You get to have grown up consequenses
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I have something exciting for you today!
Mercy River is doing a tour around the blogosphere and today they are playing here! They sent me their new CD and I must say, it is wonderful! Do you ever hear a song that touches your heart so much that it brings you to tears? Their new album Higher is packed full of song after song that made me feel like I wasn’t alone in my fears and insecurities. I immediately felt a kinship to them, they brought so many of my own feelings to light. Thank you Mercy River for today’s post!
Ignite the Fire:How Modern Mascara-Wearing Moms Can Make a DifferenceBy Whitney Permann of Mercy River Dishwashers. GPS Navigation Systems. Mascara. Never has there been a “better” time to be a woman on the earth. Not only do we have so many modern conveniences that our generations of grandmothers didn’t–we also have many rights that they could only dream of. For example, we have the right to vote. The right to become educated. And the right to speak up and be heard in our communities. Many brave women in our country dedicated their lives in an effort to improve OUR lives. And why? Because they knew what WE know: women are smart, capable–and when they’re on fire–really really powerful. So now that we’re here, enjoying those rights and privileges…what are we doing with them? I’m sure I’m not the only one who has realized that I SHOULD be doing something…but not sure HOW I should be doing whatever it is I should be doing. All that changed for me when I met Jill Manning. Jill is a therapist who spoke at a Time Out for Women event that I sang at in 2010. She was presenting on how women need to be standing up in the fight against pornography. And these words in particular changed my life: “Women are movers and shakers. Look what they’ve done with breast cancer, autism and drunk driving. Why aren’t more women trying to make a difference when it comes to how pornography is affecting our faith, our communities?” Boom. A fire ignited in my heart, and I decided that THIS is what I wanted to be doing. I wanted to be one of the women taking a stand against pornography–especially since 4 of my 5 children are boys. Instead of just worrying about it, I wanted to DO something. After a little digging, I learned of a “White Ribbon Week” (Internet Safety Week) that some public schools were doing in Utah. No school in my school district had ever done it, so I decided it was time to start. I approached our PTA president and principal and got them on board. And with the help of three other passionate moms, we organized an incredible week full of learning and discussion with the teachers, students, and parents in our community. The students learned about cyber bullying, online predators, what to DO when they see something inappropriate on the computer, how to keep their personal information safe, and how to encourage their friends to make smarter choices on the internet. There were posters, prizes, essays, assemblies, and best of all…discussions about internet safety happening at home. One mother said to me, “I am so glad we had this week in our school. I’ve always wanted to talk to my kids about these things…but didn’t know how.” Orchestrating an Internet Safety Week in my kids’ school was a small thing to do in the overwhelming fight against pornography. But it was effective. Some families installed filters that weren’t previously there. Some families had their first ever “Internet Safety” FHE. And some families simply became aware of a danger they hadn’t considered. If the week helped protect only a few families, only a few children, it was worth it. And hopefully, next year it will be even better. So what gets YOUR fire going? Community service? Music? Education? Reading? Nutrition? The environment? Pick something you can get passionate about and use your talents to make a difference. Don’t know how? Ask the Lord. He will guide you. Not all of us need to picket in front of the White House or testify before Congress or create non-profit organizations. But we can each do SOMEthing. As mothers, let’s show our sons and daughters that THIS is what makes women truly beautiful–our power to influence. Let’s show by our examples that we are more concerned with our homes and communities than the latest fashions, TV shows, or neighborhood gossip. Let’s leave a legacy of positive action and change for the next generation…and thank our lucky stars we can wear mascara while we do it.
