blessed

yesterday i was talking with my sister in law, who is pregnant with her first, about child birth and life with kids. all of our talking got me thinking back to our early days with just one. moonpie was the easiest baby. slept great, nursed well, hardly cried. we were buddies! every where i went, she did too. i remember digging in the garden and handing her worms to hold as a 9 month old. our days were easy and happy. after buddy was born her little world was turned upside down. and rightly so, no kid should go through life thinking only of themselves! i remember the first time i shouted at moonpie. buddy was only 4 days old and she was walking through the house carrying him by his neck. i freaked out and she dropped him. well, he was fine, but she wasn't. after that she wanted NOTHING to do with him. typical to most siblings, we have had a bumpy 2 years with moonpie and buddy. and typical to most mommas, it has grieved my heart. i want nothing else than to see my daughter loving and tending to her brother. especially since he has always loved his sissy. so we work on this daily. constant reminders to be kind, to re-word things, to give hugs, etc. and by night i'm praying kindness over the child. about 2 weeks ago we started to see a shift in moonpie's attitude towards her brother. we are seeing kindness! she has obviously had moments of love towards buddy, but we are now seeing her be a caretaker towards him. playing with him, protecting him on the playground from big kids, singing with him, and just showing genuine concern for him. i can't tell you what this has done for my heart! such joy! now i'm no fool. i have siblings (including a younger brother). i know that relationships have seasons. but i pray that we will now see more seasons of kindness and less sassiness.

when i think of the strongest character trait i would like to see in my children, it is kindness. to me that is showing compassion, respect, strength, courage, consideration, and a healthy self-image in its truest form.

here is a short clip of moonpie singing (with, of course, a brief cameo by buddy dancing a jig).

cure for a muggy day

after a few days of glorious rain, yesterday was muggy and hot. my pumpkins are very happy, but my sissy self does not like being out in high humidity. not so much a frizzy hair issue, more of a mosquito thing. so to counter the effects of being cooped up inside all day, we invited a friend over and made play-dough. we have a drawer full of partially dried play-dough, but there is no better play-dough than the kind you make yourself. it's all warm in your hands and you get to mix your own colors. very fun!
there are hundreds (or at least 10, i've been known to exaggerate such things) of variations of this play-dough recipe, but i promise you, this is the best:

2 cups flour (i use white for a smoother texture)
1 cup salt
1 tsp cream of tartar
2 tablespoons oil
1 tsp food coloring
2 cups of water

mix ingredients in a saucepan. cook over medium heat, stir constantly, until dough leaves sides of pan.

remove from pan. when cool, knead in your favorite color(s).

very easy! very fun! very salty (just ask buddy- after a mouthful he can testify to this)!

detergent help

ok guys, random blog poll. which detergent do you use on your cloth diapers and what is the routine (pre-wash, 2nd rinse, hot, cold, line dry, etc.)?

i know everyone does something different, but all ideas and methods are welcome. i'm on a learning curve here!

loop hole

i read some important news this morning on dr. mercola's (http://www.mercola.com/) website, and i wanted to pass it on. since the us govt. is not required to reveal if a food is genetically modified or not, this loop hole seems pretty invaluable to me. read on:

Although the U.S. does not require GMOs to be labeled, you can still find out whether or not your produce is genetically engineered, by looking at its PLU code. For example:
A conventionally grown product carries a 4-digit PLU code (Ex: conventionally grown banana: 4011)
An organic product carries a 5-digit code, starting with the number 9: (Ex: organic banana: 94011)
A genetically engineered (GE or GMO) product has a 5-digit code, starting with the number 8: (Ex: GE banana: 84011)

finally! a way to know about our produce! here is some additional info you may find helpful:

Of the 43 different fruit and vegetable categories tested, these 12 fruits and vegetables had the highest pesticide load, making them the most important to buy or grow organic:
Peaches
Apples
Sweet bell peppers
Celery
Nectarines
Strawberries
Cherries
Lettuce
Grapes (imported)
Pears
Spinach
Potatoes
Conventionally-grown strawberries, in particular, were found to be highly toxic due to a poisonous blend of pesticides in a previous 2007 EU study as well. (i'm reading this while munching on a bowl of conventionally grown strawberries- great.)
But be VERY careful as the list above is for fruits and vegetables. Non-organic meats have far higher concentrations of pesticides than all of the fruits and vegetables. And the highest concentration of pesticides is actually in non-organic butter.
So if you can only buy one organic food item it should be butter. Next priority would be meats and once those are addressed, you will want to focus on the fruit and vegetable list above.

let's see, the only organic veggies that my market carries off that list are spinach, lettuce, apples, and celery. what i wouldn't do for an organic strawberry! but really, that only gives me more incentive to grow my own. so here's the question for you experienced berry growers. will strawberries tolerate shade, or should they be full sun? i have a nice dappled sunlight area that i could fill, but i'm not sure if that would be best. i've never successfully grown strawberries before (and i 've tried many times!).

