tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-46275054831574697462024-03-15T21:09:31.152-04:00Sunshine, Lollipops, and RainbowsUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger108125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4627505483157469746.post-88349352394654423542017-08-29T11:29:00.002-04:002021-05-31T20:56:38.717-04:00Father's Day Bouquet<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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For Father's Day Jason received a bouquet of fresh "flowers." The flower tops are "fun-sized" butterfingers, the stems are colored pencils hot glued to the butterfingers (I should have used green instead of blue!), and the decorative "pebbles" are milk duds. I think this would work with whatever the favorite candy is of the father in question!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4627505483157469746.post-40429617589886327702016-07-31T22:41:00.002-04:002021-05-31T20:56:38.255-04:00Bad ScienceLast week I read two books that were so good I feel like they should be required reading in school. One was named Bad Science, by Ben Goldacre, and the other was Do You Believe in Magic?, by Paul Offit.<br />
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<i>Bad Science</i>'s description: "Have you ever wondered how one day the media can assert that alcohol is bad for us and the next unashamedly run a story touting the benefits of daily alcohol consumption? Or how a drug that is pulled off the market for causing heart attacks ever got approved in the first place? How can average readers, who aren't medical doctors or Ph.D.s in biochemistry, tell what they should be paying attention to and what's, well, just more BS?"<br />
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"Ben Goldacre has made a point of exposing quack doctors and nutritionists, bogus credentialing programs, and biased scientific studies. He has also taken the media to task for its willingness to throw facts and proof out the window. But he's not here just to tell you what's wrong. Goldacre is here to teach you how to evaluate placebo effects, double-blind studies, and sample sizes, so that you can recognize bad science when you see it. You're about to feel a whole lot better."<br />
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<i>Do You Believe in Magic?</i>'s<i> </i>description: "In <i>Do You Believe in Magic?</i>, medical expert Paul A. Offit, M.D., offers a scathing exposé of the alternative medicine industry, revealing how even though some popular therapies are remarkably helpful due to the placebo response, many of them are ineffective, expensive, and even deadly."<br />
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"Dr. Offit reveals how alternative medicine—an unregulated industry under no legal obligation to prove its claims or admit its risks—can actually be harmful to our health."<br />
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"An outspoken advocate for science-based health advocacy who is not afraid to take on media celebrities who promote alternative practices, Dr. Offit advises, 'There’s no such thing as alternative medicine. There’s only medicine that works and medicine that doesn’t.'"<br />
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I really loved both of these books. They were easy to read, and fascinating.<br />
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Both explain why you should critically examine health claims made by those in the media, and <i>how</i> to critically examine them. Both were fascinating, fun to read, and full of crazy stuff that's ignored or misunderstood by the media. For example, did you know that antioxidant supplements not only have been found to have no benefit, but actually increase your chance of dying from cancer or heart disease? I had no idea.<br />
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I highly recommend them if you'd like to have the ability to be able to critically examine health, medical, or science claims made by those on the news, podcasts, blogs, news websites, etc.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4627505483157469746.post-87754520235235181112016-01-03T19:58:00.000-05:002021-05-31T20:56:38.584-04:002015 Book ListWell, I only read about half as many books in 2015 as I did in 2014, but that's okay. I plan to read a lot more this year. I made a list today of books I want to read and am excited to get started on it.<br />
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There is one book that I feel like reading this year was a real accomplishment - Don Quixote. I wanted to read it before our trip to Spain, and I'm really glad I did. It was a great, clever, funny book. I listened to it on <a href="https://librivox.org/don-quixote-vol-1-by-miguel-de-cervantes-saavedra/" target="_blank">LibriVox</a> - a site where you can listen to free audio books (that are all in the public domain). It took me a very long time to listen to all of it - like a whole month. I listened to all of Volume 1, which was published in 1605. There is still all of Volume 2 (published in 1605) for me to listen to, which I feel will be kind of hard work (like the first one was), but just as rewarding. <br />
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The books I read in 2015 were:<br />
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- <i>Rogue Knight</i> <i>(Five Kingdoms)</i> <span style="font-size: x-small;">by Brandon Mull</span><br />
- <i>13 Suspicious Incidents</i> <span style="font-size: x-small;">by Lemony Snicket</span><br />
- <i>"Shouldn't You Be in School?"</i> <span style="font-size: x-small;">by Lemony Snicket</span><br />
- <i>The Name of This Book is Secret</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Pseudonymous Bosch</span><br />
- <i>If You're Reading This, It's Too Late</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Pseudonymous Bosch</span><br />
- <i>This Book is Not Good for You</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Pseudonymous Bosch</span><br />
- <i>This Isn't What It Looks Like<span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Pseudonymous Bosch</span><br />
- <i>You Have to Stop This</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Pseudonymous Bosch</span><br />
- <i>123 Magic</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Thomas W. Phelan</span><br />
- <i>Don Quixote, Volume 1</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Miguel De Cervantes, translated by John Ormsby</span><br />
- <i>Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by J.K. Rowling </span>(reread)<br />
- <i>Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets</i><i> </i><span style="font-size: x-small;">by J.K. Rowling <span style="font-size: small;">(reread)</span></span><br />
- <i>The Fault in Our Stars</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by John Green</span><br />
- <i>Steve and I</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Terri Irwin</span><br />
- <i>The Secret Garden</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Frances Hodgson Burnett</span><br />
- <i>The Princess Bride</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by William Goldman</span><br />
- <i>Winnie the Pooh</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by A.A. Milne</span><br />
- <i>The Diary of Anne Frank</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Anne Frank</span><br />
- <i>Entwined</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Heather Dixon</span><br />
- <i>Bad Magic</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Pseudonymous Bosch</span><br />
- <i>The One and Only Ivan</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Katherine Applegate</span><br />
- <i>The Sword of Summer (Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard)</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Rick Riordan</span><br />
- <i>Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban</i> <span style="font-size: x-small;">by J.K. Rowling </span>(reread)<br />
- <i>A Little Princess</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Frances Hodgson Burnett </span><br />
- <i>Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes<span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></i><span style="font-size: x-small;">by Rick Riordan</span><br />
- <i>Crystal Keepers</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <i><span style="font-size: small;">(Five Kingdoms) </span></i>by Brandon Mull</span><br />
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Looking over this list, I really like most of the books I read this year. All of the Brandon Mull and Rick Riordan ones were great. Lemony Snicket was good ol' Lemony Snicket. The Pseudonymous Bosch ones were all pretty kid-ish, but amusing reads nonetheless. Don Quixote was awesome. Winnie the Pooh was delightful. Entwined was one I just found on the shelf of the library that turned out to be a surprise favorite (it's a retelling of the fairy tale "The Twelve Dancing Princesses").<br />
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I read "The Secret Garden" and "A Little Princess" for the first times this year. I've seen the movies of course, and it was really interesting to see how they compare. To be honest, I don't really like The Secret Garden movie, but (surprise, surprise!) the book was way better. I still like the A Little Princess movie better than the book, but the book was good too. The thing that surprised me most with that book was that the book and the movie had two different overall messages - the movie's message is about how we all have inherent worth; the book's message was about always trying to do the right thing even in hard circumstances. Both are good messages.<br />
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So yeah! That's what I read this last year. :)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4627505483157469746.post-77013103533566655292015-10-12T09:26:00.000-04:002021-05-31T20:56:38.487-04:00Free October 2015 General Conference Printables - Saturday MorningLast weekend our family got to stay home all weekend in our pajamas, hang out, and watch <a href="https://www.lds.org/general-conference?lang=eng" target="_blank">General Conference</a>. General Conference is a big, twice-yearly meeting that our whole church
has, where we get to listen to the church leadership speak. People go to
it in person, or you can watch it at our church meetinghouses, or on
TV, or on the internet. I always find it so inspiring and uplifting. I <i>love </i>General Conference weekend for the spirit that I feel.<br />
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This year I decided that I wanted to make printables/picture quotes/memes/whatever you call them of some of my favorite quotes from conference. I'll be doing them in batches; today's quotes all come from the Saturday morning session of conference. Feel free to pin/print/share these!<br />
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<a href="http://i1058.photobucket.com/albums/t416/sunshineblog/2015%20Oct%20Gen%20Conf/God%20will%20take%20you%20-%20640_zpsek8gy2gj.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img alt="'God
will take you as you are at this very moment and begin to work with
you. All you need is a willing heart, a desire to believe, and trust in
the Lord.' - Dieter F. Uchtdorf" border="0" src="http://i1058.photobucket.com/albums/t416/sunshineblog/2015%20Oct%20Gen%20Conf/God%20will%20take%20you%20-%20640_zpsek8gy2gj.jpg" height="640" width="364" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">"God
will take you as you are at this very moment and begin to work with
you. All you need is a willing heart, a desire to believe, and trust in
the Lord."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">- President Dieter F. Uchtdorf </span></div>
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<a href="http://i1058.photobucket.com/albums/t416/sunshineblog/2015%20Oct%20Gen%20Conf/Who%20we%20truly%20are_zpsnk5nigfm.png" imageanchor="1"><img alt="'If we look at ourselves only
through our mortal eyes, we may not see ourselves as good enough. But
our Heavenly Father sees us as who we truly are and who we can become.
He sees us as His sons and daughters, as beings of eternal light with
everlasting potential and with a divine destiny.' - Dieter F. Uchtdorf" border="0" src="http://i1058.photobucket.com/albums/t416/sunshineblog/2015%20Oct%20Gen%20Conf/Who%20we%20truly%20are_zpsnk5nigfm.png" height="640" width="364" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">"If we look at ourselves only
through our mortal eyes, we may not see ourselves as good enough. But
our Heavenly Father sees us as who we truly are and who we can become.
He sees us as His sons and daughters, as beings of eternal light with
everlasting potential and with a divine destiny." </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">- President Dieter F. Uchtdorf </span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i1058.photobucket.com/albums/t416/sunshineblog/2015%20Oct%20Gen%20Conf/Make%20no%20mistake_zps3jmddyfm.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="'Make no mistake about it: the Lord directs His Church through living prophets and apostles.' - Elder M. Russell Ballard" border="0" src="http://i1058.photobucket.com/albums/t416/sunshineblog/2015%20Oct%20Gen%20Conf/Make%20no%20mistake_zps3jmddyfm.png" height="450" width="450" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">"Make no mistake about it: the Lord directs His Church through living prophets and apostles."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">- Elder M. Russell Ballard</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i1058.photobucket.com/albums/t416/sunshineblog/2015%20Oct%20Gen%20Conf/Like%20the%20clay_zpszf2hvnxv.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="'Like
the clay on the potter’s wheel, our lives must be centered with
exactness in Christ if we are to find true joy and peace in this life.' - Elder Richard J. Maynes" border="0" src="http://i1058.photobucket.com/albums/t416/sunshineblog/2015%20Oct%20Gen%20Conf/Like%20the%20clay_zpszf2hvnxv.png" height="450" width="450" /></a></td></tr>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;">"Like
the clay on the potter’s wheel, our lives must be centered with
exactness in Christ if we are to find true joy and peace in this life."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">- Elder Richard J. Maynes </span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i1058.photobucket.com/albums/t416/sunshineblog/2015%20Oct%20Gen%20Conf/If%20we%20appeal%20to%20God_zps4fonlbpx.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="'If we earnestly appeal to God, He takes us as we are—and makes us more than we ever imagined.' - Sister Neill F. Marriott" border="0" src="http://i1058.photobucket.com/albums/t416/sunshineblog/2015%20Oct%20Gen%20Conf/If%20we%20appeal%20to%20God_zps4fonlbpx.png" height="450" width="450" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">"If we earnestly appeal to God, He takes us as we are—and makes us more than we ever imagined."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">- Sister Neill F. Marriott </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i1058.photobucket.com/albums/t416/sunshineblog/2015%20Oct%20Gen%20Conf/When%20we%20offer_zpslwdcycbr.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="'When we
offer our broken heart to Jesus Christ, He accepts our offering. He
takes us back. No matter what losses, wounds, and rejection we have
suffered, His grace and healing are mightier than all.' - Sister Neill F. Marriott" border="0" src="http://i1058.photobucket.com/albums/t416/sunshineblog/2015%20Oct%20Gen%20Conf/When%20we%20offer_zpslwdcycbr.png" height="450" width="450" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;">"When we
offer our broken heart to Jesus Christ, He accepts our offering. He
takes us back. No matter what losses, wounds, and rejection we have
suffered, His grace and healing are mightier than all."</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;">- Sister Neill F. Marriott </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i1058.photobucket.com/albums/t416/sunshineblog/2015%20Oct%20Gen%20Conf/As%20we%20travel_zpsuewcr697.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="'As
we travel along that strait and narrow path, the Spirit continually
challenges us to be better and to climb higher. The Holy Ghost makes an
ideal traveling companion. If we are humble and teachable, He will take
us by the hand and lead us home.' - Elder Larry R. Lawrence" border="0" src="http://i1058.photobucket.com/albums/t416/sunshineblog/2015%20Oct%20Gen%20Conf/As%20we%20travel_zpsuewcr697.png" height="450" width="450" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;">"As
we travel along that strait and narrow path, the Spirit continually
challenges us to be better and to climb higher. The Holy Ghost makes an
ideal traveling companion. If we are humble and teachable, He will take
us by the hand and lead us home."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> - Elder Larry R. Lawrence </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i1058.photobucket.com/albums/t416/sunshineblog/2015%20Oct%20Gen%20Conf/A%20perfect%20time%20to%20ask%20yellow%20wreath_zpsypp9m76z.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="'A perfect
time to ask, 'What lack I yet?' is when we take the sacrament...In this
reverent atmosphere, as our thoughts are turned heavenward, the Lord
can gently tell us what we need to work on next.' - Elder Larry R. Lawrence" border="0" src="http://i1058.photobucket.com/albums/t416/sunshineblog/2015%20Oct%20Gen%20Conf/A%20perfect%20time%20to%20ask%20yellow%20wreath_zpsypp9m76z.png" height="450" width="450" /></a></td></tr>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">"A perfect
time to ask, “What lack I yet?” is when we take the sacrament...In this
reverent atmosphere, as our thoughts are turned heavenward, the Lord
can gently tell us what we need to work on next."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">- Elder Larry R. Lawrence </span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i1058.photobucket.com/albums/t416/sunshineblog/2015%20Oct%20Gen%20Conf/Bristol%20Harbor_zps8beqvarq.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="'My dear
brothers and sisters, life is not easy, nor was it meant to be. It is a
time of testing and trial. Like the old ships in Bristol Harbor, there
will be times when the tide goes out and it seems as if everything in
this world keeping us afloat disappears. We may hit the bottom and even
be tipped over on our sides. Amid such trials, I promise you that living
and maintaining temple-worthy lives will hold together all that really
matters. The sweet blessings of peace, happiness, and joy, along with
the blessings of eternal life and celestial glory with our Heavenly
Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, will be realized.' - Elder Quentin L. Cook" border="0" src="http://i1058.photobucket.com/albums/t416/sunshineblog/2015%20Oct%20Gen%20Conf/Bristol%20Harbor_zps8beqvarq.png" height="533" width="364" /></a></td></tr>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;">"My dear
brothers and sisters, life is not easy, nor was it meant to be. It is a
time of testing and trial. Like the old ships in Bristol Harbor, there
will be times when the tide goes out and it seems as if everything in
this world keeping us afloat disappears. We may hit the bottom and even
be tipped over on our sides. Amid such trials, I promise you that living
and maintaining temple-worthy lives will hold together all that really
matters. The sweet blessings of peace, happiness, and joy, along with
the blessings of eternal life and celestial glory with our Heavenly
Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, will be realized."</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;">- Elder Quentin L. Cook </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i1058.photobucket.com/albums/t416/sunshineblog/2015%20Oct%20Gen%20Conf/Happiness%20in%20this%20life_zpsqq8ouubr.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="'Happiness in this life and happiness in the life to come are interconnected by righteousness.' - Elder Quentin L. Cook" border="0" src="http://i1058.photobucket.com/albums/t416/sunshineblog/2015%20Oct%20Gen%20Conf/Happiness%20in%20this%20life_zpsqq8ouubr.png" height="450" width="450" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">"Happiness in this life and happiness in the life to come are interconnected by righteousness." </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">- Elder Quentin L. Cook</span> </div>
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Many of the graphics I used were from <a href="http://www.designsbymissmandee.com/" target="_blank">Designs by Miss Mandee</a>, <a href="http://www.welivedhappilyeverafter.com/p/photo-editing.html" target="_blank">We Lived Happily Ever After</a>, <a href="http://blog.mandyartmarket.com/" target="_blank">Mandy Art Market</a>, and <a href="http://angiemakes.com/" target="_blank">Angie Makes.</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4627505483157469746.post-5130072390779017912014-12-30T06:00:00.000-05:002021-05-31T20:54:51.228-04:002014 Book ListThe books I read this year are:<br />
<br />
-<i> The Hobbit</i> <span style="font-size: x-small;">by J.R. Tolkien<span style="font-size: small;"> (reread)</span></span><br />
-<i> The Arcade Catastrophe</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Brandon Mull</span><br />
- <i>The Lost Hero</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Rick Riordan</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"> (reread)</span></span><br />
- <i>The Son of Neptune</i> <span style="font-size: x-small;">by Rick Riordan</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"> (reread)</span></span><br />
