Nursing Babies in the Headlines

Even though this entry is going to provide more opportunity for porn spam in my comments, I still felt the subject was worth noting.

This editorial raises some interesting questions on privacy. The topic, breastfeeding, is so personal to women it is often hard to separate emotion from reason. My take is that if business owners don’t have the right to tell women to be discreet about nursing, then it won’t be long until more of their rights as private property owners go out the window.

In the editorial I linked, there was a mention of Starbucks’ policy for women to either cover up when they nurse or to go to the bathroom to do it. This seems reasonable to me, although I might suggest that if Starbucks hasn’t already done this, for their own customer relations, they should provide at least a comfortable chair in the bathroom. For the most part, women I know who nurse do not have a desire to expose themselves in public. I think most women are reasonable about it. I think this is a case of the extremests getting in an uproar because they feel personally constrained.

Here’s my last thought, which may sound contrary to my other comments, but it it still comes to mind: breastfeeding mothers who occasionally expose themselves in public are not nearly as offensive as the rest of the half-dressed population we see in public everyday.

Getting Organized

I love to watch the show Mission Organization. In it, a homedweller (my word to encompass homeowners and renters) has some diorganized space that he wants to get under control. So a professional organizer comes in and helps the person purge, sort, and organize his stuff. What’s great is that the homedweller doesn’t have to do any of the thinking. His professional organizer comes up with solutions and goes and purchases the necessary containers, shelves, furniture, whatever.

I sit and watch in awe of what these people can accomplish and dream of the day I have the money to buy just the sort of storage items I need to make every room in my house organized and functional. Until that time, I will just have to make do with my own solutions, but, of course, I have gotten some good ideas from watching Mission Organization.

Today I decided to tackle an organization dilema I have had for some time. The mission: to reorganize my kitchen cabinet so that I can store the majority of the things I have had hanging out on my counters. Apart from the final wiping down of the cabinets, I am finished with my task. The biggest tip for a project like this that I have garnered from my tv viewing is that purging is essential. This was true for me today. I cut my plastic drinking cup supply in half, and that allowed me to move it to another smaller cabinet space, thus freeing up the bigger space for something else.

Now comes the real challenge: keeping the counters cleaned off. This isn’t easy since “old habits die hard” and the island counter is a notorious dumping ground for the kids’ toys as the pass through the kitchen. Here’s hoping! (and trying really hard 😉

What’s on my reading list?

I spent the summer re-reading the Susan Howatch Starbridge series. It was great fun for me to revisit the characters of what I consider to be psychological mysteries set against the backdrop of the Church of England over the better part of the 20th century.

After Howatch, I was ready for some lighter fare. About 2 years ago, I enjoyed reading all of the Anne of Green Gables novels by LM Montgomery. So I decided to try out her other series, the Emily trilogy. I was enchanted by Emily of New Moon, and now I am reading the second book, Emily Climbs. The Emily Trilogy has some similarities to Anne of Green Gables. Like Anne, Emily is an orphan. This time, though, Emily is sent to live with relatives, rather than being adopted by someone. Emily is also a strong-willed, imaginative girl like Anne. She gets into situations that always challenge her mind and her values. I think I like the Anne books better. The style is a bit more rigid–less readable–than the Anne stories, but I am still finding Emily enjoyable for juvenile fiction. All in all, I hope someday in the not too distant future my daughters will enjoy reading LM Montgomery’s books.

School days

It’s that time again. We are all thinking about school starting, especially if we have kids. This year I will have 3 homeschool students. It will be a challenge, but I am sure in some ways it will be easier to have all 3 of the children at home for school. It will be nice to be on my own schedule, without the constraints of the local school’s schedule.

I am excited because today I found out that the gym Mark and I go to is planning a homeschool PE class. Last year I took the children to one that was part of a co-op we were in. It was a good class, but the drive was further than the one to our gym. Also, this will build in the time for me to use to work out, and they plan to offer parents of children in the class some sort of discount on their gym memberships.