Sad state of affairs in Old School Evansville

Things sure do work differently out in this part of the country. I’ve mentioned this many times here on the blog. The close mindedness ranges from legalizing midwives and domestic partnerships to gay rights and now even sexual orientation ordinances. This cartoon illustrates it perfectly:

Source: www.macleodcartoons.blogspot.com

It may be butt ugly and hot as an oven back in Arizona but at least it isn’t filled will so many ignorant, self-serving, close-minded people who will do anything they can to oppose change.

You want to make Evansville more attractive to businesses & young professionals? Get with the times people. Old School Evansville’s bible thumping, 24-7 McDonald’s consuming and the driving need to keep things the same is what is the issue here. Get over yourselves and see things from the outsider’s perspective if you truly want to attract them. Maybe the vast majority of people (outside your big boys club) don’t like your antiquated ways of doing things anymore. Times have changed but Old School Evansville has not.

Of course sexual orientation keeps people and businesses away! Normal, non-church-going people can’t even be left in peace here… I can’t imagine how a transgendered person or a same-sex couple would do.

… and don’t even get me started on abortion or Planned Parenthood. Oy!

Sad state of affairs in Old School Evansville was published on December 22nd, 2011, with the tags , , , , , under the Life in Evansville, personal stories category. There are currently 1 comment on this article so far.

Adalyn’s Birth Video: If you missed the live #twitterbirth now you can watch the recording

It’s taken five weeks thanks to the crappy video editing program and the general demands of parenting a newborn but I am relived to say…

The Live Streamed Birth Video Archive is Live

You can view it here, in three parts… Initially I had just hoped to have the archived live stream footage saved immediately after the broadcast ended (in two parts) but the actual birth portion of the video wasn’t saved properly.

Luckily we also were recording via camcorder for our own records. I’ve spliced the two videos together and finally managed to get them saved and uploaded for online viewing like I promised. Yay!

Adalyn is now five weeks old and she’s finally getting those chunky baby thighs and fitting in to our cloth diapers. She’s just sleeping and eating, you know newborn stuff. We are working through some gas and poop issues that make her unpleasant but she’s gaining good weight so she’s doing okay.

Everly is bored but being the best big sister, even with the attention shift of having a new baby in the home. On more than one occasion I’ve been told to lay baby sister down so we can play. Juggling Everly’s needs with Adalyn’s has been hard to do.

Everly has not lost a wink of sleep despite the very noisy, sometimes constant crying of Adalyn. She even tries to comfort her sister with a pacifier (that she now rejects) or a blanket. Just this morning she told me her sister needed more “nay-nays” (aka boobie) when she started crying.

I am all healed up and trying to get a handle on all my responsibilities around the house and with the girls. We are flying by the seat of our pants and hope to settle in to a routine soon, though we know that it isn’t likely for another month or two.

Adalyn’s Birth Video: If you missed the live #twitterbirth now you can watch the recording was published on October 4th, 2011, with the tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , under the Featured, Life in Evansville, parenting, personal stories, posts with video category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.

Decorating with nature: Osage Orange

It’s fall and we actually live somewhere that has a beautiful changing of the seasons so I wanted to try collecting and decorating with things that are found around the town this time of year.

On of the things we found by accident, while driving through a nice forest-like section of residential area were Osage Orange trees. We were calling the fruit Osage Oranges, also known as Hedgeapples but it turns out only the tree is called and Osage Orange, not the fruit. Osage Orange trees are cousin to the mulberry tree.

The Hedgeapple fruit from the Osage Orange tree isn’t orange but are instead a vivid light green with a bumpy texture and they look brilliant against the autumn tree line. This is how we came to notice them as we drove by one day.

They actually smell an awful lot like and orange peel which is where the name Osage Orange came from.

Once we noticed these Hedgeapples laying in the embankment near the road turned around, came back, pulled over and N jummped out to gather as many fallen Hedgeapples as he could for us to bring home.

We had no idea what they were but figured we could find something fun to do with them once we looked them up. Here I what I ended up doing with them:

Only the dehusked seeds are edible and I read they are quite a pain to get to so we opted to use them for their unique look. They really pop placed in a clear decorative bowl or near other decorative items in the house. I even put a few around a vase of slowers I have on the table.

Folklore says these are also a great deterrent for spiders and other bugs. Probably has something to do with the faint orange scent of them.

