My Old World!

I miss the old world, my old world.  The world when you went out to the bookstore to buy a book.  Called a friend to sale hello and most of all, the customer was important and your quality kept you in business.

I know I am not the only person who feels this way.  Who has signed a contract only to find out all those promises of how important you are as a customer was hogwash (jiggery-pokery) to get you signed up?  The words and energy behind them was black and void. 

I know I would miss the ability to turn on the computer and being able to check how the kids are doing half way around the world, finding that instant answer to what was the name of that song or my bread machines instructions manuel because I miss placed mine again.  Sure I would miss them for a while but for how long I can only guess. 

Apocalyptic Tidbit - Vinegar

In an effort to share some useful information - lets give Vinegar its fair dues ... The stuff is awesome.

VINEGAR It is a must-have for the survival kit.  Gallons of the stuff would be handy.

I use it when cleaning small wild game before popping them in the fridge for cooking the next day or freezing on the day.  I soak it after the final clean water rinse only because it is impossible as humans to keep sanitary conditions when skinning rabbits or feathering partridge.  Vinegar will help kill any lingering bacteria before freezing

It will reduce bacteria build up on many surfaces including hands.  Be careful not to use it on granite style surfaces like marble pastry boards.

FRUIT and VEG wash with vinegar and water is excellent to remove any residue chemicals as well as cosmetic residue (Wax on apples). Look it up  How To Clean Fruits    

More Fabulous uses ...

Avinegar wash over a sunburned area will cool it.

Excellent for pickling and preserving food.

Even better for eliminating odors

A lovely hair rinse – soak fresh crushed rosemary in a quart of water over night – add two tablespoons of white vinegar and use as a final rinse on your hair to remove build up and put some shine in it.  

Uses for vinegar: Tips and ideas

Vinegar also has many health attributes.  Whatever you think about vinegar it is something I will be hoarding when **** hits the fan.

Best advice is get one of those cute little books about the wonders of vinegar or print a few pages off the internet to have to hand when needed.  Easy to make too.

Apocalypse Nuggets - Dandelions

Doom, Doom, Gloom.  Ok I feel better.

Actually I thought I might do something a little more useful. You know the world is headed for some major changes – Asteroid, Solar Flares, Zombies – Who knows from what or where. Although the thought of being the only one left in the world seems a little less stressful, I think it would be more fun to live under a bridge if there were people to scare and goats to eat.

I took some photos and thought I would share a bit of interesting easy to remember info about things that grow wild and are edible.

 

Dandelion if there was ever a beneficial weed in the world it is the Dandelion. I hope is makes it onto our favorite flowers list since many of our most lovely flowers found their start as weeds.  I cannot sing the praises of dandelions more.  It is a food worth examining before it is one of those things you do out of desperation.

Mr Culpepper Explains that the Dandelion is under the dominion of Jupiter and opens and cleanses the waters within.  A natural diuretic and useful in opening obstructions and cleansing the Liver, gall and spleen. All parts are edible (no not the body part – ew!).  Mr Culpepper was ahead of his time. 

Check out the nutritional value of one cup of raw dandelion greens, just 55 grams, dandelion greens.  I think you will be amazed. But don't limit yourself to just the greens try these other ways of making us of that omnipotent little treasure messing up your borring see of green grass.

Dandelion leaf tea

Dandelion Wine

Dandelion Beer

I am thinking the biggest block to feasting on the neighborhood lawns or the field is … do dogs tread or cows graze. Still it is always  nice to know a little of the free foods in you community.  Learn a few as part of the Plan B you are always thinking about.  

Another - Fixin' What Ain't Broken - Rant!

The MANDATORY digital change – wasn’t that a load of crap! Seriously think about it. Let’s look at this logically in the spirit it was forced on us. Some people who have major investments in cable and satellite and TV electronic companies said ‘hey we are not making enough money so lets change everything so people have no choice but to pay out more money. They will have to sign up for satellite or freeview or buy new televisions.  Thirty million households (give or take a few million) and about a third of those will need to upgrade in some way.

Can almost hear them rubbing their hands together, imagining the profits from sales. Oh it is going to be better, bigger, brighter.  The UK is going to be the first government, under the thumb of an out dated broadcasting service, to FORCE everyone to have this better, bigger, brighter system.

