Here they are, getting instructions from the boss.
And up we go!
They now sit to the north of the big house, just outside the back door. (to the right of the panels you can see the trench we dug that lead all the way to the well)
I like this pic. because you can really see the intensity of the sun hitting the panels
I don’t know how everything turned out, ’cause I had to leave for the evening. But, we should have our floors warming up soon!!
Alrighty!!! My mother-in-law came over this weekend and we painted all the walls!!!
As you walk in the front door and turn right, you see the study/office/xtra bedroom. It’s “mulberry patch” colored 🙂 Yes, those are our new appliances… they are working on installing the solar water system in the mudroom, so we put the appliances in here for now.
Here are the walls in the main living area. It’s “orange pekoe” I love this color!
This is that downstairs bathroom… “Cathay Coral” color. It will go great with the mexican talavara sink!
Stairwell up to the master room
Stairway looking down
The color I was going for in the master BR was a pinky-taupe… it turned out very purple. So, luckily I have a mother-in-law who use to be an interior designer… so we pulled out some of the other paints and mixed us up a new color!
A little orange pekoe, pink taupe, and pampas grass green and you get a great bedroom wall color!
Here’s the mud room solar controls for the hot water… They are out setting up the panels as I write.
Ooooo, I can’t wait to see this! Just watching the trailer inspires me to get out and hoop more. I’ve had so little time to hoop in the past few months, and it was getting to be such a great form of release and enjoyment for me. My new years resolution… Hoop More!!!
Happy 2008!
Many Blessings in the New Year!
Toby can’t stand painting! He likes the building and the constructing… but not the painting. Me, I love to paint! I don’t know if it’s the actual act of painting so much as the complete change in the feel of a house once there are colors on the walls! I think, next to actually moving in, it’s my favorite part of a new house!
Kaia requested Pink and Green for her room. I know, the pictures look a bit like pepto bismal, but it’s actually a nice color, and the green tones it down a bit. The plan is to paint flowers, grass, fairies and such on the green lower portion of the back wall.
(Sorry for the drywall dust on the lens) Here I am, finishing up the walls, music blasting… Somewhere in this picture is Kaia’s secret room! Can’t see it? Mission accomplished, then!! 🙂 I like how my shadow looks in this one!
This is the back wall (which will have a shelf on it), closet, and to the right of the closet will be a floor to ceiling book shelf! Trim and shelving go up next. Then I will clean the floors!
Here I’m working on trimming out the Mechanical room (we call it that because it will house all the solar mechanical stuff, but it will also be a laundry/mudroom) I used the same green in here that was in kaia’s room. I really like the color!
Again, sorry for the dust on the camera lens. This room has no windows, so it’s hard to get good lighting in the room. The color looks kind of bland in the picture, but it’s really pretty. This is also a nice pic of our new water tank! It’s 120 gallons!! lots of storage capacity for the solar hot water. To the bottom right of the pic is the tubing that runs through the floors for radiant heating. I can’t wait to test that out!!
And finally, the pantry. Floor to ceiling shelves on both sides here too! yahoo!! This room leads from the Mechanical room and opens up right next to the kitchen. The kitchen will be a yellowy orange color that goes great with this green.
Tomorrow, I hope to tackle the downstairs bathroom!
Oh, I forgot to mention the paint!! It’s called Earthpaints. They are locally made, sustainable, non-toxic paints!! I love them! I didn’t feel at all sick or head-achey after painting and breathing them in all day. They are also a little thicker than traditional store bought paints, so they don’t splash all over the floor. But, the coverage is still pretty good! And they are self priming. So, I put two coats of paint directly on the drywall in kaia’s room. The green is darker and only took one coat for the Mec. room and pantry (two coats would make it more durable though). Great stuff!! You should look into it if you are going to be painting!! (Oh, I know I’d mentioned wanting to do milk paints, but once I did the cost calculations for the special primers that I would need and natural colorants and all that stuff, the Earthpaints were actually cheaper and less time consuming!)
