Frantic Joy

The last few months have been a lot. It's amazing how tings just seem to come in waves. *

We recently returned from vacation in Destin Florida to a family full of pandemonium. While we were gone Jimmy's mom fell and broke her arm in three places -- I mean REALLY broke it. My dad spent two days in the hospital with chest pains (turns out it's nothing but stress, thankfully) and my brother has had sudden, unwanted and unexpected change of housing which puts him far away from the rest of the family.

So, after driving a LOOONNNGGG way home through torrents of rain I walked into a house that smelled like poo. Immediately I opened the windows and began looking for a dog pile, which I never found. Not the way a vacation was supposed to end. But, this vacation went anything but the way it was dreamed!

I looked forward to this vacation. I anticipated it, planned for it and dreamed about it. How nice it was, I thought, that we could head to the beach when it wasn't so crowded. No fighting for a "front row" chair position on the beach. No over-crowded swimming pool where the water temperature makes you wonder what the water to pee ratio is. No scorching sun that prevents you being outside during the "hot part of the day" which turns out to be 11 a.m. - 6 p.m. No, it was going to be serene, restful, almost picturesque.

Then, much like the Dasani commercials, I was ripped back to reality. The week leading up to vacation I was FRANTICALLY cooking up a storm so that we could have healthy meals and so that we wouldn't have to eat out and I wouldn't have to spend my vacation cooking. This worked well, as I froze enough dinners and a few lunches and took a quiche along for good measure. The cooking, packing and list-making took almost all week. The hollering and threatening took the rest of the available time and, by Thursday at about noon we piled the grumpy kids into the van, slapped headphones on them, plugged in the iPods and drove away.

Now, the thing about going to the beach when no one else is there, is, well, no one else is there. Not a problem for me. I have enough of "one elses" in my everyday, so I was looking forward to solitude -- reading a couple of books, contemplating my proverbial navel, etc. However, in my frantic planning and list making, I had failed to realize that the kids don't share my love for peaceful nothingness. So, you see, while the pee ratio in the pool was down, so were the available playmates. And, of course, while I got a "front row" chair position on the beach each day, I had to be the sand castle maker and wave chaser. While I didn't have to cook dinner, I did have to remember to defrost it, heat it up, serve it and clean up afterward.

Ok, I can hear you thinking -- why is Lorraine bothering to blog this awful vacation experience. This almost sounds like complaining! Well, here's the thing. I found that I actually did enjoy helping Annie build a sand castle. She actually became much more interested in the moats and aqua duct systems than the actual castle, which remained a lump in the middle of the moat. My little engineer! The Lord smiled on me as he stirred up a nice breeze which had the dual effect of making the beach a comfortable temperature AND creating the need for almost perpetual "red flags" so I didn't have to go swimming in the water. I ended up being blessed that the beach wasn't over-ridden with bikini-clad girls. There just wasn't much to worry about, so I could let the boys take their bikes and just go! The cooking still wasn't fun, but, well, nothing is free, right?

We also had the unexpected blessing of meeting another homeschooling family who have started a church in Ohio. They were great to talk to!

We had another blessing upon our return. Jimmy's wonderful mother had spent the first part of the week (pre-arm break) cleaning our house and replacing things -- like new rugs for the kitchen, a new curtain for the french doors, a much-needed additional table for my office. It was difficult to figure out how to react when I walked in to a clean but poo-scented house. It turns out, in case you're interested, that the poo smell was actually over-fermented kefir grains. That took us a week or so to discover, which, of course, means that I haven't been tending my kefir... but, well, that's really okay.

So, now we're back and I'm actually relaxing.

I'm rediscovering joy. Really. I think I'd forgotten that we're supposed to be joyful. I had been so focused on doing everything "right" that I forgot to have fun! Not just in the vacation preparation, but in all of life. That's so not cool.

So, I'm blogging again. I'm listening to music again. I'm scrapbooking again. AND, last night I stayed up until 3:30 a.m. doing absolutely nothing of any importance. Ahhhh... life is good, isn't it?

* yes, I realize that I made a typo, leaving the "h" out of "things." but, if you read it like it's written and then add "mon" at the end of the sentence, it actually ends up conveying my real sentiment, so , I left it in the final editing.



Other Way Cool Things That Happened on Vacation

• My sons took me to lunch on Mother's Day at my favorite restaurant, La Paz, which no longer exists near me, but does exist in Destin.

• My kids humored me by cheerfully escorting me to an Arts Festival in Sandestin after lunch on Mother's Day.

• I won a necklace worth a reported $500 in the Arts Festival raffle.

• We discovered Zoo World in Panama City Beach.

• I had a real connection with Sydney the Gentle Giraffe and spent quite a bit of time petting and feeding him. I really didn't want to leave him.

