Glassware
Why do we have so much of it? There we are, always caring for glasses, looking for glasses, toting glasses around the house. Then there are the jars. The canning jars, the recycled jars, the spice jars, little, big, many sizes in between. All of their lids fill an old coffee can, which we comb through looking for the right fit, over and over in varying degrees of frenzy, depending on how late we are at the time. Why do we do all this? There is a much simpler solution & it’s called wide-mouthed canning jars.
They are glasses, they are storage containers, they are canning jars. They have lids of uniform size. They have a classic look that fits in any farm kitchen. And best of all, they are easy to clean…no bottle brush necessary.
Trash
Again, why do we have so much of it, number one? And what would happen if we made thoughtful decisions about incoming based upon a conscious awareness of outgoing? How would our purchases and collecting habits change if we didn’t have anonymous folks carting off our unwanteds each week?
Consider this for a moment, as I am these days: is it actually possible to walk the environmentalist talk if you allow someone else to deal with your garbage? It certainly isn’t possible to be completely independent that way.
If you were your own trashman, you would have 5 options for what normally hits the landfill, and they are: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Consume & Burn. In reality, this would mean all of your daily life would function a little differently.
Vegetable scraps would go to the chickens (consume) or into the compost (reuse). Meat would go to the dogs (consume) and bones to the firepit (burn). Wood brush would hit the firepit while leafy yard waste would hit the compost pile. When shopping, you would always bring your own bags because you wouldn’t want to have to dispose of the plastic ones. You’d choose paper whenever possible because it would burn. You might buy cookies based on which box had the more disposable packaging. You might bring small paper bags to fill at the bulk bin.
You’d likely check the bottoms of all detergent bottles, dishsoap bottles, shampoo bottles for recyclability before bringing them home. You’d realize a trip to the recycling center would be necessary as much as once a week if you consume lots of things in bottles & cans or just once a month if those aren’t in your usual diet.
This would definitely be more work, but once the routine was down, it would be akin to giving up the microwave for the stove. It throws other people for a loop though your own family doesn’t notice it anymore. It falls under the category of a “simple kitchen” because it’s the type of change that would encourage (and often require) more simple living.
The benefits? No money out of pocket to the garbage collectors, complete self-sufficiency with your family’s waste, and the end of any and all opportunities for your family to be environmentally obtuse.
Greens
It’s that time. Dig out your seeds. Peas, lettuce, spinach, kale, cabbage…they’re all ready to be planted sometime between now & April. Our only conundrum is whether to plant them here or on the land. One thing’s for sure, I can’t plant them in containers & cart them there or I’ll be carting dead plants. My garden survives only because I receive generous help from Mother Nature herself.
The Never-ending Stream of Artwork
One of my projects today is to put all of Sassy’s loose artwork into a 3-hole binder. The back of each sheet will be my notepaper. I’m tired of shuffling her art from place to place and I’m tired of looking for notepaper when I need it (or worse yet, notepaper I wrote something important on but now can’t find). When it’s full, it will be a slice of our life – hers on one side & mine on the other. Date it, file it, start over.
And speaking of the never-ending stream of artwork, we’ve recently begun buying inexpensive blank sketchbooks for Sassy to do her artwork. It keeps it contained & already bound, plus it eliminates the wasting of so much computer paper.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
birthing support
There were a few details I left out of my original birth story. They weren't facts, like the rest of the story. I don't even know if they were real, and if they were "real," then in what way? A real dream? A real visualization?
At any rate, this is what happened. Friday afternoon, my labor started when my water broke. That whole day, I didn't really progress, just had spaced-apart early labor contractions. I was supposed to sleep that night, but I couldn't really sleep. The contractions woke me up enough to make sleep impossible. So I laid downstairs on the couch by myself and slept lightly, dreaming & day-dreaming all at the same time. You know, that state where your mind kind of floats around on top of sleep & dips in every now & then?
In this half-dream, I started to see my mom. I always wish she were here in times of stress or upset, and especially in times of pregnancy & new birth. This night, it wasn't so much the wishing that came first, but the seeing & feeling her. In my awake-dream place.
I sensed felt thought - really, what's a good word? Dreamt. I dreamt that this new baby was part of her. I dreamt that she would be born with dark hair. I dreamt that she had a part of my mother's soul. I dreamt that my mother was behind me (literally), supporting me. I dreamt that shesaid made it clear that she would stay throughout the birth.
And as I dipped in and out of dreaming into thinking, floating on top of the dream, my thoughts turned to all of those people before me in my family who had also given birth at home without drugs, without the hospital staff of strangers killing their birth spirit. I started thinking about these different women in my ancestral past, and I thought of my Native American great-great-grandmother, my Irish great-grandmother, my English great-grandmother. I vividly remembered the picture of my Native American great-great-grandmother that my great-grandfather had shown me at his house when I was a little girl. I remembered her face and her hair. I thought about where she might have given birth. I thought about what she might have sounded like, looked like then.
And then when I dipped back into dreaming a bit, I dreamt of her, and my other ancestors, woman after woman, many generations back, forming a circle one by one around my little house. After that, there were others, there was my mother, my grandmother, my great-aunts, and then true friends, many of whom read this blog and would read their name here.
In my awake-dream, there was a circle of these women around my house and they chanted something. It was Native American in feel, the sing-song went up high, back low, up high, back low. They formed a chain around my house, there were not words -- if there were, I can't remember them now. Just the chant, up high, down low, up high, down low.
And then I woke up for real. No dreaming, just awake. I lied there awhile, how long I don't know. Labor always comes with a time warp. I lied there trying to see my wake-dreams from the night in the concrete light of consciousness. I held to their residual feelings and burned their images into my waking mind. Then I got up and put curtains on all my windows.
One day soon, I'll probably forget those residual feelings and images in the day-to-day busy life I have. I wanted to record it before it completely left my mind, because it was very interesting. I am not a person who has spiritual experiences, so I'm not calling it that. But I will say that if there is ever a time in your life where your body is prepared and open to a spiritual experience, uninterrupted birth would be that time.
As much as I wanted my mom to be physically here after the birth, in a terrible way, emotionally I didn't miss her as much as I did with Sassy. Sometimes I think she was and is still here, gently, maybe dipping in and out of our home and our reality like I dipped in and out of my dream.
My little Magpie does have a piece of my mother, and so does Sassy and so do I. And she did come out with dark hair. Funny.
At any rate, this is what happened. Friday afternoon, my labor started when my water broke. That whole day, I didn't really progress, just had spaced-apart early labor contractions. I was supposed to sleep that night, but I couldn't really sleep. The contractions woke me up enough to make sleep impossible. So I laid downstairs on the couch by myself and slept lightly, dreaming & day-dreaming all at the same time. You know, that state where your mind kind of floats around on top of sleep & dips in every now & then?
In this half-dream, I started to see my mom. I always wish she were here in times of stress or upset, and especially in times of pregnancy & new birth. This night, it wasn't so much the wishing that came first, but the seeing & feeling her. In my awake-dream place.
I sensed felt thought - really, what's a good word? Dreamt. I dreamt that this new baby was part of her. I dreamt that she would be born with dark hair. I dreamt that she had a part of my mother's soul. I dreamt that my mother was behind me (literally), supporting me. I dreamt that she
And as I dipped in and out of dreaming into thinking, floating on top of the dream, my thoughts turned to all of those people before me in my family who had also given birth at home without drugs, without the hospital staff of strangers killing their birth spirit. I started thinking about these different women in my ancestral past, and I thought of my Native American great-great-grandmother, my Irish great-grandmother, my English great-grandmother. I vividly remembered the picture of my Native American great-great-grandmother that my great-grandfather had shown me at his house when I was a little girl. I remembered her face and her hair. I thought about where she might have given birth. I thought about what she might have sounded like, looked like then.
And then when I dipped back into dreaming a bit, I dreamt of her, and my other ancestors, woman after woman, many generations back, forming a circle one by one around my little house. After that, there were others, there was my mother, my grandmother, my great-aunts, and then true friends, many of whom read this blog and would read their name here.
In my awake-dream, there was a circle of these women around my house and they chanted something. It was Native American in feel, the sing-song went up high, back low, up high, back low. They formed a chain around my house, there were not words -- if there were, I can't remember them now. Just the chant, up high, down low, up high, down low.
And then I woke up for real. No dreaming, just awake. I lied there awhile, how long I don't know. Labor always comes with a time warp. I lied there trying to see my wake-dreams from the night in the concrete light of consciousness. I held to their residual feelings and burned their images into my waking mind. Then I got up and put curtains on all my windows.
One day soon, I'll probably forget those residual feelings and images in the day-to-day busy life I have. I wanted to record it before it completely left my mind, because it was very interesting. I am not a person who has spiritual experiences, so I'm not calling it that. But I will say that if there is ever a time in your life where your body is prepared and open to a spiritual experience, uninterrupted birth would be that time.
As much as I wanted my mom to be physically here after the birth, in a terrible way, emotionally I didn't miss her as much as I did with Sassy. Sometimes I think she was and is still here, gently, maybe dipping in and out of our home and our reality like I dipped in and out of my dream.
My little Magpie does have a piece of my mother, and so does Sassy and so do I. And she did come out with dark hair. Funny.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
the life you want: the dirty kitchen
I haven’t written about my list lately, but it isn’t because I’ve forgotten about it. Quite the contrary. I started by prioritizing nutrition & health for myself and my family, and I said I wouldn’t move on until I felt that I had that completely under control. I’ve been making big strides, and I think I’m almost to the point where my new weekly routine will stick. But, I’m still not quite there on my daily routine. Too many times, I ignore my body’s daily needs for other projects or errands or chores.
As I’ve been working on putting diet and health first, I’ve realized that maintaining a clean kitchen is an integral part of consistently making healthy meals for us. I noticed that we almost always eat more junk food and eat more carry-out food on the weekends. It’s not because we don’t like to cook, because we all three do. Part of it is due to running around more on the weekends. But part of it is also due to the fact that our kitchen quickly becomes a disaster on the weekends, and we don’t want to clean enough space to cook when we’re already hungry.
I’ve been waking up Monday morning to a huge mess to clean up every week. Often, it takes until Thursday to catch up on the backload of dishes along with the new ones we generate each day.
So I’ve added “keeping the kitchen clean” as my next step in getting The Life I Want. And how can I do that so it actually works?
Well, as I mentioned before, logistics are huge for me. A simple logistical problem can keep me stuck in a bad habit for a really long time. With the dirty kitchen, for example, I’m stuck on emptying the dishwasher. Right now, I can’t physically empty the dishwasher because I can’t bend over that much without re-opening my birth tear. Other times, I put it off because I don’t have a good place for, say, glass jars and our baking dishes. Cabinet space has always been lacking here and the places we have for those items are extremely inconvenient.
So I’m looking at this chain of events and how it is affecting my life. It goes like this: the dishwasher is sitting full of clean dishes with a clean kitchen around it. We start generating more dishes and as they build up, I don’t have anywhere to go with them because the dishwasher is full. But I put off emptying the dishwasher because there’s no quick place to go with some of the bottom rack, heavier dishes. The dishes continue to pile up, and then we start pulling clean ones out of the dishwasher when we run out of some high-demand items.
Meanwhile, we’re cooking and generating food trash and regular trash around us. The counters are already so full of dirty dishes and crap that we don’t notice more trash if it ends up on the counters. Or a book or a crayon or the phone or an envelope or a hat. They’re too full by now to focus on anything in particular. They continue to build up and then they get so full we are simply not inspired to cook anymore. So we eat packaged, quick foods.
There are some creative activities that I do where I feel trying to maintain a spotless home would greatly hinder my creative process. Cooking isn’t one of them. The cleaner the kitchen, the more I want to cook.
Since I’m trying to analyze the logistics – the part of the process where all my good intentions go straight downhill – I can see that maintaining a clean kitchen clearly breaks down at the point of emptying the dishwasher. I thought through possible solutions and I’ve come up with two.
First, having a more convenient place for bottom rack, heavy dishes would certainly help. Perhaps I don’t need all those heavy dishes anyway. Perhaps clearing some out to ensure I could find a good eye-level spot for them instead of shoving them way back behind the mixing bowls at ankle-level would be a good start. In our next house, I plan to arrange our dishes according to what is used most rather than simply what fits best where.
Second, I had to admit that I am simply not reliable when it comes to emptying the dishwasher each day. Of all the tasks I currently have on my plate, this would be the first one I should contract out. Unfortunately, Jeff isn’t a good dishwasher emptier either. But Sassy could be. I’ve started requiring Sassy to help me empty the dishwasher in order to “earn” the sweets that she wants each day.
So, as it sits now, I’ve made quite a bit of progress on the first item on my list – preparing nutritious foods for myself and my family and putting our diet and health first. Here’s a quick recap of the new changes:
• I have a printed schedule reminding me to drink several glasses of water throughout the day, take my supplements, give Sassy hers, and prepare food for snacks and dinner before we are going out.
• Each Sunday, I take stock of what we have in the refrigerator that we need to use up. I then make a quick menu plan of 4-5 dinner or lunch meals, 3-4 breakfasts, 2-3 snacks and 2-3 sweets for the week.
• Each Sunday night or Monday morning, I grocery shop for the meals on my menu plan.
• I ask Jeff to choose one or two meals that we can eat as a family for lunch before he goes to work, so we are sitting down for meals together a few times a week again.
• I try to keep the counters clear and the dishes caught up. I’m using Sassy’s help to empty the dishwasher so that the dishes don’t pile up like they used to.
• And probably the most significant change is that I have designated nutrition and health as my greatest priority, so when I’m doing the unfocused, here-to-there, whizzing brain thing where I can’t focus on any one task because they all seem to draw my attention, I know what to focus on first. This one change alone has helped me to actually get things accomplished again.
I hope I’m not boring you all on my progress toward The Life I Want. It helps me quite a bit to articulate and synthesize my thoughts on my progress. I hope reading mine helps you to do the same for your own goals.
As I’ve been working on putting diet and health first, I’ve realized that maintaining a clean kitchen is an integral part of consistently making healthy meals for us. I noticed that we almost always eat more junk food and eat more carry-out food on the weekends. It’s not because we don’t like to cook, because we all three do. Part of it is due to running around more on the weekends. But part of it is also due to the fact that our kitchen quickly becomes a disaster on the weekends, and we don’t want to clean enough space to cook when we’re already hungry.
I’ve been waking up Monday morning to a huge mess to clean up every week. Often, it takes until Thursday to catch up on the backload of dishes along with the new ones we generate each day.
So I’ve added “keeping the kitchen clean” as my next step in getting The Life I Want. And how can I do that so it actually works?
Well, as I mentioned before, logistics are huge for me. A simple logistical problem can keep me stuck in a bad habit for a really long time. With the dirty kitchen, for example, I’m stuck on emptying the dishwasher. Right now, I can’t physically empty the dishwasher because I can’t bend over that much without re-opening my birth tear. Other times, I put it off because I don’t have a good place for, say, glass jars and our baking dishes. Cabinet space has always been lacking here and the places we have for those items are extremely inconvenient.
So I’m looking at this chain of events and how it is affecting my life. It goes like this: the dishwasher is sitting full of clean dishes with a clean kitchen around it. We start generating more dishes and as they build up, I don’t have anywhere to go with them because the dishwasher is full. But I put off emptying the dishwasher because there’s no quick place to go with some of the bottom rack, heavier dishes. The dishes continue to pile up, and then we start pulling clean ones out of the dishwasher when we run out of some high-demand items.
Meanwhile, we’re cooking and generating food trash and regular trash around us. The counters are already so full of dirty dishes and crap that we don’t notice more trash if it ends up on the counters. Or a book or a crayon or the phone or an envelope or a hat. They’re too full by now to focus on anything in particular. They continue to build up and then they get so full we are simply not inspired to cook anymore. So we eat packaged, quick foods.
There are some creative activities that I do where I feel trying to maintain a spotless home would greatly hinder my creative process. Cooking isn’t one of them. The cleaner the kitchen, the more I want to cook.
Since I’m trying to analyze the logistics – the part of the process where all my good intentions go straight downhill – I can see that maintaining a clean kitchen clearly breaks down at the point of emptying the dishwasher. I thought through possible solutions and I’ve come up with two.
First, having a more convenient place for bottom rack, heavy dishes would certainly help. Perhaps I don’t need all those heavy dishes anyway. Perhaps clearing some out to ensure I could find a good eye-level spot for them instead of shoving them way back behind the mixing bowls at ankle-level would be a good start. In our next house, I plan to arrange our dishes according to what is used most rather than simply what fits best where.
Second, I had to admit that I am simply not reliable when it comes to emptying the dishwasher each day. Of all the tasks I currently have on my plate, this would be the first one I should contract out. Unfortunately, Jeff isn’t a good dishwasher emptier either. But Sassy could be. I’ve started requiring Sassy to help me empty the dishwasher in order to “earn” the sweets that she wants each day.
So, as it sits now, I’ve made quite a bit of progress on the first item on my list – preparing nutritious foods for myself and my family and putting our diet and health first. Here’s a quick recap of the new changes:
• I have a printed schedule reminding me to drink several glasses of water throughout the day, take my supplements, give Sassy hers, and prepare food for snacks and dinner before we are going out.
• Each Sunday, I take stock of what we have in the refrigerator that we need to use up. I then make a quick menu plan of 4-5 dinner or lunch meals, 3-4 breakfasts, 2-3 snacks and 2-3 sweets for the week.
• Each Sunday night or Monday morning, I grocery shop for the meals on my menu plan.
• I ask Jeff to choose one or two meals that we can eat as a family for lunch before he goes to work, so we are sitting down for meals together a few times a week again.
• I try to keep the counters clear and the dishes caught up. I’m using Sassy’s help to empty the dishwasher so that the dishes don’t pile up like they used to.
• And probably the most significant change is that I have designated nutrition and health as my greatest priority, so when I’m doing the unfocused, here-to-there, whizzing brain thing where I can’t focus on any one task because they all seem to draw my attention, I know what to focus on first. This one change alone has helped me to actually get things accomplished again.
I hope I’m not boring you all on my progress toward The Life I Want. It helps me quite a bit to articulate and synthesize my thoughts on my progress. I hope reading mine helps you to do the same for your own goals.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
babies in america
Okay, here's your fair warning - I'm probably about to step on your toes in one way or another. I'm in a venting mood & I'm about to tell y'all about it without tempering my opinions (much). I apologize in advance, and friends, I love you. That isn't contingent on how you raise your babies in America and this isn't about you.
But now let me say how irritated I am today with those stupid bucket infant seats that every mother and father carts around like a damn extension of their baby, here to there to there to here, never considering that they could just pick up the baby.
As I was carrying M around today, part in an ABC carrier and part just in my arms, I never realized how odd it is for people to see someone carrying a newborn who is not in their stupid plastic carrier. Why have people fallen for this big sham? Why have parents decided that they are incapable of carrying their babies outside of the plastic contraption?
