401 Update: Floors

So I've finally pulled myself together enough to sit down to write about the floor situation in Salida. A few disclaimers before I get started:

1- Under no circumstances is it ever okay to put carpet down in a kitchen.
2- Under no circumstances is it ever okay to put carpet down in a bathroom.
3- Under no circumstances is it ever okay to put carpet down over other existing carpet in any room.
4- Under no circumstances is it ever okay to put wallpaper on a floor.

So those are the morals of this story. I thought it would be best to get those out in the open before I lead you down this terrifying path just so you can know that there is a purpose to this, there is a meaning to life, there is hope in the darkness, there is a reason for living. Do not fear what is to come. Though you may walk through the valley of the shadow of...blah blah blah. Okay enough pep talks. Let's get to it.

A few weeks back we committed to pulling up all the carpet in the house because, well, it's gross. After pulling up the living room, kitchen, front bedroom, and stairs, we decided that we needed to stop pulling before we pulled ourselves right into hell. Let me give you a quick run down of what we found in those rooms.

Living room: original douglas fir wood floor in bad/slightly bearable/reasonable condition. Livable, yes. "Weathered", but not in a cool blogger kind of way, more like just a gross sort of way.

Dining room: a strange type of tile that is made of asphalt and therefore melts like tar under any heat and therefore the current condition of them is somewhere between a swirly mess of 70's tile pattern (detail pic below) and deteriorating black muddy tar. There are some spots where the tile has deteriorated enough to show that in fact there was at one time hope in the world, and more importantly, unadulterated wood floor (you can see a few of those spots in the next image).

Front bedroom: floral wallpaper that had been glued to the original doug fir floors and then covered with wood-grain contact paper. I mean. There's just nothing else to say.

Stairs: under two layers of carpet runner and what can only be descrbied as some sort of carpet padding that was made of either a mixture of horse and dog and squirrel hair, or perhaps a "felt" of every type of human hair that exists on this planet (detail image below), the treads are not in completely unbearable condition.

Kitchen: there was a layer of carpet that was glued to a layer of mdf that was laid on top of a layer of sawdust that was used to level out the uneven wood floors that was then lined with a layer of local newspapers from 1929. Did you get all that? So under that are original wood floors but goodness they are completely shot to hell.

So after all of that, we told ourselves we needed to take a break and rethink our purpose in life. With much sadness and feelings of defeat and humiliation, we decided to leave the carpet in the back bedroom and landing on the stairs because we just couldn't take anymore. Upstairs, we took the carpet out of the bedrooms to unearth original wood floors that were in various states of "painted with brown lead paint" and "streaks of mildly-sanded brown lead paint". Fine, whatever, we'll just paint them. Then we started ripping up the upstairs bathroom. Because we are insane.

After two layers of carpet, there was a layer of some sort of foam moisture-wicking material that is laid on top of, well, we have no idea because we are still trying to chip away at that black foam goodness. After years of absorbing whatever it is that is to be absorbed on a bathroom floor, you can't just pull it up off the ground. It is just flaking apart and disintegrating into small particles of death when you touch it. So the only way to get it up is by attacking it with a paint scraper. At this point, we have just kind of shut the door and tried not to look at it very much.

So where do we go from here? An insane asylum, perhaps, but then to a place of hope! Believe it or not, we can see the light! We decided to have someone refinish the original doug fir floors in the living room, dining room, and bedroom. We have to pay a little extra money to have them remove whatever that terrifying asphalt crap is in the dining room but it will be worth it. So original wood floors! Thank the lord.

In the kitchen, we are trying to figure out a way to even out that floor as best we can and then lay simple black and white checkerboard ceramic tile. Classic and easy. We may have to upgrade to porcelain if we can't figure out a great way to even out those original wood floors but we're holding out hope.

We are going to paint the stairs--probably black treads with a white banister and white risers (or maybe something super fun like ombre risers!)--and call it a day.

Upstairs, we painted the bedroom floors white and they look amazing. Exactly what was needed for those tiny dark spaces! And once we paint all that wood paneling it will be downright dreamy. Okay probably not but we've got to stay positive.

We have no clue what we're going to do in the upstairs bathroom. Probably just keep the door closed. Forever.

So that's what we've got. Next update is gonna be walls. Slightly less terrifying, but still wildly entertaining, so stay tuned.

