Drink More Water with the Help of Metta Wella

Metta Wella: making drinking water fun again!

While nobody has ever accused me of being a tree-hugging liberal, it is probably true that I do have some tendencies that lend me to be a little bit conscientious about the planet on which I live.  I say this not only in reflection of my last post about the vanishing Louisiana coastline, but primarily in the fact that I am deliberately turning away from the disposable plastic bottle.

For the past year or so I have been working hard to break my addiction to Diet Coke.  Invariably during the teaching day that morning coffee wears off and I'd reach for the caffeine boost of a soda, thinking I was making a healthy choice since it was "diet."

Not.

So many chemicals and things I don't know what they are in that stuff...

Anyway, so I upped my morning coffee an extra cup and muscled through the day with bottled water from the vending machine instead of a soda.  When I got tired of paying $1.25 for a bottle of Dasani, I just started refilling the bottles from the fountain, thinking I was so smart and saving all this money.

Then I remembered hearing something about BPAs; when my daughter was pregnant several years ago she was very cautious about using BPA-free products, which was the first time I'd heard of that.

About this time I decided I should probably cut back a bit on the beer: the waistline and the liver are grateful.

Then one day I was emptying the trash cans around the house and the number of plastic water bottles caught my eye.  There must have been fifteen or twenty and I empty trashcans fairly often.

Long story short, I am now in the no-plastic-water-bottle camp.  I have turned now to Metta Wella for my beverage needs!

I did a little research and found that globally one million plastic bottles are bought every minute; that's about 20,000 bottles per second.  And while many communities have recycling programs (my own community included), most of these bottles do not get recycled.  And less than 10% of the plastic bottles you buy come from recycled material.  When plastic bottles are recycled they are used mostly in synthetic clothing, carpeting, plastic bags, and shipping materials, and then those end up in a landfill.  So one way or another the bottles end up in a landfill.

You can trace it on down further and find that eventually this plastic ends up in the groundwater and in the oceans and then you have another problem.

So I decided to opt out of plastic bottles when possible. I turned to Metta Wella for glass and stainless steel infuser bottles; I was attracted to this company primarily because they donate half of their profits to global clean water initiatives like The Water Project and Charity Water.

I love these bottles!  I use two of them: the first one is the double walled stainless travel bottle.  It fits my Keurig and I can fill it up with my morning coffee and know that it will stay hot as long as I need it to.  I love the bamboo exterior because I think it looks cool and it doesn't sweat or get hot when I hold it.  It also has an infuser basket so you could use it for hot or cold teas, or whatever fruit you might want to add.

Metta Wella Malawi traveler bottle

I also use this very pretty glass infuser bottle with a bamboo lid.. It is also double walled and vacuum sealed.  You can use it for both hot and cold beverages but I use it for my afternoon cold water.  I love experimenting with recipes for it, too!  This one is blueberry, raspberry, lemon, and crushed mint.  The stainless steel infuser basket can also hold tea if you wish, or perhaps herbs or spices.  The possibilities are limitless.

Metta Wella Sunday Bottle

I know I can't save the planet with a reusable bottle but at least I know I'm not adding twenty bottles a week to the local landfill and I am making a small contribution to a global clean water initiative.  I can't get that with just any water bottle. Bonus points for making drinking water fun and the personal health benefits from that!

Metta Wella also has a line of teas they offer as well as a subscription service for those.

Give this small, start-up company a try. I'm more than impressed with their product, their mission, and their service.



Disclosure: I am a member of the Metta Wella Affiliate Program.

Caregiver Stress

A quick Mom update:  we admitted her to Life Care yesterday afternoon.  This is a good thing!

Life Care is located on the 8th floor of WK Pierremont, so she didn't have to move very far.  Life Care is an acute care hospital and is often where patients go when they have been released from an intensive care situation in a hospital but still need more acute, long term care.  I was told that patients stay there on average about three weeks (depending on the situation) before they can transition either home or to a nursing home or rehab facility.  Our plan is to get mom back up to her fighting stance and into The Glen for rehab.  It's a long road.

She's not seeing rabbits anymore; we had our first conversation today since probably Saturday.  Today I can say for sure that she knew who I was and where she was.  She was tracking previous conversations, too.  I told her that she will feel a little better every day, now, and she said, "That's what you told me yesterday."  Progress.

She's still got a Picc line and is getting fed through tubes in her arm, but she did eat a little soft food today.  I want to get those lines out of her ASAP.  They've backed off the pain med cocktail she was on and I think we're just back to Lortab today.  She's coming out of that drugged haze, I think, so, like I said, no more rabbits.

They will begin aggressive treatment and therapy, as much as she can tolerate, and she should show improvement each day, I think.

I was thumbing through this booklet they gave me while I was sitting there today and found this section on caregiver stress.  I've been mom's caregiver for the past seven years.  As I read through the list it occurred to me, to no great surprise, that I have every symptom.

That stressed me out more than anything.

