Football is just a game

*note i am about to unleash an opinion piece on y'all this is neither cheap nor green but definitely mommy related


I did a lot of my growing up in the state of Florida. I went to college at the University of Florida. I am a Gator through and through, I bleed orange and blue. I am a huge football fan. Every year with great anticipation I await the start of football season. So I feel like I have some ground to stand on when I say this. Penn State should not be allowed to have a football team at.all. I would most certainly feel the exact same way had this horrible course of events transpired at my beloved UF.

After the NCAA handed out its punishment to PSU this week the reaction from some of the Nittany nation shocked and disgusted me. "It's not fair! It's not fair to the fans! It's tarnishing JoePa's legacy"
Those fans have completely lost touch. They have succumbed to the grasp of a materialistic, apathetic society that would not only allow, but enable these atrocities.
People this is not about football. JoePa and PSU kept this all a secret for the sake of football, and for the almighty dollar. They did it to preserve the Penn State name and guarantee themselves and the school millions.
They sacrificed the innocence of little boys for their own gain. Those boys trusted their mentor and coach. They looked at him with adoration, respect, and love. He took advantage of that trust for his own sick and twisted perversions. And JoePa and PSU knew that, and they did nothing. They turned a blind eye, allowed the mentoring to continue, fed the beast they kept locked in the basement. 

I have two little boys. I look at their wide eyes full of life, happiness, curiosity, trust, wonder, love, and innocence and it crushes me to think that another little boy looked at Jerry Sandusky with very similar eyes. He took everything that made those kids wonderful and consumed it, leaving hollow shells. Those boys will never be the same again. They know the horrors that lurk outside. They know far too much about life already. It is not about football, it's not about money, it's about making sure no more little boys have nightmares after they see the blue and white on the field. It's about sending a message that shouldn't be needed. We must protect our children, they are everything that is good about humanity. I know I'll be watching this fall with a little more perspective. Football is just a game, money is just paper we assign value to. Hug your kids close.

No poo update

As promised I have an update on my no-pooing adventures. I did get my hair cut and highlighted in late June. My hair stylist was very receptive to the no-pooing, she said my hair felt softer and thicker, she even said she might try it too!
So that was the good news. The bad news, I'm only half way doing it right now. There are 2 reasons, one we went out of town and because i couldn't think of a good way to travel with my no-poo accessories I just took along some trial size shampoo, big mistake, huge (bonus points if you get my pop culture reference there). See, I liked shampooing, I liked the way my hair felt and smelled afterwards. And then I felt dirty, not my hair, that was fresh and clean, but I felt dirty for cheating on my no-pooing promise to myself.


Well turns out that was just the taste I needed to get hooked again. Monsoon season has hit in AZ and for us that means it is super humid. I have still been blow drying my hair because its super thick and takes forever to dry so I do get sone damage from that. So with all the humidity, my frizzies were showing, and guys? It was really bugging me. So I looked longingly at my pantene moisture balance sitting in the bathroom cabinet and thought "just one time. I'll just use it one time to see if it makes a difference, I bet I won't even like it. But I did like it, actually, I loved it. My hair had no frizzies, and was far more cooperative. And so, I became hooked again, I am shampooing with actual shampoo. BUT I am still "conditioning" with the vinegar rinse and still love the results doing that. My hair is soft and managable without frizzies because of the shampoo, but not weighed down because I use the rinse. So there you have it, i have fallen off the wagon with my foot caught on the wheel. My name is Christine, and I am a shampoo addict.

CFL not the Canadian kind

Not the Canadian Football League, but Compact Fluorescent Lights.  They are an energy saving, and thus cost-saving way to "go green".  So how much energy can they save?  According to the energystar website:

" If every American home replaced just one light bulb with a light bulb that's earned the ENERGY STAR, we would save enough energy to light 3 million homes for a year, save about $600 million in annual energy costs, and prevent 9 billion pounds of greenhouse gas emissions per year, equivalent to those from about 800,000 cars."

