An Unrelenting Love

Nate Silver and Smart Guys

2008-11-10T15:29:00.000-08:00

Nate Silver is cool!

Who He Is And How He Became Famous
A Video Related To The Article

He seems like a nice guy, too. :)

I'm tellin' ya; smart people are gonna rule the world. However, we can't forget to add love to the mix. 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 says:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Lucky (and blessed) me, I have a smart, cute, funny, sweet, adorable, loving and lovable hubby. :D <3

Girls, go for brains (and kindness) first. Six-pack abs will get boring and wouldn't make a very good pillow. A smart jerk will quickly get irritating and intolerable. So, find a smart, sweet, funny guy (especially one who loves Jesus) and you're all set. *grin*

2008-09-17T01:43:00.000-07:00

I made a smoothie, using that unsweetened original hemp milk we just bought, which, by itself, is somewhat icky. Maybe it just takes some getting used to.

The smoothie ingredients:

unsweetened original hemp milk (about 10 oz?)
unsweetened vanilla almond milk
frozen mangoes
cinnamon
vanilla extract
almond extract
stevia
ground flax seed

It was very yummy and filling.

My Culinary Masterpiece ;)

2008-09-14T22:25:00.001-07:00

I felt like making something tonight. First, I should prepare you by saying that when I make something in the kitchen, especially late at night, it involves things I can add to a big stainless steel bowl with no cooking and using limited kitchen tools. So, with that said, I wanted to make something, and I felt like having some kind of nut butter, which was a big pain to mix up. I decided to use the bowl I used for mixing the almond butter before transferring it back to the jar. In the bowl, I put:

a banana
cinnamon
vanilla extract
almond butter (three large spoonfuls)
pumpkin puree
almond milk
carob powder
coconut butter
stevia
a little sea salt

I had to keep adding things from the list above to the mixture until it tasted right, meaning until I thought the kids would eat it. ;) I told them it was pudding soup and I put little colored sprinkles on the top, which they loved.

It was pretty good, although my stomach feels a bit weird right now. :-o I didn't eat a huge amount of it. I dunno... The kids seem to be fine, though. Praise the Lord!

I often make smoothies for the family, and I guess this was somewhat similar. Once, I made banana chocolate pudding by combining a banana, some peanut butter and cocoa powder and maybe stevia, and it was fluffy. I loved that texture. I probably used too much almond butter this time, but that's OK. It turned out all right.

I'm tired. I need to watch the rest of Music from Another Room. Good movie - pretty funny.

Just say "no" ... to vaccines!

2008-06-30T16:22:00.000-07:00

"Love them. Protect them. Never inject them."

I LOVE it! :D It's a excellent and clever alternative to the absurd propaganda: "Love them. Protect them. Immunize them." See more about it here.

Props to Wendy Callahan of Hawthorne, FL, to whom the slogan is credited!

Actually, I should mention that I do not believe that parents who choose to vaccinate their children are not loving them or protecting them. I was just really irked by the original slogan and the amended version made me chuckle.

2008-06-19T14:39:00.000-07:00

Katie is 6 now. She had a birthday at the end of May. My parents and grandpa were here and we went to the Mall of America and rode some rides. The kids had a lot of fun. We also had a little party in the back yard with some of her friends.

I bought a paper journal for the first time in a long time. I thought it might be nice to have a hobby I could practice away from the computer. It might help me organize my thoughts a bit and be relaxing, hopefully therapeutic, as well. I will continue to blog, though I know I have not been very good about updating, as it is!

We had a bit of a problem with discussions about Santa, recently, between Katie and the neighbor kids, who believe. She told them Santa wasn't real. Oops! I talked to her about it and she agreed to not say as much about it next time, but she mentioned it again today. :-o She said she forgot and I believe her. I'm stressing to her the importance of allowing their family to participate in those traditions, but I am not responsible for her behavior, either. I'm doing all I can by reminding her. Hopefully, she will remember next time.

