Traffic to my site seems to be up a fair amount…

I don’t post a lot, and I’m not sure I have anything earth shattering to say when I do, but people have been popping in on my site lately.  I mean, used to I’d get 3 views, or 0 views, or 2 views, like that, and now all of a sudden I get 31?  Evidently it’s because of a site called Alphainventions:  http://alphainventions.com/ I have no idea why or how or who or what, but I can certainly tell you when!  3 days ago!  My site has seen more traffic in 3 days than in it’s history prior to Alphainventions “finding” me.  I’m no big writer, and I’m not funny or a photographer or an inventor or anything special, but I do like to think that once in a while people come over to my blog site and read, so I guess I’m pretty happy that this Alphainventions picked me up.  Anyone know what it’s for or how they got my site in their rotation?  Curious.

Wesnesday Night Services

I’m really excited!  Pastor Norm is going to let different people preach at least once a month in the regular services on Wednesday nights.  He told me about it last night.  I know that doesn’t mean just me, but it does include me!  I love teaching my class, it’s wonderful and I love the people in it, but when I preach it’s just different.  I’m called to preach, so that’s where I feel most comfortable, and where I fit best. Besides loving it, I can always use all the practice I can get.

The idea of preaching from the same pulpit as Pastor Norm and Pastor Joe is pretty cool, too!  I couldn’t be in better company.  Who better to learn from?  Sometimes I go about my mundane little existence and forget how very blessed I am to be able to sit under the anointing of such men of God.  I don’t know anyone I think more highly of than Norm Taylor.  Aside from being a wonderful and anointed man of God, he’s just a wonderful human being.  I prayed and asked the Lord to add people to my life who could teach me about love and kindness, and walking in Christian love as is fitting a minister, and He sent me to Norm and Pearl Taylor. I can not express my gratitude.

Joe is getting better every service.  He’s red hot!  He can explain some of the toughest concepts as well as I’ve ever heard anyone do it.  Sometimes I forget he’s just a thirty year old pup!  LOL!  He’s got wisdom and depth of understanding way beyond his years.  I’d rather sit under him and Norm than anyone I can name.  We all seem to be on the same page, too.  We are all feeling the Lord’s leading and getting revelation on the same kinds of things.  The Hispanic ministry is, too.  Everything is really coming together.  Our direction is becoming clearer and we’re all on board.

To be able to sit with these guys and learn from them is a gift.  My husband and I had prayed that the Lord would get us in a church where we could learn and study under the anointing of a strong man of faith.  We were prepared to move far away because we knew of a great church we’d like to attend.  Then, the Lord brought us here.  I’m so thankful that God answers prayers according to His will and plan and not our own!  I’d have moved away by now and missed all of this.

It’s not to say we’ll never go.  We will.  But it’s our greatest desire to be in the center of God’s will for our lives, and right now that’s here.  Nothing feels better than to be in the center of His will, either, and I couldn’t be happier than to be in Kingman right now.  I thought I’d never hear myself say that!

So anyway, I’m really excited about everything!  Pastor told me once that if I wanted to teach a series that took several services that he’d let me, but I’ve never wanted to ask… makes me feel pushy.  If I don’t stink on the Wednesday nights that I get to be in there, maybe then I can build up to it.    Once I get my license I wont feel as weird about it, either.  It shouldn’t be too much longer.

So, the adventure continues!

Be blessed!

So It Begins

2009!  Woo-hoo!

People get so excited about a new year, and frankly, I don’t really get it.  For me it’s just the next day.  January first?  It’s no different than August twelfth or February twenty-third.  Why not declare October first a holiday and take it off from work?  It’s the first day of the new fiscal year, so why not fuss over that?  We have a lot of ridiculous “holidays” but most of the holidays we actually get time off of work over are days that have some real historical or national significance.  New Year’s Day?  Um… no.  Just a conjured, non-event that we try to put stock in as being some sort of new beginning, or a harbinger.  It’s Omen Day or something.

