My path into weirdness

As I've stated before, I am kind of strange. Specifically, I'm a little bit of a granola girl. Since you asked (you didn't? oh, sorry), I thought I'd tell you how it all began.

I think I have a natural bend towards more basic, natural things. My earliest hippie memory is from college. Good old Community College. I was reading the English class essay on what happens to our bodies after death but before burial. I read all about the horrid things they do to make a dead body look not only alive, but formal-occasion-ready. I had no desire to have my post mortem eyelids glued down or my mouth wired shut (that one hurts me the most, lol). It just wasn't natural. Shane has strict orders to leave my body alone after death, just spray some Oust! on me and it'll be fine. Organic Oust!, that is.

There's just something in me that is drawn to the more natural, God-made ways of doing things. I don't like chemicals, additives, impostor foods (Velveeta is NOT cheese!) epidurals, fetal tissue in immunizations, MSG, bleach in my water, Splenda, margarine, artificial colors, tanning salons, fake nails, institutional thinking (one of my favorite movies is Patch Adams ).

That's why we homeschool, it just seems more natural. That's why we make a lot of our decisions. It just seems that the closer we do things to the way God designed them, the happier we'll be. I'm not saying eating MSG laden food is a sin, by any means. I'm just saying that by eating more natural food, keeping a simple lifestyle, choosing to support the little farmer's market instead of buying Wal-Mart's genetically modified fruit makes me feel better. I feel like a better keeper of my home if I'm searching out healthier dinner items, less toxic cleaning supplies, and nursing my babies while carrying them in a sling instead of relying on a mechanical device to entertain/soothe them all the time. It just feels more wholesome.

I'm not a purist at all. I still make mac and cheese with that not-even-close-to-real-cheese cheese. I like sugar. I love chocolate. But I'm slowly getting my household in a more natural place. Here's what I'm doing:

Mending some of our clothes instead of just buying new. I'm not good at it, but I won't get good unless I mess up (apparently I have to mess up a lot!).

Using the cloth diapers a friend gave me. I only plan to use them at home, but that should reduce the chemical exposure to my little one a lot while being much cheaper than using only disposables.

I just ordered a bottle of Chalie's Soap, which isn't soap but is a great residue-free laundry detergent without all the chemicals of typical store bought detergent. It's only 2 cents more a load for the natural stuff. Not bad. And it has a cool retro look to it!

Using vinegar instead of bleach in my laundry. When the laundry is dry, there's no odor left behind and it makes a great fabric softener.

I need to work on banning white flour and sugar from our diets, but dang-it, it's easier to do stuff that's fun and cute like playing with these cute diapers:



I don't own this one, but I wish I did, lol!