SortaCrunchy

WFMW: Stop Collections Harrassment

We all know times are tough and the economy stinks and yada yada . . . It stands to reason that during economic downturns, people sometimes find themselves behind a bit on bills.  When this happens, calls start coming in from those painfully persistent collection agencies, right?  

This is annoying/distressful/agonizing when the debt the agency is calling on is your own, but what if it's not?  What if the agency is calling about a relative, a neighbor, or even the person who happened to have your phone number before you?

This began happening to us almost immediately after we got our Oklahoma phone numbers a year and a half ago.  The woman who had Kyle's phone number before him had racked up some debts and then evidently ditched her phone number.  Based on the number of calls we have gotten in the past eighteen months, I can't say that I blame her.

If you've ever been on the harassment end of a debt collection call, you know that they will call and call and call and call and even if you swear up and down you don't know the person for whom they are calling, they still keep calling.  And calling.

A few months ago, I came across some information that has finally put an end to the calls.

It's called the Federal Fair Debt Collections Act and if you read it carefully, you will discover:

§ 805. Communication in connection with debt collection
(b) COMMUNICATION WITH THIRD PARTIES. Except as provided in section 804, without the prior consent of the consumer given directly to the debt collector, or the express
permission of a court of competent jurisdiction, or as reasonably necessary to effectuate a postjudgment judicial remedy, a debt collector may not communicate, in connection with the collection of any debt, with any person other than a consumer, his attorney, a consumer reporting agency if otherwise permitted by law, the creditor, the attorney of the creditor, or the attorney of the debt collector.

AND

§ 806. Harassment or abuse
A debt collector may not engage in any conduct the natural
consequence of which is to harass, oppress, or abuse any person in connection with the collection of a debt. Without limiting the general application of the foregoing, the following conduct is a violation of this section:
(5) Causing a telephone to ring or engaging any person in telephone conversation repeatedly or continuously with intent to annoy, abuse, or harass any person at the called number

This is sorta off-topic, but it is such helpful information, I think everyone needs to have access to it.  It only took a few conversations in which we calmly told the debt collectors that they were breaking federal law by continuing to call us, and eventually, the calls stopped!

Ending collections harassment totally Works for Me.

photo by katebate

WFMW: Reusable Produce Bags

We are just about halfway through Crunchy Domestic Goddess's Ditch the Disposables Challenge, and I have to tell you - this has been so much fun!  When I shared my list of disposable items I wanted to ditch, I confessed that I have problems remembering to bring the shopping bags into the grocery store with me.  Well, I got that problem corrected by creating a little system for myself: I keep them in the trunk of my car now (rather than in the house . . . I mean, really, what kind of sense did that make?), and right after I buckle AJ into her seat before we roll out for the grocery store, I pop the trunk, get the bags out, and put them in the passenger seat on top of my purse.  No more forgetting my grocery bags!

Once I started using my grocery bags, I really got the urge to try out the reusable produce bags I had been seeing.  I looked and looked and kept coming back to these beautiful bags from Etsy shop (and new SC sponsor!) Love For Earth:

Not only does Kara of Love For Earth stock many color choices and fun options for her produce bags, she describes each product with such charm and humor that I just had to find out more.  She graciously agreed to partner with me in my disposable ditching adventures and sent me a set of bags (I chose green!) to help me on my path to a more waste-free home.

Y'all.  I have used these twice now and I LOVE THEM.  I was telling Kara over the weekend that I don't know how I ever lived without them.  I cannot tell you how much NICER they are to use than the wimpy, crinkly, unreliable plastic bags in the produce section.  And aren't the plastic ones such a pain to open?  Particularly when you have a grabby, wormy squirmy toddler who will find a way to unbuckle her cart seat belt and launch herself out if you dare to be preoccupied with more pressing matters.

And I am the only one who manages to get the sweet potato with the hidden claw that waits until my back is turned and then slices open the plastic produce bag so that when I lift the bag to place it on the checker's counter, the wily sweet potato and all of his buddies go free-falling to freedom?

Yeah.  That's not happening with these pretty bags.  All produce will find itself neatly and stylishly contained - at the store and in the fridge drawer.

Here they are in action in my own kitchen:

Look at those ribbon closures.  SO DAINTY, right?  These are just luxury, hands-down.  A nice little treat to reward yourself for buying fresh fruits and veggies.  BONUS?  One baby step closer to a waste-free home.

Oh, this poor guy.  He only WISHES he had been so lucky as to find escape from his fate by busting loose from a plastic produce bag:

What can I say?  She loves an avocado.

Oh yes, friends.  Reusable produce bags - they work for me.

Nursing In Public: A Quick Tip

When Dacey was born (four years ago today!), I knew I was going to give breastfeeding a try.  I wasn't any kind of advocate or lactivist back then, I just knew that we were broke and breastmilk is, well, free.  Two years later, I had become quite the pro which was a nice reward considering our rough start with the whole thing. 

