Mostly Harmless

A New Year

2011-01-06T09:50:00.000-06:00

I know I haven't been keeping up my blogs... thanks to Facebook! lol

Anyways... thought I'd update today... beginning of a new year and all...

Great news! I am starting this year under 140 lbs!!! woohoo!!! It has been soooo long since I've seen the 130's on any scale for myself! And it feels WONDERFUL! I still a little ways to go until I reach my goal... but, I'm loving this!

How'd I do it? Well, being that going to Curves everyday, pretty much 5 times a day, wasn't working so well (had been going for over a year... lost inches but only like 5 lbs)... I decided to go a different route. A route I never thought I'd do... but, I was soooo tired of being 160 lbs!!! That's way too much weight for someone of my stature and I just couldn't shake it! So, I went to a diet doctor! He's actually a doctor of internal medicine and does this on the side. And I've been taking phentermine... I just started my 5th month. So, the weight isn't drastically disappearing, but it is... slowly and wonderfully! Size 8 jeans are loose! I can fit some size 6's... yay! Love it, love it, love it!!!

This picture, I took Oct. 27th, 2010.

Yes, dirty bathroom mirror! lol Oh well...

Anyways, I've lost a little more weight since this pic :D

What I'm going to work on now is working out! ha ha ha Yeah... I've lost weight... but, really need to tone up!!! Thankfully, we have work out 'games' for both the Wii & XBox360!

So, personal goals for myself for this year is to get down to 125 lbs and be toned up! Another goal: Get divorce papers from John! He's remarried (so he's said- legally... IDK...). I need to figure out how to attain them... if its not really filed, than that needs to be done pronto!!!

Another thing I recently got accomplished is that I finally have a birth certificate AND social security number for Wyatt!!! Yes... I should have tried to get these done prior to now... but... it's finally done!!! woohoo! Now Jeremy can amend the tax forms he's turned in and file the others :))

Also, after the taxes are all done, we can actually start looking for a place for ourselves!!! And on a slightly different note, we can apply for LaChip insurnace for low income families! woohoo! Its for medical, dental, vision, etc!!! Awesome! And way cheaper than other insurances I've been looking into!

Speaking about Jeremy (I know, he doesn't want me talking about him on my blog... but, this is good stuff :-D)... our relationship has much improved in the past 2 yrs! Its been great! He's still not drinking and says he has no desire to (whew!)!
Also, he was promoted to Foreman of the Pipe Department at work! Because of that, we were invited to the company's annual Christmas Party! Wow!!! How cool was that? We actually went! Jeremy's mom said she could babysit the kids... so, we dropped them off on the way there and they slept over :)
He has also maintained the weight he went down to when he was training for Ryan! So, he's under 180lbs :)

Our Kids:

Wyatt & Ursula just had their bdays last month... so, my baby is now 5 yrs old! Ursula is 8 :D Calista will be 12 next month! I plan on getting her a little bit of real make-up for her bday :D I let her wear brown mascara sometimes and light lip gloss... but, this will be her's :) She's been shaving her legs for a few months now... ha ha ha My tiny girl is getting older!

Something else pertaining to my girls is that bus wreck that happened on Dec. 3rd, 2010. I'll try to post more about that on their blog. That really sucked... My heart still wrenches when I see a bus or pass the spot where the accident happened. I am bringing them to the chiropractor.

Jeremy's dad will be gone a year on Jan. 12th :( It's something that Jeremy's been struggling with. We actually stayed up all night Sunday night, talking about him... he even went to work Monday morning even though he literally had no sleep! But, he said he loved that night and it really helped him deal with his passing. Jeremy's mom is supposed to get remarried in Las Vegas on Jan. 25th... crazy, huh? Another thing Jeremy's having a hard time with...

Vampires

2010-04-12T10:19:00.004-05:00

I know that there's a whole fad type deal going on with vampires now... but, in all honesty, I've always been into vampires... even when I was a kid... I wasn't interested in watching werewolves, zombies, ghouls, and whatever other type of monster out there... however, I was always fascinated with witches/occult type stuff too... along with the vampires :)

So... anyways... I've been reading different vampire books. I had actually read the first 3 of Ann Rice's Vampire Chronicles back when I was like 21 or 22... (yes, a LONG time ago... LOL). And I reread them recently (actually, not all yet... just finished the 5th book... need to buy the others). I read the Twilight books. Read the Vampire Academy books. And the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, series (there's one to more to go on that one). So, two of these bunches of books are geared towards teens; but, they're still good :)

The first two series listed below are geared towards teens:

The Twilight series (by Stephenie Meyer)... I liked it as a whole. I am not too into Bella's personality though... she's too somber? Idk... But, like I said, I like it as a whole... and it has a good ending :D Oh, I also like how they don't cower & die from the sun but sparkle :) And how they never sleep :D That's great :))

The Vampire Academy series (by Richelle Mead)... that's incomplete still... but, actually, pretty good :D A different concept on vampires... two different types: one is a living vampire and the other, the 'bad' one, is the undead. The story is being told from a 3rd different species though... she's one that was born to protect the living vampires.

The Vampire Chronicles series (by Ann Rice)... Really good set of books... I've only read the first five so far... need to buy the rest... in the meantime, I started on Pandora last night. Its not part of the series but associated with them. The fifth book, Memnoch the Devil is really good :D It talks about the roles that God & the Devil play in our lives... interesting take on things. I'm really interested in reading the next 5 books... just have to get them now :D I actually have the 7th book, Merrick... I picked it up, long ago, at a thrift store... just like other Ann Rice books that I have. I have to say that reading this series has taken me longer to read then the others series of books... the books themselves, are bigger... if they don't appear that way, don't be deceived... the font is smaller and closer together and the margins are smaller too. Also, its the way that they're written... not in casual, everyday language... since the main characters are at least 200 yrs old, its written like they're telling the story, the way they spoke back then. I like the stories that the books tell... and like my sister said, seems like Ann Rice got better with each book :)

Finally, the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series (by Laurell K. Hamilton)... This series is DEFINITELY NOT FOR KIDS!!! LOL I've read 17 of these books. There's an 18th book that I haven't gotten yet (came out in Feb of this year); called Flirt. I like the concept of this series of books too... its set in modern times and all fabled monsters are actually around and mostly accepted in society... and there's new laws and social norms because of them. Anita isn't a 'monster'... but, she was born with the ability to animate the dead; so, that's what she does for a living. This is a site I liked to go to when I was reading... its a fan site called the Anitaverse :) I liked seeing who people thought should play the different characters if they'd ever be a movie based on the books... if so, it would have to be at least rated R... LOL There's lots of graphic stuff in these books!

So, because of my super interest in vampires... you're probably wondering this...

Would I like to be a vampire? Yes indeed! LOL I would stay the same age forever! Would I kill people? Nope. I would look for donors and just take a little blood at a time :) And, when my children would get to around 18, I'd let them make the decision if they'd want to be vampires :D See, vampires have like all kinds of 'super' hero stuff going on with them... so, why would anyone want to be Superman, Ironman, the Hulk, Wonder Woman, etc? :P

New Stuff

2010-03-27T13:53:00.004-05:00

What's really cool, is that we're doing really well :) Well, considering how things were in the past... I imagine that lack of alcohol purchases have really helped both the financial and emotional well-being in this household :D

Anyways... all of our bills are paid :D woohoo! Nothing is behind at all! YAY! AND... we have money from week to week (check to check)!!! Its awesome!

Jeremy had to buy another Xbox360... his broke... and he tried fixing it... but, didn't work... so... he bought another... he's addicted to playing those online battle games... LOL Modern Warfare and another... forgot the name just now... anyways...

He bought us a 42" Plasma TV right before the Super Bowl. Bought me a new computer chair, since around Christmas time, I now have 2 new 1TB hard drives, bought my car a new windshield (couldn't get an inspection sticker for almost 2 yrs because of his cigarette lighters exploding and cracking the windshield)! So, now my car is totally legal again! woohoo! But, geez... that windshield cost like $200!!! A few months ago, he also bought me 4 new tires! And the difference in the driving was amazing! I know my car is old, but, it really drives well and it was taken care of by its previous owners really well! Its a 1992 Grand Marquis. All it really needs to look better is a paint job :P And he bought us a new dishwasher! woohoo! We also have a new work out bench :D AND, he bought a new bedroom door for us :) He said he'll replace the 3 other doors down the hallway too :)

Its really crazy actually being able to buy these things without breaking us... You have to remember, I'm a stay-at-home mom... so, there's only one income here... and Jeremy had been laid off a couple times a little over a year ago...

Now, if only I could go and buy some new clothes... I mean, I can... I just won't... NOT UNTIL I LOSE THIS STUBBORN WEIGHT!!!

I am going to start walking Monday (I think...lol) I'll walk while Wyatt rides his bike... I hope that'll work for us... I think he'll be okay... he's pretty cautious. If I could just lose like 30 lbs, I'd be ecstatic... of course, losing more would be wonderful.

I actually gained weight since quitting Curves... its sickening.

On a Sad Note...

2010-03-03T11:58:00.002-06:00

Jeremy's father, Nathan, passed away January 12th, 2010. We are still awaiting the autopsy results as no one really knows exactly why he died. Something was causing his organs to fail... we need to know what was doing it... if it was environmental, genetic, etc... He was only 53... he was in the hospital in December, for his bday & Christmas :(

Its just so terrible. I liked him... he was a good guy... and he always had a new joke to tell us everytime we'd see him. I feel sad not only for his wife and children, but for his grandchildren. Calista's his oldest grandchild and she's only 11 (as of Feb)... so, these children won't have many memories... mostly pics... And Wyatt never got the chance to go fishing with him... and he really wanted to... and he still talks about it. Wyatt asked if Paw-paw was poisoned or if someone shot him... :(

End of the Year... Already??? OMG

2009-12-16T09:47:00.012-06:00

I just can't believe how FAST this year has flown by!!! geez

My baby, my son, Wyatt will be 4 yrs old soon!!! And I'm sooo enjoying him!!! hehehe He cracks me :) He's too cute :D And being that he'll be 4 this month, I came to the realization that this has been the LONGEST time I've gone without being pregnant ever since I started having sex! lol WOW! hehehe

Ursula will be 7 this month too! Lil Ms. Bossy... ha ha ha She's doing really well in 1st grade.

I haven't even planned a bday party for them :( I'll probably just end up baking 2 cakes here for them... no biggie.

I've been using Jeremy's laptop for the last couple of weeks because something went wrong with my desktop :( I swear, everytime anyone else besides the people who live here, gets on my PC (every computer I've ever had), something happens and usually I end up having to format. It happened again... for the first time on this computer... see... I wasn't letting anyone use... I know, I probably sounded so much like a bitch... but, really, every one of my siblings has at least one laptop... so, really, no need to use mine. Well, in October, we had everyone here. My sister & her family from Georgia came in along with my sibs and mom from Houma/Thibodaux/Raceland all spent time at my house... we planned a birthday party at the local ice skating rink for the two 10-yrs old (Calista & Soleil). And even while they were still here, my PC started acting funny. Like taking forever to go through my pictures (on my hard drive) when usually it zips through them. And that progressed to other areas... severe lag... then, soon after that, it started showing errors and it shut down Windows, then the cursor would stop and control + alt + delete wouldn't work right... it would bring up another error... and then the only thing to do was to just shut it down.

So... after trying to figure it out via scans (mostly wouldn't finish any of them before it would shut down on its own), I decided I needed to get my pictures off. Generally, I had approximately 20 minutes to do stuff on my computer before it would freak out. So, I took the two usb drives I had and would transfer pics from my computer to Jeremy's. I also noticed that if I turned my computer back on right away, it wouldn't work right... its like it had to cool down for a couple hours... so, with over 35 gigs of pics on my PC (that's NOT counting the ones I had on my other computers that are saved to disc already), it took me quite a few days to get. I finally was able to buy a 1TB external hard drive and finish the process. (Able to buy because Jeremy had a gift card from Ryan Energy from last year that I couldn't figure out how to use... I registered it and all but it would never go through when I tried to purchase stuff... so, I just, pretty much, forgot about it until recently... because after a year, the card {Chase gift card} starts taking money out every month... so, I finally called the number on the back of the card - hadn't before because I loathe talking to foreign people in customer service? why? because I have a hard time understanding them!!! Anyways, I called, it was automated! woohoo! And YES! My card was finally activated!) So, to get back to my story.... hahahaha I finally was able to format my computer!

I was so happy while it was doing its job... anticipating being able to use it again! Play my games (Sims 3... lol) and have a bigger screen, a mouse, no touchpad that did crazy things bc my fingers accidently drag or touch it... etc.

Well... it was working... I put in my inital stuff... it had to start over... I noticed how long it was taking but just thinking maybe this was usual for the initial process. hmmm.... apparently it wasn't because guess what???? Errors came up and failure to boot showed up!!! OMG!!! I was soooo pissed! Every time I've ever formatted my computers, its always worked!!! ALWAYS!!! WTF???

Jeremy had already suggested our hard drive must be corrupt. And I'm sorry to say this, but, he's usually right... lol He has this intuition thing because when he gets a feeling, he's usually right or close to the target.

So, after formatting didn't work, he said it again... its our hard drive... something's wrong with it.

Well, thankfully, we have a computer tech neighbor and Jeremy went talk to him Monday night. He said he'd work on it and get running again and get it back to us by this weekend! woohoo! We will probably have to buy another hard drive... but, c'est la vie, huh? He also told Jeremy it could have been a firmware problem (we haven't talked to him since he's had it)... said that sometimes, we give viruses to our computers without realizing it... with other stuff... such as cell phones. And you know, while my family was here, we had at least 3 different cell phones connected to it... to charge them because the chargers were either forgotten at home or just in the car and they didn't feel like getting them. He said that could definitely have been the problem.

Just so you know... Jeremy has helped this neighbor in the past, with his vehicles... so... it evens out :D

Yes, I know that was boring to read! lol But, it was for my own benefit... to jot that down for future reference... I have such a terrible memory... which is the reason for the plethora of pictures, videos, and blogs.

On the homefront...!

Jeremy & I have had our best year ever (I believe)! Its amazing the changes he's made and kept!!! He stopped all alcohol and hasn't had any in at least 6 mths... no hard liquor in a year! He's more laid back. He's helping more around the house with chores, cooking, and children (hey... 3 C's! lol). He's interacting with the children WAY more in positive ways.

And when I say he's helping with chores... I'm not saying he's doing major things because, obviously he works and I don't... so, he shouldn't have to do much.... but, little things... like not leaving his clothes in the living room... and taking out the garbage once in a while... he's been cooking more but really, I don't see that as a chore because he LOVES to cook.... hahaha really he does. And he's good at it.

Jeremy & I both have unlimited texting and data on our cell phones... so, we text each other all day. He calls me on his breaks and for lunch. He's on facebook too but he isn't very active. He's taking compliments people give me MUCH better and he'll comment afterwards... hahaha Its funny :D

Another thing... we dressed up for Halloween along with the kids... we went to his brother's house and the kids trick or treated out there :D His brother and sil also dressed up :D We had a good time :) It was a first for us.... sometimes, Jeremy wouldn't even come to the house with us in the past! This time, we all walked together!

We're doing sooooo much better! A year ago, I thought it was truly over. I saw no hope for us/our family. I only saw it getting worse and worse... as it had been over the course of 11 yrs we'd been together. But, as we approach our 13th year, things are better than ever. :D woohoo Hip hip harray!

Oh, going back to neighbors... our neighbor also apologized for her behavior two years ago and said we showed her what it was to be charitable and she left crying. We, of course, forgave her and I gave her hug. We haven't really spoken since... but, at least that weight has been lifted and its okay again between us.

About our neighborhood... we live in one of 4 rent houses. We keep hearing talk about our landlord wanting to sell a couple of them. We hear this from his son, who lives across from us and from a neighbor behind us. If he gives us a good enough price, we may buy. If we do, Jeremy's gonna have to add-on to this house! And we'll have to give it a makeover!

In just 3 more paychecks, Jeremy's garnishment will be over! woohoo! That's been 25% of each check, each week for a year! With that garnishment gone, we'll be able to save up for a down payment for our own place (if we don't get a good price for this house). We'd like to get a doublewide. I know the common thought about them... but, really... they're very nice. And in this area of world, they have to be built even stronger/better because of the hurricanes we get. To those of you who aren't familar with how doublewides look nowadays... you should really go check them out! There's some really beautiful ones out there! And to make the outside look better, we may have my brother-in-law, Shane, brick up the front... Also add a covered porch, and a flower garden, nice driveway, and you have yourself a good-looking doublewide!

Anyways, things are looking up :D Like I told Jeremy, I can actually see the light at the end of the tunnel now! woohoo!

Results

2009-05-22T15:38:00.003-05:00

Well, after 2 weeks of doing 40 or more minutes of cardio (actually, only 2 out of 10 days was that little amount of cardio... the rest of the days were 60 to 77min of cardio)... I weighed myself and the scale said I'm 153lbs! woohoo! That's closer to my goal of being under 150... I am thinking I will wait a little while longer before I get weighed in and measured at Curves.

Exercise

2009-05-18T08:03:00.003-05:00

Well, I've been going to Curves for a year now... and barely lost any weight... I've lost inches... so, that's good.

Here's the breakdown of my work-out history there:

Joined Curves in April 2008
Curves Smart was implemented in August 2008 & I joined that as well.
I joined the cardio room in November 2008

After joining the cardio room, I did 20 minutes on the treadmill everytime I went work out... and I usually go to Curves 5 days a week.

A couple of weeks ago, I started doing as fellow exerciser does (Diane)... she counts the calories she burns while there and tries to get at least 1000. So, I did that... and did about 30 to 35 min of cardio every week day.

Last week, I decided to do more cardio. I did 40 min on Mon and Tue and 60+ the rest of the week days... 20 min on the Elliptical one all last week along with 20 min on the recumbent bike and 20 min on the treadmill.

I do the the Elliptical and bike first, then my CurveSmart circuit, then back to the treadmill.

I'm hoping that this routine will guarantee weight loss!!! It has to, right??? I'm so sick of being this big! My first goal should be easy... get in front of that 150 lb weight on the Curves doctor scale... My main goal is to got to at least 125lbs. But, I'll be happy (right now, anyways! lol) to be 140lbs! ha ha Sad, huh?

I looked up some info on how much cardio you need to do to lose weight and it was suggested on a few sites, at least 40 min 5x a week. I am doing that. One site also suggested some other helpful things... like supplements that do work. Just so happens, we have one of them... Jeremy had bought it back when he was working for Ryan Energy... and he lost 20 lbs in a month... not saying I'll achieve such desired results... but... I'd be super happy with a 5 lb loss!!!

So, today, I took 2 of those supplements and will eat a small breakfast soon... then, I'll get ready to go work out. I usually leave around 10 am and get home around 12:30ish... prepare a salad... eat it... and go on with my day.

I am really hoping that this works. If it doesn't... umm.... I don't know what else to do...

I really need to lose to help my backpain go away. Everyone who I talk to about it thinks its because of my breast size and I think that too... and with losing weight, I'll lose some of this extra stuff up there... plus, when I'm under 150, my back doesn't hurt. So... either way... if its because of my boobage or because of my short stature not being able to support excess weight... I need to lose it!!! I hate feeling like an old grandma when I rise from the couch!

Again... more celebrity look-alikes.. ha ha

2009-02-19T15:04:00.002-06:00

http://www.myheritage.com/collage

MyHeritage: Family tree - Genealogy - Celebrity

http://www.myheritage.com/collage

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebrities

Update :)

2009-02-13T15:23:00.003-06:00

Well, things were looking really great for us... Jeremy had gotten this job with directional drilling... 3 mths of training and then he'd be a night hand and double his pay. Already, as a trainee, he was bringing home more money then his previous jobs...

He was almost finished his training... when he was called into the office and laid off last Friday :( :( :( He was on his way home from Texas (where his training was taking place) and called his last job and was employed again... out of a job for maybe 2 hrs... so, he went back to work the following Monday.

What really sucks is that we were making plans. We were looking at homes & land... we were so excited because it looked like we'd be in our own place by the end of the year (or maybe sooner!)! We were going to be able to put the girls in dance & gymnastics or whatever else they wanted.

So... while those plans are still in the air... it looks like they will take longer to come to fruition :(

One positive thing is that because Jeremy was laid off and not fired, he's eligible for rehire once they need the workers again! Hopefully, that won't be too far off into the future!

And right now is the perfect time to buy... everything was looking up for us :/ Just very disappointing... we were both crying over the phone with one another when he told me :(

George Carlin Comedy Clips

2009-01-28T16:39:00.002-06:00

Of course... 'bad' language in these clips... view at your own risk :P

George Carlin - Seven Words - watch more funny videos

George Carlin - Religion is Bullshit - watch more funny videos

George Carlin - Stuff - watch more funny videos

George Carlin - Pro Life is Anti-Women - watch more funny videos

9th Annual Young Comedians Special

2009-01-28T15:16:00.003-06:00

These are clips that I found that took me back to my youth... My dad worked offshore and out there, they have satellite... We didn't... we grew up with only network TV channels... so, my dad would take blank VCR tapes and record stuff for us to watch when he got back in. Its something we kids looked forward to every other weekend... to see what dad brought home :D Well, sometimes it was movies... sometimes it was stand-up comedians... and these clips are from one tape that we watched over and over and over... and anytime we had company, we'd have them watch it so that they'd understand our 'inside' jokes... ha ha ha

Bob Saget @ The 9th Annual Young Comedians Special - watch more funny videos

Bob Nelson @ The 9th Annual Young Comedians Special - watch more funny videos

Maurice LaMarche @ The 9th Annual Young Comedians Special - watch more funny videos

Sam Kinison @ The 9th Annual Young Comedians Special - watch more funny videos

Yakov Smirnoff @ The 9th Annual Young Comedians Special - watch more funny videos

Rita Rudner @ The 9th Annual Young Comedians Special - watch more funny videos

Richie Gold @ The 9th Annual Young Comedians Special - watch more funny videos

Louie Anderson @ The 9th Annual Young Comedians Special - watch more funny videos

Snow Day in Louisiana

2008-12-11T14:50:00.003-06:00

This is 4:30am in these first pictures!
I have way more pics that I didn't edit.
It was hard to get pictures in the darkness...

My footprints

Our yard again

My nieghbor, building his version of Frosty... lol

under our carport... all the snow....

Our yard; left side of it, anyways.

left side of our yard again...

Calista & 2 neighbors made this cool snowman :D

My car with lots of snow piled on it.

Again.... more celebrity lookalikes :D

2008-11-19T22:34:00.003-06:00

http://www.myheritage.com/collage

MyHeritage: Family tree - Genealogy - Celeb

And I can morph into one of my favorite actors as well :D

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebrities

http://www.myheritage.com/collage

Things To Do While Waiting for the Electricity to be Turned On...

2008-09-04T17:58:00.006-05:00

Put crazy make-up on each other!

Cherie was the make-up artist this day... hehehe
That's Ursula in front of her and Cherie's daughter, Olivia, behind her.

Ursula all made up.

And a side view :)

Sophia was Cherie's first subject... :)

Sophia putting make-up on 'Nanny' (my mom/her grandma).

Calista

Olivia

Olivia & Ursula (Olivia is a little bit taller than Ursula but not as much as this picture portrays... she's in heels... lol)

Racquelle

All 5 of the girls together:
Top row: Racquelle & Calista
Bottom row: Sophia, Ursula, & Olivia

It was then our turns... Cherie's face was done by Olivia & Sophia (her daughters)

My look was done by Ursula... she said I looked beautiful... ha ha ha yeah... right...

