Putting pickles in tuna fish is required because it was written in the stars in the ancient heavens.
I made tuna fish roll ups for dinner and Ewan said he didn't want pickles, so I had to explain to him why I was doing it. I just told him that it was required because it was written in the stars in the ancient heavens.
Then he said we don't have ancient heavens and I told him that is true, we have a modern heaven, but the ancient heavens were what people who lived millions of years ago saw when they looked up, and then he forgot about the pickles and asked if that was true of the mustard too.
Shannon chewed on something that bit her back yesterday.
She cried when the 9 volt touched her tongue.
So, i put it away and Dad pulled it back out to see if she would do it again, but the smart cookie wouldn't.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Healthy School breakfasts
Not as hard as they think....
The other day I attended a school breakfast with my children. They had a special day for "Moms and Muffins". But at that time, not only was I eating a muffin and a little plastic container of OJ, but I was watching the other kids eat a normal school breakfast, which is now free to all kids at the school.
The free breakfast is a great idea. It is very nice to know that my kids will have something to eat at school no matter how rushed or out of groceries we are in the morning.
While we sat there and ate a decent size muffin and drank our OJ, I saw the other children walk out of their line with a small cup of highly artificially colored and flavored (highly sugared) yogurt, a small muffin and a milk. And it struck me that there was nothing in that breakfast that had any real nutritional benefits. (except the milk).
And I also noticed that all the items were easy to serve in individual throw away containers. UGG! I realized that it made it all easy to serve, but in exchange it was not easy on the Earth or the Children's bodies.
You would not imagine stuffing you highly tuned car with junk- sugar and solid oils?, SO why do we stuff the children's highly tuned bodies with junk and then want them to sit still and listen and learn?
So- I have thought up several options for easy, healthy school breakfasts that kids would love and it would be nourishing to them.
1- Yogurt parfait. You serve each kid a serving of plain yogurt in a bowl. Then they walk down a yogurt bar where they can add items to their yogurt. These items include fresh (or previously frozen) cut fruits, sliced nuts, rolled oats, granola and honey.
This simple idea includes whole grains, protein, pro-biotics and fruit.
2- Whole wheat cinnamon rolls with fruit and a cheese slice. The keys here are to make the cinnamon rolls healthy and serve serve real- not processed cheese.
3- Breakfast burrito bar. Each child gets a wholegrain tortilla and then walks down the bar that offers scrambled eggs, black beans, shredded cheese, diced tomatoes, onions, fresh green, salsa, plain yogurt (to use as sour cream) and of course a side of fruit.
4- Oatmeal bar. Serve them a bowl of oatmeal and let them top it off with thier choices of the following: Raisins, brown sugar, honey, cinnamon, nuts, plain yogurt, other dried or fresh fruit.
5- Breakfast sandwich- use a wholegrain english muffin or bagel and put real cheese, eggs, and ham inside. Bake until warm. Great, warm and filling. Offer with fresh fruits.
The other day I attended a school breakfast with my children. They had a special day for "Moms and Muffins". But at that time, not only was I eating a muffin and a little plastic container of OJ, but I was watching the other kids eat a normal school breakfast, which is now free to all kids at the school.
The free breakfast is a great idea. It is very nice to know that my kids will have something to eat at school no matter how rushed or out of groceries we are in the morning.
While we sat there and ate a decent size muffin and drank our OJ, I saw the other children walk out of their line with a small cup of highly artificially colored and flavored (highly sugared) yogurt, a small muffin and a milk. And it struck me that there was nothing in that breakfast that had any real nutritional benefits. (except the milk).
And I also noticed that all the items were easy to serve in individual throw away containers. UGG! I realized that it made it all easy to serve, but in exchange it was not easy on the Earth or the Children's bodies.
You would not imagine stuffing you highly tuned car with junk- sugar and solid oils?, SO why do we stuff the children's highly tuned bodies with junk and then want them to sit still and listen and learn?
