Becoming Conscious

For those of you that know me personally, you know that over the past 4 years my husband and I have implemented some significant changes in the way that our family lives.  These changes include some changes in our personal philosophy on life, our parenting choices, and numerous changes regarding the products that we utilize in our home, put on our bodies, and ingest.  Some people like to label these choices as hippy, crunchy, granola, woodsy, earthy, holistic, green (take your pick as I really do not care what you choose to call us).  I prefer to just consider myself as conscious.  My family and I are making conscious decisions based on research and information that we have acquired and are not blindly accepting things because they are the standard or what is considered socially acceptable. 

This post is the beginning of a series of posts that I plan on sharing a little of this lifestyle.  At this time I do not think I am going to put any boundaries on what this may include.  Perhaps one day it will be a formula for one of the many things that we utilize around the house, maybe it will be a project or craft that has improved our lives, perhaps a recipe that our family has come to love, or perhaps just a discussion on why we have made specific choices during this journey.

So let me tell you a little about us (perhaps this should have been my first post, but I definitely have developed some excellent procrastination skills throughout my life):

We are a home water birthing, breastfeeding, baby wearing, co-sleeping family.  We are intactivists and believe that circumcision is an unnecessary and harmful procedure in most circumstances.  We believe in extended breastfeeding, baby led weaning, and baby led feeding.  We cloth diaper including cloth pull ups for potty training.  We try to eat clean: organic, local, and in season fruits and veggies, local grass-fed and finished beef and pasture raised pork, local free range chickens and eggs.  We attempt to treat maladies with natural healing modalities: acupuncture, chiropractic & craniosacral care, dietary therapy, homeopathics and herbs, and essential oils first before turning to other medical practices and medications.  Though our oldest child goes to a charter school, we also home school at every opportunity to try to help make up for what we feel the local school systems are lacking.  We believe that every question and observation that our children make can be an excellent learning opportunity.  We try not to be helicopter parents and instead try to allow our children to make their own decisions even if the consequences are less than desirable, but we are far from being completely free-range parents.  This list could go on and on, but I think you are getting the idea.

However, I will be the first to admit, we do not always succeed at living this lifestyle.  In fact, there are days that I just plain suck at being “crunchy” (or whatever you call it), those days I am just not cut-out for being THAT kind of mom.  There are some things that I have tried that I have failed miserably at.  I cannot keep a plant alive to save my life, so it is highly unlikely that my family will ever be able to live off our land (unless I pay someone to tend to it or suddenly get blessed with my mom’s greener thumb).  I have never been great at sewing, knitting, or crocheting and therefore the amount of homemade items that I produce are limited, they are often created only with help from my mother, or they take an eternity and half to complete.  I have bought non organic veggies off the dirty dozen because I was just too lazy to find organic ones.  I have used products that are filled with toxic ingredients: parabens, phthalates, triclosan—oh my!  There are evenings that I am just too [insert adjective] to cook and therefore my family eats frozen pizza, crappy food out, or *gasp* they have to fend for themselves.  I yell.  Awful, I know.  I do not know where I got it from—neither of my parents are yellers—but some days I yell and I am a force to be reckoned with.  There are other days that even yelling does not make me feel better.  Those days, I want to run away from it all-that madness that is created from being a stay-at-home mom.  I want to crawl into a dark, quiet, childless hole (with a margarita or two or a nice cold beer).  

So, yes, I am far from perfect.  I know this wholeheartedly but what matters to me is that I try and I think every day I become a little more of who I really want to be.      

More Pet Peeves and Great Coincidences

My son, who is in second grade, is learning about homophones in his writing and reading class this week.  I find it amusing and a little irritating (okay, more than a little) that this second grade concept still eludes numerous persons of the adult English speaking persuasion.  Today, I was reading an article about a woman that was told by a Victoria’s Secret employee she could not nurse her baby in the fitting room and instead should nurse in the alley behind the store (and yes, this is another topic that infuriates me, but alas we shall leave it for another day).   As I was reading the article, I came across the following quote that was taken from the woman’s Facebook post, “I have to blast Victoria’s Secret for telling me I wasn’t aloud to nurse my very hungry, fussy son in their fitting room after I spend a fair amount in their store.”

This quote of course, immediately redirected my annoyance from that of the breastfeeding in public issue to that of homophones (i.e., a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning and spelling).  Flour/flower, be/bee, sun/son, pray/prey, to/too/two are just a few examples. 

