A couple weeks ago, I wrote about how I had finally caved in an visited Pinterest, and wasn’t sure if it was going to be awesome or a total time sink.  I’ve since found that it cuts way down on the number of tabs I have open in my browser at any one time.  Instead of just leaving tabs open, I’ve been pinning them onto boards on my Pinterest page so that I can come back to them when I need them.  Whenever I come across ideas I like (anywhere on the web, not just on Pinterest), I add them to my Pinterest page in the appropriate category.  It’s like a visual to-do list and idea page.  I’m definitely liking that aspect of it. 

I’ve found that I don’t spend too much time browsing Pinterest, but when I do, it’s nice.  I can sit here and nurse our little guy while I scroll through ideas for bathroom tile (since we’re going to be putting a bathroom in our basement soon).  And I can easily save the ones I want to show my husband later on – without leaving eight new tabs open in my browser.  Good all around.

A few days ago, I was browsing around Pinterest and came upon this genius idea:  Freezer-to-crockpot meals.  Yes!  I can do this.  I love my crockpot and use it several times a week.  I also love the idea of just dumping a bag into the crock pot, adding some water, and letting it do its thing.  She’s got a ton of other freezer cooking recipes on her site too. 

I wasn’t sure about the idea of just putting the veggies into the freezer raw, since I know a lot of stuff needs to be blanched first.  Plenty of comments on the site indicated that people had no problems with it, but I decided to blanch some stuff first.  I read that potatoes can turn black if you freeze them raw, and I wasn’t sure about carrots.  So I chopped up a ton of potatoes and carrots and blanched them for a couple minutes before I prepped the freezer bags.  It only added a few minutes to the total prep time, and I was doing several meals at once – not a big deal.  If you try this and don’t blanch anything, let me know how it goes!

Here are my first two meals:

The recipe came from the Costco magazine (bottom left corner), and everyone I’ve ever made it for has raved about it.  I make it at least twice a month, and always make a double batch (which fills my crock pot right to the brim).  Instead of broth, I use water and veggie bullion cubes, so I added the bullion to the bag along with the lentils (rinsed), brown rice, raw onions, garlic and celery, and blanched carrots and potatoes.  A double batch fits nicely in a one-gallon ziplock bag.  All I have to do when I cook it is add 12 cups of water plus one bag to the crockpot.  And it was pretty easy to make a second double batch at the same time. 

This would make a great gift for a family with a new baby or anything else that makes cooking more of a chore than usual.  It would also be a good idea for a get-together with friends.  Each person could bring some ingredients and you could all chop stuff up, blanch whatever needs it, and then stuff a bunch of bags.  Everybody goes home with lots of different ready-for-the-crockpot meals.  Sounds like a winner to me.

I also roasted a bunch of onions and garlic so that I could prep this amazing tomato soup (I cook that one at least twice a month too).  I already have lots of roasted tomatoes in the freezer from last summer’s garden.  So I just combined the spices with some bullion (in place of broth) and the roasted onion and garlic and stashed that in jars in the freezer.  Now all I have to do when I want to make that soup is dump the onion/garlic/spice jar into a pot with a jar of tomatoes and a can of coconut milk and some water.  Couldn’t be much easier than that.  Roasting onions and garlic is easy, but it’s time consuming.  This way I don’t have to think as far in advance about dinner, since everything is already roasted and in the freezer. 

I also prepped the Healthy Mama BBQ Chicken recipe from the original site that I found on Pinterest (link is at the start of this post).  I left out the chicken though, so mine will be BBQ veggies.  I might add tofu or something like that after I cook it, but I’m sure it will be good either way.

I really love this idea.  It makes batch cooking for the freezer seem a lot more do-able.  I spent about 90 minutes putting together enough food to fill the crock pot six times (a full crock pot lasts us at least two meals), and I had a three-year-old helper the whole time.  Definitely not as challenging as spending the entire day in the kitchen for once-a-month cooking, but it will make my crockpot days a lot easier!

If you have links to other sites that have recipes and ideas for prepping crockpot meals ahead of time, please share them in the comments. 

Remember when I told you about the walker I started using as a dip station for my Bodyrock workouts?  Well, I have another inexpensive, DIY piece of workout equipment to share with you.

They use sandbags as weights on Bodyrock all the time.  The one they use sells for about $100.  Of course there was no way I was going to spend that sort of money on one.  So I’ve been using the dumbbells that we’ve had for years, and they work ok most of the time.  But heavy metal dumbbells aren’t the most comfortable thing to have stuck behind your neck while doing lunges and squats.  They’re meant to be held in one hand, so it’s a bit awkward and uncomfortable to hold them by the ends.  I use a 30 lb dumbbell for squats, and I have to wrap a sweatshirt around my shoulders to keep the weight from digging into my neck.  Not to mention the fact that it’s hard to get a good grip on a dumbbell if you’re holding it with two hands – and I don’t like the idea of possibly dropping a 30 lb weight on my head or toes.