So- I have thought up several options for easy, healthy school breakfasts that kids would love and it would be nourishing to them.
1- Yogurt parfait. You serve each kid a serving of plain yogurt in a bowl. Then they walk down a yogurt bar where they can add items to their yogurt. These items include fresh (or previously frozen) cut fruits, sliced nuts, rolled oats, granola and honey.
This simple idea includes whole grains, protein, pro-biotics and fruit.
2- Whole wheat cinnamon rolls with fruit and a cheese slice. The keys here are to make the cinnamon rolls healthy and serve serve real- not processed cheese.
3- Breakfast burrito bar. Each child gets a wholegrain tortilla and then walks down the bar that offers scrambled eggs, black beans, shredded cheese, diced tomatoes, onions, fresh green, salsa, plain yogurt (to use as sour cream) and of course a side of fruit.
4- Oatmeal bar. Serve them a bowl of oatmeal and let them top it off with thier choices of the following: Raisins, brown sugar, honey, cinnamon, nuts, plain yogurt, other dried or fresh fruit.
5- Breakfast sandwich- use a wholegrain english muffin or bagel and put real cheese, eggs, and ham inside. Bake until warm. Great, warm and filling. Offer with fresh fruits.
Monday, April 06, 2009
Monday, March 30, 2009
Now a rant....
I wish I could help the modern mother to understand that one sigh of hers (in the presence of a child) may have more life long consequences on that child then all the preaching at church in a year could.
And that then taking care of the children rather then being in a Bishoprich meeting is in no way saying that women are less valuable then men.
There are so many feminist mormons out there that just can't wrap themselves around the differences inherent to men and women to understand our different callings in the church and home. Not only that but in the world in general, women's tradition roles are so poorly understood. Even the way the economy accounts for things leave traditional women's roles unaccounted for, as if they didn't even exists.
I have a few books that broach the topic of the way the economy accounting should work, but I have yet to open them. We should be able to find it within ourselves first- we shouldn't need the political and economic climate to agree with us before we act.
I just wish there was a way to help others understand. I want others to see that my conclusions are not a product of brain washing, but an answer with in myself that I had to struggle to find and understand how to implement.
What is weird is that these ideas are not being fought in a gender vs gender arena, but are being fought mostly in the hearts and minds of our own gender.
Are we asking too much of our own gender to seriously give our all to our next generation?
Real feminism should be seen as a movement to understand and fully utilize our gender for all the beauty and good it can fill the world with.
And that then taking care of the children rather then being in a Bishoprich meeting is in no way saying that women are less valuable then men.
There are so many feminist mormons out there that just can't wrap themselves around the differences inherent to men and women to understand our different callings in the church and home. Not only that but in the world in general, women's tradition roles are so poorly understood. Even the way the economy accounts for things leave traditional women's roles unaccounted for, as if they didn't even exists.
I have a few books that broach the topic of the way the economy accounting should work, but I have yet to open them. We should be able to find it within ourselves first- we shouldn't need the political and economic climate to agree with us before we act.
I just wish there was a way to help others understand. I want others to see that my conclusions are not a product of brain washing, but an answer with in myself that I had to struggle to find and understand how to implement.
What is weird is that these ideas are not being fought in a gender vs gender arena, but are being fought mostly in the hearts and minds of our own gender.
Are we asking too much of our own gender to seriously give our all to our next generation?
Real feminism should be seen as a movement to understand and fully utilize our gender for all the beauty and good it can fill the world with.
