29 April 2010

Food - Do You Know Where Yours Comes From?

I saw a review on some website about the movie Food, Inc. so I ordered it from Amazon. I was intrigued by the movie and also wondered how they would spin it. I wasn't really excited about the fact it was made by the same people that did An Inconvenient Truth, but alas I would give it a shot. And while it did have some propaganda in it, I took away quite a lot. I guess I never realized the hamburgers I was eating at certain places had "filler" meat in that had been washed with ammonia. Gross. It was just gross. And, the whole genetically modified stuff FREAKS me out for some reason. And it's in EVERYTHING.

And why the government or some groups don't feel it's necessary to tell me if I'm eating cloned meat is just wrong. I have a right to choose if I want to eat cloned meat! And I have to say I would choose NOT to eat cloned meat.

We decided to try to make some changes after watching this movie.
  • We planted a garden. Our own vegetables growing right in our backyard. And I have to say I've really enjoyed it so far. We have some tomatos growing and soon some peppers will be popping out. We planted all our favorites.
  • I signed up for a organic fruit and veggie basket to be delivered. All locally grown. The pears have been FANTASTIC.
  • We'll be ordering our own cow. No, not to live in our backyard. But I did do some searches for grass fed, no hormones, no antibiotic pasture raised cows. And I found one here in AZ, Leo called the slaughterhouse and it will only be our cow that will be processed at that time so no mixing of others in there. We'll be freezing a lot of cow here soon.
  • And we'll try to support as much local farming as possible.

Watch the movie I guarantee it will change your perception of food!

Also check out the Eat Well Guide. It has a lot of great info hopefully about your own local options!

And if you're in Arizona, Georgia, or the Ohio River Valley check out Natures Garden Delivered for your own local organic delivery of fruits and veggies.

Also in Arizona check out Support Local Arizona and Arizona Local Foods

28 April 2010

Representing The 313

Ok, so today is Wednesday and I'm doing San Diego Momma's PROMPTuesday today.

Here's the low down:
Do you remember where you grew up? The town, the house, the apartment, the street, the lane, the city, the grassy field? Please describe it in every detail.

I remember the house on Windsor in Detroit where I grew up with fond memories. I can remember the full address and phone number too. I remember the white sided house with detached garage. It was on a great double lot. The house was 2 bedroom and 1 bath. The bedroom upstairs was one giant room with a giant wool rug covering the hardwood floor. In the center of the rug was cut around the metal air return. My dad painted the hard plaster walls a mint green color. I used to use it as a chalk board to play school. And it hurt if you ran into it because there was no give! There was on small closet and a wardrobe by the door. There was also a small "sitting room" off to the corner. The room as I remember was pretty big. If I went back now it would probably seem so small. I used to keep my bed by the windows because in the summer it was so warm, we didn't have air conditioning. I would listen to the sounds of the city going to sleep every night. The constant hum of something going on lulled me to sleep.

The steps leading up to the room, turned and had steps shaped like triangles. They always reminded me of pieces of toast. I would often douse the floor by the steps with pledge to make it supper slippery, then get a running start slide on the floor and jump down the 4 steps to the piece of toast landing. It's a wonder I never flew out of the landing window. But it was fun.

The basement was an awesome skating rink until finished it and then it had carpet, which is kind of difficult to roller skate on. But before it was finished we would skate around it like crazy.

I can still hear the chain of the garage doors as they opened. We would open the side window in the garage to put the radio in the window so we could hear some tunes in the pool. The pool was in the backyard and where we spent most of the summer. We would walk carefully across the paver patio because if you weren't careful damn you would stub your toe on the pinkish pavers.

We had a double driveway as well, I can still see my dad cleaning the driveway with the hose and I can hear the Tiger games on the old old old radio.

I can see the garden in the big side yard next to the garage. We had lots of tomatos, cucumbers, peppers, onions, and other things I can't remember. In the corner of that garden was a maple tree I planted on a whim. I thought it was a weed, but it wasn't and it grew to be a pretty big tree. We also had two other maples in that yard - Jean and Willard named after my grandparents. I used to love when a storm was coming and the wind would blow the leaves to the silver side. The contrast against the grey clouds was so cool. The border around the grass had all kinds of flowers, peonies, roses, hostas and a giant forsythia bush. We used to get the hosta leaves and make "tacos", hosta leaves for shells, dirt for meat and grass for lettuce. Thankfully we never actually ate them.

Good memories of that house, I could probably write a book giving you all the detail!

27 April 2010

Random Tuesday

Since I don't really have one specific topic that would produce a blog post that would be worth reading, I'll just post some randomness.

We had a good weekend, it was busy! The kids had fun at Leo's company event. Sweet Girl is quite a driver as she proved on the Kiddie Kart course, swerving to miss running into another kid. Little Man, not an excellent driver and hasn't gotten down the whole "steering" part. This caused him to basically run into the "wall" at any point that involved a turn, and this almost made me pee my pants laughing so hard. He didn't get hurt but it was so funny. Maybe you had to be there.

Did you know that if you are a women and you have boobs and maybe you show some cleavage, you're causing earthquakes? No joke, seriously you are. Read here if you don't believe me.

Arizona is causing all kinds of drama, with the latest immigration law. I'm not sure of your definition of "illegal" is but in my book, illegals shouldn't have any rights here in this country. They shouldn't be treated better than legal tax paying citizens, they shouldn't get free health care, or a free education. They really shouldn't get ANYTHING if they are not here legally. If found they should be sent back to their home country. So I am for this law. Because federal government is doing such a great job at protecting our borders from illegals.