So I thought about that sandbag some more.  And then I made one.

I went to Goodwill and found a sturdy duffle bag that has handles on the top and both sides.  It was $4.

Next, I raided my fabric stash and found an old flannel sheet.  I cut five rectangles of flannel to make into bags, and I sewed around the edges twice to make them nice and strong.  I also had a couple of fabric bags that had once contained soap nuts – perfect, since all I had to do with those two was sew them shut once they were filled.

We have a pea-gravel driveway in our side yard, and I used our postage scale to weigh some gravel.  6.25 cups of gravel weighed five pounds.  So after I had seven open-top fabric bags, I filled each one with 6.25 cups of pea gravel.  Then I sewed the tops shut.  Easiest sewing project ever.  I triple stitched the tops closed, folding over the hemmed edges before sewing over them to contain loose ends.

I put a sandbag (gravel bag?) in the zippered compartment on each end of the duffle bag to help keep them from all clumping together in the middle.  Then the other five go in the main compartment.  That gives me a 35 pound sandbag, and I can reduce the weight in five pound increments as needed.

I used it yesterday for my workout, and it’s so much better than the dumbbells.  I was able to hold it behind my neck without it digging in, and it was easy to keep a good grip on the handles.  I love it!  The whole thing cost me $4, since the gravel and fabric for the bags were stuff I already had.  Even if you had to purchase the fabric and gravel, it wouldn’t be expensive.  The Goodwill store near here has 99 cent jeans days when all the jeans in the store are on sale for 99 cents.  You could buy a pair of jeans and chop the legs into sections to use as sandbags – all you’d have to do is sew the top and bottom shut.  And it doesn’t have to be pretty – you don’t even have to turn over the rough hems if you don’t want to.  Pea gravel and sand are both pretty inexpensive too.

This whole project took me about an hour, although that was with two kids “helping” me.  I’m guessing it would take less than 45 minutes if you were uninterrupted.

Hooray!  I now have a dip station and a sandbag!  They aren’t as pretty as the fancy ones, but they’re functional and that’s really all that matters – especially when they cost a fraction of what the fancy ones do.

EDIT:  For any of you who are also fans of Bodyrock – Zuzana has her own YouTube channel now, and is posting new workouts: http://www.youtube.com/user/ZuzkaLight?feature=watch  You can also follow her on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ZuzkaLight  I think she’s great, but I’m also happy with the new team at Bodyrock.tv.  So I’ll be mixing it up with workouts from both of them.

Happy New Year!  I hope that 2012 got off to a good start for you.  I’ve never been one for New Year’s Resolutions, simply because the date seems so arbitrary.  I prefer to make changes throughout the year as I think of them, and January 1 is no different from any other day in that regard.  One difference is with financial goals – it’s handy for us to start over on January 1 each year with those, simply because accounts like IRAs have annual maximum contribution amounts, and we like to get going as soon as possible when the new year starts. For most things though, we make changes as we go and focus on our goals throughout the year.

But I know that the new year inspires a lot of people to make changes, and I get that.  It’s a new beginning, a blank slate for the year you want to create.  And in keeping with that, I thought I’d share some of our favorite habits that help to keep our life happy and smooth.

Notice I said “habits” and not resolutions or fads or quick-fixes.  Resolutions have a dismal success rate, simply because people tend to make big plans and then let them go by the wayside soon after (ever visit a gym the first week in January and then the first week in April?  Notice a difference?).  Fads and quick-fix solutions are similar – if it’s not a sustainable, long-term change in habits, it’s not going to stick.  Not only will it not succeed, but it will probably set you back even further because you’ll be dealing not only with the original problem, but also with the sense of failure that goes along with not succeeding at sticking to whatever resolutions you set for yourself.

So with that out of the way, let’s talk about my favorite habits:

