How to be totally annoying: Pool version 1.0

Perhaps you've been wondering about what exactly is behind that curtain that is called competitive swimming.  Maybe you've imagined yourself joining the crazy masses of those who find it exciting and fun to stare at the same tiles over and over and over again, who look for any sign of new scenery (a piece of chewed up gum perchance, a ponytail holder, or if it's a really exciting day, a lost pair of goggles) at the bottom of the pool.  I am here today to introduce you to pool etiquette and common swimmer thought (we can't talk while exercising, what else do you think we would be doing?), so that if you ever do go completely nuts and want to hop in, you won't be the scourge of waterworld.  

Let's have a look-see and pull back the curtain.  Let's begin with how to show everyone else that you are just pretending to be a real swimmer in a few simple steps...

Step 1: Wear a bikini (if female)/loose flowing swim trunks (if male).  This, right here, is the biggest way to advertise that you are a pretend swimmer.  If you show up with goggles and cap (thus, pretending that you are going to really swim a workout) and wear one of these taboo items, expect everyone to smile at you like you are riding a tricycle in the middle of the Tour de France.  This is like wearing soccer shoes on the golf course.  This is like wearing a dress to play basketball (especially if you are male).  But worse.  Don't be too surprised if people expect you to dog paddle the entire time you're in the water.  

good

 

bad

Step 2: Swim sidestroke/elementary backstroke/freestyle when an IM set is called.  Okay, there are some exceptions.  If you are tapering, have a knee/shoulder injury, or if your workout does not include IM (let's say you're doing a different level workout), you are wholeheartedly excused and should swim freestyle.  If, however, you are pretending to do an IM workout and switch out breastroke for free (and race the breastrokers while doing it), you are a big fat idiot.  This leads to step 3...

Step 3: Do a different workout than the people around you, then when you get to the wall ahead of them (because they swam all stroke and you didn't), look around like you are freakin' Michael Phelps and you just won your 8th Olympic gold medal.  Do not be surprised if at some time people wonder if you are secretly a leg amputee who got really real-looking legs based on your behavior.  

Step 4: Do not wait 5 seconds to go behind the person in front of you.  Instead, wait 3.5 seconds, swim up their butt, and then yell an unhesitating "YES!" when they ask if you'd like to go first.  Add to the horror by swimming free if it is an IM set.  Then triple it when you get to the wall first and glance sideways at everyone in the utmost disdain and disgust.  This is also the best way to make friends in the pool.  

Step 5:  Make a really wide stroke so that you hit everyone's hands while swimming.  The only thing better than slicing your hand into a bloody stump with a lane marker is to get suckerpunched by a wild wide stroker.  

Step 6:  Do only part of the workout because you have no endurance, then when you decide to pick it up again, race all the people who are totally out of breath from doing exactly what is called.  Resume your Michael Phelps rejoicing upon touching them out at the wall.  (People who are actually doing races and tapering are expected to do only part of the workout - this is just for the people who want to do it for their own personal glory and status.)  

Step 7:  Get out of the pool at the hardest part of the workout to "go to the bathroom" (or take a nap, or walk around in the family locker rooms to see if everyone is following the rules, or to go sit in the sauna for a few minutes).  Get back in the pool as everyone is finishing the last lap of that set with your chipper-fresh-as-a-daisy self, eager to hit up that next set and "win" it.

Step 8:  Turn around before the wall.  Yeah, I mean, it was a 100, but who wants to do a 100 when you can do an 87?  Pull while doing it.  

Step 9:  Do an open turn for the express purpose to see how far you are ahead of the people in the lanes next to you.  (Yes, we all look to see where we are in the pecking order and race like nobody's business, but for crying out loud, do it while you're in the middle of the pool like everyone else, not at the wall.)  By this, I mean, fully stop at the wall, lift yourself up a bit to see all the swimmers, then launch off wildly after them.  It's really cute.  

Step 10: Whilst warming up or as a long set is going on, jump in and push off of the wall in front of the person who is already swimming, especially if you are slower than they are, so that when they flip turn, they have to cut their pace and do dolphin dives and sculling to give you an appropriate distance so they can actually resume swimming.  If they push off the wall and splash you wildly when you stop, it was probably just an accident.

Well, that's mostly it.  With these few helpful tips, you too can be the biggest dufis in the chlorine.  

Who's ready for a pool party?  (And yes, duh, of course I bring a cap and goggles to a pool party.  Are we going to go swimming or wet standing?  You said come over and "go swimming", so yeah, that's on you.)  

Peace, love, and don't forget to pull on the lane markers,  
Ms. Daisy

The blunderous wonders of a 3 day weekend

Happy Memorial Day, everyone.  Thank you is not quite enough for those who have served, for those who have died, and for the families of both.  The words are paltry, but if we had others to use, I would use them to show the gratefulness of the sacrifices that you all have given.  

In celebration of this holiday, we usually take a trip up north.  It is still too cold to waterski (although I think in past years I may have eeked out a trip), and if I had to guess, I'd say the water was about 40 degrees.  Maybe 50.  Either way, it's the kind of cold that makes you suck in involuntarily and hurts - and if your head dares to dip below, you get the top of head frozen headache.  If you haven't ever been in that kind of water, you really should do it, not because it's fun or anything, rather mostly just to prove you are not a pansy.  

This weekend was no exception.  We did have to find a way to pack baby chicks in a couple bins to take them with us on our excursions (really not super recommended, but what can you do) as well as pack the dog (all in the same truck bed).  A stop on the way over to the feed store for some pine shaving bedding and we could almost convince my parents that chickens don't smell like horrible, filthy livestock.  (They still do.  Please, I love you, chicks, but please can you get out of my house yet?)  