Was 17 People... now 10

2008-09-04T14:26:00.004-05:00

Only because they left :)

Jared, his wife, & kids went to Lafayette... to a friend of her's house... they have electricity there!
My dad just left today... see what's going on with his house.
My sister, Cherie & her 3 daughters are still here along with our mom.
Yes... my mom and dad were actually in the same house for 4 days without arguing or being ugly to one another! wow! They've been divorced over 10 yrs now.

Yesterday afternoon, my dad & Jeremy went into Lafayette and picked up a generator... so, our food is saved!!! woohoo!

Today is the 4th day without electricity!!! And periodically, no water :(( Sucks.

My sister, Cherie, has been keeping us in French braids :)

We let the kids put make-up on us last night and Cherie put extreme make-up on them... I'll post pics later... :)

Our neighbor, Kevin, invited us to sleep at his house because has a generator along with a window unit... My sister, her girls, my mom and my daughters slept there the past 2 nights.

Oh yeah, that's what I forgot... school. Our parish's schools are closed until further notice!!! OMG!

FEMA... our parish is also on the list of disaster parishes (of course), so, I'm going to apply... we're just doing terribly financially and this isn't helping matters... Jeremy wasn't able to go to work until today. Thankfully, not much happened with our house... but, we do rent. The front screen door is messed up due to the strong winds... but, that was it.

I took many pics... and have to edit them... after I get that done (takes forever! lol), I'll post some more :)

Video Footage of Winds from Gustav

2008-09-01T17:45:00.000-05:00

And one of me being silly...

Gustav Pictures

2008-08-31T17:29:00.004-05:00

Ursula & Olivia (both 5... Olivia's bday is Sept. 6th & Ursula's is Dec 22)

Racquelle... 11 yrs old until November.

Olivia displaying a typical MySpace profile picture... lol

Sophia doing her take on the typical MySpace profile picture (she's 3 but bday is Sept. 5th)

My dad doing his thing... :) macrame... the kids loved it :)

My brother, Jared, digging in the fridge, once again... ah ha haa

Sophia (almost 4), Veronica (will be 3 in Nov), & Victoria (4 yrs old)

Gustav is Approaching...

2008-08-31T08:24:00.003-05:00

Around midnight last night, my mom, brother, & his family arrived at out house. My dad showed up a couple hours earlier.

Our parish has a voluntary evaluation. They have the 'contraflow' set up now.

None of my neighbors are leaving.

I'm taking pics... I'll update this with pics of everyone here :)

We have food, water, blankets, matches, a neighbor with a generator who said we can go there if the power goes out... etc... as long as our house sustains the winds, we'll be fine :D

Gustav is a Category 3 now!

2008-08-30T08:00:00.003-05:00

Yes... its just gaining strength... not even in the Gulf of Mexico yet... geez... Now its a 'major' hurricane.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7589299.stm

Our local news' team is now saying it looks like it'll hit our area... we're a good distance from the coast... but, hey... we may have to evacuate as well... still have to watch...

Gustav

2008-08-29T22:17:00.003-05:00

Ironically, its exactly 3 years since Katrina hit Louisiana; now we have Gustav to worry about.

This time, the political officials are trying their best to prepare people early. Some parishes have been already ordered to evacuate. Gustav isn't expected to hit the coastline until Monday or Tuesday (today's Friday).

So, last night, the first set of evacuees arrived at our house :) My sister, Cherie, & her 3 children. What's funny is that she had already planned to spend Labor Day weekend with us before Gustav decided to form.

I'm a little more prepared this time... plus, I'm not pregnant (I was 4 mths pregnant with Wyatt for Katrina & Rita)! :) A few months ago, my sister, Angele, came for the weekend and helped me clean out the back room and move the girls in there. The first bedroom became the kids' entertainment room. It has their TV, VCR, GameCube, books, & toys in it. Well, it wasn't really organized until yesterday :) I finally got that finished up and woohoo! I feel so much better! Anyways, now, there's plenty of room for my family to spend time here... more comfortably. That first room/entertainment can now have an air mattress on the floor, or sleeping bags or both. In the living room, we have a sofa bed and another large sofa that can be used to sleep on. If the sofa bed isn't used, the sofa can be used as well as the floor between the sofas.

I'm expecting my brother, his wife & 4 kids, my mom, my sister, Angele & her dh, Shane, and maybe even my dad... I haven't spoken to him but last I knew, he was supposed to go along with my brother, Jared.

The crazy thing is that this hurricane also has another on its foottails... much like Katrina with Rita... however, they are predicting Hanna to go up the east coast. Its still too early to tell what either hurricane will do... where they will hit...

Skyrocketing Autism And Mercury In Vaccines WXYZ.com Detroit Action News

2008-07-14T15:16:00.000-05:00

http://www.theoneclickgroup.co.uk/news.php?start=2300&end=2320&view=yes&id=2810#newspost

Skyrocketing Autism And Mercury In Vaccines WXYZ.com
Detroit Action News
7/09
Some Vaccines Still Contain Mercury
Steve Wilson

Mercury Still In Vaccines

Anchor Lead:

It’s the controversy that won’t go away. Is the skyrocketing rate of Autism in children due in any way to the mercury long contained in childhood vaccines? It’s an issue our chief investigative reporter Steve Wilson has stayed with from the start…and Steve will science ever answer this one?

WATCH STEVE'S EXTENDED REPORT IN THE VIDEO PLAYER

Wilson Live Open:

It could happen one day but only if researchers keep looking… and with 1 in 150 children now diagnosed with Autism in this country—more than 100 new, young victims every single day—a lot of skeptical parents and others believe there’s a big incentive for industry and government to cover up the truth.

Dr. Renee Jenkins, M.D./Pediatrician: I don’t think anybody is saying you want to inject mercury. (Wilson) Why would I do it? Why would I allow it to happen? (Jenkins) Well, for routine vaccinations, we don’t allow it to happen.”

A loving grandmother and president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Dr. Renee Jenkins is among those in medicine, in government, in the media, pretty much telling parents this problem’s been solved…there is no mercury in the routine schedule of childhood vaccines anymore, except maybe just “trace” amounts. She’s talking about a mercury-based vaccine preservative called Thimerosal…and the truth is there’s still as much as ever in 11 vaccines including most flu vaccines injected into pregnant women and kids, and some of them younger than 9 get two doses in a season. And also high levels of mercury from Thimerosal in tetanus shots and the boosters routinely injected into 11-year-olds…and also in some meningitis and diphtheria-tetanus formulas, too.

Heidi Scheer/Mother of Autistic Child: …and I know for a fact people that have gone to their physician and have been told there was no Thimerosal in their vaccine, then the parents asked to see the package insert and they find it there.

Mrs. Michigan joined parents of other autistic children marching on Washington just recently not only to alert new parents but to point out the half-million children already stricken, they believe by the large doses of mercury they got in the increasing number of vaccines the government and their doctors recommended. A congressional committee that studied the matter has already concluded: “Thimerosal…is directly related to the Autism epidemic.”

It could have been prevented or curtailed “had the FDA not been asleep at the switch” allowing the untested toxic to be part of the vaccine recipe, something the committee report blamed on “misplaced protectionism of the pharmaceutical industry.”

Presidential candidate John McCain says now there’s “strong evidence” of a link between skyrocketing Autism and the mercury in vaccines. Boyd Haley is a scientist and pioneer in the study of this issue.

Dr. Boyd Haley/Researcher: And I want to talk to a lot of the journalists here because you’re a big part of the problem. Most of you… (crowd cheering) … you’ve allowed the CDC to hijack what’s perceived as the science of Autism. There hasn’t been one publication ever published where Thimerosal was tested against a living cell, a living animal, where it wasn’t found to be severely toxic, psydotoxic and neurotoxic, and yet you can go in there and they’ll tell you ‘Oh we know it’s not connected.’ Why don’t you go read the papers?

Some examples of the scientific papers he’s talking about?

• A study of monkeys that showed vaccinated primates showed increased neurological disorders and non-social behavior similar to Autism;

• Another animal study that shows the kind of mercury used in vaccines ends up in the brain and stays twice as long as the mercury in fish;

• A study of vaccination records which seems to match increased Autism with increased vaccinations containing mercury.

And then there’s the circumstantial evidence:

UPI found only 4 cases of Autism among a community of 22,000 Amish people who generally shun vaccines. Statistically there should be about 130.

Robert Kennedy/Environmentalist: …and three of them were adopted after receiving their vaccines and the fourth on lived outwards of a coal-burning power-plant

Environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy has also studied the issue and wrote about it in a recent edition of Rolling Stone. America hasn’t heard enough of the truth, he too believes, partly because the mainstream media too often just blindly reports the press releases of mainstream medicine and public health agencies and Congress is too slow to act.

Robert Kennedy: So we know what the truth is…and let’s not let them go another day without some legislation banning this stuff!

And then there are those remarkably similar stories from tens of thousands of parents who say within hours of vaccination, their children became withdrawn, socially uncontrollable…and ultimately diagnosed with Autism.

Amy Carson/Moms Against Mercury: And I have full medical proof that I have a very mercury-toxic 11-year-old child. I gave birth to a very healthy child, a very neuro-typical, normal child who changed with each set of vaccines. But I kept vaccinating because I didn’t know any better.

On the other hand, while no study has proved to a scientific certainty that vaccinations have or have not caused a single case of Autism…the government has now conceded the link in the case of Hannah Poling.

Her parents say she developed Autism right after she received five vaccinations in a single day. Now, perhaps she was particularly vulnerable due to a pre-existing condition but the government concession of a vaccine-Autism link in the first of 5,000 such cases pending gives hope to other claimants. Meanwhile, many parents say there’s no proof because there’s been no serious effort to look.

Indeed, in its last report on the issue issued after this 2004 meeting, the government’s Institute of Medicine said there’s no point in further research. If a link was found, they reasoned, it might risk “the broader benefit of the current vaccine program.”

The health editor of US News & World Report, Bernadine Healy, herself a physician and a former director of the National Institutes of Health, says public health officials have been too quick to dismiss the possibility of a link… And even the current head of the Centers for Disease Control now seems to agree…

Dr. Julie Gerberding/CDC Director: …But it’s kind of our job to do the science and help clarify and separate concern from scientific fact… Autism is a huge challenge and it is much more common than anybody realized and we need to do more.

And back in Washington again, Robert Kennedy is not the first to ridicule the “science” that is often cited to show there is no problem here.

Robert Kennedy/Environmentalist: …and I saw studies that weren’t good. It wasn’t even high-quality fraud. This is low-quality fraud. You don’t even need a scientist to tell you where the fraud is.

In his Rolling Stone article, Kennedy lays out evidence of what he calls “a chilling case of institutional arrogance, power and greed.”

His own research has convinced him that Congressional committee was right: for many years vaccine makers and government health officials have colluded to cover up the true dangers of mercury in vaccines. As actor Jim Carey put it at that rally in Washington…

Jim Carey/Actor: And I certainly wouldn’t trust the drug companies to regulate themselves. God knows they’re too busy fighting the scourge of Restless Leg Syndrome!

Carey’s involved now that he shares his life with actress Jenny McCarthy and her son Evan who also contracted Autism which has improved considerably with diet and special treatments.

So now, to keep things in perspective, even in wake of all you’ve seen and heard, what do most parents of allegedly vaccine-damaged children say you should do when it comes to your own child or one you care about?

Jackie Martin Sibell/Mother of Autistic Child: We’re not anti-vaccine. We do believe in vaccines. We know that they are doing a lot of good. We know that without them people would be dying

Sheryl Melling/Mother of Autistic Child: We all love our children. We all want to protect our children. We don’t want our children to get diseases but on the other hand we certainly don’t want our children to get a neurological disorder that is lifelong as well. We want to make this vaccine safer so that we can all have trust in what we’re injecting our children.

Tara Glaspie/Mother of Autistic Child: I would never tell anyone don’t vaccinate your child but I would definitely tell them to do the research and make sure your comfortable with the decision you make.

And the final word from the doctor who heads the American Academy of Pediatrics, an organization, by the way, that called for the removal of all mercury from vaccines nearly 10 years ago.

Dr. Renee Jenkins, MD/American Academy of Pediatrics: …the progress we made in keeping children from dying from disease that we give them immunizations for is very important. I think that over the time that we begin vaccinating children we’ve made these vaccines safer and safer as they’ve developed…so what you are looking at is not ‘here is a perfectly healthy child and I’m giving them something that has no benefit. It has tremendous benefit.

To see which vaccines still include mercury, visit the website below:
Thimerosal Content in Some US Licensed Vaccines, 24 June 2008

New Study Links Mercury Exposure To Autism

2008-07-14T15:12:00.001-05:00

http://www.theoneclickgroup.co.uk/news.php?start=2320&end=2340&view=yes&id=2828#newspost

PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
July 13, 2008
CONTACTS:
* CoMeD President [Rev. Lisa K. Sykes (Richmond, VA) 804-364-8426]
* CoMeD Sci. Advisor [Dr. King (Lake Hiawatha, NJ) 973-263-4843]

NEW STUDY
LINKS THIMEROSAL (MERCURY) EXPOSURE WITH AUTISM
WASHINGTON, DC – A new peer-reviewed study, Neurodevelopmental Disorders, Maternal Rh-Negativity, and Rho(D) Immune Globulins: A Multi-Center Assessment, published in Neuroendocrinology Letters 2008; 29(2): 272-280, found significant links between mercury exposure from Thimerosal-containing Rho(D) immune globulin preparations and the neurodevelopmental disorder diagnoses found in the affected children studied.

Furthermore, the study found links to autism spectrum disorders and attention-deficit-/attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorders.

This new study was based on two hypotheses:

1. IF prenatal exposure to Rho(D)-immune globulin was a risk factor for neurodevelopmental disorders, THEN more children with a neurodevelopmental disorder (ND) would have Rh-negative mothers compared than a similar group of children born to Rh-positive mothers (a control group).

2. IF the Thimerosal in some Rho(D)-immune globulin preparations was the main risk factor for neurodevelopmental disorders, THEN, following the removal of Thimerosal from all manufactured Rho(D)-immune globulin preparations distributed in the US (from 2002 onwards), the frequency of maternal Rh-negativity among children with an ND should be similar to that for the control groups.

To test these, maternal Rh-negativity was assessed at two clinics (Clinic A-Lynchburg, VA; Clinic B-Rockville and Baltimore, MD) among 298 Caucasian children with an ND and known Rh-status. As controls, maternal Rh-negativity frequency was determined at Clinic A from 124 Caucasian children (born 1987–2001) without an ND. This maternal Rh-negativity frequency was also determined from 1,021 Caucasian pregnant mothers that presented for prenatal genetic care at Clinic B (1980–1989). Additionally, 22 Caucasian patients with an ND, born from 2002 onwards (Clinics A and B), were assessed for maternal Rh-negativity.

This study found comparable, statistically significant increases in maternal Rh-negativity percentage among children with: a) an ND (Clinic: A=24.2%), b) an autism spectrum disorder (Clinic: A=28.3%, B=25.3%), or c) an attention-deficit-disorder/attention-deficithyperactivity-disorder (Clinic: A=26.3%) in comparison to both of the control groups (Clinic: A=12.1%, B=13.9%). Children with an ND, born after 2001, had a maternal Rh-negativity percentage (13.6%), which was similar to the percentages for the two control groups.

These results have clearly shown an association between: a) prenatal Thimerosal exposure and b) the risk of children being diagnosed with an ND.

In addition, these findings call into question the safety of the current recommendation that pregnant women be given an inactivated-influenza vaccine because most all of each year’s vaccine doses still contain Thimerosal (49.55-wt% mercury) and the majority are still Thimerosal-preserved.

Finally, this study was a multi-center collaborative effort lead by Mr. David A. Geier of the Institute of Chronic Illnesses, Inc., and Dr. Elizabeth Mumper of the Advocates for Children Pediatrics, Ltd.

**************
Information Provided:
* Neurodevelopmental disorders, maternal Rh-negativity, and Rho(D) immune globulins: a multi-center assessment
DA Geier et al, Neuro Endocrinol Lett. 2008 Apr;29(2):272-80
Full Text In Press
* Thimerosal exposure in infants and neurodevelopmental disorders: An assessment of computerized medical records in the Vaccine Safety Datalink
Heather A Young et al, Journal of the Neurological Sciences
doi:10.1016/j.jns.2008.04.002271 (2008) 110–118
Full Text
* Thimerosal Content in Some US Licensed Vaccines
24 June 2008

New PC & More News :)

2008-05-23T14:40:00.004-05:00

Yes! We bought a new computer from TigerDirect today!

Here's the link to the computer and here's the link to the monitor :D It will take 3-5 days to get here :)) woohoo!!! I'm so excited! :D Oh, they both have 5 stars reviews from other TigerDirect customers! :D :D :D I'll be able to play my Sims2 games again... ha ha ha

Wyatt has decided to potty train... its so crazy! He's doing really well... esp. if he's naked... ha ha ha Today was the first time he pooped on the potty (well, besides when he was a lot y0unger).

Today's the last day of school. I let Calista stay home... this whole week has been a waste of time for the kids going to school... they've done nothing but clean out their desks and cubby holes. Calista said they watched 5 movies yesterday! So, why bother going today?

Jeremy just returned from his second long stint offshore with pipe fitting and welding (he's worked offshore before, but in a different compacity.). He got back Wednesday night.

So, while I was at Curves today, Jeremy hooked up the VCR that we received from Jessica via her neighbors that moved, in the kids' room :D

So, I think we're all set up now... or will be very soon :D We'll (Jeremy & I) have a new, awesome computer, the kids will be able to use this one that I'm on right now for their learning games, they have the VCR in their room so that they can be entertained while we watch the TV in the living room or use it for games. They also have the GameCube in their as well.... we have the XBox360 out here. Jeremy has his motorbike (Honda Shadow 11oo) and I have my Cannon Rebel XT :D I'm working out at Curves 4 to 5 days a week. I can pay almost all the bills online.... and we're not behind on anything! woohoo! OOOOHHH, one other thing! We have some neighbors that will be moving out within the next year and selling their house! I only talked to their daughter about it so far (just found out last Saturday), and she said that they'll sell it at a pretty reasonable price!!! We were talking to Jeremy's brother last night, and he said he knows that we'd qualify for a FHA loan... so, that may be in our future! Our very own house!!!

I think things are finally looking up for us! After 11 yrs... :D

My sister, Angele, and her dh, Shane, will be here tonight. Hopefully, she'll have time to help me clean out some shit that's just been accumulating here and getting overwhelming to me. She's very good at organizing and I really need her help :D

Speaking about Curves... I get my next weigh-in on the 30th. I hope there's some inches lost!!! I think I see a difference... but, it would be really motivating to me to continue even though I will anyways... I mean, me working out 4 to 5 days a week is better than me NOT working out, right? I just want to be firm again! My goal is to be back in a size 5.

Cancer Cures

2008-04-16T16:53:00.000-05:00

Cure for Cancer time.

Are you Excited?

I know this amazing woman in Los Angeles who had cancer by the age of 21. Her parents owned a pizza parlor and she ate pizza, soda and bread all the time. High intake of milk, meat, processed salt, processed white flour, and processed sugars are top cancer causes. She changed her diet and now she's in peak health and almost 40. Cancer and tumors present in the body indicates a suppressed immune system mostly due to diet and toxins in your environment.

The A.M.A. represents cancer as this incurable beast when in reality it's much more controllable than we have been led to believe. For instance, the American Cancer Society does not recommend that you avoid eating such things as nitrates, a common food additive found in most meat that is known to be cancer causing. Our food is loaded with things that cause cancer and deprived of the cancer preventing vitamins.

I'll give you a cure for cancer, *bam* Eating the inner core of an Apricot seed or Apple seed. Now how many millions of dollars did that take me to figure out? It seems like there is constantly people raising money for cancer research. Where does it all go? I had a woman call me on accident and I decided to talk to her. She was calling for a number of where to donate her hair to cancer patients. Her hair would go to a chemo patient. See, now, chemo and radiation are totally unnecessary in a majority of cases and they damage the body and destroy the immune system so that it can't recover. People have good intentions that get thrown into a pool of bad science and it ends up doing no real good. I'm not saying that organizations that raise money are wrong or bad, but it's a rat race. They could spend their money and energy in other more productive ways like educating their networks to what they are eating.

So they just keep raising money and say “We’re working on it, we’re getting close”. Truth of the matter is the last thing modern medicine “cured” was Polio…in the 50’s. They are not trying to cure you. They are trying to make money. Who makes more money than drug companies? They are at the top of the Fortune 500s. It makes no sense if they were trying to make you well. Drug companies are the bane of the American people, sucking us dry. They have found anti-depressants and other prescription drugs in tap water and streams. We are forever altering nature by our actions. We must stop the madness and go natural and sustainable. Pre-Industrial revolution.

.

:The Gorilla:.

♂ Georgilla Ћe Guerrilla ♀

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The Answer to Cancer
Has Been Known for Many Years!

1CureForCancer. com

Vitamin B17 was the subject of great controversy over 20 years ago when some of the world's top scientists claimed that when consumed, the components of certain raw fruit seeds make it 100% impossible to develop cancer and will kill existing cancer in most cases.

The pharmaceutical companies pounced on this claim immediately and demanded that FDA studies be conducted. The results of these studies are found on this site and in a book called "World Without Cancer", by G. Edward Griffin. To order the book call 877-479-3466.

Vitamin B17, also know as Laetrile and Amygdalin is found in most fruit seeds, namely apricot seeds. The apricot seed was claimed as the cure for all cancers over 35 years ago.

It was even more strongly claimed that when one eats about 7 apricot seeds per day they can never develop cancer, just as one can never get scurvy if they have an orange every day, or pellagra if they have some B vitamins every day.

The pharmaceuticals companies together with the medical establishment pushed the FDA into making it illegal to sell "raw" apricot seeds or vitamin B17 with information about its effects on cancer. Even to this day, you can't get raw apricot seeds in your health food store, only the sun dried ones which have all the important enzymes killed off.

Pharmaceutical companies only conduct studies on patented chemicals they invent so that at the end of their study, if the drug gets approved, they have sole rights on its sale. (They make back tons more than the mere 250 million that they invested) They never do studies on foods that can't be patented and that can be sold by any supermarket.

The information on this site is not just for preventing cancer, it is for those that have cancer now and are on chemo or radiation at this moment, as well as for those who have cancer but haven't started any conventional methods yet.

Most of the people that already have cancer clusters in their body, who eat the apricot seeds and/or take the vitamin b17 in tablet form show near to complete tumor regression. Although cancer patients may get rid of their cancer, they also have the problem of the organ damage that the cancer has caused.

This is another issue where other herbs and remedies are necessary for proper organ regeneration. Of course when a person's body is completely eaten up by cancer, the apricot seeds and its extract (laetrile and vitamin b17) would only prolong their life many times longer than chemotherapy and might not completely save them.

However in many cases high levels of the injectable laetrile will help a great deal with the pain.

The information that you're about to read will guide you in how you can guarantee a nearly cancer free life or help your body get rid of cancer if you have it.

Cancer Cures

Are Abundant in nature. These cures are, of course, outside the control of mainstream medicine and they are all labeled "quackery" by the National Cancer Institute and most Western doctors. Such cures include Amazon herbs (like graviola), licorice root, oxygen therapy, sunlight therapy, the injection of phytochemicals from spirulina directly in cancer tumors, the use of fucoidan supplements (which are extracted from sea vegetables), antineoplastins (pioneered by Dr. Burzynski), phytochemicals found in apricot pits (laetrile) and a long list of other natural therapies that both prevent and reverse cancer in many forms.

Foods Containing B17 (Nitrilosides)

Vitamin B17 appears in abundance in untamed nature. Because B17 is bitter to the taste, in man's attempt to improve tastes and flavors for his own pleasure, he has eliminated bitter substances like B17 by selection and cross-breeding. It can be stated as a general rule that many of the foods that have been domesticated still contain the vitamin B17 in that part not eaten by modem man, such as the seeds in apricots. Listed below is an evaluation of some of the more common foods. Keep in mind that these are averages only and that specimens vary widely depending on variety, locale, soil, and climate.

