Could it be that I would be part reptile due to the fact that whenever the sky is gray and the thermometer drops below 55 I become lethergic and listless and unmotivated? Or perhaps a better explanation for such a problem is that I am simply unmotivated?
Yep, that's probably it.
Or maybe I just need to spend a little quality VHS tape time with Cindy Crawford or Elle McPherson and if I put on leotards and Reebok princess athletic shoes I would naturally feel warmer on days like this?
When the upstairs is finished and the basement has some living space in it again, maybe I'll check the thrift store for that $3 exercise step I saw on Saturday and make a little fitness room for myself.
Stepping to Cindy Crawford in the dark, dampness of the basement is sure to boost my motivation.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Friday, May 15, 2009
unqualified
It's quite obvious, among other lessons to be learned from such a situation, that family services and the legal system has way too many on staff and way too much money on their hands. In this story from New Ulm, 13-year old Daniel Hauser was diagnosed with cancer. When the family tried traditional chemotherapy to treat it and CHOSE to discontinue that and go with another treatment, the family doctor turned the Hauser family into Family Services.
A Brown County judge spent 58 pages on a ruling today that details why the family must be forced to go back to the chemotherapy to treat their son. The threat to remove the boy from his Catholic homeschooling family of 7 other siblings remains unless his family complies.
My argument is not about the best treatment for cancer, although I might wax eloquent in at least 58 pages on this topic of medicine and the failings of chemotherapy on just the people I am related to and are friends of mine.
Are there no children actually being neglected by parents under the influence of anything in excess or illegal in the New Ulm area?
How about any left alone for many hours without adult supervision on Friday and Saturday nights?
Perhaps even one of two might be going home from school Friday afternoon without hope of a meal until they go back to school Monday morning because their parents are engaged otherwise?
Surely there must be something else for these officials to devote their time to. Perhaps the money spent fighting a family trying to raise their kids in the best way they know how could be better spent making Saturday lunches for kids whose parents actually are absent. Although I am surely at the top of the list of folks not in favor of government handouts, surely there is some program some bright family services employee could conjur up to keep small kids off the streets when they should be in bed and while there parents are living the "good life" downtown.
Or... perhaps those problems are too numerous and too complicated and it's much easier to pick on a family where they could actually do some harm...I mean think they are doing something beneficial.
Silly as it might seem now, what if some well-meaning child services employee sees me feeding my kids grainy bread sandwiches and apples at the park some afternoon and feels they are being neglected and deprived because they should eat be eating white bread and twinkies? Will I be the next target? What if I don't run my kid to clog up the clinic everytime they have a sniffle or fever and chose instead let them rest in the comfort of home and give out a few extra vitamins? Will that be considered "medical neglect" as Colleen and Anthony Hauser are accused of?
Thankfully, God is still on His throne and He is still in charge. Oh but I shutter and tremble to think of the implications of the government superceding God-fearing honest parents' judgment. Their track record with nearly every other category is dismal at best. How are they qualified to make demands on how I raise my children?
A Brown County judge spent 58 pages on a ruling today that details why the family must be forced to go back to the chemotherapy to treat their son. The threat to remove the boy from his Catholic homeschooling family of 7 other siblings remains unless his family complies.
My argument is not about the best treatment for cancer, although I might wax eloquent in at least 58 pages on this topic of medicine and the failings of chemotherapy on just the people I am related to and are friends of mine.
Are there no children actually being neglected by parents under the influence of anything in excess or illegal in the New Ulm area?
How about any left alone for many hours without adult supervision on Friday and Saturday nights?
Perhaps even one of two might be going home from school Friday afternoon without hope of a meal until they go back to school Monday morning because their parents are engaged otherwise?
Surely there must be something else for these officials to devote their time to. Perhaps the money spent fighting a family trying to raise their kids in the best way they know how could be better spent making Saturday lunches for kids whose parents actually are absent. Although I am surely at the top of the list of folks not in favor of government handouts, surely there is some program some bright family services employee could conjur up to keep small kids off the streets when they should be in bed and while there parents are living the "good life" downtown.
Or... perhaps those problems are too numerous and too complicated and it's much easier to pick on a family where they could actually do some harm...I mean think they are doing something beneficial.