We are glad we pulled over and snagged some of these Hedgeapples though. They are a peculiar little fruit and I just love finding free, beautiful ways to spruce up the house and decorate for the seasons!

Decorating with nature: Osage Orange was published on October 22nd, 2010, with the tags , , , , , , under the Featured, gardening reference, homemade, Life in Evansville, living simply category. There are currently 2 comments on this article so far.

Live Blog: Backyard Fireworks Session

Here is the show the people across from the pond put on tonight. At about the five min. mark you’ll see how we just escaped being shot with fireworks. N shot this first video:

Here is the video I shot of the same experience:

Can you believe the whole time that madness was going on over our house (I mean shells were literally falling on to our roof) Miss Everly was sound asleep?

Live Blog: Backyard Fireworks Session was published on July 4th, 2010, with the tags , , , , , under the Life in Evansville, personal stories, vlog category. There are currently 6 comments on this article so far.

Indiana Mothers’ Milk Bank Looks For Donors

I am a huge advocate for breastfeeding because:

I’ve been fortunate enough to successfully continue breastfeeding Everly by following lactation advice and committing to on-demand, round-the-clock feeding.

She’s almost 7 months old and hasn’t been sick once… and I work with middle school/ high school kids (they are full of germs ;-P). Oh, we skipped the H1N1 vaccines too. If that is not some proof of the immune boosting powers of breastmilk I don’t know what is.

Anyway, this post is not to sell you on breastfeeding. It’s more of a pat of the back for those of you who are breastfeeding. further more, if you are still successfully lactating you might want to consider sharing the “liquid gold”.

If you live in Evansville, Indiana, like I do and are breastfeeding you should know a “Milk Depot” is opening up at the Women’s Hospital in Newburgh to make donating more accessible and they are seeking donors.

Here is the info they have on their site about donations. Just wanted to spread the word:

The Indiana Mothers’ Milk Bank, Inc. helps premature and sick infants by connecting those in need of human milk with screened donor mothers. The milk bank receives human milk from these donors, then pasteurizes, freezes and distributes it.

The milk bank is a community-based, community-supported entity that benefits Indiana’s babies and decreases health care expenditures. The not-for-profit milk bank is the first of its kind in Indiana and one of only 10 in the United States.

HELP A PREMATURE OR ILL INFANT!

Due to the overwhelming demand for pasteurized donor human milk from hospitals in Indiana and throughout the Midwest, the Indiana Mothers’ Milk Bank is always looking for new donors! Please contact a member of the milk bank staff if you are interested in becoming a donor or go to the How to Donate page.

Consider becoming a breast milk donor. I am! Breast milk is best for babies, especially sick or premature ones and it’s something our bodies make on demand. Why not donate your excess?

For those of you outside Indiana or even outside the USA you can donate too! Milk banks are all over. If you know of one that isn’t listed here please list it in a comment if you’d like.

USA Milk Banks I’ve found are:

Bronson Mothers’ Milk Bank
601 John Street
Suite N1300
Kalamazoo, MI 49007
Phone: (269) 341-8849

Mother’s Milk Bank of Iowa
Department of Food and Nutrition Services
University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics
University of Iowa at Liberty Square
119 2nd Street, Suite 400
Coralville, IA 52241
Phone: (319)356-2652

Mothers’ Milk Bank of Ohio
Grant Medical Center @ Victorian Village Health Center
1087 Dennison Avenue
Columbus, OH 43201
Phone: (614) 544-0810

Mothers’ Milk Bank
Presbyterian St. Luke’s Medical Center
1719 E 19th Ave
Denver, CO 80218
Phone: (303) 839-7692

WakeMed Mothers’ Milk Bank and Lactation Center
3000 New Bern Ave
Raleigh, NC 27610
Phone: (919) 350-8599

Mothers’ Milk Bank of New England
225 Nevada Street Room 201
Newtonville, MA 02460
Phone: (781) 535-7594

Northwest Women’s Milk Bank
3439 NE Sandy Blvd #130
Portland, OR 97232

Indiana Mothers’ Milk Bank, Inc.
Methodist Medical Plaza II
6820 Parkdale Place, Suite 109
Indianapolis, IN 46254
Phone (317) 329-7146

