Brown Thumb Gardener – Composting 101 (It’s All You Need to Know)

 
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Brown Thumb Gardener - Composting 101 CradleRockingMama.com

I first learned about compost years ago, but at the time I had no interest in gardening so I quickly forgot anything I learned.

A few years ago, when I first made a small attempt at gardening, I decided that we needed to compost.

Using other garden blogs as my guide, I drilled holes in a large trash can and made myself a compost bin.

I’ll admit, composting has always made me a little…insecure.

When you google for composting, you’ll find WHOLE BOOKS written about it.

Y’all, seriously. WHOLE BOOKS. Geez, it makes it seem so complicated!

I’ve been left feeling as though I’m not doing it right, that I’m missing some important step and leaving out a crucial element in my composting process.

As you might imagine, I haven’t created that much compost over the last few years.

Since this summer is my big attempt at turning my brown thumb green, composting has become a focus for me again.

I’m uncomfortable with most commercial products for my garden, so amending my soil is something best left to the natural wonders of homemade compost, you know?

Still, I felt like I was doing it wrong.

Suddenly, last week, I had a “eureka” moment!

I’d been diligently dumping my food scraps to to my bin, adding cut grass and such, mixing it around, and frankly, all it resembled was a big pile of nasty gloop.

Big Pile of Gloop CradleRockingMama.com

While stirring it with the shovel, some back part of my brain snapped into gear and I remembered: I’m supposed to add DIRT to this, too!

(head slap moment)

So I grabbed a bunch of topsoil and stirred it in.

You know what happened?

My pile of gloop turned into compost right before my eyes.

That’s when I remembered a conversation with Darrel that led to my “eureka” moment.

Back when I was belaboring over which cloth diaper selection I would make, and once again asked Darrel for his opinion on the latest of my options, he looked at me and in all seriousness said “Honey, it’s a piece of material that collects pee and poop. Does it really require this much thought?”

Um…good point. I made my cloth diaper decision within five minutes and moved on.

Sitting there in front of my compost bin, watching the gloop turn into compost, I remembered that conversation and re-worded his response to fit composting:

“It’s a bunch of decomposing stuff. Does it really require that much angst?”

NO!!

Composting isn’t hard, and I’m here to advise you to ignore anyone who would make composting a full-time job in their advice.

Keep it simple. Keep it easy. Keep it real.

Composting is simply turning garbage into plant food. It’s an entirely natural process, God-invented, and therefore it needs no serious interventions from mankind in order to be just perfect.

Follow a few simple guidelines, and you, too, can have yummy plant food in no time!

Here’s all you need to know in order to make your own compost:

  1. Save your scraps. (No meat products, though!)
  2. Dump them in a compost bin.
  3. Add some natural materials (leaves, cut grass, etc.)
  4. Add some dirt.
  5. Stir it up.
  6. Keep it moist but not wet.

Now…

Did you forget to stir your compost for a few days? No biggie! Go stir it when you remember.

Forgot to moisten it and it’s dry as a bone? No biggie! Add some water and stir it up.

Forgot to add natural materials or soil? No biggie! Go add some now that you remember.

Do not – I repeat – DO NOT waste a single moment of your gardening brain stressing or worrying about composting.

Some folks have turned composting into a fine art, and evaluate what you should add in exact proportions to create just the right balance of nutrients.

Good for them, I say!

But for me?

Ain’t nobody got time for that.

Just leave the meat products out, since they don’t degrade the same as plant products, and your compost will basically take care of itself.

In a short while, you may not have perfect, precisely balanced, exquisitely rendered compost…but you will have homemade compost that will enhance your garden with no chemicals involved!

I’ve been keeping my scraps in an old bowl on my counter. When it gets full, I give everything a whiz in the food processor and dump it in the compost bin.

That takes a couple of days, so about every 2-3 days I stir the compost and decide if it needs more grass or soil.

I keep a second trash can next to the compost bin that I dump natural materials into when I find them. Then they’re always nearby when I need to add some to the compost itself.

Compost Setup CradleRockingMama.com

I’ve almost filled up my current bin, so I think it’s time we get another one. At some point you need to leave the compost alone and stop adding stuff to it to let it sit and finish “melding” so you can use it.

My garden should be getting a nice nutrient boost here in a few weeks!

Seriously. Composting is easy. Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.

Happy Gardening!

Vegan Apricot-Avocado Ice Cream

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Vegan Apricot Avocado Ice Cream CradleRockingMama.com

Finding apricots is exciting for me; I have another food to experiment with in the kitchen! It was a little overwhelming at first, though. I’ve never used apricots before and had no idea where to start.

So I googled. One of the most appealing ideas for Jed was to make an ice cream. This recipe from Deliciously Organic sounded delicious!

Except that Jed can’t have honey, heavy cream, or coconut.

So I took that recipe as inspiration and made some changes.

(Remember, tweaking is fun!)

In the end, I’m very happy with what came out – even if the color isn’t quite as pretty as the inspiration recipe!

Take 3 apricots, slice them in half, and remove the pits. Toss the apricots into a saucepan with water.

Turn on the heat, and simmer until the apricots get soft (about 8-10 minutes).

Cooking the apricots CradleRockingMama.com

Once they’re nice and soft, take the pan off the stove and let cool on the counter.

Then grab an avocado, slice it in half, remove the seed, and scoop that lovely flesh into a blender.  Add the maple syrup, lemon juice, almond extract, milk and the softened apricots.

I didn’t actually have any almond extract when I made this, so it’s a totally optional add-in. Everywhere I’ve read says almonds and apricots are a great flavor combo, though, so if nuts are safe for you, please try it!

In the Blender CradleRockingMama.com

Turn it on and process until smooth. When it’s nice and creamy, pour it into a jar or bowl and stick in the fridge to cool down.

I don’t know what I expected when I did this, but I really wasn’t thinking. The avocado contributed its lovely green hue to the gorgeous apricot color, and it came out a funny yellow-green color.

Yes, it's green CradleRockingMama.com

Not quite what I expected! But not the end of the world. To make sure it didn’t taste as odd as it looked, I dabbed a little on a spoon and raced over to Darrel.

“Here,” I said, as I shoved it in his mouth. “Try this.”

Good sport that he is, he took it without complaint or comment.

I knew I had a winner when his eyes widened and he said “Hey! That’s pretty good!”

OK. I can get over the color if it tastes that good, can’t you?

Once it’s chilled in the fridge, get out your ice cream maker and dump everything in. Do whatever you do to make your ice cream maker work, and about 20 minutes later, you’ll have ice cream!

