Photo Friday - 6/30/17

My neighbor from Jordan always gives us dates after Ramadan.  Sorry this is upside down!  But I always wonder what to do with them?  People don't really eat them straight here.  I need a recipe!

The weather was so beautiful this week, we went, not once but twice, to Meadowlark Botanical Gardens.

Viviane and Dylan at the park.

Goose crossing!

Meadowlark has tons of whimsical touches like this.  Makes it really fun to explore.

There is a big Korean section.  Viviane wanted to know if the whole place was owned by Koreans.  I said no but there are lots of Koreans who visit because of this part of the Botanical garden.  We've often seen Korean wedding couples posing here for photos.

Dylan in the Korean garden.  I think he's imitating Sean here.  Sean was drumming on his lap and so Dylan started drumming on his stroller.

Pretentious Houses of Northern Virginia

My house

This idea was sparked by a post on facebook about an architect who was making fun of ugly pretentious houses.  She got her photos off of Zillow.  Zillow threatened to sue her so she had to take down her blog.  I posted an admittedly flippant comment about how I wanted to boycott Zillow and I got schooled by another commenter, who was lecturing other Christian women about how they shouldn't like the mocking of other peoples' homes.  This is what this nice Christian lady said to me in her defending the homes of the rich and vulgar:

So don't live in one, don't live next to one and don't drive through the neighborhoods where they exist. If it offends you that much you can move. Problem solved. I don't understand why OTHER people have to tell private property owners what to build.

And I agree about mockery not being the best way to deal with stuff that bothers you.   It often backfires.  And I agree we can't tell others what to build.  But I think it is more complex than that.  I've lived in Northern Virginia for 53 out of my 57 years here on the planet.  I've seen it go from small towns and quiet suburbs to overdeveloped, pretentious, non-commuter or community friendly, and sold to the highest bidder in terms of development. Money wins.  Every green space is being built on.  All the old neighborhoods are slowly being changed.  This place is very rich.  So you regularly see a smaller older home which once had a family of several kids in it, torn down and a huge home put up for a single person, a couple, or maybe a couple with one or two kids.  These new houses are gargantuan.  I don't care how many energy saving appliances you put in them (and you know they are gonna be stocked full of them) this is not a sustainable way to live.   So my objections are not only that this way of living is unsustainable and unfriendly, it also exhibits how skewed our values are.  It makes me unhappy to live here.  I dream of retiring out in the country.  I don't like to look at how materialistic and selfish and ostentatious my fellow citizens are.

When I looked into getting backyard chickens in my county, I found out I couldn't.  But then years passed and a new zoning law was passed!  Hooray!  I thought, now's my chance. But it turns out I still can't have chickens because in my backyard there is a dry gulch that sometimes fills with rainwater after a heavy storm and that is part of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, so no go on my chickens.  I am happy to keep the Bay healthy!  But right on the other side of this gulch, they have been building these huge McMansions for the last 13 years, devastating the orchard that had been there when we moved in.  Don't tell me that these folks aren't also hurting the Bay.  Why do they get a pass?  Well, I think it is probably money.  If you put up 40 or so houses that cost over 1 million, you get more tax revenue.

So I thought I would just post now and again about the pretentious houses of Northern Virginia.  I'll take my own photos and not steal them from Zillow.  And I'll make sure you can't see the address.

I live in a beautiful home.  We bought it at the top of our price range 16 years ago.  The couple was desperately trying to avoid bankruptcy and had to sell.  They were a mess.  So we wound up being the one step before foreclosure which I guess saved their credit.  Anyway, we've put a lot into this house.  I am lucky and blessed to have such a nice place to live.  I know I can be a bit of a snob about stuff.  But I do think beauty matters.  I do think making things community friendly matter.  Taste can vary.  So if I post a photo and deem the house ugly, feel free to disagree with me!  De gustibus non est disputandem is true to a certain extent.  But then there are some things that are just ugly.

Two houses I regularly see when driving about town going on daily errands:

To me this is hideous but maybe not to you, dear reader?  It was an empty field.  I like the lighter colored house next to it better (tho still way over the top in terms of dormers and such).  On the other side there are older 1970s split level homes.  There's no sidewalk or anything and it is a narrow road.  This house is for sale and they are asking over 1 million.

