A MUCH BETTER BLOG

Natural Egg Image from Crunchy Domestic Goddess

In addition, the use of food based dyes gives incredible, earthy results as opposed to the neon, artificial colors of store bought kits.

Check out Safbaby.com to learn how to color eggs with cabbage, beets, turmeric and onions or head on over to Crunchy Domestic Goddess for tips on using berries, juices and other powders to color eggs with simply stunning results (see pic).

Kiss My Face Organic Whitening Toothpaste

I usually have to pick up toothpaste that is fluoride free and/or non-toxic at my health food store (which is a good 1/2 hour drive each way) and I pay almost twice as much as I used to spend on commercial toothpaste.

I noticed that natural toothpastes are starting to show up in mainstream stores so I went into my local Shopko (a 2 minute drive each way) a few weeks ago to pick up toothpaste. I was hoping for something natural but expecting to walk out with a well known commercial brand.

I was delighted to discover this wonderful organic toothpaste by Kiss My Face, right there next to the Colgates and Crests. It is organic with an Aloe Vera Gel base so it is a wonderful, minty gel rather than the pastier pastes of the other natural toothpastes I have tried.

The ingredients I love start with Aloe Vera (anti bacterial), Iceland Moss (whitening), Silica (prevents cavities and preserves teeth), Tee Tree (gum health & anti-plaque), Olive Leaf Extract (antiviral, antibacterial and antioxidant) and Xylitol (can actually reverse tooth decay).

Almost more important than this A list of ingredients, is the fact that the toothpaste is super fresh and delicious tasting. The peppermint oil is perfect. It doesn’t taste like chemicals and leaves my mouth amazingly fresh. I haven’t enjoyed brushing this much in a long time.

Apparently only the Aloe Vera is organic but that is better than nothing. In addition, according to Kiss My Face’s own blurb about this toothpaste, “this product contains no animal ingredients, artificial colors, or unnecessary chemicals and was not tested on animals.”.

To top is all off, at a little over $3 a tube, it is not expensive. I love this stuff. You can buy it at Amazon.com in single tubes or six packs or possibly your local store like I did.

Am I an ogre? I didn’t take Brielle trick or treating and I didn’t have candy for the neighbor kids. Truth is I totally forgot to buy something for the kids but even if I would have bought something it would have been raisins or something like that which they would have hated me more for than simply saying I didn’t have anything. Sorry….I hate sugar (not the dog).

Brielle did have a chance to dress up at the last farmer’s market of the season and of course just a few random trips to the grocery store and hanging around the house. Dressing up is cool, sugar isn’t. Am I an ogre???

Halloween 2005 (Chili Pepper)
Halloween 2006 (Angel)
Halloween 2007 (fierce lion)

About 9 months ago, Michele Brown, MD contacted me and asked me if my readers would be interested in her product line for pregnancy and breastfeeding. As it turns out I was newly pregnant and offered to try out the stretch mark cream and pass along my findings.

I am generally skeptical of stretch mark claims in general because the consensus among skin care and medical types is that nothing can prevent stretch marks if you are genetically predisposed to them. In addition, I try not to put anything on my skin that I am not willing to eat, so for the most part I am more inclined to use straight sesame oil or coconut oil on my skin.

I decided to give it a try despite the fact that I don’t want to eat it and I have to say that I am a fan. The lotion is not too thick, it glides on and disappears almost instantly. There is no residue and it left my stomach feeling cool and soft. The absolute best part of this lotion however, was how it relieved the agonizing early pregnancy breast itching. Nothing else worked and this lotion worked instantly to relieve my itching.

As far as stretch marks go, I am currently almost 38 weeks pregnant with no stretch marks but I did not get stretch marks the first time around either and I have stayed rather small through this pregnancy. That doesn’t mean that stretch marks won’ t appear in the next few weeks but I sincerely doubt it. While I don’t know if Beaute de Maman prevented stretch marks, I do know that it left my skin soft and supple and that certainly does not hurt.

Would I recommend it? Absolutely, especially if you want to crawl out of your skin from crazy, intolerable pregnancy itching. Nothing else works like it. For more information, visit Beautedemaman.com.

I have been drinking a smoothie every morning for a couple of months now. The equipment I use every day is a smoothie machine, cutting board & knife, & my coffee grinder. I try to do everything the night before so I can just add some wet ingredients and blend when I get up in the morning.

