Happy New Year!

So once upon a time I used to write this blog...
As  you can imagine, I've been just sitting around in my time off relaxing, reading romance novels and drinking wine.  Actually, I've been thinking about topics to blog about, but never actually doing it.  I've also been getting more and more relaxed about my green living and at this point, I'm almost not qualified to write a blog about raising a green family.  But my time off has been  rather productive.  A few things happened.  I know you like pictures so I'll try to photo-it-up for you.

It looks like my last blog was in August so since then, I potty-trained a toddler.

I started volunteering for a dog rescue group.  It's the one where we got Jack back in June of 2013.  It's called Save A Mom Pregnant Dog Rescue.  I love it.  I've only worked a few events, but it's so great finding home for dogs.  The rescue takes in pregnant dogs, or moms with litters, or even orphan babies and nurses them back to health (if need be), spays/neuters them and gets them all up to date on their vaccines.  As wonderful as it is to find homes for them, it's also hard to hear the sad stories of their lives before.  It amazes me that people can be so cruel.  Treasure, a senior dog that made her way to Save  A Mom has a bullet in her leg that has since healed over.  She has a limp, but she'd been living on the streets for God knows how long with a BULLET in her leg?  Who does that?  Or the puppy mill pup that spent her ENTIRE life in such a small crate that when she was allowed out all she knew how to do was turn in circles?  OK, enough ranting.  Save a Mom is AWESOME!  Working with the dogs is great, but made me miss having two dogs.  So we got Stella.  Also a sad story, her mom was pulled from a shelter in southern Ohio.  Originally one of 6 pups, Stella was one of the lucky two to survive.  Mom was so unsettled by the pound that she wasn't taking care of the pups.  Stella and her brother (who was lucky enough to also find a home!) were taken from Mom and bottle fed.  She's an amazing little girl who has fit in with our family like she's always been here.  Clearly, Jack is good big brother. 

Oh, and I've been doing a little running!  I ran a 5K in October which was a lot of fun.  Then in November I ran a half marathon.  In December I ran another 5K but this was with my new jogging partner-Jack!  The weather is keeping me inside now, but I really enjoyed running.  It was so freeing to spend 2 hours alone.  The feeling of strength and power I got from knowing that I could run such a long distance was rewarding in and of itself.  And yes, I did get a 13.1 magnet for the back of my van.

Let's see, what else?  I think that's about it.  I've been spending a little time raising 4 kids.  So that's about it.  My 4 months off.

So on to the new.  My mom got me a gift card to The Republic of Tea for Christmas.  She also got me a few of their teas to try.  Spoiler alert--new obsession!  Be like everything I obsess about, I did a little research.  Bagged or loose? Rooibos, Green, Black, Herbal?  There are just so many choices!  So here's what I found out in a nutshell.  Loose is better than bagged and stay away from anything that's not organic. I found out that conventional tea isn't washed before it's dried so you're not only eating any and all pesticides and herbicides that were on the tea at harvest, you're also boiling those chemicals. Here's a great article I found about what's in most teas.  I'll copy and past the chart form that article here.

So there you go!  A quick catch up and a new post.  WOW am I being productive today!  I even shoved the front walk and the sidewalk all the way to the kids' bus stop.  Of course it's all covered now because it's still snowing. Yeah. 

Oh, and we went to the Outer Banks!  I need pictures of my kids in tank tops and shorts on days like this to remind myself that it will get warmer!