--mel

If you're just joining us on this little journey, you can catch up here:  

New Year, New Adventures  

401 Update:  Ceilings & Radon

401 Update: Ceilings & Radon

So it's high time for an update on our housing adventures in Salida. I'm going to break up the posts into different topics because if I put it all down here in one post, you might possibly get sucked into your screen like that episode of Doctor Who. So for today, we're talking ceilings. Here's a little review:  we closed on the house at the very beginning of April so we went down the first weekend and got right to work. The first order of business was tearing down the drop ceiling in the living room, dining room, and front bedroom. We decided to leave the drop ceiling for now in the kitchen and second bedroom because of the plumbing so we’ll just have to live with that for a little while. Luckily, the drop ceiling came down really fast and it was super simple. All the tiles just pop out of the metal frame individually and then the frame is just a lot of smaller metal pieces that are kind of just resting on each other and hung from the ceiling by metal wire. Once the ceiling came down it made an immediate impact. It was miraculous. Without the drop ceiling we gain almost two feet of ceiling space which is amazing. We still have to remove all the little hooks from the ceiling and the metal frame that is attached to the walls but that is all child's play compared to the other stuff.

 

So now the plan goes a little haywire. We were jumping at the idea that we would find an HVAC or ductwork specialist to come in and help us find a product that would allow us to move all the ductwork into the floor joists of the original ceiling. Then we would bring in a drywaller to replace the original ceiling which would now be containing all the ductwork and electrical. However, this plan went south after a series of unfortunate events. First, our drywall guy had a heart attack and had to be care-flighted to Denver. Needless to say, that puts him out of commission. Second, I lost the piece of scrap trash paper I was taking notes on that had the HVAC guy’s name and number on it so now I can't remember who I talked to or his number. Finally, we had a conversation with our radon mitigator & electrician who basically told us that plan sounded like a huge pain in the ass and we should rethink our options.

So now we are kind of floating back to our original plan to build a new ceiling right below the ductwork as it stands. Sure we won't get to keep all 11 or 12 feet of original ceiling, but we’ll still have gained about a foot and a half in height so it's really not a loss. Our radon guy told us about a ceiling he had built in another house in town and he took us over to see it and we kind of fell in love. It is a ceiling made of pvc ceiling tiles that have a pattern to make them look like old tin ceiling tiles. Shockingly beautiful and not corny. And the other plus is that the ceiling tiles are really light so we wouldn't have to build a big huge frame like we would for a new drywall ceiling, which would help us to keep as much height as we possibly can. Here are some pictures of that ceiling we're using for reference:

So two ceiling ideas currently that we are tossing over. Oh and I almost forgot to tell you about the radon mitigation! Super exciting stuff. Long story short our house tested super high for radon which is supposedly a huge cause of lung cancer so not something we want floating around our house. However, it's still sort of an issue like climate change where you see the science and it's super simple to see that it's a real problem but you still have your crazy naysayers walking around saying shit like, “I don’t really believe in radon.” Needless to say, we’re in the first camp so we wanted to knock that out immediately. Luckily we found the best guy ever to tackle our radon issue and he did an amazing job. When we bought the house it was testing at 13 for radon (the epa has set a normal range limit at 4) and now just a couple weeks later it is testing in between 1 and 2. Thank you for saving our lives, mr. radon mitigator. He had to completely wrap our crawl space up with plastic and then build a fan to blow out all the radon and install it on the outside of our house. The fan just continually blows for a year and then we test again to make sure the wrapping job he did on the crawl space is still containing the radon.  And just because he's the raddest dude ever, he also shored up the stairs leading down to our crawl space and reinforced some of our foundation while he was down there you know, just because. He is our hero. (Here's a picture of the crawl space and all the beautiful plastic wrapping that is covering the surface and containing all the poisonous radon and preventing us all from dying a slow and painful death; and in the next picture you can see the fan that has been installed in the right corner of the house.)

Okay that's enough for this update. Next I'll tell you about the floors. What a shit show.

xoxo

-mel

Round Up!

Okay my dear internet cosmos, I'm gonna pick up the beat here a little. After the last couple weeks of what can only be described as "trudging", it's time to move on. Here are a few things that have gotten me excited lately:

6 Tools to Help Predict How Long You'll Live. According to the "sit test", I'm not gonna make it to 50. Fantastic.

Mother Nature Network

An Upbeat Emotion That's Surprisingly Good For You. This makes my overly-emotional, completely irrational, over-analytical, snowball-inducing-avalanche-of-love-and-wonder-and-joy heart just go nuts! Things like this make me feel so much more sure about the goodness of life. (Found via Refinery29)

New York Times

These are just too good.

