I had to share this - it made me cry.

Out of pocket cost of all of this?

From DC Adventures

Less than $3 out of my pocket.
CVS and coupons have made my personal care budget virtually nonexistent.

I spent my afternoon baking carrot cake cupcakes, raspberry bran muffins, and my very own own pumpkin pie.  (I made the cupcakes and muffins from scratch, but use canned pumpkin for the pie.)  I also went to the market to pick up fresh vegetables and a turkey breast for a yummy Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow.

I could really get used to having time to read, cook good food, and do errands at a leisurely pace during the day -- and actually having time/energy to do something fun in the evenings.

This weekend, Paul and I had an adventure in northern Maryland.  We stayed at a nice little bed and breakfast on the Bay and had a fantastic dinner, all with a gift certificate from my boss from last Christmastime.  We had to pay taxes and tip ourselves, so spent about $50 out of pocket.  Even that is a chunk of change in my world, but it was a fun experience.  (And man, was the food every delicious!!  I looove filet mignon, but would never dream of buying it myself.)

It was cold where we went this weekend, and we couldn't do much outside.  We saw on the list of 'nearby attractions' that there was an outlet mall 5 miles away.  Paul needed a few new dress shirts, and my one and only pair of jeans had just gotten a hole in a very conspicuous place.  Perfect way to spend a little time.

I'm pretty restrained when it comes to shopping for clothes (perhaps too restrained, considering I go to work most days in jeans and a tshirt).  I wouldn't say I'm spartan, but I don't like to spend my money on things - I like to spend it on experiences.  Food, family, and future are the main focus of my finances.  Clothes and furnishings were never much of a concern to me, beyond their utility.  Because I move so often, I avoid accumulating STUFF that I'll just have to move again anyway.

But I had no casual dress pants, and my jeans were quickly becoming inappropriate.  I get a bit embarrassed when folks stop by in suits and I'm wearing an old black hoodie, jeans, and a M.A.S.H. t-shirt. 

Yesterday I came home with one pair of jeans, one pair of khakis, two sweaters, a long sleeve t-shirt.  I finally have non-holey jeans to wear to work!  And casual dress pants that match my two new, un-balled sweaters.  I wish I would've picked up a few more things, but I was trying to be reasonable.  I'm pretty proud of the deals I found, and I think I may have a full five-day rotation of big-girl clothes to wear to work from now on.  ;)

I know I probably need to 'invest' in a professional wardrobe, but I find it hard to shift priorities.  I could easily spend more on clothes - it's not as though I'm a starving orphan.   We all have our priorities of where we choose to spend our money, and it just so happens that clothes are pretty far down on my list.  Seeing my family, eating good food, and saving for our future is much more important to me than looking fancy.

But man, it sure was satisfying to bring home a few new nice pieces of clothing and know I have something appropriate to wear to the upcoming holiday parties.  :)

This clip got me choked up:

(Web link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4xfMisqab8)

Yes We Can (hold babies). Thanks Jennie! :)

not a great idea to inhale nearly a full pint of ben & jerry's right before you want to go to bed.

eh, i gave up on blogspot. i had this grand idea of having thoughtful, regular posts to share - but that just didn't work out.

i haven't been on livejournal forever, but i was sure to catch up on the posts for the past few months. shame on me for not keeping up with you, friends! but i think i have some neato things to share now. :)

paul and i are at the tail-end of an apartment move, and i am SO HAPPY about it! our new place is 4 blocks away from the capitol, and ridiculously better than our old place. it's 2nd floor, in a small building, and has newish hardwood floors, big windows, and is very well-maintained. no more camel crickets, mice, and roaches *shivers*, and rotting out wet walls and crappy landlord. crazy thing is that it's about the same price as our old place.

the only tough part is that our new place is unfurnished, and we had NO furniture.

i have a profound, rediscovered appreciation for the generosity of friends - and craigslist.