This house is in the middle of a development probably build in the 1980s maybe?  Mostly brick homes.  There was a smaller home on the property that got knocked down to make way for this.  This is the front.

This is what it looks like as you approach from the side road.  It's huge!  The funny thing is, it looks exactly like the same architectural style they are using to build the town's new community center.  The roof line is the same.  

To be continued . . .

Monday Meals - 6/26/17

Well, I am trying to do no take out this week.  At some point during the week B has a craving for Chick fil e, but she's not here this week.  B has gone off to work camp.  I'm nervous that she isn't going to last as she seemed very weepy and under the weather.  I am hoping she perks up.  She left on Saturday.  Last night at 10:30 she called home.  The phone ringing at that time scared me to death!  But she just called to say she'd forgotten about her ceramic buttons for her invisalign and ate a Jolly Rancher which broke it off.  Darn it.  Still she didn't need to call and tell me that.  I think she just wanted to talk.  I don't know why my socially self-confidant extroverted daughter is having a rough time right now.  She's gone away before and loved it.    Say a prayer for her, if you are so inclined.

Anyway,  we ate too much take out this weekend and my efforts at zero waste are not going well.  So I am restarting and am going to try to do better this week.

I did start making chicken broth and will finish that up today.  I am also going to hit the grocery store this a.m.

Last week we did have a couple of victories.  One was I made spaghetti carbonara:

Since I can only get three types of pasta in bulk, and none of these is actually spaghetti, I did buy a cardboard box with a small plastic film window.  But the cardboard was recyclable.

The eggs came from my CSA

The bacon was from Whole Foods wrapped in compostable paper.

Garlic!  I have given up jarred garlic!  Even though it comes in a glass jar with a tin lid, it is still something I could do at home without even that.  But I am a lazy cook.  However, last week I bought actual organic garlic heads and chopped my own garlic.  Woot!  I feel virtuous!

Olive oil - from a glass bottle

Parmesan cheese was from a glass jar of already shredded cheese.  

I am finding this to be conundrum though.  Glass jars are heavy and are padded with all kind of packing material so they don't break.  If I bought a block of parmesan just wrapped in shrink wrap, wouldn't that ultimately be a better eco-decision?  Here's the funny thing though.  The shrink wrapped chunks are just as or more expensive than the jarred variety that is already shredded.   Why?  That doesn't make sense to me.    Anyway, in my opinion one could go either way on this decision, whether to stick with glass jars or just get parmesan when needed wrapped in shrink wrap.

I also am moving away from canned dog food.  For one thing the cans probably have plastic coating.  So while they probably get recycled, they also add to the plastic problem and take up a lot of room in my recycling.  I've been buying refrigerated dog food that comes wrapped in plastic but creates a far less volume of waste.  It is just a very small amount of plastic compared to lots of other stuff.  So I am torn there as well.  Which is better; the heavy bulk of cans that may or may not be recycled and may have plastic coating or refrigerated plastic wrapped loaves of dog food?

I was just reading an article about Nestle and how its growth has been 'sluggish' and it wants to go after the pet food, baby food and coffee markets more aggressively.  The pet food growth is explosive because spending money on pets has increased greatly.

Anyway, I digress, I think.

The other success last week was making these tortillas.  I've missed tortillas since Lent of last year.  I used to buy a pack every week.  But I've never figured out how to get some without plastic.  We just go eat at Chipotle now when we want a burrito.  People have advised me to go to a local restaurant and buy directly but I have not gotten around to trying that.  Plus honestly, I am forever out and about getting one thing here and another thing there.  All these scattered errands for one or two things is too much for my head to hold and also increases my driving.  Anyway, I found this youtube video and we tried it and they were excellent!  This one is a keeper!

Friday Photos - 6/23/17

I remembered to take pictures this week!

On Saturday we took Viviane to a winery in Loudoun County for her birthday.  As usual I took a lousy picture with part of my finger in one of the corners of the photo.  It is my trademark!

Gorgeous view; every's on their cell phones.

We got to taste 6 wines.  I liked the rose and the merlot the best.  Viviane and Hannah liked the last wine, a red, the name of which we never noticed.  Because by that time we'd had a bit to drink!

We took Dylan to a local playground.

