Variations on delicious no-bake granola bars!

 Okay, I'm obsessed with these no-bake granola bars from Wholesomeicious. They're hella quick and easy to make, delicious, filling, healthy, and customizable!

photo belongs to Wholesomelicious. My food photography skills are whack so if I shared my own,

they'd look totally unappetizing.

The first time I made them, I followed the recipe completely and I had no complaints. But, since I've been making them every single week since the summer, I've come up with plenty of variations and substitutions. My two staples that I change up pretty much every time are:

• I cut the honey in half to 1/4 cup, and add 1/4 cup coconut oil in its place. That way I am cutting calories and sweetener while adding healthy fatty acids, but still providing enough liquid to hold the bars together. (Since coconut oil is mostly solid at room temperature, I think they hold up better than with just honey!) 
• Side note: my Mom hates all things coconut and can usually tell when something's been cooked in coconut oil (even popcorn). I had her try one of these, completely forgetting about the presence of coconut oil, and she didn't seem to notice!
• I use 2 Tbsp flaxseed powder and 2 Tbsp chia seeds
• I used unsweetened shredded coconut instead of flakes because it's usually easier to find
• I make sure my nut butter does not have any added sugar - important since I'm trying to cut back on my sugar intake!
• I always cut them into 12 pcs in an 8" x 8" dish. I find this to be the perfect size in terms of tiding me over between meals. I originally did 8 pcs and that was a bit too filling; I think 16 pcs would be too much of a tease!

Some of the variations I've toyed around with include:

• adding 2 Tbsp or so of cocoa powder to the peanut butter/honey/coconut oil (it won't distribute very well if you add it to the dry ingredients)
• swapping out the almonds for cashews or pistachios (my faves - but if you like pecans, walnuts, or peanuts better, use 'em!)
• playing with the nut butters - I've used almond, peanut, and sunflower seed. All are good, but the sunflower seed butter definitely stands out as the most salty flavor. If you don't care about calories or sugar content, you could try Nutella, too!
• mixing up the dried fruit: I've used dried cranberries and raisins as well as cherries. I wouldn't be opposed to using chopped dried fig or even something more high-profile like apricot or something!
• cutting out the coconut flakes because sometimes I run out and forget to buy more - I haven't found that I needed to add any extra solids to make up for the loss.
• one time I forgot to add the quinoa and they were still very good, but there was less crunchiness to them.

Some Variant Recipes I've done:

• Green Tea: This one didn't work as well as I wanted it to. I used almond butter and added close to 1/4 cup of green tea powder, which turned it an AWFUL color, but I can pretty much only taste the almond butter - there's like no green tea flavor at all. I used cashews, raisins, and white chocolate chips in this one. Luckily the white chocolate flavor stands out!
• Butterscotch Delight: I bought some butterscotch infused peanut butter from the farmer's market in the fall and used butterscotch chips instead of chocolate. I think I used raisins for the fruit that time, and cashews for the nuts. It was SUPER yummy!
• Holiday Orange: This one was a result of me being bored and experimental. I think I had sunflower seed butter at the time, but it might have been peanut butter. I added about 1/2 tsp or so of orange extract as well as the vanilla, and a pinch of ground cloves in addition to the cinnamon. I swapped out the honey for maple syrup, which made them a bit more gooey and melty than usual. And I had raisins and cashews at the time, but if I'd planned ahead, I would have preferred dried cranberries and pecans.
• UPDATE 2/2/21 Mint Chocolate Chip: I used mostly peanut butter but had to top off with about 2-3 Tbsp almond butter; pistachios and raisins; mini semi-sweet chocolate chips AND white chocolate; and added 1/2 tsp pure peppermint extract. That was probably a bit too much peppermint. It's not bad, but I can't really taste anything else in the bars. Next time I'd cut it down to 1/4 tsp.

I've also thought about making a mint chocolate chip variety, using cocoa powder and mint extract and mini chocolate chips, but I'm not sure what kind of nut butter would be best with that. I'd probably use pistachios for the nuts though! Yeah, as above: 1/4 tsp of pure peppermint extract should be plenty. 

TMI side note because it's me: I poop a lot when I eat one of these every day. Also, uncooked quinoa comes out looking very much the same as it does on the way in. So do chia seeds. It's not a bad thing, and in fact my BMs have felt so much easier and healthier since I started eating these all the time!

Living Greener

This is not a sponsored post. No purchases made from any of the links will earn me any kind of commission. Although, if you choose to shop from Grove, if you create your account using this link you will receive a free gift set, and I will earn $10.

Recycle, Reuse, Reduce.  It's something we all learned as children: the Three Rs of minimizing pollution.  Some materials, most prevalent in day-to-day life being cardboard boxes and pop cans/bottles, can be recycled and turned into new cardboard boxes and pop cans.  Wash out and reuse that Ziploc bag, or save that bubble mailer envelope for your next outgoing package, and you've just saved (or at least delayed) some plastic waste from hitting the landfill.

Lately, I've been focusing on the final R: reducing.  I'm sure most people out there have done this in at least some manner: you've got your super awesome glass or aluminum or BPA-free plastic water bottle that you take with you everywhere, rather than going through zillions of single-use bottles.  It's true that lots of reusable items can save you money in the long run: making your pot of coffee at home and bringing it with you in your aluminum travel mug is way cheaper than buying a cup at Starbucks every day.