Fruits Range*
blackberry, domestic low
blackberry, wild high
boysenberry med.

choke cherry high
wild crabapple high
market cranberry low
Swedish (lignon) cranberry high
currant med.

elderberry med.

to high
gooseberry med.

huckleberry med.

loganberry med.

mulberry med.

quince med.

raspberry med.

Seeds Range*
apple seeds high
apricot seed high
buckwheat med.

cherry seed high
flax med.

millet med.

nectarine seed high
peach seed high
pear seeds high
plum seed high
prune seed high
squash seeds med.

Beans Range*
black low
black-eyed peas low
fava high
garbanzo low to med.

green pea low
kidney low to med.

lentils med.

lima, U.S.

low
lima, Burma med.

mung med.

to high
shell low

Nuts (all raw) Range*
bitter almond high
cashew low
macadamia med.

to high

Sprouts Range*
alfalfa med.

bamboo high
fava med.

garbanzo med.

mung med.

Leaves Range*
alfalfa high
beet tops low
eucalyptus high
spinach low
water cress low

Tubers Range*
cassava high
sweetpotato low
yams low

Range* 1000 mg ( milligrams ) = 1 gram

High — above 500 mg nitriloside per 100 grams of food.

Medium — above 100 mg nitriloside per 100 grams of food.

Low — below 100 mg nitriloside per 100 grams of food.

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G.

Edward Griffin
A World Without Cancer
The Story Of Vitamin B17

http://video. google. com/googleplayer. swf?docId=4312930190281243507

This movie cracks the nut wide open. One in 3 women get cancer in their lifetime and 1 in 2 men get cancer in their lifetime these days. Tons of things have changed in the past century so it's hard to pin it down. But what it comes down to is this. Nature equips nature for cancer. You fight off cancer all the time. Your pancreas does it for you. Thank your pancreas. *applause* Nature gave you a back up in vitamin B17. When dogs and cats are sick they go outside and eat grass. They seek grass rich in B17. They can smell it out. Animals in nature don't get cancer. Caribou don't get cancer. The native Americans that eat the Caribou don't get cancer. 100% no cancer and they eat salmon and caribou almost exclusively. It's the nitrilocide compounds in the grasses they eat. Same stuff in apple seeds an apricot seeds. B17. B17. B17.

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The Griffin and the Gorilla
..

G.

Edward Griffin
The Science and Politics of Cancer

"With No Treatment, you are statistically better than using western orthodox treatments"

http://video. google. com/videoplay?docid=8257934856995183554&q=vitamin+b17&hl=en

A 2005 speech given by G. Edward Griffin on Laetrile, Amygdalin, Vitamin B17 as cancer therapy. If you are new to this topic, then you might want to watch " G.

Edward Griffin - A World Without Cancer - The Story Of Vitamin B17 "

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The Hoxsey Cancer Cure
How Healing Becomes A Crime

http://video. google. com/videoplay?docid=5528328984547372206&q=hoxsey&hl=en

This documentary concerns Harry M. Hoxsey, the former coal miner whose family's herbal recipe has brought about claims of a cancer cure. All starting in 1924 with his first clinic, he expanded to 17 states by the mid 1950s, along the way constantly battling organized medicine that labeled him a charlatan. Hoxsey's supporters point out he was the victim of arrests, or "quackdowns" spearheaded by the proponents of established medical practices. Interviews of patients satisfied with the results of the controversial treatment are balanced with physicians from the FDA and the AMA. A clinic in Tijuana, Mexico claims an 80% success rate, while opponents are naturally skeptical. What is apparent is that cancer continues to be one of humankind's more dreaded diseases, and that political and economic forces dominate research and development.

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Jason Vale Beat Cancer 3 Times With Apple and Apricot Seeds

http://video. google. com/googleplayer. swf?docId=-2793380650380830725&hl=en

Jason Vale, Champion arm wrestler has fought and cured cancer 3 times through eating raw apple and apricot seeds that contain a little known vitamin B17. The Big Pharmaceutical giants don't want people to know this little fact so they have encouraged the FDA to ban the sale of raw apricot or Vitamin B17 ~ Amygdalin Laetrile as it is also known. You can however order the seeds online from other countries. Search the web... there are endless testimonials of persons that have sent various cancers into complete remission because of these little seeds. God Bless you... there is always a way to LIFE in his Kingdom!

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This article gives a good low-down on the politics of cancer "research". The Cancer Industry has a perfect crime set up. They have invented an "incurable disease" that only they can treat their expensive ways that inevitably kill most people. Meanwhile they know it's curable and rake in billions every year to research it more and more and more. It is circular logic. The cancer cures are towards the bottom. They have done statistics on patients that receive conventional treatments and patients that underwent no treatment. You were statistically better off with NO TREATMENT.

New science proves that cancer is reversible
Organized medicine insists that cancer cannot be cured

by Mike Adams
www. newstarget. com
Originally published August 3 2004

Fascinating new research is showing that cancer is reversible. A cloning experiment conducted on cancer cells showed that those very same cells can revert to healthy cells and result in the creation of a healthy organism, free of cancer. This is ground-breaking new research on cancer because it shows that malignancy is not the inevitable fate of cancer cells.

There's more to this than you might suspect. The official position on cancer by the National Cancer Institute and organized medicine has long been that cancer is not reversible -- once a person has cancer, they can never be cured. In fact, the word "cure" has typically been grounds for a lawsuit by the FDA (or certainly the oppression or regulation of any therapy making such a claim). It's a convenient position by organized medicine, because as long as they can get people to believe the idea that cancer cannot be cured, they can outlaw all anti-cancer therapies based on the idea that since there is no such thing as a cure, anything claiming to offer a cure must be quackery.

It's circular reasoning, of course, based on a faulty premise that has now been proven false by this new scientific research. Cancer cells can revert to healthy cells, and healthy organisms can be produced from malignant cancer cells.

You probably won't hear much about this in the popular press or from the National Cancer Institute. This scientific finding is incompatible with the commonly held beliefs of those in charge of cancer research and cancer propaganda. And, as is common in modern medicine, any scientific evidence that is incompatible with their current beliefs is simply tossed aside and ignored. See, modern medicine isn't really about the search for scientific truth; it's about the search for selective truth -- any sort of truth that agrees with their current belief systems and supports their financial interests. In that sense, modern medicine is more like a religion. It is based on a series of dogmatic beliefs that don't hold water under scientific scrutiny. The hard science says that cancer cells can revert to healthy cells, but the industry says cancer cannot be reversed.

This is not new information for naturopathic physicians, Chinese medical practitioners, and holistic nutritionists -- we've known for a long time that cancer is reversible. In fact, cancer is one of the diseases that is the easiest to reverse. And because this website does not sell any products whatsoever, under free speech guidelines, I can tell you the truth about cancer, and state without qualification that there are many cures for cancer that are both well proven and readily available to those suffering from this chronic disease.

Cancer Cures

These cures are, of course, outside the control of mainstream medicine and they are all labeled "quackery" by the National Cancer Institute and most Western doctors. Such cures include Amazon herbs (like graviola), licorice root, oxygen therapy, sunlight therapy, the injection of phytochemicals from spirulina directly in cancer tumors, the use of fucoidan supplements (which are extracted from sea vegetables), antineoplastins (pioneered by Dr. Burzynski), phytochemicals found in apricot pits (laetrile) and a long list of other natural therapies that both prevent and reverse cancer in many forms.

The bottom line is that science is now proving that cancer is reversible, thereby verifying something that the natural healing community has both known and practiced for literally thousands of years. In time, perhaps western medicine will pull its head out of the dark ages and come to recognize that the human body is a remarkable healer. It can conquer cancer and other chronic diseases if simply given the chance and the proper nutrients. The cure for cancer exists right now, today, and it is available to those who are willing to recognize it.

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The Cure for AIDs and Cancer has Been "Lost"?

A Federal Jury found that Cedars Sinai Medical Center and UCLA have lost the Vaccines intentionally and awarded Dr. Sam Chachoua $10-million dollars.

Cancer is the perfect racket. You create this image of a disease that isn't really accurate. Then you get people to fear it by not informing them how to cure these ailments and letting them die and treating them with horrible methods to make people think it's impossible to cure because those chemicals and techniques also poison you and make it much worse. Then you take in more money each year to "look for the cure". The last thing they cured was Polio. There is no money in curing disease. They figured that out. You must take health into YOU OWN HANDS.

I'll give you a cure for cancer, *bam* Eating the inner core of an Apricot seed or Apple seed (info on my page). Now how many millions of dollars did that take me to figure out? I'm not saying that all organizations that raise money are wrong or bad, but it's a rat race. They could spend their money and energy in other more productive ways.

NBC News clip: "Most effective treatment for AIDS and cancer in History LOST
(There's some very poor quality sound in 2 places)

The Cure for AIDs has Been "Lost"

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YouTube Comment Written by user: Phbal

My dad, J R Chapman, & I met Dr. Sam in ' 4. Dad had stage 4 lung cancer/metas. US docs told dad he'd die. 9 weeks later, after Dad began Dr. Sam's treatment, He was cured & cancer free. All med/records documenting my dad's progress from start of conventional therapy to the end of Dr. Sam's treatment as well as how Dr. Sam, unequivocally, saved my father's life. God bless you Sam and keep you safe.

World needs to know the truth about cancer & the obscene profits behind its man made disease

#1. You have a Man, Doctor, Scientist who has been hopefully working, then fighting, now struggling, for about 23-years to get his treatments recognized and to bring significant health to the world. The system, to bring new effective treatments to the masses turned their backs on him, (and on others!) which could have saved his father, if they would have done.. what's good for the ALL.

#2.The Medical Industry blatantly stole his treatments.. So he sued Cedars Sinai and UCLA in part, to prove to everyone that his treatments were one of the most effective treatments on the planet and when he wins this court battle, the media would announce this to the world. This would rid much suffering, such as you are going thru now.

#3. Finally, one of the most happiest days of his life came, where all that he had been thru, had paid off. He had won! A Federal Jury found Cedars and UCLA guilty of breach of contract (stole the cancer, AIDS and Heart vaccines) and awarded Dr. Sam Chachoua $1 Million Dollars (should have been $5 Billion.

)

#4. Tom Snyder, Producer for NBC NEWS, for some reason was the only one who had the guts to put it on the air. The news clip started off with... "IT HAD PROMISED of BEING ONE of the MOST EFFECTIVE TREATMENTS FOR AIDS and CANCER in HISTORY" and a FEDERAL JURY FOUND CEDARS SINAI and UCLA HAVE LOST THE VACCINES INTENTIONALLY!

#5. Then that Happiest Day begin to get smashed. They immediately pulled that clip off the air, fired Tom Snyder. One other media had the guts to print the story, that was CHRYSTYNE JACKSON of EXPLORE MAGAZINE. Other than that, all news of the treatment, the stealing of it, the suppression had been suppressed.

#6. Within a few weeks Judge Margaret Morrow took away the $1 million, stating that Dr. Sam did not have a paper trail to prove the $12 million that he paid to develop the vaccines.. S..T (PICASSO PAID .5 cents for canvas and .1 cents for brushes, but his paintings are worth millions.) Such an easy issue to win, but not when you have your attorneys paid off and a Judge who was unexpectedly switched in the middle of the trial.

#7. The Judge who is married to one of the Deans of UCLA and had worked for a law firm that represented Cedars Sinai (copies of the Marriage License and employment record were not allowed to be submitted.) She also gave UCLA Summary Judgment (let them go free, without being tried.) early on in the trial.

All of this is evidence in Fed Court and Cedars admitted to doing the testing but played down the Over 99% efficacy they demonstrated. Cedars successfully kept away from the jury the success of human trials at USC. This is not an advertisement, I just feel it's too important to be dismissed.

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The Illusion of Disease
By Mike Adams
3-14-5
NewsTarget. Com

There is a curious tendency in conventional medicine to label a set of symptoms as a disease. For example, I recently spotted a poster touting a new drug for osteoporosis. It was written by a drug company and it said this: "Osteoporosis is a disease that causes weak and fragile bones." The poster went on to say that you need a particular drug to counteract this "disease.

"

Yet the language is all backward. Osteoporosis is not a disease that causes weak bones. Osteoporosis is the name given to a diagnosis of weak bones. In other words, the weak bones happened first, and then the diagnosis followed.

Another drug company defines osteoporosis as "the disease that causes bones to become thinner." Again, the cause and effect are reversed. And that's how drug companies want people to think about diseases and symptoms: First you "get" the disease, then you are "diagnosed" just in time to take an expensive new drug for the rest of your life.

But it's all hogwash. There is no such disease as osteoporosis. It's just a name for a pattern of symptoms that indicate you've let your bones get fragile. And to treat it, western doctors will give you prescriptions for drugs that claim to make your bones less brittle.

We should really call it Brittle Bones Disease, and describe the treatment in plain language - exercise, vitamin D, mineral supplements with calcium and strontium, natural sunlight, and the avoidance of substances like soft drinks, white flour, and added sugars, which strip away bone mass.

Diabetes is another condition given a complex name that puts its solution out of reach of the average patient. Type 2 diabetes isn't technically a disease. It's just a natural metabolic side effect of consuming refined carbohydrates and added sugars in large quantities without engaging in regular physical exercise.

The name "diabetes" is meaningless to the average person. It should be called Excessive Sugar Disease. If it were called Excessive Sugar Disease, the solution to it would be rather apparent.

Cancer is another disease named after its symptom. To this day, most doctors and patients still believe that cancer is a physical thing: a tumor. In reality, a tumor is only a side effect of cancer, not its cause. A tumor is simply a physical manifestation of a cancer pattern that is expressed by the body.

When a person "has cancer," what they really have is a sluggish or suppressed immune system. And that would be a far better name for the disease: Suppressed Immune System Disorder.

If cancer were actually called that, it would seem ridiculous to try to cure it by cutting out tumors and destroying the immune system with chemotherapy. These are the two most popular treatments for cancer, and they do nothing to support the patient's immune system or prevent future occurrences. That's exactly why most people who undergo chemotherapy or the removal of tumors end up with yet more cancer down the road.

The cure for cancer already exists, and it's found in every human body. Your body kills cancer cells as a routine daily task, and it has done it thousands of times in your lifetime.

All we have to do is stop poisoning our bodies with cancer-causing chemicals and start feeding ourselves the materials our bodies need to beat chronic disease. Instead of searching for new technological cures, our money and time would be better spent making people aware of the existing cures and prevention strategies available right now.

Here's another example: high cholesterol. Conventional medicine says that high cholesterol is caused by a chemical imbalance in the liver, the organ that produces cholesterol. Thus the treatment is drugs (statin drugs) that inhibit the liver's production of cholesterol. Upon taking these drugs, the high cholesterol (the "disease") is regulated.

But the fatal flaw in this approach is once again evident: The symptom is not the cause of the disease. There is another cause, one that is routinely ignored by conventional medicine, doctors, drug companies, and even patients. The root cause of high cholesterol is primarily dietary. A person who eats foods that are high in saturated fats and hydrogenated oils will inevitably produce more bad cholesterol. It's simple cause and effect, not some bizarre behavior by the liver.

"There's a great deal of ego invested in the medical community, and they sure don't want to make health sound attainable to the average person.

"

If the disease were accurately named, it would be called Fatty Food Choice Disease. That would make more sense to people. And the obvious solution to the disease would be to choose foods that aren't so fatty. Of course, that may be a bit of an oversimplification, since you have to distinguish between healthy fats and unhealthy fats. But at least the name would give patients a better idea of what's actually going on.

Outside the United States , the names of diseases in other languages (such as Chinese) more accurately describe their actual causes. In western medicine, however, the name of the disease obscures the root cause. That makes all diseases sound far more complex and mysterious than they really are.

That's a shame, because the treatments and cures for virtually all chronic diseases are actually quite simple and can be described in plain language. Preventing and reversing these diseases only requires language that describes things like making different food choices, getting more natural sunlight, drinking more water, engaging in regular physical exercise, avoiding specific toxins, supplementing your diet, and so on.

There is a degree of arrogance in the language of western medicine, and this arrogance propagates the separation between doctors and their patients. Separation never results in healing. In order to create healing, we must bring together healers and patients by using plain language that real people understand and that real people can act upon.

There's a great deal of ego invested in the medical community, and they sure don't want to make health sound attainable to the average person. Making the language of disease complicated keeps it out of reach of the public.

But health is attainable by every single person. It isn't rocket science. It's not complex. And it doesn't require a prescription. Health is easy, it is straightforward, and it is direct. And, for the most part, it is available free of charge if you invoke the healing power of sunlight, pure water, stress reduction, exercise, and healthy food choices.

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Cheap, Safe Drug Kills Most Cancers

It is already used for other illnesses and has been proven safe but I don't think this has gone through human trials though. Very promising. We are getting close to really understanding the mechanism of cancer and not just saying "Yeah, we're getting close" to finding a cure.

There are many cures fr cancer, you only need look or ask me :-)

DCA Cancer Cure

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DCA-Dichloroacetate Cancer Cure

http://view. break. com/330550 - Watch more free videos

DCA from Wikipedia
http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Dichloroacetate

Apoptosis from Wikipedia
http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Apoptosis

Cheap, Safe Drug Kills Most Cancers
Andy Coghlan, New Scientist
January 20, 2007

It sounds almost too good to be true: a cheap and simple drug that kills almost all cancers by switching off their “immortality”. The drug, dichloroacetate (DCA), has already been used for years to treat rare metabolic disorders and so is known to be relatively safe. It also has no patent, meaning it could be manufactured for a fraction of the cost of newly developed drugs.

Evangelos Michelakis of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, and his colleagues tested DCA on human cells cultured outside the body and found that it killed lung, breast and brain cancer cells, but not healthy cells. Tumours in rats deliberately infected with human cancer also shrank drastically when they were fed DCA-laced water for several weeks.

DCA attacks a unique feature of cancer cells: the fact that they make their energy throughout the main body of the cell, rather than in distinct organelles called mitochondria. This process, called glycolysis, is inefficient and uses up vast amounts of sugar.

Until now it had been assumed that cancer cells used glycolysis because their mitochondria were irreparably damaged. However, Michelakis’s experiments prove this is not the case, because DCA reawakened the mitochondria in cancer cells. The cells then withered and died (Cancer Cell, DOI: 10.1016/j.ccr.2006.10.020).

Michelakis suggests that the switch to glycolysis as an energy source occurs when cells in the middle of an abnormal but benign lump don’t get enough oxygen for their mitochondria to work properly (see diagram). In order to survive, they switch off their mitochondria and start producing energy through glycolysis.

Crucially, though, mitochondria do another job in cells: they activate apoptosis, the process by which abnormal cells self-destruct. When cells switch mitochondria off, they become “immortal”, outliving other cells in the tumour and so becoming dominant. Once reawakened by DCA, mitochondria reactivate apoptosis and order the abnormal cells to die.

“The results are intriguing because they point to a critical role that mitochondria play:
they impart a unique trait to cancer cells that can be exploited for cancer therapy,” says Dario Altieri, director of the University of Massachusetts Cancer Center in Worcester.

The phenomenon might also explain how secondary cancers form. Glycolysis generates lactic acid, which can break down the collagen matrix holding cells together. This means abnormal cells can be released and float to other parts of the body, where they seed new tumours.

DCA can cause pain, numbness and gait disturbances in some patients, but this may be a price worth paying if it turns out to be effective against all cancers. The next step is to run clinical trials of DCA in people with cancer. These may have to be funded by charities, universities and governments: pharmaceutical companies are unlikely to pay because they can’t make money on unpatented medicines. The pay-off is that if DCA does work, it will be easy to manufacture and dirt cheap.

Paul Clarke, a cancer cell biologist at the University of Dundee in the UK, says the findings challenge the current assumption that mutations, not metabolism, spark off cancers. “The question is: which comes first?” he says.

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Chemo Drugs 'Destroy Brain Cells'

Chemotherapy Can Cause Severe Side Effects

Drugs used to destroy cancer cells may actually be more harmful to healthy cells in the brain, research suggests.

A team from New York's University of Rochester found several types of key brain cell were highly vulnerable to the drugs.

They say it might help explain side effects such as seizures and memory loss associated with chemotherapy - collectively dubbed 'chemo brain'.

The research is published in the Journal of Biology.

This is the first study that puts chemo brain on a sound scientific footing

Dr Mark Noble
University of Rochester

Drug therapy for cancer can prompt a wide range of neurological side effects, even the onset of dementia.

But they were thought not to be directly linked to the drug treatment itself.

Instead, some doctors have put them down to the patient's vulnerable psychological state.

The latest study found that dose levels typically used when treating patients killed 40% to 80% of cancer cells - but 70% to 100% of human brain cells grown in the lab, and caused serious damage to brain cells when given to mice. Several types of healthy brain cell continued to die for at least six weeks after exposure.

Common drugs tested
Lead researcher Dr Mark Noble said: "This is the first study that puts chemo brain on a sound scientific footing, in terms of neurobiology and cellular
biology.

"

The Rochester team carried out tests with three drugs used to treat a wide range of cancers: carmustine, cisplatin and cytosine arabinoside. All three drugs were toxic to several types of brain cell whose job is to repair other cells in the brain - even at very low concentrations. They also killed off oligodenrocyte cells, which play a key role in the transmission of messages around the nervous system.

The researchers suggest damage to cells in the hippocampus, which is responsible for memory and learning, is most likely to explain chemo brain symptoms. Professor John Toy, Cancer Research UK¿s medical director, said: "The doses of therapy needed to treat cancer while leaving the body's healthy cells as unharmed as possible is a fine balance judged by experienced specialists.

*---Translation: “We have to carefully measure the poison we’re giving you so that you don’t die.

We’re good at it because if you die, we stop getting money”
"They aim to maximize benefits and minimize damage. Unfortunately side-effects can include toxicity to the brain.

*---Brain Toxicity seems unimportant to this “Cancer Specialist”. The body is not Berlin in 1943, you can’t just kill indiscriminately. These are the same people that loved putting leeches on us to drain the humors. This is one of their new ideas.

"This research in mice may hopefully suggest new ways of researching how this toxicity might be overcome.

*---Instead of realizing that Chemo is not the way, they want to spend more money, the name of the game, on “research” instead of looking upon successes all over the world in Alternative cancer research.

"It is important to remember, however, that all presently available cancer treatments have gone through extensive clinical trials to ensure that their benefits outweigh unwanted effects.

*---This is the assumption of every Western doctor. “The research says this”. How long have these drugs been around? How about long term studies? The drug regulation bureaus in this country are atrocious. Aspirin is on the market now having never been approved. Oh guess what, it dissolves your stomach lining, but Bayer aspirin is still allowed to suggest taking it everyday.

"No patient should stop their treatment because of this research.

"

*---And then we come to the point. After the research to confirms the Chemo drugs carpet bomb the cells in your body and do heavy damage to the brain we get the AMA claptrap “YOU SHALL NOT SEEK ALTERNATIVES”. This is the standard in America. STAND IN LINE. TAKE THIS PILL.

NO.

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The Myth of Sunscreen

This one is big. This is their game. They lie to you and then sell you something expensive that you have to use frequently. It again comes down to proper nutrition and natural remedies as it always does. If you don't have an aloe plant I'd recommend you get one. They grow well and easy.

I just read about how sun screens give you cancer by blocking Vitamin D absorption through the skin and because they contain toxic ingredients like parabens and PG. This all soaks into your skin and leaves petroleum and toxic residues in whatever water you are in. Sun screens are a drug. They have "active ingredients" labeled as they do a drug. Those ingredients soak right in causing cell damage and cancer.