Becky played here when she was little. She liked using this for impromptu puppet shows back when she was 4.

Sean had a flute recital.  This meant we had to go out and get him a collared shirt and khakis so he could look presentable.

I tried to record his piece.  Instead I got this.  Humpphhh!

My hydrangeas are gorgeous this year!

Wednesday Wisdom - Housekeeping for Slobs in Maintenance Mode

I just thought I'd post all the wisdom I've acquired on keeping your sanity with many children when housekeeping really isn't your strong suit.

1)  Instead of trying to keep your whole house looking like House Beautiful, which is impossible and a perfectionistic standard that will only depress you if you suffer the delusion that that is how you should be living, try to keep one room presentable for any unexpected visitor.  Usually this is the living room.  Also, try to focus on keeping the approach to your front door neat.  Your backyard can look like the Clampitts live there, but you'll feel better about yourself if the approach to your front door and your living room are presentable to the average Joe.  If you live in a small space and the living room is also the play room (that is, your kids actually live in it):

2)  Have a basket or a toy box in there or some large container where you can quickly throw toys and such for a super quick tidy up.

3)  Don't have a lot of knick knacks or stuff you have to be careful of in the living room.  Simple is best.  It can still be a pretty room if you paint the walls your favorite color, hang a couple of pictures that are meaningful to you or lots of family photos, have a book shelf or case full of books and then keep everything else to a minimum.

4)  Carpeting is awful.  If you can, get rid of it!  It needs constant vacuuming, it is a pain to wash, pets have accidents on it, kids throw up and spill stuff and get bloody noses and have potty accidents.  If you can have wood or tile or linoleum, go for it.  So much easier to keep clean.

5) Mats, however, are great.  Mats by the doors to keep dogs and kids from tracking in mud, mats by the stove and the sink to making standing easier on your legs and to catch spills, etc.  You can shake these out, air them outside, some you can throw in the wash.  Easy to keep clean.

6)  Have one big basket to keep kids' shoes in so they won't be scattered all over the house.  You won't trip as much and you won't spend so much time looking for shoes.   Also, have a set place for kids to hang coats.  Hooks on the back of a door work well.

7)  Make your bed every day.  For me this is just pulling up the comforter and fluffing the pillow up.  Takes 2 seconds.  That way even if the rest of the house looks like a tornado went through it, you can collapse on your bed in the one place where chaos doesn't reign.

8)  Every time you walk through a room, straighten or tidy something.   This was my mother's adage and it really helps keep chaos at bay.  Toss that balled up tissue no one threw a way,  straighten that stack of books or CDs careening crazily,  Put pillows on the floor back on the couch, toss the back packs up on the corner chair instead of on the floor.

9)  Every time you use the bathroom, take 10 seconds to neaten or wipe something down.  Keep a rag handy in there for just this purpose.   If you get in this habit, you can do this mindlessly and every little bit really does help!  I've gotten so when I go into a public bathroom  I do this too and it is kind of a random act of kindness for the people who are coming after you to use the facilities.

10)  Cut down on the number of toys your kids have.  The more toys the less creative and grateful kids are.  And the more mess and broken stuff you have to deal with.

11)  Have one easy place to keep all your arts and crafts.  Don't get too crazy about making it look nice.  One drawer to dump crayons and such, one shelf for paper, etc.  It doesn't have to look pinterest perfect, it just has to be serviceable and easy to get and put stuff away.  Likewise with legos.  Have a designated lego room with a container to dump them all in.

12)  Have regular 10 minutes tidy up times a couple times a day tied to something you do every day.  Like right before lunch, put on a timer and race around tidying up with the kids.  Or right before story time at night, do the same thing.

13)  Have a junk room where you know you can toss stuff and close the door.  We are in maintenance mode!  Then at some point during the year, make sure you dedicate time to sort, give away and tidy it up.  This is a great special job to give older kids to do for money!  Do this also with the garage, if you have one.  One time a year deep clean works for maintenance mode!

14)  When you get ready to get out of the car, make sure everybody is taking out their trash or whatever they just brought in to the car:  toys, books, etc.  No one gets out of the car without something.  Make it the rule!

15)  To keep clean laundry from piling up, I dump the laundry I can't put away immediately, on my nicely made bed.  That way I have to put it away before I sleep.  Now sometimes I'll admit, I'm too tired and I wind up putting it back in a basket or even dumping on the floor!  But 95% of the time, I put it away.