We tend to place too much emphasis on all of it’s little traditions.  One of the local traditions when I was growing up was to eat black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day to assure prosperity and a good new year.  How weird is that?  And how about this one: “Whatever you’re doing at the stroke of midnight is what you’ll do all year.”  Maybe I’ll give everyone I know a one hundred dollar bill during the day on December thirty-first so that I can invite them all to my house that night, and have them hand it back to me at midnight.  That way people will be giving me money all year!  What if I were overly intoxicated and passed out draped over a toilet in a public place?  Do I have to stay there now for the rest of the year?  What if my watch was off just a bit, and I decided to run to the bathroom quickly before the witching hour, but upon returning to the highly over-rated festivities, I realized that I’d missed it, and in fact I was urinating at the stroke of twelve?

This whole business of the New Year’s resolution is a lazy notion.  One day per year we must stop and pay attention to the things in our lives that we know are not good and we should be doing something about, make a solemn resolution to change these things knowing full well and even planning to break them, and then we don’t have to think about it again for another year!  Wow!  What a deal!  And some of these same people think Catholicism is odd for it’s confession and absolution doctrine.  Maybe the party was our penance.

Yes, the New Year’s Eve Party!  Back when I attended such things, I remember all of the preparations and expectation that swirled around the grand event.  What will I wear?  Who will I go with?  Hair?  Nails?  Heels or flats?  Brewski or the hard stuff?  The affair was never as wonderful as your expectations demanded that it be, and usually the morning after held many regrets and uncomfortable reminders about how short it actually fell.

Why do we even celebrate such a mundane thing?  Because it offers us hope.  We want so badly to be able to start over.  We long to have a new beginning because we know we are desperately in need of one.  We want it so badly that we set aside a day every year to give us that starting point even though we know through and through that it means absolutely nothing.  It’s just the next day.  It will never live up to the expectations placed on it, because it can’t.  The problem isn’t the celebration, the party, the expectations or the day, it’s us.

In our hearts we know we need to start over, have another chance, because we’ve done so many things and made so many bad decisions and mistakes.  Not only can we not fix them, but we know in our hearts that we’re bound to do more of the same, and no resolution is sound enough, no amount of determination strong enough to keep us from failing again.

“New Day” should be “the event” and not new year’s day.  We wouldn’t leave a festering wound with a lick and a promise for an entire year or it would kill us, but we ignore the things of our hearts because they are unseen and can be temporarily put out of our minds as well.  Rest assured, they will surface again, and they are as critical as any wound to your flesh.  Contrary to popular beliefs, you aren’t strong if you ignore it, hide it, and cowboy up, nor are you “dealing with it” by bemoaning it all and rehearsing it to your friends or your therapist.  That’s only coping, which is just a socially acceptable way to say you’re keeping it, but you’re trying to manage the damage it causes.

God has a better plan.  He can take it and you can move on and be free without it.  Sound better?

Each day is a gift from God, and His mercy is new every morning.  Now that’s a reason to get excited.  From day to day, every day, our God and Father is with us, is willing, and is well able to heal whatever ails us and give us the new beginning that we need and crave.  All we have to do is learn to walk in a trusting relationship with Him, and He sent His Only Begotten Son to show us how.  What a promise!  What a trade off!  What an adventure!

Ask me how I know!

Maybe that’s why I just don’t get it about New Year’s Day.

Day Trip Up the Mountain

We took a little day trip with the family that we have visiting from out of town.  We thought we’d take them to do something we always enjoy, visit the Hualapai Mountains.  We always like to have the opportunity to show off our little “secret” treasure.  It’s yet relatively undiscovered by the Phoenicians, and therefore still relatively unspoiled and uncrowded, still quite nice and quaint.  It’s a great view up there, and usually the elk and the deer hang out just outside the windows, grazing on bales of hay left for them by the management at the lodge.   Not too many showed up today, but the view is well worth the trip.

