Homemade Soda

                         

Let me start by saying, there are few things in life that get me as excited as anything kitchen related - especially kitchen gadgets. I've been contemplating purchasing the Sodastream for a couple of years now. After a necessary(?) trip to Costco today, I bit the bullet and came home with one. Yay! Merry late Christmas to me? Sure.

We are lucky to get our water from an artesian well and let me tell you, it's the best tasting water I've ever had. I never buy bottled water anymore, but I do love sparkling water (and the occasional soda) and up until now I've had to buy it from the store. I'm thrilled to create my own fizzy water at home! 

Here is what I'm not so thrilled about - the syrups that come with the Sodastream. All of them contain sucralose, also known as Splenda. And a plethora of other cancer causing chemicals. Is it really that hard to create a healthy soda? 

So off to Google I go, to search for a healthy syrup recipe. Let me just say, there are a lot of bloggers out there creating some great recipes and a lot of bloggers that don't have a clue what 'healthy' really means. Sigh. Someone actually created a syrup from Kool-Aid powder and tried to call it healthier than the Sodastream syrups. Um...no. 

Then I cam across a great recipe using just fruits, herbs and honey. Simple, delish, and good for you. Provided that you are using organic fruits/herbs and raw, local honey. I had organic strawberries on hand and fresh mint that is somehow surviving in my severely neglected winter garden. Strawberry Mint syrup it is! I can't claim this recipe, so here is a link to the original creator:  

http://www.theyummylife.com/Fruit_Herb_Honey_Syrups

If you like to add a little flavor to your fizzy water, try out the honey based syrup. I may even use the syrup to flavor an herbal or green tea. It's worth the little bit of effort to feel good about what goes into your body. Homemade, organic syrup for your Sodastream! No more nasty chemicals and a soda you can feel good about drinking!

The best thing about Christmas...

....is having children to create the magic of the season for. This year my son is four years old and could not be more excited about all things Christmas than if I took him to the North Pole to visit Santa Claus himself. The greatest thing about my little guy is how much he believes. It is with every fiber of his being that he truly embodies the Christmas spirit. That makes it all the more fun to bake cookies, build gingerbread houses, compose letters to Santa, and indulge in the hilarity of the Elf on the Shelf. Our little elf is the first thing on my son's mind when he wakes up each morning. He is so eager to know what kind of mischief the elf has gotten himself into overnight. Here are a few pictures of our elf, Faccu and his adventures around our home. (Yes, Faccu. Don't ask). 

If you are interested to know how I made our elf able to be posed, the trick is 16 gauge jewelry wire, piped into his arms and legs. Using a stitch ripper, I removed one stitch from both the arms and legs, bent the end of the jewelry wire with needle-nose pliers (so it won't poke through the little elf) piped the wire up the inside of the arms/legs, trimmed the wire to fit and again bent the end of the wire. Then tucked the wire into the ends of the hands/feet and sewed the stitch back into place with a simple needle and thread. I then cut small pieces of Velcro to fit the size of his mittens and hand sewed the Velcro to the bottom of each hand. If you want to make him stand up, to walk the little dog perhaps, simply create a doll stand out of the same jewelry wire used to create his bendy arms and legs. Easy peasy!

Think you're covered? Think again. Obamacare could bite you in the ass too.

The day I found out I was pregnant with my first son, I was in shock. He wasn't planned or expected, but he is certainly the greatest joy in my life. When my husband and I decided to expand our family with another child, I assumed I would have the same easy experience in conceiving a baby as I did with my first. Not so, and I spent a year of our lives on an emotional roller coaster waiting for those two little pink lines to appear, month after month. Finally, this last spring, it happened. We were overjoyed. It had been a long year. 

All the while, a storm was brewing. A political storm in far away Washington DC, that I couldn't do anything to stop. Decisions were made, deceptions sold, and now we are dealing with the fallout. Earlier this month, I received a letter from our health insurance company letting me know that my current plan was being canceled, but I was being rolled over into an equivalent plan beginning January 1, 2014. I was surprised, but had already seen changes to our insurance over the previous two years due to Obamacare. I was most surprised and disappointed to learn that we would be paying much more money for a plan with less coverage. I only wish this was where my surprises and disappointments would end. 

