A bathtub full of water...

Over the weekend, I blogged about filling the bathtub with water in preparation for a hurricane. I talked with a friend, and she agreed that she used to do the same thing and we both wondered why nobody seemed to do that anymore.

I figure it's germaphobia. If people are going around drinking bottled water when there's no problem, they're not going to want to drink water out of the bathtub. If they are constantly using antibacterial soap, bathtub water is a big stretch. I checked the web.

NOAA's hurricane flyer advises filling the bathtub. BUT it says that you should not drink the water. Ready.gov also advises filling the tub (for sanitary purposes). So... what about drinking water? Okay, I admit that drinking water from the bathtub is not particularly appealing. I would definitely be sure to clean the tub first. But several sites advise filling large containers of water, presumably for drinking. NOAA recommends a gallon of water per day.

With all the government emphasis lately on disaster planning, it doesn't seem like many people are prepared for disaster. Why are people in non-devestated areas running out of food after just a few days? How long could you eat out of your pantry? (Granted... without being able to cook because the electricity and maybe the gas are out).

Austin is hosting almost 2000 evacuees from the hurricane, so we hear about the problems all the time. Many people have lost their homes and have nothing to go back to. But I don't understand some of the problems in the western areas of Houston. Losing electricity shouldn't cause total chaos. We shouldn't have to pass out MREs after just a few days (Again, I am NOT talking about the people who lost their homes.)

Before the hurricane, my dad went to the store and bought some bread and peanut butter and gatorade to tide him over. He came to stay with me during the storm, but he went back the day after to check on the house and was without electricity for 3 days. He ate a lot of peanut butter sandwiches, but he had food.

This whole situation shows that people are not taking disaster planning seriously. Everybody should have some sort of stockpile of food. Maybe not enough for a year (I'm not that hardcore), but at least enough for a week. And some way to cook it, if it needs cooking. We should think about water, too. If a hurricane is coming, fill large containers with water. Fill the bathtub. It could take FEMA a while to arrive. It could be useful to know how to purify water or how to build a fire, or to own a camp stove. We shouldn't have to be out in the streets begging for stuff.

Finally, another note on the water....
My husband is from Central America. The area in which his family lives is notorious for water shortages. When I say shortage, I mean that at certain times of the year, they can be without running water for a week or more. When the water comes down the pipe, people fill up large (clean) trashcans, water bottles, and a giant sink that is used for washing. With careful use, this will last until the water comes again. When I visited his family, I used a bowl dipped in a trash can full of water to "shower". Babies were bathed in small bathtubs filled from the giant sink. Dishes are washed carefully -- rinse them all first, soap them, rinse again. There is no water wasted. His family is a normal family. They do not live in poverty, but they have learned how to deal with an almost constant "disaster". We could learn from some of these techniques.

Cashews -- What the Heck are They?

My husband tells me that when he was growing up he used to love to eat cashew fruit.

Huh.... I had never heard of a cashew fruit before.

Yep, he tells me. Each cashew fruit has one nut.

Wow... that explains why they're so expensive. I imagine a mountain of fruits thrown aside to make one can of cashews.

So what IS a cashew?

The cashew comes from a tree that is native to Brazil. The nut is not actually a nut, but a seed that dangles from the bottom of the cashew fruit, known as the cashew apple (or marañon). The fruit is sweet, but very delicate. It is commonly used to flavor aguas frescas (a refreshing fruit drink). In Brazil, the cashew fruit juice (caju) is very popular.

The nut (sorry, seed) is contained inside a hard double shell, which contains a resin with an irritant related to poison ivy. That would explain why my husband grew up eating the fruit more than the seed. He tells me that the shells are roasted so that the nuts will come out of the outer shell and so that the resin can be removed.

According to several sources, the nuts are cracked manually. Then they are graded, according to how white they are and as to how broken they are. After grading, they are roasted.

