebrated her 30th b-day with a dose of generosity, asking $10 from each guest. Her mom dressed up her dog as a heifer & brought a cow cake!

We hosted a brunch on Saturday as part of the fundraising week. I forgot to take a picture of the event, but the remains are pictured above. I've been meaning to make Danielle's Breakfast Casserole, similar to this one. And the egg-dairy-free pancake recipe that Karina sent me. Both were EXCELLENT!

DAIRY/EGG-FREE FRUITY OATMEAL PANCAKES
1 cup oat flour
2/3 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 tablespoon sugar
1 cup rice milk
3/4 cup pulp free orange juice
1 banana, mashed
10 strawberries, mashed
1/2 pint blueberries

Mix first 5 dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl. Mash your banana and strawberries together in a seperate bowl. Add whole blueberries, milk and OJ to the banana mix and stir together. Pour fruit mixture into the dry ingredients and stir until moist. Add more milk or juice if you like a thinner batter. Set batter aside for 10 minutes. Preheat your griddle to 350 degrees. Pour 1/4 cup batter on griddle and cook for approximately 3-4 minutes or until the bottom side is golden or the top of the pancake starts to bubble. Flip and cook on other side until golden brown, approximately 3 minutes. Serve with butter and syrup, honey or fresh fruit on top.

Autism on the Rise

Is anyone else scared silly about the rise of autism? Get this...In 1992, 1 in 3,000 had autism. Now, ONE IN 92 BOYS develops it. Yesterday's Oprah featured 2 celeb moms with autistic sons. Both developed normally, but then began to "disappear" and stop interacting, chattering, smiling, etc.

I don't know what to do with this scary statistic. Especially since my son has food allergies, which is often referenced together in the same breath.

Hannah gives her son cod liver oil. Karina is spacing out her child's MMR shots. I guess for starters, I will begin reading Healing the New Childhood Epidemics: Autism, ADHD, Asthma, and Allergies. Next, I'm looking into spacing our our next immunizations. There is no research to back up that it's the cause, but so many have a gut instinct that tells them otherwise.

Anyone else have any articles to share, or any tactics that you're pursuing to fight this?

Food for Thought

Eating Fresh Veggies is Good for your Body. You know that, right? Did you know that it’s also SO much better for the planet? Better World Handbook states that cutting back on meat is the number one thing (even more than getting rid of your car!) you can do to improve our world. Here are 7 reasons that it's better to eat more local veggies:

1) In the United States, the average meal travels 1,500 miles before it reaches the dinner table. Much longer for foods imported from around the world. That’s a lot of fuel for transportation, and energy for refrigeration & packaging.
2) Nearly half the water consumed in this country is used for livestock.
3) 70 percent of the grain grown is used for livestock, mostly cattle. It takes almost 16 pounds of grass and grain to produce one pound of beef. If the land on which grain is grown were used to grow, say, black beans instead, it would generate 10-20 times as much protein.
4) As forests are cleared to create new pastures, it is a major driver of deforestation, especially in Latin America where, for example, some 70 percent of former forests in the Amazon have been turned over to grazing."
5) Livestock now use 30 percent of the earth’s entire land surface, mostly permanent pasture but also including 33 percent of the global arable land used to producing feed for livestock.
6) Frozen food requires 10 times more energy to produce than fresh.
7) Buying local produce helps your community’s farmers.

Open Letter to Unknown-Blog-Reader:

I often wonder about you. Do I know you? Are you are a friend-of-a-friend sitting at home nursing an infant or wasting a few minutes at work? Secret-Blog-Reader, I’m glad you find my musings entertaining. It's a pleasure to meet ladies like Kristy, Kyllie & Marissa, who have stumbled upon my little planet & said hello.

Now, to my friends who read this & then send emails saying they don't know how to comment. You do not have to have an account to make a comment. On my blog, you can click “Anonymous” and then just type in your name. No big deal either way, but just wanted to let you know that no new password is required. Feel free to chime in anytime!

Love,
>Carrie, The Modern Housewife.

Reusable Shopping Bags

I've told you before how I’ve been bringing my own grocery bags for a year now. I’ve been asked where to get them, and what type to buy so here are some thoughts.

I have 4 bags, which is plenty to start out with. Mine are just simple basic totes, found free from company picnics, joining a bank, etc. I’m sure these are abundant at your local thrift store or yard sale. My German friend Julia also just sent me this clever tote (pictured), the Reisenthel Easy Bag. It’s awesome, but unfortunately doesn’t fit most US shopping carts.

