family, My Story

Faith Lost and Faith Gained

Andi

Good morning! I’m here to continue on the story of my life. Part 3

I felt like I had to earn my mother’s affection. That to make her proud of me, I had to conform to her picture of how my life should be. In my mind, it came down to two choices. I could change everything about who I was and have my mother’s praise and love, or grow into myself knowing I’d never have that mother daughter bond I so strongly craved. Whether consciencely or unconsciously, I chose to be who I am, but I was still too afraid to let anyone really see.

I moved out of my parents house when I was 19. I was desperate to leave, so my living arrangements weren’t great. I moved in with a coworker and her two sons. She was a pot head and alcoholic. We threw parties every weekend. This was also the beginning of my whore phase. I’d kiss anyone who asked. I was still far more reserved about who I had sex with, but I’d fool around with anyone I found attractive enough. The chasm between who I showed to church and who I was becoming grew deeper and wider with every passing day. I started having issues with my housemate. She’d do things while she was high or drunk and not remember it and deny it happened. She broke my hookah and didnt tell me then tried to blame the cat. After her 10 yr old son and I had to drag her back inside when she passed out in the front yard, I decided it was time for me to go. I moved in with my Grandpa. It was less than ideal for distancing myself from my parents, but it was rent free and a warm home to sleep in. Grandpa didnt keep tabs on me. He’d leave town for days or even weeks at a time and leave me in the house alone. The parties stopped, but the whore phase didn’t. That really didn’t stop until I found a nearly textbook defintion friend with benefits. We were both lonely and just needed some comanionship. I spent a lot of time at his apartment. He was precisely what I needed at that exact point in time. Until he found a girl he was truly interested in and cut of the fwb to pursue her. So there I was living a double life, now alone, with only my friends to keep me company.

I had two groups of friends, so opposite and different black and white have more in common. I had my school friends and my church friends. But I think only three are worth mentioning. My best friend, my now husband, and the Sunday School College Class parents.

I hated my best friend when I first met him. He was younger than me and he played the piano better than me. It was an unforgivable crime. For the next couple years the hatred turned to simple indifference. We didn’t become real friends until we started to attend the same school. There we formed an incredible bond, that was also incredibly challenged and nearly broken. We had to work to rebuild our friendship, and now they’re like family to us.

I remember clearly when a school friend invited me out to go rock climbing with him and some pals. Now, at this time I had sworn off men, especially friends of this person. I’d already dated his middle school bestie, I’d fooled around with him, and his current best friend was in love with me. I had a fun time that day, three of his other friends had been there, but like I said, I purposely ignored them. A little bit later, there was a Daft Punk tribute concert. Since Daft Punk doesnt seem to go on tour, and certainly never in the US, I saw this an an only opportunity. I had to go. So I got someone to go with me, but one of the three pals wanted to come as well. No biggie I thought, he’s cool then. But I remember actively avoiding eye contact. Not speaking to him. I wanted no connection with anymore of this guy’s friends. We got in and it was crowded. Once the concert started and everyone started dancing we got pushed, it got hot, we lost my friend. He says to me, we’re going to need to hang on to each other so we don’t get separated. I agreed. We ended up dancing together the rest of the concert. So much for no contact. About a week later a big storm rolled in, so everyone piled in the truck to chase it. He talked to me, I brushed him off. He’d lean up between the seats and start conversations. I had been told (by a more than likely jealous third party who wanted me to hate him) he was just a playboy. He couldn’t care about me, I was just sex for him. But by that point I didn’t care, if this was a one time fling, so be it. He was too charming and he’d gotten to me. So after we got back, I stayed the night with him. We started dating after that, and as they say, the rest is history. Looking back and hearing some of the things he said to me, I know he had decided from the beginning this was it for him. I took a little time to figure it out, but he knew from the start.

The church classes had a teacher, usually a man and wife, and then class parents. They were there for company and encouragement. Our college class had an older couple as parents who had kids our age, but whom we’d never seen because their kids were never around and never visited. A lot of the class became close with them as sort of their “adopted” children.

I was still living at Grandpa’s house still attending the same church and still seeing my now husband, and I was still too afraid to leave my old life. Even though I wanted to I was consumed by my fear and it overpowered any other desire. During this time my friend kept encouraging me to leave the church but I hadn’t done it. She told me that attending a church because you’re too afraid not to is not a reason to attend a church.