One thing I never did get the hang of when I was nursing Dacey was how to do the whole nursing in public (NIP) thing.  When she was an infant, I had overactive letdown and overabundant supply issues, and those two things combined made those early weeks and months a big, milky mess.  Even when my supply evened out, my concerns over modesty combined with a lack of confidence kept me from attempting to nurse her outside of our home.

However, when Aliza Joy was born, I found I didn't have a choice.  We had to be at playgroup and prayer coffee and church and the library and all kinds of other places outside of our home at precisely the times little AJ needed her mama milk fix.  Thankfully when I was still pregnant with her, one of my mama friends shared a little tip with me that made a huge difference in my NIP success the second time around.

The secret?  A plain old ordinary camisole.  Much like this one from Old Navy.

Here's how it works:

1) When baby needs to eat, find a comfy spot and settle in.
2) Unbutton your top or pull up your shirt (I'm almost always in some kind of t-shirt, long-sleeved of short, because I'm glam like that), but leave the camisole down against your body.
3) If you are wearing a nursing bra (I recommend it in those early weeks), unsnap it and pull you breast out of the top of the cami.  Latch that baby on and you are good to go!

I love the cami underneath because in all honesty, it's not so much flashing a bit of breast and nipple that concerns me when I am NIP - it's the thought of the prolonged exposure of my unsightly mama middle to friends and passers-by who didn't sign up for that kind of trauma when they left the house that day.

Now, you can spend the big bucks for the "official" kinds of nursing tanks out there today (or better yet, let your friends and family buy those for you!), but really, an $8 cami from the local discount store works just fine, too.  If you can find a cami with a shelf bra, all the better because as we nursing moms know, those nursing bra cups are made with inappropriately thin material.  Why?  Why do they do that to us?  Four years after I began my breastfeeding journey, that's a question I still can't answer.  Anyway, a little extra material for some extra coverage is a nice bonus.

So, the simple camisole is a simple solution for mamas who are nursing in public.  Making breastfeeding a little easier definitely works for me.

What tips for nursing in public success do you have to share?

Managing Your Monthly

Male friends and readers (all two of you), you'll want to click away now.  I don't say this often, but when I do, I mean it.  So go on now, click on out of here. 

I've made mention of the fact that we practice Natural Family Planning, but I've not really gone into much detail on how or why.  Briefly - when D was a newborn, I tried out the mini-pill as a birth control solution because the regular Pill would have interfered with my milk supply.  Three days on the mini-pill and I noticed it was making me a little, um, crazy.  Way crazier than usual.  It was not a good choice for me.  Some light research led me to Taking Charge of Your Fertility, a book which I believe every single woman should read at some point in her life.  Immediately I embraced the idea of hormone-free birth control.

When I first took up this practice, I loved doing the charts and the temps.  I felt so in tune with my body.  Many months and many cycles later the novelty has long since worn off, and I have to confess I've gotten sorta lazy with the charting.

Enter my newest favorite find (a discovery made possible for me by Simple Mom via Twitter): Mon.thly

Because of all of the months of legitimate charting, I really am quite in sync with my body's rhythms, so I usually have a general idea of when I'm ovulating and when to expect Aunt Flo to come stomping by again.  The awesome and amazing thing about Mon.thly is that all I had to do was enter in some of my recent start dates, and ta-da!  It tells me all kinds of helpful info.

For example, would you like to know that I'm currently on day 13 of this month's cycle, and that my cycles are averaging 32 days each?  Perhaps you might like to know that I'm currently in the follicular phase.  Perhaps a little too much information for you about me?  Perhaps.  But what I'm trying to tell you is that Mon.thly helps me to know all of that stuff at a glance.  It will also email me two days before my projected ovulation date and two days before my expected start date . . . just as a friendly little heads-up.  Best part?  ALL FREE. 

Easy-peasy monthly cycle management totally works for me. 

WFMW: Take the Pledge!

That's right, gentle readers! I did it. After months and months of knowing I should want to stop the plastic bottled water madness in the SortaCrunchy hacienda but not really wanting to, I've finally come to my senses and surrendered to a life less plastic-y.  And I've taken the pledge. 

And can I tell you this?  It's so liberating.  I cannot tell you how irritated I would get with the plastic bottle congregations that somehow colonized around the house.  The nightstands in our room were particularly popular breeding grounds.  A few weeks ago, we decided it was enough, that it was time.  It has definitely been one of those things I didn't realize I was so deeply in bondage to until the plastic shackles were removed.

So we've been just keeping pitchers of water in the fridge to meet our cold water needs - pouring it into glass tumblers (gasp) the old-fashioned way!  I still need to figure out our out-of-the-house solutions.  I'm leaning towards Kleen Kanteens but haven't yet pulled the trigger on those; I'm seriously considering the Foogo cups for the girls, or do I want to go with Born Free, which I can buy locally?

In the meantime, Debra of Days of Grace shared a great glass water bottle solution last week - reuse and re-purpose glass juice bottles!  I grabbed some at the grocery deli this week and they are working wonderfully for our transition phase.  Even The Coach is on board with this change and he is really digging the Nantucket Nectar bottles (thanks again for that, Debra!).