I thought that I would go for a trail run the evening that we arrived - I love the path that takes me up (and I do mean vertically) through the woods, over to some sand hills, and then juts back in past a cedar swamp.  It is nice to have a different path and scenery (even if "running" up a sand hill has the same pace as walking up a sand hill).  I took the diseased dog with me, partly because she loves running and partly because every time I mention I am going to go on this trail, my mother tells me that it is entirely probable that I am going to be eaten by a bear and I figure bears would maybe rather eat a dog than me, so let's give them some menu options.  

I thought that I would go a bit longer on this run (after sitting in the car for 3-4 hours, I had plenty of stored energy), so I ran past the house after the trail run and down to the end of the road (1.1 more miles away).  I was totally down with this and tearing up the pace, but the dog was not really on board with me.  Soon, it seemed that I was dragging her behind me.  Yes.  I was dragging a dog.  This is much more unpleasant than I want it to be, what remedy is there?  I could just loop her leash over a post or tree or something and let her rest while I go to the end of the road (she would still be in sight).  Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.  There's hardly any people up here anyway.  

That looks like a good place!  I hooked her to a post on one of the last and vacant driveways and told her to sit and stay.  I ran off, gloriously faster (no 50 pound dead weight yanking my arm backwards), and turned around at the end.  I could see the small shape of the black dog sitting and waiting for me.  I got about 100 yards further and the dog started to bark the bark of alarm.  What?  What is the problem?  Why would she be barking like that...and she is turned sideways aiming at the house?  Oh great.  I couldn't run fast enough.  (As a side note, sprinting and yelling at a dog simultaneously is a great way to burn a lot of calories, but a quick way to get out of breath.)  Come on, teleporter, make me get up there.  Why hasn't someone invented a teleporter yet? (Seriously, someone needs to get on that.)  

A woman was approaching the dog, walking down her driveway, somewhat meekly as my dog was in full going-to-kill-you bark mode.  She turned short and began her evening walk.  I sprinted my guts off and debated - do I run past her and say, "Oh hi, this is my dog, I thought nobody lived here, and my dog was really tired, so I just wanted her to rest while I was running to the end..."  Explaining always sounds worse, so I just unhooked the dog and sprinted past her waving and smiling instead.  She can imagine whatever she wants, I guess.  On the way home, I learned a new way to breathe while running - it was to put my tongue on the bottom of my top teeth so I could avoid swallowing gallons of bugs (I learned this too late as I probably ate an entire protein bar's worth of bugs on that run).  

Finally, we made it home.  Now I can just take a shower and chillax, maybe read my new book about Elizabeth I.  Perfect - minus the bug sandwiches and the dog fiasco.  Except, wait.  Where are my clean underwear?  No seriously.  I unpacked my entire bag.  I have plenty of socks, 4 pairs of shoes, a plug for my ipod, I even brought Sovereign Silver and P73 Orega-Resp just in case of weird emergency.  And no underwear.  You have got to be joking me.  Awesome.  I guess my undies get a shower, too.  

Sunday was filled with a coma-like nap, the kind that you know you should be getting up because you probably slept so long it's dinner now, but when you try to open your eyes, you feel drugged and dizzy, but you are so determined to get up that you throw your legs over the side of the bed/couch and start walking...over to another place that you can lay down and go back to sleep for a while.  This is unfortunately periodically interrupted by your spouse who keeps sarcastically and dramatically asking you if you are okay, and if something is wrong with you, and purposely loud enough so that your mother hears, who will really actually think you are sick and start bombing you with questions about your health when all you want to do is alternate between punching your husband with his sarcastically amused expression (at the success of getting your mother involved) and actually going back to your sleep coma.  Monday has to be better.  

Except at 4:30 a.m. you wake up to the worst pain in your elbow ever experienced by humans on earth and conclude that you are dying of a black widow or brown recluse spider bite.  The elbow looks like a swollen freakshow and bending or not bending it makes you wish you knew how to do self-amputation.  But wait!  There is danger!  Perhaps that spider is still in the bedding.  I must wake my husband and save his life.  "Honey, I think I just got bit by a venomous spider.  It might still be here!"  

Hubby grumbles, "What?  What do you want me to do?"  

"We need to get up and check!"  

Hubby, "What?!  Didn't you do this like a few months ago and there was no spider?"  

Me, "Seriously!  Are you even talking about that!?  No, I don't recall that.  Just get up, I'm turning on the light."  On goes the light.  He appears half awake.  I am full-blown awake and on a mission to eradicate death spiders, ripping covers and pillows off, onto the floor, but then worrying that the spider already escaped to the floor and is now under the bedding and will likely bite me again.  I sit up in bed.  My hair falls onto my arm, and I do a freak out dance.  "Please can you look up spider bites on your phone?"  

"Right now?  Let me see your elbow.  It doesn't look like a spider bite."  

"Well what the heck else do you think I would wake up suddenly from in the middle of the night in excrutiating pain from?!  It has to be!"  I plod downstairs to get an ice pack for my pathetic pain.  

Hubby, "Google says you could have MRSA.  That is so gross, and I'm laying in bed with you."  