I am fortunate enough to live near a Gordons Food Service where I buy five pound bags of frozen mixed berries. I also sometimes get frozen melon balls or tropical fruit. It is nice to change the recipe and it also adds some nutritional variety. If you don’t live near a Gordons, I am sure you can get the same thing at Sams Club or Costco.

The other absolute staple for me is Vitamineral Green. I will be posting on how wonderful this stuff is at some point. It is absolutely wonderful. I feel great when I have some daily for just a month. It improves my digestion, flattens my stomach, and gives me more energy. It has minerals, vitamins, enzymes, probiotics, algaes, seaweeds, and grasses. It is just a wonderful all in one product. It is not cheap. A bottle runs roughly $50 a month if I take it every day but it is a complete food product, not just a supplement so if I include it as part of my food budget and I remove the need for additional supplements then it isn’t quite so expensive.

I have everything ready in a cabinet by the refrigerator and the smoothie machine. I fill the smoothie maker about 1/2 way with frozen berries or melons. If I have a pineapple or a mango I will cube that and use it instead.

I usually add 1/2 to one whole banana and sometimes fresh berries or a peeled orange or fresh kiwi slices or mango. I always have a bowl of fresh fruit and I find it so much easier to eat it in smoothie form. My fruit used to always go bad before I started smoothie-ing. Now it never does.

I add a tablespoon or two of the Vitamineral Green and fresh ginger to the frozen berries the night before and set the container in the refrigerator. In the morning I add a teaspoon of Cod Liver Oil, two raw cage free organic eggs, Colloidal Minerals, and some freshly ground flaxseeds.

I also bought some 20 oz clear hard plastic cups with lids and straws at Gordons. It might not be the most environmental option but I don’t have time to drink the smoothie before work and if I had to wash a large crusty glass when I got home at night then I would not drink the smoothie at all. As the subtitle of the blog indicates, I am trying to merge modern living (ie:day job) with a healthy, organic lifestyle.

I know I am not adding everything that I can (or should) to my smoothie but for now it is an easy routine that fills me up, gives me energy, and most importantly gives me the nutrients that I would not be getting from a cup of coffee.

In closing I should mention that the Vitamineral Green turns the whole concoction dark green. If you saw The Thomas Crown Affair, Renee Russo drank something similar every morning. I guess it is cool in the movies but in real life it really throws people. I have people making the worst comments to me. It is amusing to me. I can not imagine insulting someone for eating french fries…” OH GOD! HOW CAN YOU EAT THAT???? YUCK FRIES! AAAAAHHH.. EWWWWW! THAT IS DISGUSTING!!!” I might think it, but I wont say it. Needless to say, I should give fair warning that if you are brave enough to take this smoothie out of the house with you, then you should be prepared for the inevitable verbal attacks.

As always I welcome suggestions and comments! You can find all the smoothie ingredients in your local produce department, local health food store, or at A Much Better Store, my natural family internet store.

Sheryl Lyon

Do you want to eat healthier but do not know where to start? Are you trying to incorporate more fruits and vegetables into your diet but are finding it difficult to eat five servings or more a day? What about all the supplements and antioxidants you read about? How do you keep it all straight? Who has time to sort through the data much less prepare and eat everything you should?

The solution may lie in a smoothie! Smoothies are fruit based concoctions usually blended with milk or yogurt and an unlimited selection of “add-ons” and blended until smooth. Smoothies are ultra-fast, convenient, rejuvenating, energizing meal replacements. If you choose your ingredients carefully, your smoothie can relieve fatigue and constipation, balance your blood sugar, establish proper PH levels in your colon, and improve mental sharpness.

The real beauty of smoothies lies in their versatility. You can incorporate as many of the “shoulds” into your smoothie as you like. You “should” take more Vitamin C. You “should” take cod liver oil every day. You “should” introduce seaweeds and algaes into your diet. The “shoulds” are varied and numerous. A smoothie is a fabulous solution because it is much easier to pour a teaspoon of cod liver oil into your pineapple banana smoothie than to drink it solo. The same holds true for many of the somewhat unpalatable ingredient choices.

Smoothies are a great chance for you to exercise your personal taste and creativity. You can start with a bag of frozen berries or hit the produce department for fresh fruit that you enjoy. Any juicy fruit is a great choice for a smoothie. Be creative and avoid ingredients that you do not care for.

