Are you still drinking bottled water?

Bottled water is bad for the Earth and for you for many reasons:

• Plastic bottles are made from petroleum. (Not to mention may leach scary chemicals into your water.)
• The plants run on fossil fuels.
• Most of the time the water is filtered tap water, so you're paying for something you can do at home.
• Even if you recylce your bottles, most people don't, and don't forget the packing materials the water is sent to the store in: a cardboard flat wrapped in unrecyclable plastic wrap.
• Bottled water is expensive over time for you, the consumer.
• Trucks haul the water all over the country creating air pollution and consuming fuel.

We use a PUR on faucet 3-step purifier for all of our cooking and drinking water and carry our own bottles (DH even takes jugs of water from home to work as they only have bottled water and drinks available there)--I prefer the great SIGG bottles.

And that concludes my public service announcement for the day.

Okay, two minutes later and I'm bawling.

CNN just did a story on children in Myanmar. Complete with images of dead and living parentless children trying to survive. Horrible horrible beyond words.
World Vision is one of the few aid agencies being allowed to hgelp in the country. There was a great piece on NewsHour with Jim Lehrer last night. They are allowed to purchase items in country and distribute them right now, but they are still negotiating flying their own supplies--which are still on a runway somewhere--into the country and to distribute them themselves so that the regime doesn't put them on the blackmarket. Without medical aid and clean water they are expecting one million deathsin addtion to the reported 100,00 already.
Please donate.
World Vision

Feeling Mellow Today

For about a year, I have been taking 0.5 mg of Klonopin at bedtime to deal with my anxety disorder. I am also allowed to take 0.5 as needed, but barely ever do that anymore. This is an extremely low dose. Many people take up to a prescribed 3.0 mg a day.
I also take a lot of other meds and supplements so I fill my four pillboxes once a week. Well, the last time I filled them, I apparently skipped putting the Klonopin in my bedtime box because I hadn't refilled it. That was a few days ago. I went three or four bedtimes without it and without realizing it until last night when I looked at the pills in my hand to make sure I hadn't dropped a pill. It wasn't in my hand, but I hadn't dropped it and it wasn't in the rest of the box either.
Now, this is interesting to me because I did not know I wasn't taking it, but I was starting to feel really anxious and angry the past few days without knowing why. this wasn't withdrawal--I've gone through that before with other psych meds and it feels like a flu. I did not feel sick at all, just anxious and angry.
So now I realize this little bit of anxiolytic is actually helping me a great deal, and it is not just a placebo effect. Because I feel so serene today. Not jittery or angry or anxious at all.
Drugs are good for you. And I will keep telling myself that with every handful I take.
This happened to me with my Plaquenil about 6 years back. I felt better so I stopped taking it. I spiralled into a flare so fast my head spun. My doctor scolded me, put me back on it and it has helped me so much. I have been on the same dose for about eight or ten years now.
That is one thing about my body: I seem to respond quickly and fully to new drugs whether for the better or the side effects and know whether or not it is a good choice for me. And I am able to maintain doses over years and years instead of having to increase doses like many people. That's one good thing about a sensitive sytem, I guess.
The bad side of a sensitive system is played out by my IBS. I leave that to your imagination for now, but let's just say it has been a rough few days on my gut for some reason. Hmmmm... maybe the anxiety I was starting to have messed it up so thoroughly? It is one of the biggest influences on IBS.

A Couple of Websites I Like

The site Consumerist is interesting enough on its own for me to pop on every once in a while, but I just found the sub-blog or tag or whatever you want to call it Stupid Shipping Gang .
Alos through Consumerist I found the site Amazon Filler Item Finder where you type in the amount you need to reach free shipping, which is often much less than shipping, and they provide you with a list of items that "fit the bill" so to speak.

Happy "Us" Day

Don't be fooled the crap you will read about "The Founding of Mother's Day" by Anna Jarvis because it is all bull and has led to the commercialized, insincere "Hallmark holiday."

This is what Mother's Day is really about:

Mother's Day Proclamation
Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts,
Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."
From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says: "Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace,
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God.
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And at the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

Thank you, Julia Ward Howe!