Adventures in Getting Debt Free, or, Will this make me lose more sleep or less?

This little note greeted me the last time I logged into one of Chris's student loan websites. "Paid in Full." Granted, it's only one of two school loans we are paying off from his 3 years at SCAD. But it was the larger loan, with a higher interest rate. We recently met with a financial advisor who recommended that we use all of our savings to get these loans paid down as much as possible, and then continue to throw all of our money at them until they're gone. THEN we worry about saving up after these are paid off. He recommended this because, with the economy what it is, our savings was gaining basically zero interest, while the loans, of course, continue to accumulate. Before this meeting, I had us "on track" to pay off these loans by 2015. Now we have one paid and - if we keep paying off the other one at the rate we were previously paying off two - we should have the other paid off by the end of 2011 or so.

When we first made the big transfer out of the savings account and off to Ending Debt Land, I had mixed feelings... a bit of relief that this loan was GONE, but a bit of fear that the savings was also GONE. What are we going to do if I lose my job? What if someone totals our car? What if Zeke spills smoothie all over my laptop and I have to buy a new machine? Chris was worried that, rather than reducing my stress level, paying off this debt would increase my stress because I would worry more about not having any sort of safety net. And to be honest, I was a little concerned about that, too. I still am.

But a nearly month has passed an so far I'm still pretty excited about the prospect of saying "Bye Bye," to the debt. Now, I am a little more concerned about us staying within budget for each month, but for now that is probably a good thing.

We've also heard some timely sermons at church about being thankful for what we have, and recognizing that we - all of us with a roof over our heads - are rich, and that what we have is a blessing. So this season may mean trusting for the Lord to get us through every month a little more than we had to before... but that is a GOOD thing. That's where our trust should be in the first place, not in the dollar signs in a savings account. Ultimately, getting out of debt is biblical, and trusting in the Lord for everything is biblical, and I'm feeling like we're on the right track.

Not to say all of this is easy. I'm still struggling with some aspects of the budget, and with fear of not making ends meet, but ultimately, overall, when all is said and done, we're on the right track and I'm feeling good about that. The rest shall be left to other posts, or, more likely, left out of the public space that is the interwebs.

Reflections on My 9 Day Fast from Junk Food

This is a followup to my rambling about an 8 Day Fast from Junk Food.

So my 8 day chocolate / caffeine / refined sugars fast became a 9 day fast and was very successful! Why did it become a 9 day fast? Because apparently Day 8 was my threshold... although I still was craving coffee and chocolate (for the taste, not the caffeine) during Day 7, by Friday, when I was allowed to break my fast, I didn't want to. It was strange to me, too, but I just didn't really care about having a piece of chocolate or a coffee, even though we were taking a 6 hour drive with our screaming baby and reached our destination after midnight. So I figured as long as I didn't WANT it, I certainly wasn't going to be silly and EAT it.

On Day 10 I did have a little chocolate, but still didn't wind up drinking any decaf until about Day 12... and only then because I was cold and it was brewing at my grandma's house.

All last week I was at my grandma's farmhouse in rural Indiana (and by rural I mean corn fields are our neighbors and my uncle owns ducks). It was fantastic and I never want to leave when we're there. My grandma made about a dozen different sugary snacks and desserts that taunted me all week, so even though I was allergic to most of them, I still found sugary chocolaty sweet things that I could eat, to make up for all the food I could not. And I did drink a TON of decaf coffee. Like I said, it was there, and I was cold, and it was tasty. But although I indulged quite a bit over the Thanksgiving week, I didn't feel the same need for the stuff that I had before the fast, so I was very happy to have done it. Getting back to normal life is a bit easier now, and it's been easier to cut back down on the sweets.

On the plus side, Zeke didn't sleep any better or act any less rambunctious when I cut down on the caffeine and sweets, so it looks like having them in my diet wasn't really affecting him that much. This makes me happy because that means I don't have to cut them out altogether. He's just a rambunctious kid, plain and simple.

My 8 Day Fast from My Favorite Junk Foods

taking a short break from my Turning 30 rambling to talk about my favorite junk food.