• Make your bed every morning.  I started doing this around the time I turned 32.  These days, I can’t believe that I spent so many years with a bed that was only made about two days a week.  It takes about 30 seconds each morning to make the bed, and it changes everything.  It makes the room feel clean and put-together.  It makes me feel ready for the day.  It makes me much more likely to keep the rest of the room (and the whole house!) tidy, since the bed looks nice.  Honestly, if you’re not already making your bed everyday, this is an easy habit to establish because it takes so little time.  I’m not talking about hospital corners here.  Just pull the sheet up, pull the comforter or blanket up, and put the pillows where they belong, either under or on top of the comforter.  Done.  I’m serious about it taking 30 seconds.
• Exercise every day.  How much is up to you.  If you don’t exercise at all right now, five minutes a day will make a difference.  And I’m not saying go out and lift weights for two hours a day – moderation is important, as is “active rest” (which means that even on a rest day, you still go for a walk, for example).  I honestly believe that some sort of activity or exercise every single day is far better for setting the exercise habit than scheduling a specific workout Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, for example.  Things that we do everyday get etched into our brains more permanently and become habits faster and easier than things we only do sporadically.  So commit to at least some exercise every day.  Walking counts.  So does five minutes of push ups on your living room floor.  So does a game of basketball with your kids at the park.  Do whatever you want.  Make it fun.  Tailor it to the equipment and gear you already have (or do bodyweight exercises that don’t require any equipment at all – no excuses!).  Don’t worry about finding just the right plan or just the right shoes or just the right gear.  Improvise.  Did I already say make it fun?  I’m repeating it because it’s so important.  I remember taking a kick boxing class at the gym several years ago.  I hated every minute of it.  Same thing with a step aerobics class that I took when I was in college.  If I had based my opinions on exercise on what I thought of the step aerobics class, I’d have quit right then.  But instead I found all sorts of exercise that I love.  Personally, I much prefer solitary sports and things that require strength, flexibility and endurance rather than teamwork or coordination.  Someone else might have exactly the opposite preferences and would be much better suited to daily pick-up basketball games.  It doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you do something every day.  For the last 8 months, I’ve been using Bodyrock.tv for my workout inspiration, and I love it.  It only takes 10 – 15 minutes most days.  It’s free and you can do it in your living room (hooray for not trying to find space in a crowded gym right now!).
• Eat right.  Skip the fads.  Skip the drastic elimination diets or anything that calls for dramatically different eating patterns for 30 days or something like that.  Sure they’ll probably “work” in the short term, but what happens when you’re allowed to go back to eating something other than celery and yogurt?  Different eating habits work for different people.  Meat, dairy and grains are controversial subjects in the discussion about healthy eating.  So do what feels best for you.  There are some non-grey areas though:  sugar, processed food and soft drinks come to mind.  I would say that the more you limit (or eliminate all together) those, the better off you’ll be.  Prepare your own food.  It doesn’t have to be fancy or take a long time, but eat stuff that doesn’t come out of a box or a can.  Oh She Glows has amazing recipes almost every day, and they’re pretty much always a hit when I make them.  Her site appeals to me because it’s vegan and she cooks everything from scratch, but that won’t be for everyone.  Search around a bit.  Find a cooking site that inspires you.  Subscribe to the feed so that the new recipes show up in your inbox.  Create a way to save the ones that you want to try and to keep track of the ones that get rave reviews.  I have a simple Google Docs sheet where I put links to recipes that we love.  I’ve been using it for about a year, and it’s become a great resource.  I can scroll through it and be reminded of recipes I’d have otherwise forgotten about, and it always provides ample inspiration for what meals I’m going to make in the coming week.  We never have “what to make for dinner?” dilemmas anymore.
• Spend less than you earn.  This is another one that has become cliche because it gets tossed around so much.  How exactly do you do it, especially if you’ve never done it before?  It’s all about habits, and spending is one area where computers and automation have made it very easy to stick with a goal.  Set up an online savings account.  Don’t spend so long comparing interest rates that you stress yourself out and abandon the whole idea.  Just get it done.  Then schedule an automatic contribution to the account – even $50 or $100 a month adds up over a few years.  The key is to not touch the money once it’s in the account, unless it’s a bona fide emergency.  The definition of that will be different for different people, but I’d say that the more strict you are with what counts as an emergency, the better off you’ll be, and the faster your emergency fund will grow.  If you have trouble with charging more on your credit card than you can pay off each month (without touching that emergency fund!), you might want to consider ditching the credit cards.  Personally, we put everything on a credit card and pay it off every month.  We’ve been doing that for years, and it’s the method that works for us.  Our American Express card puts 2% of our spending into an IRA, and we don’t pay any fees or interest charges.  It works for us, but that doesn’t mean it will work for everyone.  Switch to a cash-only method if you find yourself unable to pay off your card in full each month.
• Start saving for your future, beyond the basic emergency fund.  Again, automation makes this easy.  If you have access to a retirement plan through your employer, make sure that you’re contributing enough to get the maximum employer match.  Beyond that, if you can contribute the maximum allowable amount, go for it.  You can also set up an IRA on your own and arrange to have contributions made automatically throughout the year (Optimize.com has some good tools you can use to make sure you’re making the most of your savings).  You’ll thank yourself some day.
• Slow down.  Actively work to reduce the amount of commitments you have and the amount of time you spend multi-tasking.  Are there things in your weekly schedule that you do because you feel like you should, but they aren’t really adding anything of importance to your life?  Try cutting them out and see how you feel.
• Try going without TV for a while.  This is one area where you might want to do a 30 day challenge or something like that.  Put your TV in the garage or somewhere else out of sight for a month and see how it goes.  If you’re unhappy with the arrangement at the end of the month, by all means move the TV back where it was.  But you might surprise yourself and find that you love all the extra time you have in the evenings.  Netflix and all the other online streaming programs make it easy to catch up on your favorite TV shows (without any commercials so an hour-long show only takes about 40 minutes), and you can always watch movies on your computer too.  We got rid of our TV a few years ago, it was definitely a good decision.  My husband listens to football games on the radio while he works on our basement, and we use a laptop for Netflix.  The monthly fee for Netflix is a fraction of what it would cost to have cable TV, and we never feel like we’re missing anything.  Again, this might seem like something that you’d hate, but you won’t know until you give it a try.
• Stop buying stuff for a while.  30 days, six months, a year – whatever feels good to you.  You have enough shoes.  And clothes.  And kitchen gadgets.  And furniture.  Truthfully, most of us (including my own family) have far more than we need, and should probably be getting rid of stuff in addition to not buying more stuff.  But we can at least start by stemming the flow of clutter into our homes.  Don’t shop for fun.  Don’t open catalogs that come in the mail (and ask to be taken off their mailing lists so that no more arrive).  If you browse around in a store or page through a catalog, you’ll definitely find stuff you want.  Whether you need it is a whole different story, but wanting things we don’t have tends to lead to dissatisfaction.  And we don’t want any of that.
• HAVE FUN!  Focus on things that make you happy.  Find pleasure in small stuff.  Don’t wait for the weekend or for your vacation or for a special day… just enjoy today.  Remind yourself of all that you have to be grateful for.  Don’t compare yourself or your life with others (remember, when we do that, we usually don’t know the whole story and we’re comparing our strengths to their weaknesses or vice versa).  Tell your loved ones how much they mean to you.  Smile.  Hold the door for someone.  Shovel your neighbor’s sidewalk.  Be kind without expecting anything in return.  Tell yourself it’s going to be a great day.  Then make yourself right.

