Junk Lunch

 I've mentioned before that ever afternoon when the kids take their naps, I am suddenly overwhelmed by the incredible need for sleep. Its clockwork. 1:00 - 1:30 rolls around and its zombie face Megan. I try to blame it on my extensive amount of kid chasing, but that doesn't really happen. I'll blame it one extra carbs I shove down my throat all morning long and the caffeine from the 3/4 pot of coffee wearing off. Or, maybe its just some natural circadian rhythm. We should follow the European and Mexican way and siesta in the afternoons. They are on to something. Anyway, my point is that something kicks my butt everyday at that time. I'm going to blame food for the sake of this blog.

When my oldest son was in first grade, I was such a better mom than I am now. Seriously, my skills have gone way down hill. It could be that I've relaxed or given up or just decided that with two kids in school, a preschooler and a toddler, I just don't want to do it, but I used to look at the school lunch menu and growl. Its horrible! Its canned, starchy non-nutritive puke. I'm not bashing the school system because they try. They slip in broccoli and cheese and an orange half or carrot sticks right and left, but that's not what the kids eat. I'm also not bashing the white bread families that are reading this blog. To each his own, its just not what I want MY kids to eat and damned if I'm not too lazy to pack. What this blog is really about is me, kicking myself in the pants for being a bystander and not doing something about it.

A long time ago, Nessa wrote a great blog about schools counting Jello as a fruit because it said strawberry and counting Hot Dogs as meat because it comes from and animal. It struck a chord with me. I've also signed the Jamie Oliver's petition to make school lunches more varied and healthier. You should too!  Its a great thing. Kids will gripe and growl for awhile but eventually, we're offering them a chance to try new things. They will when their friends do it, its way kids work.Or, at least I think it is.

Maybe I'm lucky because my kids, for the most part are good eaters. Even if they don't like something, we have a three bite rule that they have to follow. Once to try it. Twice to taste it. Third time to make sure. After that, they don't have to finish it. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. But its the same thing the next time its served. Three bites. Eventually, they come around.

I found this FANTASTIC article on CNN today. Schools Struggle to Feed Kids Healthy Food . I don't get it. This isn't communist Russia. Its not the Irish Potato Famine. Its not the Great Depression. Its picky eaters and a society that has learned that faster is better. It a hideously underfunded subsidized program that runs far down the line from other necessary, but in my opinion, less important things.  Sorry if I'm being blunt. Please don't feel like I'm pointing fingers, because its my problem too. We like convenience foods! They are cheap and easy and we like to over-schedule and hurry up in the U.S. of A.  We like to rip open boxes and pour out of bags and forget the chopping and cleaning. I once heard, or read, that the longer it takes to actually make your food, the healthier it is. Its that act of cutting the fresh veggies and steaming them, etc that helps us appreciate what we're eating and keeps the nutritional value in it. Its the same as real cheese in your mac and cheese vs. the boxed kind that is often used to at my house.

So, riddle me this. I live in the corn belt. Most families have gardens and I'm surrounded by farms, but my kids food is being picked God knows where, processed and canned when it could be picked, cooked and served.  I know that its not EASIER but it is healthier. The school lunch program in the US is severely underfunded. With a dump economy and the extra expenses having to be picked up by states and local school systems, change can't happen. But.... moms and dads work miracles every day. Take a look at what your kids are eating and check out the nutritional value, the sodium, the preservatives, etc. and then take a look at what you have in your fridge.

HA! So not my fridge. *Notice cleanliness and organization.*

Here is my challenge for you. Its not an easy one, or a convenient one, and its not JUST for you. I have to do it to. Let your kids pick their favorite lunch one day a week to eat at school. The other 4 days, pack. Its going to be a pain in the ass, but so are vaccinations, trips to the dentist and homework. You get my point, we suffer for our kids anyway, so five more minutes a day won't kill us and may just make them have to go to the doctor and dentist less.

Check this thing out. I'm getting 3 or them for the kiddos for Christmas. Awesomesauce people! 

Its Tuesday!

Its Tuesday which means several things.

