It's All Good Until You Burn Dinner

Archive for April, 2012

It’s cone season again. And although it sounds really delicious, I’m not talking ice cream cones. I mean the pointy orange kind you often see scattered around construction zones or marking potholes for the purpose of redirecting traffic. Orange traffic cones signify “danger” or “caution” and alert those in cars or on foot to navigate around or away from an area designated as being hazardous

Not on our street. On our street it means, “I’m letting my children use the public road leading to your house as an exclusive playground for my kids so don’t you dare go any farther.”

That’s right. We live on a culdesac and there are a few neighbors on our street that feel it’s acceptable to block off the road with a line of orange cones they found in our local Walmart’s toy aisle. Why?  So their children can play “safely” in traffic. For the past few years, whenever the sun is out, the kids are playing in the middle of the road – and when we see this we can always depend on the watchful army of cones to be out there supervising.

Exhibit A: View of cone army from the safety of my garage

I find this weird. And so do visitors who have been halted just at the edge of the circle leading our house by this strip of neon orange pylons. Some people park beyond the cones. Some have courteously made the effort to get out of their car, move a few cones, drive their car through, then get back out of their vehicle to kindly replace them. Some wait for the cone-tender (aka the overly-cautious parent) to temporarily move the cones so our friends or family can proceed to our home. My husband’s elderly uncle didn’t know what to do so he just turned around and left (and I wouldn’t be surprised if he ran over a cone or two in the process).

I need to mention that before we moved to this area a few years ago, we lived in a house that was also situated on a culdesac. And yup. Our kids, along with a dozen or so other children, played in the street – a street devoid of cones or other neon cautionary warnings. Basically (as a parent should) we just supervised our kids when they were outside playing — and they knew to hightail it to the curb if they saw a car coming lest they be flattened.  And guess what? To my knowledge, not one child was squashed.

Perhaps the cone families don’t know that barricading or obstructing a public road is against the law around here. And when I casually mentioned our neighbors’ coning practices to a cop-friend ours his response was, “Call the department next time they do this. I don’t know why some parents think it’s okay to create a personal playground for their kids. It’s illegal.”

So, maybe once our vigilant neighbors are fined 1 trillion dollars for this transgression or get roughed up by the fuzz, cuffed, and thrown in the back of a squad car they’ll learn. I haven’t called the cops, mostly because I know I’ll get harrassed for blowing the whistle. So in the mean time, I will do just as my husband taught me: drive right over the cones and up our driveway.

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This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Whitney Farms. All opinions are 100% mine.

Anyone that knows me understands that gardening and growing plants isn’t exactly my forte. Every spring I head home from the garden center with every intention of having lovely potted plants scattered about my deck and hoping my garden will be the envy of all my neighbors. But it never quite turns out that way.

My plants usually start out looking okay. They grow, they bud a little bit, and they usually even bloom (well…sort of). But as summer rolls along, my pots start to look rather sad, filled with plants that are spindly and anemic-looking. I know I should feed them…I know.  But being the lazy gardener that I am, I usually just pretend I don’t notice how really bad they look.  I mean, mixing powdered fertilizer and water together is such a chore. And it never fails that the when I scoop that harsh chemical stuff out of its box, it ends up burning a cut on my hand or stains my fingers blue.

Well this year is going to be different because I’ve discovered Whitney Farms® 100% natural plant foods and soils with no additives, nothing artificial — just ingredients from the Earth designed to give me (and you!) big, beautiful flowers and veggies. And why do I know I’ll love it? Because their organic soil is made from all natural ingredients and will actually feed my plants for up to 2 months. It also contains naturally occurring microbial activity and enhances nutrient availability.

And my pots and gardens are going to be so pleased when I feed them with Whitney Farms® organic plant food.  I can’t wait to finally have a lush beautiful garden. And using Whitney Farms® organic plant food assures me that I’m not adding any harsh chemicals to my soil…which is pretty important to our family because we live near a chain of lakes wildlife area and want to use products that are as safe as possible for the environment.

Whitney Farms® has 25+ years of leading gardening experience and has improved their products to have:

• Low to no dust
• No manure odor
• Easy to apply
• Contains beneficial microbes
• Specially designed protein-based blends provide your plants with both macro and micronutrients they need to grow and thrive

And want to hear some awesome news? Whitney Farms® is offering a $3 off coupon so you can try it for a bargain price!  So with all of these benefits, this year my flowers are going to look like this (my neighbors are going to be so jealous).

Why don’t you make your neighbors jealous, too?