Then I open People Magazine and they are selling 70 SPF lotion. 70 SPF.........Way more than you need. Marketed in a magazine that millions of woman read. The companies who carry these ads should be held equally responsible. They are lying, false advertising and that is illegal in this country. But we all know that corporations are allowed to break the law while the FTC and FDA routinely sue people who recommend cheap effective cures.

It's amazing that this is so wrong. A country (not sure which one) just funded a major study into Vitamin D. Vitamin D prevents cancer. If you do a study of people with cancer you will find they have Vit. D deficiencies.

This explains a bit about the American Cancer Society and how they have no interest in preventing cancer, only treating it in expensive ways. We never had sunscreen before 50 years ago. Did they run from tree to tree avoiding the sun? Of course not. The sun is very vital to health. Also sunlight hitting your eyes is very healthy. Try not to always block the sun with glasses.

The scientific evidence, however, shows quite clearly that sunscreen actually promotes cancer by blocking the body's absorption of ultraviolet radiation, which produces vitamin D in the skin. Vitamin D, as recent studies have shown, prevents up to 77 of ALL cancers in women (breast cancer, colon cancer, cervical cancer, lung cancer, brain tumors, multiple myeloma... you name it). Meanwhile, the toxic chemical ingredients used in most sunscreen products are actually carcinogenic and have never been safety tested or safety approved by the FDA. They get absorbed right through the skin (a porous organ that absorbs most substances it comes into contact with) and enter the bloodstream.

The benefits of sunscreen are a myth. Proponents say sunscreen prevents sunburn, but in fact, the real cause of sunburn is not merely UV exposure: It is a lack of antioxidant nutrition. Start eating lots of berries and microalgae (spirulina, astaxanthin, blue-green algae, etc.), and you'll build up an internal sunscreen that will protect your skin from sunburn from the inside out. Sunburn is actually caused by nutritional deficiencies that leave the skin vulnerable to DNA mutations from radiation, but if you boost your nutrition and protect your nervous system with plant-based nutrients, you'll be naturally resistant to sunburn. The same nutrients, by the way, also protect the optic nerve and eyes from radiation damage. That's why the consumption of berries and carrots, for example, has historically been associated with healthy eye function. (The same nutrients that protect the eyes also protect the skin.

)

Medical nonsense
If sunscreen is so bad for humans, you might ask, then why do so many doctors recommend using it? This might be hard for you to believe, but it wasn't too long ago that doctors routinely recommended smoking cigarettes, too.

The Journal of the American Medical Association, in fact, ran numerous ads promoting Camels as "recommended by more doctors than any other cigarette!" Doctors talked up the "benefits" of smoking cigarettes, urging people to start smoking in order to improve brain function or even -- get this -- make their teeth stronger!

The truth is doctors are easily influenced by commercial interests and can be readily convinced to recommend practically any product, no matter how toxic, unhealthy or deadly to consumers. Just look at how many doctors wrote prescriptions for Vioxx, for example, after being visited by a Vioxx drug rep pushing it as a "miracle drug" for joint pain.

Also keep in mind that doctor-prescribed medications are the fourth leading cause of death in America today. About 100,000 Americans die each year from following the advice of their doctor. Does it really make any sense to get your health advice from a group of professionals who kill more Americans each year than all the terrorists have ever killed in the history of this country? Besides, doctors know that if they start recommending sunlight and vitamin D, they'll lose patients and profits because people will start getting well and have no need to keep visiting the doctor. Vitamin D, as you will learn in our free report, The Healing Power of Sunlight and Vitamin D, prevents not only cancer, but also diabetes, osteoporosis, depression, heart disease and obesity. It's the miracle nutrient of the millennium, and yet the entire medical profession tries desperately to pretend that vitamin D has no biological function whatsoever. Hence the support of sunscreen (the anti-vitamin D product).

Sunscreen directly promotes vitamin D deficiency. You show me a person who regularly uses sunscreen, and I'll show you a person who's on the road towards cancer and other degenerative diseases.

People who use sunscreen are killing themselves and they don't even know it!

The sunscreen marketing con
The marketing of sunscreen is another great example of consumer product companies fabricating a need in order to sell a high-profit product made mostly with toxic chemicals. There is no need for sunscreen, but the cancer industry and sunscreen manufacturers have created a fictitious need through a campaign of fear and disinformation, hypnotizing practically the entire population into believing one of the most ridiculous ideas in the universe: that sunlight is bad for human health.

Think about it. Our ancestors did not have indoor lighting; they exposed their skin to the sun regularly. They didn't run and hide from the sun, they used it as nourishment to generate a crucial vitamin that supports human health in a multitude of ways. The idea that "the sun is bad for you" makes about as much sense as "water is bad for you" or "the Earth is flat." This persistent myth was invented, marketed and publicized by an industry that profits from a gullible public believing demonstrable falsehoods.

But why would the cancer industry go along with the deception, you might ask? Because the continued commercial success of the cancer industry depends on more people getting cancer. In previous articles, I've clearly shown that the cancer industry has no interest whatsoever in preventing cancer. The industry, in fact, takes steps to interfere with prevention efforts and thereby ensure the growth in the number of future cancer patients.

The American Cancer Society, for example, still will not recommend that anyone take vitamin D supplements, even though the vitamin can prevent nearly 4 out of 5 cancers. The cancer industry simply has no interest in preventing cancer. It is only interested in treating cancer and profiting from those treatments. (That's why genuine cancer cures have been routinely suppressed, censored or discredited in the United States.
) Read my book, Natural Health Solutions and the Conspiracy to Keep You From Knowing About Them, to learn the shocking truth about how the cancer industry really operates in America today

Mercury, Vaccines, Autism, Robert Kennedy, graphs, etc

2008-04-16T16:37:00.002-05:00

Robert Kennedy on the Vaccine Autism Coverup

Bush Veto of Child Healthcare Bill Leaves Mercury in Vaccines

From Health World
Source

Without the usual television cameras, US President George Bush has vetoed a bill that was to expand a children's health insurance program. What the press avoids to mention in their reporting of the event however, is that the bill contained an important passage that would have mandated the elimination of toxic mercury from flu vaccines, a development sharply opposed by pharmaceutical companies.

Thimersal, the mercury compound used as a preservative in many vaccines has been quietly phased out in Europe, and in many of the vaccines used in the US (flu vaccines still contain it), but the situation is different in developing countries. Even vaccines that are thimersal-free in the West, still contain the toxin when produced for export to developing countries in Africa, Asia or South America. The presence of mercury allows substantial savings for pharmaceutical companies but it has been fingered as the cause of an autism explosion. Autism was a practically unknown affliction some decades back, but now one in every 150 children is affected. The change happened in the last few decades, coinciding with an almost uncontrolled proliferation of vaccines on the childhood 'vaccination schedule'.

More:
http://www. healthy. net/scr/news. asp?Id=9434

Jenny McCarthy treating vaccine injury, not autism; will lead rally with Jim Carrey

2008-04-04T08:24:00.001-05:00

http://www.celebface.com/jenny-mccarthy-treating-vaccine-injury-not-autism-will-lead-rally-with-jim-carrey/

Jenny McCarthy was on Larry King Live last night and she was very clear that she thinks her nearly six year old son, Evan, would not have suffered from autism if it wasn’t for vaccinations. She said that autism is a global epidemic, and that she and the autism community are not anti-vaccination, but that they’re anti-toxin and anti-schedule. She’s says “we’re not treating autism, we’re treating vaccine injury.”

Larry asked Jenny about the schedule and she said that back in 1987 there were 10 shots scheduled for children and today it’s 36, which is “too many too soon.” She says we need an alternate schedule, and that the mercury has not been removed from vaccines and that the shots also include aluminum, ether, and antifreeze.

MCCARTHY: I personally haven’t heard of that many people falling off the map that we needed to implement 26 new shots in this time. And isn’t it ironic, in 1983 there was 10 shots and now there’s 36 and the rise of autism happened at the same time?

And parent after parent after parent says I vaccinated my baby, they got a fever and then they stopped speaking and then became autistic.

KING: Is your link scientific or statistical?

MCCARTHY: Well, I believe that parents’ anecdotal information is science-based information. And when the entire world is screaming the same thing — doctor, I came home. He had a fever. He stopped speaking and then he became autistic. I can’t — I can see if it was just one parent saying this. But when so many — and I speak to thousands of moms every weekend and they’re all standing up and saying the same thing. It’s time to start listening to that. That is science-based information. Parents’ anecdotal is science-based information…

KING: Jenny, will you agree that some cases have nothing to do with vaccines, which makes it more puzzling?

MCCARTHY: Absolutely. You know, environmental toxins play a role. Viruses play a role. Those are all triggers. But vaccines play the largest role right now and something needs to be done. You know, testing these kids for immune issues, you know, that would help so much, changing the schedule. You know, I don’t understand — as a precautionary measure, why don’t they do this?

If everyone is screaming this and they’re so worried about parents going into offices right now telling the pediatrician j everyone is going I’m too scared to vaccinate my child. This is the new parents’ number one fear — I am afraid to vaccinate.

I am not trying to start this global non-vaccinating world. I’m trying to implement change.

[From Transcripts.CNN.com]

Jenny says that her son Evan hasn’t “recovered,” but that he no longer qualifies as autistic for special services. She compared it to being hit by a bus. You can get better but you’re never quite the same. She called him a “a wonderful example of hope and possibility for parents out there.”

They had journalist David Kirby, the author of “Evidence of Harm” on. He discussed the case of Hannah Polling, in which the “vaccine court,” a special court created by the US government to shield the pharmaceutical companies from large lawsuits, ruled that vaccines did contribute to Polling’s autism. In that case Kirby notes that Polling had an underlying mitochondrial disorder that was exacerbated by the vaccines. Kirby says, like McCarthy, he’s not anti-vaccination but thinks that the schedule should be individualized to each child. He said you could for example specifically test for the genetic defect that causes a mitochondrial dysfunction and make sure that those children, who are genetically more susceptible to autism, be given less vaccinations at once.

At the end of the show there was a panel of doctors trying to sum up the issue. Earlier they discussed the importance of vaccination and how childhood illnesses have been eradicated. The discussion got heated and McCarthy plainly said “that’s bullshit” when one doctor said vaccines have been a boon to families. She said “my son died in front of me,” and talked about how her son died for two minutes and went into cardiac arrest. She asked “are we considered acceptable losses?”

Clip of McCarthy saying “that’s bullshit!”

I clipped the rest of the show and the links are below if you would like to watch it. This is an important issue that touches so many families and I can’t imagine the heartbreak of having a child with autism. Good for Jenny for having the courage to speak out about this. There are no clear-cut answers and there needs to be more study into this, but it seems as if the pharmaceutical companies have been shielded from scrutiny due to the reasonable fear that people will stop vaccinating.

Larry read out a statement from Jim Carrey at the end of the show that “Vaccines are more a profit engine than a means of prevention. And that’s why there are so many vaccines.”

Jenny and Jim Carrey will lead a march on Washington on June 4th, and you can learn about it on GenerationRescue.org

MCCARTHY: Jim and I are going to lead a march and rally in Washington, D.C. And I’m announcing it right here on June 4th. You can go on GenerationRescue.org for more information. We will be there and we’re asking every parent that can make it there in Washington on that day, every grandma, mom, dad, to be there with us marching, rallying. You have a voice that day.

KING: Are you raising money?

MCCARTHY: Oh, no. This is a day — you know, I’ve been talking to parents across the country, thousands of them. And they’re so dying to have a voice one day. So we’re bringing the media. We’re bringing the attention, and now I’m asking every parent that’s watching this right now, come there that day and you will be heard.

KING: Where do you go online?

MCCARTHY: GenerationRescue.org.

Jenny McCarthy on Larry King Live 4/2/08, Part 1
Jenny McCarthy on Larry King Live 4/2/08, Part 2
Jenny McCarthy on Larry King Live 4/2/08, Part 3
Jenny McCarthy on Larry King Live 4/2/08, Part 4
Jenny McCarthy on Larry King Live 4/2/08, Part 5
Jenny McCarthy on Larry King Live 4/2/08, Part 6
Jenny McCarthy on Larry King Live 4/2/08, Part 7

Original article from: Cele|bitchy

More Celebrity-Look-A-Likes

2008-03-26T00:21:00.004-05:00

Okay... guess I was a little bored... but, I think its kind of fun to do these celebrity look-a-likes :D What's cool too is seeing the same people in my children's line-up :D Go check their's out too :D (their links are on the right side of the blog).

http://www.myheritage.com/collage

Curves

2008-03-25T22:57:00.006-05:00

Well, I'm tired of being overweight... I have no idea why... but, it seems ever since school started, I've gained weight.... steadily... almost like my body thinks its pregnant... yet... I've had my monthly periods and no nausea. I'm quite certain I'm not pregnant... just fat. I'm heavier now than I've ever been while not pregnant. Its ridiculous. (See how fat I am in these recent pictures??? Disgusting!)

ANYWAYS...

I called Curves today. There's one about 10 minutes from my house. One of the best things about the call was that I won't have to worry about where Wyatt will go, as in being babysat! There's a little area where kids can play and the receptionist (I think that's who it'll be) watches over them. There's a TV, game system, colors, etc. Woohoo! Because, that was one of my concerns... what would I do about Wyatt if I join a gym/health club. And being that the work-outs are only 30 minutes, it shouldn't be too bad w/Wyatt being a little distant from me.

I have an appointment for Thursday at 10:30am. Since the girls are off from school this week, they'll be accompanying me as well... which should work out well with getting Wyatt a little acclimated with being there and all. She's giving me a free week pass (which, yes, I know, they give those out to new members all the time). I told her I may not be able to join just yet... have to see how the money falls as its been quite tight for us recently.

But, I have to say, I'm excited :D What I like also, besides short work-out times, is that there's no contract. They debit your account every month but you can quit whenever. You can also pay monthly without the bank debit but it's $10 more a month. I figure I'll be there at least 6 months. Oh, yeah, I just remembered, they give you 3 months a year to 'pass' on... like, in case someone gets sick in your family and you can't come in... so, that's cool... no need to pay if that happens.

It'll be $34 a omonth plus tax. Registration is $149... HOWEVER, if I join before March 31st and bring in a bag of food, it'll only be $30. Now, there's incentive, huh? :))

I was telling Jeremy about it and he was like, well, since you're paying half the amount you used to for car insurance... which is so true! With USAgencies, I was paying like $78/month plus a down payment every 6 months of over $100. I switched to Farm Bureau and pay $34/month with a $34 down payment every year and a $30 annual membership fee.... plus, it might even get cheaper the longer I'm with them and continue to have no accidents.

Anyways, cool how that worked out :D

Jeremy started with a new company 2 weeks ago (or around that). And he's going offshore for them sometime this week... Friday is the date as of now. He said he'll be gone a minimum of 2 weeks!!! Crazy, huh? I'm so not used to being home alone at night... in the last 11 yrs... heck... in my life... LOL I think I might have slept all by myself (not counting children) a handful of times!!!

One good thing about him going offshore is the money he'll bring in. We'll be out of 'the rears' again! woohoo! Things have been kind of tight since, like, December... which is why he quit his job and got this new one.

American Idol

2008-03-25T20:31:00.003-05:00

Okay... right from the beginning I've thought the guys were better than the girls... and man... tonight... David Cook gave me goose bumps with his version of Billie Jean! It was sooo good! I told Jeremy that I could definitely see me paying for tickets to go to his show! He's a rocker :D

My favorites are:

David Archuleta He has such a smooth, nice voice :)
David Cook A true rocker :)
Jason Castro What a cutie!!! He's adorable :)

I have no favorite girls... well, I like Carly & Brooke alright... but, not as much as the guys.

A Message From Ron Paul

2008-03-07T10:32:00.001-06:00

Are Vaccines Safe?

2008-02-27T20:37:00.001-06:00

Great video... Its long, so, my recommendation is to play it on your PC and do some housework while listening to it! lol

This two and a half hour presentation, is well researched and presented. Are vacccines safe? Find out how they made it & the LIES about ... all » MERCURY Free vacines. At the end a medical doctor discusses how he gave his child a vaccine and it caused him to have severe autism. He vowed never to vaccinate himself or his family ever again after FINDING out the TRUTH!

Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy Place "Green Vaccine" Ad in USA Today

2008-02-13T08:14:00.003-06:00

Thanks to the Schafer Autism Report for posting this article.

Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy Place "Green Vaccine" Ad in USA Today

"Are we poisoning our kids In the name of protecting their health?"

"Green our vaccines. And administer them with greater care."

"Mercury. Aluminum. Formaldehyde."
"Ether. Antifreeze. "
"Not exactly what you’d expect—or want—to find in your child’s vaccinations.

"Vaccines that are supposed to safeguard their health yet, according to our studies, can also do harm to some children.

The statistics speak for themselves. Since 1983, the number of vaccines the CDC recommends we give to our kids has gone from 10 to 36, a whopping increase of 260%. And, with it, the prevalence of neurological disorders like autism and ADHD has grown exponentially as well.

Just a coincidence? We don’t think so. Thousands of parents believe their child’s regression into autism was triggered, if not caused, by over-immunization with toxic ingredients and live viruses found in vaccines. The Centers for Disease Control and the American Academy of Pediatrics dispute this but independent research and the first-hand accounts of parents tell a different story."

see full ad at www.generationrescue.org/pdf/080212.pdf

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Ron Paul Speaks Out Against Dangerous Vaccines

2008-01-25T09:35:00.000-06:00

http://www.infowars.net/articles/january2008/230108Vaccines.htm

Nationwide Revolt continues to grow as Presidential candidate denounces FDA and forced immunization

Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Wednesday, Jan 23, 2008

Presidential candidate Ron Paul has spoken out against forced vaccination and the federal government's eagerness to dictate what Americans may and may not put into their bodies.

The Congressman, a fully qualified obstetrics and gynecology doctor, made his position plain in an interview with the Huffington Post's election reporter James Freedman:

"I don't think anything should be forced on us by the government, [and] immunization is one thing that we're pressured and forced into," he said.

"A responsible parent is going to say, 'Yeah, I want my child to have that,' [but] when the government makes a mistake, they make it for everybody. You know, that's what worries me. They don't always come up with the perfect answer sometimes... and people have had some very, very serious reactions from these immunizations."

Besides certain laws that apply only to government medical specialists - there is no law that enforces the mandatory use of any vaccine in the United States. Enforced medical treatment is an assault and a violation of the 14th amendment, the reason Ron Paul, a strict Constitutionalist, is so directly against it.

However, some in Washington seem determined to ignore the Constitution and to make some vaccinations (usually the most profitable ones) mandatory.

There has recently been a spate of cases where officials, with the assistance of directed media propaganda, have attempted to cajole parents into believing that laws require vaccination.

Last February one such media hoax fooled parents in Texas and other areas of the country into believing that the HPV vaccine, which experts have slammed as untested and has continued to be linked to dangerous side-effects, is now required by law and that young girls must take it. Merck Pharmaceuticals hit the headlines after it was revealed that the company was set to capitalize on this fraud by making obscene profits from a crony deal with Governor Rick Perry, while children were put at risk.

Last November we reported on a case in Prince George's County, Maryland, where parents of more than 1600 children were told they could be put in jail for failing to get their kids vaccinated. At the time a local Fox News affiliate reported, "A new law was passed last year requiring children from 5th through to 10th grade to have the vaccine," which was a total lie. A state prosecutor involved in the case then admitted that there is no law that mandates any vaccine.

In addition there is a plethora of examples where vaccines containing mercury, live HIV virus, live cancer and other horrors have wrought misery after victims were bullied into taking them by government mandates that they were deluded into thinking was the law.

Concerned parents across the U.S. are leading a nationwide revolt against unnecessary, untested and dangerous vaccines as CDC records show a growing amount of religious exemptions on vaccine forms. Adults too are turning away from personal vaccination.

Ron Paul also spoke of the dangerous precedent being set in allowing the FDA strict controls over the health of Americans and how such a scenario is a dream come true for the big pharmaceutical corporations the FDA shares a bed with:

"If we accept this notion that the federal government is going to dictate what we can put into our bodies, then it leads to the next step: that the government is going to regulate everything that is supposedly good for us. That's where they are. They have an FDA that won't allow somebody who's dying to use an experimental drug which might speed up the process of finding out which drugs are good and which drugs are bad and the federal government comes in and dictates that they want complete control over vitamins and nutritional products and I just think the whole principal of government telling us what we can take in or not take in is just a dangerous position to take... it's related to the drug industry because they'd like to control all of this."

Paul is right to point out that the relationship that now exists between the FDA and big pharma is tantamount to a business partnership.

The FDA now effectively protects and nurtures the monopoly of big pharma in the name of regulating its activities.

It is well known that the giant pharmaceuticals routinely fix and mark up prices of prescription drugs as much as 500,000% over the cost of the raw ingredients, and they engage in monopolistic, mob-like behaviors to block competing, lower cost drugs from other countries.

All of this is effectively sanctioned by the FDA.

Presidential candidates such as Hillary Clinton and John Edwards advocate a continuation of this monopolistic status quo via their visions for a FDA state-managed socialized health care system where every citizen in the U.S. would have to enroll for regular check ups, including mandatory mental screenings, a practice Ron Paul also speaks out against:

"The other thing they're doing right now is the government's doing this mental health testing of everybody in school and they're putting a lot of pressure, in a way forcing kids to be put on psychotropic drugs, which I think are very, very dangerous. So anything medical that is forced on us I think is bad."

The Congressman is the only candidate who has envisioned a health care system without strict federal regulation and without the resulting big pharma monopoly. As consumer health advocate Mike Adams at newstarget has pointed out:

Ron Paul is the only candidate who believes in health freedom. All the other candidates would support the status quo in health care today: Big Pharma dominance, FDA censorship, monopoly prices in medicine and the assault and imprisonment of individuals who dare to tell the truth about the healing properties of the superfoods and nutritional supplements they sell. The other candidates may talk about "reforms," but all they're really talking about is a shell game of shifting who pays for all disease in this country.

Only Ron Paul believes in genuine health freedom. He's the creator of the Health Freedom Protection Act, a bill that would reestablish Free Speech provisions for makers of superfoods, herbs, nutritional supplements and other natural remedies. Under the HFPA, those individuals would be able to state scientifically-validated facts about the health benefits of their products right on the bottle! Today, the FDA doesn't allow that. All truthful statements about nutritional supplements are presently censored! (It's a way to protect Big Pharma and keep the American people ignorant about how plant-based medicines can prevent and even cure degenerative disease.)

The establishment candidates are promoting a huge monopolistic and federalized profit machine when it comes to health care in America, while once again Ron Paul is truly speaking to the needs and desires of the people in accordance with Constitutional law.

Celebrity Breastfeeding Blogs

2008-01-24T09:11:00.000-06:00

Momma Knows Best: Celebrities & Breastfeeding

Breastfeeding: Celebrity Baby Blogs

Celebrity Breastfeeding Blogs @ Motherwear

Ron Paul at the South Carolina Debate 1-10-08

2008-01-11T17:25:00.000-06:00

Today

2007-12-17T09:02:00.000-06:00

Today's horoscope for Taurus is:

It may feel as if the world is pushing back pretty hard against you right now -- and it is! But there's an upside to this pressure: You know you're doing something right and your persistence should help you win.

I don't usually read them but for some reason, I'm getting them in my inbox... so, today, I decided to go ahead and see what it says. I actually think its fitting.

Anyways...

I'm happy with myself! lol That doesn't happen too often :D Why am I happy? I finally finished up the girls' room this past weekend! woohoo! I finished picking up the summer clothes, taking out the small stuff and bagging them, hanging up & folding all the rest of the clothes that I took out for winter! woohoo! I even boxed them and put them in our storage thingie outside. I moved their dresser to in front of the window... they play with the window too much... Jeremy's even nailed it shut because they would open it! So, then they'd constantly be pulling the blinds up... I don't need passers-by to see inside my kids' room! Now their TV is right in front of their bed, on the dresser still. I allowed one big box of toys in their room at a time. The rest is picked up in the storage thingie.