Mother’s Milk Bank
C & W Lactation Services
Vancouver, B.C., Canada
(604) 875-2282

Mothers’ Milk Bank
751 South Bascom Ave
San Jose, CA 95128
Phone (408) 998-4550

Lactation Center & Mothers’ Milk Bank WakeMed
Raleigh, NC
(919) 350-8599

The Mother’s Milk Bank – Special Care Nursery Christiana Hospital
Newark, DE
(302) 733-2340

Mothers’ Milk Bank at Austin
900 E. 30th Street, Suite 101
Austin, TX
(512) 494-0800

Mothers’ Milk Bank of North Texas
1300 W. Lancaster Suite 108
Ft. Worth, TX 76102
Phone (817) 810-0071

National Milk Bank
866-522-6455 (MILK)

Outside the USA:

Alay Gatas Headquarters – Human Milk Bank
Philippine Childrens Medical Center
Quezon Avenue, Quezon City 1100 Philippines
Telephone: (63-2) 9240838 and 9246601 local 354

Philipine General Hospital Lactation Unit and Milk Bank
Telephone: (63-2) 5362867
Mobile: 63-921-4535310

United Kingdom Association for Milk Banking
Queen Charlotte’s Hospital in London
020 8383 355

On twitter mothers share pro-breastfeeding tweets:

  • “If the jar of formula says “closest to bm” then why not skip the cost and feed the real thing?? :) if I saw a candy bar that said “closest to chocolate” I’d say “no thanks” and grab a hershey’s”
  • Breastfeeding for over 6 months could aid mental health http://bit.ly/8ihR3O
  • A teachable reality TV moment! Kardashians show importance of partner’s #breastfeeding support http://bit.ly/3FKLyx
  • The Advantages of #Breastfeeding for Mom, Baby, and Society w/references (from breastfeeding.com): http://seriousshops.com/0uc
  • @KomenAdvocacy Did you know that women w/ an immediate family history of #breastcancer can reduce their risk by 59% by #breastfeeding?
  • Why does #breastfeeding your baby girl lower her risk for #breastcancer later in life? Human milk cools birth estrogen levels much quicker!

Indiana Mothers’ Milk Bank Looks For Donors was published on January 16th, 2010, with the tags , , , , , , , , , , , , under the breastfeeding, pregnancy category. There are currently 1 comment on this article so far.

We are buying a hog (okay maybe not a full one)

Over the weekend we watched Food Inc. It was another documentary N put on our Netflix movie list that I hadn’t really heard of. It was a movie I am glad we saw though!

The movie opened my eyes to a number of other points and It made me super glad we are spending a little extra on a free-range, organic turkey this Thanksgiving! I am really not okay with mass “farming” as it’s pretty inhumane.

Animals live on top of each other in pins that aren’t big enough. The confined spaces are dirty, uncomfortable, heck some chickens never see the light of day! I also cringed at the pig catching and crushing contraption shown in the film.

Inhumane practices aside, industrialized food is also pretty unhealthy. So many farmers are doing anything they can to fatten up the animals or ramp up production so they can make more money. They aren’t thinking of the repercussions of these choices they’ve made.

Cows eating stuff like corn, other animal by-products and being kept in tiny pins in mountains of their own feces isn’t okay. Besides how healthy can that meat be after the poor cow lived so unhealthily?

I don’t want my food washed with ammonia or bleach, I don’t want my milk filled with hormones and I want the animals I eat to live in a healthy environment (the way nature intended them to).

Also, the movie opened my eyes to the fact that many of our foods are now the result of cloning!

In January 2008, the FDA approved the sale of meat and milk from cloned livestock, despite the fact that Congress voted twice in 2007 to delay FDA’s decision on cloned animals until additional safety and economic studies could be completed. Source

Stem cell research and designer babies are hot moral issues right? So why don’t more people know that they could be eating a clone and how can we say this is okay when we have done no studies on it?

The facts left me outraged and we are now slowly making the move away from industrialized, unhealthy and inhumane food. Our thanksgiving bird is the first step in what is going to be a slow process but it’s something we all NEED to be doing.

We already buy organic free range eggs and organic yogurt. We thought we were drinking hormone free milk but it turns out the Dean’s milk available here isn’t hormone free.

