inside dog

Tide revisted: The blood of virgins and deals with the devil

After I posted about Tide this week my friend Erica sent me the link to this super interesting New York Times article about how Tide is being stolen and has a high street value. Like ... people steal bottles of Tide and sell it on the street or trade it for drugs. WHAT? I had to share the link here to get your feedback. The article also covers a lot of the history of Tide and how they market it and dudes, they totally got me ... when the laundry is clean and folded and put away I feel like a better person and parent. I DO.

Suds For Drugs.

(and for the record, I'm still not giving up my precious Tide. I swear it works the best. I have tried them ALL.)

What are your thoughts?

In which I go crawling back to Tide

I have tried many experiments in my life as a young adult. I once tried to go no 'poo and a few weeks later - with a crusty, oily scalp - went crawling back to Tresemmé and never looked back. I tried to use non-toxic cleaning products and the only ones that have stuck are the Kirkland "environmentally friendly" dish soap I buy in bulk at Costco, the hand soap I make from castile soap using this method, and my beloved Method surface spray. Everything else I use involves bleach or some sort of scent or toxins that tree-huggers disapprove of. I TRIED. But I need POWER in my cleaning products. I need HOSPITAL clean around here (especially these days).

My philosophy on cleaning stuff is this: If it works the best, I will use it. If it doesn't work, I won't, even if it IS good for the environment, non-toxic, etc. For example? The dish soap and hand soap we now use in our house solved my wedding ring dermatitis issue. That's right! When I started using the castile soap and water formula to refill our foaming soap dispensers my finger TOTALLY cleared up and I've been able to wear my wedding rings around the clock for the last few months. SOLD.

So, I once ranted and raved about the virtues of Charlie's Laundry Soap. Remember that? We are about halfway through the tub I bought in September, which I think is pretty good. I do laundry for a family of four (one of whom works out 3-4 times a week, two of whom are MESSY CHILDREN), we have a friend living with us right now who does laundry here, and we often let friends do their laundry on our back porch laundry station. It's no wonder the large appliance repairman has to visit our house about twice a year, eh? I have appreciated not having to buy a $20 jug of Tide every week (and sometimes every other week) since September. But in the last month or so, particularly through the last two weeks of barf laundry I've been doing, I've been noticing that our clothes aren't getting as clean as I'd like (ahem HOSPITAL clean is my standard).

I concede that preschool clothes get trashed, and there's not really anything to get them 100% clean. And our washing machine is on it's last legs. But as my husband searched through his closet to find a pair of jeans to pack on his business trip the other day and couldn't tell which ones were clean or not (and that's partly his fault because he sometimes hangs dirty jeans back up instead of putting them in the dirty clothes basket), I paused. When I sniffed at a pair of my son's newly washed pants to discover they still smelled like the rancid poopie diapers he'd been having thanks to the stomach bug our family passed around last week, I recoiled (dudes I am pregnant, BAD SMELLS OFFEND ME). And when I plucked a pair of my own washed underpants out of my drawer post-shower yesterday to find that they were not clean? I WAS DONE. I washed a load of laundry THREE times yesterday as a test with Charlie's and checked the same soiled item each time to discover that it was STILL dirty. Sorry, Charlie. I marched myself immediately to the neighborhood grocery store and bought a box of these:

Tide PODS in spring meadow.

I re-washed the same load and MAGICALLY? It was all spanking clean. I don't know how they do it (blood of virgins? Deal with the devil? I honestly do not care but I'm pretty sure they're in touch with the same guys who invented Mr. Clean Magic Erasers). I'll admit, when I opened the lid of the washing machine the scent was pretty overpowering after months of using unscented detergent, but I couldn't deny how much cleaner our clothes were. After a few loads of wash the scent didn't bother me as much and I have to tell you, I really love these little premeasured packs. I was attracted to them because I also buy my favorite dishwasher detergent in premeasured packs because it helps me "portion control" ... I'm the type of person who squirts in way too much detergent pretty consistently and can burn through bottles of the liquid stuff quickly. This solved my problems with the dishwasher stuff and maybe this will help me stretch the laundry soap further.

