A red ladder helped me out of a black hole

Apparently I have been blessed and forgot to take notice. Things have been pretty hard the past couple of weeks for me personally and I am having a bitch of a time dealing with it. Finishing my student teaching put my into kind of a black hole, I loved being in the classroom and implementing strategies and interacting with the kids on a daily basis. Student teaching for me was basically a job that I loved that I was forced out of. It seemed that taking me out of that environment and back into the world of being jobless and out of money was like removing me from a dream where JakeG rides up to me on a white horse and steals me away to live on an island somewhere forever.

I've started to get a little funky, like not smelly, but in a funk. My heart sank more and more when people talked about the sinking job market and I focused on my declining bank account. I got pissed when the government didn't hand me all of the free money they didn't even really promise us, but for some reason I thought I was entitled to.

So yesterday when my heart was in a dark place I was sitting on the beach watching the waves crash in front of me. The ocean and the beach used to be my haven, the place I went to be with God, to find peace, to relax, but yesterday it was just another place to be. That is until my red-headed friend who I have been hanging out with for the past 5 1/2 years made me think again. He reminded me to open my eyes and look before me to what is happening. The ocean is God in liquid form and I am beyond lucky to be where I am. I am beyond lucky to have the things I have. I have forgotten that my life does not revolved around my band acct unless I create that mindset. He kindly noted that although I get on his case for being negative about getting into business school I do not practice what I preach when it comes to getting a job next fall.

It was then that I looked out in front of me and listened to his voice on my left. We live in paradise, a place where people pay thousands of dollars to visit. If we are tired or stressed out we can drive 5 miles and place our booties on the sand, close our eyes, and listen to the crash. We have a one bedroom apartment in Laguna beach which is leaps and bounds above living in a cardboard box on a street somewhere. Our cars not only get us from point A to point B but we also have keyless entry and working breaks. We have time to chill and live instead of having to work hours upon hours upon hours. We are not alone. We have family and most importantly we have each other. And then he said the thing that hit me the hardest. "Think about all of the things you have and remember that you cant take it all for granted because one day it could all be gone and then where would you be."

He was right, dont tell though, he wouldn't let me live it down.

I am going to try to turn over a new rock (cliche, I know). Pick up my chin and make things happen for myself instead of thinking it should be handed to me. So wish me luck friends, because here I go!

Home Work

I used to get pretty heated by people who thought it was a woman's duty to be in the kitchen and to stay at home rearing the children. The idea still seems pretty archaic to me, I really don't see this idea having any worth in today's world. It is not a woman's obligation or duty to be susie homemaker just because she has a set of knockers.

There are three different kind of woman I will touch on in this post. There is the woman who works 40-60hrs a week and does not have time to ALSO be the person responsible for everything that needs to be done in the home. There is the woman who is OC, what I mean by that is, she carries her dog in a bag with her, wears ginormous diamonds (most likely mined from conflict), lives for her giant fake boobs and the man who pays for her every need (and has a maid, mind you, so none of the cleaning really matters to her, but she is still at home 80% of the day being rich and fake and boring) and there is the woman who has chosen to stay at home and raise the children and be a an active member in the community and her children's lives.

That being said there is a sort of debacle I have been having in my personal life that relates to said subject. I kind of fall in between the first woman described and the third. I have been working full time the last three months in an unpaid student teaching position. It has been a crazy time with lots to do with school work, planning, and the dreaded TPA's (my personal assessments, not that you care). So life has been crazy even though I have been getting home early enough to take care of some stuff around the house.

For those of you who know me, you know I am both a terrible cook and a person who doesn't love cooking (if you need to know why, please see previous part of the sentence). I also do not love housework. I dont mind vacuuming, but our vacumn isn't working well. Dusting is annoying and dishes are not bad, but I get tired/lazy sometimes. Cleaning the toilet is gross and laundry is the worst. I sound so neggy right now. In reality I don't mind doing these things but have found myself rebelling against them. I am rebelling against the fact that I should be doing more housework as my man has been paying 80% our shared bills and he is amazing for doing so.