I am due to give birth to our second son on January 7, 2014. After hearing a report that many doctors are not accepting certain insurance plans, I decided to look up my own new plan to see where we would be covered. I just assumed that because my doctor currently accepts my insurance company, that wouldn't change. But, like a slap in the face, I was wrong. In fact, not only does my doctor not accept my insurance company, neither does the hospital I am scheduled to deliver my baby, nor does my older son's pediatrician. Come January 2014, we may as well not be insured. Was it easy to find this information? The answer is...sort of. I really had to do some digging to find out where we would be covered as well as what insurance companies are accepted with our current doctors and hospitals. I wonder, how many people will seek out this information on their own? Or will they too assume they are covered with their current insurance company?

I don't want to turn this post into a liberal vs. conservative political debate, so I'll refrain from expressing too much disgust. I simply want to encourage everyone to start asking their doctors, hospitals, urgent care centers and specialists what insurance companies they accept. You may be surprised to learn it is not yours. 

For my family, we will be changing insurance companies beginning January 1, 2014. Which means we begin all new deductibles and cross our fingers the transition goes as planned. It's not a great way to enjoy bringing a new life into the world, but baby, get used to it.

Raw Vegan Peanut Butter Cups

In my attempt to eat as 'clean' as possible throughout my pregnancy, I cannot seem to escape the cravings. Why I can't crave kale, I'll never know. Instead, I want salty, sweet and fatty. I'm sure it is all part of a master plan that the universe has to get me to gain as much weight as possible by January. Or perhaps it is just my subconscious telling me to go ahead and enjoy life rather than stress about it. Either way, I want chocolate. 

So here is a raw, vegan, gluten-free, refined sugar-free, all natural peanut butter cup. Just the right snack to help me stick with my clean eating plan and satisfy my cravings. 

                         

Peanut Butter Cups!

Base

3/4 C raw almonds

1/4 C rolled oats

2 T natural peanut butter

1.5 T warmed coconut oil

1.5 T grade B maple syrup

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp vanilla

Pinch of salt

Topping

3 T melted coconut oil 

3 T grade B maple syrup 

2 T cocoa powder

Pinch of salt

Combine almonds and oats in a high speed blender and blend until a flour forms. Dump flour into a bowl and using your fingers break up any clumps. 

Add peanut butter, oil, syrup, cinnamon, vanilla and salt. Stir until combined and mixture resembles a sticky cookie dough. 

Portion the dough into mini-muffin tins, about half full. Press down until firmly compacted. 

For the chocolate sauce: whisk melted coconut oil, syrup, cocoa powder and salt until a smooth sauce forms. Spoon sauce over the top of each cup, distributing evenly. 

Let set in freezer for 45 minutes. Use a butter knife to pop out the cups and enjoy! (Best when eaten right out if the freezer). 

* adapted from ohsheglows.com

The Hungry Ass

Yesterday, I had a precious sixty minutes to myself while my son spent some quality time with his grandmother. He probably snacked on cookies, ice cream and straight sugar, but she could probably give him crack and I would look the other way just to get my much needed alone time. So while my son was playing junkie at grandma's, I decided to head to one of my favorite sandwich shops for lunch.

I walked into the empty cafe with its narrow walkway near the deli counter, savoring the quiet. After placing my to-go order, I sat down at a small table to wait. A few minutes of peaceful meditation and the door swings open as four ladies enter the cafe. While viewing the chalkboard menu, one of the women stands within inches of my table with her back side toward my face. She then backs up the mere few inches and sits on my table. Yes, puts her actual butt cheeks on the table. Now, I don't know about you, but I was under the impression that butts are one of, if not the most, unsanitary parts of a human body. Also, not sure if you know, but a long time ago someone invented the chair. I'm talking ancient Greece, 600 B.C. the chair was invented. I think you get my point - asses belong in chairs.

At one point the table wobbles, the woman stands up and turns to face me. I made a disgusted face and looked her straight in the eye, assuming she would understand the feelings of abhorrence radiating from my eyes. Instead, she mutters, "oh sorry" and shifts her weight to be more centered on the table and promptly sits back down. I finally stood up and moved to the empty counter to wait for my sandwich away from the lunching ladies and let her have the table. But not before snapping this picture to post here and on Facebook.

