Enjoy! What we can learn from the Easter Bunny

All I need to know
I learned from the Easter Bunny!

Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

Everyone needs a friend who is all ears.

There's no such thing as too much candy.

All work and no play can make you a basket case.

Everyone is entitled to a bad hare day.

Let happy thoughts multiply like rabbits.

Some body parts should be floppy.

Keep your paws off of other people's jelly beans.

Good things come in small, sugar coated packages.
 
The grass is always greener in someone else's basket.

To show your true colors, you have to come out of the shell.

The best things in life are still sweet and gooey.

Passed along from Arlene, a Lakeside neighbor

Women in the news—victims as usual

#1  This item appeared on my screen as I turned on the computer.  Women and STEM. Why doesn't it ever say more women than men graduated from college in all birth cohorts since 1950 and the gap has really accelerated since the 80s? If it's 6.7% of more graduates, is that less or is it called a woman's choice?https://mspoweruser.com/only-6-7-of-women-graduate-with-stem-degrees-microsoft-aims-to-change-that-with-makewhatsnext/

#2  For the 12th time Trump has signed a resolution under the 1996 Congressional Review Act (CRA) to abolish a rule issued under President Barack Obama--denying federal family planning (aka abortion) dollars to abortion clinics and Planned Parenthood. Oh the media will moan with sad faces about ripping up Obama's legacy!  But there are 13,540  Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) service sites and Rural Health Clinics (RHCs) who can benefit from that tax payer money. The states could still continue in the killing business, but why when there are thousands of health clinics available that will offer real health care that women are seeking--and they will even serve transwomen who don't need abortions, or post menopausal women, or girls, and even men. WaPo said he did it "behind closed doors" I suppose because he didn't grandstand it the way Obama did.  https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/13/us/politics/planned-parenthood-trump.html?_r=0

#3  I was reading a web page devoted to saving child brides, which had long lists of countries that allow it, even if the "legal" age is 18.  I don't consider a 16 year old a "child" probably because it was not that uncommon in my life time, but I do know all the countries listed were Muslim.  What was the reason given for this?  Gender inequality, poverty, patriarchal culture and lack of education.  Not a peep about religion, not even for Nigeria where about half the population is Christian and half Islam, and it's only a problem in the Muslim areas.

So I switched to another site, which clearly nailed the cause for child marriages--Sharia law. "some Islamic marriage practices have permitted the marriage of girls as young as 10 years old. This is because Sharia law is based in part on the life and practices of the Prophet Mohammed, who married Aisha, his third wife, and consummated the marriage before she reached the age of 10.”  I'm sure poverty has some role to play--one less mouth to feed, and the child wife belongs to the mother-in-law, but even non-poor Muslims support the practice.

In Australia, feminists are protesting a black Somali woman who is speaking out about female genital mutilation in Islamic societies (she is a victim).  They are calling her a white supremacist. https://www.city-journal.org/html/upside-down-down-under-15115.html

#4  Is the U.S. becoming more anti-science asked one of the medical newsletters in my e-mail.  If believing a man becomes a woman by taking hormones, having his face resurfaced, hairline changed, and being castrated, so that entire legislatures fall in line with the lie and college presidents stop using personal pronouns, I'd say yes indeed. Our most primitive, uneducated ancestors knew better. And I'm beginning to think they also understood the climate better.

USDA and SNAP

Although USDA is the acronym for United States Department of Agriculture, its largest expenditure ( two thirds of its budget) is SNAP, formerly known as food stamps.  It should really be called the Department of Food and Nutrition.  Liberals don’t want SNAP reduced even though they admit it fails in so many ways, particularly in allowing recipients to buy soda/pop (5 cents out of every dollar value).  I would add to that the use of SNAP EBT cards at fast food restaurants--a boon to the industry, but not to the health of low income people. You can also use the EBT card at Starbucks--I don’t even buy their overpriced product!  You can fix an entire meal for what a Starbucks latte will cost you.  Twenty million more Americans are using SNAP today than at the start of the 2007 recession, which has been over since June 2009 and now unemployment is at record lows.

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/expanding-snap-to-promote-healthy-diets-for-low-income-americans/

 http://dailycaller.com/2014/06/30/11-things-you-didnt-know-you-could-buy-with-food-stamps/

Good and Cheap is a cookbook for people with very tight budgets, particularly those on SNAP/Food Stamp benefits. The PDF is free and has been downloaded more than 1,000,000 times.  It's a myth that cheap processed food is more economical than "real" food.  Just figure the cost per ounce of a 5 lb bag of potatoes against a 12 oz. bag of potato chips.  Or a $2.28 gallon of milk against a liter of Pepsi.

