TGIF! Have an awesome weekend everyone!

Occasionally I do a link round up to highlight all the cool stuff I have come across lately. It is also nice to do a more “fluffy” post when I am short on time and that I am right now. I leave this weekend for Detroit to attend Ford’s Innovation & Design Fantasy Camp and NAIAS, (#FordNAIAS). I was invited by Ford and they are putting me up while I am there. They also invited several of my green bloggy friends and we will hopefully get to pal around while there so I am very excited. I will get to see the entire design process from start to finish and see what they have planned as far as green technology goes.

Okay, so cool links…

Liked this short and sweet post from Ruth’s Real Food, Does Your Bathroom Stink? Don’t Buy Air Freshener. Change Your Diet. I have said to people before that if they are asking my advice about what natural deodorant to use that maybe they need to figure out what in their diet is making them stink in the first place. Sometimes I think that makes me come across a bit holier than thou I think… you know, like my you know what don’t stink. BUT honestly I find that I only smell bad if my diet has also been bad. The stinky bathroom issue is the same.

LOVE this link that shoes you how to make Upcycled Sweater Boots. Amazing!

Recently had a couple people ask me about what type of strainer to use for making Kefir since metal mesh strainers are generally considered a no-no. They are harder to find but you can get nylon mesh strainers. Here is one on Amazon.

A great article from Richard Louv: NATURE’S OWN STIMULUS PACKAGE: 7 Ways to Improve Our Lives in Tough Economic Times. When money is tight it is easy to feel like life sucks and we don’t have money to do anything fun. This is a very limited way to see things. “A nature stimulus package — may be just what the doctor and the economist ordered.”

I have been enjoying Simple Mom’s ebook One Bite at a Time – 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler. Perfect for the New Year! You can get it only for only $4.00 using code HAPPYNEWYEAR (till Jan. 10). It covers 52 common projects that many take on during the year, or attempt to, and helps you work through them in steps. It’s really a marvelous value for the price.

Others books I am reading include: Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar, and Survival and The Magnesium Miracle.

I made the primal meatloaf from this recipe and OH MY GOODNESS it was GOOD! There are apples in the meatloaf instead of crackers or bread. My kids devoured it and asked me to make it once a week at least. I am not big on using ground beef since my gall bladderless body can’t handle grease (ala no burgers for me) but this was not a problem with this dish. All the grease pooled around the meatloaf so I just pulled it out and let it drain a bit on a towel before serving. No tummy issues. On a side note I am wondering if I should be taking bile salts and digestive enzymes since I am eating a lot more fats and I have no gall bladder. This is something I need to research.

Soon we will be confronted with Thin Mints again. I appreciated this article Girl Scout Cookies or Chemicals? It has an ingredient list inside the post and boy oh boy are those babies bad for us. I think it is time we stop buying this processed crap and act like we are doing a GOOD thing for kids. Or maybe I am just bitter because I tried to get my daughter into Girl Scouts this year and was told they are full unless I want to become a leader and start my own troop.

Have a GREAT weekend all!

Weather’s warm and I haven’t wanted to blog lately. But we have been busy… exploring gardens, local hiking trails, wading streams, finding wildlife, and scoping out gorgeous flowers.

I will likely be heading out of town for Thanksgiving this afternoon but of course all week long I have been reflecting on what I am thankful for. It is amazing how often we can let life’s little problems blind us to all the wonderful things we have.

I am THANKFUL to be 5 years cancer free.

I am THANKFUL for an amazing family…. husband, kids, mom, dad, brothers…

I am THANKFUL for a lovely home that is warm, cozy, and ridiculously low priced. How did we luck into that?

I am THANKFUL that I am self employed and that I only have to work 10-20 hours a week AND that I truly love what I do.

I am THANKFUL that both my husband and I have have good jobs, when so many others in this country do not.

I am THANKFUL that we never have to worry about money or paying our bills.

I am THANKFUL that we have so much freedom to pursue our dreams and do the things we love.

I am THANKFUL for the readers of this blog. You rock!

I am THANKFUL for my husband, who I have loved since I was 16 and who puts up with all my drama with a loving smile. Who right at this moment is patiently waiting for me to finish blogging so we can go out to breakfast…

Oh and I am THANKFUL I do NOT have to get up at dawn and go shopping.