16)  Once a year go through your closets and get rid of stuff.  My church has a once a year clothing drive on Thanksgiving weekend.  For years now, the week before Thanksgiving has been dedicated to this in my household.

17)  In the morning when I get the kids up, I walk through all the bedrooms and collect any cups or dishes that have migrated to their rooms.  Sometimes they remember to bring them down themselves, but sometimes not so much.

18)  I am terrible at sorting mail.  This is always a problem.  The ideal is to sort mail right over your recycling and dump any you don't want in the mixed paper bin, what you do need to keep put in the same place you know you/your spouse will see it again and deal with it.

19)  Stop getting newspapers, magazines etc unless you absolutely have to subscribe to something.  This stuff wastes paper and just contributes to clutter.

20)  For laundry - have a hamper in each bedroom and then an auxiliary one in your laundry room.  Just do loads by bedroom.   Have kids keep their towels on hooks in the bedrooms too.  That way you can dedicate the laundry that day to the clothes, the sheets and towels of all residents of that room.  Next day do the next bedroom.  I never could handle doing all the laundry in one day, but I could handle doing it this way.  Also, as soon as the kids are old enough, have them do their own laundry!!!!  The auxiliary hamper is for dish towels and other stuff that doesn't make it into a bedroom hamper.

21) Each child had their own cup that gets rinsed and stored on the counter after meals.  They can use this cup to get themselves water when they are thirsty.    At the end of the day, load up the dishwasher so they are ready for the next day.

22)  Even if you are a big family you can run your dishwasher just once a day, usually.  Have extra smaller dessert or sandwich plates.  Have extra bowls too for cereal and lunch.  If you cut down on the number of glasses and cups, you'll have room to stack small plates and bowls on the top rack as well as the bottom rack.  Then the big dinner plates go on the bottom rack.  I'm always too tired to finish dishes at night and my kids may or may not help.  A lot of times we are doing something in the evening and dishes get short shrift or I'm just too tired to police things.  So I fill the sink with soapy water and put pots and pans in to soak (I try to clean up as a I go along when I am cooking dinner), as well as any serving dishes and any sundry leftover plates, etc and deal with it in the morning.  I'm more of a morning person so I've got the energy to tackle it then.  Plus they've soaked over night.

23)  Don't forget to run the dishwasher before you go to bed!

24)  Spot cleaning works well for longer than you think!  Just wipe up that spot on the floor if you don't have time to clean the whole thing.    A quick sweep, or swipe or mop targeting dirty or high volume areas goes a long, long way towards making the house look nice.

25)  Pick a cluttered surface, put on a timer for 3 to 5 to 10 minutes (whatever you've got to spare) and just work at top speed.  Flylady calls these hot spots.  Her system didn't work so well for me, but this particular thing did.  If on most days you tackle a hot spot for a few minutes, you can keep afloat! It's like treading water.  It keeps your head up!

26)  Remember to get your recycling and trash to the curb every week.  You'd think this was simple but a lot of times life, weather, the flu, etc can interfere with this and then you've got stuff overflowing, which is always depressing.

27)  If you really want your kids to clean their rooms, you have to pitch in and help them.  Make it a special event for you to work together.  (I do not focus on this much except for a few times a year.  As long as the laundry's being done and I get any food related stuff out of there, I don't care how bad it might get).  Even if it is just having tea together afterwards or splurging in ice cream to reward yourself for a job well done, it can actually build the relationship instead of you fuming that they aren't doing it right or are being lazy or something.

28)  Chores you can pay your kids to help with:  weeding, breaking down lots of boxes for recycling, sweeping the porches and walkways, helping with the junk room and the garage, deep cleaning the house in preparation for Christmas,  special organizational things like sorting and organizing the family bookshelves, etc.

29)  I never had a regular chore chart.  I just don't work that way, but the kids did have regular chores:  setting the table for dinner, taking out trash, changing the kitty litter, doing their own laundry, helping to carry in groceries.

30)  Invite people over for parties and get togethers!  This will spur you to keep up on cleaning!