1. Its the day I get to blog for Nessa over at Ramblings of a Texas Housewife



2. It means that I have to do all the final packing, etc for my brother's wedding and my virgin trip to New Orleans.



3. Its my second to last post for 5 DAYS!! That's a long time for me. I'm not taking my computer in an attempt to go mostly tech. free so you can bet your crazy butt I'll be full of words by the time I'm able to blog again on Monday. I promise to take in every detail and crazy story of my *whispers* first bachelorette party ever. (Ya, I'm that lame), my first trip to New Orleans, the craziness of kids in hotels and lost luggage as long as you promise to read Monday afternoon.




FYI, if I don't post Monday, you will know that the complete lack of random tweeting and chatting and blogging has killed me, as I am addicted to my laptop. There, I said it. So what.


Disclaimer: That is NOT me. My hair is slightly less curly. SLIGHTLY.

Hedge Apples and other Funky Stuff

See those things. Those are hedge apples. They are entirely weird and actually pretty cool to look and with no edible purpose. They would look fabulous in that Pottery Barn room you've been trying to keep up. Maybe in a basket like this....  

I went to the little garden stand here in town today to pick up some local goods. (Apples, squash, pumpkins, etc.) and found a box of these guys. It was perfect timing or fate because just last week I was thinking how I needed to track some down. We covered yesterday that as soon as I put together a pretty little candle lit bowl at my house, the hedge apples would turn into baseballs and be rolled across the living room floor, or taken to the back yard for batting practice. (Ha, as if anyone at this house would consider baseball. We're swimmers, remember. Even the ball kid needs a more aggressive outlet than baseball.) I have bigger and better plans that that pretty little display bowl.

The other week during the garage sale craziness there was a darling woman in my garage, with her darling daughter looking over the darling dresses that I had priced WAY too high at $5. She jumped about 15 feet into the air when this teeny tiny little spider appeared on a hanger. Seriously, she was pointing and almost gasping for me to save her from the spider. That's when Mr. 4 rushed to her side, grabbed the spider, tried to pet and kiss it, then smashed it with his bare hands. She hurried away from the rack and left without the dress. As I cleaned up at the end of the sale, I found lots more spiders where that one came from. Tis the season, right. The spider is the mascot for all things fall and autumn to me and they're back. And that is what reminded me that I need to get some hedge apples.

When my dad used to have a little  insurance office in Fort Wayne, there was an Osage Orange tree. (A hedge apple tree). They fall to the ground like Hickory Nuts or Buck Eyes on steroids. I used to have easy access but now I'm stuck! See, here's a little secret from greenie me.  Hedge apples scare away spiders and bugs. I swear! You just set them around the perimeter of your house and voila, no more spiders. They are non-toxic so if you're crazy dog decides to snack on them, or your kids, or your neighbor's kids, its OK. They smell like orange peels a little bit and they work like magic. They also supposedly do the same thing for cockroaches, ants, fleas, crickets, slugs, etc. They're natural bug force fields! Its kind of like hiring giant frogs to patrol your yard but less creepy.

I always like it when I can find something that isn't full of chemicals and is cheap that I can use to do something. There are all sorts of good "natural remedies" out there that I fully believe in. Granted, the FDA probably thinks I could lick D-Con and be OK and I know that lots of people are skeptics, but I've seen the hedge apples do their thing. So, my question for you today is:

What are some of your best natural cures/old wives tales that really work?

You say OCD like its a bad thing.

Before you all get all psychological on me here, just know that I'm allowed to bash myself and be a conspiracy theorist and gripe and what not, because its my post and I'll whine if I want to.  I have a love/hate relationship with Pottery Barn, Martha Stewart, Real Simple and all those other beautifully decorated and immaculately clean magazines. They make me want, they make me need, they make me want to pull my hair out and burn them! You know that feeling when you're sitting down with your afternoon w(h)ine time escape and you grab the nearest magazine and lust over the new kitchen and bedroom decor that's in front of you? (If not, stop reading right here, go to the store and buy one of the above listed magazines.) You plan how you can rearrange the furniture, and decide that paint and some new fabrics or throw pillow are really a not-so-expensive way to change your mood, and your life so you go for it! You tear out the page and run off to Target, or suck up the price difference and just go online and click-shop until your little heart is content. You tape, and paint, and scrape, and clean. The couch moves across the room, toss on the new pillows, put the flowers you picked up at Fresh Market in the new vase, fill the basket with funny little stick balls because they are way too amazing in the picture, sweep and voila! Perfection! Well, except that you can't quite afford all new furniture and all the accessories and.... you have kids.