- <i>The Mark of Athena </i><span style="font-size: x-small;">by Rick Riordan</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"> (reread)</span></span><br />
- <i>The House of Hades</i> <span style="font-size: x-small;">by Rick Riordan</span><br />
- <i>The Crown of Embers</i> <span style="font-size: x-small;">by Rae Carson</span><br />
- <i>The Bitter Kingdom</i> <span style="font-size: x-small;">by Rae Carson</span><br />
- <i>Enter the Zombie</i> <span style="font-size: x-small;">by David Lubar</span><br />
- <i>Eulalia!</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Brian Jacques</span><br />
- <i>Artemis Fowl, The Last Guardian</i> <span style="font-size: x-small;">by Eoin Colfer</span><br />
- <i>Divergent</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Victoria Roth</span><br />
- <i>It's All Too Much</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Peter Walsh</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"> (reread)</span></span><br />
- <i>Goliath</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Scott Westerfield</span><br />
- <i>The $1000 Challenge</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Brian J. O'Connor</span><br />
- <i>The Clutter Cure</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Judi Culbertson</span><br />
- <i>Family Inc<span style="font-size: x-small;">.</span></i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Andrew and Caitlin Friedman</span><br />
- <i>Insurgent</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Victoria Roth</span><br />
- <i>Allegiant</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Victoria Roth</span><br />
- <i>City of Bones</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Cassandra Clare</span><br />
- <i>City of Ashes</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Cassandra Clare</span><br />
- <i>City of Glass</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Cassandra Clare</span><br />
- <i>Where Did You See Her Last?</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Lemony Snicket</span><br />
- <i>City of Fallen Angels</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Cassandra Clare</span><br />
- <i>City of Lost Souls</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Cassandra Clare</span><br />
- <i>City of Heavenly Fire</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Cassandra Clare</span><br />
- <i>Brain on Fire</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Susannah Cahalan</span><br />
- <i>Mindless Eating</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Brian Wansink</span><br />
- <i>The Book of Mormon</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"> (reread)</span></span><br />
- <i>David & Goliath</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Malcolm Gladwell</span><br />
- <i>Don't Panic, Dinner's in the Freezer</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Martinez, Howell, and Garcia</span><i><br /></i>
-<i> Five Kingdoms (Sky Raiders)</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Brandon Mull</span><br />
- <i>Heart of a Samurai</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Margi Preus</span><br />
- <i>Peter and the Starcatchers </i><span style="font-size: x-small;">by Dave Barry & Ridley Pearson</span><br />
- <i>Anne of Green Gables</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by L.M. Montgomery</span><br />
- <i>The School for Good and Evil</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Soman Chainani </span><br />
- <i>The School for Good and Evil - A World Without Princes</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Soman Chainani </span><br />
- <i>The Secret Zoo</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Bryan Chick</span><br />
- <i>The Land of Stories</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Chris Colfer</span><br />
- <i>Anne of Avonlea</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by L.M. Montgomery</span><br />
- <i>Anne of the Island</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by L.M. Montgomery</span><br />
- <i>Anne of Windy Poplars</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by L.M. Montgomery</span><br />
- <i>The Blood of Olympus</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Rick Riordan</span><br />
- <i>Anne's House of Dreams</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by L.M. Montgomery</span><br />
- <i>Anne of Ingleside</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by L.M. Montgomery</span><br />
- <i>Rainbow Valley</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by L.M. Montgomery</span><br />
- <i>Rilla of Ingleside</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i> </i>by L.M. Montgomery</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">- <i><span style="font-size: small;">Jasotron 2012</span></i> by Bill Amend </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">My favorite new books that I read were the whole Anne of Green Gable series by L.M. Montgomery, The House of Hades and The Blood of Olympus (final two of the Heroes of Olympus series) by Rick Riordan, Mindless Eating by Brian Wansink, and Five Kingdoms - Sky Raiders by Brandon Mull. </span> </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4627505483157469746.post-91220024252434356872014-12-25T00:48:00.000-05:002021-05-31T20:54:53.461-04:00He is the GiftMerry Christmas! I hope you've had a wonderful day. I just want to share with you my testimony of Jesus Christ. I know that he is our Savior. I've felt his love in my life.<br />
<br />
I can see how a lot of people would be like, "Why do we even need Jesus Christ? What's the point?" But I can tell you that knowing of him, and having his gospel in my life, has been an incalculable blessing to me. He promised: “He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” (John 8:12).<br />
<br />
This awesome Christmas video came out a couple weeks ago. It's called "He is the Gift." We watched it last night on Christmas Eve, and loved it.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/uzjFEMmM0Xs" width="560"></iframe><br />
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I hope you have a great Christmas night!</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4627505483157469746.post-13287220907357441872014-12-08T08:00:00.000-05:002021-05-31T20:54:51.697-04:00Rilla of Ingleside: Abridged vs. Unabridged<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I finished reading <i>Rilla of Ingleside</i> by L.M. Montgomery this week. It's the last book in the Anne of Green Gable series, and I loved it. I think it's one of the very best in the whole series. <br />
<br />
When I went to go rate it on Goodreads, I noticed someone's comment that "<span class="readable" id="reviewTextContainer136578450"><span id="freeTextContainer2303970951073676091">It was recently drawn to my attention by a fellow Goodreads reader that the editions of <i>Rilla of Ingleside</i>,
for which we had become accustomed, are abridged versions of the
original edition that L.M. Montgomery published. Somehow along the way,
an abridged edition appeared through an American publishing house and
that abridged version became the standard (accidentally)." </span></span><br />
<br />
<span class="readable" id="reviewTextContainer136578450"><span id="freeTextContainer2303970951073676091">I was like, "Whaaaaaat?" and investigated further. And it turns out this is true! The book I borrowed from the library, a Bantam Book published by HarperCollins Publishers in 1992, and which claims that "This edition contains the complete text of the original hardcover edition; Not one word has been omitted," is <i>abridged. </i></span></span><br />
<span class="readable" id="reviewTextContainer136578450"><span id="freeTextContainer2303970951073676091"><i><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fISSc1e_kS0/VINV1WOVIFI/AAAAAAAAUVU/0AQk3miPp1M/s1600/433533-300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fISSc1e_kS0/VINV1WOVIFI/AAAAAAAAUVU/0AQk3miPp1M/s1600/433533-300.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">One of the abridged versions</span></td></tr>
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<span class="readable" id="reviewTextContainer136578450"><span id="freeTextContainer2303970951073676091">A new, "restored" version of <i>Rilla of Ingleside</i> was published by Viking Canada in 2010, and <a href="http://lmmonline.org/rilla-of-ingleside/2010-viking-canada/" target="_blank">the editors explained in this interview</a> how the abridged version of Rilla came to be the standard book on the shelves, masquerading as the unabridged original:</span></span><b> </b><br />
<br />
<b>"This new edition of <i>Rilla of Ingleside</i> includes the tag “A new, unabridged and fully restored edition” on the cover. What does this mean?</b><br />
In the 1970s, a reprint edition of <i>Rilla of Ingleside</i>
silently cut 4,500 words, or 4% of the original text (to put it another
way, that’s fourteen pages of text that are missing). That edition was
reprinted by Bantam-Seal in the 1980s and remains in print today. This
new edition restores the full text of the original edition, published in
1921.<br />
<br />
<b>What types of material were cut?</b><br />
There doesn’t seem to be a clear pattern of deletions: some pertain
simply to adverbs that are no longer in general use (verily,
ignominiously), whereas others involve entire scenes that have been
excised. Most of the cuts occur in the first half of the book, which
indicates that the abridgment was done primarily for length. Most of the
cuts seem fairly arbitrary."<br />
<br />
<a href="http://lmmonline.org/rilla-of-ingleside/" target="_blank">This other page</a> explains the same thing: "A later reprint of <i>Rilla of Ingleside</i> silently abridged the
text by 4,500 words, and it is this text that has been available to
North American readers since the 1980s. A restored, unabridged, and annotated edition, edited by Benjamin Lefebvre and Andrea McKenzie,
was published by Viking Canada in October 2010. It contains the full
text of Virna Sheard’s poem “The Young Knights,” which Montgomery
excerpted as her epigraph."<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PWsc7G9nlt4/VINV1aD4VGI/AAAAAAAAUVY/33aMLMF1bVw/s1600/ri-2010-vikingcanada350.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PWsc7G9nlt4/VINV1aD4VGI/AAAAAAAAUVY/33aMLMF1bVw/s1600/ri-2010-vikingcanada350.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">The new, unabridged version</span></td></tr>
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<br />
So, I went looking for the differences in the abridged vs. original text. I wanted to read the 4,500 words that I had missed when reading the abridged version. But I couldn't find a single comparison online! It appears that one person <i>did </i>do a comparison a couple years ago, but the link is now broken and the webpage doesn't exist anymore.<br />
<br />
Soooo, I went through and compared the abridged Bantam Book copy of <i>Rilla of Ingleside</i> I have with the <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3796/3796-h/3796-h.htm" target="_blank">free, unabridged Project Gutenberg copy of <i>Rilla of Ingleside</i></a>. I didn't find all the words that were cut, but I did find about 3,600 of them. Definitely all the big passages, and a whole bunch of the little ones. *If anyone reading this has found more of the differences, please feel free to post them in a comment!* I've compiled them below, for anyone that mind find them useful!<br />
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<b><i>Rilla of Ingleside</i>: Abridged vs Unabridged Text</b></div>
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<th class="tg-e3zv">Bantam Page Number</th>
<th class="tg-e3zv">Abridged Text</th>
<th class="tg-e3zv">Original Text</th>
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<td class="tg-s6z2">4</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"...chasing him out of her domain..."</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"...chasing him ignominiously out of her domain..."</td>
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<td class="tg-s6z2">5</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"He would do anything for Jem, I believe."</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"He would do anything for Jem, I verily believe."</td>
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<td class="tg-s6z2">12</td>
<td class="tg-031e">She was not pretty but there was a certain charm of interest and mystery in her face.</td>
<td class="tg-031e">She was not pretty but there was a certain charm of interest and mystery in her face, and Rilla found her fascinating.</td>
</tr>
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<td class="tg-s6z2">12</td>
<td class="tg-031e">At all other times she was a stimulating companion.</td>
<td class="tg-031e">At all other times she was a stimulating companion, and the gay set at Ingleside never remembered that she was so much older than themselves.</td>
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<td class="tg-s6z2">13</td>
<td class="tg-031e">She knew that Rilla longed to be "out"—to go to parties as Nan and Di did, and to have dainty evening dresses and—<i>beaux</i>!</td>
<td class="tg-031e">She knew that Rilla longed to be "out"—to go to parties as Nan and Di did, and to have dainty evening dresses and—yes, there is no mincing matters—<i>beaux</i>!</td>
</tr>
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<td class="tg-s6z2">13</td>
<td class="tg-031e">Walter was, as ever, the handsomest of the Ingleside boys.</td>
<td class="tg-031e">Walter was, as ever, the handsomest of the Ingleside boys. Miss Oliver found pleasure in looking at him for his good looks—he was so exactly like what she would have liked her own son to be.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">13</td>
<td class="tg-031e">That sonnet sequence was really a remarkable thing for a lad of twenty to write. </td>
<td class="tg-031e">That sonnet sequence was really a remarkable thing for a lad of twenty to write. Miss Oliver was no partial critic and she knew that Walter Blythe had a wonderful gift.</td>
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<td class="tg-s6z2">15</td>
<td class="tg-031e">Everybody at Ingleside was fond of him, even Susan.</td>
<td class="tg-031e">Everybody at Ingleside was fond of him, even Susan, although his one unfortunate propensity of sneaking into the spare room and going to sleep on the bed tried her affection sorely.</td>
</tr>
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<td class="tg-s6z2">23</td>
<td class="tg-031e">A little girl indeed! She whisked out of the kitchen in high dudgeon. Her spirits rose again when she found herself one of the gay crowd bound for the Four Winds light.</td>
<td class="tg-031e">A little girl indeed! She whisked out of the kitchen in high dudgeon. Another time she wouldn't go down to show herself off to Susan—Susan, who thought nobody was grown up until she was sixty! And that horrid Cousin Sophia with her digs about freckles and legs! What business had an old—an old beanpole like that to talk of anybody else being long and thin? Rilla felt all her pleasure in herself and her evening clouded and spoiled. The very teeth of her soul were set on edge and she could have sat down and cried.<br />
<br />
But later on her spirits rose again when she found herself one of the gay crowd bound for the Four Winds light.</td>
</tr>
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<td class="tg-s6z2">25</td>
<td class="tg-031e">The gulf beyond was still silvery blue in the afterlight. Rilla loved life. She was going to have a splendid time.</td>
<td class="tg-031e">The gulf beyond was still silvery blue in the afterlight. Oh, it was all glorious—the clear air with its salt tang, the balsam of the firs, the laughter of her friends. Rilla loved life—its bloom and brilliance; she loved the ripple of music, the hum of merry conversation; she wanted to walk on forever over this road of silver and shadow. It was her first party and she was going to have a splendid time.</td>
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<td class="tg-s6z2">32</td>
<td class="tg-031e">Rilla looked about her and thought how lovely her first party had been. She would <i>never</i> forget it.</td>
<td class="tg-031e">Rilla looked about her and thought how lovely her first party had been. She would <i>never</i> forget it. The room re-echoed to laughter and jest. Beautiful young eyes sparkled and shone. From the pavilion outside came the lilt of the fiddle and the rhythmic steps of the dancers.</td>
</tr>
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<td class="tg-s6z2">32</td>
<td class="tg-031e">Why didn't Jack Elliott speak—if he had anything to tell?</td>
<td class="tg-031e">Why didn't Jack Elliott speak—if he had anything to tell? Why did he just stand there, glowering importantly?</td>
</tr>
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<td class="tg-s6z2">34</td>
<td class="tg-031e">Walter Blythe was always saying odd things.</td>
<td class="tg-031e">Walter Blythe was always saying odd things. That old Piper of his—she hadn't heard anything about him since their playdays in Rainbow Valley—and now here he was bobbing up again. She didn't like it, and that was the long and short of it.</td>
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<td class="tg-s6z2">35</td>
<td class="tg-031e">It does not do to laugh at the pangs of youth. They are very terrible because youth has not yet learned that "this, too, will pass away."</td>
<td class="tg-031e">It does not do to laugh at the pangs of youth. They are very terrible because youth has not yet learned that "this, too, will pass away." Rilla sighed and wished she were home, in bed, crying into her pillow.</td>
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<td class="tg-s6z2">36</td>
<td class="tg-031e">Why, for mercy's sake, did boys try to dance who didn't know the first thing about dancing; and who had feet as big as boats?</td>
<td class="tg-031e">Why, for mercy's sake, did boys try to dance who didn't know the first thing about dancing; and who had feet as big as boats? There, he had bumped her into somebody! She would never dance with him again!</td>
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<td class="tg-s6z2">41</td>
<td class="tg-031e">Susan sat as if paralysed, her piece of pie half-eaten on her plate.</td>
<td class="tg-031e">Susan sat as if paralysed, her piece of pie half-eaten on her plate. Susan never did finish that piece of pie—a fact which bore eloquent testimony to the upheaval in her inner woman for Susan considered it a cardinal offence against civilized society to begin to eat anything and not finish it. That was wilful waste, hens to the contrary notwithstanding.</td>
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<td class="tg-s6z2">43</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"Your father says it will be over in a few months and I have as much faith in <i>his</i> opinion as I have in Lord Anybody's."</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"Your father says it will be over in a few months and I have as much faith in <i>his</i> opinion as I have in Lord Anybody's. So just let us be calm and trust in the Almighty and get this place tidied up. I am done with crying which is a waste of time and discourages everybody."</td>
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<td class="tg-s6z2">49</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"Amen to that," nodded Mrs. Norman. "Bat-blind as most of them were somebody had foresight enough to see to <i>that</i>."</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"Amen to that," nodded Mrs. Norman. "Bat-blind as most of them were somebody had foresight enough to see to <i>that</i>."<br />
<br />
"Maybe England'll manage not to get into trouble over it," said Cousin Sophia plaintively. "I dunno. But I'm much afraid."<br />
<br />
"One would suppose that England was in trouble over it already, up to her neck, Sophia Crawford," said Susan. "But your ways of thinking are beyond me and always were. It is my opinion that the British Navy will settle Germany in a jiffy and that we are all getting worked up over nothing."<br />
<br />
Susan spat out the words as if she wanted to convince herself more than anybody else. She had her little store of homely philosophies to guide her through life, but she had nothing to buckler her against the thunderbolts of the week that had just passed. What had an honest, hard-working, Presbyterian old maid of Glen St. Mary to do with a war thousands of miles away? Susan felt that it was indecent that she should have to be disturbed by it.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">50</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"Don't you tell me one Britisher isn't a match for ten foreigners."</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"Don't you tell me one Britisher isn't a match for ten foreigners. I could polish off a dozen of 'em myself with both hands tied behind my back!"</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">50</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"They've a kind of presentiment that it wouldn't be healthy for their complaint."</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"Lord love you, they've a kind of presentiment, so to speak, that it wouldn't be healthy for their complaint." </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">54</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"Even the old cat at the manse has passed away."</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"Even the old cat at the manse has passed away. He breathed his last at a quarter to ten last night and Bruce is quite heart-broken, they tell me. It's time that pussy went where good cats go. He must be at least fifteen years old. He has seemed so lonely since Aunt Martha died."