We had our first snow of the year this past week and it stayed about 2 hours before melting. Poor Kaia wanted to build a big snow man so badly. We scraped the snow off of the car and built this sad little man. He’s about 8 inches tall. He was melted by the next morning and she was very sad.
I woke up this morning after another warm night without the stove lit, and thought about global warming… wondering if I need to start planting tropical fruits in the yard! Then Toby told me that we are supposed to be getting a cold from this week. It’s going from 55 degrees tomorrow to highs in the 30s, lows in the teems with a wind chill in the negatives!!!  No pineapples in my yard this year 🙂
My Viriditas Winter newsletter is out. There info about Yule logs, Vitamin D, Ear Aches, Clove, recipes, and more… Enjoy!
Warm Blessings on this first day of Winter!
Kaia is just getting to bed… she was out at the house helping us light our first fire in the new stove!
But first, some pictures!
The drywall is all up. They finished in a little over a day! New guys came out this morning to start the mudding! Unfortunately, the hangers left big piles of drywall everywhere. So, I’ve got a day of cleaning up scheduled for me on Wed.
Here’s the door to the master bedroom upstairs… it looks so different with the drywall up. I can’t wait to get some color on those walls!
Here’s part of the kitchen. You can see a cordwood wall on the left. That is one of the ones that has the most work still to be done. We’ve put up plastic over all the holes and hooked up the stove today so we can try to keep the house warm… for the sake of the cordwood mortar and the drywallers.
Here are the mudding guys. They were really fast! I love the stilts!! They both turned around and stopped working to pose for me when they saw I had a camera 🙂
And here is our first fire in our new little stove! Woohoo! It’s supposed to get into the teens tonight, and we are worried about the mortar. It’s been a little over a week since we last laid cordwood, but still… we don’t want the walls falling apart because it didn’t set up right. So, hopefully the stove will warm the place up enough.
So, as far as getting in touch with the guy who was jumping on the trampoline when her leg broke, I’ve written a long letter, but I have decided not to send it. I really just needed to get some stuff off of my chest and I don’t think it will do any good to make them feel guilty about it. I do feel like he needs to know what happened, but I am letting it go. I have enough stress in my life right now without having to put more energy into this.
I said I’d post pictures a week ago… and here we are.
Well, in the past week all the dry wall has gone up. I was waiting for them to mud it before I took pictures, but I may take some and post ’em anyway… We also have a 165 foot trench going from our well to our house. Toby and I laid the water pipe and electric wires in it today, before the rain started. Tomorrow, we hope to hook up the stove so we can heat the house. There are still large holes in the cordwood walls, but we will probably put up some plastic to try to keep the place warm so the walls will try properly.
Kaia got her cast off on Thursday. Doc says her bones look great and she has no restrictions. She’s walking with a limp while she works out the stiffness and gets more confident. Occasionally her leg will hurt and then she gets scared again about using it. You know, I’ve been trying to get in touch with the guy who was jumping on the trampoline with her and double bounced her when her leg broke. I was kind of expecting to hear from him or his wife to ask how Kaia was doing, but it’s been a month since it happened and I haven’t heard a peep. I didn’t know who he was so, I asked a friend who goes to a library story time with them to get their contact info. Really, I just wanted to let them know what happened so he would stay off the kids equipment next time… Guess what… the wife refused to give out her contact info! She knew Kaia broke her leg and hasn’t even told her husband!! She didn’t want to upset him!! Then she had the nerve to ask my friend if I wanted money! Can you believe the nerve??!! MY child has a broken leg and she doesn’t have the balls to say “I’m sorry” or to even tell her husband what the consequences of his actions were!!! When I have the quiet of mind to be able to compose a letter, I’m going to have to put a few words to paper and let them know some of the hell that we’ve gone through in the past month because of their actions!
