CHECK IT OUT!!

www.thebirthproject.com


and when you're done reading about it. Buy one!

we spent all of this morning working through mailing lists, 2 lap tops looking up particular directories and trying to half-heartedly and very distractedly pacify our children to get a lot of the new zines out the door to many, many midwife-supporting professionals.
but i can't wait for the mamas to check it out, feel inspired and then submit, submit, submit all their thoughts about birth and just being a woman!

down time at Mr. Senior Guy's place

It's Monday evening and I'm at Mr. Senior Guy's house.
He's been napping for 2 hours. I'm guiltily screwing around on line, writing emails and reading neighborhood blogs. SIGH.
Mr. Senior Guy is cold tonight. It is about 2 degrees with the windchill. But his thermostat is set at a toasty 74 (a whole 12 degrees more than our big cold house!). He had me cover him with a heating pad and 3 blankets. Poor fella.
It's like a sauna in here to me. My long underwear and layers of t-shirts are too much here. It's a very rude awakening when I get home and find that the car heater was much warmer. But we have a nice down comforter given to us and it is so toasty no other blanket is necessary, and I always wake slightly too hot.

Had a big police-like thumping knock on my door this afternoon. I had fallen asleep with little E and the knock scared the crap out of me. Answered the door to find K handing me a copy of our 'zine fresh off the presses!
How exciting!
I will certainly link the website for more info once the site is up (hopefully by tomorrow).
It's called The Birth Project. It's meant for all folks in the childbearing phase of their lives. Not just for birth workers.
24 pages of really cool stuff.


In other news, our living room is finally completed. The shelves are up, the pictures and plants too. Now it feels like home again. V. happy with it.

Woke up early to do some vinyasa yoga this morning. E woke too and sat on the chair sleepily watching me. Soon G and S were also watching me so I gave up after 30 minutes. Still felt good to do. My body feels like it should be doing more. That mid-winter, its-too-damn-cold to use any energy outside feel. And I'm due for a period in a day or two, so I'm feeling extra fleshy, which doesn't help any.
Living 3 blocks from campus, you always see the hard core track runners braving the cold. Half of me admires them and the other half cynically scowls at them and thinks they should get a real life. One that includes a sedentary activity, beer, and potato chips.

Ha! I'm speaking of the cold while recording (as requested by Mr. Senior Guy) a History International channel viewing of Siberia: How the East was Won. I've got it on mute but you can just tell by watching that it frickin' cold there. Like really, really cold. People at the outdoor market buying shriveled oranges, potatoes, and vodka.
And it pains me to walk around the block! Wuss!

Okay, I'm off to not feel so bad about Mr. S G's long nap tonight. AND my getting paid for lap-top joy-ride. Off to unload the dishwasher. Oooo, hard work!

(signing off feeling very thankful for my job in Michigan's crappy, awful lack-of- economy)

Waiting to go to the bar?!

My family is asleep and it's 20 to 9pm. I'm supposed to meet Kate at the Brewery in 20 minutes to go over/review/edit any last minute items in our up and coming 'zine: The Birth Project.
24 pages of articles, stories, art, etc. Very exciting. Let me know if you want a copy, anyone (not sure who reads my blog, if anyone.)
I get to go to the bar w/o being on call and I have a headache and would much rather drink a decaf Chai tea latte. Thankfully there's no smoking in this bar or my head would explode.

I just finished reading a really enjoyable short book called: A Round Heeled Woman by Jane Juska.
It's about this 66 year old woman who places a personal ad in the New York Review stating that she would like to have a lot of sex with a man she likes before she turns 67. The story is true and explains what happens after the ad is placed, what led her to place it, who she meets, who she sleeps with (an not), and why. It's really a good book and I want to give a copy to my MIL and own mother for the sake of empowerment (hopefully) and to acknowledge that one's sex drive does not have to pretend to go away with age.
I highly recommend it.

I also finished Terry Pratchett's book, Pyramids. Which of course, is witty and silly and makes me fall asleep with a smile on my face.


