Accentuate the positive

In my Thursday links post I mentioned :10 Things (there's a blog and a flickr group too) which I found via a post at happythings. I seem to often finish the day grumpy and stressed. There's never enough time in the day to do all that I want, and feel I need to do. Not enough time to finish the laundry and leave the kitchen clean. Not enough time to be alone with my thoughts, to write about my day (especially all those things my daughter has done that seem so novel and precious right now but will get lost in the fog of memory if I don't record them), to work on my craft projects, to read, to sleep...

So I think that this would be a good way to end my day as often as I can. I can record snatches of my day, and go to bed with positive things on my mind: happy thoughts, things accomplished, moments enjoyed.

Here comes my first list (for yesterday). (I don't think I'll be posting them all here, although they may give me jumping off points for posts I guess.)

1. Fresh Pineapple and Chocolate Bread (these first two things I got as treats for my birthday but didn't actually get to eat any of until today)
2. My daughter giggling (lots of sustained giggles and laughs today!)
3. Being at home (it feels restful rather than confining after a few days away with lots of bustle and noise among my husband's family)
4. Getting to take a relatively unhurried shower without worrying about the baby.
   
5. Hugs from my daughter (along with some of the laughing she was snuggling up backwards, sideways, high and low today at times -- often she would be jumping around, exploring, playing and turn to give a hug and then go back to what she was doing)
6. The Hogfather on DVD (my mum sent for my husband's birthday -- we watched the first of the two parts)
7. Not having to cook dinner (we got pizza, not the best pizza unfortunately)
8. Knitting some more on my Monkey socks (just a few more pattern repeats and the toe to go before I have this pair finished)
9. Blood Orange sorbetto (my husband got this to try when he went to pick up milk at the co-op, very tasty. Our daughter insisted she should be allowed to try some too so we gave her some little tastes. She would make a face that looked quite displeased and then immediately start to insist she have some more)
10. Our little girl sleeping in the co-sleeper (rather than between us in the bed) for some of the night (just a few hours, but that's more than she's done in a long time).
    

Random Things

I have amassed a long list of links and articles to post. I wanted to write at least a little comment about a lot of them and haven't found the time to sit and write. So lest it look as though I've given up on this blog already, I'm going to skip to a few things I came across today and get back to the other stuff if and when I can.

First of all I was glad to see that Bill Moyers has a new show on (Bill Moyers Journal). Of course I forgot (or wasn't able to because of baby's needs) to watch it when it was on. The good news is that you (I) can watch stuff from the show at the website, and they have transcripts too! I watched the interview with Jon Stewart (being a Daily Show addict). It was interesting, not quite as excellent as I'd hoped, but thought provoking to be sure. The question of whether what the Daily Show does is journalism is an interesting one. Jon Stewart always seems emphatic that it's not, and I guess he should know. Seems to me it's satire rather than journalism, but it does seem that it's more than fake news and the interviews certainly get to be more like real journalism at times (there are some examples in the Moyers interview).

On a completely different subject, there was an interesting article about breastfeeding at the BBC News website today entitled "Lying down may help breastfeeding". 'Twas a little confusing to me -- they talked about lying down producing more of the mammalian nursing reflexes in nursing infants (because it's a more natural position than sitting up which seems reasonable). But then they're talking about the woman lying on her back with baby on top rather than side lying position which is certainly the position I think with other mammals I've seen nursing lying down (eg. cats, dogs, pigs), and of course some nurse standing (eg. cows, horses). Having said that I think the position's value is somewhat true in my experience. It actually took me longest to get the hang of side-lying nursing. But, when my daughter was pretty little I tried nursing lying on my back and it was quite good for us both (freaked out my husband a bit because he was afraid she'd suffocate or fall off but she had a strong neck from early on and could turn her head, and I was so hyper-aware of where she was I don't think she was in much danger of slipping off me even if I snoozed a little).

Oh, and also at the BBC News site, for those interested in Ancient History, read about "Gladiators' graveyard discovered ". There's an episode of Timewatch about it coming up. (That's a show I'd love to be able to watch on-demand, I love being able to keep up with BBC radio online, I'd love to be able to watch some TV too. BBC America just doesn't have a lot of what I miss.)