But sometimes, resource-reducing items aren't always cheaper than their less green alternatives. So, this post is going to highlight my privilege as a middle-class person with (a tiny bit of) extra expendable income.  If I can spend a few extra bucks a month to reduce my carbon footprint on this Earth, then I will.

I initially wanted to do a full blog post on everything you're going to read about here. I really do have that much to say about all of this stuff. It was going to be a whole series and I was going to take photos of the products I have at home and be like a Real Influencer.

But OMG I do not have time for all that. So here's the condensed version, one big dump of a post with all of the greener-living products I use, from hygiene to household.

Bite Toothpaste and Mouthwash Bits

Imagine chewing up a small mint, them brushing your teeth with it instead of swallowing it. That's what Bite Toothpaste Bits are! Instead of toothpaste in a plastic tube, which comes in a cardboard box, which is sometimes shrinkwrapped with plastic, you get little chewable mints in a reusable glass jar. After your first order, your refills come in compostable bags mailed in recyclable cardboard boxes. 

(Gonna interject a little ramble here that Bite is SUPER low on the abrasiveness chart. My teeth are super sensitive to hot, cold, and now - lucky me! - sugar, but brushing my teeth with Bite never bothers my mouth. And I'm really excited for my next order of Bits, because they just started adding nHAp to them. The TL;DR of nHAp is that it's really good for your teeth and can even help restore lost enamel.)

Subscribe for $31.80 every 4 months (which evens out to $7.95/month) so you don't have to worry about when to buy toothpaste - and a subscription saves you a few bucks, too! Amazon has a plethora of other toothpaste bits, which may or may not be at better price points.

I've still got a big old plastic bottle of traditional liquid mouthwash at home, but when that's used up, I'm going to try Bite's mouthwash bits as well. It also has nHAp in it, and it's the same concept as their toothpaste bits: chew, fill your mouth with water, swish, spit. It's $20 for 124 mouthwash bits if you subscribe.

Bamboo toothbrushes

Even though it's as sturdy as wood, bamboo is actually related to grass. Which means it grows FAST. So it's WAY better for the environment to make disposable products out of bamboo!

I went with Brush With Bamboo because not only are the handles biodegradable, the bristles are made of biodegradable and vegan castor bean oil. Yes, oil. I have no idea how they get an oil to turn into a bristle that can get wet repeatedly, but they do! The bristles are long and very, very soft. A 4-pack (one year's supply for one person if you change it out every 3 months) costs $20. Bite also makes a bamboo brush made with castor bean oil bristles! (A common biodegradable, but not vegan, toothbrush bristle is made from boar's hair.) I'm sure you could find bamboo toothbrushes on Amazon as well.

Plastic-free floss

I actually haven't bought any of these yet, because when Mark and I moved, I found about an 8-year supply of floss in his bathroom cupboards. And we have two mostly-full bags of plastic floss picks. I'm so sorry, environment! But it's better to throw these things away used than unused, right? 😶

However, if I ever use up all of the plastic floss that I have at home, I've got my eye on Bite's vegan candelila floss. I also could have sworn that I saw an ad for a stainless steel floss pick that comes with biodegradable floss, but the only thing I could find while actually looking for such a product is this Canadian Indiegogo campaign for Durapik, which hasn't been released yet at the time of writing this.

Reusable q-tips

This product was 100% an impulse buy from an Instagram ad. You'll see below that I find Earthsider to have great products, but at way too steep a price tag. I don't regret falling for this particular impulse buy, though, because I do really like these reusable swabs and I haven't seen anything like them elsewhere! It's a set of 2 silicone swabs for $26 (I got it on sale for $13). One of them is smooth silicone with one pointed and one rounded end. The other one is slightly textured on both ends, which I find helpful for getting water out of my ears after a shower. They come in a nifty carrying/storage case, which has a few small holes in it so you can put them away still wet after being washed off and they won't get mildewy. 

Other alternatives to traditional cotton-and-paper-or-plastic Q-tips is single-use biodegradable bamboo swabs, found at Grove or Earthsider.

Bamboo paper products

There are lots of paper products on the market made from our favorite fast-growing plant.

I've tried both Honeycomb Luxury and Seedling by Grove's bamboo toilet papers. And guess what? Even though the price point is vastly different - $68 for a 24-pack at Honeycomb vs $25 for a 24-pack at Grove - the TP feels exactly the same. Same ply, same softness, same lack of "dust" or "crumbs" or "snow" (you know what I mean), same size rolls. Except Grove doesn't bother to wrap their rolls in paper, which I guess makes it more plebian than luxury? 

There's also Who Gives a Crap, and they donate 50% of their proceeds to building accessible toilets in underprivileged areas around the world. I can't speak for the quality of the TP as I haven't tried it, but they come in at $34 for 24 rolls (or $52 for 48 rolls, which is a better deal). 

So far the only bamboo facial tissue I've tried is from Grove, and while it's plenty sturdy for the wetter nose-blows, it's not very soft. Soft enough for when watching your boyfriend's cousin's live-streamed wedding makes you all teary for a few minutes, but probably too scratchy when you have a cold and blow your nose every 20 minutes for a week. 😉 Who Gives a Crap also carries bamboo facial tissue and paper towel, but I can't speak for their quality. Another place I've seen bamboo paper towel is Grove, and the reviews were pretty mixed, but skewed slightly towards the "way too flimsy" end, so I opted not to try it out just yet.