Jed was asleep when I did that part, so I dumped it all in a glass bowl and stuck it in the freezer for him to eat the next day.

In the freezer CradleRockingMama.com

Good news! The next day, it scooped! (I just don’t have pretty scoops in my pictures because, frankly, I’ve always stunk at scooping pretty scoops of ice cream.)

Delicious Apricots and Avocados CradleRockingMama.com

When Jed got his bowl of ice cream, he liked it. You’d never know that if you simply listened to his words, though! Just to give you a taste of what it’s like to live with the most argumentative and contrary child on the planet, here’s Jed eating his Apricot-Avocado Ice Cream:

Yup. “This tastes bad to me.” Eat another big bite. 

Right.

(And I do actually have video of Jed arguing with me that the sky is NOT blue!)

So if you can’t do cream or coconut and would like a sweet apricot treat this summer, give this a try!

Hope you like it!

Vegan Avocado-Apricot Ice Cream
 
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This delicious ice cream may not look like a typical apricot ice cream, but it more than makes up for that in taste, texture, and nutrition!
Author:
Recipe type: dessert
Serves: 2.5 cups
Ingredients
  • 3 apricots
  • ¼ c. water
  • ¼ c. maple syrup
  • ½ c. milk (whatever is safe for you, or just water)
  • 1 avocado
  • 1 tsp. lemon juice
  • 1 tsp. almond extract (optional - omit to make top 8 free)
Instructions
  1. Slice the apricots in half, pop out the seed, and put in a sauce pan with the ¼ c. of water.
  2. Bring to a simmer until the apricots are softened, about 8-10 minutes.
  3. Add the maple syrup and stir.
  4. Remove from heat and let cool.
  5. Cut the avocado in half, remove the seed, and scoop the flesh into a blender.
  6. Add the milk, lemon juice, almond extract, and apricots to the blender.
  7. Process until smooth.
  8. Chill in the fridge for at least 3-4 hours.
  9. Pour into your ice cream maker and follow manufacturer instructions.
  10. Enjoy your healthy, unique summer treat!

Peri-Menopause or Stress?

 
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Peri-Menopause or Stress CradleRockingMama.com

Earlier this year I started having some odd symptoms. None of them struck me as particularly ominous or even all that dangerous; in fact, I hardly even noticed most of them.

Until I suddenly had a monthly cycle so short, I barely finished before starting again. 

That’s NOT normal for me.

I started to get a little worried. My family has a history of early menopause; was I in the early stages of peri-menopause?

It seemed a little extreme, even for my family, so I went online to look up the symptoms of peri-menopause.

Every web site I visited said there are 35 documented symptoms of peri-menopause, and my concern grew when I realized I was exhibiting many of them.

Now, I didn’t have all of these, but here is a small listing of some of the symptoms that indicate peri-menopause:

  • Irregular heart beat
  • Irritability
  • Irregular periods; shorter, lighter periods; heavier periods, flooding; phantom periods, shorter cycles, longer cycles
  • Anxiety, feeling ill at ease
  • Feelings of dread, apprehension, doom
  • Difficulty concentrating, disorientation, mental confusion
  • Incontinence, especially upon sneezing, laughing; urge incontinence
  • Itchy, crawly skin
  • Aching, sore joints, muscles and tendons
  • Increased tension in muscles
  • Gastrointestinal distress, indigestion, flatulence, gas pain, nausea
  • Sudden bouts of bloat
  • Increase in allergies
  • Hair loss or thinning, head, pubic, or whole body; increase in facial hair
  • Tingling in the extremities

Hmm.

Fortunately, I had my annual well-woman exam in May, so I spoke with my OBGYN about the possibility of entering peri-menopause.

She said the typical method of determining whether a woman is entering menopause is to check her follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) levels.

She told me to arrange for bloodwork to be drawn on the third day of my next cycle for the test.

I did, and the results came back normal. No peri-menopause for me!

However, a little extra reading from The North American Menopause Society dropped a little bit of a wet towel on my “yay, I’m not in peri-menopause” happy dance.

The FSH test is not always very accurate during the early stages of peri-menopause. Apparently, a woman’s hormones can fluctuate wildly during that time, so even a test with normal results may not really tell the story.

According to the NAMS, there is no accurate test to confirm menopause. Women simply must observe the calendar, observe their symptoms, and wait.

Fun.

Honestly, I don’t know what to think. All of this weirdness started up just a couple of months before I returned to work. Returning to work is always incredibly stressful for me; concerns about Zac and Jed’s health, worry about money, worry about being away from home and staying on my TED, worry about pumping and keeping my milk supply up…well, that’s a whole lot of stress right there!

And stress can cause lots of weirdness in a body.

In fact, the list of symptoms of stress from the American Institute of Stress has many overlaps to the list of peri-menopause symptoms.

But then I read another article that suggested stress can cause early menopause, and further suggested that peri-menopause can last from 2-8 years. Even better, when women start peri-menopause very early, their symptoms are usually more mild and will typically last longer (8 years of peri-menopause as opposed to maybe 2 years for a woman beginning the process in her late ’40’s).

So am I in peri-menopause? Or just incredibly stressed out?

Is the stress actually pushing my body towards early menopause?

I have no idea. 

But I think it is clear that I need to find some ways to de-stress.

So I’m asking for your help: what’s your favorite way to de-stress? 

And does anyone have any helpful input about early-onset peri-menopause?

Apricot Trial

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Apricot Trial CradleRockingMama.com

Last Thursday I walked into the health food co-op and saw a gigantic display of Apricots. They had just gotten them in, and told me they should continue to receive them for the next couple of months.

Apricots are on my short list of foods to trial next for Zac, and I’d been wondering where I was going to get some.

The kids and I came home with 12 pounds  of apricots that day!

At dinner, Darrel and I were chatting about the cauliflower trial and came to the conclusion that it was going extremely well; well enough to call it a safe food and move on!

So we cleaned and sliced an apricot to give to the boys for dessert.

They didn’t really like it. I swear I don’t understand these kiddos! Rejecting strawberries, maple syrup, and now apricots?! Really, Zac?

Finally Darrel noticed that Zac was trying to eat it, but the peel seemed to give him a hard time. So I peeled that apricot for Zac.

Have you ever peeled an apricot? It’s a pain in the butt.  Not impossible, just not nearly as easy as peeling, say, an apple.

But, he liked that much better! That night he ate ¼ of an apricot.

The next day, he ate another ¼ of an apricot. We couldn’t get him to eat any more.