• My wicked sunburn turned into a nice "base tan."

• The kids had a GREAT time fishing in the lake that's just outside our condo door.

• My awesome husband bought me a camera for Mother's Day, which I used to take more than 450 pictures.
  

• I now have quite a few blackmail photos of each of my kids.

"The only thing that interferes with my education is my schooling" -- Albert Einstein

Reading Freakout

Have you ever read something that just set you over the limit??? It's not that the one thing you just read was so alarming that it calls for life-altering actions, but it's just the proverbial straw breaking the camel's back? Well, today I read just that sort of thing!

I get a number of crazy newsletters -- not surprising, since I'm more than just a bit odd. I get the usual homeschooling newsletters, Christian women encouraging each other newsletters, tree hugger newsletters and, of course, Healthy Living newsletters. This article was in the latter of these categories.

I receive a weekly (actually far more frequent than weekly) newsletter from Dr. Mercola. I'm not really certain exactly who Dr. Mercola is, but a friend recommended him and as far as my research has shown, what he says is on the money. Today I received one of his newsletters and the second article was entitled: "New Stealth Chemicals Hidden in Your Food" This caught my eye and, skipping over the first article on B12 absorption, and noting the third article on how to stop men from missing the toilet, I headed straight to find out just what is hidden in our foods... more MSG? Sodium labeled as something else??? Perhaps some GMO veggies/grains or cloned animal products... No -- this was even beyond my wildest imagination -- I can't imagine WHO thinks this stuff up, but I sure wish they'd stop!

It appears that some company (innocuously named "Senomyx") has developed some chemicals that, as I understand it, block, excite or otherwise confuse your taste buds so that things don't taste like what they're made of. This is being used to allow food to have less sodium, sugar, etc. but still seem like it tastes good... So, the food you eat can be made of, I supposed, virtually anything and it will taste good to you! And the best part is --- drum roll, please -- they don't have to list the chemical as anything more than "Artificial Flavoring." AND -- they didn't have to do much testing on the safety of the chemical, because it only take a tiny bit of it to be effective! WHAT?? Now we can't even rely on our taste buds to help us discern whether food is edible?

Well, needless to say, I checked good ol' Dr. Mercola out -- I mean, come on, certainly the FDA tests this stuff -- maybe Dr. Mercola is being alarmist. No, this is exactly what's happening... and here's how Senomyx couches it, (quoting from their Website as of April 29, 2008)

Senomyx is using proprietary taste receptor-based assays and screening technologies to discover and develop novel flavors, flavor enhancers and taste modulators for the food, beverage and ingredients industries.

Taste modulators?????

HUH???

I don't know about you -- but this just sort of freaks me out! I guess it's just that this is on top of all of the unlabeled genetically modified grains that we get, the unlabeled cloned meat that is coming (ok, to be "fair" they probably won't sell actually cloned cows, but progeny of cloned cows...ewwwww) which is on top of the hormones, antibiotics and other chemicals they inject into our meats and the saline, dyes and other solutions the "butchers" at the grocery chains pump into the meats to make them look good. Not to mention the fact that virtually everything we eat is now made substantially of corn... because it's either actually made of corn, enhanced with corn syrup or fed corn. And, this all on top of the (alarmist, but possibly true) reports that surmise that mad cow disease is rampant and that virtually ALL beef world-wide is infected hereditarily and that this could be linked to Alzheimer's....

What's an eater to do???

Well, we've already gone almost totally organic. We've stopped shopping at the local "regular" grocery store and started shopping at Whole Foods, which isn't perfect, but it's better. We've planted a larger garden than we ever imagined and we'll eat off of that as much as we can. We buy organic grains (wheat, kamut, rice, oats, etc.) in bulk from a local, trusted supplier and we make our own bread. We buy raw "Pet" milk (more later about raw milk -- don't get me started!) from a dairy with grass-fed cows and we've been looking into splitting a grass-fed cow (for meat) with some friends. The only thing left is to move to a farm and raise all of my own stuff... but I'm not sure this city girl is quite ready for milking cows and swiping eggs from angry hens.

In the meantime, I'll just keep reading my weirdo newsletters and getting myself worked up and making whatever changes I can to what we eat, drink, breathe and put on our skin. And, I suppose I'll pray. That's probably the best protection from all of this insanity.

If you want more info on any of this, here are some links:
Dr. Mercola's Site
The Article Referred To Above
Senomyx's Site
Article About How Keep Men From Missing the Toilet


"The only thing that interferes with my education is my schooling" -- Albert Einstein

What's in a Name?

I'm naming the garden gnome Boisfeuillet (pronounced BO full ay)... or Sven....