At first, I noticed the odd looks I was getting from people, and their reluctance to smile at us, even though there was a darn cute baby being carried around, if I do say so myself. I then noticed a few different tables (we were at two different restaurants for carry-out today), look, judge, & snicker among each other. This floored me! I am just not used to people finding baby-carrying odd anymore I guess.
So I started to notice all the other young babies around me and all of them under the age of one were carried in their buckets. The babies had become the buckets. The buckets had become the babies. They were as one. They announced, "I have a baby here! Baby! Right here!"
And what about us?
We announced, "Weird, strange, no bucket. That baby's naked! Where is its bucket?! Is that even safe?! Is it even legal?!"
I caught a glimpse of us in the windows outside Penn Station, where I was carrying her outside of her carrier, just in my arms, and I was struck by how odd it looked. I realized I never, ever, ever see people carrying their newborn around outside a sling or a bucket in America.
And this made me very, very sad.
My M likes to be in my arms. It can wear on me, trust me. I would very much like to be able to sew right now, but little M likes to be in my arms all the time. You know, when she is in her little bucket, riding in the car even 2 hours, as she was today, her little eyes are more anxious & worried. Jeff said she had worried eyes tonight. I told him she'd had them for the past half hour. She likes to be in my arms.
Parents in America would call her 24-hour desire extreme, Mama needs her space and all, Baby needs her independence. But is it really extreme?
Isn't it more likely that all babies want that?
But I have the luxury of actually doing it, because I'm a stay at home mom. I can hold her all damn day if I want (and I usually do). The work out of the house moms don't have a choice but to transport Baby in a bucket far more than Baby probably wants. So when you go to Bob Evans on a Sunday morning, why not ditch the bucket and give Baby some of the in-arms time he's missing during the week?
I don't think I have any work away from home readers, but if I did, I probably don't now. My apologies...you were forewarned.
But now let me say how irritated I am today with those stupid bucket infant seats that every mother and father carts around like a damn extension of their baby, here to there to there to here, never considering that they could just pick up the baby.
As I was carrying M around today, part in an ABC carrier and part just in my arms, I never realized how odd it is for people to see someone carrying a newborn who is not in their stupid plastic carrier. Why have people fallen for this big sham? Why have parents decided that they are incapable of carrying their babies outside of the plastic contraption?
At first, I noticed the odd looks I was getting from people, and their reluctance to smile at us, even though there was a darn cute baby being carried around, if I do say so myself. I then noticed a few different tables (we were at two different restaurants for carry-out today), look, judge, & snicker among each other. This floored me! I am just not used to people finding baby-carrying odd anymore I guess.
So I started to notice all the other young babies around me and all of them under the age of one were carried in their buckets. The babies had become the buckets. The buckets had become the babies. They were as one. They announced, "I have a baby here! Baby! Right here!"
And what about us?
We announced, "Weird, strange, no bucket. That baby's naked! Where is its bucket?! Is that even safe?! Is it even legal?!"
I caught a glimpse of us in the windows outside Penn Station, where I was carrying her outside of her carrier, just in my arms, and I was struck by how odd it looked. I realized I never, ever, ever see people carrying their newborn around outside a sling or a bucket in America.
And this made me very, very sad.
My M likes to be in my arms. It can wear on me, trust me. I would very much like to be able to sew right now, but little M likes to be in my arms all the time. You know, when she is in her little bucket, riding in the car even 2 hours, as she was today, her little eyes are more anxious & worried. Jeff said she had worried eyes tonight. I told him she'd had them for the past half hour. She likes to be in my arms.
Parents in America would call her 24-hour desire extreme, Mama needs her space and all, Baby needs her independence. But is it really extreme?
Isn't it more likely that all babies want that?
But I have the luxury of actually doing it, because I'm a stay at home mom. I can hold her all damn day if I want (and I usually do). The work out of the house moms don't have a choice but to transport Baby in a bucket far more than Baby probably wants. So when you go to Bob Evans on a Sunday morning, why not ditch the bucket and give Baby some of the in-arms time he's missing during the week?
I don't think I have any work away from home readers, but if I did, I probably don't now. My apologies...you were forewarned.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
the life you want, part 2
After I wrote my blog post the other day about moving toward the life you want instead of the life you live out of habit, I asked Jeff to read it. He and I then talked about the changes he wanted to make when we move to the land, and I was glad to learn that he and I are seeking a strikingly similar path. It doesn’t always happen that way. We managed to get 45 minutes of uninterrupted conversation time, thanks to Martha Speaks, some wooden blocks, and a certain 5-year-old’s drive to build a garden and farm scene out of them. It’s rare that we get so much time to talk about our longer-term goals instead of the usual daily logistics.
I decided after our conversation that it really was possible for us to live our daily lives more closely aligned with our values; it didn’t have to be a dream that could happen “one day”…*sigh*…if we could only get more organized.
Throughout that day, I noticed my scattered behavior pattern in everything I tried to do. Laundry was interspersed with decluttering and cleaning up the basement. Cooking was interspersed with 2 minutes of dishes, then 2 minutes of freezing extra food, then 2 minutes back to cooking, then 2 minutes of cleaning off the counters.
Obviously, my scattered brain is a major player in keeping me from moving forward toward a more organized life. So what to do?
I decided I needed to use the wonderful list I actually took the time to write out and prioritize it. For me, fixing nutritious food for myself and my family, and taking the time to take care of our health, was the number one priority. During my pregnancy with M (still need a good screen name for her, suggestions appreciated!), poor Sassy was pretty much on her own with food. With Jeff on second shift, nightly dinners didn’t happen. She would say she was hungry and I would point her to the kitchen. “Then get something,” I’d tell her. Luckily our home isn’t stocked with much junk food, but nevertheless, I knew that wasn’t something I wanted to let continue for long.
Just after M was born, I went on a major caffeine & sugar binge myself. I quit taking my supplements. I’m not pregnant anymore, I thought, woo-hoo! I can eat whatever I want! I can drink all the coffee I want! It’s just MY body I’m potentially harming! YEAH!
Of course, that didn’t work for long either.
So yesterday morning I decided to organize this one item on my list, this one part of my life. I wrote a quick schedule for 4 key times during the day: waking, noon, 5:00, and 8:00. On the schedule were different tasks all related to our health and nutrition. For example, at noon, my list tells me I have to drink a full glass of water, take 4 supplements, eat lunch with Sassy and/or Jeff, make a plan for dinner, and pack snacks if we plan to go out in the afternoon.
This is stuff I should have been doing as a matter of course, but I’d veered so far off course, I needed to write it out to get myself back in line.
I also decided it would help if I had a meal plan for the week. I didn’t feel like I needed to decide on every single meal, but I wanted to have 4 dinners planned, a few snacks, a few breakfasts, and a few sweets, because who am I kidding? I can say I’m off sugar, but in reality, that means I’m driving through Proverbs to pick up my chocolate chip cookies instead of buying the ingredients at the grocery.
I prefer to cook most things ahead of time or whenever I’m in the mood to cook, so yesterday, I had a big cooking morning. It was an interesting change since I’d made the decision to prioritize nutrition over cleaning. I was so very tempted upon walking into my messy kitchen to clean it before I began cooking, but I kept telling myself that nutrition was my priority. I could clean after I made good food for myself and my family.
It was so hard to keep myself on this task alone! Countless times I found myself starting to get diverted to cleaning out of habit, and I had to reign myself back in. But in the end?
In the end, after 3 hours in the kitchen, I had a double-batch of biscuit dough made, a double-batch of pie crust dough, chicken a la king made, vegetarian tacos prepared, lunch shared at the table with my family, the table cleared, the dishes loaded into the dishwasher and the dishwasher running, the counters cleaned off, and the floors swept. And Sassy had helped me all morning so I could cross “baking with my kids once/week” off the list. (Not that I want to limit it to once/week – she is really a big help now!)
So this week, at least, we are going to focus on this one item, health and nutrition for our family, and try to turn it from a scattered part of our lives to an organized one. If I feel like it still needs more attention next week, then I’ll keep focusing on it next week too. I’ll keep it in the forefront until I feel I’ve worked out a good system for our family, then I’ll move onto another item.
Z, I noticed your comment on the last post where you said you’re on a similar journey right now. If you make a list (hint, hint) on your blog, I will totally read it & comment! Lara, you too! It would be so easy for me to take this desire to change out of focus in a couple weeks and fall back on old habits. Having others around me to talk about it with would definitely help me stay focused. What about you?
On a quick side note, most of you know how my job was handed over to my maternity replacement at the eleventh hour. This irritated me far more than I let on at the time. I had quickly gotten used to having some extra pocket money.
I now see this as a blessing, though. Having an outside job definitely kept me securely in the scattered whirlwind, playing constant catch-up. I’ve now decided that I won’t be seeking or accepting any outside employment until my domestic and homeschooling life is in order. This should be added incentive to get “the life I want” since I can’t make any extra money until I do.
I decided after our conversation that it really was possible for us to live our daily lives more closely aligned with our values; it didn’t have to be a dream that could happen “one day”…*sigh*…if we could only get more organized.
Throughout that day, I noticed my scattered behavior pattern in everything I tried to do. Laundry was interspersed with decluttering and cleaning up the basement. Cooking was interspersed with 2 minutes of dishes, then 2 minutes of freezing extra food, then 2 minutes back to cooking, then 2 minutes of cleaning off the counters.
Obviously, my scattered brain is a major player in keeping me from moving forward toward a more organized life. So what to do?
I decided I needed to use the wonderful list I actually took the time to write out and prioritize it. For me, fixing nutritious food for myself and my family, and taking the time to take care of our health, was the number one priority. During my pregnancy with M (still need a good screen name for her, suggestions appreciated!), poor Sassy was pretty much on her own with food. With Jeff on second shift, nightly dinners didn’t happen. She would say she was hungry and I would point her to the kitchen. “Then get something,” I’d tell her. Luckily our home isn’t stocked with much junk food, but nevertheless, I knew that wasn’t something I wanted to let continue for long.
Just after M was born, I went on a major caffeine & sugar binge myself. I quit taking my supplements. I’m not pregnant anymore, I thought, woo-hoo! I can eat whatever I want! I can drink all the coffee I want! It’s just MY body I’m potentially harming! YEAH!
Of course, that didn’t work for long either.
So yesterday morning I decided to organize this one item on my list, this one part of my life. I wrote a quick schedule for 4 key times during the day: waking, noon, 5:00, and 8:00. On the schedule were different tasks all related to our health and nutrition. For example, at noon, my list tells me I have to drink a full glass of water, take 4 supplements, eat lunch with Sassy and/or Jeff, make a plan for dinner, and pack snacks if we plan to go out in the afternoon.
This is stuff I should have been doing as a matter of course, but I’d veered so far off course, I needed to write it out to get myself back in line.
I also decided it would help if I had a meal plan for the week. I didn’t feel like I needed to decide on every single meal, but I wanted to have 4 dinners planned, a few snacks, a few breakfasts, and a few sweets, because who am I kidding? I can say I’m off sugar, but in reality, that means I’m driving through Proverbs to pick up my chocolate chip cookies instead of buying the ingredients at the grocery.
I prefer to cook most things ahead of time or whenever I’m in the mood to cook, so yesterday, I had a big cooking morning. It was an interesting change since I’d made the decision to prioritize nutrition over cleaning. I was so very tempted upon walking into my messy kitchen to clean it before I began cooking, but I kept telling myself that nutrition was my priority. I could clean after I made good food for myself and my family.
It was so hard to keep myself on this task alone! Countless times I found myself starting to get diverted to cleaning out of habit, and I had to reign myself back in. But in the end?
In the end, after 3 hours in the kitchen, I had a double-batch of biscuit dough made, a double-batch of pie crust dough, chicken a la king made, vegetarian tacos prepared, lunch shared at the table with my family, the table cleared, the dishes loaded into the dishwasher and the dishwasher running, the counters cleaned off, and the floors swept. And Sassy had helped me all morning so I could cross “baking with my kids once/week” off the list. (Not that I want to limit it to once/week – she is really a big help now!)
So this week, at least, we are going to focus on this one item, health and nutrition for our family, and try to turn it from a scattered part of our lives to an organized one. If I feel like it still needs more attention next week, then I’ll keep focusing on it next week too. I’ll keep it in the forefront until I feel I’ve worked out a good system for our family, then I’ll move onto another item.
Z, I noticed your comment on the last post where you said you’re on a similar journey right now. If you make a list (hint, hint) on your blog, I will totally read it & comment! Lara, you too! It would be so easy for me to take this desire to change out of focus in a couple weeks and fall back on old habits. Having others around me to talk about it with would definitely help me stay focused. What about you?
On a quick side note, most of you know how my job was handed over to my maternity replacement at the eleventh hour. This irritated me far more than I let on at the time. I had quickly gotten used to having some extra pocket money.
I now see this as a blessing, though. Having an outside job definitely kept me securely in the scattered whirlwind, playing constant catch-up. I’ve now decided that I won’t be seeking or accepting any outside employment until my domestic and homeschooling life is in order. This should be added incentive to get “the life I want” since I can’t make any extra money until I do.
Saturday, February 07, 2009
the life you want
As you all know, we’re getting ready to move in less than a month. And with this move, we are halving our available square footage. This means I’ve had to halve our belongings to prepare for the new place.
Now as much as I preach against consumerism and material goods to anyone who will listen, I am actually a packrat. So is my husband. And so is Sassy. I would like to say that I’m a packrat because I want to plan ahead and save in these times of fat for times of lean. I’d like to pretend that it adds to my ongoing work toward being a survivalist. But in reality, most of the stuff I hang onto is useless for survival purposes and is kept instead out of either guilt or emotional attachment.
It’s weird the stuff that I get emotionally attached to. It’s beyond what I consider the “normal” items, like photos, gifts from someone special, etc. For example, when I was going through Sassy’s toys, I realized that I am more attached to some of her toys than she is. It was very hard for me to let go of any wooden toys, even if she had far too many of that genre or if she never touched it. It was also hard for me to get rid of any toy that I bought for her, regardless of whether she or I even liked it anymore.
Clothes are a whole ‘nother category where I have a hard time breaking my attachments. I wonder if it’s the memories that the clothes generate? I think it must be. At some point, though, I have to let go of 30 pieces that generate similar memories when 1 piece would do.
We all know about the guilt factor when you’re ridding your home of extra stuff. It goes something like this, “So-and-so gave me this item. I love so-and-so. If I get rid of this item, does that mean I don’t love so-and-so as much? Will so-and-so think that I don’t love them as much?” UGH! It’s exhausting, this constant doubt, this constant caretaking of items to prove our love to so-and-so.
Isn’t it possible to separate love from material items? Isn’t this what the thinking, aware person in the 21st Century should be striving towards?
To help me through this process, my dear friend Lara has been sending me some links to essays that explore this subject. And they have really helped me give myself permission to let go. One essay in particular pointed out the value in articulating what we want our daily life to look like so that we can use this vision to evaluate what stays and what goes. I liked this idea a lot, especially since I always feel that I am trying to get to the point where I can have the life I want. I know that my current daily routine is far from what I want it to be and I feel I’m in constant catch-up mode. I think to myself, “Once I finish all that laundry and get the house cleaned out and finish that project and clean the kitchen and xyz and xyz, then I can spend my days reading to my children and relaxing outside and focusing on their schooling.”
So instead of spending my days being the mother I want to be, I spend them in a whirlwind of work waiting to be finished, my mind darting from one project to another, my efforts flitting between rooms and tasks in 10-minute increments so that by the time I go to bed, nothing is actually completed even though the day is gone. And none of that time was spent focused on my kids.
When I look at the big picture, I can see that the overwhelming majority of my time is spent maintaining my things. It would only make sense that fewer things would equal less time maintaining these things. And this would mean more time spent on fulfilling activities.
What would my day look like if I could snap my fingers and make it all change?
• First and foremost, my things would be organized so that when it was time to leave the house, everything I needed to take with me would be ready to go in 10 minutes time. We would leave the house quickly and easily and arrive at our destination relaxed and on time. This is a daily anger trigger for me.
• I would read a book to my children each day.
• I would snuggle with my children each day.
• Our bills would be paid on time and I would know at all times how much money was in each of our accounts.
• I would spend some time each day outdoors, even in the winter.
• I would connect with Sofie each day in some way.
• I would thoroughly enjoy my morning coffee every morning, by myself, quietly, doing whatever I wished on the computer (internet research, email correspondence, or writing).
• Our dinners would be planned in advance and we would sit down as a family for a meal at least 4 times a week, even if it were just lunch with Jeff still on second shift.
• I would wake up to a clean house and come home to a clean house, so that I didn’t dread coming home from wherever we are.
• Our house would be a comfortable place to drop in and visit at all times.
• Our house would be filled with unique and eclectic things, all of which were loved dearly by at least one person in the home and thoughtfully included in the space.
• I would bake each week with my children.
• I would write each week in my prayer journal and start the week with my church’s Sunday message (which they post online).
• I would tithe.
• I would carefully consider the stuff coming into our house and carefully sort the garbage going out to reduce the impact on our natural world.
• The time I spent smiling would outweigh the time I spent complaining and giving orders.
Wow. You know, there are more, but this is a good start. These aren’t huge items and wouldn’t require all that much to implement. So why am I still whizzing around in my daily whirlwind, where entire weeks or months are sucked away into the netherland, all the while feeling dissatisfied with my life? Why am I not already living the life I want to live?
I usually feel like this sort of thinking is barely above feel-good self-help books that promise you a brand new life but end up blending into the other hundred books on the cluttered bookshelf when you’re finished with it. So I scoff at it, laugh about it, try to accept things the way they are, and try to pretend like the mess around me doesn’t play a part in my being dissatisfied (all the while preaching that a consumerist mindset will lead to dissatisfaction).
But this time, I’m asking myself this question: isn’t making a change in your daily activities to more closely match your value system an example of spiritual growth? And doesn’t true spiritual growth require exercise – exercise such as focused thought and prayer on particular issues or exercise like deliberate changes in your actions and environment? True spiritual growth goes beyond an “a-ha!” moment and overhauling your environment in a spiritual way goes beyond a checklist from the newest self-help book.
Flylady talks quite a bit about “baby steps.” I think this can be a useful idea if you have your own list in front of you, detailing what you want your life to be. Very often, I have a hard time getting from Point A (messy, cluttered whirlwind of a home & a life) to Point B (organized, relaxed home & life) because the logistics get in the way. A good example is this: I want to organize our school & art supplies into one place, but I don’t have a suitable cabinet, so they stay disorganized.
It is helpful for me to anticipate all the logistics and baby steps I’ll need to take to get from Point A to Point B and even write them down if necessary.
On a final note, it helps me to reiterate that things do not equal love. If I love you, I will love you no matter what I do with that thingamabob you bought me a year ago. In fact, for me, time more closely equals love. Instead of spending a couple hours shopping for me, plus $10 on a gift, come spend that 2 hours with me. Let’s spend that $10 on a lunch somewhere or on supplies to do a project together or on an entry fee to a fun activity.