Most of you know that a couple years ago, I found out that I have a TON of food sensitivities that prevent me from eating a lot of "normal people" food. While this has made some things very tricky (like finding food when I travel), it's been a blessing in so many other ways. I feel a lot better, for one thing. I also learned how to eat an appropriate amount of calories for my size, which meant that I went from a size 12 to a size 6 in the first 6 months after learning about my allergies, and have since been able to maintain a healthy weight (even the day I went into labor, I weighed less that I did before I learned about my food issues). I have also learned how to cook tons of tasty food and have gotten in a groove of making food to take with me places, which also saves us money. Finally, with all the research I've had to do to find tasty recipes, I've learned so much about eating healthy and the benefits of healthy eating. All great things that NEVER would have happened if I could still get away with just popping open a BPA-laden can of gluten-and-corn-and-sodium-filled Progresso Soup every time I was lazy and hungry, like I did for so many years before.

But because there are so many foods that I have to avoid, I tend to really enjoy the ones I CAN have. I was really praying that Zeke wouldn't be lactose intolerant like many babies are, because then I would have to give up dairy for as long as I was nursing. (Thankfully, a two-week dairy fast proved that it didn't have any effect!) I also really enjoy my chocolate and coffee (decaf, of course, because I'm sensitive to caffeine).

One great thing about nursing a baby is that you can eat a lot more calories and not gain weight. This means I've stopped counting calories (because who has time with a baby, anyways?) and have been giving into my sweet tooth a LOT lately. I even started to cheat and have some M&Ms and Snickers bars every now and then, because that little bit of corn syrup wasn't hurting me much, and they are soooo good. But the more I gave into my sweet tooth, the harder it's been to say no. I finally had to acknowledge that it was getting out of control, and that I didn't have the willpower to stop eating this stuff.

Another thing I started to notice is that I was getting caffeine headaches if I went a day without a decaf coffee or a green tea. I thought that was kind of ridiculous, that I could even develop a dependency on such a low dose of caffeine. I was also wondering if that caffeine was keeping the little man awake... we've always had trouble getting him to sleep, and he's VERY active - always needs stimulation - so I was starting to wonder if the caffeine and sugar from my diet had anything to do with it.

Then I kept reading about how sugar consumption makes you much more susceptible to colds/flus, and with this crazy flu season I didn't want to be increasing my chances of bringing something home to my son.

All of this combined kept me thinking about my dependency on my favorite junk foods, and how with the holiday season around the corner, between traveling and holiday meals my eating habits were only going to get worse. I needed to do something about this now instead of deciding to do something about it in January when I will already be burnt out.

So I decided it was time for drastic action. Telling myself to "cut down" on the junk wouldn't do the trick. I needed to detox from the junk... so I am doing an 8 day fast from chocolate, caffeine, and sugar. I'm now on Day 5 and doing great!

Why 8 days? Because I'm going out of town on the 9th day and I don't want to deny myself coffee or anything else that I can eat when I'm on the road and struggling with the normal difficulties of eating on the road. 8 days was as good as it was going to get - and I'm hoping a good week of eliminating those things will make it easier for me to make healthy eating choices over the holidays.

The decision was hard to make but it's been easier to do than I thought (except for the coffee... I just love coffee! I miss it!). I've realized that my mind works in a very specific way. Food that I know I shouldn't eat is a strong temptation that I almost always give in to. But food that I know I can't eat isn't a temptation at all. I just look right past it, like it's rocks or something. So I just needed to tell myself that I can't eat chocolate, sugar, or caffeine and then it's not so hard. I even made my husband some of my favorite no-bake chocolate oatmeal cookies last night (ingredients are basically butter, sugar, chocolate, milk, and oats) and didn't even think of eating one.

I do need to come up with some reasonable limits to my junk intake for when I allow myself to eat these again, so I don't go right back off the deep end. Otherwise it will have all been for nothing. I'm thinking one cup of decaf a day, one serving of chocolate a day... but is that too much? Maybe 4 servings of chocolate a week? This is the tricky part... I'll get back to you on that.

In the meantime, I've just been chowing down on dried papaya chunks whenever I have a sweet tooth, and I've been drinking lots of fruity tea with honey. Those both help, but it also helps that my husband and friends are all very supportive (not tempting me or telling me I'm silly). I've been posting a Facebook status about this at least once a day to keep myself accountable and get a little encouragement.