Hello Giggles

"...then something that feels like it's in the diarrhea family, then ones I'll call the hammer and sickle, then the mortar and pestle, and the ones with teeth." Completely hilarious, and totally beautiful.

NY Mag

And if you are able and interested, please consider supporting the 2nd Annual Nationwide Miracle Milk Stroll that will be taking place around the US & Canada on May 2.  Their purpose is "to raise funds, educate, and raise appreciation for the life-saving power of human milk".  Find a location near you and get to strolling!

Best for Babes

Ahh now don't you feel better? Hope you all have a wondrous Easter weekend.

--mel

On Weaning

I've gone back and forth about whether I would write about this. It's been such a whirlwind of emotions--what was my greatest hurdle, and yet my greatest triumph, has come to an end.

Many won't understand the emotions associated with weaning after a long run of nursing a baby. In our case, 19 months. But tonight, I'm writing for the many who do understand. Who have fought and gave and struggled and persevered and raged to be able to nurse their child, for however long they were able, and then one day, had to say goodbye. 

And I'm sure there are many nursing mamas who still won't understand these feelings, because we are all completely different. Our bodies, our minds, our hearts, our pain, our victories--they are all uniquely ours. 

The past several days have been hard. NC decided that she was content not nursing for a few days in a row and on the third night when I went to put her to sleep and she didn't do so much as bat an eye in interest to nurse, as we have every night for her entire life thus far, I knew it was over. A couple days later, she decided that she had changed her mind, at least in the moment, and my heart broke all over again. The thought of scooping her up and staring into her eyes, her heart against mine, and my entire self comforting her again, completely slayed me. I couldn't bear the thought of again in a day or two, maybe a week, maybe a month, that she'd decide she was done again. So I said no. To spare me the pain that I'd already begun to grieve, already mourned the loss of, already began to say goodbye to.

Tonight I received a message from a friend that offered exactly the comfort I needed in this moment. She told me how she wrote a letter to her daughter explaining their nursing journey and that really helped give her some closure (and a good cry).  A love letter of sorts, explaining the breaking heart of a mama who is watching time go by with no way to stop it.

So I figured this could be my version of an ode to my daughter, and the life-changing opportunity she gave me when she let me feed her and hold her and comfort her and grow her with my own body. It is a part of me I will always treasure and look back on with deep gratitude and with a reverence for all that is mysterious and good and beautiful in life. 

Here's to the mamas and the babies who have held each other in endless embrace and who have given each other the strength and quiet solitude that the other did not even know she was missing.

(Photo from The Library of Congress archives)

**written at 9:45 pm on 3/25/15, laying in the dark on the floor by my daughter's crib, holding her hand as she falls asleep.

Noonday Collection {GIVEAWAY CLOSED}

I recently learned about an organization called Noonday Collection and got immediately excited about it.  Their mission is  

"to create economic opportunity for the vulnerable" by partnering with artisans around the world and creating a marketplace for their goods.  Noonday empowers their artisans by offering no interest loans to help get their businesses off the ground, making advance payments on orders, and of course paying fair living wages.  In addition to creating a sustainable marketplace for underprivileged artisans, Noonday donates a portion of sales to help place orphans with forever families.
  

Beadwork from Guatemala 

With the spirit of Thanksgiving still ringing in our ears, I thought now would be the perfect time to encourage you to "purchase with purpose" this gift giving season!  Supporting organizations, like Noonday Collection, that make a greater impact in the global marketplace and in the lives of everyday people in a real tangible way is something I try my best to support whenever I can.  I encourage you to go into this shopping season with a similar goal in mind.

Artillery beads from Ethiopia

To help you get in the gift giving spirit, Noonday is kindly giving away one $50 gift certificate to shop this holiday season!  All you have to do to enter is visit their website, and leave a comment below telling me what you would buy for yourself and one thing you'd gift to someone special (I'm eyeing this bangle, this scarf, and this leather tote.)   I will randomly draw a winner on Friday, December 5.

