Fetal personhood and criminalizing abortion: a prosecutor’s perspective

YarnMama:

This is precisely why I regard myself as pro-choice……well, I should specify pro-her-choice. For years I identified myself as pro-life until I understood EXACTLY, in finite detail what that meant.

Originally posted on the moonlight reader:

I apologize in advance, because this post has nothing to do with books, classics or otherwise.

But I’ve been watching a lot of Republican candidates for federal office saying a lot of stuff about pregnancy and rape, and pregnancies resulting from rape, over the last several weeks, and I am simply unable to keep my mouth shut any longer. Because as all of my friends know, I’ve been prosecuting rape, child abuse and homicide for over a decade and a half, and this is a subject that I happen to know quite a lot about. And I am deeply disturbed by the personhood movement, by the idea that there should be specified exceptions to a blanket criminalization of abortion, and by the fact that the group of mostly men propounding this policy seem to have absolutely no FREAKING idea what they are actually trying to do here. Since I think…

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Just a quick link

I happened across this old blog from 2011 that touches on something that I have thought about time and time again. Being friends with your child. One person in the comments states my thoughts perfectly, that there is a difference between being friends and being approval seeking. There was also the comment about the bizarre expectation of society that we should only be friends with peers in our age group. I never meshed with that, but I was told I was odd bc I preferred older friends, which never made sense to me. Just do yourself a favor and take two minutes to read it through.

For the love of mommy

Wow, I completely missed posting last month! Would you believe me if I said I was picked up in the middle of the light by some aliens? No? Well then, bully for you for not believing a cock and bull story like that. Just don’t ask MEwhat happened to me last month…I’m just old and forgetful like that I suppose.

Now, onto today’s post. My apologies that after so long and I’m posting about something personal that probably won’t be of much help. It has been on my mind for a while now, but I feel I’m finally at a good place in my life that making a change is now acceptable.

A little back story: I have always struggled with my weight. My first memory of being made fun of for my weight is fourth grade by an evil little red headed beauty named Sara Seitz, by the way Sara, if your reading this, I still think you suck for that. So, like I said….all my life. So I know that a lot of this is genetics, but that doesn’t make it impossible, only more difficult.
Back in 2008 I signed up with Quick Weight Loss Centers and on a 4 year journey I lost my goal weight (and then some!) and was into a size 4 (even smaller actually, as the 4’s were getting big, but it didn’t last long enough for me to buy a smaller size) which truly proved to me that it WAS possible and I could beat the odds regardless of my genetic coding. However it was not to last. In May 2011 I discovered I was expecting my first child, something that meant the world to me, as it was something we didn’t think would ever happen for us. As you can imagine, I wanted to do everything right and risk nothing to protect my newly forming babe. When I went to my next QWLC visit, I explained that I was expecting and the girl looked at me with such horror and told me I had to get off plan as it wasn’t healthy for my growing child. As you can imagine this was about the scariest thing I could hear, so I stopped everything that I was doing, had been doing for four years and foolishly did….well, the opposite of all that. I discovered during this time that is next to zero books available strictly on pregnancy nutrition.
While I did have a slightly higher than normal weight gain throughout my pregnancy I stayed within a healthy range…… until the last month and a half. (because my littles was just way to comfy eating like the Queen of Sheba that she decided to wait an extra couple of weeks). That last month and a half were horrible. I couldn’t even tell you how much weight I gained, but I just suddenly blew up. Nothing fit, I was a hormonal wreck, I just wanted to get that baby out!to keep my baby safe and happy so I carried on as unstressed as possible, which was very difficult at times. I told myself I would start dieting immediately after baby arrived and gave myself 9 months to lose the weight, it took 9 months to put it in, so that was a realistic expectation, right? Wrong. I failed to factor in that I would have the most precious thing in the world to take care of and that she wouldn’t allow me sufficient time to meal plan, cook meals that required more that 5 minutes prep time, oh yeah, and sleep. So there I was, your typical frazzled new mom trying to do everything right for her child and never giving up hope of eventually feeling secure that I was doing it “right”.

