Chicken Therapy

They say free range chickens are happier then chickens stuck in a warehouse pooping on their neighbor. Well here at old Lizards Den we believe in this 100%. Let me make it clear that I do believe that bird lovers are weird and can be placed in the same category as cat lovers. You know who you are, so just stop and except that you are weird to all people that don't have a bird or cat. I have both, but I'm normal. So normal in fact, that I invite my chickens in to eat breakfast with my children and I... and then we snuggle.

I had an old high school buddy come around to see our new house. The only thing he knows about country is it is a music genre, and apparently you are a hillbilly if you live in the country. He thought my house was "interesting" but drew the line when Wendy came over for her morning snuggle. He stayed inside and watched with his iphone taking pictures. I invited him outside to come and pet my chicken, but he politely said "no thanks".  Who says "no?!" how often do you get to pet a chicken that loves you? Not any chicken... you get to pet Wendy the most beautiful princess in all the land. 

Anyway, I go back inside and ask him if he wants lunch, and he looks at me horrified. "Aren't you going to go change your shirt? You are covered in bird flu" I promptly say, "oh did she poop on me?" that's a valid question... but no she did not, he merely thought that once you touch a bird you are infected with a  killer virus. What a dum dum. Anyway, to get him to stop making a stupid face I had to change my shirt. 

What I'm trying to say is... I think birds get a dirty rap... yes they have really gross poop... but so do you.  And yes, sometimes they like to step in their own poop... but please.. we have all done that.....and yeah they like to bathe in dust- which is genius because it kills mites and bugs. 

So my birds are awesome, and because I tell them this every morning they have come to love me as much as I love them, and this is the secret to being a Bird Whisperer. Also they love food... so if you want them do something, just hand them some corn based food, and they will sign your contract. With that said, enjoy my photos, and video. (Photos and Video by BevU Productions)

Yes I know this video may be a little strange, but once you get to know me and this blog it will seem very normal. My mom is hoping nobody will recognize me, little does she know I will be famous soon. Animal Planet here I come. Liz the Great... Chicken Whisperer. I like the sound of that!

Wendy getting her morning cuddle and pep talk about being my little princess.

Wendy actually comes in to clean up after my two year old. She eats all the cereal off the floor and then eats all the cat food that Ron (cat) has dropped for her. 

Martha is second in line to the thrown. She is still not too sure about coming in to help Martha clean. I don't push it with her, she doesn't get down with snuggles she just wants the food.

"Ok I will take that but don't you be touching me all up in my feathers".  Actually truth be told the real reason she wont come in is because Wendy is the head of the "pecking order", meaning that if Martha wants to come in, she will get a firm peck from Wendy, who tells her to wait her turn. 

Harvard School of Public Health » The Nutrition Source » Healthy Eating Plate and Healthy Eating Pyramid

Harvard School of Public Health » The Nutrition Source » Healthy Eating Plate and Healthy Eating Pyramid

 This is a great article about how the food pyramid that we grew up with has changed. My husband and I have been following this chart for the last month and have seen huge improvement in our energy, and weight. We go to Produce Junction once a week and stock up on lots of fruits and vegetables. I make a large salad every night and incorporate nuts and raisins. If you ask anyone that knows me well they will all tell you that my favorite food is pizza and Mcdonalds. Say Goodbye to the old Liz... my new favorite food is eggplant parm and roasted vegetables. YUM! I used to smoke a pack of cigarettes a day and drank a half bottle of wine a night. I ate meat every night. I felt like crap, had depression and was taking Adderall to help me pay attention in school. Now I have two kids, eat three small meals a day with small healthy snacks in between. I start my morning cutting fruits and vegetables to make  green juice with a bowl of freshly made granola and Greek yogurt.  My skin is glowing, and my hair is shiny. I go outside and can smell the horse farm across the lake. I can taste my food. I don't use white sugar or salt and have deleted flavored drinks from my diet all together. I can walk past the cake isle in Shop Rite and I can walk right past the doughnut case in Wawa. (This was hard for me at first seeing as I was addicted to sugar). BUT NO LONGER am I a prisoner. My new food porn is colorful fresh food. Talk about a turn around. Question is, can I keep this up? We will soon see.

Time for change

I'm addicted to facebook. I want to start a blog that talks about more postive things in my life. As you can see from earlier posts I was a different person. Starting now I will post about things that I have learned to help those around me become more aware of the environment and health issues. I will also post about what my two year old is doing, because he makes me laugh at times and I like others to see the joy he brings me. I have about a half hour every morning to do this... so let's see how this goes.