And just so you all know, if I gave you a thingamabob last year, last month, or last week and you don’t want it in your space anymore, please, let it go with joy and abandon! If I loved you enough to give it to you, then I love you enough that I want you to be free.
Now as much as I preach against consumerism and material goods to anyone who will listen, I am actually a packrat. So is my husband. And so is Sassy. I would like to say that I’m a packrat because I want to plan ahead and save in these times of fat for times of lean. I’d like to pretend that it adds to my ongoing work toward being a survivalist. But in reality, most of the stuff I hang onto is useless for survival purposes and is kept instead out of either guilt or emotional attachment.
It’s weird the stuff that I get emotionally attached to. It’s beyond what I consider the “normal” items, like photos, gifts from someone special, etc. For example, when I was going through Sassy’s toys, I realized that I am more attached to some of her toys than she is. It was very hard for me to let go of any wooden toys, even if she had far too many of that genre or if she never touched it. It was also hard for me to get rid of any toy that I bought for her, regardless of whether she or I even liked it anymore.
Clothes are a whole ‘nother category where I have a hard time breaking my attachments. I wonder if it’s the memories that the clothes generate? I think it must be. At some point, though, I have to let go of 30 pieces that generate similar memories when 1 piece would do.
We all know about the guilt factor when you’re ridding your home of extra stuff. It goes something like this, “So-and-so gave me this item. I love so-and-so. If I get rid of this item, does that mean I don’t love so-and-so as much? Will so-and-so think that I don’t love them as much?” UGH! It’s exhausting, this constant doubt, this constant caretaking of items to prove our love to so-and-so.
Isn’t it possible to separate love from material items? Isn’t this what the thinking, aware person in the 21st Century should be striving towards?
To help me through this process, my dear friend Lara has been sending me some links to essays that explore this subject. And they have really helped me give myself permission to let go. One essay in particular pointed out the value in articulating what we want our daily life to look like so that we can use this vision to evaluate what stays and what goes. I liked this idea a lot, especially since I always feel that I am trying to get to the point where I can have the life I want. I know that my current daily routine is far from what I want it to be and I feel I’m in constant catch-up mode. I think to myself, “Once I finish all that laundry and get the house cleaned out and finish that project and clean the kitchen and xyz and xyz, then I can spend my days reading to my children and relaxing outside and focusing on their schooling.”
So instead of spending my days being the mother I want to be, I spend them in a whirlwind of work waiting to be finished, my mind darting from one project to another, my efforts flitting between rooms and tasks in 10-minute increments so that by the time I go to bed, nothing is actually completed even though the day is gone. And none of that time was spent focused on my kids.
When I look at the big picture, I can see that the overwhelming majority of my time is spent maintaining my things. It would only make sense that fewer things would equal less time maintaining these things. And this would mean more time spent on fulfilling activities.
What would my day look like if I could snap my fingers and make it all change?
• First and foremost, my things would be organized so that when it was time to leave the house, everything I needed to take with me would be ready to go in 10 minutes time. We would leave the house quickly and easily and arrive at our destination relaxed and on time. This is a daily anger trigger for me.
• I would read a book to my children each day.
• I would snuggle with my children each day.
• Our bills would be paid on time and I would know at all times how much money was in each of our accounts.
• I would spend some time each day outdoors, even in the winter.
• I would connect with Sofie each day in some way.
• I would thoroughly enjoy my morning coffee every morning, by myself, quietly, doing whatever I wished on the computer (internet research, email correspondence, or writing).
• Our dinners would be planned in advance and we would sit down as a family for a meal at least 4 times a week, even if it were just lunch with Jeff still on second shift.
• I would wake up to a clean house and come home to a clean house, so that I didn’t dread coming home from wherever we are.
• Our house would be a comfortable place to drop in and visit at all times.
• Our house would be filled with unique and eclectic things, all of which were loved dearly by at least one person in the home and thoughtfully included in the space.
• I would bake each week with my children.
• I would write each week in my prayer journal and start the week with my church’s Sunday message (which they post online).
• I would tithe.
• I would carefully consider the stuff coming into our house and carefully sort the garbage going out to reduce the impact on our natural world.
• The time I spent smiling would outweigh the time I spent complaining and giving orders.
Wow. You know, there are more, but this is a good start. These aren’t huge items and wouldn’t require all that much to implement. So why am I still whizzing around in my daily whirlwind, where entire weeks or months are sucked away into the netherland, all the while feeling dissatisfied with my life? Why am I not already living the life I want to live?
I usually feel like this sort of thinking is barely above feel-good self-help books that promise you a brand new life but end up blending into the other hundred books on the cluttered bookshelf when you’re finished with it. So I scoff at it, laugh about it, try to accept things the way they are, and try to pretend like the mess around me doesn’t play a part in my being dissatisfied (all the while preaching that a consumerist mindset will lead to dissatisfaction).
But this time, I’m asking myself this question: isn’t making a change in your daily activities to more closely match your value system an example of spiritual growth? And doesn’t true spiritual growth require exercise – exercise such as focused thought and prayer on particular issues or exercise like deliberate changes in your actions and environment? True spiritual growth goes beyond an “a-ha!” moment and overhauling your environment in a spiritual way goes beyond a checklist from the newest self-help book.
Flylady talks quite a bit about “baby steps.” I think this can be a useful idea if you have your own list in front of you, detailing what you want your life to be. Very often, I have a hard time getting from Point A (messy, cluttered whirlwind of a home & a life) to Point B (organized, relaxed home & life) because the logistics get in the way. A good example is this: I want to organize our school & art supplies into one place, but I don’t have a suitable cabinet, so they stay disorganized.
It is helpful for me to anticipate all the logistics and baby steps I’ll need to take to get from Point A to Point B and even write them down if necessary.
On a final note, it helps me to reiterate that things do not equal love. If I love you, I will love you no matter what I do with that thingamabob you bought me a year ago. In fact, for me, time more closely equals love. Instead of spending a couple hours shopping for me, plus $10 on a gift, come spend that 2 hours with me. Let’s spend that $10 on a lunch somewhere or on supplies to do a project together or on an entry fee to a fun activity.
And just so you all know, if I gave you a thingamabob last year, last month, or last week and you don’t want it in your space anymore, please, let it go with joy and abandon! If I loved you enough to give it to you, then I love you enough that I want you to be free.
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
M's birth story
Alright, folks...here it is, in all its detail & length. I'm glad, too, because I keep having things I want to write about, but won't allow myself until this is posted. :-)
I have felt guilty that I haven’t written this out yet. The biggest reason I’ve neglected the task is because M allows me very little two-handed typing time. But then, as time passed, I became less and less driven to do it. Yesterday, I was reading my friend Caitlin’s birth story, and realized so many details of M’s were already becoming fuzzy; my time was limited if I wanted a detailed recollection.
I give this preface because I’m still not feeling motivated, and I’m 50% the writer I should be when I’m not motivated. So if I bore you with this, I’m sorry.
I will say that the things I loved most about M’s birth were the parts where I knew things before they happened. Some people would call it intuition, and that may be correct, since I think the whole process of labor and birth puts you in a spiritual and animal/instinctual position that could easily heighten all your senses, including the sixth one.
My take on it is a little different. I think M and I were communicating very clearly, and that I heard what she was telling me through an intuition or sixth sense. We still communicate pretty clearly now, but it’s so obviously different. All of our communication is now external communication, which includes my observations, her language (vocal & non-verbal), and my past experience with babies. Within a couple days of her birth, however, I realized I felt like my inner advisor was gone and that while my maternal instincts were still strong, my intuition was greatly decreased. I still had lots of strong hormones having their way with me at that point, so if my way of knowing things were simply a side effect of hormonally-induced heightened awareness, then you’d think I’d not notice such an immediate difference.
It probably doesn’t matter one way or the other. Regardless of the science behind the phenomenon, I feel very connected to M and very calm about her birth and her person today. We still have quite the little love affair going on.
I’ll start with the fact that although she was in an optimal, head-down position throughout the entire 3rd trimester, she flipped breech on me at 38+ weeks. And I chose not to turn her. Tracey (my midwife) and Dr. Bowen both told me that sometimes babies turn because of a cord issue and that turning them back can actually be harmful. But that they were both willing to try while she was under close monitoring if that’s what I wanted.
I felt that if M turned on her own all the way at 38+ weeks, then that’s what she wanted. I half-heartedly tried turning her one night in the birthing tub. I talked to her, I put gentle pressure on her, I told her I trusted her judgment, but that if she could turn, that would be best.
She didn’t turn. So I decided to go ahead with the plan and leave her as she was. In my mind, she was as much a lucid individual capable of making individual decisions as I was. Perhaps she knew best. After all, she had the best (only) view of her environment in there. Tracey requested that I look into the dangers of birthing breech so I could make an informed decision of whether I was still comfortable with my homebirthing plan. I promised I would look into it. I didn’t. I just wasn’t worried at all. I look back on that decision now & think, “I was crazy!” But at the time, I strongly believe M herself let me know it was okay.
I had only one somewhat persistent fear, and that was that I would birth her all the way to the head and then she would get stuck & I would have to transport to the hospital to get her out, with her body hanging out the whole time. I now know that would probably be impossible – she would have almost certainly died in that situation. But that was my only fear.
I started having widely spaced, noticeable contractions on Thursday afternoon. They continued through the night, but weren’t terribly regular and I was able to sleep through them. They picked up again to about every 15 minutes Friday morning. I had a chiropractor appointment that morning and on the way there, I called Jeff to tell him I didn’t want him going to Indiana the next morning as he had planned. I didn’t tell him I thought I was in labor or anything. I’d been having contractions for a couple weeks that were irregular and noticeable. They had even been every 15 minutes for several hours at a time on many nights. I didn’t know if this was it or not, I just knew I did not want him going to Indiana.
He protested that it had to be done and that he would only be an hour away, so if anything happened he could come right home. At that point, I broke down and cried and sobbed on the phone, yelled at him, told him to just do whatever he wanted, I would find someone else to be with me! I hung up on him. I said to myself, “Screw him, he’ll be lucky if I even LET him be at MY birth. I have other people! I don’t need him!” I cried big heaving sobs all the way to the chiro’s office. When I got there, I thought that I was having an awfully strong reaction to this fight. I wondered if maybe I was really in labor.
At Dr. Lang’s, she asked how I was doing. I told her about the spaced-out contractions. She said, “You look like you’re in early labor. I think you are. I think this is it.” Later she told me I had that faraway look of a focused mother about to give birth. Maybe Dr. Lang is just intuitive herself. I think she is.
That afternoon, I had been planning to go to Dana’s for a playdate. As the time got closer, my contractions were still the same. Jeff agreed he wouldn’t go to Indiana the next day, but we both were still wondering if it would be a trip missed for no reason. As I prepared to go to Dana’s, I kept thinking I should take a change of pants in case my water broke. As I worked through all the stuff on my list to take, the pants kept getting put off, and I kept reminding myself to grab them – just in case. I walked out without them.
It was a shame I left them at home, because when I walked into Dana’s, I went to the kitchen to make my green drink & get some water & I felt something different that made me run to the bathroom. It turned out to be my mucous plug. I know this because I made my friends come up and examine it. I have good friends.
I was very excited, but I knew it could still be days off, so I went downstairs & planned to stay for our playdate. I got down to the living room and was standing there when all of a sudden, here came the big gush of fluid all over the living room floor. Dana gave me towels and dry clothes. I’m so glad my labor started with friends in that environment instead of, say, Kroger.
Well now there would be no relaxing. I could barely even carry on a conversation. I called Jeff to come pick me up and bring dry clothes. Now we knew cancelling the Indiana trip was a wise choice! When Jeff showed up, he had that excited, which-way-do-I-turn look about him. It was cute. Sassy stayed at Dana’s with Caroline offering to bring her home when I called for her. We didn’t realize that would be Sunday morning!
For the next 24 hours, I had the same every 15 minute contractions. They were uncomfortable enough that I couldn’t sleep. At 2:00 a.m. I was up digging out curtains and fabric from the basement so I could cover all of our windows. I did not want to give birth if any of my neighbors could see inside. When Tracey came to check on me, she said that the baby was posterior and was probably trying to turn herself before active labor would start. All day Saturday, Jeff and I waited for the contractions to pick up. We had just discovered we had a bunch of free cable channels, but I couldn’t stand the TV on. I couldn’t focus on anything except the labor. But strangely, I wasn’t as bored as I’d have expected. We just talked and joked about stuff. We ate food. We sat around. Sassy was still at Caroline’s. She had just had her first sleepover!
Around 3:00, we decided I should get into the birth pool and try to get M to switch to anterior so we could get this show on the road. We both talked to her, me from the inside, Jeff from the outside. Jeff tried to do some hands-on energy work with her. Afterwards, he said he felt she was scared and nervous about what was going on. He said her environment had changed and wasn’t very comfortable and she didn’t know what to do. He said it would be like going from a swimming pool to a wet, warm garbage bag, and it scared her. He talked to her quite a bit over the next hour, telling her how brave she was, and how she could do it, she could turn for us. He told her we were so excited to meet her, but she had to be strong and turn over first. We kept monitoring my belly, and within about an hour’s time, she had made the flip.
My contractions picked up to about every 6 or 7 minutes then, but I was getting tired and knew that I’d already lost a full night’s sleep. Plus, it was Caroline’s birthday (and my due date – the due date I chose for myself, at least), and I wanted to have her that night. Tracey had extensive dental surgery scheduled for Monday, and she was nervous that the labor could go on into that time. We had talked of resorting to castor oil if things were still stagnant by Sunday morning.
Jeff told me I should try to take a nap around 6:00, but I didn’t want to go upstairs by myself. He said he’d come up with me if I didn’t want to be alone. As I laid there trying to sleep a little, I remembered all the induction stuff I’d read and I joked to Jeff that we should mess around and “get the show on the road the old-fashioned way.” Besides, I told him, that’s all he’d be getting before the long drought ahead. He said, sure, why not.
I didn’t think much would come of it. I certainly didn’t expect that my contractions would pick up from every 6-7 minutes to every 1-2 minutes in the span of 10 minutes. Honestly, after all that gradual build-up to labor, going from zero to sixty in 10 minutes time was very overwhelming.
I came down and got into the pool, and by now, I couldn’t keep quiet during contractions and had to actively manage the pain with them. I knelt in the pool with my hands against my back and swayed with each one. This helped the pain. We called Tracey in at this point. I think she was relieved!
By 10:00, the contractions had become so intense and long that no pain management techniques seemed to help. I made Jeff follow me around and press on my back with each contraction. I don’t think it helped the pain so much as distract me from it. I remember very little of this time-warp time except a few random images.
I remember walking around the house, just pacing in a big circle through the hall, through the kitchen and dining room, around through the living room, back through the hall. I joked about it to Tracey and she said all her ladies did the “labor walk.”
I remember getting in the shower on my hands and knees which helped for some indecipherable period of time.
I remember going into the bathroom and leaning against the towel rack with each contraction while Jeff pressed on my back for another period of time. Apparently I banged my head against the bathroom wall during these. The next day, I had a bruised sore spot from the head banging.
I remember leaning against the kitchen counter with Tracey on “back pressing duty” for awhile. I was very vocal during all of these contractions. I think a more accurate analysis was that I screamed during every contraction throughout my entire active labor. I was so glad I was at home and not at the hospital. I don’t think I could have been that uninhibited at the hospital and for some reason, the screaming helped the pain. At the hospital, I would have been begging for the drugs.
I remember feeling I had to poop and Tracey telling me I had to “birth my poop” before I could birth my baby. She suggested I sit on the toilet. I did, with my legs up on the tub in front of me and Tracey in the tub. OUCH! OW OW OW OW! That was the most painful of all the contractions. There was NO WAY I was going to be able to “birth my poop” there. I believe this to be one of the worst parts of the labor. When I finally came downstairs after my 6-day bedrest upstairs, I had uncomfortable flashbacks when I tried to use the downstairs toilet for several days. I joked it was post-traumatic stress syndrome.
After I was unsuccessful in birthing my poop, I went back to the birthing tub and hung over the side. Later, I looked up the signs of “transition.” I think this was my transition period. I remember chanting “Come baby, please come. Come on baby, pleeease,” with each contraction.
Tracey taught me how to vocalize low with contractions instead of the high-pitched screaming I was doing. Right about this time, I would start with a low-pitched vocalization, but it started to turn into a grunt. Tracey told me I was wanting to push and I had to “blow it off” (think Lamaze type breathing) because of M’s breech presentation. I wasn’t allowed to push until she was rumping (not crowning, but rumping).
Eventually, they gave me the go ahead to push. The videotape ran out around this time (gotta love the timing), but the second midwife Tracey had brought in, Candace, was snapping pics like crazy. I love Candace for this! And for many other reasons….she was very sweet and instantly likable.
I pushed with each contraction starting around 1:20 a.m. but made very little progress at first. I was on hands and knees at this point, which is how Tracey told me I should visualize birthing breech. I asked if I could flip over onto my back in the pool and Tracey said I could try, but it probably wouldn’t work as well. But, as soon as I flipped, I started to make some pushing progress.
I have so many wonderful pictures to document this part, so I’ll be brief here on the things I remember. I remember that it took Tracey, her assistant Sora, Candace, and myself to hold my legs apart so that I could push better. For some reason, it is nearly impossible for me to keep my legs apart if I feel threatened in any way. And of course, there was a lot going on, a lot of people around, and a lot of pain down there, so my legs were acting independently of my wishes.
I remember pushing being very painful but very satisfying at the same time. I remember being excited that I was about to hold my baby. I remember being excited that it was almost OVER! I remember looking at the (tape run out) video camera square on, and screaming, “F*** ME! THE RING OF FIRE F***ING HURTS!” I remember Tracey telling me to put my legs up on the side of the pool but not to push with my legs. She said to imagine I was pushing a grand piano up a mountain with my vagina. I remember at the next contraction, I screamed, “I AM PUSHING A GRAND PIANO UP A MOUNTAIN WITH MY VAGINA!” And I remember it being a very productive push.
There was a time, longer than the midwives would have liked I think, where M’s rump and folded-up legs down to her knees were out, but I wasn’t making very fast progress past this point. They asked me if I wanted to touch her, and I said no. Jeff said, “I think you should touch your baby. It’s okay.” So I did, and things quickly sped up then. I was so tired feeling, but as soon as I felt her, I got renewed energy. “I’m sorry, baby! I’m so sorry! I’ll do better! I’ll push harder! I’m so sorry!” I don’t remember saying this exactly; Jeff told me about it later.
So with the next push came all of her legs, and then an arm with the next, and the other arm with the next. And then, my contractions went away. Tracey hypothesized later that it was because I felt threatened, my legs were being held open, and my body shut down. Jeff hypothesized that my body thought she was already out. Either way, we had a head inside waiting for another contraction which never came. It was interesting to note in retrospect that this had been my only persistent fear of birthing breech.