We had great weather for our cordwood party today… low 60’s! And it is supposed to be like this all week. Unfortunately we weren’t able to finish like we had hoped we would. We had problems getting the lime mortar to the right consistency. It was too wet and mushy, no matter what we did. We think the sand was just to wet, so we are going to try to dry it out a little before we mix more mortar. I know, it’s my fault for wanting the white lime walls instead of the gray concrete mortar. If we used concrete, it sets up much faster, so we wouldn’t have to worry so much about freezing weather, and you can control the moisture a lot easier… but the lime mortar is so much prettier (and it’s better for the environment). The inside of a cordwood house is already so much darker just because of all the wood, so the white mortar brightens it up a lot!
Still, we were able to completely seal up 2 walls on the outside (there’s still a little work to be done on the inside) and build up on 3 other sections. Lesson for today: Cordwood will take longer than you think it will, and if you plan on that, it will still take longer than you plan!! I will post more pictures tomorrow when we’ve had time to do a little clean up. The picture below is the finished sections. We will ‘point’ them tomorrow (clean/smooth the mortar) and sand the wood later on so it isn’t all messy with mortar.
This section will be above the kitchen sink… I love the variation in color in the bottles. Kristine, that’s your blue triangle, and Yia Yia Shannon, that’s your green triangle, Mom, the teal one in the middle is yours and the brown rectangle is an antique brandy bottle I gave to Toby.
We also picked up our stove and got some help unloading the very heavy thing into our home. Here it is happily nestled in it’s little crate. (Kaia looks very festive, doesn’t she? She’s wearing her mermaid suit, but you can’t see the tail in this picture 🙂
The boys couldn’t lift it, so I had to carry it in myself! 🙂
I know…. the pictures aren’t great, but I hope to post more cordwood and stove pics tomorrow! Maybe we will have the stove hooked up!!
Thanks to all our friends (old and new) who came out to help!
We ordered our wood stove! A Hearthstone ‘tribute’. It should be in this coming week! Woohoo! We debated between a locally made ‘Appalachian Stove’, which cost $1000 less than this one, and the tribute. But, in the end, the reviews, cool look of the soapstone, and the hefty construction of this stove won out with us. Guess we’d better move all the construction crap out of the living room so we can put the stove in!
I’ve been meaning to post this for a long time!!! Here, for your viewing pleasure is Business Time, by Flight of the Conchords. If you don’t know who they are… you should!!!
You know you want one!! I can’t wait to see the reactions in my rear view mirror 🙂
I’ve posted on Hildegard before, but here’s more if you want to learn more about her…
So, I’m hearing through the grape vine, that we don’t have enough house pictures for you picture mongers! Well then, here you go!
We’ve been doing lots of little things, trying to get the house closed up. All but two of the windows are hung. The doors are in and the door knobs are set. We’ve been doing cordwood on sunny days….
Here’s the front door. I know, it looks a little run down, but it’s just dirty. Once I clean it up, clean the window, and paint if red it will be fabulous!!
Here are the french doors that lead into the dining room. Aren’t they nice. They were another Habitat for Humanity find. We spent a pretty penny on the specially made locks, hinges and handle, but it still cost less then new doors would have.
These Pella windows are the only ones we bought new. They cost more than all the other windows combined! But, we decided it was important to have an operable window in the living room, ’cause all the others are fixed. So, now we will have some good airflow through the room. Can you see the triangle windows are in too?  (We’ve got windows with green frames… brown, white, neutral…. I think we will leave them varied colors. It’s kinda cool.)
Today, we worked on bringing up the cordwood wall in the kitchen. It’s one of the lowest. But, once we get the wood to the window, the rest will go pretty quickly. We did about 3 layers today… these wide walls take a while!!
Here I am making a little somethin’ special for this wall.
Kaia joined me and made a flower of her own. Mine is blue/yellow, hers is red/yellow. Cool, eh?
Oh, for those of you who might be interested, we are hoping to have another (maybe our last, wohoooo!) cordwood party this Sat. Dec. 8th. If you want to join us, we would love to have you!!