WHAT?!  "First of all, no, I do not have MRSA.  And secondly, what did you just say?  I am probably dying of a brown recluse bite and you're accusing me of having MRSA!"  Finally, after an hour or so, I fall back to sleep (hubby had no problem with that and was at snore level 3 within minutes), cuddling with an ice pack and dreaming of spiders and snake bites.  As morning dawns, I look at it, hoping it is better, but it is worse.  I want to go home and get activated charcoal.  Why don't my parents have weird things in their medicine cabinet?  My mom and dad bring me epsom salt, and my mom suggests that a wasp stung me.  Mom, a wasp?  It was 4:00 in the morning.  Well, it could be, she says.  Dad looks at it, he thinks he sees something.  I soak my arm in epsom salt in the sink and decide I am probably going to die so I should either pack up and rush home (3-4 hour drive) or go the opposite way, into town, to the urgent care/emergency room.  But which one?  I call the emergency room.  They tell me that they can't give me medical advice over the phone.  Thank you.  Awesome.  

I resign myself to my death and tell hubby we probably should go into town to the ER (especially after hearing that my friend's daughter went into shock and delerium from her brown reculse bite).  Upon hearing this, the littles cry out, "Are you going to die, Mom!?"  Well, I hope not, I say, trying to be brave.  I will probably survive, I lie to child #1.  This is very concerning to them because I would only subject myself to traditional allopathic medicine under dire life and limb circumstances and here I am suggesting we go.  As we drive to town, I suggest to my husband that this is our anniversary date.  He laughs.  I wonder if I can get flowers out of this.   

After answering the question, "Do you work?" to the urgent care receptionist with "Well, not really.  Unless you want to buy some Norwex.  I have some here in my purse.  Would you like to see a demo?" I am satisfied that I could entertain myself sufficiently here.  She tells me that there will be an hour wait and I ask her if she would like to take a bribe of some Norwex and bump me up a few people.  For some reason, she just laughs.  Oh well, I tried.  

We finally get in to the room where we are going to see the PA or whatever he is and he walks in with stylish dark rimmed glasses and says he is from California and that I probably do not have a spider bite.  I am scowling inside with disdain.  Not have a spider bite!  Like I believe you!  And then he tells me that people come in everyday saying they have spider bites.  What EVER.  He suggests antibiotics and NSAIDs.  I filter that through my head as "Sovereign Silver and turmeric".  He comes down with the diagnosis (not a spider bite, I'm so sure) - bursitis of the elbow.  What am I, like 65?  Bursitis?  He says I should wear a sling and I make a face with wild eyebrows.  "You're totally not going to wear a sling, are you?"  Well, no.  I will tie myself up with an ace bandage when I get back, though.  

Sigh.  Memorable vacations.  

Peace, love, and I can't wait until 4th of July, 
Ms. Daisy

A new house! And chickens!

Hello, dearies.  It has been a while and I sincerely do apologize, but I have a good enough reason (whether you want to call it an excuse or not is up to you) - and that is that I have moved from being a city chicken to a country in the city chick.  Yay and hooray!  

This move is great in that we get a bit of a bigger house (and you'll remember that we were just lolling about free ranging in our 950 square feet previously) and have acquired something like an extra 200 or 300 square feet more.  This, unfortunately, did not come in the way of having my own bathroom, but the dining room is a freaking paradise that I can do cartwheels in.  I'll take it.  And mad props to all of you who over the last twelve years sat with us smashed to the walls in our previous dining room.  It was cozy and we loved it, but now you just won't have to sit in my lap while eating your mashed potatoes.  (You still can if you want to, I'm just saying you don't have to.)  

This move has also granted us something I've been wishing and hoping and dreaming for - more property and some chickens.  Yes, that's right, I'm officially an urban (? perhaps suburban?) farmer.  We have 5 adult hens that came with the house who lay delicious eggs at a rate of about 3 daily (unfortunately for us, we eat 6 eggs a day around here...) - and might I add, if you thought I had food snobbery issues previously, it is at an all time high for eggs now with the advent of walking to my backyard to a coop and pulling out a freshly laid egg under the sassy, happy chickens. 

These layers are old (in terms of chicken life) - they're 4 or 5 years old.  We knew that they will not be able to lay eggs forever, so we went down to the country feed store and ordered 8 baby chicks (if you'd like to know deets: I have 4 Isa Browns, 3 Rhode Island Reds, and 1 Aracauna - the Aracauna and one of the Reds are my favorites.). 

Right now these little girls are living in a box in my kitchen under a heat lamp.  They provide hours of entertainment for us and the German Shepherd dog.  It sounds like I have tweety birds in my house nearly 24 hours a day.  The also provide lots of poop.  That's not so fun, but I guess it comes with the territory.  (Their poop pales in comparison with what the hens out in the coop can do, though.  And those girls ain't got nothing on my EPI diseased dog.  If you need manure...)  

One thing I did not really know (or experience, I guess I should say) was how terrified chickens really are.  You know how back in the day kids would cluck at other kids and call them a chicken when they wouldn't take a dare or do something...well, they got that from real chickens, yes, it's true.  Chickens are the most fraidy-cat things I've ever seen.  When I reach over the edge of their box to give them a fresh batch of water or feed, they run and peep like I was weilding the Almighty Hand of Certain Death at them.  Have I ever, ever, ever done anything to you?  Have I not always held you gently with two hands and treated you like you were made of porcelain?  Do I not relentlessly care for you and your poopy ways?  Yeah, that piece of grass in the middle of the box that I put in for you is probably an atomic bomb, you're right.