If you are looking for style, something like this $19.95 beauty this would be great. Or, the height of hipster conservation is Anya Hindmarch’s I’m not a Plastic Bag bag (pictured), which is sold out in the US, but can be found on ebay.

So Now - My recommendation? Simple grocery totes, which I've heard can be found at Kroger for $.99 and Publix for $1.49. If those options are not available, you can find plenty online. I would just recommend something simple, like this basic tote for $4.95.

Can Moms Have it All?

A couple of days ago, Oprah featured a heated debate with stay-at-home-moms versus working moms. It began with an interview with Elizabeth Vargas, who stepped down from the most coveted job on tv – the anchor woman for the nightly news – to spend more time with her kids. She is still on air, but not logging as many hours. Now, she’s receiving a ton of flack from some women who feel her decision is a ‘step-back’ for women’s rights everywhere. Umm…Isn’t it her decision to do what’s best for her family? Anyway…

This is an emotional issue for many of us. A few months ago, I posted some of my feelings on the subject. It struck a nerve with y’all, because a lot of you commented that day.

So...Can women "have it all?" My opinion is that life’s full of compromise, sacrifice & choice in all things. It makes us better. So yes, I miss my job like crazy sometimes. I thought long & hard about going back to work. But FOR ME, I would be sacrificing something that I wanted even more – to be here at home full-time during these early years. Doesn’t mean that it’s 100% rosy all the time, or I don’t have days of missing the fulfillment of my professional career. But in the long run, it’s what’s best for me & my fellas.

Based on Appearance...

For a long time, I’ve waivered back & forth on whether I think it’s a good idea to tell a woman or young child that she looks lovely, or that her haircut looks phenomenal.

As a woman, I always appreciate a complement like this. However, as a parent and human being, I don’t want to reinforce the idea that our value is found only in appearances. But by not acknowledging a little girl who is wearing her favorite Easter dress, or complementing a friend who’s taken an extra effort to look nice or lose weight, I feel like I’m ignoring something that makes them feel good. I certainly don’t think it’s wrong for a woman to take consideration to their appearance.

Have you guys ever had these questions? If so, what conclusions have you drawn?

Learning to Compost

Stacy (my go-to-girl about all things gardening) tipped me off on cheap compost bins available through Metro’s Omohundro Center. Earth Machines, which retail for $85.50, are offered there for $40! I figured now's as good a time as any to learn how to compost. If you want to dive right in too, you can read more about composting here or here.

Why Composting is a Good Thing:
1) Less gov't money (our money) for trash hauling & landfill maintenance. More money for better uses.
2) Better on the environment as less goes in the landfill.
3) More environmentally friendly for your plants, and a fantastic soil enhancer.
4) Cheaper than buying fertilizer

Omohundro Center also takes residential trash, furniture, furniture, mattresses, tires, etc. plus all the regular recyclables! Another good gov't service - Bordeaux Mulch Facility offers cheap mulch.

ps. Still need cat advice...see below. Lance is prepared to do bad things to the cats if I don't find a good solution.

Throw a Party for Poverty

I’m so excited to share with you guys another fundraiser project that some friends & I are starting. During the week of September (9-23 through 9-29), individuals will host private events in their homes, and raise funds as part of The SEED Project. The SEED Project will benefit GAIA and Heifer International, which work towards ending International poverty.

What do we need?
1) Help. We need money counters, graphic designers, flyer distributors and more.
2) Become a MySpace friend (if you have a page there.)
3) Spread the Word. We’re really counting on having tons of events to raise the much needed cash.
4) Event Hosts. Consider having a dinner party, soup supper, pool party, whatever. You are inviting your own friends, so it will be a party that you will enjoy on your terms. Or talk to your friends who like to entertain. More info to come.

Think...You can make a difference by throwing your own party & inviting your own friends. Why wouldn't you do it?!

Joy & Sorrow

The strange thing about experiencing sorrow is that life still goes on for the living. In the midst of grief, joy is still happening all around. And I’m thinking that’s okay.

You, my blog friends, noticed that the accident happened on the same day as my hubby’s birthday. The day before we closed on our new home. And I'm thinking it's okay for Lance to enjoy his birthday, in spite of what I saw. It’s okay for us to be excited and celebrate our new home. It’s okay for us to experience such thankfulness & happiness for our amazing friends & family (and 3 babies!) that helped us move. It’s okay for us to celebrate today’s arrival of sweet Skylar Young into the world.