The class parents took me out to dinner at some point during this time. I went because free food. They told me they were my real friends. That they loved me and they would be there for me no matter what. My other friends, they wouldn’t stick around. They were flakey friends who’d stop caring for me if I stopped going out with them. Even my other Christian friends would forget me, my only true friends were within the church. This is a conversation I still play in my head.

It was also around this time that my best friend and I had a bad falling out. He had made me very angry and I decided I wasn’t going to call or text him until he called or texted me first and we didn’t speak for nearly a year. My boyfriend asked me to move in with him, and I agreed, which was of course an absolute disgrace to the church, so I lied about who I was living with. The friend who’d been encouraging me asked me instead to come to church with them as support so I wouldn’t feel as though I was alone. I finally did only with their backing could I have enough courage to finally leave. But yet that was still the most terrifying experience that I have ever had. It doesn’t sound like much when you hear it but understand that it was all mental barriers that I had to break out to make leaving even possible.There were a lot of emotions are going on at the same time. I remember laying in the floor of my boyfriend’s apartment and crying in the dark.

But of course the years and years that this has been building up is not what anybody saw because none of them knew what was going on all they saw was I had a new boyfriend and now I had gone and so they all blamed him. My mother actively tried to set me up on dates with other guys that she liked better. She would interrogate me abouy why I liked him and yet no answer I ever gave was good enough. Alternatively she’d interrogate me why I didn’t like the guys that she had picked for me and none of those answers were ever good enough for her either. I also heard some horribly racist things come out of people’s mouths. Things like, I don’t want any brown children in my family, he can’t be loyal to you because he’s Mexican, and he’s going to cheat on you because I’ve never known a Mexican that didn’t cheat on his woman. Subtle things like discovering his great grandfather was Spanish and then on telling people he was actually Spanish, or being shocked he had a good job.

I’d never left church going or God or religion and yet somehow I was still falling away from the Lord and needed saving. I was told that we needed to just elope that we couldn’t have a wedding anymore because we lived together, that we were going to have a bastard child. As though that would’ve made the childs life less valuable. That my life could not truly be fulfilling unless I came back to the Lord, by which they meant come back to that church and fall back into line. Then, as time went on, no one even tried to keep in touch with me. None of my church friends so much as texted me. The people who claimed they’d be there for me all dissipated as soon as I didn’t attend church with them, as though they forgot I ever existed. I remember back to that dinner, and our class parents claiming to love me, but they also left me behind without a second thought.

All of this just made me more and more and more angry. I never did lose faith in God because I don’t believe that these things were fueled by God or a devotion to him. I’ve lost faith in people. Christian people who claim to follow Jesus because they say words with their mouths and yet don’t follow the actions of Jesus. But they’re showing to the world that this is what our faith looks like and so that is how the world defines Christian. So I guess you could say I’ve lost faith in Christianity.

family

Making the Bed

Andi

Making the bed with small children is often like those silly videos of people trying to make the bed when cats are playing in the sheets. Kids love to “help” make the bed. And by help I mean run around on the bed, hide under the sheets, and cause general mayhem. And if you’re like me and have both children and cats, the challenge doubles. You can keep grabbing kids and shooing them out of the room. Lock the door and listen to them scream. Yell at them to stay off the bed. Keep redoing the same thing over and over and never get the task accomplished. But no one wants to do that.

So how do you make the bed with helpers and not loose your mind? Let me take you through a bed making in our house to show you. Now, on my bed, I have a fitted sheet, a blanket (or if you wanted to use a flat sheet, you could replace the blanket), a comforter, and pillows.

Step one, forget perfection. Just let go of that right now. You won’t achieve a Better Homes & Garden cover level bed. It’d be pretty hard to do in general, but with kids playing everywhere? We often scrutinize and judge ourselves based on the immaculate pictures we see in magazines and social media. Don’t do that.

Once you’ve let go of trying to make everything picture perfect, grab the fitted sheet. Tuck the head side of the bed over the corners. Now it becomes a game. I tell my kids to jump jump until they’re on the sheet and then I pull the foot end of the sheet over the other two corners. Then the blanket. Have the kids jump on one side of the bed, they have to stay on that side to win. Lay half the blanket out flat before telling them to jump jump to the blanket side and spread the other half out flat. Then repeat with the comforter. Hold your hands up and yell, “YAY, you won!” After each time or my child doesn’t consider it a real game. I have my kids help me set the pillows. They usually jump around for a little bit after the bed gets made, but as soon as I move onto something else they do too. Then if you want, go back and smooth out the lumps.