Don't read this blog! It's about you...

Any time I need to amp up my writing skills, I try to use writing prompts to get my creative juices flowing. One of my favorite websites for prompts is plinky.com. With the upcoming anthology, I really need to work on my writing skills. And Facebook status updates don't count. So after a too long hiatus of quality writing, I have committed myself to daily literary exercises. The Plinky prompt I received in my email inbox recently was this: Who is the one person you do not want to read your blog? Why?

This is an interesting question for me. I often times find myself censoring my blog posts or writing cryptically about a situation as to avoid someone connecting the dots on a story being about them. I have no idea if I am successful in this effort. I also have plenty of saved drafts that never made it to publication because there was simply no way to spin the story into a generic blog post. Or sometimes I am simply too annoyed to write with any decorum.

To me, writing is a symbol of freedom. A freedom of expression that can either be private or public depending on how transparent you want to be. Would I share the same feelings in my blog that I do with my best friend? Well, I haven't so far. If it were that easy to be honest about my feelings, I would either have much stronger relationships or none at all. So, who is the one person that I would not want to read my blog? No one. But, I do believe this is a challenge for me to be more expressive in my relationships. After all, I would much rather hear from a good friend, face-to-face, how she is feeling about me than read it in a public blog.

Call for Submissions

I am so excited, thrilled and pleased to announce a call for submissions for the commercial fishing anthology that has been in the works for several years. Along with my fellow commercial fishing wife/mother and author, Jen Karuza Schile, we are moving forward in producing this new literary project. 

This anthology will feature stories from the perspective of modern fishing families and life 'off the boat'. We have all seen or at least heard of Deadliest Catch, the popular crab-fishing reality television show on the Discovery Channel. We watch them battle each other, wicked weather and rough seas, but who are these men at home? Who are their wives, children, mothers and fathers? What would life be like without your husband for months at a time? Could you do it? Well, these families do and if you are part of one of these unique commercial fishing families, then we want to hear your story. If you know someone who would be interested in telling their story, please direct them our way. 

For more detailed information regarding this project and submission guidelines, please follow the link below.

http://jenkaruzaschile.com/submit-your-story

Looks like somebody has a case of the Mondays...

Mondays are historically my most productive day. I wonder if most people feel that way. I always feel energized on Mondays, the other days of the week, not so much. Today, I actually followed through with one of my many 'home improvement' ideas. I've been on the hunt for the perfect headboard and still have been unable to find it for a price I can stomach spending the cash on. Which led me to making my own upholstered headboard.

After clearing out our basement for a remodel we are starting (more on that later), we came across a large piece of plywood. All it needed was a couple easy cuts and it was the perfect size. Next, a trip to the craft store had me armed with fabric, batting and a nail head trim.

Completed in one day and under a hundred bucks!

The bulk of the money was spent on the fabric. I wanted it to be affordable, but still use high quality materials. I went with a thick linen in a smooth flax color.

Here is a list of materials needed:
3 yards of upholstery grade fabric
Nail head trim kit
Queen size high-loft batting
Mallet
Needle nose pliers
Scissors
Staple gun with 1/2" staples
3/4" plywood (36"x70")
French cleat (for hanging on the wall)

Start by laying your fabric flat on the floor. Next place the batting, folded in half, on top of the fabric. Then place the plywood on top of the batting. Make sure all sides are even and straight. Start by stretching the batting tightly over the plywood and staple in the middle. Move to the opposite side and repeat. Continue working like this until the batting is secure. For the corners, make a diagonal cut with scissors close to the corner (but not all the way), then fold and staple one over the other.

Next, do the same process with the fabric. For the corners, start at the point and fold the middle in first and staple. Then fold in the sides and neatly lay the fabric flat before stapling.

Once the fabric is secure, turn the headboard over. Mark the edges with painter's tape. Use the edge as a guide for the nailhead trim. Using the mallet, hammer the tacks in place. At the corners, always start the next side with a tack. You may need to snip the trim of a few 'faux' tacks to make this possible. Remove the tape and voila! Your new upholstered headboard is complete.

