So I went to Trader Joe's today, except with Actual Money in hand, not to mention the ability to buy perishables since I was going straight home after shopping.

And don't get wrong, I realised that things were cheaper there before, but I hadn't really stopped to consider just how much cheaper...

I bought about the same amount I would at a typical trip to Harry's/Whole Foods, which usually adds up to somewhere between $80 and $100. Trader Joe's? $60. :)))))

I just wish they'd been around when I was pregnant with Jacob - I craved perogis and all sorts of potatoey goodness and they have MUCH CHEAPER perogis not to mention gnocchi. Mmm. My freezer is all stuffed. As is my refrigerator.

PSA: It is not "refridgerator," even though it is "fridge" for a short hand. It's "refrigerator." Of course, the people who I see doing this are in communities I read, not on my flist, so this is being seen by entirely the wrong group of people.


Also, I scored a major coup yesterday. Okay, a minor one. A few months ago, ALACE announced that The VBAC Companion would no longer be required reading for Module Five, because it was now out of print and no plans were in process to reprint it. The demand simply isn't there.* However, I went to Borders on a whim, and there on the shelves was One Last Copy. I figure that I can get information to a lot more people via childbirth classes, right? So I didn't feel guilty about snapping it up into my arms.

*I think it says a lot, and not in a good way, about the US birthing scene if there is not enough demand for what is one of the only books about VBAC. I'm just saying.

I just got my latest stuff back from ALACE - I'd had to redo a couple of questions on Modules One & Two, and I sent in Module Three. NOTHING to change or redo. Yay! Even better, I just need to read over and edit my answers for Module Four, and I can print them out and mail it in! Working ahead really does work. :P

Starting about this time last week, we noticed a fairly large ant infestation around our sink in the kitchen. We did our best to keep the sink clean, dishes out of it, and so forth, but to no avail. Sam started to make noises about buying ant poison on Monday, and I wanted to avoid that. So yesterday, when they were out in full force, I grabbed an empty spray bottle, pour dishwashing liquid in it, added water, shook, and proceded to become a serial killer of ants. After my first initial killing spree, I had to assassinate a few renegades from time to time during the afternoon and into the evening. Today, however, has been blissfully ant free. As a bonus, the sink and the surrounding counter got a decent scrubbing. Hooray for regular old detergent!


I've been waiting on a package to arrive since the first of May, when I placed my order. I still don't know what's going on with it. This anticipation, however, has made me even more in tune with the mail than usual. I noticed about three weeks ago that we had a new mail carrier. A few days later, I found mail in the mailbox around 2 pm (reasonable for our mail to have been delivered, with our old carrier), but then saw the truck go down the street later and deliver more mail. To say the least, I was perplexed. It happened again another day, even though I knew that time that I had seen the mail carrier put the mail into our box the day before!

Today, however, I went out to get the mail, came in, sorted it, and was about to sit down when I saw the mail truck go back down the other side of the street. The side that gets mail before my side. Then it pulled into my driveway, turned around, and the carrier put something NEW in my mailbox. Which I then had to go retrieve.

No wonder I haven't gotten my package. >:


I joined a mailing list for Brownie Leaders at some point in the last week. It all blurs together. In reading the list, though, I feel like maybe some people are missing the point of the program. They talk about doing patch swaps for the various councils (apparently a realignment is coming or something) and getting patches made that aren't GSUSA patches, in order to have more patches to put on the sash or vest. They talk about how many Try-Its their girls have earned, or their older daughters versus their younger daughters. There is very little talk about how the girls have learned from their experiences, whether or not there is progression, whether or not the girls are deciding more and more of what the troop does (GirlVoice), how much service their girls provide... the Girl Scout program was never supposed to be about the 'stuff.' Many of these people, however, only seem concerned about the stuff.

"Pregnant teens nibble often on sweets, desserts, soda pop, chips, and other snack items while watching television (for up to five hours) each day."

If that was written about "Pregnant Hispanics" or "Pregnant African-Americans," the author never could have sold her book. Or, how about we rewrite it about a different age group?

"Pregnant women over forty nibble often on sweets, soda pop, chips, and other snack items while sitting in front of a computer at work (for up to eight hours) each day."

But, see, teenagers are susceptible to the evil specter of peer pressure - "In contrast to older women, teenagers' diets mimic what their friends are eating. They are more likely to fill up on soda pop, French fries and snack foods than on nonfat milk, steamed broccoli, and grilled chicken."

I know plenty of teenagers NOW that eat healthfully. I knew plenty of people who were teenagers with me who ate healthfully. I know plenty of 'older women' who DON'T eat healthfully.

What I'm forgetting, of course, is that when someone turns thirty-five or forty, they immediately become a paragon of virtue and the perfect candidate for parenthood. Also note the generalisations about this category:

"These women often have planned their pregnancies and are more willing and ready to accept the responsibilites of parenthood than they would have been in earlier years. These women are more mature, better educated, financially more secure, and more settled and patient... all factors that make for good parenting."

