My letter to the Mayor of Kauai

I e-mailed the Mayor of Kauai, tonight and this is what I put:

Dear Mayor Carvalho, 

Please sign Bill 2491.  I have attached a picture of my son, Javy.  He has special needs.  He loves living on Kauai.  He's a big wave surfer, you know.  We live in Hanapepe Heights and he attends Waimea Canyon Middle School.  As his mother, I have to make decisions the best I can to protect his health and safety-the food that he eats, his medicines, the fabrics that his clothes are made of, etc.  But I cannot protect him from what goes on in the fields just to the west of our house, nor can I protect him from the what goes on in the fields just outside of his school.  Only you can do that.  The counsel has already done their jobs, please do yours and help protect my son and the people of Kauai.  

Sincerely,

Doris Williams 

PO Box 688

Hanapepe, HI  96716

And then I attached these two pictures:  

This one because I thought Javy's Keanu Reeves hair can persuade anyone and also, behind him is west where the GMO fields are.

This one, because who couldn't be swayed by Javy surfing.

For those who aren't aware, Kauai is having a huge community debate, right now.  We have Bio-Ag corporations on our island, on the west side- Syngenta, Dow Ag and Pioneer.  They are experimenting with GMO crops and they spray pesticides, at a higher concentration than what is allowed, 7 days a week.  Our county counsel actually passed a watered down bill that would hold these corporations accountable for what they are doing to our small island.  My understanding is that it would create a buffer zone between homes, schools, and roads.  It would make them disclose what they are spraying in their fields and then they would have to do an environmental impact statement before they could continue doing their "research".  If you want to read more about it, here's a link to a Huffington Post article.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/16/kauai-gmo-hearing_n_4108914.html

Admittedly, when all of this started, I was on the fence about GMO's.  I believe in science, God created science.  Scientists are always banging their heads, trying to come up with better ways of doing things.  But I never agreed with how these corporations treat the surrounding communities.  I know people who are personally affected by what goes on in these fields-they are constantly sick with respiratory infections.  Here's a link to a video that was actually made by people who live on the west side of Kauai.  http://westsideeyes.tumblr.com/?og=1  Plus, who can deny the fact that west of Kaumakani looks like a wasteland now, especially with all the dust storms.  Wouldn't it be better if they actually grew crops that we could actually eat.  I love the farmer's markets but geez, they can be pricey.  

But then, I also started researching about GMO's themselves.  It's not good from what I can see.  They're not actually producing anything that's beneficial to society.  They say that they can make more food to feed the world's growing population, that's more nutritious.  But they're not, there is very little output by these corporations and there's been very little study done about how they effect communities such as ours.  Most GMO's can be found in processed foods, especially those with corn syrups, beet sugar, and soy.  I think my next step will be to start a letter writing campaign to the companies that sell foods with GMO.  I think we can effectively protest with our votes and our money.  I'm going to start with some of the companies on this link.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maria-rodale/celebrate-nongmo-month-8-_b_4069900.html  These companies have nonGMO products but the company as a whole, has products with GMO.  

I want to do something.  I haven't been able to attend any of the events, but I want to do something.  I can support my friends, but its hard for me to get away, to actually be a physical presence at counsel meetings.  The one I was going to attend, didn't happen because our van is overheating and I needed to take care of it.  Plus, you pretty much have to camp overnight to even get into the tiny counsel room.  Well, this was kind of an impromptu blog, but it comes from the heart.  Goodnight!

We made it through the first month

It's almost been 30 days since I said goodbye to my last career.  More importantly, it has been over a month since we'd been to Costco.  I mentioned in my last blog that we had to streamline our lives, quite a bit.  I'd say we've been fairly successful, despite a few rough patches.  We set a goal for our total budget for our groceries with only one trip to Costco a month.  This being the first month, we estimated how much meat we would need to last us the month and that was the majority of our purchase on that trip.