I wish I could take a looong nap! Maybe Luke will nap in a bit. That would be nice!

I'm going to end now. I hope you all are having a good week!

Breastfeeding "Rights"

2008-05-13T15:36:00.000-07:00

Tennessee health officials and lawmakers actively support breastfeeding mothers. Tennessee passed a law in 2006 protecting a mother’s right to breastfeed a child 12 months or younger in any location, public or private, where the mother and child are authorized to be present;
prohibiting local governments from criminalizing or restricting breastfeeding. Another law requires employers in Tennessee to accommodate breastfeeding mothers at work. The Tennessee Department of Health and WIC program, along with hospitals and health providers, stress that workplaces and communities can work together to protect this important practice by establishing a breastfeeding-friendly environment.

Quote is from http://health.state.tn.us/newsreleases/080107.htm - bold mine.

That is a joke. Actively supporting breastfeeding mothers by protecting a mother's right to nurse in public until their baby is 12 months? Obviously, the people who wrote and passed this law were not familiar with breastfeeding relationships or facts. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends nursing until at least 2 years of age and beyond that as is mutually agreeable to the mother and child. There are nutritional and emotional benefits to nursing past one year of age. So, the Tennessee lawmakers really need to be educated in this area and the law needs to be amended to remove the limit on the age of the nursling whose right to breastfeed is protected.

Ugh. Blah. Blech.

2008-05-02T15:47:00.000-07:00

I am not having a good day. In fact, it's a pretty bad day, although I feel better than I did earlier. I'm so very tired and my back hurts badly (I strained it and it keeps getting aggravated) and I missed two days of my anxiety medication. So, basically, I feel like crap and am having a lot of trouble handling things today.

Maybe once Brian gets home, I'll take a nap. Not sure. I just want the day to go away. I want everything and everyone to go away. Blah, blah, blah. I just want to hide and rest somewhere - all alone for a long time.

I need to call next week to make an appointment with the psychiatrist to see if I need my meds changed.

Maybe more later.

I forgot to say that I feel very lonely sometimes. I love my kids and Brian and he is my best friend in the world, but I really, really want a best girl friend. I have a friend that lives near me, but we're not super-close. Maybe getting closer, but I don't know. Some people are just easier to get close to than others and I often wonder if I like other people more than they like me. I feel so blah and "whatever" right now, but I would love to have some females here to have a very close relationship with. We don't even have any family around here, though it's really close friends that I'm wanting. OK, I'm done whining now. Sorry. *blush* *shrug* :) :-/

2008-04-12T23:10:00.000-07:00

We had a full day today, but it was a lot of fun. We ate at a wonderful Indian vegetarian restaurant and went shopping at a huge thrift store. I bought two books (Match Game and The Handmaid's Tale, Reader's Digest Natural Disasters), a couple shirts for Luke, 3 shirts for Katie, a few stuffed animals, some books for the kids, a kitchen gadget for Brian, a little wooden train for Luke, and I think that's it. Can't think of anything else right now.

My sleep study is on Monday night and my mind is consumed with worry about Luke and whether he will cry and call for me all night. :( I don't think he will because Daddy has a fun night planned for the kids, complete with new movies, Luke's favorite stuffed kitty, and Luke's favorite hemp shake, which I will have ready in the fridge. And Brian has lots of great ideas for distracting Luke if he is distressed at my absence. He's a very compassionate and kind daddy! :D If I didn't feel this was very important to my mental health and that it would improve the daily life of my family and myself, I would not go. I would wait until Luke was older. However, I feel that this is the first step in finding out what is going on with my moods and mental state. To that end, I'm glad to be going and I think it will be an interesting and different (therefore, fun) experience. What will it be like to not have anyone waking me in the night? I'll probably lie awake since I'm not used to long, uninterrupted sleep! LOL They told me that they do have a sleeping pill available to help you fall asleep. I may need it b/c of my anxiety and possible discomfort from all the wires. I will be sure to check on its compatibility with breastfeeding. I hope I don't leak breastmilk on the sheets! Probably wouldn't be the first time it's happened!

