Tuesday's Tip

Today's Tip: Don't be shellfish.

I know. Believe me, I know.

I have given up shellfish. The clams and oysters are no problem. I never liked them anyway. But the crabs! And the shrimp, oh, the shrimp. And the crab stuffed shrimp! I grew up on the Gulf coast. This is more than dinner, it is a way of life. But I have walked away from it.

Shellfish are scavengers. They are very handy to have on the planet as the ocean doesn't have a sewage system. They clean up what others leave behind. And as tasty as they are, I don't want to eat what they have been eating so I don't eat them. It is all part of trying to be less toxic and living healthier.

Again, I'm sorry. While I don't keep kosher, they are not on God's list. I try to listen to what He says. He designed the machine, so He should know how to take care of it.

Live healthy.
(I always say that, but I think of Mrs. Fulgham every time I do. I must change my ways.)

Live healthily!

There will be a lot of goat farms in heaven.

At least, that's how it appears.

I had so much fun visiting other blogs for the Bloggy Carnival Giveaway. So many interesting women doing so many fun things. I found several women dreaming my dreams or actually living them. How odd that so many people want to move their families to goat farms. I wonder if these women grew up thinking my thoughts and have had the same change of heart.

As a child of the 70's , I spent most of my growing up years wanting more. We were well cared for and really wanted for nothing, but I wanted more. I didn't always know more of what, just more. I just knew that if I had a house with two floors and a guest room that everything else had to be wonderful. I grew up with 6 people in a standard, small tract house. While we never were really overcrowded, I thought people with those things must have everything.

I got those things and a whole lot more. A whole lot more. But two floors full of stuff that needs to be cleaned and put away is more overwhelming than I ever imagined. And not very satisfying. Now, I want less.

Yes, I want a smaller house and less stuff and a goat. Or twenty. I don't want a bigger closet, I want a bigger chicken house. If you had known me back in the day, you would find this revelation almost absurd.

I majored in fashion merchandising. I worked for Macy's and Lord and Taylor. My original goal was to go to New York and live the ultimate retail city life. I might even fit in an audition or two and become a Broadway star in my spare time. In reality, I probably thought I wanted that more than I really wanted it. Family has always been a priority for me. I think that is why I never made the big move.

Funny thing, I still love retail. I would love to own a store. Only I don't want it to be high fashion. I want handmade items, fresh goat products, recycled cast offs turned into new treasures. Things for real life. Things you chat over.

I'm sure there are more than a few of us who will never make it to a real farm here on this earth. I don't think heaven is clouds and harps and endless singing. I am hoping for my dream farm. I want green fields and fruit trees. I want goats and chickens and fresh milk and eggs. I want a little patch of green where I pull ripe, red tomatoes and bright, green lettuces. I want it doubly bad in spring. Everything is busting out and here in the city it is tempered with the sound of hovering helicopters, cement mixers, and garbage trucks. Cars with loud thumping radios. Ozone alerts. Fences too close. I hope in heaven there will be no Internet. Instead of stopping by my blog, you are welcome to come visit at my table and sample things from my garden and kitchen and chat. Of course, you'll have to return the favor. I promise I'll bring you some fresh eggs and milk!

And the winner is......

Betsy! From In the Beginning. Congratulations, Betsy. I hope you enjoy your prize.

Thank you all for stopping by and entering. It was so much fun. I have enjoyed visiting everyone's blogs.

Y'all come back now, ya hear!

Tuesday's Tip

Can I just say that it is good to be cool?

I have spent most of my life being the one a little off bubble. A little eccentric. OK, I'll say it, a little weird. Now, it seems, if I am to believe everything I am hearing on the news and reading in my newspaper and on all the blogs, I am right on target and part of the "in" crowd.

Happy Earth Day, everyone.

Today's tip is: celebrate Earth Day everyday!

God gave us this awesome planet. It is nothing short of uh - mazing! And we all take it for granted each and every day. I don't want to sound like every (other ; ) ) celebrity out there, but we have got to take better care of our home. And part of the way we can do that is taking better care of ourselves.

If we support the farmers who grow organically, we are putting less poison in the earth and in our bodies.

If we clean our homes with less toxic chemicals, we are putting less poison in the earth and breathing easier in our homes.

If we eat foods in their original packages, we don't generate as much waste and we don't generate as much waist. : )

So my little patch of carrots in my apartment complex flower bed doesn't seem so crazy now, does it? My house smelling of vinegar on cleaning day doesn't set me up as a nut case and a little over the top, hmm? And eating my apple and cheese at lunch instead of something out of the vending machine doesn't make me some kind of a health nut. OK, maybe it does, but I was also saving the plant with my lunch!

