Not So Random Acts of Kindness

March 30, 2011 | Leave a Comment

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I’m nearing the end of the first whole month of my Happiness Project. Every day I check off things that I’ve resolved to do. Things like: exercise daily, blog daily, declutter 15 minutes daily.

Love can be yummy
Creative Commons License photo credit: Nina Matthews Photography

As the month has wound to a close, I’ve realized that I’m going to drop some of these resolutions for next month. Perhaps they aren’t as important to me as I thought, or perhaps they don’t require attention daily. Or, they’re habits that are now … well, habit. (Hence, I don’t need the reminder.)

One of the resolutions for April that I want to add, however, is:

Perform One Daily Not- So-Random Act of Kindness.

“Random” makes it sound unplanned. The truth is that doing kindnesses take a little planning sometimes. If we leave things up to “random”, they may not happen.

To get a jump on the next month, I decided that I would do one Act today.

Yesterday I received my baby’s Social Security card in the mail. Not so amazing. It’s just that I was expecting a big hassle. The last two homebirths I had were in another county, and it was a big rigamarole to get the Vital Records office to communicate with Social Security. It took months to get the whole deal taken care of. I procrastinated this time because I was dreading the whole process.

Except.

This time I was helped by a wonderful woman in the Vital Records office, and was basically in and out of there in under 10 minutes. (GREAT when you go everywhere with a passel of kids!). Not only was she professional, she was downright helpful. About another, unrelated “government” issue I need to take care of. She even gave me her phone number and told me to call her in 3 weeks to check on the status of everything.

3 weeks later, I get the SS card in the mail! Totally unexpected. I was so relieved that I decided to immediately pick up the phone and call Ms. Millie Lopez to THANK her for making the whole shebang so easy.

I could tell by the sound of her voice that she was thrilled to be hearing from me. I could hear the smile in her words. I wonder how many government employees are thanked for their service? (To be fair, many of them are not worthy of thanking!)

After I got off the phone with her I had a real rush of happiness. It completely took my mind of a current problem that is causing me much vexation.

A few minutes later, I got a return call from Ms. Lopez. She wanted to know if I could send a quick email to her supervisor?

So I sat down and did just that. The good feelings continued to flow.

“Hello,

My name is Carrie Lauth Willard, and I met Ms. Lopez in the Cobb Vital Records Office. I had a homebirth in Cobb County and needed to register my daughter’s birth, obtain a birth certificate and file with Social Security Administration.

Previously I had two homebirths in Paulding County, and getting the birth certificates and SS cards were a huge hassle that took months and more than one visit to the office, etc. I was prepared for the same in Cobb, but Ms. Lopez was so lovely to deal with! Professional but more than that, truly helpful. She truly went above and beyond.

I received Ruby’s Social Security card in the mail and was shocked at how quickly it arrived. Now my husband and I can file our taxes in a timely manner. I called Ms. Lopez today to thank her for her stellar “customer” service. Please let her know that you received this email from me. Thanks so much.”

Carrie Lauth Willard

I’m really looking forward to seeing how this habit adds to my happiness and the happiness of people I encounter.

Have you ever undertaken something similar? What were your experiences?


Project Simplify: Week Two

March 29, 2011 | Leave a Comment

Somehow I let myself get behind on the Project Simplify project. Oops.

Last week’s Hot Spot was:

Paper Clutter

I’m actually not too bad in this area. (Now, if I had permission to tackle my husband’s paper clutter, I might get excited about the challenge!)

Still, there is room for improvement.

I started with emptying out a wooden filing cabinet that we keep next to our computer desk. It’s been a place to store extra printer paper,  computer speakers, tax records, checking account stuff, business cards, pictures on CD-ROM, etc. But over the months it kept filling up with kid’s art, music CDs, writing instruments, articles cut out of magazines, ebooks I printed,  and other detritus.

After putting everything that didn’t belong in there in its proper location, throwing away trash, culling articles and ebooks I no longer wanted to keep, it’s curiously… empty.

Ha!

Now I can sell it if I want, or maybe repurpose it to another area of the house. Still thinking on that one.

I also tackled my filing system.