Embroidery from Peru

If you are in the Denver area and are interested in learning more about Noonday Collection (while eating, drinking, and shopping their winter collection, maybe with your new gift certificate!), I will be hosting a Holiday Trunk Show on Sunday, December 7.  Let me know in your comment below if you are interested in attending and I will send you more details!

If you are not in the area, no worries!  Just visit Noonday's website and fill up your shopping cart, then when you check out choose 'Dawn Post' as your ambassador, and type 'Megan Lombardo' in for the trunk show you are supporting.

Thanks in advance for supporting artisans from developing countries around the world this holiday season!  Now, get to shopping!

-mel

**Congratulations Eirin!**

Happy Thanksgiving

Lately there's been a meme floating around the internet that says something along the lines of "Only in America will people trample each other to buy new stuff the day after celebrating everything they already have."  When I first came across this image, my initial reaction was, "God, this is so on point.  {laugh laugh laugh giggle giggle giggle snort snort}."  But then my next immediate thought was, "God, this is so on point.  {waaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh.  i'm such a piece of shit.}"  

Every year I think about how the holiday season brings out the best, and often times the worst, in people.  And it's hard for me to understand it all because Thanksgiving and Christmas have always been my favorite times of the year.  What does that mean about me?  Am I just like that meme?  Do I sit at the table one day and give thanks and the next go buy a bunch of stuff I absolutely don't need?  Do I give gifts only because I expect to receive them?  If I was really thankful for what I have, wouldn't I opt out of celebrating a holiday that has become almost single handedly about flaunting our wealth and finding reasons that we justify to ourselves why we "need" that new TV or "need" another pair of shoes?

I'm not going to bore you with my mental ramblings about the "reason for the season" here because goodness it will turn into an avalanche pretty quick.  The only real thing I know is that most of the time, I feel so thankful and so happy and so blessed and so filled up with love and appreciation and excitement about life that it literally hurts.  Like I can actually feel my insides start to tense up and I start to squirm because I can feel myself about to burst into tears because I've never felt as much gratitude for life as I do in this very moment.  No, this is not a typical hyperbole moment that so many of you have come to expect from me.  This is literally how I feel a lot of the time.  But do I show it? 

This year, I want to focus more on trying to ensure that others feel the same sort of gratitude that I feel so much of the time.  I want to try and direct my energy toward trying to give others a reason to feel grateful or a reason to feel needed, wanted, loved.  I suppose this year, as I sit around a table filled with more than I could ever want and need, I want to take a moment to prepare for the continuation of the season of giving by vowing to take my thankfulness and pay it forward.  I want to take more time to expand the celebration of thankfulness to include the rest of the year, not just the end of November.

My hope for each of you is that you feel thankful this holiday season.  That you have something in your life that you feel so happy about that you could literally burst at the seams.  Because I think that thankfulness is perhaps the best gift that we can give to others and to ourselves.  That feeling is incomparable, and worth more than any gift that will be under your tree in a few weeks.

This year, instead of focusing on the Christmas season, let's make the season of Thanksgiving last through to the last gift under the tree and to when we are welcoming in a new year.  Through it all, let us give and receive the gift of gratitude.   

xoxo-

mel 

(Gratitude image from here.)

Podcasts: A Beginner's Guide

above: Fred Armisen and Ira Glass in the studio, from This American Life episode, "Doppelgängers"  

above: Radiolab hosts Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich

The other day I read an article on Hello Giggles that described their "beginner's guide to amazing podcasts".   Their list included 5 addicting, interesting, easily accessible podcasts, including This American Life and Radiolab, two of my all time favorites.  Of course, being the complete public radio addict that I am, I immediately felt the need to add a few of my personal favorites to the list as well.

If you are not already a consumer of podcasts, now's the time to jump on the bandwagon.  There are countless different types and genres of podcasts to choose from and therefore truly something for everyone.  I tend to ascribe to the more heady, academic, story-telling types. Some may refer to this as "nerdy"; I call it "awesome".

So if you tend to swim in my pond of over-analyzing, emotional, random fish, I think you will love this round up of podcasts as well.  Like I said above, my list would never be complete without This American Life and Radiolab--as far as I'm concerned, they set the bar for podcasts.  But in the spirit of collaboration, here are a few that were not included on the Hello Giggles list:

image via

1- Serial.