Using a French cleat, or picture hanging cleat, secure the headboard to your wall. Just don't forget to secure it to the studs. I used a stud finder. Just a heads up, the headboard took me about an hour to finish. Hanging the thing took up the rest of my day. Finding the cleats, measuring, measuring again, finding the studs, measuring again. Two trips to Home Depot, one trip to Ace Hardware. You get the idea.

The verdict: I'm thrilled with my new headboard. I can't wait for my husband to come home from Alaska to find a completed room. Including a bed skirt, honey.

I survived...

10 minutes into my Facebook cleanse and I'm having withdrawals. Thank god for Pinterest. And blogging. You didn't think I'd go away completely, did you? Sorry peeps, no such luck.

I shut down my page at midnight, knowing that I would just go right to sleep afterwards. I've noticed that after I put my son to sleep at night, I spend the remainder of the evening with my face in front of electronics. It's the only time of the day that I have that opportunity, but it also can make for some late nights. Do you know how much stuff is out there on the Internet?

I read a study that says electronic screens before going to bed are too stimulating for the brain and inhibit sleep. Considering that I frequently suffer from insomnia, I decided to commit to a 10pm bedtime. Just get in bed by ten o'clock and leave the iPad, phone and TV remotes alone! I tried it last night and at first I was tossing and turning. I'm so accustomed to having the TV on before sleep that the silence was giving me anxiety. So, I cheated, just a little. I used my phone to download a sleep machine app. I turned on soothing beach waves and spa music and set the timer for one hour. I was convinced I would still be awake by the end of the hour, but I was at least going to try. Well, I didn't make it an hour. I actually fell asleep. Hallelujah! Committing to an earlier bedtime actually worked. The next thing I knew I was awakened by my phone ringing at 3:30am. (It was my husband. It's just part of being a fisherman's wife). Five hours of blissful, uninterrupted sleep. The other miracle is that my son was still in his own bed, but that is a whole other post. The added benefit to better sleep was my renewed energy this morning that helped push me out the door on a freezing morning walk. My Facebook cleanse is already helping me to develop healthier habits.

Sleep training for adults, what a concept.

Living Without Facebook: a personal and social experiment

I'm leaving Facebook. For five years, Facebook has played a big role in my social life and has allowed me to connect with friends and family that I wouldn't otherwise have had such easy access to. It has seen me through the birth of my son, my marriage, moving towns, political elections, career connections and newsworthy topics. But, it has also given way to misinterpretations, accusations and judgements. I've never been afraid to speak my mind or give my opinion and while it has backfired on me a time or two in 'real life', it is no where near the amount of times on Facebook. 

People use online profiles for a number of reasons. Education, dating, special interests, hobbies, professional advancement, bullying, porn - you name it, it's out there. It also gives us the option of hiding behind our computer screens and saying all the things we would never say to a person's face. So while I am on my Facebook hiatus, I am challenging myself to reconnect with my friends and family in a more direct and humanistic way. I want to sit across a table from my best friend, with coffee in my hand, rather than watch her children grow up in pictures. I want to challenge myself to pursue new areas of interest or rekindle old ones. 

Why now? I realized today that most of the people I'm 'friends' with on Facebook don't really know me. And I don't know them. I find their posts, pictures, and comments interesting and entertaining - which is great. But, I don't know what's in their heart, which to me is the truth of a real friendship. Yesterday, I got blasted on Facebook for a few comments I made regarding a hot button issue. And the person that blasted me had been trolling my posts and comments over the last few months (or maybe years) and had compiled those statements into a character that she believes encompasses all of me. True, everything she read came from me; but she didn't have the opportunity to know if the comment was written with sarcasm, or anger, or excitement, or if it was off the cuff, or with happiness, sadness or jubilation or if it was simply a bad joke. So while I made a few casual statements in support of a 'friend', the blaster took that and everything else she knew of me from my online persona and threw it in my Facebook face. The things she wrote made me feel angry and hurt, but mostly it made me feel vulnerable. Not to mention a few hundred people were able to see it. I realized that I have put pictures of my child, my husband, my friends and myself all over my page. I've written posts and made comments that are mostly random thoughts or knee-jerk reactions and often time just simply out of boredom. I have let the world into my life and never considered how it appears from outside looking in.