The house is on an acre which means hubby can go out there and shoot his bow and arrow much farther than he was able to do which makes him crazy happy.  It also has a riding tractor lawn mower, which makes kid #1 think he died and went to heaven.  I have a view out of my bedroom to a pond with a fountain and as we're up on a hill, I can see 2 miles away to a water tower ball (I know that for all of you who live on property and can see far away that you are wondering what on earth I would care about this for, but my farthest view before this was to a row of houses across the street.  It's crazy how cool it is.).  There's a giganto fire pit that I can make blazing infernos in and I can see the stars when I go out at night.  It all sounds like I am bragging, but my aim is to tell you that I'm thankful and I am keenly aware of how blessed I am to be here in this place.  

I will be putting in the garden soon and getting the veggies going for the season, and then I'll really feel like a farmer (I'll wear my cowboy hat and boots to make it work even better...probably should get some overalls, though, too.).  It's a great feeling.  If you want to tour Daisy Farm and you're local, just let me know.  We sell refreshing kombucha and water kefir and make our own mayo (with eggs from the backyard hens).  It's your one stop entertainment center, as you can see.  As for now, I need to go tear up some ground.  

Peace, love, and chicken poo,
Ms. Daisy

Our Society is Clearly Doomed: kid's cell phones - porn and a brain tumor

I saw a link for an article about whether or not a parent was too harsh for putting their child's iphone behind a picture frame because of their bad grades (with the words, "In case of B, break glass" on it).  Questioning taking a phone away - a smart phone at that - for for grades (or any reason, for crying out loud) is the blaring neon sign that we, as a society, have supremely failed.  After I rolled my eyes so hard it hurt and smacked my forehead and slid it dramatically and forcefully down my own face, I thought about how we are pretty much not going to continue as a society after the next generation.  It's pretty much guaranteed.  And for so many reasons.

First of all, giving your (especially young) child a smart phone is questionable in the first place.  Yeah, I know.  It's common.  "Everybody" has one.  Well, when I don't even have a smart phone, I can tell you that no offspring of mine will be getting one unless they have a job and they are paying for it.  Your kid needs a cell phone?  (Do you know what "need" means?)  How is that even possible?  Because he is never around other people who have a phone and can't use theirs?  Or do you not trust him to memorize your phone number well enough and need to program it in with a picture of your face so they don't screw up? 

A smart phone comes with a free pass to all that is on the internet.  Really?  You don't care that your 12 year-old son has access to everything on the interwebs?  I know I sound like a crazy tyrant, but if my offsprings are going online, I am sitting next to them or within earshot/view of what they're doing.  Call me crazy, but I'm not a superfan of having a preteen porn addict in my house, or having potential human traffickers hook up with my kid.

Besides all this, I wouldn't want to subject a small person to the amount of radiation emitted by a smart phone into their brains on their ears, into their boy (or girl) parts by sitting on their lap all the time, or otherwise.  CNET has a ranking for the top 20 highest radiating phones - Motorola Droid Maxx is #1 (and Motorola has taken gold, silver, and bronze in this list).  Check it out here.  I chose my phone from the reverse list and then found it on ebay for about $20.  Brain cancer? No thanks, I'm good.  Even the National Cancer Institute (out of the NIH) will tell you that it's a horrible idea and that cell phones are great sources of getting yourself a big ol' blob of cancer.  In order to reduce the chance that you are going to have a giant brain tumor, the EWG suggests you hold it away from your head, talk on speaker, text instead of talk, don't put it in your pocket or under your pillow, and only use it when the signal is strong.  There are physical barrier devices that may be employed to reduce the amount of emf/radiation into your soft tissue, and you may want to check them out if you can't live without your smartphone.  

Taking away a luxury item (like a smart phone) is such a pathetic picture of a first world problem that the shame of it reverberates in my brain (kind of like the radiation).  Add it to the other problems we have, like "my wallet has so much money in it, it hurts my butt when I sit on it", and "I won a sales campaign at work and was awarded a day of golf with the director, but I already took that day off to play golf" or, "I have to take a crap, but my maid is cleaning the bathroom right now".  

So sad.  Big elephant tears of suffering.  

Get a FREAKIN' GRIP, people!  Hello?  This is reality calling, wakey wakey, eggs and bakey?  

Nah, whatever.  It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.  

Peace, love, and fail harder, 
Ms. Daisy

Sinus Infections - A Few Natural Options

Sinus infections are the best, aren't they?  It's so fantastic how you can't hear, can't breathe, and the rhino sitting on your cheekbones feeling is really supreme.  It's almost as good as swimming a 200 fly.  What can you do when you get hit with one of these doozies?  

Well, you can go trip out on pseudoephedrine (Sudafed), whose side effects include fear, anxiety, tremors, hallucinations, dizziness, excitability (I need this.  I need to be MORE excited in general.), and convulsions.  Oooh.  Cool.

Or.  (Yeah, pick the "or".)  You can try a couple of natural remedies.  (Hey, why not?  Better than convulsions and hallucinations?  I mean, unless that is your idea of fun...)  

I think the best remedy is a combination of physical irrigation combined with some herbal and dietary adjustments.  What does that look like?  I am so glad you asked!  

So, let's start with the "physical irrigation" thing.  You've heard of a neti pot, right?  If you go to the large get everything store, you can find it in the drug area.  It is also sold at pharmacies and health food stores.  The one you can find most often is made of blue plastic.  The idea is of Asian and Ayurvedic origin.  The gist of it is that you get some good clean water (not tap water, no really, not tap water - unless you boil it and cool it down), add a little mix of salt and baking soda (making a saline solution), stand over your sink, put one end in your nostril, tilt your head and watch as water magically flows out of your other nostril like you are a human waterfall. It. is. great.  

