Happy Halloween!

So I'm slightly later than usual this year, but I still was able to enjoy myself today:

A black cat crossed my path...and is now laying near my feet on the porch...
My pumpkin got carved, the extra flesh was cleaned and saved....
And the seeds were washed, spiced, and roasted. This year I tried something new and cooked them with olive oil, rosemary, and garlic salt...delicious! Give it a try!

I'm not sure if we'll have any trick or treaters tonight or not. I bought a bag of candy just in case and we'll give it out until we run out if kids do come. The weather predicted rain but after morning showers, I'm currently sitting in a big ray of sunshine on the back porch, so who knows what the evening will bring. Hope you all are enjoying a beautiful day!

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

THIS SITE IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION. Which means that I'm not satisfied with the new header, but I'm liking the use of the whole page. I am struggling with finding a picture to use that I feel represents what I'm going for here....Any feedback?

Weekend Fall Pictures

Another wonderfully relaxing weekend spent with my granny. We ran her errands, enjoyed the Scottish Reformation Sunday service (complete with bagpipers and tartan flags), indulged in her delicious homemade pumpkin pie, watched World Series games over glasses of beer, walked around the lake, and just enjoyed each other's company. I also got in some short but quality time with my siblings that live locally. It's incredible to me just how much I can get done and enjoy when I'm removed from internet access! :-)

Oh Disney, How You Let Me Down

While I appreciate your reply, I am NOT pleased with your response. Striving for cleanliness in terms of killing most bacteria, while necessary, should not be the only focus when considering the healthy option for cleaning products. You should also be looking at the long term health effects of certain chemicals. When most "safe" levels are based on the adult body, it is incredible to me that your corporation would continue to deem these as appropriate products when you appeal mainly to children. Who knew that a corporation based mainly on the short term happiness of the nation's children (and obviously the short-term health) would not worry about and take into consideration the long-term life of an individual. Safer (and cheaper) alternatives are readily available that would allow your corporation to fully support your claim to care about the health of your clientele.

No need to reply to this again, as you will not change my opinion. When Disney has the financial and marketing capacity to truly step out for the nation's children, it is disheartening to realize that this corporation is just one more example of a "greenwashing" industry.

Please know that until these standards change I will be advocating for my family and friends to avoid taking their children to your locations.

However I do hope you all have an enjoyable day. Differences of opinion aside, we are all still human.

Thanks,
Simply Authentic

--- On Thu, 10/23/08, WDW Guest Communications wrote:
From: WDW Guest Communications WDW.Guest.Communications@disneyworld.com
Subject: Email from the Walt Disney World Resort

Dear Ms. Simply Authentic,
We appreciate your interest in how we utilize environmentally-friendly
cleaning products here at the Walt Disney World® Resort.
We are very proud of our ongoing commitment to the environment as well
as our reputation for providing our Guests with a clean, safe
atmosphere. Our first focus is to ensure that the millions of visitors
enjoying our facilities are provided with sanitary guest rooms,
restaurants and restrooms.
We are using only products we consider safe
for our Cast Members and our Guests, including many
environmentally-friendly products. We hope you will be pleased to learn
that we have an entire team dedicated to evaluating the content and
effectiveness of eco-friendly formulas, and when appropriate, these new
products are integrated into our cleaning protocols.
Rest assured we will never compromise the health and safety of our
Guests by using a product that does not meet our sanitizing standards.
Thank you again for taking the time to write. Please know that it is
our intention to provide the safest and cleanest surroundings for all
Guests who visit the Walt Disney World® Resort. If you have additional
questions, please provide a telephone number, and we will be happy to
follow up with you.
Sincerely,
Executive Offices
Walt Disney World® Resort

------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------
Dear Mr. Montgomery,,
I am deeply concerned with growing evidence that toxic chemicals in
everyday products are contributing to serious illnesses in children.
In Disney's Animal Kingdom, unnecessary toxic cleaning products that
would harm the animals are banned. However, those same products are used
around children in your parks, restaurants and hotels. Disney's
environmental policy states that your company follows its environmental
policy with 'significant responsibility in mind', but instead continues
to expose your youngest guests to harmful chemicals through toxic
cleaning products when safer alternatives exist.
Please transition all your parks, hotels, and restaurants to certified
green cleaning products and procedures this year. By making this simple
change, you will protect all your guest's and employee's health, and
become a true environmental and health leader in the tourism industry.
In an effort to decrease un-necessary resource usage, if you are to
reply please do so via email.
Simply Authentic

Pumpkin Patch Fun

Cooper the cow.

