You're going down bookmarks!

A long time ago I used to dog-ear my books while reading. Then I met my husband and through years of guilty looks, crying, pleading and sometimes plain begging, I've seen the error of my ways. What is my reward?

A life of constant searching and frustration.

Before the kids came along, scraps of paper would lay around, just waiting to serve their purpose as a bookmark. (Airline tickets are still the best.) Occasionally we would even use a real bookmark, yes, a purchased bookmark. (The kind that are either laminated or have that fancy tassel thing.) In the bookmark world, life was good.

Princess comes along and decides her sole purpose is to pull the bookmarks out of books. It doesn't matter which book:   recipe, school, or fun; it's gone. I don't mean the bookmark is pulled out and set aside, I mean the thing is gone from Earth.

Little Dude comes along and decides he wants to be included in the bookmark fun. However, Little Dude being himself, he needs to add his own style. He does one of two things: he either takes the bookmark out, then randomly puts it back in a different spot in the book, or he brings the bookmark to you. I'm not sure what's worse: being in the middle of something and having Little Dude say, "Mommy, I brought you your bookmark," or sitting down to read and thinking, "I've already read this," or, "What did I miss, this doesn't make sense!"

Now that Princess is voraciously reading chapter books, her bookmark demon days seem to be behind her. However, now that I'm competing with her in the race for good bookmarks, she seems to have more rules about what can and cannot be used as an acceptable bookmark.

My grocery receipts, not entered in the checkbook ARE acceptable. Her bookmarks she made at school, NOT acceptable; they are to look at as gifts.
Magazine subscription inserts ARE acceptable. Paint swatch cards are NOT acceptable...I'm not sure why, I just think she likes to hoard them.

Now that a level of ground rules are set as what is acceptable, this doesn't stop the other bookmark demons in the house.

If you do manage to find that one, acceptable bookmark, you have to put it away for safe keeping. Any scrap of paper within reach, acceptable or not, is eaten in some capacity by our two dogs. Every dog, I have ever owned, likes to chew. It's been different tastes with each dog, however, the current two seem to enjoy paper and tissues.
I even had a cute ladybug bookmark that acted like a paperclip. It was made of plastic, so I assumed it would at least be safe from the dogs. Nope. I found it the other day in a horrific mess of mangled plastic.

A few things occur to me as I write this...

What doesn't have acceptability rules depending on the day?

Dog-earring the page.

What won't get randomly replaced on a whim or brought to me while I'm cooking?

Dog-earring the page.

What won't get eaten by the dogs?

You'd think I'd say dog-earring the page, but I won't rule out my dogs eating an entire book.

I'm taking a stand! No more will I stress out about whether Princess has found my secret bookmark hiding spot! No more will I collect random bits of paper that appear to be of bookmark quality (that also adhere to the rules)! No more will I be depressed on finding bits of chewed up paper, wondering whether that was MY bookmark...now I'll just be angry and yell at the dogs to stop chewing up paper!

Out of respect for all the other dog-ear fanatics, I will not do this to library books. All other books that I purchased will be dog-earred to my content. I'd do it on my Nook too, if it didn't save my progress so well.

Evidently, iron is pretty important

I thought I was getting enough iron in my diet. Oops. What's the worst that can happen? Well, it wasn't the worst, but between the frequent idiot moments and almost passing out as I walked to pick my daughter up from school, I kind of got a wake up call.

If you're new to the blog (Welcome!), I am a vegetarian. Vegetarians need a bit more iron than meat eaters because obviously we miss the iron supplied by red meat. I haven't eaten red meat (except for one horrendous occasion) in about 4 or 5 years, but I evidently got enough in the chicken or pork I was eating. Not to mention, I wasn't that active, so it didn't matter much.

In March, I will have been a vegetarian for an entire year, yay me! In this time I learned that during certain times during a female cycle, you need to increase your iron intake, obviously. Yeah, yeah TMI, get over it. Compensating for this I took a supplement, in addition to my daily vitamin, the week during and prior (my physician told me to, I'm not a doctor, so check with yours before you listen to my craziness). Up until a couple of weeks ago, this was working with no issues.

What changed?

The weather got a bit nicer (I'm in Southern California) so naturally, the kids and I went outside. Princess also decided she was going to hit the 100 mile mark in her school's running club, so we became more active. During running club we were walking between 2-3 miles, 3 days a week. While the kids were in school I began overhauling our sprinkler system, which involved digging some seriously deep holes. I was also going to the YMCA on the occasional rainy day to bike.

