Random Tid Bits

I'm going to make this post about my odd quirks.

1. I dislike drinking milk, or in my case almond milk from my bowl of cereal. I put in very little almond milk. Just enough to barely see it. Travis puts in way too much in for my taste.





2. I dislike when people refer to a potato and corn as only vegetables. According to many nutritionist they are starches. It acts as a starch inside the body. Schools that think that potatoes or corn as being the number 1 veggie on a plate is just plain silly. Especially French Fries. Come on! That's like saying real bacon is a full fledge protein when it's clearly a yummy fat. They should have something green on their plates besides corn or potatoes. 


3. I can't stand when students fixate on the wrong thing. For example I have one student that did 10 logos that all looked the same, but had a slightly different font. The logo its self wasn't very good. The fonts were nearly the same. He was thinking about the font for 1/2 the day. He could have made a much better logo in the time he was fixating on the font. I told him that too. He just looked at me and shrugged his shoulders. 


4. Being a Mom I know I have to repeat myself. As a teacher I can't stand it. Everything is on a handout - that's on a server, I write all the specifics on the board each day - and verbally read it out loud. Anymore when I'm asked questions I don't know if I should answer nicely, or just say, "You're in college. Go look it up on the handout, or on the board." It takes just as many words as repeating, but I want them to learn to be independent. They shouldn't rely on their boss to repeat things over and over again for them. 


5. I can't stand it when people don't put their grocery cart in the return stall. Wind could push it around, and knock it into cars. When I get out of my car I take a random cart with me that was left when it shouldn't of been left. Mica's job is to collect ones he sees. He loves pushing the cart, so why not collect them? 

What are a few random quirks that you have?

How Turmeric Can Benefit You

As many of you know I'll be having surgery soonish. I'm not quite sure when, but I'm shooting towards mid to the end of June. Sometime after spring allergies, considering that I can't blow my nose for 3 weeks after my surgery. I have another doctor's appointment coming up. I have to get my severe deviated septum fixed, and massive amounts of polyps in my nose out. Both my ENT and Allergy Asthma Doctors couldn't believe I've gone on this long with not being able to breathe.

I was born with the deviated septum, so breathing with it is all I've ever experienced. I've had allergies and asthma my whole life, so that too has been a battle back and forth. I am glad that there is a reason why I've felt so bad. It wasn't just my imagination.

Now I'm on a ton of meds until I can have this surgery. All of them have helped. I still am getting headaches, but for the the first time in a long time I can smell! My nose is actually less swollen from polyps. There was one natural thing that I tried, and it's helped this whole time.

During the winter I made a Wellness Blend: 

• Boil 4 cups of water in a large pot
• Add 1/2 cup local honey
• Add in 1 1/2 large yellow onions diced
• Add in 3/4 cup ginger diced
• Add in 2 big spoons full of turmeric
• Add in 1 Tablespoon cayenne pepper
• Add in 1 Tablespoon of cinnamon 
• Bring to a boil again, turn the heat down to low, and cover it. 
• Let it do it's thing until the water is cooked down 1/2 way. *Note: You'll be able to see where it started because the tumeric colors the pan a slight yellow
• Cool a bit, and put mixture through a blender
• Drink 2 spoons full twice a day in hot water. 
• Store in the refrigerator. 

The Wellness Blend didn't cure me by any means, but it did allow me to breathe through my nose, while I drank it. That was wonderful! I'll keep drinking it even when I am better because of all the health benefits in it. It's a drink that is preventative to getting polyps back, so I'll do what I can now that I know I'm prone to getting them. I don't want to be on steriods the rest of my life.

 It tastes good! The only downfall is that it needs to be stirred during the process of drinking it.

The two best things in the Wellness Blend are: 

• Turmeric 
• Ginger

They are both anti-inflammatory, help fight against heart disease, and Turmeric kills bacteria, and protects the body with antioxidants.

Other Perks in Regards to the Superfood Turmeric: 

 

Turmeric is...

• A bright yellow powder that comes from the ginger family
• Often used in Indian or Asian cooking for coloring and added flavor
• Obtained from the roots of the plant
• An excellent source of fiber, vitamin B6, potassium, vitamin C, and magnesium
• a superfood that has 2 key therapeutic components: Turmerone and Curcumin

Besides my Wellness Blend there's a Turmeric Tea drink you can try:

If you dislike warm drinks here's a Turmeric and Avocado Salad Dressing you can try:

There's also Turmeric Gummies. I'd love to see if this would work with my Lego molds!

If you're a smoothie drinker like I am try Turmeric & Seed Smoothie:

I'd probably replace the hemp milk. I just can't find that at the stores where I shop.

Do you try to incorporate Turmeric, or any other Superfood into your diet? 

What recipe that I shared would you most likely try?

Disclaimer: I worked with FIX blog for the illustrated recipes.

Generation What?

We were having a discussion about Millennials. I'm like, "I don't even know what generation I'm in. Maybe I don't even care." I got curious, so I looked it up. I was born in 1976 - I'm in Generation X. My kids are in Generation Z. What generation are you in?


Baby Boomer Generation: 1946-1964
Generation X (Baby Bust): 1965-1979
Generation Y - The Millennial - Gen Next: 1980-1995 (why does this generation have so many names?)
Generation Z: 1996-2010


I got this information from this site.

