Sitting pretty

I'm sitting here with a big smile on my face. I just figured out that I have less than $200 to raise to meet my goal to walk in the breast cancer 3 day. But the bigger, more wonderful thing that I just found, is that people have the opportunity to write messages to us when they make donations on line. I, somehow, was unaware of this until tonight and only discovered it because I'm not sleepy when everyone else is. Anyway, I just discovered a whole host of wonderful thoughts and blessings written to my mother and I. So many people had so many touching things to say to us and I've only just discovered it!

There are so many generous people in this world. I can't believe how much money we have raised together. It makes my heart happy to know that we are working together for some positive change in the world. It also makes me wonder what else we could achieve by working together.

kids on a cool slide

Big brother helps Jewelie on the slide.

We went to A taste of Carrollton tonight. It was like some modern version of hunting and gathering, but it was delish.

Hip Momma

http://www.ellabeebaby.com/Detail.bok?no=114

I made empanadas tonight. Mmmmm... I didn't even know what they were this morning, but tonight I think they taste like good Christmas food. Must be the cloves and raisins. Even the little boy ate it. Hey Mikey, He likes it!

Things seem so everyday here that sometimes I don't know what to blog about. The life of a stay at home mom can sound so unremarkable. I got the van serviced, I washed it and vacuumed it, I did the grocery shopping and made sure the trash made it to the curb before the truck came (Trash pick up is one of the true marvels of modern man - try living without it sometime), I made dinner. Who wants to hear about those things? We all want to believe that they just magically happen. It doesn't sound like an achievement, but I think anything that gets done with a baby on the hip is an achievement. But nobody ever won a Nobel Prize for household management as far as I am aware (not that I would even make the short list). Nonetheless, that is what I do most days.

Two days a week I still work in the clinic as a midwife. Sometimes those days are remarkable and other days routine. I'm constantly amazed at what women will put up with from their partners, as well as the burdens they can bear successfully and gracefully. In her book Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neal Hurston writes:

So de white man throw down de load and tell de nigger man tuh pick it up. He pick it up because he have to, but he don’t tote it. He hand it to his womenfolks. De nigger woman is demule uh de world so fur as Ah can see. Ah been prayin’ fuh it tuh be different wid you. Lawd, Lawd, Lawd!

Now, I'm not trying to get into a discussion on race relations, or feminism. I just think Janie's grandmother (the speaker), sums things up so well in this part of the book. Sometimes it really does seem that women, and especially poorer women, bear the heaviest burdens in society. And yet, women, I believe, have the greatest responsibility in society - rearing children, shaping and molding the future of the world. So often with the most minimal of resources. What is the best way to help? I help where I can, but I want to make change on a grander scale. One to one in the office, doesn't feel like enough for me, anymore.

To that effect, I stopped by the Obama/Biden headquarters in town today. No yard signs are available, but supposedly they'll call me when they are. I've never been excited about a political race, because I never saw anything that looked different from what we've always had. But this time, I have hope.

What I've been up to

So here is a picture Eric took of me today with his (gasp!) iPhone:

Of course, it's the end of a long work day, my makeup has rubbed off, and I'm sitting inside Gloria, the minivan. But there are a few things you can see here that are different about me (other than the crows feet):

I've colored my hair a bit darker than it grows, and I've a tiny little sparkle in my nose.

You may wonder if there is trouble in paradise. The girls at work think I've lost my mind. They only see me in my professional role, and have no idea that there is more to me than a mommy/midwife.

Truth is, that way back when I was a little girl, I remember seeing Indian women who had jewelry in their noses. I thought that they looked so exotic and beautiful and feminine. Just like the lady I so vividly remember who talked with my mother at an English Country Dance. As they conversed I was entranced by the ivy that wrapped so beautifully around her delicate wrist. It was the first tattoo I ever noticed and the most beautiful, as well. Isn't it interesting the things that make impressions on us when we are young?

So I've wanted to do this for years, decades even. About eleven years ago I made a list of things I wanted to accomplish in the next year, and then in the next 5 years. I went on with life and then found the list a few years later - do you know there was only one outstanding item on the list? With this in mind, I started a new list. Getting my nose pierced was one thing on it. I plan to change the jewelry to something a bit more subtle once it is healed. But, just as with earrings, it seems there is "starter" jewelry you wear in the beginning.

There are few interesting things I've noticed since I did this last Thursday (ooh- a week ago). A)the ladies I work with don't have any idea about my real personality B)Neither my son or my mother seem to have noticed C)There are at least two other mom's at Liam's church pre-school that have visible facial piercings and they don't look creepy or weird at all.

Perhaps the this whole post is frivolous, but something even more frivolous is my excitement not about the republican national convention broadcast tonight, but the first episode of 90210! It's strange to say, but it's like an old friend is back in town.

One last cool thing that's going on in my life right now. Yesterday I was piddling around in a tiny little antiques shop a few miles from home, when I found something that looks a lot like this:

This is a birthing stool from the early 1800s in America. Women sat on them, pulling upward on the handles as they pushed new life into the world. Despite the fact that I thought I was fed up with midwifery and working in women's health, I'm captivated by this odd little chair I found in a backwoods antiques market. I want the thing so badly. I feel like it is a link to the sufferings and joys of countless women and the midwives who attended them in their travail. I think I just have to have it. It seems like a ridiculous thing to spend money on, but then so is jewelry in your nose.

I'll let you know if I buy it.