Saturday Darrel made a “kitchen sink” version of the quinoa drops that were made of egg, quinoa, goat milk, cauliflower, banana, and apricot. (Why yes, they WERE so moist they almost didn’t set up, why do you ask?)

He got so excited about Zac having so many foods that he went a little overboard. Zac’s not a fan of particularly moist baked goods, so we had a bit of a hard time getting him to eat them. At the end of the day, he had only eaten half the batch. Normally he’ll eat at least one whole tray of quinoa anything,  so this was not encouraging.

On top of that, he pooped a LOT on Saturday; far more than normal for him. And by his second poop, he had a bright red allergy ring and was screaming and thrashing when I tried to wipe his heinie.

The last poop of the night had a good sized lump of mucous in it.

More discouragement.

Darrel and I sat down to decide what to do. Pull the apricot or keep going? Is it a reaction, or just his body adjusting to a new, more acidic food? Are the 2 year molars fighting to come in finally causing confusing trial symptoms for him beyond the ear pressure?

In the end, there are just too many things it could be that are not FPIES to warrant pulling a food trial. We decided to keep going, and watch carefully.

Saturday night Zac woke up every two hours all night long. It’s been a while since he did that! I was a zombie yesterday!

Sunday Darrel made a less moist batch of quinoa drops with apricot for Zac. By dinner time, he’d only eaten about half the tray, but he only pooped once and it was better than the day before, plus he was in fine spirits.

Also, Darrel noticed that Zac is chewing on everything again, much like he was when he was first teething. Goodness knows what kind of accidental trace he picked up in the last few days from that, and it certainly is a sign that teething is making itself a nuisance in our food trials!

So, we wait and see. I’d really like to continue our “Safe Food Streak” with another success. Let’s hope his strange signs are anything BUT FPIES.

Other than the food trial, this weekend was really for Food Procurement and Preservation.

We had to do another goat milk run on Friday, and this time Darrel finally got to come with us. While he drove, I made multiple phone calls to local You-Pick-It Blueberry places to find one that was organic. I finally found one – about another 30 minutes further away than the goat milk place! Oh, well. At least we won’t have to go often, right?

We hit the Farmer’s Market again on Saturday morning and came home with 75 more heads of cauliflower. (I’m still a bit amazed by the cauliflower purchasing we do.)

Jed and Zac have just fallen in love with the Farmer’s Market! The rest of the weekend, Jed would occasionally tell us he wanted to go back to the Farmer’s Market to play with puppy dogs and see the water (the fountain on the square). I love that they love it there, and I have to share a little video of them dancing and jumping to a singer at the market. It’s too cute!

Once we had collected as much fresh food as possible, the rest of our time was spent trying to preserve it.

Apricots are, apparently, not a very long-shelf-lifed fruit. In order to not waste that whole 12 pounds of apricots, I went online to read how to preserve apricots for year round use.

Good news: apricots are very adaptable and can be canned, dehydrated, or frozen.
Bad news: every recipe or tutorial I found used citric acid or lemon juice to prevent discoloration during any of those methods of preservation.

We don’t have any lemon juice or citric acid to use for Zac.

I finally just decided we would somehow survive with slightly discolored apricots, as long as they were edible otherwise.

The boys didn’t finish the apricot on Saturday, so I put the slices in the freezer to see if Zac would like them more as a frozen treat.

He didn’t, but you know what? It didn’t really discolor at all that I could see!

Still, odds are good that most of the time I’ll want to use apricots pureed into something, so I decided to simply puree as much apricot as I could and store it in Ziploc bags in the freezer.

Preserving apricot was the least of my worries; after all, we don’t even know if apricot is going to be a safe food yet! I just didn’t want 12 pounds to go bad before we figured out the answer to that question!

The rest of the weekend we spent preserving cauliflower.

I’m a little staggered at the amount of work that goes into preserving the harvest. It’s not hard work, it’s just…time consuming and mind numbing.

By the time Sunday night came around, Darrel and I had preserved somewhere in the ball park of 168 cups of cauliflower, or just under 38 pounds of cauliflower for Zac in our freezer.

And we aren’t done yet. There’s still almost 60 heads that need attention in our kitchen.

Figuring that each head of cauliflower is roughly around 4 cups chopped and frozen, that’s only the equivalent of 42 heads of cauliflower we’ve preserved; adding the stuff still sitting in bags in our kitchen, we’ll have roughly 104 heads, or about 85 pounds, or 416 cups (however you want to measure it).

That sounds like an obscene amount of cauliflower, right? Not really, though.

We’re going to buy and process more.

Since right now Zac only has 6 safe foods, he eats a lot of each one of them (except pork, which we ration). Yes, he’s finding new safe foods, but at an average of one per month. By next summer, we’ll be lucky to have 18-22 safe foods for Zac to eat!

So he will probably eat a whole bunch of cauliflower this year. I’m working on the assumption that I’ll need about 10 cups of cauliflower per week for Zac.

And let’s not forget that this is the cauliflower that *I* will need to eat on my TED. So if I want to add cauliflower to my diet, I have to grab it now and freeze it to use the rest of the year.

Which means we need another oh, 230 or so heads of cauliflower for me and Zac to eat for the next year. (I think.)

I think Darrel and I are going to hate the sight of cauliflower by the time we get done freezing all of this.

On the plus side, it will be SO EASY to use cauliflower in my kitchen the rest of the year: just rip open a bag and ta-da! It’s ready to go!

Anyone know how much acreage you need to grow approximately 350 heads of cauliflower? Just curious…

(And if anyone spots any glaring problems with my math in this, feel free to point it out. I think I mentioned a mind-numbing weekend and a baby who woke me up every two hours. I may have this wrong somewhere.)

So, how was your weekend? Do your kids just love the Farmer’s Market, too?

Wal-Mart (Almost) Ruined My Kids Birthday Party

 
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Wal-Mart Almost Ruined My Kids Birthday Party CradleRockingMama.com

Ready for a rant?

For Frugal Friday I had this whole post planned on “lower your expectations” as a frugal tip.

Instead, I’m just going to rant and rave about how Wal-Mart (may have, almost) ruined my kids birthday party, all because Darrel and I decided to lower our expectations and buy a swing set from Wal-Mart instead of a more expensive place.

With FPIES and our other assorted food issues, we can’t really “do” birthday parties the way  most people do them. The birthday cake isn’t going to be a centerpiece of the day, we can’t really do a BBQ with lots of yummy grilled treats, and frankly, that kind of sucks.

