So… life with the new job is wonderful. I thank God every day that I get to get up in the morning and lay around playing and getting slobbery kisses from Lucy. We usually then go down to eat breakfast and then go for a walk or just play in the yard for a while before her first nap. Then I get some work done. When she gets up we have lunch and then usually go somewhere — the store, Auntie Joyce’s, Sara’s, the park, etc. Then Charles comes home and I go to aerobics or make dinner or whatever.

Sometimes I feel like I still just don’t believe that this is real and permanent. I hold onto fear that it won’t last for some reason. Like we will starve because the money isn’t enough, or something else bad will happen to prevent it. I know I need to let go of fear — all fear — but it seems to be a strong part of my nature at this point. More work to do.

So there are my thoughts for today. I hope it will not be another month before I return. Leave a comment to let me know you are out there!

You need:

1 bar of soap (some sites suggest ivory, I used some kind of natural hemp soap with pepperment smell)
1/2 c of washing soda (one site said it was OK to use baking soda so I did — not sure where to get washing soda)
1 c Borax — 20 mule
4-5 gallon bucket

Slice up the soap into a pot of 5 c of water and heat to an almost boil.
Pour 3 gallons of HOT water into 4-5 gallon bucket and let sit while the soap melts in the pot.
When the soap is melted, pour it onto the hot water in the bucket and stir.
Then add the washing soda and stir until it dissolves.
Then add the Borax and stir until it dissolves.

Then cover and set somewhere overnight.

Apparently it will get gelly and you should put it into smaller containers to use. I think I read it may be lumpy. Use 1/2 c for a load of laundry. Super cheap! Oh, you can also add essential oil to smell it up if you don’t use smelly soap.

My first batch is resting for the night, so I’ll update how it went.

In the meantime, the action will be at:

http://lightinnovember.blogspot.com/ I’ll link that on the side here too.
Please, no comments about it being on blogspot, blog snobs.

Peace Out!

Big Girl, originally uploaded by thejennarator.

I hope no one is too shocked out there about how different this photo looks from the last one I posted. Yes, I need to post more often. I was inspired by my friend Kate’s new blog about her beautiful daughter Zadie to start trying harder to update more with photos. I know that’s what you all check for after all!

Lucy continues to be an amazing cutie. At this very moment she is bouncing in her doorway swing and making various noises with her mouth. I think the books call it “razzing.” Anyway, she just broke her top left tooth in the past couple of days. I’m feeling the need to take more pictures of her with just her two little bottom ones since her smile will soon change. She drooles puddles and fills about five bibs a day, but staying true to her good nature, she pretty much never complains.

Since my last update, Lucy started eating real food too! She loves all of it. A very good eater.

Please notice the bracelets in the picture. I got those for her (still unborn and unmade) on my last trip to China two years ago. All the little babies in Kate’s town wore them. I’ve been anxiously awaiting the chance to put them on my own little one. So cute!

She also has very cool links to other sites. A couple that I checked out and signed up for e-mails from are Ideal Bite and Instead of TV. Hope my faithful readers find these as helpful as I do!

If you start to pay attention to how much plastic you use and how difficult it is to avoid, it starts to get very frustrating. Bottles, teethers, sippy cups, plates, bowls, spoons. It takes a lot of work to make sure you aren’t buying the wrong things. I tried contacting Munchkin to ask them if BPA is in their food mill and little feeders that you put solid food in. They responded that they received the e-mail, but then never wrote back with the answer. I take that as a yes.

All toys are suspect. I try to buy wooden toys, but Lucy started scraping those against her two bottom teeth and I found scraped off paint on her shirt. The paint in this particular toy is supposed to be non-toxic, but who knows? I can try all I can to keep her away from plastic toys at home, but what about at day care? I can’t control everything she is playing with there.

Plastic isn’t the only thing either. There are all the parabens and bad chemicals that go into soaps and lotions. I spent $22 on some sun screen that supposedly is bad chemical free. Why should it be that much?? Why can’t all that is available to rub all over our babies bodies be assuredly safe? It shouldn’t take so much work and time and money to assure this.

I’m tired enough with being a mom in general. The world seems so wrong and menacing. Why must we think about these things at all?

OFT I had heard of Lucy Gray:
And, when I crossed the wild,
I chanced to see at break of day
The solitary child.

No mate, no comrade Lucy knew;
She dwelt on a wide moor,
–The sweetest thing that ever grew
Beside a human door!

You yet may spy the fawn at play,
The hare upon the green; 10
But the sweet face of Lucy Gray
Will never more be seen.

“To-night will be a stormy night–
You to the town must go;
And take a lantern, Child, to light
Your mother through the snow.”

“That, Father! will I gladly do:
‘Tis scarcely afternoon–
The minster-clock has just struck two,
And yonder is the moon!” 20

At this the Father raised his hook,
And snapped a faggot-band;
He plied his work;–and Lucy took
The lantern in her hand.

Not blither is the mountain roe:
With many a wanton stroke
Her feet disperse the powdery snow,
That rises up like smoke.

The storm came on before its time:
She wandered up and down; 30
And many a hill did Lucy climb:
But never reached the town.

The wretched parents all that night
Went shouting far and wide;
But there was neither sound nor sight
To serve them for a guide.

At day-break on a hill they stood
That overlooked the moor;
And thence they saw the bridge of wood,
A furlong from their door. 40

They wept–and, turning homeward, cried,
“In heaven we all shall meet;”
–When in the snow the mother spied
The print of Lucy’s feet.

Then downwards from the steep hill’s edge
They tracked the footmarks small;
And through the broken hawthorn hedge,
And by the long stone-wall;

And then an open field they crossed:
The marks were still the same; 50
They tracked them on, nor ever lost;
And to the bridge they came.

They followed from the snowy bank
Those footmarks, one by one,
Into the middle of the plank;
And further there were none!

–Yet some maintain that to this day
She is a living child;
That you may see sweet Lucy Gray
Upon the lonesome wild. 60

O’er rough and smooth she trips along,
And never looks behind;
And sings a solitary song
That whistles in the wind.
— William Wordsworth, 1799.

IMG_2776_edited, originally uploaded by thejennarator.

They all say it goes fast, and I guess I am really learning that now. She is still just under five months, but if you look closely at the bottom right of the above picture, you can see her new little white speck that popped up this past week! Along with the tooth has come lots and lots of drool. She also loves to suck and chew on my chin whenever she can get a hold of it. New and amazing things every day with this girl!