Incredible impact!  So, how does this directly effect YOU?  CFL bulbs last longer, up to 10x longer than your standard incandescent bulb.  They also give off significantly less heat (75% less!), so your house will be cooler, you'd be amazed out much the standard bulb heats up your house!  Yes, CFL bulbs tend to be more expensive than your standard incandescent bulb.  BUT, there are ways to decrease that cost some.  Your local power company may be willing to help you out.  Salt River Project, my power company, has a program in place to offer discounts on CFL bulbs at the local hardware store.  Also, while this offer has ended with SRP, check your power company to see if they have something like this going on, SRP was offering, FOR FREE, a 6 pack variety pack of CFL bulbs.  I have found CFLs in multi-packs at Costco in the past for a really good price.  SRP also has a handy-dandy calculator so you can see how much CFLs will end up saving you, you might be surprised!

There are a few things to be aware of if you go CFL.  One, very important detail, they contain a small amount of mercury.  So, this means, do NOT just chuck them in the trash in 4 years when they burn out (no joke, we just had some burn out that we put in when we moved in our house 4 years ago), you should recycle them, Lowe's, Home Depot, Ace, etc should have recycling centers for this type of thing.  If not, use earth911 to find a recycling center near you.  The other one is that they don't look like your incandescent bulb and you may have to find the equivalent wattage for your lamp.  Also, generally they do not work well in dimmers, there may now be special CFLs on the market for this purpose, but there were not when we were looking last.  Also, for similar reasons, they do not work well with timers, so if you want to swap out your outdoor lights for CFLs and use a timer, be aware of this.  
So there are pros and cons, but I think the pros outweigh the cons substantially!  Give them a try, replace the next bulb that burns out with a CFL and see what you think!

Swappin'

A day late for Friday Find, but this is a site I want to share with you.  If you haven't heard of it, swap.com is a fantastic site!  It's like a giant, online swap meet, where there is actual swapping, not swapping for money. It works like this, you list items you have for swap, books, movies, clothes, electronics, you name it.  And you browse for items you want, if your "haves" line up with somebody's wants and vice versa, make an offer! It's mostly free, you pay shipping on the item you are sending.  It's simple, it's very green, because you are reusing items by swapping them, and it's cheap.  One of those, "why didn't I think of that" ideas!

AND they also have a swap4schools where you can donate your items to a school that has them on their wants list.  How awesome is that?  Your unwanted items going to a great cause to help schools out!

Check out their site and start swapping!

Reduce, Reuse

Everybody seems to be drinking more water lately, which is awesome.  Obviously it's the best thing for your body to quench thirst, it's no cal, you can take it anywhere, you can pretty much find it anywhere, it's all we drink in our house.  So about the taking it anywhere part, having a portable drink is necessary these days, whether we are out and about shopping, exercising, shuttling kids, it's important to stay hydrated.  

There's a catch though, you know those plastic water bottles that are at the store? People buy them in bulk and use them to drink their water and carry it around with them.  Well I hate to rain on your "I'm so healthy I'm drinking bottled water" parade, but that could possibly be one of the worst things for you to do.  
First of all, it's completely unnecessary.  That water in those plastic bottles is *not* any better for you than your tap water, in fact, in a lot of cases it's much, much worse.  There is no regulation on what is in that water you're getting, "mountain spring" sounds fantastic, I agree, but what if that "mountain spring" is just run off from a manufacturing plant that is purified and put into those bottles?  And then there's the plastic, those bottles are full of BPA and other lovely chemicals that leach into the water when those bottles are heated up.  "But I never keep them in my car to heat up" some say, maybe you don't, but trust me, on the way to your mega-store, they got hot, so when you buy them, you're already getting a cocktail of chemicals.  Aside from the chemicals for you, there's the effect on the environment, the plastic bottles that don't decompose and take lots of petroleum to make.  And there's much, much more.  I recommend watching Tapped if you want to learn more.  

