cars live green: cars ford f150 global warming guilt honda honda civic hybrid altima hybrid civic mpg suvs toyota tundra trucks
by Blabby
leave a comment
mpg
I recently saw something on Zaproot.com talking about how ethanol really isn’t much better environmentally. My brother in law just bought a new Ford F750 or something - just kidding, it’s a F150, but it’s huge and ridiculous. But the sad truth is that it’s awesome. My dad has a Toyota Tundra and it’s also awesome. He’s always looking at truck parts on ebay - like a billy bar and a brush guard - or something like that. My husband wants a bigger car. If we have another kid, we’ll need a bigger car.
We looked at Hybird Altimas but really, their gas mileage isn’t any better than our current electric lime saturn ion, but with a MUCH higher payment! My step-mom drives a Honda Civic and gets 38 mpg! The hybrid civic only gets something like 46 mpg.
The moral of this story is that there really aren’t any viable options for people that NEED bigger vehicles, but don’t want to do more harm to the earth. There aren’t really any options at all for someone who wants a bigger vehicle with a reasonable payment and a little resale value. Unless you can afford an unreasonable payment, of course.
I think I post something about this every few months. Basically, we always start looking at cars and feel like there’s nothing out there for us that won’t make us feel frivolous or guilty or both.
The Night Gym
My son kept getting sick from the day care at the gym. One ear infection was so bad, he had to be on two rounds of antibiotics. He had never been sick before, then we were going to the gym everyday, and he was never well. So I can’t say for sure that that’s what made him sick, but that’s what I believe.
So anyway, I had been going everyday, making real progress. You may remember reading that I was running two miles - without stopping! Sadly, all my progress has been lost. I went back a few times, but being summer, the day care was FULL of big kids running around like maniacs and two or three bored looking caregivers watching Dora. I wasn’t comfortable with this at all.
I’m sure all you mothers of more than one kid out there are like, “oh, you’ll get over that! Wait until you have some more - you won’t be able to get rid of them fast enough” etc. Well, thanks for that, but no need to leave it as a comment. I’m sure you were in my overprotective shoes at one point.
Anyway, so I’ve taken to going to the gym at night. My husband and son both go to bed at 8pm. So that’s when I go. It’s been such a relief to not have to deal with those care providers, to not have to worry about anything. I turn the monitor up loud, so it will wake my husband, but they pretty much both just sleep, and I get peaceful time alone.
I’ve been walking two miles each night. Next week I’ll start with the push ups and sit ups, and then work my way back to running. It’s going well, so far. I’m pretty tired tonight, so I’m writing this post to remind myself why I need to go.
Wish me luck!
SAHM no more?
Update: The interview went well. I liked the people, and I felt excited at the prospect of the job.
Then I came home, and my son gave me the biggest hug, and he wouldn’t let go, and he rested his sweet little baby head on my shoulder, and I thought about how this isn’t going to last forever, and how surly my friend’s teenager is.
Thanks for reading everyone, and for your words of experience and encouragement!
I recently applied for what looked like the most perfect job ever. I do this every once in a while, just to force me to keep my resume up to date. Well, they called me for an interview. Never mind that none of my work clothes fit (how about four sizes too small!). Never mind that I don’t want to put my son in day care at all. Never mind that I have finally gotten my husband to understand and appreciate the benefits of a stay-at-home parent. We decided that I would go to the interview.
So it’s in a few days and I’m nervous. I have suitable pants, but I’ll have to purchase a shirt or sweater set or something. And I think I kind of want the job. What I really want is for them to say I can telecommute most of the time, so I can just get a babysitter in my house.
If we lived exactly the way we do now - only off of my husband’s pay - we could use my salary to pay off all of our debt in one year. We could plan our second baby during that year, and I could work until I delivered, and then quit. (Man, I hope the company isn’t reading this.) Financially, it would solve everything.
Emotionally, I don’t know if I can handle it. I keep telling myself to stop being a baby, that mother’s go to work all the time, and that there is nothing wrong with daycare. And I do believe those things. But I can’t help but feel like they’re just not going to know when he’s tired or hungry or bored like I do. Are they going to pay attention to him? Will he be happy? The honest answer is that he’ll be fine. He might have a runny nose more often, but he loves other kids, and he’d probably be thrilled to have someone other than mommy and the cats to play with. (The cats don’t give him the time of day.) He probably needs the socialization. And now that he’s figuring out the whole fake-cry-to-get-my-way, it might be better if a stranger stepped in and didn’t fall for it.
But that doesn’t make it any easier.
blessings blogging live green recycle wild salmon: 30 Rock al gore alec baldwin bake sales to save the whales boycott Canada's seafood industry canada's seal hunt environazi greenpeace guilt HSUS Humane Society of the United States international whaling commission Iraq national days of action sad kitten save the whales seals stop commerical whaling The View tina fey tolerance whale defenders whales who cares
by Blabby
leave a comment
Ouch, there’s a plank in my eye.
What a world we live in. Today I went to a fun first birthday party at a beautiful city park. On one side of the park was a farm with horses in the pasture. There was one foal, and I walked over with my son so he could see them. He loved it. We played in the dirt, ate fruit salad and chips and salsa and drank Capri Suns. It was such a nice day.
I’ve had this nagging guilt - or as my sister would say, “a check in my spirit” for the last few days about the judgmental posts I’ve been writing. I mean, I still think clubbing a seal is awful. BUT, I am rational enough to see that some villages of people have subsisted on seals for centuries. Just as Alaskan natives have subsisted on whales. What they do is no different, in my mind, than a bear eating a salmon or a snake eating a mouse.