Last year the boys didn’t have much of a birthday celebration, so we really want to make their 2nd and 4th birthday party Special. Since the food can’t be the focus (awesome birthday cakes were a tradition in my house growing up that I want to eventually continue for the boys), Darrel and I were thrilled that we were finally going to be able to get the boys an awesome, totally cool Swing Set. 

The Swing Set would be the focus of the party! The kids won’t even notice the lack of traditional party food fare because they’ll be too busy playing! Win!

We had it all planned out: Darrel was going to till up a large section of yard, level it out with a rake, and cover it with mulch. The swing set would go there, along with the boys sand table, and a new plastic kiddie pool for fun summertime water play.

Two years ago, when we first wanted to buy a swing set, we found a great little company that makes high quality sets, and picked out a swing set that was so cool it made ME want to climb on and play!

But it cost almost $2,000.

Even with me back at work, that’s a little out of our price range at the moment.

So we decided to be frugal, and settled on a swing set we found at Wal-mart.com that looked really nice. It had monkey bars, a playhouse on the second level, a 10 foot slide, two swings, and a riding glider. Oh, and a rock wall.

And it was only $650. With free shipping to the store. Score!

We placed the order on May 23rd, plenty of time for the swing set to be shipped to our local store and for us to get it installed for the boys joint birthday party on June 21st.

Tuesday of last week, I received an email saying it was in the store and ready for pick-up. We planned to borrow a pickup truck to retrieve it over the weekend.

Friday afternoon, though, I received another  email from Wal-mart. One of the boxes was damaged and had been returned to the manufacturer – and I had been refunded HALF the money of the swing set! If I still wanted the swing set, I was advised to go online and order it again.

Um…okay, but how do I order HALF a swing set?

So I tried to call Wal-mart.com to ask an operator exactly what I was supposed to do.

Do you know, I couldn’t find a single phone number for Wal-mart on their website. My only option was to email them.

NOT GOOD ENOUGH. I’m on a time crunch, here, folks!

So I called the local store to see if they could help me.

To their credit, I got a person right away instead of having to “push 5” on a computer prompt. She was very nice, and immediately transferred me to their “Ship to Store” department.

After twelve minutes on hold, and the FIFTH TIME I was bounced back to the operator, I asked to speak with a manager.

Another 8 minutes on hold, and I finally got one.

He was very nice, as well, and was just as confused about my order as I was. Unfortunately, he really could do nothing to help me, as I’d placed my order with Wal-mart.com and the ‘online store’ and the ‘in person stores’ are totally different entities.

What he did do was give me a phone number to contact the .com store…and promise to go kick some heinie in the “Ship to Store” department for not answering their phones!

So I called the number he gave me and quickly got another very nice person on the phone.

He flat out told me that somebody had screwed up; if one box of a shipment is damaged, it is supposed to be returned and replaced – not refunded.

Unfortunately, once a refund is issued, it cannot be cancelled. The best he could do was to refund the rest of the order and let me go place my order a second time.

Great.

Guess what, folks? Wal-mart.com refunds don’t happen instantly! We didn’t have enough limit left on the credit card (thanks to FPIES expenses) to order a second swing set until the refund processed. Or we got creative.

So we shuffled money over the weekend and sent an extra payment to the credit card so we’d have enough room to order the swing set again.

The very day I got the “return/refund” email from Wal-Mart, we got a call from Best Buy: our freezer was ready for delivery.

Last month, we realized that the summer meant lots of in season foods – which means lots of preserving foods to last a whole year for Zac! I love dehydrating, but not everything dehydrates well, and some things are just easier or better frozen.

And with whole cows, goats milk, and pigs in our freezer, we were running out of freezer space.

So we bought a new freezer, but it took a month for delivery.

One problem: I hadn’t cleaned off the porch to make room for the new freezer! So the day after we got our swing set refund-that-hadn’t-shown-up-yet, I went storage shed shopping.

Ruh-roh! Storage shed noob that I am, I didn’t realize we were going to have to build a whole foundation for the thing! I saw the cost of this little project increasing by the minute, and made a judgement call: we’re getting a tiny little shed that I saw at Wal-Mart a month ago. It would be large enough to get the big stuff off the porch, and cheap enough that if the lack of a foundation ruined it, I wouldn’t be too chagrined.

Problem solved, right?

WRONG.

I asked the nice man at Wal-mart to bring up a boxed shed for me.

FORTY FIVE minutes later, he remembered to tell me that they “have it in stock, but can’t find a boxed one anywhere”. Oh, but I could take home the display if I wanted to. (You know, the one whose door wouldn’t open?)

Uh, nope. I asked him if he could call another Wal-mart and ask if they had one in the box.

Y’all, he didn’t know how to dial out on the phone! After five minutes of him asking other employees how to do it, I finally pulled out my cell phone, looked up the number, and called the store myself.

Ten minutes of hold time later and “Nope. We don’t have one. You can have the display, though, if you want.”

ARGH!

In the end, Darrel and I did some major trashing and shuffling on our porch to make room for the new freezer. No storage shed at all, though it could be dearly useful right now.

Despite their continued incompetence, the cheap price of the swing set continued to call to me, and Monday I went back to Wal-Mart.com to order it the second time and…I couldn’t.

It’s there; pretty pictures and everything. But nowhere to click to BUY the dratted thing!

Back to the 800 number the store manager gave me! I spoke to another very nice lady who spent 30 minutes on the phone with me, and even got another agent involved…and neither of them could figure it out.

THEY couldn’t even place the order for me! Usually, she told me, when an item is out of stock it says “Out of Stock” where the order button is located. If it is discontinued, the entire listing is removed from the website.

Neither of those things have happened for this swing set, but there is still no way to order it.

Oh, and even if we were able to order it last Monday, it can take up to 10 business days for the shipment to arrive…which means it might not arrive until after the boys birthday party!

NOT OK.

Now, I know that bashing Wal-mart is a popular past time in the interwebs. I’m not a huge fan of the company, myself, long before this “ruining my sons birthday party” and “can’t do my job” debacle.

But this is where it gets REALLY good: I live in Northwest Arkansas – the HEADQUARTERS of Wal-mart, Inc.

And last week, while all this rotten customer service was happening to me was their Shareholder’s Week. Our town was overrun with Wal-mart investors! Every store was sparkling clean, every employee on their best behavior, doing everything they could to convince the investors they’d invested wisely.

And STILL this all happened.

I’d say that I would boycott Wal-mart (I did it successfully for two years prior to marrying Darrel and moving here), but thanks to this being the International HQ of the company, there just aren’t a lot of alternative shopping options in the area.

Off the top of my head, I can think of six Wal-marts within an hour of my house, but only two Targets.