A couple of pictures from the trip to the pumpkin patch and corn maze last weekend. One of my good buddies from high school came up and I took him out to Sauvie Island where there is acres of fabulous farm land. I'm hoping to spend one of these afternoons soon carving pumpkins with my housemate!

On the property, they had a variety of areas. As you can see, there was the large corn maze and huge fields of pumpkins. There also was a flower garden, a kids play area, and then vendors selling many types of squash and pumpkins. They also had a barn area set up with different animals: goats, chicks, sheep, the pig, a calf, a cow, a llama. In the barn however there was also an interesting display based upon high fructose corn syrup. The owners had placed about 20 products and placed a sign saying that every product except one contained high fructose corn syrup in it. It was a pretty easy guess I thought as to which one didn't contain it (maple syrup), but it was a great visual to show people how many common food items contain this subsidized addition.

So a little bit of education, a little bit of land, a little bit of farm animals, and a little bit of fun--what better way is there to spend a Saturday afternoon?

Transitions to Frugality

I'm currently writing from my cubicle on campus. As many of you know, I have been working as a research assistant this term for a former professor and thus now have my own space on campus. I'm just about to walk down to the MAX stop in order to transport home, hopefully beginning The Body Toxic on my train ride. Before I go though, I wanted to briefly write about the conversation I had this afternoon with some fellow graduate students/friends.

One of these individuals mentioned needing to live a more frugal existence and of course I responded with something along the lines of "oh that's right up my alley!" He then went over how much money he spends on a given week just for eating out and some of his other typical expenses. I was completely astounded! However they both were astonished at how little I do spend on groceries and going out expenses. It made me realize that even when I feel that I have been spending a lot, that I'm still far below others in my same age category.

So in an attempt to help, I did offer several suggestions for ways to cut back on expenses. Some of these suggestions included maintaining his current lifestyle but selecting cheaper options, and others were based on completely changing his current spending patterns. However in some ways I feel like the suggestions I offered probably went in one ear and out the other. When it's all said and done it DOES require a lifestyle change to majorly save money.

However that being said, I don't know that I feel that I miss out on much by only going out a couple of times a month with friends. Nor do I feel that I am short changing individuals in my life if I ask them to come hang out at my home over a cup of tea, rather than meet out somewhere. I also don't feel that by growing some of my own food, shopping mainly on the outer edges of the grocery store, and attempting to bring food from home most of the time that I am missing out nutritionally. When I buy a portion of my clothes second-hand, forgo most major name brands, and alter/create/repair items to wear, I still get many compliments on the way I dress. Instead I feel that my life is enriched by these choices and many more.

Sometimes it's just meeting people where they are though, and then slowly opening their eyes to other options that exist (and enrich). In the last week, I have had encouraging news from another friend, who really has taken my advice about paying off debts and is now hacking away at what he owes. While it can be an uphill battle at times, sometimes once you've made it over those first mounds the rush of no debt can be one of the best feelings of all. It's a feeling I'm looking forward to having myself again...that is...once I get these student loans payed off. ;-)

To home I go. Hope you all are having frugal evenings at home! Enjoy!

An enjoyable afternoon

After receiving my box of produce today, I thoroughly enjoyed getting out my cookbooks and searching for ways to prepare the bounty of produce I received today. One of my recent goals has been to try to prepare food that I can take with me in my lunch throughout the week. While I'm a huge fan of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, I also believe I could probably benefit from a more varied diet during the week. Yet, when I'm busy, it seems the last thing I really want to do is put effort into anything other than pb&j.