I do realize that because he is basically taking care of my financial needs it would be nice if I reciprocated by doing some crap around the house so he doesn't really have to worry about it. But my struggle lies in the vision I have of a woman, me, in a gingham jumper dress pulling a pot roast out of a steaming oven and placing that and the side dishes on a nice piece of china and then setting it directly in front of my bf/husband who happens to be seated in front of the table I set in the middle of all of the other "chores" to be done around the house. Oh and don't forget the napkin he has placed in his shirt collar to not dirty his nice, starched, work shirt.

The reality is that this is not the case at all. He helps with so much and at times even does more. Anyway, I guess at the end of the day my giving in to doing more housework does not ACTUALLY make me the next Doris Day, but just a contributor to the well being of our little pseudo family.

I am a Vegetarian--or am I?

There are so many different kinds of ways people classify vegetarianism.
Here are some of them:
I am a lacto-ovo veg, which means I eat eggs and do dairy products.
Some are lacto which means they do dairy but not eggs.
Some are ovo which means they do eggs but not dairy.
There are vegans which means they use nothing in their lives that has been derived from animal byproducts (i.e. honey, leather, foodstuffs, etc).

Then there are the ones I used to call the delusional ones, the ones who think they are vegetarian because they don't eat red meat, or they only eat fish. News flash: Fish are still animals--Fish is still a meat. Chicken is STILL a MEAT.

Not only are there several different classifications of vegetarianism, there are also many different reasons why people choose this lifestyle. There have been books written on all of the reasons why people become vegetarian or vegan so I wont really go into it in great depth.

Some are to be advocates for the animals (there are some gnarly practices going on in American/International slaughterhouses).
For some it is due to the health aspect: allergies, blood pressure, heart disease and so on.

I was one of those that did it for the animals. I read about everything that occurs in the slaughterhouses and none of it seemed right. It is my true and honest belief that animals are creatures of God meaning they have souls and feelings. Who are we to think we are so superior that it is ok to treat animals as if they are just there to feed us. Some may argue that God put animals on this earth to feed people, and that may be correct, but the way we have gone about persuing this right is unGodly.

Anyway the thing that prompted me to write this blog is my struggle with my ability to be a true to word vegetarian. I just really started to become more aware of some of the non-vegetarian processing practices and the instances of non-vegetarian food additives in products I would never have thought to look. Cheese and sugar for instance. I was always aware of gelatin and how it is made, but what about creating a more refined sugar by breaking it down with animal bones. Can it make me feel better to know that only 25% of sugar processors use this practice? No, because what about those times I am not at my home eating my 100% natural blah blah blah sugar, and I get some sort of food that has sugar in it and it happens to have been processed using this practice but I would never know and Lord knows my sweet 20yr old college student waitress wouldn't know either. So I eat it, doing my best pretending that there can be NO way this sugar was broken down and made that pretty white color by using animal bones.

So for someone like me who has chosen this lifestyle to be a spokes person for the animals what are we supposed to do. Do I hole myself up in my apartment for the rest of my life, going to work only to make money to spend at the whole-natural-organic (which also has several different classifications by the way)-food stores? In my current financial state it is almost like I cant really afford to be a true vegetarian, eating products bought at these stores just to ensure I am in no way contributing to slaughterhouse products or slaughterhouse by products. Here are some examples I found online:

• gelatin (from animal bone)
  

• avoid jello, starburst, skittles, sour cream, Extra Polar Ice gum, some gummy bears
  

• Skittles from the Czech Republic and Starburst from England do not contain gelatin.
  

• note: most camera film is made from gelatin.
  

• lipase (from calves, lambs, or kids—a enzyme used in food processing)
  

• A lot of wine and beer is not vegan - anyone know about hard alcohol?
  

• almost all cheap and imported beers and wines are filtered with isinglass (derived from fish) or bone char.
  

• White flour and white sugar- supposedly the calcium carbonate used to bleach these products can derive from animal bones. Can anyone provide a primary source to confirm or deny this claim?
  

• Chocolate - yes its true. apparently the refined sugar in it is made using a process involving animal bone charcoal.
  