Go forth and be weird! It's cool now!

Bloggy Carnival

Hi! Welcome to Elisharose News. I'm glad you stopped by. This blog was started as a way to chronicle my family's lives as we made the transition from big city family to country bumpkins. Unfortunately, God switched our gears and we are still here in the city. We still hope to make it to the country life soon, but until then we are trying to live simpler and less toxic lives.

To share what I have learned along the way I have what I call Tuesday's Tip. I share a little something that I have learned to live cleaner and better and healthier. For our giveaway today, I'm offering a starter kit with some of the items I have mentioned here to get you started on a healthier and less toxic life: milled flax seed, aluminum-free baking powder, and deodorant (with no parabens). I have even tossed in a couple of tasty bits of organic chocolate.

This contest is open to anyone in the U.S. Please leave me a comment to enter. If you don't have a blog, please leave an e-mail address where I can reach you.

Good luck and Live Healthy.

If you just happened by and don't know anything about the Bloggy Carnival Giveaway, you should go visit here and see what other things are being offered.


Time's up! Let's close this puppy down. I'll announce a winner tomorrow. Good luck everyone!

Where Does Responsibility Lie?

A conversation this morning has left me mulling that over all day. I am open to any and all suggestions from anyone with an opinion. Let me try to explain.

None of us come from perfect families. If yours is anything like mine, there is always something going on with one relative or the other. You never really know where the next “event” is coming from. Often it's under your own roof. That's just part of being in a family. But every now and then something happens that makes you wonder if you should have done more. Should you have reached in where you weren't invited? Should you have made offers to help even though no help was requested? Should you have done so at the risk of inconveniencing or even damaging your own family? When do you draw the line and say, “No, they are just going to have to deal with that on their own.”

We have had a total of four different people live in our house since we got married. People who weren't part of our immediate family. People whom we may or may not have been related to, but needed either a place to launch safely from or a place to call home for awhile. Three of them lived with us before we had children. One came right in the middle of the kids.

These situations were all difficult in their own ways, but each was also quite wonderful in their own ways. But we have only had the four. Why did we not offer to have five? And if the fifth takes a path that could possibly have been avoided, do we carry any of the responsibility because we did not offer help this time? Where does our responsibility lie? While we are not responsible for giving this person life, as family members, are we in some way responsible for how his life plays out and what we did or didn't do to change that in any positive way?

It is easy to watch from the sidelines and say how things could have been done differently on everyone's part. I know I have my judgments. I know others have theirs. But I guess what I'm asking is, bottom line, how much responsibility to you take for how those close to you raise their children and how those then “adult” child decide to live their lives?

Wordless Wednesday

Old Woman with Chicken


Bonus:

Miss Muffin Goes to School

Tuesday's Tip

Today's tip: sweat it out.

That may seem like strange advice on tax day, but it's for your own good.

Antiperspirants stop, or at least slow down, the operation of the sweat glands. And many of them contain aluminum. ( : o )

On the other hand, a deodorant's job is to slow down the growth of bacteria. It allows the body to function normally and just controls odor.

There is some controversy as to whether or not antiperspirants increase your chance of breast cancer, but personally, I don't want to use anything that is stops my body from functioning the way God intended.

I use a deodorant made by Tom's of Maine, but there are several on the market. Go out and find a scent that you like.

Live healthy!

Spring Fever

Please, don't call the truant officers. Don't call CPS. Don't even call my husband. I'm sorry. I'm really, really, really sorry, but the weather is just too gorgeous.

I mean, come on! It is the mid-70's. The skies are so blue. There is a lovely, cool breeze blowing. The humidity is even under control. It is p-e-r-f-e-c-t outside.

We tried to do some school. We really tried. But we had to have a picnic in the backyard. We had chickens to hug and feed worms. We had a few flowers to transplant. We had to lay on a blanket in the sun and soak up some vitamin D. We had to give Isaiah a tummy rub. We had to listen to the birds. And, my word, we had to swing. How can you not swing in weather like this?

Hey, I hung two loads of laundry on the line. I was so busy saving the planet I didn't have time to do any more than we did today.

I hope you all can forgive me. I'm trying to forgive myself. The biggest problem - I think tomorrow is supposed to be just as wonderful.

More About Me

I got tagged by Wendy to list 6 unimportant things about me. Between this and this, I'm running out of things to tell the blogosphere about myself, but I'll see what I can come up with.

