I remain in waiting mode, for word about the building. I can't tell if God is trying to build my faith, or torment me. I did not hear back about my tenant application last week as told, so I expect to hear back this week- hopefully in the next day or so. The Uzazi Village website is complete (for now) and my next order of business is to open a bank account. I need to depos. it the money from the fundraiser. The board elected to go with a neighborhood bank, and they are in very short supply in the urban core. (Now if we wanted to go with a title loan place or one of the 400% interest rate loan places... we'd have our pick.) There are two banks to choose from so I'll see which has the best offers for business accounts.
I really need to devote some time to my books. My publisher is waiting on overdue edits for my existing book, and I have a New York literary agent wanting to see a proposal on my new book. Writing is a very time consuming process and I need to just sit down and do it. I have an outline for my book proposal, but no title, but I may just send it without a title.
My work on the conference right now involves writing a preliminary budget and tracking down funding sources. As soon as the hotel contract is signed, we can start marketing it. This is going to be a fabulous conference. The focus will be on decreasing health disparities with Mother-Friendly and Baby-Friendly care.
On the education front, I have two upcoming conferences. In two weeks, the Missouri Midwives Association is having its long awaited annual midwives retreat. I will be teaching CPR and NPR and I have an agenda item on the business meeting: cultivating birth workers of color. As usual I'll be the only woman of color there, and I need to start raising some awareness. The other conference is the ILCA in Orlando (lactation consultants). In just two more weeks, I'll be taking the LC exam. This has been a HUGE undertaking that has taken me two years to prepare for. My fee for the exam was $600. If I pass (keeping my fingers crossed) I have already laid the groundwork for my doctoral thesis I call the "Pediatrician/Lactation Consultant Partnerhip" I will work one morning a week in a local pediatrician's office (with an urban mostly African-American practice) assisting with breastfeeding issues in order to increase duration rates. The pediatrician will start to track his number now- he has no idea what percentage of his clients breastfeed now, and when they encounter difficulties, he can only offer positive encouragement, but no skills to help. (Part of the problem is that as a pediatrician, he can only assist on the baby side not the mother side - he can't bill for mother-based interventions, only baby interventions. I'd also like to offer a breastfeeding support group in his office as well as promote the Chocolate Milk Cafe- which should be up and going in August. Which reminds me, I have one more conference- Midwives Alliance of North American in Asilomar CA where I'll do a session on the Chocolate Milk Cafe. That is coming up in September.
In the meantime I do what needs to be done for the current day- and today that is lots and lots of homework and study for a test tomorrow. Bye for now.
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