Here’s to a great 2012!

I’ve posted before about how much I love Bodyrock.tv and I’ve had several comments from readers saying that they’re also fans of the short, high-intensity workouts on that site.  I’ve been Bodyrocking for 8 months, and I’ve never felt stronger – I highly recommend it if you’re looking for a way to fit exercise into a busy life, and to shake up workout boredom – there’s no such thing with Bodyrock, since the workouts change every day.

One of the things I love about Bodyrock is the emphasis on bodyweight exercises – push ups, squats, lunges, etc.  Lots of exercises that you can do anywhere, anytime, without any equipment.  That said, they do use some equipment, including this dip stand.  I’ve seen it online for anywhere from $79 to $140.  I wasn’t going to spend anywhere near that amount of money for one, so I had been keeping an eye out on Craigslist for quite some time, but with no luck.

In the meantime, I’ve been improvising.  I use two kitchen chairs as my dip stand, and it works fairly well.  For reverse push ups, I put a broom handle across the seats and through the back rails of the chair.  That works ok, but the broom handle is only at the height of the chair seats, so my reverse push ups don’t go as high as they would on a dip stand.  The backs of the chairs work fine for dips and knee/leg raises, although I’m sure it’s putting some excess strain on the chairs and the sharp wooden edges on the chair backs dig into my palms if I forget to wrap them with a towel first.   All in all, my two chair method was working, but wasn’t ideal.  But there was no way I was going to spend $80+ on a dip stand.

Then I saw a comment from someone on the Bodyrock site talking about how he bought a walker at Goodwill and uses that as his dip stand.  Genius!  I can’t believe I hadn’t thought of that.  Look at this basic walker and see how structurally similar it is to the dip stand.  And although I hadn’t been able to find a used dip stand, used walkers are pretty easy to come by.  My parents are out thrift store shopping today, and they just found me a nice sturdy walker (and no wheels or seat or anything that would interfere with using it as a dip stand) for $13.  I’m so excited to do my workouts with my new equipment!

I love outside-the-box solutions.  Many thanks to the person who originally shared this idea.  I thought I’d pass on the favor and share it again here for frugal folks who like bodyweight exercises.  And as an extra bonus, you get to repurpose something used instead of buying something new – better for your wallet and better for our world.

Cheers, and happy dipping!

In response to my recent post asking what you’d like me to write about, Navya posed this topic:

I have a question for you. I am an ardent fan of your blog and you have inspired me to stay healthy and I always thought that one day when I would have kids ( my husband and I have been married for 2 years now), I would go the mid-wife route like you. Unfortunately, I recently figured out that I have some cysts in my ovaries that need to be removed etc… basically stuff leading to infertility and that I need to be closely monitored and operated on soon… I was wondering what you would have done had you been in my position because today I am filled with self-doubt as to whether or not go to a big hospital in a big city that is well-equipped or a smaller one which is not so technically advanced but i share great vibes with my gynecologist…

Could you write more on how you would tackle such a situation if you were me and what made you trust the mid-wife over big hospitals?