Any yogurt,milk, or kefir will do the trick but some experts recommend avoiding pasteurization and low fat dairy products for health reasons so if you are trying to switch to a raw diet you can use raw milk or make your own raw yogurt to use in the smoothie. If you are a vegan or want to avoid dairy altogether then use soy milk, rice milk, firm tofu chunks, or simply forgo the dairy aspect of your smoothie altogether. Many people like to use organic, raw, cage free eggs in their smoothie for a fabulous source of protein.

Grasses have tremendous nutritional and cleansing properties. You can grow your own wheatgrass and juice it fresh into your smoothie or you can purchase grass powder superfoods such as Vitamineral Green which is high in vitamins, minerals, essential amino acids, chlorophyll, probiotics, and enzymes.

Some great additions to your smoothies can include algaes such as ultra cleansing chlorella and spirulina with 96 trace minerals. Another ingredient that is easiest eaten in a smoothie is freshly ground flax seed which will provide you with valuable plant based Omega 3 oils as well as soluble and insoluble fiber. Keep a coffee grinder next to your smoothie machine to make sure the flax seed is added to your smoothie immediately after grinding to prevent oxidation.

Some other ingredients you can try are ginseng, raw cacao, aloe vera, vegetable powders, coconut oil, ground nuts such as almonds or walnuts and medicinal herbs such as cinnamon.

You can purchase plastic take out cups with lids and straws and leave the house every morning with a few of your fruit servings out of the way in addition to meeting or exceeding many of your other nutritional requirements. Smoothies are a fun, delicious, nutritious way to maximize your health in a creative way that is limited only by your imagination.

You can find all the smoothie products you need including smoothie machines, coffee grinders, and hard to find ingredients at A Much Better Store under the Blog department.

I was planning on eventually switching my cat’s food to something organic or natural as part of my “get healthy list” but I decided to make the switch earlier in light of the recent pet food recall scandal. I have been feeding my cats grocery store cat food, primarily Cat Chow for the last ten or so years. I began to consider feeding them something healthier during my own journey of discovery to all things natural.

I am not going to pretend to know everything there is to know about the proper or even natural way to feed pets but it does stand to reason that cats in the wild do not eat anything even remotely similar to Cat Chow. My cats are strictly indoor and therefore do not have the luxury of getting a bit of natural food through their own hunting. Being an animal lover I am relieved that they are not out there murdering birds and rabbits but the unfortunate fact remains, they are carnivores and as the hand that feeds them I am not doing a very good job.

Now that I reflect back on my years of Cat Chow, I am afraid I was feeding them the equivalent of Doritos every day for the last decade. They had hairballs, constipation, and a terrible shedding problem. I blamed all of the above on age, rather than diet. I have noticed that some of my friend’s cats that eat Iams had much healthier coats and didnt shed nearly as much as mine.

I switched to Iams a couple of months ago but I have read that Iams isnt much better and still doesn’t approximate the diet that the cats would get in the wild. Going back to common sense I realize that cats in the wild would not eat grains or fillers at all. They would pretty much eat raw, Atkins type of diets.

I found two types of dry cat food which I am trying out for now and I will report back on how the cats seem to like them. The first is called Raw Instinct. Here is a Nature Varieties own description of the food.

This food has received 5 stars by Amazon reviewers. In the week that I have been feeding it to them, their coats are much shinier and I dont notice much shedding at all. They seem to enjoy the flavor. They still prefer their wet food so there is a little competition for flavors but so far it seems to have a majority vote.

I also purchased TimberWolf Organics Serengeti Herbal Feline Formula Cat Food . There are no stars on Amazon for this product and the description is pretty sparse. “A special carnivore specific feline diet that promotes low urinary pH and assists in the removal of hair balls.” Naturally that doesn’t mean anything so I am here to test it for you.

I bought a four pound bag of each and I have four cats so they wont last long. I am going to use up the Raw Instincts first and then the Timberwolf and I will report back. Please feel free to comment here if you have any experience with these foods whether positive or negative as I am learning here too.

My daughter went with my parents to a family reunion today. I chose not to go. Why? Because I am antisocial? Not really.

I am so tired of the fight to be healthy and eat healthy. It seems that we are not just dancing to a different drummer but are dancing to a monkey and an accordion.

I know this family reunion will consist of cakes, cookies, ice cream, and M&Ms. Of course the main course will be something like roast beef and who knows what else. Do we eat any of that? No. Nothing.