The visiting family is up from Phoenix, and this time of year there’s a lot of snow on, so they were very excited to be able to play around in it!  Maybe they were not so excited once they discovered they were stuck in the parking lot!  We had to rock and push them out, but we managed.  It was well worth the effort just to get to go up there.  Everyone loves it there.  It’s one of my all time favorite places to go.  We go camping there fairly often in warmer weather.  Even being shiver-me-timbers cold outside it was crossing my mind how nice it would be to start a campfire and big iron pot full of stew.  Then again, it will probably be around zero there overnight tonight.  Maybe I’ll just postpone that little dream till warmer days.

Well, the family is still here so I guess I should go be a little more sociable.   I just wanted to share a few pics real quick.  (Check out my photo album.)  Be blessed!

Christmas ‘08

Mohave County, Arizona, really!

What a day!  It has been a long, lazy, very happy Christmas day!  In all the 25 years I’ve lived in Arizona, this is the first one I can remember that even bordered on anything like a white Christmas.  A week ago it was white!  I had intended to write a little in here about it because it’s so very unusual,  but I was hit pretty hard with a virus the day it snowed, and it took me a week the get better!  I was too icky feeling to even go out in it.  That’s just not like me!  All told we got about 5 inches.  It snowed great big flakes from the time I got up that morning till after dark that night, and stayed on the ground for over 24 hours.  (Yes, that’s a picture of my street in the Mohave Desert, AZ!)  As long as I’ve lived here I can’t remember that ever happening.  I think it was the record for our area, at least it was for Vegas.

Today, well, we’re just wet.  It’s been gray and dismal, and drizzly and absolutely wonderful all day!  I’m so happy!  I have been waiting for a Christmas that is something besides sunny and finally, Christmas 2008, I got it.  Beautiful!  My sweet husband even bundled up and stood outside with me because he knows I love it best when he shares things with me.  That nearly made my day, knowing that he could generally care less about the weather, and does NOT like cold, wet weather at all.  That was my best gift.

The kids have been having trouble sleeping for a few days now, with the excitement and anticipation and everything.  They actually went to bed and went to sleep a little bit easier the last night than they had in several days.  I think they simply exhausted themselves!  Allen and I got to bed pretty late, though.  We were seeing to all the last little things so that when we got up everything would be in order.  It was nearly 2:00 am before I got in bed with the lights out.  I figured we’d probably sleep in until 8:00 or 9:00 like we usually do.

Surprise!  Jonathan set his alarm this morning!  He was up before 6:00am!  It was not because he was so anxious to get to the gifts, although I’m sure that factored in, but he wanted to have a chance to pray and read his Bible a little bit before all of the gift exchanging began so that he could have a good perspective and a right heart about it.  Being the mom I was pretty moved by that.

If that wasn’t enough, he decided to empty the dishwasher for me so I wouldn’t have to wake up and do it on Christmas.  That was sweet!  It was the clinking and clanking of the dishes that got the attention of the little brother and the animals, and finally my husband and me. I came stumbling in first, groping for the burner knob to start the coffee pot.  My husband was busy getting the camera out and set up.  The kids were patient and polite through all of that, so we all got together around the Christmas tree and went about the business at hand.

The kids were thrilled with their gifts.  I’d known for a long time what they wanted most, and for the most part I had purchased those things awhile back.  Video game paraphernalia, model cars, silly hats, GI Joe’s and other things boys like.  Of course the teenager had to have an MP3 player.  My husband and I don’t really exchange too much.  We always get each other something “from the boys” and maybe some little something else, partly because the kids would be upset if there weren’t gifts under the tree for us, too.  I got a nice planner and my annual pair of house slippers and bottle of cologne.  My husband got a blue tooth headset for his phone.  Not to sentimental, but being a truck driver he really needed a decent, hands-free way to use his phone.

Once we had all the gifts open and the trash and boxes out of the way, I was in the kitchen getting ready to cook breakfast when I heard a strange sound calling me from the back of the house.  It was calling to me… calling… calling…  The closer I got to the sound the more I realized it was actually my husband’s snoring, and making me very aware that the kids were busy with their new stuff, and that I had not really gotten much sleep, and that I could probably sneak in there and join him for a little while.  Two hours later I made my way back to the kitchen and fixed hash browns and sausage and eggs for everyone.  I don’t think the kids ever realized we were gone.

