I found the coolest blog, via Average Girl that has a whole team of cool people who are in the fight against fat together: One Weigh Or Another
I've found all kinds of great ideas, especially the Real Age Test Be sure to check it out! By the way, my real is 24.3 :)
I'm hosting this month's Recipe Round Up. I don't know about you, but sometimes I have trouble coming up with creative, healthy (or not so healthy!) side dishes for my meals. How many different ways can I make green beans? Is there anything else I can do with brown rice? I need a new pasta sauce. Broccoli and cauliflower-must it always have cheese sauce?
I've decided to stretch you all a bit and make side dishes the March Recipe Round-Up.
Give us some super-healthy stuff you'd serve your family on a busy weeknight, but don't forget those decadent holiday-only sides. I'm excited to see what we can come up, ladies!
Let's shoot for Tuesday, March 18th as the day of the Round Up. Post the recipe on your blog, then send me the link and on that day I'll post everyone's links. It will be just in time for Easter dinner menu planning.
If you want more details, be sure to check out Rebecca Writes.
Seems the blogs are lit up again with all this discussion. Some of it is great. And if you haven't noticed, I do lean somewhat to the right on many of these issues.
I'm just not sure that the Bible teaches as a direct command that ALL women are to marry, have as many children as possible, and homeschool them, while raising goats and grinding their own grain for homemade bread. I think it's fantastic that there are women who choose this kind of lifestyle. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it, and in some ways, I live kinda like that (no goats...) But to turn a lifestyle choice into a command is a huge jump to me, and when it's implied that you're living in sin if you don't do these things, well, I just have to remember all the man-made laws the Pharisees enforced. There are basic Biblical principles that are non-negotiable: Raise your children in the fear of the Lord, teach them the Bible, train them in the way they should go. I truly think that each family has to earnestly pray about HOW this looks in their family. God will do the convicting if something needs to change.
As the pastor's family, we can only encourage families to seek God's glory in their homes. Sure, I'd love to have another family in our church who homeschools and does family worship at home. But I shouldn't expect that everyone else has the same convictions about those things as I do. And I can't condemn the mom who works part time while her kids are in school all day but is in their classrooms weekly, volunteering at extra curricular activities and still faithful to bring her entire family to church. Is this woman in grave sin against God? There are some authors out there who would say "YES!" But I don't think I buy that...all the scriptures that deal with the home and women's roles are so broad that you cannot fit every single woman and family into this cookie cutter of homeschooling mom of 10.
We have a family who is considering homeschooling next year. I talk freely about it with her, but I always qualify what I'm saying with, "I'm praying that you and your husband agree on whatever outcome you decide. That's the most important thing." I'm not trying to push my views about homeschooling on her, but I do refer books to her, share honestly about the struggles, and pray for her. I'm not interested in guilting her into it. She has to want it for her own family, not because she feels pressured.
Do you know what time it is? It's 2:58 a.m. on my computer. An hour ago I had actually fallen asleep. only to be rudely awakened by my dog barking at a bunch of deer in my front yard. It seems my heart hasn't stopped racing since.
Tomorrow is a full day--I sure hope I can fit a nap in there somewhere...
Good grief. Good night already!
Crummy Church Signs: Yeah! What?!?
Oh my. The crumminess is UNREAL! I particularly like the Presbyterian church sign...enjoy!
Though originally written for children and published in 1807, this book retells twenty of Shakespeare's plays. I will admit a certain ignorance of most of them, though I had a fantastic English teacher in ninth grade who made Julius Caesar come alive for me ("Beware the Ides of March!!"). I have thoroughly enjoyed this book and have found myself drawn to it instead of my chores. I've been taking it with me to work out, too, which says a lot. Each play, written in prose form, is relatively short so it's a good one to pick up off and on. I just finished A Winter's Tale, which is a play I had never even heard of before. I found myself captivated and surprised by the ending!
If you're looking for something that's a classic, but not so cumbersome to read (when you have young children that's important!), I'd recommend this. You could probably find it at any library, but I got mine from www.paperbackswap.com (By the way, have you checked that out yet, book lovers? I've mailed over 20 books!).
