7 Quick Takes: Fundraising, Baseball, and Eating Issues

7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Kym’s Hysterical (not) Hysterectomy. My friend Kym DuPont was diagnosed with stage 1 uterine cancer a few months ago. They tried hormone therapy which ultimately didn’t work. The only cure at this point is a hysterectomy which she has to pay for out of pocket because she is uninsured. (Obamacare doesn’t kick in for people like her until 2014.) Surgery + anesthesia + everything else will be ~$60000 so she has a YouCaring.Com page up for it. If you can spare a few bucks head over there.

— 2 —

Promise Walk. Is this a good enough reason to sponsor me in the Promise Walk?

Baptizing Daniel at 4 days old.

That’s Jon and I at Daniel’s baptism when he was 4 days old. My little hand is on the bottom and Jon’s hand is on top. For those who don’t know the backstory, I developed HELLP Syndrome and they had to do a really quick ambulance transfer from my tiny town in Montana to the hospital in Great Falls that had a NICU and where my perinatologist was based. I was in surgery within 45 minutes to 1 hour after arriving and they delivered Daniel by emergency c-section at 29.5 weeks gestation. He was 14 1/4 inches long and weighed 1 lb 15 oz. at birth. Additionally, I had a 30% placental abruption that they discovered upon opening me up and was bleeding severely. (I just barely missed ICU admission because the HELLP Syndrome started resolving itself with the delivery of Daniel.) As a way of dealing with what I went through, I got involved with the Promise Walk in 2011. Preeclampsia is a condition that affects 1 in 8 pregnancies and we still don’t know the cause so I want to ask that you please consider supporting me (even $5) in this effort.

— 3 —

Orphans. Do you see these three adorable kidlets?

First row: Brett and Iris.
Second row: Kaia.

BrettIrisKaia

Brett still needs a mama. Iris finally has a family committed to her. Kaia has a family committed to her who will be traveling to her country at the end of July to meet her and spend some time with her as well as complete paperwork. Click on their names to see their Reece’s Rainbow pages.

— 4 —

Progress on the Whole Change of Diet. It’s been a hard week. Daniel is on summer break from preschool and is in “destructive toddler” mode. This makes it really hard to make food because I can’t leave him alone and he currently isn’t allowed in the kitchen. I’m trying to avoid processed foods as much as possible but it’s pretty hard because those are the convenient foods when you have little ones like Daniel. I’m also now finding out how many calories I was usually eating — a packet of gummy worms is 110 calories per serving… and a serving is 5-7 gummy worms, making the entire package around 770-800 calories! My head has become a calorie computer and it’s to the point where I could get really OCD about this whole thing. I don’t own a scale for a reason — I’d be completely obsessive about my weight and could easily cross over into eating disorder mode.

— 5 —

Baseball! *sighs* The Giants dropped two of their three games against the Pirates. Their effort yesterday was pretty good considering they were without Angel Pagan, the Panda, Marco Scutaro, one of their pitchers, and Bruce Bochy — 12-8 was not the worst they could have done. They shut the Pirates out today which helped. I believe they’re on their way to Atlanta now.

— 6 —

Entry in the works. I’ve been pondering a blog post on why I don’t homeschool Daniel in response to the annoying twits I occasionally encounter in the blogosphere who act like public schools are going to turn children into Communists and godless heathen or who can’t *BEAR* to be away from their children and not share in all their learning adventures. (Gag me with a freaking spoon.) I’m being judicious about it because I know so many moms who homeschool their kids and are lovely, well-rounded people like priest’s wife, Sara, Cari, Dwija, and Kelly. I’m also trying not to write it only because I’ve been stuck in a house with a four year old who has been having communication tantrums for 4 days and I’m counting down the minutes until summer school starts. (Autism is a freaking joy on occasion.)

— 7 —

Mani-pedi time. My pedicurist talked me into getting a mani-pedi tomorrow instead of just a pedicure so I’ll be doing that tomorrow morning. I have my hands in so much stuff that’s either gross or corrosive so I usually wouldn’t do it but I figured it’s worth a shot. After the week I’ve had, I’m looking forward to it.

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at ConversionDiary.Com.

14 thoughts on “7 Quick Takes: Fundraising, Baseball, and Eating Issues

  1. Sorta funny story when I first found your blog you were preparing for the Promise Walk too 🙂

    I can totally see becoming OCD about calories as well. Especially since I probably would use an app of some kind and be like OMG I’m going to die and then 5 minutes later I’d eat candy lol

    Yeah I get kind of offended by the homeschooling people as well. I went to public school my whole life (my parents couldn’t afford fancy private schools and hs wasn’t well accepted-only crazies did that). So when people talk badly about public schools it kind of annoys me and makes me feel like I had a bad education (which I don’t think at all).

