Cut My Hair/Food/Birthing Babies

I cut my hair this morning. It was getting a bit too far past my shoulders for me, and now it's a bit too far above them.......but I did a good job of cutting it. It needed some touch up tonight as I could see the underneath hair was sticking out.....so I took care of that and now, technically it looks great. However, I will like it better when it grows out a bit.

Had a fairly decent day today foodwise.......still not great but I wasn't overeating or secretly eating chocolate bunnie grahams, peanut M&M's etc. like yesterday. I brought lemonade to work......didn't drink any of it til almost 3pm......did eat 1/2 of a Dagoba dark chocolate bar, 1 or 2 small peppermint 'lifesavers', but no bad snacks from the kitchen. Drank about 16-20 oz of raspberry blueberry lemonade, in the late afternoon, then came home, made burgers, tater tots and salad for dinner......didn't eat anything before dinner.....except for a couple of tater tots right before dinner....also made another rhubarb pie......one of the boys had a friend over....so thought it would be a nice treat, as well as a good way to use up the extra cut up rhubarb that was sitting in the fridge. Put 6 cups of rhubarb in the pie, so had to double the sugar 'custard', made the crust with sunflower oil, but added about 3 tbsp of butter to it also....the crust turned out well, the 'custard' either was still too warm when I cut the pie, as it was a bit runny, or it needed to be baked a bit longer. I did bake it for over an hour.....I think it was just too warm. The sugar 'custard' gathered at the bottom, creating areas that were way too sweet, but overall the pie was very good...will have to think how to make it work out better next time. I like having a very full pie, with the extra 'fruit' in it....works great to double up the fruit in apple and cherry pies, but with rhubarb it's a bit trickier.

So had a burger, a few tater tots, a decent bit of mixed greens salad, a slice of pie with some vanilla ice cream...and that was it for today. That and the chocolate...but still, not happy with myself. This is not 'bad' eating for 'sad' eating, but it is not what I want to do...and I was doing so well, and now have pretty much lost all progress made. Silly silly me. Not sure what tomorrow will bring. Good things. Green things, liquid things, raw things.

Up late tonight, it's after midnight, wanting to enjoy the full moon before it's too far gone, up because of sugar and chocolate......the night owl. I down loaded some new tiger pictures at work today, I love tigers. Esp. bengal tigers.......they look so cool......found some really great photos...so now have a new background on my computer at work, and new photos to add to emails.

I have been reading a few books..."The Future of Food" or "The End of Food"....anyways...a real eye opener and something that motivates me to work on our garden and compost as the world is so messed up in regards to food production, water usage, etc. and it is only going to get worse. I didn't realize that before the 1900's many countries went through regular periods of mass stavation and deaths, and that the average lifespan was maybe 40 years, the average height was barely 5 ft, average weight 134 pounds....for a man. And that many people were so weak from hunger they couldn't do anything. Not even go for a walk. Populations would outgrow food supply......and when food supply increased, population did also, so food supply levels were actually the same or worse. Strange....so many factors needed for a successful harvest....so many ways it could fail. Also lack of meat, and variety of foods made for poor health. I remember when my oldest son was born, my first, I went to Steve Gaskin's farm in Tennessee....where Ina Mae Gaskin lived.......and the source for the book "Spiritual Midwifery" which was my pregnancy bible. I loved reading all the stories in there, the wealth of information there was on pregancy and childbirth.....and I wrote and got permission to come there to have my baby.

It was early spring....March, when I arrived, 6 weeks before my due date, and I was very surprised at how little they had to eat. No fresh veggies, except maybe some kale and sweet potatoes that had overwintered, no broccoli, lettuce, carrots, celery.....nothing like that. No fruit...no apples, bananas, oranges, nothing, no peanut butter.........their flour was white flour as it was less expensive, and they had some bran you could mix back in..... I bought some groceries for myself from town as I couldn't get by on what little they had ( and needed to carry my own weight)...and I was shocked that they would eat white flour, and white sugar, that their big treat was to get together enough ingredients to make brownies. In retrospect I understand it all, but at the time I guess I was expecting a type of utopia. Found reality instead.

Great place to have a baby.......they were great....I am glad I went there....after that I thought I would just have my next baby by myself, under a tree......outdoors. Didn't quite happen that way (I had high blood pressure, a bit of pre-eclampsia, so birth was in a hospital) but I had my husband with me 24/7 while I was there, and we didn't let our baby out of our sight, so they didn't get to give him a Vit K shot (he didn't need one) or a Hep B vacination shot (what an awful thing to do to a newborn....) or anything like that. They didn't get to whisk him away in the middle of the night, my husband carried him when they wanted to check his vitals, and we kept him with us. When we got home, I bathed him in filtered water....couldn't stand the thought of bathing him in tap water.........that lasted for several months....til he was too big to fit in his baby bath tub. Used Weleda Calendula Cream on his bottom the entire time he wore his duck butt cloth diapers....I say duck butt as they were so bulky that's what it looked like.....a duck butt...and he was a wetter.......needed 3 diapers on with 2 pairs of plastic pants at night. But the calendula cream, which had a wonderful floral smell, kept his bottom soft and smooth and free of irriation.......awesome stuff.

Nostalgia........my last baby was born at a birthing center, with only the midwife...as he came too quickly for her assistant to arrive.........almost was born in the car......less than 1 hour from first sign of labor (my water broke) to his arrival. That was short, and intense...mostly fine, but we did miss having more time to emotionally integrate it all. Felt like we missed most of that movie. lol. But he was/is a sweet happy boy...22 months younger than his brother.....and that was also a bit hard........losing the older one as my baby.......losing that close close connection. I still nursed him....but it wasn't the same.

Well time for bed........the moon keeps moving on me.........can't see it anymore unless I go to the next room....

And what about all those wonderful books on raw foods I got for my birthday??? Yes. That is the $64 Million Dollar Question. One that needs to be addressed. Now.

So....bon soir et bons reves.

ciao bellas!
Alessandra