I have a desk in my kitchen that’s my “office”.  It’s where I often write/blog, make notes and to-do lists, create my weekly menus and do coupons. I check my large wall calendar for family goings-on, charge my phone, and it’s also a place to store my files. I do a little eBay selling from that desk (eBay items to list are kept in a large Rubbermaid container tucked underneath. When eBay has a “list free” week, I pounce). Important documents like birth certificates and money and financial records, but also “stuff I want to keep” like magazine articles, homeschool project ideas, product manuals and warranty cards, home management stuff, mailing and shipping supplies, and the like.

First I simplified my coupon filing system. (I don’t clip until right before I shop. I just save the coupon circulars and use the coupon database websites to create my list.) I moved the coupon circulars to an enclosed plastic filing box. The ONLY thing in there is coupons. It’s much simpler to find what I want now. And since the box is self contained, I can move it to the kitchen table where I have more room to spread out.

I removed things from my files that I didn’t need to get my fingers on quickly. Those were put in another location. I only want stuff around my office that I need on a daily or weekly basis. Stuff I only need to touch yearly or less often can go somewhere else.

Another empty drawer created!

Here is the finished product. Note empty desk opened for dramatic effect.



Did you do this week’s Project Simplify challenge? How did you do?

Pins On a Map

March 24, 2011 | 1 Comment

Pins on a Map: A Family’s Yearlong Journey Around the World

Speaking of people who do incredible things most people only dream about… I’ve been meaning to write a review of Pins on a Map for weeks. It’s also one of those books that I had to devour during baby’s long afternoon nap.

Who doesn’t dream of packing up the fam and heading around the world for a year?!

Pins on a Map is the true story of David Boesch, who, along with his wife and 3 kids, traveled to 17 countries on 6 continents in 345 days. Each chapter shares the lessons his family learned about other cultures and people and themselves, as well as practical tips for other would-be world travelers.

I loved every page.

Even the opening chapters about how the family prepared financially and logistically for the undertaking were exciting. And the final chapter, in which David talks about his bittersweet feelings at the trip’s end, how he missed his family and his resignation at the tedium of “normal” life, left me feeling a bit blue.

Inbetween are comical and sometimes brutally honest stories about the family’s experiences. You get to find out which places they loved (Japan) and why, and which places they didn’t care for so much. You find out how the family and kids adapted to constant changes and travel (surprisingly well). You also get to learn about some of the frightening events that took place, such as losing your loved ones in a chaotic Bangkok flea market, or your daughter breaking her leg while on the other side of the world.

As a homeschooler,I enjoyed reading the reaction of the school system upon learning of the Boesch children’s travel plans. An employee at the school district where the two younger children attended told them not to worry about the school they would miss during their year off. He advised them to just bring along a math book and a pencil, and that… “The travel will take care of the rest.”

I bet you would enjoy living vicariously through the Boesch family’s adventure of a lifetime too.

Homeschooling Is a Mess

March 23, 2011 | 4 Comments

This afternoon I took a moment to look around the house.

There are hundreds of thin strips of colored paper in various locations around the living room. The remains of an art project that the girls have been picking up and discarding for the last two hours.

Legos and half completed Lego structures take up residence on nearly every flat surface (and some not so flat surfaces, like the sofa).

There are library books, books we own, picture books, novels, homeschool workbooks, nonfiction books, a dictionary, notebook paper, pens, pencils, a glue stick, Sharpies, markers and water glasses littering the coffee table and floor.

There is egg and rice all over the floor, curiously around the high chair, courtesy of a certain 9 month old who shall remain nameless.

The dishes are overflowing the kitchen sink and counters. And dishwasher.

The kid’s rooms look like a tornado came through.

Did I mention it’s 10 AM?

Yes folks, homeschooling is a mess.

I hear homeschooling moms say, “You can either do school, or you can do housework.

It’s true isn’t it!

How do you deal with the need for order and the need to create a rich learning environment for your kids?

I’ll tell you what we do.

At 4:30 every day it’s officially Chore Time. My phone alarm goes off, even.

(Of course oldest, who does Laundry, does his chore several times a day.)