Oh, we also stopped at Whole Foods before we came home. We haven't been there in quite a while (a year or more) because it's too far from where we live now. We all had dessert(s)! :-o

Need to go to bed now. Stayed up too late playing Fashion Solitaire (fun!) from Big Fish Games.

Uuuuuunnnnnnggggg!

2008-02-22T22:36:00.000-08:00

I wish the real world would just stop hasslin' me
I wish the real world would just stop hasslin' me

I don't understand it. I don't know what I'm supposed to do and I don't know how to do it. I'm just falling, failing, losing, faltering, drowning. Sometimes, the world just feels like a horrid, inscrutable mess and I want to run away from it.

Blah.

Outing

2008-02-02T21:42:00.000-08:00

We went out together on a shopping trip for the first time in quite a while. As we started out, I was thrilled! And it was a pretty good trip, all in all, but I certainly get tired out more quickly than I used to and the mall doesn't have *quite* the draw, either. I really must be getting old, eh? Hehe. I don't mind, though, really.

I'm happy because we got the kids up quite a bit earlier than we have been getting up. :D Here's hoping that we're moving towards getting on a little earlier schedule!

We bought a large dry erase board to hang on the wall of the lower landing of our stairway to help us organize our housekeeping tasks. Maybe we can finally digourselves out from under all this clutter. That would be wonderful! We also bought a new computer chair, which we have been needing for a long time. The back on this one is broken, so I can't lean back, which can get to be really uncomfortable. We found some fun stuff there for the kids, like a crayon holder tower and a couple computer games.

I have a headache now. I really want to go to sleep. Once we start getting up at the same (earlier) time every day, I'm going to try really hard to institute a bedtime routine starting at the same time most nights. Our days really need a little more organization. I guess everything in my life does! :P Going to stop writing now and take some Tylenol. Will try to update again soon. G'night!

Found An Update!

2008-01-07T20:27:00.000-08:00

China's [Huang Chuancai] to go under knife

A second surgery is scheduled for the man with the large facial tumor. Praying that it is successful and that the pain is minimal.

Please Pray for This Man

2008-01-07T18:29:00.001-08:00

Doctors to Remove 33-Pound Tumor from Man's Face

Please pray for this man. He underwent an operation to have a 33-pound facial tumor removed. He's 31 years old and this tumor has been growing since his birth. I pray that the surgery will be successful and that he will be able to live a normal life. It's hard enough to deal with others' reactions to a relatively small stigma like being overweight or having acne or even something more unusual like deformity of the foot or hand, and, to be sure, the stigma of all of these feels huge and can affect a person's life in a significant and typically negative way. So, how much more difficult would it be to live life with a tumor so big that your facial features are deformed and obscured. I feel a lot of empathy for this man, who even happens to be exactly my age. I pray that God will give him joy and a feeling of love for himself and especially that this man feels the love of God and of some true friends.

I just noticed that the articles I've found are from June and July of last year. I still plan to pray for him, though, and if anyone finds any updates, could you please let me know? Thank you!

Another Late Night

2007-12-23T01:48:00.001-08:00

I'm exhausted and emotionally spent right now, but I am happy that Christmas is almost here. I do feel like it kind of snuck up on me, though, because I've been busy buying Christmas presents and going about daily life. Kind of sad, but that's life this year. That's where I'm at, so I'm going to stop worrying about it now.

We're going to put up the tree tomorrow (today, technically). I remember reading about people putting up unbreakable ornaments around the bottom of the tree so the kids can decorate and redecorate and not be constantly told not to touch the tree. I like that! I wonder if we have some ornaments like that. I have a feeling we're not going to want them to be constantly messing with the tree, anyway, though. I would worry about ornaments being lost and little hooks falling out and poking someone or getting lost (and then poking someone!)