So... what brought all this on? I noticed that they started selling caju juice (from the cashew fruit!) at HEB. It's also a great example of how many of us don't know where our food comes from. It's amazing how labor-intensive cashew harvesting is, yet I can go to the store and buy a can of hundreds (!) of cashews for around 4.00.

picture from gigglemoose.com

My Evacuee & Hurricane preparation

My Evacuee:
My dad decided to leave Houston and stay with us. I'm glad. Reports are that the winds were up to 100 mph in Houston and that over 4 million people lost power. I'd much rather have my dad hanging out here with us, feeding the kids lollipops, than hanging out in a soggy house with no power. In the Rita evacuation, the trip from Houston to Austin took some people 12 hours (it should take 3). My dad was able to leave at 6 pm last night and got here by 9 pm. Austin is hosting over 20,000 evacuees in various shelters, and although it may not be luxurious, everything seems to be going smoothly and traffic has been fine.

So, phew...... But my older brother is in the storm's path and hunkering down as we speak (I love this media use of the word "hunker"... it cracks me up. Yes, we say it in Texas, but it's not an everyday expression). Hope everything is okay. Luckily, it seems that the storm has weakened.

Hurricane preparation:
When I was little (living in Houston), the general procedure if a big storm was coming was to fill your tub with water. I can't remember if we actually did this, but we knew that was what you should do in case of a water outage.

Now, the general procedure is to go to the store and buy dozens and dozens of plastic bottles of water. And people go to the store, find empty shelves, and freak out.

If a big storm is coming, why can't we fill some bottles with water for immediate use and fill the tub just in case? (Of course, this would only apply if you are "hunkering down" -- if you need to evacuate, you can't bring the tub with you).

Things that are Awesome

I've made many changes over the past year or so. Some are hard, some are easy, some are easy to stick with, and others.... well.... others I have flaked out on. Here's what's awesome:

• maple syrup. 'nuff said. I realized that my brother (Gato Negro) has the real deal at his house. I asked him when he started buying it. He told me "when I started buying my own syrup". Take that gradgreen!
• sugar. Why was I using Splenda? I was obviously brainwashed by Weight Watchers.
• weight loss without lots of artificial foods
• giving stuff to Goodwill -- I now have a permanent Goodwill box in the closet.
• crayons (As you know, I have 3 little kids. Crayons are my favorite art supply. Why do markers even exist? Oh... to destroy my house... right...)
• homemade pizza -- I got a bread machine and it has been worth it for the pizza dough alone
• line drying clothes (this is C's department. Thank you!)
• Murphy's oil soap for cleaning wood furniture -- bye bye Pledge.
  
• cloth napkins
• hankies
• Craig's List
  
• cloth diapers (I've been a total failure with nighttime cloth diapers, but I am convinced that cloth diapers made my little one potty train at two years old ... a whole year earlier than my other two children)
• less/no TV -- we still use the TV to watch movies, but now we don't have any cable, which keeps us nice and commercial free :)
• ceiling fans -- since we have moved to a place with fans in every room, we are able to keep the AC set at a higher temperature and be very comfy.
• Wrap-n-mat to wrap sandwiches in for sack lunch. Very cute, creates its own placemat, and quite a conversation starter.
  

What hasn't worked out so well?

• CSA -- It just didn't seem worth it and the food was rotting.
• worm composting -- they freaked me out a little, and we killed them. Sorry wormies!
• going car free/ car light -- very very hard with three little kids. The basic problem here is that I can't spend long periods of time on public transportation because I have to get home and pick up/ take care of my children.
  

Convenience

With all the madness of back-to-school, and starting work full-force again, convenience has really been on my mind. For example:

Walking/biking to school
Why do so many parents drive their kids to school? My kids walk or bike with their dad every morning. The school is very close to our house and it would be ridiculous to drive. But there are other parents who live nearby who drop their kids off with a car. Why? I guess because it seems more convenient.

Maybe they are on the way to work and school is on the way. The problem here is that it's not just a quick drop-off. The traffic around the school is INSANE.

My kids don't walk by themselves because they're little, but older elementary school kids should be able to walk a quarter mile by themselves (I think) unless they have to cross a busy road. What I have noticed is that despite the insane traffic (slow, but lots of distracted drivers), there are only crossing guards right at the school. Our road is a little ways from the school, and although many kids walk up our road, there is no crossing guard.

One solution might be to walk the kids to the point at which it would be safe for them to walk on their own (and where they meet the surge of other kids and start to ignore their parents anyway).

But then I thought about my youngest child......

