Kale

I am on a tight budget. The question is how to get the most healthy food out of a tight budget? I make my own yogurt, which reminds me that I need to make a batch. There are a lot of great probiotic foods that can be made, just I'm not to crazy about the flavor or texture of most of them. If I'm going to drink rice milk, I want something that tastes closer to horchata, rather than "Nourishing Traditions" lactic acid fermented rice milk. Then Kombucha is great, but mine never tastes as good as the stuff you by. I might just stink at lacto-fermentation. That aside I needed a cheap way to increase my supplementation, because I don't eat an ideal diet, and I can't afford one that fits my palette.

All that being said, I wanted to supplement my prenatal vitamins. I think that I need more raw stuff in my diet, and I definitely need more greens. While I was pondering this, I was at the store looking at vegetables. It hit me right then. A moment of perhaps divine inspiration, kale 89 cents each. My niece raved about kale a couple summers ago. She put it in juices and loved it. I couldn't comprehend that. I just thought kale sounded gross. But there it was cheap and dark green and staring at me. I grabbed it and decided to put the juicer to use. That was it. I was going to get my greens.

I brought it home and put it to work. I tried to find recipes online, but was having trouble with the simplest of tasks that day and came up almost dry. I found one recipe, incidentally I had everything in my house that I needed. I tossed half an apple, celery, carrot and kale in the juicer and hoped I'd be able to drink it. As the kale grinded, it smelled just like cut grass, and I thought, "Yay! I get to eat lawn clippings!" It was a poor choice of colors, because it looked like mud, but I just drank it. It didn't taste terrible. It was definitely drinkable. It went down much easier than a powdered green drink.

So here I go delving in the world of juicing. I'm excited. I am a faddy person, so I wonder how long this will hold my interest. I hope for at least 21 weeks. That's the time left on the ticker.

Painful Labor- why I do this repeatedly...

Hurray! I'm pregnant again! I am very excited. It's a thrill for me, because I love being pregnant, and I love little newborns. I also love being in labor.

I'm not crazy. Ok, I might be a little bit. No, I am not a masochist, and no, I don't have a special drug given to me that allows me to view the birth from outside my body. I'm there for the whole thing. I feel everything and yeah, although I don't like pain, really I hate pain, I love pushing out babies.


I have done this three times already. I have delivered all babies at home without any drugs- no epidural, no petocin, no demeral. I have felt some pain. By some I mean a lot. Labor hurts that's just the way it is. It has been that way since, the existence of mankind. Pain is a very subjective term. Some people have a low threshold for pain. Some labors are more painful than others. My labors were not all the same in the way they felt. The pain I went though was not easy so don't think that's why I did it.

I remember the first time I was in labor. It was just the beiginning of the pain and I was like, "Women are so wimpy. I could totally do this for hours." I don't know why I thought that was were the pain would end. It just got worse. Then I thought it was the worst it could be and it got worse. That happened like four times. Then it got so painful I knew I couldn't do it any more, then it was time to push. The pain was different now. I was pushing out a baby with a huge head, and I felt like I was going to split in two. Then he was out, and it was over. I held my first baby and it was awesome. I just succeeded. Feeling the parts of labor that weren't painful, were so amazing, they were well worth the pain I did feel. However, I thought, "How will I ever do that again?"

Two years later I'm in intense labor pain again. I'm in the water, and I'm thinking, "If I were in a hospital right now I would so have an epidural." 3 minutes later baby two is out and in my arms beautiful and sweet. It was over. It was such a fast pushing stage that I barely noticed it.

Two years later: baby three is due any day. I'm not in labor but I get a Braxton Hicks contraction. I think "No, I can't do this now. There is no way. I'm not ready for this..." a week later I am in labor and it does not hurt that badly yet, but I know what's coming, "Am I crazy? Why would I do this again? Why do I keep having babies? Don't I realize it hurts?" I have good easy labor and push that baby out in 20 minutes. I did all the pushing myself. I was the only one who knew when to push, and I pushed, and pushed. When she came out I picked her up and there she was. It was over. It was so amazing. I wanted to do it again.

Now I'm doing it again. I so look forward to it. Pain is not a pleasant experience. Laboring in my own home with people that I love around me is a good experience. Labor is like a quest and as a reward I get a baby. Most things that are worth doing require pain. Isn't it painful to suffer though four years of college? Home work, tests papers, getting up early and staying up late studying. Marriage is painful. Raising children is painful. Everything that has meaning in life seems to come with pain. Why not embrace it and get through it?