Thank you everyone for the support you have given our family since Kaia broke her leg! Your kindness means the world to us! We feel very blessed!
Kaia got her cast on this morning. She is moving much more easily now and enjoying her new purple cast! They took xrays and said her bone is healing very well. She should only need to be in the cast for 16 days. After that we’ll see if she needs any kind of support for a while as she gets use to walking again. But, really, she is doing fantastic and may even get to go back to school on Thursday!
So, I’m thinking of what color to paint the exterior of the house. Our cabin is stained in a red, which is really nice, but I think I’d like something more vibrant. I’m thinking soft yellow, with a white trim…. what do you think? It would stand out nicely against all the green around us, and the colors on the living roof.
The windows are going in as we try to close up the house. The thing that will take the longest is the cordwood. But, if we can get the rest of the house closed up, we may be able to seal up the cordwood holes with plastic and get a wood stove in to heat the house. Then we will be able to do more cordwood when it is cold.
Here’s another picture of the insulation. This is upstairs, looking into the stairwell.
Here’s the wall to the right of the front door. The little dots in the wall are glass nuggets. We put a shelf in there (see the big rectangle piece of wood sticking out?)… maybe a little plant will sit on it once the house is done?
Here’s the dining room wall.
Here’s a close up of the cordwood above the dining room window. I’m proud of me for that little sunny design 🙂
This is the wall to the right of the dining room window. It was a very cloudy day when I took this pic. You should see how that red bottle shines on a sunny day!! We put another shelf in this wall too, and the bottle above it to let light through to whatever we put there. We may put the glass chicken on one of these inside shelves.
Kaia is doing well! Thank you all for your well wishes and concern. The orthopedic doc wants her to keep her splint on until next Tuesday to be sure that any swelling is gone before they cast it. Then he thinks the cast will only be on for 2 or 2 1/2 weeks. So, not so bad. He said the break is a full break through the bone, but the bones didn’t move, so they didn’t have to set them, and the break is below the growth plate, so she shouldn’t have any problems there either. She’s been moving around (by crawling and scooting) with ease and throws herself onto the couch. She’s even been putting a little weight on it and doesn’t have any pain. Her main problem is that her heel itches like crazy when she is sleeping. I think her foot is going to sleep and she wakes up when it starts tingling.
We went to her Nana’s house for dinner last night… here she is (the little brain child) trying to figure out the game “Battleship” and ‘resting’ on the couch. She’s learning to be flexible about getting around, and we’re given another lesson flexibility in our lives…
The insulation went in yesterday. Easy-peasy! They just spray it (icynene) into the walls in a very thin layer and it puffs up to fill the wall space. We would have loved to use something totally sustainable, but this was the closest we could get for what we needed. Icynene is a petroleum product, but it is supposed to be more air quality friendly and non toxic. It’s also more energy efficient.
See the thin, white spray on the upper left wall…
Here’s what it puffs into:
Cool, eh?
Kaia broke her leg last night. My poor little one! She was at a birthday party where there was a trampoline and too many people were jumping at once. She came down as the trampoline was bouncing up, and the impact was enough to break the top of her tibia! She was in a lot of pain, but there was no swelling or color change. So I was hoping it was just a sprain. But, as the night wore on and the pain continued, we decided to take her to the ER. So, now she is in a full leg splint, from hip to toes! She was up until 5am in the ER, so I’ve got her on some pain killers now to help her get some sleep. Tomorrow, we will go to an orthopedist to get a ‘permanent’ cast put on her leg. It may be on a few weeks, it could be a month or more. We’ll know on Monday. Poor thing. She can’t move. The cast is almost half her weight… she can’t get up the stairs to her bedroom, she can’t get in or out of her car seat, she can’t get into her chair to eat a meal, she can’t go the bathroom by herself. I know that this time will fly and kids bones heal fast, but I don’t care! I wish it had been my leg! I can’t stand to see her in pain! This, on top of Suki’s surgery, not having insurance, and not having much money left to finish the house, and the whole family is feeling a bit low.