Here's a brief synopsis, from Serial's website:  "On January 13, 1999, a girl named Hae Min Lee, a senior at Woodlawn High School in Baltimore County, Maryland, disappeared.  A month later, her body turned up in a city park.  She'd been strangled.  Her 17-year-old ex-boyfriend, Adnan Syed, was arrested for the crime, and within a year, he was convicted and sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison.  The case against him was largely based on the story of one witness, Adnan's friend Jay, who testified that he helped Adnan bury Hae's body.  But Adnan has always maintained he had nothing to do with Hae's death.  Some people believe he's telling the truth.  Many others don't."

While I think the overview of this crime is enough to get anyone hooked, the style of storytelling only adds to it's appeal.  Every week a new chapter of this story is released.  Host and Executive Director Sarah Koenig is researching the story and discovering and unearthing mounds of information and details about the case almost at the same time that you are listening to the chapter.  She still isn't sure exactly how the season will end, which makes it all the more addictive.

You can get caught up on all the episodes thus far on their website, or subscribe to have the podcast delivered to you directly every week.

image via

2- Meet The Composer.

Let me stop you right there before you scroll past this one because you're not a musician and therefore think it does not apply to you.  This is a podcast for non-musicians and musicians alike.  Host Nadia Sirota introduces the listener to a new composer every week and leads engaging and intriguing discussions with the composers that make you feel like you're getting a backstage pass to the music.  Even if you have no experience with or interest in classical music, I bet you will leave feeling engaged and mesmerized by what you hear.

Start with the first episode on John Luther Adams and his beautiful, haunting, vivid impressionist compositions that evoke the simplest of birdsongs to the unbelievably terrifying landscapes of the Alaskan wilderness.  Trust me:  If you have ever fallen asleep and dreamed, you will be able to appreciate this music.

Catch up on all of the episodes thus far, subscribe directly to the podcast, and check out special "bonus tracks" from the featured composers on their website.

image via

3- Death, Sex, & Money.

There was an episode of This American Life that included a version of a story about Death, Sex, & Money host Anna Sale and her totally unconventional love-and-relationship gurus, former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson and his wife, Ann.  I listened to it, and immediately subscribed.  I was hooked.

This podcast discusses, as Anna describes at the beginning of every episode, "the things we think about a lot, and need to talk about more".  Every episode explores one or all of the title topics with wonderfully relatable and totally relevant people from all walks of life.  Like I said, I started with "This Senator Saved My Life" about Anna and her now-fiancé's quirky relationship with Al & Ann Simpson.  But I think my very favorite episode to date is "How to be a Man with Bill Withers", probably because I already thought that Bill Withers was a total badass, but this episode just totally confirmed that assumption.

You can catch up on all the episodes on their website, or subscribe on iTunes.

Tell me, my dear internet cosmos, what podcasts did I miss?

Happy listening!
--mel

Shades Of: Purple & Gold

With the onset of fall happening right now, I'm really drawn to the combinations of varying shades of purple and gold that are happening all around us.  The aspen trees are bursting into flames and the hues of gold are leaning toward almost flourescent, while other trees are tending to go out a bit quieter, their green leaves turning darker and then over into the side of purple and eventually to brown and away, gone, into winter.  And every once in a while, you see a rose losing some of it's pigment, changing a once rich shade of wine into a lighter blush.  The combinations of these varying shades--the bright metallic golds with the rich deep indigos or light muted comfortable purples--are helping me to find inspiration in the now, instead of dwelling on the cold winter to come.     

(clockwise from top left) 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14 

Do or Don't: Book Clubs

 

When I first moved to CO, some co-workers of the Mr. had a book club they had been hosting for a little while, and invited me to join in.  Seeing as how I knew practically no one here yet, I was excited to hopefully find others who I could see myself hanging out with "on the regular".  I had never been in a book club before so I figured I'd give it a shot.

When I touched base with all the women involved, they let me know that they were just finishing up Fifty Shades of Grey, but would be starting a new book soon.  Yes, I'll admit it, I definitely got a little scared when I heard that title.  What was I getting myself into?  A group of people who were seriously interested in not just reading, but actually discussing in public soft-core porn "novels"?  Was the next book going to be something from the Twilight series? 

I feel okay saying all of this now because a- in actuality (spoiler alert!) they are all now my good friends, and b- they had picked that book as sort of a joke to see what all the hype was about. Which, by the way, is exactly the sort of thing I would have done myself. In retrospect, I really wish I had been there for that particular book club meeting. I'm sure it was hilarious.