We’ve found a local farmer (Stonewall Farms) who sells organic, free range meats to consumers similar to how people obtained meat back in the day. You can buy a whole animal or just shares of it, when it is slaughter time you go to the processing plant to pick up your processed bulk meat and then you have what you need for months if not a year.

We will probably start out with a hog or just a half of a hog because we want to start out small. We’ll pay our deposit and save our money while we wait for the animal to grow and mature. When the times comes for slaughter we’ll have our large chunk of change to pay for the meat and we’ll walk away with 6 months to a years worth of free range, organic meat.

We just can’t stomach eating the slop that is available in the grocery store anymore!

We are buying a hog (okay maybe not a full one) was published on November 23rd, 2009, with the tags , , , , , , , , under the Life in Evansville, personal stories category. There are currently 3 comments on this article so far.

Slumlord lawsuit and house buying fun. Superstitious?

So, do you remember all the slumlord fun we had with mold and flooding? Need a refresher:

Turns out a tenant our slumlords had back in 2008 is filing a lawsuit against them over lead paint violations! Found this via the Associated Press:

AP-IN–Lead Paint-Lawsuit,0135
Evansville landlords face suit over lead paint
Eds: APNewsNow.
EVANSVILLE, Ind. (AP) – The Indiana attorney general’s office
and local health officials are suing two Evansville landlords who
they say ignored repeated warnings to clean up hazardous lead paint
in a rental house.
The suit filed Thursday in Vanderburgh County against Mark R.
Bryan and Tammy A. Bryan says a child of a tenant at the home
tested positive for an elevated blood-lead level in January 2008
and paint samples from the house tested positive for lead.
The Bryans could not be located for comment because a telephone
number listed for them was disconnected.
The attorney general’s office says it is the first time the
state has used public nuisance laws in trying to force the cleanup
of lead paint, which has been blamed for reduced intelligence and
brain damage in children.

I contacted the state attorney general and offered to provide all contact information I have for the Bryans and shared that there are many other tenants (that found my blog and realized we had the same landlord and had similar issues) who might want to join in the lawsuit. Who says blogging doesn’t have an impact?

Also, tomorrow is Friday the 13th and we are signing the closing documents and becoming homeowners! The mortgage broker said “I hope you aren’t suspicious, tomorrow is Friday the 13th.” Shoot, that’s no problem for us! If we can get a marriage certificate on October 31st why not buy a house on Friday the 13th?

Today has been a jampacked day! Lawsuit fun makes us thank our lucky stars we got out of that nasty rental before Everly was born. Then we get the happy news about our much anticipated house closing. Yay and woot!

The end.

Slumlord lawsuit and house buying fun. Superstitious? was published on November 12th, 2009, with the tags , , , , , , , , , under the Life in Evansville, personal stories category. There are currently 5 comments on this article so far.

Family Photo Fail- Take 2

The universe does not want us to have family photos taken! Once again we woke up early and got ourselves ready for photo day. Once we were good to go we woke Everly and got her all dolled up too. By 9:30am we were on our way downtown for our appointment.

It’s a cool (we are talking like 45 degrees), drizzly day so we were all bundled up and ready to get to the studio for the picture taking fun. Our car didn’t even break down on the way there this time…

Then we walk though the doors of Routt Photography and are greeted by… “Oh, didn’t you get our message?”

Immediately my mood changes and the lady at Routt Photography proceeds to go on about how George has been trying to reach us all morning but that he lost our cell number… How could we have gotten your message if you lost our number?

“…  he’s coming down with something and decided to cancel the appointment” and blah, blah, blah… My blood pressure sky rockets and I have to bite my tongue and let N do all the talking so I don’t flip out.

Then she says “I am sorry you had to go through all the trouble but we didn’t want to get your baby sick”. Well yeah we don’t want a sick photographer working with us either. The being sick part is not the issue it’s the lack of communication that is unacceptable.

Turns out they called N’s work to try having his coworkers get a message to us… Whatever! The point is we DIDN’T get any message and we DID go through lots of trouble to get ready and to get there for our appointment.

Plus, I emailed them like 4 weeks ago about our appointment so they could have emailed me at the very least to cancel… and nobody from N’s work passed on a message about the photographer’s call, nor should they be expected to. They aren’t his answering service and they do have their jobs to focus on.