Hand soap tablets

Instead of buying a giant plastic jug of liquid hand soap and re-filling a small plastic bottle (which I will eventually tire of, because I am a Victim of Late Capitalism who Likes to Buy New Things), I now buy tablets of soap. One little tablet about 1/3 the size of my palm dissolves alka-seltzer style into the glass bottle that Blueland sends you with your starter kit. The bottle has a clearly marked fill line so you know exactly how much water to fill every time. Starter kits are $16 and they come with a glass bottle and 3 soap tablets; refills vary based on quantity but the best deal is 9 tablets for $14. Compared to spending nearly $14 for one bottle of foaming soap at Bath and Body Works, that's a pretty good deal!

Other household soaps & cleaners

Blueland also offers lots of other plastic-free soaps and cleaners, including: laundry detergent pods not wrapped in PVA; dishwasher detergent pods not wrapped in PVA; dish soap powder; bathroom cleaning spray; glass cleaning spray; and multi-surface cleaning spray. I haven't tried any of these yet. I purchased the dishwasher pods at $14 for 40 pods but still have a few older ones to use up.

Grove Collaborative is also a great resource for cleaning product concentrates that you mix with tap water at home. I got a free sample of their glass cleaner concentrate (sent in a small plastic tube, but way less plastic than a bottle of Windex!) with my first Grove order. Grove expects you to subscribe to everything you buy, but you can keep your account open without any active subscriptions.

Bee's Wrap

Instead of plastic wrap or aluminum foil, I've been using bee's wax wrap. Grove sells it in a variety of sizes - I went with the 3 pack of mediums for $18 - and it supposedly lasts about a year before it degrades too much. (I've only had mine for about 2 months). It can cling to any kind of surface because your body heat will actually semi-melt the edges onto your container! Hand wash with soap and COLD water between uses. You definitely don't want to use this in the microwave or dishwasher. When it gets too old to keep using (I'm not sure how you'll know - maybe it will rip? shrivel? dissolve?), it can be composted!

Reusable sealable bags

Yet another pantry essential I recently found on Grove, these silicone bags are far more resuable than Ziploc. They can go in the dishwasher, although some reviews warned against this. I myself had the smallest bag just rip on me at room temperature when I tried to open it - but Grove very easily gave me an account credit for the full cost of the three-piece set, which is a nice $10.95 for one each snack, sandwich, and gallon storage bag. Grove has a pretty wide assortment of different reusable bags to choose from.

Silicone stretchy lids

Since I only have a few pieces of bee's wrap and they're all the same size, I also got some stretchy silicone lids. I use the smallest one on open cans of cat food. The largest one just barely fits my 8-quart Instant Pot. The in-between sizes fit cups, bowls, small plates, small to medium Tupperwares, fruits that got cut in half, you name it. I first found these on Earthsider but the $40 price tag was a bit too high for me, so I wound up buying essentially the same 6-piece set on Amazon for just $6. They're dishwasher safe.

Reusable parchment paper

Once again, I found this product on Earthsider but didn't like the price ($36 for the largest one), so I found something similar on Amazon ($10 and it's bigger than Earthsider's largest, and you can cut it to your desired size). I cut mine up so that one piece fits my typical cookie sheet, and the other piece is kind of awkwardly large - I might cut it down to fit my 8" x 8" brownie pan and have a little scrap leftover.

In any case, this stuff replaces disposable parchment paper for lining pans and dishes that are going in the oven. It says it's dishwasher safe, but I prefer to hand wash mine. Recently I baked some salmon and broccoli with a sticky glaze sauce, and then I left the pan sitting on the stove overnight before cleaning it, and all of the gooey sauce just wiped right off using the scratchy side of the sponge! I haven't baked any desserts on this yet, but I'm confident that it would be just as nicely nonstick for cookies or whatnot as it is for gooey salmon.

Reusable water bottles

There are at least a zillion reusable water bottles on the market. My all-time favorite is the Contigo spill-proof bottle. The lid is made of plastic, but when you keep the same bottle for at least five years, that's pretty inconsequential. The bottle is stainless steel and isn't dishwasher safe (possibly only because of the colored paint on the outside?), although the lid can go in the dishwasher. This baby- ! The only time I've ever spilled water from it is when it fell onto the concrete ground out of my backpack's side pocket and the lid popped off. The button to release the silicone seal is easy to press - my then-7-year-old nephew-by-choice was able to drink out of it easily - but even if you were to drop the bottle mid-sip, you've let go of the button and so it re-seals itself! I've been able to drink water while laying flat on my back sick or hungover without spilling on myself. This bottle is just so good and I can't rave about it enough. It comes in a whole bunch of different colors to match your personality and color code your family.

Reusable produce bags

Since the pandemic hit and I started ordering my groceries online, I sadly haven't gotten much use out of my produce bags. But when I've gone to the outdoor farmer's market, I always have these with me! They help reduce plastic or paper waste when buying loose produce like berries or even onions/apples/potatoes/etc. And, since I don't have a big fancy pantry with drawers for my room-temperature produce, I can store my onions in the bags to keep them from rolling all around. I had some raspberries get a little smooshed and there was a lot of juice all over the bag, but a quick rinse under the kitchen sink with cold water got the color right out! I got this 5-piece set from Target for just $7 and I store anything that's not being used in my reusable grocery bag in the closet. Earthsider also has a set, but guess what - they're at least triple the price. This is another really basic product that can probably be found almost anywhere, though.

Menstrual cups

I could honestly write an entire blog series just on menstrual cups alone. I'll try to summarize quickly without going into too much intimate detail.