For 3 whole minutes we waited. Candace got a dozen pictures of body-out head-in during this time. Tracey checked M’s heartbeat almost continuously. We still waited for the contraction. Then I saw Tracey give a glance to Candace after a heartbeat check, a glance that said, “Now,” very clearly, although no words were spoken. She said something to me along the lines of, “Okay, here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to push, you’re going to push now, you’re not going to stop pushing until the baby is out. I’m going to go inside and help you.” Jeff said, “You can do this, this is for our baby, you can do it.” And so I did.
I pushed and pushed. I pushed through what I later called the “tunnel of fire.” I didn’t quit until she was out. Tracey laid her on my chest and was in high-action, concerned mode. M opened one little eye at us, then shut it and laid on my chest while Tracey did her infant resuscitation routine, which she had shown us before the birth. She had warned us that many babies, almost 25%, need a little help after birth from a difficult journey. I still wasn’t very worried despite Tracey’s serious face and focus on the task. I help M, rubbed her feet and arms, talked to her. My only anxious thought was, “I don’t want to have a stillborn and be blamed for it.”
But that thought didn’t stick around long because Candace was listening to her heart rate during this time, and after 30 seconds or less, Candace had a reassuring voice. She said, “Tracey, we have good heart tones. We have 60, we have 80, okay we’re at 100, 120. I think we can stop.” And then, right on cue, M coughed, spit up a little and cried. It’s the only cry she’s ever had that made me happy. We all smiled and Tracey put her equipment away. (She only told me her lowest heart rate later, when I pressed her. She said 20-40, but she didn’t get a good count because there wasn’t time.)
I still wasn’t having contractions, so we didn’t wait for me to birth the placenta in my own time. Tracey told me to just push it out, which I did. Then I really wanted to get out of the pool.
I handed M to Jeff and all 3 midwives helped me to the recliner in the living room. I was shaking & shivering uncontrollably, so they wrapped me in blankets. Apparently, this shaking is common with the post-birth hormonal shift.
Tracey was concerned about my lack of contractions and my pale color, so she was insistent that I latch M right away to stop any uterine bleeding. I was so tired! I felt like I could fall asleep on the spot. I couldn’t pay attention to anything around me and was trying my best to keep my eyes open, since I wasn’t allowed to go to sleep for at least 3 hours. I honestly didn’t even have that much interest in latching M or getting to know her at that point. I was just too tired and out of it.
Tracey’s assistant kept trying to get M latched on for me, but I barely remember it. I just remember feeling like a rag doll, with my breast being shoved into M’s mouth over & over by her assistant while I stared off into space uninterested. I kept thinking something didn’t feel right, that I was too tired, but I didn’t want to alarm anyone.
Finally, maybe 45 minutes later, I told Tracey I needed to use the bathroom, maybe walk around. I needed a break from the weird rag-doll like latching thing; plus, I just really wanted to use the bathroom. When I sat on the toilet, it became obvious that I was bleeding too much, and Tracey started to explain why she thought I should have a shot of pitocin. I welcomed the medicine. I just wanted to feel better.
Within 15 minutes of the pitocin shot, I was a new person! I became assertive enough again to tell everyone to leave me alone and give me my baby. I held her, engaged her finally, and began to bond with her. Within just a few minutes more, I latched her on myself…not because I had to, but because I wanted to. It hurt hurt hurt! My nipples were not toughened at all! But it was still enjoyable & felt just as it should be.
Tracey was called to another labor then, but she wanted to check for tearing first. This was the part I’d feared about a homebirth. If I tore & needed stitches, what would I do? I couldn’t imagine having unmedicated stitches on such a sore area.
Turns out, I did tear, and it was enough for a couple stitches, but it was also small enough that I was okay to heal without stitches if I agreed to stay in bed for 6 days, then only take the stairs once/day for the next 8 days after that. It would be a total of a 2-week healing period where I was allowed to do little more than sit, nurse & watch TV.
It was hard to go for those 2 weeks. I felt like they would never end! I didn’t anticipate that nursing would be as difficult as it was in the beginning either, but that’s for another story. The thing I forgot to factor in with learning to breastfeed was that my birth injuries would make it very hard to maneuver my body. This made latching her on much more difficult.
All in all, though, staying out of the hospital made everything worth it. I have a few regrets…the most notable was that I didn’t vocalize the fact that the extreme tiredness I felt after birth did not feel normal. I feel a little robbed of that first 45 minutes with her. Yes, she was in my arms, but I barely noticed her there.
The next 24 hours more than made up for it though. We were together the whole time, the three of us. (Me, M & her placenta – ha!) I was able to sleep in my own bed without strangers coming in and out of my room, requiring things of me. I was able to eat real food that my dear husband made for me and was able to be nursed by him instead.
And by the next morning, I was securely in love.
I have felt guilty that I haven’t written this out yet. The biggest reason I’ve neglected the task is because M allows me very little two-handed typing time. But then, as time passed, I became less and less driven to do it. Yesterday, I was reading my friend Caitlin’s birth story, and realized so many details of M’s were already becoming fuzzy; my time was limited if I wanted a detailed recollection.
I give this preface because I’m still not feeling motivated, and I’m 50% the writer I should be when I’m not motivated. So if I bore you with this, I’m sorry.
I will say that the things I loved most about M’s birth were the parts where I knew things before they happened. Some people would call it intuition, and that may be correct, since I think the whole process of labor and birth puts you in a spiritual and animal/instinctual position that could easily heighten all your senses, including the sixth one.
My take on it is a little different. I think M and I were communicating very clearly, and that I heard what she was telling me through an intuition or sixth sense. We still communicate pretty clearly now, but it’s so obviously different. All of our communication is now external communication, which includes my observations, her language (vocal & non-verbal), and my past experience with babies. Within a couple days of her birth, however, I realized I felt like my inner advisor was gone and that while my maternal instincts were still strong, my intuition was greatly decreased. I still had lots of strong hormones having their way with me at that point, so if my way of knowing things were simply a side effect of hormonally-induced heightened awareness, then you’d think I’d not notice such an immediate difference.
It probably doesn’t matter one way or the other. Regardless of the science behind the phenomenon, I feel very connected to M and very calm about her birth and her person today. We still have quite the little love affair going on.
I’ll start with the fact that although she was in an optimal, head-down position throughout the entire 3rd trimester, she flipped breech on me at 38+ weeks. And I chose not to turn her. Tracey (my midwife) and Dr. Bowen both told me that sometimes babies turn because of a cord issue and that turning them back can actually be harmful. But that they were both willing to try while she was under close monitoring if that’s what I wanted.
I felt that if M turned on her own all the way at 38+ weeks, then that’s what she wanted. I half-heartedly tried turning her one night in the birthing tub. I talked to her, I put gentle pressure on her, I told her I trusted her judgment, but that if she could turn, that would be best.
She didn’t turn. So I decided to go ahead with the plan and leave her as she was. In my mind, she was as much a lucid individual capable of making individual decisions as I was. Perhaps she knew best. After all, she had the best (only) view of her environment in there. Tracey requested that I look into the dangers of birthing breech so I could make an informed decision of whether I was still comfortable with my homebirthing plan. I promised I would look into it. I didn’t. I just wasn’t worried at all. I look back on that decision now & think, “I was crazy!” But at the time, I strongly believe M herself let me know it was okay.
I had only one somewhat persistent fear, and that was that I would birth her all the way to the head and then she would get stuck & I would have to transport to the hospital to get her out, with her body hanging out the whole time. I now know that would probably be impossible – she would have almost certainly died in that situation. But that was my only fear.
I started having widely spaced, noticeable contractions on Thursday afternoon. They continued through the night, but weren’t terribly regular and I was able to sleep through them. They picked up again to about every 15 minutes Friday morning. I had a chiropractor appointment that morning and on the way there, I called Jeff to tell him I didn’t want him going to Indiana the next morning as he had planned. I didn’t tell him I thought I was in labor or anything. I’d been having contractions for a couple weeks that were irregular and noticeable. They had even been every 15 minutes for several hours at a time on many nights. I didn’t know if this was it or not, I just knew I did not want him going to Indiana.
He protested that it had to be done and that he would only be an hour away, so if anything happened he could come right home. At that point, I broke down and cried and sobbed on the phone, yelled at him, told him to just do whatever he wanted, I would find someone else to be with me! I hung up on him. I said to myself, “Screw him, he’ll be lucky if I even LET him be at MY birth. I have other people! I don’t need him!” I cried big heaving sobs all the way to the chiro’s office. When I got there, I thought that I was having an awfully strong reaction to this fight. I wondered if maybe I was really in labor.
At Dr. Lang’s, she asked how I was doing. I told her about the spaced-out contractions. She said, “You look like you’re in early labor. I think you are. I think this is it.” Later she told me I had that faraway look of a focused mother about to give birth. Maybe Dr. Lang is just intuitive herself. I think she is.
That afternoon, I had been planning to go to Dana’s for a playdate. As the time got closer, my contractions were still the same. Jeff agreed he wouldn’t go to Indiana the next day, but we both were still wondering if it would be a trip missed for no reason. As I prepared to go to Dana’s, I kept thinking I should take a change of pants in case my water broke. As I worked through all the stuff on my list to take, the pants kept getting put off, and I kept reminding myself to grab them – just in case. I walked out without them.
It was a shame I left them at home, because when I walked into Dana’s, I went to the kitchen to make my green drink & get some water & I felt something different that made me run to the bathroom. It turned out to be my mucous plug. I know this because I made my friends come up and examine it. I have good friends.
I was very excited, but I knew it could still be days off, so I went downstairs & planned to stay for our playdate. I got down to the living room and was standing there when all of a sudden, here came the big gush of fluid all over the living room floor. Dana gave me towels and dry clothes. I’m so glad my labor started with friends in that environment instead of, say, Kroger.
Well now there would be no relaxing. I could barely even carry on a conversation. I called Jeff to come pick me up and bring dry clothes. Now we knew cancelling the Indiana trip was a wise choice! When Jeff showed up, he had that excited, which-way-do-I-turn look about him. It was cute. Sassy stayed at Dana’s with Caroline offering to bring her home when I called for her. We didn’t realize that would be Sunday morning!
For the next 24 hours, I had the same every 15 minute contractions. They were uncomfortable enough that I couldn’t sleep. At 2:00 a.m. I was up digging out curtains and fabric from the basement so I could cover all of our windows. I did not want to give birth if any of my neighbors could see inside. When Tracey came to check on me, she said that the baby was posterior and was probably trying to turn herself before active labor would start. All day Saturday, Jeff and I waited for the contractions to pick up. We had just discovered we had a bunch of free cable channels, but I couldn’t stand the TV on. I couldn’t focus on anything except the labor. But strangely, I wasn’t as bored as I’d have expected. We just talked and joked about stuff. We ate food. We sat around. Sassy was still at Caroline’s. She had just had her first sleepover!
Around 3:00, we decided I should get into the birth pool and try to get M to switch to anterior so we could get this show on the road. We both talked to her, me from the inside, Jeff from the outside. Jeff tried to do some hands-on energy work with her. Afterwards, he said he felt she was scared and nervous about what was going on. He said her environment had changed and wasn’t very comfortable and she didn’t know what to do. He said it would be like going from a swimming pool to a wet, warm garbage bag, and it scared her. He talked to her quite a bit over the next hour, telling her how brave she was, and how she could do it, she could turn for us. He told her we were so excited to meet her, but she had to be strong and turn over first. We kept monitoring my belly, and within about an hour’s time, she had made the flip.
My contractions picked up to about every 6 or 7 minutes then, but I was getting tired and knew that I’d already lost a full night’s sleep. Plus, it was Caroline’s birthday (and my due date – the due date I chose for myself, at least), and I wanted to have her that night. Tracey had extensive dental surgery scheduled for Monday, and she was nervous that the labor could go on into that time. We had talked of resorting to castor oil if things were still stagnant by Sunday morning.
Jeff told me I should try to take a nap around 6:00, but I didn’t want to go upstairs by myself. He said he’d come up with me if I didn’t want to be alone. As I laid there trying to sleep a little, I remembered all the induction stuff I’d read and I joked to Jeff that we should mess around and “get the show on the road the old-fashioned way.” Besides, I told him, that’s all he’d be getting before the long drought ahead. He said, sure, why not.
I didn’t think much would come of it. I certainly didn’t expect that my contractions would pick up from every 6-7 minutes to every 1-2 minutes in the span of 10 minutes. Honestly, after all that gradual build-up to labor, going from zero to sixty in 10 minutes time was very overwhelming.
I came down and got into the pool, and by now, I couldn’t keep quiet during contractions and had to actively manage the pain with them. I knelt in the pool with my hands against my back and swayed with each one. This helped the pain. We called Tracey in at this point. I think she was relieved!
By 10:00, the contractions had become so intense and long that no pain management techniques seemed to help. I made Jeff follow me around and press on my back with each contraction. I don’t think it helped the pain so much as distract me from it. I remember very little of this time-warp time except a few random images.
I remember walking around the house, just pacing in a big circle through the hall, through the kitchen and dining room, around through the living room, back through the hall. I joked about it to Tracey and she said all her ladies did the “labor walk.”
I remember getting in the shower on my hands and knees which helped for some indecipherable period of time.
I remember going into the bathroom and leaning against the towel rack with each contraction while Jeff pressed on my back for another period of time. Apparently I banged my head against the bathroom wall during these. The next day, I had a bruised sore spot from the head banging.
I remember leaning against the kitchen counter with Tracey on “back pressing duty” for awhile. I was very vocal during all of these contractions. I think a more accurate analysis was that I screamed during every contraction throughout my entire active labor. I was so glad I was at home and not at the hospital. I don’t think I could have been that uninhibited at the hospital and for some reason, the screaming helped the pain. At the hospital, I would have been begging for the drugs.
I remember feeling I had to poop and Tracey telling me I had to “birth my poop” before I could birth my baby. She suggested I sit on the toilet. I did, with my legs up on the tub in front of me and Tracey in the tub. OUCH! OW OW OW OW! That was the most painful of all the contractions. There was NO WAY I was going to be able to “birth my poop” there. I believe this to be one of the worst parts of the labor. When I finally came downstairs after my 6-day bedrest upstairs, I had uncomfortable flashbacks when I tried to use the downstairs toilet for several days. I joked it was post-traumatic stress syndrome.
After I was unsuccessful in birthing my poop, I went back to the birthing tub and hung over the side. Later, I looked up the signs of “transition.” I think this was my transition period. I remember chanting “Come baby, please come. Come on baby, pleeease,” with each contraction.
Tracey taught me how to vocalize low with contractions instead of the high-pitched screaming I was doing. Right about this time, I would start with a low-pitched vocalization, but it started to turn into a grunt. Tracey told me I was wanting to push and I had to “blow it off” (think Lamaze type breathing) because of M’s breech presentation. I wasn’t allowed to push until she was rumping (not crowning, but rumping).
Eventually, they gave me the go ahead to push. The videotape ran out around this time (gotta love the timing), but the second midwife Tracey had brought in, Candace, was snapping pics like crazy. I love Candace for this! And for many other reasons….she was very sweet and instantly likable.
I pushed with each contraction starting around 1:20 a.m. but made very little progress at first. I was on hands and knees at this point, which is how Tracey told me I should visualize birthing breech. I asked if I could flip over onto my back in the pool and Tracey said I could try, but it probably wouldn’t work as well. But, as soon as I flipped, I started to make some pushing progress.
I have so many wonderful pictures to document this part, so I’ll be brief here on the things I remember. I remember that it took Tracey, her assistant Sora, Candace, and myself to hold my legs apart so that I could push better. For some reason, it is nearly impossible for me to keep my legs apart if I feel threatened in any way. And of course, there was a lot going on, a lot of people around, and a lot of pain down there, so my legs were acting independently of my wishes.
I remember pushing being very painful but very satisfying at the same time. I remember being excited that I was about to hold my baby. I remember being excited that it was almost OVER! I remember looking at the (tape run out) video camera square on, and screaming, “F*** ME! THE RING OF FIRE F***ING HURTS!” I remember Tracey telling me to put my legs up on the side of the pool but not to push with my legs. She said to imagine I was pushing a grand piano up a mountain with my vagina. I remember at the next contraction, I screamed, “I AM PUSHING A GRAND PIANO UP A MOUNTAIN WITH MY VAGINA!” And I remember it being a very productive push.
There was a time, longer than the midwives would have liked I think, where M’s rump and folded-up legs down to her knees were out, but I wasn’t making very fast progress past this point. They asked me if I wanted to touch her, and I said no. Jeff said, “I think you should touch your baby. It’s okay.” So I did, and things quickly sped up then. I was so tired feeling, but as soon as I felt her, I got renewed energy. “I’m sorry, baby! I’m so sorry! I’ll do better! I’ll push harder! I’m so sorry!” I don’t remember saying this exactly; Jeff told me about it later.
So with the next push came all of her legs, and then an arm with the next, and the other arm with the next. And then, my contractions went away. Tracey hypothesized later that it was because I felt threatened, my legs were being held open, and my body shut down. Jeff hypothesized that my body thought she was already out. Either way, we had a head inside waiting for another contraction which never came. It was interesting to note in retrospect that this had been my only persistent fear of birthing breech.
For 3 whole minutes we waited. Candace got a dozen pictures of body-out head-in during this time. Tracey checked M’s heartbeat almost continuously. We still waited for the contraction. Then I saw Tracey give a glance to Candace after a heartbeat check, a glance that said, “Now,” very clearly, although no words were spoken. She said something to me along the lines of, “Okay, here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to push, you’re going to push now, you’re not going to stop pushing until the baby is out. I’m going to go inside and help you.” Jeff said, “You can do this, this is for our baby, you can do it.” And so I did.
I pushed and pushed. I pushed through what I later called the “tunnel of fire.” I didn’t quit until she was out. Tracey laid her on my chest and was in high-action, concerned mode. M opened one little eye at us, then shut it and laid on my chest while Tracey did her infant resuscitation routine, which she had shown us before the birth. She had warned us that many babies, almost 25%, need a little help after birth from a difficult journey. I still wasn’t very worried despite Tracey’s serious face and focus on the task. I help M, rubbed her feet and arms, talked to her. My only anxious thought was, “I don’t want to have a stillborn and be blamed for it.”
But that thought didn’t stick around long because Candace was listening to her heart rate during this time, and after 30 seconds or less, Candace had a reassuring voice. She said, “Tracey, we have good heart tones. We have 60, we have 80, okay we’re at 100, 120. I think we can stop.” And then, right on cue, M coughed, spit up a little and cried. It’s the only cry she’s ever had that made me happy. We all smiled and Tracey put her equipment away. (She only told me her lowest heart rate later, when I pressed her. She said 20-40, but she didn’t get a good count because there wasn’t time.)
I still wasn’t having contractions, so we didn’t wait for me to birth the placenta in my own time. Tracey told me to just push it out, which I did. Then I really wanted to get out of the pool.
I handed M to Jeff and all 3 midwives helped me to the recliner in the living room. I was shaking & shivering uncontrollably, so they wrapped me in blankets. Apparently, this shaking is common with the post-birth hormonal shift.