I am THANKFUL that my life is so good.

What are YOU thankful for?

I walk a fine line on this blog. I would like to say I brazenly talk about all the difficult stuff I might face as a mom but really I don’t. Instead I blog more about the good stuff which can of course leave people with the impression that you are either perfect or dishonest. But alas it cannot be helped most times because I value the privacy of my children as they get older and I have to be mindful of everything that gets sent out into the world wide web. You just have to try and be as real as you can without hurting your kids in the process and it isn’t easy.

I have been having one of those weeks. No, one of those months. I think all moms probably know what I am getting at… life just gets so stressful and overwhelming that you feel as though something has to give. Well, I let work go quite a bit and that didn’t help because I just had more time to stew about what was stressing me. I let cooking go and that worked out well initially because my husband started doing the cooking instead. But then I felt guilty about that, so problem not solved after all. I ended up reaching out to a professional for help with the biggest source of stress in my life and hope to see some results with that soon (pretty please) but with every step forward there seems to be two steps back.

This week it has become abundantly clear that we are going to have “bully” issues in this new neighborhood, which is always fun. AND my 10 year old son announced to me this morning that after 4 years of no epileptic symptoms… his seizures are back. He described what he was experiencing and I compared that with some bizarre things I had noticed myself and it just seems pretty clear that we are dealing with small seizures again. If history repeats itself they will get bigger and more frequent. I keep remembering the words of a neurologist many years ago… “We don’t know what the extent of the damage will be and we may not know for years.” Well, we saddled up that pony 10 years ago when we decided to vaccinate our first child and now we get to ride it, wherever it may go.

Stress relief has become a serious matter for my sanity lately. Here are some small things that really make a difference…

Meditation Rituals – Making time for quiet and reflection has become really important and to help me get in the zone I am making it more ritualistic. One thing that helps is creating a circle or a clear cut area where you can meditate. If I go outside I might make a circle of leaves and then sit inside it or I might draw a circle with chalk on the deck. I am a very visual person and carving out that “sacred space” has really helped. I grab my Shuffle and then listen to a guided mediation or some inspirational music and for just 10-20 minutes I will concentrate on nothing more strenuous than breathing. Just make a circle… and then call out the four corners. Okay, just kidding about that last part.

Music – It really does work miracles, at least for me. I have gotten in the habit of putting on some headphones whenever I am feeling stressed and listen to some celtic or new age songs or perhaps nature sounds like birds chirping and waterfalls. I really like Quiet Heart & Spirit Wind… beautiful music and nature sounds together. As I write this post I am listening to a composition called “after the rain”.

Crystals - Cultures for centuries have had beliefs about the properties of crystals.. that they offer protection, luck, or that they have healing properties. And this is no new concept to me since I have long been singing the praises of amber teething necklaces and their natural analgesic properties when worn in contact with the skin. Each crystal has a vibrational balance and an energy that can help to regulate your own energy. Good stress reliever crystals are Clear Quartz (my fave), Rose Quartz, Citrine, Amethyst,  Aquamarine, Garnet, Howlite, and Amazonite. You can wear them in pendant form or hold them for quick stress relief. I like to hold a Clear Quartz crystal to my temples or the inside of my wrists. You can find lots of crystals on Etsy including a fave shop of mine called White Magic.

Feng Shui – I used to be a VERY much into Feng Shui and in fact I consulted with a corporate office to redo their large space to align with the principles of Feng Shui and positive energy. It is essentially the art of arranging objects and spaces so that they create balance (yin and yang) and allow for the unobstructed flow of energy (chi). This concept introduces the idea that our life and work spaces reflect and affect our physical, mental and emotional wellbeing. I am sure you have had the feeling once that your house or office is just so cluttered you can’t think straight, right? Well, that is EXACTLY what Feng Shui addresses. By re-designing spaces with a Feng Shu Bagua in mind you can create the positive energy and outcomes you want. Once you get started, it is really quite fun.

Candle Therapy – Candles give us feelings of calm and serenity. I find it HUGELY relaxing to light a couple candles in the evening and take a shower or bath with only candlelight. I also like to take candles outside to sit in the dark during various phases of the moon. Candles at breakfast time can also help to get the day off to a peaceful start.