Oh yeah, I also finished Wyatt's clothes too :D Went through, took out the 12 mth clothes and bagged & stored them outside.

Now, all I have to do is finish up doing that same thing in my room... lol Still have lots of stuff to bring to the storage thingie outside too.

Oh, and Wyatt's 2nd birthday is Thursday and Ursula's in on Saturday! No plans for either. I am thinking we may wait until the weekend after Christmas... I think we did that last year too. Its just hard to expect people to come to their party at this time of year! I was thinking of just bringing them to Chuck E. Cheese on Saturday. I didn't talk to Jeremy about it yet because I was just thinking about that during one of my insomniac moments last night in bed. Wyatt's in a climbing mood lately and I know he'd LOVE it there as would both of the girls. Oh, another reason for no real plans for a party is that Wyatt is still all spotty looking from chicken pox and quite possibly, lots of ringworms. I think he had a combination of them both... but, maybe not. Its hard to find good pictures of chickenpox online... esp. pics of the healing up phase which is what had us questioning the pox. But, some of his pox remained small, like the pics online. That's why I think maybe some of his pox were actually ringworms... the boy loves animals!!! He's constantly hugging them, kissing them, being as close to them as he can... so, he could have very well have picked up some ringworms from the animals. Anyways, the scabs are pretty much gone but he has red patches all over his face and body. Not very camera ready right now! lol But, still just as cute as always :D

The Secret

2007-11-16T19:14:00.000-06:00

Halloween 2007

2007-11-03T17:14:00.000-05:00

Here's the only pictures I got of all 3 of the kids together. There's 2 pictures of Wyatt by himself... the only ones I could get of him... he moves way too much for my disabled digital camera to capture good shots of him.

I have better pictures of the girls by themselves on their blog. I know some may be critical about me putting make-up on them... but, first off, its Halloween! What if they would be zombies or something else? I would have put monster make-up on them... so, secondly, they were princesses... princesses wear make-up :D Thirdly, it was fun for me to do :D I enjoyed it as well as the girls. AND, they looked so pretty! It almost gives me an idea of how they'll look as teens.

Generosity

2007-10-30T13:37:00.001-05:00

Wow... I'm so amazed by the generosity of others!

My sister, Cherie, has had a really bad last couple of weeks. Her trailer caught on fire - electrical fire that started in the walls, last week (I think either Tue or Wed.) and then, this past weekend, her purse was stolen from her car while it was parked at our brother's home (a month prior, my sil, Jessica's (our brother's wife), purse was stolen in the same way; parked at her home and scattered in the bathroom at the park across the bayou)!!!

Anyways... just a few things that I know she's received from others in her community... even from people she doesn't even know!!!

Wait, first off... let's see who was affected by this fire... Cherie and 2 of her daughters (her oldest is with her dad for now in Florida) and our mom. It was actually the room our mom stays in that caught fire. Thankfully, they were all awake (it happened approx. around 9:00pm) and got out without any harm coming to them personally. Everything my mom owns was in that room. It was really the only room that was so badly damaged but the rest of the trailer got smoke damage. And Cherie said that everyone she's talked to has said its pretty much impossible to get rid of that smoke smell... no matter how many times you wash the clothes. I was like, that sucks, because her girls had such cute dresses in there! Precious dresses, really!

Also, while the trailer caught fire, they were also experiencing flooding from tons of rain that had fell over the past 24 hrs! Jessica has pictures of the aftermath... kind of hard to see since it was nighttime but... you get the idea... and you can see the water... there's pictures of my brother with the bottoms of his shorts wet.

Cherie has 2 jobs... she is a beautician in Mathews and also works at the Wal-Mart Supercenter in the same area, at the jewelry counter. Her girls are 3 & 5 yrs old (her oldest is almost 11 yrs old - but, like I mentioned earlier, she's been with her father since the school year began). Olivia's in kindergarten and our mom watches Sophia while Cherie works. Cherie & her husband have been estranged for the past 5 yrs. They aren't divorced but haven't lived together in those 5 yrs. He doesn't send any child support... never has. Also, they married each other twice.

Anyways...

They've been staying with our sister's, Angele, house in Thibodaux.

She received a 'credit card' from The Red Cross to get whatever they need; not gonna say how much, but, its generous :)
A manager at Wal-Mart is allowing her and the girls to stay at a house he owns rent-free for a year!!! Isn't that awesome??? Its like an 80-yr. old house... but, how nice is that??? Plus, he's done stuff to fix it up.
She received a call to open the beauty shop; she gets there and there's a trailer load of furniture!!! Amazing, huh?
Her friend, Angie, has bought Olivia new school clothes... she's giving Cherie a set of bunkbeds and some other furniture as well as clothes!
A near-by thrift store told her that she & mom can go get whatever they need out of there.
Wal-Mart has raised money for her! They're also applying for some sort of hardship deal to see what else they can give her!
Bonnie, another friend, has a list of numbers to call for stuff like that and has been helping as well!
People have been coming out of the woodworks, giving her money! One lady gave her a check for $50 and this guy, in Afghanstan (sp?) sent her $200 via wire!!!
I know there's probably things I'm failing to mention... I'll return and edit if I remember more or mom or Cherie tell me more.

I really just can't get over all awesome everyone is in a family's time of need! I'm floored. It really helps restore your faith in humanity!

It makes me happy for her though because Cherie is a very giving person. And now its coming back to her. She deserves it :D

All Paid Up! (Almost, anyways!)

2007-10-15T09:17:00.000-05:00

Woohoo!
I'm excited! hehehe
Almost all of our total monthly household bills are paid up! Only thing left to pay is water (which is due on the 22nd) & Jeremy's car insurance.
I'm so happy because I HATE being behind on bills! And we were behind on almost everything!
Our rent is paid.
Electricity is paid (2 mths).
Cingular is paid (2 mths).
My car insurance is paid.
Our house phone is paid (2 mths).
AND, the credit card bill (my card, my first card that is super maxxed out thanks to Jeremy's wreck... he used it to buy the car he's driving now... the wreck which is finally settled after 2½ yrs of waiting and Jeremy's still not getting fully compensated for what was lost :( grrrrr But, at least its over).

Woohoo!

Jeremy finally gave me money to open up a checking account so, I paid 4 of those bills online! One over the phone. Wow, that's so much easier! hehehe And Jeremy paid rent yesterday.
Check this out... we still have money in the bank! hehehe woohoo!

Jeremy said that he decided that he'll keep the check that the rent will be taken from every month but will deposit all the other weekly checks.

eBay

2007-10-14T10:01:00.000-05:00

Okay, I admit it... I'm hooked on eBay right now... lol

Jeremy finally gave me money to open up a checking account... doing so enabled me to use my Paypal account... woohoo! I had set up a paypal account because I do these surveys and sometimes, they pay you money upon completion. Well, at first, they'd send me checks and since I didn't have a bank account, the checks would usually get outdated before I'd have the opportunity to have them cashed by my mom. So, when the survey people sent me a thing saying they could deposit the funds in a paypal account, I readily opened one up. Until now, money has been accumulating in it.

ANYWAYS, so now that I'm actually able to use the money in my paypal account, I bought a few things off of eBay :D hehehe

I bought the girls their costumes for this year. I'm currently bidding on a prince costume for Wyatt since the girls wanted to be princesses again this year. I hope I get it. If not, and I can't find another one in time, I'll probably get him a frog costume (ya know, the Frog Prince).

I also bought some RAM for my computer. I haven't been able to play my Sims 2 game for a while now since I've now got so many expansions, my PC can't handle it. So, I found a set of two 512MB for $17 altogether! This guy had recently upgraded his 'puter. Mine can only upgrade to 1 gb of RAM, so, this was perfect. He sent me a tracking number Friday so I should have it in 3 to 5 business days! woohoo!

I also bought a 128 MB memory card for our Game Cube. I can't play my Sims on that without one. I had one once upon a time but it disappeared. And, in the store, for retail, they cost $30 still! I bought this one for half that amount, including s&h.

I'm also keeping an eye out for another digital camera. Of course, I'm sure I don't have enough in there for a good one, or one even as good as mine (that is, unbroken)... so, I may have to ask Jeremy if its okay to use some money from the account... IF I find an unbelievably good deal, that is. Shucks, I'll even settle for something in the 5 or 6 MP range if the price & camera are good enough with the money in my own paypal account... until I get a real good one of course.

Kittens

2007-10-10T10:26:00.000-05:00

Here's 4 of them in one pic... the only one missing is the black male, Spooky.
This is M.J. Isn't she cute? She's one of the sweetest ones. M.J. stands for Momma Cat Jr. Since she looks so much like her. OR, alternatively, M.J. can stand for Mean Julie... in remembrance of what she did to us and our other batch of kittens... and maybe even Momma Cat herself...

Here's M.J. sleeping so cutely :D
These pictures are untouched as I just uploaded from my Kodak folder... the pics there remain untouched. Any touched up photos go to my "My Pictures" folder... just so you know... because I know you wanted to know... ha ha ha

Momma Cat's Gone

2007-10-08T07:29:00.000-05:00

Can you believe this shit??? She was here last Thursday night. I put some table scraps out for her to eat Friday morning... but, didn't see her. Which wasn't that weird... sometimes she goes off and gets some bugs or frogs or something and comes right back. ANYWAYS... I put the food out in the morning when the girls get on the bus... so, it was like 7am. I didn't go back outside until after lunch and the food was never touched. That evening, same thing... no evidence of her eating any food. No Momma Cat Saturday. No Momma Cat Sunday. No Momma Cat today. She's gone. I have no idea what happened to her.

I saw our neighbor, the husband, outside this morning and asked him if he had seen her around and he said he hadn't. I told him I saw he, or at least his car, was home pretty much all day Friday and he said he was home and only left for like 45mins that day.

I did ride my bike (with Wyatt) both Friday and Saturday down the road and never saw any signs of Momma Cat. I talked with my neighbor behind me Friday evening and she said she hadn't seen her. Our neighbor closest to the railroad tracks wouldn't have done anything to her because they like cats... plus, our cat isn't bothersome.

Okay, I just rode up and down our street again as well as the road behind our house and no Momma Cat... no evidence of her demise either. However, before getting to the railroad tracks, I heard a cat crying... sounded like a kitten though. I couldn't tell exactly where the sound came from. I did get down off the bike with Wyatt and walked next to the tracks, where the overgrowth isn't as bad... then it sounded like the cat cries came from across the bayou. No way for me to get to it if its over there... besides running down the railroad track, across the water... I feel badly for that kitten/cat... but, I don't know how to get to it.

I called the local animal shelters but they're closed today thanks to Columbus Day (garbage was picked up today!!!). I'll call back tomorrow... hopefully someone brought her in... but, I'm betting not :((

The kittens are doing okay. Of course, they weren't weaned :( Poor babies :(( They're only a month old. But, they aren't crying either. I have some formula that was sent to me free in the mail that I never used (because, of course, I breastfeed) that I'm mixing and giving to them. We bought some kitten food Saturday and they're eating it... in fact, they were growling at each other while eating! LOL

The kittens are so cute and sweet. If you pet them while they're standing there, they'll purr. They usually stop purring once you pick them up though.

Momma Cat didn't even have a chance to teach her kittens her ways :( They are cleaning themselves and each other and pooping in the dirt (not on the cement! woohoo) but, she didn't have the time to teach them how to hunt. Maybe its in their blood and instinctual.

Anyways, they seem to be coping well... I'm sure it has a lot to do with having their siblings around for comfort.

I've named them. LOL The black one is Spooky (he's the most shy one), the black/gray tabby is MJ (Momma Cat Junior), the gray one is Slater or Pewter... haven't stuck with one yet... thinking Slater. The Tortoiseshell one with white around her eyes is Bandit. And the other Tortoiseshell one... well, I told the girls they could name her... so, she's without a name as of now... oh wait, I just remembered, Calista said "Marina"... We'll see if that sticks.

A real-life test for Roe v. Wade

2007-10-03T13:42:00.000-05:00

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57059

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: August 9, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern

Many Americans have come to accept the idea of unborn babies being torn limb from limb, starved to death, burned with acid and generally exterminated like pests – as long as the killing is done in the antiseptic conditions of a so-called "clinic."

It's a little harder to accept what happened in Ocean City, Maryland, where police have found the remains of four dead preborn children – all believed to have been aborted by the mother, Christy Freeman, 37. I guess I shouldn't call her a mother. Maybe "host" would be a more accurate term.

However, she is, technically speaking, a mother – at least biologically speaking – to four unfortunate offspring who live with her and her longtime "boyfriend," Raymond W. Godman Jr.

No one knows exactly what happened to these babies. One 26-week-old unborn baby was found wrapped in bloody towels under Freeman's bathroom sink. Two other sets of fetal remains were found wrapped in plastic in a bedroom trunk. A fourth was found in a Winnebago outside the home.

(Column continues below)

While Freeman is being held, no one is quite certain what crime, if any, she will be charged with.

After all, most laws against killing unborn babies were effectively struck down by the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision in 1973.

To prosecutors, the key is timing.

They say if the infants were too young to be considered viable outside the womb, Freeman can't be charged with murder. And if they were old enough to live outside the womb but died before Maryland passed its 2005 fetal homicide law, it may not be a crime even if Freeman intentionally caused the deaths of these children.

Aren't you proud to be an American?

These four little babies are a sign of our times.

These are the little faces the pro-abortion crowd would never want you to see.

For one reason, the advocates of abortion on demand insisted this kind of thing would never happen again if only abortion were safe and legal. There would be no more "back-alley" or self-induced abortions. They would all take place in clean clinics under the direction of monsters who looked like doctors.

That was the promise.

It hasn't exactly worked out that way.

God knows what possessed Freeman to do what she did. Men and women have always done evil things and always will. It's their nature. And it is why government has a responsibility to rein in the worst of man's excesses – to keep us, at a minimum, from killing one another, to protect the innocent.

Today everything is upside-down, backwards, topsy-turvy, inverted. Black is now white. Up is down. Left is now right. Right is now wrong.

In many cases, government ensures the guilty never pay the ultimate price for their most heinous crimes, while the most innocent are permitted to suffer unspeakable fates.

The people in Ocean City, Md., are pretty upset about dead babies in their neighborhood. In fact, this case is a big story through the Washington Metro area – somewhat ironic given the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court, right in the heart of the nation's capital, made all this possible, if not probable, 34 years ago.

It will be interesting if it turns out that no crime was committed.

It's quite possible that four dead babies in your house is nothing more than, say, a health code violation, thanks to Roe v. Wade.

Is this the kind of story that can confront people about the horror that is abortion?

Is this the kind of story that can force people to confront the reality of what happens every day in abortuaries around this country?

Is this the kind of story that can make Americans think?

Additives 'can make any child hyperactive'

2007-09-06T20:19:00.000-05:00

Yeah, this is old news to some of us :D

Additives 'can make any child hyperactive'

HELEN WILLIAM

PARENTS got a fresh warning yesterday that food additives could trigger hyperactivity in children.

Many children, and not just those suffering from extreme hyperactive conditions, can become more impulsive, inattentive and hyperactive from the cocktail of artificial extras found in drinks, sweets and processed foods, according to research published in the Lancet.

In the biggest study of its kind, scientists at Southampton University recorded the responses of 153 three-year-olds and 144 eight to nine-year-olds to various drinks and found that artificial food colour and additives were having "deleterious effects".

The youngsters drank a mix that reflected a UK child's average daily additive intake.

Professor Jim Stevenson, a psychologist who led the research in the study commissioned by the Food Standards Agency (FSA), said: "We now have clear evidence that mixtures of certain food colours and benzoate preservative can adversely influence the behaviour of children.

"There is previous evidence that some children with behavioural disorders could benefit from the removal of certain food colours from their diet.

"We have now shown that for a large group of children in the general population, consumption of certain mixtures of artificial food colours and benzoate preservative can influence their hyperactive behaviour. However, parents should not think that simply taking these additives out of food will prevent all hyperactive disorders.

"We know that many other influences are at work, but this at least is one a child can avoid."

The children, chosen as a snapshot of the general population, were all put on additive-free diets. None suffered from a hyperactivity disorder.

Each day for six weeks, they were given drinks that either contained one of two mixtures of food colours and benzoate preservative or just fruit juice. All the drinks looked and tasted the same.

The study builds upon tests conducted on the Isle of Wight in 2002, which were inconclusive about the possible links between additives and hyperactivity. The first mixture was similar to that used in the 2002 study. The second mixture contained the current average daily consumption of food additives by three-year-old and eight to nine-year-old children in the UK.

The children's different reactions were rated by teachers and trained observers in the classroom and by their parents at home. The older children also took computerised attention tests.

Professor Ieuan Hughes, the chairman of the Committee on Toxicity, made up of independent scientists, described the £750,000 study as "robust" and said it "added weight" to a possible link between certain artificial food colours and preservatives having a bad effect on children's behaviour.

The FSA is now sending the findings to the European Food Safety Authority, which is currently reviewing the safety of all European Union permitted food colours.

It could increase pressure on manufacturers to stop using certain food colourings, but there are no plans to call for a ban.

Parents who are confused over what might be bad for their children are left with a simple message: read the label.

They will have to do the groundwork to find out what is in their children's meals as some foods such as school dinners or those served at children's parties do not come with labels.

Julian Hunt, of the Food and Drink Federation, said: "As a responsible industry, we shall be studying the detail of the research and companies will clearly take account of these findings as part of their ongoing review of product formulations."

This article: http://news.scotsman.com/health.cfm?id=1420232007

Last updated: 05-Sep-07 00:54 BST

Top 20 things that are more dangerous to children than lead paint in Mattel toys

2007-09-06T14:24:00.000-05:00

Top 20 things that are more dangerous to children than lead paint in Mattel toys

The mainstream media is amusingly irrational when it comes to reporting scare stories. The latest example involves the lead content of Mattel toys made in China. The Consumer Product Safety Commission has issued a third recall of Mattel toys involving over 700,000 toys containing unacceptably high levels of lead paint (over .06 percent lead). Irrational parents are rushing back to retailers in droves, turning in their Mattel toys to "save their children" from the dangers of lead paint. Mattel, for its part, is being rightly blasted in the media for selling shoddy products made with toxic heavy metals.

But here's the interesting part in all this: Parents directly poison their children every day with products far more dangerous than Mattel toys. Don't believe me? I'll name twenty things in this article that are far more dangerous to children than Mattel toys. It doesn't mean Mattel toys are safe, of course. They apparently do contain unacceptably high levels of lead, and there's no question about the toxicity of lead. But children don't eat toys nearly as often as they eat some other toxic substances given to them by their parents, and even as parents are herding back into retailers to refund their toxic lead-laden toys, they're returning home and poisoning their children with many other products that are far worse.

The press, of course, reports nothing about these other toxic products. And why? Because they're made in America.

American products poisoning American children

American products, you see, are often given blanket immunity by the U.S. press. While the media is happy to jump on toxic lead found in Chinese products, they completely ignore (for example) the toxic mercury that dentists continue to place into the mouths of young children all across the country. Why is it considered highly dangerous for a child to merely touch a toy with .06 percent lead paint while it is considered perfectly safe for a child to chew on a filling made with 40 percent mercury? Mercury is far more toxic than lead in many ways, yet the media has nothing to say about the mass poisoning of children through the outmoded dental work still being performed on children today. Mercury fillings were invented before the Civil War, and they're just as toxic now as they were then!

Of course, if dental fillings were made in China, the U.S. press would be screaming about their toxicity! But since they're installed by crazed U.S. dentists -- many of whom still manage to seem convincingly sane -- there's zero coverage in the mainstream media.

Reporting the truth about dangerous chemicals, heavy metals and other threats to children is extremely selective. The public never hears the real truth about what's dangerous -- they only hear what the media want them to think is dangerous!

But I've had it with popular media distortions. Here, I'm going to reveal the top 20 things that are more dangerous to children than the lead paint in Mattel toys. Interestingly, most of these are things that parents intentionally give their children (or feed to them!). If you're worried about lead paint, you should be far more worried about these 20 things...

The top 20 things that are more dangerous to children than lead paint in Mattel toys

1. Mercury fillings
Often called "silver fillings" to hide the fact that they're made from mercury, these highly toxic fillings are placed directly into the mouths of children where they are inhaled (mercury vapor) and swallowed, causing systemic mercury poisoning to the child and leading to long-term neurological damage. Visit www.IAOMT.org and watch the "Smoking Teeth = Poison Gas" video to learn more.

2. Vaccines
Think vaccines are safe? You've been hoodwinked by the popular media parroting drug company propaganda. Vaccines are preserved with methyl mercury, one of the most dangerous chemical forms of the toxic heavy metal. This mercury is injected directly into the bodies of children where it causes severe neurological damage. And yes, it does cause Autism, despite what you've read in the dumbed-down press. Only a fool would inject their child with mercury-preserved vaccines.

3. Hot dogs
Hot dogs are made with horrifying processed meat parts (click here to see shocking photos of processed meat products, then preserved with a cancer-causing ingredient called sodium nitrite. As detailed in my book Grocery Warning, this ingredient causes brain tumors in children, not to mention leukemia, pancreatic cancer, colon cancer and other cancers. Hot dogs are far more dangerous to a child's health than lead paint in my opinion, and yet parents keep feeding them to their children!

4. Antibacterial soap
How about a little nerve toxin in your soap? That's what's found in antibacterial soap. It's a toxic cocktail of chemicals designed to kill life. That's how it kills bacteria. The problem is that it also harms people -- especially infants and children who are trying to develop healthy nervous systems. Avoid all products claiming to be "antibacterial." You're better off using natural soap (like Dr. Bronner's soap, www.DrBronner.com ) and letting your child's immune system fight off common bacteria. The world isn't sterile, after all. You can't turn your house into a germ-free bubble.

5. ADHD drugs
Would you give your child street drugs like speed or meth? Probably not, but what if your doctor wrote you a prescription for speed and said your child needed it because he was ADHD? If you're like most parents, you'd fall in step and start giving your child speed. But wait, you say: ADHD drugs are not speed, are they? But of course they are. They belong to a class of drugs called amphetamines. They used to be illegally sold as speed. Now they're prescription drugs, and they're given to children in schools all across America (and elsewhere). Psychiatrists and drug companies are making a killing dosing up kids and infants on substances that used to be considered illegal street drugs (and that have no legitimate medical use whatsoever).

6. Sports drinks
For some reason, parents irrationally believe sports drinks are healthy because they contain the word "sports." Didn't they notice the neon green artificial coloring? Sports drinks are, in my opinion, a nutritional joke. Made from salt water, processed sweeteners and petrochemical coloring, many of their ingredients are actually harmful. Drinking water would be smarter, and feeding your child some healthy trace minerals would be even better. Low on potassium? Eat a banana.

7. Cough syrup and over-the-counter medicines
Nearly all children's over-the-counter medicines contain multiple toxic substances such as chemical sweeteners, preservatives and additives. Cough syrup, in particular, has been scientifically proven to be absolutely worthless in preventing coughs. Many "children's" medicines are actually more toxic than their adult counterparts because they're sweetened up and cosmetically enhanced with artificial colors made from petrochemicals. Yet parents poison their children every day with over-the-counter medicine.

8. Sunscreen
The sunscreen industry is a huge scam. Most popular sunscreen products actually cause skin cancer due to the numerous toxic chemicals they contain (which are quickly absorbed into the skin where they cause DNA mutations that lead to cancer). Even worse, sunscreen blocks the UV radiation that allows the skin to manufacture all-important vitamin D -- the most powerful anti-cancer nutrient yet known to modern science. It prevents over a dozen different cancers, yet parents block it by slathering toxic sunscreen on their children, all while mistakenly believing they're "protecting their children from cancer!" What a scam.

