New Year 2010

Too lazy to retouch: this year's tree - only spent $13 on decorations for the whole house. $6 of that was spray paint.

I can't believe that it's already the New Year. I have to say, in hindsight, 2009 was one of the worst. It was the year that my neighborhood officially died for me. Three couples on the street separated/divorced this year, and I've actually lost count on the total foreclosures/ walk-aways here as well. When we first moved here, the neighborhood was a dream: neighborhood picnics, Sunday activities and crafts for the kids, evening drinks by the pool for the grownups. All of the parents were always outside, always involved, it was an amazing neighborhood. Slowly the homes stopped selling and eventually the builder fled. They left still owing contractors for work on houses they'd sold, and the contractors were placing liens on houses so the new homeowners had to pay once more for work on homes they'd just purchased. Right now if I look at Realtytrac, it say that there are 7 houses currently in foreclosure on our street(of 23 houses). The value of our home is 46% of what we originally paid and more than $100,000 less that what we still owe. With the new perks of a stabbing in front of our clubhouse, swastikas burned into a street and sidewalks, and needles found around the south pond - who could resist living here? I keep reading that the economy is going to start to turn around in the US in 2010, but Michigan should expect an improvement in 10 years.

I know that we're still doing okay, and I should be grateful that Hubs still has a decent job, and that the kids love school; but it's been hard for me to keep being positive when the view out my living room window includes a house that's been vacant for two years and an army of for sale signs standing vigilant along a street lined with bank-owned lots. I've learned that a house is not a home, especially when it feels at times like a prison. I try not to sit with my worry for long because it is burns heavy and hot in the pit of my stomach, but I sit with it each day. I worry about us, I worry about the kids who've moved away, I worry that all of my sons' best friends are gone; one most recently when a rental truck showed up in the driveway. The kids speculated that maybe they rented the truck to get a new washer or some furniture; but I knew what it meant, and the family left in the middle of the night with no goodbyes. Boy1 mourns the loss of the friend that shared more than a temperament and name with him. He says, "Maybe they'll be back, maybe they just went to stay with their Dad for a while," almost half-convincing himself as he talks.

I remember being about the same age as him, growing up outside of Pittsburgh in a community supported by the steel mills that once dominated Western Pennsylvania when they layoffs started. Our family was lucky that my Dad worked for the newspaper, so his job was safe (ah, 1981). I remember lots of friends' parents divorcing, and friends moving away, and friends' parents being scary and weird when they were drinking - and they seemed to be drinking way more than they used to (which was already more than enough). I remember coming home from school early with a stomach-ache nearly every day in third grade. I thought it was a strange little footnote to my early years, but it's that same feeling that wells up now, I can feel it rising in my throat and between my shoulders as I'm typing this. But I'm not the type to sit on my hands and think that it will all work out in the end without a little pain and a little difficulty. We've pursued advice from friends, mentors, and professionals. We've looked at our options, and are pursuing them. We've been given an opportunity that we're going to approach with faith and optimism and a level head, and can't wait until we can let it unfold.

Here's to 2010. And looking forward.

Warm and Fuzzy

I spend every afternoon from 3:15 until 4:05 killing time with my oldest (E) and youngest (G) sons waiting for their brother get out of school. Sometimes we race around the soccer field, or go to the playground (along with a group of high-schoolers who aren't exactly 'high on life'), sometimes we go to the store or run an errand, and sometimes we just sit in the car and talk or read.

G's favorite reading lately isn't a book, but any toy catalog that winds up in the mailbox or the newspaper (he keeps a folder of them in his room and pours over every page for hours). E will read anything that's in front of him. Books, manuals, yogurt containers, anything to possibly quench his insatiable thirst for more information. Today I had a stack of ads that came in the mail from Costco, REI, Dick's Sporting Goods, and Puff's tissues.

After talking about his day for a while, E piped up, "Mom, I want to look at dicks," then laughing, "The ad for Dick's."

Late to the Party

I finally got around to reading Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food: an Eater's Manifesto; and I have to say that this book is seriously one of the best books I've read in an incredibly long time. I always try to read with some skepticism; but if it's possible, I agree with every word written in this book.

Anyone who knows the book knows the short version of the Eater's Manifesto which is:

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly Plants.

