An Unscheduled Post About Adoption

The kids and I were looking at my photo albums tonight when I ran across a picture of this baby.

When I was in high school, I worked after school at Burger King.  While I worked there, I met another teenager named Christina.  Even though she was the same age as me, she was already living on her own for reasons I have forgotten.  I can't remember exactly, but I don't remember her having any family.

She got pregnant while I knew her.  I don't remember all the details, but she had no money and nowhere to stay.  I tried to talk my mom into letting her live with us, but she said no way.  We had enough problems of our own.  So there were several nights I let her sleep in my car in our driveway and gave her food.  My mother never knew.  In fact, my mother never even knew she was pregnant.

We spent many nights crying over the fact Christina knew she couldn't keep the baby and adoption was the only option.  She didn't have any means to support the baby.  She was completely on her own.

So I throw this out into the internet and search engines in the event Amanda Michele Kikis, born January 8, 1987,  in Phoenix, Arizona, is looking for information about her birth.  I lost contact with your birthmother a few years after you were born, but I was there the day you came into this world.  The people at the hospital weren't going to let us have a picture of you.

I want you to know that your mother loved you with all her heart and her love for you was so great, she sacrificed raising you to make sure you would have a better life.   I hope you did.  I hope you have had a fantastic life, because you had a fantastic birthmom.

I forgot that your mom named you Amanda Michele at birth, but I have never forgotten how dearly she loved you and how hard it was for her to let you go.  Your were truly wanted, it's just that she had nowhere to turn.

You will only see this if you are searching for information and I want you to know how much you meant to your mom.  I wish you well!

Taking Your Kid To Work Day

It was Take Your Kid To Work Day yesterday and Amanda is so disappointed that I don't have a job.

"Didn't you want to be anything when you grew up?", she asked me., "Why don't you have a job?"

"You're my job. If you want to stay home with me today and clean the toilets, and empty the dishwasher, and power wash the driveway, and clean the windows, and make soup, and read with Austin, and make bread, and clean the refrigerator, and take Austin to school, then run to the store, then pick you all up, and feed everyone dinner, then clean it all up, and take you to soccer practice, then listen to everyone read, then yell at you all to put your shoes away and clean your rooms, you may."

"That sounds boring.", she told me., "I wish you were a lawyer, like Taylor's mom."

"Really?  Do you?  Taylor's mom drops her off at school in Safe Key at 7am and she stays there after school until 6pm.  Do you think hanging out in the cafeteria with the Lunch Lady for 5 hours a day is fun and not boring?"

This child floors me daily.  She's also mad at me because we walk to school, instead of drive.  She lags behind on purpose just to irk me and complains incessantly when we walk.  She was half a block behind us a couple weeks ago and I told her that when they walk to school by themselves, they need to stay in a group, or someone could pull up and grab her if she's loafing alone.

"At least they'd have a CAR!", she huffed.

I'm thinking her version of their childhood is going to be completely different than this written version.

In my version, we have this super great driveway that the kids play on constantly.  They ride their bikes and scooters and play basketball all day long.  This is great, except the rubber from our tires makes their feet black if they are barefoot and then they run in and out of the house all day and I have to mop the kitchen floor several times a week.

It's driving me crazy!

I cannot even stand to hear myself anymore about it.  I've been after Greg for months to power wash our driveway to no avail.

"It's fine.", he tells me.

"It's not fine.  Have you ever looked at our house on Zillow?  You can see our driveway grime FROM SPACE!", I screeched at him.

Exhibit A: See Driveway Grime at left????

If you can see the rubber marks from a satellite orbiting the Earth, then it is not fine.  Believe you me.

He told me it would get all streaky if he power-washed it.

"But will it make the kids feet black?", I insisted.

So, finally, when he was gone yesterday, I broke into his shed and found the power washer and the gasoline, then I called my sister for instructions.

"Is it a two-stroke engine or a four-stroke?", she asked me.

"Stop being ridiculous.", I told her., "How in the heck would I know that?"

She surmised it was a four-stroke engine because there was one opening for gas and one for oil.  Did we learn this in school?  I must have been absent.  

After 10 minutes of her talking to me like I was in preschool, I got the water hooked up and the engine started and I started blasting the heck out of our driveway.  Ohmygosh, it made me so happy to blast away the black scuzzy tire marks.  I swear to you that mechanics have cleaner driveways.  I think the tires melt in the summer or something.