Silly as it might seem now, what if some well-meaning child services employee sees me feeding my kids grainy bread sandwiches and apples at the park some afternoon and feels they are being neglected and deprived because they should eat be eating white bread and twinkies? Will I be the next target? What if I don't run my kid to clog up the clinic everytime they have a sniffle or fever and chose instead let them rest in the comfort of home and give out a few extra vitamins? Will that be considered "medical neglect" as Colleen and Anthony Hauser are accused of?
Thankfully, God is still on His throne and He is still in charge. Oh but I shutter and tremble to think of the implications of the government superceding God-fearing honest parents' judgment. Their track record with nearly every other category is dismal at best. How are they qualified to make demands on how I raise my children?
Saturday, May 9, 2009
She's the one...
...who did the damage...
...caught in the act in broad daylight, while I was watching.If I had a quarter for everytime the kids checked the rhubarb this week and asked if they could pick it yet, I'd had enough to buy many strawberries for strawberry-rhubarb jam. Maybe we'll have to wait a little longer.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Friday, May 1, 2009
don't be fooled
She can be good...but she can also be very bad.
In his excellent, convicting volume Devotions for Sacred Parenting, Gary L. Thomas quotes Charles Spurgeon on children, parenting and sin:
[The doctrine of the cross] will necessitate your teaching the child his need of a Savior. You must not hold back from this necessary task. Do not flatter the child with delusive rubbish about his nature being good and needing to be developed. Tell him he must be born again. Don't bolster him up with the notion of his own innocence, but show him his sin. Mention the childish sins to which he is prone, and pray the Holy Spirit to work conviction in his heart and conscience. Deal with the young in much the same way as you would with the old. Be thorough and honest with them. Flimsy religion is good for neither young nor old. These boys and girls need pardon through the precious blood as surely as any of us.
Nothing needs to be added to that. And I would say anyone who believes children are born good needs to try a two simple non-threatening experiments: put two 2-year or 3-year or 5-year olds together with one toy. Or three children and two pieces of candy.
Monday, April 27, 2009
How Molly the dog spends most of her day when the kids are outside.
I'm pretty sure she STILL prefers this over her former life of living in town where she looked at life from her kennel.
The scraps and bones she gleans from the house.
The wild animals she gets to ward off barking around and around the outside of the house each night.
The decaying pigs she samples across the road at the neighbors.
Not to mention the huge job she has scoping out the place each day from fence to fence and around and in each building.
No, even the most pampered poodle would trade his velvet pillow and canned meat product for the life Molly has.
I'm pretty sure she STILL prefers this over her former life of living in town where she looked at life from her kennel.
The scraps and bones she gleans from the house.
The wild animals she gets to ward off barking around and around the outside of the house each night.
The decaying pigs she samples across the road at the neighbors.
Not to mention the huge job she has scoping out the place each day from fence to fence and around and in each building.
No, even the most pampered poodle would trade his velvet pillow and canned meat product for the life Molly has.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
fat and lazy
To begin, yes, I do believe Americans and Westerners are too fat. We eat bad stuff like soda and chips by the bags and gallons. That fact is not in question.
This fact, however, is in question: today Fox News reported an article that appeared in the online Sun with the headline "Do Fat People Cause Global Warming?" I had to read it and if you can get past the feature picture of this giant person gobbling something from a styrofoam container with two Coca-Colas to wash it down, this'll make you chuckle and snort and sigh.
According to some "scientists", a "fat" person produces about one ton of carbon dioxide per year more than a "thin" person. And that fat people tend to drive more and cause more car emissions.
And the article even goes to far to indicate that some scientists say that the extra food fat people have to eat "adds to carbon emissions that heat up the world, melting polar ice caps, raising sea levels and killing rain forests."
Now I could understand how fat people might heat up a room, melt a snowbank he or she was sitting on, but not raising sea levels and killing rain forests. It's simply not true. We've all observed (from the side or as we jump in) how easy it is to see that when the fat kid jumps in the pool at swimming lessons, water is removed from the pool, not replaced.
Wasn't it just last week, the EPA came up with a list of gases that we were to watch out for. Gases emitted from cars, for instance. And horses, mules and donkeys are out for transportation because they emit carbon dioxide and that is a direct cause of dying rain forests and melting ice bergs.
How wretched have we become that while most of the rest of the world can't read, eats only once a day at best and worries about getting from point A to point B without getting shot, we spend money on projects that have no real solution and don't help anybody in need of help. Even my 5-year old acknowledges that most of the rest of the world doesn't have nearly as many food choices as she does.