Great article about America's Financial issues
Wow- of you want to understand the banking/ financial issues in America right now- this is a great article.-
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200905/imf-advice
here are some highlights:
At the root of the banks’ problems are the large losses they have undoubtedly taken on their securities and loan portfolios. But they don’t want to recognize the full extent of their losses, because that would likely expose them as insolvent. So they talk down the problem, and ask for handouts that aren’t enough to make them healthy (again, they can’t reveal the size of the handouts that would be necessary for that), but are enough to keep them upright a little longer. This behavior is corrosive: unhealthy banks either don’t lend (hoarding money to shore up reserves) or they make desperate gambles on high-risk loans and investments that could pay off big, but probably won’t pay off at all. In either case, the economy suffers further, and as it does, bank assets themselves continue to deteriorate—creating a highly destructive vicious cycle.
To break this cycle, the government must force the banks to acknowledge the scale of their problems. As the IMF understands (and as the U.S. government itself has insisted to multiple emerging-market countries in the past), the most direct way to do this is nationalization. Instead, Treasury is trying to negotiate bailouts bank by bank, and behaving as if the banks hold all the cards—contorting the terms of each deal to minimize government ownership while forswearing government influence over bank strategy or operations. Under these conditions, cleaning up bank balance sheets is impossible.
Nationalization would not imply permanent state ownership. The IMF’s advice would be, essentially: scale up the standard Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation process. An FDIC “intervention” is basically a government-managed bankruptcy procedure for banks. It would allow the government to wipe out bank shareholders, replace failed management, clean up the balance sheets, and then sell the banks back to the private sector. The main advantage is immediate recognition of the problem so that it can be solved before it grows worse.
.... To those who say this would drive financial activities to other countries, we can now safely say: fine.
The second scenario begins more bleakly, and might end that way too. But it does provide at least some hope that we’ll be shaken out of our torpor. It goes like this: the global economy continues to deteriorate, the banking system in east-central Europe collapses, and—because eastern Europe’s banks are mostly owned by western European banks—justifiable fears of government insolvency spread throughout the Continent. Creditors take further hits and confidence falls further. The Asian economies that export manufactured goods are devastated, and the commodity producers in Latin America and Africa are not much better off. A dramatic worsening of the global environment forces the U.S. economy, already staggering, down onto both knees. The baseline growth rates used in the administration’s current budget are increasingly seen as unrealistic, and the rosy “stress scenario” that the U.S. Treasury is currently using to evaluate banks’ balance sheets becomes a source of great embarrassment.
The conventional wisdom among the elite is still that the current slump “cannot be as bad as the Great Depression.” This view is wrong. What we face now could, in fact, be worse than the Great Depression—because the world is now so much more interconnected and because the banking sector is now so big. We face a synchronized downturn in almost all countries, a weakening of confidence among individuals and firms, and major problems for government finances. If our leadership wakes up to the potential consequences, we may yet see dramatic action on the banking system and a breaking of the old elite. Let us hope it is not then too late.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200905/imf-advice
here are some highlights:
At the root of the banks’ problems are the large losses they have undoubtedly taken on their securities and loan portfolios. But they don’t want to recognize the full extent of their losses, because that would likely expose them as insolvent. So they talk down the problem, and ask for handouts that aren’t enough to make them healthy (again, they can’t reveal the size of the handouts that would be necessary for that), but are enough to keep them upright a little longer. This behavior is corrosive: unhealthy banks either don’t lend (hoarding money to shore up reserves) or they make desperate gambles on high-risk loans and investments that could pay off big, but probably won’t pay off at all. In either case, the economy suffers further, and as it does, bank assets themselves continue to deteriorate—creating a highly destructive vicious cycle.
To break this cycle, the government must force the banks to acknowledge the scale of their problems. As the IMF understands (and as the U.S. government itself has insisted to multiple emerging-market countries in the past), the most direct way to do this is nationalization. Instead, Treasury is trying to negotiate bailouts bank by bank, and behaving as if the banks hold all the cards—contorting the terms of each deal to minimize government ownership while forswearing government influence over bank strategy or operations. Under these conditions, cleaning up bank balance sheets is impossible.
