Noun:  titivation -  sprucing up; making decorative additions to

Noun:  fashion -  Something, such as a garment, that is in the current mode

Noun:  frippery -  1. Pretentious, showy finery. 2. Pretentious elegance; ostentation. 3. Something trivial or nonessential.

 Women’s interest with clothes and appearance starts young…and seems to be hard-wired ( for most, but not all females).  For my three year old, it looks like dressing and re-dressing the paper dolls from this book. 

But it also looks like playing dress-up, or doing her own hair.

The visual reference to Harry Potter is accidental, though not regretted.

And a bunch of her make-up activity is about figuring out who she is and who mommy is.  Personally, I have little idea how I’m going to explain to her that it was fine for her to wear lipstick at two, though not at twelve. 

But ultimately, even if DD(3) becomes the Coco Chanel of the 21st century, what she needs to understand is that while all of this is fun stuff (and it may even be a career), life is about so much more.  Life is this rich tapestry of our relationship with God and with all these other people that have been made in His image.

 1 Peter 3:3-4  It is not fancy hair, gold jewelry, or fine clothes that should make you beautiful. No, your beauty should come from within you—the beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit that will never be destroyed and is very precious to God.

1Timothy 2:8-10 Since prayer is at the bottom of all this, what I want mostly is for men to pray—not shaking angry fists at enemies but raising holy hands to God. And I want women to get in there with the men in humility before God, not primping before a mirror or chasing the latest fashions but doing something beautiful for God and becoming beautiful doing it.

If one takes 1 Peter 3 and 1 Timothy 2 out of the context of the whole counsel of God, then one could say that women should never wear jewelry; their clothes should be frumpy and of poor quality; and their hair should be boring.  But that completely misses the point of the passage.  Also, the ‘gentle and quiet spirit’  in the 1 Peter passage doesn’t mean that women aren’t feisty,  fun, or adventurous.  It means that they know who they are in the Lord…which is a lot of fancy religious talk for saying that they know who’s God and who’s not…and how precious and valuable that relationship is. 

The 1Peter passage is from the New Century Version

The 1Timothy passage is from The Message

On Tuesday, Rome interviewed five people for warehouse jobs.  If hired, these folks would be doing order fulfillment and packaging of orders for shipping.  His boss gave him three math questions to ask each interviewee.

1. How many inches are there in a foot?
2. How many square inches are there in a square foot?
3. What is a square?

The purpose of the second question is not to hear “144″, but to see if the person can get there.  An acceptable answer would be “Whatever 12 times 12 is.”

For the third question, there were several answers that would have done just fine… i.e.,  something about four sides and all angles being the same.  They got extra credit if they used the phrase “90-degrees”.

Four out of five interviewed were HS graduates.  Two out of five could correctly answer the first question.  No body was able to answer the second question. And none could answer the third question.  One guy offered that there were three lines or three points in a square.

I’m not saying that this is the best our school system is putting out.  That is clearly not true and would be a mis-representation of this small data set.

What I am thinking is that there are clear implications for our welfare system, our unemployment office, and our society in general.

The day before Mothers’ Day,  we went to Babushka’s house for tea.  Out came the samovar.  Now, a full and proper samovar needs to have both a tray for collecting ashes and a chimney to help with air-flow.  We have neither the proper tray nor the proper chimney. 

Roman filled the tube that goes down the center with kindling, created a chimney from 7-Up cans and started the fire to heat the water.

He cut the wood with a cleaver.  It didn’t occur to me until just now, but I could have Kate keep her wood for samovar kindling — you know, as a way of contributing.  The samovar is a left-over from the times when people used their fireplaces to cook everything.  It was considered quite practical because there could be a continuous source of hot water for people to have tea.

He’s ready to split wood and help out Papa.  (And don’t worry, after having been used for splintering wood, it was quite dull.)  And for the readers who are wondering why we didn’t give the cleaver to Kate — Oliver can barely lift the thing.  Kate would be truly dangerous.

Last Fall I saw most of part 1 of Zeitgeist the movie. Now I enjoy things which encourage discussing subjects that are not usually discussed. So I’ll give it over to the movie for accomplishing that.  For those of you who don’t know, part 1 of Zeitgeist is an anti-Christian treatise which basically says Jesus didn’t even exist and that He was modelled after Horus, one of the Egyptian gods. There’s a lot to address here, and I’m a WAHM so discussing even what I’ve seen is likely to take a very long time. But why not, God is all-powerful and I’m willing to bet that He’d like to give me the energy boost I need.

Today however, I just want to grab one of the low-hanging fruit…the easy stuff. Why is it easy? Well, the film makes an almost air-tight argument…if they are telling the truth and representing the facts accurately. But they aren’t, and there are some statements that are just too pathetic to let go.

I’m going to summarize here instead of quoting most of the time because of time.

Per the film, one of the reasons to believe that Jesus never existed is His birth date, December 25th.  Per the film, that date is shared by Horus, Attis of Phyrigia, Krishna of India, Dionysus of Greece, Mithra of Persia, and others. Or is it? Excuse me, but I’m pretty sure I learned (in church) by the age of 10 that the church chose December 25th in order to entice Roman pagans to convert to Christianity and to assure pagans that a cold-turkey abandonment of the winter festival was not a prerequisite to accepting Christ.  The New Testament does not give a date for the birth of Jesus.