I think the Charlie's soap is fine for loads that are not heavily soiled, and I'll keep using it for that purpose (and of course keep it out for our friends to use). But these little POD thingies? These are MINE. My only hope and prayer is that by the time this baby is born and brings all his or her poop, pee, and spitup laundry into my life (SQUEE! BABY!) that they'll be making these PODS in unscented.

I'm so curious to hear if you've tried these and what your favorite laundry shortcuts, tips and tricks are, especially ones that save money. I'm thankful to Charlie's for at least curing me of my dryer sheet habit ... they really aren't necessary unless I'm doing a load of Elijah's fleecy footie pajamas or blankets, and it was WAY better than the laundry soap I was making on my own in my food processor.

(this is not a sponsored post. It's just a product that I like and I think you'll like too.)

Quiet hope

Lest you think I am lost to dark thoughts as I post them here (I promise you I am not), I want to share this song. It blesses me. There is hope for the future in this house, quiet as it might be. We are fighting against the tide of darkness and we are winning. One day at a time.

We will see you soon, Huckleberry friend.

(and thank you all for encouraging me and letting me be myself in this space. Writing through this has been so, so helpful for me. xo.)

Breakable/breaking

It is no secret that pregnancy is not so easy for me. My body does not tolerate it very well and I am so thankful for the modern medicine that has made the life of at least two of my children even possible. I have shared that I have been sick and broken down the last three months. With that territory I have had to negotiate the murky waters of urgent care while pregnant and have had to make many judgement calls about what medications are worth the risk. I don't have a lot of choices, and I don't want to be a hero either. I have a husband and two small children. I want to continue to live my life even though I'm pregnant AND sick with colds all the time, you know?

And so when I was a few days away from being able to take a pregnancy test back in October - but was also pretty sure from my physical symptoms that I was indeed pregnant - I came down with the first of many germ invasions this fall and went to urgent care, desperate for help. The doctor told me that the Mucinex DM I had at home in my bathroom cabinet would be fine, but he wouldn't be able to give me any of the "good stuff" ... cough syrup with codeine. He went down the list ... Tylenol was ok, but not Advil. Nothing with psuedophedrine. Lots of fluids and rest. "Sorry!" He smiled and waved. He is a doctor who I have seen many times. He correctly and confidently diagnosed me and Sydney with pnuemonia last year. And so for a few days I took the Mucinex DM and started to feel better. It never occurred to me to run it by my OB because I wasn't even officially pregnant yet. I didn't want to be that crazy over-analytical pregnant lady, worried about every little symptom and freaking out about everything I put into my mouth.

This time around, sick again with a cough, I took another few rounds of Mucinex DM. During the holidays my OB moved offices and his staff was hard to get a hold of, so I didn't think it was a big deal to run any of this by them until yesterday when I went to urgent care again (to be, disappointingly, diagnosed with a virus that must run its course), and a different and less confident doctor told me that I probably should see my OB about this cold next week. Huh. I went to the pharmacy to buy more and asked the pharmacist what she thought. She was a bit frowny, told me that Mucinex DM was a category C drug, and I had to weigh the risks vs. the benefits and decide for myself. Uh? I went in to my OB's office today for routine blood tests and while I was there I caught my doctor's nurse in the hallway and ran the Mucinex DM by her. Her eyes widened, and she said, "You shouldn't be taking that." She recommended something else I could try, backed over herself and told me not to worry about it, but to stop taking it.

And then I really started freaking out. A lot. And thank goodness for twitter ... so many jumped at the chance to calm me down. It helped.

I have had two miscarriages. My pregnancy with Elijah was very, very bumpy for the first 16 weeks, and he was nearly lost. This pregnancy has had its share of bumps and scares. I try to be so careful. I do everything the doctors tell me even though I LONG to be one of those pregnant ladies who just throws caution to the wind and eats sushi and turkey sandwiches and just shrugs at the rules. But psychologically there is lingering damage for me. Fear lurks. There is so little I can control in terms of the life of my babies, I know this full well. I know that in the grand scheme of things a cough suppressant is certainly not the worst thing that has ever been done to a fetus. But when I can take progesterone to stay pregnant? lt gives me the false sense that I have some control in this. It translates to other things and when I "mess up"? It feels like the world is falling down around me.

