Smooth Like Buttah, Dahhhhling

I love dairy. Love it. LOVE IT. But I don't keep dairy products in my house and I don't indulge very often. My eldest son has a life-threatening dairy allergy so we are a mostly dairy-free family, by virtue. So on the rare-ish occasions that I do indulge in dairy products, it's only the best. Wheels of brie that have been lovingly wrapped in bakery-fresh puff pastry and baked to a golden brown, smothered in a decadent layer of plum preserves. Yes, tears will run down your cheeks - you will actually cry, it's That Good. Pints of the most expensive ice cream I can find, eaten while hiding in the laundry room - even when the kids aren't home. I can't help it, I feel guilty. And cheesecake. Heavenly, soul-soothingly delicious cheesecake. I may need to take a moment to collect myself before going any further.

Before I get any more carried away, I want to share with you my latest foray into Dairy Decadence. I happen to have two pints of organic heavy whipping cream sitting idle in my fridge, a creamy carrot chowder was not to be had, apparently. Just as well, though, because I have a vivid memory that has haunted me with her delights since Mr. Staut's seventh grade agriculture class; we made butter. That's right, we churned up some butter whilst engaged in the learning process at our tables.

We held out our small glass jars for him to sprinkle a pinch of salt in the bottom and cover it with a generous layer of farm-fresh heavy cream. Then we screwed on our lids and shook the bejeezus out of that cream, shocking ourselves with the eventual turn to creamy, silky, salty-sweet butter. Seriously, we fricking made butter in a jar. In the middle of Ag Studies. Totally unceremonious and simple, the results were mind boggling. Clearly, because I haven't forgotten that day and it's been nearly 17 years.

So with my abundance of heavy cream and an evening full of homework and not much else, I shook up a batch of the most amazing, mouth-watering, makes-you-want-to-eat-toast-for-every-meal butter. From the comfort of my living room, specifically, my exceedingly comfortable "new" couch. I can't remember the last time I was so excited to have plain, buttered toast for breakfast. Notably absent was a steaming hot cup of coffee; a trip to the grocery store tomorrow is in high demand.

Aristotelian Analysis: YouTube Style

While clicking more or less aimlessly through YouTube (rather than PornTube, as per Jocelyn's request) I stumbled upon this gem from senior college nursing student Jessica Langton; the clip is her video submission for the ABC News Reinventing Maternal Health Challenge. ABC has launched an initiative through their Be The Change: Save a Life website that supports "solutions for a global health community".

Jessica spent time in Haiti, post-earthquake, volunteering her nursing skills and assisting with the delivery of babies. In her video, she covers the statistics of maternal mortality, specifically the dangers faced in third-world countries. She goes on to explain that the primary risk to mothers during and after childbirth is hemorrhage and shares her idea for an inexpensive, easy method that may be used in the event of hemorrhage in order to hopefully lessen the instance of maternal mortality.

Miss Langton has appealed to an audience of interested individuals by offering a potential solution to an event that is devastating to communities the world over: maternal death and the ripples of consequences stemming from it. Hearing the statistics and seeing the simplicity of her idea is something that one can't help but be inspired by; when looking to make changes in our global health community, ideas such as Miss Langton's are what is needed to affect change.

Her choice in musical background, "How To Save a Life" by The Fray, is perfectly suited to the theme of the ABC News challenge and in my case, anyway, made my heart fill with hope and a sense of urgency and possibility for positive change.

Sharing photos of herself in Haiti and some of the women and children she encountered lends great credibility to her authority, along with her identifying herself as a senior college nursing student while wearing scrubs with her school's logo and in a practical clinical setting. Miss Langton offers diagrams to demonstrate the specifics of her idea; she also makes mention of the fact that her concept is something that already exists in hospital settings, stateside, but that it is more complex and not easily transferred to third-world areas.

With her video, idea and accompanying data, she makes a valid case for an avenue to affect much-needed change; her audience is already engaged in the ever-expanding move for social change and her words will be met with nodding heads, gears that start to spin and hopefully, prayerfully, forward-moving momentum.