See, if you just get older, you must automatically get letters after your name and more money!

This is all, by the way, in a book about nutrition during pregnancy. The nutrition information is all right, I'll give it that, but I think all this editorializing is over the top and completely unnecessary, anyway.

There's one 'job' surrounding birth that I would never formally pursue, and that's being a doula. If a friend asked me to attend her birth as a friend, that'd be one thing, but I don't see myself attending births for a fee as any sort of professional, whether certified or lay.

Despite that, I seem to find myself surrounded, of late, with people in various stages of pursuing training and/or certification as a doula, and I've been reading some of the thread about doulas and doula certification on MDC as well. So I've heard negative things about CAPPA as well as DONA, though, frankly, nothing really negative (so far) about ALACE or CBI (the latter of which I've only recently heard of, period).

The thing I found the most disturbing, however, was that for DONA certification, the doula has to verify that she attended the birth from 4 cm onward. I've seen it postulated that this is to ensure that the doula attends all or most of a woman's active labor, but I have a grave problem with defining it only through a measurement of dilation. I went to their website just to see what I could see. I did find the statement "For certification purposes, active labor will be considered 4 centimeters." I found the Birth Record Sheet that they have to use. By the way, though, "Every vaginal exam must be documented on the Birth Record Sheet’s Labor Progression Chart."

Ugh! This record sheet doesn't look much different than the birth record Heart & Hands has in it for midwives to use. I don't like this medicalisation of the doula.


Tonight, I get to tour Kennestone. Whee!

I toured the Baby Factory today. That is, I toured the Women's Center at Northside Hospital, which is one of two or three contenders each year for the highest number of babies born at the facility. Some years it is the busiest, other years it's the runner-up. On average, they do about 15,000 births a year. This grand scale has earned it the nickname in the area amongst almost everyone (so not just natural birth hippies like me) of the Baby Factory.

For anyone who hasn't been there, I doubt they realise just how apropos the nickname is. First of all, they have thirty-six LDR rooms, and 'processes in place' for the 'really busy times' - i.e. when they have more than thirty-six women in either first, second, or third stage labor, or the immediate aftermath. This does not include all of the scheduled Caesarean sections, mind.

Once the baby is born, the motherbaby pair proceeds upwards from the ground floor to either the first, second, or third levels, all of which have multiple 'pods' of postpartum rooms, nurses' desks, and a nursery. Don't even get me started on the whole thing where the baby has to go to the nursery for weighing and for the pediatrician exam, no exceptions, but yet the mother and/or the partner aren't allowed to enter the nursery. I'm sorry, that's just WRONG. >:

This was an introduction to the American Way of Birth at its' most stereotypical. The Caesarean rate is right in line with the national average, there was an assumption of epidural or other medication use, the Caesarean was presented as 'no big deal,' et cetera et cetera.

After I toured North Fulton, I said that you couldn't get me to give birth there for a million dollars. You couldn't get me to give birth at Northside if I were being paid enough to make me the richest person in the world. Arrogant and judgmental? Maybe. But I see it as not wanting to be scared, not wanting to turn authority over to some other, not wanting to be treated like a number on an assembly line. Not wanting to give into the ritual.

Phase One of Project Make-The-Latin-Curriculum-Secular-And-Classical is completed. That is, going through the vocabulary list and adding macrons where necessary, as well as correcting some of the places where they really stretched the meaning. Come on, people, caelum is sky, or the heavens, not Heaven.

I also finished A Guide to Effective Care in Pregnancy and Childbirth. I did not, however, purchase it for that bargain sum; instead, I read it online. I read all 525 pages online. My eyes! Sam asked me how it was. It was informative. It was a giant review article, is what it was.

Never one to shrink from a challenge, I ordered Understanding Diagnostic Tests in the Childbearing Year today. Nine hundred and seventy-one pages! At least I won't have to read it online. I think it'll be reading with which to curl up in bed. I mean, it's paperback, right?

... Clearly, I am insane.

Finally, I am very and truly bummed that Optimal Foetal Positioning is no longer available through ALACE and, as such, is no longer required. I have searched amazon, powells, amazon.co.uk, ebay, and half.com for a copy. No luck. I was looking forward to that one. :(

I managed to get a lot done today. I planned Thursday's Daisy meeting, sent an email to my Daisy parents, caught up the checkbook, returned a whole lot of books to the library, and, best of all, made a significant dent in the Learning Activities for Module Two of my ALACE course, despite still not having one of the books. Hopefully, I'll be able to complete even more before the weekend craziness really descends, because the conference might just be a good opportunity to read the books for the next module! We also went to the park, which was good, because it wore Gillian out and she got a chance to play with some friends of hers.

Tomorrow I have to write my check for Phoenix Rising and mail it, plus I have a meeting in the evening to attend. The meeting should be interesting, if nothing else.

I need to go to bed! I love this icon!