Steve recommends this site: http://www.christthekingabbey.org/
Thanks for sharing your spiritual wisdom and letting us feed you and playing with our daughter today! We hope to welcome you back soon.
Thank God for friends!
August 12th, 2007Links to close tabs
July 18th, 2007I need to close most of the tabs on my Konqueror window so here are some links for my benefit, if not yours:
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“Trust Us, We’re Experts!” by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber
July 14th, 2007I finished this book several days ago and we are leaving town today so I will write a quick review now and pack my laptop. It was copyrighted in 2001 and published by Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc. in New York. The full title is “Trust Us, We’re Experts! How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles with your Future”. I enjoyed reading it for all of the details about companies, events, schemes, and toxins like:
the third-party PR technique
the precautionary principle
industry-funded science and its skewed findings
Edward Bernays, a nephew of Freud
companies that poison and kill people and get away with it
the military and science in the US, and other funding
genetically modified foods from Monsanto
When I wrote the authors about something I thought they left out (the breast cancer and abortion link), one of them wrote me back! It is a good book for detail if you have plenty of time and patience, and I recommend it for its history at least.
Benefits of pregnancy
July 12th, 20071. The unborn baby cannot verbally complain about food he is fed. He cannot refuse to eat what the mother passes on to him.
2. No diapers to change yet!
3. The mother can sleep for a few months. If she keeps herself hydrated and eats right, she should not have a big problem with going to the bathroom a lot at night.
4. The mother has a huge reason to eat healthy: no smoking, no drinking alcohol, no taking drugs (this includes most if not all pharmaceutical drugs), no junk food, less fast food, no caffeine . . . more healthy food, more clean air, more water, more vitamins.
5. People like to give things to pregnant people. I could list a lot of things people gave to us during both pregnancies and I might if someone asks in a comment.
6. No cumbersome menstrual cycles for the mother for several more months, especially if she will breastfeed her baby.
7. Many dreams, and a great time to become closer to God in time for the baby’s Holy Baptism (for babies who will be raised as Roman Catholics).
Banishing Plastic
June 30th, 2007I used to store everything in plastic and eat out of plastic. Now when I come home from the grocery store, I open the cereal and pour it out of the plastic and into clean glass containers. I take snacks with us in small glass containers. I have been rinsing used glass spaghetti sauce jars for a long time and putting rubber bands and twistie ties in them, and now I also put string cheese and vegetables in them for the fridge. Instead of wrapping ground beef in aluminum foil or plastic, today I put about four pounds of beef in a rinsed metal serving dish and froze it that way. (Note: it was very hard to separate the beef when I wanted to use it, so now I freeze individual pounds on small plates in the freezer.) I can’t seem to get plastic out of the kitchen completely but I am sure trying. Glass has no chemicals that come off onto food when heated or stored for long periods of time so that is why I put snacks in glass for car rides that are likely to get warm – remember that the car’s temperature can get quite high when you park it and leave it. I bought three glass containers in a set from the thrift store and it is nice and thick and sturdy and I have not broken any glass in my home. The openings are big enough that I can stick my hand in to feel for crumbs when I rinse them out between uses. I do keep it up and out of reach of my toddler and I watch her closely when she carries the little container with her snacks so that she will be safe.
Modesty – Biblical and other quotes
June 29th, 2007This is what I have collected so far for the book about modesty that I will write (these are quoted by Rita Davidson’s book, “Immodesty Satan’s Virtue”).
Our Lady of Good Success said “. . . that impurity would inundate the streets like filthy ocean waters so that ‘there would be almost no virgin souls’” and “Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women. In this supreme moment of need of the Church, those who should speak will fall silent.” “The vices of impurity, blasphemy and sacrilege will dominate in this time . . .” During one of the apparitions she saw swords above the head of Christ that read, “I shall punish heresy, blasphemy and impurity.”
Ecclesiasticus 19:27: “The attire of the body, laughter of the teeth, and the gait of the man, shew what he is.”
Deuteronomy 22:5: “A woman shall not be clothed with man’s apparel; neither shall a man use woman’s apparel; for he that doeth these things is abominable before God.”
1 Timothy 2:9-10 “In like manner I wish women to be decently dressed, adorning themselves with modesty and dignity, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing, but with good works, such as become women professing Godliness.”
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Thank God for dresses!