And, of course, I keep dreaming of the coffee I'll make on Friday.

Cooking Day

Today Chris had to work all day, so Zeke and I were on our own for the Saturday. Since I had some squash and a pumpkin and stuff that I needed to do something with, today became a busy Cooking Day. I often get a bit too ambitious when it comes to baking days... I just keep adding "one more thing" and they keep piling up and it gets a bit hard to juggle, but today wound up being pretty successful nonetheless. By the end of the day I had accomplished the following:

1. Crock pot full of the tastiest batch of White Bean Chili I've ever made (with ground turkey and sprouted beans - navy, garbanzo, pinto, lentils).
   
2. 6 servings of Roasted Pumpkin Salad (not that tasty, but I'll cope - it was fun to try and now I've got lunches for a week).
3. A batch of sweet potato puree for Zeke (ice cube tray full of batches for later)
4. 4 cups of pumpkin puree for baking later
5. Ice cube tray full of pumpkin puree for later recipes
6. Roasted pumpkin seeds - best part of baking pumpkins!

The problem with all the cooking is that lots of things needed to be frozen, but our freezer is already full of veggie broth and shredded chicken and breast milk and tons of other miscellaneous stuff, so I also had to organize the freezer with a baby strapped to my hip and remove the ice cream maker bin to make room.

I also did two loads of laundry, took a walk with a friend, and... watched 2 episodes of Gilmore Girls. And all with a 6 month old who refused to nap. Good day!

Tomorrow after church I have a friend coming over to hang out. We're making some sort of lunch with the squash and turnip greens I have (need to find a recipe), and I need to bake something yummy and gluten free with the pumpkin puree that I didn't freeze. I love free weekends.

Now cleaning... yeah, cleaning isn't happening at all. I might try to do some of that tomorrow. I also might actually FOLD some clothes tonight. I do much better with baking that with cleaning. Cleaning doesn't fill my belly.

Kitchen shelves

Our new kitchen has much less counter and cabinet space than our old apartment... that was the one thing that made me uncertain about renting the place. But everything else about the place was so perfect, so we decided we would make the kitchen work. Luckily it does have a "breakfast nook" so we got an island from Ikea (as-is section!) and then the fun part. We had been collecting wine crates from places around town to use as shelves and drawers and such. So we put some up on the walls in the breakfast nook to make more cabinet space. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.



For more on our craftiness in the new place, check out Chris's awesome tables. These things are amazing!

Atlanta Deluge

So if you don't live in Atlanta, it's possible that you've missed the news that it's been raining for about a week, and yesterday's storms brought the metro area to its tipping point... floods everywhere!

So yesterday my coworkers and I decided we should leave work early to try and get home before storms and flooding got worse, but we were about an hour late in making that decision... a coworker and I got stuck on the I-75/I-85 connector in downtown Atlanta when the interstate flooded in both directions. I circled the approximate location of my car when this aerial shot was taken - right under that overpass. I was just grateful to be under the overpass so I could get out of my car and walk around a bit to figure out what was happening... and also grateful that I wasn't about 10 minutes earlier to the scene, or that may have been my car drowned out in the water!



My coworker took this photo of the scene.



After probably an hour of sitting there, police organized things enough that we could all turn around and squeeze up the side and get onto a bypass a little ways back on the interstate. Then I had to call Chris and get him to figure out for me what the best alternate route was for me to get home and not get stuck on another flooded road. Chris had a friend who was also going home from downtown, who was able to tell him how he made it safely to the interstate, so I followed suit, slowly but surely... and my 30 minute commute finally ended 2 hours after it started.

I was just soooo grateful to be home and not stuck on the interstate for longer than we were. At first I was anticipating being there for hours!

At least now I have a story, and I can mark "make a three-point turn and drive back the wrong way on the interstate" off my list of "Things to do before I'm 30." *

* No, that wasn't on my list. I don't even have a list. But I SHOULD have a list, and if I did, that should have been on it.

ceramics fun day, and the craft tables...

A couple Saturdays ago, my friend Bethany and I (and little Zeke!) went down to my local independent coffee shop and had fun painting ceramics, courtesy of Glazy Dazy. Zeke was pretty well behaved for most of the time, playing in his car seat and sleeping in the carrier I was wearing, so that I was able to get most of my set painted before I had to get Bethany to help out with him so I could finish it up. We had a good time and I have a new addition to my teapot collection!