  2. I’ve been munching on Trader Joe’s Healthy 8 chopped veggie mix. It’s all ready to go (I add a teensy bit of ranch dressing or mayo). Oh, and lots of hummus and cucumbers. And kefir. I have no idea if that helps, but it’s better than gummy worms!

    All growing up, I wished I was homeschooled, so I think that is a partial motivation for wanting to homeschool Junior. I had non-traumatic but nevertheless unhappy school years at private school, and public school was worse. I think it has to do with the area, too, our public high school was notoriously bad. Some people get luckier with their school districts.

    Enjoy your mani-pedi!

  3. Your #6 made me laugh out loud! Education is an individual thing, so I don’t think you should feel bad about your decision, regardless which one you make. 🙂

    Also, I hope you get a ton of sponsors on the Promise Walk!

  4. I hate the fact that I’m a calorie calculator. It really does suck. However, it helps avoid the really bad foods (at least in my case)

  5. You’re going to have your rabid fundamentalists in every sector of society. Thanks for saying I’m not one of them! (I think it was me…I didn’t click the link. )

    There are some awful things going on in school these days, but there are parents who are perfectly capable of talking frankly with their kids and dealing with the issues (like a good friend of mine), and there are times when public schools offer the best chance for your child because they have greater resources (special needs, sports, or just time away!). For us, it was the best decision *for us* which takes into consideration 1. what we want educationally, 2. our personalities, 3. how we want to teach our faith, and 4. the particular child. I would never say that anyone’s personal decision was wrong. No school situation is perfect: not home, not private, not parochial, not public.

  6. Jen, thank you for the mention. I GREATLY appreciate it. I’m currently at just over 1% and am feeling very encouraged.

    As for the whole homeschooling debate, there are pros and cons to both sides. I went to public schools my whole life and received a wonderful education. Dean went to public schools his whole life, and barely made it out in one piece – of course I’ve seen his hs, and it could easily be converted to a low security prison (no windows, high fences). We both work out of our home, and the local schools aren’t the greatest, although better than when we lived in the East Bay (we had more books than the local library). If we’d been blessed to have kids, we would probably home–school. I’ve also met home-schooled kids who took forever to complete tasks because they had no deadlines to finish projects. As Sara above said, no school situation is perfect. (And the cats just won’t sit still for a math lesson!)

  7. I went to a great, extremely small, public school until 9th grade and then moved to a new state and had an “ok” experience. I always wanted to attend a Private, all girls school but alas, they didn’t exist in Norther MN or in North Carolina…My husband attended an all-boys school and loved it. As a working outside the home family, homeschooling would be…interesting to accomplish although we would love to be able to do it.

    • oh, the homeschooling “like’ is because we all like sleeping late and having to get up, fed, dressed, and out the door by the unGodly hour of 8amish is really too much for all of us to handle. In fact, we rarely bring our child to daycare in any of the above mentioned status. We love our daycare provider.

  8. lovely? well-rounded? Thanks! 😉
    try to think of a homeschoooling-pusher as someone who thinks you could do a good job at it- but it is not for everyone- and Daniel needs resources! of course you are totally involved with him- however he gets schooled

  9. I had no clue HELLP affected 1/8!

    On a lighter note, please thoroughly enjoy your mani-pedi. You deserve it!!!

  10. #6 I homeschool my 5 kids and I totally struggle with all the things you mention. Seriously. All public school teachers do not have agendas to turn my kids into liberal whackos. They just don’t. Chin up. 🙂 You are doing what’s best for your family and the best looks different for EVERY family.

  11. I would love to read that homeschooling post. I had a great public school experience, we live in a good district, I see a lot of perks to homeschooling, and I’m very drawn to the nearest parochial school. The way I see it, there’s someone waiting to guilt me no matter what decision I make for my kids’ education, which is especially difficult because there are great benefits for all three of my choices and the negatives all are of about the same weight.

  12. I hear you on the homeschooling thing. The longer I am a parent. The more I realize that these parenting “arguments” – homeschool vs. private vs. public, breast vs. formula, stay-at-home vs. work-outside-the-home, etc. are just futile and destructive. Every parent has to decide what works best for themselves, their child, their family, their situation. No two families are identical in their needs, their beliefs, their financial situation, their health situation, their health, their upbringing, their faith, or their values. Every family has to figure out what works best for them, and moms tearing down other moms over these issues isn’t helping any of us.

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