Our two weeks are up and Art is off to Alberta again. The weather was not nice until the end of his time home. It feels more like spring now but I'm sure it won't last. It's too early yet for us to move into the warm weather but Art packed his shorts and his soccer gear because the weather is nice in the Fort. Oh my, the winter is long on this coast and although I've mostly made my peace with it, I really miss living in places with longer summers.

My brother, Rick, was here for a couple weeks. He found it cold, which it was, he's used to that warm BC weather. It was nice to see him and I know my parents enjoyed his visit and we're hoping he comes back soon. We got to hang out and do lots of catching up with family we don't see that often. This is a picture of me, my Aunt Audrey and Rick the night before he left.




Josiah and Papa

Hannah and I



Rick, Aunt Avis and Mom

These pictures were provided by my Aunt Avis as my camera is still among the missing. Art located my lost birth certificate and the missing package of underwear while he was home but unfortunately the iPod and camera are still lost.

I had sent a couple of Globe and Mail articles around a few weeks ago regarding some research that had been done on the dangers of plastic. In case you didn't read it you can access it at www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070406.wbisphenolA0407/EmailBNStory/Front/home but you would have to purchase it now. It's an important article though and a must read. One of the things that Art and I have been working on has been the issue around bottled water. For any concerned parents there is another helpful link sent to me by another concerned mother at
www.healthobservatory.org/library.cfm?refid=77083

We drink a lot of water in our house and it comes from plastic bottles. Art is the only one who drinks the water from the tap. I have heard all the arguments for and against tap water and yet I still don't feel comfortable drinking it and I don't give it to my kids. But after this article I found myself weighing the good against the bad and wondering if maybe in my case the fluoride was the lesser of the two evils. Then I was reading an article this past weekend on Vitamin D deficiency and came across an interesting link to some research done on the fluoride issue. I tried to attach the link to my blog but was unable to so I'm going to give instructions on how to get there. In the sidebar there is a link to a site called the Vitamin D Council, click on this then scroll down to 'Items of Interest' and click on Statins and Vitamin D Deficiency, scroll down to a link on the right hand side of the screen called 6 degrees (there's a picture of a cute little girl) and then click on 'watch my video'. It's only about 30 minutes but very informative and is an interview with the author of a book called The Fluoride Deception. So after doing more research we found that there are only two ways to get the fluoride out of your water and both are expensive but when you watch this video you'll probably agree that it's worth it. It was interesting and shocking to hear about the research done by a neurotoxicologist, Dr. Phyllis Mullenix, of the Forsyth Dental Centre in Boston, showing that small doses of fluoride in water given to lab rats produced the same symptoms as ADD and hyperactivity disorder and that it appears to be linked to lowered IQ levels in children as well as problems with memory. She was subsequently 'let go', smeared and not able to obtain funding for any more of her research projects. Another important fact from the video is that 98% of Western Europe has rejected water fluoridation. If you believe your water is safe then what prompts such a drastic move by the Europeans?

Feel free to leave comments, I'd love to hear what you're thinking.

One more thing, I wanted to make special mention of a few important Nova Scotians who passed on in the past month. The first was Ransom Myers, a reseracher at Dalhousie University, who documented the decline of many ocean species including the cod on the east coast of Canada. He worked for DFO while I was still there in the 90's. He published many papers on the declining fish stocks and was censored when he blamed the government's inability to manage the stocks properly instead of towing the line and blaming good old Mother Nature. He finally packed it in and left although the bullying followed him to Dal where researchers were threatened that their funding would be cut if they continued to buck the government. As quoted by Ransom Myers from an article in the Nova Scotian, "This atmosphere of fear is really unconscionable in a democracy." And in reference to the destruction of the cod stocks, "-we destroyed a biomass larger than the Amazonian rainforests-". I heard an interview on CBC radio just after he died that originally ran last year where he told of leatherback turles off the coast of Nova Scotia as big as VW bugs which are hundreds of years old and I was stunned. The leatherback is an endangered species and probably the closest kin to the dinosaur. The week before he died he published a paper on sharks and how they are heading in the same direction unless we make some serious decisions. Ransom Myers died of a brain tumor on March 27 at age 54.

Then there was Jocelyne Couture-Nowak who was the teacher from Truro who was killed at Virginia Tech. Although she wasn't from Nova Scotia she spent a great deal of time here left a mark by opening a francophone school in Truro.

And on a very personal front Norman Phillips, the husband of my friend Rhonda Munroe's mother, Doris and Frank McAvoy, the father of one of my oldest friends, Frances McAvoy both died this month. The families of all are in my thoughts.