With their beds, I put the sheets on and fold their blankets, but I have them help make their own beds. They put their own pillows and animals on the bed and lay out their own blankets. It’s simple and may not seem like much, but keeping them involved even in little ways is important. So I always try to include them in the cleaning and boring daily tasks.

Does my bed look immaculate? No. Does it look good and clean? Absolutley. I have an entire family to keep up with, and an organized house lowers stress levels, so I have to find ways to keep clean and clear and on top of everything else too.

family, My Story

Memories I Don’t Cherish

Andi

This is part 2 of my life story so far, I hope it resonates and is understandable.

When my mom was a teen she started attending a church that I think ultimately changed her entirely. She was not raised this way, but it convinced her she needed to be how they told her to be. And I’m honestly not certain my grandparents ever fully approved of this. She met my dad there, and they still are a part of it Today.

As I was growing up, I don’t have sharp unpleasant memories. That’s the thing about being a kid, you think the way your house functions is just normal. You don’t have any outside perspective to see what is odd or inappropriate, it’s all just the way it is. I don’t have memories of yelling, fighting, or drinking. I was never thrown across a room, locked in a closet, or spit on. So for many years I felt as though I had no reason to be upset because other kids had experienced worse. Their parents actually hated them, mine were just horribly misguided. So I’d brush away the dark thoughts and try to go on.

I will try to explain the atmosphere where I grew up in a tangible way that anyone can grasp. It’s difficult to put a feeling into words, but after a lot of thought and some trial and error, I think I’ve found the words. I hope its easy for anyone to understand.

I was taught that there is a straight and narrow path, and then there is a wide and easy path. The straight path leads to heaven, the wide path to hell. It’s hard to stay on the straight and narrow, temptations and sins beset us on all sides, so you must work hard to stay there. Their way, their rules, their way of life is the straight and narrow. If you vary any at all from the set guidelines, you will fall from the path. But once saved always saved! Jesus holds you in his hand and no one can pluck you out! However, if you fall off of their path, they don’t believe you were ever truly saved to begin with. All these other people out here who are Christian but live differently, they have declared are liars. They cannot be real Christians because only they are right and if you do any differently you are going to hell.

So women stay at home and take care of the young, never hold a position of leadership except maybe over other women, always submit to your husband even if that means letting him beat you. Go to school, but only for a womanly degree like music or secretarial studies, and cover yourselves completely. Your body may be made by God but it’s also evil and instead of teaching boys to be responsible for their actions, you must cover your bodies head to toe in loose clothing so they can’t see (while we simultaneously mock Muslim women for being degraded by men for wearing head coverings and loose dresses). Men must be manly, never give an impression of weakness, like you know, showing emotion or any interest in anything that could be construed as feminine. So no play kitchens little boys! You are the leaders! But if you make a mistake we will cover you, its obviously not your fault. Alchohol is the devils juice, but coffee is a totally acceptable chemical dependance. Dancing is evil and makes you want to have sex. Sex is evil right up to the point you get married and then, you young ladies, must consent to sex at every single occasion your husband wishes. But if you want it, tough, your husband can’t bend to your wishes. You must display for the world your virginity so we know you aren’t having sex. Wear a ring to exemplify your purity, and then if you remain a virgin you may marry in a white dress at the church. But young men, don’worry showing off your purity, it doesnt seem to matter as much, so you don’t have to wear a ring or white unless you want to. But don’t talk about sexual organs, don’t talk about biology, or the reproductive system in any way. Don’t question anything! You will probably be mocked for it. Told you just don’t understand, or simply to hush. You may get a response but it’s just a manner in which to shut you down and make you be quiet. The leaders all went to college so we obviously know more than lowly you who read a book. Hush up, and don’t contradict our teachings. And parents, use whatever means are necessary to ensure your children are on and stay on the straight and narrow path. Fear, guilt, shame, spanking until they have bruises, manipulation are all acceptable because their souls are at stake! And remember, you can’t settle because they attend a church or have made a profession of faith. If it’s not an Independent Fundamental Baptist church they are being led astray by the devil, or perhaps were never saved at all! You must not let up! You must keep at it until they are crammed into the small little mold we have for them!

