For those who have been following our saga with the pond, my mom spoke with the neighbor in question today. He’s going to build a fence! (I believe his exact words were, “I’ve been told I need to build a fence.”) It’ll cost him $6,000.
Of course, it would have been cheaper, and more aesthetically pleasing, to leave the pond in its natural state. But I’m not going to say anything *grin*
I’ve got Africa on the mind…every day, really. So I’m praying about it. I really don’t know when, and I don’t know where, but by God’s grace I will go back.
Christianity’s African Heritage
Pretty cool, indeed. One of my biggest regrets is sitting in a coffee shop right across the street from the largest church in Africa and never once considering a venture inside. Of course, I was still rather ignorant to Orthodoxy at that point, and at that point I was running with a hyper-Evangelical crowd, but still…
I’ve been thinking about Africa a lot, obviously, and remembering that I had planned to spend at least three months there after graduating with my Bachelor’s degree. That was before I decided to change majors and push my graduation date back at least a semester. But why should that interfere with my plans?
There was a reason my experience in Ethiopia was so life changing. And there is a reason why it is suddenly being pressed on my heart again. I went to Romania twice and had amazing experiences each time, but nothing life this. So per 
medland‘s suggestion, I’ve begun planning. Sort of. I’m really only in the “pray about it” stage at this point. Mostly because I have more than a few reasons why this wouldn’t work (what about the money? can I leave the animals for that long? what about my job? what about the food and my allergies?)
I don’t know when, I don’t know where, but by God’s grace I will return to Africa.
*yes, Lord (Amharic)
(one of the reason’s I’m glad my dad doesn’t read my LJ)
from BostonHerald.com: I highlighted the real juicy bits…
The battle over public breast-feeding has moved to a new front line: Victoria’s Secret stores, where lacy bras are in, but nursing mothers are out, angry moms charge.
A Quincy mother says she was humiliated when an employee of the lingerie franchise’s Faneuil Hall store flatly refused to allow her to breast-feed her daughter, directing her to a public restroom outside.
“I was upset. I was embarrassed. My heart was breaking for my daughter,” said Jessie Chandler, who ended up going home to feed her 9-month-old daughter, Charlotte. “I felt powerless to do anything.”
Anthony Hebron, a spokesman for Victoria’s Secret, apologized yesterday, saying the Boston employee was a new hire. Hebron said it’s store policy to allow women to breast-feed in the store.
But Chandler, 24, and other moms say that policy isn’t trickling down to the employees who work with the public – and they cite instances of similar problems at the chain’s stores in two other states. They are planning a “nurse in” protest July 1.
“I’m sure that they have models in their stores and catalogs that have a lot more breast showing than any woman who’s breast-feeding,” said Anne Merewood, director of the breast-feeding center at Boston Medical Center.
“If they’re going to make their money off of selling things for women’s breasts, they ought to recognize all aspects of the breast,” Merewood said.
When Chandler’s hungry daughter began crying as her mom shopped, the mother asked a saleswoman if she could use a dressing room to breast-feed her baby. The woman said no and directed her to a public bathroom outside the shop. The woman said lots of women were changing in the rooms and it’s “unsanitary.”
Chandler said she asked the saleswoman if she was telling her that her breast milk was unsanitary. The saleswoman said it was store policy. A shocked Chandler left the store and went home.
Massachusetts is one of the few states that doesn’t have laws to protect breast-feeding women. Women who breast-feed in public in Massachusetts can be charged with indecent exposure or lewd and lascivious conduct. A bill that would prevent people from booting breast-feeding mothers from public places and police from charging them has been stalled at the State House.
Last year, a woman was told she couldn’t breast-feed her baby in a Victoria’s Secret in South Carolina.
On Wednesday, sales associates at a Wisconsin Victoria’s Secret told a mother her exposed breast might offend some customers.
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That last one really gets me: it’s not like this is Toys R’ Us, folks. It’s Victoria’s Secret! Their ads, posters and mannequins show more boob than most breastfeeding women. Like I said, I kinda wish I were breastfeeding because I would definitely be parking my unsanitary and indecent keister outside my local Victoria’s Secret this Saturday.