I drop her off at day care every morning and I don't have time to walk her to the school (which is within walking distance) and walk back home to get my scooter. So, I have ended up driving her to day care 2 days out of the week and then driving to work from there. And I have found that I like listening to NPR in the car on the way to work. It's the only time in the whole week that I get to hear the news without interruption.

So, here I am.... I can either:

• Walk her to daycare, drop her off, walk back, scoot to work (total of about 45 minutes, no NPR, but good exercise) OR

• Drive her to daycare and continue on to work (total of about 25 minutes with NPR and killing the environment).

Grrr....

I don't think I'm the only one facing these kinds of decisions.

What's interesting is that she HATES riding in the car and shrieks like a banshee, so in the afternoon I come home, leave the scooter or car, and then walk or ride my bike to pick her up.

Maybe when it's not in the 90s I'll be in a better position to ride my bike to work, but right now I'm a little daunted by the 4 or 5 mile hilly ride.... (Any thoughts on electric bikes to assist on the hills and not get to work a sweaty blob?)

More on the Water Heater

I'm super tired, so I'm going to keep it short.

Last night I wanted a really hot bath. I'm the only hot water lover in the family, so we've been keeping the water heater at a pretty low temperature. So, just for the bath, I turned it up. About 30 minutes later, I had a very hot bath. It was great. Then, I turned the water heater down.

I realized that there is a "vacation" setting on our water heater. Now I'm wondering if maybe we should keep it on vacation and just turn it up about an hour before bath time. What do you think?

Maple Syrup

A while ago I bought my first ever bottle of real maple syrup. It just ran out. So..... I went and bought another bottle. I am officially converted. Real maple syrup is awesome and the stuff I grew up on freaks me out. I can't believe I didn't realize that I was slurping down maple flavored high fructose corn syrup.

Real maple syrup, on the other hand, comes from trees. There are no other ingredients. Pretty cool. I bought 8 oz. for about 5.50. It came in a glass bottle. The same company sells 16 oz. in a cute plastic bottle for around 15.00. Now, I'm not a math genius (actually, I'm pretty good at math, but still...not a genius) but clearly the 8 oz. in glass is a better deal. Tricky evil marketers.

The syrup is grade A. I wondered what that meant, so I looked it up here. Apparently there are no differences in quality of syrup. It is graded accorded to the "robustness" of the maple flavor, as follows:
Grade A light amber: delicate maple flavor
Grade A medium amber: mild maple flavor
Grade A dark ": robust maple flav.
Grade B: strong robust maple flavor
Commercial: very strong maple flavor

Organic maple syrup costs a lot more. Since maple syrup is already pretty pricey for me, I wondered, "what is organic syrup?" Isn't all syrup organic? According to the people at tropical traditions, there IS a difference. There are 3 main points:
Organic maple forests are not sprayed with pesticides.
No formaldehyde is used in tree tapping.
The number of taps per tree is limited, ensuring the health of the forests.

It can take up to 40 years for a tree to get big enough to tap. I wonder if the forests have been organic that whole time....

You get what you pay for

Usually. Except for the case of used clothes, in which case you get pre-worn-in clothing at a great price.

But, if you're going to buy new, it's worthwhile to buy something that is well-made. I am a big fan of places that have good return policies. For example, the first year that my son needed a backpack, I bought a cheapie at Walmart (back when I went there from time to time...). It blew out before the year was over. I have vowed never to buy a non-LLBean backpack again.

Why is LL Bean so awesome?
They have a lifetime guarantee. So, if 20 years down the line, the zipper on your backpack stops working, LL Bean will replace it, without giving you any grief. You don't even have to save the receipt. I love it.

If you buy hiking boots and 7 years later, the soles dry out and fall off (hypothetically), send 'em back, and get new boots.

They have great customer service and great quality.

If you decide to sell your used clothes, they also have great resale value on e-bay. (Google LL Bean raincoat and see what happens)

Land's End and REI have similar policies, and given that all 3 of these companies sell outerwear and outdoor gear that could get rough use, it's a good idea that IF you're going to buy something new, you might as well buy ONE thing new instead of four or five over the years.

A friend also informed me that Sears has a program called Kidvantage, in which they will replace worn-out kids' clothes. Good to know.