It seems that it has taken longer than normal to make new friends with this move. Maybe it is because people are so busy here and don't have a lot of time for a social life with all the hours they spend commuting. I think it also has to do with the fact, that I am way pregnant and less out-going as a result. We've met hardly anyone in our neighborhood. We're practically the only family that is outside in the evening and being the only house on our culdesac at this point, doesn't help matters. Of course, I have dreams of having of inviting the whole neighborhood to a "get to know ya" type of thing; something I have facilitated at almost every place we've lived, but again, pregnancy has slowed down those plans.
The good news however, is that within the last 10 days, we've finally started having people over. Rob has to cook out of course, but it takes pressure off of me. We've been able to have 3 different families over and I'm motivated to have more. Don't ask me why the sudden burst of energy. Maybe it's because I realize that I won't be having anyone over for awhile after the baby comes. We've really started to meet some nice families through the homeschool co-op that the kids are in and most of them are military. We've also gotten closer to some of the families at our church. It seems we are finally getting a life here.
A couple of side notes: Aim (my sister), perhaps you passed your motivation to entertain to me for awhile. You can have it back as soon as the baby comes.
And for those of you who responded to my grocery blog, thanks. You've made me realize that I have a completely unrealistic and impractical budget for grocery shopping. I am taking measures to change that as much as possible, although when I polled some of my friends here, they were only about $200 less per month than what I spend. The food prices here are ridiculous. Rob contemplated this morning, having our own goat. I believe his motivation was more for not having to mow the big lawn so much than to have goat products in our back yard. I actually vetoed the idea as that is one more living thing for me to have to care for.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
Grocery Bill Frustrations
I realize that my grocery bill is always going to be higher than average because I insist on organic and all natural foods, but I am really tired of stressing over how much I am spending at the store. There are a couple of factors that have increased our bill since the move.
1) No good Farmer's Market in the area. How I miss the Farmer's Market at Memorial Park in Colorado Springs. I got all my produce there in the summers ( and I buy a lot of produce), most of it pesticide free if not organic for less than $25 per week! That is absolutely amazing. I am looking in to joining a CSA here, but I will lose the advantage of getting to pick exactly what I want and just have to work with what I get in my box each week.
2) The prices here are definitely higher. I would say I pay about 20% more for the same products I was buying in Colorado, very annoying. Our grocery bill is $1000 a month which was our budget in Colorado too, but I was getting more food. I realize some of your jaws are dropping. I hardly buy any meat, so it must be the produce?
After today's shopping venture, and spending $8 on two loaves of all natural bread, I asked myself, should I just be spending a whole day making some of these things from scratch and freezing them? Surely, it wouldn't cost me $4 per loaf to make bread. I used to make it quite often, but that was when I only had two kids and did not homeschool. The question still looms in my mind.
Another thing I don't get, is why my cart is always the most full cart in the store? What's with all these people that only have 15-20 items in their cart? Do they go to the store every other day? I shop religiously every Monday and then don't allow myself to go back in hopes this will save some money. I can understand why I was one of the few at Wild Oats or Whole Foods; most people don't buy everything organic, but I shop at a mixed store now as my other two stores are no where in the area. Why don't people buy more? If I were at the Commissary, there would be a lot of people with two full carts, so I don't get it. Do military families just eat more? I always feel guilty at the check out line when there are many of these 15-20 item people standing behind me tapping their toes impatiently.
So, do a little survey for my benefit. Here's three questions:
1) How much do you spend per week on groceries?
2) How many people are you feeding?
3) Do you buy organic or all natural products? (Okay, I suppose my motivation here is that if you are living off of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and Ramen noodles, I will probably not take you into account when deciding if I am just an out of control food shopper).
1) No good Farmer's Market in the area. How I miss the Farmer's Market at Memorial Park in Colorado Springs. I got all my produce there in the summers ( and I buy a lot of produce), most of it pesticide free if not organic for less than $25 per week! That is absolutely amazing. I am looking in to joining a CSA here, but I will lose the advantage of getting to pick exactly what I want and just have to work with what I get in my box each week.
2) The prices here are definitely higher. I would say I pay about 20% more for the same products I was buying in Colorado, very annoying. Our grocery bill is $1000 a month which was our budget in Colorado too, but I was getting more food. I realize some of your jaws are dropping. I hardly buy any meat, so it must be the produce?
After today's shopping venture, and spending $8 on two loaves of all natural bread, I asked myself, should I just be spending a whole day making some of these things from scratch and freezing them? Surely, it wouldn't cost me $4 per loaf to make bread. I used to make it quite often, but that was when I only had two kids and did not homeschool. The question still looms in my mind.
