I'm picking up the baton . . .

http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/24/maternity-leave-and-human-rights/

Today I'm raising awareness that not providing paid maternity and paternity leave is a violation of human rights as it discriminates against parents in the workforce. Check out the link above.

Once a week, I also plan on dedicating a post to an amazing person who has fought for human rights. Today I'm focusing on Jennifer Siebel Newsom.

"Jennifer Siebel Newsom is the current First Lady of San Francisco, actress, filmmaker, spokesperson, and mother.


Her latest endeavor is writing, directing, and producing the documentary, Miss Representation, which explores how mainstream media directly contributes to the under-representation of women in positions of power and influence by cultivating and promoting limiting and often disparaging portrayals of women. Accompanied by a social outreach campaign, Jennifer hopes to celebrate women’s progress throughout American history and motivate calls to action towards achieving greater equality.
In May 2010, Jennifer partnered with the Professional BusinessWomen of California to create The First Lady’s Young Women’s Summit to help empower high school girls in the Bay Area. The Young Women’s Summit is a daylong program designed to educate young women about media literacy, introduce them to successful women mentors, and instill confidence in them to pursue their true passions. Many of the activities underscore the themes found in Jennifer’s documentary, Miss Representation."

We need more people like her who are willing to combat the damaging ways that women are portrayed in the media. All of society is damaged in turn when any one group is disparaged in any way.

I commend any and all who appreciate and support women for their abilities and accomplishments as opposed to their appearance and who promote an equal representation of men and women in positions of power. We need to do more, though, as we are clearly not doing a good enough job . . .

Spring has reached Seattle!

This is the third day in a row that it hasn't been a high of 40 degrees! It seems spring has finally arrived. I'm not sure if it was the combination of dark early mornings, or just having to pay our own heating bills, but I was hella ready for Spring! I can actually crack open the window and allow our apartment to smell slightly less stuffy without freezing my buns off. I can go out on the porch and soak up some ACTUAL sunshine.

In honor of Spring, I've been doing some serious scouring and cleaning. It's amazing how motivated one can get when one a. knows that Spring has arrived and b. has company coming. I've been washing sheets and throws and carpets as well as the regular things just to help our apartment smell more fresh.  Also, I'm baking a quiche. Gosh, it's amazing how easy they are to make. I cheat and buy pre-made crust, but once you do that, it takes maybe 15 minutes to throw it all in the oven. I use allrecipes.com and just mix and match all the best quiche recipes, though I really just need to know the temp. and time to cook these days.

This weekend is my birthday weekend. I turn 24 tomorrow! While I do feel a little older (not to mention heavier since getting married), I still feel like I have so much to look forward to. This evening me and several girlfriends are going out for Sushi. Tomorrow, we're hanging out with my parents, and then on Sunday, the whole family is taking me out shopping after we meet my sister's newest members of the family (2 12 week old yorkies :D). Also, our good friend Laura is on her way out to visit and who knows what fun we'll come up with once she arrives.

I love Spring, I love my life, I love birthdays, I love my little family, gosh, I think I just plain LOVE.

ZOMG :D

I just had to repost this from my fav. little boy on a blog I read. (Fav. baby is my niece of course). Yep, it's the smile-as-big-as-his-face boy. It's a video of him this time and his little personality totally fits with that big gorgeous smile.

http://jollyjansen.blogspot.com/2011/03/we-need-more-gates.html

Beautiful birth story

I've just found a blog that I really love. I'm linking this amazing person's birth story since it really connected with me and what I would want someday for a birth experience. She had a home birth and I love that she shared such a special story with her readers.

Check it out (of course it will have birth story details, so opt out if you're not able to handle this sort of thing).

http://rachaelkincaid.blogspot.com/2009_10_01_archive.html

Things I like . . .

Dangle earrings:

Yorkshire puppies:

Blouses from Anthropologie:

And pasta:

What are some of your fav. things?





Another wedding!

Let me introduce my two best friends (besides family that is). They are Annea and Jeanna and we have been bffs since the 4th grade. Annea and I originally met and connected in Kindergarten, but I went away to another school until 4th grade, where we reconnected and Annea introduced me to Jeanna. We've been a threesome ever since, despite the fact that we never attended the same school after the 8th grade.