So what a great afternoon! I chopped cucumbers, bell peppers, onions, olives, and tomatoes before adding in cooked rotini and italian dressing for a pasta salad. I made a huge pot of brown rice which was used for my bell pepper, tomato, soy cheese, olive, and rice quesadillas tonight, and provided me with enough left over that I can easily create several other dishes out of it. I brought in the basil plant off the back porch to remind me to make and freeze pesto in the next couple of days. And throughout the afternoon, sunshine streamed through the kitchen, a local musician crooned from the stereo, and the cats wandered around aimlessly.

Even after dinner and the salad, I still have an entire drawer full of produce and all that stuff in the freezer still to use. I learned that the greens that I had no clue about are collards, so I'll have to come up with some way to use them...or pass them off to my housemate. I never expected that cooking and veggies could make me so happy, but playing around with produce was one of the best parts of my day.

Some other beautiful parts to this day included:
-waking up to the sound of rain on my roof and the hollowness of my windchime
-crunching through the red, rust, and yellow leaves
-sitting on the back porch to finish my reading and enjoying the intermittent sun and rain passing by
-scritching the heads of cats and hearing their contented purrs
-the feel of leaves as I ran my hand across multiple bushes
-the 2 beautiful roses blooming on the newly hacked bush
-a mid afternoon phone call with my father
-a supportive chat session with my sister
-and researching local organic food options for my SIL

I hope you all have been passing through a beautiful day yourselves!

Food, food, glorious food

Okay, so I've pretty much been bristling with excitement like a kid on Christmas. Not only have I been prancing around through leaves on my walk downtown today, but I was at the front door to retrieve my delivery this afternoon before the van had even left the curb. Today was my first Organics to You delivery and now my little side of the fridge is packed! So exciting!

This what the delivery box actually looked like:


It contained:
2 little acorn squash, 2 big onions, 4 red potatoes, 6 apples, a bunch of carrots, a head of cabbage, a bag of grapes, 2 large tomatoes, 1 red pepper, 3 pears, 2 large cucumbers, a bunch of leeks, and a bunch of green leafy things that I have no clue what they are (I'm sure my housemate will though). I am currently signed up for a once a month delivery, as it will take me about that long to get through all of that probably. I still had a bunch of veggies left from the past month, and my side of the freezer still has plenty of items in it as well.
Add to that the leeks, spinach, arugula, collards, beets, and other greens my housemate has growing in the back yard, and I think I'm pretty well set. Mainly all I have to buy from the store is bread (which truthfully I know I could make my own) and soy milk. Very nice.

All of this comes as I've been reading this week about population growth, food, and hunger throughout the world.....Such a sad topic, as enough food exists to feed everyone on the planet--it just doesn't get distributed fairly. I never knew that many low-income countries actually produce a large quantity of food, but they depend upon the money they can make from exporting it. Can you imagine? Growing food, watching your children and fellow citizens be hungry, and yet because of the world market, needing to sell that food in order to feed your children substandard fare....
Makes me desire all the more to eat even more local, although I'm sure there is much more to the story than I know....

Food for Thought

On Thursday evening, I joined a group for a birthday celebration at a well known chain restaurant in the suburbs of Portland. It was the birthday of my friend's wife, who is the mother of the adorable little baby. However I didn't realize that I was going to have to be such a "back-to-nature" proponent at the table. We all know that "breast is best," and I feel it's unfortunate that our society has taken a negative view of mothers' breast-feeding in public. My friend's wife has been very good at only feeding the baby breast milk, and in the middle of dinner the little guy became hungry.