Twenty minutes into it, I realized it was getting all streaky, but I just kept going.  We have a 7800 square foot driveway.  I must have been crazy to think I could do it.  Jerry isn't around because he is currently on a Caribbean cruise.  We have all pondered if he will be held in servitude when he gets his bar bill at the end?  We are taking neighborhood bets on the total.  $2000?  $3000?

I was almost done when Greg came screeching into the driveway and started bellowing at me.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?  LOOK AT ALL THE STREAKS!  YOU USED ALL MY TWO STROKE GAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!."

Oops?

There are several ways to get a man to do something, but I wouldn't recommend this way.  You guys just probably hire people when you want stuff done, don't you?

We'll just start telling people we live in the Freaky Streaky house.  Thank goodness I didn't take my child to work with me today.  I almost got fired.

Just Get Out Of Your Car

We participated in Nevada Moves Day yesterday to promote kids walking or biking to school.  We walk to school every day anyway, but we are in the extreme minority at our school, and probably the whole state if we need an entire day to try and get people out of their cars.

Our P.E. teacher made sure that even the kids who are bused in had the opportunity to walk around the park, and she had parent volunteers monitoring the entire park and the crosswalks so they wouldn't feel left out.  She saw me and told me I needed to come in for Field Day Training.

I'm sorry, WHAT?

I was like, oooohhhhhhhh-kay.  I planned on spending my 2.5 hours off from parenting doing something I want to do, like spacing out or reading the paper or catching up on your Facebook statuses or writing my state senator for the umpteenth time.  So I dropped Austin off at school and went to training instead of indulging in a silence-induced stupor.

I know I focus on the negatives about public school way too much and I never really point out all the really super great things that happen, so I thought I would tell you why I was in "training" yesterday.  I was in training yesterday because our P.E teacher knows every single one of her students.  She knows EVERY SINGLE ONE of her 520 students and she wanted to make sure I knew which ones were physically handicapped or which ones were SLD (severely learning disabled), so I could make sure and make their experience fun and positive.

I am not kidding.  Do you even understand?  She pointed out every single student and told me, "Give him an easy one", or "She might need a little more time.'", or "See this row of kids?  These are our SLD students, so make sure they get a little extra help."

So if you have a child who has physical or mental challenges, I just want you to know that there are people out there in the public school system who really truly care about your child.  They aren't just coming to work and putting in their time.  They aren't just budget-draining, mediocre parasites.  They actually love your kid enough to make sure even their volunteers love your kid.

That's what makes the system work.  Most of the teachers at our school are just like our P.E. teacher.  That's why even though our demographics aren't stellar, I hang in there because I see how much these people put into what they do.  I guess if you never GET OUT OF YOUR CAR, you are less likely to see for yourself how much work goes into making a school.

It's that kind of dedication, along with a photographic memory, because OHMYGOD, who? what? which one?, that makes a difference, a real difference, in the life of a child.  Gosh, I get choked up about it because all the kids matter to someone.

Good grief.  I can't even tell my friends' multiples apart and this lady knows 520 kids.

Moving along, I had a pow wow with the second grade teachers on the playground yesterday and discovered that they all collaborate together and use the exact same curriculum.  They even have the same homework.  All four of them have devised a system where each teacher does one particular thing for the group.  One does the math curriculum.  One does the reading curriculum.  One makes copies for the whole group.  How great is that to only have to focus on the one thing you like to do?

"You guys are like a bunch of sister wives.", I told them.

Then they split all four rooms by reading level for reading, so even if I put my kids in three different classes, they will likely be together for part of the day anyway.

So now I feel comfortable splitting them all for second grade.

See?  If you just get out of your car, you can solve all your problems.  Or your perceived problems.  Or your imaginary problems.  

We also participated in Baskin Robbin's 31 cent scoop day yesterday so it's a good thing we walk!

Just Keeping It Real

When I went to pick the kids up at school yesterday, Amanda told me that the P.E. teacher was looking for me.  I'm just warning all of you guys.  If you volunteer at school, you will live there.

I will be running a station on Field Day, not be confused with Kindergarten Field Day, which I just did, but Field Day for the whole school, where I will have to get 425 students to do what I'm telling them to do.  Doesn't that sound fun?  It's supposed to be windy on Friday too.  YEAH!  Do you think I can bring my sport-brella?

On the school front, Lerayshaun punched a girl in the face and was suspended for three days before Spring Break.  I am so disappointed.  Little Peanut's dad approached me last night and said he is terrorizing Little Peanut to the point she is afraid to go to school.  Her dad even went in to talk to the principal about it.