Sometimes I really miss living in the South...
We don't have network TV of any kind (you can't have it unless you pay for cable or satellite and I'd rather pay for fast internet and a few dinners out!) but I can get my mom to tape stuff for me sometimes that I might want to watch. So I was watching The Biggest Loser weight loss reality TV show the other night and there was this commercial for a new reality show called The Baby Borrowers. If you don't know what this is, let me give you the gist of it:
Teenage couples agree to take care of someone else's baby 24/7 for three days straight. One of them must get a job, the other is the primary caregiver. Then, they get a toddler, and so on. Apparently, this is suppose to really prepare young people for what life is really like if they decide to stay together and start a family. REALLY.
I suppose this is just a glorified version of the high school experiment where you have to take a baby doll or a sack of flour home and pretend you're a mother. It's intended to be a form of birth control, but here's what the show is really communicating:
Having a family is a terrible experience, full of wiping butts and noses, fighting with your partner, cleaning, cooking, staying up all night, no time for yourself--in a word: miserable.
This TV show (and don't misunderstand me, I think TV can be lots of fun and perfectly fine) basically says that young people shouldn't have children. The logical follow through would be that if you have an "oops" you'd better get an abortion because you're obviously not ready (at 18 19, 20 years old) to care for a baby and be a responsible parent.
Here are my problems with this show and how UNrealistic it is:
As far as I know, these couples aren't even married. They've made no commitment to stick it out no matter what happens. Having a new baby is hard on anyone, but the season is short. The boyfriend/girlfriend relationship is often based on, what Voddie Baucham calls, the Greco-Roman myth of love: it's a feeling, something you can fall in and out of at a whim, can't help who you fall in love with, based on lust basically. Now tell me how THAT'S going to survive being a parent. When I was first married, I had a baby about 5 months afterward. 1 month after I was married, I was put on total, head on a pillow bed rest. How did we make it? But for the grace of God, and the fact that we had committed to each other for LIFE, making promises we had to keep even if we ate pizza all summer and watched baseball on the sofa every night. THEN came the new baby.
These couples are being exploited for TV ratings. Of course, I can say that about every other stupid reality show out there.
The show reveals the anti-children culture we live in. And this attitude has even crept into the church, as I've had friends who, when they tell other Christians they are pregnant again, get looks of distain.
There is nothing in the world like caring for your own baby. If the baby is biologically yours, there are 9 months of nurturing it and dreaming about what he or she will be like. There's the pain of labor, and the wonderful pay off at the end of a baby made in the image of God who is a physical representation of the love between a husband and a wife. These couples can't even fathom what this means or how it feels. It's what enables you to make it through the difficult aspects of parenting.
These kids don't have the tools or structure set in place for successful, fulfilling parenting. It's just going to be a side show where young people will be indoctrinated into the culture that hates marriage, children and families.
And that's scary.
http://www.nbc.com/The_Baby_Borrowers/#
http://holyexperience.blogspot.com/2008/02/radiate.html
I thought these few thoughts so profound. Ann V., a homeschooling farmer's wife in Canada, has such an eloquent way of expressing what God is teaching her through her everyday "mundane" experiences. This one is worth sharing.
Thanks for ministering in cyberspace, Ann.
As I get older, it has been made very clear to me that only children are at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to parenting siblings. I've been saying this for a while to people I know. And here are some statements that seem to pass my lips daily:
"Why are you touching each other?"
"Why are you smiling at each other?"
"Why are you making faces at each other?"
"Who's making farting noises? Both of you stop right now!"
"No means NO! Now stop doing that to your brother."
"Why do you BOTH need the same toy. Just take turns."
"Ask each other nicely for that instead of ripping it out of his hands."
I realize that all the parenting books, of which I have read most, tell you it's pointless to ask the "why" question. Your sinful little sweet heart doesn't know the reason behind his actions. You just need to deal with the consequences and help him to make better choices.
I need some help in negotiating between brothers!