The pottery was really reasonably priced, and the woman who does the ceramics also does parties, so we're thinking we HAVE to get a party together to paint once we get our all-purpose-creative-room finished. Chris and his dad built some super cool work tables for the room, but Chris has to put the finishing touches on them and finish organizing that room. I can't wait until it's all together, it is going to be an awesome room.

Here is a sneak peak of the work in progress.

Genetically Modified corn and soy

Chris sent me this interesting (although long) article on the effects of genetically modified (GM) foods. It further makes me wonder if my corn allergy is related to eating GM corn before I started avoiding corn. Some of the side effects they mention (other than allergies) are flu-like symptoms... which are exactly the symptoms I get now when I eat things with corn or corn derivatives.

Anniversaries

This next few days are chock full of anniversaries / milestones.
Most importantly, Sunday (March 29) is Chris and my 6 year wedding anniversary! And our last child-free anniversary. How are we going to celebrate? Probably by skipping church, sleeping in, and then doing not much of anything all day, just hanging out. It will probably be our last chance for a while to not do much, so we will relish it. Last year we did the same thing - stayed home and did nothing - and it was great. A fantastic way to celebrate. :-)

(March 29, 2003 - the wedding party, left to right: Alan, Emily, Sam, Kendra, Chris, Brooke, Mike, Amy, Phil)
Sunday is also my one year anniversary of calorie-counting. (Yep, I started my diet on our 5 year anniversary. I'm weird.) I lost about 25 lbs and got to my "goal weight" in about 4 1/2 months. And right about the time I got to my goal weight and started eating enough calories to "maintain" my weight, we found out I was pregnant! Since then I've been steadily climbing back up, but this time with pregnancy weight. The thing that's funny to me is that one year later, I still weigh about 7 lbs LESS than I did a year ago, even though I'm in my 8th month of pregnancy! Calorie counting pays off big time... let me just say it's not fun or easy, but I definitely think it's been worth it to have a better idea of what's going into my body, and now, Zeke's body.
Finally, Tuesday will be my one-year anniversary of being gluten-free. Yep, a year ago I found out that I had a gluten sensitivity and started on the road to figuring out my many other food sensitivities. I think it's safe to say that even with a little Zeke stealing all my energy as of late, I feel a zillion times better than I did a year ago, when my body spent all its time attacking the food I was eating.
Celebrations abound!

yay for

So we had a good time visiting with my grandma and my great aunt this afternoon / evening, and even though it's been a very busy day, now that they've gone to bed, I'm still too awake to sleep... which is a bummer because I do have to go into work tomorrow. I guess I'll manage.

So I struck out with the rosemary and basil plants. I want to get organic ones, but none of the places that usually carry them (Whole Foods, and Sevannanda) have them right now. I don't know if it's too early, or what. Home Depot had basil, but it's not organic, and since I'm using organic potting soil and organic plant food that I already have, I don't see the point in compromising and buying a non-organic plant. But I REALLY want some basil! I wonder if it's too early, or if I just need to expand my search. I should probably call Urban Gardener tomorrow and see if they've got their herbs in stock. I can't even try to grow things from seeds, they always fail (the one exception being my avacado plant, and I tried three of those and the only one that lived is the one that was ALREADY sprouting inside the avacado when I cut it open). So each year I just buy the actual plants... I really don't have a green thumb, I just try real hard not to kill my plants, and that's about the best I can do. Alas!

Spring!

This morning we got the phone call that we have a baby niece! Hannah Emily Skeene was born in Thailand at 4:29pm Thai time (that's 4:29am our time), and we got the call around 8:30 in the morning. Sam and Nicole were quite pleased that their baby girl was born on a prime number day - 03/07/09. So much excitement about numbers lately, it makes me smile.

So less than a week after our big Atlanta snow, we had an 80-degree day today. Chris and I invited a few friends to have a picnic with us at Piedemont Park to enjoy our first big spring day. It was great to be out and soaking up the sun. This spring weather has me so happy and looking forward to all the new life it brings... not just gardening, but in the form of a niece and a son, too, of course!