I need to get it through my head and my heart that I am not Jesus. I don't need to be. I am not perfect and I never will be. I can only do my best. And at some point I just have to trust that my life, as much as I want to control it, is not in my control. It is the same for the life inside me. I cannot control it on either side of the womb.

I am working on understanding that.

Edited to add:

Philippians 3:12-14

¹² Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. ¹³ Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, ¹⁴ I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

All things new

My only New Year's resolution last year was "no pregnancies in 2012." And well? NOW I'M PREGNANT. This week is my 13th week.

This pregnancy was not "planned" per se, although the plan was to try for a third baby this spring. After I ran the marathon in October I felt great! I was in the best physical shape of my life! And then we got off the plane from Chicago and got slapped in the face with a list of preschool crud so long there is hardly a point in listing it here, yet I will try: a mild case of hand, foot & mouth disease, fever, double ear infections, chest colds, head colds, pre-pneumonia, stomach flu, and even as I type this I am sitting in urgent care waiting to be diagnosed with what has turned into a three-week ordeal with snot and coughing.

Throwing pregnancy, one that has included another scary blood clot and progesterone and blood tests and ultrasounds, has been a challenge for me mentally and spiritually. It seems like everyone is sick all the time. And I am pregnant in the first trimester and feeling like swamp thing on top of it. It makes me feel weak, weaker than I have ever been, and that is a hard contrast to the mountaintop I was on in early October, just a few weeks away from beginning this journey with our new baby.

"Humbling" seems to be the word of my life right now. Everything seems harder. I need more help than ever. It is uncomfortable for me. I hate leaning so hard on my husband, who is in his busiest time of year jobs-wise right now. It is hard for me when a friend offers to babysit my kids for free. It was even hard that we were forced to tell our family and a few friends so early on in this pregnancy because we had no choice; we desperately needed help and prayer. But I am still prideful and afraid. What if we lost the baby and got everyone all excited for nothing?

My reward, however? Is up to this point our baby is healthy. Strong, even. The enormous amounts of morning sickness and nausea I have struggled through have been reminders of this. Our doctor high-fives us and grabs me by the shoulders and tells me "Manda, this is going to HAPPEN." It is a new kind of fight.

I miss running. I miss feeling strong and invincible out on the road. But I am clinging to the promise of new life this year, this baby's and my own. Already God is putting new allies in our way. The years we have struggled are fading away. The hurt, the loneliness, the loss. He is restoring what the locusts have eaten.

And I am grateful and unworthy of it all.

Joel 2:25-32
New King James Version
25 “So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten,
The crawling locust,
The consuming locust,
And the chewing locust,[a]
My great army which I sent among you.
26 You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied,
And praise the name of the Lord your God,
Who has dealt wondrously with you;
And My people shall never be put to shame.
27 Then you shall know that I am in the midst of Israel:
I am the Lord your God
And there is no other.
My people shall never be put to shame.

A thought on loss

I sit in a Chipotle alone on a Tuesday night. It is a rare night when I'm headed somewhere alone, and I was hungry so I came inside to eat. I watch the people come in and out. The ones I notice are the ones who are alone too. The other ones are mostly older men, one in his workout clothes with a newspaper to read, another who holds the door open for me and kindly waves me ahead in line. I am in a business district near the airport so I imagine them to be business travelers, some on their own at a hotel nearby after a long day of work in a city away from home.

My father was a business traveler and in the years after my parents divorced I would always look around when I was out at a restaurant at night, wondering if I would accidentally run into him. Airports were especially terrifying for this very real possibility. It was hope mixed with terror I suppose. I always wondered what it would be like to see him again in the flesh.

He's been dead six and a half years and I still look for him. He was a good traveler. He had routines. He worked out in hotel gyms and found good places to eat. He was friendly but he liked to be alone a while at the end of the day. Like me. This is how I remember him.

