Updated Blog Links

I finally decided to take some time in updating my blogroll and divided them up into categories. Still have quite a bit to do on it, but a good part is done.

I read a LOT of blogs.

Birth Preparation

I know there aren't a whole lot of things I *need* for the birth, I mean, we'd manage with a towel and our teeth for gnawing through the cord if it came down to it.

But I do plan to get a few things together before hand. The main things I really want to have on hand are the herbs and tinctures. I really really need to start the EPO and RRL and all of those things. I can't believe I have neglected even buying RRL tea. Going to get some before the weekend and take it with me.
I really want the herbs and such for bleeding. Just in case I hemmorhage again. How awful would that be to have my perfect birth, then have to go to the ER because of bleeding. That would piss me off a whole lot.

I think I decided to once again not to bother with a tub. My last few births I would have not used a tub. I had one to use the last time, and it never got set up, and the entire thought of it sounded hideous to me. I don't think it will be different. If it is, oh well.

Standing in the shower for a bit with water on my lower back helped last time, till they made me get out since I kept falling asleep between contractions. They didn't want me to fall. I hated them so much for making me get out. I understand their concern, but this time? Guess what? No one there to tell me what to do! I'll stand there all I want if I am so inclined! Ha!

I want a cheap shower curtain for under old sheets on the bed, some chux pads so I don't have to do towels (special matching happy birthday to me towels, remember?), an aspirator, and a digital fish scale and sling for it. Everything else? Meh, I think I will survive with or without it. There are probably a few other things that I am forgetting, but that's the gist of it.

This evening the kids had some questions about meconium and what happens if the baby does poop before birth, can that happen, etc? Max asked if I was having an unassisted birth. I told him I was in the sense that I will know how to have this baby, my body knows and the baby knows, but that I would have assistance from the people who will be there and love me and support me. I told him about how the Emergency Childbirth book says that any reasonably intelligent 8 year old could assist in the birth of a baby. Oh goodness. The boys' eyes lit up! They are now wanting to cut the cord at the least, but are ready to help out with the birth all by themselves :) I love those kids SO MUCH. It's indescribable. I am so happy they are getting excited about the birth and new sister. It's taken a while, but they are both seeming excited about it now.

Gosh, it doesn't look like it, but I did manage a little cleaning this morning. Nesting! Where are you?!? Where is my energy? Where did it go?

Neat Internet & Blog Finds

Here are just a few things that have caught my eye recently. I love the internet, I really do.

Things that make me go "squee!":

I really really want a Wonderwash and Spin Dryer. They make so much sense!
I would LOVE to have both of these items. I would find it MUCH easier to ease up on my paper towel usage and go almost exclusively to towels and rags. Maybe I can get some cloth diapers and just add to my collection as it goes. I can have a goal of exclusive cloth by 6 months IF I can get these! They would for both come out to under $200 total, even with shipping, I'm sure.
I found these via a post on one of my favorite blogs, Treehugging Family. Peggy and Jennifer are always posting great ideas and discussions and cool things.

I am finally going to bust out the ice cream maker next week for the weekend. And the first thing I am making is this divine strawberry frozen yogurt from Simply Recipes. I can't wait to try it! And in the 2nd bowl I'm going to make coconut milk ice cream. Mmm....

I adore these robot animals by Ann P. Smith, via Craftzine.com. They are SO NEAT.

I want a house like this: Beauvoir Residence by Bruce Bolander Architect, via materialicious. I would love to do something like this using shipping containers.
I also really love strawbale and cob houses, too. I am not sure if I could do that type of material here in the swamp, though.
Something else I need to look into is how to work some sort of cooling system into a green home. Passive just doesn't seem like it would work here. It doesn't cool down at night, and the humidity stays in the high 90%s from this point of the year through September, at least. Which is another reason I am not sure if strawbale or cob could work here. Mold is a big concern.
And whichever house I end up building, I have wanted concrete counters and floors for forever! And look at these floors! They are magnificent!
If I could do a strawbale, I adore this house: Drew Residence, One World Design Architecture, via RiverWired. The RiverWired article is also from the same Jennifer at TreeHuggingFamily. She's a pro blogger and writes for several of my favorite blogs.

I really really want a set of these to frame for the baby's room: Nerdy Baby ABC Flashcards!!!