So, what do you do? You want to be healthy and drink lots of water, but now you're afraid of bottled water.  There are LOTS of reusable bottles on the market, invest in some of those and you will be set!  Personally, I like to stay away from all plastic as much as possible.  Yes, you can buy BPA-free bottles, but IMHO, they are plastic, so they probably just have some horrible chemical we haven't discovered is terrible for us yet. My current favorite reusable water bottle is this one from thermos:

It's insulated so it keeps the water cold, it can go in the dishwasher, and it has a straw to drink out of.  Not a paid endorsement, just sharing my favorite.  There are also Sigg bottles Sigg Traveler Classic Water Bottle , klean kanteen Klean Kanteen Stainless Steel Water Bottle , and many others.  There are versions for kids too!  Z loves his batman funtainer:

There are even stainless steel sippy cups by companies like Kid basix, and klean kanteen Kolor Klean Kanteen Sippy Cup Orange, thermos Thermos Foogo Phases Leak Proof Stainless Steel Sippy Cup, 7 Ounce, Blue/Yellow, and many others.  We have a few Kid Basix and love them.

Full disclosure, it's not like I *never* drink from plastic water bottles, when we're on a road trip we put some in the cooler to drink in the car.  My point is, don't do it all the time if you can help it, do what you can.  Think of all the money you will save filling your reusable water bottle from your fridge supply instead of buying a big box of bottled water every week!  What's your favorite reusable water bottle?

Don't forget to enter my GIVEAWAY for coconut oil, it has TONS of uses!

She puts the lime in the coconut... (GIVEAWAY!!)

That's just what pops in my head every time I hear "coconut" mostly because I'm a cheeseball like that :).  Really, this is about coconut oil, as far as I can tell this is like the miracle substance. I recently had the opportunity to sample and review Tropical Traditions Gold Label Virgin Coconut Oil

As you may have read in my No-Poo posts, I have been dying to try coconut oil on my ends and I've read a lot about all the things that coconut oil is useful for, so I was really excited to try it out!  First thing I will say is that it arrived safe and sound, the folks at Tropical Traditions have their packaging DOWN, the glass jar arrived safely tucked in with no issues.  Of course because it's currently an INFERNO in Arizona it arrived (and has stayed) in liquid form, but that's perfect, it's ready to use for me :).  I tried it on my ends right away, initially I used WAY too much because I had no idea how powerful this stuff was, so my ends were a bit greasy the first day.  After I corrected though, they were super soft and very nicely conditioned.  So I was completely pleased with the results there.  I also used the coconut oil on Gavin's scalp because we've been dealing with some cradle cap and I tried olive oil, with moderate success and someone told me to try coconut oil.  It worked GREAT, cleared up his cradle cap right away and it hasn't returned!  

Next I decided to venture into food.  I was a little leery of this because the hubs is not a coconut fan.  I'll be straight up with you, this stuff is virgin coconut oil, it has an odor of coconut, not strong, but it's there and it does taste like coconut, again, not strong but it's there.  I decided to use pinterest (shocking, I know) and found a recipe for no-bake, super simple granola bars that used coconut oil, peanut butter, honey, oats, and chocolate chips.  They were freagin DELICIOUS!!  I am a fan of coconut, and there was just enough flavor in there to make the granola bars really tasty :).  And a nice and easy go-to snack for the evenings when I'm feeding G and all of the sudden I get ravenous.


So I'm officially hooked on coconut oil, I'm excited to learn more about it and try using it for other things.  


But wait! There's MORE!  What would a product review be without a giveaway?

Win 1 quart of Gold Label Virgin Coconut Oil!

Tropical Traditions is America’s source for coconut oil. Their Gold Label Virgin Coconut Oil is hand crafted in small batches by family producers, and it is the highest quality coconut oil they offer. You can read more about how virgin coconut oil is different from other coconut oils on their website: What is Virgin Coconut Oil?

You can also watch the video they produced about Gold Label Virgin Coconut Oil:

Tropical Traditions also carries other varieties of affordable high quality coconut oil. Visit their website to check on current sales, to learn about the many uses of coconut oil, and to read about all the advantages of buying coconut oil online. Since the FDA does not want us to discuss the health benefits of coconut oil on a page where it is being sold or given away, here is the best website to read about the health benefits of coconut oil.

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Disclaimer: Tropical Traditions provided me with a free sample of this product to review, and I was under no obligation to review it if I so chose.  Nor was I under any obligation to write a positive review or sponsor a product giveaway in return for the free product. If you order by clicking on any of my links and have never ordered from Tropical Traditions in the past, you will receive a free book on Virgin Coconut Oil, and I will receive a discount coupon for referring you.