Tuesday Topics - 6/13/17

Well, it's primary voting today in Virginia.  I've got to run vote at some point this morning and then this afternoon, I'm going out in the heat down to Prince William county to garner more signatures for Mitzi Hellmer's ballot access petition.  All the signatures are due tonight by 7 p.m.  Right now we've got almost 120 signatures and we need 125.  However, they must be verified signatures, meaning that all the signers must be eligible to vote in District 50.  So usually you want to go way over the 125, because so many signatures can be tossed out.

But that's not what I want to talk about.  I've been thinking about consumer culture and how the free market has helped so much with distribution of goods and gradually bringing most people's standard of living up.  This is good.  Poverty today in the USA (and many other places) is different from what it was in years past.  Poor people today have indoor plumbing, A/C, cars, cell phones, TVs.  I know so many families that technically live at or below the poverty line.  I know one family in particular.  Seven kids.  The dad works from home on the computer.  They live in a big house way, way out in the country.  They only have one van and they drive the hour into a small town once a week.  They are very frugal about food and clothing.  They have tons of books they've acquired over the years, mostly used.  They love where they live.  Lots of beauty and nature.  I imagine there is a level of contentment there that isn't present in a lot of wealthier families.  Intentional poverty is actually a blessed thing in many ways.  The one problem is that if one has a financial set back, loss of job, a sick child, a medical emergency, a house fire, whatever, you can swiftly go from intentionally poor to destitute.

I've been watching a lot of homesteading videos lately.  I'm fascinated by them.  I'll never been a homesteader.  I simply don't have the physical stamina it takes. I never did and now I'm too old.  And my husband would never truly go for it.  He is too tied to his job which is a very fulfilling career for him personally.  He loves what he does and is good at it, in spite of the high pressure and exhausting hours that go with it.  The closest I can get to the homesteading lifestyle, in the 1% neighborhood I'm in, is to be a conscientious consumer.  I can choose to spend my money carefully to help those who are trying to make a difference.  I can buy local from nearby farmers.  I can try to be as zero waste as possible.  I can try to solarize my home.  I can try to buy fair trade.  That sort of thing.

But these videos fascinate me.  Going off grid, building your own home with your own hands, choosing to use a composting toilet, raising chickens and goats, all is very appealing to me, even though I could never do it.  I like the idea of deliberately leaving the rat race, being self-reliant, living in the moment not for material things but for a sense of freedom and accomplishment, getting back to a simpler lifestyle where one's values are in proper priority.  This is good!

These homesteaders have small homes with things like rainwater catchment.  They make their videos on the small amount of electricity they get from a generator or solar panel.

So while I've been on this homesteading kick, we received in the mail information from Food for The Poor.  If you aren't familar with this excellent organization, Food for the Poor builds houses and otherwise helps the poorest of the poor in Caribbean and Central America. They've really been focusing on Haiti since the terrible earthquake and hurricanes have hit that poor country in the last ten years.  Food for the Poor has built over 500 homes.  The way they described the homes, a move up for these people living in dangerous housing is on the same level as these American homesteaders!  I was struck by their similarity.  They are very small.  The ones in Haiti are built of concrete instead of logs because Haiti has earthquakes.  They use rainwater catchment.  They are off grid so their ovens are built so that the Haitian owners can scrap the wood ashes out of the ovens from outside the house. They don't have running water but they have a nearby clean water supply, which is a huge step up.  They build the houses so there is room to have a garden and keep chickens.  They even give each family a solar panel so that they can have enough electricity to charge their cell phones!

I think the impulse that drives the homesteader is a good one.  'Not too much, just enough' is the best way to live.  Maybe by people in the developed world realizing this, they will voluntarily choose to live more simply and in the meantime, with their disposable income, can help fund things so that the destitute can live simply but not miserably or under dangerous conditions.  And slowly these two levels of society can move closer to each in other in terms of how it is best for humans to live.

Out of the Silent Planet - Book 20

Out of the Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis is the first book in his Space Trilogy.  It was written back in 1938 so I found Lewis' fanciful dealing with the physics of space interesting and entertaining.    This book fulfills the 'outer space' square in my Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks Bingo Challenge.

The main character in the book is a English philologist named Dr. Ransom.  Lewis has fun with this, developing another language system for the creatures he peoples Malacandra with.  Ransom uses his expertise to learn to speak to the natives.

