The Three Tips

I have three tips that I want to pass along to you, in case you haven't heard them before (which you probably haven't... unless you are me). I haven't had the opportunity to try the first two tips myself, but I have heard fabulous things about them from others who have.

THE THREE TIPS

1) If your child has a fever, rub his feet with egg whites. It will make the fever go down. I don't know why this work, but apparently it does.

2) If you have a breast infection (or any kind of infection, perhaps?), down shots of raw apple cider vinegar throughout the day. That should get rid of it.

3) If you have curly hair (which I kind of do, but not really), try this technique to bring out your curls: Get your hair wet (don't use shampoo), then rub in a ton of a natural-type conditioner (DO NOT RINSE IT OUT). Then, just let your hair air dry. I have a friend who does this (it's described in the book Curly Girl), and her curly hair looks fabulous. So, I tried it the other day, even though my hair is more wavy than curly, and I liked the results.

Here's a picture:

I realize that you can't really tell much about my hair from this picture (other than that my face looks pasty and my arms look awesome) because it is just a mass of darkness. It would have probably looked curlier if I had taken the picture earlier in the day. But it was a lot less frizzy and more manageable than it usually is. I used a small .25 oz sample thing of conditioner that I got from the co-op, and the bad thing was that it was scented (and you all know how much I don't like scents). Ugh. I kept smelling it through half the day.

But this hair technique is especially useful if you do have really curly hair. So, try it if you do.

Reality Crap

I normally like to pride myself on watching good quality television shows (Friday Night Lights, 30 Rock, Modern Family, The Walking Dead, etc.), but there is something about Boston Rob that can't keep me away from watching Survivor. He's back again! (And he was just on it last year!)

I love that guy.

I watched a lot of television (as well as lower-quality television) the first year (which was last year) of Peace's life because that was what I would do during our endless evening nursing sessions to get her off to sleep. I watched Celebrity Apprentice (gotta love me some Joan Rivers). I watched The Amazing Race (although, The Amazing Race is so well done, I should hardly be calling it lower-quality).

And now "The Cowboys" as well as "Flight Time and Big Easy" are back on The Amazing Race: Unfinished Business, so I'm feeling like I want to watch that regularly again too (I already watched the first episode).

And I don't know why I want to watch Celebrity Apprentice again, but I do. And there's really no excuse for that, because that show is crap.

My Birth Photography

I started this page on facebook for my birth photography. I was thinking that you could all *like* it, you know, so that potential clients will think that my birth photography is popular or something.

If you do choose to *like* it, I won't bombard you with messages or anything from that page. It is mainly a promotional page for prospective clients to see my stuff. I won't be updating it regularly or anything.

Goodbye, Friday Night Lights

I have to do you all a favor and tell you something very important. I wouldn't feel right keeping this information to myself.

The television show, Friday Night Lights, is the most amazing show in the universe. Everybody should know about this.

I just watched it's final episode this past week, and it was amazing. This whole season was amazing. The whole run of the show was amazing.

I would say that Friday Night Lights is in contention with being the best television series of all time. (The other two contenders are Gilmore Girls... which would probably walk away with the title if not for the fact that it kind of faltered there for a couple of seasons, and Everwood... which had a solid run all around, but should have lasted longer.)

The relationship of Eric and Tami Taylor is portrayed beyond comparison. I can't even begin to describe how true-to-life, heartfelt, and real it is.

So, if you haven't watched Friday Night Lights, please watch it in its entirety... all the way from Season 1 through Season 5.

For some reason or other, I ended up watching this fabulous series without Vernon. So, after the final episode, I told Vern that I was going to do him a favor and watch all the episodes of Friday Night Lights over again... with him. (This is a big thing for me, because I tend to NOT want to watch something over that I've already seen once... I'd rather watch something new.) I said, "We could watch one episode every Friday night. Wouldn't that be fun?"

And Vernon said, "I'd rather find something else to do every Friday night... like go out with you."

Ah, sweet, yes. But that's not the point. The point is that Vernon does not fully understand the awesomeness of this show. He doesn't get it. He doesn't see. I MUST MAKE HIM SEE! I MUST GET HIM TO UNDERSTAND!

I MUST GET YOU ALL TO UNDERSTAND! YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE MISSING! IT IS TRULY THE MOST AMAZING SHOW EVER!

(Please... I don't care if you all listen to what I say about birth, food, parenting, whatever... but please listen to me on this. That's all I have to say.)