At first, I was moderately terrified of this, as being a swimmer and thinking of water going up my nose was not really the experience I was looking forward to.  But I pulled up the big girl panties and man-ed up.  It was totes no bigs.  If you do it without saline in it, you might want to kill yourself, but if you go with the mix, you're good to go.  I did have the packets of stuff at first that came with the blue plastic neti pot, but I recently ran out and opted instead to just make it (since it was bedtime and easier for me to do at the time).  

You need: salt and baking soda.  If you have a mortar and pestle, that's even better.  The ratio is as follows: 1/3 cup of salt, 2 tablespoons of baking soda.  Mix them together, mortar and pestle to your heart's delight (when it is all powdery small, it dissolves faster).  Use 1/2 teaspoon in 8 ounces (1 cup) of warm, clean water.  A note on the plastic neti-pot.  If it's all you've got, go for it, it's better than nothing.  If you have any other choice, think about warm BPA shooting up your brain and pick stainless steel or ceramic instead.  I got mine online here  if you care.  No, I don't get anything if you order from them.  I'm just letting you know.  I usually use my neti-pot at night before bed, and then I put a few drops of peppermint essential oil on the palms of my hands, rub them together, and inhale like a beast.  It clears me up, and no drainage sore throat in the morning.  
 

Do you like my cape? In a rosebush?

The herbal way to attack a sinus infection is by using the hero of the natural world - turmeric.  If you don't know about turmeric, you betta ask somebody!  This little guy comes complete with a cape, fights inflammation, infection, and baddies like nobody's beeswax.  You can gargle with turmeric and some warm water, you can take it in capsules (500 mg - I take one every day), you can mix it with your saline and shoot it up your nose.  No, I'm not kidding.  I haven't tried it, but I have heard of people doing that.  

What's even more crae crae than that is shooting cayenne pepper up your nose.  Honestly, I'm not going to do that and I don't care how organic and great it is, but if you weren't aware and were extremely desperate, you could try it.  Otherwise, people use apple cider vinegar to reduce their boogery-ness (it's a medical term, I know).  It is an immunity booster that can help you overall.  You can take shots of it in water or (do you see a theme?) you can shoot it up your nose with some saline.  I also use something called Muco-stop.  It is a combination of enzymes that will basically digest the mucus and get rid of it that way.  When taking enzymes for this reason, you have to take it two hours after a meal and one hour before.  

Regarding dietary changes, as with any illness, avoid sugar and sweets like the plague.  Those little bacteria and viruses thrive and multiply on sugar.  Handing them sugar is like giving their army a tank and a million bazookas and having them multiply exponentially.  Eat real food.  Give your good guys the guns they need by eating the pungent, stinky things of this world like garlic (whole roasted cloves, yes, please), onions, ginger, and horseradish.  (You could take a shot of fire cider, too.  That stuff will scare anything out of you.)  Drink your kombucha while you're at it.  Probiotics in your gut are the stuff your immune system longs for.  

And get better soon.  

Peace, love, and nose waterfalls, 
Ms. Daisy

Poison, I mean, cereal.

I pretty much grew up on cereal.  It was what was for breakfast.  My brother ate the crazy ones - Fruity Pebbles, Froot Loops, Reeses, the list goes on and on.  Pretty much if it was bright blue and fluorescent orange, it was his fave.  Note: my brother may or may not have two heads, five eyes, and three arms.  My mom also fed him hot dogs when he was like five days old, so no further explanation necessary, your honor.  He actually LIKED it when his cereal milk turned pinkish orange.  Gag. me.
 

May not contain "froot".

I ate cereal too, but didn't go that route as much.  I liked granola and ones with sliced almonds in them.  Ooh, yummy.  And then Costco had a blip of time where they sold chocolate Love Crunch and I think I ate that for about four hours a day until it was gone (good thing Costco sells really huge bags).  

Mmm, Love Crunch is good.  
 
And then I read Nourishing Traditions (by Sally Fallon).  It changed how I felt about cereal.  I thought I was good - I was eating organic cereal!  (So health conscious!  I probably deserve a shiny gold sticker.)  And then I realized it was pretty much an anti-food quasi-foodlike substance and felt kind of disturbed about my life.  Aw, man!  

Here's the deal.  Grains are so much more nutritious and bioavailable if you soak them (or sprout them).  When you pour milk on pretend grains and eat it for breakfast, it kind of counts the same as punching yourself in the face with a blowtorch...but worse.  

In 1960, a researcher named Loren Zanier at the University of Michigan conducted a very crae crae experiement.  He selected different groups of rats and fed them the following things:  

Group 1 - rat chow (yummy) and water (= control group)
Group 2 - cornflakes and water  
Group 3 - (I kid you not) cardboard and water (Umm...basically testing if you should eat your cereal or your cereal box, I guess...)  

Why did Zanier do this?  He wanted to check out the extrusion process on grains.  Basically, extrusion is when the grains get all gushed up and smashed, then fired through a fast and furious squirter (these are all very scientific terms, I can assure you) into little O shapes (or whatever groovy shape the cereal maker wants), sprayed with sugar, and baked to your crunchy perfection.  

So what were the results?  

The rats who ate the cornflakes died BEFORE the rats who were eating cardboard.  Seriously.  Read up a bit more on it here.  That is inexcusable.  This is the testing that has been done, and it is showing it is better to eat the cereal box than the stuff inside the box.  I'm just going to come right out and say that is kind of scary.  You make your own conclusions.  Paul Stitt, in his book Fighting the Food Giants, talks more about this and other such studies if you are interested in further information.