I asked the kids on the way home from school if he was bullying her and ALL OF THEM said he was and that he pokes her with pencils and trips her and cuts in line and pushes her and hits her and makes fun of her from the time school starts, until it ends.

She is our little friend who was born 3 months premature and weighed little more than a pound at birth.  She IS tiny.  Really tiny.  Plus, she's an only child and doesn't know how to fight back.  He has found a prime target.  So I told my kids that they need to stick up for her and not let him pick on her.  I told them they need to tell him to KNOCK IT OFF.  I told Sarah to make sure Little Peanut stays by her on the playground.  Sarah is twice as big as Lerayshaun and he leaves her alone.  He actually leaves all my kids alone because Greg is their father and he's taught them not take any shit from people.

Amanda told me, "It's too bad you wasted your time with him, Mom."

I told her it wasn't a waste of time and I wasn't sorry I helped him because maybe if more people were kind to him, he wouldn't be a bully.  I feel like I know the kid now and I am so disappointed, you have no idea.  It's like if one of my kids was doing this.

Switching gears completely,  have you blog readers noticed how many bloggers have chickens these days?  There is like a chicken epidemic in Blog Land.

Meat chickens at 1.5 weeks old.

It's like every blog I click on has little baby chicks.  Did people get them for Easter?  Cuz if they did, boy are they are in for a ride.

They care about one thing only.  Food.

If you learn anything about chickens from reading my blog and not the fairy tale blogs about chickens, it's that chickens are gross.  Meat chickens, particularly, are the grossest.  Do not feel sorry for the chicken breast you are putting on your plate.  These birds are bred to eat.  They have had all the natural instincts of a normal chicken bred right out of them.  They are so dumb, when they have enough feathers to go outside, I will have to carry them to get them to go every single day.   Even then, they would prefer to just belly up to the feeder and eat than walk around.  They can't even forage because their massive weight makes it too hard to stand for long periods.

Like all chickens, they are cannibals and will eat each other if given the opportunity.  Chickens get 30 percent of their diet from protein and they like meat, even if it's their brother.  I did a head count yesterday and realized I had one missing, only to find that it had died, or they had killed it, and then partially eaten it.

How would you like to pick that up on a shovel?  Are you seeing this side of chicken farming on other blogs?  HUH?

We had 40 mile an hour gusts yesterday, so when I was heading to garbage can with my shovelful of dead chicken, the wind blew it off the shovel and it HIT ME.  So I scooped it back up, then Bob's stupid dog, Bitch, smelled it and charged me and tried to attack me.

Good times.  Good times.

Just keeping it real for all those fuzzy chick blogs out there.

He Wants A Divorce???!!!!

Greg shocked me almost into a coma when he came home with doll clothing and matching dresses for the girls for Easter.  Even after 22 years, I sometimes look at him and think, "Who are you?"

He got the outfits at Sear's.  The Dollie And Me line fits the American Girl doll and he got the girls' dresses, with the matching doll dress, for $15 each.  I would have never bought them the American Girl dolls, but I have to admit to the girls really, really, really, really enjoying them.  They play with them constantly.  I thought the boys were going to bury them in the dirt or behead them, so I am pleasantly surprised that four months after Christmas, they are still here.

We have to turn in our school registrations today and I have to make a decision as to classroom placement next year.

I asked them in the car last night if they wanted to be together or separate next year?

Gregory said, without hesitation, "I want a divorce."

He wants to divorce his sisters.

Amanda wants to be separate too.

My plan was to separate Amanda and keep Gregory and Sarah together next year because a) they don't annoy each other, like the other two, b) they are opposite sex and don't hang out together at all, and I think keeping the girls separate might minimize the inevitable girl friend drama  c) I think we can get two good teachers, but three would be a stretch for any one grade and I thought about alternating who gets their own room each year d) our family convenience cannot be entirely overlooked in the big scheme, since if Mama ain't happy, nobody is happy.  

I asked Amanda why they don't want to be in class with Sarah and she said, "Because she's always raising her hand and answering questions and it's annoying."

Sarah was hurt.  She thinks they are having fun in school and she doesn't understand why they don't like her?  She actually cried about it.

"Why don't they like me, Mom?", she sobbed.  

I felt so bad for her.  Poor Sarah.  She's so friendly and smart and so fun to be around.  Perhaps her star shines a little too brightly for the others?

Anyway, I will take their opinions into consideration, but we don't just get divorced because people annoy us ...................................... now do we?