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">54</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"Ellen West used to be always railing at the Kaiser and we thought her crazy, but now I see that there was a method in her madness."</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"Ellen West used to be always railing at the Kaiser and we thought her crazy, but now I see that there was a method in her madness. This tray is packed, Mrs. Dr. dear, and I will go down and put in my best licks preparing supper. I wish I knew when I would cook another supper for Jem but such things are hidden from our eyes." </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">55</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"The beast has more sense than most humans," said Mary Vance.</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"The beast has more sense than most humans," said Mary Vance. "Well, did we any of us ever think we'd live to see this day? I bawled all night to think of Jem and Jerry going like this. I think they're plumb deranged."</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">56</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"Let them European nations fight it out between them," said Abner Reese.</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"Let them European nations fight it out between them," said Abner Reese.<br />
<br />
"When he was a boy I gave him many a good trouncing," shouted Norman Douglas, who seemed to be referring to some one high in military circles in Charlottetown. "Yes, sir, I walloped him well, big gun as he is now." </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">57</td>
<td class="tg-031e">Rilla felt as if she were in some fantastic nightmare.</td>
<td class="tg-031e">Rilla felt as if she were in some fantastic nightmare. Were these the people who, three weeks ago, were talking of crops and prices and local gossip? </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">57</td>
<td class="tg-031e">Nothing to do now but to go home—and wait.</td>
<td class="tg-031e">Nothing to do now but to go home—and wait. The doctor and Mrs. Blythe walked off together—so did Nan and Faith—so did John Meredith and Rosemary. Walter and Una and Shirley and Di and Carl and Rilla went in a group. Susan had put her bonnet back on her head, hindside foremost, and stalked grimly off alone. </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">61</td>
<td class="tg-031e">Her first impulse was to turn and flee. But that would not do.</td>
<td class="tg-031e">Rilla's first impulse was to turn and flee. But that would never do.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">61</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"You're the doctor's miss, ain't ye?"</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"You're the doctor's miss, ain't ye? Have a cheer?"<br />
<br />
Rilla did not see any chair which was not cluttered with something. She remained standing. </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">62</td>
<td class="tg-031e">Yet a feeling of pity for the desolate, orphaned mite took sudden possession of her.</td>
<td class="tg-031e">Yet a feeling of pity for the desolate, orphaned mite which had "come out of the everywhere" into such a dubious "here", took sudden possession of her.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">62</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"<i>I</i> ain't a-going to trouble myself with it, I can tell yez. I told Min it'd have to be sent to an orphan asylum till we'd see if Jim ever came back to look after it. She didn't relish the idee."</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"<i>I</i> ain't a-going to trouble myself with it, I can tell yez. I brung up a boy that my sister left and he skinned out as soon as he got to be some good and won't give me a mite o' help in my old age, ungrateful whelp as he is. I told Min it'd have to be sent to an orphan asylum till we'd see if Jim ever came back to look after it. Would yez believe it, she didn't relish the idee."</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">62</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"<i>I</i> hadn't time—took me all the time there was looking after Min."</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"<i>I</i> hadn't time—took me all the time there was looking after Min. 'Sides, as I told yez, I don't know nithing about kids."</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">63</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"Sure, if yez wants to," said Mrs. Conover amiably.</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"Sure, if yez wants to," said Mrs. Conover amiably. "I hain't any objection. Take it and welcome."</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">64</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"Better not let the wind blow on it," admonished Mrs. Conover. "Take its breath if it do." </td>
<td class="tg-031e">"Better not let the wind blow on it," admonished Mrs. Conover. "Take its breath if it do."<br />
<br />
Rilla wrapped the tattered little quilt around the soup tureen.<br />
<br />
"Will you hand this to me after I get into the buggy, please?"<br />
<br />
"Sure I will," said Mrs. Conover, getting up with a grunt. </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">71</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"...lies down patiently to wait for the next train. One day some boys threw stones at Monday and old Johnny Mead, who never was known to take notice of anything before, snatched up a meat axe in the butcher's shop and chased them through the village."</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"...lies down patiently to wait for the next train. Mr. Gray, the station master, says there are times when he can hardly help crying from sheer sympathy. One day some boys threw stones at Monday and old Johnny Mead, who never was known to take notice of anything before, snatched up a meat axe in the butcher's shop and chased them through the village. Nobody has molested Monday since."</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">76</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"Business as usual is England's motto, they tell me, Mrs. Dr. dear, and I have taken it for mine."</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"Business as usual is England's motto, they tell me, Mrs. Dr. dear, and I have taken it for mine, not thinking I could easily find a better. I shall make the same kind of pudding today I always make on Saturday. It is a good deal of trouble to make, and that is well, for it will employ my thoughts."</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">76</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"A sock a day is my allowance."</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"A sock a day is my allowance. Old Mrs. Albert Mead of Harbour Head manages a pair and a half a day but she has nothing to do but knit. You know, Mrs. Dr. dear, she has been bed-rid for years and she has been worrying terrible because she was no good to anybody and a dreadful expense, and yet could not die and be out of the way. And now they tell me she is quite chirked up and resigned to living because there is something she can do, and she knits for the soldiers from daylight to dark."</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">76</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"And they say Joe Milgrave would too, only he is afraid that if he does that Whiskers-on-the-moon will not let him have Miranda."</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"And they say Joe Milgrave would too, only he is afraid that if he does that Whiskers-on-the-moon will not let him have Miranda. Whiskers says that he will believe the stories of German atrocities when he sees them, and that it is a good thing that Rangs Cathedral has been destroyed because it was a Roman Catholic church. Now, I am not a Roman Catholic, Mrs. Dr. dear, being born and bred a good Presbyterian and meaning to live and die one, but I maintain that the Catholics have as good a right to their churches as we have to ours and that the Huns had no kind of business to destroy them. Just think, Mrs. Dr. dear," concluded Susan pathetically, "how we would feel if a German shell knocked down the spire of our church here in the glen, and I'm sure it is every bit as bad to think of Rangs cathedral being hammered to pieces."<br />
<br />
And, meanwhile, everywhere, the lads of the world rich and poor, low and high, white and brown, were following the Piper's call.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">76</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"I don't believe I could bear another parting from him."</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"I don't believe I could bear another parting from him—now that I know the war will not be over as soon as we hoped when he left first."</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">78</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"I have always said that the devil was in him and that I will tie to."<br />
<br />
Susan opened the door and looked in.</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"I have always said that the devil was in him and that I will tie to."<br />
<br />
"It is my opinion that the cat has hydrophobia," said Cousin Sophia solemnly. "I once heard of a cat that went mad and bit three people—and they all died a most terrible death, and turned black as ink."<br />
<br />
Undismayed by this, Susan opened the door and looked in.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">79</td>
<td class="tg-031e">Anything like Doc's shrieks while the process was going on was never heard at Ingleside.</td>
<td class="tg-031e">Anything like Doc's shrieks while the process was going on was never heard at Ingleside. Susan was in mortal dread that the Albert Crawfords would hear it and conclude she was torturing the creature to death.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">79</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"The Huns themselves couldn't have worked more havoc here," she said bitterly.</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"The Huns themselves couldn't have worked more havoc here," she said bitterly. "But when people will keep a Satanic animal like that, in spite of all warnings, they cannot complain when their wedding bowls get broken."</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">80</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"I must take up my knitting then and knit hard till the papers come, Mrs. Dr. dear."</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"I must take up my knitting then and knit hard till the papers come, Mrs. Dr. dear. Knitting is something you can do, even when your heart is going like a trip-hammer and the pit of your stomach feels all gone and your thoughts are catawampus."</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">80</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"...the Kaiser will not eat his Christmas dinner in London <i>this</i> year."</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"...the Kaiser will not eat his Christmas dinner in London <i>this</i> year. Do you know, Mrs. Dr. dear,"—Susan's voice lowered as a token that she was going to impart a very shocking piece of information,—"I have been told on good authority—or else you may be sure I would not be repeating it when it concerns a minster—that the Rev. Mr. Arnold goes to Charlottetown every week and takes a Turkish bath for his rheumatism. The idea of him doing that when we are at war with Turkey? One of his own deacons has always insisted that Mr. Arnold's theology was not sound and I am beginning to believe that there is some reason to fear it."</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">83</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"When <i>I</i> wake up in the night and cannot go to sleep again," remarked Susan, who was knitting and reading at the same time, "I pass the moments by torturing the Kaiser to death. Last night I fried him in boiling oil and a great comfort it was to me, remembering those Belgian babies."</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"When<i> I</i> wake up in the night and cannot go to sleep again," remarked Susan, who was knitting and reading at the same time, "I pass the moments by torturing the Kaiser to death. Last night I fried him in boiling oil and a great comfort it was to me, remembering those Belgian babies."<br />
<br />
"If the Kaiser were here and had a pain in his shoulder you'd be the first to run for the liniment bottle to rub him down," laughed Miss Oliver.<br />
<br />
"Would I?" cried outraged Susan. "Would I, Miss Oliver? I would rub him down with coal oil, Miss Oliver—and leave it to blister. That is what I would do and that you may tie to. A pain in his shoulder, indeed! He will have pains all over him before he is through with what he has started." </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">83</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"I dare say the Austrians and Russians would think Saskatchewan and Musquodoboit about as bad, Susan," said Miss Oliver.</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"I dare say the Austrians and Russians would think Saskatchewan and Musquodoboit about as bad, Susan," said Miss Oliver. "The Serbians have done wonderfully of late. They have captured Belgrade."<br />
<br />
"And sent the Austrian creatures packing across the Danube with a flea in their ear," said Susan with a relish, as she settled down to examine a map of Eastern Europe, prodding each locality with the knitting needle to brand it on her memory. "Cousin Sophia said awhile ago that Serbia was done for, but I told her there was still such a thing as an over-ruling Providence, doubt it who might. It says here that the slaughter was terrible. For all they were foreigners it is awful to think of so many men being killed, Mrs. Dr. dear—for they are scarce enough as it is." </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">84</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"When mother saw the hat and the tag she just <i>looked</i> at me. Mother is some expert at looking."</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"When mother saw the hat and the tag she just <i>looked</i> at me. Mother is some expert at looking. Father says she looked him into love with her years ago in Avonlea school and I can well believe it—though I have heard a weird tale of her banging him over the head with a slate at the very beginning of their acquaintance. Mother was a limb when she was a little girl, I understand, and even up to the time when Jem went away she was full of ginger. But let me return to my mutton—that is to say, my new green velvet hat."</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">86</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"All the girls have always said Irene was jealous-minded and I would never believe them before."</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"All the girls have always said Irene was jealous-minded and I would never believe them before. But now I feel that perhaps she is."</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">89</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"He is not quite such a nuisance as he was; he has got some backbone and can sit up quite nicely, and he loves his bath now and splashes unsmilingly in the water instead of twisting and shrieking."</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"He is not quite such a nuisance as he was; he has got some backbone and can sit up quite nicely, and he loves his bath now and splashes unsmilingly in the water instead of twisting and shrieking. Oh, shall I ever forget those first two months! I don't know how I lived through them. But here I am and here is Jims and we both are going to 'carry on.'"</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">91</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"I do not believe—I know. That does not worry me. We must just trust in God and make big guns." </td>
<td class="tg-031e">"I do not believe—I know. That does not worry me. What does worry me is the trouble and expense of it all. But then you cannot make omelets without breaking eggs, so we must just trust in God and make big guns." </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">91</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"'Big guns are good but the Almighty is better, and <i>He </i>is on our side, no matter what the Kaiser says about it.'"</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"'Big guns are good but the Almighty is better, and <i>He</i> is on our side, no matter what the Kaiser says about it.' I would have gone crazy many a day lately, Miss Oliver, dear, if I had not sat tight and repeated that to myself."</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">91</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"...I was not flippant, Miss Oliver, dear, only calm and confident in the British navy and our Canadian boys."<br />
<br />
"I hate going to bed now," said Mrs. Blythe. </td>
<td class="tg-031e">"...I was not flippant, Miss Oliver, dear, only calm and confident in the British navy and our Canadian boys. I am like old Mr. William Pollock of the Harbour Head. He is very old and has been ill for a long time, and one night last week he was so low that his daughter-in-law whispered to some one that she thought he was dead. 'Darn it, I ain't,' he called right out—only, Miss Oliver, dear, he did not use so mild a word as 'darn'—'darn it, I ain't, and I don't mean to die until the Kaiser is well licked.' Now, that, Miss Oliver, dear," concluded Susan, "is the kind of spirit I admire."<br />
<br />
"I admire it but I can't emulate it," sighed Gertrude. "Before this, I have always been able to escape from the hard things of life for a little while by going into dreamland, and coming back like a giant refreshed. But I can't escape from this."<br />
<br />
"Nor I," said Mrs. Blythe. "I hate going to bed now."</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">95</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"...I cannot console myself with the thought that the tales are not true."</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"...I cannot console myself with the thought that the tales are not true. When I read a novel that makes me want to weep I just say severely to myself, 'Now, Susan Baker, you know that is all a pack of lies.'"</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">95</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"Now that he has enlisted she wishes she had never said a word to him."</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"Now that he has enlisted she wishes she had never said a word to him. You know Josiah Cooper and William Daley, Mrs. Dr. dear. They used to be fast friends but they quarrelled twenty years ago and have never spoken since. Well, the other day Josiah went to William and said right out, 'Let us be friends. 'Tain't any time to be holding grudges.' William was real glad and held out his hand, and they sat down for a good talk. And in less than half an hour they had quarrelled again, over how the war ought to be fought, Josiah holding that the Dardanelles expedition was rank folly and William maintaining that it was the one sensible thing the Allies had done. And now they are madder at each other than ever and William says Josiah is as bad a pro-German as Whiskers-on-the-Moon."</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">103</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"I hope he will not let his mother hear him talking like that."</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"I hope he will not let his mother hear him talking like that," she thought as she stacked the hoes and rake away.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">121</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"I only know that it seems they do have to go, unless we all want to be Kaiserised."</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"I only know that it seems they do have to go, unless we all want to be Kaiserised—for I can assure you that the Monroe doctrine, whatever it is, is nothing to tie to, with Woodrow Wilson behind it. The Huns, Dr. dear, will never be brought to book by notes."</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">136</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"...she was well-known to be a heedless creature."</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"...she was well-known to be a heedless creature. One day she found a nest of five eggs as she was going across the fields to church with a brand new blue silk dress on. So she put them in the pocket of her petticoat and when she got to church she forgot all about them and sat down on them and her dress was ruined, not to speak of the petticoat. Let me see—would not Tod be some relation of yours? Your great grandmother West was a MacAllister. Her brother Amos was a MacDonaldite in religion. I am told he used to take the jerks something fearful. But you look more like your great grandfather West than the MacAllisters. He died of a paralytic stroke quite early in life."</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">141</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"Do not let yourself slump like poor Cousin Sophia."</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"Do not let yourself slump like poor Cousin Sophia. She said, when the word came, 'Ah, it is nothing but a rift in the clouds. We are up this week but we will be down the next.' 'Well, Sophia Crawford,' said I,—for I will never give in to her, Mrs. Dr. dear—'God himself cannot make two hills without a hollow between them, as I have heard it said, but that is no reason why we should not take the good of the hills when we are on them.' But Cousin Sophia moaned on. 'Here is the Gallipolly expedition a failure and the Grand Duke Nicholas sent off, and everyone knows the Czar of Rooshia is a pro-German and the Allies have no ammunition and Bulgaria is going against us. And the end is not yet, for England and France must be punished for their deadly sins until they repent in sackcloth and ashes.' 'I think myself,' I said, 'that they will do their repenting in khaki and trench mud, and it seems to me that the Huns should have a few sins to repent of also.' 'They are instruments in the hands of the Almighty, to purge the garner,' said Sophia. And then I got mad, Mrs. Dr. dear, and told her I did not and never would believe that the Almighty ever took such dirty instruments in hand for any purpose whatever, and that I did not consider it decent for her to be using the words of Holy Writ as glibly as she was doing in ordinary conversation. She was not, I told her, a minister or even an elder. And for the time being I squelched her, Mrs. Dr. dear. Cousin Sophia has no spirit. She is very different from her niece, Mrs. Dean Crawford over-harbour. You know the Dean Crawfords had five boys and now the new baby is another boy. All the connection and especially Dean Crawford were much disappointed because their hearts had been set on a girl; but Mrs. Dean just laughed and said, 'Everywhere I went this summer I saw the sign "MEN WANTED" staring me in the face. Do you think I could go and have a girl under such circumstances?' There is spirit for you, Mrs. Dr. dear. But Cousin Sophia would say the child was just so much more cannon fodder."</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">143</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"...when they get it into their heads that this war is not a correspondence school."</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"...when they get it into their heads that this war is not a correspondence school. They will not," said Susan, energetically waving a saucepan with one hand and a soup ladle with the other, "be too proud to fight then." </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">152</td>
<td class="tg-031e">Cousin Sophia was also there, knitting.</td>
<td class="tg-031e">Cousin Sophia was also there, knitting. All the boys were going to be killed in the long run, so Cousin Sophia felt in her bones, but they might better die with warm feet than cold ones, so Cousin Sophia knitted faithfully and gloomily.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">153</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"I must be getting old, Gilbert." Mrs. Blythe laughed a trifle ruefully. "People are beginning to tell me I <i>look so young</i>. They never tell you that when you are young. But I shall not worry over my silver thread. I never liked red hair."</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"I must be getting old, Gilbert." Mrs. Blythe laughed a trifle ruefully. "People are beginning to tell me I <i>look so young</i>. They never tell you that when you are young. But I shall not worry over my silver thread. I never liked red hair. Gilbert, did I ever tell you of that time, years ago at Green Gables, when I dyed my hair? Nobody but Marilla and I knew about it."<br />
<br />
"Was that the reason you came out once with your hair shingled to the bone?"<br />
<br />
"Yes. I bought a bottle of dye from a German Jew pedlar. I fondly expected it would turn my hair black—and it turned it green. So it had to be cut off."<br />
<br />
"You had a narrow escape, Mrs. Dr. dear," exclaimed Susan. "Of course you were too young then to know what a German was. It was a special mercy of Providence that it was only green dye and not poison."<br />
<br />
"It seems hundreds of years since those Green Gables days," sighed Mrs. Blythe. "They belonged to another world altogether. Life has been cut in two by the chasm of war. What is ahead I don't know—but it can't be a bit like the past. I wonder if those of us who have lived half our lives in the old world will ever feel wholly at home in the new."
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">164</td>
<td class="tg-031e">There were days when they waited in despair for the end as foot by foot the Germans crept nearer and nearer to the grim barrier of desperate France.</td>
<td class="tg-031e">There were days when they waited in despair for the end as foot by foot the Germans crept nearer and nearer to the grim barrier of desperate France.<br />
<br />
Susan's deeds were in her spotless kitchen at Ingleside, but her thoughts were on the hills around Verdun. "Mrs. Dr. dear," she would stick her head in at Mrs. Blythe's door the last thing at night to remark, "I do hope the French have hung onto the Crow's Wood today," and she woke at dawn to wonder if Dead Man's Hill—surely named by some prophet—was still held by the "poyloos." Susan could have drawn a map of the country around Verdun that would have satisfied a chief of staff.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">183</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"The Huns have not got all the cleverness in the world."</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"The Huns have not got all the cleverness in the world. Have you not heard the story of Alistair MacCallum's son Roderick, from the Upper Glen? He is a prisoner in Germany and his mother got a letter from him last week. He wrote that he was being very kindly treated and that all the prisoners had plenty of food and so on, till you would have supposed everything was lovely. But when he signed his name, right in between Roderick and MacCallum, he wrote two Gaelic words that meant 'all lies' and the German censor did not understand Gaelic and thought it was all part of Roddy's name. So he let it pass, never dreaming how he was diddled."</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">191</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"...and Rainbow Valley a haunt of delight with wild asters blowing all over it—our old 'farewell-summers.'"</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"...and Rainbow Valley a haunt of delight with wild asters blowing all over it—our old 'farewell-summers.' I always liked that name better than 'aster'—it was a poem in itself."</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">207</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"But I will not forget myself again."</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"But I will not forget myself again. Only if things do not go as smoothly in the kitchen for a few days I hope you will make due allowance for me."</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">212</td>
<td class="tg-031e">The aeroplane soared and dipped and circled, and soared again, until it became a mere speck far over the sunset hills.</td>
<td class="tg-031e">The aeroplane soared and dipped and circled, and soared again, until it became a mere speck far over the sunset hills.<br />
<br />
"'With the majesty of pinion Which the Theban eagles bear Sailing with supreme dominion Through the azure fields of air.'"