I made fudge, which is becoming a yearly event.  This year I messed it up somehow.  It’s edible, but it’s just not quite right.  That’s kind of a drag, because I made it to give as gifts to my friends.  By the time I realized it wasn’t the best fudge I’d ever made it was too late to make a different batch.  I imagine it’ll be eaten.  It’s the spirit of the gift that matters, and it was a labor of love.  I actually took a small box of it over to our neighbors across the street.  They have been, let’s say, “less than friendly” to us over the years, but every once in awhile I take them some little thing.  I took them a pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving.  They seemed to appreciate it.  They will get back to their old nasty tempered selves soon enough, but just for a moment there we were actually neighbors.

Of course later on in the evening we had our annual nachos and salsa and chips.  We always do.  I think that tradition got started back years ago when we used to go out Christmas light-looking on Christmas eve.  We’ve had another tradition of letting the kids open stockings on Christmas eve, and I was always trying to make something quick to eat so that we’d have time for both activities, and nachos fit the bill.  We stopped going out to look at lights on Christmas eve a long time ago for one reason or another, but somehow the nacho tradition stuck.  We have of a lot of little traditions, small and weird they may be.  I’m sure all families do.  We honored most of them, and we all had a really great time.

This year we bought a card game for the kids called “Apples to Apples”.  We sat around the kitchen table and played it for hours!  It was so much fun!  I can’t remember having such a good time with all of us around the table just kidding and cutting up.  I highly recommend that game to anyone, by the way.  We like games okay I guess.  We’re not real big game players as a rule, but this one was different.  It’s low stress and not too competitive, full of fun and laughs no matter how old you are.  No one threw a fit or got their feelings hurt.  No one struggled much with rules or understanding anything.  It was just plain and simple fun.  Maybe this will be a new tradition.

We’re going to go out to the Allen’s parent’s place tomorrow.  His sister and her family are up for a few days, so we’re having a the big traditional Christmas dinner out there.  That will be nice.  We’ll get to visit for awhile, and it will make more good Christmas memories for the kids.  My husband always says that nothing’s quite as over as Christmas, and this will extend it for another day.

I wish it could go on and on.  My husband has been home for a few days back to back, which rarely happens, and we’ve all spent some happy times together.  I wish I could have seen my other kids.  I talked to my daughters, but I couldn’t reach my son.  We thought he and his wife would be by today, he said they would, but I guess something came up.  Maybe we’ll hear from them tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I’m finishing up my cup of holiday tea, and then it’s off to bed with me.
Good night, merry Christmas, and God bless you.

Oh! The Weather Outside is Frightful!

Well, frightful might be a little strong, but for us here in Mohave County, Arizona, it has been pretty wintry!  I don’t think it ever topped forty-five degrees today.  It has been gray and drizzling since I came out of church last night.  I absolutely love this kind of weather!  All day long  I’ve been pacing from window to door and inventing reasons to go outside in it and get wet and cold.  It’s clearing up as I type, but for the moment it’s still blustery and damp, just crying out for a nice, cozy lap blanket and a cup of hot tea.

This would be a great night for a fire.  Sadly, we don’t have a fireplace.  There are so few days here where we’d actually get any use out of one.  I got a small wood burning stove at a yard sale once, but we never installed the thing.  It’s sort of a spendy undertaking, both time and money wise.  With the triple-walled flue pipe and all that’s involved with putting that in, plus bricking in the area where we would want to sit it, we just never went to the effort to do it.  Maybe I will.  Maybe I will…

Christians and Christmas Trees

It looks like once again we are back to the old topic of Christmas trees and whether or not Christians should have one. Seems like every year about this time I get someone coming to me for advice who has been upset because someone has told them they should not have a Christmas tree, and they are confused and afraid that they are doing something wrong. Either that or I get people who want to tell me why I shouldn’t have a Christmas tree or tell me all of their reasons why they don’t have one just as soon as the subject comes up. Frankly, all I can think of say to them is “I see” or “that’s nice”, because it’s such a silly thing to argue about! Walk in what light you have and stop trying to get everyone else to see things your way! I realize that when you are convicted about something that you really feel a need to share your convictions with others, but on non-essentials, beliefs that don’t make or break your Christian walk, it’s really between the individual and God, isn’t it? Maybe just wait until someone asks you.