Had we known the night before or at the very least this morning about the cancellation we would have been understanding, life happens. After all we did have to cancel our appointment with them two weeks ago, we did call and inform them though. But to have us come all the way to the studio all done up and ready to go just to be turned away is totally ridiculous, very rude and is not a good way to run a business.

So, our take 2 of family photos was a huge FAIL. Guess it is off to JCPenneys or something… We can’t wait much longer to have these photos done. It’s already been a month in a half of trying to have them done and failing :-/

Oh, Everly totally picked right up on my anger too! She got incredibly fussy and screamed the whole way home. She wasn’t happy about the photographers actions either!

Family Photo Fail- Take 2 was published on October 14th, 2009, with the tags , , , , , under the domestic disasters, Featured, parenting, personal stories category. There are currently 6 comments on this article so far.

People just don’t get it sometimes…

Today I saw a news report about a woman who was homebirthing here in Indiana whose baby didn’t make it. The story portrayed all homebirths as unsafe and crazy. It even incorrectly referred to the birth as unassisted (midwives were present) and did nothing but scare people. While the story did have a tragic outcome it’s not a accurate representative of most homebirths and that is why they story upsets me.

Homebirth is not for every woman and every pregnancy which is why there needs to be adequate laws and regulations in place to protect women and midwives (like there are in Tennessee). Homebirth should be an acceptable and viable option for most but thanks to one sided stories, scare tactics and profit driven laws it is not. This is sad and maddening to me.

Israeli Mothers Attend Breast Feeding Classes After Powdered Milk ScareAnother thing that is wearing on my nerves is breastfeeding ignorance. Everly is just over a month old and we are exclusively breastfeeding. We haven’t introduced the bottle or a pacifier because we don’t want to cause “nipple confusion” and disrupt the working breastfeeding relationship (you are supposed to wait until 6-8 weeks). For some reason people who hardly know me can’t wrap their minds around this and it is annoying me. (If you are reading this, it’s not about you I promise!)

Sure bottles and pacifiers would be more convenient but they aren’t best for E at this time (in my mind) and I’ve chosen to commit to breastfeeding, why can’t people understand and respect this? Plus she wont have anything to do with them anyway.

Speaking of respect, my ex-doctors office (remember the bad OBGYN?) sold my info to formula companies without my consent. I’ve been receiving formula vouchers like crazy and I’ve got free formula coming out my ears now!

Sure, free stuff is nice but not when you wont use it and the only reason they are giving it is to get you to mess up with breastfeeding and to get you hooked on their products. It is like they are tempting you to give up on breastfeeding. And don’t even get me started on how little support exists for breastfeeding moms…

Can you tell I am running on major lack of sleep? I am all irritable and full of complaints today.

People just don’t get it sometimes… was published on July 28th, 2009, with the tags , , , , , , , , under the parenting, personal stories category. There are currently 9 comments on this article so far.

Just having a relaxing 4th of July here at home.

Just spending the day in bed today with Everly and N. This is our first day as just the three of us, all the family is done visiting now. Everly was up all night fussing so a lazy, napping day is just what we need.

It’s a rainy 4th of July here. We’ll see if any neighbors set off fireworks tonight like they were doing last night, probably not since it is raining. It’s all good though! Everly got to see her first fireworks last night in our backyard. The neighbors have been setting them off for days. That is enough for us.

Oh and for those of you who entered the baby weight contest I’ve got results! Sadly only 5 people entered the pool. The morning my water broke I weighed in at a whopping 151lbs!

When I weighed myself a week after delivery I weighed 115lbs. The combination of the two weigh-ins totals 266. That means Maiden53 and Teeni are the winners of the cash pool since their guesses were the closest to 266, I’ll get the money to your paypal accounts ladies!

Here is the list of the entries.

last 4 of transaction/ Person entering Weight at labor (lbs) Weight 1 week after labor (lbs) Total
# 903K (Donna B.) 130 115 245
# 290P (Teeni) 132 126 258
# 003W (MoM) 137 113 250
# 3901 (Maiden53) 151 129 280
# 281A (Jerry B) 131 116 247


Hopefully everyone is having a safe and fun 4th of July and hopefully Everly will sleep well tonight. Take care!

Just having a relaxing 4th of July here at home. was published on July 4th, 2009, with the tags , , , , , , , , under the parenting, personal stories, pregnancy category. There are currently 4 comments on this article so far.

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