YES, we are too fat and consume too many resources.
NO, God has never given us a pass to destroy what He has created.
News flash: animal and human emissions from eating food are as NATURAL as they come. More natural than organic gardening, Birkenstocks, recycling, granola and composting.
Instead could the billions of dollars and heart-wrenching tears over carbon dioxide omissions be directed toward some world evil that can be corrected.
Teenagers have been saved from forced prostitution in Thailand because somebody arrested their pimps and closed down the club.
Kids in Sudan have been fed because somebody packed up food on an airplane and took it to them.
Orphans have been given homes because those fat, wasteful Americans cared enough to go to all the work of adopting them for forever into their families.
Moms who didn't know where to turn where given hope when somebody told them they and their unborn babies were loved and had a purpose.
And if none of those strike your fancy, the least you can do is donate a book to the local library or a can of spaghetti-0's to the food shelf or donate a bag of your TOO SMALL clothes to the local thrift store.
This global warming band wagon is going nowhere except to make an excuse for people who have resources to invest in worthy causes to stay away from the dirty work of getting involved in hurting, needy people's lives. The cause of global warming is so sterile and clean, in its own way. You don't get your hands dirty by using them, you can simply throw words and money at something while sitting around conference tables in fancy hotels discussing its various aspects while consuming vast amounts of electricity, hotel hired staff and nice food.
When was the last time a global warming conference was held out in an open field where participants gathered wild berries and drank pond water and talked about the ills of global warming.
This fact, however, is in question: today Fox News reported an article that appeared in the online Sun with the headline "Do Fat People Cause Global Warming?" I had to read it and if you can get past the feature picture of this giant person gobbling something from a styrofoam container with two Coca-Colas to wash it down, this'll make you chuckle and snort and sigh.
According to some "scientists", a "fat" person produces about one ton of carbon dioxide per year more than a "thin" person. And that fat people tend to drive more and cause more car emissions.
And the article even goes to far to indicate that some scientists say that the extra food fat people have to eat "adds to carbon emissions that heat up the world, melting polar ice caps, raising sea levels and killing rain forests."
Now I could understand how fat people might heat up a room, melt a snowbank he or she was sitting on, but not raising sea levels and killing rain forests. It's simply not true. We've all observed (from the side or as we jump in) how easy it is to see that when the fat kid jumps in the pool at swimming lessons, water is removed from the pool, not replaced.
Wasn't it just last week, the EPA came up with a list of gases that we were to watch out for. Gases emitted from cars, for instance. And horses, mules and donkeys are out for transportation because they emit carbon dioxide and that is a direct cause of dying rain forests and melting ice bergs.
How wretched have we become that while most of the rest of the world can't read, eats only once a day at best and worries about getting from point A to point B without getting shot, we spend money on projects that have no real solution and don't help anybody in need of help. Even my 5-year old acknowledges that most of the rest of the world doesn't have nearly as many food choices as she does.
YES, we are too fat and consume too many resources.
NO, God has never given us a pass to destroy what He has created.
News flash: animal and human emissions from eating food are as NATURAL as they come. More natural than organic gardening, Birkenstocks, recycling, granola and composting.
Instead could the billions of dollars and heart-wrenching tears over carbon dioxide omissions be directed toward some world evil that can be corrected.
Teenagers have been saved from forced prostitution in Thailand because somebody arrested their pimps and closed down the club.
Kids in Sudan have been fed because somebody packed up food on an airplane and took it to them.
Orphans have been given homes because those fat, wasteful Americans cared enough to go to all the work of adopting them for forever into their families.
Moms who didn't know where to turn where given hope when somebody told them they and their unborn babies were loved and had a purpose.
And if none of those strike your fancy, the least you can do is donate a book to the local library or a can of spaghetti-0's to the food shelf or donate a bag of your TOO SMALL clothes to the local thrift store.
This global warming band wagon is going nowhere except to make an excuse for people who have resources to invest in worthy causes to stay away from the dirty work of getting involved in hurting, needy people's lives. The cause of global warming is so sterile and clean, in its own way. You don't get your hands dirty by using them, you can simply throw words and money at something while sitting around conference tables in fancy hotels discussing its various aspects while consuming vast amounts of electricity, hotel hired staff and nice food.
When was the last time a global warming conference was held out in an open field where participants gathered wild berries and drank pond water and talked about the ills of global warming.
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