I learned today that a normal woman (before menopause) needs around 18 mg of iron daily (men need only 8-10 mg, but that's probably because they don't lose it on a monthly basis). A vegetarian woman (before menopause) needs to take in about 25 mg because she isn't getting her iron from meat sources. Iron from animals is easier to absorb in our bodies than plant iron.

My vitamin provides 18 mg, plus I was getting a lot from my veggie meals. So why did I feel like crap this week? Well, the information that I was missing is:  an ACTIVE woman needs about 33 mg iron.

Since I was being really active (even for myself) I pretty much depleted any iron I had and wasn't replacing it well enough for my activity level. So today when my daughter was walking her 2.5 miles, I barely made it a mile, walking slowly with Little Dude. When Little Dude and I came home, I began working on the sprinklers and noticed that something definitely wasn't right. Did I stop? No. 

I have issues with things not being finished.

Later when we were walking the 1/2 mile to Princess' school and I almost passed out, I finally figured out I didn't feel good. I wasn't dehydrated so I guessed it must be my iron level. I went to my go-to iron recipe and started feeling better halfway through drinking my smoothie. Wonderful recipe for a Gingerbread Smoothie here.

Now I know. Now the question is: does my activity level stay the same and I start eating spinach like Popeye or ease up on the gardening insanity?




I like spinach (and kale).

And the award goes to...

Today I felt I won an award. I felt as though I passed some strange test and now I can move on to the next rewarding level.

What did I do?

I fixed my sprinklers.

To some this may not seem a difficult task. Others laugh and ask why I just didn't call a professional.

I spent days doing research on how to convert our sprinklers into a drip irrigation system. Yes, days. I went to the library and borrowed books on sprinklers, irrigation and for some spice, a few books you actually read for enjoyment. I "Googled" and "YouTubed" so many items on sprinkler valves, drip irrigation, filters, pressure regulators, I made my eyes hurt. After several days of mapping and planning out my attack, I finally went to the store and bought what I needed to fix some leaking sprinkler valves and drip irrigation supplies.

I came home, supplies in hand, and watched one more video. A video that told me that my sprinkler valves weren't up to code. (Evidently specific valves need to be 6-8 inches above the highest sprinkler head...some of my sprinkler heads come up to my knees. Don't ask, this is one of the many unexplained concepts of our sprinkler system.)  Back to the store for parts to raise the stupid pipes so they would be up to code. Crossing my fingers that this was also the cause of the "leaking" valves.

Step one:  shut the power off to the valves. Check.
Step two: shut off the water....

I can't find the stupid irrigation shut off. I did manage to find my shut off valve for the house though; important information to know. I consult my YouTube and Google libraries and they narrow it down to about four things in my front yard. Two were plastic and two were cement blocks. Plus there was a random cement one in our garage. Why the heck do I need all these boxes? In terror, I cried. Yes, I cried.

I spent countless hours researching the sprinklers, finally convincing my husband that I could handle this without professional help and even bought the supplies. Now I felt I was being forced to call a professional. As you can tell, I don't take defeat very well.

Dave from Aquatech Solutions came and after checking out the problem, he began to raise the valves. I learned a very valuable thing about my sprinkler system....it sucks, it makes no sense. What was supposed to take less than an hour, ended up taking about 2 hours of this guy's time and lots of under the breadth muttering. (My kids were there bombarding him with questions while he worked, so he kept his frustration very G rated. It was appreciated. I wish I could say the same for me when I worked on them. I'm now having to tell Little Dude that "damn" is not an acceptable word....fortunately, that was all he got, because I said way worse things.) More importantly, even after all the extra stuff my system threw at him, he didn't raise his estimate price at all! Yes, it does seem there are honest people out there still.

After the horror of sprinkler valve repair, Dave even took the time to walk me through converting my sprinkler heads to drip irrigation. He even showed me how to replace the valves that were leaking, so I could do it myself for a reduced cost. Oh! He also showed me where the irrigation shut off was. :)


A couple days later I get the replacement valves and get to work replacing them. I am ready to "glue" the valve together and discover I can't open the PVC glue can. I even did what I thought was a no-no and used a wrench. The damn thing wouldn't budge. Back to Lowe's, with kids in tow. The return department guy even tried to open the can. Yes, I laughed out loud at him when he couldn't turn it with his bare hands. I'm sorry, but this is one area my husband complains about. Sometimes he would like to open a few jars for me! What can I say? I'm petite, but I got some strong, wiry arms. 