“Oh yeah!” I realized 6 months later, I was going to try and do something about this weight! Ha! It’s now been 18 months and I’ve lost total 30lbs since dd (dear daughters) arrival. i failed to mention that I gained around 100lbs during my pregnancy. So yeah. Time to fix that. Now that dd is older and more independent and I no longer feel the need to check that she’s breathing in the middle of the night (just kidding…I still do, and probably will when she’s 16 too) I feel that now is a good time for me to gradually start taking back a little of my time. She will ofcourse continue to be my sole focus, but I think I can manage things a bit more without feeling like she is having to deal with less mommy love. I may never be a size 4 again, but I would take getting out of sizes that begin with an X at this point. I’ll be starting a new blog focusing on my weight loss journey with all the sordid details that I will link back to here shortly for those that are interested. Thanks for letting me get that off my chest!

UPDATE: My other Blog is now up, and can be found at www.fortheloveofmommy.wordpress.com  It is blank at the moment as ittle bits woke up before I could put up my firsts post :)

A DIY changing pad!

We are preparing to fly out with the little goose again, and one thing that I was dreading was the airport and general public diaper changing stations.Now that my little goose is 16 months old, I knew that there was no way the diaper changing pads that I currently own would provide enough coverage. I’m not a major “germaphobe” by any means, but I just think there are some germs that you should stay away from. In my despair, I remembered a DIY tutorial that I had found on Pinterest several months ago (Don’t you just LOVE Pinterest!?!?) So I linked back to a great blog here showing how to make a roll up diaper changing pad from a vinyl table cloth. I was inspired! Instead of making mine a circle, I used a changing pad that I already had and altered it. It was rectangular, so I had to make my own pattern….what a pain in the neck that was. First time I’ve EVER patterned, so I guess I should say that the journey was difficult, but the end result was wonderful. Way to be positive, right? :)

so lets begin:

here you can see my makeshift pattern. I used cardstock paper that I taped together and traced out 4″ all around from my original changing pad. I cut this out 2x from the table cloth for the base of the changing pad. (I know, I know, I’m SOOOO fancy, but don’t worry, you can be successful with just about any material you have at home ;) )

Next is my diaper pocket/top piece that I simply came in 6″ from the edge of my first pattern piece (sorry, I CLEARLY don’t know what the proper names of these pieces are, or if there are any, so my apologies if my lack of propriety offends you) and cut out the center. I ran out of cardstock, so some lovely used tissue paper came into play.

I then sewed the 2 full pieces together, then I sewed on the original diaper changing pad to the “base” piece, put the bias tape on the inside trim of the frame/pocket, sewed the top frame/pocket piece to the base, then sewed the two pockets, per the original pattern (see link in first paragraph) which is basically just sewing 4″ in so that your diaper pad has a look of three panels to it. Then I added the bias tape to the trim of the outside of the completed changing pad. I also added a hair tie/ponytail holder to it and a button so secure the closure. There are different ways of accomplishing this, but since I completely forgot that I needed to include this when planning it all out (duh!) I had to improvise the best way possible. I know it sounds tricky, but please, follow the original link for a much more clearly outlined instruction detail. As previously mentioned…..I am a mere novice. Anyway, here are the completed project pictures for your enjoyment. My apologies for my lack of instructional pictures…..I really didn’t think it was going to come out. :)

here is the completed “back” of the changing pad.

and here is the completed “front” you can see the original diaper pad in the center…the plain brown bit…

Here you can see the diaper pocket. and yes, it rolls up very nicely with the diapers in there. I would recommend a malleable pack of wipes for this as well. Those small travel size ones in the plastic bag packaging? yeah, those are great for this!

Here it is with both sides folded in towards the center before being rolled up.

and lastly, here it is with the botton and hair tie closure secured.

