Jill Will Run

I read an article on No Meat Athlete, “Veg-Curious? Don’t Be Fooled About these 7 Myths of a Vegetarian Diet“.  The phrase “veg-curious” is a good way to describe me.  I don’t eat a lot of meat, my main reasons in the past for this being:

• Raw meat grosses me out… seriously, I HATE handling raw meat. And that makes cooking it really hard to deal with.
• Fatty pieces of meat are disgusting to me. Ever since I was small I could dissect a piece of meat and discard every discernible molecule of fat. I hate the texture. Usually the pile of my discards are larger than the actual amount deemed worthy of consumption. And that’s just wasteful.
• It just doesn’t appeal to me most of the time.

As I’ve grown, I’ve learned more about how meat is produced for the consumer in this country and honestly, it disgusts me.  I do feel that human beings are designed to eat meat… but not the way we consume it now.  We eat far more meat than ancient humans did and we eat meat that is… well, a bastardized form of meat.  My grandparents did not grow up eating chicken meat where the bird was injected so full of hormones that it was so breast-heavy it couldn’t walk, where it is shoved in a tiny cage with tons of other animals in very close proximity to all the others. (My parents probably didn’t have meat like that when they were growing up either! It’s gotten a lot more industrialized as modern technology allows for that.) And other animals are treated just as unfairly.  Dairy cows are kept pregnant almost constantly, which has got to be miserable. And their calves are thrown away as they are considered a byproduct.

Animal farming has a massive carbon footprint, causing more pollution than all of our planes, trains and automobiles.  ”Animal farming is a huge drain on resources like water and grain. It takes 2,500 gallons of water to produce a pound of meat, compared to only 25 gallons to produce a pound of grain. 70% of the grain grown in the US is used for producing meat. If that grain were being fed directly to people, no one would have to go hungry.” [Source]

I also recently watched the movie Vegucated, which promotes a vegan lifestyle. I am not sure that I could (or would) go completely vegan… eggs are an important part of my diet. I eat one every day. But actually seeing the way they chopped off animal’s beaks so they don’t peck each other to death in their cages, sorted through baby animals and tossed them aside like garbage, the living conditions for animals… it really bothered me. (BTW – If you have Amazon Prime, you can watch this movie for free online.

However, things that would prevent me from going completely vegetarian or vegan:

• I am in recovery from an eating disorder. Removing an entire food group could be dangerous. A lot of my ED eating habits started by eliminating refined grains and sugars due to recommendations in the South Beach Diet. And when that worked, I just kept expanding it… eliminating more and more and more.
• Pregnancy does not seem like the time to make big changes like this, especially since I’ve heard that making the switch can have a detoxifying effect on the body, and that can be rough on mom and fetus at a time when the body is already in a very altered state.
• Family. Plain and simple. My husband is not open to the idea of cutting out meat.  He is in favor of finding more responsible options though. And nobody else in my family is vegetarian, I think it would make family gatherings a little difficult at best and flat-out awkward or insulting at worse if I had to decline meal staples.

Living in the desert, there aren’t tons of local farm options, but there is the Las Vegas Farm… I could get fresh eggs through them.  Sadly it seems as though The Farm is in trouble due to the need for more space so the animals can live more healthfully and comfortably while county ordinances want to keep the land from being agricultural.

There is also the Gilcrease Orchard where I could get some fresh, locally grown produce.  The seasons are limited due to our extreme temperature swings. And it does seem like local farmer’s market options have been expanding over the past couple years.  I did attend the Las Vegas Farmer’s Market a couple of years ago and to be perfectly blunt, it was sad.  There were only two booths and only one of those sold produce. (The other had some kind of baked goods.)  I never went back… it deserves another chance.

I was raised to be frugal, which somehow turned into being a total cheapskate.  So looking at the prices of cage-free, organic eggs or free-range meat or whatnot is a little cringe-worthy to me.