So I had quite the productive day, I made a batch of sprouted hummus this morning before the picnic (I'm a hummus-making fiend lately), and this evening I made some lavender ice cream - yum! We also went through all the baby clothes our friend Amy just sent us, and got them all washed and organized and whatnot. Busy busy! I usually hate doing laundry and folding clothes, but I can't get enough of folding little boy onesies!

Tomorrow after church I'm going to get some new basil and rosemary plants (they always die over the winter). I'm so happy to have weather that will be kind to my plants, which have all slowly died over the winter. I hope to have the time to get them planted before my grandma gets into town in the evening. She's driving back up to Indiana and so she and my great aunt are staying the night with us. I'm excited to get to spend some time with them. Quite the packed weekend!

lifestyle changes

Over the past few months, Chris and I have felt the Lord calling us to be better stewards of our money, our earth, and our health. To that end, we've been slowly trying to incorporate little changes into our daily lives to live healthier, greener, produce less waste, and save money. Most of these things come from tips we see on the internet where we think, "we could do that," and then we give it a shot. Some examples are making our own vegetable broth from veggie scraps, composting, and replacing our normal cleaning products with natural products like vinegar, peroxide, baking soda, and castile soap. And probably a few things that are so integrated into our daily lives at this point, that we've forgotten it's something "new" that we adopted. This is, of course, aside from all the cooking food from scratch that we've started doing since I learned about all my food allergies. I didn't really realize how many "strange" things we were doing until my mom came to visit in December and I found myself explaining all sorts of things to her (like what we were doing putting the butt ends of our onions in the freezer).

Well, this year we've had to put a whole new spin on things and kick it up a notch, because just like the rest of America, our income has been cut significantly from what we were making last year. And on top of that, we're adding a member to the family! At first I was really frustrated... we had worked so hard last year to become better stewards of our money and to be content with what we have, so it was really hard on me when our "reward" for that success was a further income cut. I started out being really stressed about our situation (well, to be honest, I still am stressed about it many days), especially when I realized that there was nothing new I could do to add to our income (there are only so many hours in a day), and that Chris was doing all he could as well. So since the only option left was cutting costs, we started brainstorming for ways we could make ends meet by spending less, instead of making more.

So we've been reading lots of money-saving blogs for tips and ideas, and generally asking ourselves what we can cut out or do differently. You may have noticed that Chris is especially obsessed with getting stuff for free, like food at restaurants, products at CVS, and of course our washer and dryer (although the jury is still out on whether or not those are working well enough to keep them. hmmmph). We've gotten better at cutting down eating at restaurants (we had cut down to about once a week, on Sundays, but have even tried to cut some of that out as well), and I've gotten much better at making my own ghetto lattes at home to bring to work, and "just saying no" to buying coffee work. We decided to cut down our meat consumption, and to use more dried and sprouted beans instead of canned beans, as yet another way to save a few dollars here and there. Finally, we've gotten better at questioning our normal grocery store purchases... certain convenience foods have to be put back if they're not on sale or necessary for a specific reason (like if we're traveling out of town and I have to have snack bars to take with me), and some foods were substituted for cheaper brands or different products (cream if rice for my breakfast is cheaper than cream of buckwheat, and just as tasty).

To be honest, I wasn't sure if all of this was going to work or not. I kind of felt like these things were all just drops in the bucket and we wouldn't really notice a difference at the end of the month. And I was so stressed about money that I didn't log our receipts from the month until yesterday (usually I try to keep up with it on a weekly basis so we know where we stand as we get closer to the end of the month). Imagine my surprise when I saw that, aside from buying a used car this month (an unavoidable necessity), we actually broke even for the month!

Some examples... although we ate at home a little more than we had been, we spent close to $200 less in groceries than our average month (and just so you know, that somehow meant it was actually EASIER for me to get all my necessary vitamins and minerals in my pregnancy diet, including calcium, protein, iron, and folic acid). We're still buying organic for the essentials (apples, dairy, eggs, etc), and we fed other people a few times. We also spent about $20 less on eating out, even though we paid for a friend's meal once in our month. I realized that in the whole month, I only bought two lattes, one because I was meeting a friend, and one because it was my boss's birthday. And our "just say no to non-essentials" policy meant we spent about $100 less on "miscellaneous" stuff than we usually do. To be honest, I don't feel like we deprived ourselves of anything or suffered through the month. It's a pretty good feeling. I'm hoping we can keep it up and hopefully make this yet another new lifestyle change that we don't even realize we're doing.

