Wintry Weather

Well, it’s been a long time, I know. I hope everyone is staying warm in this cold, snowy and blowy weather. I don’t recall ever letting my faucet drip so often!

The reason for the delay in my posts was due to my laptop power cord fraying and spraying sparks everywhere. The computer is so old that I couldn’t just go to the computer store to buy a replacement. So my friend at work told me to find one on eBay. That was fun, as most were very inexpensive but had to be shipped from China. The cost of shipping was twice the cost of the power cord! I finally found one online and ordered it. Apparently, my poor power cord had a hard time getting from Texas to Ohio, thinking that the most logical way would be via Michigan. So what should have arrived in five days took nearly two weeks. Then, our modem went out. One store said I couldn’t buy a replacement, that everything had to be done online. That wouldn’t do at all. Then another store said they had a modem that I could buy, which I promptly did. I got that all up and running, only to find that it wasn’t working correctly (incidentally, it was operator error that made it not work…) I’ve finally got everything fixed, but I’m sorry for the long delay!

One of the things I read in the latest issue of Sierra was how palm oil is wiping out millions of acres of the rain forest. Palm oil is in half of all packaged products including processed foods, cleaners, and lipstick. According to the article, “the average U.S. consumer uses about eight pounds of palm oil each year.” It has several other names: vegetable oil, palmate, cocoa butter equivalent, sodium lauryl sulfate, and glyceryl stearate. What happens is that farmers take down the natives trees and vegitation to plant palm oil plantations. Losing those forests, in turn, threatens many species such as tigers, leopards and orangutangs. Also, indigenous peopleare pushed off of their land and have to deal with pesticides in their water supply.

So check those labels for palm oil before you buy.

Until next time!