You turn around to rinse out the paint brush, refill your w(h)ine glass, and turn back around to admire your hard work in recreating an expensive set up with generics, when the stick balls are rolling across the floor, the flowers are in the baby doll stroller, the pillows have become an trampoline, and the new throw is a tent. Not to mention the Little People that have taken up residence in on your coffee table and there is shredded paper in the vase. *Cue hyperventilation.* THIS... this is why I can't do it anymore. Its why I have decided that dusting once or twice a week and sweeping one or twice a week is enough. I obsess over the picture and try repeatedly for living room or bedroom perfection only to have it trashed in ten seconds flat.
I work for this....


And I come out with this....

Its suffocating for me and it doesn't end with messy houses. I do this with a lot of stuff its either I obsess over things or I compulsively do things but never together or for anything beneficial. Nooo. That would be way too practical for me. I mean, I can think about the adorable Pottery Barn bedroom for my girls but to actually put forth the cleaning and the money and all that stuff, I just don't have the will to do it. That's a lot of upkeep with Little Fellar temporarily taking up shop on top of the dresser. Its the same with the kitchen and the living room. Its clean in a messy kind of way. You understand, right?

I obsessively plan trips, think about whats wrong with public schools these days, obsessive over how my jeans fit and what I'm going to try not to eat. (Which I end up eating and then obsess over why I ate it.) I obsess over the stains on my carpet and the outfit I want to order. Then come the compulsions. I'm a compulsive stalker refresher. Facebook, Twitter, the ning. I refresh again and again, and again. I don't, however, compulsively use Germ-X, clean the spots off my carpet or lock doors, so I consider my compulsiveness fun! I like it.  I do NOT like the obsessiveness.

So, lets tackle another one of my life issues and conspiracy theory number two. I have had anxiety and some OCD tendencies since I was in elementary school.  Most of those tendencies are based around catastrophic events and diseases. In high school and college, I had panic attacks all the time. I would think about horrible, terrible, awful bad things until I though my heart and brain would explode day after day. I wouldn't shake people's hands because I was sure I would get AIDS and I have had every form of cancer and disease ever known to man. Its true. I'm a survivor baby. *So not funny. I'm not, nor do I ever hope to have to claim that title since I would have to have the actual disease.* Anyway, I did the counseling thing, and did and still do the drug thing. Thank GOD for Lexapro and Xanax. I feel good, but I still  freak out at least one giant time a year.   Here is the difference between now and then for me: NutraSweet.

NutraSweet = rat poison. I swear its true. That shit will kill you man! I got this email from my mom ten years ago now, read it, quit the fat free yogurt, gum, diet Pepsi, and all the other things that have Phenylalanine in it and hardly ever have a panic attack anymore. Its amazing really what a difference it has made. I am so convinced that its the root of a ton of health problems that I actually called the FDA at one point to file a complaint and ask how they could say that the stuff was safe. Its a lab made chemical that causes a slew of different physical symptoms in not only me, but in countless other people. I can go down that list and check off at least 20 that I have from just one stick of gum. This is my PSA for the week: QUIT EATING THAT STUFF!!

So, I think the FDA likes to pretend that some things are OK for you that are really NOT OK for you. I'll hound them until the day I have an actual meltdown from something that is secretly stocked with aspartame. I'll start to go numb and my heart will race. Then I'll tick like a machine and obsess over something I ate at the mall that was recently injected with Ebola or some other deadly virus. I'll walk my anxious butt to the steps of the FDA and show them first hand what a bunch of b.s. their safety code is. And while they're at it, I'll google up some graphs on why you shouldn't microwave your beans in plastic and whatnot. I'm going to use my OCD for the greater good. I'm going to save you all from NutraSweet (AKA Phenylalanine, AKA Aspartame) and whatever else I find to obsess over. You'd just better pray that my compulsive side kicks in too. 

So, What are your obsessions? Compulsions? Do you have any? Did I freak you out with this completely random babble of a post?