On this Friday the 13th, let's get away from all the scary movies and bad times.
One of my favorite songs ever is "It's A Great Day To Be Alive" with Travis Tritt.
Recently I think I've forgotten that life theme but today I'm determined to make it my banner again.
World Recession:
The other day on the radio show with Dave Ramsey he asked the audience for people that refuse to participate in the country wide, and soon global wide recession, and My husband and I looked at each other and said, "we're not participating!!" And we're not. We're not worse off than we were a year ago.
I have lost one of my jobs, my weekend job has been laid off for the last two months, but my boss says they might let me come back if business picks up. I have two other jobs anyway and they bring in a little bit of money every month, and my husband after years of long, hard work finally got promoted, and to see the the relief in his eyes are more worth than anything.
We have lost some money in the 401K but I didn't have that much there to start with so it's not bothering us that much.
Family wise:
I'm not very happy with Erik's school as you as readers well know by now, but Erik said the other day that he's having a little bit more fun at school now and summer is almost here, and if we're staying here in AR I'm considering Home Schooling for the fall.
Not knowing if we're moving or not is hard on me, but I've come to realize that what ever happens we're happy, we love it here, and we would love it somewhere else.
Living so far away from my parents is very tough. My dad is in poor health and every time the phone rings at a weird time I freak out and thinks something have happened to him.
But I get to talk to my parents every day on the phone. What if I was an early immigrant from Sweden in the beginning of the 1800? When they left their home country it was to never ever return. The only way of communication was with letters that could take months and months to reach their destination.
Even though the plane tickets to go over there are outrageous expensive I can go with in a couple of hours if something would happen.
I stopped for coffee this morning and remembered the news the other week of what people in Starbucks drive through were doing and decided to do the same, pay for the following car's coffee. Hopefully that made his or her day a little brighter.
So my challenge for myself and for you the reader is to start count our blessings in these hard times and hopefully we can turn all the negative news we hear every day back to every day being "a great day to be alive, and know the sun still shining when I close my eyes"
My iPod's loading some Travis Tritt right now...
Friday, March 13, 2009
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Paul vs Women
Even in my most intense bible thumping days I had problems with Paul.
The guy HAD to dislike someone didn't he? He started off being against every Christian and persecuted them to his fullest, and when he was turned around by the bright light out on the gravel road he stopped killing Christians but he had to start at least verbally assault some people, so he picked women.
I don't care that much any more but the last couple of days it has caught my attention how horribly wrong he was in his descriptions on women, and if you bring it to the point kind of assaulting Christ even.
Let me explain.
But before I do, this has nothing to do with men hating, feminist propaganda, or any thing of that sort, just a plain notice of every day family life and also a salute to all the wonderful women I work with and see in my surrounding.
Also, it has to be said that my husband leaves it up to me to take care of a lot of things, not because he's lazy but because I'm better at it, as I leave things for him to be in charge of that he's better at. Sometimes it feels like I'm very much better at a lot of things, but in the end of the day he takes care of me and I would not be without him!
Since I live in the center of the Bible Belt I find it even more confusing that families live in a dynamic so totally in collision with Paul's teachings.
Paul claims women are the weaker vessel. Maybe if you count muscle mass, but that would be the only category women are weaker than men.
Here more than any where I've lived before are women in charge of almost everything. The women I work with are super women.
They have the full responsibility over the family, the checkbook, the house maintenance, home work, after school activities, shopping for every day needs for not just herself, but for husband and kids.
She's in charge of planning vacations or recreations.
Her day start before anyone else in the family and ends way after everyone else have called it the day.
And if that wasn't enough work to do at home, she's also helping out with the "man's responsibility", putting food on the table, by working outside the home as much or more than the man. If the woman of a family would vanish the whole family would go extinct with in days.
Paul also uses the picture of the family to describe the relation between Christ and Church. He says Christ is the head of the church as the man in the head of the family...
That's what I think is almost insulting Christ...
The guy HAD to dislike someone didn't he? He started off being against every Christian and persecuted them to his fullest, and when he was turned around by the bright light out on the gravel road he stopped killing Christians but he had to start at least verbally assault some people, so he picked women.
