live in Mass? act now to protect midwifery

Please help protect midwifery in Massachusetts and a woman's right to choose where and with whom she births (yes that would be protecting our right to choose the reproductive choice that NOW and others have been so silent on). Please do this right away--by July 24th, or the bill will die and need to reintroduced yet again. Then please tell everyone you know about it. All the details can be found at the MFOM link below.


http://mfomnews.wordpress.com/lobbying/

feminism and younger motherhood

Sarah Edell weighs in on the teen pregnancy cluster in Gloucester, much more articulately than I ever could. http://www.lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080709/OPINION/807090312/1076/OPINION03

quote of the day

12 Rules to Live By - Robert Louis Stevenson
Make up your mind to be happy. Learn to find pleasure in simple things.
Make the best of circumstances. No one has everything and everyone has something of sorrow.
Don’t take yourself too seriously.
Don’t let criticism worry you. You can’t please everybody.
Don’t let your neighbors set your standards; be yourself.
Do things you enjoy doing but stay out of debt.
Don’t borrow trouble. Imaginary things are harder to bear than actual ones.
Since hate poisons the soul, do not cherish enmities and grudges. Avoid people who make you unhappy.
Have many interests. If you can’t travel, read about places.
Don’t hold post-mortems or spend time brooding over sorrows and mistakes.
Do what you can for those less fortunate than yourself.
Keep busy at something. A very busy person never has time to be unhappy.

Rebecca the dancer

Rebecca in some of her 8 dance costumes!

Western North Carolina Vacation!

We are back from our western North Carolina vacation. We were blessed with perfect weather and we got out and saw and did a lot. The vegetation is very similar to central New England, but man those roads are windy! I want to reread Cold Mountain now that I can better picture what it means to go up and down those mountains. There were places where it was one mountain after another with no valley in between, just a "hollow". We saw lots of bikers--they love all those turns!

The photo above is an Appalachian farm that is an open air museum in Smokey National Park.

We had lots of fun with the old growth in the Joyce Kilmer National Forest.

We spent 2 nights backcountry in Pathertown on a llama trek with English Mountain Llamas. http://www.hikinginthesmokies.com/ We are all wearing clothes from Target because the airlines (Continental) got us in a day late and without our luggage so we had to dash around Target picking up some things to wear on the way to the trail head.
There were many awesome waterfalls. We hiked a couple of miles in from our base camp for this one. It's called School House Falls.
The llamas carried all our gear.

I promised Bonnie our waitress at Restaurant 553 http://www.restaurant553.com/ I would mention her on my blog. We had a great southern meal sitting outside in the June sunshine watching all their beautiful hummingbirds.

We spent half a day at Earthaven.http://www.earthaven.org/ They are an aspiring ecovillage. We saw their little hydroelectric plant and some of their permaculture and eco construction projects, and learned about their communal living and environmental philosophies.

Then we went to Linville Caverns a very cool limestone cave network. http://www.linvillecaverns.com/ At one point they turn off the lights and let you experience complete darkness.

I also really liked going to the Native American museums in Cherokee. All the street signs in town are in Cherokee as well as English!

Asheville is a fun town with a yummy vegetarian restaurant, the Laughing Seed. We ate there 2 dinners in a row. And we also went to the Biltmore and marvelled at a private home 4 acres big.