What about those poor people (me included) who have no money to buy all this new stuff – you can use the old stuff but you have to buy this special box or satellite to make it work. Well we know they are going to have to find a way to afford it especially since they have no money to go to the movies, to restaurants or the theatre occasionally. Can’t afford the gas to go anywhere, let alone the cost of the tickets so TV is the all-round best entertainment going.  What choice have they (the UK Gov) left them?

They (one particular broadcasting company) already holds everyone who has a TV hostage every year to feed their money addiction through licensing fees. Believe it or not they have even had the puppets of democracy pass a law saying we must pay them for the privilege of owning a TV whether or not we watch their programs. If we don’t pay we can go to Jail.  Dictators!

So what do we really have with all this better bigger brighter promise (Digital Television)? If there is a storm (which can be as little as medium winds or rain)  here on our end or over there where the signal is beamed out to us, we have nothing.  DISRUPTION – can’t see or hear a thing.  This is progress? The picture maybe better but the hissy sissy equipment doesn’t like to play if it is rainy or windy and wae!  Where do we live?  Britain where the weather is what drives us on.

At least we could still hear the news even if the picture was disrupted on analog, now we hear and see nothing – THAT’S what improvement is all about.  And the best part is THERE IS NO CHOICE in the matter – oh doesn’t that reek of a totalitarian regime (or a good start to one). 

When has there ever been improvement pushed on us that didn’t make money or save money for those making them.  I think I would have a heart attack if I heard the government say. Hey this isn’t going to make us any money or even save us any money but it might make our population feel better live happier or healthier if we make this change or we do this.

Oh lets wrap this up here before I start on something else.

So again I ask why do we try to fix things that truly aren’t broken or change how something is done if it has been working fine for the larger majority?  I am not adverse to progress but I am not for it, when it is all about money for the big boys and forced down the throats of the little people (the VAST majority get screwed).

What would have seemed more sensible IMHO, to leave both analog and digital available. There are a vast amount of movie and TV buffs that would have easily paid out for all the extras - money would have been made. Just not as much as and those greedy 'leave no stone or option available' individuals, groups or companies that won't-allow-anything-to-stand-between-them-and-their-profits types aren't about to let that happen.

Grrrrowl, Grrrrrowl, Grrrrowl ... Ok I am better now.

We have decided when we move we will not be installing a TV (for anything but videos and DVDs) or paying our licence.   

Saving Sea Turtles

We Need to Save more than just the Turtles - Long winded and Opinionated

I often cringe when I see posts that say things like - boycott Nestles they are clearing rainforests to plant palm oil or boycott a hundred other company's that use monsanto grown corn.

I would love to do both those things religiously but to get to the root of the problem with the palm oil problem we need to work with the native people who use the pittance paid to them for tearing down the rain forests and planting the palm oil trees to survive on.  We need to find them something that pays better so they can turn their backs on these greedy companies.  We need to show them how important their heritage is and how they need to protect it. We need to compete with the big boys.  That may give us a chance against producers like Nestles.

With massive sized corporations like Monsanto who have their fingers in pies and cakes around the world, things are more scary. I am not quite sure what would be the best approach or if there is anything to be done anymore.  Like everything it is Greed motivated.  Convincing Betty Crocker that we will pay more for their product if they buy a more expensive nonMonsanto grown and produced flour or other products isn't that straight forward.  Besides how many of us would pay more.  It is not just Betty Crocker as many generic brands are produced and packaged by the name brand companies so you might as well just learn to make that chocolate cake from scratch and buy your flour from your local flour mill which only usues organically grown flour ... I think you understand what I am trying to say about how hard it has already become to fight this battle.

So please don't just ask me to boycott give me an alternative.  Spend an equal amount of time investigating alternatives to using these companies as you do discovering which companies are using the product you want me to boycott.  We don't necessarily have the time between family, work, home and life in general to look for alternatives even if we want to join the boycott.  Most of us are far from having enough money to be excessive with the food we buy.  Give us alternatives. Give us options!

I know we should in all world market countries OUTLAW the any government official - Senator, House of Representatives, Members of Parliament from owning or profiting from any company that is related in anyway to laws and bills being passed. Tough idea but imagine them not being ruled by GREED in profits of companies they have investment in or direct family has investment in when making decisions that have as far reaching effects as genetically modified foods which are modified ONLY so that the pesticides made by certain companies must be used to make them grow.