We were sitting in the corner of an alcove in the restaurant and the mother had a blanket draped over her shoulder, yet my friend (the father) was disgruntled at the idea of his wife diminishing the baby's hunger by breast feeding at the table. Fortunately for the baby, my buddy was outnumbered by females at the table, and I appeased him by hunting down restaurant management to ask if breast feeding was against restaurant policy. The response was that no policy was in existence yet that management was grateful that we had asked. I couldn't help but give more of my opinion when management came back to talk to us about it again a few minutes later. In my opinion, it's a pretty sad day in society when we have to ask permission for the most natural feeding event in existence to occur in public.

Sometimes I can't help but wonder when society is going to recognize that what we've created is a facade instead of the reality of natural existence.

Life as of Late

My half of the parsnips that we planted out at my aunt's in the spring. They harvested 86 total and several of these are 2-3 inches across. For free seeds that I got from a Gerontology event, they did very well. A wonderful afternoon spent out at the aunt's including tasty carrot and parsnip soup made from scratch. My lil' car was used today to get out there, the first time in a week as my main mode of transport these days is foot and the MAX line.And speaking of the MAX...I noticed this last week several small poems, mainly about nature, posted on the upper walls of each train. It's nice to see that they are encouraging riders to take a moment to appreciate a wonderful art form that often can quiet one's soul. This one reads: "In spring, asleep, I'm not aware of dawn, till I'm surrounded, with the cry of birds. Last night arrived, with a sound of wind and rain--who knows how many blossoms, drifted down?"--Lois Baker

The kitties here are enjoying a bit of sunlight streaming in through my bedroom window. They have taken to sleeping inside of my curtain if I leave it down during the day and the door to my bedroom open. Moments before I snapped this they were entwined in a big hug.

And this was taken downtown last week when I walked out of my building after a day of work. In our family, rainbows are very symbolic not only due to God's covenant but also as a major memory of the patience, love, and life of my Poppa. Moments after his passing five years ago, several of our family members spotted rainbows in the sky. To this day whenever we see one, we can't help but remember the wisdom and the legacy that he left us, the love that he had for us, and his desire that each one of us be the best that we knew how to be. On this particular day, his memory was exactly what I needed to quiet my soul and renew my strength for the week ahead.

Small still moments, blessings, gifts---whatever you want to call them, they quiet the soul and are there whenever we are willing to see them.

Energy/Oil & Some Politics

This term I'm taking an environmental sociology course as part of my MPH load. This coming week's focus is on energy. So in an effort to share what I'm thinking about, I decided the easiest way to do this might be to just attempt to highlight things that stick out to me and post them here.

From the reading:

Harper, Charles L. (2008). Environment and Society: Human Perspectives on Environmental Issues. Pearson Prentice Hall.

-Between 1890 and 1990, total global energy consumption increased by 14x.

-Dependence on oil shapes foreign policy problems, including our current situation in Iraq.

-At current consumption rates, 80% of known oil reserves will last for another 40-90 years. (Hence "peak oil crisis" which is to arive between 2010 and 2020).

-The above estimate does not take into consideration the growing economies, production, & consumption of other nations (such as India and China).

-One American consumes as much energy as 3 Japanese, 6 Mexicans, 14 Chinese, 38 Indians, 168 Bangladeshis, 280 Nepalis, or 531 Ethiopians.

-By 2100, most estimates are that the world would need 4x the amount of energy that is produced today.

-The "cost" of energy that we pay today does NOT include pollution clean-up, military spending on protecting our sources, medical bills & insurance premiums due to air quality issues, noise pollution, time wasted in traffic jams, loss of biodiversity, government tax breaks for oil companies. I can't help but wonder if we would pay for it, if we had to include the total costs of items such as this.

-Natural gas, while a cleaner fossil fuel, is imported primarily from Canada to the U.S. and is expected to peak between 2020 and 2030.

-Currently the U.S. only utilizes 7% of its total energy from alternative sources (hydro, wind, solar). Estimates are that alternative sources has the capability to produce half the world's energy within the next 50 years. ....Now if only someone would fund it.....

To see how the presidental candidates compare on energy issues, please go here.

I'm not a huge fan of Obama's support for "clean" coal, nor that both of them are open to nuclear. But at least it gives a better idea of how they stand on a variety of energy categories.