But it’s still feels weird. It’s so strange to feel like I can move on with my life, when I’ve witnessed such tragedy. I’m sure it’s not the last time that both sadness and joy creep into my life, or yours. Somehow, I feel like there is some set span of sad time that you should go through, before you are allowed to smile and laugh again. But I guess life doesn’t work that way.

So for now, I’ve had a great day. We are into our final house for a very, very long time. And I am so excited about that. I’ve had my moments where I’ve remembered the accident, but overall it’s been good. And since life goes on, I will continue blogging about food, and crafts, and little funny things that babies do. So I will talk to you again real soon.

An Important Message

I am a witness. The Witness. To a fatal car accident yesterday. On the same quiet street, half a mile away, from the house we’re buying in a few hours. Seconds later, it might have been me in that wreck. I will not post the details here, but it was a difficult experience.

I wrestled with whether to share this with you. But I’m writing this to say 2 things:

WEAR YOUR SEATBELTS. Such a small thing might have saved this life. Secondly, go right now and hug the necks of the folks you love. Life is too fleeting not to let those you love know it.

Now go. Start hugging those necks.

Fundraiser - Cooking for Kenya

Climb Nashville has just begun the search for recipes! We're putting together a cookbook, as a fundraiser for Made in the Streets. The cookbook will be compiled church-cookbook-style, and consist of Vegetarian & Vegan recipes. If you read this regularly, you know that we are not vegan, but because of food allergies, many of my recipes happen to be vegan. And many gym members are interested in healthy eating. Here's a few of the recipes so far: Black Bean Quinoa, Vegan Vegetable Lasagna, Spinich Salad, Yosemite Burritos...

The only way this cookbook will see the light of day is if we get enough recipes! If you have something you could submit, please let me know! This will be primarily gym members, but the more recipes, the better it will be! Funds from the sale of the cookbook will help children in Nairobi, Kenya.

It Pays to say Thanks.

As a small-biz owner, I understand the value of a “Thank you. Well done.” I also understand the value of “I had a poor experience with your business. Here’s what happened & my opinion on what could have been done better.” So I try to give feedback when it applies. I want to share 2 of my experiences & say that you never know when it will pay you back!

I bought a very cool Bondi Band during the Race Expo last week & wore it during the Half. I later emailed the owner, with my race photo, and told her how much I loved her product! She said if I let her use my photo on her site, she’d send me 2 more, for free!! Cool, huh?

My second story revolves around a very bad experience I had with KodakGallery.com. I love them & they always do a great job, but they misplaced my Christmas photos (sent in actual 35mm film.). They eventually found them, but a series of poor customer service situations left me very unhappy. I emailed the company, recapping my experience in detail & telling them how I felt it should have been handled. They gave me a credit for 100 free photos!

The reason for telling businesses should not be because you think you’ll get free stuff. But I know that business owners love hearing positive feedback. Also, they would much rather hear your negative experience firsthand & have an opportunity to correct it, than for you to tell 8 people all about your bad experience.

What's a BBF?

I guess it’s a term I made up – BBFs are my Best Blogging Friends. Sometimes they are folks that I know quite well. Sometimes they are people I know only through blogging. If you’ve ever posted on my blog, you’ll end up in my BBF list. Speaking of, if you don’t want to be on the list, please post here, and I’ll remove your link & comment. No problem. I know we all blog for different reasons, and I totally understand folks wanting to stay more private. My list is growing, as I have several people I need to add. When the list becomes too long, I may have to edit it down to only the folks I have phone numbers for, or something like that. I’m not quite sure what will happen when that day comes. In the meantime, thanks for being my BBF!

Today's Quote - Bono

"Look at what happened in Southeast Asia with the Tsunami. 150,000 lives lost to the greatest misnomer of all misnomers, "mother nature." Well, in Africa, 150,000 lives are lost every month. A tsunami every month. And it's a completely avoidable catastrophe."

Learn more about the ONE Campaign to end global poverty.

How to Live a Greener Life

Last week’s Newsweek featured an interesting article, called ”How to Live a Greener Life”. You can read the article, but here are a few highlights…

1) Sweat the small stuff: A faucet that leaks 60 drops per minute can add up to 192 gallons per month.
2) Do some green cleaning: Natural cleaners like borax and lemon juice are ecofriendly alternatives to regular chemical-based products. Check out eartheasy.com for basic household-cleaner recipes
3) Get rid of the excess: Companies can stop receiving mail meant for former employees by visiting ecologicalmail.org. For every former employee entered into the site's database, a company will avoid 100 pounds of waste in undeliverable mail. That's equivalent to one tree.