Another thing I don't get, is why my cart is always the most full cart in the store? What's with all these people that only have 15-20 items in their cart? Do they go to the store every other day? I shop religiously every Monday and then don't allow myself to go back in hopes this will save some money. I can understand why I was one of the few at Wild Oats or Whole Foods; most people don't buy everything organic, but I shop at a mixed store now as my other two stores are no where in the area. Why don't people buy more? If I were at the Commissary, there would be a lot of people with two full carts, so I don't get it. Do military families just eat more? I always feel guilty at the check out line when there are many of these 15-20 item people standing behind me tapping their toes impatiently.
So, do a little survey for my benefit. Here's three questions:
1) How much do you spend per week on groceries?
2) How many people are you feeding?
3) Do you buy organic or all natural products? (Okay, I suppose my motivation here is that if you are living off of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and Ramen noodles, I will probably not take you into account when deciding if I am just an out of control food shopper).
Friday, September 19, 2008
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Scenes from Our Weekend
This weekend we took off on a somewhat spontaneous trip to Virginia Beach. We had a wonderful time. Here's a few highlights..Oh and the picture that is hidden, I just can't seem to fix no matter how much I mess with it. If you click on the part you can see, you will get the whole picture.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
All Natural Dog
Sigh...I always said I wouldn't go there, that I would draw the line with our dog. It is hard enough trying to feed the family as healthy, organic, and all-natural as possible. I can't be bothered with our loyal family friend Lizzie. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I purchase cheap, colored kibble. I've always bought the "best" organic brand I could find, but that was as far as I'd taken it.
Well, our high-energy, happy, bouncy doggie started to change over the last 9 months. She started to get some hot spots along her back and we soon noticed that she was chewing and licking herself almost constantly. I started to add some olive oil and aloe vera to her kibble and that seemed to alleviate it to some degree, however as soon as I stopped, it came back with a vengeance. She began to look so bad that we finally took her to the vet where we knew the inevitable would happen. Sure enough, they said she had allergy problems and put her on anti-biotics. Her problems seemed to go away for the most part, but we wondered what would happen when the medicine was gone. We soon found out. It came back worse than ever. She had new hot spots everywhere and appeared to be chewing herself alive. She spent most of her time sleeping and hiding under our bed. We were in the middle of a move and put off taking our poor miserable dog in to the vet, partly because things were so crazy and partly because we knew she'd just be put on more allergy medication.
We took her into a new vet who felt that it probably wasn't allergies, but Mange. So, we soon had an arsenal of new medication, a series of shots, and a three stage, really stinky, chemical bath to give her once a week. Once again, she began to heal. After a month however, the antibiotics were gone, the shots were over, the baths had all been given, and Lizzie started scratching again. One difference this time was that her problems areas were all under her neck and stomach. She started scratching herself til she bled and so we removed her collar. This seemed to help a little, but the problem was still there. Another troubling problem, she couldn't handle going on runs with Rob. She wouldn't run, only walk. She's always been able to out run him.
Faced with yet another trip to the vet, I decided I had to give in. It was time to learn about natural dog care. I checked out some books at the library and started carving out time to read them. I quickly came upon my favorite, called "The Whole Pet Diet."
Time to make a long story short. I now cook for Lizzie once a week. I make enough of a special chicken stew for her to last 7 days. No more kibble. I am also giving her a special oil blend, as well as parsely, and a garlic clove mixed into the stew everyday. The first week she had a healing crisis and her symptoms seemed to get worse. Now this week, slowly but surely, we are seeing some slight changes. Here are some pictures of her the day I started the new diet.
Well, our high-energy, happy, bouncy doggie started to change over the last 9 months. She started to get some hot spots along her back and we soon noticed that she was chewing and licking herself almost constantly. I started to add some olive oil and aloe vera to her kibble and that seemed to alleviate it to some degree, however as soon as I stopped, it came back with a vengeance. She began to look so bad that we finally took her to the vet where we knew the inevitable would happen. Sure enough, they said she had allergy problems and put her on anti-biotics. Her problems seemed to go away for the most part, but we wondered what would happen when the medicine was gone. We soon found out. It came back worse than ever. She had new hot spots everywhere and appeared to be chewing herself alive. She spent most of her time sleeping and hiding under our bed. We were in the middle of a move and put off taking our poor miserable dog in to the vet, partly because things were so crazy and partly because we knew she'd just be put on more allergy medication.
