relaxation musings

Watching fish swim in the outdoor pond with a light breeze blowing through the windchimes, my devoted dog at my feet reaching over every now and then to give my toes a lick while I write peacefully in my journal.  Time stands still for a few moments while I watch a mama bird and papa bird feeding their fledglings in the breeder box we nailed to a big old tree in our back yard…excited chirpings issuing forth at each entry of the parent as they deposit their gathered food.  Love isn’t reserved just for us humans.

lucky us

According to today’s regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, 70’s or even the early 80’s, probably shouldn’t have survived.

Our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets (not to mention the risks we took hitchhiking) .

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. Horrors! We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, and no one actually died from this. We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then rode down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the street lights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. No cell phones. Unthinkable! We did not have Playstations, Nintendo 64, X-Boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, video tape movies, surround sound, personal cell phones, personal computers, or Internet chat rooms. We had friends!  We went outside and found them.

We played dodge ball and sometimes the ball would really hurt. We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. They were accidents. No one was to blame but us.  Remember accidents? We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned to get over it. We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms, and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live inside us forever. We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s home and knocked on the door, or rang the bell or just walked in and talked to them.

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment. Some students weren’t as smart as others, so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat the same grade. Horrors! Tests were not adjusted for any reason.

Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law.  Imagine that!

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.

That’s what it was like to grow up before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good.

the day unto itself

I was out watering my gardens and it was so beautiful out that I decided to take a couple of indoor projects outdoors.  I had to alter a costume for my youngest guy’s tap recital and instead of sitting at the machine inside I went and sat at the garden cafe table and hand sewed it there.  It would be nice to do some of my computer work outside but I can’t use my husband’s laptop because he has windows and I use a Mac.  I guess I’m just going to have to get myself a MacBook for days like today.  :o)

sweet cheeks featured in the globe and mail

THE GLOBE AND MAIL - Newspaper - October 14th, 2006 in the style section (in both online and print editions) in a cloth diapering article titled ”DIAPER SNOBS”

sweet cheeks featured in canadian living

CANADIAN LIVING - Magazine - October 2003 (Volume 28, No. 10) in a work-at-home-moms article titled ”MOM, CEO”

 

sweet cheeks featured in bc talks business

BC TALKS BUSINESS - Magazine - February 1991 (Volume 3, Number 1) in an article titled ”SWEET CHEEKS PROUD OF THEIR BOTTOM LINE”

 

on a charitable note

Sweet Cheeks New Moon supports the Goods 4 Girls charity.  If you get a moment drop by and see what it’s all about.

   

 

female ecology notes

U.S. women landfill or incinerate 11.3 billion “disposable” menstrual products per year.

~ It takes approximately 500 years for one “disposable” menstrual pad to partially biodegrade.

~ ”Disposable” menstrual product manufacturers are not required to list their ingredients.  Nail polish and shampoo manufacturers are.

~ Slim “maxi” paper products are impregnated with synthetic gelling crystals to increase absorbency. Their safety has been hotly debated in baby diapers but overlooked in “disposable” menstrual products.

~ Women are absent in upper management of Fortune 500 companies that manufacture “disposable” menstrual products.

~ An individual woman throws away about ten thousand paper pads or tampons in her lifetime.

~ The primary target markets of Fortune 500 companies are adolescent girls and underdeveloped countries like Eastern Europe, Soviet Union and the Pacific Rim.

~ In the U.S., menstrual pads are considered “medical devices”.

~ ”Disposable” menstrual products are not sterilized.

~ Chlorine bleaching of paper pulp results in 400-700 million pounds of toxins being dumped into U.S. waterways.

~ Dioxins, the side-effect of chlorine bleaching, are suspected carcinogens and resistant to biological breakdown.

~ Dioxins have been documented to impair liver function and depress human immune systems.

~ The ozone is thinned by the CFC’s that are produced in the manufacturing processes that utilize chlorine – plastics, paints, dyes, bleaching agents, cleaning solvents, aerosols, deodorants, refrigerants, and wood preservatives.

~ Chlorine was the noxious substance used to suffocate soldiers during the First World War.

~ French nurses experimented with the first “disposable” menstrual products from cellulose surgical gauze during the First World War.

~ Trout store dioxins up to 86,000 times more than the water they find themselves in.  We eat these fish!

~ Humans are harboring increasing levels of dioxin in their fatty tissues and breast milk.  Ed. notes: Formula also has high dioxin levels, so this is not a reason not to breastfeed.

~ An estimated two million seabirds and one hundred thousand marine mammals die annually from swallowing plastics including tampon applicators.

Call the 1-800 number on “disposable” menstrual products and all white paper products and insist on products that have not been bleached at any stage of production with any chlorine.

Sources: Whitewash, Greenpeace

Please consider buying cloth and reusing.  The benefits to you and the planet are huge!

relieve dry itchy skin

Combine 1/2 cup of rolled oats with 1 tablespoon of skim milk powder.  Put into muslin infusion bag and place it in the bathtub while running the water.  This poultice can be applied directly to any particularly patchy or itchy areas.  When done, discard contents and reuse infusion bag for next poultice.