Tracey was concerned about my lack of contractions and my pale color, so she was insistent that I latch M right away to stop any uterine bleeding. I was so tired! I felt like I could fall asleep on the spot. I couldn’t pay attention to anything around me and was trying my best to keep my eyes open, since I wasn’t allowed to go to sleep for at least 3 hours. I honestly didn’t even have that much interest in latching M or getting to know her at that point. I was just too tired and out of it.
Tracey’s assistant kept trying to get M latched on for me, but I barely remember it. I just remember feeling like a rag doll, with my breast being shoved into M’s mouth over & over by her assistant while I stared off into space uninterested. I kept thinking something didn’t feel right, that I was too tired, but I didn’t want to alarm anyone.
Finally, maybe 45 minutes later, I told Tracey I needed to use the bathroom, maybe walk around. I needed a break from the weird rag-doll like latching thing; plus, I just really wanted to use the bathroom. When I sat on the toilet, it became obvious that I was bleeding too much, and Tracey started to explain why she thought I should have a shot of pitocin. I welcomed the medicine. I just wanted to feel better.
Within 15 minutes of the pitocin shot, I was a new person! I became assertive enough again to tell everyone to leave me alone and give me my baby. I held her, engaged her finally, and began to bond with her. Within just a few minutes more, I latched her on myself…not because I had to, but because I wanted to. It hurt hurt hurt! My nipples were not toughened at all! But it was still enjoyable & felt just as it should be.
Tracey was called to another labor then, but she wanted to check for tearing first. This was the part I’d feared about a homebirth. If I tore & needed stitches, what would I do? I couldn’t imagine having unmedicated stitches on such a sore area.
Turns out, I did tear, and it was enough for a couple stitches, but it was also small enough that I was okay to heal without stitches if I agreed to stay in bed for 6 days, then only take the stairs once/day for the next 8 days after that. It would be a total of a 2-week healing period where I was allowed to do little more than sit, nurse & watch TV.
It was hard to go for those 2 weeks. I felt like they would never end! I didn’t anticipate that nursing would be as difficult as it was in the beginning either, but that’s for another story. The thing I forgot to factor in with learning to breastfeed was that my birth injuries would make it very hard to maneuver my body. This made latching her on much more difficult.
All in all, though, staying out of the hospital made everything worth it. I have a few regrets…the most notable was that I didn’t vocalize the fact that the extreme tiredness I felt after birth did not feel normal. I feel a little robbed of that first 45 minutes with her. Yes, she was in my arms, but I barely noticed her there.
The next 24 hours more than made up for it though. We were together the whole time, the three of us. (Me, M & her placenta – ha!) I was able to sleep in my own bed without strangers coming in and out of my room, requiring things of me. I was able to eat real food that my dear husband made for me and was able to be nursed by him instead.
And by the next morning, I was securely in love.
Thursday, January 01, 2009
Sunday, December 14, 2008
what is personality?
The other day, a video showed up in my email inbox as part of my weekly Mercola newsletter. The video was an excerpt of a lecture by a leading autism researcher. I listened to about 10 minutes until I had to move on to other activities, but one thing he said kept sticking with me. He said that each child receives a large percentage of the mother's cumulative toxic load while in utero. This is especially significant for first-born children.
This information resonated with me for a few reasons. First, it passed the common sense test. I evaluate all new medical "data" primarily by applying it to common sense. I consider everything I've learned and accepted previously on the subject, then ask myself if the new data would logically follow. In this case, I knew that nearly all US mothers have a high toxic load, and that their cumulative toxicity typically increases as they age. I also know that most US mothers have a cocktail of toxins stored in their fatty tissues and that the level of toxins in our environment has increased significantly in just the past two generations. And I know that due to the Standard American Diet and the prevalence of prescription medications in both our bathroom cabinets and our drinking water, most US mothers have clogged livers in varying degrees that prevent our bodies from successfully clearing these toxins. It would only make (common) sense, then, that we could pass these on to our children and that our firstborns could receive the bulk of them.
Second, purely through experience, it seems that of all the children I know who have any of the autism spectrum disorders, Tourette's, significant OCD, ADD, or hyperactivity, most are firstborns. Subsequent children often seem to not have these issues at all; if they do, symptoms are much milder. This is actually a pattern I had noticed before the video offered a plausible explanation. Before, I had chalked it up to not knowing as much with firstborns as with future siblings -- not as much about good nutrition, about healthy birth practices, about the dangers of a chemical environment. In my particular circle of friends, that is probably the case. However, is it within the general public?
I decided I needed to do some quick internet searching to see if there was truly an increased percentage of firstborns with autism compared to later siblings. Turns out, one study kept coming up that showed an increased rate not only in firstborns as compared to later siblings, but also in firstborns of mothers of advanced maternal age (over 35) as compared to firstborns of younger mothers.
For me, this simply solidified the theory the autism researcher had posited in his video. Certainly, as mothers age, their cumulative toxic load would also increase. This could certainly result in more toxins given to firstborns in direct relation to the age of the mother.
Now our researcher didn't simply leave it at mom has accumulated toxins equals mom has child with autism. His theory actually pointed to untimely viruses, either through vaccinations or through natural causes, having a domino effect in the body of a child whose system is already overwhelmed by clearing mom's inherited toxins. The end result was a drastic and aggressive growth of mold & yeast within the body, causing brain changes that developed into autism. Yikes. But very interesting, since (again) circumstantial evidence has pointed to aspects of this theory for a long time. For example, on the Tourette's board I used to visit, clearing systemic yeast & avoiding molds was one of the first courses of action for new visitors. There were also many parents who reported that their children developed their first tics within a week of their preschool booster vaccines (about 30% of new visitors showed up after a recent vaccine which left their child noticeably ticcing without any prior history). And then strep throat was another known trigger. There was even a name for this type of Tourette's development, called PANDAS, and it was treated by a heavy course of antibiotics, sometimes lasting years.
It was thrilling to hear someone bring all these random aspects together into a comprehensible, plausible course of events where I could finally understand how the entire system could degrade from start to finish.
Now although I learned quite a bit of new information about the systemic effects of maternal toxins, it doesn't change much for me personally. I will still avoid the same chemicals I always have and I'll still keep them from Sydney and from our new baby. In fact, at this point, if given the choice to be rid of the Tourette's forever through either surgery or some magic pill, I suspect I would deny it. You can read all the labels in the world, read everything ever written on additives & preservatives & chemicals, spend hundreds of dollars on mold testing and environmental cleansing, but I will still be better at avoiding these toxins. All it takes is one serving of a chemical-laden food or five minutes in a moldy home or a home with high VOCs, or one glass of water from a city water source or a mildewed container, and I know to avoid it. I've come to view it as an innate skill rather than a burden to bear, particulary since if I avoid all those chemicals and mold and VOCs, I suffer zero symptoms. Why would I give that up?
Well, I also occasionally suffer symptoms from biological sources. This tells me my body is out of whack, and it typically takes just a couple weeks of trial and error or a visit to Dr. Lang to get back on track. Again, why in the world would I give that up? What an inexpensive diagnostic tool!
But hearing the new theory has raised some different questions for me. What if this is true? What if all firstborns, like myself, get the majority of their mom's toxic load? There are exceptions, of course. Mothers who develop a serious disease that requires a litany of prescription medicine or even chemotherapy, or mothers who accept a job with significant environmental exposure to toxins, etc., etc., could easily pass a more toxic load to later siblings than to their firstborns. But for the sake of generalization, if firstborns tend to have a higher toxic load at birth than later siblings, how does that affect the notorious "personality of firstborns?"
Much has been written about the various personality generalizations of children in certain spots in the birth order, but firstborns and lastborns probably receive the bulk of the attention. Firstborns are thought to be selfish, jealous, quick to temper, highstrung, hyperactive, but creative, outgoing, funny, entertaining, and happy in the spotlight. Conventional wisdom says this is the case because they were the center of attention for those years before baby #2 came along. But is it possible that some of these personality attributes are actually the result of an early toxic load and its domino effect on the body?
Although the attributes of the firstborn are also often seen in those with high-functioning autism, ADD, OCD & Tourette's, I would probably have laughed off this possibility even six months ago. But I've spent the past six months in pregnancy with wildly fluctuating hormones that have left me feeling a strong deja vu for the way I reacted to things throughout my twenties. After a few of these jealous, insecure, hormonal episodes, I began to wonder why I was having a resurgence of feelings I felt I'd grown out of, that I'd left behind. At a prenatal with my midwife, she happened to mention that I needed to take special care with my liver right now as it was processing the hormonal equivalent of 200 birth control pills a day. I then remembered my friend telling me she could never take birth control pills because they made her hormonal and crazy.
And suddenly I wondered if my insecurity and jealousy and general focus on boyfriends throughout my 20s wasn't so much my personality as it was those damn birth control pills.
What if I'd not been focused on guys so much? What if the birth control pills were robbing me of the mental stability I was craving? Would I have finished school earlier? Would I have told exes what I now wish I'd said? Would I have not played games I now wish I'd never played?
Or, as another friend put it, "What could we have done with our lives if we weren't so busy being sluts?" Not that the whole slutty thing was really my thing, but the obsessive components I've felt off and on throughout this pregnancy, the crying jags, the longings for escape, the distrust of people who claimed to love me, yeah, that was my thing. What could I have done with my life if I wasn't so busy chasing love -- love that was probably already there?
That was a very weird realization for me. I know the same friend who commiserated with me on chasing guys too much had her own smack up the head realization when she had to test her blood sugar daily & it came back as a big fat hypoglycemic diagnosis. She was thrown for a loop. What if all this time I thought anger & rage was just my personality, when in reality, I would have been fine if I'd just eaten something, she wondered. I remember when I recognized my own rage issues with low blood sugar. I was actually relieved. I was relieved that I was not, in fact, an angry person or worse yet, an out-of-control mother. I just needed to eat when I was hungry and stay away from foods that caused big crashes afterwards.
What is it about finding a potential chemical cause for what we assumed was a personality quirk that rocks our foundation as it does?
I think it has to do with the connection we have in our minds of personality and spirit. I know that I have always assumed that my spirit, my soul, is intricately tied with my personality. I haven't actually given it any conscious thought; I simply envision my soul as this wispy, ethereal version of my personality buried somewhere in the middle of my body.
But when we realize that our personality could just as well be formed by biological responses to chemical factors, well, where does that leave us? It leaves us with an identity crisis in many ways. And it leaves us exploring further our definition of our soul. If our soul and our personality are different and separate, then what exactly defines our soul?
What big questions to have when I'm so tired and busy in general. But they are too important to ignore. For the first time in my life, I could perhaps glimpse my own soul, learn to define it, get to know it. How could I not give that attention?
This information resonated with me for a few reasons. First, it passed the common sense test. I evaluate all new medical "data" primarily by applying it to common sense. I consider everything I've learned and accepted previously on the subject, then ask myself if the new data would logically follow. In this case, I knew that nearly all US mothers have a high toxic load, and that their cumulative toxicity typically increases as they age. I also know that most US mothers have a cocktail of toxins stored in their fatty tissues and that the level of toxins in our environment has increased significantly in just the past two generations. And I know that due to the Standard American Diet and the prevalence of prescription medications in both our bathroom cabinets and our drinking water, most US mothers have clogged livers in varying degrees that prevent our bodies from successfully clearing these toxins. It would only make (common) sense, then, that we could pass these on to our children and that our firstborns could receive the bulk of them.
Second, purely through experience, it seems that of all the children I know who have any of the autism spectrum disorders, Tourette's, significant OCD, ADD, or hyperactivity, most are firstborns. Subsequent children often seem to not have these issues at all; if they do, symptoms are much milder. This is actually a pattern I had noticed before the video offered a plausible explanation. Before, I had chalked it up to not knowing as much with firstborns as with future siblings -- not as much about good nutrition, about healthy birth practices, about the dangers of a chemical environment. In my particular circle of friends, that is probably the case. However, is it within the general public?
I decided I needed to do some quick internet searching to see if there was truly an increased percentage of firstborns with autism compared to later siblings. Turns out, one study kept coming up that showed an increased rate not only in firstborns as compared to later siblings, but also in firstborns of mothers of advanced maternal age (over 35) as compared to firstborns of younger mothers.
For me, this simply solidified the theory the autism researcher had posited in his video. Certainly, as mothers age, their cumulative toxic load would also increase. This could certainly result in more toxins given to firstborns in direct relation to the age of the mother.
Now our researcher didn't simply leave it at mom has accumulated toxins equals mom has child with autism. His theory actually pointed to untimely viruses, either through vaccinations or through natural causes, having a domino effect in the body of a child whose system is already overwhelmed by clearing mom's inherited toxins. The end result was a drastic and aggressive growth of mold & yeast within the body, causing brain changes that developed into autism. Yikes. But very interesting, since (again) circumstantial evidence has pointed to aspects of this theory for a long time. For example, on the Tourette's board I used to visit, clearing systemic yeast & avoiding molds was one of the first courses of action for new visitors. There were also many parents who reported that their children developed their first tics within a week of their preschool booster vaccines (about 30% of new visitors showed up after a recent vaccine which left their child noticeably ticcing without any prior history). And then strep throat was another known trigger. There was even a name for this type of Tourette's development, called PANDAS, and it was treated by a heavy course of antibiotics, sometimes lasting years.
It was thrilling to hear someone bring all these random aspects together into a comprehensible, plausible course of events where I could finally understand how the entire system could degrade from start to finish.
Now although I learned quite a bit of new information about the systemic effects of maternal toxins, it doesn't change much for me personally. I will still avoid the same chemicals I always have and I'll still keep them from Sydney and from our new baby. In fact, at this point, if given the choice to be rid of the Tourette's forever through either surgery or some magic pill, I suspect I would deny it. You can read all the labels in the world, read everything ever written on additives & preservatives & chemicals, spend hundreds of dollars on mold testing and environmental cleansing, but I will still be better at avoiding these toxins. All it takes is one serving of a chemical-laden food or five minutes in a moldy home or a home with high VOCs, or one glass of water from a city water source or a mildewed container, and I know to avoid it. I've come to view it as an innate skill rather than a burden to bear, particulary since if I avoid all those chemicals and mold and VOCs, I suffer zero symptoms. Why would I give that up?
Well, I also occasionally suffer symptoms from biological sources. This tells me my body is out of whack, and it typically takes just a couple weeks of trial and error or a visit to Dr. Lang to get back on track. Again, why in the world would I give that up? What an inexpensive diagnostic tool!
But hearing the new theory has raised some different questions for me. What if this is true? What if all firstborns, like myself, get the majority of their mom's toxic load? There are exceptions, of course. Mothers who develop a serious disease that requires a litany of prescription medicine or even chemotherapy, or mothers who accept a job with significant environmental exposure to toxins, etc., etc., could easily pass a more toxic load to later siblings than to their firstborns. But for the sake of generalization, if firstborns tend to have a higher toxic load at birth than later siblings, how does that affect the notorious "personality of firstborns?"
Much has been written about the various personality generalizations of children in certain spots in the birth order, but firstborns and lastborns probably receive the bulk of the attention. Firstborns are thought to be selfish, jealous, quick to temper, highstrung, hyperactive, but creative, outgoing, funny, entertaining, and happy in the spotlight. Conventional wisdom says this is the case because they were the center of attention for those years before baby #2 came along. But is it possible that some of these personality attributes are actually the result of an early toxic load and its domino effect on the body?
Although the attributes of the firstborn are also often seen in those with high-functioning autism, ADD, OCD & Tourette's, I would probably have laughed off this possibility even six months ago. But I've spent the past six months in pregnancy with wildly fluctuating hormones that have left me feeling a strong deja vu for the way I reacted to things throughout my twenties. After a few of these jealous, insecure, hormonal episodes, I began to wonder why I was having a resurgence of feelings I felt I'd grown out of, that I'd left behind. At a prenatal with my midwife, she happened to mention that I needed to take special care with my liver right now as it was processing the hormonal equivalent of 200 birth control pills a day. I then remembered my friend telling me she could never take birth control pills because they made her hormonal and crazy.
And suddenly I wondered if my insecurity and jealousy and general focus on boyfriends throughout my 20s wasn't so much my personality as it was those damn birth control pills.
What if I'd not been focused on guys so much? What if the birth control pills were robbing me of the mental stability I was craving? Would I have finished school earlier? Would I have told exes what I now wish I'd said? Would I have not played games I now wish I'd never played?
Or, as another friend put it, "What could we have done with our lives if we weren't so busy being sluts?" Not that the whole slutty thing was really my thing, but the obsessive components I've felt off and on throughout this pregnancy, the crying jags, the longings for escape, the distrust of people who claimed to love me, yeah, that was my thing. What could I have done with my life if I wasn't so busy chasing love -- love that was probably already there?
That was a very weird realization for me. I know the same friend who commiserated with me on chasing guys too much had her own smack up the head realization when she had to test her blood sugar daily & it came back as a big fat hypoglycemic diagnosis. She was thrown for a loop. What if all this time I thought anger & rage was just my personality, when in reality, I would have been fine if I'd just eaten something, she wondered. I remember when I recognized my own rage issues with low blood sugar. I was actually relieved. I was relieved that I was not, in fact, an angry person or worse yet, an out-of-control mother. I just needed to eat when I was hungry and stay away from foods that caused big crashes afterwards.
What is it about finding a potential chemical cause for what we assumed was a personality quirk that rocks our foundation as it does?
I think it has to do with the connection we have in our minds of personality and spirit. I know that I have always assumed that my spirit, my soul, is intricately tied with my personality. I haven't actually given it any conscious thought; I simply envision my soul as this wispy, ethereal version of my personality buried somewhere in the middle of my body.
But when we realize that our personality could just as well be formed by biological responses to chemical factors, well, where does that leave us? It leaves us with an identity crisis in many ways. And it leaves us exploring further our definition of our soul. If our soul and our personality are different and separate, then what exactly defines our soul?
What big questions to have when I'm so tired and busy in general. But they are too important to ignore. For the first time in my life, I could perhaps glimpse my own soul, learn to define it, get to know it. How could I not give that attention?
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
third trimester blues
I would really like to know if one day, I will quit feeling guilty about all the various ways I am shortchanging my child. Children. Either one.
Sassy is at Nana's for two nights. I dropped her off tonight. My dad asked me why 2 nights. I told him they would treat her better over there. He laughed like I was joking, but sadly, I'm not. Last night, I had what I'd refer to as a "toddler meltdown," you know, that same type of meltdown that happens when you push, push, push a tired toddler about three hours too far and then you pay. Only I'm old enough to curse, so I did. A lot.
And you know, that's just the tip of the iceberg. Right now my biggest guilt revolves around Christmas and my absolute, complete lack of interest in it. This is not me! Christmas has always been my favorite holiday. I love every last bit of it. The Christmas music, which I only play between Thanksgiving & Christmas, so it doesn't lose its allure. The Christmas village, meticulously set up each year on the mantel. Unwrapping each ornament to gingerly arrange on the tree, recounting where it came from and why it is special. I've barely kept myself from shoving these traditions down the throat of my previously-a-little-too-young-to-get-it daughter for the past 5 years.