Our Easter Traditions

Who is getting this one?

We are not actually advertising for Trader's, Walmart, or Ross

On your mark, get set, GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then it was time to bounce off the sugar high.

Our poor net has about had it, between the wind and the heat.  I am putting that on Jerry's list.

Need new net.

The kids cornered our neighbor Gayle, while he was cleaning up dog poop and asked me him if the Easter bunny had left him any eggs?

He told them only brown ones.

The girls and I took a walk to the park in the morning to see Kim's tree.

It is such a beautiful spiritual place and this is going to be part of our tradition now.

We had dinner at Grammy's, like we do every single Sunday.  She hid baskets for the kids.  They couldn't find them three of them and there was drama, so that is why I don't hide them at home.  

We had a delicious ham, baked potatoes, asparagus, sweet potato pie, and hot cross buns.

This is the only picture of me from yesterday.  A big gust of wind came up and almost blew my contacts out.  Would you believe it's windy here?

Now I am preparing to get back in the game after a week off in La La Land.  I completely forgot that it is my birthiversary tomorrow, so I am going to take the day off from blogging.  Sharing the day I was born with Greg, for the rest of my life, is all I can manage for one day.  You may click here for a rerun of my wedded bliss.

Hope everyone had a great day today and you are out there making memories of your own with your little ones!!!!

Spring Has Arrived

Paper Airplane Tutorial

We made it home today after an uneventful and fast trip home from Del Mar.  We could have stayed until Sunday, but we have our Easter traditions and the kids were definitely ready to sleep in their own rooms again.

Greg's brother is in town from Michigan and will be spending a couple days here.

Greg and I got in our annual argument over hiding the Easter baskets or leaving them on the fireplace. They are on the fireplace because that is how my mother left them for us.

My grass is green!  The meat chickens are growing feathers.  My gray hen died for unknown reasons while we were gone.  That is the second hen that has died in the last month.  They were both hens I got last year from the Crazy Chicken Lady, so they weren't even old or acting sick or anything.  One day they were running around and the next day they were dead.  I am stumped.  I hope they don't have some sort of virus or something.  Fortunately, the new hens we got in December should start laying any day now.


My tomato plants are huge and covered with tomatoes.  I have cilantro the size of a bush and my squash is growing like mad.  I am thinking this might be a good year.  Crossing fingers.  

We are tan and well-rested and look forward to spending Easter at Greg's mom's house.  The countdown is on before she leaves to live in Michigan until October.

The kids left carrots out for the Easter bunny and I expect them up at the crack of dawn.

Thank goodness the Easter bunny shopped early at the Jewish dollar store.  

Do You Pee In The Ocean?

Do you guys pee in the ocean?

Austin won't.  He flat out refuses to pee in the ocean and wants me to take him up 1000 steps to go to the bathroom or else he will hold it for 10 hours, until I know his bladder is bursting.

"Sharks pee in there.", I told him.  "Fish pee in there.  Crabs pee in there.  Shrimp pee in there.  Jelly fish pee in there.  Just go out there and pee in the ocean."

"Nooooooooooooo.  Someone will see me."

"No, they won't.  Just go swim and while you're swimming, just pee."

"Nooooooooooo."

"It's a gigantic ocean, Austin.  It's the biggest body of water on Earth.  It doesn't matter if you pee in it.  It's not a pool.  It's the gigantic ocean."

"Nooooooooooooo."

"Austin, I am not walking all the way up those stairs.  Just go in the ocean!  Pee in the ocean right now!"

"Noooooooooooooooooooo."

He wouldn't do it.  He. will. not. pee. in. the. ocean.  He's probably going to grow up and be an environmentalist or something.  He obviously loves the earth more than me, because if the ocean was warm enough for me to actually go in, I would definitely pee in it, rather than walking up 1000 steps.

I actually posted about this on Facebook yesterday and my old roommate replied, "Remember when we were at the bar, Coyote Ugly, and Greg peed in a beer can because he wouldn't wait in line to go to the bathroom?"

I do not.  I have a mental block on pretty much everything Greg does.  It's how I've hung on for 22 years.

I didn't see Greg running up the stairs while we've been here, so I'm just going to guess that he pees in the ocean, as do the other children.

I'm not sure Austin is related to us.  He might be my friend Leslie's child because she doesn't pee in the ocean either.  They are saving the planet, one bladder at a time.