I then made a 30 day meal plan.  At first, this challenge gave me a rash for a few days.  How the heck do you plan 30 days of meals.  Thank God, I finally realized that I was completely over thinking this and I found a simpler way to think about it.  I divided up the days of the week with general meals, according to our schedule.  So our weeks went something like this: Sunday-chicken dinner (cause its easy to throw a whole chicken in the crock pot and then there's some broth to use for other recipes later in the week), Monday-Steak w/ a fresh vegetable, Tuesday-Comfort Food, Wednesday-Seafood, Thursday-Experimental Ethnic Food, Friday-Stew, chili or soup (that way we'd have left over to eat on Saturday when we'd be playing), Saturday-Grill night.  So I take these general themes and then just plan a more specific menu on a weekly basis.

The surprising part to me was the vegetables.  I planned on going to farmer's markets and then planning my recipes for the week.  But it was difficult to make it to the farmer's markets a couple of times because of my schedule.  So I had to go to Big Save.  Sadly, vegetables and fruits are kind of pricey and that took a huge chunk out of the budget.  We're looking into signing up with a farmer's co-op, where you pay a flat rate and you get a box of fresh stuff, whatever they have in season.  It would end up being much cheaper.

The awesome thing was that we grossly overestimated our meat supply.  The freezer is loaded up about half way, still.

But then about a week ago, I started watching the movie, "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead", while I rode the stationary bike. I'm not advocating a juice diet and I think there's more to get out of this movie than that.  It really made me think hard about our consumption of meat and proteins.  We really eat a lot of food and we're not hunter's and gatherers, anymore.  We don't need that much meat in our diets, it doesn't have to be in every meal.  And guess what, this saves us money.

So again, we went to Costco, our one big monthly trip to Costco.  We bought no meat.  We bought vegetables and nuts.  I bought stuff that I could stretch into bigger things, like Javy's snacks-organic sugar and coconut oil and organic chocolate chips.  Carrots and Sweet Potatoes, I can make stews that I can freeze and make them last a long time.  Because we didn't have to buy meat, we splurged on organic, cage-free eggs.  We'll see how this month goes, I love having a stocked kitchen.

I do recommend the movie, though, it was really inspirational and the main guy, Joe Cross is really handsome.  A lot of people still want to know how I lost all my weight and I still get compliments.  I kind of clam up, because I really don't like all the attention.  But from this movie, I see how he inspired one person and then that one person ended up inspiring many more people.  I see how I need to be more vocal.  And my message is, just start moving, even if its only 2 minutes.  Just keep pushing yourself more.  The confidence you gain will make you want to do more, even change your eating habits because you'll want to keep feeling good.

And on another happy note-we've noticed great progress in Javy, lately.  He's been moving himself across the floor, twisting and moving his body, like its nothing, and trying to verbalize more.  I'm going to work on getting some video of him for a future post.  I want everyone to see what he can do.  I have nothing to back this up, but I can't help but think that it may be because he doesn't eat processed foods, anymore.  It's been a few months since I've bought him anything that was loaded with preservatives and food coloring.  And that was exactly the reason that I did start making his snacks and limiting processed foods-to see if it would help his brain function better.  Hmmmm, could be.

If I had a trillion, kazillion dollars.....

I would build a big wheelchair accessible playground on the side of my house, just like Kamalani bridge.  It would be custom made for Javy with original artwork, plenty of sensory areas and at the end there would be a water feature to play in.  But on the very top there would be an adults only, cocktail bar for stargazing and early morning coffee drinking, sunrise watching.   

I would send my mom to MIT to get her engineering degree, since that is what she should be doing.  Then I would send her on a cruise around the world with Tom Selleck and David Caruso.

I would build a helicopter pad on top of our house and get my helicopter pilot's license so that I could fly just over the mountain and Javy could go surfing anytime he wanted.  Things like schedules would never get in the way of such an important thing.

Hoku Foods, Ishihara and Sueoka's would be the only grocery stores that we would shop at.

We would eat at Wrangler's every Friday night.

We would travel the world, on Virgin Airlines, and hike around all kinds of cool places because I would buy Javy one of those fancy off-roading strollers for big kids.