Anyway, the next title they chose was Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson. At the time, I had never heard of the book or the author, more infamously known as "The Bloggess". After reading the first few pages of the book and almost peeing my pants more than just a couple times from uncontrollable laughter, I knew I had found a group of women that I could absolutely relate to. 

I felt so confident, in fact, that I agreed to host the next book club gathering.  There were only a couple people in the group that I had actually hung out with socially at that point, but the book title that they chose spoke so loudly for me, I felt absolutely sure that we would all get along just fine.  Sure enough, just as I had hoped and expected, these women became my closest friends here in CO, and I have that initial book club to thank for it.

So, tell me my dear internet cosmos:  Have you ever been involved in a book club?  If not, would you consider it?

(images from here and here) 

Big + Little: Back to School

Well, folks, summer is officially over.  Finito.  Donzo.  Gone with the wind.

Not only does Labor Day usher out the sweaty sunny days of summer, but it also has always represented the official beginning of school for me.  Even if we hadn't started classes again quite yet. Or if we had already started classes, it always seemed a little ridiculous because we'd go to school for a few days and then get a day off for Labor Day.

"Wait, we've only been at it for like 4 days and already we're getting another vacation?!?"

You know that feeling I'm talking about, right?

Anyway, as crazy as it seems, a little part of me still wishes that I was heading back to new classes this time of year again.  Buying new supplies for all the dozens of papers I would spend hours researching and all the sleepless nights spent banging away in practice rooms and all the weekends I would spend partying excessively instead of studying like I should have been.  Or as a line taken from an old favorite movie most perfectly describes it:  "Don't you love New York in the fall? It makes me wanna buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address…"  Man, what I wouldn't give for some pencil dust right about now.

Even though neither my daughter nor myself are heading off to school this year, there's no reason we can't enjoy the perks of getting some new supplies to see us through whatever learning adventures this new year will bring.

BIG:  Chris Van Veghel minimal rucksack / Public-Supply notebooks / 

Zuzii womens suede oxford / Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger   

LITTLE:  Duluth Pack child's envelope pack / Etch A Sketch / 

Zuzii kids suede oxford / An Awesome Book of Love! by Dallas Clayton

Late-Night Reading

Lately, I've been spending a lot of time laying on the floor in NC's nursery while she is sleeping because every time I walk out of the door she wakes up crying.  While this is completely unsustainable and pretty damn annoying most of the time, I have been utilizing the time catching up on some worthwhile reading.

Readability is an app that you can install on your devices (desktop included) to help corral all of those important articles and think pieces that you know you want to read, but just haven't found the time to do so yet.  When I'm nursing NC or trying to get her to go to sleep or stay asleep, my cell phone pretty much stays glued to my hand.  Inevitably I end up finding a million things that I find immensely interesting and really want to read, so Readability is an awesome way to keep tabs on them all.

Here are a few of my recent favorites:

"Benjamin Britten's 'Moonrise Kingdom'", The New Yorker.  I am a classically trained pianist by trade and a passionate advocate for making classical music more accessible to the masses.  I love that Anderson's use of Britten's "Noye's Fludde" is so prominent in the film, and not merely a backing track.

"Pope Francis, The People's Pope", TIME.  I really enjoyed reading, what is to most of us non-catholics, this introduction to their new pope.  I find the global appeal and commercial interest of this pope, regardless or religious preference, really fascinating.

"The Welfare Queen", Slate.  I barreled through this exposé on notorious welfare fraud Linda Taylor, totally enthralled with her unbelievable drive to use the system to her advantage.

"Breastfeeding: Good for babies, the environment, and justice, too", Grist.  Hot on the heels of the completely unwarranted hoopla that surrounded Karlesha Thurman's act of normal parenting at her college graduation, a great commentary on how our society does very little to help our mothers be successful in breastfeeding.  I like that it also gives us a few different reasons to support the 'breast is best' ideal that we often overlook, including the impact on the environment and social justice movements.

 
And if you're interested, I tend to find the best pieces of journalism on Longform, a website that continually updates it's list of worthwhile, slightly longer than your average FB-linked article, pieces of writing from around the web.

And if you'd like to see more of what I'm reading, you can follow me on Readability and see more of my recommendations.

Happy reading!
--mel