We Can Always Win The Grossest Category

We spent the morning on Coronado Island yesterday.  I've spent a lot of time here as a young adult.  If you live in Phoenix, you escape to San Diego in the summer.  Greg and I even spent one weekend on a yacht in the bay here when my friend Cathy's friend was dating this rich guy and we somehow got ourselves invited along.  Maybe I've always been in Lucy schemes?  I have the craziest pictures from that weekend somewhere, hidden away.

When my mom turned 40, I was 22, and I surprised her by taking her to San Diego.  My poor mom never went anywhere, so it was a really big deal for her and I was already making a pile of money when I ran an insurance agency in Tucson, so it was so fun to treat her to a fabulous weekend.  We had so much fun and she LOVED the Hotel Del Coronado.

I told the kids this was my mom's favorite place.

If I were at home, I have a picture of us in front of this dragon tree.  She would have just loved these kids so much.  I sure wish she was here to see them.

We picked up Auntie Jodie up in La Jolla and we had a delightful afternoon, sitting in chairs, drinking wine, and watching Greg and the kids.  They are like ants, making ant hills.

Jodie did come in at the end to claim credit.

Jodie had a big surgery on her Achilles' tendon six weeks ago and she was not allowed to put it to the ground for six weeks, so I was a little worried about her getting down the 100 stairs to the beach.

She made it!  Those stairs have been killing Greg's back.  He can't sleep in the bed here either.  He's been sleeping on the floor of the condo because the mattress is too soft for him.

Uncle Fred came over after his chemo was done and we grilled hamburgers and had a feast by the pool and jacuzzi.

The kids and Greg were in a sand castle competition with the people behind them in this picture.

We won, even if only by grossest.  Is this inappropriate for Earth Day?  My bad.

We are going to spend part of this day making the condo spotless since we are leaving tomorrow.  The kids did pretty well now that they are older.  Of course, the owners have white/beige carpet, which makes me a nervous wreck, so we haven't let the kids eat in here.  We've put them out on the patio or we've eaten by the pool or out.  Plus, they have all sorts of little doodads and collectibles everywhere, so Greg took a picture when we walked in, then moved everything breakable away, but we have the original picture to put it all back in its place.

The owner told us before we got here that the dryer wasn't drying very well, so Greg fixed it.

Jodie told me we need to do whatever it takes to stay friends with them since this place is beyond great.

I can't believe we only have one more day.  SOB.

Sea Lions Are So Stinky, Mom

We spent the morning yesterday in La Jolla.

I've lightened up my wardrobe for Spring and Easter.  Heh.  I have now wore my $9.99 black sweater dress from Ross in England, France, Italy, Hawaii, and California.

Ten dollars well spent.  Cha ching.   Greg said I looked like Morticia Addams at the beach.

I bought the kids new Adidas flip flops before we left Vegas.  They wore last year's flip flops for one entire year, making them the greatest shoe buy ever, considering they are each on their third pair of tennis shoes since school started.  They wore last year's flip flops while hiking all over the place, from Vegas to Michigan and back.  They wore them to the beach every day in Michigan, the pool all summer, across the asphalt when it was a 115, all winter, and now they wear them as "chicken shoes" when helping me feed the poultry.  They have a really thick sole and you don't have to worry about stray cactus needles piercing through to your feet if you are hiking through the desert.  Happened to me once!

LOVE THEM.  As per usual, I am getting my customary zero dollars for saying I like something.

They even climb in them.

They aren't allowed to wear them to school though.  I got yelled at by the assistant P.E. teacher, when they left their tennis shoes on the lawn overnight and the sprinklers went off, and I sent them to school in their flip flops because their shoes were wet.  I pretended like I didn't speak English when he asked me what was up with the flip flops?  He's on to me now though.

We were delighted to see sea lions in the Children's Pond.  

Until we were overwhelmed with the most powerful stench ever.  The kids started yelling that it was sea lion poop.

Sarah immediately started getting dry heaves.  This is the child who vomits if she smells processed cheese.

Gregory pointed out that one of the sea lions was dead and there was a seagull dining on the rotting flesh.  Don't you have to wonder why someone from the city didn't come and throw that out? It was rotten beyond belief.

I kept looking at the sea lions and wondering what our favorite Eskimo blogger, Finnskimo, would make  for dinner if she got her hands on one these guys?  It's a good thing they avoid the arctic circle.  I totally overlooked the fact that our polygamist colony would starve if Finnskimo wasn't one of our sister wives, gals.  That was a complete oversight on my part.  Of course Maija would have to be a sister wife.  She breastfeeds her whole village until the babies start killing their own dinner, so she could slaughter all the barn animals and be our wet nurse.  Plus, she sews wolf skins into boots and coats to keep the babes warm in the winter.