But, it does make one more aware; you have to take care of yourself and too often we caregivers forget to do that.

There is support online for those who find themselves in the same boat.  Here's a Mayo Clinic site dedicated to caregivers.  One of the first things on their list to do to combat this situation is to "Accept Help" which has always been difficult for me to do.  I'm so lucky that Steve forces me to do that.  He insists I accept his help and he works hard to take as much of the burden off me as he can.

When this happened with mom last week, I had a long conversation with my daughter on the phone.  She has a newborn and lives in Dallas; I wanted to keep her apprised of developments but assure her that she needed to take care of her baby and not try to come over here unless the situation changed badly for the worse.  Knowing my tendency to carry the burden, she insisted that I ask for help from others.  I did; it wasn't wholly successful, but at least I asked.

Here's one more site from WebMD about caregiver stress.  I'm going to make an effort to follow some of the recommendations to combat this situation.  I've already begun by contacting a professional estate planner to help me with the overwhelming financial details and complicated estate decisions that should be made now to make things easier later.  I forced myself to leave the hospital earlier today by about two hours and to turn mom's care over to the professionals.  They know what they're doing and I don't need to sit there and watch her sleep.  I'm going back to work Tuesday which will be good for both me and mom.

And Steve is helping too; he's going to take me out to dinner at our favorite Mexican place tonight because a local band is playing that I love to listen to.

We've got a long way to go, but I saw some of Mom's fighting spirit coming back today and to me, that's progress!

Thanks for all your notes, emails, and continued prayers.

Linkage for Friday

A couple of quick links this morning as I'm off to finish my last full week of the school term; next week we have finals.

No Sheeples Here makes some excellent points about Calderone's rabid criticism of America and American law while standing in front of our Congress and in the Rose Garden of our White House.  To no one's surprise, Obama vapidly watches and agrees.  The only thing missing was Obama waving a small Mexican flag and bowing to Calderon.

Bride of Rove analyzes Obama's State Dinner in honor of Calderone and prices everything out, concluding with some devastating commentary on Obama's "leadership" in this economic crisis.

The Wall Street Journal notes what we've been saying all along about the possibility of keeping your employer based health coverage.  It's going away, in case you didn't know.  And you're going to be paying more out of pocket for replacement coverage and no, in most cases, you won't be getting a subsidy.  Well, unless you're already on the welfare chain, then you might.

And finally, American Spectator adds some commentary on the Apology President who has concluded that America is something to be ashamed of and so represents it to the world. 

On those happy notes, you see why I'm blogging about cats being reunited with their families.  It's all too depressing to fathom.

In Swoops Dr. Death Panel to Ration Your Care

Philip Klein at American Spectator has taken notice of Dr. Death Panel, aka Dr. Donald Berwick, who is Obama's pick for Medicare Czar.  This is the guy, you may remember, who is "starry eyed" over the NHS - the British Health Care system.  I researched several of Berwick's articles here.

At American Spectator this morning, Klein points out Berwick's tilt toward rationing:

In his writings and speeches, Berwick has defended government rationing and advocated centralized budget caps on health care spending. 

It is inevitable, of course.

"(T)he Holy Grail of universal coverage in the United States may remain out of reach unless, through rational collective action overriding some individual self-interest, we can reduce per capita costs," Berwick wrote in an article for Health Affairs he co-authored in 2008.
 
He went on to write that, "The hallmarks of proper financial management in a system… are government policies, purchasing contracts, or market mechanisms that lead to a cap on total spending, with strictly limited year-on-year growth targets."

So goes capitalism and the free market. It was nice knowing you.

And so, while everyone is worried about Elena Kagan's total lack of a paper trail or whether or not she's gay, Dr. Death Panel swoops in under the radar.  Is the mainstream media, now out of love with Obama, going to cover this one?  

Don't hold your breath.

Read the whole thing. 

Junk Food Breakfast

Today was my first full day of school, no kids yet, just inservice. I had to be across town at 7:45 and left in plenty of time (I hate to be late!). I made my way down the notoriously backed-up Airline drive and pulled into the Circle K for my mandatory Diet Coke. The parking lot was full - never a good sign. I walked in and there were NO LESS than 25 people in line. I am totally not exaggerating. I'm like "Oh crap" but I gotta have the coke so I grab one and take my place at the end of the line. I'm standing there, at the end of the line, thinking, "WHY are all these people in here!" A quick visual survey revealed that 95% of them had a soda of some kind. Others had coffee. 80% of them had junk food of some kind - Twinkies, beef and cheddar sticks, candy bars, chips, one hot dog, gum, etc.

Granted, Circle K is NOT a health food store, but all I could think is "No wonder we're a nation of obese people if this is how we eat breakfast!"

The line went pretty quickly really, except of course I was behind some guy who needed three separate money orders.

I eventually got out of there with my healthy breakfast and got to my meeting on time. Tomorrow - Apple Cinnamon Cheerios!