So you have the set up of a wonderful utopia, and the only way to get there is salvation, but you can only be saved if you follow their rules. If you don’t, your other option is a horrible burning place of damnation. Everything is driven by fear. Shame and guilt are so common it’s like flies on a dung hill.

As a teen I began to push the boundries and rules further and further. I began to question doctrines and practices. I was not a popular person, and this didn’t help my likability. I only had friends that were older, already in college. I started to build a reputation. If one thing travels more quickly than light, it’s a rumor through that church. And due to their strict “no sex” rules, males and females were not allowed much contact of any kind. I was rumored to be engaged three seperate times that I know of because I hugged a guy, sat next to a single man in church, and rode with a friend to an event. I really just turned a blind eye to most of this. I knew people whispered about me behind my back, but I didn’t care. In my own home I would notice things in my room disturbed when I came home. Things magically started going missing. I started laying traps. My mom was going through my things when I wasn’t home and taking whatever she didn’t like and telling me it had been lost. She read my journal and I knew it. I started writing it to her and hiding things from my own journal. I once had something I really liked and knew I had to hide, so I put it in my underwear drawer thinking that was my private undergarments it’d be safe. It was gone when I got home. I recall an instance in which my dad yelled, “then you’ll be dressing like a prostitute!” At me and threw a package of underwear up the stairs because I didnt want to wear granny panties anymore.

But it wasnt until I was in a youth Sunday school class about friendship where I was told all my friends needed to be within the church, that my Christian friends from other places weren’t good or real friends, that I remember getting angry. The following week I became infuriated because the lesson about male and female friendships turned to how your life value was based on your virginity. Somehow, though I’ve heard this multiple times, it made me upset. I questioned how a church leader was going to stand there and tell assault victims their lives were now unable to be happy because of an event they had no control over. No one had an answer for me.

From then on I’d had enough. I was biding my time. I planned to move out when I was 18. I made this elaborate plan to move to Tennessee. Because it’d be easier to leave the church by saying I was moving to a new state than leave the church by saying I disagreed with their doctrine. I didn’t have the courage to do that. But the moving to Tennessee didn’t happen. Moving to a new state is hard and expensive. So I enrolled in technology school my junior year of high school for Avitaion Maintenance Technology. This was a huge turning point in my life. First of all, it put me back in direct contact with the person who became my best friend. Secondly, it drove me to challenge myself and pushed me way out of my comfort zone. Of course mechanic is not on the list of approved jobs for women in the church. This is when I started noticing the side glances. This is when other kids quietly told me their parents didn’t want them talking to me anymore. I withdrew further into myself.

It was also around this time my mom latched onto perfect Mary. Mary is the perfect church girl. She stays quiet, keeps to other girls, went to Bible College, memorized chapters of the Bible, gets emotional about Jesus, married a guy going into full time ministry. She constantly praised Mary. Took her on one of our family trips. Told me I should be like Mary. If Mary can memorize Roman’s 8, so could I. I started to hate and loathe Mary. I didn’t actively change, it was a more subconscious action. I began to do anything and everything to mold myself into the image of what my parents wanted. I never quit school thankfully, but I delved into church with my all. Well most of my all. I became two sided. I had my perfect little girl I wore to church and for my parents. And then I had me, that I wore to school and out to friends parties.

I got a kick in the pants my third year of tech. I had always been the smart one. Enrolled in all the accelerated classes. I didn’t think I was beautiful or charming, but I had my brains. Until I took Powerplant. For whatever reason radial engines made zero ficking sense to me. I failed the class. Which meant I had to wait 2 months for the next class to start and retake the course. What I didn’t know then, but have realized since is that I became depressed. My identity had been crumbled. I didn’t get out of bed. I didn’t eat. I had no desire for anything. But it wasn’t church people that helped me, my church friends didn’t even notice anything was off about me. It was a school friend that noticed and made sure I’d eaten that day. I remember he gave me his muffin, potentially the only food he’d had to eat that day, and he gave it to me. My mother didn’t take notice either. I still lived at home, and I didn’t eat, speak to anyone or leave my room for days, but she still never noticed. She to this day has no idea I struggled with depression while living in her house.