• Sugar - some brands of refined cane sugar is made with a process using animal bone charcoal to "scrub" it clean of impurities, color, flavors, and minerals. C&H used to be vegan (as of 2001), but not Imperial. All sugar derived from sugar beets is vegan (not filtered with bone char). This is also true of common "Brown sugar" which is white sugar before the brown is added back in

And these are just a few. So the question is, is what I am doing or trying to stand for even worth it? Do I just give it all up and start eating meat, like in its solid form, almost as if the last 9 years don't even matter. The food industry is making it very hard for me to be solid in my belief and they way I choose to act on those beliefs.

I am having a vegetarian identity crisis.

DOGA

I heard about this craze on the news this evening. DOGA. Can you figure it out? If you are smart and on top of it, you have already concluded that this acronym stands for Dog Yoga. Apparently, there are DOGA classes across the globe in places ranging from New York to Japan and everywhere in between.

This should definitely be added to the blog, Stuff White People Like. When was the last time there had been a fad so off the wall....let's revisit the past. Barrettes that looked like little hats, shabby chic furniture, ponchos, hammer pants, snap bracelets (loved em), wearing clothes backward (think CrissCross), garbage pail kids, etc.

I don't think that even I could jump on the DOGA bandwagon, regardless of the fact that I have no dog. There is a reason in yoga we have downward facing dog, because they already do it. Yoga is about listening to the Earth and finding peace and I don't think that having your (insert appropriate breed of dog here) running around your mat and your body as you are trying to contort or perfect your headstand would be provide for a very productive yoga practice.

In the dark

Well, I have to admit, Earth hour has come and gone and we embraced it whole heartedly. By we, I mean myself and my nephew THOR, he is a cavachon, a big fluffy white dog. We turned out the lights at 8pm, although I did enjoy some sudoku under the dim glow of a flashlight (hopefully that is allowed).

It was harder than I thought, at first I thought maybe because THOR was coming over we wouldn't be able to do it, but it seemed that wasn't the case. In fact, I think THOR liked Earth Hour. It was a time where there were no loud bangs or screeches or people talking on the tv. This little pup is a scaredy cat, he jumps at everything. THOR and his mom and dad (Andrea and Cody) are visiting their friends who live in San Clemente. The friends have a one-year old, so their home all is hustle and bustle, too much excitement for my man THOR. If I were THOR I would like Earth Hour too, the room all nice and quiet.

EH was also hard because it was a time where I could not turn to the internet or my IPOD or my friends on TV for entertainment. It was old skool like Oregon trail times when people wrote stories and read them alod by firelight.

All in all I was glad to have taken part in this environmental movement, and pleased to hear that people all over the world were taking part in it during 8pm their time. Thank goodness for the fact that people are finally coming to the realization that something has to be done.

Here, Here to the World Wildlife Foundation for creating this movement, and for getting the word out so effectively. I know I will mark this day for years to come!

Earth Hour

Well, I never thought I would see the day that blogging on here would be part of my life, but I have been inspired by friends. The main reason I wanted to start this was just to share a passion I have, green living. Sometimes I slack, but I try to practice what I preach.

Anyway, today is the day I started this thing because it is a special day. It is Earth Hour and this is something I was just introduced to the past couple of days, but found super interesting. Here is some info, enjoy......

On March 29, 2008 at 8 p.m., join millions of people around the world in making a statement about climate change by turning off your lights for Earth Hour, an event created by the World Wildlife Fund.


Earth Hour was created by WWF in Sydney, Australia in 2007, and in one year has grown from an event in one city to a global movement. In 2008, millions of people, businesses, governments and civic organizations in nearly 200 cities around the globe will turn out for Earth Hour. More than 100 cities across North America will participate, including the US flagships–Atlanta, Chicago, Phoenix and San Francisco and Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. View cities involved around the world.


We invite everyone throughout North America and around the world to turn off the lights for an hour starting at 8 p.m. (your own local time)–whether at home or at work, with friends and family or solo, in a big city or a small town.


What will you do when the lights are off? Get creative, think Old Skool.


Join people all around the world in showing that you care about our planet and want to play a part in helping to fight climate change. Don’t forget to sign up and let the world know you want to join Earth Hour.


http://www10. earthhourus. org/

One hour, America. Earth Hour.
Turn out for Earth Hour!