The Think Outside the Bottle site has some good information on why you might find it works for you to step away from the bottled water; additionally, check out The Green Guide's "Tapped Out: The True Cost of Bottled Water" and the Nutrition Issues in Gastroenterology article "Bottled Water Myths: Separating Fact from Fiction."

Make sure you stop by Shannon's place for more Works For Me Wednesday goodness!

WFMW: Facial Cleansing

I haven't done a Works For Me Wednesday in a long time!  But last week's Shampoo Free post which mentioned my success with the Oil Cleansing Method spawned some questions and comments that I wanted to address all in one sitting.  Incidentally, Shannon's theme for WFMW this week is what doesn't work for me, so I'll play a little fast and loose with the theme by saying . . .

what doesn't work for me are traditional facial cleansers.  They remove my make-up okay, but they also tend to remove lots of healthy, beneficial facial oils, too.  Sorta like throwing out the baby with the bathwater, only we do not throw babies around here.  (Although Big Sister has been known to throw things at the Baby as of late, but that's a whole 'nother post.)

Anyway, as I mentioned last week, it was actually my husband who persuaded me to try this method of facial cleansing.  I'll bet you didn't know that football coaches can also be into natural living and good skin care, huh?  Well, there's a lot about football coaches that might surprise you!  Anyway, he came across this method and thought it made sense - the idea being that most facial cleansers create two damaging situations for your skin: 1) they remove the body's natural oils from the skin causing it to overproduce oil to compensate for the oil that was washed away, and 2) many include ingredients like fragrances that irritate the now vulnerable skin.

I'll let you read the article to learn more, but for now I want to address some specific questions that were posed to me:

1) How often should you use OCM?

Personally, I do an OCM treatment on my face every other or night, maybe every two nights.  It's important to note that I use bareMinerals make-up and feel no need to wash this off my face at night.  Maybe I should, but I don't, and I don't have any problems with break-outs or build-up.  The Coach does a treatment about three times a week or so. 

My sister has begun to use OCM to cleanse her face, too, and she does it about five nights a week.  She wears traditional (non-mineral) make-up and on the nights she doesn't do OCM, she uses her trusty Clinique face wash.

2) What kind of skin types can use the OCM?

I would guess any skin type.  I have combination dry/oily in the T-zone skin and it works great for me.  My sister's skin tends to be more oily than dry, and she has found great success with this method, too.

3) My skin feels dry after I use the OCM.  Why?

It's possible you are using too much castor oil.  The castor oil is the part of the system that actually carries dirt, make-up, impurities, etc., away from your skin.  Too much can be drying.  If you find your skin is too dry, try changing up the proportions in your oil mixture.  Instead of one part CO to three parts of your nourishing oil (we use EVOO), try one part CO to four parts or five parts nourishing oil.

4) Do you still use moisturizer?

I think you'll find if you do an OCM treatment at night, you don't need to put on a moisturizer before bed.  I still put on just a tad in the mornings after I shower if I have dry patches on my face.

5) Have you had any break-outs since you started the OCM?

Actually, no.  When my hormone levels fluctuate with PMS, I might have a blemish or two pop up (blemish . . . I'm terribly proper, aren't I?), but other than that, my skin is really quite clear.  And sometimes even glowy.  (Or maybe that's the minerals talking.)

If you want to read more, here's a few articles I can suggest in addition to the one I linked to above:

Cleaning Up With Oil: The Oil Cleansing Method
Suite 101.com: The Oil Cleansing Method
Aisha Wood: OCM - The Oil Cleansing Method

Don't forget to go by Shannon's to read all the What DOESN'T Work For Me Wednesday posts!

WFMW: Texas Sweet Tea

Okay, so I am playing a little fast-and-loose with the title TEXAS sweet tea. I know there are plenty of Texans out there who might beg to differ with me that this is how Texans make sweet tea. So let me just say that this is how we in the SortaCrunchy household (firmly planted in Texas) make us some sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet tea.

(We also don't have a recipe handed down to us from a great-great-grandmother who made the original sweet tea. Our concoction is a melding together of many recipes we have come across; we have tinkered and made it our own!)

Recipe for one gallon of sweet tea:

1 gallon of water (divided; tap will do fine)
3 or 4 cups of sugar (how much do you love your dentist?)
12 Luzianne iced tea bags

In a large pot, bring 2 quarts (half a gallon) of water and all of your sugar to a boil. When the water comes to a boil, remove pot from heat and add the tea bags. Cover and let sit. (I'd say at least half an hour, but we let ours sit up to two hours sometimes.) After tea has steeped, remove tea bags and pour tea into a gallon sized container. Fill with two more quarts of water (to make a gallon - the magic of math and measurements!). Chill and serve over ice. I like a lemon wedge or two in mine to cut the sweetness, but The Coach prefers his straight up.

A gallon makes a LOT of tea, so unless you are having company over for a grill-out, you may want to make just half a gallon. Tea (sweet and otherwise) tastes funny to me after it's been in the fridge for three or more days.

Enjoy!

For more Works For Me Wednesday tips, pour a glass of tea and drop by Rocks in My Dryer!

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