For most of my adult life I’ve been a cola guzzler. From my late teens until my late thirties I usually drank two cans per day. When I got slightly older (and let me stress “slightly” since I’m still incredibly young…) I cut back to a single can of Pepsi a day. This usually followed my two cups of coffee in the morning  and was often accompanied by a salty, unhealthy snack like a family size bag of potato or taco chips. Sounds nutritious, doesn’t it? I know my mother would be proud if she knew about that.

Well, last month after hearing that some of the scary chemicals used in colas such as Coke and Pepsi products are suspected of causing cancer, I got sort of nervous. A study done by National Toxicology has found that two types of carmel coloring, created by reacting sugars with ammonia, are suspected of causing cancer in mice —  and maybe rats. I know some will argue that humans are neither mice nor rats, but I refuse to be a guinea pig and continue the habit of drinking something that has zero nutritional value and may contribute to cancer risk.

And aside from the carmel coloring thing, I’m certain that the caffeine, sugar, and assorted “mystery” ingredients found in sodas aren’t contributing to my well-being, either. A day or two after reading about the study, I decided to kick the habit. I endured about a week’s worth of eyeball popping headaches but after I  got through that, navigating through the day without my beloved Pepsi got much easier. Eventually, I could proudly profess that I was no longer cola-dependant.

I finally quit drinking cola.

This morning as I slurped my new beverage of choice (green tea) while perusing the web, I ran across an article written by Nick Perry of the Associated Press that I found to be simultaneously intriguing and horrifying. Apparently, the recent death of Natasha Harris,  a New Zealand woman, is said to have been associated with her over 2-gallon (8-10 liters) per day consumption of Coca Cola.

According to the woman’s partner, Chris Hodgkinson, the first thing Harris did in the morning was guzzle Coke that she kept on her bedside table. She drank the soda all day long and then topped every night off with a Coca Cola nightcap.

The cause of death for this 30-year old mother of 8 has been listed by pathologist, Dr. Morin, as hypokalemia, or low potassium, caused by excessive consumption of Coke and overall poor nutritional habits. A contributing factor to her death may also have been excessive levels of caffeine she had been ingesting contained within the soda. Throw in the 30 cigarettes she smoked a day (Yup. I said 30) and her lifestyle becomes what I’d call nothing less than a wee bit lethal.

When I read this I was stunned.  How can something like this happen? She had to have been feeling absolutely horrible before she died. Wasn’t that enough to get her to seek medical attention?  And what about the dude she was living with, Hodgkinson, who witnessed her doing this every day? Was he blind to the red flags that were popping up every time she took a swig? The whole story is incredibly sad and scary.

I never drank soda in large quantities like that but it certainly makes me feel good about my decision to quit. Not only does soda lack nutritional value and contain posible cancer- causing chemicals it’s addictive, as proven by my headaches (although the average person isn’t drinking vats of it every day like Harris was).

So, maybe you’ve been trying to quit drinking soda (or as we call it around here, “pop”) for some of the same reasons I’ve listed above. Maybe you’re worried about the large quantity that you’re ingesting on a daily basis or you just want to make some better lifestyle choices. I know. I know. It’s not easy to quit…but I found a few things that helped me in the quest to end my habit:

• The first step is simple — just stop loading your grocery cart with the stuff.  If you don’t buy it you can’t drink it, right?

• Substitute for another beverage like water, green tea (sadly, I chose this option because it still as a little bit of caffeine in it), V-fusion Sparkling V-8 (awesome and it even has vitamins and other good stuff in it!) juice, or how about milk? And no…wine and beer are not good substitutes.

• Make up your mind that you won’t drink soda. And stick to it!!

• Sometimes the key is in the packaging I have found that often a nicely packaged drink (like canned green tea) will trick my brain into believing that I’m drinking soda. Although it’s not a “green” option because of the additional packaging, it may be something you can do temporarily until your life is soda-free.

• If you just can’t quit cold turkey, cut back to drinking every other day. Or purchase the mini cans of soda instead of the full-sized ones. They’re a bit more expensive but eventually, you won’t be buying soda at all so it evens out, right?

Really, the bottom line for me is that I do feel better after quitting. Like anything — even McDonald’s or White Castle – I don’t think having a can of soda occasionally is harmful but personally, I’m convinced that drinking it daily, especially in large quantities can be detrimental to health.

Are you a former “pop” drinker that has quit the habit? Do you feel better? Got some tips you want to share that may help others to kick the habit?  Need encouragement? Please comment!

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