I used to use single-use disposable pads and tampons that had to be changed every 4-6 hours or as soon as they got too full. I would leak blood onto my pants WAY more often than I'd like, especially when I was younger and more self-conscious about the sound of unwrapping a pad in the school bathrooms. (Yeah, seriously.)

Menstrual cups may sound gross - I used to retch at the thought of emptying one out - but holy shit am I glad for them now. I was actively, heavily menstruating throughout the majority of 2018, 2019, and the first 3/4 of 2020 (there's a whole blog post right there). In that time, I only had to buy two (2!) silicone menstrual cups, which cost me a total of about $60. I would have been spending closer to $35 every month on pads and tampons. I shudder to think about the amount of cotton-and-plastic waste I would have generated in that time as well.

Finding the right menstrual cup for you can be really tricky. I highly recommend this resource for sizing, shaping, and pricing information. Personally, I started with Rebel Kate cups (it was free with $12 shipping at the time). Rebel Kate appears to be off the market (there's actually some controversy in the menstrual cup community as to whether these cheap cups are safe - I never had any health issues while using this one). I now use a Lumma Cup menstrual disc ($45 for two - I gifted the spare to a friend), which can be worn for mess-free period sex (another game-changer when actively bleeding for 4 months straight!!!). I've also tried Flex disposable menstrual discs (which can also be worn during sex), but their one size fits all didn't actually fit in me very well. Plus, even though you can wear these ones for 12 hours at a time, I still wasn't a fan of adding to the landfills. Flex offers tiered pricing based on your subscription quantities.

Biodegradable cat litter

I could write a whole post about my research into biodegradable litters, but I'll try once again to summarize. This detailed post was very helpful for me when I was trying to make a decision before getting my Beef Stroganoff, because the author had actually tried every kind she was reviewing.

Your most widely available options are corn, walnut, paper, assorted woods, and tofu. Corn seemed like the best option until I read that corn litter can sometimes contain a corn-specific bug that, if your cat were to eat it, could kill him/her. I did not want to risk that. Tofu sounds great but it's quite expensive. Paper/wood sounded like the worst at clumping and odor control. So I went with walnut, which is still more expensive than clay or corn, but cheaper than tofu and reportedly better at clumping. I'm super happy with Naturally Fresh Quick-Clumping walnut litter! The dust is very low; it clumps quite well; the smell is very pleasant when fresh, and it's pretty decent at masking odor; and it's flushable! That's right, biodegradable litters can be flushed down the toilet! Just be careful to break down any huge clumps or else you'll have to grab the plunger. Walnut litter is also safe if you have a litter-eating kitty (although the internet says a kitty will only do this if there's a nutritional deficiency, so be aware of this happening!). I get mine on Chewy at $21 for a 26-lb bag, which is a better deal than I've seen in pet stores by a couple of dollars.

Not only am I happy to not add clay litter to the landfills; I also learned that clay is strip-mined, which is really bad for the earth and can leave permanent scars in the ground. And, even though clay is natural, it doesn't ever break down once it's been fired. (Think of all the ancient pottery we've found buried who-knows-how-deep under ground. Hundreds or thousands of years old and we still have whole-ass clay pots and jars and even jewelry. Those litter pellets ain't goin' nowhere.)

Quick note that an open bag of any type of biodegradable litter should be stored in an airtight container, because otherwise they can attract household pests. We keep ours in a plastic tub with a locking lid in the coat closet, away from any sources of water or food.

In conclusion...

There are lots and lots of ways that you can reduce your carbon footprint, from finding biodegradable alternatives to super-reusable alternatives to products made from more sustainable resources. Some of them are more cost efficient than their common predecessors, while many of them are not. Personally, I find a higher price to be worth it (to an extent - sorry, Honeycomb Luxury and Earthsider). If I can convince everyone reading this to choose one item to replace their single-use plastics with, I will be super happy. If anyone reading this starts using multiple alternatives that I wrote about, I will be absolutely thrilled! 😁

***If I've sold you on any of the products I mentioned from Grove Collaborative, please consider creating your account using this link. If you do, you will get a bonus gift set with your first purchase, and I will earn a $10 store credit.

What kinds of environmentally friendly hygiene/household products do you use? Did I open your eyes to something you'd never thought of? Let me know in the comments!

Holy shit, I'm a hardcore people-pleaser.

To understand where I'm coming from in this post, I want you to first read this blog post from Let's Queer Things Up.

I..... Holy shit. This is so true it hurts a little.

Totally fits with my pattern of shitty exes. The first one left me so desperate for approval that I let the second one treat me like garbage so I could make it up to him (because he always made me feel like his anger was my fault) and then repeat the cycle. I hid so much unhappiness in both of those relationships because I wanted the people around me to think that I was happy. Confessing my unhappiness to the people who loved me would make them sad, and I didn't want to make them sad, so I kept it to myself.

Boundaries? What are those?

The summer I was 16 I kissed my boyfriend for the first time. The teenage hormones and the excitement led from gentle kisses to heavy making out. At the time, I was waiting to have sex until I was married. We played around at second base a lot, and I always enjoyed it in the moment, but I was riddled with confusion afterwards.  I knew I needed to tell him that I wasn't sure I was comfortable with it and that I definitely didn't want to go any further - to make my boundaries clear - but I was terrified. I was too young and naive to fully understand why I was afraid to talk to him - he was nowhere near abusive, and I'm sure the worst he'd have done would have been breaking up with me if he really wanted to go further - but I see now that I was fawning.  That conversation might have made him unhappy, so I simply didn't talk about it. Instead, I avoided him for the rest of the summer until my best friend finally told me that breaking up with him was the right thing to do, both for myself and for him. I'm still kind of sorry that I let it end that way.