In another interesting article called, "Cereal: The Breakfast of Toxins", the author posits that extruded grains are toxic to the neurological system.  The extrusion process destroys the good fatty acids within and even the chemical vitamins that  they add to try to make it have something in it ("Fortified with 9 vitamins and minerals!").  That doesn't sound like what you want to serve up to your offspring before you send them off for their statewide standardized tests, now is it?!  

On the wikipedia page (I know, totally not a great source, but anyway), it describes the process of extrusion and makes the following comments: 

It [extrusion] may also cause the fragmentation of proteins, starches, and non-starch polysaccharides to create "reactive molecules that may form new linkages not found in nature". This includes Maillard reactions which reduce the nutritional value of the proteins. Vitamins with heat lability may be destroyed. As of 1998, little is known about the stability or bioavailability of phytochemicals involved in extrusion. Nutritional quality has been found to improve with moderate conditions (short duration, high moisture, low temperature), whereas a negative effect on nutritional quality of the extrudate occurs with a high temperature (at least 200°C), low moisture (less than 15%), or improper components in the mix.  

So, basically, it's a freak of nature, reduces nutritional value, and it's near totally untested.  Awesome.  Sounds good.  Let's do this.  

Over at Nourished Kitchen, she hits it home hard.  She pleads with you in her article called, "Boxed Cereal is not Food" (as she should, and as I will) that you cook a real meal for breakfast, and not fall back on cereal (as tempting as it is to do).  In fact, she suggests that the organic cereals, because of their generally higher protein content, are actually worse for you than their Froot Loopy counterparts.  (No, people eating Froot Loops, you do NOT get to rejoice.  It's still an epic fail.)  She even has a recipe or two at the bottom for you to try instead.  

Soaked grains are the best way for us to be able to digest food, and it is no wonder that there are so many digestive issues going on now (we kind of skipped that step because it takes too much of what we think we are saving by eating cereal - time).  

Personally, I am not a superfan of grains for breakfast.  I am more of the free-range, local, egg cooked in grass fed butter (on a cast iron pan, of course) - add celtic grey salt and a crazy amount of cracked black pepper to help my turmeric absorb - with some spelt/olive oil/rosemary homemade toast with half a gallon of butter kind of person.  Kids add ketchup.  Otherwise, if I'm going to make oatmeal, I try to soak it at least from the night before.  If not either of those, French toast is just fine.  If it's Saturday, well, bring on the pancakes (flour from the grain mill).  That's how you get muscles, you know.  Pancakes.  Please do eat that with some real maple syrup and don't get the toxic fake stuff.  Your muscles (and brain) will shrink.  

So why would it be hard to break away from the habit?  Here are a few (very scientific) answers I've come up with from a poll (also very scientific) I put out.  

People have the following reasons for eating cereal:  

1.  They like it.  Okay, I really have nothing to say about this.  I think if you want to eat it as dessert, you go on with your bad self.  I agree.  Love Crunch is pretty freakin' amazing.  But I'm not going to eat it anymore.  Unless it's for dessert on an amazing glop of yogurt with some berries, but I digress.  (But, if you are eating it as your main start of your day, you might want to ponder that deeply.)  

2.  It is fast and easy.  So is not wiping after you go to the bathroom, but(t) that's not super recommended.  

3.  "It's easy and I like eating ground up bugs/mice/rats."  These are the people I call my friends, if this is any indication to you on anything at all.  I have literally no comment at all except for loud laughing.   

4.  I need fiber.  (So that whole cardboard thing...)  Garden of Life, Raw Fiber.  1 scoop and stay in for the next 24 hours, gather plenty of reading material and put it on your bathroom counter.  Otherwise eat tons of raw fruits and veggies.  You can overdose on some spinach salad, too.  If there are digestive issues, perhaps soaking your grains would help, and I'd douse in some probiotics and tons of water, too.  

Rays of glorious sunshine descend upon the magical treats...

Cereal in this hiz-ouse is a dessert-like treat.  I buy it once in a never.  I will confess something to you, though.  I am buying it for an Easter present for the littles.  Chocolate bunnies ain't got nuthin' on a box of cereal around here.  Yes, it is Cascadian Farms organic fruit and nut granola, but it will be a bigger hit than crack Peeps.  (Don't tell!  It's a secret!)  

Peace, love, and crunchy granola as an adjective for people should maybe be renamed to soggy soaked grain or something,  
Ms. Daisy

A change for the healthier...

Have you ever wondered what you'd do without your Pepsi (ask Jeff!)?  What do people use instead of Lysol toilet bowl cleaner, anyway?  What about GMO tortilla chips?  

Practically speaking, what does it look like to reduce chemicals and crazy crapola from your life?  Does it mean you have to suffer and not eat any good food anymore?  (Nope.)  Does it mean you are relegated to a life full of crunchy chia seeds in your kombucha?  (Maybe.  But probs not.)

Do you have to change?  You tell me.  Is it hard?  Well, that depends.  Is it hard for you to not want to die?  Take that answer and go with it.  It's up to you.  I really don't know your commitment level so I'm not going to tell you that giving up Heinz ketchup and Fritos is either impossible or easy, but I am here to give you some ideas and some places to start.