Here are the pictures from the surgery. Some are graphic and bloody, so don’t look if you have a ‘weak stomach’. Seriously!! They are graphic!
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So, Suki went in for surgery Wed. Well, she actually just went in to have her teeth cleaned so that the doc could see what was going on in her mouth to cause all the swelling. They found that her left k-9 tooth had a hole in it. But, he said he had never seen anything like it before. The tip of the tooth had a little donut like hole in it that extended up all the way to the root. There was no chips, breaks or cracks anywhere else! (And her other k-9 has a dimple in the end like it is trying to do the same thing! Weird!) Anyway, bacteria got in through the hole and caused a raging infection. The root of the tooth was black and the bone around it was being eaten away. So they had to take the tooth out. Luckily, the k-9 is used for snagging things that are running away… so she doesn’t need it for chewing. Not so luckily she has huge k-9’s. The doc said it was like taking out a walrus’ tooth. They had to cut both sides of the gum around the tooth and fold it back to expose the bone. Then saw away at the bone to get the tooth loose. They then take the flap of gum and fold it over the hole and suture it closed. Poor thing! She is on two types of pain medication and antibiotics. Wed night, she was really groggy and slept most of the time. Thurs. morning, she seemed like her old self again. I can tell she is in some pain, but she is so stoic. I’m giving her the pain medication as prescribed, even if she is running around and chasing chickens, ’cause she had MAJOR surgery! I’ve got pictures of the surgery on a floppy. I’ll post them when I can get them on the computer.
The Structural Engineer came out today and said we are good to go! He sees no problem with our house and sent a letter to the inspector. So, we will go ahead with insulation on Monday! Yeah! The power company is also coming out next week to run a line to the house. It’s been too cold to lay cordwood so we are doing other things to try to get the house closed in, like putting the windows and doors in.
We had our big framing inspection yesterday. It was really nerve wracking ’cause this inspector hadn’t been out to the house since we poured the foundation! So, we didn’t know what he would say. But all in all he really liked it. He kept talking about articles that he’d seen for alternative building and that he’d love to try something like this but didn’t have the guts, or a wife that would live in a alternative structure. But, since he doesn’t know a lot about this kind of building he’s asked us to get the structural engineer back out to sign off on it. He said “I think everything looks great. I just need him to send me a letter saying it’s structurally sound… it’s a CYA (cover your ass) move you know…” So, we hope to have the engineer out this next week.
We are going to finish framing up all the windows and getting prepared for insulation, which happens on the 19th. We are also busting ass to try to get all the cordwood done by the end of the month. (So, if you are a local and want some experience laying cordwood, come on out!! We could use the extra hands and would love your help!)
Check out this great site!
You can build your vocabulary and help the hungry…. Yes, it takes a while to build your ‘stash’ of rice, but if you look at the “totals” it can really add up!
We’ve laid cordwood all day yesterday and today and we are making good progress. We had 8 people come out and help!! It’s so much more effective to have at least 4 people working at one time. That way, someone can be mixing mortar, two people can be laying the wood, and someone can be pointing the mortar that has hardened enough to ‘finish’. We are probably about half way done. So, if we can get a few more cordwood work days in before the weather is consistently cold, we may be good to go!!
Here we have laid ‘big bertha’ in her place in the wall. It is the only large round piece that we have. They tend to crack, so we didn’t want to risk it with too many large pieces. But she seems to be holding up well.
And here is ‘big birtha’ a few hours later. Kaia said it look like she has bottle hair :-) I love the way it turned out!
These are the kitchen walls. We worked on the left section today.
We did this section yesterday and today. On the inside there more bottles making a pattern up the wall.
This is the living room area. The 2 sections to the right of the triangle are almost finished now!
