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Showing posts from March, 2009

Note to Self

Proverbs 25:15-19 (English Standard Version) 15With patience a ruler may be persuaded, and a soft tongue will break a bone. 16If you have found honey, eat only enough for you, lest you have your fill of it and vomit it. 17Let your foot be seldom in your neighbor’s house, lest he have his fill of you and hate you. 18A man who bears false witness against his neighbor is like a war club, or a sword, or a sharp arrow. 19Trusting in a treacherous man in time of trouble is like a bad tooth or a foot that slips. That's an arresting image a soft tongue breaking a bone. I want to be that kind of person if for no other reason than the occurrence of such an individual is so rare that it is bound to draw attention.

Monday Morning Minutes

Obviously I got nothin' today. Add something in the comments section if you like.

Quiverfull

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I cringed when I heard the opening lines of this story on NPR, In Quiverfull Movement, Birth Control Is Shunned . I don't consider myself one of the quiverfull but with four kids I've gone over the arbitrary limit of two that some consider acceptable. I always have to resist the urge to roll my eyes whenever someone incredulously comments on how many children I have. One of these days I am going to respond to, "Why do you have so many kids?" with, "Well killing them or abandoning them for someone else to raise weren't really options for me so I had to suck it up and raise them myself." (I really wish that people would stop and think before interrogating me about to my choice to have the children I have about how they sound to someone who may not be able to have any.) Those confused as to why I have "so many" kids certainly don't understand the nuances of allowing for divine intervention in family planning. If God really really wants you to

Thankful Thursday

Today I am thankful for/that: Hubby managed to fix the frankenputer that I was left with after a tech broke my computer while fixing a minor problem. Hubby was mistaken when he thought he had lost all my data on the back up storage device in the process of wiping and reinstalling my hard drive. That was a very unpleasant afternoon. The brand new kitchen faucet, made in this century, is working marvelously. Spring time planting. I went on a bit of a shopping spree this week and got some new seeds. Modern medicine. Being sick would be so much more miserable without all of the wonderful medicines available to ease the misery. Teachers who go the extra mile to help my kids reach their potential. What are you thankful for?

Note to Self

Proverbs 25:11-14 (English Standard Version) 11A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver. 12Like a gold ring or an ornament of gold is a wise reprover to a listening ear. 13Like the cold of snow in the time of harvest is a faithful messenger to those who send him; he refreshes the soul of his masters. 14Like clouds and wind without rain is a man who boasts of a gift he does not give.

From Lawyer to Bellydancer and Loving It

This story on NPR caught my attention today. The Laws Of Belly Dancing For years, Rachel Galoob Ortega earned a six-figure salary as an attorney. But Ortega now spends her days enjoying what she describes as her real passion: belly dancing. "Saphira," as she is known to audiences, explains her career shift and what drew her to the craft, as recently featured in The Washington Post Magazine. The following is an excerpt from the Washington Post Magazine article. An Advocate for the Shimmy A belly dancer with two law degrees comes to the defense of an ancient art form The belly dancer known as Saphira sweeps onto the dance floor, a pink scarf flowing behind her upraised arms. She's wearing false eyelashes and heavy eyeliner, a pumpkin-orange bra top with gold and pink beads and sequins, and long swirling layers of a pink-and-orange skirt. Tall and big-boned, she has a soft belly that is bared and shaking along with her hips as she improvises to the live band -- a drummer an

Monday Morning Minutes

This child did not have to die. Only weeks after her birth Dana, the Lennox Head grand-daughter of former Kangaroo Ken McCaffery, contracted whooping cough. On Monday she died. She was only four weeks old. “We miss her so much and are devastated that such a beautiful, innocent child is the victim of ignorance. She never stood a chance against this epidemic.” Hat tip to Left Brain/Right Brain where it is also noted that this disease is on the rise in the US. How many more people have to die before we stop letting our actions be dictated by those spreading false fears about vaccines? We've been the "Great Satan" to Iran since at least 1979 so I'm not really surprised that this didn't go over too well. Iran’s Supreme Leader Dismisses Obama Overtures Iran's supreme leader rebuffed President Barack Obama's latest outreach on Saturday, saying Tehran was still waiting to see concrete changes in U.S. policy. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was responding to a video mess