I don’t mean to demonize people that are trying to feed their families. And I have no right to. I was born into a lower-middle class family with two working parents - I always had food and a roof. I may have always been behind on the fashion train, but who cares? I mean, I cared when I was 13, but that’s pretty normal.
The problem is that it’s so hard to decipher what the real cause to fight is here. Is it the big fishing trawlers that gobble up all the fish? Probably. Is it the Japanese whaling ships that don’t properly account for their catches? Probably. Is it the individual sealer that makes 30% of his annual income by participating in the annual seal hunt? Maybe - but I’m a lot less sure about that one. Do I wish they had better aim and really killed the seals with one strike? Absolutely.
Basically, I have no idea what I’m talking about. I’m just talking. And that can be pretty dangerous.
There are people like this guy who is so strongly against recycling, that he’s willing to call Al Gore a nazi. To me, this makes no sense. To him, it’s perfectly justified. I didn’t even realize there were people against recycling. Stupid me. If there are still people that don’t believe the Holocaust happened, and I’ve met at least one (raving, scary lunatic), and there are people that still doubt global warming, and there are people that still think they might find WMDs in Iraq, then I guess not believing in the benefits of recycling is par for the course.
So how do I fight without judging or belittling others beliefs? Even though I’ve been a Christian for many years - this has always been one of my main problems with my faith. I have friends who are Buddhists, Muslim, Jewish. I don’t think the Jesus I love would forsake them - even if they never “prayed the prayer.”
Jeez, I’m really all over the place on this one.
Basically, I want to live a life that I can be proud of. I want to teach my son to stand up for what he believes in just like my mom and dad taught me. But I don’t want to be another sealer, clubbing people over the head with my rants. It seems okay to share information, like the bake sales to save whales. I think people can participate if they want, right? But only if they know about it.
And who am I to say Alec Baldwin is an ass? I’ve probably said something just as bad to my husband. I’d like to think I’d never say things like that to my son, but he’s so small I can’t imagine it. One day he’ll be a surly teenager, and I may very well lose my temper and say terrible things. I hope not, but who knows? I think I was really just so sad for his daughter. That message must have hurt her so much and I wanted him to feel really awful for doing it. And then when his statements - on his site and on The View - didn’t seem very apologetic (apologetic to his daughter, I don’t really think he owes any one else an apology, except maybe Tina Fey, because I love her), I was even more sad for his daughter.
So anyway, there’s a big plank in my eye, and I don’t like it.
blabbery: accomplishments fitness flabbery guilt gym jogging life running weight loss
by Blabby
1 comment
I am running 2 miles!
I haven’t given a fitness update in sometime - mostly because it’s depressing. I had to stop going to the gym for a couple weeks because the baby was sick and on two different rounds of antibiotics. I didn’t want him in the daycare, so we walked and jogged around the neighborhood. It’s crazy how much harder jogging with the jogger is than jogging on a treadmill. One problem is that my jogger lists to the left, so I constantly have to pick up the front end and turn us. Pain in the butt. But I also think it’s the sun, the asphalt, the Santa Ana winds, my bad attitude, etc.
So anyway, back to the point. I’ve been going to the gym a little less regularly (3-4 times per week vs. 6-7), and I try to go when my husband can watch the baby, so he doesn’t keep getting sick from the gym daycare. Even with all these interruptions, my jogging is improving, and I’m up to two miles straight (at 5.0 speed) on the treadmill! The Airborne Ranger cadences on my iPod truly make all the difference.
To keep up the good work, I’ve stopped weighing myself. I plan to weigh in once a month, and that’s it. I’m also hoping to do a 5k in May - something to shoot for. And if I walk, I walk, but I’m still healthier. Who cares if my butt is as big as ever, as long as my heart can sustain it?
live green movies wild salmon: baby BBC fish conservation guilt happy feet save the fish seafood watch
by Blabby
leave a comment
Happy Feet ~ sad times
Have you seen this movie? I loved it, and I was glad it had a happy ending (sorry for the spoiler, if you haven’t seen it) for my son’s sake, although he didn’t really care. BUT, I was crying like a baby because that happy ending is so implausible in real life.
So, since I’m not a huge fish consumer, I thought the best way for me to take a little action is to share the list of fish recommendations provided in the DVD. It seems like a handy list, and I hope people start taking this seriously, because scientists have already reported that there will “virtually nothing left to fish from the seas” in 45-50 years!
I can’t imagine that my grandchildren my never get to taste wild salmon. It seems like a small thing, but really, what a huge hole in the ecosystem. And what about all the metaphors about salmon swimming upstream? When I tell my grandchildren about hard work, and I use salmon as an example, they’ll be like, “you’re crazy, grandma, what the heck are salmon?”
Don’t forget to check out the Seafood Watch list of recommendations:
sad times
I hate how I am able to compartmentalize the war…even able to forget it’s even happening at times. The last two years are some of the few in my life that I didn’t live either on a military base or very near one. I’m amazed at how I’ve distanced my mind from all that being a military family entails.
Here’s a good reminder:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17773294/site/newsweek/
I would apologize for being a downer, but I’m not sorry. I’m only sorry that I don’t make more of an effort know what’s happening in Iraq and Afghanistan. Once my brother-in-law returned from his second tour, and the last of my good friends came home, and I stopped working as a contractor - planning military blood drives, I kind of checked out.
But the reality is that the rotations go on. The number of wounded and dead continue to grow. The sacrifice amazes me, and humbles me. It’s sad and exhausting to think about. For me, anyway. There so much guilt tied into gathering information - how lucky I am that I was never deployed, that my husband was never deployed. But even now, as other friends prepare to deploy on their third and fourth tours, I’m so grateful to be so lucky. And I feel bad about that. I don’t know what I’m saying here. It’s a little rambly.
Sorry about that. I’ll come back and edit this later.
