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Melanie

August 2024

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http://youtu.be/UvcdSFCwrao


Every Mother Counts

Some statistics from their website:

1. Approximately 358,000 women die each year due to complications in pregnancy and childbirth. That's one woman every 90 seconds.

2. For every woman who dies each year in childbirth, 20-30 more suffer from lifelong debilitating disabilities.

3. Pregnancy is the number one cause of death in women, ages 15-19, in the developing world. Nearly 70,000 young women die every year because their bodies are not ready for parenthood.

4. Over 200 million women who would like to choose when they get pregnant don’t have access to family planning.

5. The United States ranks 50th globally in maternal mortality, even though it spends more on health care per capita than any other nation in the world. African American women are four times more likely to die in childbirth than Caucasian women.

From their facebook:

Every Mother Counts is an advocacy and mobilization campaign to increase education and support for maternal mortality reduction globally.

Description
Every Mother Counts seeks to engage new audiences to better understand the challenges and the solutions while encouraging them to take action to improve the lives of girls and women worldwide.

Every Mother Counts was founded by Christy Turlington Burns after the completion of her documentary debut, "No Woman, No Cry" which tells the personal stories of pregnant women and their caregivers in four countries as they try to avoid adding to these troubling statistics.

General Information
Hundreds of thousands of girls and women around the world die every year from complications in pregnancy or childbirth, creating a rippling effect that devastates children, families, and communities. Almost all of these deaths are preventable.


The issue
How you can help

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http://youtu.be/1qE6UZqEZ4g


Bif Naked!

I was going to go on and on about her, but watch that video up there ^ and she will say it for me ♥ You can hear bits of some of her music there, but a great example of her music is this song.

I, Bificus was one of my favorite albums when I was in high school, I love absolutely every song on it. One of the things I always liked about Bif Naked's music was that she has absolutely no problem singing obvious love songs about girls (and boys, pretty equally, hehe). She's also pretty bad ass, and I was really into anything involving strong women kicking ass back then XD And now, of course, but back then, I never thought much about why I enjoyed it so much, or how much what they were doing meant. Her music has given me a lot of strength at times when I needed it most.

I also find her to be a really inspiring person in other ways. She's overcome many issues with her health, including breast cancer, but her outlook on the world and everything in it is beautiful. She has an entire song about her guilt over killing a bee!
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Baseball games!

It's so funny - I am probably the last person anyone would ever think of when they think of sports, any kind of sports, lol. I don't care that much about any of them, including baseball, certainly not enough to watch them on TV.

But I love actually going to baseball games. I'm even still a bit fuzzy on some of the rules and details involved, but I get the basic point enough to really enjoy myself. And there's just something about the atmosphere! It's never aggressive the way it seems like it is with other sports (or at least, it hasn't been in my experience). Everyone seems to just have a really good time. There's also the smell. The combination of beer, hot dogs, peanuts... something about all of them together just puts me in a really good mood :) I never miss hot dogs more than I do at baseball games!

I think that in all, it feels great to be part of something of a really fun tradition that's been around so long.

Yesterday, I went with my mom to see the Tigers play the Texas Rangers. We lost terribly, and I am now coated in aloe because I managed to forget my sunscreen (horror!!!) but it was still a lot of fun. Also helps that I was supposed to work, and my supervisor gave me the day off for it last minute :3
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[livejournal.com profile] macfrosty is doing this, and it looks like a great incentive to post :) I thought about using her idea, which is "100 Things That Have Shaped Me", but today was a really nice day in many ways, and I'm feeling better about life than I have in a very, very long time. I don't know how long it will last, but I've decided to make my theme:

"100 Things That Make Me Feel Better About The World"

Starting with:



Gardening!

I have never gardened before, but today I bought some zucchini seeds and planted them with my mom :) This spring/summer, I'm going to help her around the yard and she's going to teach me how to properly garden. I'm excited about it! I'm going to buy more seeds and hopefully grow a lot of veggies to add to my diet this summer. It felt so great to spend time out in the sun, and I will really enjoy having things to care for <3

(Btw, my credit union charged me not one, but TWO fees for my issues while shopping on Sunday. I emailed them and they refunded me one charge, but wouldn't refund the other. Sucks, but today was so wonderful that I can't even bring myself to care.)
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