Fall is in the air (and the food)

I love this time of year.  I love the colors on the trees, the rain, the frost, and the nippy mornings.  With the coming of fall, our diet changes as summer fruits and vegetables go out of season.

One of my favorite fall treats is slow cooker spiced apples.  I just cut up a bunch of apples into thin slices and toss them into the slow cooker with some cinnamon (and sometimes some nutmeg, too).  Just cook on low until the apples reach the consistency you desire.  I usually eat these with my oatmeal, but they are wonderful plain, too.  I will probably raise my young children to believe that these are dessert.

Here's some other food.

Vegetarian shepherd's pie.  REALLY GOOD.  Recipe here.
  I mostly followed the recipe, I think.  I did add carrots, though

Chard.  Looks like Christmas, no?  I think I prefer kale to chard.

This bread is stinking amazing.  I don't have white flour so I
 used half whole wheat flour and half whole wheat pastry flour.
The bread has great texture and great crust.  It's a little salty for
our tastes, so I'm going to add less salt next time.

The argument matters

I recently wrote a post about abortion, and since then I have been considering the stereotypical pro-life voice and why it makes me want to fight against it even when I think we agree that part of our well-wishes for the world include the wish that that there weren't abortions.  I have realized that, oddly enough, it is the way that logic is used to support the pro-life cause that is one of the biggest reasons that I felt like I couldn't support it.  I'll give you some examples that you almost undoubtedly have heard before.

"Life begins at conception."
This is certainly a valid viewpoint.  Certainly we can all recognize that a human life begins somewhere.  It is the use of the Bible to back this assumption that bothers me.  I don't think that there is any verse in the Bible to back this up.  I once had a person tell me that "God told us that He knit us together in the womb", and this was part of his/her rationale for the biblical support of a fetus being a human being.  From what I can tell, there are a few errors in that logic.  First, the verse in the Bible that he/she was referring to was Psalm 139:13 where the psalmist (David, in this case) told God, "For your created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb."  So, this is not God speaking, but David.  Of course, if one believes that what David was saying was inspired, inerrant truth from God, then the point still stands.  (However, I request that you read Psalm 139:21-22 and ask if the same logic can be used to say that God wants us to hate our enemies.)  Regardless of whether this was God's inspiration or simply David's poetic devotion to God, this verse says absolutely nothing about when God starts knitting us. It is still an unjustified claim that it is at conception when this process begins.

"Abortion is MURDER!!!"
This is of course assuming the first point, that life begins at conception (or at least by the time you realize you're pregnant.)  Of course, I'm not going to bother with discussing the point that murder is wrong.  However, I think that the question, "What is murder?" has been left unanswered or is incomplete, and this is fundamental here.  I think that the Christians saying this would probably answer that murder is the killing of an (innocent) human being.  (Tell me if I'm wrong!)  I add innocent because the pro-life camp generally tends to be for capital punishment (justified by the Old Testament stonings, or at least that was how I justified it in my past).  From what the Bible relates to us, God told Israel to go into nations and kill all men, women (including the pregnant ones), and children (including infants).  I think that infants are generally considered fairly innocent, so is God now commanding Israel to commit murder?   What about soldiers killing civilians (again including pregnant women and infants) in wars?  By supporting any war, are we supporting murder?  Perhaps at this point we redefine murder to be illegal killing or killing with malice aforethought, but then we've now defined murder to not include most abortions.  I suppose there is an occasional women who has malice aforethought when having an abortion, but as far as I know, most are just scared and concerned about the implications of bringing a baby into the world.

"If you believe in legalized abortion, you are going against God/are not Christian/are for murder/etc!"
I personally have never had anybody explain to me why followers of Jesus are required by the Bible to push for their own morals to become state/federal law.  I mean, I think we are all glad that we don't have some laws about morality so that we can stand together as a nation in the support of people not shooting people and not stealing others' possessions.  However, I have not yet heard, or found for myself, biblical justification for being mandated to regulate people at all (especially those outside of the Christian church).  Feel free to point me to a verse if you think that it provides the mandate to regulate.

It is funny for me to write this post since I have actually proclaimed all of these italicized things with righteous certainty at some point in my life.  I knew I was right and that I had God on my side, and it was a powerful feeling.  It was also really nice to feel like I could have all of the answers.  Doubt and ambiguity lead to some serious wrestling, and it's not always easy.