Birthday Boy

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Sci Fi Channel Looking For A Change

Hubby and I have been wondering for years what was wrong with the top brass at the Sci Fi Channel. Now that they've decided to change the channel's name to the spiffy (and juvenile) sounding SyFy we are really wondering. I get the feeling that no one running the channel is actually a sci fi fan. If any of them were they would know better than to do and say something like this, Sci Fi Channel Aims to Shed Geeky Image With New Name “The name Sci Fi has been associated with geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that, as opposed to the general public and the female audience in particular,” said TV historian Tim Brooks, who helped launch Sci Fi Channel when he worked at USA Network. Mr. Brooks said that when people who say they don’t like science fiction enjoy a film like “Star Wars,” they don’t think it’s science fiction; they think it’s a good movie. “We spent a lot of time in the ’90s trying to distance the network from scienc

Kids and Food Allergies

Sometimes it pays to get a second opinion. Study: Kids Often Misdiagnosed With Food Allergies . Many children with allergies and eczema are often misdiagnosed as having food allergies, according to a study presented at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology conference in Washington, D.C. Researchers at National Jewish Health in Denver conducted "food challenge" tests on 125 children with allergies and eczema and found that more than 50 percent of the kids could tolerate foods they had been told to avoid.

Note to Self

I'll be mining Proverbs 25 for the next few weeks as seems appropriate. Proverbs 25:20 (English Standard Version) 20Whoever sings songs to a heavy heart is like one who takes off a garment on a cold day, and like vinegar on soda. I was tempted to bring baking soda, vinegar, and dish detergent for a practical demonstration of this verse when we covered it in Bible study a while back.

Monday Morning Minutes

So the lifting of the ban on creating new embryonic stem cell lines wasn't really a lifting of the ban at all. This new new speak is hard to keep track of. Everybody is all up in arms over how AIG has spent the money that the government has been throwing at it. It's a bit late now to try putting the toothpaste back in the tube. The millions that have already been paid out are gone and we ain't gettin' it back. Coulda, woulda, shoulda. Hopefully somebody is paying attention and will stop giving them money. So is the economy totally in the tank or are things starting to look up? I've lost track of what the message is supposed to be this week. There is an unsavory whiff of protectionist xenophobia about this: Amazing how Americans managed to get jobs with the glut of foreigners (we're talking legal workers here) taking all the good jobs before we started throwing money at failing companies. Mexico is disintegrating from within, has been for years. The border area

What did you say?

Haven't had one of these in a while. Here is a selected reporting of things over heard in my house or said by the children when I was near by. *** Sophia: Mommy why did Isaiah put part of the chocolate box in the toilet? What had happened was, I sent Isaiah to throw something in the trash. Since he came back from the kitchen without it I assumed he had completed the task. Some minutes later Sophia declares that she's going to the bathroom and runs off. A minute or two go by and she comes running back to ask the above question. Isaiah apparently got lost on the way to the trash can and had to improvise. *** Ethan: Oh! What are you making? Me: I'm cleaning the stove but when I'm done I'm going to make mac and cheese. Ethan: It's macaroni and cheese not mac and cheese. Well excuse me. *** Someone: What colour is the baby? Sophia: Pink! Me: What colour are you? Sophia: [ Looks down at her shirt. ] Blue and purple! Me: What colour is Mr. John? Sophia: Blac

Thankful Thursday

Today I am thankful for/that: Warm sunshine. Frolicking in the warm sunshine with the kids. The first flowers of spring signaling the inevitable end of winter. We got Isaiah's communication device! He's practicing on it at school before it begins coming home with him regularly. A free day of pampering for moms of extraordinary kids. Summer vacation. Hope. Endurance. What are you thankful for?

