I am the Pioneering Woman

Yesterday marked my weekly trip into town, which is always an all-day adventure. As my friends so aptly describe me, I'm a pioneering woman now. For those of you who don't follow this little blog religiously, you probably don't know that we just moved to the middle of nowhere. To be exact, we live 60 miles from the nearest Wal-Mart, the nearest Target, the nearest Dollar Store and the nearest bowling alley, all of which are things that are very important to my little life.

Growing up in the middle of nowhere, I grew accumstomed to having to plan out purchases like toilet paper and milk to coincide with a trip into town. And let me tell ya, a trip into town on the weekends was like a trip to Disney World. I always felt like the universe had made a cosmic mistake by planting me on a farm in the middle of nowhere in North Dakota, and crusing around town on those days just felt like the universe was getting one step closer to righting its wrong.

As soon as I could, I left for college in Minneapolis (which by the way, turned out to be even colder than North Dakota, what in the world is up with that?), and it seemed as if the universe was once again at peace since I had been rightfully returned to where I must have been kidnapped from at birth. Miles and miles and miles of compacted civilization just made me want to sing, "The Hills Are Alive...." Well maybe not really, but I felt like singing something.

Once I realized that I was not spending another 40 degrees below zero winter with the eskimo people, we moved to Memphis. But to avoiding getting shot on the street, we ultimately decided on a quiet little suburb on the other side of the state line, in Mississippi. Living in the Burbs wasn't exactly like my full fledged city life, but I nonetheless never had to worry about a toilet paper crisis, which is the worst of its kind from what I understand. Toilet paper was a just a two minute jaunt down the road.

When the universe decided I must be brought back to the frozen tundra to fulfill some kind of life mission I'm stll in the dark about, we were brought to, you guessed it, a town even further away from civilization than I had experienced growing up. For quite awhile after we moved back here, I couldn't even see to drive at night, you don't find a whole lot of street lights on the pasture ridden roads I drive on. We need to start equipping all the cows with some kind of lighted headgear so atleast the sides of the road are illuminated around here.

So I'm living the Little House on the Praire life where the good wifey says her goodbyes to Pa and the boys and takes the girls into town for all the needed supplies before winter rolls around.

I am gradually weening myself of my "going to town" addiction. Truthfully, I may need some kind of support group, but now that gas is only, what, $2.50 a gallon, doesn't that mean I have plenty of money to drive my big SUV into town atleast once a week?

I don't know, maybe I'd feel better about giving up my weekly trips to town if I somehow managed to figure out how to make my own toilet paper. You never can have too much of a stockpile. And of course, every Wednesday when I get the weekly grocery ads, my entire being tells me that I must go into town to hit all the grocery sales. I absolutely must.



Show Me Your Web Site and I'll Vote For You!!

Some serious interrogation...

It's Tiny Talk Tuesday again, thanks to Mary over at Not Before 7 (it's usually more like not before 8 at our house, so she's doing much better than I am).

So this week my little monkey has been getting political. As I'm in the kitchen one day last week, Kaydn Rye is in the living room playing with his fighting men, ie, a teenage mutant ninja turtle, a transformer and his "He-Man," which is really the Incredible Hulk. The day that my little brother gave it to him, about a year ago now, I said, "Oh, look, a He-Man," and let's just say, much to my huband's chagrin, the Hulk is now forever referred to as "He-Man" in our house. Kaydn Rye'll actually say to people, "No, he's a hulk, but his name is HE-MANNN, okay."



So anyway, he's in the living trying to beat the crap out of one of his toys, and he holds up his teenage mutant ninja turtle, who says to "He-Man," "Are you Barack Obama?"

No resonse from the "He-Man."

"Are you?"

I don't know what in the world was going on, but I came in there and I said, "How do you know Barack Obama?" especially since he really isn't allowed to watch much tv outside of WonderPets, Dora, some PBS Kids and that weird Yo Gabba Gabba Show.

His reply: "I heard about him on tv."

I say, "Well, do you know John McCain?"

After a very thoughtful head tilt and some contemplation, he says, "No, I don't think so."