There is one aspect to all of this that shines out above all the others, and that's with all the new baby essentials. I've made my lists of what we need to have to be prepared for a new baby, and which items are conveniences instead of necessities, and have been expecting to spend quite a bit of our savings on baby stuff each month as we try to get all the essentials. What I wasn't quite expecting was just how generous people are, and how much the Lord would provide for us in this area. We've had a few people give us or lend us baby stuff that they no longer need, including clothes, diapers, a baby swing, a bouncer, a car seat, etc. Another friend has promised to help me with my sewing, and teach my how to make my own baby sling with fabric I already have (I cannot tell you how excited I am about this!) Add to that the generosity of friends and family with baby shower items, and we are getting fairly close to having everything we need for his first three months (and in some cases for the first year), without spending much at all. We have truly been blessed, and we know it!

So this has been quite the long rambly post that probably almost no one actually got all the way through, but there you have it. The moral of the story is that it's worth it to incorporate small changes into your life, and that they can indeed become great assets when they become second nature. The other moral of the story is that the Lord provides for our needs in ways we often don't even see at the time.

Christmas from Laos!

We just got a box of Christmas presents in the mail from Sam & Nicole (shipping from Laos takes a long time), and man is it some cool stuff! Chris layed everything out all cool-like and took pictures to share. This is my stash of cool Laotian gifts.

Complete with a set of cool chopsticks, yummy Lao teas, a hand-made book, a tshirt, and a beautiful Nicole-crocheted scarf. Now it just needs to get cold one more time so I can wear the scarf this year! Coolio.

tip for cleaning your produce

I saw this tip a while back, for a cheap but effective way to make sure your produce is germ-free before you eat it. Chris and I started using it for all our produce and we're quite pleased with it, so I thought I'd share. Great for countertops and cutting boards, too!

New Year's Flu

Chris and I have started our New Year off with a ... whimper. We both came down with a bad case of the flu (at least it sure feels like the flu) a day after getting home from the Florida tour. I guess I should be grateful that the flu waited to hit after we got home from our last 8 hour drive (my sister-in-law Emily started feeling sick Thursday, the day we drove home), and that it even waited until after Chris went grocery shopping on Friday so we weren't completely starved during our two worst sick days. But it's hard to be thankful for anything flu-related. I even got a flu shot this year... my best guess is that my flu shot saved me from the worst of it - my fever never got bad enough that I needed to call the doctor, and Chris had a fever much longer than I did (and a couple degrees higher), but other than that I don't think I've been faring much better than the husband.

One thing I will say is that there should be a Law of Nature that prevents both husband and wife from being super-sick at the same time. Really, it's pretty tricky when we're both too worthless to take care of the other. When necessary things had to happen (preparing food, shopping for cold medicine and OJ, getting more water) we would kind of have to play a game of "who's sicker right now" to figure out who was nominated for the task. I lost out for lots of water-gathering and food and tea prep, but I kept getting light-headed, so Chris was nominated to make the Kroger run.

And let me just say, being sick with a corn allergy and wheat allergy makes things REALLY tricky. The only pain killer I can have when I'm pregnant is tylenol, but every single acetaminophin product on the market contains some form of corn. (I spent a couple months researching this - my only option would be to hunt down an old-skool pharacist and pay lots of money for him/her to make something for me specifically). Same with cough drops, as best I can tell. And what's a gluten-free girl to do when she needs chicken noodle soup? I actually make a pretty awesome chicken veggie and noodle soup that's safe for me, but it takes a lot of prep time... I can't just boil some water and pour it over some dry noodle soup mix, like what I had for the first 27 years of my life when I was sick (and what Chris did for himself yesterday). Nope, eating more than an orange, banana, apple, or snack bar the past couple days required tons of teamwork between me and Chris. (And let's face it, oranges aren't exactly easy, either). But between the two of us, we did manage to get some veggie noodle soup (with chicken broth) made for Saturday AND Sunday, which was a lifesaver.