quoted Anne Blythe dreamily. </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">213</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"...he had a wild desire to <i>get back home</i> to the old planet and the companionship of fellow creatures.</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"...he had a wild desire to <i>get back home</i> to the old planet and the companionship of fellow creatures. He soon got over that feeling, but he says his first flight alone was a nightmare to him because of that dreadful sensation of ghastly loneliness."</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">222</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"...and such an army cannot be defeated."</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"'...and such an army cannot be defeated.' No it cannot. We will win in the end. I will not doubt it for one moment. To let myself doubt would be to 'break faith.'"</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">222</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"He may be a pacifist, but he knows a good investment when it is handed out to him."</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"He may be a pacifist, but he knows a good investment when it is handed out to him. Five and a half per cent is five and a half per cent, even when a militaristic government pays it."</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">238</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"...and gone down to defeat in spite of it."</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"...and gone down to defeat in spite of it. Ours is 'but one more To baffled millions who have gone before.'"</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">238</td>
<td class="tg-031e">Susan was already planning a new line of defence for the channel ports.</td>
<td class="tg-031e">Susan was already planning a new line of defence for the channel ports.<br />
<br />
"As long as we can hold them," she declared, "the situation is saved. Paris has really no military significance."<br />
<br />
"Don't," said Gertrude sharply, as if Susan had run something into her. She thought the old worn phrase 'no military significance' nothing short of ghastly mockery under the circumstances, and more terrible to endure than the voice of despair would have been.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">238</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"Depend upon it, girls, that part of the message can't be true."<br />
<br />
This point of view cheered them all a little, and helped them through the evening.</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"Depend upon it, girls, that part of the message can't be true. I'm going to try to try a long-distance call to town myself."<br />
<br />
The doctor was no more successful than Rilla had been, but his point of view cheered them all a little, and helped them through the evening.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">240</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"Is the British navy anchored in those three miles?" demanded Susan scornfully.</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"Is the British navy anchored in those three miles?" demanded Susan scornfully.<br />
<br />
"It is the opinion of a man who knows all about it," said Cousin Sophia solemnly.<br />
<br />
"There is no such person," retorted Susan. "As for the military critics, they do not know one blessed thing about it, any more than you or I. They have been mistaken times out of number. Why do you always look on the dark side, Sophia Crawford?"<br />
<br />
"Because there ain't any bright side, Susan Baker."<br />
<br />
"Oh, is there not? It is the twentieth of April, and Hindy is not in Paris yet, although he said he would be there by April first. Is that not a bright spot at least?"</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">241</td>
<td class="tg-031e">Gertrude shivered with pain.</td>
<td class="tg-031e">Gertrude shivered with pain. She looked up at the pictures hanging over Rilla's desk and felt a sudden hatred of Mona Lisa's endless smile.<br />
<br />
"Will not even this blot it off your face?" she thought savagely.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">244</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"That is when astronomers think the collision took place which produced this new star."</td>
<td class="tg-031e">"That is when astronomers think the collision took place which produced this new star. It makes me feel horribly insignificant," she added under her breath.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-s6z2">242</td>
<td class="tg-031e">...they all plucked up heart and courage to carry on, just because a faithful little dog at the Glen station was still watching with unbroken faith for his master to come home.</td>
<td class="tg-031e">...they all plucked up heart and courage to carry on, just because a faithful little dog at the Glen station was still watching with unbroken faith for his master to come home. Common sense might scorn—incredulity might mutter "Mere superstition"—but in their hearts the folk of Ingleside stood by their belief that Dog Monday knew.</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4627505483157469746.post-7706714410925122512014-11-16T07:00:00.000-05:002021-05-31T20:54:51.322-04:00How Firm a FoundationThis week I was having a rough time with some anxiety (general anxiety, not about one issue in particular). As I was folding laundry one night, I started to sing one of my favorite hymns, How Firm a Foundation.<br />
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I love this song. I've always loved it; it's always been so powerful to me and such a strengthening hymn. But as I sang it this week, I felt like Heavenly Father was speaking to me directly through the words, reminding me that he is always, always be there for me. I just wanted to share this song with you, as it has been such a strength to me.<br />
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How firm a foundation, ye Saints of the Lord,</div>
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Is laid for your faith in his excellent word!</div>
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What more can he say than to you he hath said,</div>
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Who unto the Savior, who unto the Savior,</div>
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Who unto the Savior for refuge have fled?</div>
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In ev'ry condition--in sickness, in health,</div>
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In poverty's vale or abounding in wealth,</div>
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At home or abroad, on the land or the sea--</div>
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As thy days may demand, as thy days may demand,</div>
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As thy days may demand, so thy succor shall be.</div>
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Fear not, I am with thee; oh, be not dismayed, </div>
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For I am thy God and will still give thee aid.</div>
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I'll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,</div>
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Upheld by my righteous, upheld by my righteous,</div>
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Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.</div>
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When through the deep waters I call thee to go,</div>
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The rivers of sorrow shall not thee
o'erflow,</div>
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For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,</div>
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And sanctify to thee, and sanctify to thee,</div>
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And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.</div>
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When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,</div>
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My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply.</div>
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The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design</div>
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Thy dross to consume, thy dross to consume,</div>
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Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.</div>
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E'en down to old age, all my people shall prove </div>
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My sov'reign, eternal, unchangeable love;</div>
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And then, when gray hair shall their temples adorn,</div>
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Like lambs shall they still, like lambs shall they still,</div>
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Like lambs shall they still in my bosom be borne.</div>
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The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose</div>
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I will not, I cannot, desert to his foes;</div>
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That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,</div>
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I'll never, no
never, I'll never, no never,</div>
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I'll never, no never, no never forsake!</div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4627505483157469746.post-61108162183605444322014-11-10T10:37:00.000-05:002021-05-31T20:54:52.821-04:00Collage.com Photo Book Review<div style="text-align: center;">
*I was provided with a free hardcover and softcover photo book from Collage.com to do this review. The opinions I write below are my own. :)* </div>
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A while ago the photo company <a href="http://www.collage.com/home" target="_blank">Collage</a> contacted me and asked if I'd like to review their "One-Click Photo Books." Being the photo book nut that I am, I immediately said yes. :) So I used Collage's website to make and order two books, and I have to tell you, I really really liked their software! Making these photo books was probably the easiest photo book making process I've ever had. <br />
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I was able to make two books with Collage: a 11.5"x8.5" hardcover (the same size and format I usually order from Shutterfly) and a 8"x6" softcover. For the hardcover, I decided to make a Christmas present book with some of my favorite pictures from the last year. I chose the pictures and uploaded them to Collage's site, and then clicked their "auto place" button. The "auto place" button immediately placed all the pictures in the book, and gave me an option to make a collage on the cover using all of the pictures. I clicked "yes" to that option, it made the cover - and my book was done! It was seriously that easy. I did rearrange a couple of the pictures on the pages, but that only took a few minutes. I was pretty satisfied with how it put them automatically and there wasn't much to do.<br />
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One thing I <i>loooove</i> about Collage's software and wish <i>every </i>photo book company had in their software was what I found when I rearranged pictures on the pages. When I would click and drag a picture, the page would shift around, giving me lots of options for the layout while maintaining each picture's original aspect ratio (shape). One thing I don't like about Shutterfly is that if I want to maintain each picture's aspect ratio (keep it portrait or landscape, and make it show the whole picture), I <i>have </i>to customize each layout that I'm working with. It's really time consuming. I absolutely <b>love</b> that on Collage it maintains the aspect ratio for each picture, and <i>still </i>has a lot of layouts for each page that are <i>so </i>easy to switch between! It's seriously <i>amazing! </i>I know I sound ridiculous, but I seriously love love love Collage's software when it comes to page layouts. It is the <i>best</i>, and so easy.<br />
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Okay, so here are the books. Here is the 11.5"x8.5" hardcover:<br />
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Close-up of the cover collage:<br />
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Some of the inside pages (it's a standard, 20-page book):<br />
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And the back, which is white with a small "Collage.com" logo in the middle:</div>
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Collage has different background options that you can apply to individual pages or the whole book, but I chose white for the whole book because I just like white. The picture quality is good (though perhaps not <i>quite </i>as sharp as Shutterfly), and the paper quality is good. I did miss the paper end pages that you find in Shutterfly's books or MyPublisher's - the Collage book starts right in on the picture pages without end pages. The binding seems good and secure.<br />
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Here's the 8"x6" softcover. For this book, I chose a bunch of pictures of family members, and made it as a kind of "Where's Waldo?" of family for the girls to play with. When it came and I gave it to Toddler, it was an instant hit. She sat on the couch and went through each page, naming each family member. It was just the right size for her to open and look at herself. She carried it around all day, and even insisted on going to sleep with it that night. :)<br />
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The two sizes compared (The 8"x6" softcover vs the 11.5"x8.5" hardcover):<br />
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And the inside:<br />
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<br />
So, Collage.com's One-Click Photo Books in a nutshell: I looooved the software. I don't think I can emphasize that enough. This was some of the easiest, best photo book software I have ever worked with. Making a book literally only took a few minutes, and rearranging pictures was so easy that it was <i>fun. </i>Whoever made Collage's software knew what they were doing.<br />
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The books themselves are good quality. Again, I wish that the hardcover had endsheets - they're such a good feature! - but the pictures and pages themselves were good quality, and the binding was tight.<br />
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If you'd like to check out Collage.com's photo books (or any of their other products - they also make photo blankets, calendars, canvases, etc.), click here: <a href="http://www.collage.com/products">Collage.com</a>.<br />
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<br />
<b>To see my other photo book reviews, check out the posts below:</b><br />
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<a href="http://jocelynandjason.blogspot.com/2013/09/shutterfly-photo-book-review.html" target="_blank">Shutterfly Photo Book Review</a><br />
<a href="http://jocelynandjason.blogspot.com/2013/12/shutterfly-layflat-photo-book-review.html" target="_blank">Shutterfly Premium Leather Layflat Photo Book Review</a> <br />
<a href="http://jocelynandjason.blogspot.com/2013/01/shutterfly-calendar-review.html" target="_blank">Shutterfly Calendar Review</a><br />
<a href="http://jocelynandjason.blogspot.com/2014/08/york-photo-photobook-review.html" target="_blank">York Photo Photo Book Review </a><br />
<a href="http://jocelynandjason.blogspot.com/2013/01/adoramapix-photo-book-review.html" target="_blank">AdoramaPix Photo Book Review</a><br />
<a href="http://jocelynandjason.blogspot.com/2014/09/mypublisher-photo-book-review.html" target="_blank">MyPublisher Photo Book Review </a><br />
<a href="http://jocelynandjason.blogspot.com/2012/07/photobook-comparisons.html" target="_blank">Photo Book Comparisons</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4627505483157469746.post-71251660383895889572014-09-29T07:00:00.000-04:002021-05-31T20:54:52.989-04:0010 reasons I'd never ever ever have a home birthHome birth in the United States is dangerous. If your baby is born at home, they have at least 3 times the risk of dying than they do if they were born at a hospital, and somewhere around seventeen times the risk of permanent brain damage. US home birth midwives are unregulated, and the vast majority are so uneducated, inexperienced, and unskilled that they would not qualify to practice in <i>any other </i>developed country.<br />
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So, here are the top ten reasons that I'd never ever ever have a home birth.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b> </b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>1. Appalling rates of Death at home births</b></span><br />
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Study after study after study has shown that home birth in the United States has at <i>least </i>3 times the neonatal death rate that hospital birth has. That means that at least three times as many babies die in labor or at birth at home than at the hospital.<br />
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To be very clear: <b>these studies are all on planned, midwife-attended home births</b>.<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>This study<b>,</b> published February 2014 and with a huge sample size of 10,453,778 births in the US, found that <b>home birth has 4 times the death rate of hospital birth</b>: <a href="http://www.skepticalob.com/2014/02/new-cornell-study-shows-homebirth-has-4x-higher-death-rate-than-comparable-risk-hospital-birth.html" target="_blank">Term neonatal deaths resulting from home births: an increasing trend,</a> <a href="http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/823091" target="_blank">Neonatal Mortality Risk Increased for Home Midwife Births</a>.</li>
<li>This analysis from Arizona in 2013 found that <b>home birth triples the risk of your baby dying</b>: <a href="http://www.skepticalob.com/2013/04/new-analysis-from-arizona-shows-yet-again-that-homebirth-triples-the-neonatal-death-rate.html" target="_blank">Outcomes of Home vs. Hospital Births Attended by Midwives: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis</a>.</li>
<li>These CDC statistics from data collected in 2008, released in 2013, show that <b>"the neonatal mortality rate for planned homebirth attended by a
non-nurse midwifes (CPM, LM) is 3.5 times higher than comparable risk
hospital birth attended by a CNM (certified nurse midwife)</b>.": <a href="http://www.skepticalob.com/2013/01/new-cdc-statistics-same-old-increased-homebirth-death-rate.html" target="_blank">CDC Wonder Database Homebirth Statistics.</a></li>
<li>These statistics, gathered by the state of Oregon in 2012 and released in 2013, found <b>home birth had a death rate of term babies 8 times higher than hospital birth</b>: <a href="http://www.skepticalob.com/2013/03/oregon-releases-official-homebirth-death-rates-and-they-are-hideous.html" target="_blank">Intrapartum Fetal and Neonatal Deaths Associated with Planned Out-of-Hospital Births in Oregon (2012)</a>. Eight times! Judith Rooks, past president of the American College of Nurse-Midwives and the CNM in charge of collecting the data, said: "Many women have been told that out of hospital births are as safe or safer than births in hospitals…But out-of-hospital births are not as safe as births in hospitals in
Oregon, where many of them are attended by birth attendants who have not
completed an educational curriculum designed to provide all the
knowledge, skills and judgment needed by midwives who practice in any
setting."</li>
<li>And this data, collected by the Midwives Alliance of North America themselves, <b>found that babies born at home died 5.5 times more often than babies born at hospitals</b>: <a href="http://www.skepticalob.com/2014/01/homebirth-midwives-reveal-death-rate-450-higher-than-hospital-birth-announce-that-it-shows-homebirth-is-safe.html" target="_blank"><span class="titlebold" id="_ctl0_CfmContent_LabelTitle">MANA Home Birth Data 2004-2009</span></a>. And if you looked at various subgroups - such as breech babies - the numbers were truly shocking. MANA reported, "Of 222 babies presenting in breech position, 5 died either during labor or the neonatal period." That's a rate of almost 22.5 deaths per 1000 babies born. Breech babies
born in the hospital have a rate of 0.8/1000. <b>So breech babies born at
home died at a rate <i>28 times higher</i> than those born in the hospital.</b> That's HUGE.</li>
</ul>
<br />
Four times the death rate, three times the death rate, three and a half times the death rate, <i>eight </i>times the death rate, five and a half times the death rate - one thing that all these studies have in common is that they clearly show giving birth at home <i>significantly </i>increases the chance that your baby will die during birth.<br />
<br />
Homebirth advocates like to say that "babies die in hospitals too," but the difference is that babies don't die <i>preventable </i>deaths
at hospitals. At a homebirth, at least two out of every three babies that die
die for causes <i>that would not have killed them </i>in a hospital. <br />
<br />
<b><br /></b>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>2. Appalling rates of Brain Damage at home births</b></span><br />
<br />
One study that came out this year, <a href="http://www.skepticalob.com/2014/01/risk-of-anoxic-brain-injury-is-more-than-18-times-higher-at-homebirth.html" target="_blank">Home birth and risk of neonatal hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy</a>, found that <b>babies born at home birth have <i>17 times </i>the amount of brain injuries that babies born at hospitals</b> do. Seventeen times! These brain injuries are caused by lack of oxygen to the baby during labor and delivery. It's really not surprising that dramatically higher rates of brain injuries occur at home births, since the lack of electronic fetal monitoring equipment at home makes it almost impossible to tell if a baby is being deprived of oxygen during labor.<br />
<br />
In the hospital, the nurses and doctors are continually monitoring your baby during labor and will act if your baby is in distress (meaning, if she's not getting enough oxygen). If needed, the doctor can give you a c-section, and that can save your baby's brain function. Thus, the rates of brain damage are much, much lower at the hospital. At home, midwives have only a doppler to listen to your baby's heartbeat, and that can't tell them the same information that electronic fetal monitoring can. So, your midwife misses the warning signs, and doesn't act. And even if she <i>does </i>realize the baby's not getting enough oxygen, what can your midwife do? At the hospital, doctors can perform an emergency c-section in minutes and save the baby's life and/or brain function. At home, midwives can...send you to the hospital. Or do nothing. And every minute the baby is deprived of oxygen, the brain damage worsens.<br />
<br />
Correspondingly, another study published in 2012, <a href="http://www.ajog.org/article/s0002-9378%2813%2900630-3/fulltext" target="_blank">Selected perinatal outcomes associated with planned home births in the United States</a>, found that<b> three times as many babies at home births have seizures than babies born in the hospital</b>.<br />
<br />
Going right along both with the increased rates of brain damage at home birth and increased numbers of seizures at home births, researchers have found that having a baby at home instead of the hospital <a href="http://www.skepticalob.com/2013/06/homebirth-increases-the-risk-of-a-5-minute-apgar-score-of-zero-by-nearly-1000.html" target="_blank">increases the risk of that baby having a five-minute Apgar score of 0 by over <b>ten times</b></a>. <br />
<br />
Apgar scores are assigned to babies at 1 minute and 5 minutes after birth to assess how the baby is doing. They measure complexion (from blue or gray to pink), pulse, reflex (response to stimulation), activity, and respiratory effort (how well the baby is breathing). A score of 10 is perfect; a score of 0 means that there are no signs of life. And babies born at home have over<b> <i>ten times</i> the risk of showing no signs of life five minutes after they are born</b> compared to babies delivered by OBs in the hospital. <b>Ten times the risk</b> that your baby will have <i>no</i> signs of life after five whole minutes! Many of those babies are eventually resuscitated, but what kind of brain damage will there after going so long without any oxygen?<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>3. Lack of equipment at home</b></span><br />
<br />
Both of these points - higher rates of death at home birth and higher rates of brain damage at home birth - bring me to my next point: your home does not have the same equipment a hospital does. And no matter how big the bag your midwife brings with her is, she will still not have the same equipment a hospital has.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
***Thank you to everyone who contributed to this section.*** </div>
<br />
<b>Resources the hospital has that your midwife does not:</b><br />
<ol>
</ol>
<ul>
<li><b>Electronic Fetal Monitoring.</b> Does your home have electronic fetal monitoring (the equipment, mentioned above, that will tell you if your baby is being deprived of oxygen)? No. Your midwife will have a doppler to listen to the baby's heart rate at intermittent time intervals. Does that seem good enough? It isn't. Here are two good articles about electronic fetal monitoring that explain why: <a href="http://www.skepticalob.com/2011/06/electronic-fetal-monitoring-gives-much.html" target="_blank">Electronic fetal monitoring gives much more information</a> and <a href="http://www.skepticalob.com/2011/06/new-study-shows-that-electronic-fetal.html" target="_blank">Electronic fetal monitoring halves early neonatal mortality</a>.</li>
</ul>
<ol><ul>
</ul>
</ol>
<ol><a href="http://www.skepticalob.com/2011/06/electronic-fetal-monitoring-gives-much.html" target="_blank">Electronic fetal monitoring gives much more information</a> explains what EFM can tell you that a doppler can't. In a nutshell, by just listening to the baby's heart rate with a doppler you will miss patterns in the heart rate like decreased variability, absence of accelerations, and subtle late decelerations - all signs of a baby deprived of oxygen and in distress. An EFM tracing <i>will </i>show these things, the nurses and doctors will see and act on it, and your baby's life and brain function will stay intact. At home...nope. You <i>cannot </i>measure variability with a doppler and it's almost impossible to determine if there are no accelerations or if there are late decelerations. So, at home, you cannot tell if your baby is being deprived of oxygen during labor.<br />
<br />
By the time your baby's heart rate shows bradycardia - a sustained abnormally low heart rate (something your midwife <i>can </i>detect) - it's almost certainly too late. So a baby can have a heart rate in the normal range the entire period of labor, and still drop mostly dead (and almost certainly brain damaged) into the midwife's hands. That wouldn't happen in a hospital, because their distress would have been picked up on the monitors and interventions would have been performed to save them. Home birth advocates often complain about "unnecessary interventions" in the hospital, seemingly without realizing that <b>these same interventions save lives and brain function.</b> When you decrease interventions, you increase brain damage. When you decrease interventions, you increase deaths.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.skepticalob.com/2011/06/new-study-shows-that-electronic-fetal.html" target="_blank">Electronic fetal monitoring halves early neonatal mortality</a> explains about a study published in 2011, "Electronic fetal heart rate monitoring and its relationship
to neonatal and infant mortality in the United State," published by the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology in a "Report of Major Impact," that shows that electronic fetal monitoring cuts early neonatal death (from birth to 7 days) rates in half. I'll repeat that with less words - <b>Electronic Fetal Monitoring cuts early neonatal death in half.</b> EFM allows nurses and doctors to immediately see that a baby is in distress, and act in time to save them from death and brain damage. At home <i>you do not have that.</i><br />
</ol>
<ul>
<li><b>An operating room. </b>This goes along with the EFM mentioned above. If it's discovered during labor that your baby is being deprived of oxygen, a c-section could save their life and their brain function. In the hospital, an emergency c-section can be performed in minutes. At home, you have to <i>get to</i> the hospital before a c-section can be performed. And as I explain below, from moment of the decision at home "This is an emergency, let's go to the hospital," to an emergency c-section at hospital, it will be at<i> least</i> over thirty minutes. And every minute matters during an emergency.</li>
<li><b>A resuscitation team that can do the specialized work required for a newborn</b>. If your baby is born with breathing issues, or not breathing at all, hospitals have a resuscitation team who are well-practiced in advanced resuscitation skills and who
immediately begin to work on your baby with equipment for suctioning,
ventilation, oxygenation, intubation, central line IV access,
administration of emergency drugs, monitoring, and lab value assessments. Home birth midwives often say that they are trained in NRP (Neonatal Resuscitation Program), and they indeed might have taken a class, but they <i>cannot </i>perform true NRP at home because they do not have the equipment, medications, or training necessary to do so. This article goes more into that: <a href="http://www.skepticalob.com/2014/06/a-neonatal-resuscitation-class-does-not-mean-that-a-midwife-is-actually-qualified-to-resuscitate-a-baby.html" target="_blank">A neonatal resuscitation class does NOT mean that a midwife is actually qualified to resuscitate a baby</a>. Additionally, hospitals have a team of professionals with the appropriate equipment to deal with a maternal resuscitation. What happens at home if the baby and mother need emergency attention at the same time?</li>
<li><b>More staff.</b> At a home birth, there are at most two midwives, and more usually one, dealing with the needs of two people. At a hospital, the staff is able to greatly outnumber you if it looks like it
might be necessary. In the event of an emergency like a tight nuchal cord, shoulder dystocia or other problem, there will be many hands to immediately help. If your
labor is prolonged, a change of shift means the staff will be adequately
rested. At home births, there is no change of staff for your midwife, and there are no extra teams of people to help when needed. </li>
<li><b>More practice.</b> Homebirth midwives are considered
"experienced" if they've attended more than a hundred births.