The next time I knew that I needed to set boundaries for myself, I wasn't sure where I needed them to be, and I told him exactly that.  Simply saying "I need boundaries but I don't know what they are right now, so please be patient with me while I figure them out" was fucking HUGE for me. But didn't give me the space I needed, and I let things happen on his terms anyway because it didn't make sense to me to stir the pot by saying "I shouldn't be texting you several times a day every day, and I'm not comfortable with you starting a conversation with 'hey sexy'" when I liked him so much.

When he asked me to be his girlfriend (via text message), I knew I was not ready to say yes. It wasn't that I wanted to date other people or "keep my options open" - I simply was not emotionally ready to be in a committed relationship. But I couldn't imagine telling him that, especially not via text message.  So I fawned and said yes. This ended up setting the stage for seven months of doing whatever it took to keep him happy.  He'd get mad at me over some bullshit, we'd fight via text message, I'd dwell on it and plan what I had to say to his face to make it okay, I'd go over there, and he'd initiate passionate sex before I could say a word.  Did I ever ask him to stop so we could talk first? Absolutely not. That would upset him. I liked the sex, and I liked him seeming so passionate, and I liked not having difficult conversations. So I let it keep happening until it broke me.

There is one difference between me and Sam Dylan Finch: I don't back away from my healthy relationships. I do tend to vent to a selection of them, as the Sam said is common among fawners.  I was venting to my best friend of over ten years when I realized that I had to break up with my then-boyfriend. My best friend burst into angry tears and shouted "Kate he doesn't treat you right." All I could do in the moment was also burst into tears, hug her, and tell her how lucky I was to have a friend like her. I have always been grateful to have her as a friend. I am eternally grateful that her reaction to whatever garbage I was telling her about made me see how right she was and decide to stop taking the garbage from him, even if it meant breaking up with him.

But there was a tiny part of me, the fawning people-pleaser, that was ashamed that I'd made her cry. She had her own struggles and her own garbage to deal with - how dare I worry her so with my problems? That's not something that I've ever dwelled on or continued to feel guilty about, but it was definitely there in the bottom of my gut and it illustrates the amount a people-pleaser will suppress in order to avoid making others unhappy.

I'm not really sure where this stems from. The original author suggests that a chaotic and/or abusive childhood often leads to fawning, but I grew up very, very far from abuse. Yes, my parents argued, and I suppose it's possible that when I told myself "I'm never going to get a divorce" I unconsciously made the decision to let myself be bendable, to make myself cave in order to keep the peace.  It'd probably take a therapist to confirm that theory or to uncover anything else that breeds fawning tendencies.

I've got a happy ending - well, not ending because I'm not dead and don't plan to be for quite some time - so a happy next chapter, if you will. I actually took time to sort myself out between romantic relationships. I got confident enough in myself that, when I dated someone who was pretty in to me but the feeling wasn't mutual, I didn't make myself believe that I owed him a relationship.  I let myself be an individual instead of a mirror, and I broke it off with him.

Shortly before that, I was hooking up with someone who I knew to be 100% wrong for me. I didn't fawn to please him, didn't tell myself that it was okay to be with a pessimist, didn't decide to settle for him just because he was there and showing a spark of interest. The second I saw that spark fade, I stopped trying to initiate anything and I let the fling flicker out into nothingness.

And now? I have an amazing boyfriend. One who has never once made me feel like I had to mold myself to meet his needs - we have always naturally been a great fit. And all those red flags for abusive relationships that I see on social media - the lists of behaviors that each of my serious exes line up with oh so well - are completely unrelatable for him. Any time I'm unnecessarily emotional (from my own internal logical perspective), rather than ignore me or tell me I'm being silly or to stop crying or any other emotionally abusive bullshit, he'll ask what I need to feel better right now. My response is usually just for him to hold me for a while, and he is perfectly happy to do so. (He's usually already holding me when he asks, and we just snuggle in and get more comfortable.)  Conflict between us is nearly nonexistent. Not because I deny my own boundaries, wants, or needs, but because most of those things align for us - or because he is willing to work with me to find a compromise when they don't.

I am going to make efforts to keep an eye out for fawning behaviors now that I have a word for them. At work, with friends, with family, and with my boyfriend, just to make sure I don't fall back into old habits.  Caving to other people and putting myself at the bottom of my list is so 2017 Kate. 2018 Kate started getting over that shit, and 2019 Kate is going to continue to work even harder at making sure 2020 Kate and beyond makes her boundaries and needs clear to others - even if those boundaries and desires aren't what the people around me might like best. 🍓💙

Ode to Medicaid

I want to take some time to talk about how much I appreciate Michigan's Medicaid program as it currently stands in 2019.

This isn't a tragic story filled with needs for life-saving care and nights laying awake worried about how I was going to afford my life-saving medication.  I am thankful everyday that I do not have any conditions that require daily medicine or emergency backups.

This is simply a story of an average healthy person, struggling to find full-time employment, who wanted to make sure she was functionally healthy while she was struggling financially.

As a woman, I see my gynecologist every year to make sure that my breasts are lump-free and that my ovaries and uterus are cyst-free.  The timing worked out so that I didn't need a pap smear while I was on Medicaid, but I do stay up to date with that exam as well.

I also visited my gynecologist for a full STD panel (vaginal swab + blood work) between sexual partners to make sure I wasn't putting the next person at risk.