There is one piddly, awful, dingy Toys ‘R Us, and NO Babies ‘R Us. (I did most of my baby prep buying online.)

So boycotting Wal-mart completely isn’t really a doable option for me, due to a lack of alternative buying options in my area for many things.

Still, Darrel managed to find an almost identical swing set at Sears.com that we ordered for the boys. It cost us almost $200 more than the one we wanted at Wal-mart, but I’ll bet that money that I won’t have nearly the problems with it!

It could still take 8-10 business days to arrive, though, which means we STILL might not have a Swing Set for the boys birthday party.

No cool cake. No traditional birthday foods cookout. And now, possibly no really cool gift for my sons. (Thank goodness it was a surprise and they weren’t expecting it!)

Isn’t it enough that FPIES and food allergies/intolerances have spoiled so many things for my boys?? Now Wal-Mart’s incompetence has to take away even MORE from them?!

Yeah. I’m seriously ticked off, y’all. 

So Wal-Mart (almost, may have) ruined my kids birthday party, and lost over $1,000 in sales from my family in a single weeks time.

And as many more sales as I can manage to send to other businesses and NOT Wal-Mart for the rest of my life. Why Yes, I DO hold a grudge. Don’t mess with my babies!

As far as a Frugal Friday tip goes, it IS worthwhile to lower your expectations.

But that doesn’t mean you let yourself be treated like crap while doing it.

Sometimes you can’t go as cheap as you would like. The stress and hassle just isn’t worth the savings.

__________

What’s your worst shopping experience? 

Brown Thumb Gardener: Diatomaceous Earth

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Brown Thumb Gardener Diamotaceous Earth CradleRockingMama.com

The garden is growing beautifully, helped along by almost a week of lovely rain.

The pole beans are almost 5 feet tall already, and the basil and cucumbers are getting bushier by the day.

The carrots, so slow in starting, are really beginning to show their stuff, and the chard and collard greens are doing well, too.

The potatos are the first sign of trouble I’ve seen in the garden so far. Something ate up whole huge chunks of leaves off of them.

Then I spotted signs of damage on the basil.

Then the chard.

Then the collard greens.

I started paying closer attention to the plants, and I only saw two bugs: one was a large orange thing that looked like an over-sized, less-pretty ladybug on the potatos, and the others were some ants in the chard and collard green garden bed.

Then I saw a couple of slugs, and some worms.

I’m sympathetic to the whole “circle of life” thing, but my garden is not supposed to be an all-you-can-eat buffet for critters, y’all!

But what can you do about pests when growing organic foods?

There are lots of things I’ve heard mention to help with this problem; companion planting is one of the biggest helpers I’ve read about. But I’m kind of new to this whole thing, and trying to figure out the right companion plants for the things I’m growing feels very overwhelming when I’m still trying to figure out how to just grow the things I’m growing!

Maybe I’m selling myself short, but I really feel like companion planting and crop rotation is something best left for my second year of serious gardening. It’s a bit much to take in, for me, at the moment.

So I went with good ‘ol diatomaceous earth (DE).

Have you heard of this wonder powder before? No? Well, let me fill you in.

This amazing product kills bugs. Fast.

It also, apparently, does amazing things for human health.

DE is the fossilized remains of marine phytoplankton. It’s a fluffy powder that will kill any bug with an exoskeleton really fast, leaving no poisons or nasty residues behind on your plants.

I’ve read two explanations of how it kills:

  • the DE itself is microscopically “jagged”, and once it penetrates the exoskelton of the bug it literally slices and cuts the bug until it dies, or
  • the DE penetrates the exoskeleton of the bug and then proceeds to dry out the internal workings of the bug until it basically dehydrates to death

Not pleasant, surely, but at least it won’t poison my family while it kills pests!

Because yes, humans can eat this stuff with no ill side effects! In fact, you probably already do, since it is often tossed into grain storage to – surprise, surprise – kill pesky bugs that would eat up all the grain. Odds are good that if you eat any whole grain products, you’re eating some DE, too. (In fact, the maple syrup that we wanted to try on Zac was specifically chosen because they only use DE as a defoaming agent, rather than any number of “mystery oils” that other maple syrup companies use!)

Some people go even further and eat DE on purpose. I haven’t read enough to know if there is any scientific testing to prove this, but anecdotal evidence indicates DE helps with a wide range of human ailments: eliminating parasites, removing heavy metals, reducing toxins, lowering cholesterol, lowering high blood pressure, arthritis help, eliminating joint pain…and the list goes on!

One lady even reported that it (possibly) removed her food intolerances!

I’m so encouraged by the many health claims for humans and pest claims for gardens, that I ordered a big ol’ batch of DE for Darrel and Jed to use.

We just got it in, so it is too early to report about any magical improvements in either Darrel or Jed’s health.

But I can state that my garden is greatly improved by the use of DE. A few years ago I had some tomato plants that were decimated by hornworms. Once I started using DE, I had no further problems with those nasty little buggers. And already this years garden has stopped being eaten up by bugs after just a few days of DE use!

Couple of things to note:

There are two types of DE: pool filter type, and FOOD GRADE DE.

You MUST buy the Food Grade DE. This has to do with the crystalline silica quantities; food grade will have less than 1%, pool grade will contain considerably more – sometimes up to 70%! The crystalline silica reportedly can cause cancer when exposed to frequently.

At less than 1%, this isn’t a concern. At 70%, well…not so great. Stay away from pool filter DE!

Also, DE isn’t like a gardening store poison; you don’t just sprinkle it once and walk away.

If it gets wet, it is useless. Store it in a dry place! And don’t bother sprinkling it when you know you’re going to get rain; once it is wet, it stops being effective.

Basically, you’ll have to sprinkle DE on your garden every day, or every other day, depending on how often you water it.

You can’t just sprinkle it in a line around your garden, either. Again, this isn’t like a typical pest control poison that you lay out near your plants and call “done”. Sprinkle it all around your plants…I even sprinkle it ON my plants!

For ease of use, I had an old cheese shaker that I re-purposed into a DE shaker. I just leave it in my bucket of DE and refill it as needed.

DE and shaker CradleRockingMama.com

DE won’t hurt you, but it is a tad drying to the skin. I wear my gardening gloves when dealing with the DE just to reduce the amount of contact exposure.

Hopefully this will be enough to keep my pest control problem in check. So far, so good!

Have you ever taken DE internally? How did it work for you? Did you try it in your garden?

I am not a doctor, and this is not medical advice. DE is ranked by the FDA as GRAS (Generally Regarded as Safe), but use it internally at your own risk.