OB residents get that much experience in their first few <i>
months.</i> When the Labor & Delivery unit is quiet, the staff run drills on coping with
things like shoulder dystocia.</li>
<li><b>Supplies.</b> Hospitals have
the stuff they need to take care of you. They bought it in bulk. When
appropriate, they have it wrapped up in sterile packaging. You are not
responsible for making sure the hospital has enough chux pads, or
suturing kits, or units of O-. There's a department of administrators
that makes sure the hospital has the necessary supplies, and that they
stored them correctly. </li>
<li><b>IV drugs to stop a postpartum hemorrhage</b> before it really gets off the ground.
According to MANA's own data, <b>15% of home birth mothers suffered
excessive blood loss</b>. Some midwives carry pitocin that they can inject, but in cases of severe postpartum hemorrhage that is not enough to stop the bleeding. IV drugs are needed, and those can only be administered by a CNM or at the hospital. CPMs and other lay midwives will not have those drugs.</li>
<li><b>A Blood Bank</b>. In addition to strong medications that a midwife cannot legally have or administer, the hospital has a blood bank on site. If the worst happens and you hemorrhage uncontrollably, the hospital has blood products that can save your life
should other measures to control hemorrhaging fail. <span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".2a.1:3:1:$comment859865770691217_859924457352015:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body"><span class="UFICommentBody" data-reactid=".2a.1:3:1:$comment859865770691217_859924457352015:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0"><span data-reactid=".2a.1:3:1:$comment859865770691217_859924457352015:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0.3"><span data-reactid=".2a.1:3:1:$comment859865770691217_859924457352015:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0.3.0"><span data-reactid=".2a.1:3:1:$comment859865770691217_859924457352015:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0.3.0.$end:0:$4:0">If
you lose too much blood, and if it's not replaced soon enough, you go
into irreversible hypovolemic shock and die. The blood bank can supply
red cells, plasma, clotting factors and platelets ... whatever is
needed. And they can supply it quickly. </span><span data-reactid=".2a.1:3:1:$comment859865770691217_859924457352015:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0.3.0.$end:0:$8:0">If
your baby needs transfusions, the blood bank will use blood from O-NEG
donors that has been rigorously screened.</span></span></span></span></span><i> </i></li>
<li><b>Oversight, accountability and witnesses.</b> If something goes wrong at a
homebirth, it is incredibly easy for a midwife to get away with something they did wrong. Reporting them to NARM (if they are a CPM) <a href="http://dreahlouis.blogspot.com/2014/03/accountability-is-questionable.html" target="_blank">does basically nothing</a>, and they can continue to practice without disclosing their history of injuries or deaths to their future clients. At the hospital, nurses, doctors, and CNMs have people watching over them every single day.
They are accountable for their actions. They have insurance. If they make a mistake, their insurance will pay for your medical bills. Almost no home birth midwives are insured. If they make a mistake and you have huge medical bills because of it (or life-long medical bills to pay in the case of a brain-damaged child), there is no safety net for you to fall back on. </li>
</ul>
<br />
Homebirth advocates like to say that complications are rare, and you likely won't need any of this stuff at your birth. So let me remind you - the death rate at home birth is at least 3 times higher than the death rate at the hospital. The rate of brain damage is 17 times higher. A lot of women and their babies <i>did </i>need all this stuff at home - and it wasn't there.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b> 4. "Five minutes" from a hospital is too far from a hospital </b></span><br />
<br />
The talk above of oxygen deprivation brings me to my next point - distance from the hospital. People planning home births often say something like, "We live just five minutes from the hospital in case anything goes wrong!" <br />
<br />
I want to ask you something - how long can you hold your breath? Can you hold it for five minutes? Try holding it for the next five minutes. Because every minute from the time something goes wrong until you are at the hospital, in the operating room ready for an emergency c-section, your baby will be holding their breath. Do you think they can live through that? Do you think they can live through that without brain damage?<br />
<br />
"Five minutes from the hospital" is not really five minutes from the hospital. Sure, on a normal day, once you are in your car you might be able to drive from your house to the hospital in five minutes. But this is not a normal day. You are in labor, in severe pain, and there is an emergency occurring. It could take five minutes - or more - just to get from whatever room you are in to the car. Then it could take another five minutes to drive to the hospital, if the traffic happens to be good and you don't hit any red lights. And even if you drive up to and park in front of the ER, it will probably take another couple minutes to make it out of the car, inside the ER, and explain the situation. They have to evaluate you themselves, and make the decision to do an emergency c-section. Then they have to prep your for surgery. All of that takes at least another twenty minutes. At this point, it's been at least forty minutes from the moment of decision to go to the hospital until you're going into surgery. Can you hold your breath for that long? Can your baby? Is that "five minutes away?"<br />
<br />
And if you think this would all be significantly sped up if you call for an ambulance at the moment of decision - think again. First, the ambulance has to get to you. If you're lucky, it will be at your house in five minutes or less. They load you up - another five minutes. Drive to the hospital - another five minutes. Unloading you, hooking you up to monitors, getting the story and your history, checking the baby, prepping you for surgery - another twenty minutes. At the very best, from moment of decision to incision to save your baby is 35 minutes.<br />
<br />
So remember, "living five minutes from the hospital" really means "living over thirty-five minutes away from an emergency c-section." And <i>every </i>minute counts when your baby is deprived of oxygen.<br />
<br />
*Edited to add* - this is a good piece about the same point: <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shelly-lopez-gray/when-minutes-matter-in-nursing_b_6402404.html" target="_blank">When Minutes Matter in Nursing </a><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>5. Home birth midwives are shockingly undereducated and unregulated.</b></span><br />
<br />
In trying to understand why home birth is so dangerous, it's important to understand the "qualifications" of home birth midwives.<br />
<br />
You know how when you go to the doctor's office, the doctor who sees you has to have gone to medical school and have a medical degree, and currently be licensed? Or when you go to the hospital, and a nurse attends you, she has to have gone to nursing school and have a nursing degree? Or if you see a Physician Assistant, they had to have gone to PA school and have a PA degree? Or even when you go to the dentist, the dentist had to go to dental school and get a dental degree and be licensed to practice? In short, when you see <i>any </i>medical professional they had to attend a regulated, certified school, obtain a degree, obtain a license, and pass tests and regulations that prove they are qualified to attend you?<br />
<br />
Home birth midwives don't have to do that.<br />
<br />
In other countries, they do. In the UK, in the Netherlands, in Canada - in <i>every </i>other first world country - they have to have degrees and licensure to prove that they know what they're doing. There are regulations and people closely watching over them to hold them accountable for their actions. In the US - nope. Regulations vary widely by state and in several states literally anyone can call themselves a "midwife" and immediately start practicing. Many are "certified" as "Certified Professional Midwives" by the North American Registry of Midwives, but the certification requirements are weak. In 2012, the requirements were "strengthened" to include a high school degree.<br />
<br />
Here are a couple charts that explain the difference between the midwives who work at doctors offices and in hospitals (CNMs) and home birth midwives (CPMs, LMs, lay midwives, etc.): <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-n3DJxKsvc7A/VCRiVjIA4GI/AAAAAAAASq0/lQpznfNxvL8/s1600/cnm%2Bcpm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-n3DJxKsvc7A/VCRiVjIA4GI/AAAAAAAASq0/lQpznfNxvL8/s1600/cnm%2Bcpm.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.skepticalob.com/2013/03/real-midwives-and-homebirth-midwives-apples-and-oranges.html" target="_blank">via</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sTtNe4b2VlE/VCRh9lqG4eI/AAAAAAAASqo/UAsF5fKIK9A/s1600/1524106_691509770917755_1559491854112260274_o640.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sTtNe4b2VlE/VCRh9lqG4eI/AAAAAAAASqo/UAsF5fKIK9A/s1600/1524106_691509770917755_1559491854112260274_o640.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://whatifsandfears.blogspot.com/2014/09/considering-home-birth.html" target="_blank">via</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
Even
in countries idealized by home birth advocates, where home birth is
integrated into the medical system and homebirth midwives have far more
education and standards than they do in the US, it is <i>still </i>more dangerous to have a homebirth with a midwife than a hospital birth with an OB. In fact, in the Netherlands it's more dangerous to be a <i>low-</i>risk woman giving birth with a midwife than a <i>high</i>-risk
woman giving birth with an OB. <a href="http://www.skepticalob.com/2010/11/stunning-indictment-of-midwives-in.html" target="_blank">This study from the Netherlands</a> found that <b>"Delivery related perinatal
death was significantly higher among low risk pregnancies in midwife
supervised primary care than among high risk pregnancies in obstetrician
supervised secondary care." </b>More babies died from <i>low-risk</i> pregnancies under the care of midwives than from <i>high-risk</i> pregnancies under the care of OBs! <br />
<br />
And this holds true both in the hospital
and out! In <a href="http://www.skepticalob.com/2014/09/awesome-dutch-midwives-kill-just-as-many-babies-in-the-hospital-as-at-home.html" target="_blank">this last study from the Netherlands</a>, both hospital births
and home births with midwives had higher neonatal death rates than
hospital births with OBs.<br />
<br />
Now, if you think you'll be safe at home birth if you choose a CNM instead of a CPM, think again. <a href="http://www.skepticalob.com/2009/08/new-data-homebirth-with-direct-entry.html" target="_blank">Researchers in 2009</a> found that home birth with a CNM had twice as many babies die than hospital birth with a CNM. Even if your midwife is a CNM instead of a CPM, you still won't be able to tell at home if your baby is being deprived of oxygen, you won't have an operating room if it becomes urgently needed, and you won't have a neonatal resuscitation team with all of the equipment that might be needed to save your baby.<br />
<br />
The hypothetical situations you can imagine when you think about home birth midwives' lack of education and regulation - like, "If my labor suddenly goes from low-risk to high-risk at home, will my midwife know what to do? Will she have the skills and training to save my baby?" - clearly <i>actually </i>happen at home, as we can see from the numbers. <b>With home birth midwives, three times as many babies die. With home birth midwives, seventeen times as many babies have brain injuries.</b> These are the numbers that result from the faulty regulation and pitiful education requirements required of US home birth midwives.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>6. The United States has one of the lowest perinatal mortality rates in the world (which tells you they have some of the best obstetric care and practices in the world)</b></span><br />
<br />
Home birth advocates love to say that OBs are incompetent and the US medical system is weak, because "the US infant mortality rate is one of the worst in the world's developed countries."<br />
<br />
The problem with this claim? <i><b>Infant mortality is the wrong statistic to use.</b> </i>"Infant mortality" records the deaths of all babies who die in the first <i>whole year of life.</i> It is a measure of <i>pediatric </i>care, <b>not</b> obstetric care.<br />
<br />
"According to the World Health Organization, <b>the best measure of
obstetric care is perinatal mortality</b>, usually defined as deaths from 28
weeks of pregnancy (stillbirths) through 28 days of life. And according
to the World Health Organization, <b>the United States has one of the
lowest perinatal mortality rates in the world, lower than Denmark, the
UK and the Netherlands.</b>" You can see those numbers here: <a href="http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2006/9241563206_eng.pdf" target="_blank">World Health Organization, Neonatal and Perinatal Mortality</a> or read another article about it here: <a href="http://www.skepticalob.com/2011/08/infant-mortality-is-wrong-statistic.html" target="_blank">Infant vs. Perinatal Mortality</a>. <br />
<br />
Now, in the pro-homebirth movie "The Business of Being Born," they repeat multiple times that the US has a poor <i>infant </i>mortality rate (a caption even references it as the "newborn death rate," but they are talking about
infant mortality rate, and the two are not the same thing!), while implying this means hospitals are dangerous and doctors don't know what they're doing. But infant mortality is the <i>wrong statistic</i> to measure obstetric safety! Which tells us one of two things: Either the people who made this movie about obstetric safety don't understand how obstetric safety is measured, or else they are deliberately trying to mislead their audience. If you've watched "The Business of Being Born" and have any questions about the statistics it talks about in that movie, a doula at the blog <a href="http://whatifsandfears.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">What Ifs and Fears Are Welcome</a> breaks down the movie in a great post, <a href="http://whatifsandfears.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-business-of-being-misled.html" target="_blank">The Business of Being Misled.</a> She also talks about it in her personal story, <a href="http://whatifsandfears.blogspot.com/2014/01/what-drew-me-to-home-birth-and-what_26.html" target="_blank">What Drew Me to Home Birth and What Turned Me Away.</a> Another great post of hers is <a href="http://www.babymed.com/blogs/danielle-repp/5-reasons-we-decided-against-home-birth" target="_blank">5 Reasons We Decided Against Home Birth</a>.<br />
<br />
The US has some of the best obstetric care and practices in the world, and it's proved by the US's low perinatal mortality rate. I want to take advantage of that great obstetric care by giving birth in a hospital.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>7. OBs give personalized care; home birth midwives give "one size fits all care."</b></span><br />
<br />
In deciding to give birth at a hospital or at home, women will often hear things from home birth advocates like "homebirth midwives give so much more personalized care than OBs! They really know who you are and tailor their care to you!" This is, in fact, the <i>opposite </i>of the truth. OBs give personalized care; midwives give "one size fits all"
care.<br />
<br />
OBs will take everything about you into account when recommending a course of action - your age, weight, pre-exisiting conditions, medical history, previous complications, previous shoulder dystocias or c-sections or postpartum hemorrhages, if you have gestational diabetes or group B strep, if the baby is breech or very large or very small or twins - everything. They take <i>everything </i>into account and help you have a safe pregnancy and delivery. They make different recommendations to each person based on <i>that person's </i>medical history and current health.<br />
<br />
Midwives, on the other hand? Sure, a midwife will chat with you and know all of your childrens'
names and what your husband does for a living, but what about your medical care? Is her version of "personalizing your healthcare" to your risk factors telling you to ignore them? Will she base her recommendations on <i>all</i> of
your medical history and current risk factors, or will she tell you that you, regardless of your risk factors, can manage a home birth? That you can have an unmedicated vaginal
delivery? Of course she'll tell you that. Because if she tells you anything
otherwise, she will lose you as a client. Midwives will tell you platitudes like "Your body
is made for this." "Trust birth." "Women have been doing this for
thousands of years." If they tell you that because
of your blood pressure, or because your baby is breech, or because you
had a previous cesarean, or because you are now past 40 weeks pregnant, or
because it's your first baby, or because your pelvis is a different
shape, or because you are group B step positive, that your baby's risk of death or injury is
substantially higher in a home birth, they know they will lose you as a client. So, they don't tell you that. <a href="http://www.skepticalob.com/2014/03/obstetricians-offer-care-more-personalized-than-that-of-homebirth-midwives.html" target="_blank">Another author sums it up better than I could</a> about the lack of individualized care that comes from homebirth midwives:<br />
<br />
"<b>Personal characteristics are irrelevant.</b> Advanced maternal age,
maternal obesity, pre-existing maternal disease? It doesn’t matter
because the counseling and treatment plan are always the same: you can
and should have an unmedicated vaginal birth at home.<br />
<br />
<b>Medical history is irrelevant.</b> Had a previous shoulder dystocia,
C-section, postpartum hemorrhage? Who cares? You can and should have an
unmedicated vaginal birth at home.<br />
<br />
<b>Complications are irrelevant.</b> Baby is breech, have gestational
diabetes, colonized by group B strep? Who cares? You can and should have
an unmedicated vaginal birth at home.<br />
<br />
<b>Labor complications are irrelevant.</b> Dysfunctional labor, prolonged
rupture of membranes, pushing for 4 hours? Who cares? You should still
stay home because you can and should have an unmedicated vaginal birth at home."<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>8. Our bodies are not perfect</b></span><br />
<br />
Home birth advocates often say things like, "Your body
is made for this," "Women have been doing this for
thousands of years," and "Trust birth." <br />
<br />
Our bodies were made for eating. Does that mean no one chokes? It doesn't really matter
what our bodies are "made to do" - things can still go wrong, and
people can be seriously injured or die. Human bodies are not perfect, and we cannot always predict what they are going to do. <br />
<br />
And there is <i>no shame </i>in having an imperfect body. There is no shame in having complications in labor. We <i>all </i>have imperfect bodies. It's not something we can control. You didn't "fail," you aren't "broken" - you are <i>human</i>.<br />
<br />
Just because birth is "natural," just because birth is "normal," does not mean that birth is safe.<br />
<br />
<div class="post-message" dir="auto">
Hemlock is natural. Does that make it safe?<br />
<br />
Severe food allergies are normal. Does that make them safe?<br />
<br />
"Normal"
is a measure of frequency and "natural" means that you can find it in
nature. Neither are a measure of safety. Birth can be safe, and it can
also be dangerous. Birth does inherently carry risk. There is no reason that you should trust it. Yes, women have been doing this for thousands of years, and countless women and babies have died in birth in that time. Emergency situations can suddenly
arise in completely healthy, "low-risk" women and babies during labor. If those situations are not dealt with properly, either because lack of education or technology, lives can be and are lost.<br />
<br />
Home birth advocates like to claim that because women at home are moving and walking around, that complications are rare, and that the hospital itself makes birth dangerous. So I will remind you again - <b>there is a clear, three times higher rate of death of babies born at home</b>. Complications are not rare, and they cannot be dealt with adequately at home.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">9. Freestanding Birth Centers are Dangerous, Too</span></b></div>
<br />
An important end note about birth centers: When I was pregnant with my first and reading "What to Expect What Your Expecting" about hospitals, birth centers, and home births, I thought that a birth center was a kind of nice middle ground between hospitals and home births. I thought it was some kind of detached labor and delivery ward, like what you'd have at a hospital, just not attached to a hospital.<br />
<br />
It is not.<br />
<br />
First of all, and this is very important to understand, there are two kinds of birth centers. The first type is the kind that I originally thought they all were: they are attached to hospitals, and are staffed with licensed, nurse midwives. As <a href="http://safermidwiferyformichigan.blogspot.com/2012/05/what-were-seeking-defining-birth-center.html" target="_blank">this post</a> explains, "If at any time during your pregnancy or
labor complications arise, your care would shift to that of an
obstetrician at the same birth center or hospital." Medical technology is available, everyone has insurance, and there are regulations and oversight.<br />
<br />
The <i>other </i>type of birth center is a freestanding birth center, which is not directly overseen by a hospital. Choosing to give birth at a freestanding birth center is, in the words of Sara, whose son Magnus died at a birth center, choosing "a home birth in someone else's 'home.'" Freestanding birth centers are not some kind of detached labor and delivery wing. They do not have doctors. They do not have the equipment you would have at a hospital. They have the same midwives, with the same lack of education and regulation, that deliver babies at home births. Babies born at freestanding birth centers are more than <b><a href="http://www.ajog.org/article/S0002-9378%2813%2900641-8/fulltext" target="_blank">three times more likely to have a 5-minute Apgar score of 0</a></b> (no signs of life) than those born at a hospital. Babies born at freestanding birth centers are almost<b> <a href="http://www.ajog.org/article/S0002-9378%2813%2900641-8/fulltext" target="_blank">twice as likely to have seizures</a></b> than those born at the hospital. Babies born at freestanding birth centers are<b> <a href="http://www.skepticalob.com/2014/02/new-cornell-study-shows-homebirth-has-4x-higher-death-rate-than-comparable-risk-hospital-birth.html" target="_blank">twice as likely to die than those at the hospital</a>.</b><br />
<br />
The excellent website "<a href="http://safermidwiferyformichigan.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Safer Midwifery for Michigan</a>" has a good post about birth centers called <a href="http://safermidwiferyformichigan.blogspot.com/2012/05/what-were-seeking-defining-birth-center.html" target="_blank">What We're Seeking: Defining "Birth Center"</a>. In it, they explain: "Freestanding birth centers do not have
emergency medical equipment beyond oxygen. They cannot intubate or give medications that would be used in a resuscitation circumstance. They do not use Electronic Fetal Heart Monitoring, instead using intermittent Doppler assessments. Midwives working at a freestanding birth center may or may not be licensed as individual, may or may not carry insurance, and may or may not be trained in NRP (Neonatal Resuscitation Program). There is no requirement for any midwife at a birth center to have a license. The bottom line is that in the event of an emergency, they are under equipped for life saving measures."<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">And finally, the 10th reason I would never have a home birth:</span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">10. I know their names.</span></b><br />
<br />
I've read <a href="http://hurtbyhomebirth.blogspot.com/2011/01/aquilas-story.html" target="_blank">Aquila's story</a>. And <a href="http://hurtbyhomebirth.blogspot.com/2011/01/mary-beths-story.html" target="_blank">Mary Beth's</a>. And <a href="http://hurtbyhomebirth.blogspot.com/2011/03/wrens-story-on-1st-anniversary-of-his.html" target="_blank">Wren's</a>. And <a href="http://hurtbyhomebirth.blogspot.com/2011/03/sams-brain-injury-and-his-mothers-near.html" target="_blank">Sam's</a>. And <a href="http://hurtbyhomebirth.blogspot.com/2011/03/thomas-story.html" target="_blank">Thomas's</a>. And <a href="http://hurtbyhomebirth.blogspot.com/2011/03/zens-story.html" target="_blank">Zen's</a>. And <a href="http://hurtbyhomebirth.blogspot.com/2011/04/grants-story.html" target="_blank">Grant's</a>. And <a href="http://hurtbyhomebirth.blogspot.com/2011/05/angelas-story.html" target="_blank">Angela's</a>. And <a href="http://hurtbyhomebirth.blogspot.com/2011/08/sheppards-story.html" target="_blank">Sheppard's</a>. And <a href="http://hurtbyhomebirth.blogspot.com/2012/01/magnuss-story.html" target="_blank">Magnus's</a>. And <a href="https://midwife101.wordpress.com/2015/01/19/shridams-birth-story/" target="_blank">Shridam's</a>. And <a href="http://elmcitydad.wordpress.com/the-birth-of-silas-orion/" target="_blank">Silas's</a>. And <a href="https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=317090388326523&id=304080562960839" target="_blank">Vylette's</a>. And <a href="http://navelgazingmidwife.squarespace.com/navelgazing-midwife-blog/2014/4/7/annas-uterine-rupture-story.html" target="_blank">Brody's</a>. And <a href="http://thesnapmom.com/homebirth-complications-result-in-cerebal-palsy/" target="_blank">Sarai's</a>. And <a href="http://amartin030.blogspot.com/2015/01/my-true-feelings-regarding-my-home.html" target="_blank">Zinn's</a>. And <a href="http://www.skepticalob.com/2014/03/in-memory-of-gavin-michael.html" target="_blank">Gavin Michael's</a>. And <a href="http://www.skepticalob.com/2014/04/the-most-powerful-arguments-against-homebirth.html" target="_blank">every one of these babies</a>. <br />
<br />
Gavin's mother said this on her Facebook page, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/GavinMichaelBrooks?fref=nf" target="_blank">In Light of Gavin Michael</a>:<br />
<br />
"Last year, today was my due date. I wish I had Gavin on this date or
around it so I wouldn't have to go through what I have. He would be
here and I'd spend my time raising him instead of sharing my story to
help educate people.<br />
<br />
Honestly, I didn't know anything compared
to what I do now. I didn't know the risks and dangers of home birth. I
didn't know people pretended to be more educated than they actually
are. I didn't know there is no system set up for accountability. I
didn't know babies were becoming injured or dying from home birth.<br />
<br />
There are so many things I really did not know. I only was told the
positive stuff but never the other side of things. I didn't know that
when home birth goes bad, it goes insanely bad in ways that I couldn't
imagine.<br />
<br />
I've gone through many what ifs and thought about what
I could have changed to have my son here alive today. The only way
would have been if I had an OB. They would have explained risks to me
truthfully. They wouldn't let me go so far over due. They would have
been paying attention to the fluid levels.<br />
<br />
So I could have
picked any OB out there and my son would be alive. I wouldn't have
cared if their bedside manner wasn't very good or if they didn't spend
that much time with me for appointments. Being nice doesn't mean a baby
is going to be ok.<br />
<br />
I picked a home birth with a CPM because I
believed it was safe and the midwife would know if something was wrong
to protect us. To take care of us. To be there for everything.<br />
<br />
I was wrong. <br />
<br />
What to expect is that everyone in
the home birth community will turn on you. They will support the
midwife that caused your pain and blame the mother for what happened.