I spent 5 hours in blood drawing lab today. After fasting for 14 hours, I drank 75 grams of sugar in 2 minutes and then proceeded to have my blood drawn on the hour for 4 hours. I was about to pass out by the time we were done. I had a headache, a very empty belly, a huge sugar crash and very bruised inner elbows from the 15 or so tubes of blood taken. I was a little pissy about the whole thing. But its done and I almost feel like there better be some interesting results (but nothing bad!) to make today worth while. On the upside, I DID get to finish the book I was reading and my sweet neighbor Elizabeth actually drove up and hung out with me for an hour at the lab. Now that's a friend! Okay, she was actually going to the drug store across the street, but she saw my car and came in, delivering a short story, a poem, an audio tape of good literary selections and coupons for my fave Indian restaurant. See, that's a friend!

Greg is now on a day shift once again. He was on one when I was pregnant with Eamon. But it's lovely to have him go to bed at a normal time and know that he doesn't need to wake up at 1am for work. He actually gets to sleep til 5:30, like a normal person! This is very exciting for us. He's been "staying up" for me to get home from work. Eamon has been sleeping in his own bed and it quite a novelty to be in bed with my own husband without any children between us!
I have no regrets for attachment parenting, in the big picture I love that parenting path. However, being able to snuggle up to my husband and rub my legs on his, talk, laugh....ahhh. It's like its 1995 all over again!
It's been like a second honeymoon for the last 2 weeks. Eamon still wakes and comes to our bed around 4am, but I can handle that. It's nice even, to kiss his sweet head and go back to sleep cuddling all together.
But yes, nothing like getting your own bed back.

previously viewed videos for the taking

Little guy is down for a nap. Something he usually doesn't take these days. However, he woke at 5:30 so I kind of expected it.

Went to the dentist today and finally made an appointment for a crown I've been putting off for 1 1/2 years. It's going to cost around $500 out of pocket. I still don't know how I will pay for it.
Here I go again scrapping shit together at the last minute. It's the way most of our things get paid.
Funny thing is though, they asked if I wanted GOLD or porcelain. This was an exciting option to ponder. Hmmmm, gold? The crown will go on a molar, so you wouldn't see it and if you did, it might just be too silly. So I asked what was cheaper because I was willing for the cheapest to be my answer. But I was told they were pretty much the same so I said porcelain.
But a part of me would love having a secret GOLD tooth! V. cool.

We've been working on our living room for nearly 2 weeks now. Most of that time we were waiting for the horrible oil-based floor primer to dry already. We've decided we really like the gray color of the primer so we're leaving it and not painting the floor "Burning Bush" red after all. The furniture is finally in and it looks strange and modern and not like the over-stuffed Victorian mess of a giant cat house it looked before. I'm waiting for Greg to hang the wall shelves so I can put our plants and photos in there. He doesn't want to put anything on the wall. Its very much his personality to want things pure and straight and clear of fuss. And so very much like me to need living green plants, photos of loved ones, cool prints, etc. So it's all compromise.

I have to go for a 4 hour glucose tolerance test tomorrow morning for my blood sugar woes. I'm feeling very certain that I'm just hypoglycemic and that I have to eat every couple of hours to not feel sick. It's just remembering to and also having the patience for it. Like now, I'm hungry and I know I should have some kind of protein. Eggs would be fine but then I'd have to cook them, dirty a pan, wash that, etc. So instead I have a bowl of shredded wheat with warm milk for the instant warmth and sugar rush. So stupid. I need to practice what I preach. I just hate cleaning up after myself. If it were for more than just me, I'd do it.
No, it's just plain dumb. Off to cook eggs and then sort through the heaps and boxes of VHS tapes and DVDs before any of them go back on shelves.

I am the great and magnificent purger! Everyone in this house hates me for it, but it keeps the place tidy and people can FIND WHAT THEY WANT WHEN THEY WANT IT!!! Even Sarah verbally listed about 12 videos I could toss with her permission. That's my girl! She's starting to get it. We are not hoarders. Plus, we donate it all to other folks who hopefully need it. Our clothes, our toys, our kitchen stuff, our blankets and now our movies.

What's YOUR secret?

blink blink blink

You know, do you secretly pour through Star and People magazines to see what trampy Paris Hilton wore? To see what dumb celebrities are breaking up or hooking up?

What do you do (or want to do) that you'd really rather not talk about?

Let me tell ya, I have been hankering for a pair of nice fake eyelashes. Big crazy eyes. Fun.

In the privacy of my own house, surely.

Everyone go out and indulge in some silliness this weekend!
I'll let you know how the lashes work. That is, if I don't glue my eyelids shut and end up with a feathery little moustache in the process.