and of course, another shameless plug. support local growers! within 15 miles i can get locally grown organic produce (http://www.homesweetfarm.com/), raw dairy products, and several meat options (http://www.jolievuefarms.com/, http://www.oaksofmamre.com/, or the up and coming http://www.yonderwayfarm.blogspot.com/). seek out local growers in your area and support the modern hero- your local farmer!

hey you guys!!!

this picture reminds me of the first couple of lines out of one of buddy's favorite books: "hey you guys! get to work!". and here they are, my guys, working to dig up the grass in our front yard. we have bitten the bullet. today is overcast, so it is perfect for some hard manual labor, however i don't have any plants to go in! and if i can ever put my pencil down and STOP planning, i can put the plants in. i am such a planner when it comes to gardening. we don't have a lot of money to buy and plant haphazardly, so i research location, companion planting, water intake, etc. and planning is good. but there does come a time to put the notebook aside and get dirty. and by the looks of this, the time has come.

here is the view from the street. check out my heirloom pumpkins there on the right. i'm a bit obsessive about these babies- i need to plant something else to divide my attention, quick!

virginia snake root

this morning we were out checking on the pumpkins, and little buddy was stung by a yellow jacket. poor thing. it was his first sting and he ran to his daddy yelling 'ant, ant got me!'. once we determined it was a sting i ran in the house to get the virginia snake root tincture i keep on hand for all kinds of bug bites. i put 2 droppers full on him and he was instantly calm. an hour later the band aide fell off. if it weren't for the sticky marks left by the bandage, i wouldn't have been able to see it! this was amazing to us because 2 weeks ago john was stung by a yellow jacket when we were out at our csa farm. after he mercilessly threw it onto me, it instantly began to swell. and since i don't wear my herbs in a bat-man style utility belt, i had nothing to put on it. it was pretty angry looking and achey for a couple of days after that. so with that recent occurance, we couldn't believe how well the snake root worked. so here's my pitch- if you spend ANY time in the outdoors, go buy a bottle of this today. it instantly takes the sting out of bites, localizes the venom and keeps the area from becoming too swollen. if that's not enough to get you googling it, take this other example:

on tuesday my friends neighbor was out with her kids. they live in a wooded area, so they are always on the look out for snakes. as they were out walking a copperhead slithered by. her 6 year old asked if he could touch it. after giving a lengthy mom lecture about the perils of touching copperheads, the snake was out of sight, so they moved on. she went into the house and he, of course, went to grab a fishing net. not 5 minutes later he ran in with a snake bite on his finger. he had caught that sucker and went to grab the net to get a closer look. she instantly poured virginia snake root on it and then took him to the hospital. they then loaded him into an ambulance and drove him to the big children's hospital down town. the doctor's couldn't believe how good the bite looked. the venom had stayed localized and he had minimal swelling. she told them about the herb, which they dismissed and chalked it up to something way more rational - luck. he was admitted for 2 days and then sent home. only 2 days! i know grown men that have been in the hospital for a week for a snake bite. and when he got home he was out playing again. now i know that children bounce back from things quickly, but this is pretty miraculous!

so stop what you're doing, and buy yourself a bottle already! (i get mine from the manufacturer pure herbs ltd. however, it looks like they are having internet problems right now.)

*CAUTION: i would not take this internally- even in small doses. for safety use only externally and store on a high shelf.

*also- this herb is endangered in some states due to off road vehicles and development. make sure you buy from a company that harvests ethically.

rain

so here we are in houston visiting my parents and doing some local mission work, and what should blow in? tropical storm eduoard. it's dark and rainy, but so far, just that- rain. remember in the good ol' days when it would rain and the news wouldn't spend all day talking about it working people into a frenzy? i went to gas up yesterday, because i needed to, and sat in line for 15 minutes! then had to change gas stations because they had sold out of gas! crazy times. not to be too harsh, i remember trying to evacuate during rita, it was scary and hot and like the bowels of humanity had been ripped open and exposed to the elements. i have never met such fear and what comes out of that. the people on the road were hostile, angry and only fighting for themselves. after going 5 miles in TWO HOURS we turned around to sit it out. then went out the next day and gave rides, food and water to those stranded on the road. we were fortunate, i realize this. other towns lost everything. but this storm wasn't even supposed to reach hurricane strength. it's not that i don't understand the worry, but the hysteria, where people are running over others in search of a bottle of water, that's tougher for me to understand. it points to a society of people that are insecure on multiple levels. here's what i think. if we were more confident in ourselves and our ability to be resourceful in times of crisis, we would be a different society of people. but as we are right now, soft and comfy, unable to handle power outages, we essentially have no coping skills. it is my fear that if true crisis were to hit, we wouldn't know what to do. this is why i feel it is so important to live a local lifestyle. plugging into people around us, that we can depend on to pick up where we leave off. we need to know how to grow our own food- whether it be one tomato plant or a yard full of veg and eggs. we need to know how to sew by hand, cook over a fire, make bread from scratch, find edible greens in the wilderness, etc. i feel like if we don't start now, our children will be left floundering. it is time that we take responsibility for ourselves and the community around us. education, outreach, community.

so those are my oh-so serious thoughts on this dreary day.