The book outlines the theory that since people have studied nutrition and tried to extract the specific components in food that are conducive to our health and survival- we have actually become less healthy with more of what he describes as the Western Diseases: Heart Disease, Diabetes, and Cancer among others. Over time, we've tried to find the 'magic bullet' of nutrition; protein,oat bran, antioxidants, pomegranates, flaxseed, or some single food (or supplement) that will take care of all our ills. As we ping-pong around following a current health fad, avoiding fat, or carbs, or meat, or dairy - we allow ourselves to push the common sense of eating in moderation foods that were raised healthfully and ethically away.

By studying what's 'healthy' in foods lets us create food products that do a much better job of supporting the economy with mass commercial farming, trucking, and commerce in selling the foods in a way that is shelf stable so that people can buy more food without the worry that the food will go bad. It's funny that in even my refrigerator, it's only the vegetables that hang around long enough to go bad, when the processed snacks (that could probably last for 100 years) are eaten within a few days of being purchased. By being so cheap and easy to consume, we don't appreciate the food we're eating - so people are more likely to 'feed' instead of 'dine' on our food. I would wager that most of the money put into the study of nutrition was put there by food corporations looking for ways to add another health claim to their package.

After talking about the problems caused by Nutritionism and the Western Diet, Pollan offers a solution in following the Manifesto: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. He gives us a blueprint to follow in making more positive choices that could benefit our lives.

I'm putting this down, not so much for any reader who happens by, but to remember more of what I've read and put it into practice for myself.

EAT FOOD

• Don't eat anything your Great Grandmother wouldn't recognize as food. He uses the example of GoGurt (a far cry from yogurt that includes only milk and bacterial culture) .
• Avoid food products containing ingredients that are: A) Unfamiliar; B) Unpronounceable; C) More than 5 in number, or That include; D) High-Fructose Corn Syrup. This answers the question that, yeah, Great-Grandma may recognize bread, but not the stuff on the shelves with added softeners and sweeteners because it's imperative that bread be eaten with no texture or inherent flavor. Also, to make lowfat milk more creamy they add powdered milk which contains oxidized cholesterol (which may be worse than regular cholesterol). Removing the fat also makes it harder for you to absorb the fat-soluble vitamins that made milk healthy to drink in the first place.
• Avoid food products that make health claims. Do we really need to talk about the sugar cereals that now trumpet the existence of whole grains along with the tablespoons of sugar in each serving? Also, think about what the package isn't saying.
• Shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle. That's where real food lives.
  
• Get out of the supermarket whenever possible.Farmers' Markets, CSAs, independent meat/dairy producers. Find sources that rely less on chemicals, grain, and hormones. Shorten the food chain.

MOSTLY PLANTS

• Eat mostly plants, especially leaves. We need the omega-3s,vitamins, and antioxidants from plants because our bodies don't produce these. Sticking to a diet that relies mostly on plants helps protect us from Western Diseases, and uses less energy and resources than needed in the production of meat.
  
• You are what *what you eat* eats too. Eat meat, dairy, and eggs from pastured animals.
• If you have the space, buy a freezer. Get healthy foods in quantity when they're at their peak, freezing has less of an impact on the nutritional impact of the food than canning does.
• Eat like an omnivore. More species of everything, more covered nutritionally.
• Eat well-grown food from healthy soils. Lots of farmers grow/raise food without the use of chemicals, hormones so the label 'certified organic' doesn't necessarily guarantee that the food is the healthiest option. Know who grows your food.
• Eat wild foods when you can. Wild greens have super-high levels of phytochemicals, higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids. Wild animals eat a diverse diet, wild fish have higher levels of omega-3 because they aren't fed grain. Higher levels of omega-3 can ward off depression. Abundant wildlife: deer, sardines, anchovies, salmon.
• Be the kind of person who takes supplements. Be more health conscious, more educated, and more affluent. Could take a multi, and if you don't eat enough fish, a fish oil supplement.
• Eat more like the French. Or the Italians. Or the Japanese. Or the Indians. Or the Greeks. Eating foods in the way they're eaten in a culture makes up for nutritional deficiencies, dangers that may come from eating a food in other ways. In mexico corn and beans together, corn was ground with limestone. In Asia, they developed the best way to eat soy: in tofu.
• Regard nontraditional foods with skepticism. Be wary of new permutations of soy.
• Don't look for the magic bullet in the traditional diet. Mostly when we study aspects of diet, we aren't able to account for all factors in the success of a diet.
  