I also caved on the tylenol and the cough drops... I decided that the flu symptoms were decidedly worse than the ones I'd have from the corn in each product, so after a night of being unable to sleep because of how badly my muscles hurt, and worrying about my fever, I popped a couple extra strength tylenol and was surprised to find that within 30 minutes my muscle aches diminished significantly, and so had the fever. (And as soon as the 6 hours of tylenol had passed, the aching came right back, and it was time to pop another). I also took the cough drops because my throat hurt so bad. And I gotta say, when I'm sick, I miss the conveniences of modern medicine and heavily processed food.

At any rate, we're still fighting this thing off, and still afraid of being contagious and bringing our pain on others (you can be contagious for up to 7 days after symptoms start, especially if you're still coughing, etc), but we're starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe just a couple more days?

another compost update

So with the first trimester sickness, followed by a second trimester vacation, followed immediately by a bad cold, I've been WAY slack on posts. Sorry 'bout that. Pretty much all I've managed to keep up on is my facebook status, and that's only because I can update in from anywhere on my blackberry when I'm waiting for something to happen. Anyways. I plan to make up for it by posting three blogs right now. Two here and one on the baby blog. So there.

I meant to post this ages ago, but my mini composter didn't work AT ALL. Chris finally had enough of it (when I couldn't stand the smell I put him in charge) and he did some research, and decided to pick up a 5 gallon bucket and dump all of it in the bucket. He also told me that for now on, we have to cover our compost with dirt every time we put more in there, so it doesn't get to wet. (We lucked out and got three big planters full of dirt from a freecycler, so we actually have dirt to dump over the compost now). This has worked to kill all the maggots and get rid of the odor, but the compost doesn't seem to be breaking down very quickly this way. Today I had to pot a couple of things (an avacado plant I'd been sprouting from seed, and some other random stuff) but I couldn't find any compost that didn't have big peels and veggie chunks in it, so I didn't use much of the compost in my planting, which was a bummer. But Chris got a second bucket to start composting in, so that the current compost can sit and do its thing and we won't keep adding new chunks to it. Of course, now that it's cold I don't expect it to do much breaking down. I guess only time will tell. Still. What a ridiculously long experiment!

big news!

So we've been dying to share this for a while now, but had to wait until "the appropriate time."

Chris and I are having a baby!

We're thrilled, by the way. And of course all the family is super excited.

I'm 12 weeks along; almost out of my first trimester. Been doing pretty well, considering. But that is my excuse for not posting much lately... I just haven't been up for extra computer stuff a lot lately.

We've set up a new blog page to specifically follow the pregnancy, then once the baby is born, we can post photos and updates on the little one there. Head on over to baby.youarenotyourjob.com. Even though we didn't make this public until today, I've been slowly posting some updates on there already as time allows, so the ultrasound photos, stories, and whining about pregnancy woes have already begun.

What's really exciting is that Chris's brother and sis-in-law are also pregnant (a couple months ahead of us) so we'll have kids the same age. They live in Laos right now, teaching english, but they should be back in the Atlanta area for a year when our kids are about two years old, so they'll get to have their terrible twos together, anyways. What fun!

Okay, that's enough for now. Woo hoo!

Compost and Plants update

I re-planted all my plants about a month ago, changing their containers and adding some organic plant food because they all seemed a little sad. Since then all the plants I repotted have been flourishing like crazy... they all seem very happy in their containers. I'm pretty pleased with the flourishing green-ness of my balcony.

Now for the compost update. About a month ago I started a small compost bin on my 2nd floor balcony as an experiment. Since then Chris and I have been saving all our fruit and veggie waste in a plastic container in the fridge, and then when it gets full we dump it into one of the little compost boxes in the back. We've been pretty good about turning it once a week or more, too. And we don't put any animal products in there either. However, so far I don't know whether or not this experiment has been very... successful. For one thing, a lot of pieces break down quickly, but a lot of others seem to take forever to break down, so I don't really know when I can actually "harvest" some compost for my plants, if there are always fruit and veggie bits in there. I decided not to put anything new in the center container so it has time to completely break down, but it doesn't seem to be doing much work to break things down either. The left container is the one I "feed" most often and seems to be doing the best, although it also seems like it will never break enough food down since I keep feeding it. It's crawling with ants like crazy, too, which I guess is ok, but really I think the ants are just taking all the food away.