Personally I'm all about the wind and the sun:

Healthy Living Fair

Ever wanted to know about the products that effect women? Then it would have been wise to attend the Healthy Living Fair in Portland organized by Rachel's Friends. This fair is put on annually, so if you missed it today there is always next year, and this event is incredibly informative.

Today's key note speaker was Portland's own Nena Baker, the author of The Body Toxic. I would encourage everyone to get their hands on a copy of this book, as it takes a look at many of the chemicals that the average American carries. Nena actually paid to have her own body burden analyzed, and the results are described in her writing. Her book arrives after the Oregon Environmental Council's study of the chemical body burdens of 10 average Oregonians. The report from that can be found on the OEC website, or through the link HERE. Needless to say, the average person is carrying more chemicals than we wish to admit, regardless of how careful we try to live our lives.

Following Nena's talk, which wrapped up with the lack of bans on dangerous products from federal entities and the fact that consumers have become today's "regulators," Renee Hackenmiller-Paradis from the OEC introduced two upcoming Oregon bills. One bill, the Healthy Schools Act, focuses on promoting "green" schools (which actually is a cost-benefit plan) through green cleaning, green construction, and more preventative efforts in dealing with pests. The other bill, The Children's Safe Products Act, will be attempting to ban certain chemicals from children's products. If you are an Oregon voter, PLEASE check out both bills and send your support to your legislators during the upcoming session. When American children today are born with an average of 200 toxins in their cord blood, it's important that we attempt to contain the additional toxins they are exposed to throughout their lifetime.

Additionally, I found several great new resources. One is a Portland mineral make-up company called Alima. When searched in the Safe Cosmetics Database they result in a low-moderate rating, but in terms of make-up are some of the safest I've found. They are also a Portland based company and include a jar return program. I also signed up for a once a month delivery of produce from Organics to You, which is a spin off of the CSA movement. Organics to You delivers organic produce gathered from a variety of local farms to your doorstep, if you live in the Portland area. For the new mothers there was also Mother Nature's Baby Store...finally a good place to buy baby products for all my friends having babies. (Nothing makes me cringe more than going to a baby shower filled with toxic products these days).

So while a lot of this information may not apply to my international friends, hopefully those of you that are local will check out some of these resources and issues. And any of you will hopefully be interested in Nena Baker's book. I've been slightly out of commission with the new term and the beginning of the research project...but the good news is that I feel that I'm finally finding my nitch (and that there are opportunities to use it). I hope you all have been feeling equally blessed, even amongst all the economic drama of our world. The best to all of you!

Satisfaction in Accomplishments

This weekend I felt such satisfaction in my soul and it came at such a minuscule moment. I was driving along the windy, lovely back road between my granny's and my siblings' towns, and a feeling of immense satisfaction overtook me. Maybe it's the comfort that comes with the coming of fall. Maybe it was the whipping wind, the turning of the leaves, and the drops of rain-a reminder of nature and how alive we all are. Maybe it was the slowness that becomes routine when I spend a weekend at granny's. Maybe it was the anticipation of seeing my family members, even if just briefly with each one. Maybe it was the fulfillment of delivering a "get well" package to my cold-ridden cousin. Maybe it was the open space of the farms lining the road. But whatever it was--that moment left such a feeling of satisfaction on my soul.

The contrast of my routine in the city and my trips down into the valley never goes unnoticed. What a wonderful weekend it was, even if brief, to remove myself from the Internet, from the beck and call of my program and my job, and to immerse myself in caring for others, in taking care of the things I could do, and in slowing down. During these weekends, I receive as much as I give and much gets accomplished---even if those accomplishments may not be seen as "successes" by the majority of society. To me, they have become the accomplishments that matter--even if it took me several years and life-changing events to realize it. My family, my faith, immersion in and mindfulness of the beauty that surrounds me, and giving of myself to others--those are the things that truly feed my soul.

....Now if only I could figure out a way to make that my "living"---even though truly it already is.