I used to be one of those “clean as you go” type of people, but I found this was too distracting for the kids.

It’s easier for them when schooltime can have a clear cut “done” time. If there are numerous periods during the day when I or they have to stop schoolwork in order to tidy up, they get too off course, and then I’m back to corralling them back into the living room.

Which is rather like herding cats. Or using spaghetti for bookends.

Some days it’s just fine with me, but other days the Beautiful Disaster really gets on my nerves. Today was one of those days where I was having to talk myself out of a panic attack at it all. I did my best to ignore it while doing read alouds, math, history, geography, etc. I did ok. But I wish I could be more relaxed about the mounting piles. Instead, my face contorts into this kind of nervous twitch.

How do you handle the mess of homeschooling?

Possum Living

March 22, 2011 | 1 Comment

Possum Living is one of those books that, as soon as I heard about it, I HAD to read.

Unable to find it in the library system (which would have been true Possum style), I ordered the book from Amazon and the day it arrived, devoured it in a few hours.

Possum Living: How to Live Well Without a Job and with (Almost) No Money

I couldn’t put it down.

Dolly Freed, the author (a pseudonym), wrote the book at age 18. It chronicles her days as an independent young woman, living with her father in Pennsylvania in the late 70′s.

Possum Living is basically about the lifestyle of these two people who choose to escape the drudgery of full time work to live a life of self sufficiency and freedom.

They survived on less than $1500 a year yet kept up a middle class facade (it helped that they owned their home outright). Dolly was unschooled (her Dad took her out of public school at 12 and she educated herself by reading and studying for free at the library), and she and her father hunted, fished, gardened, raised chickens and rabbits, and did whatever they felt like doing.

Possum Living became a cult classic in the late 70′s and was recently republished 30 years later, with an afterword added by an older, wiser Dolly.

Dolly is quite a character, which makes reading the book just plain fun, regardless of the subject matter. She is cheeky, fiercely intelligent, just a tiny bit irreverent, and witty. She reminded me of my oldest child.

I love peeking into the lives of people who are doing extraordinary, unusual things. People who are creating just the life they want, regardless of what others might think.

The book contains a lot of practical information for those who are interested in homesteading or creating economic independence through self sufficient practices. (If you want to distill your own moonshine, buy a house for pennies on the dollar on the courthouse steps, or gut a feral cat, Dolly’s your gal.)

But my favorite thing about this book is its general philosophy.

Freedom and choices – those things are deeply important to me.

Dolly admits that most people won’t be interested in living as high on the “possum scale” as she and her Dad did. But the point is that you can apply Possum philosophies to your own situation in order to become less dependent on the system to sustain you.  As Dolly says, it’s far easier to do without stuff you really don’t need, or learn how to get it for free, and reject the money economy (and the keeping up with the Joneses that’s part and parcel of that) than it is to earn money.  And you don’t pay income taxes on money you kept in your pocket!

I love this message. It’s inspired me. (I’ll talk about some of the changes I’m making in a later post.)

When I was a single mom, I lived quite well on an income that was a fraction of what most people earn. I was so proud and grateful that I could support myself and my children (and still homeschool for the most part) without holding down a job.

Some Favorite Quotes from Possum Living:

  • “It’s easier to learn to do without some of the things that money can buy than to earn the money to buy them.”
  • “If you can’t go the whole route, at least go part way. If you can’t become a nonconsumer, aim to be a mini-consumer, Okay?”
  • “Not having to go to school, I had time to actually learn something interesting and useful such as how to make moonshine, how to buy a house at a sheriff sale, how to make money in business, how to repair a house, and even how to read and write – these last two being more than you can say for 14.29% of the 1976 high school seniors of the Philadelphia public school system.”

Do you ever feel like a Possum? What kinds of things do you do to be more self sufficient and escape the rat race?

How To Enjoy The Postpartum Period

March 17, 2011 | Leave a Comment

It’s hard to believe my little one is almost 9 months old. She has almost 4 teeth. She can say “mama, ba-doo (brother), ba-per (diaper), neeeee!! (nurse). She’s crawling. Backwards, but that counts.