They will never ask you what really happened or care about it. They
prefer no one knows about what happened so others don't start
considering the real lack of safety of home birth.<br />
<br />
You will be
slammed and bashed by many other women out there. You will be deleted
if you try to tell anyone your story. You will be banned from pages for
"fear mongering" when it's just you sharing your real story.<br />
<br />
After all this, you get to live with the guilt for choosing a home
birth. For trusting the person you hired to be your midwife. For
believing in a world that does not exist.<br />
<br />
And you will be alone
because they have cast you out. People will know your name because
they are watching what you do or say. They hope one day you will shut
up and go away because they have already covered you up like you never
happened.<br />
<br />
This is true home birth and the dark side they do not
want anyone to know about. This is why I share my story, even though
people tell me off or get mad at me. Because there are women out there
that are just like I was. They have no idea what they were getting into
and I don't want them to go through this." <br />
<br />
As the author of the blog in the last link in the list above says,<br />
<br />
"These are 40 deaths that I wrote about in the past 2 years. And only
the American homebirth deaths. And only the deaths that I heard about.<br />
<br />
Homebirth represents approximately 1% of US births. When you look at
term births of normal sized babies to white women, homebirth represents
approximately 1.4% births. So if you are planning to tell me that
“babies die in the hospital, too,” ask yourself if you’ve heard of
nearly 3000 deaths of term babies in the hospital in the past 2 years.<br />
<br />
Homebirth kills babies (and mothers) and the only people who appear to be unaware of that fact are homebirth advocates.<br />
<br />
Thinking about homebirth? Maybe you should think about these babies (and their mothers), and think again."<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
***Once Blogger gets to 200 comments on a post, you must click "load more" under the comment box at the bottom to see all of the comments. You need to click it again for every additional 50 comments.*** </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com327tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4627505483157469746.post-36691260865290942922014-09-03T11:30:00.000-04:002021-05-31T20:54:52.076-04:00MyPublisher Photo Book Review<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-36cHEqlj7qs/VAcsgzcw5PI/AAAAAAAASLs/ozMNh05JtXg/s1600/1%2B(500x333).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-36cHEqlj7qs/VAcsgzcw5PI/AAAAAAAASLs/ozMNh05JtXg/s1600/1%2B(500x333).jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
I don't get it. I've seen numerous conversations on the web comparing
Shutterfly and MyPublisher, and it seems like the people with the
strongest opinions are always those who like MyPublisher better.<br />
<br />
I don't like MyPublisher.<br />
<br />
I've <i>tried</i> to like MyPublisher. I really have. I've made two photo
books with them. The first was our family's "2010" year book, and the second was a Christmas present for my sister last year. I just really really don't like working with their software. It's a program that you download to your computer. You assemble the photo book offline, then order it and upload it to their website.<br />
<br />
Software faults:<br />
<ul>
<li>Customization is annoying. To change the location of photos or text
on the page, you have to drag the photo box with your mouse. You cannot
inch it along with the arrow keys on the keyboard. Because you have to
drag it, you cannot be extremely accurate - you have the limitations of
screen size and mouse dexterity. It's hard to get things to line up
properly.</li>
<li>There's a huge lack of background choices, themes, and frames. You're very limited in your choices.</li>
<li>Some layouts, if they're part of a theme, are locked and cannot be
customized. There's no reason given or any logic in this, it's just how
it is. Some layouts, seemingly at random, just can't be altered.</li>
</ul>
<br />
Additionally, the order process is backward. You make your order
first, and then you upload your book to their website. (Remember, you
create the book in a program on your computer, not on the internet).
This arrangement - ordering before uploading - opens the ordering
process up to error and frustration. What if you order the book, and the
order goes through, but then the book does not upload? You've already purchased the book, and now it can't be uploaded? It makes far more sense to upload the book first, and <i>then </i>place orders.<br />
<br />
Other things I don't like about MyPublisher:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Shipping is expensive.</li>
<li>Several pages printed unexpectedly dark.</li>
<li>You can't order different books at the same time; just multiple copies of the same book.</li>
<li>Their
deals aren't great. They often have a "buy one get one free" deal going
on, but it's for two copies of the same book. And I don't need two
copies. I just want one discounted copy. The best deal I have found for
them that comes up occasionally is through <a href="http://www.photobookgirl.com/" target="_blank">Photobook Girl</a>. She will
sometimes have a code where you can get up to 70 extra pages free - and
pages usually cost $1 each. So you can get a 100 page book for $35 (plus
the ridiculous $12 shipping. That's $3 more for shipping than
Shutterfly charges for <i>exactly </i>the same size book).</li>
</ul>
<br />
Anyway, with all that said, the book itself is pretty good. I got the "layflat pages" option and that turned out really cool. Here's the "2010" book that I ordered from them:<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-36cHEqlj7qs/VAcsgzcw5PI/AAAAAAAASLs/ozMNh05JtXg/s1600/1%2B(500x333).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-36cHEqlj7qs/VAcsgzcw5PI/AAAAAAAASLs/ozMNh05JtXg/s1600/1%2B(500x333).jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Nice cover - I like that the picture stretches all the way to the spine. I wish they had more cover layout options, though. They didn't have very many.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The inside has a nice gray end sheet and then a nice vellum cover page:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-R0l3bJ4yE2U/VAcsjuhT86I/AAAAAAAASLw/ex8HlZrKPqM/s1600/2%2B(500x333).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-R0l3bJ4yE2U/VAcsjuhT86I/AAAAAAAASLw/ex8HlZrKPqM/s1600/2%2B(500x333).jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mKN3DFb0t3M/VAcskSm5D_I/AAAAAAAASL4/bEmowKINrcM/s1600/3%2B(500x333).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mKN3DFb0t3M/VAcskSm5D_I/AAAAAAAASL4/bEmowKINrcM/s1600/3%2B(500x333).jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
Here's one of the couple pictures that printed unexpectedly dark - and it stinks that it's the front page. On my computer, Jason was bright and easily seen. In the book, he's very dark. I know that if I had printed this with Shutterfly, Jason would have printed brighter and much closer to what I saw on my screen. I've never had problems with pictures printing dark with Shutterfly - and so was surprised when it happened a couple times in this MyPublisher book. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qdq79wnsUio/VAcslEFrf6I/AAAAAAAASL8/nr65auayxmM/s1600/4%2B(500x333).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qdq79wnsUio/VAcslEFrf6I/AAAAAAAASL8/nr65auayxmM/s1600/4%2B(500x333).jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
Here's an example of a layout (note how flat the pages are):<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HF14feNMNfA/VAcsmfnDXZI/AAAAAAAASMI/93GhF8Nusec/s1600/5%2B(500x333).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HF14feNMNfA/VAcsmfnDXZI/AAAAAAAASMI/93GhF8Nusec/s1600/5%2B(500x333).jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
Another view of how flat the pages are:</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gVAQ9i_kvYo/VAcsmpVyqBI/AAAAAAAASMM/Nw0Nan4xNKo/s1600/6%2B(500x333).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gVAQ9i_kvYo/VAcsmpVyqBI/AAAAAAAASMM/Nw0Nan4xNKo/s1600/6%2B(500x333).jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
Here's another problem I had - the words were cut off here. This one was probably my fault; I'm guessing I ignored some warning or something. But I was surprised when I saw it. In Shutterfly, I definitely <i>know </i>when I'm ignoring their warnings - they make it obvious and remind me like three times. In this book, I don't remember ignoring the warning (although I bet there probably was one).<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nDkHQLLXEUs/VAcsns5CoaI/AAAAAAAASMQ/9nYmoBUuTl0/s1600/7%2B(500x333).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nDkHQLLXEUs/VAcsns5CoaI/AAAAAAAASMQ/9nYmoBUuTl0/s1600/7%2B(500x333).jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
Some more layouts: <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KzkGx8r-ZuI/VAcsoRR0kWI/AAAAAAAASMU/3ltBFAuhbaM/s1600/8%2B(500x277).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KzkGx8r-ZuI/VAcsoRR0kWI/AAAAAAAASMU/3ltBFAuhbaM/s1600/8%2B(500x277).jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3I2DEt2Gna4/VAcspPGV4qI/AAAAAAAASMc/nSWdjROPAuE/s1600/9%2B(500x274).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3I2DEt2Gna4/VAcspPGV4qI/AAAAAAAASMc/nSWdjROPAuE/s1600/9%2B(500x274).jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-u2arPttKjxc/VAcsgzsasTI/AAAAAAAASLY/vdh8do0rdeE/s1600/10%2B(500x283).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-u2arPttKjxc/VAcsgzsasTI/AAAAAAAASLY/vdh8do0rdeE/s1600/10%2B(500x283).jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
Another example of how flat the pages are:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PBeQdwFP2vY/VAcshP1z6vI/AAAAAAAASLc/9ZHRk4xhWQE/s1600/11%2B(500x333).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PBeQdwFP2vY/VAcshP1z6vI/AAAAAAAASLc/9ZHRk4xhWQE/s1600/11%2B(500x333).jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
The back cover (again, I like how the picture stretches all the way across): <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HBi8w2VgjTM/VAcsiR0VxAI/AAAAAAAASLk/Ho_nex-P9QQ/s1600/12%2B(500x333).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HBi8w2VgjTM/VAcsiR0VxAI/AAAAAAAASLk/Ho_nex-P9QQ/s1600/12%2B(500x333).jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
The spine. The one fault with the cover pictures running all the way to the spine is that it makes the spine look kind of funky, because you can see the front and back covers next to the white spine even when the book is on the shelf. (Instead of just seeing the white spine with words.) Maybe it looks more normal if you order a 20-page book, and they just didn't adjust spine width for a 100-page book? I'm not sure, but the spine looks a little funny to me when the book is on the shelf:<br />
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<b>Paper quality:</b> Excellent</div>
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<b>Binding:</b> Excellent. I got the layflat pages, and think they turned out really cool. Plus, the binding is nice and strong.</div>
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<b>Print quality:</b> Very good, except for the couple pictures that turned out unexpectedly dark. </div>
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<b>Price: </b>With the deal I got (free pages), I did save quite a bit - it was like $35 + $12 shipping for a 100 page book. So, not bad. But the expensive shipping is ridiculous. It doesn't need to be that much. And I don't like how most of their deals are "buy one get one free" of the same book. I don't need two copies of the same book. I just want one, cheaper book.</div>
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Sorry, this turned out way more negative than I was planning! I want to reiterate that I <i>do</i> like the book. I just don't like working with the software. But the book itself is very good, with just a few minor faults. Overall, I'd recommend MyPublisher, especially if you don't mind their software and the price is okay for you.</div>
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<b>To see my other photo book reviews, check out the posts below:</b><br />
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<a href="http://jocelynandjason.blogspot.com/2013/09/shutterfly-photo-book-review.html" target="_blank">Shutterfly Photo Book Review</a><br />
<a href="http://jocelynandjason.blogspot.com/2013/12/shutterfly-layflat-photo-book-review.html" target="_blank">Shutterfly Premium Leather Layflat Photo Book Review</a><br />
<a href="http://jocelynandjason.blogspot.com/2013/01/shutterfly-calendar-review.html" target="_blank">Shutterfly Calendar Review</a><br />
<a href="http://jocelynandjason.blogspot.com/2014/08/york-photo-photobook-review.html" target="_blank">York Photo Photo Book Review </a><br />
<a href="http://jocelynandjason.blogspot.com/2013/01/adoramapix-photo-book-review.html" target="_blank">AdoramaPix Photo Book Review</a><br />
<a href="http://jocelynandjason.blogspot.com/2014/11/collage-photo-book-review.html" target="_blank">Collage.com Photo Book Review</a> <br />
<a href="http://jocelynandjason.blogspot.com/2012/07/photobook-comparisons.html" target="_blank">Photo Book Comparisons</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4627505483157469746.post-27381911629274803962014-08-21T10:25:00.000-04:002021-05-31T20:54:51.951-04:00Dinner's in the Freezer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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As we were getting ready this summer for Jason to start PA school, I really wanted to figure out some kind of meal plan for our family. In California, we were just kind of winging it on a daily basis. We'd look around our kitchen at dinnertime, pick something to cook, and make it. It meant that we had a lot of the same stuff over and over and over, because we just had to work with what we had and it was hard thinking up new stuff on the spot.<br />
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Now, we're having different, good food every night. Our current plan is based off two principles: theme nights, and freezer meals.<br />
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The theme idea comes from "The Food Nanny." Her blog is down right now, so I can't link to it, but basically she says that each night of the week should have a set theme. Some of her ideas are "Comfort Food Night," "Mexican Night," "Pizza Night," etc. Our theme nights are:<br />
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Sunday: Beef or Pork Night<br />
Monday: Chicken Night<br />
Tuesday: Pasta Night<br />
Wednesday: Fish Night<br />
Thursday: Mexican Night<br />
Friday: Chicken Night<br />
Saturday: Soup Night<br />
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(Also, you know have you say a word over and over and over it starts not to seem like a real word? Well, all the sudden "night" doesn't look like a real word to me. It's a real word, right?) <br />
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The freezer meal part of our plan comes from a conversation I had with my sister Alyse. A little while ago we were talking on the phone, and she mentioned that she'd tried out a cookbook called "Once a Month Cooking." The idea is that you buy all the groceries for a month's worth of dinners all at one time, cook up all the dinners at the same time, freeze them into daily-sized portions in your freezer, and then pull them out when needed. She'd tried it out with two week's worth of meals, and she liked it.<br />
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I really liked the sound of that, so I looked up the book on Amazon. The reviews were just okay, so I looked around on Amazon some more, and found "Don't Panic - Dinner's in the Freezer." It was based on the same idea, and had hundreds of great reviews. I really wanted to try it, so I bought it (and as much as I love books, I rarely buy them - I usually get them from the library, or as gifts. If I bought as many books as I read, I'd go broke!) and that's saying something! It came in just a couple days.<br />
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As soon as it arrived, I went through it with Jason and we marked all the recipes we thought sounded good. I read the first couple chapters that explain the benefits to freezing meals ahead of time, how to plan multiple meals at once, how to shop, what to do on the "cooking day," how to freeze everything, and what to do on the "serving day." <br />
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I've done three (I think?) cooking days since then, and made about two months of dinners in those three cooking sessions. They're all frozen and stored away, in one-dinner-sized portions. Our dinners are now written out and planned until the end of September, based on our theme nights, and all in our freezer ready to go. All we have to do is pull them out of the freezer the night before and put them in our fridge, and then put them in the oven or on the george foreman when it's time to eat!<br />
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I really really like how it's working. We've been eating our frozen dinners for weeks now, and they're really yummy and so easy to prepare on the day of. This is a great system, and I'd highly recommend the book "Don't Panic - Dinner's in the Freezer" to anyone who'd want to try the same idea.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4627505483157469746.post-50535062944856052152014-08-20T15:22:00.002-04:002021-05-31T20:54:52.448-04:00Some Books I've read LatelyBooks. I miss books. I feel like I haven't been reading as many as I used to, and I miss having the feeling that I'm on top of all the new books coming out. I haven't felt like that in a while; I feel like I'm behind in all the books that have come out in the last couple years. And when I say "all the books," I pretty much mean children's books. Because those are the ones I like the most.<br />
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I have read a couple lately, though. We went to our new library a couple weeks ago, and it's great. It's a lot smaller than the one we had in California, but it has a really nice children's section with puzzles, hand puppets, a big storytelling area, and of course, tons of books. The adult section's not bad, either.<br />
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Here are a couple books that I've read lately:<br />
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First off - <i>Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness</i>, by Susannah Cahalan. I already talked about this book in <a href="http://jocelynandjason.blogspot.com/2014/08/captains-log-week-224.html" target="_blank">this Captain's Log post</a>, so I won't say too much more about it, other than that it was good. In a nutshell: True story, written by the woman who it happened to. Her body attacked her brain, and she went crazy. Her family took her to the hospital and none of the doctors (some of the best in the nation) could figure out what was happening to her. Then one did. It's really gripping; once I started it I couldn't put it down.<br />
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Second - <i>David and Goliath</i>, by Malcolm Gladwell. This is my fifth Malcolm Gladwell book I've read. I did like it, but I like his others better. I felt like as this book went on, he was kind of stretching to fit his examples in his main point. But, it was still really interesting and I particularly enjoyed the chapter on David and Goliath themselves, the chapter on basketball, and the chapter on universities.<br />
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Third, and this is probably my favorite of the lot - <i>Mindless Eating</i>, by Brian Wansink, Ph.D. This book was <i>so cool</i>! It's not a diet book, so don't start with that impression of it (although if you apply the principles you learn from it, it can definitely help you eat less). This book is all about the <i>pyschology </i>of eating, written by the guy who's done probably more studies on it than anybody else. It's so <i>cool! </i>He talks about all the different studies they've done, from putting secretaries' candy in a clear bowl vs an opaque bowl, or calling the same food items different names at their fake restaurant, or serving food in bigger containers or smaller containers or more bowls or fewer bowls or with fast music or slow music or all sorts of stuff. It's just really cool, really interesting, and I love the way the book is written. It's written in a totally down-to-earth, funny style. And I love that the person writing it actually <i>knows </i>what he's talking about; he's the one who's <i>done all the studies</i>, for years and years and years! Anyway, I highly recommend this book. It was a really enjoyable and interesting read to me.<br />
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So those are the new books I've read this month. I've also started re-reading the Harry Potter series; I just finished the third one last night, so I'm on one of my favorites - the fourth book. I also had an idea today, that I'm going to make a big list of all the kids books that have come out the last couple years that I want to catch up on, and then try to read them all this year. I doubt our little library will have all of them, so it might require some creativity, but I really want to feel on top of my book reading again. If you have any recommendations for recent-ish (like last five years) kids' books, please tell me!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4627505483157469746.post-87176630685273998712014-08-13T10:49:00.002-04:002021-05-31T20:54:53.338-04:00Finished BookshelfDo you remember the pictures last week of <a href="http://jocelynandjason.blogspot.com/2014/08/captains-log-week-224.html" target="_blank">Jason building a bookshelf</a>? Here's a reminder:<br />
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Well, it's all done and painted and filled with books. Here's the finished product!<br />
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I loooove it! If you follow me on Pinterest, you've probably seen on <a href="http://www.pinterest.com/pillowy/playroom/" target="_blank">my "Playroom" board</a> where I've pinned a million pictures of rain-gutter bookshelves or flat display bookshelves. I really like how they make it so the kids can see the front of the books. It makes it way easier for the books to catch their interest and for them to choose one to read.</div>
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Jason did such a good job building this bookshelf and I love the way it fits into our playroom. We used <a href="http://ana-white.com/2011/10/book-or-magazine-ladder-shelf" target="_blank">these free plans from Ana White</a>, slightly modifying them for our space. In addition to the natural lean built into the bookshelf, we secured it to a stud in the wall.</div>
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I plan to change out the books almost every day, with books from the bookshelf in their room and the bookshelves in the office. Also, we decided that this is a really good place to keep the girls' library books, because it keeps them all in one place and they'll be able to access and read them easily.<br />
