The day that domesticity died.

This was the day that I gave up on domesticity...

Honestly, how am I supposed to cook without a crock pot? It's the busy lady's friend! It was the casualty of being placed on a lower shelf, right next to the gargantuan box of fruit snacks, and a cranky child who decided that he must have fruit snacks RIGHT NOW! *sigh* Old friend, I will miss you.

And just so you know, I did cook stuff on occasion without a crock pot. Frankie enjoyed the spoils of cake batter earlier in the day, *before* he smashed my crock pot. He's also covered in flour because it just feels so nice.

The other topic I want to address is Earth Day, which was yesterday. Did anyone else ride the 'guilt train' all day? I don't watch Oprah, but for some reason yesterday I found myself watching Oprah and being berated by Julia Roberts and some other lady for not eating enough organic foods and because of that my child is going to die from pesticide poisoning. (Luckily I dragged myself away from that after ten minutes and went to mow the lawn.) I surfed a few blogs last night between bouts of freelance work and was berated for not eating locally, organically, and for not always remembering my reusable grocery bags. All I have to say is, that while saving the planet is important and I do what I can to conserve and reduce and recycle and what have you, everyone seems to have bought into this 'green industrial complex,' which behind the fancy veneer, is as much a moneymaking scheme as anything else. Take the 'parenting industrial complex', which is the idea that if we don't spend enough and provide the best for our children, that they'll live a less than fulfilling life and spend countless amounts of money on therapy to try and rectify their neglectful childhoods. There's so much stuff to buy, and companies prey on the fact that parents are riddled with guilt, constantly afraid that they aren't doing enough for their children. I feel like the same thing is happening in the 'green' business. Honestly, who thinks it's a good idea to spend $9 on a tiny bottle of 'natural' baby shampoo? And what does natural even mean? It's thrown around so haphazardly that anything except maybe Twinkies can be twisted around the word 'natural.' Labeling and marketing is so misleading that just about every company is now preying on the consumer's fear that we're going to destroy the planet if we eat one irresponsible thing or if we happen to have a bottle of Tilex under our kitchen sink. It's getting out of hand, chiefly because there's LOTS of money to be made. Have a look at Healthy Child. If that's not a huge ad campaign marketed as activism, I'm not sure what it is. (And the website is carbon neutral - we can now buy our way out of guilt for using electricity to look at their website. Let's face it, I live in a highly consumerist society in the industrialized world and I WILL have a carbon footprint. It's important to reduce it when possible, but I cannot remove it completely, no matter how hard I try.) It's 'responsible' to buy expensive products in the name of saving the planet? Someone's pockets are sure getting lined with the 'green' (pun intended.) I can't do it. I can't justify it. And the guilt is pretty intense. No one wants to kill the planet, but I'm not sure that buying things and shopping at Whole Foods (I don't) is the best way. Because at the end of the day, the businesses still have us buying things - this time they're just stroking our egos to have us come back for more.

(I'm not advocating being irresponsible, but in using moderation and common sense and calling a spade a spade. Now I do want to try one of those worm composts - it sounds like a cool project and I think Frankie would dig having a bucket of worms. Plus I want to plant a small garden next year, after we move, and have it be a family activity with free fertilizer! Woo! And FWIW, I'm going to use an old aquarium that we already have instead of investing in a worm harvester. Do my worms really need a $150 habitat? I think not.)
*Edit*: Forgive the non-lyrical prose of last night. I haven't slept well for several days and I just needed to vent. P.S. I don't shop at Whole Foods because it's a very upper-class establishment (read $$$$). If I were rich, I might think it was a pretty nifty place to shop mainly because of all the cheese samples.