So, Suki is loving her raw food! She has so much more energy and really seems to be happier since we started her on her new diet. But that lump on her muzzle just won’t go away. A few years ago she got a swelling on the left side of her muzzle. We thought she was stung by a bee, but the swelling never went away. I took her to a vet who said it didn’t look like anything to be concerned about and that it may just be a fluid cyst. Well, it stayed the same size for the last 2 years and recently got larger. I looked in her mouth to see her gums were red and inflamed with some pustular drainage in her upper mouth. I took her to the vet again today (a different one) and they said that it could be an abscessed tooth, but because of where the drainage is located, they think it may be a foreign body lodged in her gums. The only way to tell is for us to take her to an animal hospital an hour away, have her be anesthetized and get a CT scan of her head! UGH! They did some blood work today. I’ll know tomorrow how that looks and when we can get in for the CT scan (and how much it will cost). I’ve had her on some herbs that have brought down the redness and swelling, and she is showing no signs of discomfort. But, there is still drainage.
Now, on a happier note… we are getting Max back!!! 2 years ago, my baby Max (a Devon Rex cat that I had had for 8 years) went to live with some friends of ours. It broke my heart to give him away, but he was very unhappy with our living situation (tiny apartment with no other animal friends) and needed more companionship. Well, last week, I got an email from my friend. She said Max was doing ok, but he was lonely. He is again an only cat since the two cats they had when they adopted Max had died. Plus, she started having allergy problems to him during her last pregnancy earlier this year. So, as soon as the big house is done, Max will be coming home!!! He is 10 years old, but going strong! I’m hoping to get another younger cat (hopefully another Devon) to be a companion! Yay!! I’ve missed him!
Things have been cruising along busily for the past few weeks.
I spent much of last week in Columbia, MD at the American Herbalist’s Guild Symposium, which was fantastic, as usual! I spent most of the time in Paul Bergner’s classes. He’s got a fantastic way of explaining things in a way I understand. First was a 6 hour intensive on Clinical Nutrition in the Herbal Paradigm. We talked about macro and micro nutrients in the prehistoric, agrarian, and modern diet, and how the deficiencies and imbalances that have come about since industrialization have led to modern diseases. After that we began to discuss patterns of imbalance that are seen in the modern day diet: 1) The SAD pattern
(Standard American Diet), 2) The Anorexia pattern, 3) The Junk-Food Vegetarian pattern, 4) The Stress-Carbohydrate pattern, 5) The Insulin Resistance pattern, and 6) the Food Allergy pattern. It was fantastic! I have such a hard time with my clients and being able to describe why food is so important to health. I think the research he presented will help me to educate my clients in a way they can understand.
The next day I went to a talk on HPV and the new Gardasil vaccine given by Mary Bove. I was enraged when I left the class! So far, here is what we know about the vaccine…
–In June of 2006 the FDA approved Gardasil to be used on females age 9 through 26.
–The vaccine trial for Gardasil was a 14 day trial on women averaging 23 years of age (there were no girls under 12 in the study, yet it is being recommended by the FDA for 9 year olds!). The 14 day trial showed protection against 4 types of HPV (Two of these types of HPV cause over 70% of the cervical cancers, but there are over 100 different types of HPV.) Gardasil was tested alone. It was not given with any other vaccinations (yet we often give vaccinations in groups, ex: MMR and DTaP)
–As of May, 2007 (one year after approval by the FDA) there have been 2227 adverse reactions reported to the CDC (and only ~10% of all adverse reactions are ever reported). The reactions included 13 cases of GBS (Group Beta Strep.), 239 cases of fainting with temporary loss of consciousness (some also with head injuries and fractures), and seven deaths reported after receiving Gardasil. There have also been respiratory and cardiac problems, neuromuscular and coordination problems, and convulsions.
–The vaccine does not contain mercury. As a substitute preservative, it has 225 mcg Aluminum. (so if girls get all three shots, they will be getting 675 mcg aluminum)
–The 3 series of shots cost $360 wholesale. So if states made it mandatory to get this vaccine, Merck (the only producer of Gardasil) stands to make $3 billion dollars a year!)