This isn’t the sort of topic that I normally write about, but health, wellness, nutrition and fitness interest me just as much as frugality and simple living.  Our choice to use a midwife and have our babies at home was a pretty simple one.  I knew that was what I wanted and there were no contraindications at all.  I’ve always been healthy, both of our pregnancies were very healthy and complication-free, neither baby was breech, I didn’t have twins, etc.  My first labor lasted 45 hours and my midwives later told me that they had started talking about transferring me to the hospital by morning if the baby hadn’t arrived yet (he was born at 11pm).  But other than being long and slow, my labor was uncomplicated.  I definitely had “failure to progress” as far as medical textbooks would define it, but that was just the way my body went about it.  Every time our midwives checked the baby’s heart rate, it was fine.  He wasn’t in distress, and I was still hanging in there (barely!).  It’s impossible to know exactly how it would have worked out if I had been in a hospital.  Would they have given me Pitocin?  Maybe.  Would that have resulted in heavier contractions and wonky fetal heart tones?  Maybe.  Would there have been a cascade of interventions?  Maybe.  Would I have ended up with a c-section?  Maybe.  I don’t know what the outcome would have been, but I’m definitely glad I chose the path I did.  I’m aware of the fact that things can go wrong during birth, even with a healthy, uncomplicated pregnancy.  But things can go wrong in just about every scenario in life – we can’t wrap ourselves in a bubble and avoid all risks.  My strategy is to keep myself (and my family) as healthy as possible, and do as much research as I can before I make decisions regarding our health.

I did ask myself a few times during my pregnancies what I would do if it turned out that there was some sort of complication.  Some complications would have meant that my midwife wouldn’t have been legally allowed to work with me, although I put a huge amount of effort into doing everything I could to prevent complications as much as possible.  I followed the Foresight Preconception plan for nearly a year before we tried to conceive.  I watched my diet like a hawk – almost no sugar at all, no junk food at all, no refined carbs, etc.  A pet peeve of mine is when I hear pregnant women talking about giving in to cravings for daily ice cream, cookies, etc.  and saying that pregnancy is the one time when you can eat whatever you want and not feel guilty about it.  My own opinion is that pregnancy – more so than any other time in our lives – is when we have an obligation to eat the most nutritious diet we’ve ever eaten.  We’re growing another person from scratch!  Everything we put in our bodies has an impact on how that little person turns out, and junk food shouldn’t enter the picture at all.  Ok, stepping off my soapbox now.  (And to clarify, that has nothing to do with my reader’s question about ovarian cysts.  I’ll address her specific question further down the page, but I wanted to give a bit of background on my own approach to health and wellness, so I’m including some of my thoughts on avoiding the need for medical interventions during pregnancy.  And during life in general.  Don’t eat crap).

I strongly believe that a healthy diet, plenty of sleep, exercise, sunshine, and fresh air, stress management strategies, and strong relationships with loved one are the primary keys to health and wellness.  But I understand that even if we manage all of those things perfectly, things can still go awry.  What would I have done if my baby had been breech?  If I had been pregnant with twins?  I honestly can’t say.  I’m not a “militant homebirther”.  I wouldn’t have knowingly risked my health or the health of my babies just to maintain an intervention-free birth.  Both of the midwives we used were very competent in terms of the natural birth process, but they were also not opposed to the idea of a hospital birth when they deemed it necessary.  If they had told me that I needed to be transferred to a hospital, I’d have agreed to the transfer (I would have been sad, for sure.  But I wouldn’t have gone against their advice).

For about three years before we got pregnant with our first child, I read everything I could find about pregnancy, birth, and health in general.  I made it my mission to understand as much as possible about my body, the development of a fetus, and how the birth process naturally works without any interventions.  I accepted the fact that birth was probably going to hurt like hell (it did), but that millions of women had gone through it and I could too.  I felt that being armed with as much information and research as possible would benefit me, and it absolutely did.  This is the approach I take with pretty much any health-related situation.  And as much as possible, I try to avoid biased sources that have an obvious conflict of interest (for example, an article about the benefits of epidurals written by the drug company that makes the epidurals would be highly suspect in my opinion).