A Level of Comfort

We've been living with Vern's brother, Vince, for three months now. I guess, somewhere along the line, we have reached a point of comfort in living here. So much so, that we have been doing things like:

1. Messing up his stove:

(There is no sense in buying him new drip pans before we move out because I would just mess them up anyway. I am somehow unable to cook without making an utter mess out of the drip pans.)


2) Utilizing his kitchen:

(We leave used tea bags sitting out. I've got my kombucha brewing and some beans soaking. My knives are out. Occasionally, one of the kids (or me) will put a piece of bread in the toaster and then forget about it.)


3) Dirtying his dish rags:

All of these are signs of becoming comfortable in our environment. We have kind of taken over, in a way... which is kind of hard not to do with a family of five encroaching on a man of one.

I also wash the dishes the way I wash the dishes, even though they are Vince's dishes and the way I wash dishes is the way he puts them into the dishwasher. And I wipe the counters off without being conscious of if I'm brushing crumbs onto the floor. And I go to the bathroom with the door open (if I'm sure that he's in the basement) because otherwise Peace will cry if I close the door.

And... wait for it... we've also had sex here a couple of times (shh... don't tell Vince).

Which a guess is a good thing, albeit, still a little weird.

Another Rude Blog Comment

I like to think that all of you people who read this blog are lovely, respectful people. So it always comes as a surprise to me when somebody leaves me a rude comment after a blog post! I don't have a thick enough skin for this business, people!

So, before I talk about this latest comment, let's review the comments I got in the past:

1. The first one came not directly as a result from this blog, but from my Nursing Etiquette video on YouTube. Somebody called me homely. (I talk about that here.)
2. The next comments came in response to this post about Once Upon a Child and this one about Five Things. The commenter said I was judgmental. (I talk about that here.)
3. Another comment came from this post on The Dilemma with the Knives, which I talk about here.

Okay. Now on to the most recent one. It was in response to my post about Washing the Dishes. Somebody wrote, in response to some other comments left in the comment section:

So, you don't know why you do all the things you do?? Seems like a scary way to raise a family!!! Sure hope your kids turn out all right! 

WTF? (And by "F", I mean "Frick".)

I mean, seriously... who feels the need to leave rude anonymous posts on other people's blogs? I don't get it.

It's not even that big of a topic to get worked up over in the first place.

Which I guess doesn't explain why I'm responding to it. I am a paradox in that way, I guess.

Mannequin

I forgot to mention the movie Mannequin.

(And, seriously... why are so many people searching "Chris Gaines"? I don't get it.)

Washing Dishes, Goofy Mama Style

I feel the need to explain and espouse more on the benefits of washing dishes with only water, immediately after using them (which I mentioned awhile ago in this Lower Standards post).

Here's why this method is so wonderful:

Dishes never pile up.

Here is how I stumbled up on this idea:

When using a cast iron skillet, you're not supposed to wash it with soapy water because that ruins it. So, I figured that if you can wash that with just water, then why not take that principle and apply it to the other dishes as well?

And using really hot water sterilizes them. And you're not putting any chemicals on your dishes in the form of dish soap. And it's what you would be doing if you were camping (or, at least it's what I would be doing).

It is just a really, really amazing method, I'm telling you. It could revolutionize the world!

Jack Off To This!

It has occurred to me that I haven't posted a picture of my own self for awhile. So, for all of you who like to jack off to pictures of me (I'm looking at you, cousin Brian), here you go:

I'm shown here with my biggest accomplishment since the birth of Peace.

Speaking of Peace, remember how she learned how to say "Dora" and how that annoyed the heck out of me? Well, I taught her how to say "Homer" and that makes me feel better.

I Love You All!

Happy Valentine's Day, dear readers of my blog!

This picture is our yearly tradition. Take a look at years past...

2010:

2009:

2008:

2007:

2006:

This and That

Stream of consciousness post:

Peace is nursing as I type this. On my right boob. Which makes it hard to use the mouse. Nursing while on the computer works much better when she is on the left boob.

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day. I have a picture I'm going to post. We're going to get a heart shaped pizza from Papa Murphy's for supper for the family.

She's off now.

I like Shelfari. Click here to see what books I've been reading. (I like books.)

I watched this movie called Phoebe in Wonderland last night. It was really good.

Here is a list of movies I watched over and over and over again when I was a kid, in order of times viewed:

1) Girls Just Want to Have Fun
2) Just One of the Guys
3) Stand By Me
4) Savannah Smiles
5) Heavenly Bodies

John Taylor Gatto Talk

I wanted to type up some notes about the John Taylor Gatto talk the other night. It was kind of boring at times, but it was good. He likes to talk and would often go off on tangents. He told about one class he talked to for six hours because nobody told him to stick to the script.