Walking – There is almost no better way to clear your head and let go of some negative energy. When my husband returns home after work I enjoy taking a short drive to a local Metro park and walking in the woods for 30-60 minutes. The fresh air and the exercise do wonders for my mental health.

Sometimes when we are stressed to the brink of what we can take it is amazing what we can accomplish with some simple items like candles, crystals, or a walking trail and just a few minutes of relaxation time.

What do you do to relieve stress?

The word recession is getting thrown around in the media a lot lately. We are told that we may be in for some very difficult times and truthfully I am already feeling the pressure. My husband works for a company that pays their winter payroll with loans. They do this because the winter is not their peak season and they simply use loans to keep production going until Spring when their business goes through the roof. Times are so good in the spring and summer in fact that my hubby was getting $200 bonuses for each day of overtime he worked. For winter though his company relies on credit and our current financial meltdown has meant they couldn’t get the loans they needed and they laid off a lot of workers. They are talking about laying off more and my husband would probably be included in that second batch so we are preparing for that.

As if that isn’t enough to deal with my hubby has sprung on me that all this economic strife has made him want to go back to his old job possibly. For newbies to this blog this means that he would go back to traveling all but 4-5 days a month….so yeah…we would never see him. We did that for 5 years and finally he came home in late winter of this year…now he wants to leave again, which has me so upset I can’t even tell you. I was basically a single mom and would be again if he does this. But he hates job insecurity and feeling helpless like this and it is making him want to do drastic things.

But sorry for vomiting all my problems on you…the point of this post was that I think it is important during tough times like these to come together and help each other. Corporations don’t need our money, people do. It is even more important to shop consciously. Here are a few of the ways you can do that.

Garage Sales and Craigslist – Stop buying new and check out garage sales and your local Craigslist. Not only are you buying second hand which is way better for the environment, you are directly helping local families too and they will be greatly appreciative I am sure. When my hubby needed a motorcycle helmet recently we turned to Craigslist and I already have several Christmas gifts bought that I got from garage sales.

Buy new from families too – Small family, indy businesses are are all over the web. They have their own web sites and you can find them on Etsy. When I needed a backpack for my daughter recently I knew I could buy one for $10 at Wal-Mart but I wanted my money to go further so I checked into Etsy and found the perfect backpack hand-sewn by another mom. When you start purchasing for Christmas think about how many items you can buy direct from other families.

Freecycle before you donate to Goodwill – Now I realize that some families can not ignore the tax savings you can get by donating to an organization but for families that just take the standard deduction (like mine) you do more good by Freecycling. Goodwill is a great company but they do charge for the items and if you Freecycle them you end up putting much needed items into the hands of another family for free.

Barter – Do you have a skill or a service you can barter for goods? Perhaps you can trade web design, carpentry work, knitting or tailor work, babysitting, food from your garden…anything you can think of…use your skills to trade with other like minded families. Look for local bartering groups or start one on Yahoo Groups if there aren’t any.

Swap – Local groups and online groups designed to help moms swap clothes and household goods are getting more popular. You can even host a swap party for friends and neighbors. Have everyone bring a couple bags or bins of clothes their kids have outgrown and let everyone start swapping.

Support your bloggers – My friend Carrie wrote a great post a few weeks back about supporting your favorite bloggers and she highlighted a common practice among mom bloggers…buying through each others affiliate links. Many bloggers use affiliate links when they link to products or stores and they get a commission whenever people purchase. When I need to buy an item from Amazon I will always try to buy from the link of a fellow blogger so they get a little something from my purchase.

Don’t discount Amazon – Amazon is a big corporation but many of the products on Amazon are sold by third parties which may be small family businesses. I buy lots of used books from small sellers on Amazon. eBay is another good place to buy to support small sellers.

Get cooperative with your community – Starting or participating in a community garden is a great way to help feed your family and get community support. You can also volunteer to work for local CSAs who will then give you a discount on fresh produce and this can be very helpful if food is taking a big bite out of your budget. Look into herd sharing agreements as well for cheaper meats and raw milk. And whenever you can buy from your local farmers and farmer’s markets. Patronize your local Amish community if you have one.

As I said…during tough times we really need to come together and support each other and one of the ways we can do that is by eliminating the middleman and going directly to other families with our business.

Got any tips to share?