So with that background as far as my own decision-making process and strategies for health and wellness, I’ll try to address the original question.  If I were in that situation, I’d start by doing as much research as I could.  (I know very little about ovarian cysts, so I’m in no position to give specific advice).  I’d discuss the situation with the gynecologist with whom you have a good relationship.  I’d also probably set up a time to meet with the doctors at the high-tech hospital for a consultation to see how closely their thoughts align with yours and what their exact treatment strategy would be.  Although I’m a strong believer in the body’s ability to fix or prevent most problems (as long as we eat right, exercise, manage stress, get enough sleep, etc.), I believe that high-tech medicine absolutely has its place.  When my husband needed knee surgery a few years ago, we went to the best knee surgeon in the state even though it meant driving three hours each way to get to his clinic.  So if it turns out that the high-tech hospital can actually offer better results, I would probably choose that option over the smaller hospital.  A good relationship with a doctor is essential for routine check-ups and questions, but I think that if I were in need of a doctor to treat an acute problem (especially one that needed surgery and extensive follow-ups), I would seek out the best doctor I could find in terms of clinical outcomes.  I would look for a doctor/hospital that did the procedure frequently and with good results.  Bedside manner and interpersonal skills would definitely be less important to me in that situation.  On the other hand, when I went looking for a doctor for our sons (to do well checks and have on call in case of a problem) I searched all over town until I found a doctor with whom I felt a great vibe and connection in terms of our basic philosophies about health.  I don’t need her to handle emergencies, surgeries, or acute issues (which hopefully will be few and far between!), I just need her to check our boys at routine intervals and make sure that they’re growing and developing as they should.

EDIT:  I know that this question was asked of me because I’ve written about our choice to have homebirths with our boys.  But that decision stemmed from our belief that an uncomplicated pregnancy in a healthy mother is not a medical condition and doesn’t (for the most part) require medical treatment.  So I chose highly experienced midwives instead.  But if I were faced with a medical condition that didn’t respond to natural healing methods, I’d likely seek out the best, most experienced doctor/hospital I could find.

I hope that you have great results, regardless of which hospital you choose.  And since you mentioned wanting to have kids someday, I hope that the cysts can be removed without impacting future fertility.  Best of luck to you, whatever you decide!

I’m thrilled to announce that I have found the perfect veggie burger!  I’ve probably tried about 20 different recipes over the years (plus several kinds of packaged veggie burgers, which are way too expensive to have on a regular basis).  Earlier this week, I wrote about the excellent burger buns that I made, and how they needed to be paired with excellent veggie burgers.  I don’t know why I hadn’t already seen Angela’s fantastic veggie burgers, because I make something from her site about once a week.  But thanks to your recommendations, I whipped up a batch of burgers yesterday.  The recipe made enough for two meals for the three of us (huge bonus – I love having something in the fridge ready to go when it’s dinner time).  And it got two thumbs up from both of my guys.  I think it’s the first time in my life that I’ve actually wanted to go light on the condiments so that I can really taste the burger.  If you have a food processor, this recipe comes together pretty fast.  A lot of the ingredients need to be chopped or ground up (oats, bread, almonds, carrots), and I just did them each separately in the food processor before dumping them all together into my mixing bowl.  The flax egg did a great job of holding everything together.  I tasted the “dough” before I baked them, and could tell it was a winner.  Then I was especially thrilled halfway through baking when I flipped them over and they didn’t crack or fall apart – they held their shape perfectly.  If you’ve been looking for a great homemade veggie burger, I highly recommend them!

On to other things… I often get emails from readers asking me questions, or asking how I’ve handled various situations.  Usually I just respond directly to the reader, but I think some of those questions might be things that other readers are interested in too.  So I’m opening this up for reader questions and ideas.  Is there something you’d like to see me cover that I haven’t?  Any questions you’d like me to answer?  You can leave comments or send me an email (babe at frugalbabe dot com) and I’ll try to incorporate your thoughts into some of my future posts.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

My husband and I both love going to the gym.  We enjoy outdoor activities too, but both of us have also worked out at the gym since we were in college.  In our first apartment together, we had a great gym facility on site, and used it just about every night.  For the five years that I worked for the public library in our old town, I got a gym membership for free as a job perk, and we only had to pay for my husband’s membership.  We went to that gym at least four or five evenings a week, until our son was born.  We always went together, but once our son arrived, we had to start staggering our trips, and we definitely started going a lot less.  We began working out at home, but the only equipment we had room for was free weights and some yoga mats.  I got some good yoga and exercise DVDs at a thrift store, and we cobbled together some workout routines that we’ve been using for the last couple years.

But we missed the gym.  Specifically, we missed the equipment they have at gyms.  There’s a nice gym in our new town, and we did briefly consider joining.  But I think it was going to cost somewhere around $800/year for both of us to join, and we’d have had to either stagger our visits or pay extra for child care at the gym.  Plus, with our mini-farm and our son, our schedule is packed a bit tighter than it used to be.