It seems like yesterday I was kissing her sweet little fuzzy newborn head.

This baby has seemed pretty easy. Some of that is because she’s my fifth, but another big reason for it is because I know better how to take care of myself with a new baby.

I did things a little differently this time. I slowed down. I rested more. And I ate really well. So I really haven’t felt the sleep deprivation, and have managed to avoid a lot of the aches and pains (physical as well as emotional) that often accompany new motherhood.

And so I offer to  you some of my best advice on:

How To Enjoy the Postpartum Period

First, some other things I’ve written about postpartum life:

Eat and Drink Well

This can’t be overestimated. Hopefully during your pregnancy you’ve eaten well. If morning/noon/night sickness or food aversions made that difficult, the good news is that once baby is born, food tastes normal and wonderful again. That, and pooping will become easier. And less burping and heartburn.

There aren’t any special rules about eating for motherhood, just make sure you have easy, healthy snacks to grab while you’re nursing. Low blood sugar can hit you like a ton of bricks, leading you to reach for sweets or caffeine for a boost. Bad idea. Have lots of fruits, nuts, and raw veggies you like on hand. Have hubby or an older kid or your mother or a guest chop these up nice and load them onto a “nibble tray”.

After my 4th was born, my sister gave me this cookbook: The One-Armed Cook: Quick and Easy Recipes, Smart Meal Plans, and Savvy Advice for New (and Not-So-New) Moms. I still love it. After a few weeks “off”, when you get back into the kitchen with a newborn strapped to your body, you still aren’t up to spending an hour cooking every night. These recipes are all EASY and FAST. And no chopping. Hence the name!

Make sure you ASK people ahead of time to bring you dinner those first couple of weeks. People like to help but don’t always know how to ask. Tell them what you really want (in lieu of flowers or baby outfits that will be outgrown in 5 minutes) is DINNER. If you don’t have great friends like I do, then bake casseroles and cook stews in your final month of pregnancy, freeze and instruct hubby or an older kid on the finer art of the defrost and cook.

Avoid the habit of drinking caffeine to compensate for fatigue. I see moms all over the internet bragging about how much coffee they drink. This is a disturbing trend, in my opinion. If your body is tired, REST IT. All that coffee isn’t good for your baby if you’re nursing, and it isn’t good for you either. Drink water, and NAP. Sit down to nurse your baby, put your feet up, and relax. This is why God didn’t create us with teats that hang to the ground like cows. He wanted us to relax (and duh – nursing hormones make you feel sleepy to motivate you to de-stress!).

Medicate

I’m not usually one to advocate using drugs, but if you have wicked afterbirth pains like I do (and they get worse after each delivery!), use some over the counter pain reliever to help you manage. Ask your Dr or Midwife what they suggest.

Make sure you have a heating pad, Advil, and AfterEase tincture for after baby’s arrival. When the pains hit, practice your deep breathing exercises, curl up in a ball, or lay on your belly flat on the bed. A glass of wine couldn’t hurt (not with the Advil of course). Some women swear by a liquid calcium/magnesium supplement. Binding your belly can also help, because it keeps the abdomen sucked in and therefore the uterus tight. I used the BellyBandit after my last baby, and loved it.

(<— that’s me, taking my own advice)

Getting Enough Rest

If you haven’t already, and you have other kids who don’t nap, implement a quiet time. If your other kids do nap, then sleep when they sleep.

I really don’t consider the postpartum daily nap (at least for the first 3 months, minimum) a luxury. It is a necessity for your mental state. Even if you can’t sleep, lay down and close your eyes for at least 20 minutes.

The more you rest in the early postpartum week, the better your life will be at 3, 6 and 9 months postpartum.

The easier your milk will flow, and the less you will struggle with low supply, exhaustion, stress and other issues.

Go Outside

If weather is permitting, be sure to spend a few minutes outside every day in the first few weeks postpartum. It’s good for the baby (use common sense, keep them out of direct strong sun) because it will help teach them day versus night. It’s good for you because you need the fresh air, the Vitamin D, and to be reminded that there is a huge world out there, and you’re not crazy just because you’re sitting around weeping when you look at your baby. Getting outside reminds you that life will get back to normal soon enough, and you’ll miss those nutty postpartum emotions.