Quinoa Cookie

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Quinoa Cookies CradleRockingMama.com

Sometimes not doing things the way you normally do leads to unexpected rewards. Like these cookies!

I’ve said before that one of my time-saving kitchen tips is to cook a big pot of quinoa to leave in the fridge. Then I can simply scoop out however much I need as the days go by without having to stop and make a single cup or two of quinoa each day.

With my return to work, I’ve been a little off-kilter in the kitchen.  Two weeks ago, we ran out of quinoa. I had so many things I needed to cook in order to be ready to go back to work, I never got around to making another big pot!

Big pot of quinoa or no, Zac still had to eat.

So I tweaked my own recipes and stumbled upon a nice, dense version of the quinoa egg bread that Zac liked, and I didn’t think was too shabby, either.

Then I got to thinking…what if I made a batch of these just for me? I could add some things that Zac can’t have yet, like olive oil and stevia.

Maybe they’d be sort of a cookie!

So I tried some more adjustments…and y’all, I made myself the first cookie I’ve had in almost TWO YEARS!

Now, this isn’t going to be exactly like a typical chocolate chip or sugar cookie by any means. But if you or your little ones are on a restricted diet, this will satisfy that “cookie craving” easily!

It’s also a fairly simple thing to make:

Since the whole point was that I didn’t want to cook quinoa that day, I just took 3/4 c. of uncooked quinoa seeds, rinsed them, and added them to the blender. Then I cracked in 2 eggs and some milk and turned it on.

In the Blender CradleRockingMama.com

It’s pretty dense, so you can’t just crank the blender and let ‘er rip! I had to ease the speed higher in slow increments, but eventually, I got a nice, smooth batter.

Batter I CradleRockingMama.com

Since olive oil and stevia are safe for me but not for Zac, I didn’t want to put them in the blender. I poured the batter into a bowl and mixed those ingredients in by hand.

If you don’t have similar concerns, then just go on and dump everything in the blender at once!

Once the oil and stevia were added in, the batter was a little smoother and runnier.

Batter II CradleRockingMama.com

I used a kitchen tablespoon (not a measuring tablesoon) to drip little circles on to a parchment lined cookie sheet. Out of this batch, I got 17 cookies.

Dropped on the cookie sheet CradleRockingMama.com

The oven was already heated up to 375, so I tossed them in – and 25 minutes later I had cookies!

Baked Cookies CradleRockingMama.com

These look almost identical to many of my other quinoa creations, but they are more dense, they cooked all the way through, and (thanks to the stevia) have a nice sweetness to them that screams “COOKIE”!

I enjoyed mine with a nice cold glass of goat milk.

Yum CradleRockingMama.comBeing overwhelmed never tasted so good!

If sugar or maple syrup is safe for you, feel free to use that instead of stevia. I have no idea what amounts you should use for those, though! I’d probably start with 1/3 c. and go from there based on taste preferences.

One of these days I’m going to make some goat milk butter, and when I have enough of it I’d love to add it to these, too. So if you’ve got butter, feel free to sub out some olive oil for that.

Enjoy your yummy, healthy quinoa cookies!

(Oh, and to make this a “simple quinoa recipe”, just omit the oil and stevia, and sub water for milk. Still good, still healthy!)

Quinoa Cookie
 
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Prep time
Cook time
Total time
 
Author:
Serves: 1.5 dozen
Ingredients
  • ¾ c. quinoa seeds (uncooked)
  • 2 eggs
  • ¼ c. milk
  • 6 T. olive oil
  • 6 scoops of stevia powder (just under ¼ tsp.)
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
  2. Rinse the quinoa seeds in a fine mesh sieve.
  3. Dump the seeds into a blender.
  4. Add the eggs, milk, olive oil, and stevia.
  5. Process until smooth. (Increase speed slowly!)
  6. Using a spoon, dribble little rounds of batter onto the parchment paper.
  7. Put in the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes.
  8. Let cool on a wire rack for 5-10 minutes.
  9. Enjoy your healthy cookie!

Mama-Bear Versus the Snake Phobia

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Mama Bear Versus The Snake Phobia CradleRockingMama.com

By nature, I’m not an especially fearful person.

I wasn’t at all scared to get married again after a painful divorce, I fly for a living, I’ve signed two mortgages, think public speaking is fun, and gave birth to a second child after Jed’s childbirth – a delivery that even makes OBGYN’s cringe.

But y’all, the one thing that I absolutely have an irrational phobia about is snakes. 

<shivers>

You’d think snakes would be easy to avoid in day to day life, right? But even when I was a city dweller, snakes popped up often enough to give me creepy-crawlies and nightmares on a regular basis.

Some damn fool advertisers think it’s OKAY to put snakes in TV commercials! And in print ads, too!

And some pet stores stupidly display their snakes for sale RIGHT ON THE CENTER FREAKING AISLE!

I know lots of people are going to comment that snakes aren’t so bad, snakes are very useful in the chain of life, blah blah blah.

Sure.

It’s a PHOBIA, people! There’s not a lot of rational thought behind it!

I see a snake, I  F R E A K  O U T.

Period. 

Those commercials would come on TV, blindsiding me in the safety of my own living room, and I would turn the TV off. FOR DAYS.

Flipping innocently through a magazine and suddenly staring at a picture of a snake? I’d throw the magazine across the room, and it would usually take me a good ten minutes of working up nerve to use kitchen tongs to throw it in the trash.

Going to the pet store to get more cat food and come face to face with a slithering, disgusting, evil snake? NEVER SHOPPING HERE AGAIN.

I know. It’s pathetic.

But it simply was; I dealt with it as best I could. AVOID SNAKES AT ALL COSTS.

Then I married Darrel.

And moved to the country.

Where there are LOTS of snakes.

<shivers>

Back when Jed was an infant, we still had a garage. One day I went to fetch some spray paint for a project I was doing. Right there, in my garage, was a snake!

It was at least 50 feet long (it was about 18 inches), and had venomous fangs the size of my head (it was a garden snake).

I couldn’t even scream. I just ran into the house, slammed the door behind me, LOCKED IT, grabbed Jed, and spent the rest of the afternoon on the couch.

With my feet up. 

When my Mom heard that story, it was almost impossible to hear the words she said in response through the choking laughter she was biting back.

Darrel, to his credit, didn’t bat an eye. When he got home, he just went out in the garage and spent a good ten minutes making sure it was “snake free”. (Love that man!)

I still didn’t go into the garage for days. 

