I posted earlier then went to the kitchen and made apple berry crisp. I'm an excellent saboteur.

But I did make it with less butter, and we do have my teenage nephew over to eat it so I'm not worried about eating the whole pan. It is good though.

Since I'm feeling rather unmotivated at the moment, I thought I'd share the things I'm looking forward to doing when I get to a healthier weight.

- going swimming with my kids next summer. I love love love swimming but have been reluctant to do so with all this weight. I do see women quite a bit larger that I am at the beach throwing caution to the wind. I'm just not that strong...

- having our family pics taken. Our last professional family pic was taken when Gage was a year old. I was thin then due to the Phen-Fen. (Hey that rhymed!) I hate that I was weak enough to use drugs to lose weight. I will never do that again.

- not feeling like I have to cover up this part or that part all the time.

- good sex. 'Nuff said.

I'm going to keep reminding myself of those things when I feel like taking out the fridge.

Well, I'm back in the saddle again. Since this past Thursday I've been cutting back again...I've already lost 4.5 lbs! Woohoo for me!

I'm just excited to be back in control. And to think I was able to get started again when I was unknowingly pms'ing! I really want to get below...gulp...200. Not too far at this point...I'm down a total of 33.5 lbs since the beginning of the year. Not too bad I guess...

It's been a few days, eh?

I wondered why I was feeling more edgy this past week. Twenty one days ago I got my first period since Mason's birth. And I get it again today. Who has 21 day cycles? Grrr. Mine are usually at least 28 days. Oh well.

I'm reading Pagan Parenting by Kristin Madden and it's so fascinating. I've thought for a while my home had more than the average amount of negative energy floating around in it, and now I have a few ideas in regard to stopping that flow of negativity. Let's hope they work! I've been told by friends that my house is psychically charged, that it feels...weird. That they feel there are other people here. Hmmm. Maybe this is why no one has wanted to buy this Amityville Horror house?!

I think we're going to try to stay here for the time being. We'll make it work somehow. I might have to get a part time job but that's okay. The kids will still be with one of us, and that's what's important. I just couldn't do daycare.

So this was totally a mush post. Not much to offer today.

(I recently found this in my WordPerfect files and I never posted it here...so here ‘tis...)

There’s this whole debate going on at a site I frequent about the term “natural childbirth”. Some of the women said they had c-sections and consider that natural, and they assert that it’s wrong (or just plain old un-PC) to call only unmedicated vaginal deliveries natural birth. It’s like saying anything else is unnatural, this is what they said.

But anything else IS unnatural. Natural, by definition, would mean a labor and birth that start on their own, baby comes out on it’s own, no outside interference. Come on, that’s just the way it is. That’s what most people think of when they hear or say “natural childbirth”. I wouldn’t call my first two induced labors “natural” because they most definitely were not. My last was totally natural, everything happened just as it was supposed to, just as it was intended to.

I fully believe many of these women who insist their c-sections were “natural” are trying hard to compensate mentally for something they lost in that process. Through no fault of their own, many of them were victimized by the medical establishment. After reading a veritable assload of research it seems only a handful of women truly NEED c-sections. Most are the cause of mismanaged labor and delivery. Induction too early, relying on inaccurate ultrasound birthweight guesstimates, thinking women can’t birth large babies vaginally (hello, 11.5 lb posterior baby vaginally here), not allowing women to change positions a lot during pushing, forcing them to lie down during labor (therefore not allowing baby to move down effectively)...the list goes on and on. Yet these women will insist time and time again that their c-sections were “necessary” and that the doctor saved their lives or their babies lives. Sure, it does happen, and surgical childbirth has it’s place when a true emergency presents itself. But I cannot believe that more women in this country require c-sections than those in other countries (other countries that have lower infant mortality rates by the way). How can that happen? It happens because not all c-sections that are performed in this country are truly medically necessary. And some are even done electively. Which is fine for those who elect it, but DON’T call it natural. Because it ain’t.

Yes, ladies *having* a baby is natural. A baby growing in your body, then living outside it, is totally natural. That part I will never disagree with. But the process by which the baby enters the outside world can be totally unnatural in the wrong setting, with the wrong interventions.