“Well, what about Jeremiah?” I’ve heard people try to say that Jeremiah 10:1-4 refers to Christmas trees, and that we can use that passage to say that we shouldn’t have a Christmas tree, but, first of all, the Christmas tree is a relatively recent practice, and Jeremiah was way before Jesus’ birth… HELLO! Not likely that it’s a direct reference to Christmas trees. Other than that obvious fact, I’d say that as long as you are not worshiping your Christmas tree itself, or the works of your hands in creating it, or you are not offering things to it because you fear it, or you think it might go well with you if you do, then it’s safe to have a Christmas tree. It’s entirely possible that some remote origins have some kind of pagan roots. I’ve heard that they do, and I’ve heard that they don’t. As for me and my house, we’re not pagan, and we’re not worshiping the tree or it’s decorator. It’s just a festive tradition that brings joy and warm feelings to our home and family.

That particular passage of scripture in Jeremiah is talking about idol worship. The people of Jeremiah’s day were lousy with idol worship, particularly concerning trees. They worshiped the trees themselves, but they didn’t limit their idolatry to the trees, they worshiped and sacrificed many things, including their own babies, to many gods, under the trees. It was common to find them practicing under trees, so much so that reference is made by many historians and scholars to them practicing under “every” tree. Whether that actually means every tree, or maybe it meant most, or every tree in a certain place or of a certain type, I don’t know, but that indicates to me that it was very common. In the Bible, any time they are talking about “high places” in conjunction with trees, that’s what they mean; idolatry.

In this particular case, there were craftsmen in Jeremiah’s day who were taking the creation of God, the tree, and cutting it down, preserving it, decorating it, then propping it back up, and worshiping and giving offerings to it. The people were also praising and idolizing the craftsman who “created” and erected it. Jeremiah was talking about the extreme degree of vanity and madness that was evident among them for them to take God’s beautiful and living creation, His tree, “re-creating” it by cutting it down and killing it, and dressing it up and doing all of that, taking credit for it’s creation, then falling down before it in worship. It’s a picture of how far gone they were. I guess if they had used a mattress in Jeremiah’s day instead of a tree we’d be trying to start doctrines about how evil beds are and advocate setting up hammocks for ourselves.

Obviously idol worshiping is sinful. I have a lot less of a problem with a Christmas tree than I do a lot of other things that are considered acceptable today, even preferable. Look what the so called “green” groups are doing today. They aren’t killing the trees, but they are surely worshiping the them. They worship the Earth and believe that they are powerful enough as a species to make or break Mother Earth with their own hands. It’s the same with wicca and so called “white” witch crafts. They are nature worshipers among other things. They just can’t bring themselves to acknowledge a creator or give Him any glory. That would mean they are actually accountable to someone, and that would mean things would have to be re-thunk and changed!

I’m just trying to point out that it’s the worship of a thing that isn’t God that is the problem, not the thing itself. That seems to be a confusing issue for some reason.

People can take any verse to extremes. If they’re convicted about having a Christmas tree then they certainly shouldn’t have one, and far be it from me to try to convince them otherwise. ALWAYS be true to your own convictions. Maturity in Christianity will clarify things as we grow, and it offers a fair amount of freedom when you get over into these kinds of issues. I don’t feel any conviction about any of that stuff. None. You could conceivably use the same verse to say it’s wrong to cut your grass or trim your hedges because it’s taking something natural and God-made, and changing it, and admiring the works of you hands. An immature Christian, someone without enough solid learning under their belt, might feel that way. I’m free of concerning myself about it. I am also free to enjoy my Christmas tree if I so choose. Yes, I have a Christmas tree.