1. I don't bite my nails. Never have.

2. I don't like dill pickles on my hamburgers except for at Chili's. I don't know what kind of pickles they use, but they are good.

3. I passed my driver's license test the first time, but I never could get the car in the parallel parking space. I kept going back and forth and back and forth, inching my way closer and closer into the space, but I never hit anything! Eventually the trooper said, "Let's just go on."

4. I cry at movies, too. Heck, I cry at cartoons. I am a mush pot that way.

5. I used to be able to put my foot behind my head. Now I can only make it up to the top of my head.

6. I'm the only member of my family that can't roll their tongue. I must have been switched at birth and there is a sane, wealthy family that missing me. ; )

Sorry, Wendy, for blatantly stealing your ideas. I hope I was uninteresting enough. If anyone else wants to play, TAG, you're it! Let me know, so I can read how uninteresting you are.

Tuesday's Tip

Today's Tip is: flax seed!

Flax seed is an ancient and awesome little plant. You can weave linen from its fibers. You can press the seeds for oil. And for our purposes here, you can grind the seeds to make a wonderful additive for lots of tasty dishes.

Flax seed has Omega-3 fatty acid. Yes, that wonderful nutrient that is in salmon that helps our hearts, lowers cholesterol, and is a great cancer fighter can also be in your baked goods. I throw a couple of tablespoons in most things I bake. Cookies, muffins, bread. As long as you are using whole wheat flour (and I know you are!), you won't even know it is there. I love spiking the food with extra health boosts and no one knows it's there. I'm like the health fairy. (Michelle - maybe you can help me make a health fairy graphic!) But I digress. You can also sprinkle it on your breakfast cereal or on your salads. It has a nutty taste.

You can find it in your grocery store either with the other baking supplies or in the health food section. A box that will last you a good long time, depending on how much you bake, is only about $2.50.

Live healthy!

Wild About Texas

While we were out in the RV this weekend, we took in some of the lovely Texas wildflowers that are in bloom right now. It was recently brought to my attention that there is a very deprived and therefore sad segment of this great country that doesn't experience wildflowers. We in Texas are blessed with a diverse palette of beautiful colors and shapes of flowers lining the highways and roads all over the state. They are everywhere thanks in no small part to the lovely Lady Bird Johnson. Here is a sampling of what we saw.

I grew up calling these buttercups, but they are really called Evening Primroses.


I don't know what these yellow flowers are, but there were fields of them.


The orange flowers that you see sprinkled in with the yellow are Indian Paintbrushes. There weren't very many of them this year, but they were out there.


And of course, there were our favorite Texas Bluebonnets.

Some patches were small, some were big, some were huge, all were just glorious. See what I mean!

Maiden Voyage

Just so everyone would be sure that we don't have a sane bone in our bodies, right after Christmas we bought an RV. But not just any RV. No, that would have been out of character for us. We bought a vintage RV. It's unlike anything you have ever seen on the road. It looks like this:



It has this really cool front end.


It looks like something out of Cars. I'm considering contacting Hollywood and letting them know we have it in case they want to rent it for some movie.

It has been receiving a few repairs, but this weekend we took it out for our first run. It did just great and we had a good time. I am not much for the whole camping scene and the girl shares my distaste for sharing my toilet with the local flora and fauna. This was a lovely compromise.

Our next outing will be as an entry in the Art Car Parade. If you are not familiar with the Art Car Parade, you must go check out their web site. We will be among the tamest of entries. It will be a long day, but we are looking forward to it. If you are in Houston on May 10th, stop by the parade and give us a wave. We'll be the ones in the Krager Kustom Koach.

Tuesday's Tip

The tip for today: aluminum-free baking powder.

In trying to live a less toxic life, I found that there were lots of bad and unnecessary things in normal things that I use around the house. One of those things is aluminum in my baking powder.

We want to reduce the amount of heavy metals in our lives. There is some argument about their effects on our bodies, but most people agree that they aren't good. Some studies show that Alzheimer's patients frequently have high levels of aluminum in their brains. There is no requirement for aluminum in the diet, so I know I don't want it in there.

There are several sources for aluminum-free baking powder. I just use Rumford brand because it is at the grocery store and easily accessible. Bob's Red Mill is also in most stores.

FYI: I also avoid aluminum cookware whenever possible. Aluminum can leach into your food from the pans. And you might want to check your antacid. Many of those have aluminum in them, too.

Live healthy!