The *Chick- fil-A protestors

I'm so sorry. I think it was my generation that did it. We were the ones who read all those books by the experts and attended parenting classes that focused on FEELINGS instead of values and ethics like duty, honesty, responsibility, commitment, structure, respect, saving for a rainy day, caring for neighbors even if you didn't like them, full day's work for full day's pay, and all those maxims passed down from grandparents to parents. In fact, we probably invented the "I'm spiritual and not religious," trend because it's the most self centered of all religions. Some of my generation bought into it for themselves--I recall even back in the 1970s knowing women who threw off husband and children for "feelings." I don't remember snowflakes back then, but that generation certainly expanded the concepts we taught.

*Chick-fil-A is an American fast food restaurant chain headquartered in the Atlanta suburb of College Park, Georgia, specializing in chicken sandwiches. Founded in May 1946, it has more than 2,000 restaurants, mainly in the United States. The owners are Christians who believe in marriage.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/446660/college-students-protest-mike-pence-chick-fil-a-heather-mac-donald

The Sean Spicer flap and Democrat over reach

Alan Dershowitz writes they are pandering to leftist Jews with these "anti-semitic" charges. Plus the DNC has a known anti-semite in charge of their party.  They are so panicked that they might have to acknowledge Trump is president.

https://www.algemeiner.com/2017/04/13/alan-dershowitz-democrats-overreaction-to-spicers-holocaust-blunder-dishonors-the-six-million/

Odd, that people who aren't Trump haters knew what Spicer was saying. All the president's men and all the cable news talking heads should take an oath to find someone other than Hitler to use in their metaphors and similes. I thought the media had used them all on GW Bush, but apparently not. The idiocy floating around social media and the MSM and Democrat politicians is just bizarre.  Now video has appeared from 2013 of Chris Matthews reporting, "Not even Hitler used gas. . ."  Where is the outrage, Nancy Pelosi? Why so quiet Huffington Post? 

  http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/04/flashback-msnbcs-chris-matthews-hitler-didnt-use-chemical-weapons-video/

Remember when Obama referred to his religion as Islam and the reporter corrected him? Don't remember an apology or the Democrats going crazy. I thought Spicer was perfectly clear and only the Trump haters made it an issue. Obama stammered through so many press conferences he was unintelligible, but they always swooned.

Was Obama the real Russian stooge?

Article in the New York Post by Rich Lowry ponders this question.
April 10, 2017 New York Post

"The circumstantial evidence is mounting that the Kremlin succeeded in infiltrating the US government at the highest levels.

How else to explain a newly elected president looking the other way after an act of Russian aggression? Agreeing to a farcically one-sided nuclear deal? Mercilessly mocking the idea that Russia represents our foremost geo-political foe?

Accommodating the illicit nuclear ambitions of a Russian ally? Welcoming a Russian foothold in the Middle East? Refusing to provide arms to a sovereign country invaded by Russia? Diminishing our defenses and pursuing a Moscow-friendly policy of hostility to fossil fuels?

All of these items, of course, refer to things said or done by President Barack Obama."

Well, it all fits, doesn't it?

Strength training for seniors

The results of my bone scan (DEXA) of last week show some more loss and the doctor is recommending strength training/weight bearing exercises.  Of course, the best I know is walking, but with occasional bursitis and the questionable weather in Ohio's spring, I haven't been doing much, but instead getting about 5 miles a day on my exercycle. Stairs and treadmill are not good for my bursitis. Sometimes I add a 2 lb weight while on the cycle. So I looked it up. Here's what NIH recommends.

Strength Exercises to Try

These 10 muscle strengthening exercises shown below target the upper and lower body.
Upper Body Exercises

1. wrist curls
2. arm curls
3. side arm raises
4. elbow extensions
5. chair dips
6. seated rows with resistance band

Lower Body Exercises

1. back leg raises
2. knee curls
3. leg straightening exercises
4. toe stands

See the discussion at the website on exactly how to proceed.

Hip fractures are the #1 reason for nursing home admissions.

Taking calcium supplements always upset my stomach, so although I've used them from time to time, I did discontinue them in the last few years.  Time to get some again.

Weight bearing exercise for seniors

Exercise and osteoporosis

Spicer's Hitler remark and "look over there" of the Trump haters

Sean Spicer, the president’s communications director, is slimed because he made a reference to 20th century Hitler’s crimes in connection to 21st century Syrian Assad.  Social media and the broadcast and cable outlets then went crazy.  Some even demanded he resign--as though Hitler were the only Socialist who killed his own citizens.  We all know Spicer was not referring to gas chambers to kill Jews, disabled, gypsies and enemies of the regime, but to the gas used as a WMD.