The other misconception that got me riled (and it don’t take much these days!) Was the implication that women who do natural childbirth without interventions have a hero complex and are hippie, granola mamas. I opted for natural childbirth because I wanted to see what my body was capable of, I opted for natural childbirth because it was best for me and my baby at that time. The fact that I’m a liberal, environmentalist, nature loving peacenik doesn’t play into that choice. Sure, my lifestyle is one in which I will try to avoid medical intervention, one in which I try to do all things naturally if possible - but not all those who opt for intervention free births are that way. To lump us all together seems uneducated. But I digress...

My point is, birthing a child is a natural, sacred event. But the means by which the baby is brought into the world can be anything but. I will never call induced, epidural-ed, c-section birth natural, because to me and most other people, it is not.

You know, when you haven’t had sex in a while, I think the pilot light goes out. Much like chocolate, I find that if I don’t partake for a while I just don’t think about it.
But when previously uninterested significant other decides that he is, in fact, interested it’s almost a shock. Whaaaa? Sex??? Then you start remembering, and thinking about it and before you know it *whoosh* you hear that little pilot light burst forth into flame. You think about it, you plan on it, you shower and make pretty. You think this is going to be IT!!!
Then as you’re getting the children to sleep and managing to nurse your baby in that little black bra, it happens. Previously uninterested, recently interested significant other falls asleep. FUUUCK!

I took a morning walk with my almost-5 year old daughter this morning and it was glorious. I really wanted to post one of those “I love Fall” discourses until I realized those types of posts are all over the place.
So why does everyone seem to love Fall? And why does it seem everyone loves Fall for the same reasons? The crisp air, the ever changing palette of the leaves, old warm oversized sweaters, cocoa by the fire, and of course all the food and candy related holidays in Autumn or shortly after. My mom is the only person I know personally who doesn’t like Fall. She says it’s too close to Winter and she hates Winter. She’s a gardener so it signifies the end of her season. But most everyone else just loves Fall in all it’s glory. Most of the survey’s I’ve seen have Fall as the favorite season frontrunner with Summer next and Winter/Spring coming in about evenly third and fourth. Is this a midwest thing? I’m not so sure. I’d say those of us in the eastern Midwest as well as, of course, New England have a romanticized experience of Autumn. Probably out west they don’t go so ga ga over Fall because they don’t see the leaves change so vibrantly, or experience the sudden temperature shift into Fall.
But I digress. Just let me say...I love Fall!! I feel happy and alive and it’s good.

I found it funny this morning, while standing over the sink rinsing out my cloth menstrual pad, that if you'd told me 10 years ago I'd be doing that I would have laughed in your face. If you would have said I would be using cloth diapers, cloth pads, line drying my clothes and cooking mostly from scratch I would have thought you were crazy. Funny how things change.

Just made us Cuban dirty rice for lunch. Kids seem to like it. I need to get more daring with my spice usage; I'm afraid of using too much so I usually end up using less than I should have. Need to listen to the spice, BE the spice.

We're learning about Antarctica this week in our ongoing geography quest to make lapbooks of all the seven continents. Did you know that polar bears only live near the North Pole in the Arctic and penguins only live in Antarctica? I'm assuming everyone probably knew this so I'm stupid for not having known it lol! But I love how I learn new things along with the kids. Fantastic.

I've been absent from the online world this last week mainly because I've been reading. A friend cajoled me into reading Fast Food Nation. All I can say is oh...my....god. This book was a very real eye opener for me. Not just about the fast food industry, but about the meat packing industry, family farms, globalization and our society as a whole. It's an amazing book and it's on my "you gotta read this" list. Right alongside Ishmael and Your Money or Your Life. If you haven't read those, GO AND DO IT NOW! Ish and YMOYL totally changed my life. They put me on the path of the aforementioned cloth dipes/pads/conservation/environmental/frugal living stuff. To paraphrase Oprah, I feel I'm coming close to living my authentic life because of those books.

Okay, enough of my ranting for today....mmmm...more dirty rice....

Go here to read an article on vaccinations and the problems and issues surrounding them. If you have three minutes you can buzz through it, it's really worth the time. It's a fantastic article and the last sentence sums up the problem! Well said Beth Hawkins!! You go!