Simplify, Delegate, Systematize

It’s not surprising that God equips moms with this huge surge of energy just before they give birth. This is the time to prepare for life once baby arrives. Some tips:

  • Go paper, not cloth. I know, I know. This is usually a place you’ll be encouraged to swap paper towels for microfiber, but during the first postpartum weeks, you have permission to go… whatever the opposite of green is on the color wheel. Use paper plates and plastic utensils. Buy the recycled ones if it makes you sleep better at night. Stock up on disposable cleaning wipes. The funny thing about being postpartum is that you want everything super neat and clean, but you shouldn’t be the one to make it that way!
  • Laundry is D.I.Y. Teach any child over 10 how to operate the washer and dryer. And require them to do their own laundry for the first few weeks after you have a new baby. This will have the effect of them producing far less laundry overall, which is a win/win for you once you take over the task. Unless you do what I did, and hand it permanently over to the 12 year old. :-)
  • Systematize meal planning, homeschooling, and everything else. Whatever you find yourself having to do over and over? Get a better plan for it. I signed up for E-Mealz meal planner (it creates meals out of what’s on sale at my favorite grocery store) so I would always know what was for dinner (I still subscribe!). I printed out daily checklists for the kids so I didn’t have to do as much reminding.

Pretty Up

Last but not least, do what you need to do to feel cute again. Pregnancy and new mom-hood can do a number on your self image. You’re fatter curvier than you used to be, and nothing fits. And you sure as heck don’t want to don your maternity clothes!

Set aside some money in the budget to buy yourself some cute new tops. Your old ones won’t fit while your new humongous milk filled boobs do their thing anyway. Buy some new earrings, and some cute flats. Go for bright colors and not the ubiquitous black you wore in hopes it would slim you. (Yeah, right!)

Splurge on a new lipstick, a pedicure, and trim your hair. Wear comfy nursing bras that actually fit well (helping to prevent mastitis). And absolutely do not stress about losing the pregnancy weight yet. This time, I repeated the mantra “9 months on, 9 months off” over and over to myself. I ate well and exercised, and didn’t worry too much about the excess weight. Remember that your body holds on to a little fat as an insurance policy to ensure you have enough nourishment to feed your baby. (I’m almost back to my pre-pregnancy size as of this writing.)

A sign of healthy self esteem is caring about your appearance. Even if it’s just you and baby all day, take time to fix yourself up a little so that when you look in the mirror, you feel good about yourself.

So that’s about it.

What’s your favorite postpartum life advice? What did you do to make things more enjoyable during your babymoons?

Five In a Row

March 16, 2011 | 3 Comments

This week I started using a new curriculum with my 8 year old Ilana. Something about Five In a Row has always appealed to me but I didn’t feel very motivated to change what I was doing, curriculum wise, until recently.

One of the many wonderful things about homeschooling is that nothing is ever set in stone. You can change things on a dime if they’re not working for your family, for you or for your child.

Ilana has been unhappy for a few months now. I thought it would pass, but it became a daily struggle to get her to do her schoolwork. I don’t run a super strict homeschool so I felt that she was going through a bit of a lazy phase, and tried to ride it out.

She spent some time in public school, and enjoyed the experience at first, but then began begging for me to take her out and homeschool her again. Since the public school experience was only ever meant to be temporary, it didn’t take much for me to do just that. Things were fine for about a year.

For several weeks recently, however, she started asking me to put her back into school. Something I really don’t want to do! She kept complaining that 2nd grade math was “too easy”, but 3rd grade was “too hard”. She “didn’t like Science”. She does well in History, perhaps because we use Story of the World and have a storytelling kind of approach. I searched around for a curriculum that would excite her a little more and be more her style.

Ilana is a huge bookworm.

She easily consumes a chapter book every day, often more. She’s read classics like A Little Princess and the Anne of Green Gables books a few times.. She devours stacks of picture books. She reads in her bed for at least 30 minutes every night until we flip off her light switch (to many protests!).