After that, I decided I had to give the middle finger to the world, but I was still too scared to do it. So I brooded.

These are the memories I don’t Cherish.

family

Paper Portal

Andi

I pulled out a book from my shelf this morning titled Adventures in American Literature. It is a collection of short stories and poems all dating before 1900, and I was enjoying the light reading before the day really got started. Whilst flipping through I noticed a lot of margin notes and scribbles. They were all over in that scrawny cursive like my grandmother used to write in. I bought this book at an estate sale, so I know nothing about the previous owner, save for her name scribbled inside the front cover in that same scrawly cursive.

Upon reading these margin notes though I can surmise she was an English teacher, and wrote her lesson plans directly in the book. They say things like, “what is the rythym” and “finish further reading section on Tuesday” some as simple as “melancholy” and “tone?”

I also found some scribbles written in ink that look like a child’s doodles. Probably sitting at grandma’s house bored and found a book to look at.

This one however is the only note with a date, 3/12/31. Its marked with rhythm above the lines and Monday written beneath it. It’s like a paper portal into an American classroom 90 years ago. The feel of the pages, the smell of the old leather binding, even the way she writes, and of course the date stamp. Meaning this note has been sitting in the book nearly 100 years after being used to teach children about poetry. The poem she was noting here says this:

To him who in love of Nature holds

Communion with her visible forms, she speaks

A various language; for his gayer hours

She has a voice of gladness, and a smile

And eloquence of beauty, And she glides

And then continues on the next page, but the teacher did not continue notations. I’m curious why. The poem is clearly not finished, and yet the following page is empty of hand writing.

History preserves itself in tiny capsules like this and leaves us with little mysteries to wonder at and enjoy.

family, My Story

Before the Beginning

Andi

Good morning! I’d like to share a tale with you, the kind of boring but still slightly fascinating tale of my life. I’m going to break this up into pieces so as not to bombard anyone or make this indigestible. I’m not sure how many right now, so we will see. Part 1 of ?

Let’s begin at the beginning, or I suppose a little before the beginning. On my mother’s side of the family I come from Native American descent. Grandpa claimed we were also Scandivian and Irish, but, we have no proof. Some of my earliest memories are with Grandma and Grandpa travelling, and I am positive I’ll probably write about them again.

On my dads side of the family, we have very little idea of his father’s genealogy. He passed when my dad was still a child, and I’m not even certain I’ve ever seen a picture of him. My dads Mom was a German immigrant. Her parents scooped up their children and fled to America as refugees. Some of the kids were born in Germany, some born in the United States. She was quite elderly by the time I came along and through the years had lost some of the strings to her mind. She frightened me as a child because she had a catheter. Its only now, as an adult, that I wish so much I could go back and listen to her story and learn more about her life.

My dad was an electronics technician for the public school system, and my mom stayed at home with the kids. I was born the youngest of 4 and the only girl. But the majority of what I remember about my childhood was with my grandparents. Grandma is the one who insisted I play the piano and would sit with me for hours and help me learn it. She would buy me books and more books and then made me a binder so I could catalogue all the books I’d read. Grandpa taught me how to cook, because that’s what he did. Grandma tried to teach me to sew. Most of my childhood I spent with them and the travel trailer driving every which place in the country. One random thing I remember was sitting in the back of the van thinking they had such a cool vehicle because it had a television! You could watch VHS tapes on it. And a seperate radio in the back you could plug headphones into and listen to whatever you wanted.

Grandma loved wildflowers and we’d stop on the side of the road so she could take pictures of them. If there happened to be a sign for a historical location or natural wonder, we were stopping and looking. We went to so many small and random museums. We never stayed in hotels because both my grandparents preferred camping. We had everything; lanterns, gas stove, tools for cooking over the fire, a campfire coffee maker. I believe this gave me both the love for adventure and love of the outdoors. Grandma was determined to teach me everything she knew. It was incredibly important to her that I know and appreciate our family heritage. So I learned about the Cherokee; their language, their customs, the leaders, their journeys, their games, their pain. Grandpa was more laid back and jovial. He had a wit sharper than Zorro’s sword and he did his part to share some of that with me.