He looked a lot older than I was expecting. I guess I only knew him from a picture on the cover of his book, A Different Kind of Teacher: Solving the Crisis of American Schooling, which was published 8 years ago. He's 75 years old, has diabetes, and is a Roman Catholic.

Here are some more notes:

1) There is no correlation between standardized test scores and intelligence/being a success later in life. Hundreds of attempts have failed to find any value in testing and this has been kept from the public.

2) This is something our culture doesn't want students to know, because then they can't control students. He was giving a talk to high school students in New York and was telling them this, when, 10 minutes later, cops came in and told him that if he didn't leave the school immediately, they would arrest him. The teachers apparently called the superintendent, who called the cops to have him removed so kids wouldn't hear any more. (He writes about stuff like this more in his book Weapons of Mass Instruction, which I haven't read yet.)

3) He said that National Merit Scholars commit suicide more than any other group because they are used to privilege within this group, but is then met with a world that doesn't care about their achievement.

4) He talked about how Henry Ford marginalized the Jews (read: The Dearborn Newspaper) and that Adolf Hitler had a giant poster of him because of this. (I forget how this was connected to anything. It was probably a tangent. I think it had something to do with our universal forced schooling originated in Germany.)

5) Darwin's The Descent of Man talks about how 90% of the population is evolutionary trash and that they should be weeded out or we'll all evolve backwards. After the publication of this book, the emergence of country clubs shot up by the hundreds, as well as elite colleges.

6) There are three places that jobs come from: 1) The government creating jobs, 2) Giant corporations, and 3) Creating your own job.

So, that was the gist of it, kind of, sort of, but probably, not really. There was really a lot of stuff that he went into which somehow connects everything that I cliff-noted here.

After the talk, I mulled around him with some other Gatto groupies, who were asking him questions. I was too shy to ask him anything (as per my usual agenda), but it was neat being in his presence.

Here is the talk:

John Taylor Gatto

I'm going to listen to John Taylor Gatto talk tonight. One of my dreams come true.

Dating My Husband

On October 1, 2010, I went on a real date with my husband. It was nice and fun and we both felt like we were teenagers again. Somewhere along the road of marriage and life and (most blameworthy) children, we have gotten out of the habit of going out on dates with each other. But after that one date, we were both left with the realization that we NEED to get out and do stuff like this more often. For the sake of our marriage. For the sake of our lives. For the sake of each other.

That is why Moorhead seemed so appealing... because my mom lives there and could watch the kids once in awhile.

So, now I'm trying to come up with ideas to create that kind of life here.

I've looked into what a teenage babysitter would cost (and by "looked into" I mean that I posted a facebook poll about it), and found out that they are much more expensive than I ever would have though. I think that my upbringing (growing up in a super-small, rural town) and not making very much money as an adult (I never really had a real "real" job. Vernon taught at a Catholic school for less than $20,000 a year before going back to school to become a chiropractor... where he then got around $22,000 in student loans for living expenses) has kind of stunted my thinking regarding money in this modern-day metro world that I'm currently living in.

But, anyway, my facebook poll (with 40 or so responses) revealed that people are paying around $7-$10 for a young teenage babysitter. (I got paid around $1 an hour when I was that age.) The only response that seemed reasonable to me was from a friend who still lives in the super-small rural town that I grew up in. She pays $2.

So, hiring a babysitter might be something on the horizon, but, obviously, not now (as I sit here typing in a room that we are living in rent-free from Vernon's brother).

John Taylor Gatto is going to be in town giving a talk at Macalester College on Friday night. I'm going to go to it, of course (why would I miss it?)... but this is really, really something that I would like to go to with Vernon (and he would like to go as well... I even got him to read Dumbing Us Down last year). But it seems like too much trouble/effort trying to arrange childcare for our kids.

Today, out of curiosity, I posted another question asking: How many times in a month do you and your spouse go out on a date?

The results: Most people said zero. (Some said one or two, only a few said more than that.)

A lot of people mentioned that they stay in for date nights with their spouse. Vern and I tried that last spring, but it just isn't the same. There is something about getting out and exploring the external world together that is kind of fun and magical and necessary (for us, anyway).

I would like to do more of it.

(Oh, my silly mother... living all the way in Moorhead. Why does she go and do things like that?)