Monday House Keeping & Musings…

Monday
November 10, 2025

Hi friends!

The LeadSafeMama 20% off Discount Code for 360 Cookware is live! Thank you for your patience with that. Here’s our link to their site as well.

Today’s a “barely holding it together day”. As a mother of kiddos with life-long disabilities due to Lead poisoning, there are a lot of days like that and I have learned that I just need to be patient with myself (and my kids) and leave space for those days (days like today) to be part of our normal!

Under the circumstances… things I am thankful for: a roof over my head, food in the fridge, a generous friend letting us stay at her house by the sea while our home is under “deconstruction.” Our home in Portland is currently without heat, without a shower, and without a stove or oven as it has been for a while now! I am also incredibly thankful for my husband — for all the work he is putting into the house to make it safe for us to return next month (fixing a long-leaking shower, installing heating, and getting rid of a dangerous not-built-to-code / not fire-proof metal chimney that runs through the center of the house – all while working lead-safe!) In my next life I promise to never buy a turn-of-the century stick-built home! [The home we have lived in since 2007 was built in 1905 as a one room cabin, and then added on to every 30 or 40 years since then]

My favorite thing about being away from home is the constant sound of the crashing waves. My second favorite thing is cheap cleaner groceries (a fraction of what we spend in the United States). We are going grocery shopping tonight and I will take photos of our haul and share along with the receipt on social media. It’s quite magical how much cheaper things are here.

Some people don’t understand how we save so much money by leaving the country in the winters (saving on health insurance — as travel health insurance is a tiny fraction of health insurance at home, saving on groceries — which tend to be 1/4 or 1/3 the price of groceries in the U.S, saving on every day expenses and educational activities for my kids too). I also have a bit of a knack for finding free-or-very cheap flights, and free-or-very cheap places to stay, so those costs are always incidental when we travel (mostly because of all of YOU – we have so many wonderful hosts around the world who want to make sure we are taken care of so I can keep doing the work I do — in spite of the challenges!)

My dream is to some day buy a castle in Scotland (they are actually fairly cheap here – check out this one, which is a bit on the pricey side!) where we will invite everyone to come stay for free in exchange for a bit of help around the place (gardening, construction, maintenance, cooking, cleaning, organizing, etc.) The goal is to create a music and arts incubator and conservatory — giving young artists (my kids and their friends, and friends of their friends!) an opportunity to just hang out and create with others for three to six months at a time. This dream could actually come true – so I am holding onto it like it’s possible in the next 5 years or so! [Next week, we’re actually going to look at a castle that happens to be for sale right now – just in case some magic actually is possible sooner rather than later!] I am much more willing to put up with the construction nightmare of a many-hundreds-year-old stone-construction castle in Scotland than a stick-built turn-of-the-century (Lead-painted) house in America any day!

BTW: I wrote 13 pages of my book yesterday. After the next four articles with lab reports are published today (there are some long overdue ones pending), I will go back to the book and try to write some more pages. My publisher says the “sweet spot” for a book these days is in the 200 to 300 page range, although I am going to do my best to keep it shorter (so it is easier for busy parents to read and digest the information!)

Lead Safe Mama, LLC Financial Update: I’ve done our calculations for our End-Of-Year projections and it looks like Lead Safe Mama, LLC is going to close out the year with an operating deficit of about $20,000. Hopefully when we finally launch our app that deficit will disappear, as will the paradigm that has us continue with an operating deficit on a regular basis. That’s the goal at least… that the app will make the data we share more accessible to everyone (quickly, with the touch of a button or two on your phone) AND that the app — which will be free for consumers to use — will generate the funds (through affiliate links and advertising partnerships) that we need to continue doing the work we do without the current “shoestring budget”/ constant struggle paradigm we currently operate under.

Thank you – always – for supporting the work we do here at Lead Safe Mama, LLC in all the ways!

There are some “almost funded” campaigns below that could use some attention (If you have $10.00 or $20.00 to contribute in support of any of these today, that would be simply magical! Thank you!) We are trying to wrap up as many of the outstanding / pending campaigns for testing and reporting by the end of the year as possible.

Tamara

1.) Organic Saltines – $44.00 Left To Raise
2.) Ancient Nutrition Bone Broth Protein Powder – $55.00 Left To Raise
3.) Safe Catch Albacore Tuna – $329.00 Left to Raise – to get a third product from this brand sent in to the lab!
4.) Burts Bees Diaper Ointment – $38.00 Left To Raise to cover our costs for testing and reporting on the first one of the six ointments pictured [Let me know if you think it should be Burts Bees or Babo!?)
5.) Pure Synergy PureNatal Prenatal Multivitamin – $140.00 Left To Raise
6.) Miyokos Plant Milk Butter (Salted) – $210.00 Left To Raise

Here also is our General Fund GoFundMe Link. We are currently needing to raise about $3,000 in legal fees related to a case of cyber-stalking of Lead Safe Mama, LLC (cyberstalking that we are hoping will stop soon!) so contributions towards our legal expenses are always welcome (although we do hope to recoup our legal fees eventually – so a loan would be helpful too if that’s something you are able to consider!) Thanks again.

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