I write this post mostly to those of you who feel like I do: Concerned about women, concerned about babies, but also put-off by the pro-life arguments including the ones I listed, and many others, that we hear over and over.  I am personally worried that these arguments that we hear are doing damage as they frustrate people and damage the credibility of a legitimate cause.  For what it's worth, I personally feel like abortion, like miscarriage, is not the way God wishes for a pregnancy to be ended.  I believe that regulation for abortions should be on the political table; however, I think it is equally important to consider the underlying causes of these abortions so that we can serve women in a way that prevents unwanted pregnancies and supports and enables women once they become pregnant.  In the end, I can't find a verse in the Bible that tells us not to have abortions, and I certainly can't find a verse that tells us that we have to regulate abortion.  It is through various teachings about love, life, and helping those around us that in my heart I reach my conclusions about abortion.  It's subjective, but most of the decisions we make in life really are.  I'm doing my best.

Last night I stumbled upon this website, and I read a bunch of what they have on their website.  Gosh, I love that they make it clear that their genuine interest is in respecting and valuing women as well as babies.  Their target group is college-aged women since apparently that is a the group in which about half of US abortions occur, and I was filled with joy when their methods to help prevent these abortions was to empower women to be able to have their child and stay in school.  They also graciously acknowledge that most women really don't want to have an abortion, but the women also don't want to drop out of college, and women tend to think one or the other needs to happen.  It just thrills me that this organization works to help people in a way that does not condemn or judge them but rather gives women a new perspective about their worth and their ability to raise a child and not spend the rest of their lives in poverty.

Food... Food... Food...

Just when I have it all figured out... Somehow our needs change again.  


Despite eating the same types of meals we have been eating for awhile and eating our normal assortment of snacks (homemade granola bars, crackers, quick breads along with peanuts, sunflower seeds, raisins...), suddenly we're both starving.  I've lost another five pounds since coming here despite eating more than I was in Corvallis, and Matthew is just hungry all the time.  His poor skinny body is probably too little to allow him to lose five pounds.  *sighs*

I think that part of it is that we are up earlier, and I think I'm a bit more active than I was.  I also have been playing a smidgen with what we eat.  I watched the documentary Forks over Knives, and I was impressed by what scientists found out about the relationship between animal products and human diseases (primarily cancer).  After learning about dairy and how it's not necessarily as amazing as we're taught that it is (I think that the large dairy farming businesses manage to find a way to influence our government's food recommendations...).  Add to that the fact that organic milk is expensive compared to plant foods, and I hate using milk cartons... and I suddenly felt motivated to not eat as much dairy.  We've been using homemade oat milk instead of cow milk, we traded cream cheese for a homemade bean spread, and I started making fewer recipes with cheese.

The verdict?  I think we can drink less milk, although I don't think we will give it up completely.  Bean spread is actually more delicious and substantial than cream cheese, so it's totally a winner.  (Yay!  One less plastic container!)  We both miss cheese a lot.  Thinking back, I'm realizing that most of my dinners in the past had some cheese involved, so now I will just consciously throw in some cheese in our diet to keep up morale.

It's funny how much milk products mean to us!  When we pretty much gave up meat (and I honestly can't remember the last time I bought any... I think it was last winter or spring), it happened really naturally, and we pretty quickly settled into a mostly-vegetarian cuisine.  Fortunately, dairy products aren't nearly as destructive to the environment as meat products.  I was mostly interested in optimizing our health (and our budget), and I think that what will work best for us right now is to limit our dairy intake but not remove it completely.  On the plus side, there really are also studies (not done by the dairy industry) showing that milk also does some good things for the body.  For us, it's time to not fret about it and just eat it in moderation.

I also have been mostly giving up cookies.  I still make them for Matthew, but I realized that I felt addicted to them, and I don't like feeling that way.  I use organic unrefined sugar which is a step up from the refined sugars, and I use about 3/4 to 1 cup per batch (we used to eat one batch a week), so it's really not a horrible amount of added sugar.  However, for now I'm just eating a couple of cookies when they come out of the oven, and the rest of the week I satiate my sweet tooth by eating a little bowl of oatmeal with some peanut butter and dark chocolate chips on top.  Yes, I measure out a portion of chocolate chips each week so that I know how much I'm eating. :)

That all being said... The next change I need to make is to keep us from feeling hungry most of the day.  We're just kind of hungry people these days.  I think what might work best for us is having four meals each day.  Breakfast at 7:30am, elevensies (!!) at 11am, lunch around 2pm, and dinner around 6pm.  I think that 7:30 to noon and noon to 5:30 is just too long for us to go without filling our bellies.  Instead, we both go through periods where we are really hungry but we've already eaten our snacks for the day.  I'm thinking that veggie and/or bean quesadillas will be my first attempt at solving this problem.  Since it's winter veggie season, perhaps sweet potato quesadillas are in order?  Once a week I can make tortillas and then immediately turn them into quesadillas and then we can just reheat them as we go.