So for Ms. Ashley Clawson, the wronged mother from Victoria’s Secret and all others that need reminding, here is today’s homophone lesson.

Aloud: audible, not silently

Allowed: (past tense of allow) to let happen, to permit

And in case you want to expand your knowledge a little further (not farther, just in case you were wondering).

Homonyms are words that share the same spelling and the same pronunciation but have entirely different meanings.

The man turned left and left his neighborhood. 

The first left in this sentence is being used as a direction, the opposite of right and the second left in replace of the word departed.

Homographs are words that are spelled the same, have different meanings, and are often pronounced differently.

Bass (the fish), bass (the instrument); lead (the metallic element), lead (to guide); wind (a gust of air), wind (to wrap in a series of coils)

Perhaps at this point you think I am hypercritical.  Perhaps I am.  But my children will surely know their (not they're or there) homophones, homonyms, and homographs.  It is just one more example of this mom's mommytary madness!   

Pet Peeves

        This morning, as I was wasting away in the depths of THE Facebook, I came across one of my biggest pet peeves: "ect".  It slightly amuses me that the vast majority of my pet peeves can be directly related to the written or oral language, especially since I am far from perfect in this regard, but perhaps that topic should be left for a different post entirely.  Despite the aggravation and dismay that was invoked upon seeing this written multiple times in a single blog post, I continued to read the post and responses.  Perhaps I should have stopped while I was only moderately aggravated, because this single transgression turned into more than I could possibly write about in a single post.  Therefore, I shall only provide a small sampling of those that bother me the most and are probably not addressed as frequently as some of the other issues that I came across.  

 

“Ect” is NOT an appropriate abbreviation for the Latin expression “et cetera”.  The appropriate abbreviation is “etc.”—do you see how those letters are in the same order as the words are spelled?  That should be your first hint that “ect” is incorrect.  Even with accepted alternate spellings: etcetera, et caetera, et coetera this point is still valid.  Also, just as a reminder, it is not pronounced “excetera”.

I will be the first to admit, that in the past I have confused these; however, these do NOT mean the same thing. “I.e.” is an abbreviation of the Latin phrase id est, which loosely means “that is” and “e.g.” is an abbreviation of the Latin phrase exempli gratia, which means “for the sake of example”.   So let’s break this down even further.  The abbreviation “i.e.” would be used to stand for “in other words” or as a way to explain or describe a previous statement or even used as a metaphor.  The abbreviation “e.g.” would be appropriately utilized when one is providing examples.  One can check the appropriate use of the abbreviations by inserting the phrase “in other words” in place of “i.e.” or “for example” in place of “e.g.”.   

When you go to the store, please buy some vegetables, i.e., a plant from that is cultivated for its edible parts.

When you go to the store please buy some vegetables, e.g., spinach, broccoli, and bok choy.

Vice versa is yet another Latin phrase that seems to trip people up.  This phrase, which means “in reverse order from that stated” or “the other way around”, is not spelled vice a versa, nor does the correct spelling contain a hyphen.  Vice versa would be appropriately utilized in order to mean conversely. 

Veterinarians that are qualified to practice veterinary medicine in Sarasota can practice veterinary medicine in Bradenton and vice versa.

            Contrary to the popular misuse of this word, it does not imply that something is superfluous.  The word “moot” means that the subject is open to discussion or is disputable.  And please, please, please do not pull a Joey (from "Friends") and be completely wrong with the word and definition: 

Mad vs. Angry

            Mad and angry do not mean the same thing and learning this fact may make you both mad and angry.  Mad refers to insanity, uncontrolled excitement or emotion, or foolishness.  Angry or anger is strong emotion or feeling of displeasure or belligerence aroused by a real or supposed wrong. 

           “Alot” is not a word.  It is so much not a word that I had to tell my auto-correct five times that I actually wanted it to be written this incorrect way for this post.  A person has a lot of things, not “a lot” of things.  Or perhaps avoiding the phrase all together would be easier: a person has numerous things.  And “a lot” should not be confused with the word allot, which is a real word, but means something completely different.  Allot means to assign a portion of or dedicate, to appropriate for a special purpose, or to divide or distribute.  The parents will allot each kid $20 to spend at the gift shop.      

Now you know.  Consider this your warning.