The internet abounds with cool stuff!

I've been sucking at posting, so here's a quick one.

I am now over 30 weeks, which is just crazy. I am excited, though.

I have been packing for this weekend, and determined to have a great time and not be miserably hot the whole time. We'll see how that goes. I can bitch about the heat the rest of the time, but if I know what I'm getting into and doing it to myself, then I have no room to bitch.

Project Spring Cleaning seems to be a wash. It is chaotic with no way out that I can see.

My cereal obsession has evolved, like a pokemon. It's gone from Lucky Charms to Cocoa Pebbles. Can't imagine what the 3rd evolution will be.

I can't stop yawning. It's annoying. I should probably go to bed soon. But I won't, I know me. More likely I will fall asleep for a while on the couch.

The End. More actual content coming soon.

Update of Random

I haven't been posting regularly for a few reasons, #1 is I have been on the mothering boards a lot lately, and then trying to catch up with my rss feeds. (I sub to 126 blogs currently and some of the blogs, like BoingBoing, Consumerist and TreeHugger are pretty prolific in their posts).

Another reason is it's frustrating to post so often to next to no one.

And there's just so much I'd like to post, but I'm lazy sometimes.

So, where to start? The baby shifted so the SPD pain is significantly better the last few days, even though my back and stomach muscles hurt.

We spent the weekend being lazy and at the pool, which was very nice. But the house, oh I can't even deal with it. I plan to clean some in a little bit cause I feel a bit better today than I have been.

I ate too many carbs over the weekend and woke up feeling awful yesterday :( Concentrating on upping my protein intake and no more processed carbs like that. UGH.

I have wanted to post about thrift stores finds, but haven't yet. I also took some new pics yesterday of my pregnant self and want to put those up soon, but haven't cause both sets of batteries need to be recharged.

I don't want to talk about Mother's Day, other than to say I totally give up. It's been nothing but utter disappointment to me since my first Mother's Day while pregnant 9 years ago. I am hurt, depressed, angry, all of those things. I'm going to give up on this. My kids were awesome, at least. Made me GREAT cards and of course make me feel so loved every single day. SO loved.

We implemented pizza night on Friday and making a note here, Huge Success. I'll post specifics later on. I'll probably just copy and paste a post I made on Mothering earlier.

Been watching Season 2 of Dexter. LOVE it, just as good if not better than the first season. On the edge of my seat with it right now. Nail Biting nerves. Is it wrong to be rooting for the sociopathic serial killer?

I may get to work part time again doing the same thing that I was soon. That would ROCK hardcore! Money is tight and stressful right now, and it sucks.

What, what? In the butt. I said, What , what? In the butt!

Have found some cool things at thrift stores. That's why we purged our books, you know. To buy more. Ha. I've had to have bought at least a dozen since we purged. But I love books, reading, as do Chris and Max, and Miles is getting there with his reading, too.

Both kids are homeschooling and thrilled about it, as am I. VERY happy with it. Wish I had better communication with the ex and his spouse, but I am happy with the set up. They are not doing the homeschooling personally, they have someone hired full time with all 4 of the younger kids in their household. Each kid got to make their own decision on whether they wanted to. Max was the longest holdout and he's just been doing this for about 2 weeks.
I've wanted hsing for them from day 1. I am a big believer that homeschooling with a committed family is by far the best option for kids. However you do it, unschooling (my preference), curriculum based (VERY strongly pro-secular, though), co-op schooling with other like minded families. Homeschooling comes in all shapes and flavors, and peoples silly questions about it bother me. Had to field the mil on Mother's Day about socialization, etc. Argh.
I wish people who don't really want to be educated about a subject feels it's ok to give me the 3rd degree with no intention of really listening. There's a ton of different subjects this can apply to in my experience.

I really want to go see Iron Man this week when the check gets here.

I am going to the Kerrville Folk Festival with a friend this year. Yay! Primitive camping at 7 months! I just know what life will be like for a while after the baby, and getting to laze around, sleep during the hot day, go down to the river to swim and cool off, then stay up late around the fires listening to music and chilling out? I can do that for 3 days! Unfortunately I don't think Chris can come :(

We really need to plan a weekend thing for just us before the baby gets here. I was hoping hoping hoping to be able to afford to go to New Orleans for a long weekend and stay at the B&B where we spent our honeymoon, but financially that just won't happen. Sigh... Maybe just a trip to Austin to hang with friends, that would be nice, too.