As a final comment, I just want to say that it is totally true that if junk food isn't in the house, than you can't eat it.  I'm not trying to lose weight, but I can't imagine having done so if I had unlimited calorie-filled prepared food lying around the house.  The reason that this post exists is because none of our food has preservatives in them, so I have to make only as much as we are going to eat each week.  The current problem is that what was enough in the past just isn't right now.  What a weird problem in our country, no?

Daily Decisions - Clothing

Goal: Reduce clothing waste
Problem:  Inevitably, socks get holes.
Solution:  Darn those socks!  Actually, I don't think I'm technically "darning" our socks, but I'm taking a needle and thread to them.  If it's a nice clean hole without much wear around it, usually a lasting fix is to just sew it up.  I'm finding that some of my socks are so threadbare at the point that as soon as I sew one hole, a new one rips right next to it.  I'm going to take one of my most beat up socks and start using it to make patches.  The ball and heel wear out while there is still so much good fabric elsewhere!  Doing this I think that I can get our socks to last a good, long time.

Reaching for life

Spinach plant at 9am

Spinach plant at 3pm

Grow, little guy, grow! :)

A challenge for Christians

The rest of you are welcomed to join us, but you probably will find that you don't have the same problem. ;)

When I get all gung ho about Jesus in high school, I find myself split between my "Christian friends" and my "non-Christian or people-who-call-themselves-Christian-but-I-don't-consider-real-Christian friends".  I spend most of my time with my "Christian friends", but I make sure to be self-sacrificing and spend time with the other group too.  After all, Jesus loves those sinners.  Perhaps if I spend one more lunch period with them, they too shall be saved.  What kind of Christian would I be if I didn't sacrifice my time to try to save these people?  I just make sure to interject and let them know when they are saying or doing ungodly things so that they can become more aware of how wicked they are.  Plus, I don't want to stand for wickedness myself!  I must say something!  I am offended when they reject my faith.

Now in college, I start out spending time with different types of people, but I quickly wind up having almost a purely Christian social group.  I have my Christian roommate, my boyfriend's Christian co-op, my Campus Crusades Bible study...  Now I can pray for all these poor people in my dorm and classes who are off getting drunk on Thursday instead of worshiping Jesus!

In high school and college, I am offended by the swear words people say.  I am appalled by the girls' clothing.  I am shocked by pre-marital sex.  I am trying to keep myself from being contaminated by all of the horrible sin around me.  I am distressed when I must argue with yet another person about why my views about religion, abortion, homosexuality, politics, etc are Bible-based and thus correct!

I am telling Jesus that He made a mistake when He broke bread with sinners.  I am telling Him that they are too offensive.  I am telling Him that He should be trying to reason with them about truth instead of leading them there with love.  I am a Pharisee asking, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and 'sinners'?" because even when I am around sinners, my attitude is not that of respect and unconditional love.  Jesus seems comfortable with these people.  He fits in without being aloof.  He is respected and loved.  He meets needs without making demands of people.

Jesus answered me, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick."

Here's the challenge, Christians:  Go through your Facebook friends and figure our what percentage of them are Christians.  What about your in-person friends?  What would you guess the percentage to be?  When you do spend time with your "non-Christian" friends, are you being their friend and meeting their needs, or is your only thought to chalk up another tally mark on your personal chalkboard for Jesus.  What actions show God's love?  What can you do to share the compassion, care and understanding of Jesus?

If you are like me during high school and college, you might be legitimately uncertain of how to act around people who don't know share your faith.  It took me years during college to change my very attitudes so that I could be graceful around people I didn't agree with.  In grad school, a few of my closest friends were lovely people that do not choose to follow Jesus.  They are still my friends even after moving away from them.  With these friends, I feel like I finally did a decent job of loving them and sharing my life and faith while remaining respectful of their right to choose their beliefs.  Here are some of the things I ran through my head to make sure that I remained Christian-but-not-obnoxiously-so:

• To be friends with anybody, I have to be able to give grace when I find I disagree.  I do this for my Christian friends, so I can do this for my non-Christian friends.
• I can acknowledge a person's opinions and beliefs without agreeing with them.  I appreciate it when others do the same for me.
•  I can also share countering beliefs... when appropriate.  I don't always have to make sure that people realize that I disagree with them.
• Loving someone doesn't mean interjecting "Jesus" into as many conversations as possible.
• It is OK to accept love and support from non-Christians.  