I would have to bring my own food if we want to eat. Normally I just sit there and watch other people eat while they eye me up and down like I am some kind of weirdo outsider. I mean seriously, who span doesn’t eat meat, dairy, & desserts in the Midwest?

Please do not get me wrong. My extended family is very nice. I am sure they feel they are serving the finest cuisine. I just don’t and won’t eat it. I go to great lengths to feed myself and my daughter items that originated from the ground.

Its truly like pushing a boulder uphill. I am tired of it. So I decided not to attend. I have the pressures at work of avoiding cake and ice cream every time someone has a birthday. Again, they look at me like I am not a team player if I do not show up for the “party” or if I sneak out of the room when they start passing out the garbage.

I truly believe that the standard American diet is total garbage. Its poison. It is no more a “treat” than if they passed out a cigarette or some heroin for every birthday party.

Today I gave up a little bit. I have never been away from my daughter other than to go to work since the day she was born but today I don’t even care. I simply don’t want to fight today quite frankly. I am not happy about it but what can I do? I am going to let my parents shovel poison into my daughters mouth all day….she will miss her nap….and I don’t have to deal with it until she gets home.

Yes, yes there is a point to all of this rambling. I get depressed. I get sick of fighting. I think that sometimes it would be so much easier to go with the flow and just eat McNuggets or some other toxic garbage and let my daughter drink soda and just smile and laugh and forget the battle.

Does it matter if we die at 60 or 90? Does our quality of life matter? Yes it does. So then I get angry. Its really quite stressful. I don’t have one single solitary friend in the town where I live because I have absolutely nothing in common with anyone here (that I can find) so I am going this battle alone. It is a daily battle and I have no support whatsoever.

Again…whats my point? My point is that I have to find a balance so I can smile and laugh and still try to dance to my monkey with the accordion. I have to get to the point where I just don’t care what other people think, while simultaneously refusing to judge others for their decisions. I have to resign myself to hunting and gathering for organic fresh produce just like caveman days. I might even have to grow my own. In resigning myself to this way of life hopefully I can lose the stress and happily announce to the world that “this is the way we live and if you don’t like it, you can go..(fill in whatever you like here).

Peace out.
Sheryl

Today was my daughters first day of day care. Any one that has visited my site or read anything about me knows that I am a firm believer in attachment parenting. I think babies belong with their relatives, especially when they are young.

Is that realistic in today’s world? No, of course not. That as we know is the theme of this blog. It doesn’t make it any less depressing for me however. My daughter is 22 months old and spent almost 24 hours a day with me for the first 18 months of her life.

The last couple of months she has spent with grandpa and grandma after I went back to work full time. We both made that adjustment better than expected although she is still not sleeping during the day without me. (what kind of toddler cant take naps)

Needless to say, it has been relatively painless until today. Now I have more of the guilt that working mothers (and fathers?) are supposed to feel. My poor baby was stuck with strangers for five hours which is a pretty big chunk of time for a two year old.

She clung to her little stuffed kitty the entire time. According to the day care providers she was crying most of the day. She was sobbing all by herself in a room when I walked up. Nice. It totally breaks my heart.

To add insult to injury it is apparently going to take a lightning bolt to get these people to give her the food I send along. They think their food is good enough (and for them I am sure it is) and they don’t want the other kids to want my daughter’s food. They feed these kids everything I am opposed to. Milk and cookies. Green jello with marshmallows. Is it too much to ask to feed them something that grew out of the ground? Unless you can show me a cracker tree I would rather not feed that to my daughter for a zillion reasons.

They wont allow me to send along a fruit and a vegetable. That is apparently an “unacceptable” snack by government standards. You have just got to be kidding me. And I think pasteurized, homogenized cows milk is nothing short of poison and in order to keep it away from my daughter I have to sign forms stating that she is allergic to it.

In addition, the facility is blatantly Christian. Fun. Its not that I am opposed to teaching my baby about religion…….Different people believe in different things just like different people speak different languages…nothing better or worse about one or the other kind of thing. But I am adamantly opposed to teaching her that one religion is the right one.

So I have to teach her that the food they feed her is wrong, the songs they sing are wrong, and the way they believe is wrong?? All that on top of the fact that she feels abandoned and alone except for her stuffed kitty.