One year we had a nice nativity scene on a small table and we decorated the area it was sitting in so that the kids would still have all of the Christmas-y looking things that they enjoy and look forward to so much. It was nice and we didn’t miss our tree at all. We had the lights and all of the hand made ornaments that the kids had made in years gone by up around the big front window, and the nativity was set in front of it. It was beautiful. We’ve been talking about just decorating with a manger scene, and have a “manger” – a decorated box or some such thing – that we could put the presents in and around. I think if I feel any conviction at all about any of this it’s that we spend way too much money and place way too much importance on the gift-giving aspects of Christmas, and I think the manger idea would at least focus us a bit more on the Truth. Honestly, though, when you think about it, none of it is really any different… little “dolls” set up in a fake little nativity set and decorated, little “boxes” or trees being decorated, mayonnaise jars, bed frames, tractors, or you name it! Whatever you set up and decorate would be the same. It’s just your attitude and your purpose.

We are created in the likeness and image of God, and God is creative. He put it in our make up to be creative, and not everything we create and enjoy falls under the classification of idolatry. We also tend to be festive and traditional folks. It stands to reason that people would make a mess of such simple little things because they think they need to try to be faultless, or maybe appease an angry god or some such thing. I have good news for you if that’s the case. God’s not angry. You can’t perform well enough to earn your acceptance, nor work hard enough to be faultless in His eyes, but I know Someone Who already did it for you! Relax and get to know Him! The rest will fall into place.

Merry Christmas!

Let the Holiday Season Begin!

“Oh Lord that lends me life, Lend me a heart replete with thankfulness!”  ~ William Shakespeare

I love Thanksgiving!  I love the fall, the cool weather, the smells, the flavors, everything!  I just love it!  I know it’s time to be retrospective and count your many blessings, and I am, I do, but for now let’s just indulge a little and get right down to the business of FOOD!

I’m considering cooking my turkey out on the porch in my great big dutch oven.  I got my oven for Christmas last year and I have only used it one time.  I’ve been wanting to use it again, but it’s enormous, so it requires a fair amount of food to warrant breaking it out.  I think a turkey would qualify!  However, as it stands, frozen, the turkey won’t fit in, but if I can fit it in after it’s thawed out I think I’m going to try it.  I cooked a turkey breast in my other dutch oven and it was wonderful, so I’m sure it will be great if I can manage to get it in the pot and still get the lid on it.  I guess after that it’s just a matter of keeping the fire on it long enough to cook a big eighteen pound bird.

Back by popular demand again this year is my pumpkin stew.  The kids love it.  I think it’s mostly because of how it looks when it’s sitting there on the table.  It’s great looking for sure!  I make my favorite stew, beef is what I’m using because we’re all out of elk, carrots, turnips, onion, mushrooms, whatever sounds good in it, and just cook it till it’s about half done.  Then you clean out a decent sized pumpkin, one that’s sort of short and flat-ish rather than tall and skinny, and oil the outside of it real well with olive oil.  Pour the stew in it, sit the whole thing down in a good sized pan, like a roaster or something and cook it in a medium oven (you may have to take the racks out, because it uses up a lot of space in the oven) for an hour and a half or two hours or so, until the pumpkin softens and the outsides begin to turn brown.  When it’s done, just transfer it to a serving plate, set it on the table with some kind of garnish around it, and you have a great looking, great tasting Thanksgiving stew.  When you serve it up you just use a spoon that’s stiff enough to scrape of some of the pumpkin off so that you get a little in every bowl.

It’s really not a troublesome thing to make either.  I can fix the stew the night before and have it ready, then just put it together.  The biggest hassle is that it’s pretty heavy.  When it’s done, the pumpkin isn’t as stiff as it was when you filled it, so getting it from the pan you cook it in to the dish you serve it on can be a little tricky.  I suggest also that the dish you serve it on be sort of deep, or something with a decent lip, because it’s a little juicy, too.  Tends to seep a bit.