Eric Volz on Dateline

Hey All. Just another Eric Volz update to tell you that he will be on Dateline. I think it's Sunday, but could possibly be Saturday.

Easy Ways to Conserve

I am not holier-than-thou on issues of environmentalism. I do not have a stance on Global Warming, nor have I seen “An Inconvenient Truth.” HOWEVER, what I do know is that there is far too much waste in our culture. If you take the Ecological Footprint Quiz, you will probably find that there aren’t enough resources on the planet for everyone to live like we do. We buy too much, we use too much water & energy, we throw too much in the landfill. Did you know that 5% of the world’s population lives in the US, yet we produce 50% of the world’s waste? And that’s just for starters.

Here’s my favorite Super-Duper-Easy ways to conserve:
1) Recycle. Recycling a 6-ft stack of newspapers saves the life of a 35 ft tall tree.
2) Share/Swap/Reuse Gift Bags. Or cut them into notecards & gift tags. Read this month’s gift bag tyrade.
3) Wrap Gifts in Newspaper. Or cut up a paper bag & tie with raffia or cute ribbon.
4) Swap Magazines with friends.
5) Take your own cloth grocery bags to the store. Read my tyrade.
6) Use less paper towels. Use more dishtowels & table linens.
7) Use cold water instead of warm or hot water when possible
8) Reuse Plastic Bags for dirty diapers, trash cans, etc. Throw your items into your gigantic diaper bag instead of taking another plastic bag from the store!
9) Use the backs of paper as scrap for grocery lists, etc
10) Eat less meat (water/resource conservation), eat more local fruits/veggies (less fuel used in transportation).

What’s your favorite easy way to reduce waste?

Here are some random articles & statistics about consumption. Tons more are available online. Visit Green Learning, EcolivingCenter Conscious Consuming, and Grassroots Recycling

Not your Mother’s Cloth Diaper

I have several friends now using cloth diapers & biodegradable diaper inserts, which I think is very cool. It saves tons money & the environment. Click here to read more advantages. I wasn’t quite courageous enough to do this my first-go-round, but seeing how easy it is for them makes me want to hop on the bandwagon whenever the next bun pops in the oven. This is a list of advice so valuable that I can’t seem to delete the email, so here are some of her tips…Let me know if you have more, have thoughts, or if you can explain to me how diaper inserts work!!

You may spend $500-600 on diapers & supplies. The real savings, though, is when you already have them for your next child, and you don't have to spend any money on them then. They also have a really high resale value on e-bay, so you can get alot of your money back. She bought Funni Bunz from Tree City Diapers

Don't buy any X-small's because the baby will grow out of them so quickly. I used disposables during the first few weeks because I needed time to recover, and the smalls were too large.

Buy 18 diapers of each size (as the baby moves up in size). Newborns go through them so quickly. I bought only 12, and there were times I was washing every day.

I bought one wet sack to keep dirty diapers in when I go out. It will hold 3-4 diapers at a time and is lined with plastic inside to prevent any leaks. When I use it I just wash it along with my diapers.

They will need two garbage pails, with pedals. One needs to be larger for the diapers, and the other needs to be smaller for the wipes. I just buy the cheapest garbage bags I can find and I throw away the garbage bag each time I wash. I just dump the diapers into the washing machine.

You don't have to swirl the diapers in water first. I just put them straight into the washing machine. I run a cold rinse first, with a little vinegar to help with staining, and then I run them again on the very dirty, hot cycle. I have never had any problem with poop residue, not even once.

I have taken to using one disposable diaper per day, the one I put on him at bedtime. Now that he is older and sleeping longer than 3-4 hrs. at a time, he soaks through a cloth diaper too much. I know many people use cloth at night too, I just can't get enough liners in there to keep him from soaking through after 10-12 hours.

I wouldn't buy any white diapers if you get the kind with snaps. In the middle of the night, when you want to keep your nursery dim, it's too hard to see the white snaps on white diapers. My preference is to buy all pastels in gender-neutral colors.

Fuzzi-Bunz are a pocket-type diaper, with terrycloth inserts. Mine have held up well, but I did have to double stuff them when he was small. His legs were so skinny that he would leak out the leg holes. Now that he has meat on his bones, I can single-stuff them during the day.

You do have to change the cloth diapers after 2-3 hours. They can't stay on for 5-6 hour stretches due to leakage.

Any diaper rash ointments that are not pure white will stain the diapers.

You can't use fabric softeners in the diaper loads or they won't absorb.