But now....now that she's finally old enough to really get it, to really get into it all with me, I just don't care. The tree? Sounds like a lot of hassle and worse yet, a lot of cleanup. The village? Oh, come on, somebody will have to put that away and nobody does it right but me. And I'll have a new baby! I don't want to have to fool with a breakable village! I play the Christmas music and it really does nothing for me. Yeah, yeah, the herald angels are singing, we know. Silent night in the little town of Bethlehem, baby's in the manger, I've got my own baby to worry about right now thankyouverymuch!
Not that I'm trying to belittle the birth of Jesus, really I'm not. I feel like I should feel more of something. More awe, more wonder, more gratitude, more grace, more love, more joy, more something. But really, I feel tired. And grumpy. And way too sensitive & insecure & paranoid & hormonal for my own good. And...that's about it.
Except guilt. I feel guilty too.
So does the guilt eventually end? Do these hormones eventually normalize? Does the energy come back? Does the thick emotional skin regrow? Do the endless tears finally end? I want to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but it just seems like one long ass tunnel that is called "my new life," like I'll never feel like my old self again. I hope that's not true.
Sassy is at Nana's for two nights. I dropped her off tonight. My dad asked me why 2 nights. I told him they would treat her better over there. He laughed like I was joking, but sadly, I'm not. Last night, I had what I'd refer to as a "toddler meltdown," you know, that same type of meltdown that happens when you push, push, push a tired toddler about three hours too far and then you pay. Only I'm old enough to curse, so I did. A lot.
And you know, that's just the tip of the iceberg. Right now my biggest guilt revolves around Christmas and my absolute, complete lack of interest in it. This is not me! Christmas has always been my favorite holiday. I love every last bit of it. The Christmas music, which I only play between Thanksgiving & Christmas, so it doesn't lose its allure. The Christmas village, meticulously set up each year on the mantel. Unwrapping each ornament to gingerly arrange on the tree, recounting where it came from and why it is special. I've barely kept myself from shoving these traditions down the throat of my previously-a-little-too-young-to-get-it daughter for the past 5 years.
But now....now that she's finally old enough to really get it, to really get into it all with me, I just don't care. The tree? Sounds like a lot of hassle and worse yet, a lot of cleanup. The village? Oh, come on, somebody will have to put that away and nobody does it right but me. And I'll have a new baby! I don't want to have to fool with a breakable village! I play the Christmas music and it really does nothing for me. Yeah, yeah, the herald angels are singing, we know. Silent night in the little town of Bethlehem, baby's in the manger, I've got my own baby to worry about right now thankyouverymuch!
Not that I'm trying to belittle the birth of Jesus, really I'm not. I feel like I should feel more of something. More awe, more wonder, more gratitude, more grace, more love, more joy, more something. But really, I feel tired. And grumpy. And way too sensitive & insecure & paranoid & hormonal for my own good. And...that's about it.
Except guilt. I feel guilty too.
So does the guilt eventually end? Do these hormones eventually normalize? Does the energy come back? Does the thick emotional skin regrow? Do the endless tears finally end? I want to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but it just seems like one long ass tunnel that is called "my new life," like I'll never feel like my old self again. I hope that's not true.
Monday, December 01, 2008
zee bagel shoppe
I woke up today after yet another full night's sleep (thank you body pillow for the sweet, sweet sleep) and sat down to do my 5 hours of Monday work. Most of you know about the virtual assistant job I have now with a local SEO company. Well, Monday's the big work day around here, so I typically either stay close to home all day working around small breaks or I go out to a wireless joint like Panera.
I thought of Panera this morning, but then decided as much as I'd like to go out & work without distractions, I really couldn't afford it. My gas tank was on empty, complete with gas light every time I started the car, and I had tapped all my spending money as an advance to pay for our Thanksgiving meal. But, once I got Panera in my head, I couldn't get bagels out of my head. Mmmmm....bagels. Bagels with sweet cream cheese. Yum.
After trying to talk myself out of the bagel possibility for a good half hour, I finally decided to look up a bagel recipe. How hard could it be, I figured? Probably most of the time would be hands-off time anyway, so I could work at the same time.
Well the recipe looked easy enough so I jumped in and had so much fun! And they turned out to be very yummy. I think I might become a regular bagel-maker. What a cool skill to acquire!
I made two types: sweet cinnamon & plain with salt. Here's some of the process.
First, I mixed & kneaded the bagel dough. I learned quite a bit about kneading dough in this part of the process. Jeff helped me figure out when it had been kneaded enough, which I had never learned before. I realized it has a totally different feel when the kneading is complete and that if you did it enough, you'd recognize the difference right away. Hand-kneading dough is one of those things I enjoy the same way I enjoy hanging our laundry. I could use the KitchenAid mixer for kneading dough or I could use the dryer for our clothes, but doing it the old way is so much more satisfying. (Not so, by the way, with dishes. The automatic dishwasher is far more satisfying than handwashing. By leaps and leaps and bounds and bounds.)
I broke the dough into little balls & let them rest and rise for a bit. Then, I rolled them into bagels. You start with rolling into a snake that is the width of both palms together. Then, you wrap the bagel around one hand to make a circle with the "seam" on your palm side, so you can press down to seal the seam more easily. I need to work on sealing the seams better next time. My seams split during the boiling phase, but baked up okay regardless.
Here they are shaped and resting/rising for the second time:
After resting & rising for 20 minutes in their bagel shapes, it was time to boil them for a minute on each side:
I baked them on well-oiled trays. One tray had oil with cinnamon & sugar sprinkled on it & the other tray had only oil & salt. They only had to bake for 10 minutes on each side.
We ended up with half a dozen bagels of each type. I mixed cream cheese with maple syrup and walnuts to make a sweet cream cheese spread.
I ate three! Ooh, they were so good. In fact, I think I'm about to make another for a nighttime snack. Yum.
Oh, and Sassy was happy. She bounced through the house saying, "Mommy made HEALTHY bagels! We can eat them!"
I won't be putting this one on my Supper in Seconds blog, considering it took at least 40 minutes of hands-on time, rather than the 10-minutes I like to keep recipes to on that blog. But if anyone would like the recipe, leave me a comment & I can easily pass it along.
And speaking of my other blogs, you might notice on the right-hand side of this blog, I've listed my others complete with RSS feeds that let you know when they were last updated. I've been updating Supper in Seconds a bit more lately.
I thought of Panera this morning, but then decided as much as I'd like to go out & work without distractions, I really couldn't afford it. My gas tank was on empty, complete with gas light every time I started the car, and I had tapped all my spending money as an advance to pay for our Thanksgiving meal. But, once I got Panera in my head, I couldn't get bagels out of my head. Mmmmm....bagels. Bagels with sweet cream cheese. Yum.
After trying to talk myself out of the bagel possibility for a good half hour, I finally decided to look up a bagel recipe. How hard could it be, I figured? Probably most of the time would be hands-off time anyway, so I could work at the same time.
Well the recipe looked easy enough so I jumped in and had so much fun! And they turned out to be very yummy. I think I might become a regular bagel-maker. What a cool skill to acquire!
I made two types: sweet cinnamon & plain with salt. Here's some of the process.
First, I mixed & kneaded the bagel dough. I learned quite a bit about kneading dough in this part of the process. Jeff helped me figure out when it had been kneaded enough, which I had never learned before. I realized it has a totally different feel when the kneading is complete and that if you did it enough, you'd recognize the difference right away. Hand-kneading dough is one of those things I enjoy the same way I enjoy hanging our laundry. I could use the KitchenAid mixer for kneading dough or I could use the dryer for our clothes, but doing it the old way is so much more satisfying. (Not so, by the way, with dishes. The automatic dishwasher is far more satisfying than handwashing. By leaps and leaps and bounds and bounds.)
I broke the dough into little balls & let them rest and rise for a bit. Then, I rolled them into bagels. You start with rolling into a snake that is the width of both palms together. Then, you wrap the bagel around one hand to make a circle with the "seam" on your palm side, so you can press down to seal the seam more easily. I need to work on sealing the seams better next time. My seams split during the boiling phase, but baked up okay regardless.
Here they are shaped and resting/rising for the second time:
After resting & rising for 20 minutes in their bagel shapes, it was time to boil them for a minute on each side:
I baked them on well-oiled trays. One tray had oil with cinnamon & sugar sprinkled on it & the other tray had only oil & salt. They only had to bake for 10 minutes on each side.
We ended up with half a dozen bagels of each type. I mixed cream cheese with maple syrup and walnuts to make a sweet cream cheese spread.
I ate three! Ooh, they were so good. In fact, I think I'm about to make another for a nighttime snack. Yum.
Oh, and Sassy was happy. She bounced through the house saying, "Mommy made HEALTHY bagels! We can eat them!"
I won't be putting this one on my Supper in Seconds blog, considering it took at least 40 minutes of hands-on time, rather than the 10-minutes I like to keep recipes to on that blog. But if anyone would like the recipe, leave me a comment & I can easily pass it along.
And speaking of my other blogs, you might notice on the right-hand side of this blog, I've listed my others complete with RSS feeds that let you know when they were last updated. I've been updating Supper in Seconds a bit more lately.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
why did the chicken cross the kitchen?
"TO GET SOMETHING TO EAT!!!"
Now, truthfully, we all know you can only fake laugh at these fake jokes so many times until you think, "Agghhh! Enough! Enough!" I think it's hilarious when Sassy and her friend N get together & crack each other up with stupid "jokes" like these. She'll say one, & then he'll try to one-up her, and then she'll try to one-up him & in the end, they are both belly-laughing over, "Why did the rhinoceros cross the street?" "BECAUSE HE'S A HIPPO!" Or something similarly non-sensical.
So you might understand my joy this morning when she told a real joke. A funny one that made me recognize how her humor is maturing & getting more skillful, and also drove me to my blog to record it.
Jeff spent the night on the land last night, which also happened to be the coldest night yet this season. It was supposed to dip into the teens & he went out to the land with a few of his guy friends to just be guys without their girls, I guess. All I know is Jeff was taking our ATV & his mini-bike, one guy was bringing his pistol, and all of them were bringing a bunch of beer. They brought no tents & planned to sleep outside around the fire. (Although I would bet good money they all ended up sleeping in their cars.)
So when we woke up this morning, I said to Sassy, "I bet Daddy is freezing his butt off."
And she laughed and said, "I bet he's freezing his whole body off!"
Then we rolled with it.
Me: "I bet he's freezing his toes off."
Her: "I bet he's freezing his belly off."
Me: "I bet he's freezing his elbows off."
Her: "I bet he's freezing his head off! Get it? His HEAD!"
We laughed. I said, "Sofie's up there too. I bet she's freezing her tail off!"
Her: "Yeah! I bet she's freezing her fur off!"
And then I was getting tired of this game, so to distract her, I said, "Ooh! You remember what happened last night? When you were eating those fennel seeds?"
She didn't remember that she had finally lost that second bottom front tooth, so I said, "Stick your tongue through your bottom teeth."
She did, and then said, "It was so cold, I froze my tooth off!"
And this actually made me laugh out loud. Good one, I told her.
We didn't put the tooth in her tooth fairy box under her pillow because she "CAN'T WAIT!" to show Daddy. We'll put it under tonight. I'm sure she'll be very excited to show everyone else next time she sees them, and I'll be anxiously waiting to see if those two front big teeth line up with one another. Right now, they are quite far apart with this last one sitting way back behind the other. Good thing we signed up for that dental insurance.
Now, truthfully, we all know you can only fake laugh at these fake jokes so many times until you think, "Agghhh! Enough! Enough!" I think it's hilarious when Sassy and her friend N get together & crack each other up with stupid "jokes" like these. She'll say one, & then he'll try to one-up her, and then she'll try to one-up him & in the end, they are both belly-laughing over, "Why did the rhinoceros cross the street?" "BECAUSE HE'S A HIPPO!" Or something similarly non-sensical.
So you might understand my joy this morning when she told a real joke. A funny one that made me recognize how her humor is maturing & getting more skillful, and also drove me to my blog to record it.
Jeff spent the night on the land last night, which also happened to be the coldest night yet this season. It was supposed to dip into the teens & he went out to the land with a few of his guy friends to just be guys without their girls, I guess. All I know is Jeff was taking our ATV & his mini-bike, one guy was bringing his pistol, and all of them were bringing a bunch of beer. They brought no tents & planned to sleep outside around the fire. (Although I would bet good money they all ended up sleeping in their cars.)
So when we woke up this morning, I said to Sassy, "I bet Daddy is freezing his butt off."
And she laughed and said, "I bet he's freezing his whole body off!"
Then we rolled with it.
Me: "I bet he's freezing his toes off."
Her: "I bet he's freezing his belly off."
Me: "I bet he's freezing his elbows off."
Her: "I bet he's freezing his head off! Get it? His HEAD!"
We laughed. I said, "Sofie's up there too. I bet she's freezing her tail off!"
Her: "Yeah! I bet she's freezing her fur off!"
And then I was getting tired of this game, so to distract her, I said, "Ooh! You remember what happened last night? When you were eating those fennel seeds?"
She didn't remember that she had finally lost that second bottom front tooth, so I said, "Stick your tongue through your bottom teeth."
She did, and then said, "It was so cold, I froze my tooth off!"
And this actually made me laugh out loud. Good one, I told her.
We didn't put the tooth in her tooth fairy box under her pillow because she "CAN'T WAIT!" to show Daddy. We'll put it under tonight. I'm sure she'll be very excited to show everyone else next time she sees them, and I'll be anxiously waiting to see if those two front big teeth line up with one another. Right now, they are quite far apart with this last one sitting way back behind the other. Good thing we signed up for that dental insurance.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
fear and loathing in my house
Fear? Impending birth.
Loathing? My housing situation.
Result? Flip-flop, can't sleep, 4:30 internal alarm clock.
I knew that I had too much whizzing around in my head these past few days, so of course, I get to pay for it with even less sleep so I can be even less equipped to deal with the issues at hand.
The option of a homebirth is still open to me, and I'm giving it serious consideration. I guess that means serious consideration at 4:30 in the morning. And I guess by "serious consideration," what I really mean is going through each and every plausible scenario until I can come up with a Plan B & a Plan C for each possible complication until I feel prepared enough to commit to it. I want to scream at my own mind, "Enough!"
Between a flip and a flop this morning, before I gave up on sleep and got out of bed, I told myself that there is no risk-free birth. I told myself that there is no perfect birth, and there is no perfect decision -- on anything. That any big decision like this just changes the path at the time, but it's not usually big win over here and big loss over here. And if it is that kind of decision, you rarely if ever know it while you're actually making the decision. In the end, what's most important, I told myself, is what you do in the midst of the action. How smart you are then; how much you are (or aren't) quick on your feet.
Jeff is all for having the baby at home. But what if? What if...
What if I have to be transported and there's a big snow storm (because it will be the middle of winter) and I can't get to the hospital that's only 5 minutes away?
What if I am actually being selfish and putting my baby under higher risk because I prefer not to be in the hospital being poked & prodded constantly?
What if I die? What if I die and then Sassy has to be where I am now -- forever? Always wanting a mother.
So then between another flip and another flop I ask myself, "Is this why I am the way I am? Is this why I have Plans A, B, C, & often D? Is this why I compulsively worry? And is this perhaps not simply common to the human experience?"
Everyone's reaction is pretty similar when I explain that I was raised by my grandparents because my mom died when I was young.
"Oh, I'm sorry."
To which, I reply, "Ah, it was a long time ago." The unspoken message: no need for sorry, that was way back, lots of time to get past that one.
But truthfully, I don't think I'll ever actually get past that one. Do other people? When their mothers die in the "natural" way, as in...when they are fully grown adults, do they also always feel somewhat empty and alone and frightened? What is common to the human experience?
Sassy told me the other day: "Mommy, if you went to Heaven, I would kill myself so I could go to Heaven and be with you!" I didn't respond right away, so she nervously said, "Just joking."
I didn't respond right away because I didn't know what to say. My first thoughts were, I completely understand where you're coming from & have felt the same way many times. But then, I knew that wasn't right.
Instead, I told her, "No...if Mommy dies, I would want you to live a long long time without me and be very happy and I could watch you be happy from Heaven." And the whole time I'm saying it, I'm thinking, What a load of crap. Because I don't really believe that people in our lives who have died are watching us from Heaven.
After a couple minutes of silence, I asked her, "Are you scared that Mommy will die?" This, of course, shut her down. She covered her ears & said, "I'm not talking to you! La, la, la, la, la."
Ah...she is such a me. I told her that most Mommies don't die and she didn't have to worry about it, and that's all I was going to say. Then I changed the subject.
I think that it must be part of her life experience now that Mommies can die. I don't feel guilty about that; I mean, what can I do about it? Mommies do die. I know that. And that is my life history. I can't change that for me or for her. But I'm not sure how much impact that has on her inner self.
If this house weren't a constant thorn in my side, I could probably settle down enough to sleep well, eat well, enjoy my pregnancy, and ultimately birth well. But just when I think I might be able to settle my mind & my fears & my inner worries, Huff Realty calls for a showing and the pot gets all stirred again. It truly is like a thorn. I imagine myself sleeping with a thorn in my side, all nice & comfortable on the left side. In the middle of the night, I drift to my back. Still comfy. About 4:30 a.m., I unconsciously roll to my right side, and "F*** ME!" I'm jolted awake again.
What can be done? Nothing. That's the sad part. Nothing. Little workarounds maybe. I'm thinking this morning that I can put a little box in each room so for a spur of the moment showing, I can throw everything in that box. It seems like it would be easy to run around with a box, stashing things away for showings, but it's so risky. You risk losing important things and then spending way too much frustrated time looking for them later. (Just ask the library how my account is looking these days & you'll know what I mean.) I thought perhaps if I had a box in each room, the likelihood of losing things would be much smaller.
Maybe I need to buy more convenience foods & maybe some more paper plates & cups. The kitchen mess is always the biggest mess around here.
But when the baby comes?
I can just imagine Huff Realty's duty desk calling in the middle of my homebirth because I assure you, that's exactly what would happen. Of course, I'd have to deny that showing, but then what? I'll have a newborn, I'll be learning how to nurse, I'll be not sleeping much (which is always very bad for me), and I'll be adjusting to meeting the needs of two kids instead of one. And I'll still have over a month left on our listing. I cannot have people in here then. I just can't. I am not going to lug my newborn child out into the dead of winter so people can traipse through my house and say, "No thanks."
These are the things I flip and flop over at 4:30 in the morning, when I so much prefer to be sleeping. It almost seems as if they are things with no real solution. Am I expecting to find a magic fix when a fix doesn't exist? I bet so.
Situations like these are where the faithful Christian is simply supposed to put it in God's hands. Why isn't it that simple for me? And how can I fix that?
Loathing? My housing situation.
Result? Flip-flop, can't sleep, 4:30 internal alarm clock.