Maybe I’ll make some hard bread bowls!  That would be great!  I’m probably not really going to, though.  I know me, and there’s enough going on around here during holidays that I’ll probably put it off until it’s too late to make them. It would be a good idea though!

I’ll probably just make the regular side dishes, taters and gravy, corn, green beans, and stuffing and all like that.  We don’t ever have sweet potatoes anymore because our oldest son, our one and only family member who’d ever eat them, has moved, so forget that!  Same with cranberries.  My daughter is the only one who likes them, and she’s in KC MO, so I’m skipping that, too.  I’ll make a couple of pies and maybe even a fruit salad that no one eats besides me, so I’ll wind up eating the whole thing!

Last, but not least, and possibly the best part…  leftoverture!  Pumpkin pie for breakfast!  Cold turkey sandwiches for lunch!  The long awaited turkey pot pie for dinner!  The turkey pot pie has become a tradition around here, too.  I’ve been making it bigger and better every year until now I make it in the biggest iron pan I have, and yet, somehow, no leftovers ever make it till the next day.

Another thing we usually do around here over the Thanksgiving holiday is put up our Christmas tree.  I guess I’ll be getting all of the decorations and stuff out of storage this week to get ready for that.  It’s going to be busy!  It’s going to be fun, too!  I love Thanksgiving.

Well, guess I’ll go for now.  If we don’t talk any more between now and then, you all have a great Thanksgiving!  Be blessed!

Microwave Cooking

I enjoy cooking.  My kitchen is very small, so I haven’t really enjoyed it much since I’ve lived in this house, but in a better setting, I would have to admit that I really like cooking.   I am also a pretty decent cook, I’ve been told, but more to the point, I’m a terrific eater!  I can certainly tell you when something tastes good or doesn’t, and I have to say, microwaved food is just not good.  Re-heated meat is horrible, and bread that’s been warmed up in the microwave is almost inedible.  Sauces get lumpy, eggs can explode, and in general things just don’t heat evenly.  Have you ever actually tried eating a re-heated hamburger?  If you need to cook something big, or in large numbers, you really aren’t saving any time by using a microwave because you have to increase the number of minutes you cook things in relation to the amount you are cooking.  In general, food from a microwave is unattractive and unappetizing. When I was cooking professionally it was frowned on, often prohibited, and a sign of an inferior cook to ever use a microwave.  I just don’t like microwaves.

We’ve been rid of our microwave for years now.  Partly for the reasons I already stated, but also because of the possible health issues related to using them.  They could be very bad for you.  Check this link out: http://www.rense.com/general70/microwaved.htm It’s a sixth grader’s experiment about how microwaved water effects plants.  It’s not scientific, exactly, but it’s well documented for what it is, and it will make you think.  I’ve been meaning to actually do this experiment with my kids and see for myself, but we just never have.  It would make a good science project for them, which is something always lurking in the back of the mind of a homeschooling family.

Once you’ve seen that link, this one aught to hammer that nail for you:  http://www.relfe.com/microwave.html There are tons of links like these. There are some very credible sites with well documented research out there on the web if you have the time and inclination to pour through them.  Some are pretty lengthy.  I chose these particular links only because they summed things up fairly succinctly and gave a decent illustration of my point, but Google it for yourselves.  Do your own research and make an informed decision.  Do yourself and your family a favor.  You can find tons of information on the hazards of microwaves.  It’s so easy to live without one that I can’t see why we’d want to bother with one if there was even a hint of a risk.

Besides all of that, most “made for the microwave” foods are not really foods at all.  They are cleverly disguised, laboratory representations of food.  We’ve been trying like crazy to get rid of the unhealthy foods in our home a little at a time over the past few years, and the quickest way to make the biggest difference is to get rid of pre-packaged food.  It’s hard to make that switch if you’re like me, because so much of it is convenient, and we’ve grown accustomed to them, so we decided to do away with those pre-packages foods that have the most additives and preservatives first.  Well, that cuts out almost all microwave ready food right off the bat.  That stuff is crap!  So are so many other products that are being sold as food, but that’s a blog for another day.