Picking out glue, a Lowe's guy asks me if I need help. I tell him I couldn't open the last can so we're here for another one. He instructs me to get a wrench. Ha ha! It wasn't a no-no, I did something correct.
Back home to fix valve one out of six. I manage to fix it, but the kids tell me I have to stop playing; it's dinner time and they're hungry.

Next day, I take a break from the valves to figure out one of the garden sprinklers. This garden even puzzled the professional. Imagine a sprinkler head coming up out of the ground. Now attach pipe to it in the shape of, well...let's go with the letter "P." It doesn't make sense to me either. So I start digging. I find another sprinkler head completely buried underground. Since it isn't in line with the other two, I'm really confused. Great, now I have to dig up the entire garden to figure out the pipes and what head attaches to what valve.

A week later, I'm so fed up with digging. My muscles hurt, my fingers are permanently bent in the shape of a shovel, I have blisters on top of calluses, needless to say, I don't feel pretty and I'm now pissed at this point. The kids have even lost the "hey, mom is letting us dig in the garden" fun and abandoned me for riding bikes. So I did what anyone would do at this point....I capped the damn things off, fixed the remaining broken one and crossed my fingers that it would work.

It worked. It worked so well that I also had to repair a leak in one of the exposed pipes that I had found during testing. Wow! Those suckers can shoot water far and high! The kids didn't seem to appreciate it very much, though.

Valves are now all up to code and working properly. Plus I only had to replace five, instead of six, so now I have an extra one for future use. Sprinkler timer is working properly. I have figured out what sprinkler heads go to which zone. Now I dust off my drip irrigation map....and I trash it.

Yep, fixing the valves seemed to fix several things I didn't realize were broken. The zones I thought were zones previously, ended up being vastly different. So...back to the drawing board, but it should be easy from here on out....right?

Either way, when Princess was yelling out which sprinklers turned on when I used the sprinkler timer, and they worked correctly, I wasn't sure I should cry or scream in pure joy! So I did the next best thing....I called my husband and talked a million words a minute about my accomplishments until I ran out of air. Evidently, I'm still kind of proud of myself, so I shared with you! Honestly though, I'm just excited I don't need to dig up anymore of that garden. I was getting to the point of buying cement and saying to hell with green crap in my backyard!

V is for Venting, not Valentine's Day

Yep, I said it! I don't like Valentine's Day, never have. Some part of me always felt it was a scam. Why do women only get one day a year to feel special? Don't even start in about it being a day for couples. You and I both know that's crap. Plus, I also hate that pink color that looks like Pepto-Bismol....it's everywhere! Seeing the color makes me get that chalky Pepto taste in my mouth. (Yes, I have some issues.)

Then if you are one of the poor people who are single on this awful day, wow...don't you feel like the loneliest person in the world? Seriously, why do you need to feel this way? Why shouldn't you be treating yourself to fun things to begin with? Why do you need someone else to do it for you?!

Assuming you are in a relationship, or managed to snag some poor sucker on the way home from work, let's take a closer look.

Honestly, what does the guy get the girl?
Chocolates, candy, cookies, flowers, dinner, jewelry, lingerie, cruises (I may have some rich readers), movie, etc.

Now, what does the girl get the guy?
We can make dinner, because taking the guy out for dinner and paying would make the entire world uncomfortable, because we haven't gotten past that.


Yeah, I'm coming up blank on anything else.

Ooh! Cards, we can give them cards.  wow.

So, the guy is responsible for shelling out some serious dollars for one day, maybe even a few hours, in order to show affection.


I have several problems with this. Why does it only have to be Valentine's Day, why can't it be on a daily basis? Why do you have to spend hundreds of dollars to make someone feel special, when sometimes all it takes is just talking over dinner or going for a walk together?

I understand there are some women out there that need this holiday, because their man is not so romantic or in-touch with any remote kind of feelings. In this case, yes, you probably need this holiday. (If you are one of those guys reading my blog - Wow! Is she making your read this? Seriously, though, turn off the TV, do the dishes or something and go for a walk with her WEEKLY! Or at least start off monthly, then we'll go from there.) The other women who have decent guys who genuinely care and show their feelings, don't really need this holiday.

Oh yes, I have one of those decent guys. (Actually I have a great guy.) Maybe he is the reason I have come to terms with my hatred of this holiday. In the 11 years we have known each other, we have spent maybe 3 or 4 Valentine's Days together...in the same house.