Again, I visited my gynecologist to talk about issues with excessive bleeding - we're talking 40+ days straight of menstruation.  The result is my business but it was definitely necessary to seek medical treatment on that one.

I went to the dentist to have my teeth cleaned for the first time in over nine years.  As a new patient, I also got a full set of X-rays.  Four small holes were discovered in my teeth, so they were filled in.

When I had a random episode of vertigo that was so bad I could barely walk across the hall to the bathroom, I went (having gotten a ride) to urgent care.  Thankfully it was just fluid trapped in my ears after a cold, so I bought some antihistamines.

I got my flu shot and thankfully avoided catching the flu - a bigger challenge for someone working retail during the holidays.

I also got the Hepatitis B vaccine when there was an outbreak traced back to a restaurant I'd dined at and thankfully avoided catching that disease, too.

When I had a cough lingering for a whole week after getting over a cold, I went to urgent care to ensure that it wasn't something more serious.  I was prescribed a nasal spray and an antihistamine - which Medicaid thankfully covered, since even store brands can be $20 or more, and my $10/hour, 16-hour work weeks left me with very little emergency money.

When that cough lasted a full month even with the nasal spray and antihistamines, I finally sought out a GP.  (I hadn't had a regular doctor or an annual physical since I outgrew my pediatrician.)  She gave me the peace of mind that my cough was allergy-related triggered by the cold I'd caught, prescribed me a cough suppressant, and also sent me to the lab for bloodwork to see if I was anemic (related to the excessive menstruation, not the cough).

When a bug bite turned dark purple and red, and had lines of bruise color streaming down towards my ankle, I rushed to urgent care to have it looked at.  Thankfully it wasn't a tick bite or Lyme disease, but a simple infection.  I was prescribed both an antibiotic pill and a cream to treat it.

When frequent headaches and eye fatigue started to set in, I got an eye exam to see if my prescription had changed.  It had, and I would have gotten a new pair of glasses completely covered, except that my exam ended up taking place on the last day of Medicaid coverage before my insurance from my new full-time job started up.

100% of these services and prescriptions were 100% covered for me.  The situations I've laid out took place across almost two years of me being underemployed and underpaid, and thanks to Medicaid, I never had to worry about how I was going to afford any of these office visits or prescriptions.

I guess I have a few main points here:

1) Medicaid is actually good health coverage and I am eternally grateful to the state for supporting me when I was down. 

2) Please do not talk down to or about people who are on Medicaid.  Many of them are people like me - people who are trying desperately to find full-time employment with health benefits, but for reasons that are personal to them have been unsuccessful.  (Bear in mind, too, that some of these people are working 40 or more hours per week, but spread across 2 or more jobs.)

3) Please do not vote Medicaid away.  I can't imagine what I would have done without the coverage that I had in the last 2 years.  Don't do that to people who rely on the system for support.

4) Please don't make the "I don't want MY tax dollars supporting ____!" complaint when it comes to Medicaid.  I mean, I hate that argument in general, but when you're talking about the health and the lives of your fellow statesmen, it's just incomprehensible to me that anyone would complain about contributing 2.9% of their salary for that.  That's less than three cents per dollar.  For every $100 you make, you're contributing only $2.90 towards the people you share a state with to have health insurance.  Please be a compassionate enough person to be okay with that tax.

A collection of facts fresh from another damn breakup

Here are some basic facts.

The last time I went to sleep secure in my knowledge of a future with Derek Wang was a Tuesday.

On Wednesday, I found evidence of his infidelity and I went to sleep scared and confused.

On Thursday, I confronted him about it and I slept uneasily, knowing it was over.

On Friday, I succumbed to the uncertainty of a future without him and I figured out a way I could be okay with staying with him.  He seemed to agree to my terms.

But by the end of the following week (or thereabouts), he'd changed his mind, and it was over.

*   *   *

The last time I went to sleep secure in the prospect of a future with Derek James was a Tuesday.

On Wednesday, he picked yet another fight via text message and I went to sleep scared and confused.

On Thursday, I broke down into tears after my workout because I knew that I had to protect myself by letting him go.

We didn't speak for two days.

By Sunday evening, he was angry and throwing out all kinds of accusations about me that were completely untrue.

Another basic fact:

I didn't ever feel physically unwell from anxiety when I was with Wang.  I certainly felt that way when I found out about his cheating, when he cut me off financially, when his family stole from me, and whenever I had to speak with him after all of it.  That period of time lasted approximately three weeks.  There was a brief repetition of the uneasy feeling when I sold the couch that had been ours, and when I met with a background check agent on his behalf.

I felt physically unwell from anxiety, on and off, for the last two months of my relationship with Derek.  The thought of losing him scared me so much that I felt unwell.  Trying to figure out why he was mad at me, what I could do or say (or not do or not say) to make it all better, made my heart race and my breathing difficult.

Six and a half years of being with Wang, and I only felt physically unwell for roughly three weeks after I knew it was over.  Seven months of being with Derek, and I felt physically unwell throughout two months before things ended.  But then? after they did end?  A weight off my chest.  It felt literal.  My breathing became less labored because the anxiety lifted.

Of course, if we're being factual, it wasn't immediate and permanent.  The first week post-breakup was hard as hell.

Let's look at why.

I kept asking myself, Why does this hurt so bad after only seven months, when two of those months were bad?