I don't care that much any more but the last couple of days it has caught my attention how horribly wrong he was in his descriptions on women, and if you bring it to the point kind of assaulting Christ even.
Let me explain.
But before I do, this has nothing to do with men hating, feminist propaganda, or any thing of that sort, just a plain notice of every day family life and also a salute to all the wonderful women I work with and see in my surrounding.
Also, it has to be said that my husband leaves it up to me to take care of a lot of things, not because he's lazy but because I'm better at it, as I leave things for him to be in charge of that he's better at. Sometimes it feels like I'm very much better at a lot of things, but in the end of the day he takes care of me and I would not be without him!
Since I live in the center of the Bible Belt I find it even more confusing that families live in a dynamic so totally in collision with Paul's teachings.
Paul claims women are the weaker vessel. Maybe if you count muscle mass, but that would be the only category women are weaker than men.
Here more than any where I've lived before are women in charge of almost everything. The women I work with are super women.
They have the full responsibility over the family, the checkbook, the house maintenance, home work, after school activities, shopping for every day needs for not just herself, but for husband and kids.
She's in charge of planning vacations or recreations.
Her day start before anyone else in the family and ends way after everyone else have called it the day.
And if that wasn't enough work to do at home, she's also helping out with the "man's responsibility", putting food on the table, by working outside the home as much or more than the man. If the woman of a family would vanish the whole family would go extinct with in days.
Paul also uses the picture of the family to describe the relation between Christ and Church. He says Christ is the head of the church as the man in the head of the family...
That's what I think is almost insulting Christ...
Monday, March 2, 2009
Who's Raising Our Children?
As all of you following my blog know, I'm not very happy with the school system. I'm not a Republican or a Democrat. I like the conservative view of government and I favor a liberal view on social and lifestyle issues. I want government out of my wallet and every day life which includes mine and everyone else bedroom!
So don't come and holler at me and tell me "yeah, it's because it's a liberal at the White House" or it's all "that moron W's" fault, when I tell you what I'm about to say now.
I strongly believe it doesn't matter what label is on the guy or gal at the White House no more, I think they serve a bigger agenda that is not for them to question. But back to what I was about to rant on today...
At the "not" State Of the Union address the other week one thing Obama said made me jump. He was talking about the school reform and he said as a promise, that America again will have the best education program for our children from their birth to they graduate from College.
Did you see something worth jumping for in that sentence? If not you're almost lost already I'm afraid. He said FROM THEIR BIRTH...
Today I was listening to Ed Schultz show on the radio. A very progressive voice in the other wise very conservative clutter of talk radio. I don't really know what the topic was but he was talking about the new Secretary of Education. Don't ask me what her name is, I have no idea, but he was saying that he knows why Obama picked her, they are on the same page when it comes to reform for the education system... And again if you read my blog you know I'm a big supporter of education reform, but probably not even close to the same kind of reform they are talking about.
He said that the kids need to spend more time at school learning, way more time than now. Saying adults just get 2 weeks off per year, why should kids have all that time off, they should be in school longer and the parents get to see their kids during the weekend.
I know what he was trying to get to, we fall behind every year to the Asian countries when it comes to education, so I know his intentions were good, he wants more learning to take place. But what he doesn't understand is that the way he promotes learning is what's going to bring us down as a people.
We need less school not more, way less school.
The less of government involvement in our families, the better.
Fellow parents, we need to be on alert here, good intentions are not always leading to good results.
We all remember when Kindergarten was voluntary, half day, coloring fun, right?
Now they are promoting universal Pre-K. Again sounding good, but is the result really that great.
I once joked about it and said, Before long the government is going to snatch the baby the second you push it out, but I'm telling you, the joke could become reality soon if we're not on alert.
I sometimes get wrapped up in conspiracy thinking, and hopefully that's all that there is, but I'm not so sure this time.
My husband and I were talking the other day about what you really need to know,what school really need to teach a child. The first things are easy, reading, writing and arithmetics... but after that?
