Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Entries from September 1, 2008 - October 1, 2008

Entries from September 1, 2008 - October 1, 2008

Tuesday
Sep162008

Getting From Here to There: A Vision for the Future Part 1

Getting From Here to There: Intro

As you look into the face of your precious 2 year old, it is hard to image 16 years could go by and someday you will be looking up into the precious (or perhaps pernicious) eyes of your 18 year old. What will shape the content of your parenting for the next 12 or so years? By age 14, wise parents are moving from the directive stage of parenting into a coaching stage.

From birth to about 12 years of age, parents has the most influence in developing character in their child. There is a transition time from around 12 to 14. By age 14, kids are going to do what they want. Their decisions are influenced by friends, media, school, church and their family and other influences you can’t image now. Who knows how the media/entertainment/educational industries will develop over the next two decades and how that will affect your child’s thinking.

Now is the time to think carefully about what is important to you as a person and how to transmit that information to your child. What matters to you? What do you value in terms of character? Than what is the process you will use over the next 12 or so years to teach your child is what is important. In effect, what is your vision for your child as an adult?

Start with what is important…do you value integrity? Gentleness? Faithfulness? Self-control? Being responsible? The willingness to work hard? Some traits to think about in deciding what you value:

  • Accountability Friendliness Loyalty
  • Caring Frugal Obedience
  • Character Fun Openness / privacy
  • Charity Generosity Patience
  • Compassion Gentleness Peace
  • Credibility Helpfulness Perseverance
  • Desire Honesty Politeness
  • Duty Responsibility
  • Hope Respect
  • Empathy Humility Self-control
  • Excellence Imagination
  • Fairness Integrity Sportsmanship
  • Faith Judgment Strength (internal)
  • Flexibility Knowledge Team player
  • Logic Tenderness
  • Trust Trust-worthiness

When you think about your child’s character as an adult what do you most desire for them to be?

Monday
Sep152008

Beware the Blogger in Your Midst

“All writers are cannibals,” Joan Delmont wrote in her novel Plonk Goes the Weasel. I love this quote. I didn’t realize how accurate this observation was until I started posting a daily blog. Now the events in my life are all grist for the mill. The kids are used to this. I have used them as examples when I was teaching Bible Study and MOPS. They have some minor objection to me posting their lives on the web for the whole world to see, hence the Princess posting. There was the time that my resident tech expert objected to something I wrote that involved her and she threatened to delete my blog. I have never mentioned A Second Cup to my son’s prior girlfriend on the off chance she might come across the posts involving her, they get back together and she hates me forever. My husband didn’t like the post about nagging. I’m not going to explore why too deeply.

I have to be careful or I find myself narrating what I experience in my mind piecing together words to type down later because I post 5 times a week, 2500 words more or less and I need new material daily. My husband took me to a lovely bed and breakfast for our 25th wedding anniversary, as we walked into the room, I started writing in my head, “The room is masculine and comfortable like the man I married…” I had to stop myself. This was not blog material even though I could get a week's worth of postings.

The same thing happened when I visited my family. I was noting details, watching faces, looking for minor conflicts that would make interesting posts. That is why I wrote so little about my visit. I was visiting family, not on a blog material gathering mission. There are lines that should not be crossed.

Where is the line between a writer's using events from her personal life to develop material to post and using other people’s lives with or without their consent?

If you know someone who writes a personal blog…beware…she may be writing in her head, gnawing on your life, even as you speak, so please…try to be interesting.

Friday
Sep122008

Parenting Teens: What Would Jesus Do? Seriously:A Second Cup Guest Blogger

I was planning to post in my new series Getting form Here to There. However homeschool in now in full swing, I am teaching Ephesians on Sunday nights for the next 10 week, I am teaching at Circle of Friends every other week (here's irony, the scheduled talk in 2 weeks is on priorities and time management, the kids are now too busy to help with the house work, so I haven’t written anything new since Monday. I kept to my summer pace instead of speeding up as Labor Day approach and now I am behind in everything. The fact that I had 10 episodes of NCIS Tivoed and a cool knitting project didn’t help me be productive this week. Therefore, Stacey at All Stacey, All The Time had a though provoking post on raising teens…..without further adieu:

What Would Jesus Do? Seriously…

So I'm at work today and Nick is with me because he had a class this morning. He was helpful when I needed him, he did well in class and even came out to socialize with some of our customers/friends. About 30 minutes before we are scheduled to leave, a customer comes in who we've known for over 10 years. We've gone to church with this woman for many years, we went to her eldest daughter's wedding, I mean, we know her.

Nick was dressed as he usually is - shorts, graphic t-shirt, sneakers, his PSP playing music in his ear. His shirt was white with a heavy metal/guitar theme on the front that had some skulls and some words but he's worn it like a thousand times and I don't find it offensive and until today, no one else had. Well, this woman greets him very nicely "Oh, Nicholas, I haven't seen you in a while!" Everyone's friendly, everyone's fine. Then she starts commenting on his shirt. "What's with that shirt? With the skulls and...blah, blah, blah. Do you think that you are representing Christ with that shirt? What are you listening to? Is that music glorifying Christ?" I mean, it went on and on and on and on for several minutes. Now with every comment she made, I tried to point out something positive, but she clearly wanted none of it. When we explained that he was listening to CHRISTIAN metal and how his shirt was autographed by a band from the "Scream the Prayer" tour, she said "Funny, I don't remember Jesus screaming."