Happy Easter! The children got up this morning and went on their Easter egg hunt. Josiah's eggs were filled with his favourite--cheddar cheese ducks and Hannah had Cadbury mini eggs. Josiah didn't know what to make of the whole scene, he just kept screaming 'gucks'! The Easter bunny didn't take a very good inventory of the hidden eggs so we're not too sure if they've all been located. We were supposed to go to the airport this morning to pick up Art but we had a huge snowstorm overnight and he is stuck in Toronto. My friend, Sam and her boyfriend are picking him up on their way to Burlington so he will be having Easter dinner with them. If all goes well, he'll fly out tomorrow morning. Everyone is disappointed we have to wait another day. Josiah has been so worked up into a frenzy about Art's arrival that he opened his eyes yelling 'Daddy' this morning. I can't believe this snow! This looks like the worst storm of the winter for us, so much for spring.

To blog or not to blog?! I wish I had more time to spend here. Unfortunately with Art away, I feel pulled in so many different directions that I have to prioritize my days and weeks efficiently. I feel most creative at night but I need at least 9 hours of sleep in order to function on my own with the kids so my creative pursuits end up on the back burner. Whenever I sit down to do anything, Josiah is climbing up into my lap so most of my waking days are spent standing. It's no wonder I need so much sleep at night! Excuses are just blocks and they both need to be eliminated!

Things have been disappearing from around the house lately and I don't know if that's because I'm so distracted by all the things I have to do in a day or if Josiah has somehow been involved in their disappearance. Since Christmas I have lost my iPod, a beautiful wool hat I bought in PEI, my digital camera and just last week a brand new package of unopened underwear for Hannah. I am completely at a loss. I have looked everywhere they could possibly be and this place isn't that large so misplacing things is no easy task. In my entire lifetime, I have never lost or misplaced permanently anything of significant value so this is definitely a record year. Josiah, being almost two, does have a habit of putting things in odd places including the garbage can so I can only assume that these things will either never be seen again or will show up when we finally move. Most of them can wait, but having children I really do need my camera. I still have my old 35 mm but with the age of technology I have become completely reliant on being able to upload my pictures onto my computer and then being able to manipulate them from there. I will wait until Art gets home and maybe a fresh pair of eyes and brain will be able to locate it. If not we will then have to make a decision about buying a new one. I told Art about it but I'm not sure he took me that seriously. He kept telling me that my iPod would show up but that was four months ago.

I have been busy with something that is not directly related to the kids these days. I started a home-based business with a company called Mannatech. For the past year I had been involved with selling Watkins which I think most people are familiar with. I had started the business because to be honest, Art and I were looking for something that could provide us with some income tax benefits and owning your own business is a good place to start. I liked the products and the company has such a reliable name. Well, last summer when we were travelling in BC I met a lovely woman, Sharon Cashin, whom I instantly connected with. I was looking for vitamins for the kids that were sugar and color free and she introduced me to Mannatech. The kids tried the vitamins and seemed to love them. The company was in the process of revamping the children's products and removing the refined sugar. I made a mental note and decided that I would look into it more once we were settled at home never thinking about becoming involved with the company, in fact at the time I didn't even realize that the products were from a home-based business. In October, the Cashin's were in Nova Scotia and came for a visit. I mentioned to Sharon that I was interested in purchasing the vitamins for the kids and then also mentioned that I had been searching for a skin care product for myself that was completely natural. Sharon told me that Mannatech was about to launch a new skin care line in North America that was anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, colorant-free, fragrance free, anti-aging and alcohol free. The product has been available for the past year in Japan and has had a huge response which is pretty impressive considering Japan is one of the most competitive skin care markets in the world. I decided to do some research and check out the company and products and within a month decided I wanted to be involved in this fabulous opportunity. Sharon sent me a sample pack of the skin care and after using if for a short period of time I realized I loved it. Although I consider myself pretty knowledgeable about the natural health industry I know I still have an awful lot to learn. So, any spare time I have lately has been focused on trying to educate myself on vitamins and Mannatech. I am including a link in the sidebar to my webpage, feel free to check it out. Great company, great products, I'll be talking about it a lot in future blogs I'm sure.

I am still teaching yoga at the high school and as we get closer to the end of the school year I realize how much I'm going to miss it. It has been a great experience teaching teens. Although there was a huge response when we advertised that the school would be offering yoga it has been challenging to get the kids into the class and keep them there. They love it once they try it but it's offered in a time slot when so many other extra-curricular activities are going on that they feel like they cannot commit to coming regularly. I feel like it should be offered as part of their curriculum. Too bad we're just not that enlightened yet. Nova Scotia doesn't even have a school board at the moment so there isn't even anyone to approach to suggest it. We still have a couple of months to go so I'm going to relax and enjoy what is left of it and hope that it will be on the program for next year as well. Well, that's my news for now.