Who needs a trillion, kazillion dollars?  This could all come true even without it.

And Now For Something Completely Different........

Now on to the topic that's been stewing in my head for a few weeks now, before it boils down to nothing and another year's gone by.  After 16.5 years, I have resigned from my old employer and moved on to something, well, completely different.  I haven't really been able to talk about it much, just to people who were close to me.  But my next venture has been on my mind for quite some time.  I wanted to reach 20 years, just because....  It's 20 years, a good round number, whereas 16.5 sounds a little broken (and I really only missed the half year mark by 7 days.), like I gave up, or something.  My last day was on September 30, I thought that was appropriate, especially with a pending government shutdown (ahem).  Anyway, I digress.  I didn't exactly give up, life just kind of kicked me in the buttocks, and then lined itself up for me.  Really!  Sometimes failures are good things because they point you in the right direction of what you do want.  

Enough with the philosophizing, you might be saying.  I knew what I wanted, I just didn't know how to go about taking the next step towards it.  I wanted to be an occupational therapist.  At first, I thought I wanted to be a physical therapist, somebody who could help Javy walk.  But somebody told me one day that I needed to be a life coach.  And I was like, really that's an occupational therapist, they help with life skills and rehabilitating people to perform at their highest level.  I want to do that.  Occupational therapists don't necessarily work in an office, they can go where they are needed.  Flexibility, just what I need, especially when Javy is older and a young adult.  

So now, I went from being a steadily employed civil servant (third generation, I might add) to a Home Health Aide, going to school to be a Certified Nursing Assistant and a Classroom Aide for Headstart.  It makes perfect sense,right?  Not really, no one was more surprised than me to know that would be my next path.  Trust me, it's going to work and I really enjoy both my jobs.  I get to hang out with my two most favorite people-the little ones and the old ones.  And I'm really learning a lot about Javy in between.  In a couple of years, I'm going to apply for the Kinesiology Program at the University of Hawaii and I'll have the right background to get in.  Oh, and I'm off when Javy is out of school because Headstart follows the public school calendar.  

I guess, I'll be blogging a little more about frugality, because we're streamlining our life, a pretty good bit.  I haven't felt this free since I learned how to ride a bike.  

I trust that its all going to work out because since I've been Javy's Mama, things always do.  I gave up my dream to be an FBI Agent because being a mom was more important.  I did get to work at one of my dream jobs for a few years, but the satisfaction of that never quite overcame the desire to do the best for Javy.  That desire brought us to Kauai.  I will never regret anything in my past or say, "Should've, Could've, Would've."  I had so many great experiences and made some great friends working at the airport.  Javy may never have become a big wave surfer, if I hadn't been working at the airport. 

Dream on, my friends, dream on....

My First Attempt at Recipe Writing

Okay, I made something this am and I just have to share.  It came from my own head, but it was inspired by a former co-worker of mine.  Some of y'all may have heard me mention the Pancake Omelet that I made one day in an effort to make a gluten free pancake while conserving the all too expensive rice flour.  This was much better.  My co-worker suggested that you can also take peanut butter, eggs and bananas and make pancakes.  I'm trying to be grain free that means no rice, corn or wheat, pretty much just whole foods.  And I wanted something besides eggs and sausage (which I make homemade).  This is what I came up with and it has to be my favorite things now.

First, I mixed two eggs and about 2 Tablespoons of Coconut oil together really well.  Then I add some unrefined coconut sugar and a dash of vanilla, mixed all of that really well.  I added about 2 Tablespoons of peanut butter.  I used the all natural kind from Costco, the one with just peanuts, no sugar, no added crappy stuff, the one my mom hates.  I even added about a handful of chocolate chips, the organic ones from Costco.  I heated up my skillet and slicked it up with some coconut oil, cooked the batter like regular pancakes.  I was so happy that it actually worked and I couldn't even tell that it had no kind of flour.  I topped it with organic honey and a pat of butter.  It fueled me up for my morning walk with the dogs and believe me, you need a lot of energy when you take a short legged dog and long legged dog for a walk, together.