James Emmett

I'm pregnant again. It's going to be a boy and we are going to name him James. I am now 28 weeks into my pregnancy and feeling very full of baby. I think I may be a bit larger this time around then the first time. Taking care of Watts is very hard at the moment. I can't really bend down to pick things up, and I have trouble carrying him. He only weighs 23 lbs but I can really feel it when he is dead weight. Being pregnant with an 18 month old is also difficult because I have trouble controlling my temper and emotions. For instance Watts wont always eat his breakfast and will spit his food out.... this irritates every nerve in my body. I have to walk out of the kitchen and sit down and do breathing exercises. He also is going through a money phase which he calls "meena" and insists on playing with Grannies coins in her purse. He puts the money in his mouth... god only knows how many of these he's swallowed. I have no more energy to stop him... I just have given up caring. On top of this we are still living with my mother. Watts doesnt leave her alone...ever. He throws mini tantrums when she wont do things for him, and is constantly harassing her. Just getting my swollen self off the sofa is a challenge. I can barely get up the stairs without wanting to take a nap by the top step. Watts beats the living crap out of me daily- always going after my huge belly and wanting to sit on it and bounce as if its a ball. He also pinches my bellybutton and grabs at my boobs. I'm afraid of him and spend most of my time defending my unborn child, hoping that his brother doesnt make him come out early.

Pregnancy should be a blessing but I am totally miserable and depressed. I just want to get all of this over with. I want to have my kids go to school already so that I can do what I like on my own time. People say that kids grow up too fast. Thank god. Mine arent growing up fast enough.Dont get me wrong I love Watts more then I love myself.... but I just dont have what it takes to really do this right. I have no patience, and I feel angry all the time.

. I should be thankful that I am healthy and that my kids are healthy and I still have a husband. A husband who is also quite miserable with me at the moment. Oh well....I only have another 3 months.

The world is coming to an end.

This world is so negative.... so many things are going wrong in the world. For instance we had an earthquake the other day in Philadelphia... wtf? On top of this it has been raining nonstop with thunder storms for the past 3 weeks... All of August has been nothing but rain on and off. Then the stock market is fucked- I know nothing about stock markets except I know when it isn't working too well. Now there is a hurricane coming that is hitting all of the east coast... none of these states are used to this type of weather. There are wars going on and raging people all over the world. In Philadelphia there were a band of retarded teenager kids going around beating random strangers up on the street. So now there is a curfew. London, there are riots of the sort. People are angry and freaked out and feel that they deserve more. Next will be a horrible outbreak of some virus or chemical weapon and people are going to get scared and freak out. I'm not the type to panic, but I am one to notice when other people are freaking out. What is this world coming to? nobody has a job STILL, our government has no money and is in debt, things are just getting worse. It's a sign. That we as a nation, we as humans, we as a planet SUCK, and are fucking up our values, countries, environment, and co-inhabitants. I have been feeling a little dead in the brain lately. I can't help it. I have nothing to be excited about.... except for my son learning to walk and when he laughs. He is my only joy in this world. I love him more then anything in the world... and I'm afraid that I have brought him to a place that will soon be hell. I have an instinct to protect my family, but I doubt there is anything I can do to stop the world from sucking.

Even the small things suck. Like for instance our ceiling is caving in from all the rain that we are having. We called the roofing guys to come and they did... (5 hours late) and did an assessment. They told us that they would be back at 8:30 am the next morning to start the job. Not only did they not show up, but they wont even return our phone calls. Meanwhile it is pouring again and instead of being worry free about the ceiling, we just have to watch it cave in more. This is what I mean by people SUCKING. Nobody does a good job anymore. Another example is today I thought I would look on Pets finder for a dog that might be nice to adopt for our son. I was really just looking... I don't think I'm ready for a dog just yet. Anyway, I find these urgent listings of dogs that are going to be gassed in the next 24 hours if they don't find someone to foster them. There isn't anything wrong with these dogs.... well that's a lie, actually there was one dog with tumors all over it, and the other dog had something wrong with its eyelids. The owners just dump them in front of the gassing house to die. People are so un responsible I can't stand it! People are so unloving. I hate it all... it makes me so angry, how people SUCK. I have noticed that people have become ruder at work too.... people that are supposed to be helping you... don't. Or I have noticed that people are almost shocked when I say a simple please or thank you and make eye contact. Simple life skills.... I have noticed to be gone from the American people. Instead I see fat, sweaty pigs walking around soaking up the atmosphere doing nothing to contribute to society, or humanity. They are just giant lumps of nothing- they take take take.... never give, or add, or help.. I think these types of people should be dumped off at a shelter to sit in cages seeing if someone might want to adopt them... most likely no. Oh well... they were useless to this earth anyway.

Maybe this is why teenagers riot. I mean look at all the angry things I am saying... look at the hate I have. I don't know if teenagers are that contrived however... I think they just do it because they are bored and their parents suck.