Show Me Your Web Site and I'll Vote For You!!

Hmmm, let me think about that....

I just totally realized I forgot to announce my new weekly feature. Duh, what is wrong with me?!!!

So here it is, The Official Question of the Week...



If a movie producer decided to do a movie about your life, in which genre (romance, comedy, adventure, thriller) would people more than likely find it?

I'll go first.

My movie would be a melodramatic comedy. Is that even a genre? If it isn't then they'll have to create the genre just for my movie.

My movie may not always give you the warm fuzzies, but enter the world of my crazy Norwegian cowboy family out here in the middle of the prairie, and you'll atleast have a good pee-your-pants laugh before the melodrama begins. And then of course there would be the many scenes of my "adventures in the big city" during my college years in Minneapolis.

Every time my parents visited me in college and we actually had to drive, on the freeway, you'd always find my mother in the backseat screaming, "NOOOO, we're going to die! Watch out for that car. And there's another one. And there's another one!!!" In the world of my North Dakotan family, any more than five cars on the road at a time is some seriously dangerous traffic.

So where would we find your movie?



Show Me Your Web Site and I'll Vote For You!!

A Site I Love - The Cosmetics Database

I am always on the lookout for possibly hazardous chemicals in everything from my personal care products to my household cleaners. And one thing I have learned is that even companies that proport to using only 100 percent all-natural substances in their products, are not doing so.

Which is why I love The Cosmetics Database. It rates literally millions and millions of personal care products based on their toxicity. A product with a 0 rating has virtually no toxic ingredients and a product with a 10 rating is pretty much a nuclear bomb waiting to go off.

You can look at each product's full ingredient list, and each ingredient is broken down by its own individual toxicity. You can also search for products like "moisturizers" and the site will pull up all the moisturizers that have been rated in order of least to most toxic.


Take for instance, Aveda products, while their philosphy is that "what you put on your body should be as healthy and natural as what you put into it," Aveda apparently hasn't noticed that most people don't exactly put a whole lot of healthy and natural things into their body.

And while Aveda is a fine company with a lot of admirable qualities that does put a lot of naturally derived ingredients in its products, especially in its hair care products, you will find things in some of their products that are anything but naturally derived.

Take their Inner Light Foundation with SPF, while the product delivers like a dream (from what I hear), you'll find plenty of ingredients that are not at all natural, including Methylparaben, which is a synthetic preservative.

INNER LIGHT FOUNDATION SPF 12
Active Ingredient: Titanium Dioxide 3.5%
Ingredients: Water (Aqua Purificata) Purified
Glycerin
Phenyl Trimethicone
Pentaerythrityl Tetraisostearate
Caprylic/Capric/Myristic/Stearic Triglyceride
Tricaprylyl Citrate
Behenyl Alcohol
Astrocaryum Murumuru
Butter
Polygonum Cuspidatum Root Extract
Tocopherol
Tourmaline
Lecithin
Xanthan Gum
Glyceryl
Stearate Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate
Polyglyceryl-10 Pentastearate
Fragrance (Parfum)
Magnesium
Aluminum Silicate
Aluminum Hydroxide
Ethylhexylglycerin
Phenoxyethanol
Methylparaben
[+/-(May Contain) Mica, Titanium Dioxide (CI 77891) Iron Oxides (CI 77491, CI 77492, CI 77499)]

Not that I'm dissing Aveda, because their products lean considerably in the direction of naturally derived, but the point is that even companies that claim all-naturallness are definitely not. It seems that the majority of these companies, like Alba, Weleda, and Jurlique, include some definite natural plant-derived products, but they somehow manage to stuff just a little something in the jar that'll be sure to release some kind of toxin. A trip to The Cosmetics Database will tell you that while one of the company's products may yield a 0 toxicity rating, another product will yield a seven, so you really have to look at each company by each of its individual products.

And Aveda, which began putting some questionable ingredients in their products when it was purchased by Estee Lauder, is beginning to bring its products back around to something a little less synthetic.

So make sure to check out The Cosmetics Database before your next trip to the drug store.




Show Me Your Web Site and I'll Vote For You!!