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And that's our new, home-built bookshelf!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4627505483157469746.post-60085478322858011972014-08-12T15:01:00.000-04:002021-05-31T20:54:52.698-04:00York Photo Photobook ReviewHi everyone! It's been a while since I did a review of a photo book company, but I've got a couple lined up that I want to do - MyPublisher, York Photo, Blurb - so let's just get started!<br />
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Last autumn I saw a deal for the company <a href="http://www.yorkphoto.com/" target="_blank">York Photo</a>. I'd never used them before, but Christmas was coming up and they had some cute themes for their photo books, including an Instagram theme. My stepsister <a href="http://instagram.com/macallmcelhiney" target="_blank">MaCall</a> posts lots of cute pictures on Instagram, and when I saw the Instagram theme I instantly thought of her and knew that's what I wanted to do for her and her husband Aaron for Christmas.<br />
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I picked a time frame for the book so that I could choose the right amount of pictures (I chose "Fall 2012"), saved all the pictures on my computer, and then uploaded them into York Photo's software (which is all online through their site), and put the book together over a couple days.<br />
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Here are a couple pictures of the cover, some of the inside pages, and the binding:<br />
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I was really pleased with how it turned out. Having never used York Photo before, I didn't know what to expect. Also, it was a softcover, and I usually only do hardcovers, so I was wondering how that would turn out too. But it was really good! Good quality paper, cover, binding, and printing.<br />
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The one downside of York Photo was that I found the software somewhat hard to work with. Sometimes it would run very, very slow. Additionally, the backgrounds were sorted into kind of weird categories and you couldn't search for one type of backgrounds - all the blue ones, for example, or stripes, or whatever. You just kind of had to browse through everything to find what you wanted. But, I did make the book almost a year ago now, and they might have improved their software since then.<br />
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So that was my experience with York Photo in a nutshell. The software was somewhat hard to work with, but the book turned out nicely.<br />
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<b>To see my other photo book reviews, check out the posts below:</b><br />
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<a href="http://jocelynandjason.blogspot.com/2013/09/shutterfly-photo-book-review.html" target="_blank">Shutterfly Photo Book Review</a><br />
<a href="http://jocelynandjason.blogspot.com/2013/12/shutterfly-layflat-photo-book-review.html" target="_blank">Shutterfly Premium Leather Layflat Photo Book Review</a><br />
<a href="http://jocelynandjason.blogspot.com/2013/01/shutterfly-calendar-review.html" target="_blank">Shutterfly Calendar Review</a><br />
<a href="http://jocelynandjason.blogspot.com/2014/09/mypublisher-photo-book-review.html" target="_blank">MyPublisher Photo Book Review </a><br />
<a href="http://jocelynandjason.blogspot.com/2013/01/adoramapix-photo-book-review.html" target="_blank">AdoramaPix Photo Book Review</a><br />
<a href="http://jocelynandjason.blogspot.com/2014/11/collage-photo-book-review.html" target="_blank">Collage.com Photo Book Review</a> <br />
<a href="http://jocelynandjason.blogspot.com/2012/07/photobook-comparisons.html" target="_blank">Photo Book Comparisons</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4627505483157469746.post-26074181253829749982014-07-30T10:20:00.000-04:002021-05-31T20:54:51.825-04:00Nephew's Quiet BookI'm posting this over on my <a href="http://quietbookblog.blogspot.com/2014/07/maxs-quiet-book.html" target="_blank">Quiet Book Blog</a> today, so I thought I should share it here, too!<br />
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Back in April and May when my brother Banks and my sister Alyse and their families were visiting California, my nephew had his first birthday! For his birthday present, I made him a quiet book. <br />
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Something I did with this quiet book - and I really really love how it turned out - is I sewed it a cover. I cut a big piece of fabric out of a soft, old t-shirt, then sewed the first and last pages directly on to that fabric (turning in the edges so that it's a nice clean line). I sewed the two middle pages back to back, then sewed the edge of that back-to-back page to the middle of the inside of the cover. So, the whole book is all connected and one piece, and the cover is nice and soft! <br />
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Anyway, I'll quiet rambling. Here's Nephew's quiet book!<br />
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The individual pages: <br />
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The binding and cover: <br />
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If you'd like to see my other quiet books, you can click here: <a href="http://jocelynandjason.blogspot.com/2011/12/quiet-book-round-up.html" target="_blank">The Quiet Book Round-up!</a>, <a href="http://jocelynandjason.blogspot.com/2013/03/free-butterfly-quiet-book-template.html" target="_blank">the Butterfly Book</a>, and <a href="http://jocelynandjason.blogspot.com/2014/03/two-new-quiet-book-pages-giveaway.html" target="_blank">Two New Quiet Book Pages</a>.<br />
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My other nephew's birthday is this week, too...I guess I have to get busy, haha! ;)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4627505483157469746.post-71905403046957641462014-07-23T08:42:00.000-04:002021-05-31T20:54:53.084-04:00Small Bathroom RedoOkay, so you know all those pictures of the house I've been promising? Well, they're finally coming. I took them yesterday, and they'll be posting today and tomorrow. So you can finally see our new house. :)<br />
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The first thing I wanted to show you, before the whole rest of the house (which will be in one post tomorrow) is the bathroom that we repainted when we moved in. This is that bathroom on move-in day:<br />
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It's the girls' bathroom, and it's across from their bedroom.<br />
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The walls were yellow, just like the rest of the house. But whereas in the rest of the house the yellow is pretty and nice, in this bathroom it just looked kind of sickly. (Also, the shower curtain in the picture was left by the previous homeowner, and isn't our style.)<br />
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Additionally, the bathroom had this cheapy particle-board cabinet above the toilet, which I hated. It doesn't look too bad in the picture, but it made the room feel really small by sticking out of the wall so far, and it just looked really <i>cheap</i>. The part in between its bottom shelf and its cupboards was backed by this cardboard-type stuff that had a line across it, and the doors didn't close all the way, and I just hated the whole thing. <br />
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After debating with myself for a little bit, I decided to take the cabinet down. I knew that if I did, we would have to repaint (you could tell just by looking at it that they didn't paint behind the cabinet). And I am <i>so </i>glad we took it down and repainted. This is the bathroom now:<br />
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It's so much better!!! I love it. It makes me happy every time I walk into it. <br />
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I chose the color for the room by going on <a href="http://www.pinterest.com/pillowy/house-ideas/" target="_blank">my pinterest "House Idea" board</a> to see what kind of bathrooms I liked. It might sound silly, but my pinterest boards know my style better than I know my style. Whenever I see something on pinterest I like, I pin it on one of my boards. Then, later, if I need to figure out what I like, I go to that board and see if there's a pattern. That's how I figured out I like white kitchens - I was looking at my board one day, and realized that every single kitchen I had pinned had white cupboards. And this time, when I looked at the bathrooms I had pinned, I saw a pattern too - fresh blue or teal walls. Several of the <a href="http://www.pinterest.com/pin/242561129905642437/" target="_blank">bathrooms</a> (and <a href="http://www.pinterest.com/pin/242561129905694077/" target="_blank">laundry</a> <a href="http://www.pinterest.com/pin/242561129905531084/" target="_blank">rooms</a>) I had pinned had lovely, fresh blue walls.<br />
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So now that I knew I wanted some type of blue or teal, I put the shower curtain up (it's one that we've since we got married, but never got to use until now because we had two and used the other one), saw that it had blue in it, and got a ton of paint chips from Home Depot that I thought might match. By comparing them to the shower curtain once we got home, I narrowed it down to just a couple colors that went really well with it, and Jason and I together decided on Behr color #510A-2 "Salty Tear." (And now that it's up, I <i>looove </i>how the color looks in the bathroom.)<br />
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After another trip to Home Depot to get the paint and all supplies we needed, my mom and I prepped the room and painted it the next day. My mom was incredibly helpful - she's painted so many rooms in her life she's pretty much a professional, and she knew everything we needed and what to do. Thank you Mom! :D<br />
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Here's another before and after:<br />
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So that's the glamour shot. Here's what it looks like as a functional bathroom for a toddler and a baby:<br />
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This is our bath toy set-up:<br />
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I got the idea from <a href="http://www.pinterest.com/pin/242561129905642452/" target="_blank">here</a>. It was really convenient because our bathtub already had a bar in it, and we had extra shower rings and a little tub for the toys. We already had everything we needed, and just put it together. It works great!<br />
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And here's Toddler's potty:<br />
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She's been potty trained for a while, but everything got thrown off with the road trip and the move, so these last couple weeks have kind of been re-potty training for her. Jason printed off and colored <a href="http://www.itshueilove.com/2012/07/potty-progress-free-printable.html" target="_blank">this awesome "Potty Progress" chart</a> for her:<br />
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and she loves it. She gets a sticker every time she goes potty in her toilet or the big toilet. There are little boxes for the stickers to go in, and I think you're supposed to line them up, but she started putting them in boxes all over the chart and if it makes her happy then that's what we'll do.<br />
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Another thing we did, that's not visible in the before or after pictures but really makes a difference, is replace the cover to the bathroom vent fan on the ceiling.<br />
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This is the new one. The old vent cover was really yellowed with age, and looked very dated. We got this new cover for like $8, swapped it out, and now everything looks new and up to date. We switched out the old gunky metal doorstop for a clean new white one as well.<br />
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Oh yeah! One last thing. We put a new toilet seat on. The old one was so cheap and flimsy - it was made of this floppy plastic. If you sat down on it when the lid was closed, it would bend underneath you. It was so cheap they don't even sell that kind at Home Depot or Lowes as the "cheap" lid. I have no idea where the previous homeowners got it.<br />
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Anyway, we bought a new one of Amazon for like $15 and switched the old one out for the new one. And it's so much better. Way sturdier and looks nice.<br />
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So those are all the things we did to our bathroom! <br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4627505483157469746.post-3400312404867664092014-07-01T23:06:00.000-04:002021-05-31T20:54:51.074-04:00How we prepared for our Cross-Country Road Trip<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Well, we are currently on our way across the country to reach our new house! Today was both long and fun and hard, and I'm posting a recap of it tomorrow. But what I want to talk to you about right now is how we prepared for this road trip!<br />
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So, in getting ready for this trip we were preparing for both 1. moving all of our stuff across the country and 2. getting ourselves and the girls across the country. And we wanted to do it for the cheapest way possible.<br />
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We looked into all our options for moving our stuff - hiring professional movers, doing moving pods, or renting a self-moving truck - and figured out that renting and driving a truck ourselves was by far the cheapest option (by several thousand dollars). Jason's parents (amazingly)(seriously, they are awesome) volunteered to drive across country for us, and that settled it. We'd do the self-moving truck.<br />
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We then had to figure out about our car - did we rent a tow on the moving truck and tow it? Ship it? Or drive it ourselves? Well, it turns out that shipping it and driving it ourselves would cost about the same amount of money. And the stuff we read about shipping cars - cars being damaged, cars showing up weeks after they were supposed to - made us really leery about shipping it. So it was between driving it ourselves and renting a tow bed from the moving truck company and towing it behind the moving truck.<br />
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Well, there were two big moving truck companies to choose between - Uhaul and Penske. And Penske didn't have a big enough tow for our car. But Uhaul was a lot (like $1000) more expensive, even before you added the tow cost. And if we towed it, you'd have to add airfare costs for me and the girls as well. So, it was lot cheaper to rent a Penske moving truck and drive our car ourselves. So that was how we decided ended up doing what we're doing.<br />
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Now, here's how we saved on the Penske truck. Just by reserving the truck online, Penske gives you an automatic "discount" of a couple hundred dollars. (Does it really count as a discount if everyone gets it automatically?) But how we really saved money was by buying a AAA membership. If you had a AAA membership, you got a big discount on the truck. We made our truck reservation, and then a couple days later purchased a AAA membership online. The AAA membership was going to be $59, but we did a quick google search for promo codes and found a discount for $34.50. So the AAA membership only ended up costing us $24.50.<br />
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So, now that we had our $24.50 AAA membership, we called Penske and added that discount onto our truck reservation - and it dropped the cost of the truck by $255! So a $25 membership saved us $255. We basically "made" $230 by buying AAA. Obviously absolutely worth it.<br />
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Some of the things we've done in the last couple weeks to prepare for this road trip are:<br />
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<li>Cleaned the car</li>
<li>Washed and adjusted the carseats</li>
<li>Got an oil change</li>
<li>Got our brake rotors fixed (the front rotors were warped)</li>
<li>Collected figurines, coloring pads, stamps, and books for Toddler</li>
<li>Picked out toys for Baby</li>
<li>Got music and books on tape for Jason and I (except - as I type this up - I am realizing that I forgot to download the books on tape to my phone. Whoops!)</li>
<li>Got good road trip snacks and a small cooler that could fit in between the seats</li>
<li>Put an outfit for each girl, for each day, into a gallon ziploc bag with a label on it</li>
<li>I sewed an ipad holder for Toddler's ipad, so she could watch movies on it</li>
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I want to expand on that last bullet point, since it was kind of a big project and turned out to be enormously useful already. </div>
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Toddler has an ipad that was given to her by her Grandpa quite a while ago. I wanted someway to be able to mount it to the back of the seat in front of Toddler, so we could play movies on the drive and that she could watch them. But I didn't want to buy anything, because we try to be frugal. So, using fabric from some pajama pants that were too short for me, some plastic vinyl I got from the sewing store for under a $1, and some velcro I got fromt the sewing store also for under a $1, I made this:</div>
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The ipad slips into the front side (and is inside it in the first picture). It has four straps on the back that wrap around the headrest of the seat in front of Toddler and velcro in place. And for something that only cost about $1.50, Toddler can watch movies! I did buy a small portable speaker to go with it so that she could hear the movies over the road noise, and that has been worth it. Without that, she wouldn't have been able to hear the movies. But she could, and it worked, and all is well.</div>
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I also want to expand on the bullet point about the girls' outfits. I was kind of stressed about packing their clothes for them (for some reason it just seemed overwhelming to me), and mentioned it to my sister-in-law Sarah. She suggested picking out an outfit for each girl for each day, and putting each outfit in a ziploc bag so that it would be clear and organized. And that's exactly what I did, and it was perfect!</div>
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These are the bags. As you can see, each girl has seven bags for our six day road trip. They're labeled for each girl - "Toddler Day 1," "Toddler Day 2," "Toddler Day 3," etc., all the way to Day 6, plus an extra bag. In each bag there is a day outfit and a pair of pajamas. </div>
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So in these fourteen bags there are fourteen day outfits and fourteen pairs of pajamas, all labeled and ready for each day. It totally took all the stress out of packing for the girls for me. </div>
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Now, how we got ready for the hotels/motels. Like you'd expect, we research hotels in each city that we were staying in and picked the best options for us based on reviews and price. We then booked the hotels through the cheapest options online. Sometimes that was a travel website, like Booking.com or Expedia, and sometimes it was the hotel's own website. Then, last week I called each hotel to confirm our reservation. And it was good I did! Four of the five hotels had no problems with the reservations. But one of them - booked through Expedia - had been told the wrong day by Expedia and so had us reserved for the day <i>after </i>we were actually going to be there. Luckily, there was no problem with switching us to the correct day. But it was good we checked!</div>
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Finally, we've been looking up attractions and good food places for all along our route and the cities that we'll be stopping in. Even though this road trip is a necessity and not something we really would have chosen out of the blue, we want it to be fun. We broke the trip up into six days to shorten the driving each day and make it a bit easier on the girls. That gives us time to have fun (and eat good food!) along the way.</div>
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So those are the biggest ways that we've prepared for this road trip! It's been a lot of work, but we are seeing some of the payoff now as we're on the road. Keep checking back each day this week to follow us on our way across the country!</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4627505483157469746.post-40247211775733322282014-06-30T11:22:00.000-04:002021-05-31T20:54:52.200-04:00Books I love - It's All Too MuchAs we've been going through, organizing, and getting rid of stuff for this move, I've been rereading one of my favorite books - <i>It's All Too Much</i> by Peter Walsh. It's helped me get rid of a ton of extra stuff we don't really need. I first read this book a couple years ago, and have reread it several times since. I <i>love </i>it.<br />
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Peter Walsh, the author, is a professional organizer. He used to be on the TLC show <i>Clean Sweep.</i> Did you ever watch that show? It was one of me and Alyse's favorites.<i> </i>They would come help people deeply declutter their houses. Not hoarders - just normal people whose houses had normal stuff in them. They'd pull everything out and sort everything into three piles: trash, yard sale, and keep. A <i>lot </i>more stuff went into the yard sale and trash piles than into the keep pile. And at the end of the show, you'd get to see the nice, new, decluttered rooms. It was super satisfying.<br />
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In <i>It's All Too Much</i>, Walsh helps you do the same thing with your own stuff. He doesn't just tell you how to organize. He helps you understand your relationship to each of the things you own, and helps you overcome all of the excuses you have for holding on to unnecessary things. He helps you own your stuff, rather than your stuff owning you.<br />
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Each time I've read this book, I've been so motivated afterwards and been able to get rid of a lot of stuff that had built up over the years. And each time I've used the advice from the book to really purge our house of unnecessary stuff, I've felt so good afterwards and like a literal weight has been lifted off my shoulders. With all that unnecessary stuff gone, I feel lighter and freer. <br />
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I really recommend this book, especially if you have any kind of cleaning/organization inkling right now. It's<i> </i>amazingly helpful.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4627505483157469746.post-8805652081289556422014-05-18T08:00:00.000-04:002021-05-31T20:54:51.448-04:00What We Believe - the Book of MormonGood morning! I know it's been a while since I've done a post explaining more about what we believe, but I really want to start doing that again, so here we go! Today I wanted to talk to you about the Book of Mormon.<br />