Why is every misstep or bad guy referred to as “Hitler” by the left--often their favorite appellation for GW Bush--when it was their team, the Communists, who killed 100,000,000 of their own citizens in the 20th century? Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc.  Don’t know?  Because throughout the 20th century the United States had and still has, embedded Communists in our own government.  As we entered WWII, FDR’s administration was riddled with them ignoring the slaughter going on, especially of Christians and anyone with property.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union a commission chaired by Alexander Yakovlev reviewed archives revealing the Communist slaughter of Christians by drowning, freezing, castration, shooting, mutilation, burning, crucifixion, boiling in tar, scalping, strangling--savage atrocities killing priests, nuns, monks and faithful congregants.  The death toll was in excess of twenty million and it continued well into the 1960s.  Our leftist media, academics and politicians ignored it then and ignore or make excuses today.

 https://www.amazon.com/Century-Violence-Soviet-Russia/dp/0300103220

In chapter 17 of a biography of Yakolev: "Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, the three creators on neo-Cainism. The main criminals of the century.  It is a lesson that many, indeed most, historians of twentieth-century Russia, have yet to learn. Yakovlev especially stressed Lenin’s role in the persecution and murder of children, a fact generally not known. The Bolshevik authorities took hostage the children of the 1921 Kronstadt rebels and later the offspring of peasants who opposed collectivization ."

 http://blog.victimsofcommunism.org/what-has-communism-cost-the-world/

Obama’s press secretary, Jay Carney, and his ABC wife Claire Shipman actually had Soviet era posters hanging in his home as art--where was the outrage?

Birthday greetings from Alaska

My cousin Gayle is such a faithful events greeter, and when the family lived in Alaska, we would be treated with colorful postcards and a personal note.  These three I found in the box I was clearing out today--one from the 70s, 80s and 90s: Kasilof, Fairbanks, and Angoon. Since she reads my blog, this is a special shout out to her.

Found in a Christmas card, December 1998

Still finding letters from my mom inside the card box I'm clearing out. By this time (1998) Mom and Dad were living in a lovely retirement apartment at Pinecrest, so the view she describes is from their front room window. Of course, it's nicer to see her familiar handwriting, so here is only the content. She was 86.

Marge invited me to go along to a Home Extension meeting yesterday.  I had been a 50 year member, so many of the group remembered me.  It was a very enjoyable time.  I even came home with a gift, a pretty pin to wear on my dress.  The meeting was at Marlene Witmer's. The Home Ext. ladies reminded me that there had been a Christmas meeting at the farm (near Franklin Grove).  I had forgotten about it.  It was quite a long time ago.

We had pizza at Amy's house last evening.  She had made 3 kinds and I chose olive and mushroom! Chris and his girl friend and Heather and boyfriend were also there.  Chris had his pet cat along in a carrier.  The cat had nearly been killed by the Tomcat and needed extensive veterinary help.  It was a lovely cat and reminded me of kittens in the barn when Clare and I hunted them.

We have 9 lighted pines to view from our front window.  Beautiful when the lights go on at 4:30.  We plug in our little Christmas tree then, too.  We have a wreath on the door.  It makes a very nice walk to do the 3 floors and view how cheerful it looks with so many decorated.  Our next door neighbor has their door covered with little Santas and other Christmas reminders.  There are many "Baby Jesus" pictures and it's not all Santa Claus.

My one little African violet is blooming again after a 2 months rest.  The geranium isn't getting any buds.  Think it needs some real sun.

Think I'll walk up town this afternoon sporting my cane.  Dad insisted I use one since I took that tumble in November.  This warm weather surely won't last.  I would really like to see a touch of pretty white snow and watch someone else shovel it.  I have my warm coat and gloves and boots all ready for cold weather!     Love Mother

Found with a birthday card, a letter from Mom

I used to joke with my mom about her crop and weather reports in her letters.  I'm sorry about that now--they are really very sweet when rereading 30 years later.  I don't have a date on this one (inserted in a birthday card), but she was looking for an out of print book with a copyright date of 1980, and she mentions her plans to go to Hawaii (with my sister Carol) which I think was in the early 90s. Reading the story of the mice reminds me of the stories she would make up while braiding my hair as a child.

