Slacker!

It's me. I'm the slacker. I've totally been slacking off on the giveaway lists. But not to worry, I have a whole pile of them saved up and I will tell you about them!

Plus, I have four (!) giveaways lined up here, coming soon. I'm hoping all the companies come through. Right now I'm waiting on a few products to review - and of course they're taking forever with the Christmas rush in the postal system. I'm really looking forward to this! It should be fun.

Today I think I need to get to the grocery store (ugh! it's going to be a zoo! Why am I putting it off! It will only get worse!), and maybe I'll drop by HomeSense while I'm out... I know it makes no sense to go shopping two days before Boxing Day, and all my Christmas shopping is done. And it's crazy to go shopping anywhere on Christmas Eve. I guess I'm crazy like that!

I'm still not feeling Christmas. Despite the awesome early Christmas present, the baking (nearly 300 cookies), the wrapping, the tree, the get-togethers with friends and family, the Christmas cards sent and received... I don't feel it. One day soon I hope that I will get rid of the other feeling that I've got instead. The feeling of loss, frustration, grief, and, to my shame, jealousy, that I've been carrying around. I don't want to be that person. I was expecting a January baby, before the miscarriage. Then a June baby, when I was told I had an ectopic pregnancy - didn't have one - did have one (way to get my hopes up). Now I'm hoping, fearfully, tentatively, with all my heart - for a November baby. Maybe we will be lucky. More likely, it won't happen right away.

All I want for Christmas is for next Christmas to be a totally different experience.

Hmmm, enough about that already.

Thanks for your comments yesterday on my post (rant?) about food. I'm still reading the book I mentioned and it's really making me question my own diet. As you know, I'm vegetarian, but not vegan. I've been buying free-range eggs (and there's a difference between free-run and free-range - check out the wording and question what 'access' means, exactly), but after the kind of articles I've been reading, I am not convinced that makes any difference. I wonder if I can find any farmers around here who sell eggs from un-genetically engineered chickens that enjoy the privilege of an actual outdoor space, natural light, nesting and roosting areas, the use of their beaks, fresh water, food that's appropriate and not filled with supplements or 'preventative' antibiotics, with more than 8/10 of a square foot of indoor caged & stacked space per bird. We're in the country, so, maybe. Or - maybe I need to just stop with the egg eating. They're kind of gross, anyway.

When Meghan mentioned about cutting chicken making her gag, it reminded me of how the smell of ground beef used to make me gag, back in the day when I ate meat. At the time I thought to myself, why eat something that makes you gag? Isn't that one of our most basic reactions to things that aren't good to eat? Like, you know, things that have spoiled or are inappropriate, or carry disease?

And reading this book has led to some internet research, and honestly, I am learning a lot more about livestock farming than I ever wanted to know - and that's kind of the point. I didn't want to know because I already know it's horrible and wrong. Kind of like you don't want to know the details of child abuse. But the difference in your moral response is that your actions don't condone child abuse... yet by eating meat (or eggs, or dairy), how can you say you're not complicit in the abuse of animals? When the evidence is there, if you would only look? Anyway. I don't want to get all accusatory or preachy, at ALL, it's just something I've been thinking about a lot. To inform my own decisions. (And I'm not comparing child abuse to livestock farming, it's just a very clear example of a moral situation that's not a quandary at all.)

My point was (and I got really sidetracked there!) that eggs make me gag. So why the heck have I been eating them? Ugh. I think I'm done with that. I need to do some kitchen experiments with egg substitutes.

Ok, if you read this far... way to bear with me in my philosophical struggles! It's funny how writing things out makes the inevitable conclusion jump into focus.

That's hardly all. But I've got to get out and do that shopping, stat!