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I've already explained what we believe about <a href="http://jocelynandjason.blogspot.com/2013/09/what-we-believe-god.html" target="_blank">God</a>, and <a href="http://jocelynandjason.blogspot.com/2013/09/what-we-believe-jesus-christ.html" target="_blank">Jesus Christ</a>, and <a href="http://jocelynandjason.blogspot.com/2013/09/what-we-believe-gods-plan-for-us.html" target="_blank">God's plan for us</a>. I've talked about <a href="http://jocelynandjason.blogspot.com/2013/09/what-we-believe-gospel-of-jesus-christ.html" target="_blank">the gospel of Jesus Christ</a>, and how <a href="http://jocelynandjason.blogspot.com/2013/09/what-we-believe-prophets.html" target="_blank">living prophets teach us today</a>. I explained how <a href="http://jocelynandjason.blogspot.com/2013/10/what-we-believe-joseph-smith.html" target="_blank">God established his full gospel on the earth again</a> after centuries of pieces of it missing, by calling Joseph Smith as a prophet and restoring his (God's) priesthood authority upon the earth. And I've given <a href="http://jocelynandjason.blogspot.com/2013/10/what-we-believe-short-history-of-church.html" target="_blank">a short history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints</a>.<br />
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So where does the Book of Mormon fit in? Why is our church so well known for this book? If you've heard of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, you have almost certainly heard of The Book of Mormon. It is, after all, where we get our nickname - "Mormons."<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-I3DZODb33aY/U3cFpZyMq_I/AAAAAAAAPeU/XLu337N4oKQ/s1600/bible-and-book-of-mormon-261218-mobile.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-I3DZODb33aY/U3cFpZyMq_I/AAAAAAAAPeU/XLu337N4oKQ/s1600/bible-and-book-of-mormon-261218-mobile.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">All pictures in this post are from the<a href="https://www.lds.org/media-library/images?lang=eng" target="_blank"> image library on lds.org</a>.</td></tr>
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So what <i>is</i> The Book of Mormon? What's in it? How do we have it? Why do we believe it?<br />
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In a nutshell, The Book of Mormon is the historical record of a people that lived in ancient America. It is another testament of Jesus Christ, just like the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Book of Mormon and the Bible go hand in hand. One is the record of God's dealings with the people in ancient Israel, and one is the record of God's dealings with the people in ancient America. <br />
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The Book of Mormon was written and recorded by ancient prophets, just like the Bible. It follows the stories of a group of people who God led out of Jerusalem before the city was destroyed in 600 BC. He led them to America, and the Book of Mormon covers their history from about 600 BC to 400 AD. And it's <i>awesome. </i><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">It's got Nephi, who was seriously rock solid<i>. </i>He followed God's commandments even when it meant living in the desert on raw meat. And building a boat and sailing across an OCEAN. And having his brothers try to kill him a bunch of times.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">And Abinidi, who stood up to a wicked king and his corrupt priests.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">And these people, who all secretly got baptized while hiding from the king and his soldiers.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">And Ammon, who saved a bunch of sheep and cut off a bunch of people's arms.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Bfsxni_ZijE/U3cFqeFgxPI/AAAAAAAAPec/1-MKtZ39-bA/s1600/captain-moroni-title-liberty-39658-mobile.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Bfsxni_ZijE/U3cFqeFgxPI/AAAAAAAAPec/1-MKtZ39-bA/s1600/captain-moroni-title-liberty-39658-mobile.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">And Captain Moroni! Who was awesome!</span> </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-X5b6gf8VS9A/U3cF01ktA-I/AAAAAAAAPgM/XCcGgwhGKvM/s1600/two-thousand-stripling-warriors-39660-mobile.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-X5b6gf8VS9A/U3cF01ktA-I/AAAAAAAAPgM/XCcGgwhGKvM/s1600/two-thousand-stripling-warriors-39660-mobile.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">And the two thousand stripling warriors! Who were also awesome! ("Stripling" means young, by the way. And I LOVE these guys! They're my favorite!!!)</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ozEQC0sCu4A/U3cFzsMJMQI/AAAAAAAAPf4/5rnUlpWF-J0/s1600/samuel-the-lamanite-39661-mobile.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ozEQC0sCu4A/U3cFzsMJMQI/AAAAAAAAPf4/5rnUlpWF-J0/s1600/samuel-the-lamanite-39661-mobile.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">And Samuel the prophet, who stood on the wall of a wicked city to tell them that Christ would be born in five years. </span></td></tr>
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By far the biggest moment of the Book of Mormon is when Christ personally visits the people. After his death and resurrection in Jerusalem, he came to the people of the Americas. He taught them personally and ministered to them. </div>
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For several hundred years after his coming, the people lived in righteousness. But then they fell into wickedness again, and then they became <i>really </i>wicked. The two great nations of the Book of Mormon - the Lamanites and Nephites - had a huge war until almost <i>all</i> of the Nephites were destroyed.<br />
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Finally there were only a handful of Nephites left, including Mormon and Moroni, two righteous men whom God had protected. Mormon was in charge of the record of their people, which had been handed down from prophet to prophet to prophet over hundreds of years. He abridged and edited all the records together. The resulting book is named after him - The Book of Mormon. He gave those records to his son Moroni to finish writing and to protect.<br />
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After Mormon died, Moroni wandered around as the very last of his people. He finished the record and sealed it up, burying it in the earth so that it could come forth at the right time according to God's purposes. </div>
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When Joseph Smith prayed to God in the early 1800s asking him which church to join (you can read <a href="http://jocelynandjason.blogspot.com/2013/10/what-we-believe-joseph-smith.html" target="_blank">my blog post about that here</a>), the time had come. Joseph was instructed where to find the records abridged by Mormon, and was able to translate the book with God's help.</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-A7fLpX6dSBE/U3cF0UfdC1I/AAAAAAAAPgE/J4CeYB3wtpg/s1600/the-first-vision-82823-mobile.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-A7fLpX6dSBE/U3cF0UfdC1I/AAAAAAAAPgE/J4CeYB3wtpg/s1600/the-first-vision-82823-mobile.jpg" /></a></div>
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The Book of Mormon is another testament of Jesus Christ, that was written specifically for us - the people living now at this time.<br />
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It was written to help us understand Christ's mission, and to gain testimonies of him. It was written, <a href="https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/bofm-title?lang=eng" target="_blank">as Moroni said</a>, "[to convince] the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God, manifesting himself unto all nations." <br />
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The only way you can know for yourself whether the Book of Mormon is true or not is to read it, and then ask God if it is true. Moroni, the prophet who finished the Book of Mormon, promised this:<br />
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"And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things."<br />
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So see for yourself. <a href="http://www.mormon.org/free-book-of-mormon" target="_blank">Request a free copy of the Book of Mormon here</a>. Read it. Read all about Nephi, and Mosiah, and Helaman and his two thousand warriors, and Alma and Ammon and Captain Moroni and Mormon, and most importantly - read their testimonies. Read their witnesses of Christ. And then "with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ," ask if it is true.<br />
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<br />Further Resources:<br />
1. This page, <a href="http://www.mormon.org/beliefs/book-of-mormon" target="_blank">Mormon.org: The Book of Mormon</a>, has very clear explanations of where the Book of Mormon came from and what it is. <br />
2. This video rocks. <br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4627505483157469746.post-9984947495867587792014-04-20T03:49:00.000-04:002021-05-31T20:54:51.572-04:00Because of Him<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Because of him I get to live with my loved ones forever.<br />
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Because of him I can be forgiven of the mistakes I have made and will make in the future.<br />
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Because of him I have hope.<br />
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Because of him I have joy.<br />
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Because of him I know that my life has meaning.<br />
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I know that Christ lives. I know that he really is the son of God. He lived a perfect life and suffered for our sins so that we can be forgiven through his sacrifice.<br />
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He loves us. He loves you. And I know that with absolutely everything that I am.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/_S3TI4bYerU?rel=0" width="640"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4627505483157469746.post-2283110174908633452014-03-26T22:45:00.001-04:002021-05-31T20:54:50.884-04:00Melting CrayonsLast week I did a little craft project. I melted down Toddler's broken crayons into new, unbroken shapes.<br />
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This is what they looked like before:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_tmGvZbGIq4/UzOORSO5uuI/AAAAAAAAOUY/Y6QobQUwTDQ/s1600/IMG_8669+%2528500x333%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_tmGvZbGIq4/UzOORSO5uuI/AAAAAAAAOUY/Y6QobQUwTDQ/s1600/IMG_8669+%2528500x333%2529.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">They were actually even worse because in this picture I'd already taken out all of the smallest, most broken pieces.</td></tr>
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I then chopped them up even more so they would fit in the silicone mold better:<br />
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I then put them in the silicone mold I got from the dollar store (which was from Halloween and was a mold of pumpkin shapes. Toddler saw it and said "Balloons!" though, so they're balloons. Which is better than pumpkins.) and put it in the oven at 275 degrees for about ten minutes:<br />
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Took them out, swirled the colors with a toothpick, and let them cool on the stove top. Once they'd cooled for about 25 minutes, I put them in the fridge to cool them even faster. (If they cool too fast in the beginning they might crack.) Then I popped them out. And we have balloon crayons!<br />
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All of Toddler's crayons filled three batches of the silicone mold. I don't know if it was just cause it was a cheapy silicone mold from the dollar store, or if it was something about the crayons, but after I was finished it was kind of twisted and warped and I just tossed it. But it totally worked for this craft! A dollar well spent.<br />
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Toddler really likes her new balloon crayons. She played with them for like an hour on the day that I did this.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4627505483157469746.post-48360043501374616102014-03-10T18:41:00.001-04:002021-05-31T20:54:52.325-04:00Two new quiet book pages & Giveaway<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A little while ago I was contacted by Amy Pincock from the popular craft blog <a href="http://www.serving-pink-lemonade.com/" target="_blank">Serving Pink Lemonade</a>. She asked if I'd like to do a review and giveaway of her new book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Quiet-Book-Patterns-Easy---Make/dp/1462112455/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375570499&sr=8-1&keywords=quiet+book+patterns" target="_blank">Quiet Book Patterns: 25 Easy-to-Make Activities for Your Children</a>, for my Quiet Book Blog. I said yes! </div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mi1_MKL55sM/Ux4GpCt-TiI/AAAAAAAAN60/arYyPqSjbtg/s1600/IMG_8457+%2528500x333%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mi1_MKL55sM/Ux4GpCt-TiI/AAAAAAAAN60/arYyPqSjbtg/s1600/IMG_8457+%2528500x333%2529.jpg" /></a></div>
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I got her adorable book in the mail a couple weeks ago, and this weekend I made two quiet book pages using her templates and instructions. I really like how they turned out; I think they're really cute and I think Toddler and Baby will have fun playing with them. I'm glad I had this motivation to make some more quiet book pages.<br />
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I made a sock matching page:<br />
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And a "seasons tree" page:<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hDt40BGrZbo/Ux4Grke51AI/AAAAAAAAN7c/PUNVxRxdnBM/s1600/Tall+seasons500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hDt40BGrZbo/Ux4Grke51AI/AAAAAAAAN7c/PUNVxRxdnBM/s1600/Tall+seasons500.jpg" /></a></div>
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I really like them. I've wanted to do pages like them for a long time, but haven't actually started because they seemed like too much work. The templates and instructions from the book were really helpful and gave me the boost I need to make them!<br />
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I think I'm going to make a washing machine page (like <a href="http://www.imagineourlife.com/2011/09/22/sock-matching-quiet-book-page/" target="_blank">this one</a>) to go next to the socks. I want to do another page to go with the seasons tree, but I'm not sure what yet. I'll figure it out.<br />
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And (how cool is this) I get to do a giveaway of this book, too! If you head over to <a href="http://quietbookblog.blogspot.com/2014/03/quiet-book-patterns-book-review-giveaway.html" target="_blank">this page on my Quiet Book Blog</a>, you can enter to win a copy of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Quiet-Book-Patterns-Easy---Make/dp/1462112455/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375570499&sr=8-1&keywords=quiet+book+patterns" target="_blank">Quiet Book Patterns: 25 Easy-to-Make Activities for Your Children</a>.<br />
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Go enter! You might win!<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4627505483157469746.post-58863830151664565942014-02-19T15:04:00.001-05:002021-05-31T20:54:52.573-04:00Homemade ToffeeThis week on Monday I was able to reintroduce milk into my diet. It's the first food I'm reintroducing and we're watching right now and for the next couple days to see if Baby has a reaction to it.<br />
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To celebrate, that night I made some toffee.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(The mini chocolate chips were Jason's addition.)</td></tr>
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I remember my mom making toffee one time when I was a kid. It was <i>so </i>delicious and I hoped that she'd make it all the time. That was the only time I remember her making it, haha. :) But because of that time, I knew you <i>can </i>make it at home.<br />
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I looked up some recipes on Monday and decided to try this one: <a href="http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Best-Toffee-Ever---Super-Easy/Detail.aspx?event8=1&prop24=SR_Thumb&e11=toffee&e8=Quick%20Search&event10=1&e7=Home%20Page&soid=sr_results_p2i1" target="_blank">Best Toffee Ever - Super Easy</a>. I didn't do the chocolate or the nuts, and I scaled it down to a 1/4 recipe, so the ingredients I ended up using were 1/2 cup butter, 1/2 cup sugar, and 1/8 teaspoon salt.<br />
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The first batch turned out horrible. Instructions on the internet were totally contradictory, some saying stir the whole time, some saying only stir once in a while, and I got confused and didn't know what to do and the sugar and butter separated and then the whole thing burned and smelled bad and I got super frustrated at the internet for lying lies to me.<br />
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The second batch turned out perfect, though! What I did was this: I put everything (the sugar, stick of butter, and salt) into a pot. I turned the heat on low-medium and stirred slowly with a wooden spoon the entire time. In the beginning when the butter and sugar were still a bit separated, I tipped the pot and mixed it all together really good every 30 seconds or so until they were fully mixed together. And then I stirred and stirred and stirred until the mixture turned a caramelly-color and got a bit thicker, and then poured it out onto a cookie sheet covered in wax paper. I spread it out with the wooden spoon I had been using to stir. And then I let it cool!<br />
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And it is gooood.<br />
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And that is the story of the two (well, now three) batches of toffee I've made this week.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4627505483157469746.post-73348576740753453852014-01-11T16:47:00.002-05:002021-05-31T20:54:53.210-04:00Homemade Playdough<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Toddler got a play-doh set for Christmas, and she loves it. It's a little jungle set with a tree that makes "caterpillars" (ropes of play-doh) come out the top, an elephant you press down to make play-doh ears, hair, trunk, and tail, and a little turtle you press down on to make play-doh turtle legs. It also comes with some play-doh tools (like really blunt plastic knives, and a roller) to work with the play-doh.</div>
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Toddler's favorite things to do are make play-doh caterpillars with the three, squish the turtle, and press the knives into the play-doh to make random animals (which don't look anything like animals, but Toddler tells me what they are {like, "I made a dog!"}, so they're animals).</div>
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The kit came with four play-doh colors: a big thing of dark green, a small light green, a small blue, and a small orange. We lose a bit each time we play, though, as little chunks break off and get overlooked and then dry out on the kitchen floor. Even though we started out with enough dough to work with, our supply is quickly shrinking. Plus, I kind of want some more colors than the few we have.</div>
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So, vaguely remembering things I saw on pinterest a long time ago, I turned to the internet for a homemade playdough recipe. I used the first one at the top of the google page: <a href="http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Make-Playdough-Play-doh/" target="_blank">How to Make Playdough (Play-doh)</a>, and it turned out great!</div>
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Here's the recipe (mostly for my own reference in the future):</div>
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2 cups flour</div>
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2 cups warm water</div>
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1 cup salt</div>
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2 tablespoons vegetable oil</div>
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1 tablespoon cream of tartar (optional for improved elasticity)</div>
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food coloring</div>
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scented oils (optional)</div>
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"Mix all the ingredients together" (I saved food coloring for after, though, so I could make multiple colors) "and stir over low heat. The dough will begin to thicken until it resembles mashed potatoes. When the dough pulls away from the sides and clumps in the center, remove the pan from heat and allow the dough to cool enough to handle. Important note: If your playdough is still sticky, you simply need to cook it longer!"</div>
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At first it was all liquid-y...</div>
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But in just a couple minutes it got a lot thicker...</div>
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And pretty soon it was done and ready for food coloring!</div>
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I split the batch into three parts and made yellow, pink, and (a kind of ugly) purple, but it makes so much that you could easily split it into four or five or six colors.</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_LfoKNUNWxs/Us-iG136_TI/AAAAAAAANDA/kmULPDZsj1A/s1600/P1010382+%2528500x375%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_LfoKNUNWxs/Us-iG136_TI/AAAAAAAANDA/kmULPDZsj1A/s1600/P1010382+%2528500x375%2529.jpg" /></a></div>
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Then I just packaged the colors in random tupperware containers...</div>
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And it was ready to go!</div>
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I thought I was going to like the brand-name "Play-doh" dough better when compared to this homemade playdough, but boy was I wrong! I <i>love </i>the homemade playdough! My favorite thing about it is that it's softer and easier to work with. Toddler can make shapes and animals a lot easier (as can I), and the playdough goes through the little play-doh machines so much easier. Pushing down on the elephant and the tree, which was quite difficult before, is now very easy. And you might be worried that if it's softer, this homemade playdough doesn't hold its shape as well - but it does! The animals and shapes we've made with it are just as sturdy and totally hold their shape as well as the store-bought kind. I'm so impressed.<br />
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I really do love this homemade playdough. It was so easy to make and now we have such a large supply. I'm totally going to make this in the future instead of buying the brand name play-doh (even though I'm sure I'll get more little plastic play-doh sets and tools).<br />
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I totally recommend this as a quick and easy recipe to make great playdough for little kids!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0