I finally figured out why:

Before breaking up with Wang, I thought - I knew - that we had a future together.  We were talking about buying a house in the next year; about getting a domestic partnership before my birthday so I could jump onto his health insurance; about getting married after that, when it made financial sense to throw the wedding that I wanted.  There was no period of not knowing if it was going to work out, of questioning our future together.  I could see it and I wanted it.

Then, in the blink of an eye, it was gone.

And before I could get used to the idea of being alone, before I could look forward to a future with myself, before the dust had even settled, along came Derek.  And he was wonderful.  He knew the pain I was going through, having been cheated on before (I later learned that his girlfriend cheated on him when he was 18, they'd only been together for a few weeks; sorry, sweetie, but you absolutely didn't know the depth of the loss I experienced); he was kind; he made me laugh; he gave me something to look forward to.

Probably too much to look forward to.

I latched on to the possibility of a future with him so quickly.  Too quickly.  I was blinded by the excitement.  "If I learned anything in my last relationship, it's that time is meaningless in a relationship.  There are no minimum or maximum time limits in love.  There's no magic number of months or years that suddenly mean you're ready for the next level.  So... why deny it?"  I actually wrote that in my journal in December.  We had been dating for just over four months at this point.  And we were already thinking about moving in together.  Just a week later, I would experience a moment of "clarity" in which I knew I was going to marry him.

I haven't really told anyone about that.  The context no longer matters - suffice it to say that just shy of five months together, I thought to myself "that's it, I'm gonna marry him."

FIVE. MONTHS. 

The problem here, I can now see, is that everything happened way too quickly.  Before the dust from my last relationship could settle and before I could feel content in romantic solitude, someone wanted me.  Someone who made me feel like I was ready to date again.

So that's why it hurt so much when it ended.  I was experiencing not just the pain of losing Derek, but of knowing that I was still without a life partner.  That after everything I'd been through, everything he promised himself to be, I still didn't get to look forward to a future with someone.

I'm not trying to be dramatic here - I still have confidence that I will find someone who will be a good fit for me, and that I will grow old with him.  But, I'm acknowledging that for now, that person isn't visible.  That person is not in my life yet, and so for now, I have no promise of permanent companionship.

Let me tell you what, realizing that hurts like hell.  It makes you queasy, it kills your appetite, it makes you tired, it makes you want to do nothing but sleep because sleep is a reprieve from feeling or thinking.

It's slowly getting better.  Some day, the pain and the anxiety will be a distant memory and I'll be able to say, "the way things ended was really bad and I hated feeling that way, but all in all, I'm glad it ended.  I'm much better off without him."

After all, I already feel that way about my relationship with Wang.

A jumble of thoughts fresh from a breakup

Anyone reading this probably at least knows that derek and I have broken up because he cheated on me for the better part of a year.

When I first found out (because he left his e-mail account open, not because he had the courage to tell me), I felt like my entire world was crashing down around me while the rug was being pulled out from under my feet.  I was so scared to lose him that I decided to stay with him provided that he seek counseling and we attend couples counseling.  That old cliche of "I've invested so much of my life into this relationship, I'm not going to let it go this easily."  Because you're supposed to fight for love, right?  I wasn't going to go down without a fight.

But after two days, derek decided that that was too much work, that there's no point in trying again because "the unhappiness that led to his cheating would probably come back again eventually" (oh yeah guys, he cheated because I didn't keep him sexually satisfied, so it was my fault in his eyes).  He insisted that I was only staying with him for the financial security.  The best line he gave me was "we need to make sure that we can be happy on our own before we can be happy together."  Translation: "I'm too much of a coward to break up with you outright so I'll pretend like I maybe want you back eventually."

Yeah, no.

Once I got over the initial shock of everything that happened, I had a very, very important realization:

I honestly don't miss him all that much.

Oh sure, I miss the companionship, I miss having a warm body to snuggle against at night (it's been unseasonably cold this week), I missed having a body to snuggle when I had a nightmare the other day, I miss being pretty sure that I'll be debt-free by 30, and it's weird not having someone to talk to about every TV show that I watch (I started a lot of them because he was in to them).

But you know what?

I can find any of that with someone else.  Maybe not the debt-free part, because I don't expect anyone to be willing to pay 100% of the rent until my loans are paid off, but that's okay.

Him breaking up with me (it really should have been me breaking up with him) has opened my eyes to what an underperforming boyfriend he really was.  Every time I asked him for a simple date night (like, to the place literally 3/4 of a mile away from our apartment for a quick dinner not in front of the TV) he would grumble.  I planned this awesome staycation for us last summer and he was a total asshole about leaving the apartment the entire long weekend.  Every weekend was a lazy weekend.  As in, if I asked him to go walk the 2 blocks to pick up dinner from the deli, he'd ask why I couldn't do it.  The only time he ever helped me cook dinner was if I burned myself and couldn't finish the recipe by myself due to pain.  My family came to visit, I had to practically beg him to come out with us and spend quality time with these people who he saw once a year max.  His family came to visit, and I ended up spending an entire day alone with his mother while he played video games at home.  We went to Jamaica for our friend's wedding and he stayed cooped up in the hotel when we all went snorkeling FOR FREE because "I've been snorkeling before, I don't feel like doing it again."  ON AN ALL-EXPENSE PAID WEDDING PARTY TRIP TO JAMAICA.  On the rare occasion that he did leave the apartment with me, I felt like I had to coddle him the whole time to make sure he was enjoying himself.  Yeah, that made it fun for me.