Do I have a choice? Believe it or not it is a large, clean facility with a ton of happy kids and it is an excellent learning environment with wooden toys, small animals, pretend toys, and much more. They do not allow violent or sexist toys, they have daily outdoor time, and they do not exercise corporal punishment of any kind whatsoever. It is actually a wonderful facility by day care standards adequately staffed with what appear to be kind and concerned ladies.

So no, I actually do not have a choice with regard to a different facility because the other ones pale in comparison. Do I have a choice about day care at all? Not really. I cant afford a nanny and even if I could I don’t think it would be fair to deprive my only child of the playmates she craves.

My only choice is to work part time or not at all. Like the title of the blog says, its the day care conundrum. Choose to be a poor stay at home mom or make a reasonable living and pay strangers to raise your child. What a great direction for my family’s life to be taking.

Update 1.5 yrs later:
Putting Brielle in daycare was one of the biggest mistakes of my life. She never took a nap. She was a train wreck every day. She would cry her heart out for hours before I got there and no-one would pick her up because they had to hold the newborns.

On the (very) bright side, I approached my little Napoleon boss a few weeks later about working an alternate schedule that involved 6 day weeks and shorter days so I wouldn’t have to put her in day care and he fired me two days later. While that is a very interesting way to treat a single mom who asks a question, I cannot complain because my site, store and blog have blossomed and I learned my lesson. Hell would have to freeze over before I put my little girl in daycare again (and I don’t believe in hell so…..)

One of the first items I crossed of my “get healthy list” was getting a good nights sleep. This was incredibly difficult because I have always been a night owl. I have found the evening hours to be my most productive time and I have always enjoyed the night whether out partying in South Beach, working on my site, or just watching CSI.

I was forced to become even more of a night owl after the birth of my daughter. I found that even though I was not working a “traditional day job” and I was home all day, I was getting absolutely nothing done. In retrospect maybe I did not manage my time with my newborn too well and maybe I could have done some things differently to buy some more time but at the time it was easiest to wait until she was asleep to get anything done. I would then stay up until 2am and wake up with her at 6 or 7 and be a zombie all day long.

I always felt like total crap but on the bright side I really managed to accomplish an awful lot in those wee hours. I totally designed and built my website from scratch (with no prior web design knowledge). I also managed to eke out a living doing a bit of freelance work and selling products on ebay.

Fast forward to today and I am working a “traditional job”. I probably have about the same amount of free time since watching a baby or toddler is a full time job. I cant spend my days in a trance however since I am doing a bit more “brain work” than keeping a toddler from shoving a fork in a light socket.

That realization combined with the fact that getting a good nights sleep doesn’t cost anything out of pocket are the reasons that I knocked that off the list in short order. Like I mentioned, it was very very difficult at first to hit the lights at 10pm. It seemed almost ridiculous. In fact my whole life I have avoided a normal bedtime because I felt like I was getting away with something or being naughty. Even as a young girl I would stay up with a tiny light by my bed reading books until 1 or 2 and believe that I really pulled one over on my parents.

As an adult I have done enough reading to know the value of a good nights sleep. I was even further convinced upon exploring Dr. Mercola’s website and reading all of his arguments as well as his helpful tips. Lastly while writing an article about sleep and fertility for my site I discovered that poor sleep habits will actually affect a womans fertility and her cycles. I am not planning on getting pregnant immediately but if everything works out according to my plan I would like to try by the end of 2007 so it made sense to me to get my cycle in sync sooner rather than later.

So a couple of months ago, despite realizing that I couldn’t be naughty any more and stay up late I finally started turning in at 10pm. Within a week getting 8 hours of sleep became non-negotiable to me. I felt so good. I continue to feel so good. Its just wonderful. It is in my head more than anything. Now I know what I used to blame on a hangover was actually lack of sleep. I had been suffering needlessly for about 20 years or so. Granted I had an awful lot of fun and I accomplished an awful lot but now I wonder at what cost?

The interesting thing for me is my own psychology. Now I actually feel “naughty” in a guilty pleasure kind of way when I turn in at 10. I have such an incredibly huge list of things to do and of course no one to help me with my list so I have to be almost rigid in my daily and weekly to do lists. It is just amusing to me that staying up late used to be naughty because I ignored the “should” go to bed early, but now going to bed early is being naugty because I “should” be getting so many things done.

Suffice it to say that if i have a choice to just be naughty or be naughty and feel great doing it, I will pick the “feel great naughty” every time.