Why???

First, let me say....Egads, I'm a slacker! It is shameful that I have gone so long between blog posts. :)

Second, a rant. Let me preface this by telling you that John and I run a 100% anti artificial sweetener home. The stuff frightens us. Sucralose is safe, you say. There have been studies, you say. I say that every artificial sweetener was considered safe at the beginning and every one turns out to be some disease-causing bit of swill. Not to mention, there are also the studies that indicate that artificial sweetener helps you lose exactly NO weight, so why not go with something natural? So, now that you know I feel this way, can you imagine my horror and disgust at this: I was innocently brushing my teeth this morning (still half asleep) and became entranced by the toothpaste container. I started reading the list of ingredients out of boredom and pondering spending the extra bucks to buy something with a less frightening list of chemicals when I saw it...SUCRALOSE! In my toothpaste!!! What kind of voodoo is this? Who is that concerned about the calories that may be absorbed through the insides of their cheeks from their toothpaste?!? You're not supposed to eat the stuff, for goodness sakes! (Count up all of those exclamation points and you'll realize how dumbfounded I was.) Good grief. Why in the world does toothpaste need to be tainted with that junk? Again, I say good grief!

Still no progress on the recycling situation. A fellow letterboxer sent me some information about places that recycle #6 styrofoam, but I've called the polymer company listed and have not had any response. Their web site also says that they don't accept food service products, so I guess that really answers my question anyway. My dad suggests that my next step be contacting state government. This may be the route I take.

In other school news, our school system is considering going over to a 4 day school week. I think this would be wonderful. Other districts in the country have done and had quite a lot of success. Of course, as with anything, there are the ups and downs. The actual motivation for this consideration is the cost of fuel for all of the buses. If we cut to 4 days per week, that's 20% of the fuel we normally use not getting used. Yay to that. Students and teachers would certainly enjoy this schedule. Fridays would become half day teacher workdays. I'm sure they would workshop us into the ground for a lot of those, but, in theory, we could get a lot done on those days. The downside, however, is what happens to our sports teams, our academic clubs and other extra-curricular activities? And what do parents do with their children on Fridays? Hmmmm....I'm curious to see if it happens and how it works if it does happen.

I'm off to continue the planning and organization of the letterboxing gathering that I'm hosting on Saturday. Who knew so much was involved??? Nonprofit of the week coming soon!