Oink Oink

My fiancé and I had our annual pig pickin’ together this past weekend. We had a great turn out and our 100 pound pig we killed was completely devoured. I had some of my family from Winston-Salem come and some people from UNCW came. I did think it was funny that my little sisters again did not eat the pig. We kill our own hogs and the last pig we killed was for my fiancé’s mother’s 50th birthday celebration, and my little sisters refused to eat the pig then and refused to eat it again this go around. Their rationale was that they petted and fed those pigs and they were pets and shouldn’t have been eaten. Well, let me tell you what, those pigs were delicious. We feed them mostly produce and protein pellets. My fiancé’s mother, sister, and brother work at Food Lion and we get a great deal from them by getting the old produce the store throws out. Food Lion usually tosses the old produce, but instead my fiancé’s family sorts through it removing plastic rappers and such and brings it to us to feed the pigs. It’s a sweet deal, well it is actually pretty stinky but you know. I guess his family knows that they are going to participate it eating the pig, so they don’t mind doing it.
We currently have three pigs. We have two females and a male. Our plan is for them to get busy and makes some babies. My fiancé knows a Portuguese guy who would buy a whole litter of suckling pigs. He says that the sucklings are the most tender and delicious. He has a custom built brick oven that just fits these suckling pigs and cooks them for holidays and special occasions. I guess suckling pigs are like a delicacy. Whenever these pigs decide to get busy and make some babies, it will put money in our pockets. Plus I bet the piglets will be so cute. I might keep one for myself to domesticate and make another pet out of it.
I think it’s funny that I went from a beach bum to a farm girl with horses, pigs, chickens, and dogs. I really enjoy it, even though it takes 30 minutes to feed all the animals in the morning and at night, it is worth it when I go riding and work with my horse and when we kill and eat the pigs. We are probably going to kill another pig soon for freezer meat. And when I say kill, I don’t mean that we actually kill it ourselves, we take it to Well’s pork products and they have an extensive method for cleaning and killing and freezing the pig for just $25 bucks. It is a lot of work to kill the pig yourself and can get unsanitary especially during summer months. I also like the fact that we know how our pigs are raised and fed. It adds to the enjoyment we eat it!

Visual Argument

The visual argument I found was a stop smoking cigarette ad that features six images of a cigarette that burning down consecutively throughout the images. The first image of the cigarette is not yet lit and has stick figure people on it. The pictures on the cigarette from right to left are: a person not smoking, a person smoking, a person sitting in a chair coughing, a person laying in a bed and the last being a coffin. The next image is of that same cigarette lit with the non smoker in ashes and the rest of the images still on the cigarette. The cigarette continues to burn, lastly leaving the coffin. The overall achievement of this ad is to get people to stop smoking. I bet if the images of the person with practically good health burning down to coffin were on every cigarette, people would quit smoking sooner. I know when I was a smoker, I would always look down at my cigarette too see how much I had left to smoke and if I kept seeing a coffin at the butt of my cigarette I probably would have quit sooner. I realized that smoking wasn’t healthy and was a terrible habit to have. I think that people are going to quit on their own, but the motivation of these ads is a constant reminder that quitting is necessary to live. You only quit when you are ready or when you die.
The overall theme of this ad is a constant reminder to quit or it will be the death of you. It is an argument that smokers face daily with themselves. Most smokers know that smoking cigarettes is harmful to their bodies but continue to do it anyways. Most smokers would say that they are addictive and that smoking with most likely will be the death of them. This ad tries to demonstrate what will happen to you over the course of smoking cigarettes. I still believe that these ads are just reminders to quit and that smokers have to make the decision on their own on whether or not to quit smoking. It is very easy to sit here and type that quitting is necessary to live, but when you are a smoker it is so hard to quit. I have been there and done it and failed a couple of times too. I think ultimately, I would still be a smoker if I were not pregnant. I first quit last March, smoked two packs in May and June, and then completely stopped in July when I found out I was pregnant. It is a difficult process to quit and some people never do or can until they die. This ad has a great argument to quit or die, and that is just the basic facts, if you don’t quit smoking you will end up in a coffin, bottom line.

Doctor's Appointment

So I went to the doctor today, I am 21 weeks so far. And I am still confused on how 40 weeks equals 9 months. I have gone on the internet and used the calculators to determine how many months I am, and the calculator puts me at 5 and half months. I feel that some people just don’t understand, when I say 21 weeks that is 5 and whatever months that I have been pregnant, caring a baby around in my tummy. I am still confused. But the doctor said everything was going fine all the measurement are normal for the time period, but I have been gaining wait a little faster than the “norm.” This is also confusing to me, how am I supposed to know that gaining 25 pounds in the past five months is bad. Doctors, now-a-days, want pregnant women to only gain between 20 and 25 pounds, which I have already passed. I have talked to numerous people, including my mom and mother-in-law and other friends who have had children and I have heard them say all different numbers, like: 45, 42, 36, and even 75 pounds, now that’s intense. I think everyone is just a little different in what they gain. As long as the baby and I are healthy, I don’t think it makes a different. But because I have gained this much weight, I go in for a gestational diabetes test on December 3rd, to make sure my baby is healthy. I would hate to have gestational diabetes because it generally causes women to have significantly heavier children. I am not for having a 13 pound baby. But I cannot physically tell where these 25 pounds is on my body, other than my tummy. I can still wear all my clothes, except some of my pants wont button and my shirts are like belly shirts. I have got a bunch of prego clothes to ease my comfort, because buttons on pants, even if the pants were big, pinched my stomach while I sit in desks at school. Stretch is better!

Another thing about the OB/GYN I go to is, I can’t find out what the sex of my baby is unless I pay for the additional sonogram test, which is $350. I don’t have that kind of money. And if the baby is a boy, I have to pay an additional fee at the hospital for it to be circumcised after I give birth. So I’m pretty upset with this. I just found out my sister-in-law, who is also pregnant, is having a little boy. I would love to know what I am having so I can further plan and buy things, the things that are gender-based, such as: diapers, clothes, and blankets and save for the circumcision. I sure the baby isn’t going to be upset if it’s wearing pink, but still. When I got my one and only sonogram, the baby did not cooperate with us to show us the sex. I guess I won’t be totally upset if I don’t find out what the sex is. All I want, and think everyone else agrees, is to have a healthy baby.