I knew that I had too much whizzing around in my head these past few days, so of course, I get to pay for it with even less sleep so I can be even less equipped to deal with the issues at hand.
The option of a homebirth is still open to me, and I'm giving it serious consideration. I guess that means serious consideration at 4:30 in the morning. And I guess by "serious consideration," what I really mean is going through each and every plausible scenario until I can come up with a Plan B & a Plan C for each possible complication until I feel prepared enough to commit to it. I want to scream at my own mind, "Enough!"
Between a flip and a flop this morning, before I gave up on sleep and got out of bed, I told myself that there is no risk-free birth. I told myself that there is no perfect birth, and there is no perfect decision -- on anything. That any big decision like this just changes the path at the time, but it's not usually big win over here and big loss over here. And if it is that kind of decision, you rarely if ever know it while you're actually making the decision. In the end, what's most important, I told myself, is what you do in the midst of the action. How smart you are then; how much you are (or aren't) quick on your feet.
Jeff is all for having the baby at home. But what if? What if...
What if I have to be transported and there's a big snow storm (because it will be the middle of winter) and I can't get to the hospital that's only 5 minutes away?
What if I am actually being selfish and putting my baby under higher risk because I prefer not to be in the hospital being poked & prodded constantly?
What if I die? What if I die and then Sassy has to be where I am now -- forever? Always wanting a mother.
So then between another flip and another flop I ask myself, "Is this why I am the way I am? Is this why I have Plans A, B, C, & often D? Is this why I compulsively worry? And is this perhaps not simply common to the human experience?"
Everyone's reaction is pretty similar when I explain that I was raised by my grandparents because my mom died when I was young.
"Oh, I'm sorry."
To which, I reply, "Ah, it was a long time ago." The unspoken message: no need for sorry, that was way back, lots of time to get past that one.
But truthfully, I don't think I'll ever actually get past that one. Do other people? When their mothers die in the "natural" way, as in...when they are fully grown adults, do they also always feel somewhat empty and alone and frightened? What is common to the human experience?
Sassy told me the other day: "Mommy, if you went to Heaven, I would kill myself so I could go to Heaven and be with you!" I didn't respond right away, so she nervously said, "Just joking."
I didn't respond right away because I didn't know what to say. My first thoughts were, I completely understand where you're coming from & have felt the same way many times. But then, I knew that wasn't right.
Instead, I told her, "No...if Mommy dies, I would want you to live a long long time without me and be very happy and I could watch you be happy from Heaven." And the whole time I'm saying it, I'm thinking, What a load of crap. Because I don't really believe that people in our lives who have died are watching us from Heaven.
After a couple minutes of silence, I asked her, "Are you scared that Mommy will die?" This, of course, shut her down. She covered her ears & said, "I'm not talking to you! La, la, la, la, la."
Ah...she is such a me. I told her that most Mommies don't die and she didn't have to worry about it, and that's all I was going to say. Then I changed the subject.
I think that it must be part of her life experience now that Mommies can die. I don't feel guilty about that; I mean, what can I do about it? Mommies do die. I know that. And that is my life history. I can't change that for me or for her. But I'm not sure how much impact that has on her inner self.
If this house weren't a constant thorn in my side, I could probably settle down enough to sleep well, eat well, enjoy my pregnancy, and ultimately birth well. But just when I think I might be able to settle my mind & my fears & my inner worries, Huff Realty calls for a showing and the pot gets all stirred again. It truly is like a thorn. I imagine myself sleeping with a thorn in my side, all nice & comfortable on the left side. In the middle of the night, I drift to my back. Still comfy. About 4:30 a.m., I unconsciously roll to my right side, and "F*** ME!" I'm jolted awake again.
What can be done? Nothing. That's the sad part. Nothing. Little workarounds maybe. I'm thinking this morning that I can put a little box in each room so for a spur of the moment showing, I can throw everything in that box. It seems like it would be easy to run around with a box, stashing things away for showings, but it's so risky. You risk losing important things and then spending way too much frustrated time looking for them later. (Just ask the library how my account is looking these days & you'll know what I mean.) I thought perhaps if I had a box in each room, the likelihood of losing things would be much smaller.
Maybe I need to buy more convenience foods & maybe some more paper plates & cups. The kitchen mess is always the biggest mess around here.
But when the baby comes?
I can just imagine Huff Realty's duty desk calling in the middle of my homebirth because I assure you, that's exactly what would happen. Of course, I'd have to deny that showing, but then what? I'll have a newborn, I'll be learning how to nurse, I'll be not sleeping much (which is always very bad for me), and I'll be adjusting to meeting the needs of two kids instead of one. And I'll still have over a month left on our listing. I cannot have people in here then. I just can't. I am not going to lug my newborn child out into the dead of winter so people can traipse through my house and say, "No thanks."
These are the things I flip and flop over at 4:30 in the morning, when I so much prefer to be sleeping. It almost seems as if they are things with no real solution. Am I expecting to find a magic fix when a fix doesn't exist? I bet so.
Situations like these are where the faithful Christian is simply supposed to put it in God's hands. Why isn't it that simple for me? And how can I fix that?
Friday, November 07, 2008
christmas (shopping) time is here
Well, Jeff and I decided to hire a monitrice for labor support, which means that we will be paying out the $600 I'd planned to have on hand for Christmas to her next week.
It's a good thing I've been keeping up with my freebies & deals off and on since I can sure use them now for Christmas.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I realized I didn't want to spend too much time on them anymore, since it just encouraged me to spend money on things I didn't need. So, I developed a system that is working for me -- it doesn't take much time at all & it doesn't keep me focused on things. My goal is to be able to provide the vast majority of my Christmas gifts for free & fill in the edges with under $200.
So why am I posting about this? Because I know many of you who check in here somewhat regularly have told me recently that you need to cut your Christmas spending this year. By posting what I do and what has come of it so far, I'm hoping you can see the benefits to spending a couple hours a week to keep your financial stress level down at Christmas time.
By now, you've probably noticed all the sites under "Deals & Steals" on the right side of this blog, right? Well, about twice a week, I open up my Firefox and I click each one of these links to open into a new tab. I do it all at the same time & then work my way through the tabs to see what's out there.
The first stop is the Absurdly Cool Freebies site where I almost always request something listed. Using this site, I am close to filling Sofie's stocking, which we do each year. This has probably saved around $25 on stocking supplies for her. I also stay stocked on plastic storage bags, maxis, random food samples, reusable tote bags, and other small things that come available. Just today, I requested a stainless steel water bottle, similar to the Klean Kanteen, but unbranded. Since that has been on my list to get for myself for awhile, I'm excited to see if I receive that one!
I have a special email account set up for freebies. Mine is nothing tricky: freebies@server.com. I have another email account set up for coupons & deals. It's also nothing tricky: couponsanddeals@server.com. If I think a company is going to send me coupons or offers, I use the latter. If I think I'll get nothing but spam from them, I use the freebies account.
I continue to click through the rest of my open tabs & open a new tab on anything that sounds good, so I can review it. The initial step is just to work through the sites & see what's being offered. After I check everything out, I click through the tabs I've opened, quickly scan the page & product, then fill out my info if I want the item.
Some sites ask you to confirm your email before they will ship your freebie. I've started using my iCal program quite a bit, so I have scheduled a morning in each week to scan my freebies account for anything that needs to be confirmed. This takes less than 5 minutes, but writing it in on my calendar ensures I won't forget to do it. I will also do a rebate on an item I either need or could use for Christmas, so I use my iCal to record rebate deadlines too. Sometimes companies send out coupons for a free purchase. I love these! $5 off a $5 purchase are very common & I can almost always find something useful for the $5. (I recently received one for KB-Toys and used it for modeling clay.) I will enter the expiration date on the coupon into my iCal so I don't forget to use it.
Entering things into iCal means that when I walk away from the computer, I can forget about this stuff. I just check iCal at the beginning of each week to get an idea what's coming up, or I set up alarms on very important tasks (and doctor's appointments, meetings, etc.).
So, after I've filled out any online request forms I'm interested in, I plug into my printer & print any coupons I've discovered or rebate forms I need. Then I'm done. It takes about 2 hours a week & actually does pay off, especially for gifts.
Now what would probably be most helpful is to list out some things that I've stockpiled already (for free or nearly free, of course) and things that I'm expecting before Christmas:
The Body Shop Body Butter & Lip Butter (my sister's recent birthday present)
Custom photo book from Shutterfly (Sassy's Christmas present)
8 x 10 photo from Walgreens (grandparents' Christmas)
Board game (cousin Christmas)
Slipper socks (Sassy Christmas)
Dog treats/bones/food samples/dog tag (Sofie Christmas stocking)
Reusable tote bag (Christmas gift bag for MIL)
Tea samples (Christmas gift basket)
Chocolate samples (Christmas gift basket)
Kohl's gift card $10 (Christmas gift undecided)
Target gift card $10 (Christmas gift undecided)
Walgreen's gift card $8 (Christmas gift undecided)
Free photo cards (birth announcements)
Christmas cards ($2.00/30 cards)
100 free photo prints (to put inside Christmas cards)
Crayons, colored pencils, markers, sketchbooks (Christmas gift undecided)
1-year subscription to ReadyMade crafting magazine (gift for myself!)
I've started a gift box downstairs to stash all the gifts. It's already come in handy for birthdays, like my sister's recent one.
What has probably helped the most for Christmas time was to reduce our list. This alone has made an enormous difference. We cut out all same-generation giving, so no more sisters, brothers or cousins. Aside from our own nuclear family, we only give gifts to our parents, grandparents & close children in the family, like nieces & nephews.
And although I know lots of people love to go out on "Black Friday" to get good deals, I absolutely hate it. The crowds & the traffic & the whole mess are rarely worth the savings for me. This year, though, I'm breaking my no-shopping on Black Friday tradition to go to Half-Price Books for several promotions they are running. They are offering a free $5 gift card to the first 100 customers, which might even get me up at 6:30. Why is this promotion more appealing to me than others? Well, there are certain children on our list that I enjoy buying for, but I'm always looking for options besides plastic Wal-Mart toys. Traditionally, I've bought these children catalog toys from Hearthsong or Magic Cabin. Since we can't afford that this year, Half Price books will probably offer some great options.
I can assure you that the one thing that will not happen this year is to put our gifts on our credit cards. We've done this in years past & we always regret it. So we'll be looking for the joy in other places this Christmas besides under the Christmas tree, because it looks like the space under the tree at our house will be pretty bare. I think that's a good thing.
It's a good thing I've been keeping up with my freebies & deals off and on since I can sure use them now for Christmas.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I realized I didn't want to spend too much time on them anymore, since it just encouraged me to spend money on things I didn't need. So, I developed a system that is working for me -- it doesn't take much time at all & it doesn't keep me focused on things. My goal is to be able to provide the vast majority of my Christmas gifts for free & fill in the edges with under $200.
So why am I posting about this? Because I know many of you who check in here somewhat regularly have told me recently that you need to cut your Christmas spending this year. By posting what I do and what has come of it so far, I'm hoping you can see the benefits to spending a couple hours a week to keep your financial stress level down at Christmas time.
By now, you've probably noticed all the sites under "Deals & Steals" on the right side of this blog, right? Well, about twice a week, I open up my Firefox and I click each one of these links to open into a new tab. I do it all at the same time & then work my way through the tabs to see what's out there.
The first stop is the Absurdly Cool Freebies site where I almost always request something listed. Using this site, I am close to filling Sofie's stocking, which we do each year. This has probably saved around $25 on stocking supplies for her. I also stay stocked on plastic storage bags, maxis, random food samples, reusable tote bags, and other small things that come available. Just today, I requested a stainless steel water bottle, similar to the Klean Kanteen, but unbranded. Since that has been on my list to get for myself for awhile, I'm excited to see if I receive that one!
I have a special email account set up for freebies. Mine is nothing tricky: freebies@server.com. I have another email account set up for coupons & deals. It's also nothing tricky: couponsanddeals@server.com. If I think a company is going to send me coupons or offers, I use the latter. If I think I'll get nothing but spam from them, I use the freebies account.
I continue to click through the rest of my open tabs & open a new tab on anything that sounds good, so I can review it. The initial step is just to work through the sites & see what's being offered. After I check everything out, I click through the tabs I've opened, quickly scan the page & product, then fill out my info if I want the item.
Some sites ask you to confirm your email before they will ship your freebie. I've started using my iCal program quite a bit, so I have scheduled a morning in each week to scan my freebies account for anything that needs to be confirmed. This takes less than 5 minutes, but writing it in on my calendar ensures I won't forget to do it. I will also do a rebate on an item I either need or could use for Christmas, so I use my iCal to record rebate deadlines too. Sometimes companies send out coupons for a free purchase. I love these! $5 off a $5 purchase are very common & I can almost always find something useful for the $5. (I recently received one for KB-Toys and used it for modeling clay.) I will enter the expiration date on the coupon into my iCal so I don't forget to use it.
Entering things into iCal means that when I walk away from the computer, I can forget about this stuff. I just check iCal at the beginning of each week to get an idea what's coming up, or I set up alarms on very important tasks (and doctor's appointments, meetings, etc.).
So, after I've filled out any online request forms I'm interested in, I plug into my printer & print any coupons I've discovered or rebate forms I need. Then I'm done. It takes about 2 hours a week & actually does pay off, especially for gifts.
Now what would probably be most helpful is to list out some things that I've stockpiled already (for free or nearly free, of course) and things that I'm expecting before Christmas:
The Body Shop Body Butter & Lip Butter (my sister's recent birthday present)
Custom photo book from Shutterfly (Sassy's Christmas present)
8 x 10 photo from Walgreens (grandparents' Christmas)
Board game (cousin Christmas)
Slipper socks (Sassy Christmas)
Dog treats/bones/food samples/dog tag (Sofie Christmas stocking)
Reusable tote bag (Christmas gift bag for MIL)
Tea samples (Christmas gift basket)
Chocolate samples (Christmas gift basket)
Kohl's gift card $10 (Christmas gift undecided)
Target gift card $10 (Christmas gift undecided)
Walgreen's gift card $8 (Christmas gift undecided)
Free photo cards (birth announcements)
Christmas cards ($2.00/30 cards)
100 free photo prints (to put inside Christmas cards)
Crayons, colored pencils, markers, sketchbooks (Christmas gift undecided)
1-year subscription to ReadyMade crafting magazine (gift for myself!)
I've started a gift box downstairs to stash all the gifts. It's already come in handy for birthdays, like my sister's recent one.
What has probably helped the most for Christmas time was to reduce our list. This alone has made an enormous difference. We cut out all same-generation giving, so no more sisters, brothers or cousins. Aside from our own nuclear family, we only give gifts to our parents, grandparents & close children in the family, like nieces & nephews.
And although I know lots of people love to go out on "Black Friday" to get good deals, I absolutely hate it. The crowds & the traffic & the whole mess are rarely worth the savings for me. This year, though, I'm breaking my no-shopping on Black Friday tradition to go to Half-Price Books for several promotions they are running. They are offering a free $5 gift card to the first 100 customers, which might even get me up at 6:30. Why is this promotion more appealing to me than others? Well, there are certain children on our list that I enjoy buying for, but I'm always looking for options besides plastic Wal-Mart toys. Traditionally, I've bought these children catalog toys from Hearthsong or Magic Cabin. Since we can't afford that this year, Half Price books will probably offer some great options.
I can assure you that the one thing that will not happen this year is to put our gifts on our credit cards. We've done this in years past & we always regret it. So we'll be looking for the joy in other places this Christmas besides under the Christmas tree, because it looks like the space under the tree at our house will be pretty bare. I think that's a good thing.
Saturday, November 01, 2008
the old gives way to....the old
So there are these things that I've struggled with for what feels like forever. I remember even when my mom was alive, I still had these things. I remember I wanted to run away once when I was 6 because my mom upset me, hit one of those triggers. We all have triggers, right? Do we all want to run away from them?
My mom told me, "C'mon then, I'll help you pack your bags." If she only knew how much baggage I was packing back then.
I remember when my mom and dad were together, I didn't have many issues then. At least not that I can remember. I was only 3 when they split up, but I remember them fighting a lot, screaming at each other in the living room, and I remember trying to squeeze in between them. I don't remember why. I think I just wanted them to stop fighting.
Running away has been a big theme for me lately. I don't think a day goes by that I don't want to hit the road. Of course, hit the road to where? There really isn't anywhere. At some point, you have to fight your demons because they don't disappear just because you go halfway across the country. I've learned that lesson before too. And yet, the instinct is still there.
Ultimately, running away is probably self-protection. It's better to abandon than to be abandoned, clearly, every time. Abandoning brings power. I remember one particular breakup that involved throwing my ex's stuff out of our shared room while listening to a Green Day album over and over. The music had to match the sense of power I felt I needed at the time. It always has to involve anger, doesn't it? Abandoning whatever you've built for something else. If you didn't have the anger, how could you go through with the leaving part?
Thing is, leaving is usually fairly straightforward and easy. There's always a reason to blame things on someone else; I mean, nobody's perfect after all & if you're looking, you can find something. It's a fairly predictable pattern for me now: I become unwittingly attached to people, even though I think I have fairly decent systems in place for not getting attached to people. Then once I realize it, I realize the capacity is there to be hurt or abandoned, which I don't like. So, I start to become increasingly sensitive to all the warning signs of impending hurt, and then I strike back by leaving first.
Clearly, I recognize the pattern and clearly, I recognize my own culpability. But am I always the only one to blame? When I look back on the past 15 years, I realize that in some instances, I should have fought my own instincts. In some instances, I was wrong to seize the power of the moment and I later came to regret it. But in the majority of my past relationships, I should have cut loose sooner than I did.
I've always had an outer circle & an inner circle. Doesn't everyone? The outer circle is easier to control and easier to deal with. If someone in the outer circle walks away, no big loss, they were an interesting or genuine or generous or kind person; we had some fun, we shared some laughs. Good luck to ya, wish ya the best.
The problem is that inner circle. Sometimes I think I build the Berlin Wall around the inner circle. It's hard to let anyone in, and once you're in, it's hard to get out. Many ex-whatevers (boyfriends, friends, close family) in the past have been competitive, critical, even deliberately hurtful, and it took me way too long to boot them from the inner circle. They were like bad habits; I knew they were toxic, but I kept going back because I didn't know another way. At times, I even thought that was how relationships were and all they could be.
If I had a prayer today, it would go something like this. "God, I know I'm not always a stick-it-out person and I know I've been criticized & even characterized by that before. But please don't let my fear of that characterization make me accept toxic relationships anymore. Please help me stand firm in my own realization that I've entered a needy period of life and will continue to reside there for another year, while I'm raising another newborn. And rather than react to my feelings of shame about my current weakness by accepting substandard relationships, please give me the resolve to recognize and accept only those who are in my life bringing purity of heart and the desire to be genuinely supportive."