OK non-Christian friends... I've left you out for too long.  Thank you for being patient with me as I have stumbled in learning about how to be a Christian and a good friend.  Thank you for not abandoning me if/when I was obnoxious.  Thank you for listening to my beliefs and considering them (and not thinking I'm crazy for loving and following a man who lived, died and came back from the grave over 2000 years ago...).  Please feel free to talk to me any time about questions and thoughts about faith... even if you're telling me that you don't agree with me.  

Birdie pillow

You know what makes me happy?  Sweet little colorful birdies. Very happy indeed.  Can't you hear their hand-stitched beaks shyly peeping?

You might not realize it, but you've seen this pillow before.

Like here.  See that burgandy pillow there?   That is what has been birdified.  (The birdie pillow really is just a sham I made for the burgandy pillow.)  The pillow actually has a snowman on the other side.  The snowman gets to cuddle with the loveseat for all but two months of the year.  At some point early in our marriage, we kind of thought that we would be navy, burgandy, forest green type people.  Now I am realizing that those colors were really representing what I thought I wanted (don't they just seem like blissful middle class colors?).  However, I'm really attracted to brighter colors, and I really love having a handmade look in the home.  I have also learned that I prefer not to have much of a color scheme.  I like having things work well together, but I don't like being confined to specific colors.  A pillow full of colorful birds is perfect for me.

Do you have a color scheme in your living room?  What is it?

A quilt

 I finished a quilt yesterday!  Since I have time these days, I figured I'd make a small-ish quilt for when we have kids.  I made it small enough for a baby to play on, a toddler/young child to sleep under, and an older child to adult to wrap around them.  I think it will be easy to find used baby blankets, but I wanted to make something special that will last and be usable for a long time.  So, here you are, Not-Yet-Existent Child!

If you are interested, I used these instructions only without the gathering. I just cut out 4" squares.

This is a good project for small scraps, too.  The squares don't take too much of any fabric.  I used some scraps of my own, and I also used some given to me by a friend's mom who quilts for charities.  (Thank you!)  For the off-white borders and the blue binding/backing, I needed a fair amount of fabric, so I got a couple of sheets from Goodwill.  I had a bag of batting that was supposed to be used by a friend but ended up not being used, so I didn't have to go out and find that this time.  Hooray!

An apple a day...

 ... and we might be able to eat all of these apples before spring!

 Yesterday we went to an apple festival, and they had u-pick apples. We picked about 92 pounds of gala, jonagold, and empire apples.  That's kind of a lot of apples.  Jack Johnson and I sorted them today into "need to be eaten right away", "need to eat fairly soon", and "to be stored" piles.  (Well, at least Jack Johnson serenaded me while I sorted.  It's what he does.)  I am going to try storing these apples in our outdoor shed so that they can stay cool.  I used tissue paper and made layers of apples to separate the ones that will be stored the longest.  You just can't have over 90 pounds of apples without being concerned about chaos.  Apples can rot, and they can then cause each other to rot, so I expect to keep checking on them this fall and winter.  What will I do if they seem to start going bad?  Applesauce.  Giant jars of applesauce.  When playing with 90 pounds of food, one should always have a contingency plan!

I think this concludes the u-pick season for us, too.  We have frozen strawberries, blueberries, marionberries, boysenberries, blackberries, zucchini, tomatoes and pears.  I have also canned 14 quarts each of tomatoes and pears.  I missed peach season this year, which is unfortunate, but I think I got everything else I aimed for at the beginning of summer!  I'm hoping to buy a lot less produce this winter, and, as a result, require a lot less fuel for our food needs to be met.  Plus, I've shelled out a bunch of money to a lot of wonderful farmers.  It feels good.  What's exciting to me is that this is also my first year of intentionally "putting up food", and it went so well.  I'm excited to see how long it takes for us to eat all of what we stored, and I look forward to doing even more next year!

See the "ugly spots"?  They're beautiful to me
because they indicate the lack of chemicals used
on the fruit!  Yay!

Consider not choosing Lifewise of Oregon for your insurance provider

I just left this review on a website that takes reviews/ratings for insurance companies.  However, I have had just too many bad experiences with Lifewise over the past three years, so I decided to post this here as well.  I would love to prevent others from wasting money and time on this insurance company.  To be fair, if you read this and you had an awesome experience with Lifewise, you are welcome to put that in the comments! The review is as follows:

This insurance company has the poorest overall communication skills and competency level that I have ever witnessed in a company.  My husband and I never had to make a claim, but getting on and off of their insurance plans was a nightmare.