"The tag end of the garden and fruit demand attention.  The compost heap is full of seeds, cores and peelings.  The apple crop is so huge, but of course lots of it is rather poor because we can't quite keep ahead of the small creatures.  The one apple tree is especially bad but when an apple is good it is very tasty.  It is a Jon-a-Del, I think.

There is a hole in the trunk where a little family of field mice are staying.  Little Kerby Jasper loves to have Amy show her where Jon and Del live.  One can peer into the hole and see their beady little eyes shine.  They seem to know they are safe.  The cats and dogs stand around and bark, but all is quiet inside where harm can't reach them.  We have now an on going story about Jon and Del's family.

The grapes are more than we can use but so far 2 bushel have been turned into juice.  The mosquitoes are so bad that it is torture to try and pick them while being bombed. . . .

Our trip [to Hawaii?] is drawing near and finding the lists are getting longer.  Probably do a day of shopping for small items Friday. . . We will surely get out to see you and Bob this fall.  We will talk about the time when I get back from Hawaii.

Sorting through old letters--again

Over the week-end I finished up my massive project begun a few weeks ago--rereading all the Christmas letters I'd saved since 1987, and running most through the shredder.  This is to save my daughter a lot of work somewhere down the road.  Some I just couldn't give up yet, so there are still a few in a separate pile.  Then I decided perhaps I should look through the greeting cards box--I also save cards for special events or special family and friends. Hard to believe it's been almost 17 years since retirement--but there were all the "Happy Retirement" cards from library and veterinary medicine staff.

About half way through I came across a very clever hand made engagement and wedding announcement for the two daughters of the Palenske family from Christmas 1961.  So that's why I'm here at the internet again instead of cleaning out files and boxes.  I thought I'd try to track down my college era friend. We weren't that close except for 1959 and 1960, and I suppose I was still exchanging letters with her and was added to the announcement list.  I don't think I went to the wedding--it would have been about 4 weeks before my first baby was due, and we were living in Champaign, a four hour drive to their home in a Chicago suburb.

What I found on the internet was very interesting and I think I tracked her down.  One newspaper article for an event gave an e-mail, so I've dashed off a few sentences.  Stay tuned.  The last person I found this way (my first piano teacher, Miss Tinklenberg, a teenager who taught all the children in Forreston) responded, "Who are you?"

Update:  Yes, I found her and am sending her the cute announcement of her wedding.  No, she didn't remember me.

Prayer of St. Augustine

God of our life,
There are days when the burdens we carry
chafe our shoulders and weigh us down;
when the road seems dreary and endless,
the skies grey and threatening;
when our lives have no music in them,
and our hearts are lonely,
and our souls have lost their courage.

Flood the path with light,
turn our eyes to where the skies are full of promise;
tune our hearts to brave music;
give us the sense of comradeship
with heroes and saints of every age;
and so quicken our spirits
that we may be able to encourage
the souls of all who journey with us
on the road of life,
to your honor and glory.

http://aleteia.org/2017/03/25/a-prayer-for-the-days-you-just-cant-take-it-anymore/

https://www.oursanctuary.net/augustine.html

Monday Memories--September 2003

Winds of war.  I think I know how this current situation in Syria will play out.  Big stories about WMD. Photographs of the horror.  A Republican president responds initially with support of both parties.  After action is taken, Democrats will decide to back off and stab the president in the back demoralizing the troops and giving comfort to the enemy.

I came across a letter from September 2003 while cleaning out my paper files.  I noticed this comment--not mine--about the media, especially the Washington Post, which I think has really become a useless source of information since Bezos (Amazon) bought it and even some thoughts on North Korea.  It seems things weren't much different almost 14 years ago.

"The Post bashes Bush every chance they can, though they were behind him on the war.  Their feature political cartoon is hilarious, and never flattering to the President.  He is always pictured with huge ears.  I have never noticed his ears--they must be somewhat large?  All these hearings, and everything else connected with the war makes me feel like "haven't we been there, done this before?" . . . Wonder if any of the boys on the Hill are thinking creatively about finances, or will we, as taxpayers, continue to pay the tab.  WWII has been over a long time, and all we need is one hit from N. Korea and it would take out a lot of our guys with little warning.  We just don't have the manpower to have troops stationed all over the world trying to keep a lid on things."

Not remembering that the Post had ever supported Bush, I attempted to track down what the Washington Post editorial board had said about the war in February 2003, and found another source that quoted it asking how anyone could doubt the seriousness of the WMD charges. The actual link didn't connect because later WaPo became very critical of Bush so I think the link was disabled at their end. These days, WaPo might as well be a mouth piece from a foreign, hostile government.

The news is on in the background as I draft this.  It really does sound like nothing has changed.