We took her into a new vet who felt that it probably wasn't allergies, but Mange. So, we soon had an arsenal of new medication, a series of shots, and a three stage, really stinky, chemical bath to give her once a week. Once again, she began to heal. After a month however, the antibiotics were gone, the shots were over, the baths had all been given, and Lizzie started scratching again. One difference this time was that her problems areas were all under her neck and stomach. She started scratching herself til she bled and so we removed her collar. This seemed to help a little, but the problem was still there. Another troubling problem, she couldn't handle going on runs with Rob. She wouldn't run, only walk. She's always been able to out run him.
Faced with yet another trip to the vet, I decided I had to give in. It was time to learn about natural dog care. I checked out some books at the library and started carving out time to read them. I quickly came upon my favorite, called "The Whole Pet Diet."
Time to make a long story short. I now cook for Lizzie once a week. I make enough of a special chicken stew for her to last 7 days. No more kibble. I am also giving her a special oil blend, as well as parsely, and a garlic clove mixed into the stew everyday. The first week she had a healing crisis and her symptoms seemed to get worse. Now this week, slowly but surely, we are seeing some slight changes. Here are some pictures of her the day I started the new diet.
While she is obviously displeased with the procedure, the book suggested taking before and after pictures. You can clearly see how inflamed her skin is.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
A Very Rainy Day
Alton's latest balloon creation: Balloon Man on a Skateboard
Today has been interesting; really nice actually. This is our first experience with a tropical storm. Hannah is here and she is dumping buckets of rain. It's been going all night and day with no end in sight. Ironically, today was the first day they were going to open our neighborhood pool that we've been waiting for them to finish all summer. It will be open next weekend too, but we're headed to the beach unless hurricane Ike gets there around the same time. Oh well, I'd be pretty scary in a swimsuit at 35 weeks along anyway.
So, we've spent a leisurely day, well cleaning, but I am so happy to have a full day to do that.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
"Fuming" Mad
Public Menace Truck
Okay, so tonight I could've blogged about the kids first day at their new homeschool co-op and maybe I will tomorrow, but tonight, I am too preoccupied and infuriated by something that I consider to be one of those heinous things that go on in our culture, that we are apparently just to except as normal.
We spend a lot of our evenings outside. We have the culdesac all to ourselves. There are no other houses on it. I suppose we feel like we own the nice round piece of asphalt in front of our home that has provided us with many hours of fun since we've moved here, hitting tennis balls, riding bikes, trikes, little trucks and fire engines, and the go-cart that Alton and Rob made a couple of years ago; not to mention the time spent playing with the remote controlled hovercraft. We used to have a remote-controlled airplane as well, but ever since it landed in the gutters of the house closest too us, well, that's the end of that. Anyway...I was saying that we feel like we own it.
Tonight's events jarred us back to reality reminding us that the streets belong to the city or county or some other government agency, not us. As we were all hanging out front tonight in our yard, an odd-looking truck pulled onto our culdesac. This of course, got our attention, as not too many vehicles pull in there. As we stood there staring, he started gesturing with his hands at us. We discussed among ourselves and could not understand what he was saying. Next, his big truck puffed a chemical haze a few times making a menacing sound. Rob began walking towards the truck and then noticed it said mosquito control. Not being able to think fast enough, we all walked into the open garage and stood there as the truck drove around our circle spewing it's noxious gas and then carried on down other streets as neighbors walked on sidewalks pushing strollers, riding bikes, etc...
We were in complete shock. Is this a normal thing here; just randomly driving down streets spraying for mosquitoes? The haze began to dissapate, but our time outside did not feel safe anymore and we soon wrapped up our outside activities and went in. We felt an injustice had been done here. Do we not have more control over the air we breathe than that? Was the little cloud really going to kill all the mosquitoes in the area? We didn't ask for that. We use an herbal mosquito repellent and it works just great. Why is it up to the government to control the mosquito population? This registers as one of the stupidest things my tax dollars have ever gone for.
As soon as we got in, I went to the county website and quickly found out about their mosquito killing program. Here is part of what they said about it,
"Treatment is accomplished using truck-mounted spray machines on public roads. This suppression tactic affects adult mosquitoes in the immediate area of spray and at the time of spray only."
Really. So driving down the streets randomly spraying chemical is going to control mosquitoes? Why was he so determined to come onto our culdesac when we are the only house? I further found that they were supposed to send out a postcard a day or two in advance. Had this been the case, I would've called and told them to stay far away. Now as it is, I will be calling to give them a piece of my mind. I used to be timid about things like this, but I've gotten run over enough by people and institutions etc, that I simply don't mind turning into a bear every now and then, especially when it comes to protecting my family's health. Absolutely ridiculous. I am furious! And people wonder why I believe in conspiracy theories. It's things like this, that just don't make any sense.
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