We went to so many places over the approximately 10 year span I travelled with them. I’ve seen the four corners, the sand dunes, the Silverton train, the Sioux reservation, the cliff dwellings, new Iberia, the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, and much more. I didn’t stop travelling after they couldn’t anymore. It was in high school that I went to England and Spain. But it was those childhood road trips that have made the biggest imprint on my mind. My grandparents, particularly my maternal grandparents played a big role in my upbringing, even more so than my parents.

My dads father died long before I was born, his mom died when I was young, about 8/9 I believe. My mother’s mom died when I was 15 years old, and I remember it very clearly. My Grandpa passed when I was 26, while we were on vacation to visit him.

family

World Elephant Day

Andi

Today, August 12, is World Elephant Day! Elephants are my very favorite animals. I have them everywhere I can put them, even my child’s nursery!

Elephants are massive creatures, reaching up to 11 feet tall and 13,000 pounds, they are the largest land animals. So you can imagine if you made one angry, you should find a place to hide! But unlike tigers or hippopotamuses, elephants are unlikely to charge unless provoked or its mating season. Generally docile and gentile, elephants have made friends with humans in parts of the world and work alongside them. Unlike circuses however that historically torture and abuse their animals. Thankfully many circuses are closing, or shifting to other forms of entertainment or training.

An elephant’s tusk is actually large upper incisor teeth that are deeply rooted in their skulls. They use these to dig with, strip bark from trees and as weapons in case of a mating rival. Like humans have a dominant hand with which they write, elephants have a dominant tusk. It’s usually more worn down than the other because it is used more. So humans hunting elephants for their tusks is truly horrific. An elephant can’t survive without them, and so they are killed for their teeth. Just so some rich person can have a fancy trinket in their big house. The ivory trade though is having an evolutionary effect on the elephant population. More and more elephants are being born without any tusks at all, and the average size of tusks have halved. The reason being, the large tusked elephants are being killed before they can pass on their big tusk genes. How this will effect the animals is still yet to be seen.

Elephants, like humans, are mammals and so give live birth. Humans are pregnant for 9 months and give birth to 6-9 lbs babies. Elephants in comparison are pregnant for 18-22 months and give birth to 220-260 lbs babies 😨. These babies are led by a matriarchal herd. If they are Male they will split off once they reach adulthood and be kind of loners. The females will stay with the herd and might eventually become the group matriarch. On average these magnificent beauties live to be 50-70 years old in the wild. In captivity however they generally have shorter lifespans. This is partly due to their behavioral patterns. Elephant herds walk constantly. They trek miles and miles, and are always on the move. In most zoos however, they don’t have the space to walk and it actually causes severe health problems for them. Sanctuaries and refuges can often offer this open wandering space zoos cannot. However, some zoos are beginning to expand and build more space for their elephants, to try giving them the best possible life in captivity.

Today I get to celebrate and talk about my favorite animal, and tell others about how wonderful these creatures are! Thank you for listening.

clean living, family

Saving in the Laundry Room

Andi

One of my quests is to live a Zero Waste lifestyle, or at least minimal waste. There are challenges to doing this though. We produce a lot of waste most people probably don’t even realize they’re making, and a cost some individuals may not be able to spare.

For instance I buy local meat that’s wrapped in a paper, and fresh produce I put in reusable bags. But purchasing those reusable bags costs money, and the plastic bags in the stores are free. That meat is usually slightly more expensive than the styrofoam and plastic packaged meat you can buy in Walmart. And when you’re pinching every penny, those little savings are significant. So you buy the cheaper meat, the frozen or canned veggies, and use those plastic bags. I’ve done it, I’ve been there.

Not to mention the added layer of kids. Kids things seem to love being packaged in enormous amounts of plastic. Snacks, disposable diapers, wipes, tubes of rash cream and lotion, those containers of mushed baby food. Of course there are organic and environmentally friendly options, but most are more expensive than other brands. And if you’re on a really tight budget, you can’t even afford the name brand stuff, you’re buying the off brand everything to save those pennies. So again, I was the one buying the plastic tubs of baby food because they were more cost efficient. Now, you could make your own, of course, but that would require both the time to do it and the possession of a food processor.

Another challenge that I’ve encountered has been living in an apartment. We don’t have a recycling bin we can just roll out to the curb on trash day. I have to load up things and drive them to a recycling center. And we don’t have a yard where I can make a compost. There do exist resources for composting in an apartment, but I have to purchase it and find a place to put it.