I thought a literature based curriculum would be just the ticket, and I remembered Five In a Row.

What is Five in a Row?

Five In a Row is a bit difficult to describe with a pithy little statement. Basically it consists of a Five in a Row volume (lesson plan/teacher guide) and a list of books, all of them the best of the best of children’s literature. One book is read to the child aloud each day for 5 days (your school week). And then the book is used as a springboard for discussion and work in other subjects that come out of the content of the book. You can use one day each week to “do” Social Studies/Geography, Language, Art, Applied Math, and Science.

As an example, our first week we are doing Three Names by Patricia MacLachlan (she also wrote the Sarah, Plain and Tall books which later became movies). (This book is on the list for Five In a Row Volume 2, which is the one I started with.)

Three Names is about a young boy who lived on the prairie about 150 years ago. He has a canine best friend who accompanies him to school every day, an experience they both love. The book chronicles a school year and ends with graduation and summer. There are a host of topics that could be considered for further study: Pioneer life (outhouses and one room schoolhouses), the Prairie, animals such as Prairie Dogs and horses, weather phenomenon such as tornadoes, the relationship between people and their pets, and more.

Using Five in a Row

After reading the book (how each school day begins), the first day I had Ilana write down vocabulary words from the book (aggie, tethered, graduation, etc) and their definitions (covering language arts).We discussed the meanings of hyperbole and simile, and she wrote examples of each in a notebook.

The second day she looked up information on the prairie online and also read a brief bio of Patricia MacLachlan (social studies). She wrote a descriptive paragraph (how it felt, smelled, etc) about a familiar place (language arts). She found the prairie states on a map (geography).

The third day she read about prairie dogs in an animal encyclopedia (science), colored pages about the prairie, cut and pasted them into a notebook (art), and wrote a book report (her idea) (language arts). She made a chart with “past” things (schoolhouses, outhouses, horse and buggy, etc) and their modern counterparts (large schools, indoor plumbing, cars and buses).

Tomorrow and Friday we will discuss the artwork in the book (for duh, art) and delve into learning about tornadoes (science).

The Five in a Row volumes have all of the lesson plans for the parent. Contrary to what some of the websites suggest, however, I found that it takes me much longer than “5 minutes” to gather the materials I need each day. Since this is my first week, I don’t have a system yet for gathering the materials I need but once I do, I’ll try to have that done only once a week or perhaps even once a month.

I also have Ilana doing a little math each day, separate from the Five in a Row book. Although a younger child could probably learn math by doing various book centered activities, those seem a little simplistic for her. There IS a “Beyond Five in a Row” volume for the 8-12 year old set, but I felt that would be a little too advanced for her. She just turned 8 and is finishing up the 2nd grade.

The only downside I see so far is that (and perhaps this is because she’s older, FIAR is recommended for ages 4-8 so she’s at the upper range of that), she has asked me a few times “Why we’re reading the same book over and over“. I found this surprising, since most kids love hearing the same book repeatedly. Maybe this is because she’s such an avid reader, her attention span requires fresh material. Not sure. Anyway, I assure her that she can read whatever she wants after we’re done, and that we can learn something new from each reading. I also make sure I read other books aloud to her in addition.

Also, sometimes at the end of the day I worry that Ilana didn’t do “enough” schoolwork. It makes me a little nervous, but I’m sure that feeling will pass as we get more into the groove of it, and I get more organized with gathering supplemental material. (Because, um, how many 2nd graders could tell you what simile and hyperbole are?!) Homeschooling several children means that I can’t spent a lot of time focusing on one, and a curriculum like FIAR could take up a lot of time if you let it.

Other than that one complaint, Ilana seems to be really enjoying FIAR so far. Another thing she really enjoys is doing lots of art. I think unit study/lapbooking is a good fit for her, because she loves drawing, coloring, cutting, pasting and making little books.

I bought the second Five in a Row volume and most of the books on the book list as a lot from one eBay seller, so this curriculum ended up being very inexpensive. I don’t think I’ve ever purchased an item from eBay in which the seller took time to rave about the product *after* I had made Paypal payment! That told me something about Five in a Row. From what I’ve read online, it seems parents who use it really come to love it. You can also get the FIAR volumes on Amazon. I have most of the books already that make up the book list, and the few I don’t own I was able to obtain through inter-library loan at my library.