9. Fluoride in the water
I've always found it amazing that city water officials were dumb enough to actually buy a toxic waste substance and arrange to have it dripped into the public water supply where it would be ingested by infants and children. The result? Mass fluorosis and toxicity to children everywhere. Didn't these people realize that fluoride only works topically? (That is, it only works if you rub it on your teeth, then spit it out, and even that only works if you're using natural fluoride, not the chemicals spit out as byproducts of the fertilizer industry, which is what city water departments are buying and dripping into the water supply.) Click here to see my CounterThink cartoon on this topic.

Whoever heard of drinking a topical medication in the first place? It's like swallowing sunscreen to prevent sunburn. Even worse, putting this into the public water supply effectively mass medicates everyone with a bioactive chemical substance that no one has been given a prescription for. This is all done with no regard for the level of natural fluoride children might already be ingesting from other sources. The situation is so crazy that it's difficult to find a more insane example of medical tyranny than the mass fluoridation of public water supplies. The fact that doctors and dentists so vehemently support it demonstrates just how crazy they really are.

10. Processed milk
Children as young as 10 years old are now being diagnosed with heart disease and clogged arteries. Ever wonder how it happened? It's due in part, I believe, to all the processed milk children are swallowing these days. Not only is the milk contaminated with pus, blood and detectable levels of pesticides and other chemicals, it's also homogenized, meaning the fats are artificially modified in a way that makes them stay in suspension. This homogenization also makes milk fats dangerous to cardiovascular health. While I support the consumption of raw, unprocessed milk, I think that consuming processed, homogenized milk is dangerous to the health of infants, children and adults alike!

11. Fast food
Fast food is extremely unhealthy for children. Not only are the foods often fried, homogenized, hydrogenated and otherwise altered, they're also laced with chemical additives, taste enhancers, processed sugars, petrochemical food coloring and other unhealthy substances. Strangely, many parents actually reward their children for good behavior by buying them unhealthy fast food meals, thereby creating a psychological association between good feelings and junk food. (Fast food restaurants further exploit this psychological link by building playgrounds and running feel-good advertisements that emphasize friends and fun, then link those good vibes to their food products.)

12. Antidepressant drugs
Children as young as six months old are now being put on psychotropic drugs such as SSRIs (antidepressants). These drugs, we now know, cause suicidal thoughts and violent behavior, especially in young boys. They imbalance brain chemistry and even alter the body's metabolism of sugar, promoting diabetes and leading to rapid weight gain. These drugs are so dangerous that feeding them to children should be considered a crime. Every single school shooting involving a child in the United States in the last 15 years has been linked to antidepressant drug use. Need I say more?

13. Chemical laundry detergents
Parents are shown fancy ads on television depicting how wonderful and clean their clothes will be if they wash them in brand-name laundry detergent. What they're not shown, however, is the toxicity of all the synthetic chemicals that go into most laundry detergent products. The fragrance chemicals alone are often carcinogenic, and they're just as bad for the environment as they are children's health. A new alternative has appeared, however: Soap berries! It's laundry soap that grows on trees. We offer it at www.BetterLifeGoods.com

14. Flame retardant chemicals
Did you know that new mattresses for infants and children are often sprayed with extremely toxic flame retardant chemicals? These are easily absorbed through the skin of infants and children where they contribute to numerous neurological disorders and immune suppression. Many clothing products are also sprayed with flame retardants, as are some carpeting products. In the push to make everything fireproof, state regulators (who have mandated the flame retardant chemicals in states like California) have created a toxic environment for everyone. I suppose if you're a politician, it's always better for a million people to die of a mysterious disease that can't be linked to you than to have one baby burning up on the evening news with fingers of blame pointed directly at you.

15. Soda
Aside from directly promoting diabetes and obesity, sodas also contain high amounts of phosphoric acid, a substance that dissolves bones and causes a loss of bone mineral density. This causes massive tooth decay as well as a shrinking jaw bone and overall skeletal fragility. Diet sodas are even worse, since they contain chemical sweeteners linked to neurological disorders and learning disabilities.

16. Air fresheners
Air fresheners contain cancer-causing chemicals. Unleashing them in the house exposes children to these chemicals, promoting asthma and other respiratory problems. If you value the health of your children, avoid air freshener products and just use essential oils or citrus peels instead. (Peel an orange and hang the peel in your kitchen.)

17. Synthetic vitamins
Many children's vitamins are made with cheap, synthetic "vitamin" chemicals that actually harm people who take them. Plus, many are loaded up with artificial colors, sucrose and chemical sweeteners. Avoid cheap, store-bought children's vitamins or anything containing cyanocobalamin (a toxic form of vitamin B12). Quality children's vitamins are available through sources like Nordic Naturals (fish oils) and www.IntegratedHealth.com (also check www.WellnessResources.com for high-quality supplements).

18. Dryer sheets
Most popular dryer sheets and fabric softeners are made with toxic synthetic chemicals that are not safe to use on children's clothing. The fragrance chemicals alone are often highly carcinogenic, and the other chemicals contribute additional toxicity to the clothing. Children's clothes should never be washed or dried in chemicals. Only use natural detergents and fabric softeners, or avoid the fabric softeners altogether.

19. Bacon
Most bacon and sausage are processed meat products made with sodium nitrite (like the hot dogs, above) and contaminated with various chemicals lodged in the animal fats. Conventionally-raised beef, pork and chicken products are, in my opinion, extremely toxic to the human body and contribute to colon cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer and many other diseases and disorders. If you make meat for your children, shop for 100% organic, free-range, antibiotic-free meats that have no nitrites or nitrates.

20. Shampoo and bath products
Virtually all popular shampoo and bath products sold on the market contain cancer-causing chemicals. The ingredients read like a top-40 list of toxic chemicals. Virtually none of these chemicals have ever been tested or approved for use on humans (they are simply ignored because the FDA astonishingly believes the skin won't absorb chemicals). If you want healthy products, use the shampoo I recommend: Pure Essentials Fragrance-Free Shampoo from Earth Science (www.TheNewES.com)

Keeping your health priorities straight

So that's the list of 20 items that are more dangerous to the health of children than the lead paint in Mattel toys. Most parents have no concern whatsoever for any of these 20 things, but they're going ape-shoot-crazy over the tiny amounts of lead in their Barbie toys and Elmo stuffed animals. It all just goes to show you that the sheeple will think anything the mainstream media tells them to think (and they'll ignore everything else).

It's classic American contradiction: Returning a Mattel toy at the local toy store while taking your child to a dentist to have mercury implanted in the cavities caused by all the soda the kid consumed at home (because the parents keep buying Coke and Pepsi). If it all weren't so downright tragic, it would almost be funny.

Almost.

###

About the author: Mike Adams is a consumer health advocate with a passion for teaching people how to improve their health He has authored more than 1,500 articles and dozens of reports, guides and interviews on natural health topics, reaching millions of readers with information that is saving lives and improving personal health around the world. Adams is an honest, independent journalist and accepts no money or commissions on the third-party products he writes about or the companies he promotes. In 2007, Adams launched EcoLEDs, a manufacturer of mercury-free, energy-efficient LED lighting products that save electricity and help prevent global warming. He's also the founder of a well known HTML email software company whose 'Email Marketing Director' software currently runs the NewsTarget subscription database. Adams is currently the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a 501(c)3 non-profit, and practices nature photography, Capoeira, Pilates and organic gardening. He's also author of numerous health books published by Truth Publishing and is the creator of several consumer-oriented grassroots campaigns, including the Spam. Don't Buy It! campaign, and the free downloadable Honest Food Guide. He also created the free reference sites HerbReference.com and HealingFoodReference.com. Adams believes in free speech, free access to nutritional supplements and the ending of corporate control over medicines, genes and seeds. Known on the 'net as 'the Health Ranger,' Adams shares his ethics, mission statements and personal health statistics at www.HealthRanger.org

Something Funny

2007-09-06T13:05:00.000-05:00

Ever since Calista told our neighbor's son about his mom and our kittens, he hasn't ridden the bus!!! LMAO I guess our neighbor is afraid of what Calista will fill his head with... LOL So, thankfully, because she's bringing her son to and from school now, I don't have to see her! woohoo!

Momma Cat

2007-09-04T13:41:00.000-05:00

On September 1st, Momma cat gave birth to two kittens. One pure black one and one gray with some other colors on it. By Sept. 2nd, she had given birth to three more kittens (one black/gray tabby like herself and 2 black tourtiseshells). She still looked pregnant because normally, she's a thin cat. Sure enough, by Sept 3rd, all 6 were out of her. But, the last one was stillborn :( I'm guessing it must have been hindering the births of the previous 3 which is why it too her so long to birth all of her babies. The stillborn baby was almost an identical twin to the gray one born on the first day. And Momma Cat didn't try to get rid of it either. In fact, she cleaned it thoroughly, just like it was alive. I had left it, just in case it wasn't dead and maybe it just looked it. The next morning, it had been moved and all the other kittens were snuggled next to it. It felt warm. But, it was surely dead. I disposed of it after the girls got on the bus this morning.

I'm just surprised Momma Cat left in there. In my experience, the momma cats will even eat the dead baby... or at least, take it away from the other kittens.

Anyways, the rest of the kittens (5 of them) are doing great. They are nursing and nursing and nursing and getting fat bellies :) One of the black tourtiseshell ones was even purring this morning! I love that!

And yes, my other kittens are still gone thanks to my neighbor. I don't even want to imagine what she had done to them.

To my bitchy neighbor who will NEVER be a friend of mine again, word of advice:

DON'T FEED MY ANIMALS! DON'T LET YOUR KIDS OR HUSBAND EITHER!
Leave them alone and they won't bother you. My animals are my 'problem' not yours. I'll find homes for them in MY due time not YOURS!

Crimson Tide

2007-08-27T15:31:00.000-05:00

After waiting over a month... I finally got my period again... LOL Just wanted to post it so that I'll know about when to expect it next month.

Witchy Woman Update

2007-08-27T10:52:00.000-05:00

Update on the 'anti-cat' neighbor.

Friday, after Jeremy came home from work, he went next door to talk to the husband. It was just as I had suspected, he wasn't aware of all that was going on. I didn't go with Jeremy, so I only know what Jeremy tells me about what went on there. He knocked on the door and asked her husband to come out. He did. Jeremy showed him the yellow paper (animal control warning) and asked what that was about. At some point in time, the wife walked out. She kept saying stuff like, "___ get back in the house" "Are you going to believe me or this fucking drunk" (BTW, Jeremy wasn't drunk) "You (Jeremy) need to leave now." And she proceeded to call the police. Jeremy said that he was going home but to send the police over when they got there.

He walked in our house, telling what happened. Said the wife was saying that I was lying. After a little while, we (Jeremy & myself) went outside. Not long afterwards, the husband from next door asked if he could join us. He apologized for what had happened. He also apologized for buying the cat food. Apparently, they both thought we were bad pet owners and decided to take matters in their own hand without ever asking us about what they thought we were or weren't doing.

See, we sometimes go visit my family for a week (usually, if its a week, its me and the kids, not Jeremy & when he does leave for a week, that's the only time we ask neighbors to feed our animals) or even just the weekend. Well, before we leave for the weekend, Jeremy fills Max's (our dog) food bowl (large metal container that Jeremy nailed down inside of Max's house so he can't take it out or it can't be rained on and ruined.) with food (like a 20lb bag). Max doesn't gorge himself so, when we get back, he still has food there. The only concern is the water and Jeremy has asked a few of our neighbors at different times just to make sure he has water while we're gone. Also, our other neighbors have asked us if they could feed Max their scraps which is totally fine with us. He eats anything. And for the few times that we are gone for a week at a time, Jeremy calls our neighbors to make sure Max is okay.

Now, for the cat(s). I've written about how great of a hunter Momma Cat is. She is close to being a feral cat. She brought back many different types of rodents for herself and kits to eat along with birds, snakes, frogs, etc; even when there's food out there for them. Yes, we don't buy cat food too much because we want her to stay a hunter and not get lazy. However, I'm always giving them table scraps.

So, while our neighbor was here, Jeremy asked him if he knew about the metal container inside Max's house and that he fills it full of food when we know we'll be gone. Our neighbor was dumbfounded. He had no idea. They just figured we left the animals with nothing. Which is really stupid since Max is on a leash and can't very well go find food. What kind of people they thought we were, huh? AND, if they thought this, there were ways they could have found out what we do... they could have approached us with this concern before taking matters into their own hands.

Well, that is also the reason they bought cat food and fed them at their house. BTW, they did this while Jeremy was home... me and the kids were the only ones not home for the week.

Of course, they didn't 'fess' up to any of this... this is what we got from their actions and words.

All of this could have been avoided had they NOT assumed the worse and asked us... even then, that didn't have to be a confrontation... the matter could have been brought up during conversation without us even knowing their underlying concerns. And this whole ordeal could have been totally avoided.

So, yes, they created their own problems yet we were the ones that got both animal control and the police called on. OH yeah, the police did show up next door but the husband sent them away saying that there were no problems.

The wife has yet to apologize and I don't see her doing it, ever. This was all their doing; not ours. Our cats don't go to any of our other neighbors' houses; just theirs because they were feeding them.

OH, yeah... another thing... all of the kittens are indeed gone. She said the animal control picked them up but when I spoke to that lady, she said we get 3 warnings and THEN they pick the animal(s) up... so, I'm pretty sure she got rid of the kittens via her mom or someone else they know around here since our female neighbor is so allergic to them, she wouldn't have been able to transport them.

Even after her 'threat' that she'd get rid of the kittens, she only gave us like 4 days to do anything. I wouldn't have wanted to bring them to the animal shelter... I was trying to find them homes.

You know, even if she apologizes at some point in the future (which I don't see happening), there's no way I'd be friends with her again. She's an ass and a major bitch. Yeah, I can be bitchy... but, she's got me beat hands down.

Another thing that really sucks is now her son gets on the bus with my girls. So, I have to see her twice a day during the week. I'm just ignoring like I did.

What was funny this morning, after getting her seat, Calista was looking out the window, at our neighbor, with this super mean eyes... I had to smile to myself. I just wonder if our neighbor noticed it at all. She had to have... I mean, Calista was looking at her for a long time like that. lol

Okay... further on in the day...

Calista & Ursula get off the bus, before that, I see Jude with this sad/mad face. I asked Calista if she told Jude about her mom getting rid of our cats and she said she had and she will tell everyone she can about it.

Missing Kittens

2007-08-24T15:50:00.000-05:00

I went ride my bike around 9:30-10:00am today and the kittens were around.

I received a visit from the parish's animal control regarding our pregnant momma cat... yet, nothing about the 5 kittens on that report. I knew about the leash law in our parish, but didn't realize that meant cats too... can't say I've ever seen a cat on a leash in real life. This lady came around 2:00pm. And I hadn't been outside since riding my bike. The kittens weren't around.

My kids got off the bus at 3:18pm and still no kittens.

I suspect my neighbor, the one mentioned in my previous post, had her mom or someone else bring our kittens somewhere else.

What an ass, huh? Report me to the animal control??? I can't help but think her husband knows nothing of what she's done. He likes the cats.

I'm so glad I never opened up to her about our personal lives!!!

I love how people create their own problems and blame others!!!

Update

2007-08-24T10:17:00.000-05:00

Biking:

I've been riding my bike 2 miles daily this week and Wyatt has been loving it. Its so nice to just ride, wind in your face, sun tanning your skin (hehe), and having that nice quietness. Wyatt just sits and looks around, barely does he make any noise while we ride. Sometimes he'll touch my back with his hand or foot :D
Along with riding, I've been doing crunches; I can already see results! Gotta love that! Makes it worth doing, ya know!

Gymnastics:

Well, that hasn't worked out. The first one ended up being way more expensive than I had thought. I went to get the information package and Ursula even stayed for a class that day. I read all the mandatory requirements, deposits, etc... I knew Jeremy would say no; and of course, he did. For the end of the year recital, they wanted $300/child!!! That didn't include costumes and accessories even! Not even tickets! Crazy, huh? Then, you had to buy the daily outfits from them which would have equalled no less than $100 for both.

So, I called the other ballet/gymnastics place and got their info packet. Jeremy had agreed to their terms; seemed a better deal but when I read it closer, they wanted both the registration and 1st month tuition at the same time. If I could have paid them a week apart, it could have worked out a little better. That, together, would have been about $300. Jeremy said no. I do understand though. This summer, our bills have been twice and three times more than normal making his raise almost nil. There was a water leak the landlord didn't fix until recently. Our water bill was almost $300 for 3 mths. Normally, it would be about $24/mth. Then, our A/C seems to never cut off even when I have the temp set for 80 degrees during the day! Our electric bill has been between $250/320/mth!!! That's frickin' high for us. We're used to it being around $150 or so. Its not like we live in a huge house... its not even 1200 sq ft! Maybe next year, we'll be able to put the girls in dance and gymnastics.

My sister, Cherie, has her girls in dance where she lives and its only $20/child/mth! OMG, we could soooo afford that!!!

The closest gymnastics place is 20 min away. I called but no one answered. Depending on the costs and time the classes take place, it could work. Next closest is in Lafayette... and sorry, that won't be happening. I will not be traveling there twice a week...

Cats:

Looks like Momma Cat is pregnant again... much to our chagrin. Her kittens are barely 4 mths old. We still have 5 out of 6 of them. My sister had taken one home. I did place an ad for the in the local Freecycle group but no one answered it; guess everyone is trying to get rid of their own cats...

Jeremy's ready to drop them off somewhere (like the race track); I'd hate for him to do that but they'd have a better chance to survive than bringing them to a shelter where they'd euthanize them in a short amount of time. I really didn't think we'd still have them by now; looking back at how her other kittens disappeared by the time they were like 3 mths old... of course, those kittens were cuter... LOL This litter has no white ones like her previous kits did.

I like Momma Cat because she a mouser & an all-around hunter. I've seen evidence of her capturing, killing, and bringing home at least 2 rabbits. I've seen bird feathers. I've seen many, many mice she's gone found in the wooded area and killed. She's a good mom too; teaches her kittens how to as well.

I'd like to keep the one male kitten. I want to keep at least one because of the mouse problem we had 4 yrs ago... don't want to have that happen again!!!

Also, I've been complained to about my kittens by a neighbor. The kittens like hanging out there and she's allergic to cats. She's actually cursed at me about it (said the "F" word); something I've never heard her do prior to this week. I was in shock. So, I really didn't say anything at the time since she hurried off after having her say. So, I haven't talked to her since. I don't need friends like that... that will confront me and then hurry off without discussing the problem like adults. I can handle confrontation but can't stand when someone will say something, esp. cursing at me, and then leave after they've had their say. That just really pisses me off.

If she's reading this... here's my advice:

STOP FEEDING MY CATS

If you wouldn't (or your dh, whoever does it) buy and feed my cats, they wouldn't hang out at your house!!!

I've NEVER told you to feed my cats; NEVER asked you nor your dh nor your kids to feed them. Even while we are away, visiting relatives for a week, never asked you to feed them... the cats can fend for themselves; they're hunters; plus, we put out a bag of food for them when we leave that they can eat from.

We have 3 other close neighbors that the cats DON'T visit. You know why they don't? BECAUSE THEY AREN'T FEEDING THEM!!! HELLO??? You've created your own problem! And if it was your husband that did it and not you, then complain to him. I didn't bring food to your house and put dishes out in front of your door and lure the cats there. Nope, not me... I didn't do that.

Okay, I've gotten that out of my system... I feel better.

My Bike!

2007-08-12T19:32:00.000-05:00

My New Bike!!!

It cost me all of $1!!!

Last weekend, Jessica & I (along with our babies) went to garage sales. We left her home at 7am and got home at 10:30am. We went to 13 altogether!!! Now, we didn't buy something from every single one. But we did get some good deals!

This bike came with the baby seat as well! Now, it was a little messed up and couldn't be ridden right away but nothing Jeremy couldn't fix in 2 hrs!!! Yep, my man, the handyman :D

What's so great is that he was going to buy me a brand-new one so that I could exercise!!! I had been wanting one for a while now! I have a Raleigh Mountain Bike that I paid $550 way back before I had kids... but, I let one of my sisters borrow it. Plus, I couldn't have put a child seat on the back of it anyways.

So, now I get to ride! Wooohoooo!

I rode it for the first time today and Wyatt freaked when I strapped him in but once I got going, he calmed down. He did hold on for deal life though! heheh I think (I hope, at least!) that he'll eventually love it :)

I also bought an umbrella stroller for $2, quite a few uniforms for my girls, 3 pairs of shorts and a couple of shirts @ 25 cents/piece for Jeremy, about 3 or 4 pairs of shorts for myself, various shirts, velour jogging suits, Bratz tennis shoes for Calista and Reebox tennis shoes for Ursula, both is brand-new condition and about $1/piece along with some tan suede boots for Calista :)

I spent less than $40... probably more like $30 altogether but came away with tons of stuff! I mean, the bike along with the uniforms and new shoes made it all worth it!!!

It was a good trip because Jessica had looked up what garage sales were happening and located them all and then planned our route! It worked out so well! A few of the ones we stopped at weren't even planned, we just happened upon them.

The craziest part of it was that we didn't go to bed until after 2am that morning!!! So, we go to bed after 2am and wake up in time to drink coffee (which we took with us), get our babies & ourselves dressed, and driving out the driveway by 7:02am!!! I was this _ close to not going but like I told Jessica, I'm so glad I did :)

World Breastfeeding Week 2007

2007-08-08T08:35:00.000-05:00

Okay, so, I'm a little late... :D But, we all know that I celebrate breastfeeding everyday :))

Here's a small snippet taken from the UNICEF site as to understanding why we have a World Breastfeeding Week:

Why this week to celebrate World Breastfeeding week?

It commemorates the anniversary of the Innocenti Declaration.

INNOCENTI DECLARATION

On the Protection, Promotion and Support of Breastfeeding. Recognising that:

Breastfeeding is a unique process that:

Provides ideal nutrition for infants and contributes to their healthy growth and development Reduces incidence and severity of infectious diseases, thereby lowering infant morbidity and mortality Contributes to women's health by reducing the risk of breast and ovarian cancer, and by increasing the spacing between pregnancies Provides social and economic benefits to the family and the nation Provides most women with a sense of satisfaction when successfully carried out and that Recent Research has found that: these benefits increase with increased exclusiveness of breastfeeding during the first six months of life, and thereafter with increased duration of breastfeeding with complementary foods, and programme intervention can result in positive changes in breastfeeding behaviour.

We therefore declare that:

As a global goal for optimal maternal and child health and nutrition, all women should be enabled to practice exclusive breastfeeding and all infants should be fed exclusively on breastmilk from birth to 4-6 months of age. Thereafter, children should continue to be breastfed, while receiving appropriate and adequate complementary foods, for up to two years of age or beyond. This child-feeding ideal is to be achieved by creating an appropriate environment of awareness and support so that women can breastfeed in this manner.

Some links:

Breastfeedingworld.net

World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action

The Lactation Sensation

KellyMom

Breastfeeding Blinkies & Graphics

Stupid Argument

2007-08-03T08:36:00.000-05:00

Okay, so, Jeremy comes home from work and all is well. We hug hello. The kids hug him. We're talking. Smiling. etc. I'm making Split Pea Soup but there's still a little time left on it and he's hungry so, he makes himself a sandwich. I see he's using the bread and tell him, "That bread sucks." OMG For some reason, that offended him. He got mad and started an argument. Frickin' ridiculas. He's mad because he bought the bread. Because he bought the best bread available at the local grocery store. Because he bought whole wheat bread. Because he bought that kind for me. Because he changed his eating habits to suit me. And I had the nerve to say something negative about this bread. Now, this is, of course, me paraphrasing the gist of the argument.