Saturday make over

Somehow we launched into completely re-doing our living room.
This always seems to happen to us. We undo just a few stitches of a potential project and before you know it, everything is open wide and the stuffing removed.
I suppose its good though, that's what gets things done in our house.

For example: the hallway and kitchen floor. "Let's just tear up a little of the flooring to see if there's decent wood flooring under there."
Well this being and 1860 house with a 1940s addition... there was no tearing up a little bit of floor. There was the crappy linoleum, followed by subfloor, then layers upon layers of old brittle newspapers from 1944 (for insulation), then another layer of really old linoleum, and then finally the original wood floor planks, which were so brittle in spots, the ladder broke through a few of them. Before you knew what was happening, all the layers were being torn up and then we decided to knock down a wall. And of course we had no money for re-doing anything. but we were able to creatively redo the whole thing for about $600, over a few months. Paint is always affordable.
"A Small Makeover Project" ala us.

Greg wanted to go to furniture stores to "just look at" brown leather sofas, which is what we agreed we would replace our couches with once the pets were gone and when we had the money.
No, we don't have the money. So "let's just look". We went to like 9 furniture stores in 2 days. Brown leather sofas don't vary much. They either are traditional, modern, or have those dumb huge gold nail heads in them like you're in a judge's office. (My apologies to anyone who owns one of these. It seemed sales people kept leading me to those. I know my children would absent-mindedly (wrong, I know) pluck at the nail heads until they came out, while bored and watching a movie. )
As soon as I walked into a furniture store we'd tell them what we were looking for and while they lead us to "The Barrister" (or some other dumb name for the gold thumbtack leather couch), I'd add on: And no gold nails in it!

So Greg being Greg (stubborn and persuasive), we ended up financing a couch~ 6 months same as cash. Not a huge deal because he gets his vacation check in February which will cover it and then some. Then I want a cheap, but decent coffee table from Ikea, some new decorative shelves from same, a floor lamp and that is it. We're converting our coat closet into the entertainment center. We've got big cool shelving (for cheap! Ikea!) that is being fit in there to house the TV, players, movies, and board games.

The couch is being delivered next Thursday. Need to find somewhere for old furniture to go.
Today will be spent painting the living room (I just did this 3 years ago!). There's plenty of washed off crayon, pencil and marker marks on the wall from both kids. Eamon doesn't do that much anymore (usually).

All right, off to the grocery store in jammies. I don't want to shower and get on real clothes because then I won't want to paint if I feel clean. If I stay dirty I will be far more productive.
Just like I can't garden when I've showered for the day. Only slightly OCD.

IUD info for Leaner and anyone else interested

So Leaner has asked about the IUD.
I'll tell you why I chose what I chose and what I think about it 3 months out.

Ahem,
I chose the plain Jane copper IUD because:
it's the most commonly used contraceptive world-wide with the least amount of side effects.
And has been used for a long time.

it's effective.

I chose the basic IUD over the synthetic hormone-releasing one because I hate the idea of synthetic hormones in my body (Which is why I don't take a pill or shot).
I hate the idea of screwing with my cycles. I don't mind monthly periods and think that we should bleed every month!


The side-effects:
none really.
Spotting in between periods. Nothing big. Usually spotting after sex.

Was able to have sex the day of insertion without any problem.

Periods were a little heavier. Some women get increased cramping with periods. I didn't.
Also, the heavier periods only lasted the first two cycles and has seemed to become more normal and regular for me.

You reach inside and feel for the tips of the strings (which hang out of your cervix by a mere 1-2 cm) after each period just to make sure the thing isn't coming out (which is rare). I felt for the strings the day before my period was due and freaked out b/c they felt longer. Turns out it was fine~ but my uterus was heavier and the strings seemed longer because of that. Made a useless trip to the doctor just to make sure.

So there you go, IUD information.
Let me know if you have any questions!

updating with pictures

Us minus little E who was napping during a really nice "get to know each other" time Sarah planned. She wrote down questions that we all had to answer. Things like, what's your favorite color, what do you love to do, what is your best skill. It was really nice.
Christmas Eve at my sisters. I brought the best gift ever: a different moustache for each day of the week. They all had great names like: The Weasel, The Sheriff, etc. Here's my mom, Sarah, my sister, me and my nephew's girlfriend.
The moustache's again. This time on my three nephews. Zach on the left is looking very much like Freddy Mercury in a scary way. :)