The first time I tried to get on the plan was when I was getting married.  We called and asked if we could apply together even before we got married so that we could start our joint plan a few days after our wedding.  They told us we could and we should explain on the application.  We did exactly that, and a few weeks after our wedding we found that my husband was accepted but I wasn't because we weren't legally married.  Because they gave us the wrong information, I was without health insurance for a month.  They even made me refill an application and send it in again despite the error being theirs.

I was a TA during grad school, so I jumped onto a health insurance plan through that, but my husband stayed on Lifewise.  At the end of grad school, I wanted to get back on Lifewise until one of us got a job.  I sent in my application, and it took one and a half months for them to finally get around to approving me.  During that time, I didn't know if I had health insurance or not which made me anxious.  Additionally, part of the hold up was because they took so long to get to my application that they sent out a form to ask me if I had menstruated since I applied!  The nerve!  Additionally, when the customer service representative said she'd call us back by a certain day, she didn't.

By the time I had gotten on the plan, my husband got a job.  We called to ask what we'd need to do to get off the plan, and they said to just send in a request in writing.  We did this, and we got a letter back saying that they couldn't cancel the policy because we still owed $189 (they were billing my insurance for Aug. and Sept. in October since I wasn't approved until mid-Sept.).  We expected to see the money taken out of our bank account at the beginning of the month as usual, but it never was.  So we called, and they said that our policy HAD been canceled with the end date being 8/31/2011 (instead of 9/30/2011 as we asked) which is why our online account stopped allowing us to pay.  They made it sound like we should still pay the $189 though, so they gave us an address to mail in a check.  I mailed the check this morning, and then I got our Certificate of Health Coverage in the mail today ending 8/31.  Now I wish I hadn't mailed them another $189 since I guess it doesn't really matter if we were insured the first half of September.  SO FRUSTRATING.

Additionally, their rates rise incredibly quickly.  They started at $62/person for our plan three years ago, and they have raised the rates each year to about $90/person now.

Please consider getting a different insurance provider if at all possible!!!

Global warming + chocolate

Read this!  Don't you want to help fight global warming now?!

Winter Squash

Today's post is brought to you buy nutritious, delicious winter squash.   There they are.  In a cabinet.  Most of these came from a Farmers' Market trip today.  The person at the cashier was impressed as we kept pulling squash out of our bags.

What's cool about these guys is that they stay good for quite awhile.  I've had a butternut sit around on my counters for a couple months with no problems.  I have read that optimally they should be stored in 50-60 degree temperatures, and then they can last 2-6 months (depending on the type of squash).   We keep it below 70 in here all the time, and in our last place it usually was in the low 60s during the winter (sans heaters).  I'm not sure about what will happen in our new place, but I'm guessing it will be about the same?  If I need to, I can make room for these in the outside shed.  And I will be using them as we go.  And I will keep tabs on them.  And I have a freezer I can store cooked squash in if things somehow spin out of control.

Mmmm... squash.  It's exciting stuff that's fun to load up on from local farmers, but it's worth knowing how to take care of your produce investment...  Happy Autumn!

Crops in Pots Update... plus chocolate mint tea!

I haven't shown pictures of my window garden in a long time!
Summer has passed, and this:

has turned into this:

See how they are tall and a bit gangly?  That's my fault.  I'm still working to not hesitate when it comes to pruning.

Also, this:

has turned into this:

 Oregano madness!!!

I have really liked using my basil and oregano this summer and fall, and I planted some spinach and cilantro today.  I have entered the anticipatory period that comes when waiting for germination... Hooray!

Midsummer, one of my friends pruned her chocolate mint plant, and I was the lucky recipient of one of the shoots.  I threw that thing into soil, and it has started to turn into a nice mint plant.

 However, you can see that it's a bit gangly already, so it got a haircut today.

 That's a bit better.  And what better way to use the mint leaves than to make a nice cup of tea.  Yum!

Call to Civility...

... on the issue of abortion.

My cousin-in-law (my husband's cousin's wife... that's a cousin-in-law, right?), wrote a lovely post about issues and causes.  In particular, she talks about abortion.  I have largely remained silent about my thoughts about abortion, but it's a big issue (with about 50 million babies aborted since Roe v. Wade in 1973).  I try not to skirt around big issues, but this is one that I have intentionally left alone.  However, since my CIL wrote such a lovely post, I feel able to go ahead and talk a bit about this issue.  So here we go.