Later on, Jed and I were sitting on a blanket under the tree in the backyard when I decided to clean up some pots for planting. (I have tried gardening before, but never with much success.)

When I moved the pots, a gigantic, gnarly snake came flying out at me! (This one really was about 2 1/2 feet long, and about 3 inches across. But it was still just a garden snake.)

Again, I couldn’t even scream. Just raced over, grabbed Jed, ran inside, locked the door, and spent the rest of the day on the couch with my feet up.

So sad.

But those experiences made me realize: as long as we live in the country, I’m going to have to deal with snakes. 

At the time, I only had one little boy, but I knew that one day we would have more children and that those children would want to play outside.

Playing outside means it is inevitable: one day, my children will encounter a snake.

And I, as their Mother, will have to keep them safe.

Which means that I will have to kill the snake. 

I’d been lucky to that point and only encountered fairly harmless garden snakes. But there are highly dangerous, venomous snakes in our area, and one day – I knew – my luck would run out.

So, with Darrel’s help, I’ve been undertaking a slow and steady self-devised “Mama has to get over this phobia to protect her babies” protocol the last few years.

When we went to a nature center, Darrel held my hand as we stood twenty foot away from cages filled with the typical snakes found in our area. We slowly moved closer to the cages.

One step, stand and wait until my heart stopped pounding and my ears stopped ringing, take another step, repeat.

Until we were only 3 feet away.

That’s as close as I’ve ever willingly come to a snake and not run panicked from the room!

When I see a photo of a snake, I make myself look at it for as long as I can handle.

When I see video of a snake, I make myself watch for as long as I can stand.

I’m getting better, y’all. 

Oh, snakes are still not my favorite creatures, and never, ever, ever will be. But I’d reached a point where I thought I could handle protecting my children from any dangerous snake they encountered.

That confidence is being tested now.

Why?

Because last week, in the 2 days I was at work and the kids were with my parents, they killed three – THREE – copperheads.

COPPERHEADS, y’all! That’s not a garden snake! That’s a highly dangerous, aggressive, nasty bit of snake!

All three of them were right around the edge of my parents pond.

The pond my boys LOVE to play at.

Watching the fish CradleRockingMama.com

Lord, help!

My parents couldn’t do any farm work the whole time the kids were there, because the boys wanted to play outside and my parents had to stick to them like glue with weapons at the ready in case they encountered yet another copperhead.

And right here, I have to send out some massive, huge, amazing kudos to my Dad. If there is anyone on the planet who has a worse phobia about snakes than me, it is my Dad.

And he spent the entire two days with my kids, protecting them.

More than that, he’s been out there on the farm the last week, doing every “snake prevention” thing he can think of; putting himself in the path of a known dangerous snake, just to make sure the area is as safe as he can make it for my boys.

I’m in AWE.

Turns out, a little reading on the subject turned up that copperhead snakes favorite food is frogs. And since my parents think the sound of frogs at night is really cool, they’ve been encouraging the frogs around their pond.

Jed found tadpoles CradleRockingMama.com

(I wouldn’t have been so excited about the tadpoles if I knew what they were food for!)

Without realizing it, they were providing prime hunting grounds for copperheads.

They’re working on fixing that.

Mom read about some plants that are disagreeable to snakes, and she’s planting them around the pond everywhere she can.

And my Dad and I are doing our dead-level best to shove our phobia down as far as we can make it go so we can protect the kids.

Because one day, I’ll be there at the farm with the kids, and it might be ME that has to deal with a copperhead. 

<shivers>

You know what? I’ll do it.

I may have a short nervous breakdown after the fact, but I will do it.

Phobia’s can’t stand up to a Mama-Bear protecting her babies, after all. 

(But I don’t think I’m being too big a wimp for praying that day never comes.)

__________

What’s the scariest thing you’ve ever forced yourself to deal with for your kiddos? 

Cleaning Out the Farmer’s Market

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Cleaning Out the Farmer's Market CradleRockingMama.com

Last week I went to work for two days. The kids, as usual, spent that time at my parent’s house.

BOY do I have something to share about THAT couple of days! But that’s for tomorrow.

For now, let’s focus on food trials. 

We took our regular 3 day break from the cauliflower trial during the three days the kids were at my folks. Zac had been doing beautifully on the cauliflower prior to that! No FPIES symptoms at all!

While he was at my parents, though, he started having funky diapers. Not bad, really; just…not good.

The poop made his butt turn bright red every time, so much so that by the time I made it home he had a couple of red welts on his heinie. It was also loose and diarrhea-like.

Not. Good.

However, not necessarily the cauliflower! While my parents are ACES at taking care of my kids, I think it is well established by this point that Zac is a super stealthy Ninja-food-stealer, and he proved his mad skills while with my folks.

To their knowledge, he sneaked at least one of Jed’s crackers and (I quote my Mom here) “went to town” on Jed’s post-goat-milk-run pork rind treats. 

And that’s just the stuff they know  he snuck!

I swear that child is getting more brazen by the day at snatching food. Just this weekend he stood right next to me at the kitchen counter and grabbed a french fry, looking at me the whole time to see if I would stop him!

The only way to stop Zac from trying to sneak food is to either A) never eat anything unsafe for him at all, B) handcuff him to your side, or C) watch him like a hawk whenever food is present and immediately clean up all food as soon as the non-Zac-eater is done.

“C” is what we usually all shoot for, but life happens, you know? Jed suddenly decides he needs to go potty (for which he requires an audience), or the phone rings, or something on the stove is boiling over, or, frankly, you just forget for an instance and BAM! The stinker has snatched some food.

Well. All that means is that I’m not convinced cauliflower is the culprit, especially since his funky diapers continued after I got home. FPIES reactions usually improve over time, not continue or even get worse.

Since I’m still hoping cauliflower will be a safe food, I needed to procure more of it for him.

We didn’t resume the trial over the weekend; I wanted his heinie and poops to clear up completely before we did. Fortunately, he was perfect yesterday so the cauliflower trial resumes this morning – and I definitely needed more cauliflower for that!

Besides, even if cauliflower eventually proves unsafe for Zac, I have many, many, many ways to prepare it for Darrel and Jed! Organic, healthy cauliflower won’t go to waste in my house!

So Saturday morning we made breakfast, and Zac and I headed to the Farmer’s Market.

In the pouring rain. 

Fun times.

We were kind of late getting there. The Market was still going strong when we arrived, but we were only an hour before closing time. Lots of things sell out by that point.

As we approached, I started to get nervous; the Market is set up on the town square, and the first two WHOLE SIDES I walked past had nary a cauliflower head for sale!