That's another good topic.... What is the deal with the kids today? Why are they so rude?! They have no manners towards their elders or their parents. Most of the kids that I have met are spoiled brats. They have been given everything they desire to shut them up, or to give them something to do. "Here Violet, I got you this game boy, ok now go play" Meanwhile Violet would have been just as happy to go to a theme park with her parents for the day. In fact I bet the memory would have lasted longer. I rarely meet a kid now-a days that is normal. If they are nice, then they are weird.... they are sexually weird... like boy's that act like girls, Girls that act like boys.... you know the emo sensitive types. Meanwhile, I am raising my son in all of this, and I'm scared.

I just want a farm!!! That's all.... some land. I want to grow a vegetable garden. I want a painting studio, or artist studio. I want large open pastures for my goats, horses, chickens, and cow to roam. I want a little bit of forest for my boy to run and play in. I want there to be a stream nearby for tubing, or canoeing. I don't want to be able to see my neighbor. Speaking of neighbors... that's another thing that sucks. Our neighbors are so Politically Correct. Harry and Eileen are their names. They had 3 boys. Tommy, Billy, and Mikey. Notice how all three names have a "Y" on the end. So gay. Anyway, the boys have left the next and now it's just the two love birds alone in their perfect house, with their perfect yard, and their perfect stainless steal gas grill. Harry grills some amazing smelling steaks and the two love birds sit outside drinking wine and eating their well cooked means while chatting feverishly to each other. Did you hear that? What in hell are they talking about?? That's what I want to know. They have been married for like 20 something years, they work together, they have no other friends that I have ever seen. What in hell are they talking about?? I have been married for 2 years and have nothing to say to my husband, except "can you do this?" blah blah blah. Harry is weird. He is 6' something. Tall enough to see over the fence diving our yards. I am up early with the boy like 6:30ish... and by 7:30 I am outside smoking a cigarette and contemplating how the world is going to end when I see Harry walking up the back of his back yard... what is he doing?? Why is he up so early? Why does he always walk to his back yard? I know that they just got this composed pit.... oh it just dawned on me, maybe he is going to dump his breakfast in the compost bin.... duh.... either that or he wants to make sure that the dead bodies of his former friends aren't reeking havoc through the ground. So anyway, Harry is a strange bow- legged tall man that I am scared to death of. When I was a child I was pushing his retarded son Tommy (who is now the CEO of something fabulous) on the swing, I did an under dog, you know like when you run under the swing? and your supposed to hold onto the chains of the swing. Anyway, retarded Tommy let go and fell off the swing and got the wind knocked out of him... You have never seen Harry run so fast. He yelled at me to go home, picked up his wimpy son and carried indoors as if I had chopped his hand off! I have hated that man ever since. I am never going to forget that Harry you mean man.... think you can bully me around... well I think not, because now I'm writing about how weird you are on my blog. HA. and if you are reading this, thank you for the tomatoes from your garden the other day. They were nice.

Anyway, onto my other neighbor. Big Anne (Nana) Little Anne (The daughter) and Elizabeth Anne (the granddaughter) all living together in the same house... on and Betty the nurses Aid that cares for Nanna. Nana is like 100 something... but back when she was 80 or 90 she would wait for my mother to come home, go upstairs and turn on the light.... yeah that's right... Nana would wait... like a vulture. for my mom. My brother is scared shitless of Nana... that buzzard looking out her window the way she does... you don't have a chance. He stopped mowing the front lawn, because she would yell out her window to chop down a branch off that bush... or say hello to your mother type of thing... it was creepy. You can almost always see her silhouette in the window. The nest part is that she can see into our bathroom...So she no doubt has seen us all naked at some point. Ugh I don't even want to think of that. Her daughter little anne is a piece of work too. She once was my idle... but over the years I lost my love for her. She was a New Yorker that met this sceevy guy, married him, and had their daughter (with missing fingers and toes) . Steve was his name- he was a real piece of work. He beet Anne up when she was pregnant and never told her about this horrible birth defect that he carries.... the missing fingers and toes. Anyway, Anne had to leave him and rushed back to PA to live her mom. Nana. She has been her for almost 18 years now. My mother was very close to them at one point. They once came over for dinner parties and such... but then my rabbit got out and their dog killed it, and they just left a cold message on our machine to come get our rabbit... which was dead on their doorstep. fucked up I know. Ever since then my mom hasn't really talked to them that much. I even invited them to our wedding and they never came.

Neighbors are weird... and that's why I don't want them around. It could be worse... we could have neighbors from hell... with our you just have to watch what you say... watch what you do, I mean you cant go outside naked. Isn't that what life's about? You should be able to walk around naked on your own property.