Let me tell you why this bread sucks. When you try to put peanut butter on it, it tears apart. It falls apart in your mouth before you start chewing. It is too airy. There's no substance to it. I like a more dense bread.

I didn't tell him the bread sucked to argue about it. I told him that so that he'd be prepared and maybe treat his sandwich a little more gingerly. I also told him that so that he wouldn't buy that brand again. I wasn't trying to insult his ability to buy bread. Or even his decision to buy that one. How was he supposed to know it was going to suck so badly?

You should have seen how angry he was about it. Totally uncalled for! I mean, I can't even talk to him without an argument happening. I've already told him that I was going to stop talking. I've done it before. I mean, I don't need to live everyday arguing with him. Its too stressful. I don't need it.

If the roles would have been reversed, I would not have acted that way. I would have said something like, 'oh, okay' and mentally noted not to buy that brand again.

Gymnastics Update

2007-08-03T07:43:00.000-05:00

Okay, after Jeremy got to work yesterday, he must have been thinking about it because he called me around 10am. He asked when the registration fee was due. I told him I didn't know but I would leave them a message on their answering machine.

Well, I did call; twice. Left messages. Not sure if they called back while I was outside (no caller ID anymore) but, hadn't heard from them. I hope its not too late.

Jeremy's terms are that the kids are perfect. He will take them out of gymnastics if they aren't the model kids. He wants them to do their chores (Calista's loads and unloads the dishwasher. They both clean up their room and wherever else they made messes). He wants them to listen and follow our directions immediately, without hesitation or procrastination. He wants them (esp. Ursula) to respect me; IE, no yelling or sassiness or backtalk. Of course, I'd love to see this too. However, I don't expect perfection and maybe that's where I'm falling short... and maybe that's why he thinks I don't discipline. I do discipline them. And I am as consistant as I can be. I do believe though, that kids need to be kids and that kids will be kids; they will test you; they will test their boundaries. I know I tested mine as a child. I look back and think of the spankings I received. I think of the way I did sassy my mom. I remember my mom telling me to not look at her that way or to take that look off of my face and me thinking 'what look? how should I be looking at her?'. So, I do put myself in my kids' position. I think of myself and my parents. Things they'd tell me and didn't explain; assuming I knew what they meant.

I'll get back to this later.

Pissed Off

2007-08-02T06:17:00.000-05:00

Man, Jeremy makes me so mad!

He told me that he won't give me the money to get the girls registered in gymnastics!!! WTF??? He says they aren't disciplined. He's such a selfish $%%#$. It'll cost $120 to register them and $120/mth. Its not like he can't afford this. I know he spends more than that on beer and cigerettes alone in a month!!! You know, I don't ask him for anything. Nothing. I hardly ever ask him for money. You know what money I get? I get the change from paying bills & groceries. We pay them in cash, in person. So, I get that. I don't ask for new outfits. I don't ask for new jeans. I don't ask him to pay for my hair cuts & colors (my sister does them for me). I don't ask him for hardly anything. You know where the majority of my clothes come from??? Thrift stores or are given to me.

You can't convince me that he doesn't blow $120 or more on crap during any given month... kwim? How is this not worth it? He's trying to hurt me? Because he thinks I don't/can't discipline the kids. So, he's punishing me???

I'm so frickin' irritated with him.

I yelled at him, "You know how well Calista will excell in this! Just think of the pride you'll feel when you see her perform!!!" I told him to think about it while at work.

Dreams

2007-07-25T12:00:00.000-05:00

I remember a couple of dreams from last night.

One was a beach scene. The beach scene was probably inspired by both of my sisters-in-law. I just saw pictures of Tasha's trip to the Gulf Shores and Jessica has been going to Florida because my brother is working on a job there; and of course, I've been seeing pics from there. Anyways... its like we were living on the beach and we had a neighbor who just moved in this cool looking house with like glass windows on almost the whole front side of it. I look to the ocean and there's this huge wave coming and I'm like, "Oh NO!!!" There's no time to leave the area and the wave hits us all. I pull my kids out of the mound of sand that we were buried in (and I remember how heavy the sand felt on me in that dream! It took all of my adrenaline to get myself and my kids out). I see both of our houses are trashed. I then go about trying to rescue others that may have been buried in the sand. I find 2 little girls and pull them out. I go about seeking more but that's all I remember about that dream.

The other was me being pregnant. IRL, I know I'm not... I've even taken a pregnancy test. I had lost weight and then recently, I've put on a few pounds. I can see it in my shorts... they're fitting snug now. Okay, so in my dream, Aimee (my oldest sister with 5 kids), looks at my belly and shows me something. My belly's skin is translucent and you can see a baby's body... feet, hands, etc! Its crazy looking but at least I know why I've gained weight! Then, towards the end of the dream, I'm trying to figure out how and when I got pregnant... what 'mistakes' happened...

Memory Foam

2007-07-23T10:31:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, Jeremy bought us a Memory Foam mattress pad. Its 4" thick. He said he was tired of us both waking up with a sore back :) Hey, if this helps, woohoo! Of course, we probably need to buy a new mattress set altogether... a bigger one... maybe even a King size! One can dream... hehehe

Last night was okay. My back wasn't so sore... but, to be quite honest... I'm not sure if its due to the Memory Foam pad. For the past couple of days, I've been taking this homeopathic remedy for backaches and I had noticed a difference before sleeping on the new mattress pad. I'm just sick of having a sore back... I've been in chronic back pain since being pregnant for Wyatt! I'm sure exercising will help. I will try to get to doing that regularly once school starts again (Aug. 10th! Already!).

My back is the reason for not wearing Wyatt like I did Ursula (in a backpack carrier). Its also the reason I don't like going to anywhere that I have to stand/walk while carrying him... Its just too hard on me.

I'm hopeful that these homeopathic pills, the Memory Foam, along with exercise will get me back to where I need to be... PAIN FREE!!! I'm too young to be in constant pain! Geez!

While I'm blogging, I'll go ahead and mention that Jeremy also bought me a new broom (woohoo! Last time I told him I needed one, he bought me the frickin' cheapest thing and it sucked!) AND the Swiffer mop thingie :) Yay!

I LOVE home improvements! :D:D:D

OOOOHHHH, another thing... I heard on the local news that by January, Medicaid will be accepting higher levels of income! So, a family of 4 that makes $60,000 will be covered! Wow! So, that means my kids will have medical insurance again! lol We don't use doctors too often, but at least I know that if they do need it, we'll have it covered!

While I'm typing about income... what's crazy is that even with Jeremy making good money, our kids still qualify for reduced lunch! Here I was, thinking that we finally got out of the poverty level... cause quite frankly, it feels like we have! We aren't stressing about the bills anymore. But noooooo... we aren't even in lower middle class, apparently. Crazy, huh? I mean, how much money do you have to make? I mean, I guess I see things differently having been pretty bad off and all. Maybe I appreciate/value things differently then those who have never been so far down.

Oh, this just came into my mind... I am guessing that the income levels are different/higher due to both parents working.

One more thing... in regards to my previous post... my period is so slight, its crazy. I mean, no heavy flow at all and this morning, no blood even in my pad. I guess I'll blog about it again next month and see if its 'normal' again. I mean, I never had a heavy flow but there would be at least 2 days of heaviness and the rest of the days would be light... usually 5-7 days altogether. Yeah, I know everyone wants to read about my period... LOL But really, this blog is for me.

The Return of the Red Tide

2007-07-21T09:33:00.000-05:00

LOL I was just trying to think of a 'clever' way of saying that my period is back. Yep. After 28 mths... it returned early this morning... good thing I had to go pee in the middle of the night! Well, at least now I can know for sure when I'm ovulating and use extra precautions!

So, here's the rundown:

It returned when Calista was 18 mths old.
Returned when Ursula was 15 mths old.
Returned when Wyatt was 19 mths old (he actually just turned 19 mths yesterday).

Soooo... I've gone 79 mths with no period altogether since May 1989. Soooo... I've gone 6.583 yrs without having to worry about my 'flow' :D

Oh the benefits of breastfeeding :)) Of course, 27 of those months were spent pregnant. So, I can only say that 52 mths (4½ yrs) were actual breaks from my menstraul cycle due to breastfeeding & extended breastfeeding.

Wyatt does most of his nursing for napping or sleeping purposes nowadays. If we're home, he'll come nurse for short periods of time and go off and play. He still nurses at least 3 times during the night... probably more.

He is just so cute :) I think he'll be funny... good sense of humor... wanting to make others laugh or at least smile... its just the things he does and the way he does them that are so cute and funny :D

Big Butts

2007-07-13T15:54:00.000-05:00

You know, all of my life, I've been told (esp. by family members) that I have a big butt... well... I have found someone who seems to have a bigger butt! Of course, you have to keep it in perspective. I have no idea what size she is but, I know whenever I am wearing a size 3, or even a size 5, my butt isn't that big! LOL And please, don't think I'm critizing her either! I'm not, by any means! In fact, I feel relieved by her! She seems to relish her bottom! And that's awesome! I just wish I have loved mine back in the day instead of being embarrassed by it and trying to hide it by wearing huge shirts!!! I had such a bad self image back then :((

Anyway, without further ado, here's Kim Kardashian! And again. And yet again.

Home Improvements (Rental, that is)

2007-07-10T10:13:00.001-05:00

The floor in the first bathroom in this house has always been messed up. The vinyl flooring was all cut up and stained. Well, finally, Jeremy decided it was time to fix it. So, I went to the Family Dollar with my sister, Angele, and bought a pack of those stick-on vinyl squares. Calista picked out one that is whitish with a blue diamond. Its pretty. Jeremy put them in this past Sunday and MAN, does it make a difference!!! Brightens that bathroom up. Makes it look cleaner. Also, the tiles match the shower curtain we already had up there. We did it the cheapest way because we rent. If it was our house, we would have put more into it. He also fixed the toilet innards of both bathrooms and the faucet in the first one. He'll be fixing the faucet in his soon. This was all done very recently. In the past, he has put new seals under both toilets and has put in better shower heads in both tubs.

Another home improvement has been the new blinds he bought from Home Depot for the living room. They look so nice! Those ended up being $100 for 2 windows! But, we'll take them with us.

Also... Jeremy bought us a new 30" widescreen flatscreen fatback TV! We like it a lot! What's really cool with it is that it has a digital tuner. NOW, I can finally watch local channels without static!!! woohoo! That's the only reason I wanted to get cable (which we can't get here anyways) or Satellite (only Dish Network and DirecTV are our options). Now, I don't need it (well, didn't need it before but it was just irritating watching TV all fuzzy for the past 6 yrs!

Since I'm posting stuff... next month is Jeremy's court date for his wreck! FINALLY! It'll finally get resolved and hopefully, we'll have a little extra money for it as well! Get to pay off my credit card that was used to buy J's car over 2 yrs ago! Its been 2 frickin' years. Ridiculas. At the time of the accident, J's lawyer said it would be just a matter of a couple of months until it was settled... over 2 yrs later now... J should have done what I told him in the first place... go to Morris Bart or some other lawyer that we constantly see on TV regarding auto accidents. I bet it would have been over with sooner had he done it that way. Anyways, at least now there's an end in sight!

Oh, the other weekend, on the way down to visit my family, I got a front driver-side blow-out on the interstate! Thankfully, some guy on his way home from work stopped and changed it to my spare tout suite! He looked like he worked at the mechanics part of a car dealership.

THEN, this past Sunday, I leave Jeremy with the kids (Wyatt was napping) to go get some Little Ceaser's $5 large pepperoni pizzas and I get a blow-out on the front passenger-side tire!!! Yeah! Believe the luck??? Again, thankfully, someone stopped... actually, two different vehicles stopped to help. The guys helped one another get me on my way and suggested I get that spare tire some air! So, thankfully, I was right there by Wal-Mart Supercenter, which has a Murphy gas station in front. So, I pulled in, put in 75 cents and pumped up my spare to 60 PSI... it was like at 20!!! whew! I got the pizzas and went home. Jeremy is supposed to be getting me a new tire today.

Each time before the tires blew, my car was driving weird. I thought I needed an allignment. But noooooo... that wasn't the problem. Even with the spare tire on, my car drove almost perfectly!

I hate worrying about reaching my destinations while driving alone or with just my kids!

June 2007 Update

2007-06-26T10:01:00.001-05:00

Hmm... this month, I did a lot of driving... lol Mostly to the Houma/Thibodaux/Raceland area.

Roman (my nephew) had his 10th bday. My bil, Shane, also had a bday. For Roman, we celebrated by bringing all 15 grandchildren (my blood-related nieces and nephews) to JumpingKids. They... well, we all had such a good time!

Racquelle, my niece, was in a play... so, I went down to see her acting & singing. She was in The Jungle Book. It was held in the Jean Lafitte museum in Thibodaux. All of the kids in it did really well.

Jeremy had a scare. He called me while I was visiting (he came for one of the weekends I was down there but had to work the other weekends) and told me that he had thrown up blood! He was at his brother's house... so, he stayed there and left in the morning. I also left in the morning to come back home. He didn't go see any doctor... just looked up info online and in some of my health-type books. He seems to think it could be an ulcer. Funny thing, though, he hasn't had heartburn (which he did prior to the blood vomit) since that incident and he's been feeling fine. So, really, we don't know what happened. We do think that he must have irritated his stomach lining due to taking OTC non-steriodal anti-inflamatory meds (like motrin) for his knee that he hurt playing softball... since that's a side effect.

One really good thing is that Jeremy received a raise!!! woohoo!!! Yep! After being at his job for about a year, they finally gave him a raise! A $2/hr raise!

Wyatt turned 18 mths old this month :D He's such a cutie :) He still looks like a little man... hehe His personality is really starting to show... he's a little character. He already pretends play... like... he uses anything (even the kittens!), points it, and 'shoots'! Going 'pow pow' with it!!! Where'd he get it from? I've NO idea! Even Jeremy's video games aren't shooting games. We don't have play guns for them to play with either. Oh, and he just has to take his diaper off all the time. Recent pics of him are in his blog.

Ursula may be in Pre-K this year... that's gonna be crazy. Both of my girls will be gone during the day this school year... just me and Wyatt.

Oh, I also decided to go back to being a brunette. I like me blonde, but it was just that I'd have 2 inches of roots before getting them redone due to the fact that I live 2 hrs away from Cherie, my sister, who's a beautician. Believe me, if we lived closer, I'd keep my hair lighter! I just didn't like those roots! lol

Calista took the picture to the right. She also put the pearl necklace on me along with lipstick... she gave me a 'make-over'... LOL Excuse the black around my eyes... that's leftover mascara from the day before... I didn't wash it off good... LOL So, basically, that's me make-up-less and tired from driving...

And yep, there's Wyatt sleeping on my lap... after nursing, of course :)

Freebirthers dismiss fear and bring babies home

2007-05-24T11:39:00.000-05:00

http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSL2148514320070522

LONDON (Reuters) - They insist they're no superwomen, they have no special powers, and are certainly not pain or adrenaline junkies.

But 'freebirthers' choose to go through what some call the most painful and potentially frightening experience of a woman's life with no drugs, no midwife and no medical help.

Delivering their own babies at home, often alone, they dismiss what they say is "fearmongering" by doctors and midwives and confidently catch their offspring as they leave the womb.

"Birthing uses the same hormones as lovemaking -- so why would you want anyone poking and prodding you, observing you and putting you under a spotlight?," said Veronika Robinson, an Australian based in Britain who sees growing interest in freebirth among readers of international magazine, "The Mother".

To read the rest of the article, click on the link at the top!

My Kittens

2007-05-04T18:52:00.000-05:00

Here's Momma Cat's latest batch of kittens. Six in all; 4 girls & 2 boys. This first pic to the left is right after she brought them home... she had them elsewhere... so, I set up a box outside and she brought them to us... they were about a week old there.

The rest of these pictures were taken within the last week. The kittens are so cute :) They have really cute faces and are very playful. Some are more friendlier than others. Some purr if you pet them :D

They're like 6 weeks old I think... :D hehe

This is one of the boy kits in these two pictures. He's a sweetie.

Thinking back, I really believe it was always seeing momma cats and their kittens nursing that made me see breastfeeding as 'normal'. We always had a plethora of cats and kittens growing up... because we lived on 10 acres of land and people would drop their animals off at our place... LOL We just fed them and took care of them while they were at our house.

This last pic of the kitty sleeping cracks me up... she was cleaning herself and fell asleep :D hehe

My Present

2007-05-02T08:58:00.000-05:00

For my birthday, Jeremy came home with a photo printer! I love it! Since these past couple weeks have been financially lacking, I have to wait to buy photo paper. It did come with a few sample photo pages that I used. Let's just say that I can't wait to start printing!!! I'm way behind!!! hehe

Jeremy worked all 7 days last week, so this Friday, we should have a good paycheck! woohoo! Also, since we HAD to pay those other bills with the meager funds we had, these next paychecks will almost be free! Of course, rent is due on the 15th... I plan on getting photo paper, groceries, and The Sims 2 Seasons :D heh heh heh I can still wait if need be... but, I don't see why... Jeremy has 15 hrs of overtime on this check! Doncha just love overtime??? :D

I can't wait to get a new PC though... ours is okay... but it does crash often while I'm playing The Sims 2... even with a good graphics card.

What's cool, too, is that Jeremy doesn't get all irate when I talk about us buying our own house (or building it, for that matter). Maybe that means he's thinking about it too. Really now, we've been paying monthly rent for 6 yrs now...

I just hope Jeremy's work keeps having work!

About me... my lower back is still hurting... all day long... I'm taking calcium with magnesium, shark cartilage, and MSM daily (mostly). I'm noticing some difference... but... man... sucks. I don't like being in constant pain.

Its My Birthday Again...

2007-04-27T15:44:00.000-05:00

Yay.

Its just another day... nothing planned. Nothing is ever planned. I don't expect anything either. Never celebrated my birthday growing up... not much has changed in that regard. Plus, we don't have much extra money to spend anyways... Jeremy's company has been slow since February... sucks. He has a baseball game tonight (every Friday night), so I know we're be there. And its not like I can drop Wyatt off at someone's house while we go out... the girls, yes. But, not yet for Wyatt. Not even if I nurse him to sleep first... he always seems to wake up an hour after I put him down and nurses again. So, yeah, no high expections on the birthday front. I think Jeremy will come home with something... maybe flowers. Probably food (we usually get take-out on Fridays). Maybe even the newest Sims 2 expansion pack (Seasons). But, who knows. If not, oh well. It'll be around later for me to buy when we have the extra money. Today is supposed to be when you feel your most powerful... I don't feel anything... maybe even numb (probably shows, huh).

Well, here's something positive... Jeremy and I haven't been arguing as much as we used to. I think it has everything to do with us now having cell phones. He calls me at least once a day while he's at work... sometimes 3 times a day. We talk more now that we have those phones. Crazy, huh? Never suspected that to be a bonus; definitely NOT complaining... happy that we are a better couple.

Happy Birthday to me.

Bosom buddies

2007-04-24T15:03:00.000-05:00

I'm posting the entire article because I liked it :D

Bosom buddies

We're told that breastfeeding is the most natural thing in the world - but for children of two, three or four? Viv Groskop meets the mums who swear by late feeding (but not on the bus)

Saturday April 30, 2005
The Guardian

With blond pigtails flying, Peri runs in from the garden where she has been making mud pies in towelling pants. She would like a drink of milk, please, or nun-noo, as she calls it. She hops into her mum's lap, curls up her long legs and pulls up her mum's cardigan. Moving from left breast to right, she pulls and pokes, kicking her feet against the chair until she is comfortable, holding a breast with two hands. Sucking loudly and talking as she sucks, she eventually falls asleep, snoring. Her mother smiles contentedly and continues the conversation as if nothing had happened. Standing, Peri comes up to her waist. She will be three in August.

Peri's mother, Helen Butland, 36, from Wolvey, near Coventry, sees breastfeeding not just as a means of boosting a child's immune system, but also as a mothering tool. It's for feeding morning, evening and in-between times, if Peri asks for it, but it's also a glorified cuddle, for when she has a knock or scrape. Helen fed both her other daughters - Erika, now eight, and Frances, now five - up to the age of four, including during two pregnancies and periods after both births when she "tandem-fed" baby and toddler. There was a time when her middle daughter, Frances, then three, stopped feeding after baby Peri arrived, but then she started again: "She came over when I was feeding the baby and said, 'I used to have that - can I still have some?' So I said, of course you can. And after about half an hour of sucking, she was actually getting some again."

Helen is a full-time mother and nonexecutive director of the family business(husband Ian, 32, is an engineer), to which she will return once the children are all at school. Once a radical feminist, she is now deadly serious about the business of being maternal. Indeed, the expression "matronly bosom" could have been created for her. She has been lactating for eight years - "but I know other women who have been for much longer". Peri, she says, can feed as long as she likes - certainly up to her fourth birthday, just as her sisters did. Helen believes that babies should be allowed to be babies for as long as possible. She is only, she says, following the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Unicef guidelines, which state that breastfeeding should continue to two years minimum: "I do it in the knowledge of the long-term health benefits - protection against diabetes, heart disease, cancer." There is a benefit for her, too, she adds: breastfeeding mothers are less at risk from breast cancer.

She realises her choice is unusual - "I remember feeling shocked myself the first time I saw a woman feeding a child in outdoor shoes," she admits - but over time she decided it suited her and her children. She chooses not to mix with parents who don't subscribe to the same views: "Early on, I did seek out mother and toddler groups, but I found the disapproval from them quite a knock to me - not about breastfeeding per se, but about the way I do everything - sleeping with my babies, holding them all the time. Other mothers had rules about separation, cots and so on." Cots, she says, are cages.

Her view is that, after a certain age, babies will find their own way off the breast. Her philosophy after the age of two is "don't offer, don't refuse". Gradually, when the child is ready, they stop asking. She believes it has made her daughters more independent, because they have well and truly had their fill of being babies by the time they stop feeding. "When they're three or four, it's still so much part of their emotional needs. Ideally, the nursing relationship will continue until the baby outgrows the need. In their early years, a baby has a powerful need to be with their mother - it is only by fulfilling that need that it will ever go away. The risks of depriving them of that are evident in society today — alienation, diminished capacity for truly loving others. And it serves the marketplace that we grow up unhappy."

In a country where we have one of the lowest breastfeeding rates in the developed world, Helen's experience is rare. She is one of a largely invisible group of mothers who practise "extended breastfeeding" - defined as feeding a child after the age of 12 months. In the US, these mothers belong to associations such as the Militant Breastfeeding Cult and IncitefulMamas. They breastfeed exclusively to six months, continue breastfeeding beyond a year and hate dummies, cots and prams (breast, sling and mummy and daddy's bed are best). American militant breastfeeders refer to themselves as "global lactivists", and if their spouse is supportive (which he would have to be) he is described as a "lactivist husband".

In the UK, extended breastfeeders are less aggressive and don't form a cohesive group, but you only have to peek into the internet forums for breastfeeding support organisations to see that these women exist in their thousands. Breastfeeding statistics count only babies who are fed up to the age of nine months - when 13% of babies are still breastfed, according to the most recent Infant Feeding Survey - so beyond that age there is no record of how many women are continuing to feed their children. (This figure would mean there were around 70,000 babies still being breastfed at nine months — and 530,000 on formula.)