I have nothing against modified crops but lets do it the old way, the earth friendly way. Lets do it with respect.  It has been happening naturally for millions of years. We can help it along with digging into their genes.  All that scare mongering they are doing about when the bees disappear is no joke.  It is going to hurt us in ways we have not yet imagined. 

Would it surprise you to find out that there are a lot more people starting to hoard and stash food and some of these people are the rich and powerful. Some of these companies that are producing expensive dried foods for long term storage are making a profit even with the high prices. Have to ask yourself why are they selling that much long storage food. Do their customers see something we don't?   

For all our good intentions, it feels as though we are on a sinking ship in our desires to turn the tide of darkness we have allowed to flourish in the name of Profit, allowed to flourish beyond our ability to change.  With any profit there is an expense but the profit has reach a level beyond comprehension today and it looks as though the expense paid will be the same, beyond comprehension. Profits in the billions means little or nothing these days.

I know of an owner of a company - he drives expensive cars, owns multiple properties, buys regular new large equipment to increase yeild but has no money to pay his just above minimum wage earing employees a raise in over four years.  The only raise they get is when the national minimum wage increases.  He inherited this company and from what I understand his father was worse.  He took hold of the economic crises and used it as an excuse to claim profits are not high enough to give raises.  SO where does the money come for his personal european racing care, new machinery and vacations all over the world.  He is one of many companies that is profiting from the economic crises - rich picking in employees mean that they can get away with this and keep those profits up.

Monsanto seems to be so concerned with bigger and bigger profit and greater and greater control, they have lost sight of the bigger picture (that is unless the picture they are seeing is holding the world hostage for food, then they are on course).

When I was a little girl in the California Central Valley we used to catch fireflies, butterflies, dragonflies, praying mantises.  We had good bugs and bad bugs, lady bugs and bees.  Not much of any of those left with the amount of pesticides they have been declining drastically for the last thirty years and pretty soon the only place we see them will be in zoos.  Insects, we need them but we ignore the signs of their disappearance and what it means for us.

It hurts to think of the lack of care, the purposeful desctruction of balance and the raping and torture of our living planet.  Sometimes I just want to throw my hands up in the air and ask myself why bother caring?  Why worry about what legacy we leave our future generations, my children's children's children who will remember our time our era as the era that destroyed for profit, self absorbed and so selfish that many of us not all of us but more than not left them with one @#$%^&*
world to clean up.  Personally I wouldn’t mind seeing a major catastrophe happening in my life time and I still may.  I hope I live long enough to see the forced change that will be required to survive. After that if I am a casualty of this catastrophe, then so be it. 

As long as I can, I pledge to do the best I can and a little more to be a respectful human being to my planet and to those who inhabit it in innocence. I shall be sparing with my waste, recycle every way I imaginable, conserve my use of fossil fuels (ie., ride my bike to go shopping, shop more often so I waste less, etc), Take the time to recycle more water so I give less money to the water wasting water companies. I pledge to do the biggest amount I can for my little part in loving my earth.    

Saving Sea Turtles

This website is by one of the biggest earth loving companies I know National Georgraphic, it is a travel website with pictures and blogs from around the world.  I may never get to see any of these but it is nice to know they are still there to enjoy. All these places make my world, your world, our world the best little spaceship in the universe.

Thank you National Georgraphic for sharing with me the wonders of my world.

 

     

Dream On and Dream Big!

I keep hearing about this ‘one world-one people.’  We are all perhaps the same species but we are not like bees or ants and even they split off and create new colony.

I want to see people treated with respect and common kindness but I am no supporter of the one world one people.  I get flashes of Matrix crossed with the primordial ooze, bland and undefined.  To lose our ethnic identities feels heinous and the need to strive to find ourselves would be lost. Who we are and where we came from would no longer be a source of pride. Where would we focus our pride? We need not suffer arrogance to have pride – personal, family, community and country. 

 

My husband is English and I am American and I would never expect him to give up his nationality to become an American and neither would he expect the same thing from me.  Our countries of birth are both sources of pride even when they are acting like ninnies.  

Who would I be able to compare notes with if we all lived the same, worked the same, laughed the same. I know I am being a bit dramatic but … Where would we throw our competitive drive? What would replace that competitive spirit? What would happen to all those unique foods we eat – how could France make its claim to have the best food in the world if everyone has it?  What would happen to the Olympics?