friend/coworker donations:
* bed!
* super sweet, leather reclining chair with footrest
* craft table, 2'x3'
* new, pretty wooden dresser

craigslist finds:
* brand new, 8x12 carpet remnant: FREE. (which paul and i carried for 6 blocks, what a sight!)
* 2 new-like red sofas: $40 each. (picking those up tomorrow AM)

we picked up two more simple dressers at ikea, as well as a night stand and some pantry shelves. but otherwise, i'm so proud of our cheap and free finds. i shudder to think of what we would have spent had we bought everything new.

we've got a bunch of canvases ready to paint and hand on our beautiful, white walls. hopefully we come up with something cool. :) i'll try to post photos in a week or two, once we get settled in a bit more and there aren't boxes all over.

p.s. i cried three times during obama's acceptance speech. paul was in bed and really sick that night, so we didn't join the street party, but we could hear people cheering even inside our apartment with the windows closed. i've felt as though the dark cloud of the bush presidency is finally letting in a bit of much-needed sunlight. i'm going to enjoy my happiness for now, but god knows this is only a start, not a solution.

By WALDO L. FIELDING, M.D.

With the Supreme Court becoming more conservative, many people who support women’s right to choose an abortion fear that Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that gave them that right, is in danger of being swept aside.

When such fears arise, we often hear about the pre-Roe “bad old days.” Yet there are few physicians today who can relate to them from personal experience. I can.

I am a retired gynecologist, in my mid-80s. My early formal training in my specialty was spent in New York City, from 1948 to 1953, in two of the city’s large municipal hospitals.

There I saw and treated almost every complication of illegal abortion that one could conjure, done either by the patient herself or by an abortionist — often unknowing, unskilled and probably uncaring. Yet the patient never told us who did the work, or where and under what conditions it was performed. She was in dire need of our help to complete the process or, as frequently was the case, to correct what damage might have been done.

The patient also did not explain why she had attempted the abortion, and we did not ask. This was a decision she made for herself, and the reasons were hers alone. Yet this much was clear: The woman had put herself at total risk, and literally did not know whether she would live or die.

This, too, was clear: Her desperate need to terminate a pregnancy was the driving force behind the selection of any method available.

The familiar symbol of illegal abortion is the infamous “coat hanger” — which may be the symbol, but is in no way a myth. In my years in New York, several women arrived with a hanger still in place. Whoever put it in — perhaps the patient herself — found it trapped in the cervix and could not remove it.

We did not have ultrasound, CT scans or any of the now accepted radiology techniques. The woman was placed under anesthesia, and as we removed the metal piece we held our breath, because we could not tell whether the hanger had gone through the uterus into the abdominal cavity. Fortunately, in the cases I saw, it had not.

However, not simply coat hangers were used.

Almost any implement you can imagine had been and was used to start an abortion — darning needles, crochet hooks, cut-glass salt shakers, soda bottles, sometimes intact, sometimes with the top broken off.

Another method that I did not encounter, but heard about from colleagues in other hospitals, was a soap solution forced through the cervical canal with a syringe. This could cause almost immediate death if a bubble in the solution entered a blood vessel and was transported to the heart.

The worst case I saw, and one I hope no one else will ever have to face, was that of a nurse who was admitted with what looked like a partly delivered umbilical cord. Yet as soon as we examined her, we realized that what we thought was the cord was in fact part of her intestine, which had been hooked and torn by whatever implement had been used in the abortion. It took six hours of surgery to remove the infected uterus and ovaries and repair the part of the bowel that was still functional.

It is important to remember that Roe v. Wade did not mean that abortions could be performed. They have always been done, dating from ancient Greek days.

What Roe said was that ending a pregnancy could be carried out by medical personnel, in a medically accepted setting, thus conferring on women, finally, the full rights of first-class citizens — and freeing their doctors to treat them as such.

Waldo L. Fielding was an obstetrician and gynecologist in Boston for 38 years. He is the author of “Pregnancy: The Best State of the Union” (Thomas Y. Crowell, 1971).

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/03/health/views/03essa.html?ref=health