I have a headache. But, I'm here watching Blue's Clues with the kids whom I've been trying to get to sleep for quite a while now. We're having the last snack of the evening. @|@ I'm done being frustrated about it, though. I've already yelled at Katie enough for the rest of her little life. :( :( :( I'm so stressed. I think I might be having PMS.

My parents will be here Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Brian's parents will be here Saturday and maybe early Sunday. Lots to do before then, as usual! And that's an understatement. Oh, well. We'll work on it tomorrow when we're not putting up the tree. Thankfully, Brian is home until Thursday, which is always nice, but will be doubly so this time so he can help get things ready for the relatives.

I'm going to go now because Katie, who apparently has a bottomless stomach, is going to have more to eat. Good night!

How Stupid Are You?

2007-11-19T21:54:00.000-08:00

I was hoping to do a little better than this. :P

Nerd Test

2007-11-19T21:16:00.000-08:00

Pretty much what I expected. ;)

Ahhh, movies...

2007-11-19T02:31:00.000-08:00

I just finished watching Stranger Than Fiction and it was excellent! I highly recommend it! Will Ferrell is fast becoming one of my favorite actors. For more serious work of his, see Winter Passing and Melinda and Melinda. I didn't care too much for the latter, only because it's a Woody Allen film and I'm not a big fan of his work, but Will was wonderful! Zooey Deschanel and Donald Sutherland were also really great in Winter Passing.

2007-11-17T22:13:00.000-08:00

Gentle Mommy Chat

Just a place to post when you can't post at your favorite message board, or if you don't have a favorite message board. A place to hang out and chat for gentle AP moms who love Jesus. :) Come and check it out, if you like. :)

2007-07-10T01:31:00.001-07:00

I'm tired. The smart thing to do would be to go to bed, especially since Brian's parents are coming for Luke's birthday on Saturday and we have to work on getting the house decluttered every evening until then. I, obviously, can't really afford to be tired. And I was today because I stayed up until 5am yesterday morning watching a movie. Blah. And I was irritable and yelled. :( I need to get more sleep. Well, I guess I won't watch a movie tonight, but I'm gonna stay up just a little longer to have a snack. I'll go to sleep soon. The kids have been getting up at around the same time lately no matter what time they go to sleep! Surprising! Around 9:30-11:00. Today, Luke and I got up at a little after noon, though, and he went to sleep at about 3am, so I hope their new "schedule" is not messed up too much.

Well, I'm going to go to something more fun than blogging. :P Hasta luego!

Wheeee!

2007-06-12T00:08:00.000-07:00

I'm having so much fun with LibraryThing! The kids are both in bed, so I'm going to fix myself a sandwich and watch Deja Vu with Denzel Washington (it's due tomorrow) or add more books to LibraryThing. :D Is it sad that I'm so excited about this? :P

2007-06-09T20:48:00.000-07:00

I really, really, really, really, really wish they would go to bed! I'm so tired of waiting for them to fall asleep! Maybe that's my problem, but I have the most difficult time trying to implement a routine. Loose routine, of course. Nothing strict. But it seems I can't even do that. Argh! I really want to watch a movie with Brian. I hope he's not too tired once the kids go to bed.

Two days is not *nearly* long enough for the weekend!

Good Article

2007-05-04T12:22:00.001-07:00

"I was spanked and I'm fine."

Notes on My Struggles

2007-04-30T22:34:00.000-07:00

I wanted to put this here for my own reference and to think it out a little bit.