Over time, our microwave just became a rather inefficient bread box.  It’s been such a long time since we’ve used one that my kids don’t really even have any big memories of it being in use in our home except for making popcorn.  The only reason we kept our microwave for the last few years we had it was because we were so hesitant to give up the microwaved pop corn.  We couldn’t seem to make popcorn on the stove top that compared to it, and my husband loves pop corn, so we would cave in and used the microwave for that every once in a while. I don’t know if you read my other blog about it or not, but if you are into popcorn check out the Whirley-Pop.  We found out that pop corn popped in a Whirley Pop actually tastes better than microwave popcorn, believe it or not, so that was that!  Out she went!  Check your local thrift stores and the like.  I’ve seen several of them in thrift stores.  That’s where I got mine, and now I’m looking for a second one, either for the camp box or just in case anything happens to my first one!

We have lots of iron ware, too.  You can re-heat almost anything on the stove top with iron pans.  The heat fairly evenly, bottom, sides, and lid, and they maintain an even temperature better and longer than most other cookware.  I’ve heated pizza in them, and it’s the preferred method around our house.  It comes out uniformly heated with just a little bit of a crunch to the crust.

I’m also looking for a small pressure cooker.  I remember my grandma cooking pot roast and pork roasts, even from a frozen state, in a short time, and they came out fork tender.  You can put a whole meal in one pot, like you would in a crock pot, but it cooks fast.  It is my understanding that convection ovens are fast cooking, as well, but I don’t have any first hand experience with one.  Maybe I’ll look into it.

Doesn’t it just make you want to laugh (or gag!) when you think of how the busy lifestyles of the “modern” folks have helped them to come up with time and labor saving devices such as the microwave oven?  They think they have things all figured out, when grandma had a  healthier answer for all of it generations ago.  LOL!  Idiots!  And Americans have all bought into the idea that it’s safe and more convenient, when in fact neither are actually true.

As for the kids; they will adjust in a hurry.  They will live without over priced, over processed “pocket” lunches and things like that.  In a month or two you wont even think about it.  I only think of it when someone mentions it, and then I have to bite my tongue to keep from telling them to throw it in the trash!

Well that’s my two on the subject, whatever that’s worth.

Ah, Yes, The Election.

Honestly, I just don’t know what to say.  I’m about half angry at the general population.  It would seem the gene pool of the good ol’ USA is a little shallower than I thought.  I can not imagine how we came to a place in this country where we could actually elect someone like this while being fully aware of what sort of a man he is.  People I would have credited with having some intelligence must have just switched it off for a season, or else I simply gave them too much credit in the first place.

This is absolute proof to me that evolution is untrue.  We have devolved in this country, to an alarming new low.  There was no depth or breadth of understanding in the decision making processes that brought us here.  We just want change, change, change!  More for me, my pockets, my belly.  Economy, economy, economy!  What can we do?  Obama will deliver us!  What can we get from our government?  How will we make it?  Obama will solve it!  He will make us feel better!  Why, we are so far advanced in our culture now that we can even elect a black man!  Wow! How modern and how big of us!  Just give us one; any one will do.  I would think that that attitude is more condescending than overt biggotry!

I’m absolutely at a loss.

I’m also sad.  I’m sad about the state of my fellow Americans, my brothers and sisters.  These are human beings, individuals, people, who have great potential and promise, but somewhere they lost their direction and their convictions and climbed on the bandwagon.  A people created to serve,  now wallowing in self-serving and greed, have sold their souls to pacify their emotions, and to fill their bellies.  Maybe after a few years of over indulgence we will look at our fat ugliness and realize what we’ve done.

I’m sad, brokenhearted for my country.  The founding fathers must be rolling over in their blood-bought graves right now.  All of the lives that were sacrificed to make us free may be sold wholesale in order to make nice with our enemies, and look good in the eyes of the world.  Well, by all means we want to look good!  When we’ve lost our freedoms, I’ll be sure and thank all of you good looking Obama supporters.  Thanks, comrades, for the socialism.

God be with us.  I hope we make it intact through the Obama years.