The Experiment Continues

To Stephanie and Laura, thank you so much for your responses to my earlier post about living a more eco-conscious lifestyle. They were both immensely helpful!

My thoughts have carried me on a different current today. I want us to eat healthier. I must accept that my 5 yr old will not be able to do that at the drop of a hat so he will have to be weaned over to healthier food choices. Earthfare is as much a den of temptation as the conventional grocery store with all it’s gorgeous organic goodies so, what’s a girl to do? Well, next I’m going to try shopping for my organic groceries on-line at my local store. This way I can pick out all healthy foods, get the one or two things that Ryan HAS to have, and then just go and pick them up without walking up and down the aisles to be tempted by Chili-Cheese Fritos (which I LOVE) and M&M’s. We’re going to eat a lot more fruit and ice cream will be our treat. Also, I’m going to start making things from scratch when we want cookies and other goodies like that.

I’m going to do this for a couple of weeks and see how it turns out. I wish there were a way that I could use reusable bags while taking advantage of the curbside service. It would be nice if you could buy a set or put down a deposit or something and then every time you pickup groceries you drop off the bags you used last time. Maybe I’ll suggest that to the store. It would save them money on paper bags and I would feel good about how I get my groceries home!

Well, we had a pretty exciting day yesterday. We woke up early to read the article about us in the newspaper and were just totally blown away by it. I really thought we were just going to be a blurb or something like that and you could have knocked me over with a feather when I saw the front page of the Life section. Later we went out to see our local Tour of Remodeled Homes and at one of the houses someone walked up to us and said, “hey, weren’t you in the paper this morning?” What a surprise that was! “I recognize you and your boys from the picture. That was a great article!” Let me tell you something about Greensboro. While it is not stuck out in the sticks by any means, in some areas it’s not exactly progressive and I have no doubt that the idea of unschooling rocked some people’s foundations when they read that article. But the recognition made the boys feel like rock stars, even if only for a moment so that was nice.

Don’t know what we’re doing today. I ordered a new cell phone and Fed-Ex (not K-Fed) will be delivering it before 3 today. Since I have to sign for it we’re trapped inside until it arrives. It is again hot as blazes so I guess that doesn’t really matter too much. My god, when is this heat going to end? It’s miserable. Anyone out there live in the upper western part of the US? What is the weather like there in the summer?

I think this week we’re finally going to get around to making the movie that the boys wanted to make. No promises but hopefully we’ll do it. I think it will be fun!

OH! Last night we saw a cicada coming out of it’s shell and that was one of the wildest things I’ve ever seen. The boys were so fascinated by the transformation from regular bug to bug with wings. It was a great opportunity to explain the exoskeleton and how it works vs how our bodies grow. Here are a couple of pictures of the cicada:

When I was little we used to find the empty shells everywhere but I had never seen one coming out before. It was really cool.