My big concern is with the far right section, which is crawling with big brown maggots. It's smelly and gross and the whole thing looks like it's moving.

EWWW!

So I asked Google about my composting issues (ants, maggots) and I learned a few things...

1. The Internet doesn't have a clue about composting bugs. I found so many conflicting responses to questions about both ants AND maggots that I have very little faith in actually getting any correct answers. (Pour boiling water on the ants and DON'T pour boiling water on the ants were both in google's top 5 links, and I also found tons of conflicting reports on the maggots, with "these maggots are good" and "these maggots are bad" both in the top options). I can only hope I managed to discern which ones were actually wise counsel and which were the words of fools.
   
2. Apparently ants will show up if the compost isn't damp enough. If I dampen those sections it should help.
3. Apparently these particular maggots are okay and harmless if I want to let them stick it out, but they are there because that compost section is too damp. If I add more brown plant material and shredded paper it should help dry it out and get rid of the maggots.

I am especially amused that I've managed to simultaneously create too dry and too damp compost. I've also seen people saying that if my compost is off the ground it should help with my pest problem.. which is interesting since, as I mentioned before, it's on wooden slates on a 2nd floor balcony. How much farther above ground to I need it?

At any rate, I think I'm going to get the hubby to help me implement some of these "solutions" tomorrow so I can keep my distance... just the time I've spent today photographing it and dampening the ant-compost heaps has my skin crawling, and five bucks says I'll dream of maggots crawling on my food or something. ::shudders::

More Corn Issues...

Today I got an iced coffee in a cup that, I realized after finishing the drink, was made from corn-based plastic. I researched it after I got home and found out that, sure enough, the corn can contaminate my food. This explains my achy back tonight. It could also explain other times when I've been super-careful about food, but still wind up feeling sick. Yet another thing to look out for in the future... and probably more and more as time goes on, since the idea of corn-based plastic (and other non-food products) will only become more popular, I'm sure. And I was lucky that this one told me it was corn-based... they certainly don't have to.

I also learned in my research that it's not as compostable as they say it is, and overall isn't really any better environmentally right now, except for the fact that it doesn't leech plastic toxins into the food.

I guess I should start carrying a stainless-steel or glass cup with me everywhere I go... although neither is really the easiest thing to do.

It's always an adventure around here.

Hooray for days that don't go as expected...

I spent all week looking forward to my crafty Saturday, going to the Craft party with a couple friends, then checking out Wonderroot with another friend. But before I even left for the Craft event, the friend who was going to pick me up from the Marta station bailed. I decided I would not let that stop me, so I just walked the mile and a half from the Marta station to Young Blood. The craft party wasn't what I expected... I was the first person there, and the only activity they had was a cheesy straw loom weaving project that I tried to get into, but it just didn't do it for me. Normally I would have walked in there, realized the project wasn't fun, felt dumb being all alone, and left. But I was still determined, so I hung out and met a couple people, like Carey from full of fluff, who taught me some new stuff about patterns.

After that I decided to walk up the couple blocks to Knitch, only to find that they closed early, just 30 minutes before. I was supposed to meet up with my friend Kat when she got off work around 4 to go to Wonderroot, and I was currently on the way from her house to where we were going, so I just... walked. I window shopped and browsed through boutiques along North Highland. I went to Paulo's Gelato to see if they could give me info about the ingredients in their gelato, and the girl behind the counter was absolutely not interested in helping, so I marked that place off my list for good. And I kept walking. By the time Kat called, I was just a few blocks from her house, so I walked the rest of the way and met her there. The whole trip (from Marta to Kat's) was only about 2 1/2 miles, and not a bad walk at all. Suddenly Atlanta seemed a lot more manageable... sure it takes a while to walk through all that, but there are a TON of cool communities and great shops between Inman Park and Virginia Highlands.

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So then Kat and I hopped in her car to head to the less walking-friendly area where Wonderroot is, only to find that it was closed for Labor Day. Not to be thwarted, we headed over to Java Monkey instead and hung out for a couple of hours, which was tons of fun. Now I'm finally home and winding down for the night, grateful for a fun and relaxing day, even if nothing went according to my "plan" for the day. I mean shoot, I had so much fun, I just had to blog about it.