Okay, now the gloves are coming off! Now, I am so proud of Nick because he was completely respectful and was polite to her during her entire attack. Luckily, this woman's children distracted her with their need to use the restroom and she finally relented. I had Nick get his gear and go wait somewhere - ANYWHERE - else.

Now, Christian or not, does anyone out there think that Jesus would attack someone like that? Whether you know your Bible word for word or not, did Jesus only hang out with the people who looked, thought and spoke EXACTLY like Him? NO! If my child were not a Christian do you think attacking him - in front of his mother, her boss, other customers - would be a way to WIN him over to Christ or do you think you would have just pushed him away? Do you think that verbally attacking someone glorifies God? Do you think embarassing them in front of people 'represents' our Lord and Savior? I mean, I am certainly no Bible scholar but even I know that no where in the Bible does Jesus behave in such a way. No where in the Bible does it say that you can only sing about and worship Him to hymns! If screamo-metal (I don't know the 'actual' word for his music) speaks to the teens of today and helps them form a relationship with Christ and makes them excited about being a Christian, then SHUT UP!

I'm not a teen and I don't particulary like the screamo stuff, but neither am I a hymn person. Personally, they put me to sleep. I like contemporary Christian music. When our last church changed from contemporary to more traditional music, it actually HINDERED my spiritual time. I can guarantee you that I am not alone. Not everyone has to worship God in the same exact way - just as long as you worship Him. Not everyone dresses the same, not everyone speaks the same, not everyone has to BE the same!

Last I checked, one of the last people who thought that way put millions of people in to a gas chamber.

Would that be better for you, friend?


Has your kid's witness been called into guestion by others? How did you or your child respond?

Thursday
Sep112008

CSA Adventures: Fuzzy Food

I was away 2 weekends while I was visiting family. My husband did the pick up. He wasn’t as diligent as I in storing the fresh picked vegetables. I am saddened to report there was some vegiside that occurred.

While I was gone, he discovered a liking for okra! Okra is one of those foods I have not previously encountered in the raw. I have had it bathed in stew and coated in battered and fried. Until we joined the Wild Onion CSA, I had never seen it in its natural state.

Okra is fuzzy. It looks like a tiny octagonal fuzzy genetically altered green zucchini. I can’t tell you what it tastes like because I do not consume fuzzy food. I peal peaches before eating them. While I was away, my husband hit allrecipes.com and found one for sautéed okra that he then made, ate and enjoyed.

Cut the tops off the okra. Heat way more oil than a health conscientious person should use, into a frying pan, sauté okra for a few minutes. Drain on paper towels; add salt, pepper and hot red pepper flakes to taste. Enjoy.

We have been receiving a bevy of multi colored peppers. The girls have taken to eating them raw. Since colored peppers are pricy, I only buy them to use in a specific recipe. There were never enough around just to eat like you would an apple or a carrot. We don’t wax poetic about them like we did the cherry tomatoes from earlier this summer but having extra colored peppers around has been a treat.

Tropical Storm Hanna was threatening our area with rain and high winds. We could use the rain, it’s the winds we can do without. The farmers market was closed this past weekend. The few sellers that showed did a bang up business but we were not able to pick up this week’s box. There were supposed to be butter beans in the box.

What exactly is a butter bean?

Wednesday
Sep102008

Caffeine Intake Systems

Caffeine in one form or another is most likely the most used stimulate the world over. (I cannot prove this statement but if enough people insist that something is true, what they insistence on comes to be perceived as being empirically true and therefore needs no objective proof. It works for evolution, so it will work for the truth of caffeine ingestion.). There are various way to introduce this stimulate into the human body. I would like to briefly consider the two most common methods, those being hot and cold liquids and why one system is empirically better.

The serious of this situation was force into my consciences while staying with an unnamed source for the week. This household while abounding in cold caffeine, to wit: Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi. (A divided yet amazing peaceful household. It should be noted that caffeine use was strictly limited to those over 21.) had no viable in-house hot production system. The equipment for producing hot liquids was available but the necessity preproduction raw materials was lacking. Had I asked for or purchase said material (here after called coffee), the needed material would no doubt have been supplied. However great thoughts require living in deprivation for a period in order to crystallize said thoughts (think Thoreau living in Walden woods). Besides, I didn’t think to ask or buy so I suffered for my convictions.

As everyone intelligent person of refined taste should realize, warm/hot is better than cold when consuming eatables. As with evolution, the nitpickers will go right for the exceptions. What about ice cream and what about green salads? To that, moderately wise people reply: What about fried ice cream and I don’t like salad. Wiser people pooh-pooh the objections as foolishness (How can you object to what is empirically true) and continue on their merry way.

Cold soda hitting the stomach first thing in the morning feels like swallowing an ice burg. The shock of the cold can as to awake fingers struggling to bring the can to the lips is unpleasant. Coffee is gentle, its heat emanating from the mug warning the hands as the liquid warms the soul. The bitterness awakes the mind to face the new dawn. The sugary sweetness (real or of a synthetic nature) of soda startles rather than awakens.

Both are excellent intake systems. It is just (I know that some will disagree but truth must out) one is civilized and one is not. Since this is an objective thesis on the subject, I will not reveal my preference. For the sake of intellectual honesty, I am conducting a poll similar to the unbiased political polls I am reading in the newspaper. This poll will prove that we all know is true.

Please leave your answer in a comment:

If you have to choose today, which caffeine intake system would you opt for: the soul warming, gentle stimulation of coffee, or the mind jarring, system shattering of soda?

No comments:

Post a Comment