Here's the deal.  I'm not a fan of abortion.  I think babies are very important people.  However, as I say this, I fear that I am going to be clumped in with the loud religious voices yelling at people and being very dogmatic and perhaps self-righteous.  I'm absolutely not calling you a murderer if you have had an abortion because most likely you are not one (unless you had "malice aforethought"), and I'm sorry if anybody has tried to instill guilt in you using this tactic.

I am concerned about unborn babies lives, and I am concerned about the effects of being a society that pushes down the moral questions that should naturally come with removing a baby from the womb so that it will die or killing the baby first in the womb (as in a partial birth abortion).

However, I also care about you, mothers.  I can't imagine how scary it must be to be pregnant as a teenager or to be pregnant after rape.  I can't imagine the feelings that you have as your doctor discusses the disability of Down Syndrome instead of the blessing that your baby can still be.  I can't imagine the panic rising in your chest as you fear the life that your child will have as you feel unready or incapable of raising this new little human.  I would love to talk to you, and I would love to pour love and support into you.

There is so much to discuss if we can just cool down and discuss it.  We also really need to talk about what will happen to the babies that would otherwise have been aborted.  Will they really all be snatched up by loving homes?  If the mothers choose to keep their children, will we agree as a society to support them financially and emotionally?  What about doing more as a society to help people value sexual relationships and family?  What will be the rates of illegal, and probably very unsafe, abortions if we make abortion illegal?  Is there something we can/should do to help prevent the large number of unwanted pregnancies in the first place?

We live in such a hurtful and complicated world.  The fact that there are so many unwanted pregnancies in the first place is evidence of this.  I just don't want it to be made more hurtful by ignoring the needs of the unborn.

So, I'm really here just asking us to get back to considering this issue civilly and without political tricks and maneuvers that has escalated this serious issue to an undignified level.  I love you all, even if you disagree with me.  God loves you, regardless of any opinion or action that you take.  Let's communicate.  Let's work to make this world better for everyone.



    

Daily Decisions - Personal care

Here's the next-up in the Daily Decisions series...

Goal:  Use fewer resources
The Choice: I stopped wearing deodorant on the days that I'm not interacting with people (besides my DH).  While I am a smelly enough person that I wouldn't want to make people smell me unnecessarily, I really don't need to mask myself from my own nose.  Plus, since I make my own deodorant, this helps me have to make more less often. :)

Daily Decisions - Purchasing power

One thing that I was thinking about today is how much my change in attitudes and understanding of the world has affected all my decisions including ones that most people probably don't think twice about.  I think that being conscientious of our role in our family, community and world is important, so I decided to start sharing my thought processes through a "Daily Decisions" series.  I'm not saying that all of the decisions I make end up being the best possible ones, but I do my best, and I'd love to just get people thinking (and sharing your ideas with me, if you find you have some to share!).  In sharing, I will explain which goals influence my decisions, what my options are, what choice I made, and any other factors that may be pertinent.

Here's my first one to start...

What's happening: I'm buying thread to sew the binding of my quilt
Goals: Buy locally to keep money in the community, Find a store in walking/biking distance to avoid oil use
Options:  Joann's Fabrics and Crafts (1.7 miles away), Sharon's Attic Quilt Shop (2.2 miles away)
The Choice: Sharon's since it is locally owned and operated
Considerations for next time:  What about organic cotton thread since cotton is where a lot of the nasty chemicals are used in the agriculture business?

Humanity: All Suck or Just Some Suck?

Recently, I questioned the viewpoint that man is "totally depraved".  Now that I have let you think about it for awhile, I figured I'd let you know what I think about it.  For those of you who like Bible verses to back things up, I apologize in advance.  I am certain that I can use verses to use to make either point.  (For example, the "all our good works are filthy rags" verse can be used to explain that humans are totally depraved, and the "humans were created in God's image" verse can be used to explain that it doesn't make sense for humans to be totally depraved.)  I'm sure that you can find places on the Internet that support either point of view, so I'm going to just talk about what I have thought about.

I guess we should first figure out what it even means to be totally depraved.  The word 'totally' seems fairly straight-forward, and my handy-dandy Internet dictionary tells me that 'depraved' means 'morally corrupt'.  So, if we are totally depraved, then we must be absolutely morally corrupt.  But what does that mean?  Does that mean that our morals are all completely wrong?  Or that each of us has some wrong morals?  Or that when making moral choices, we are never able to make a completely moral choice?

