On my mind

There's just so much to learn, and a number of topics have been on my mind lately.

I've been doing more learning than teaching, as evidenced by the size of my browser's history folder and the lack of substantial posts here in my blog.

So instead of trying (at 1:00am!) to come up with a blog post worthy of your time, I thought I'd share a little of what's been on my mind.

• Dental care. My trip to the dentist last month was a good dose of reality: I knew next to nothing about good dental care. I've spent hours reading online, and also found The Oral Health Bible [1] at our local library.

I'm really only scratching the surface so far, but I'm excited about incorporating some things that support good dental health! Joshua had been telling me for years about a product called a Waterpik [2] but it wasn't until I started doing my own research that I realized how useful that little tool could be. We ordered one from Amazon.com [3] and it arrived a few weeks ago. (There was actually a sale on that one when we ordered, so we paid $41. There are other brands of oral irrigators out there, but we felt from our research that the Waterpik was a good quality for the price.)

The Waterpik has been such a blessing! It doesn't replace brushing or flossing, but rather cleans below the gumline, where brushing and flossing fall short. Right now, since I still have a cavity that catches food (still no decision regarding the dental work recommended by our dentist [3]) the Waterpik is wonderful for completely cleaning that difficult area.

•Grain mills. Anyone out there use a hand mill for all or the majority of their flour? If so, I'd love to hear your recommendations! I'm having a difficult time deciding between an electric micronizer/impact mill (like the Nutrimill [4]) and a hand-operated mill.

•CPS news stories from Texas. I'm really bothered by the "guilty until proven innocent" approach here.

Since when did looking young [5] give CPS the right to take someone's children? I look young. We've had first-hand experience with someone anonymously "being concerned" that I was too young to be married and having children. Whoever it was, called the local police department and reported that my husband was married to a 14-year-old. (I was 24 at the time.)

We might not agree with someone's religion, but taking children when no abuse has been proven -- that's not right [6] (video from MSNBC).

The Common Room [7] is a good blog for finding the latest news links related to the FLDS cases. Feel free to take your comments over there, since I know it's rather off-topic here. :)