Car toy/book organizer tutorial

finished product

Lately I've been feeling very... crafty, I blame Pinterest.  And my cheapness.  There are so many good ideas on Pinterest and I always think "*I* could do that".  So, today I have a quasi-tutorial on how to make an organizer for toys, books, random junk, whatever, for the car.  You could use this for lots of things, even if you don't have kiddos, maps, notes, tissues, wipes, snacks, books, things that are currently strewn about your car that you might like to have in some sort of order. I based it off of this pin.  And of course, I mixed it up a little to suit my needs.  

First thing, that organizer wouldn't fit in my car as she described it.  The middle seat has a cup holder thing that comes down making the available height pretty short, and Zach DEFINITELY uses the cup holder, so I made it to attach to the back of the seat instead.  Added bonus, Z can get to it easier and the boys can each have their own, which I suspect will be better as they get older.  As always do what works for you, this is what I did... (also I should mention, I am *at best* a novice seamstress)

I used cotton superhero fabric, and thick felt, both from JoAnn's, use your coupons! And if you didn't know, they have an app for your phone that gives you coupons too, so no need to always remember to cut them out and put them in your wallet!  I would say you could get by easily on a 1/2 yard of each, also check the remnant bin, that's where I found the felt :).
  
For the back panel cut the cotton and felt to 11 inches x 24.5 inches.  For the 3 pockets, cut the cotton and felt to about 10 inches x 11 inches.  Pin the felt and cotton together for each piece, with the "right" sides facing each other, like so.

All 4 pieces cut out

Pinned square, perpendicular pins at the top, leftish in this picture

Sew the pieces together leaving yourself a little unsewn segment to turn the piece around.  See where the pins are facing differently than the rest?  That's your cue to not sew that hole shut.  *IMPORTANT!* For the pockets, leave the hole on what you want to be the "top" of the pocket, you'll see why in a minute.  I sewed at about 1/4 inch in from the edge around.  BEFORE you turn your little square inside out, trim the corners so that there is not excess fabric there.

back stitched

trimmed corner

NOW turn the square inside out using your handy dandy hole.  I read somewhere that chopsticks are great to push the corners out, and we always have those lying around because I love take-out Kona grill (don't judge me!).  I highly recommend doing all the back-stitching at once and then pressing (ironing) the cotton side of the fabric down, including ironing the folds in the open hole.  This will make your life easier, I promise, and I *hate* ironing so I wouldn't do this if it didn't.

Now is the top-stitching, this part is a little tricky the way I did it, but I think it's a good method so listen carefully :).  First the easiest one, top-stitch all around the large back panel, making sure you pin the hole so it gets closed with the top-stitch. That one should be easy peasy.  Now the pockets, the easy part first.  Hopefully you were following directions and left the hole on the top of the pocket?  If not, go ahead and do an expletive rant now, it's ok, we'll wait.  Good now?  Ok, for the pockets, just top-stitch the top edge for now, so it should look like this.

only the top edge is top stitched right now

Once all of those are top-stitched comes the interesting part.  Arrange the pockets on top of the back piece how you think you want them, play with them, get them right, because you're about to make it permanent.  I put the first pocket about 2.5 inches down from the top of the back panel, and then had the next pocket overlap it on the bottom by about the same amount, repeat for the 3rd pocket, with the bottom of the 3rd pocket lining up with the bottom of the back panel.  

pockets arranged (this pic is pre top stitching so use your imagination)

Now, leave the top pocket laying on the back panel where you want it, and take the other 2 off, pin the top pocket in place. Sew the sides and bottom of it onto the back panel, essentially top-stitching it to the back panel.  This is 4 layers of fabric for your machine to go through, so you may have to coax it a little bit, but just wait, later you're going to have to buy it a drink and rub its shoulders.

Once the top pocket is sewn on then pin the middle pocket in place, the top of it should overlap the bottom of the top pocket by about 2.5 inches.  Now you see what I'm talking about, in that spot there are 6 layers of fabric to sew through.  Be nice to your machine, go slow, don't rush things, let it do what it needs to do, trust me.  I managed to break a needle on this step because I tried to jackhammer it through, not wise.  Anyways, sew the sides and bottom of this pocket on.  