I wish I'd had more burritos with my dad, more memories with him. I always thought I'd have him when I was a young parent. When he left I thought there would still be time for things to be made right.

I didn't know. One day it was just over. And yet I still catch myself looking for him, before I remember that he is dead and I will never see him again.

I plant my hopes sometimes on my own husband and daughter. I hope they have burritos together always and she never feels the sting of the loss, of the wondering if he will be somewhere when he is nowhere. He is gone.

I believe in heaven. But it doesn't always solve the problem of the pain of loss in this life. It is hard to be a Christian sometimes and come to the realization that it doesn't help much right now to know that this isn't all there is. It still hurts. I do not know if my dad made it to heaven. I hope that he did and I have begged God many times that it could be so. He messed up, but I loved him. I want to see him again.

And that is why I look up when the door opens at Chipotle. It is why I scan the crowds at the airport. My heart can't believe what my head knows. It doesn't want to.

Quiet/Peace

Lately I am having some trouble finding quiet space. I have two small children ... so NO DUH my house is just always ALIVE with NOISE! My husband has a home office (and really this should say Garage Office as he has been swept right out the door) and he is in and out all day. We have a college student friend staying with us. I have been trying to keep the television off but sometimes? I just don't have it in me to pick up all the metric ton of dog poop in the back yard so we can play out there, or sit at the table and come up with interesting things for my busy, busy 4-year-old to do that don't destroy anything. Sometimes it is just so nice to sit there like bumps on the couch, zombied out while I dork around on my phone or drink my coffee.

I think the word I'm probably searching for is "peace"?

So yesterday, while Syd was at school on her long day - on Wednesdays she eats lunch at school and afterwards gets to go to Cooking Class! Her favorite day! - I kinda had the house to myself. When John came in I bored unfriendly holes through him until he left ... what a nice wife! When our college student tried to set himself up at the dining table to study I scurried him right out with the vacuum cleaner. Finally it was just me and Elijah! It was going to be awesome!

Or so I thought.

With the house finally empty, the dishwasher humming away, the floor vacuummed ... I just felt lost. I didn't feel quiet inside my head or my heart. I just felt discontented. I wandered around the house. I turned the television on for Elijah (who is happy to play with his trains and cars on the carpet for hours). I felt upset about how I'd evil-eyed John ... but let's face it I do that to him all the time. I felt gross about having the television on and how my son was just glazed over watching PBS.

There was no quiet. There was no peace. And I had no idea how to turn it around.

For weeks I've had this verse written on the blackboard: "The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing." Zephaniah 3:17. Isn't that a great verse? I have searched it and searched it and wondered WHEN and HOW I will be quieted. When will I find space that is my own?

The problem is that *I* do not rejoice over Him (or anyone) with "singing" these days. I am not finding joy in doing things that I feel like I'm called to do (raise my kids! Hello!). I keep waiting and waiting for God to just wrestle me down and quiet me and the problem is that I don't really WANT to be quieted, now do I? I don't want to invite that into my life. I want to control everything. I want everyone out of my way. I want my four-year-old to act like a ten-year-old and not be LOUD and need entertainment all the time and I definitely don't want her sneaking into the kitchen 45 times a day as she is in the habit of doing these days. I don't want my husband to walk in on me when I'm finally settling down at the computer to do something Very Important (like online shop for Christmas presents or write a blog entry), and I certainly don't want him to catch me laying down on the couch or zoning out next to the kids (who are watching television). I want to be a jerk in my own private space and have no one keep me accountable, dang it! I don't *want* to care for others and share my home and, like, be The Church. Because it's hard sometimes.

What a wimp.

So there you have it. I am searching. I am trying to get humble and stop being such a jerk all the time. I am trying to be thankful for all my many blessings. There are so many.

Winner! Shutterfly $50 credit giveaway!

Well, Thanksgiving was - in many ways - a bust. Syd got the stomach flu in the car, 6 hours away from home, in middle-of-nowhere Utah. And that was just DAY ONE of vacation! She was fine in about 24 hours, after a vomitous stay in a hotel, a trip to a local laundromat, and an extra night in a hotel, we made it to my mom's house in Denver ... where I spent the entire trip with copious amounts of Zofran coursing through my veins and the prayer "Please don't barf. PLEASE" on my lips at all times.