It really boils down to how we define things, doesn't it?

With that, I don't think that humans are all suck.  I think that as humans (Christians and non-Christians alike) strive for good, it is clear evidence of us being God's loved creation that is not completely bad.  And since all good things come from God, we can see how much God loves us by the good that results from our efforts.  However, I would say that probably everything we do gets tainted by the hurt in the world.  Whether it be pride or selfishness, I think that even our good deeds are rarely done without thoughts of the self instead of purely out of love.  I think this is where I can see humans pale in comparison to the perfect goodness that is God.

The reason that the doctrine of "total depravity" bothers me is that it seems like it turns into a very negative, self- and other-deprecating belief.  It's like the focus is turned from how beautiful and wonderful God is compared to us to having an excuse to say how horrible humans are.  This is subtly different, but it is different because one focuses on the good and the other focuses on the bad.

I think that it is important to take the doctrine of our imperfection in the more positive light for a few reasons.  First, focusing on the positive turns our attention to looking for and toward the good which is just way more helpful than focusing on the negative.  Second, I think that focusing on how awful humans are tends to promote hatred and stifle compassion.

So, there you have it.  Humanity: Just Some Suck.

The nerdy fruit fly trap

What do you get when you allow over forty pounds of pears ripen so that you are able to can them?  FRUIT FLIES!  I take fruit fly antics seriously.  You think they're cute and little, but I saw one gunning for my eyes today while I was devouring a pear.  I saw its wheels turning: "If she doesn't have eyes... She won't be able to see the pear to eat it."  Well thought out, Fly.

While they seemed to decrease over the last week as I worked fairly hard to keep food sources out of the picture, today they had a population explosion, so I decided to set up a fruit fly trap.  It's simple: A jar, some fly bait (a pear core, in my case), a piece of paper rolled into a cone, and a bit of masking tape to close up the gap that the cone kept leaving.  You can see a few flies in this picture, but there are really about 20 in there.  I let them go outside right after taking the picture.

What makes this trap nerdy?  The fact that the flies must enter through a vortex of nasty looking tensor calculations.  I have no clue what's going on there... It's engineering stuff.  However, the nerdiness factor is strong.

Blowing Your Mind... Bible Style

The current belief held by most churches today seems to be that humans are essentially evil or totally depraved.  One of the verses used to support this is Genesis 6:5.  Below are the surrounding passages.

The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. The LORD regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.  So the LORD said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.  Genesis 6:5-8

Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence.  God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways.  So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth."  Genesis 6:11-13

Here, we have a story where God regrets creating humans, so he plans to just get rid of them.  However, Noah finds favor with God, so God tells Noah, "I am going to put an end to all people because they have all  become evil and awful and are making the world a truly horrible place.  Oh, but not you.  You're not part of all people."

How does this seeming contradiction affect our theology?  Also, what does it mean that the amount of wickedness done by humans changes?  Does that mean that we are sometimes more evil than others?  Does being more evil imply that at some point there was more good?

I might write a post in the future regarding my current personal stance on Humanity: All Suck or Just Some Suck?, but I figured that it'd be fun to give the few of you who read this a chance to think about it yourself first so that you can tell me where you think I'm wrong. ;)

Happy thinking!

WORMS!

I've been thinking about worms for a long time...

Most of Matthew and my waste these days comes from the leftovers from our produce; rinds, cores, and the like.  I know it seems like this is innocuous stuff to send to the landfill because it's totally biodegradable, but unfortunately it's not.  In short, the conditions in a landfill are not those such that food waste can biodegrade.  (For more information about this, you can read about it here and here.)  What's worse is that because the waste is in an anaerobic environment, it ends up producing a lot of methane which is a major greenhouse gas that is 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide.  (Which is another reason to consider eating less beef, since cows are amazing methane producers, but I digress...)

In Corvallis, we did our best to keep our food waste from going to the landfill by hauling most of each week's scraps to church on Sunday and handing them off to a family who owns goats and chickens who eat said scraps.  If you happen to live in Corvallis, you might be interested in their municipal compost heap.  They have "green carts" that you can put in all kinds of plant and food matter along with paper towels and certain paper plates/cups.  (You have to verify that the plates/cups that you use do not have a plastic coating on them which many of them do... You may think it's wax, but it's probably plastic.  Look for plates that say they are compostable, or contact the manufacturer and ask them what the coating is.  Or, better yet, just use reusable plates.)    We were unable to participate in this awesome program, though, because we lived in an apartment that didn't have a bin.  I considered asking our manager to get one, but I realized that based on what I found in the recycling bins, I didn't think that the people in our apartment would use the green cart properly.  I digress yet again...