• Have a glass of wine with dinner. Men can have two. Drinking alcohol in moderation seems to promote health - or help us enjoy it.

NOT TOO MUCH

• Pay more, eat less. Better foods cost more. If you spend more, you may take more time over it, appreciate it, and consequently eat less of it. Americans eat by visual cue (unlike French who ea 'til they're full). Put a smaller portion on the plate, and we'll learn to be satisfied by that. We'll do less snacking, especially if we have to put effort in preparing what we eat. "In 1960 Americans spent 17.5 % of their income on food and 5.2 % on health care." Now, "spending on food has dropped to 9.9 %, while spending on health care has climbed to 16%." The numbers have flipped. Choose quality over quantity.
• Eat meals. Together as a family, at the table, eating the same food. Turn off the TV and talk to each other. Do you really need to snack, or eat in the car? Are you going to starve otherwise. (Although I have to admit that a small latte before class (the mixture of protein, carbs and caffeine) was the key to getting A's in my Calculus classes.)
• Do all of your eating at a table. No variations.
• Don't get your fuel from the same place your car does. Duh. Corn syrup.
  
• Try not to eat alone. You'll enjoy the company, take longer to eat because you're less likely to scarf your food in front of an audience. Use tricks to make you think you're eating more than you are. Look at the book Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think.
• Eat Slowly. Eat deliberately ("from freedom") instead of compulsively. Learn about the Slow Food Movement. Think about what happens when we put success at the center of life. Our whole life diminishes, family, friends, leisure all take a hit. So does our health. Appreciate the food you're eating. Make eating a ritual, offer a blessing before eating. From Wendell Berry:

  Eating with the fullest pleasure - pleasure, that is, that does not depend on ignorance - is perhaps the profoundest enactment of our connection with the world. In this pleasure we experience and celebrate our dependence and our gratitude, for we are living from mystery, from creatures we did not make and powers we cannot comprehend.

• Cook and, if you can, plant a garden. We'll know, learn, and appreciate more about what we're eating.
  

The List

1. Portland, Oregon
2. Madison, Wisconsin
   
3. Burlington, Vermont
4. Ann Arbor, MI

I wanted to put Pittsburgh, PA on the list; I love the city and it has the lowest cost of living of the entire group. I couldn't do it because I just don't see a big focus on health/fitness overall. Otherwise it would be at the top of the list.

On Change

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.

- Anatole France

Three Things

Okay, I went to Weight Watchers a couple of weeks ago and the leader for that particular group is some kind of Weight Watchers Rockstar or something. She's a total pistol and I can completely relate to her 'frugal' perspective on everything. Anyway, she had a really good tip that I'm totally up for doing this week.

Here's the tip:

Make a List of Three Things

So, if you're a list maker who (like me) makes a list of things to do, then gets totally demotivated by the looming number of unfinished things on the list, make a list of ONLY three items to complete. My list for today is:

1. Take down all of the Halloween decorations and put them away.
   
2. Clean the three bathrooms.
3. Take Grey to the park (temps in the 30's make me feel less and less like going outside lately).

That's it. I know that I have lots of other things to do, but I will definitely complete these items. The list could be for a week, or a day, or home projects that never seem to get done. I'll be back to mark them off as I go.

*Edited to add - finished everything on the list today. It really helped writing down the bathrooms because with three boys, cleaning toilets is something I try to put off as much as I can.

November already?

So, since I was last here, the whole family (except for husband) managed to get over their bout of H1N1 with variable speed.

Kids had a great Halloween, managed to give away candy to a few hundred kids before running out just before Trick-Or-Treating was over. As we're one of the only subdivisions in an otherwise pretty rural area, people come for miles with vanloads of kids for trick-or treating. I like seeing all of the kids, but it would be nice if maybe some of the teenagers could actually dress up for the occasion.

Husband's car died over the weekend, so I had to take all of the kids for oldest son's checkup this morning - not that any of them minded being late for school - while Hubs bummed a ride into work with a friend. So, with over 220,000 miles, is this it for the old Passat?