Is it really important to know when the Boston Tea Party took place or is the WHY the Tea Party took place the important?
History is always important or you're doomed to repeat the mistakes again, but can you function as a citizen without knowing when Columbus sailed the Ocean blue?
We as parents can teach our children the basics, the know hows to make it in every day life, can't we? We don't need 7.5 hours of school time every day to make that happen. We all could totally home school our kids till they reach the age where they know what they want to do in life, and when they know what interests them. Then we send them to school for what ever they want to learn. I'd guess that time will occur at different time for different children but I'd guess sometime around the age of 12-14.
Does school do something more than teach our children, does school also form the kind of citizen the government want? Does school instead for teaching our children, dumb them down?
I heard someone on the radio saying, for the first time ever we now have raised high school kids totally unaware of the world around them. If they have their cell phones and IPods you can take every right away from them and they won't even know it, and even worse, won't even care.
Is that the goal of government interference in our children's life at an earlier and earlier age?
and what are we going to do about it?
So don't come and holler at me and tell me "yeah, it's because it's a liberal at the White House" or it's all "that moron W's" fault, when I tell you what I'm about to say now.
I strongly believe it doesn't matter what label is on the guy or gal at the White House no more, I think they serve a bigger agenda that is not for them to question. But back to what I was about to rant on today...
At the "not" State Of the Union address the other week one thing Obama said made me jump. He was talking about the school reform and he said as a promise, that America again will have the best education program for our children from their birth to they graduate from College.
Did you see something worth jumping for in that sentence? If not you're almost lost already I'm afraid. He said FROM THEIR BIRTH...
Today I was listening to Ed Schultz show on the radio. A very progressive voice in the other wise very conservative clutter of talk radio. I don't really know what the topic was but he was talking about the new Secretary of Education. Don't ask me what her name is, I have no idea, but he was saying that he knows why Obama picked her, they are on the same page when it comes to reform for the education system... And again if you read my blog you know I'm a big supporter of education reform, but probably not even close to the same kind of reform they are talking about.
He said that the kids need to spend more time at school learning, way more time than now. Saying adults just get 2 weeks off per year, why should kids have all that time off, they should be in school longer and the parents get to see their kids during the weekend.
I know what he was trying to get to, we fall behind every year to the Asian countries when it comes to education, so I know his intentions were good, he wants more learning to take place. But what he doesn't understand is that the way he promotes learning is what's going to bring us down as a people.
We need less school not more, way less school.
The less of government involvement in our families, the better.
Fellow parents, we need to be on alert here, good intentions are not always leading to good results.
We all remember when Kindergarten was voluntary, half day, coloring fun, right?
Now they are promoting universal Pre-K. Again sounding good, but is the result really that great.
I once joked about it and said, Before long the government is going to snatch the baby the second you push it out, but I'm telling you, the joke could become reality soon if we're not on alert.
I sometimes get wrapped up in conspiracy thinking, and hopefully that's all that there is, but I'm not so sure this time.
My husband and I were talking the other day about what you really need to know,what school really need to teach a child. The first things are easy, reading, writing and arithmetics... but after that?
Is it really important to know when the Boston Tea Party took place or is the WHY the Tea Party took place the important?
History is always important or you're doomed to repeat the mistakes again, but can you function as a citizen without knowing when Columbus sailed the Ocean blue?
We as parents can teach our children the basics, the know hows to make it in every day life, can't we? We don't need 7.5 hours of school time every day to make that happen. We all could totally home school our kids till they reach the age where they know what they want to do in life, and when they know what interests them. Then we send them to school for what ever they want to learn. I'd guess that time will occur at different time for different children but I'd guess sometime around the age of 12-14.
Does school do something more than teach our children, does school also form the kind of citizen the government want? Does school instead for teaching our children, dumb them down?
I heard someone on the radio saying, for the first time ever we now have raised high school kids totally unaware of the world around them. If they have their cell phones and IPods you can take every right away from them and they won't even know it, and even worse, won't even care.
Is that the goal of government interference in our children's life at an earlier and earlier age?
and what are we going to do about it?
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