And thats it! I hope you enjoyed this, and if you make it too or post on your blog about it, please share a link in the comments so I can see what you did with it! :)

New kitchen tip

We love avocados around here, well, baby and I do, not so much my hubby. Anyway, I always find myself only needing to use half of an avocado. What to do with the other half to keep it from turning brown?? The oil trick didn’t work, neither did the lemon. So I had an epiphany earlier this week. I thought back to all of my avocado sweet dishes, and how the avocado never turns gross in them. Ah-ha! Sugar! So I put some sugar in a Baggie, dropped in the unused half of the avocado and smooshed it in until there was a good layer on the open cut side. As a real test I left it alone for 4 days. Below is a picture after two days.

. Sorry for the poor picture. It was in the evening when I remembered I wanted to get a snapshot. But you can see, even in this terrible photo that the avocado looks GREAT! Now on day 4 I chopped it up and used it in a Mexican omelet, to test for any sugary flavor. I also tasted it plain before adding to the omelet and huzzah! Nary a sweet flavor to it at all. Finally a way to keep my avocados fresh!

You made Avocado….WHAT?!?!

So last weekend i bought a giant bunch of beautiful beets at the farmers market. i came home, admired them, then i realized i had NEVER made anything EVER using beets. I was beside myself. I know that my parents used to make pickled beets, and picked eggs, and just plain boiled beets, but none of these options appealed to me. Finally last night I remembered that a friend of mine raved about her beet curry, and how even her kiddos loved it. I figured it was worth a shot. Let me just say this is not a recipe for those who like an easy in and out sort of recipe (like me!) between the peeling, grating, peeling (onions this time) and chopping (tomatoes) and the dirty dishes and beet juice that just seemed to get all over everything, I was in the kitchen all night. Anyway, the point of sharing this is that I got the genius idea to reserve some of that lovely beet purply-red color and I will be using it to naturally dye some Easter eggs! Once I find out more info, I may even save it for food coloring throughout the year. I’m curious if freezing would be a good method of preserving it, as I don’t do much food coloring normally. I know that I will use some for Easter eggs, some I will use as a natural dye for babies homemade finger paint, but I’m sure I will have some left over even after that. Hopefully I can update you soon on this endeavor.

Anyway, the purpose of today’s blog is to share with you a new yummy recipe that I found on Pinterest and have been hesitant to try. Avocado Brownies. This is not a new concept, I have seen avocado sweet potato brownie recipes several times and various versions of avocado brownies, but I really liked the “layout” of this one, as it was closely related to a regular brownie recipe and I wouldn’t have to veer that far out of my comfort zone. This is the recipe I found on Pinterest originally, but my modifications were as follows: I wasn’t totally comfortable with a whole cup of sugar, so I used 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 cup stevia for baking. I also didn’t have avocado oil so I used 2 tbsp. almond oil and 1 tbsp coconut oil. It turned out VERY nicely. I also didn’t use the icing. I just wanted a nice plain brownie that I really felt I could fool people (including myself) with. If I could have done anything different, it would have been to more thoroughly mash the avocado in step 1. I get the occasional speck of green every now and then, which I don’t mind, but it takes away from the illusion, so if you are giving them to particularly persnickety kids or husbands, they may only buy until the first green sighting. Anyway, pictures! You’ll have to forgive me, as we had already dipped in before I thought to take any, and it was dark out, so I didn’t even have good lighting. But alas, I share with you the ooey gooey chocolatey yumminess.:)

Don’t you just love our zig-zaggy cuts? Lol. Clearly convention was just tossed out the window with this one.
Oh! I almost forgot, these would be GREAT fun for St. Patrick’s day! And the green chunks would probably even be acceptable by the family. :)
Have a good weekend!

Homemade body spritz!

Finally, a nice, simple body spray recipe! http://sincerelywhitney.com/2013/03/12/organic-living-body-mist-diy/