There are few things I enjoy better than cuddling up on the couch with a kid and a great book, so this has been fun for me so far too. Since the curriculum is so flexible, it really suits my homeschooling style. I can see it being a great thing for Sadie (5) once I start doing more formal schooling with her. (There is a “Before Five In a Row” for the pre-K set, I’m still looking into that, but I don’t usually do much formal stuff until my kids are around 7.)

Five in A Row has lots of great resources online, both from the publishers and homeschooling parents who love it. A Google search turned up plenty of links to printables, more recommended reading, topics for discussion, and a lot more.

Real Food for Mother and Baby

March 16, 2011 | Leave a Comment

Finally, a pregnancy nutrition advice book worth the paper it’s printed on.

Real Food for Mother and Baby: The Fertility Diet, Eating for Two, and Baby’s First Foods was a delight to read.

So many books, websites and “experts” recommend a diet for pregnant (and wanting to be pregnant) women that is the total opposite of what people have traditionally believed for hundreds of years.

Our Great-and Grandmothers had the good sense to let a pregnant woman eat real food in the quantities she desired. She would never have dreamed of limiting her calories so the Doctor wouldn’t get mad about her 25 pound weight gain, or not salting her food to taste, or avoiding her favorite dishes during pregnancy and nursing, or any of the other nonsense women in the last 40 years have been taught.

Books like “Eat Well, Lose Weight While Breastfeeding” should be burned for recommending low fat everything and the heavy consumption of vegetable oils. The low fat craze probably has a lot to do with increasing infertility rates, and most women would feel horrible eating according to its plan.

Women need real food in order to conceive and birth a healthy baby, and to avoid a malnourished state for themselves after baby is born. Being well fed also helps prevent difficult births and postpartum depression, and ensure a better breastfeeding and all around new mom experience.

I applaud Nina Planck, Real Food’s author, for bringing the teachings of Dr. Weston A. Price to the mainstream. In this book, you’ll find information on the importance of:

  • Healthy fats – including (gasp!) animal foods
  • REAL (Read: raw) milk
  • MEAT (Dr. Price found no traditional vegan cultures, very few vegetarian ones, and those are the least healthy and shortest lived of the world’s population)
  • What Dad’s diet has to do with it
  • Common sense, relaxed advice on starting solids

Instead of asking you to just take her word for it, Real Food for Mother and Baby provides references to studies and plenty of resources for more info and research. Yet it manages not to bore you to tears and reads more like a heart-to-heart with your BFF. Highly recommended!

5 Ways To Snap Out of a Bad Mood

March 15, 2011 | 1 Comment

Last weekend, I didn’t feel very happy.

Sometimes, the reason(s) why don’t come to me right away.

I try not to ruminate as a general rule (ruminating is one reason why women have more depression than men, and it tends to make a bad mood linger), but I found myself trying to figure out why I wasn’t feeling happy. For the sake of my Happiness Project. So that I could avoid the trigger in the future.

Sometimes, it doesn’t work very well.

What usually DOES work is to DO something that will snap you out of a bad mood.

Here’s a great quote:

…action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling…”
— William James

In other words, it’s easier to control what you DO than to control how you FEEL. But, by controlling what you do, you end up creating how you feel.

So here are my:
5 Favorite Ways to Snap Out Of It when I’m In a Bad Mood

1) Exercise

I’ve been exercising daily this month but because we had rain (and my daily exercise is usually walking around my neighborhood), I had skipped a couple of days. I invited my 10 year old to go for a walk with me and found my mood immediately lifting. There are reams of studies linking exercise with improved mood. It’s easy, free and accessible to everyone. And it doesn’t have to be exhausting. A 10 minute walk will do the trick.

2) Music

Music is a powerful “state changer”, to borrow a phrase coined by Tony Robbins, one of the most widely recognized self help gurus in the world. Listening to music has a powerful effect on mood. Pick something that makes you happy and lifts your energy, is in a major key, and which you can sing along to. (Think The Beatles or B-52′s, not the depressive shoegaze 90′s bands of your teenage years (guilty!).