The weather has been in the 90's the past two days. I'm not looking forward to summer.

That's all today.

23 April 2010

Friday Is The Best

I am happy for Friday, I always am. It is really not a good idea to wish away a week just to get to Friday all because I don't have to work for two days. It is amazing to me the amount of stress and drain the work day causes and most days are not even so busy for me. I guess it's the downfall of doing something you really don't enjoy all that much. Oh well, I don't have to worry about it for two days because it's Friday!


Enjoy your weekend!


Let's do some Fill Ins!


1. Where are my keys? And how the hell can I lose them in this small purse???


2. If wishes were horses I would have a lot of wild horses.


3. I'd like to see the ocean from my bedroom window every day.


4. When I was a teen, I thought I would be an Air Force pilot.


5. One of my mother's favorite sayings was "we're all God's children".


6. I'd have a hard time doing my workout without my trainer.


7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to dinner at the Benihana to celebrate my Dad's birthday, tomorrow my plans include a fun day at Leo's company family event and Sunday, I want to enjoy the afternoon at a Dbacks game, and not think about the fact the next day is Monday...

21 April 2010

Weird. There Is No Other Word For It.

People are weird. I've always known this. And I know some are REALLY weird. But this just takes the cake. Seriously.

This man is making art out of the ashes of cremated dogs and cats. WTF? W.E.I.R.D.
Read on here. I do have to laugh at the author's constant puns included in the article. But I'm sorry, I do not wish to have art or any other assorted jewelry from my dead relatives or animals.
My Mother thinks making beads out of your ashes is cool. Again I'm going with weird. Sorry there Mom, but I won't be wearing your ash beads. Can you imagine the conversation and looks you would get when someone complimented you on your dead relatives ash beads and then inquired where you got them?

"Oh yeah that's my dead Mother, we melted down her ashes to make this bracelet". How would you respond if someone told you that?

I think that might be the end of that conversation.

And they may back away slowly.

I probably would.

20 April 2010

Vegas

We headed to Vegas last week for a trip away while we had built in babysitters. We were both really looking forward to it. The first few days were for pleasure and then Leo had a work conference and I worked from the hotel.

We were at the snazzy Signature Towers of the MGM Grand. The non gaming part of the MGM and about a quarter mile hike to the actual casino. We walked our asses off there. Well not literally because mine is still pretty large so basically we walked A LOT. Our room was on the 38th floor, the top floor. Our ears popped in the elevator and I couldn't go on the balcony because holy crap the 38th floor is high.

I enjoyed a hot stone massage, it was heavenly. Then I got a citrus cocoa wrap. I was a mummy slathered in chocolate. It was very nice and then I started to get a little claustrophobic. I was wrapped up and covered in warm towels, I had cucumbers on my eyes and I was getting warm. And then I would fall asleep, and then I would wake up and freak out, calm myself down and then fall asleep and do that whole thing over a few times. So I was totally relaxed, freaked out, totally relaxed, freaked out, etc. You get the picture. I finally had to ask when it was going to end because I was ready to be unwrapped! But it was overall very nice.

We ate yummy food. We only have a few drinks. We had good talks. Leo played Black Jack and won some cash. I played Roulette and won some cash which if I had stayed away from the table I would probably still have. Oh well. It was fun. I wandered around the casino aimlessly at times when I didn't feel like sitting and watching Leo play Black Jack.

We saw Cirque's 'O' and Zumanity. Both excellent shows. And both had those amazing acrobatic moves where those people have amazing muscle tone, core strength and flexibility. Wow. And WOW again.

It was nice, I was ready to come home and see the kids. But not really ready to go back to the reality of working. I'm really ready for the permanent vacation!

16 April 2010

Total Slackass

I am such a slacker. It's been two weeks with no posts. What is wrong with me, I'm in a slump. Blah.

I've had a lot going on. I was lucky enough to get an MRI for my ankle. I call it fat ankle, because basically I don't have one. It's cankle for sure. And I have bunions. And they are hurting. And really they are ugly. So I finally finally made an appointment with the foot and ankle doc. So the bunions, they need to go. They need to be removed and I have to have bones fused and all that fun stuff which will require me to be on crutches for at minimum 6 weeks. Then there is the fat ankle, which is all due to a "mass". Thus the MRI to verify said mass is nothing major. I've had this mass for as long as I can remember so I went on the assumption it's nothing. And I was right, it's nothing but a mass. I will discuss the mass with the doc at my follow up appointment next week.
The MRI wasn't bad since I didn't have to go all the way in. Good. The bad part came when they had to do the contrast. Which required an IV. Not my fave. Hate the IV. Not a fan, the IV for me was the worst part of giving birth to my children. I would rather have the epidural twice then have to get an IV. But she was good, I barely felt it. And then. Then the vein collapsed. OMG. Seriously, she had to do it again on the other side. Worse case scenario for me here. And then the burning begins, and the pain where the contrast blew out of the vein and is now absorbing into my arm tissue. OH.MY.GOD. I was being stabbed with a hot poker in my arm. It was so bad, it hurt I wanted to cry and slam my arm against the wall.
And then it was over. The burning subsided mostly. But my arm felt weird and bruised and very uncomfortable. Not a fan of that.

We went to Las Vegas - just Leo and I. It was awesome. I'll save that for another post because I'll need some topic for the next post or two.

I'm looking forward to the weekend. Of course that's nothing new I always am. I'm looking forward to Friday as soon as Monday rolls around. If I could just cut out the work part of Mon- Friday I think I would enjoy those days more. I need to work on that. But today is Friday, I'll enjoy it, the work day is almost over and the weekend will begin!