June 29th, 2007I don’t know how any woman can wear pants during pregnancy. You have to either fit them below the baby, or pull them up and possibly squeeze the baby, which leads to diarrhea and cramping.
Dresses contain crumbs very well until you can reach a low trash can.
When a woman wears a dress, there is no danger of showing lower back skin or underwear when the woman bends over, and if the dress is modest, she will not show her chest to anybody in any position.
Dresses are wonderful if you have trouble finding a skirt that fits right. Loose dresses are incredibly comfortable in almost any weather.
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Healthy toddler teethers
June 25th, 2007My toddler is teething; her eighth or ninth tooth is cutting through her gums. I threw away her plastic teethers so she wouldn’t eat any bad chemicals. Here are better alternatives:
Slice washed grapes in half and line the bottom of a bowl or plate with the grapes, spaced so they are not touching or barely touching. Put them in the freezer and take them out for the toddler when she wakes up in the morning or after a nap, or comes in from the heat. You can also do this with kiwi or small apple slices.
Keep a sippy cup at least half full of water, and add ice cubes when it is humid and hot. Most of the time, room temperature water is best. Water should not pose problems for teeth during sleep, especially if you and your toddler brush teeth before going to bed.
Refrigerated string cheese works well, too. I buy Sargento light mozzarella string cheese because it has 8 grams of protein in each stick. This can be good when the toddler’s teeth are hurting from eating crunchy food.
Do not feed your toddler cow’s milk or soy milk. Cow’s milk is highly allergenic and it aggravates mucus and is meant for cows, and soy milk has too much estrogen, among other things. We drink almond drink and water and I recommend Pacific Natural Foods in cereal and macaroni and cheese and when baking – not as an infant formula, but with other things and maybe, occasionally, as a treat in a sippy cup – always refrigerated, of course. You don’t have to put it in the fridge when you come home from the store but you should put it in the fridge when you finish a quart so when you go to use more, the new quart will be refrigerated.
Please add healthy, nourishing teething suggestions as comments.
Cutting your fingernails with a toddler
June 23rd, 20071. Find your fingernail clippers, sit down and make yourself comfortable.
2. Start trimming the fingernails on one hand.
3. When your toddler comes in and says “hand” and starts begging you to trim her fingernails, let her onto your lap and trim a few of her fingernails. You may need to take turns cutting her fingernails and your fingernails so that she remains excited about it.
4. If your toddler wants to leave your lap before you are finished cutting her fingernails, just be sure to not leave any sharp edges before you let her go. I trim on one side of the fingernail, then on the other, and round it out in the middle.
5. Finish trimming your own fingernails. You’ll get her last two fingernails later – it could be the last victory before she finally starts her nap.
Solving an ant infestation
June 9th, 2007When you open that package on your counter that you thought you had so cleverly protected by putting the opening upside down and find your cookies swarming with ants…do not fear! No, don’t eat them either, but do not panic or get angry. There are methods you can enlist to help you defeat the little crawling intruders.
*Seal everything. Put cereal into plastic or other (glass?) containers and make sure the lids seal well. Put flour bags into other bags and tie the outer bags, and put your other baking ingredients, like other flour, sugar, brown sugar, salt, etc. into properly sized containers made and sold for that purpose. Mine are hand-me-downs from my mother and they work wonderfully.
*Check your dishes before you put them back into the cupboard.
*Start using a designated ant rag. I am using this idea from a friend and I am so happy with it. My ant rag is pink and I hope the ants have come to fear it! Once you have a few dozen ants squished or otherwise captured on it, you can take it over to the sink and wash them all down the drain. Mwahahahaha!!!
*Rotate and check your cup before you drink out of it, even if you have been holding it the whole time. Ants can be sneaky and one almost crawled onto my face the other day via my water cup.
*If you must leave food out on the counter, be sure it is properly covered. I baked banana bread yesterday for Luke’s birthday today and there is a big bowl over the baking pan. Normally I put it in a big plastic bag; I just haven’t done that yet.
*Throw away your soiled napkins and kleenexes. Take out the trash as soon as it is full enough. Pick up bits of food you see on the floor, table and counter and throw or wash them away. Clean your pots and pans until they are squeaky clean before they go back on the stove or their storage to wait to be used again, so they do not attract bugs. Make the extra effort to avoid spraying with chemicals.
*Teach your children and pets that the bugs you are trying to kill off are not friends. Let them see you dispose of them.