We have a basement in our house now, and space to do things we couldn’t before.  We still have the same amount of living space on the main floor (about 1300 square feet, which is perfect for us), but we have an unfinished basement where my husband has his office, and it has lots of unused space in it – especially since I started purging stuff last spring.  So we set out to find our own gym equipment.  Several weeks ago, my husband found a nearly-new BowFlex on Craigslist for $200.  It’s in excellent shape, and works perfectly.  We’ve found that we’re able to do pretty much any resistance exercise we can think of on the BowFlex, and it works great for both of us.

We also wanted a piece of cardio equipment.  I love to walk and run outside, but we live in a very flat area and wanted something that could simulate hills.  We looked at treadmills, ellipticals, and stair steppers.  It was shocking how many options there were on Craigslist.  And how many of them said that the machine had only been used a few times and was being sold for less than half of what it cost new.  We were looking at several machines in the $400 range (original price of about $1000 – $1600), and then we came across a person selling a stair stepper that had come from a gym that had closed.  It was commercial grade (retails for about $2900 new), working perfectly, and was part of a lot that the guy had bought at auction when the gym closed.  He had sold most of it, but still had a few pieces left and wanted to get rid of them.  He was selling the stair stepper for $100.  We hitched up our trailer, went to his house, and tried it out.  It felt just like the equipment we used to love at the gym.  It was quite a process to get it down the stairs into our basement, but we both had great cardio workouts last night, and we now have a perfect little gym in our basement.  Between biking, walking, and running outside, and all the stuff we can do in our basement now, we no longer miss the commercial gym at all.  We have a few giant mirrors down there that we got for free on Craigslist last spring, and although the basement is unfinished, the side with the gym equipment feels perfect.

Between the BowFlex and the stair stepper, we spent $300.  That’s less than what it would have cost for one year at the gym for one of us.  There’s no chance that the equipment will just sit there gathering dust, as we both have a very proven track record when it comes to exercise.  We’re thrilled with our new little gym, and thankful for Craigslist!  Last night our son was asking for something and I said we didn’t have any.  He said “Oh, ok – I’ll find some on Craigslist.”  I guess he’s picked up on his parents’ favorite place to shop!  If you’re looking for exercise equipment of any type, I highly recommend searching for gently used items.  There are lots of people who purchase brand new machines only to find out that they hardly use them at all and are ready to get rid of them a couple years later.  The discount off of the retail price is usually pretty significant.

On another topic, for those of you who were interested in the Ecofrugal Baby book that I wrote about last week, the author has asked me to let you know that she will be hosting a free talk, book signing, and virtual book signing at the Barnes and Noble in Ann Arbor, MI at 4pm on November 7th.  If you order a book from Laura’s website (29diapers.com), you can request an autograph when you order.

I was aware from a very young age that my parents didn’t buy any Nestle products.  They explained the reasons for the boycott, and it made perfect sense to me.  After spending two years in Africa with the Peace Corps, those reasons made even more sense.  I don’t knowingly buy Nestle products, but the boycott is rarely something I think about.  It’s sort of like brushing my teeth – just something I do.

Recently there has been quite a bit of chatter in the blog world about the fact that BlogHer 10 is being sponsored in part by a couple of Nestle subsidiaries.  Several bloggers have decided to opt out of the conference, and others have been quite torn by the decision.  Attending conferences isn’t very high on my list of things I like to do, so this isn’t an issue for me.  But I know that it’s been painful for several bloggers who are actively involved in promoting breastfeeding.  (I’ve had BlogHer ads running on my site for a few years now, although I’ve manually opted out of having any ads for baby formula/bottles/nipples, etc.)

Boycotting Nestle takes more than just avoiding candybars and cocoa with their logo on it.  They own a tremendous number of other companies, and produce everything from bottled water and pet food to Lean Cuisine and Hot Pockets.  Actively boycotting them might require taking a list of the brands with you to the grocery store.

Unless you’re into frugal homemade food, and simple, whole, organic foods.

I will admit that even though I never knowingly purchase Nestle products, I hadn’t seen an updated list of their companies in years.  When I sat down to write this post, I checked out the list that I linked to above, and was happy to see that I’ve been avoiding Nestle without even trying.

I do my grocery shopping at the local co-op and at a small, regional chain health food store.  95% of what I buy is organic.  I do not buy prepared meals or processed food, which eliminates most of the companies owned by Nestle (and helps to keep my grocery bill down).  I make our own desserts, often inspired by something from Kristen’s Raw (I tend to make things that aren’t particularly fancy and take very little time to prepare).  We drink mostly water, but we don’t buy bottled water.  I don’t wear make-up, and we don’t buy candy or ice cream.  When I grocery shop, the cart is filled mostly with produce (not as much anymore since our garden is producing more – yay!) and stuff from the bulk bins like nuts, seeds, flour, coconut, etc.