I feel a change coming and I think it will be instigated by myself. Actually, it should be instigated by myself. But not in an effort to run away again. Running away is the equivalent of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Instead, I need to seek out answers to such prayers as I've written above and try to live with the right amount of discernment. If nothing else, my past has shown me that continuing a toxic relationship never results in a healthy relationship where both parties build each other up. It just goes on and on, up and down the roller coaster of more damaging to less damaging. And it's such a draining ride.
My mom told me, "C'mon then, I'll help you pack your bags." If she only knew how much baggage I was packing back then.
I remember when my mom and dad were together, I didn't have many issues then. At least not that I can remember. I was only 3 when they split up, but I remember them fighting a lot, screaming at each other in the living room, and I remember trying to squeeze in between them. I don't remember why. I think I just wanted them to stop fighting.
Running away has been a big theme for me lately. I don't think a day goes by that I don't want to hit the road. Of course, hit the road to where? There really isn't anywhere. At some point, you have to fight your demons because they don't disappear just because you go halfway across the country. I've learned that lesson before too. And yet, the instinct is still there.
Ultimately, running away is probably self-protection. It's better to abandon than to be abandoned, clearly, every time. Abandoning brings power. I remember one particular breakup that involved throwing my ex's stuff out of our shared room while listening to a Green Day album over and over. The music had to match the sense of power I felt I needed at the time. It always has to involve anger, doesn't it? Abandoning whatever you've built for something else. If you didn't have the anger, how could you go through with the leaving part?
Thing is, leaving is usually fairly straightforward and easy. There's always a reason to blame things on someone else; I mean, nobody's perfect after all & if you're looking, you can find something. It's a fairly predictable pattern for me now: I become unwittingly attached to people, even though I think I have fairly decent systems in place for not getting attached to people. Then once I realize it, I realize the capacity is there to be hurt or abandoned, which I don't like. So, I start to become increasingly sensitive to all the warning signs of impending hurt, and then I strike back by leaving first.
Clearly, I recognize the pattern and clearly, I recognize my own culpability. But am I always the only one to blame? When I look back on the past 15 years, I realize that in some instances, I should have fought my own instincts. In some instances, I was wrong to seize the power of the moment and I later came to regret it. But in the majority of my past relationships, I should have cut loose sooner than I did.
I've always had an outer circle & an inner circle. Doesn't everyone? The outer circle is easier to control and easier to deal with. If someone in the outer circle walks away, no big loss, they were an interesting or genuine or generous or kind person; we had some fun, we shared some laughs. Good luck to ya, wish ya the best.
The problem is that inner circle. Sometimes I think I build the Berlin Wall around the inner circle. It's hard to let anyone in, and once you're in, it's hard to get out. Many ex-whatevers (boyfriends, friends, close family) in the past have been competitive, critical, even deliberately hurtful, and it took me way too long to boot them from the inner circle. They were like bad habits; I knew they were toxic, but I kept going back because I didn't know another way. At times, I even thought that was how relationships were and all they could be.
If I had a prayer today, it would go something like this. "God, I know I'm not always a stick-it-out person and I know I've been criticized & even characterized by that before. But please don't let my fear of that characterization make me accept toxic relationships anymore. Please help me stand firm in my own realization that I've entered a needy period of life and will continue to reside there for another year, while I'm raising another newborn. And rather than react to my feelings of shame about my current weakness by accepting substandard relationships, please give me the resolve to recognize and accept only those who are in my life bringing purity of heart and the desire to be genuinely supportive."
I feel a change coming and I think it will be instigated by myself. Actually, it should be instigated by myself. But not in an effort to run away again. Running away is the equivalent of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Instead, I need to seek out answers to such prayers as I've written above and try to live with the right amount of discernment. If nothing else, my past has shown me that continuing a toxic relationship never results in a healthy relationship where both parties build each other up. It just goes on and on, up and down the roller coaster of more damaging to less damaging. And it's such a draining ride.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
god money, i'll do anything for you
I don't know if it's an Autumn ritual for me or if I'm learning to listen more to my soul speak through my intuition lately or if it's just that I have a major case of the wantsies lately that's making me go on the offensive against all these things.
There are so many different sources of financial input in my life. First, there's the everpresent role model of my grandparents. They started with nothing, absolutely nothing, and made their way up up up the financial ladder to be some of the wealthiest people I know personally. They played the 20th century banking game for sure, and looking at their portfolio today, I'd say they won. I don't think the 21st century banking game offers the same prizes. I don't even think it has the same rulebook. And I don't think I want to work the 40-hour+ week that my grandma did to score that late-life prize. So although the rest of the country would likely call my grandparents' financial life a success, it's not an appropriate role model for me.
Other inputs come from research, from the Bible, from my own intuition, and from my own comfort level with varying amounts of debt and savings.
Here are some random inputs that play through my mind regularly:
"It is easier to fit a camel through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven."
"He who knows he has enough, is rich."
"The Federal Reserve is a private corporation."
"Pay yourself first."
And then of course, there are the subconscious inputs from all the advertising I take in daily. If I took the commercials' word for it, I'd believe that we were the last remaining family without a big flat-screen TV. I am so unbelievably grateful (as is my wallet) that I have friends who are TV-free and not constantly seeking the newest electronic gadget. Although there are still lots of things that even the most vehement TV-critic can spend money on. Organic cotton onesies, Robeez shoes, Hanna Anderssen clothes, raw honey, free-range everything, gluten-free this and dairy-free that, supplements and oils and shampoos without chemicals, recycled toilet paper, all natural dog food. Sometimes I think the natural-minded market is easier to milk money from than the standard American sap. And the beat goes on.
"You adjust your spending to your income, every time."
It's true. When we made $30,000 a year, we spent $30,000 a year. When we made $50,000, we spent $50,000. My quality of life didn't feel that much different. We still had the same lack of extra money because what really increased wasn't our free cash, it was our bills. It was amount we were beholden to creditors and service providers each month.
And did my giving go up? Did I actually achieve my goal of 10% giving once we increased our salary? Was I able to go to church and actually NOT feel guilty when the bag came by after we hit the $50,000/year mark?
Nope.
My year-to-date giving this year has been $40. That's right. $40. Ouch.
I mean, it's understandable, right? We're building this house and we have so many unexpected out-of-pocket expenses coming out all the time. And my pregnancy! Don't forget about all those supplements I'm buying. And how I have to eat so much more protein. And how I'm so tired. You know, after the house is built and after my pregnancy is over and after I'm living farther out and not running around spending so much gas all the time and after we can grow more of our own food, you know, that's when I'll give. That's when.
I've finally had to face the fact that my lack of giving isn't due to life circumstances; it's due to greed. After all those obligations are done that are sucking away our giving money right now, there will be animals we want to get and a wood stove to purchase and this and that and that and this, all of which will make our life easier and give us more in the end.
"It takes money to make money."
Right? Right? This is "conventional wisdom", folks. This is what Chase and Bank of America and Capital One live and die on. If I believe that all I need is more money and then I can do anything I've ever wanted and be wildly successful and above all, happy, then they live. If I choose not to believe it, then they die.
Let's look at some truth again:
"You adjust your spending to your income, every time."
Does this mean that if I make 10% less, I will adjust my spending to match it? Yes. Does this mean that if I make the same amount, but give away 10% to things that matter, that I will adjust my spending to match my adjusted income? Yes. Does that mean that if I want to reach my 10% goal, I need to give first and adjust my spending afterwards? Yes, yes, yes!
What would happen if I spent 10% less on every new purchase? Here's what I suspect would happen: I would use the creativity that God has given me along with the skills I've acquired and new ones I'd like to learn to not even notice the missing 10%. I also think that my life would be richer for it...richer in the ways that matter, that is.
What would happen if I decided not to save 10%, or if I decided not to save much of anything? What if, instead of hoarding my money in different accounts, I put that money into real assets that were useful to us and provided for our needs? Then what if I decided to stop after we'd provided for our needs for food, shelter, health, community and some form of entertainment? Then, what if, instead of saving any surplus, I gave it away? What would that be like?
It sounds so scary, but is it? Would it be? I think it would be scary if we still had a lot of debt. But if we were able to eliminate our debt? Then would it be scary? Or would it be freeing?
Would I feel more freedom in not being able to run out & buy whatever I'm thinking about, to not be able to give into a case of the wantsies?
I know that I like to do something to provide for my family. I definitely provide love and comfort to my children, but I like to be able to provide some material things, too. I don't want Jeff to have to do everything on his own.
I was pleased to find such a wealth of information in my freebies sites, listed on the right side of this blog here under "Deals and Steals." For awhile, I toyed with using them to their full advantage. I checked in on them daily and made a detailed calendar of the deadlines of all my deals and coupons and rebates so I wouldn't forget them. This took a lot of time, but since it was the only thing I could contribute back then, I dealt with it. I thought I would enjoy it. I was, after all, taking advantage of the very corporations that are always trying to take advantage of me. I was outsmarting them. I was winning.
But within just a few weeks time, I started to feel a little sick on the inside. I couldn't put my finger on it. It's the same feeling Facebook is giving me right now. It makes me feel a little off-center, a little unhealthy, a little wrong, even though I'm not sure exactly why.
Finally it clicked for me one day when I drove to 3 different stores to find the Sunday paper with its coupons still intact, came up empty-handed, and spent a good hour in a bad mood about it. I went grocery shopping that week anyway, of course, without cutting any coupons, without organizing a darn thing. I just made a short list and went to a few stores that had good prices on my list. And I ended up spending just shy of $50 for our whole week's groceries. I was able to patronize a few independents: our local health food store (where I hit the 50% off rack), the Mexican grocery store (which always puts me thinking in Spanish by the time I leave), and our local poultry farm (where we learned the back story of our favorite dog there). I also filled in some edges at Aldi and only had to out of pocket less than $50. On the other hand, I could have traipsed around Kroger with its irritating habit of finding just those 80's songs that should have been buried forever in a one-hit-wonder-why coffin, dug through all my coupons, carefully comparing prices and coupons and ingredients and ounces, pushed past all those other annoyed shoppers with their scowling faces, spent almost double for the same amount of food even with my coupons, then gotten sick a day later from whatever snotty-nose-wiping hand had pushed my cart around before me.
I was spending so much of my time and so many of my thoughts on how to get things for cheaper. Deals! Steals! Everyone loves a deal, even more a steal, but really, I wasn't outsmarting anyone (or anything). The corporations had managed to actually make me feel more in need of their needless things than I had before. The things suddenly had even more value because I had gotten them for free! It was the same focus on wanting that I had tried so hard to ditch in the past, but now I'd given it an open door to come on back in, because I could want and desire the things all I wanted and since I didn't have to spend (much) money on them, I didn't have to feel guilty.
What if I just gave that not (much) money away? What would that be like? What if I didn't give the corporations my money or my focus? What if I didn't give them my desire at all? What would that be like?
What would it be like to be more of a financial sieve than a financial safe?
I have a little income now -- just a little. I'm giving a straight 10% off the top. It's my income, so I don't have to make it a joint decision, which makes it easier to start giving. I'm looking at every new purchase with a new eye, as I ask myself how I can do with something that costs 10% less than that potential purchase.
I'm also limiting my deals and steals hunting to once or twice a week. They can be useful, especially for having backups of different products in the house through samples or for stocking a gift closet so that I don't have to run out at the drop of a hat. Some people in our life still don't recognize love in a handmade gift, unfortunately.
"Let go of your worldly attachments."
If I had to choose, I'd always choose creativity, intelligence and talents over money. 10 times out of 10. If our bank accounts become a sieve and cease to grow, will creativity, intelligence and talents grow in their place? I suspect so.
There are so many different sources of financial input in my life. First, there's the everpresent role model of my grandparents. They started with nothing, absolutely nothing, and made their way up up up the financial ladder to be some of the wealthiest people I know personally. They played the 20th century banking game for sure, and looking at their portfolio today, I'd say they won. I don't think the 21st century banking game offers the same prizes. I don't even think it has the same rulebook. And I don't think I want to work the 40-hour+ week that my grandma did to score that late-life prize. So although the rest of the country would likely call my grandparents' financial life a success, it's not an appropriate role model for me.
Other inputs come from research, from the Bible, from my own intuition, and from my own comfort level with varying amounts of debt and savings.
Here are some random inputs that play through my mind regularly:
"It is easier to fit a camel through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven."
"He who knows he has enough, is rich."
"The Federal Reserve is a private corporation."
"Pay yourself first."
And then of course, there are the subconscious inputs from all the advertising I take in daily. If I took the commercials' word for it, I'd believe that we were the last remaining family without a big flat-screen TV. I am so unbelievably grateful (as is my wallet) that I have friends who are TV-free and not constantly seeking the newest electronic gadget. Although there are still lots of things that even the most vehement TV-critic can spend money on. Organic cotton onesies, Robeez shoes, Hanna Anderssen clothes, raw honey, free-range everything, gluten-free this and dairy-free that, supplements and oils and shampoos without chemicals, recycled toilet paper, all natural dog food. Sometimes I think the natural-minded market is easier to milk money from than the standard American sap. And the beat goes on.
"You adjust your spending to your income, every time."
It's true. When we made $30,000 a year, we spent $30,000 a year. When we made $50,000, we spent $50,000. My quality of life didn't feel that much different. We still had the same lack of extra money because what really increased wasn't our free cash, it was our bills. It was amount we were beholden to creditors and service providers each month.
And did my giving go up? Did I actually achieve my goal of 10% giving once we increased our salary? Was I able to go to church and actually NOT feel guilty when the bag came by after we hit the $50,000/year mark?
Nope.
My year-to-date giving this year has been $40. That's right. $40. Ouch.
I mean, it's understandable, right? We're building this house and we have so many unexpected out-of-pocket expenses coming out all the time. And my pregnancy! Don't forget about all those supplements I'm buying. And how I have to eat so much more protein. And how I'm so tired. You know, after the house is built and after my pregnancy is over and after I'm living farther out and not running around spending so much gas all the time and after we can grow more of our own food, you know, that's when I'll give. That's when.
I've finally had to face the fact that my lack of giving isn't due to life circumstances; it's due to greed. After all those obligations are done that are sucking away our giving money right now, there will be animals we want to get and a wood stove to purchase and this and that and that and this, all of which will make our life easier and give us more in the end.
"It takes money to make money."
Right? Right? This is "conventional wisdom", folks. This is what Chase and Bank of America and Capital One live and die on. If I believe that all I need is more money and then I can do anything I've ever wanted and be wildly successful and above all, happy, then they live. If I choose not to believe it, then they die.
Let's look at some truth again:
"You adjust your spending to your income, every time."
Does this mean that if I make 10% less, I will adjust my spending to match it? Yes. Does this mean that if I make the same amount, but give away 10% to things that matter, that I will adjust my spending to match my adjusted income? Yes. Does that mean that if I want to reach my 10% goal, I need to give first and adjust my spending afterwards? Yes, yes, yes!
What would happen if I spent 10% less on every new purchase? Here's what I suspect would happen: I would use the creativity that God has given me along with the skills I've acquired and new ones I'd like to learn to not even notice the missing 10%. I also think that my life would be richer for it...richer in the ways that matter, that is.
What would happen if I decided not to save 10%, or if I decided not to save much of anything? What if, instead of hoarding my money in different accounts, I put that money into real assets that were useful to us and provided for our needs? Then what if I decided to stop after we'd provided for our needs for food, shelter, health, community and some form of entertainment? Then, what if, instead of saving any surplus, I gave it away? What would that be like?
It sounds so scary, but is it? Would it be? I think it would be scary if we still had a lot of debt. But if we were able to eliminate our debt? Then would it be scary? Or would it be freeing?
Would I feel more freedom in not being able to run out & buy whatever I'm thinking about, to not be able to give into a case of the wantsies?
I know that I like to do something to provide for my family. I definitely provide love and comfort to my children, but I like to be able to provide some material things, too. I don't want Jeff to have to do everything on his own.
I was pleased to find such a wealth of information in my freebies sites, listed on the right side of this blog here under "Deals and Steals." For awhile, I toyed with using them to their full advantage. I checked in on them daily and made a detailed calendar of the deadlines of all my deals and coupons and rebates so I wouldn't forget them. This took a lot of time, but since it was the only thing I could contribute back then, I dealt with it. I thought I would enjoy it. I was, after all, taking advantage of the very corporations that are always trying to take advantage of me. I was outsmarting them. I was winning.
But within just a few weeks time, I started to feel a little sick on the inside. I couldn't put my finger on it. It's the same feeling Facebook is giving me right now. It makes me feel a little off-center, a little unhealthy, a little wrong, even though I'm not sure exactly why.
Finally it clicked for me one day when I drove to 3 different stores to find the Sunday paper with its coupons still intact, came up empty-handed, and spent a good hour in a bad mood about it. I went grocery shopping that week anyway, of course, without cutting any coupons, without organizing a darn thing. I just made a short list and went to a few stores that had good prices on my list. And I ended up spending just shy of $50 for our whole week's groceries. I was able to patronize a few independents: our local health food store (where I hit the 50% off rack), the Mexican grocery store (which always puts me thinking in Spanish by the time I leave), and our local poultry farm (where we learned the back story of our favorite dog there). I also filled in some edges at Aldi and only had to out of pocket less than $50. On the other hand, I could have traipsed around Kroger with its irritating habit of finding just those 80's songs that should have been buried forever in a one-hit-wonder-why coffin, dug through all my coupons, carefully comparing prices and coupons and ingredients and ounces, pushed past all those other annoyed shoppers with their scowling faces, spent almost double for the same amount of food even with my coupons, then gotten sick a day later from whatever snotty-nose-wiping hand had pushed my cart around before me.
I was spending so much of my time and so many of my thoughts on how to get things for cheaper. Deals! Steals! Everyone loves a deal, even more a steal, but really, I wasn't outsmarting anyone (or anything). The corporations had managed to actually make me feel more in need of their needless things than I had before. The things suddenly had even more value because I had gotten them for free! It was the same focus on wanting that I had tried so hard to ditch in the past, but now I'd given it an open door to come on back in, because I could want and desire the things all I wanted and since I didn't have to spend (much) money on them, I didn't have to feel guilty.
What if I just gave that not (much) money away? What would that be like? What if I didn't give the corporations my money or my focus? What if I didn't give them my desire at all? What would that be like?
What would it be like to be more of a financial sieve than a financial safe?
I have a little income now -- just a little. I'm giving a straight 10% off the top. It's my income, so I don't have to make it a joint decision, which makes it easier to start giving. I'm looking at every new purchase with a new eye, as I ask myself how I can do with something that costs 10% less than that potential purchase.
I'm also limiting my deals and steals hunting to once or twice a week. They can be useful, especially for having backups of different products in the house through samples or for stocking a gift closet so that I don't have to run out at the drop of a hat. Some people in our life still don't recognize love in a handmade gift, unfortunately.
"Let go of your worldly attachments."
If I had to choose, I'd always choose creativity, intelligence and talents over money. 10 times out of 10. If our bank accounts become a sieve and cease to grow, will creativity, intelligence and talents grow in their place? I suspect so.
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