Nationalization would not imply permanent state ownership. The IMF’s advice would be, essentially: scale up the standard Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation process. An FDIC “intervention” is basically a government-managed bankruptcy procedure for banks. It would allow the government to wipe out bank shareholders, replace failed management, clean up the balance sheets, and then sell the banks back to the private sector. The main advantage is immediate recognition of the problem so that it can be solved before it grows worse.
.... To those who say this would drive financial activities to other countries, we can now safely say: fine.
The second scenario begins more bleakly, and might end that way too. But it does provide at least some hope that we’ll be shaken out of our torpor. It goes like this: the global economy continues to deteriorate, the banking system in east-central Europe collapses, and—because eastern Europe’s banks are mostly owned by western European banks—justifiable fears of government insolvency spread throughout the Continent. Creditors take further hits and confidence falls further. The Asian economies that export manufactured goods are devastated, and the commodity producers in Latin America and Africa are not much better off. A dramatic worsening of the global environment forces the U.S. economy, already staggering, down onto both knees. The baseline growth rates used in the administration’s current budget are increasingly seen as unrealistic, and the rosy “stress scenario” that the U.S. Treasury is currently using to evaluate banks’ balance sheets becomes a source of great embarrassment.
The conventional wisdom among the elite is still that the current slump “cannot be as bad as the Great Depression.” This view is wrong. What we face now could, in fact, be worse than the Great Depression—because the world is now so much more interconnected and because the banking sector is now so big. We face a synchronized downturn in almost all countries, a weakening of confidence among individuals and firms, and major problems for government finances. If our leadership wakes up to the potential consequences, we may yet see dramatic action on the banking system and a breaking of the old elite. Let us hope it is not then too late.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
The Non- Economic Plan
And for those people who have yet to hear about the details of the Geithener's plan to bring American Financial Stability to it's own funeral- here is my rendition of it.
The 3 part plan is as follows:
PART 1. Gov't + Biz back (bad) loans so that we can purchase toxic bank assets with what is left of our 401Ks.
PART 2, TALF makes loans to investors to purchase junk consumer debt (making it easier for us to purchase the toxic bank assets.
PART 3, The FDIC (yep, the people you trust to back your money in the bank)makes loans to purchase Toxic bank assets.
Theoretically these 3 pieces are supposed to assure the banks get good money to sell off their bad assets.
And who is the bottom line consumers of these toxic assets? We are- 95% of them coming from our hard earned income tax and 5% coming from what is left of our 401Ks.
The 95% really bothers me- the 5% will lead some crazy investment people to invest and say it was "Good" because the loans are backed by the Gov't. Meanwhile the Gov't is throwing in the 95% by printing more money (that are backed by the toxic assets) and leading down a fun road of hyper inflation.
The bottom line is : Bank's bad assets to US (the US taxpayers)
It also will equal a nice little small latte for $100 a cup.
I think I will invest in something that inflation won't rip apart- like maybe food storage and a garden.
The 3 part plan is as follows:
PART 1. Gov't + Biz back (bad) loans so that we can purchase toxic bank assets with what is left of our 401Ks.
PART 2, TALF makes loans to investors to purchase junk consumer debt (making it easier for us to purchase the toxic bank assets.
PART 3, The FDIC (yep, the people you trust to back your money in the bank)makes loans to purchase Toxic bank assets.
Theoretically these 3 pieces are supposed to assure the banks get good money to sell off their bad assets.
And who is the bottom line consumers of these toxic assets? We are- 95% of them coming from our hard earned income tax and 5% coming from what is left of our 401Ks.
The 95% really bothers me- the 5% will lead some crazy investment people to invest and say it was "Good" because the loans are backed by the Gov't. Meanwhile the Gov't is throwing in the 95% by printing more money (that are backed by the toxic assets) and leading down a fun road of hyper inflation.
The bottom line is : Bank's bad assets to US (the US taxpayers)
It also will equal a nice little small latte for $100 a cup.
I think I will invest in something that inflation won't rip apart- like maybe food storage and a garden.
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