Now the last pocket, the bottom of it should line up with the bottom of the back panel.  Again there are 6 layers, you will have to rub your machine's feet and buy it chocolate when you are done, don't just use and abuse it.

When you are done with that you almost there, now you just need to attach straps.  You could do this step before the attaching of the pockets, up to you, I thought if I did that the straps would get in the way and irritate me, but perhaps you are far more patient than me :).   

The construction of the straps are up to you, I did it with leftover scraps of the cotton and felt, and it was easy to sew, kind of a pain to turn inside out, I used about 2 inches wide by probably 15 inch long fabric, measure your "attachment point" to see how long you need the straps to be.  Same procedure as before, back stitch, trim, turn inside out, although I did go ahead and fully top stitch these before attaching, then I attached to just the back panel, sewing in two places, about 1 inch in and again at the edge for extra strength.  You could use velcro or snaps or just tie it to your car if you want to.  I used snaps because I didn't want to figure out how to sew velcro, and I didn't think tying it would stand up to use from my 3.5yo.

Straps sewn in 2 places, in about an inch, and at the edge

snaps, I did two for stability

When you are done just attach to the back of the seat in front of the car seat, TA DA!!

in the car

Any questions?  I'm sure I missed something, feel free to ask! Go forth and craft!

Friday Fffff-it :)

So you may have noticed lack of the usual "Friday Find" today.  There are so many reasons.  Lest you think I'm some kind of "queen of green" that has it all so smoothly together, here is a peek into my day.

My laptop decided to emulate a basement hooker from the red light district and get itself all kinds of full of viruses, so we spent the morning cleaning her up and getting her a decent meal and shower.  

The kids were, well, their usual selves.  Zach is a 3.5yo boy, which I'm absolutely sure is near the equivalent of a 13yo girl emotionally.  "Oh Em Gee, I can't play with glass cups?!? I shall burst into tears and run into a room and throw myself on the bed!".  Obviously my fault, because I decided to do a project with him to teach him about money that used mason jars, and apparently telling him 46 times that they are not toys was not clear.

The baby, was a perfect happy baby, until he wasn't.  Which was when he was tired, and then holy HELL was he pissed.  "You will hold me mommy! You will NOT sit in the rocking chair! You will hold me upright! You will NOT hold me laying down! You will play Nora Jones on your phone until I fall asleep! Do NOT turn the volume down! NOOO white noise will not do at ALL!  YES you will play the same song on repeat until you find that jazzy voice like nails on a chalkboard!! Did you try to SIT again? STAND WOMAN!!"  Finally he fell asleep, I'm pretty sure he is teething, at least I hope that's what this is :p.

And naturally the house is a mess, and I have laundry DONE (yay me!) and waiting for me in baskets to fold.  So y'all are gonna have to get by without a Friday Find this week ;).

Making Baby Food

Babies are cute, cuddly, hilarious, and EXPENSIVE!  I have posted before about ways to save money using cloth diapers and wipes.  Obviously breastfeeding saves TONS of money, (if you don't count all the food mama has to eat because she's perpetually starving, just me? ok then).  I know these things provide huge savings first hand, as I said before, my older son, Zach, was disposable diapered and formula fed, he was CRAY-ZEE expensive.  My baby, Gavin, is cloth diapered and breastfed, he's a steal!  Eventually though, the babies will start eating solids.  As with everything kid-related there is much debate and shenanigans about how to introduce solids to your kiddos.  This post is NOT to debate how to introduce solids to your baby.  This is about my experience with MY kids introducing solids to them as babies. Ok, now that we have that out of the way..

As I said, Zach was formula fed, he was also a huge kid, and a very hungry huge kid at that.  So around 4 months when he was nearing 50oz of formula a day, we decided solids might be in order, that or a second mortgage.  We started him with rice cereal and then progressed to pureed veggies and fruits.  Gavin just turned 5 months and we decided to skip the cereal and just go straight to veggies.  Gavin is also huge, and he keeps trying to snatch food out of our hands/mouths/plates, wherever and whenever he can.  Those were our reasons for starting when we did, you make the call for yourself and your baby what is best for you.  