That will make her the head sister wife, fer sure.

On that note, I can't remember what I was blogging about so have a good day!

Pass Me The Salt, Please.

This is the best family vacation we have ever been on.  This is the first time we have ever gone on vacation and not run ourselves ragged just being on vacation.  We never left our condo yesterday.

I looked at Greg while we were lounging in our chairs and asked, "Do you even think we need to go spend $500 at Legoland?"

And he answered, "Hell, no."

Money really can buy happiness, because the people who own this condo are millionaires, and I have to believe they are pretty gosh darn happy.  And if they aren't, then they need a slap.

So, back to my health issues.......

If you know me or have read my blog for a long, long time, you know that every year when I go to the doctor, I make them test my thyroid, because I've felt for years and years and years that I've had an undiagnosed thyroid issue.

One time I was in Starbuck's in the Fashion show mall and a man approached me.  I thought he was going to tell me that the kids were cute or that I was insanely hot, but instead, he said, "This may sound strange, but I'm an ophthalmologist.  Do you have a thyroid problem because your eyes are bulging and you should have that checked out."

And I was like, HUH?

So I did get it checked out, but the doctor told me my eyes bulge because I'm so severely myopic.

Then I stopped eating gluten.  Was that a couple years ago?  I can't remember.  And I've felt way better since then but I have still had really bad days where I assumed I had gotten gluten, unknowingly.

Then I noticed a few months ago that I would have really bad days when I was in contact with bleach, so I changed all our cleaning supplies to natural products.

My sister told me I was going insane.  But every time I would take Austin to swimming in the indoor chlorinated pool, I was getting severe muscle aching and headaches, so I started staying outside the enclosed area.

Then the weirdest thing happened about a month or so ago.  I got these new seaweed snacks at Trader's and every time I would eat them, I would have more energy and less incidences of fatigue and fibromyalgia-like aches.

I actually brought them with me when I went to Arizona because I noticed how much better I felt if I was eating them.  I even told my sister and she told me I was a lunatic and had officially become a hypochondriac. That's why I never mentioned it, because my sister convinced me I was crazy.

Then I ran out of the seaweed snacks and had a few really bad days days of the body aches, fatigue, and unexplained blahness.  I don't blog about all the times I feel bad because I would sound like a whiner and who wants to read a whiner's blog?  Not me.  I just plow through it with coffee and the occasional ibuprofen.

Finally, I wondered what it was about seaweed that would make me feel so good?

It was just WEIRD.

So I googled, "thyroid seaweed" to see if those two were somehow connected and found this website.

The thyroid gland regulates metabolism by regulating the consumption of energy by the body. It also makes proteins and is responsible for regulating the body's sensitivity to hormones. The thyroid accomplishes this by producing its own hormones called thyroxine and triiodothyronine. The thyroid requires tyrosine and iodine to create these hormones


Seaweed is full of naturally occurring iodine.  The article goes on to say most Americans do not have an iodine deficiency because we put iodine in our table salt.  And I was like, OHMYGOD, I stopped using or cooking with regular table salt almost 15 years ago.  I've been using sea salt from Trader's all these years and it does not have any iodine in it.

Then I went on to read about how if you are iodine deficient, you cannot process chlorine or bromine.  All of our breads use bromine dough conditioners nowadays, so eating bread could make you sick if you don't have adequate levels of iodine.

I found this interesting website to self-test your iodine levels.  I didn't do it because that would require I spend five minutes on myself, but I found this part of the website interesting.

Women are naturally prone to iodine deficiencies. That's because the thyroid gland in women is twice as large as in men -- so under normal circumstances, women need more iodine. However, when women are under stress, the need for iodine can double or triple. Yet the foods we eat contain less and less dietary iodine. For example, back in 1940, the typical American diet contained about 800 micrograms of iodine. By 1995, that amount plunged to just 135 micrograms. That's an 83% decline.


I wonder what the decline is when you intentionally take ionized table salt out of your diet because you think eating sea salt is HEALTHIER????!!!!!!!!!!!

Sooooooooooooo I am going back to regular old table salt and eating seaweed until my iodine levels get back to normal.

I am killing myself with all this healthy stuff or I've become a lunatic and a hypochondriac.  Fortunately, if I'm a lunatic and hypochondriac, the placebo effect works on me, so I am fine.  YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!

Pass the salt!!!!