Suddenly, though, I saw a table with 7 heads of cauliflower laid out all pretty. 

As I walked up, Zac strapped in his Ergo and an umbrella pouring sheets of water around us, a man came up beside me.

I spoke first. “Hi! Do you use pesticides?” I asked the ladies.

“Nope. We’re organic.”

“Any fertilizers?”

“Nope. Just water.”

“Excellent!” I noticed they had some yellow colored cauliflower aside the regular cream colored ones. “I’ll take all your regular cauliflower, please!”

That’s when the man next to me finally spoke. “Darn!”

I looked at him and noticed he was smiling. “I’m sorry!” I really did feel sort of bad about that, but, you know, “keep my son alive” outranks, right?

He just kept smiling as he trotted away, calling out “That’s okay! There’s more over here!”

I did call after him that he could have the yellow cauliflower, and the lady at the stand yelled out that she had more in the truck, but he was gone.

Oops.

However, at the mention of more in the truck I asked how much she had.

“How much do you want?” she replied. “I’ve got this tub,” as she hauled out a huge blue tub, “and some more over here.”

I just smiled. “Sure.”

(pause in shock and silence for a moment)

“Um…okay. Do you have a car you could pull up closer so I can help you load it?” she goggled.

“Yup.”

“Okay, while you do that I’ll get it all put together and figure out a price for you.”

So Zac and I went straight back to the car, I strapped him in and we maneuvered the complicated one-way street layout combined with closed down roads for the Market to get the car as close as possible.

When I came back, she was still sorting out cauliflower. I asked her how much longer cauliflower would be coming in, and she said 3-4 more weeks.

Then she nicely offered me anything I wanted at the table for free. I chose some excellent looking green beans for Darrel and Jed’s dinner.

Looking at the pile of cauliflower at my feet, she seemed nervous when she said, “Okay, well, for all of this, I guess…maybe…$70?”

No problem, sweetie! I paid the nice lady, then asked for her phone number so I could make sure to get more cauliflower later. She willingly gave it and said I could text or call her any time.

Score CradleRockingMama.com

  • Total time at the market: 15 minutes
  • Total cauliflower obtained: 31 heads of regular white, and the 3 heads of yellow she threw in as a bonus!
  • Total time I’ll spend this week freezing cauliflower: more than I ever thought I’d spend in my whole entire life

We’ve got a new freezer being delivered on Tuesday (boy do we have a story there!), and I bought a FoodSaver after the Market on Saturday because we knew that this summer was all about finding new safe foods for Zac – and getting enough of them to last until next summer. 

I think I’ll be cleaning out the Farmer’s Market a lot this year!

__________

Have you ever cleaned out the Farmer’s Market? Did you shock the vendors when you did? Oh, and, any tips on preserving cauliflower?

Frugal Fridays – Clean Up Your Credit

 
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Frugal Friday - Clean Up Your Credit CradleRockingMama.com

This is something I’ve been doing for years, and thought everyone knew to do. Recently I was reminded that this isn’t common knowledge, so I thought I’d share this as a Frugal tip.

It’s a one-time thing that will simply take a little time on the phone.

Clean up your credit cards and lower your interest rates!

When I was in college, I was stupid and signed up for a student credit card. Boy, did I feel like a grown-up then! I could whip out the plastic and pay for things I really couldn’t afford, certain in the knowledge that someday, when I graduated and got a high-paying job, this would just be a month or two to pay off.

Yep. STUPID.

The very month I would have graduated college, I received a letter from my credit card company: my interest rate went from a reasonable 10.99% to 29.99% in an instant!

Are you kidding me?

I called them, of course, and asked why. To my recollection, I hadn’t been late on any payments, had always made a payment, and hadn’t done anything recently in other areas of my financial life that would have made them suddenly wary of me enough to penalize me that way.

Nope, they said. This was just the way this credit card worked. I hadn’t done anything wrong.

Basically, they suckered me in with a low interest rate and the promise of easy spending, then, when I was a college graduate with the potential to NOT get jobs because of bad credit ratings, they went for blood – I mean, money – and raised the interest rate to really take me to the cleaners.

Credit cards are not your friends, folks.

I fought for years with them over that interest rate, and finally a kind agent let me in on a little secret.

Play hardball. 

Now that same credit card has a very nice 9.99% interest rate, and while I could fight to get it a little lower, 18 years of battling with them has worn me a bit out.

Still, that’s a very good reduction in rates, don’t you think?

So here’s what you do:

Get out your credit card. Call the number on the back. (It’s best to do this during normal working hours, as you’ll be more likely to get someone who does this full-time and can easily get a supervisor on the phone.)

Very politely tell the person that you would like your interest rate reduced.

They may respond favorably right away, or they may balk.

If they balk, nicely ask to speak to their supervisor.

Very politely tell the supervisor that you would like your interest rate reduced.

If they don’t respond favorably right away, inform them that you are holding in your hot little hands a credit card offer from [insert competing credit card company here] offering you a fixed rate 8.99% APR card with a [however much limit you would like to claim], and that you’d really like to keep your business with [current credit card] but that numbers don’t lie and you’re more than willing to – this is the key phrase here – CLOSE OUT THIS CARD and transfer the balance to the [competing credit card company].

I’ve never had this technique fail for me. Though I’m sure someone can claim this didn’t work for them, I still think the odds are in your favor for getting a rate reduction.

I don’t always get the rate I would like, but I’ve always gotten at least 5% taken off my card this way.

Another trick is to simply ask what they can offer you. I once explained to a credit card company representative that due to some unfortunate life circumstances, I was struggling at the moment and wondered if there was anything they could do to help me.

Of course I did have to explain what had happened to suddenly make my finances so horrible, but a car accident, a divorce, and being out of work due to injury for almost a year seemed to be an understandable explanation.

She said they were currently offering 0% APR deals to their customers for balance transfers, but that she was sure she could work something out. One quick call from her to her supervisor, and they offered me 0% APR for 6 months – on my existing balance!

That helped me quite a bit during that time.

Even better, I then employed the first trick (without playing hard ball) and simply asked if she could lower my interest rate for when the 6 months was over, and she dropped the interest rate from 19.99% to 11.99%.

No, credit cards are not your friends, but the people who work there are not evil people. 

If you simply work up the nerve to ask for something from them, they’ll usually try to help you out. 

So make a phone call, clean up your credit cards, and get those interest rates lowered!

Then pay them off as fast as you can and never use them again.

Remember the mantra: Use it up, Wear it out, Make it do, or Do Without.

Hope that helps!