But the greatness doesn’t stop there. Mercy River is giving away their new CD to one of you lucky ladies What gets your fire going?For additional entries you can:
Make sure you leave a comment for each entry. I will announce the winner Monday, March 19th Good luck! Hamilton Beach Several months ago I bought their juicer
Well a few weeks ago it was dropped and the on/off switch broke off. I called them and told them what happened and to see if I could buy a new switch (I had taken it apart and easily put it back together if I had a new switch. They told me that they were sorry but they didn’t sell replacement switches. So instead they sent me a new juicer, all I had to pay was shipping costs! Hamilton Beach now has a customer for life! Any company who would treat their customers so well (knowing it was the customer’s fault that their juicer broke) deserves my business, especially considering their stuff doesn’t exactly break the bank to begin with! Next time I need an iron or a Gourmet Panini Press, I’m going with Hamilton Beach As I was going to bed last night, I checked my blog reader one last night and I noticed that Elder Cook gave a CES fireside last night. I don’t usually watch them, mostly because I don’t pay enough attention to know when they are, but opened the video and thought maybe I would listen to it sometime today as I went about my chores. I started it when I ran on the treadmill this morning and I am so glad that I did! Elder Cook, towards the beginning of his talk, spoke about some of the atrocities during WWII, specifically the Holocaust. He had worked closely with the survivor, Abraham Foxman, who continues to battle anti-semitism, hatred and bigotry in the world. The advice that this man gave to we members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints who have the responsibility of influencing public affairs was simple. Do not wear masks. He then spoke of the KKK, who by day were business and family men who, by all appearances, were good citizens; but by night, under the cloak of darkness and anonymity, they committed monstrosities that none of them would have dared participate in had they not been wearing identical sheets and hoods. I immediately thought of this mask:
Under the guise of a peaceful protest, over the last six months we have seen anti-semitism, public defecation (on American flags and police cars no less), a plague of sexually transmitted diseases, countless rapes, unexplained deaths, violence towards the police (and another link) and their families, destruction of small businesses, places of worship and public and personal property, exploitation and harassment of children and someone even took a shot at the White House. All of it hushed up by the Main Stream Media and placed in our schools for indoctrination of our children (here, here, and here) The MSM coverup of Occupy prompted me to think of the modern day secret combinations (here, here, here, here, and here just to name a few), many of whom claim peace and patriotism, yet are at the root of many of the evil happenings going on in the world today. He spoke of how dangerous it is for our souls personally, and our society publicly to work under anonymity. Not just in instances of pornography and other types of infidelity and unchaste behavior, but also in our correspondence online. Elder Cook specifically singled out blog/article comments. If you aren’t willing to put your name and face up with what you say, you probably shouldn’t say it. He told us some wonderful stories from our Prophet and Apostles who served in the military during WWII and how they had each acted their part as a Latter-Day Saint well. Elder Cook concluded his talk by inviting us to participate fully in the political process. He spoke of how it is our responsibility to be actively involved in our society. We cannot keep our heads in the sand just because the wind might be a little unpleasant at times. He said that we face the same challenges as our great grandparents. During WWII they fought to defend religious liberty and freedom and now it’s our turn. The truth will make you free, but it will make you miserable first. I get so down and upset when I hear of how much progress Satan is making and has made in our society. The Evil One has his hands in every aspect of our lives, political, religious, societal and he has placed his secret combinations in each of these places to undermine the Gospel of Jesus Christ and everything that God created. Everything from belief in God’s (and Satan’s) very existence to the the Family as the nucleus of society to the the Constitution of the United States. We can’t expect this fight to be easy, but if we join with those who are faithful (those faithful of and not of our faith) we will prevail. Elder Cooks talk begins at 12:18.
I finished the first book that was on my “make sure to read this year list”. It was on the top of my list for at least six months and I honestly don’t know why I put it off as long as I did. There are a lot of books that I think everyone should read, there are far fewer books that I know everyone should read and In Defense of Food is one of them. I think it took me three or four days to read, but only because my eyes still aren’t finished healing and it’s hard for my eyes to focus when I read. Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. That is the foundation of In Defense of Food. Michael Pollan was able to articulate something that I have felt intuitively about food for years but was never able to articulate, nor was I able to back my thoughts up with any of the nutrition science that has been floating around for years. Pollan starts with some history of the science of nutrition and goes on from there. He ends with several “rules” about eating that, if I were to follow, would cut my stress and worry I feel as well as my waistline. I’ve heard how meat is bad for you, avocados have too much fat, eggs are too high in cholesterol, fruit has too much sugar and wheat and the accompanying carbs will just make you fat. When I heard those arguments, while on the surface they all made sense, I could help but think they were wrong. After all, our not to distant ancestors ate those things and had none of the diet related problems we had today. I’ve been looking for vegan recipes lately and more often than not I would find one that looked good but when I looked at the ingredient list I would see things like “vegan cheese” or “vegan sour cream”. Now I’m not saying that there aren’t good and natural vegan alternatives to those things but the idea that something that could not be duplicated in my kitchen was better for you than the meat/dairy product that could come straight from a natural source really bothered me. For the last several years I have felt that no matter what the claim was, a food that could only be created in a chemistry lab could not be better/healthier for you than say, raw or organic milk or butter. I didn’t want my food to contain “trade secrets” so to speak. In Defense of Food justified all of my feelings on what food should be about with the science to back it up. That science (or lack thereof) basically being “a whole food is more than the sum of it’s nutrients” and no one knows why. None of this is groundbreaking, my sister has been saying stuff like this for years, though it’s hard to see the truth through the haze of “healthy” claims. I can see why people don’t understand. There is a lot of conflicting information out there and even with health experts saying that whole foods are the best, they use phrases like “food isn’t fun, it’s fuel”. I would look at vegans and their sad salads and think “no wonder they are thin, I wouldn’t want to eat if that was all I had either.”; and the idea of excluding bread from my diet makes me want to cry. But whole foods, I can do. Pollan also talks extensively about the culture of food and how traditional food culture is just as important to our health as what we are eating. In case you are wondering, Americans don’t have a food culture. If they did, it would be “eat as much as you can as fast as you can”. Eating dinner together as a family (like in the 50′s) is important. Spending a lot of time on your meal before you eat it is important. Being conscious and pro-active in every ingredient in your meal is important. Be as involved with your ingredients as you can and cut out as many “middle men” as you can. One thing he said that really struck me was “… paying more for food – in every sense – will reduce the amount of it we eat…In the last decade or two we have found the time in the day to spend several hours on the Internet and the money in the budget not only to pay for broadband service, but to cover a second (cell) phone bill and a new monthly bill for television, formerly free. For the majority of Americans, spending more for better food is less a matter of ability than priority. We spend a smaller percentage of our income on food than any other industrialized society; surely if we decide that the quality of our food mattered, we could afford to spend a few more dollars on it a week – and eat a little less of it.” Not to mention the fact that if we spend a little more on our food choices (both in money and time) we would spend far less than we do on medical bills/insurance/Obamacare (though the idea that if we were healthier our taxes would be lowered is a pipe dream if ever there was one). As a side note, Pollan seemed to pick on the subsidizing/overreaching and regulatory government almost half as much as he picked on the evil capitalists, so his statist ideology didn’t bother me as much as it could have, but that might just have been because Bush was president at the time After reading In Defense of Food I am finally at peace with the way have always wanted my family to eat. The trick is not giving in to the ease of processed food and not having seconds. Though I think that I will be looking into Flexitarianism. It’s fun to have a word to go along with what I am My glasses are GONE! After 20 years of not being able to see more than eight inches in front of my face and years of saving my pennies, and then months of going back and forth on whether or not I would go through with it, I am now well on my way to 20/20 vision. Since I know you totally want a play by play: Matt and I had been planning this for months, so he was able to take time off of work to take care of things while I was recovering. Matt dropped me off at the eye doctor and took the kids to the huge park the next street over until after the surgery. They took my vitals and I put my glasses in my purse before I went back into the waiting area where they gave me a valium (upon my request, I was a little nervous). Just to give you an idea of how bad my sight was, I had a hard time reading my book because it was a little heavy and kept falling and hitting my face. My eye doctor happens to be a friend of the family, so it was really good to have someone I know and trust do the procedure (it’s my eye balls after all). First thing they did was apply numbing and several antibacterial and disinfectant drops. Once I was laid down and under the microscope they taped one eye closed and Dr. Fillmore cleaned and scraped off my eye. I could see it, but I couldn’t feel it. The whole process was so weird. After the eye was ready they turned the laser on and it basically it burned away my cornea until it was the correct shape. I could literally see the different layers disappearing. The machine is very fancy and I was told that if I moved my eye or anything the laser would shut off automatically, but apparently I was a good patient because it didn’t shut off. When he finished one eye he cleaned it again, put in a contact to act as a bandaid, taped it shut and then repeated the procedure on the other eye. It is kind of ironic that for days after laser eye correction I had to wear both contacts AND glasses most of the time (sunglasses, but still) I had PRK not Lasik. With