Note to Self

1 Samuel 8 (English Standard Version) Israel Demands a King 1When Samuel became old, he made his sons judges over Israel. 2The name of his firstborn son was Joel, and the name of his second, Abijah; they were judges in Beersheba. 3Yet his sons did not walk in his ways but turned aside after gain. They took bribes and perverted justice. 4Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah 5and said to him, "Behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations." 6But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, "Give us a king to judge us." And Samuel prayed to the LORD. 7And the LORD said to Samuel, "Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. 8According to all the deeds that they have done, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt even to this day, forsaking me and servin

Monday Morning Minutes

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton apparently went to Switzerland to meet some European diplomats and mistakenly gave a red button labeled "over charge" in Russian to her Russian counter part that was actually meant for the American people. She was supposed to give him the button saying "reset" to indicate that our current President is not like our previous President. I remember being relieved that the President had dodged an ethical bullet when he chose to limit federal funding of embryonic stem cell research to those stem cell lines already in existence at the time. It was a good compromise I thought between a desire to increase scientific knowledge and a desire to avoid destroying more embryos that so many find morally repugnant. Now our new President is set to reverse that practise, despite the fact that there are sources of embryonic stem cells that come free of any ethical and moral entanglements, mostly it seems to prove that he is not like our previous Pres

Thankful Thursday

Today I am thankful for/that: Our trip to the ER this week was uneventful. Sunshine! Growing things. There are little green shoots poking their heads out of the ground all over the place. A walk to the park with the kids. My feet are killing me but it was so worth it. Health, if somewhat reckless, kids. What are you thankful for?

Seen On A Bumper Sticker

"Lets all get a long. I'll hug your elephant if you kiss my ass." I'm trying to decide if this is an example of hope, change, or bipartisanship.

Autism Research

Now this is the kind of autism research and advocacy we need. Autism coverage and insurance premiums Autism insurance coverage at the rate of 20,000 per year would result in an insurance premium increase of $2.18 per month for the average family. A review/summary of: James N. Bouder, Stuart Spielman, David S. Mandell (2009). Brief Report: Quantifying the Impact of Autism Coverage on Private Insurance Premiums Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders DOI: 10.1007/s10803-009-0701-z Health care expenditures for children with autism and other ASD are disproportionally absorbed by families as compared to expenditures for children with other chronic developmental or medical conditions. This is mostly due to the reluctance by many insurance companies to pay for services needed for children with autism. This has led many States in the USA to consider enacting laws mandating insurance companies to cover services for children with ASD. Yet, opponents (mostly the insurance companies) argue t

Note to Self

Proverbs 17 (English Standard Version) 1Better is a dry morsel with quiet than a house full of feasting with strife. 2A servant who deals wisely will rule over a son who acts shamefully and will share the inheritance as one of the brothers. 3The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold, and the LORD tests hearts. 4An evildoer listens to wicked lips, and a liar gives ear to a mischievous tongue. 5Whoever mocks the poor insults his Maker; he who is glad at calamity will not go unpunished. 6Grandchildren are the crown of the aged, and the glory of children is their fathers. 7Fine speech is not becoming to a fool; still less is false speech to a prince. 8A bribe is like a magic stone in the eyes of the one who gives it; wherever he turns he prospers. 9Whoever covers an offense seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates close friends. 10A rebuke goes deeper into a man of understanding than a hundred blows into a fool. 11An evil man seeks only

Monday Morning Minutes

Well it's afternoon now but I like the alliteration in the title so I'm leaving it as is. Did you know that you can essentially sprain the ligaments that hold your teeth in place? I do now thanks to Ethan. He and Isaiah had some sort of collision that left Isaiah unscathed but Ethan was very much afraid that he had knocked his permanent teeth loose. After consulting with our family doctor's office we hauled him off to the ER. There we learned that while he would be sore for a few days his permanent teeth were in no jeopardy. We'll set something up with his regular dentist just to be sure though. Having to haul your kid (Isaiah in this case) on a one hour 45 minute journey, ONE WAY, just to get his teeth X-rayed and cleaned because no dentist in your major metro area will sedate kids with disabilities who are super anxious about going to the dentist STINKS. BIG TIME. It's either that or wait till some life threatening situation arises and then we can take him to the