My generation is considered the "lost" generation because we were the first generation that had "latchkey" kids, went to daycare, and knew a lot of parents that got divorced. I got watched by a neighbor lady at times, and didn't know a lot of parents that were divorced. In fact that wasn't a thing in my mind until I was in high school. It was then that I met kids that had single parents.

I kind of blame the feminist movement on this. Don't get me wrong I love being a female, want respect, and think we should be paid the same as males that do the same thing that we do. At the same time the feminist movement made it so that many females have jobs just like men do. No one is there for our children - in the US overall. I don't even care if it's me that works, and my husband stays home with the kids. It would be nice if someone would be home cooking, cleaning, helping with homework and so on. I feel sorry for the next generation that's to come. I'm freaking tired of working, tired of going home to cook, clean, and thankfully Travis shares all that with me.

We're known for the lowest voting participation rate of any generation. I have to say that I do vote, but I often feel a bit like I'm picking the lesser of the 2 evils. Hmmm...who's less likely to cause a World War 3, and put a lot of other leaders against us? Those are the kinds of things I think about. I hate that one has to register for one party. I look at the person. I wish we had more parties that people took seriously. Republican vs. Democrat. If you vote anything else in many people's eyes you're throwing your vote away. My Dad threw his vote away many times over again because he didn't trust either of the main two people. He voted who he believed in the most.

Gen Xers don't know a lot about social issues. I try and stay on top of social issues. I don't know what I can do in the big picture of things though. I can't save wild animals from getting hunted. Sure I can pick litter up at a park, and have Mica collect carts at the grocery store to put them away. I'm not going to be able to save the world by myself. I get highly annoyed that sports is such a big chunk of the news when there's so much going on in the world. I simply don't have the time to watch World News Tonight, when I'd like to. I feel like the station that gives the most broad view is being pushed down - PBS. I watched a documentary on there about Obama and his troubles with healthcare. It wasn't for or against him. Just the facts about what he went through.

Many in Gen X think about, "What's in it for me?" Which I admit I do at times. If I scratch your back, it would be nice if you scratched mine. If I scratch your back many times, and you never come back to scratch mine I'll be annoyed for sure. Travis falls in the Gen X category too. He's much more giving than I am. He'll give neighbors food we grow. I'm like, "Give it to our family that does stuff for us. Not our neighbors that never gives us anything."

Gen X has some of the worst music to ever gain popularity. It depends on what one likes to listen too. I have a wide variety of taste in music. It's guaranteed that some bands/singers I listen too you'll know, and others you'd be like, "What's that?!" I try and go way out of the way to listen to different things at times.

Do you feel like you follow what your generation stands for? You can read about your generation here.

WW: NEsA Testing {Linky}

Mica, "Mom I started my NEsa Testing at school today. Thanks for the letter for encouragement!"

Me, "You're welcome. How do you think you did?"

Mica, "I feel like I did good."

Me, "Does it make you nervous when you take those tests?"

Mica, "No. I actually think they are fun."

Me, "Mica you are so different than I was with that. I hated those tests."

The Time I Failed as a Parent

Not really.

So we wanted to watch the movie, Captain Fantastic. Have you seen it? Oh my goodness it's a great movie!

We watched the trailer and were all like, "That seems like our taste of a movie." We all wanted to watch it. There was only one problem: It was rated R.

Travis decided to look up what made it rated R. There was a scene where the Dad comes out nude, and another scene where the little girl is nude from the back. There was some language. All things that we thought, ok. We prefered that stuff not be in it, but we can't shelter them their whole lives. The boys have seen many nudes at art openings. We decided to watch it.

We all loved it! It's about a man that wanted to raise his kids in the wild. His Father in Law wanted to take the kids away from him. His Father in Law thought that raising kids in the wild is not right. The kids were super smart survivors, but did lack on social skills outside their family.

But...the Dad blatantly tells their youngest what sex is. Mica's been talked to about sex in a scientific way. We've talked to him about girl and boy development as well. We didn't just come out, and say what sex is. Now our soon to be 9 year old knows too. They both looked at us and said, "Is that really what it is?" We're both like, "Ya." That was it. No more questions asked. We did say, "Boys don't talk about sex at school. Some parents haven't talked to their kids about that yet."

On one hand I was thinking, Man my 8 year knows what sex is! On the other hand I'm glad they both know. A hard talk just became easier. Rumors about it are no longer rumors. We can have open dialog, talk about respecting women's bodies, and so on.

They've both been around breastfeeding, and like I said gallery openings that have had nude drawings on display. Sex is just another part of human nature.

Did you ever have a Birds and Bees discussion with your parents? I don't remember one in particular. My Dad was very open with us though. If we would have asked he would have told us whatever we wanted to know.

Awesome All Day Every Day

Isaak is awesome all day every day, except when it's picture taking time. Then he's a punk! Ha!

The kid that has been bothering him all year, the one who's parent were getting a divorce is kind again. Isaak's little group let him back into their friendship circle. I think his parents are working it out. I don't know if that's a good thing, or not. If their kid is nicer than maybe it is a good thing. Usually Isaak has trouble letting things go. This time he let bygones be bygones.

Mica started volleyball at school. When Isaak went to his first game Travis said Isaak was a real cheerleader. He was saying, "Come on! Play like you mean it! Get out there, and go after the ball!" Travis said that Isaak should have been their coach. 

Isaak never shuts up. He's in constant chatter mode. He's always full of ideas about things he wants to do. 

Do you consider yourself as outgoing, or creative like Isaak?