3) Sun

Getting the sun in my face, I have discovered, is absolutely essential to my mental state. I begin to feel the effects of sun deprivation if I stay inside for as little as two days. While I can’t control the weather, I surely can get outside when it IS nice. This is one of the resolutions on my daily checklist. On rainy or gray days, I take a Vitamin D pill.

4) Get Social

Our relationships are our most important happiness maker or breaker. When I’m blue, being near my husband or my mother or a friend always helps. Perhaps this because our loved ones can help us get clarity. For instance, last night while talking to hubs I realized that I *always* feel a little blue every other weekend. (Being divorced and sharing custody with my ex, perhaps you can guess why?)

And while I try my best to avoid being negative and especially gossip (happiness suckers), I do find that sharing my feelings helps. Even writing about a bad mood on my blog instantly lifts it. Perhaps it’s true than when you share your problems with someone else, they’re halved?

5) Do Something… Anything

In her book, Gretchen Rubin recommends “creating an easy success” as a key to snapping out of a bad mood. Cleaning out a junk drawer for 15 minutes can give me an immediate high. Doing a little housework, running an errand (especially if it’s to one of my favorite places, the library), reading a story aloud to my kids… anything active and productive, especially if it lifts someone else’s mood, can lift your mood.

What do you do to snap out of a bad mood?


Funky Fuzzi Bunz

March 15, 2011 | 1 Comment

Fuzzi Bunz have been one of my favorite cloth diapering systems for a few years now. But recently I started having a problem with my FB’s that I’ve never had before:

Funky smells and leaking

After a bit of detective work I discovered that the leaking was entirely my fault.

2010 November 12,Skunk.
Creative Commons License photo credit: gardener41

(this, my friends, is a skunk.)

I used diaper rash cream on my little one’s backside when she had a bit of rash a couple months ago.

(Right around when she got her first two teeth, and had some runny stools. When Doctors and experts say that “teething has no symptoms”, I throw my head back and laugh because every.single.time one of my babies got a tooth, they had runny noses, fussiness and runny stools (from the extra nursing or extra slobber, I don’t know).

Apparently, you’re not supposed to use the stuff with Fuzzi Bunz because it doesn’t wash out. When I hold my FB’s up to the light, I can see little round areas where the diaper rash cream never washed out.

After a bit of research I found that the super funky smell was likely detergent buildup.

Which I find hard to believe, since I have only ever used Charlie’s soap for diapers. I do a cold rinse, then a hot wash with about a tablespoon of Charlie’s (less than the tiny scoop that comes in the container). My diapers always come clean, and a few hours in the sun takes care of any stain.

After a little Googling, I discover an activity called “Stripping Your Fuzzi Bunz”.

Don’t adjust your browsers. This is still a family-friendly site.

Stripping your Fuzzi Bunz involves washing them over and over and over and over in hot hot water. Some folks say you should use a harsh detergent like Tide, or a squirt of Dawn dish soap. Some folks say you use no soap or detergent at all. Some advocate baking soda or vinegar in various combinations.

I opted to use some of those free Tide samples I have had sitting in my laundry room for a couple years now. (We use homemade laundry detergent on clothing, and as I already mentioned, Charlie’s for diapers.)

I squirted in two packets of Tide and washed the diapers as usual. Then I did about 4 hot rinses and dried them normally.

So far no funky smell or leaking.

I still don’t get why I had to do this in the first place. I could understand it if I overused detergent. (For instance, once I bought a lot of Fuzzi Bunz from a perfectly nice woman on Craigslist. When I got they they were so oversoaked with leftover detergent that when I washed them before using, the washer foamed up like something out of an old I Love Lucy episode.)

But I don’t.

Any ideas on why you would have funky stinky and leaking Fuzzi Bunz?

Is that just the nature of the microfiber? Maybe I will switch to using prefolds as stuffers instead. Why didn’t I have this problem with my last diapered baby? (Or has the sleep deprivation and such rendered my memory useless?)

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