The story begins while on a walking vacation through the English countryside.  Ransom stumbles on an old unlikeable classmate of his and another fellow, Dr. Weston, in the middle of a dark secret.  He winds up getting kidnapped to go along with them as they fly to what we realize later is Mars.  The whole technological aspect of how they take off is deftly ignored by Lewis.  The description of the flight and then the actual topography and biology of Malacandra (Mars) is really interesting.

Once on the planet, Ransom escapes and is succored by one of the three species of intelligent life on the planet.  It's a complex story with all sorts of implications and observations on good and evil.  The creatures of Malacandra never experienced a fall from grace.  Even though they know their planet is dying, they have no fear.  Earth is the only place in the universe where people are 'bent,' the Malacandrian way of saying 'sinful.'  

Ransom is not as bent as the other two men: Devine who is full of greed for the gold found on Malacandra, and Weston who has some sort of delusional monomania for discovering a new home to save the humans of the earth.  Ransom thus can see clearly where the others can not.  They impute danger and ideas to the creatures of Malacandra that aren't there.  Weston, the supposedly smarter of the two, is actually the worst at never overcoming his prejudices, so convinced is he that he is right in everything.

There's a whole category of beings that I never figured out if they were actually angels or just angel-like.  I found this very insightful analysis of the book.  I disagree about the meaningless of the suspense during the ride back to Earth.  I thought it showed Ransom's changed response to his possibly impending death and how the other two men, so deformed by sin, so bent, didn't change at all.

For many years, I'd been wanting to read at least some of Lewis' trilogy because I'd heard it was a play on The Divine Comedy of Dante.  Alas, I don't think I know enough of Dante's great work to get the allusion.  Maybe it becomes more obvious in the later two books.  Lewis was such a wonderful writer, that even though I don't usually enjoy science fiction, I did enjoy this story.

For more book reviews, go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.

Friday Photos - 6/9/17 - a day late

Amazing Becky went out with me to collect signatures for a ballot access petition.  She rocked it.   She is good at this kind of stuff.

She never wants me to take her picture.  And once again I got my hand in the way of the frame.

We are trying to figure out how to get Viviane working and Dylan good child care.  There is a Montessori school near us that has an opening in his age group.  What's nice about it is they also teach the children French, which, of course is Viviane's native tongue.  And they may be looking for a teacher's aide.  That means that Viviane could work there, get 50% off tuition and Dylan would be learning to be bilingual.  We are praying that it works out!

The school seems so perfect.  All the children were happy.  It was nice and multicultural.  Dylan loved this rug and laid right down on it and starting rolling around.

I successfully made granola again.   Everyone loves it.  It is so rare that I have a true hit with everybody.  Hooray for homemade granola!  I need to make more at one time.  It only lasts for a couple days.

Notice the two plastic bags behind these jars.  I had such a bad plastic free week this week.  Sometimes I feel like no matter how hard I try and I can't avoid it, even the stuff that is supposed to be easy to avoid.  The bag directly behind the jars I brought home.  I went to the pharmacy to pick up Rick's medicine.  Usually they give it to you in a little white and red striped paper bag.  Sometimes if you have more than one item, they'll put it in either a paper bag or a plastic bag.  It is sort of hit or miss what they use.  But this time I had little Dylan in tow and I was so busy holding him and keeping him from running around the store, that I completely didn't notice the lady had put the one paper bag into a plastic bag until I got outside.  Sigh.  It was a completely extraneous plastic bag.  The other bag behind the empty napkin holder was brought home by Josh.  He picked up some dog food on the way home from work and he never, ever, ever remembers my admonishments to please keep a bag in his car or at least ask for paper at the store.  So, yeah, it was cans of dog food so double bagged.  Those are only two of my failures this week to keep plastic free.

Gratuitous photo of my handsome cat, Clover, looking very regal.