Certainly the stereotype of the baby-addicted, neurotic breastfeeder puts some women off continuing. As one mother of two toddlers puts it, "It's going to bite, it's going to talk, it's going to walk - no way." However, Rebecca Kennedy, 38, from Kingston, Surrey, couldn't be further from what she calls the "hairy-armpits, grow-your-own-lentils" image of extended breastfeeding. With a supermodel figure, immaculately coiffed and looking about 10 years younger than she is, she is a walking advert for long-term "nummies" - as her boys called it once they could ask for it. Mother of Archie, 10, Hector, seven, Rollo, four, and Sorrel, 15 months, she fed all her boys to the age of three (including the first two simultaneously) and intends to feed Sorrel for as long as she likes. A former tax consultant in the City (her husband works in banking), Rebecca gave up her career when her first child was born and threw herself into full-time motherhood. She yanks up her Juicy Couture tracksuit top to feed Sorrel (who can talk, walk and has teeth, as well as long, bobbed hair held back with a pink glitter clip), and looks pretty close to "the most natural thing in the world" - the smiley catchphrase of every extended breastfeeder.

The myths about droopy breasts, biting and never ovulating again are nonsense, says Rebecca. Your breasts are affected not by breastfeeding but by your experience of pregnancy. You don't feel the child's teeth. In terms of affecting fertility, it depends on the woman - some ovulate at five months if they're still feeding, others not until 15 months. Despite Rebecca's evangelism, though, she is discreet. "Most people don't know how long I fed my children because I don't go around advertising the fact. If they do know, they are very surprised about it." She has always avoided feeding her children in public after the age of two ("I would just distract them or say mummy's not wearing the right T-shirt") because of adverse reactions.

She admits that lactating for 10 years with only a few months' break during her pregnancies has been tough: "Breastfeeding is a bit like eating Mars bars - the first one is delicious, but then the more you have, you start to feel sick. I have mixed views about it finishing."

You don't have to eat more, as you do with a tiny baby, to maintain your milk supply, but ultimately it is tiring, especially around pregnancy. So why does she continue?

"There is always a nutritional benefit to breastfeeding," says Rebecca. "The real advantage is if they get a tummy bug or something, they can still feed." Aren't they overly dependent on her? "I think that, by allowing your child to be with you, you allow them to leave you when they're ready. We never had the terrible twos - if they were hungry or frustrated, they could feed."

There is no medical reason why a mother shouldn't feed her child as long as she - and the child - wants. Dr Miriam Stoppard, author of The Family Health Guide (Dorling Kindersley), says the health benefits to a baby continue no matter how long they are breastfed. "Breastmilk contains a hormone that helps the digestive system," says Stoppard. "In breastfed babies, the system is then mature enough to take mixed feeding [with solids] and robust enough to resist allergies. Breastmilk also contains some great mood-enhancing chemicals - opioids, which make the baby contented and sleep well. And breastfed babies definitely cry less."

Psychologist Dr Ros Bramwell of the University of Liverpool argues that it is only our societal attitudes that militate against later breastfeeding. "The breast is very sexualised and people's attitudes to seeing an exposed breast are very negative - even in private," she says. "The issue of 'who are my breasts for?' can cause a lot of conflict in women. Emphasising the benefits of breastfeeding is great, but it doesn't address the difficulty of this problem. I think with extended breastfeeding, it gets worse - there is a huge conflict between the sexuality of the breast and using it to feed. The unusualness is what makes it shocking." This is also connected to our perception of children and how quickly they should grow up, she adds. "Breastfeeding is seen as something that is only for babies - we see it as a babyish thing to do."

Lisa Cavadias, 30, a pensions administrator from Flitwick, Bedfordshire, says that, on the contrary, her breastfed daughter, Marie, two, is more advanced as a result. Marie learned the baby sign for breastfeeding (hand squeezing the fingers, as if milking a cow) at the age of one and now speaks in seven-word sentences, including: "Please can I have some mummy milk?" (When asked why she likes mummy milk, she replies, "Because it tastes nice.") A sunny, salt-of-the-earth type, Lisa is more like the traditional 1970s breastfeeder: long hair, flowing, flowery dress with breastfeeding flaps, literally barefoot and pregnant. She obviously enjoys her relationship with her daughter - who is unusually bright and lively, stomping through the house in yellow Tweenies wellies - but it has not always been easy. "Once they get past a year," says Lisa, "they feed in all sorts of different positions. And she is a nipple-twiddler, which can be very painful. Sometimes I just want to say, 'I'm not just a breast, there is actually a mummy in here, too.'"

Lisa has had to contend with disapproval and hassle (she expressed at work in the early days, so her daughter could still drink breastmilk during the day). "I try to put her off feeding in public, because you get looks and comments once they start to walk. There have been comments I was meant to overhear: 'That's disgusting'; 'She shouldn't be doing that in here.'" Despite being eight months pregnant, she has continued to feed because her daughter enjoys it. "We hope it will help with jealousy issues," says Lisa. "She'll know that she is still my baby, too." Gaby Jeffs, 38, a video director from Herne Hill, south-east London, also faced opposition to her breastfeeding. Her son, now four, was fed to 13 months. Sitting at the kitchen table on her mum's lap, daughter Elizabeth, three, is still delving around in her mother's shirt looking for "boo-boo", although she gave up feeding a few months ago. Despite this, she is no more clingy than any other three-year-old, and within seconds is distracted, running off to fetch her own baby doll - whom her mother allows her to feed with a bottle, with reservations. ("That is quite extreme of me, isn't it?" says Gaby. "But you can't exactly let a child breastfeed a doll, so I had to give in.") "There were times when my parents were saying, 'This has gone on long enough.'" I got pleurisy and had serious antibiotics when Elizabeth was about 12 months, and you can imagine what everyone said: 'Oh, yes, now is the time to stop.' Also, Elizabeth has had problems with the enamel on her teeth - a gestational problem, it turns out - and the consultant at hospital said, 'Hmm, that's breastmilk for you.' In public, even now if I am carrying Elizabeth, she will put her hand down my top and I get raised eyebrows." As another glamorous militant breastfeeder (she and her mini-me daughter have huge, brown eyes and Louise Brooks bobs), she, too, hopes late feeding is losing its links with the "brown rice brigade".

Anecdotally, at least, there is a suggestion that their numbers could be on the increase. UK-based international lactation consultant Pamela Morrison "strongly suspects" there are a lot of secret late breastfeeders around. Late breastfeeding is like co-sleeping (having your child in your bed), she says - no one likes to admit that they do it. "There is extremely strong cultural pressure to wean an older baby and the pressure becomes more and more intense the older the child, more or less forcing mothers to 'closet-nurse'."

Valerie Goedkoop, 37, was one of these women. A doula and breastfeeding counsellor from Tunbridge Wells in Kent, who until recently ran Breast Friends, a support group, Valerie fed her first baby to eight months and the second to 19 months. "At the time, when I went past a year, I didn't tell anybody. I couldn't be bothered having the criticism. When someone makes a comment, it's often a negative one - which comes from ignorance or guilt. I think there are lots of secret breastfeeders out there. I think people do it in the evenings and don't tell anybody."

Numbers are also likely to be increasing because of birth trends. Nowadays better-educated, middle-class women are giving birth later in life - all factors linked to the uptake and continuation of breastfeeding. Morrison explains: "The baby with the greatest chance of being breastfed to a year appears to have a mother older than 30, who was educated past the age of 18 and lives in south-east England."

Abigail Thompson, 18, from Bolton, Lancashire, mother of Jake, 22 months, and Arabella, seven months, is a rare exception to these statistics. A full-time mum, her partner, Colin Doyle, 22, is the manager of a skip company. She left college at 16 to have her first baby and found out about breastfeeding by surfing the net. "I have never met a mum of my age breastfeeding. The information and support available to young mums is terrible. I had the frequent advice of 'give him a bottle of formula'."

Abigail was recently breastfeeding her daughter outside a cafe in the local precinct and was asked to "go and do that somewhere else". She regrets giving in to "the aggressive advertising of follow-on milk" with her son, and was determined not to let anyone stop her breastfeeding her daughter, whom she is now happy to feed up to the age of four. Everything she knows about breastfeeding comes from the internet — the only other breastfeeding mothers she knows are in cyberspace. She now expresses 5oz every two days for her son ("so at least he'll still get some benefits"), as she notices a direct comparison between her two children - Jake got colds as soon as he went on to formula; Arabella, who has been fed exclusively on breast milk, has never been ill.

Of course, the well-publicised crisis in the breastfeeding world is the small number of women who stick with breastfeeding in the first place, let alone to a year or beyond. In the first week, 69% of babies are breastfed. By the end of two weeks, that figure drops to 52%. After six weeks, it's 42%. At six months — the age at which all babies should, according to government guidelines, remain on breastmilk exclusively — only 21% are still at it. Despite the semi-closeted militant mothers, there is a huge stigma attached to feeding a baby beyond this age. The fact that we are shocked by anyone other than the tiniest of babies suckling a woman's breasts cannot help. The "bitty" sketches in the BBC2 comedy Little Britain, in which actor Geraldine James is seen feeding a fully grown David Walliams and squirting milk everywhere, represent a fear that persists - that breastfeeding is weird, freaky and embarrassing.

It is perhaps because of our bitty-phobic attitude that we lag behind every European country with the exception of Ireland and France. In Norway, for example, according to Rachel Myr, a lactation consultant and midwife at a hospital in Kristiansand, breastfeeding initiation rates are at 95% (compared with the UK's 69%), with 40% of babies still breastfed (along with solids) at one year. In the UK, the rate is less than 13%, and the figures don't even go up to a year. Myr says, "I have worked on a maternity ward for 16 years, and I can't recall ever having met a Norwegian woman who would willingly admit to not having a desire to breastfeed. We never ask them whether they 'want' to breastfeed. It is assumed they do. It would almost be like asking, 'And will you be doing your own perspiring, or have you decided to go with commercial sweat?'"

Longer breastfeeding is the average in developing countries (where five is a normal weaning age) and in certain US outposts. There is extreme and there is extreme. One US survey by breastfeeding guru Kathy Dettwyler suggested that the minimum age for stopping breastfeeding should be two and a half years, and the maximum seven years. Dettwyler's 2004 survey of 1,280 American children who had been breastfed beyond the age of three found that more than 200 children breastfed over the age of five (a few dozen fed to age eight or nine). In 2002, one Illinois mother was investigated by child welfare officials after she was filmed breastfeeding her eight-year-old son on the TV show Good Morning America. (Madonna declared at the time, "That's incest".) For even Britain's most militant breastfeeders, this is beyond the pale: most take the view that a child will self-wean by the age of four.

Morrison argues that our distaste for older breastfeeding is not a given - it's purely cultural and has existed only over the past 50 years: "In a society like we have in the UK, where most babies are breastfed for only a matter of days, weeks or months, we describe breastfeeding beyond one year as 'extended'. On the other hand, if we are thinking in global terms, where most young children continue to breastfeed for two or three years, we would describe most children weaning before that time as 'premature'."

Cultural resistance is slow to break down, however. Vicky Johns, 34, runs a Bosom Buddy network in Blandford Forum, Dorset. She fed her first child to 18 months, her second to the age of three. "Even at breastfeeding support groups, women don't tend to breastfeed the older ones. I was quite embarrassed about extended breastfeeding. It is something that is done in private. It's such a shame." She used to think that, with the breastfeeding awareness initiatives, attitudes were changing, but now she's not sure. "Now that my son has started school - he's four - and I'm back in the real world [with non-breastfeeding mothers], I don't think there has been a change at all. More people have started with breastfeeding, but they're not continuing beyond a few weeks."

The biggest obstacle to making longer-term breastfeeding seem at all normal is that living as these women do is not an option for many mothers. If you want your baby to be exclusively breastfed and you work, you need to spend time expressing milk in your workplace. By choosing to breastfeed your child - especially exclusively, if you want the child to have no other milk until after the age of one - you are effectively choosing to become a stay-at-home mother.

While women are bombarded with messages of the importance of continuing breastfeeding, the support system available to them is shaky: organisations such as the National Childbirth Trust (NCT), La Leche League and the Association of Breastfeeding Mothers are staffed largely by volunteers. The danger of bottle-bashing is a big problem: all the extended breastfeeders are keen to stress that what they do is their choice, and is not for everyone. Gaby Jeffs believes that if breastfeeding for any length of time was considered more normal, there could be an open discussion about the problems with formula versus breastfeeding: "We should be telling people not that breast is best, but that breast is the norm. And the bottle has risks. There is not much information about that tells you the truth - that with formula your baby will be more ill, will see the doctor more often, will have more chance of heart disease and childhood diabetes."

Meanwhile, back in Coventry, after half an hour three-year-old Peri slips off her mother's breast into a deep sleep. Helen Butland laughs when she thinks about her own previous attitudes to parenting. "I used to think full-time mothers were letting down the sisterhood." She herself never intended to breastfeed past three months, and here she is eight lactating years later. "I don't see what I'm doing as altruistic - I just want my children to be happy adults and to fulfil themselves in whatever way they want, and to be independent from me. I think that introducing premature separation is not going to guarantee those things the way this form of mothering does. I would like society to breastfeed like this because I believe it would be a better place — people would be emotionally fulfilled."

· For further information on breastfeeding, contact NCT's
Breastfeeding Helpline, 0870 444 8707; La Leche League, 0845 120 2918;
Association of Breastfeeding Mothers, 0870 401 7711.

Finally!

2007-04-23T07:41:00.000-05:00

After going without my computer for pretty much a whole week (arrgghhh!!! - nah, it wasn't that bad... I used that time to read), I finally got it up and running. Ended up having to format it... but, the problem was when I began that process, it wouldn't complete it... the stupid ole blue screen would come up! I was afraid we'd have to bring it in to get serviced once again. And then, I started thinking... if we take out the graphic (Nvidia) and sound (Soundblaster) cards and THEN format it, would that work? And I'm happy to say, it did :D woohoo! I just had to add them in later. So yay for me... for thinking :D

I get to play The Sims 2 again as well :D I was missing them... lol

So, what was I reading while not on my PC? I FINALLY read Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince! I know, I'm behind on that... but, hey, better late then never... plus, I still read it before the movie came out! Shucks, I'm way ahead in those terms! :D Anyways, I LOVED it :D Of course, I love all of the books in the Harry Potter series and hate that there's only one book left!!! boo! But, I know, all things come to an end... at some time, right? (hmm.... The Simpsons haven't yet; which is cool, since I've been a fan since the Tracy Ullman show).

Ursula learned to ride her tiny 2-wheeler last week!!! We're all so excited! See, that means the girls can ride their bikes together and it also means that I can easily get a bike myself with a child seat and we can go riding down the road :D I'll love that as will the girls :)

Jeremy's 2nd softball game was last Friday. His team won their first game but lost their 2nd. And Jeremy hurt his right leg sliding into 2nd base :( So, he's limping around. Here he is at bat... before hurting himself :( I hope it heals up quickly!

I like that he's into some sport now... he really needed it. He was always an athletic person and I know he must love getting to play. His team consists of his co-workers.

Another good thing about him playing is that the kids get to play in the playground area with other kids. So, its been working out for all of us, really :D

And OMG... my 34th bday is coming up... man... Am I really THAT old??? Geez... Ancient, huh? I remember thinking how old people were when they were this age... lol Oh well, can't exactly stop the process. I'd like to think I'm aging well... but, I can see my face getting looser... losing that elasticity... getting fine lines. Sucks. I finally understand why people say that 'youth is wasted on the young' or something to that respect. What sucks more than my face aging is the aches and pains I have. I am not saying that they are directly linked to me getting older as much as old injuries showing up or vaccine damage (in my stupidity, I submitted to getting a tetnus shot as well as a rubella shot when I was 25, after giving birth to Calista)... or me not getting enough calcium. My lower back is almost constantly hurting. I need some chiropractic care. About a month ago, I started taking some calcium supplements along with a multi-vitamin and some other stuff. My bil, Hal, suggested shark cartlage and since I already have it in my cabinet, I'm taking that as well.

Lately, I've been looking at homes. Manufactored homes, Eagle's Nest homes, homes that are up for sale in the area we live in... I'm ready to move. Ready to have a house that is ours. Ready to live in a house with more room/space, storage. I want something with no less than 2000 sq. feet. Would be nice to have 4 bedrooms... 2 bathrooms would be okay. Ideally, each of us would have our own bedroom with walk-in closets. We'd have a toy room. An office. A utility room (washer & dryer area). That's all I want in addition to a nice-sized living room and functional kitchen. I guess we'd really have to just figure out WHERE we'd want to move to. I have land in Raceland but hurricanes hit pretty hard... do we want to even stay in south Louisiana? Maybe move a little more up north? Another state, even? Thankfully, Jeremy's a skilled laborer (pipe fitter/welder) now so, he can find work anywhere, easily. I'm just sick of living in this old ass house that's not old enough to be made well... kwim? It was made cheaply in the 80's.

I want a nice house.

Whew!

2007-03-26T12:00:00.000-05:00

Okay, I just returned from the store, took another HPT and its NEGATIVE!!! woohoo! Man... while I was in the store, or actually, while driving there, I would tear up. You know, I love babies and me being pregnant wouldn't be the end of neither my nor Jeremy's world... the kids would LOVE for me to have another. And if I had been, well, then so be it. My major concern was actually for Wyatt. Had I been pregnant right now, I would feel I didn't give him enough baby time, ya know? And what if my milk would have dried up like it did during my pregnancy for Wyatt? I don't want him to wean before he needs to, ya know? I already feel badly for Ursula... she nursed throughout my pregnancy and all but since my milk dried up, she probably stopped getting milk around the time she was 2½... and I know most probably think I'm crazy but I really feel her health isn't as good as it could be... esp. when compared to Calista, who nursed for 4 yrs. Calista's barely ever sick and has never had an ear infection.

Anyhoo... that's my good news for today :D lol

A Little Freaked...

2007-03-26T09:11:00.000-05:00

Why, you may ask... well... I took a pregnancy test last night and didn't wait for 3 minutes before returning to bed... it looked negative. This morning... the test looks funny... the positive part isn't a straight line... squiggly-looking. I believe I've read that you can't trust the home pregnancy tests after so many hours. So, I'm buying another one today... in a couple of hours I'll have the results.

Why would I be freaked? Hmm... because we've been practicing abstinance for the most part!!! LOL Seriously... and if we do 'do it'... Jeremy uses a condom. He always checks it afterwards.

Why would I take the test in the first place? Or, what would make me think I needed to take a HPS?

#1. Nausea.
#2. Lower back pain
#3. Frequent urination
#4. Fatigue
#5. Wyatt's been bending over, looking between his legs... old wive's tale... that's he looking for his next brother/sister... (and for the record, each of my kids did this while I was pregnant).

Along with that... I've been getting headaches. I hardly ever get headaches. That's not a typical pregnancy sign for me though... the above 4 are though. If I'm pregnant, than at least I know what's 'wrong' with me. If I'm not... WTF?

If I am... this was a bigtime 'Oopsie'.

First off, I was happy with having just 3 kids.
Secondly, I haven't even started my period back.
Thirdly, I didn't want to have a baby this close in age even we had decided to get pregnant again... Wyatt won't even be 2 yrs older than this one... if I am.
Fourthly, Do I even have enough patience for a fourth child??? OMG
Fifthly, Our house will soon get way too small. We live in a 1188 qf house; 3 beds/2 baths.
Sixly, I'll want to trade in my car for a mini van.
Sevenly (lol... don'tcha love my 'ly's? lol), I CAN'T BE! NOT YET, ANYWAYS!

To be quite honest... I actually suspected I'd have four kids. My sister, Aimee, says that she knows when she's not done having kids (she has 5) when she senses a child is missing and all are accounted for. I've been having that same feeling lately... like, I see all 3 of my kids in front of me, yet, it seems like one is missing.

If I am pregnant right now... This baby REALLY wanted to come through me and Jeremy NOW.
If I'm pregnant now, according to the chinese conception chart, if I conceived in Jan, I'll have a girl... if in Feb. or March, a boy.

Vaccines again linked to form of autism

2007-03-14T06:42:00.000-05:00

http://www.news-medical.net/?id=22490

Medical Studies/Trials
Published: Thursday, 8-Mar-2007

New findings presented yesterday at a National Autism Association meeting bolster claims that vaccines may play a role in the development of autism spectrum disorders.

David Ayoub, MD presented data suggesting a correlation between mercury- containing vaccines and rates of pervasive developmental disorder (PDD), a form of autism, in Montreal.

The peak rate of one in 87 children diagnosed with PDD occurred following the period of greatest exposure to the mercury- based vaccine preservative thimerosal. A flattening of the rates studied is now emerging as mercury-containing vaccines have been gradually eliminated from the routine schedule.

This new data points out flaws in a 2006 study published in the journal Pediatrics by Eric Fombonne, MD, et al, which found PDD rates continued to increase even when rates of MMR vaccination and use of mercury-containing vaccines decreased. The study population consisted of a single Montreal school board that was an Autism Center of Excellence, suggesting an over- ascertainment of regional diagnoses. Dr. Ayoub and co-authors Monica Ruscitti, BA, and F. Edward Yazbak, MD broadened the data to include all five Montreal school boards.

The earlier study also reported PDD rates in children from Montreal, but MMR coverage data was taken from Quebec City located 265km from Montreal. The researchers confirmed MMR coverage rates actually increased in Montreal along with PDD, noting a sharper rise in rates after the number of required MMR shots doubled.

The Pediatrics paper claimed there was no exposure to mercury from vaccines post-1996 although several mercury-containing vaccines were administered well beyond 1996. "It's irresponsible that such flawed data was published in a medical journal. This new information confirms a relationship between vaccines and autism that can't be explained by better diagnosing or changing diagnostic criteria," said Karen McDonough, NAA -- Chicago president.

Drs. Ayoub and Yazbak detailed the Fombonne study flaws in letters to Pediatrics which the journal declined to publish. Editor Jerold F. Lucey, MD stated in a reply, "I believe the evidence of no link between MMR and Autism is sufficient. It's not worth publishing more on this subject."

"This dismissal of legitimate concerns regarding data affecting those suffering with autism is a disgrace," commented Ms. McDonough.

http://www.nationalautism.org/

How to Know Whether or Not You're Ready for Motherhood...

2007-03-01T08:12:00.000-06:00

I found this on another blog (I know I've seen it a few times before but I guess it just hits home now... LOL) and felt I needed to repost it on my own blog :D

Mess Test:

Smear peanut butter on the sofa and curtains. Place a fish stick behind the couch and leave it there all summer.

Toy Test:

Obtain a 55 gallon drum of LEGOs (if LEGOs are not available, you may (substitute roofing tacks). Have a friend spread them all over the house. Put on a blindfold. Try to walk to the bathroom or kitchen. Do not scream (this could wake a child at night).

Grocery Store Test:

Borrow one or two small animals (goats are best) and take them with you as you shop at the grocery store. Always keep them in sight and pay for anything they eat or damage.

Dressing Test:

Obtain one large, unhappy, live octopus (they turn bright red when they are unhappy). Stuff into a small net bag making sure that all arms stay inside.

Feeding Test:

Obtain a large plastic milk jug. Fill halfway with water. Suspend from the ceiling with a stout cord. Start the jug swinging. Try to insert spoonfuls of soggy cereal (such as Fruit Loops or Cheerios) into the mouth of the jug, while pretending to be an airplane. Now dump the contents of the jug on the floor.

Night Test

Prepare by obtaining a small cloth bag and fill it with 8-12 pounds of sand. Soak it thoroughly in water. At 8:00 p.m. begin to waltz and hum with the bag until 9:00 p.m. Lay down your bag and set your alarm for 10:00 p.m. Get up, pick up your bag, and sing every song you have ever heard. Make up about a dozen more and sing these too until 4:00 a.m. Set alarm for 5:00 a.m. Get up and make breakfast. Keep this up for five years. Look cheerful.

Physical Test

Obtain a large beanbag chair and attach it to the front of your clothes. Leave it there for 9 months. Now remove ten of the beans.

Final Assignment

Find a couple who already have a small child. Lecture them on how they can improve their discipline, patience, tolerance, toilet training and child's table manners. Suggest many ways they can improve. Emphasize to them that they should never allow their children to run wild. Enjoy this experience. It will be the last time you will have all the answers.