I see nothing wrong with working together but we are unable to work together in most large corporate or government office settings, so how are we going to find the desire to work together as billions of people (I bet if you have ever experienced a large office setting you would see how unrealistic this idea is). 

It is a fantasy to think we can achieve a united earth of one people, a naive and idealistic dream but then to those who think it can happen, I say, believe because dreams can be unreasonable and dreaming is something humans do. Dreaming is good. I will dream of opening our minds and our heart to accepting those that are different as valuable, worthy of respect and kindness. I will dream of winning the lottery, I will dream of owning a small holding with at least one big ole billy goat, I will dream possible and impossible dreams because I amd human and I can. 

I will dream a dream or two or three as unrealistic as the ‘one world-one people’ idea but then dreams are for dreaming.  It they come true, we find new dreams and dream some more.  Dreams are what move us forward, spur us on. So dream on and dream big, or maybe even small but never, ever dream nothing at all. 

~My dreams rock!

 

    

Fixing What Ain't Broken

I don’t understand this need to fix what isn’t broken.

Three, maybe four years ago, it may have been longer, I noticed when I went for blood tests that the doctors now instead of taking it from the middle of the inside elbow they were tackling it from closer to the top edge (of the inside elbow).  It hurts taking it from there. 

Come to find out that some people have problems with it being taken from the good old veins in the middle soft fleshy center area of the bend in the elbow.  That’s all fine and good but NOT everybody has that problem.  So why is it when it affects some, EVERYBODY has to have it changed. 

I asked the nurse one day (and without going into detail she is crap at it) why she is taking blood on that outside edge instead of the fleshy middle like they used to do.  She said it was because of having to hold down or push down or something to hold the veins.  Well really! The things aren’t set in cement, they are round like pipes and well if you don’t hold the tube (vein) still when you try to pierce it, it is gonna try to move out of the way.

Now this last blood test (referenced above) by a nurse was pretty disturbing. She couldn’t find a blood filled vein in my right arm (on the outside edge of course).  After the third jab with the needle, when my flesh refused to give up any of the red stuff, she left the needle in and started fishing for a vein that way. I mean, thirty second ( and I am talking a good thirty seconds – ok maybe twenty but it might have been an hour for how it felt) I waited watching and trying to make light of a rather embarrassing for her, situation.

She had a training nurse in there and perhaps that made her nervous – I felt I was going to be sick. But give me a break, there must be blood somewhere in my body because my heart is beating.  Watching a needle fishing around inside my flesh was creepy, let alone how it felt. I finally had to ask her. “Can you quit moving the needle around in my arm that hurts. She stopped and paused and I then had to ask her. “Can you take it out it does not seem to be working.”

If someone on the street had attempted that I would have returned the pleasure in some defensive way, a reaction which was only natural.  Instead, I had to let her have a go at the other arm. She must have hit a nerve or something in the left arm. Probably just brushed it because nerves don’t take much to upset them. For two hours –no exaggeration this time – it strung like alcohol on an open cut, where she stuck me. Finally proved I was alive by retrieving an adequate amount of red stuff so I could get out of there. 

I was livid. I get upset as most normal people would, when stupidity makes me suffer unnecessarily. I get livid at myself or others, makes no difference, except when it is I being stupid I can do something about it.  Why did they change their style of blood drawing for everyone when the old way worked fine for many?  Why not give people a choice. It is an annoying thing to have done at the very least let us have a say in it. 

What is the real need to make changes to what everyone recieves, when the problem lies with only a few.  My Guess - Somebody had too much time on their hands and needed to show how important their overpaid position was in the medical community so, they did a study and found a few people that had problems with the old method of drawing blood.  Wallah! We will just change it for everybody!!! This will make me feel important.

 

Any way why is all this seemingly important to me at the moment?

I am scheduled for a blood test in a few hours.  I forgot to stress to the front office lady, I wanted my doctor to do it (doctors don’t do it, so I have been told but my doctor does, so I usually see him and he is pretty good at vampiring my blood out of me). So if they have me scheduled to see the nurse I am going to cancel it (even if it means I have to starve another morning for this no food consumed blood test).  Rather starve again than have to brave the Neanderthal for a second round.