Now for those of you who say that the Eastern Church has always celebrated Christ’s birth on January 6th — I’m just not sure that that’s true.   I’ve also read in the older Julian calendar — a precursor of what is used as the religious calendar in Eastern Churches– January 6 corresponds to December 24 on our modern calendar.  I don’t know.

Now, this next bit I take from Wikipedia (verbatim except for the part in orange).  And  while one should not take Wikipedia completely at it’s word, the quality of this citation’s references assures me.

 Around AD 200, Clement of Alexandriawrote that a group in Egypt celebrated the nativity on Pachon 25.[3] This corresponds to May 20.[20] Tertullian (d. 220) does not mention Christmas as a major feast day in the Church of Roman Africa.[3]In Chronographai, a reference work published in 221, Sextus Julius Africanus suggested that Jesus was conceived on the spring equinox.[21] The equinox was March 25 on the Roman calendar, so this implied a birth in December.[22]De Pascha Computus, a calendar of feasts produced in 243, gives March 28 as the date of the nativity.[23] In 245, the theologian Origen of Alexandria stated that, “only sinners (like Pharaoh and Herod)” celebrated their birthdays.[24] In 303, Christian writer Arnobius  [who died c 330] ridiculed the idea of celebrating the birthdays of gods, which suggests that Christmas was not yet a feast at this time.[3] 

In fact, the earliest known reference to the Christian celebration of Christmas on December 25th is found in the Chronography of 354 [AKA Calendar of Filocalus], a manuscript compiled in Rome in AD 354.

I could go on about people who use straw men to argue their points, but perhaps another day…

It looks like action is still going to be needed on this one.

A very good analysis

New York Post Article

I think sleep deprivation causes hallucinations. In the last couple of weeks, at about 1 pm in the afternoon, I gain the absolute conviction that my local metropolis is going to be overcome by zombies unless I consume milk chocolate. Me being  superwoman and all, I have to do my duty to save mankind. And I’m willing. I’m more than willing.   To sacrifice my waistline (did I ever have one?) for the good of humanity is an honor and a privilege.

But really, I felt better when I was eating raw.  I’ve tried positing to my hubby that raw cookie dough qualifies as raw, but he’s not buying it.  Now, I think I could take the raw way of life if I could just add Diet Coke Soda (AKA the elixer of life) to the mix.  But alas, I’m pretty sure that stuff is poison…though a poison I’ve adored and thrived on for 20 years.

Please note that any reference to beverages produced by the lawyer-laden Coke company are strictly fictitious.

Thursday, we got a reprieve from CPSIA H.R. 4040, kinda of.   The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA H.R. 4040) makes it illegal to sell toys (and other items) which don’t show proof of unit testing for lead.  The law, passed by Congress in 2007 and by the Senate in 2008 , mandates lead testing for ALL items intended for children under 13 or PERCEIVED as being for those under age 13.   The law goes into effect on February 10th.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission has the power to intepret the law, but not to change it.  And according to the LA Times, they met to discuss exempting natural materials like wood and wool on Monday.  Apparently they also gave relief to resellers and thrift stores . 

 Now, I wasn’t real traumatized by this law until it was pointed out that it applies to books as well.  I’m checking info that the wording of the law doesn’t apply to individuals, maybe.  But it seems to be vague.  So, let’s say you bought curriculum for your kids and want to sell it on ebay.  Yup.  It’s illegal.  Because unit testing is required, you’d have to pay someone to test the book for you and then certify that it had no lead.  Apparently,the way the law is written, this applies even if the item will never be used by a kid…like what you ask?  Let’s say you have a first edition Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, autographed by J.K. Rowling. Who ever is going to buy that wouldn’t let a kid touch it…but since it was intended for a child, it still comes under the law. 

You’ll find the L.A. Times article here .

Here’s  another really good article. 

 I’m going to quote a woman who I only know as Samantha, “They will have to repeal this law. There is just no way to enforce this. It would shut down all charities, all thrift stores, most homeschool textbook sellers, ebay, amazon, half.com, all used book sales, all yard sales, garage sales, in fact it even covers bartering and trading and gifting from what I have read, so I couldn’t ask my aunt to make my dd a dress or anything at all, including passing on hand me downs. There is no way they can enforce that. As soon as they start trying to throw out all the stuff at the good will stores, salvation armies, homeless shelters, battered women’s shelters, etc etc there will be an uproar. “

So there was an uproar.  And so the law is going to be interpreted differently.  But let me ask this.  Aren’t our law-makers suppose to be just a tad bit better at writing law than this?  In California, we’re used to seeing pretty poorly written propositions on the ballot, but those are written by amateurs. 

What explains such a poorly written law hitting the books?

Where have all the flowers boneless, skinless chicken thighs gone-long time passing? Where have all the flowers boneless, skinless chicken thighs gone…a long time ago?

You know there are some blog entries that one’s foreign-born spouse won’t comprehend without extensive YouTube visits.

So where have they gone?  Are we exporting them to some other country?  They used to be so cheap! $1.99 a pound.  I can’t find them behind the butchers’ counter anymore.  And when I do find them in the packaged meat area they’re over $3.00 a pound…which must mean that the supply/demand ratio has changed.  After all this is California.   And Californians don’t eat anything but white meat because we’re so health consious.  So, are we sending our California chicken thighs to Iraq?  Russia?  Minnesota?  Who is draining the supply of thighs out of our great state?

Enquiring minds want to know.

Nicole over at Taming Lions wrote this.

http://taminglions.blogspot.com/2008/08/obituary-of-sense-common.html

I enjoyed it immensely.