Zach, my now 3.5yo, as a baby enjoying his first taste of homemade carrot puree

 

Any-who, after some research, and talking to friends and family that have also done this, we opted for making our own purees.  Several reasons why, first, obviously, cost.  Those little jars of food are close to $1 each! I can get carrots for $1.50/lb at the farmer's market and make the equivalent of LOTS of jars of food.  Second, ingredients, if you make it yourself you know exactly what is in there, in our case, veggies and water, that's it.  I have heard (through the rumor mill) that some companies add sugar to the baby food to make it more appealing.  I have no idea if this is true or not, but the fact is, there's no way to know, and that's not cool with me.  Third, convenience, every couple of weeks we take an hour or two on a weekend and make a big batch of food.  There are baby food cubes in our freezer ready to go.  And the last one I can think of right now, flexibility.  We can make our own blends on the fly, a cube of this, a cube of that, stir and see if the baby likes it.


Making the food is SUPER easy, basically, you steam, boil, or bake depending on the food.  There are excellent references all over the interwebs, my favorite is wholesomebabyfood.com, it lists each veggie, how to cook it to maintain the most nutrients, they suggest when to introduce foods, how to store them, basically it answers all your questions :).


This past weekend we made sweet potatoes and carrots for Gavin.  We got the veggies from the farmer's market, so they are organic, local, and fresh, BONUS :).  Four big sweet potatoes made SIX trays of baby food! About 8 carrots made 2 trays of food!  

Mr G thang enjoying his first taste of sweet potatoes

The sweet potatoes were the easiest, I washed them, poked some holes in the skin, wrapped them in foil and baked at 400 degrees for about an hour.  Then, while they were still warm, but not hot, I peeled off the skin with my hands, the skins came right off.  I roughly chopped into cubes and put it in the food processor, we used water until the puree was a thin consistency for a first food, then we put it in ice cube trays and into the freezer.  Each cube is roughly an ounce, so for now, we are just using one cube at a time as he gets used to solids.  He's a big fan so far, he grabs the spoon and giggles while shoving it in his mouth, screams when I take the spoon away.  I said the kid was huge, so he's an eater!

The carrots were a little more work, wash, peel, and chop, then put them in a steamer basket and steam until tender.  Then into the food processor they go, use fresh water (not the steamer water) for pureeing because the steam water is full of nitrates, not good for baby. Puree until they are the consistency you want and then into ice cube trays and the freezer.  Once frozen, I put them in ziploc freezer bags and label them with the veggie and date.

In the morning or the night before I take out a few cubes for the meals, let them defrost in the fridge and then warm in a glass container in the microwave.

It really can't get much easier, save a TON of money, know what your kiddos are eating, and always have food on hand for them!

Any questions?  The one thing we haven't mastered is making pureed meat for baby, any tips?

Monday Meal: Zucchini

Monday Meal

So as to give some motivation to go get some wonderful fresh veggies from the farmer's market and healthy meats from your local ranchers I thought it might be good to start a semi-regular series called "Monday Meal".

The feature this week is a zucchini side dish, easily paired with pork chops, chicken, fish, it's light, fresh, and perfect for summer!  One thing you should know about my cooking and thus recipes in general, I'm not very exact.  I like to think I'm a pretty good home cook, but I fully admit I am the world's WORST baker, too much precision required for me :). So, if you have questions please ask!

Zucchini tomato saute
  
2-3 medium zucchinis
2-3 handfuls of cherry/grape, whatever small tomato you prefer or have at the market
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
Cut the zucchini lengthwise in half, then cut the halves lengthwise again to end up with long skinny quarters, then chop up ~1/4 inch wide pieces, set aside.  Quarter or halve the tomatoes (depending on size), set aside. 

In a skillet, saute the garlic and onion in olive oil until the onion pieces are translucent.  Add the zucchini, salt and pepper, and cook until just starting to get soft (5-10 minutes). Add the tomatoes, cook those for 5-10 minutes until they are soft and stewed looking. Put on your plate and NOM.


Easy, delicious, healthy, and so cheap! What's your favorite dish to make with the summer market bounty?