1.  Removing GMOs.  

Did you say, "What is a GMO?"  Well, my dearie, that would be a genetically modified organism.  Basically, a mutated genetic code.  Why would anyone even think of doing this?  Well, for example, with 90-something % of all corn and soy in the United States, genetic modification involves splicing in some genes of a bacteria or a virus so that when you spray it with Roundup (glyphosate - the thing causing autism and obesity and cancer), it won't die, but all of the weeds around it will.  This is a great (lazy) model for farming, unfortunately, the glyphosate leeches down into your groundwater and you kind of poison yourself, but hey, at least you didn't have to hand pick the weeds.  Am I right?  Eh?  Eh?!  TOTALLY WORTH IT!

As you introduce more genetically modified ingredients into your body, you become genetically modified.  What is a cell with a mutation called?  Oh yeah, that's right, cancer.  So, besides your poisoned water, you are also eating cancer.  Perhaps you don't care about that, but if you're going to have any children, they might just turn into mutants (hello Mom of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) and sterilize them.  I wish I were joking.  Read the research right here.  It's another case of "we thought this was safe and now we are just kidding, it is "probably" cancerous, whoops!"  Yeah, that's not super cool.  

If you could start anywhere, start here.  Get rid of the GMOs out of your life.  If you're eating something with corn in it, you're probably eating cancer.  The same for soy.  How will you know if something is genetically modified?  You really don't, unless it has one of two labels on it: Non-GMO verified (with a lovely butterfly picture) or something labeled as organic (things labeled organic are inherently not allowed to include genetically modified ingredients).  Even then, sadly there has been cross contamination from the prolific amounts of toxins being spread all over this crazy world, but it is better to aim at a source that is trying to protect us from these toxins.  

2.  Read up on what you clean with.  

Where?  The EWG.  The EWG stands for the Environmental Working Group.  You can check their database for what ingredients are in your cleaning products (and even your cosmetics, sunscreen, etc!) and for how safe they are.  They will rate them for allergies/respiratory issues, cancer, reproductive/developmental toxicity, skin allergies, and safety within the environment.  Your home is your personal environment.  You and your family are the ones who are most affected by your indoor air quality.  You live in what could either be a safe haven or a toxic hell (not to put too fine a point on it...).  

You could browse through their products and wonder aloud why Dreft baby detergent is rated F with a high concern for developmental and reproductive toxicity (who cares about the NEXT generation, we're just going to make sales to this one and worry about it later!).  

Or maybe you could ask Whole Foods why they have some F rated products.  Do you kind of feel betrayed?  I am disturbed, to say the least.  At least with this product, you won't get cancer, you'll just be totally infertile (and so will your children!).  Great!  Bet that works great on stains!  Take a look at the database and see how your cleaners stack up and what they're adding to your personal environment (hopefully not respiratory issues, cancer, and infertility).  

You can look up products with an A rating (so you know you're getting something safe), or you could check out Ms. Daisy's Norwex page and get yourself some amazing microfiber cloths with silver (bacteria and junk can't live on silver and the cloths kill of germs by themselves as they dry!).  I wash my counters (kitchen cloth), toilet (Sanira system), windows (a wet enviro cloth and a dry window cloth), and everything else in my house with Norwex stuff.  I avoid the toxic fabric softeners by using their wool dryer balls and I love them.  If I didn't, I would tell you to avoid it like the bubonic (you know how I roll).  

3.  Everything else.  

Yeah, kind of a broad category, right?  There are so many things that you have around your house that you can easily use to make things you thought you would always have to depend on the store for.  

Like what?  Well, deodorant and lip balm (mine is on sale - $4/tube...message me if you want some, yes, I ship.).  Or tortillas.  Bread!  Did you know you could make apple cider vinegar and kombucha and kefir and yogurt?  What about dressings?  (Check Pinterest or just google some recipes.  It's that easy.)  What about using coconut oil in very creative ways (I am not going to directly tell you except to say it turns liquid above 76 degrees F and...this blog is rated PG, I'm just going to let you look it up yourself and whisper you won't have to walk in *that* aisle anymore at the grocery store with your children.  Ahem.  Oh.  And PLEASE get a separate jar for that one, ok?)?  What about growing your own herbal medicine?  (Not to change the subject or anything...)
 

Waaait, what kind of organic coconut oil?

Maybe taking this all in at the same time is kind of like drowning quickly in some reverse osmosis remineralized water or something, but maaaaybe something will strike a chord in you and you will use your creative energies for good and just pick one thing.  

One do-able thing.  You can do EEEET!  

Peace, love, and make change, 
Ms. Daisy

Magical chia seeds

If you've been looking to gain some superpowers (as I'm sure you are - who isn't?!), I have the scoop.  Are you familiar with chia seeds?  If you have walked into a health food store in the last year, you probably had a hard time avoiding them.  What's the deal with these teeny things?  

Let's start out with the freakish facts, shall we?  

Just one ounce of chia seeds contains 4915 mg of omega-3's and 1620 mg of omega-6's.  As a comparison, 3 ounces of cooked wild caught king salmon has 1500 mg of omega-3's.  Why do you care about omega-3's and 6's?  (Well, maybe you don't...shall I rephrase that?  Why should you care about these omegas?)  Heart health, for one thing.  Brain health for another.  They fight inflammation in your body, too.  (Good things those aren't important or anything.)  They also work on cancer, inflammatory bowel, and autoimmune diseases!  

Check it out - the Harvard school of public health has info for you.  