But I need to start speaking with my dollars and trying to purchase the animal products that I do consume in as cruelty-free and healthful forms that I can. It may not seem like I’m making any kind of difference (kind of like voting in elections seems pointless most of the time) but it’s what I can do. Baby steps, right?

When I downloaded an update to the Walgreens app on my iPhone, it took me through a brief “orientation” before letting me into the app. Part of the orientation was illustrating the medications tab and one thing in particular caught my eye.

Not catching it? Dogs would be medicated for FLEAs not FLEEs!

When an email offer like this comes to my email, it’s so hard to resist!

The deal was really for "Licensed Electrician Work", but when it gets cut off... man! I know lots of people get lice for free... but when you can get it for only $99, how can you resist?

I know that lots of products go through all kinds of advances, but I never dreamed toothpaste would have features like this.

It's small, you can click to view the full size, but the features listed are: Honey colored pine frame with contrasting green micromesh.

I recently read Tina’s post on Carrots n Cake about how her colitis troubles seem to be exacerbated by stress. She went on a vacation and all of her symptoms disappeared for that time.

I don’t have colitis, but I’ve always had digestive trouble.  Now that I’m pregnant that trouble is exacerbated… and I’m sure stress doesn’t help.  The trouble is, I don’t know how to get relief from my stress.  EVERYTHING is stress to me.

• Daily life is stressful with work, maintaining a home, trying to prep meals for a husband who doesn’t like anything…
• Work is stressful for me because I kind of hate not having any co-workers around.*
• Being pregnant is stressful, because my feelings toward this are all over the place all day long.
• Taking a vacation is stressful because I have to plan it all
• Going on a vacation is stressful because there are deadlines for travel, planning activities that I hope my husband** will enjoy and then when he doesn’t seem to respond I freak out and assume I’ve ruined it all
• Going on trips where there are large amounts of family around are even more stressful for me.
• Doing a “staycation” is stressful because I feel like a failure if we don’t have things planned or if we’re just bumming around the house.

Somehow, I make it very hard to be me. Some of it is just hard-wired in my brain (nature). Some of it comes from how I was raised (nurture) and the way chemicals in my brain interpreted those lessons.

But this week, I’m going to try to relax. No over-planning (just the bare minimum, so we can actually make our connections) and no real agenda. My brain and body need to de-stress BIG TIME.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

*Don’t get me wrong, being able to telecommute is a gift… but it’s also very hard.

** My husband used to give me more feedback on activities he thought were fun, but I swear… his job has sucked that life out of him. Being a CPA in a public firm is no joke people… especially January-May.

Image via CrunchBase

I watched an interview with Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos.

Tony Hsieh on Zappos’ Unique Company Culture

I find a lot of stuff that Zappos is doing in their business culture fascinating, so it was an interesting view.  I’m not so sure about the whole “valley girl” show concept and the host, but whatever… she did ask a question that made me think. She asked Tony where he saw Zappos in 15 years, because “5-10 is easily imaginable”.

I do not find 5-10 years easily imaginable. A part of me wants to say that if my life mirrors the one I have right now in 5-10 years, I don’t want that life… it’s kind of boring. Sitting in my home office, day-in/day-out working on a job where I rarely see other people and feel like I’m kind of stifled… well, that sounds like misery.

But then again, considering that I’m pregnant right now, life most definitely won’t be the same as it is now.

What do I want from life in 5-10 years? Another thing I can’t answer… I know what I don’t want. I don’t want to be stressed every day over my husband’s well-being and if his job stress is shortening his lifespan. I don’t want to have a self-imposed feeling that I have to be chained to my desk/email/IM out of worry that if I’m too “out of sight, out of mind” my job will be in jeopardy. I don’t want to be pregnant. I don’t want to drive a minivan.

I wrote a life-list a while ago… I should revisit that and migrate it over to this site so I’m actually working toward items on it. What I do know is that in 5-10 years I want my family and me to be happy and healthy.