Okay I'm rambling now.  The point is that after I moved down to Maryland to be with him, he stopped putting any effort into our relationship and for nearly four years I pretended like that didn't bother me.  Or I denied that it did.  Either way, now that I'm out of that relationship, my eyes are wide open to how unhappy I was.

When I was 18 and just so broken-hearted over the fact that my high school boyfriend wouldn't talk to me anymore, my therapist asked me this question:

"Why would you want to be friends with someone who treats you that way?"

Her voice echoed in my head almost as soon as I found out that derek had cut me off (which was while I was at lunch with my coworkers - yet another cowardly move on his part).  I knew it as soon as she asked me that when I was 18, and I knew it again a few weeks ago: I don't want to be with someone who treats me that way.  Not as a friend and definitely not as a romantic partner.

It's a difficult question to answer sometimes, and it was definitely difficult when I thought about the future that I had to say goodbye to.  We'd been talking about getting a domestic partnership before November so that I could hop on to his health insurance when I turn 26, and we were talking about buying a house in the next year.

I was watching Frasier the other day - a show that I often turn to when I'm sad - and at the end of the very first episode, one of his callers is still feeling like a mess months after a breakup.  Frasier told her that she's not mourning the loss of the relationship, but the loss of the future that she thought she had.  Yet another light switch flicked on in my head.  That's exactly it.  I already don't miss him - it's hard to miss someone who barely paid attention to your relationship.  And I'm actually already starting to be excited for my new future thanks to the love and support from my friends and family who have all promised to welcome me back to Michigan.  Honestly, maybe it had become about the promise of financial security, even if I didn't quite realize it at the time.

It's like if you lived for 4 years in a really shitty climate, and you'd tried to forget that nicer climates exist, and any time you saw any little reminder of a better climate you were like "yeah but this region is totally perfect for me, I don't need better weather to feel better" but then one day you get strapped into a giant slingshot by force, and you get thrown into a WAY nicer climate and after you brush yourself off and figure out your new surroundings you're like "holy shit.  This climate is PERFECT for me!  How could I have ever been happy living under those conditions?  I'm never going back to that region even for a brief visit!"

So I actually kind of hope that one day, maybe months from now, derek will come crawling back to me so that I can laugh in his face.  He knows how hard it is for me to deny someone another chance to stay in my life - he literally had to hold my hand while I blocked an ex best friend on Facebook when we were in college - and I hope he'll think that he'd get a second chance if I have enough time to miss him.  I want to smile as I tell him that I don't miss him.  He selfishly told me that he doesn't know if he'll ever be able to move on from me (which is stupid because he already had, at least sexually), and I want the opportunity to show him that I have moved on from him.

A comprehensive list of the awesomeness that is coconut oil

I know I'm not the first person to discover how great coconut oil is, but really, WOW, it is awesome.  Here's a list of all the things I use it for:

• Cooking - especially baking, waffles, and sweeter meals (such as this sausage with grapes dish that I like, or pork chops with apples, that kinda thing)
• Acne - I have adult acne pretty badly.  Last summer, I wouldn't have been surprised if everyone I met thought I was 15 years old because it was raging so badly.  But if I slather some coconut oil onto my clean face about an hour before bed, then gently blot it off right before I hit the pillow, my acne is much less red, angry, and swollen throughout the next day.
• 2020 update: DO NOT, under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, put coconut oil on your face. Coconut oil is highly comedogenic, which means it clogs your pores. Which means that back in 2017, I was making my acne worse by slathering coconut oil all over it. My acne was honestly always red, swollen, and angry back then. I think I was imagining things when I thought coconut oil was helping me. At least I smelled good though?
• Chafing - my thighs rub together when I walk.  Sometimes I forget to rub deodorant between them, and sometimes I sweat the deodorant away but have to keep walking.  Which of course leads to chafing.  Coconut oil on my chafed thighs soothes it wonderfully and I'm pretty sure it helped it to heal faster.
• Shaving/waxing wounds - A few months ago, I cut myself while shaving my armpits.  Since I couldn't wear deodorant over the open wound for a few days, I chafed badly which also kinda made the wound worse.  Coconut oil served to sooth the chafing, prevent it from getting worse, AND help heal the wound.
• More recently, I've started waxing my armpits. Coconut oil is great for soothing my pits immediately after waxing, and after a few days when my baby hairs grow back and get kinda sensitive.
• I also dab a little bit onto my eyebrows after I tweeze them.  The swelling goes down quickly and it helps prevent ingrown hairs! 
• I imagine it would be a really good way to prevent razor burn, too.  I haven't ever used it after shaving unless I cut myself, so I'm not positive.  But probably!
•  Nails&cuticles - my cuticles barely dried out this winter.  Also, I had damaged nails from too many peel-off base coats in a row; a few days of naked nails in the winter with lots of coconut oil and the damage seemed to disappear.  I highly recommend it for after scrubbing off a glitter polish!
• Burns - so, I haven't used it immediately after burning myself, so I don't know if it soothes the initial pain.  But the day after my most recent burn experience, when I had tender blisters that didn't ache constantly, coconut oil was wonderful for keeping the skin moisturized and happy.
• Hair - I use it as a hair mask BEFORE showering every now and then.  It's WAY too oily for me to use it after a shower the way I use argon oil, which I learned via trial and error.  As in, "let's try it!  Ohh, that was a mistake, now I need half a can of dry shampoo because I don't have time to wash it right now."

Seriously, coconut oil is a miracle serum.  If they ever decide that it causes cancer, I'm probably going to be diagnosed at like 30 because I consume and absorb so much on a regular basis!