An ounce of chia seeds has 11 grams of fiber.  That is a crazy amount.  It's 42% of your daily value.  And you know what fiber means, don't you?  It means happy guts.  If your guts aren't happy, I can tell you, you're not going to be very happy.  Maybe you've heard people say that your health begins in the gut, and how your immune system is linked to it.  Because your intestinal walls are thin little ditties, you can pass a lot of crap (er, junk?  bacteria?  No. Pun. Intended.) through that wall, and I am pretty sure that is not going to promote great health if your stuff is sitting there too long.  Get out your specially made pom poms and cheer for the fiber.  

Do you need a boost of manganese?  It's got 30% of your daily value in an ounce.    It has an amino acid score of 115 (scores above 100 mean it is a complete protein).  They have more antioxidants than blueberries and they are grain and gluten free.  It's pretty much a boss all the way around. 

How are you going to use these little babies?  

Personally, I put them in my kombucha (I guess you could put them in water kefir, too, why not?) and my smoothies.  They act crazysauce when you put them in liquid.  They get this fantastic gooey bubble around them.  I can't explain it, except to tell you it is cool.  They come in different colors (black or white).  

Another favorite way I get my daily dose of chia is in coconut chia bars (Health Warrior makes some).  I hide them the way most people hide really good chocolate.  If my offspring find them, they think they have won the lottery.  

They are great energy bars - totally recommended for running (before a run scarf some down for a boost; after a run, rehydrate and replenish your electrolytes with coconut water). In fact, Wellness Mama even makes an energy gel with them - she uses a cup of coconut water and a few tablespoons of chia seeds.  Better than GMO artificially colored and flavored nonsense, I think.  

And duh, you can make a homemade Chia Pet.  You can just make a terra cotta head of your favorite Duck Dynasty character and grow them a beard.  Seriously, I could have just posted this and that would be enough information for some of us to have a long, productive relationship with some chia seeds. Did my Mom get Uncle Si for Christmas?  You just ask her.  

In the meantime, go get yerself some delicious ch-ch-ch-chia seeds!  

Peace, love, and superpowers, 

Ms. Daisy

My secret chemical of choice

I have a little secret.  You know that I'm all organic-y, crunchy, kombucha-ey, granola, making my own deodorant and avoiding chemicals like the bubonic plague...except for one thing.  

I have had many people ask me (and my hubby about me, since they think I am lying?) what my secret little treat is - as if I secretly make organic homemade hummus, but then secretly go scarf down Taco Bell (and Fun Dip).  (Yuck.  I don't.)  I really am not tempted by any quasi-food like substances (they actually give me a migraine and intestinal explosion if I accidentally/unknowingly eat them - yeah, wow, TMI, I know.).  No candy bars, no baked goods, no fast food - nope, none of it appeals to me.   

It's like how most people feel if there was a can of paint or a pile of electronics on your kitchen table.  You would not become hungry at the thought of eating it (well, I mean, I hope not.  If you do, dude, you're messed up.  Might be needing some vital nutrition there somewhere...).  When I see such things, I do not think of them as food, since they are mostly some kind of adulterated chemical substance.  

But it looks so yummy!

I won't even drink normal tap water because of the heavy metals and prescrption drugs that are in it.  Sorry, bro, but I don't want to drink your chemo and hepatitis drugs.  I have a reverse osmosis filter that gets remineralized so I don't strip myself of minerals (since that is what happens to you if you drink R/O plain.).  

I won't use normal cleaning products since they are pretty much guaranteed to be carcinogenic, allergenic, mutagenic nightmares.  I hang out with my awesome Norwex microfiber cloths (with silver) and use just water and clean nearly everything in my house.  

So what on earth could possibly tempt me to the dark side?  

I'll tell you.  It is nearly a lifelong addiction, so you're going to have to just understand.  People have their downfalls, you know.  I can't help it.  You didn't expect me to be perfect, I hope.  Well, good.  

Because I love...well, I love...chlorine.  

Yes, Mr. Hazmat, I know it's dangerous.  I know that the world could pretty much blow up from all the chlorine they store in the dungeons of swimming pools.  But I don't care!  I went swimming today and when I wash my hands and the pleasant and faint scent of chlorine drifts up to my nose, well, I am just going to say it, I like it.  If you have anything to tell me about the horrors of it, well, I'll thank you (very much) to just keep that information to your. self.  When I get in the shower after being in the pool, the whole shower smells of lovely chlorine.  

Swimmers are special.  (Yes, in every special way you can specially think of.)  Sometimes they even take extra crazy pills in the morning and do butterfly after a no breather.  (Seriously?)

Maybe this is slightly confounding.  But maybe you don't stare at a black tiled line on the bottom of the pool for a few hours a week, either.  If you did, you would get it.  Maybe you're the type who thinks that swimmers wear caps to keep their hair dry (um, no.).  If so, maybe you just won't feel me on this one.  

But if you swim because it's in your blood, or if you crave that feeling of all over body tired wonderfulness at the end of practice, or if you race the person in the lane next to you at all times, or if you have strong opinions on no breathers/SKIPS/IM sets/breastroke/200s, or if you've eaten an entire pizza yourself after a good practice (and were still looking for more food - and practice was at 5:30 a.m.), or if you've ever counted over and over again in your head (1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 3...), or if you've ever felt exuberant joy at the words, "8 x 25s" at the end of practice, and/or if you're just straight up awesome in general, there is a good chance you are a swimmer and you know what I mean.

Viva, swimmers!  And viva chlorine.  It comes with the territory and I don't want to give it up.  

Plus, I think it really brings out the green in my hair.  

Peace, love, and 100 breastroke 4eva, 
Ms. Daisy