When we met he was in a ROTC program and worked a part-time job, I worked in a movie theatre. We barely saw each other when holidays were involved. Fast forward a few years, as an officer in the Navy he was underway or deployed most holidays.

During his shore duty we actually were a little confused as what to do with holidays. They didn't matter a whole lot to us, but now we have kids. Holidays became this mixture of confusion how to make it fun for the kids, but not go all nutso buying stuff.

Now Military Dad is back to sea duty and is on the other side of the US for school. Once again it is Valentine's Day and we aren't together. Most people are thinking, "Oh how sad!" I'm actually happy just because it seems this is our Valentine's Day celebration. We don't just refuse to celebrate it, he leaves the state entirely!

In my refusal to celebrate this holiday I have now come to a crossroads with the kids. They had to buy Valentines for their classmates this week. That is an entirely different story involving me almost crying as my kids fought over which princess or superhero was better. Now the random Pepto-colored or super hero cards are all labeled and delivered to their respective classes. Upon arrival at Princess' school, there were kids everywhere, literally (not figuratively) buzzing around with excitement. Seriously...buzzing.

I realized, when you are a kid and you have to buy a Valentine for every kid in your class, because every other kid in the class is doing the same, this holiday isn't so bad. It's when you leave that safety of forced gifts that it becomes messy. Elementary school is fun and safe. Middle school is hell, high school is basically the "Pit of Despair" and then you're on your own with some unreal expectations.

So I think for the few years my kids are in this fun/safe area I will allow myself to enjoy this holiday with them. It's basically a day they get stuff and lots of sugar, what's not to like as a kid? I still hate that Pepto-pink though. No amount of kid-induced happiness will ever change my loathing on that issue.

So to all the elementary kids reading my blog (please, let there not be any actually reading this - what is this world coming too?) Happy Valentine's Day!

To everyone else....take better care of yourself! Learn to love yourself, before you need someone else to show you love or attention.

CSA - I'm a believer!

I'm so excited! Tomorrow I get my first Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) basket. Since I'm trying this out, I ordered 1 Small box every other week for $23.50.

 My box contents will be:
1 bunch of celery
1 head of lettuce
1 bunch of mizuna
1 bunch radish
1 bag spinach
1.5 lbs apples
1.5 lbs blood oranges

For those people (like me), mizuna is a green leafy plant that tastes and resembles mustard greens. So...what do I do with it? I google it of course and find a few recipes that simply add it to salads or stir fry. Yay, I can do that.

Radishes, huh? Don't get me wrong I love me some radish, only because I am a Fraggle Rock fan. Unless people somehow sneak it into recipes, I don't think I have had a radish in many, many years. I remember them being spicy in a tangy way. This rules out Princess liking them. She used to love spicy things, now she complains if I put too much black pepper on something. Ugh! 

What I am interested in is comparing the cost? Is this at least a good deal? At first glance just looking at the list, if I wasn't interested in the organic side, I would scream, "Oh wow, this is expensive!"

Since I misread my CSA email and didn't think I was getting my basket until next week, I went shopping yesterday...yay, lots of produce this week! This week I actually bought organic apples and bananas. Yes, they were about twice as much. However, the last time I bought organic bananas (2 weeks ago), they lasted longer than the regular bananas I bought 1 week ago. They also had a better texture and tasted better, somehow.  The apples tasted just like the ones I remember picking in my backyard as a kid.

The problem I had this week was, my bananas came from Guatemala and all the other produce (except apples) also came from other countries. My previous blog post details why this bothers me (working conditions, quality, pesticide issues, etc). Tomorrow I will pick up a basket full of produce that came from less than an hour away from my house! If anything is spoiled or bruised in my basket, I get to exchange it! I don't get that kind of knowledge (or exchange program) from my local supermarket. Some days it's hard to find apples that don't feel greasy. Why are they greasy anyway? Eeew.

The money I spent on groceries yesterday at Sprouts (just produce, not including tax) was $21.11. My CSA basket costs $23.50.

Wow.

I saved $2.39, by not buying local or organic produce.

After looking at this, I'm sold on this idea. At first I was scared of not knowing what I was going to get on a basket-to-basket basis. However, now I'm looking at this as though someone is saying, "Here, cook with this, this week." It's a way to see the variety as a challenge to add new things to your diet. If they have dessert recipes out there for radishes, I am definitely sold!