Two things revealed to me recently (by God, I believe) follow:

1. I'm repeating the dysfunctional cycle of my family of origin by mostly setting boundaries when I'm angry about something. That's being permissive and punitive and making boundaries seem undesirable and related to rejection. :(

2. When I'm upset about something, like Katie wanting a different apple because I cut part out of hers, I kind of abandon her (like my mom abandoned me) and tell her in an angry way, "Fine, but you will get the apple, clean it, and the dish yourself!" :(

I know I need counseling. I will follow through with this by calling the mental health line for our insurance this week. :) :D

I love my kids so much and feel bad about my poor parenting. I'm scared of parenting, of doing it wrong or hurting them, and, in my avoidance, I just do what comes "naturally" and end up hurting them, anyway. :( I need to find courage in the Lord and be the best mom I can be, empowered by the Holy Spirit! I need to seek refuge in Him rather than in things of the world and to actively participate in our relationship. Thank you, God, for your endless love, perseverance, and grace! I love you!

Here's a link I wanted to add, a real eye-opener about the dynamic of yelling and how it affects your children:

Is it wrong to yell at my children?

Chocolate

2007-04-18T10:33:00.000-07:00

I don't think I've done a post on this subject before. If I have, I apologize.

I'm on a quest for the perfect (in my opinion) chocolate. I am going to list the brands of chocolate I have tried and will probably add tasting notes. I'm going on memory for now, but as I have some of these chocolates again, I will add more specific qualities and observations. I should add that I am only sampling chocolate that is dairy-free. However, I would love to have feedback and comments on your favorite chocolate, whether or not it contains dairy. :)

Here is the list, as far as I recall, of chocolate bars I have tried:

A. Korkunov - One of my favorite chocolates. Very smooth, not too dark.

BLANXART

Café-Tasse - Another favorite - the dark, not the very dark. It's not brittle at all, and I really like that quality in a chocolate. Super-smooth.

Chocolove - OK, flavor is not great.

Cote d’Or

Dagoba

Divine - Wonderful, very smooth and very dark without being bitter. I typically prefer a creamier, less intense chocolate, but this was really excellent. A definite favorite.

Endangered Species - These are a little better than average. They're milder than some and, therefore, good for kids, I think, or those just becoming initiated into the world of dark chocolate. They have a dark chocolate bar with blueberries and one with raspberries. Tasty!

Green & Black’s - I really like their Maya Gold variety. It's flavored with orange and spices. Their mint-filled bar is very good, too.

Guittard (Sur del Lago, Chucuri, Ambanja)

Hachez - They have a Strawberry Green Pepper dark chocolate bar that is very interesting!

Kouba - Their "Winter Stroll" bar has chipotle chile and Ceylon cinnamon in it and the chipotle flavor was surprisingly strong and had a noticeable heat. Wow!

Lake Champlain - Very good chocolate. I think it may be local to MN.

NewTree - Interesting flavored varieties like cherry (excellent) and lemon.

Ritter Sport

Santander - Very good. It was my favorite for a while.

Scharffen Berger

Valrhona - I didn't care for this chocolate.

Dairy-Free White Chocolate
For those non-dairy types like myself, Organica makes an organic (surprise!) dairy-free white bar. I love that they don't call it "chocolate" because it really isn't, although it does contain a liberal amount of cocoa butter. It's very rich and just a fantastic bar. YUM!

2007-04-17T10:18:00.000-07:00

Baptist

80%

Fightin' Fundy

65%

Conservative Evangelical

55%

High Church Nomad

45%

Moderate Evangelical

45%

Evangelical Presbyterian

40%

Reformed Baptist

30%

Presby - Old School

15%

What Kind of Evangelical Are You
created with QuizFarm.com

2007-04-11T19:54:00.000-07:00

I have such a headache. We'd like to leave at about 8am tomorrow and, wouldn't ya know, I've packed almost nothing yet! Blah.

OK, now I've packed a little. I need to keep in mind the number of days during which we'll be gone so I don't bring too much. I still have a headache, but I haven't taken anything yet. I should do that.

I really hope the kids go to bed soon so I can get going and keep going until I *have* to go to bed.