the weekend update

gatsby is really getting into baby planning mode. he's all for it. here he has found a cozy resting place inside a shopping bag full of new maternity clothes.

it seems like most of my posts about gatsby involve him finding a cozy resting place. for that matter, it seems like i probably post about gatsby too much. but for now, he's my bay-bee!

i'm STILL SICK. i can not get over this head cold, and it's giving me terrible migraines. wednesday i thought i was getting better, but in the last 48 hours it's moved from my head to my chest, which now aches with every deep cough. i'm sure the nurse at my o.b.'s office is fed up with me. "are you SURE there is nothing else i can take for this headache??" *hint hint PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND MERCIFUL IN THE WORLD TELL ME I CAN TAKE AN IMITREX* but no. she finally called me in a z-pack when the gunk in my chest turned green. TMI.  whatev.

i mean, the headcold-with-no-nyquil is one thing, but i'm totally emotionally and physically drained from having what essentially amounts to a five day migraine. my doctor allowed me to take some lortab for the migraine, which makes me loopy and helps me sleep at night (albeit fitfully), but i can only take one every six hours and it wears off in about two, and i'm trying to minimize taking them during the day anyway because even though they're safe, i just. don't. like. taking. medicine. while. i'm. pregnant.

so all of this means i've been getting zero quality sleep. i missed work on monday, and i didn't go back to work after lunch today, which contributes to the stress exponentially. it's so frustrating that i can take painkillers to (attempt to) mask the pain, but i am not allowed to take the one medication (imitrex) that is a non-painkiller and will actually treat the migraine and make it go away. ARGH! i can't even express my frustration after an entire week of bare-minimum functionality and constant pain.

in a desperate attempt for more homeopathic solutions, i have scheduled a prenatal massage for tomorrow morning, and i then am going to try to track down menthol crystals at the Peace of Mind bookstore (for my sinuses) and some rosemary tea at Wild Oats (per my Grandma's suggestion, for the migraines).

anyway, onto happier things.

today while i cooked dinner (glazed pork chops with hot chunky homemade apple sauce, green beans, and twice-baked potatoes - being sick makes me even more obsessive about preservative/chemical/hormone-free home-cooked meals), J took Princess to the recycling center to drop off our recycling for the month. he really wants to teach her about what we're doing and why.

i never thought i'd find another person who shares my passions about environmentally sustainable living, but i have. J's like the recycling police in the house, and i don't mind it a bit. he takes out the trash and he'll see pieces of junk mail that i mindlessly threw in there, or a plastic milk jug, and waves it around. "why did you throw this away! this is recyclable!" it's good to have a reminder, because it's so easy to just junk everything into the kitchen trash like you've been accustomed to doing your whole life. :) it takes practice.

as a visual aid, here is what one month's worth of recyclable materials looks like for our two-and-a-half person household:

these are the recycling bins that we keep in the garage. what you see is sorted into categories (cardboard/office paper, magazines/glossy paper, bags of shredded mail, aluminum/glass, and plastics), ready to be dumped into the recycling bins down the road. also, it occurs to me that there's a color shift in that photo that makes our walls looks like they're painted baby blue. they're not. they're a really unobtrusive pale grey color. i swear.

can you imagine if we had just dumped all of this into the trash this month? it's unbelievable how much perfectly good recyclable material gets sent worthlessly to the landfill. what's even more unbelievable is that recycling is free and people still don't do it.

before we started recycling and composting, our household trash output was one full (sometimes overflowing) industrial-sized city-issued trash bin per week. this amounted to about five-six large trash bags. a week. now we are taking out the trash bin once per MONTH. that's right. about one trash bag a week. four trash bags a month. for the entire house.

for those of you readers who don't recycle, here is your official guilt trip. do it. you have no excuse. as the biggest consumer society in the world, we have a global obligation to mitigate the damage we're doing. just buy a couple of $2 bins at wal-mart and start. it is so easy.