Lasik, they cut a flap in the cornea, let the laser do it’s thing, then put the flap down. From what I understand the recovery is pretty painless and you can see perfectly right away. The problem with Lasik is the corneal flap never fully adheres back to the eye and has been known to detach during trauma later (like a car accident for example). PRK there is no flap, just laser. The recovery is longer and more painful and it can a month or so to get to 20/20, but it’s safer. The reason recovery takes longer is because you have to “re-grow” the surface of your cornea. The reason perfect vision isn’t immediate is because the process of “re-growing” the surface of your cornea can take a bit of time to smooth out to it’s former perfection. Thursday night after the numbing drops wore off, I started to hurt a little. I knew I would (my eyeballs had been vaporized after all) and I also knew that the pain would get worse before it got better. Things were also blurry, but it was a different kind of blurry. Before my vision was so poor, that not only could I not read words 10 inches from my face, but stretch that out to 5 feet and I couldn’t even really see shapes. I could discern color and movement. After 10 feet I could only see the color if there was movement! Right after the surgery I could see shapes and colors but nothing had a real defined edge. Kind of like when your eyes have been left open too long and they get too dry and things start to blur around the edges. It makes sense since the surface of my eye was no longer smooth and uniform, but kind of frosted. Friday things were a little clearer, but they also hurt more. We tried running errands in El Paso but ended up leaving for home early because I was being led around by my seeing eye children since I couldn’t keep my eyes open. They were extremely light sensitive and achy. They also felt like they had some sand or other grit in them. I walked around in my glacier glasses with my eyes closed most of the time. I went back to see Dr. Fillmore for a follow-up and he said things look right on track and told me to take it easy. Saturday I’m assuming that I could see, but since I spent most of my day in bed with my eyes closed, I can’t tell you for sure Sunday things were still bright, but I felt a lot better. We went to sacrament meeting, I cleaned the house and made dinner. I ever so briefly toyed with the idea of faking it and getting another day “off”, but the thought was disgusting to me. The idea of laying in bed for another day made me sick. Monday I went in to get my contacts removed. We then all went grocery shopping and had a nice normal day. Though by this point Matt accused me of trying to give him Seasonal Affective Disorder because I still need the blinds closed most of the time. The man craves sunlight. Things are still a tiny blurry but they get a little clearer every day. I would liken it to when I’m due for a Rx update or maybe when I only have one contact in. One eye usually heals faster than the other but I can still see just great. I can drive, I can read, I can type and I can see when the kids are into mischief (though to be fair, I usually know that’s happening when I can’t see them). The weirdest parts are my bald eyes. I had to not wear my contacts for at least a month in preparation for the surgery because daily contact use can alter the shape of your cornea. Then something came up and the originally scheduled date was pushed back a month. So now my eyes seem rather small and bald. I’m used to my glasses framing them. I kind of miss that, but not enough to think about it for more than a minute Secondly, when I am getting ready for bed I have to remind myself not to try to take out my contacts. I can see and that’s how it’s supposed to be. I wake up in the middle of the night and I can tell what time it is. Sometimes I keep my eyes open in the dark because even though the lights are off, I can still see shapes in the dark. It’s all very strange but wonderful! By the way, I’m officially OUT of my funk. Maybe the stress of the upcoming surgery was what was weighing me down. For Valentine’s Day, we all sat down to a movie we’ve been waiting to watch for a while. It took so long since Matt has been studying like crazy for the USMLE boards and by the time things settle down it it’s too late in the evening. The stars aligned last night. I set out a “build your own wrap” bar on the counter and we had a picnic in the living room.
This movie is so good. If you haven’t seen it yet, you must (have a box of kleenex nearby though, don’t say I didn’t warn you)! Courageous is the story of five friends who, in the face of tragedy, dedicate their lives to being more honorable men and fathers. Each of the men come from different backgrounds with different familial struggles. Courageous is a great movie for reasons other than the moral of the story, however. The plot is amazing with so many different dimensions. They take the time to let you get to know each of the characters and it doesn’t at all feel rushed or forced. There was a lot of humor, there were chase scenes (and as someone who has never been a fan of chase scenes, I actually enjoyed these quite a bit), shoot outs, gangs, fights as well as a little somethin’ for the ladies (and by that I mean husbands and fathers who actively try to be better and more honorable husbands and fathers). Courageous is also a story of redemption and the healing power of Jesus Christ and that through Him and with Him, we can overcome some of the scariest and difficult trials that may come our way. When the movie was over both girls asked if they could watch it again today. During our family prayer afterwards, Emma gave the sweetest prayer about our family. She may not have been able to understand everything in the movie, but she understood the feeling that the Spirit brought. Though it was a movie about dads, it has inspired me to strive to be a better mom. |
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