Now that we are in Aloha, we know no farmers, have no green cart, but still eat fruits and veggies!  We also have a little outdoor storage closet... Enter the worm bin.

I found directions about how to set one up here and found fairly local worms here.  I bought my plastic tub at Goodwill for $2.99, and I used our drill to put holes in it for ventilation and draining.  As I was walking home with my container (seriously... who walks 1.7 miles hauling one of these things?  I do.), I remembered that worms don't like light, but I had just bought a clear plastic container.  I remedied this by using some random spray paint that we have.  (For the record, I hate spray paint.  It is full of nasties, as your lungs will attest as you spray it.  From here on out, I'm only buying canned paint and use a brush when we need to paint... preferably the low-VOC variety.)  I happened to have pink, so I painted on a worm.  Or a "W".  Or whatever your imagination says it is.  My wormies arrived in a little box in the mail today, and they were still wriggling, so they're alive.  I prepared their bedding, and I placed them in it, and then I tossed in the few scraps that I managed to save today.

Make worm poop, young pinkish wrigglers!  Then make more worms!  Then I will steal your lovely worm poop and throw it at plants!  It shall be MARVELOUS!

The Oregon Food Bank

Since moving to Aloha, I have found that I have a fair amount of free time and no friends nearby.  To combat both of these issues, one of my thoughts was that I could volunteer somewhere.  I searched on Craigslist for awhile with no great opportunities popping out at me, but this past Saturday I somehow ran across the possibility of volunteering at OFB.  The Beaverton warehouse is about three miles away, so I signed up for a couple of hours today, and I ended up packing a bunch of frozen carrots into family-sized (3 pounds) packages for distribution.  I met a few nice ladies, and we ended up working with a group of students from a high school.  It turned out that in about an hour and a half or so, we prepared about 5,000 pounds of food for distribution which is a lot of food.  I really enjoyed doing this, and when I got home, I signed up for a few more shifts in the coming weeks.

For those of you who don't know much about this organization, it is a private non-profit that does a lot of work to try to prevent Oregonians from going hungry.  OFB is centered in Portland, but, if I remember correctly, the central Portland warehouse works with/feeds into 20 other warehouses across the state, and each of these warehouses works with smaller agencies that actually do the food distribution or cook the food for people to eat (like soup kitchens).  Even better, OFB is genuinely interested in helping prevent hunger, so they run free classes that teach people how to make good food choices to stretch their food dollars farther, how to cook inexpensive and nutritious meals, and how to grow gardens to produce their own food.  A couple blocks from the warehouse that I was working in was a garden that OFB runs, and they use this garden to teach people, and they also use it to create produce (5,000 pounds this year so far as of a few weeks ago) for the food bank.  Additionally, OFB advocates at a legislative level to speak for the hungry and poor in our state.

I really like the idea of doing something to help people be able to feed their families.  I think Jesus had compassion for the hungry, and I want to share in His vision for a world where people are not in need.  It would be very cool if we could all reach out to the people around us who are in need and spread our resources that way, but that is clearly not working, and I think that from my research and experience so far at OFB, it is a great (and perhaps efficient) way to reach out to people in need.  I maybe handled 100-200 bags of carrots today, so I feel like I'm now involved in that many people's lives.

Apparently Oregon is the "second hungriest" state, following Mississippi, I believe, in the nation right now.  The people in our state have been hit very hard by our economy, and OFB is distributing record numbers of emergency food boxes.  From the OFB website, "As a result of growing levels of long-term unemployment, 260,000 people per month eat meals from emergency food boxes. Of those, 85,800 are children. For the first time ever, Oregon Food Bank distributed more than 1 million emergency food boxes in fiscal year 2010-11."  People are hungry!

If you are interested in working with OFB, visit their website.  If you want to find your regional center, you can find that here.  You can also dig around a bit to find local agencies to work with if you want to be a part of actually distributing the food to people.  Of course, OFB takes donations, too.  They accept food donations, and if you find your region's food center, you should be able to either find a list of drop-off sites on their website, or you will be able to find a number to call to ask for this information!  If you want to get more food for your dollar, I'd recommend donating money directly to OFB.  By using their connections and by buying bulk, they can get four pounds of food for a dollar, and that's just impressive.
I think that's all I can think of to say for now, but please let me know if you have any questions!