Good morning! It’s cold outside
this morning and it’s grey and it’s not a particularly pretty day. I spent some
time looking at pictures and watching video that I took in Idaho and it was
particularly pretty and I think I’m homesick for an ideal world in which there
is real winter and less humid summers and everyone I love is there. I also
looked at some that were taken not long after we arrived in Massachusetts and
although Daniel is there, Joanna isn’t. And Daniel’s birthday is a week from
today and I really miss him.
And I wasn’t going to write
anything today because I didn’t do much yesterday other than knit (the shawl
will be done today!) and watch NCIS during the day and in the evening I went to
the Meet the Doula night which was really nice. Seth and Joseph got their
homework done. Amena fell asleep almost as soon as she got home because she
stayed up all night doing the homework she’d neglected to do during the
previous nine days of no school.
This morning I got lunches ready
for Amena and the boys and ate a yogurt for breakfast. Included in lunches for
today were yogurts. I decided that I wanted more than a cold yogurt (which was
blueberry and very tasty) because it’s cold. So, after eating the yogurt and
looking at pictures and watching videos, I decided I wanted some hot chocolate
and a grilled cheese sandwich. While I was making those things happen, I was
thinking.
Paul bought a whole bunch of
yogurts yesterday. They are the individual size and the children love them but
they say ‘light.’ That means, in this case, that they are sweetened with
sucralose. I asked Paul this morning if he realized they were ‘light’ and he
did not. He apologized and I’m quite sure he will never buy those particular
yougurts again. This brought to mind something about shopping. Some people only
see dollar signs. This bread is $1.00 a loaf, that bread is $4.00 a loaf.
Because this bread is only $1.00, it must be better because it doesn’t cost as
much. Not so, I’m afraid. Paul shops by price, which is usually a good thing.
When it comes to some things, however, it isn’t so good. I don’t care if this
bread only costs $1.00 (by the way, I prefer homemade bread and very rarely
actually eat bread from the store), it is full of white flour, high fructose
corn syrup, and artificial this and that. The $4.00 bread is whole grain (which
can be tricky), is sweetened with honey (a whole other conversation), and has
nothing artificial in it. When I make bread, I usually make one of two kinds.
One has flour (whole wheat that I know really is whole wheat), honey, salt,
yeast, water, egg, milk, and oil. The other has flour (I have to admit using
some white flour in this one), yeast, water, salt, and beer. There is more to
it than just the price.
And that brings to mind cheese
and lunchmeat. Paul likes to buy the ends from the deli at Market Basket. The
price can’t be beat and sometimes you get some really good stuff. However, I
don’t care if this cheese is normal $7.00 a pound (the most he pays for ends is
about $1.00 a pound), it’s American which to me isn’t even cheese. When there
is Swiss, I’m happy. And the lunchmeat. It’s all over processed and I wouldn’t
even pay the $1.00 for it. I don’t care if this bologna is normally $9.00 a
pound. It’s nasty and no one in their right mind would eat it. Yuck!
Paul loves to shop the discount
racks. Sometimes you find some really good deals there (shin guards for $4.00
once—what a steal!) He even buys Kitty food. Recently he brought home two boxes
of individual serving size cans that had been marked down. One box said that
two cans were missing and the other said there were 11 of the 12 it should
have. Well, you really have to look closely. Even though these boxes were taped
up, the first one actually had four cans missing and the other box, which I
just opened today, had three missing.
You have to be careful that you
really are getting a good deal.
Another thing that I was
thinking about was islands for idiots. Someone posted on Facebook a day or two
ago that she’d like to have an island for idiots (not her terminology but you
get the picture). I had to laugh because the idiots she’d like to send there
are ones I would get along with pretty well. My idiot island would probably include
a lot of people like her. As my thoughts continued along this path, I thought
that there should probably be three islands: one for Democrats who the
Republicans know are crazy, one for Republicans who the Democrats think are
nuts, and one for the rest of us who don’t fit in either category.
Have you ever noticed how people
always have stories to tell about where they work? Some of them are really
funny. Joanna said that yesterday she made some hot chocolate for a woman.
After the woman tried it, she asked if she could get a Sprite instead because
the hot chocolate was “too chocolaty.” How the heck can hot chocolate be too chocolaty?
And older man came in, Joanna guessed in his 60’s, who ordered chicken strips.
Joanna asked if he’d like something to dip the chicken in. He asked what was available.
Joanna said, “Honey mustard, barbeque, and ranch.”
“What,” he asked, “exactly is
ranch?”
How do you describe ranch to someone
who has never had it? It’s kind of like attempting to describe salt. I
suggested saying, “Well, someone went to a ranch. . .”
At Meet the Doula night last
night there were three doulas, three pregnant mama’s, two partners (one had to
leave her husband home watching her two boys), Karen, and Paulette when she
could be. There was one doula on and about five hundred women popping babies
out. Busy place last night. Anyway, Karen and Paulette are really wonderful and
have a lot of really awesome birth stories to tell. I love listening to them.
Once the pregnant people were gone, we learned about hemorrhages. Mostly how to
identify risk factors in order to help prevent and then to know what happens in
the actual event of a hemorrhage. It was quite interesting and in spite of the
fact that I’ve done a lot of reading and have attended classes regarding
hemorrhages, I learned some things. Two that I thought were particularly
noteworthy are that in the case of a VBAC, the force of vomiting can cause
uterine rupture and when a woman has had an epidural, she isn’t going to feel
anything that would clue medical personnel to the fact that she’s had a rupture
but she often will feel pain or discomfort in her neck, shoulder, and jaw.
Well, that’s all for today. I need to get on
to other things. Like folding clothes and finishing a shawl.
Have a terrifical day!
No comments:
Post a Comment