Shopping at farmer’s markets, co-ops, and small health food stores has a lot of hidden benefits.  If I have to spend money on food, I like knowing that I’m supporting small local businesses as well as farms and companies that have similar values to my own.  Nestle is pretty bad, but let’s face it, so are a lot of other big corporations.  Buying food from small local companies makes it easier to have at least a bit of an idea where your money is going.

Going to thrift stores for non-food items is another great way to direct our dollars somewhere besides the pockets of big companies.  The thrift stores where I shop are non-profits devoted to helping the needy, the homeless, people with epilepsy, and people with developmental disabilities.  I know that there are some for-profit thrift stores out there, but most of the others are set up to raise money for various charitable causes, which is one more reason to shop there.

Shopping the way we do, for both food and everything else, makes our money go further and keeps us healthy and happy.  It works for us, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.  And it has the added benefit of not contributing profits to companies that I find reprehensible.

Ever since I discovered Green And Crunchy, I’ve been envious of Sheri’s bulk food club.  It’s not available in our area though, so I just kept shopping at the health food store.  If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know I don’t compromise when it comes to food.  We don’t buy anything with mystery ingredients, we make pretty much everything from scratch, and our diet is mostly vegan.  We try to buy local and organic (both if possible) whenever we can.

Sheri’s recent posts detailing her bulk food purchases inspired me to try again to see if I could find something similar.  I started with hemp seeds.  I had been buying them from our local store in 8 ounce bags.  We would go through a bag every week, and they were about $8 each.  Expensive, plus all of the wasted packaging was a bummer.  So last week I went to the source (I buy Manitoba Harvest hemp seeds) and ordered two 5 pound buckets of seeds.  They came to a total of $100 ($10/lb as opposed to the $16/lb I was paying when I bought them in little packages each week).  Shipping was free, and the buckets arrived today.  My bulk food buying has begun!

Then this morning we went to check out the food co-op in the nearby town.  The health food store where we normally shop is local to our state, but the co-op is even more local.  Right away I liked the bulk bins (mostly organic) that allow customers to reuse their own containers rather than prepackaging stuff in little plastic bags.  The store was small and quaint, but well-stocked.  And the best part is their bulk buying program.  They can order anything that their distributer carries (which is a lot more than what is available in the store), and members get all bulk orders for 20% above wholesale (as opposed to 40% – 50% above wholesale for non-members).  To become members, we had to buy a share in the co-op, which cost $160.  If we ever move or decide we don’t want to be members (both highly unlikely!) we can sell our share back to them.  So we bought a share, and are now proud co-op members.  I love the fact that we’re supporting a local business that is fully focused on healthy living and local, organic food.  I am also SO FREAKIN EXCITED to place my first bulk order!  I’ve been making a list of all the things I use a lot of, and I’ll place my order sometime in the next week or so.

As an added bonus, co-op members get dividends each year, based on the profitability of the store.  Here’s hoping they do well!

We’ve started our seedlings for the garden, and are very excited about all the food we’re hoping to grow here this summer.  It will be great to have our own vegetables straight from the back yard.  We’re going to let a few of the new trees bear fruit this summer, but we’re planning to pluck the buds off most of them so that they can focus on their roots this year.  So this summer our own crops will be mostly veggies… but one of these days, most of our food will (hopefully!) be as local as can be – grown within 50 yards of our back door.

Anybody else having luck with buying food in bulk?  Growing your own?  Tips for storing food that you grow or purchase in bulk?

When I checked the mail late last night, we had an EOB from our health insurance company, saying that we were going to be billed $2600 for my husband’s recent knee surgery.  Holy smokes.  This was his second knee surgery this year, and we had met our $3000 deductible back in January when he had the first one.  Our policy covers 100% after the deductible, and we had pre-certified everything before the second surgery (and had been assured that everything was covered, as our deductible had been met).  The billing people at the hospital also confirmed this before the surgery, so we figured all was well.  So when I saw the EOB, my heart dropped.  What could I have missed?  And how could I have missed something so big?  It was saying that we were still being charged towards a deductible, and I started to wonder if maybe the hospital was no longer in network, and that they were hitting us up for the out of network deductible.  But both the insurance and the hospital had confirmed they were in network, on the day of the surgery.  Oy.  I had to go to bed and try to not think about it until today.

This morning I called our health insurance company, and explained the situation to a very helpful lady.  She put me on hold to try to figure out what was going on, and was gone for a very long time.  But eventually she got back on the line and said that the mistake was theirs, and that we did not owe anything – the whole surgery would be covered by insurance.  So that was a happy ending indeed.  We’re looking into LASIK for my husband right now, and if it had turned out that we actually owed another $2600 for his knee, we would have had to postpone the eye visit for a good long while, to give us time to pad the HSA back up again.  So I’m happy to report that everything turned out ok.  I wish I had waited until this morning to get the mail, so that I didn’t have to worry about it while I was going to sleep last night!