It was rough. And I think it's safe to say that turkey dinner is just not this family's meal (three out of the last four Thanksgivings have ended in puke. That's VERY safe to say).

And so! In the hopes that your holiday was better than ours, I am here to announce the giveaway winner!

Congrats to Shannon!

I'll be emailing you shortly with details on how to claim your prize. Thanks to everyone who entered, and three cheers to leaving Thanksgiving in our rearview!

Down with the sickness

Since we put foot back on California soil after the Chicago Marathon, we have been dealing with sickness at our house. We came home and Syd had a mild case of hand, foot & mouth, which was then overlapped by a double ear infection. And about a week later I got this weird and stubborn cold/flu that I STILL HAVE. Then Syd got it. Then John got it, a particularly bad case of it might I add, and the last to fall has been our sweet little boy. We are a snot factory. We are screaming for an hour at bedtime because our head hurts and we cannot breathe. We are missing three weeks of school in the span of one month.

I got a brief reprieve when I went to New Orleans for The Blathering ... I really, truly thought I'd turned the corner health-wise. But almost as if on cue, the hacking cough, the congestion, returned with a vengeance. "Death warmed over" does not do justice to how I've felt this week.

So this is just to say I'm frustrated. I'm tired of our entire family feeling like crap. I'm tired of my daughter weeping because she has to stay home from school AGAIN. I'm upset because my son is sick and there is little to nothing we can do except wait the virus out. And don't even get me started on the MAN COLD. You know it's bad when your husband makes his own doctor appointment and picks up his own prescriptions! I have run only a handful of times after the marathon because my body is so very angry and so very tired.

There are so many things I want to do and say but I am busy buying tissues and wiping snotty noses and wrestling people with a bulb syringe while they try to kick me in the face.

It's awesome.

p.s. Today is the last day to enter the drawing for a $50 credit at Shutterfly! Comments will close at midnight PST and I'll announce the winner tomorrow. Best of luck!

It's Christmas card time! (and a Shutterfly giveaway for YOUR holiday card!)

For many years (up until Sydney's first Christmas, I think) I wrote a belabored Christmas newsletter that I painstakingly edited down to one page. It's funny actually, how I could come up with PAGES of information about what was going on in our lives pre-kids. It was a lot like blogging I suppose ... a bit narcissitic and involved a lot of navel-gazing and everyone prefers it when there are cute kids involved but I DIGRESS. Once I had something (or someONE) worth a Christmas newsletter? I was too tired and overtaxed to get it done. From there on out it's been a personalized photograph card, and even getting THOSE addressed and mailed in time is a bear.

This year I've been toying with the idea of doing a newsletter again, but the idea of sitting down at my computer for a few hours and banging something witty and actually interesting is still, well, overwhelming (and impossible, because my kids GO NUTS when I open my laptop). So! I've been checking out a lot of cool "bullet point" newsletter cards over at Shutterfly and I have to admit they are COOL! It's the right balance of photos and a few fun - and QUICK - updates about the year in the life of your family.

Like so:

Or this!

Just a few words about your year, updated photos, and a "Merry Christmas" wish, all-in-one. Sounds like a perfect Christmas card for us this year!

And now for the fun part, the giveaway! Just enter a comment on this post and tell me if you'll be sending out holiday cards this year (and if so what kind!) and you'll be entered to win $50 off an order of $50 or more* on Shutterfly.com for your holiday card order this year!! The drawing will close next Friday (Nov. 16) and soon after I'll announce a winner. Good luck!

Also, check out Shutterfly's special offers here. I don't know about YOUR family, but mine has come to expect an updated photo mug every year for Christmas. A personalized photo gift is the sure way to make Grandma cry happy tears under the Christmas tree, folks.

*The fine print: $50 off excludes tax and shipping & cannot be combined with any other promos and expires 12/14/2012 – no extensions.

This post was sponsored by Shutterfly. I received free product in exchange for this post, but the thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.