Here we are today, me now happily married, Annea in a long-term relationship with a very quality and funny young man, and Jeanna engaged to be married to a very entertaining and easy-going young gentleman.

Jeanna will be married this summer only a week before my 1 year wedding anniversary. Annea and I get the honor of being her matron of honor (me) and maid of honor (Annea). : ) Jeanna decided it would not be fair to choose between us, but since I'm married there would be no reusing of titles, so to speak. I'm pretty excited. Only 4 months now until we marry off another of our group. Weddings are so much fun aren't they? and such a wonderful celebration of love and life.

Anyway, I bring all this up to debut the bridesmaid dress. I think it will flatter us all pretty nicely.  After all, almost no one dislikes their shoulders, so mine as well show them off! : )

It is in this color as well. Jeweltones complement my hair color so this is right up my alley. I'm so happy for our dear Jeanna and Kyle. Bring on another summer full of weddings! I'm ready!



International Woman's Day

In honor of today, I would like to honor my mother. She inspires me to be considerate of others, she inspires me to stand up for myself and others, she inspires me to be me, who I really am inside.

My mom and me.

My mom and her mom.

I appreciate you mom, and I appreciate all the women who have inspired me throughout my few years so far.

This post was written for the One Wee Voice International Women's Day campaign. If you're a blogger and would like to share your wee voice by celebrating a woman in your life, then link up below.

I love hair!

I love doing hair! I've always had a knack for it that I developed throughout Academy by doing other girls' hair for banquets (what we called dances). I would hurry and try and get myself ready first and then do as many other girls' hair as I could fit in before it was time to go. Living in a dorm made it easy for me to just shuffle all the girls' into my dorm room with their curling irons and various tools and then assign them tasks to help me out while working on one's hair at a time. Pretty funny, actually.

Anyway, I've always done my own hair for special occasions. My future sister in law (at the time) noticed my talent and asked me to do her hair. She seemed pretty happy with the result, so I think it was a success. Here's some pictures:

I thought it looked especially nice on the sides. :)

It framed her face nicely as well.

So, of course, I decided to do my own hair for my wedding. I think it took me about 3 hours to get ready for my wedding, including a quick shower, but I think I did a pretty bang up job, not to mention it saved money and the inconvenience of having to bring someone in to do it. My sister got some good pictures of how my hair looked right before the wedding:

I loved how the fresh orchids really showed off my hair as well. There's nothing like a little bit of nature to really make something look special.

Now all I've got to figure out is when I'll have another occasion to really go all out. Perhaps for the cruise coming up this summer? Lots of formal dinners there . . . should be fun!

I love this trend . . .

In reading other mommy blogs, I've noticed a trend that I think is wonderful. The true celebration of pregnancy and childbirth. The subjects are no longer closed to young minds, women have a ton more choices about each, people document the processes of each with no shame, the sexuality inherently involved in each is no longer so buried, even people take pictures of babies crowning, women have home births in front of mirrors, fathers are there in the water helping birth a baby, fathers are the primary masseuses and couches during childbirth, women can have births how THEY want to, not how doctors feel they should, women can talk about both subjects without it being "taboo".

We come from a very repressed society, where women gave birth without their husbands present, where sex was something not discussed or talked about, where childbirth was seen as simply "dirty" or "messy", where both biological processes were not discussed and frequently swept under the rug.

I love how people now hire photographers or videographers to document the entire birth process, the wonderfulness of it, the blood and pain and all. We're finally being honest as a society about the realities of this process in many people's lives and we are no longer afraid of it.

I'm so glad I'm witness to this change in thought and society. I'm one of those women who likes to be able to talk about things, question tradition, explore new ideas and methods. I don't like being boxed in or told not to do something because it's just "not something we talk about". I'm going to be one of those mothers who demands a mirror when my babies crown, I'm going to want to try waterbirth, I'm going to want a photographer to document pregnancy and childbirth (yes I will probably have pictures of the actual birthing in a photo album for each child that I may have), I might even have nude pictures taken of me at 9 months pregnant someday, and above all, I'm going to do it how I want to do it for conception, pregnancy, childbirth, and child raising, teenage raising, and then befriending my kids! So there! :P

All of it is such a special experience, none of should be diminished by gainsayers/doctors/others.

Keep it up society, keep expanding those horizons!