What do you want from your life in 5-10 (or even 15) years?

Family Child Care (Photo credit: heraldpost)

I’ve listened to a few episodes of the Pregtastic podcast. It has some good info, but it also is very successful at freaking me out. (And the older episodes where they say “Being pregnant is PREGTASTIC!” makes me cringe each time.) The latest Pregtastic-induced-nerve-wracking-issue comes from the childcare issue.

According to what I’ve heard on there, once you are 15 weeks along you need to be researching and visiting childcare resources.

Yikes… I haven’t done that… and I’m 25 weeks along now. Oops…

Truthfully, I don’t know exactly what I want to do.

1. Hiring an outside daycare seems ridiculous. I work in the home, why would I get up and drive my kid somewhere else and then come back home?
2. I did a brief Google after the podcast scared me and there aren’t any infant daycare options near my home anyway. Driving a kid to daycare when I would have to travel 10+ miles each way seems REALLY stupid when I’m just going to be at home.
3. Even though I’m home all day, contrary to what many people seem to think, I do have to work during the day. I have phone calls and video conferences to address. A baby would probably need some attention in there, beyond just periodic feedings.
4. My telecommuting contract states that I’m not supposed to be taking care of other people during work time. (But it never mentioned dogs… Jade The Boxer, I love you puppy! You’re the best co-worker ever, even when you snore on the floor during meetings.)
5. I looked at a nanny company and it sounded overwhelming. Too many terms I didn’t even understand. And mainly the testimonials came from people who said they used the service to keep watch on their children when they traveled to Vegas while staying at the Bellagio or something… I’m not that swanky.

So my solution is to ignore this. Especially because my husband’s feedback is “the baby will just sleep in its little bed next to you while you work.”  I’m no pro… but I don’t think it works like that.

Probiotics For Dummies
by Shekhar Challa

This book is small, but packs in a lot of info. Much of it is presented in a straightforward manner, but there are small side boxes that expand upon the information in a more scientific manner, if that floats your boat. It starts off with discussions on bacteria and how there are good and bad types of bacteria in the world and how that bacteria behaves inside the human body.

Interesting note on this: there’s a paragraph in the book that talks about how an obstetrician in 1847 observed that women delivering their babies at the hospital were far more likely to die of “childbed fever” than those who delivered at home. The doctor noticed that babies were frequently delivered by people right after they had performed autopsies. So by requesting that the other doctors washed their hands in between the autopsy and delivery lowered the childbed fever death rate from 1 in5 to 1 in 50!

After that introduction, we are then taken through various conditions that can be improved or altered by the use of probiotics, starting with the most obvious: digestive health. (That’s how probiotics are marketed in this world, we all know that Jamie Lee Curtis stays regular by eating her special yogurt!) But then it moves into how they can help other ailments: allergies, urinary tract infections, women’s issues, children’s issues, skin care, oral hygiene, mood disorders

Probiotic Drinks (Photo credit: Jepster)

There’s a whole chapter on probiotic recipes… but I only glanced through them and the ones I did look at didn’t seem that appealing to me. I mean, I want to be healthy… but I don’t want to introduce mass levels of sauerkraut and kimchi to my life. I can do yogurt, but even with yogurt we’d have to eat a lot of it to get all the probiotics we need. (Jamie Lee, do you eat 3+ cups of that yogurt each day?!) I’m also completely down with using kombucha to get my probiotics in!

The last section of the book is 3 separate lists of 10s. Simple references about probiotics that cover topics like “The 10 myths of probiotics” and “10 famous bacteria”. (Nobody from The Jersey Shore made that list.)

The book is easy to read, whether you wanted to sit down and power through it (216 pages) or whether you wanted to just look up specific areas a little at a time.

*I kind of joke about Jamie Lee Curtis in here, but I think she’s pretty awesome.

Legalese: This book was provided to me for free to review, the opinions here are my own. I do not claim to be a dummy.