So, I'm signing off for now and will return when I feel the time is right. I'll try to track my findings and progress here and will hopefully make a return to Facebook with fresh eyes and a full heart.

5 new ways to avoid the flu this year.

If your household has been lucky enough to have avoided the flu so far this season, congratulations. Our home was hit last month and it was a miracle our marriage survived. Two sick and irritated adults in one home is enough to drive us over the edge. I am fairly certain our son carried the virus home from preschool, yet managed to avoid contracting it. Thanks, kid.

There is no fool-proof way to avoid the flu and we are all aware of the common ways to try to ward it off such as, wash your hands, stay away from sick people, get a flu shot, etc. But here are a five more ways that you may not have considered:

1. Eat Red and Green Hot Peppers. You can get 303% of your daily recommended vitamin C in just a half cup. That is three times the amount of an orange! Vitamin C strengthens the immune system by increasing the number and quality of white blood cells.

2. Avoid sugar. Sugar has the opposite effect of Vitamin C in that it impairs immune function. Viral cells love sugar and sugar slows down our white blood cells, which are necessary for fighting off infection.

3. Buy a new toothbrush - toothbrushes can harbor viruses and prolong the illness. Dental Health plays a vital role in our overall health. Think about it, our mouth is the gateway to our internal body.

4. Go heavy on the garlic. This wonder food has potent antiviral and antibacterial properties.

5. Eat Sweet Potatoes. Sweet potatoes are rich in Vitamin A, a powerful antioxidant and immunity booster.

The importance of the GMO.

Genetically Modified Organisms, or GMO's, are in nearly 80% of the foods in our grocery stores. That means that most of us are eating at least one GMO food a day. This is a problem.

But let's jump back a bit and start with a question: What are GMO's and why should we be worried about them? GMO's were first introduced in the 1990's as a means to increase crop growth and inhibit pest and insect degradation. Sounds good so far, right? Of course we would want to grow more foods at a faster rate while also decreasing the amount of loss due to bugs. Picture this, a scientist in a lab holding a single seed and needing to find a way to make that seed resistant to insects. So he injects the seed with pesticide, plants it in the ground and now the plant is a complete turn off to pests because it has been grown with the pesticide already inside the plant. Now imagine that plant is a soybean or kernel of corn. Now imagine that corn on your dinner plate. A delicious plate of pesticides.

Now let's talk about pesticides and what is in them. Aldicarb, paraquat, maneb, atrizine, and cyanide. Most likely, you have only heard of cyanide, or rat poison, and we all know the end result. Here are just a few known illnesses related to the use of the other pesticides listed; neurological problems including, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and epilepsy, nerve damage, loss of neurons in the brain, breast cancer, severe food allergies and ADHD. And those are just a few.

I mentioned two very specific crops earlier: corn and soy. The top two crops grown in the U.S. And nearly all are genetically engineered. Why? Because both corn and soy are extremely versatile and cheap to grow and process. Take a look at a box of cereal and you will most likely see both corn and soy listed in the ingredients. Which you can now be guaranteed that pesticide is an ingredient as well. Now take a look at any other boxed, canned and processed food label. Corn and/or soy, right? You may see things like, soy protein isolate, soy lecithin, high fructose corn syrup, and modified corn starch. All of these will not only contain pesticides but also have been highly processed to the point of being unrecognizable to their original plant form and are now simply a chemical derivative.

So what do we do about it now that we know about it? The easy answer is to buy organic foods and stop buying boxed and processed foods. But, we all know that we are tight on money and schedules and let's face it, organic is costlier and cooking absolutely everything from scratch is a full-time job. Now imagine you have the option of knowing which foods include GMO's. So when you want to buy a simple box of cereal, you know if you are getting a dose of cancer with it or the safe non-GMO ingredients. We have the power as voters and consumers to change the way our food is labeled. Washington state will soon be voting on Initiative-522, to require the labeling of GMO foods and ingredients. The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) has also just recently declared that GMO salmon can begin production. So now instead of fresh wild salmon, you will be fed farmed GMO salmon and not even have the option of knowing what it is or why.


Now that you know, what will you do?