–There is no long term testing on this vaccination. We have no idea long term effect on women, fetuses, health… and how long it will remain effective.
So, what about education??? We will force our girls to get a vaccination against potential cervical cancer, but we won’t teach them safe sex practices?? And what about getting our girls to have PAP smears as a preventative for cervical cancer? Cervical cancer is a slow progressing cancer. If we get pap smears, we are much more likely to catch cervical changes before it progresses. And what about educating our girls about healthy nutrition and body care? With a strong immune system, about 80% of HPV infections will be cleared rapidly from the body.
There is so much we don’t know about this vaccine! I would encourage all of you to become educated so you can make the best decisions for your children!
Next I went to a class on Herbal Gastroenterology talk by David Winston. This was another fantastic talk on how the digestive system is key to good health!!
I spent the next day with Paul Bergner again hearing his talks on Patient Energetics. Herbalist and fellow blogger, Guido Mase, give a great description of the class on his blog.
Then, it was on to Tongue Diagnosis with Christopher Hobbs. Tongue diagnosis is something that has been skimmed over in all the herb schools I have been to. I realize that it is not really a diagnostic tool, but more of a way to confirm what you may be seeing in a client. I really enjoyed his class. He kept it pretty simple (what a hot or cold tongue looks like and where different regions of the body are reflected in the tongue). But, it definitely helped.
Next years symposium is supposed to be in Seattle! I hope I can make it! They can really add up in price, especially if you have to fly. But, you really can’t put a price on knowledge, education, and feeling of community with fellow herbalists.
Lots going on with the house… Many pictures below
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Last year, my cousin J. and his partner, N., became pregnant with their first child. My Cousin J. is the kind of guy that everyone knew would make the best, most devoted dad, but it just never seemed like it would happen. So, when he and N. (both in their early 40’s) got pregnant we were all ecstatic! When N. was ~20 weeks along, she started having pre-term labor complications. After a few grueling weeks of bed rest and discussing options with doctors, viability, likelihood of complications, etc, N. was admitted to a high risk hospital. For the next few weeks, they did everything they could to try to ensure a good outcome for their baby, and they prayed their hearts out! I believe she was ~27 weeks gestation when baby P. was born. From working in Labor and Delivery, I can tell you that many babies born this early, if they make it out of intensive care, may be blind, deaf, mentally disabled, or other complications. Baby P. came out breathing on her own, and doing very well, but she was still only a little over one pound. For the next many months, J. and N. stayed by the side of baby P. Because the hospital was so far from home, they were unable to work. They were given a place to stay at the Ronald McDonald house by the hospital, where they had a room, shared kitchen, and the friendship of other parents whose children were in the intensive care. Baby P. was given excellent care and is now almost 8 months old and thriving. She has no long term complications and is the light of my cousins life.
To give a little back, Cousin J. is running a race to raise money for the Ronald McDonald house where they stayed while Baby P. was in the hospital. If you are financially able, it is a wonderful cause! You can check it out here.
I am working on a class about women’s health and menstruation, and it got me thinking about how I was introduced the ‘my period’. Around my house when I was a kid, we would always say “cousin Ralph has come for a visit” when we were having our periods. Now I call it my Moon time. I like that better and think it has a positive ring to it. From my students, I have heard all kinds of things from “on the rag”, to “aunt Flo”, to “the red flood”, to “goddess time”. So, I’m taking a survey… What do you say when you are bleeding? Be totally honest now… I want to hear all the positives and negatives.
One of the things I see in almost all of my clients (and that I have been working with in my own self) is an endocrine system that has been over taxed. Many of us live in a state of ‘fight or flight’… driving at high speeds to work, eating highly processed foods while on the run, taking on too many projects, fitting too many things into our days… And even those of us who have managed to bring down the stress levels in our lives still have to deal with an environment full of stressful and illness causing chemicals. My friend, Juliet Blankespoor, wrote a wonderful article about this that I think everyone should read.