So truly, I get it. I understand how you may want to reduce your waste, but are finding it difficult to accomplish. So I’m going to share with you one simple place I found to lower my waste and save money at the same time. In the laundry room.

For a long time I used Arm & Hammer laundry detergent. I use A&H brand in a lot of places. Kitty litter, toothpaste, diaper pail, I use so much baking soda I should probably buy stocks in Arm & Hammer. Until I read an article about the EWS ratings of big name laundry soap. I looked into it thinking it was A&H, it’s just baking soda, it’s good. It was not. So I looked into some organic brands, and discovered as with many organic products, they’re more expensive than regular brands. Since I’m not interested in spending a fortune on soap, I started searching for other choices and discovered all the laundry soap recipes to make your own. In searching I also learned borax is no good either. So I set out to find a borax free, home made, environmentally friendly, chemical free, laundry soap. I finally found one.

1 box Super Washing Soda

1 box Baking Soda

3 bars Castile Soap

1 tub Oxiclean Baby or Oxiclean Free

28 oz Epsom Salt (optional)

Entire contents cost about $20. Now, I realize that’s twice as much as a jug of soap, but keep in mind two things, it’s going to last you 5 months instead of 1, and that makes it $4 a month rather than $8 (you may be able to save a bit if you could find off brand ingredients and don’t opt for Epsom salt). I bought a lidded glass jar ($10 at Walmart), and use the scoop that came in the Oxiclean tub. There may exist an already shredded Castile soap, but I haven’t found one, so I shred it like a block of cheese. I even use a cheese grater. This is by far the hardest part of this. Otherwise it’s simply add all ingredients to jar and mix. I do use the Epsom salts as I love fresh smelling laundry. They don’t add a powerful scent, but it’s enough to fill my nostrils with lavender as I move the laundry to the dryer. I’ve been using this detergent mixture for a few months and I’ve been pleased with the results. Its getting my messy childrens clothes clean, and satisfying my husbands need to have fresh smelling shirts.

So I’m saving some money, avoiding dangerous ingredients, and reducing waste all at the same time. And I love that!

Uncategorized

Getting to Know You

Andi

Greetings! Salutations!

To start I’d like to let you get to know me a little bit. I’ve had a few friends tell me I should write and I told them they were crazy. I mean, who would want to read anything I wrote? I’m much too scatterbrained. I’m not an expert of anything, I don’t consider myself incredibly talented, and I don’t have 6 fancy degrees. But writing seems to be a therapeutic way for me to process. So maybe the idea to write was more to flay my thoughts than to have a large following of readers, but then if something I wrote helped just one other person, I’d consider it a huge success.

About me. I grew up in Oklahoma, right smack in the middle of the buckle of the Bible belt and tornado alley. I spent an enormous amount of time travelling with my grandparents when I was a kid. I’ve been in almost 40 of the 50 states (I’ll get to Hawaii someday!). I was raised in an Independent Fundamental Baptist church, and fully involved in it as a youth. As a teen I participated in Child Evangelism Fellowships Christian Youth in Action summer missionary program, and worked at their youth camp. I’ve also travelled to England, Spain, Romania and Hungary, and I’ve even been to Canada. After High school I attended a technical school for Aviation Maintenance Technology, which did not award me a diploma, it gave me a license. I moved out of parents home when I was 19, and began distancing myself from the church around the same time. I finally entirely left the church around 21 years old, but haven’t abandoned faith completely. I met my now husband at 20 years old. We had some mutual friends. He noticed me first, and attended a Daft Punk tribute concert with us just to be around and try to talk to me. It worked. We dated for about a year and then moved in together. We dated for another year before we got married. We then had two children, 22 months apart. I’ve been a working mom and a stay at home mom. Still living in Oklahoma, we were kind of just going through the motions of life. So when an opportunity to move out of state arouse, we took it. We now live in Colorado, and I am currently at home with the children.

I’ve been told to write about my upbringing and my faith. One person told me to write about all I’ve learned from motherhood. One suggested writing about moving to a new state with small children. I have so many different topics that are important or of interest to me. But since all parts of my life past and present affect how I parent, I am officially calling this a Family blog, though topics of discussion may vary tremendously.

My greatest hope is that my words will be uplifting, humorous, and even encouraging to others. So I genuinely wish you reading pleasure and hope you enjoy!