Wednesday Wisdom - 6/7/17

I am still plugging through City of God.  It's probably going to take me months just to finish the book.  Apparently, I really needed the structure of the twitter reading group to read this.  But I still am enjoying it.  It is just going to be my morning meditation book, I've decided.  In Book XX Augustine explores the last judgement.  This is not something I think about a lot.  He's really been examining the book of Revelation.  But this morning I read his thoughts on evidence in the Bible for purgatory.  He quotes Malachi 3, 1-6; here's the first part:

See, he comes, says the Lord Almighty!  And who will withstand the day of his coming, and who will be able to endure to look him in the face?  For he comes like a refiner's fire and like a fuller's herb; and he will sit, refining and purifying as it were gold and silver.  Then they will offer to the Lord sacrifices in righteousness, and the sacrifice of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord, as in the days of old and in years gone by.

Augustine extrapolates from this that there must be some kind of purgation that takes place and once it does, the purged person is able to 'offer sacrifices in righteousness'  meaning they are worthy of being in the presence of the Lord.

The other bit of the quote that jumped out at me, is this:

I shall come in judgement, and I shall be a swift witness against sorcerers and against adulterers and against those who swear in my name falsely, and against those who defraud the worker of his wages, and use their power to oppress the widows and maltreat the orphans and pervert judgement against the stranger, and have no fear of me, says the Lord Almighty.  For I am the Lord your God; and I do not change.

Right there it explicitly states:  no dabbling  in the occult, no adultery, no swearing in God's name, no exploiting the worker, no oppressing vulnerable people like widows and orphans, no treating the stranger unjustly, and you'd better respect the Lord!  And he doesn't change.  These things hold throughout eternity.  We don't get to rewrite them in our own image, whether we be liberal or conservative politically.  

Tuesday Topics - 6/6/17- I'm in love with the American Solidarity Party!

I've been really busy lately volunteering with the American Solidarity Party.  I've got several things going on.  First, I've been doing some administrative support for them.  I hope to finish that up today.  I also volunteered a bit to gather signatures for a ballot access petition for a potential delegate candidate in a nearby district.  That was humiliating.  I am shy and don't like going up to complete strangers trying to get them to sign and give me their address!  I had no luck at all.  But I think I might try again later this week.  We'll see.  Here's the link to the facebook page for the campaign  

Then the ASP had a mammoth survey for the party members to revise our platform.  I've never thought about exactly what I think on so many different issues in such detail.  I realized I am powerfully ignorant on things like finance and the economy.   And healthcare is just a massive issue.  The funny thing is that people in the party were clamoring for such a survey but then everybody admitted it was a honking bear to respond to!  It took days!  Kudos to those on the survey subcommittee.  They did some awesome, awesome work!

Finally, (this is the craziest thing of all), I am working on starting a podcast for the ASP.  I, who have zip, zilch, zero experience or capacity for technology, am going to try to crack this baby and see how things go.  I am in the process of percolating and planning it out.  It is complicated!!!!  I tried out my radio voice by recording myself on Garageband (had to get S to show me how).  I sounded ok.  I am relying on my nephew who runs a sound studio nearby to help with initially learn the ropes.  I'm starting to line up people to interview.  This a.m. I woke up with a bunch of ideas for it!  Oh my goodness, life is an adventure!

And now I must go get dressed before the A/C guy gets here to give us a brand new air conditioner because the old one is dying.

Monday Meals - 6/5/17

I'm still feeling burned out on meals!  But the CSA started up yesterday.  I got lots of lovely stuff.  One thing I got was a big bunch of basil.  They had so much they were telling everyone to just take some with their regular order. I don't know what to do with it though. The truth is no one around here much likes pesto.  Well the jarred kind.  Maybe I could try to make some homemade???  That's a thought.

I looked around for the lowest sodium bbq sauce I could find that also came in a glass jar and Rick basted two chickens he roasted on the rotisserie grill yesterday (with hickory wood chips).  DELICIOUS!  Oh my goodness was it good!

Today - deal with left over chicken.  Also, I must make guac today as the avocados are very ripe!

I also am still planning to make more yogurt and granola.  Hopefully so we have both together to make yogurt parfaits.

Becky had a friend stay over with her because the friend's parents had to go out of town for the night.  As a thank you gift, the mom made THE BEST CAKE EVER and gave it to us.  It has sherry in it, I hear.  I'd never think to make a cake from scratch with sherry in it.  I don't even buy sherry.  I just ate some for breakfast, sherry and all.  Wow.  Really good cake!

Sherry cake, where have you been all my life?

I haven't gotten any farther than that in meal planning.  Must go food shopping tomorrow.  Better get hopping!