Anyway, I'm totally rambling now.... I just get angry about everything. I even just got mad looking through the main line magazine... looking at these rich people sitting in their mansions, riding their horses, driving their nice cars, having dinner parties, and catered events.... must be nice.... or maybe no matter how much money you have, life isn't that great. Would love to live in the shoes of millionaire for a week.... just to see if I was in fact happier being poor or rich.

January 2011

Wow, what a year. I had my baby boy on November 4rth. I am now a mother and wife and about to turn 30 years old. Why did I think that this day would never come? I feel some what complete. Watts, my baby boy is a handful, He is sleeping sort of right now and so I have to type fast because he insists on being held non-stop. He only sleeps for 10-15 minutes at a time unless its bed time and then he sleeps for about 3 hours at time. Thank god for that. I feel guilty that I have some how started smoking again, like an asshole... and drinking. two things that I wanted to stop forever, but I feel that these two things make me feel sane in the head. I dont smoke a lot maybe one or two a day. but still I want one all the time. So bad... I feel so guilty. Another thing that sucks right now is that I am running out of money and need to pay school loans. What a hassle. I doubt I will be able to pay my bills next month and will have to ask my husband to help me with the bills... speakingof husband. he just left for nyc for 3 months. how much does that blow? It will be interesting to see how I get on with out him. Another big thing that has happened is that we have moved into my mothers house, and so now I have an amazing babysitter all the time. I'm so spoiled. It worries me that if I want to have another baby she wont be there to help and I wont be able to hand two children. She is going to Turks and Caicos in February to visit family for two weeks, and I will be on my own. I have a few options but in the end I will be in charge of the little one and will have to take care of him on my own... which is a daunting task to say the least. Im so used to handing him off to my mom in the morning so I can get cleaned up and clean up the house. I also am working about two days a week and so she takes care of him during that time. I cant work during those two weeks that she is gone and will lose a lot of money meant to pay back my loans... stressing non?

I'm feeling a wee bit french tonight. Sorry.

Anyway, I'm on my own no matter what for the next three weeks, and I hate nyc, so what do I do. My husband already misses me and wants me to come visit him in his nice apartment, but we both know that this is a bad idea seeing as he needs to study and concentrate on his work.

Oh I dont know. Things are great, I am the luckiest person in the world. My baby watts is so handsome and I love him death, and hes healthy and will be a brilliant little soldier one day... yet I have so many responsibilities that are constantly comromised. I knew this was going to happen, but I thought I could overlook the normal woman and get my cake and eat it too!

I still want a horse, I want to paint, I want to get a full time job that pays salary, and I want to have a large family. Which is these will be compromised? Oh and dont forget I want to look fabulous while doing all of these things effortlessly? I think I actually do look pretty nice recently... not to brag, but I do! My skin looks clear and glowing, and my body is shrinking up nicely, I have hips for the first time in my life and even though I dont fit into a single pair of old jeans I like the challange of loosing the weight healthily to do so. Women make child care soun dlike a full time job, to me its a part time job with a dash of work... but thats because I have a full time mid wife on stand-by. I love my mom... what would I do with out her... She does love to put on a great guilt trip.. but if you ignore that, I am living the life. But I suppose no matter what you give to me, nothing will be perfect. I am always looking for perfect. and nothing will ever be perfect. non?

Corny I know. Alright, the kid is asleep still!!! I'm going to go out for a few drags and few sips of wine and contemplate how my life can be even more perfect...

Ugly shit

Today is Ugly Old lady day here at the store. One woman just came in wearing these hideous glasses from the 80's. I wanted to pull them off her face and step on them. This is what Im talking about. What a terrible look! I remember when my mom used to wear old bag glasses and it just made her face look fat and flabby. Also, what is the deal with old women and their hair? Why does it never look shiny and healthy? It's always dried out and looks like pubescent hair. Its like straw and frizzes... and then its always hacked off and short. What is the deal with old women looking doughey. They have no muscle they have big round butts and a stomach pooch and bad teeth. I mean is this what happens after having children? I hope to god that I dont look like these train wrecks when I get old.What ever happened to old women having long grey hair in a nice braid down their back? I love the look of a sweet grey haired old lady that looks almost fragile with clear blue eyes that are almost glass like. I'm such a bitch I know- but I hate the women that are walking into this store today- they have no taste they are stupid and mindless and they are all getting on my last nerve. It's rare that I would find a woman that comes into this store that I do like right off the bat. I'm actually ashamed to be a woman- a once proud strong race... we are now these sped up drugged up mindless idiots driving gigantic SUV's at 80 miles an hour in a school zones and raising horrid selfish little booger eaters that turn out to be assholes when they get older because mommy and daddy got divorced at that critical age. Isnt life grand?