We should plan that now. Maybe a midweek trip would be best. Who knows, I need to look at a calendar.

I also need to finish my list for the (bwahahahahaha!!!! I just realized, since i didn't want to call it a shower I was about to type "baby bbq"! Hahahaha!) Baby shower... (cause I guess there's not a better term offhand!) and get it to my best friend so she can get to work on invites. She's been on me, and I've worked on it, just need to finish it.

And really at this point I'm really hoping that no one else gets onesies! We have SO MANY :) I love thrift stores.
I am going ask people for things like frozen meals, dinner, laundry, dishes, those types of gifts :) Those are the best type! I do still have a registry for those who really want it, and there's some stuff I on there I wouldn't mind receiving at all but we can live without them. Well, except for diapers and more bottles! I'm so glad I was able to get the basics already, though.

What else? I'm sure there's more but this is turning into a long random post.

Ha! I Knew It!

Ok, I am making this post mainly to be able to share it in Google Reader with all of you fine folks.
Is anyone surprised by this?

Why Conservatives are Happier than Liberals

Wow. I'm already 28 weeks and 4 days along. This has gone by so quickly!

There's been a bit of a change regarding where we plan to have the baby, and I am very happy with this decision.

I never thought I would feel like I could be one of those women who trusted themselves enough to have an unassisted childbirth at home, but I realized that I AM just that capable and awesome, and I really NEVER EVER EVER want to go back to a hospital unnecessarily. THAT is what is dangerous to both me and the baby. Not birthing at home in a safe place with me and my husband who absolutely believe in my body's ability to birth a baby.

So, we are planning a medically unassisted homebirth for the birth of our daughter in July.

I feel so much relief having made this decision. I have no more anxiety about birthing like I did with the thought of "having" to go to a hospital. I just couldn't bring myself to do that. AND the more it goes, the more I really like the idea of not even having a midwife there.

I will be the one trusting myself and my body completely to have this baby. I will have my dh there, and perhaps another person or two as "an extra set of hands", but that's all we need.

I am not concerned about hemmoraging either. I feel fully confident that if that happens we will be able to handle it with no issues. Education is key, and I will be fully prepared for that circumstance, or any other that could come up.

I really like the Emergency Childbirth: A Manual that a lot of people recommend keeping on hand and reading through. In it the author says that any reasonably intelligent 8 year old can assist in the birth of a baby. Well, heck, if Chris isn't around, then Max can help ;) He'll have even just turned 9!

I am excited about the birth now, not dreading it. And that will let me have a peaceful wonderful experience. I'm ready to meet my new baby now!

Coffee!!

Ok, so I finally opened the bag of coffee we got at Costco and I think it deserves it's very own post. It is magnificent!

I have been using previously ground beans for a while, and no matter what type I have used, the best of them has been meh. But I figured I could use my Vita-Mix to grind the beans until I get a good grinder so we bought whole bean coffee.

Wow, it is so good! This is my favorite coffee hands down. And for $13 for a 2.2lb bag? Heck yeah!

A Quick Update

I haven't updated in several days, maybe even nearly a week. I figure I'll catch up this week. I was certainly happy to read about Blogger's new feature of being able to auto post by setting up times.
I felt like I was a little too post happy last week and I think this will let me do more posting like I would like without bombarding anyone.

It's late and we just finished watching another episode of Dexter. I love that show. We're 3 episodes into the 2nd season now and it's still fantastic.

We went to Galveston yesterday for a birthday party and that was great, I will post pictures soon. Here's a sneak peak:



They were fine in the water (I got in a bit, too and it was nice and warm) but out of the water in the wind and those boys were cold and wet.
It was in the mid 80s here yesterday, but that's almost cold for a TX beach. I can never figure out people from other areas of the country that think 75 is balmy and go swimming in a pool, that's insane to me! I think my kids are the same way. :)

It's been a good weekend, and I have made my to do list for the week (and really, there's not a whole lot on there I can come up with), and am looking forward to getting the rest of the house in order. It's almost there!